Cisn. Exercises Piers Introd

E. ALLISON PIERS
on GARCÍA
de CISNEROS, O.S.B.

Benedictine Abbot, Moretto, 1520

E. Allison Peers, Studies of The Spanish Mystics, “Chapter I, The Dawn of The Golden Age: García De Cisneros” (S.P.C.K., 1960), pp. 2-29.

1. A literature of miraculous beginnings-Devotional literature in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century-Precursors of the mystics: Sor Isabel de Villena: her Vita Christi; Gómez García: his Chariot of the Two Lives

2. García (Jiménez) de Cisneros: his life and works-The Book of Exercises for the Spiritual Life: history of its publication in Spanish and in Latin-The Directory of the Canonical Hours and its function-Character of Cisneros .

4. The three Ways in the Book of Exercises. Higher degrees of contemplation. Characteristics of the mysticism of Cisneros: importance given to mental exercises; tri-partition of the Purgative Way; stress laid upon the life of Christ; small place given to the supernatural. General impressions of this book as a mystical treatise

To a casual observer, if not to a careful student, the literature of Spain may well seem to be one of miraculous beginnings. Whatever may have been the progenitors or contemporaries of the twelfth-century Poem of My Cid, they have so long since passed away that the incomparable epic stands out today in unrivalled grandeur. No work of continuous fiction that can be unreservedly praised appears in Castilian before the close of the fifteenth century, when, unexpectedly, and as if by accident, one of Spain’s greatest geniuses threw off the magnificent dramatic fiction known as the Celestina. While as to Spanish drama, the successful rival of prose fiction throughout the Peninsula, its early history is one of age-long gropings and scratchings, till at last, in the brief course of hardly more than a decade, there appear, not masterpieces indeed, but works which point clearly to their imminence.

The Golden Age of Spanish mysticism begins with almost equal unexpectedness. Though isolated works having a mystical tendency can be found throughout mediaeval times, there is nothing in Castilian till the very end of the fifteenth century which can both fairly be called mystical and also be described as of any great merit. Surprising as it may seem, a classic like Ramón Lull’s Book of the Lover and the Beloved appears to have had no direct literary influence in Castile-indeed it was not for centuries that it was even translated into Castilian. And if Ramón’s canticles of fire could not kindle that arid mediaeval Spanish desert, it was hardly to be expected that any other ardent soul would be able to do so.

In the year 1500, however, appeared two treatises, entirely unrelated to each other, either of which is considerably better than anything of the kind that had appeared in Spain since the death of Ramón Lull. The authors of both, as we shall shortly see, went exclusively outside Spain for their authorities : a not unnatural inference is that they were forced to do so from the paucity of the material which Spain provided. Whether the inference is correct or no will be for the future historian of Spanish mysticism to discuss; but it may safely be termed so if the productions of religious literature during the last decade of the fifteenth century be any indication of what was available.

In this decade we meet with one of the earliest Spanish translations of the Imitation of Christ (1493) a work attributed commonly to Jean Gerson and often termed Contemptus Mundi. Not only so, but a less famous translation of a far less worthy Italian original (1492) goes into a second edition, while Denis the Carthusian attains to three Spanish editions in seven years. Here are indications, at least, of how, at the epoch of the Reconquest (1492), the newly learned art of printing was being turned to the highest uses. But what were Spain’s original contributions, in this decade, to religious literature? Iñigo de Mendoza’s pious popular rhymes and Francisco Jiménez’ wooden and halting Book of the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1496) must be taken as typical of them. Another contribution, of a slightly different character, is Pedro

the most attractive features are its title and the fact of its being written, not in the usual Latin of convention, but in Castilian. Its first part, consisting of eighty-seven chapters, gives a prolix and rambling account of the birth and early life of Christ, of his passion and death, his resurrection and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The second part, of rather more than half the length of the first, treats of the seven sacraments, and the third part, of laws human and divine and the four Last Things.

More readable, but hardly of greater importance, is the Vita Christi of the devout Valencian abbess Sor Isabel de Villena, which, despite its title, is written in “romance”-i.e. Lemosin, the Catalan of Valencia-“that the simple and ignorant may know and contemplate the life and death of our Redeemer and Lover, the Lord Jesus”. Alas, that the abbess’ “elegant y dole stil”, so highly praised, in the preface, by her successor, no longer enthrals us! The book is composed of two hundred and ninety-one chapters, of which the long, formless sentences, linked loosely by conjunctions and relative pronouns, narrate the events of Christ’s life, going back, in the fashion of the chivalric romance, to a point of time before the birth of his Mother. The reflections of the abbess are as simple and sincere as her epithets are naive and unlearned. Pilate is described as “that cruel judge”; the Roman soldiers are “those rabid dogs” ; Joseph of Arimathaea is “the noble knight”. Only in one respect does Sor Isabel foreshadow the mystics -in the deep and earnest love which manifestly inspires her as she tells her story. Never losing herself in fantastic exuberance or meaningless hyperbole, she writes in something of the style that St Teresa was within a century to adopt and to surpass beyond measure. Both women have this in common, that they write without a trace of self-consciousness, their gaze steadily fixed upon the object of their love. In its spirit, if not in its achievement, Sor Isabel’s Lemosin is no unworthy successor of the Catalan-provenzal of Ramón the Lover.

But between the productions of Spanish religious literature in 1497 and 1500 there is set a greater gulf than any to be crossed during the early history of the fifteenth century. When, in its last year, there appeared in Seville Gómez Garcia’s Chariot of the two lives, those who read this new book must have been conscious that there had at last been written in Spain a work of real utility to contemplatives. Today we see it in a different perspective: all but completely eclipsed by greater works in unbelievable number, and therefore unread and forgotten. It made no claim to be original: it was “compiled . . . and turned from Latin into Romance out of many books and from parts of the sacred Scriptures “.Its length is excessive, the plan of its progression none too clear, the metaphor representing the active and contemplative lives as the two wheels of a cart clumsy and ill developed. But, with all these faults, the book has an important place in Spanish mystical history. Its “principal intention is to write something on the matter of contemplation”, the last word being taken quite definitely in its mystical sense.

