THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY CRISIS OF MYSTICISM IN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

Abstract

It has often been suggested that the development of the spirituality of the Jesuit Order in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is a striking example of how Christian religious practice in the West was becoming increasingly ascetic. 1 One typical example of this development is a famous letter by the then Superior General of the Order, Evrard Mercurian, dated 1575, concerning books that Jesuits were only authorised to read if they had received special permission from their superiors to do so. The list included various mystical authors such as John of Ruusbroec. Henri Bremond (1865-1933) explicitly highlighted the importance of this letter. He considered it to be a veritable coup d'Etat, an extremely meaningful and revealing event, "an event( ... ) of a kind that the history of ideas witnesses only at distant intervals over the course of centuries" .2 Indeed, the Order hereby distanced itself from the older mystical tradition, a fact that was characteristic of a more general evolution. Although certain objections could be raised to this position there was perhaps more continuity with the older mystical tradition in the Order than one might think on first analysis3 various historical sources indicate that the mystical,