DARK
NIGHT OF THE SOUL
by
DOCTOR
OF THE CHURCH
Translated
and edited, with an Introduction, by E. ALLISON PEERS
from the critical edition of P. SILVERIO DE SANTA TERESA, C.D. 1933
INTRODUCTION
SOMEWHAT reluctantly, out of respect for a venerable tradition, we
publish the Dark Night as a separate treatise, though in reality it is a
continuation of the Ascent of Mount Carmel and fulfils the undertakings given in
it:
The first night or purgation is of the sensual part of the soul, which is
treated in the present stanza, and will be treated in the first part of this
book. 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.[1]
This 'fourth part' is the Dark Night. Of it the Saint writes in a passage
which follows that just quoted:
And the second night, or purification, pertains to those who are already
proficient, occurring at the time when God desires to bring them to the state of
union with God. And this latter night is a more obscure and dark and terrible
purgation, as we shall say afterwards.[2]
In his three earlier books he has written of the Active Night, of Sense
and of Spirit; he now proposes to deal with the Passive Night, in the same
order. He has already taught us how we are to deny and purify ourselves with the
ordinary help of grace, in order to prepare our senses and faculties for union
with God through love. He now proceeds to explain, with an arresting freshness,
how these same senses and faculties are purged and purified by God with a view
to the same end--that of union. The combined description of the two nights
completes the presentation of active and passive purgation, to which the Saint
limits himself in these treatises, although the subject of the stanzas which he
is glossing is a much wider one, comprising the whole of the mystical life and
ending only with the Divine embrace of the soul transformed in God through
love.
The stanzas expounded by the Saint are taken from the same poem in the
two treatises. The commentary upon the second, however, is very different from
that upon the first, for it assumes a much more advanced state of development.
The Active Night has left the senses and faculties well prepared, though not
completely prepared, for the reception of Divine influences and illuminations in
greater abundance than before. The Saint here postulates a principle of dogmatic
theology--that by himself, and with the ordinary aid of grace, man cannot attain
to that degree of purgation which is essential to his transformation in God. He
needs Divine aid more abundantly. 'However greatly the soul itself labours,'
writes the Saint, 'it cannot actively purify itself so as to be in the least
degree prepared for the Divine union of perfection of love, if God takes not its
hand and purges it not in that dark fire.'[3]
The Passive Nights, in which it is God Who accomplishes the purgation,
are based upon this incapacity. Souls 'begin to enter' this dark night when God
draws them forth from the state of beginners--which is the state of those that
meditate on the spiritual road--and begins to set them in the state of
progressives--which is that of those who are already contemplatives--to the end
that, after passing through it, they may arrive at the state of the perfect,
which is that of the Divine union of the soul with God.[4]
Before explaining the nature and effects of this Passive Night, the Saint
touches, in passing, upon certain imperfections found in those who are about to
enter it and which it removes by the process of purgation. Such travellers are
still untried proficients, who have not yet acquired mature habits of
spirituality and who therefore still conduct themselves as children. The
imperfections are examined one by one, following the order of the seven deadly
sins, in chapters (ii-viii) which once more reveal the author's skill as a
director of souls. They are easy chapters to understand, and of great practical
utility, comparable to those in the first book of the Ascent which deals with the
active purgation of the desires of sense.
In Chapter viii,
Having described this Passive Night of Sense in Chapter viii, he explains
with great insight and discernment how it may be recognized whether any given
aridity is a result of this Night or whether it comes from sins or
imperfections, or from frailty or lukewarmness of spirit, or even from
indisposition or 'humours' of the body. The Saint is particularly effective
here, and we may once more compare this chapter with a similar one in the Ascent
(II, xiii)--that in which he fixes the point where the soul may abandon
discursive meditation and enter the contemplation which belongs to loving and
simple faith.
Both these chapters have contributed to the reputation of
St. John
of the
Cross as a consummate spiritual master. And this not only for the objective
value of his observations, but because, even in spite of himself, he betrays the
sublimity of his own mystical experiences. Once more, too, we may admire the
crystalline transparency of his teaching and the precision of the phrases in
which he clothes it. To judge by his language alone, one might suppose at times
that he is speaking of mathematical, rather than of spiritual operations.
In Chapter x, the Saint describes the discipline which the soul in this
Dark Night must impose upon itself; this, as might be logically deduced from the
Ascent, consists in 'allowing the soul to remain in peace and quietness,'
content 'with a peaceful and loving attentiveness toward God.'[8] Before long it
will experience enkindlings of love (Chapter xi), which will serve to purify its
sins and imperfections and draw it gradually nearer to God; we have here, as it
were, so many stages of the ascent of the Mount on whose summit the soul attains
to transforming union.
Chapters
xii and xiii detail with great exactness the benefits that the soul receives
from this aridity, while Chapter xiv briefly expounds the last line of the first
stanza and brings to an end what the Saint desires to say with respect to the
first Passive Night.
At only slightly greater length St. John
of the
Cross describes the Passive Night of the Spirit, which is at once more
afflictive and more painful than those which have preceded it. This,
nevertheless, is the Dark Night par excellence, of which the Saint speaks in
these words: 'The night which we have called that of sense may and should be
called a kind of correction and restraint of the desire rather than purgation.
