John O’Malley, The First Jesuits
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) paperback, $19.
Must reading. It marks such an advance that most previous studies
look woefully out-of-date. O’Malley’s gift is not just the
balance of his historical judgment and the lucidity of his prose,
but his ability to put things in context—to see the forest for the
trees. Because the approach is more thematic than chronological,
beginners may want to consult Dalmases and Bangert to get the basic
events.
Sélim Abou, The Jesuit ‘Republic’
of the Guaranís (1609-1768) and Its Heritage (New York:
Crossroad, 1998) paperback.
Antonio de Aldama, The
Constitutions of the Society of Jesus: An Introductory Commentary,
trans. Aloysius J. Owen (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources,
1989).
Dauril Alden, The Making of an
Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and
Beyond: 1540-1750 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Presss,
1996).
Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Art on the
Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542-1773 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1999) paperback, $35.
William Bangert, A History of the
Society of Jesus, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Institute of
Jesuit Sources, 1986) paperback, $28. A solid if sometimes
wooden survey.
William Bangert, Jerome Nadal, S.J.
(1507-1580): Tracking the First Generation of Jesuits, ed.
Thomas M. McCoog (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1992) paperback,
$6.
William Bangert, Claude Jay and
Alfonso Salmeron: Two Early Jesuits (Chicago: Loyola University
Press, 1985) paperback, $6.
William A. Barry, Contemplatives in
Action: The Jesuit Way (New York: Paulist Press, 2002)
paperback, $12. A very brief but precise study of the basics of
Jesuit spirituality.
Robert Bireley, The Jesuits and the
Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Philip Caraman, Ignatius of Loyola:
a Biography (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990) paperback,
$10.
Philip Caraman, A Study in
Friendship: Saint Robert Southwell and Henry Carnet (St. Louis:
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1995) paperback.
Philip Caraman, Tibet: The Jesuit
Century, Studies in Jesuit Topics 20 (St. Louis: Institute of
Jesuit Sources, 1997).
Nicholas P. Cushner, Why Have You
Come Here? The Jesuits and the First Evangelization of Native
America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) paperback,
$30. NEW.
Candido de Dalmases, Ignatius of
Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit
Sources, 1985) paperback, $14.
Cándido de Dalmases, Francis Borgia
(St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1991) paperback, $18.
Borgia was the 3rd general of the Society and imposed his
organizational stamp on the Society—for good and for ill.
John Patrick Donnelly, Ignatius of
Loyola: Founder of the Jesuits, Library of World Biography
Series (London: Longman, 2004) paperback, $21.
Vincent J. Duminuco, ed., The
Jesuit Ratio Studiorum: 400th Anniversary Perspectives
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2000).
Francis Edwards, Robert Persons:
The Biography of an Elizabethan Jesuit, 1546-1610 (St. Louis:
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1995).
Harvey D. Egan, Ignatius Loyola the
Mystic, Way of the Christian Mystics 5 (Collegeville, MN: The
Liturgical Press, 1991) paperback.
Harvey D. Egan, The Spiritual
Exercises and the Ignatian Mystical Horizon (St. Louis:
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1976) paperback.
Mordechai Feingold, ed., Jesuit
Science and the Republic of Letters, Transformations: Studies in
the History of Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2002) hardcover, $50.
Joseph de Guibert, The Jesuits:
Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, trans. William J. Young
(reprint of 1952 edition: St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources,
1972) paperback. Dated in many ways, but a classic.
James V. Holleran, A Jesuit
Challenge: Edmund Campion’s Debates at the Tower of London in 1581
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1998) hardcover, $35.
Harro Hopfl, Jesuit Political
Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540-1630
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) hardcover, $90.
Lance Gabriel Lazar, Working in the
Vineyard of the Lord: Jesuit Confraternities in Early Modern Italy
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005) hardcover, $60.
Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the
Jesuit Baroque (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)
hardcover, $55. A study of the iconography of Jesuit Baroque
churches, especially the work of Andrea Pozzo.
David Lonsdale, Eyes to See, Ears
to Hear: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality, Traditions of
Christian Spirituality (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000) paperback,
$19.
Thomas M. Lucas, Landmarking: City,
Church, & Jesuit Urban Strategy (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1997)
hardcover, $35.
A. Lynn Martin, The Jesuit Mind:
The Mentality of an Elite in Early Modern France (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1988).