For what he writes on contemplation, Gómez García is indebted almost entirely to St Thomas Aquinas and to Richard of St Victor. [St Thomas is the less quoted of the two, and the quotations are not generally important, but the whole book appears to be coloured by his teaching: in Part I, from chaps. 21 to 37, Richard is almost the sole source; thenceforward he is again and again utilized for the principal part of a chapter] He quotes so freely and so unskilfully that parts of his mystical chapters read almost like an anthology; only when he passes from the contemplative life to the active does his writing become less derivative and begin to cohere. There is not a great deal in the mystical chapters that is practical; still less is there that might have arisen from the author’s own experience. The impression which these chapters leave upon a modern reader is that García was merely endeavouring to put into Spanish (for “los no latinos”) what he considered worth translating from mystical writers of the past.

So much is, at the least, a beginning, but a further great advance was made by the other work which saw the light in 1500 a manual for the would-be mystic which in its compilation as well as in its intention reveals signs of genius. García de Cisneros, in his Book of Exercises for the Spiritual Life, shows perhaps as great an improvement upon Gómez García as does that writer upon any of his immediate Spanish predecessors. For its intrinsic merits, it is a work which may be, and is, in fact, still read. Historically it is of still greater importance. If St Ignatius of Loyola was the first in time of the outstanding mystics of the Golden Age, García de Cisneros was the first of those who can be called mystics at all. Further, his book drew from authors of whom some at least seem to have been completely unknown in Spain before he introduced them there. Its presentation of the mystical life is both coherent and individual, and it exercised an undoubted influence upon the great Saint whose name has just been quoted. The Book of Exercises has other claims than these upon our attention, but these alone will give it a sufficient right to occupy us for the main part of a chapter.

Gómez García was a priest of the city of Toledo; García de Cisneros a Benedictine monk of Montserrat. Lovers of symbolism will not easily forget that, of these two mystical treatises, springing from no Spanish antecedents, the author of one came from the city crowning the rock which rises precipitously from the Castilian plain, the author of the other from the sheer and rugged home of the Black Virgin which towers above the fertile plains of Catalonia. There is fitness in the thought that these epoch-marking pioneers developed in two such environments. But still more striking is it that the Golden Age of Spanish mysticism may fairly be said to have taken its rise in a spot which, throughout the centuries of the Middle Ages, was one of Spain’s preeminent shrines of popular devotion.

García Jimenez de Cisneros was born in 1455, at Cisneros, in the province of León, some twenty miles from Palencia. He was an only son, well descended, and his family had ability as well as noble birth, for the great Cardinal, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, was his cousin.

After being educated, it is believed, at Salamanca, the leading Spanish university of the day, García de Cisneros entered the monastery of St Benedict (San Benito el Real), which John I of Castile had founded at Valladolid just before his death in 1390. Though we hear nothing of Cisneros from the date of his taking the habit (1475) till that of 1492, there seems little doubt that for the greater part of this period he held some office in the community. When he emerges again into history it is as the second in command, or sub-prior.

In the year 149 2 he comes into prominence in a somewhat striking manner. Not long after the reconquest of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabel, on their way northwards to Roussillon, visited the monastery of Montserrat, and having, like their ancestors, great devotion to the shrine, remarked disapprovingly on, the condition into which it had fallen. Founded probably as early as the tenth century, it had won for itself a resplendent name in the early mediaeval period of Spain’s history. Visited for a score of generations by pilgrims from all parts of Europe, honoured and endowed by kings, prelates, and nobles, it reached the climax of its greatness when in 1410 it was raised to abbatial dignity. But soon after that date it had entered upon a period of swift decline. In the middle of the fifteenth century its numbers had shrunk so rapidly that it had in residence only seven monks, three hermits, two lay-brothers, two escolanes (altar-servers or choir-boys), and one servant. The Abbot had become a habitual absentee; the buildings of the monastery were in a sad state of dilapidation; and its income was dispersed among a number of its principal dignitaries.

The Catholic Monarchs, anxious to raise the famous monastery once again to its former glory, communicated with the Prior of St Benedict at Valladolid, who was at that time General of the Benedictine Order in Spain. As a result of this, the Prior went there with twelve monks, among whom was his deputy, Cisneros, to take in hand its reform, for which a bull was issued by the Spanish Pope, Alexander VI, on 19 April 1492. The abbatial dignity of Montserrat was abolished, and the Abbot, Juan de Peralta, having accepted superannuation in the form of a vacant bishopric, the monastery was united to the house of Valladolid, García de Cisneros, naturally enough, be coming (28 June 1493) its first Prior.

This was a difficult office for a comparatively young man to assume. Reforms imposed from without are seldom popular, and the person entrusted with their enforcement is not, as a rule, to be envied. In the present instance, though the infusion of new blood would have had considerable cleansing properties, there were many reasons why Cisneros’ task was particularly difficult. A contemplative, as it would appear, both by temperament and by training, he found himself faced with the task of drawing up new constitutions for each class of religious, and with the harder one of securing their adoption and observance. It is worthy of notice that, while the new statutes were not brought out until 1501, or adopted till late in the year following, the Book of Exercises for the Spiritual Lye, which was intended primarily for the monks, appeared on 13 November 1500. Before the constitutions of the reformed monastery, that is to say, came the spiritual foundation on which the reforms were to be built, and the use of the Exercises, including the learning by heart of certain chapters, is expressly enjoined in these constitutions, upon novices, monks, and hermits alike.

The Exercises appeared anonymously-for they were printed for convenience only, and all who first used them knew well the name of their author. Both the Spanish and the Latin editions date from i 5oo. It has sometimes been thought in the past that the Latin edition was the original, but the priority of the Spanish text is now established, and its translator is generally held to have been a monk named Torquemada, who, though he did not profess at Montserrat and only resided there from 1502, is credited with the translation by a number of authorities.

In the same year was printed at Montserrat, also in Spanish and Latin, García de Cisneros’ Directory of the Canonical Hours, which gives clear and concise instructions on preparation for the Divine Offices, and on the conduct of the individual during their recitation, “that he may ever be attentive and lift up his soul to God”. Like the Exercises, the Directory was appointed to be used regularly where appropriate. Since its first publication, it has generally been issued as a supplement to the Book of Exercises. And this is fitting, not only because it is short, but because the two treatises have much in common. Insistence on methodical meditation, the making of connections between meditation and vocal prayer, and a strongly practical attention paid to detail in worship are perhaps the three chief characteristics of the Directory. Since this book is in no sense mystical it will be unnecessary to deal with it further. But these same characteristics we shall also find, and very markedly, in the Exercises.

