Teresianum 43 (1992/1) 175-215 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC REVELATION AND PRIVATE REVELATIONS IN THE THEOLOGY OF SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS STEVEN L. PAYNE I. T h e P r o b le m This article contains a discussion of the place of revelation in the theology of St. John of the Cross. I will argue that John holds a view of revelation which has striking affinities with the positions adopted by more recent authors, particularly Karl Rahner. When one speaks of a Sanjuanist «theology of revelation», one is immediately confronted with major terminological difficulties. John uses the term «revelation» relatively rarely, and usually in the plural («revelaciones»), to refer to a certain class of «spiritual, intellectual apprehensions», which sometimes accompany mystical states of prayer '. First it should be understood that a revelation is nothing else than the disclosure of some hidden truth, or the manifes­ tation of some secret or mystery, as when God imparts understanding of some truth to the intellect, or discloses one of His past, present, or future deeds. ( Ascent II, 25, i) 2 1 See the entries under «Revelaciones» in Luis de San José, OCD, Concordancias de las obras y escritos del Doctor de la Iglesia San Juan de la Cruz, (Burgos: El Monte Carmelo, 1948). John's discussion of revelations in this restricted sense is contained primarily in chapters 25 through 27 in Book II of The Ascent o f Mount Carmel, and again in chapter 14 of Book III. Hereafter I will use the following abbreviations in referring to John's major works: Ascent - The Ascent of Mount Carmel; Night - The Dark Night of the Soul; Canticle - The Spiritual Canticle (redaction B, unless otherwise noted). Flame - The Living Flame of Love (redaction B, unless otherwise noted); Roman numerals will be used to indicate the number of the book, in citations from the Ascent and N ig h t; arabic numerals indicate the chapter (in the Ascent and Night) or stanza (in the Canticle and Flam e), while lower case roman numerals refer to the paragraph number. Thus «Ascent II, 25, i» refers to The Ascent o f M ount Carmel, Book II, chapter 25, paragraph 1. 2 In this article I will be using the text and numbering of the Spanish edition of the Vida y Obras de San Juan de la Cruz, ed. Lucinio Ruano, 176 STEVEN L. PAYNE In other words, John generally restricts his application of the term «revelation» to one of the many different kinds of extraordinary spiritual «communications» which are today usually grouped under the more inclusive category of «private revelations». Contemporary theologians often distinguish «private revelations» from the so-called «public revelation», the official self-communication of God by word and deed which reaches its completion in Christ, is testified to by the Scriptures, and is continually handed on in the «traditioning» of the Church. John never uses the expression «public revelation», but speaks instead of the «propositions», «articles», «secrets», or «mysteries» of the faith, thus to some extent adopting at least the terminology of the scholastic theology of revelation current at the time 3. Thus the past literature on the theme of revelation in John's writings has focused almost entirely on the subject of «private revelations». In the old scholastic manuals of mystical theology there was an appeal to John's authority in developing an elaborate classification of visions, locutions, and other «supernatural» phenomena 4. Theologians generally agreed that John showed a healthy suspicion of extraordinary experiences, that he advised the recipient to resist them because of their inherent dangers (since even those from God achieve their intended effect without the consent of the recipient's will), and that he believed one should assent to the divine mysteries communicated in a private revelation only because and insofar as they are already sufficiently revealed to the Church 5. OCD, 7th ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1973). For my English translations, I will use The Collected Works o f St. John o f the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, 2d ed. (Washington DC: ICS Publications, 1979), unless otherwise noted. 3 See, for example, Canticle 1, x-xi; 12, i-viii. Both of these passages will prove important in our later discussion. See also the Concordancias, under «Fe», «Mysteriös», and «Secretos». 4 See, for example, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, C h ristia n Perfection and Contemplation, (St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder Book Company, 1958), pp. 441-461; Adolphe Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, (Tournai, Belgium: Desclée, 1930), pp. 700-711; Antonio Royo Marin, Teología de la perfección cristiana, (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1958), pp. 813-824. 