Abstract
This essay makes an important contribution to Stein scholarship by examining the work of Saint John of the Cross on feelings, which express and help make manifest the unity of body and spirit. Stein’s last work focused on John of the Cross, and many interpreters see this as a mystical work that speaks about the possibility of spiritual union with God. Often the life of feelings is not discussed in such treatments. This paper unpacks the centrality of feeling for the Spanish mystic and for Edith Stein’s reading of John of the Cross’s work.
This paper is based upon some of the research in progress on feeling in The Living Flame of Love of St. John of the Cross: FONDECYT 1120035 Regular 2012–2014, El sentimiento como nexo entre el espíritu y el cuerpo. Un estudio histórico sistemático en Edith Stein y Juan de la Cruz. [Translator: I have rendered sentimiento as feeling rather than the more obvious sentiment in order to make obvious its relationship to sentir, which means to feel.]
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- 1.
Cf. Tomás Álvarez [1, pp. 616–620], especially 619: “Do imagination and fantasy perish at the altitudes of mystical union? The mystic and poet Brother John is certainly not the one who condemns these two inner senses to permanent atrophy. Is not the contribution of both maximally present in his highest and latest poem, The Living Flame of Love?
- 2.
We use Juan de la Cruz [2]. [Translator’s note: St. John of the Cross’s four-stanza poem Living Flame of Love is accompanied by an Exposition (Declaraciónn), of which there are two redactions. So, hereafter, FB, 1,1 refers to the Commentary on Living Flame of Love, second redaction, stanza 1, paragraph 1. I quote from The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross, vol. III, translated by E. Allison Peers from the critical edition of Silverio de Santa Teresa, O.C.D., Kessinger Publishing reproduction of Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1953].
- 3.
St. John of the Cross, A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ, prologue 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2000–07–09, 11–12): “It is better to leave the outpourings of love in their own fullness, that everyone may apply them according to the measure of his spirit and power, than to pare them down to one particular sense which is not suited to the taste of everyone. And though I do put forth a particular explanation, still others are not to be bound by it. The mystical wisdom—that is, the love, of which these stanzas speak—does not require to be distinctly understood in order to produce the effect of love and tenderness in the soul, for it is in this respect like faith, by which we love God without a clear comprehension of Him. It is better to leave the outpourings of love in their own fullness, that everyone may apply them according to the measure of his spirit and power, than to pare them down to one particular sense that is not suited to the taste of everyone. And though I do put forth a particular explanation, still others are not to be bound by it. The mystical wisdom—that is, the love, of which these stanzas speak—does not require to be distinctly understood in order to produce the effect of love and tenderness in the soul, for it is in this respect like faith, by which we love God without a clear comprehension of Him.”
- 4.
Edith Stein, Ciencia de la Cruz, trans. Francisco Javier Sancho Fermín (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 5th edition, 2006), 244.
- 5.
Peers vol. III, 16.
- 6.
I prefer St. John’s own term declaration instead of commentary, although today we would say clarification. [Translator: exposition in Peers].
- 7.
Peers, vol. III, p. 106.
- 8.
Peers, vol. III, p. 114.
- 9.
Peers, vol. III, p. 122.
- 10.
[Translator: There is no FB 1,37 in Peers.] We can count 79 occurrences including the soul feels, souls feel, feeling, feel, you feel. Furthermore, there are three occurrences of the body feels (FB 2,22), and two occurrences related to the spirit feels. Special attention should be given to FB 1,23, where there are eight occurrences of feels and ten of will. In FB 2 there are 11 occurrences, in FB 3, 17 occurrences, and in FB 4 there are 9 occurrences.
- 11.
Juan de la Cruz, Obras Completas, 773.
- 12.
According to the Concordances, John of the Cross uses the word feeling [sentimiento] altogether 118 times, 39 in Ascent, 20 in Night, 19 in Canticle B (21 in Canticle A, 5 in Flame B (5 in Flame A), and 9 in Minor Works (Juan Luis Astigarraga [4, 1686–1689]. Consequently, this term ranks with exposition [declaración] 119 occurrences, and body, 121 occurrences. Another group of related terms are: feel [sentir] with 621 occurrences (will occurs 620 times), of which 105 are in Flame B (10 more than in Flame A), and sense with 647 occurrences altogether, 81 of which belong to Flame B.
- 13.