The reason is that all the imperfections and disorders of the sensual part have
their strength and root in the spirit, where all habits, both good and bad, are
brought into subjection, and thus, until these are purged, the rebellions and
depravities of sense cannot be purged thoroughly.'[9]
Spiritual persons, we are told, do not enter the second night immediately
after leaving the first; on the contrary, they generally pass a long time, even
years, before doing so,[10] for they still have many imperfections, both
habitual and actual (Chapter ii). After a brief introduction Chapter iii), the
Saint describes with some fullness the nature of this spiritual purgation or
dark contemplation referred to in the first stanza of his poem and the varieties
of pain and affliction caused by it, whether in the soul or in its faculties
(Chapters iv-viii). These chapters are brilliant beyond all description; in them
we seem to reach the culminating point of their author's mystical experience;
any excerpt from them would do them an injustice. It must suffice to say that St. John
of the
Cross seldom again touches those same heights of sublimity.
Chapter ix describes how, although these purgations seem to blind the
spirit, they do so only to enlighten it again with a brighter and intenser
light, which it is preparing itself to receive with greater abundance. The
following chapter makes the comparison between spiritual purgation and the log
of wood which gradually becomes transformed through being immersed in fire and
at last takes on the fire's own properties. The force with which the familiar
similitude is driven home impresses indelibly upon the mind the fundamental
concept of this most sublime of all purgations. Marvellous, indeed, are its
effects, from the first enkindlings and burnings of Divine love, which are
greater beyond comparison than those produced by the Night of Sense, the one
being as different from the other as is the body from the soul. 'For this
(latter) is an enkindling of spiritual love in the soul, which, in the midst of
these dark confines, feels itself to be keenly and sharply wounded in strong
Divine love, and to have a certain realization and foretaste of od.'[11] No less
wonderful are the effects of the powerful Divine illumination which from time to
time enfolds the soul in the splendours of glory. When the effects of the light
that wounds and yet illumines are combined with those of the enkindlement that
melts the soul with its heat, the delights experienced are so great as to be
ineffable.
The second line of the first stanza of the poem is expounded in three
admirable chapters (xi-xiii), while one short chapter (xiv) suffices for the
three lines remaining. We then embark upon the second stanza, which describes
the soul's security in the Dark Night--due, among other reasons, to its being
freed 'not only from itself, but likewise from its other enemies, which are the
world and the devil.'[12]
This contemplation is not only dark, but also secret (Chapter xvii), and
in Chapter xviii is compared to the 'staircase' of the poem. This comparison
suggests to the Saint an exposition (Chapters xviii, xix) of the ten steps or
degrees of love which comprise St. Bernard's mystical ladder. Chapter xxi
describes the soul's 'disguise,' from which the book passes on (Chapters xxii,
xxiii) to extol the 'happy chance' which led it to journey 'in darkness and
concealment' from its enemies, both without and within.
Chapter xxiv glosses the last line of the second stanza--'my house being
now at rest.' Both the higher and the lower 'portions of the soul' are now
tranquillized and prepared for the desired union with the Spouse, a union which
is the subject that the Saint proposed to treat in his commentary on the five
remaining stanzas. As far as we know, this commentary was never written. We have
only the briefest outline of what was to have been covered in the third, in
which, following the same effective metaphor of night, the Saint describes the
excellent properties of the spiritual night of infused contemplation, through
which the soul journeys with no other guide or support, either outward or
inward, than the Divine love 'which burned in my heart.'
It is difficult to express adequately the sense of loss that one feels at the premature truncation of this eloquent treatise.[13] We have already given our opinion[14] upon the commentaries thought to have been written on the final stanzas of the 'Dark Night.' Did we possess them, they would explain the birth of the light--'dawn's first breathings in the heav'ns above'--which breaks through the black darkness of the Active and the Passive Nights; they would tell us, too, of the soul's further progress towards the Sun's full brightness. It is true, of course, that some part of this great gap is filled by St. John of the Cross himself in his other treatises, but it is small compensation for the incomplete state in which he left this edifice of such gigantic proportions that he should have given us other and smaller buildings of a somewhat similar kind. Admirable as are the Spiritual Canticle and the Living Flame of Love, they are not so completely knit into one whole as is this great double treatise. They lose both in flexibility and in substance through the closeness with which they follow the stanzas of which they are the exposition. In the Ascent and the Dark Night, on the other hand, we catch only the echoes of the poem, which are all but lost in the resonance of the philosopher's voice and the eloquent tones of the preacher. Nor have the other treatises the learning and the authority of these. Nowhere else does the genius of St. John of the Cross for infusing philosophy into his mystical dissertations find such an outlet as here. Nowhere else, again, is he quite so appealingly human; for, though he is human even in his loftiest and sublimest passages, this intermingling of philosophy with mystical theology makes him seem particularly so. These treatises are a wonderful illustration of the theological truth that grace, far from destroying nature, ennobles and dignifies it, and of the agreement always found between the natural and the supernatural--between the principles of sound reason and the sublimest manifestations of Divine grace.
DARK
NIGHT
Exposition of the stanzas describing the method followed by the soul in
its journey upon the spiritual road to the attainment of the perfect union of
love with God, to the extent that is possible in this life. Likewise are
described the properties belonging to the soul that has attained to the said
perfection, according as they are contained in the same stanzas.
