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CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY
CHRISTIAN
SPIRITUALITY
LATER DEVELOPMENTS
PART I
FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO JANSENISM
By the REV. P. POURRAT
Superieur du Grand Seminaire de Lyon
Translated by JV. H. (MITCHELL, M.A.
\ ■ ■
LONDON
BURNS OATES AND
WASHBOURNE LTD.
MCMXXVII
NIHIL OBSTAT :
Fr. Innocentius Apap, O.P., S.Th.M.,
Censor Deputatus.
IMPRIMATUR :
Edm. Can. Surmont,
Vicarius Generalis.
Westmonastkrii,
die 28^ Julii, 1927.
JAN 1 7 1950
First "published 1927
Made and Printed in Great Britait
PREFACE
THIS volume begins with the Renaissance and ends
with Jansenism, covering- from the middle of the
fifteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century.
It takes in the great schools of spirituality of
modern times : the Spanish, Italian, Salesian, and
French Schools.
With the exception of the Salesian School, the others are
divided between the great Catholic nations which filled the
political stage of Europe during that period : Spain, Italy,
and France.
Indeed, the principle of nationality asserted itself in a very
remarkable way, especially from the time of the Renaissance.
This tendency of each nation to converge upon the lines of
its own genius and language and religion reacted upon every
manifestation of its life, and therefore upon its spirituality.
Hence we actually find in recent times a Spanish spirituality,
an Italian spirituality, and a French spirituality, a spirituality
which is fundamentally one and the same so far as it is
Catholic, but differs in the way in which it is conceived and
presented.
Therefore the schools of spirituality of the later period no
longer appear simply as belonging to religious families, as
in the Middle Ages, but as those of nations. In each school,
no doubt, the various religious orders keep their peculiar
characteristics ; but they owe much to the national bent and
interests and to the special currents of doctrine distinctive of
each country. Thus the spirituality of Spanish writers cannot
be thoroughly understood without some knowledge of the
truceless and merciless war waged by the Spanish Inquisition
during the sixteenth century against Protestant heresy and
false mysticism. The Inquisition reacted strongly upon
Spanish spirituality by enlisting it on behalf of its own
interests, and thus was realised the unity of the Spanish
School.
In Italy unity was due to an analogous cause. Despite the
diversity of the small States of the peninsula, we find in all
of them during the sixteenth century the fear of an infiltra-
tion of Protestantism, along with a sincere desire for Church
reform, on the lines laid down by the Council of Trent. The
paganism of the Renaissance, too, had to be countered with-
out rejecting whatever good there might be in humanism.
Hence came that Italian spirituality which urges men on to
v
vi Cbristtan Spirituality
inward struggle, of which we have a grand example in The
Spiritual Combat.
In France it was Cardinal de Be>ulle's Oratory that gave
unity to spirituality in the seventeenth century. All the
great writers of that period were Berullians, and made what
is called the French School. The counter-reformation in
France was therefore Berullian.
Thus the history of the spirituality of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries is clearly divided into four parts, which
correspond to the four great schools : Spanish, Italian,
Salesian, and French.
As everyone knows, the Renaissance and the Protestant
Reformation have had an enormous influence upon the forma-
tion of the modern mind. A kind of humanism — a devout
sort of humanism — is amalgamated in some spiritual books
with Christian asceticism. But such fusion has not been
wrought without difficulty, for if the Renaissance has its
good side, we cannot forget that it revived the old paganism.
Spiritual writers could not but react strongly against such
paganism. It was indeed — at least I shall try to show it —
the desire to keep the spiritual life free from the pagan spirit
of the Renaissance that resulted in the development of
methodical prayer. As the Christian found himself sur-
rounded with nothing but enticements to evil, he had to fall
back upon himself and encircle himself with the rampart of
a method of prayer. He thus made a sort of inner sanctuary,
closed to all unwholesome influences, and in it his super-
natural convictions were guarded and fortified.
As for the frankly heterodox mysticism of Protestantism,
there could be no doubt as to the attitude of Catholic writers
towards it. Reaction against such false mysticism was one
of the things which engrossed the strenuous attention of
modern authors.
Therefore, at the risk of somewhat interrupting the plan
of this volume, before beginning the study of the four great
schools of spirituality, I have to speak of the Renaissance
and the Reformation as well as of their influence on Christian
asceticism.
Of late some very important critical studies of the great
Spanish spiritual writers have been issued. The authors of
the Monumenta historica Societatis Jesu have published the
works of St Ignatius of Loyola and his first disciples accord-
ing to the best manuscripts. The translation of the Works
of St Teresa by the Carmelites of Paris is excellent. So,
too, is the recent edition of the Works of St John of the
Cross by P. Gerard, translated by H. Hoornaert. Other
less important Spanish writers, whose influence has never-
preface vii
theless been great, have also been carefully edited. As yet,
however, we have no complete critical edition of Spanish
spiritual writings of the sixteenth century, the great century,
bubbling over with life.
The edition of the Complete Works of St Francis de Sales
brought out by the Visitandines of Annecy is almost finished,
and appears to be final.
M. Henri Bremond, of the Acad^mie francaise, in his
masterly work entitled YHistoirc littdraire du sentiment
religieux en France, gives us a wonderful introduction to
the French School.
There is no study of the Italian School as a whole. The
works of the Italians in many cases have been imperfectly
edited hitherto. Hence I shall be forgiven if, in this first
inquiry, some important works have eluded my investigations.
Moreover, it has been my aim not to write a detailed his-
tory of spirituality, but to reveal its main outlines. Happy
shall I be if, in this modest study, I have attained it !
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Though accepting- full responsibility for the transla-
tion of this book as published, I have to thank Mr.
S. P. Jacques for allowing me to use his translation
of Chapter IX and onward, and to revise it so as to
bring it into line with my own. I have also to thank
Mr. A. G. McDougall for helping in the preparation
of proofs for the press, during the course of which he
made many suggestions which I was glad to adopt
as improvements.
W. H. M.
CONTENTS
PAGIi
Preface --...-. v
Chapter I — The Renaissance and the Systemization of the
Spiritual Life — The Origin and Development of
Methodical Prayer — The Origin of the Three Ways of
the Spiritual Life ... i
I — Meditation and the Graduation of the Spiritual Life be-
fore the Renaissance ------ 4
II — Methodical Prayer in the Low Countries, in France, in
Italy and Spain, at the End of the Middle Ages, and at
the Beginning of the Renaissance - - - 12
III — The Full Growth of Methodical Prayer — Garcia Ximenes
de Cisneros ... 18
Chapter II — The " Spiritual Exercises " of St Ignatius —
Ignatian Spirituality — First Jesuit Writers in this Field 23
I — Sources of the Spiritual Exercises - - - 24
II — Analysis and Explanation of the " Exercises " - - 3°
III — Practice of the Exercises in the Time of St Ignatius and
Afterwards — Ignatian Spirituality : Reaction against the
Pagan Renaissance and Protestant Quietism : Protection
of the Religious Living in the World - - 41
IV — The First Jesuit Spiritual Writers - - - - 46
Chapter III — Christian Humanism and Devout Humanism —
Their Spirituality - - - - - - 49
I — Christian Humanism - - - - - - 49
II — Devout Humanism - - - - - 61
Chapter IV — Protestant Mysticism — The Reaction which it
stimulated against several Mystical Writers of the
. Middle Ages - - - - - - 63
I — The Manichaean Quietism of Luther and Calvin — Their
Conception of the Spiritual Life, of Devotion to Christ,
and of the Relation of the Soul with God - - - 64
II — Reaction against the Medieval Mystics upon whom Luther
relied for his Authority - - - - 72
Chapter V — The Spanish School before St Teresa - - 80
I — Arabian-Spanish Mysticism in the Middle Ages — The
Franciscan Raymond Lull - - - - - 80
ix
x Contents
PAGE
II— The "Alumbrados" or " Illuminati " - - - 85
III — Spanish Spiritual Writers Prior to the Intervention of the
Inquisition — The Franciscans: Alonso of Madrid,
Francisco of Ossuna, Bernardino of Laredo, and St
Peter of Alcantara - - - - - 87
IV — The Dominicans : Luis of Granada, Melchior Cano,
Bartholomew of the Martyrs — St Teresa's Dominican
Confessors - - - - - - ■ 95
V — Blessed John of Avila ------ 105
VI — The Violent Reaction of the Spanish Inquisition against
the False Mysticism of the " Alumbrados " — The Anti-
Mystical Reaction - - .... 108
VII — Trials of the Jesuit Balthazar Alvarez - - - 113
VIII — The Augustinians : Luis de Leon and Thomas of Jesus
(d'Andrada) - - - - - - - 119
Chapter VI — The Spanish Carmelite School — Saint Teresa - 124
I — Characteristics of Teresian Mysticism - - - 124
II — St Teresa's Teaching — Her Spiritual Biography — Medita-
tion -------- 130
A — The Spiritual Biography of St Teresa - - 130
B — First Degree of Prayer or Ordinary Prayer — Medita-
tion ....... 134
III — Kinds of Mystical Prayer according to St Teresa - - 139
A — Is Everyone Called to the Mystical Kinds of Prayer? —
The Special Need of Direction for Mystics - - 139
B — The Different Kind3 of Mystical Prayer - - 143
1. Prayer of Recollection ----- 144
2. The Prayer of Quiet or of the Divine Tastes - - 146
3. The Prayer of Union, its Nature and Object - - 149
4. The Usual Preparations for the Spiritual Marriage :
Passive Purifications — Raptures — Ecstasy — Visions
and Revelations - - - - - 153
5. The Spiritual Marriage ----- 165
IV — St Teresa's Ascetic Teaching — The Religious Virtues of
the Carmelite Nun - - - - - - 17c
Chapter VII — The Spanish Carmelite School — The Quarrel
between the mitigated and the reformed carmelites :
Jerome Gratian and St John of the Cross — The Spiritual
Teaching of St John of the Cross - - - - 18c
I — The Spiritual Teaching of St John of the Cross — Active
Purifications which Prepare the Way for Active Con-
templation - - - - - - - 18;
A — The Night of the Senses or the Active Purification of
the Senses - - - - - - - 18!
B — The Night of the Spirit or the Active Purification of
the Spirit - - - - - - - i8<
C — " Spiritual " or Active " Contemplation " - - 19!
II — Passive Purifications which prepare the Way for Mystical
Union truly so-called, for Infused Contemplation - - 19
Contents xi
i'agh
A — The Passive Purification of the Senses or Passive Night
of the Senses ...... Xc|8
B — Passive Purification of the Spirit or Passive Night of
the Spirit ---.... igg
C — Passive or Infused Contemplation - - - 203
Chapter VIII — The Spanish School after St Teresa and St
John of the Cross — The Carmelites — The Jesuits — Mary
d'Agreda ...----- 206
I — The Carmelite School in the Seventeenth Century - - 208
II — The Spanish Jesuits at the Beginning of the Seventeenth
Century — Alphonso Rodriguez, Luis de la Puente, St
Alphonsus Rodriguez, Alvarez de Paz - - - 210
III — The Three Conceptions of Mystical Contemplation :
" Quietist " Contemplation, " Anti-Intellectualist " Con-
templation, and " Intellectualist " Contemplation —
Francis Suarez ...... 224
IV — The Venerable Mary of Agreda - - - 227
Chapter IX— The Italian School in the Sixteenth Century —
Its General Characteristics — The Chief Italian Spiritual
Writers -------- 230
I — John Baptist Carioni, Dominican (Battista da Crema), and
Serafino da Fermo, Canon Regular, Leaders of the
Canons Regular — The Founders of the Congregations of
the Italian Clerks Regular ----- 235
II— The " Spiritual Combat " - - - - - 239
III — The Mystics : St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi of the
Carmelite Order, St Catherine de Rirci and Blessed
Osanna de Andreassi of the Order of St Dominic, Blessed
Battista Varani, Poor Clare — Franciscan Speculative
Mysticism ------- 246
IV — Blessed Robert Bellarmine — Claud Acquaviva - - 252
Chapter X — The Italian School : Its Teaching - - - 255
I — The Clergy — Their Dignity and Mission - - - 255
II— The War against Self - - - - - - 259
III — Optimistic Piety of the Italian School - - - 261
IV — Divine Love in the Italian School ... - 264
Chapter XI — Saint Francis de Sales — Director of those in the
World — Founder of an Order — Mystic - - - 272
I — The Salesian Soul — Salesian Spirituality - - - 273
II — Direction of People in the World — The " Introduction to
the Devout Life " - - - - - 280
A — Definition of Devotion — Direction — The Purification of
the Soul - - - - - - 281
B — Exercises of Piety ------ 286
xii Contents
C — The Exercise of Virtue — Temptations — Union with
Christ --....
PACK
29O
III — St Francis de Sales the Founder of a Congregation — His
Relations with St Jane Frances de Chantal - - 294
A — The Salesian Conception of the Religious Life — The
Visitation ------- 298
B — The Virtues of the Religious Life - 301
IV — The Mysticism of St Francis de Sales - - - 304
A — St Francis de Sales and Mysticism before the "Treatise
on the Love of God " - - - . . 304
B — The Teaching of the " Treatise on the Love of God " - 309
Chapter XII — The French School before Berulle — Cardinal
Richelieu — Pierre de Berulle — The Treatise on the
Greatness of Jesus— General Characteristics of Berul-
lian Spirituality ...... 322
I — Cardinal Richelieu's " Treatise on Christian Perfection " 325
II — Pierre de Berulle — The Treatise " Des Grandeurs de
Jesus " ....... 328
III — Berullian Spirituality — Its General Characteristics - 335
Chapter XIII — Berullian Doctrine — The Teaching of Berulle
and of his Disciples : Condren and Olier - - . 346
I — Berullian Abnegation ------ 347
A — Abnegation according to Berulle - - - 347
B — Abnegation according to Condren - - - 350
C — Abnegation according to Jean-Jacques Olier - - 352
II — Adherence to Christ - - - - - 356
A — Adherence to Christ by Participation in the Mysteries
of his Earthly and Heavenly Life — Berulle as inter-
preted by Olier ------ 359
B — Adherence to Christ in his State of Immolation and
as Victim, according to Condren - - - 371
C — Adherence to Christ through the Mysteries of his
Eucharistic Life, according to Jean-Jacques Olier - 377
Chapter XIV — The Teaching of the French School on the
Priesthood ....... 382
Chapter XV — St Vincent de Paul and St John Eudes -
Appendix — St John Eudes and Public Devotion to the Sacred
Heart ........
Index
395
402
CHAPTER I
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE SVSTEM1ZATION OF THE
SPIRITUAL LIFE— THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF
METHODICAL PRAYER— THE ORIGIN OF THE THREE
WAYS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
TOWARDS the close of the Middle Ages, just at
the beginning- of the fourteenth century, the
Hundred Years' War and the Great Schism-
introduced anarchy into the churches and the
religious Orders. The war upset the social order,
especially in France. For the moment the Great Schism
actually broke up Catholic unity and thereby lessened ecclesi-
astical authority. Almost everywhere discipline was relaxed.
Such was the state of moral enfeeblement in which the
Renaissance found Christianity in the West.
It restored, as we know, the literature and art of antiquity ;
it also revived the ancient paganism. For if there was, as
we shall see, a Christian and even a devout form of
humanism, there was also a pagan humanism, that of
Lorenzo Valla, of Poggio, of Leonardo Aretino, of Filelfo in
Italy, and of Rabelais in France. The fables of pagan
mythology were displayed in sculpture and painting. The
Epicurean notion of following nature revived the worship
of the flesh.1 A thirst for enjoyment in its most various forms
became the ideal which the pagan humanists opposed to the
derided Christian spirit. Obscene writings popularized this
immoral teaching in Italy and France and Germany. Licen-
tiousness of manners was its immediate consequence. Pro-
fligacy was observed, especially during the second half of
the fifteenth century, even in the papal court and, for some
years, on the very throne of St Peter.2
The tide of corruption threatened to submerge every-
thing. The clergy and the monks — except the Mendicant
Orders — were not protected by a discipline sufficiently strict
1 Rabelais says of the inhabitants of Thelema : " In their Rule there
was only this one clause: Do what you will" [Gargantua, Book IV,
chap. Ivii).
2 Cf. Ludwig Pastor, Histoire des Rapes defuis la fin du moyen dge;
Furcy-Raynaud's translation, Vol. I, pp. 1-71 ; Vol. VII, chap. vii.
Jean Guiraud, L'Eglise romaine et les origines de la Renaissance,
Paris, 1904, chap, xi ; Imbard de la Tour, Les origines de la Reforme,
Vol. II, pp. 314 ff. ; F. Mourret, Histoire generale de I'Eglise, Vol. V,
pp. 15, 274 ; Alfred Baudrillart, L'Eglise catholiaue, la Renaissance, le
Protestantisme, Paris, 1905, pp. 1 ff.
III. I
2 Cbristian Spirituality
to afford them safety. They also possessed — and this was
one of their great sources of weakness — an abundance of
property which enabled them to procure the pleasures so
much vaunted by the new Epicureans whose books were read
on all sides. Besides this, there were the violent attacks
made by the humanists upon the clergy and religious because
they stood for the Christian ideal of renunciation.1
Surrounded with seducing influences, ridiculed by satirists
and humanist pamphlets, poorly assisted by their superiors,
how could the clergy and the monks withstand so rough a
storm ? Many held good ; in what manner we shall see.
Many, however, yielded to the onslaught and, borne along
by the irresistible flood, abandoned all attempts as useless
and gave up the struggle. In their discouragement they
came to regard all resistance to passion as practically im-
possible. The surrounding decadence and their own laxity
lulled their conscience in self-indulgence and in the dread
of all endeavour. For them " such words as the conquest
and mastery of self, as discipline, had hardly any meaning." 2
Doubtless, in every age of the history of the Church, there
is more or less evidence of failures amongst the clergy and
the religious. The Middle Ages, as we know, had their full
share of such troubles. But if, in the ages of faith, Christian
morals were outraged by the lives of many, they still re-
mained, for almost everyone and especially for the clergy,
an undisputed ideal which men must endeavour to
attain. The reprobate priest and the unfaithful religious,
throughout that period, had each a deep feeling of his own
1 J. Guiraud, op. cit., pp. 304 ff. ; Imbart de la Tour, Les origines de
la Riforme, Vol. II, pp. 199-212, 291-305.
1 Denifle-Paquier, Luther et le Luthiranisme, Vol. I, p. 3, Paris,
1910. A contemporary work ascribed to Berthold of Chiemsee, entitled
Onus ecclesiae, says : Tota nostra inclinatio ad vanitatem tendit ;
quidquid mail unicuique in mentem venerit, hoc impune perpttrare
audet, cap. xl (Denifle, id., p. 8); Erasmus of Rotterdam, about 1523,
says the same in his De contemftu mundi, cap. xii : Nunc plura
monasteria mediis mundi visceribus admista sunt, nee aliter extra mun-
dum sunt quam renes extra corpus animantis. In quibus adeo non
viget disciplina religionis, ut nihil aliud sint quam scholae impietatis,
in quibus ne liceat quidem esse puros et inlegros. Quibus titulus
cultusque religionis nihil aliud fraestet quam ut impunitius liceat quid-
quid libel ; Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, Opera omnia, Lugd. Batav.,
1704, torn. V, p. 1261. Cf. Enchiridion militis christiani, cap. vi,
torn. V, p. 40. See, too, Louis de Blois (ti566), Brevis regula tryonis
spiritualis, Opera, Antwerp, 1632, p. 355 : Heu quam multi viri ei
feminae hodie se misere fallunt, qui monastico habitu suscepto, vote
Religionis vovent, cum tamen parum aut nihil de perfectione vitat
co gi tent! Creaturis tenaciter adhaerent, et in eis delectationem in
ordinate quaerunt, externas consolationes avidissime appetunt, sese
totos absque timore foras effundunt ; mente vagi, moribus incompositi
sensibus incustoditi, verbis vani ac vani sunt ; atque in sua negligentic
suisque vitiis ad mortem usque perseverant. See also Janssen, V Alle
magne el la Rijorme, I, 575 ff.
Spstemisatton 3
unworthiness. They held to the faith, they recognized the
value of their vows, they remained outwardly subject to
the authority of the Church. The disgraceful contradiction
between their beliefs and their lives filled them with dread
when they thought of it. A fairly large number of them
sometimes pulled themselves together and tried to break —
were it only for a while — the bonds of iniquity. In short, the
unchristian act was judged from a Christian point of view. l -
In the age of the Renaissance it was not altogether thus.
Men's minds were themselves perverted; public opinion in
many countries became pagan. Evil was called good, and
good evil. Erasmus in 1501 was able to write thus :
" Of the common run of Christians think this : that none
were ever more corrupt, even among the pagans, in their
notions of morals."2
The priest, the monk, and the faithful layman who wanted
to do his duty could hardly discover anywhere outside his
own interior life the means of protecting or of freeing him-
self from the evil influence of popular opinion. More than
anything they wanted a thoroughly Christian mentality and-'
unshakable convictions to set against the maxims of
paganism. They wanted the mind of Christ and not the
fancies of the crowd. The example and the words of Christ
are the sole rule of right; to wander from them is inevitably
to go astray. A man must be really convinced of this,
whatever he may see or hear around him in the world or
even in the Church and her rulers !
"Beware lest thou reason thus" — advises Erasmus with
a touch of satire in his warning — " No one does any better
than I ! This is how my forbears acted ! This learned
philosopher and that eminent theologian think likewise ! So
live our great men and kings ! So behave even the bishops
and the popes ! Yet they are not the vulgar crowd ! — Be
not disturbed by these great names : I judge not vulgarity
by its position, but by its want of moral worth."3
1 See especially Gerson's Dialogus super caelibatu sive castitate
Ecclesiasticorum (Lyons, 1443) in reply to those who demanded the
suppression of the celibacy of the clergy because they thought it re-
sponsible for all the clerical disorders. The Dialogue is between Nature,
which puts forward the current objections to celibacy, and Wisdom,
which refutes them. Gerson writes thus in a spirit of resignation : Hoc
dicimus quod de duobus malts minus est incontinentes tolerare sacer-
dotes quam nullos habere [Opera, ed. Dupin, Antwerp, 1703, torn. II,
634). See, too, the Prologue of the Lavacrum conscientiae, published in
Germany before 1500 by an unknown writer, and the Reformatorium
vitae morumque et honestatis clericorum, Basileae, 1494, by Jacobus
Philippi, brother of the Rector of the house of the Brethren of the
Common Life at Zwolle.
* Enchiridion militis christiani, cap. viii, Opera, V, 40 : De vulgo
christianorum sic existimo, nullum unquam fuisse corruptius, ne apud
ethnicos quidem, quantum ad opiniones de moribus attinet.
' ibid.
4 Christian Spirituality
Under the pressure of these grave difficulties the spiritual
life was driven to adopt a stricter discipline than it had used
"in times gone by. Since, outside of it, neither ecclesiastical
laws nor monastic rules nor public opinion could protect
devotion, it had to make its citadel within the Christian
soul. The spiritual life showed a tendency towards regula-
tion even towards the close of the Middle Ages. The Re-
naissance drove it to shut itself up within definite borders,
hard and fast barriers strong enough to bear rough blows
without breaking down. Thus came about the methodiza-
tion of the exercises, and especially of meditation, and the
final graduation of the spiritual life. Everyone could then
adapt, rather mechanically indeed, but appropriately the
various religious exercises to the state and needs of his soul.
But for the better understanding of the goal of this evolu-
tion let us go back a little to take in at a glance its various
stages. We shall see that the Middle Ages sketched in out-
line a method of prayer, and that it reached to the point of
marking the steps of the threefold spiritual path : the purga-
tive, the illuminative, and the unitive ways. Pardon me the
somewhat technical character of this first chapter, which I
shall abridge as much as possible.
I— MEDITATION AND THE GRADUATION OF
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE BEFORE THE RENAISSANCE
''A spiritual discipline has always been indispensable to the
Christian life. Indeed, how is sin to be put off and to be
kept at a distance, how can goodness be held fast and per-
fection aimed at unless we give ourselves up to a kind of
moral gymnastics? St Paul advised Timothy to exercise
himself (yi'/xi-a^e creavrov) unto godliness, which is far more
profitable than ardour in bodily exercise (o-w/xaTiK?/ yvfxvaa-'ia).
The spiritual life demands a scheme of exercises more or
less regulated from the beginning; in a word, a discipline.
Ascetical authors always keep this Pauline idea in view.
In the third century, as we learn from Clement of Alex
andria and Origen,1 the Christians who mortified themselves
by the practice of continence were called ascetics (dovcTjTa/),
a word which implies a whole programme. Askesis is an
ensemble of exercises. The continent were those who exer-
■' cised themselves unto virtue by fasting and other austerities.
A little later on Cassian regards fasting, vigils, reading, and
denudation as "exercises" which mortify the body and en-
able the monk to attain to the topmost heights of charity.
1 Clement of Alexandria, Paedag., I, 8, etc. Origen, In Jeremiam,
XIX, 7, dor»ojTai = " those who exercised themselves in virtue."
5$5temi3atfon 5
They are the "instruments" of perfection,1 which must be
V united with prayer and the practice of the virtues.
In the Middle Ages attention was directed to other exer-
cises, which were called " spiritual exercises " or interior
> exercises of the soul. These were reading, meditation,
prayer or contemplation, and examination of conscience. In
monasteries they took up the time left free from psalmody
and the other chief exercises of the Rule. They were also
a help to avoid idleness and their variety obviated boredom.2
It was especially timely to commend them to monks who
lived a hermit-life.3
These exercises soon gained greatly in importance, especi-
ally amongst the Carthusians;4 so fitted were they to
promote the interior life of the religious. For " bodily exer-
cises " such as fasting and vigils, in which the body plays
the chief part, have but one purpose — the facilitation of
"spiritual exercises."5 In reality the true "exercise," the
only one that really counts, as St Bernard6 says, is the
ascent of the soul towards perfection. Everything may be
brought down to that spiritual gymnastic training which lies
in climbing up the mystical ladder whereby we ascend
towards God. The rungs are reading, meditation, prayer, and
contemplation ;7 but meditation soon came to be regarded
vas the primary one.8
1 Cassian, Coll., I, cap. vii, x.
* Ep. ad fratres de monte Dei, lib. I, cap. x, 23 : Singulis horis
secundum communis instituti canonem sua distribue exercitia: cui
spiritualia, spiritualia; cui corporalia, corf or alia: in quibus sic
exsolvat omne debitum spiritus Deo, corpus spiritui. Aelred, English
twelfth-century Cistercian, De vita eremitica, XIV : Quia mens nostra
. . . nunquam in eodem statu permanet, otiositas exercitionim varie-
tate fuganda est, et quies nostra quadam operum vicissitudine fulci-
enda (P.L. XXXII, 1455).
3 In the twelfth century it is specially found in treatises intended
for Carthusians or for hermits and recluses. Guigues, a Carthusian
(t about 1 1 90), recommends his monks to practise four exercises in
their cells : reading, meditation, prayer or contemplation, and manual
work. De quadripartito exercitio cellae (P.L. CLIII, 799-884).
4 Cf. Dom A. Wilmart, O.S.B., Les ecrits spirit uels des deux Guigues
in the Revue d'Ascetique et de Mystique (Janv.-Avril, 1924). According
to Dom Wilmart, the Carthusians are those who wrote most of the
twelfth-century treatises which deal with meditation.
6 Ep. ad jrat. de monte Dei, lib. I, cap. xi, 32.
e Sermo XXV de diversis, 4; In circumcisione, serm. Ill, 11.
7 Scala Claustralium or Scala Paradisi, cap. i : Cum quadam die
. . . . de spiritualis hominis exercitio coepissem, quatuor spirituals
gradus animo cogitanti se subito obtulerunt : scilicet, lectio, meditatio,
oratio et contemplaiio. Haec est Scala Claustralium, qua de terra in
coelum sublevantur (P.L. CLXXXIV, 476). This treatise is ascribed
to Dom Guigues I, Prior of the Grand Chartreuse. It was translated
into French by Fuzet, LEchelle du ciel ou traite de Voraison, Lille-
Bruges, 1880.
8 The Scala Paradisi and the Ep. ad frat. de monte Dei are the two
documents which speak most of meditation. At the beginning of them
will be found a method of prayer.
6 Cbrtstfan Spirituality
Meditation, in one form or another, has always been
necessary for the sanctification of the soul. It helps us to
discover the truth and to learn to love. Further, the Psalmist
never tires of repeating- that the law of the Lord " is his
meditation all the day."1 During- his devout reflections " a
fire flamed out"2 within him. St Paul counselled Timothy
to " meditate" upon his advice, to " be wholly in it "3 that
he might advance in goodness.
The first Christian ascetics, who slept with the Bible under
their pillows, were lovers of meditation.4 They regarded it
as an efficacious means of overcoming the devil.5 St
Pachomius bade his monks to meditate on a few passages
of Scripture or devout thoughts on their way from one
monastery to another or while working or in the silence and
solitude of their cells.6 The Rule of St Benedict speaks of
meditation which might be made by the monks after vigils
when they ended before the time for Lauds.7 St John
Climacus8 considered that prayer truly fervent which was
united with meditation, especially with meditation on death.
The mystics of the Middle Ages threw into still higher
j relief the benefits of meditation. It is, according to them,
an indispensable way of discovering the truth, scientific as
well as religious truth. Without it no man can know him-
self nor examine the state of his conscience. Meditation
preserves or delivers us from evil thoughts.9 By it, too, we
attain to a profounder knowledge of divine truths, a know-
ledge which is transformed into love. Looked at from all
these various sides, it is that consideration in which St
Bernard summed up all devotion.10 Furthermore, it is the
principal step to ascend if we would rise to mystical con-
templation.11
This preponderating role of meditation is well described
by the writer of the Scala Paradisi. Reading, he says,
I Ps. cxviii, 97, etc. * Ps. xxxviii, 4.
3 1 Tim. iv, 15.
* St Athanasius, De virginitate, 12, 16; St Ambrose, De virginibus,
III, 18, 20.
5 Vitae Patrum, lib. VI, libell. I, 10.
6 Regula Pack., 2, 28, 36, 37, 59-60, 122 (P.L., LXIII). Cassian
advises constant meditation on the Scriptures. Coll., XIV, cap. x.
7 Regula S Benedicti, VIII.
8 Scala Paradisi , gradus 28.
• Aelred, De vita eremitica, XXIX : Nihil enim magis cogitationes
excludit inutiles vel compescit lascivias quam meditatio verbi Dei,
quod sic ad animum suum virgo debet assuescere, ut aliud volens, non
fossil aliud meditari. Cogitanti de Serif turis somnus obrefat.
Evi gilanti frimum aliquid de Serif turis occurrat. Dormientis somnia
memoria aliqua de Scrifturis sententia condiat [P.L., XXXII, 1461).
10 De Consideratione, lib. V, cap. xi. Ci. De Imit. CJiristi, lib. II,
cap. v.
II Scala Paradisi vel Claust. cap. i ss. ; Hugh of St Victor, De modo
dicendi et meditandi.
5£steml3ation 7
presents the truth. It is meditation that cuts it up, masti-
cates and ruminates it, and makes a kind of broth of it for
the nourishment of the soul.1 St Francis de Sales uses
the same terms to define the word " meditate."2 Meditation^
acquaints us with our own poverty, with our utter need of
the truth, and with our impotence to follow it without the
grace of God. Lastly, it fires us with the desire to pray for
God's help.3 Scarcely anywhere shall we hereafter find a
better explanation of the influence of meditation upon prayer
and of its indispensableness for the kindling of fervour in
prayer.
Spiritual exercises — reading, meditation, prayer, and con-
templation— are, therefore, bound together by a chain the
main link in which is meditation :
" Reading apart from meditation is dry; meditation with-
out reading is subject to error ; prayer without meditation
is lukewarm ; meditation without prayer is barren ; fervent
prayer leads to contemplation ; contemplation apart from
prayer is either a very rare or a miraculous thing."*
I have read, says the writer of the Scala by way of ex-
planation, this word of the Lord : Blessed are the clean of
heart, for they shall see God, a word which stirs me to
devout inquiry. Then comes meditation to delve into its
meaning and scrutinize it syllable by syllable. It reminds me
of what was said by the prophets of old in praise of purity.
Then I reflect upon the happiness of seeing God face to face,
the reward of the pure in heart. How I long to be one of
them ! But neither reading nor meditation can make me
clean of heart : only God can do that. So I ' take refuge
in prayer,' and pray the Lord all the more ardently to make
me pure, the more I desire to be made clean.5
Such fervent prayer wins even the grace of infused con-
templation. The eyes of the Lord are upon the just: and
his ears unto their prayers ;6 but he does not wait until they
1 Quid enim prodest lectione continua tempus occufare, sanctorum
gesta et scripta legendo transcurrere, nisi ea etiam masticando et
ruminando succum eliciamus et trans gluti end o usque ad cordis intima
transmittamus? [Scala Paradisi, cap. xi. Cf, cap. iii).
* " To meditate is the same as to masticate. . . . We must take the
meat that nourishes the soul and masticate it — i.e., meditate on it to
swallow it and transform it into ourselves " (CEuvres computes, Vol. IX,
359, Annecy ed.).
1 Scala Paradisi, cap. x-xii. Cf. Ep. ad frat. de monte Dei, lib. I,
31. 32-
* Scala Par., cap. xii. Examination should be joined with meditation
as its necessary complement. Any deviation between conduct and the
way of perfection must be ascertained. Ep. ad frat. de monte Dei,
lib. I, 22, 29; lib. II, 15.
5 Scala, cap. iii-iv. Cf. Ep. ad frat. de monte Dei, lib. I, 42 :
Amor em ergo Dei, in homine ex gratia genitum, lactat lectio, meditatio
pascit, oratio confortat et illuminat.
* Ps. xxxiii, 16.
8 Christian Spirituality
are over to answer them. Sometimes he " interrupts the
flow of prayer" and suddenly breaks in upon the soul, in-
undating- it with heavenly dew and filling- it with joy.1 At
other times, however, he leaves the soul in aridity, a trial
to be accepted with patience.2
The subject of meditation should be adapted, as far as
possible, to the degree of everyone's spiritual life. Be-
ginners will rather meditate upon episodes in Christ's life
and try to find therein examples of virtue and helps to
progress in the love of God. The easier passages of the
Bible and from the works of the Fathers, as well as the
lives of the saints, will be specially profitable to them.
Having considered Christ as Man, they will succeed, as
they advance in charity, in the apprehension and enjoyment
of the divine perfections. 3
The counsels given by the Epistola ad fratres de monte
Dei to the Carthusians of the twelfth century were zealously
followed in the next one. As we know, the pseudo-Bona-
venture's Meditations on the Life of Christ was the standard
work which provided subjects for prayer, but it was sup-
planted during the next century by the famous Life of
Christ by Ludolph the Carthusian.
At the dawn of the later era, therefore, we find a theory
of meditation. It is practised, and its benefits are proclaimed
as well as its indispensableness for the religious who desires
not to degenerate, and a fortiori for him who would increase
in the love of God. David of Augsburg (11272) affirms,
indeed, that without the practice of meditation no religious
can be worthy of his vocation. i
Are we to conclude that methodical meditation originated
in the Middle Ages? No; if to methodical meditation is
given the exact meaning which it bears to-day and as it is
found in the works of Garcia Ximenes of Cisneros and of
Ignatius of Loyola. To accomplish such a strict regulariza-
tion of meditation, Christian life had to become more
thoroughly systematized, and especially had the theory of
the three ways of the spiritual life — the purgative, the illu-
minative, and the unitive ways — to become quite clas-
sical. Moreover, under the increasing pressure of outward
circumstances upon the supernatural life of the soul, the
need of systematizing the means of resistance with greater
strictness had to make itself felt.
The Fathers of the Church graded the spiritual life quite
empirically, if we may venture to say so. They distinguished
1 Scala, cap. v-vi. 2 Ef. ad frat., lib. I, 46. 3 id. 42-43.
* De exterioris et inter ioris hominis comfositiofie (Quaracchi, 1899).
5£Stemt3atfon 9
between the beginning-, the progress, and the end of its
course. Obviously, the counsels and exhortations suited to
beginners would be useless to those who were more advanced
and to the perfect. Hence, their instructions are adapted
to the needs of their hearers. In summing up those who
had gone before him, Cassian explains that beginners are
led by fear, those on the way by the hope of reward, and
the perfect by charity alone.1 Therefore, everyone is to be
dealt with according to the stage of spiritual life in which
he is found.
The twelfth century, which spoke so freely of the love of
God, liked to grade Christian life, as St Augustine did,
according to the degrees of that love. This did not hinder
it from usually keeping to the old arrangement of beginners,
the proficient, and the perfect.2
The spiritual exercises belonging to each degree of per-
fection were determined with care. Reading suited be-/
ginners, meditation the advancing, prayer and contempla-
tion the perfect.3 But we must not find in such principles
as these an exclusivism which was not in the mind of their
makers. The devotion of the Middle Ages was too spon-
taneous and too living to be shut up within hard and fast
barriers. Even the perfect were devoted to reading, and
whatever a man's spiritual state might be he could not
entirely dispense with the exercises of beginners.
Nevertheless, owing to the craving of the human mind
for synthesis, the systematization once begun never came to
a standstill. In the thirteenth century it was crowned by
the Platonic theory of contemplation of the Pseudo-Diony-
sius. According to the Areopagite, purification, illumination,
and consummation or perfection are the three stages of the
soul's ascent to mystical contemplation. Dionysian con-
templation is above all an act of the mind ; it demands an •'
intellectual as well as a moral preparation. The mind has
to be purified by stripping it of all sensible images and im-
perfect ideas which can be only an impediment to it when
anyone desires to see God. The mind must further be
enlightened by heavenly illumination to become capable of
discerning divine realities. When it has been thus perfected,
1 Coll., XI, cap. vii. St Thomas also likes to make use of the three
classes of beginners, the -proficient, and the -perfect, 2a, 2ae, Q. 24,
art. 9 ; Q. 183, art. 4.
2 Cf. Ep. ad fratres de monte Dei, lib. I, cap. v : Sicut stella a stella
distat in claritate, sic cella a cella in conversatione, scilicet incipi-
entium, proficientium et perfeciorum. The Imitation of Christ also has
this tripartite division. The Scala Claustralium, however, gives this
classification : incipientes, proficientes, devoti and beati (cap. x).
3 See Hugh of St Victor, De modo dicendi et meditandi. The Scala
Claustralium restricts prayer to the devoti and contemplation to the
beati.
io Christian Spirituality
it will be finally united to God and thus contemplate him
directly. No doubt the whole soul will be thereby purified,
illuminated, and perfected. Mystical contemplation is
wrought by the love of God ; but it is, nevertheless, in it-
, self, of the intellectual order in this sense, that it is wrought
in the mind.
Especially during the first third of the thirteenth century
did Dionysian commentators favour the notion of applying
the threefold division of mystical contemplation to the normal
growth of Christian life. But it is not easy to cast aside
the ideas of such an authority as Dionysius all at once.
The Victorine Thomas Gallus, Abbot of Vercellse (t about
1226), * the most famous "Master in Hierarchy" of the
period, who passed for the profoundest expert in Dionysian
thought, caught no more than a glimpse of the classical
theory. He sums up all spiritual endeavour on the way
to sanctity in purification, illumination, and perfection; but
this endeavour seems to be of a too exclusively intellectual
kind. According to Thomas Gallus, purification consists
in shaking off ignorance, illumination brings men to know-
ledge, and perfection gives them understanding and compre-
hension of that which is known.2 Here, we have not yet the
theory of the three spiritual ways.
That is the discovery of St Bonaventure.3 No doubt the
Seraphic Doctor took his inspiration from Thomas Gallus,
but went beyond him.4 It is the general and normal develop-
ment of the Christian life that he means to explain and not
only the soul's ascent towards mystical contemplation. In
the purgative way come conversion and purification from sin ;
in the illuminative way the soul is enlightened as to God and
' Christ and itself, and tries to imitate the Lord ; in the unitive
way it is united to God by charity, and abandons itself to
the exercise of holy love. St Bonaventure points out the
. practices appropriate to each of these three ways.
Almost at the same time as St Bonaventure, the Carthusian
Hugh of Palma, who died towards the end of the thirteenth
1 Besides his commentary on St Dionysius he left a Commentarius
hierarchicus in Cantica C antic or um. Pez, Thesaurus anecdotorum
novissimus, torn. II.
3 Purgatio dicit recessum ab ignoto, illuminatio vero accessum ad
cognitum, perfectum vero ejusdem cogniti intellectum et comprehen-
sionem. — Extr actio super quatuor libros magni Dionysii, Puyol,
UAuteur du Livre De Imitatione Christi, p. 189.
* Especially in the De triflici via or De incendio amoris. Cf.
Christian Spirituality, Vol. II, pp. 177 ff. P. Symphorien de Mons,
Etudes franciscaines, 1921, pp. 36 ff. Cf. St Thomas, pars 3, Q. 27,
art. 3, and also Q. 184, art. 6, where we find purification and illumina-
tion in the Dionysian sense.
' Cf. Longpr6, O.F.M., La thiologie mystique de saint Bonaventure
in the Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, Ann. XIV, fasc. i-iii ff.
5£stemt3atfon "
I century, expounds an analogous doctrine1 which must be
! noted on account of its great influence upon the creation of
I methodical prayer. Hugh of Palma depends rather upon
Thomas Gallus than upon St Bonaventure. His aim is to
! lead the soul to divine wisdom and to mystical contemplation
as understood by the Pseudo-Dionysius. His study is, there-
fore, above all mystical. But the principles which he sets forth
will help to guide souls in the ordinary ways of perfection :
" Three ways," says he, " lead to God : the purgative way ^
wherein the mind is disposed to learn true wisdom. The
I second is called illuminative, in which the mind by reflection
is kindled unto love. The third is the unitive way, in which
! the mind is raised by God alone above all understanding,
reason, and discernment."2
In the purgative way, as Hugh of Palma explains, the
soul must be humble and conceive sorrow for its sins. By
sin it has despised its Creator and tried to find its happiness
outside of him. By prayer the sinner will obtain the cleans-
ing graces that he needs for removing the rust of sin which
hinders the influx of the divine light within him. The
Christian will then enter into the illuminative way. By medi-
tation upon the Lord's Prayer and by seeking for the mystical
sense of Scripture he will rise up to the love of God. He will
thus grow skilful in the discovery of the allegorical teachings
of Holy Writ, an art so much appreciated afterwards by the
makers of methods of prayer. Hugh of Palma calls this art
via illuminativa theorica3 — the theoretical illuminative way —
the practical illuminative way being the actual experience of
the love of God.
At the term of the unitive way comes wisdom, the most
perfect knowledge of God which is to be found by the mind's
unknowing — that is to say, without the help of imagination,
reason, and understanding. This knowledge is a fruit of the
divine love arising in the affective summit of the soul closely
united with God.4
He who would traverse these spiritual ways must submit
to discipline, give himself up to exercises, and use certain
1 In his Thcologia mystica, also called De triflici via ad safientiam
et divinorum conte?n-plationem or else Viae Sion lugent from the open-
ing words of the treatise. This was long ascribed to St Bonaventure
and edited among his works; but in the 1755 Venice edition it is in
Vol. XI. Cf. Diet, de Thiol, cath., art. Hugues de Palma.
1 Triplex est igitur via ista ad Deum, scilicet furgativa, qua mens
ad discendam veram safientiam disfonitur. Secunda vero illuminativa
dicitur, qua mens cogitando ad amoris inflammationem accenditur.
Tertia unitiva, qua mens super omnem intellectum, rationem et intelli-
gentiam a solo Deo sursum actu dirigitur {Mystica Theol., prologus,
Venice Edition, XI, 345).
' ibid., pp. 352-366.
1 ibid., pp. 366-375. This is an anti-intellectualist form of mysticism.
Cf. ibid., pp. 395-404. See also Gerson, Opera, torn. Ill, pp. 432 ff.
12 Christian Spirituality
" devices," as Hugh of Palma calls them. Self-examination for
sins committed — to be made discreetly so as not to disturb '
the soul with sinful recollections1 — is obligatory at the begin- j
ning of the purgative way. Then meditation on death and
the day of judgement, on the sorrowful passion of Christ,
and on the goodness and bountifulness of God will fill the
newly converted with lively contrition. Meditation will also
stimulate prayer during the illuminative way, and thus
increase in them the love of God. Its role continues until the
threshold of contemplation, when the intellectual faculties are
bound and become passive.
In proportion, as the degrees of the spiritual life get classi-
fied, meditation itself grows more methodical. We shall see
how methodization was worked out at the end of the Middle
Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance, in the Low
Countries and France, in Italy and Spain.
Mi
II— METHODICAL PRAYER IN THE LOW COUN-
TRIES, IN FRANCE, IN ITALY AND SPAIN, AT
THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES, AND AT THE
BEGINNING OF THE RENAISSANCE
At the end of the Middle Ages it was chiefly the Franciscan
School2 which inspired the founders of methodical prayer.
The works of St Bonaventure, especially the De triplici via,
provided them with the theory of the three ways of the
spiritual life in which the part played by meditation is of
capital importance. David of Augsburg (11272) was also
one of their great favourites. His celebrated Directory,3 in
which he shows such competence in laying down the rules for
the guidance of Franciscan novices, was in all hands from
the middle of the fourteenth century. Outside the Fran-
ciscan School the most quoted writers are St Thomas Aquinas,
Chancellor Gerson,4 and the Carthusians, Hugh of Palma,
Ludolph of Saxony, and Denys de Riken.
1 Hugh of Palma, Mystica theol., cap. i, particula ii.
2 The Franciscan School was faithful to the doctrine of the three
ways. The Formula vitae christianae, published in 1533 by Gaspar
Hasgerus, Provincial of Germany, expounds it at great length.
3 De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione, Quaracchi, 1899.
Ubertino da Casale's Arbor vitae has also been sometimes quoted.
4 Gerson never composed any method of prayer. In his treatise On
Meditation he thus defines it : V ehemens cordis applicatio ad aliquid
investigandum et inveniendum fructuose. He brings out clearly both
its profitableness and its difficulties. He would prefer meditation to be
affective rather than speculative. As to how it should be made, he
refers everyone to his own spiritual director [Opera omnia, Antwerp,
torn. Ill, 449-455). The treatises De monte contemplations and De
mystica theologia are those most quoted by writers on the theory of
methodical prayer.
i
jilt
P
I
S^stemi3ation 13
Methodical prayer sprang from the anxiety to reform the
clergy and the religious Orders at the end of the Middle
Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance. The holy
men who worked for this reformation were rightly concerned
with giving intenser spiritual life to priests and monks by
means of meditation. In their writings they constantly recur
to the need of meditating, to the best hour for doing it, to the
length of time to be spent upon it every day, and, lastly, to
the subjects best adapted to meditation according to each
person's stage in the spiritual life.
Thus was gradually formulated a method of prayer both
precise and detailed. Towards the middle of the fifteenth
century appeared the Exercitatoria or collections of exercises
laid down for every day of the week.
In the Low Countries amongst the Brethren of the Common
Life methodical prayer, properly so called,1 seems to make
its first appearance.
The Brothers of the Common Life and the Canons of
Windesheim always held meditation in honour.2 Gerard de
Groot, their founder, recommended his followers to meditate
on the passion of Christ, so that they might desire to imitate
their crucified Lord.3 He also proposed other subjects for
meditation on a predetermined plan : first the teachings of
the Gospel, then those of the Old Testament, lastly the
teaching of the saints and the doctors.4
Florentius Radewijns5 (11400) closely follows St Bonaven-
ture, and shows his disciples the importance of meditation in
the three ways of the spiritual life. Gerard Zerbolt of
Zutphen, too, proves how meditation may " reform " the
three powers of the soul : the understanding, the memory,
and the will upset by original sin. The place of these facul-
ties in Ignatian meditation is well known. According to
1 Hugh of St Victor's method of intuitive meditation could not be a
method of prayer in the strict sense of the words. It is as much
scientific as religious meditation. Severed from the philosophico-re-
ligious system to which it belongs, it very largely loses its significance.
2 Here I shall follow P. Watrigant who has so well studied the
history of methodical meditation in order to throw light upon the
origin of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. Histoire de la
meditation methodique in the Revue d 'ascetique et de mystique, Avril,
1922, Janvier, 1923, and Collection de la Bibliotheque des Exercices de
saint I gnace.
3 Venerabilis Gerardi Magni Epistolae VII, published by Mgr. de
Ram, in the Report of the sessions of the Belgian Royal Historical
Society, Brussels, iS6o, p. 87.
4 De quatuor generibus meditabilium, quoted by Mauburnus,
Rosetum exerciliorum spiritualium, Bale, 1504, CXLI.
6 Tractatulus de spiritualibus exercitiis seu Tractatulus de extirpa-
tione vitiorum, Freiburg im B., 1862. Cf. Symphorien de Mons,
Etudes franciscaines, 1921, pp. 40 ff.
i4 Cbiistian Spirituality
Gerard of Zutphen,1 order is restored to the understanding by
spiritual knowledge, to the memory by meditation, and to the
will by the curbing of concupiscence. Gerard loves to dwell
upon meditation. He points out what should be preferred in
meditation in order to rise to the topmost heights of devotion.
The subjects most strongly recommended are those which
have to do with the last things and with the passion of Christ.
To facilitate such meditations as far as possible, in the
Windesheim monasteries they made collections in which the
mysteries of our Saviour's life, and particularly of his Pas-
sion, were arranged according to the days of the week.2
They also divided the truths touching the last things. Every
morning the religious had to meditate on a subject remind-
ing them of God's blessings, or on some circumstance of the
passion to kindle within them the love of God, and on another
in the evening connected with the world to come, so that they
might never lose the feeling of dread.3 In those houses in
which meditation was made only once a day, subjects of
consolation alternated with such as inspired fear.4
Despite this wise distribution of subjects, meditation
seemed to the religious of Windesheim a difficult thing.
They were filled with distractions, and found it hard to reflect.
They felt the need of a method, a kind of intellectual and
moral discipline, which would compel their attention and keep
their minds from wandering.
A friend of Thomas a Kempis, John Wessel Gransfort
(fi489),6 drew up a method for them, "a ladder for medi-
tation"6— scala meditatoria — which was very popular. It
appears to have been the first of all methods of prayer, for
those that followed it are very like it. It consists of three
1 Gerard of Zutphen, De reformations interiori seu virium naturae
and De sfiritualibus ascensionibus ; M. de la Bigne, Maxima
Bibliotheca Patrum, Lugd., 1677, torn. XXVI, 237-289.
* De sfiritualibus ascensionibus, cap. xlv, de modo meditandi.
3 See the series of such meditations in the Efistola de vita et fassione
Domini nostri ] esu Christi et aliis devotis exercitiis, secundum quae
jratres et laid in Windesem se solent exercere, in John Busch, Chroni-
con Windeshemense, Halle, 1886, pp. 226-244.
* Consuetudines domus nostrae of Thierry de Herxen ( + 1459), second
Rector of Zwolle, in Narratio de inchoatione Domus clericorum in
Zwollis (Amsterdam, 1908), p. 211. See, too, Formula sfiritualium
exercitiorum seu meditationum fro novitiis in religione instruendis,
which contains several series of seven meditations (Watrigant, Revue
d'ascetique et de mystique, 1922, pp. 145 ff.).
* A disciple of the Brethren of the Common Life at Zwolle, and
afterwards professor of literature in the same house. He was a restless
person who became a Nominalist. Luther, though doubtlessly mistaken,
regarded him as a precursor of Protestantism.
* The work is entitled : Tractatus de cohibendis cogitationibus et de
modo constituendarum meditationum. The Scala is found in chap. ix.
Aura furior, hoc est M. Wesselii Gransfortii Of era omnia, Amstelo-
dami, 1617, pp. 280 ff.
5£stemt3ation 15
)arts : preparatory steps (gradus preparatorii) — i.e., driving
iway thoughts unconnected with the subject of the meditation
md the retention of such as are best suited to it ; ascending
;teps (gradus processorii) — i.e., for the orderly training of
:he mind, the judgement, and the will ; the final steps (gradus
erminatorii), which sum up the whole of the meditation by
entrusting to God the generous desires kindled in the course
>f the whole exercise. Each part includes a somewhat large
lumber of acts to be made,1 and this renders the method com-
plicated and even wearisome if carried out in all its details.
It was by such practices that the religious of the New
Devotion kept up the spirit of fervour and were able to carry
:hrough the reformation of a large number of monasteries.
\nd it is easy to see how the practice of meditation was so
iffective. How could the religious, who daily meditated on
mpressive and saving truths, and on the moving evidences .-
Df Christ's love for men, remain hardened in sin? Such a
state of mind is psychologically inconceivable. A life of
axity is only possible when the teachings of the faith are
forgotten. When these are kept unceasingly in the fore-
front of consciousness by meditation, they soon exercise a
supreme sway over a man's life. Furthermore, if an
.ndifferent religious gives himself up freely to daily medita-
tion, either he will reform his ways or else leave his monas-
tery. Whichever he does, the community to which he
belongs will soon become fervent, for before long it will con-
sist entirely of religious who are faithful to their duties.
This is just what happened to the communities which
embraced the practices of the New Devotion.2 The secular
clergy, too, found in the Windesheim system of meditation*
an effective means of reform. The famous author of the
Reformatorium vitae mornmque et honestatis clericorum3
recommends the clergy to meditate upon the same subjects
as those proposed to the Brethren of the house of Zwolle.
From the Low Countries the Windesheim reformation
spread to France. John Mauburnus,* a religious of Mount
1 The gradus preparatorii are two in number : Excussio [repuhio
illorum quae minus cogitanda), Electio magis cogitandorum. The
gradus processorii are sixteen : Commemoratio, Consideratio, Atteniio,
Explanatio, Tractaiio, Dijudicatio, Causatio, Ruminatio, Gustatio,
Querela, Optio, Confessio, Oratio, Mensio seu Commensuratio, Obse-
cratio, Fiducia. The gradus terminatorii are three : Gratiarum actio,
Commendatio, Permissio [in Dei voluntate resignatio).
* Cf. Busch, Liber de reformatione monasteriorum, Ed. Grube, Halle,
1886.
* This author is James Philippi, brother of Thierry de Herxen,
Rector of the house of Zwolle.
4 John Mauburnus or Mombaer was born at Brussels. He reformed
the Abbey of Saint-Severin near Chateau-Landon (Seine-et-Marne),
and afterwards the Abbey of Livry. He died in Paris in 1502.
1 6 Cbristian Spirituality
St Agnes, who had known Thomas a Kempis, came thither
with a few of his brethren. He reformed, in particular, the
Abbey of the Canons Regular of Livry, near Paris.
Mauburnus urgently recommended meditation. He left a
large collection of small treatises (tituli), a Spiritual Rosary
(Rosetum), in which he puts forward exercises and medita-
tions intended for the use of the religious for their own sancti-
fication.1 The nineteenth treatise is a Directory of Medita-
tion (Meditatorium).2 In it the writer reproduces the Scala
meditatoria of John Wessel Gransfort, and comments thereon.
But he introduces it with a fairly complete theory of medita-
tion, the principles of which he borrows from Dionysius the
Carthusian, from the author of the De triplici via, and, above
all, from Gerson. After a preface pointing out the advan-
tages, the prerogatives, and the necessity of meditation, he
deals with the dispositions required in order to meditate, with
appropriate subjects, with the devices to be used, and, in fine,
with the method to be followed.
Mauburnus looks for this method in St Augustine, in
St Bernard, in Hugh and Richard of St Victor, in Gerson,
and in other writers prior to the fifteenth century : and since
none of them had formulated one, it is not to be wondered at
that he could not find it. He then puts forward with certain
explanations the Scala meditatoria of John Wessels Gransfort.3
I j
DK
that
;
bbri
sten
The reformation of several Benedictine abbeys was another
fruit of methodical meditation.
It began in Italy, and its beginner was the Venerable Louis
Barbo,4 Abbot of St Justina of Padua, and afterwards Bishop
of Treviso. The Benedictine monasteries, which received the Mont'
reform after the fashion of St Justina's, combined with it to
made the Congregation of St Justina of Padua. Among them,
in 1503, stands out that of Monte Cassino.
1 Rosetum exercitiorum sfiritualium et sacrarum meditationum,
published in 1494, then at Bale in 1504, at Paris in 1610, at Milan in
1603, and at Douai in 1620. The first treatise is entitled Eruditorium
Exercitiorum and is a kind of introduction. Then follows Ordinarium
vitae religiosae, Dietarium exercitiorum, Directoriu?n solvendarum
Horarum, Chiro-psalterium , or a means of fixing a man's attention
during the chant; other treatises on Holy Communion and Feasts;
Examinatorium conscientiae, Destructorium vitiorum, the Profectorium
virtutum and the Meditatorium, or guide to meditation. Watrigant,
La genese des Exercises de S Ignace {Etudes, Vol. LXXIII, p. 203).
2 Given in part by P. Watrigant, Quelques promoteurs de la medita-
tion au XV e siecle [Bibliothique des Exercises de S Ignace, n. 59,
PP- 35-60-
3 Mauburnus counsels meditation on the Mysteries of the Rosary,
which was then becoming popular.
1 He was first a commendatory of the Abbey of the Canons Regular
of St George in Alga at Venice, of which St Laurence Justinian after-
wards became Abbot General. He died in 1443.
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Louis Barbo drew up a Modus meditandi,1 which is rather
collection of meditations than a method of prayer in the
strict sense. The Bishop of Treviso mentions three kinds of
Drayer : vocal prayer, which is the easiest and best adapted
o beginners; meditation, which is the second degree of
grayer; and contemplation, to which one rises by well made
-neditation. To help meditation, the seven days of the week2
lave fairly fully explained subjects divided between them.
Brief hints as to how to meditate are thrown in.
Whatever be the merits of the Modus meditandi, it cannot
compare with the Ejercitatorio, which was shortly to come
rom the pen of the Spanish Benedictine, Garcia Ximenes de
Cisneros. It appears to have been by means of meditation
hat the reformation of many Spanish Benedictine monas-
eries was brought about towards the end of the Middle Ages'
md the beginning of the Renaissance ; and it was meditation
hat reformed the Carmelite Order a little later on.
At the request of Pope Eugenius IV, Louis Barbo wrote
o the Benedictine Congregation of Valladolid3 to acquaint
t with the Italian use of meditation. This Congregation
vas to be adorned in the sixteenth century by John of Cas-
agniza,4 the confidential adviser of Philip II, who honoured
he Benedictine Order by his piety and knowledge. It was
rom the monastery of St-Benedict-of- Valladolid that Garcia
vimenes de Cisneros started in 1492 with twelve monks to
ule the Abbey of Montserrat in the middle of Catalonia and
0 bring about its reformation.5 He took away with him an
xtensive knowledge of methodical prayer and a strong con-
iction that with its help he would reform the monks of
dontserrat. No doubt he had there come to know the prin-
ipal works of St Bonaventure, the writers of the New Devo-
1 First Ed., Venice, 1523, given by P. Watrigant in Quelques fro-
loteurs de la Meditation methodique [Bibliotheque des Exercices, no. 59,
919). Other editions : Rome (1605), Salzburg (1634), Cologne (1644),
'.atisbon (1856) following the Exercitatorium of Garcia de Cisneros.
* Meditation was to be devoted on Sunday to the love of God as
reator, on Monday to the fall and its consequences, on Tuesday to the
irth of Christ, on Wednesday to the flight into Egypt, on Thursday to
le persecutions of Christ, on Friday to the Passion, on Saturday to
le descent into Hades, the Resurrection and the Ascension.
Dom Besse, La Congregation esfagnole de Valladolid [Revue bene-
ictine, Vol. XIX.
* The chief works of John of Castagniza are : Institutionum divinae
ietatis libri quinque, in which he sets forth some of the methods of
le spiritual life ; De la ferjeccion de la Vida Christiana. This work
1 considered by some to give the original text of the Spiritual Combat.
his controversy will be noticed farther on. John of Castagniza died
t Salamanca in 1598.
5 On Montserrat and its celebrated pilgrimage to the Blessed Virgin
tary, see Dom Besse, Revue des questions historiques, Vol. XVII
897)» PP- 22-31.
III. 2
It.
s
1 8 Cbristian Spirituality
tion, and Gerson, who dealt with meditation. He used them
in the compilation of his Ejercitatorio.1
Ill — THE FULL GROWTH OF METHODICAL
PRAYER— GARCIA XIMENES DE CISNEROS
Garcia Ximenes de Cisneros, and even St Ignatius of
' Loyola, belong- to the Spanish School, and stand forth, espe-
cially St Ignatius, among its most illustrious representatives.
I venture to set them apart from the other writers of this
school. But they are so identified with the history of methodical
prayer that this study on the growth of that exercise would
be quite incomplete, and even altogether incomprehensible,
if we did not note at the outset the place they hold in it.
Garcia Ximenes de Cisneros2 reformed the Abbey of
Montserrat by making all his monks follow his Spiritual
Exercises.3 Those who were held in the bonds of sin did
them to be converted and cleansed from their faults :
" The monk," says the holy Abbot, "who desires to bring
back from Jericho to Jerusalem his soul made in the likeness
of God (Gen. i, 26) — that is to say, to tear it away from
instability and disturbance to restore it to quietness and peace
— such a monk, I say, must imitate David's example, and
1 Cf. Revue binidictine, Vol. XVII, pp. 362-378. Watrigant, Quel-
ques promoteurs de la meditation mithodique, pp. 69-76 (Bibliotheque
des Exercices , no. 59).
8 Garcia de Cisneros, born at Toledo, related to the famous Cardinal 1
Ximenes, in 1475 entered the monastery of St-Benedict-the-Royal of:
Valladolid at the age of twenty years. He was the first reformed Abbot
of Montserrat, where he died in 1510. He left two Spanish works;
printed in 1500 at Montserrat, where he had set up a printing press a
Ejercitatorio de la Vida espiritual and Directorio de las Horas,
canonicas. There have been numerous Spanish editions of the Ejercita-
torio. The last was in 1912, at Barcelona, by Dom Fausto Curiel, i
Benedictine of Montserrat. Latin translations of the Directorium
horarum canonicarum and Exercitatorium vitae spiritualis have been
published as follows : At Paris in 151 1, Venice in 1555, etc., and the
last at Ratisbon in 1856, Exercitatorium spirituale cum Directorio
horarum canonicarum. French translations : Exercices spirituels di
Dom Garcia de Cisneros by Dom Anselme Thevard, Paris, 1655;
Exercices spirituels ei Directoire des heures canoniales by Joseph I''"*
Rousseau, Paris, 1902. The Ejercitatorio consists of four parts. Tht
three first set forth meditations intended for the three ways ; the purga^
tive, the illuminative, and the unitive ; the fourth has to do with con
templation. The Directorium horarum canonicarum deals with spiritua
preparation for the recitation of the Office, with the manner of recita
tion, and with the means to be used to store up its fruits.
8 A Montserrat MS. belonging to the time of Garcia de Cisnero
reads thus : Exercitatorium vitae spiritualis, in quo opere pretium es
monachos esse apprime instructos et memoriter retinere universa ill j
meditandi, orandi et contemplandi viae purgativae, illuminativae I
unitivae exercitia, et donee ea tarn practice quam theoretice plenitt
noverit seu sciverit non permittatur in aliis libris legere vel studer
(Revue binidictine, torn. XVII, p. 369).
lat
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rrect and purify his soul by spiritual exercises, setting- it
te from vice and sin and from all disorderly affections,
len only will it be able to receive heavenly graces and
fts."1
Even the fervent religious were not dispensed from doing
e Exercises. They found in them an increase of zeal for all
tod. Novices were closely bound to them as the best
sans of training. To encourage the exercitant to enter
solutely upon the way of purification, Garcia shows him,
the first place, the necessity of turning his attention to set
ercises, and then makes known to him the fruit to be
.thered from them, the dispositions with which they should
begun, the way to arrange them, the place in which they
e to be performed, which is the monastery chapel, and
;tly, the hours of the day that are to be devoted to them,
at is, immediately after Lauds or Compline, according to
e subject of the meditation. Further, such subjects are
ed for every day of the three weeks normally assigned to
e Exercises — the fourth part of the Ejercitatorio being
ecially intended for contemplatives.
The first week is given to the purgative way. The medita-
ms will be in the morning", after Lauds : Monday, on sin;
tesday, on death ; Wednesday, on hell ; Thursday, on the
dgement ; Friday, on the Passion ; Saturday, on the Blessed
rgin ; Sunday, on heaven. Fear and contrition are the two
ief feelings intended to be aroused within the exercitant
ring the first week.
Cisneros gives a detailed explanation of the method to be
lowed in these meditations. At the time laid down, the
>nk goes to the chapel, kneels down, makes the sign of
; cross on forehead, lips, and breast, and recites the Anti-
on : Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of thy faithful; and
idle in them the fire of thy love; and thrice the verse:
God, come unto my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me.
ten, he must practise recollection, and put himself in the
;sence of God, who is to be regarded during the first week
a strict Judge, angry with sin. Then come the three
ints of meditation. If he meditates on sin, he tries to
iceive hatred of it by considering the sins of the fallen
gels and of Adam, and of Sodom and Gomorrha, recalling
1 death of Jesus Christ and searching out his own sins.
the second point, he excites himself to repentance and
rrow for his shortcomings. At the third, he begs forgive-
Iss with confidence, praying to God, to the Lord Jesus, and
the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. The prayer ends by
inking God for having granted him the blessing of con-
tion. He smites his breast three times, and says with the
1 Chap, ii (Rousseau, p. 3).
t
htii
.:
20 Cbrfstian Spirituality
publican : 0 God, be merciful to me a sinner. He then rises
to recite a Psalm and a prayer, and retires in a state of
recollection.
In the illuminative and unitive ways the method is the
same, but the considerations made and the feeling's aroused
are different. Moreover, it is not always necessary to follow
the method in every part. When devotion and love are
stirred within, a man must abandon himself to them and take
no further pains about applying- the method. When the
monk — and we must not forget that Garcia de Cisneros is
writing for monks — has worked at his own purification for a
certain period, even for a month if necessary, he passes o$
to the illuminative way, in which he becomes illumined an|
enlightened as to supernatural realities by the rays of the
divine light. On entering into this stage, he will carefully
examine his conscience for the purpose of confession.
Cisneros gives a model of this examination, which is made I
in the evening after Compline during the time of the great I
silence. * To arouse the love of God and contrition in the "
soul, this is followed by a week of meditations, always com- F
ing after Compline : Monday, on creation ; Tuesday, on eleva- F
tion to the supernatural order; Wednesday, on religious voca- f
tion ; Thursday, on justification; Friday, on blessings per-r2
sonally experienced; Saturday, on divine providence; Sunday,!
on heaven. Meditation may also be made upon the life anjj
examples of Christ and the Saints, and upon the Lord'} ""
Prayer.
I In the unitive way, after the soul has been purified from its ^ a
sins and illumined with heavenly light, it is lovingly united orr
with its Creator, rejoicing in his excellence and desiring t '
please him alone. Deep recollection, contempt for th 'c
world's goods, and the constant thought of God's perfec- f
tions are here indispensable. The divine perfections are th w,]
special subject of meditation during the third week. Aftei ;:
the evening Office, on Monday God is considered as the prin* vc\
ciple of all things, on Tuesday as the beauty of the universe
on Wednesday as the glory of the world, on Thursday as *".,
sovereign charity, on Friday as a rule of every being, orf
Saturday as governing all things in profound calmness, Oljkr:
Sunday as supreme in liberality. Garcia de Cisneros, follow
ing Hugh of Palma, explains that in the unitive way th<
soul rises to God by love, and often without any intellectu^ ]
act; it feels and loves far more than it sees or understands' ::■
There are six degrees of unitive love according to the Saints'
way oi looking at things : illumination and the kindling |J^J'
the soul, sweetness, desire, satiety, and rapture. Som>
m
!
1 Richard of St Victor and St Bonaventure set forth a similar gradui
tion of the love of God.
5£stemt3atton 21
riters add two more : the sense of security and perfect
anquillity.
The love which produces such effects is of the highest per-
ction ; it is seraphic love. In order to attain to it, the
jay of ordinary union must be surpassed, and contemplation
lust be zealously embraced. Garcia de Cisneros therefore
Ids a fourth part to his Ejercitatorio on contemplation. Its
bginning is in no way remarkable. Here we find a tran-
ription of Gerson's De monte contemplationis. What is
ally noteworthy is the happy way in which the life and
ission of Christ are proposed for contemplation. Accord-
g to Garcia de Cisneros there are three ways of contem-
ating our Saviour's life : we can either consider his holy
tmanity, as St Bernard advised, and conceive an ardent
ve of it, or consider Christ himself as God and man, or
se rise from his manhood to the knowledge and love of his
)dhead. This last way of contemplation is the most perfect,
ach one must follow his inward attraction, conformably to
s degree of the spiritual life. Next, Garcia de Cisneros
oposes as subjects for meditation the principal episodes in
e life and Passion of Christ, but without dividing them up
to weeks. He allows contemplatives who are practised in
ayer a wide liberty in the choice of subjects for meditation.1
I have analyzed the Ejercitatorio at some length because
its importance. Certainly the Abbot of Montserrat's book
id a great influence. It sets forth a definite and more
•mplete method of prayer than those hitherto found. He
ho carries out the Spiritual Exercises with good will is
:re, we may say, to free himself from sin and to become
rvent. In a manner he fits himself into a spiritual gear V'
Dm which he only gets out when once converted.2 The
1 It is interesting to compare Garcia de Cisneros, in his teaching on
atemplation, with the English Benedictine, David Baker. Born in
lgland in 1575 and reared in Protestantism, Baker was converted to
.tholicism and went to Italy, where he became a Benedictine. He
lis sent back to London, where he died in 1641. He explained Walter
Uton's Scale of Perfection and wrote on contemplation. Dom S. de
lessy abridged his teaching in a little treatise on contemplation,
(titled Sancta Sophia, recently republished in London.
18 A few years later than Garcia de Cisneros, another eminent Bene-
ictine, Louis de Blois (I-1566), reformed the Abbey of Liessies with the
(actice of meditation and other spiritual exercises. Like the Abbot
( Montserrat, he noticed that the exterior exercises of the cloister
jly sanctify the monk in so far as they are vivified by spiritual union
ith God: "Good, no doubt, and well-pleasing to God are such
iterior exercises," he says, " as the devout chanting of the divine
|aises, the recitation of long vocal prayers, continued kneeling, the
jving of outward signs of devotion, fasting, watching, etc. ; but
l finitely superior to them are spiritual exercises whereby man through
tient desires, not by the senses and images but in a supernatural
22 Cbristfan Spirituality
religious were not the only ones to make use of it. Most
of the numerous pilgrims who came to venerate the Blessed
Virgin at Montserrat undertook to follow the Exercises.
Among them, in 1522, is to be noted the famous soldier
wounded at Pampeluna, Ignatius of Loyola.
Thus methodical prayer originated at the end of the
fifteenth century. The Holy Spirit inspired the reformers
of the religious life with this kind of exercise, which was
destined to protect devotion just when society was ceasing
to be Christian. And since the world, paganized by the
Renaissance and upset by Protestantism, will doubtless take
a long time to recover its full Christianity, methodical prayer
will become more and more necessary. Moreover, it will
be generalized and introduced into the lives of the ordinary
laity, thanks to the work of St Ignatius of Loyola.1
, J
manner, rises unto God to be united with him " (Institution s-pirituellt,
chap, v, Benedictine translation, Paris, 1913, Vol. II, pp. 35-36). See
the Regie abrigee du novice.
1 Cf. E. Masure, Vascese de saint Ignace et Vdme moderne (Melanges
Watrigant, pp. 83-87, C.B.E., nos. 61-62). Early, indeed, was mental
prayer introduced into the old religious Orders. We have seen it
among the Benedictines. The Dominicans began to practise it in 1505,
after the Chapter of Milan. The Chapter General of the Franciscans
in 1594 also ordered it.
CHAPTER II
THE "SPIRITUAL EXERCISES" OF ST IGNATIUS— IGNATIAN
SPIRITUALITY— FIRST JESUIT WRITERS IN THIS FIELD
jA T the end of the evolution of methodical prayer we
/^ find a masterpiece : the Spiritual Exercises of
/ m St Ignatius ol Loyola.1
J ^ These are the crown ol the systemization of
■^- -^^-the spiritual life which was slowly wrought age
after age by the pressure of circumstances and difficulties
and was completed at the time of the Renaissance. Like
all the works which sum up a movement and are its final
flowering, the Exercises owe much to the past. Whatever
be his genius, whatever the stamp he impresses on the
march of human thought, an author necessarily depends
upon the time and environment in which he lives ; and we
know how far in the days of St Ignatius' s conversion medi-
tation had become methodized, prayer regulated, and the
whole spiritual life organized and its various exercises so
co-ordinated as to create a real system of moral reformation.
1 The text is in the Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, Series II,
Vol. I : Exercitia spiritualia sancti Ignatii de Loyola et eorum
| Directoria, Madrid, 1919. The Monumenta contain : 1. The original
Castilian text — a copy of the Saint's manuscript corrected by himself
and therefore called the autograph.' 2. Five different Latin translations
of the Exercises: That of Frusius made under the eyes of St Ignatius
and published in Rome (1548) with Paul Ill's Brief — the Vulgate
edition of the Spiritual Exercises; that of Father John Roothaan,
published in Rome (1835); an old Latin translation, the Versio prima,
made in Paris (about 1534) and ascribed by some to St Ignatius him-
self ; a copy of the text of the Exercises left by Pierre Le Fevre, the
disciple and companion of the Saint in Paris, to the Carthusians of
Cologne in 1544; and lastly, a Latin recension of the Exercises found in
a manuscript collection made at Paris (1537) by John Helyar, a young
Englishman. — Following the text of the Exercises in a Part II, the
Monumenta publishes the principal Directories or collections of counsels
intended for the director who gives the Exercises to his penitent. They
are divided into three groups : 1. Directories written by St Ignatius —
these are mainly notes; 2. Old Directories by John Polanco, Jacques
Miron, Gilles Gonzales Davila, Fabio de Fabiis, etc. ; 3. the two great
Directories published by Claud Acquaviva in 1591 (Monumenta, chap.
xxi, pp. 1075 ff.), and in 1599 (id., chap, xxxix, 1179 &■)■ 1° tDe two
last Directories, the three ways — purgative, illuminative, and unitive —
are described and adapted to the Exercises.— French translations by
Pierre Jennesseaux from Roothaan's Latin text (Paris, 1857), and by
Paul Debuchy from the Spanish autograph (Paris, undated).
23
24 Cbristian Spirituality
I_SOURCES OF THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES1
It has been said that St Ignatius lived the Exercises before
composing- them. He has himself stated that " he did not
make all the Exercises at one and the same time, but that
he thought that the thing's which he observed within him-
self might be useful to others also, and therefore he wrote
them down, [e.g., what concerns] examination of conscience
by the use of lines." Thus we shall find traces of his famous
work in the story of his conversion.2
Ignatius was born in 1495, according to the Bollandists,
at the castle of Loyola near the town of Azpeitia in Guipuz-
coa, a Basque province bordering upon the French frontier.
Until the age of twenty-six he gave himself up to the
" vanities of the world, taking the greatest delight in the
exercise of arms, being urged on, as he was, by a great
and vain desire of worldly honour."3
On May 20, 1521, his right leg was crushed in the defence
of the fortress of Pampeluna besieged by the French, in
the war between Francis I and Charles V. After a short
stay at Pampeluna he was borne to Loyola. And there it
1 For historical records of the composition of the Exercises and the
work of St Ignatius, see Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, Madrid,
1894 and after. It contains : the Scripta de S. Ignatio, 2 vols., 1904.
In the first is the Spanish text of the autobiographical notes dictated
by the Saint to Fr. Luis Gonzales de Camara in 1553-1555 (Latin
translation in the Acta Sanctorum, July 31; French translation of the
Spanish by Eugene Thibaut, entitled Le ricit du Pilerin, Louvain,
1922) ; Epistolae P. P. Paschasii Bro'iti, Claudii Jaji (disciples of St
Ignatius), 1903; Monumenta Xaveriana, 1899-1913 ; S. Francisci Xav.
epistolae, 1904-1918; Monumenta Fabri (Le Fevre, St Ignatius'
disciple), 1914 ; /. Nadal, efistolae, 1898-1905; Polanco (the Saint's
secretary), Chronicon Societatis ]esu, 1894-1898; S. Franciscus de
Borgia, 1894- 191 1.
Historians of St Ignatius : Ribadeneira, Vida del bienaventurado
Padre Ignatio de Loyola, 1584; D. Bartoli, Histoire de saint Ignace,
Paris, 1893; Henri Joly, Saint Ignace de Loyola (English Ed., Burns
Oates and Washbourne).
Collection de la Bibliotheque des Exercices de saint Ignace, 1906
and after. A. Brou, La spiritualiti de saint Ignace, Paris, 1914 ; Les
Exercices spirituels de saint Ignace de Loyola, Paris, 1922 ; Watrigant,
La genesedes Exercices de saint Ignace (Etudes, Vols. LXXI-LXXIII),
Amiens, 1897; L. de Grandmaison, Les Exercices sfirituels de saint
Ignace dans V edition des Monumenta (Recherckes de science religieuse,
September-December, 1920, pp. 391 ff.) ; Dom Besse, L'Exercice de
Garcia de Cisneros et les Exercices de saint Ignace (Revue des questions
historiques, Vol. LXI, pp. 22 ff.).
3 Thibaut, Le ricit du Pilerin, no. 99, p. 102. In the Brief Pastoralis
officii of July 31, 1548, approving the Exercises, Pope Paul III declares
that Ignatius composed the Spiritual Exercises according to Holy
Scripture and spiritual experience (et vitae sfiritualis experimeniis).
3 Thibaut, Le ricit du Pilerin, no. 1, p. n,
Sgnatfan " Exercises " 25
vas, during his convalescence, that instead of the romances
)f chivalry, such as Amadis de Gaul, which could not be
>btained, the Life of Jesus Christ by Ludolph the Carthusian
md the Flower of the Saints by Jacobus de Voragine were
>ut into his hands. These two books had been translated
nto Spanish.1 St Ignatius gathered inspiration from them
n composing his Exercises.
In fact, Ignatius was deeply impressed by such pious
eading. From it he obtained the desire to do, himself
.lso, great things for God. " St Dominic did thus," he would
ay, "and I, too, ought to do so; St Francis did that, and
herefore I, too, will do it."2 Just play of imagination at
irst rather than operative desire, for very soon his mind
lew back to vain fancies, to the worldly reveries in which it
labitually delighted. Long was his mind disturbed by this
ilternating flow of thought after thought, sometimes about
}od, sometimes of the vanities of this world. Later on,
vhen he had gained experience in things spiritual, he saw in
ill this the action of different spirits ; the spirit of God which
Irew him to the good, and the spirit of Satan desiring to
:eep him in the world.
However, his spiritual reading enlightened him fully as
o the nothingness of creatures. He finally decided to serve
}od and planned, as soon as he was well, to make a pilgrim-
ige to Jerusalem and to practise austerities. As his holy
lesires increased, his worldly fancies became less and less
requent and at last completely disappeared. His conversion
vas fortified bv a vision of the Mother of God with the
loly Child, which left behind a deep disgust for his past
ife and an entire pacification of the senses which nothing
ould henceforth disturb. While waiting for his health to
:nable him to carry out his plans, Ignatius confirmed him-
;elf in his good resolutions by reading the lives of Jesus
Christ and the Saints, from which he culled and copied many
:xtracts.3
At the close of his life Ignatius declared to Fr. Gonzales
hat the part of the Exercises which deals with elections was
aken from " the diversity of mind and of idea which he
lad at Loyola when he was still suffering with his leg."4
jreat in meditation and profound in his knowledge of
>sychology, the writer of the Exercises was able to analyze
he various spiritual states he experienced at the time of his
:onversion, and to deduce from his own religious experi-
:nces principles for the guidance of those who follow the
same path. God and Satan contend for the soul who turns
iway from the world. Ignatius learnt the way in which
;ach of them works : the thoughts inspired by God leave the
1 id., Le recit du Pilerin, no. 2-5, pp. 12-14. 2 id., no. 7.
* id., 8-12. " id., no. 99, p. 102.
26 Cbrtstian Spirituality
soul in joy and peace ; those that proceed from the devil
please us at the outset, and are followed by uneasiness and
discontent.
But all these conceptions were very confused when Ignatius
recovered and left Loyola. " His soul was still blind," he
says, having little beyond "a great desire to serve God."1
He lacked spiritual knowledge. He was going to acquire
it at Montserrat and at Manresa.
It was towards the middle of March, 1522, that Ignatius
came to Montserrat, where rose not only the Benedictine
abbey, but the church in which was the venerated image
of our Lady. He made a general confession to the Bene-
dictine Dom Chanones (11569), who was his "director and
first spiritual father."2 Ignatius made but a short stay at
Montserrat. On the vigil of the Annunciation he made a
watch in arms all night before the Madonna. Next morning
he went to Manresa, a neighbouring town. He returned
from time to time to Montserrat to converse with Dom
Chanones.3
According to the custom of his monastery Dom Chanones
gave Ignatius the Exercises of Garcia de Cisneros and made
him follow the meditations. We know that the Benedictines
of Montserrat used the doctrine and method contained in
this book in directing the pilgrims who came to practise
their devotions in the sanctuary of our Lady. It would be
astonishing, indeed, if any exception were made when
Ignatius presented himself to Dom Chanones.
Moreover, Ribadeneira (fi6n), one of the first companions
of St Ignatius and his historian, recognizes as " very prob-
able ' the tradition handed down at Montserrat, to wit:
that the " B. P. Ignatius at Montserrat came to know the
Exercitatorium of Fr. Garcia de Cisneros and that he
followed it in his prayer and meditation. Fr. John Chanones
taught and instructed him in some of the things con-
tained in the Exercitatorium." * Fr. Watrigant, who made
a thorough study of the origin of the Exercises of St
Ignatius, is "convinced that the saint had had the work of
1 Le ricit du Pilerin, no. 14.
3 Ribadeneira, Vida del B. P. 1 gnacio de Loyola, Book IV, chap. iv.
3 Antony de Yepez, Cronica general de la orden de San Benito, Valla-
dolid, 1613, Vol. IV, p. 237 ; Bartoli, Histoire de saint 1 gnace de Loyola,
Terrien's translation, Vol. I, p. 57.
* Ribadeneira's letter to Antony de Yepez, a Benedictine of Vallado-
lid, on the Montserrat tradition in Cronica general de la orden de
San Benito, by Yepez, Vol. IV, pp. 237, 238. Dom Besse gives a trans-
lation of th^ letter in the Revue des questions historiques, Vol. LXI
(1897), pp. 35-38. The Montserrat tradition is also noted in Pom
Thevard's translation of Cisneros, Paris, 1655.
Sgnatfan " Exercises " 27
de Cisneros in his hands."1 Hence, we may infer without
rashness that Ignatius was acquainted with the Ejercita-
torio of Garcia de Cisneros and even that " he used it for
his own spiritual life."2
To what extent was he helped by it in composing his
Spiritual Exercises?
It is hard to understand how the word plagiarism came
to be applied to this matter, as if St Ignatius had done no
more than appropriate the work of the Abbot of Montserrat.
Only partisanship or inadvertence can have given rise to
such an hypothesis, which the simple reading of the two
works is enough to demolish.3 Hence, there is no point in
proving its fallacy. St Ignatius's work is conspicuously
original and, from that point of view, superior to that of
Garcia de Cisneros.
At the other extreme we find those who regard the in-
fluence of Cisneros upon St Ignatius as altogether or almost
nil ; for, say they, there is not a single word for word
quotation from the Ejercitatorio in the Exercises. As for
similarities, they are confined to seven or eight passages,
and even these do not amount to the proof of any literary
dependence. Such is the point of view, indeed, of the
editors of the Monumenta historica Societatis Jesu.*
But the influence of a book does not depend solely upon
its borrowings or quotations. All admit — as does St Ignatius
himself — that The Imitation of Christ was made use of in
the composition of the Exercises, and nevertheless not a
single quotation from it is found in them.5 Let us grant —
though this is far from sure6 — that not a single passage
from the work of Cisneros can be found in any shape what-
ever in the Exercises, yet the latter may owe something to
the Abbot of Montserrat.
" What strikes one most at first sight," says Fr. Watri-
gant, " is the general design of the two writers : both of
1 La genese des Exercices {Etudes, LXXI, p. 529). Henri Joly,
S Ignace de Loyola, p. 46.
2 Dom Besse, loc. cit., p. 38.
3 See also Acta S. S., July 31; Cf. Dom Besse, loc. cit., p. 45;
Watrigant, La genese des Exercices (Etudes, LXXII, pp. 204-209).
* Series II, torn. I, Exercitia s-piritualia S I gnatii et eorum
Directoria, Proleg., pp. 94-123. Cf. P. Codina, Razon y Ft, July,
August, September, 1917; Los Ejercicios de san 1 gnacio y el Ejercita-
torio de Cisneros. See Fr. Watrigant's reservations with regard to the
too pronounced opinion of Fr. Codina, Bibliotheque des Exercices,
no. 59 (1919), pp. 65 ff.
* Cf. V. Mercier, Concordance de VImitation de Jisus-Christ et des
Exercices, Paris, 1885.
* See Dom Besse, Revue des questions historiques, pp. 40-44 and
Watrigant, Genese des Exercices [Etudes, LXXII, p. 200), for re-
semblances between the two works.
28 Christian Spirituality
them, in fact, wanted to provide a method to lead souls to
God by means of set exercises. " In both cases we find a
series of meditations to be made daily at fixed times on
subjects — several of which are the same — chosen before-
hand in order to secure a definite and progressive spiritual
result : purification of soul and ascent in the Christian life.
Finally, in both cases, we find the systematization of the
spiritual life and of the exercises meant to develop it, especi-
ally of meditation. But Ignatius could not have found this
notion of systematization anywhere else than in the Ejerci-
tatorio of Garcia de Cisneros, just as Garcia had found it,
as Fr. Watrigant clearly proves,1 in the works of writers
who had gone before him, particularly in those of the
religious of Windesheim. Through Garcia de Cisneros, St
Ignatius took advantage of all the progress made during
fifteen centuries in the viethodizafion of the exercises of
devotion. It was from Cisneros that he gained the " idea
of a methodical course of spirituality following the classical
order of the three ways." But he realized the idea on his
own account and in a conspicuously original manner.
The history of the composition of the Exercises confirms
this view. The first draft of the Exercises was finished
in 1526, when Ignatius gave them at Alcala. Next year,
at Salamanca, he had to submit " all his papers, which
were the Exercises," to the knight bachelor Frias, who was
commissioned to examine them. On February 2, 1528,
Ignatius arrived in Paris and immediately gave the Exercises
to many.2 Hence, the writing- of the Exercises must be
dated between 1521, the year of his conversion, and 1526.
Subsequently the work " was modified in a few details and
completed in some points of secondary importance";3 its
essential parts were unaltered.
Now, in 1526, Ignatius had scarcely begun his university
course: he "had but the rudiments of learning." How
could he have contrived the Exercises as they are had he
not then known the work of Garcia de Cisneros?4 Neither
1 Quelques fromoteurs de la miditation methodique au XV e siecle
(C.B.E., no. 59).
2 Ricit du Pelerin, nos. 57, 67, 73, 77.
3 L. de Grandmaison, Recherches de science religieuse (1920), p. 394.
These conclusions, advanced by the editors of the Momtmenta {Exercitia,
pp. 30-35), arise from the testimony of St Ignatius and his contem-
poraries. Fr. Watrigant appears to set the drawing up of the
Exercises farther back : " St Ignatius did not finish, if one may say, the
draft of his Exercises before the period of his stay at Alcala: and
probablv the term should be put back a few vears' more " [Etudes
LXXII,"p. 211).
4 "If the Exercises, as we now have them, had been written out in
full at Manresa itself, St Ignatius would very probablv have been un-
able to consult any other master of spirituality than the Abbot of Mont-
serrat." Watrigant, La genese des Exercices {Etudes, ibid., p. 210).
■Jgnatian " Ejcrciscs " 29
Ludolph the Carthusian's Life of Christ, nor Jacobus de
Voragine's Golden Legend, nor even The Imitation of Christ,
read in Castilian at Manresa,1 could have really guided him.
These works supplied him with certain ideas in the Exercises,
but did not show him how to arrange them. The spiritual
experiences of St Ignatius at the period of his conversion,
however suggestive they may have been, could not have
inspired him with the idea of an organic system of asceticism
as definite and entire as that of the Exercises.
Was the knowledge of Ignatius supernatural, and must
we seek a solution of the problem in enlightenment directly
communicated to him by the Holy Ghost? Here is what
Fr. Gonzales has to tell us about it :
" One day he [Ignatius] was going out of devotion to a
certain church, about a mile from Manresa, and I think it
was St Paul's. The road runs by the river. Engaged in
his devotions, he sat for awhile with his face towards the
river flowing beneath him. As he was sitting there, the
eyes of his mind began to open ; it was not a vision, but he
understood and knew many things, things of the spirit as
well as those of faith and knowledge ; and all that in so
clear a light that they all appeared to him something
altogether new. Nor is it possible to explain the particular
points which he then understood, though they were many
in number ; but only that he received a great illumination of
his understanding; so that when he recollects all the helps
he has received from God, and all the things he has
learnt during the whole of his life until the age of sixty-two,
and gathers them together into one, it does not appear to
him to ^cme up to what he received in that one instance."2
Are we to infer from this that not only was Ignatius
supernaturally enlightened as to the truths of the faith, and
as to the spiritual life, but also that the detailed plan of the
Exercises was revealed to him? Must we not rather say
that the work of Garcia de Cisneros was the means used by
Providence to disclose to him a method of asceticism — the
outcome of a long development — perfectly adapted to the
needs of his day?
Thanks to his divinely enlightened personal experience,
enriched with reading, Ignatius was able to turn that method
to account in a way amounting to genius.3
1 We know that Ignatius used these three works in the composition
of his Exercises. The Castilian translation of the Imitation of Christ
was attributed in Spain to Gerson.
2 Thibaut, Le recit du Pelerin, no. 30, pp. 35, 36.
3 I note here, by way of memorandum, the improbable opinion of
unbelieving critics who like to think that St Ignatius derived his
Exercises from the rules of Mussulman religious. Cf. Hermann Muller
(a pseudonym), Les origines de la Comfagnie de Jesus, Paris, 1S98.
30 Cbrtsttan Spirituality
II— ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION OF THE
" EXERCISES "
Like Garcia de Cisneros, St Ignatius divided his Exercises
into four weeks, but the subjects for meditation are differently
distributed.
In both works, the aim of the First Week is spiritual puri-
fication. But whilst the Abbot of Montserrat's Ejercitatorio
confines contemplation of the life and passion of Christ
especially to the last week, the Exercises of St Ignatius
assign the Second Week to meditation upon our Lord's Life
up to and including Palm Sunday, the Third Week to the
Passion, and the fourth to the Resurrection and Ascension.
The theory of the three ways is latent rather than patent
in the Spiritual Exercises;1 it does not make their frame-
work as in the Ejercitatorio.
The Spiritual Exercises open with twenty annotations, the
result of St Ignatius' experience, and these make a kind of
Introduction. The first gives a definite explanation of the
Exercises and sets down their aim. The word " Exercise "
designates " any way of examining one's conscience, medi-
tating, contemplating, praying vocally and mentally, and
other spiritual operations, as shall afterwards be told; be-
cause as walking, going, and running are bodily exercises,
in like manner all methods of preparing the soul to remove
from herself all disorderly attachments, and, after their re-
moval, to seek and find the divine will in the laying out of
one's life to the salvation of one's soul, are called Spiritual
Exercises." We must bear in mind t1 t thf rst aim of
the Exercises is to help the retreatant to purify his soul in
order to discern his vocation and to follow it with generosity.
The other annotations contain general counsels meant for
those who are giving or receiving the Exercises; for
Ignatius always assumes that the exercitant is under the
guidance of a director.
A certain amount of initiative is to be left to the retreatant
in the meditation or contemplation of the subjects proposed.
He should be filled with a greater sense of respect in those
parts of the Exercises which induce prayer than in those
which lead to simple reflection (II-III).
The Exercises last four weeks or about thirty days. But
each week is not necessarily made up of seven or eight days.
The week must be sometimes curtailed or prolonged, accord-
1 Cf. the tenth annotation : " The enemy of human nature usually
tempts a man more under the appearance of good when he is exercising
himself in the illuminative life, corresponding to the Exercises of the
Second Week, and not so much in the purgative life, corresponding to
the Exercises of the First Week." Fr. Rickaby, The Spiritual Exercises
of St Ignatius, p. 7.
$0ftatfan " Bserctses " 31
ing to one's quicker or slower acquisition of the effect
sought. It is indispensable to the success of the exercises
to enter upon them with all one's heart. He who is giving
them must make sure that the retreatant is carrying them
out at the set times and as they ought to be done (IV-VI).
The director must treat the exercitant, who is tried with
interior desolation and temptations, with kindliness. He is
to give him instructions about spiritual desolation. He will
discover to him the wiles of the devil, explaining to him the
rules for the discernment of spirits in the First Week, and
even in the second, according to the dictates of prudence and
the needs of him who is making the exercises (VII-X).
It is well to follow the exercises of the First Week without
trying to find out those of the Second Week. A whole hour
or more should be given to each of the five exercises or
contemplations day after day. As a rule, the first exercise
will be made at midnight, the second directly after rising,
the third before or after Mass, the fourth at the time of
Vespers, the fifth before going to bed.1 One must be on
one's guard against shortening the exercises, a temptation
chiefly arising during periods of inward desolation.
The director must prevent the exercitant from lightly
undertaking any promise or vow in the fervour of the
moment. He must not try to influence the retreatant in
the choice of any kind of life, but wait for God to show his
will. To let the Creator work more surely upon his soul,
the retreatant will endeavour to desire no work nor any-
thing else except for the glory of God. And, to make sure
of the purity of his intention, he will faithfully discover his
thoughts to his director (XIV-XVII).
Lastly, the exercises must be adapted to the age, the
knowledge, the intellectual capacity, the health, the end in
view and to the occupations of each individual. The most
appropriate exercises are to be chosen according to circum-
stances. To those who have plenty of time at their disposal
and are sufficiently educated all the exercises should be
offered, and they should be advised to withdraw into solitude
apart from their relations and friends (XVIII-XX).2
St Ignatius opens the First Week with the Preface or
famous rule for the interpretation of the thoughts of others.
No doubt it was suggested to him by the attacks he had
1 First Week, Observation, Jennesseaux, p. 78; Debuchy, p. 61.
1 St Ignatius' Directory says : Locus Exercitiis destiyiatus secretin
esto, nee cum aliquo verbo misceat exercitans, si exactam Exercitiorum
normam sequi velit. — This Directory was first published in the
Recherches de science religieuse, May- September, 1916, pp. 24S ff., and
again brought out in the Monumenta. It has inspired most of the rest.
32 Christian Spirituality
to meet in Spain, about 1527, when he was giving- the
Exercises. When he appeared before the judges of the
Spanish Inquisition, they " put him a multitude of questions
not only on the Exercises, but also on theology." We know
how they imprisoned him at Alcala. As to the Exercises,
" they dwelt much on a single point which was at the begin-
ning— viz., When a thought is a venial, and when it is a
mortal sin. And this they did because, though he was not
learned, he decided the question. And he made answer :
1 Whether it is the truth or not, you must decide ; and if it
is not the truth, condemn it.' And at last they, without
condemning anything, went away."1
Perhaps Ignatius met with prejudiced exercitants who
were much readier to blame his teaching than to be edified
by it. In Paris he must have had discussions with followers
of Erasmus and Luther whom he endeavoured to bring back
to the truth. These circumstances compelled him to formu-
late the Golden Rule which to-day would seem to us super-
fluous at the beginning of a retreat :
"In order that both he who gives and he who receives
the Spiritual Exercises may derive greater help and profit
from them, it must be presupposed that every good Christian
should be readier to excuse than to condemn a proposition
advanced by his neighbour; and if he cannot justifv it,
let him inquire into the meaning of the author : if the latter
be in error, correct him lovingly ; should that not suffice,
then let him employ every suitable means, so that his
neighbour, rightly understanding it, may be saved from
error."
Before beginning the first exercises with the retreatant,
Ignatius reminds him of the end in view : " To overcome
oneself and regulate one's life without being swayed by any
inordinate attachment."
The election or choice of a state of life according to the
divine purpose is the end to which everything in the Exercises
is subordinated, the central point towards which everything
converges : " The Spiritual Exercises keep in view above all
a concrete and clearly determined case : their aim is to put
a man — i.e., one who is at liberty to choose his own career
and well equipped for the apostolate, in the position of being
able to discern clearly and to follow God's call."2 At the
outset such a concrete case was that of Ignatius himself.
The Exercises made him an apostle as they made Francis
Xavier the most zealous of missionaries.
Wonderful as a method of winning recruits for the aposto-
1 Thibaut, Le ricit du P Her in, no. 68, p. 72. Note in Ignatius' replies
to the Inquisitors a certain amount of impatience with their cavillings.
2 L. de Grandmaison, Recherches de science religieuse, September-
December, 1920, p. 400.
jQiiatian " Exercises " 33
late, the Exercises are also a method for the restoration of the
spiritual life, and they are therefore adapted to many of the
faithful. Ignatius tells us that he used to give the Exercises
to those who came to see him in prison at Alcala. l Among
them many, no doubt, had already decided upon their voca-
tion ; for a man's election may not only determine the whole
course of his life, but it may simply aim at the reformation
of some important point in his spiritual life. This is the
election of amendment so much appreciated by Mgr. d'Hulst.2
From this point of view, however, the Exercises are less
easily explained. They are no longer to the same degree the
kind of drama in which we behold a " probable candidate for
missionary work " freeing himself from unruly passions with
energetic penances ; contended for by God and Satan, trying
with the help of an enlightened counsellor to distinguish,
amidst conflicting inward attractions, those emanating from
the spirit of grace from those of the spirit of evil, and finally
determining to devote his life to the service of God and
strengthening himself in that determination by contemplating
the mysteries of the life of Christ.
To such a prospective missioner Ignatius proposes first of
all the principle which is to guide him in the discovery of his
way, the foundation upon which he will base the whole of his
spiritual building, the final goal of man.3 Man was created
for God, to serve him and thereby to save his soul. Every-
thing that is in the world was created to help man to secure
his salvation. Man's duty is to make use of it or to let it
alone in so far as it is profitable or unprofitable for that end.
The exercitant is consequently at once invited to take up an
attitude of indifference towards created things, and to desire
only whatever will best lead him to the fulfilment of his
destiny.
In his fundamental meditation Ignatius makes an allusion
to the notion which dominated his whole life : Ad major em
Dei gloriam. Both in the Exercises and in his Constitu-
tions, 4 and above all in his correspondence, he constantly
speaks of the service and the glory of God.5 Habitual direc-
tion of thought and act towards the greater glory of God is
a well-known characteristic of the Ignatian spirituality.
1 Le recit du Pelerin, no. 60.
2 Baudrillart, Vie de Mgr. d'Hulst, Vol. Ill, p. 555.
3 Cf. Watrigant, La meditation fondamentale avant saint lenace
(C.B.E., no. 9).
4 Constitutiones Societatis Jesu latine et hispanice cum earum de-
clarationibus, Matriti, 1892.
' " It is reckoned that in his Constitutions alone St Ignatius refers
259 times to the greater glory of God — i.e., nearly once on every page "
(A. Brou, La spirituality de saint Ignace, p. 10). Cf. F. Cavalier, La
spirituality des Exercices, in the Revue d'ascitique et de mystique,
October, 1922, pp. 357 ff.
III. 3
34 Christian Spirituality
The exercitant under the guidance of Ignatius is regarded
as knowing nothing of ascetic training. He needs instruction
as to how to examine into his own thoughts, words, and
deeds, to distinguish his serious sins from those which are
venial, and to prepare for the general confession which is to
precede his communion at the end of his First Week.1 He
is given models for self-examination. And he is to do five
exercises or meditations every day in order to feel deep con-
trition for his sins. The first meditation will be on the fall
of the angels, the fall of our first parents, and the fall of
one cast into hell through one single mortal sin. The second
will be on the retreatant's personal sins and on the divine
attributes, principally on the mercy of God. Lastly, the fifth
meditation will be on hell.
In the meditations for the First Week, St Ignatius gives
his celebrated method of prayer according to the three powers
of the soul : memory, understanding, and will.
Meditation is composed of a preparatory prayer asking
God " to direct the intentions, actions, and operations of the
exercitant," of two preludes, three or five points or parts of
the subject of the meditation, and of a colloquy in which God
is spoken with " as a friend talks with his friend or as a
servant does with his master."
The first prelude is a composition, seeing the place. It
consists in imagining the circumstances in which occurred
the mystery in the life of Christ or of the Virgin Mary which
it is desired to contemplate. When the meditation is on an
abstract subject, we must make a representation of that
which symbolizes it best. The second prelude is a prayer to
God to beseech his grace in connection with the subject set
before us. The two preludes thus vary according to the
subject of the meditation.
The meditation rightly so called is divided into several
points. In each of these Ignatius exercises the memory, the
understanding, and the will,2 the three faculties so much
1 The Ignatian Directory advises that this confession should be made
to someone other than the giver of the Exercises {Direct., I, 5).
2 This part of the Ignatian meditation varies and sometimes calls
for the, use of other faculties. According to these variations, as many
as five methods of prayer are to be found in the Exercises. — The first is
Meditation according to the -powers of the soul; it is the best known
and most used, the one above set forth. — The second is Contemplation,
which is an ordinary meditation on some mystery of the life of Christ.
After the preludes, we " contemplate " — i.e., we consider, without
exerting great effort, the persons, their utterances and acts. — The third
is the Application of the five senses to the mystery on which we are
meditating. We see the persons with the eyes of the imagination, we hear
what they are saying, we inhale or relish the sweetness of the medita-
tion, we touch with spiritual caresses the places in which the mystery
occurred. — The fourth is entitled : The second way of praying. After
ignatian " Ejercises " 35
spoken of by the writers of the Middle Ages. This medita-
tion is a kind of moral strategy. The powers of the soul are
like so many battalions held in reserve and launched one after
another at the right moment to the capture of the spiritual
objective by assault. Memory recalls facts and reasons,
understanding intervenes to make its inferences, and the will
evokes feeling and carries away the soul to the end desired. *
This method sets in relief the part played by man in the
work of his conversion and moral reformation ; it stimulates
personal effort. No doubt it does not disregard God's part
since it both begins and ends with prayer for grace ; never-
theless, it is mainly directed towards action. It explains
Ignatian spirituality, which is above all an excitant of energy.
The Christian who sets to work upon himself with meditation
and the particular examen is as duly conscious of his own
endeavour as if his spiritual training depended solely upon
himself. Ignatian meditation is " essentially active, prac-
tical, conquering virtues. In a certain sense it is Martha
rather than Mary, or rather it is an effective sort of con-
templation for acquiring the possession of goodness. It is
active because it attains such virtues, not only by praying
for them, but by making the appropriate acts."2 The re-
treatant is sanctified as much by acts of the will as by prayer.
The expression, " I will it, id quod volo," recurs throughout
the Exercises, which are quite truly a school of will-power
and energy.
To meditation, which fires the soul to seek goodness,
Ignatius adds self-examination to verify its progress. Nothing
in the spiritual life must be left to whim or to chance. How
can self-knowledge be attained without self-examination?
And is not self-knowledge indispensable to the interior life?
Ignatius regards the particular examen as being as funda-
mental an exercise as meditation.
This particular examen, which is not found in Garcia de
the usual preparation we stop at each word of a prayer, such as the
Pater noster, as long as we find relish or good in doing so, and this
is done all through the prayer. — The fifth method, or Third way of
■praying, consists in considering for the space of a single breathing
each of the words of some vocal prayer while we are saying it. Cf.
Fourth Week, the Three ways of fraying. P. de Maumigny explains
these various methods in his Pratique de Voraison mentale, 12th ed.,
Paris, 1916, I, pp. 320 ff.
1 In the five first annotations which end the First Week, St Ignatius
adds a few counsels for securing the fruitfulness of the meditations :
before going to sleep at night, review the subject of the meditation ;
think of it on awaking ; after the meditation is over, note whether it
has been well or faultily made.
2 Achille Gagliardi (fi6o7), De plena cognitione Instituti Societatis
Jesu, Bruges, 1882, pp. 98-99; A. Brou, La Spirituality de saint Ignace,
pp. 29-30; Watrigant, Des methodes d'oraison dans notre vie aposto-
lique, C.B.E., nos. 15-47 (1913).
36 Christian Spirituality
Cisneros' Ejercitatorio, is far from being- the same as the
general examen prior to confession. Its purpose is to free
a man from a besetting sin or from a dominant defect. This
examen is made twice a day, after dinner and after supper.
Every time a man's failures must be written down, and days
and weeks are to be compared with one another to verify
the progress attained. From the beginning the particular
examen is prescribed for the retreatant ; but it is to be
continued even by the man who has advanced in the Christian
life.1
The Second Week is " the most original and the most
urgent part " of the Exercises, "' which ends in the election
of a state of life."-
The exercitant once purified from his faults by repentance,
and having sufficiently mastered his unruly tendencies, is
rightly disposed for hearing the divine call. And this call is
an invitation to enrol in the army of Christ.
For St Ignatius regards the apostolate as an order of
knighthood. When he betook himself to Montserrat after
his conversion with his mind full of the romances of chivalry,
he imagined Christ as a king summoning his subjects to a
crusade.3 How ardently did he desire to be one of these
good knights !
Just when the exercitant has to decide to become one of
Christ's knights Ignatius makes him meditate twice a day on
" the call of a temporal king " to conquer " the whole world
of unbelievers." If such a call " is calculated to strike our
minds, how much more worthy of consideration is the sight
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal King with all the world
before him, hearing him make his appeal to all and to each
one in particular and saying : It is my will to subdue the
whole world and all my enemies and thus to enter into my
Father's glory. Let him who will come after me work with
me, so that following me in toil he may follow me in glory."
But we must know Christ, the eternal King, and what he
demands of his soldiers before we enrol in his service.
1 To inspire the sinner with repentance and love so that he may be
purified of his sins, such is the end of the First Week of the Exercises.
To reach this point with greater certainty, Ignatius suggests further a
few " devices " — e.g., to keep strict watch over one's mind, to keep
out the light by closing the doors and windows of one's room, to avoid
laughing and talking, and, if needed, to undertake certain outward
penances with prudence, such as limiting one's food and sleep, and
chastising the body with the use of instruments of penance.
2 L. de Grandmaison, pp. 401-402.
3 Thibaut, Recit du Pelerin, 17, pp. 23-24 : " He (Ignatius) went on
his way towards Montserrat, thinking, as was his wont, of the great
deeds he was to perform for the love of God. And, as his mind was
full of the exploits of Amadis de Gaule and similar books, the thought
of doing things of the same kind occurred to him."
Sgnatfan " Exercises " 37
To this end the exercitant must contemplate — for twelve
days, if necessary — the mysteries of the childhood and of the
public life of Christ. He will reflect long- upon the Incarna-
tion of the Word, the mvsterv of self-humiliation — on the
Lord's Nativity, the mystery of denudation and poverty — on
the Presentation in the Temple, and on the episode of Jesus left
amidst the doctors, mysteries of detachment from creatures
— on the hidden life of Christ at Nazareth, the mystery of
obedience — on his public life, the mystery of the apostolate.
In each contemplation, not only are the memory, the under-
standing-, and the will exercised, but also the five senses —
i.e., the entire soul. Thus in the Lord's Nativity the exer-
citant is to imagine that he sees the chief characters con-
cerned, that he hears their words, inhaling and relishing
their grace and sweetness, touching and kissing their foot-
prints. The exercitant will also feel that he is growing in
the love of Christ, the Master of the Apostles, while he is
learning the conditions of the apostolic life : abnegation,
renunciation of honours and riches, and the practice of
humility.
But what is more repugnant to a man who was lately flat-
tered by the world than such a life of renunciation and poverty
and humiliation? Ignatius knew it from experience. Day
after day, when he was beginning to live a life of poverty
and austerity, he was tormented by the thought of the diffi-
culty of his enterprise : " How can you endure such a life as
this all the seventy years you will have to live?" An inward
voice kept on asking this question.1
Ignatius managed to triumph over these temptations to
pusillanimity and bewilderment — the chief trial of the exer-
citant during the period of his election — by interspersing, in
a disconcerting way at first, contemplations on the life of
Christ, meditations intended to foil the ruses of Satan and
the calculations of self-interest. The meditation on the Two
Standards teaches us in a dramatic and quite military manner
the opposite tactics of the two leaders or " captains " who are
fighting one another for men : Jesus Christ and Lucifer.
Lucifer draws men to himself by the love of riches, by vain-
glory, and pride, and he leads them to death. Jesus Christ,
on the other hand, opposes riches with poverty, vainglory
with opprobrium, pride with humility, and leads men to true
life. Thus the exercitant is well taught in " the cheats of
the bad leader " and in the requirements of Christ. All he
has to do is to beseech our Lady to obtain from her Son the
grace of being enrolled under his standard as an apostle, if
he be pleased to do so.
And now we come to the revolts of selfishness.
The retreatant will overcome them by stirring himself to
1 Recit du Pelerin, no. 20, p. 27.
38 Christian Spirituality
generosity, and in the first place by the exercise of the three
classes of men. A parable is set before him. Three classes
of men there are who each of them possess " a sum of ten
thousand ducats." All of them desire, for the sake of their
salvation, to get rid of the attachment they feel for it. Those
belonging to the first class would indeed like to be detached
from it, but they do nothing to the purpose, a mere fancy;
those of the second class are disposed towards detachment
from it, but not to the point of stripping themselves of its
possession, an unsatisfactory disposition ; those of the third
class are so far detached from it as to be stripped of it
altogether if God required it of them ; this is the right dis-
position, that of the exercitant who is about to make his
election, and he will maintain it despite the natural repug-
nance he may feel for actual poverty.
Lastlv, the exercise of the three degrees of humility will
finish the victory over the future missioner's last resistance,
his aversion to humiliations and obloquy. There is a degree
of humilitv which is essential to salvation ; it is that which
subjects us to God's law when it is binding upon us under
pain of mortal sin. In the second degree, which is more
perfect, a man is in a state of complete indifference with
regard to riches and poverty, honour and contempt, a long
life or a short one, provided that God in all be glorified.
For nothing in the world would he commit a venial sin. The
third degree further requires us for the most perfect imitation
of Jesus Christ to prefer, as he did, poverty to riches, con-
tumely to honour. It is much to be desired that the
retreatant should approach this degree of humility at the
time of his election.1
The first condition for a good election is for the exercitant
to consider only the end for which he was created : the glory
of God and the salvation of his soul.2 Then he will decide
in favour of such and such a state of life, according to the
leadings of grace.3 For what he ought to choose is that for
which God intends him.
God's will is manifested in various ways.4 Sometimes a
1 St Ignatius, Directory, III, i : Det oferam [qui dat Exercitia) ut
in electionibus, quae fieri debent cum -plena voluntatis resignatione
et, si fossibile est, cum affroximatione ad. tertium gradum humilifatis,
ut exercitans magis frofendeat, si aequale Dei servitium fore videretur,
ad ea quae magis conformia sunt consiliis et exemflo Christ?'.
2 Exercises. Second Week, Prelude to the Election.
3 The Election, as St Ignatius saw it, was that of a man who pledged
himself irrevocably to the apostolate. But the Exercises have also in
view the election of a man already irrevocably committed to a state
of life determining to be more fervent in his vocation. Lastly, there
is the variable election. of such a thing as a benefice, which a man is
free to accept or reject at will [Exercises, Second Week, Matter of
Election).
* Exercises, Three Seasons favourable to the Election.
Sditatfan " Exercises " 39
man is irresistibly drawn to a state of life, as were St Paul
and St Matthew. Fairly often he receives flashes of illumina-
tion, and is disturbed in turns by consolations or desolation
revealing- God's purposes in regard to himself. At last he
comes to have no particular feeling at all. Then he can
make his election freely and quietly with the assistance of his
natural faculties and reflection.1 He prays and examines the
pros and the cons, the advantages and the disadvantages of the
various possible courses. He will ask himself how he would
like to have made his present election had he been at the
point of death, and in making his final decision he will be
faithfully guided by this thought of his last end.
When the election has been made the man who has made
it must be confirmed in his decision.
He will not be slow to experience, like Ignatius at
Manresa,2 great inward vicissitudes. Sometimes he will feel
much joy in prayer, sometimes it will fill him only with dis-
gust. The meditations of the Third Week on the Last
Supper and on the Passion fasten more and more firmly to
Christ the man who has just consecrated his life to him. His
inward experiences of the spiritual life will increase. Prayer
will grow more familiar, and he will learn discretion in things,
especially in matters of mortification. Finally, during the
Fourth Week in the contemplation of the mysteries of the
risen Christ, he will become more and more closely united
with God until he comes to the habitual divine union of the
saints.
At the end of the Exercises come the rules for the discern-
ment of spirits, required for the exercitant in the First3 and
1 St Ignatius proposes two exercises, or methods, to help reflection.
In his Directory, III, 6, he thus defines them : Ea autem quae de-
liberandi! hie sunt: i. consilia an fraecefta; 2. si consilia, an in
religione, an extra Mam; 3. si in ilia, in quali ; 4. quando et quomodo ;
5. si fraecefta, in quo statu aut modo vivendi ; et ita vadat dis-
currendo.
2 Recit du Pilerin, no. 21.
3 Fourteen rules for the First Week. — The evil spirit keeps the sinner
in the pleasures of the senses, the good spirit fills him with remorse. —
The devil tries to disturb the soul of the converted sinner, and God fills
him with consolation and encouragement. — The third rule describes
spiritual consolation and spiritual desolation. — Make no change in a
resolution in a time of desolation, as the evil spirit advises ; yet in
the time of desolation it is good to pray and to meditate more and to
do more penances. — Regard desolation as a trial permitted by God, to
teach us to resist temptation with the help of grace. — Be patient in
desolation. — Desolation may be a punishment for our lukewarmness and
negligence. It is a trial. It is meant to teach us that good feelings
come from God and not from ourselves. — During consolation let us think
of desolation which will come, and take courage. — During desolation let
us humble ourselves, because we can do so little without sensible grace.
4° Cbristfan Spirituality
Second1 Weeks, then the rules for the distribution of alms,
notes on scruples, and lastly, the famous rules for orthodoxy
formulated by Ignatius at Paris for dealing- with innovators,
followers of Erasmus and Luther, whom he met there.
The Spiritual Exercises are not, strictly speaking-, a com-
plete manual of asceticism. They have a particular case in
view : " they deal with a crisis ... a missionary vocation
studied, debated, and combated in a soul splendidly endowed."
Ascetic teaching is largely used and explained, but only so
far as is necessary. Hence "in the four famous Weeks we
must not look for detailed lessons on normal, peaceable,
everyday interior life."2
Nor must the work of St Ignatius be regarded as an initia-
tion into the mystical ways. No doubt he raised himself to
extraordinary spiritual states, and knew the graces of super-
natural prayer; his autobiographical notes make this per-
fectly clear.3 But it is no aim of his to lead the exercitant
to that goal. His desire is to give God one more missioner.
" It is God who has to decide whether his apostle is to be —
in the technical sense of the word — a mystic. The author of
the Exercises sets aside the thought of such possible calls."4
Perhaps, too, the false mysticism which swept over certain
parts of Spain at the beginning of the sixteenth century put
Ignatius on his guard against any exaggeration which might
lead to illuminism, even by crooked ways. He was always
very reserved as to the mystical states. While appreciating
them as they deserved, he did not regard them as being in
themselves signs of perfection. Besides, it is not in our own
power to acquire them at will. So he insisted on ascetical
exercises, the practice of the virtues, mortification, humility,
and obedience.5
During consolation remember that we can do much with grace. — Firm-
ness in temptation disarms the tempter, but weakness makes him terrible.
— The tempter demands secrecy ; he is powerless when we are open and
sincere with our confessor. — Like a captain who would take a place
by assault, the devil tries to find our weak point for his attacks.
1 Eight rules for the Second Week. — The three first for ascertaining
whether spiritual consolation comes from God or from the devil. — The
other five reveal the ruses of the wicked angel, who sometimes changes
himself into an angel of light.
2 L. de Grandmaison, loc. cit., p. 405; Watrigant, La Genese des
Exercices [Etudes, LXXI, p. 507).
3 Cf. Recti du Pilerin, chaps, iii, x.
4 L. de Grandmaison, p. 406.
B See A. Brou, La spiritualite" de saint Ignace, pp. 109 ff .
Sonatfan " Exercises " 41
III— PRACTICE OF THE EXERCISES IN THE TIME
OF ST IGNATIUS AND AFTERWARDS — IGNA-
TIAN SPIRITUALITY: REACTION AGAINST
THE PAGAN RENAISSANCE AND PROTESTANT
QUIETISM; PROTECTION OF THE RELIGIOUS
LIVING IN THE WORLD
As soon as Ignatius had finished the first edition of the
Exercises, he made people go through them. He gave them
at Alcala, as we know, in 1526, and through them many
people " attained a knowledge of and a stronger relish for
spiritual things."1 In Paris during 1528 he had them made
by three retreatants who " made remarkable changes in their
lives," and " soon gave all that they had to the poor."2 " By
means of the Exercises " he won for God Pierre le Fevre and
Francis Xavier.3 The precious manual in the hands of Igna-
tius was an effective means of gaining apostles for God
and companions for himself. The spiritual exercises had
already been made by those who took their vows with him
at Montmartre on August 15, 1534: Francis Xavier, Pierre
Le Fevre, Nicolas Bobadillo, James Laynez, Alfonso Sal-
meron, and Simon Rodriguez.
The Exercises are, above all, a spiritual method, and, like
all methods, they must be constantly adapted to persons and
circumstances and milieux. If, from the time of its com-
position till our own day, the booklet has continued to be an
inestimable means of sanctification, that is because the sons
of St Ignatius have always managed to adapt it to the needs
of every age. Few suspect to-day that Ignatius intended the
Exercises primarily to be a means of recruiting missionaries.
The oldest directories show how the first followers of Igna-
tius gave the Exercises. 4 The exercitant was isolated as far
as possible in a solitary house. The director went to see him
every day to give him advice. When the Society of Jesus
had colleges and houses, it was able to receive the retreatants
in them.
At the outset Ignatius and his first disciples made each
person go into retreat by himself. But this limited the
director's scope, for he could only attend to a small number
of retreatants at the same time. Pierre Le Fevre declared
that he could not direct more than three persons at once.5
1 Le Recti du Pelerin, no. 57, pp. 59-60.
2 id., no. 77, p. 79.
3 id., no. 82, p. 84.
4 Exercitia . . . et eorum directoria, pp. 778 ff. Cf. A. Brou, Les
Exercices sfirituels de saint Ignace de Loyola, pp. 50 ff.
6 Monumenta Fabri, 78.
42 Cbrfstiau Spirituality
From 1539, at Parma, Le Fevre and Laynez inaugurated the
idea of giving retreats in common.1
As we might expect, not all the retreatants used to reach
the end of the Four Weeks. Most were satisfied with the
First Week, and made a " retreat of conversion." Neverthe-
less, a certain number — especially those who felt a call to
mission work — made the " election," and even went to the
end of the Exercises. 2
In his Chronicle, Polanco remarks the happy results every-
where following upon the Exercises. They led to the con-
version of a large number of the clergy. Louis de Blois, as
we know, used to send his religious and novices to the Jesuits
of Louvain to be given the Exercises, and this contributed
effectively to the reformation of the Abbey of Liessies.3
St Charles Borromeo used them for the reformation of his
clergy.4 In the seventeenth century St Vincent de Paul, in
his famous retreats given to the candidates for ordination at
Saint-Lazare, was inspired by the method of the Exercises.5
And in modern times retreats, according to the Ignatian
method, have become " a normal and ordinary function of
the Christian life."6 His Holiness Benedict XV, bv an Apos-
tolic Constitution of July 25, 1920, has proclaimed St Ignatius
the patron of spiritual retreats.
In the era of its first appearance, Ignatian spirituality was
one of the most effective means for the protection of Christian
devotion against the paganism of the Renaissance and the
fatalistic quietism of the Protestant Reformation.
According to Ribadeneira,7 St Ignatius acted in conformity
with this principle : " Let us work as if success depended on
ourselves and not on God. Let us work with energy, but
with this conviction in our hearts : that we are doing nothing,
that God is doing evervthing." This great law of his own
activity is also that of his spirituality.
1 M onumenta Fabri, 33.
2 S Ignatii efistolae, torn. I, p. 388; torn. II, p. 253; Efistolae
mixtae, torn. I, p. 43.
3 For information as to the history of the practice of the Exercises,
see the Melanges Watrigant, C.B.E., nos. 61-62, 1920.
4 Mgr. Ratti (Pius XI), Saint Charles Borromee et les Exercices de
saint Ignace, C.B.E., no. 32.
5 Saint Vincent de Paul et les retraites jermees, C.B.E., no. 50;
Watrigant, Les Exercices sfirituels a la naissance des Siminaires,
C.B.E., nos. 39-41.
6 A. Brou, Les Exercices sfirituels de saint Ignace, p. 105.
7 De ratione sancti Ignatii in gubernando, 14 (Scrifta de sancto
Ignatio, p. 466. Monumenta, torn. I). It is the second of these Sentences
attributed to St Ignatius : Haec frima sit agendorum regula: sic Deo
fide, quasi rtrum successus omnis a te, nihil a Deo fenderet, ita tamen
Us oferam omnem admove, quasi tu nihil, Deus omnia solus sit facturus.
Sgnatian " Bsercises " 43
In the work of spiritual sanctification, there are two parts
— God's and man's. Ignatius fixes his attention on the first
to urge the importance of prayer for the securing of grace —
God's part — and to call upon us to glorify God for all the
good we do through him. He emphasizes still more,
perhaps, man's part — radically eliminated by Luther, as we
shall see — and impels us to action, indeed, as if success
depended upon ourselves alone. His spirituality, if the
anachronism may be allowed, is dynamically molinist; it
is active and non-quietist, combative and not pacifist,
methodical, and not just-as-you-will.
What Ignatius demands above all is personal effort, the
active collaboration and the energetic work of the exercitant.
He will not endure the retreatant's passivity, but makes him
meditate, contemplate, and examine his conscience, and will
not leave him to himself. He does not wait for God to work
in the soul, for he is convinced that generous efforts on our
part " often dispose us for the reception of greater inward
illumination and heavenly consolation and divine inspira-
tion."1 The more a man does himself violence, the more he
advances in goodness, says the writer of the Imitation.
Ignatius, too, wishes a man to devote himself to the exercises,
to act against himself and his own inclinations, and to change
and conquer himself.2 His is a spirituality of effort wonder-
fully adapted to counter the scandalous Lutheran quietism
which denied man power to co-operate in his own salvation,
and to stir men out of the laisser-aller in which some of the
humanists took refuge under the pretext of resistance to
man's passions being actually impossible.