Methodologically, the study of feeling in the Flame simultaneously benefits the analyses of feel (sentir) and feel oneself, (sentirse) and likewise further the study of the concept of body and flesh in this same work. It is remarkable that through the approach we have begun we come to concentrate on almost the same texts where all the features mentioned are combined.
- 14.
See Charles André Bernard [5, 1792–1797].
- 15.
Christophe André, “L’expérience des sentiments. Un marqueur d’humanité?,” in Christus, vol. 231, 2011, 264: “In the vast family of affects, feeling occupies a quite separate place. In some way, it is a subtle emotion: more discrete, more secret, more complex than an emotion, but influencing the course of our lives more.” See also: Wolfhart Henckmann, “Sentimiento” en Conceptos Fundamentales de Filosofía, vol. III, Barcelona: Herder, 1979, 362–380; Ghislain Lafont, “Sensibilité,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, vol. 14 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1990), columns 617–623; Alejandro Roldán, “Sentimiento religioso,” in Sacrametum Mundi, vol. 6 (Barcelona: Herder, 1976), 305–308; also by Alejandro Roldán, Metafísica del sentimiento (Madrid: Instituto Luis de Filosofía, 1956). The Diccionario de la lengua española (DRAE) twenty-second edition, 2001, consulted on-line at http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=sentimiento, defines feeling as: “Affective animic state produced by something that strongly impresses it.” (Estado afectivo del ánimo producido por causas que lo impresionan vivamente). There is a change in the second meaning with respect to the twenty-first edition of 1992: “Impression and movement that spiritual things cause in the soul” (Impresión y moviemento que causan en el alma las cosas espirituales). This leads us to look for the meaning of animic. “[Of the] soul or spirit insofar as it is principle of human activity.” (Ánimo = “Alma o espíritu en cuanto es principio de la actividad humana.”) It is also illustrative to hear Sebastián de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid 1611: “To feel, Latin, sentire, sensu percipere. Every one knows that we call sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch the five bodily ways in which we feel, and we often put feel for understand, as when we say: I feel thus, I understand thus. Feeling, the act by which we feel, and sometimes the demonstration of contentment. Its derivatives can be seen in their respective places” (Sentir, Latin sentire, sensu, percipere. Notorio es a todos llamar cinco sentidos corporales, la vista, el oído, el gusto, el olor, y el tacto, y muchas veces sentir, se pone por entender, como decir: yo siento esto así, yo lo entiendo así. Sentimiento, el acto de sentir, y algunas veces demostración de contento. Los derivados desta palabra verás en sus lugares.) Consulted on-line at: http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/del-origen-y-principio-de-la-lengua-castellana-o-romance-que-oy-se-vsa-en-espana-compuesto-por-elDOUBLEHYPHEN0/html
- 16.
The soul feels the Holy Spirit within itself and the effects Holy Spirit’s impetus; it feels the life of God; it feels God. Placed in God’s feelings, it feels things as God does. “El alma siente al Espíritu Santo en sí, los efectos de su embestimiento; siente vida de Dios, siente a Dios.” In another order, the soul feels its weaknesses. Feeling is united to knowing, seeing, and passing. There are pairs like feel and suffer, feel and taste, feel and understand. Another related word is suffers, Flame 1–19–20 with five occurrences; to suffer with one occurrence, united to to feel in Flame 1, 23. The most noteworthy passage is Flame B, 3, 6 with eight occurrences of thou feelest.
- 17.
See Gaetano Chiappini, “El modelo general de la semántica del “Deseo” en la primera declaración de la “Llama de amor viva” (Texto B),” in Actas del Congreso Internacional Sanjuanista, Ávila, September 23, 1991 (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 1993), vol. I Filología, 233–244; María del Sagrario Roldán, “Cuerpo y lenguaje como epifanía en san Juan de la Cruz,” in Actas del Congreso, vol. 1, 395–406.
- 18.
Peers, vol. III, 106. [Translator: B indicates the exposition from John’s second redaction; 1,1 indicates commentary on stanza 1, paragraph 1].
- 19.
