most of us under the spell of Port-Royal. Its attraction for Englishmen is extraordinary but easily explicable. The nuns and the Solitaries were Puritans and anti-papalists; they were saints-not canonized indeed, but truly saints in the original sense of the term; they were martyrs. There is high romance in their story as M. Bremond himself recognizes (iv p. 283); they have their great romantic historian, SainteBeuve. They had until within a few months of his death and they claimed as their inalienable possession the man before whom even to-day science and philosophy stand bare-headed, Blaise Pascal. All this poetry has helped to blind us to the inhumanity of their creed and the grotesque impossibility of their conduct. M. Bremond exposes both with unflinching hand. He strips Saint-Cyran of the bright and manycoloured robe in which Sainte-Beuve arrayed him, and shews him for what he really was—not a great moral reformer or leader of men, not a true mystic, not even a formidable conspirator, but a poor thing, at best a revivalist preacher, at worst a mild megalomaniac. He shews conclusively that the real founder of the sect was Antoine Arnauld, a man breathing and inspiring controversy, with no real vision of high things, living to snatch momentary victory at the cannon's mouth, nay, himself a piece of ordnance-'une mitrailleuse théologique en mouvement perpétuel'. He argues that the system inaugurated by Arnauld effectually dried up in the second half of the century the springs of contemplative devotion which flowed freely in the first half, and that the chief siccific agent was Pierre Nicole, a half-hearted Jansenist, but a whole-hearted anti-mystic.

Taken as a whole, M. Bremond's indictment of the school of Arnauld, severe but not unchristian, seems to be unanswerable. But on his last point, the influence of Jansenism in checking the mystical current, a counter-plea may be put in. The Society of Jesus, which produced many authentic and splendid mystics, Alvarez, Surin, Lallemant--not to mention Edmund Campion-which took its marching orders from a man who saw visions and from a book, the Ejercicios espirituales, essentially mystical in its main tenets, was as a practical organization hostile to mysticism. We have only to read the story of the opposition offered to Lallemant and Surin by those of their own house (v pp. 267– 276). The Order was divided against itself: 'le duel devient pathétique, jésuites contre jésuites.' And although Surin enlists our sympathy and compassion, it would be unfair lightly to condemn the hostile majority of his brethren. For mysticism, as they saw, contains a dangerous element. Few can walk in the enchanted garden and take no harm; the many are apt to pluck the poison flowers of Molinosism. And as a fact all the wisdom of the Church is needed to distinguish contemplative Saints from Quietists. The ordinary confessor whose business is

with ordinary souls and who has not himself the rare gift of true contemplation is almost bound to mistrust and condemn ecstasy as extravagance.

If it is clear that Surin was baulked and rebuffed by members of his own Order, it is surely probable in the highest degree that they played a large part in the reaction which M. Bremond seems inclined to attribute solely to the Jansenists. But besides the direct and positive opposition there was perhaps another, a negative way in which the Jesuits helped to block the stream of contemplative devotion and to divert it towards meditation and moralizing. There can be no question that, in spite of lofty ideals and genuine piety, the Society, by its precepts and its handling of Penance, promoted that lax morality in which the dying Pascal, freed from party spirit, reconciled in heart to Rome, saw the Enemy (cf. the Mémoires of M. Beurrier in Jovy Pascal inédit ii p. 491). The truth is that the substitution of external authority for the voice of conscience is bound to have lamentable results, even when that authority is as venerable as the noble Jesuits to whom M. Bremond introduces us. And in the seventeenth century, Probabilism, of itself a harmless, necessary aid to confession, was often used by penitents, without condemnation by the confessor, not to solve honest doubts, its legitimate function, but to find excuse for continuing in sin. No wonder then that in a corrupt age not only a genius like Pascal, but commonplace men like Nicole, turned all their attention to morals. Now when morals occupy the field of vision there is little room for mystical contemplation. Had Nicole been mystically minded, which he was not, he must have put it all aside in order to fight la morale relâchée. If this contention is sound, then the Jesuits are under two heads responsible, no less than their arch-foes, for the reaction against mysticism. Having uttered this caveat, I can only bid the reader go and take his pastime with M. Bremond. He will find himself in a large room, walking in a Paradise of Saints, some of them too obscure to have a place in the all-comprehensive Biographie universelle, who deserve the praise and loving treatment which they get from their historianMme Acarie, Mme Helyot, Yves de Paris, and a host of others. In dealing with them, as with the rest, M. Bremond displays uncommon insight, an unerring grasp of catholic principles, and a range of reading which few of his countrymen possess. He is entirely at home in England. His studies of Newman (Développement du dogme chrétien, Psychologie de la foi) are probably known to many, and admirable they