It was also a combative spirituality. No doubt the spiritual
combat is not an invention of St Ignatius, for it is of the
very essence of Christianity : it is an indispensable condition
of any serious spiritual life. No one has spoken of it more
forcibly than St Paul. Since his day, perhaps, no one has
understood it better than St Ignatius. His spirituality wears
a military aspect. Christ is a captain who calls us to fight
at his side. To answer his call is to join his army. His
true soldiers " will not only offer themselves up wholly to
the work, but also, when taking the offensive against their
own sensuality and against their carnal and worldly affec-
tions, they will make offers still more precious."3 Their
1 Exercises, Third Week, fourth rule of " Temperance."
2 " Discernment of spirits," sixth rule, etc : " The Spiritual Exer-
cises combine the knowledge of self and the imitation of Christ into a
school of energy. The representations, the feelings, and the virtues
are so many tendencies to action. The whole of the interior life becomes
a combat, the results of which have a social value." Etchegoyen,
Vamour divin, Essai sur les sources de sainte Therese, p. 56, Bordeaux,
1923.
3 Exercises, Second Week, The Kingdom of Christ, Debuchy, p. 73.
44 Cbrtstian Spirituality
chief offensive weapon will be the particular examen which
attacks some bad habit, sin, or failing", and especially their
dominant passion. With God's help, victories will thus
constantly be won. Christ's soldier conquers virtues as
men carry fortified positions by storm. Others will get
men to acquire virtues by the practice, which is also mortify-
ing-, of the love of God : Ignatius would have men show
their love by fighting against their bad instincts.1 He is
not far from agreeing with the old monks that virtue must
be preceded by the extirpation of the vices which are opposed
to it.
Lastly, it was a disciplined spirituality, which was
governed by precise methods leaving little room for the
unforeseen. " St Ignatius assumes that a man knows where
he is going and that he wants to get there, and that he is
ready to take the best means and, therefore, to examine
those which are offered and to weigh and to select them
for well-known reasons."2 The principal means is the medi-
tation made daily at a fixed hour for a definite time on a
subject chosen and prepared beforehand according to a
method leading on step by step. Then follows the examen :
the examen which superintends the way in which the prayer
is made to eliminate hindrances and to keep the expedients
that help;3 the particular examen which records victories
or failures day by day. It is, in a word, a strict super-
vision of every spiritual experience, indispensable to anyone
who would defeat the wiles of the enemy within or from
without. This may be called compulsion or spiritual tension.
No doubt; but " unless thou do thyself violence," says the
Imitation, "thou shalt not overcome vice."4 The compul-
sion was most profitable for guarding the soul against the
pagan seductions of the Renaissance ; furthermore, this com-
pulsion and tension were compatible with a rightly under-
stood freedom of will.
It is true that any maladroit or inexperienced person might
apply these methods with too much severity and keep down
the spirit from all upward soaring. We should then have
"piety to order" with all its drawbacks.6 But St Ignatius
does not mean to straiten the action of grace nor to bind the
soul to the point of keeping it from stirring and from going
whither God would lead it. The object of his method is to
prepare us for the action cf the Holy Spirit; and it dis-
appears as soon as his influence is felt, pnd we recover our
freedom to follow the inspiration of God. The Ignatian
1 Exercises, Second Week, The Kingdom of Christ, Debuchy, p. 73.
2 A. Brou, La s-piritualiti de St Ignace, p. 82.
3 Exercises, First Week, fifth Addition.
4 Lib. I, cap. xxii : Nisi tibi vim jeceris, vitium non su-perabis.
5 Faber, All for Jesus.
Sgnatfan " JEjeixises " 45
method is not a set of drill-sergeant's commands. In the
Annotations and Additions incorporated with the Exercises
the director is advised not in any way to cramp God's action
upon the retreatant's soul.
The spirituality of the Exercises forms, too, men of
action and apostles while providing a discipline for the
interior life. It thoroughly forwarded the plans of Ignatius
as the founder of a new Order of religious devoted to mission
work amidst the world and driven to find their own safety
in a thoroughly sound spiritual training.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century many religious
congregations were inaugurated, especially in Italy, to take
charge of external works, such as the improvement of the
clergy, missions, the education of the young, and the care
of the sick. Later on, we shall study their spirit and their
teaching.
St Ignatius took part in the movement which urged men
on to the apostolate when he founded his Institute, the
principal aim of which was to be preaching and religious
instruction, especially the education of the young, and any
other charge which might be entrusted to it by the Holy
See. A fourth vow of absolute obedience to the Pope was
required of members of the Society.
In order that the new religious might have every oppor-
tunity of devoting themselves to their works, they were
" bound to say the divine Office according to the rite of the
Church, each one separately and privately, and not in
common and in the choir."1 In this way a great change
was introduced into the old form of the monastic and
religious life. Ignatius made a real alteration in the centre
of gravity of the devotion of the religious. Until his day,
it revolved around the psalmody of the divine Office. Even
the Franciscans and the Dominicans, though they were pledged
to mission work, were bound to the choir Offices. The
Jesuit says his Office in private ; this is the most important
of his religious exercises, but it is not the whole of his
devotion. Meditation and examination of conscience form
the framework of his spiritual life and make a rampart about
it and protect it efficaciously against the assaults of the
world amidst which it has to be preserved and to grow.
A means of protection, Ignatian spirituality is also an
inspirer of zeal. It develops the spirit of initiative and
conquering ardour. " The same offensive as it carries on
against the evil within us, it takes also against the evil
1 Bull approving the Jesuils by Paul III, Regimini militantis
Ecclesiae, of September 27, 1540. Cf. Meschler, S.J., La Com-pagnie
de Jesus, ses statuts et ses resultais, Mazoyer's translation, Paris.
46 Christian Spirituality
without us." Ignatius called his Society a "Company,"
taking- the metaphor from military life. It is, indeed, a troop
of soldiers of Christ, flung- forward for the conquest of souls,
that he wished to organize. And that each soldier might
help on the common work effectively, his personal action was
to be governed by a strict obedience to his leader.1
IV— THE FIRST JESUIT SPIRITUAL WRITERS
The historians of the Society of Jesus relate the lives of
the illustrious religious who were the offspring of the
Ignatian spirituality. The compass of this work will not
allow us to follow them. Let us be satisfied with mention-
ing those of the first disciples of Ignatius who have left us
spiritual writings.
Blessed Pierre Le Fevre,2 who lived in Paris with Ignatius
and Francis Xavier in the same room for students, has left
behind him a sort of autobiography : The Memorial.
Born in Savoy, Le Fevre has somewhat the same smiling
character as Francis de Sales. A lover of purity and of the
ideal, and with a great yearning for knowledge, he suc-
ceeded in triumphing over the temptations of youth which
were not lacking in his case. God directed his steps in the
way of perfection by trials of conscience, scruples and pain-
ful uncertainties as to his vocation. It was through Ignatius
that he found peace and resolved, after making the Exercises,
to become a missionary. He was one of the first apostolic
workers to preserve South Germany from the inroads of
Protestantism and there to keep alive the Catholic faith.
He it was who attracted Peter Canisius to the Society of
Jesus.
Le Fevre was able to combine the active with the contem-
plative life : he shows in his charming Memorial how they
react upon one another. He also had a very special devotion
to the angels. He not only honoured the guardian angels
of the faithful, but all the angels ; those of cities and
churches. He treated them as friends and thought that the
angels were glad to have friends among men. St Francis
1 St Ignatius' teaching on obedience is found in his celebrated letter
to the Portugese Fathers in the Thesaurus spiritualis Societatis Jesu,
and in the famous article of the Constitutions : Quisque sibi persuadeat,
quod qui sub obedientia vivunt, se ferri ac regi a divina providentia
per superiores suos sinere debent perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod
quoquoversus ferri et quacumque ratione tractari se sinit : yel similiter
atque senis baculus qui ubicumque et quacumque in re velit eo uti, qui
eum manu tenet, ei inservit.
2 He was born in Savoy at Villaret in 1506. As a child, he watched
over his father's flocks. In 1525 he was sent to Paris, where he met
Ignatius three years later. Le Fevre's Memorial has been translated
into French by Pere Bouix, Paris, 1874.
■Janatian "Exercises" 47
de Sales admired this devotion of Pierre Le Fevre for the
Holy Angels, which is so reminiscent of that of St Bernard.
It was also a spiritual Diarium1 that has been left us by
St Francis Borgia, it includes several years of his life as
General. It consists of simple notes in his own handwriting,
often unintelligible to others. St Teresa had two conversa-
tions with Francis Borgia,2 and calls him *' a great contem-
plative." She consulted him as to the prayer of quietude
and asked him how the active life and the contemplative
life could be found united in it. Francis answered that " it
was not at all impossible, and that it often happened so
with himself."3 Hence, in contemplation his soul was able
never to lose sight of God amidst the overwhelming anxieties
of the government of a religious Order. Without any pain-
ful striving he used to offer God every hour of the day for
some definite intention. At one and the same time he ful-
filled the office of Martha with that of Mary.
The same union of the active with the contemplative life
is found in the case of St Peter Canisius4 who, says
Leo XIII, "is the second apostle of Germany after St
Boniface." Canisius tells us of his spiritual life in two of
his writings : his Confessions, in the class of those of St
Augustine, and his Spiritual Will. His Letters also inform
us about what was taking place in his soul. Ecstasies,
raptures, and even visions rewarded him for his immense
apostolic labours.
Of St Francis Xavier we have nothing but his Letters. 5
They are a lifelike expression of his fiery soul, which no
fatigue could cast down, no suffering affright, when there
were unbelievers to be converted. Xavier was favoured with
mystical graces, and his ecstasies were many. He never
ceased his prayers and never interrupted his most intimate
1 Vol. V, pp. 729-887 of the M. H.S.J. Suau, Saint Francois de
Borgia, Paris, 1910. Born in 1510, Francis Borgia was General of the
Society of Jesus in 1565. He died in 1572. He defended Ignatius when
he was first attacked, and had the Exercises approved by Paul III in
1548. He also composed a treatise called The Christianas Works.
2 St Teresa, Spiritual Relations, relat. LIII.
3 St Teresa, Way of Perfection, chap. xxxi. Cf. Life, chap. xxiv.
4 Born in Guelderland at Nimeguen in 1521, he died at Freiburg in
Switzerland. He founded many colleges in Germany, was a very popular
preacher, and attended the imperial Diets. He was also sent to the
Council of Trent, where he met his confreres, Laynez, Alfonso Sal-
meron, and Le Jay. His spiritual writings are : his Conferences and
his Will, published with his Letters by Otto Braunsberger, Beati
Petri Canisii Efistulae et acta, Freiburg, 1896 ff. ; Vol. I, contains what
is left of the Confessions — i.e., the first book with a few other frag-
ments, and the Will. Canisius published a German edition of the
sermons and other works of the Dominican John Tauler, Cologne, 1543.
Cf. Le Bachelet, Diet, de Thiol, cath., art. Canisius.
5 Cros, Saint Francois Xavier, sa vie et ses lettres, 2 vols., Toulouse,
1900. A. Brou, Saint Francois Xavier, 2 vols., Paris, 1912.
48 Christian Spirituality
intercourse with God, except for the labours of the mission-
field.
Lastly, Pedro Ribadeneira,1 the disciple and historian of
St Ignatius, has edified generation after generation of
Christians with his Flowers of the Saints, published in
Spanish at Madrid in 1599, and soon translated into French.
In this biographical work we must not expect to find the
critical spirit to which we have grown accustomed since the
time of the Bollandists. Certainly there may be found in
it much unction and devotion, and a great desire for the
sanctification of souls.
1 Born at Toledo in 1527, he joined St Ignatius in 1540. He worked
in succession in the Low Countries, in France, and in Spain. He died
at Madrid in 161 1. Besides The Flowers of the Saints, he wrote lives
of St Ignatius, St Francis Borgia, and of Laynez and Salmeron.
c
CHAPTER III
CHRISTIAN HUMANISM AND DEVOUT HUMANISM—
THEIR SPIRITUALITY
<A T the dawn of the Renaissance, while the monks
/^L were endeavouring- within their cloisters to ward
/ m off the worldly spirit by means of mental prayer,
/ ^^ Christian humanists were also working in their
-A- -*-o\vn fashion towards a restoration of the
Christian life.,
We note, in fact, a twofold tendency in the Renaissance :
one, as we have seen, clearly pagan, which was consciously
or unconsciously ruining all religion and morality by the
study of antiquity ; the other intending to remain true to
Catholic faith and practice, and to bring literature and art
into the service of Christian religion and piety. This second
tendency is that of Christian humanism, a humanism which,
according to many writers, was the forerunner of Pro-
testantism. Besides its love for classical antiquity, it took
an indulgent and optimistic view of human nature, which is
the characteristic of what has been called devout humanism.
I— CHRISTIAN HUMANISM
These are the principal Christian humanists : in the Rhine-
land, Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa (11464) ; in Italy, Pico della
Mirandola1 and Cardinal Sadolet (11547) ; in England, Blessed
Thomas More;2 in France, Lefevre of Etaples;3 in Germany,
Erasmus of Rotterdam.4
1 The celebrated author of nine hundred theses submitted to Rome,
thirteen of which were declared to be heretical. In 1489 he published
his Apologia in self-defence. It is a manifesto of Christian humanism.
He died at Florence in 1494, at the age of thirty-one. Works, Bologna,
1496, and Venice, 1498.
2 Henri Bremond, Le Bienheureux Thomas More, Paris, 1904. (Eng-
lish trans., London, Burns Oates and Washbourne.)
3 Lefevre of Etaples, the greatest of French humanists, was born in
1455. He studied in Paris, and then in Italy and Germany. He retired
to Saint-Germain-des-Pres at Paris, and then to Meaux and Strasbourg.
He died in 1536. He translated the whole of Aristotle with comments.
He studied theology, which he wished to bring back to its sources, the
Bible, and the Fathers. He also published the text of several parts of
the Bible with a commentary. The two chief works in which his ideas
on religion are to be found are : the Preface of the Psalterium auin-
tuflex, in which the various texts of the Psalter are set in parallel ; and
his Commentaries on the Epistles of St Paul, published in 1512. Luther
justified himself by using the works of Lefevre to support his two chief
principles of private inspiration and justification by faith only. Lefevre
also wrote Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite, Venice, 1556.
* Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam in 1464. When twelve
years old he went to the celebrated school of the Brothers of the Common
III. 49 4
so Christian Spirituality
They are usually regarded — at any rate, the two last —
as inspirers of Luther. Though they did not foresee this,
they certainly are so through their work of criticism and
through certain of their views. They reacted against the
formalism of the end of the Middle Ages in such a way as
to make the Christian religion appear a purely inward and
personal affair. They laughed at the abuse of Scholasticism
to the point of depreciating — doubtless unintentionally — the
dogmatic teaching of the Church. They criticized the
behaviour of the monks of their time in language that
appears to implicate the religious life itself. They recom-
mended the reading of the Bible to all the faithful indis-
criminately, as the Protestants were about to do. But their
manifest and dangerous exaggerations must not make us
fail to acknowledge the soundness of some of their work.
It is well to know it, because it has had a great influence
over the devotion of the Renaissance era, and it will help
us to understand Protestant mysticism.
It may be summarized in these three points : means for
keeping oneself from the corruption of the world ; a return
to the inner life which is stifled by the use of formalist
practices ; the direct study of the Word of God in Holy
Scripture for the purpose of edification, and not in order to
make subtle dissertations on idle questions.1
Life at Deventer. Being illegitimate, he could not enter the ranks of the
secular clergy. He joined the Augustinians in i486, and took the
vows, despite his repugnance for the monastic life. Released from his
vows, he was ordained priest in 1492 by the Bishop of Cambrai. From
this time forward Erasmus began his cosmopolitan life. He travelled
in France, in England and in Italy, and was welcomed everywhere
on account of his world-renown in letters. Henry VIII of England,
Charles V, Francis I of France, and Popes Julius II and Leo X
endeavoured to keep him near them. In 1521 he settled at Bale to
superintend the printing of his works. There he died in 1536.
Erasmus sums up in himself the tendencies of his period. Luther
tried, though in vain, to draw him into his own rebellion against the
Church. Erasmus contributed powerfully to the revival of learning bv
his writings and by his editions of the works of ancient authors,
whether heathen or Christian. His edition of the New Testament
(Greek original and Latin translation) was very successful. His
religious opinions are to be found above all in his Enchiridion militis
christiani, a kind of humanist manual of the Christian life, published
in 1504; Paraclesis, id est adhortatio ad christianae fhilosofhiae
siudium (1516) and Ratio seu methodus ferveniendi ad veram
theologiam (1518), which criticizes the theology of the School and
extols the new theology based upon Scripture and the Fathers of the
Church : Colloquia familiaria (1518), not a highly moral work. The
Praise of Folly, Laus stultitiae (1509), is a bitter and exaggerated
satire on monachism, and the licentiousness of the clergy and the
people. O-pera omnia, Bale, 1540; Leyden, 1703-1706, Ed. Clericus (Le
Clerc).
1 Cf. Imbart de la Tour, Les origines de la Reforme, Vol. II.
ibumantst influence 51
Two works of Erasmus stand out in giving us an idea of
this reaction of Christian humanism against the pagan cor-
ruption of the Renaissance : the Enchiridioij militis christiani1
and the De contemptu mundi.2 They are written in such
classical Latin as only the first Latinist of his day could
write. They are also steeped in the spirit of humanism.
St Ignatius Loyola, who read the Enchiridion, was be-
wildered by the tone in which it speaks, without any shades
of the deference required, of theologians and devotional
practices. But Erasmus, with his quite military manner of
training the Christian, must have given him pleasure.
For Erasmus summons the Christian soldier to a real
battle with the world. Is not the Christian life a perpetual
combat? The enemies change: the devils "ever on the
watch," the world "which attacks us right and left, on the
front and from the rear," our passions " which are all
the more dangerous from being within us and because we
cannot get away from them." Therefore we must always be
under arms : Prima cura sit ne inermis sit animus.3
The principal weapons recommended are : prayer, " which
lifts up our hearts to heaven as to a citadel that our enemies
cannot reach " ; and knowledge, which " furnishes our minds
with wholesome thoughts." Knowledge of the Christian
warfare is what Erasmus proposes to teach in his Enchiridion.
At the outset he finds it in Holy Scripture, but as a good
humanist he goes in search of it also in profane literature,
in poets and philosophers, who have also formulated maxims
which are helps to virtue.
Before all, we must come to know ourselves, since our
fighting must be directed against ourselves. To possess a
good knowledge of oneself, therefore, must be the primary
condition of victory. Furthermore, the Christian has to
study his body, his soul, his passions, and the opposition
between the flesh and the spirit spoken of in Holy Scrip-
ture. Our humanist takes care to mention, by the way,
the theories of the Stoics and the Peripatetics as to the
passions.
Ignorance is the cause of the great inferiority of the
Christian soldier. In order to get rid of it, Erasmus puts
1 Desiderii Erasmi roterodami Of era omnia, torn. V, pp. 2-66, Lug-
duni Batav., 1704. The Enchiridion is addressed to Adolph, son of
Philip of Burgundy. It was much read. Louis de Berquin translated
it into French, 1529. There was a Spanish edition in 1528, and an
English one in 1583.
2 ibid., pp. 1239-1262. The work of Erasmus has been very variously
appreciated. Janssen {V Allemagne et la Reforme, II, 6-22) is very
severe in his judgement of Erasmus. Cf. F. Mourret, Hist, gen dg
VEglise, ibid.
8 Enchiridion, cap. ii.
52 Cbrtstian Spirituality
forward twenty-two rules (canones), " general rules of true
Christianity," which must lead to perfection, if they are
followed.1
The Christian soldier will hold fast the purity of his faith.
He will be ready to lose everything-, even life itself, for
Christ. He will die to the world and be convinced that the
narrow way is more pleasant and more suitable than the
broad way. The aim of his studies, his desires, and his
efforts will be to reproduce Christ in himself. Thus, he will
strive incessantly to turn aside from things visible to advance
in things invisible. And above all — a practical piece of advice
at the time of the Renaissance — he will hold himself aloof
from the maxims and example of the common run of men
to find in Christ alone the example of perfect devotion. " To
depart from this example, even by a line's breadth, is to go
astray." Besides, the more we advance in the love of
Christ, the more we hate the world ; the more we wonder
at invisible realities, the more ugly we find what is passing
away.
The other fifteen rules concern temptations and the way
to resist them.
In addition to the struggle there must be meditation on
the sufferings of the Saviour and on the hideousness of sin.
God must be contrasted with Satan ; by resisting we become
servants of God, and by sinning the slaves of Satan.2 We
must also compare heaven with hell. We must remember
the fragility of life and the sinner's risk of dying impenitent.
Those who escape from licentiousness are so few ! The
Enchiridion ends with special counsels for overcoming sen-
sualism, avarice, ambition, pride, and anger.
In the De contemptu mundi, Erasmus further insists on
the dangers for the Christian in the world of the Renaissance.
Is not the safest way to flee from them by retiring into
solitude? " Nothing, indeed, is more miserable, nothing
more vain, nothing more pernicious than the goods of this
world." Real liberty and real peace are not for the worldly.
And in the hour of death, must we not leave everything
behind? Therefore let us renounce beforehand whatever we
must inevitably give up some day !
Another humanist, Michel de Montaigne (11592), was also
able to enforce the same lesson from death in a moving way,
but purely as a philosopher :
" To think upon death beforehand is to think upon freedom.
He who hath learnt to die hath unlearnt to be an underling.
Knowing how to die setteth us free from all subjection and
1 Enchiridion, cap. viii.
2 It is interesting to compare this passage from the Enchiridion with
the meditation on the Two Standards of St Ignatius Loyola.
tmmantet influence 53
bondage. There is no evil in life for him who hath well
learnt that the loss of life is no evil."1
We should become familiar with the thought of death,
and learn not to fear it :
" The goal of our career is death : it is the one thing
whereat we must aim. If it affright us, how can we go
forward, save in a fever? The remedy of the common folk
is not to think thereon. But what a brutish stupidity befalleth
them of such gross blindness? They must be made to
bridle the ass by the tail. . . . No wonder if they be often
taken in the snare. Our people are often afeared at the
mere name of death, and the more part do make the sign of
the cross thereat as at the name of the devil. . . .
" If (death) were an enemy man could avoid, I would
counsel him to use the arms of cowardice. But since he
cannot, and since it catcheth you when ye run away in
your poltroonery as well as if ye make an honest stand . . .
and since whatever be the temper of your cuirass, it cannot
cover you . . . learn ye with firmly planted foot to endure
death and give it battle. And to take therefrom its chief
advantage over us, let us choose a way quite contrary to
the common. Let us strip it of its outlandishness, let us
make it our practice and our habit to have in our heads
nothing so often as death. At every moment let us picture
it in our imaginations and in every form. At the stumbling
of a horse, at the fall of a tile, at the least pricking of a
pin, let us reflect of a sudden : What if this were death
itself? and therewith let us be hard and set our wills."2
This stoical attitude is grounded upon quite natural reasons
by " the good admonitions of our mother nature." Our
death is an essential part of corporal existence. It is " one
of the parts of the order of the Universe ... a part of the
life of the world. " Will Nature change " this fine con-
texture of things"3 for us? No.
Erasmus is more of a Christian and less of a philosopher
when he speaks of death. He wrote a little book on the way
to prepare for it, the success of which in the sixteenth cen-
tury was comparable with that of the Imitation.41 To die
well, the most important thing is to purify the soul by the
reception of the last sacraments. Detachment from all that
1 Essais, Book I, chap, xx, Ed. F. Strowski, Bordeaux, 1906, p. 107.
Montaigne was much appreciated by St Francois de Sales. See CEuvres
de saint Francois de Sales, Annecy, 1S92; Vol. I, p. lxiii.
2 ibid., pp. 103-107.
3 ibid., p. 114.
4 De frae-paratione ad morte?n, written in 1533, Opera, torn. V,
pp. 1293-1348. French translation, Lyons, 1538. This book of Erasmus
is often found bound up with and following Internal Consolation {The
Imitation). The humanism in this work of Erasmus had something
to do with its success.
54 Cbristtan Spirituality
is transitory is a condition, but not everything-, for a good
death. Nevertheless, the human motives of such detach-
ment are so set in relief that we can understand the following
judgement of Feugere with regard to the notions of Erasmus
on death : " Here we already find the spirit of philosophy
trying to dissipate the religious terrors as to the last hours of
men. Erasmus, like Montaigne later on, is not far from
envying the ancients for their peaceful death, which they
reached without bitterness in a state of hazy somnolence."1
At the same time as he is preparing the Christian for the
battle with the world, Erasmus trains him in the interior life.
Above all, he warns him beforehand against what he calls
"the religion of the common people," which consists in
the faithful observance of external practices without any
effort to reform one's conduct and to become closely united
with Christ :
" Thou art baptized," he says. " Think not that thou art
indeed, therefore, a Christian, if thou hast disgust only
for the world. Thou art a Christian in public, and in secret
thou art more pagan than the pagans. And why? Because
thou hast but the body of the sacrament and hast not its
spirit. What is the good of bodily washing if the soul be
defiled in will?"2
A life of purity, intimate and living union with Christ the
Redeemer, these are the main part of Christianity. Instead
of this, many are satisfied with a host of pharisaical observ-
ances which they join with a disorderly life, and that without
remorse. Erasmus speaks of them in terms of implacable
irony. Does veneration of the saints mean just making
pilgrimages to their tombs, touching their relics, and at the
same time despising the best of all that they have left behind
for us : the example of a pure life? To imitate the faith of
St Peter and the charity of St Paul is worth more than ten
pilgrimages to Rome. What is the use of clothing oneself
in the hour of death with the rough drugget of St Francis,
if one has been not the least like St Francis during one's
life? Furthermore, we are certain that the best way of
honouring the Blessed Virgin is to imitate her humility.3
Yet Erasmus does not put forward any desire to do away
with worship and outward observances. But he wishes them
to be well understood : they are means for the cultivation of
the inward life. They are necessary means, too ; for religion
1 Erasme ; Etude sur sa vie et ses ouvrages, Paris, 1877, quoted by
Janssen, of. cit., II, p. 21.
2 Enchiridion, cap. viii, Ofera, torn. V, p. 31.
3 Enchiridion, ibid. Montaigne also criticizes formalism : Essais,
Book I, chap. Ivi.
fmmantet influence 55
without external practices is not enough. Faith, however
perfect, without works worthy of it, far from being- profit-
able does but complete one's damnation.1
Lefevre of Etaples, in his reaction against formalism, shows
himself unable to keep within such just measure. He gives
such honour to justification by faith when he comments on
St Paul that he seems to throw good works overboard.2
Many perhaps wrongly regard him as the promoter of the
Lutheran theory of justification by faith only. 3
This excessive reaction of the humanists against outward
practices, and what they called " the religion of the crowd,"
arises, like most of their other tendencies, from Platonist
idealism.
The Renaissance was a reaction from the Aristotelianism
of the School. Its Platonist4 philosophy filled it with a
kind of aversion to whatever was material, and a marked pre-
dilection for a sort of religious symbolism bordering upon
dilettantism. Transcendent subjectivism — after the fashion
of Plotinus — which made the soul enter into direct com-
munion with God, must have suggested to the humanists, as
we shall see, their doctrine of the symbolical and private
interpretation of Holy Scripture.
One of the great means of fostering the interior life, which
is forcibly urged by the Christian humanists, is, in fact, the
study of God's Word as contained in Holy Scripture, and not
as it is propounded by the decadent theologians of the Renais-
sance. These, according to the humanists, conceal the Word
of God beneath a heap of learnedly constructed syllogisms.
They go astray in a labyrinth of a host of subtle questions,
the solution of which is often impossible and, in any case,
quite useless for the Christian life.
To such argumentative and refined theology they oppose
a theology which is practical. To them religion is less a
fountain of knowledge than of life; it means union with
1 Enchiridion, cap. viii, Ofera, torn. V, p. 31.
2 Sancti Pauli epistolae XIV cum commentariis Jacobi Fabri
stafulensis, 1515, torn. I, 16; VII, 3; VIII, 4.
3 Cf. Lavisse et Rarabaud, Histoire generate, Vol. IV, p. 479.
4 Platonist idealism makes its first appearance in Italy with Gemistus
Plethon and Cardinal Bessarion (1472). But the great Platonist was
the Florentine Marsilio Ficino (ti499), the celebrated translator of Plato
into Latin (Venice, 1491), of Plotinus (Florence. 1492), and of Dionysius
the Areopagite (Opera omnia, Cologne, 1536, Paris, 1641, 2 vols.). He
undertook the work of a Theologia -platonica. It was Giles of Viterbo
who compiled this Platonist Theology with a commentary on the
Sentences (Recherches de Science religiense, July-October, 1923). In
Spain Miguel Servetus (-f-1563), in his famous book, La Restauration
du Christianisme, reproduces the pantheist doctrines of Plotinus.
56 Cbristtan Spirituality
God.1 If the Lord has revealed religious truths, it is for our
guidance and not for the satisfaction of our curiosity. And,
in order to learn them, the heart and love are more help-
ful than reasoning and syllogisms. Theologians too often
forget this :
" For me," says Erasmus, " the true theologian is not he
who teaches with artificially made syllogisms, but by his
whole attitude and life, that we must despise riches, that the
Christian must not put his trust in the goods of this world,
but only in those which are from above. . . . For as to
how the angels communicate their thoughts to one another,
any writer who is even not a Christian can make disserta-
tions thereon better than we. But to persuade us that we
ought to live a pure and angelic life, such is surely the work
of a Christian theologian."2
Yet theology thus understood ought to be scientific.
The humanists tried to recast theology on critical lines.
They wished to found it upon the Bible scientifically edited
and interpreted, as well as upon the undoubtedly authentic
teaching of the Fathers. Erasmus wanted " Christ preached
according to the fountain-heads." He wished men not to
let go the advantages which a classical training might supply
to theologians.3
To furnish Bible-readers with as accurate a text as pos-
sible of the original, the humanists made critical editions of
the sacred books.* But the Bible is not the book of the
learned only ; every Christian has the right to read it :
" Neither age nor sex, neither condition nor position, should
keep anyone from such reading. The sun does not more
belong to everybody than does the doctrine of Christ. . . .
I should like every woman to read the Gospel and the Epistles
of St Paul."5
In order not to go astray in the interpretation of the pas-
sages read, Erasmus advises men usually to follow the
1 Hie frimus et unicus sit tibi scopus, hoc votum, hoc unum age,
ut muteris, ut rapiaris, ut affleris, ut transformeris in ea quae discis.
Erasmus, Ratio seu methodus perveniendi ad veram theologiam. Opera,
torn. V, p. 77.
3 Paraclesis, id est adhortatio ad christianae philosophiae studium,
torn. V, p. 140. Hoc Philosophiae genus in affectibus situm verius
quam in syllogismis, vita est magis quam disputatio, afflatus potius
quam eruditio, transformatio magis quam ratio, p. 144. Cf. Lefevre of
Etaples, Comment, in Epist. ad Rom., i, 15; xiii, 3.
* Ratio . . . perveniendi ad veram theol., ibid.
* " Begin by giving a few hours every day to searching the sacred
letters : first, in Greek, the New Testament and the Epistles of the
Apostles; and then, in Hebrew, the Old Testament." Rabelais, Lettre
de Gargantua a son fils Pantagruel. This letter is a little manifesto of
French humanism.
5 Paraclesis, torn. V, p. 140. See Erasmus' Commentaries on the New
Testament, Opera, torn. VII.
tmmanist influence 57
Fathers and the commentators. He blamed Lefevre of
Etaples for leaving- out the traditional explanations in his
edition of the Psalms. Hence he does not demand an uncon-
ditional freedom of interpretation, for he knows that it is often
restricted, and principally by the dogmatic definitions of the
Church. But in questions which have not been finally settled
by ecclesiastical authority, Erasmus requires full and entire
liberty. Here the Christian is directly and exclusively taught
by God (#eo5t<5a/<To<j). As his guide he has the Holy Spirit,
who enlightens the pure in heart, and reveals to them the
teaching that they need.
" For," says Erasmus, " when we read the Holy Books,
God speaks to us more really and efficaciously than he did to
Moses in the burning bush, provided that we come to hold
converse with him with a clean heart. St Paul calls the
gift of the interpretation of Scripture prophecy and not
philosophy. And the Holy Spirit is certainly the origin of
prophecy.
" Thou must therefore prepare thy heart for this Spirit,
that thou too mayst deserve to be called by the prophetic
epithet (i.e., taught of God). Let thine eye of faith be as
simple as that of the dove, which can see naught but heavenly
truths. And let thy desire of instruction be immense ! . . .
When thou lightest upon any passage of special edification,
kiss it and worship it. . . . Thou wilt do thus with more
devotion when thou preparest thyself to receive the mysterious
teaching of the Holy Ghost. Whatever thou understandest,
receive it with delight ; whatever is hidden from thee, that
worship with simple faith, and venerate it from afar. Away
with all impious curiosity I"1
Here we reach the central point of the mysticism of the
Christian humanists. The Christian who reads the Bible is
given a sort of personal inspiration to enable him to under-
stand it. Here it is not only a case of such " inspirations "
or pious suggestions as grace arouses in us when we are
praying or making an edifying reading. It is God himself
who instructs the clean of heart, who is free from the bonds
of sin, so that he has no need to have recourse to ecclesiastical
teaching in those questions that have not been finally settled
by the Church. Piety is something altogether inward, abso-
lutely spiritual.
This doctrine is partly the result of the humanist reaction
from the theology of the time and against the too external
and formalist religion of the crowd. It also depends, like
their philosophy, upon their tendency to seek for the rules
of the Christian life in immediate spiritual communications
1 Ratio . . . ferveniendi , torn. V, pp. 76-77. Cf. Paraclesis, ibid.,
pp. 143-144-
58 Gbrtstlan Spirituality
with God rather than in the direction of the theologians.
This is quite an old tendency which we have already met with
in many of the medieval mystics. At the time of the Renais-
sance it was accentuated beyond measure. The authority of
the ecclesiastical hierarchy was weakened by it, and the
notion of the Church somewhat impaired. Lefevre of Etaples,
the most mystical of the Christian humanists, in the Preface
of his Psalter1 expresses himself in regard to this subject in
terms which suggest an idea of private inspiration. His doc-
trinal audacities brought upon him the censures of the Sor-
bonne, despite the protection of Francis I, and Luther gave
his name as an authority.
The preference of the humanists for the spiritual and
allegorical sense of Scripture is also a consequence of their
mysticism. What God teaches those who meditate on the
sacred text is to live holily. But it is the spiritual sense that
chiefly contains this science of sanctity. The literal sense
is the flesh of Scripture, the symbolical sense is its spirit.2
Erasmus ventures to say that often Scripture, when taken
literally, without any endeavour to discover its allegorical
meaning, is no more edifying than a poetical fable, and he
quotes by way of proof certain passages from the Old Testa-
ment.3 The mystical interpretation, on the other hand, is
always sanctifying. Moreover, it is infinite in its variety
according to the needs of the reader. It fills sinners with
fear, and the just with a greater love of virtue. The same
Spirit suggests to everyone what he requires. Furthermore,
Scripture is sterile, if the hidden meaning be not found
therein beneath the rind of the letter, for it is that which
must chiefly be examined and meditated on.4
This too exclusive inquiry into the allegorical meaning
made the humanists undervalue the primary importance of
the literal sense. How did such conscientious editors of the
sacred text come to such a point as this? Their reaction
from the religion of the crowd quite as much as their
mysticism carried them too far. Erasmus, in his Enchiridion,5
brings a really ridiculous charge against the literal and
1 Psalterium quincuplex . . . cum commentariis a Jacobo Fabro,
Parisiis, 1513, Praefatio.
2 Erasmus, Enchiridion, cap. viii, 5 : Proinde ubique contempta
came Scripturae, maxime Veteris Testamenti, spiritus mysticum rimari
conveniet. . . . Habet Evangelium carnem suam, habet et spiritum,
torn. V, pp. 29-30.
3 Enchiridion, cap. viii, 5 : At si citra allegoriam legeris, infantes
in utero colluctantes, vendito pulmento primogenita, benedictionem
patris dolo praereptam, Goliath funda David ictum, Samsoni derasum
capillum, non ita magni refert quam si poeticum legas pigmentum.
* ibid. Hugh of Palma teaches that the gift of discovering the
allegorical sense of Scripture is granted to those who have entered
upon the illuminative way.
6 Cap. viii, 5.
fmmantet influence 59
" carnal " sense of Scripture, which is adhered to by those
who materialize religion. Lefevre of Etaples constantly
opposes " the literal-spiritual sense," which he favours, to the
" literal-vulgar sense," which he blackens. The first is what
we have to find out. It is that which the Holy Ghost has
concealed beneath the literal sense; it is revealed only to
those who are able to understand things divine in a non-
carnal way. To discover it, we have only to trust to the
help of divine inspiration.1
Christian humanism, as we know, was discredited by the
claim of Protestantism to regard it as a forerunner. If the
fruits were evil, then the tree cannot have been very good.
Thus the humanism of Erasmus and Lefevre is judged rather
severely by most Catholic historians. It helped letters,
but was hurtful to religion.
This judgement would certainly have seemed unjust to any
devout person in the first half of the sixteenth century. At
that time the little devotional books by Erasmus and Lefevre's
commentaries on the Psalms and on the Epistles of St Paul
were providing spiritual edification. Every educated Christian
carried in his pocket Erasmus' The Christian Knight's Manual
or his Preparation for a Good Death.2 They were used for
meditations, and many found in them arms for waging vic-
torious warfare against the paganism of the Renaissance.
The spiritual treasures of Scripture were brought within
the reach of the majority in the scriptural works of the
humanists. Real inward devotion was thus stirred up.
Many sincerely believed that the long expected reformation was
taking place. Lefevre's followers, who formed what has been
called " the cenacle of Meaux," were quite convinced of it.3
What still further contributed to keeping up the illusion
was the startling rupture that broke out between the
humanists and Luther after 1520. The latter wanted people
to think that his work was the continuation and the full
flowering of that of Lefevre and Erasmus. But after the
solemn condemnation of Luther by Leo X in 1520, one of
Lefevre's disciples, Josse van Clichtove, published his Anti-
Luther in 1524. In 1525 Erasmus upheld free-will against
Luther, in a controversy that stirred up the whole of Europe. 4
1 Lefevre. Prefaces to the Psalterium and to the Commentarii initia-
torii in quattuor Evangelia, Meldis, 1522.
2 It was commonly said that Erasmus tried cum elegantia litterarum
fietatis christianae sinceritatem copulare.
3 F. Mourret, ibid., tome V, p. 400.
* Cf. Andre Meyer, Etude critique sur les relations d'Erasme et de
Luther, Paris, 1909. It must, however, be observed that several of the
humanists went over to the Protestant Reformation, and, among others,
Farel, who became an auxiliary of Calvin.
60 Cbrfstfan Spirituality
Thomas More had already written his Vindicatio Henrici
VIII a calumniis Lutheri1 in 1523. Hence humanism tried
to dissociate its cause from that of Protestantism.
Would it have been able to work this real reformation
which was so much desired at the end of the Middle Ages?
It is most unlikely.
True reformation means returning- to the old discipline
after it has been adapted to the new needs. The humanists
well embodied the aspirations of their times, but they despised
the customs of the ages which had gone before them. Their
great weakness was in breaking clean away from the rules
of the hated Middle Ages, in which they could find no good
at all. This romanticism was of use to literature, but its
help to the cause of religion was only indifferent. Bossuet,
the preacher of tradition, speaks of it somewhat disdainfully :
" Indeed there is no one," says he, " who does not want
to laugh as soon as he sees an Erasmus and a (Richard)
Simon, on the strength of their superiority in letters and in
languages, thrusting in to decide between St Jerome and
St Augustine, and to award the prize as they please for the
sound knowledge of sacred things. You would say that it
all depends on the knowledge of Greek, and that to shake
off one's illusions about St Thomas, it is enough to remark
that he lived in a barbarous age ; as if the apostles' style
were highly polished, or as if the fine speaking of Latin made
a man advance in the deeper knowledge of sacred things."2
Another obstacle to true reformation arose from a far too
flattering idea of human nature and its so-called inherent
goodness, which the humanists discovered in their study of
classical antiquity. Their antipathy for Augustinian pes-
simism is easily understood. But between such pessimism
and their optimism there is the mean of St Thomas Aquinas.
If we must not depreciate the nature of fallen man we must
not forget that it is in a state of revolt against divine law
and that it must be held in check. The Christian humanist
does indeed accept mortification, but only in moderation.3
Erasmus considered the austerities of the saints blameworthy.
They did not square with his ideal of the honest Christian
who no doubt mortifies his passions, prays, and submits to
external practices, but never goes beyond the limits of a nice
moderation. Such is not the programme put forward by the
saints who were the great reformers of their own times.
The dilettante is never a real man of action. Erasmus taught
1 H. Bremond, Le Bienheureux Thomas More, p. 95.
2 Defense de la Tradition et des saints Peres, Book III, chap. xx.
3 Erasmus, Colloquia familiaria, Pietas puerilis, Of era, torn. I,
pp. 648-653. This conversation contains a sort of programme for a
young man to follow if he wishes to train himself in the Christian life
as understood by the humanists. Cf. Janssen, II, 19-20.
tmmantet influence 61
piety in his books, but hardly practised it himself. He
"hardly ever said Mass . . . though he was a priest."1
Indeed, he was accused of hearing- it but rarely. Lefevre of
Etaples was more devout, but his work was spoilt by his
individualism. Neither Erasmus nor Lefevre were of the
stuff of which real reformers are made.
II— DEVOUT HUMANISM
Christian humanism is perhaps more closely related to the
history of spirituality by its spirit, which continued, than by
its still considerable influence upon Christian devotion at the
beginning- of the sixteenth century. The humanist spirit,
inclined to think favourably of human nature and to avoid
humiliating it, and not to condemn its inclinations but to
moderate its impulses, this spirit survived in spirituality
and became incarnate in what has been called " devout
humanism," the humanism which we often meet with afresh
in the spirituality of the sixteenth century.
" Devout humanism," says M. Henri Bremond, " applies
to the needs of the interior life, and brings within the reach
of all both the principles and the spirit of Christian
humanism. . . .
" In theology, Christian humanism accepts the theology of
the Church purely and simply. . . . Without neglecting any
of the essential truths of Christianity, it prefers to bring
into the light those that are the most comforting and cheer-
ing, in a word the most human, which it further regards as
the most divine, and, if one may say so, as the most in
accord with infinite goodness. Thus it does not look upon
original sin, but on the Redemption, as the central doctrine.
. . . Thus, too, it does not question the need of grace, but,
far from measuring it out parsimoniously to some of the
predestined, it sees it freely offered to all, more anxious to
reach us than we can be to receive it. . . .
" The humanist does not regard man as contemptible. He
is always and with all his heart on the side of our nature.
Even if he sees it miserable and impotent, he makes excuses
for it, he defends and restores it. With immovable con-
fidence in the fundamental goodness of man, his whole philo-
sophy depends upon these two words."2
1 Janssen, V Allemagne et la Reforme, Vols. VI-X.
2 Histoire littiraire du sentiment religieux en France, Vol. I,
VHumanisme devot, pp. 10, n, 12, Paris 1916. In this volume M.
Bremond studies " the vast movement " of devout humanism " from
the time of the League to the majority of Louis XIV." The Jesuit
Richeome (^625), St Francis de Sales, the Jesuit Etienne Binet (^639),
Jean Pierre Camus, Bishop of Belley, the Capuchin Yves de Paris
(11679), are regarded in it as the principal representatives of such
humanism. We shall meet with several of them again.
62 Gbrtstian Spirituality
Devout humanism is, in fine, the humanism of Erasmus
and Lefevre, but wiser, more orthodox and more sincerely
religious. It does not criticize as much, at any rate, the
clergy and the monks. It is less disdainful of the Middle
Ag-es, and yet hardly succeeds, apparently, in liking them.
It grew side by side with the Reformation, and by its
optimistic estimate of human nature was a permanent protest
against Lutheran Manichaeism. St Francis de Sales smiled
upon such humanism, so that many rightly regard him as the
greatest of the devout humanists.
The Bishop of Geneva showed, at all events, that he could
avoid exaggerations. For devout humanism, as understood
by some, is not altogether above reproach. Did it not
humanize devotion too much? Did it not, of set purpose,
shut its eyes to the imperfections of fallen man? Certain it
is that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, there
was a reaction against it in France, which was afterwards
pushed to extremes by the Jansenists.
CHAPTER IV
PROTESTANT MYSTICISM — THE REACTION WHICH IT
STIMULATED AGAINST SEVERAL MYSTICAL WRITERS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES
PROTESTANTISM is due, at least in part, to the
spiritual crisis in the soul of a monk who broke
his vows.1
Overcome by his passions, Luther asserted that
they were irresistible. According- to him, con-
cupiscence, the effect of man's first fall, is absolutely
invincible ; it is useless to attempt to subjugate it. From
this principle he deduced, with the vigorous dialectics which
he possessed from his Aristotelian training, the whole of his
theological system.
This moral crisis in one man's experience is not enough to
account for the immensity of the religious revolution which
it brought about. It was but the spark which set the huge
fire ablaze, the drop of water which made the vessel over-
flow. If Luther carried away with him in his rebellion such
a great number of the faithful and of monks and priests, it
is because he preached to an audience thoroughly prepared
to listen to him, for many of them were already, though un-
consciously, practising the doctrines which he was bold
enough to propound.
Humanism had accentuated to the highest degree the oppo-
sition between the allurement of the passions and Christian
asceticism. It had stripped the veil from pagan humanity
and elicited new aspirations, a thirst for enjoyment. On the
other hand, it had somewhat discredited traditional asceticism
by its contempt for the Middle Ages and its mordant sarcasms
about the monks. The incongruity between the demands of
nature, intensified by the Renaissance, and the moral restraints
required by Christianity became more and more flagrant and
vexatious to many people. It could not go on much longer.
If only a false prophet were to arise and teach a new gospel,
in which resistance to the passions was not required, his
success was certain.
Such a false prophet was Luther. With a mind richly
1 The causes of Protestantism are numerous and complex. I dwell
upon one of them — Luther's moral crisis — because it has to do with
asceticism. Cf. Denifie, Luther und Luthertum (French translation by
J. Paquier, Paris, 1910-1913, 4 vols.).
63
6 1 Cbrfstian Spirituality
endowed, but a sensualist by nature, Luther strongly felt the
influence of the licentious humanism.1 His doctrine was the
reversal of the traditional Christian asceticism. To the non
concupisces of the Decalogue he opposed his pecca fortiter,2
and he found in an illusory mysticism means of salvation
appropriate to his severe quietism.
I — THE MANICH^EAN QUIETISM OF LUTHER3
AND CALVIN — THEIR CONCEPTION OF THE
SPIRITUAL LIFE, OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST,
AND OF THE RELATION OF THE SOUL WITH
GOD
According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, concu-
piscence is a consequence of original sin and not original
sin itself. It constantly inclines us to evil in all its forms,
but not invincibly. It may be dominated and mastered by
the will with the help of grace. Its impulses do not make
personal sins, unless they are elicited or accepted by the will
which remains the master of its own acts.
Luther, on the contrary, taught that concupiscence is
original sin itself. The spontaneous and totally involuntary
' impulses of concupiscence are actual sins and always grave
sins. And since these impulses are inevitable, man is neces-
sarily a sinner. But God does not impute the sin of con-
cupiscence to those who call upon him and have faith in
t
1 L. Pastor, Histoire des Rapes, I, 31.
2 Esto feccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius crede et gaude in Christo,
qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi. Peccandum est quam diu sic
sumus ; vita haec non est habitatio justitiae. — Enders, Dr. Martin
Luther's Briefwechsel, III, 208.
3 Editions of Luther's Works, Jena, 1556, 4 vols. ; Halle, 1743-1757,
24 vols. ; Erlangen, 1826-1868, 67 vols. ; Weimar, begun in 1883. De
Wette edited Luther's Correspondence, in 6 vols., 1825-1S56, and the
publication was finished in 18S4 by Enders. Ficker published the
Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. See Denifle, Luther und
Luther turn', Paquier's French translation, Paris, 1910-1913; J. Janssen,
Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters,
8 vols., 1876-1894, translated by E. Paris, VAllemagne et la Reforme,
Paris, 1887-1907; Dollinger, Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwicklung
und ihre Wirkungen, 3 vols., 1846-1848, translated by E. Perrot, La
Reforme, son diveloppement intirieur et les resultats quelle a produits,
Paris, 184S-1849; H. Grisar, S.J., Luther, Freiburg im Breisgau,
1911 ff. ; F. Mourret, Histoire gen. de VEglise, Vol. V, pp. 275 ff . ;
Georges Goyau, L Allemagne religieuse, Vol. I ; L. Christiani, Luther
et le Lutheranisme, Paris, 1908.
On Calvin's doctrine: L' Institution chritienne ; the Confession de
foi de Geneve of 1537; the Confession de foi des iglises de France o<
1559. See the Corpus Reformatorum . . . Joannis Calvini opera qua*
supersunt omnia, Brunswick, 1860-1900, torn. IX, XXII ; Diet, dt
thiol, cath., art. Calvini sme.
On Melanchthon, see his works in the Corpus Reformatorum.
Protestant flDvsttcism 65
him and yearn for deliverance. Thus we are sinners, in
fact, and nevertheless justified by faith.1 By faith Christ's
justice is imputed to us, for he has fulfilled the law in our
stead.
Works are radically incapable of curing us of the evil of
concupiscence, since we know from experience that whatever
good we do, concupiscence still remains in us. Further, our
passions are as untamable as Cerberus, as invincible as
Antaeus.2 Free will is dead,3 and man's will is irremediably
subject to his passions.
Thus Adam's fall introduced an evil principle into man's
nature, a predominant and compelling- principle. Fallen man
is doomed to evil. Luther thought that he found this doc-
trine in St Paul and in St Augustine.4
From this Manichaean conception of fallen humanity Luther
deduced his false mysticism. Here are its main principles :
Since the passions cannot be mastered, it is useless to
engage in striving against them :
" Who knows not," says Luther, " that this household
and interior tyrant which abides in our members is no more
under the power of our wills than the bad will of an external
tyrant? And further, thou canst appease the latter by flatter-
ing speeches and bring him to thine own way of thinking ;
1 Luther, Commentary on the Romans, Ficker, II, 107-108 ; Peccatum
autem ipsa passio, fomes et concupisceniia, sive pronitas ad malu?n et
difficultas ad bonum . . . opera peccati (peccata actualia) fructus sunt
hujus peccati. Hoc malum, cum sit revera peccatum, quod Deus re-
mittit per suam non imputationem ex misericordia omnibus, qui ipsum
{peccatum) agnoscunt et confitentur [Deo] et odiunt et ab eo sanari
petunt . . . Sic ergo in nobis sumus peccatores, et tamen reputante
Deo justi per fidem. Cf. Ficker, II, 117, 118. Luther wrote this Com-
mentary in 1515-1516, at the time of his spiritual crisis and defection.
! Commentary on the Romans, Ficker, II, 145 : Hie [fomes peccati~\
Cerberus, latrator incompescibilis et Anthaeus in terra demissus in-
superabilis. Sometimes, with some inconsistency, Luther advises us
to strive against the evil tendencies of our nature. Cf. Grisar, Luther,
I, 86 ff.
3 Liberum arbitrium est mortuum. Opera Lutheri, Weimar, I, 360.
See the treatise, De servo arbitrio, Weimar, XVIII. Despite his funda-
mental theory of the servile will, Luther contradicted himself and
sometimes affirmed the possibility of resisting one's passions. Grisar,
ibid. No doubt these contradictions arose from Luther's fear, which
was the result of the great corruption of morals caused by his gospel.
The same doctrine appears in Calvin's Inst, christ. Book II, chap, i ff.
* On Luther's misuse of certain passages of St Augustine, see Denifie-
Paquier, op. cit., II, pp. 398 ff. ; III, 29 ff. and 271 ff. Luther wrongly
thought that Gerard of Zutphen, who wrote the Tractatus de spirituali-
bus ascensionibus, interpreted the consequences of original sin as he
did (Commentary on the Romans, Ficker, II, 145). Gerard is strongly
influenced by Augustinian pessimism, but falls far short of Luther's
position.
III. K
66 Cbristiau Spirituality
whereas that tyrant within thee thou canst not tame by
fair words nor by the most laborious efforts."1
Thus are man's evil instincts unloosed from all restraint.
The Lutheran doctrine, like that of the medieval Beghards
and, later on, of Molinos, ended, although by different paths,
in the destruction of morality. An unbridled corruption of
morals followed upon the preaching of the new gospel.2
Luther was among the first to give an example of life which
was the reverse of edifying.3 The efforts he made after-
wards, when contradicting himself, by advising men to resist
their passions, proved vain.
Thus the principles of Luther led to a most radical kind
of quietism.
In the work of salvation all human activity had to be got
rid of. There was to be no inward act, such as the act of
repentance of one's sins, in order to return to God. External
acts, such as confession and the reception of the sacraments,
were also useless. Faith was enough. Having faith, the
sinner need do nothing but maintain a purely passive attitude,
and Christ's justice will be imputed to him, and he will be
justified. 4
We need not pray. What is the. use of praying since
man's will is inevitably bound to evil? And so Luther,
though sometimes acknowledging the profitableness of a
certain sort of prayer, does not prescribe any prayer.5 He
even scoffed at having recourse to prayer in temptation. 6
But what the reformer condemned with especial violence
was the monastic profession. According to him, vows are
bad. The vow of chastity was what exasperated him most.
Is it not a resistance, and even a rebellion, against man's
natural instincts, and therefore against divine order?7
Luther and Melanchthon, the better to discredit vows,
particularly attacked "monastic baptism" — i.e., the so-
1 Lutheri opera, Weimar, VIII, 631 ; Denifle-Paquier, I, 173.
2 About 1532 Luther wrote : " Scarce had we begun to preach our
Gospel when a terrible rebellion broke out in the country, schisms and
sects in the Church, and everywhere an utter downfall of honesty,
morality, and good order. . . . Licentiousness and all forms of vice
and filthiness, in every rank of life, are carried on much more to-day
than they ever were under popery." Opera, Halle, V, 114; Dollinger,
Die Reformation, Perrot's translation, I, 291. Cf. Denifle-Paquier, op.
cit. II, 106 ff.
8 From the time of his apostasy, Luther is remarkable for his obscene
conversation and writings. Some passages of his Works are so scanda
lous and outrageous, from the point of view of morals, that the
historians who quote them do not dare to translate them from Latin
into living languages. Cf. Denifle-Paquier, op. cit., I, 30, etc.
4 Commentary on the Romans, Ficker, II, 219, 203; Denifle-Paquier,
III, 262.
6 id., Ficker, II, 206.
8 Opera, Weimar, VIII, 631. Denifle-Paquier, I, 184 ff.
7 De votis monasticis, Lutheri opera, Ienae, 1600, torn. II, p. 510b.
Iprotestant /H>£Sttcfsm 67
called equality claimed by certain Catholic writers, so far
as emcacity is concerned, between the sacrament of Baptism
and the Profession of the religious.1 The writers of the
Middle Ages, however, did not teach this equality.2 Never-
theless, certain propositions might be found here and there,
put forward by monks who were formalists, tending to
lead people to believe that the profession of the religious
worked a man's salvation, even if he did not live according to
its requirements.3 Luther takes unfair advantage of this to
argue that the Middle Ages had corrupted the notion of the
monastic life.
So, too, does Luther sometimes come across gibes in
Catholic writers who had somewhat severely bantered the
formalism of such religious — who were then rather too
common — as did not take pains to live in keeping with the
state of their vocation. He relies on this to affirm that
these writers have decried the religious state and lowered
the importance of the vows. Luther incessantly strives to
connect his theories with the teaching of early writers to give
them a traditional air.4 And how he exaggerates for this
purpose !
If man is incapable of all goodness and if he is in himself
incurably sinful, his justification can only be external to
himself and purely " nominalist."5 He is just because
Christ's justice covers him and hides his spiritual iniquities
from God's sight. But his iniquities remain and are not
destroyed.
The true interior life could not, therefore, exist within
us. According to the Reformers, Christ was no longer the
1 Article XXVII of the Confession of Augsburg.
- Denifie-Paquier, I, 353-354; II, 17 ff. The Fathers of the Church
sometimes called the profession of a monk a second Baptism : Vitae
Patrum (P.L., LXIII, 994); St Jerome, Epist., 39, 3 and 130, 7 (id.,
XXII, 468, 1113); St Peter Damian, Opusc, 16, 8 [id., CXLV, 376);
St Bernard, Sermo XI de diver sis, 3 ; De praecepto et dispens.,
cap. xvii (id., CLXXXIII, 570; CLXXXII, 889). The expression
Second Baptism is grounded on the entire renunciation of the world
implied in the monastic profession. This renews and completes
the renunciation of the devil and the world which is promised at
Baptism. Medieval theologians taught further, that religious profes-
sion might remit all penalties due to sin. St Thomas, 2a 2ae,
Q. clxxxix, art. 3.
s Particularly did Matthew Grabon exaggerate the value of the
religious state, as John Gerson blames him for doing (Gersonii opera
omnia, I, 473 ff.).
1 Thus, in article XXVII of the Confession of Augsburg, the testi-
mony of Gerson is alleged, as if he had depreciated the religious state
in his refutation of Matthew Grabon. Luther liked Gerson.
5 On Luther and Occam, the head of the Nominalists (Weimar, VI,
195), see Denifie-Paquier, III, 191 ff.
68 Cbristian Spirituality
life of our soul ; he is not in us. His Spirit no longer
animates us. All our justice and all of our spiritual life
are outside of us. St Paul's saying-, Christ is my life, has
no meaning in it. When the Protestant mystic practises
recollection and goes into the innermost depths of his soul,
there he finds no God, no virtue, nor any kind of good. This
depth of the soul, this inviolable sanctuary of Catholic mystics
in which they love to take refuge when the tempest of
temptation howls without, this deepest depth of the soul is
always in the Protestant's eyes filled with iniquity. How
then is he to enjoy the inward and sweet delights of a good
conscience? Never before had such a disheartening doctrine
been propounded !
And nevertheless, the Reformers were greedy for consola-
tions. Like the mystics, they felt a great need of sanctifica-
tion and of intimate union with Christ. They wanted to
feel that they were justified and beloved of God. Was not
this thirst for the certainty of his own justification the cause
of Luther's torment in the depths of his cloister at Witten-
berg?1 The acquisition of such certainty became even one of
the chief aims of the revolution which he sought to effect in
the Catholic doctrine of justification.
For, according to Luther, it is by faith that man gets the
assurance of his justification. "It is certain beyond all
certainty that he is pleasing to God, that God is favourable
to him and forgives all the evil that he has done. . . . What,
indeed, were faith, if it were not such a conviction as this?"2
Thus Luther taught the identity of faith and justification.
He claimed to deduce this doctrine from his own mystical
experiences. He thought that he had an experimental know-
ledge of his union with Christ ; he believed that he felt in
his own heart the faith that saves and that he was perfectly
sure that he pleased God. 3
Calvin went still further and declared that we ought to be
certain of our eternal salvation, because sanctifying grace
i '<
Was it not . . . the profound accent, the penetrating charm of the
most kindly German mystics, which inspired Luther's pages when he
wrote of the love of God, describing the happiness of the soul united
with Jesus Christ with the ring of faith as a bride is united with her
bridegroom? (Jurgens, Luther's Leben, Vol. I, p. 577). This feeling
of man's decadence, of his need of sanctification, this conviction that
salvation comes not of works, but only of faith in Jesus Christ ; this
appeal to the interior spirit and to the sole testimony of conscience ;
had they not something strangely powerful and seductive, especially
for those who had serious grievances against the clergy, and were
tempted by a host of national prejudices to turn away from the Roman
Church? . . ." Baudrillart, LEglise catholique, la Renaissance, le
Protestantisme, pp. 128-129.
2 Weimar, V, 395.
3 On this certainty of justification according to Luther, see Denifle-
Paquier, III, 428 ff.
fl>rotestant /iBvstfdsm 69
cannot be lost by those who are predestined. A rigid pre-
destinarianism, antecedent to creation and to the fall,
governs the whole of the Calvinistic system. Amongst man-
kind, some are destined to hell, the others to heaven. The
elect are assured of their own salvation ; they can never lose
their justification : he who is once justified is justified for
ever. The important thing is to believe firmly that we are
justified by the imputation of the merits of Jesus Christ.1
The opposition between these fantastical views of the Re-
formers and true mysticism is plain.
The certainty of salvation was never sought with such
insistence by the medieval mystics.2 They tell us, no doubt,
that at the time of their supernatural union with God, they
feel that the divine is within them beyond any possible
doubt. They would gladly permanently enjoy this sweet
certainty. But thev know that such phenomena are transitory
and intermittent. More often are the mystics liable to experi-
ence interior desolation ; and they sometimes believe that
they are abandoned by God. They are even assailed by an
agonizing fear that they are not saved. No spiritual state,
however perfect and extraordinary it be, carries with it the
certainty, in the strict sense of the word, of salvation. The
mystics, like ordinary mortals, can have no other permanent
and habitual mental condition than that of an entire and
pacifying trust in the mercy of God and in the merits of
Jesus Christ, and in the power and effectiveness of the
sacraments.3
This so-called certainty of salvation, which is the only
spiritual consolation of the Reformers, was also the sole
ground of their devotion to Christ.
What matters it to Luther that there are two natures in
Christ, and that all perfections are found together in him?
The thing that matters, in his eyes, is the fact that Christ
became his Saviour and Redeemer and is delivering him
from his sins.4 Melanchthon, too, says that to know Christ
" means to know his blessings, and not, as [the Scholastics]
assert, to meditate on his natures and the possible modes
1 Cf. Institutio Christiana, Book III, chap, xxi-xxiv.
2 Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, III, 759, appears to
believe that Luther, by his doctrine of the certainty of salvation,
corresponded with the tendencies of the medieval mystics. But he
adds that Luther " has surpassed mysticism." I quite believe it !
See. too, the same writer's Das Monchtum , seine Ideale, seine
Geschichte, Giessen, 1901, in which similar notions are set forth with
regard to the medieval mystics.
8 The doctrine of the Council of Trent, Session VI, chap. ix.
* Erlangen, torn. XXXV, 207 ; LVII, 208. M. L. Christiani quotes
many suggestive passages from Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, etc., in
the review Regnabtt, October-November, 1921 ; January-Februarv, 1922.
70 Christian Spirituality
of his Incarnation."1 Calvin assuaged his spiritual distress
by remembering that Christ's salvation was for the elect :
"It is quite certain," says he, '' that when Christ prayed
for all the elect he asked for them what he had asked for
Peter, that their faith should not fail. Hence, we infer that
they are in no danger of falling mortally : seeing that the
Son of God, having demanded that they should stand firm,
was not refused his request. What did Christ wish to teach
us thereby but the assurance of eternal salvation, since he
has once for all made us his own ?"2
This Protestant religion is as far as possible from being
disinterested. It is egoistic and altogether anthropocentric.
The whole of the plan of redemption is brought down to
man's salvation. Do not ask this kind of mysticism for
acts of pure love. It is incapable of them. To pay to Jesus
the homage of praise and love, to which he is entitled by
his divine perfections, is far from its practice. It could not
lead to heroic virtues.
Protestant mysticism is still more defective when it has to
settle the relations of the soul with God. It does away with
all intermediaries and with all government. It is not for
Church authority to determine our faith nor to estimate
the worth of our religious experiences. The Holy Ghost
is the sole master and teacher of everyone, revealing to him
the meaning of Scripture and inspiring him as to what he
should believe and do. It is exclusively in private inspira-
tion and in direct and immediate communication with God
that the soul finds the nourishment of its spiritual life.
Luther and the Reformers did not shrink from opposing
their assumed revelations to the infallible authority of the
Church.3
They used the names of the Christian humanists and of the
medieval mystics.4 These were accustomed to look for their
1 Loci communes rerum the ologic arum, Praefatio, Christiani, ibid.,
P- 444-
2 Institutio Christiana, Book III, chap, xxiv, 6.
3 Thus Protestant mysticism became illuminism. It showed all its
excesses in the sect of the German Anabaptists in the case of Thomas
Munzer, who started the Peasants' War in 1525.
4 Luther relies above all on the German mystics, on Meister Eckhart
and his disciples, and principally on Tauler. The work entitled
Theologia gertnanica also exercised a great influence over him. Pierre
d'Ailly and Gerson specially pleased Luther, who asserted that he
knew all d'Ailly's works by heart. See the list of German mystics
quoted by Luther in Denifle-Paquier, Vol. I, and in Goyau, V Alle-
magne religieuse. Among these authors are many of little "importance.
Luther also regarded Jerome Savonarola as a forerunner : " Christ
has canonized him," he said, " because he relied upon the meditation
Protestant /n>v?sticfsm 71
leading's, their plans, and their rules of life in their direct
communications with God rather than in the hierarchical
guidance of the Church, and this appears to have exercised
a kind of fascination over Luther's mind. Taking- certain
passages of their works in a literal sense, he inferred that
mysticism is above the laws of the Church :
" Here is a sentence," he says, " well known to the most
distinguished writers, and it has become proverbial in the
Church : ' Whenever a man is fulfilling the precepts of the
Church, if God raises him to a rapture of ecstasy or imparts
to him a special illumination, this man is bound to break off
the work which he has begun and to disobey the Church
It is better to obey God than man.' Writers tell us, indeed,
that when we are reciting the canonical Office, we ought to
turn our attention away from the words we are saying despite
the Church's prohibition, if our soul be touched by some
inward illumination or pious emotion."1
The writers of this " sentence"3 were far from suspecting
the way in which Luther would misuse it. Despite the
extravagance of their utterances, they did not wish to make
a general rule of counsels concerning particular and excep-
tional cases. In the ordinary way, mystics, as well as the
common run of Christians, are subject to the laws of the
Church. But if a rapture seize them and deprive them of the
use of their senses, they are at the time incapable of obeying
anyone else than God.3
Many mystics of the Middle Ages insistently called for
of the Gospel of peace, and not upon vows or hoods, on the Mass, and
on the Rule " (Cesar Cantu, Histoire des Italiens, Vol. VII, p. 255,
French translation, Paris, i860.
1 Resolutiones disputationum de indidgentiarum virtute D. Martini
Lutheri ad Leonem decimum Pontif. Maximum, Conclusio X, LutJieri
opera, Ienae, 1612, torn. I, p. 73a.
2 John Eck, Luther's famous adversary, attributes it to Tauler
(Joannis Eckii, De Purgatorio contra Lutherum, Parisiis, 1548, lib.
Ill, cap. xiii, p. 127). So does Louis de Blois, Apologia pro D. Joanne
Thaulero adversus Joannem Eckium [Opera, Antwerp, 1632, p. 345).
It is found, with a slight difference, in one of Tauler's Sermons (Frank-
fort ed.), Third Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity. Here is
the passage according to Sainte-Foi, II, 236-237 : " He who
observes closely his innermost self and all that occurs within him
either from within or from without ; he who is ready to leave all with
joy for God and to become recollected in his own heart, that man soon
learns all that he ought to do or to leave undone. ... If, then, a
monk or a nun, while singing or reading in choir, felt, by certain signs,
that God was calling him or her to inward recollection, and he or she
were unable to obey the call without stopping work, the work should
be stopped at once, and he or she should follow the inward attraction
and turn entirely to God." F. Vetter's critical edition of Tauler's
Sermons omits this one.
3 Cf. Louis de Blois, ibid. To justify Tauler, Louis de Blois speaks
of St Francis of Assisi. He quotes Henry Harphius recounting certain
facts in the life of St Clare of Assisi.
72 Cbristfan Spirituality
Church reform. They sometimes ventured to communicate
to the highest dignitaries of the hierarchy orders believed
to come from heaven. Their audacities in behalf of reforms
were highly pleasing- to Luther. He borrowed authority
from them to put forward his own proposals. But how
wrongly ! For not a single Catholic mystic ever called for
a change in the faith or in the constitution of the Church,
as the Protestants did. It was the reformation of morals
that they keenly desired.1 Ecclesiastical dogma did not in
any way check the upward soaring of their souls. It rather
verified them, for any private inspiration can only be valid
if it be in harmony therewith. And when the ecstatic mystic
came down from his Sinai and censured the conduct of the
heads of the Church, he bowed to their authority and never
disputed it. This Luther would not understand ; and that
is how his mysticism differs essentially from that of the
Middle Ages. His true forerunners were those, like the
Albigenses, the Vaudois, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit,
John YVycliffe and Huss, who tried to ruin the Church on
the pretext of reforming it.
The Protestant Reformation gives a most important date
in the history of Catholic thought. The Council of Trent
defined all the points of Church doctrine disputed by the
Protestants. But these persisted in their rebellion. Thus
Catholic theology in modern times has been largely a work
of reaction. It had to combat heresy refusing to lay down
its arms. It constantly defines its doctrines in opposition
to Lutheran and Calvinistic errors. An analogous tendency
is manifested in the sphere of spirituality. The faithful have
to be put on their guard against Luther's quietism, and
against illuminism and private inspiration. In this direction,
the reaction, perhaps, went too far. It cast a kind of dis-
credit on the mystics which lasted long.
II— REACTION AGAINST THE MEDIEVAL MYSTICS
UPON WHOM LUTHER RELIED FOR HIS
AUTHORITY
The first to suffer discredit were the medieval mystics whom
Luther loved to quote. The praises ascribed by the here-
siarch to a writer were — as we can easily understand —
singularly compromising. This is easily seen in the cases
of Tauler and, to some extent, of Gerson, to mention two
among others.
Tauler, as well as the author of Theologia germanica,
was the German writer most favoured by the head of the
Reformation :
1 See Bossuet, Histoire des Variations, Book I, i-v.
Iprctcstant flfovstfcfsm 73
" I know that this Doctor (John Tauler)," he says, " is
unknown in the schools of the theologians, and, therefore,
perhaps contemptible. But for my own part, though he
wrote nothing- but (ierman, I found in him more of solid and
pure theology than has been found in all the scholastic-
doctors of all the universities, or than can be found in all
their sentences."1
It is in his dissertations on Purgatory that Luther awards
this extraordinary praise to Tauler. He thought he had
found a confirmation of his doctrine in the accounts of
visions of Purgatory or in the appearances of souls suffering
in it, with which the famous preacher embellished his
sermons. 2
But what delighted him still more was the tendency which
he thought he found in Tauler's writings to diminish the
importance of works and of spiritual exercises, and to liberate
the Christian's interior life, and especially the devotion of
the religious, from all external rules. 3
It is easy to understand the vexation of Luther's adver-
saries when he quoted against them in his controversies the
authority of Catholic writers. Would it not be the quickest
way, they thought, to fling overboard these troublesome
people?
One of the first and of the most redoubtable of Luther's
antagonists was John van Eck,4 and he undertook " to put
an end " to Tauler in his treatise De Purgatorio contra
Lutherum. I quote a part of the passage which is a strange
one. Though we must not take this violent accusation quite
literally, it is an example of the passionate tone of the dis-
cussions of those times, of what has been called the Rabies
theologorum of that period :
" Luther," he says, " in support of his opinion [on Pur-
gatory] quotes Tauler, his dreamer of dreams (somniatorem
1 Hunc dociorem [Taulerum] scio quidem ignotum esse in scholis
theologorum , ideoque forte contemftibilem. Sed ego -plus in eo {licet
totus Germanorum vernacula sit conscri plus) re-peri theologiae solidae
et sincerae quain in universis omnium universitatum scholasticis
doctoribus repertum est, aut reperiri possit in suis sententiis. Resolu-
tiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute (Conclusio XV, Opera,
Iense, tom. I, p. 76a).
2 Luther deals with Purgatory with reference to indulgences in the
Resolutiones, Conclusio VIII to XXIX. He gives Tauler as his
authority, especially in Conclusio XV and XXIX. Luther also relies
upon the opinion of Dionysius the Carthusian, according to which
there are souls in Purgatory uncertain of their salvation (Conclusio
XIX, p. 79b).
3 In Tauler's Sermons may be found a few phrases, which may easdy
mislead us if they are taken out of their context. Cf. Vetter, pp. 56 ff.,
68, 155, 181 ff. But Tauler never taught what Luther attributes to him.
4 Born in 14S6, was a professor and then Chancellor of the University
of Ingolstadt. In 1519 he carried on a public controversy with Carlo-
stadt and Luther. Cf. Janssen, op. cit., I, 110-111 ; VII, 544-552.
74 Cbristfan Spirituality
suum). We shall refute him easily, because this writer has
indulged in the errors of the Waldensians and the Beghards1
enumerated in the Clementines (lib. V, tit. Ill, De haereticis,
c. 3). That he was infected by these condemned heresies
is plain, and further we shall prove it. As to Luther's
opinion of Tauler . . . whom he prefers to all the doctors
of all the universities, it shows such shameless arrogance,
such degrading presumption, and such blind jealousy that
it clearly proves one thing only : what a man this Luther
is, so humble, so patient, and so modest that he sets this
dreamer of dreams above all the lights of the Church and all
the most illustrious Fathers. Doubtless it was not enough
to be satisfied with putting them before others, but to make
his madness appear still more conspicuous, he declares that
in Tauler there is more sound theology than can be found,
and even — O climax of pride ! — than could possibly be found,
in all the doctors of Scholasticism !"
Can Luther speak thus, continues John van Eck? Tauler
wrote but little. All his Sermons do not make as big a book
as the first one of the Sentences of Peter Lombard. More-
over, he is an unknown writer, and he is set above the
Pleiad of theologians who have illustrated the Church !
" After all, would to God that he were entirely in the shade
and that he had done no harm to the monasteries ! For (by
his mystical teaching) he destroys all rule and all religious
discipline and obedience itself, the pearl of price among the
virtues. Without obedience, what were monasteries but the
training schools of the devil?"
Had not Tauler said, in fact, that those religious " whom
God called to interior recollection " should follow their attrac-
tion and leave off the works prescribed by obedience? His
teaching, doubtless ill understood, had created disturbance
in some communities, but it above all filled Luther with
enthusiasm.2
This passionate harangue — need we say it? — oversteps
1 This improbable accusation appears to have been made against
Tauler before Luther was born. Cf. J. van Eck, De Purgatorio contra
Lutherum, Parisiis, 1548, lib. Ill, pp. 125-128. Eck blames Tauler for
having approved of this Beghard error condemned by the Council of
Vienne in 131 1 (Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des conciles, Vol. VI, 682) :
" At the elevation of the Body of Christ, people should not rise nor
show any special veneration, for it would be an imperfection to come
down from the heights of contemplation to think of the sacrament of
the Eucharist." We cannot tell what gave rise to this charge. We
must note that there was then no critical edition of Tauler's Works.
Writings were attributed to him of which he was not the author. That,
too, may have occurred in the case of Luther himself.
2 De Purgatorio contra Lutherum, lib. Ill, cap. xiii, pp. 125-128.
John van Eck also wrote a Commentary on Dionysius the Areopagite,
Commentarii in mysticam theologiam S. Dionysii Areo-p., Augsburg,
Protestant flD^sticism 75
propriety. The fiery controversialist's excuse lies in his
desire to defend the Church and to overthrow Luther's im-
posture. Besides, who calculates his blows in the thick of
the battle? Tauler had the misfortune of winning- Luther's
appreciation. John van Eck, and others as well as he,
hence inferred that he bordered upon heresy. It was part
of the destiny of this great mystic to be the butt of contra-
diction, and all the more so because he was credited with
writings which never came from his pen.
However exaggerated they were, Eck's attacks upon
Tauler were not without effect. They so far discredited
Tauler's books, says Louis de Blois, that they are no longer
read.1 The truth urgently needed to be re-established. The
Abbot of Liessies undertook the work.
He personally esteemed Tauler greatly. He drew his
inspiration from Tauler frequently in his own works. His
famous Institutio spiritualis in many passages is a faithful
echo of Tauler's teaching. In the first appendix of this
treatise, Louis de Blois has gathered together the principal
texts made use of for the purpose of documentary justifica-
tion. Those from Tauler are the most numerous.2 No one
was more concerned for the good reputation of the Rhenish
mystic than the Abbot of Liessies. He thus felt it necessary,
when he sent the Institutio spiritualis to his friend Florentius
du Mont in 1 55 1, to add to it an Apology for Tauler, which
he had written just when Eck published his De Purgatorio.3
Louis de Blois acknowledges the good faith of Eck, " the
venerable theologian and invincible defender of the Catholic
faith." His intention is excellent:
" Although he has condemned Tauler thoughtlessly and
without examining him closely enough, we must not, there-
fore, think that he has acted wickedly. The consuming zeal
against the heresiarch Luther, which carried him away, led
him, as may be easily understood, to express a precipitate
and unjust judgement about Tauler, a very holy man."4
1 Cum intellexissem plerosque a lectione librorum D. loannis Thauleri
deterreri verbis loannis Eckii, operae pretium duxi paucis refellere ea
quae in ipsum Thaulerum minus considerate scribit Eckius. — Ludovici
Blosii Institutions spiritualis appendix quarta sive Apologia pro
D. loanne T hauler 0 adversus D. Ioannem Eckium, cap. i, Opera L.
Blosii, Antwerp, 1632, p. 344.
2 Letter to Florentius du Mont, Preface of the Apologia, p. 344. See
pp. 329-336 for this Appendix prima desumpta ex libris D. loannis
Thauleri aliorumque patrum.
3 Louis de Blois wrote the Institutio in the first instance for his
own personal use some time before 1551, the year in which he sent it
to Florentius [Epistola ad Florentium, at the beginning of the treatise,
Opera, p. 287). Eck published his treatise De Purgatorio about 1530.
It was between 1530 and 1550 that Louis de Blois wrote the Apologia.
It makes the fourth appendix of the Institutio.
* Apologia, cap. vi, p. 352.
76 Gbrtettan Spirituality
Except in intention, Eck's criticisms are altogether mis-
taken. Tauler, a most Catholic writer, is charged with
heresy without proof. It is true that Luther praised him
and claimed him in support of his authority. What is strange
in all this? Did he not do the same with St Paul and with
the great writers of the Church? To assert that Tauler
wanted to withdraw the devout from the laws of the Church
is a fearful calumny. Merely to read the Sermons is to be
convinced of that. How can anyone discover the errors of
the Beghards in his books, when one of his most famous
Sermons is full of thunder against them?1
This Apologia did not altogether justify Tauler. Neither
Laurentius Surius2 nor Bellarmine succeeded in dissipating
the prejudices against him which widely lingered on. The
rapid growth of Protestantism was not calculated to help
them. How, they thought, could anyone put confidence in
a mystic who has expressed himself in such a way that heresy
can rely on him for support? Thus Tauler continued to be a
disputed writer. Bossuet held him to be " one of the soundest
and most right of mystics."3 The opinion of Suarez, on the
other hand, was that, " as this writer does not speak with
scholastic precision and subtlety, but in mystical language,
we cannot build any strong foundation on his words when we
would comply with his authority."4
Gerson met with much the same fate. However, his
Gallicism did him as much injury as the favours of Luther.
The latter showed more appreciation for the theologian in
him than for the mystic, and this he also did in the case of
Pierre d'Ailly.5 Gerson's spiritual doctrine is just the opposite
of quietism. What could the head of the Reformation find
in it in support of his teaching of the absolute passivity of
man in the work of his own sanctification?
In the conference which he had in 15 12, at the beginning of
his apostasy, with Cardinal Cajetan, Luther relied upon the
prestige of Gerson to maintain that " the authority of popes
1 Apologia, cap. i-iv. To reply to Eck's accusations, Louis of Blois
refers to Tauler's Sermons and to the Institutions, then regarded as
authentic. We know that the Institutions are not by Tauler. The
Sermons referred to Louis of Blois are : The Second Sermon for the
First Sunday in Lent against the Beghards ; the Sermon for the
Eleventh Sunday after Trinity; the two Second Sermons for the Third
and Fourth Sundays in Lent; and the First Sermon for the Third
Sunday after Trinity on the religious life; the First Sermon for the
Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. They are not all in Vetter's edition.
* Preface to his translation of Tauler's Works.
3 Instruction sur les etats d"1 oraison , Book I, iii.
* De virtute Religionis, Tract. Quartus, lib. II, cap. xii, n. 17.
6 The Occamist errors of Peter d'Ailly had already discredited him
before the appearance of Luther's writings.
Protestant Abgstfcfsm 77
... is subject to the veto of councils."1 He also alleged his
testimony, as being- favourable to himself, with regard to
indulgences. 2
But it was above all in controversies as to the monastic
state that the Protestants made a misleading use of the
writings of Gerson. One of their principal points is to put
the state of the layman in the same rank as that of the
religious, since monastic vows were null in strict right. Now
it was in the very year 1418, at the Council of Constance,
that the Chancellor of Paris must have got Matthew Grabon
condemned for exalting the religious life beyond measure.
According to him, the laity could not follow the evangelical
counsels, nor make vows, nor practise poverty, chastity, and
obedience without entering into one of the existing religious
Orders which had been approved by the Church. Any work
of perfection they sought to do while living in the world
would be without merit, and even gravely unlawful. For
man cannot do such works, which are only " of counsel,"
unless he is in a state of perfection — i.e., in a canonical
religious Order ! 3
Gerson rightly rose in indignation against such enormities.
All, even the laity, can practise at least some of the evan-
gelical counsels. It is not at all necessary to belong to a
religious Order. In all conditions men can tend towards
perfection.
" For the religious Orders, created by men," he adds,
" are called improperly enough and by an abuse of language
and somewhat pretentiously, states of perfection. Yes,
indeed, because there are in them, as everyone knows, people
far from perfect among the professed. . . . And this
proves that the said expression is very badly chosen, that,
according to those who have lately made use of it following
holy doctors, it does not mean that the religious possess or
have acquired perfection, like prelates, but only that they
ought to acquire it. It is clear that perfection to be acquired
is a very different thing from perfection that has been already
acquired. Furthermore, religious profession would be better
named if it were called the way and the means of perfection
or the habit of tending thereto rather than the state of per-
fection. And verily, if the religious state leads and helps a
certain number of people to practise the Christian religion in
a more perfect manner, it turns aside and ruins many others
1 Pallavicini, Histoire du Concile de Trente, Book I, chap. ix.
2 Resolutiones dis-put. de indulg. Conclusio VIII. According to
Luther, Gerson had condemned indulgentias titulo multorum annorum
donatas. See Concl. XI and XXXVIII.
* See Matthew Grabon's erroneous propositions, Gersonii opera, 473.
There are thirty-six, quarum aliae sunt haereticae, aliae erroneae et
aliae scandalosae ac piarum aurium offensivae, p. 474.
78 Cbrtstlan Spirituality
who would have gained their salvation much better in the
world. For, an unfaithful and foolish promise displeaseth
God (Eccles. v, 3), a promise rashly made and not kept."1
Gerson's notion is certainly rig"ht. His way of putting it
would have doubtless been very different in a treatise on the
religious state which had nothing to do with polemics. Since
Matthew Grabon extolled the religious life beyond measure,
was it not necessary to bring it down enough to set it in its
true place? To put a thing in its proper place is not to
depreciate it. The Reformers, misunderstanding Gerson's
mind, claimed this passage as an argument in their favour.
Article XXVII of the famous Confession of Augsburg,2 which
is a bitter criticism of the religious state, ends thus :
" Lately Gerson has blamed the error of the monks as to
the nature of perfection [which could not be practised outside
the cloister] and he testifies that, in his time, it was a novelty
to call the monastic life a state of perfection."
This abuse of Gerson's authority does not appear to have
much impressed the Fathers of the Council of Trent.3 Still,
his memory suffered from it afterwards. His cultus, which
was so popular at Lyons in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries,4 completely died out later on. Were not the Pro-
testant controversies with which his name was so often mixed
up at least partly responsible for it?
As for the Theologia germanica (Theologia deutsch) it
was suspect from the day of its appearance. Written in
the fourteenth century by an unknown hand, apparently of
the school of Meister Eckhart, it was published by Luther
in 1516, and republished by him in 1518 with a fuller text.5
Revealing dubious tendencies, the Theologia germanica gave
immense pleasure to the head of the Reformation.
" I declare," says he in his Preface to the second edition,
" that I have not found any book, except the Bible and St
Augustine, which has taught me more of the meaning of
God, Christ, man, and everything."6
1 Opera, I, 568.
2 It is the work of Melanchthon, and was approved by Luther.
3 They speak of him with respect, and attach much importance to
his opinions. Cf. Pallavicini, op. cit., Book VIII, chap, xix ; XII,
chap, xi ; XVII, chap, xii, etc.
* Amongst others, see the account of the miracles wrought at Gerson's
tomb, given by Etienne Verney, chaplain at St Paul of Lyons (Opera
by Elie Dupin, torn. I, pp. clxxxviii ff.). See Canon Giraud's article,
Bulletin historique du diocese de Lyon, July-October, 1923.
6 New editions and translations were numerous. Sebastian Castel-
lion's French translation of 1558 was put on the Index in 1608. On
the Theologia germanica see the Etude sur la Theologie germanique,
by tylaria Windstosser, Paris, 1911.
6 Windstosser, p. 129. In spite of Protestantism, Germany and the
Low Countries produced some Catholic spiritual writers : John of
Staupitz, Augustinian, Luther's Provincial, De amore Dei, Frankfort,
Protestant Mysticism 79
This shows us how much he drew from this system of
theology. It also shows us why Catholic orthodoxy felt such
repulsion for it.
1524; John Tritheim, O.S.B., Abbot of Spannheim (ti5i6), De triplici
regione claustralium Opera, Mainz, 1605. Margarita evangelica and
Tern-plum animae, by an unknown writer, published by Nicholas
Eschius, priest (ti573), at Antwerp in 1539 and 1563. Francis Ver-
voort, Chlamys sponsi sive de interna imitatione vitae et crucis Christi ,
Antwerp, 1563; Adrian Adriaensens, S.J., De divinis inspirationibus
opusculum, Coloniae, 1601 ; Bernardine Rosignolo, S.J., De disciplina
christianae perfectionis pro triplici hominum statu, Ingolstadt, 1600;
Francis Amelry, Carmelite, Dialogus de amante anima ad sponsi sui
cognitionem perducta, Coloniae, 1605; Hugo Roth, S.J., Via regia
virtutis et vitae spiritualis, Munich, 1689 ; John James Graft, Speculum
theologiae mysticae, Strassburg, 1618.
,;,-,
CHAPTER V
THE SPANISH SCHOOL BEFORE ST TERESA
THE discredit that befell mysticism in consequence
of Protestant heresy appears especially in Spain,
above all in the first two thirds of the sixteenth
century.
The sixteenth century marks the apogee of
Spain. After the final expulsion of the Moors in 1492, Spain
attained and kept the political supremacy of Europe during
the reigns of Charles V and Philip II. She produced a Pleiad
of theologians, several of whom gave lustre to the Council
of Trent. In literature she had Cervantes ; in mysticism, St
Teresa and St John of the Cross.
The Catholic life of Spain, prosperous as it was, was never-
theless disturbed during the whole of the sixteenth century
with the dread of Protestant heresy and by the false mysticism
of the Alumbrados or Illuminati. The rigours of the Inquisi-
tion had to be let loose, and its labours were assisted by
Philip II. His part, which in some ways may be thought
marred by excesses, really resulted in maintaining orthodoxy
in Spain.1 But it so far hindered the growth of mystical
theology that the history of Spanish spirituality during this
period is partly bound up with that of the Inquisition.
It is well for the knowledge of this Spanish illuminism,
against which the Inquisition had to fight so hard, to recall
the philosophical tendencies and the religious doctrines of
medieval Spain.
I— ARABIAN-SPANISH MYSTICISM IN THE MIDDLE
AGES— THE FRANCISCAN RAYMOND LULL
The Iberian peninsula, except a small portion in the north-
east, was subject to the Moors for several centuries.
Cordova, the Arabian capital until 1236, became a powerful
intellectual centre under the Omayyad dynasty in the tenth
century. There they studied Aristotle. Arabian writings
from the East flooded it. The reaction of Eastern Islam in
the eleventh century against the introduction of Greek phil-
1 On the Inquisition, see F. Mourret, Histoire gin ir ale de V£glise,
Vol. V, pp. 511 ff., which contains a bibliography. Alfred Baudrillart,
L'Eglise catholique, la Renaissance, le Protestantisme, chap, vii, Paris,
1905, pp. 239 ff.
80
JiSefore St TTeresa 81
osophy into the religion of Spanish Mohammedanism but im-
perfectly checked this great scientific movement. Cordova
gave birth in 1126 to the most eminent Arabian philosopher
of Musulman Spain, Averroes (finjS), whose name and
teaching fill so large a space in the European theological
schools of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance.
The Arabian-Spanish philosophical system is called Aver-
roism, after the name of its last and most famous exponent.
It also constitutes a theology and even an ascetico-mystical
theology.
The end proposed to itself by this Arabian mysticism is
union with God by means of speculation or contemplation.
Aristotle had let it be understood that the life of the mind,
the life of thought, brings us into touch with God and makes
us participate in his felicity. The Arabian philosophers give
a definite shape to these mystical notions by their great theory
of the oneness of the intellect. The act of knowledge occurs,
according to them, by the co-operation of the passive or
subjective intellect with the active or objective intellect. The
first is a faculty of the soul ; it is something individual. The
other is one and universal, something divine. The active
intellect alone is immortal and absolute, and in fine its
attributes are really proper to God alone.
In order to think, man must set his passive intellect, which
is his capacity for receiving the light, over against that sort
of divine sun, which is the active intellect. The sole raison
d'etre of the passive intellect is to be united with the active
intellect to produce thought, " just as matter calls for form
to produce a material being." The union of the soul with
the active universal intellect may even become a kind of
identification. The soul is then like God. It attains its end,
its perfection.1
The Arabian-Spanish school was very taken up with this
union, the unique, real, and true fruit of our earthly life. The
great means of securing it is study, speculation. It is by
this that man becomes identified with the active intellect.
Thus reflection and meditation have a preponderant place
in Arabian mysticism.
But as a rule external means and ascetical exercises must
be added to them. The Arabian writer who has described
them most fully is Ghazali or Algazel (jiiii). From the
1 On this mysticism, see Avicenna (Ibn-Sina) in Roger Bacon, Opus
majus, ed. Jebb, London, 1733 ; Alfarabi (t95o), in Munk, Melanges de
fhilosophie juive et arabe, Paris, 1S59, pp. 341 ff ; Algazali or Algazel
(t 1 in), in Munk, ibid., pp. 372 ff. ; Carra de Vaux, Gazali, Paris, 1902 ;
Asin Palacios, La Mystique d'Al-Gazzdli , Beyrouth, 1914; Avempace
j (Ibn-Babja, t about 1138), in Munk, pp. 3S8 ff ; Averroes (tugS), in
E. Renan, Averroes et I Averroisme, 2nd ed., Paris, 1861, pp. 88 ff.
! Not all of these Arabian philosophers lived in Spain, but their works
were widely read in that country.
in. 6
82 Christian Spirituality
philosopher that he was, Ghazali turned ascetic and lived as
a hermit. While he taught philosophy at Baghdad and at
Alexandria, he felt the vanity of the various philosophical
systems of his day. For him philosophy is a deceptive
science, which must be destroyed. In desperation he em-
braced mysticism.
His ascetico-mystical system appears to owe much to the
Christian spirituality of the monks of the East.1 Ghazali,
born in Persia, was able to study it at leisure. Thus Musul-
man Spain through the Arabs came to know the spiritual
teaching of the East in the same way as she received from
them the works of Aristotle.
Ghazali makes his " devotee " go through the way of per-
fection in seven steps or stages. The first — as might be
expected — is the step of knowledge, of rational speculation.
The others are : repentance, victory over the hindrances scat-
tered in our way — these are the world, bad examples, the
devil, and concupiscence ; the breaking of the shackles on
our progress towards perfection ; the use of the stimulants of
hope and fear; purity of intention and the recollection of
divine blessings in order to avoid hypocrisy and vanity ; the
seventh, and last, is the step of praise and thanksgiving to
God. Ghazali intersperses his ascetic remarks with very
practical and psychological counsels to help the " devotee "
in his ascent toward the highest perfection. As we read him
we often wonder to whom we are listening : Ghazali, the dis-
ciple of the Koran, or the Christian ascetics, to whom he
owes his inspiration. But beneath this seemingly orthodox
spirituality lurks a mysticism impregnated with pantheism.
Besides, Arabian mysticism was not altogether protected
from illuminism and the religious extravagances of oriental
Islamism.
The brilliant works of the Arabian philosophers must have
been in their way widely seductive to their readers. The
Spanish mind had already been predisposed from the fourth
century by Priscillianism towards the exaltation of a mystical
sentimentalism. The Catalan Raymond Lull2 (11315), who
well understood the dangers of the Arabian literature for the
1 M. Asin Palacios sums it up in an analysis of the little book entitled
Minhadj, by Ghazali, in the Revue d'ascetique et de mystique, July,
1923, pp. 275 ff., October, 1923, pp. 345 ff.
2 Acta Sanctorum, June, torn. V, pp. 668 ff. Blessed Raymond Lull
was born in 1232 at Palma in Majorca, which had been recently won
from the Moors by James I of Aragon. He became a Franciscan, and
died a martyr at Bougie (Algeria) in 1315. His chief mystical work is
the mystical romance, Blanquerna, in which are found the Art of Con-
templation and the Book of the Lover and the Beloved. Cf. Marius
Andre, Le bienheureux Raymond Lulle, 2nd ed., Paris, 1900.
before St Teresa 83
faithful, would have had the reading of it entirely prohibited.
Weak minds allowed themselves to be easily upset bv the
many errors it contained. Thus, the fiery Franciscan under-
took a spiritual crusade against Islam. He desired to destroy
it with the weapons of Catholic knowledge.
But error can only be destroyed by putting the truth in its
place. Efficiently to combat Arabian spirituality, Ravmond
countered it with Christian spirituality. And to do this suc-
cessfully he set forth the latter under the guise of a mystical
romance.
This style of literature was much liked by the Arabs. A
contemporary of Averroes, Ibn-Tufail, called Abubacer bv
the scholastics, had written a philosophico-mystical romance.1
In it man's faculties are personified, and they attain to union
with God by their own ingenuity. This novel, written in
Catalan, achieved an immense success, and was translated
into several languages.
Raymond Lull tells us that he modelled himself on an
Arabian work when he wrote his mystical novel, Blanquerna,2
and thus he explains to us its apparently rather strange and
disconcerting aspect. " A true romance of contemporary-
manners . . . but a romance of religious manners and a
didactic romance, a novel with a purpose, in which the
mystical philosopher reveals his ideas as to the reformation
of the Christian world and the conversion of the infidels ; and
he gives a rule of life for five conditions of people : the
married, the religious, the prelates, apostolic lordship, and
the contemplative life."3
It is this fifth part that contains the Art of Contemplation
and the Book of the Lover and the Beloz-ed, Lull's strictlv
mystical works.
The Arabs are given to meditation. Then, as now, thev
loved silent reflection. In this they found the great means
of becoming united with the universal active intellect. Rav-
mond Lull well understood the Arab mind and thus explains
how the hero of Blanquerna became a hermit and contem-
plated the Christian virtues and the attributes of God. In
the Art of Contemplation he teaches us how to set in motion
the powers of the memory, the understanding, and the will,
and to apply them to the consideration of God and his virtues.4
These faculties of the soul intervene somewhat like the
1 Philosofhus autodidactus, Pocoke's ed., 1671.
: Critical ed., bv Salvador Galmes, Palma. 1014. See E. Etchegoven,
Melanges d'Histoire et d'Archeologie de VEcole de Rome, Vol.
XXXVIII, pp. 19S-211 : Probst, in the Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Phil.
des Mitielalters, XIII. 2 -;. Minister, 1914 : J. Rosello, Obras de Ramon
Lull, Palmo, 5 vols. ; Marius, Andre, L'Ami et lAime, Paris, 1921.
3 Marius Andre, L'Arr-.i et VAime, p. xvii.
1 We find an analogous procedure in the Ignatian method of medita-
tion according to the three powers of the soul.
84 Christian Spirituality
characters in a novel ; each plays a given part and co-operates
in the final result, which is union with God. Lull loved this
kind of personification. In his great philosophical treatise,
The General Art, does he not replace the metaphysical cate-
gories with personified abstractions?
The method of contemplation once given, he had to find
the subject for contemplation. Lull remembered that the
Arabs greatly relished short moral sentences of a somewhat
enigmatical character, on which they concentrated their atten-
tion during the day. He, too, therefore puts forth a col-
lection of three hundred and sixty-five sentences — one for
each day of the year — on the love which joins the creature
to Christ. This is the Book of the Lover and the Beloved.
Each sentence, made of one or two phrases, conceals a hidden
meaning, a symbol to be detected and a lesson sometimes
profound.1 The hymns of the Lover and the Beloved, as Lull
himself tells us, are condensed parables which require an ex-
planation and a commentary.
Raymond Lull's efforts to combat Arabian mysticism are
the best proof of its powers of penetration. It spread through
Europe with Averroism. We know that in the fourteenth
century it gave its inspiration to the Brothers and Sisters of
the Free Spirit, and to the heterodox Beghards. Gerson
blamed the German mystics for not keeping sufficiently clear
of it.2
But it was Spain that was chiefly threatened by this
debased mysticism. Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella of
Castile in the fifteenth century finally destroyed the political
power of the Moors in the peninsula. But they did not do
away with their intellectual prestige to the same extent.
The eminent Franciscan Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros
(11517) tried to give a great splendour to Spanish Catholic
thought in order to neutralize the fascination exercised by
the Arabian learning. At Alcala in 1409 he founded a univer-
sity which, with its elder sister of Salamanca,3 was to make
Spain, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the land of
the most famous theologians. He also had published4 in Cas-
1 " The ways followed by the Lover in search of the Beloved are
long and perilous, full of considerations, sighs and tears, and illumined
with love " (Second Sentence). " The Lover was asked what was
happiness, and answered : It is the unhappiness borne by love " (Sixty-
fifth Sentence, E. Etchegoyen, ibid.).
2 Gersonii of era, torn. Ill, pp. 1124-1125, Antwerp, 1706.
3 The University of Salamanca was founded in 1259.
4 He published in Castilian, amongst others, the Contemftus mundi
(the Imitatio Christi) attributed to Gerson, the Scala of St John
Climacus, the Life of Christ by Ludolph the Carthusian, the Letters
of St Catherine of Siena, the Stimulus amoris of St Bonaventure, the
Moralia in Job of St Gregory the Great, the Letters of St Jerome, the
Legenda or Flos sanctorum of Jacobus de Voragine.
Before St Ccre-a -f
tilian and in Latin foreign works of spirituality, anticipating
any works which might be written in Spanish- His relation,
the Abbot of Montserrat, also endeavoured to procure such
works lor his monks, and began to write himself. At the
end of the fifteenth century there was a great effort in Spain
to propagate Catholic spirituality. In spite of this, the old
pseudo-mystical leaven was not got rid of. Towards the
end of the Middle Ages it had acquired an increase of activity
from the immoral quietism of the Albigenses and the Beg-
hards.; Hence the Spanish mind had a predisposition
towards false mysticism which led to the outbreak of the
heresy of the Alumbrados.
II— THE •• ALUMBRADOS " OR " ILLUMIXATI -
It was particularly from the year 1509 that the sect of the
Alumbrados began to be talked of in Andalusia. It had
not then any definite or singular doctrine. its adherents
were taught sentences, and were a _ - -.- i to take up practices
which led to quietism and stimulated ex; emotionalism.
The extravagance and the immortality of the old Islamic
superstitions were reproduced among these IUuminati, whose
excesses attracted the attention of the inquisitor s. The
heads of the sect, who were sometimes renegade religious,
seduced and corrupted a great number of women. Before
the death of Cardinal Ximenes, a Franciscan of the province
of Castile was charged with accusations on this ground.
Toledo, Seville, and particularly Lierena in Estremadura,
:erienced abominations of this kind. The Alumbrados
also had their thaumaturgists, impostors who deceived many
of the faithful. Th re believed to be favoured
ecsl - vi 5 ions, and stigmata.
The faithful ran extreme danger of perversion. The
Spanish temperament is inclined towards mysticism, and the
religious ignorance of the people was so great ! Moreover,
the Inquisition pursued the Alumbrados unremirtingi
out being able to get rid of them. It published edicts against
them in 1568, 1574, and in 1623. This final e diet summed up
: The Al'rizerses :r -±e ::::::; ::' Le-:r. tie Berrari; :r_ lara'-cna
a-f in tie iizrirz ~::a. "zai ~?.ie their ravaees
3 Menendez y Pdayo, Historic, de las Heterdoxos EsfamoUs,
Madrid, iS5 II: Rinaldi, Annates ecclesiastic* _ ad ami _:•■--
Llorente-PeHier, Histoire critique de FInquisition d'Esfagne, French
translation. Paris. 1S1S, VoL II, pp. 3-4; VoL III, pp. 102-126; VoL IV,
pp. : - Ribadeneira, I'ida del Padre Ignaeio de Loyola, Book I,
chap. 14. 16 ; Book II, a 14, 29. Fermin CaUero, Yida de Melekior
Cano, Madrid, :;- ■ •-- I i. : : ■_
Conderc's translation, Paris, chap, xxxiii; Die:. ? Histoire. it de
Geografkie eccl., art. Alumbrados, Par is, 19133 R. Hrrraer:. Sainte
Tercse, icrivain, Paris, 1922, pp. 66-67; 297-302,
86 Cbristtan Spirituality
the doctrines of the false mystics in thirty-five propositions,1
and these enable us to form a fairly accurate notion of
them.
There is no difficulty in discovering traces of Protestant
teaching- in them. From 1524 the Lutherans disseminated
their books in Spain, and, despite the vigilance of the Inquisi-
tors, they found a good many readers.2 The leaders of the
Reformation thought they could easily make use of the
Alumbrados to spread their errors throughout the peninsula.
In fact, the false mystics taught that " the intercession of
the saints was a vain thing," and that the veneration of their
images was useless. Their ideas of Purgatory and of the
Eucharist were like those of the Protestants.
Their quietism reminds us of that of Meister Eckhart and
his school. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the
German mystics were known in Spain. Juan de Valdes, the
theologian of the Alumbrados, drew inspiration from them
in his Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations ;3 but he is far
more indebted to pantheistic Neo-Platonist writers.
Like Plotinus, these false mystics thought that man's soul,
having reached a certain degree of perfection, was then able,
even in this life, to see the divine essence directly. This
vision of God once obtained continues perpetually in us or is
reproduced at will. In such pure contemplation the soul
loses its personality, and is annihilated in the infinite essence.
Its powers are reduced to nothing. The Christian in such
a state of perfection can neither advance nor fall away ;
" grace so inundates his powers that it is impossible for him
to go backwards or forwards." Further, "the perfect need
not make any acts of virtue." Thus, works are useless, as
well as all external acts of religion, such as attending Mass
and hearing sermons. The inevitable consequence of such
quietism was a corruption of morals. Michael Molinos, in
the sixteenth century, revived all these doctrines and ended
in the like immorality.
The error which is characteristic of the Alumbrados, and
reveals traces of Arabian mysticism, has to do with mental
prayer, the importance of which is exaggerated. " Mental
prayer," said the sectarians, " is divinely commanded, and
by fulfilling this command we discharge all our duties." It
is by contemplation that the vision of the divine essence is
attained, and even thereby does the soul become united with
the universal active intelligence. All that hinders prayer
1 It was Cardinal Andrew Pacheco who drew up this list of thirty-
five propositions and had it read in all the churches of Seville.
3 Hoornaert, Sainte Terese icrivain, pp. 61-62; Lea, A History of
the Inquisition of Spain, New York, 1906- 1907.
3 Hoornaert, p. 69.
Before St tteresa 87
must be ruthlessly set aside, even the consideration of Christ's
humanity or obedience to one's superiors. For " the servants
of God should not obey superiors in anything which might
disturb contemplation." Here we recognize the famous
counsel attributed to Tauler, about which Luther made such
a stir. Thus it is " the Holy Ghost who rules the elect
inwardly." The Illuminati can dispense with any other kind
of direction : their thoughts and feelings come from God.
Their transports and raptures during prayer prove that the
Holy Ghost dwells and works within them.
The illuminism of the Alumbrados and their mystical sen-
timentalism were a perpetual danger to the ignorance and
excessive sensibility of the Spanish people. In the first half
of the sixteenth century spiritual writers did their best to
guard them from it by their books, and after 1551 it was the
Spanish Inquisition that intervened.
Ill— SPANISH SPIRITUAL WRITERS PRIOR TO THE
INTERVENTION OF THE INQUISITION— THE
FRANCISCANS: ALONSO OF MADRID, FRAN-
CISCO OF OSSUNA, BERNARDINO OF LAREDO,
AND ST PETER OF ALCANTARA
The most signal service rendered to the cause of orthodoxy
by the Spanish spiritual writers of this period was the putting
into the hands of the faithful of good books in the vernacular.1
Luis of Granada writes in the Prologue to his Sinners'
Guide:
" Among the subjects for sorrow which we find in the
heart of Christianity there is none more serious than the
ignorance of Christians as to the laws and foundations of
their religion. . . . Not only children, but even old men,
scarcely know the first elements of this divine philosophy."
Disorder in morals and danger of heresy inevitably resulted
from such religious ignorance. Was not the chief remedy
the assiduous reading of books teaching how to make a good
confession, a devout communion, and how to avoid sin, to
practise virtue, and to pray to God with devotion? The
Sinners' Guide and the Treatise on Prayer, by Luis of
Granada, were the masterpieces of such works as these. At
the beginning of the sixteenth century the great Cardinal
Ximenes earnestly called for such books for popular use.
At the time of his death, in 15 17, he had succeeded in pro-
viding Spain with nothing but translations of foreign spiritual
1 Luis de Leon (tsgi) says that it is the duty of those who can to
write books of this kind in the language of the people (The Names of
Christ, Book I, p. 40, French translation, Postel, Paris, 1862).
ss Cbrtetian spirituality
works. But St Teresa was born on March 28, 1 5 1 5, at
Avila. The Cardinal's wishes were to be realized beyond his
desire.
It was the Order of St Francis which was the first to
answer to the yearnings of Ximenes. The Franciscan,
Alonso of Madrid, published The Art of Serving Cod (El arte
de servir a Dios1) at Seville in 1521. It is far more a book
of asceticism than of mysticism. Plainly the author wanted
to put his readers on their guard against the too sensible
manifestations of piety, which are so productive of illusions.3
The book is divided into three parts. The first contains
the general principles of perfection, and denounces the false
notions that may be formed of the spiritual life. The second
is practical. It teaches self-knowledge and how to practise
virtue, and to give oneself up to prayer. It is only in the
third that the reader is initiated into divine love. The writer
observes the restrictions demanded by the circumstances.
St Teresa read Alonso's treatise, and recommended it to her
religious for meditational prayer : " In this degree [of
prayer]," she said, " it is a good thing to make frequent acts
to stimulate one's generosity in the service of God, to kindle
one's love or to fortify one's virtues. This is the counsel of
a book entitled The Art of Serving God, an excellent work,
perfectly adapted to this degree, in which the understanding
is at work."3
Six years later, in 1527, there appeared at Toledo a
treatise on the prayer of recollection, Francisco of Ossuna's
Third Primer of Spirituality. It was a bold matter to
publish a treatise of mysticism in Spanish at this period,
especially since the writer, not satisfied with popularizing the
1 In the Nueva Biblioteca de autores esfanoles, Escritores mysticos
esfanoles, Vol. I, pp. 588-634. It is a reproduction of the Alcala edition
of 1526. There is another edition by Jaime Sala. Valencia, 1903; a
reproduction of the 1570 edition. Then there is the Meditations for
Holy Week, by Alonso of Madrid. In 1523 and 1524 there appeared
at Toledo and Burgos the Arte de bien confessar, both anonymous.
2 St Francis de Sales wrote to St Jane Chantal (April, 1606) about
this book. It " is good, but more embarrassed and difficult than you
need : The Spiritual Combat contains all that is in it, and is clearer and
more methodical."
1 Vie ecrite far elle-meme, chap, xii, Ed. Polit, I, 158.
* Miguel Mir, Vol. I, pp. 319-587. This is the Burgos edition of
1544. Francis of Ossuna, an Andalusian Franciscan, wrote three
Primers. The first (of 1527) is the third in the complete edition; then
the first appeared in 1528, and next the second in 1530. The complete
work Abecedarios esfirituales was published at Seville in 1554. The
Abecedarios are thus called, because each of them contains as many
treatises as there are letters in the alphabet, each treatise beginning
with a letter. Francis of Ossuna also published The Law of Love in
1530, in which he sums up the three Abecedarios. Cf. P. Michel-Ange,
Revista de Archivos, 1912, I.
Before St Ceresa 89
higher mysticism, seemed to rally some who were afraid
of it. II it was objected that these are dangerous matters
and that the devil may lurk beneath them, he replied he may
also hide behind the door of the Church, but that people did
not cease from entering thereby on that account.1 The
prudent John of Avila declared that The Third Primer is not
suited to all the faithful, and that there are perhaps certain
objections to scattering- it broadcast amongst the general
public." It is a wonder that the author escaped the Inhuma-
tions of the Inquisition, since it spared scarcely anyone a lew
3 cars later.
It is true that Francisco of Ossuna made some corrections
in those respects in which he might have been too daring.
He soon wrote the first and second Abecedarios, works of
ascetic theology. In the First Primer the pious Franciscan
speaks, as a true son of St Francis, of the passion and the
sorrows of Christ. The mvsticism of the Third Primer was
thus enclosed in a doctrinal whole, the different parts of
which threw light upon each other.
But it was the mystical work of Francisco of Ossuna that
specially attracted the attention of posterity. It is this
which perhaps contributed most to the spiritual training of
St Teresa.3
In it is found a fairly complete synthesis of practical Fran-
ciscan mvsticism, a sort of mystical therapy of the soul
which must be followed by it to attain to the prayer of
recollection. i
Francisco of Ossuna arranges his discipline according to
the psychology of the mystics of the Middle Ages. The
imagination and the external senses, the affections, the
memory, the spiritual senses, the will, and the understanding
successively undergo the mystical treatment which will make
them assist in attaining the desired recollection.
The imagination will be stripped of all created images, and
the senses must be cut off from outward impressions, for the
control of images is essential to recollection, and that of the
senses is equally necessary. Further, the soul's affections
must be turned from the carnal and increasingly directed
towards the spiritual. At the same time, the memory must
be filled with God and the thought of his benefits. This
mystical role of the memory was always considered most
important by spiritual writers :
" To think or remember that one is in the presence of
1 Hoornaert, op. cit., p. 329.
2 Epistolario espirilnal, ed. Ribadeneira, p. 321.
8 Cf. Vie, chap, iv, CEuvres de sainte Terese, Vol. I, pp. 70-71.
4 The first five treatises of the Tercer Abecedario aim at detachment
from sin and things created. The sixth begins with recollection in the
strict sense of the word.
9° Cbristian Spirituality
God, and to represent him as present before one are one and
the same thing."1
This habitual remembrance of the presence of God
increases the soul's relish for the divine. We possess a kind
of " spiritual sensibility " which enables us to perceive the
" touches " of heavenly consolations. Francisco of Ossuna,
gifted with an Andalusian sensibility, gives much importance
to this spiritual sense. He greatly prefers the " spiritual
sense " to book-knowledge, for it imparts experience of the
divine instead of a knowledge which is purely theoretical.
Moreover, he cannot understand those who tell people not
" to look for divine consolation and the enjoyment of things
spiritual."2
Like St Francis of Assisi, the author of the Third Primer
regards mystical joy as a necessary condition for interior
recollection :
" In recollection," he says, " a man will advance the more,
the more he keeps joy in his heart, which should be offered
with joy when offered to God."3
Nothing is more fatal to devotion than a bad spirit of
gloom. Holy enthusiasm in the service of God soon brings
the will " to act for and through love only."4
" I have observed," says Francisco, " that in this way of
recollection the down-hearted make but little progress, and
that the joyous who consecrate their joy to God advance
greatly."5
But joy and other feelings are but handmaids of the will
which must finally rule the whole of man's interior life, for
" all our spiritual progress depends upon the disposition and
preparation of the will, and such good will is the measure
of the graces bestowed upon us by the Lord."6
Lastly, the education of the understanding must also be
made in the medieval fashion. The understanding must be
kept in peace and silence ; it has nothing to do with the
praver of recollection, in which by the silence of the under-
standing and the forgetting of images the soul withdraws
into God and abandons itself to him in love.7 "To practise
recollection," says Francisco of Ossuna, " is in some sort to
be transformed into the object of our recollection."8
1 Tercer Abecedario, trat. XI, cap. iii ; Trad. Etchegoyen, V Amour
Divin, Essai sur les sources de sainte Therese, Bordeaux-Paris, 1923,
p. 126. St Peter of Alcantara and Luis of Granada also speak of the
" remembrance of God."
* id., trat. XII, cap. iii.
3 id., trat. 3*, cap. v. Cf. La loi d'amour, XVII.
4 Treatise XVI deals chiefly with such love. Treatises XVII, XIX
and XX deal with outward mortifications.
6 Tercer Abecedario, trat. XIII, cap. iv.
6 id., trat. XV, cap. vi. Etchegoyen, 152, 153.
' id., trat. XXI. 8 id., trat. XIV, cap. vii,
Before St XTeresa 91
Such recollection is the end of the fervent Christian's
endeavours, and it has several degrees : (i) The recollection
which gently quiets the powers of the soul; (2) that in
which the intelligence is still working ; (3) a more perfect
kind in which the soul becomes enclosed within itself, as in
a prison firmly locked, for the enjoyment of God ; (4) ecstatic
recollection. l
We can conjecture what St Teresa was to learn from the
Tercer Abecedario. She was also much impressed by the
style of this remarkable work, full of rich feeling and brilliant
imagination. Francisco is a born writer. For the expres-
sion of mystical realities he found comparisons which were
to become classical in Spain and to be immortalized by the
authoress of the Carmelite reform.2 Thanks to the mystics,
the Spanish tongue begins to speak " the language of the
angels."
The welcome given to the works of Alonso of Madrid and
of Francisco of Ossuna encouraged the Franciscan Order to
bring out other mystical publications. In 1535 there ap-
peared at Seville the Subida del monie Sion3 (The Ascent of
Mount Sion), the work of an Andalusian Franciscan lay-
brother, Bernardino of Laredo.4
The third part of The Ascent of Mount Sion is a real
treatise on the prayer of quietude and of the prayer of union.5
This it was that made the work of Bernardino famous, and
calmed St Teresa when, about 1556, at forty-one years of
age, she was raised to the prayer of quietude, and was
" unable to meditate on the Passion," and felt that she was
bereft of " the help of the understanding."6
It is just this twofold inability to meditate on the mysteries
of the life of Christ and to reason discursively that charac-
terizes the prayer of quietude, according to the Subida del
monte Sion. In this mystical state the soul is united
with God, and contemplates the divinity to the exclusion of
all else :
" The perfection of love," says Bernardino, " does not con-
1 Tercer Abecedario, trat. XXI.
2 Cf. Hoornaert, Saint e Terese icrivain, pp. 332 ff. F. of Ossuna
already reveals traces of a preciosity of style which did injury to
Spanish literature later on.
3 There were many editions; the last at Alcala, in 161 7, which also
contains Bernardino's Letters and Jose-phina, an epitome of the praises
of St Joseph.
* Born at Seville in 1482. He was doctor to John II of Portugal,
became a Franciscan in 1510, and died at Seville in 1545.
6 The first part teaches self-knowledge through discursive meditation,
the second the knowledge and love of Christ by affective meditation ;
the third is strictly mystical.
' Vie, chap, xxiii.
92 Christian Spirituality
sist in meditating- upon the holy Humanity [of Christ], but
in calm and perfected contemplation of the inaccessible
Divinity."1
The absolute silence of the powers is the indispensable
condition of such contemplation. " This sleep of the powers
keeps the soul awake for the soaring of ardent love."' Ber-
nardino of Laredo tries to explain this powerlessness to
reflect, this necessity of thinking of nothing (No pensar
nada), of which all the mystics since the pseudo-Dionysius
have said so much. Especially does he throw into relief the
essentially gratuitous character of such quietude. No device
of man can attain to such contemplation. Only the good-
ness of God can raise the soul thereto, and thus this kind
of contemplation is clearly distinguished from that which is
active and the result of mental work.2
The transition from active kinds of prayer, in which the
understanding is still at work, to infused and passive con-
templation, in which its working has entirely ceased, is par-
ticularly hard to make. St Teresa acknowledges that in her
time there were " long discussions on the subject between
several spiritual persons."3 We must not try to encroach
upon grace, she thought, nor to fetter the work of the mind,
before God has introduced the soul into quietude. In sup-
port of her view, St Teresa alleges the authority of the most
illustrious Spanish Franciscan mystic of the sixteenth cen-
tury, St Peter of Alcantara,4 the author of a Treatise on
Prayer and Meditation (Tratado de la Oration y Meditation).5
A man of prayer if ever there was one, St Peter of
Alcantara had no fixed time for prayer. All times and places
were proper for him to lose himself in contemplation. His
spiritual concentration in God did not hinder him from giving
himself up to other occupations and from keeping watch
1 Subida del monte Sion, Part III, chap. ix.
2 id., Part III, xviii, xxv, xxvi.
3 Interior Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, iii, CEuvres, Vol. III.
4 Born at Alcantara in Estramadura in 1499, when 16 he joined the
Discalced Friars Minor. He became Provincial of the province of
St Gabriel, and was the promoter of a most austere reform. The
reformed convents founded by him formed the province of St Joseph.
He died at Arenas, near Avila, in 1562. St Teresa praises him in
justly famous words, Life, chaps, xxvii and xxxix. The saint left an
account of St Teresa's prayer, CEuvres de saint e Terese, Vol. I,
pp. 444 ff. Cf. Uillustre fredestini or the Vie de saint Pierre
d' Alcantara, by F. Marchese, French translation, Lyons, 1670; Paris,
1691.
8 Published at Lisbon between 1556 and 1560, by Joannes Blavio,
in a volume containing other little treatises by St Peter of Alcantara,
and a treatise, by Savonarola, on the Three Vows. Recent ed. by
P. Ubald d'Alencon, Paris, 1923. In the Treatise there are two parts,
the first on prayer, the second on devotion.
Before St Teresa 93
over everything-. Like Teresa, he was able to combine
the contemplative with the active life.1
His Treatise on Prayer and Meditation is a summary of
that of Luis of Granada.2 To it he added his own experience
of the spiritual ways. He aims at teaching the faithful such
devotion as consists in doing good promptly and without
repugnance, and this devotion is the fruit of prayer. Through
Luis of Granada and St Peter of Alcantara, the Spanish
School helps us to understand beforehand the teaching of
St Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life.
The Christian who wishes to ensure his salvation must
give himself up to meditation. This is hard. It demands
effort. But let no one be discouraged. Meditation is the way
to attain to contemplation in which there is no hardship.
"When the ship has come into port navigation is over."
Through the action of grace meditation is changed into con-
templation, a transformation so deeply studied by St Teresa :
"When anyone," says St Peter of Alcantara,3 "through
the work of meditation has found repose and come to relish
contemplation, he must then cease from that pious but toil-
some endeavour. Satisfied with simply seeing and with the
thought of God, as if he saw him present, he should restfully
enjoy the feelings of love or of admiration or of joy, or any
other such feeling as it may please God to give him. The
reason for this advice and for such conduct is this : as the
end of the soul's intercourse with God in prayer consists
much more in love than in speculation of the understanding,
when the will has already become seized and possessed by
this affection, we should, as far as possible, avoid all dis-
course and all the speculations of the understanding in order
that the soul may be wholly occupied with the enjoyment
of the feeling of which we have just spoken."
The soul must then be enclosed within itself, where is
the image of God, and there abide in attention, like a man
listening to someone speaking to him from the top of a
tower, or as if it held God within and was alone in the
universe to converse with him.4
1 Marchese, Book IV, chap. x.
2 This seems to be the upshot of the fairly lively controversy between
the Franciscans and Dominicans on the priority of the Treatise of
Prayer and Meditation, by Luis of Granada, over that by St Peter
of Alcantara. See on Luis of Granada's side, P. Justo Cuervo, O.P.,
Biografihia de Fr. Luis de Granada, Madrid, 1896; Revista de
Archivos, Madrid, 1918 ff. On St Peter of Alcantara's side, see P.
Michel-Ange, Revista, 1916 and 1917; Estudios Franciscanos, Barcelona,
1919-1921. Cf. Etudes franciscaines , Paris, 1923, pp. 19S ff. ; Revue
d'ascetique et de mystique (1921), pp. 384-401 ; (1922), pp. 301-332.
* Tratado de la Oracion y Meditation, Part I, chap, xii, 8th notice;
R. Hoornaert, of. cit., p. 380; Ubald dAlencon, p. 145.
* The Order of St Francis had other spiritual writers in Spain in
the sixteenth century. Among these was John of Bonilla, author of a
94 Christian Spirituality
Let it not be supposed that during this period there are
nothing- but works of mysticism. On the contrary, popular
books full of counsels for a devout Christian life are the
most numerous, if not the most famous.1
The illustrious Franciscan who was Court preacher to
Charles V, and also a fervent humanist, as well known
throughout Europe as Erasmus,2 Antonio de Guevara insists
in his Monte Calvaria, published in 1528, on recalling- the
principles of Christian morality. His Oratorio de religiosos,
of 1542, is a manual of the monastic and religious life noticed
by St Teresa.3
One of the most appreciated popularizers of spiritual teach-
ing is the Canon Regular, Alonzo of Orozco. An eminent
preacher and John of Castile's confessor, he was also a
master of ascetical and mystical theology. He discovered
a wealth of symbolism in his description of the highest of
spiritual states while also inspiring simple Christians with
the love of true and sound devotion. Like Francisco of
Ossuna, Bernardino of Laredo, and especially St Teresa, he
had received from God the gift of describing the manifesta-
tions of mysticism.4
T rat ado de la Paz de V Alma, which appeared at Alcantara in 1580,
often republished, and once more at Paris, 1912. This Treatise of
fifteen chapters inspired certain parts of Scupoli's Spiritual Combat.
I shall speak of it again under Italian Spirituality. The teaching of
the Treatise of the Soul's Peace seems to be as much Italian as Spanish.
Several Italian and Spanish editions of the Spiritual Combat contain
this Treatise under the title, Sentiero del faradiso. On John of
Bonilla, see Wadding, Annates ordinis Minorum, Rome, Vol. IX, p. 335 ;
Scriptores ord. Minorum, Rome, 1650, p. 194. Note, too, Andrew of
Ortega, O.M., Tratado del Camino del Espiritu, Toledo, 1550; Gabriel
de Toro, O.M., Teulugia mistica, union del alma con Dio, Saragossa,
1548; Diego Murillo, Escala spiritual, Saragossa, 1598; John of the
Angels, Los trionfos del amor de Dios, Medina del Campo, 1590, re-
published with other mystical works at Madrid, 1912-1917 (Nueva Bibl.
de Aut. Esp., Vols. XX, XXIV).
1 In 1532 appeared the Libro de doctrina cristiana of Gutierre
Gonzalez; in 1534 the Soliloquios de la Passion de N. S., the Desfer-
tador de peccatores, the Ejercitatorio de la Vida spiritual, by Orozco
presumably; in 1535, at Valencia, an Espejo de bien vivir. — On
Poverty, Virginity, and Mortification, see the works of an anonymous
Franciscan : the Mysterios de la devocion, Burgos, 1537 ; the Manual
para la eterna salvacion, Saragossa, 1539 ; the Vergel de Virginidad,
Burgos, 1539.
