Document Type
Published Article
Department
Social Justice
Source
Religions
Publication Date
2025
Volume
16
Issue
4
Page Range
455
Abstract
Spanish mystic Saint Juan (John) of the Cross (1542–1591) began writing poetry while imprisoned by his own monastic order. He developed manuals for contemplation, in part, in the form of commentaries on his principal poems. Their first-person narrators were women who underwent metamorphoses in order to pursue love: one became a dove in her despair; another became flame itself; the last disguised herself as a knight. Juan explained that all three represented the soul that is seeking God. For readers, these metaphors could engender cognitive dissonance, through which they might step outside of themselves and move closer to union with the Divine. This process of human self-emptying and self-negation mirrored the self-emptying (kenosis) of Christ in traditional Christology and the negation (apophasis) of human pretense at knowledge about God in apophatic (“negative”) mysticism.
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