In various ways, during the years between his election as Prior and the adoption of his constitutions, Cisneros’ efficiency and success had been recognized. The Catholic Monarchs were so greatly struck by his work at Montserrat that they endeavoured, though not very successfully, to effect reforms through his agency in other Benedictine houses of Catalonia. The congregation at Valladolid, which was the centre of an extensive reform movement, not only approved his new statutes, but adopted his Exercises, and employed him frequently in personal consultations. In another sphere his ability was utilized by the secular powers in the public service. In 149 6, Charles VIII of France, who had been at war with Ferdinand the Catholic over the kingdom of Naples, found that Spanish opposition was becoming too strong for him and proposed to Ferdinand peace and a division of spoils. In the delicate negotiations which preceded the signing of a treaty between France and Spain (1497), the Prior of Montserrat was one of the Spanish ambassadors. The story goes that when Ferdinand offered Cisneros a recompense for his services, the Prior asked that Montserrat should be restored to its abbatial status. Be the reason what it may the event took place in 1499 and García de Cisneros became Abbot.

There now began for the monastery an epoch of such prosperity as it had not known for generations. Pilgrims flocked to it once more, bringing offerings, small and great, which were augmented by the benefactions of nobles and by the pence of the poor of Catalonia, collected by the brethren. Freed by its promotion from subordination to Valladolid, it took under its wing San Ginés, near Perpignan, the Priory of San Sebastián, and the venerable monastery of Santa Cecilia, whose Abbot the new Pope, Julius Il, had once been. The monastery church of Monserrat was newly adorned and beautified. With the aid of one Juan Luschner, of Barcelona, a printing-press was established (i Soo) and a number of books, including those already described, were produced in the year of its foundation. New buildings sprang up-a school for the escolanes, a novice-house, and a library: for the last the Abbot had brought books from France, and acquired others from the library at Valladolid. Rules for monks, lay-brothers, chaplains, hermits, and escolanes were drawn up, and a book of ceremonies, combining past tradition with present expediency. A confraternity was formed, and new provision made for pilgrims, with the expectation of attracting multitudes such as had frequented the sacred mountain in the Middle Ages. If contemporary accounts may be wholly believed, this object was in great part attained.

For eighteen years, until his death (27 November 1510), García de Cisneros ruled the monastery of Montserrat with all the efficiency and distinction which we should expect of him. The efficiency, it is true, we have to deduce from such facts as we have recorded above, for contemporary testimony dwells rather upon the distinction. Nor was this the superficial impressiveness of a prelate accustomed to command; the keynote of Cisneros’ government, as of his whole life, was a deep spirituality. In his talks to the monks, both in public and in private, we read, “were revealed the flames of fire of the love of God which was all his sustenance”. And his speech, though ever of the life of prayer, was not that of words dulcet and gentle, but went straight to the very souls of his hearers, “cleaving them, as it were, with arrows”.

The first thing to be noted in the Book of Exercises for the Spiritual Life is the orderliness of its plan. The first three sections, short and closely related to one another, may be said to form its first part, while a longer fourth section, which forms a second part, is similarly divisible into three. The first section (chapters 1-19), after outlining the author’s ideals of spiritual progress and describing such ordered exercises as he thinks likely to ensure their attainment, lays down exercises connected with the Purgative Way, to be undertaken daily, after Matins, and repeated week by week, for so long as seems advisable. The second section (chapters 20-25) deals wholly with the Illuminative, and the third (chapters 26-30) with the Unitive Way, each section containing both expository matter and detailed exercises. The three sections taken together comprise in actual length rather less than half the entire volume.

The three parts of the fourth section, which is concerned exclusively with the life of contemplation, are each of about the length of one of the three sections preceding-if anything, slightly longer. The first eighteen chapters of this section (31-48) treat of the nature of contemplative life contrasted with the active life, the qualities required for the former, its impulses and aims, the conditions in which it flourishes, and the examples of it given by certain saints. Twelve chapters (49-60) then describe the part to be played in contemplation by the life and passion of Jesus Christ, the principal events in which are described in the form of a compendium “for the exercise of those that have newly entered upon contemplation”, (Ch. 32) as well as being rehearsed summarily in Latin “for the more practised and instructed”. (Ch. 33) Finally, nine chapters treat of perseverance in contemplation, of the hindrances which persevering contemplatives encounter, and of the ways in which they may be surmounted. Thus ends a treatise “wherein, if a man exercise himself diligently, by reading, meditation, prayer, or contemplation, he will quickly and readily, with the aid of the Lord, be raised on high, and united with Him by fervent love, and in that state he may most surely await the happiness which is to come, and the prize and reward of his work” (Ch. 69).

Any criticism as to the originality of his book García de Cisneros disarms both at the beginning and at the end of it by describing it as merely a “compilation”. In days when originality in the guise of a compilation was scarcely less frequent than plagiarism pretending to originality, we must not take such a confession too literally. It is clear, however, from the Exercises, that the Abbot read widely, and that many of the fruits of his reading are collected in them. It is unnecessary to specify examples of his use (so constant is it) of SS. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, Anselm, Bernard, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas, or to search for passages in which he draws upon mystical writers who had already been used in Spain, as pseudo-Dionysius and the Victorines. These, together with St Benedict and a few classical profane authors, are the whole of his non-contemporary authorities.

But his main sources, which the casual reader is apt to overlook, are of much later date than any of these. In the first three sections of his book Cisneros draws principally upon pseudo-Dionysius, who supplies him with the bulk of three entire chapters (22, 28, 29), and with various other passages, and upon three less-known authors, all of them his contemporaries. One of these, Henry (or Hugh) of Balma (or Palma), was to enter the domains of Spanish mysticism, though somewhat infrequently,’ during the whole course of the sixteenth century, and it is of interest to find him here at so early a date. His close connection with St Bonaventura, to whom his Theologia mystica was commonly ascribed, is no doubt partly responsible for his popularity.

Gérard Zerbolt of Zutphen, a young Flemish religious, who died, at the age of thirty-one, in 1398, may also be considered a contemporary, for his chief work-a “devotus tractulus” entitled De spiritualibus ascensionibus-was not published till long after his death. It is made use of continually by Cisneros (being cited by its first words “Beatus vir”) from his prologue onwards, and he evidently thought very highly of it, for it was one of the first works to be printed (16 May 1499) at Montserrat-indeed, this may have been its first introduction to Spain. Both this and Balma’s treatise deal systematically with the three ways of the mystical life, and Cisneros is often content to point to them rather than quote from them.