2 Cf. Montaigne, Essais, II, 2.
8 He also published the Menosprecio de Corte y Alabama de Aldea,
1539, a masterpiece of humanist morality.
4 A collection (Recopilacion) of Alonzo of Orozco's works appeared
at Valladolid in 1555. It comprises six treatises of various dates :
Examination of Conscience for confession ; The Orchard of Prayer and
the Mountain of Contemplation, Seville, 1544; The Metnorial of Holy
Love; the Rule of Christian Life; Spiritual Marriage ; How to Jolloiv
the Gospel. Alonzo of Orozco published other works afterwards.
before St Ueresa 95
IV — THE DOMINICANS: LUIS OF GRANADA,
MELCHIOR CANO, BARTHOLOMEW OF THE
MARTYRS— ST TERESA'S DOMINICAN CON-
FESSORS
The science of prayer was taught in a still broader and more
personal way by the Dominican Luis of Granada, one of the
most influential authors of the Spanish School.
He was born at Granada in 1505.1 In 1524 he joined the
Dominicans of Granada in their Convent of the Holy Cross.
He was much influenced by humanism. He became familiar
with the classics, and later liked to quote the ancient philo-
sophers, even making- collections of their moral maxims.
But he delighted especially in early Christian writers. He
drew much from the Fathers of the desert, as did also the
good-natured Alfonso Rodriguez, the writer of The Prac-
tice of Christian Perfection.
Returning to Granada in 1534, the famous Dominican
preached so successfully that the renown of his worth at last
reached the Court of Lisbon to which he was summoned.
There he became the director of Catherine, the Regent of
Portugal. He refused the archbishopric of Braga to keep
his time and strength for the instruction of the people by
preaching and writing. He died at Lisbon in 1588.
Teaching the people ! Luis of Granada devoted his life to
it. In his zeal he was alarmed by the dangers which the
people's faith incurred through their ignorance of religion.
When people know not how to pray, nor how to confess,
nor how to communicate as they ought, they run great risk,
he thought, of being seduced by the artifices of heresy.
Luis of Granada was one of the best workers in the
spiritual crusade against the Protestants and the Alum-
brados. Preaching was his chief weapon. He gave himself
up to it with an altogether apostolic zeal. His many sermons
for the Proper of the season and for the Feasts of the
Blessed Virgin and the saints, which St Charles Borromeo
loved to quote, form the largest part of his works.2 But
Among others, the Vitoria del mundo, Alcala, 1570; Efistolario
christiano, Alcala, 1567; The Story of the Queen of Sheba, or how a
Christian should serve and worship Jesus, King of Kings, Salamanca,
1575-
1 Luis Muoz, lida de Fr. Luis de Granada, Madrid, 1788; Justo
Cuervo, O.P., Biografia de Fr. Luis de Granada, 1896.
2 Complete edition of his Works, by Denis Sanchez, Madrid, 1679;
another edition, Madrid, 1787-1800. Recent critical edition, by Justo
Cuervo, Obras de fray Luis de Granada, Madrid, 1906 ff., 14
vols, have hitherto appeared. French translation, by Girard, Paris,
1667 ; by Simon Martin, Lyons, 1677 ; by Abbe Bareille, CEuvres com-
fletes de Louis de Grenade, 22 vols., Paris, 1862-1868.
96 Christian Spirituality
he believed that books in the vernacular should be added to
preaching-. The reading- of good books is the principal
remedy against religious ignorance, is it not? But all did
not agree with him, and the learned Dominican had later
on to endure very trying contradictions on this account.
Moreover, in 1554, at Salamanca, when he published his
first book of spirituality, Libro de la Oracion y Meditation,1
they were beginning to be uneasy in Spain about the diffusion
of false mysticism. Luis of Granada, too, was careful to
confine himself strictly to asceticism, and he avoids all
questions connected with extraordinary states. Only two
years later, as if the better to explain his mind, he brought
out at Lisbon the sequel of his study on prayer, The Sinners'
Guide, a work of pure asceticism. Despite these precautions,
the two first books by Luis of Granada were put on the Index
by the Spanish Inquisition in 1559. They had to be revised
and republished in 1567.
Further on we shall revert to these occurrences.
Luis of Granada is one of the first spiritual writers, after
St Ignatius of Loyola, to formulate a method of prayer
intended for those living in the world.2 His aim, like that
of St Ignatius, is to lead all Christians, and not only monks
and religious, to the practice of prayer. Hence, he was
smitten with censure ; his claim to teach everyone the prac-
tice without any exceptions was then in Spain considered
dangerous and likely to promote llluminism.
Like everybody at that time, Luis of Granada grieved over
the inconsistency of Christian conduct and belief :
" On all sides," he writes in the Prologue of his Libro de
la Oracion y Meditation,3 " we find a host of people who
are irreproachable in faith, but disorderly in life. . . . Their
faith is like money in a cash-box, or a sword in its sheath,
or medicine on a chemist's shelf — that is to say, it is not
used for the purpose for which it is intended. They readily
1 Besides the Sermons, the chief works of Luis of Granada are the
Libro de la Oracion y Meditation, Salamanca, 1^59; the Guida de
Pecadores ; the Memorial de la Vida Christiana ; the Adiciones al
Memorial; the Introduccion al Simbolo de la Fe; a translation of
The Imitation of Christ, and of The Ladder of Paradise of St John
Climacus ; the Life of Bartholomew of the Martyrs, Dominican, Arch-
bishop of Braga, and the Life of Blessed John of Avila.
2 Before him, however, several works, meant for all the faithful and
dealing with prayer and contemplation, had been published in Spain.
In 1541 Bernal Diaz de Lugo published the Soliloquio at Burgos; in
1542, an anonymous Tratado de la Oracion. In 1544 Alonzo of Orozco
published a remarkable book, the Vergel de la Oracion y monte de
content piacion; in 1545 Martin of Azpilcueta published a Tratado de
la Oracion at Coimbra. These are the principal treatises of this kind,
meant to popularize the practice of prayer. None of them gives such a
complete method of prayer as Luis of Granada's.
* BareihVs translation, Vol. XI, p. 5. Cf. Couissinier's translation,
Paris, 1868, Vol. I, p. 3.
JBefore St Ucvcsa 97
believe in what the Church believes, in the judgement, in the
punishment in store for the wicked, and in the glory which
will reward the just; but they believe quite unreflectingly,
and never ask themselves what this judgement and these
punishments and rewards may be."
There are, according to him, two great impediments to
prayer. The chief one is inexperience ; we know not what
to think about or how to think about it. The other is a
want of fervour and devotion which makes our meditation
subject to distractions and aridities.
Luis of Granada wrote his book to remedy this evil. He
first provides subjects for meditation and then sets forth a
method. Afterwards he shows the difficulties involved in
prayer and points out the means of overcoming them.1
Fourteen fully elaborated subjects for meditation are pro-
posed at the outset for one week. Two meditations are
provided for each day. In the morning the subject is to be
the Saviour's Passion, and in the evening it is to be on the
Last Things.2 Here the influence of the Ejercitatorio of
Garcia de Cisneros is plain.
Then comes the method of prayer to be followed by begin-
ners and intended to guide their inexperience ; but it is not
required by others. It shows " novices the way . . . ; as
soon as they have started on it, the Holy Spirit will teach
them the rest." 3
The method includes six parts : preparation, reading the
subject, meditation, thanksgiving, offering, and petition.
Above all, there must be preparation of the heart. " To
play the vielle we must begin by tuning it." Like St
Ignatius, Luis of Granada counsels us to arrange for a review
of the subject the night before, " like those who have to
1 Luis of Granada drew upon the Ejercitatorio of Garcia de Cisneros
and the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius and the T rat ado de la
Oracion (Alcala, 1551) of Antonio Porras. He is also much indebted
to the Italian, Serafino da Fermo, Canon Regular of St Augustine,
author of the Treatises on the Spiritual Life, which were translated
into Castilian and published at Coimbra in 1551 and at Salamanca in
I552- ^'e shall again meet with this writer when we come to the
Italian School.
* Libro de la Oracion y Meditacion, Part I, chap. ii. In the
morning: Monday, the Institution of the Eucharist; Tuesday, the
Agony and Seizure of Jesus ; Wednesday, Jesus at the Tribunal and
the Scourging ; Thursday, the Ecce Homo and the Bearing of the
Cross; Friday, the Cross and the Seven Words; Saturday, the Lance,
the Descent from the Cross, Mary's Sorrow, the Burial; Sunday, the
Resurrection. In the evening : Monday, Knowledge of oneself and
cf one"s Sins; Tuesday, the Miseries of this life; Wednesday, Death;
Thursday, the Last Judgement; Friday, Hell; Saturday, Heaven;
Sunday, God's blessings.
3 Libro, Part I, chap, iii (Bareille, Vol. XI, p. 210). Luis of Granada
sums up his Libro in the Sixth Treatise of the Memorial of the
Christian Life.
III. j
98 Cbristian Spirituality
knead dough next morning and must get it ready the
evening before."1 " As soon as we are awake, let the
thought of our prayer be the first to fill the mind. In
the morning, when we have reached the place where we are
to pray, let us think of the incomparable majesty of him with
whom we are about to converse."2 Like Garcia de Cisneros,
Luis of Granada recommends us to put ourselves in the
presence of God at the beginning of the meditation. St
Francis de Sales made this a standard practice. As a pre-
paration for prayer, it is also quite natural to be stirred to
repentance of our sins and to humble ourselves before God,
and to ask him to give us the grace to do these things well.
On all these matters Luis of Granada gives very useful advice.
The preparation is followed by reading the subject. This
must be done " slowly and thoughtfully, trying to grasp
with the understanding the sense of the words and to relish
with the will the truths which they express."3 Like St
Ignatius, Luis of Granada calls into play the understanding,
the will, and the memory, but he sets them going with a
less military swing. The reading must not be long, for its
aim is to stimulate reflections and especially prayer ; and it
should cease as soon as its end is reached.
The meditation after the reading may be imaginative or
intellectual, according to whether it has to do with subjects
such as the facts of the Life or of the Passion of Christ,
which are easily imagined, or with realities such as the divine
perfections, which simply give rise to abstract considerations.
In the former case, it is a good thing to try to reconstruct
the scene in question, while avoiding exaggeration.
The thanksgiving is a natural consequence of the medita-
tion. It is fitting to thank God for blessings which are most
closely connected with the subject of the meditation, and
also for all others which he has given us.
The duty of thanksgiving induces us to offer God, as a
proof of our gratitude, all that we have received from him.
This makes the Offering.4 To begin with, the Christian may
offer himself, along with all he has and is, to do the divine
will in all things. Next, in order to pay his debt of grati-
tude for the Lord's goodness, he may offer the merits and
1 Libro, Part I, chap, iv (Bareille, p. 214).
2 Libro, Part I, chap, iv, p. 211. Cf. Memorial, TTeatise VI,
chap. iv.
* Libro, Part I, chap, v, pp. 214-215.
* Luis of Granada is silent as to this part of prayer in his Libro.
He added it, later on, in his compendium of it, and inserted it in
the Sixth Treatise of the Memorial. In his Libro, Luis only gives five
parts of prayer. The thanksgiving is immediately followed by the
petition. St Peter of Alcantara, in his Treatise on Prayer , sets forth
the six parts thus : Preparation, Reading, Meditation, Thanksgiving,
Offering, and Petition (Part II, chaps, v-xi).
^Before St XTercsa 99
works of Christ : they have become our own merits, and,
therefore, they are at our disposal.
" In return for so rich an offering", we can boldly turn to
the Lord and present our petitions to him." Our first request
will concern his glory ; may all the nations of the world know
and praise and adore him as their one and only God. Then
we shall pray for the whole of the Church, and, lastly, for
ourselves and for our own particular needs. We shall ask
for the necessary help against our passions and vices, and
for grace to keep our resolutions and to love God ever more
and more. Luis of Granada constantly warns the Christian
against all selfish prayer. Moreover, true prayer is not only
asking; it also includes adoration, praise, and thanksgiving.
It is not enough to know how to pray in order to give
oneself up to prayer. Want of devotion, as well as inex-
perience, may be an impediment. In the sixth part of his
treatise, Luis of Granada has a profound study of devotion,
which is made use of by St Francis de Sales. True devotion,
he says, is not " an affection of the heart poured out in
prayer," but "a quickness and readiness to do it well, and
to fulfil the commandments of God, and to do his service."1
It is important to know what is hurtful to him, and to be
able to baffle the wiles of the devil, the great enemy of the
devout. We shall thus overcome the second impediment
which may give us a distaste for prayer, the loss of devotion
and spiritual fervour.2
Luis of Granada completes his ascetic teaching in his
famous Sinners' Guide (Guia de Pecadores). It is a manual
of Christian virtues.3 It contains sound doctrine as to the
reasons for practising virtue, as to the spiritual and temporal
blessings to be looked for from a virtuous life, and as to the
excuses of those who choose evil. It shows how to conquer
various failings, and man's duties to himself and to his neigh-
bours and to God are clearly laid down. It is a lofty teach-
ing applying to all Christians, no doubt, but more especially
to those who aim at perfection, and it is set forth with width
of view and in fine humanistic style.
1 Libro, Part II, chap, i (Bareille, pp. 250-251).
2 In editions subsequent to 1566, Luis of Granada adds a third part
to his Libro. Therein he deals with the profitableness and the necessity
of prayer, and with perseverance in it, and then with fasting and
almsgiving, " the wings which enable prayer to soar up to heaven."
3 Similar works were written before that of Luis of Granada : In
J543> at Medina, the Tesoro de virtudes, by the Franciscan, Alonso de
la Isla; in 1545, at Valladolid, the Remedio de Pecadores, by Juan
de Duenos ; and in the same year and in the same town the celebrated
Peter of Medina published the Libro de la Verdad sobre la Conversion
del Pecador ; in 1550, at Valladolid, appeared the Victoria de si mismo,
by Melchior Cano ; and in 1551 the Danza de la Muerte, by an anony-
mous Franciscan ; and in the same year the Guia del Cielo, by Pablo de
Leon.
ioo Cbristtan Spfritualits
The Sinners' Guide met with great success and made its
author famous. The Inquisition put it on the Index, but
that only checked its circulation for a time. In the seven-
teenth century the Sinners' Guide was in everyone's hands
in France. 1 Of all the works by Luis of Granada, this
is the one most readily recommended by St Francis de
Sales.
In his spiritual teaching- Luis of Granada always strove
to be practical. He did not aim at being a theorist in
spirituality, but a preacher of the Christian life. To set men
free from sin and to lead them on to perfection was his sole
ambition. He thought that a book which gave a compendium
of ascetic teaching, " a complete and summary explanation
of all that is needed for the heavenly life of the Christian,"2
would fulfil the pious yearnings of his zeal. This book he
wrote : it is his Memorial of the Christian Life:
" My design," he says in the Prologue, "is to form the
perfect Christian, to lead him through the exercises of the
Christian life from the beginning of his conversion up to the
highest perfection. I take him in hand in the rough just as a
workman takes a tree with its bark and its branches to turn
it into a work of art worthy of unstinted praise."3
The circumstances in which Luis of Granada wrote did
not allow him to linger over mysticism. He is, above all,
an ascetic writer.4 Nevertheless, in his Libro de la Oracion
he gives the prayer of recollection and quietude as the desir-
able goal of many years of meditation :
" By abandoning all speculation and all reasoning, they
(some Christians) establish their intelligence and their will
in God, and they do all they can solely to enjoy the sovereign
good. This state is the state of contemplation, which is the
most perfect kind of prayer and the extreme goal of our
endeavours. Contemplation does not strive to kindle love.
With regard thereto, it is at the summit of its desire, and its
one anxiety is fully to enjoy him whom it loves. ... In
contemplation there are at the same time both less effort
and more enjoyment and profit. The work of meditation is
1 French translation by Guillaume Girard, Paris, 1658. In the
Ecole des Femmes, Moliere makes Sganarelle say : " The Sinners'
Guide is another good book ; it does not take you long to learn how to
live well from it."
2 Memorial, Prologue.
3 The Memorial comprises seven treatises : the Last Things ; Penance,
Confession, and Satisfaction ; Holy Communion ; How to resist Sin
and Temptation; Prayer in general; Prayer [Oraison) ; Love of God.
4 At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when mystical works
were more favourably regarded, a Dominican, Jerome of Alcozer, wrote
a mystical work on the lines of that of Bernardino de Laredo, Subida
del Monte Si on, Valentia, 1509.
before St TTeresa 101
excluded from it, and therewith a great deal of weariness of
the flesh. The delight of deep recollection abides."1
What a remarkable mystical writer Luis of Granada would
have been had he lived in a less disturbed age ! But he
followed his zealous inspiration with much self-abnegation,
and this bound him not to go beyond the region of asceticism.
Moreover, he united with his intellectual gifts a gentle and
conciliatory temperament ever ready to give way in the
interest of peace.
Of a very different character was his illustrious colleague,
Melchior Cano. 2 Zealous and irritable, incapable of enduring
contradiction, impassioned in his views, Melchior Cano was
often carried away beyond measure in his decisions and
proceedings :
" I am greatly wanting in prudence and discretion," he
humbly confesses. " Every day I catch myself tripping
times innumerable in what I do and say, and I am no wiser
one day than another. If I sometimes chance to get a good
notion of what I ought to do at a particular juncture, it is
generally not at the happy moment, but too late."3
He was one of the most ardent adversaries of the Alum-
brados. But always intemperate, even in the best of his
undertakings, he included true and sound mysticism in his
reprobation of the false mystics. He saw illuminism in all
directions ! Even ascetic ^oks, if they were written in
popular language, fell under suspicion ; and therefore he
became the evil genius of the Grand Inquisitor Fernando de
Valdes.
Though but a poor mystic, Melchior was a theologian of
the first rank. Like his master, Francisco de Vitoria (f 1546), 4
and even beyond his master, he was a reformer of theo-
logical studies. The humanists, as we know, had passion-
ately attacked scholastic theology, which they found totally
lacking in scientific spirit and written in a barbarous
1 Libro de la Oracion, Part II, chap, v (Bareille, vol. xi, p. 398).
Cf. Guia de Pecadores, Book I, chap. iv.
a Born at Tarancon in Spain in 1508. He was a professor of the
University of Alcala (1542-1546), and then of Salamanca (1546-1552).
In 1551 he was at the Council of Trent. In 1552 he was nominated to
the bishopric of the Canaries, but did not take possession of the See.
He died at Toledo in 1560. Fermin Caballero, Vida del lllmo Fray
Melchior Cano del Orden de Santo Domingo, Madrid, 1871-1876.
* A kind of examination of conscience made by Melchior Cano in
1559 to convince himself that he ought not to accept the office of
confessor of Philip II at the Court of Brussels. Caballero, Vida,
p. 629. Translation by Mandonnet, La victoire sur soi-meme, by
Melrhior Cano, Paris, 1821?, pp. 21-22.
1 Cf. Getino, O.P., El Maestro Fr. Francisco de Vitoria y el renaci-
mento filosofico teologico del siglo XVI , Madrid, 1914.
102 Christian Spirituality
style. It had to be rehabilitated in their eyes by giving it
a broader method, which would employ the newly restored
scriptural and patristic literature and enable it to make use
of noble language. This work was brilliantly begun by
Melchior Cano in his classic treatise De locis theologicis. l
The true theological method, alike positive and speculative,
was therein formulated and followed with a noteworthy
mastery according to the requirements of the humanists,
and in Latin of the highest elegance. Thus did the sacred
science recover the prestige which it had lost for over a
century. Henceforward, it could measure itself to advantage
with Protestant heresy.
Strange to tell, this fierce adversary of spiritual works in
the vulgar tongue left behind him a little ascetical treatise
in Spanish: On the Conquest of Oneself.2 It is, however,
a publication with nothing dangerous in it. It is a treatise
against the seven capital sins, an adaptation of an Italian
book by the Dominican Battista da Crema.3 It contains
nothing about the sensible or spiritual consolations of devo-
tion. Except in the last chapter on the Crucifix, "the
universal remedy for all sins," which is fairly affective in
spirit, the book contains nothing but remarks on how to
discover our vices and counsels for overcoming them :
"The title of the book," writes Cano in the Prologue,
" is On the Conquest of Oneself — that is to say, of one's
own vices and passions ; a conquest which is wOt so hard
as many people fancy. . . .
" Seeing how few books written in Spanish give such
teaching in a competent manner, I have decided to face the
fatigue of a few days' toil to write this treatise, the best part
of which I have taken from the Italian in which I found it
written by a man of great good sense and of great courage
in spiritual warfare. In it the reader will find the origin
and the cause of all our vices and the signs whereby they
may be recognized ; he will find the remedies and medicines
most suited to each malady ; he will find in what cases the
seven capital sins are mortal and in what cases they are
venial, and this, as I know, has not as yet been put in
1 Published at Salamanca in 1563 after the author's death, and often
reissued. Cf. M. Jacquin, O.P., Melchior Cano et la thiologie moderne,
in the Revue des sciences -philoso-phiques et thiologiques, 1920,
pp. 121-141.
* De la vitoria de si mismo, Valladolid, 1550. Often republished.
French translation by Maurice Legendre, Preface by P. Mandonnet,
Paris, 1923.
3 John Baptist Carioni, generally known as Battista da Crema
(ti534), published Le livre de la connaissance et victoire de soi-meme,
Milan, 1531. In 1538 Serafino da Fermo put an abridgement of this
book in his collection of Traites de la vie s-pirituelle. Battista da
Crema's Italian text was abridged by Melchior Cano. I shall refer to
Battista da Crema later on.
before St Ueresa 103
writing- in the Spanish language. And this is as necessary
for penitents as well as for confessors as any other work
that could be written."1
We shall come back to Melchior Cano again later on. His
work of antimystical reaction in Spain is of greater interest
to the history of spirituality than the little book On the
Conquest of Oneself.
The Venerable Bartholomew of the Martyrs (1 1590) is
more celebrated for his action at the Council of Trent and
for his pastoral zeal in his diocese of Braga in Portugal
than for his spiritual writings. However, his Compendium
vitae spiritualis2 contains a very good summary of spiritual
doctrine. It is a very practical book, which still further
extends the pastoral influence of the holy archbishop.
The Order of St Dominic had the signal honour of giving
St Teresa three confessors who directed her in the extra-
ordinary ways in which God used to lead her : Pedro Ibanez,
Dominico Banez, and Garcia de Toledo.
Pedro Ibanez made his profession in the monastery of
Salamanca, and was teacher of theology in the convent of
Avila when St Teresa had recourse to his wisdom in 1560
and 1 561. " He was at that time the most eminent theologian
in the town," she says, " and, in his Order, he had very
few superiors."3 Teresa, then in the monastery of the In-
carnation at Avila, had framed her plan of reforming the
Carmelite Order and of founding the convent of St Joseph
of Avila. She talked of her plan to Pedro Ibanez.4 A few
months later she made known to him all that was taking
place within her soul, tc ~btain his advice :
" I revealed to him," she says, " as clearly as I could,
all the visions I had had, my manner of prayer, and the great
graces which God was giving me, begging him to examine
everything seriously to see whether there was anything in
it contrary to Holy Scripture, so as to tell me what he
thought of it. He greatly reassured me."6
Pedro Ibanez asked Teresa to give him a full account of
her life.6 In 1563 or 1564 he wrote a report on the interior
ways of the saint, and after setting forth the traditional rules
for the discernment of spirits he concludes, "with all those
who have been consulted on the subject " that Teresa " was
1 La victoire sur soi-meme, Paris, 1923, pp. 36-37.
2 Published at Lisbon, 1582, then at Venice, 171 1, under the title
Compendium mysticae doclrinae, then at Rome, 1744. Le Maistre de
Sacy has published his Life.
3 Life, chap, xxxii. d ibid, and chap, xxxiii.
6 Life, chap, xxxiii.
6 St Teresa made then, in 1562, the first narrative of her life, which
was shorter than the one we have, and it has disappeared.
- — :-.
'
before St Ueresa 105
Owing- to her long experience, her prudence, and that humility
which has made her have constant recourse to the enlighten-
ment and knowledge of her confessors, she expresses herself
on these matters of prayer with an accuracy which the best
theologians do not always attain for want of experience."
Then come certain reservations demanded still more by the
circumstances than by the prudence of the censor.
One point seems to claim his most careful consideration,
" the revelations and visions which the book affords in great
numbers." It is not in these that we must " place sanctity."
They are, " on the other hand, a perilous reef for those who
tend towards perfection, for Satan often changes himself into
an angel of light and seduces such as are full of curiosity
and devoid of humilitv : we have seen many examples of this
in our own days." Bafiez affirms that no one was more in-
credulous than himself as to the visions and revelations of
Teresa, although he is inclined to think that they " might be
the work of God, as in the case of some other saints." But
he has better criteria for the appreciation of the sanctity of
his penitent. He has subjected her to hard trials. He has
" long put to the proof her sincerity, her obedience, her
penance, her patience, her charity towards her persecutors,
and her other virtues." She has always been admirable.
Moreover, her undertaking to reform the Carmelite nuns is
altogether in her favour. Bafiez ends by declaring: "This
book is not of such a kind as to be given to everybody, but
only to men of knowledge, of experience, and of Christian
wisdom."
V— BLESSED JOHN OF AVILA
Similar reservations are to be found in the otherwise en-
couraging letter written by Blessed John of Avila1 to St
Teresa on the Book of her Life. We realize that at the time
false mysticism was haunting everybody's mind. Teresa,
too, was as alarmed as everyone else, and feared illusion ;
she therefore took one step after another to get John of
Avila' s opinion about the special ways in which God was
leading her.2 She obtained it; and it gave her his most re-
assuring approbation.3
1 John of Avila, the apostle of Andalusia, did not belong to any
religious congregation. He was born on January 6, 1500, at Almo-
dovar del Campo. He studied at Salamanca and at Alcala. On the
death of his parents, he distributed his goods amongst the poor, was
ordained priest and devoted himself to preaching in Andalusia. He
was beatified by Leo XIII on April 6, 1894. Among the Works of
Luis of Granada, see the Vida del verier abile maestro Juan d' Avila.
There is another Life, by Martin Ruis, Madrid, 1618.
2 CEuvres de sainte Tirese, Vol. I, pp. 12-17.
3 id., Vol. II, pp. 159-163.
io6 Cbristfan Spirituality
Nevertheless, several passages in his letter must have left
Teresa in great anxiety.
" The book is not written," she read, " for the handling- of
many. . . . Certain things which may have been profitable
to your own spiritual progress would not be so for those who
might desire to seize upon them, for the particular ways
whereby God leads some are not suited to others. . . .
Inward voices have deceived many in our own times. Those
from without are the least reliable. To perceive that the
words are not the outcome of our own minds is easy ; but to
ascertain whether they come from the good or from the evil
spirit, that is much harder. . . . Imaginary and corporal
visions are the most dubious. They are not at all to be
desired : they must be evaded as much as possible."
In his preaching, as in his books, John of Avila put the
faithful on their guard against false mysticism as much as
against Protestant heresy. To instruct the ignorant, to con-
vert sinners, to exhort to the practice of perfection, to
keep souls from sin, and to sanctify the clergy, such was the
aim of his zeal. He restored to virtue a large number of
those who had gone astray. He won Francis Borgia and
John of God1 to the religious life. Most of those who were
eminent for sanctity in Spain during the sixteenth century
had some relations with him. His authority was universally
accepted and his guidance was much sought after. He wrote
many letters addressed to all conditions of people, from
dignitaries of the Church to the humblest of the faithful.2 To
all he gave the most appropriate advice proceeding from a
heart burning with zeal for the sanctification of souls. His
letters may be compared with those of St Francis de Sales.
John of Avila was raised to the highest of mystical states.
To a rare degree he possessed the gift of the discernment of
spirits. According to the testimony of St Peter of Alcantara,
no one surpassed him in the knowledge of the spiritual ways.
His principal work, Audi filia et vide,3 aims at leading the
Christian through difficulties inherent in human nature or
1 St John of God was born in 1495 at Montemajor-el-Novo in
Portugal. His family was very poor. He was converted by one of
John of Avila's sermons. He devoted himself to the service of the sick
and founded a hostel at Granada. This was a model for all the rest.
He instituted the Order of Charity, and died in 1550. Pope Pius V
approved of the new Order, and gave its religious the Rule of St
Augustine. Acta SS., March 8. Cf. Vie fofulaire de S Jean de
Dien, by P. Ignace-Marie Magnin, Paris-Lille, 1887.
2 Four books of Spiritual Letters are in the Works of John of Avila
(French translation, 1588). His Complete Works were published at
Madrid in 1618 by Martin Ruiz (French translation, Paris, 1673).
3 Esfosicion del verso: Audi filia, 1556, was first published without
John of Avila's consent. He composed this mystical commentary for
devout persons under his direction. He refrained from publishing it
through fear of the Inquisition.
Before St Ueresa 107
characteristic of the Spanish mentality at the time, and to
help him to attain to the topmost heights of perfection. It
is a mystical commentary on Psalm xliv, 11, 12 : " Hearken,
O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear : forget thy people
and thy father's house; and the King shall greatly desire thy
beauty."
The Christian soul, the daughter of whom the Psalmist
speaks, hears at first the various voices which must be
despised : voices of the world, of the flesh, and of the devil.
She must also close her ears to the words of heretics who,
like the impious Luther, claim the right to reform the Church
in order to restore her so-called primitive perfection.1 Above
all must she distrust the Alumbrados, the enemies of true
devotion. They have tried to discover new ways of going to
God, and shorter ways in their opinion. They imagine that
it is enough to abandon themselves entirely to the Lord to be
led by his Spirit. Hence they are so blind that they take
their own notions for God's and do things against his com-
mandments as if they were inspired by the Holy Ghost. John
advises people not to desire revelations, visions, and other
extraordinary things.2
Having put aside all hindrances to the Christian life, the
soul must try to acquire self-knowledge. She will then devote
herself to prayer and meditation, without which it is hard to
acquire sanctity.3 John of Avila's method of prayer re-
sembles Luis of Granada's. Above all he would have us
cleave to Jesus and contemplate him almost entirely in prayer.
For when we consider ourselves, we find ourselves so im-
perfect that we are inclined to be discouraged. Let us then
consider the highest of all beauty, which is Christ. Let us
further take comfort because Jesus hearkens to us and looks
upon us after we have listened to and regarded ourselves. By
prayer the Christian soul thus enters into familiar communion
with the Saviour. When she has renounced self-will and has
been exercised in the practice of love, she will recover all her
beauty, and the King will greatly desire her.4
1 Audi fdia, chaps, xxx-xlxx. 2 ibid., chaps. 1-lv.
s ibid., chaps, lxix-lxxxv.
4 John of Avila wrote several other little treatises or discourses : a
discourse upon the need of having no will but God's ; two discourses
on the priesthood and on the sanctity required for it ; a discourse on
the love of God; two collections of counsels for living a Christian life,
both censured by the Inquisition. It is in the first of these collections
that we find the passage upon the subject of a director which so much
interested St Francis de Sales : " If God grants us the grace of
meeting one [a good director] amongst a thousand. . . ." Cf. The
Devout Life, Part I, chap, iv : " Choose one out of a thousand, says
Avila; and I say, one out of ten thousand. . . ."
108 Cbristian Spirituality
VI— THE VIOLENT REACTION OF THE SPANISH
INQUISITION AGAINST THE FALSE MYSTICISM
OF THE " ALUMBRADOS "— THE ANTI-MYSTI-
CAL REACTION
This wonderful blossoming- of spiritual literature was cut
short by the Inquisition.
Its task was a very hard one. Protestantism was en-
deavouring to enter into Spain. The Alumbrados held out a
helping hand. Illuminism and false mysticism were filtering
into the popular mind. At Cordova in 1544, Madeleine of the
Cross, a Poor Clare, had a great reputation for sanctity.1
Miracles were attributed to her. Her confessors ordered her
to write her life and to give an account of the extraordinary
graces with which she was favoured. But all of a sudden it
turned out that it was all imposture, and that the miserable
creature had sold her soul to the devil. Later on, a Domini-
can nun of Lisbon, Mary of the Incarnation, who simulated
ecstasies and stigmata, took advantage of the honest con-
fidence of Luis of Granada.
Reaction was certainly demanded to stop the evil. The
Grand Inquisitor, Fernando de Valdes, Archbishop of Seville,
began the work of purification by publishing the Index of
Toledo in 1551.2 It has the Protestants especially in view.
The Index generally forbids the reading of any version " of
the Bible in Castilian or any other vulgar tongue." All
heterodox texts are prohibited, and Jewish and Lutheran
Bibles or any others circulating in the kingdom.
This first blow was ineffective. Heresy and illuminism
went on with their ravages. And then it was that, to put a
stop to them more surely, it was decided to condemn any
book that seemed in the least suspicious : book of Hours,
treatise of spirituality, or manual of devotional practices.
Here Melchior Cano comes upon the scene.
About 1556 and 1557, in preaching at Valladolid against
the Protestants and the Alumbrados, he also appeared to
have the mystics in view. Moreover, according to him, in
the circumstances of the time any devotional work in the
language of the people was dangerous. Even simple ex-
planations of the Catechism had their disadvantages.
In 1558 there appeared at Brussels the Commentaries al
Catecismo Cristiano by Cardinal Carranza, Dominican and
Archbishop of Toledo.3 It was an excellent and entirely
1 Menendez y Pelayo, Heterodoxos Esfanoles, II, p. 528.
* It is the Index of Louvain of 1546, republished at Toledo with a
list of books forbidden by Fernando de Valdes.
3 Cf. A. Tournon, Histoires des hommes illustres de Vordre de
S Dominique, Paris, 1743-1749, Vol. IV, Book XXIX.
before St Ueresa 109
practical work, a simple exposition of Christian doctrine in
a form easy for all to understand. Was the Cardinal under
suspicion? In any case the book was delated for trial to the
Inquisition. Melchior Cano1 was charged with the examina-
tion of it, and made a very unfavourable report. He found
in it statements which were almost Lutheran ! Especially
were the explanations given in it much more suited, he said,
to priests than to simple layfolk. Was it not the tendency of
the illuminati and false mystics to reveal to everyone whatever
is mysterious in Catholic doctrine? The book was con-
demned, and people were astounded to learn that the pious
and learned Cardinal had been flung into the prisons of the
Inquisition. Pope Pius IV could not obtain his discharge
until after several years of insistence.
Decidedly, the Grand Inquisitor meant to strike dreadful
blows in order to impress the people and to turn them away
from error. If anyone went too far, so much the worse for
him, provided that heresy and false mysticism were ex-
terminated from Spain ! They attacked even the wisest
spiritual writers if they had written in Spanish.
Melchior Cano reproached his fellow Dominican, Luis of
Granada, with desiring to lead all the faithful systematically
to mystical prayer. Would it not fling them all into
illuminism? He also thought that Granada's books were too
full of sentimentality and of tendencies too much like those
of the Alumbrados. Besides, all books that popularized
mysticism were considered very dangerous and capable of
promoting unhealthy illusions. Their reading must be for-
bidden.
Urged on by Melchior Cano, Fernando de Valdes issued
the famous Index of 15592 at Valladolid. To the books
already prohibited in 1551 was added a long list of works
mostly written by authors of irreproachable orthodoxy. Be-
sides Carranza's book, it included three works by Luis of
Granada,3 one by Francis Borgia,4 one by John of Avila,5
and the spiritual writings of Jorge de Montemayor. The
reading of Eckhart, of the Institutions of Tauler, of the
1 See Vida, by F. Caballero. Dominic de Soto (ti56o), O.P., was
charged with the examination of Carranza's book. He was a counsellor
of the Grand Inquisitor. On this anti-mystical reaction, see Colunga,
O.P., Ciencia tomista, May, July, November, 1914. A. Saudreau, Le
mouvement anti?nystique en Espagne au XV I e siecle in the Revue du
Clergi jrancais, August 1, 1917, Vol. XCI, pp. 193 ff.
2 Catalogus librorum qui prohibentur mandato Illustrissimi et
Reverendissimi D. D. Fernandi de Valdes, Hispalen. Archiepiscopi,
Inquisitoris generalis Hispaniae, Pinciae, 1559. Reprint by Hunting-
ton, New York.
8 Libro de la Oracion y Meditacion; Guida de Pecadores ; The
Manual of divers Prayers and spiritual Exercises. Luis appealed to
the Council of Trent, which approved his Libro.
Obras del Cristiano. 5 Aviso y reglas cristianas.
no Christian Spirituality
Mystical Theology of Harphius, and of Dionysius the Car-
thusian's treatise on the Last Things was also forbidden.
The works of the " Mystics of the North " were considered
specially pernicious.1
This excessive reaction is explained by the end in view :
but it profoundly grieved the mystics. St Teresa wrote about
these condemnations.
" When the reading of a good many Spanish books was
prohibited, I was very sorry for it, since many of them gave
me pleasure, and henceforth I found myself deprived of them,
as they might only be read in Latin."2
A real panic spread among the writers of spiritual books. 3
It was the rout of the mystics. Woe to him who dared to
write ! Luis de Leon, the famous Augustinian, having trans-
lated at the request of a nun the Canticle of Canticles, was
denounced to the Inquisition and imprisoned for five years.
By what miracle did the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius
of Loyola escape the Index of 1559? Opposition to the
Exercises was manifested, as we know, at Alcala and at
Salamanca, as soon as they began to be followed. Ignatius
finally left Spain in 1535, and his departure caused the attacks
to slacken, but about 1540, when his disciples returned,
prejudice against the Exercises revived and became more
violent than ever.
The papal approbation of the Exercises by Paul III in
1548 might have been expected to calm people's minds; but
at that time the absolute power of the Inquisition was entirely
subject to Philip II, and the approbation and examinations of
Rome were but " feeble arguments " in Spain.4 In any case,
they did not prevent the violent opposition of Melchior Cano.
As soon as the Jesuits returned to Salamanca, the terrible
Dominican, who was a professor there, started a campaign.
Both in his correspondence and in his still famous Memor-
andum5 he unsparingly attacked Ignatius and his com-
panions, those " latter-day seducers who delude the world."
The controversial amenities of the period swarm from his
pen ! According to him, the Exercises are " diabolical
artifices," and encourage illuminism !6 Invective passed into
1 These works had been translated into Spanish ; hence the reading
of them was forbidden.
2 Life, chap, xxvi, CEuvres, Vol. I, p. 233-
* In 1565 there appeared a few rare works of ascetic theology;
amongst others, De Montoya's Obras de los que aman a Dios at Lisbon.
Several treatises by Alonzo of Orozco were published from 1565 to 1570.
* Monumenta historica Societatis Jesu, E-pistolae mixtae, Vol. Ill,
p. 666.
5 Cf. Crisis de la Comfahia de Jesus, Barcelona, 1900, pp. 152-159.
6 In the sixteenth century the Exercises were considered conducive to
illuminism, and since then they have been said to bar the ways of
mysticism.
Before St {Teresa m
action : the Archbishop of Toledo, John Martinez Guijeno,
appointed a commission to examine the Exercises, and it
censured them as tainted with illuminism.1
These exaggerations issued in results contrary to those
desired. Ignatius and his companions endured these unjust
attacks without replying, and were content to countering
them with the approbation of Rome. By degrees passions
were allayed, and the Exercises escaped the Index of 1559.
These events naturally gave rise to a somewhat lively
conflict between the theologians and the spiritual authors.
In 1562, when St Teresa consulted St Peter of Alcantara
on her project — opposed by the theologians2 — of founding
monasteries in utter poverty, the famous Franciscan replied
with energy :
' I assure you that I was very surprised to find you were
referring to the judgement of theologians a question with
which they have nothing to do. If matters of law or cases
of conscience were at stake, it would be right to take the
opinions of jurists or of theologians ; but when it is a question
of perfection, we have only to consult those who practise it.
Usually, indeed, conscience and pious dispositions are in
harmony with the works that men do."3
Luis of Granada, in the new editions of his Guia de
Pecadores, wrote prologues " in reply to certain persons,
whose words are not lacking in gravity and who reject even
good books in the vulgar tongue for the use of those who
know not Latin."4
St Teresa, convinced " of the insufficiency of man's
strength to quench the fire of heresy," recommended her
religious in 1565 to pray for the defenders of the faith, in
order, she acutely added, " that amongst so great a number
of doctors and religious, many may be found possessed of
. . . the qualities needed for the fulfilment of their mission,
and that the Lord may give such dispositions to those who
are as yet not fully endowed with them, seeing that one
perfect man will do more than a large number of others who
are not so."5
As long as she had put nothing into writing, the Inquisitors
1 A. Astrain, Historia de la Compania de Jesus en la Asistencia de
Espana, Madrid, 1902, Vol. I, pp. 323-325, 367 ff. ; Polanco, Chronicon
Societatis Jesu, Vol. Ill, pp. 503 ff. P. Brou gives a summary of the
facts in Les Exercises spirituels de saint Ignace de Loyola, Paris, 1922,
pp. 59 ff.
2 Life, chap. xxxv.
3 CEuvres de sainte Terese, Vol. II, p. 420.
* Bareille, Vol. X, p. 15.
_ * The Way of Perfection, chap. iii. Cf. Spiritual Relations, Rela-
tion iii, CEuvres, II, p. 218.
"2 Christian Spirituality
did not alarm her j1 yet she suffered indirectly from their
exaggerated zeal. Fear of the Holy Office often led her
confessors to subject her to hard trials, especially when she
was beginning to receive extraordinary graces. To these
trials the saint discreetly alludes, sometimes with severity, in
the Book of her Life and the Way of Perfection.
" I have sustained considerable [harm]," she says in her
Life,2 " owing to the excessive fears to which some minds
are liable.
" Among other things, this is what has happened to me.
There was a meeting of a certain number of men of God, in
whom I had much confidence, and that on just grounds. Yet
I opened my mind to but one confessor, and only spoke to
any others on his orders ; but these conversed with one
another about my spiritual interests, and as they were very
devoted to me, they feared lest I might have illusions. . . .
I believe there were five or six of them, all great servants of
God. My confessor warned me that in their opinion the
devil was the cause of what was taking place within me :
according to them, I ought to receive Holy Communion less
often and to seek distraction by shunning solitude. . . .
These men were far more virtuous than I was, and, moreover,
good theologians: how could I help believing them? I did
my best to adopt their opinions. . . .
" A prey to desolation, I left the church [of the Jesuit
College] and withdrew to an oratory. For some time I had
been deprived of Holy Communion as well as of the solitude
which was my whole joy. Further, I had no one to whom
I could open my heart, since everyone was against me."
This attitude on the part of Teresa's confessors was not
only inspired by the desire to " try her spirit." Mixed up in
the conflict which stirred the peninsula, many may have been
prejudiced by the surrounding hostility towards mysticism.
They were "always distrustful."3
But St Teresa had to suffer still further from the Inquisi-
tion. In 1575 she was told that the Book of her Life, copies
of which were being circulated against her will, had just been
denounced to the Holy Office. She was alarmed about it,
not on her own account, but for the sake of her foundations,
1 Cf. Life, chap, xxxiii : " They came to tell me in much alarm that
the times were evil, that some accusation might well be made against
me, and that I might be delated to the Inquisitors. This idea seemed
to me quite charming, and it made me burst out laughing. ... So I
answered that they need not worry : my soul would be in a very bad
state if I had any reason to fear the Inquisition."
2 Life, chap. xxv. Cf . Life, chap, xxviii ; Way of Perfection, chap. v.
The happenings in chap, xxv occurred at Avila, where Teresa was at
the Monastery of the Incarnation.
3 Interior Castle, Fifth Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, p. 133. Cf.
Foundations, chap. viii.
Betore St Xleresa 113
which were fully prospering-. " To incur the indignation of
the Inquisitors was at the same time to incur the indignation
of Philip II."1 What was to become of the incipient reform?
Happily the Dominican Bafiez reported favourably on the
book, and no condemnation occurred.
VII— TRIALS OF THE JESUIT BALTHAZAR
ALVAREZ
These suspicions of mysticism were maintained by the per-
sistence of false mysticism. Neither the Index of 1551, nor
that of 1559, nor the autos-da-fS had been able to banish the
Alumbrados from the peninsula. The cynicism and im-
morality of the sectaries, put on record once more in 1578 at
Llerena, surpass all imagination. The Inquisition was acting
rigorously. The superiors of religious communities were ex-
ercising keen watchfulness to keep their subjects from
illuminism ; and, as always in such circumstances, this watch-
fulness sometimes grew vexatious. It was particularly so in
the case of Balthazar Alvarez.2
At the age of twenty-five, this Jesuit was charged with the
direction of St Teresa just when she was entering upon the
most extraordinary phase of her life. Though he was as
prudent as the most sagacious of theologians, he could not
refrain from criticisms.
First of all, he would not tolerate any imperfection in his
penitent who was called to a high degree of sanctity. He
asked her to give up " certain friendships which did not at
all offend God,"3 but which hindered her yearning for per-
fection. Having also remarked her too great eagerness in
her enterprises, he desired to cure it.
" Once the saint, being very busy, wrote him a letter, while
he was away from Avila, asking him for a speedy reply
' because she was tired out.' Father Balthazar, considering
that it was more important to mortify her and to moderate
1 For all this, see (Euvres de sainte Terese, Vol. I, pp. 22 ff.
8 Born in 1533 at Cervera in Spain, he entered among the Jesuits at
the age of twenty-two. Ordained priest in 1558, next year he became
the Minister of the College of Avila and was charged with the direction
of St Teresa. He directed her for six years. In 1566 he became Novice-
master and Rector of Medina del Campo, then Procurator of the
Province of Castile at Rome in 1571, Rector of Salamanca in 1574,
Rector of Yillagarcia in 1577, Visitor of the Province of Aragon in
1579, Provincial of Toledo in 1580, the year of his death. Luis de la
Puente, Vida del V. F. Balthasar Alvarez, Madrid, re-edited in 1880
by P. de la Torre (new ed., Madrid, 1921) with appendices; French
translation by Bouix, Paris, 1873; Couderc, Paris, 1912. I quote the
latter. See, too, Astrain, Historia de la Comfania de Jesus en la
Asistencia de Es-pana, Vol. Ill, 189 ff.
3 Vie de sainte Tirese, chap. xxiv.
in. 8
in Cbristiau Spirituality
such eagerness, answered the letter without delay, and wrote
outside close to the address : ' Not to be opened for a month/
This she did, and it was no small mortification to her."1
He tried her still more — may we not say, to the point of
hardship? — when nearly everyone was treating- the saint as
a visionary.
" Sometimes he told her purposely that everybody affirmed
that what she experienced was an illusion of the devil, allow-
ing- her to understand that he shared their opinion. He kept
her from Holy Communion for twenty days to see how she
would endure it. He tried her with such mortifications that
she was several times tempted to abandon him, so much did
he distress and urge her ! But whenever she yielded to the
temptation to leave him, she felt herself inwardly rebuked
and urged not to do it."2
The trial was certainly pushed too far. Balthazar Alvarez
wished to keep Teresa to discursive prayer by force. Dis-
trustful of himself, he sought counsel on the subject: " His
great humility," says Teresa with subtle delicacy, "was to
me the source of many sufferings, for, although a man of
much prayer as well as knowledge, he did not trust to him-
self in the matter, since the Lord used not to lead him by
this way."3
The young confessor's humility did not, however, make
him blind. He finally recognized very clearly the divine
nature of Teresa's revelations and visions. These super-
natural phenomena coincided with such an increase in the
virtues of his penitent that they could not be of diabolical
origin. Balthazar Alvarez, too, was himself treated as a
visionary for believing in the visions of Teresa.
" He had to bear all kinds of troubles on my behalf," says
St Teresa. " They told him, as I have learnt since, to beware
of me, for if he gave the least credence to my words he
would fall into the snare of the devil, and they mentioned
what had happened to others. All this distressed me ex-
tremely. I feared a time might come when no one would be
willing to hear my confessions and everyone would flee from
me; I did nothing but weep."4
Balthazar Alvarez was soon to experience, on his own
account, similar contradictions.
1 Vie du P. Balthazar Alvarez, p. 102, Couderc.
2 ibid. Cf. Vie de sainte Terese, chap. xxvi.
s Vie de sainte Terese, chap, xxviii. Balthazar Alvarez was then at
the College of St Giles of Avila, under the Rector Denis Vasquez, con-
fessor and companion of St Francis Borgia, and a man of extreme
severity.
4 ibid. Later on, Balthazar Alvarez strongly encouraged the saint
in founding monasteries. Cf. Foundations, chap. iii.
Before St Teresa 115
Sent to Medina del Campo in 1566 to exercise the functions
of rector and novice-master, he was raised in the following-
year to the prayer of quiet and of union.1 He then knew by
experience the mystical state of which St Teresa had so often
spoken to him.
At first he was not disturbed in any way. He was even
reputed to have received from heaven much " enlightenment
and understanding " on the question of prayer. He was also
entrusted with a confidential mission.
In J574 tne Inquisition issued another edict against the
Alumbrados. " On this occasion Father John Suarez, pro-
vincial of the province of Castile, wanting not even a shadow
of such errors to be found among the Jesuits who practise
mental prayer and are familiar with things spiritual, gave
Father Balthazar ... an order to compose a little treatise on
the way to speak thereon in conformity with the truth and the
spirit of the Church."2
The Alumbrados, as we know, exaggerated the need and
the effects of mental prayer. " No one, apart from mental
prayer," they claimed, "can be, or persevere, in a state of
grace." On the other hand, "alone, such prayer is enough
to make anyone perfect."3 Moreover, these were not the only
falsities of their teaching.
Balthazar Alvarez examines one after another their errors
on prayer, on the soul's communications with God while on
earth, on the sensible consolations of devotion, on confes-
sion and communion, on marriage, chastity, and the religious
Orders. He criticizes them closely, and shows their entire
opposition to the traditional teaching of the Church. His
treatise is one of the best refutations of the false Spanish
mysticism of the time.4
These events led anew to the over-excitement of men's
minds. They spoke much of mental prayer and of methods
of prayer. And, as often happens in such circumstances, the
disciples of Balthazar Alvarez attributed compromising state-
ments to their master :
"They spoke of prayer," says Luis de la Puente, "in
terms far away from the thought of their master; they said
or did things which led those who were well instructed and
zealous to form no good opinion of the method that they
1 Vie du P. B. Alvarez, chap, xxxiii, p. 314.
2 ibid. The treatise of Balthazar Alvarez against the Alumbrados
appears to be prior to the discussions about to be related. When the
Inquisition published its edict against the false mystics, if the
spirituality of B. Alvarez had been suspected, he would not have been
asked for his treatise on prayer.
3 ibid., p. 316.
* A lengthy analysis of it is given in chap, xxxiii of the Vie du P.
B. Alvarez, pp. 314-329. It is one of the most important documents
for a knowledge of the teaching of the Alumbrados.
n6 Cbrtetfatt Sptritualtt\?
followed nor of the master to whom they attributed it, as if
he were the one who used them as his mouthpiece. It was
a still graver matter when they thought that certain ignorant
or indiscreet persons appeared to despise the use of mental
prayer by means of deductions, affections, demands and
colloquies, as taught by the Blessed St Ignatius in his book
of Spiritual Exercises. These, said they, are but perambula-
tors, which are good enough for children till they have learnt
to walk, and that is all ; for when they can wralk they are
allowed to go as they please and without taking such trouble.
The Holy Ghost will not be tied to rules and to methods of
prayer ; he ' bloweth where he will and as he will. ' . . .
Hence these imprudent persons, more presumptuous than
experienced, wanted everyone to follow the road they took
themselves, and turned them away from the path ordinarily
used by the faithful."1
Balthazar Alvarez was then Rector of Salamanca. His
followers' indiscretions ended in his kind of spirituality being
disputed. Was not his exalted prayer mere illusion, " a
work of Satan changed into an angel of light"?
" There were found even some who threatened to hand him
over to the Inquisition, for they questioned whether he were
not rather given to the error of the Illuminati. He was sus-
pected of taking no account of methods of prayer by means
of reasoning and meditation as used in the Society and
approved by the saints, and of desiring to lead the religious
by other singular and perilous paths."2
In fact, Balthazar Alvarez, being used to mystical prayer,
in teaching his young religious, did not give what was
regarded as a sufficiently important part to discursive medita-
tion. He said clearly, indeed, that the mystical ways could
not be followed by all as easily as the method of St Ignatius.
" But," he added, " God can call everyone to them if he
will."3 And he ordinarily calls thereto all who have labori-
ously prepared themselves for them " by purity of heart, by
mortification of their passions, and by long exercises of
meditation."4 Such preparation requires time. Those
who " have to devote themselves to the salvation of their
neighbours " will succeed still more surely in attaining such
heavenly favours :
" That there are in the Society," added Alvarez, " wherein
men are so desirous to please God, subjects who are raised
to this degree [of prayer], this seems to me to be evident.
But, to keep away those whom God our Lord has made to
1 Vie du P. B. Alvarez, chap, xli, pp. 402-403.
3 id., chap, xl, pp. 394-395-
3 id., chap, xiii, p. 125.
4 id., chap, xiv, p. 135. Cf. chap, xiii, p. 125 : God calls " after
a long use of meditation and reflection."
Before St ZTeresa 117
ascend thereto, especially if one has no experience of this
manner, that appears to me not to be permitted in conscience
and to involve a risk of injuring- their souls and even their
health. This is Ossuna's opinion in his Abecedario: ' We
are not free from sin when we turn anyone aside from God's
way.' Elsewhere we read : 'If a superior did this, God
would shorten his life if he did not retract his decision.' To
act thus by means of examination and trial is quite another
thing, and the office of superiors enables them to do
this."1
The threat of Ossuna, as we shall see, did not intimidate
the superiors of Balthazar Alvarez.
His provincial, John Suarez, asked him — Alvarez was still
Rector of Salamanca — to " give an account of his prayer,
and of what happened to him while he was engaged therein."2
Balthazar immediately composed a full account of what he
had been asked for. Then, to the written objections of his
provincial, he replied with a second memorandum :3
" Since our Lord has granted me this ' mercy,' " says
Balthazar Alvarez, " my prayer consists in putting myself
in his presence which I enjoy within, and also corporally,
usually continuously, sometimes finding my joy with him. . . .
" At other times I am in prayer, reasoning according to
the meanings given to the words of Holy Scripture and fol-
lowing inward teachings ; sometimes I keep silence and relish
a holy repose. This silent repose in the presence of God is
a great treasure, because everything speaks to him, every-
thing is open to his eyes, my heart, my desires, my aims, my
trials, my feelings, my knowledge, and my capacity. . . .
" Usually there is no reasoning, but there is always peti-
tion : and whilst our Lord keeps my soul in a state of repose,
it makes all sorts of acts of virtue, and consequently, of
petition, not by an act which the theologians call ' marked,'
but by an act 'exercised.' In fact, does this soul of mine,
silent before God, trusting that, by appearing in his presence,
its heart and all its heart's desires are manifested to him,
cease from petitioning?"4 . . .
Balthazar Alvarez calls his prayer " the prayer of silence,"
because the soul keeps in the presence of God without much
speaking and even without speaking at all ; it is in a state
of " spiritual repose." The soul appears before God with its
desires which " are to God what words are to man."5 In
1 Vie dn P. B. Alvarez, chap, xiii, pp. 125-126.
2 id., chap, xiii, p. 116.
3 Luis de la Puente sums up these two accounts of Alvarez in
chap, xiii and xiv of his Life.
4 Vie, chap, xiii, pp. 119, 121, 124. Luis de la Puente also quotes
extracts from this second memorial in chaps, xiv and xli.
8 id., xiii, p. 124.
ii 8 Cbristian Spirituality
fine, here we have the prayer of quiet and of union so much
spoken of by St Teresa.
The intervention of the Provincial John Suarez does not
appear to have been followed by sanctions. This was not
the case with that of the Visitor Diego de Avellaneda in
x577-
As soon as he arrived in the province of Castile, Diego de
Avellaneda asked Balthazar Alvarez, then Rector of Villa-
garcia, for a memorandum — the third — on his way of prayer.1
The visitor, having- taken knowledge of it, enjoined upon the
rector to make no use " either in his own case or in the case
of others of any manner of prayer differing from that of the
Exercises." It would not be enough for him to show " more
esteem and affection for the method of prayer of the Exer-
cesis," but he should prefer it "to any other whatsoever,
entirely following the method of prayer" of his Institute,
" both in his own case and in the case of all whom he
directed." The General of the Society, Everard Mercurian,
approved of the conduct of the visitor.2
Measures were taken in consequence of these events. The
religious of the Society were bound still more firmly to the
method of prayer of the Exercises, which many of them ap-
peared to disdain. They were also forbidden to read certain
mystics, and especially Tauler and Harphius, without a
special authorization.3
This severity proves that the Jesuit superiors were resolved
to maintain their religious in asceticism and in the discursive
prayer prescribed in the Spiritual Exercises. Did not
prudence counsel thus? There were so many and such
dangerous errors about prayer, and they were to be met with
in Andalusia and even in Castile at every turn ! Lastly, the
Inquisition was on the watch, and woe to anyone whom it
set upon ! Later on, circumstances changed, and a General
of the Jesuits, Claud Acquaviva, was able to put things right.
The publication of works of mysticism was, in these circum-
stances, impossible.
In 1573 Ribera ventured to write a treatise On Contempla-
tion, but he wrote it in Latin, and issued it at Cologne. We
are astonished to find that the Augustinian Sebastian Foscari
1 Luis de la Puente does not mention this memorandum. It may
be found in Appendix xix of J. de la Torre's reissue of the Vie de B.
Alvarez (1880).
2 See Astrain, Historia de la Comfahia de Jesus en la Asistencia de
Esfana, Vol. Ill, pp. 191 ff. ; P. Dudon, Uoraison du P. B. Alvarez
[Revue d'Asc. et de Myst., 1921, pp. 36 ff.).
3 Cf. Alphonsus Rodriguez, Practice of Christian Perfection, Part I,
Treatise V, chap. iv.
Before St Ueresa 119
was able to bring out at Madrid in the same year, a book on
Mistica Teologia.1
In 1583 the Inquisition published another Index,2 certainly
less severe than that of 1559, but hardly likely to reassure
writers. St Teresa died the year before in 1582. None of
her immortal works were issued during- her lifetime. The
first to see the light, " the least compromising, the most
moderate, the most purely ascetic in its tendency," was the
Way of Perfection, published at Evora in 1583. It was only
five years later that Luis de Leon issued the first edition of
the saint's Works. This publication did not completely
disarm all hostility to mysticism. But at any rate mysticism
now wins once and for ever the right of citizenship in Spain.
VIII— THE AUGUSTINIANS : LUIS DE LEON
AND THOMAS OF JESUS (D'ANDRADA)
Luis de Leon3 is one of the greatest of Spanish writers and
poets of the second half of the sixteenth century. His
literary superiority is undisputed. Spanish owes a great
deal to him. He wielded it with great suppleness, and con-
tributed to its full development more than anyone else.4
He loved his mother tongue too much not to make use of
it in preference to Latin, even in his theological works. To
those who reproached him, he replied " that their national
language had but small claims upon them, since that for its
sake they detested what they would have approved of in
another tongue. I confess," he added, "that I can hardly
explain such revulsion, whereof our speech is certainly un-
worthy, nor their worship of Latin, which we know certainly
to be no better than Spanish, although, truth to tell, we
suspect not at all how rich is the latter. They find it strange,
too, that in speaking the language of the people I put a
1 At Saragossa, about 1570, appeared the Union del alma, by Enecon
Aberca de Bolea.
2 It was published by Cardinal Quiroga, then Grand Inquisitor.
Cf. Fr. Reusch, Die Indices librorum frohibitorum des XVI Jahr-
hunderts, Tubingen, 1886, in the collection of the Litterarisches Verein,
Stuttgart, Vol. clxxvi.
3 Luis de Leon was born at Madrid (others say at Granada) in 1527.
He studied at the University of Salamanca, joined the Augustinians of
that town in 1544, and soon gained a great reputation owing to his
learning. In 1588 he was elected Vicar General of the Augustinians,
and then became Provincial of Castile. He died at Villa-de-Madrigal
in 1591. Cf. Fray Vidal, History of the Institute of the Augustinians
of Salamanca, Madrid, 1571. A good edition of the Works of Luis de
Leon is that of Madrid, 1804-1816, 16 vols. : Todas obras, reconocidas
y cotejadas con varios manuscritos autenticos por el P. M. Fr. Antolino
Merino; Rivadeneyra, Autores Esfanoles, Obras del maestro Luis de
Leon, Vol. XXXVII.
* Bibliotheca Hisfana nova, Madrid, 1788.
120 Gbristtan Spirituality
certain amount of elegance into my discourses, seeking har-
mony of phrase, propriety of expression, and richly turned
periods. They fancy that to use the common speech is to
speak like the common people."1
It was not only his love of his mother tongue that led him
to write in Spanish. Like Luis of Granada, he understood
how necessary it was to write in the popular language to
instruct the people in religious doctrine and to combat bad
books. More than Luis of Granada he had to suffer for this
innovation.
In 1 561 he wrote in Spanish a short explanation of the
Canticle of Canticles for a nun. Denounced to the Inquisi-
tors, he was cast into the dungeons of the Inquisition, and
remained there five years. It was during his captivity that
he had the idea of composing his masterpiece : Los nombres
de Cristo (The Names of Christ).
After the fashion of the Octavius of Minucius Felix, Luis
de Leon makes three Augustinians discourse upon the various
names of Christ taken from the Scriptures. This pious
colloquy sets forth a deep spiritual christology, which is a
forerunner of that which was to be taught by the French
School a few years afterwards.
" The name ..." says Luis de Leon, " is a word which is
put in place of the thing or person whereof we speak, and it
is taken for that thing or person."2 To explain the various
names of Christ is therefore to speak of what he is, of his
greatness, his virtues, his offices, and of our duty towards
him. In a word, it means to base our piety on devotion to
the Saviour.
Why does Holy Scripture give several names to Jesus?
" The reason," says Luis de Leon, " lies in his infinite
greatness, in the treasure of his perfections, as well as in
the diversity of his offices and of the goods that flow from
him to us. The soul cannot embrace all this with a single
glance, nor can it be expressed with a single word. Thus,
as he who pours water into a vase with a long and narrow
neck fills it drop by drop and not all at once, so the Holy
Spirit, knowing how narrow and limited is our understand-
ing, does not put before us all this immense greatness at
the same time, but he offers it to us, so to speak, in frag-
ments, revealing to us one part of it under the veil of a
1 Los nombres de Cristo, Book III, see Rivadeneyra, Autores
Esfanoles, Vol. XXXVII. The other chief works of Luis de Leon are :
In Cantica canticorum exflanatio, Salamanca, 1580; In -psalmum
XXVI comment., Salamanca, 15S0, in which he complains of his
captivity; La ferfecta Casada {The Perfect Wife), 1583. After his
death in 1618, the Explanation of the Psalm " Miserere " was published
at Madrid.
2 Postel's French translation of The Names of Christ, p. 50 (Paris,
1862).
^Before St TTeresa 121
Name, another part under that of a different Name, and so
forth throughout. Hence the number of the names given to
the Saviour in Holy Scripture."1
Amongst these names the writer selects a few which seem
to him of greater importance and more inclusive, and then
explains them.2
The wealth of doctrine and charm of style secured an
extraordinary success for the Nombres de Cristo. This cele-
brated work found its way into all the literary collections of
the peninsula, and was included in all libraries of devotional
reading. It gave its author a henceforth undisputed authority,
so that, when the Carmelites thought of publishing the first
edition of the Works of St Teresa, they begged the famous
Augustinian to take charge of it. " By his knowledge and
the authority of his name no less than by his admiration for
St Teresa, Luis de Leon seemed eminently fitted to carry out
this delicate and important business with happy results."3
Of less literary value than his Spanish brother, the Portu-
gese, Thomas d'Andrada, better known as Thomas of Jesus,4
edified many by his meditations on the Sufferings of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
He wrote them during his long and hard captivity among
the Moors in Africa, whither he had accompanied the luck-
less Portugese army in 1578. Thomas of Jesus was interned
in a narrow cell, and, being unable to care for the imprisoned
soldiers, wrote in order to encourage and comfort them. His
work was thought out " in his actual experience of the cross."
And with what realism does he describe the Saviour's suffer-
ings ! Thomas of Jesus appears to have suffered them him-
self, such is the unction with which he speaks. And what
outbursts of love does he utter, sanctified as he is by the
1 Postel's French translation of The Names of Christ, p. 65.
2 These are : Jesus Christ the Offshoot or Fruit — the Face of God —
the Way— the Shepherd — the Mountain of God — the Father of the
world to come — the Prince of Peace— the Spouse — the Son of God — the
Well-beloved — the Lamb of God — and above all, the Name of Jesus.
3 Introduction aux (Euvres de sainte Tirese, Polit, Paris, 1907,
p. xxxii.
* Thomas d'Andrada was born at Coimbra in Portugal about 1530.
At the age of fifteen he joined the Augustinians of Lisbon. He tried,
though not quite successfully, to reform the Portuguese Augustinians.
In 1578 he accompanied King Sebastian in the tragic African expedi-
tion, in which he underwent a long and hard captivity among the
Moors, and he died in prison in 1582. The work of Thomas of Jesus,
The Sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, appeared first of all in
Portuguese. It was very soon translated into Spanish, Italian, and
Latin under various titles. One of the first French translations was
entitled The Works of Jesus, a tasteless allusion to The Works of
Hercules, by Collucio Salutati. Fr. Alleaume, S.J., published a French
translation at Toulouse in 1820.
122 Cbristian Spirituality
torments of his imprisonment endured in close union with the
sufferings of Christ !
The work of Thomas of Jesus — and this has not been
sufficiently noticed — is not only a collection of aspirations
founded on the various suffering's of our Saviour, it is also
a little treatise of true devotion. In the Spiritual Counsels
preceding the meditations, the pious Augustinian reminds the
many who then forgot that perfection does not consist in
extraordinary graces :
" Too often it happens," he says, " that those who aspire
to Christian perfection are mistaken as to the way in which
they understand things spiritual. When they read of the
actions of the saints and consider their austerities, fervours,
ecstasies, and other extraordinary graces wrought by the
Holy Spirit in such strong souls, they are drawn towards the
marvellous in them without reflecting on the foundation of
the noble structure and the way by which sanctity has been
attained. . . .
" Now (the spiritual life) consists of two things, mortifica-
tion and the love of God. Mortification, if it does not lead
to the love of God, is to be suspected. He who would draw
near to God must not separate these two things which are
at once the foundation and the summit of perfection."1
The reader is very naturally led to conclude that medita-
tion on the sufferings of the God-man is eminently calculated
to perfect the faithful.
Thomas of Jesus explains how the meditation must be
made. His method is like that of Luis of Granada, and he
adds some counsels as to the examination of conscience.
Then come fifty meditations on the sufferings of Jesus, which
form the greater part of the work.2
Thomas of Jesus, like the writer of the Imitation, regards
" all the life of Christ as a cross and a martyrdom." Jesus
suffered most of all in his Passion : he also suffered in all
the circumstances of his life. Thus Thomas of Jesus runs
through all the mysteries of the earthly life of Christ from
his conception in the virginal womb of Mary till his last
breath upon the cross, and he reflects in each of them upon
the suffering which it contained. It is the suffering Christ
who is set before us by the writer. Luis de Leon shows us
Christ in his beauty and splendour and divine glory. He
stirs us to admiration and draws us powerfully to the Spouse
of our souls. Thomas of Jesus makes us contemplate Christ
in pity as the Man of Sorrows on our behalf. He fills our
hearts with compassion, he sets our tears flowing, and,
1 Avis sfirituels, chap, i, Vol. I, pp. 9, 12, Alleaume's translation.
2 Each meditation is followed by a colloquy with our Lord on the
particular suffering of that meditation.
Before St Ueresa 123
despite our natural repugnance for suffering-, we come to
desire to suffer with Christ and for Christ.
Luis de Leon and Thomas of Jesus have left us fine
examples of the way in which many regarded devotion to
Christ in Spain in the sixteenth century.
CHAPTER VI
THE SPANISH CARMELITE SCHOOL— SAINT TERESA
THE Carmelite Order,1 in the sixteenth century,
gave Spain St Teresa and St John of the Cross.
Thus it shed upon the Spanish School such a
brilliance as will never be surpassed, perhaps not
even equalled, by any other school of spirituality.
In St Teresa we may study the saint, the reformer, the
foundress, and the mystic.2 Here we shall deal only with
the mystic.
I— CHARACTERISTICS OF TERESIAN MYSTICISM
St Teresa is a mystical writer of the first rank.3 More than
anyone else did she teach the Spanish tongue to speak
"the language of the angels." She "is the writer most
1 The Carmelites were a flourishing Order in the twelfth century.
Berthold, a Calabrian crusader, was living as a hermit on Mount
Carmel with ten companions, about 1156. Their Rule was probably
that of St Augustine. About 1209, St Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem,
drew up the Carmelite Rule. The Order had several convents in the
Holy Land, as many as the incursions of the Saracens permitted. In
the thirteenth century the Carmelites came to Europe. The first Prior
General was St Simon Stock. The Rule of St Albert was modified
by Pope Innocent IV in 1247 in order to change the eremitic into the
coenobitic life. In 1431 this Rule was mitigated by Pope Eugene IV,
and the latter Rule was carried out, so far as he could get it observed,
by Bl. John Soreth. It was while he was General that the first convent
of Carmelite nuns was founded under the Rule of the brethren. To-
wards the end of the fifteenth century there were houses of Carmelite
nuns in France, Italy, and Spain. It was into one of the last, the
Convent of the Incarnation at Avila, that St Teresa entered, in 1535,
at twenty years of age. She reformed this house, and devoted it to
the contemplative life, to poverty, and to strict enclosure. She also set
up a reformation among the men Carmelites. See Diet, de Thiol,
cath., art. Carmes, Acta Sanctorum, St Cyril, March 6; St Berthold,
March 29; St Albert, April 1. Andre de Sainte-Marie, UOrdre du
Mont-Carmel, Bruges, 1910 ; Cosme de Villers, Bibliotheca Carmelitana.
2 Chief biographies of St Teresa : Diego de Yepes, Vida, virtudes y
milagros de la Bienaventurada Teresa de Jesus, Madrid, 1587;
Francisco de Ribera, S.J., La vida de la Madre Teresa de Jesus,
Salamanca, 1590; Julian de Avila, Vida de Santa Teresa de Jesus,
1881 : Henri Joly, Sainte Tirese, Paris, 1902; Acta Sanctorum, October,
Vol. VII.
* St Teresa's Works : Chief edition, Los libros de la Madre Teresa
de Jesus, by Luis de Leon, Salamanca, 1588; Escritos de Santa Teresa,
Collection of Autores Esfanoles, Rivadeneyra, 1861, Vols. LIV and LV ;
124
Saint Zcvcsa 125
gifted with personality produced by the Spanish genius and
perhaps by the Latin genius. In her . . . [there are]
brilliant faculties, exquisite sensibility, surprising philo-
sophical intuitions, a steadiness of gaze which enables her
to plumb the depths of man's soul, to discover its hidden
springs and to analyse its most secret workings, and, lastly,
a rare good sense allied with a frankness and good grace
which enchant and captivate us."1
She has to the point of excellence the very rare gift of
making a fine analysis of her own spiritual psychology, and
of describing its various states with astonishing sureness
and luminous precision. We may find in others the same
extraordinary graces ; but no one able to express them with
the same talent :
" To receive one of God's favours is a first grace," she
said ; " to know wherein it consists, is a second ; lastly, it
is a third grace to be able to give an account of it and to
explain it."2
"We shall have a fuller notion of her intellectual tempera-
ment and literary genius if we remember that she fed from
childhood upon the reading of the romances of chivalry.3
Like St Ignatius of Loyola and all the Spanish nobility of
the time, she was passionately fond of such books :
Phototypical editions of the Vida and the Fundaciones, by La Fluente
and Selfa, Madrid, 1S73, 1880; of the Castillo, by Lluch, Seville, 1882;
of the Camino and the Modo de visitar, by Herrero Bayona, Valladolid,
1883. Silverio de Santa Teresa, O.C.D., Obras de Santa Teresa de
Jesus, Burgos, 1915-1919 (without the Letters).
French translations are many. Among them may be mentioned
the following : De Bretigny, Paris, 1601 ; D'Andilly, Paris, 1670 ;
Bouix, S.J., Paris. 1S52-1S61, in 6 vols., since then improved;
CEuvres completes de sainte Terese de Jesus, by the Carmelites of Paris,
6 vols., Paris, T907-1910, from which I shall quote. There is no
critical edition of St Teresa's Letters. There is a new translation of
them by Fr. Gregory of St Joseph, Pustet. 2nd ed., 1906, 3 vols.
1 CEuvres de sainte Terese, Vol. I, p. xxiii.
* Vie, chap, xvii, CEuvres, I, p. 213. St Teresa improved in the
art of explaining her mystical states : " Then (1558) I had not, as now
(1565), the light needed for giving good explanations " {Vie, chap, xxx,
CEuvres, I, 384).
J The chief ones were Amadis de Gaule, in twenty-four Books. The
first four were published at Seville in T496. Amadis was followed by
a whole series : Amadis of Greece, in 1532; Florisel of Niquea, the son
of Amadis of Greece, etc. ; French translation of Amadis de Gaule, by
Hugues Vagany, Paris, 191 8. In 151 1 appeared the Palmarin de Oliva.
This was followed by a series the most famous of which was the
Palmarin de Inglaterra, written in 1547. Then Don Belianis de Grecia,
etc. Preachers and moralists made war upon these books, which
certainly exalted chivalrous ideals, but by their amorous adventures
" turned the heads of young women." Cf. Malon de Chaide, The
Conversion of the Magdalen, Prologue (Autores Esfanoles, Riva-
denevra, Vol. XXVII) ; Luis de Leon, Nombres de Cristo, Introduction
(ibid., Vol. XXXVII).
i26 Cbristiau Spirituality
" I thought there was no harm," she humbly tells us in
her Life,1 " in spending many hours of the day in so frivolous
an occupation, even hiding- from my father, and I became
so absorbed in it that I could never be happy without a
fresh book."
According to her biographer, Ribera, she even wrote
along with her brother Rodriguez a chivalrous and senti-
mental romance, which was received with appreciation by
her friends. Later on she saw that this taste for romances
injured her soul.2
If she renounced — and how generously, God knows — such
frivolities, her imagination, like that of St Ignatius of
Loyola, kept the impression of pictures of chivalry which
refined her sensibility. For her, too, Christ is a king, a
conqueror who calls his vassals to the holy war and desires
to lead them to victory over themselves. In the depths of
the poor monasteries of Segovia and of Avila, she recalls
the splendid castles of the great men of Spain and the
magical descriptions of the old romances. All round, the
moats are full of water, swarming with serpents and
venomous creatures. The many-mansioned castle rises in
its majesty, and it stands for the devout soul. The heavenly
Spouse is in the central room, and there awaits his bride;
and she will pass through all the mansions to reach him
and to unite with him in a mystical marriage which is
indissoluble.3
A chivalrous imagination in the noblest sense of the word,
" a delicate and finely emotional sensitiveness," " a keen
intelligence, both positive and practical,"4 these natural gifts
of Teresa are extraordinary ; they explain the incomparable
charm of her writings.
But whence comes the deep and sound mystical teaching
which they contain ?
Her old biographers were fond of saying that she received
from divine Wisdom the beautiful teaching which she gives
us. There is nothing bookish in the mysticism of St Teresa.
Like St Bernard before her and many others, she " imparts
to us what it had been granted her to enjoy and know."
She gives us of her own inmost spiritual experiences ; she
has received supernatural light to discern them, and to trans-
late them into human speech. It is not from spiritual writers
that she has learned : she has read but very few of them ;
she never quotes them. She often complains of the bad
1 Chap, ii, CEuvres, I, p. 51. 2 ibid., p. 50.
3 CEuvres, Vol. VI, pp. 6, 41, etc.
4 R. Hoornaert, Sainte Tir'ese, icrivain, p. x.
Saint Geresa 127
memory which prevents her from remembering what she
has read or what has been explained to her :
"If only God had given me a little ability and memory ! "
she says with a sigh. " Then I could turn to some advan-
tage what I have read or heard. But I am as lacking as
possible in all that. If, then, I say anything useful, it is
because God willed it to be thus, to bring some good out
of it."1
According to her own testimony, Teresa owes only to
God the doctrine she teaches us.3
This view of most Teresians is beginning to be modified
in consequence of a closer study of the literary sources from
which the saint drew.3 Never mind ! 4i Far from taking
anything away from Teresa's personality," these studies
" will only accentuate it. "4
They teach us that Teresa tried to get instruction in the
supernatural ways by the human means within reach. Help
thyself and God will help thee ! " One of the essential
tendencies of her mind is an insatiable and fruitful curios: v.
She knows how to question her confessors as well as how to
answer them ; she is fond of talking to theologians " who
are learned and talented " ; she listens to sermons and
homilies with eager attention, but, above all, does she read
and re-read, underline, and make notes on the solid Castilian
treatises which bring the traditional doctrine within her
reach. 5 When she afterwards writes down her experiences
of the interior life, she makes use of what she has learnt.
1 Vie, chap, x, (Euvres, I, 140. In the Prologue of the Interior
Castle (C . 1 VI, 3S), Teresa complains, too, of her bad memory.
Doubtless, it is this defective memory that explains some appearances
of contradiction to be found in her writing;.
1 See this opinion of the majority of Teresians in the general Intro-
duction to GL Vol. I, p. xxiii.
3 On the sources of St Teresa, see Morel-Fatio, Les lectures de sairJe
Tirese, in the Bulletin hisfanique, VoL X, Januar. Miri. 1908,
pp. 17-67 ; R. Hoornaert, Sainte Tirese, icrivain, Paris-Lille-Bruges,
1922; Gaston Etchegoyen, U amour divin, Essat tur les sources de
sainte Tirese, Bordeaux-Paris.
* Hoornaert. p. ix. M. Etchegoyen rather exagg rates in writing
thus : "St Teresa had a genius for assimilation and synthesis rather
than for invention, !: p. 29.
* Etchegoyen, p. 30. Copies of the Castilian books used by Teresa
have been preserved. They are annotated in her own handwriting.
They are : The Letters of St Jerome (Vie, chaps, iii, xi; Castle VI,
chap, ix) ; the .V orals on the book of Job, by - 3 re 3.: '■'-.{.
chap, vi ; [Waj Perfection, chap. x:i The Carthusians (los
Cartujanos). This was the name of the Spanish translation of the
::i, by Ludolph, the Carthusian (Vie, chap, xxxvrii ; Castle, VII,
chap. iv). The Imitation of Jesus Christ or Contemftus mundi (Way
of Perfection, chap, xxxviii ; Castle, V, chap. ii). The Confessions of
St _V ,:- ie, chap. ix). St Teresa also read the principal works
of Luis of Granada (St Teresa's Letter tc Luis c: Granada, December
^> 1S73]- ^e know that she read the writings ::' Aionso of Madrid,
i28 Cbrtstian Spirituality
Her reading- helped her to take cognizance of her own
spiritual states and to unravel them :
" Scarcely had I begun to read the Confessions of
St Augustine," she says, "than f seemed to have discovered
myself."
It was at the time when she finally gave up her " frivolous
and dissipated life " to yield herself entirely into the hands
of God.
" When I had reached his (Augustine's) conversion," she
adds, " the voice which he heard in the garden, the Lord,
I believe, made it ring in my ears, so keenly was my heart
touched. Long I remained bathed in tears, overwhelmed
with grief and regret."1
Later on she took this work of St Augustine as the model
for her own biography for which her confessors asked.
It was the Franciscan Francisco of Ossuna who revealed
to her the prayer of recollection. His book, the Tercer
Abecedario, gave her much pleasure, she says, and she
resolved to follow the way which it opened out to her with
the greatest possible fidelity.2 But the most signal service
was rendered to her by Bernardino of Laredo's mystical
book, the Ascent of Mount Sion. Teresa had just been
habitually favoured with the prayer of quiet, and often
with that of union. She could not succeed in explaining this
kind of prayer to herself, and dreaded illusion. What tor-
mented her still more was that she did not know how to tell
what she experienced :
" I consulted books," she says, " to see whether they
would help me to give an explanation of my prayer. In a
work entitled The Ascent of Mount Sion, in the place where
the union of the soul with God is spoken of, I met with all
the marks of that which I experienced with regard to an
inability to reflect. And it was just this inability that I
specially remarked in this kind of prayer. I noted the pas-
sages in question with a line."3
Teresa also found in the books that she studied the images,
metaphors, and allegories taken from the Bible or nature or
social and family life, which are usually employed to express
the love of God and to describe its mystical effects in the
soul. From this point of view she owes much to the Spanish
spiritual writers who preceded her. They also revealed to
her the traditional and classic terminology used in speaking
of Francisco of Ossuna, of Bernardino of Laredo, and of St Peter of
Alcantara. In her Constitutions, St Teresa also recommends to her
prioresses the Lives of the Saints (Flos Sanctorum) and finally the
Oratory of the Religious, by Antonio de Guevara.
1 Vie, chap, ix, CEuvres, I, p. 131.
2 id., chap, iv, CEuvres, I, pp. 70-71.
3 id., chap, xxiii, CEuvres, I, p. 297.
Saint Ueresa 129
of supernatural occurrences and of the different degrees of
prayer, but she wrote in a style so fresh, so full of personality
and genius, that everything appears to proceed from herself.
One of the most striking singularities of Teresian mysticism
is its lack of theory. Teresa recounts her own experience,
describing what takes place within her soul. She does not
try to give a philosophical explanation of mystical union.
She never launches out into metaphysics, but always con-
fines herself to psychology. Teresa tells her own story, and
does it in a captivating way.
Her writings are, in fact, her own mystical autobiography.
Her Life, the Interior Castle, and even the Way of Perfec-
tion are the story of her own seraphic soul. The different
degrees of prayer which she describes in them are the stages
which she has herself passed through to reach the heights of
divine love.
The mysticism of Teresa, full of genius as it is, is there-
fore not pure and simple mysticism. Let me explain. St
Teresa describes her own experiences, the ways by which
God has led her. Let us not therefore conclude that all
mystics necessarily pass by the same way thereto. Teresa
herself expressly says the contrary. Very often she reminds
us that she is explaining her own experience, the way in
which God has led her, but the paths that run towards per-
fection are infinitely various.1 If she divides her ascent
towards the highest kind of prayer into seven stages, if she
reckons seven mansions in the castle of the soul, it does not
follow that in the case of everyone and of all the saints there
must necessarily be seven degrees of the spiritual life. To
think so would be to run the risk of bringing false notions
into mystical theology.
Since St Teresa's writings are an autobiography, the best
way to understand them is to apprehend their teaching in act,
in the very life of the saint. If we constantly check Teresa's
teaching with the story of her life, we shall be enabled to
follow its unfolding with safety. But it is sometimes a
difficult matter. St Teresa does not always reckon with
chronology ; she is often in confusion as to the dates of
occurrences. She wrote during the last twenty years of her
life, from 1562 to 1582, a and her memory is now and then at
1 See CEuvres, Vol. I, p. xxx.
* The Life was drawn up in 1562, then revised and completed at
St Joseph of Avila's from 1562 to 1565. The Way of Perfection was
first drawn up in 1562 at the same monastery, and then for the second
time, probably at Toledo, during the foundations in 1569 and 1570.
The Constitutions, intended for the nuns only, were composed at Avila
about 1563. The Exclamations, or impassioned ejaculations of divine
in. 9
13° Christian Spirituality
fault. Here, too, as elsewhere, history is but an imperfect
approximation to living reality.
II— ST TERESA'S TEACHING1— HER SPIRITUAL
BIOGRAPHY— MEDITATION
A — The Spiritual Biography of St Teresa
It is in the Interior Castle that St Teresa has best described
her religious experiences.
Her biographer, Yepes, in his deposition for her canoniza-
tion, thus relates how the book was written :
" On the vigil of the feast of the Most Holy Trinity (1577),
while she was asking herself what the fundamental idea of
this treatise should be, God, who orders all things with
wisdom, answered her prayers and provided her with the
plan of her work. He showed her a splendid globe of crystal
in the form of a castle with seven mansions in it. In the
seventh, in the very centre of it, was the King of glory,
shining in brilliant splendour which lighted up and em-
bellished all the mansions as far as the enclosure. The nearer
they were to the centre, the more they participated in the
light. The illumination did not extend beyond the enclosure :
outside it there was nothing but darkness and uncleanness,
frogs, vipers, and other venomous creatures."2
This castle represents the Christian soul. The entrance-
gate is prayer which, by means of recollection, withdraws
the soul into itself. As long as it lives outside of itself, in
dissipation, more or less the slave of the senses, it stays in
the enclosure outside of the castle, along with the reptiles and
other venomous creatures, exposed to their bites which may
love, appear to have been written in several monasteries from 1566 to
1569. The Thoughts on the Canticle of Canticles no doubt date from
1574, when the saint was at Segovia. The Book of the Foundations
was begun at Salamanca in 1573, continued at Toledo in 1576, and
finished at Burgos in 15S2. The Record of the Visitation of the
Monasteries goes back to 1576, at Toledo. The Interior Castle, or
Mansions of the Soul, was composed in 1577, first at Toledo and then
at Segovia and Avila, on the advice of Fr. Jerome Gratian, Carmelite,
who was then Apostolic Commissary of the Carmelite reform. The
Interior Castle was to replace the Life, the manuscript of which had
been kept by the Inquisitors. The Counsels and the Spiritual Relations
belong to various periods. Cf. CEuvres, Vol. I, pp. xxi-xxii.
1 See Poulain, S.J., Les Graces d'Oraison, Ed. 10, Paris; Saudreau,
Les degres de la vie sfirituelle, Paris, 1905 ; La Vie d'union a Dieu
d'apres les grands maitres de la spiritualite, Paris, 1900 ; La Vie
sfirituelle, October, 1922; A. Tanqueray, Precis de theologie ascetique
et mystique, pp. 889 ff.
2 CEuvres completes de saint e Tirese, VI, 6.
Saint Gevcsa 131
be mortal. When it begins to give itself to prayer, it enters
into the first mansions of the castle.1 If it perseveres, it will
pass through these first mansions — the first three symbolize
the ordinary kinds of prayer — and it will traverse the four
others — the mystical mansions — until it reaches the central
chamber to unite with its divine Spouse in spiritual marriage.
Such is the mystical biography of St Teresa. In her youth,
until she was sixteen, she loved worldly frivolities ; she dwelt
outside the castle with the reptiles in danger of offending
God. She was converted ; then entered the Carmelite Convent
of the Incarnation of Avila at the age of twenty-one and a
half. She then dwelt in the first mansions of the castle until
she was twenty-three, during which period she experienced
times of fervour as well as of slackness. She even abandoned
prayer for some time. Lastly, she succeeded in breaking
through the impediments which kept her from soaring God-
ward, and finally entered into the mystical mansions.
It is in the first chapters of her Life that St Teresa relates
the period of her youth spent in the enclosure outside the
castle. They remind us of the Confessions of St Augustine.
It is with the same humility and with the same grief2 that
she reveals, as far as obedience allows, what she calls the
" great sins " of her " sad life."3
Brought up piously by her parents, when she was about
the age of sixteen, Teresa allowed the spirit of the world to
enter into her soul. Her passionate fondness for novels, the
want of supervision, especially after her mother's death, the
frequent visits of rather flighty cousins, and her own natural
friendliness with which God had " prodigally endowed her,"
exposed her extremely to " lose herself altogether." She
was reassured by the thought that this intercourse with the
world might " happily end in a marriage."4
Her father grew uneasy at this state of mind, and thought
it well to isolate Teresa and to have her taken to the
Augustinian Convent of Santa Maria de Gracia, in which she
became a boarder. There God opened her eyes to the dangers
she had been through ; she began to think seriously, and,
becoming ill, she saw "the nothingness of the world." At
the age of twenty-one and a half she joined the Carmelite
Convent of the Incarnation of Avila without obtaining her
father's consent, with a courage which clearly shows the
temper of her soul. '•
1 Castle, First Mansion, chap. i. 2 Life, chap. ix.
8 Life, Prologue. St Teresa's biographers assure us that she never
knew a single mortal sin. Her writings give a contrary impression,
but saints are apt to exaggerate their faults. CEuvres, Vol. I, p. 7.
4 Life, chap, ii, CEuvres, I, pp. 56-57.
132 Cbristian Spirituality
" When I left my father's house," she says, " I felt such
an excess of grief that I think that the hour of my death
cannot hold in store for me anything- more cruel. I felt as
if my bones were breaking- asunder. As the feeling of the
love of God was not strong enough to counterbalance that
which I had for my father and my kin, I was forced to do
myself incredible violence, and had not God come to my aid
all my reflections would not have sufficed to make me go
through with it. But at this moment he gave me the courage
to overcome myself, and I carried my enterprise out to the
end."1
In the convent Teresa was sheltered from great dangers.
She again knew, as we shall see, times of slackness and
lukewarmness; but she ran no risk of sinning gravely.
All her life long she had such a keen and sorrowful feeling
for the days of her youth, during which grave sin constantly
lay in wait for her. In her latter years, when she was writing
the Interior Castle, her mind was almost haunted with the
notion of the soul in a state of mortal sin. She saw it
" totally impotent, like a man closely bound and garrotted,
with a band over his eyes keeping him from seeing, unable
to walk or to hear, and finally engulfed in the depths of dark-
ness." For such a soul she felt an unspeakable pity and an
insatiable desire to deliver it from so fearful a state. To set
it free, " there was no suffering that appeared to her to be
anything but light."2
It is also to this period of her life that belongs the cele-
brated vision of hell which she had about 1560.3
" One day, while engaged in prayer, I found myself in a
moment, I know not how, borne entirely away into hell. I
understood that God desired to show me the place prepared
for me by devils, and deserved by my sins. . . .
" The entrance seemed to me much like one of the longest
and narrowest of alleys, or rather like a low, dark, and
cramped oven. The ground appeared to be like miry water,
extremely filthy, with a pestilential smell, and full of poison-
ous creatures. At the end was a hollow made in a wall, a
sort of closed recess, in which I saw myself confined and very
pinched for room. . . .
" In my soul I felt a fire, the nature of which I cannot
explain, and at the same time I was the victim of intolerable
bodily sufferings. During my life I have experienced some
which were very sharp, and, according to the doctors, some
1 id., chap, iv, CEuvres, I, p. 66.
2 Spiritual Relations, XXI, CEuvres, II, pp. 1-4; Castle, First
Mansion, chap, ii ; Seventh Mansion, chap. i.
8 Life, chap, xxxii, CEuvres, II, pp. 1-4. She was then raised to the
mystical kinds of prayer. Her description of hell reminds us of the
oubliettes in the fortified castles of the time. In visions, God makes
use of images which are already in the imagination of the saints.
Saint XTcresa 133
of the most cruel that can be endured on earth, for all my
nerves contracted when I became a cripple, not to speak of
other torments of various kinds, some of which, as I have
said, were instigated by the devil. Well, all that is as
nothing- compared with what I experienced there, and, as I
understood, these tortures would be endless and uninter-
rupted. I repeat it, all that was as nothing compared with
the spiritual agony. It is an anguish, an oppression, a pain
so poignant, united with such bitter and desperate desolation,
that I give up any attempt to describe them. To say that
your soul is being torn out of you at every moment is but
little, for then it is another who is taking your life, while
here it is the soul that is rending itself. No, I cannot tell
how to depict this interior fire, this despair added to such
cruel torments and such atrocious pains ! I could not see
who was inflicting them on me, and yet I felt that I was
burning and being hacked into a thousand pieces. . . .
" In this pestilential place, from which the least hope of
relief is for ever banished, there is not any way of sitting or
of lying down. There is no room in the sort of hole made in
the wall, for in it the very sides are horrible to see and
appear to crush you with their weight. One is stifled in
every way. There is no light, and nought but deep darkness,
and yet, inexplicable as it is, in this absence of light you can
perceive everything which can offend your sight."
Teresa declares that her " dread was unutterable." Six
years later when she described her vision, about 1565, her
terror was still so lively that her blood froze in her veins.
" The way of fear is not that which befits my soul," she
adds. We know, indeed, that God led her especially by love.
However, fear acted strongly upon her at the time of her
conversion. " I told myself with alarm that death would have
found me on the road to hell." It was also rather fear than
love that drove her to the cloister.1
In the work of the purification of her soul, Teresa ex-
perienced, like everyone else, the salutary fear of the judge-
ment of God. Must one not generally pass by this way to
reach the way of love?
Before joining the Carmelites of the Incarnation of Avila,
Teresa had already made her way by prayer into the First
Mansion of the Castle of the soul. " My experience of this
First Mansion," she says, " will enable me to speak of it from
full knowledge."2 She will tell us how, for more than
eighteen years, she used to pray with difficulty, and how she
gave it up and took to it again. Before being finally admitted
into the mystical mansions of the castle she dwelt long in
the first rooms.
1 Life, chap. iii. * Castle, First Mansion, chap. ii.
134 Cbristfan Spirituality
B — First Degree of Prayer or Ordinary Prayer —
Meditation.1
St Teresa's celebrated comparison for expressing- the effects
of prayer and for marking- its different degrees is well known.
" He who begins to pray," she says, " must imagine that
he is undertaking to turn an altogether uncultivated piece of
ground covered with weeds into a pleasure garden for our
Lord. It is our divine Master himself who uproots the bad
weeds and plants the good flowers, and we think that all is
done when we have resolved to give ourselves to prayer, and
that we are already busy in it. Our task, as g-ood gardeners,
is to work with God's help in cultivating and watering the
plants to keep them from dying and to make them yield
fragrant flowers for the enjoyment of our good Master. Then
he will often come into our garden for refreshment and take
pleasure in seeing virtues bloom therein.
" Now let us see how we can water it, so as to know well
what we have to do, what the work will cost us if the gain
is to exceed the trouble, and lastly, how long our toil must
g-o on.
"It seems to me that there are four ways of watering a
g-arden. First of all, we may laboriously draw the water
from a well. We may also make use of a noria and buckets
set in motion by a winch. . . . We may also bring the
water from a river or stream : the watering is then more
thorough, the earth drinks in the water more deeply and it is
not necessary to water it so frequently, and the gardener is
far from having the same amount of fatigue. Lastly, there
is plenty of rain, and this is incomparably the best way, the
Lord thus doing the watering- himself, without any toil on
our part.
" And now I intend to apply to my subject these four ways
of distributing the water needed by a garden for its mainten-
ance, and without which it would die. Thus, I think, I shall
be able to give some idea of the four degrees of prayer to
which the Lord, in his mercy, has sometimes raised my
soul."2
1 Life, chap, xi-xiii ; Castle, First, Second, and Third Mansions;
Way of Perfection, chaps, xvi-xxviii. The comparison of the soul to a
garden is found in Spanish mystics prior to St Teresa ; in particular,
in the Tercer Abecedario (TV, 3) of Francisco of Ossuna. St Teresa
says, indeed : " Here is a comparison which I think I have read or
heard somewhere" (CEuvres, I, p. 117).
2- Life, chap, xi, (Euvres, I, pp. 147-148. The first degree of prayer
is meditation ; the three others are kinds of mystical prayer. St Teresa
wrote this about 1565. In 1577, when she wrote the Interior Castle, she
had attained the summits of mysticism. In it she reckons that there
are four kinds of mystical prayer, one more than in the Life. Cf. R.
Hoornaert, Le frogres de la fensie de sainte Tirese entre la " Vie " el
Saint Zevesa 135
The first degree of prayer, that of the " beg-inners," is
meditation. It is marked with effort. Those who beg-in to
pray " draw water from the well " by hand labour, " and
hard toil it is." In mystical prayer of various kinds there
is much less effort and sometimes none at all.
St Teresa knew eig-hteen years of this toil of meditation,
and describes it in detail.1 The beg-inner must first of all
g-ather tog-ether his " senses which have been accustomed to
g-et scattered abroad."2 " We meet with those who are so
used to live amidst thing's external that there is no way of
disentang"ling- them from them : they appear to be powerless
to withdraw into themselves." Yet they must become recol-
lected for prayer. Later on, if they persevere, recollection
will come without effort.3
" To draw water from the well ... is to work with the
understanding-," for this first degree of prayer is meditation
and consideration. Reflection may be difficult. Sometimes
we experience nothing- but " dryness, boredom, and repug--
nance." Distractions supervene, and there is no consolation.
Prayer must not be g-iven up whatever be the obstacles we
encounter. " He (the g-ardener) must look to the satisfaction
of his master, and not to his own. . . . Let us do what we
can." God will repay us " for the arduous toil of lowering-
the bucket so often to draw it up empty."4
Teresa knows these troubles from her own experience.
She has endured them year after year, so as to think herself
fortunate when she has succeeded " in g-etting- but a sing-le
drop of water from the blessed well."5 God has not g-iven
her " the talent of discursive understanding-," nor that " of
employing- her imag-ination profitably." She dared not pray
without a book, which she used asa " buckler," to ward off
the " assaults of intrusive thoug-hts. " If she had no book
immediately her mind went all astray."6
Reflections and the exercise of the understanding- are ex-
cellent thing's in prayer; acts of love, silent prayer, and
union with Jesus are better still.
" It is a g-ood thing-," says Teresa, " to reason discursively
le " Cndteau," in the Revue des sciences fhilosophiques et thiologiques,
January, 1924, pp. 20 ff.
1 Life, chap. iv. 2 id., chap. xi.
3 Castle, First Mansion, chap, i; Way of Perfection, chap, xxviii.
4 Life, chap, xi, CEuvres, I, p. 150. Cf. Castle, Second Mansion.
5 id., chap, xi, p. 151. Cf. Relation LIII, CEuvres, II, p. 277 :
" She (Teresa) thus spent nearly twenty-eight years amidst great
aridities." Life, chap, viii (I, p. 122) : " Very often — and it went on
for years — I was more filled with wishing for the end of the time I had
decided to give to prayer, more eager for the striking of the clock,
than for pious considerations."
6 id., chap, iv, CEuvres, I, p. 74.
136 Cbrtstian Spirituality
for some time, to fathom the sorrows endured by our Lord
. . . and his purpose in embracing- them, to think of the great-
ness of him who suffered and of the love wherewith his
sufferings were accompanied. But we must not tire ourselves
out unremittingly in exhausting our subject ; we must also
keep close to our Lord in the silence of our understanding.
We must try to permeate our mind with the idea that he is
looking at us ; we are in his company, we are speaking to
him, we shall make our requests to him ; we shall fling
ourselves down at his feet, we shall find joy in him, and
recognize how unworthy we are to dwell in his presence.
If we can reach this point, even at the beginning of our
prayer, we shall greatly profit thereby, for this way of prayer
is one of the most useful ; at least it has been so with my
own soul.1 . . . Mental prayer is nothing but an intimate
friendship, a frequent converse, heart to heart, with him
whom we know to be our lover."2
Here Teresa is describing what has since been called
affective prayer,3 in which prayer and loving impulse exceed
the part played by reasoning. St Teresa recommends two
forms of it : the simple look of affection and interior recol-
lection (active recollection), for the soul has sometimes to
strive hard to withdraw within itself. St Teresa thus des-
cribes this kind of recollection in the Way of Perfection.
" In seeking (for God) the soul needs not to take wings,
it has only to go into solitude, to look within and not to
depart from such an excellent guest. Let it speak to him
as it would speak to a father. As to a father, too, let it
address its demands to him, tell him of its troubles, and beg
him to remedy them. . . .
" This way of praying, though vocal, causes the mind to
become much more rapidly recollected. It is a kind of prayer
which possesses many advantages. It is called the prayer
of recollection, because the soul therein gathers together all
its powers and withdraws within itself with its God. By this
way more than by any other its divine Master will teach it
and give it the way of quiet. Hidden in itself, it can think
of the Passion, represent to itself the Son of God, and offer
him to the Father without having to weary the mind by
going to look for him at Calvary or in the Garden or at the
Column.
1 Life, chap, xiii, CEnvres, I, p. 178. Chap, iv : " I did all I could
to consider continuously Jesus Christ, our Master, present within me :
that was my way of prayer. If I meditated on the mystery, I repre-
sented it to myself within, but I specially applied myself to reading
good books." CEuvres, I, 72. Cf. chap. ix.
2 id., chap, viii, CEuvres, I, p. 120.
3 Also called Acquired Contemplation. See Conclusions of the
Teresian Congress of 1922, Theme IV, 7 ; Mensajero de Santa Teresa,
March 15, 1923; Etudes Carmelitaines, January-July, 1924.
Saint TTeresa 137
" Those who can thus enclose themselves in the little
heaven of the soul where its Creator dwells as much as on
earth, who practise control of their sight and praying in a
place where nothing- can distract their outward senses, must
believe that they are in an excellent way and that they will
succeed in quenching- their thirst at the fountain. And they
will really make much progress in a short time."1
Such was Teresa's prayer during her noviciate and the first
years of her religious profession : meditation with the help of
a book, struggling against distractions, and affective recol-
lection of a more or less laborious nature. She was " con-
verted " by such prayer. And with what eloquence does
she recommend it to all who would truly serve God and
attain salvation !2
Sufferings, too, helped Teresa to advance in sanctity.
During the winter of 1 537-1538, the saint had a terrible ill-
ness. She had an alarming nervous crisis. She felt at
intervals that " sharp teeth were biting deep into her heart.
They thought at last that it must be madness." She was
tortured from head to foot. " Doctors declare," she says,
" that nerve pains are intolerable, and as my nerves were all
contracted, I suffered a cruel martyrdom." She became
crippled; her " contracted limbs were gathered into a ball."
And it was in this state that, after two years absence, she
was sent back to the convent of Avila. Her paralysis lasted
three years.
These sufferings courageously endured united her soul
closely with God. Teresa was raised " rapidly and tran-
sitorily " to the prayer of quiet and even to that of union.3
This state of prayer lasted but a short time, hardly for an
Ave Maria, but it wrought great results in her soul. It
taught Teresa " what loving God means." She felt a deep
contempt for the world. Evil-speaking she held in horror.
She carefully avoided the occasions of sin. Spiritual reading
became her delight, and occasions for speaking of God were
most pleasing to her.*
Teresa obtained her cure through the intercession of St
Joseph. In her gratitude she exalted the holy patriarch's
power of intercession in justly celebrated pages which did
much to enhance his cultus amongst the faithful. " I want,"
she says, " to lead everyone to devotion to this glorious saint,
so greatly have I experienced his influence with God. . . .
1 Way of Perfection, chap, xxviii, CEuvres, V, pp. 203-204.
2 St Teresa treats of this quasi-indispensability of prayer in her
Life, chaps, viii, xix ; Way of Perfection, chaps, xx-xxiii ; Interior
Castle, Second Mansion.
8 Life, chap, iv, x. * id., chap, vi, CEuvres, I, p. 89.
138 Cbristian Spirituality
So far I cannot remember having- asked him for anything
without his having given it me."'
»»i
The soul of Teresa, visibly called to the enjoyment of
intimacy with God, ought apparently to have risen henceforth
unchecked to the highest peaks of mysticism. Unfortunately,
whatever be the degree of a soul's spiritual life, deterioration
and even downright falls are yet possible.
The monastery of Avila, according- to the custom of the
times, was not then strictly enclosed. The nuns might receive
and even pay visits. Teresa was cured, and, in the intoxica-
tion of recovered health, resumed her external relationships.
Soon, the consequence was a frivolous and relaxed manner
of life. She gave up prayer. " Having regard to my aberra-
tions," she says, " I began to fear to return to prayer." She
was afraid of entering into such intimate communion with
God in the state of tepidity in which she found herself.2 She
resumed prayer only after her father's death in 1544 on the
advice of the Dominican Vincent Baron ; she was twenty-nine.
Then followed a kind of struggle between her and God.
"On the one hand," she says, "God called me; on the
other, I followed the world. I found much joy in the things
of God, and the things of this world held me captive. I
wanted, apparently, to unite these two contraries, so opposed
to one another : on the one hand the spiritual life and its
consolations, on the other the diversions and the pleasures of
the senses."3
But in this combat God was to be the winner. He would
have Teresa for himself, he intended to give her exceptional
favours.
Teresa attributes her final conversion to mental prayer, the
immense gains of which she extols in lyrical4 language. But
this long period of relaxation and lukewarmness, following
upon years of spiritual progress, filled her with deep humility.
The uncertainty of this life with regard to perseverance
filled her with a kind of alarm. Later on, she told her sisters
to cling to a salutary fear and always to be on the watch.
" Do not trust to the enclosure nor to the austerity of
your life," she said, thinking- of herself, " and do not rely
upon your constant occupation with the things of God, nor
upon your continual exercises of prayer, nor upon your sep-
aration from the things of this world, nor upon the horror you
may seem to have of them. All that is g-ood ; but, as I have
said, it is not enough to take away from us every reason for
fear. Therefore, repeat this text and call it often to mind :
Beatus vir qui timet Dominium."5
1 Life, chap, vi, CEuvres, I, pp. 92-93. 2 id., chaps, vii, xix.
id., chap, vii, CEuvres, I, p. m. 4 id., chap. viii.
6 Interior Castle, Third Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, p. 79.
3
Saint XTeresa 139
III— KINDS OF MYSTICAL PRAYER ACCORDING
TO ST TERESA
About the age of forty-three, Teresa entered into the mystical
mansions of the castle of the soul. During- her great illness,
she had formerly been introduced into them in a transitory
fashion, and then she had returned for some time to the
First Mansion. Henceforward she was to receive super-
natural favours uninterruptedly.
She distinguishes them thus from what she had experienced
in the First Mansion :
" Before this I had felt, somehow continuously, a tender-
ness of devotion, which is, I believe, the result of our effort.
It is a feeling- of consolation which is neither entirely sensible
nor entirely spiritual. It is clear that we receive all from
God. In this, however, we can, I think, help ourselves much,
either by considering- our lowness and ingratitude ... or by
rejoicing in the works of the Lord. ... If thereto is added
a little love, the soul expands, the heart is touched, and tears
flow."1
These loving impulses are a reward for our goodwill.
When we draw water with manual labour from the spiritual
well our soul is sweetly watered therewith.
But in the other degrees of prayer, the soul " touches the
supernatural. In fact, whatever be its effort, it cannot obtain
of itself that with which we now have to do."2
A — Is Everyone called to the Mystical Kinds of Prayer?
— The Special Need of Direction for Mystics
Does God call all souls of goodwill to the mystical kinds
of prayer?
To this question St Teresa seems to make a hesitating
reply. In her Life we find nothing definite about it.
When she teaches her religious about prayer in the Way
1 Life, chap, x, CEuvres, I, p. 135. Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, i :
" We may, apparently, call consolations the feelings of happiness
obtained by means of meditation and prayers addressed to our Lord.
These consolations . . . therefore arise from the laudable act which we
fulfil, they are in some sort the effect of our work." CEuvres, VI, p. 98.
See chap, ii, pp. 107 ff.
2 Life, chap, xiv, CEuvres, I, p. 179. Cf. Castle, Fourth Mansion,
chap, ii : " To understand this well, let us imagine that we are look-
ing at two springs filling two basins with water. . . . These two
basins are filling in different ways : one receives its water from a
distance through long pipes and by artificial means ; the other is built
close to the spring and fills noiselessly. . . . The water laid on by a
pipe represents the consolations acquired by meditation. We bring
them, indeed, by our reflections on created things and by a troublesome
effort of the understanding. ... In the other basin, the water issues
from the same spring, which is God." CEuvres, VI, pp. 108-109.
ho Cbristian Spirituality
of Perfection, she declares that the gift of contemplation is
not intended for all.
" How, if we are humble," she says, "can we ever per-
suade ourselves that we are virtuous enough to be among
the contemplatives? That God can make us such is certain ;
he can do so in his goodness and mercy. But if people
will follow mv advice they will always take their seats in the
lowest place, according to the counsel and example of our
Lord. Then we must be prepared in case it be God's good
pleasure to lead us by the way of contemplation. If he does
not do so let us have recourse to humility. Let us think our-
selves happy to serve the servants of God. . . .
"It is not without good cause that I speak thus : for — I
repeat it and it is most important to understand this — God
does not lead souls by the same road. Whoever thinks that
he is walking by the lowest way is perhaps the highest in
the eyes of the Lord. Thus, because in this monastery all
give themselves up to prayer, it does not follow that all must
be contemplatives. It is impossible, and not to know this
truth might cast into desolation those who are not at all so.
Contemplation is a gift of God. Since it is not necessary for
salvation and God does not demand it, none of you should
imagine that he will require it of her. A soul will not fail to
be very perfect provided that she fulfils what we have said.
She may even have much greater merit, because she will
work the more at her own cost. The Lord is leading her as
a strong soul, and holds in reserve for her to be given all
together all the consolations that she has not enjoyed in this
world. Therefore, let her not be discouraged. Let her not
give up prayer, and go on doing what the others are
doing. . . .
" Let the master of the house have his way. He is wise and
powerful and knows what befits you, and also what befits
himself. If you do what you can and prepare yourself for
contemplation by the perfect life we have shown you, and
then find this gift denied you — and yet I am inclined to be-
lieve that you will receive it if your detachment and humility
are real — be sure that our Lord is keeping this joy for you
to add to all those that await you in heaven."1
A little further on, in chapter xix, St Teresa appears to
contradict herself. After comparing contemplation with a
fountain of living water, she adds :
"Think that the Lord invites everyone. He is the very
Truth, therefore the thing is beyond doubt. If the feast
were not general, he would not call us all, or when calling
us he would not say : I will give you to drink. He would
1 Way of Perfection, chap, xvii, CEuvres, V, pp. 132-133, 136. Cf.
chap, xviii.
Saint XTeresa hi
say: Come all of you, you will lose nothing- by it; and I
will give to drink unto whom I think good. But he says
without restriction : Come all of you ; and thus I hold it sure
that all those who do not stop on the way will receive this
living water."1
The saint is conscious of this apparent contradiction, for
she writes at the beginning of chapter xx :
" There is apparently a contradiction between what I have
just said in the preceding chapter and what I said farther
back when, wishing to console those who do not attain to
contemplation, I showed that there are different ways of
going to God, as there are different mansions in heaven.
And, nevertheless, I maintain what I have said."2
If we now open the Book of the Mansions — i.e., The
Interior Castle — we again find the saint advising her sisters
not to seek for the mystical kinds of prayer. " The Book of
the Mansions is the last and most finished of St Teresa's
works, and it represents the experience of her whole life,
and, therefore, we rightly look to it for the last word she has
to say about the interior ways and the mystical states."3
Now this is what she has to say of the spiritual tastes or the
supernatural prayer of quiet :
" You want to acquire this kind of prayer directly, my
daughters, and for good reasons, for, once more, the soul
cannot comprehend the graces which are then received from
God and the love with which he comes to it. There can be
nothing more legitimate than to desire to know how to
obtain such a favour. Therefore I will tell you what I have
learnt about it. Let us put aside the case in which the Lord
is pleased to grant it merely because he thinks well to do so.
He knows the reason, and we have nothing to do with it.
" First, do what was counselled to the dwellers in the
former mansions, and then — humility, humility ! It is thereby
that the Lord yields to all our desires. And would you know
whether you possess this virtue? First of all see whether
you think yourselves unworthy of these graces and divine
tastes, and whether you are convinced that they will never
be granted you in this life. You will say to me : But how
are we to obtain them if we do nothing towards it? I reply
that the best way is the one I have just pointed out — that is
to say, to do nothing to get them."
And St Teresa gives several reasons for this.
" The first is, that to obtain these graces, nothing is more
necessary than to love God disinterestedly. The second is,
that there is a slight want of humility in thinking we can
obtain so great a good by such poor services as ours. The
1 (Euvres, V, pp. 156-157. * ibid., p. 158.
3 ibid., VI, p. 29, Introduction au Chateau interieur.
H2 Cbristian Spirituality
third is, that the true disposition for us who, after all, have
offended our Lord, is not to aspire to receive consolations,
but to desire to suffer and to make ourselves like him. The
fourth is, that his Majesty has not bound himself to give us
these spiritual tastes as he has bound himself to give us
beatitude if we keep his commandments. We can be saved
without them, and he knows best what befits us and who are
those who love him in reality. There is one thing certain,
and I have no doubt about it, that there are people — and I
know some of them — who walk in the way of love as we
ought to walk in it, that is to say, with the sole desire of
serving Jesus crucified, and who not only do not ask him for
spiritual tastes and do not desire to have them, but even
implore him not to give them any in this life. This is mere
truth.
" The fifth reason is, that it means tormenting ourselves in
sheer waste. As this water is not brought through pipes
like the former water, if the spring will not give it we shall
tire ourselves out in vain. I mean that we shall multiply
our meditations to no purpose and strain our hearts and shed
our tears, it will be all useless. That is not at all the way
in which this water comes. God gives it to whom he will,
and he often does it at the moment when the soul is thinking
of it least. We are his, my sisters : let him do what he will
with us; let him lead us by the path that pleases him."1
After this it is surprising to find Teresa saying at the
beginning of the Fifth Mansion :
" All of us who wear the holy habit of Mount Carmel are
called to prayer and contemplation : there is the place of our
first institution, we belong to the race of the holy Fathers
of Mount Carmel who, in such deep solitude and in such
entire contempt of the world, sought for the treasure, the
precious pearl of which we are speaking. And nevertheless,
I declare to you that very few among us prepare themselves
to see the Saviour reveal it to them."2
Lastly, a few pages further on, St Teresa appears to say
that we may reach the prayer of union by two ways. One
of these ways is mystical and supernatural, and it is only
followed by the few who are called to extraordinary states.
The other is not mystical, but is accessible to all who re-
nounce " their own wills to cleave to God's."3
1 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, ii, CEuvres, VI, pp. m-113.
- ibid., Fifth Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, p. 128.
3 ibid., chap, iii, CEuvres, VI, pp. 150-151 : " According to all that
I have said, this [Fifth] Mansion has still, I think, a certain amount
of darkness. But since it is so good for us to enter it, it will be well
not to take away the hope of it from those whom the Lord does not
gratify with such supernatural favours. Real union, indeed, may be
quite well obtained with our Lord's help, if we try to acquire it by
renouncing our own will to cleave to the will of God."
Saint ZTcresa 143
St Teresa's thought remains indefinite. From it we can
apparently draw no really sure conclusion.
Before reaching- the mystical states great sufferings must
be undergone. Teresa knew them by experience. She de-
scribes them at considerable length in the Interior Castle.
She points them out merely for her nuns in the Way of
Perfection, encouraging those who may experience them.
" I tell you, my daughters, whom God does not lead by
the path of contemplation, that those who walk by that way
have to bear a cross no lighter than yours. This is what I
have seen and known. You would, indeed, be surprised if
you knew the crosses which God makes them bear. I am
well acquainted with what concerns them both. Well, I see
quite clearly that the sufferings God sends to contemplatives
are intolerable. They are so great that did he not sustain
them with the heavenly tastes, they could not hold fast. And
that is easy to understand : God leads by the way of suffer-
ing those whom he specially loves, and the more he loves
them, the greater are their sufferings."1
Certain of these sufferings sometimes arise — as Teresa
knew by her own experience — from the confessor's lack of
experience. Those whom God leads by extraordinary ways
need directors who have knowledge personally, if possible,
of the mystical states, or have at any rate studied them in
books. The contemplative cannot do without direction. If
his confessor is an ignorant man he will make very regrettable
mistakes and subject his penitents to painful anguish.2
B — The Different Kinds of Mystical Prayer
In the writings of St Teresa we find two different classes of
mystical prayer.
According to her Life, written from 1563 to 1565, the extra-
ordinary kinds of prayer are : the prayer of recollection, the
prayer of quiet, the prayer of the sleep of the poivers, the
prayer of union and ecstasy. Spiritual Relation LIV gives
a similar classification.
In 1577, in the Interior Castle, St Teresa says nothing of
the prayer of the sleep of the powers, but she adds the
spiritual marriage, the highest degree of mystical prayer, of
which she was ignorant when she wrote the Life. The saint's
final idea of the classification of mystical prayer is therefore
this : prayer of recollection, prayer of quiet, prayer of union
with or without ecstasy, and the spiritual marriage. This
1 Way of Perfection, chap, xviii, CEuvres, V, pp. 138-139.
2 ibid., chaps, iv-v. Cf. Castle, Fifth Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI,
P- *53-
H4 Gbristian Spirituality
classification is considered by theologians as more exact than
the first. It denotes a real advance in Teresa's thought.1 I
shall follow it giving all the variations of the Life, the Way of
Perfection, and of Relation LIV.
i. Prayer of Recollection2
We note that Teresa feels her way to some extent with
regard to this kind of prayer.
In the Life she makes it a supernatural prayer, which is
indistinguishable from the prayer of quiet: "Here," she
says, " the soul begins to enter into recollection : it touches
the supernatural." By its own efforts it cannot reach this
second degree of prayer, which " corresponds with the second
way instituted by the Master of the garden for obtaining
water. By means of a wheel and buckets the gardener gets
a larger quantity of it with less fatigue, and he is no longer
forced to give himself up to unceasing labour. To apply this
second mode of watering to the prayer called that of quiet,
such is the aim I have now in view.3
The Way of Perfection,* on the other hand, clearly dis-
tinguishes the prayer of recollection from the prayer of quiet,
but it is no longer a supernatural prayer; it is the prayer of
active recollection described higher up.
Lastly, in the Interior Castle and in Relation LIV St
Teresa separates the prayer of recollection from that of quiet
and considers it as a supernatural prayer.5 Such, on this
point in mysticism, is the final mind of the saint. Moreover,
Teresa declares, when she comes to the description of the
Fourth Mansion of the Interior Castle, that she had " a little
more light on these favours granted to certain souls" than
when she wrote the Life. 6
The recollection in question cannot be obtained " by the
1 Cf. R. Hoornaert, Le frogres de la fensee de sainte Terese entre
la " Vie " et le " Chateau " {Revue des sciences fhil. et thiol., January,
1924).
2 Life, chaps, xiv-xv ; Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, iii ; Spiritual
Relation, I, LIV.
8 Life, ibid., CEuvres, I, p. 179. * Chaps, xxviii-xxix.
8 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, iii : " I shall deal with a kind of
prayer which almost always precedes this [of quiet]. ... It is a
recollection which seems to me to be also supernatural. ... I spoke
in the first place [on coming to the Fourth Mansion] of the prayer of
the divine tastes, or of quiet, then I passed on to the prayer of recollec-
tion. I ought to have treated of the latter prayer first." CEuvres, VI,
P- "4- „ , .
• Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, p. 97. In Relation
LIV, St Teresa says this : " From this recollection sometimes springs
a quiet, a delicious interior peace. The soul seems to want nothing
more ; speaking — I mean praying — vocally and meditation become a
burden ; it wants only to love." CEuvres, II, pp. 295-296. This Relation
belongs to 1576, a year before the Interior Castle.
Saint Ueresa 145
work of the understanding-, trying- to think of God within
oneself, nor by that of the imagination representing him to
oneself within. . . . We are not concerned with the manner
of working which is in everyone's power, always, of course,
with God's help." Here all is different. " Sometimes, even
before we have begun to think of God," the senses and the
powers of the soul " are already found to be within the
castle." It is God himself who produces such recollection
without any effort on our part. " The monarch who dwells
within the royal residence of the castle " makes his voice
heard as a very low "whistling" by the senses and the
powers which wander round the walls. Immediately they
" re-enter the castle " and the soul feels, without incurring
the least fatigue, " a sweet impression of recollection."1
" The powers withdraw within themselves the better to
relish the pleasure which they enjoy ; they are not, however,
suspended or put to sleep." In the prayer of recollection
" the will alone is occupied, and, without knowing how it is
made captive, it allows itself to become God's prisoner."
The understanding, the memory, and the imagination desire
to act and to help the will. In reality, they hinder it, but
it " must pay no attention to them " and " remain in the
enjoyment of its repose." If it tried to fetter them, it would
lose its own recollection.2
Contrariwise to what is said by several spiritual writers,
St Teresa thinks that, in the prayer of recollection, we cannot
" fetter the action of the mind without doing more harm
than good."3 It is in the most perfect kinds of prayer that
the powers of the soul are bound. But to explain this diver-
sity of opinion, it must be remarked that all mystics do not
distinguish, as St Teresa does, the prayer of recollection from
that of quiet. The passage of the Treatise of Prayer and
Meditation (ch. xii, Counsel 8) of St Peter of Alcantara, to
which the saint refers, has to do with the state of a " man
. . . who has reached repose and the taste for contempla-
tion "4 — that is, the prayer of quiet.
1 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, iii, CEuvres, VI, p. 116.
1 Life, chap, xiv, CEuvres, I, p. 180. St Teresa has but little
appreciation for " the work of the understanding " in prayer. For
her " the progress of the soul does not consist in much thinking, but
in much loving." Then she flings out this sally : " I only want to make
it well understood that the soul is not the mind, and that the will is
not at all ruled by the latter, which, indeed, would be a very unhappy
thing for the will." Foundations, chap, v, CEuvres, III, pp. 97-98.
3 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, iii, CEuvres, VI, p. 117. Cf. Relation
LIV, CEuvres, II, p. 295.
4 Castle, ibid., p. 118.
HI. IO
146 Gbristfau Spirituality
2. The Prayer of Quiet or of the Divine Tastes1
Here the powers of the soul, without being- properly bound,
are as if they were laid half asleep :
" In the prayer of the divine tastes, in which the water
gushes from the spring itself without being brought through
pipes, the understanding stops, or rather finds that it is
stopped, because it sees that it does not itself know what it
wants. Then it inclines first to one side and then to the
other, as if it were numbed and incapable of concentrating
upon anything."2
Distractions are harder than in the prayer of simple recol-
lection. However, the will has a little trouble to bear " this
agitation of the understanding," but its repose is not dis-
turbed thereby. It is, indeed, in the will, because it "is
fixed upon its God," that the quiet dwells.3
God begins to make his presence felt in the soul; he
captures it and makes it happy :
" Here, indeed, the soul is immersed in peace, or rather,
the Lord immerses it therein by his presence, as he did in the
case of the just Simeon. Then all the powers are at rest
and the soul comprehends in a very different way from that
of the external senses, that it is close to God and that it
is very near becoming one with him by union. . . .4 Then
there are spiritual blessings which are unutterable, and even
the soul itself cannot understand what it is actually re-
ceiving."5
In this kind of prayer the soul enjoys perfect repose and
relishes a most sweet pleasure. It is quite " happy with its
God." The will "is so exquisitely busy without knowing
how" that all the endeavours of the understanding and the
memory "cannot deprive it of its content and happiness."6
1 Life, chap, xiv-xv ; Way of Perfection, chap, xxxi ; Castle, Fourth
Mansion, chap, ii : " What I call the divine tastes and have elsewhere
named the prayer of quiet." CEuvres, VI, p. 108. Cf. chap. iii.
1 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, iii, CEuvres, VI, p. 121. Relation
LIV.
3 Castle, ibid.; Life, chap, xv : " The understanding and the memory
wander in vain, the will remains united with God, the quiet and repose
persist." CEuvres, I, p. 189.
* Way of Perfection, chap, xxxi, CEuvres, V, pp. 222-223. In the
Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, i, Teresa appears to modify this explana-
tion : "In my opinion, the powers here are not united to God, but
only, as it were, inebriated, and they ask in astonishment what it can
really be. ... It is by the effects and ensuing works that we can tell
the real graces of prayer."