PROLOGUE
In this book are first set down all the stanzas which are to be
expounded; afterwards, each of the stanzas is expounded separately, being set
down before its exposition; and then each line is expounded separately and in
turn, the line itself also being set down before the exposition. In the first
two stanzas are expounded the effects of the two spiritual purgations: of the
sensual part of man and of the spiritual part. In the other six are expounded
various and wondrous effects of the spiritual illumination and union of love
with God.
STANZAS
OF THE SOUL
1. On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.
2. In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised--oh, happy chance!--
In darkness and in concealment,
My house being now at rest.
3. In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide, save that which burned in my
heart.
4. This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me--
A place where none appeared.
5. Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!
6. Upon my flowery breast,
Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
7. The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.
8. I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
Begins the exposition of the stanzas which treat of the way and manner
which the soul follows upon the road of the union of love
with God.
BOOK
I
Which treats of the Night of Sense.
THE FIRST
On
a dark night,
Kindled
in love with yearnings--oh, happy chance!--
I
went forth without being observed,
My
house being now at rest.
EXPOSITION
In this first stanza the soul relates the way and manner which it
followed in going forth, as to its affection, from itself and from all things,
and in dying to them all and to itself, by means of true mortification, in order
to attain to living the sweet and delectable life of love with God; and it says
that this going forth from itself and from all things was a 'dark night,' by
which, as will be explained hereafter, is here understood purgative
contemplation, which causes passively in the soul the negation of itself and of
all things referred to above.
2. And this going forth it says here that it was able to accomplish in
the strength and ardour which love for its Spouse gave to it for that purpose in
the dark contemplation aforementioned. Herein it extols the great happiness
which it found in journeying to God through this night with such signal success
that none of the three enemies, which are world, devil and flesh (who are they
that ever impede this road), could hinder it; inasmuch as the aforementioned
night of urgative [20] contemplation lulled to sleep and mortified, in the house
of its sensuality, all the passions and desires with respect to their
mischievous desires and motions. The line, then, says:
On a dark night
CHAPTER
I
Sets down the first line and begins to treat of the imperfections of
beginners.
Into this dark night souls begin to enter when God draws them forth from
the state of beginners--which is the state of those that meditate on the
spiritual road--and begins to set them in the state of progressives--which is
that of those who are already contemplatives--to the end that, after passing
through it, they may arrive at the state of the perfect, which is that of the
Divine union of the soul with God. Wherefore, to the end that we may the better
understand and explain what night is this through which the soul passes, and for
what cause God sets it therein, it will be well here to touch first of all upon
certain characteristics of beginners (which, although we treat them with all
possible brevity, will not fail to be of service likewise to the beginners
themselves), in order that, realizing the weakness of the state wherein they
are, they may take courage, and may desire that God will bring them into this
night, wherein the soul is strengthened and confirmed in the virtues, and made
ready for the inestimable delights of the love of God. And, although we may
tarry here for a time, it will not be for longer than is necessary, so that we
may go on to speak at once of this dark night.
2. It must be known, then, that the soul, after it has been definitely
converted to the service of God, is, as a rule, spiritually nurtured and
caressed by God, even as is the tender child by its loving mother, who warms it
with the heat of her bosom and nurtures it with sweet milk and soft and pleasant
food, and carries it and caresses it in her arms; but, as the child grows
bigger, the mother gradually ceases caressing it, and, hiding her tender love,
puts bitter aloes upon her sweet breast, sets down the child from her arms and
makes it walk upon its feet, so that it may lose the habits of a child and
betake itself to more important and substantial occupations. The loving mother
is like the grace of God, for, as soon as the soul is regenerated by its new
warmth and fervour for the service of God, He treats it in the same way; He
makes it to find spiritual milk, sweet and delectable, in all the things of God,
without any labour of its own, and also great pleasure in spiritual exercises,
for here God is giving to it the breast of His tender love, even as to a tender
child.[...]
[…]For, however assiduously the beginner practises the mortification in himself of all these actions and passions of his, he can never completely succeed--very far from it--until God shall work it in him passively by means of the purgation of the said night. Of this I would fain speak in some way that may be profitable; may God, then, be pleased to give me His Divine light, because this is very needful in a night that is so dark and a matter that is so difficult to describe and to expound.
The line, then, is:
In a dark night.
CHAPTER
VIII
Wherein is expounded the first line of the first stanza, and a beginning
is made of the explanation of this dark night.
This night, which, as we say, is contemplation, produces in spiritual
persons two kinds of darkness or purgation, corresponding to the two parts of
man's nature--namely, the sensual and the spiritual. And thus the one night or
purgation will be sensual, wherein the soul is purged according to sense, which
is subdued to the spirit; and the other is a night or purgation which is
spiritual, wherein the soul is purged and stripped according to the spirit, and
subdued and made ready for the union of love with God. The night of sense is
common and comes to many: these are the beginners; and of this night we shall
speak first. The night of the spirit is the portion of very few, and these are
they that are already practised and proficient, of whom we shall treat
hereafter.
2. The first purgation or night is bitter and terrible to sense, as we
shall now show.[58] The second bears no comparison with it, for it is horrible
and awful to the spirit, as we shall show[59] presently. Since the night of
sense is first in order and comes first, we shall first of all say something
about it briefly, since more is written of it, as of a thing that is more
common; and we shall pass on to treat more fully of the spiritual night, since
very little has been said of this, either in speech[60] or in writing, and very
little is known of it, even by experience.
