A Catholic Response in Sixteenth-Century France to Reformation Theology: The Works of Pierre Doré by John Langlois (review)

662 BOOK REVIEWS Indeed, the separation thesis implies that the practical life is in opposition to the theoretical life, since the practical life increases the individual's interest in and dependence upon the material world. By identifying separation as a moment in the greater cycle of harmonization, one could explain the widening vision acquired by the soul as it proceeds through the cosmos as an extension of the perspicuous understanding of concrete circumstances required for practical judgment. In sum, Knowing Persons presents a view of the Platonic dialogues whose basicinterpretative principle brings to light a central aspect ofthe Platonic cosmos. The discussions of the dialogues found in the book are worthy of consideration and valuable to scholars, even if one does not hold that separation is the ultimate aim of Platonic philosophy. The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. JOE MCCOY A Catholic Response in Sixteenth-Century France to Reformation Theology: The Works ofPierre Dore. ByJOHN LANGLOIS. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003. Pp. 328. $119.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-7734-6697-5. The Dictionnaire de spiritua.lite entry on Pierre Dore, O.P. (written in 1957), noted that the mid-sixteenth-century works ofthis spiritual and controversialist writer had not yet been systematically studied. With this monograph, John Langlois, 0.P., has enriched our bibliographical knowledge of Dore's numerous publications and has taken up three areas of his teaching for systematic examination. After an introduction surveying the perceptions and judgments on Dore advanced by historians, a chapter sketches the setting of his life and work as a friar who entered a priory of the reformed Gallican Dominican Congregation in 1514 and then pursued studies in Paris to the doctorate in 1532. A helpful overview of Dore's publications follows, which is supported by an appendix on the first publication of each, on the known reprints, and on their presence today in forty libraries. Dore publishedthirty-five works between 1525 and 1569, with an exceptional burst of productivity in vernacular works in 1538-41. The works draw extensively on Scripture, at time straining texts to find in them spiritual nourishment in metaphorical expressions or apologetical support for Catholic doctrine and practice, contrasted with Protestant teaching. A first systematic chapter treats Dore's vernacular instructions on lived religiosity, in which the Reformation sola fide is countered by insistence on faith formed by love, with faith as the root, hope the trunk, and charity the branches of our tree of life. The "ways to paradise" go along paths sketched by the BOOK REVIEWS 663 Matthean beatitudes, each connected with a reward, in accord with with the Catholic doctrine of merit. A narrative such as Jesus' encounter with the woman ofSamaria shows that the first grace is granted gratuitously, though it then leads to God asking us to become active in good works on his behalf. Augustine enters with the contrast of creation sine nobis and salvation only cum nobis, but Aquinas's influence is pervasive even without extensive citation, hardly needed by Dore's lay readers. A chapter on the Eucharist and priesthood reviews works aiming to counter Calvin, with emphatic teaching on Christ's gift of his body and blood, present by transubstantiation, as the remedy for the deleterious effects of original sin. One should hear, listen attentively, and hold adamantly to the word of Christ, "This is my body," where the neuter hoc must refer to corpus, not to a masculine panis. But while Dore was constrained to meet Calvinistic arguments, his works press on to explain the ceremonies of the Mass in a way intended to engender devout attendance. He instructs on the rightful dispositions for receiving Holy Communion and even quietly lifts a passage from Calvin to insist on more frequent reception of this medicine of our weakness and bond of intimacy with God than was heretofore the rule. The third systematic chapter, on the virtuous life, features Dore's longest work, L'image de vertu (1540, with six reprints}, which draws on the whole of Scripture to set before the reader the very perfection of a godly life, as given exemplary concrete form in the Blessed Virgin Mary. One should contemplate the virtues of Mary...