5 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, ii, CEuvres, VI, p. no.
6 Life, chap, xv, CEuvres, I, p. 189. See chap, xxii : " I thought
[in the prayer of quiet] that I felt the presence of God, which was
true, and I tried to keep recollected close to him. If only God shows
himself at all favourable, this is a most agreeable state of prayer, which
fills one with delight." CEuvres, I, p. 274.
Saint Ueresa 147
St Teresa thus describes the effects of such prayer when
persevered in :
" There appear very plainly in the soul a dilatation and
enlargement. Imagine a spring- without an outlet, and with
a basin so made as to increase in size as the water becomes
more abundant. Well, thus it is with this sort of prayer.
God — not to speak of many other wonders then wrought in
the soul — prepares it and makes it fit to contain all that he
desires to fill it with. This sweetness and interior enlarge-
ment may be known from the following effect : the soul no
longer finds itself bound as before in the service of God, but
its action is much more extended. The fear of hell ceases to
disturb it. Whilst ihe dread of offending God increases in
it, servile fear disappears. . . . Formerly it was afraid of
crosses, but now it fears them less because its faith is more
living. . . . Knowing his [God's] greatness better, it has
a lower opinion of itself. As it has experienced the delights
that come from him, the pleasures of the world are but
dung in its sight. . . . Lastly, it grows in all the virtues,
making continual progress, if indeed it draw not back and
do nothing to offend God."1
In the Way of Perfection,2 St Teresa notifies another
favour, which is " very difficult to grasp if one has not had
a great deal of experience," granted by God "when the
quiet is deep and prolonged." It is the favour of combining
the active life with the contemplative, of fulfilling the Office
of Martha and that of Mary at the same time :
" [Those who possess it] perceive very well that they are
not altogether in what they are doing : they are lacking in
the main thing — that is to say, in the will, which, as it
appears to me, is then united with its God. As for the
other powers, God leaves them free to busy themselves with
what belongs to his service. For this, indeed, they are
much more fit than they usually are. But if they have to
do with worldly matters, they seem to be dull and, sometimes
even, as if they were stupefied. . . . Then we serve the
Lord in all sorts of ways at the same time : the will is at its
own business — I mean at contemplation — without knowing
how it is performing it, and the two other powers are doing
the work of Martha."3
When St Teresa was raised to this state, she did not know
1 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, iii, CEuvres, VI, pp. 121-122.
2 Chap. xxxi. St Teresa does not speak of this result of the prayer
of quiet in the Interior Castle. In Relation LIV, she attributes it to
the prayer of the sleep of the powers. CEuvres, II, p. 296. So, too, in
the Life, chap, xvii, CEuvres, I, pp. 211-212. In the Seventh Mansion
of the Castle, the soul in the state of the spiritual marriage experiences
a similar effect, but it is more perfect.
3 Way of Perfection, chap, xxxi, CEuvres, V, pp. 224-226. Cf.
Relation LIV, CEuvres, II, p. 296.
hs Gbrfsttan Spirituality
how to explain it. She consulted Francis Borgia, who
" replied that there was nothing- at all impossible in it, and
that the same thing- happened to himself."
According to the Life1 and Relation LIV, between the
prayer of quiet and the prayer of union is found an inter-
mediate degree of prayer, called the prayer of the sleep of
the powers. St Francis de Sales2 and St Teresa's com-
mentators think that this sleep of the powers does not differ
from the prayer of quiet.
This is how St Teresa describes it in her Life:
" Let us now speak of the third kind of water that waters
our garden. It is running water, coming from a river or
fountain. We must still, it is true, take the trouble to bring
it, but the watering is much less tiring. Here the Lord so
far helps the gardener as to take his place in some sort,
doing almost all the work himself.
" This prayer is a sleep of the powers, wherein these, with-
out being entirely suspended, do not understand how they
work. Consolation, sweetness, enjoyment are incomparably
greater than in the preceding state. The soul is so plunged in
the water of grace that it can go neither forward nor backward
nor see how to do so ; it aspires only to enjoy such felicity.
It is as if someone were holding a candle that had been
blessed in his hand and expecting death at any moment, but
a death ardently desired. In the act of dying, the soul is
inundated with unutterable delight. In my opinion, this is
to die almost entirely to the things of this world and already
to enjoy God. . . . The soul itself no longer knows what
it ought to do. Must it speak or be silent, laugh or weep?
It does not know. It is in a glorious delirium, a heavenly
madness, that we learn true wisdom."3
In this kind of prayer, there is not as yet the full union
of all the powers with God, but " this union surpasses that
of the preceding state."4 The faculties of the soul can still
act, but only " to attend to God." Even if we tried hard, we
could not succeed in drawing them away from him ; then
thousands of words of praise ascend to God, but without any
order, unless the Lord himself order them : at any rate, the
understanding is powerless to arrange them." In this state
St Teresa exhaled her love in " verses full of utterance . . .
1 Chaps, xvi-xvii.
* Treatise, of the Love of God, VI, chap. viii.
3 Life, chap. xvi. CEuvres, I, pp. 201-202.
* ibid., chap, xvi, Relation LIV : " From this prayer (of quiet)
usually proceeds what is called the sleep of the powers. These are then
neither absorbed nor so suspended as to call this a state of rapture :
nor is it altogether union." CEuvres, II, p. 296.
Saint ZTeresa 149
under the sway of this holy and heavenly madness."1 She
complained of the torments of exile and wanted to die. She
gave herself up entirely to the good pleasure of God.
St Teresa had been enjoying- these spiritual favours for
five or six years when she gave an account of them in her
Life. She acknowledges that she did not altogether under-
stand them at first :
" Until now," she says, " I had no skill in them, and I
was incapable of giving an account of them. Moreover, I
had decided, when I reached this point, to say but very little
or even almost nothing about them. I well understood that
in this state there was not an entire union of the powers,
and, nevertheless, it was clear to me that this union sur-
passed that of the preceding state [of quiet]. But I confess
that I could not discern and thoroughly grasp in what the
difference consisted."2
God enabled her to take full knowledge of this state of
prayer one day after Holy Communion. At the same time
he taught her how she should find expressions to explain it,
and how the soul should behave in it.3
"This state seems, at first," she says, "to be the same
as the prayer of quiet, and nevertheless there is a difference
between them. In the prayer of quiet, the soul tries to avoid
any movement of whatever kind ; it enjoys the holy idleness
of Mary. In the state of which I am speaking, it can also
play the part of Martha. . . . This mode of prayer seems
to be a very evident union of the whole soul with God. Only
God wishes, apparently, to enable the powers to understand
and to enjoy the greatness of his work in them. . . . What
cannot be doubted is, that the virtues gain much more vigour
from this state of prayer than from the preceding one, which
is that of quiet. The soul becomes quite changed."4
Ten or twelve years later, when she wrote the Interior
Castle, St Teresa makes no further mention of the prayer
of the sleep of the powers. She passes directly from the
prayer of quiet to the prayer of union.
3. The Prayer of Union:5 its Nature and Object
This is "the fourth kind of water," that "which falls
from heaven to flood and drench our garden," without any
effort on the part of the gardener. " This rain from heaven
often falls just when it is least expected by the gardener."6
1 Life, chap, xvi, pp. 202-203.
2 ibid., chap, xvi, (Euvres, I, p. 202. 3 ibid.
* ibid., chap, xvii, pp. 210-21 1.
5 ibid., chaps, xviii-xix ; Castle, Fifth Mansion, chaps, i-iv ; Relation
LIV.
" ibid., chap, xviii, CEuvres, I, p. 223.
150 Christian Spirituality
Its suddenness is, indeed, one of the notes of this grace
of union :
" While I was keeping in spirit near Jesus Christ ..." says
St Teresa, " or else while I was reading, I was suddenly
seized with a lively sense of the presence of God. I could
then have no manner of doubt of his presence within me nor
that I was myself entirely lost in him."1
Here God makes his presence felt in the mystic's soul
beyond all doubt, so complete is the union :
" In the beginning," says St Teresa, " I was so ignorant
as not to know that God is in all beings. Now, on the one
hand, the most intimate presence of which I am speaking
appeared to me to be incredible, and on the other, I could
not help believing that God was there, for I had what seemed
a clear view of his real presence. . . .2 God then establishes
himself in such a manner in the innermost part of this soul
that when she comes to herself she cannot doubt but that
she had been in God and God in her. This truth is so
thoroughly impressed upon her spirit that if years were to
elapse without this grace being renewed she could neither
forget nor doubt but that she had been in God. And that is
quite apart from the results effected. . . . This certitude is
the capital point."3
It is not " by means of a vision " nor by reasoning that
the soul acquires the knowledge of God's presence in it,
" but by its abiding conviction which God alone can give."4
During the union, there is a " simultaneous suspension of
the powers." Distractions are impossible in this state of
prayer ; they might still supervene in the former ones. The
" little lizards " — that is to say, the " little thoughts arising
from the imagination" or otherwise — may come into the
Fourth Mansion of the Castle. But " however agile they
may be, these lizards cannot get into the Fifth Mansion with
which we are dealing, because there is neither imagination
nor memory nor understanding to be an obstacle to the good
we enjoy there."5
" Here we feel nothing at all, we only enjoy without know-
ing what we are enjoying. We see that we are enjoying a
good which includes all goods, but we do not understand
wherein this good consists. All the senses are so absorbed
in this joy that none of them is free to engage in anything
else either within or without. . . .6 Here we are asleep —
and deeply asleep — to the things of this world and of our-
selves ; and, therefore, during the short period of union, we
1 Life, chap, x, (Envres, I, p. 134.
3 ibid., chap, xviii, pp. 226-227.
5 Castle, Fifth Mansion, chap, i, (Euvres, VI, p. 134.
* ibid. B ibid., p. 131.
6 Life, chap, xviii, (Euvres, I, p. 218. St Teresa also says : " Here
all the powers are bound and totally suspended," p. 216.
Saint Ucresa 151
are, as it were, without feeling : even if we would, we cannot
think. Then there is no need of any contrivance to suspend
the activity of the mind. . . . Lastly, we are absolutely
dead to the world in order to live the more unto God. And
this is a delightful death : a death, because the soul is with-
drawn from all the operations that it can perform while
united to the body; and delightful, because if the soul appears
really to be separated from the body, it is in order to live
the better unto God."1
St Teresa has just told us that this union is short. In
her Life, she remarks that " the time of the suspension of
the powers is always very brief," at most but " half an
hour." Even when such state of prayer lasts as long as
that, it " does not injure one's health."2
This state of union " leaves the soul filled with an extreme
tenderness of love. ... It feels that it is full of courage,
and if it were then torn asunder for God's sake, it would
greatly rejoice. Then arise promises and heroic resolutions
and burning desires, a horror of the world, and a clear
perception of its vanity." The soul discerns plainly its un-
worthiness " in all its fulness; just as, in a room full of sun-
shine, not a single thread of a spider's web escapes our
sight."3
In the Interior Castle Teresa compares the soul in the state
of union with " a most lovely little white butterfly " coming
from a silk-worm, escaping from its cocoon. It has quite
other aspirations than it had as a worm ; it flies instead of
crawling ; and nowhere does it find its true repose. It is the
same case with the soul in the prayer of union ; it has an
intense desire to get away from this world. It " cannot
recognize itself any longer. . . . Now, indeed, it looks for
great crosses, and the desire to bear them is irresistible. It
is athirst for penance, it yearns for solitude, it wants God to
be known by all men, and, hence, it is deeply grieved when
it sees them offend him."4 The suffering felt by St Teresa
when she saw souls perishing gave her some idea of the
sufferings of Christ. In fact, the grace of union is not given
for the soul's own sake. Our neighbour should profit by it.
Further, one of the fruits of such prayer is an increase of
fraternal charity, an advance in our zeal for the salvation of
mankind.6
In the prayer of union we contemplate eternal realities.
What, exactly, is the object of such contemplation : the
1 Castle, Fifth Mansion, chap, i, (Euvres, VI, p. 129.
2 Life, chap, xviii, (Euvres, I, pp. 224-225.
3 ibid., chap, xix, (Euvres, I, pp. 228-229.
* Castle, Fifth Mansion, chap, ii, (Euvres, VI, pp. 142-143.
s ibid., chap. iii.
152 Cbristfan Spirituality
divinity alone, or the humanity of Christ? St Teresa tries to
give us an answer.
She knows that most mystical writers think that in high
contemplation the soul is applied to God to the exclusion of
all else, and even of the humanity of Christ :
" These writers," she says, " strongly exhort (those who
have attained to contemplation) to set aside all corporal re-
presentations to concentrate upon the divinity alone, for,
say they, even the humanity of Christ becomes an obstacle
and an impediment to perfect contemplation. . . . (This
last) is an entirely spiritual thing, and any corporal thing
may encumber it and bar its way. Consider yourself sur-
rounded by God on all sides, see yourself immersed in him :
that is what they tell us to aim at."1
Teresa does not hesitate to declare that this teaching is
" mistaken."2 She cannot understand how the humanity of
Christ can be a hindrance to contemplation. Her own experi-
ence proves, on the contrary, that it is " the gate whereby we
must enter, if we would have the sovereign Majesty discover
high secrets to us."3 She acknowledges, however, that:
"[When] it pleases God to suspend all the powers [of the
soul], as we have seen that he does in the various kinds of
prayer above dealt with, it is plain that, in spite of ourselves,
the presence of the holy humanity escapes our notice. That
it is so then, well and good. . . . But that we ourselves
should try of set purpose, instead of forming the habit of
having this most holy humanity ever before us — and would
to God that it always were so ! — to do exactly the opposite :
that, once more, is just what I disapprove of."4
Despite these modifications, the mind of St Teresa, on an
important point of mystical theology, is in disaccord with the
majority of contemplatives. St Teresa is very individual.
Despite her great docility towards her directors, she does
not fear from time to time to set her own experience against
the views of the theologians, making the subtle remark that,
in mysticism above all, " God leads souls by many ways and
by many different paths."5
The prayer of union paves the way towards the spiritual
marriage, a kind of " interview " of very brief duration
between the soul and its Lord :
" The soul sees in a merely mysterious way who he is
whom she is about to take as her Spouse. The knowledge
which she thus acquires in a short space of time she could
1 Life, chap, xxii, QLuvres, I, pp. 272-273. See, too, Castle, Sixth
Mansion, chap. vii.
2 Life, ibid., p. 274. 3 ibid., p. 278.
4 ibid., p. 279. 5 ibid., p. 273.
Saint Ueresa 153
not obtain in a thousand years by means of the senses and
the powers. The Spouse, being- what he is, by this single
sight of himself makes her worthier of his hand, as we say.
The soul is then so lost in love that she does all that she
can that nothing may hinder the divine espousals."1
For the devil makes desperate efforts to prevent the soul
from attaining to the heavenly marriage. Teresa points out
the way to defeat his wiles and to be strictly faithful to the
divine call.
But before being admitted to the spiritual marriage, the
soul must be further purified. God makes her pass through
the painful way of mystical purification and by that of
rapture and ecstasy. This is the subject of the Sixth Man-
sion of the Interior Castle, which must be reached before
attaining to the mystical marriage of the Seventh Mansion.
Before going any further, let us note the wonderful effects
in the way of zeal wrought in St Teresa by the mystical
union. Not in vain did God accord her such extraordinary
prayer and the favours which accompanied it. She had a
very important mission to fulfil : the Carmelite reform. The
period of her life in which she was raised to this degree of
prayer, and to the most extraordinary of her other states, was
exactly coincident with that of her numerous foundations.2
4. The usual Preparations for the Spiritual Marriage: Pas-
sive Purifications* — Raptures — Ecstasy — Visions and
Revelations*
"O God!" says St Teresa, "what inward and outward
pains do we not endure before entering into the Seventh
Mansion ! Of a truth, when I think of it, it seems to me
1 Castle, Fifth Mansion, chap, iv, (Euvres, VI, p. 161.
* In 1562 she founded the monastery of the Carmelites of St Joseph
of Avila, where she spent five years (1562- 1567), " the sweetest of her
life," she says. During the next four years (1567-1571) she founded
nine monasteries, seven for nuns : Medina del Campo, Malagon, Valla-
dolid, Toledo, Pastrana, Salamanca, and Alba ; and two for men :
Duruelo and Pastrana. Her three years' priorate at the Convent of
the Incarnation of Avila (1571-1574), which she was charged to reform,
stopped the foundations for a time; the only exception was that of
Segovia. On regaining her freedom, she resumes her travels and
works. In less than a year (February, 1575-January, 1576), she gives
three new convents of nuns to the Reform : Beas, Seville, and Caravoca.
Then persecution was let loose upon her work and brought it within a
hair's breadth of destruction. All foundations were suspended until
1580. On the other hand, the last three years of her life (1580-1582)
were to see the erection of five new monasteries : Villanueva de la Jara,
Palencia, Soria, Granada, and Burgos. (Euvres, III, p. 17. How can
it be said that St Teresa was a sick woman, and that what was extra-
ordinary in her inner life belongs to pathology ?
3 Life, chaps, xxx-xxxi ; Castle, Sixth Mansion, chaps, i-ii.
* Life, chaps, xx, xxiv-xxix, xxxii, xxxvii-xl ; Castle, Sixth Mansion,
chaps, iii-xi ; Foundations, chaps, vi, viii ; Relation LIV.
154 Cbrtetfan Spirituality
that if we knew of them beforehand, our natural weakness
would find it very hard to resolve to face them, whatever
gain might be otherwise promised us."1
These troubles — to begin with the least of them — are the
ill-natured comments, the criticisms, and the calumnies of
the people with whom we are connected. According to them,
we are wandering astray and cheated with illusions, we are,
like a host of others, the playthings of Satan, we bring
virtue into disrepute and deceive our confessors. " There will
be endless scoffing and all sorts of things said against us."2
The Lord also usually sends very serious illnesses. " This
torment far exceeds the foregoing one, especially if the pains
we suffer are sharp."3 When she was writing the Interior
Castle, St Teresa declared that since she received the grace
of union — that is to say, during forty years — she had not
passed a single day without suffering.4
Amongst her interior troubles must be placed those she
had to endure when she happened to meet with an ignorant
or inexperienced confessor to whom everything seemed sus-
picious and who condemned all spiritual favours, " putting
everything down to the devil or to melancholia."5 No one
ever experienced this sort of suffering more than Teresa.
This attitude on the part of the confessor gives rise to
another torment. The soul thus rebuffed imagines that
owing to its sins God allows it, in fact, to deceive itself :
" My mind became so darkened," relates St Teresa, " that
I fell into innumerable doubts and perplexities. I said to
myself that I had understood nothing of what was taking
place within me, perhaps it was all mere reverie, and it ought
to be enough for me to be misled myself without misleading
honest people. I felt that I was so detestable that I believed
that by my sins I was the cause of all the evils and heresies
which have appeared in our days."6
When the confessor happens to reassure his poor afflicted
penitent, " the torment subsides only to return." Further-
more, she succeeds in persuading herself that she is really
deceiving her confessor.7 God alone can quell such tempests.
He sometimes does so, but only for a short time. For he
permits other inward and more painful afflictions, especially
the belief that he has abandoned us.
1 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, p. 168.
2 ibid., p. 169. St Teresa alludes specially to the criticisms,
gibes, affronts, and persecutions of which she became the butt from
1562, the year of the foundation of the first monastery of bare-footed
Carmelites at Avila. Cf. H. Joly, Sainte Ter'ese, pp. 121 ff.
s Castle, ibid., p. 171.
4 ibid., p. 172. Cf. Life, chap, xxx, CEuvres, I, p. 387.
8 Castle, ibid., pp. 172, 173.
6 Life, chap, xxx, CEuvres, I, p. 387; Castle, ibid., vi, pp. 17^-174.
» Castle, ibid.
Satnt Ueresa 155
This torment is inexpressible : " The anguish and affliction
of spirit are such that one knows not what name to give
them," says St Teresa. As to all that is good, there is no
light; we see only the evil we have done. God altogether
hides himself and we feel as if we had never loved him.
The devil tries to make us doubt the divine goodness :
"The soul regards God as putting everything to fire and
sword ; it pictures his justice, and, while keeping faith in his
mercy — which the devil cannot go so far as to take away —
it draws no consolation from it." In this state, mental
prayer is hard, for " the powers are incapable of it." Even
vocal prayer gives no consolation :
" Yes, of a truth," says St Teresa, " it appears to me that
the devils are playing ball with my soul, and that my soul
cannot escape them. It is impossible to tell what the soul
then suffers. ... In my opinion, it is a sort of foretaste
of hell ; and the comparison is quite accurate, as God showed
me in a vision. The soul, indeed, burns inwardly ; but it
knows not by whom and in what manner the fire is kindled ;
it knows not how to fly from it or to put it out."1
By these sufferings, compared by St Teresa to those of
purgatory,2 God purifies the soul and makes it acknowledge
his sovereignty. He thoroughly humiliates it and thus pre-
pares it for the reception of great spiritual favours.
The period of purification once begun, the heavenly Spouse
sends forth his call to the spiritual marriage.
This is first heard in " impulses springing from the very
depths of the soul, so delicate and subtle" that it is hard to
give any true idea of them :
" Often when one is not in the least thinking of it, and
one's mind is not occupied with God, his Majesty suddenly
awakens the soul : it is like a shooting star or a clap of
thunder. . . . The soul clearly understands that God has
called her. He makes her feel his presence, and yet does not
reveal himself in such a way as to let her enjoy it."3
God calls the soul in yet another way :
" He speaks to her. . . . His words are of many kinds :
some seem to come from without, others from the innermost
depths of the soul, others from the higher part. Lastly,
others seem so external that they are perceived by the ears ;
one seems to hear an articulate voice."*
1 Life, chap, xxx, (Euvres, I, pp. 388, 389. Cf. chap, xx, Vol. I,
pp. 247-248. Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap. i. St Teresa also experi-
enced outward temptations of the devil. Life, chap. xxxi.
2 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap. xi.
3 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, ii, (Euvres, VI, pp. 179-180.
4 Castle, chap, iii, (Euvres, p. 185. Cf. Life, chaps, xxv, xxvi.
In her first rapture, St Teresa heard our Lord utter these words :
156 Cbristian Spirituality
But here illusion is easy, and Teresa explains at length the
signs by which one may distinguish a divine source from
what is diabolical or merely pathological.1
When the divine call has been heard, the soul is led to the
spiritual marriage by means of raptures. They are like the
" betrothal," they free the soul from the senses and make her
capable of close union with God. It was about the year 1562
that the great raptures began which prepared St Teresa for
the spiritual marriage with which she was favoured ten years
later.
" Rapture, elevation, flight of the spirit, transport, these
are all the same, and the different names express but one
thing, which is also called ecstasy."2 St Teresa describes
them with her usual precision.
She first notes the effects produced in the body of the
ecstatic :
"At the moment when the rapture begins," she says,
" one ceases breathing and, if one keeps one's other senses
for a very short time, one loses the power of speech imme-
diately. At other times, one loses the use of all one's senses
suddenly ; the hands and the whole of the body are frozen
to such a point that the soul seems to have withdrawn.
Sometimes we have to ask ourselves if we are still breathing.
This is but for a little while, at least so far as it is a fixed
state, for when the great suspension begins to decrease, the
body seems to become somewhat reanimated. But if it re-
covers a little life, it is only to die afresh and to leave the
soul more alive. Nevertheless, such a high degree of ecstasy
is but of brief duration."3
Rapture is sometimes accompanied with the raising of the
body from the ground. It is the phenomenon of levitation
that mystics are so afraid of. It is the spirit that is carried
away first of all :
/ wish thee to converse no longer with men but with angels. These
words were spoken in the innermost part of the soul. Life, chap, xxiv,
CEuvres, I, p. 309.
1 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap. iii.
8 Life, chap, xx, CEuvres, I, p. 241.
9 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, iv, CEuvres, VI, p. 207. Life, chap,
xx, CEuvres, I, pp. 242 ff : " During such raptures, the soul appears no
longer to animate the body. We very plainly perceive the natural heat
departing and the body getting colder and colder, but in an unspeakably
sweet and pleasant manner. . . . The body is often as if dead and
utterly impotent : it stays just as it happens to be overtaken, with the
hands open or closed. Consciousness is but rarely lost. Yet I have
sometimes lost it altogether. . . . Generally the eyes are closed in-
voluntarily ; and, if they happen to remain open, I repeat that we do not
distinguish or apprehend anything." Cf. Relation LIV, Foundations,
chap. vi.
Saint Ueresa 157
" Sometimes," says Teresa, " the soul feels that she is
transported with such a sudden motion, and the spirit seems
carried away with such velocity that one experiences, especi-
ally at first, a real alarm. This is why I told those whom
God intends to receive such graces that they need great
courage. Do you think, indeed, that anyone in full posses-
sion of her faculties feels but little disturbed when she is
aware of her soul being thus raised — and her body, too, as
we read of in the case of some people — without knowing
whither she is going or who is carrying her away or what
it all means? For just when the sudden motion occurs, we
have no certainty as yet that it proceeds from God. But is
it not possible to resist? No. . . . With the same ease
with which a giant carries off a straw, so does our divine
Giant in his power carry away the spirit."1
St Teresa often tried to resist. She did it with all her
might, especially when she was seized with ecstasy in public.
Once, when she was about to communicate, she felt herself
rising from the ground. She seized the grille with both
hands to cling on to it. She sometimes succeeded in some-
what neutralizing the force which was carrying her away,
"but at the cost of an extraordinary lassitude." At other
times, "all resistance was impossible."2 She also tried to
lie down on the ground when she perceived that an ecstasy
was coming on ; her nuns surrounded her to keep her where
she was. Lastly, she besought our Lord to grant her no
such favours. The raptures continued, but they were only
rarely accompanied with the raising of her body.3
These external phenomena, however extraordinary, are of
much less importance than the graces imparted to the soul
in moments of rapture. The soul is rapt in ecstasy by an
interior grace : it is " suddenly struck by a divine word
remembered or heard." The spark of love is powerfully re-
kindled in it until it is thoroughly afire. At the same time our
Lord unites with the soul "in a manner known only to both
of them." And further, the soul is afterwards unable to give
any real account of it.*
1 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, v, CEuvres, VI, pp. 210-211. A little
farther on in the same chapter, we read : "I return to this rapid
carrying away of the spirit. Such is its impetuosity that the spirit
appears really to be parting from the body. . . . For some moments
the (person in ecstasy) cannot tell whether her soul is in the body or
out of it. She believes that she is transported . . . into some other
region." Cf. Life, chap. xx.
2 Life, chap, xx, CEuvres, I, p. 243 : " When I wanted to resist, I
felt as if there were amazing forces under my feet and that they were
carrying me away. . . . There is a terrible struggle, and it is of very
little use when God means to act." CEuvres, I, p. 245.
3 Life, ibid.
* Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, iv, CEuvres, VI, pp. 199-200. Ibid.,
chap, v : " As swiftly as the bullet leaves the arquebus when it is fired,
158 Cbristtan Spirituality
In rapture, although " the powers (of the soul) are so
absorbed as to be dead, and the senses also," the soul has
never been " so awake to the things of God " or " so en-
lightened and conscious of his majesty." St Teresa makes
no attempt to explain how that may be ; but, according- to
her, unless the soul, when raised to such states as these,
sometimes heard such " secrets," the divine character of its
raptures would be open to doubt. God usually reveals super-
natural truths to the ecstatic by intellectual or imaginative
visions of which more will be heard later on.1
When the soul is thus "beyond itself" it rapidly acquires a
threefold knowledge : that of God's greatness revealed in such
wonderful effects, that of its own nothingness and lowness
despite which the Lord comes to it, and that of the vanity of
the things of this world. The soul becomes supremely detached
from all creatures. " In an hour, and even less, it gains such
a wonderful liberty that it does not know itself." It is no
longer fettered by any created thing.2
Moreover, divine love grows at a bound during ecstasy.
When the soul has entirely come to itself, it feels an in-
credibly ardent desire to serve God in every way. It " wants
to have a thousand lives to devote them all to God, it would
have everything in the world changed into tongues to bless
him with ; its thirst for penance is insatiable. ... It sees
clearly that the torments of martyrs were easy for them to
endure, because such help from our Lord makes everything
easy."3 The soul itself suffers " a martyrdom both delightful
and cruel," which it can neither describe nor explain. It is
like a painful ecstasy arising from the loss of the vision of God.
In short, " before experiencing ecstasy the soul is con-
vinced that it is careful not to offend God, and that it is
serving him to the utmost of its powers. But no sooner has
it received this grace than the sun of justice shines upon
it and makes it open its eyes."4 It sees how imperfect it
is ; but the graces of rapture very soon transform it.
Amidst these both " painful and delightful " effects of rap-
ture, our Lord imparts to the soul from time to time " cer-
tain jubilations and a kind of strange prayer, the nature of
which is inexplicable." There are 'loving transports of
incredible vehemence " :
" In my view," says St Teresa, " there is a very close
within the soul arises an impulse, which I call a soaring. ... It
transports one so evidently that illusion is impossible" (pp. 215-216).
1 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, iv, CEuvres, VI, pp. 200-201. Cf.
Life, chap. xx.
2 Castle, ibid., chap, v, CEuvres, VI, pp. 216-217. Life, chaps.
xx-xxi.
3 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, iv, CEuvres, VI, p. 208.
* Life, xx, CEuvres, I, 261.
Saint XTeresa 159
union between the powers [of the soul] and God; only they
retain, along- with the senses, the freedom to enjoy their
happiness. But what do they enjoy, and how do they enjoy
it? This they know not. This is like Arabic, and yet it is
pure truth. The soul experiences such excessive joy that
it would not be alone in feeling- it, but would proclaim it
everywhere, to be helped to thank our Lord for it, since
to that is it borne by an irresistible impulse. Oh ! if it were
in our power, what festivals should we celebrate, what
demonstrations of joy, to impart our happiness to all the
world ! . . .
" Such were the transports that befell St Francis, I think,
when he was met by robbers while he was shouting aloud
in the open country, and told them that he was the herald
of the Great King. And how many other saints fled into the
desert to be able, as he did, to proclaim the praise of God !
' I knew one such — to judge by his life, I may put him
among them — who acted in the same way. This was the
friar Peter of Alcantara. At the present time those who
have heard him still believe that he was mad. O happy
madness, my sisters, would to God that we were all touched
with it I"1
It was in one of these transports of love that St Teresa,
about the year 1560, received the signal grace known as
Transverbe ration:
;' I saw an angel near me," she says, " on my left, and in
bodily form. . . . He was not tall, but short and very
beautiful ; his fiery face seemed to show that he belonged to
the highest hierarchy, that of the spirits all on fire with love.
These are, I think, those called cherubim [seraphim], . . .
" I saw in the angel's hands a long golden dart, the iron
point of which was tipped with a little fire. Sometimes he
seemed to me to be thrusting this dart through my heart,
and to plunge it deep within me. When he withdrew it, I
was left all on fire with the most ardent love of God. So
intense was my pain that it made me utter the feeble plaints
of which I have spoken. But at the same time the sweetness
caused by this unspeakable pain is so excessive that one
would take care not to ask for it to end. . . .
" During all these transports I seemed to be beside myself.
I wanted neither to hear nor to speak, but to give myself
up entirely to my torment, which for me was a bliss beyond
all created joy."2
In an extraordinary state of prayer God sometimes com-
1 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, vi, CEuvres, VI, pp. 224-225. Cf.
Life, chap. xxix.
2 Life, chap, xxix, CEuvres, I, pp. 378-379. This vision of the
transverberating angel was granted to St Teresa " several times,"
P- 37%-
160 Cbristian Spirituality
municates with the soul by visions. These are of three
kinds : intellectual, imaginative, and corporal.
She declares in her Relation to Father Rodriguez Alvarez,
S.J., appointed by the Inquisitors in 1576 to examine her
spirit, that she " never saw anything- with the eyes of the
body nor heard anything with her bodily ears except twice
only. And then she never grasped anything that was said
to her nor knew who was speaking to her."1
Christ once appeared to St Teresa in an intellectual vision.
He was neither perceived by her bodily eyes, nor by those
of the soul, but by a sort of mental intuition :
" Being engaged in prayer," she says, " on a feast-day of
the glorious St Peter,2 I saw near me — or rather I felt, for
I saw nothing with the eyes of the body nor with those of
the soul — it appeared to me, I say, that I saw Jesus Christ
close to me. At the same time I understood that it was he
whom I believed that I heard speaking to me. ... It ap-
peared to me that Jesus Christ kept constantly by my side;
however, as the vision presented no image, I could not see
what form he had, but that he was always at my right hand,
that I felt clearly. He was the witness of all my acts, and
if I kept the least recollected or undistracted, I could not be
unaware of his presence close to me."3
Such an intellectual vision is not to be confounded with
the feeling of the presence of God experienced by those
"who are favoured with the prayer of union or of quiet."4
By the effects wrought by God Within them, they understand
that he is there. In the former case all occurs quite other-
wise. Christ kept close to St Teresa without her seeing
him. She understood so clearly that it was he " that all
doubt was impossible."5 She knew quite well that it was
he, Christ himself, who usually spoke to her. The vision
sometimes lasted a long time.6
St Teresa first of all was frightened. She was afraid of
being the victim of a diabolical illusion. She " went away
quite cast down to find her confessor," who did nothing to
reassure her, for he could not understand how his penitent
could know that Christ was near her, since she never saw
him. 7 She was not fully enlightened until later on by St
1 Relation LIU, CEuvres, II, p. 290. Cf. Life, chap, xxviii, ibid., I,
P- 354-
2 Probably on June 29, 1557.
3 Life, chap, xxvii, GLuvres, I, pp. 336-337. Cf. Castle, Sixth
Mansion, chap, viii, ibid., VI, p. 241. Relation LIU, Vol. II, pp. 293-
294.
* Life, chap, xxvii, ibid., VI, p. 338.
* Castle, ibid., VI, p. 241.
' Life, chap, xxvii. St Teresa says that she had this vision for
some time " in some sort continually " and that she did not leave her
state of prayer. Life, xxviii, CEuvres, III, p. 352.
7 Castle, ibid. Cf. Relation LIU.
Saint TTcresa 161
Peter of Alcantara and " other great theologians." Intellec-
tual vision is of " the highest kind " ; it is " that in which the
devil has the least admittance." Towards the close of
her life, when Teresa remembered what the ignorance of her
directors had then inflicted upon her, she recommended her
nuns, when in doubt, to consult great theologians who were
"advanced in spirituality." You should prefer, she would
say, " a man eminent in doctrine," even if lacking in piety,
to " a man devoted to prayer," but of little learning.1
Amidst her fears Teresa was reassured by the conviction
that Christ was near her, and especially by the graces that
accompanied the vision. When our Lord said Fear not, it
is I, she could not cast a doubt upon the authenticity of
these words :
" Such excellent company filled her with courage and joy ;
she found it a powerful aid in thinking of God continually,
and in keeping herself very carefully away from all that might
displease him, whose look seemed to her to be always
fastened upon her. If she wanted to speak to our Lord
either during her prayer or at other times, she always found
him so near that he could not but hear her. As for his
words, she did not hear them according to her inclination,
but unexpectedly and when necessary. "2
St Teresa was further favoured with intellectual visions of
another kind, in which God imparted to her wonderful en-
lightenment as to supernatural realities.
One of them told her " how all things are seen in God, and
how he contains them all within himself." The malice of
sin was disclosed to her, for she saw " that it is in God,
yes, in God himself, that we commit the most monstrous
sins." And this truth filled her with fear.3
Another vision showed her God as the supreme truth,
"the truth which cannot lie." She understood why humility
is so excellent a virtue. " It is because God is the supreme
truth, and humility is nothing else than walking in truth.
. . . We have nothing good of ourselves . . . misery and
nothingness are our lot." Not to know that is to walk in
lies. To be convinced of it is to walk in truth.4
A soul in the state of grace was also shown her in a " very
extraordinary " intellectual vision. She saw that " the Holy
Trinity was with this soul, and a companionship so divine
communicated to it a sovereignty over the whole world."5
1 Castle, ibid,, pp. 246-247. Cf. Life, chap, xiii, CEuvres, I, pp.
I75-I76-
2 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, viii, CEuvres, VI, p. 242. Cf. Life,
chap. xl.
s Castle, ibid., chap, x, p. 262. Cf. Life, chap, xi, CEuvres, II, p. 147.
* Castle, ibid., pp. 264-265. Cf. Life, chap, xl, CEuvres, II, pp. 141-
144.
5 Relation XXI, CEuvres, II, p. 242.
III. II
i6a Christian Spirituality
Finally, in the last years of her life Teresa had an intel-
lectual vision of the Blessed Trinity, as she will explain to
us later on in dealing- with the Seventh Mansion of the
Interior Castle.
Towards the end of 1557, a few months after her first
intellectual vision, Teresa saw in imagination our Lord's
humanity.1
His holy humanity was shown to her gradually, as if to
prepare her little by little to bear its glory. First of all
the Saviour showed her only his hands. Their beauty was
so marvellous, she says, that it is impossible to depict it.
Soon afterwards Teresa also saw the holy face of the
Saviour, and was altogether ravished by it. Lastly, one
day on the feast of the Conversion of St Paul she saw the
Saviour's humanity in its entirety, " as it is represented after
the resurrection, in extraordinary beauty and majesty."2
She cannot express the beauty of the vision :
" Had I spent year after year," she says, "trying to pic-
ture to myself anything so beautiful, I should have neither the
power nor the talent to succeed in doing it, so far do its singu-
lar whiteness and brightness surpass all that can be imagined
here below. It is a brightness that dazzles not, a whiteness
full of sweetness, an infused splendour that charms one's
sight delightfully without wearying it. As for the clear
light which enables one to perceive such wholly divine
beauty, it is an entirely different light from that of this
world. The shining of the sun seems indeed to be so dull
compared with this brightness, which is presented to our
inward gaze, that afterwards we want never to open our
eyes again."3
Teresa often had this vision during two years and a half,
probably the years 1558, 1559, and 1560. Her womanly
curiosity sometimes fastened upon certain details of the
vision :
" While our Lord was speaking to me," she says, " and
I was contemplating his wonderful beauty, I noted the sweet-
ness and sometimes the severity with which his most beau-
tiful and divine mouth uttered his words. I had an extreme
desire to know the colour of his eyes and the dimensions of
his height, so as to be able to speak of them ; but I never
merited to take knowledge of them : any attempt for that
purpose is quite useless."4
1 An imaginative vision, in which the imagination receives super-
naturally and passively an image which God desires to present to the
soul. Such is the vision of hell related on p. 199.
2 Life, chap, xxviii, CEuvres, I, p. 353.
3 Life, chap, xxviii, CEuvres, I, pp. 355-356. Cf. Castle, Sixth Man-
sion, chap ix.
* Life, chap, xxix, CEuvres, I, p. 369.
Saint tteresa 163
Our Lord then showed her that her curiosity was indis-
creet by withdrawing- the vision.
Teresa tries to explain how she saw Jesus. It was not
with the eyes of the body ; the vision was altogether inward :
" On some occasions," she says, " what I saw seemed to
me to be an image, but on many others, it was not so ; it
seemed to me to be Jesus Christ himself. That depended
upon the clearness with which he condescended to show him-
self to me. Sometimes it was in a rather uncertain manner,
and then I thought I saw an image, but an image that has
nothing in common with the representations of this world,
however perfect they may be. ... If it is an image, it is
a living image. It is not a dead man ; it is the living Christ,
and he lets it be clearly known that he is God and man, not
as he was in the tomb, but as he left it in rising again. . . .
Sometimes he appears in such majesty that no one could
doubt but that it is the Saviour himself."1
Just because the vision occurs in the imagination, it runs
the risk of producing many illusions. The devil and the
imagination itself may bring them about. Hence came the
difficulties of the confessors when Teresa resorted to them
in order to discern the origin of such visions. One day one
of them told her "that they plainly came from the devil."
Since the vision forced itself on her and could not be driven
off, she must make the sign of the cross whenever it ap-
peared, and treat it with a gesture of contempt. We can
easily surmise Teresa's anguish, convinced as she was that
the vision came from God and yet bound as she was to
obey her confessor.2 He had, indeed, gone too far.
Ten years later Blessed John of Avila, after an examina-
tion of Teresa's Life, condemned such direction : " Imagina-
tive and corporal visions," he wrote, " are the most dubious.
They are not at all to be desired : we must escape them as
far as we can, but without using gestures of contempt,
unless the intervention of the evil spirit is demonstrated.
What was done in this respect really horrified me, and I was
grieved by it."3
Finally, Teresa had many revelations. God spoke to her
with interior words which revealed the future or made hidden
things known to her :
1 Life, chap, xxviii, CEuvres, I, p. 358. These visions forced them-
selves upon Teresa. She could neither have them at will nor dismiss
them when they occurred.
1 Life, chap, xxix, CEuvres, I, pp. 371-372.
8 John of Avila's letter to St Teresa, CEuvres, II, pp. 160-161. Cf.
Foundations, chap, viii, CEuvres, III, p. 136. St Teresa also saw the
Holy Spirit in the form of a dove ; she contemplated Jesus Christ in the
Father's bosom ; she had a vision of Purgatory, which many souls were
leaving [Life, chap, xxxviii). She saw the throne of God, and the glory
of Mary in her Assumption [Life, chap, xxxix).
1 64 Cbilstian Spfrttualtt*?
" These words," she says, " are perfectly distinct, but they
are not usually heard by the ears of the body. Yet they are
much more clearly perceived than if they were audible, and
they cannot be resisted ; it is impossible not to perceive
them. When we have to do with human speech, if we
do not want to hear it we can stop our ears or fix our atten-
tion upon something- else, so as not to understand what is
said to us. In the case of words spoken to the soul by
God, everything- is vain ; despite ourselves, we are obliged
to hearken, and our mind must attend to what God is
saying to it. . . . He shows that he is our real
Master."1
Teresa heard the Saviour so often that he became to her
a living book teaching her all truth :
" Once," she says, " for an hour and more our Lord stood
close to me and revealed marvellous things to me."2
Like St Paul, in her raptures she was given to contem-
plate the things of heaven, and she was powerless to express
them :
" One evening ... I was seized," she tells us, " with a
rapture of irresistible power. I seemed to be transported
into heaven, and the first persons I saw there were my father
and mother. In the space of an Ave Maria I saw wonderful
things. . . .
" Since then I have happened — and still sometimes happen
— to get the knowledge of yet higher secrets. But the soul
has neither the means nor the possibility of seeing anything
beyond what is shown it. . . . Such were these marvels
that the least of them was enough to strike my soul with
admiration, and to help it to make great progress in for-
getting and despising the things of earth. I should like to
give some idea of what was least lofty in the knowledge then
imparted to me, but it is in vain to try to do so, and I see
that it is impossible."3
Many events were foretold to her when in prayer, some-
times two years beforehand. She always saw them ful-
filled. In particular, she had several revelations as to the
Carmelite reform. Three years before anyone ever spoke of
it, she knew she was to found the first monastery of Dis-
calced Carmelites at Avila.4
Although St Teresa was certain that these revelations
came from God, she had them supervised by her confessor,
especially when they concerned things to be done : " To act
1 Life, chap, xxv, CEuvres, I, pp. 311-312. The Spiritual Relations
specially abound in our Lord's instructions, encouragements, and
reprimands addressed to St Teresa.
2 Life, chap, xxxviii, CEuvres, II, p. 103.
8 Life, chap, xxxviii, ibid., pp. 101-102.
* Relations III and LIII, CEuvres, II, pp. 220-277.
Saint XTeresa 165
otherwise, and to be led in such circumstances by one's own
feelings, is, in my opinion, a very dangerous thing."1
When St Teresa's mystical training was finished, God
granted her the signal favour of spiritual marriage. In the
middle of November, 1572, "in the Octave of St Martin,"
the Saviour appeared to her and said : From to-day thou
shalt be my spouse: hitherto thou hast not merited it. . . ."2
Teresa tells us in what this supernatural favour consisted so
far as she was concerned : it lasted till her death.
5. The Spiritual Marriage3
The celebration of the spiritual marriage takes place in
the innermost Mansion, the " centre of the soul," of which
mystics have so much to say.
" This mysterious union takes place in the innermost
centre of the soul, which is, I think," says St Teresa, " the
dwelling-place of God himself, and into which, according to
me, he enters without going through any doorway. If I say
that no door is needed, it is because, in the other graces
which I have described, the senses and the powers are in
some sense used as intermediaries. . . . What takes place
in the union of the spiritual marriage is very different. The
Lord appears in the centre of the soul without any imagina-
tive vision, but by means of an intellectual vision still more
refined than those of which I have spoken, and in the same
way as he appeared to the apostles without passing through
doors when he said to them : Pax vobis. ... At this
moment the Lord condescends to show the soul the beatitude
of heaven in a way the sublimity of which surpasses that
of all other visions and of all the spiritual tastes."4
In raptures and in the prayer of union " the soul did not
feel itself called to enter into its own centre with the power
that invites it thereto in this Mansion : it was attracted only
in its higher part."5
The feeling of the union of the centre of the soul with
God is permanent in the spiritual marriage. This is what
differentiates this degree of prayer from all the rest in which
the union is conscious only from time to time. The other
graces of prayer are like " spiritual betrothals " in which the
favour of union is not at all permanent. " In the spiritual
marriage," says Teresa, " it is quite otherwise : the soul
1 Castle, Sixth Mansion, chap, iii, (Euvres, VI, p. 193.
2 Relation XXV, CEuvres, II, p. 246.
3 Castle, Seventh Mansion.
4 Castle, ibid., chap, ii, CEuvres, VI, pp. 285-286.
5 ibid., chap, i, p. 279. In her Life, chap, xl, Teresa relates that
she saw her soul in the fashion of a clear mirror. In the centre of it
was our Lord, CEuvres, II, p. 144.
1 66 Cbrfettan Spirituality
abides always with God, in the centre of which I have
spoken." God is so closely united with the soul that he
makes it one spirit with himself.
" All that we can say of it," observes St Teresa, " is that
the soul, or rather its spirit, becomes, so far as we can
judge, entirely one with God. . . . Perhaps this is what St
Paul meant when he said : He who is joined to the Lord is
one spirit (i Cor. vi, 17), and desired to speak of this
sublime marriage, which assumes that the Lord has already
drawn close to the soul by union."1
St Teresa carefully avoids, both in her words and in her
comparisons, anything like pantheism, when she is speak-
ing of this very close union. It is wonderful to hear her
describe this lofty and little-known mystical experience with
such ease and justness and clarity.
This permanent union of the soul with God is also much
more conscious than the passing union of the states of
prayer prior to the spiritual marriage.
" Hitherto," says St Teresa, " when the Lord united my
soul with himself, he made it blind and dumb, as St Paul
was at the time of his conversion. He thus deprived it of
the means of knowing what was the favour that it enjoyed
and how it enjoyed it. The immense delight felt by the soul
when thus flooded came from the fact that it saw that it was
close to its God ; but at the very moment when it found itself
united with him, it had no kind of knowledge at all, for its
powers were altogether lost.
" Here it is quite otherwise. It pleases our God, in his
goodness, to take away the scales from the eyes of the soul,
so that it may understand, but in an extraordinary way,
something of the favour with which he gratifies it."2
According to St Teresa, in the mystical marriage the soul
enjoys an intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity:3
" Once [the soul] has entered into this Mansion, the three
Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, in an intellectual vision,
discover themselves to it by a certain representation of the
truth, and in the midst of a kindling fire, which, like a
resplendent cloud, comes right into its spirit. The three
divine Persons are shown to be distinct, and by a wonderful
notion which is imparted to it, the soul knows with an abso-
lute certainty that all the three are of one substance, one
power, one knowledge, and one God. Just as we believe by
1 Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap, ii, CEuvres, VI, pp. 286-287. St
Teresa calls " the centre of the soul " or " the spirit of the soul " what
other mystics call the " bottom of the soul " or " the apex of the soul."
It is the most spiritual part of the soul, wherein God unites with it.
2 Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, 279.
8 Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap, i ; Spiritual Relations, XIV, XV,
XXII, XLI, XLII, XLIII, LIV, LXVI.
Saint Ueresa 167
faith, so does the soul, as we may say, perceive by sight.
And yet we see nothing either with the eyes of the body or
of the soul, because here is no imaginative vision. Then
all three divine Persons communicate themselves to the soul,
speak to it and reveal to it the meaning of the passage of
the Gospel in which our Lord says that he will come with
the Father and the Holy Ghost to dwell in the soul who
loves him and keeps his commandments."1
Have we here to do with a vision, properly so called, of
the Blessed Trinity? Certain expressions used by Teresa
would lead us to think so. Moreover, she takes care to
distinguish this " vision " of the divine Persons from the
simple, yet very perfect, knowledge which she had before
of the mystery of the Trinity of which she speaks in her
Life:2
" One day, while I was reciting the Psalm (Creed)
Quicumque vult, I was given to understand how there was
one God in three Persons, and that so clearly that I was
filled with wonder and joy. . . . Now, when I think of the
most Holy Trinity or hear it spoken of, I seem to under-
stand how this mystery is possible, and it gives me great
consolation."
But in the spiritual marriage, on many occasions Teresa
speaks not of simple knowledge, but of " seeing " the
presence of God within her. " The sight of this divine
presence," she says, " is not always so complete." It is
intermittent, " otherwise it would not be possible to do any-
thing else, or even to live among men."3 What Teresa says
is not easily explained if we have to do merely with an
infused divine light, and not with a vision properly so called.
But this " sight " of God does not hinder Teresa from
action because it is not constant. Her soul is continuously
in close union with God, and at the same time she gives
herself up to external occupations :
" You will perhaps think," she says to her nuns, " that
this soul is as it were beside herself and in such a transport
that she cannot do anything at all. It is just the contrary :
she finds it much easier than before to take part in all that
has to do with the service of God."4
While in this state there were two operations going on in
1 Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, pp. 279-280. St
Teresa's vision of the Blessed Trinity was not permanent, but the
feeling that the divine Persons were in her did not leave her (p. 281).
1 Chap, xxxix, CEuvres, II, pp. 139-140.
a Castle, Seventh Mansion, i, CEuvres, VI, p. 284. Cf. Relation XIV,
CEuvres, II, p. 236. Relation XLII, p. 265 : " One day when I was
enjoying the presence of the three divine Persons, whom I bear in
my soul, the light in which I saw them within me was so clear that I
could not doubt that the living and true God was really there."
* Castle, ibid.
1 68 Cbristian Spirituality
Teresa. " Her soul appeared to her to be in some fashion
divided " : one part enjoyed the presence of God, and the
other was " grappling with a great number of trials and
occupations " I1
" This may seem to you to be an extravagance," she said
to her daughters, " and nevertheless it really happens to be
so. Clearly, the soul is one. However, what I have just
said is not mere imagination ; it is a very ordinary state.
This is why I said above that certain interior effects make
it certain that in some respects there is a very real difference
between the soul and the spirit. Although in reality they
make but one, we sometimes perceive a division between
them, and it is so fine that one of them works in one way
and the other in another, according to the different taste
which the Lord is pleased to give them. I think, too, that
the soul differs from the powers, that it is not one and the
same thing as these."2
Mysticism, indeed, opens out many, and some unsuspected,
vistas to the Christian philosopher !
The spiritual marriage is destined to give rise to much
work for the glory of God and for the salvation of our neigh-
bour. 3 Whoever is favoured with it overflows with activity
in the service of our divine Master.
Teresa was the Prioress of the Convent of the Incarnation
of Avila in 1572, when she was raised to this high spiritual
state. She had begun her foundations : she was yet to
bring into being nine new monasteries. What ardour did
she display ! " This mistress of mystical knowledge, accus-
tomed to the regions of contemplation and ecstasy . . .
deals with affairs, she begs, negotiates, organizes, and with
what skill, practical good sense, perseverance, and success !
Everywhere she makes friends, and what devoted ones !"
When she travels alone or with one or two companions she
makes long journeys on mules or donkeys, but more often
in lumbering conveyances, in which it is baking in summer
and freezing in winter. And how picturesque are these
travels ! How tragic or merely diverting are the happen-
ings ! You should read the Foundations with its lively
account of them adorned with unexpected episodes. The
description of the inns of those days, where the Carmelites
had to take refreshment or pass the night, is most enliven-
ing. Amidst the incidents, the perils, the privations, the
fatigues, the holy mother and her daughters are inviolably
faithful to the minutest prescriptions of the monastic life.
And when, after hearing Mass and communicating, they set
1 Castle, ibid., p. 282.
2 Castle, ibid., p. 283.
3 Castle, ibid., chap, iv, (Euvres, VI, p. 308.
Saint XTeresa 169
forth on their way, the hours of prayer and silence are
strictly observed, thanks to a little bell which they had
brought for the purpose.1
If one part of St Teresa's soul was in heaven, united to
God, the other was surely on earth, and played a wonderful
part thereon, with a keen sense of its realities.
In the last chapters of the Interior Castle Teresa makes
known the new life of the soul after the spiritual marriage.2
It is totally forgetful of itself; it is "entirely devoted to
procuring- the glory of God." It has " an immense desire of
suffering." If it is the victim of persecution, it feels the
keenest joy within. It no longer wishes to die to enter into
the joy of our Lord, but desires to " live many a year amidst
sharp trials " to procure God's glory and the salvation of
souls.3
Such were, indeed, the feelings of Teresa during the per-
secution of the Carmelites from 1575 to 1579, a persecution
stirred up by the Mitigated Carmelites, which very nearly
ruined the work of the reform :
" This grieved me incomparably more," she said, " than
my personal sufferings, which, truth to tell, gave me rather
a real joy. I looked on myself as the cause of all the tor-
ment, and it seemed to me that if I were cast into the sea,
like Jonas, the tempest would be stilled."4
Calm was restored, thanks to the intervention of Philip II.
The wonderful delights experienced by the soul in the
spiritual marriage nevertheless suffer passing eclipse at
times. Teresa thought that in the Seventh Mansion of
the Castle " one hardly ever met with dryness or with the
interior troubles that occur at certain moments in all the
rest. "5 Nevertheless, when she founded the monastery of
Segovia in 1574, two years after she had been raised to the
mystical marriage, she experienced " interior pains " from
which she " suffered through dryness and a profound spiritual
1 CEuvres, III, pp. 6 ff., Introduction to the Foundations.
2 Teresa also describes this new life in several of her Relations,
particularly in the LXVIth : " My soul enjoys an ineffable peace," she
says. She also alludes to the spiritual marriage in some of her Letters.
In detail they do not always agree with the last chapters of the Castle.
Thus, in chapter iii of the Seventh Mansion, Teresa declares that in
the spiritual marriage " the soul has no more raptures . . . transports
and flights of the spirit." But in her letter of January 17, 1577, to her
brother, Laurence, she complains of having repeated irresistible
raptures. Cf. CEuvres, VI, pp. 30-31.
* Cf. Relation LXVI, CEuvres, II, 323.
4 Foundations, chap, xxviii, CEuvres, IV, p. 97.
* Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap, iii, CEuvres, VI, p. 299. Cf. p. 296 :
" They (these souls) have no dryness nor interior pains."
17° Cbristian Spirituality
darkness."1 She also taught that the soul, " when it has
become one with the mighty God by this sovereign union of
spirit with spirit," participates in his might.2 And yet,
when she was busy with her last foundations from 1574 to
1580, she often notes her impotence and moral dejection, and
even her pusillanimity.3
However perfect be the state of the soul which has reached
the Seventh Mansion, it is not exempt from all wretched-
ness, nor is it there more sure of its salvation nor " protected
from all relapse."1
In spite of that, there is nothing higher on earth than
" the effects wrought by God in the soul when he unites it
to himself by the kiss asked for by the Spouse. In my
view," says Teresa, " this is when the favour she implored
is granted to her. This is when the wounded dove stanches
her thirst with the living waters. This is when she is filled
with delights in the tabernacle of God. This is when the
dove sent forth by Noe to see if the storm is over finds her
olive-branch to show that she has found dry land amidst the
deluge and the tempests of this world. O Jesus, would that
I knew enough passages of Scripture, for they would surely
describe this peace of the soul for us !"5
IV— ST TERESA'S ASCETIC TEACHING— THE
RELIGIOUS VIRTUES OF THE CARMELITE NUN
It would-be a great mistake to think that St Teresa wrote
of nothing but mysticism. She generally wrote for her nuns,
and she knew that they were not all raised to mystical states.
Her quick sense of realities warned her that to desire to
urge them on to mysticism off-hand or indiscriminately would
mean falling into that very illuminism which was so much
combated in Spain. She recommends them to follow the
ordinary spiritual ways until it please God, if he think right,
to make them take another path.
According to St Teresa, perfection is not to be found in
extraordinary states, but in the full and entire conformity
of man's will with God's :
" Sovereign perfection," she says, " does not consist in
1 Foundations, chap, xxi, (Euvres, III, p. 279. In her letter of
January 17, 1577, to her brother, Laurence, she notifies an intense
aridity, which lasted a whole week.
2 Castle, ibid., chap, iv, p. 310.
3 Foundations, chaps, xxv, xxviii, xxix, (Euvres, IV, pp. 50, 103,
130 ff.
* Castle, ibid., chap, ii, p. 290.
5 Castle, ibid., chap, iii, (Euvres, VI, p. 301.
Saint XTeresa 171
interior consolations, nor in sublime raptures, nor in visions,
nor in the spirit of prophecy. It consists in making our will
conform with God's, so that, as soon as we know that he
wills a thing, we set our whole will to it ; so that we finally
accept with the same joy the sweet and the bitter, as soon
as we know the good pleasure of his Majesty. . . . Such is
the power of perfect love that it makes us forget to please
self in order to please him who loves us."1
" To make our will one with God's will," such is " real
union " far to be preferred to mystical states :
" Such is the union that I desire for myself," says Teresa,
" and such is that which I would see all of you possess
rather than the delightful transports, no doubt deservedly
called " union," if they are preceded by that of which I
have just spoken. But if, after the suspension is over, we
have little obedience and much self-will, then in my opinion
our union will have been with our own self-love and not
with the will of God."2
What is " the readiest and the most effective way of
attaining this happy state"? Prayer? No. Teresa answers
without hesitation : Obedience. Father Gratian, the censor
of her works, appears to be quite surprised at this. And
yet, how right the saint was ! For our own will to be sub-
ject to God's, it must renounce itself by obedience which
subjects it to our reason and our reason to God. 3 Thus do
we offer God " a pure will which he can unite with his own."
And so we beg him " to send from heaven the fire of his
love to consume this sacrifice and to strip it of all that may
be displeasing unto him. We, indeed, have done all that
lies in our power : at the cost of innumerable efforts we
have laid the victim upon the altar, and, as far as we are
able to prevent it, it no longer has anything to do with this
world."4
Such obedience must appear especially in the use of
spiritual direction :
1 Foundations, chap, v, CEuvres, III, pp. 103-104. Cf. Castle,
Second Mansion : " The sole ambition of one who begins the way of
prayer . . . should be to work courageously to bring his will into
conformity with the will of God . . . therein consists the whole of the
highest perfection to be attained in the spiritual way. . . ." CEuvres,
VI, p. 74. Cf. p. 92 : " Perfection does not consist in tastes, but in
love and in works wrought according to justice and truth."
1 Foundations, ibid., p. 106. Note that St Teresa wrote this in
1573, when she had been raised to the state of the mystical marriage.
Cf. Way of Perfection, chap, v : " The first stone of the [spiritual]
building is a good conscience, the careful avoidance of all sins, even
venial, and aiming at what is most perfect." CEuvres, V, p. 65. See
Foundations, chap, xxxii, pp. 233 ff.
* Foundations, ibid., iii, pp. 104-105.
4 ibid., 105-106.
172 Christian Spirituality
" Even those alien to the religious life," says St Teresa,
" will find it most helpful to follow, as many do, the advice
of a guide in order to do nothing of their own self-will ; for
that is ordinarily the cause of their ruin."1
And in order to renounce their own self-will the more
surely, they ought not to look for a director " who is, as the
saying- goes, one of their own kidney."
But it is, above all, when we make progress in the ways
of prayer that " we must submit to the leading of a guide."2
Teresa constantly repeats it. She obeyed her confessors
even when convinced that they were mistaken. Hence she
is all the readier in demanding that directors should be as
experienced as possible in the spiritual ways, and, in any
case, that they should have a wide knowledge of theology
and enough independence of mind not to be influenced by
the disparagers of mystical states.3
Openness with one's director is essential.* He must be
told of our temptations, imperfections, and repugnances in
order to give counsel and suggest means of overcoming
them.
Those in the way of prayer " usually have much affection
for their spiritual guide, when they see that he is holy and
feel that he understands them." St Teresa advises such
people " not to worry whether they have or have not affec-
tion towards him." In her opinion, " such affection may
conduce to our making great progress, if the confessor is
holy and spiritual and tries to help the soul forward." But
if the confessor has not these qualities, " it might be dan-
gerous, and if he knew of one's affection for him, much
harm might follow." The safest way, then, is to have a
talk with another confessor and to act upon his advice.5
Christ has given us the Eucharist to help us to submit our
wills fully to the will of God. " In fact, he abides with us
[in the Blessed Sacrament] only in order to help us and to
encourage us to do the divine will which we have asked to
1 Castle, Third Mansion, chap, ii, CEuvres, VI, pp. 93-94.
2 Life, chap, xiii, CEuvres, I, p. 165. Cf. I, pp. 175, 176, 240, 291,
321, 331 ; II, pp. 146, 147. Teresa demands the greatest freedom for
direction. Way of Perfection, chap, v, CEuvres, V, pp. 64 ff ; chap,
xviii, p. 143. By following a capable confessor, " more progress is
made in one year than would otherwise be made in a great many."
3 See especially: Way of Perfection, chap, v; Life, CEuvres, I, 78,
79, 91, 173, 256, 366; II, 44-45, 146, 289. Interior Castle, CEuvres, VI,
p. 94, 102, 133, 246, 247.
* Counsel: " Try to speak of the things of your soul with a spiritual
and learned confessor. Be open with him and follow his counsel in
everything." CEuvres, V, 481. See p. 476.
5 Way of Perfection, chap, iv, CEuvres, V, pp. 60-63 (various read-
ings from the Escurial MS.).
Saint XLcvcsa 173
be done within us,"1 in the fiat voluntas tua of the Lord's
Prayer.
St Teresa liked to remind her nuns how invaluable for the
sanctification of the soul are the moments that follow upon
Holy Communion :
" Then, after you have just received our Lord," she said,
" and have his very Person present within you, close the
eyes of your body and open those of the soul and look into
your heart. . . . We know that, as long- as our natural
heat has not consumed the accidents of the bread, the good
Jesus is in us. . . . How should we doubt that, being in
our house, he will grant us what we ask of him? His
Majesty is not wont to pay poorly for his sojourn at the
inn of our soul, when he receives a good welcome therein."2
It is for the confessor to regulate the frequency of our
communions. On this point Teresa gave her nuns very
definite counsels :
" Those who approach our Lord so frequently," she
observes, " must be so convinced of their unworthiness as
not to do it of themselves. An order under obedience must
come to make good our deficiencies for approaching so
august a Master, and, indeed, in how many things are we
lacking !"3
If we make good use of our communions and other means
of sanctification, we shall make rapid strides in the practice
of virtue.
Christian virtues, these again, and not extraordinary kinds
of prayer, make sanctity.
" More to be praised," says Teresa, " are those marked
with humility, mortification, and obedience than the nuns
led by God in altogether supernatural ways of prayer, even
were they adorned moreover with the same virtues."4
Spiritual consolations of contemplatives, " though good,
are not always perfect, and there is always more security in
humility, mortification, detachment, and the other virtues.
So fear nothing," Teresa told her daughters, " and say to
yourselves that you will not fail to reach perfection as well
as the great contemplatives."5
1 Way of Perfection, chap, xxxiv, CEuvres, V, 247.
2 ibid., pp. 252, 254.
s Foundations, chap, vi, CEuvres, III, p. 123.
« ibid., chap, viii, p. 141. Cf. Etchegoyen, of. at., pp. in ff.
8 Way of Perfection, chap, xvii, CEuvres, V, p. 135. See chap, xviii,
p. 142 : We must not consider whether we have " more spiritual tastes
in prayer, more raptures, visions, and other favours of that kind which
God sometimes gives to souls. To know the value of such goods we
must wait for the next life. . . . But there is a current coinage, a saft
174 Cbristtati Spirituality
A good treatise on the virtues of Christians and religious
might be extracted from the works of St Teresa.
We know her definition of humility, which " is nothing else
than walking in the truth." The spiritual building is founded
" entirely " upon it. " The nearer we come to God the more
must this virtue increase; and, if it be otherwise, all is
lost."1 Humility is intimately connected with self-know-
ledge, in which we must train ourselves, especially in the
First Mansion of the Castle, " before starting off on our
flight towards the others, for it is the way that leads to
them."2 When we know what we are worth we do not
want to be proud of it, and if we would, we could not.
Do you want, St Teresa asked her nuns, " to know your
degree of progress" in the spiritual life? "Let each one
consider whether she esteems herself as the most contemptible
of all, and if she translates her conviction into practice."3
Again it is humility that protects mystics from the wiles
of the devil, and helps them to turn to advantage the super-
natural graces granted to them :
" If there is humility," says Teresa, " a vision proceeding
from the devil can do no harm ; but if humility be wanting,
a vision from God will do no good. Indeed, when a soul
receives a grace meant to increase humility, and glories in it
instead, acknowledging her unworthiness of it, she is like
the spider which changes whatever it eats into poison,
instead of imitating the bee, which turns everything into
honey.* . . . Humility is like the bee."5
Besides, humility is not pusillanimity. Teresa very often
condemns " false humility," which, on pretence of unworthi-
ness, would refuse divine favours or check any desire for
them. 6
St Clare of Assisi would have liked to enclose her monas-
teries in the high walls of humility and poverty. Teresa,
with her great love of humility, also regarded poverty as
one of the strongest ramparts, one of the stoutest supports
of the Carmelite reform :
" Everywhere let us have poverty," she said to her
daughters, " in our house, in our clothes, in our words, and
return, a perpetual revenue. ... I mean to refer to deep humility,
complete mortification, perfect obedience to the least wish of our
superior. . . ."
1 Life, chap, xii, CEuvres, I, p. 159. Cf. Castle, Sixth Mansion,
chap.x.
2 Castle, First Mansion, chap, ii, CEuvres, VI, 56.
3 Way of Perfection, chap, xviii, CEuvres, V, p. 142.
4 Foundations, chap, viii, CEuvres, III, 137.
6 Castle, CEuvres, VI, p. 55.
8 Way of Perfection, V, 203, 204, 283, 284; Life, I, 97, 105, 120, 136,
etc.; Castle, First Mansion, chap, ii, VI, p. 57.
Saint XTeresa 175
much more in our thoughts. As long- as you do thus, be not
afraid : with God's help, religious perfection will not decay
in such a convent."1
" Our arms are holy poverty," she is fond of repeating-.
She wants her religious who have renounced the possession
of incomes also to renounce " all anxieties as to maintenance,
otherwise all were lost." It is the heavenly Spouse who
will provide for their needs :
" The less the convent has of necessaries, the more calm
am I," she affirmed, " and our Lord knows well that I am
more troubled when we have what is considerably more than
we need than when we run short of something."2
This passionate lover of poverty sings the praises of her
beloved virtue in the fashion of St Francis of Assisi. She
wanted to be " not poor in spirit," as her profession required,
"but mad in spirit." She loved "holy poverty" madly, as
the story of her foundations proves. She sees an epitome
of the other virtues in poverty :
" Poverty in spirit is a good that includes in itself all the
other goods of this world. Yes, I repeat it, you become the
master of all the goods of this world by despising them.
. . . True poverty . . . bears a dignity which impresses
everyone. It has not to please anyone but God ; but because
it needs no one, it is sure to have many friends.3 . . . There
is always more of the interior spirit and even more inward
cheerfulness when there is a lack of corporal comforts than
when you find yourself liberally and comfortably housed."4
Poverty is not the only virtue in which the Carmelite
should excel. In exhorting her religious to the observance
of the Rule, Teresa insists upon " detachment from every-
thing created." She requires renunciation of one's family,
of oneself, one's comfort, and even of one's health. The
austerities of the Rule, which are great among the reformed
Carmelites, are to be welcomed with joy.5
The Carmelites live in community. Hence, they specially
need mutual love to bear with one another. When we live
side by side, jars are frequent. Little occurrences in the
community are apt to take exaggerated importance in a
woman's mind. Teresa gives very wise counsels on the sub-
ject. Fraternal charity is the great remedy for the diffi-
culties arising from the common life. " Indeed, there is
nothing vexatious that is not easily borne by those who love
one another, and a thing must be very hard indeed if it is
to provoke indignation."8
1 Way of Perfection, chap, ii, V, p. 42.
2 Way of Perfection, ibid., pp. 38-39.
8 ibid., pp. 40-41. Cf. chap, xxxviii, pp. 280-282.
* Foundations, chap xiv, CEuvres, III, p. 188. Cf. pp. 208-209.
5 Way of Perfection, chaps, viii-xii.
• ibid., chap, iv, V, p. 55. Cf. Castle, First Mansion, chap. ii.
176 Christian Spirituality
Let them, then, keep the commandment to love one
another. " But, either from excess or from defect, we do
not succeed in practising- it to perfection." From excess,
when we let ourselves drift into particular friendships which
are " an evil " in any religious, and " a pest " in a superior.1
From defect, when we do not endure the imperfections of
others.
Let us have " real affection," " spiritual love." Those
who possess it " take all the troubles to themselves and want
others to have all the good they do."
" How precious and worthy of the name," cried Teresa,
" is the love of a sister who is able to serve all the rest
because she sacrifices her own interests for them."2
This forgetfulness of self will sometimes be carried a very
long way by the Carmelite nun :
" You ought also to try," advises St Teresa, "to be gay
with your sisters when they need recreation. I say the same
of the usual time of recreation, when it makes no appeal to
you. When we bear ourselves in it with prudence, all
becomes perfect love."3
In communities the very smallest detail may become a
stimulus to fraternal charity. Yet superiors should be on
the watch to get rid of novices who might make mutual for-
bearance too difficult, especially such as are lacking in right
judgement. This defect, says St Teresa, is particularly
intolerable in small communities.4
It is also necessary never to accept subjects who are
given to melancholy, the neurasthenia of those days. If a
nun suffered from this complaint, she was to be withdrawn
from solitude and contemplation and to be trained in the
active life and in mastering the will.6.
Love of one's neighbour is essential to holiness; the more
it is practised, the more perfect we become. But finally it
all comes back to the love of God, which is the synthesis of
all the virtues.
Teresa uses quite seraphic language in speaking of it.
Love of God is won by deciding to " follow in the way of
prayer him who hath so much loved us." Unfortunately
we do not rise rapidly to the perfection of this love. We
cannot enter " into the enjoyment of a good so precious
without paying a high price for it." This price is the full
giving up of self :
1 Way, ibid., p. 57. Cf. chap. vi.
2 Way of Perfection, chap, vii, CEuvres, V, p. 83.
* ibid., p. 82. Cf. chap, xli, pp. 299-300.
4 Way of Perfection, chap, xiv, pp. 116 ff.
s Foundations, chap, vii, CEuvres, pp. 126-134. In this chapter St
Teresa describes melancholy and points out the moral treatment it
requires.
Saint TIeresa 177
" But we are so miserly, so little eager to give ourselves
entirely up to God, that we never succeed in putting ourselves
into the desired dispositions. . . . We think we have given
all; but in reality we oiler God the revenue or the lruit,
while keeping the right of possession for ourselves."1
We embrace poverty and then engage " with eagerness "
in getting superfluities for ourselves. We have renounced
human honour, yet we are irritated " at the least thing that
touches it." Thus, it is because our giving up is not
whole-hearted, that we do not receive all at once the treasure
of divine love." 2
True love is active. Teresa insists upon this mark of the
love of God. The more we love God, the more do we desire
his glory, and the more do we pray and act for the realiza-
tion of our desire :
" To love," she says, " is not to have many spiritual
tastes, it is to resolve firmly to please God in everything, it
is to make every effort not to offend him, it is to pray con-
stantly for the increase of the honour and glory of his Son,
and for the exaltation of the Catholic Church."3
Teresa thinks that " souls kindled with love and burning
to show God that they are not out for gain " are not stimu-
lated to serve him by the prospect of future reward. " They
think only of satisfying love, whose property it is to act
always and to act in every way."*
Towards the end of her life, when she had attained to the
loftiest heights of mystical love, Teresa very distinctly
developed from contemplation towards action. Did she con-
sider the office of Martha more in harmony with real love
than that of Mary? In fact, she united them both in herself :
" The soul asks to do great things in the service of God
and of her neighbour; for this prize she joyfully renounces
the delights and sweetnesses [of contemplation]. What she
asks for, indeed, belongs to the active rather than to the
contemplative life, and if she gets it, she apparently must
lose by obtaining it. Nevertheless, in this new state, Mary
and Martha almost always go together, because, in such
activity and in the midst of what seems to be external, the
inward is at work."6
To prefer the sweetnesses of retreat to the deeds of charity
is to let oneself be drawn into " a very subtle kind of self-
love, which creeps in in such a fashion imperceptibly that we
seek rather our own satisfaction than God's. It is evident,
in fact, that when we have begun to taste how sweet the
1 Life, chap, xi, CEuvres, I, pp. 143-145. * ibid.
8 Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, i, CEuvres, VI, p. 101.
4 ibid., Sixth Mansion, chap, xi, p. 260. Cf. Foundations, chap, v,
CEuvres, III, p. 98.
6 Thoughts on the Canticle of Canticles, chap, vii, CEuvres, V, p. 460.
III. 12
178 Cbvistian Spirituality
Lord is, we take more pleasure in keeping the body in repose
and the mind in a state of spiritual joy than in giving our-
selves up to activity."1
Teresa is expressing only her own personal experience.
How many journeys, how many fatigues and annoyances of
all sorts did she undertake during the last twenty years of
her life ! She could well say :
" Oh ! the charity of those who truly love our divine Lord
and know the inclination of his heart ! Rest becomes im-
possible for them, if they think they can contribute ever so
little to the good of a single soul and to its progress in the
love of God, or even comfort it in its troubles, or deliver it
from a danger. What a burden to them then is their own
repose !"2
Love is an active and mighty fire ; those in whom it burns
cannot but act.3 They take an interest in all that is good :
" Those who really love God love all that is good, help on
all that is good, praise all that is good, unite with the good,
support and defend the good, and love only what is true and
worthy of love."4
In solitude, some may say, there " are fewer occasions
for offending God, and purity is more easily kept." But,
replies Teresa, when "obedience or charity bids us run the
risk of occasions," love comes out far more clearly than it
does in " the recesses of solitude. . . . Believe me, we make
much greater gain and that beyond comparison, even if we
commit more faults and suffer some slight losses."5
How greatly are we impressed by the sight of this Car-
melite, inebriated with the love of God, burning to be in
heaven with her divine Spouse, and yet, like St Martin, will-
ing to remain on earth amidst the cares and the sufferings
of the life of action in order to make men know and love
and serve God ! These various feelings she expresses in
passionate and poetical phrases in " her tender and fiery
aspirations " entitled her Exclamations:
"O my life, my life! How can you go on apart from
your own Life? In such solitude, what are you about? what
can you do? . . .6 O my Joy; sovereign Master of all
beings ! O my God ! . . . How long must I wait for thy
presence? . . . How long and bitter is this life that is no
life ! . . . How long, O Lord, how long? O death ! O
death ! How can we fear thee, since thou givest us life? . . .7
O my Jesus, how great is the love thou hast for men ! The
1 Foundations, chap, v, CEuvres, III, p. 99.
Foundations, ibid. 3 W ay of Perfection, chap, xix,
" ibid., chap, xl, CEuvres, V, p. 289.
6 Foundations, chap, v, CEuvres, III, p. 107.
Exclamation I, CEuvres, V, p. 321.
7 Exclamation VI, pp. 332-333.
2
<J
Saint Ueresa 179
highest service we can g-ive thee is to leave thee for the love
of them and to do them the most good we can. Then it is
that we possess thee most fully. The will, indeed, is less
inebriated with the joy of thee, but the soul rejoices in
pleasing- thee. . . .x The soul heaps up devices to find
friends for its love, and gladly leaves the happiness that floods
it in the hope of helping others to try to find it."2
When we can do nothing, we ought to pray. When Teresa
heard of the calamities that devastated France and of the
ravages of Lutheranism there, she would have " given a
thousand lives to save but one of these souls which were
being lost in such large numbers in that country." She
asked her nuns to " pray for the defenders of the Church,
and for the preachers and theologians who were upholding
her cause."3 She exhorted them thus to use all their powers
for the salvation of souls. Carmelites must help with their
prayers the clergy who are carrying out such a difficult work.
It is their vocation.4
The daughters of St Teresa have always been most faith-
ful to these counsels of their holv Mother.
1 Exclamation II, p. 324. 2 ibid., pp. 323-324.
8 Way of Perfection, chap, i, CEuvres, V, pp. 33-34.
* ibid., chap. iii.
CHAPTER VII
THE SPANISH CARMELITE SCHOOL — THE QUARREL
BETWEEN THE MITIGATED AND THE REFORMED
CARMELITES : JEROME GRATIAN AND ST JOHN OF
THE CROSS— THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF ST JOHN
OF THE CROSS
DESPITE the excellence and soundness of their
teaching-, the writings of St Teresa met with
opponents in Spain. People asked whether it was
not dangerous to publish visions and revelations
at a time when false mysticism was making such
inroads? Did they want to foster illuminism? Others
thought it very indiscreet and even unseemly to give the
public the intimate writings of a woman, which were intended
for her confessors only.1 In 1589, the year after the appear-
ance of the first edition of the saint's Works, Luis de Leon
had to reply to their adversaries.
But soon Teresa's readers took upon themselves the defence
of her writings. The juridical depositions for her canoniza-
tion contain numerous and very genuine testimonies of their
enthusiastic admiration. Why should anyone find fault with
the publication of such edifying books? Was it not plain
that God had chosen Teresa to teach and to touch souls?
Moreover, the attention of the religious public of Spain
was somewhat distracted from these controversies by the
quarrel between the Mitigated and the Reformed Carmelites ;
the former wishing to keep to an observance which had
nothing austere in it, the latter accepting the Reform of St
Teresa and St John of the Cross.
St Teresa went through the beginning of this quarrel and
even through the most critical period of it. No sooner had
she founded the first convents of the Discalced Carmelites
than the Mitigated party, fearing, it is said, that if the reform
were allowed to develop, they would be obliged to reform
themselves, impeded the progress of the new observance.
The principal upholders of the reform were Father Jerome
Gratian2 and St John of the Cross.
1 CEuvres, General Introduction, I, pp. xxxvii-xxxviii.
2 On him and his critics, see Father de Saint-Joseph, Le P. ] erdme
Gratien et ses juges, Rome, 1904. See, too, Cosme de Villiers, Bibliotheca
Carmelitana, 1752, Vol. I, pp. 645 ff. ; P. Andre de Sainte-Marie,
VOrdre du Mont-Carmel, Bruges, 1910.
180
St 3obn of tbe Cross 181
Jerome Gratian, who " belonged to a noble family of Valla-
dolid, remarkable for elevation of mind, distinction of manners,
and rare intellectual culture," was Commissary Apostolic and
the first Provincial of the Carmelite Reform. St Teresa held
him in particular esteem. She assisted him with her counsels
in directing the Discalced Carmelites. She bore him an
affection which was " both filial and maternal." She treated
him with the solicitude and care of a dearly beloved son, and
she obeyed him in everything in the sphere of conscience
"asa father given her by the hand of our Lord himself to
direct her until the end of her life."
Deeply learned in the science of mysticism, Father Gratian
revised several of St Teresa's manuscripts, adding valuable
marginal notes which confirm and explain what she has
written.1 He was keenly interested in the works of the
Carmelite reformer. It is he who ordered her to finish the
story of the Foundations, though she was tempted to give it
up.2 It is he, too, who asked her to write the Interior Castle
to take the place of her Life, the manuscript of which was
in the hands of the Inquisitors with little hope of being re-
covered at the time. Teresa's vivacity of spirit and facility
with the pen filled him with admiration. " She wrote her
works," he says, " without any erasures and very rapidly."3
In his Dilucidario del verdadero spiritu de la Madre Teresa de
Jesus, he has given priceless testimony to St Teresa and to
her real mind, a witness which shows how deeply he entered
into her spirit.4
Despite his high merit and talents, and perhaps on account
of them, he did not succeed in satisfying all the religious of
the reform. One party — that of the fervent — reproached him
for his lack of firmness in the application of the Rule and for
dragging the Discalced Carmelites, a mainly contemplative
Order, too far into the external work of ministering to souls.
Thus, to the persecutions of the Mitigated Carmelites were
added the vexations of those who pursued the same ideal as
his own !
As long as St Teresa was alive, these reproaches did not
do too much harm to Father Gratian, but after her death,
passions broke loose. He was not re-elected Provincial at
the Chapter of Lisbon in 1585. Such was his disgrace that
after having been "declared rebellious to his superiors and
1 On these Notes marginales du P. Gr alien, see Afio Teresiano, Vols.
VI, dia 23 de junio, and VII, dia 7 de julio.
* Cf. Foundations, chap, xxvii.
3 Dilucidario del verdadero spiritu, I Parte, cap. v. Fr. Gratian
also published, with a dedicatory letter, the Latin translation of The
Life, etc. (1610), by Fathers John of St Jerome and John of Jesus
Mary.
* This is the Dilucidario, etc. (Brussels, 1608), so often quoted
by the editors of St Teresa's works.
1 82 Cbristian Spirituality
unfaithful to his vows," he was driven out of the Order in
1592. He was exiled, and died at Brussels in 1614 in a
convent of the Mitig-ated brethren.
The Carmelite reform brought no less suffering- upon St
John of the Cross.1 But his trials came chiefly from the
Mitigated Carmelites, the implacable adversaries of the new
observance.
In these afflictions, as in those of St Teresa and of Jerome
Gratian, may be seen the ransom paid for the Carmelite
Reform. They are also a luminous expression of the mystical
spirit of John of the Cross :
" O truth unheeded !" he writes in his Spiritual Canticle,2
" when shall we make people understand that the depth of
the wisdom and of the infinite riches of God is beyond the
reach of those who reject suffering and do not desire it and
find no spiritual consolation therein? When will they be
convinced that, if they really would aspire to divine wisdom,
they must begin by sounding the depths of the sufferings of
the cross?"
Since " Suffering is the best means of advancing farthest
in the delectable and profound wisdom of God," John of the
Cross loves suffering passionately. If it does not come to
him of itself, he will go to fetch it.
In 1567, three years after his profession in the Carmelite
Convent of Medina, having brought his studies in theology
at Salamanca to a brilliant finish, he felt he was called to a
stricter Order than the one he had entered. More and more
privations and renunciations ! Such was his device. He was
thinking of the Carthusians, when he decided, in his first
1 Juan de Yepes was born in 1542 at Hontiveras, near Avila. At the
age of twelve or thirteen he lost his father, and, to earn his living, had
to become a sick attendant in the hospital of Medina del Campo. While
looking after the sick he managed to follow the classes of the Jesuit
College of that town. At the age of twenty-one he joined the Convent
of the Carmelites of Medina, and made his profession there in 1564 as
John of St Matthias, and then he was sent to Salamanca to study
theology. In the month of August, 1567, he had his first interview
with St Teresa, during which he decided to undertake the reform of
the Carmelites under her direction. At Duruelo he founded the first
house of the Discalced Carmelites. The success of the reform brought
persecution upon him. The Mitigated brethren imprisoned him at
Toledo in a narrow cell from December 4, 1577, to August 15, 1578.
Miraculously delivered from captivity, he spent a few months at the
Convent of Calvary in Andalusia, then became Rector of Baeza, and
founded several convents of the Discalced. He died at the Convent of
Ubeda on December 14, 1591. He was canonized by Benedict XIII on
December 27, 1726. Cf. Demimuid, Saint Jean de la Croix, 3rd ed.,
Paris, 1916 ; Fr. Jerome de Saint-Joseph, Vie de saint Jean de la Croix,
in the CEuvres edited by the Carmelites of Paris, Vol. I.
2 Part IV, Strophe xxxvi, H. Hoornaert's translation, Vol. IV,
p. 218, Paris-Bruxelles, 2nd ed., 1923.
St Sohn of tbe Cross 183
interview with St Teresa, to undertake the reform of the
Carmelite religious. Next year, September 30, 1568, he set
up the first Convent of the Discalced Carmelites in a poor
hovel at Duruelo. What was its state of poverty? There is
no difficulty in surmising- it. John of the Cross was thus
living- through his dark nights of the senses before expound-
ing his theory of them in his books.1
To these voluntary sufferings were added others from with-
out. The success of the reform was quicker than could have
been expected. People began to exalt the Discalced and to
turn away from the Mitigated Carmelites. These displayed
irritation and began to persecute John of the Cross.
First of all he was compelled to move frequently and un-
justifiably by his superiors, who were of the Mitigated party.
Finally, in 1571, to put a stop to his work of reform, they sent
him to Avila as confessor to the Carmelite Convent of the In-
carnation, "the main fortress of the Mitigated Carmelites."
St Teresa was appointed Prioress of the Convent to hinder
her, too, from carrying- on the Carmelite reform.
Desiring to ruin the reform in every way, even by violence,
the Mitigated Carmelites, on the night between the third and
fourth of December, 1577, got John of the Cross carried off
by force of arms from his house at Avila. He was dragged
to the Convent of the Mitigated Carmelites in that town, and
was there flogged to the blood. He was then taken to Toledo
and interned in the Carmelite Convent.2 All this was done
with the greatest secrecy.
His prison was a dark recess, a real dungeon cell without
ventilation. His daily food was a morsel of bread and a
sardine. Rough handling was not spared him.3 And it was
in this cell that John of the Cross composed his first work,
the Spiritual Canticle,* the expression of a soul purified with
suffering and inebriated with love.
This poem of mystical love consists of forty strophes of
five verses each. It takes its inspiration from the Canticle
of Canticles ; it is a dialogue between the soul and her divine
1 At Duruelo the saint changed his name from John of St Matthias
to John of the Cross to show his love for suffering.
2 St Teresa said of the vexations of John of the Cross and of Jerome
Gratian : " Poor Fathers ! I would rather see them in the hands of
the Moors."
* It was then that St Teresa wrote to Philip II of Spain to complain
of the Mitigated Carmelites (Bouix, Vol. II, p. 301). The quarrel died
down when Pope Gregory XIII, in his Brief of June 27, 1580, decided
that the convents of the reform should become an autonomous province
with a Provincial of the Reform. But it did not altogether cease until
the two observances were separated — each having its own Superior
General — decreed on December 20, 1593, by Clement VIII. Neither
St Teresa nor St John of the Cross saw the end of the dispute.
* In 15S4 he added the Explanations to it in prose. The finished
work is thus the last composed by St John of the Cross.
1 84 Cbristian Spirituality
Spouse. In the first part — which he calls the purgative way
or the way of novices in the mystical state — the Bride seeks
her Beloved and asks creatures to tell her where he is. The
second part— that of proficients in the illuminative way —
gives the answer of the Spouse who has just become
spiritually betrothed to the soul. In the third — the unitive
way — the mystical marriage is celebrated. Finally, in the
last strophes the Bride sings of the joy given her by her
intuition of the happiness of heaven.1
St John of the Cross wrrote this Canticle " through need
of expansion " amidst his unheard-of tribulations. His heroic
endurance of his trials won him extraordinary graces. He
was quickly raised to the most perfect stage of union with
God, and poured forth his joy in lyrical poetry. He turned
the Canticle into a kind of treatise of speculative mysticism
by adding thereto his Explanations towards the close of his
life.
His studies at Salamanca had indeed prepared him for
mystical speculation. He had a deep knowledge of scholastic
theology, and was steeped in the works of the Areopagite.
There is every reason to suppose that he had also read the
Flemish and German mystics.2 Not long after his escape
from imprisonment in Toledo, about the end of 1578, he was
appointed Prior of the monastery of Calvary. There it was
that he began to write The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The
Dark Night. ,3 He finished them in 1583 at Grenada, where he
filled the office of Prior. At Granada he also wrote The
Living Flame of Love in 1584.4 In these three famous
treatises the saint sets forth the theory of the mystical states
which he had himself experienced.
St John of the Cross, despite the exceptional merits of his
works, will certainly never have as many readers as St
Teresa. This is to be regretted. But would that he had
1 See the text of the Canticle in H. Hoornaert, Vol. IV, pp. 5-16.
2 Cf. Collationes brugenses, torn. XVII, pp. 233, 499.
3 Etudes carmelitaines, 15 juillet, 1913.
1 St John of the Cross also wrote Maxims and Spiritual Counsels.
All his works were written in Spanish. The first appeared in 1618 at
Alcala; it contained The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night,
and The Living Flame of Love. It was republished at Barcelona in
1619. Another edition appeared at Seville in 1703 and included also
The Spiritual Canticle. A critical edition was undertaken in 1754 by
Fr. Andrew of the Incarnation, but was not published. The work was
resumed by Fr. Gerard of St John of the Cross, who published (in
1912 and subsequently) the critical edition of the saint's Works at
Toledo. In 1880 the Carmelites of Paris made a complete translation
of the 1703 edition, and this has gone through many editions. Fr.
Gerard's edition has been translated by H. Hoornaert, Paris-Bruxelles,
2nd ed., 1922-1923; and this is the edition I shall quote.
St Sobn of tbe Cross 185
written with more simplicity ! Instead of a concrete
mysticism, clothed in the charm of style, John of the Cross
delights in a sometimes rather subtle psychology ; he ex-
pounds his doctrine, which is often fairly abstruse, under
complicated symbols, in conformity with the Spanish " man-
nerism " of his times.1 He was, however, a poet, and he
could have revealed to us with dazzling brilliancy and clarity
that divine "poetry of religion,"2 which is known as
mysticism. Did he not sing in lyrical strains of the joys of
a soul united with God?
But had he done so, he would have thought himself lack-
ing in Christian renunciation, which he pushed to its utmost
limits in practice. He knew by experience what God requires
in the way of mortifications from a soul called to mystical
union. Before tasting " these intense delights, this joy of
soul and mind " resulting from such union, the purgatory of
purification had to be passed through. Before the flame of love
is seen in all its brightness, we must traverse the dark night
of the senses and of the spirit. Why should we be astonished
if there is no light in that dark night, and that he who is
leading us through the darkness makes us feel it?
" Since we have to make known the Dark Night, the
only way that leads to God," he writes in the Prologue of
The Ascent of Mount Carmel, " the reader will not be
astonished if he sometimes meets with what looks like dark-
ness. This will be his feeling, I think, as he begins to read.
As he goes on, he will better understand what has gone
before ; one page will throw light upon another. If he under-
takes a second reading, I believe that it will give him further
light, and that the doctrine will come out more completely.
If, however, the second reading does not give full satisfac-
tion, let the reader be good enough to blame my scanty
knowledge and defects of style; for indisputably the matter
is good in itself and strictly necessary."3
It is not only through his own bent that this passionate
lover of the cross describes the state of purification in which
God places holy souls. If he clings to this forbidding sub-
ject rather than to " the moral questions of an attractive
spirituality enjoyed by souls who seek God by the way of
consolations,"4 it is because he knows how good it is for
them :
" Certain confessors and spiritual fathers," he says, " for
want of experience in these ways, far from coming to the
1 This may be noted especially in his last two works, The Living
Flame of Love and The Sfiritual Canticle.
2 Demimuid, of. cit., 126.
3 H. Hoornaert, CEuvres sprituelles de S Jean de la Croix, Vol I
P- 5-
* ibid., p. 6.
186 Cbristian Spirituality
rescue of souls, load them with obstacles and do them
harm. . . . For the soul there is no more disquieting- and
painful state than that of not being- able to see clearly within
itself, and of finding no one who can understand it. Led
by God over the heights of dark contemplation and aridity,
it thinks that it is going- astray, and amidst the darkness
and the sufferings and the anguish and the temptations,
the director will tell it as did Job's comforters : this is melan-
choly1 and infirmity; perhaps you are keeping back some
hidden wickedness, whence comes the abandonment in which
God is leaving you. The confessor concludes that the soul
must be or must have been very guilty, since it is burdened
with such troubles. Others will say that this must be a
relapse, since the soul finds neither relish nor comfort in the
things of God as it used to do."2
These ili-advised counsellors impute to the soul, thus dis-
tressed, troubles for which it is not responsible, such as really
come from God and prepare the way for extraordinary graces.
" They are like the builders of Babel, who, because they
could not understand one another, did not bring useful things
but supplied others, so that the work came to a standstill."3
All the mystics mention these purifications usually allotted
by God to souls who are called to the highest kinds of prayer.
None have analyzed them as thoroughly as St John of the
Cross, and this it is that gives such great interest to his
writings : it is also the chief characteristic of his mysticism.
He describes these purifications, these mystical nights, in
two celebrated treatises : The Ascent of Mount Cartnel and
The Dark Night. The first deals with active purifications —
i.e., the mortifications which the soul must practise spon-
taneously to do its utmost to prepare itself for close union
with God. The second, The Dark Night, tells of the passive
purifications which the soul must undergo. Here, it is God
himself who alone acts and strips the soul of all interior
impediments to the highest contemplation.
The soul who has passed through these dark nights and
has " reached the shining summit " of the mystic mount, after
climbing up " its rough and steep slopes,"4 possesses God in
1 The neurasthenia which St Teresa mentions.
2 Hoornaert, ibid., pp. 3-4. St John of the Cross has fifteen spiritual
maxims on " the spiritual teacher " and on direction. " To direct
souls," he says, " is not the business of the first man you meet, for to
judge soundly or to be mistaken in so grave a matter is a thing of the
highest importance." H. Hoornaert, Vol. II, p. 153.
3 ibid., p. 3.
4 St John of the Cross himself sketched the design intended for the
frontispiece of his works. It represents a mountain. On the summit
is shown perfect union with God. At the foot of the mystic mountain
three roads are revealed to the soul. Only one of them leads to the
summit, the road of the complete renunciation of everything. This is
St 3obn of tbe Cross 187
the union of perfect love. This is the subject of two other
works of St John of the Cross : The Spiritual Canticle and
The Living Flame of Love.
I— THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF ST JOHN OF THE
CROSS1— ACTIVE PURIFICATIONS WHICH PRE-
PARE THE WAY FOR ACTIVE CONTEMPLATION
« Active purifications, as we have seen, are those which the
soul, with the help of grace, can realize in itself, and does,
in fact, realize by its own initiative, as contrasted with those
which are wrought by God himself. In the latter, the soul
is passive in God's hands.2
It is the whole of the soul that has to be purified : in the
first place, its senses ; then, its spirit — i.e., its mind, memory,
and will. Like the mystics of the Middle Ages, like St
Ignatius of Loyola and St Teresa, St John of the Cross
bases his spiritual psychology on this division of the faculties
of the soul.
He calls these various purifications "dark nights." Let
us not be too alarmed by such mannerisms of style. Purifica-
tion strips the senses and the faculties of the soul from that
which attracted them. It deprives them of material, just as
darkness in the night does away with light and thus deprives
the eyes of all that they see. Thus purified, the senses and
the faculties of the soul are in the darkness of the void, just
as the eyes are without light.3 To enter into heaven, the
soul usually must be purified in purgatory. And the soul
the central road. Of the two others, the one is that in which souls
attached to the goods of this world go astray ; the other is that wherein
souls take pleasure in the enjoyment of spiritual goods.
1 In the translation of the Works of St John of the Cross, by Fr.
Cyprian of the Nativity (1641), will be found an Introduction and
explanations of this teaching by Fathers Jerome of St Joseph, Nicholas
of Jesus, and James of Jesus. In the Toledo edition of Fr. Gerard
(1914, Vol. Ill) are also to be found the explanations of Father Diego
de Jesus, O.C.D. (1570-1621), and the Don que tuvo S Juan de la Cruz
far a quiar las almas a Dios, by Fr. Joseph of Jesus Mary, CD.
ft 1626), the author of a Subida del alma a Dios, Madrid, 1656, and
other books enumerated in the edition of St John of the Cross by Fr.
Gerard (Vol. I, p. lix). Cf. R. P. Wenceslas of the Holy Sacrament,
Fisionomia de un Doctor, Salamanca, 1913 ; Ludovic de Besse, E.clair-
cissements sur les CEuvres mystiques de S Jean de la Croix, 1895 ; P.
Berthier, Lettres sur S Jean de la Croix to the Marquis de Crequi ;
R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Perfection chretienne et contemplation selon
S Thomas d'Aquin et S Jean de la Croix, 1923; Mgr. Landrieux, Sur
les fas de S Jean de la Croix, Paris, 1924; A. Tanqueray, of. cit.,
pp. 890 ff.
2 Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, chap, xiii, Hoornaert, Vol. I,
P- 47-
3 Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, chaps, ii, iii.
1 88 Christian Spirituality
called to the heights of contemplation must also pass through
the mystical purgatory of purifications ; and this purgatory
is as dark as night.
A — The Night of the Senses or the Active Purifica-
tion of the Senses
The first night, that of the senses, corresponds with what
ascetic authors call the purgative way.1 St John of the
Cross powerfully demonstrates the necessity of mortifying
to the utmost " our unruly appetites " or passions. He
describes at length their " harmful effects " and the damage
they inflict upon us. All our voluntary appetites, he says,
" even the least which have to do with simple imperfections,
must be entirely eliminated " if " we would attain to entire
union" with God.2 Then he shows what must be done to
enter into the night of the senses.
First, the soul must habitually desire to imitate Christ in
everything. His sole satisfaction in this world was to do
his Father's will. Next, all that appeals to the senses and
does not tend " purely to the honour and glory of God,"
must be renounced " through the love of Christ."3 If the
senses are thus mortified, the passions will also be mortified :
" For instance," says St John of the Cross, " if the things
I that are spoken of please you, even if they have nothing to
do with the service of God, abstain from enjoying them and
do not listen to them. If the pleasure of the eyes inclines you
towards things that do not raise your mind to God, abstain
from the enjoyment of them and turn your eyes away from
them ; and mortify yourself, too, if you want to say or do
something to please yourself. In all your senses without
exception, do away with the power of attraction, when you
can do it without drawing anyone's attention; but if you
cannot do that, it will suffice to renounce the satisfaction
which you cannot interrupt. Thereby your mortified senses
will be freed from attraction and, as it were, left in
darkness."4
Let us not forget that here we have to do with rules of
perfection, with renunciation and satisfaction in things per-
missible. It is by the way of absolute abnegation that the
saint would lead us to union with God.
To make still more sure the death of the passions, he
proposes the following most crucifying practices :
1 Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, chaps, iv-xv. St John of the
Cross always assumes that souls who have actively entered into the
dark night are already completely detached from sin. He demands an
absolute detachment even from simple imperfections of the least volun-
tary kind.
2 ibid., Book I, chap, xi, p. 39.
3 ibid., chap, xiii, Vol. I, p. 48. 4 ibid.
St Bobn of tfoe Cross 189
44 Seek preferably : Not the easiest, but the hardest. Not
the most to your taste, but the most insipid. Not what
pleases you, but what does not attract you. Not what com-
forts you, but what grieves you. Not what relieves you,
but what demands hard toil. Not more, but less. Not the
highest and the most precious, but the lowest and the most
despised. Not to desire things, but to be indifferent to them.
Not what is best in anything, but what is worst."1
St John of the Cross further reveals his mind with regard
to the mortification of man's threefold concupiscence :
44 In the first place, strive to despise yourself and desire to
be despised by your neighbour, this is salutary for the con-
cupiscence of the flesh. In the second place, try to lessen
yourself by what you say and to get your neighbour to
lessen you, this is salutary for the concupiscence of the eyes.
Thirdly, endeavour to have a sense of humiliation with regard
to yourself and to get others to have the same opinion of
you, this is salutary for destroying the pride of life."2
To attain to such renunciation of the things of sense, the
soul is helped by the love of God. 4< By putting her relish and
power " in this love, she finds the necessary vigour and con-
fidence for easily abandoning any other affection.3 To the
fire of the passions she opposes the still more burning flame
of the love of her heavenly Spouse. Moreover, she tastes in
such complete renunciation a great joy, the joy of deliver-
ance. 44 Since the sin of the fall, the soul is really the captive
of our mortal body, subject to the passions and natural
appetites." When she has passed through the night of the
senses, she enters 44 into possession of true liberty." John of
the Cross sings of this deliverance in lyrical accents.4
B — The Night of the Spirit or the Active Purifica-
tion of the Spirit
However, the soul has not yet attained union with God.
The night of the senses is succeeded by the Night of the
spirit. Or rather, as St John of the Cross explains, 5 it is
the second part of the night that now begins and this is
darker than the first. The night of the senses is like the twi-
light which follows the setting of the sun, wherein we can
hardly see anything. The night of the spirit, especially that
of the understanding, corresponds with midnight ; it is utter
darkness. For, in the night of the senses, the intelligence
was still active and took cognisance of things ; but now it
totally ceases from its natural operations. The soul is thus
1 Ascent of Mount C arm el, pp. 48-49.
2 ibid., p. 49.
8 ibid., chap, xiv, p. 52. 4 ibid., chap, xv, p. 53.
5 ibid., Book II, Introduction and chap. i.
i go Christian Spirituality
in total darkness. The third part of the night, the night of
the memory and the will, is already near the break of day.
It is in some sort the dawn before the divine sunrise in which,
during contemplation, the soul " loses herself in an ecstasy
of heavenly light."
What St John of the Cross calls spirit — let us bear it in
mind — comprises the understanding, the memory, and the
will. The understanding enters into the dark night by faith,
the memory by hope, and the will by love.x
The understanding must be stripped of all its natural
cognitions and thoughts if it desires to attain to the contem-
plation of God ; this is a kind of axiom with spiritual writers.
Let us call to mind the teaching of the Areopagite. To see
God in contemplation, we must first have nudity of the in-
telligence. St John of the Cross, too, speaks of this " nudity
of the understanding." He had read the Dionysian writings;
he had no doubt also read the German and Flemish mystics.
Sometimes he seems to reproduce their expressions. Accord-
ing to him, the night of the spirit is " nudity and the void,"
wherein it must be left so far as its operations are concerned.
If we would come to the possession of God, we must " enter
into this extreme nudity and void of the spirit."2 For the
thoughts and " the knowledge acquired and kept as its own
by the understanding are rather hindrances than means "
towards union with God. They are limited and imperfect ;
but God is infinite and perfect :
" In this life," he explains, " for the understanding to
attain to union with God, so far as that is possible, it must
use the proper means towards union, means having a close
likeness to the end. Note well that amongst all creatures,
whether superior or inferior, none affords this close likeness
or possesses the required resemblance to the divine Being.
According to the theologians, all of them, indeed, have
a certain relation to God and are marked with a divine im-
print, more accentuated in some than in others, according to
their degree of excellence ; but between them and God there
is no affinity, no essential likeness. In reality, the distance
between the divine and created beings is infinite ; hence it
is impossible for the understanding to enter truly into God
by means of creatures, whether heavenly or earthly, since all
proportion and likeness between them is lacking."3
Therefore the understanding will of itself renounce its
human activity and forms and representations provided by the
1 Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, chap, v, Vol. I, p. 73.
2 ibid., chap, vi, pp. 76-77.
3 id., Book II, chap, vii, Vol. I, p. 83.
St -Jobn ot tbe Cross 191
corporal senses and taken from things visible. It will put
out its natural light and thus be in darkness.
This extinction does not destroy the understanding" ; but on
the contrary it makes its illumination by faith all the easier.
The more the understanding- is mortified, the more does faith
increase in it, the more, too, does it become capable of union
with God. For there is no close means of union with God
apart from faith. " Faith is so intimately connected with
God that believing by faith and seeing in the beatific vision
have the same object."1 When the soul has concentrated the
action of her powers, her inclinations and spiritual appetites
in pure faith, she can unite " with her Beloved by the union
of simplicity, of purity of love, and of likeness."2 But faith
is obscure, this is one of its characteristics. Its light is
supernatural ; it eclipses all human brightness of the under-
standing. The latter believes the truths revealed without
understanding them. Hence it remains, humanly speaking,
in a dark night. It is the dark night of the understanding.
To put the understanding into this night and to immerge
it in faith only, it must — going from the more outward to
the more inward — be stripped of the perceptions of the
external senses, then of those of the internal senses, especially
of the imagination, and lastly of those that are purely mental
or of ideas.3
According to what was said of the Night of the senses, he
who would unite with God must have already purified his
outward corporal senses by depriving them of all perceptions
that do not lead to God. But the understanding may have
previously received perceptions and knowledge through the
corporal senses. It must be stripped of them so that none of
its former perceptions and no sensible images remain. It
will thus be in the night so far as the outward corporal
perceptions are concerned.
St John of the Cross goes still further. He demands that
contemplatives shall renounce supernatural phenomena, such
as visions, revelations, and interior words which sometimes
affect the external senses. The more the soul " makes of
such phenomena," he says, " the more does it turn away
from the true road and from the security of faith. "4 Evidently
he is here reacting — and how energetically — against illum-
inism and the pseudo-mystical sense-illusions of the
Alumbrados. Let us listen to him :
1 Ascent of Mount Carmel, Vol. I, p. 87.
2 ibid., p. 57.
3 See the whole of Book II of the Ascent of Mount Carmel, chaps.
i-xxx, Vol. I, pp. 56-207.
4 id., Book II, chap, x, Vol. I, p. 92.
192 Cbristian Spirituality
" It may happen, and often does happen, that spiritual
persons are supernaturally affected by representations and
thing's that affect the senses. Their eyes are struck by
fig-ures, by persons of another world, by visions of saints, of
good or bad angels, by lights and extraordinary brightnesses ;
the ear hears certain strange words, uttered by persons in
visible shape or said apart from any apparition ; the sense of
smell perceives sweet perfumes, the source of which is un-
disclosed. The sense of taste may likewise be affected by a
most charming savour, and the sense of touch by deep de-
lights. These are sometimes so strong as to rejoice both
marrow and bones till they dilate and are steeped in pleasure.
Of this nature is what is called spiritual unction, which is
imparted to the members of pure souls. . . . We must take
account of this : though all these phenomena may come from
God and affect the bodily senses, they must never be the
subjects of satisfaction or acceptance ; I will go farther, they
must be fled, and that absolutely, without trying to find
out whether their source is good or evil. From the very
fact that these communications are mainly external and
physical, it may always be presumed that their origin is
not divine."1
St John of the Cross declares without ambiguity that such
sensible manifestations " are a source of hindrances and
hurts to the soul," and that by not shutting our eyes to them
"we depart from the means to union with God," which is
faith.2
He is just as severe in dealing with supernatural imagina-
tive visions, perceived by the internal senses, which are
" imagination and fancy."
" I declare, then," he says, " that all perceptions and
visions of the imagination, every shape and sensible species
presented as a figure, image or particular cognition, whether
regarded as false and coming from the devil, or as true and
coming from God, ought not to preoccupy or nourish the
understanding. The soul cannot desire their communication
or retain them when they come, so that she may keep herself
free, denuded, pure and simple, as is required for union with
God."3
The reason of this is plain. Besides that imaginative
visions are subject to the risk of diabolical illusion, all these
" forms, from the fact that they are perceived, are confined
to the modes and manners of limitation," whereas the divine
wisdom knows " no limit of form, species, or image." The
1 Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, chap, x, Vol. I, p. 91.
2 ibid. St John of the Cross makes an exception, however, in the
" very rare " cases in which a director might judge otherwise (p. 98).
3 ibid., chap, xiv, pp. 120-121. St John of the Cross distinguishes
between " imagination " and " fancy," ibid., chap. xi.
St 3obn of tbe Cross 193
soul can only unite with it on condition of not being " en-
closed in" a particular form.1
As much must be said, a fortiori, of the images shaped in
our minds by the normal and natural play of imagination.
" All these images and perceptions must be cast out of the
soul, for she must become dark, in this sense, to attain lo
divine union."2 However, since meditation, which is a dis-
cursive exercise, belongs to the sphere of the imagination,
beginners will make use of this faculty. It will also be
used sometimes during the period of first arriving at con-
templation. But as soon as contemplation has become
habitual, imagination must finally go into the night.3
Lastly, we come to the very innermost of the soul, wherein
purely spiritual perceptions take place. Here again St John
of the Cross demands entire denudation. No idea, however
spiritual, can enable us to contemplate God, for it is neces-
sarily imperfect and limited. The mind must be put " in the
Night of faith."
But there are purely spiritual perceptions of the super-
natural order, to wit : intellectual visions, revelations, interior
words, and spiritual feelings. Moreover, such phenomena,
when divine, produce happy results in the soul. Neverthe-
less, St John of the Cross will not have us seek for nor desire
them. He goes much farther. He counsels us to forget the
forms and the impressions left by intellectual visions. We
must go to God in the negation of everything.4 We must
also forget revelations and interior words. " It is better
always to go to God by unknowing."5 The saint incessantly
advises the soul to keep to herself " prudently all these com-
munications, if she would reach, pure and free from illusion,
by the night of faith, unto union with God."6
As we see, St John of the Cross would have the soul
renounce all that is below mystical union properly so called ;
she is to renounce visions and other like phenomena which
might create illusion. Thus does the saint react against
illuminism.
St John of the Cross has just given us a description of the
Dark Night of the understanding. We have now to learn
1 Although St John of the Cross is unfavourable to visions and
other imaginative perceptions, he does not deny that the saints had
some that were real. He attempts to characterize them, and he affirms
that even those which come from God may give rise to errors. See
ibid., Book II, chaps, xv-xx.
2 Ascent of Mount Carmel, ibid., chap, xi, p. 99.
3 ibid., Book II, chaps, xi-xiii.
4 ibid., Book II, chap, xxii, pp. 179-189.
6 ibid., chap, xxiv, p. 190. " ibid., chap, xxv, p. 194.
III. 13
194 Christian Spirituality
of the Night of the memory and of the will.1 We must re-
member that the whole soul has to pass through the purga-
tory of purification.
It is faith that has stripped the understanding and made
it enter into the night. It is hope that will create " in
memory the void of all possession," and it is charity that will
produce " the void in the will, the stripping away of every
affection for and joy in what is not God."2 For — and John
of the Cross constantly repeats this with the Areopagite —
" just as the soul must know God rather by what is not than
by what is, so must it go towards him rather by denial than
by admission ; it must reject the least of the perceptions,
whether natural or supernatural, which it might conceive
of him."3
The memory must therefore get rid of all impressions and
memories which come to it through the five bodily senses,
" so that no trace of them is left therein, and that it may
remain as void and clear as possible, as if nothing had come
through it, in its forgetfulness and freedom from every-
thing."4 Thus will the soul be delivered from the evil
memories left by the world, distractions will be fewer, and
the temptations of the devil less readily arise. Peace and
tranquillity of mind will be more secure.
If memory retains supernatural memories of visions,
revelations, and interior words, even though of divine origin,
they, too, must be got rid of. St John of the Cross regards
them as "an obstacle to divine union in pure and perfect
hope."6 For he considers that it is hope that " empties and
darkens the memory," and of this he gives the following
somewhat subtle explanation :
" To hope for a thing is not to possess it, and the less we
possess it the greater is our capacity and readiness for
expecting what we hope for, and the more perfect is our hope.
On this principle, it is in proportion to the divestment of the
memory, setting aside the forms and memories which are not
God, that it will immerse itself the more in God, and will
prepare a greater void for the hope that God will fill it
completely.
" To live in pure and perfect hope in God we must there-
fore not stop short at cognitions, forms, and distinct images
— as we have explained. Whenever they occur we must
immediately turn our soul, free from all that, to God in an
impulse of tender love."6
1 This is the subject of Book III of the Ascent of Mount Carmel,
Vol. II, p. i-iio.
2 Book II, chap, v, Vol. I, p. 73.
3 Book III, chap, i, Vol. II, p. 4. * Ascent, ibid., p. 5.
6 Book III, chap, vi, Vol. II, p. 19.
* Book III, chap, xiv, Vol. II, pp. 33-34.
St 3obn of tbe Cross 195
Memories must only be recalled so far as the fulfilment of
our duties requires. Then the Spirit of God will tell us what
we ought to know.1
It is by charity that the will is purified in the Dark Night
of the spirit. This virtue " makes a void in all the things
of the will, since it binds us to love God above all things,
and that is only realised by renouncing everything so as to
refer everything to God."2
To throw such renunciation into full relief, St John of the
Cross explains in four short treatises how the will should
mortify the four passions characteristic of it : joy, hope,
grief, and fear. Of these four treatises only one has survived,
and that is unfinished. It teaches us how the will is purified
of the enjoyment of supernatural and spiritual goods.3 The
counsels given by the saint for attaining to the entire re-
nunciation of the will present no peculiarity.
However, we note in the last chapters of the Treatise on
the Will, his astonishing insistence upon renouncing the " en-
joyment " of supernatural favours which are inferior to the
mystical union that God sometimes grants."1 His first editors
were alarmed at it, and they found it necessary to explain
and justify his line of thought. The reasons for such detach-
ment given by St John of the Cross do not, indeed, appear
to suffice. The favours received may certainly, as he says,
contribute to the soul's amour-propre and lead it to forget
God for the sole sake of sensible consolations. But such
dangers as these are met with in every age. Spiritual writers
have warned the faithful against them, yet have not required
them to renounce the enjoyment of such favours when God
willed to grant them. When St Teresa spoke of " the joys
and consolations afforded by meditation," she said, " they
are to be highly esteemed, provided that humility makes it
plainly understood that we are none the better for them."5
Hence we may consider that when St John of the Cross
pushed renunciation to the point of rigorism, he wanted to
react against the false mysticism of the Alumbrados, who
1 St John of the Cross explains (Book III, chap, i) how those whose
memory is thus stripped may still act and fulfil their duties. God
makes it up to them and "reminds them of what they have to re-
member."
2 Book II, chap, v, Vol. I, p. 74.
3 Book III, chaps, xv-xliv. St John of the Cross here refutes Pro-
testant theories counter to the worship of images.
4 Yet St John of the Cross does not demand the renunciation of
enjoyment arising from mystical union through contemplation of the
divine Essence. He describes this joy in The Living Flame of Love
and in The Spiritual Canticle.
5 St Teresa, Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap, i, (Euvres, VI, p. 100.
Cf. pp. 91-93. Way of Perfection, chap, xxviii.
196 Cbrlsttan Spirituality
thought that spiritual joys were the sum and substance of
piety.
He requires of the contemplative under his guidance every
kind of mortification and detachment; nothing must be left
that is not God. Well did he deserve the name of the doctor
of Nada (Nothing), as they liked to call him in Spain.1
C — "Spiritual" or Active "Contemplation"
When the soul's purification is finished and when it has
passed through the Night of the Senses and of the Spirit, it
will be able to contemplate God.
This contemplation, which is prepared for by active purifi-
cations, is not as yet infused or passive contemplation, for
the latter will be preceded by passive purifications. It is
called active contemplation, because anyone led by ordinary
grace can attain thereto by using the ordinary means.2
St John of the Cross calls it " spiritual contemplation," be-
cause " the spiritual senses alone are in action therein."
This is how he explains "this matter" which, he says,
was " rarely dealt with " in his time.
Between discursive prayer — i.e., meditation in which im-
agination and " the sensitive powers " are in action — and
infused or mystical contemplation, there is an intermediate
kind. This is " spiritual " contemplation. It consists " in
gently imposing silence at the opportune moment on the
understanding, and in keeping quiet in faith while fastening
our spiritual gaze affectionately upon God, rejoicing in the
contemplation of him, and realizing that God, too, is looking
on us and helping us in our contemplation.3 It is "con-
templation or the simple regard with the spiritual powers."4
Later on it is called the prayer of simplicity or of simple
regard.
In it imagination, memory, and understanding are at rest :
" the soul is glad to find itself alone with God, fixing its
attention lovingly upon him without any particular considera-
tion, with inward peace, quiet, and repose, without any acts
or exercises of a really discursive kind of the powers — the
understanding, the memory, and the will — through the asso-
ciation of ideas. It is contented with knowing and with a
general and loving attention . . . without any particular per-
ception of anything else."5
The repose of the powers of the soul is facilitated by the
1 Nada — nothing, constantly occurs in his Maxims.
2 Cf. H. Hoornaert, Introduction to CEuvres, I, pp. xii ff . ; III, pp.
xix ff.
8 Ascent, Vox. Ill, p. xxi.
* Ascent, Book II, chap, xii, Vol. I, p. 109.
8 Ascent, ibid., chap, xi, p. 104.
St 3o\m of tbe Cross 197
purification to which they have been subjected. This general
and loving- knowledge of God is the result of faith ; it is a
" spiritual light striking the eyes of the soul which are the
understanding."1 With the help of this light, the soul looks
at and contemplates God. This look and this contemplation
are obscure like faith itself. They are not vision, as is some-
times the case in mystical union ; for here we have nothing
extraordinary or supernatural so far as it is a state of prayer.
When the soul is quite pure and stripped of cognitions
and particular notions that may affect the understanding or
the senses, this light is in itself particularly clear, pure,
simple, and perfect.2 The light of faith entirely permeates
the soul.
" Imagine the sun shining on a window-pane," says St
John of the Cross; " if the glass is darkened with spots or
dirty straws, the rays will not succeed in shining through it
and in completely transfusing it with light, which is what
would take place if the pane was clean and free from all grime.
It would not be the fault of the sunshine, but of the window-
pane. If it were quite clean and clear the light would trans-
form it ; it would shine with the same brightness as the rays
of the sun which transfused it."3
In this kind of contemplation the soul is in action. It not
only uses effort for preparation for it, but also to put itself
into such a state and to keep therein as long as was intended.
This exercise is not in the same case as mystical contempla-
tion, which depends upon God alone.
When must discursive prayer be given up for contempla-
tion? St John of the Cross considers that the time is
determined by the difficulty found in fixing one's imagination
and senses upon some particular subject, by the disappearance
of all relish for reflections, and especially by a persistent desire
for "the repose of contemplative knowledge."4 However,
" it is profitable, when we first enjoy a general knowledge of
contemplation, sometimes to resume discursive meditation
and the use of the natural faculties."5 Discursive meditation
1 Ascent of Mount Carmel, chap, xii, p. no. * ibid., p. 109.
3 Ascent, Book II, chap, iv, Vol. I, pp. 70-71. Cf. chap. xii.
* These three signs of readiness to give up discursive meditation are
classic in spiritual writers. Here is the statement of St John of the
Cross: "First sign: Meditation becomes impracticable, the imagina-
tion is inert, the relish for this exercise vanishes, and the enjoyment
of the thing imagined has changed to aridity. . . . Second sign :
This appears in an entire lack of the desire to fasten either the imagina-
tion or the senses on any particular subject, either inward or out-
ward. . . . Third sign : This is the most decisive one : the soul takes
pleasure in finding itself alone with God, fastening its attention upon
him without any particular consideration. . . ." Ascent, Book II,
chap, xi, Vol. I, pp. 103-104.
8 ibid., chap, xiii, p. 115.
1 98 Cbristfau Spirituality
is the way to prepare for active contemplation ; it purifies the
powers of the soul, and therefore it is not a good thing- to
leave it altogether until contemplation has become habitual.
II— PASSIVE PURIFICATIONS WHICH PREPARE
THE WAY FOR MYSTICAL UNION TRULY SO
CALLED, FOR INFUSED CONTEMPLATION
" After having begun the ascent of Mount Carmel, in
following the Narrow Way of the five renunciations (the
senses, the imagination, the understanding, the memory, and
the will), by active contemplation the soul attains to enter
into the mystical life, and is henceforth led by God himself
in the passive ways. The new progress of the soul hence-
forth depends upon the vocation given it by God's special
leadings and upon its correspondence with the graces im-
parted to it."1
The end of such graces is to purify the soul passively and
thoroughly. Human nature is sinful. Even when purified
from its faults their root remains. Simple purification from
voluntary manifestations of sin suffices for active contempla-
tion. The very roots of sin must be extirpated for infused
contemplation, which unites the soul to God in a supereminent
way.
The soul which is destined for mystical union will therefore
enter into a special Dark Night, wherein, through great
suffering, it will undergo an " essential " purification. Such
is the subject of the work which St John of the Cross calls
The Dark Night, a night not to be confounded with that of
The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Here we find the most original
part of the mysticism of our saint, and in it he describes the
passive purifications of the senses and of the spirit very fully.
A — The Passive Purification of the Senses or
Passive Night of the Senses
The purification or passive night of the senses " eliminates
the principal imperfections which have withstood (in The
Ascent of Mount Carmel) personal endeavour and ordinary
grace."2 These imperfections are our innate inclinations to
cling to sensible consolations in spiritual work.
1 H. Hoornaert, (Euvres spirit uelles de S Jean de la Croix, Vol. Ill,
Preface, p. xxx. St John of the Cross writes at the beginning of the
First Book of The Dark Night : " The soul has just come out of the
Narrow Way by the purification due to its own activity. It is united
to God, while retaining certain imperfections, and if God call it to a
higher spiritual life, he will subject it to a twofold passive purification
(of the senses and of the spirit)." Vol. Ill, p. 3.
2 Dark Night, Vol. Ill, p. 3.
St 3obn ot tbe Cross 199
" Many people think," says St John of the Cross, " that
spirituality consists in being- faithful to practices [that yield
consolations]. . . . Nevertheless, in a really spiritual sense,
what they do is very feeble and imperfect. The motive of
such practices and exercises is consolation, the attraction
which charms them. Since their hearts have not been trained
by arduous struggles in the practice of virtue, even in
spiritual works they commit faults and incur numerous im-
perfections."1
St John of the Cross sets forth " these numerous imper-
fections in order and in their relations to the seven capital
sins."2 God banishes them by "purifying aridity" into
which he plunges the soul, which suddenly loses all its
pleasure and satisfaction in religious exercises : it finds
nothing but aridity.
But here we must be on our guard against illusion. These
aridities are not always solely intended to purify the sensitive
appetite; they may also be the result of " sin, imperfection,
lack of energy, lukewarmness, and even of an unruly humour
and bodily indisposition."3 How can we tell whether they
are really purifying or that they do not arise from some fault?
St John of the Cross gives us three signs. First, the soul
which is undergoing passive purification no longer finds any
taste for or consolation in creatures rather than in or for
things divine ; the dark night of the sensitive appetite is com-
plete. Next, it retains " usually in the thought of God an
uneasiness and a painful anxiety." It fears that it is not
doing enough for the Lord and that it is losing ground.
Lastly, discursive meditation becomes more and more
difficult. People in this state suffer keenly. They think they
are on the wrong road and that God is abandoning them.
They need enlightened and comforting direction ; and if they
find it they will make great spiritual progress.4
B — Passive Purification of the Spirit or Passive
Night of the Spirit
The passive night of the senses precedes and prepares the
way for the passive night of the spirit. This " is exceptional
in its full manifestation ; and its frightful torments are com-
pensated for by marvellous graces."6 Taken by itself it
prepares the soul for the highest union with God. " It is but
1 Dark Night, Book I, § i, CEuvres, Vol. Ill, p. 7. I take no notice
of the division of the treatise into strophes.
2 ibid., p. 8. Thus there is spiritual pride, spiritual avarice, spiritual
anger, spiritual greediness, spiritual envy and idleness. Book I, ii-
viii, Vol. Ill, pp. 8-27.
3 ibid., Book I, x, p. 29.