3. Since, then, the conduct of these beginners upon the way of God is
ignoble,[61] and has much to do with their love of self and their own
inclinations, as has been explained above, God desires to lead them farther. He
seeks to bring them out of that ignoble kind of love to a higher degree of love
for Him, to free them from the ignoble exercises of sense and meditation
(wherewith, as we have said, they go seeking God so unworthily and in so many
ways that are unbefitting), and to lead them to a kind of spiritual exercise
wherein they can commune with Him more abundantly and are freed more completely
from imperfections. For they have now had practice for some time in the way of
virtue and have persevered in meditation and prayer, whereby, through the
sweetness and pleasure that they have found therein, they have lost their love
of the things of the world and have gained some degree of spiritual strength in
God; this has enabled them to some extent to refrain from creature desires, so
that for God's sake they are now able to suffer a light burden and a little
aridity without turning back to a time[62] which they found more pleasant. When
they are going about these spiritual exercises with the greatest delight and
pleasure, and when they believe that the sun of Divine favour is shining most
brightly upon them, God turns all this light of theirs into darkness, and shuts
against them the door and the source of the sweet spiritual water which they
were tasting in God whensoever and for as long as they desired. (For, as they
were weak and tender, there was no door closed to them, as
[…]
Kindled in love with yearnings.
CHAPTER
XI
Wherein
are expounded the three lines of the stanza.
This enkindling of love is not as a rule felt at the first, because
it has not begun to take hold upon the soul, by reason of the impurity of human
nature, or because the soul has not understood its own state, as we have said,
and has therefore given it no peaceful abiding-place within itself. Yet
sometimes, nevertheless, there soon begins to make itself felt a certain
yearning toward God; and the more this increases, the more is the soul
affectioned and enkindled in love toward God, without knowing or understanding
how and whence this love and affection come to it, but from time to time seeing
this flame and this enkindling grow so greatly within it that it desires God
with yearning of love; even as David, when he was in this dark night, said of
himself in these words,[75] namely: 'Because my heart was enkindled (that is to
say, in love of contemplation), my reins also were changed': that is, my desires
for sensual affections were changed, namely from the way of sense to the way of
the spirit, which is the aridity and cessation from all these things whereof we
are speaking. And I, he says, was dissolved in nothing and annihilated, and I
knew not; for, as we have said, without knowing the way whereby it goes, the
soul finds itself annihilated with respect to all things above and below which
were accustomed to please it; and it finds itself enamoured, without knowing
how. […]
[…]
Meanwhile, however, like one who has begun a cure, the soul knows only suffering
in this dark and arid purgation of the desire; by this means it becomes healed
of many imperfections, and exercises itself in many virtues in order to make
itself meet for the said love, as we shall now say with respect to the line
following:
Oh, happy chance!
3. When God leads the soul into this night of sense in order to purge the
sense of its lower part and to subdue it, unite it and bring it into conformity
with the spirit, by setting it in darkness and causing it to cease from
meditation (as He afterwards does in order to purify the spirit to unite it with
God, as we shall afterwards say), He brings it into the night of the spirit, and
(although it appears not so to it) the soul gains so many benefits that it holds
it to be a happy chance to have escaped from the bonds and restrictions of the
senses of or its lower self, by means of this night aforesaid; and utters the
present line, namely: Oh, happy chance! With respect to this, it behoves us here
to note the benefits which the soul finds in this night, and because of which it
considers it a happy chance to have passed through it; all of which benefits the
soul includes in the next line, namely:
I went forth without being observed.
4. This going forth is understood of the subjection to its sensual part
which the soul suffered when it sought God through operations so weak, so
limited and so defective as are those of this lower part; for at every step it
stumbled into numerous imperfections and ignorances, as we have noted above in
writing of the seven capital sins. From all these it is freed when this night
quenches within it all pleasures, whether from above or from below, and makes
all meditation darkness to it, and grants it other innumerable blessings in the
acquirement of the virtues, as we shall now show. For it will be a matter of
great pleasure and great consolation, to one that journeys on this road, to see
how that which seems to the soul so severe and adverse, and so contrary to
spiritual pleasure, works in it so many blessings. […]
[…]
15. When, therefore, the four passions of the soul--which are joy, grief, hope
and fear--are calmed through continual mortification; when the natural desires
have been lulled to sleep, in the sensual nature of the soul, by means of
habitual times of aridity; and when the harmony of the senses and the interior
faculties causes a suspension of labour and a cessation from the work of
meditation, as we have said (which is the dwelling and the household of the
lower part of the soul), these enemies cannot obstruct this spiritual liberty,
and the house remains at rest and quiet, as says the following line:
My
house being now at rest.
CHAPTER
XIV
Expounds
this last line of the first stanza.
WHEN this house of sensuality was now at rest--that is, was
mortified--its passions being quenched and its desires put to rest and lulled to
sleep by means of this blessed night of the purgation of sense, the soul went
forth, to set out upon the road and way of the spirit, which is that of
progressives and proficients, and which, by another name, is called the way of
illumination or of infused contemplation, wherein God Himself feeds and
refreshes the soul, without meditation, or the soul's active help. Such, as we
have said, is the night and purgation of sense in the soul. In those who have
afterwards to enter the other and more formidable night of the spirit, in order
to pass to the Divine union of love of God (for not all pass habitually thereto,
but only the smallest number), it is wont to be accompanied by formidable trials
and temptations of sense, which last for a long time, albeit longer in some than
in others. For to some the angel of Satan presents himself--namely, the spirit
of fornication--that he may buffet their senses with abominable and violent
temptations, and trouble their spirits with vile considerations and
representations which are most visible to the imagination, which things at times
are a greater affliction to them than death. […]
Book
II
Of
the Dark Night of the Spirit.
