Preface

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WESTERN MYSTICISM
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F. INNOCENTIUS APAP, S.Tn.M., CXP. Censor Deputatus.
Imprimatur
EDM. CAN. SURMONT Vic. Gen.
Westmonasterii
die 26 a August, 1926
DOM "CUTHBERT BUTLER
\
WESTERN MYSTICISM
The Teaching of SS. Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life
Second edition with
AFTERTHOUGHTS
E. P. BUTTON & GO. INC.
First published . . . 1922 Second Edition , . . 1926 Reprinted 1951
PRINTED AND MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
FLETCHER AND SON LTD, NORWICH AND
THE LEIGHTON-STRAKER BOOKBINDING CO. LTD, LONDON
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
ONLY one change of any magnitude has been made in the text; the 'Epilogue' has been shifted to the middle of the book: the reason is given at the commencement of the 'Afterthoughts*. A large amount of fresh matter is added. Nearly eighty pages of 'After- thoughts' are prefixed, the result of criticisms and questionings made on the book, and of further reading and thought. They are in effect a survey of the active controversies in progress for the past thirty years over the whole field of mystical theology, chiefly among Catholic theologians; they will be found to deal with the most im- portant and vital problems, both practical and speculative, that encompass the domain of contemplation and mysticism. An addi- tion of a dozen pages has been made also to the Appendix, in response to the call for something more definite on the question of natural and non-Christian mysticism.
CUTHBERT BUTLER
Eating Priory London, W.$
ist November 1926
PREFACE
A YEAR ago a writer in the Nation, under the name 'Cure de Campagne', while reviewing a book on Mysticism, was good enough to say: In reading a book on mysticism., we want to know exactly where our guide himself starts from, what are the pre- suppositions, the governing principles of his investigation. One could read a book on the subject, say, by Abbot Butler of Downside, in complete mental comfort, with one's feet on the fender. One would know where one was, what one started from, what had to be taken for granted/ If the following pages respond in any measure to these expectations, it will be because certain Master-Mystics are allowed to speak for themselves, the author only acting as showman, to introduce the speakers on the scene, call attention to the salient features of what they say, point the moral, and sum up the import of it all. Readers are apt to find long extracts boring, and to skip them with a hurried glance; it would be an entire misconception to take up this book in such frame of mind because the extracts are the book, and whatever value it may have lies almost wholly in them, the author's personal contribution being little more than a framework in which the extracts are set. I have confidence, how- ever, that anyone who does read these utterances of three of the great religious geniuses of Western Christianity will before long be caught up and carried away by the elevation, the eloquence, and the compelling fascination of the words wherein they lay bare the most intimate and sacred relations of their soul with God.
This book has been twenty years in the making. Among the projects for promoting theological studies that owed their initiation and achievement to the late Dr Swete while Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, was an Association for the Study of Christian Doctrine, the members whereof were each to take up some subject for private study. This was in 1902, and in the original list I am entered for 'Western Mysticism 5 . The first collection of material from SS Gregory, Bernard, and John of the Cross, was made in 1904. It was an afterthought to include St Augustine; this extension of the field, while adding greatly to the difficulty of the work, without doubt has added equally to its value as a contri- bution to the history of religion: the sections on St Augustine are certainly the most valuable portions of the book.
There are enough, probably more than enough, books 'about'
PREFACE
mysticism, expounding the writers' ideas thereon: these books con- tain miscellaneous citations of words of mystics, selected with the object of illustrating and enforcing the theories that the author is propounding. What is needed is a more objective presentation of what the mystics themselves thought about their mysticism, to be determined by a systematic study and formulation of the ideas of a number of the principal mystics, such as is here attempted in the case of three of them. This seems to be the necessary basis for any scientific treatment of the subject.
The title 'Western Mysticism' is explained and justified in the Summary of Part I. It means something different from 'Mysticism in the West 3 , which would be a much wider subject. It means the native mysticism of the West that prevailed in Western Europe during the six centuries from St Benedict to St Bernard, and has characteristics of its own, marking it off from later kinds, and still rendering it peculiarly appropriate for Westerns. Special attention is directed to the section on St Gregory in Part II, being his teaching on the contemplative and active lives. It contains a body of doctrine at once elevated, sane, and practical, that must, it is believed, prove most helpful to the pastoral clergy and to all priests for the regu- lating of their lives.
CUTHBERT BUTLER
Downside Abbey ist September 1922
AFTERTHOUGHTS
THE first edition of Western Mysticism has had the advantage of careful criticism on the part of competent and thoughtful writers, some of whom, by stressing a certain confusion of mind which they experienced in reading it, have brought home to me the fact that there was a serious structural flaw. The book really divides into two quite distinct parts, dealing with different, though related, prob- lems: Part I, Speculative, the nature of Contemplation and the Mystical Experience in itself; Part II, Practical, the Contemplative Life and its fusion with the Active in a Mixed Life, properly so called, i.e. one according to St Thomas, and, as I believe, according to St Gregory, and St Augustine before him. Now the 'Epilogue', which stood as the concluding section of the whole book, ought really to have been the conclusion of Part I, and its misplacement was, so I believe, the cause of the sense of confusion felt by many readers. In this new edition the 'Epilogue' has been moved to its rightful place at the end of Part I. Though placed at the beginning, these 'Afterthoughts' are Afterthoughts, suggested by criticisms and questionings made on the book, and by further reading and thought.
i. Current Controversies on Mystical Theology
There has been running in France for the past quarter of a century, and with increased intensity during the last half-dozen years, an active controversy among the theologians over the entire ground traversed in these pages. And I found that by the sentence on p. 216, distinguishing between, on the one hand, 'acquired, active, ordinary contemplation', and, on the other, 'infused, passive, extraordinary', I had unwittingly plunged into the thick of the fray. To the best of my knowledge, no account has been given in English of the course of these discussions; yet is the subject-matter of much interest and importance, both theoretical and practical, for the ordering of the spiritual life. Therefore it seems that the most illuminating manner of dealing with the questions that have arisen out of this book, will be to treat them as parts of the general con- troversy.