Finally, an important source for the former half of the Exercises is Jean Mombaer (Johannes Mauburnus), who was still alive when Cisneros’ book was published, and whose Rosetum exercitiorum spiritualium et sacrarum meditationum, first published in 149 1, was itself a collection of spiritual exercises and may not improbably have been responsible for the idea of the volume now under consideration. It is a formidable and encyclopaedic treatise, but to Cisneros’ business-like mind its extreme orderliness must have made a strong appeal, as also its love of epigrammatic truisms and mnemonic precepts. P. Watrigant, who has studied Cisneros’ debts to Mombaer in detail, claims that “almost all the practical directions, and almost all that relates to general method in spiritual exercises” may be found in the Rosetum. Chapters 2 to 7 are taken from it in their totality, and chapters 8 to 17 are inspired by it.

In the fourth section of the Exercises, Cisneros is still indebted principally to his contemporaries. Chapters 49, 50, 51, 52, and 68 are all but verbally taken from Gérard of Zutphen. The author, however, responsible above all others for this section, is Jean Gerson, who was already known in Spain to general readers of Spanish as well as to professed scholars. Gerson’s Mons Contemplationis is the source both of the chapters which precede the meditations taken from Zutphen and of those which follow them. The final chapter, arranged to form an “alphabet” of the kind which Francisco de Osuna later popularized in Spain,’ is taken from a Tractatus de elevatione mentis in Deum, also known as Alphabetum divini amoris, and incorrectly, but at the time commonly, ascribed to Gerson only. Gerson’s minor works are also drawn upon in this section, together with the writings of St Bonaventura-these last chiefly in chapters 58 and 59.

With all its dependence upon preceding treatises, the Book of Exercises in no way leaves the impression of being a compilation. This is due partly to the author’s avoidance of the unskilful methods of quotation common in his day, and especially to his substitution of “the saints” for particular names, Cisneros’ principle apparently being to cite by name only those authors whose status was undisputed and whose authority none would gainsay. To the general reader, therefore, the Exercises appear to be strongly influenced by the Fathers, the Victorines, and Dionysius, but in the main original. When Cisneros mentions his contemporaries at all, it is generally by the titles of their writings. Gerson is actually referred to by name fifteen times, but this frequency is quite exceptional: he was the reputed author of the universally approved Contemptus Mundi and might safely be cited. With others it was different. The Beatus Fir, for all the use made of it, is named only thrice. Suso, whose Horologium aeternae sapientiae is briefly referred to, is described simply as a “new doctor”, (Ch. 46) though he had been dead for a century and a half when Cisneros wrote, and could be considered new only by comparison with the Fathers or by virtue of being little known in Spain.

The other reason for the impression of originality which the Exercises give is the ease and naturalness of their style. The author would have claimed for his book little or no literary merit, and in truth its chief merit is a complete lack of affectation, a homeliness which fittingly clothes its sincerity. Considering the immature state of Spanish prose at the end of the fifteenth century, however, we may be surprised that the prolixity of the argument is not more marked, that the length of chapters and sentences is not greater, that the number of vivid and forcible passages is so noteworthy. The Abbot had certainly in him the makings of a writer: had he but had a longer literary apprenticeship and then applied himself assiduously to literature, he might well have become one of Spain’s foremost prose-writers.

Of the more positive stylistic merits of the Book of Exercises, the chief is undoubtedly its imagery. Cisneros has something of the pictorial gift of the acceptable popular preacher. When isolated, his similes, though numerous, are for the most part trite. The sun, the stars, cleansing and heat-giving fire, the dew (of prayer and of grace), the germinating seed, the ship and its harbour, the food and drink of the soul -all these are presented without distinction. But occasionally it is the very brevity, familiarity, and unpretentiousness of the similitudes that fix them in the memory, and, even where they are not original, the adapter’s handling of them is wholly admirable. In two or three words, vain thoughts are referred to as flies -not for the first time, it may be said, but with what commendable terseness ! The faithful dog is introduced in a sentence of ten words. Nine words suffice to describe the cleansing of rusty iron and a tarnished mirror; sixteen to instance the drying of flax and its subsequent kindling by the sun. Other examples like these may be found without difficulty.

Yet, effective as are these similitudes, especially in relation to their length, Cisneros’ images are at their best when presented in series of Ignatian pictures for meditation. In language which even today is striking, which beside that of Isabel de Villena or Gómez García is incomparable, and which in their times and Cisneros’ own would have had immeasurably greater force than now, the preacher’s imagination paints scenes in Heaven and in Hell which succeed one another with economy of language wonderful at an epoch and in a nation always splendidly prodigal of words:

Represent to thyself a terrible abyss, a place beneath the earth a pit very deep and full of flames.

Think of a most terrible city, very great and in complete darkness, yet afire with flames which are most terrible and dark, from the midst whereof come shrieks and dreadful cries; for all that are therein do cry out by reason of their pains, which no tongue of man can describe.

By these and such like similitudes consider thou the great cruelty of their torments.

.. Think likewise of cold and of insufferable odours; think of the gnashing of teeth, the groans, plaints and blasphemies addressed to God, all the which things bear witness to the cruelty of these torments.

Think likewise upon the multitude of these pains. For in Hell there is a fire most fierce and inextinguishable, an intolerable cold, fierce odours insufferable, darkness that may be felt, and torment of each of the senses. The eyes are tormented by the gestures of the devils, and other terrible things that shall be seen. The hearing, by cries, groans and sounds of wailing.

Think of the miserable companionship of Hell, and the cruelty of the tormentors, who are without pity soever, and never weary in giving tortures, nor are ever moved to mercy. Nay, they insult the tortured, saying: “Where is now thy glory? Where thy high estate? Where is thy pride? Where are thy lustful delights?” And even so with the other sins(Ch. 66).a

When we approach the consideration of any work from the mystical standpoint, we invariably find ourselves first inquiring what is its aim. The aim of Cisneros’ Book of Exercises, though occasionally described in some such indefinite words as “approach to God” and “the attainment to Divine love”, is more commonly stated in the language of mystical writers of all ages. “This book is written”, says the prologue, “for the great utility of those who desire to make progress in the spiritual life”, the “desired end” of such being the union of the soul with God. “Our goal”, runs another passage, “is to love God without any mean and to imprint Him in our heart.” And again and again we meet the phrase: “our aim . . . is to unite (ayuntar) the soul with God”. Once, towards the end of the book, Cisneros declines, because of his unworthiness, to enter into a description of the nature of this Union, and once again he declares that “the contemplative must be content to know God above when he comes to the glory of Heaven”, and on earth must not “desire to know what God is in His nature, through direct vision” (Ch. 65). But, as the aim of this last statement is to discourage those who are constantly believing themselves to have corporal visions, it must be taken with its context, and as relating principally to the type of person described there.