CHAPTER
IV
Sets
down the first stanza and the exposition thereof.
On
a dark night,
Kindled
in love with yearnings--oh, happy chance!--
I
went forth without being observed,
My
house being now at rest.
INTERPRETING this stanza now with reference to purgation, contemplation
or detachment or poverty of spirit, which here are almost one and the same
thing, we can expound it after this manner and make the soul speak thus: In
poverty, and without protection or support in all the apprehensions of my
soul--that is, in the darkness of my understanding and the constraint of my
will, in affliction and anguish with respect to memory, remaining in the dark in
pure faith, which is dark night for the said natural faculties, the will alone
being touched by grief and afflictions and yearnings for the love of God--I went
forth from myself--that is, from my low manner of understanding, from my weak
mode of loving and from my poor and limited manner of experiencing God, without
being hindered therein by sensuality or the devil.
2. This was a great happiness and a good chance for me; for, when the
faculties had been perfectly annihilated and calmed, together with the passions,
desires and affections of my soul, wherewith I had experienced and tasted God
after a lowly manner, I went forth from my own human dealings and operations to
the operations and dealings of God. That is to say, my understanding went forth
from itself, turning from the human and natural to the Divine; for, when it is
united with God by means of this purgation, its understanding no longer comes
through its natural light and vigour, but through the Divine Wisdom wherewith it
has become united. And my will went forth from itself, becoming Divine; for,
being united with Divine love, it no longer loves with its natural strength
after a lowly manner, but with strength and purity from the Holy Spirit; and
thus the will, which is now near to God, acts not after a human manner, and
similarly the memory has become transformed into eternal apprehensions of glory.
And finally, by means of this night and purgation of the old man, all the
energies and affections of the soul are wholly renewed into a Divine temper and
Divine delight. […]
On a dark night.
CHAPTER
V
Sets down the first line and begins to explain how this dark
contemplation is not only night for the soul but is also grief and torment.
This dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul, which purges it
from its ignorances and imperfections, habitual natural and spiritual, and which
is called by contemplatives infused contemplation, or mystical theology. Herein
God secretly teaches the soul and instructs it in perfection of love without its
doing anything, or understanding of what manner is this infused contemplation.
Inasmuch as it is the loving wisdom of God, God produces striking effects in the
soul for, by purging and illumining it, He prepares it for the union of love
with God. Wherefore the same loving wisdom that purges the blessed spirits and
enlightens them is that which here purges the soul and illumines it.
2. But the question arises: Why is the Divine light (which as we say,
illumines and purges the soul from its ignorances) here called by the soul a
dark night? To this the answer is that for two reasons this Divine wisdom is not
only night and darkness for the soul, but is likewise affliction and torment.
The first is because of the height of Divine Wisdom, which transcends the talent
of the soul, and in this way is darkness to it; the second, because of its
vileness and impurity, in which respect it is painful and afflictive to it, and
is also dark. […]
[…]
Kindled in love [171] with yearnings,
CHAPTER
XI
Begins to explain the second line of the first stanza. Describes
how, as the fruit of these rigorous constraints, the soul finds itself with the
vehement passion of Divine love.
In this line the soul describes the fire of love which, as we have said,
like the material fire acting upon the wood, begins to take hold upon the soul
in this night of painful contemplation.
This
enkindling now described, although in a certain way it resembles that which we
described above as coming to pass in the sensual part of the soul, is in some
ways as different from that other as is the soul from the body, or the spiritual
part from the sensual. For this present kind is an enkindling of spiritual love
in the soul, which, in the midst of these dark confines, feels itself to be
keenly and sharply wounded in strong Divine love, and to have a certain
realization and foretaste of God, although it understands nothing definitely,
for, as we say, the understanding is in darkness.
2. The spirit feels itself here to be deeply and passionately in love,
for this spiritual enkindling produces the passion of love. And, inasmuch as
this love is infused, it is passive rather than active, and thus it begets in
the soul a strong passion of love. This love has in it something of union with
God, and thus to some degree partakes of its properties, which are actions of
God rather than of the soul, these being subdued within it passively. What the
soul does here is to give its consent; the warmth and strength and temper and
passion of love--or enkindling, as the soul here calls it--belong[172] only to
the love of God, which enters increasingly into union with it. This love finds
in the soul more occasion and preparation to unite itself with it and to wound
it, according as all the soul's desires are the more recollected,[173] and are
the more withdrawn from and disabled for the enjoyment of aught either in Heaven
or in earth. […]
[…]
. . . oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed.
CHAPTER
XIV
Wherein are set down and explained the last three lines of the
first stanza.
THIS happy chance was the reason for which the soul speaks, in the next
lines, as follows:
I
went forth without being observed,
My
house being now at rest.
