It was only to be expected that in the great effort which has been made in recent times in France to go back to the sources of Christian tradition and to recover its principles, an attempt should have been made to reconsider the nature of the monastic life and its place in the life of the Church. Of these attempts the most remarkable is the work of the Oratorian Père Bouyer on Le Sens de la Vie Monastique. It may be a matter of surprise that this should be the work of one who is not himself a monk. But the reason for this becomes clear when it is seen that for Père Bouyer the monastic life is simply the life of Christian perfection. ‘To be a monk’, as he says, ‘is simply to be an integral Christian.’ Viewed in this light, the first chapters of his book form one of the most memorable studies of the ideal of Christian perfection in modern times. They are distinguished from the work of Père Garrigou-Lagrange on the same subject in that they are based not on the teaching of St Thomas and the Carmelite mystics, but on the doctrine of the Fathers, and especially the Greek Fathers. This gives his view a richness and depth which is lacking in the work of Garrigou-Lagrange, but it also brings with it certain dangers. This becomes evident in the second part, where he turns from the theory to the practice of the monastic life; for he bases himself here largely on the teaching of the Fathers of the Desert. Now this teaching has, of course, immense value, and the fundamental principles of prayer and asceticism and spiritual perfection were laid down at this period for all time. But there were also defects and excesses in their outlook which make them often dangerous guides, and one does not feel that Père Bouyer has altogether escaped the dangers. As Father Aelred Sillem pointed out in a review in The Life of the Spirit, the fact that the Fathers of the Desert went out into the desert ‘to fight with demons’ is not really of much relevance to the vocation of a monk today.