García de Cisneros’ aim, then, being the aim of the mystic, how does he propose to accomplish it? In the first place, by drawing up methodical exercises, “according to the three ways which are called Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive, to the end that, by means of the practice thereof, and through prayer and contemplation, [the exercitant] may mount by ordered steps till he reach the desired end, which is the union of the soul with God”. (Ch. 7 ) It is hardly necessary here to reproduce the arguments which he uses to impress upon his readers (who were to be primarily his own monks) the necessity for “the soul that desires to live in the love of Our Lord” to “have fitting hours wherein it may withdraw itself apart and unfailingly have time for prayer”. But it should be noticed that, at the very beginning of his book, he places the regular, daily use of these exercises in direct relation with the exercitant’s sublime goal:

In this book, most beloved brethren, we shall treat of how the exercitant and devout man should exercise himself . . . and how, by means of certain and determinate exercises, according to the days of the week, he may rise to the attainment of his desired end by Meditation, Prayer and Contemplation, undertaken in due order, his desired end being the union of the soul with God.

In describing the three Ways, Cisneros uses the familiar metaphors, taken from the Fathers and from Gerson. These stages are compared to the kiss of the feet, of the hands, and of the mouth; (Ch. 27)to the smoke of a fire, a smoky flame, and a pure flame (Prol.); to the three stages in the germination of a seed (Prol.); and so on. It may be well, however, to set down at this point a clear statement of the distinction which he makes between them In the exercise of the first Way, which is called Purgative, we seek God, but, although we indeed find Him, we find Him not after the manner of fervent love. In the second Way, which is the Illuminative, we offer victims and sacrifices of praise and great desire, with hope and yearning for happiness. In the third Way, which is the Unitive, we find Him whom our soul loves and desires.

So that in the first Way we forsake the lusts of the world; in the second, the spirit is enlightened and raised on high; in the third, it has tranquillity and rest in God. (Ch. 30) He adds that in this present life it is impossible to walk in any one of the three ways perfectly. (Ch. 2 ) The aim of the Purgative Way is “to cleanse, purge, and chasten the spirit, both from vice and sin, as also from corrupt affections, to the end that it may be fit to receive the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit”. It has three elements-the asperative, the compunctive, and the elevative-each of which is described fully. In the first meditation-for example, on sin-the exercitant is to wound himself by remembrance of his misdeeds, then to move himself to sorrow, and lastly to lift up his heart to God, imploring pardon. The meditations for the Purgative Way are, for the seven days of the week respectively, beginning with Monday, on Sin, Death, Hell, Judgement, the Passion, Our Lady, and Heaven.

After the exercitant has practised these meditations for a month, he may pass to the Illuminative Way-that is, if “he still sets ever a careful watch over his life, so that he may no longer have to purge himself daily”. He may “know if he be purged” by considering how far he has attained the three virtues of “fortitude, severity, benignity”. Once “cleansed from the rust of his evil works”, he may “soar hence straightway to the illumination of the rays of the Divine Light”. 7

For a description of the Illuminative Way, Cisneros draws briefly upon Dionysius• It “illumines, kindles, and incites every man to love God “,9 and the exercises which correspond to it-meditations upon the favours and benefits bestowed by God upon man-are to be practised in much the same manner as the preceding ones, but after Compline instead of after Matins. Each is not necessarily to be completed at the time allotted to it: the more essential thing is that what is done should be done carefully, that the soul may be “enkindled with love, until, if this may be, it becomes lost in wonder”.

It behoves thee never to allow thy mind to wander from an exercise, nor to hasten thee to complete it. Rather, if in the beginning thereof the Lord should visit thee with the grace of devotion and compunction, thou shalt retire within thyself, and remain in tranquillity, keeping this grace within thee, and allowing thy heart to be enlarged with its desires. And spend thou all thy time of prayer in this manner. (Ch. 23)

The subjects of meditation in the Illuminative Way, from Monday to Sunday respectively, are the benefits of creation, gratification, vocation, justification, the gifts of God, the governance of God, and the glory of God.

In the Unitive Way (called in one place “unitive and contemplative”, in another, “perfective”) (Ch. 26), the exercitant who is already purged and enlightened becomes united in love to his Creator, and reoices in his perfections, desiring, both readily and joyously, to please him alone. “Now he magnifies Him, now he praises Him, now he marvels at His greatness and languishes in love for Him.” (Ch. 26) Dionysius is again drawn upon in the descriptions which follow:

In the Unitive Way the exercitant lifts up his heart with great love to God, withdrawing himself from all vanities and all things created, taking his affection from creature love and turning it to love of the Creator. (Ch. 26)

This Way is reached by inward recollection of thyself from outward things to things which are within; from things which are low to things which are high; from things of time to things of eternity. (Ch. 26)

The exercitant must by this time be “rooted in virtues”, attuned to “the silence that is within”, “in loving union with God”, seeking naught, knowing “that God his Well-Beloved is wholly sufficient for him”, and ever mindful of God’s perfections. (Ch. 26) The exercises, to be practised at this stage, daily, as before, and after Matins, are all concerned with the Being of God. He is to be considered, in turn, as “the beginning and the end of all things”, “the beauty of the universe”, “the glory of the world”, “wholly love”, “the Ruler of all things”, “our most tranquil Governor”, and our “all-sufficient Giver “.(Ch. 27)It will be noticed that we have described these three series of exercises as “corresponding” to the three traditional Ways rather than as “belonging” to them. García de Cisneros does not intend it to be thought that his exercitant is actually experiencing the Illuminative and the Unitive Life when he is engaging in the exercises just detailed. But his language is such that this is by no means evident save to those who study him closely. The reader, therefore, who has arrived at the termination of these exercises, is surprised to find that although the Unitive Way is said to “unite the soul with God and make it perfect” (Ch. 26), the exercitant has still “to mount the six steps which lead to the union of the soul with God” (Ch. 27). The exercises, if faithfully practised, will have prepared the soul for a partially supernatural “contemplation”. “The spirit, which for some time has been exercised in the manner aforesaid, is lifted up to God without any labour of the understanding or of aught else soever, and is united with Him.” (Ch. 28) This “contemplation” is described as being “the work of God alone” : “the soul at this stage is receptive rather than active with regard to the understanding”, for there reigns in it “the affection of love alone”, and neither sense nor understanding has any part therein (Ch. 28).