In The Ascent of Mt. Carmel John will say (translation by Allison Peers, www.jesus-passion.com/ASCENT_OF_MT._CARMEL.htm), Stanza 1, 1: “In this first stanza the soul sings of the happy fortune and chance which it experienced in going forth from all things that are without, and from the desires [74] and imperfections that are in the sensual [75] part of man because of the disordered state of his reason. For the understanding of this it must be known that, for a soul to attain to the state of perfection, it has ordinarily first to pass through two principal kinds of night, which spiritual persons call purgations or purifications of the soul; and here we call them nights, for in both of them the soul journeys, as it were, by night, in darkness.” Paragraph 2 continues: “The first night or purgation is of the sensual part of the soul… And the second is of the spiritual part; of this speaks the second stanza, which follows; and of this we shall treat likewise, in the second and the third part, with respect to the activity of the soul; and in the fourth part, with respect to its passivity.” Then, in The Dark Night of the Soul, trans. Allison Peers, part II, chapter 1, paragraph 1 (222.jesus-passion.com/DarkNightSoul): “The soul which God is about to lead onward is not led by His Majesty into this night of the spirit as soon as it goes forth from the aridities and trials of the first purgation and night of sense…”
- 20.
Peers, vol. III, 151.
- 21.
Peers, vol. III, 129.
- 22.
Peers, vol. III, 108.
- 23.
- 24.
All changes of format in quotation are ours; they are used to emphasize and facilitate understanding of the passages.
- 25.
Peers, vol. III, 106–107.
- 26.
Peers, vol. III, p. 103 Flame B, prologue: “I have felt some unwillingness, most noble and devout lady, to expand these four stanzas which you have requested me to explain, for they relate to things so interior and spiritual that words commonly fail to describe them, since spirit transcends sense and it is with difficulty that anything can be said of the substance of the spirit if one have not deep spirituality.”
- 27.
Peers, vol. III, 106–107, FB 1,2.
- 28.
Peers, vol. III, 107, FB, 1, 2.
- 29.
Peers, vol. III, 107, FB, 1, 2.
- 30.
Peers, vol. III, 107, 1, 2.
- 31.
John of the Cross, Canticle, Prologue, 2 (www.catholictreasury.info/books/spiritual_canticle/cn_2.php).
- 32.
Sebastián de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua…: “Aficionar, ganar la voluntad de otros con su hermosura, con su virtud y buenas partes atrayendo a si las personas con quien trata. Aficion, el tal amor y voluntad. Aficionarse enamorarse, y acodiciarse. Aficionado, enamorado, viene del verbo afficio.is. que significa lo mesmo.”
- 33.
John of The Cross, Spiritual Canticle, prologue, 2 (www.catholictreasury.info/books/spiritual_canticle/cn_2.php).
- 34.
The same approach applies to communication about the night. Ascent, 1,1: “Prologue, 1:” “In order to expound and describe this dark night, through which the soul passes in order to attain to the Divine light of the perfect union of the love of God, as far as is possible in this life, it would be necessary to have illumination of knowledge and experience other and far greater than mine; for this darkness and these trials, both spiritual and temporal, through which happy souls are wont to pass in order to be able to attain to this high estate of perfection, are so numerous and so profound that neither does human knowledge suffice for the understanding of them, nor experience for the description of them; for only he that passes this way can understand it, and even he cannot describe it.”
- 35.
Edith Stein, Ciencia de la Cruz, 50.
- 36.
FB 2,14 (Peers, vol. III, 132–133): “This I say that it may be understood that he who will ever cling to natural reasoning and ability in his journey to God will not become a very spiritual person. For there are some who think that they can attain to the powers and the height of supernatural spirituality by means of the powers and operation of sense alone, though this of itself is low and no more than natural. They cannot attain thereto save by setting aside and renouncing bodily sense and its operation. But it is quite different when a spiritual effect overflows from spirit into sense, for, when this is the case great spirituality may accrue, as is clear from what we have said of the wounds, the outward manifestation of which corresponds to an inward power. This came to pass in Saint Paul, when the intensity of his soul’s realization of the sufferings of Christ was so great that it overflowed into his body, as he writes to the Galatians, saying: ‘I bear in my body the marks of my Lord Jesus.’”
- 37.
FB 2,15 (Peers, vol. III, 133): “No more need be said about the burn and the wound, but if they are as we have here depicted them, what, do we believe, will be the hand that inflicts this burn, and what will be the touch? This the soul describes in the line following, lauding it rather than expounding it, and saying: Oh, soft hand! Oh, delicate touch!”
- 38.
Peers, vol. III, 130.
- 39.
Peers, vol. III, 130, FB, 9.
- 40.