* ibid., Book I, xi ff., pp. 34-53.
s ibid., Book II, i, Vol. Ill, p. 54.
200 Cbristiau Spirituality
rarely experienced, and little has been written or taught
about it."
According- to St John of the Cross, " the soul which is
called by God to the highest perfection does not enter into
the night of the spirit as soon as it has passed out " of that
of the senses. " An indefinite period, which may last for
years," " usually" comes between the two nights. During
this interval, God prepares and comforts the soul with
raptures, ecstasies, or revelations, before introducing it into
the fearful night of the spirit.1
As soon as the soul is about to enter into it, purification
begins.
Even after the passive night of the senses, there remain
habitual imperfections which " resemble roots left in the
spirit where the purification of the senses has been unable
to reach." When we have cut down a tree we have not torn
out its roots. Still harder work remains to be done. Further,
besides such habitual imperfections, even in those who enter
into the passive night of the spirit, there are a few actual
imperfections arising from their lack of an entirely pure
intention.2 Their old man has not yet altogether disappeared.
[In order to annihilate it] " God deprives these proficients
[in the mystical ways] of their powers, affections, and senses,
both spiritual and sensible, both inward and outward, leaving
the understanding in darkness, the will in aridity, the memory
with no recollections, and the spiritual affections over-
whelmed with grief, bitterness, and anguish. They have
neither feeling nor relish for the spiritual goods which
formerly attracted them, and God uses this deprivation as a
requisite of the spirit to make room for the spiritual form
which is loving union. Our Lord works all this in the soul
by a pure and obscure sort of contemplation.3 . . .
" This dark night is a divine influence in the soul which
purifies it of its ignorance and its habitual imperfections.
Contemplatives call it infused contemplation and mystical
theology, wherein God teaches the soul secretly and in the
perfection of love, without any intervention of its own and
without its knowing wherein this infused contemplation con-
sists."4
This contemplation puts the understanding in the dark, the
" divine darkness " of which the Areopagite has so much to
say. It also brings about sufferings and torments in every
part of the soul, and afflictions and tortures in the will. In
fact, infused contemplation " darkens the spirit" by its too
great light. " The more we want to look at the sun the
weaker grows our sight, and our enfeebled eyes are filled
1 Dark Night, pp. 55-56. 2 ibid., pp. 57-58.
8 ibid., Book II, iii, Vol. ITI, p. 60.
4 ibid., p. 62.
St 3obn of tbe Cross 201
with darkness." Thus is it with contemplation before the
soul is entirely purified. The divine light cast into the soul
by God is in excess of its capacity, and is therefore dark so
far as it is concerned. This explains why the enlightening
brightness of divine wisdom produces " profound darkness in
the mind."1 It is because of its impurity that the spiritual
vision cannot endure such brightness ; the soul is keenly
conscious of it, and therefore suffers much.
The other sufferings are still more excruciating. One of
them is " inexplicable," says St John of the Cross. It is the
impression of being invaded by the divine that destroys all
the remnants of the old man. It is God who thus transforms
the soul into himself. The soul is absorbed "in a deep and
absolute darkness so as to feel melted and annihilated in a
cruel death of the spirit."
" It feels," says the saint, " as if it were being swallowed
alive by some beast, and digested in its dark belly with the
anguish experienced by Jonas in the hollow recesses of the
great sea-monster. And it has to pass through this dark
death to attain to its expected resurrection."2
At the same time it feels — and this is another great suffer-
ing— " a profound emptiness, a cruel dearth of the three
kinds of goods capable of comforting it — i.e., temporal,
natural, and spiritual blessings." Just as fire eats away the
rust from iron, thus does God thoroughly purify the internal
and external powers of their inclination towards such goods ;
and as such attractions are deeply rooted in the substance of
the soul, it is subjected to the " torment of an inward dis-
# assimilation which is added " to the distressful impression of
■absolute emptiness.
"To do away with the rust of the [imperfect] affections
in the centre of the soul, it must somehow destroy and
annihilate itself, since its passions and imperfections have
become a part of its nature. . . . The soul must pass, like
gold, through the crucible.
" By these trials does God humiliate the soul profoundly
to prepare it for the great exaltation in store for it. . . .
The contemplation of its inward unworthiness sometimes
reaches a point so keen that the soul sees hell open to swallow
it up for ever. Of such souls it may be said that they literally
go down alive into hell [purgatory] ; they are purified on
earth in the same way as down there. . . . Hence it is that
a soul thus treated on earth either escapes the place of
expiation in the other world or stays in it scarcely at all;
and an hour of such suffering in this life is far more
efficacious than many hours of purification after death."3
1 Dark Night, ibid., p. 63. 2 ibid., pp. 65-66.
3 ibid., pp. 67-69. On the mystical purgatory, see pp. 93-96.
202 Cbristfan Spirituality
In this state of anguish and affliction the soul believes that
it is abandoned for ever by God whom it formerly served with
happiness. Temptations to despair assail it violently, though
it is convinced that it loves God and that it would give a
thousand lives for his sake.
" As the soul finds itself very miserable, it cannot be
persuaded that God can love it now or ever. In it there is
nothing except that which fills it with horror, a hopeless
horror of God and of all things. Hence it suffers from seeing
within itself nothing but reasons justifying its being forsaken
by him whom it passionately loves and desires."1
Prayer becomes very difficult, for the soul " can no longer,
as formerly, rise to God either in mind or heart." If it does
happen to pray, " it is with such aridity as to think that God
neither hearkens to it nor takes any notice of it."2
This very detailed description of the mystical purgatory is
plainly taken from the experience of St John of the Cross.
If God wills certain souls to pass through such sufferings it
is because he intends to load them with favours. This hope
sustains them in their cruel trial. St John of the Cross thus
explains the favours which are the happy results of this
passive night.
" If it [the night] darkens the spirit," he says, " it is to
enlighten it about everything; if it humiliates it and makes it
miserable, it is to exalt it and set it free ; if it impoverishes
it and strips it of all natural possessions and affections, it is
to enable it to relish divinely the sweetness of all the blessings
of heaven and earth."3
The soul is wholly transformed into heavenly fire by infused
contemplation, just as — according to a comparison of Hugh
of vSt Victor repeated by St John of the Cross — wood is
transformed into fire by burning.4 In this dark night of
sorrowful contemplation the spiritual fire of love begins to
inflame the soul. It is the awakening of divine love. While
the understanding remains in total darkness the soul is
" very sharply wounded " by that love. All its powers and
appetites being altogether severed from their natural objects,
they are exclusively concentrated in this inflaming of love."
" It is possible," says St John of the Cross, " to form some
notion of this inflaming of love in the spirit, in the centre in
which God makes all the powers, the faculties and appetites
of the soul, both spiritual and sensitive, converge in a mighty
harmony of powers and virtues, having no other object than
his love alone. Thus it is that the soul comes to fulfil really
1 Dark Night, Book II, Vol. Ill, p. 76.
3 ibid., p. 76. 8 ibid., p. 80. 4 ibid., pp. 85-89.
St Boibtt of tbe Cross 203
the first of the Ten Commandments, which excludes all that
remains of man's self-love : Diliges Dominum Deum luum ex
toto corde tuo et ex tota anima tua et ex tota fortitudine tua:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, ami
with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength (Deut.
Those who have undergone these passive purifications
really love God with an unmixed love. Whatever they do or
think in the different situations in which they are, they
"only love in various ways." This is the life of love in its
truest sense, the life of those who have reached the top of
Mount Carmel.2
C — Passive or Infused Contemplation
I have dealt with the passive purifications at some length,
because they are the most novel part of the teaching of St
John of the Cross. Mystical union will not need such space.
It is specially treated in The Living Flame of Love and in
The Spiritual Canticle. Yet these two works are entirely
independent of The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark
Night. Their teaching is not presented as the climax of the
purifications of the senses and of the spirit. The work of the
saint, which included the normal sequel of these purifications
and described " the wonderful effects of the spiritual en-
lightenment and of the union of love with God," is lost.
Hence we are obliged to substitute for it The Living Flame
and The Spiritual Canticle,3 the subject of which is analogous.
These two works are hymns divided into strophes. They
are full of lyrical feeling. They should be read : they cannot
be analyzed any more than the divine love which is their
theme.
The union of love takes place in the centre of the soul.*
Thus does St John of the Cross name the higher part of the
soul, "the seat of the theological virtues." Other mystics
call it the bottom of the soul, the summit of the sold, the
1 Dark Night, Book II, Vol. Ill, pp. 90-91.
2 At the end of The Dark Night, St John of the Cross notes further
effects of the passive purification of the spirit in his explanation of
the end of the first strophe and of the second strophe of Book II. His
style is particularly obscure and mannered. Vol. Ill, pp. 102-141.
These effects are included in those previously described.
3 Part III of The Canticle deals with the unitive way and the
spiritual marriage, Vol. IV, pp. 139 ff. Part I treats of the dispositions
which are indispensable for the marriage, Part II of " the spiritual
betrothal."
4 St John of the Cross also uses other analogous expressions : the
substance of the soul, the higher fart of the spirit, the innermost fart
of the sfirit, the heart of the soul. Vol, III, pp. 148 ff.
204 Cbrlsttan Spirituality
highest part of the spirit, the highest point (or apex) of the
reason. There take place assent to revealed truths and the
union of man's spirit with God.
This centre of the soul is inaccessible to the senses and
to the devil. After the passive purifications, the soul is
completely freed from the senses. Furthermore, in these
passive states " the soul does nothing- of itself " ; it has " to
do nothing- but receive what comes from God. In the centre
of the soul he alone can set it in motion and operate without
the intervention of the senses."1 Here we must call to mind
the German theories of the bottom of the soul, remarking
well that St John of the Cross was able to avoid any discon-
certing expression.
Divine love is unifying and transforming. The more it
increases in the soul the more perfectly does it unite it with
God and transform it into him. A moment comes — but
never fully in this life — when the soul is transformed into
God in its innermost centre :
" If it [the soul] attains to the highest [degree of love],
divine love will have wounded it in its deepest centre, and
this will mean the transformation of the soul, the illumina-
tion of its whole being according to the power and the desire
of which it is capable, and to such a point that it will appear
as God. It is then like a crystal of extreme purity and trans-
parency in sunlight. The more bright the sun's rays, the
more does the crystal concentrate them in itself, and the
more does it shine ; and if the light received by it is super-
abundant, the crystal itself will be confounded with it; the
rays will no longer be perceived, for the crystal will absorb
their brightness as far as it can and will appear to have
become light itself."2
The soul will then see the sweetest relations established
between the divine Persons and itself. Its understanding
will be " divinely enlightened by the wisdom of the Son . . .
its will will delight in the Holy Spirit . . . and the Father
will engulf it [the soul] mightily and profoundly in the abyss
of his love."3
In The Spiritual Canticle, a real mystical epithalamium,
John of the Cross defines the object of the revelations made
to the soul enlightened by divine Wisdom :
" In the higher life of the spiritual marriage," he says,
" the Spouse readily and frequently discovers to the soul
his faithful companion, his marvellous secrets, for a sincere
and perfect heart has no secrets for the beloved. What he
specially delights in revealing to her are the sweet mysteries
of his Incarnation, and the dispensation of the Redemption
1 Living Flame, first strophe, Vol. Ill, p. 152.
2 ibid., p. 154. s ibid., p. 155.
St -Jobn of tbe Cross 205
of mankind; and as this work is amongst the most astound-
ing- of those of God, nothing can be compared with the
happiness of the soul who enters into them."1
As for the delight of the will in the Holy Spirit, St John
of the Cross celebrates it in The Living Flame of Love. This
wholly spiritual delectation is now free from danger : it
specially belongs to mystical union. The soul feels the
Spirit of her heavenly Spouse within her. He is not only
the fire which consumes her, but also the fire which bursts
into flame. Through the action of the Holy Spirit the soul
acts, and is transformed into the fire of love. Her acts are
bursts of flame, burnings of love breaking out from the
divine fire. It is the Holy Spirit who stimulates these acts
of love and makes the flame burst forth. " Every time that
the flame breaks forth, producing a divinely sweet and
powerful love in the soul, she thinks that she is entering
into eternal life because she is in the state of acting in
God."2
These divine flames tenderly wound the soul and burn her
in a delightful manner, inflicting wounds of love upon her.
Wounds, burns, and sores are sources of joy to the soul.3
They appear to her to be the forerunners of death. It seems
as if each of them must break the thread of her earthly
existence to unite her to her heavenly Spouse in glory. But
every time she is disappointed :
" O flame of the Holy Spirit, who piercest the substance
of my soul so tenderly and intimately, who burnest her with
thy glorious heat, how kind art thou to show thy desire to
give me life eternal ! . . . Break, then, the fine thread of
my life and let it not last till old age and years cut it in
twain according to natural law, so that I may love thee
thenceforth in the fulness and satiety my soul longs for,
measureless and unending!"4
And St John of the Cross sings on in all the tones of
mysticism of the loving languors of the soul burning with
the desire to be united with her Well-beloved, yet kept on
earth perforce.
1 The Spiritual Canticle, Part III, strophe xxii, Vol. IV, p. 144.
2 The Living Flame, strophe i, Vol. Ill, pp. 148-149.
3 id., strophe ii. St John of the Cross also calls the flame of love a
" delicate touch."
4 id., strophe i, Vol. Ill, pp. 170-171. The mystical marriage made
St Teresa desire to remain upon earth to work for the glory of God
and for the salvation of souls. In St John of the Cross the longing
for heaven is more apparent in it, and this is in conformity with his
strong leaning towards the contemplative life.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SPANISH SCHOOL AFTER ST TERESA AND ST JOHN
OF THE CROSS — THE CARMELITES — THE JESUITS-
MARY D'AGREDA
THE works of St John of the Cross no more
escaped criticism than did those of St Teresa.1
They were first published in 1618, twenty-eight
years after their writer's death. The prejudice
against mysticism had not ceased, far from it.
The ascetic school continued its opposition to mystical books,
and sometimes with violence. Further, the persistence of
illuminism in Spain seemed to justify this attitude.
It will be remembered how severely the Spanish Inquisi-
tion in 1559 had proscribed mystical works published in
Spanish. Many thought such strictness opportune, even in
the beginning of the seventeenth century, and they were
very displeased because St John of the Cross had written
in Spanish not only simple devotional books but real treatises
of mystical theology. Ought theology to speak any other
language than Latin? In fact, the new departure made by
St John of the Cross seemed all the more daring in that the
matters of spirituality which he explained were higher and
more delicate and, therefore, more subject to erroneous inter-
pretations by the common people.
One of these questions raised particularly lively controver-
sies. St John of the Cross was one of the first, not to dis-
cover— for the discovery was made before his day — but to
bring out well into the light active or " spiritual " contempla-
tion, as he calls it.2 This mode of contemplation, which is
intermediate between discursive prayer and infused con-
templation, does not require extraordinary grace. Every-
one may aspire to it, and those who take pains reach it. It
is totally different from passive or " infused " contemplation,
which depends entirely upon divine action. John of the
Cross thereby thought to reassure the partisans of pure
asceticism. If there be a kind of contemplation open to all,
which does not belong to the domain of mysticism properly
1 See R. P. Wenceslas of the Blessed Sacrament, O.C.D., Fisionomia
de un Doctor, especially Vol. II, and his Introductions to the Works of
St John of the Cross.
2 Cf. H. Hoornaert, CEuvres sfirituelles de S Jean de la Croix, Vol
III, pp. xix ff.
206
XTbe Spanisb Scbool 207
so called, must not people be led thereto? And can it not be
done with no risk of illuminism? St John of the Cross
explains carefully, as we know, the signs whereby the
moment is recognized for passing from meditation to such
contemplation.
This theory seemed to be novel. In reality, only the
explanations of John of the Cross were new, particularly his
explanation of the psychological phenomenon of aridity,
occurring at the time of transition from discursive medita-
tion to active contemplation. But this novelty is a happy
discovery, a " precious contribution " to spiritual theology.
John of the Cross has been blamed for the rigour of his
mysticism. He constantly speaks of emptiness, annihila-
tion, and of the death of the senses and powers of the soul.
He demands that the soul shall be stripped of every percep-
tion, image, and idea. We must renounce even spiritual
favours granted by God. Is not this asking for more than
the preparation for supernatural states requires? Besides,
how can any mysticism, if it be based on the radical sup-
pression of the use of our natural faculties, be reconciled
with the needs of active daily life?
It must be admitted that the mysticism of St John of the
Cross is perhaps not much to the taste of men of action.
They are free to prefer that of St Teresa or of St Francis
de Sales ; but if we except his renunciation of spiritual
favours — which needs to be rightly understood — the doctrine
and the terminology of St John of the Cross are to be found
in the great theorists of mysticism from the time of Dionysius
the Areopagite. In their writings we meet with terms
which, at first sight, seem exaggerated, and are not to be
taken in an absolute sense. And besides, who can say how
far self-abnegation should be carried by one whom God him-
self is purifying before uniting him with himself?
Despite the good grounds for such explanations, the writ-
ings of St John of the Cross were denounced to the Inquisi-
tion. Learned theologians, like Suarez, had to undertake
their defence.1 However, criticism diminished by degrees
in proportion to the growth of the famous mystic's reputa-
tion for sanctity. And since his canonization the Church
has put this passage in his office : " To explain the mysterious
operations of God in souls, equalling St Teresa, in the judge-
ment of the Apostolic See, St John of the Cross was divinely
taught, and has written books of mystical theology full of
heavenly wisdom."
1 P. Wenceslas, Vol. II, chap. vi.
2o8 Cbristiau Spirituality
I— THE CARMELITE SCHOOL IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The views of St John of the Cross upon active contemplation
were accepted in Spain by the religious Orders : they effected
a real reconciliation between pure asceticism and mysticism.
There is a kind of contemplation open to all, the result of
our efforts with the help of grace. Properly mystical con-
templation, which is infused and the fruit of a special
grace, is a passive state which does not depend upon our-
selves.1
The Carmelite School kept to this doctrine and propa-
gated it.
John of Jesus Mary,2 the contemporary of St Teresa,
afterwards General of the Carmelites, recorded it in his
Disciplina claustralis, the spiritual directory of the novices
of the Order. Therein he treats at length of discursive
prayer, and sets forth a method resembling that of Luis of
Grenada and St Peter of Alcantara. It has the same prin-
ciples : preparation for prayer, reading, meditation, affections
of the will — i.e., thanksgiving, offering, and petition.3 As to
contemplation, he distinguishes it into three kinds :
" The first," he says, " is natural, and it belongs to the
spirit clinging to God as the creator of nature and to the
truths contained in this order : this is the contemplation of
philosophers. . . .
" The second is supernatural, and, by a higher light than
nature's, it discovers some mystery of grace, and, by a
simple and loving look issuing from previous meditations,
fastens thereon and feeds and rests thereon. This is the
contemplation of Christians who are practised in prayer, and
it is that, too, of certain of the Church's prophets. To this
1 Contemplatio fidelium quae fidem praesupponit dividitur in duas
species, scilicet in acquisitam et infusam. . . . Acquisitam earn nun-
cupamus, quam industria et exercitatione propria, non tamen sine
divina operatione et gratia acquirimus ; infusam vero, quae ex sola
gratia sive insfiratione divina promanat et Deus in nobis sine nobis
operatur. Antonii a Spiritu Sancto (fi667) Directorium mysticuni ,
tract. Ill, disput. i, sect. 6, Parisiis, 1904, p. 238. Antony of the Holy
Spirit reproduces Philip of the Holy Trinity, Summa theologiac
mysticae, pars II, tract. I, art. ii, Paris, 1874, torn. II, p. 45.
2 Born in 1564 in the diocese of Osma in Spain : died in 1615. With
John of St Jerome he wrote the book, Vita et mores, spiritus, zelus et
doctrina servae Dei Theresiae de Jesu, published by Fr. Gratian in
1610. Bossuet (Mystici in tuto, pars I, cap. xv) quotes with praise a
chapter on contemplation from the Disciplina claustralis of John of
Jesus Mary.
3 La discipline claustrale, Part IV, chaps, i-vii, Paris, 1669, pp.
171-190.
Qhe Spanteb Scbool 209
kind of contemplation may be referred the knowledge of the
truths of the natural order, which has been acquired by
supernatural enlightenment.
" The third is divine, coming from the gift of wisdom with
the help of a supereminent light, which regards nothing but
God and the divine perfections. . . .Ml
Thomas of Jesus, whose doctrinal authority is undisputed
among the Carmelites, founds his spiritual teaching on the
distinction between infused and acquired contemplation.2
The latter, he declares, is equally suited to beginners and to
those who are most advanced. He gives the requisite direc-
tions for all to practise it. A like doctrine is found in the
works of the French Carmelite, the celebrated Philip of the
Holy Trinity,3 and in those of the Portuguese Antony of
the Holy Spirit.4
The Carmelites have kept their tradition intact. It is
always taught to their novices;5 and recently, on the third
centenary of the canonization of St Teresa, the Discalced
Carmelites held a Congress at Madrid, where the existence
of acquired or active contemplation was affirmed, and also
its distinction from infused or passive contemplation. By
1 La discipline claustrale, Part V, chap, i, pp. 207-208.
1 The Venerable Thomas of Jesus was born in Andalusia about 1564.
Provincial of Castile, then Definitor General of the Order, he died in
Rome in 1627, reputed for sanctity. His mind as to infused contempla-
tion is seen in his De contemflatione divina libri sex, published in
1620. He treats of acquired contemplation in the Via brevis et plana
orationis mentalis, published in 1610, and in an unpublished work
issued in 1922 at Milan by Fr. Eugene of St Joseph, entitled De con-
temflatione acauisita, in which are treated the nature, effects, and
properties of acquired contemplation. My knowledge of this work
was obtained from a French adaptation, by Fr. Berthold Ignace de
Ste Anne, entitled, La meilleure -part ou la vie contemplative. The
Works of Thomas of Jesus were issued at Cologne in 1685.
3 Born in 1603 in the diocese of Vaison (Vaucluse), he lived at Lyons.
Then he was a missionary in the Levant. Returning to Lyons, he was
raised to all the offices of his Order in succession, and finally elected
as General of the Carmelites at Rome in 1665. He died at Naples in
1671. He wrote a great many books : Summa philoso-phiae, Lyons,
1648; Summa Theologiae, Lyons, 1653; Summa Theologiae mysticae,
Lyons, 1656; a Chronologia from the creation of the world and a
curious Itinerarium orientale, 1649, etc.
4 Antony of the Holy Spirit was born at Monte Morovelho in
Portugal. He was a professor at Lisbon and a famous preacher. He
became Bishop of Angola in Africa, and died about 1677. His Dire-
ctorium mysticum appeared at Lyons in 1677, then at Venice in 1697,
and often afterwards. Republished at Paris in 1904. The plan of the
work is that of the three ways. The author treats of the active and
the passive purifications, of active and of passive enlightenment, of
active and of passive or infused contemplation. He merely abridges
the Summa of Philip of the Holy Trinity.
5 Cj. Theodore of St Joseph, O.C.D., Essai sur foraison selon Vicole
carmilitaine, Bruges, 1923. He explains the Disciflina claustralis of
John of Jesus Mary.
III.
H
210 Cbrfstfan Spirituality
proclaiming- this doctrine the Congress intends to continue
faithful to the real mind of the foundress of the Carmelite
Reform.1
II— THE SPANISH JESUITS AT THE BEGINNING OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY : ALPHONSO
RODRIGUEZ, LUIS DE LA PUENTE, ST ALPHON-
SUS RODRIGUEZ, ALVAREZ DE PAZ
At the beginning of the seventeenth century we may still
remark among the Spanish Jesuits some distrust of
mysticism, and this is accounted for by the occurrences of
the end of the century before.2
We recall the unfortunate infatuation of the followers of
Balthazar Alvarez for mystical prayer, which necessitated
the intervention of their superiors and resulted in penalties.
It was just at this period, in 1577, that Alphonso
Rodriguez3 was novice-master at Montilla, in Andalusia, and
had to make the regular spiritual exhortations weekly in
all the society's houses. According to the official directions,
he had to put his brethren on their guard against methods
of prayer differing from those of the Spiritual Exercises.
His treatise on the Practice of Christian Perfection is an
epitome of his exhortations. Now, what he teaches on
1 Resolutions of the Madrid Congress, First Section, The Spiritual
Life, Themes IV -VI, in the Mensajero de S Teresa, Madrid, March
15, 1923. See Etudes Carmelitaines, January-July, 1924, pp. 89-91.
Among Spanish Carmelite writers of this period, note : another
Thomas of Jesus, author of a Summary of the Degrees of Prayer in
Spanish, 1609; the French translation (Paris, 1612) also contains a
Traite de Voraison metitale ; Michel de la Fuente, Libro de las tres
vidas del hombre, corf oral, racional y es-piritual, Toledo, 1623 ; Cecilia
del Nacimento (1570-1646), Tratado de la transformacidn del alma en
Dios (1632-1633), and Tratado de la union del alma con Dios (in the
Obras of St John of the Cross, Toledo, 1914, Vol. Ill) ; Maria de
Aquila y Canali, Vie interieure et sfirituelle, Madrid, 1634; Joseph of
the Holy Spirit (T1739), Cursus theologiae mystico-scolasticae , Seville,
1720-1739; Antony of the Annunciation, professor at the College of
Alcala de Henares, Disce-ptatio mystica de oratione et contemflatione,
which is the Carmelite Manual of mysticism since 1686. On the
Carmelite tradition, see Etudes Carmelitaines, January-July, 1922,
pp. 13-17.
2 But see Antony Martinez (Garcia del Valle, S.J.), Camino a la
unidn y comunidn con Dios, recogitado de diversos autores de la
cotnfahia de Jesus, Alcala, 1630.
3 Alphonso Rodriguez was born in 1526 at Valladolid. At the age
of twenty he joined the Jesuits, then still governed by St Ignatius. On
leaving the noviciate, he taught moral theology, and twelve or thirteen
years later he became novice-master of Montilla in Andalusia, and had
to deliver weekly exhortations in the Jesuit houses. In 1593 he was
sent to Cordova for the same purpose. In 1606 he was novice-master
at Seville. There he wrote his famous treatise, The Practice of
Christian Perfection, issued in Spanish at Seville in 1614.
Xlbe Spanisb Scbool 211
mystical kinds of prayer is right, but its tone betrays some
anxiety and even fears :
"There are two kinds of mental prayer," he says, "one
simple, common, and easy ; the other very exceptional and
very sublime, and it is received rather than made. . . ."
" Perfect [mystical] prayer is a special grace from God,
and he grants it to whom he will ; sometimes as a reward for
services rendered to him and for mortifications endured for
the love of him, and sometimes gratuitously, without regard
to the past, as the pure outcome of his liberality ; for, as
he himself savs, he is free to do good to whom he will
(Matt, xx, 15). . . .
' This divine call to the soul to enter into the Lord's sanc-
tuary, converse with her heavenly Spouse, and to be inebriated
with his love, is an altogether special grace, a signal privi-
lege granted only by God to whom he will. It is not the
Bride who herself enters into the retreat of her Spouse, but
it is he who takes her by the hand and leads her into it."1
To desire such a favour and to claim to attain to it when
not called thereto is a " presumptuous " attempt, " making
him who dares it run the risk of losing, as a penalty for his
pride, the grace of ordinary prayer and of finding himself
stripped of everything because he has set his desires too
high.2
"If we had perfect humility we should be satisfied with
praying like most of our brethren ; we should even regard
it as a special grace of God that he willed to lead us by the
common way rather than by some other higher and harder
road in which we might perhaps go astray and get lost."3
Moreover, mystical prayer " is a gift so much above man's
understanding that we can neither teach it nor comprehend
it." Only those who are privileged to enjoy it can speak
of it ; " nor can even those thoroughly know the nature of
it, nor tell what it is, nor how it is made."4
1 Part I, Treatise V, On Prayer, chap, iv, Crouzet's translation, Paris,
1895, Vol. I, pp. 346 ff. Cf. Treatise VIII, chap, xxx, Vol. II, pp. 204 ff.
2 ibid., Vol. I, p. 350.
8 ibid., chap, xx, p. 430. Father Everard Mercurian, General of the
Jesuits, writes thus to his Spanish subjects : " There are many who
hear of an exercise of divine love which is still higher than ordinary
prayer and of certain anagogic acts and some strange silence of the
faculties of the soul, and wish, rather from want of discernment than
in obedience to a real desire for spiritual progress, to rise prematurely
to the practice of the life of union as to the highest peak of perfection,
from the top of which the human passions are more easily subdued ;
but since they have not gained enough strength, they lose much time in
vain endeavours and make so little progress that after many years
they are as much carried away by their vices and as selfish and
opiniated in their minds and wills, as much the slaves of their material
well-being, as if they had never had any intercourse with God. . . ."
Quoted by Rodriguez, ibid., chap, vi, p. 359.
4 ibid., chap, iv, pp. 347, 349.
212 Christian Spirituality
" Further," continues Rodriguez, " quite rightly the read-
ing of certain authors has been condemned, who have fancied
that, by means of certain rules, a man could be made a
contemplative, and have tried to teach what no one could
learn and to reduce to a human science what is altogether
above art and nature. In a book written by Gerson against
Ruysbroeck, he rebukes the latter severely for such a rash
pretension as this. . . . Moreover, what mean these
analogies, these transformations of the soul, this silence of
all the faculties, this annihilation, this immediate union, and
all the subtle and obscure terminology of Tauler? Can one
make anything out of all that? As for myself, I frankly
acknowledge my ignorance about it."1
If Rodriguez does not understand the obscure theories of
the German mystics, he nevertheless knows " perfect prayer."
He describes it along with discursive meditation in his
treatise on prayer, not to urge his readers thereto but to
give them a notion of it. What he recommends with warmth
and conviction is "ordinary mental prayer."
He does not, however, make the whole of prayer consist
in meditation and considerations. These are but means to
attain to acts and " affective motions of the will."
" The masters of the spiritual life," he says, " counsel the
avoidance of too lengthy meditations, especially when they
are taken up with subtle and fine-spun reflections, because
they paralyze the affective motions of the will which ought
nevertheless to be the goal and end of prayer.2 . . . This
sort of affective outgush of the will is the highest degree of
prayer. Then do we no longer try to stir ourselves up to
the love of God with the stimulus of meditation ; the heart
is filled with the love which it so ardently yearned for, and
it delights and rests therein as being at the consummation
of its desires and endeavours."3
The soul has thus attained to "active" contemplation,
which was then well known in Spain, and is the result of
the efforts of spiritual meditation :
" In prayer," adds Rodriguez, " meditation and other
functions of the mind are all directed towards contemplation ;
they must be used as steps to ascend to this summit of
prayer."4
This attitude of Rodriguez towards mysticism explains the
character of his work. It is a treatise of pure asceticism,
and, from that point of view, remarkable.6 Not only is his
1 Chap, iv, p. 349. See H. Bremond, Histoire littiraire dn sentiment
religieux, Vol. V, Appendix, for interesting evidences of Rodriguez's
mind on mysticism.
2 Chap. xi;i, p. 385. ' Chap, xii, p. 382.
4 Chap, xii, p. 382. Cf. Part II, Treatise VII, chap. iii.
* The book is divided into three parts, and each part into treatises.
The First Part comprises these treatises : Of the Esteem of Perfection
TTbe Spanteb Scbool 213
teaching- very sound and very definite, but it is set forth
with warmth and unction. He charms his reader with his
familiar and amiable simplicity. A large number of quota-
tions, taken from the Fathers — no matter whether the texts
be genuine or not — or from the lives of the saints, support
his principles of spirituality ; and we feel that the very subtle
psychological remarks interspersed with his doctrinal teach-
ing show the writer's great experience in the direction of
souls.
Rodriguez wrote his book especially for " the members of
the Society." But, as he tells us in his Preface, he has used
a method which makes it " a good book . . . for all religious
in general," and also " for all who aspire to the perfection
of the Christian life." The Practice of Christian Perfection
has really been a classical handbook of spirituality in
universal use for many centuries : few works have had such
a deep and wide influence.
Luis de la Puente,1 the contemporary and compatriot of
Alphonso Rodriguez, does not partake of his distrust of
mysticism. The historian of Balthazar and of Dona Marina
— Of the Perfection of Ordinary Actions — Of Uprightness and Purity
of Intention — Of Union and Fraternal Charity — Of Prayer — Of
Examination of Conscience — Of the Presence of God — Of Conformity
with the Will of God.
The Second Part contains the treatises : Of Mortification — Of Modesty
and Silence — Of Temptations — Of Inordinate Love of One's Parents —
Of Humility — Of Sadness and Joy — Of Meditation — Of the Passion —
Of Holy Communion and of Mass.
The Third Part deals with the religious life : Of the Aim of the
Society of Jesus — Of Vows and Religious Profession — Of the Vow of
Poverty — Of the Vow of Chastity — Of the Vow of Obedience — Of the
Observance of Rules — Of Confidence in One's Superiors and Spiritual
Fathers — Of Fraternal Correction.
1 Born at Valladolid in 1554, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1575.
He was too weak in health to take up active employments. He gave
himself up to direction and to writing spiritual books. His works
are : Medilaciones de los mysterios de la nueslra santa fe, Valladolid,
1605. In these Meditations the art of meditating is taught according
to the method of St Ignatius. Guida espiritual de la oration, medita-
tion y contemplation, Valladolid, 1609. This Spiritual Guide teaches
one how to meditate and to attain to contemplation. De la Perfection
cristiana: a Treatise of Christian Perfection in every State, Valladolid,
1612-1616; Vida del Balthazar Alvarez, Madrid, 1612 ; Expositio moralis
et mystica in Canticum canticorum, Monocerote, 1622, Paris, 1646 ;
Directorio espiritual, Madrid, 1625 ; Vida maravillosa de la venerabile
virgen Marina de Escobar. This Life of Dona Maria de Escobar was
finished by Fr. Cachupin and published at Madrid, 1665. Marina
de Escobar (+1633) founded the Order of Recollection of St Bridget.
She was born at Valladolid in 1554. She often had visions of St
Gertrude, St Bridget, and St Matilda. She also had revelations as to
heavenly things. Luis de la Puente was her confessor for thirty years.
Marina de Escobar was well versed in mysticism. There are two
214 Cbrlstlan Spirituality
de Escobar, two true mystics, he made a close study of
supernatural states and described them. Moreover, a letter
of Claud Acquaviva, General of the Jesuits after Everard
Mercurian, had expressed the official mind of the Society
as to mysticism, and this mind was favourable.
Luis de la Puente sums up his spiritual teaching- in his Life
of Balthazar Alvarez, a work of his closing- years, which
benefits by the experience of a lifetime.1 Its central part is
concerned with prayer. Moreover, it was just the way in
which this exercise was understood and practised that was
then being discussed in Spain.
Like Rodriguez, he declares that the way of mystical
prayer can only be embarked upon through a special call of
God. He expresses himself in the same words :
" Intimate and familiar converse with God our Lord," he
says, " and the gift of calm and perfect contemplation . . .
are so sublime a good that Father Balthazar, as he himself
says in his account of it, could only be raised thereto by a
special call of God. He calls thereto whom he will ; it has
no place nor year nor fixed time, for all depends upon his
most holy will who findeth " his delight in conversing with
the children of men." But with some he converses more
familiarly than with others; and this is through a special
and gracious privilege which we call "vocation." It is an
inspiration, an impulse, or a great affection impressed on
the soul, which urges it on to this high way of prayer, and
at the same time communicates to it the aptitudes and means
to follow that mode. For all are not called thereto, all are
not adapted to it, and they should not rashly set themselves
to aspire to it."2
If it is rash to aspire to extraordinary states of prayer
when not called thereto, it would also be most regrettable
not to answer the divine call when there is one :
" For two things may do great harm : to dare to aspire,
without being called thereto, to ascend higher than one can ;
to resist the divine call when we have ascertained that it is
God's will to lead anyone by that way. We must appeal to
the judgement of some prudent and experienced spiritual
Master, whose special mission it is to examine the different
posthumous works by Luis de la Puente : How to help towards a Good-
Death, 1670, and the Memorial, 1671. His Life was written by Fr.
Cachupin and published at Salamanca in 1652.
1 Luis de la Puente is above all an ascetic writer ; but he deals with
mysticism in the Vida del Balthazar Alvarez, in the Exfositio in
Cantica canticortim, and in the Guida esfiritual, Treatise III. Com-
pare him with Diego Monteiro, S.J., in the Arte de orar, Coimbra, 1630.
3 Vie du P. Balthazar Alvarez, chap, xv, Couderc's translation,
p. 139. Cf. chap, ii, p. 12 : " There are two modes of mental prayer : one
ordinary and practised in general by the just, the other extraordinary,
the lot of the few." See, too, chap. xiii.
TTbe Spanlsb Scbool 215
ways in which God guides his servants' steps so as not to
lead them astray therefrom, but, on the contrary, to direct
and to encourage them therein, so that they may walk in
them with prudence and with profit."1
This vocation is manifested sooner or later, according- to
God's good-will :
" Sometimes . . . our Lord, by a privilege and special
gift, raises up some of them, even from infancy or from the
first days of their conversion, to such a sublime state of
prayer and sometimes to extraordinary favours ; yet, in
general, he calls thereto only those who have devoted them-
selves to ordinary prayer in meditation and reflection on the
divine mysteries. And to such meditation everyone is called
and more or less interiorly drawn according to his capacity."2
We cannot " claim to tie God down as to the time of his
visits and mercies." Balthazar Alvarez was kept for sixteen
years to ordinary prayer :
" Also," continues Luis de la Puente, " look with suspicion
upon the claim to lay down as a general law that, if we
follow such and such a method for so many years and so
many months, we shall obtain this or that divine favour, or
else such and such a degree of virtue."3
It is according to these principles that Luis de la Puente
wrote his books, especially those which deal with prayer.
First of all he teaches how the prayer of meditation is to
be made according to the method of St Ignatius, which he
uses invariably.
"The book of the Spiritual Exercises . . ." he says,
" contains all that is needed for perfect mental prayer, to
which all can aspire if they co-operate diligently and keenly
with the motion inspired by God and his grace, which ever
prevents and stimulates us to act along with it."4
Whoever uses Luis de la Puente's Meditations learns
theoretically as well as practically " the art of meditation
and prayer." The great Christian truths and the events of
our Saviour's life are the successive subjects of his devout
reflections. Well-ordered themes of prayer, full of doctrine,
unction, and piety are set before him.
While keeping his readers in the ways of asceticism, Luis
de la Puente never forgets that perhaps many of them may be
1 Vie, chap, xlii, p. 422. Luis de la Puente adds : " Everyone should
be helped and encouraged in his own way, for directors are only God's
co-operators and coadjutors in the conduct of souls. God himself is
the guide and master in chief, and the others have but to follow him,
as has been said. And, unless our Lord intervene by some special
grace, those general rules are to be observed which he left to his
Church."
2 ibid., chap, xv, pp. 139-140.
3 ibid., chap, xlii, p. 421.
* ibid., p. 423.
216 Christian Spirituality
called to mount higher. Further, he himself explains his
method :
" Let us remember the preparations to be made," he says,
" the subjects and the mysteries we have to meditate on, the
sentiments we must conceive, the conversations and col-
loquies we have to hold with God, the manner in which all
this is to be applied to the faculties of the soul ; the fruits
and gains to which we should aspire; the reflections and
examens to be made with regard to all these operations, in
order to purify and improve such fruits. Afterwards we
learn how to attain to contemplation and to the perfect love
of God, to enjoy peacefully and interiorly all that we have
perceived in our meditations. All this I have explained at
length and in detail in the two books of Meditations and in
The Spiritual Guide.'"1
With regard to the mystical union, Luis de la Puente tries
less to determine its degrees than to explain the different
names then given it. St Teresa's terminology had not then
become classical. The divergencies of nomenclature among
the old writers on mysticism engendered much confusion.
" This mode of prayer," he says, " is called very particu-
larly prayer of the presence of God, because through him,
the intellect is enlightened with divine light, and, for no
other reasons, considers God as so present near it and in it
that it seems to feel2 with whom it is speaking and in whose
presence it stands. It is like that which St Paul says of
Moses, that he dealt with the invisible God as if he saw
God. Hence, and as it were naturally, come respect, admira-
tion, inclination of the will — that is to say, pleasure and
the joy of being in his presence. . . .
" Hence it is that this mode of prayer is also called prayer
of repose, or of interior recollection. It puts an end, indeed,
to the great number and variety and tumult of our imaginings
and reasonings. The higher powers of the soul, the
memory, the understanding, and the will are gathered up
and fixed in God and in the contemplation of his mysteries ;
their acts are wrought in a perfect peace and repose. This
is what is most exactly called contemplation. . . . Con-
templation ... by a simple look regards the sovereign
truth, admires its greatness, and delights in it.
" It is also called the prayer of silence. Therein, indeed,
the soul is silent, listens with close attention to what her
Master says to her heart, to what he teaches her, and dis-
closes to her of himself and his mysteries. But we must not
think, as do some who are ignorant, that if the soul is
1 Vie, chap, xlii, p. 423.
2 Alvarez de Paz (torn. Ill, lib. V, pars III, cap. iv) says, too, that
in the prayer of quiet and of union God makes his presence felt by the
soul.
Ube Spanteb Scbool 217
silent and stops to wait in silence, she ceases altogether
from acts of her inferior powers ; for that is impossible,
except in sleep, and it would be very difficult and even dan-
gerous, because it would rather result in idleness and loss
of time and run the risk of having the imagination encroached
upon by a host of chimeras, or the mind disturbed by the
devil through bad or improper thoughts. . . .
" Sometimes there are imaginative representations im-
pressed upon the soul by our Lord ; at others there is a purely
intellectual and most high enlightenment. . . . Then is the
divine Being known in a manner so lofty as to be united
with it so intimately and divinely that God alone can raise
one to such a height by his special grace and favour; and
despite the greatness of that which one then knows, that
which one does not know appears to be an infinite abyss."1
In this kind of prayer there are sometimes extraordinary
effects. When the interior illumination and the ardent affec-
tions of love and union are particularly strong, " the soul is
disconnected with the outward senses and the corporal move-
ments are interrupted, and there is suspension or ecstasy."2
If this happens suddenly and very powerfully there is rap-
ture. When the divine working is more gentle within, it is
called flight of the spirit. In this case, fairly frequently the
body is raised from the ground, and follows the motion of
the spirit which mounts to the contemplation of heavenly
things. For, as Luis de la Puente insists, " the spirit is
neither idle nor asleep. It ceases not to see, to understand,
to hear something, to admire, to rejoice, and to love."
The works of Luis de la Puente did away with the pre-
judices against mysticism. The occurences which gave such
trouble to Balthazar Alvarez were, moreover, already at a
distance and somewhat forgotten. A contemporary Brother
Coadjutor of the Society of Jesus, St Alphonsus Rodriguez,
himself raised to states of extraordinary prayer, was putting
a final touch to the dissipation of old prejudices.
St Alphonsus Rodriguez3 wrote his spiritual autobiography
in memoranda for which he was asked as to what was taking
1 Vie de Balthazar Alvarez, chap, xiv, pp. 128-130. Similar explana-
tions are to be found in Part III of the Spiritual Guide.
2 ibid., p. 131-132.
3 Born at Segovia in 1531. He was first of all in business. He lost
his wife and his two children and experienced reverses of fortune. He
entered the Society of Jesus as Brother Coadjutor in 1571. After his
noviciate at Valencia he was sent to Majorca, where he dwelt until
his death in 1617. He wrote twenty-one memoranda on his mystical
states and therewith composed his Life, which was translated into
French by Fr. de Benaze, Paris, 1890. The opuscula written by
Rodriguez were published at Barcelona as Obras esfirituales del
Beato Alonzo Rodriguez. Several were translated into French :
218 Cbristian Spirituality
place in his soul. He went through the different degrees
of the states of prayer which were known to Balthazar
Alvarez. He seems to have distinguished them according to
the intensity of the feeling of the presence of God in his soul :
" The soul," he says, " knows without any discourse
(because it has passed beyond this degree [of discursive
prayer]) how God is within it, since God gives it the grace
of communicating himself to it in this way. This feeling
of the presence of God is not obtained by way of the imagina-
tion ; but it is in it as a certainty received from on high ; it
is a spiritual and experimental certainty that God is in the
soul and in every place. This presence of God is called an
intellectual presence. It usually lasts a long time. The
more we advance in the service of God the more is this
presence felt and continuous, since God communicates him-
self daily more and more to the soul, if it dispose itself
thereto by a generous mortification of itself."1
In his frequent ecstasies this feeling of the presence of
God became a sort of vision of God :
" This person," he says, speaking of himself, " put him-
self into the presence of God by saying to him lovingly in
heart and word: ' Lord, make me know thee.' And imme-
diately he was raised above all created things. . . . His
knowledge of God, which was immediate and without
reasoning, and consequently his love of God and his intimate
familiarity with him reached such a point that it seemed to
him, so to speak, that God willed to discover himself to
him as if to the blessed."2
Very high teaching about this knowledge of God and of
oneself is to be found in the treatise he wrote On the Union
and Transformation of the Soul in Jesus Christ. The more
we know God, the more we love him. On the contrary, we
hate ourselves the more the more we know of ourselves, and
the more do we keenly desire " blessed sufferings."
The love of sufferings perpetually inspires the spirituality
of Rodriguez and is also the explanation of his life. To
make him suffer was to lay him under an obligation :
" Let us hold as our best friend and benefactor," he said,
" him who persecutes us most, and let us behave ourselves
towards him as towards a benefactor, thanking God for not
forgetting us and for regarding us with tender love, since
V explication des demandes du Pater, Desclee, Lille, 1894; De VUnion
et de la transformation de Vdme en Jisus-Christ, a booklet followed by
other treatises on the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin, the Angels, the
Celebration of Mass, and the Jeux de Dieu avec Vdme, Desclee, Lille,
1899. These are to be found in Vol. II of the Obras del Beato Alonzo
Rodriguez.
1 Vie, de Benaze's translation, no. 40.
2 Vie, n. 12. St Alphonsus Rodriguez experienced the trials reserved
for mystics, Vie, no. 18.
Ube Spanisb Scbool 219
he gives us the grace of suffering- with patience for the love
of himself and of thus winning a magnificent and glorious
crown." x
Moreover, it is God's will to try those whom he loves.
He "plays," to use Rodriguez' own word, "with those who
are devoted to him." We might be tempted to say, did it
not imply a shade of want of respect, that he teases them.
Rodriguez knows how to tell us in a naive and charming
way of God's dealings with the devout soul :
" God bears himself," he says, " towards such a soul as a
tender mother towards her poor little child whom she loves
more than her own life. Such a mother holds her son in
her arms and plays with him ; she gives him little pats on
the cheek, and the child makes faces and begins to cry.
His mother is happy, and soon kisses him tenderly and
gives him her breast, and quiets him with her caresses.
She is so pleased to play with him that she often starts the
loving game over again ; the child begins to cry out and
weep anew, which makes his good mother laugh with
pleasure ; and all this behaviour arises from the mother's
tender love for the fruit of her womb."2
God indulges in a similar game with the soul, and he
goes on with it until the soul has given itself up to him
without reserve.
There is no prejudice against mysticism to be found in
the works of Alvarez de Paz.3 In these there is nothing
but peace : we move in the serene region of theological
principles.
He made the first complete synthesis of ascetical and
mystical theology, much more the work of the theologian
than of the psychologist. Alvarez de Paz is not inclined to
observe with patience the mystical experiences of those
around him. Rather rarely does he describe his own or any-
thing he had remarked in those whom he directed. His is
largely the science of books. He knows fairly fully the
1 De VUnion et de la transformation de Vdme en ]esus-Christ, Lille,
1899, p. no.
2 ibid., pp. 212-213.
8 He was born at Toledo in 1560, and entered the Society of Jesus
in 1578. He studied at Alcala. He was sent to Peru, where he was
successively Rector of the Colleges of Quito, Cuzco, and Lima. He
taught philosophy and theology in the latter town. He died at Potosi
in 1620. The first volume of his works, De vita sfirituali ejusque fer-
fectione, is divided into five books, Lyons, 1608 and 161 1 ; Mayence,
1614. The second, De exterminatione mali et fromotione boni, contains
five treatises also, Lyons, 1613, 1623; Mayence, 1614. The third, De
inquisitione -pads sive studio orationis, Lyons, 1617, 1619, 1623 ;
Mayence, 1619; Cologne, 1620. This, too, has five books. CEuvres
published at Paris, Vives, 1875-1876.
220 Cbristian Spirituality
ascetical and mystical teaching- of the Fathers of the Church
and of the medieval doctors. The writings of contemporaries
he almost ignores. He never read St Teresa, but, on the
other hand, nothing of the teaching of the early schools is
overlooked by him. He knew how to sum up the spirituality
that preceded later days.
He wrote in Latin a treatise of ascetical and mystical
theology. It is not surprising to find therein a methodical
mind sometimes rather fastidiously dividing up the matter of
its studies. But piety and unction tempered any dryness
there might be in philosophical speculations. For Alvarez
de Paz not only desires to impart spiritual teaching, but also
to make men love and practise it. It is related that when he
lectured or preached, he became so fired in speaking of
things spiritual that he used to faint away. He was as much
an orator as he was a theologian. We feel this in his
writings, which are rather prolix and tire the hurried reader.
If we indeed wish to follow and listen to him, we are soon
gripped by his eloquence, and feel a desire to become holier.
Alvarez de Paz takes his disciple — who is a religious — at
the beginning of the spiritual life and leads him on to perfect
contemplation, if he be called thereto.
First of all, he exhorts him to have a high esteem for the
religious life. He next explains the nature of the spiritual
life — which is sanctifying grace — and lays down its degrees.
It may be cultivated in those who are engaged in the life of
action as well as in those whom Providence has called to a
contemplative or mixed life. If the spiritual life grows
normally, it will attain to perfection. Alvarez de Paz defines
such perfection — which consists in the union of the soul with
God by ever-increasing charity — and he shows its excellence
and proves how desirable it is.1
When perfection is known and desired, we must tend
towards it by fleeing from evil and by doing what is right.
This is the subject of the Second Part of the work of Alvarez
de Paz.2 The teaching of spiritual writers on the avoidance
of sin, the destruction of vicious habits, resistance of tempta-
tion, and the mortification of the passions are explained at
length. Then we find a treatise on the Christian and religious
virtues and on the way to acquire them. Humility, poverty,
chastity, and obedience are given the chief place amongst
1 The five books of torn. I (Lyons edition of 1611) are thus entitled :
De incitamentis religiosorum ad vitam sfiritualem consectandam ; De
vita sfirituali et ejus parti bus {de quindccim gradibus ; de vita activa,
contetnflativa et mixta); De natura ferfectionis ; De mirabili dignitate
ferfectionis ; De excitando desiderio ferfectionis.
2 The titles of the five books of torn. II (Lyons, 1612) : De fug a
feccatorum, exlinctione vitiorum et victoria tentationum ; De mortifica-
tione virium animae et abnegatione; De adeftione virtutum; De
humilitate ; De faupertale, castitate et obedientia.
Uhc Spanfsb Scbool 221
these. This part of the work of Alvarez has been translated
and published by itself.1
The great means of perfecting- the spiritual life is prayer,
vocal and mental. Alvarez de Paz, according- to the Spanish
tradition of the period, enters into this subject in detail.2 He
has set down certain particularities of mental prayer which
must be made known.3
After his own method he sets forth the patristic teaching
as to the nature and necessity of mental prayer, as to the
preparation it demands, and the means required for prac-
tising it well and to good advantage. Preachers delight in
his pages, which overflow with pious considerations.4
Alvarez de Paz distinguishes between four kinds of mental
prayer : discursive prayer or meditation — which he calls " in-
tellective " — then affective prayer, next the beginning of con-
templation, and lastly, perfect contemplation. This point of
view was adopted by spiritual writers who came after him.
The first three kinds of prayer are accessible to all ; the fourth,
which is properly mystical, is assigned to those who are
called thereto.
So far no one had clearly defined the nature of affective
prayer, which follows immediately after meditation and pre-
cedes " the beginning of contemplation " — i.e., the " active "
contemplation of later writers. Alvarez de Paz gave this
kind of prayer the name which suited it — affective prayer
(oratio adfectiva) — and this name has clung to it :
" Since mental prayer," he says, " consists in raising the
mind and will to God, it follows, according to spiritual
writers, that there are two kinds of prayer : intellective,
which takes its name from the intelligence ; and affective,
which is so named because it is made by the affections of the
will."5
1 Under different titles : Exercice journalier des vertus, Douai, 1625 ;
and Traiti des vertus, Brouillon, Paris, 1838.
2 The whole contents of torn. Ill, in five books (Lyons, 1617) : De
oratione turn vocali turn ?nentali ; De his quae praecedunt, comitantur
et sequuntur orationem mentalem; De materia orationis mentalis ; De
affectibus orationis mentalis; De perfecta contemplatione et de dis-
cretione spirituum.
8 At the beginning of torn. Ill (lib. I, pars I and II) Alvarez shows
the need and explains the effects of prayer in general. He then shows
how to pray well vocally by reciting the Hours. The rest of the volume
deals with mental prayer.
4 Lib. I-II. With regard to discursive meditation, Alvarez de Paz
(lib. I, pars III) recalls all the medieval theories {cogitatio, meditatio,
contemplatio). In Book III, he sets forth the subjects of prayer [materia
orationis mentalis). The subjects for beginners are sin and the last
things, those of the proficients are the mysteries of our Lord's life, and
those of the perfect are the attributes of God. The subjects of the pro-
ficients may be had in French, Meditation sur la vie de Notre-Seigneur,
Le Muller, Besancon, 1847, 1848; Tournai, i860.
6 Lib. I, pars III, cap. vi, torn. Ill, col. 205, Lyons, 1617.
222 Cbrtstian Spirituality
But he explains that intellective prayer is not made up
solely of speculative considerations : it would then be simply
a study. If we reflect, it is to attain to prayer and to doing
what is good. In the same way, affective prayer does not
entirely exclude reflections. Both kinds of prayer are char-
acterized by what predominates in them.
Alvarez de Paz sets out at length the theory of the affective
states and shows how to use them in the pursuit of the good.
Affection is the movement of the soul turning towards what
pleases it or away from what displeases it. It starts from the
will when originating from an idea, and from the sensibility
when resulting from a sensation. Its end is good or evil.1
The aim of prayer is to give rise to strong affective impulses
which make us hate vice and love virtue. The role of the
intellect is to stimulate them by means of the idea. In affec-
tive prayer, ideas are few, but pious desires and emotions
fill the soul. The will and the feelings are thus strongly borne
towards God and goodness. Energetic resolutions then carry
out what is felt.2 Affective prayer also obtains divine help
more effectively, for it is nothing but pure prayer.
" Even if you were to make no petition," says Alvarez,
" if you are in the presence of God and desire the good,
groaning because you have gone away from it, you will be
answered just as if you had made a petition. And even if
you have expressed no desire, yet if your heart is ready to
act and is prepared to do the right, putting its trust not in
itself but in God, such readiness will be counted as a prayer,
and the grace needed for action will be granted you."3
Alvarez de Paz has a preference for affective devotion, and
herein follows the tradition of St Teresa and the Spanish
School.
Whoever has followed out the ways of discursive medita-
tion and affective prayer with devout fervour will merit being
raised to contemplation.4 But here it is important to observe
that there is a degree of contemplation, " the beginning of
contemplation (inchoata contemplatio), which we must en-
deavour to attain, and another, " perfect contemplation "
(perfecta contemplatio), which may be desired and even asked
for, but which it would be indiscreet to pursue, for only a
special grace can bring us thereto :
" If it be a question," says Alvarez de Paz, " of the begin-
ning of contemplation (de inchoata contemplatione), in which
1 Tom. Ill, lib. IV, Proemium, col. 934.
2 Tom. Ill, col. 937 ff.
3 Col. 943. Alvarez de Paz shows how beginners, proficients, and the
perfect practice affective prayer, lib. IV, part. I-III, torn. Ill, col. 950-
1220.
1 Tom. Ill, lib. V, col. 1221.
Uhc SpanisblScbool 223
anyone leaves all reasoning- and keeps himself in the presence
of our Lord Christ or of the Blessed Trinity, with his heart
burning- with love, to me it seems certain that a soul purified
from its vices, freed from bad and unruly affections, and
adorned with virtues, can, and ought, after having practised
meditation, to try to attain it. . . .
"If we now speak of perfect contemplation (de perfecta con-
templatione), let us remember that it is of two kinds. There
are, first of all, the extraordinary gifts of contemplation
bestowed by God on some holy souls, such as ecstasies,
raptures, corporal or imaginative apparitions, and other
things of the sort. It is neither permitted to desire such gifts
nor still less to try to bring them about. It would be an act
of ridiculous pride. . . . The other kind of perfect contem-
plation consists in a simple knowledge of God, without any
mental consideration, effected by the gift of Wisdom raising
the soul, suspending the powers, throwing it into a state of
admiration, giving it joy, and enkindling it with the fire of
ardent love. Souls called to perfection, if very mortified,
and if they have cultivated virtue and are devoted to prayer,
must prepare for this contemplation by greater purity and
by the means of which I have spoken. May they also desire
it keenly and ask it humbly of God? Why not? It is the
most efficacious way of winning perfection. . . . However,
though it be expedient and right for the perfect who are
stripped of their vices and possess all the virtues to ask it of
God in all humility, yet no one should seek to attain it or try
to abide in it; for that does not depend on man's efforts, but
on God's liberality."1
Thus, according to Alvarez de Paz, there are two kinds
of contemplation, one accessible to all indiscriminately, for
which all should prepare. It depends upon us alone to attain
to it with the help of ordinary grace. This is " the begin-
ning of contemplation," later called " active " or " acquired "
contemplation. Alvarez de Paz does but echo the Spanish
School, which threw this sort of contemplation into relief and
defined its nature. The other is perfect contemplation, the
" infused" contemplation of the moderns.
His terminology is less precise when he is enumerating
the degrees of perfect contemplation. He reckons fifteen of
them !2 Here, indeed, he does but compile and heap together,
1 Nemo debet ad earn conari, aut quasi in ea se fonere, quia non est
id in fotestate humana, sed venit ex benignitate divina. Lib. V,
pars II, cap. xiii, col. 1381-1382. Alvarez de Paz speaks at length of
the preparations for contemplation. He draws much from Gerson,
col. 1231-1324. So, too, when he treats of the nature of contemplation,
col. 1323.
2 These are : intuition of the truth, interior recollection, spiritual
silence, quiet, union, hearing God's voice, spiritual sleep, ecstasy,
rapture, corporal visions, imaginative visions, intellectual visions,
224 Cbristtan Spirituality
without sufficient discernment, the teaching- he found in the
old spiritual writers. The gradation of the contemplative
states which he gives does not correspond with the reality,
nor was it followed afterwards. Often he takes some
secondary circumstance of a mystical state for a specifically
different degree of contemplation. On the other hand, he
passes over in silence the mystical marriage, which is re-
garded as the highest degree of mystical union. Alvarez de
Paz considers that the highest degree of perfect contempla-
tion is the intuitive vision of God.
For very short moments, is it possible for man to enjoy
such ineffable vision while on earth ? There is much con-
troversy about it among spiritual writers. All agree that
Moses, St Paul, and the Blessed Virgin Mary enjoyed this
privilege ; several think that it has been accorded to other
holy persons, and in particular to St Benedict and St Igna-
tius of Loyola. There are some, indeed — St Bonaventure,
Harphius, and Ruysbroeck are among them — who believe
that those who are raised to a very high degree of sanctity
see God intuitively from time to time with the swiftness of
a flash of lightning. Alvarez de Paz is not among these.
He reckons that — excepting Moses, St Paul, the Blessed
Virgin Mary, and perhaps two or three other saints — no one
on earth intuitively perceives the divine Essence.1
Ill— THE THREE CONCEPTIONS OF MYSTICAL
CONTEMPLATION: " QUIETIST " CONTEMPLA-
TION, " ANTI-INTELLECTUALIST " CONTEM-
PLATION, AND " INTELLECTUALIST " CON-
TEMPLATION—FRANCIS SUAREZ2
When Spanish theologians were synthesizing spirituality at
the beginning of the seventeenth century, various problems,
divine darkness, the clear manifestation of God, the intuitive vision of
God. Luis de la Puente used several of these terms to designate
mystical union or contemplation.
1 Lib. V, pars III, cap. xv, col. 1463 ff. In chap, xvi Alvarez de
Paz speaks of the most keen spiritual sweetness which accompanies con-
templation. Then he finishes his work with a treatise on the discern-
ment of spirits (pars IV). We must also note, among the Spanish
Jesuits, Pedro Sanchez, who wrote the Libro del regno de Dios for the
Fathers of the Society, Madrid, 1594. French translation by G.
Levite, O.P., Paris, 1608-1609. Alonzo d'Andrada wrote Meditations
for every Day in the Year, and translated the ascetical works of
Bellarmine into Spanish.
2 Francis Suarez, like Alvarez de Paz, summed up and discussed the
opinions of his forerunners and contemporaries. He is rather theologian
of dogma and morals than of spirituality. Nevertheless his treatise De
Oratione, especially Book II, dealing with prayer and contemplation,
is a treatise of spirituality. His treatise De statu ferjectionis contains
ftbe Spaniel) Scbool -225
only suspected hitherto, stood clearly forth. One of the most
interesting of them concerns the very essence of contempla-
tion, the nature of mystical union. Can contemplation arise
without any knowledge of the mind and without any act of
the will?
The different solutions put forward showed the diverse
conceptions of mysticism formed by the early or modern
writers.
In the opinion of many spiritual writers, the soul is entirely
passive in mystical contemplation. It is so absorbed in the
object of contemplation that neither its understanding nor its
will are in a state of activity. " This kind of prayer," says
Suarez, " is called the prayer of silence, the spiritual sleep."1
The soul says nothing, it does not act ; it waits for God to
speak to it. This sort of contemplation may be termed
' quietist," giving the word its etymological meaning.
This notion of contemplation comes from the Areopagite,
who counsels the mystic, if he wishes to be united with God,
always to become disentangled not only from the senses, but
from every operation of the mind, and to raise himself by
unknowing to the divine darkness. The German mystics,
and particularly Tauler, accept this view. No doubt the soul
prepares for contemplation by its own efforts, but when it has
reached it, it must cease to act and remain passive under the
action of God : Potius divina patiens quam agens.
On metaphysical grounds scholastic theologians reject this
teaching : " No mode of mental prayer can be imagined," says
Suarez, " in which the understanding and the will would be
absolutely passive."2 If we do not think of God in any way,
how can we know that we are praying to him? And if the
will be not attached to him, how can we say that it loves
him? To that the reply is that the mystics discover higher
spiritual regions unexplored by metaphysicians. They call
them the " bottom " or " summit of the soul " or otherwise,
and there it is that they believe that intimate union with God
takes place in the silence of all the faculties.
However, most spiritual writers reject such radical notions.
According to them, the soul is but partially passive. The
the classic notion of perfection (lib. I, cap. iii-iv). Therein he studies
the religious state and the vows of the religious life. Francis Suarez,
the Jesuit theologian, was born at Granada in 1548. He taught theology
with great success at Alcala, Salamanca, and Coimbra in Portugal. He
died at Lisbon in 1617. His works were published at Lyons, 1630, at
Venice, 1740, and at Paris in 1859 (Vives).
1 Suarez, De Oratione, lib. II, cap. xii, 1.
2 ibid., 2. Cf. Melchior de Villanueva (ti6o6), Libro de la oracion
mental, Toledo, 1608.
III. I5
226 Cbtistlan Spirituality
mind does not act in contemplation, but the will is active and
makes acts of love. When the mystic is raised to the highest
states, he loves God without any actually accompanying
knowledge of him. The soul behaves as if it were solely
affective and without understanding. Everyone knows that
the more perfect mental prayer becomes, the more is it
simplified and the rarer are its reasonings. A time may come
when the mind altogether ceases to act ; only the will con-
tinues to do so by expressing its love for God. Such is
" anti-intellectualist " contemplation. What are we to think
of it?
" It is a question long and sharply disputed, not only by the
spiritual writers, but also by the doctors of the school," says
Alvarez de Paz.1 He considers that at the beginning of
mystical prayer there is a knowledge of God, but that after-
wards nothing but love remains. The soul is united to
God by the will only. Alvarez de Paz, as we know, favours
affective devotion. He dissertates at length on affective
prayer. It is not surprising that he believes in the possi-
bility of a purely affective contemplation in which the under-
standing takes no part. A good many medieval spiritual
writers set forth, as we have seen, an anti-intellectual kind of
mysticism. Nicolas of Cusa, and the writer of the Docta
Ignorantia, Hugh of Palma, are the most famous among
them.2 They thought that no knowledge was necessary for
mystical union, either before or whilst it was taking place :
Sine cognitione praevia aut concomitante.
But according to most of the scholastic theologians, con-
templation is always intellectual : "It is probable," states
Suarez, " that it is impossible for the affective part of the
soul to act without the previous knowledge required for its
action."3 Thus, the will is unable to make an act of love for
God if the intellect has no actual knowledge of him whom it
loves. It can only tend towards its object when this is pre-
viously known. This celebrated theologian proves this thesis
at length and leaves not one of the anti-intellectualist objec-
tions unanswered. His conclusion — which is regarded as
classical among the scholastics — is that, even in the highest
mystical states, the intellect is never altogether passive. The
outward senses alone, in ecstasy, may be totally suspended.
However, on other points, Suarez diverges from the gener-
ally received views. Thus, he considers that the intuitive
vision of God may occur in the soul without being accom-
panied by ecstasy.4 Christ, in fact, enjoyed such vision,
and nevertheless he acted as other men do. Hence we may
1 Tom. Ill, lib. IV, pars III, col. 1123 ff.
2 St Bonaventure and Gerson are strongly in favour of purely affective
mysticism.
8 De oratione, lib. II, cap. xiii, 7. 4 ibid., cap. xvi.
XTbe Spanfsb Scbool 227
infer that ecstasy is rather a sign of the weakness of man's
organism, than a condition of the highest spiritual union with
God. It is a " crisis of growth." When anyone is raised
to the most perfect states, it ceases to occur. Such, too,
was indeed the idea of St Teresa : " When the soul has once
reached this place (the Seventh Mansion of the Castle), it has
no more raptures, or, if it has, which very rarely happens,
they are not uplifting- and flights of the spirit such as I have
spoken of."1
The problems raised about the subject of prayer have always
aroused the passionate interest of the spiritual writers of
Spain. In the seventeenth century treatises on prayer
swarmed in that country.2
IV— THE VENERABLE MARY OF AGREDA3
Mary of Agreda originated a new kind of mystical writings.
This is partly the reason of her name becoming the butt of
such lively contradictions.
1 Interior Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap, iii, CEuvres, VI, p. 300.
* Here are the principal Spanish treatises on prayer belonging to
the seventeenth century: Arte de bien vivir y guia de los caminos del
cielo, 1608, by the Benedictine, Antonio de Alvarado, who reproduces
in his treatise a Tratado del conocimiento oscuro de Dios, attributed to
St John of the Cross {Obras de San Juan de la Cruz, torn. Ill); De la
oracion mental, y via unitiva, Valencia, 161 1, by Antonio Pascal, O.M. ;
De oratione et contemplatione, Lisbon, 161 1, in Portuguese, Alphonso
de Medina, O.M. ; Exercicios espirituales de las excelencias, provecho,
y necesidad de la oracion mental, Burgos, 1615, by the Carthusian,
Antonio de Molina ; the Obras of Blessed John Baptist of the Concep-
tion, Trinitarian (-t-1613), Rome, 1830; Navegacion segura far a el cielo,
Valencia, 1611, by Jerome de Segorbe, Capuchin; Vuelo del espiritu
y escala de perfeccion, Seville, 1612, El solitario contemplativo y guia
espiritual, Lisbon, 1616, by George of St Joseph, of the Order of
Mercy ; De la vida espiritual, y perfeccidn Christiana, Valencia, 1612,
by Antonio Sobrino, O.M. ; Mistica Theulugia y doctrina de la per-
feccidn Evangelica, by the Minim, John Breton, Madrid, 1614; Luz
de las maravillas que Dios ha obradas per visiones y hablas corporales,
imaginarias, y intelectuales , by the Benedictine, Leander de Granada,
Manriquez, Valladolid, 1617; Desengano de religiosos y de almas que
tratan de virtud, by Mary de la Antigua, religious of Mercy (+1617),
Seville, 1678 ; Mystica theologia et exercitium Fidei divinae et orationis
mentalis, by the Minim Ferdinand Caldera, Madrid, 1623, French and
Italian translations ; Philip de Luz, Augustinian, Tratado da vida con-
templativa, Lisbon, 1627 ; Jerome Planes, Examen de revelaciones
verdaderas y falsas, y de los raptos, Valencia, 1634 ; Gabriel Lopez
Navarro, Minim, Theulugia mistica, union y junta perfecta del Alma
con Dios por medio de la contemplacion, Madrid, 1641 ; Augustine of
St Alphonsus, Augustinian, Theulugia mistica: scientia y sabiduria de
Dios, mysteriosa, obscura, y levantada para muchos, Alcala, 1644 ;
Paul de Vasconellos, of the Order of our Lord Jesus Christ, Arte
spiritual que ensina 0 que he necessario para a meditacao e contem-
placao, Lisbon, 1649.
8 Born at Agreda in Spain in 1602, she entered the monastery of
the Immaculate Conception of the Order of St Francis in the same
228 Christian Spirituality
This famous Franciscan nun was the first, apparently, to
have the idea of completing- the Gospel story with her own
special revelations. Anne Catherine Emmerich, at the begin-
ning- of the nineteenth century, resumed the same kind of
enterprise with greater success.
In fact, Mary of Agreda claimed to write a detailed history
of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We know how sparing of in-
formation are the Gospels about the earthly life of the Mother
of God. Could not the mystics who had revelations fill up
this gap? Mary of Agreda believed she was called to fulfil
this task. Her famous Mystical City of God is presented as
" a divine story and a life of the Virgin Mother of God."
She relates minutely, and as revealed by angels, all the occur-
rences that preceded Mary's birth, then those of her life until
her death. The story is interspersed with edifying mystical
considerations.
Apparently there are no errors of doctrine in the work of
Mary of Agreda, but what historical improbabilities ! Often
imaginative fancies are taken — in perfect good faith — for
authentic revelations. And what is more, Mary of Agreda
seems to be well up in such apocryphal writings as The
Infancy of Jesus and The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. Her work was bound to incur criticism.
This was not slow in forthcoming. The book appeared
in Spanish at Madrid in 1670, five years after the death of
Mary of Agreda. Its novelty and also its author's reputa-
tion for sanctity won an extraordinary vogue for it. But
very ardent controversies arose, so that Pope Innocent III
in 1681 forbade the reading of the Mystical City. However,
advice deferring the execution of his decree on the pressure
brought to bear on him by Charles III of Spain.
The French translation of Mary of Agreda's book, pub-
lished at Marseilles in 1695, revived the discussions, and next
year they became more impassioned than ever. On Septem-
ber 17, 1698, the Sorbonne condemned The Mystical City of
God as containing rash assertions and apocryphal revelations
" of such a nature as to expose the Catholic religion to the
town. She was Abbess of this monastery until her death in 1665. She
enjoyed a great reputation for sanctity. Her cause for canonization
was introduced in 1673, but was not successful. Mary of Agreda was
a correspondent of Philip IV of Spain. This king's letters were
published at Madrid in 1890 : Car/as de la ven. madre sor Maria de
Agreda y del sehor Rey Felipe IV . The most celebrated mystical work
of Mary of Agreda is a history of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded
on her revelations : La mistica ciudad de Dios . . ., historia divina
y vida de la virgen madre de Dios . . ., written from 1655 to 1660 and
published at Madrid in 1670 after the writer's death. Mary of Agreda
left other ascetical and mystical writings which were never published.
The bibliography of Mary of Agreda will be found in the Did. de
theol. cath., art. Agreda (Marie d').
XTbe Spanfsb Scbool 229
contempt of the ungodly and of heretics." Bossuet1 pro-
nounced a very harsh judgement on the book. Eusebius
Acort, the learned Canon Regular of Pollingen, is no less
formidable than the Bishop of Meaux in his attacks on the
work of Mary of Agreda.2
These sharp discussions did harm to the memory of the
celebrated nun. They put a stop to the cause of her canon-
ization.
1 Remark on The Mystical City of God.
1 De revehitionibus, visionibus, et affaritionibus frivatis regulae
tutae, Augsburg, 1744; Controversia de reveiationibus Agredianis . . .,
Augsburg, 1749.
CHAPTER IX
THE ITALIAN SCHOOL IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY— ITS
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS — THE CHIEF ITALIAN
SPIRITUAL WRITERS1
SPANISH spirituality, which was of a practical nature
at the beginning- of the sixteenth century, became
theoretical and scientific with and after St John of
the Cross. Italian spirituality was always directed
towards the practical and was less speculative.
As was the case in France in the sixteenth century, it is
spirituality in action, in the religious communities and in
the lives of the saints, rather than spirituality in theory or in
books. It was, moreover, spirituality as opposed to the
paganism of the Renaissance and to Protestant heresy.
Those responsible for the Renaissance in Italy, or many
among- them, were frankly pagan. The lively Italian imagin-
ation had been dazzled and fascinated by the new birth of
antiquity. Hence, the great decline in morality, against
which the spiritual writers reacted. This spirit of reaction
against the almost universal laxity is shown in their teaching.
Italian asceticism was definitely arrayed in spiritual combat
against self, for when self is vanquished and vice subdued
the corruption around is little to be feared. This movement
of energetic spirituality and inward conflict seems to have
begun first among the Theatines and the Barnabites. John-
Baptist Carioni, the Dominican, often known as Baptist da
Crema, from the place of his birth, who acted as director
to St Cajetan of Thiena, founder of the Theatines, and of
St Antony Mary Zaccaria, one of the originators of the
Barnabites, brought all his spirituality to bear on the know-
ledge of and victory over self.2 It was from his circle of
disciples that there was to come later on that famous book The
Spiritual Combat, in which we are urged to continual warfare
against ourselves.
Heresy was even more to be feared than worldly-minded-
ness : " As regards heretics and their dangerous opinions,"
1 Cf. G. Tiraboschi, Storia delta Letteratura italiana, Florence,
1805-1813; Tachi-Venturi, Storia delta Comfagnia di Gesu in Italia,
La vita religiosa in Italia durante la -prima eta delta Comfagnia di
Gesu, Rome, 7910, Vol. I.
2 Concerning the Knowledge of and Victory over Self, Milan, 1532,
is the title of one of his chief works on spirituality.
230
XTbe Italian Scbool 231
St Angela Mcrici (11540) counselled her daughters the Ursu-
lines, " as soon as you hear of a preacher or anyone else that
he is suspected of sharing- in these errors and allowing these
novelties, contrary to the teaching- and practice of the Church
or to the principles which you have received from us, imme-
diately keep your daughters [pupils] away."1
The universal advice given to those who desire to preserve
intact their faith was not to dispute with error, but to fly
from it. "If the enemy suggest to you some false and
captious reasoning, be on your guard against arguing with
him," advises the author of the Spiritual Combat.2 Protes-
tantism made fewer ravages in Italy than elsewhere. Its
coldness, lacking all aesthetic form, with nothing to appeal
to the senses, bewildered the expansive Italian temperament,
which yearns for outward demonstration. The Inquisition,
nevertheless, must have dealt vigorously with it from time to
time. The discreet and individual work of the spiritual-
minded was doubtless a still more efficacious means of pre-
servation.
Italian spirituality furthermore was one of the best agencies
of the Catholic counter-reformation. It was in the sixteenth
century in Italy, as in Spain, that there arose those magnifi-
cent institutions for the renewal of Christian life. The
Theatines of St Cajetan, the Oblates of St Charles Borromeo,
and the Oratorians of St Philip Neri (f 1 595) laboured to
uplift the secular clergy. The Fathers of Christian Doctrine
of Caesar de Bus (-j-1607), the Fathers of the Pious Schools
of St Joseph Calasanza (11648), the Ursulines of St Angela
Merici, and others, undertook to instruct and bring up young
boys and girls. The mysticism of these holy persons impelled
them to action ; like all true mysticism it was creative. After
reforming self others must be reformed. " He has conquered
himself, he has overcome the world and the flesh " was said
of St Charles Borromeo. His life "is so exemplary that
through example he does more good in the Court of Rome
than all the decrees of the Council of Trent."3 Living his
asceticism he knew how to find the means of bringing others
to live it also.
" In the Catholic Church, as everywhere else, reforms are
first of all the work of certain individuals who earnestly desire
them, and end by imposing them on public opinion and on the
regular agencies of the hierarchy. This is what happened in
1 Souvenirs ou avis de Saint e Angele, j* souvenir, Saint e Angele
Merici et Vordre des Ursulines, Paris, 1922, Vol. I, p. 417. " Know,"
she says again, " that you will have to defend your little flock against
wolves and thieves, two kinds of plagues which I point out to you :
I mean worldly-mindedness and heretics." Ibid.
3 Chap, lxiii.
3 De Hubner, Sixte-Quint, French translation, Vol. I, p. 64, Paris,
1870.
232 Cbrfstian Spirituality
the sixteenth century."1 It is thus that Catholic mystics
have acted in every ag-e.
Italian mysticism, moreover, effected reform in another way
which carries us back to the heart of the Middle Ages, to the
time of St Bridget and St Catherine of Siena. In the six-
teenth century, as much as in the centuries preceding it, the
reform of the Church was spoken of by all. St Angela Merici
recommended her religious to pray and to make others pray
" that God forsake not his Church, but reform it himself in
accordance with his good will and in the way he knows to
be best for us and most able to promote his glory."2 St
Magdalen dei Pazzi (fi6o7) was not content only to pray.
In her Carmel at Florence she dictated letters during her
ecstasy, addressed to the Cardinals of the Roman Curia, to
the bishops, and even to Pope Sixtus V, begging them on
behalf of God to labour for the renewal of the Church. In
1586 she wrote to the " Most illustrious cardinals present at
the Apostolic See " :
" The humble servant of the Lamb that was slain and of
the Word incarnate, Christ crucified, compelled by the sweet
truth and unity of the most Holy Trinity, and especially by
her loving Spouse — I say : compelled, and let them be pleased
to note what I say : compelled — to reveal to them something
that is not less pleasing to God than profitable to creatures,
to wit, his wish to reform the Church his Spouse, through you
his ministers and the chief members of this same Church."3
And in fiery accents she goes on to unfold the urgent
reasons for undertaking this work of Catholic restoration
without delay.
Another mystic belonging to the Dominican convent of
Prato near Florence, St Catherine de Ricci (f 1590), who also
was fired with the desire for the reform of the Church, wrote
urgent letters to warn the cardinals, to reprimand when needful
the bishops, and to encourage those who laboured for the
glory of God.4
This display of reforming activity, this inward combat,
resolute and austere against self, is usually found hidden
beneath attractive externals. Italy of the sixteenth century
1 A. Baudrillart, L'£glise catholique, la Renaissance et le Protes-
tantisme, p. 225.
2 Sainte Ang'ele Merici, ibid., p. 417.
3 Lettres de sainte Marie-Madeleine de Pazzi, French translation by
M. Vaussard, Revue d'ascetigue et de mystique, April, 1924, p. 160.
These Letters were never sent to those for whom they were destined.
The saint's superiors were opposed to it. They were published in 1893
at Florence in the saint's Complete Works.
■4 Cesare Guasti, Letters of St Catherine de Ricci, Prato, 1861,
Florence, 1890.
Uhe Italian Scbool 233
possesses a lovable spirituality which gives the impression
of moderation and balance. " The warlike soul of Spain
vibrates in St Ignatius and St Teresa."1 Its most wonderful
outbursts and its most ardent affective impulses almost always
show forth the austerity which maintains them.
This austerity exists — who can doubt it? — in Italian
spirituality, but more often than not it is delicately veiled.
St Francis de Sales carefully noted this characteristic of
mystical Italy and his piety was impressed with it.
Doubtless it is in Italy that the Renaissance exercised the
greatest influence on spirituality. The Christian humanists
of the peninsula dreamed of a religion " wholly of art and
charity, of beauty and of love."3 The optimistic calm and
joyous rhythm of Raphael belong much more to their spirit
than does the pessimism of Michael Angelo. Cardinal
Sadolet, secretary to Leo X and Bishop of Carpentras, is a
perfect tvpe of this humanism. " His Christianity enlarges
the heart because in it are summed up goodness and charity ;
he has no bitterness or sadness, he becomes all things to all
men in order to win all things and all men."3 It may be
thought, however, that this Christianity is too forgetful of
mortification. The Italian mystics, as we have already seen,
eschew this forgetfulness. But for the greater part they
found delight in the beautiful and consoling- aspects of
Christian life, in whatever dilates the heart and attracts souls.
St Philip Neri, " the loving saint par excellence " had hymns,
canticles, and Palestrina's motets at the gatherings of his
first disciples in Rome. He ever had on his lips these gentle
words : " My children, be joyful. . . . The spirit of joy wins
Christian perfection more easily than does the spirit of sad-
ness."4 There must be no melancholy, even among thorns,
says in turn St Catherine de Ricci. And again St Magdalen
de Pazzi declared that " God does not want a sad heart. He
wants it to be free and joyous."5 God is a Father even
more than a Judge.
A religion of art and beauty, Christianity is above all a
religion of love. Italian humanism repeats this often enough
and in a manner gives proof of it. It says : " Christianity
1 A. Baudrillart, p. 218.
2 De Maulde la Claviere, Saint Gaetan, Paris, 1905, p. 17.
8 id., p. 69.
4 Cardinal Capecelatro, Life of St Philif Neri, Benin's French trans-
lation, Vol. I, p. 512, Paris, 1889.
5 CEuvres de sainte Marie-Madeleine de Pazzi, French translation
by Bruniaux, Paris, 1873, Vol. I, p. 512. Cf. pp. 176-177, where the
saint speaks of the happy consequences of original sin. Heureuse
faute! There is the same optimism in the spirituality of Blessed
Bellarmine. Cf. Monier-Vinard, Le Bienheureux Cardinal Bellarmin et
St Francois de Sales [Revue d'ascitique et de mystique, July, 1923,
pp. 225 ff).
J •< ■
234 Cbristian Spirituality
is less an ultimate knowledge of thing-s than the bond between
men and God and between themselves, a bond of love and
grace . . . the role of religion is to produce tenderness, to
make men gentle and by means of this to give them real
personal energy and other social virtues, goodness, unity —
in a word, happiness."1 In the Middle Ages the mystics of
Italy, St Francis of Assisi and St Bonaventure among others,
well knew how to act on the feelings in order to raise man
to God, though in quite another way.
With the thought of these mystical tendencies of the
Middle Ages the humanists mingled the teachings of Plato.
We know that the Platonic theories were held in high honour
in Italy of the Renaissance. Many looked upon them as an
introduction to mysticism.2 " The idea that the visible world
was created by the God of love, that it is the reproduction of
a design, pre-existing in him, and that it will ever receive
from its creator its life and movement,"3 that the human
soul is able to expand, to become indefinitely enlarged, thanks
to divine love, this idea was drawn as much from the
writings of Plato as from the teachings of ecclesiastical
writers. Moreover, the humanists delighted to discourse on
love. Bembo, secretary to Leo X, who wrote only too well
of human love, maintains that " love is one, and from par-
ticular love we pass to love that is ideal, and from the ideal
to love that is divine."* A more accurate conception of the
genesis of divine love will be found in the Dialogues attri-
buted to St Catherine of Genoa, in the Works of St Mary
Magdalen dei Pazzi and in the ascetic treatises of Blessed
Robert Bellarmine.
In spite of everything the humanists rendered the doctrine
of divine love familiar. It is to be found, more or less
mingled, in all the religious writings of the Italy of the
sixteenth century. It took so great a hold on the public
mind that in 15 16, at Rome, they started the secret society,
which very soon became famous, of the Oratorio del divino
Amore. Its members busied themselves with the beauty of
religion and with the needed reforms of the Church, and
took up the work of charity towards the unfortunate. The
Divino Amore very soon " increased in Italy by means of
numerous branches like a kind of freemasonry."6 Its chief
1 De Maulde la Claviere, p. 167.
2 Stephen Conventius, a religious of the Congregation of St Saviour,
wrote a book of this kind : De ascensu mentis in Deum ex flatonica et
ferifatetica doctrina libri sex, Venice, 1563. See also Philosofhia
flatonica, by the Franciscan, Peter Calauna, Palermo, 159Q.
3 J. Burckhardt, La civilisation en Italie au temps de la Renaissance,
French translation, Schmidt, Vol. II, pp. 346-347.
4 In his Dialogues on Love (Gli Asolani), John Francis Pico de la
Mirandola also produced a treatise, De Amore divino, dedicated to
Leo X.
6 Be Maulde la Claviere, St Ga'etan, p. 32.
XEbe Italian Scbool 235
founder was Ettore Vernazza, a disciple of St Catherine of
Genoa, the great founder in the sixteenth century of Italian
hospitals.1 Sadolet and St Cajetan were the first to join it.
This association was not unconnected with the magnificent
outburst of charitable works of every kind which were so
admirable in Italy of the Renaissance.
I— JOHN BAPTIST CARIONI, DOMINICAN (BATTISTA
DA CREMA), AND SERAFINO DA FERMO,
CANON REGULAR, LEADERS OF THE CANONS
REGULAR— THE FOUNDERS OF THE CONGRE-
GATIONS OF THE ITALIAN CLERKS REGULAR
Jerome Savonarola (11498) in his sermons and in his
writings strove vigorously in Florence against the pagan
morals of the Renaissance. Some years later his less famous
confrere, John Baptist Carioni,2 the Dominican, was to be-
come one of the originators of the Catholic reaction in Italian
spirituality.
Baptist da Crema, as he was commonly known, was a fine
worker in the reform of morals, both as a preacher and as a
director of souls.3 To extend his influence he wrote several
spiritual treatises, in which he dealt especially with the need
of reaction against the general corruption, and also with
men's prevalent vices, both inward and outward, and with
the remedies against them. Like all reformers, he insists on
personal effort. He " marches at the head of this movement
in spirituality which was to go on increasing in the course
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which so much
stress is laid on voluntary effort and the expansion of outward
activity. Baptist da Crema is a teacher of spiritual energy
1 F. Von Hiigel, The Mystical Elements of Religion as Studied in
Saint Catherine of Genoa and her Friends, London, 1908, Vol. I,
p. 140; Tacchi Venturi, Storia della Comfagnia di Gcsu in Italia,
Rome, 1910, Vol. I, p. 497; L. Pastor, Histoire des Pafes, French
translation, Vol. VIII, 2nd edition, p. 345.
8 Born at Crema near Milan, he died at Guastalla, in the duchy of
Parma, in 1534. He joined the Dominicans of the Province of Lom-
bardy. He was a gifted preacher and a good director of souls. Cf.
G. Salvadori, San Gaetano da Thiene et la Riforma cattolica italiana,
French translation with historical notes added, by Maulde la Claviere ;
Premoli, Barnabite, Fra Battista da Crema secondo documenti inediti,
Roma, 1910; by the same author, San Gaetano Thiene e Fra Battista
da Crema (Revista di Scienze storiche, Pavia, VII, 1910, fasc. VII-
VIII) ; and also Storia dei Barnabiti nel Cinquecento, Roma, 1913,
pp. 4-6, 13-15, 30-32, 108-113, 198-200.
3 Via di a-perta verita, Venice, 1523, often republished; Della cogni-
tione et vitioria di se stesso, Milan, 1531, republished several times;
Sfecchio interiore, Milan, 1532; Filosofia divina, Venice, 1545. Cf.
Storia dei Barnabiti, pp. 10S ff., 510.
236 Cbristiatt Spirituality
for the work of reform of self and of Christian society. From
this point of view, as well as several others, he takes a prom-
inent place with the initiators of the prevailing spirit and
spirituality of the Clerks Regular. "*
Was this spirituality, quite " Molinist " in anticipation and
inspired by the writings of Cassian, the cause of certain
difficulties which Baptist da Crema had with his Order?
Semi-pelagian tendencies were constantly thought to be found
in his writings, nor did he treat the question of pure dis-
interested love with accuracy. Lively discussions arose, and,
after the death of Baptist da Crema in 1552, ecclesiastical
authority, which was as specially rigid at this period in Italy
as it was in Spain, placed his writings on the Index.2
The disgrace was posthumous. When he was alive, in
spite of difficulties which his superiors, Baptist da Crema
exercised a real influence on several choice souls. St Cajetan,
founder of the Theatines, and St Antony Mary Zaccaria, the
chief founder of the Barnabites, were directed by him at a
moment when they were seeking their way. The Countess of
Guastalla, Louisa di Torelli, who instituted the congregation
of the Angelicals or Guastallines, in order to help the Barna-
bites in their apostolate among women, had also been led
towards the religious life by the zealous Dominican.
One of the great admirers of Baptist da Crema was
Serafino Aceto da Portis, Canon of the Lateran, more often
known as Serafino da Fermo. Serafino published a collection
of tracts at Milan in 1538,3 more or less inspired by the
Dominican de Crema, which were translated into Castilian
in 1551. Luis of Granada had read them when he published
his famous Book of Prayer and Meditation in 1554. Serafino
da Fermo became the defender of Baptist da Crema. He
wrote an apology for his teaching,4 which, however, did not
prevent it from being condemned. Desirous as he was for
the reform of the Church, the pious canon greatly encouraged
1 P. Mandonnet, O.P., Preface to the Victoire sur soi-meme de Mel-
chior Cano, Paris, 1923, p. 11.
3 They are no longer on the Index since 1900. With reference to this
incident which troubled the Order of Barnabites, 6ee Premoli, Storia
del Barnabiti, cap. vii, pp. 108-112; cap. xii, p. 197-200. Melchior
Cano thought Baptist da Crema as dangerous as Tauler and Harphius.
8 Oferette sfirituali. These tracts are : Of the Conversion of the
sinner; Of the Victory over Self (translated into Spanish by Melchior
Cano); Of Discretion ; Of the Mirror of the Soul; Of One Hundred
Questions and Answers respecting Prayer. Serafino da Fermo died in
1539. Before him another Canon Regular, Peter of Lucca, had
published the Regule della vita sfirituale e secreta theologia, Bologna,
1507. The Spanish translation by Luis of Granada (Seville, 1548) may
possibly be known.
4 Published in the 1541 edition of the Oferette sfirituali. Fr.
Premoli has reproduced it in // Rosario Memorie Dominicane, 1918,
PP- 29-34, 71-76, 107-113.
Ubc Italian Scbool 237
the founders of the Barnabites and seconded their projects.
Together with Baptist da Crema, though in a lesser degree,
he gave an impetus to the first Clerks Regular.
The illustrious penitents of Baptist da Crema, St Cajetan,
St Antony Mary Zaccaria, and the Countess Louisa de Torelli,
noted that in order to establish a Christian society the instru-
mentality of the clergy was needed. A pure, fervent clergy,
living the life of religious, but mingled more than they with
society ; instructing, preaching, hearing confessions, direct-
ing schools ; this it was that rightly seemed to them to be
the best means of Christian reform. A double end would
thus be obtained : the people would be evangelized and the
secular clergy reformed by example. For the latter could not
be reformed in a body. Councils had issued laws, and with
threats had exhorted the clergy to amend.1 The results
thus obtained were very small. It was hoped that, by
addressing themselves individually to priests, by preaching
and by example, something better might be achieved.
Such were the ideas which inspired the founders of the
Italian congregations of Clerks Regular. When St Ignatius
came to Rome in 1357 he brought with him similar ideas.
They wrought a new transformation in monasticism ; to the
older conception of monk and friar there was added that of
the Clerk Regular.
This transformation began with the three religious Orders
of Theatines, Somaschi, and Barnabites. These three Orders
were born about the same time, at three different points in
Italy.2 At Rome in 1525, St Cajetan3 started the Theatines;
at Milan in 1530, St Antony Mary Zaccaria4 and two other
priests founded the Clerks Regular of St Paul or Barnabites ;
* Especially the fifth Council of the Lateran (1512-1517) under Leo X,
the regulations of which had little practical result.
3 Cardinal Capecelatro, Life of St Philip Neri, French translation,
B£zin, Vol. II, p. 12, Paris, 1889.
s St Cajetan was born at Vicenza in 1480, of an illustrious family.
He was first of all a Roman prelate. Then, with John Peter Caraffa,
the future Pope Paul IV, Boniface Colli, and Paul de Ghisleri he
founded an order of Clerks Regular in Rome called Theatines, because
Caraffa, the first Superior, retained the title of Archbishop of Tiene
(Chieti). St Cajetan died at Naples in 1547. The principal document of
the history of St Cajetan is his Life, by the Theatine, Antony Caracciolo,
published at Cologne in 1612. See De Maulde la Claviere, St Gaetan,
Paris, 1905, in which a complete bibliography will be found. There
are Letters of St Cajetan, published by the Abb6 de Barral in 1785,
Paris, reproduced in De Maulde, pp. 182-201. The Italian text is in
G. Salvadori, pp. 48 ff.
4 Born at Cremona, in the Milan district, he studied at Padua. After
becoming a priest he showed his zeal by labouring, with much fruit, at
the reform of the morals of the faithful. At Milan he founded the
Barnabites, with the assistance of Bartholomew Ferrari and James
Morigia. Their chief object was the preaching of missions and the
238 Cbristiau Spirituality
finally, in 1531, at Venice, St Jerome Emilian1 formed the
Somaschi. After these several holy persons, in this mar-
vellous sixteenth century, established similar congregations
in Italy to respond to the various needs of the time.
The Italian religious congregations of this period are
divided into two classes. The one was principally concerned
with the reform of the clergy and with the moral improve-
ment of the people by means of missions and other zealous
works ; these were the Theatines, the Barnabites, the Orator-
ians of St Philip Neri, the Oblates of St Charles Borromeo,
and the Minor Clerks Regular (clerici regulares minor es) of
St Francis Caracciolo and John Adorno. The other was
occupied with the education of youth or with the care of the
sick in the hospitals. Among these may be cited : the
Somaschi of St Jerome Emilian, the Fathers of Christian
Doctrine of Caesar de Bus, the Piarists or Fathers of Pious
Schools of St Joseph Calasanza, the Ursulines of St Angela
Merici of Brescia, the Fathers of a Good Death of St Camillus
de Lellis, the Clerks of the Mother of God of Blessed John
Leonardi.2
The founders of these congregations, with very few excep-
tions, have left no spiritual writings.3 They were animated
management of schools. St. Charles Borromeo greatly loved them. St
Antony Zaccaria died at Cremona in 1539. A collection of Detti notabili
of St Antony Zaccaria was published at Venice in 1583. French trans-
lations with the titles (Euvres spirituelles, Paris, 1600, and Les hautes
maximes de la vie spirituelle, Lyons, 1625. Latin translation Axiomata
sacra . . ., Rome, 1671. Cf. Premoli, Storia dei Barnabiti nel Cinque-
cento, Rome, 1913 ; Le Lettre et lo spirito religioso di S Anton.
M. Zaccaria, Rome, 1909.
1 Born at Venice in 1481, he was converted after a wild youth. Being
greatly touched at the sight of the numerous orphans after the war, he
gathered them together in Venice. At Somasco, near Bergamo, he
founded his congregation, devoted to the education of orphans and to
the instruction of youth. Jerome died in 1537. His Life has been
written by Fr. Augustine Turtura [Acta Sanctorum, February 8).
2 It is desirable to mention the reform of the Franciscan Order
brought about in 1525 by Matthew de Baschi, who made his religious
wear a beard and a pointed hood (capuche), whence the name Capu-
chins. The Rule of St Francis was literally restored and followed. In
1619 the Capuchins formed a distinct branch of the Franciscan Order.
One of the first saints of the new Capuchin foundation was the lay
brother, St Felix of Cantalice (1-1587), the friend of St Philip Neri.
Cf. Capecelatro, Life of St Philip, Vol. II, pp. 318 ff. St Francis of
Paula, born at Paula in Calabria in 1416, founded the Order of Minims.
It was he who assisted Louis XI, King of France, at his death. See
his Life, by Fr. Hilarion Coste.
3 Although he did not compose writings on spirituality properly
so-called — the Recordi al popolo, published during the plague of Milan,
is not so — St Charles Borromeo has left very important documents on
the reform of the clergy and faithful in his diocese of Milan. They
are to be found in the Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis, Mgr. Ratti's
(Pius XI) edition, Milan, 1890 ff., and in the Documenti circa la Vita
et le geste di San Carlo Borromeo, published by A. Sola, Milan, 1857-
£be Italian Scbool 239
by the spirit of the first Clerks Regular, especially that of
the Theatines and of the Barnabites. St Cajetan of Tiene,
more largely than others, engendered this spirit. A lively
zeal for poverty, great inward mortification in order to attain
to a joyous calm of soul, an intense and disinterested love
of God and one's neighbour, such was the pervading spirit
of this magnificent movement towards Catholic reform by its
first beginners in Italy in the sixteenth century. It is the
teaching of that admirable book, the Spiritual Combat, which
produced the asceticism of the Italian Clerks Regular.
II— THE " SPIRITUAL COMBAT "
The authorship of the Spiritual Combat is not definitely estab-
lished.
This book was sometimes published under the name of the
Spanish Benedictine, John of Castagniza.1 Several writers
of the Society of Jesus have attributed it to the Jesuit
Achille Gagliardi.2 There are doubtless traces in the work
of Spanish asceticism and Ignatian spirituality.3 But the
imprint of the Italian School is so evident that it is impossible
to place the author of the famous work elsewhere than among
the Clerks Regular, especially among the Theatines. We
know that in the opinion of the greater number of critics4
this author was the Theatine Laurence Scupoli.
1861. See also the various biographies of St Charles. St Philip Neri
was accustomed to give those whom he directed spiritual Maxims or
Sentences. They were brought together after his death. The collection
was published at Turin under the title Ricordi e Dette di sari
Filippo Neri. The Sentences are arranged according to the number
of days in the year, one sentence for each day. The Abbe A. Bayle
gave a translation in his Vie de saint Philippe de Niri, Paris, 1859,
pp. 398 ff. Cardinal Capecelatro has inserted in his Vie de saint
Philippe certain Letters of the saint (Vol. I, pp. 540 ff. of the French
translation of Fr. H. B6zin). The members of the Oratory of St Philip
Neri take no vows. In this they are distinguished from other Clerks
Regular. In the same way the Oblates of St Charles are a society of
secular priests to which was given charge of ordinands and the direc-
tion of the Seminary at Milan.
1 Especially by the printer Berthier, at Paris in 1675, in a volume
which also contains the Treatise on the Peace of the Soul or The Path
of Paradise of John of Bonilla, the Spanish Franciscan, and the
Meditations on the Sorrows of our Saviour Jesus Christ, by Blessed
Battista Varani, Italian Franciscan, written about 1490.
- Sommervogel, Bibl. des Ecrivains de la Compagnie de Jesus,
Vol. Ill, 1095.
3 Franciscan influence has also rightly been noted. Ubald d'Alencon,
Etudes franciscaines, Vol. XXVII (1912), pp. 72 ff.
4 Cf. Vezzosi, Scrittori teatini, Vol. II, pp. 276 ff. Discussion on
this subject will also be found in the various editions of the Spiritual
Combat, especially in those of Alexis de Buc, Paris, 1696, and of
A. Riche, Paris, i860. Scupoli was born at Otranto, in the kingdom
of Naples, in 1530; he died at Naples in 1610.
240 Cbrtetfan Spirituality
It may be asked with regard to the Spiritual Combat as
with the Imitation, if it is not rather the collective work of a
religious family than that of one single writer. The Combati-
mento Spiritnale was not produced in the first instance as we
have it. The first edition, which appeared in 1589 at Venice,
had only twenty-eight chapters. Subsequent editions then
appeared with thirty-three, thirty-seven, forty, and finally
sixty chapters. Certain parts of it seem to point to a compila-
tion rather than to a single author. The chapters often lack
logical sequence. And, above all, the style of the later
editions is very different from that of the earlier. Much of
the naive grace and impressiveness is lost.
At the beginning of the Spiritual Combat is found the idea
of Christian perfection. The spiritual life " does not consist
in external practices."
" It consists in nothing else but the knowledge of the good-
ness and the greatness of God, and of our nothingness and
inclination to evil ; in the love of him and the hatred of our-
selves, in subjection, not to him alone, but to all his creatures
for love of him, in entire renunciation of all will of our own
and absolute resignation to all his divine pleasure ; further-
more, in willing and doing all this purely for the glory of
God and solely to please him, and because he so wills and
merits thus to be loved and served."1
Christian perfection is wholly internal. It results from the
combined effect of the virtues which cause us to die to our-
selves in order to be fully subjected to God through love.
Here we find the inward mortification which the school of
the Clerks Regular pushed so far.
Note also in the Spiritual Combat the clear insistence on
the need of pure love in those who wish to attain to per-
fection. According thereto we cannot tend towards the per-
fect Christian life unless we serve God solely for his glory
and " with a view to pleasing him." Our own interest ought
never to count, and we must as far as possible exclude it.
There are motives for being virtuous which are good in them-
selves, such as that of escaping hell and reaching heaven.
Perfection demands that we act unto the sole glory of God.2
1 Chap, i (French translation, Tournai, Desclee, 1894). French
translations are numerous.
2 Chap. i. Cf. chap, x : " The most insignificant action, done with
a view to please God alone, and for his sole glory, is (if we may so
speak) of infinitely greater value than many others of the greatest
dignity and importance done without this motive. Hence a single
penny given to a poor man with the sole desire to please God is more
acceptable to him than the entire renunciation of all earthly goods for
any other end, even for the attainment of the bliss of heaven ; an end
in itself not only good, but supremely to be desired."
Ube -Kalian Scbool 241
St Francis de Sales is very careful not to define so precisely
the nature of divine love required for perfection. He feared,
not without reason, to discourage beginners in the Christian
life. We also know that St Bernard declared the impossibility
of that state of pure love in which man unceasingly forgets
himself in order to please God alone.
" The summit of perfection " is attained by the fight
against self, by this combat so much spoken of by the Clerks
Regular. In reading the Combatimento we seem to be assist-
ing at a course on spiritual strategy. We there learn how to
struggle victoriously against " all the evil affections " of the
heart, however slight they seem to us.
Four arms, without which victory is impossible, are recom-
mended to us : Distrust of ourselves, for reduced to our own
strength we can do nothing ; trust in God with whom we can
do all things; the good use of the faculties of soul and body;
finally, the exercise of prayer.
It is above all in reference to the good use of our faculties
that the spirituality of the Spiritual Combat is made most
manifest. These faculties are the intelligence or understand-
ing, the will and the outward or bodily senses.
The intelligence ought to be on its guard against two
enemies by which it is unceasingly attacked : ignorance and
curiosity (vii-ix).
But it is in the exercise of the will that the struggle is
necessary because of the opposition which exists between the
" reasonable and higher will " and the " other which has its
seat in the senses, known by the name of the lower and
sensual will, and more commonly under the names of appetite,
sense, or passion." "For a true will, the assent of the
superior will" is needed. Hence ensues a combat without
truce between the two wills, or between the passions and the
reasonable will (xii).
It is not expedient to attack all the passions at once ;
there is an order to be followed in the struggle. The
" passion which besets us " and " tyrannizes over " our heart
should be attacked first of all (xvii). And the struggle should
be undertaken thus (xiii).
First of all direct resistance to the insurgent passion :
" First, whenever thou art assailed and buffeted by the
impulses of sense, oppose a valiant resistance to them, so that
the higher will may not consent " (xiii).
This first victory gained, in order to repress the passion
"with greater vigour and force," it is good to provoke a
second struggle. In this way the habit of crushing it more
completely is acquired, and hatred and horror of it is pro-
duced. But these tactics must never be used in the combat
Hi. 16
242 Cforistian Spirituality
against carnal passion, which can only be overcome by flight
" with the greatest care from every occasion and every person
presenting the least danger " to us (xix).
Whilst resisting the passions and provoking renewed com-
bats we must cultivate acts of those virtues that are opposed
to them.
Finally we must keep watch over the senses.
" The sensitive appetite is, so to speak, the captain of our
corrupt nature. ... It makes use of the outward senses,
like so many soldiers and natural instruments, in order to
seize what it desires" and misuse it. We must then know
how to govern the senses if we desire not to be overcome
in the battle against self.
Before all, " take good heed not to let thy senses stray
freely where they will ; nor to use them when pleasure alone,
and not utility, necessity, nor any good end, is the motive "
(xxi).
But as the senses cannot be wholly withdrawn from the
outer world, let us direct them towards God and employ them
in the contemplation of heavenly realities. The beauties of
creation are able, if we so desire, to uplift us towards the
Creator. The author of the Spiritual Combat here gives some
examples of the spiritual aspirations which the sight of things
created may suggest to the devout.1 There, as well as in
other parts of his work, he shows himself much more a
theologian and philosopher than poet. Then he writes a very
beautiful chapter on the manner of passing from the con-
sideration of the outer world " to the meditation of the life
and passion of the Word incarnate " (xxii), wherein we note
the Ignatian method of prayer by the application of the five
senses.
The voice of Ignatius, too, constantly echoes through the
clash of arms in the Spiritual Combat, ordering the tactics
and planning the battle. The author of the Combatimento
only adapts and then passes on the commands of his chief.
The exhortation, " the order of the day," given in the morn-
ing before the beginning of the daily battle, is little else than
a paraphrase of the meditation on the Two Standards of the
Spiritual Exercises.
" On awaking in the morning the first thing to be observed
by thine inward sight is the listed field in which thou art
enclosed, the law of the combat being that he who fights not
must there lie dead for ever. . . . On the right hand, behold
thy victorious Captain Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and her
beloved spouse St Joseph, and an innumerable host of angels
and saints ... on the left hand, the demon, with all his
armies, ready to excite this passion and to persuade thee to
1 Cf. Augustine Capece, Theatine, // monte di Dio, 1645.
XTbe Italian Scbool 243
yield to it " (xvi). ... " Then think you hear the voice of
your guardian angel " strengthening- your courage.
So the fight begins and proceeds in accordance with the
rules already given. If in the struggle we feel wounded and
on the point of being overcome and vanquished, we must
never allow ourselves to yield to discouragement or give up
the fight (xiv, xxvi). We should then pray more earnestly.
But it is essential, if victory is to be gained, to retain a
"good morale." So also does the Combatimento urge the
soldier of Christ, amidst the struggle, to keep tranquillity of
soul and peace of heart and to avoid with all possible
care anything that might disturb them (xxv).1
" If distrust of self, trust in God, and the right use of
our faculties be so needful in this spiritual conflict, needful
above all is prayer (the fourth weapon above mentioned) "
(xliv).
The last part of the Spiritual Combat maps out a plan for
the Christian's life of prayer. The three practices specially
commended are : prayer or meditation, communion, and ex-
amination of conscience. The influence of the Spanish
School is plainly seen, but the Italian writer simplifies the
exercises.
He recommends two forms of prayer : short prayers — i.e.,
ejaculatory prayers — which should be used often, above all
in the midst of the battle ; and the longer form of prayer
combined with meditation.
The first is " a raising of the soul to God, in which we
ask him for those things which we desire." We may ask
for them verbally by using mental words, or tacitly by show-
ing our needs to God without speech, or finally by " a simple
look of the soul towards God," which is a tacit reminder of
the grace already asked for (xlv).
To the already mentioned longer form of prayer lasting
" half an hour, an hour, or longer," must be " added medita-
tion on the life and Passion of Jesus Christ" (xlvi-xlvii,
li-lii).2 Our Saviour's Passion, according to the Spiritual
Combat, is the great subject for meditation :
"Jesus crucified — there is the book which I give thee to
read, that from it thou mayest copy the true picture of
1 The Spiritual Combat describes at length the wiles of the devil
(xxvii, xxxii, xlii-xliii). Cf. the Rules of St Ignatius on the
Discernment of Spirits. Chapters xxxiii-xli contain advice in detail
as to the way to acquire and make progress in virtue : it is a kind of
small treatise on Christian virtues.
2 The method is simple without any preamble as is found in the
Ignatian method; but with considerations on the subject of the medita-
tion, accompanied by acts of love.
244 Cbrfstfan Spirituality
every virtue. For it is the real book of life, which not only
instructs the understanding- by words, but enkindles the will
by its living- example " (lii).
It is in this book that patterns of every virtue and the
most urgent motives for practising them must be sought.
It will be noticed that the Combatimento draws the atten-
tion of the devout to the inward and " mental " sufferings of
Christ (li). Meditation on the thought of what Jesus suffered
in his soul was very much in favour in Italy in the sixteenth
century. About 1490 the Franciscan nun, Blessed Battista
Varani, whom we shall meet again later, wrote a book on the
sorrows of Christ's soul during the Passion (Dolori mentali di
Cristo).1 Her work was known to Lorenzo Scupoli. St Mary
Magdalen of Pazzi also was moved to pity " by the sorrow
and compassion which divided the heart " of Jesus, " at the
sight of so great a number " for whom his precious Blood
" must be shed in vain." She also referred " to the dis-
. tress of love and compassion (of his divine heart) for all the
just, for all the pains " which the elect would have to suffer
" till the end of the world."2
It is also good to meditate on the Blessed Virgin Mary,
for whom the author of the Spiritual Combat has a very
trustful devotion (xlviii-xlix). He desires us to have
daily recourse to her. We should also take as our " chief
advocate and protector, St Joseph, Mary's spouse." Also,
" in our prayers, we may make use of the help and protec-
tion of the angels and saints " (l).3
This devotion to the angels is characteristic of Italian
spirituality. Pierre Lefevre, that disciple of St Ignatius
who wrought his apostolic ministry for some time in Italy,
greatly loved the holy angels. In a letter — of doubtful
authenticity, but which well reflects the devout thought of
the time — St Cajetan explains at length to a nun the nature
and being of the angels and their activities.4 St Mary
Magdalen of Pazzi describes the love of the angels for men.
" It is," she says, " an intense love which has its source in
1 See the Etudes franciscaines, Vol. XVII, 1907, p. 687, on Bl.
Varani. The Dolori mentali di Cristo (Latin version Acta Sand.,
May, Vol. VII, pp. 488 ff.) contains meditations on the Saviour's
inward sufferings as to : the sins of the damned, the sins of the elect,
the sorrows of Mary, the love of Mary Magdalen, his well-beloved
disciples, the loss of Judas, the ingratitude of the Jews and others.
The Combatimento of Rome, 1615, contains also the Sentiero del Para-
diso and the Dolori ynentali di Cristo. The author of the Spiritual
Combat must have been inspired by the Dolori mentali. Cf. Etudes
franciscaines, Vol. XXVII, 1912, p. 76.
2 CEuvres, Part I, chap, xiv, Bruniaux, Vol. I, pp. 164-165.
3 The Spiritual Combat often speaks of the guardian angel and his
role in the struggle waged by the Christian against sin (xvi).
4 De Maulde la Claviere, Saint Ga'etan, pp. 198-201 ; Salvadori,
p. 103.
Ube Italian Scbool 245
the heart of the Word, because they see in the Word the
dignity of creatures and the love he has for them.1 ..."
Holy Communion is the most effective means of over-
coming our adversaries. With our other weapons " we
struggle against our enemies through the virtue of Jesus
Christ ; with this we battle with them in company with
Jesus Christ, and it is Jesus Christ who fights with us
against them " (liii). Moreover, it is through the Eucharist
that our hearts are inflamed with the fire of divine love
(lv). It is thus needful to communicate, whenever we have
permission, as frequently as possible, and to make good
preparation (liv-lv).
This permission at that time was not granted so easily
as it is to-day. So, instead of the wholly desirable daily com-
munion, the Combatimento recommends communion by desire,
which is possible not merely every day, but every hour (lvi).
This is the exercise known as spiritual communion. It arose
at a time when communions were not frequent and was
intended to do duty for daily communion. This exercise
loses its importance as the custom of approaching the holy
table daily becomes more and more general among those of
the faithful desirous of tending towards a perfect Christian
life.2
Such are the main points of the spirituality of the Com-
batimento.2
Although the work is not a complete treatise on asceticism,
it is surprising" not to find in it a chapter devoted to spiritual
direction. This direction is very often assumed. The
author of the Combat recommends talks with the " spiritual
father " (xix). We also know that the first founders of the
Clerks Regular, St Cajetan and St Antony Zaccaria, were
directed by Baptist da Crema.4 The direction given to his
penitents by St Philip Neri has become famous.5 None the
1 CEuvres, Part IV, chap, xxvii, Vol. II, p. 342.
2 Spiritual communion will always be preserved as a means of un-
ceasingly producing virtue and the spirit of the Saviour within us.
It is a kind of prayer.
3 The last chapters — added afterwards — do not follow logically. They
contain two parts of Luis of Granada's method of prayer : thanks-
giving and the oblation of oneself to God (lvii-lviii), which fit in with
nothing else ; a chapter on dryness (fix), and another on examination
of conscience (lx), which ought to be placed after those which treat of
prayer. Finally the treatise ends with six chapters (lxi-lxvi) on the
struggles of the soul at the hour of death.
* St Jerome Emilian had as director a canon of the Lateran (Acta
Sanct., February, 8, p. 229). Treatises on direction were written in
Italy, especially that of the Friar Minor Conventual, Trebatio Macrotti
della Penna, Discorsi sfirituali per direzione delle anime, Turin, 1590.
3 St Philip had as penitents, among others, St Camillus de Lellis,
Blessed John Leonardi, and Cardinal Frederick Borromeo, cousin of
St Charles.
246 Cbrfstfau Spirituality
less, direction does not appear as yet to have had all the
importance in Italian spirituality which it was to possess
later on. It is St Francis de Sales who rendered it really
popular.
Ill— THE MYSTICS : ST MARY MAGDALEN DEI
PAZZI OF THE CARMELITE ORDER, ST
CATHERINE DE RICCI AND BLESSED OSANNA
DE ANDREASSI OF THE ORDER OF ST
DOMINIC, BLESSED BATTISTA VARANI, POOR
CLARE — FRANCISCAN SPECULATIVE MYS-
TICISM
The wholly Italian spirituality of St Mary Magdalen dei
Pazzi1 has the reforming- spirit. Her writings embody the
tendencies of the Italian Catholic reformers of the sixteenth
century.
Born at Florence, April 2, 1566, of one of the most famous
families of Tuscany, she employed all the influence of her
position to demand the reform of the Church. As Carmelite,
she laboured by exhortation and by her writings to bring the
religious of both sexes to a more regular and more fervent
life. As mystic, she felt authorized by her visions and reve-
lations to bring home the lesson to the clergy and to urge
them to a better life. Her mission in many ways resembles
that of St Catherine of Siena. In her ecstasies she obtained
teaching from the Sienese Virgin concerning the virtues of
religious life.2
Her vocation, above all, was to pray and to do penance
1 Catherine de Geri dei Pazzi was born at Florence in 1566. Her
father was Governor of the town of Cortona. She was brought up in
the monastery of the Sisters of Charity of St John the Less. She
entered the Carmelites of St Mary of the Angels at Florence, where
she made her profession, May 27, 1584, and took the name of Mary
Magdalen. She was novice-mistress from 1598 to 1604, then she became
sub-prioress. She died at Florence, May 27, 1607. Life of St Mary
Magdalen de Pazzi, by Vincenzo Puccini, confessor to the Monastery
of St Mary of the Angels, Venice, 1675, Acta Sand., May 25. — The
Opere di Santa Maria M addalena de Pazzi carmelita di S Maria di
Firenze were collected and published by Lorenzo Brancaccio, Carmelite
of the strict observance, Florence, 1609. Another edition with the
saint's Letters, Florence, 1893. An abridged French translation by the
Carthusian, D. Anselm Bruniaux, 2 vols., Paris, 1873. The Works
of the saint are divided into five parts. The first contains contempla-
tions on the mysteries of faith and of the life of Christ, the second
deals with religious life and virtues, the third comprises uplifting
thoughts on passages from Holy Writ, the fourth lofty contemplations
on the divine perfections, the fifth contains Exclamations similar to
those of St Teresa.
2 CEuvres, Part II, chap, x-xii ; Bruniaux, Vol. I, pp. 408 ff.
Zhc Italian Scbool 247
in order to obtain the reform " of all states of the Church " :
religious, priests, the faithful, and even heretics and pagans :
" I desire to offer thee, O my God," she exclaims, " all
creatures state by state, and I shall begin with the virgins,
thy brides who are so dear to thee. . . . Thou hast chosen
all religious women, but they are not all acceptable because
they fail to perform all those duties for which thou hast
chosen them. ... I implore thee, O my God, to make them
know their obligations, and I offer thee on their behalf the
Blood thou didst shed in the Garden of agony. . . .
" And what must I say of thy priests, O Word? thou
makest me to see a multitude of them who . . . trample
under foot their honour by making themselves the slaves of
vile and despicable creatures. Those eyes which see thee
descend in the Eucharist from the bosom of thine Eternal
Father, allow themselves to gaze on abominable sights and
the wretches dare approach the altar in this dreadful state.
... O Word ! I shall leave thee not until thou dost grant
me the conversion of some among them. . . . Tell me,
I beseech thee, what I must do to obtain it; whatsoever it
be I shall do it with all my heart. . . .
" I offer thee, O Word, for all the members of Holy
Church of which thou art the head, the numberless drops of
Blood that thou didst shed from all thy members in thy
cruel scourging. ... O Word divine ! I shall only be con-
tent when I see myself wholly consumed with the desire to
bring back to thee these souls astray. . . .
" Would that I had the strength to gather all [the un-
faithful], to lead them into the bosom of thy Church. I
should pray her to purge them from their unfaithfulness
through the beneficent breath of her mouth, to give them
new life. . . . But alas ! I can only deplore my impotence
and my ingratitude, which is its cause. . . .
" I now offer thee, O Word, those incarnate devils — for
thus I think they may be called because of their malice — I
mean all heretics and all sects, such as they are known to
thee, and I offer thee for these the Blood thou didst shed
when thou wast stripped of thy garments on Calvary,
because these wretches make every effort to tear thy robe
by their poisonous deeds and words. . . ."1
It is in flashes of fire and with impassioned accents that
she pours forth her prayer to God for the salvation of sinners
for the expiation of whose sins she is ready " to sacrifice her
own life ' ' :
" O my God ! How can this wickedness be plucked out
from the hearts of men? Oh, that I were found worthy to
1 CEuvres, Part V, 2nd Exclamation, Vol. II, pp. 377 ff. Cf. Part
IV, chap, xxi, pp. 291 ff.
248 Cbristtan Spirituality
give my life for the salvation of souls and to destroy this
evil, how happy should I be ! How great a torment it is to
live and to die every moment; to see that one is only able to
be of use to creatures by giving one's life and yet to be un-
able to do it. O charity, thou art a file which little by little
wears away both body and soul. . . . M1
In all that she wrote St Mary Magdalen had in view un-
ceasingly this reform "of all states of the Church." She
lived only to bring it about.
The Works of the great Carmelite nun contain not
only exclamations and prayers ; deep theological teaching
on such subjects as creation, the fall, the atonement, and
the divinizing of man through Christ the Redeemer are
also to be found there. As in the Dialogue of St Catherine
of Siena, the influence of Thomist theology is to be seen.2
Dogmatic considerations on the divine Unity, the Trinity of
Persons, the Incarnation, and the work of the Holy Ghost
in souls are frequent ; very often, too, as in the writings of
the Sienese Virgin, the teaching is expounded in the form
of a dialogue with the heavenly Father, or the Word, or
the Blessed Virgin. Finally — and this completes the resem-
blance between the two saints — it is during ecstasy that
St Mary Magdalen expounds her teaching, and with such
rapidity that it was necessary to give her six secretaries, who
wrote for hours, and even for whole days, under her dictation. 3
She had also read the Meditations on the Life of Christ of
the pseudo-Bonaventure and the Life of Christ by Ludolph
the Carthusian. We find once more, in her chapters conse-
crated to the Passion, the famous scene of the farewell
between Jesus and Mary before the last departure for Jeru-
salem.4 But the colloquies of Jesus with Mary are not so
pathetic as in the work of the holy Franciscan. They con-
tain above all theological considerations on the love of
Christ for men and the benefits which his death ought to
procure them.
1 (Euvres, Vol. II, pp. 295-296.
3 She distinguishes between the two appetites, concupiscible and
irascible (Vol. I, pp. 7-8) ; and gives a kind of treatise on the theological
and cardinal virtues (pp. 10 ff.), and a psychological explanation of
the Holy Trinity (pp. 58 ff.), " God is most pure act," p. 92, etc.
3 The six secretaries thus divided their duties : the first wrote, as
No. 1, the first portion of the saint's discourse; the second followed
as No. 2, and so on ; after this the first became No. 7, the second No. 8,
etc., and they continued to write in this way until the end. After the
ecstasy one of them transcribed the whole, following the numerical
order, and by order of the Mother Prioress, the saint heard it read
through, approved what was correct, and altered anything inaccurate.
Life of St Magdalen, by Father Virgilio Cepari, one of her confessors.
Bruniaux, (Euvres, Vol. I, pp. xiv-xv. It is difficult for a work com-
posed in this way not to suffer certain accidental alterations.
1 QLuvres, Part I, chap, xii, Vol. I, pp. 136 ff.
Qhe Italian Scbool 249
St Mary Magdalen yields at times to the desire to supple-
ment, through her revelations, the silence of the evangelists
on certain circumstances of the life of the Saviour. She
greatly wished in particular " to know what the most holy
soul of Jesus did during its separation from his body " until
the moment of the resurrection. In a long dialogue with
the Eternal Father, she obtained this knowledge. During
one of her ecstasies she also witnessed the visit made by
Jesus to the "blessed souls in Limbo."1
The famous Carmelite had a poetic soul. She felt strongly
the charm of the beauties of nature. Her style is coloured
with the marvellous tints of Tuscan scenery, which again
adds to the interest possessed by her Works. Further, her
influence increased more and more. After her death she
continued through her writings to insure that Catholic reform
for which she had so greatly prayed and suffered.2
The Letters which St Catherine de Ricci5 wrote in order
to procure the reform of the Church — unlike those of St Mary
Magdalen dei Pazzi — reached those to whom they were
addressed. Among these were cardinals, bishops, superiors
of religious Orders, and princes. They were impressed by
the prudence and sanctity of their illustrious correspondent.
In these heavenly raptures in the Dominican convent of
Prato in Tuscany, St Catherine, with groanings, recom-
mended the whole Church to her divine Spouse :
" Oh ! how many are the Judases in the Church," she says
to him. " Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! Here I must be silent. Renew,
renew, O Lord, thy Church. ..."
She gave courage to those who were inflamed with the
desire to renew the Church : " I pray the divine Majesty,"
she wrote to St Philip Neri, " to restore you and to main-
1 GLuvres, Part I, chap, xxi-xxv, pp. 199 ff. We would note that,
according to St Mary Magdalen, the visit to Limbo only took place
after the resurrection (chap. xxv).
2 Note here three Italian Carmelites : Amanzo di Santa Rosa, Of ere
s-pirituali, Naples, 1615-1619; Dominic of Jesus and Mary, General of
the Carmelites, Sententiario sfirituale, 1620, French translation, Paris,
1623; Eliseus Vasallo, // cristiano invitato al Paradiso (the three ways),
Naples, 1643.
3 Alexandrina de Ricci was born in Florence in 1522. In 1535 she
entered the Dominican Convent of St Vincent of Prato, near Florence.
