BAKER, DAVID AUGUSTINE. - English Benedictine and ascetical writer, born at Abergavenny on 9 Dec. 1575, died in London on 9 Aug. 1641. Reared in Protestantism, he was converted during his studies at Oxford (1603), entered the Benedictines at Padua (1605), and was forced by ill health to return to his homeland. Ordained priest at Reims (c. 1612), he served first as chaplain in Devonshire, then from 1633 to 1638 as spiritual director of the Benedictine nuns at Douai; returning to London, he died there of the plague.
He was one of the most effective ascetical writers of his time; many of his works, written at Douai and London, remain unpublished. Only after his death did Dom S. Cressy publish a kind of “summa,” clear and precise, in 2 vols. (Douai 1657; Eng. trans.: Holy Wisdom, London 1876, 1908, 1932) under the title Sancta Sophia.
Though following the traditional life of contemplation, Baker held certain views that did not escape controversy: he showed little esteem for methodical meditation, which he deemed unsuitable for nuns, who should rather abandon themselves to affective prayer; external and minute spiritual direction was less valuable than abandoning oneself to the interior inspirations of the Holy Spirit, attained through prayer; yet this abandonment was hedged about by scrupulous and justified restrictions, which he defended in his writings.