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1. [H., III, ii.]

2. M. Magdalena is a very reliable witness, for she was not only a most discreet and able woman, but was also one of those who were very near to the saint and gained most from his spiritual direction. The quotation is from MS. 12,944.

3. MS. 12,738, fol. 835. Ft. Jerónimo de S. José, too, says that the nuns of Toledo also copied certain poems from the Saint’s dictation. M. Ana de S. Alberto heard him say of his imprisonment: ‘God sought to try me, but His mercy forsook me not. I made some stanzas there which begin: “Whither hast vanishd, Beloved”; and also those other verses, beginning “Far above the many rivers That in Babylon abound.” All these verses 1 sent to Fray José de Jesús María, who told me that he was interested in them and was keeping them in his memory in order to write them out.’

4. [H., III, ii.]

5. MS. 12,944. ‘He also occasionally wrote spiritual things that were of great benefit. There, too, he composed the Mount and drew a copy with his own hand for each of our breviaries; later, he added to these copies and made some changes.’

6. [See, on this term, S.S.M., II, 282, and Catholic Encyclopedia, sub. ‘Carmelites.’]

7. Fray Martin de San José in MS. 12,738, fol. 125.

8. [H., IV, i.]

9. MS. 12,738, fol. 1,431. The letter is undated as to the year.

10. MS. 12,738, fol. 1,435.

11. MS. 12,738, fol. 3. Cf. a letter of April 28, 1614, by the same friar (ibid., fol. 865), which describes the Saint’s knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and skill in expounding them, as ‘inspired’ and ‘Divine.’

12. Ibid., fol. 18.

13. Jerónimo de la Cruz (ibid., fol. 639) describes the Saint on his journeys as ‘frequently reading the Bible’ as he went along on his ‘beast.’

14. MS. 12,738, fol. 559. P. Alonso writes similarly in a letter to Fray Jerónimo de San José: ‘And in this matter of speaking of God and expounding passages from Scripture he made everyone marvel, for they never asked him about a passage which he could not explain in great detail, and sometimes at recreation the whole hour and much more went by in the explanation of passages about which they asked him’ (fol. 1,431).

15. Ibid., fol. 847.

16. [Cf. S.S.M., II, 123–48.]

17. Vida, Bk. IV, Chap. xiv, 1.

18. [On this subject cf. P. Crisógono de Jesús Sacramentado: San Juan de la Cruz, Madrid, 1929, Vol. II, pp. 17-34 et passim.]

19. On Flemish influences on Spanish mysticism, see P. Groult: Les Mystiques des Pays-Bas et la littérature espagnole du seizième siècle, Louvain, 1927 [, and Joaquín Sanchis Alventosa, O.F.M.: La Escuela mística alemana y sus relaciones con nuestros místicos del Siglo de Oro, Madrid, 1946].

20. Cf. S.S.M., I (1927), 33–76, 291–405; (1951), 25-61, 235–328; II (1930), 309–43.]

21. One well-known example will be found in the commentary on the ‘Spiritual Canticle,’ Chap. xii (cf. V below).

22. MS. 12,738, fol. 639.

23. To these we shall refer in the third volume of this edition.

24. If any single person could have spoken from knowledge of this matter it would be P. Alonso de la Madre de Dios, as all papers connected with St. John of the Cross passed through his hands and he took hundreds of depositions in connection with the Beatification process. His statements, however (MS. 19,404, fol. 176 [P. Silverio, I, 179]), are as vague as any others. Rather more reliable are the Saint’s two early biographers, P. José de Jesús María (Quiroga) and P. Jerónimo de San José. The former states in one place that he is using an autograph on the Ascent of Mount Carmel, but again it seems likely that he was mistaken, since the archives of the Reform were still intact in the next century and no genuine autograph of any length was found in them.

25. [The commentary on the third stanza is begun in ii, xxv of Dark Night. If this be not counted, the number of stanzas left uncommented is six.]

26. This is not so unlikely as it may seem, for the early manuscripts were all either unbound, or very roughly stitched together, and several of the extant copies have leaves missing. It was not till the time of the Beatification Process that greater care began to be taken of the Saint’s writings, and they were bound strongly and even luxuriously.

