A Little Book of the Contemplation of Christ

Tending desire with a medieval devotional book

Hi bookish friends,

I’ve been reading a delightful book that I thought you all would enjoy hearing about. I hope to continue doing these little book spotlights for paid subscribers as I read more medieval devotional materials for a larger project. So I have unlocked the post for all of you, to get a taste!

Today’s work is called A Little Book of the Contemplation of Christ, or as its 1577 edition would have it, S. Augustine’s Manuell, or little booke of the Contemplation of Christ, or of Gods words, whereby the remembrance of the heavenly desires which is falne a sleep may be quickned vp agayne. Early modern titles are the best—they are the opposite of clickbait. Or maybe that was clickbait to the Elizabethans!

My midcentury copy is truly a little book, darling in its red wrapper and easy to hold in the hand (translated by “A Religious of C.S.M.V.,” real name Sister Penelope Lawson, published by Mowbrays, 1951).

My marvelous midcentury copy in front of my succulent babies

Medieval and early modern folk thought that perhaps St. Augustine had written it, hence the S. Augustine’s Manuell (manual). In reality, as our translator, the wonderful Sister Penelope Lawson of the Anglican sisters of the Community of St. Mary the Virgin, tells us, it was a treatise originally written in Latin in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The treatise “largely derived from the Confessio Theologica of John of Fécamp, who lived from about 990-1078.” John of Fécamp was a diminutive man (according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, called Jeannelin or Little John by his friends!) but large in stature in his writings, which were often mistaken for the writing of more famous theologians than himself. Born in Ravenna, he became a Benedictine monk, eventually rising to Abbot of Fécamp in Normandy and advisor to Agnes of Poitiers, the queen of Burgundy. He was also well-known for his interest in medieval science, especially medicine. On pilgrimage to the Holy Land in his old age, he was imprisoned by the Turks for several years. After he was released, he made it back to Fécamp, where Jeannelin died among his brothers.

The Little Book, this later compilation of some of his writing, was popular devotional material. In 1577, it was translated by John Daye into English. Sister Penelope calls the early modern English of this edition “tasty and sonorous”—and that really makes me want to read it! Her own version is pretty tasty itself. This also makes S. Augustine’s Manuell one of those medieval devotional books that fed both Protestant and Catholic tastes in the Elizabethan era.

I can understand why, upon reading it. It is a book of what C.S. Lewis would later call “Mere Christianity.” The Little Book’s purpose is simple: to increase the reader’s love of God. The author begins:

Encompassed as we are with snares, we easily grow cold in our desire for heavenly things, and are in constant need of some defence by means of which, when we have fallen away, we may run back to God who is our true and sovereign Good. Therefore have I set out to write this little book, not rashly and presumptuously but out of the great love I bear to God, to the intent that I may always have with me a short and handy treatise about Him, my God, culled from the choicer sayings of the holy Fathers, by reading which my love for Him may be rekindled, whenever it burns low. (13)

What follows in this “short and handy treatise” are various chapters, only about a page or two, simply expressing different aspects of the identity of God as total Good, and on Christ’s salvific work in the compiler. On the “Wonderful Being” of God we find a cascading delight in divine endless paradox:

Thyself unburdened, Thou upholds all, full-filling all, yet not by it contained; ever gathering, yet never lacking; seeking yet missing nothing; loving, yet passionless; serene amidst Thy zeal. Thou dost repent and yet Thou art not grieved; angry Thou art, yet Thou art patient still. Thy works Thou changest, but Thy purpose never. Thou dost receive what Thou hast found and yet hadst never lost… (15)

Other chapters follow, on topics like “Of the Kingdom of Heaven,” “How God comforts the Soul after its grievous woe,” “That the Word is become Flesh for our hope’s sake,” “Of the True Rest of the Heart,” and many more.

If you only read that passage alone, you might think it mostly philosophical. But at times Little Book is also very practical, in good medieval fashion. Our compiler recognizes that as humans, we cannot fully kindle our soul’s desire only on abstract beauty, but on hope for things which we have some dim shadow of recognition in this life. In the chapter on the goods of heaven, “The Sovereign Good is to be sought,” he muses upon how the sole Good contains all goods and how we will receive Good in fullness with God. “What is it thou loves, O my flesh?” He muses. “If beauty delight thee, there the righteous shall shine as the sun; if thy pleasure be in swiftness or in strength or freedom of body that nothing can withstand, there shall men be like the angels of God…” He goes on. If you love music, if you desire power, if you crave wisdom, if you long for friendship—all these that we love now are pale simulacra of the truest versions that await in the Goodness of God. Movie previews of the feature film, so to speak. More lovely yet is the chapter on “the mutual joy of the saints,” which joyously romps over any latent individualism in our conceptions of Heaven and sharing in the Goodness of God.

I think John of Fécamp, his anonymous compiler, John Daye, and Sister Penelope would all be pleased to know (and perhaps they do know!) that a reader in the year of our Lord 2023 has found her own sleepy love “quickened” in reading this little book.

Peace,

Grace