It must be admitted that in these chapters which deal with contemplation, and even more in the fourth section of the Exercises, where their teaching is greatly elaborated, Cisneros is considerably less clear than elsewhere. He is drawing not so much upon his own imagination or experience as upon authorities-frequently, as we have said, termed vaguely “the saints”-prominent among whom are Dionysius and Gerson. And it is “the saints” who have discovered six degrees of “holy, unitive, and perfective love”-namely Illumination, Enkindled love, Sweetness, Desire, Fullness, and Rapture. (Ch. 30)

These degrees are described successively and succinctly. By Illumination is signified a process which leaves in the soul “an experimental knowledge of God” and leads naturally to the state of Enkindled love, in which the soul “neither thinks of aught else nor finds pleasure therein” save in the love of God. There follows again an “inexpressible delight, which is greater far than all other delights of the world” and is termed “the third degree and work of this holy love and contemplation”. The fourth degree is called Desire, because the soul’s longing is now “to be united with Him in continual love and feeling, so that it would rather suffer any kind of torment, other than sin, than be withdrawn for a single hour from that supreme delight which it has found in its Beloved”. In the fifth degree, that of Fullness, this desire is satisfied, so that the soul “neither seeks nor desires aught beside, but rather finds all else to be death, nor wills to possess aught”, save God, “in the possession of Whom it possesses all things”. Finally,“from all these five degrees . . . proceeds the sixth, which is called Rapture of the spirit or the soaring of the soul above itself.” (Ch. 30)

“Learned men”, it now appears, add two further steps or degrees to those given above: one of these is a state characterized by security, and the other by complete tranquillity. (Ch. 30) They do not seem to differ the one from the other greatly.

The first of these is called Security; for as the soul sees itself to be so greatly beloved by its Spouse Jesus Christ, and by Him enlightened, enkindled with love and led on to delight and rapture, it conceives of Him and in Him a tranquillity so secure that there is no torment nor bodily hurt nor death in all the world which it would hesitate to suffer for love of Him; nor has it any longer fear of aught soever. And so great is its trust in that eternal goodness which it has tasted and experienced in the Lord, that it has no fear of separation from Him any more; but rather it has a certain trust that it will be with Him eternally in glory. O how great is the joy which dwells in that soul for all time, when it sees and experiences a foretaste of the happiness whereof it has most certain expectation!

The second degree and step of these two which are added by holy men is called Perfection of Repose; for the soul in this state can be affrighted by no tribulation, neither by bodily hurt nor fear, and its peace and tranquillity are therefore perfect, and so great, that no tongue can describe them. Upon this, Richard of Saint Victor, in his Contemplations, writes as follows: “O Christian soul, since thou mayest ascend to this paradise and dwell therein while yet thou art in this life, sell all that thou hast and all thy knowledge, that thou mayest buy this glorious possession. And think it not dearly bought, for he that sells it is Christ, and He offers to sell it to all such as will buy.

As the foregoing exposition suggests, the mysticism of García de Cisneros presents some interesting characteristics, which in several ways differentiate it from the mysticism of his successors. Of these the chief is perhaps the importance which he gives to mental exercises, for this colours his entire system. He adapts the three traditional stages of the mystic life, with considerable effect, to his own purpose, and to many of his readers the chapters containing the meditations based upon them are the principal part of the book. They think of it as a threefold collection of exercises, together with some supplementary chapters of less practical value, forgetting that these last occupy half the book. To make such a collection, and nothing more, may have been the whole of the author’s original plan, but it is certainly not the whole of what he achieved. Possibly the book grew in length beyond his intention, in proportion as his reading widened and his realization of how to use it grew completer.

A more serious misconception is that which represents Cisneros as leading his exercitants, by means of these exercises, into each of the three traditional ways in turn. This he can only be said in quite a secondary sense to do, and, as it were, on a lower plane, in a way which anticipates, though somewhat differently, an important post-Teresan development of Spanish mysticism. In reality, as we have already hinted, the exercises belong in their entirety to the Purgative Way. Otherwise, how could the time-limit of a month be set to the first group? (Ch. 19) Or how could the exercitant be encouraged to practise, “in each one of them . . . all three”? (Ch. 12) They are a training-ground for higher methods of prayer. They consist solely of vocal prayer and meditation. It is only when they are completed that the exercitant finds himself in the true Illuminative Way, which corresponds to the first four of the higher stages of love (Illumination, Enkindled love, Sweetness, and Desire), while the Unitive Way is to be found in the fifth and sixth stages, those of Fullness and Rapture.

This arrangement of the Purgative Way so as to make it mirror the whole of the mystical life in little is characteristic both of a practical idealist like Cisneros and of one in his peculiar and delicate position. Writing for monks in a house of which the great traditions had been interrupted, and which was slowly being reformed and reinspired, he would of necessity have to provide much material for the immature, and no doubt also for some whose vocation was rather to the mixed life than to that of the pure contemplative. Whatever were the reasons for the stress which he laid on the lower grades of prayer, he did well to plan his meditations on lines suggestive of the higher grades, insisting the while, again and again, upon the aim which all prayer sets before it, and finally outlining, as a rule in clear and unambiguous language, the steps which lead to this aim.

Second only in importance to this constructive characteristic of the Exercises is the stress which they lay upon the relating of meditation and contemplation with the life of Christ. It is natural enough to find this in the earlier exercises, for infallibly, to all religious writers, “the life of the Saviour, and His death and passion, are like to a door whereby a man may enter into Divine love” (Ch. 8 ) and “His most holy life, example, and doctrine” are “naught else than a resplendent brightness to enlighten our souls”. (Ch. 24) Into the higher reaches of prayer, however, where meditation ceases and imageless contemplation has free play, many writers admit the theme of the Sacred Humanity more grudgingly, or even exclude it. Not so García de Cisneros. True to the prevailing tendency in the religious literature of his day,’ he follows the Franciscan tradition as exemplified by St Bonaventura, which was soon to develop markedly in Spain. Like the Saint, he describes the life and passion of Christ, not merely as “the door whereby we enter the contemplative life”, but as the only such door. (Ch. 48) In another chapter he outlines three methods of contemplation (giving the word here something of its later Ignatian sense), all based on the life of Christ: (Ch. 49) with this are concerned the eleven chapters next following. And in the course of these chapters we read that “the passion of the Lord contains within itself all the perfection possible to man in this life”.(Ch. 56)

It must be admitted freely that not all Cisneros’ teaching in this matter is proof against accusations of inconsistency, which the Spanish preceptists and systematizers of a hundred and fifty years later would no doubt have brought against him had they preoccupied themselves with the earliest mystics of their own country. But the inconsistencies spring largely from this: that the second part of the Book of Exercises, unlike the first, is based upon the authority of others.