She took the name of Catherine. She was Prioress of her convent for
a long time and died in 1590. Her Letters were published by Cesare
Guasti, at Prato, in 1861, with an excellent introduction; re-edited
at Florence, in 1890, by Gherardi. Her Life was written in Italian
by Serafino Razzi, Lucca, 1594, and in France by Fr. Hyacinth
Bayonne, Paris, 1873. The Dominican Order was also made famous in
Italy by the foundress of the Monastery of the Cross of Florence,
Dominica dal Paradiso (1473-1553), whose life was written in Italian
by Ignatius del Nente, O.P., Venice, 1624.
250 Christian Spirituality
tain you in good health because Holy Church has too great
need of you."1 Between these two generous souls a tender
and wholly celestial friendship was established which was
shown by a correspondence, unfortunately almost totally
lost.2
St Catherine's mysticism was directed wholly towards the
reform of the Church and is characterized by its holy glad-
ness. In this she resembles St Philip, " who was the most
beautiful type of Christian gladness that the Church has
ever had." The historians of the saint relate that " God
changed and transformed her heart in a most happy ecstasy,
rendering it like that of the most Blessed Virgin. Then it
was that Catherine felt herself flooded with an infinite and
unspeakable gladness, and became conscious of being quite
other than she was before."3 In her ecstasies she also ex-
perienced the sufferings endured by Christ in his Passion.
The greater number of the mystical phenomena which we
admire in St Catherine of Siena were reproduced in this
other daughter of St Dominic in the convent of Prato.
The same change of heart and the same mystical graces
were granted to another famous Dominican nun, Blessed
Osanna de Andreassi,4 likewise for a social mission. God
inspired her to become a tertiary of St Dominic, but yet to
remain in the world " for the salvation and consolation of
many."5 She consecrated her life to prayer and penance for
the conversion of sinners. Like, another Genevieve, she
rallied the courage of the inhabitants of Mantua4 during the
French invasions of Italy.
The Italian women mystics appear to be of much the same
type as that of St Catherine of Siena, whose life was every-
where read with eagerness.6 We find renewed the mystical
ring, the symbol of the spiritual espousals with Christ ; the
invisible and painful stigmata ; the frequent and prolonged
ecstasies during which the visions and revelations occurred.7
1 Cesare Guasti, Letter LV11I .
2 Cf. Capecelatro, Life of St Philip N eri, Vol. II, pp. 372 ff.
3 ibid., p. 377. Cf. Serafino Razzi, Vita Cat., lib. II, 6.
1 Born at Mantua in 1449 she became a tertiary of St Dominic
though remaining in the world. She died at Mantua in 1505. Libello
della vita sua propria e de doni spirituali da Dio a lei collati, Mantua,
1507, reproduced in Latin in the Acta Sanctorum, June 18, following
the Lives of Silvester Ferrara, O.P., and Jerome of Mantua, Olivetan.
6 Acta Sanctorum, June 18 (Vol. IV, p. 563, Paris, 1867).
6 St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi and Blessed Osanna saw St Catherine
of Siena in their ecstasies {Acta S.S., June 18, p. 574).
7 For Blessed Osanna see Acta Sanctorum, ibid., and for St Mary
Magdalen de Pazzi, Acta Sanctorum, May, Vol. VI, pp. 219 ff. CEuvres,
Bruniaux, Vol. I, p. 80. See also the Life of Blessed Veronica de
Binasco, Augustinian of the fifteenth century (Acta Sanctorum,
January 13), and Matthew Silvaggi de Catania, O.M., De nuftiis
animae cum Chrislo, Venice, 1542.
ZTbe Italian Scbool 251
Occasionally the ecstatics give some mystical teaching
during- their raptures. The change or transforming of the
heart through divine love is a phenomenon often found in
Italv. We meet with it in St Cajetan, and, above all, in
St Philip Neri.
Blessed Battista Varani, Poor Clare, Princess of Camerino
in Umbria, also had her heart wholly inflamed with pure
love.1 Like St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi, she found the
source of this love in the heart of Jesus suffering for us.2
She often meditated on the sorrows of the divine heart
endured during the Passion. Her meditations have come
down to us in the small work Dolori mentali di Cristo,
which so largely contributed in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries to inspire the faithful with devotion to
Christ in his expiation of our sins.
Blessed Battista Varani was very specially drawn by the
sorrows of the soul of Christ at the sight of sin. She her-
self thought so often of her own sins, and the many com-
mitted in such numbers at the time of the Renaissance.
She was, in this connection, beset by a horrible temptation
to blasphemy ; to wit, that God was the author of evil. This
temptation obsessed her to such a degree that she thought
she was consenting to it and constantly committing acts
of blasphemy. She was in despair and believed herself to
be damned. This trial lasted for three years.3 St Mary
Magdalen dei Pazzi also passed through a similar trial dur-
ing which, to use her own expression, she was " in the den
of lions."4
The Seraphic Order also produced works of speculative
mysticism. The Italian Franciscans who wrote them, accord-
ing to the taste for Platonism in vogue at the time, delighted
to comment on Dionysius the Areopagite. They desired to
explain the union of the mystical soul with " the super-
eminent light," the light divine. Their explanations were
occasionally disputed, and caused the intervention of ecclesi-
astical authority.5
1 Born in 1458, at Camerino, Camilla Varani, after her " conversion,"
entered the Convent of the Poor Clares of that town. She died about
1526. She wrote her Life for her director, then a small work, the
Interior Sorrows of Christ, and some Spiritual Letters. The Latin
translation of all her writings is in the Acta Sanctorum, May 31. Her
name in religion became Battista. Her Life was written by the Com-
tesse de Rambuteau, Paris, 1906.
2 She often speaks of the heart of Jesus, which she invokes (Acta
Sanctorum, May, Vol. VII, pp. 476, 478, 495, Paris, 1866).
3 Acta Sanctorum, May 31, p. 484.
4 Acta S.S., May, Vol. VI, pp. 194 ff., Paris, 1866.
6 Here are the names of several of the Franciscan writers of treatises
on mysticism commenting on Dionysius the Areopagite : Antony de
252 Cbristian Spfrttnatttg
IV— BLESSED ROBERT BELLARMINE1—
CLAUD ACOUAVIVA
Like St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi and St Catherine de Ricci,
Blessed Robert Bellarmine made heard "the groanings of
a dove" — that is to say, of the Church, which weeps over
sin, the sins of clergy and laity and the laxity of religious.
The spiritual writers of the Renaissance all lament the
disorders of which they were the saddened witnesses. The
spectacle of these disorders is a source of the pious tears
shed by those faithful who were inflamed with the desire for
the reform of the Church. This gift of tears of the Italian
School is well known. St Cajetan2 and St Philip Xeri pos-
sessed it to a high degree :
" Pious tears flow from two principal sources," says Car-
dinal Bellarmine, " evil and good, sadness and joy. They
are bitter or sweet according to whether they be tears of
sorrow or tears of love.*'3
M .-.-.-.•; corda, Director: ' zmmandae mentis in abissum
—.: lu— :•::;. Ejusdem exfositic super librum de mystica theologia,
Bologna. 1522: Jer:m 5 A::eti. O.M., De tr: -.-ologia symbolica,
scholastica ■:: mystica, Cremona, 1582; Angelo del Pas of Perpignan,
O.M., Breve trattato del conoscert et amar Iddio, Rome, 1596;
Ignatius of Bergamo, Franciscan, Theologica mistica, Bergamo, 1599.
Occasionally the commentators of D: ■-; -: us the Areopagite were not
fortunate. The De unione animae cum super: inenti lumine, Perugia,
: : ;. :f Bartholomew de Castello, O.M.. was placed on the Index,
March 8, 1584. II faradiso de Conte- . Venice, 1622, of Saluzzo,
is appraised. See his Of ere, Venice, 1639.
1 Robert Bellarmine was born October 4, 1542, at Montepulciano in
the ancient Duchy of Tuscany. In 1560 he entered the Jesuits in Rome.
where he studied philosophy = : the Roman College. He made his
th studies I Padua. Then he became Professor at the Uni-
Louvain (1569-157 .nd afterwards at the Roman College
::-':-• ; . "here he wrote his famous Controversies. Created
Cardinal in 1599, he was made Archbishop of Capua, 1592-1604. He
laboured for the reform of his diocese. On his return to Rome he
rote in defence of the rights of the Church and of the Pope. He
died there S I mbei :;. 1621. The ascetic treatises of Bellarmine
were written I rards the end of his life, from 1614. They are here
• en in chronological orir: : The Ascent of the Mind tozcards God
Ladder " Cre tiures; The Eternal H: rj of the Saints (a pious
treatise on heaven) : the Groaning of the Dove, that is to say, of the
Church, on thr sins of the clergy and layfolk, on the laxity of the
religion:, etc ; The Set rds of <n '-. the Zross', The Art of
H: ing. Cf. Of era omnia Roberti Bellarmini, published by J.
Fevre. Par:; - :;-_l. Vol. VIII, pp. 239-620; Raitz v. Frentz.
Les CEuvres ascetiaues du B*. Br in the Revue d' ' asceiiaue et de
■ ■:, Julv. 10.23, PP- 243 ^-> January, 192:1, pp. 60 ff.
1 Acta S.S', VII ."August, p. 263.
* T * .- - ^:bae sive de bono lacrymarum, lib. I, cap. i,
Vol. VIII. p. .1-: .'.iter the Cardinal's death, certain religious, think-
ing that they were aimed at, protested. Thence sprang a war of
pamphlets. Cf. J. Thermes, Le B. Bellarmin, Paris, 1923, p. 17
Ube -Kalian Scbool 253
For divine love makes us shed tears, but tears of joy.
The pious Cardinal treats at length the cause of these sweet
tears and their beneficial effects on the spiritual life.
He wrote his ascetic treatises towards the end of his life,
using- the method propounded in his famous Controversies.
He defines, he divides, he cites abundant texts from Scripture
and from ecclesiastical writers. The affective note is rare,
and this is to be regretted. It is, however, to be found in
the Ascent of the Mind towards God, which is the most
beautiful of Bellarmine's spiritual works, wherein his
optimistic piety, overflowing with divine love, is best made
manifest.
It will be recalled that the author of the Spiritual Combat
recommends the pious soul to be raised from the considera-
tion of created beings to God who has given them motion,
life, and beauty. The Italian School delights in this method
of prayer. Bellarmine teaches us to look at creation as an
immense ladder — a staircase, as St Francis de Sales trans-
lates it — wherewith to mount towards God. Fifteen steps,
each represented by a group of creatures, must be climbed.
The first is man himself, who in himself is a small universe
(mundus minor). Then the great universe (major mundus)1
and all the elements which compose it : the earth, water, air
and fire, the sun, moon, and stars. Then the spiritual
world, the reasoning soul, and the angels. Finally, God,
his essence, his omnipotence, his wisdom, his providence,
his mercy, and his justice, which the immensity, the order,
and the power of nature make manifest. A magniloquent
panorama of all the ways which lead to God. We can
understand Bellarmine's predilection for this treatise : " My
other works," he said, " I have re-read only from necessity,
but this one I have read three or four times, and I have
resolved to read it again frequently."2
In the last years of his life he meditated more often on
heaven. The collection of his meditations, made in writing,
form a booklet On the Eternal Happiness of the Saints, a
work of theology as much as of piety. Bellarmine answers
most of the questions that can be put regarding the blessed
and the happiness which they enjoy. Finally, in order to
prepare himself immediately for death, he wrote, in 1620, his
last work on the Art of Holy Dying, which recalls the well-
known work by Gerson on the same subject.
The work of a theologian even more than a mystic, the
ascetic treatises of Bellarmine were nevertheless much appre-
ciated. " They delighted St Francis de Sales." And for us
they are one of the best sources of Italian spirituality.
1 De ascensione mentis in Deum per scalas rerum creatarum, gradus
secundus, CEuvres, Vol. VIII, p. 246.
2 J. Thermes, p. 174.
254 Cbristian Spirituality
The contemporary of Bellarmine, Claud Acquaviva,1 General
of the Society of Jesus, brought peace to the controversy
relative to the predominance of asceticism over mysticism,
which, as we have seen, troubled the Spanish Jesuits.
Greatly versed in spiritual theology, the author of several
ascetic works, gifted with great prudence, he recommended
his religious to follow the methods of prayer of the Spiritual
Exercises, but not to trouble those among them whom God
might raise to the mystical state.2
1 He was born in 1543, in the kingdom of Naples. In 1581 he
became General of the Jesuits. He died in 1615. His ascetic works
are : Certain Letters on various subjects of spirituality, some Medita-
tions on Psalms xliv and xciii, an Oratio de Passione Domini. His
best known work, Industria ad curandos animos, has been translated
into French under the title Manuel des superieurs, Paris, 1776.
2 We would also mention: Antony Cordeses, S.J., Itineraria della
perfettione Christiana, Florence, 1607, Latin translation, Messina,
1626; Virgilio Cepari, S.J., Exercitio della presenza di Dio, Milan,
1627; Thomas Massucci, S.J., De caelesti conversatione per internam
orationem et exercitia spiritus, Rome, 1622; J. B. Rossi, S.J., Opuscula
spiritualia, Rome, 1642; James Callesi, S.J., Vita del Servo di Dio
Fadre Giulio Mancinelli (1537-161S), Rome, 1668.
CHAPTER X
THE ITALIAN SCHOOL : ITS TEACHING
THOSE who laboured in the sixteenth century for
the restoration of the Church in Italy very rightly
had in view the bringing about of this restoration
through the clergy. They strove first of all to
give them a high ideal of their dignity and mis-
sion. They then urged them, as they did the laity, to inward
combat against self, sustained by an optimistic piety and an
ardent love of God and one's neighbour.
This programme of moral reform sums up all Italian
spirituality.
I— THE CLERGY— THEIR DIGNITY AND MISSION
We know how earnestly the reform of the clergy in the
sixteenth century was desired. The disciplinary decrees of
the Council of Trent are the best proof of this. Nearly
everywhere God raised up apostles vowed to effect the sanc-
tification of the priesthood. In Spain, Blessed John of Avila
had formed the design of renewing the clergy through his
preaching. He has left us two discourses on the excellence
of the priesthood and the sanctity required of it ; a feeble
echo of the eloquent exhortations which he addressed to the
clergy of his time.
In Italy, especially among the Franciscans, we find cogent
teaching as to the excellence of the sacerdotal dignity. We
may recall the earnest respect of St Francis of Assisi for
priests on account of the character bestowed on them and
his insistent recommendations to the religious of his Order
on the subject.
St Bernardine of Siena, the great Franciscan preacher of
Renaissance Italy, knew also how to inspire the faithful with
a great " veneration " for the divers orders of the ecclesias-
tical hierarchy. The clergy are entitled to very great respect,
above all, the priests, on account of the divine powers which
raise them above all created beings. In an eloquent sermon
— perhaps more eloquent than strictly theological — St Ber-
nardine shows that the powers of the priest are greater than
those of the devil, the angels, the archangels, and even the
Virgin Mary, however astonishing this may appear :
255
256 Cbrtstfan Spirituality
" O Virgin full of love and blessing," he exclaims with
touching emotion, " forgive me for placing above thee the
power of the priest. I do not, however, say anything against
thee, when I speak the truth which thy Son declared him-
self to be. He himself placed the priesthood above thee in the
temple where thou didst present him, as has already been
explained."1
These thoughts were later on to be very often made use
of as a theme of exhortations on the priesthood.
" I presume to hold in my hands," wrote St Cajetan to
Laura Mignani, a nun, " and to offer as a propitiatory victim
to his Father, even him from whom the day-star receives its
light and who gives being to the whole universe. Ah ! what
a miracle of charity is this that God has separated me from
the rest of the faithful, to raise me to the rank of his
minister !"
This divine election, as he well understands, calls for
great sanctity. How can such a ministry be worthily ful-
filled without eminent virtues?
" But alas !" he continues, " how does this choice, so little
merited, render me deserving of compassion ! I must choose
between these two things : either to cease to offer the holy
Victim in consideration of my unworthiness ; in a word, to
pass my days in deep humility, or else to fulfil my ministry
before the Lord in a humble spirit, as a sacred trust, as a
faithful dispenser of the abundant treasure of his graces."3
The sense of his misery did not turn St Cajetan from the
daily celebration of the holy Sacrifice. He prepared himself
therefor with care, and occasionally by several hours of
meditation. His eucharistic zeal caused him to exhort those
priests who celebrated Mass badly or rarely3 to follow a
better way.
St Philip Neri also counselled those priests whom he
directed to celebrate holy Mass every day, when no legitimate
reason prevented them. He himself celebrated every morn-
ing, and with what devotion ! " Whilst each priest makes
1 Sermo XX ; Quanta veneratione honorari debent ecclesiastici
gradus, art. II, cap. vii : Quanto quoque superat [sacerdotis potestas]
potestatem Virginis gloriosae et omnium creatorum. Virgo amorosa
et benedicta, excusa me afud te, quia non alloquor contra te, cum
veritatem, quam dixit se esse Filius tuus, fatear coram te, et sacer-
dotium, sicut supra dictum est, in templo ipse praetulit supra te. In
quatuor excedit sacerdotis potestas Virginis potestatem. Primo in
breviiate, secundo in majoritate, tertia in immortalitate, quarto in
replicabilitate. Sancti Bernardini Senensis, O.M . Opera omnia, Lyons,
1650, Vol. I, p. 99, Joachim de la Haye, ed.
2 Lettres de St Gaetan, de Maulde la Claviere, pp. 182-183; Salva-
dori, San Gaetano, pp. 49-50. Similar thoughts on the sanctity of the
priesthood are found in the writings of St Laurence Justinian, Bellar-
mine, and other holy persons of the time.
3 Ada Sanctorum, August 7, p. 267, Paris, 1867.
3t3 TEcacbimj 257
great efforts for the mind to be recollected in God before
celebrating-, Philip was obliged to make great efforts to dis-
tract his mind from God. Without this he would have
lacked the necessary attention to the outward acts of the
holy Sacrifice, and, instead of saying Mass, he would have
passed long hours absorbed in God."1 In spite of these
precautions, he was often rapt in ecstasy while he celebrated.
Christ is the true model whom the priest should strive to
imitate. St Cajetan bewailed the fact that " neither inwardly
nor outwardly " did he resemble Jesus Christ. He asked
the Reverend Mother Laura Mignani " to obtain for him to
be very conformable to the divine Master."2 This resem-
blance to Christ the High Priest, so much preached by the
reformers of the clergy, St Philip Neri strove to reach :
' From the first day, when he was clothed with the sacred
ministry, he always had his eye on Christ the High Priest,
and he became one with him in such a way that his work
was in substance the work of Christ, wrought by means
of him. In the sacerdotal life of Philip, he was like
the branch united to the vine, and that vine was Jesus
Christ."3
" Alas ! to-day there is no one like Christ," said St Cajetan
sadly.4 How ardently must he and the holy priests of his
time have preached sacerdotal virtue ! so well did they under-
stand how needful it was !
When a clerk has been convinced of the dignity of his
state and of the obligation which binds him to avoid, in his
own life, the faults which he is charged to correct in others,
a programme of perfection must be set before him. This
programme must not be too severe, so that it may be within
the compass of all. It was the secular clergy that needed
reform, by being shown the true sacerdotal life by example.
The Clerks Regular would not have been able fittingly to
undertake this reform were they submitted to an austere
monastic rule, good for the cloister but unsuitable to priests
exercising their ministry outside.
The founders of the Clerks Regular understood this well.
They themselves, nevertheless, practised austerities. St
Cajetan, the first Barnabites,5 St Charles Borromeo, to cite
1 Card. Capecelatro, Vie de saint Philippe de Neri, translated by
Bezin, Vol. I, p. 251. The writer adds : " The thing appeared most
strange, and I should hardly have believed it if I had not seen it so
often affirmed in the process of canonization of Philip by witnesses
most worthy of trust."
2 De Maulde, p. 194; Salvadori, p. 70.
3 Capecelatro, Vol. I, p. 250.
4 De Maulde; Salvadori, ibid.
6 Premoli, Storia dei Barn., p. 473.
III. 17
258 Christian Spirituality
only these, made themselves remarkable by their heroic
penance. But what they urged on their disciples was
spiritual mortification, inward self-denial.1
Thus the absolute poverty of the mendicant Orders was
not imposed on them. They were required to have the spirit
of poverty, which renounces what is superfluous, which learns,
if needful, to be content with little, and, above all, to avoid
covetousness, a vice that was fairly frequent among the
clergy of the Renaissance. With regard to this poverty of
mind and heart, they knew, as did St Charles Borromeo,
when he became Cardinal, how to give the example of a
return to evangelical simplicity. St Francis de Sales later
on desired his Visitation Nuns " to have their feet well
shod, but the heart discalced and naked of all earthly
affection ; to have the head well covered and the mind well
uncovered by perfect simplicity and the stripping of self-
will."2 The influence of St Philip Neri, who proposed to
himself " to inspire and to promote, throughout the whole
Church, poverty of heart and mind," is here seen.3 And St
Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi, who reflects the spiritual teaching
of her time so faithfully, said, in connection with the spirit
of ownership among religious :
" The salvation of a religious who has everything in abun-
dance may be looked upon as certain, provided that this
abundance comes to him from his superiors, and that he
does not desire something more. On the contrary, there is
no hope of salvation for the one who, though ill-nourished
and ill-clothed, cries for possession by desire, and who strives
to stifle remorse of conscience by this outward appearance
of poverty. If he do not promptly strip himself of all he
possesses in affection, he hopes for heaven in vain; it is
not for him."4
The clergy ought to be unselfish, pure, filled with the
spirit of religion ; qualities which were often lacking in them
at that time. Bellarmine relates that on one occasion he
received hospitality at the palace of a rich prelate, who be-
longed to the nobility. Everything was luxurious, apart-
1 This spirituality is beautifully expressed in the treatises Of Inward
Self-denial, Of Christian Perfection, Cremona, 1585, by a nun of Milan
whose name is unknown. These treatises were published at Cologne
in 1642, under the name of Achille Gagliardi, Jesuit.
* QLuvres de Saint Francois de Sales, Lyon-Annecy, Vol. XIV,
p. 232.
* Capecelatro, Vol. I, p. 100. The importance of spiritual mortifica-
tion is one of the characteristics of St Philip Neri's spirituality, Vol. I,
chap. xi.
* OZuvres, French translation, Bruniaux, Vol. I, p. 394. St Cajetan
did not at once attain to the true definition of poverty for the Clerks
Regular. He himself practised absolute outward poverty [Acta Sanc-
torum, August 7, p. 261). It was the same with the Barnabites, Premoli,
P- 75-
3ts Ueacbino 259
ments, plates and dishes, the table. Early next morning- the
cardinal betook himself to the church attached to the palace
in order to celebrate there the holy mysteries. But how great
was his surprise to find it completely bare and repulsively
dirty. He dared not say Mass there. l We can imagine the
sadness of the pious cardinal, who, like St Charles, "could
find nothing beautiful enough or rich enough for the house
of God." St Cajetan, St Philip Neri, and all the founders
of the Clerks Regular, loved the beauties of worship and
devoted themselves to the artistic decoration of their
churches.2 In this way were the faithful edified, God
glorified, and ministers at the altar inspired with the spirit
of religion.3
II— THE WAR AGAINST SELF
The condition needed for the production of this inward
spirituality is the struggle against self. The means recom-
mended to both clergy and faithful was that of the Spiritual
Combat and of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, for the
Italian School is stamped with the impress of Ignatian
spirituality.1 To die to self is to become virtuous. It is
also to glorify God.
" I am well aware," said St Cajetan, " that the greatest
glory of God consists in perfect submission and in generous
dying to self."5
1 De gemitu columbae, lib. II, cap. v, (Euvrcs, Vol. VIII, pp. 435-
436-
2 As regards the Barnabites, see Premoli, Storia, pp. 188, 327 ff.
3 The famous picture of the true clerk, made, in 1562, by the Council
of Trent (Sess. XXII, De reformatione, cap. i), well corresponds with
the ideal of the Clerks Regular at this epoch : Nihil est quod alios
magis ad pietatem et Dei cultum assidue instruat, quam eorum vita et
exemplum qui se divino minis terio dedicaverunt : cum enim a rebus
saeculi in altiorem sublati locum conspiciuntur, in eos tanquam in
speculum, reliqui oculos conjiciunt, ex Usque sumuni quod imitentur .
Quapropter sic decet omnino clericos in sortem Domini vocatos, vitam
moresque suos omnes componere, ut habitu, gestu, incessu, sermone
aliisque omnibus rebus nil nisi grave, moderatum ac religione plenum
prae se ferant, levia etiam delicto, quae in ipsis maxima essent,
effugiant, ut eorum actiones cunctis offerant venerationem.
*■ The Theatines and Barnabites began before the coming of St
Ignatius into Italy (1537). The Jesuits were first of all called Theatines,
because of their resemblance to the religious of St Cajetan. St Teresa
sometimes gives them this name [Letters, Vol. I, pp. 7, 154, 437, etc.,
ed. Gregory of St Joseph). The Spiritual Exercises were not slow in
becoming famous in Italy. St Charles had drawn up a practical com-
mentary on them. The people said of the Bishop of Milan : " The
Jesuits, added to his natural gifts, have caused him to adopt the life
he leads " (De Hurner, Sixte-Quint, Vol. I, p. 65). In her ecstasies,
St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi heard St Ignatius, who gave her instruc-
tions respecting humility (CEuvres, II, chap. xiv). Cf. Tacchi Venturi,
Storia della Compagnia di Gesit in Italia, Rome, 1910.
6 De Maulde, p. 51.
260 Cbristian Spirituality
We are struck by the prominent place given to the struggle
against self-love in Italian spirituality. An exaggerated love
of self is quite rightly considered as the meeting-place of all
the passions. Our will, according to the Spiritual Combat,
is "infected and ruined by self-love."1 In the Dialogues of
St Catherine of Genoa, the worst role is played by self-love.
St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi sees in this the most mortal
enemy of divine charity. These are in direct conflict at every
moment.2
To draw the greater attention of the faithful to this in-
ward battle, spiritual writers dramatized it. The Dialogues
of St Catherine of Genoa help us to assist at the struggle
waged by the mind and soul against the body and self-
love, which are finally overcome. St Mary Magdalen dei
Pazzi is filled with admiration for the charity which arms for
the battle against self-love, " clothed in an armour which
so perfectly protects all its members that the blows appear
to it like puffs of wind and the wounds like the bite of an
insect."3 She was greatly stirred by a combat between
humility and vainglory.
" I see," she said, " vainglory filled with boasting, and
humility on the contrary calm and peaceful. ... I desire
to pause here in order to witness the battle ; I feel that they
are about to slay one another. Vainglory is well armed, but
humility is no less so, and its arms are better sharpened.
Vainglory tries to give its blows on the head ; humility
strikes from beneath. She will certainly have the advantage.
She has already given her enemy a blow which has laid him
at her feet. Beware, thou brave humility, vainglory is not
yet dead. I desire to see the end of this battle, for I do not
yet find perfect humility within me."4
Tranquillity of soul and inward peace were strongly urged
on the fighters. Trouble and care produce discouragement.
Moreover God brings about great things in a soul that is at
peace.
" Keep therefore," says the author of the Spiritual Combat,
" a sentinel always on the watch, who, as soon as he discerns
the approach of anything likely to disquiet or disturb thee,
may give thee a signal to take up thy weapons of defence.
. . . So may the untoward accident do us much good,
if we keep our souls in peace and tranquillity ; otherwise
all our exercises will produce little or no fruit."5
St Philip Neri also counselled holy joy and gaiety to those
whom he directed. St Magdalen of Pazzi, too, desired her
religious to be joyful and contented.6 The enjoyment of this
1 Chap. xliv. * CEuvres, I, p. 421 ; II, p. 297.
3 ibid., Part II, chap, xii, Bruniaux, I, p. 421.
« ibid., chap, x, p. 408. 6 Spiritual Combat, chap. xxv.
6 CEuvres, Part II, chap, vii, Vol. I, p. 387.
3ts zreacbfnc) 261
tranquillity of soul was the dream of the Christian humanists
of Italy. The brief of Pope Clement VII, June 24, 1524,
instituting- the Order of Theatines, declares that the first
founders are brought together with the desire to serve God
"with most perfect tranquillity of soul."1 Blessed Robert
Bellarmine, in his autobiography, stated that it was on re-
flecting " very seriously one day on the means of arriving at
true peace of soul " that he resolved to enter the Society
of Jesus.2
Tendencies such as these account for the success which the
Treatise on the Peace of the Soul, by the Spanish Franciscan,
John of Bonilla, obtained in Italy in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. This inward peace was truly the Path
to Paradise (Sentiero del Paradiso).3
Ill— OPTIMISTIC PIETY OF THE ITALIAN
SCHOOL
It is optimistic not only in insisting on the beauties of religion
and on the consoling aspects of Christian mysteries, but also
in its kindly feeling and sympathy for human nature. Strict
as are the Italian writers in order to assure success in the
fight against self,4 they are equally indulgent in regard to
other spiritual exercises.
Thus they counsel frequent communion, under conditions
which, owing to the almost total neglect of the sacraments
throughout Europe, were difficult at this period. St Cajetan
was among the first to urge the faithful to the daily recep-
tion of the Eucharist. He was inspired above all by their
need of it to counter the paganism of the Renaissance.5 St
Philip Neri, as all know, had made the frequenting of the
sacraments of penance and the Eucharist one of the great
1 This brief was drawn up by Cardinal Sadolet. F. Mourret, Hist,
gen. de PEglise, Vol. V, p. 53c;.
2 Joseph Thermes, Le B* Robert Bellarmin, Paris, 1923, p. 11.
3 This Treatise on the Peace of the Soul must have inspired the
author of the Spiritual Combat {Etudes franciscaines, Vol. XXVII,
1912, pp. 76 ff.). It is added to several editions of the Spiritual Com-
bat. Italian, as well as French, editions call it the Path to Paradise.
The Trinitarian, St Michael of the Saints (1591-1635), also published a
Breve tratato de la tranquillitad deW almo (published with other small
works at Rome, 1915). In Italy, Ignatius del Nente, O.P., published
an analogous treatise, Delia tranquillita delVanimo nel lume della
natura, della fede, della Sapienza, e del divino Amore, Florence, 1642.
4 For example St Philip Neri, who was kindness itself, in order to
conquer the self-love of his famous disciple, the great Baronius (fi6o7),
the immortal author of the Ecclesiastical Annals, obliged him to act
as cook to the Community of the Oratory for some time, and inflicted
other humiliations on him. Capecelatro, Vol. II, p. 125.
5 Acta Sand., August 27, p. 67. In the sixteenth century the
Theatines were the first to react against the desertion of the holy table.
262 Christian Spirituality
means of propagating- devotion in the city of Rome. Before
him in 1540, Blessed Pierre Le Fevre, one of the first com-
panions of St Ignatius, exhorted to weekly confession and
communion at Parma.1 St Magdalen dei Pazzi advised fre-
quent communion even for those whose dispositions left a
little to be desired.
For if in the ordinary way, she said, we find God " inclined
towards us, as we are towards him, yet very often his mercy
closes his eyes to our lack of preparation, his goodness pre-
vails over our neglect, and he gives us consolation, even when
our imperfect dispositions render us unworthy to receive that
plenitude of grace which this heavenly nourishment brings." 2
The sympathy of Italian spirituality for poor human nature
is also shown by simplicity of method in prayer.
The temperament of the Renaissance Italians was ill-dis-
posed to what was intricate or restrictive : it needed air and
space. Any hindrance of its movements was unbearable.
Doubtless the spiritual combat requires force : it is impossible
to overcome without doing violence to self. Yet in exercises
of piety the soul should move at its ease so as to approach
God without being compelled by a kind of pious, and possibly
hampering, etiquette. As a matter of fact, we do not find
that so much importance was attached to mechanical methods
of prayer and examination of conscience in Italy as in Spain,
the Low Countries, or in France.3 The methods counselled
in the Spiritual Combat*1 are as simple as possible, and yet
we may assume that they came from Spain through John
of Castagniza or through St Ignatius. There is no doubt
that St Philip Neri, who was so exacting as to spiritual
mortification, insisted much more on Christian gladness — one
of the chief notes of his asceticism5 — than on the explanation
of divers methods of mental prayer. Nevertheless, like all the
1 Cf. Recherches de Science religieuse, March-April, 1910, p. 174.
St Jerome Emilian, after his conversion, communicated every week.
Acta S.S., February 8, p. 229.
2 GEuvres, Part I, chap, ix, Vol. I, p. 102.
8 There are, however, exceptions owing to the influence of the
Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. Thus St Charles Borromeo followed
the Ignatian methods of prayer and had them followed by those around
him. But it is a fact that the Italian writings on methodical prayer
are incomparably fewer than the Spanish. In the sixteenth century
the most noteworthy are those of Serafino da Fermo and the Sfecchio
di orazione, Parma, 1537 (French translation, Paris, 1601), of Berna-
dino of Balbano, O.M. An anonymous Franciscan work, Trattato
della meditatione e stati delta santa contemflatione, Rome, 1654.
Pratica delVOratione mentale, Venice, 1592, of Bellintani Matthia,
Capuchin.
4 Chap, xlvi-xlviii, lx.
5 Cardinal Capecelatro characterizes thus the ascetic school of St
Philip : the charitable, mortified, gladsome, and simple school. Life,
Vol. I, p. 518.
3ts XTcacblng 263
saints, and notably St Charles Borromeo,1 he was insistent
on advocating- prayer.
He knew how to teach it and had a method, but one that
was very simple. As regards his religious, " he gave pre-
ference to prayer in common rather than to psalmody in
common, because his wish was to unite his priests and layfolk
together in prayer."2
" In order to learn to pray," he said, " an excellent means
is to realize that we are unworthy of it. True preparation
for prayer consists in the practice of mortification. To wish
to give ourselves to prayer without mortifying ourselves is to
be like a bird which desires to fly before it has feathers."
To one of his penitents who begged him to teach him how
to pray he answered : " Be humble and obedient and then the
Holy Spirit will teach thee how to pray."3
In prayer he counselled the faithful to follow the impulse
of the Holy Spirit. If a book were used, the reading of it
should cease as soon as some pious emotion was felt within.
In a state of dryness and aridity we should behave as beggars
before the good God. Above all, we should not cease to pray.
" Prayer," he said, " is in the supernatural order what
speech is in the natural. A man who does not pray is like
an animal who does not speak. There is nothing that the
devil fears more than prayer, and what he seeks for most is
to destroy this spirit of prayer in souls."4
St Philip Neri " made himself the master of a mild, sweet,
tender, compassionate asceticism. Throughout his life hardly
two or three instances of moderate severity are to be met
with ; and, on the contrary, an infinite sweetness of charity
towards one's neighbour is seen at every step. ..." " I do
not desire confessors," he said, " to make the path of virtue
too hard, above all for recent converts. I do not wish them
to be galled by harsh reproaches. Dismayed by fear and by
the difficulties of the new way, they might turn back. . . .
Let us act otherwise : by compassion, gentleness, and love let
us strive to win them for Jesus Christ ; let us sympathize with
their weakness as much as we are able, so that our whole
effort may be to inflame them with the love of God, who
alone works great things." Thus did St Philip and his
school speak. 6
1 St Charles, we know, decreed that at Milan the ordinands at their
examinations should be specially asked if they used mental prayer and
the subjects of their meditations.
2 Capecelatro, Vol. II, p. 203. s id., p. 521.
4 Bayle, p. 247. St Philip Neri trained men in the world to prayer,
as did St Francis de Sales.
6 Capecelatro, I, pp. 483, 485. Leopold Ranke, the historian, char-
acterizes St Philip Neri in the same way : " He was good, of playful
humour, strict as regards things essential, indulgent in those which
were only accessory ; he never commanded, but restricted himself to
264 Cbrfstian Spirituality
Such also, speaking generally, was the Italian School.1
" You must be kind and friendly towards your daughters,"
St Angela Merici counselled the Ursulines, " that they may
be humble, kindly, models of charity and patience in every
word and act" . . . and the Mothers in charge of the
sisters : " I recommend you most insistently to seek ever to
draw and rule the sisters by love, with a soft and gentle hand,
without pride and harshness. In every circumstance be kind
to them."2
IV— DIVINE LOVE IN THE ITALIAN SCHOOL
The teaching of divine love holds a large place in the
spiritual writings of Italy in the sixteenth century, which
knew the Oratorio del divino Amore.
Divine love wrought marvels in the soul of St Cajetan,
one of the founders of this society. " To speak to him of
divine love floods him with joy and throws him into ecstasy.
His delights are made manifest by abundance of tears. He
loved, then he wept. . . . This ' holy madness ' transformed
him; it produced in him, even physically, an incredible power
of resistance. ... ' When one loves God,' he exclaims, ' all
is easy !' And he marches on mad with love . . . the flame
which fires him expands his breast and distresses him. But
it seemed impossible not to love him, because of his lofty
flights and his fire, which wonderfully fed the energy of his
soul. His word was on fire. . . . He burnt with love."3
In his Letters to Laura Mignani, he frequently asks his pious
correspondent to pray to God that his soul might become " a
flaming brasier. " This passage in the Dialogues attributed
to St Catherine of Genoa, he interprets thus : " He who could
well express what is felt by a heart burning with the love of
giving counsel, beseeching, so to speak, those who were expecting to
receive his orders ; he did not teach but conversed, possessing as he
did the needful discernment to distinguish the special bent of each
mind. His Oratory increased through the visits paid him, and by
the attachment of some younger men who regarded themselves as his
pupils and desired to live with him ; the most famous among these was
the Church annalist, Caesar Baronius." Histoire de la Pafaute pendant
les XV/e et XVIIe siecles, French translation, Haiber, Paris. 1838,
Vol. II, pp. 337-338. One of the Maxims of St Philip was : " Do you
wish to be obeyed? Then command little." Bayle, p. 191.
1 A somewhat more severe tone, however, is to be noted in St Charles
Borromeo.
2 Ste Angele Merici et VOrdre des Ursulines, Paris, 1922, I, pp. 413-
421.
3 De Maulde, pp. 35-36, which sums up the text of the Acta San-
ctorum, August 7, pp. 263 ff.
3ts Ueacbincj 265
God would make all other hearts melt or break, even though
they were harder than the diamond and more stubborn than
the devil."1
In the catacombs of St Sebastian, where he often went to
pray, St Philip Neri, on the day of Pentecost 1544, was so
violently overwhelmed by the fire of divine love that " his
heart leapt . . . needed to dilate and to have more room "
and miraculously bent two of his ribs.2 This is the famous
mystical phenomenon of the wonderful dilation of his heart.
St Aloysius Gonzaga (f 1591) was also one of the most
pure victims of divine love. After his death he appeared to
St Magdalen dei Pazzi and to other mystics in order to
exhort them to let themselves be consumed by the flames of
divine charity.3
St Magdalen dei Pazzi herself was rapt in God whenever
the word love was mentioned in her presence.4
But still more interesting than these wonders is the teach-
ing of the Italian mystics of this period on the love of God.
It is to be found chiefly in the Dialogues attributed to St
Catherine of Genoa. These Dialogues must have been written
by Battista Vernazza, daughter of Ettore Vernazza, the
disciple of St Catherine of Genoa, who was one of the
founders of the Oratorio del divino Amore. Composed about
1548, they reflect the great Genoese mystic's thoughts on
divine love.5
They are a kind of mystical history of the converted soul
which is freed from passion and becomes purified in the flames
of divine love, attaining the closest and most extraordinary
union with God.6 Several holy persons belonging to six-
teenth-century Italy, such as St Jerome Emilian and St
Camillus de Lellis, are here to be recognized.
All the marvels of grace described in the Dialogues are the
effects of pure love, the pure love so much enlarged on by
St Catherine of Genoa, Baptist da Crema, and many others
at this time; but later on it brought F^nelon and Bossuet into
conflict.
1 Dialogues, Part II, chap, iv, de Bussiere's translation, Paris, 1914,
p. 284.
2 Capecelatro, Vol. I, pp. 185 ff.
3 Acta Sand., May 25.
i CEuvres, Bruniaux, Vol. I, p. xiii.
6 Ettore Vernazza and Cattaneo Marabotto, the confessor of St
Catherine, edited, about 1530, the Life of the saint and her Treatise on
Purgatory, in her own words. About 1548, Battista Vernazza composed
the Dialogues which were added to the Life and the Treatise on
Purgatory in 1551. At this period the Works of St Catherine of Genoa
were determined. F. von Hiigel, The Mystical Element, Vol. I.
6 The dialogues take place between the Soul, the Body, Self-love,
the Spirit, the Natural Man or Humanity and Christ. Usually the
subject of the dialogues is Pure Love.
266 Cbristian Spirituality
Pure love is, first of all, that disinterested love with which
we are loved by God.
" Know," says the Lord to the soul in the Dialogues,
" that I am God, unchangeable, and that I loved man before
creating- him with an infinite and pure and simple love, with-
out any cause : I cannot but love what I have created and
destined, each in its degree, to contribute to my glory.1 . . .
My love is pure, simple, and free, and I cannot but love with
such love as this."2
This pure love is next that purifying love which destroys
evil passions and even the smallest imperfections in the con-
verted soul.
" A ray of love was shed in his heart, and this ray was so
ardent and penetrating, and pierced him inwardly through so
completely, that it took away all loves, appetites, delights,
and belongings that he ever had or could have in this world.
His soul remained thus deprived of all things ... it held
human nature of no more account than if it had never had
part therein ; it esteemed neither the flesh nor the world nor
the evil spirit."3
The fire of pure love next consumes our imperfections, how-
ever small they be. It makes the soul pass through " a
purgatory " which purifies the least stains and submits it to
a "long martyrdom." "The grindstone of divine love"
crushes all that is not itself.4
Pure love, again, makes men renounce all consolation, no
matter what, either corporal or spiritual. The " spiritual
tastes" are as dangerous as the "corporal tastes," if not
more so. In the Dialogues, the Spirit says to Humanity :
" As for me, I aspire only to pure and naked love which
cannot be attached to anything which flatters the taste or the
spiritual or corporal senses ; and I declare to thee that I fear
much more attachment to the spiritual sense than the
corporal. The reason of this is that the spiritual entangles
man under the appearance of good, without his being able —
unless with the greatest difficulty — to be made to under-
stand that it is quite other than good ; and thus the creature
delights in that which proceeds from God. But I say to
thee in truth, that he who desires God alone ought of
1 Dialogues, Part III, chap, i, Vicomte de Bussiere's translation,
Paris, 1914, p. 306.
2 id., Part II, chap, v, p. 285. The same thought is found in the
Spiritual Combat, chap. lv.
3 Dialogues, Part I, chap, xii, pp. 246-247. See also in the CEuvres
(Part II, chap, xiii) of St Magdalen dei Pazzi the combat between
Divine Love and Sensual Love.
4 id., pp. 250, 278, 284, 294, 298, 302, 324, 328, etc.
3ts XTeacbino 267
necessity to avoid these things, for they are as poison to
Pure Love."1
St Philip Neri, who counselled a holy gladness to those
whom he directed, would have found such renunciation ex-
aggerated. The Dialogues, it is true, expound an extremely
high programme of perfection, accessible to a few only. It
is, moreover, as we know, the programme of the Spiritual
Combat and of the greater part of the Italian writers.
" I wish thee, O blessed soul," said Blessed Battista
Varani,2 " to follow my counsels. Thou shouldst serve God
not as a slave through fear of temporal punishment or of
eternal pain, not as a sinner for a reward, but as a child who
renders God love for love, blood for blood, death for death.
Such is the short way to sanctity, the hidden but sure way,
unseen of men but known and admirable in the eyes of God,
to whom all is naked and open."
The Dialogues consider that even true friendship is con-
trary to pure love.
" Nor again do I desire thee," says the Spirit to Humanity,
" to contract friendship with anyone nor to retain a special
affection for thy parents. I require thee to love each one, poor
and rich, friends and neighbours, but without preferences,
without human love or attachment. I desire thee not to dis-
tinguish one from the other and not to bind thyself to anyone,
however religious and spiritual."3 To act thus is to practise
very great renunciation ; but pure love, properly understood,
certainly does not demand it. Let us note these exaggera-
tions in passing.
The Dialogues explain the mystical effects of pure love
more correctly.
When it has stripped the soul of all evil passion and all
imperfection, love dispossesses it again of itself and of its
natural operations.
" After this creature had been stripped of the world, of the
flesh, of goods, of exercises, of affections, and of all things
— God alone excepted — the Lord desired yet to strip it of
itself unto the division of the S'oul and spirit (Heb. iv, 12).
This separation is accompanied by very great and most subtle
suffering, difficult to express and to understand by one who
lacks the knowledge of it by personal experience enlightened by
divine light. God poured into her heart a new love so im-
1 Dialogues, Part I, chap, xv, p. 253. Cf. pp. 251, 258. The
Dialogues recognize, however, that the soul filled with charity " no
longer feels anything but love and jubilation, and thinks itself in
paradise " (pp. 283 ff.).
* Acta Sanct., May 31, p. 495.
3 Dialogues, Part I, chap, xviii, p. 261.
268 Cbdstian Spirituality
petuous as to draw unto himself her soul with all its powers,
as though they were removed from her natural being-."1
Then the powers of the soul are bound : the understanding,
the memory, and the will are submerged " in this sea of divine
love " and drawn " out of the conditions in which the soul
was created."2
" Stripped in this way it [the spirit] is naked in God, and
is retained there as long as it pleaseth the Lord, who leaves
it only what is needful for the life of the body."3
This " nakedness of the spirit," of which mystics speak so
much, is an effect of love, that " Pure Love which must be
absolutely bare " and admit of nothing else than itself.4
When love reaches such purity in the soul the latter is
ineffably united to God.
The sources of this pure love are the Saviour's wounds,
from which, as from " five fountains," flow " drops of burn-
ing blood and of fiery love for men."5 These wounds are
channels which pour forth in us the sweet and precious cor-
dial of love. The true source is the Heart of the Incarnate
Word. Let us hearken to St Magdalen dei Pazzi :
" What is the name of the vessel which contains this sweet
cordial [of love] ? It is called the Heart of the Word. Small
though it be, it nevertheless contains it in spite of its abund-
ance, and it yearns to pour it into a still smaller vessel, which
is the heart of the creature. . . . Oh ! how right it is that
the Heart of the Word Incarnate was chosen to be the source
of this precious cordial ! From what mountain has there ever
been seen to flow so abundant a source? What fountain
has clearer waters than this most pure love? These waters
are so abundant that they water both heaven and earth."6
The conditions for receiving this divine cordial which flows
from the heart of Jesus and for living on it are summed up
by the saint in what she calls " the alphabet of love."7
1 Dialogues, Part II, chap, i, pp. 273-274.
2 ibid., p. 275. Cf. p. 335.
3 id., p. 274. Cf. pp. 334-335, 337-34°-
4 id., Part I, chap, xiv, p. 251. Cf. John of Fano, Capuchin, Arte
della unione con Dio, Brescia, 1548, and the commentary by Dionysius
of Montefalco, Capuchin, V Arte d'unirsi a Dio del R. P. F . Giovanni
di Fano . . ., Rome, 1622.
5 Dialogues, Part I, chap, xii, p. 247. Cf. St Magdalen dei Pazzi,
Works, Part III, chap. vii.
6 CEuvres, Part III, chap, xxii, Vol. II, pp. 300-301. Like St
Bonaventure, St Magdalen entered into the Heart of Jesus through
the doors of his five sacred wounds (CEuvres, Part III, chap. vii). She
is, as was Battista Varani, an important witness to the ancient tradition
of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
7 GSuvres, Part IV, chap, i, Vol. II, pp. 132-133: " A = abounding
love. B = good. C = blind (cieco). D = Desirous. E = exalted. F = fervent.
G = generous. H = humble. I = integral (integrity in). L = luminous.
3ts Ueacbino 269
This alphabet must be known in order to possess the love
of God.
Among these conditions one of the chief is devotion to our
neighbour. Has not divine love God and our neighbour as
its object? Moreover the members of the society of the
Amore divino were strongly urged to relieve some of the
wretchedness of the time. These miseries were immense on
account of the wars and political troubles which disturbed
Italy. We may well call to mind the horrors resulting from
the sack of Rome in 1527, when on all sides were seen the
sick without care, orphans abandoned, and youth left in
ignorance and depraved morals. It was with a view to
assisting so many unfortunates that there were founded the
hospitals, orphanages, schools, and many other charitable
institutions at that time.
The Oratorio del divino Amore recruited within it the
servants of the sick.1 Ettore Vernazza, its founder, was also
the initiator of this great movement of charity, which caused
hospitals to be raised in divers parts of Italy, and provided
them with kindly and devoted nurses. Indeed, we may ask
whether we truly love God if we refrain from succouring the
sick when we can.
" Thou wilt do all that I shall urge on thee," says the
Spirit to Human nature in the Dialogues ;2 " thus thou wilt
cleanse the sick and, if asked to do this even when speaking
to God, thou wilt leave everything and promptly go to who-
ever asks thy help and wherever thou art led. Nor wilt thou
consider either who it is that calls thee or the work thou
hast to do."
The care of the sick occasionally calls for very great renun-
ciation.
" There were to be found at that time beings full of all
kinds of filth, covered with vermin, and whose stench was all
M = mortified. N = negative. 0 = easeful — that is, not occupied with
self but with God. P = pitiful (sympathetic). Q = plaintive (queritante)
as a bride unable to bear the absence of her husband. R = red with
the Blood of the Word. S = safe and silly ; wise in choice and foolish
in ecstasy. T = threefold — i.e., love of God, one's neighbour, and one-
self. V= vehement. Z = zealous. RU = ruminant, that is thinking
only of the well-beloved. The whole of this alphabet should be known
by him who desires to possess love."
1 Almost all the holy persons of Italy in the sixteenth century, from
St Cajetan to St Camillus de Lellis, served in the hospitals. St Philip
Neri nursed the sick in the hospitals of Rome (Capecelatro, I, chap. iv).
" An ardent charity in the service of the sick," he said, " is a short
way to attain perfect virtue." Bayle, p. 405.
2 Dialogues de St Catherine de Genes, Part I, chap, xviii, p. 260.
27o Gbristian Spirituality
but unbearable : some of the sick gave utterance to terrible
words of despair because of the dreadful misery and affliction
in which they were. Thus, entering- such places seemed like
going- into tombs, which horrifies everyone."1
In order to overcome this natural repugnance, divine love
may suggest putting the vermin and filth of the sick into
one's mouth, as several saints did.2
Charity towards the suffering was to carry impartiality to
the finest point. To shun the gratitude of the sick is a con-
dition of true love. The Dialogues, which seem to analyse
the souls of the great servants of the poor sick at that time,
remark that " sometimes . . . sick folk are to be met with who,
besides their filth and their stench, were always crying out,
complaining of those who served them and insulting them."
Nature suffers from this, but true charity does not let itself
be repelled by anything. In this connection let us call to
mind the charming lesson which Bernadino da Feltre (-j-1494),
that great friend of the poor and unfortunate, gave one day
to the sick and to the nurses of a hospital :
" In the book of the sick," he said, " should be
written : Patience, patience, patience, and in that of those
who help them : Charity, charity, charity. But each should
rest content with reading his own book and not look at the
contents of the other, for in the midst of the thousand little
incidents brought about by human weakness, if one ask of the
other : where is your charity? he endangers his patience, and
if the other replies : where is your patience, he endangers his
charity. Let us not be like the schoolboy who, instead of
learning his lesson in his own book, curiously peeps into his
neighbour's ; this boy will not be able to answer his master's
question, and will be punished."4
Divine love often prompted generous persons to live in the
hospitals to render service and to consecrate their lives to
the relief of the sick. The Dialogues thus explain this form
of heroic charity :
" In proportion as it [humanity] had lost the habit of
self-love, it had acquired the possession of pure and simple
love, which had made it more and more humble, by entering
and dwelling therein. Thus this soul, burning with love, was
consumed in the divine fire, and as the fire constantly
1 Dialogues, p. 262.
2 ibid., p. 265. In the Dialogues, divine love prompts human nature
to eat the vermin of the sick in order to conquer its repugnance.
3 Dialogues, art. I, chap, xix, p. 262.
« E. Flornoy, Le Bienheureux Bernadin de Feltre, Paris, 1897, p. 70.
Blessed Bernardino da Feltre, Friar Minor and famous preached, was
the organizer and defender of the pawnshops in Italy in the fifteenth
century. He thus fought successfully against usury. Cf. Ludovic de
Besse, Le Bienheureux Bernadin de Feltre et son CEuvre, 2 vols., Paris,
1902.
3ts ZTeacblno 27l
increased, it was consumed more and more. This is why it
performed its [hospital] service with great speed and never
rested, in order to get relief from the fire that beset it daily
more and more."1
Is it not a love such as this which impelled St Camillus de
Lellis and many others to care for the sick with as much
delight as they would have tended Christ himself?2 It was
divine love again which suggested to St Jerome Emiliani the
thought of founding an institute of Clerks Regular to take up
the education of orphans. What unseen, incessant, and un-
tiring devotion is needed to instruct these abandoned children
and train them in habits of Christian virtue !3 It is a work of
love, and without love cannot succeed.
In this connection St Angela Merici said to her Sisters :
" You will be affable and kindly towards your daughters.
You will have no other motive regarding them than the love
of God and zeal for souls, whether you warn them, give them
counsel, exhort them to piety, or strive to make them avoid
evil. ... It is charity which leads all to honour God and to
help souls ; it is that which will teach you discretion and dis-
cernment. From charity alone is learnt how to be sometimes
indulgent, at others severe, according to circumstances.4. . ."
1 Dialogues, Part I, chap, xxi, p. 268.
* St Camillus de Lellis (ti6i4) contemplated Jesus so perfectly in
the poor that he asked them for grace and forgiveness of his sins,
behaving himself in their presence with the same respect as though
really in the presence of God.
3 See the Life of St Jerome Emilian, by Augustine Turtura, lib. Ill,
cap. vii, in the Acta Sand., February 8.
4 Souvenirs et avis, 2^ Avis, Sainte Angele Merici et I'Ordre
des Ursulines, Paris, 1922, Vol. I, p. 413. In her Testament, St Angela
required of the Mothers who were to rule the Ursulines after her, that
" their sole motive in the government of the Company must be the love
of God and zeal for the salvation of souls," p. 420.
CHAPTER XI
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES— DIRECTOR OF THOSE IN
THE WORLD— FOUNDER OF AN ORDER— MYSTIC
ST FRANCIS DE SALES forms a school of spirit-
uality by himself alone. He is its beginning", its
development, its sum-total.1
In the ordinary way the founder of a school con-
ceives some new idea, suggests its principles : then
the disciples draw consequences from it and formulate the
teaching" with exactitude. This is a work which becomes
developed in a religious family or in a nation. Thus it was
with St Benedict, St Francis of Assisi, Berulle. The disciples
of St Francis de Sales are legion. None of them seem to
have added anything of importance to the thought of the
master.2 All they have done is to repeat; they think them-
selves happy if they are able to imitate and reproduce.
Few writers are so subjective. In this way he may be
compared to St Augustine, to St Bernard, to St Thomas
Aquinas, or to St Teresa.
Not that he was self-centred or over didactic. He studied
the writers who came before him and was affected by their
influence. He owed much to the Spanish School, to John of
Avila, to Luis of Granada, and above all to St Teresa. The
Italian School, several representatives of which had become
known to him in his studies, deeply influenced him. Was
not the Combatimento spirituale his bedside book for
more than sixteen years?3 But he made their teaching so
thoroughly his own ; presented it in a light so peculiar to
1 See the first three Lives of St Francis de Sales, by Father de la
Riviere, John de Saint-Francois, and Charles-Auguste de Sales. More
recent Lives are by Hamon (revised by Gonthier and Letourneau) and
A. de Margerie. Books on St Francis de Sales are innumerable, and
I shall only mention those of which I make use.
2 St Chantal is an admirable witness to the life, the spirit, and the
teachings of St Francis de Sales. It does not appear that she has
added anything of her own either to the Salesian spirit or to Salesian
spirituality. The same must be said of Pierre Camus, Bishop of Belley,
the author of UEsfrit du bienheureux Francois de Sales (1639-1641).
Some critics doubt whether it always reflects the " true " spirit of the
Bishop of Geneva. Cf. De Baudry, Le veritable esprit du Saint
Francois de Sales, Lyons-Paris, 1846. According to this writer, the
work by Camus " does not always show with accuracy the spirit and
teaching of the saintly Bishop of Geneva," a somewhat severe judge-
ment. Cf. Henri Bremond, Hist, du sent, relig., I, pp. 149 ff., 273 ff.
8 CEuvres de Saint Francois de Sales, complete edition, Annecy,
Vol. I, chap, xliii, pp. 189 ff. This edition is always quoted.
272
Ubc Salestan Scbool 273
himself, with infinite shades ; he adapted it so thoroughly to
the thousand needs of human nature, dealing- with every sort
of temperament you will, that we might think that it was all
his own work. For it is not exactly his teaching which makes
vSt Francis, de Sales original. What he said had been stated
Or perceived before him ; yet never had it been said as he
could say it. That which characterizes a spiritual writer
is less what he teaches — which must of necessity be tradi-
tional doctrine —than the way he teaches it, the spirit which
animates him. Now in St Francis de Sales this way is very
special; in fact, unique. "The flower-girl Glycera " was
clever enough to make " a great number of nosegays " with
the same flowers. St Francis de Sales was also able to
present "the lessons of devotion," in a new way:
" I am indeed unable," he writes in the Preface to the
Introduction to the Devout Life, " nor do I wish, nor ought
I in this Introduction to write what has formerly been made
known on this subject by our predecessors ; they are the
same flowers, dear reader, which I offer thee, but the nose-
gay which I make of them will be different from theirs be-
cause of the variety of its arrangement."1
It is then, above all, the knowledge of the temperament of
the Bishop of Geneva, of the nature of his soul, of the charm
of his spirit, which the characteristics of his spirituality
reveal.
I— THE SALESIAN SOUL— SALESIAN
SPIRITUALITY
Goodness, gentleness, tenderness — but not exclusively in-
deed—form the groundwork of St Francis de Sales' nature.
Though gentle and peaceful, he could be firm in directing,
and was able to rule, knowing what he wanted and how to
obtain it. But he must have made an effort in order to
become so. St Charles Borromeo was naturally a man of
authority, impatient of opposition. St Francis de Sales was
by temperament inclined to conciliation, to compliance, dis-
posed to yield, given to looking on men with kindliness,
indulgent to their faults, skilful in discovering their better
side, compassionate with them in their wretchedness. In
order to remain at all times thus kindly to all, he struggled
all his life against a keen temptation to impatience to which
intercourse with men exposes even the most gentle. He
overcame it so completely that his intimate friends reproached
him with being too easy-going.
His kindness sprang from a sensitive heart, easily moved
to pity :
1 CEuvres, Vol. Ill, pp. 5-6.
III. 18
274 Cbristian Spirituality
" Have we not a human heart and a sensitive nature?" he
wrote to the Baroness de Chantal, who grieved for the death
of her youngest daughter. " Why not weep a little over our
dead, since the Spirit of God not only permits but invites it?"1
He himself wept over the death of his sister Jeanne de Sales:
" Alas ! my daughter," he wrote to Mme de Chantal, " I
am but a man and nothing more. My heart is saddened
more than I could ever have thought ; but the truth is that
my mother's and your distress have both greatly contributed
towards it, for I feared for your heart and that of my mother.
But for the rest, praise be to Jesus ! I shall ever be on the
side of divine Providence, which does all things well and
orders all for the best."2
In giving an account of the last moments of his mother to
the Baroness de Chantal, he said :
" I had the courage to give her the last blessing, to close
her eyes and mouth, and to give her the last kiss of peace at
the moment she passed away ; after which my heart swelled,
and I wept over this good mother more than I have done
since I was ordained ; but it was without spiritual bitterness,
thanks be to God."3
But this exquisite sensitiveness was always moderated by
a very perfect piety. He loved to tenderness, but this love
was always supernatural. Let us not think of St Francis de
Sales as simply a sentimentalist ! This is how he himself
speaks of his heart in a letter to St Chantal :
" I believe that there are no souls in the world who
cherish feelings more cordial, tender, and, saying it in all
good faith, more loving than mine : for it has pleased God so
to fashion my heart. But, nevertheless, I love souls that are
independent, strong, and not effeminate ; for this great tender-
ness confuses the heart, disquiets and distracts it from loving
prayer to God, and prevents entire resignation and the total
extinction of self-love. How does it come about that I feel
such things, I, who am the most tender-hearted man in the
world, as you, most dear mother, know? In truth, however,
I do feel them ; but it is a marvel how I make all this fit
together, for it is in my mind to love nothing at all but God
and all souls for God."4
To these gifts of heart there were added remarkable social
qualities. St Francis de Sales, in a home full of affection,
received the upbringing fitted for a nobleman, which rendered
yet more perfect the happy disposition of his nature. A man
of the world like few others, he was exceedingly fascinating.
The charm of his society was of special service in the work
of directing souls. He knew how to be attractive, and was
so without effort, quite naturally. Nor did his noble manners
a
CEuvres, XIV, p. 264. 2 id., XII, p. 330.
id., XIV, p. 262. 4 id., Vol. XX, p. 216.
ZTbe Salesian Scbool 275
ruffle in the least any of those who came in touch with
him :
" The manner and speech of this blessed one," said St
Chantal, " were full of majesty and dignity, yet always the
most humble, the most gentle, the most simple that I have
ever met . . . he spoke in a low voice, gravely, sedately,
and wisely."1 St Francis de Sales carried this attractive-
ness everywhere : in his person, in his dealing's with others,
in his piety, and in his direction. He is identified with
lovable devotion :
" I in no way desire," he wrote to one of his penitents,2
a fantastic, meddlesome, melancholy, vexatious, gloomy
devotion ; but one that is mild, gentle, agreeable, peaceful —
in a word, one that is a wholly sincere piety which first loves
God and then men."
Italian spirituality gave zest to this natural inclination to
put that which is beautiful, touching, captivating in
Christian virtue in high relief. It taught our saint how the
devout soul may be inwardly mortified— and that to the
highest degree — without allowing this deep-rooted austerity
to appear outwardly ; and this teaching he himself gives, in a
masterly manner, in each page of the Introduction to the
Devout Life and in his letters of direction. He thus knew
how to " humanize " virtue " in its environment,"3 to make
it beloved by the world, and to place it within reach of all.
Humanism achieved what education had begun. The
natural gifts of St Francis de Sales were refined by the
Humaniores litterae which the Jesuits taught him in their
college of Clermont and in Paris, and afterwards at Padua.
Humanism, even that of Maldonatus and Possevin,4 could
not alone produce the Salesian spirit. So perfect was its
affinity therewith, however, that at least it led to its com-
plete development. It also contributed to the formation of
that inimitable style, " richly adorned, well finished, at times
euphuistic, as proper to the period, always courtly,"5 which
caused devotion to be so much beloved.
Finally, let us not forget the great influence which the
Savoy landscape had on St Francis de Sales' imagination.
He himself declared that he discovered one of the sources of
his inspiration in that delightful country. One day, " on the
1 CEuvres de sainie Chantal, II, pp. 221, 222.
2 Mme. de Limojon, CEuvres, Vol. XIII, p. 59.
3 F. Vincent, Saint Francois de Sales, directeur d'dmes, Paris, 1923,
p. 18.
4 The Jesuits Maldonatus and Possevin taught first at Paris, at the
College of Clermont, and afterwards at Padua.
5 F. Vincent, p. 19. With reference to this pictorial or intimate style,
which " touches the heart deeply," see Mgr. Lavallee, Le rialisme de
St Francois de Sales, in La Documentation catholique, March 10, 1923,
pp. 579 ff.
276 Cbrfstian Spirituality
little plateau of St Germain," he marvelled at beautiful
nature, above all at the azure sheet of the lake of Annecy
which, surrounded by high and picturesque mountains, spread
out at his feet.
"O God," he exclaimed, "how we desire never to leave
this place ! Here is just the retreat for the right service of
God and his Church with our pen." And, addressing- the
Prior of the Abbey of Talloires who was with him : " Do
you know, Father Prior, that thoughts would pour down
here as thick and fast as the winter snows."1
From the castle of Allinges, during the Chablais mission,
he very often contemplated that emerald sea, Lake Leman.
He loved nature and flowers and living creatures. He had
in his heart something of St Francis of Assisi's love for
animals. Hence, he liked to find rustic comparisons.2 But
he had no time to study the properties of plants or the habits
of beasts for himself. He obtained them from the old
naturalists and from the bestiaries of the Middle Ages. His
flora and fauna are very largely book lore. Having become
obsolete they have, therefore, slightly marred his style.
To this human side of the Salesian spirit must be added
sanctity, sanctity of high degree. Grace does not destroy
nature, it perfects it. St Francis de Sales is a startling
proof of this. His natural gifts of goodness and gentleness
received from divine love their final perfection. An heroic
mortification, though hidden beneath an outward charm, set
aside without pity any obstacle that might hinder, ever so
little, the predominance of divine charity in his soul that was
made for love. The gifts of grace are combined with those
of nature to make St Francis de Sales one of the most per-
fect and most attractive of all the saints.
Salesian spirituality could not be other than optimistic ; it
is its dominant, though not its only, note.3 For optimism,
when not held within proper bounds, leads to error.
1 De la Riviere, Vie de Vlllustrissime et Reverendissime Francois
de Sales, Book III, chap, xviii {GLuvres, I, p. xxxv).
2 His idea of the world is very like that of Hugh of St Victor. In
his Lettre sur la predication addressed to the Archbishop of Bourges,
October 5, 1604, we read : " The world made by the Word of God
everywhere reflects this Word ; every part sings the praises of the
Workman. It is a book which contains the Word of God, but in a
language which all do not understand. Those who understand it by
meditation do most well to use it, as did St Antony, who had no other
library. And St Paul says : Invisibilia Dei fer ea quae facta sunt
intellect a consficiuntur ; and David : Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei.
This book is good for similitudes, comparisons a minori ad majus, and
for a thousand other things " (XII, p. 307).
3 Cf. Henri Bremond, Histoire du sentiment religieux, I, pp. 104-127.
F. Vincent, pp. 25-98.
Ube Salesian Scbool 277
St Francis de Sales wishes us to fear God, but lovingly.1
Yet it is love far more often than fear that flows from his
pen. His spirituality, like that of St Augustine, is summed
up in love. It views the Christian life from its inward prin-
ciple, which is that of charity. All is reduced to this charity
and is explained by it. God is, above everything, a good
and merciful Father, who loves man beyond anything we can
conceive. If he deals with sin, no doubt it is to punish it,
but this again is because it frustrates his loving designs
towards man.
In the same way Salesian spirituality considers human
nature not so much in its original fall as in its restoration
through Christ. It does not display the wounds of fallen
man, but rather shows them dressed and healed by the
Redeemer. Restored humanity appears to it, to some extent,
returned to its state of innocence. It is not a contami-
nated thing which cannot be touched without our becoming
soiled. It is, in spite of its wretchedness, an image of divine
perfection. St Francis de Sales has nothing of the pessimism
of St Augustine.
Nevertheless he was Augustinian from other points of
view :2 first of all, in his spirituality of love, as we have
just said ; and then, like St Augustine, he sets in relief the
work of grace in our sanctification. Not that he restricts
the power of the will, as Camus,3 Bishop of Belley, would
seem to have us believe. He does not dream of this :
" What is as wonderful as it is true," he said in his
Treatise on the Love of God, " is that when our will follows
its attraction and gives consent to the divine impulse,
it follows it just as freely as, when it resists it, it freely
resists, although the consenting to grace depends much more
on grace than on the will, whereas resistance to grace
depends wholly on the will ; so loving is the hand of God in
the handling of our heart, so adroitly also does it communi-
cate its strength to us without taking away our liberty."4
Salesian thought is perfectly precise and safeguards our
free will. But, nevertheless, it takes delight in describing
divine love and heavenly allurements, which urge on the will
towards the way of sanctity. On this point it is more Augus-
tinian and Thomist than Ignatian.
1 " Let us have no fear but of God, and let that too be a loving
fear " (Vol. XIII, 300).
2 He had a particular affection for the Bishop of Hippo. He spoke
of him as " the great St Augustine."
3 Esprit de S. Fr. de S., Part III, section 2. Cf. De Baudry, op.
cit., Vol. IV, pp. 109 ff.
* Treatise on the Love of God, Book II, chap, xii, CEuvres, IV, 127.
We would note that the famous letter of St Francis de Sales to Lessius
only speaks of predestination -post praevisa merita, a more humane
doctrine to which the young Francis de Sales came round after his
temptation to despair. Lessius will be dealt with in the next volume.
278 Christian Spirituality
Salesian spirituality, like that of St Bernard, is very affec-
tive. It ever intermingles pious upliftings and ejaculations
with doctrinal thought. The loving soul of the Bishop of
Geneva cannot be retained by pure speculation ; heavenly
charity bears it quickly away to God. It has even been said
that the Treatise on the Love of God was as much a collec-
tion of prayers and meditations as a work of mystical
theology.
St Francis de Sales is before all things a man of action.
He wrote only when the interests of his ministry demanded
it. "I write only by chance and in emergency," he says in
his Preface to the Treatise on the Love of God. Providential
events, indeed, led him to take up his pen. It may be said of
him that he lived his books before composing them, like the
monastic lawgivers who themselves followed and made others
follow their rules long before prescribing them.
The Introduction to the Devout Life is an " enlightening
revelation " of the religious experiences of its author and of
those whom he directed. St Francis de Sales shows himself
therein to be a most zealous and experienced director of souls.
When he wrote it, between the Lent of 1607 and the summer
of 1608, his ministry had brought him, above all, in touch
with people in the world :
" My intention is to instruct those persons in the world
who very often, under colour of an alleged impossibility, are
not willing even to think of undertaking the devout life, be-
cause they are of opinion that, just as no beast dare taste the
herb called palma Christi, so no one ought to aspire to the
palm of Christian piety whilst living in the midst of the press
of worldly occupations."
Yet he himself was persuaded that " a vigorous and con-
stant soul can live in the world without receiving any worldly
taint, can find springs of sweet piety in the midst of the
briny waters of the world, and can fly among the flames of
earthly concupiscences without burning the wings of the
holy desires of the devout life."1
This "vigorous and constant soul" was Mme de Char-
moisy. Ever since he knew her, about 1607, the Bishop of
Geneva had progressively given her " teachings meant to
lead her to the Promised Land of true devotion." These are
the Advice, the Exercises, the Spiritual Memoirs spoken of
by the saint in his Letters.2 These, with necessary additions
and the "grouping" proper to a work, form the Introduc-
tion, the first edition of which appeared in 1609.
1 Devout Life, Preface, CEuvres, III [English translation, Allan
Ross (B.O.W.)].
2 Preface by Dom Mackay, III, xiii-xv.
Ube Salesfan Scbool 279
Next year St Francis de Sales founded the Order of the
Visitation. He became director to the nuns. He gave
spiritual conferences to the first Visitandines in order to in-
struct them in true perfection.1 After having taught people
in the world how to practise devotion he now had to explain
the duties of the religious life. The teaching of his Spiritual
Conferences is necessarily more elevated than that of the
Introduction. The holy founder does not limit himself to the
principles of asceticism ; at times he rises to the most lofty
teaching.2
Nevertheless, in the midst of all his preoccupations, St
Francis de Sales nourished the thought of writing a treatise
on the love of God. This project was even in his mind before
bringing out the Devout Life. Divine love wholly dominated
his life. His direction had no other end than to make this
love permeate souls and grow in them. He wrote, on Feb-
ruary 5, 1610, to Mme de Chantal :
" I am about to put my hand to the book on The Love of
God, and I shall endeavour to write it as much on my heart
as on the paper."3
At first he had no intention of writing a treatise on mystical
theology. But in instructing and directing the first Visitan-
dines and especially Mother de Chantal, he soon witnessed
the extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit in them. He had
to adapt his spiritual teaching to the needs of these souls,
thus raised to the mystical state.4 This led him to modify
his first idea :
" I proposed to write on holy love," he says in the Preface
to the Treatise on the Love of God, " for some time, hue
this project was in no way comparable to what this occasion
has led me to produce."5
The Daughters of the Visitation, and especially their
foundress, thus in their way collaborated in the composition
of the book. They also urged their blessed Father to hasten
it. And he devoted every moment he was able to " tear from
the pressure" of his other duties. The work appeared
in 1616.
1 Cf. CEnvres, VI, pp. 8-9 : " Our holy Founder," writes St Chantal,
" often visits us, hears our confessions every fortnight, and gives us
little spiritual conferences, in order to instruct us in true perfection."
2 Treatise on the Love of God, Preface: " And as their purity and
piety of mind [the Visitandines] has often given me great consolation,
so also have I endeavoured to repay this to them frequently by the
distribution of the holy word ... it was often necessary to deal with
the most delicate feelings of piety, passing beyond what I had said to
Philothea." CEnvres, IV, p. 20.
3 GEuvres, XIV, p. 247.
4 Treatise on the Love of God, Preface : " And a great deal of what
T now communicate to you I owe to this blessed assembly," wrote St
Francis de Sales. CEuvres, IV, 20.
5 GLuvres, IV, 21.
280 Cbristfan Spirituality
If it be possible to condense such great spiritual riches
into phrases which are ever insufficient, and to confine so
overflowing- a spiritual life within limits that are of necessity
too narrow, we would distinguish three stages in the his-
torical development of Salesian spirituality : (i) the direction
of people in the world ; (2) the founding of the Visitandines ;
and (3) the elaboration of the mysticism of divine love. The
Introduction to the Devout Life, the True Spiritual Con-
ferences, and the Treatise on the Love of God mark these
several stages.1
II— DIRECTION OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD— THE
"INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE"2
If we would understand the spirituality of the Introduction
we must constantly recall to ourselves the end proposed by
its author.
In the sixteenth century many spiritual directors believed
that perfection was impossible outside the cloister. If those
in the world wished to aspire to it, they required them to live,
as nearly as was possible, the contemplative life. Hence, that
prejudice, " the so-called impossibility," against which the
Bishop of Geneva protested with such energy, of being able
to unite the devout life with the "business of the world."
Spiritual writers, instead of reacting against this prejudice,
scarcely ever wrote for any but those much withdrawn from
temporal affairs, or else they taught " a kind of devotion
which led to such entire withdrawal." St Francis de Sales'
intention, on the contrary, was " to instruct those who live
in towns, in households, and at Court, whose circumstances
oblige them to lead outwardly an ordinary life."3
He teaches them that devotion is, above all, inward, "it is
the perfection of charity." It is acquired by the spirit of
prayer, even more than by the multiplicity of exercises.
Pious exercises, however, are needful. They are recom-
mended almost as much as to the religious, but they must
always be subordinated to the entire and joyful fulfilment of
the duties of one's calling.
1 The Letters must be added, which are a necessary complement to
these three works.
2 The first edition was finished in August, 1608, and appeared in 1609
(Editio frince-ps). The final edition was dated 1619. It is this latter
which Dom Mackay gives in Vol. Ill of the Works of St Francis de
Sales, Annecy, 1893. The first edition is added in an Appendix to this
same volume.
3 Devout Life, Preface. Cf. Part I, chap, iii : " It is an error, nay,
rather a heresy, to wish to banish the devout life from the army, from
the workshop, from the courts of princes, from the households of
married folk " (Allan Ross). I quote from the edition of 1619, accord-
ing to Dom Mackay's rendering.
XTbe Salesman Scfoool 281
For " the practice of devotion must be accommodated to
the strength, to the affairs, and to the duties of each in-
dividually. . . . Devotion when it is true never spoils any-
thing-, but rather perfects all thing's, and when it becomes
inconsistent with the lawful vocation of anyone it is certainly
false."1
That mortification which is necessary for becoming truly
devout must also be almost exclusively inward.2 It must
consist in that kind of death to self which destroys all affec-
tion for sin, however slight. The virtues which we ought
chiefly to practise should be those pertaining to intercourse
with others, in order best to fulfil the obligations imposed
on us in our dealings with the world, and also to render
devotion beloved. Besides, ought not he who is devout to
be a thorough man, possessing as much as possible all
natural qualities as well as Christian virtues? In this way
the most solid virtue will become reconciled with the life
of intercourse and with the affairs of those in the world. It
was thus that St Francis de Sales' Philothea was to act.
We may assume that the Italian School, which so accen-
tuated inward piety, aided the author of the Devout Life in
forming this most clear and practical idea of devotion.
A — Definition of Devotion — Direction — The Puri-
fication of the Soul
If in fact we compare the idea of Christian perfection given
by the Spiritual Combat with the " description of true devo-
tion " at the beginning of the Devout Life, we are struck by
their resemblance.
According to the Italian author perfection consists in the
love of God. " Outward works are but the means of
acquiring sanctity ; but it cannot be said that they constitute
Christian perfection."3 St Francis de Sales completes this
idea with- Luis of Granada's conception of devotion. Accord-
ing to the famous Spanish Dominican, who, moreover, was
inspired by St Thomas Aquinas, devotion is nothing else
than " the readiness and ardour with which we tend to do
good, to observe the commandments, and to serve God in all
things."4 The Bishop of Geneva gives exact expression to
these thoughts, adapts them to his end, and reclothes them
with the grace of his style :
1 Devout Life, Part I, chap. iii.
2 Cf. id.., Part III, chap, xxiii : " For my part, Philothea, I have
never been able to approve of the method of those who, to reform a man,
begin with the exterior. . . . On the contrary, it seems to me that
we must begin with the interior."
3 Spiritual Combat, chap. i.
4 Luis of Granada, Treatise on Prayer and Meditation, Part II,
chap. i.
282 Cbristian Spirituality
" True and living devotion, Philothea, presupposes the
love of God ; nay, rather it is no other thing than a true love
of God ; yet not any kind of love ; for, in so far as divine love
beautifies our souls and makes us pleasing- to his divine
Majesty, it is called grace ; in so far as it gives us strength
to do good, it is called charity ; but when it reaches such a
degree of perfection that it makes us not only do good, but
do so carefully, frequently, and readily, then it is called devo-
tion. Ostriches never fly ; fowls fly, but heavily, low down
and seldom ; but eagles, doves, and swallows fly often,
swiftly, and on high. In like manner sinners fly not to God
. . . good persons who have not reached devotion, fly towards
God by their good deeds, but rarely, slowly, and heavily ;
devout persons fly towards God frequently, readily, and on
high."1
This active charity is not limited to the mere observance
of God's commandments, but " it urges us on to do promptly
and lovingly as many good works as we can, even though
they be in no way commanded, but only counselled or
inspired."
St Francis de Sales does not content himself with giving
" an air of novelty " to that teaching which his " pre-
decessors " gave regarding devotion. He is often most
individual, and is not afraid, when he thinks good, to
accentuate certain principles of traditional asceticism. His
teaching on direction is, in this connection, particularly note-
worthy. 2
Before the Introduction to the Devout Life, the universal
need for direction had not been so definitely stated.3 Nor
was there anywhere to be found so complete a teaching re-
garding it.
In every age, as we know, spiritual direction has been
recommended. It was always practised in monasteries. We
have heard how John of Avila and St Teresa counselled it to
1 Devout Life, Part I, chap. i. St Francis de Sales multiplies com-
parisons in order to describe devotion : " Charity and devotion are no
more different from one another than is the flame from the fire . . .
devotion adds nothing to the fire of charity, except the flame which
renders charity prompt, active, and diligent " (chap. i). " If charity
be a milk, devotion is a cream ; if it be a plant, devotion is its flower ;
if it be a precious ointment, devotion is the odour of it " (chap. ii).
2 Respecting Salesian direction, see Part IV of that fine book by
F. Vincent : St Francois de Sales, directeur d' antes, pp. 397-547.
3 The Baroness de Chantal said after she had met St Francis de
Sales : " Although I was brought up by virtuous people, and I never
had other than becoming conversations with them, nevertheless I have
never heard a director or spiritual master speak in a manner in any way
approaching his." Mere de Chaugy, Sainte Jeanne de Chantal, sa vie
et ses CEuvres, Paris, 1893, p. 38.
TLhc Salesman Scbool 283
those who wished to advance without hindrance in the
spiritual way. St Ignatius of Loyola places those in retreat
under the strict control of the one who is giving- the Exer-
cises. And his disciples have extended, even beyond the
period devoted to the pious exercises, their role of counsellors
to the faithful. St Philip Neri, in Italy, directed a great
number of priests and layfolk, and his direction was much
appreciated. But nobody so far seems to have spoken out
so strongly as to " the necessity of a guide in order to enter
into, and to make progress in, devotion," a necessity for all,
and one which appears to admit of no exception : "It
is," says St Francis de Sales, " the admonition of admoni-
tions."1
Do we see, in this strictness, a wish to react against the
theories of individual inspiration, Protestant and Christian
humanist?2 Perhaps. But St Francis was not in the habit
of going further than what was in his mind, even when
reacting. His teaching on the universal necessity for direc-
tion is the result of reflection and experience :
" One thing is very certain," he said to his nuns of the
Visitation; " it is that all are not led by the same road [in
the spiritual life] ; but again it is not for each one of us to
know by which road God calls us. This belongs to
Superiors, who have the light of God for this. It must
not be said of them that they do not know us well, for
we ought to think that obedience and submission are always
the true marks of good inspiration."3
No one, in fact, is a good judge in his own case. We
nearly always deceive ourselves, whether it be with regard
to the sickness of our bodies or of our souls. And this in
spite of the knowledge which we may possess :
" Why, then," said our saint, " should we be masters of
ourselves in that which concerns the spirit, since we are not
so in that which has to do with the body? Do we not know
that doctors, when they are ill, send for other doctors to
decide as to the remedies they need? In the same way that
advocates do not plead their own cause, so also is reason
likely to be led astray by self-love."4
Moreover, direction ought not to hamper the action of the
Holy Spirit in the one directed, but to facilitate it and be
1 Devout Life, Part I, chap. iv.
2 The saint seems to allude to these theories in the Twelfth Spiritual
Conference : "There are souls," he says, "who, from what they say,
desire only to be led by the spirit of God, and it seems to such that
everything that they imagine comes from the inspiration and movement
of the Holy Spirit, who takes them by the hand and guides them in
all that they wish to do, like children ; in this they are greatly deceived."
Vol. VI, 214.
3 Spiritual Colloquy, XII, Vol. VI, p. 215.
1 Sermon for the Feast of our Lady of the Snow, Vol. IX, p. 95.
284 Cbristian Spirituality
regulated thereby. It guides the soul, adapts itself to its
temperament, without checking- it.1 St Francis de Sales
knew wonderfully well how to use this method. But in
no part of his writings does he put forward a theory of
direction in general. He addresses himself to his penitents
and instructs them in their duties as penitents. It is not his
purpose to give instruction to directors.
The attitude towards her director which he suggests to
Philothea is at the same time traditional and yet new.
The spiritual guide was looked upon by the ancients as,
above all, the representative of God. St John Climacus, in
this connection, relates the beautiful words of a monk
who was ever ready to obey. When he was asked the
secret of his obedience he answered : "I see Jesus Christ
in the person of my superior ; and so I do not look upon the
order given me as coming from man, but as coming from
God."2 In the same way St Francis de Sales, with a
slightly more human touch, declares :
" When you have found him [your guide] do not look on
him as a mere man nor trust in him as such nor in his human
knowledge, but in God who will favour you and speak to
you by means of this man, putting into his heart and into
his mouth whatever shall be requisite for your happiness,
so that you ought to listen to him as to an angel who comes
down from heaven to conduct you thither."3
Regarded thus, the director inspires a wholly supernatural
respect and confidence. But the opening of the heart of the
penitent is not necessarily made easy by it. In order to
render this more easy St Francis de Sales counsels our look-
ing on the director also as a " faithful friend." Between
himself and his penitents there should exist a strong and
tender " friendship . . . wholly spiritual, sacred, holy, and
divine." Let us note this accumulation of epithets; because,
if this friendship become too humanized, most regrettable
consequences might result from it for both director and
directed. It is wonderful to see how St Francis de Sales,
whose direction is affective, who had " the gift of making
himself beloved "4 maintained, without ever failing, his heart
and that of his Philothea in the sure sphere of an affection
purely for God. He knew how to give infinite shades to this
mingling of respect and affection, which enables the peni-
tent to deal with his director without discomfort and yet
" with an open heart, in full sincerity and faithfulness."
" Have the greatest confidence in him," he advises,
1 M. Francois Vincent has clearly shown that the direction of St
Francis de Sales possesses all these qualities. Of. cit., chaps, vii-viii.
2 The Sfiri'ual Ladder, IVth Degree, obedience.
3 Devout Life, Part I, chap. iv.
4 Cf. F. Vincent, pp. 481-515-
XTbe Salesian Scbool 285
" mingled with a holy reverence, yet so that the reverence
diminish not your confidence nor your confidence hinder in
any way your reverence ; confide in him with the respect of a
daughter for her father, and respect him with the confidence
of a son in his mother."1
Thus understood, direction calls for very high qualifica-
tions in the director. " He must be full of charity, of know-
ledge, and of prudence ; if one of these three qualities be
wanting in him, there is danger." St Francis de Sales
even goes so far as to say, " there are fewer than can be
imagined that are fitted for this office." A severe indict-
ment, though perhaps true, of the clergy of those days, or
maybe, it shows an extraordinarily high conception of the role
of director. It is by prayer, above all, that Philothea will
obtain this rare guide. If she pray " with great earnestness "
God will hear her, " even though he should have to send
an angel from Heaven, as he did to the young Tobias."2
In order to reach perfection, " the first purgation which
must be made is that of sin," the second is that of " affec-
tions, which are connected with sin."
The exercises which St Francis de Sales recommends in
order to become purified from mortal sin by meditation on
the last ends and a general confession, are borrowed from
St Ignatius. The " solemn protestation, to engrave on the
soul the resolution to serve God and to conclude the acts
of penance," also seems to be an adaptation from the election
of St Ignatius.
The " second purgation," that of affection for sin,
occupies a very important place in the Introduction to the
Devout Life. Without this complete renunciation of all
attachment to sin, there can, in fact, be no true conversion
nor impulse towards perfection. Nay, more, Philothea was
called to live in the world, in the midst of dangerous occa-
sions. She must needs then detest with " a powerful and
vigorous contrition " not only sin but also " all affection
for it and all that springs from or leads to it."3 Like
" the pirastes which fly in the flames without burning their
wings," she also will be able to " fly among the flames of
earthly concupiscences without burning the wings of the
holy desires of the devout life."
This is why this " purgation " of the soul can never be
pushed too far. It must be extended to " all affection " for
deliberate venial sin, and even to all attachment to dangerous
things which are not evil in themselves but which expose us
to the danger of offending God, such as " games, balls,
1 Devout Life, Part I, chap. iv. 2 ibid.
3 ibid., Part I, chap. viii.
286 Christian Spirituality
feasts, pageants, and plays." Philothea should never be
attached to them. If occasionally obliged to mingle in them,
it should be but rarely and of necessity, never from love or
inclination.1 Finally, true devotion should never tolerate
" defects and shortcomings " which spring from our character
and temperament. These are not sins, properly so called,
for usually the will has no part in them. Nevertheless, we
must labour to correct them in ourselves, " in order to become
better,"2 and to render devotion pleasing.
The soul thus mortified inwardly will be in a manner
insensible to the unhealthy incitements of the world. St
Francis de Sales wrote to the Baroness de Chantal with
regard to Mme de Charmoisy, who was forced to spend
some time in court :
" The good Mme de Charmoisy does much ; you will find
her well advanced in affections and in the effects of true
devotion. But, O God, there she is with one foot on the
threshold of the door of the court. I hope God will hold
her through it all by the hand ; at least, he gives her good
resolutions."3
Is not this a living commentary on the first part of the
Introduction? Mme de Charmoisy is so dead to the world
inwardly that she will not suffer from its attacks.
B — Exercises of Piety
It is divine love which brings about and completes the
"purgation of the soul." And love is developed within us,
becomes prompt and active, by means of exercises of piety.
St Francis de Sales puts forward these exercises in the
second part of his Introduction: mental prayer daily for one
hour, prayers morning and night, examination of conscience,
spiritual reading, the practice of inward recollection or
" spiritual retreat," ejaculatory prayers, weekly confession
and frequent communion. These are the exercises which the
Clerks Regular of the sixteenth century usually practised.*
The Spiritual Combat recommends almost all of them.
Mental prayer in common became substituted more and more
among the religious of this period for the choir office.
The great novelty, it might even be said boldness, of St
Francis de Sales was to impose these exercises on devout
persons living in the world, and to unite thus the contem-
plative with the active life. No one before him had dared
1 Devout Life, chap, xxiii. 2 ibid., Part I, chap. xxiv.
3 Letter to the Baroness de Chantal, 1609, Vol. XIV, p. 131.
* These are so much the exercises of the religious life that, later
on, several religious congregations took the Introduction as their
spiritual directory.
Uhc Salesfan Scbool 287
to do this definitely. Almost all thought it impossible.
After the publication of the Devout Life, the Bishop of
Montpellier, Fenouillet, reproached its author with forcing
Philothea "too far in advance" in the interior ways.1 But
experience showed that it is possible, without too great diffi-
culty, to place people in the world in an environment of
monastic piety. It is true that Philothea is a great lady,
mistress of her time, and generally free to arrange her
manner of life. It was possible for her to give herself to
the prescribed exercises almost at any given moment, rather
like a nun in her cloister. We should have liked to see
St Francis de Sales drawing up the life of prayer for a
working man or for a mother of a family whose whole time
is absorbed by material occupations.2
Philothea's rule was, nevertheless, extremely flexible. Her
exercises are not to be prejudicial to the duties of her state.3
Mme Acarie, to whom St Francis de Sales acted as director
for some time, did not hesitate to shorten her practices of
devotion when necessary, in order not to annoy her husband.
So also with Philothea. But she should always be able,
even when her worldly affairs absorbed her, to practise
interior recollection and make " aspirations " and " ejacu-
latory prayers " :
" Remember, then, Philothea, always to make many with-
drawals into the solitude of your heart, whilst you are out-
wardly in the midst of intercourse and business; and this
mental solitude cannot be hindered by the multitude of those
who are about you, for they are not about your heart, but
only about your body, so that your heart may remain all
alone in the presence of God alone."4
Like St Catherine of Siena, who had " a little inward
oratory in her mind," in order to pray, Philothea should
1 CEuvres, Vol. Ill, p. xl. St Francis de Sales refutes these
objections in Part V of the Devout Life, chap. xvii. In 1604 he
already recommended the same exercises to Mme de Chantal (XII,
P- 352)-
2 It would seem that in the thought of St Francis de Sales, members
of every profession ought to adapt themselves to the exercises of piety
notified above. " You must . . . pass from prayer to all sorts of actions
which your vocation or profession justly and lawfully requires of you,
though they seem very far removed from the affections which you have
received in prayer. I mean that the advocate must learn to pass from
prayer to pleading ; the merchant to business ; the married woman to
the duties of her state and to the cares of her household. . . ." Devout
Life, Part II, chap. viii.
3 Often in his Letters St Francis de Sales insists on the pre-eminence
of the duties of one's state. CEuvres, XII, p. 270; XV, p. 88, etc. In
his famous Letter to St Chantal, October 14, 1604, he wrote : " If you
greatly love obedience and submission, I desire you, if just or charitable
occasion for leaving your exercises arise, to take it as a sort of case of
obedience, and to make up for your omission with love." XII, p. 359.
* Devout Life, Part II, chap. xii.
288 Cbristiau Spirituality
often withdraw herself within her heart and bring- forth there-
from acts of " tender love " for her divine Spouse.
The " spiritual retreat " and ejaculatory prayers are only
to take the place of the other exercises when it is not pos-
sible to do better. Ordinarily, they form but a part of the
spiritual programme for the day; they are in order to main-
tain the soul in recollection and the spirit of prayer.
In this spiritual programme mental prayer holds a very
important place.
Before the time of St Francis de Sales this exercise was
very little employed by people in the world. During retreats
and on other occasions dealing specially with the salvation
of the soul, meditation was used, but it was not always
methodical prayer :
" But perhaps you do not know, Philothea, how to make
mental prayer ; for it is a thing which unhappily few persons
in this age of ours know how to practise."1
The Introduction to the Devout Life popularized this
exercise. From this time on, the practice of devotion was
not complete without mental prayer. There remained but
to adapt it to the position or degree of culture of each one,
but it was necessary for all. It creates within us solid
supernatural convictions which enlighten us as to the good
to be done. It also produces affective states which encourage
us to the realization of this good :
" Inasmuch as prayer places our understanding in the
clearness of the divine light, and exposes our will to the
warmth of heavenly love, there is nothing which so purges
our understanding of its ignorance and our will of its
depraved inclinations; it is the water of benediction, which,
when our souls are watered therewith, makes the plants of
our good desires revive and flourish. . . ."2
St Francis de Sales, inspired by the Italian School, which
had no love for complicated exercises, suggests a " simple
and brief method " of prayer.3 For " many are greatly
deceived, thinking that so many things, so many methods,
are needful " in order to meditate properly.4 The method of
the Spiritual Combat is simple, but not sufficiently concise.
That of St Ignatius is too complex, and the same may be
said of Luis of Granada. The Bishop of Geneva drew up
one which comprises the essential elements of the methods
both of St Ignatius and of Luis of Granada, but is better
adapted to the inexperience of people in the world.
1 Devout Life, Part II, chap. ii. 3 ibid., chap. i.
3 ibid., Part II, chap. ii.
4 Sermon for the Feast of the Purification (1620), Vol. IX, p. 259.
XTbe Salesfan Scbool 289
It is composed of four parts : preparation, considerations,
affections and resolutions, and the spiritual bouquet.1
The preparation has three parts : the act of placing one-
self in the presence of God, the invocation, and the subject
proposed.
Like Luis of Granada and the greater number of the
framers of methods of prayer, St Francis de Sales wishes us
first of all to put ourselves " in the presence of God." This
is done either by an act of faith in the " omnipresence of
God" in the universe or in our hearts by grace, or else by
picturing to ourselves the Saviour looking down on us from
on high or near us as a friend. This part of the Salesian
method is noteworthy. Writers on the subject of mental
prayer after him never fail to make use of it. The invoca-
tion and the subject proposed are borrowed from St Ignatius.
They consist in asking of God the grace to meditate well
and in proposing the subject by the "composition of place."
The outward aspect of the mystery on which we desire to
meditate is recalled through the imagination. St Francis
de Sales brings the imagination under discipline. He is of
opinion that this faculty, by producing distractions, may
easily become a hindrance.2 It is with the understanding
and will or with the heart that prayer should, above all, be
performed.
For the end in view in prayer is to influence " the will or
the affective part of our soul." The action "of the under-
standing which we call meditation, which is nothing else
than one or several considerations," tends to " rouse our
affections towards God and divine things." If now and
then, " immediately after the preparation, the affection is
stirred up to God : then, Philothea, you must give it the
rein, without trying to follow the method."3 The end of
prayer is attained, provided that we convert " these general
affections . . . into special and particular resolutions " for
our spiritual amendment.
The conclusion of Salesian prayer contains, in abridged
form, the three last parts of the prayer of Luis of Granada :
the act of thanksgiving to God for favours received in the
meditation ; the offering, " by which we offer to God his own
goodness and mercy, the death, the blood, the virtues of
his Son (these are the very words of Granada) and in con-
junction with these our own affections and resolutions " ; the
"supplication by which we ask of God" to grant us and
those whom we love " the graces and virtues of his Son."
The spiritual bouquet or " nosegay of devotion "4 is
peculiar to St Francis de Sales. It is equivalent to the re-
1 Devout Life, Part II, chaps, ii-vii.
8 F. Vincent, pp. 316 ff.
* Devout Life, Part II, chaps, vi-viii. 4 ibid., chap. vii.
III. 19
290 Cbristian Spirituality
commendation in ancient writers to recall, during the day,
some thought from the morning's meditation.
It will be seen how careful the author of the Introduction
is to preserve, whilst simplifying them, the traditional ele-
ments of exercises of piety. We shall be even more struck
by this in comparing his method of examination of conscience
with that of St Ignatius. There is no question of making
this examination in writing, or of drawing up weekly
statistics of shortcomings. There is the consideration, based
on serious self-reflection, as to how " each hour of the day "
has been spent. Then, thanksgiving to God for any good
that we have been able to do, or begging forgiveness for
evil committed. Finally a recommendation of ourselves to
divine Providence before taking the rest which he " wills us
to need."1
St Francis de Sales advises Philothea to communicate
every Sunday. He thus sanctions a custom which was
apparently tending to become general in Italy. There the
devout were admitted easily enough to weekly communion.
Thus it was with St Aloysius Gonzaga, St Jerome ^Emiliani,
after his conversion, and many others. Blessed Pierre Le
Fevre wished the fervent to communicate every week.2 The
Bishop of Geneva definitely established the rule of Sunday
communion for devout persons. He showed it to be lawful
from the text of Gennadius — attributed at the time to St
Augustine — which permits communion " every Sunday, pro-
vided that the mind be without any affection for sin." This
is the case with Philothea, and those aiming at perfection
and free from all attachment to evil.3
C — The Exercise of Virtue — Temptations —
Union with Christ
The final edition of the Introduction, in the part " con-
cerned with the exercise of virtue," differs notably from the
editio princeps. In the latter St Francis de Sales puts in
the first place the " three great virtues," obedience, chastity,
and poverty, which are the " three arms of the Cross . . .
the three great means wherewith to acquire perfect devo-
tion." They are also the ends of the three vows of the
religious life. When they are thus " vowed," they place
man in " the state of perfection," but " they do not place him
in perfection except in so far as they are observed."4
1 Devout Life, Part II, chap. xi. Cf. Letter to Mme Travernay,
September 29, 1612, Vol. XV, p. 269.
2 St Philip Neri also recommended frequent communion, without
defining it.
3 For dail} communion, St Francis furthermore demands " our con-
quest of most of our evil inclinations." Devout Life, Part II, chap. xx.
4 CEuvres, Vol. Ill, Appendix, pp. 90-91.
Zhe Salesian Scbool 291
The order followed in the editio princeps was that of the
greater number of religious writings. As they were meant
for religious, they treat first of all of the virtues of their
state. St Francis de Sales conformed to the received custom,
even though he wrote for people in the world. Although he
possessed so new and personal a manner of viewing the
practice of the Christian life, he had no desire for innovation.
On reflection, however, he came to the conclusion that the
old plan of the virtues, " as far as the order of their exercise
is concerned," was less suitable for those "amidst the
pressure of temporal affairs." The question which Philothea
must solve without delay is how to " unite an exalted piety
with every social requirement." She must try first of all to
perfect herself in the social virtues : patience in putting up
with others, humility, gentleness with her neighbours and
herself, calmness in business. Afterwards, " the three great
virtues." Then, what are called the natural virtues : friend-
ships, conversations, suitable dress, " counsels about speech,"
games, " permissible though dangerous pastimes," such as
balls.1 St Francis de Sales looks at these natural virtues in
a very Christian way. But he desires the devout person to
be a thoroughly "honest man." He means to improve the
whole man.2 The truly devout, then, must have all natural
qualities, as much as possible, even to " the just and reason-
able mind."3 He will thus make devotion loved :
" You should not only be devout and love devotion," wrote
our saint to Lady-President Brulart, May 3, 1604, " but you
ought to render it lovable to everyone. Now you will render
it lovable if you make it useful and agreeable. The sick
will love your devotion if they are charitably consoled by it ;
your family, if thereby you are admittedly more careful of
their good, more gentle in emergencies, more kindly in
reprimand, and so on ; your husband, if he sees that in the
measure in which your devotion grows, you are more cordial
towards him and sweeter in the affection you have for him ;
your relations and friends, if they notice in you more frank-
ness, help, and compliance in meeting their wishes when not
contrary to the will of God. In short, you must, as far as
possible, render your devotion more attractive."4
In the final edition of the Introduction, the counsels as to
the exercise of virtue form Part III, at the beginning of
which there are two chapters on the choice " we ought to
make in the exercise of virtues." Here are the principles
that guided the saint's own choice, and they explain the
changes in the last editions of his work :
1 St Francis de Sales also adds the famous " Counsels for the
married." Part III, chaps, xxxvii-xxxix.
2 F. Vincent, pp. 217-290.
3 Devout Life, Part III, chap, xxxvi. 4 Vol. XXII, p. 270.
292 Christian Spirituality
" Among- the virtues, we should prefer that which is most
conformable to our duty and not that which is most con-
formable to our inclination. . . . Among the virtues which
do not concern our particular duty, we should prefer the
most excellent and not the most evident."1
Among these St Francis de Sales places in relief those
which he calls the " little virtues, the conquest of which our
Lord has proposed to our care and travail, such as patience,
meekness, mortification of heart, humility, obedience, poverty,
chastity, consideration for others, bearing with their imper-
fections, diligence and holy fervour."2
" Little virtues," not so in themselves, but in opposition
to the extraordinary states to which mystics are raised, which
do not depend on ourselves :
" Let us walk along the low valleys of the humble and
little virtues," wrote our saint to Baroness de Chantal in
September, 1605, " there shall we find roses among the
thorns, charity which breaks forth amidst sorrows, both
within and without ; lilies of purity, violets of mortification,
and what not. Above all do I love these three little
virtues : gentleness of heart, poverty of spirit, and simplicity
of life. . . . No, we have not yet arms wide enough to
reach the Cedars of Lebanon, let us be content with the
hyssop of the valley."3
As to the method to be followed in order to make progress
in virtue, St Francis de Sales counsels attachment to the
virtue that is opposed to our ruling passion. Thus shall we
overcome our enemy, and " not fail to make progress in all
the other virtues," for we cannot do our poor best to per-
fect one virtue without the concurrence of all the rest.
This method rests on one of the fundamental principles of
Salesian spirituality, which is wholly that of love. Love is
not only that which constitutes perfection, it is also the
means of acquiring it. We become perfect, less by fighting
a vice directly than by loving the contrary virtue strongly.
" All must be done by love and nothing by force," wrote
St Francis de Sales to Baroness de Chantal; " we must love
obedience more than we fear disobedience."4
Indeed, love is more stimulating than fear. Besides :
" Charity never enters into the heart without bringing
with her the whole retinue of the other virtues, exercising
them and setting them to work, as a captain does his
soldiers."6
It is wonderful to see how the Bishop of Geneva can
rejuvenate the subject of temptation, which is old as the
1 Devout Life, Part III, chap. i. 2 ibid., chap. ii.
3 (Euvres, Vol. XIII, p. 92. * id., Vol. XII, p. 359.
6 Devout Life, Part III, chap. i.
Uhc Salesfan Scbool 293
world.1 The counsels he gives in order to repel evil sugges-
tions, to preserve peace of soul amidst moral tempests, have
their living commentary in the letters of direction, above all, in
those addressed to Baroness de Chantal, who was obsessed
by temptations and devoured by scruples, during the first
years that he directed her.
Finally, the Fifth and last Part of the Introduction con-
tains " exercises and counsels for renewing the soul and con-
firming it in devotion." This is the annual retreat which
Philothea should make, " being withdrawn rather more than
usual into a solitude that is both spiritual and real." Her
"protestation to serve God," made at the beginning of her
conversion, should serve as a theme for her reflections and
examination of conscience. Then she must examine the
state of her soul " towards God," herself, and her neigh-
bour. Subjects for appropriate prayers are also drawn up
for the days of the retreat.
If the exercises of the Introduction to the Devout Life be
well performed, Philothea will become more and more
identified with Christ. It is in this happy state of hope that
St Francis de Sales leaves her :
" You must," he tells her at the end of his book, " often
repeat with your heart and lips these burning words of
St Paul, St Augustine, St Catherine of Genoa, and others :
No, I am no longer my own ; whether I live or die, I belong
to my Saviour ; I have nothing left of myself or of mine :
My ' self ' is Jesus ; to be ' mine ' is to be his."2
BeVulle a few years later said : " I desire that there be
no more I in myself ; I desire to be able to say with St
Paul : / live; now not I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal. ii, 20). "3
In one page of the Introduction, not enough emphasized,
St Francis de Sales shows this life of union with Christ to be
the first and most precious fruit of meditation :
" For by beholding him [the Saviour] often in meditation
your whole soul will be filled with him ; you will learn his
demeanour, and you will form your actions after the model
of his. He is the light of the world, and therefore it is in
him, by him, and for him that we must be enlightened and
illuminated. . . . Children, by listening to their mothers,
and prattling with them, learn to speak their language, so
we, by keeping close to the Saviour in meditation, and
1 It is Part IV of the final edition of the Devout Life. In the first
edition temptations are dealt with in Part II, together with the virtues
and exercises of piety.
2 Devout Life, Part V, chap. xvi. This passage is to be found in the
first edition of 1609 (CEuvres, Vol. Ill, p. 181).
3 Grandeurs de Jesus, Discours II, xii (Migne, p. 181).
29+ Cbristfan Spirituality
observing his words, his actions, and his affections, shall
learn, with the help of his grace, to speak, to act, and to will
like him. We must stop there, Philothea, and believe me,
we cannot go to God the Father but by this door."1
This already anticipates Berullian spirituality.2
Ill— ST FRANCIS DE SALES THE FOUNDER OF A
CONGREGATION— HIS RELATIONS WITH ST
JANE DE CHANTAL3
It was on March 5, 1604, in the Sainte-Chapellc at Dijon,
where he was preaching the Lent, that St Francis de Sales
saw Baroness de Chantal, the future foundress of the Visita-
tion of St Mary, for the first time.
Although they had never met they knew each other. Before
leaving for Dijon, the Bishop of Geneva had a vision in which
he learnt that he was to found an Order of religious women.
She who was to be the first Superior was shown him, and
he recognized her among his listeners. The Baroness on her
side recognized the bishop, of whom she had caught sight in
a vision some time before, in the famous preacher. It was at
a time when she was praying very earnestly to God to enable
her to find a good director. During the vision she heard a
voice saying to her : " There is the man, beloved of both God
and men, in whose hands you ought to place your con-
science."4
She did not dare to place herself under the guidance of
the saint immediately. She had as director a religious, who
imposed on her a vow, tyrannical and invalid, of speaking
to no other person on matters of conscience. Nevertheless
she could not fail to recognize the call from God to follow
another guide ; hence, she was tortured by scruples when she
1 Devout Life, Part II, chap. i. The same passage is to be found in
the first edition (Appendix, p. 67).
1 St Francis de Sales thus did honour to the Heart of Jesus : " The
other day when in prayer," he wrote to St Chantal in 1608, " con-
templating the opened side of our Lord and seeing his heart, it was
brought home to me that our hearts were all around him, doing homage
to him as the sovereign King of hearts. So may it ever be with our
heart. Amen." Vol. XIV, p. 14.
3 Cf. H. Bremond, of. cit., II, pp. 537 ff.
4 Mere de Chaugy, Sainte Jeanne-Francoise de Chantal, Part I,
chap, x, p. 40, Paris, 1893. Born at Dijon, January 23, 1572, St
Chantal founded the Visitation in 1610. She died in 1641. Her Life
was written by Mere de Chaugy, secretary to the saint and fourth
Superior of the Monastery at Annecy, in 1642. The Works and the
Letters of St Chantal were published in eight volumes in Paris (Plon
Nourrit). The first volume contains the Life of St Chantal, by Mere
de Chaugy. The Divers Works of the saint form the second and third
volumes, which are Vols. I and II of the CEuvres de Ste Chantal. Her
Letters are contained in the other five volumes.
St ftancte fce Sales 295
had recourse to the ministry of St Francis de Sales. The
latter, from motives of delicacy, did not wish, first of all, to
withdraw her from her director. It was not until August 25,
six months after the first interview at Dijon, at St Claude,
where he met her, that he finally agreed to be her guide. 1
God united these two souls with a wholly sacred affection,
destined as they were to accomplish a great work. From
June 24, 1604, before becoming her spiritual guide, St
Francis de Sales speaks of this affection, which is " all of
God," to the Baroness de Chantal, with whom he will work
in the interests of her soul.
" What does it matter to you to know whether or no you
are able to retain me as your spiritual director, provided that
you know how my soul stands towards you and that I know
how yours stands to mine? I know that you have entire and
perfect confidence in my affection ; of that I have no doubt
whatever, and derive consolation therefrom. Know also, I
beg you, and believe it wholly, that I have a lively and extra-
ordinary desire to serve your spirit to the utmost of my power.
I cannot explain to you either the quality or the greatness
of this affection I have for your spiritual service ; but I would
clearly say that I think it comes only from God and on that
account I cherish it dearly and see it grow and notably
increase day by day. . . . Value then my affection, em-
ployed in all that God has given me for the service of your
spirit. Thus am I wholly yours and so think no more in what
form or to what degree I am so.. God has given me to you ;
hold me then as yours in him and call me what you will, it
matters not."2
This holy and truly enveloping affection could not but
increase the great confidence which Mme de Chantal had in
St Francis de Sales; and when he spoke of " this charity and
true Christian friendship " the " bond " of which is " indis-
soluble and never relaxes,"3 he must have had premonitions
of his future relations with the pious Baroness.
Yet he did not let her conjecture anything, at first, of the
project he had of making use of her some day to found a
new Order of nuns. In the month of May, 1605, he made
her a first overture in obscure terms : " Some years ago," he
told her, " God communicated something to me regarding a
manner of life, but I do not wish to tell you of it for a year." 4
At this period the Baroness was too necessary at home.
The education of her children kept her in the world for several
years.
1 With regard to this drama of St Chantal's conscience, see Mere de
Chaugy, Part I, chaps, xii-xv, and the Letters of St Francis de Sales
to St Chantal from June 14 and June 24, 1604 (XII, pp. 277, 282).
2 Vol. XII, pp. 284-2S5. 3 ibid., p. 285.
4 Mere de Chaugy, chap, xvii, p. 71.
296 Cbristiau Spirituality
St Francis de Sales directed her with great care. First of
all he drew up a rule for her consisting- of the exercises of
piety which were to be recommended in the Introduction to
the Devout Life.1 The direction of St Chantal, almost as
much as that of Mme de Charmoisy, guided St Francis de
Sales in the production of his masterpiece. One of the
chapters of the Baroness' rule was concerned with visiting
the sick and poor.
But the important thing was to form the interior spirit.
Ardent and impulsive, the Baroness de Chantal had need to
be put on her guard " against the impetuosities and abrupt
sallies of a character in which there was naturally more of
masculine energy and generosity than of gentleness."2 She
would have to watch over herself in order to make her devo-
tion lovable. She allowed her uplifted soul to be easily tor-
mented by hastiness, anxiety, and scruples. Great tempta-
tions, especially against the faith, were to try her and to
throw her into much inward pain and sorrow.
St Francis de Sales taught her, before all, the spirit of
liberty, of gentleness, and of love, which places the exercise
of charity before exercises of piety :
" The effects of this liberty," he wrote, " are a great
sweetness of spirit, a great tenderness and sympathy with all
that is not sin or a danger of sin ; it is that temper which is
gently pliable to the action of all virtue and charity. For
example, a soul which is attached to exercises of piety, if
interrupted, will be seen to come out from it with annoyance,
hastiness, and astonishment. A soul possessing true liberty
will go out with an even expression and kindly heart to the
place of the intruder who has caused the disturbance, for to
such a one it is all the same whether God be served in
meditation or in helping a neighbour ; either is the will of
God, but the helping of one's neighbour is necessary at that
moment."3
The pious Baroness followed these counsels so well that
her servants said :
" The first director of Madame only made her pray three
times a day, and we were all put out ; but Monseigneur of
Geneva makes her pray all day long and that troubles no
one."4
St Francis de Sales apparently found it more difficult to
calm the eagerness of this generous and anxious soul, ever
fearful that she was neither doing enough nor well enough.
1 Letter of October 14, 1604. This should be compared with the
Rule of Baroness de Chantal described by Mere de Chaugy, Part I,
chaps, xvii-xviii.
2 A. de Marg^rie, S. Francois de Sales, Paris, 1908, p. 187,
3 Letter of October 14, 1604 (XII, p. 363-364).
* Mere de Chaugy, Part I, chap, xvii, p. 73,
St jfrancts fce Sales 297
" There is something- in me," she wrote to her director,
"which has never felt satisfied, but I cannot tell what it
is."1 She would have liked to have reached perfection all at
once.
The lack of proportion between her desires and what she
was able to accomplish threw her into great dejection. The
sense of her impotence was to her a kind of torment. The
remnants of self-love were not lacking in this state, as St
Francis de Sales delicately hinted to his dear daughter. In
order to soar towards perfection we must first wait till we
have wings :
" Do not distress yourself," he wrote, " you will see that
you will thus be all the better for it, and your wings all the
stronger. This anxiety, then, is a defect in you and a vague
kind of dissatisfaction ; thus it is a lack of resignation. You
are indeed resigned, but it is with a but; for you want to
have this or that, and you strive in order to obtain it. A
simple desire is not contrary to resignation ; but a panting
heart, the flapping of wings, an agitated will, a throng of
yearning-s, these are certainly a lack of resignation . . .
since as yet you have not your wings to fly and your own
impotence bars your efforts, do not strive at all, do not be
anxious to fly, have patience until you have wings to fly like
a dove. I am infinitely afraid that you have too much ardour
for the prize, that you are too eager and heap up your desires
a little too fast."2
This insatiable eagerness, this excessive discontent with
self, belonged to St Chantal's temperament.3 It was her
cross. The devil made use of it to tempt her against the
faith. Other inward trials also tortured her for several years.
In these doubtless are to be seen those passive purifications
through which souls that are called to extraordinary states
must pass. Her saintly director wrote for her consolation
wonderful letters, which have also comforted and will comfort
1 In the Letter of St Francis de Sales of November 21, 1604 (XII,
P- 384).
2 Same Letter (XII, pp. 384-385).
3 She herself admits it in her account, in 1637, of her first mystical
prayers " of a simple sight and sense of the divine presence." " This
grace of prayer has continued with me," she says, " even though on
account of my unfaithfulness I have greatly offended against it ; letting
fears of my being of no use in this state enter into my mind, and
desiring to do something on my part, I spoilt everything. ... If I
think of strengthening my soul by thoughts and by discourses, by
resignation and acts, I expose myself to new temptations and pain, and
can only do so with great violence which leaves me dry. So that it is
needful for me to return promptly to that simple surrender, for God
seems to make me see from this that he desires a total cessation of the
efforts of my mind and of its working in this. And the activity of my
mind is so great that I always need to be comforted and encouraged to
do so. Alas ! My blessed father has told me this so often !" CEuvres
de St Chantal, IV, pp. 735 ff.
298 dbrlstian Spirituality
those who pass through the same inward trials.1 He does
not, however, appear to have thought that the Baroness was
as yet in the mystical ways. He brought her on to accept
these trials with a holy indifference, like Jesus in the garden
of Olives :
" What does it matter to us whether it be by the desert or
by the fields that we pass, provided that God be with us and
that we go to Paradise? . . . Think of the great abandon-
ment which our Master suffered in the garden of Olives.
See how this dear Son, having begged his good Father for
consolation, which he willed not to grant him, thought no
more of it, was no longer anxious for it, and sought it no
further, but, as though he had never claimed it, bravely and
courageously carried out the work of our redemption. . . .
For the honour of God acquiesce wholly in his will and do
not believe that you can serve him otherwise ; for he is never
well served if not served as he wills."2
St Chantal must not only be resigned but full of joy in
carrying her cross. " You would not offend God for any-
thing in the world; surely this is enough to live joyously,"
he wrote on June 24, 1604. 3 And on August 28, 1605, when
her temptations were at their height : " Live joyously and be
generous ; God whom we love and to whom we are vowed,
desires us to be thus."4 These kindly and strong exhorta-
tions to inward detachment led the Baroness de Chantal to acts
of heroic virtue. Not only did she consent to- see M. Anlezy
the unintentional murderer of her husband, but she had the
courage to hold his newly born son at the baptismal font.
She visited the sick, dressed their most loathsome wounds,
and even kissed them. 6 Her desire to quit the world increased
more and more. Thus she prepared herself to make the
supreme sacrifice, to leave all her own, in order to go to
Annecy and found the Order of the Visitation.6
A — The Salesian Conception of the Religious Life
— The Visitation
When the Baroness de Chantal reached Annecy on April 4,
1610, St Francis de Sales had a definite idea of the new
institute he wished to establish. He had already explained
it clearly enough to his famous penitent in 1607, when she
was at Annecy.7 His enterprise was a novelty.
1 See above all the Letters written at the end of the year 1604 and
during the years 1605, 1606, and 1607 (Vols. XII and XIII). Cf.
Mere de Chaugy, Part I, chap. xvi.
2 Letter of February 18, 1605 (XIII, pp. 5-6).
s Vol. XII, p. 288. * Vol. XIII, p. 89.
5 Mere de Chaugy, Part I, chaps, xviii-xix, pp. 77-88.
• Mere de Chaugy has related the famous scene (chap, xxviii) of
St Chantal's farewell to her family. It took place March 29, 1610.
' Mere de Chaugy, Part I, chap, xxi, p. 96.
St jfrancfs fce Sales 299
The future Congregation was to unite the active and the con-
templative life, the vocation of Martha with that of Mary. The
sisters were to be half-enclosed. Entrance to their monastery
would be forbidden to strangers quite as strictly as in other
Orders of women. But the sisters could go out at certain
hours of the day in order to visit and tend the sick.1 The
neglect of the sick poor, the tending of whom as yet no con-
gregation, properly so-called, had undertaken, had moved the
compassionate heart of the Bishop of Geneva. He remem-
bered with what charity the Italian Oratory of Divine Love
was working for the suffering members of Jesus Christ. He
himself had exhorted his penitents — and Mme de Chantal in
particular — to visit the poor and the sick with pious
tenderness.
The sisters were to practise corporal mortification in
moderation ; first of all, because of the fatigues entailed by
the service of the sick, and also in order that the new insti-
tute might receive persons in delicate health, called to the
religious life but incapable of standing the austerities of the
Poor Clares or Carmelites.2 These austerities had been
hitherto regarded as essential elements of the religious life.
St Francis de Sales — and this was to be his other innova-
tion— replaced them by interior mortification pushed to its
furthest limit.3 " A generally feasible mortification of the
mind, the heart, and the will was here to compensate for
such mitigation ; defects would be reformed and virtues
acquired more by the attractiveness of love than by the
rigour of penance ; here they would be devoted more to
interior recollection than to a multiplicity of prayers, to re-
nunciation than to poverty, to charity than to solitude, to
obedience than to hard observances."4
This conception of religious life was already spreading in
Italy among the congregations of men. It fully corresponded
to the temperament of the Bishop of Geneva and to his
manner of directing souls. Moreover, when the immovable
1 De Chaugy, Part II, chap, v, pp. 158-159. The visiting of the
sick, although not strictly speaking a secondary work of the Visitan-
dines, was yet not the chief end of the Congregation, which, according
to the idea of its founder, was primarily a contemplative Order, very
different from the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, founded
later on by St Vincent de Paul.
3 St Francis de Sales established his Congregation " so that no great
harshness might turn away the feeble and infirm from joining the
ranks to apply themselves to the perfection of divine love." Con-
stitutions of the Visitation : Of the end for which this Congregation
was instituted. See Discourse XIII, Of the Spirit of the Rules, Vol. VI,
p. 229.
3 " The fervour of charity and strength of very intimate devotion
makes up for all that [an austere austerity]." Addition to the first
Constitution.
4 A. de Margerie, Si F. de Sales, p. 202.
3oo Cbrfsttan Spirituality
opposition of the Archbishop of Lyons, Mgr. de Marquement,
had obliged the Visitandines to keep strictly enclosed and to
give up visiting- the sick, the Salesian idea of religious life
none the less remained. The sisters continued to live behind
their grating without corporal austerities, but rigorously
applied to the practices of interior mortification in order to
attain " the perfection of divine love."
The Salesian conception of the religious life, as also of the
Christian life in general, rests on the principle of the self-
sacrificing power of divine love. The end is death to self,
complete inward mortification ; the means is love, not
austerities, " the fervour of charity and the power of a very
intimate devotion."1 Love undertakes to immolate the soul,
provided that the latter yields thereto. It is thus the end and
the means of the religious life. St Francis de Sales declares
at the beginning of the Constitutions that in his institute it
is proposed to " apply oneself to the perfection of divine
love."
Let us hold fast to this idea. It will help us to understand
the counsels given by the holy Founder to his religious in
his wonderful Spiritual Discourses.
The Constitutions do not bind under pain of mortal sin.2
God is only offended when they are violated, if it be done from
contempt or is a cause of scandal. After recalling the theo-
logical principle, the Saint immediately soars to the heights :
" The Daughters of the Congregation, through the sweet
violence of love, should observe their Rules with the same
exactness, by God's help, as if they were obliged thereto
under pain of eternal damnation. "3
This readiness to act in all things through love, this
" devotion," the sisters should make " particular profession
to nourish in their hearts." It should be intimate " so that
. . . nothing be done from custom, but by choice and applica-
tion of the will " ; it should be strong " to bear temptation " ;
1 An addition to the first Constitution, Vol. VI, p. xxx. Cf. Dis-
course I, Obligation of the Constitutions : " The daughters of the Con-
gregation have very few outward rules, few austerities, few ceremonies,
few offices : let them willingly and lovingly adapt their hearts thereto,
making the outward spring from the inward and nourishing the
inward with the outward." Vol. VI, p. 13.
2 A violation of the Constitutions must not be confused with that of
the vows; this, when grave, is a matter of mortal sin. Discourse I,
Vol. VI, p. 12.
3 Discourse I, Vol. VI, p. 12. Cf. Discourse XIII, Of the Spirit of
the Rules: " We cannot love the commandment if we love not him
who gave it. . . . Some are attached to the law by chains of iron,
others by chains of gold . . . the religious and those who care for
their perfection are attached thereto by chains of gold : that is to say,
by love." Vol. VI, p. 239.
St tfrartcte fce Sales 301
lastly, generous "so as not to be astonished at difficulties,
but, on the contrary, thereby to increase its courage."1
B — The Virtues of the Religious Life
St Francis de Sales considers the great virtues of the
religious life, poverty, obedience, and chastity, less in them-
selves than in the consequences which love deduces from
them. He strives towards those higher virtues which are the
full expansion of them : self-renunciation or poverty of spirit ;
modesty, which is the flower of chastity ; the giving up of our
own judgement, which is the highest obedience.2
Detachment means that we deprive ourselves of "three
kinds of goods : outward, corporal, spiritual or cordial." Out-
ward goods are " houses, possessions, relations, friends, and
such like" that are left "outside religion." We must de-
prive ourselves of these in reality and in affection. Neverthe-
less, for our relations and friends, we must ask our Lord for
the " affection which he desires us to have for them." For
" everyone should be loved in his degree, and it is charity
which gives order in affection." We must also renounce
corporal goods, by being " equally content in sickness or in
health " in the higher part of the soul. " Cordial goods are
the consolations and comforts which are found in the spiritual
life." We must " place them in the hands of our Lord to
dispose of them as he pleases, and we must serve him as well
without them as with them. . . . All our deprivations and
renunciations of the above things should be performed,
not from contempt of them, but from abnegation, from the
sole and pure love of God. . . . Every sister must leave her
own will outside the door [of the monastery] in order to have
only that of God."3
Modesty properly so-called, " is the maintenance of a
decorous exterior."4 It is opposed to looseness either of
gesture or look," or to " affected looks." This virtue " is
powerful to restrain us." It obliges us unceasingly to a
demeanour which has nothing in it contrary to the delicacy
of chastity :
" It subjects us not only for a time, but always and in
every place, as much when alone as when with others, at
1 Discourse I, Vol. VI, pp. 13, 14.
2 Nevertheless, on account of its importance for communities, St
Francis de Sales devotes two discourses to the virtue of obedience.