It takes the metaphor from one who, in order the better to accomplish
something, leaves his house by night and in the dark, when those that are in the
house are now at rest, so that none may hinder him. For this soul had to go
forth to perform a deed so heroic and so rare--namely to become united with its
Divine Beloved--and it had to leave its house, because the Beloved is not found
save alone and without, in solitude. It was for this reason that the Bride
desired to find Him alone, saying: 'Who would give Thee to me, my brother, that
I might find Thee alone, without, and that my love might be communicated to
Thee.'[203] It is needful for the enamoured soul, in order to attain to its
desired end, to do likewise, going forth at night, when all the domestics in its
house are sleeping and at rest--that is, when the low operations, passions and
desires of the soul (who are the people of the household) are, because it is
night, sleeping and at rest. When these are awake, they invariably hinder the
soul from seeking its good, since they are opposed to its going forth in
freedom. […]
CHAPTER
XV
Sets down the second stanza and its exposition.
In
darkness and secure,
By
the secret ladder, disguised--oh, happy chance!
In
darkness and concealment,
My
house being now at rest.
In this stanza the soul still continues to sing of certain properties of
the darkness of this night, reiterating how great is the happiness which came to
it through them. It speaks of them in replying to a certain tacit objection,
saying that it is not to be supposed that, because in this night and darkness it
has passed through so many tempests of afflictions, doubts, fears and horrors,
as has been said, it has for that reason run any risk of being lost. On the
contrary, it says, in the darkness of this night it has gained itself. For in
the night it has freed itself and escaped subtly from its enemies, who were
continually hindering its progress. For in the darkness of the night it changed
its garments and disguised itself with three liveries and colours which we shall
describe hereafter; and went forth by a very secret ladder, which none in the
house knew, the which ladder, as we shall observe likewise in the proper place,
is living faith. By this ladder the soul went forth in such complete hiding and
concealment, in order the better to execute its purpose, that it could not fail
to be in great security; above all since in this purgative night the desires,
affections and passions of the soul are put to sleep, mortified and quenched,
which are they that, when they were awake and alive, consented not to this.
The first line, then, runs thus:[205]
In darkness and secure.
CHAPTER
XVI
Explains how, though in darkness, the soul walks securely.
The darkness which the soul here describes relates, as we have said, to
the desires and faculties, sensual, interior and spiritual, for all these are
darkened in this night as to their natural light, so that, being purged in this
respect, they may be illumined with respect to the supernatural. For the
spiritual and the sensual desires are put to sleep and mortified, so that they
can experience[206] nothing, either Divine or human; the affections of the soul
are oppressed and constrained, so that they can neither move nor find support in
anything; the imagination is bound and can make no useful reflection; the memory
is gone; the understanding is in darkness, unable to understand anything; and
hence the will likewise is arid and constrained and all the faculties are void
and useless; and in addition to all this a thick and heavy cloud is upon the
soul, keeping it in affliction, and, as it were, far away from God.[207] It is
in this kind of 'darkness' that the soul says here it travelled 'securely.'
[…]
[…]
By the secret ladder, disguised.
CHAPTER
XVII
Explains how this dark contemplation is secret.
THREE things have to be expounded with reference to three words contained
in this present line. Two (namely, 'secret' and 'ladder') belong to the dark
night of contemplation of which we are treating; the third (namely, 'disguised')
belongs to the soul by reason of the manner wherein it conducts itself in this
night. As to the first, it must be known that in this line the soul describes
this dark contemplation, by which it goes forth to the union of love, as a
secret ladder, because of the two properties which belong to it--namely, its
being secret and its being a ladder. We shall treat of each separately.
2. First, it describes this dark contemplation as 'secret,' since, as we
have indicated above, it is mystical theology, which theologians call secret
wisdom, and which, as
3. And it is not for this reason alone that it may be called secret, but
likewise because of the effects which it produces in the soul. For it is secret
not only in the darknesses and afflictions of purgation, when this wisdom of
love purges the soul, and the soul is unable to speak of it, but equally so
afterwards in illumination, when this wisdom is communicated to it most clearly.
Even then it is still so secret that the soul cannot speak of it and give it a
name whereby it may be called; for, apart from the fact that the soul has no
desire to speak of it, it can find no suitable way or manner or similitude by
which it may be able to describe such lofty understanding and such delicate
spiritual feeling. And thus, even though the soul might have a great desire to
express it and might find many ways in which to describe it, it would still be
secret and remain undescribed. For, as that inward wisdom is so simple, so
general and so spiritual that it has not entered into the understanding
enwrapped or cloaked in any form or image subject to sense, it follows that
sense and imagination (as it has not entered through them nor has taken their
form and colour) cannot account for it or imagine it, so as to say anything
concerning it, although the soul be clearly aware that it is experiencing and
partaking of that rare and delectable wisdom. It is like one who sees something
never seen before, whereof he has not even seen the like; although he might
understand its nature and have experience of it, he would be unable to give it a
name, or say what it is, however much he tried to do so, and this in spite of
its being a thing which he had perceived with the senses. […]
CHAPTER
XXI
Which explains the word 'disguised,' and describes the colours of the
disguise of the soul in this night.
Now that we have explained the reasons why the soul called this
contemplation a 'secret ladder,' it remains for us to explain likewise the word
'disguised,' and the reason why the soul says also that it went forth by this
'secret ladder' in 'disguise.'
