Denis the Carthusian

Believing that the most perfect life was a blend of contemplation and action, he divided his day into two, devoting the first part to prayer and the second to study and writing, and this remained his pattern for almost 50 years.

For seven months in 1451 Denis accompanied Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in an attempt to reform the Church in Germany and to preach a crusade against the Turks.

Denis the Carthusian was said to have reached the Unitive stage, being privileged to divine ecstatic experiences lasting hours at a time.

Although the cause of his beatification has never yet been introduced in accordance with the Carthusian tradition of not seeking such recognition, St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and other writers style him "Blessed"; his life is in the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists (12 March), and his name is to be found in many martyrologies.

The main contribution of Denis the Carthusian was to synthesize all previous doctrine on the spiritual life and then to make an evaluation of the various conclusions.

Although an admirer of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, he is neither an Aristotelian nor a Thomist in the usual sense of the words, but seems inclined rather to the Christian Platonism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine, and St. Bonaventure.

He was consulted as an oracle by men of different social standing, from bishops and princes downwards; they flocked to his cell, and letters came to him from all parts of the Netherlands and Germany.

The topic of such correspondence was often the grievous state of the Church in Europe, i.e. the evils ensuing from relaxed morals and discipline and from the invasion of Islam.

Soon after the Fall of Constantinople (1453), impressed by revelations God made to him concerning the terrific woes threatening Christendom, he wrote a letter to all the princes of Europe, urging them to amend their lives, to cease their dissensions, and to join in war against their common enemy, the Turks.

"De doctrina et regulis vitæ Christianæ", the most important of these treatises, was written at the request, and for the use, of the Franciscan preacher John Brugman.

These and others which he wrote of a similar import, inveighing against the vices and abuses of the time, insisting on the need of a general reform, and showing how it was to be effected, give an insight into the customs, the state of society, and ecclesiastical life of that period.