A further characteristic of García de Cisneros’ mysticism is the very small place which it gives to the supernatural. In spite of his description of the soul as being passive and receptive in the higher states of contemplation, he says next to nothing about any such preparation for the work of God upon the soul as the Prayer of Quiet. “Affection of love reigns here alone,” he declares, “and neither sense nor understanding has any part herein.” (Ch. 28) Yet, though after making this statement he details his six degrees of higher prayer, he fills most of the chapters which follow with meditations suited to those who are still in the lower states of prayer. This again may be called inconsistency, but is really another consequence of the aim of the author and of the circumstances and the epoch in which he wrote.

On supernormal experiences he adopts a conservative attitude which appears to be one of scepticism, or possibly of ignorance, rather than only of caution. The rapture (arrebatamiento) of the contemplative soul is compared with the preoccupation of students “when they are engaged in composing some subtle thing, and likewise painters, and others who work subtly, and exercise their imaginings strongly”. (Ch. 45) “It may be a harder and more laborious task” that occupies the contemplative than the student, but essentially they are similar in nature. Examples, says Cisneros, such as those of the student and the painter, have been quoted in order to demonstrate “that the soul can cast out all imaginings and cares which profit it not, and rise and soar aloft to other things which are holier and more profitable”. (Ch. 45) A later mystic might object that these examples prove very little of what the contemplative’s experience teaches him. But, Cisneros has said at the beginning of the chapter under discussion, we must only understand the phenomena of rapture in a figurative sense: the soul does not really leave the body at all. (Ch. 45)

Only after reading Richard of St Victor does Cisneros allow himself to write in a way from which more can be inferred than this. One part, or aspect, of contemplation he then names (following his authority) Mentis alienatio, “which comes to pass when the soul sees things to which its natural industry suffices not to raise it. In these visions the soul goes out of itself, and out of the wonted judgement of its understanding. It knows not where it is, nor what it is, nor whether it is in the body or out of the body. And this is also called rapture.” (Ch. 48) This “ecstasy or rapture of the spirit comes to pass within us, either through excess of devotion, which arises from an exceeding great desire or love for the Lord, or through marvelling greatly at something that appears most high and wonderful, or again through an exceeding great delight or joy in that which is received within us through the especial grace of the Lord.” (Ch. 48)

In another place, where Cisneros sets rapture as the sixth, and, normally, the highest state of the contemplative life (corresponding to the goal of the Unitive Way), he deprecates, as do so many of his successors later, the attaching of an excessive importance to visions. Rapture “requires not that a man see visions or indeed aught else with his bodily eyes, but rather that he may be illumined and enkindled and refreshed and raised on high through the love which he has for his Creator”. (Ch. 30) The nature of rapture is ineffable, and “such that our understanding, being burdened by the flesh, cannot for a long time remain securely therein, but is scarcely raised aloft when it falls again to the ground as though it were chained to the earth”.

Or it is as the eye which looks upon the sun, and cannot gaze thereon fixedly, but after a single glance is forced to close itself, then looks again and forthwith closes once more: even so is it with the understanding. Or, again, it is like an arrow shot upwards, which falls quickly to the ground by reason of its own weight, or like the fish which leaps out of the water, and falls back into it immediately. Even so, as we understand it, is this degree of love. (Ch. 30)

It follows from all that has been said that on the whole García de Cisneros presents a comparatively low standard of attainment in the life of mental prayer. He frequently uses the word “perfect” where it is manifestly inapplicable in the literal sense, and he frequently reminds us also of the impossibility of literal perfection. His oft-repeated definition of his aim as being “union with God” he leaves insufficiently explained, giving us little idea, therefore, of the nature of this union, and even, as we have seen, shrinking from a description of it. He himself admits the unsatisfactoriness of his definition: “it may nevertheless be added, in the words of Gerson, that this same end [the love of God] is, and should be, that of all our works, for all that we do must be done and ordered for the love of God”. (Ch. 37) But, though it is “fitting to explain in some manner wherein consists the perfection of the contemplative life”, he feels himself totally incapable of doing so. “I must here set down certain conditions of the contemplative life, not that I have myself sufficient knowledge thereof, but rather as a blind man speaking of colours, repeating such things as the saints in their writings have left us, and leaving the rest to those who are more expert in these matters.” (Ch. 37) Needless to say, his description leaves the reader as ignorant, or as perplexed, as before.

Of the remaining ideas in the Book of Exercises, we find some which are common to most of the mystics. That humility is the foundation of all progress (Ch. 31) is with all of them axiomatic, and that one may rise to know the Creator through his creatures is hardly less so. That all are capable of mental prayer, as Cisneros maintains, is a thesis which sharply divides Spanish mystics at a later date. That those without understanding can still play their part in it through love goes also to the root of our definition of contemplation. There are frequent comparisons in the Exercises of the active with the contemplative life; the general trend of these is less to exalt the latter than to ennoble the former-a tendency which confirms the view that Cisneros was writing with an eye to the least practised in contemplation of his monks. It may be of interest to point out that he upholds the mistaken idea, so prevalent in modem times, that “contemplatives are less wise and prudent in worldly affairs than actives”. He himself, as his life-story shows, was a living refutation of his own dictum.

The mystic on whom García de Cisneros is commonly said to have exercised the greatest influence is St Ignatius of Loyola, of whom we have written at some length in our first volume. To what is there said may be added the following considerations, which summarize the probable relations between the two mystics most generally associated with Montserrat.

