Book I. Dialogue VI: Other errors of the false mystics: to be aware of one’s acts is culpable only in so far as it feeds one’s self-love

I

Q. What is the first of these errors ?

A. It is to attribute in general to imperfection the perception of acts; for it is not from this that imperfection, when it is present, comes, but from self-love, which causes us when reflecting on these acts to appropriate them to ourselves and admire ourselves for them, instead of attributing them entirely to God. On this point Bossuet recalls the acts of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Ones in Heaven, of the Prophets and the Apostles and persons of eminent holiness, who, entirely free from all self-love, recognized in themselves distinctly the operations of the Holy Ghost and their own, without any vain complacency and therefore without imperfection; from which he concludes that it is wrong to place the perfection of Prayer in the abolition of all acts, as soon as the faintest glimmer of them is seen, as the new mystics do.

Q. Is Bossuet’s doctrine in accord in such points with that of the true mystics ?

A. Perfectly; for he teaches: (i) that God removes the knowledge of acts and of certain graces only from feeble souls which, not yet being sufficiently free from the returns of self-love, would spoil everything were they aware of it by attributing it to themselves instead of to God; (ii) that the greatest perfection of souls is to know distinctly all sorts of good acts, graces and heavenly gifts, attributing them all to God, with the same detachment as if all these things were outside them, and referred only to their fellow-creatures; (iii) that it is never permitted to us to strip ourselves of our acts and operations; we must merely suffer the removal when it pleases God to perform it, either by grace or by temptation, as we will explain later.

II

d. What other error is condemned here ?

A. The suppression of reflections, under the pretext of developing good habits.¹

Q. In what terms did the Bishop of Meaux condemn this error according to his principle ?

A. With regard to habit, and to its acts which flow from the source without any need to excite them or even less to realize them, the false mystics fall into their usual error, which is to make general what is only true in a limited sense and up to a certain point.

Q. What is this point of limitation according to him ?

A. This: it is true that habit, shaped by nature, partly destroys reflections, but not always nor altogether; the reason is obvious, for in this life the inclination to good cannot be so strong that there is no need to keep it straight by reflection; it is, therefore, untrue to say that there are states in which one must never reflect.

Q. In the second place, what is the error here condemned as being connected with Quietism ?

A. The error is the false idea of perfection and beatitude in this life, which effects the exclusion of desires, petitions and reflections in our so-called perfect souls. 2

Q. What perfection and beatitude do they imagine to exist in this life in their perpetual contemplation ?

A. A perfection which takes us back to the purity of our creation, destroying in us all concupiscence; and a perfect beatitude, for it is called a perfect satiety in the Moyen Court and, in the Cautique, a possession more

Q. What does Bossuet say to this ?

A. He first declares,² with the mystics, that it is

Q. These errors all seem to me so obvious, both in

A. You should know, however, that as a greater

Q. But why return once more to the continuity of

A. If you knew in greater detail whence and how to it, you would rather admire the happy discovery which has given the solution of all Quietism, for it is this which is the chief or only source of all those exclusions and suppressions of commanded acts, in which Quietism consists.

Q. I do not understand how the exclusion of all the commanded acts can come from this one source.

A. I will demonstrate it to you: let us suppose that the act of a contemplative love which embraces all virtue is continuous, invariable, unrepeatable; given this supposition of the Quietists the perfect contemplative will have nothing to do, nothing to ask, nothing to desire. For this reason: because he is truly in perfect union and in the enjoyment of the sovereign good, which he contemplates without interruption, rather like the angels in Heaven: it is for this reason too (I do not know if you have paid close enough attention to this point), it is for this reason that near the beginning of the Instruction Pastorale the Bishop of Meaux comprehended all the poison of false mysticism in a single sentence: c The essence of Quietism is, placing perfection in things which are not, at least not in this life.’ By this he referred to the unique and continuous act which exists only in Heaven; which led the Quietists, he added, to suppress in certain states many essential acts.

Ill

Q. Since it is for such an important reason that he returns to this point of the supposed continuity of contemplation, I beg you to tell me what is most necessary to know of his further teaching on the subject.

A. The first thing that comes to my mind is the strong objection he makes to his own theory thus i 1 it will be asked if, since Gassian and the great teacher of the Church of Alexandria talk continually of perpetuity and continuity of contemplation, and of the prayer of the perfect, it should be concluded that they * Book VI, § 37.

recognized this single, continuous, invariable act which is the very foundation of the new Prayer; I reply without hesitation: no.