The movement of the past quarter of a century may be charac- terized as a great return to the ideas of antiquity and of the Middle Ages concerning contemplation and its place in the spiritual life.
X AFTERTHOUGHTS
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the idea had come to be accepted as well established, that, apart from special and unusual calls, the normal mental prayer for all was systematic discoursive meditation according to fixed method: this was taken to be the lifelong exercise of mental prayer for those embarked on a spiritual life priests, religious, nuns, devout layfolk. Contempla- tion was looked on as something extraordinary, almost identified with visions, revelations, raptures, even stigmatization and levita- tion, and other such psycho-physical phenomena. Thus contempla- tion and mystical theology had come to be regarded as wonderful, even miraculous; to be admired from a safe distance, and left alone as dangerous and full of pitfalls. Such was the common view, such the common practice, almost taken for granted at the end of the nineteenth century.
The first to rise up against the prevalent view, and to reassert vigorously, as the old and genuine Christian tradition, the principle that contemplation should be the normal issue of a spiritual life seriously led, and therefore is a thing open to all devout souls, was the Abbe Auguste Saudreau. He in 1896 published Les Degres de la Vie spirituelle (5th ed., 1920), and in 1901 followed up the subject in La Vie d' 'Union a Dieu et les may ens d*y arriver (3rd ed., igsi). 1 The latter book is made up of a catena of extracts from Fathers, theo- logians, and spiritual writers through the centuries, in proof that the author's position is grounded on the firm Christian tradition of the first sixteen centuries. This book is of first importance. Also in 1901 appeared the great volume of Pere Augustin Poulain, S.J., Les Graces d'Oraison (700 pp.); it has had a great vogue, the tenth edition, twenty-first thousand, being issued in 1922. 2 It is a practical treatise on mystical theology; its value is greatly enhanced by the collection of citations of texts that follow each chapter. These books of Saudreau and Poulain have been the principal means of popu- larizing among Catholics the whole subject of mysticism and con- templation during the past quarter of a century, and of making familiar to devout souls the relatively easy possibilities of the spiritual life.
Unfortunately, perhaps, though in substantial accord on the practical issue of bringing back contemplative prayer into the actual programme of life of devout souls of what degree soever, >audr$au and Poulain differ on a number of points, of theory indeed, but still affecting practice; so that an acute controversy has
1 Both books are translated into English.
*It has been translated into English The Graces of Interior Prayer > and into German, Italian, and Spanish.
AFTERTHOUGHTS XI
sprung up around their presentations of the fundamental positions of mystical theology. The chief points in dispute will appear suffi- ciently in what follows; but here the leading combatants must be introduced. And first Mgr Farges, a personage of great consideration as former Director of Saint-Sulpice and of the Institut Catholique of Paris, and as author of a great course of scholastic philosophy in several volumes. He appears as a whole-hearted supporter of Poulain and uncompromising opponent of Saudreau, It is right to mention him prominently, both because of his personal position and authority, and because his treatise on mystical theology has just been published in English. 1 No one can afford to neglect it, as probably the most effective fighting presentation of the side opposed to Saudreau and to what may be called the Dominican school.
For, as might be expected, the Dominicans have intervened, seeking to bring in St Thomas as arbiter on the questions in debate. The foremost among them is Pere Garrigou-Lagrange, professor of theology in the Angelico College, Rome; he has made up a series of articles from the Dominican organ of popularization, La Vie spirituelle, into a book, Perfection Chritienne et Contemplation selon S. Thomas d'Aquin et S. Jean de la Croix (2 vols., 900 pp., 1923, now in the sixth thousand). Another Dominican theologian, Pere Joret, also has made up a volume out of articles in the same periodical, La Contemplation Mystique d*apres S. Thomas d'Aquin (1923). I have read these two works carefully even twice through and with great enlightenment and profit. Their purpose is to show that though St Thomas wrote no treatise on mystical theology, he has laid down in many places of various works principles that cover the subject and can be built up into an intellectual fabric in which the descriptive statements of their experiences by St John of the Cross and St Teresa find their place and can function easily.
It will cause no surprise that over against this Dominican school of mystical theology stands a Jesuit school. PereBainvel, S.J., Dean of the theological faculty at the Catholic University of Paris, has prefixed to the tenth edition of Poulain a long introduction of a hundred pages, summing up very clearly the state of the question as it stood in 1922, and setting out the points still in controversy between the two schools in the domain of mystical theology.
1 Mystical Phenomena, 668 pp. (Burns, Oates and Washbowne, 1926). Part II, on 'accidental or marvellous mystical phenomena 1 , is much less satisfying than