Benet brought out official editions of the first two parts of his work, but unfortunately not of the third, because he sensed stirrings of criticism from orthodox theologians about the boldness of his teachings on the higher levels of prayer. As a result, this third part is known only in its French and Italian translations, in which Benet had incorporated more conventional devotional elements to ensure its acceptability as an ascetical handbook. In this he failed as it was put on the Index of the Catholic Church in 1689 on the grounds that it came too close to the ideas of the Quietists who were then the subject of a major controversy, although it was not considered to be actually heretical.