GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
I
DATES AND METHODS OF COMPOSITION.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
WITH regard to the times and places at which the works of
St. John of the Cross were written, and also with regard to the number of these
works, there have existed, from a very early date, considerable differences of opinion. Of internal evidence from the Saint’s own writings there is practically none, and such external testimony as can be found in contemporary documents needs very careful examination.
There was no period in the life of St. John of the Cross in which
he devoted himself entirely to writing. He does not, in fact, appear to have felt any inclination to do so: his books were written in response to the insistent and repeated demands of his spiritual children. He was very much addicted, on the other hand, to the composition of apothegms or maxims for the use of his penitents and this custom he probably began as early as the days in which he was confessor to the Convent of the Incarnation at vila, though his biographers have no record of any maxims but those written at Beas. One of his best beloved daughters however, Ana María de Jesús, of the Convent of the Incarnation, declared in her deposition, during the process of the Saint’s canonization, that he was accustomed to ‘comfort those with whom he had to do, both by his words and by his letters, of which this witness received a number, and also by certain papers concerning holy things which this witness would greatly value if she still had them.’ Considering, the number of nuns to whom the Saint was director at vila, it is to be presumed that M. Ana María was not the only person whom he favoured. We may safely conclude, indeed, that there were many others who shared the same privileges, and that, had we all these ‘papers,’ they would comprise a large volume, instead of the few pages reproduced elsewhere in this translation.
There is a well-known story, preserved in the documents of the
canonization process, of how, on a December night of 1577, St. John, of the Cross was kidnapped by the Calced Carmelites of vila and carried off from the Incarnation to their priory. Realizing that he had left behind him some important papers, he contrived, on the next morning, to escape, and returned to the Incarnation to destroy them while there was time to do so. He was missed almost immediately and he had hardly gained his cell when his pursuers were on his heels. In the few moments that remained to him he had time to tear up these papers and swallow some of the most compromising. As the original assault had not been unexpected, though the time of it was uncertain, they would not have been very numerous. It is generally supposed that they concerned the business of the infant Reform, of which the survival was at that time in grave doubt. But it seems at least equally likely that some of them might have been these spiritual maxims, or some more extensive instructions which might be misinterpreted by any who found them. It is remarkable, at any rate, that we have none of the Saint’s writings belonging to this period whatever.
All his biographers tell us that he wrote some of the stanzas
of the ‘Spiritual Canticle,’ together with a few other poems, while he was imprisoned at Toledo. ‘When he left the prison,’ says M. Magdalena del Espíritu Santo, ‘he took with him a little book in which he had written, while there, some verses based upon the Gospel In principio erat Verbum, together with some couplets which begin: “How well I know the fount that freely flows, Although ‘tis night,” and the stanzas or liras that begin “Whither has vanishd?” as far as the stanzas beginning “Daughters of Jewry.” The remainder of them the Saint composed later when he was Rector of the College at Baeza. Some of the expositions were written at Beas, as answers to questions put to him by the nuns; others at Granada. This little book, in which the Saint wrote while in prison, he left in the Convent of Beas and on various occasions I was commanded to copy it. Then someone took it from my cell — who, I never knew. The freshness of the words in this book, together with their beauty and subtlety, caused me great wonder, and one day I asked the Saint if God gave him those words which were so comprehensive and so lovely. And he answered: “Daughter, sometimes God gave them to me and at other times I sought them.”’