D.E. Mungello, ed., The Chinese
Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (Nettetal: Steyler
Verlag, 1994).
Eric Nelson,
The Jesuits and the Monarchy: Catholic Reform and Political
Authority in France (1590-1615), Catholic Christendom 1300-1700
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005) hardcover, $95.
John O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander
Bailey, Steve Harris & T. Frank Kennedy, eds., The Jesuits:
Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773 (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2000) hardcover, $80.
John O’Malley &
Gauvin Alexander Bailey, ed., The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences,
and the Arts, 1540-1773 (Buffalo: Univerity of Toronto Press,
2006) hardcover, $95. NEW.
John O’Malley, “To Travel to Any Part
of the World: Jerome Nadal and the Jesuit Vocation,” Studies in
the Spirituality of Jesuits 15, no. 5 (1983). A fine study of
early Jesuit spirituality.
Charles E. O’Neill & Joaquín M.
Domínguez, eds., Diccionario Histórico de la Compañía de Jesús
Biogáfico-Temático, 3 vol. (Rome: Instituto Histórico de la
Compañía de Jesús, 2002 / Madrid: Ponficia Universidad de Comillas).
Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Loyola’s
Acts: The Rhetoric of Self, The New Historicism: Studies in
Cultural Poetics, vol. 36 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1997).
Charles E. Ronan, Bonnie B.C. Oh,
eds., East Meets West: The Jesuits in China, 1582-1773
(Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1988) paperback.
Andrew C. Ross, A Vision Betrayed:
The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1994).
George Schurhammer, Francis Xavier,
His Life, His Times, 3 vol. (Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute,
1973). German scholarship at its most exhaustive. The definitive
study of Xavier, best used as a reference work.
Juan Luis Segundo, The Christ of
the Ignatian Exercises (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987) paperback,
$20.
Paul Shore,
Jesuits and the Politics of Religious Pluralism in
Eighteenth-Century Transylvania: Culture, Politics, and Religion,
1693-1773 (Williston, VT: Ashgate / Institutum Historicum
Societas Jesu, 2007) hardcover, $100. NEW.
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Senuous
Worship: Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation
in Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002)
hardcover, $50.
Josef Franz Schutte, Valignano’s
Mission Principles for Japan, 2 vol. (St. Louis:; Institute of
Jesuit Sources, 1980).
Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras,
Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint (Chicago: Loyola Press,
1994) paperback, $15. Favorably reviewed, but I find it
uncritically sentimental.
Ines G. Zupanov, Disputed Missions:
Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century
India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) paperback, $20.
Michael A. Mullet, The Catholic
Reformation (New York: Routledge, 1999) paperback, $33. Some of
the best advances in current Reformation scholarship are from study
of the Catholic side. This uneven survey catches readers up on some
recent developments; not very good on the Jesuits.
John O’Malley, Trent and All That:
Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2000) paperback, $16. O’Malley traces out
the historical prejudices that have caused historians to read
Catholic developments in terms of Protestant ones, rather than
seeing 16th-century Catholicism for what it was: a
complex, many-sided Church with reformist elements, with backward
looking ones, with evolving trends in piety and the
intellectual life. Lucid and pungent.
David Luebke, The Counter
Reformation: The Essential Readings, Essential Readings in
History (New York: Blackwell, 1999) paperback, $36. The title is a
bit misleading. This is a collection not of original sources, but
of interpretations of the Counter-Reformation by leading historians.
John Bossy, Christianity in the
West, 1400-1700 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) An
odd and rather eccentric interpretation.
Robert Bireley, The Refashioning of
Catholicism, 1450-1700: A Reassessment of the Counter Reformation
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1999)
paperback, $20.
Arthur G. Dickens, The Counter
Reformation, Library of World Civilization (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1968) paperback, $13. A good survey of the key figures who
shaped the Catholic Reform. Fine plates.
Barbara B. Diefendorf, From
Penitence to Charity: Pious Women and the Catholic Reformation in
Paris (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) NEW in
paperback, $22.
Outram Evennett, The Spirit of the
Counter-Reformation, ed. John Bossy (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1968) paperback, $8. A classic.
Gigliola Fragnito, ed., Church,
Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge Studies
in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001) hardcover.
R. Po-Chia Hsia, World of Catholic
Renewal, 1540-1770, New Approaches to European History 30, 2nd
ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) paperback, $26.