Q. How then does he explain the perpetuity of which those two great mystics, Cassian and Clement of Alexandria, speak ?

A. He says³ that they refer to a continuity which is not rigorous nor metaphysical but only moral; this he proves from common speech: as when it is said of a geometrician 2 that he is occupied with this science night and day; this is not intended to mean that he thinks of it without interruption, strictly speaking; and one must be very prejudiced not to see that the manner of speaking of Clement of Alexandria is of no other sort. What he urges later 3 against this great principle of Quietism seems to me even stronger. When the false mystics said that it is possible to come to a state of perpetual presence of God without interruption, they would still be far from their single, continuous, invariable act, which lasts a lifetime without diversity or succession of thoughts, and which need not be renewed.

Q. All I require to know now is in what the Bishop of Meaux states that this moral continuity of contemplation and of the other prayers of the perfect consists.

A. You must know⁴ first that by perfect he means not those which are so absolutely, but only in comparison with inferior states, because they desire and attempt to be perfect and use all their efforts to reach that state; he adds, following Cassian: With regard to these perfect souls 5 the continuity of their prayer exists only in intention, which always subsists in some manner but which cannot always subsist as a formal act; otherwise there would be no need to recall the gaze of the heart to God.

Q. But how can this prayer, or morally continuous contemplation, subsist always in intention ?

A. This, replies Bossuet,⁵ following the doctrine of the Abbot Moses, exists on a basis of good will, which is fixed on God alone according to the habit of holy love. Now through the firmness of this habit, which is in a sense unshakable, one tends towards an uninterrupted prayer because one forgets nothing in order to attain to it.

Q. But what does one do to attain this ?

A. Cassian tells us to fix in God our will and intention, that is to place so firmly in him our last end that nothing can separate us from him. Not that we are always actually in this condition, for he judges this impossible in this life; but by an inclination and tendency, which are habitual, or even virtual, as theology has it, and with a blessed facility, so that in some states when we are asked to whom we wish to belong in the bottom of our hearts, we are always disposed to reply ‘ to God. 5

<2- What does this foundation of good will and intention produce ?

A. According to Bossuet 2 it produces a succession of good movements so consistent and so uniform that it is easy to see that all depend on the same interior principle, that is, the habit of holy love; and it is this that in this life is called contemplation, or perpetual prayer.

IV

(2- Where does this contemplation or perpetual prayer take place ?

A. In the most intimate depths of the heart, in that interior where God has graven his likeness, where the devil sees nothing, and where the soul, entirely absorbed in God, gives no hold to the attacks of the enemy. 3

(2- Contemplation is then in practice very different from what one associates with the name, for according to our author, to Cassian, to the holy Abbot Moses, it is merely a good will fixed on God, with a habitual tendency which produces a succession of good move- * Book VI, § 39. * Book V, § 43. 8 Book VI, § 41.

dialogue VI 59 ments: but are these good movements always perceived ?

A. They are often so little perceived that souls of good will possess the precious gift of consolation unknowingly, that is, ordinary contemplation, which is so called to distinguish it from that extraordinary contemplation the saints are often granted.

V

Q. Is it possible that one may have the gift of ordinary contemplation in whatever degree without knowing it ?

A. Hear these few words written by the Bishop of Meaux in his Preface i 1 We are contemplatives without realizing it; shall I say, we are even experienced in it.

Q. Does he give some authority and example for this statement ?

A. He recalls first the person of whom S. Teresa spoke, who found her afflicted with inability to make mental prayer or apply herself to contemplation, so that she often found herself reduced to making a few vocal prayers: it turned out in the end that she was in a state of contemplation without knowing it. These, Bossuet says, are the secrets, I might almost say the wondrous jests, of eternal wisdom, which conceals from souls what it gives them, and forces them to seek contemplation when they already have it. Even learned people are as subject as others to these secret leadings of Providence. God makes them as small as he pleases, and they see in themselves only ignorance and blindness.

Q. The Bishop of Meaux suggests in these last words that it is in this kind of prayer that God most humiliates learned souls.

A. Very true, for the most humiliating, the most annihilating of all kinds of prayer, in the view of the mystics, is ordinary contemplation, whether perceived or not.

Q. Why is it, then, that certain people so fear vanity in contemplation ?⁶

A. Because they know it only by the name which dazzles them, and not by the practice which humiliates.

Q. But how is it that the mystics themselves are always telling us to beware of vanity ?

A. This is not because of this prayer in itself, for, according to them, it is most humiliating; it is because of the false ideas which they know are usually conceived, and which lead certain arrogant minds to seek cause for vanity in an illusory elevation, whereas in the reality of contemplation, in practice, there is nothing so humbling, so destructive of human vanity.

Q. Does the Bishop of Meaux give any other example of this unconscious contemplation ?

A. He declares⁷ that by these admirable contrivances of divine wisdom a good and simple teacher, who does not think he prays more than the generality of the faithful, may yet be a contemplative, even an experienced one, without knowing, and will tell you in simplicity what God asks of you.