are.

But his familiarity with English thought and letters extends far beyond and on either side of Newman. Miranda's cry 'How beauteous mankind is!' is the motto for his first volume. He knows at first hand John Wesley and Charles Simeon, Thomas Goodwin, George Herbert,

Mrs Humphry Ward (where, by the way, is Christina Rossetti ?), all of whom serve their turn with a reference, a comparison, a quotation.

He

expresses regret that he has not time or knowledge to follow out the parallel movement in seventeenth-century England, and the influence of Saint François de Sales on our writers. We rebut the latter excuse and we wish that he would put his hand to the task.

To return to the work before us, we believe that it deserves a place beside Sainte-Beuve's Port-Royal for its portraiture, and beside Baron Fr. von Hügel's Mystical Element in Religion for its psychology; and there can be no higher praise.

Volume iv, containing a delicious study of La Mère Agnès and La Prière de Pascal, is the one which will probably appeal most to English readers, and it will reward them. But on it I have two remarks to make. (1) It is strange that M. Bremond who explodes so many ancient superstitions should apparently retain that one which represents Pascal as unlearned. Why should he not have read St Bernard? ('Pascal avait-il lu ces textes? Cela me paraît moins certain . . . p. 378.) At the end of his life he had nothing to do but to pray and read. He was no doubt late in coming to theological literature, but once he acquired the time and taste for it, he would have been insatiable. See how he devours the Pugio Fidei! No evidence of his erudition should surprise us. (2) I feel that M. Bremond when he approaches Pascal's proof of religion derived from original sin (p. 391) states only half the case. Pascal is not persuaded by the mere fact of man's misery, but by the contrast of his misery and his greatness. It is the difference between what he is and what he was and might be-his corruption and darkness, his high thoughts and hunger for the good, that impels the apologist to find the key to the riddle in the doctrine of a Fall from the divine likeness and original liberty.

Apart from these two points M. Bremond's account of the man who out-Jansened Jansen but was too great a spirit to be held slave by any sect is a notable contribution to the study of one of the most attractive and perplexing figures in history.

H. F. STEWART.

Histoire de la Littérature Latine Chrétienne, par PIERRE DE LABRIOLLE. (Paris, Société d'Édition 'Les Belles Lettres', 1920.)

THE French Roman Catholic layman, Professor de Labriolle of Poitiers, has already given such signal proof of his competence in the sphere of Christian Latin literature that a comprehensive volume on the subject from his pen is sure of a wide welcome. In the present

work he not merely sets forth what is most surely believed among us, but he commands such a dignified diction for the purpose, and is such a master of method, that his volume is a model of what such a book should be; and if there be any in our country who have an interest in its subject and yet cannot read French, the sooner it is translated into our language the better. For we have nothing to equal it, even approximately.

The work is divided into an introduction and five books, headed respectively: 'Les Origines', 'Le Ie siècle jusqu'à la paix de l'Église (313)', 'L'âge d'or de la littérature latine chrétienne', 'La décomposition de l'Empire', 'Au seuil du Moyen-Âge'. The introduction deals. in a most interesting way with the relation between pagan and Christian literature, and furnishes a general bibliography. In the other chapters the most important facts with regard to the authors and their works are treated according to a natural division, not without much sane criticism, and the writer takes us as far down as Isidore of Seville. Each chapter is equipped with a bibliography shewing the author's wide command of the literature of the subject, both early and late.