Martin D.W. Jones, The Counter
Reformation: Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe,
Cambridge Topics in History (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1995) paperback. Brief survey.
Amy Leonard,
Nails in the Wall: Catholic Nuns in Reformation Germany
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) hardcover, $45.
Laurence
Lux-Sterritt, Redefining Female Religious Life: French Ursulines
and English Ladies in Seventeenth-Century Catholicism, Catholic
Christendom, 1300-1700 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006) hardcover,
$100. NEW.
Paul V. Murphy,
Ruling Peacefully: Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and Patrician Reform in
Sixteenth Century Italy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 2007) hardcover, $80. NEW.
John C. Olin, ed., Catholic Reform
from Cardinal Ximenes to the Council of Trent (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1990). A collection of hard-to-get sources.
John C. Olin, ed., The Catholic
Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius of Loyola (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1992; reprint of 1969 edition) paperback, $20.
Hilmar M. Pabel & Kathleen M.
Comerford, Early Modern Catholicism: Essays in Honour of John W.
O’Malley, S.J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001)
paperback, $28.
Regina Portner, The
Counter-Reformation in Central Europe, Styria 1580-1630, Oxford
Historical Monographs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
hardcover, $60.
Richard Rex, The Theology of John
Fisher: A Study in the Intellectual Origins of the
Counter-Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991) paperback, $32.
Gianvittorio Signorotto & Maria
Antonietta Visceglia, eds., Court and Politics in Papal Rome,
1492-1700, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) hardcover, $60.
Anthony D. Wright, The Early Modern
Papacy: From The Council of Trent to the French Revolution,
1564-1789, Longman History of the Papacy (London: Longman, 2000)
hardcover, $38.
Anthony D. Wright,
The Counter-Reformation: Catholic Europe and the Non-Christian
World, 2nd ed., series: Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005) hardcover, $100.
Rowan Williams, Teresa of Avila,
Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series (reprint of 1991 edition: New
York: Continuum, 2004) paperback, $13. Rowan Williams, the current
Archbishop of Canterbury, is a superb patristics scholar, but also a
deep concern for the history of spirituality. Here he gives a fine
introductory study to the lively down-to-earth mystic who reformed
the Carmelites. Back in print.
Louis Dupré & Don E. Saliers, ed.,
Christian Spirituality III: Post-Reformation and Modern, World
Spirituality Series 18 (New York: Crossroad, 1991) paperback, $38.
Valuable articles on early Jesuit spirituality, the Carmelites, and
much else.
Gillian T.W. Ahlgren, Teresa of
Avila and the Politics of Sanctity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1996) paperback, $20.
Jodi Bilinkoff, The Avila of Saint
Teresa: Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1989) paperback.
Joseph F. Chorpenning, The Divine
Romance Teresa of Avila’s Narrative Theology (Chicago: Loyola
University Press, 1992).
Michel de Certeau, The Mystic
Fable. Vol. 1: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992) paperback, $22. A difficult
and at times oracular, but full of brilliant insights into the
invention of "mysticism." Unfortunately, incomplete.
Alastair Hamilton, Heresy and
Mysticism in Sixteenth-Century Spain: the Alumbrados (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1992) hardcover.
Stephen Haliczer, Between
Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) paperback, $28.
Edward Howells, John of the Cross &
Teresa of Avila: Mystical Knowing and Selfhood (New York: Herder
& Herder, 2002) paperback, $40.
Kieran Kavanaugh, John of the
Cross: Doctor of Light and Love, Crossroad Spiritual Legacy
Series (New York: Crossroad, 2000) paperback, $17. A good popular
study by John’s English-language translator.
Cathleen Medwick, Teresa of Avila:
The Progress of a Soul (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999)
paperback, $13.
Carole Slade, Teresa of Avila:
Author of a Heroic Life (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995).
Colin P. Thompson, St. John of the
Cross: Songs in the Night (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 2003) hardcover, $50.
Alison Weber, Teresa of Avila and
the Rhetoric of Femininity (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1990) paperback, $19.
God Speaks
in the Night: The Life, Times, and Teaching of St. John of the Cross
(Washington, DC: Institute of Cistercian Studies, 1991) paperback,
$40.
Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual
Exercises and Selected Works, Classics of Western Spirituality
(New York: Paulist Press, 1991) paperback, $25. This volume,
translated by some of the top Jesuit historians, offers Ignatius’
Autobiography, which details his conversion and the formation of
the early Jesuits. Ignatius’ other classic, The Spiritual
Exercises, should not really be read. It is what it says it is:
a gymnastics book for the spirit, and really should be used under
the guidance of a spiritual director. This volume has some good
excerpts from Ignatius’ little-known letters and his
Constitutions.
John of the Cross, Selected
Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality, trans. Kieran
Kavanaugh (New York: Paulist Press, 1987) paperback, $22. John is
perhaps the greatest and most austere analyst of mysticism in the
Catholic tradition. His paradoxical language can be baffling and
easily misunderstood by one unfamiliar with the tradition of
‘negative theology.’ This is a better translation than the widely
used one by E. Allison Peers.
Teresa of Avila, The Interior
Castle, Classics of Western Spirituality, trans. Kieran
Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez (New York: Paulist Press, 1979)
paperback, $22. Teresa is warm and chatty, but is a shrewd analyst
of the interior life. This is perhaps her best work. Once again,
this is a better translation than the widely used one by E. Allison
Peers.
Robert Bellarmine, Spiritual
Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality, ed. John Patrick
Donnelly and Roland J. Teske (New York: Paulist Press, 1989)
paperback, $15.
Jean-Pierre Caussade, A Treatise on
Prayer from the Heart, trans. Robert M. McKeon (St. Louis:
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1999).
Jean-Pierre Caussade, Abandonment
to Divine Providence, trans. John Beever (reprint: New York:
Image Books, 1992) paperback, $11.
Guilio Cesare Cordara, On the
Suppression of the Society of Jesus: A Contemporary Account,
trans. John P. Murphy (Chicago: Jesuit Way, 1999)
Francis de Sales, Introduction to
the Devout Life, trans. John Ryan (reprint: New York: Image
Books, 1972) paperback, $13.
Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal,
Letters of Spiritual Direction, Classics of Western
Spirituality, ed. Wendy Wright & Joseph F. Power (New York: Paulist
Press, 1988) paperback, $20.
Francisco de Osuna, The Third
Spiritual Alphabet, Classics of Western Spirituality, trans.
Mary E. Giles (New York: Paulist Press, 1981) paperback, $12.
Ignatius of Loyola, Personal
Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters Including
the Text of the Spiritual Exercises, Penguin Classics, trans.
Joseph A. Munitiz & Philip Endean (London: Penguin Books, 1997)
paperback, $16.
John of the Cross, The Collected
Works of Saint John of the Cross, rev. ed., trans. Kieran
Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington: Institute of Carmelite
Studies, 1991) paperback, $18.
Luis de Leon, The Names of Christ,
Classics of Western Spirituality, trans. Manuel Duran & William
Kluback (New York: Paulist Press, 1984) paperback, $12.
Dom Jean Mabillon, Treatise on
Monastic Studies: 1691, trans. John Paul McDonald (Lanham, MD:
University Press of America, 2004) paperback, $45.
Roberto de Nobili, Preaching Wisdom
to the Wise: Three Treatises, trans. Anand Amaladass & Francis
X. Clooney (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2000).
Teresa of Avila, The Collected
Works of Teresa of Avila, 3 vol. (Washington: Institute of
Carmelite Studies, 1976-1980) paperback, $14-$18 per volume.
Teresa of Avila, The Life of Saint
Teresa of Avila by Herself, Penguin Classics, trans. J.M. Cohen
(London: Penguin Books, 1988) paperback, $11.
John Patrick
Donnelly, ed., Jesuit Writings of the Early Modern Period
(Hackett, 2006) paperback, $13. NEW.
William V. Hudon, ed., Theatine
Spirituality, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York:
Paulist Press, 1996) paperback, $23.
Robert S. Miola,
ed., Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007) paperback, $45. NEW.
Edmond C. Murphy & Martin E. Palmer,
trans., The Spiritual Writings of Pierre Favre: The Memoriale and
Selected Letters and Instructions, Jesuit Primary Sources in
Translations I, 16 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1997).
Martin E. Palmer, On Giving the
Spiritual Exercises: The Early Jesuit Manuscript Discoveries and the
Official Directory of 1559 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit
Sources, 1996).
Martin E. Palmer,
trans., Ignatius of Loyola: Letters and Instructions, Jesuit
Primary Sources in English Translations 3 (St. Louis: Institute of
Jesuit Sources, 2006) paperback, $29. NEW.