FB 2,12 (Peers, vol. III, 131): “Few souls attain to a state as high as this, but some have done so, especially those whose virtue and spirituality was to be transmitted to the succession of their children. For God bestows spiritual wealth and strength upon the head of a house together with the first-fruits of the Spirit, according to the greater or lesser number of the descendants who are to inherit his doctrine and spirituality.”
- 41.
Peers, vol. III, 131.
- 42.
Peers, vol. III, 132.
- 43.
Peers, vol. III, 132, FB, 2, 13.
- 44.
Peers, vol. III, 132, FB 2, 13.
- 45.
Peers, vol. III, 132, FB 2, 13.
- 46.
Peers, vol. III, 132, FB, 2, 14.
- 47.
Peers, vol. III, 132, FB, 2, 14.
- 48.
Peers, vol. III, 132, FB, 2, 14.
- 49.
Peers, vol. III, 132–133, FB, 2, 14.
- 50.
Peers, vol. III, 42, FA, 2, 14.
- 51.
Galatians 6:17: “Henceforth let no man give me trouble, for I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body” Vulgate: “Ego enim stigmata Iesu in corpore meo porto”.
- 52.
Peers, vol. III, 42, FA, 2, 14.
- 53.
Peers, vol. III, 133.
- 54.
FB 2,22 (Peers, vol. III, 136): “And in this good which comes to the soul the unction of the Holy Spirit sometimes overflows into the body, and this is enjoyed by all the substance of sense and all the members of the body and the very marrow and bones, not as feebly as is usually the case, but with a feeling of great delight and glory, which is felt even in the remotest joints of the feet and hands. And the body feels such glory in the glory of the soul that it magnifies God after its own manner, perceiving that He is in its very bones, even as David said [Psalm 35:10] ‘All my bones shall say, God who is like unto Thee?’ And since all that can be said concerning this master is lees tan the truth, it suffices to say of the bodily experience as of the spiritual, that it savors of eternal life and pays every debt.” [Translator: Peers does not have the last four words.]
- 55.
Peers, vol. III, 135.
- 56.
Peers, vol. III, 136, FB, 2, 22.
- 57.
Peers, vol. III, FB, 2, 22.
- 58.
Peers, vol. III, 157, FB, 3, 26: “During the time, then, of this betrothal and expectation of marriage in the unctions of the Holy Spirit, when there are choicest ointments preparing the soul for union with God, the yearnings of the caverns of the soul are wont to be extreme and delicate. For, as those ointments are a most proximate preparation for union with God, because they are nearest to God and for this cause make the soul more desirous of Him and inspire it with a more delicate affect for Him, the desire is more delicate and also deeper; for the desire for God is a preparation for union with God.” Also, Peers, III, 159, FB, 3, 31: “In this way many spiritual masters do much harm to many souls, for, not themselves understanding the ways and properties of the spirit, they commonly cause souls to lose the unctions of these delicate ointments, wherewith the Holy Spirit gradually anoints and prepares them for Himself, and instruct them by other and lower means which they have used and of which they have read here and here, and which are unsuitable save for beginners.” Also Peers, III, 165, FB, 3, 43: “Although the gravity and seriousness of this evil cannot be exaggerated, it is so common and frequent that there will hardly be found a single spiritual director who does not inflict it upon souls whom God is beginning to draw nearer to Himself in this kind of contemplation. For, whenever God is anointing the contemplative soul with some most delicate unction of living knowledge—serene peaceful, lonely, and very far removed from sense and from all that has to do with thought—so that the soul cannot meditate or think of aught soever or find pleasure in aught, whether in higher things or in lower, inasmuch as God is keeping it full of that lonely unction and inclined to rest and solitude…” Also, Peers, vol. III, 179, FB, 3, 68: “Now let us return to the matter of these deep caverns of the faculties of the soul wherein we said that the suffering of the soul is wont to be great when God is anointing and preparing it with the most sublime unctions of the Holy Spirit in order that He may unite it with Himself. These unctions are so subtle and so delicate in their anointing that they penetrate the inmost substance of the depth of the soul, preparing it and filling it with sweetness in such a way that its suffering and fainting with desire in the boundless emptiness of these caverns is likewise boundless.”
- 59.
That deeper study was the task of a postgraduate methodological seminar in our Faculty of Theology: Pneumatological Elements in John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love, The Question of the Holy Spirit at the Heart of the Experience of Transformation.
- 60.
Peers, vol. III, 136, FB, 2, 23.
- 61.
Peers, vol. III, 136, FB, 2, 22.
- 62.