Discourses X and XI.
3 Discourse VIII, Of Renunciation, Vol. VI, pp. 122-123.
4 St Francis also calls three other virtues modesty : " Inward pro-
priety of our understanding and of our will " ; the absence of " boorish-
ness " and "gossip" in our conversation; "modesty and seemliness
in attire" as opposed to " squalidness and to superfluity." Dis-
course IX, Vol. VI, pp. 131-132.
3°2 Cbrtstian Spirituality
every time, even while asleep, because the angels are always
present with us, and God himself in whose eyes we bear
ourselves with modesty."1
St Francis de Sales desires his sisters to practise loving
obedience. Such obedience is " blind," it is obedience of the
understanding. It "is practised when, being commanded,
we accept and approve the commandment, not only with the
will, but also with our understanding, approving and esteem-
ing the thing commanded and judging it better than any
other thing that might have been commanded on that occa-
sion." Again it is prompt and persevering. The religious,
like our Saviour, ought to obey all her life indefatigably.2 So
perfect an obedience necessitates the renunciation of our own
judgement, which is the summit of renunciation. The saintly
founder admits that it is a rare thing. And, nevertheless,
this " love of our own judgement ... is infinitely contrary
to perfection."3
Salesian abnegation, already pushed so far, also includes
the most subtle manifestations of self-love which some might
mistake for virtues — that is to say, the claim to attain per-
fection " at once," the restless desire for correction of faults,
and the vexation at not succeeding as quickly as desired.4
We are reminded of the excessive eagerness of the Baroness
de Chantal in this regard. This spiritual lack of mortifica-
tion, this " tenderness " of mind, troubles the peace of souls
and may trouble still more the peace of communities.
Humility must also be one of the favourite virtues of the
Visitandines :
" I wish for you," says the Saint, " above all other perfec-
tion that of humility, which is not only charitable but sweet
and pliable ; for charity is an ascending humility and humility
a descending charity. I love you better with more humility
and less of the other perfections than with more of the other
perfections and less humility."5
The special spirit of the Visitation is a " spirit of profound
humility towards God and a great kindliness towards one's
neighbour."6 Further, the Saint invites his sisters to practise
the love of abjection, that perfection of humility which keeps
the soul in peace in little annoyances, in the daily clashing of
1 Discourse IX, Vol. VI, pp. 132-133.
2 Discourses X, XI, Of Obedience.
3 Discourse XIV, Of Our Own Judgement, Vol. VI, p. 245. See
pp. 170, 199.
* Discourse XXIII, Of Firmness, Vol. VI, pp. 48, 49. Cf. pp. 257,
331. " It is not possible for you to be so mistress of your soul that you
hold it in your hand so absolutely at the beginning. . . . We must put
up with others, but first with ourselves, and have patience to be imper-
fect." Letter to Mme de la Flachere, April 8, 1608, Vol. XIV, p. 2.
6 Discourse VIII, Of Renunciation, Vol. VI, p. 130.
8 Discourse XIII, Of the Spirit of the Rules, Vol. VI, p. 229.
St tfrancts fce Sales 303
characters, which the common life entails. We have need of
" the love of our abjection ... at every moment, however
advanced we may be in perfection."1
According to St Francis de Sales, humility depends upon
divine charity ; he moreover defines the virtues as the work of
divine love. It is this love which corrects our defects for us
and makes us advance in virtue. It ends by simplifying the
operations of the soul, and brings it to forget itself wholly
in order to be taken up only with God. Simplicity, a virtue
so beloved of our Saint and so insisted on in his counsels to
his religious, is thus reached :
" It is, then, an act of simple charity which makes us only
regard and have no other end in all our actions than the sole
desire of pleasing God . . . this is simplicity, a virtue which
is inseparable from charity so far as it looks straight to God,
without ever being able to suffer any admixture of self-
interest, otherwise it would no longer be simplicity."2
Simplicity banishes from the soul the restless search for
" exercises and means " of loving God. " We should not try
to double our desires or our exercises, but our perfection in
performing them."3 When we have this simplicity we leave
to God " all the care of ourselves," not only " in things
temporal," but also " in things spiritual and in the advance-
ment of our souls in perfection." * The soul only thinks of its
Beloved, it only seeks to please him in the accomplishment
of duty every moment. " Let us do quite simply all that is
commanded either by the Rules or the Constitutions, or else
by our Superiors, and then remain in peace respecting all the
rest, as near to God as we are able,"5 such is the law of this
loving simplicity. It will maintain us "in continual even-
ness, in both adverse and prosperous things, in desolation as
well as in consolation, and finally amidst dryness as well
as amidst delicacies."6 We shall no longer have any other
desire than that of loving God. 7 - &g \ .
St Francis de Sales desires his religious to have great
tranquillity of soul, "the principal means" of personal sancti-
fication. To insure this inward peace is indeed one of the
ends of Salesian spirituality, as it was also of the asceticism
1 Discourse XVI, Of Aversions, Vol. VI, p. 298. Cf. p. 71. The
counsels given to the Visitandines greatly resemble those which St
Francis de Sales gave to the Baroness de Chantal in 1608 and 1609 :
" The virtues of a widow are humility, contempt of the world and of
self, simplicity. Her exercises are love and her own abjection. . . .
We must exercise ourselves in the little virtues, without which the
great are often false and deceptive." Vol. XIV, pp. 109-110.
2 Discourse XII, Of Simplicity, Vol. VI, p. 203.
* Discourse VII, Of the Three Spiritual Laws, ibid., p. 114.
4 Discourse VII, ibid., p. 105.
5 ibid., p. 448, Appendix, Of the Discourse of Our Own Judgement.
6 ibid., p. 117, Of the Three Spiritual Laws.
7 Cf. Discourse XXI, Of asking Nothing, Vol. VI, pp. 383-389.
304 Cbtisttan Spirituality
of the devout humanists of Italy. This individual tranquillity
maintains, through holy contagion, the peace of communities.
In order that the Sisters should ever preserve this peace
among themselves, the holy Founder desired that their rela-
tions should conform to the rules of good company. This
would not be mere worldly politeness which is wholly outward,
but the exercise of those Christian virtues inspired by most
pure charity : humility, sweetness, mutual forbearance,
cordial simplicity. These virtues must be practised un-
ceasingly. St Francis, in this matter, enters into the smallest
details.
He counsels even obedience to equals and inferiors. In
this disposition to obey all are comprised, according to him,
the social virtues :
" Obedience consists in two points," he says. " The first
is to obey superiors ; the second to obey equals and inferiors.
But this second belongs to humility, sweetness, and charity,
rather than to obedience ; for he that is humble thinks that
all others surpass him and are much better than he, so that
he considers them as superiors and thinks that he ought to
obey them."1
This spirit of universal submission inspires gentleness to-
wards others and strength to put up with their defects. It
checks wounding words. It favours " cordial love "2 between
the Sisters, love which must not be sentimentalism. And in
time of relaxation it gives " a holy liberty and freedom to con-
verse on subjects which help the spirit of joy and recreation."3
To be joyous in all simplicity in order to amuse the others is
an act of charity.
IV— THE MYSTICISM OF ST FRANCIS DE SALES
A — St Francis de Sales and Mysticism before the
"Treatise on the Love of God"
At first St Francis de Sales appears not to have been very
favourable towards mysticism. His Ignatian training made
him give preference to the sure ways of asceticism. He also
feared illusions. His relations with the Protestants and the
history of the first reformers had unveiled to him the ravages
of a false mysticism.
Baroness de Chantal was very quickly raised to passive
prayer; "her heart," says Mere de Chaugy, "was wedded
1 Discourse X, Of Obedience, Vol. VI, p. 157.
2 Discourse IV, Of Cordiality, Vol. VI, p. 54.
s Discourse XII, Of Simplicity, Vol. VI, p. 209.
St ffrancts fce Sales 3°5
early to the beautiful Rachel of contemplation."1 Even
before she was under the guidance of St Francis de Sales,
she had been raised, from time to time, and without knowing
it, to the prayer of simplicity.2 She hastened to obtain in-
struction in this kind of prayer. Towards the end of 1605
she had conversations on this subject with the Carmelites of
Dijon, especially with Mother Mary of the Trinity. She felt
herself habitually prompted to this " most spiritual mode
of prayer, separated from things sensible "3 in which the
imagination and the understanding have no part. But on
this matter she conferred with the Bishop of Geneva, not
wishing to do anything without his consent. He brought
her back rather firmly to common prayer :
" To make no use in prayer either of the imagination or of
the understanding is not possible," he replied to her in 1606.
11 This good Mother [Mary of the Trinity] says that we need
not make use of the imagination in order to represent to our-
selves the sacred humanity of the Saviour. No, perhaps not
for those who are already far advanced on the mountain of
perfection ; but for us others, who are as yet still in the
valleys, although desirous of ascending, I think that it is
expedient for us to make use of everything, and of the
imagination too. . . . This is the great highway, my dear
daughter, from which we must not yet part until the daylight
be a little clearer and we are well able to discern the foot-
paths. Let us remain, my dear daughter, a little longer here
in the low valleys, let us kiss the Saviour's feet a little more;
he will call us, when he pleases, to his sacred mouth."4
To maintain his penitent in profound humility was also
one of his aims.
Some months later, the Saint wrote to him again that she
was still counselled not to " make use of the imagination or
of the understanding" in her prayers. He answered her,
June 8, 1606, that he did not approve of the complete aban-
donment of these two " powers " of the mind in meditation.5
Moreover, it is not only Baroness de Chantal, but also his
other penitents whom he retained in "the low valleys" of
ordinary prayer : it was a principle in his direction. He
wrote, in 1607, to the Lady-President Brulart :
" I would approve of your still holding on to the lesser
course, preparing your mind by the lesson and the disposi-
1 Sainte Jeanne de Chantal, Part III, chap, xxiv, p. 498.
2 St Chantal speaks of her beginnings in this prayer. See CEuvres, I,
p. 21 ; II, p. 337; IV, pp. 735 ff.
3 Mere de Chaugy, p. 498.
1 CEuvres de Saint Francois de Sales, Vol. XIII, p. 162.
6 ibid., pp. 183-184. M. Gallemand, the priest who aided M. de
Berulle in introducing the Carmelites into France, united with Mother
Mary of the Trinity in exhorting St Chantal to make the passive
prayer of simplicity.
III. 20
3°6 Cbristian Spirituality
tion of the points, without any use of the imagination other
than that required to help the mind. Now, then, I am well
aware that when we happily meet and find God it is good to
linger to look upon him and remain with him ; but, my dear
daughter, to think thus to meet him unexpectedly every day,
without preparation, I do not believe that this is yet good for
us who are novices and need rather to consider the virtues
of the crucifix, one after another and in detail, than to admire
them all together."1
Towards 1608, he again wrote to Baroness de Chantal to
exercise herself in the " little virtues," in the " virtues of a
widow ' ' :
" For, as regards ecstasies, insensibilities, and these deific
unions, elevations, transformations, and similar virtues, and
when we think it a distraction to serve God in his humanity
and its members, and take no pleasure except in the contem-
plation of the divine Essence, these must be left for the rare
and lofty souls who are worthy of them. We do not deserve
such rank in the service of God ; we must first serve him in
the low offices before being called to his cabinet."2
In the Introduction to the Devout Life, which he wrote
about this time, he says the same things in still more
emphatic terms.3
Nevertheless, Baroness de Chantal might well be of the
number of "these rare souls" raised to the mystical state.
The prudent director, towards the end of 1609, left more
freedom to his penitent. He noted the extraordinary work
of God in her. He does not wish to hinder her and writes :
1 Vol. XIII, p. 162.
2 Vol. XIV, p. 109.
3 " There are certain things which are thought by many to be
virtues, but which are by no means such, and of these I must say a
word : I mean ecstasies or raptures, states of insensibility and impassi-
bility, deific unions, transports, transformations, and other such
perfections of which certain books treat, which promise to raise the
soul to a purely intellectual contemplation, to an essential application
of the Spirit, and to a super-eminent life. Note well, Philothea, that
these perfections are not virtues. They are rather rewards which
God gives for virtue. . . . But for all that we should not aspire to
such graces, since they are in no way necessary to the true service
and love of God. . . . Let us willingly leave the lofty heights to the
souls who have been raised so high : we merit not so exalted a rank
in the service of God ; we shall be only too happy to serve him in his
kitchen and in his pantry ; to be his lackeys, porters, and chamber-
maids ; it is for him, afterwards, if it seem good to him, to advance
us to his privy council " {Devout Life, Part III, chap. ii). This
passage is in the final edition of 1619, which appeared three years
after the publication of the Treatise on Love of God. The last idea of
the Saint was then, towards the end of his life, as always, that the
extraordinary graces are not intended for all.
St frauds fce Sales 307
"Remain thus [in the arms of the Bridegroom], dear
daughter, and like another little St John, whilst the others
eat many meats at the table of the Saviour, repose and lean,
with simple confidence, your head, your soul, your mind on
the loving- breast of your dear Saviour; for it is better to
sleep on this sacred pillow than to keep awake in any other
posture."1
But this sleep on the breast of the Saviour is only a passing
state. In the ordinary way Mme de Chantal must keep to
the common rules of meditation.
In 1610, she again submitted to St Francis de Sales the
counsels which Mere Louise de Jesus, Prioress of the Car-
melites of Dijon, had given her, not to prepare her prayers,
but to abandon herself herein to the divine action. The Saint
finds this " rather hard " ; he does not understand and
wanted full knowledge of the " foundations " of this method :
"As regards these precepts of prayer," he replied on
March n, 1610, "which you have received from the good
Mother Prioress, I shall say nothing- for the present ; only I
beg you to learn as much as you can the foundation of all
this, for, to speak frankly to you, although two or three
times last summer, having put myself in the presence of Godr
without preparation or intention, I found myself full of joy
in the presence of his Majesty, with a single and very simple
and continual affection of love, almost imperceptible yet very
sweet, still I never dared to leave the high road to make this
my ordinary way. I only know that I love the way of the
holy and simple forerunners. I do not say that when pre-
paration has been made and in prayer one is drawn to this
kind of prayer, it is not necessary to follow it ; but to take
it as a method not in any way to prepare, that to me is rather
hard, as again it is to leave the presence of God, at once,
without thanksgiving, without offering, without definite
prayer. All that may usefully be done, but that it should
be the rule seems to me, I must confess, rather repugnant.
Nevertheless ... I do not claim to know so much that I
should not be glad, I would say extremely glad, to alter my
opinion and follow that of those who should very reasonably
know more than I."2
In 1610, three years after having- begun his Treatise on the
1 Vol. XIV, p. 214. Mere de Chaugy gives a different version
(p. 499) : " Whilst the others eat many meats . . . through divers
considerations and -pious meditations. . . ."
2 Vol. XIV, 266. Later St Chantal said of the prayer of the
Visitandines : "I have recognized that the almost universal attraction
for the daughters of the Visitation is that of a very simple presence
of God, through an entire abandonment of themselves to divine Pro-
vidence." CEuvres de Sainte Chantal, II, p. 337. " The great method
of prayer is that there is none at all . . . prayer should be made by
grace and not by artifice." Ibid., p. 260.
3°s Cbrfstian Spirituality
Love of God,1 the very year of the foundation of the Visitation,
St Francis de Sales admitted the need he had to be instructed
in the knowledge of mystical prayers. This knowledge he
was fully to acquire by directing his religious, who were
thus, unconsciously, his collaborators in the composition of
the mystical part of the famous treatise.2 He, too, began,
without intending it, he says, to learn of the mystical states
by experience. Henceforth, he grew to know them more and
more. " As his pen wrote of the marvellous transports of
divine love, he himself happily experienced it."3
" My dear daughter," he declared in 1615 to St Chantal,
" thank God for the leisure he has given me these two days
for a little extraordinary prayer; for truly his goodness has
shed so many lights into my mind, and into my poor heart
so great an ardour to write in our dear book of holy love,
that I know not where I shall find words to express what I
have conceived."4
Too often, alas, his many occupations obliged him to set
aside the pen, just when his soul overflowed with mystical
impulses and he had the greatest ease in expressing them.
He was " very grieved " at this and confided his sorrow to
his " very dear Mother " de Chantal :
" This blessed one," she said at the process of beatifica-
tion, " wrote an admirable treatise in twelve books on this
subject [the Love of God], in which I perceive that he
naively depicted himself."5
It was indeed in a sort of ecstasy, the heart overflowing
with love, that our Saint composed his treatise. He admitted
later on to St Vincent de Paul that when re-reading it, after
finishing it in 1616, he wept abundant tears.6 What happy
tears and how contagious ! How many readers have in their
turn wept over these pages, " all perfumed with most inti-
mate devotion !" It is because their writer filled them with
the fire of his soul and with the beatings of his heart, reveal-
ing a living love, love in action far more than in theory.
Nevertheless, neither his own mystical experiences nor
those of the first Visitandines were the only sources from
which he drew. He studied, as he states in the Preface to
his treatise, the principal writers, both ancient and modern,
1 It was begun in 1607. Cf. Letter to Baroness de Chantal,
February 11, 1607 (Vol. XIII, p. 265).
2 M. Henri Bremond has very well demonstrated this influence of
the Visitandines on the Treatise of the Love of God. Histoire du
sentiment religieux, Vol. II, pp. 564 ff.
3 Dom Mackey, Vol. IV, p. xiii.
4 GEuvres, Vol. IV, p. xiv.
6 Deposition, art. XXVI, CEuvres de Sainte Chantal, Vol. II,
published separately as The Soul of St Francis de Sales revealed by
St J . F. de Chantal, Annecy, 1922, p. 51.
6 De la Riviere, Vie, Book IV, chap. xliv.
St tfrancfs fce Sales 3°9
who have written on divine love. Among- the modern, the
Spanish writers, and especially St Teresa, held a prominent
place. 1
" I say nothing-," he humbly said, " that I have not learnt
from others ; but it would be impossible for me to remember
from whom I have received each thing in particular."2
B — The Teaching of the " Treatise on the Love
of God "3
St Francis de Sales tells us that he wanted " to represent
. . . the history of the birth, progress, decline, operations,
properties, advantages, and excellencies of divine love."4 He
admits that in his treatise may be found " excrescences " and
apparently useless digressions. In his description of the
genesis of divine love he goes far back. He explains teach-
ing which apparently would have been better placed in a work
of dogmatic theology :
"The first four Books," he says, "and certain chapters
in others, might doubtless be omitted at the will of those who
only seek the simple practice of holy love, but all that
would still be very useful to them if they regard it with
devotion."5
It is " all that follows from what belongs to the treatise
of heavenly love." To cut out a part was to risk the charge
1 Four Spanish or Portuguese writers, without counting St Teresa,
have been mentioned: Luis of Granada; Stella Diego (1524-1598) a
Portuguese, De amore Dei meditationes, Salamanca, 1578; Fonseca
Christophe (1540-1616), Del Amor di Dios, Barcelona, 1591 ; John of
Jesus Mary (1564-1615), Ars amandi Deum. Also three French writers :
Louis Richeome, S.J., of Provence (1544-1625), La Peinture sfirituelle
on Vart d'admirer, aimer et loiter Dieu en toutes ses CEuvres, Lyons,
1621 ; J. P. Camus, Bishop of Belley, Parenetique de Vamour de Dieu,
Paris, 1608; Laurens de Paris, Capuchin (I-1640), Le Palais de Vamour
divin entre ]isus et I'Ame chrestienne, 1614. One Italian, Cardinal
Bellarmine, De ascensione mentis in Deum -per scalas rerum creatarum.
Still other writers inspired St Francis de Sales, especially St Catherine
of Genoa.
2 CEuvres, Vol. IV, pp. 10-11.
8 The Treatise on the Love of God has twelve books. The first deals
with the will of man and his affections, the description of love in
general; the second, with the heavenly origin of divine love; the third,
with the progress and perfection of love; the fourth, with the decline
and ruin of charity; the fifth, with the love of happiness and goodness ;
the sixth, with mystical prayer ; the seventh, with raptures and death
through love; the eighth, with the love of conformity to the will of
God ; the ninth, with the love of submission to the good pleasure of
God ; the tenth, with the commandment to love God above all things ;
the eleventh, with the pre-eminence of love over all other virtues ;
the twelfth, with some advice on progress in holy love.
« Preface, Vol. IV, p. 8.
5 Vol. IV, ibid., p. 9. The digressions are also explained by the
fact that the writer wrote " amidst many distractions " by fits and
starts. Ibid., p. 8.
3i° Christian Spirituality
of being- incomplete, which no one would dream of making
against the Bishop of Geneva.
The work begins with a small treatise on the will and the
passions, according to the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas.
The will is supreme over all the powers of the soul ; but
it "governs them differently," for it has not an absolute
sway over each of them* The " sensual" appetite, in par-
ticular, is a " rebellious, seditious, restless subject."
In this connection St Francis de Sales explains his concep-
tion-— a fundamental point in his spirituality — of the " two
parts " of the reasonable soul :
" In our soul," he says, " since it is reasonable, we clearly
note two degrees of perfection, which the great St Augustine,
and after him all the doctors, have called two parts of the
soul, the lower and the higher : of which that is said to be
lower which debates and draws its consequences from what it
learns and experiences through the senses ; and that is said
to be higher which debates and draws its consequences accord-
ing to intellectual knowledge, which is not founded on the
experience of the senses, but on the discernment and judge-
ment of the spirit ; and this higher part is generally called the
spirit or mental part of the soul, as the lower is usually called
sense or feeling and human reason."1
Our Saint very often makes use of this doctrine to console
his penitents amidst their temptations. It may happen,
in the violent assaults of the devil, that all the lower part of
the soul is in his power :
" See, my daughter, my soul," he wrote to the Baroness
de Chantal in February 18, 1605; "this is a sign that all is
taken ; that the enemy has won everything in our fortress,
save the impregnable keep, which is unconquerable and can
only be lost through ourselves. In the end it is this free
will, which, all naked in God's sight, resides in the highest
and most spiritual part of the soul, depending only on its
God and on ourselves ; and when all the other faculties of the
soul are lost and subject to the enemy, it alone remains
mistress of itself in order not to give any consent.2
In the Treatise on the Love of God, analysis is pushed
further, for it is necessary to determine, as soon as possible,
what part of the soul is the seat of the mystical state :
"In the higher part of the reason [in mysticism this only
is concerned] there are two degrees ; in one of which occur
1 Love of God, Book I, chap, xi, Vol. IV, p. 63.
2 Vol. XIII, p. 10. Cf. Devout Life, Part IV, chap, iii : " We have
two parts of our soul, the one the lower and the other the higher . . .
it often happens that the lower part takes pleasure in the temptation
without the consent — nay, against the will — of the higher."
St ffrancfs be Sales 3"
debates on questions of faith and supernatural light, and
in the other the simple acquiescences of faith, hope, and
charity."1
St Francis de Sales has in view here the apex of the
soul of which mystics so often speak :
" [It is] a certain eminence and supreme point of the
reason and spiritual faculty which is not led by the light of
argument or reasoning, but by a simple view of the under-
standing and a simple feeling of the will, by which the mind
acquiesces and submits to the truth and the will of God."2
Our Saint, following many other writers, compares this
" extremity and summit of our soul, this highest apex of our
spirit " to the sanctuary of Solomon's temple :
"In the sanctuary," he says, " there were no windows to
give light; in this degree of the mind there is no enlightenment
from discourse. In the sanctuary all light entered through
the door ; in this degree nothing enters into the mind except
by faith, which produces, like rays, the sight and the sense
of the beauty and goodness of the good pleasure of God.
None entered the sanctuary but the High Priest; in this apex
of the soul discourse has no access, but only the great,
universal and sovereign feeling that the divine will must be
supremely loved, approved, and embraced. . . . The High
Priest, entering into the sanctuary, darkened still more the
light which entered by the door ; and all that comes into
view in the highest apex of the soul, is in a certain way
darkened and veiled by the renunciations and resignations
performed thereby, willing less to look upon and see the
beauty of the truth and the truth of the beauty presented to it
than to embrace and adore it : so that the soul would desire
almost to close its eyes, as soon as it begins to see the
worthiness of the will of God, so that, no longer being busy
with considering it, it may accept it more potently and per-
fectly by absolute compliance uniting itself and submitting
infinitely thereto."3
In the mystical states the role of the mind is quite curtailed.
The Bishop of Geneva in this adheres to tradition. The
"apex of the mind" does not reason, but all passes within
it "by a simple sight and a simple feeling of the divine
will," by " the simple acquiescences of faith, hope, and
charity."4
St Chantal had well noted these mystical facts in St
Francis, who seems to describe them from experience :
" As regards myself," she says in her deposition at the
process of beatification, " I clearly recognize that this gift of
faith which our blessed father had received, was accompanied
1 Love of God, Book I, chap, xii, Vol. IV, p. 69.
2 ibid., p. 67. 3 ibid., p. 68.
* ibid., p. 6g.
3i2 Cbristian Spirituality
by great clearness, certainty, relish, and an extraordinary
sweetness ; that, with simple sight, he saw the truths of
faith ; and I know that he subjected his understanding to
these truths with an absolute peace of mind and will. He
called the place in which these clear visions took place the
sanctuary of God, where nothing enters but the soul alone
with its God."1
If St Francis de Sales thus analyzes the soul and its
faculties, it is the better to demonstrate how love rules it. For
all the affections and passions of the soul spring " from love
as their root and source." Love, whatever it is, also
governs the will, yet without doing violence thereto."
Our Saint first of all gives a description of " love in
general." He shows how it is produced and developed. He
gives a history of it. This history is summed up in five
motions of the will.
Love is born from the " very close concord " between
" the will and the good." This affinity of the will with the
good is such that " as soon as it perceives it, it turns towards
it in order to take pleasure in it." Delight in the good per-
ceived is the second motion of the will. The third is the
effort of the will to be united with the thing loved. The
fourth is the search for the means to realize this union.
Finally, at the end of these movements union is achieved.
" Love comprises all this together, like a beautiful tree,
the root of which is the concord of the will with the good,
its foot is the delight, its stem is the motion ; the seekings,
the pursuits, and other efforts are its branches ; but the
union and enjoyment are its fruit."2
Divine love has a similar history, but it is wholly super-
natural.
The true good for man is God. St Francis de Sales teaches
that, even from the natural point of view, there exists
between God and man a concord " which is not without its
usefulness." It is doubtless not able to produce divine love,
supernatural charity. But God " makes use of it as a handle
in order to take hold of us more gently and draw us to
himself."3
1 De-position, Article xxiv, CEuvres de St Chanted, Vol. II. L'dme de
Saint Francois de Sales, pp. 43-44.
i Love of God, Book I, chap, vii, p. 41.
3 Book I, chap, xviii. Cf. chaps, xv-xvii. Bossuet thought, quite
wrongly, that in these chapters St Francis de Sales teaches that natural
love of God may, of itself, become a supernatural love. Cf. CEuvres
de St Francois de Sales, IV, p. lxxii. " Sacred love is a miraculous
child [like Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph] since the human will cannot
conceive it if the Holy Spirit do not spread it in our hearts." Book I,
chap, vi, Vol. IV, p. 39.
St Francis fce Sales 3*3
Divine love spring's from the consideration of the divine
perfections and the eternal charity of God for man. How
can we help loving- God who is so perfect? His supernatural
Providence operates upon us in so touching a manner, above
all by " a most abundant redemption," and by " the diversity
of graces which he distributes to men."1 Is it possible for
us not to love a God who is so good to us? Like St Bernard,
the Bishop of Geneva most lovingly expounds the motives
which urge us to love God. He then shows how faith, hope,
and penance combine together to make charity spring up in
the soul.2
Love is the last thing to arise in us. It should be pre-
ceded specially by faith and hope. But once it has entered
the soul everything must be subject to it, even the under-
standing and the will. "If it be not master, it ceases to
exist and perishes." It " must always be king or nothing " ;
but it reigns by gentleness :
" Holy love makes its abode in the highest and most up-
lifted region of the mind ... so that from so exalted a
place it may be heard and obeyed by its people — that is to
say, by all the faculties and affections of the soul which it
governs with a sweetness without equal ; for love has no
convicts or slaves, but reduces all things to its obedience by
so charming a power, that, though nothing is so strong as
love, nothing also is so lovable as its strength."3
Having explained the origin of divine love, it might be ex-
pected that St Francis de Sales would at once speak of its
exercise. He prefers, however, first to study love's progress
and perfection.*
We can always make progress in it during this life. The
most beautiful model of such progress is given us by the
Virgin Mary. The Bishop of Geneva contemplates it with
admiration :
" Of this heavenly Queen," he says, " I declare with all
my heart this loving but most true thought ; that at least at
the end of her mortal life her charity surpassed that of the
Seraphim. . . . And going beyond this, I think, too, that
as the charity of this Mother of love surpasses that of all the
saints of heaven in perfection, so also did she exercise it more
excellently, I say, even in this mortal life. She never sinned
venially, as the Church declares ; she had, then, no vicissitude
1 This is the subject of the Second Book of the Treatise on the Love
of God.
2 Book II, chaps, xiv-xxi.
8 Book I, chap, vi, Vol. IV, p. 39.
* This is the subject of the Third Book. St Francis de Sales
incidentally speaks (chaps, iv-v) of the final perseverance of divine
love, or of a good death.
314 Cbrfsttan Spirituality
or delay in the progress of her love, but mounted from love
to love, advancing" perpetually. She never felt any opposi-
tion from the sensual appetite ; and hence, her love, like a
true Solomon, reigned peacefully within her soul and acted as
freely as it wished. The virginity of her heart and of her
body was more worthy and more honourable than that of the
angels ; and this is why her mind, not being divided or parted,
as St Paul says, was wholly occupied in thinking of divine
things, how to please her God. And finally, maternal love,
the most pressing, most active, and most ardent of all, an
indefatigable and insatiable love, what must it not have been
in the heart of such a mother for such a son?"1
The end of divine love is the union of the blessed with God,
a union which is brought about in heaven by the beatific
vision ; and in dealing therewith St Francis de Sales wrote
beautiful passages about the Blessed Trinity, the end of such
vision.2
" Our love towards God," says our Saint, " is exercised
in two chief ways : the one affective, and the other effective
or, as St Bernard says, active." The first is the love of
willingness and of goodwill, the other is the love of obedi-
ence.
The whole of the Fifth Book is consecrated to the love
of willingness and of goodwill.
" Love is none other," as we know, " than the motion and
flow of heart which is directed towards the good by means of
our delight therein." [When we think of the infinite per-
fections of God] "it is impossible for our will not to be
touched with delight in this good. . . . We delight in the
divine pleasure infinitely more than in our own."3
This pleasure which our heart feels when it considers the
divine goodness is again made manifest by the sympathy
which it feels at the sight of the sorrows of the Word
incarnate. Love is compassionate towards the sufferings of
the one who is loved. This explains the extraordinary attrac-
tion of the saints and of the devout towards meditation on
the Passion of Christ.
Goodwill in love is exercised "by way of desire." It
incites the soul to wish for good things for God, as though
he lacked them : an imaginary and conditional desire — for
God lacks nothing — but it has the value of an act of
love.
" This desire," says St Francis de Sales, "... by imagining
impossible things, may sometimes be usefully practised
1 Book III, chap, viii, pp. 191-192.
2 ibid., chaps, xi-xiv. In the Fourth Book of the Treatise on Divine
Love, St Francis de Sales points out how divine love may be lost.
3 Book V, chap, i, Vol. IV, pp. 255-256.
St 3franci3 fce Sales 3J5
amidst strong- emotions and during- extraordinary fervour ;
it is moreover said of the great St Augustine that he often
practised the same, in his excess of love exclaiming thus :
1 Lo, Lord ! I am Augustine and thou art God; yet if that
were which neither is nor could be, if I were God and thou
wert Augustine, I would desire to change with thee and
become Augustine that thou mightest be God.' "*
If the love of goodwill is able to give nothing to God who
is infinitely perfect, it "at least desires that his name be
blessed, exalted, praised, honoured, and adored more and
more." It sings " the benediction of its dear Beloved."2
In its ardour for the glory of God, it calls upon all creatures,
in union with the angels and saints and with the Virgin
Mary, to sing the divine praises. It is happy to make
its own Christ's praise of God, which is of infinite value. 3
It is chiefly by prayer that the love of compliance and of
goodwill is exercised. St Francis de Sales speaks of this
exercise in the Sixth Book of his treatise, and he considers it
exclusively from the point of view of love.
He calls prayer " mystical theology," because it has God
as its object, but " God in the measure in which he is
supremely to be loved." It tends less to the knowledge of
God than to the love of God, by which it is distinguished
from speculative theology. "It is called mystical because
the converse therein is entirely secret, and nothing is said in
it between God and the soul except from heart to heart, by
communications incommunicable to any other than to those
who make them."4
In this sense simple meditation belongs to mystical
theology. Moreover it is the " mother of love,"5 and its
daughter is contemplation.
The Bishop of Geneva describes contemplation in differ-
entiating it from meditation. " Contemplation is nothing
other than a loving, simple, and permanent attention of the
mind to divine things." This is the traditional definition,
with a suggestion of meaning that accentuates the part played
by love. Contemplation " is practised with pleasure," be-
cause " it presupposes that we have found God and his holy
love and that we rejoice and delight therein."6
Divine love it is which also produces passive recollection
and the prayer of quiet.7 St Francis de Sales explains these
1 Book V, chap, vi, Vol. IV, pp. 276-277.
2 ibid., chap, viii, pp. 282, 284. 3 ibid., chaps, viii-xii.
4 Book VI, chap, i, Vol. IV, pp. 303-304.
5 ibid., chap, iii, p. 313. The title of chapter ii is as follows : " Of
meditation, the first degree of prayer or mystical theology."
6 ibid., chap, vi, p. 323. 7 ibid., chaps, vii-ix.
3J6 Cbristiau Spirituality
by drawing from St Teresa. He very skilfully unravels the
divers degrees of " holy quiet." The mystical experiences of
St Chantal and the first Visitandines must have specially
guided him in this.1
Before reaching- ecstatic union the Bishop of Geneva notes
several mystical phenomena brought about by love : " The
flowing or liquefaction of the soul in God," the " wound of
love," the " loving languor of the heart wounded by de-
light."2
Mystical union of the soul with God is brought about by
love. It has different degrees. The highest is that of rapture
or ecstasy in which the union suspends the faculties of the
soul, totally or partly, according to its intensity.3
The supreme effect of affective love is to unite the soul
with its God by slaying the body.
The pages of the Treatise on the Love of God which ex-
plain this effect are specially moving. St Francis de Sales
must have wept with love when he wrote the account taken
from the Sermons of St Bernardine of Siena,4 of the nobleman
who traversed all the regions of Palestine sanctified by the
presence of Christ in the body, and died with love on the
Mount of Olives uttering this prayer: " O Jesus, my sweet
Jesus, I know not now where to seek thee or follow thee on
earth. Ah, Jesus ! Jesus my love, grant this heart then to
follow thee and take flight to thee above !"5
Several of the saints died of love ; the Bishop of Geneva
enumerates them with joy.6 But above all does the death of
the Blessed Virgin enrapture him. This " glorious Virgin
died of a supremely sweet and tranquil love."
" The phoenix is said, when very old, to gather on the
mountain heights a quantity of aromatic wood, upon which,
as on a bed of honour, it prepares to end its days, for when
the midday sun sends forth his hottest beams, this quiet,
peerless bird, in order to add to the strength of the sun, beats
its wings unceasingly upon its funeral pile until it sets it on
fire, and burns with it, and is thus consumed, dying amidst
the sweet-smelling flames. In the same way, Theotimus,
the Virgin Mary, having gathered up in her mind, by most
lively and continual memory, all the most lovable mysteries
of the life and death of her Son, and ever receiving directly
1 Book VI, chaps, x-xi. We may compare these chapters with the
CEuvres of St Chantal, Vol. II, pp. 260, 337, etc.
2 ibid., chaps, xii-xv.
3 Book VII, chaps, iii-viii. St Francis de Sales is again inspired
by St Teresa.
4 First Sermon on the Ascension.
6 Book VII, chap, vii, Vol. V, pp. 45-47.
6 ibid., chaps, ix-xi. Among the holy persons cited is found the
name of Jean Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris (chap. ix).
St jf rands fce Sales 317
therefrom those most ardent inspirations which her Son, the
Sun of Justice, has cast upon the world at the highest midday
of his charity ; besides making also on her part a perpetual
act of contemplation, the sacred fire of divine love finally
wholly consumed her as a holocaust of sweetness, so that she
died of it, her soul being- wholly rapt and transported into the
arms of the love of her Son. O death, in love giving life ; O
love, in life giving death I"1
Affective love, if it be true, becomes effective love, that is
love in conformity with the divine will. This conformity
springs from the loving heart's delight in God.
" By dint of delight in God, we become conformable with
God, and our will is transformed into that of his divine
Majesty by its delight therein. Love, says St Chrysostom,
" either discovers or draws the likeness."2
The love of goodwill also gives us this holy conformity in
another way.
" For goodwill desires all honour for God, all the glory,
and all the recognition that is possible to be rendered him,
as a certain outward good which befits his goodness."3
Now, the best " outward good " which we are able to give
to God is the obedience which he wills or permits.
God's will may be his "will signified" or his "will of
good pleasure." He who loves fully submits himself to both
of them.
St Francis de Sales explains at length, in the Eighth Book
of his treatise, how his will is signified by the Ten Command-
ments, by the evangelical counsels, and by the inspirations of
grace.
" Christian doctrine," he says, " clearly proposes to us the
truths which God wills us to believe, the goods for which he
wills us to hope, the punishments which he wills us to fear,
that which he wills us to love, the Commandments he wills
us to observe, and the counsels which he desires us to follow ;
and all this is called the signified will of God, because he has
signified and made it manifest that he wills and intends that
all this should be believed, hoped for, feared, loved, and
practised."4
Contempt of the counsels "is a great sin." Each one
should love and practise what he can. But the faithful are
not obliged to practise them all.
We should also make our will conform to that of God by
following his inspirations ; these also belong to his signified
will. Such " inspiration is a heavenly ray which sheds into
1 Book VII, chap, xiii, Vol. V, pp. 51-52.
2 Book VIII, chap, i, Vol. V, p. 60. 3 ibid., p. 63.
* ibid., chap, iii, p. 65.
318 Cbristlan Spirituality
our hearts a warm light by which he [God] shows us the
good and incites us to the pursuit of it."1'
God thus inspires us in a thousand ways, either in order
to make us practise virtue with extraordinary perfection or
know our vocation or persevere in the way in which we are.
He who loves truly unites his will with that of God in all
such inspirations.
The love of God is still better shown by submission to the
divine good pleasure, as made known by events.
" Nothing, except sin, is done but by the will of God which
is called absolute, or the will of good pleasure, which no one
can prevent, and it is known to us only by its effects, the
occurrence of which shows us that God has willed them and
determined them."2
To such belong spiritual tribulations, trials, and afflictions.
We should unite our will to the divine good pleasure by
resignation and by indifference. Indifference in all things,
" things of the service of God ... in what concerns our
advancement in virtue," and even in a certain way, " in the
permission of sins."3
The will should love God with a wholly pure and dis-
interested love. Like a musician that has become deaf —
this is St Francis de Sales'4 comparison — who plays the lute
in the court of an indifferent prince. This musician does not
enjoy the sweetness of the airs he makes heard, since he has
lost his hearing. He has not the satisfaction of pleasing his
prince, for the latter goes away and leaves him to play all
alone, from obedience. In the same way the soul ought
to sing the canticle of love, not to please itself, but solely to
please God. And often even, without knowing if its song
be pleasing to its Lord, it must continue to sing " amidst
the spiritual anguish," which renders its love extremely pure
and clear. It will be deprived of all pleasure which might
attach it to God. Thus love " joins us and unites us to God
directly, will to will, heart to heart, without any medium of
contentment or of expectation."5 Nowhere, so much as here,
is felt the influence of St Catherine of Genoa on St Francis
de Sales. Pure love is crucifying.
The will is thus dead to self. It lives " purely in the
will of God," in the most perfect indifference. It is " a most
lovable passing away."
St Francis de Sales again explains this doctrine by another
1 Book VIII, chap, x, Vol. V, p. 89.
2 Book IX, chap, i, p. 109. All this Ninth Book is devoted to this
will of good pleasure.
3 ibid., chaps, iv-viii. * ibid., chaps, ix and xi.
5 ibid., chap, xii, pp. 147-148. This disinterestedness and in-
difference of soul never make it cease to hope for its salvation. Quietists
have wrongly cited this Book IX of the Treatise on the Love of God
in favour of their erroneous teaching.
St ffrancfs &c Sales 3J9
comparison more enlightening- than any discourse. The pas-
sage is constantly quoted.
" The daughter of an excellent doctor and surgeon was in
a state of constant fever, and knew that her father loved
her tenderly. She said to one of her friends : ' I am in great
pain, but, nevertheless, I do not think of remedies, for I do
not know what could help my cure ; I might want one thing,
yet really need another. Do I not gain, then, by leaving the
care of all this to my father who knows, and can and will do
everything required for my health? I should do wrong to
think about it, for he will think enough for me ; I should do
wrong to want anything, for he will want enough of every-
thing that is good for me. I shall only wait for him to will
what he thinks needful, and interest myself in watching him
when he is near me, thus giving him proof of my filial love
and letting him know of my perfect trust.' And with these
words she fell asleep, whilst her father, judging it expedient
to bleed her, made the necessary arrangements ; and coming to
her as she awoke, after inquiring how she felt after her sleep,
he asked if she were willing to be bled in order to get well.
' Father,' she replied, ' I am yours; I do not know what to
wish for in order to be cured, it is for you to wish to do for
me all you think good ; for me, indeed, it is enough to love
you and honour you with all my heart, which I do.' With
this her arm was bound and her father himself cut the vein
with a lance; but while he was cutting it and the blood
spurted out, not once did his loving daughter look at her
wounded arm nor at the blood flowing from her vein, but re-
maining thus, with eyes fixed on her father's face, she
said nothing except occasionally and quite softly this : ' My
father loves me well, and I am altogether his ' ; and when all
was over, she did not thank him, but only repeated the same
words of affection and filial trustfulness."1
What a touching and expressive symbol of the total in-
difference, of the full and entire abandonment of the soul
filially submissive to God. St Francis de Sales had reached
this supreme degree of conformity to the divine will when he
said towards the end of his life :
" I wish for few things : and what I desire I desire but
little ; I have scarcely any desires, but were I to be born
once more I should have none at all. If God were to come
to me [to grant me a sense of his presence], I also should go
to him ; if he willed not to come to me, I should keep still
and not go to him [I mean I should not seek to have this sense
of his presence, but be content with the simple apprehension
of faith].
" So I say that we must neither ask nor refuse anything,
1 Book IX, chap, xv, Vol. V, pp. 156-157.
320 Cbristian Spirituality
but leave ourselves in the hands of divine Providence without
gratifying- ourselves with any desire, save willing what God
wills of us."1
Here the treatise might have ended. But the writer is
captivated by his subject ; he cannot leave it. At the risk
of once more breaking the logical connection of the parts of
his work, he explains, in the tenth book, the great command-
ment to love God above all things and one's neighbour as
oneself (Matthew xxii, 37-39). In connection with the love
of one's neighbour St Francis de Sales speaks highly of zeal,
and also of the qualities of goodness and prudence which are
needed.2 Then he shows " the precious influence of sacred
love" on all the other virtues.3 He ends his magnificent
work with some advice for the making of spiritual progress
in holy love.4
The Treatise on the Love of God was received with enthu-
siasm, above all in France, where, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, arose a splendid movement of Christian
reform. But it seems to be the fate of great works to be
disputed. Posterity judges them from points of view un-
known to their authors. This change of perspective often
prevents them from being justly appreciated.
St Francis de Sales dwells at great length — as we have
seen — on perfect conformity to the will of God and on holy
indifference in all things. He rightly sees in this the highest
exercise of divine love, the complete stripping of the soul in
order to be united to God. And then there arose, a few years
later, quietism. Its supporters claim that true charity, pure
1 True Spiritual Conferences, Dialogue XXI. Of asking nothing,
Vol. VI, pp. 383-384. See the variants in the notes, ibid. St Chantal
says this in her Deposition at the process of beatification of St Francis
de Sales, art. xxvi : " The ordinary confessor of the Blessed One told
me, and I am also sure that it is so, that our Blessed Father did
nothing in order to avoid hell or to gain Paradise; but he did all his
actions purely and simply for the sole honour of God, whom he feared
because he loved him, and loved him because he merited it, and for
the love of [God] himself. Moreover, he said that his heart had ' as
its sovereign law the greatest glory and love of God.' " — We can under-
stand how these kinds of expressions must have disturbed the opponents
of quietism in the height of the controversy. They are, however,
understood when placed in the historical circumstances which belong
to them. It is so true that St Chantal does not intend to say that
the Bishop of Geneva suppressed the virtue of hope, that in the pre-
ceding article (xxv) she speaks of the manner in which he practised
this virtue.
2 Book X, chaps, xii-xvi.
8 This is the subject of Book XI. The writer there shows " how
charity comprises in itself the gifts of the Holy Spirit " Chaps,
xv-xviii.
4 Book XII, and the last.
St jfrancis fce Sales 321
love, exclude hope, induce the soul to become disinterested
even in its eternal salvation. What is most astounding, they
imagine that they find such teaching in the Salesian Treatise
on the Love of God.1 Bossuet, their opponent, had no diffi-
culty in justifying St Francis de Sales, not, however, without
subjecting him to certain criticisms.2 Hence, the great work
suffered some slight discredit ; a discredit, it is true, that was
but momentary, but one that did not wholly disappear until
Pius IX proclaimed St Francis de Sales a Doctor of the
Church.3
The Treatise on the Love of God, then, in spite of the con-
troversies which arose in connection therewith, remains one
of the most beautiful masterpieces of Christian spirituality.
1 Cf. Dom Mackey, Translator's Introduction to the Treatise on the
Love of God, pp. vi-xxiii.
2 1 nsiruction stir les etats d'oraison, Books VIII-IX. The criticisms
are chiefly in the Priface sur V Instruction -pastorale de M. de Cambrai,
section n, no. cxxiv ff.
3 The decree was promulgated July 7, 1877, and confirmed
November 16 of the same year.
III. 2l
CHAPTER XII
THE FRENCH SCHOOL BEFORE BERULLE — CARDINAL
RICHELIEU — PIERRE DE BERULLE — THE TREATISE
ON THE GREATNESS OF JESUS — GENERAL CHAR-
ACTERISTICS OF BERULLIAN SPIRITUALITY
ST FRANCIS DE SALES had considerable influence
in France at the beginning- of the seventeenth
century. First of all through his works and after-
wards through intercourse.
In 1602, charged with some diplomatic mission,
he made a stay in Paris. There he met the Doctors of the
Sorbonne, Asseline and Andre Duval, the masters of Berulle,
the Carthusian Beaucousin, and Berulle himself. He must
have had conversations with Mme Acarie, " a new Teresa,"
with Marie de Beauvillier, the future reformer of the Abbey
of Montmartre, and with others.1 Not, indeed, ephemeral
conversations, for later on he exchanged letters with his
Paris friends. His advice was appreciated and his direction
sought and followed.
After his death his influence still increased. He had, too,
some faithful interpreters : St Chantal, first of all, who
" shaped herself according to his pattern; she drew life from
him and from his thought : people came to her as a living
relic of Francis de Sales."2 Then " two Salesian masters,"
the Jesuit Etienne Binet,3 and the Bishop of Belley, Jean-
Pierre Camus.4 Finally, the great number of those who go
1 Cf. H. Bremond, Hist, du sent, relig., p. 92 ff. Respecting Mme
Acarie (Blessed Mary of the Incarnation), see Andre Duval, La vie
admirable de Mme Acarie, 1621.
2 Bremond, ibid., p. 129.
* See ibid., chap. iv. Etienne Binet was born at Dijon in 1569. He
very soon became acquainted with St Francis de Sales, perhaps in
Paris or at the College of Clermont. Becoming a Jesuit in 1590, he
was obliged to go into exile in Italy until 1603. He was an eminent
director. His relations with St Chantal were frequent, but not always
peaceful. He died in Paris in 1639. His chief works : Les attraits
tout puissants de Vamour de Jesus-Christ, Paris, 1631 ; Le grand che]-
d'ceuvre de Dieu et les souveraines perfections de la Sainte Vierge,
Lyons, 1649; Essai des merveilles de la nature . . ., Paris, 1639.
1 Jean-Pierre Camus was born in Paris, November 3, 1584. Made
Bishop of Belley at twenty-five he was consecrated by St Francis de
Sales at the Cathedral of Belley, August 30, 1609. He died in Paris,
April 25, 1652. His best known work is UEsprit du bienheureux
Francois de Seles, published in 1639, 1640, 1641, in six 80 volumes. He
wrote several works on spirituality, especially devout stories, in the
322
Zbc fvcncb Scbool 323
more easily to God by the way of love than by that of fear.
The Salesian spirit is always likely to charm the greater
number.
The French School, however, was not Salesian. Circum-
stances directed it much more towards St Paul and St
Augustine than to the Bishop of Geneva. Nevertheless, its
founders were affective. They knew how to transform theo-
logical speculations into prayer, as Asseline was requested
to do in a famous letter from St Francis de Sales.1
The French School was prepared, towards the end of the
sixteenth century, by a group of holy men whose religious
influence was deep : " There is matter," wrote M. Bremond,
" for a very fine book on the interior life of French
Catholicism during this time of upheaval."2 But this interior
life was revealed much more by works than by books. The
religious wars and the divisions caused by them hindered
literary composition. It was a period of action and not of
writing.
Under the peaceful reign of Henry IV writing revived.
Some interesting spiritual writers may be then noted, espec-
ially among the Jesuits,3 Carmelites,4 and Capuchins. Many
taste of the time. Cf. Henri Bremond, Hist, du sent, relig. en France,
Vol. I, pp. 149-173, 273 ff. ; Boulas, Un ami de S Fr. de Sales, Camus,
eve que de Belley, Lons-le-Saunier, 1878, in which a complete list of the
works of Camus will be found ; De Baudry, Le veritable esprit de
S Fr. de Sales, Lyons, Paris, 1846.
1 Letter to Dom Eustache de Saint-Paul Asseline (Cistercian),
November 15, 161 1, respecting the project of a Summa of Theology :
" I approve of your stating the arguments for your opinions in this
[affective] style wherever it could suitably be done. . . . The opinions
might be drawn up in affective style. . . ." Vol. XV, pp. 1 19-120.
2 Hist, du sent relig., II, p. 7.
3 Louis Richeome, Fr. Coton, and Etienne Binet. Richeome was
born at Digne in 1544. His books were both controversial and ascetic.
(Euvres, Paris, 1628. The ascetic works are in Vol. II. The chief of
these is La Peinture sfirituelle ou I'art d'admirer, aimer et louer Dieu
en toutes ses ceuvres, Lyons, 161 1. Fr. Coton, confessor to Henry IV
and controversialist, was born at Neronde in le Forez, in 1564, and
died in Paris in 1626. His book Uintirieure occupation d'une dme
devote comprises letters of direction a little like St Francis de Sales'
Introduction. Fr. Binet has already been mentioned.
4 Jean de Saint Samson, lay brother, was the St John of the Cross
of the Carmelite reform in France. Born at Sens in 1571, blind from
the age of three, at thirty-five he entered the Carmelite Convent of
Dole. Very soon raised to the mystical state, he delivered discourses
to his brethren on the spiritual life and dictated treatises. His works
were published in the seventeenth century in two folios, by Fr. Donatien
de Saint Nicolas : Les ceuvres sfirituelles et mystiques du divin con-
temflatif et mystique Jean de Saint-Samson. His teaching is obscure,
like that of the German mystics. Cf. Sernin-Marie de Saint-
Andre, O.C.D., Vie du Ven. P. Jean de Saint-Samson, Paris, 1881. The
324 Cbristian Spirituality
of them were formidable antagonists of the Protestants. All
of them spread the Christian spirit around them and were
centres of the interior life. M. Bremond has devoted some
charming" and well-known pages to them.1
The Capuchins, quite newly settled in France, took an
active part in this religious restoration. Two of them, above
all, deserve notice on account of the extent of their influence :
Bennet Canfield and Fr. Joseph Tremblay, " the grey
cardinal."
William Fitch, the future Bennet Canfield,2 was born
at Canfield, Essex, in England. He came while still young
to France. He entered the Capuchins in 1586. His chief
work is his Regie de perfection rMuite au seul point de la
volonte divine. To become fully and heroically abandoned
to the divine will, such, par excellence, is the means of reach-
ing perfection. This book had a great success when it
appeared a few years after the death of its author. But it
had not only admirers : many found its teaching subtle and
rather dubious.3
Joseph, the Clerk of Tremblay,4 is the author of an Intro-
duction a la vie spirituelle par une facile mdthode d'oraison.5
It is an adaptation of the Ignatian method to the seraphic
spirit. The Spiritual Exercises were used in almost all the
religious Orders. It was therefore opportune to introduce
them among the daughters of St Francis de Sales, though
with all needful modifications. The Exercises tended in
France, as they did in Spain and Italy, to become more and
more important.
mysticism of Marguerite Acarie, Carmelite, daughter of Mme Acarie,
has been explained by Fr. J. M. de Vernon : Conduite chretienne et
religieuse selon les sentiments de la V . M. Marguerite, Paris, 1691
(2nd ed.).
1 Hist, du sent, relig., Vols. I and II. It was also at this time that
" the great Abbesses " brought about the reform of the abbeys of
Paris. Marie de Beauvillier reformed the Abbey of Montmartre,
Marguerite d'Arbouze that of Val de Grace. All thus prepared for
the great century.
2 Cf. J. Bruosse, La vie du R. P. Ange de Joyeuse . . . ensemble la
vie des R.R. F.F. Benoit Anglais . . ., Paris, 1621.
3 Above all in Part III. This was specially the opinion of St Francis
de Sales, CEuvres, IV, p. ix. The accusation of quietism seems to be
exaggerated.
4 Born in Paris, in 1577, he received a humanist education, and
travelled in Italy and in England. Entering the Capuchin Order in
1599, about 1613 he became V Eminence grise attached to Richelieu. He
died in 1638. Cf. Dedouvres, Etudes franciscaines, April-June, 1921
and ff.
5 Published about 1616, reissued at Mans in 1897, under the title
Mithode d'oraison du P. Joseph Tremblay, by P. Apollinaire de
Valence.
Ube jfrencb Scbool 325
I—CARDINAL RICHELIEU'S "TREATISE ON
CHRISTIAN PERFECTION "
We cannot well separate Fr. Joseph from Cardinal Richelieu,
particularly from Richelieu the spiritual writer, rather than
Richelieu the Minister of State. Does this mean that Fr.
Joseph collaborated with the famous cardinal in the Treatise
on Christian Perfection? It is very likely.
Richelieu, in spite of his overwhelming- cares and crushing'
responsibilities, interested himself particularly in spiritual
writings, primarily for his own personal sanctification. Fr.
Cloyseault, historian of the beginnings of the French Oratory,
tells us that the great cardinal thought so highly of Bour-
going's Meditations , " that he generally read one of them on
the days when he said holy Mass, and that more often than
not he took them with him in his carriage so that he could
read them when he was alone."1 He also devoted his pious
attention to many other spiritual books. He desired, too, to
write some himself. Those that had been written, in spite of
their merits, did not appear to him to be sufficiently practical.
Let us hear what he says in the introduction to his treatise :
" I candidly grant the virtue and merit of all those who
have written on the subject of which I treat ; but the greater
number of their works seem so lengthy or so difficult that
many minds are only able, with great trouble, to find what
they seek in them ; charity, to which nothing is impossible,
makes me undertake to describe a road, as easy as it is short,
towards attaining Christian perfection."
Such a declaration, after the publication of the Introduction
to the Devout Life, is surprising. But we must remember
that many found Philothea, too, " wrapped up " in devotion.
She could not be suggested as a model for many ! Richelieu,
in a small treatise of forty-six chapters, traces " a road as
easy" as it is "short." Everyone may pass along it and
reach perfection without too great difficulty.
The treatise was begun in 1636, during the siege of Corbie.
But a Minister of State is not master of his time ! The work
did not appear until after the author's death. The Duchesse
d'Aiguillon, the cardinal's niece, published it in 1646. 2
There is no trace of Berullian spirituality to be found in
1 Quoted by Fr. Ingold in the Preface to the 33rd edition of Bour-
going's Meditations, Paris, 1906, Vol. I, p. xiii.
2 In the dedication to the Blessed Virgin there is an allusion to a
vow made by Louis, February 10, 1638, just when Richelieu was
writing his book. Migne has reproduced the Treatise on Christian
Perfection at the end of his Dictionnaire d' ' asceticisme, Vol. II,
pp. 1017-1190. This is the edition I shall quote. Richelieu (15S5-1642)
also composed the Instruction du Chrestien, Paris, 1626, a catechetical
work, and also some works of controversy with the Protestants.
326 Christian Spirituality
it. But the influence of the Introduction to the Devout Life
is seen, above all, in the chapters in which it is shown that
" in every condition of life it is possible to arrive at Christian
perfection," and that true devotion requires, beyond every-
thing-, entire solicitude for the duties of our station.1
As for the rest, the work progresses very differently from
that of St Francis de Sales. The whole doctrine of perfec-
tion is reduced to the theory of the three ways of the spiritual
life. Perfection is reached in the unitive way :
" The third degree of the spiritual life is the unitive life,
which is no other than the care which the Christian, cleansed
from sin by the purgative life, enlightened and inflamed by
the illuminative life, takes to become united to God through
perfect charity. This gives him so great a conformity of will
with God that without in any way considering himself, he no
longer desires anything that is not willed by God, and desires
it only from the consideration that God wills it."
Here again we have pure love in the notion of Christian
perfection.3
" The practice of mental prayer " is "the principal part of
the illuminative life " ; for " mental prayer is an operation of
our soul in which, by the penetration of a truth of faith, our
will is incited to will and to ask God for Christian perfection,
or to make some notable advancement therein."4
Moreover, with regard to the second degree of the spiritual
life, the writer gives us a fairly complete treatise on prayer,
which reproduces the traditional teaching on the subject.
Of these we confine ourselves merely to the then famous
scholastic theories " concerning divers kinds of mental
prayer." These matters we are told are abstruse. " Great
obscurity is found in what contemplatives write on this
subject,"5 says Richelieu. He strives therefore to be very
clear. Nevertheless, to follow him we must be acquainted
with the Thomist system of knowledge.
We may, he explains, conceive of " two kinds of prayer.
. . . The first is called ordinary prayer or meditation. The
second extraordinary prayer or contemplation."
" Meditation is performed by means of images or of species
which we receive by the outward senses, which perceive
objects represented to them. ... In this way the considera-
tion of a stone or anything of the kind will bring man to
1 Chaps, xli-xliv. We also find there the influence of Luis of
Granada and of St Teresa.
2 Chap, vi, Migne, p. 1039. In the first five chapters the writer
develops the motives which ought to lead man to assure his salvation.
In the chapters on the purgative way we would note the pointing out,
as against the Protestants, of the divine institution of confession and
the invitation to frequent communion. Chaps, ix-xxii.
8 Cf. Chap. xl. 4 Chap, xxvi, Migne, p. 1109.
8 Chap, xxxi, Migne, p. 1129.
Ube jfrencb Scbool 327
God ; as it is impossible to think that this stone of which he
has the image or sensible species in the imagination is a
creature, without recognizing that God is its Creator and
Master."1
This meditation may be performed by the reason alone —
and we then arrive at the simple knowledge of the existence
of God — or by reason enlightened by the light of faith. By
this second and more perfect means, the Christian knows
11 many things which cannot come from the senses." He
knows not only " that God is, but what he is; so that we are
able to conceive with evidence the perfections of his being
as they are."2
Extraordinary prayer or contemplation " is that in which
man sees and knows God without any use of the imagina-
tion and without discourse." The mind has no need to make
any effort nor has it any labour to perform.3 It is God who
enlightens the soul supernaturally, and this in three principal
ways.
" One by the infusion of intelligible species, which are not
drawn from the senses, but formed by God expressly in the
mind of man." These species, not being produced through
the senses or coming from creatures, are much better fitted
to enable us to know God :
" These species infused by God are called by contempla-
tives, deiform and deific ; because of their greater likeness to
the knowledge of the saints who in heaven are attached to
God by himself, than to that of men who are only led to him
while on earth in the ordinary way by species drawn from
sensible objects."*
St Francis de Sales seems to make allusion to this mode
of contemplation when he recommends Philothea and Baroness
de Chantal not to be too desirous of the much-talked-about
" deific union."
The second way in which God supernaturally enlightens the
contemplative " consists, not in the creation of a new form,
species or image; but only by infusion" of a very powerful
extraordinary light whereby the soul knows God very per-
fectly. 5
Finally, the third way is the beatific vision : the soul sees
" God in his essence through the light of glory." In heaven
this vision is permanent. Here below, it can only be passing
and momentary. " Such were the visions of Moses and of St
Paul." 6 In agreement with several writers, Richelieu believes
1 Chap, xxxi, Migne, p. 1127. 2 ibid., p. 1125.
9 The writer lets it be understood that this mode of knowledge is
" special to certain souls to whom God wishes to give a degree of
particular exaltation." Migne, p. 1125.
* Chap, xxxi, Migne, p. 1126.
6 ibid. 6 ibid.
328 Cbrtsttan Spirituality
that the contemplative may be raised during brief moments
to intuitive vision.
These theories regarding- contemplation are expounded with
remarkable clearness. They disclose a practised theologian.
They also give to the Treatise on Christian Perfection a
special interest : that of reproducing mystical theories much
in vogue at the beginning of the seventeenth century. But
the work of Richelieu remains entirely outside the general
run of the French School, which began with Berulle.
II— PIERRE DE BERULLE— THE TREATISE
" DES GRANDEURS DE JESUS"
The chief of the French School is Pierre de Berulle, the
founder of the Oratory of F ranee. His most famous disciples
are Condren, St Vincent de Paul, Olier, founder of the
seminary of St Sulpice, St John Eudes, and Blessed Grignion
de Montfort. Bossuet is also a disciple of Berulle and owes a
great part of his spiritual teaching to him.
Pierre de Berulle was born February 4, 1575, at Serilly,
in Champagne.1 His father, Claude de Berulle, was adviser
to the Parliament of Paris. His mother, Louise Seguier,
daughter of President Seguier, trained him early in piety
and inspired him with a deep distaste for worldly pleasures.
He made his studies in the Paris University, first of all at the
colleges of Boncourt and Burgundy, where he studied litera-
ture ; afterwards at the college of Clermont, conducted by the
Jesuits and rendered famous through young Francis de Sales,
where he followed the much esteemed courses in philosophy
and theology ; finally at the Sorbonne.
It was while he was studying philosophy, about 1593, that
he grew in the sense of the sovereignty of God and of the
dependence of the creature, which afterwards brought him
to give so prominent a place in his spirituality to the virtue of
religion. Once the young Berulle even gave one of his fellow-
scholars " a discourse so uplifted beyond that which he could
have learnt from his master, in order to explain the depen-
1 Berulle's first biographer was Germain Habert, Abbot of Cerisy,
La vie du Cardinal de Berulle . . ., Paris, 1646. Later, Batterel and
Goujet each composed a Life of Berulle, which was not published. In
1S17, the Oratorian Tabaraud published a Histoire de Pierre de
Birulle . . ., Paris. Finally, the Abbe Houssaye wrote three volumes
on Berulle, which are an authority : M. de Berulle et les carmelites de
France, Paris, 1872 ; Le Pere de Berulle et VOratoire de Jesus, Paris,
1874; Le cardinal de Berulle et le cardinal de Richelieu, Paris, 1875.
See also A. Perraud, VOratoire de France au XV lie et au XI Xe siecle,
Paris, 1865. Above all H. Bremond, Histoire littdraire du sentiment
religieux en France, Vol. Ill, L'Ecole francaise, pp. 3 ff.
Ube jfrencb Scbool 329
dence which creatures have upon God, as much in their being
as in their operations, and to show they have to be closely
bound to him by the disposition of their will as well as by the
disposition of their essence," that it was inferred that he
" could not have derived this teaching from any other school
than that of the Holy Spirit."1
Berulle expounds these same ideas in his first work : Brief
discours de V abnegation interieure, published in 1597 with
the approbation of Andr6 Duval, one of his most famous
masters at the Sorbonne. It is upon these that he rests the
whole doctrine of abnegation :
"There are," he says, "two foundation stones of this
abnegation. The first, a very low estimate of all created
things and of oneself above all, acquired by the frequent
thought of their baseness, and by the daily experience of
one's nothingness and infirmity. . . . The second is a very
high idea of God, not by a high insight into the attributes
of the Divinity, which is not necessary and which few have ;
but by the total submission of self to God in order to adore
him and give him all power over us and what is ours without
reserving any personal interest however sacred."2
In this little treatise, Berulle takes pleasure in humiliating
fallen human nature. He only speaks of it to show contempt
for it and to demean it. He desires man's soul to regard
itself " as the most vile and useless creature of all, nay, as
dust, mud, and a mass of corruption : so that these things,
which, though most vile, are nevertheless useful in some
ways, wherein it is of no use except to offend God.3 It is
difficult, in this passage and in a number of others, to fail to
see traces of that Augustinian pessimism which is to be met
with so frequently in the French School. And, as it seems
to me, there is more than this. Berulle wishes to react
against the humanism which exalted human nature too
highly. Did this reaction begin at the Sorbonne when he was
studying there?4 It is certain that, especially since the Re-
formation, the attention of theologians was greatly drawn
towards the writings of St Augustine, which had been so
much misconstrued by Luther. And we know that all the
theology of the seventeenth century was very deeply impreg-
nated with Augustinianism.
1 Houssaye, Vol. I, p. 103.
2 (Euvres completes de Birulle, Migne, Paris, 1856, p. 879. Berulle
published this little treatise on abnegation by order of his spiritual
director, the Carthusian Beaucousin. Houssaye, I, p. 142. It is a
sort of adaptation from a writing by a Milanese lady, VAbregi de la
Perfection. Cf. (Euvres de Saint Francois de Sales, IV, p. ix.
3 (Euvres completes, p. 880.
* This needs to be made clear. Berulle's professors at the Sorbonne
were Asseline, who became a Carthusian, Philippe de Gamaches, and
Andre Duval. Cf. Houssaye, I, p. 122.
330 Christian Spirituality
Berulle was ordained priest June 5, 1599, and in the same
year he became honorary chaplain to Henry IV.1 He exerted
his zeal chiefly in the direction of souls and in controversy
with heretics.2 His principal work, however, at this epoch
was the introduction of St Teresa's reformed Carmelites into
France. We know how he was aided in this difficult enter-
prise, or rather stimulated therein, by Mme Acarie.
But that which interests us mostly is what went on within
Berulle's soul, whence arose his spirituality.
At the same time that he conceived " a very high estimate
of God" and "a very low estimate ... of self," Berulle
felt himself more and more drawn towards the mystery of
the Word incarnate. One Christmas night, as Germain
Habert relates,3 whilst Berulle — he was then about seventeen
years old — was assisting at Matins and Mass of the Feast,
he suddenly became deeply recollected, and, being rapt in
spirit, received such lights regarding the Incarnation and
birth of the Son of God as are alone granted to the divinely
privileged. Fr. Pacificus, a famous Capuchin, to whom he
opened his mind, was struck with wonder. He was again
favoured "with a similar revelation" the year after his
ordination in 1660, when he made his " election " retreat
with the Jesuits at Verdun. The self-humiliation of the
Word incarnate was to him the most powerful motive for
humbling himself in order to serve God truly :
" In thinking of the incarnation of Jesus Christ," he says,
" I weighed deeply and at length in the depth of my soul this
sovereign goodness of the Word eternal, who, as very God,
is so exalted above all created things, and has indeed deigned
to humiliate and abase himself so low as to place on his
throne so vile and abject a nature, and has indeed willed to
be associated and united therewith so closely that no greater
or more intimate union can be found. As the Incarnation is
the foundation of our salvation, I have also weighed most
deeply how great ought to be the abjection of self, by which
he who is resolved to labour for the salvation of his soul
must begin, since the Son of God deigned to begin it in this
mystery, by the humiliation and abasement of his divine and
eternal person."4
Berulle's favourite considerations as to the incarnate Word
are on the interior states, the intimate dispositions, and the
operations of the Holy Spirit in his most holy soul ; and also
1 Shortly after his ordination, in July 1599, Berulle published, at
Troyes, under the pseudonym of Leon d'Alexis, his Traiti des iner-
gumenes in connection with the affair of the so-called possessed woman,
Marthe Brossier, which so excited Paris. Houssaye, I, pp. 147 ff.
2 In 1609 Berulle published in Paris Trois discours de controverse
(on the mission of pastors, the Mass, and the Real Presence).
3 Vie du cardinal de Berulle, Book I, chap, iii, Houssaye, I, p. 198.
4 CEuvres completes, Migne, pp. 1293-1294.
Ube frencb Scbool 33 J
on his life in us, our participation in his state. This thought,
apparently, was suggested to him by meditation on the
Epistles of St Paul and on the Gospel of St John. The
renewal of biblical studies, and especially those of the New
Testament, is due, as we know, to Erasmus and the
humanists who have given us critical editions of the sacred
books. After them, Luther forced Catholic exegetes to study
St Paul more closely ; for did not the heresiarch draw the
principal points of his teaching from the Pauline epistles?
Thus, he had to be answered ; hence arose a great number
of commentaries on the Evangelists and on St Paul. The
most famous were the Commentaries on the Gospels by the
Jesuit Maldonatus (f 1583), and those of his confrere, like him-
self a Spaniard, Francis Tolet (T1596) on the Gospel of St
John and on the Epistle to the Romans. Berulle was not un-
acquainted with these works. He also studied the Greek
Fathers, who throw special light on the operations of the
Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, in the souls of the faithful.
Thus little by little — as far as we are able to see — did the
spirituality of Berulle become elaborated. It was completed
in 161 1, when the Oratory of Jesus was founded, wholly
consecrated to Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Priest.1
Some years after this foundation Berulle was led to give an
ample, and even somewhat prolix, exposition of his spiritual
teaching.
He did not confine his devotion to the Word incarnate to
himself alone. He preached it to the Carmelites and strove
to inspire his brethren of the Oratory with it. With this end
in view, " he had composed a form of aspiration to Jesus
Christ, filled with the highest conceptions of the relationship
of the Word incarnate with God the Father and with us. As
this book was far above the understanding of the ordinary
faithful, he had only communicated it to some of the
Oratorians, more advanced in the ways of perfection ; then
to certain Carmelites of eminent piety, but this with great
discretion. In accordance with his invariable custom of
never separating the Mother from her divine Son, he joined
with this first aspirational prayer a second in which he
rendered homage to the greatness of the Blessed Virgin and
vowed himself to her service."2
That which was new in this devotion was this vow of
servitude to Jesus and Mary.
This little book was indiscreetly communicated to the
enemies of the Oratory, who caused it to be censured in 1621,
both by the University of Louvain and that of Douai. Berulle,
1 See Houssaye, Vol. II, on the foundation of the Oratory.
2 Houssaye, II, p. 401.
332 Gbrtstian Spirituality
urged by his friends, answered these opponents in his masterly
work on the Grandeurs de Je'sus,1 divided into twelve dis-
courses. Though it was above all a doctrinal work, it was
also polemical. From time to time Berulle descends from the
heights to which his thought on the Word incarnate ascends
in order to inveigh against his adversaries. " These Dis-
courses," he says in the dedication to the King, " [are]
without rancour or without bitterness." The reader, how-
ever, does find a little, to his great regret. He is so charmed
by the talented views of the writer on the wonderful preroga-
tives of the Word incarnate and on his relations with the faith-
ful, and so edified by the pious upliftings, that he suffers in
finding himself occasionally back to the vulgarities of con-
troversy.
Neither is this treatise easy reading. The style has
nothing in it to attract. It is long-winded and sometimes
too subtle. But " the deep knowledge of the writer . . .
the accuracy of language and his long acquaintance with
antiquity are to be admired."2 The legitimacy of the vow
of servitude is soundly demonstrated ; it is drawn from the
very analysis of the dogma.
The human nature of Jesus, stripped of his own person-
ality, is " essentially in a state of servitude, and remains in
this state, permanent and perpetual, with regard to the
Divinity, by its own nature and condition." It belongs ex-
clusively to the Word. This state of servitude forms all its
greatness and is the principle of all the graces with which it
is crowned. It was also the condition of our salvation.
Ought not we also to place ourselves in a state of servitude as
regards the Word incarnate? If our whole being belongs to
Jesus, must it not participate in his life and character?
" With this desire," exclaims Berulle, " I make to thee,
0 Jesus my Lord, and to thy deified humanity, a humanity
truly thine in its deification, and truly mine in its humiliation,
in its sorrows, in its sufferings : to thee and to it I make an
oblation and entire gift absolute and irrevocable, of all that
1 am through thee in being, by nature and in the order of
grace. ... I leave myself then wholly to thee, O Jesus,
and to thy sacred humanity, in the most humble and binding
condition which I know, the condition and relation of servi-
tude ; which I acknowledge to be due to thy humanity as
much on account of the greatness of the state to which it is
raised through the hypostatic union, as also on account of
1 The complete title is : Discours de V estat et des grandeurs de Jisus
far V union ineffable de la Diviniti avec VHu?nanite, et de la defendance
et servitude qui lui est due et a sa tres-sainte Mere ensuite de cet estat
admirable. The work is prefaced by a Dedication to the King and
followed by i. Narre de ce qui s 'est -passe sur le sujet d'un fa-pier de
devotion.
2 Houssaye, II, 416.
Ubc tfrencb Scbool 333
the excess of voluntary abasement to which it became reduced
and humbled for my salvation and glory, in its life, its cross,
and in its death. . . . To this end and this homage I set and
place my soul, my state, and my life, both now and for ever
in a state of subjection and in relations of dependence and
servitude in regard to thee and to thy humanity thus deified
and thus humiliated together."1
The state of servitude of Christ's humanity is the starting-
point of the christological spirituality of Berulle. Every-
thing, let it be noted, becomes reduced to that principle ; a
principle to throw light on which is the end the whole treatise
has in view.
The Virgin Mary was chosen to be the Mother of the Word
incarnate. Her incomparable dignity of Mother of God,
then, renders legitimate the vow of servitude made also to
her, which Berulle expresses in these words :
" I vow and dedicate myself to Jesus Christ, my Lord and
Saviour, in the state of perpetual servitude to his most holy
Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary. In perpetual honour of
the Mother and the Son, I desire to be in a state and condi-
tion of servitude as regards her office of being the Mother of
my God, in order to honour more humbly, more holily, so
high and divine a rank ; and I give myself to her as a slave
in honour of the gift which the eternal Word has made of
himself as Son, through the mystery of the Incarnation that
he deigned to bring about in her and through her."2
" Are there, O holy Virgin," continues Berulle, "to be
found minds so small and so insensible to thy greatness, in
the light of our mysteries, that they can find fault with this
domination, and with this kind of servitude which looks to
her and honours her?"3 Blessed Grignion de Montfort only
follows the Berullian teaching when he counsels total conse-
cration, as a slave to Mary.4
Berulle is not content with justifying the vow of servitude
to Jesus and Mary. He also looks at the various aspects of
the mystery of the Incarnation.
The third and fourth discourse of the treatise on the
Grandeurs de Jesus are devoted to the study of the unity of
God in this mystery. The Incarnation " is a work surpass-
ingly one " : the unity of person in Jesus Christ. It is also
the Incarnation which makes the unity of the divine plan.
" It is the centre to which are related all things in the world
of nature, of grace, and of glory." Through it God the
1 Grandeurs de Jisus, Discourse II. CEuvres, pp. 181, 182 ff.
pp. 490, 1206, etc. The first Discourse is a kind of general introduction
on the Incarnation.
2 CEuvres completes, p. 527. s ibid., p. 529.
4 Cf. A. Lhoumeau, La vie sfirituelle a Vicole du B* L. M . Grignion
de Montfort, Paris-Rome, 1904, pp. 106 ff.
334 Cbristian Spirituality
Father "gathers everything- to himself." Berulle would
have been faithful to the logic of his idea had he affirmed,
after Duns Scotus, that the Word would have become
incarnate even had the fall not taken place. But he was
held back by fidelity to Thomist teaching. "If," he says,
" there had been no sinners on earth, there would have been
no God-man in heaven or on earth."1
Berulle then treats of the ineffable intercourse of God in
the mystery of the Word incarnate.2 Of all the divine com-
munications that are realizable, there is none that is com-
parable to that brought about through the Incarnation. It
is no longer the simple presence of God by nature or by
grace. It is so intimate a union between the divinity and
humanity in Christ, that the two natures have the same sub-
sistence and that their acts can only be imputed to the single
person of the Word. The acts of Christ are " divinely
human and humanly divine." The Word is first of all com-
municated to human nature in order afterwards to communi-
cate divine life to souls. The Incarnation is the great
manifestation of the incomparable love of God for us.
Finally, in the last three discourses, Berulle explains the
three births of Jesus : his birth from all eternity in the
bosom of the Father, his birth in time of the Virgin Mary,
and his birth in glory on the day of his resurrection. This
noteworthy part of the treatise contains the principles of
devotion to the mysteries of Christ, of which we shall speak
at greater length further on.
The considerations on the incarnate Word in the treatise
on the Grandeurs de Jdsus are constantly recurring under
the pen of Berulle, in his Vie de Jdsus, left unfinished, in
his Elevations sur les mysteres, which were imitated and
surpassed by Bossuet, as also in his Opuscules de pidte" and
in his Lettres spirituelles.3 Nothing could turn away his
mind from meditation on the " mystery of Christ " ; neither
the affairs of court in which he mingled nor honours. Like
St Paul he could say: "my life is Christ." He died on
October 2, 1629, at the altar while celebrating " the votive
Mass of the Incarnation, and before a picture of that
mystery."4
1 CEnvres, p. 324. 2 In Discourses V-IX.
3 All these works of Berulle, with those mentioned above, were
published by Fr. Bourgoing in 1644, with a noteworthy preface. Migne
reproduces this edition, Paris, 1856.
4 Houssaye, III, p. 493.
Zbc jfrencfo Scbool 335
III— BERULL1AN SPIRITUALITY— ITS GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS
Devotion to the Word incarnate, a special regard for the
virtue of religion, the Augustinian conception of grace; such
are the characteristics of the spirituality of Berulle and his
school.
The founder of the Oratory in France deserved to be
called "the apostle of the Word incarnate " by Pope Urban
VIII. This appellation very well describes Berulle; it is
also the "substantial summing up" of his writings.1 Fr.
Bourgoing said to the priests of the Oratory in his Preface
to the CEuvres of Berulle :
" His way of grace and his very holy disposition, which
was the origin, the base, and the foundation of all the rest
which he received from God, and even of the renewal which
he made in the Church, is his close connection with, and
special belonging to, the person of Jesus Christ our Lord in
his sacred humanity, and also to his holy Mother. Such
was this belonging that all his prayers and upliftings, all his
practices, and all his writings of piety, partake of it and
breathe the odour of it. . . . Whichever way we turn in
reading his books, we find him always in that holy and
divine passion for the special love of Jesus and Mary, and
in an ever ardent zeal to impress it on others. This could
not be said in few words, for he was so tied to Jesus Christ,
and was in such great contempt and forgetfulness of self
in order to be all in all to him, that his care, his thought,
his actions, and his labour had regard only for Jesus, and
Jesus was his centre and his whole environment. If he
spoke or wrote, it was of Jesus ; if he laboured, it was
for Jesus ; if he undertook anything, it was through the
guidance of the Spirit of Jesus."2
Jesus, says Berulle, is the true sun, towards which the
earth and our hearts ought to be continually moving :
"A surpassing mind of this century" — Berulle is speak-
ing of Copernicus — " is ready to maintain that the sun is the
centre of the world and not the earth ; that it is motionless
and that the earth, in accordance with its circular shape,
moves as regards the sun, by this contrary opinion satis-
fying every appearance which compels our senses to believe
that the sun is in continual movement round the earth. This
new opinion, little known in the science of the stars, is useful
1 A. Perraud, UOratoire de France au XV//e et an XI Xe siecle,
Paris, 1866, p. 71.
2 CEuvres completes du Card, de Birulle, Migne, p. 95. There is
the same testimony from Germain Habert, La vie du Cardinal de
Berulle, Paris, 1646, pp. 622 ff.
336 Christian Spirituality
and ought to be followed in the science of salvation. For
Jesus is the sun, motionless in his greatness, moving all things.
Jesus is like unto his Father and, being seated on his right
hand, is as immovable as he and gives motion to all. Jesus
is the true centre of the world, and the world ought to be
in continual motion towards him. Jesus is the sun of our
souls whence they receive all grace, light, and influence.
And the earth of our hearts should be in continual movement
towards him in order to receive in all its parts and powers
the favourable aspects and benign influences of this great
luminary."1
Shall we say that Berulle is another Copernicus, who has
produced a revolution in Christian piety by causing all its
manifestations to converge on the person of Christ? Herein,
perhaps, we may find certain exaggerations among the
historians of the Oratory :
" The whole world admits," writes Amelote in the life
of Fr. de Condren, " that God was indeed thought of before
the Congregation of the Oratory, but also that to it is due
the revived attention of minds to Jesus Christ. I do not
wish to say that this essential devotion was effaced from
the Church or that there was none other than this Elias
[Berulle] who kept faithful to his Master. . . . There were
Magdalens and St Johns before Fr. de Berulle, but in truth
the bulk of Christianity had grown cold in the ancient and
necessary devotion to Jesus Christ."2
Thus, too, Fr. Bourgoing, but with more delicacy :
" This ancient and primitive devotion [the devotion to
Jesus] which was in its highest fervour in the time of the
apostles and of the early Christians, who thought only of
Jesus and spoke only of him."3
Jesus was not, indeed, an abstract ideal for the earliest
believers. They had a very clear sense of his presence in
the Church and in the hearts of Christians. Jesus was un-
ceasingly suggested to them as the living ideal of sanctity.
Particular attention was devoted to his spiritual presence
in souls. Without speaking of the Epistles of St Paul, it
suffices to recall the letters of St Ignatius of Antioch, wholly
overflowing with the love of Christ. Later on, the great
christological controversies strongly focussed Christian
thought on the person of Jesus.
"We find this devotion," continues Bourgoing, "during
the course of the heresies of Arius, of Nestorius, of Eutyches,
and of the Monothelites, attacking the divine person and
the mysteries of the Word incarnate, which, in opposition,
1 Grandeurs de Jisus, Discourse II, CEuvres, p. 161.
2 La vie du P. Charles de Condren, Paris, 1643, Part II, chap, vi,
pp. 88-89.
3 Prijace aux CEuvres du Card, de Birulle, Migne, p. 98.
Uhc jfrencb Scbool 337
kindled the love of the faithful towards him and made him
to be the better known."
He might have added that the mystics of the Middle Ages
passionately loved Christ and, following St Bernard, directed
the piety of the faithful towards him. St Gertrude, St
Francis of Assisi, St Bonaventure, the author of the Medita-
tions on the Life of Christ, Ludolph the Carthusian, to cite
only the most famous, maintained Christian piety by medi-
tation on the mysteries of the Saviour's life.
But — let us grant it — the Doctors of the Sorbonne in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had put a veil — a philo-
sophical veil — over the divine face of Jesus, and had thus
concealed him from the eyes of many. St Francis deplored
it in his Letter to Asseline. When young Berulle studied
theology at the Sorbonne he was able to testify to the fact
that metaphysical speculations made men too forgetful of
Christ. In Christian gatherings preachers did not preach
Jesus Christ enough. Bourgoing was right in saying :
" It must be admitted that this piety . . . had grown very
cold, that the doctors made no special point of teaching Jesus
Christ, nor had Christians eagerness to learn him ; and that
in these last days, through a special mercy of God, it is in
some degree restored. We hear preachers preach Jesus
Christ more often, to make him loved and adored in his
sacred humanity, to give the people a better idea of the
dignity of Christian grace and of the majesty of Jesus who
is its author. . . . These beautiful and divine truths were
suggested and upheld by the word, by the life, and by the
writings of him [Berulle] who is the subject of this dis-
course, and being declared by the mouths of apostolic
preachers, have greatly tended to form Jesus Christ in
Christian souls."1
Berullian devotion has its personal note. It does not re-
semble that of St Bernard, the Franciscans, or the Jesuits
in every point. It is not addressed specially to the humanity
of Jesus, but to Jesus in his entirety. Berulle deduces his
spirituality from a dogmatic analysis of the mystery of the
Incarnation. He is, according to the most true expression
of Urban VIII, " the apostle of the Word incarnate " :
" It must then be noted," says Bourgoing, " that this ser-
vant of God and friend of the Bridegroom chiefly regarded
and adored the divine person of Jesus Christ our Lord united
to our nature — that is to say, himself, considered in his per-
sonality, in his divinely human being ; not only as God, nor
yet as man, or in his humanity taken separately, but rather
as God-man, in his substantial status, which comprises his
greatness and his abasement, his divine and human sonship
1 CEuvres, Migne, p. 99.
III. 22
338 Cbristian Spirituality
in one same person and the attributes of either nature in
the single hypostasis of the God-Word."1
All the dogmatic aspects of the Incarnation are successively
considered : the person of the Word, his eternal generation
from the Father, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the
Father and the Son, the humiliations of the Word in his
Incarnation, the manner in which he appropriates to himself
human nature, the status and perfections of this nature
united to the Word, the theandric compound which is Christ,
the mysteries of his earthly life. From each of these
dogmatic aspects Berulle deduces moral lessons, as also their
corresponding religious duties. For Christ is " the great
sacrament of piety " ; he is " the primitive sacrament of the
Christian religion."
Piety is thus united to dogma. Metaphysical considera-
tions are intermingled with prayers and high thoughts.
Theological science is transformed into love. Berulle is
as much affective as he is speculative. He makes the philo-
sophical veil, which was hiding Christ, transparent. " A
Christ who was the object of science was not enough for
him, he needed a Jesus who was the principle of life. Lay-
ing hold of all which the school teaches as to the adorable
person of the Word, the union of the divine nature with the
human nature in Jesus Christ, the communication of life
which works between the two, ' the mystery of Christ ' (of
which St Paul speaks in Col. iv, 3), directs a loving
attention to mysteries apparently till then considered only
scientifically."2
The virtue of religion — its second characteristic — holds a
prominent place in French spirituality. It remembers, above
all, that the adoration of God is the Christian's first and
principal duty. "Berulle," says M. Bremond,3 "created
in the spiritual world of his time a kind of revolution, which
may be described by the barbarous yet almost necessary
word theocentric."
The historians of the Oratory attribute to Berulle the merit
of having " renewed " the spirit of religion :
" That which our honoured Father," writes Bourgoing,
" renewed in the Church, as far as God gave him the means
to do so, is the spirit of religion, the supreme homage of
adoration and reverence due to God, to Jesus Christ our Lord,
to his every state and all his mysteries, to his life, his
actions, and his sufferings. This is the spirit which he
strongly desired to maintain among us, that with which he
himself was possessed and wholly enraptured, that which
1 Prijace, Migne, 97-98. 2 Houssaye, II, pp. 249-250.
3 Vicole franfaise, p. 23.
XTbe jfrencb School 339
appeared in all his writings, all his prayers and aspirations.
For in them he speaks only of honouring-, adoring-, and of
doing all things to the honour of the Son of God, of his life
and of his mysteries — man's indispensable duties towards the
divine majesty and of Christians towards Jesus Christ."1
"It is he [Berulle]," says again Amelote, "who has
to-day revived this buried virtue [respect towards God], and
who has aroused our century to recall this most ancient of
all our duties. ... As it is impossible to read the treatises
of St Augustine with a tranquil mind without becoming
humble or those of St Teresa without loving prayer, so also
we cannot see those of Cardinal de Berulle without becoming
filled with respect for God and the mysteries of his Son."2
Neither Bourgoing nor Amelote say that "of a tranquil
mind." They arraign devout humanism and censure those
who have " more familiarity with God than reverence
towards him " :
"Many are moved to God," continues Bourgoing, "by
reason of his goodness, few through deep adoration of his
greatness and his holiness. Tender souls are more affected
by the sweetness of devotion, and in a certain freedom and
familiarity with God, than in an abasement and holy terror
before him. Our Lord is often enough looked upon as
Father, Saviour, and Spouse; rarely as our God, our
Sovereign, and Judge."3
On this subject how far are we away from St Francis de
Sales?
" Here [with Berulle] we are taught to be true Christians,
to be religious with the primitive religion which we profess in
our baptism, and to be of the number of those who adore
the Father and his Son in spirit and in truth. We learn to
adore the divine greatness and perfection, the designs, the will,
the judgements of God and the mysteries of his Son ; which
was less in use before and could not then be so too much."4
Amelote is quite as severe :
"It is certain," he says, " that in this century, in which
there appears to be so much holiness, we see in souls more
familiarity with God than reverence towards him, and there
are to be found many Christians who love God, but few who
have due respect for him. Amidst an infinite number of
good people, among whom all sorts of virtues are practised,
there is nothing more rare than the virtue of religion ; each
one is readily moved to charity, there are a great number
of penitents, people are incited to perform all kinds of
holy deeds ; but he who probes into minds will no doubt
admit that respect towards God is scarcely known, and that
1 Preface to (Euvres de Birulle, pp. 102-103.
2 La vie du P. Charles de Condren, Part II, chap, v, pp. 80, 85.
s Priface, p. 103. 4 ibid.
1
34° Cbristian Spirituality
it is not in a profound adoration of his greatness, but only
in freedom towards him, that children are brought up. . . .
This licence produces in their minds a thousand excesses, it
nourishes them in vain complacency, it deadens the stimulus
of fear, makes us extremely dainty, chokes humility in its
source which is the sense of the majesty of God."1
The virtue of religion, correctly understood, does not
necessarily engender fear, still less "a holy terror." It is
obvious that from the point of view of adoration humanism
was looked on critically by the Oratorian School. Against such
humanism, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, some
opposition had arisen, to which the Oratory was no stranger,
an opposition which Jansenism was later on to exaggerate.
But Jansenism and Berulle are far apart. The virtue of
religion which he advocates is a purer Christianity. It con-
sists above all in adoration :
" There is nothing in him [Jesus] which does not deserve
homage, honour, deep reverence and submission from all
creatures in heaven, on earth, and in hell : ut in nomine Jesn
omne genu flectatur coelestiiwi, terrestrium et infernorum
(Phil, ii, 10). It is the most essential act and exercise of
religion, the first obligation of the creature towards God, the
chief duty of the Christian towards Jesus Christ our Saviour."2
In the Avis on the manner of performing prayer, which
precedes the famous Meditations of Bourgoing, we are re-
commended to have in view " as the aim and end of prayer,
the reverence, recognition, and adoration of the sovereign
majesty of God, through that which he is in himself rather
than through what he is to us, and to love rather his good-
ness for its own sake than for the return it gives us or
through what it is to us." Doubtless, we must " ask for
the grace of God and virtue," but less for ourselves than
because through them God is " glorified in us, and because
it is his most holy will to give them us."3
M. Olier, who so well understood and so well expounded
Berullian spirituality, makes, as we know, adoration the
first point in his method of prayer :
" Christianity," he says, " consists of these three points,
and the whole of this method of prayer4 is comprised in
1 La vie du P. de Condren, Part II, chap, v, pp. 80-82.
2 Bourgoing, Preface, p. 86.
3 Meditations sur les V iritis et excellences de ] isus-Christ Notre-
Seigneur, Paris, 1631, Ve Avis. At the beginning of this edition are
found XXIV counsels on the manner of performing prayer. These
Meditations have often been republished, lastly in 1906, Paris, 3 vols.
In his funeral Oration for Bourgoing, Bossuet said that these Medita-
tions " are in the hands of everyone." They are a beautiful expression
of Berullian spirituality.
4 The Sulpician method of prayer, as we shall see later, has two
special elements : adoration, the source of which is plain, and com-
munion, in which, through prayer and grace, we make our own the
Ube jfrencb Scbool 341
them : to know, to regard Jesus, to become united with
Jesus, and to act in Jesus. The first leads one to reverence and
to relig-ion ; the second to union and unity with him ; and the
third to action, not alone, but joined to the virtue of Jesus
Christ, which we have drawn to ourselves by prayer. The
first is called adoration ; the second communion ; the third
co-operation."1
Augustinianism is another characteristic of the French
School. Berulle calls St Augustine " the Eagle of the
Doctors, and the great master of St Thomas the Prince
of the School."2 He considers him to be the most humble,
the most learned, the holiest, the most prudent, the most
modest, and the most religious " doctor that this earth has
produced," and that God has yet given to his Church.3
He admired in him the marvellous gift of uniting with the
highest speculations, most touching affective outbursts :
" Consider this great Saint," he once said to his disciples;
" he has, through a singular power from Jesus Christ and
by his grace, privileges which are humanly speaking in-
compatible : he is very learned and very humble, which is
rare ; he is very speculative and very affective, which is not
less rare ; and, whereas in most doctors we meet with nothing
but knowledge, in this one we find a certain spice of wisdom
which gives relish to all he says and has the unusual gift
of making the truth to pass from the mind to the heart."4
From this point of view Berulle greatly resembles St
Augustine. Like him he also admired Plato and impressed
this admiration on his disciples. He grouped around him
" in the bosom of the Oratory a small circle of Platonists "
who laboured actively " to make the doctrines of the Academy
states of the Word Incarnate. This method was also inspired by
that of St Francis de Sales, and by that of Luis of Granada. In the
conclusion, especially, are found the thanksgiving and offering which
belong to the Granada method.
1 Introduction a la vie et aux vertues chrdtiennes, chap. iv. Bossuet
is inspired by Berulle when he writes on the duty of adoration :
" Religious adoration is a recognition of the highest sovereignty in
God, and in ourselves of the most complete dependence. ... ' Prayer '
— says St Thomas (II-II, q. 83, art. 1), and the same must be said of
adoration, of which, according to St Thomas, prayer is a part — ' is
an act of the reason, for the object of adoration is to put the creature
in his own order, that is to make him subject to God.' " Sermon sur
le culte du a Dieu, Lebarq, new edition, by Ch. Urbain and E.
Levesque, V, p. 108.
2 GSuvres de Birulle, Migne, p. 346.
3 id., 154.
4 Habert, Abbot of Cerisy, La Vie du Cardinal de Birulle, Book III,
chap, xi, Houssaye, III, pp. 399 ff.
342 Cbristfan Spirituality
prevail over those of the Lyceum."1 At the beginning- of
the seventeenth century, in spite of the efforts of the Univer-
sity,2 Aristotle lost a part of his prestige in France.
But it was not only the intellectual temperament of
Augustine which so charmed Berulle. His teaching as to
grace captivated him. Meditation on the Gospel of St John
and on the Epistles of St Paul, rendered fruitful through the
reading of St Augustine, moved Berulle to give a new direc-
tion to the study of grace. " Setting aside the questions
disputed in the School, seeking in the words of the Son of
God with St Augustine as guide, a light too much neglected,
he [Berulle] saw above all in grace, a divine state, the
special characteristic of which is to bind men closely to the
humanity of the Saviour. This link is not only primary, in
the sense that the blessing of grace is due to the merits of
the incarnate Word; it is actual, because Christians live
from his divinely human and humanly divine life, which is
communicated to them through the Holy Spirit, thus
making each of them another Jesus Christ."3 This
conception of grace, a living bond which unites us with
Christ, an overflowing into us of the divine life, is a funda-
mental point in the Berullian system.
Grace, the divine life within us, thereby exercises its
sovereignty over us. Berulle, whilst of course maintaining
human freedom, places the efficacy of grace in high relief.
In the accomplishment of good works he sees primarily the
action of God. His conception of the action of God in us is
clearly Augustinian and Thomist. He even showed himself
"disturbed to see the arising of new systems which appeared,
in order to protect human freedom, to restrict the domain
of God. He compelled his confreres to uphold the teaching
of St Augustine and St Thomas."4 Several of the Oratorians
even exaggerated these tendencies and embraced Jansenism.
Berullian spirituality, in accord with the principles of St
Augustine, " counts more on grace than on personal effort in
order to cling to Christ." Fr. Bourgoing explains this with
his customary precision :
" With regard to the attachment and binding to Jesus and
Mary and to their mysteries, which are so often repeated in
these works [of Berulle], these expressions indicate a power,
an authority, and a sovereignty on the part of grace and the
spirit of Jesus over us which render us his, both as belong-
ing to him by the right which he has over us, and by our
submission and abandonment to his divine power.
"In order to understand this, we must know that there
1 Houssaye, III, p. 381.
2 With regard to the relations between Berulle and Descartes, see
Houssaye, III, pp. 382 ff.
8 Houssaye, II, p. 250. 4 ibid., Ill, p. 401.
ZTbe ffrencb Scbool 343
are two kinds of operations employed in the sanctification of
the soul : the work of God in the soul and that of the soul
towards God. The first is what is called grace, and the
second virtue. . . . We call grace the work of God in us,
especially when it is sufficiently powerful to destroy the
hindrances which are opposed to it, and to draw from out the
soul the roots of that tree which God has not planted in his
creature — that is, the secret ties of self-love and of the old
Adam. We call virtue the operations of the soul thus pre-
vented, assisted and sustained by grace and devoted through
it to God. Now, the one of these two operations which turns
us and binds us to God, to Jesus, and to the Blessed Virgin,
is the work of God and of his grace ; and the creature has
no other part in it than what is given him by this same grace,
which is a voluntary adherence to this operation, followed by
desires, affections, and practices conformable to it, as also
by the rejection of all things contrary thereto, fn the same
way there are two sorts of belongings and bindings to Jesus
and to his mysteries : the one which consists entirely in the
work of God, which forestalls our thoughts, our desires,
and our cares, although it requires to be followed by them
and cannot usefully subsist without our correspondence ; the
other which consists in our thoughts, desires, and devotions
in the use of grace. The writer [Berulle] speaks chiefly of
the first."1
The method of prayer of St Sulpice is based on these prin-
ciples, of which the second point, communion, is thus ex-
plained by M. Olier :
" Why do you call the second part communion? — Because
in this part we give ourselves to God in order to enter into
participation in his gifts and in his perfections. This partici-
pation is called communion, especially by the Greek Fathers,
because God thereby gives us his common riches. The par-
ticipation of the body of Jesus Christ is called sacramental
communion, because this sacrament makes common to us the
good things of Jesus Christ and communicates to us his
greatest gifts ; and the participation which takes place in
prayer is called spiritual communion, because of the gifts
which God communicates to us therein by the simple intimate
operation of his Spirit. The soul which experiences some
secret operation should hold itself in repose and in silence,
in order to receive the whole extent of the gifts and of the
communications from God, without acting by itself or making
any effort which might disturb the pure and holy operations
of 'the Holy Spirit."2
1 Preface, Migne, pp. 86-87.
2 Olier, Catechisme chretien, Part II, chap. viii. With regard to
the Sulpician method of prayer, see Letourneau, La mtthode d'oraison
mentale du seminaire de Saint-Sulfice, Paris, 1903.
344 Cbdstian Spirituality
Bossuet says the same thing in connection with the prayer
of simplicity :
" Then the soul, leaving the reasoning of meditation,
makes use of a sweet contemplation which keeps it peaceful,
attentive, and susceptible to the divine operations and im-
pressions which the Holy Spirit imparts to it ; it does little
and receives much ; its labour is sweet and nevertheless
fruitful. . . .
" This prayer is prayer with God alone, and a union
which contains, in an eminent degree, all the other particular
dispositions, and inclines the soul to passiveness — that is to
say, that God becomes the sole interior Master, and that he
works therein more particularly than in the ordinary way ;
whilst the less the creature labours, so much the more
powerfully does God work ; and since the work of God is a
repose, the soul in a certain manner becomes in this prayer
like unto him, and, moreover, receives therein marvellous
effects ; and as the rays of the sun make plants to grow,
blossom, and fructify, so does the soul, which is attentive
and calmly exposed to the rays of the divine Sun of justice,
receive from it the better those divers influences which en-
rich it with all sorts of virtues."1
Tronson makes use of another image in order to express
the same teaching :
" When we wish to dye cloth," he says, " and give it a
colour different from what it had before — say a white cloth
to be coloured scarlet — it may be done in two ways : either
by applying the colour to it, which takes much time,
labour, and trouble, or by putting the cloth into the dye,
which is done without trouble ; for after having soaked it
for some days it is taken out entirely scarlet, and scarlet of
a more permanent nature than if applied. It is the same with
virtues ; there is a dye enclosed within the heart of Jesus
Christ, and when a soul is plunged therein through love,
through adoration, and through the other duties of religion
it easily takes this dye ; so that it is found, after remaining
therein for some time, more filled with virtue than if it had
performed many acts."2
Should this be called quietism? No. It is simply a
spirituality of Augustinian type, which places in relief the
action of God and of Christ in our sanctification. It is op-
1 Mithode courte et facile four faire Voraison en foi et de simple
■presence de Dieu, III, v.
2 Tronson, Entretiens sur Voraison, Discourse VII. Letourneau, La
mithode d'oraison menlale du seminaire de St Sulpice, pp. 133-134.
Louis Tronson was born in Paris, 1622, and died, Superior General
of St Sulpice, in 1700. See a list of his works in the Bibliotheque
sulpicienne of L. Bertrand, Vol. I, pp. 123-155. Migne published them
in one volume, Paris. L. Bertrand also published three volumes of
Tronson's Lettres choisies, Paris, 1904.
XTbe jfrencb Scbool 345
posed in this by that spirituality which accentuates the role
of the will in the act of virtue.1 But neither Berulle nor his
disciples misunderstood the necessity for the co-operation of
the will with divine action. The third point of the Sulpician
method of prayer, co-operation, consists precisely " in corre-
sponding- and co-operating- faithfully with the grace received.
Good resolutions are then formed, occasions for carrying
these out during the day are foreseen." Nevertheless, what-
ever be the determination of our will, we must never forget
that in our good works we depend far more on the virtue of
the Holy Spirit than on our own will.2
Finally, it is not denied that the French School, when
speaking of fallen human nature, is inspired by Augustinian
pessimism. On this point, even more than on others, it
reacted against the occasionally somewhat exaggerated
optimism of the humanists.
1 M. Houssaye thus differentiates the school of Berullian spirituality
from that of St Ignatius : " One is more theological, the other more
moral ; the one leaves speculation in order to descend to what is
practical, the other rises from the practical to speculation ; the one
gives grace as much as is possible without prejudice to freedom, the
other relies on freedom as much as is allowable, whilst respecting divine
grace." II, p. 431. This opposition between the two spiritualities
was one of the causes of the conflict which very soon arose between the
Oratorians and the Jesuits.
2 Olier, Catechisme chritien, Part II, chap. viii.
CHAPTER XIII
BERULLIAN DOCTRINE— THE TEACHING OF BERULLE
AND OF HIS DISCIPLES : CONDREN AND OLIER
THE fundamental principle of Bcrullian teaching-,
as we already know, is drawn from the total de-
pendency of human nature, deprived of its per-
sonality, on the divine Person of the Word.
Berulle unceasingly recalls it.1
He makes as his excuse for dwelling at such great length on
this aspect of the mystery of the Incarnation that everything
springs from it. The humanity of Christ cannot belong to
the Word and receive from him the marvellous gifts which
sanctify it except on condition that it cannot belong to itself.
So, too, the Christian who desires to be united with Christ,
to cling to him and live his life, must first of all renounce
himself, cease to belong to himself. " If any man will come
after me," Jesus said, "let him deny himself" (Matthew
xvi, 24). 2 We must, then, " in this twofold way, practise the
plan which our Lord himself has traced for us. To look into
our soul and discard all that is not in conformity with our
divine model : this is the abnegat semetipsum. Then, to
labour to put therein all that conforms to the Spirit of Jesus
Christ : this is the sequatur me."3 The two parts of this plan
are correlative. The more we renounce ourselves, the more
we cling to Christ, and vice versa. Union with Christ and
renunciation of self take place in us at the same time.
Logical priority, however, belongs to renunciation.*
1 This more especially is the subject of Discourse II, Migne, 158.
2 " The spirit of the school of Jesus," says Berulle [CEuvres, pp. 1167-
1168), " and the summing up of all its teaching, is the spirit of abnega-
tion, and it is to this that all these truths and all our practices are
reduced, which also comprises all the dispositions which he requires of
us. . . . It is a spirit unknown on earth before him [Jesus]. The
academicians had never heard of it ; philosophers, who spoke of so
many things, knew it not."
* M. Lebas, Sufirieur general de Saint-Sulfice : Souvenirs de ses
enseignements, Paris, 1913, p. 239. M. Lebas well understood and
admirably set forth Berullian teaching.
4 " Christian life has two parts : life and death. The first is the
foundation of the second. This is reiterated in the writings of St
Paul . . . Death must always precede life. And this death is nothing
else than the entire destruction of the whole of ourselves in order that
all that is opposed to God in us being destroyed, his Spirit ma}' become
implanted there in purity and in the sanctity of his ways. It is then
by death that we must enter into the Christian life " (Olier, Intro.
duction d la vie chretienne, chap. iii).
346
JBerullian Doctrine 347
Let us, then, see, first of all, how Berulle and his disciples
conceived this renunciation, this abnegation. We shall after
this see in what our clinging to Christ and participation in his
life and mysteries consist.
I— BERULLIAN ABNEGATION
The practice of abnegation is imposed on us, according to
Berulle, because we are creatures, sinners, and members of
Christ living in him by grace.
"Abnegation," he says, "is founded on the greatness of
God, and on the state of the creature drawn from nothing
and tending to nothingness by his own condition and owing
to sin, and also on another kind of nothingness of self through
grace."1
Thus there are three kinds of nothingness which serve as
a motive for our abnegation : the nothingness from which
God draws us by creation ; the nothingness in which Adam
places us through sin ; and the nothingness into which we
must enter in order to cling to Christ. Nothingness of
nature, " nothingness of grace " or sin, nothingness which
Jesus operates within us in order to unite us to himself; such
are the foundations of Christian abnegation. 2 Condren, the
first successor of Berulle in the direction of the Oratory,
insists chiefly, as we shall see, on the nothingness of nature ;
M. Olier on the nothingness of grace or sin ; Berulle dwells,
above all, on the nothingness brought about in us through the
necessity of clinging to Christ.
A — Abnegation according to Berulle
We already know Berulle' s teaching. In order to have no
other being or life but in Jesus, we must annihilate all that
is of ourselves and of Adam within us. The humanity of
Christ was only able to be hypostatically united to the Word
by being deprived of its own personality :
"As the humanity of Jesus," he says, "has no other
being, life, and subsistence than in the divinity, we also must
have no other life and subsistence than in his humanity and
in his divinity — that is to say, than in him as God and man,
the life, the salvation, and the glory of men. This state,
considered well from every point of view, forces us very
straitly, very strictly, and very continually to die to our-
selves, to renounce ourselves."3
A state of death in ourselves, a state of life in Jesus, such
is our condition. The less we are ourselves, the more Christ
1 CEuvres, p. 1167. 2 Berulle, CEuvres, pp. 1165, 1170.
3 id., p. 1161.
348 Cbrfstian Spirituality
is in us. The ideal to be sought after is the complete sub-
stitution of the Spirit of Christ for our moral ego after the
example — Berulle does not cease to repeat it — of the humanity
of Jesus in whom the Person of the Word takes the place of
human personality :
" O admirable counsel of uncreated Wisdom," exclaims
Berulle, " who deprives the humanity of Jesus of its human
person in order to bestow upon it the divine Person ! O
what a deprivation ! O what a denudation, which is in its
entirety both the preparation for the new life of the God-man
and the model for the new life of the spiritually just ! For,
as the eternal Son of God in his human nature is without
human personality— that is to say, is without a human ego,
substantially and personally — so also the adopted son of
God [the Christian], led by his grace, ought not to possess
one morally and spiritually.
" I honour, then, this stripping of the humanity of Jesus
of its own subsistence, and afterwards in honour of this same
stripping and, in so far as thy greatness [O Lord] and my
own condition bear it to thy honour and glory, I renounce
all power, authority, and freedom which I have to dispose of
myself, my being, and its every condition, circumstance, and
possessions ; I resign them wholly into the hands of Jesus,
his divine soul, and his humanity, anointed and consecrated
by the divinity itself ; and I resign these in honour of this
same humanity for the accomplishment of all its will and all
its power over me. I go further and desire that there be
no longer any of myself in me ; I desire to say with St Paul :
Vivo ego, jam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus (Gal. ii, 20).
And, according to the profound consideration of St Augustine,
I desire that the spirit of Jesus Christ be the spirit of my
spirit and the life of my life. And as the Son of God, by
right of subsistence, is in possession of human nature which
he has united to his person, so also I desire that by right of
special and particular power, Jesus deign to enter into posses-
sion of my mind, my state, and my life, and that I be nothing
but bare capacity and simple void in myself, filled with
emptiness and never again of myself."1
Hence, the opposition, so well analyzed by M. Olier,
between the spirit of ownership " which strips us of the
plenitude of the Word, of his life and operation," and the
Christian spirit. Hence also the duty of practising a nega-
tion of self by which " we no longer hold to anything."2
The disciples of Berulle said again : " We ought to be
wholly changed into him [Jesus], consumed and lost in him,"
1 CEuvres, p. 181.
2 Introduction a la vie chritienne, chap, xi, section viii. Cf. section
ix : " The possessor dwells in himself, the Christian leaves himself.
The possessor is filled with himself, the Christian is empty of himself."
36erulltan Doctrine 349
like a consecrated host which has no longer anything but the
appearance of bread. Let us inwardly be Jesus Christ and
have humanity but in appearance.1
" Interior renunciation " is then " the best disposition to
prepare us so to yield to the spirit [of Jesus] that it possess
us."2 By him we shall tend to Christian perfection which is
thus defined by Be>ulle :
" Jesus is all, and ought to be all in us, and we ought to be
nothing, to treat ourselves as nothing, to be nothing in our-
selves and have our being only in him. As we are by him
and not by ourselves so also we should be for him and not
for ourselves. This is what we should begin on earth that
it may be finished in heaven, where Jesus Christ will be all
in all. This is the perfection to which it becomes us to
aspire."3
Our Lord said one day to St Gertrude the Great : " I desire
this only, that you come to me wholly empty so that I
mav fill you ; for it is from me that you will receive that
which will make you pleasing in my sight."4 This is the
eternal plan of holiness.
This emptiness of self is not produced by efforts of the
will. We must not forget that Berulle is an Augustinian.
According to him the interior renunciation needed for perfec-
tion is the result of grace which incorporates us with Christ.
The important thing is not to be opposed to this grace :
" The life and form of grace," he says, " which God now
gives to man is a kind of grace of annihilation and of the
cross, and grace, either earthly or heavenly, is a way of grace
which draws the soul out of itself by means of a kind of anni-
hilation and transports it, fixes it, and grafts it into Jesus
Christ, as, in him, our humanity is grafted into his divinity.
. . . And, as in the Incarnation, there is a kind of annihila-
tion of human nature, which is stripped of its own proper sub-
sistence or human person in order to become one with the
divine Person of the Word ; so also in the grace which flows
from this adorable Incarnation, as from a living source, there
is a kind of annihilation in ourselves and permanent fixing
in Jesus. Annihilation both of power and of subsistence, but
with this difference, that the power in us which precedes the
grace of Jesus Christ, being only a power which leads to our
undoing, is truly set aside, and we are drawn into his own
power in order to accomplish our work. But our subsistence
is not taken from us in the same way ; it is only annihilated
1 De Condren, Considerations sur les mysteres de ] isus-Christ,
Paris, 1882, p. 196. Olier, Traite des Saints Ordres, Part III,
chap. vii.
2 Olier, Introduction a la vie chritienne, chap. iv.
8 CEuvres, p. 1179.
* St Gertrude, Revelations, Book IV, chap. iv.
35° Cbristtan Spirituality
as regards our use of it in morality, and in its authority
and not in its existence."1
In fact, we always retain our personality and also the
liberty to resist the action of grace.
B — Abnegation according to Condren
Condren,2 the disciple of Be>ulle and second Superior of
the Oratory, specially insisted on interior annihilation, depend-
ing on the abnegation of self, which has as its motive the
nothingness of the creature as much as its tendency to sin.
Condren was the most powerful interpreter of Berullian
teaching. He wrote nothing himself. He said one day to
M. Olier : " Ordinarily those who abstained from writing,
from the love of Jesus Christ, were rewarded with the gift
of illuminating souls, a gift much more useful for the Church
than that of writing."3 He possessed this gift to a mar-
vellous degree. St Jane de Chantal said after several talks
with him : " If God gave our blessed Founder [St Francis
de Sales] to the Church in order to instruct men, it seems to
me that he has made Father de Condren capable of instruct-
ing angels."*
Condren, according to Berulle, " received the spirit of the
Oratory from the cradle."5 How well, too, did he know the
way to impress it on his disciples ! Olier, Eudes, Saint-Pe\
to cite only the chief of these, owed to him the best of their
Berullian teaching.
The state of a victim, the condition of inward annihilation,
is everything with Fr. Condren, it is also the summing-up
1 Berulle, CEuvres, p. 1166.
2 Charles de Condren was born of a noble family at Vaubuin near
Soissons, December 15, 1588. He felt himself drawn at an early age
to the priesthood. He studied at the Sorbonne and, like Berulle, had
as masters Philip de Gamaches and Andre Duval. He was ordained
priest September 17, 1614, and entered the Oratory June 17, 1617, in
spite of Duval, who wished to have him as his successor in his chair
at the Sorbonne. Condren was charged with the direction of several
houses of the Congregation. On the death of Berulle in 1629, he was
elected Superior General of the Oratory. About 1651 M. Olier put
himself under the direction of Fr. de Condren and received the invita-
tion from him to found the seminaries. Condren died in 1641. The
spiritual conferences given by Condren to his religious are noteworthy.
They inspired the writings of his disciples : the Trisor spirituel of
Fr. Quarre, the Nouvel Adam of Fr. Saint-P6, the Royaume de Jesus
of St John Eudes, the Introduction a la vie et aux vertus chretiennes of
M. Olier. — The Oratorian Denys Amelote wrote La vie du P. Charles
de Condren, second sufirieur general de la Congregation de VOraloire,
Paris, 1643. Cf. H. Bremond, pp. 284 ff. The disciples of Condren
published his Discours et Lettres, Paris, 1643 ; Videe du sacerdoce et
du sacrifice de Jisus-Christ far le P. de Condren, Paris, 1677 (Quesnel's
edition). Fr. Ingold published the Considerations sur les mysteres de
Jesus-Christ, Paris, 1882.
3 Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, Paris, 1873, Vol. I, p. 151.
« ibid., p. 139. 6 ibid., p. 138.
JBerullian Doctrine 35 l
of all he taught. We must annihilate within us our evil in-
clinations ; we must also annihilate ourselves in order to
acknowledge our nothingness before God.
And first of all, in order to imitate and do honour to the
humiliations of the Word in his Incarnation: Exinanivit setnet-
ipsum, Berulle taught " that there is ... a basis for the
abnegation which is in the being of God united personally to
the humanity ; in which Scripture teaches us that there is an
emptying of himself; a supreme emptying of the first and
highest Being, which must be honoured by way of abnega-
tion. The Son of God gave sovereign honour to his Father
by his Incarnation which is the emptying of his divine
Person."1 We must enter into nothingness "with the Son
of God, emptying himself in order to make reparation."
Condren, who meditated specially on the priesthood and the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, notes the exercises of this priest-
hood and the elements of this sacrifice in these annihilations
of the Word incarnate.
Sacrifice is offered to God for several ends. It is offered
for thanksgiving, for the satisfaction due to his justice, and
also for securing his benefits :
But "it is primarily instituted," says Condren, " in order
to give recognition to his greatness and to render homage to
his divine perfections, but more particularly to three of them.
It is in order to honour the sanctity of God — by which he
is so great, so pure, so withdrawn in himself, so far from
creatures . . . that the creature ... is destroyed and consumed
in his presence. ... In the second place in order to do
honour to his sovereign rule, not only over life and death,
but over being itself. For God is the sole author of being
and none but he is able to give it. . . . In the third place
sacrifice is meant to recognize and do honour to the plenitude
of God — that is to say, that God suffices in himself and that
no creature is necessary to him. . . . "2
" Sacrifice, then, responds to all which God is. It regards
him as the sovereign Being, to whom all being" is sacri-
ficially due. It views him in his proper and incomprehensible
greatness and perfection, as being himself above every name,
all light, every thought; above all adoration and all love. In
offering all to God we protest that he is all ; in destroying all
before God we declare that he is nothing at all of all that is
in the universe, and that all this is not at all God."3
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which lasted " all his life,
from the first moment of the Incarnation until eternity,"4
1 CEuvres de Birulle, p. 1167. Cf. 1171.
2 LHdee du sacerdoce et du sacrifice de Jesus-Christ, pp. 38-41, Paris,
1901. I shall cite this Benedictine edition. Early in it will be found
just reasons for attributing the ideas in this work to Condren.
3 id., p. 52. * id., p. 60.
352 Christian Spirituality
consisted in annihilating- himself before God, in being- per-
petually a victim.
Let us not confine ourselves to honouring his victim state.
United to Jesus let us sacrifice all that we have to God,
let us annihilate ourselves before him, let us be victims
with him :
" Then," exclaims M. Olier in this connection, " let every
creature perish before my God ! And as our Lord, in sacri-
ficing himself, claimed to annihilate all things and make of
them all a sacrifice in himself, because he united everything
in his person ; it is fitting that we condemn and sacrifice all
things apart from him, which are so much the less holy as
they are the less in him."1
If we sacrifice ourselves fully it is to belong wholly to God.
The sacrificial victim is only truly received by God, truly
accepted by him, when it is destroyed and con-
sumed. Thus we must sacrifice all that we have, and
all that we are, in order to be " nothing except in God
and for God."2 The less we are ourselves the more we shall
be Christ. " The soul," declares Condren, " ought to be
nothing in order that Jesus Christ in it may be all."3 The
greatest grace which God is able to give us is to suffer
nothing in us but himself. The more we are empty of self
the more we shall be filled with God. We ought to become
new men to be modelled on Christ. That which is thrown
into the mould must first be melted. We must then destroy
and melt in ourselves the old Adam in order to become
Christ.4
Looked at in this light Berullian annihilation, however
obscure at first, is clearly understood.
C — Abnegation according to Jean-Jacques Olier
M. Olier5 — the one of Berulle's disciples who expounds
Berullian teaching most clearly — teaches, like his master,
1 Olier, Introduction a la vie chritienne, chap. i.
2 Condren, Uidee du sacerd., p. 52.
8 Condren, Discours et Lettres, Paris, 1643, Letter XXI, p. 381.
1 Grignion de Montfort, De la vraie devotion a la tres Sainte Vierge,
pp. 172 ff.
5 Jean-Jacques Olier, founder of the seminary of St Sulpice, was
born in Paris, September 20, 1608. He studied at the Sorbonne, and
at the age of eighteen was appointed [commendatory] Abbot of Pebrac,
in the diocese of Saint-Flour. Urged by his family to seek honours,
J. J. Olier lived a somewhat worldly life. Converted by the Blessed
Virgin at Loretto, in Italy, he placed himself under the direction of
St Vincent de Paul, and was ordained priest May 21, 1633. He
preached missions. Mother Agnes de Langeac, of the Order of St
Dominic, foretold that he would found seminaries. Cf. Jeune, Une
mystique dominicaine, La Vinirable Agnes de Langeac, Paris, 1924.
In 1635 M. Olier chose Fr. de Condren as his director, and became
JBernllian Doctrine 353
that inward annihilation is "the best disposition" for the
Holy Spirit to take possession of our soul :
" As soon as we let ourselves be reduced to nothingness
unto this divine Spirit in our whole being", we find ourselves
firmly disposed by him to every virtue and in a state of pre-
paration and inclination to practise them all."1
The necessity for this annihilation and mortification is,
above all, rendered justifiable by the Pauline teaching- — con-
stantly recalled by M. Olier — of the opposition between the
spirit of the flesh and the Spirit of Jesus.
Man before the fall was in a perfect state. All his faculties,
controlled by grace, were directed towards goodness and
were of themselves uplifted towards God. Since the sin of
Adam he is "in a strange disorder and in entire opposition
to God."- Let us not forget that M. Olier is, like many of
his contemporaries, an Augustinian, who exaggerates the
ravages of original sin :
" Before being restored by baptism . . . the soul, in itself
and in its outward and inward faculties, is entirely clothed
with sin, and we might say, in a certain sense, that it has
even lost its natural being, since, from the most pure spirit
which it was, it becomes flesh through alliance with the
body by becoming lost in the senses thereof and by allowing
itself to be led by its evil inclinations."
Baptism, it is true, " restores " the soul :
" But the soul inwardly restored by the Spirit is encom-
passed by a flesh which remains corrupt and which is not
sanctified by baptism, or purified from its evil inclina-
tions. . . .3
associated with the little group of disciples who were destined to
found seminaries. It was at this time that M. Olier had a great
inward trial, believing himself abandoned by God. When he had
overcome this he began the seminary of Vaugirard ; he then became
Cure of St Sulpice. He built the seminary of St Sulpice, and died in
Paris, 1657, attended by St Vincent de Paul. Faillon, Vie de M. Olier,
4th edition, Paris, 1873, 3 vols; Monier, Vie de Jean-Jacques Olier,
Paris, 1914, 1st vol. only. CEuvres completes de M. Olier, published
by Migne, Paris, 1856; these are: Introduction a la vie et aux
vertus chretiennes ; La Journee chretienne ; Explication des ceremonies
de la Grand1 Messe de Paroisse; Le Catechisme Chretien four la vie
interieure ; Traite des Saints Ordres; Lettres spirituelles, Pietas
seminarii, VEsprit d'un directeur des dmes d'apres M. Olier, edited
by de Bretonvilliers. See also Pensees choisies, extracts from un-
published Memoir es of M. Olier, published by G. Letourneau, Paris,
1916. Cf. L. Bertrand, Bibliotheque sulpicienne ou Histoire litteraire
de la Compagnie de Saint-Sulpice, Vol. I, Paris, 1900.
1 Introduction a la vie chretienne, chap. iv.
2 Journee chretienne, Preface ; the first part of the Catechisme
chretien explains the same teaching.
3 Journee chritienne, ibid. With regard to the Augustinian
pessimism of M. Olier, see the explanations by J. D. Icard, Doctrine
de M. Olier expliquee par sa vie et par ses ecrits, 2nd edition, Paris,
1891, pp. 37 ff.
III. 23
354 Cbristtan Spirituality
" The Christian, in fact, possesses two lives — the life of
Adam and that of our Lord ; the life of the flesh and that of
the Spirit. These two lives are opposed to each other ; it is
needful for one to be wholly annihilated in order that the
other become absolutely perfect. Now, so long as we are here
below, the life of the flesh is never wholly destroyed. By a
special privilege, however, and in reward for heroic mortifica-
tions or for great faithfulness to the Holy Spirit, it happens
to the soul to feel itself occasionally dead to this imperfect
life ; but this is never other than for a time and in part.