27. I.e., the three books of the Ascent and the two of the Night.

28. MS. 3,180, Adición B.

29. It would be natural enough, of course, for Fray Agustín Antolínez to have noted this fact, but, as he makes no mention of St. John of the Cross at all, nothing can be safely inferred from his silence. It may be added that Fray Agustín’s commentary is to be published by the Spanish Augustinians [and that P. Silverio (I, 190–3) gives a specimen of it which shows how well it deserves publication].

30. As we shall later see, the Living Flame was written after the first redaction of the Spiritual Canticle, but before the second redaction, which mentions the Living Flame in the exposition of Stanza XXXI, thus misleading P. Andrés as to its date. There is no doubt, in our mind, that the reference in the preface to the Living Flame is to the Canticle: the description fits it exactly.

31. [P. Silverio’s words are: ‘For my own part, I think it very probable that he never composed them.’ I myself give a little less weight to the negative evidence brought forward, and, though I too am inclined to the negative solution, I should hold the scales between the two rather more evenly.]

32. If this were so, we might even hazard a guess that the title was that given in the Living Flame (I, 21) and not exactly applicable to any of the existing treatises, viz. The Dark Night of the Ascent of Mount Carmel.

33. Memorias Historiales, C. 1 3.

34. Saint Jean de la Croix, pp. 1 3–15.

35. Cf. Ascent, I, i, below.

36. Some manuscripts do in fact divide the treatise in this way; but apart from the fact that we have the authority of St. John of the Cross himself, in the passage just quoted (confirmed in Ascent, I, xiii), for a different division, the Alcaudete MS., which we believe to be the most reliable, follows the division laid down by the Saint. We may add that St. John of the Cross is not always a safe guide in these matters, no doubt because he trusted too much to his memory; in Ascent, II, xi, for example, he calls the fourth book the third.

37. [H., V, iii.]

38. Spiritual Canticle, Stanza XII, 6 [Second Redaction, XIII, 7].

39. In the same passage as that referred to in the last note he declares his intention of not repeating what she has said (cf. General Introduction, III, above ).

40. Our authority for this statement is P. Andres de la Encarnación (Memorias Historiales, B. 32), who found the Chapter Book in the General Archives of the Reform at Madrid.

41. Op. cit. (B. 33).

42. [For a study of Tomás de Jesús, see S.S.M., II, 281–306.]

43. Memorias Historiales, B. 35.

44. Cf. General Introduction, I, above.

45. [Cf. S.S.M., I (1927), 291–344; (1951), 235–79. An abridged English edition of the Names of Christ, translated by a Benedictine of Stanbrook, was published by Messrs. Burns Oates and Washbourne in 1926.]

46. [Cf. S.S.M., I (1927), 295–6; (1951), 240.]

47. [Cf. S.S.M., II, 41–76.]

48. Historia crítica de la Inquisición de España, Vol. V, Chap. xxx, and elsewhere. [The original of this work is in French: Histoire critique de l’Inquisition d’Espagñe, 1817–18.]

49. Here we have a curious parallelism with the works of St. Teresa, first published at Salamanca in 1588 and also reprinted in Barcelona in the year following.

50. He also supplies the Latin text of Scriptural quotations which St. John of the Cross gives in the vernacular, corrects the punctuation and spelling of the princeps and substitutes his ‘Sketch’ of the Saint’s life for the biographical notes of that edition. The treatise in which he corrects most of the defects of the princeps is the Ascent of Mount Carmel.

51. Phrasium mysticae Theologiae V.P. Fr. Joannis a Cruce, Carmelitarum excalceatorum Parentis primi elucidatio. Compluti, 1631.

52. Subida del Alma a Dios; Apología mística en defensa de la contemplación divina; Don que tuvo San Juan de la Cruz para guiar las almas, etc.

53. This phrase, no doubt, was inserted in order to save the reputation of P. José’s earlier supporters, and out of respect to his uncle, who had been a Cardinal and Inquisitor-General.

54. Quoted by P. Andrés de la Encarnación (MS. 3,653, Previo 1).

55. MS. 3,653, Previo 1.

56. [The last two paragraphs form P. Silverio’s description of his own edition. The lines followed in the present translation have been described in the Translator’s Preface.]