2. For the understanding of this it must be known that to disguise
oneself is naught else but to hide and cover oneself beneath another garb and
figure than one's own--sometimes in order to show forth, under that garb or
figure, the will and purpose which is in the heart to gain the grace and will of
one who is greatly loved; sometimes, again, to hide oneself from one's rivals
and thus to accomplish one's object better. At such times a man assumes the
garments and livery which best represent and indicate the affection of his heart
and which best conceal him from his rivals.
3. The soul, then, touched with the love of Christ the Spouse, and
longing to attain to His grace and gain His goodwill, goes forth here disguised
with that disguise which most vividly represents the affections of its spirit
and which will protect it most securely on its journey from its adversaries and
enemies, which are the devil, the world and the flesh. Thus the livery which it
wears is of three chief colours--white, green and purple- denoting the three
theological virtues, faith, hope and charity. […]
[…] And likewise to have succeeded in thus clothing itself and persevering until it should obtain the end and aspiration which it had so much desired, which was the union of love, was a great and happy chance, wherefore in this line the soul also says:
Oh, happy chance!
CHAPTER
XXII
Explains the third [281] line of the second stanza.
It is very clear that it was a happy chance for this soul to go forth
with such an enterprise as this, for it was its going forth that delivered it
from the devil and from the world and from its own sensuality, as we have said.
Having attained liberty of spirit, so precious and so greatly desired by all, it
went forth from low things to high; from terrestrial, it became celestial; from
human, Divine. Thus it came to have its conversation in the heavens, as has the
soul in this state of perfection, even as we shall go on to say in what follows,
although with rather more brevity.
2. For the most important part of my task, and the part which chiefly led
me to undertake it, was the explanation of this night to many souls who pass
through it and yet know nothing about it, as was said in the prologue. Now this
explanation and exposition has already been half completed. Although much less
has been said of it than might be said, we have shown how many are the blessings
which the soul bears with it through the night and how happy is the chance
whereby it passes through it, so that, when a soul is terrified by the horror of
so many trials, it is also encouraged by the certain hope of so many and such
precious blessings of God as it gains therein. And furthermore, for yet another
reason, this was a happy chance for the soul; and this reason is given in the
following line:
In darkness and in concealment.
CHAPTER
XXIII
Expounds the fourth line [282] and describes the wondrous hiding place
wherein the soul is set during this night. Shows how, although the devil has an
entrance into other places that are very high, he has none into this.
'In concealment' is as much as to say 'in a hiding-place,' or 'in
hiding'; and thus, what the soul here says (namely, that it went forth 'in
darkness and in concealment') is a more complete explanation of the great
security which it describes itself in the first line of the stanza as
possessing, by means of this dark contemplation upon the road of the union of
the love of God.
2. When the soul, then, says 'in darkness and in concealment,' it means
that, inasmuch as it journeyed in darkness after the manner aforementioned, it
went in hiding and in concealment from the devil and from his wiles and
stratagems. The reason why, as it journeys in the darkness of this
contemplation, the soul is free, and is hidden from the stratagems of the devil,
is that the infused contemplation which it here possesses is infused into it
passively and secretly, without the knowledge of the senses and faculties,
whether interior or exterior, of the sensual part. And hence it follows that,
not only does it journey in hiding, and is free from the impediment which these
faculties can set in its way because of its natural weakness, but likewise from
the devil; who, except through these faculties of the sensual part, cannot reach
or know that which is in the soul, nor that which is taking place within it.
Wherefore, the more spiritual, the more interior and the more remote from the
senses is the communication, the farther does the devil fall short of
understanding it. […]
[..]
In this way the soul gradually becomes wholly spiritual; and in this
hiding-place of unitive contemplation its spiritual desires and passions are to
a great degree removed and purged away. And thus, speaking of its higher part,
the soul then says in this last line:
My house being now at rest.
[294]
CHAPTER
XXIV
Completes the explanation of the second stanza.
THIS is as much as to say: The higher portion of my soul being like the
lower part also, at rest with respect to its desires and faculties, I went forth
to the Divine union of the love of God.
2. Inasmuch as, by means of that war of the dark night, as has been said,
the soul is combated and purged after two manners--namely, according to its
sensual and its spiritual part--with its senses, faculties and passions, so
likewise after two manners--namely, according to these two parts, the sensual
and the spiritual--with all its faculties and desires, the soul attains to an
enjoyment of peace and rest. For this reason, as has likewise been said, the
soul twice pronounces this line--namely,[295] in this stanza and in the
last--because of these two portions of the soul, the spiritual and the sensual,
which, in order that they may go forth to the Divine union of love, must needs
first be reformed, ordered and tranquillized with respect to the sensual and to
the spiritual, according to the nature of the state of innocence which was
Adam's.[296] And thus this line which, in the first stanza, was understood of
the repose of the lower and sensual portion, is, in this second stanza,
understood more particularly of the higher and spiritual part; for which reason
it
is
repeated.[297] […]
CHAPTER
XXV
Wherein
is expounded the third stanza.
In
the happy night,
In
secret, when none saw me,
Nor
I beheld aught,
Without
light or guide, save that which burned in my
heart.
EXPOSITION
THE soul still continues the metaphor and similitude of temporal night in
describing this its spiritual night, and continues to sing and extol the good
properties which belong to it, and which in passing through this night it found
and used, to the end that it might attain its desired goal with speed and
security. Of these properties it here sets down three.
