COSTANTINO da BARBENÇON. — Capuchin preacher and ascetical writer, born at Barbençon (Hainaut, Flanders) around 1582, died at Bonn on 26 (or 25) November 1631 (or 1632?). From Belgium he was sent in 1611 to found the province of Cologne; definitor, master of novices, and much sought-after spiritual director.
His work Les secrets sentiers de l'amour divin (Cologne 1623, and repeatedly thereafter down to the present day) is of particular representative importance in mystical literature.
C. shows here, in unexceptionable terminology, how the soul, trained in mortification, humility, and meditation, is raised by Grace to the knowledge and love of God, ultimately attaining complete union with Him. In the other, more extensive but less widely disseminated work, Anatomie de l'âme et des opérations divines en icelle (Liège 1635), published posthumously, he effectively polemicizes against a contemporary pre-Quietist movement, combating the false interpretations that the so-called “illuminati” gave to the doctrine Benedetto da Canfield (v.), especially concerning the exercise of the “essential will” of God; he also sagaciously denounces the deleterious influences of Protestant theories on the pseudo-mysticism of the pre-Quietists. Fr. C.’s doctrine was used by various ascetical authors, such as Cardinal Bona, and especially by the well-known Benedictine A. Baker (v.).
Ilarino da Milano