In an article published in 1955 the great French Hispanist, Marcel Bataillon, lamented that Juan de Ávila, a pivotal figure in the reform and spiritual movements of the Spanish Golden Age, had been virtually forgotten. He urged scholars to ‘rediscover’ this influential writer, preacher, spiritual director and educator, restoring him to his proper place in the history of Spanish and European Catholicism.Footnote ¹ Despite Bataillon's eloquent plea, Juan de Ávila remained little studied for several more decades. There was a flurry of publishing in 1970, the year of Ávila's canonisation, and another in 1999–2000, the quincentenary of his birth. These years saw a number of valuable studies and critical editions of Ávila's works, mainly produced by Spanish clerical scholars for specialised ecclesiastical presses. For most English-speakers, however, Juan de Ávila stayed in the shadows. For these reasons, recent developments give cause for cheer. In 2006 the Paulist Press published the first English translation since 1620 of Ávila's most important work, the Audi, filia.Footnote ² And now the theologian Rady Roldán-Figueroa has produced an insightful study that offers a close reading of Ávila's writings considered within the context of the society in which he lived. Roldán-Figueroa begins with an introductory chapter that provides the basic biographical information on Juan de Ávila, a judeoconverso (descendant of Jewish converts) whose gifts as a preacher and spiritual advisor in southern Spain brought him renown as the ‘Apostle of Andalusia’. The author also explains his choice of the term ‘spiritual asceticism’. Juan de Ávila, he maintains, carried out a ‘carefully crafted program of spiritual exercises that revolved around the methodical practice of mental prayer’ in order to arrive at ‘the mortification of the self’, or ‘self-knowledge’. Far from an other-worldly mystic, however, Ávila also became ‘a sharp critic of early modern Spanish racialism and rigid social stratification’, exhibiting a ‘rare ability to integrate practical advice, theological acumen, and social criticism’ (p. 9). Juan de Ávila spent his career prodding his fellow priests toward lives of greater spiritual reflection, moral rectitude and selfless service to their flocks. Today he is the patron saint of the Spanish secular clergy. In chapter i Roldán-Figueroa examines Ávila's rules for the clergy as outlined in four of his extant letters. These guidelines range from the cultivation of a deep piety or ‘priestly mysticism’ centred on the consecration of the host (p. 49) to practical advice, for example warning that a priest should not ‘burden himself with too many confessions’ for fear of ruining his health (p. 37). In chapter ii Roldán-Figueroa turns to Juan de Ávila's Short rule of Christian life of 1556, his guidebook for the laity. Ávila's promotion of mental prayer and systematic spiritual exercises for laymen and women proved controversial at a time when ecclesiastical and secular authorities greatly feared the spread of Protestantism and other forms of heterodox belief. Not surprisingly, this small book was prohibited in the Index of 1559 and published only in sanitised or ‘Tridentize[d]’ (p. 89) form some twenty years after Ávila's death. As a historian of gender as well as religion I was particularly fascinated by the book's third chapter. Here Roldán-Figueroa examines the relationships that Ávila maintained with women, religious and lay. He discusses Ávila's ‘appeal among noble Andalusian women’ (p. 92), who became disciples of his programme of ascetic spirituality and patrons of his reform efforts. The extensive collaboration between Ávila and his female followers does not mean that the priest had complete control over their devotional lives, however. Roldán-Figueroa makes the important observation that the ‘harsh treatment of the body’ and ‘forms of self-mutilation’ practised by Sancha Carrillo and others do not reflect ‘the actual teaching of Ávila’ (p. 96). Nevertheless these women continued to adopt ‘unusually harsh disciplines, in some cases resulting in their premature deaths’ (p. 95). Roldán-Figueroa briefly analyses Ávila's most famous work, the Audi, filia, composed as a manual for pious women in 1556, and attempts to gauge the book's readership and impact. Chapters iv, v and vi, which treat Juan de Ávila's writings on eucharistic piety and frequent communion and his doctrine of union with the Holy Spirit, or Espirituación, will perhaps be of more interest to theologians than historians. Even in these chapters, however, Roldán-Figueroa relates these teachings to contemporary debates about proper attire for women, the abuses of wealth and power perpetrated by members of the Spanish nobility, and other social and cultural issues. In chapter vii Roldán-Figueroa explores further Juan de Ávila's social doctrine, or ‘spiritual discipline of public service’. In another attempt to channel the power and privileges of the nobility and express his ‘sympathy with the laity’, Ávila urged Spanish elites ‘to see their service in a secular office as a form of spiritual vocation’ (p. 237).

In a somewhat perplexing decision Roldán-Figueroa waits until his concluding remarks to define ‘judeoconverso spirituality’, rather than explaining this somewhat controversial concept at the beginning of the book. A ‘New Christian’ who experienced discrimination because of his ethnicity, Ávila, he claims, ‘built into the methodical practice of mental prayer’ his ‘criticism of social prejudice based on lineage’ (p. 246). Moreover, he attempted to turn on its head the pernicious ideology of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood), using the term limpieza not as a ‘category of racial and religious purity’ but rather ‘a category of holiness’ connoting ‘cleanliness of the soul’ (pp. 246–7). This book is not for undergraduate students or other beginners. The author assumes a certain familiarity with Catholic doctrine and practice and sometimes uses specialised vocabulary. Some chapters are perhaps longer and more repetitious than necessary, and it is a shame that so many typographical errors mar such an expensive book. These caveats aside, Rady Roldán-Figueroa's careful and comprehensive study of the writings of Juan de Ávila will be warmly welcomed by scholars of early modern Spain and Catholic Europe. Thanks to his efforts this crucially important figure has been ‘rediscovered’.