Q. But in what does he say the contemplation of this good and simple teacher consists ?

A. His study, he tells us, which according to the rule of S. Augustine, is only attention to the eternal light and a holy attachment to him who is truth itself: that is his contemplation; for that is a sort of contemplation.

Q. According to him then there is a large number of contemplatives among the true believers?

A. Yes, among those who have that good will fixed on God; but there is only too much reason to believe that the number of these is very small in all states, even among the truly faithful.

Q. As we seem to have come to the end of the Sixth Book of the Instruction Pastorale some time ago, I should like to know his conclusion.

A. It is the shortest of all: here are his words: 2

Q. I confess that until now I had very little idea of

A. That if this work has not achieved equally the acts are even in the case of the most perfect, and in what this suppression consists.⁸

Q. Am I to understand from your words that we have come to the end of his work ?

A. You might well think so, since he has so well fulfilled his twofold purpose.

Q. Is there something more ?

A. He continues to dwell on the same subject, but now he speaks more directly in favour of truth than against abuses which are already sufficiently combated; so that now he proposes to fulfil more closely the beautiful words of his Preface: * And everywhere I will try to prevent the abuse from destroying the taste for truth. The title alone of the next book of his Instruction Pastorale will show you that.

Q. Since in all matters nothing can give a clearer, more exact and precise knowledge than definitions, I should like before we pass on to have the Bishop of Meaux’s true definition of the Quietists.

A. ‘ The Quietists are those who, by a complete cessation of acts, abuse the holy rest of prayer. 5 1 Ponder well these few words, for you will find in them the whole doctrine of his Instruction in a nutshell, and an infallible guide for recognizing all Quietists and all books which are redolent of Quietism, so well did Bossuet know how to reduce the most confused subjects to the most exact precision.

Footnotes

1. 13ook Y, § 31. Ibid,, § 35. DIALOGUEVI 55 real than can be described, of the essential beatitude which is God. possible to enjoy God without ever seeing him except with the eye of faith, and to possess him thus, even in this life, but only in hope, not in deed: spe non re: from which he concludes that the most perfect souls have always need to desire, to petition, often even to reflect. Whereas in this alleged surfeit of enjoyment, and in this state of consummate perfection there would be nothing either to desire or to ask, not even persever- ance. 2 For our so-called perfect souls there are neither mortifications nor virtues to practise, or any violence to do oneself; they have only to rest in a leisured and pre-ordained security which is directly opposed to the spirit of the Gospels and to all the most perfect examples of the greatest saints. their principles and their consequences, that I have nothing more to ask. A. Bossuet foresaw this good effect, 3 when he said at the end of his book: ‘ this is a more than sufficient explanation and refutation of the doctrine of the new mystics. 5 CL- Since it seemed to him more than sufficient, it must be only the fastidious who are not contented with it. enlightenment he added yet another book in which he opposed the tradition of the Church to this suppression of petitions, but most of all to the continuous act of the new contemplatives. the act, a doctrine which seems so obviously false ? he deduced this continuous and single act, you would not only cease to be surprised at his continual returns ↩

2. Book Y, § 3(3. Ibid., § 37. 8 Ibid., § 37. G ↩

3. Book VI, § 38. * Ibid., § 48. » Ibid., § 52. ↩

4. Ibid., § 21. 5 Ibid., § 37. ↩

5. Preface, § 7. 6o ↩

6. Preface, § 9, ↩

7. Prejaoe, § 7. a Book VI, § 52. DIALOGUEVI 6l ‘ We now conclude what we have to say against the new mystical principles.' what constituted Quietism, even when I had listened to many people who had read this ample Instruction.* but what is the conclusion we should draw from this ? two intentions of the author, this is in no way his fault; for in setting them forth in his Preface had he not good reason to say d I hope that by these means the errors will be revealed (could they be better revealed?). Those who fail less through wickedness than through imprudence will rejoice at being set right (Have they not good reason to do so?). Simple souls that are still weak will be drawn to prayer, and those which are already practised in prayer will be less fearful of yielding to the divine attraction. In fact, what could either fear now ? And is there a director in the world who cannot easily recognize every error and abuse of Quietism, either in books or teaching, with the aid of a master whose reputation is well known, especially in the science of dogma; a master who lacked none of the information necessary for this, since he was a great Archbishop, equally learned in mystical theology as much in practice as in theory, and had previously given him long extracts and beautiful comments on the contemplative authors, with a number of passages taken from the Greek and Latin fathers, the canonized saints and the approved doctors; a master, in short, who first disentangled and developed everything, then reduced it to principles so simple, so unique, that he comprehended the whole poison of the heresy in these few words that cannot be too often repeated: ‘ The essence of Quietism lies in attributing perfection to those things which are not, at any rate in this life, which doctrine leads Quietists to suppress in certain slates many definitely com- manded acts. And he has taught us well what these ↩

8. Book X, § 3. ↩