François de Sales and the paradoxes of abjection

Abstract

François de Sales is, next to Pascal, the early modern French religious author whose work has for centuries reached the widest audience. Whereas Pascal conceived many of his reflections and arguments in the Pensées for persons uncommitted to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church, de Sales aimed at a wide audience of faithful Roman Catholics. This difference of intended public (or interlocutor) explains much about the advice the two writers offer about how to think and what to think about. In his Introduction à la vie dévote, de Sales’s figurative language makes it seem that he is teaching a form of easy-going religiosity, similar to the dévotion aisée that Pascal mocks in the Provinciales. For today’s reader, the Introduction can seem a cloying confection, full of suavité. And yet, Salesian devotion promotes the radical vision of a deeply degraded humanity.