In Hebrew the bones (plural) express the totality of being, bones of my bones, and likewise the seat of feeling. The bones also represent the soul. Cf. Josh. Pedersen [6, pp. 172–173].
- 63.
Peers, vol. III, p. 136, FB, 2, 22.
- 64.
St. John of the Cross, A Spiritual Canticle, stanza 36:
Let us rejoice, Oh my beloved!
Let us go forth to see ourselves in your beauty.
To the mountain and the hill,
Where the pure water flows
Let us enter into the heart of the thicket
Canticle 36, 5–6 “5. That is, to the morning and essential knowledge of God, which is knowledge in the Divine Word, Who, because He is so high, is here signified by the mountain. Thus Isaiah says, calling upon men to know the Son of God: ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of our Lord,’ and before: ‘In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared. That is, to the evening knowledge of God, to the knowledge of Him in His creatures, in His works, and in His marvelous laws. This is signified by the expression hill, because it is a kind of knowledge lower than the other. The soul prays for both when it says to the mountain and the hill.”
- 65.
Peers, vol. III, 151, FB, 3,11: “But must be understood that these movements are movements of the soul rather than of God; for God moves not. And so these glimpses of glory that are given to the soul are stable, perfect, and continuous, with firm serenity in God, as they will also be in the soul hereafter, without any change between greater and lesser, and without any intervening movements; and then the soul will see clearly how, although here below it appeared that God was moving in it, God moves not in Himself, even as the fire moves not in its sphere; and how, since it was not perfect in glory, it had those movements and bursts of flame in a foretaste of glory.
- 66.
Peers, vol. III, 150, FB 3,10: “And in this way we shall understand that the soul with its faculties is enlightened within the splendors of God.”
- 67.
Peers, vol. III, 150, FB. 3,9: “This brilliance of splendor wherein the soul shines forth with the heat of love is not like that produced by material lamps, which burst into flame and thus illumine the things around them, but is like that of the brilliance within the flames. For the soul is within these splendors wherefore it says: ‘In whose splendors’: that is to say, it is ‘within’ them; and not only so, but, as we have said, it is transformed and turned into splendors.”
- 68.
Peers, vol. III, 150–151, FB 3,10: “For those movements and bursts of flame are the playing of the fire and the joyful festivals which we said, in the second line of the first stanza, the Holy Spirit causes within the soul, wherein it seems that He is ever about to grant it eternal life and remove it to His perfect glory, and make it last to enter truly within Himself.”
- 69.
Peers, vol. III, 146–47.
- 70.
Peers, vol. III, 150.
- 71.
Peers, vol. III, 150.
- 72.
Peers, III, 151, FB, 3, 11.
- 73.
Peers, III, 154.
- 74.
Peers, III, 154, III, 18.
- 75.
Peers, III, 154, FB, 3, 18: “But considering what they suffer when they are empty we can realize in some measure the greatness of their joy and delight when they are filled with God, for one contrary can give light to another.”
- 76.
Peers, vol. III, 154–155.
- 77.
Peers, vol. III, 154.
- 78.
Peers, vol. III, 154, FB, 3, 18.
- 79.
Peers, vol. III, 154, FB, 3, 18.
- 80.
Peers, vol. III, 154–155.
- 81.
Peers, vol. III, 153.
References
Tomás Álvarez, “Fantasía”, in Diccionario de San Juan de la Cruz, ed. Eulogio Pacho (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 2000)
Juan de la Cruz, Obras Completas, ed. José Vicente Rodriguez y Federico Ruiz Salvador, (Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, fifth edition, 1993
José Vicente Rodríguez, 100 fichas sobre san Juan de la Cruz (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 2008)
Juan Luis Astigarraga, Agustí Borrell, Francisco Javier Martín de Lucs, editors, Concordancias de los escritos de san Juan de la Cruz, Rome: Teresianum, 1990
Charles André Bernard, “La función simbólica” in Nuevo Diccionario de Espiritualidad, eds. Stefano de Fiores and Tullo Goffi, (Madrid: Paulinas, fourth edition, 1991)
Josh. Pedersen, Israel Its Life and Culture II (London-Copenhagen: Geoffrey Cumberlege, 1964)
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Pinilla, J.F. (2016). Feeling as the Bond Between Soul and Body in St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love . In: Calcagno, A. (eds) Edith Stein: Women, Social-Political Philosophy, Theology, Metaphysics and Public History. Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21124-4_12
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