The rest of my space may profitably be devoted to notes I have made in the course of reading the book. There can be no doubt that a second edition will shortly be called for. Page 62, the Letter of Clement is generally dated in the last decade of the first century, not 'au second siècle'; page 71, it might have been mentioned that Augustine also complains of the poverty of the Latin language (loc. hept. iii 22; quaest. hept. ii 116; epist. 84. 2); page 73, it is no longer true that the De baptismo of Tertullian is without manuscript authority, since Dom Wilmart's discovery of a MS at Troyes; and the oldest MS of the Apologeticus at Petrograd (saec. ix) should have been mentioned; p. 75, Löfstedt's three important volumes on Tertullian (Lund, 1915, 1918, 1920) have been undeservedly overlooked; it is also a mistake in a work of this character to refer the reader to the earlier work on Montanism for details that ought to be repeated here; p. 177, refer also to Sancti Aureli Augustini Tractatus sive Sermones inediti, ed. G. Morin (Campod. et Monac. 1917), p. 103; p. 178, Abp. Benson's great work receives no mention; p. 304 read Olisipo for Olisopo (so also p. 338), and record C. H. Turner's recovery of Ossius as the real name of him we usually call Hosius; p. 423, for 13407 read 13047; p. 446, add M. L. McClure's translation of the Itinerarium Aetheriae (London, 1919); p. 519, for 1680 read 1679,1 and compare Rottmanner's discussion in the Geistesfrüchte aus der Klosterzelle; p. 559, n. 2, for xxxiv read xxxxiv; p. 568, n. 1, add R. S. Moxon's edition, the best (Cambridge, 1915); p. 660, add to the works

1 I myself possess a copy with this date.

of Cassiodorus the Pseudo-Primasius on thirteen Epistles of St Paul (Migne P. L. lxviii).1

It ought to be mentioned that the excellent index is preceded by eight most useful chronological tables: (1) a comparative table from A. D. 100 to 600 giving Roman Emperors, Christian Latin Literature arranged according to countries (Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyricum), principal contemporary Greek Christian writers, and contemporary profane literature; (2) chronological arrangement of the works of Tertullian with references to the places where each is printed in the modern editions, and similar references to the French translations: (3), (4), (5) similar tabulations of the works of Cyprian (with PseudoCyprianica), Hilary, and Ambrose (with falsely attributed works); (6) table of shorter poems of the fourth century 2; (7) and (8) are like (1), (3), (4), (5), and tabulate the works of Jerome and Augustine.

Not for generations has the temper of the age been so much in harmony with the conditions amidst which Christian Latin literature grew, and it is earnestly to be hoped that this admirable book, beautiful in its printing as in other respects, will tempt many young readers of classical attainments to make acquaintance with the later period. Professor Phillimore does well to tell us to 'read deeply and perpetually in all Greek and Latin without respect of departments '.3

A. SOUTER.

Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der lateinischen Apokalypse-Übersetzung von HEINRICH JOSEPH VOGELS. (Schwann, Düsseldorf, 1920.) THE methods employed by Sanday in his well-known study of k (Codex Bobiensis) of the Old-Latin Gospels have been pursued with success by Burkitt, Hans von Soden, and Capelle, but it may be doubted if they have ever been carried out on such a massive scale as in this epoch-making work of Dr Vogels. Vogels's work on the Diatessaron is widely known, and his edition of the Greek New Testament was recently reviewed in the JOURNAL. It is no disparagement to his other work to call this the most important of all that he has produced.

Three-fifths of the book are devoted to investigations, and two-fifths 1 I have noted misprints on pp. 5, 20, 49, 51, 53, 58, 68, 176, 226, 235, 312, 387, 415, 424.

2 Here the writer makes the usual (continental) mistake of treating J. E. B. Mayor's wonderful Latin Heptateuch as an edition.

3 The Revival of Criticism (Oxford, 1919) p. 32.

• Vol. xxii (1920–1921) pp. 174 £.