Balthasar’s study of the twentieth-century French novelist Georges Bernanos, first published in 1954 by Hegner, represents an unconventional form in literary criticism. Rather than attempting to situate his subject among other writers, Balthasar places him among the prophets. Bernanos’ writing, Balthasar shows, was an act of testimony, and the concrete form of his work (including the particularities of his style) makes sense only in light of his need to bear witness to the truth. “Ecclesial existence,” the theme of Bernanos’ life as a writer, was also the theme of his best-known works, like Diary of a Country Priest,  which explore the confrontation between which holiness and evil at the heart of the world.