5 See the works mentioned in the previous footnote, as well as F a t h e r G a b r ie l, OCD, Visions and Revelations in the Spiritual Life, (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1950); Justin Panakal, OCD, The Theology o f THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC REVELATION 177 Little attempt was made beyond this, however, to determine the connection between public and private revelation in John's theology. Indeed, many theologians seemed content to say simply that private revelations «can add nothing to» and «have no bearing on» the deposit of Christian faith (i.e. the positive content of Christian revelation) 6. In my own view, the traditional sharp distinction between public and private revelation is in some respects misleading, and has had unfortunate consequences; since the so-called «private revelations» were seen as having nothing essential to do with the deposit of faith, such experiences tended to be relegated to the area of «spiritual theology», with which systematic theologians did not particularly concern themselves. And yet, as I will presently argue, many of the experiences classed as «private revelations» seem rather to involve a deeper personal appropriation of the «public revelation». Moreover, since the self-communication of God is never actualized until it is actually received, and is the more fully revealed the more completely it is appropriated, there seems to be an integral connection between public revelation and those «private revelations» which involve a deeper penetration and acceptance of the «deposit of faith». Such, at any rate, will be my argument in this study. The difficulty of determining John's views on revelation, however, go far beyond the terminological problem just mentioned. St. John, with his poetic temperament, often expresses himself in vivid and hyperbolic language, which Private Revelations according to Saint John o f the Cross, (Kerala, India: Piusnagar, 1969); Laurent Volken, Visions, Revelations, and the Church, (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1963), or any other standard commentary on John's doctrine. 6 See New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. «Revelation, Theology of», by Avery Dulles, and «Revelations, Private», by Prudent De Letter; the latter author writes that «private revelations have no bearing on the deposit of faith». K arl Rahner, in his Visions and Prophecies, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963), expresses reservations similar to my own about the traditional way of distinguishing private and public revelation. However, Rahner here deals primarily with what are sometimes called «prophetic» phenomena (where an individual is commissioned by God to undertake some activity or transmit some message for the good of the Church) rather than with the more «mystical» or «contemplative» revelations with which we are concerned in this article. 178 STEVEN L. PAYNE has lent itself to the most extreme and contradictory interpretations of his doctrine. At one end of the spectrum are those authors who claim that John's mystical theology is fundamentally anti- cognitive, and that he adopts a narrowly fideistic approach to revelation. Thus Zwi Werblowsky insists that the Mystical Doctor advocates the rejection of every spiritual insight or feeling, in favor of a blind adherence to faith, which «does not impart any knowledge whatsoever» 7. Faith is not the knowledge of heavenly things, but the nakedness of the soul bereft of all knowledge. Perhaps it is not going too far to suggest that this doctrine accounts, at least in part, for John's orthodoxy. As a mystic he could not possibly be a heretic, that is, by definition, one who holds deviant opinions, because it is not the mystic's business either to formulate or defend theological opinions. His business is the emptying of the soul of all discursive contents.... God himself is utter darkness to the soul in this world ...8. And William Ralph Inge, along with many other Protestant commentators, sees John as the forerunner of the Quietism of Madame Guyon and Molinos. He does not escape from the quietistic attitude of passive expectancy which belongs to this view of life; and it is only by a glaring inconsistency that he attaches any value to the ecclesiastical symbolism, which rests on a very different basis from that of his teaching. But St. Juan's Mysticism brought him no intellectual emancipation, either for good or evil. Faith with him was the antithesis, not to sight, as in the Bible, but to reason. The sacrifice of reason was part of the crucifixion of the old man 9. 7 R. J. Zwi W erblowsky, «On the Mystical Rejection of Mystical Illuminations», Religious Studies 1 (1966), p. 179. 8 Ibid., pp. 179-180. Werblowsky seems to suggest that John's doctrine really is as «quietistic» as the Quietists themselves claimed in their own defense. 9 W illiam Ralph Inge, Christian Mysticism, (New York: Living Age Books, Meridian 1956), p. 229. Inge likewise presents the idea that John avoided heretical views through his total subservience to Church tradition and authority. More recently, in Taking Leave of God (New York: Crossroad, 1981), Don Cupitt commends John as «a voluntarist» whose THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC REVELATION 179 Now it cannot be denied that there are certain passages in John which seem to support the «anti-cognitivist» interpretation.