372 Book Reviews

La Rkgle de perfection. The Rule of Perfection, Benoit de Canfield. Edition critique by

J. Orcibal (P.U.F., 1982).

The publication of Benet of Canfield’s treatise on contemplative prayer is an important event in the field of the seventeenth-century history of spirituality. It is the only complete critical modern edition of a book which stands at the cross-roads of modern spirituality, embodying several earlier traditions: fourteenth-century English mysticism, the Rheno-Flemish school, as well as the Capuchins’ own tradition inspired by St. Bonaventure.

Considered by Bremond as ‘le maI^tre des maitres’, William Fitch (1562-1611) was converted to Roman Catholicism as a student in 1.585. The following year he entered the Capuchin convent in Paris and took the name of Benet (Benoit) of (Little) Canfield in Essex, his birthplace. He had mystical experiences, indeed ecstasies (he never considered these important), which, as his spirituality matured, were reflected in his writings. He became a sought-after spiritual director and preacher. In his order he was a contemporary of Ange de Joyeuse (in turn leader of the League and Friar Minor) and had encouraged the religious vocation of Francois du Tremblay, better known as Grey Eminence. The first version under the title Exercice de la VolontC de Dieu had already begun to circulate in manuscript form when Benet felt a missionary call to his country. He was promptly imprisoned as a priest and during this time wrote the English version of The Rule of Perfection, dedicated to his Wiseman cousins. Benedictine nuns on the continent. On his return to France in 1602 or 1603, he resumed his activities and also revised La RI?,@ de perfection. Parts I and II appeared in 1608 and the full edition with Part III in 1610. Benet never translated Part III into English, he felt uneasy about it since it ‘treateth only of things abstract, of high contemplation of the Essence of God unfitting the common sort’ (Letter to J. B. de Blois). An English adaptation exists, by Giles Randall (or John Everard), A Bright Starre Leuding to and Containing in Christ our Perfection (1646: Lambeth Palace Library). Its direct approach to the spirit was appreciated by the ‘Children of the Light’ (later Quakers), but not within Roman or Anglican orthodoxy. St. Francis de Sales found it difficult to comprehend and did not advise his Visitation nuns to read it, unlike Parts I and II. The French edition of 1610 had some fifteen further editions during the seventeenth century and the Latin version some ten.

The three parts of the Regle cover the three forms of God’s Will: the exterior, the interior and the essential. At the beginning stands the active seeking of God’s Will in the outer circumstances of man’s life, accessible to all sorts of people. In Part II Benet discusses the manifestation of God’s Will in us, through inspiration and illumination when the soul is in a passive state. In the third part which, according to Benet, needs careful guidance, the soul contemplates the will of God directly, without the intermediary of the intellect or images. It is the annihilation of the self before God. Into this part Benet has added several chapters on the meditation of Christ’s Passion, thus giving it a more concrete character.

The Rule incorporates various trends of spirituality: English fourteenth-century mysticism, in particular the Cloud of Unknowing, but also the German Dominican school, Master Eckhardt and Tauler. The third part is indebted to the Flemish mystics. Ruysbroeck and Harphius. and their passive contemplation. Like others in his order Benet followed the teaching of St. Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Drum. The Rule thus brought earlier mystical movements into the keenly receptive Parisian milieu of the early seventeenth-century about the same time as the Teresian reformed Carmelite spirituality.

For the serious student of seventeenth-century spiritually this impeccable scholarly

Book Reviews 373

edition of the complete text of La Rtgle de perfection together with the indication of

Benet’s sources is an invaluable and indispensable instrument de travail. In July 1982 a small group of interested people met at the invitation of the Director

of the Maison Francaise in Oxford to discuss the edition. Much of the discussion was centred on the late inclusion of the Trait& de la Passion in Part III. Was it a cautionary measure either imposed on Benet or added of his own accord so as not to be bracketed with the ‘Illumines’ or ‘Alumbrados’? Or did it represent an evolution in Benet’s thinking? Benet reserved this part for those advanced in contemplative prayer and defended this ‘vie supereminente’ on the authority of St. Bonaventure. the pseudo- Dionysius and the Flemish mystics.

Short bibliographical guide

Optat de Veghel, Benon de Canfield, sa vie, sa doctrine, et son influence (Rome, 1949); J. Brousse, La Vie du R.P. Ange de Joyeuse, la vie du R.P. Benoit (1621), English version by R. Rookwood (1623), edited by A. Birrell (1959); C. J. Reel, ‘William Fitch, Capuchin: The Man and his Writings’, B.Litt. thesis (Oxford, 1949); E. Gullick, ‘The life of Father Benet of Canfield’, in Collectanea Franciscana (1972), and ‘Benet of Canfield, The Rule of Perfection: the active and contemplative life’, in Laurentianum (1972); P. Mommaers, ‘Benoit de Canfeld et ses sources flamandes’, in Revue d’Histoire de la Spiritualite (1972, 1973); K. Emery, ‘All and nothing, Benet of Canfield’s Regle de Perfection’, in Downside Review (1976, 1977), and ‘Benet of Canfield. Counter-Reformation Spirituality and its Medieval Origins’, Ph.D. thesis, Toronto (1976); E. Dubois, ‘The Hotel Acarie: a meeting place for European currents of spirituality in early seventeenth-century France’, in Durham University Journul (1979).

Oxford Elfrieda Dubois