This learned book traces the course of mystical theology which led up to St John of the Cross. It studies Hugh and Richard of St Victor, St Bonaventure, important writings which long passed under his name, Hugh of Balma, a Carthusian Prior it seems of the thirteenth century, Tauler's authentic sermons and his
Institutiones
, a compilation by St Peter Canisius passing under his name, Ruysbroeck, Denis the Carthusian, Kastl's
De Adhaerendo Deo
, and finally a brief notice of Spanish writers of the earlier sixteenth century. The writer shows that what we miss most in medieval mystical theology is a clear teaching about the stage which intervenes between the abandonment of meditation and the prayer of quiet. -
Downside Review
, January 1955