The internal evidence brought forward in support of Cisneros’ alleged influence upon St Ignatius seems to us less impressive than the external. Whether we look at it with Dom Besse and P. Watrigant, who consider it satisfactory, or with P. Codina, who takes the opposite view, we cannot help feeling that in a purely literary controversy it would be regarded as quite inconclusive.? It is not that there are no similarities-even occasional verbal similarities-between García de Cisneros and St Ignatius, but rather that they either relate to most ordinary themes, treated in every book of devotion, or that they are as likely to have come direct from one or another of Cisneros’ own authorities as from Cisneros himself. To the first class of parallelism belong the not dissimilarly phrased reference to the fall of the angels and of man, to the pains of hell, to the last judgement, to servile and filial fear,’ and to the use of meditation, prayer, and contemplation. In the second class we place resemblances in St Ignatius to four paragraphs which Cisneros took from the Alphabet of Divine Love. Other of the alleged similarities are too little alike to be considered seriously.

One would not, however, look for many verbal parallels in two books having such different aims, and composed by two men so dissimilar in type, especially since St Ignatius’ exercises, as we have them, were the fruits of many years’ revision, during which they may have changed their form a hundred times. What convinces us of the deep and varied influence upon St Ignatius of García de Cisneros and of the Abbey of Montserrat (which was permeated with its late Abbot’s spirit when he visited it) is the purely external evidence. The documentary testimony of two independent witnesses, dating from the end of the sixteenth century, assures us that St Ignatius’ first instructor, the French Benedictine Dom Jean Chanones, “gave him the spiritual exercises of Cisneros”. From the episode of the Moor, and other testimony,’ we know that when St Ignatius went to Montserrat he was sadly ignorant of many principles of the Christian religion. We know that he was “given” Cisneros’ exercises there; that, after staying for as long as pilgrims were at that time permitted to stay, he postponed the projected journey to Jerusalem which had brought him that way, went only so far from the sanctuary as the nearest town of Manresa, and returned thence to Montserrat at intervals to report to Dom Chanones his progress in the exercises. It seems likely that he actually read a copy of Cisneros’ book at Montserrat or even took one with him to Manresa. In any case, it is certain that at the most impressionable period in his life he spent a great part of his time in practising Cisneros’ exercises. Compared with the fundamental inference which can safely be drawn from such testimony, the possible reasons for similarities between this and that passage of St Ignatius’ work as we have it today and the Book of Exercises are relatively insignificant. The fundamental inference is that Cisneros and Montserrat were the first great forces to mould his future life. As Ribadeneira says, while asserting that “these two books are different, and the second was not taken from the first”

All we who are of the Society must give thanks to our Lord that our blessed father, when he left the storms and tempests of the world, made so good a haven, that he found so good a confessor and profited by so good a book.

If, as seems likely, St Ignatius first drafted his Spiritual Exercises at Manresa, there must have been many more similarities to Cisneros’ Exercises in this draft than in their final form. It is clearly exaggerating to state, as did Bucelin, Wion, and the pseudo-Cayetano in the seventeenth century, that St Ignatius’ Exercises are either “wholly” or “in great part” “taken” from Cisneros. Such words, or the claim of P. Bruno Albers, made as lately as 1917, that “the Jesuits owe their origin and their Exercises to the Benedictine Order” and that St Ignatius “slightly modified Cisneros’ Exercises and in this modified form gave them to his followers”, merely provoke retaliations more plausible and of no greater value. No sensible and unprejudiced investigator will doubt that St Ignatius’ debt to Cisneros goes far beyond what any internal evidence can reveal to us. Even were there not a single verbal similarity to show, the formative influence of the book would still be indisputable, just as, even if there were a hundred such similarities, the essential originality of St Ignatius’ book would be equally so. Whether the initial inspiration of St Ignatius’ Exercises, and their title, derived also, as some have thought, from Cisneros, are questions on which only speculation is practicable.

To estimate the influence of Cisneros’ Book of Exercises, above all during the century on the eve of which it was issued, is no light task. That it was widely read, and not only in Benedictine communities, its bibliography alone will show. Five editions in Spanish, and seven in Latin, were current during the sixteenth century. In Latin, the book went on reprinting to the extent that seven further editions have been issued since 1600. Of extant translations, many of them quite modern, there are three in Italian, two in French, two in English, one in Catalan, and one in German.

But even this creditable list does not exhaust the evidence for the book’s popularity. For there were made at least three adaptations of it. One of these, published in Latin, at Salzburg, in 1629, aimed at clarifying Cisneros’ occasional prolixity of expression. Another, in Spanish, published in 1672 at Salamanca, is a Benedictine manual of mystical theology, which draws upon other authors also. The third, and earliest, had its origin nearer home, and can claim a history almost as long as that of its original. Entitled A Brief Compendium of Spiritual Exercises, it contains, together with Cisneros’ Directory, the more popular parts of his Book of Exercises-the three series of meditations, the summary of the life of Christ, the meditation on Christ’s passion and death, advice for those unpractised in prayer, and like excerpts. The compiler’s aim seems to have been to simplify as much as possible, to omit the passages least easily and generally comprehended, and in particular to suppress references to the highest states of prayer, upon which other and fuller treatises were then (c. 1555) being written.

Of this Compendium there are known no less than thirteen editions, all in Spanish, covering a period of about one hundred and sixty years, and ending in the early eighteenth century. They ceased only when, the teaching of Cisneros being judged by the Benedictine authorities of the Valladolid congregation to be too lofty for general use, they were superseded by a manual considered more practical. Dom Anselm Albareda believes that many more editions were published, dating probably as far back as I S2o, but if we assume not a single edition more, we can still record the publication, in Spanish or in Latin, of one edition, on the average, of the Book of Exercises or one of its adaptations in every eight years during the two centuries (1500-1700) in which mysticism flourished in Spain.

A book published anonymously, having a practical and restricted aim, and bearing in its colophon the over-modest pretension of being a “compilation”, could hardly have hoped for a wider influence than this. Nor could it have hoped for a career of such distinction. The most notable example of the influence of Cisneros upon those who came after him is undoubtedly that to which we have referred, upon St Ignatius of Loyola. But many other similar cases of his influence, upon less famous men, might be cited also, could we but trace the fate of all these editions and translations. Some of them may well come to light with the publication of a history of Spanish mysticism. And it must not be forgotten that, just as the Book of Exercises was written simply and solely for the group of monks at Montserrat and a not much wider circle of monks outside it, so the place where its influence has been strongest is precisely within those circles. The ascetic and mystical school which García de Cisneros founded at Montserrat has descendants, it is true, of no mean merit-Alfonso de Vizcaya, Pedro Alfonso, and José de San Benito. But its strongest claim on Christian remembrance lies not so much in the history of those venerated names as in the influence which it has wielded upon thousands of unremembered spiritual lives, and which it wields as firmly as ever today.

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