2. The first, it says, is that in this happy night of contemplation God
leads the soul by a manner of contemplation so solitary and secret, so remote
and far distant from sense, that naught pertaining to it, nor any touch of
created things, succeeds in approaching the soul in such a way as to disturb it
and detain it on the road of the union of love.
3. The second property whereof it speaks pertains to the spiritual
darkness of this night, wherein all the faculties of the higher part of the soul
are in darkness. The soul sees naught, neither looks at aught neither stays in
aught that is not God, to the end that it may reach Him, inasmuch as it journeys
unimpeded by obstacles of forms and figures, and of natural apprehensions, which
are those that are wont to hinder the soul from uniting with the eternal Being
of God.
4. The third is that, although as it journeys it is supported by no
particular interior light of understanding, nor by any exterior guide, that it
may receive satisfaction therefrom on this lofty road--it is completely deprived
of all this by this thick darkness--yet its love alone, which burns at this
time, and makes its heart to long for the Beloved, is that which now moves and
guides it, and makes it to soar upward to its God along the road of solitude,
without its knowing how or in what manner. There
follows the line:
In the happy night.[301]
NOTES
[1]
Ascent, Bk. I, chap. i, Sect. 2.
[2]
Op, cit., Sect. 3.
[3]
Dark Night, Bk. 1, chap. iii, Sect. 3.
[4]
Op. cit., Bk. I, chap. i, Sect. 1.
[5]
Dark Night, Bk. 1, chap. viii, Sect. 1.
[6]
Op. cit., Bk. I, chap. viii, Sect. 2.
[7]
Ibid.
[8]
Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. x, Sect. 4.
[9]
Op. cit., Bk. II, chap. iii, Sect. 1.
[10]
Op. cit., Bk. II, chap. i, Sect. 1.
[11]
Dark Night, Bk. II, chap. xi, Sect. 1.
[12]
Dark Night, Bk. II, chap. xvi, Sect. 2.
[13]
[On this, see Sobrino, pp. 159-66.]
[19]
St. Matthew vii, 14.
[20]
[More exactly: 'purificative.']
[58]
[Lit., 'say.']
[59]
[Lit., 'say.']
[60]
[plAtica: the word is frequently used in Spanish to denote an informal sermon or
address.]
[61]
[Lit., 'low'; the same word recurs below and is similarly translated .]
[62]
[Lit., 'to the better time.']
[75]
Psalm lxxii, 21 [A.V., lxxiii, 21-2].
[171]
[Lit., 'in loves'; and so throughout the exposition of this line.]
[172]
[Lit., 'cling,' 'adhere.']
[173]
[Lit., 'shut up.']
[203]
Canticles viii, 1.
[205]
[Lit., 'The line, then, continues, and says thus.' In fact, however, the author
is returning to the first line of the stanza.]
[206]
[Lit., 'taste.']
[207]
Some have considered this description exaggerated, but it must be borne in mind
that all souls are not tested alike and the Saint is writing of those whom God
has willed to raise to such sanctity that they drain the cup of bitterness to
the dregs. We have already seen (Bk. I, chap. xiv, Sect. 5) that 'all do not
experience (this) after one manner . . . for (it) is meted out by the will of
God, in conformity with the greater or the smaller degree of imperfection which
each soul has to purge away, (and) in conformity, likewise, with the degree of
love of union to which God is pleased to raise it' (Bk. I, chap xiv, above).
[213]
'Propter hoc Gregorius (Hom. 14 in Ezech.) constituit
vitam contemplativam in charitate Dei.' Cf. Summa Theologica, 2a, 2ae, q. 45, a. 2.
[281]
i.e., in the original Spanish and in our verse rendering of the
poem in The Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, Ed. by E. Allison
Peers, Vol. II (The Newman Press,
[282]
i.e., in the original Spanish and in our verse rendering of the poem in The
Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, Ed. by E. Allison Peers, Vol. II
(The Newman Press,
[294]
The word translated 'at rest' is a past participle: more literally, 'stilled.'
[295]
[Lit., 'twice repeats'--a loosely used phrase.]
[296]
H omits this last phrase, which is found in all the other Codices, and in e.p.
The latter adds: 'notwithstanding that the soul is not wholly free from the
temptations of the lower part.' The addition is made so that the teaching of the
Saint may not be confused with that of the Illuminists, who supposed the
contemplative in union to be impeccable, do what he might. The Saint's meaning
is that for the mystical union of the soul with God such purity and tranquillity
of senses and faculties are needful that his condition resembles that state of
innocence in which Adam was created, but without the attribute of impeccability,
which does not necessarily accompany union, nor can be attained by any, save by
a most special privilege of God. Cf. St. Teresa's
[297]
[Lit., 'twice repeated.']
[301]
Thus end the majority of the MSS. Cf. pp. lxviii-lxiii, Ascent of Mount Carmel
(Image Books edition), 26-27, on the incomplete state of this treatise. The MSS.
say nothing of this, except that in the Alba de Tormes MS. we read: 'Thus far
wrote the holy Fray John of the Cross concerning the purgative way, wherein he
treats of the active and the passive [aspect] of it as is seen in the treatise
of the Ascent of the Mount and in this of the Dark Night, and, as he died, he
wrote no more. And hereafter follows the illuminative way, and then the unitive.'
Elsewhere we have said that the lack of any commentary on the last five stanzas
is not due to the Saint's death, since he lived for many years after writing the
commentary on the earlier stanzas.