Moreover, the life of Jesus Christ within us is never in this
world so peaceful or wholly perfect. We must always have
the sword in hand in order to overcome our enemies and
those of God ; it is always necessary for us to labour in order
to mortify and destroy the old man."1
This opposition between the flesh and the Spirit is, then,
the great motive of mortification :
"It is by these two exercises that we must begin the
interior and divine life. We must first of all labour for the
mortification of self ; and then, being dead to the flesh, we
must endeavour to live by the Spirit. Without this, we shall
never do anything, and all other exercises will only serve to
our loss. All the rest is like a salve which encloses our evil
without removing it, which hides it and in no way heals it."2
This mortification is pushed very far by M. Olier. The
Christian consists of flesh and spirit. The flesh is " all the
old man in us ; all man in so far as he is unregenerate, and
as he is opposed to the Holy Spirit which we receive at
baptism. . . .3 We have within us either Jesus Christ or
the flesh. It is necessary for us to do all through the motion
of the Holy Spirit, which is charity, which disposes us to do
all things for God."4 The flesh cannot do any good thing.
" During the whole of this life, it is so corrupt, spoilt, soiled,
and perverted that it can never be converted to God ; it
cannot be subjected to him, says St Paul : Legi enim Dei non
est subjecta; nee enim potest (Rom. viii, 7)."5
We must, then, "hate our flesh." Man, "in his actual
state, ought to be accursed, calumniated, persecuted."6 By
himself he is nothingness and sin.
Because by himself he is nothingness he should love con-
tempt, abjection, and forgetfulness, which are the first arm
of the cross. Because he is nothing of himself but sin he
1 Olier, unpublished texts by G. Letourneau, Pensies choisies, p. 48.
" The Christian man, according to the teaching of St Paul, comprises
two things, one is called the flesh, the other the spirit. It is thus that
man is divided in Scripture." Catechisme chretien, Part I, lesson xiv.
* Introduc. a la vie chritienne, chap. viii.
' Catechisrr.e chritien, Part I, lesson v.
* Olier, Mimoires ; Icard, of. cit., p. 60.
6 Catich. chrit., Part I, lesson xvii. • ibid.
BerolUan Doctrine 355
should love pain, suffering, and persecution, which are the
second arm. Finally, always followed by sin he should
endure poverty, which is the third part of the Christian's
cross.1 Thus it is that he should renounce "all desire of
honours, pleasures, and riches — in a word, all the desires of
sin which are in us and are opposed to the cross of Jesus
Christ."2
Creatures are a perpetual cause of temptation for our
fallen nature. We are not secure from them except by re-
nouncing- all the pleasure which they are able to procure for
us, and by seeking- our satisfaction in God alone :
" It is necessary for the soul to be in fear and distrust of
self; it must testify to this distrust by avoiding occasions and
encounters in which it may satisfy the heart by love and
delight in some creature. It should make its pleasure and joy
depend on sacrificing to Jesus all joy and pleasure which it
may have apart from himself. And when taking part in those
things in which by Providence it is obliged to be occupied,
such as eating, drinking, and conversation with creatures,
it must be sparing in all, must discard what is superfluous,
and must renounce, in the use of them, the joy and pleasure
to be found therein, uniting and giving itself to Jesus as often
as it feels itself tempted to enjoy something apart from him
and not himself."3
May a Christian rightly enjoy any pleasure not thus super-
natural?*
These exaggerations are to be found in all the representa-
tives of the French School. All, through the reaction against
that humanism which exalted the goodness of man beyond
measure, accentuated Augustinian pessimism. We have
already noted it in the works of Berulle.
St Vincent de Paul also said :
" What else have we in ourselves but nothingness and sin?
Let us, then, hold it as certain that in all things and every-
where we deserve to be repulsed and always despised, be-
cause of our natural opposition to the sanctity and perfections
of God, to the life of Jesus Christ, and to the operations of
grace ; and that which convinces us of this truth the more is
our natural and continual inclination to evil and our im-
potence for good."5
" Sin has perverted all that is within us," declares St
1 Caiech. chrtt., Part I, Lessons x-xix.
2 ibid., Lesson vi.
3 Journte chretienne, Part I. The disposal of those hours of the day
not occupied with special exercises.
4 ■' If there be something which is not sin within us, it is from
grace, from the Holy Spirit which operates in us only through his
mercy." Olier, Mimoires, in Icard, of. cit., p. 60.
* Vie de Saint Vincent de Paul, by Abelly, Book III, chap. xxx.
Icard, of. cit., p. 64.
356 Christian Spirituality
John Eudes, " in both body and soul, from head to foot. It
has filled the higher part of our soul with darkness and
malice, and has set all the passions of the lower part in
disorder. "*
Blessed Grignion de Montfort, too, teaches that " all that
is within us is corrupted through the sin of Adam and by our
actual sins ; not only the senses of the body, but also the
powers of the soul."2
Let us also recall Bossuet's frankly Augustinian treatise on
concupiscence.
M. Olier particularly insisted on the corruption of fallen
man. Why this insistence? " His habitual reading of the
Epistles of the Apostle [St Paul], and the trials to which it
pleased God to subject him for nearly two years at the
beginning of his sacerdotal life, greatly contributed to inspire
him with the thought of the impotence of nature to do good,
and of the corruption of fallen man. During these trials
God seemed to have withdrawn from him that natural virtue
which sustains the body ; his soul was as though it were
unable to control the senses ; as regards spiritual powers he
was filled with langour and in a kind of stupefaction impos-
sible to understand. He remembered nothing, he was unable
to learn anything ; if he wanted to speak, words failed him.
Another kind of equally grave sorrow was that, deprived of
all sensible supernatural gifts, distressed by every kind of
temptation, he looked upon himself as rejected of God."3
II— ADHERENCE TO CHRIST
This total mortification, without which Jesus cannot live
completely within us, is much more the effect of the Holy
Spirit than it is the result of our efforts.
" I pray God," wrote M. Olier to a nun, " to reign in you
and, as king and absolute prince, to destroy all his enemies
that might rise in you to his prejudice and your own. It is
he who should destroy you and sacrifice you in every im-
pulse ; I mean in all that belongs to yourself and is not of
him. For he should live solely in you, unceasingly keeping
down the flesh beneath his feet."4
Our cleaving unto Christ will be the best means of morti-
1 Le Memorial de la vie ecclisiastique, Sur V abnegation de soi-meme,
quoted by Icard, of. cit., p. 66.
• Lett re circulaire aux amis de la croix, n. 6, Icard, p. 5.
3 Icard, of. cit., p. 62. See also Faillon with regard to this trial
of M. Olier, Vie de M. Olier, Vol. I, Book VII; Monier, Vie de Jean-
Jacques Olier, I, Book I, chaps, x-xi, Paris, 1914. M. Bremond,
Vicole francaise, pp. 430 ff., reduces M. Olier's trial to simple neurosis.
4 Olier, Lettre XXIX, Migne, p. 768. New edition of the Lettres,
Paris, 1S85, Vol. I, p. 239.
Berulttan doctrine 357
fying our evil instincts. Here we come to the newest and
most attractive part of Berullian teaching-.
We cling- to Jesus, we unite ourselves to him by partici-
pation in his mysteries :
" In order to be a perfect Christian," says M. Olier,
11 we must participate in all the mysteries of Jesus Christ,
this loving Redeemer having expressly performed them in
person so that they may be most abundant and special sources
of grace in his Church."1
These mysteries are events in the life of Christ. Each one
of them " possesses something particular not only in its effect
but also in its state."2
Let us note this word state. To understand it properly we
must distinguish between the outward and the inward side
of the mystery. The former is transitory ; it consists in the
deeds which Christ performed, actions which are past and
are not, in fact, repeated. The latter is permanent, and con-
sists in " the dispositions and inward feelings which our
Lord had " in each of his mysteries.3 These dispositions do
not change, they are permanent in Jesus, because they are
intimately bound up with the Incarnation :
11 The Incarnation," says Berulle, " is a permanent state,
and is permanent eternally. God perpetually makes a gift
of his Son to man ; this Son who is the gift of God himself
gives himself incessantly to our humanity ; the eternal Father
unceasingly begets his Son in a new nature."4
The intimate dispositions of Christ, then, do not change.
They form part of that permanent state which is the Incarna-
tion. That is why the Berullian School calls the internal
sentiments which Jesus had in his divers mysteries the states
of the Word incarnate. They thus express the permanence
of these sentiments, which renders the mysteries of Christ
always actual and always productive of grace in our souls.
Berulle thus explains this teaching :
" The mysteries of Jesus Christ are in some circumstances
past, and in another way they remain and are present and
perpetual. They are past as regards their performance but
1 Catechisme chritien, Part I, lesson xx.
1 Berulle, CEuvres, p. 350. M. Olier (ibid.) explains : " Each mystery
has won sanctifying grace for the Church and divers states and special
graces which God distributes to souls ... in the more ordinary way
at the time of the solemnity of the mysteries."
3 Olier, Introduction a la vie chritienne, chap. iii. Berulle says the
same thing : " As in us there is a soul and a body and all is but one ;
so also in the mysteries of the Son of God there is the spirit performing
and suffering this mystery, the light of grace of the mystery, the
intention to establish some effect from the mystery, and the body or
action of the mystery." CEuvres, p. 1053. See also Le Royaume de
Jesus, by St John Eudes, Part III, VII, pp. 322 ff., Paris, 1924.
4 Berulle, CEuvres, p. 921.
358 Christian Spirituality
they are present as regards their virtue, and their virtue
never passes, nor will the love with which they have been
accomplished ever pass. The spirit, then, the state, the
virtue, the merit of the mystery is always present. The
spirit of (iod, by whom this mystery was wrought, the
interior state of the external mystery, the efficacy, and the
virtue which render this mystery living- and operative within
us, this state and virtuous disposition, the merit by which he
has gained us for his Father and merited heaven, life, and
himself; even the actual taste, the living disposition, through
which Jesus has brought about this mystery, is always alive,
actual, and present to Jesus. So much so that if it were
necessary for us, or if it were pleasing to God the Father,
he would be quite ready to depart and to accomplish this
work, this action, this mystery, afresh."1
In other words it is the same Spirit which animates Christ
and the faithful, the head and the members. The spirit of
God which produces in the soul of Christ these permanent
dispositions " expands in all " Christians, " and causes all
of them to become participants ... in these same senti-
ments."2
" This obliges us," continues Berulle, " to treat the things
and mysteries of Jesus, not as things past and abolished,
but as things present, living, and even eternal, from which
also we have to gather a present and eternal fruit."
In order to make himself better understood, by way of
example he sets forth the mysteries of the infancy and of the
Passion of the Saviour :
" The infancy of the Son of God," he says, " is a passing
state, the circumstances of this infancy are past, and he is
no longer a child ; but there is also something divine in this
mystery which goes on in heaven and works a similar manner
of grace in souls on earth, whom it pleases Jesus Christ to
attach and dedicate to this humble and first state of his
person. We even find that Jesus Christ has found a means
of fixing a part of his Passion in his state of glory by keeping
his wounds therein ; for if he could keep some mark of his
Passion in his glorified body, why should he not keep some
of it in his soul, in the consummated state of his glory?
But what he keeps of his Passion, both in body and soul,
is life and glory, and he suffers in neither the one nor the
other, and it is this of his mysteries which remains in him
and makes a way of grace on earth, which is assigned to
chosen souls to receive. And it is through this way of grace
that the mysteries of Jesus Christ, his infancy, his suffering,
and the others, continue and live on earth for ever."3
1 id., pp. 1052-1053.
2 Olier, Introduction a la vie chritienne, chap. iii.
3 Berulle, CEuvres, p. 1053.
JBerulllan 2>octrine 359
To contemplate the states of Jesus and to appropriate
them to oneself, such is the method of the Berullian School.
"This school," writes M. Letourneau, "loves to contem-
plate, first of all, the marvels of the divine life in the soul
of Jesus, in his intelligence, in his will — that is to say, in his
heart — it exalts, it extols on every occasion this interior life
of the soul of Jesus. Then it completes it by considering
how this divine life flows from the head to the members of
the mystical body of Jesus; how the faithful, from the time
of holy baptism, reproduce in themselves the death and the
life of Jesus Christ."1
" The life which we have on earth," says Fr. Eudes, " is
only given us to be employed for the accomplishment of the
great designs which Jesus has for us. This is why we
ought to make use of our time, our days, and our years, to
co-operate with Jesus and to labour with him in this divine
work and the completion of his mysteries in us ; and we
should co-operate therein by good works, by prayer, and by
frequently applying our minds and hearts to the contempla-
tion, adoration, and honouring of the divers states and
mysteries of Jesus in the different times of the year ; and give
ourselves to him for him to work in us through these same
mysteries all that he desires to do therein for his pure glory."2
All writers of the French School teach the need for real
Christians to reproduce within themselves the mysteries of
Christ. In their writings they dwell on the divers mysteries
and states of Jesus. Each of them, however, has his prefer-
ences, his particular attractions. Berulle is devoted to the
mysteries of the earthly and heavenly life of Jesus, Condren
to those of his life of sacrifice on earth and in heaven, and
Olier to those of his eucharistic life.
A — Adherence to Christ by Participation in the Mysteries
of his Earthly and Heavenly Life — Berulle as
interpreted by Olier
To be another Christ is to appropriate his mysteries, chiefly
the Incarnation, the Childhood, the Crucifixion, the Death,
1 Ecoles de Spirituality. Uicole francaise du XVI/e siecle, p. 9.
Extract from the Recrutement sacerdotal, Toulouse, 1913.
3 La vie et le royaume de Jisus dans les dmes chritiennes, Part III,
V, pp. 312-313, Pari9, 1924. Bossuet offers this prayer to Jesus at the
beginning of his Elevations sur les mysteres : " In order to know thee
well, O my God and dear Saviour, I ever desire, with thy grace, to
consider thee in all thy states and all thy mysteries, and to know with
thee at the same time thy Father who has given thee to us, and the
Holy Spirit proceeding from you both."
360 Christian Spirituality
the Burial, the Resurrection, and the Ascension.1 Herein
let us take M. Olier, the best writer of the French School,
as our guide.
The mystery of the Incarnation " brings about in us a com-
plete stripping- and renunciation of ourselves, and in addition
produces a reclothing- with our Lord through total consecra-
tion to God."2 These graces correspond to the state of anni-
hilation of Jesus in the Incarnation, and to the state of most
close union between the human nature and the divine in the
single Person of the Word.
In the mystery of the Incarnation, the sacred humanity of
Jesus is annihilated by the privation of his personality. The
latter has no interest of its own nor does it act for itself. It
seeks only the interest of the heavenly Father whom it re-
gards in all things. " In the same way we must become
annihilated as regards all our own designs and all our
interests, having none but those of Christ, who is in us to
live in us for his Father."3
The humanity of Christ, hypostatically united to the Word,
is wholly consecrated to God, wholly clothed with the divinity.
It lives only for God ; it belongs to him in a most perfect
manner. At the very moment that this humanity was anni-
hilated by being deprived of its own personality, it acquired
" the plenitude of the divinity, and an infinite capacity to re-
ceive all the operations of the Holy Spirit."4 Thus, "when
we strip ourselves of ourselves we are reclothed with Jesus
Christ."5 Christ is living within us. He fills our souls with
his desires and his dispositions. The Christian is thus, if we
may so express it, a little incarnation in which are produced
spiritually all the mysteries of the Saviour's life.
Finally, we are consecrated to the service of God with
Jesus :
" A third effect of this mystery [the Incarnation] is a
grace of entire consecration to the service of God. When
Jesus Christ enters the world he offers himself with all his
members to his Father. . . . Thenceforth, his faithful ser-
vants, under the action of the Holy Spirit, become capable
of adoring the infinite Majesty, of praising him and render-
ing him the duties due to him."6
1 " Three lives [in Jesus] to which the whole life of men and of
angels should be dedicated, three precious moments to which all the
moments of our mortality and of our eternity should be consecrated :
the moment of the Incarnation, in which Jesus begins to be Jesus and
the Word begins a new and incarnate life. . . . The moment of the
wayfaring and meriting life [of Christ]. . . . The moment of his
heavenly and glorious life, in which Jesus is triumphant in life, in
glory, and in immortality." Berulle, (Euvres, p. 393.
3 Olier, Catechisme chritien, Part I, Lesson xx.
3 ibid.
4 Olier, Pensies choisies, p. 41. Cf. Catichisme chrit., ibid.
6 Pensees choisies, ibid. 6 ibid., p. 42.
Berollfan Boctrfne 361
Berulle was the first to express so strongly this state of the
perfect adorer which Christ acquires through the Incarnation :
11 Jesus, on account of his state, is the sole adorer of the
divine persons and emanations, whom the angels adore indeed
in heaven through the action of their understanding and their
will, but not with the kind of adoration of which we speak,
which is very different : for we speak of an adoration belong-
ing to a state and not in action ; of an adoration which does
not emanate simply from the mind and is dependent on its
thought, but one that is solid, permanent, and independent
of powers and acts, and one that is vividly impressed in the
depth of the created being and on the circumstances of its
state. And thus we say that before this new birth there was
nothing which, of itself and owing to its natural or personal
state, adored and rendered homage to these divine objects."1
The humanity of Christ, annihilated and wholly conse-
crated to God, is a living and permanent declaration that God
is all and that the creature is nothing, which is the essence of
adoration.
Jesus causes the faithful to participate in his state of
adoration :
" At the moment of the Incarnation," writes M. Olier,
11 our Lord consecrated himself entirely to the Father, himself
and all his members. . . . He continues ever to live with
the same dispositions that he had during his whole life ; he
never interrupts them and ever offers himself, in himself and
in all his members, to God in all those circumstances in which
they ought to serve him, honour him, and glorify him. . . .2
Our Lord, in order to extend his holy religion in God's direc-
tion and to increase it in our souls, comes into us and leaves
himself on earth in the hands of his priests, as a sacrifice of
praise, to join us with this state of sacrifice, to adapt us to
his praise, to communicate to us inwardly the sentiments of
his religion. He spreads himself in us, he instils himself in
us, he embalms our soul and fills it with the inward disposi-
tions of his religious spirit ; so that he makes our soul and
his but one, which he animates with the same spirit of respect,
love, praise, and the inward and outward sacrifice of all
things to the glory of God his Father; and thus he places
our soul in fellowship with his religion, in order to make us
in himself true religious of his Father."3
Jesus Christ " is alone the true and perfect religious of
God."4 The faithful will be united to him in order to render
1 Grandeurs de Jisus, Discourse XI. The second birth of Jesus
{GEuvres, p. 363). The first birth of Jesus is that of the Word in the
bosom of the Father. Cf. pp. 933, 1058, 1059, etc.
2 Olier, Catichisme chretien, Part I, lesson xx.
3 Olier, Introduction a la vie chretienne, chap. i.
* Olier, Traite des Saints Ordres, Part III, chap, vi.
362 Cbristiau Spirituality
their duties to God in the same spirit of religion. The priest,
above all, will carry out this obligation. " The religion of
Jesus Christ towards God is what should properly be the
desire of the priest." Like his Master, he should be a " true
religious of God." He ought to render to God the duties of
religion due to him for all men. " He must give himself up
to the spirit of our Lord in order to satisfy this duty."1 This
teaching is the foundation of M. Olier's Traitd des Saints
Ordres, and of his Explication des ce're'monies de la Grand'
Messe de paroisse:
" You should adore," counselled M. de Condren, too, " this
continual love of the soul of Jesus for God and this inclina-
that he had to honour him in every action, in all the suffer-
ings, occurrences, and circumstances of his life ; thus you
should love Jesus Christ in his dispositions towards God.
" You should give yourself to him in order to enter into
this same disposition and to live therein in union with him."2
Condren put this teaching into practice chiefly when he
prepared to recite the divine Office. He then protested, says
his biographer Amelote, " that it was not in his own name,
as St Paul says, but in the name and in the Person of Jesus
Christ and as one of his members, grafted and living in him,
that he dared to converse and treat with the eternal Father,
whereby he acted not as a simple creature but as the son of
God in Jesus Christ, and that he was nothing in himself,
but Jesus Christ alone lived within him."3
M. Olier, inspired with these thoughts, composed the mag-
nificent prayer for the divine Office which is found in the first
part of La journSe chrttienne, from which we quote a few
passages :
" My God, who takest thy delight and pleasure in our Lord
Jesus Christ, who alone giveth thee, in virtue of thy Holy
Spirit with which he was filled, all the honour and praise that
the holy prophets and patriarchs, the apostles and their
disciples, the angels in heaven and the saints on earth,
have offered thee ; express in our soul throughout thy whole
Church, what he alone renders thee perfectly in heaven.
" Grant, O my Lord Jesus, that thy Church may spread
abroad that which thou hast enclosed within thyself alone,
and outwardly express that divine religion which thou hast
for thy Father in the secret of thy heart, in heaven and on
our altars. . . .
" Therefore, O my God, grant that all these praises and
1 Saints Ordres, ibid.
2 Lettre X, Discours et lettres du R. P. Ch. de Condren, Paris, 1643,
PP- 338-339-
3 La vie du P. de Condren, Paris, 1643, Part I, chap, xvii, p. 122.
See also Elides, Royaume de Jisus (CEuvres completes, Vol. I, p. 470),
in which will be found an excellent method for saying the Divine Office
in a holy manner.
SeraUian Doctrine 363
canticles, these psalms and hymns, which we are about to
sing- to thy honour, be only the expression of the inner spirit
of Jesus Christ, and that my mouth may say to thee only
what the soul of my Saviour says to thee within itself.
" Clinging, then, to thy spirit, O my Lord Jesus, who art
the life of our religion, I desire to render to thy Father all
the homage and all the duties due unto him, which thou
alone understandest and thou alone renderest to him in thy
sanctuary.
" Annihilate, my God, everything in myself, who am a
miserable and shameful sinner; I adore thy Son, the true and
only and perfect religious of thy name ; and I unite myself
to thy Holy Spirit in the purest part ot my soul in order to
glorify thee in him."
The first state in which wc find the Son of God in the
world is his childhood : and that also is the first state that
we should contemplate and adore, all the more so in that it
endured and included many days, many months, many years,
which does not apply to his other mysteries and actions . . .
a duration so much the more considerable in that this state
of childhood is a state which carries with it very great abase-
ment to so high a dignity as that of the incarnate Word,
and the privation of many things due to so great a Majesty.1
" The abasements and privations of the state of infancy are
reduced to three : dependence, indigence, and impotence ;
dependence unto indigence, indigence unto impotence. What
impotence to be unable to help himself in his needs, or to seek
help from others or to ask it in words !"2
We should, then, adore Jesus in his state of childhood,
have true devotion to this mystery, and imitate the virtues
which the Saviour practised therein : obedience, innocence,
purity, and simplicity :
" The infancy of our Lord," wrote M. de Renty, the great
propagator of devotion to the Child Jesus, " is a state in
which we must die to all and in which the soul waits for
and receives orders from God in faith, silence, and respect,
in innocence, purity, and simplicity, and lives day by day in
abandonment, looking in a manner neither before nor behind ;
but uniting with the holy Child Jesus who, dead to himself,
receives every order from his Father. . . . We must . . .
as it seems to me, follow these footprints of Jesus Christ our
model by the grace of his infancy."3
1 Berulle, CEuvres, p. 1008.
2 ibid., p. 1014. Cf. p. 1448
3 Vie de M. de Renty, by Fr. Jean-Baptiste de Saint-Jure, Paris,
1664, p. 286. Respecting M. de Renty, see Bremond, L'£cole franfaise,
PP- 523 ff-
364 Christian Spirituality
We must ask our Lord, at every time, but especially at
Christmas time, " to fill us with the spirit of his holy Child-
hood."1 This is the spirit needed by the Christian. Did
not the Saviour say : " Unless you be converted, and become
as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven" (Matt, xviii, 3)? The virtues of the state of
Christian infancy are, in fact, indispensable to those who wish
to belong- truly to God. It is first of all the renunciation of
our own spirit and the total abandonment of self to Jesus in
order to let ourselves be led by him, like a child who sur-
renders itself in all that concerns it to those who have charge
of it. Furthermore, these virtues are those which call to
mind the special characteristics of the child, complete indiffer-
ence, simplicity, purity, sweetness, and meekness, and finally
innocence. M. Blanlo (11657), one of M. Olier's disciples,
has very clearly expounded this wholly Berullian teaching- in
his well-known treatise : L'enfance chretienne.2
When it exhorts us to participate in the mysteries of the
Crucifixion, the Death, the Burial, the Resurrection, and the
Ascension of Jesus, the French School merely comments on
St Paul.
According to the great Apostle, we are so closely united to
Jesus, living the same life, that we are crucified with him,
Christo confixus sum cruci (Gal. ii, 19) ; dead with him,
commortui (2 Tim. ii, 11); buried with him, consepulti
(Rom. vi, 4; Col. ii, 12); risen with him, si consurrexistis
cum Christo (Col. iii, 1) ; and seated with him in heaven,
consedere fecit in caelestibus (Eph. ii, 6).
" The crucifixion of our Lord," says M. Olier, " gives us,
in virtue of the Holy Spirit, the grace and strength to crucify
all our lusts, or all the obstacles which are opposed to the
development of the supernatural life in our souls, which
prevent Jesus Christ from increasing and becoming realized
within us."3
We appropriate " the state of crucifixion " of Jesus by con-
stant mortification of the flesh, of the old man. Thus is
spiritual crucifixion produced in us :
" The conflict which we must maintain to this end," con-
tinues M. Olier, " is that which St Paul prescribed to the
whole Church and to each one of the faithful when he said :
Crucify within you the old man with his concupiscences (Gal.
1 Olier, Lettre LIX, Migne, p. 802. M. Olier desired devotion to
the childhood of Jesus to be one of the devotions of his seminary [Pietas
seminarii , IX).
2 The first edition appeared in 1665 ; numerous other editions followed.
3 Pensies choisies, pp. 47-48. Cf. Cattchisme chritien, Part I,
Lesson xxi.
JBerullfan Doctrine 365
v, 24). Let us, then, through this mortification, sanctify our
hearts and our bodies. Let us inwardly crucify our passions
in testimony of our union with Jesus Christ and our partici-
pation in the grace of the cross."1
After the crucifixion comes the death. We participate in
the death of our Lord " by communion with the grace and
state of death " which he has merited for us.
M. Olier states clearly in what this state of death consists :
" It is," he says, " a state in which the heart cannot be
moved in its depths ; and although the world shows it its
beauties, its honours, its riches, it is the same as though
these were offered to a dead man who is motionless and with-
out any desires, insensible to all that is offered him. The
Christian, in this state of inward death, is inwardly undis-
turbed by all that the senses show him, all that the wicked-
ness of the world arouses ; outwardly he may be agitated in
this life, but inwardly he is ever at peace ; he remains insen-
sible to all and esteems it as nothing, because he is dead in
our Lord : Mortui enim estis (Col. iii, 3) . . . [and] because
of the divine life which absorbs all that is mortal in [his
soul]."2
We have also been buried in the tomb with Jesus Christ.
11 This burial of the body of our Lord signifies our inward
entombment and includes its grace. We should, like the
corpse buried beneath the stone, be entire strangers to the
world and insensible to all things on earth."3 But though in
a state of burial — " that is, in the total destruction of being "
— it also proclaims to us the production of a new life. For
" Christ willed his life to be born again from amidst the tomb
wherein death" had placed him.4
This new life of the Christian resembles that of the risen
Jesus :
" In the same way as our risen Lord is changed, and, so
to speak, no longer follows the conduct of human nature
which loves life and fears death ; so holy souls, through the
mystery of the Resurrection, should be renewed and estab-
lished in a new state of sanctity. God has taken possession
of them, and has, as it were, changed them into himself. . . .
This resurrection life . . . gives inclinations and impulses
similar to those of the blessed. . . . But on earth, because this
life goes on only in spirit, and because we have in our
members dispositions and feelings wholly opposed thereto, we
1 Pensees choisies, p. 50. Cf. Pietas seminarii, xiv-xv.
2 CatSchisme chritien, Part I, lesson xxii. Cf. Pensies choisies,
pp. 51-52. In his Traite des Saints Ordres, Part I, M. Olier explains
at length that the clergy, even more than the faithful, should participate
in this state of the death of Christ. It is " the first foundation needed
in order to aspire to the high dignity of the clerical state."
3 M. Lebas . . ., p. 234.
4 Cf. Olier, Catechisme chritien, Part I, Lesson xxiii.
366 Cbristian Spirituality
have ever to fight against the old man, which will never be
overcome until the day of judgement."1
Even more perfect is the grace of the mystery of the
Ascension. The state of Christ, seated at the right hand of
the Father, is, in certain respects, more divine than that of
Christ risen from the dead :
There appeared " still some infirmity in our Lord Jesus
Christ after his Resurrection. He had still certain marks,
and seemed sometimes to strip himself of the perfect glory
of his consummation in God and his total resemblance to his
Father. He still rendered his humanity palpable and visible
to the eyes of his apostles ; he ate with them., But on the day
of his Ascension his glory no longer suffers either interruption
or suspension ; the brightness of it can no longer be borne
by the eyes of men : having entered into the splendour of
God the Father, he remains hidden in his bosom and is not
apprehended by our senses. . . . The soul which enters into
this state of the divine Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ
... no longer declines from union or unity with God, nor
descends to the lowliness of human infirmity. It is no longer
yielded to passion or self-love ; it no lunger admits within
itself any return to the creature. . . . This state is that of
perfect souls, inwardly consummated in God, into the being
and life of whom they have passed in virtue of a most true
and perfect union."2
It might be said that these souls are already, " by happy
anticipation, in the region of eternity."
He who would truly honour Jesus and fully live his life
cannot rest content with merely keeping the mysteries which
the liturgical year suggests to his devotion. Our Lord must be
adored universally, " in every one of his mysteries and in all
his states." To this end Berulle instituted "the solemnity
of Jesus " :
" The idea of this feast," he says, " is to look to, love, and
adore the Son of God in regard to what he is in himself, in
his two natures, in his divine person, in all his greatness,
in his powers and office, in his states, in his goodness, and in
his operations; but chiefly in what he is in himself and in all
his known and unknown greatness, for it is our greatness
and what makes us blessed."3
The interior principle which animates Christ, the interior
life of his soul, such is the chief aim of this feast. The
1 Olier, Pensees choisies, pp. 52-53. Berulle calls the Resurrection of
Jesus his third birth, the birth of immortality (CEuvres, pp. 388 ff.).
2 Olier, Cattchisine chritien, Part I, Lesson xxv.
s Berulle, CEuvres, p. 1070.
BeruUian Doctrine 367
Oratorians, moreover, should daily honour the interior of
Jesus by reciting- this prayer :
" Grant us the grace, we beseech thee, O Lord, unceasingly
to celebrate this ineffable and most divine life of the Word
in thy humanity and thy humanity in the Word of life."1
Condren paraphrased it thus :
" I adore thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, in all the holy in-
tentions and inclinations of thy spirit during thy life on earth
and now in eternity ; I renounce all my own and I desire by
the help of thy grace henceforth to live in thy intentions and
dispositions in all I must do throughout my life ; I desire my
soul to be united to thine in the same love, the same desires,
the same dislikes, the same spirit and attitude towards all
things."2
Thus to have inclinations and dispositions like those of
Jesus is to participate in his inner life, which is defined by
M. Olier with his customary clearness :
" The interior life of Jesus Christ consists in his disposi-
tions and inward feelings towards all things ; for example, in
his reverence for God, in his love for his neighbour, in his
annihilation of self, in his horror of sin, and in his condemna-
tion of the world and its maxims."3
His exterior life, " his sensible actions," his " visible prac-
tice of virtue " " arise from the depths of his divine interior."
What, then, is important to know, to venerate, and to imitate
is this divine interior. If we think, if we feel with Christ,
we shall act like him. Moreover, M. Olier desired to estab-
lish the faithful, and especially priests, in this interior life,
and to inspire them with devotion to it.4 After his death, in
accordance with his intentions, the feast of the Interior Life
of our Lord was instituted, as was also that of the Interior
Life of Mary.5
We must " live in the spirit of Jesus," counselled Fr.
Eudes :
1 FaiUon, Vie de M. Olier, Paris, 1873, Vol. Ill, p. 70.
2 Letter X, Discours et Lettres, pp. 337-338.
3 Catlchisme chritien, Part I, lesson i. Cf. Introduction a la vie
chrctienne, chaps, ii, iii.
4 This devotion is the subject of the first article of his Pietas
seminarii. It is given as the summing up of all the piety of the
seminary.
* Fr. de Condren was the creator of this devotion to the Interior Life.
He made M. Olier recite this prayer : Vent, Domine Jesu, et vive in
hoc servo tuo , in plenitudine virtutis tuae, in perfectione viarum
tuarum, in sanctitate Spiritus, et dominare omni adversae potestati in
Spiritu tuo, ad gloriam Pairis. Amen. M. Olier modified it as
follows : O Jesus vivens in Maria, in order to unite in the same devotion
the interior life of Mary and that of Jesus. See Faillon, Vie de
M. Olier, Vol. I, p. 168, 4th edition.
368 Cbristiau Spirituality
" This truth," says M. Olier in the Preface to La journe'e
chrdtienne, " that we should live as Jesus Christ lived on
earth, according- to his manner of life and feelings, has given
me the idea of drawing up certain practices and suggesting
divers intentions in order to do every one of our works holily. "
He teaches us in this admirable " little work " to associate
ourselves with the mysteries of Christ " in all the exercises
of the day." For example, when we go to bed at night we
should " look upon our bed in faith as the very tomb of the
Son of God, in which we sleep to rise next day in a spirit
of joy with the risen Christ."1 It is thus that we realize
the words of St Paul : Christ is my life. All our actions, even
the most ordinary, such as walking, the sight of the sun
or of birds and flowers, should be performed in union with
Jesus.
Bossuet makes a striking application of this method to the
death of a Christian in his Reflexions sur Vagonie de Jdsus-
Christ, most Berullian in thought and expression :
"Christians," he says, "have so great an interest in
knowing the mysteries and in taking to themselves the senti-
ments and dispositions of Jesus Christ, their adorable
Saviour, in all his states, that they should apply themselves
thereto unceasingly; but, above all, to those great and ter-
rible mysteries of his Passion and death, by which he com-
pleted the work of our eternal salvation by the redemption,
and ended his holy life."
The devil specially attacks the dying in their last hour.
But Christ, in his agony, triumphed over him, and has
triumphed not only for himself, but " already in advance for
Christians when they reach this state."
And, above all, the dying are associated "by a right of
union, fellowship, and intercourse, which exists between the
head and the living members, with the divine deeds of the
soul of Jesus Christ, and with the heroic virtues which he
practised in his state " of agony. Jesus endured his agony,
so to speak, for Christians ; he did in their place what they
should do when death approaches :
" All that he then did was done in discharge of their obliga-
tions and as a supplement to what they would be unable to do
at that time. He appropriated to himself the natural pain felt
by the soul when struck with the sombre and fearful thought
of inevitable separation : he sanctified it in a spirit of sub-
mission and penance, of sacrifice and homage to the
sovereignty of his Father. He offered this agony of his
children and all its consequences by a movement of love
communicated to them thenceforth, if they are in a state to
take part in it, and he transferred it to them under the eyes and
1 Jottrnie chretienne, Part II.
JSerullian Doctrine 369
into the bosom of his Father, to supplement their impotence,
if their darkened reason rendered them incapable of actually
entering- into his dispositions. If they are unable to have
these themselves, they have them in Jesus Christ ; and to
have them in him is to have them in themselves by the right
of fellowship which the grace of their union with him creates
between him and them."
Thus it is that Christ renews and perpetuates his sacrifice,
" not only in the mystery of the divine Eucharist, but also in
the death of all true believers."
When we assist souls in agony, " instead of embarrass-
ing them . . . with a thousand confused acts of haphazard
fancy, we should make them from time to time fix their eyes
gently on the sight of what Jesus Christ is to them and what
they are to him ; impress them with an entire confidence in
him and in what he has done for them ; make them see him
dying with them, charging himself with their interests and
their obligations, in order to excite in them the desire of
union and fellowship with him in all the dispositions of his
agony and death."
"It is in this spirit that they should receive the Holy
Viaticum" through which "the High Priest" fully hallows
the death of the faithful :
" Thus the Christian being united, then, not only to the
adorable body of Jesus Christ in his sacrament, but also to
his heart ; entering, by submission and by clinging to him,
into all his designs ; desiring to dispose of his being and of
his life as does the great Sacrificer, becomes a priest with
him in the death ; and at this last moment achieves the
sacrifice whereto he had been consecrated at baptism and
which he ought to have carried on throughout his life."1
The French School looks upon everything in the Christian
religion from the point of view of Jesus, and so it especially
inspires devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the saints :
" To speak of Mary," says Berulle, " is to speak of Jesus ;
for they are so joined together, and she is the greatest vessel
of his grace and the most rare effect of his power."2
To consider the eminent dignity of his Mother is also " to
honour Jesus," so close is the bond between Jesus and Mary.
The best way of making manifest our devotion to the Blessed
Virgin is to contemplate the life of Jesus in her and to strive
to participate in it.
Jesus lives in Mary in a unique way from the first moment
of the Incarnation until the virgin birth. During that time :
1 See also in St John Eudes, Le royaume de* Jesus, pp. 520 ff. , a
similar exercise, " For a Christian death."
* CEuvres, p. 433.
III. 24
37° Cbristiau Spirituality
" Jesus is in Mary as a son in his mother, drawing his
life from hers. He is in her as her son and as her God,
giving- her life as he receives life from her. He is in her as
in his earthly paradise ; for all is holy, all is delightful in the
Virgin. The shadow of sin is not and has never been there.
And Jesus finds in her his joy and his repose, and out of her
he found none but sinners and sin. He is in her as in a
heaven, for he is living in life and glory, seeing God and
rejoicing in his divine essence. He is in her as in a temple
in which he praises and adores God, in which he pays his
duties to the eternal Father, and pays them as much for him-
self as for all created being."1
But Jesus lives in Mary in a permanent manner, by the
fulness of his Spirit with which he filled her superabun-
dantly :
" What our Lord is to his Church," says M. Olier, " he
is par excellence to his holy Mother. Thus he is her inward
and divine plenitude ; and as he sacrificed himself more par-
ticularly for her than for the whole Church, he gives her the
life of God more abundantly than to the whole Church. . . .
" We must then consider Jesus Christ, our all, living in the
most holy Virgin in the fulness of the life of God, as much
in that life which he received from his Father as that which
he obtained and merited for men through the ministry of the
life of his Mother. . . .
" There is nothing more wonderful than this life of Jesus in
Mary, the holy life that he pours continuously into her, the
divine life with which he animates her, loving and praising
and adoring God his Father in her, giving a worthy supple-
ment to her heart wherein he abounds with pleasure. All the
life of Jesus and all his love in the remainder of the Church,
even in his apostles and his dear disciples, is nothing in com-
parison with that which he has in the heart of Mary. He
dwells there in plenitude ; he works there to the full extent
of his divine Spirit, he is but one heart, one soul, one life with
Mary."2
The saints should be considered and honoured as the living
members of Christ :
" For it is he alone who fills all the saints with his grace
and his glory ; in them he is their whole life, their grace, and
their virtue ; he is all that is of God in them, God who in
Jesus is all in all, perfecting in himself his whole creature."3
In the Berullian School Christ is truly " all in all." This
1 Berulle, CEuvres, pp. 493-494.
2 Journie chritienne, Part II, end.
3 ibid. — The French School gives special honour to those saints who
lived with our Lord on earth. Berulle specially honoured St Mary
Magdalen. M. Olier desired particular honour to be given to St Joseph,
St John, and the Apostles in the seminary of St Sulpice {Pietas, x-xii).
See Eudes, Royaume de Jisus, pp. 345-350.
JSerullfan Boctrine 37 J
it never forgets, above all, when it honours the Blessed
Virgin and the saints.
B — Adherence to Christ in his State of Immolation
and as Victim, according to Condren
All the leaders of the French School are apostles of the
Word incarnate ; each one, however, in his own special way ;
" Berulle by a more general ' adherence,' in some way, to
the Person of the Word incarnate ; Condren by a somewhat
more particularized adherence to Christ dead and risen again,
finally, M. Olier by an adherence to the most deep, the most
religious, the most persevering, and consequently the most
4 really ' active and efficacious annihilation of the same
Word"1 in the Eucharist.
It is M. Oiier himself who points out these different lines :
" Our Lord has made me see," he wrote to his director,
" that willing to renew the primitive spirit of the Church in
these days, he raised up two persons in order to begin this
design : Monsignor de Berulle, to honour him in his Incarna-
tion ; Fr. de Condren, in the whole of his life, his death, and,
above all, in his resurrection ; but there remains to do him
honour after his resurrection and his ascension, as he is in
the most august sacrament of the Eucharist. . . . He has
willed to bestow upon myself, as successor to Fr. de Condren,
the grace and spirit of this adorable mystery."2
In the preceding pages the teaching of Berulle, defined and
developed by Condren and, above all, by Olier, has been
explained. We have now to learn the particular views of his
two most famous disciples. Let us first take those of Fr.
de Condren.
The chief object of Fr. de Condren' s devotion is the
victim state of the Word incarnate and his condition of
interior annihilation and total immolation.
The victim state, according to Condren, is that which sums
up the whole life of Christ on earth and in heaven. All the
circumstances of his earthly life are the different parts of
his one sacrifice which is further continued and completed in
heaven.
" Let this," he says, " be our foundation, that his
[Christ's] whole life, from the first moment of the Incarna-
tion right on into eternity, is the true sacrifice,3 the redeem-
ing sacrifice.
1 Bremond, Ecole francaise, pp. 490-491.
2 Faillon, Vie de M . Olier, II, p. 209, Paris, 1873.
3 Idie du sacerdoce et du sacrifice de fisus-Christ, p. 60, Paris, 1901.
The conception of the sacrifice may be found completely expounded by
M. Lepin, Vidie du sacrifice dans la religion chritienne frinci-pale-
ment, d'apres le P. de Condren et M . Olier, Paris-Lyons, 1897.
372 Cbrfstiau Spirituality
It is as priest that the Word incarnate has saved the
world, and he has saved it by his sacrifice :
" The eternal design of God owing- to the fall of Adam was
to reconcile men to himself by means of a mediator. . . .
God willed that this mediator should be priest, and that he
should exercise his mediation and labour for his reconcilia-
tion of the whole human race as priest, not merely through
some sacerdotal act, such as intercession and prayer, or by
some other simple satisfaction offered to God ; but through
the noblest and most excellent of all satisfactions, the act
special to the priesthood, which is oblation and sacrifice."1
The Word incarnate is, then, essentially a priest. Christ
was appointed priest by the Incarnation itself. His life was
but one single sacrifice " the different parts of which are
made up of the divers mysteries."2 The victim of this
sacrifice can be none other than Christ himself, who sacrificed
himself to the glory of God the Father, in expiation for the
sins of men.
Condren, then, looked upon all the mysteries of the life of
Christ as parts of his priesthood and sacrifice. The spirit of
annihilation and immolation is that inner disposition of Jesus
which he chiefly accentuates. Berulle spoke doubtless of the
priesthood of Christ ; he founded the Oratory in order that
the clergy should " tend towards the perfection of the priest-
hood." Nevertheless, in the French School, the doctor of
the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ is Condren. It is,
above all, by him that St Vincent de Paul, M. Olier, and
Bossuet were inspired, in the beautiful pages they have left
us on the priesthood.3
In order to explain his teaching Condren distinguishes five
parts of the sacrifice :
" The first is the sanctification, or the consecration of the
victim ; the second, the oblation of the victim ; the third, the
slaying or immolation ; the fourth, the burning or consuming;
the fifth, the communion."4
In these sacrifices of the old law he thinks he finds " all the
parts required to make a completed sacrifice."
But the important thing for us is to know how Condren
discovers them in Christ's sacrifice :
" In the first place," he says, "the sanctification of Jesus
Christ as victim takes place at the Incarnation ; for in this
mystery the Saviour was sanctified and consecrated by the
divinity itself : Quern Pater sanctificavit (John x, 36)."
1 ibid., pp. 1-2. 2 ibid., p. 87.
3 We should read, in this connection, the beautiful work by J.
Grimal, S.M., Le Sacerdoce et le sacrifice de Notre-Seigneur Jisus-
Christ, 3rd edition, Paris, 1923. The work of Fr. Giraud, Pretre et
Hostie (Eng. trans., Priest and Victim) is well known to all.
4 L'idee du sacerdoce, p. 45.
Serullfatt Boctrinc 373
The humanity of Jesus was sanctified through the very
sanctity of the Word to which it was personally united. By
the Incarnation, Christ again was consecrated priest for
ever :
"And that which is singular in Jesus Christ," says Con-
dren, " is that by this mystery in which he is consecrated and
sanctified to be the victim of God, he is also consecrated
priest for all eternity."1
Christ, the most holy priest, " the victim sanctified for
God," was, then, from the first moment of the Incarnation
destined to offer himself in sacrifice.
This offering — which is the second part of the sacrifice —
" is also made from the moment of the Incarnation " :
" Jesus Christ, seeing that the justice of God could not be
satisfied by the sacrifices of animals made under the old law,
and having perfect knowledge of the will of his Father, who
gave him a body only in order that he might become his
true victim, replacing those of old, he addressed him in these
words : But a body thou hast fitted to me: then said I, Behold,
I come that I should do thy will, O God (Heb. x, 5, j)."2
This oblation " is not transitory or momentary." It con-
stitutes the permanent state of the incarnate Word, his per-
petual state of a victim, by which he unceasingly renders to
God " the first duty of the creature " and " the first act of
religion," which is " that of adoration and sacrifice " :
" Jesus Christ will never cease to offer himself to God his
Father by a permanent and eternal oblation ; with this differ-
ence, that whereas from the moment of the Incarnation and
during all his life, the Son of God offered himself to his
Father, as a victim to be one day slain in his honour . . .
since his death and resurrection, he offers himself as a victim
once slain and ever living before God in order to adore
him."3
This victim state is actually that of Christ glorious in
heaven, where he consummates his sacrifice. It was likewise
that of the mortal Christ accomplishing his work of redemp-
tion on earth. The Christian who celebrates the mysteries
of the life of the Saviour must then strive to make this
victim state his own and to be in communion with the dis-
positions of immolation and annihilation which belong to it.
The destruction or immolation of the victim — the third
part of the ancient sacrifices — does not always follow^ the
oblation immediately. This is why the Son of God " waited
until the thirty-third year of his age " in order to be immo-
lated on Calvary.
But all sacrifice necessitates the destruction of the victim :
"[For]," according to Fr. Condren, "sacrifice having
1 Idee du Sacerdoce, p. 61. 2 ibid., p. 65. 3 ibid.
374 Cbristian Spirituality
been instituted in order to acknowledge God as the author of
all being" and to do honour to his sovereign dominion over all
created being, it requires the consuming and entire destruc-
tion of that being."1
Death is one of the ways of destroying the victim. It is
not the only one. Moreover, all sacrifice does not necessarily
require such death. The sacrifice of the cross, however, is
brought about thereby, because Christ, like the scapegoat of
the old law, was " burdened with all the sins of the whole
world, which were laid on him by God."2 Hence, he had
to die in order to destroy sin.
The slain victim was afterwards consumed by fire, which
is " a figure of the glory of the Lord " : it was thus by being
consumed " as though changed and transformed into God."
It seemed " that thereby God entered into communion with
the sacrifices that were offered him." Thus were made plain
" the nature and true virtue of that sacrifice which is to unite
us most closely to God."3
The consuming of Christ " was not done by fire, but by the
truth typified by fire — that is to say, by the glory of God"
at the moment of the Resurrection. The humanity of Christ
" was not only changed into the representation of the glory
of God, but was transformed into the very glory of God,
without losing anything, however, of the reality of human
nature " :
"It is through the Resurrection," says Condren, " that
this sacred victim was freed from all that was earthly and
vile ; that it was wholly reclothed with a glory which becomes
the only Son of the Father . . . that it entered into a wholly
divine state, according to these powerful, but none the less
most true, expressions of St Hilary (De Trinit., xi, 40) : Ne ex
parte Deus fit, sed totus Deus.*
Finally, " the fifth part of the sacrifice is the communion.
To communicate is to participate in the victim, or to take
one's part in it. " In the ancient law there were three parts
of the victim : one was burnt, which was " God's part
whereby he communicated, as it were, in the victim."5 The
second was given to the priest, the third to the people.
God really communicated in the sacrifice of Christ. How
so? By receiving in his breast the risen Saviour who, on the
day of his Ascension, returned finally to the glory of the
Father :
" Now this return and this new entrance of the Son of God
into his Father is called communion, inasmuch as in this
mystery the whole Christ is in the bosom of his eternal
Father ... he is received . . . and as though eaten by his
1 Idee du sacerdoce, p. 40. 2 id., p. 69.
8 id., p. 70. Cf. pp. 48 ff. * id., p. 71.
6 id-> P- 53-
JSerulltan Doctrine 375
Father, if we may speak thus of so spiritual and divine a
matter."1
All the faithful, " as much in heaven as on earth," also
communicate in the risen Christ, living in the glory of the
Father.
" The blessed communicate for all eternity in this victim in
his state of consummation and glory."- They communicate
in this victim by being associated with his perpetual offering.
For, according to Condren, there is in heaven a permanent
sacrifice ; the uninterrupted oblation of Jesus united with the
saints :
" Jesus Christ offers himself and all the saints with him
as his members to the most Holy Trinity, and the saints also
offer themselves and with themselves offer Jesus Christ their
head, through Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ, and in Jesus
Christ himself : and it is through this wonderful secret that
Jesus Christ is in his person, and in his members at the same
time, perfect victim and eternal priest according to the order
of Melchisedech."3
The Mass is no other " than this great sacrifice " of
heaven, made present on earth by the eucharistic consecra-
tion :
" This great sacrifice which Jesus Christ makes to God
in heaven with his saints, in offering himself with them, is
the same sacrifice which the priests offer, and the whole
Church offers through them on earth, in holy Mass. For it
is the same victim [host] which they offer him ; since it is his
body and blood really present, united to God and subsisting in
the Word in this mystery. It is the same priest who offers it
through his ministers, and it is on the same altar, which is
the subsistence or person of the eternal Word, that it is
offered. It is also in the same temple — that is to say, in the
bosom of the eternal Father. This sacrifice is offered there
to the same God as in heaven ; and finally, not only is the
victim therein the same, but therein it is in the same con-
summation and the same glory as in heaven. The difference
is this, that though it is as really present there as in heaven,
it is not so, however, in a visible manner."*
The faithful, then, on earth communicate in the same
victim as do the elect in heaven :
" When the saints, as much on earth as in heaven, com-
municate in Jesus Christ, it is in Jesus Christ consecrated,
offered, slain, and consummated that they communicate, and
Jesus Christ bears eternally in his adorable humanity this
1 Idee du sacerdoce, p. 74. 2 id., p. 78. 3 id., p. 79.
* id., p. 79. Cf. Olier, Traite" des Saints Ordres, Part III, chap, iii :
" Is it not the same Jesus who, offering his body and Blood in heaven
for us to God his Father, multiplies this divine sacrifice amongst us
day by day, through his priests, in holy Mass?"
376 Christian Spirituality
state of consecration, oblation, immolation, consummation,
and glory which makes the communion eternal in heaven."1
Will this celebrated theory of sacrifice some day enter into
the dogmatic teaching- of the Mass?2 For Fr. Condren it
was, above all, the foundation of his asceticism. That which
is attractive in it is the "consummation " of Christ in God.
This part of the sacrifice of the Saviour contains all the
others, "his consecration, his oblation, and his death."3
This it is which Condren chiefly accentuates. He speaks of it
constantly in his letters, and he deduces from it this conse-
quence : that we should strip ourselves of ourselves and anni-
hilate ourselves in order to be consummated in God with
Christ :
" Leave yourselves to God," he writes, " in the consumma-
tion of Jesus Christ which he has effected, and to Jesus Christ
in the loss of himself in God in order that God may be all in
all in him ; and, losing- all desire of life and being for your-
selves, let all your disposition be that God be in you."4
The consummation of Christ in God was represented more
perfectly in the holocausts than in the other sacrifices. In
the holocausts, in fact, the victim was burnt so that it might
be wholly consumed in God :5
" For it is he [Christ] who offered himself to God as a
whole and perfect holocaust, of which nothing was left that
was not consumed in the ardent furnace of the divinity.
" Now we ought to belong ... to God in this intention
of Jesus Christ," says Fr. Condren, " so that he may con-
sume us wholly in himself, intending to lose all that we are,
but especially all that is of the old Adam."6
It is, in fact, by uniting ourselves with Christ, by clinging
to his annihilating consummation, that we shall belong wholly
to God. Sacrifice strips us only to enrich us, annihilates us
only to make us greater, slays us only that we may be made
to live in God. It makes us like the saints in heaven, where
Jesus Christ " and the saints with him " are "in a state of
consecration or appropriation to God ... in a continual
oblation both of Jesus Christ and of themselves . . . con-
summated in glory."7
1 I die du sacerdoce, pp. 80-81.
2 Cf. De la Taille, S.J., Mysterium Fidei, Paris, 1921, pp. 176 ff.
3 Idee, p. 80. See Olier, Traite des Saints Ordres, Part III, chap. v.
4 Discours et Lettres, Letter XXI, Paris, 1643, p. 381.
5 Idee du sacerdoce, p. 50 : When therefore the fire consumed the
victims, God, who was figured by it, seemed to unite himself with
these victims and enter into communion with their sacrifices.
6 Considerations sur les mysteres, p. 75. Bremond, p. 368.
7 Idle du sacerdoce, p. 81.
3BcrulUan ^Doctrine 377
"In this way, he [Jesus] is not only consummated in God
as our head, but he is so also in his members, in whom he
establishes himself in order to be consumed anew in them,
being already so in his own person. It is to this that we
should also tend with him ; for we should freely cede to him
all that we are so that he may effect in us the design which
he has of there being- everything instead of ourselves."1
As his biographer bears witness, Condren lived what he
taught ; his teaching ruled his every act :
" Here," says Amelote, " is the main point on which was
centred one of Fr. Condren's great devotions, and therein God
made it apparent from his childhood that he willed to bestow
on him most singular graces. After having been vowed as
a host by his parents and having had the spirit of sacrifice
infused into his soul from his earliest years, having finally
attained the vigour of his manhood and of his enlighten-
ment, he became devoted to God himself and gave himself to
Jesus Christ in order to be a host with him to the glory
of the Father. He bound himself by this vow [of host] to
the laws written by the Holy Spirit for the victims [of the
Old Testament], and though unable to keep them to the letter,
he had at least the intention of fulfilling them mystically."2
He annihilated himself so thoroughly, so thoroughly effaced
himself in order to leave a place for Jesus only, that he " was
only," as M. Olier testifies, " what he seemed outwardly and
in appearance, being within quite another self, being really
the inner spirit of Jesus Christ and his hidden life ; so that it
was rather Jesus Christ living in Fr. Condren than Fr. Con-
dren living in himself. He was like the host on our altars :
outwardly we see the accidents and appearances of bread,
within it is Jesus Christ. It was thus with this great servant
of our Lord, so singularly beloved of God."3
C — Adherence to Christ through the Mysteries of his
Eucharistic Life, according to Jean-Jacques Olier
" Our Lord," says M. Olier, " desiring to draw mankind
to his Father, has given himself twice to them : once, in the
weakness of the flesh, through his Incarnation ; the other in
the power of his divine life, through the most holy Sacra-
ment. By the first he came to establish his Church and merit
his grace; by the other to renew it and perfect it."4
M. Olier, who desired to renew and perfect the clergy,
1 Consid. sur les myst., p. 76.
2 Vie de P. Ch. de Condren, Part II, chap, xxxii, Paris, 1643,
PP- 3J9-32o-
3 Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, Vol. I, pp. 149-150.
4 ibid., II, p. 207.
378 Cbrfstfan Spirituality
devoted himself to doing- honour to the incarnate Word
" as he is in the august sacrament of the Eucharist."1
The Eucharist is the " memorial of all the mysteries of
Christ." They are there in the living state. "The inward
spirit which gives them life is present there."2 The great
desire of the Saviour is to impart himself to us. Jesus hides
himself in the Host, he the " universal mediator of grace,"
in order " to communicate to us his own life."3 His sacra-
ment has no other object " than to give us as nourishment
all his mysteries and to communicate to us their life and
virtue."4
These Berullian principles are expressed in the Pietas
seminarii, the spiritual directory of the Seminary of St
Sulpice. M. Olier thought that the true formation of the
priest was produced, above all, by participation in " the state
of Jesus Christ in the most holy Sacrament." In this he
was inspired by his own experience :
" Since our Lord deigned to make me a participator in his
state of the Host in the most holy Sacrament," he wrote to
his director, " speaking truly, it is no longer I that live : it
is he himself who lives in me. Each day after Holy Com-
munion I feel him diffused all through me, as though I felt
his presence in all my members, although in Holy Communion
he is not wedded to the body, which will only be purified in
the day of judgement. He leads me, he animates me, as
though he were my soul and my life. He performs in a
measure in my regard, what he did to [his] sacred humanity,
leading me, stopping me, opening my lips, closing them,
directing and regulating my sight — in a word, doing all for
me. Willing that I should represent him in his adorable
sacrament, he is not content thus to come into my heart to
consume it in himself, but he dwells in me in order to pro-
duce in souls the effects of divine communions and diffuses
himself thence in them as through a Host and a sacrament."5
By Holy Communion Jesus "comes to change our natural
dispositions into his own." The priest, thus changed into
Jesus Christ, acts effectually on souls :
1 Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, II, p. 207.
2 Pietas seminarii, IX : Mem oriole omnium mirabilium \_mys-
teriorum] Christi, et interior a eorum nobis fraesentia semper
[exhibit]. The edition by Labbe de Champgrand, Bourges, 1879,
p. 139. I cite the autograph text which differs slightly from the
ordinary one.
3 id., II : ibique Christum delitescentem ut mediator em omnis
gratiae . . . ut communionem frofriae vitae suae amflectetur
[Seminarium], p. 17.
* id., IV : Ad hoc enim Christus vivit in hoc sacramento, ut det
nobis in escam omnia mirabilia sua, vitamque eorum et virtutem
largiatur, p. 47.
5 Faillon, id., p. 228. M. Olier wrote this for his director who had
ordered his penitent to put in writing what passed in his soul. This
explains the very personal nature of this passage.
Sernllfan Doctrine 379
" I feel," said M. Olier, " his virtue go out of me and
be borne to them [souls] in order to communicate to them
his lig-hts and grace, as he does through the holy Eucharist." 1
It is, then, through the Eucharist that we become truly
priests.
Let us not be surprised after this at the high place that is
given to devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in the Pietas
seminarii.2 It is the principal devotion of the seminary, the
house where the clergy are formed.3
Adoration of the Eucharist is our first duty. And since
the Eucharist contains all the mysteries of the Christian
religion : mysteries such as the Holy Trinity, and mysteries
which belong to time — that is to say, the Incarnation and
Redemption — these are the mysteries that we should adore
first of all.
" There [in the Eucharist] the seminary should, with per-
fect piety, adore the divine life eternally hidden in the breast
of the Father and eternally poured forth in the Son and the
Holy Spirit ; a life which continues to be poured out in them
under the eucharistic species by unceasing generation and
spiration. In this same life, flowing from the Father into
the humanity of Christ, and spreading most abundantly into
all his mysteries so that all receive his plenitude, the
seminary, after having rendered him the worship and homage
due to him, should ask unceasingly to participate."4-'
The greatest desire, moreover, of Christ is to make us
participate, by means of the Eucharist, in his life and the
virtues of his mysteries, " chiefly in his solemn act of religion
towards his Father, in his most tender charity towards his
neighbour, in his deep annihilation of himself, and in his
irreconcilable opposition to the world and to sin."5
M. Olier has developed these thoughts magnificently in the
third part of his Traitd des Saints Ordres,6 in which he shows
how priests ought to "conform to Jesus Christ, as Host, in
the most holy Sacrament" : Host of praise and Host con-
summated in God and wholly devoted to men in an anni-
hilating immolation. We find here, restated with regard to
the Eucharist, the sacrificial teaching of Condren.
In the Eucharist, in fact, Jesus is " God's true and perfect
religious " :
1 Faillon, id., p. 229.
2 Seven articles (ii to vii) out of the twenty-three deal with this
devotion. It is also referred to in articles ix, xi, xii, and xiii.
3 Cultu fraecifuo se devovebit [seminarium] Sanctissimo Corporis
et Sanguinis Christi Sacramento, Art. ii.
4 Art. iii, autograph text, Champgrand, p. 31.
s Art. iv, Champgrand, p. 47.
' Especially chapters iii-vii.
380 Cbristiau Spirituality
" God cannot be more greatly honoured than by this divine
Host : for it contains within itself all religion and all worship
of God. There is no sort of praise, of respect or of homage
that is not enclosed in it, and not derived from it in the
Church.
" This divine Host is the summing-up of all religion : so
that he who offers it to God, offers him at the same time
all the honour, all the homage, all the canticles, all the
psalms, all the hymns recited throughout the Church; and at
the same time offers him all the respect, all the reverence,
and all the adoration presented to him in heaven [since the
eucharistic sacrifice is the very sacrifice of heaven, visibly
offered here below]."1
What a beautiful theme for meditation, for the priest who
celebrates Mass or makes his visit to the Blessed Sacrament !2
To unite ourselves with the adoration of Christ in the
Eucharist, to make it our own, in order to offer it to the
Father, is not this, as M. Olier counsels in the Pietas
seminarii, to communicate " with the religion of Jesus Christ
always hidden in the Eucharist, and unceasingly seen in the
sight of God, in order to intercede through perpetual worship
and prayer?"3 The Eucharist is thus " the sustenance of
unceasing prayer " which enables us to offer to God, in the
intimacy of our hearts, a continual sacrifice of praise.
Sacerdotal piety is not only a religious piety. It is also
"a piety of charity and zeal." Christ in the Eucharist is
the "centre of the Church's religion." It draws to him
" all people from the extremities of the earth like lines to
their centres." The most holy Sacrament is thus the prin-
ciple of the Church's unity. Through it the priest also
becomes a centre which draws souls in order to unite them
together and to give them to God.4
M. Olier was particularly moved by the annihilation of
Christ in the Eucharist. It recalled to his mind the inward
annihilation taught by Condren. It was to him also a living
interpretation of the Agnoscite quod agitis, imitamini quod
tractatis of the Pontificate. It must also be said it provided
him with one more occasion of expressing the wholly Augus-
tinian contempt which we should have for ourselves :
" From this same source of the Eucharist," he says,
" there emanates — let us be persuaded of it — the true anni-
hilation of the heart which Christ chiefly proclaims in this
august sacrament and there makes manifest to the whole
Church, much more than in the other mysteries of his holy
1 Saints Ordres, III, chap. vii. Cf. Pensies choisies, Letourneau,
pp. 54 it.
2 M. Olier suggests this also to the faithful in La Journee chritienne :
Exercice four la visile au Ires saint Sacrement.
3 Art. v, Champgrand, p. 6i. 4 Pietas seminarii, vi.
JSeruUfan Doctrine 381
life. For, although the Word made flesh annihilated him-
self by taking the form of slave, by rendering himself like
to men, and, in all outward appearance, man ; nevertheless,
in the Eucharist he lies wrapped in that which is most
common in nature, in the mere accidents of bread and wine,
where he hides himself as one dead.1 The substance of the
bread is annihilated, or rather changed into Christ. This
reminds us that, by virtue of this sacrament, we should also
annihilate ourselves and become transformed into Christ :
the Holy Spirit giving us life inwardly and the outward man
in us, which is worth nothing and only fit to be cast aside
and trodden under foot, being destroyed. Then let the pupils
of the seminary consider themselves as the most uselss and
most contemptible servants of the Church and of all the
faithful, let them place themselves in spirit at the feet of all,
like dead and putrid dogs, objects of contempt to all the
world. They should esteem themselves inferior to all and
never uplift themselves in thought, but be ever drawn to what
is humble."2
Let us not forget that this inward annihilation has as its
end to consummate us in God. The fire of sacrifice only
destroys the victim in order to change it in a manner into
God, to whom it is offered :
" The priest," M. Olier teaches, " ought to be so pene-
trated with divine fire and so consummated in God, in order
to reach that perfection known as priesthood, that nothing
is left of his first weakness, nothing of his unruly affections,
so that all in him may be made divine."3
He will, then, communicate " in horror for sin, love of
penance, and in reprobation of all evil " with the God of the
Eucharist.4 He should offer himself with Christ to the end
that he may be slain with him, and that all depravity in his
heart and in his senses may be wholly destroyed.5 Thus it is
that he will belong entirely to God.
1 Bossuet expresses the same idea : " These sacred species are the
envelope in which is enclosed the body of your Saviour, and as the
winding sheet wherewith he is covered." Meditations, The Last
Supper, Part I, 63rd Day.
2 Pie/as seminarii, vii, Champgrand, pp. 95-96.
s Saints Ordres, Part III, chap, v : " It is not enough to become
dead to self and to become annihilated in order to perform a perfect
sacrifice, it is necessary for the victim to return to God."
4 Pietas seminarii, viii. 6 Saints Ordres, ibid.
CHAPTER XIV
THE TEACHING OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL ON
THE PRIESTHOOD
THE French School, the chief end of which was
the sanctification of the clerg-y, studied the
Christian priesthood with extraordinary love. It
drew its inspiration from what St Chrysostom, St
Jerome, St Gregory the Great, St Bernard, and
the author of the Imitation had said regarding it. Faithful
to its method it looked at the priesthood in its relationship
to the mystery of the Incarnation. Its views are so pro-
found and so complete that, apparently, nothing can be added
to them. The mystery of the priesthood was considered
under every aspect by Berulle, Condren, Olier, St Vincent
de Paul, and Bossuet. How many generations of clerics have
meditated on this teaching and prepared themselves, by
endeavouring to live it, to receive holy Orders worthily !
" Our priesthood," says Bourgoing, " depends on, and is
a likeness of, that of Jesus Christ, and his is a model for our
own."1 The French School views the priesthood first of all
from the standpoint of Christ rather than of ourselves.
" Of all the qualities and glories which the Son of God
acquired in our nature through the Incarnation, the highest
and most exalted is the dignity of High Priest according to
the order of Melchisedech."2
" The unction wherewith Jesus Christ was consecrated
High Priest is the divinity itself, which, from the first
moment of the Incarnation, filled and sanctified his sacred
humanity, as balsam or perfume impregnates the paste with
which it is mixed, or fire enters into red-hot iron and pene-
trates it, or, finally, as the sun shines in splendid brilliance
through a crystal globe which contains its rays."3
Just as the Incarnation endures for ever, so " Jesus Christ
is anointed and consecrated priest for all eternity."
1 Bourgoing, Priface aux CEuvres de Birulle, Migne, p. 103.
2 ibid., 103.
3 ibid. The same teaching is found in Bossuet, Sermon stir J. C.
objet de scandale, 2nd point, Lebarq, new ed., I. p. 467. EUvation
sur les mysteres, thirteenth week, 1st and 2nd Ele>. Grimal, Le Sacer-
doce et le Sacrifice de N.-S. J.-C, pp. S5 ff
382
Doctrine of tbe jpviestbooo 383
The function of Christ as High Priest is to glorify his
Father by sacrificing himself in order to save souls :
The priesthood of Jesus " has three aspects, one towards
his Father in order to glorify him, another towards himself
in order to sacrifice himself, and a third towards our souls
in order to sanctify them and reconcile them to God."1
The first reason for the institution of the priesthood,
according to the French School, is the necessity of giving
God the adoration which is his due :
" Can the creature who is nothing but dust and sin," asks
Bourgoing, " adore his God, acknowledge him worthily, and
give him the glory due to his supreme Majesty? Jesus Christ
our Lord, who came into the world to make good this lack
and to give supreme honour and glory in our nature to God his
Father, by means of a wonderful device, instituted the Order
of priests in his Church in order to place himself in their
hands and to perpetuate through their ministry that adora-
tion and infinite glory which is due to an infinite God. This
it is which is performed by the sacrifice of the altar."2
Jesus exercised his priesthood " on himself and ever lived
his life on earth in an act of active and passive sacrifice " :
being both priest and victim. All his life was one sacrifice,
" the last consummation " of which was made on the cross.3
By this he merited pardon for the sins of men and the grace
which he confers on them. He performed with surpassing
excellence the functions of his priesthood.
The sacerdotal character of the priesthood is " the type
and likeness " of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. It unites
the priest closely and irrevocably to the High Priest :
" By it," teaches Bourgoing, " we priests are clothed with
the very Person of Jesus Christ, we speak, we act, we con-
secrate, as though we were his very self ; and, in a manner,
a wonderful assumption of our person takes place through
the Person of Jesus Christ in order to perform this great
work of the holy Eucharist, and produce his body and his
blood at the altar."4
There is between Jesus and his priest a kind of identifica-
tion. Jesus preaches by the mouth of the priest, consecrates
the Eucharist through his ministry, remits sins through him.
The acts of the priest are the very acts of Christ :
" Thus the priest is in the Church," declares M. Olier,
" like a living Jesus Christ and a Jesus Christ head of his
Church, who has not only a plenitude of grace and divine
1 Bourgoing, ibid. Cf. Eudes, Royaume de Jisus, pp. 468 ff.
2 Bourgoing, ibid. Cf. Olier, Saints Ordres, Part III, chap. vi.
3 Bourgoing, ibid., p. 107.
4 ibid., p. 106.
384 Cbristian Spirituality
riches for his own perfection, but has them also for all
people."1
Hence, the powers of the priest are extraordinary :
"The powers and functions of the priest consist," con-
tinues M. Olier, " in producing Jesus Christ; in giving the
Holy Spirit to the Church and in sanctifying the faithful ;
in giving even the eternal Father by giving Jesus Christ to
the faithful in Communion."2
This power to produce Christ in the Eucharist raises the
priest so high that the writers of the French School dare
compare him to the Blessed Virgin. Like her, the priest is
associated with the power of the Father to produce Jesus :
"The Blessed Virgin entered into participation in the
power of the eternal Father to engender the Word. And it
was on that account that she was so holy and possessed a
spotless womb in which to conceive and bring forth this
divine Son. The priest also is called to take his share with
the eternal Father in the power of engendering his Son.
He produces him, in fact, day by day on our altars, as the
eternal Father engendered him formerly on the day of the
Resurrection. . . .
" If the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin be so great, be-
cause she brought forth Jesus Christ in his weakness, co-
operating with the eternal Father in the temporal generation
or his Son, how great should be the sanctity of priests,
called to co-operate in the divine and glorious generation [in
the Eucharist]?"3
The priest again has the power of giving the Holy Spirit
to souls :
"The eternal Father," again says M. Olier, "not only
associates himself with the priest in the power of engender-
ing his Word and of reproducing him daily in glory [on the
altar], but again in that of sending the Holy Spirit and
giving him to men, so that he keeps nothing to himself that
he does not communicate to the priest."4
When the priest remits the sins of the faithful, administers
the sacraments to them, confers grace on them, it is certainly
the Holy Spirit whom he sends them. " By Holy Com-
munion " with Jesus Christ " he also gives the eternal Father
as well as the Holy Spirit."6
The priesthood, then, places the one who is clothed with
it in special and most intimate relationship with the divine
Persons :
"The priesthood," says Bourgoing, "through its inward
conditions and its outward functions, binds us to God and to
men : it binds us to God by a holy association with the eternal
Father, with his only Son, and with their Holy Spirit; it
1 Saints Orares, Part III, chap. ii. 2 ibid. 3 ibid.
4 ibid. 5 ibid.
Doctrine of tbc ipriestbooo 385
unites us also with the Church. . . . And this association
of the priest with the divine Persons is the m< st lofty that
can be, and that which is most perfect in our association
with them through Jesus Christ. . . . For we offer the Son
to the Father, by virtue and through the work of the Holy
Spirit ; and we enter into the Person of the Son in order to
sacrifice this great, unique and eternal Host of praise to the
Father through the Holy Spirit."1
How great, then, is the excellence of the sacerdotal
dignity ! The writers of the French School declare themselves
powerless to express it :
" What in the world is as great as the ecclesiastical state?"
asks St Vincent de Paul. " Principalities and kingdoms are
not comparable to it. You know that kings cannot, like
priests, change bread into the body of the Saviour nor can
they remit sins."2
But, also, how great should be the sanctity of the priest !
" Who can say what dispositions are required in the ecclesi-
astical life, with regard to all its objects what virtues should
be practised; what abstention, what uplifting, what appro-
priation to God do not so great a work and so holy a ministry
demand of us? All inward perfection and communion with
God in his highest eminence is inferior to the holiness
demanded by this state."3
"The priest," according to M. Olier, "is a prodigy of
grace, and if the word monster could be used in a good sense,
it might be said that he is a monster of sanctity."4
With what zeal did the reformers of the clergy of the
seventeenth century, thoroughly nurtured in these great ideas
on the priesthood, labour in order to sanctify priests ! This
is how St Vincent de Paul exhorted his brethren of the mission
on the vigil of a retreat of ordinands :
" Now, then, gentlemen and brethren, we are on the
vigil of this great work which God has placed in our hands ;
to-morrow, O my God, we must receive those whom thy
Providence has resolved to send us in order that we may
help thee to make them better. Ah ! gentlemen, how great
a saying is this : to make ecclesiastics better ! Who can
comprehend the height of this work? It is the highest of all.
" To be employed in making good priests and to co-operate
therein as second efficient and instrumental cause is to
perform the office of Jesus Christ who, during his mortal life,
1 Bourgoing, Preface, p. 105.
2 Corresfondance, discourses, documents, ed. Coste, Vol. XI, p. 9,
Paris, 1924. M. Olier wrote : " God has given two prodigies to the
Church — the priest and the Blessed Virgin." Saints Ordres, Part III,
chap, vi : " The dignity of a priest [is] of fearful extent and of
inconceivable obligation." Ibid.
3 Bourgoing, ibid., p. 105.
4 Saints Ordres, Part III, chap. vi.
III. 25
386 Christian Spirituality
seems to have undertaken the task of making- twelve good
priests his apostles, and therefore willed to dwell several
years with them to instruct them and form them for this
divine ministry."1
1 Coste, ibid., Vol. XI, pp. 8-9.
CHAPTER XV
ST VINCENT DE PAUL AND ST JOHN EUDES1
ST VINCENT DE PAUL,2 like Fr. Condrcn, received
"the gift of enlightening- souls" and not that of
writing. Like him he published nothing during his
lifetime. He had, moreover, a sort of worship for
the second Superior of the Oratory. " When he
heard of his death," M. Olier relates, " he threw himself on
his knees and struck his breast, accusing himself, with tears
in his eyes, of not having honoured this holy man as much
as he was worthy to be honoured."3 Vincent was a disciple
of the Oratory. He had frequent relations with Fr. Berulle,
and imbibed his teaching.
Vincent was certainly Berullian, like all the saintly persons
of his time. Nevertheless, he owes something to St Francis
de Sales.* He was given the direction of the Paris Visitan-
1 Blessed Grignion de Montfort (1673-1716) does not belong to the
period dealt with in this volume. He, however, belongs to the French
School by his teaching. His Traite de la vraie devotion a la Sainte
Vierge is well known. Cf. A. Lhoumeau, La Vie sfirituelle a Vicole
du B. Grignion de Montfort, Paris-Rome, 1904.
2 The principal biographies of St Vincent de Paul : La Vie du
venerable serviteur de Dieu, Vincent de Paul, by Messire Louis
Abelly, Bishop of Rodez, Paris, 1664; La Vie de Saint Vincent de
Paul, by Pierre Collet, Priest of the Mission, Nancy, 1748; Vie
de Saint Vincent de Paul, by Th. Nisard, Paris, 1844; Saint Vincent
de Paul, Sa vie, son temps, ses ceuvres, son influence, by the Abbe
Maynard, Paris, i860, of which there were several editions ; Histoire
de Saint Vincent de Paul, by Mgr. Bougaud, Paris, 1891 ; Saint
Vincent de Paul, by E. de Broglie, Paris, 1898, 5th edition. The
Lettres and Conferences of St Vincent de Paul have been published
at different dates. The edition of M. Coste, Saint Vincent de Paul,
Corresfondance, Entretiens, Documents, Paris, 1920-1924, is now
authoritative. The spiritual teaching of St Vincent de Paul was
summed up by Abelly, by the Abbe Maynard, and by E. Motte, Saint
Vincent de Paul et le Sacerdoce, Paris, 1900. Only the chief char-
acteristics of St Vincent's teaching are given above.
3 Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, Vol. I, p. 139. Vincent de Paul was
born at Pouy, near Dax, in 1576. Ordained priest in 1600, he
travelled on matters of business to Marseilles and suffered imprison-
ment on his return. From 1610 to 161 1 he was chaplain to Queen
Marguerite. He became Cur6 of Clichy in 161 1. Shortly afterwards
he entered the family of the Gondi. He founded the Mission in 1625,
and later on the Sisters of Charity in 1633. He died September 27,
1660.
* He often spoke of the Bishop of Geneva with great veneration.
Coste, Entretiens, Vol. XI, pp. 221, 254, etc.; Vol. X, pp. 277 etc.
387
388 Christian Spirituality
dines by the Bishop of Geneva himself. He assisted, no
doubt, at some of the spiritual conferences addressed by their
holy Founder to his beloved daughters. He read his books.
It would be interesting to compare the Entretiens of St
Vincent de Paul to the Sisters of Charity with the famous
Entretiens spirituels of St Francis de Sales to the Visitan-
dines. Vincent first of all followed the same method. His
Conference " was not a monologue. The sisters asked ques-
tions and made observations."1 We know that occasionally
St Francis de Sales' Conferences consisted solely of answers
to questions asked by the nuns. But these latter were in
the ordinary way educated, and quite capable of asking
questions. The Sisters of Charity at that time were of the
people, ignorant, timid, not daring to speak. Vincent had
to change his method and himself catechize2 the sisters.
Yet might not these interrogations cover the more timid and
ignorant sisters with confusion?
" If there be any among them unable to answer," said
Vincent in order to encourage them, " I beg them not to be
troubled thereat; for those who have but little to say are
often the best, and those who understand and say things
suggested to them easily do not sometimes do so well,
although there may be some who both say and do well."
There was the same resemblance in the choice of subjects.
Apart from exhortations respecting the Rules and functions
of the Sisters of Charity, Vincent insisted on simplicity,
mutual and cordial respect, gentleness, humility, and indiffer-
ence. * Occasionally the Bishop of Geneva's actual expres-
sions are to be found, particularly, in the Conference on the
eighth article of the Sisters' Rules, on la pratique de ne rien
demander et de rien refuser:
" The first reason," says St Vincent, " which should make
us observe this rule is because it is a practice which leads us
to indifference, which makes a soul who has reached it hardly
know what she does or does not wish, and be attached only
to God, wishing nothing else than what he wishes, and as he
wishes it. Oh ! the happiness of one who is in this state !'"
He wrote these lines, attributed to St Francis de Sales, to
Blessed Louise de Marillac about 1629 :
" I praise God for it, Mademoiselle, that you have been
thus resigned to the holy will of God, praying that both you
1 Coste, Entretiens, Vol. IX, pp. xiii-xiv.
2 ibid., p. 94.
3 ibid., p. 95. Like St Francis de Sales, St Vincent did not ordinarily
write his Conferences.
* See the Entretiens aux pies de la Chariti, Vols. IX and X. The
subjects explained in the Entretiens to the Missioners are similar.
Vol. XI.
6 Entretiens, Vol. X, p. 273.
St TlUncent ^e Paul 389
and I may ever have the same willingness and unwillingness
with him and in him, for this is an anticipation of paradise."1
Like the Bishop of Geneva again he was slow to decide,
fearing always to " encroach " on Providence and to act on
his own initiative and not according to the designs of God :
11 Oh ! What treasures are hidden in holy Providence,"
he wrote to Louise de Marillac, " and how highly do those
honour our Lord who follow his Providence and do not
override it. I recently heard it said of one of the great ones
of the kingdom that he had learned this truth from his own
experience : he had never of himself undertaken but four
things, which instead of leading to success had turned to
his disadvantage."2
" One of the characteristic features of the life of St Vincent
de Paul was his holy habit of considering our Lord in every-
thing and everything in our Lord. Moreover, as the Church
reminds us in his Office, apart from his loving Saviour, there
was nothing that could captivate his heart : Auditus dicere:
Rem nullam sibi plocere, praeterquam in.Christo Jesu. . . .
Herein, said his first biographer [Abelly], lay all his morality
and all his policy. ... It was his principle and the founda-
tion on which he relied solely, as on a firm and sure rock,
for the erection of his spiritual building."3
The spirituality of St Vincent de Paul is in fact Berullian.
It is also wholly practical, directed always towards action.
Vincent did not stop at feelings. He looked on them, above
all, as stimulants, which urge us on to the single performance
of duty :
" Let us love God, my brethren," he said, " let us love
God, but let this be at the expense of our arms, and in the
sweat of our brows. For very often many acts of the love
of God, of goodness, benevolence, and other similar interior
affections and practices of a tender heart, although very good
and most desirable, are, none the less, much to be suspected
when we never come to the practice of effective love."4
Neither did St Vincent de Paul stop at theories. Not that
he despised them : far from that ! But he appreciated them
only in so far as they were the guiding principle of sanctifica-
tion for oneself and for others :
" If, each time we enlighten our understanding," he said
to young ecclesiastical students, " we try also to enkindle our
1 Correspondance, I, p. 70. In the Lettre XLIX to Louise de
Marillac he counsels her to read " the book On the Love of God, by
[S. F. de S.] . . . notably that part of it which deals with the will
of God and indifference." Corresfondance, I, p. 86.
2 ibid., Vol. I, pp. 68-69.
8 E. Motte, Saint Vincent de Paul et le sacerdoce, p. 9.
i Entretiens, Vol. XI, p. 40,
39° Cbristfau Spirituality
will, let us rest assured that study will serve us as a means
of going to God, and let us hold it as an undoubted maxim
that in proportion as we labour for our inward perfection,
we enable ourselves the more to bear fruit for our neighbour.
This is why, in studying to serve souls, we must be careful
to nurture our own piety as well as our knowledge, and on
this account to read good and useful books and refrain from
reading those which only serve to satisfy curiosity ; for
curiosity is the plague of the spiritual life."1
Though he despised pure curiosity, Vincent de Paul gave
great attention to those simple theological opinions which
have a practical bearing. He wrote, in 163 1, to Francois de
Coudray, Priest of the Mission at Rome :
" One eminent in teaching and piety said to me yesterday
that he is of the opinion of St Thomas : that he who knows
not the mystery of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, dying
in this state, dies in a state of damnation ; and he maintains
that this teaching is the foundation of Christian doctrine.
Now, that touched me so greatly and still so affects me that
I fear being myself damned because I am not unceasingly
occupied in the instruction of the poor. What a pity to think
of it ! Who will excuse us before God for the loss of the
numbers who might be saved by the little help they might
have had?"2
We would remark that this feeling of fear is to be found
much more in the writings of St Vincent de Paul than in
those of the Bishop of Geneva : therein is a great difference
between the two Saints.
This fear, however, does not exclude holy joy. If holy
thoughts should be transformed in us by grace into vigour
expended in the service of God, this transformation will be
the better brought about, the greater our inward gaiety.
St Vincent de Paul desires this Christian gaiety because it is
a stimulant to good :
" I beg you," he counselled Louise de Marillac, "to be
full of gaiety. Oh ! How much is it needed by people of
goodwill!"3
This gaiety, he said again, is willed by God.4 We ought
1 Entretiens, ibid., pp. 28-29. The spiritual teachings of Vincent
de Paul on prayer and the Christian virtues are always very practical.
These are the counsels he gives, which in his idea should be followed
immediately. This practical note is also again found in his instruc-
tions to the Missioners on preaching. Entretiens, Vol. XI, pp. 257 ff.
Vincent herein insists on the great principle that the preacher ought
to " preach God " and not to preach himself. Ibid., p. 276.
2 Corresfondance, Vol. I, p. 121.
3 ibid., p. 145.
* ibid., p. 85 : " Be you gay also, Mademoiselle, I pray you, since
it pleases God for you to be so." Ibid., p. 109 : " Farewell, my dear
daughter, keep yourself very cheerful." Ibid., p. 147. " Nevertheless
be very cheerful and do cheerfully what you have to do."
St XHtncent fce Paul 391
to honour it in the Heart of our Lord and strive to draw it
to ourselves.1 This attraction for inward joy and holy mirth
is a point of resemblance with the Bishop of Geneva.
St Vincent de Paul warned his disciples against all exag-
geration in spirituality. Fr. de Condren said of him that he
possessed " the character of prudence."2 It was indeed one
of his dominant qualities. One is struck in reading his
Lettres and his Entretiens with his strong common sense and
the correctness of his appreciations. " He had," says May-
nard, " in the highest degree, that common sense which
Bossuet called the master of human life ; a common sense
more rare, perhaps, to the extent he had it, than what is
called genius, because it implies a combination and balance
of most numerous and opposite faculties : a perception which
grasps an idea or a matter, a comprehension which embraces
every bearing, a discernment which perceives every circum-
stance and foresees every consequence, a judgement which
regulates them and puts them in action and execution."3
One day he gave a serious " warning " to his brethren at
the seminary " on the subject — which at first seemed sur-
prising— of excess to be avoided in the love of God." Is it
possible to love God too much?
Three or four pupils of the seminary, desirous of imitating
the saints who kept themselves unceasingly in the presence
of God and made acts of divine love all day long, were " so
taken up with making continual acts of love, day and night,
ever on the strain," that they fell ill. The intention was
good, but how reprehensible was the thing itself !
" Whatever we can do," declared St Vincent, " we shall
never love God as we ought, that is impossible ; God is
infinitely lovable. Nevertheless, we must take great care
that though God commands us to love him with our whole
heart and with our whole strength, his goodness does not
will, however, that this should go so far as to injure and ruin
our health by dint of acts ; no, no, God does not ask us to
kill ourselves for that."4
This " excess," this extravagance . . . comes, ordinarily,
from an inordinate desire for progress, from self-love and
ignorance, because it is a desire to make virtue and spiritual
things perceptible to our senses. We would " at one bound
1 Corresfondance, Vol. I, p. 160 : " Please be careful of your health
and honour the gaiety of our Lord's heart." Ibid., p. 28. " Neverthe-
less keep wholly cheerful and in so doing honour the holy calm of our
Lord's soul."
2 Faillon, Vie de M . Olier, Vol. I, p. 313.
3 Saint Vincent de Paul, sa vie, ses ceuvres, son influence (1874),
Vol. IV, pp. 294-295.
4 Repetition of the prayer of August 4, 1655. Coste, Vol. XI, p. 17.
392 Christian Spirituality
mount to an eminent degree of virtue . . . and draw God to
us by dint of strength and machinery." Now, we should
wait until God gives us the gift of prayer by which he com-
municates himself to us " without effort, in a perceptible
way, wholly sweet, gentle, and loving." Then, "we feel
ourselves without trouble in the presence of God ; it be-
comes natural and never ceases, and this takes place with
much satisfaction." This does not result from our own
effort but is the fruit of our persevering prayer. Nothing
is gained by " splitting our heads to make ourselves feel
this virtue [of love] as if it were natural." We may lose
greatly by such efforts. When health is ruined we come to
feel " disgust with everything connected with devotion, dis-
gust with goodness, disgust with the holiest things, a disgust
from which we recover only with the greatest difficulty and
trouble."1 Moreover, Vincent "implores directors" of the
seminary to prevent any renewal of such excesses.
The sharpness of this reprimand lets us see that St Vincent
de Paul is much more inclined to asceticism than to
mysticism. Doubtless he was acquainted by experience with
the mystical state, although he makes few disclosures on the
subject. He did not consider himself to be a mystic. This
is the sense of his declaration in the account of the famous
vision in which he saw the soul of St Jane Chantal rising to
heaven in the form of a globe of fire. He who had this vision,
he says, " is not subject to having them and never had but
this one."
His extraordinary humility prevented him, moreover, from
believing himself favoured by particular graces. St Vincent
de Paul — as everyone knows — has, with great sincerity, said
"much evil of himself," both in his Correspondance and in
his Entretiens. Thus he had the right to exhort others to
contempt of self; and he used this right largely. His
spirituality shows very marked preference for that which re-
presses our natural pride, which produces a sense of our
baseness and nothingness.2
When he speaks of prayer — which he does admirably3 —
he occasionally refers to passive states, in which God acts
1 Repetition of the pr-.yer of August 4, 1655. Coste, Vol. XI,
pp. 215-223.
2 See Entretiens, Coste, Vol. XI, pp. 51-61, 323, 393, etc.
3 See chiefly Entretiens, Vol. IX, pp. 26, 35, 407; Vol. X, pp. 564,
571, 582 ; Vol. XI, pp. 83-93, l83> 356, 401, 403, etc. " Give me a
man of prayer and he will be capable of everything ; he could say
with the holy Apostle ' I can do all things in him that sustains and
strengthens me.' " Vol. XI, p. 83. " Now then, let us all give our-
selves up to this practice of prayer, since it is thereby that we arrive
at every good. If we persevere in our vocation it is thanks to prayer;
if we do not fall into sin, it is thanks to prayer ; if we remain in
St IDincent &e Paul 393
almost alone in the soul. But he does this in passing- with-
out insisting-. His end is to lead his brethren to affective
prayer which he so greatly loved. A beautiful treatise might
be written from what he has said on this degree of prayer.
He unceasingly counsels us " not to loiter with reasoning
during prayer," but to " be diligent in making acts of affec-
tion."1 It made him very happy when, during the exercise
of vocal prayer, one member of his company admitted his
love for this kind of prayer :
" God be praised !" he said one day, repeating these words
four or five times ; and this was in connection with what
M. Coglee, a priest of his Congregation, had said, that in re-
peating his prayers he was very little hindered by reasoning
in them, striving chiefly to make acts of affection. M. Vincent
strongly praised this way of acting and said that it was thus
that we should behave in meditation — that is, loitering but
little in seeking- for reasons, but rather inclining to acts of
love towards God, acts of humility, of regret for our sins,
and so on ; for what have we to do with reasoning when we
are convinced of that on which we wish to meditate? " Oh,
how I wish the Congregation had this practice of at once
following the lights which God bestows, rather than of
leaving them in order to loiter in seeking for reasons which
are useless at such a moment, because there is no need for
them. . . ! I beg the priests to ask this day at holy Mass
this grace for the Congregation ; and the clerics and our
brethren and the seminary, at holy Mass and Communion ;
and let their second intention at Communion be to gain this
grace of God for the little Congregation."2
The spirituality of St Vincent de Paul is entirely " in-
formed " by charity towards one's neighbour and zeal for
the salvation of souls. This charity is our Saint's dominant
virtue. All his teaching is inspired by it. It is this which
speaks in his Lettres and in his Entretiens. Everything is
subordinate to it ; this it is which suggests all projects and
brings a good result to all enterprises. It made Vincent prac-
tise almost constant heroism. It also led him to demand this
charity, if we are saved, all is through the grace of prayer. As God
refuses nothing to prayer he also grants nothing without prayer —
Rogate Do?ninum messis — not anything, not even the spreading of
his Gosoel and that which his glory most demands." Vol. XI, p. 407.
1 " When we want to have a fire, we make use of a steel ; we strike
it, and, as soon as the sparks fire the tinder, we light a candle; and
he would make himself ridiculous who, having lighted his candle,
continued to strike the steel. In the same way, when the soul is
sufficiently enlightened by considerations, what need is there to seek
for others. . . . Do you not see that it is a loss of time and that we
ought then to apply ourselves to inflaming the will and exciting its
affections bv the beauty of virtue and the ugliness of the contrary
vice?" Voh XI, p. 406."
* Entretiens, Vol. XI, p. 401.
394 Cbristian Spirituality
heroism of his brethren. He desired them to be ready " to
endure all for the salvation of souls " :
" Are we ready," he once asked them, " to endure the
troubles which God will send us, and to stifle our natural
impulses; to live the life of Jesus Christ and no other? Are
we prepared to go to Poland, to Barbary, to India, in order
to sacrifice our inclinations and our lives to him? If so, let
us thank God. But if, on the contrary, there are those who
fear to quit their comforts, who are so delicate that they
complain if the least thing- be lacking- them — in a word, if
some among- us are still the slaves of nature, given to the
pleasures of sense, like this miserable sinner who speaks to
you, who, at the age of seventy [-seven], is still wholly
worldly ; let them deem themselves unworthy of the apostolic
state to which God has called them, and let them be covered
with confusion at seeing that their brethren exercise it so
worthily and that they themselves are so far from their spirit
and courage."1
Is there any spirituality which is more provocative of zeal
and more fruitful in works of charity?
But God will not be truly honoured and Christ glorified,
souls will not really be saved, unless the Church has good
workmen :
" Oh, gentlemen," said Vincent in this connection, " what
a great thing is a good priest ! What cannot a good ecclesi-
astic do ! What conversions can he not obtain !"
Hence the institutions founded by St Vincent for the
sanctification of the clergy. Hence, also, the fiery exhorta-
tions he addressed to his brethren who were charged with
training priests :
" O my Saviour !" he exclaimed one day, " how greatly
should the poor missioners give themselves to thee in order
to help form good ecclesiastics, since it is a work most
difficult, most exalted, and most important, for the salvation
of souls and for the progress of Christianity !
"If St Vincent Ferrer was incited to perfection in the
hope that God would one day raise up good priests and
apostolic workers in order to uplift the ecclesiastical state
and to dispose men to prepare for the last judgement, for how
much greater reason should we, who see the ecclesiastical
state becoming renewed, incite ourselves more and more to
perfection in order to co-operate in this most desirable re-
storation !"2
1 Entretiens, Vol. XI, pp. 411-412.
2 ibid., pp. 7-8.
APPENDIX
ST JOHN EUDES1 AND PUBLIC DEVOTION
TO THE SACRED HEART
THE Feast of the Heart of Jesus, celebrated for
the first time in the Congregation of St John
Eudes on October 20, 1672, 2 appears to be a
transformation of the Berullian Feast of Jesus and
the Sulpician Feast of the Interior of Jesus.3 Car-
dinal Berulle, as we know, instituted the Feast of Jesus for
the Oratory in order to do honour, " not to some special
mystery " of the life of Christ, but " to his divine person and
all included in the adorable union of the God-man."4 He
1 St John Eudes was born at Re, near Argentan, in the diocese of
Seez, November 14, 1601. He made his studies at Caen with the
Jesuits, and entered the Oratory, March 25, 1623. He left the Oratory
in 1643 and founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary at Caen,
which was devoted to the work of seminaries and missions. In 1651
he founded the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity, known as the
Good Shepherd, charged with the care of female penitents, a Con-
gregation that was approved by the Holy See in 1666. He died at
Caen in 1680. He was greatly assisted in the founding of his works
by the advice of Marie de Vallees, a famous mystic born in the diocese
of Coutances. Vie du vinirable Jean Eudes . . ., by Fr. D. Boullay,
Paris, 1903-1908; Le Bienheureux Eudes, by Henri Joly, Paris, 1907.
Les CEuvres completes du Bienheureux Jean Eudes were published by
Frs. Dauphin and Lebrun, with good introductions, at Vannes, 1905-
191 1. His best known works are La Vie et le Royaume de Jisus,
Caen, 1637, Vol I of the CEuvres com-pletes, and the Cccur admirable
de la tres sacrie Mere de Dieu, in twelve books— the first eleven deal
with the Heart of Mary and the twelfth with the Heart of Jesus. Re-
regarding St John Eudes and the devotion to the Heart of Jesus, see Ch.
Lebrun, Le Bienheureux Eudes et le culte public du Catur de Jesus,
Paris, 1917; Henri Bremond, L'icole francaise, pp. 629 ff ; Bainvel,
La divotion au Sacri-Cceur de Jesus, Paris, 1917, 4th edition. L.
Garriguet, Le Sacri-Cceur de Jisus. Exposi historique et dogmatique
de la divotion au Sacri-Cceur, Paris, 1920.
2 St John Eudes ordered this feast in a circular letter addressed
to his religious, July 29, 1672. The first revelation respecting the
Sacred Heart at Paray-le-Monial took place December 27, 1673. On
July 20, 1685, St Margaret Mary and her novices celebrated, though
quite privately, the Feast of the Sacred Heart. In 1689 the Visitan-
dines of Dijon kept the Feast of the Sacred Heart publicly. St John
Eudes was then really the first to keep the public Feast of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus. From 1643 or 1644 he had instituted the Feast of
the Heart of Mary.
3 M. Bremond well explains the Berullian origin of the devotion
to the Sacred Heart, L'Ecole francaise, pp. 629 ff.
* Bourgoing, Preface to the CEuvres of Berulle (Migne, p. 99;
Berulle's Office is in Migne, p. 1707 and in the supplement.
395
396 Christian Spirituality
wrote the Office for this himself, which was approved at
Rome, February i, 1625. The object of this feast is general :
" Those who call this solemnity," says Quesnel, " the Feast
of the Glories of Jesus do not give a sufficiently large idea
of it, for it includes the humiliations as well as the glories,
and is not properly the special feast either of the one or of
the other, but of him who is the subject of them and their
foundation."1
After the death of M. Olier, his disciples celebrated a
similar feast : that of the Interior Life of our Lord. The
object of this feast is general, like that of the Berullian feast.
It is not, however, concerned with the Person of Jesus, but
" the interior dispositions with which our Lord accompanied
his mysteries and all the actions of his life, such as his
religious feeling towards his Father, his charity towards his
neighbour, his annihilation of himself, his horror of the world
and of sin : and the fruit suggested from this feast is an
abundant participation in these dispositions, according to the
counsel given by St Paul to the faithful : Have in yourselves
the mind, of Jesus Christ."2
St John Eudes kept the Feast of Jesus in a most holy way.3
He also had a tender devotion to the Interior Life of Jesus,
which was observed at the Oratory, although they did not
celebrate its feast.* We are justified in thinking that devo-
tion to the Person of Christ and to his Interior led St John
Eudes to the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The Berullian School occasionally calls the Heart of Jesus
the Interior of the divine Master, the whole of his disposi-
tions, the chief of which is love.
According to M. Olier, the Interior of Jesus is his " noble
Heart," the source of religion to the Church :
" The praises of the Church," he says, " and all the feel-
ings of love which she gives her God in heaven, are none
but the very feelings of Jesus Christ. They are his own
praises which he sheds in our hearts in order to spread his
religion further and multiply his praises by multiplying
those who glorify the Majesty of God. Whence all the
praises that the saints have ever rendered to God are derived
from the Heart of Jesus and from his plenitude : De pleni-
1 Preface to Quesnel's translation of the Office of the Feast of
Jesus . . ., Paris, 1673.
2 Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, Vol. III. p. 70. The Office of this feast
was approved May 15, 1668, by Cardinal Louis de Vendome, Legate
a latere. About the same time the seminary of St Sulpice also cele-
brated the Feast of the Interior of Mary and the Feast of the Priest-
hood of our Lord. The Office of the latter feast was that which
Fr. Eudes had drawn up for the Feast of the Divine Priesthood,
already kept in his Congregation.
F 3 CEuvres du Bienheureux Eudes, XI, p. 22.
J5"4 Faillon, ibid.
1
St 3obn JEufccs 397
tudine ejus omnes accepimus , as St John says. It is of this
plenitude that we have received some share. It is this great
Heart, in which is comprised all that is so vastly spread
throughout the Church : plena est omnis terra gloria ejus.
All our temples resound only with the praises which are ren-
dered to God in tliis beautiful Heart. All our hearts and our
temples are but the echoes which retell and repeat the har-
monious sounds rendered to God by the Heart of Jesus. O
noble Heart of Jesus, adorable source of our religion ; but
source, too, and plenitude of all our respect for God, since
all is derived by us from thee I"1
The Interior of Jesus, " his Heart," is also the principle
of all sanctity in the Church :
"It is with the works of sanctity which are performed in
the Church," continues M. Olier, " as it is with the praises
she renders to God. All acts of virtue practised by the whole
Church have been performed by the Heart alone of Jesus
Christ, so that indeed our Lord alone has performed inwardly
what the whole Church and the succession of every century
has practised throughout the ages. St Paul calls the Church
plenitudo Christi, in so far that what Christ practised in his
Heart afterwards overflowed into the Church, and it enlarged
his Heart and increased according to the same St Paul : in
augmentum corporis facit, in aedificationem sui in caritate."2
The great happiness of the Christian should be to contem-
plate the interior of Jesus, his soul, his Heart — which for
M. Olier were synonyms — and to participate therein :
" This divine interior/' he goes on, " which it pleased the
goodness of God formerly to make known to me, is the most
beautiful and wonderful thing in the world. O my Jesus,
nothing is equal to thee in thine inner self, and God grant
that I may be eternally lost in adoration of thy sanctity ! O
adorable interior! O deified soul! O soul wholly in God to
my eyes, wholly changed into God, having nothing of the
weakness which exists outside thine adorable Person ! O
my Jesus, how deceived are they in seeing thee, and how
little of thee do we see, by contemplating thee from without !
Men look upon thee thus and despise thee, but faith, pene-
trating to thy Heart, makes thee to be seen otherwise. And
it is this adorable interior which we must unceasingly con-
template, which gives virtue to all that is external in thee,
without which thy works would not be of such value before
God. It is this immense love, this deep religion, this respect,
this devotion, and this wonderful piety which causes God to
love thee and to contemplate himself in thee. Oh ! blessed
1 Mimoires, April 27, 1642. Icard, Doctrine de M. Olier, Paris,
1892, pp. 226-227. Similar expressions, Mimoires, August 27, 1642.
Icard, p. 242.
2 Mimoires, April 27, 1642. Icard, p. 227.
398 Christian Spirituality
be thou, adorable Heart of my Jesus ; and be thou blessed,
praised, and adored by all men for ever I"1
St John Eudes loved to think of the Heart of Jesus as the
symbol of the interior of the divine Master, as portraying- all
the collective dispositions of his soul : " This Heart," he
says, " represents all that is internal, but chiefly love."2 It
is, again, he says, " the admirable Heart of Jesus which is
the principle ... of all the mysteries contained in the other
feasts "•3 of our Lord. The Feast of the divine Heart, accord-
ing to Fr. Eudes, is able to sum up all others, just as does
the Berullian Feast of Jesus and the Sulpician Feast of the
Interior of Jesus.
But the Eudist conception of the Heart of Jesus is complex.
It is not drawn from Berulle alone.
St Francis de Sales, as well as the mystics of the Middle
Ages, also drew St John Eudes' attention to the Heart of
Jesus.
The Bishop of Geneva, after Berulle and Condren, " is the
favourite master of Fr. Eudes . . . While Berulle and his
disciples especially contemplated the greatness of the incarnate
Word, St Francis de Sales stops in preference to contemplate
his Heart ' so loving and so desirous of our love.' The Heart
of Jesus takes a high place in the works of the holy bishop,
especially in the Treatise on the Love of God, and it was the
reading of these works that began to direct Fr. Eudes'
thoughts and affections to the Heart of the divine Master.
Thus, from the time of his writing Le Royaume de Jesus, he
learnt to think of Jesus as the King of Hearts."4
" It seems," rightly wrote Lebrun, " that it was the
thought of the wound in the Sacred Side of the Saviour
1 Memoires, July 8, 1642, Icard, pp. 243-244. Fr. Grou, S.J.
(•f-1803) thus expresses this : " The Heart of Jesus is his interior; there
is nothing more intimate in man than the heart. To be firmly devoted
to this adorable heart is then to strive to penetrate into it by the help
of meditation or prayer, in order to know the dispositions, the emotions,
the objects suggested by it, the motives which make it act." Vinterieur
de Jisus et de Marie, Paris, 1909, p. 368.
2 CEuvres completes, VIII, p. 432.
8 ibid., p. 313.
* Lebrun, Introduction to La vie et le royaume de Jesus, Paris, 1924,
p. 62. It is above all in the fourth part of the Royaume de Jesus that
St John Eudes speaks of the Heart of Jesus. He there makes allusion
to the Treatise on the Love of God, by St Francis de Sales, above all
in that passage in Book V, chap, xi : " Yes, indeed, Theotimus, divine
love, seated in the Heart of the Saviour, as on his royal throne, looks
through the cleft of his pierced side into all the hearts of the children
of men ; for this Heart, being the king of hearts, keeps his eyes day
by day on hearts." St Francis de Sales in his Lettres often recom-
mends private demotion to the Heart of Jesus. So also does St Vincent
de Paul, Coste, Corresfondance, Vol. I, pp. 27, 71, 114, etc.
St 3ohn Elites 399
which led mystics of the Middle Ag-es to the contemplation
and love of the Sacred Heart."1 St John Eudes, under the
guidance of these mystics, was also led by. the same way to
the Heart of Jesus. No doubt it was the Benedictines of
Holy Trinity of Caen who brought to his knowledge the
writings of St Gertrude and St Mechtilde, in which the Heart
of Jesus is so often mentioned. A particular passage, too, in
the Revelations of St Bridget greatly impressed him. The
Saint relates that "as he hung on the cross, the divine
Saviour suffered pains so acute, so piercing, so violent and
terrible, for love of us, that his Heart was cloven asunder
and broken." This was the immediate cause of his death.2
The Franciscan tradition also had its influence on Fr.
Eudes. St Bernardine of Siena declared, in an eloquent
sermon, that the Heart of Christ is " a most ardent furnace
of love to inflame and kindle the whole universe."3 What
impression must not such a thought have produced on St John
Eudes, who, " from the beginning of his career," invited
the faithful to contemplate not only the grandeurs of Jesus
but also, and above all, " the immensity of his love for us?"4
Theologians have some difficulty in giving a full definition
of the object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. We often
find among them different points of view in matters of detail.
It is not surprising to find a certain lack of clearness in the
thought of Fr. Eudes. We must not forget that he lacked
a guide and advanced in a region as yet unexplored.
" In the God-man," he says, " we adore three hearts which
are only one same heart. . . . The first heart of the God-
man is his corporal heart, which is deified, as are all the
other parts of his sacred body, through the hypostatic union
they have with the divine Person of the eternal Word. The
second is his spiritual heart. . . . The third is his divine
heart . . . three hearts in this wonderful God-man which are
but one heart. . . ."5
The word heart obviously is not always taken in its strict
sense. St John Eudes gives it all the meanings he finds in
Holy Writ. 6 Let us endeavour to explain what he under-
1 Le Bienheureux Jean Eudes et le culte -public du Cceur de Jesus,
Paris, 1917, p. 61.
2 Lebrun, ibid., p. 62. St John Eudes recalls this statement of
St Bridget in his work Le Cceur admiraole, Book XII, chap, xiii, in
his circular letter of July 29, 1672 and in the Office for the Feast of
the Heart of Jesus.
3 Book XII of the Cceur admirable is a commentary on this thought
of St Bernardine of Siena. Lebrun, of. cit., p. 67.
* Royaume de Jesus, Introduction, p. 39.
6 Cceur admirable, Book I, chap. ii.
6 Thus he finds in Holy Writ that the word " heart " signifies eight
things. (Euvres du B. Eudes, VI, pp. 33-36.
4°o Cbristfau Spirituality
stands by these " three hearts," which are the three elements
of the object of his devotion.
Historians of the devotion to the Sacred Heart declare that
" the heart of flesh of the God-man did not enter into the
devotion " of Fr. Eudes. This word " heart " had always in
his writings a symbolic sense. It is " the immense love of
Jesus for his Father and for men in all his mysteries and in
all his manifestations."1 Fr. Lebrun declares that to think
thus is to be mistaken. He has no trouble in showing that
the material " corporal " heart of Christ was not outside the
perspective of St John Eudes.2 In this the Eudist devotion
approaches that of Paray. It deviates from it, however, in
that the heart of flesh of the Saviour does not hold the same
place as in the Revelations made to St Margaret Mary. Fr.
Eudes, as though he feared too great an innovation, passes
rapidly over the " corporal heart."
The "spiritual heart" is, without a doubt, the principal
element in his devotion, and this element is Berullian. Here,
the heart is a symbol. It typifies the very Person of Christ
and also his interior, " the higher part of his soul, with all
the natural and supernatural perfections which are contained
in it, such as its natural faculties, the memory, the
understanding, and the will, the plenitude of grace and of
virtue with which it was crowned, and the wonderful life of
which it is the principle."3 Although the heart typifies the
summing-up of the dispositions of Christ, it is, above all, the
symbol of love, the love of Jesus for his divine Father, for
his most holy Mother, and, above all — as St Margaret Mary
teaches — his love for us.4
We indeed find in the object of the Eudist devotion to
the Heart of Jesus, elements which St Margaret Mary placed
in relief later on. But they are blended with others that are
not retained. Devotion to the Heart of Jesus was to become
more simple. It was to have as object the Heart of flesh of
Christ, symbol of the immense and reparatory love that he
had for us: " This is the Heart which has so loved men "
our Lord was to declare to St Margaret Mary.
One of the elements of the Eudist devotion, which has not
been retained, at least as it was, is the " third heart," the
" divine heart."
Under this name St John Eudes signified specially the
Holy Spirit.
"The third [Heart of Jesus]," he says, "is his divine
Heart which is the Holy Spirit, with which his adorable
1 Cf. Lebrun, Le Bienheureux Jean Eudes et le culte public du Caeur
de Jesus, pp. 56-57.
2 ibid., pp. 57-63.
3 ibid., p. 64. Cf. Bremond, pp. 648 f.
4 Cf. Lebrun, op. cit., 66-71.
St Sobn JEu&es 401
humanity has always been more animated and vivified than
with his own soul and his own Heart."1
The Berullian School, when it speaks of the interior of
Jesus, does not forget to remind us that it is the Holy Spirit
who is its author and principle, ft is he who created in the
soul of Christ those most perfect dispositions which we so
admire.2 Fr. Eudes no doubt desired to recall this teaching
when he speaks of " the divine Heart" of the God-man.
But this is not the only thing signified by this expression
"divine Heart." It also means the divine love of Christ.
" In Jesus," says Fr. Lebrun, " since there are two natures,
there are also two operations and therefore two loves : a
human love which springs from the human will, which is
created and ended like all that is human, and a divine love,
identified with the divine essence, which is, like it, uncreated
and infinite. It is this uncreated love which Fr. Eudes
ordinarily signifies under the name " divine Heart of Jesus." 3
It cannot be denied that several passages in the works of
St John Eudes authorize this interpretation. Here, again, the
Eudist devotion is at one with modern writers.4
St John Eudes was not only the promoter of public devotion
to the Sacred Heart, he was also its theologian. He caught
a glimpse of all the aspects of the new devotion.
1 Cocur admirable, Book I, chap. ii.
1 M. Olier, in a manner, made this teaching clear, as regards the
Interior of Mary, in an engraving produced from the designs of the
famous painter, Le Brun, representing the Vie intirieur de la Sainte
Vierge: " The most holy Virgin is seen in the clouds, her hands crossed
on her breast, in which the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, distri-
butes all the riches of his grace. Her eyes are raised to heaven and
fixed on the monogram Jesus Sauveur des hommes, in order to signify
that, though the Holy Spirit was always the principle of her actions,
love for Jesus and for the salvation of souls was its end and object."
Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, Vol. Ill, p. 77. In the picture of the Sacred
Heart, designed by Sister Joly, of Dijon, for St Margaret Mary, a dove,
symbolical of the Holy Spirit, is placed above the Heart of Jesus.
Lebrun, of. cit., p. 75.
1 Of. cit., pp. 76-77.
4 According to these, the divine love of Jesus, with his human love,
is the formal object of devotion to the Sacred Heart.
HI. 26
INDEX
This Index reproduces the French " Table analytiaue " with
additional references
Abnegation, 301, 329, 346 ff.
Abubacer or Ibn-Tufail, 83
Acarie, Mme, and daughter, 287,
322, 324, 330
Acquaviva, Claude, 23, 118, 254
Adherence to Christ, 293-294,
356 rf.
^Clred, 5-6
Alcantara, St Peter of, 92-94, 11 1,
160
Algazel or Ghazali, 81, 82
Alonso of Madrid, 87 ff.
Alonzo of Orozco, 94, 96, no
Aloysius, St, 265, 292 ff.
Alumbrados, 80, 85 ff., 101, 104,
107 ff., 195
Alvarez, Balthazar, 113 ft.
Alvarez de Paz, 210 ff.
Amelote, 336 ff.
Angela Merici, St, 231, 232, 238,
264, 271
Antonio de Guevara, 94, 128
Antony of the Holy Spirit, 208,
209
Arabian- Spanish Writers, 80 ff.
Asseline, Doctor, 322, 323, 329, 337
Augustine, St, 9, 60, 65, 128, 131,
277. 329> 339. 34i ff-> 353
Augustinian Writers, 78, 118, 119
Averroes, Averroism, 81, 83, 84
Avicenna, 81
Avila, Bl. John of, 89, 105 ff.,
163, 255, 272
B
Baker, David, 21
Balthazar (see Alvarez)
Baflez, Dominic, 103-105, 113
Barbo, Louis, 16, 17
Barnabites, 230, 236-238, 257, 259
Bartholomew of the Martyrs, 96,
103
Beghards, 66, 76, 85
Bellarmine, Bl. Robert, 76, 233,
252 ff., 258, 261
Benedict, St, 6, 224
Benedictine Writers, 16-22, 79, 227
Bernard, St, 5, 8, 16, 126, 241,
278, 337
Bernardine, St, 255
Bernardino da Feltre, 270
Bernardino of Laredo, 87, 91, 94,
128
B6rulle, 322, 328 ff.
Binet, Etienne, 322
Bonaventure, St, 10-13, 226, 268,
337
Bonilla, John of, 93, 239, 261
Borromeo, St Charles, 42, 95, 231
238, 257-259, 262, 263
Bourgoing, 334 ff.
Cajetan, St, 76, 230, 235 ff., 251,
256 ff., 261, 264 ff.
Calasanza, St Joseph, 231, 238
Calvin, 64-70
Camillus de Lellis, St, 238, 245,
265, 271
Camus, Bishop of Belley, 272, 277,
322
Canfield, Bennet, 324
Canisius, 46, 47
Cano, Melchior, 95, 99, 101-103,
108-110
Capuchin Writers, 227, 238, 262,
324
Carioni (Battista da Crema), 102,
230, 235 ff.
Carmelite Writers, 79, 208 ff., 245,
249> 323
Carranza, Cardinal, 108, 109
Carthusian Writers, 5, 8, 10
Cassian, 4, 9, 236
Castagniza, John de, 17, 239, 262
Catherine of Genoa, St, 234, 235,
260, 264 ff., 318
Catherine de Ricci, St, 232 ff.,
249 ff.
Catherine of Siena, St, 232, 246,
248, 250, 287
402
Centre of the Soul, 165, 203, 225,
266, 311 ff.
Chanones, Dom John, 26
Chantal, St Jane de, 286, 292 ff.,
304 ff.
Cisneros, Garcia de, 17-21, 26 ff.,
97, 98
Clerks Regular, 237 ff., 257, 259
Climacus, St John, 6 ff., 284
Communion, Frequent, 173, 245,
261, 262
Condren, 350 ff., 371 ff.
Contemplation : Active, Acquired,
135, 196 ff., 206, 208 ff., 222
Contemplation : Passive, Infused,
15, 203 ff., 208 ff., 223 ff., 226,
326 ff., 344
D
Dark Night, 188 ff., 199 ff.
David of Augsburg, 8, 12
Devotion, 93, 99, 275, 278 ff.
Dionysius the Areopagite, 9-1 1,
92, 194, 225, 251
Direction, Directors, 30 ff., 108,
143. l63, *7*> I72, 186, 245, 246,
273. 278» 280 ff.
Discernment of Spirits, 30, 40
Dominican Writers, 95-105, 232,
235 ff., 246 ff., 261
Eck, John, 71, 73 ff.
Eckhart, Meister, 78, 86, 109
Ecstasy, 71, 91, 156 ff., 217, 226,
250
Election, Ignatian, 32, 33, 36 ff.
Emilian, St Jerome, 238, 245, 262,
265, 271
Erasmus, 2, 3, 48 ff., 331
Eudes, St John, 328, 350, 356,
357, 359. 367, 395 ff-
Florentius Radewijns, 13
Francis of Assisi, St, 234, 255
Francis Borgia,, St, 47, 106
Francis de Sales, St, 7, 62, 66, 93,
99, IOO> 233, 241, 253, 258, 272 ff.
Francis Xavier, St, 41, 46, 47
Franciscan Writers, 12, 87 ff., 92-
94, 227-228, 244, 250-251, 262
Gagliardi, Achille, 35, 239, 258
Gallus, Thomas, 10, n
Garcia de Toledo, 103, 104
3nt>e£ 403
Gerard de Groot, 12
Gerard of Zutphen, 13, 14, 65
Gerson, 3, 12, 16, 29, 67, 71, 72,
76 ff., 226
Gertrude, St, 337, 349
Grabon, Matthew, 67, 77, 78
Gransfort, John Wessel, 14-16
Gratian, Jerome, 180 ff.
Grignion de Montfort, Bl., 333,
352, 356
Guevara, (see Antonio de)
Guigues, 5
H
Harphius, 109
Hugh of Palma, 10-12, 20, 226
Hugh of St Victor, 6, 9, 13, 16,
202
Humanism :
Christian, 49 ff., 233 ff.
Devout, 61 ff.
Pagan, 1 ff.
Ibafiez, Peter, 103, 104
Ignatius of Loyola, St, 8, 18, 22 ff.,
42 ff., 51, 116, 237, 242, 259", 262
Index, 108-111, 119, 236
Inquisition, 85, 87, 96, 100, 107 ff.,
112-116, 120, 206, 231
J
Jacobus de Voragine, 25, 29
Jesuit Writers, 46 ff., 78, 79,
210 ff., 254, 323
John of Avila (under A)
John of the Cross, St, 182 ff.
John of Jesus and Mary, 208, 209
John of St Samson, 323
Joy, Spiritual, 90, 15S, 159, 204,
205, 233, 390
L
Le Fevre, Bl. Pierre, 23, 41, 42,
46, 47, 244, 262
Lefevre d'Etaples, 49, 56-62, 66
Louis de Blois, 2, 21, 71, 75
Love, Divine, 158, 177 ff., 202 ff.,
245, 264 ff., 276 ff., 300 ff., 309 ff.
Love, Pure, 236, 240, 265 ff., 317 ff.
Ludolph the Carthusian, 8, 12, 84,
248, 337
Luis de Granada, 87, 93, 95 ff.,
236, 289
Luis de Leon, 87, 119 ff., 124
Luis de la Puente, 115, 117, 213 ff.
Lull, Raymond, Bl., 82 ff.
Luther, 14, 43, 50, 63 ff., 329, 331
404
Gbristian Spirituality
M
Marriage, Spiritual, 165 ff., 204,
205
Matthew de Baschi, 238
Mauburnus, 13, 15, 16
Meditation (see also Method),
4 ff., 12 ff., 18 ff., 34 ff., 92-93,
134 ff., 197, 326, 327
Melanchthon, 64, 66, 69, 70, 78
Mercedarian Writers, 227
Method in Praver, 4 ff., 12 ff.,
18 ff., 34 ff., 96 ff., 262, 288 ff.,
323> 340, 343, 344
Mignani, Laura, 256, 257, 264
" Monastic Baptism," 66, 67
Montaigne, 52, 53
More, Bl. Thomas, 49, 60
Mortification, Inward, 240, 257 ff.,
281 ff., 285 ff., 299 ff., 347 ff.,
365 ff.
Mysteries of Christ, 122, 334, 338,
347 «-, 357 ff., 377 ff.
N
New Devotion, 15, 18
O
Olier, J. J., 328, 340, 343, 345, 348,
352 ff-, 359 «•» 377 «•» 39° ff.
Oratorio del Divino Amore, 234
ff., 269 ff.
Osanna de Andreassi, 250
Ossuna, Francisco of, 87 ff., 117,
128, 134
Pachomius, 6
Pazzi, St Mary Magdalen dei,
232 ff., 244, 246 ff., 259, 260,
265, 268
Peter d'Ailly, 71, 76
Peter of Alcantara, St (see A)
Philip of the Holy Trinity, 209
Philip Neri, St, 231 ff., 238, 239,
256 ff.
Pico della Mirandola, 49, 234
Platonism, 9, 55, 234, 341
Plotinus, 86
Poverty, 37, 174, 175, 292, 301,
347, 355
Prayer : Affective, 86, 136, 204,
221-222, 226, 393
Discursive (see Meditation)
of Recollection, 71, 89 ff., 136,
143"I45, 2l6 ff-
of Silence or Simplicity, or
of Quiet, 91 ff., 117, 143.
146 ff., 216, 225, 343, 344
of Union (see Marriage,
Spiritual, and Ecstasv,
Visions and Revelations),
91, 143, 149 ff., 216
Presence of God, 19, 117, 136, 218,
289, 307
Priests, Sanctification and Dig-
nity of, 15, 255 ff., 282 ff., 372
ff., 382 ff.
Purification, Active, 187 ff.
Purification, Passive, 153 ff.,
198 ff.
R
Rabelais, r, 56
Rapture (see Ecstasy)
Revelations, Mystical, 105, 228,
245 ff.
Ribadeneira, 24, 26, 42, 48
Richelieu, Cardinal,, 325 ff.
Rodriguez, Alphonso, 210 ff.
Rodriguez, St Alphonsus, 217 ff.
Sacred Heart, 268, 395 ff.
Sadolet, Cardinal, 49, 233, 235
Savonarola, Jerome, 92, 235
Scupoli, Lorenzo, 239
Serafino da Fermo, 97, ro2, 236,
262
" States " (French School), 330-
333, 338, 342, 347. 348, 35°> 35^>
353, 357-36i, 363 ff-. 37i, 375-378
Suarez, Francis, 76, 207, 224 ff.
Suarez, John, 115, 118
Tauler, John, 71, 73-76, 87, 109,
225
Teresa, St, 87-94, 103-106, m-115,
118, 119, 121, 124 ff., 272
Theatines, 230, 231, 236-239, 259
Theologia germanica, 72, 78
Thomas Aquinas, St, 9, 10, 12,
60, 67, 248, 272, 310, 34r, 342,
39°
Thomas of Jesus (Augustinian),
r2i-i23
Thomas of Jesus (Carmelite), 209
Transverberation (St Teresa), 159
Tremblay, Joseph, 324-325
Valdes, Fernando de, 101, 108, 109
Valdes, Juan de, 86
Varani, Bl. Battista, 239, 244, 251,
267
Yernazza, Battista, 265 ff.
Vernazza, Ettore, 235, 265, 269
Victim State, The, 371-376
Vincent de Paul, St, 308, 328, 355,
372, 382, 385 ff.
\ : ions, Mystical, 105, 160 ff., 327
Visitation, Order, 298 ff.
Vocation, Mystical, 139 ff., 211,
214 ff.
405
W
Ways, The Three, 8 ff., 184, 326
Windesheim, 13-15
Ximenes, Cardinal, 85, 87, 88
Zaccaria, St Antony Mary, 230,
236-238, 245
BV 5021 .P5813 1922 v. 3 SMC
Pourrat, Pierre,
Christian spirituality