The Later Renaissance

by David Hannay

The Mystics.

A survey of Spanish literature of the great epoch cannot end more appropriately than with the writers who by common consent are called the Mystics. The term has become established in use, and there would be pedantry in rejecting it. Yet it is far from being accurately applied. What is, properly speaking, called Mysticism is not congenial to the Spaniard, and was inevitably odious to the Inquisition. A train of religious thought which led infallibly to trust in the “Inner Light,” to the contempt for dogma, to indifference to the hierarchy, and to the preference for emotional piety over morality of conduct, could not but be suspect to a body which existed for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the Church. One Spaniard, Miguel de Molinos, did indeed show himself a true mystic, and was the father of the “Quietism” of the later seventeenth century. But Molinos lived in Italy, did not address his countrymen, and found his following mainly in France. There were a few alumbrados, as the Spaniards called them—“Illuminati”—in Spain, as there were a few Protestants; but they were exceptions, and examples of mere personal eccentricity. The Inquisition had the sincere support of the nation in stamping out both. When it went too far and condemned what the Spaniards did not dislike, as when, for instance, the Guia de Pecadores—‘The Guide for Sinners’—of Luis de Granada was put in the Index, the Inquisition was forced to reverse its decision. But it had the approval of the country in its efforts to suppress teaching which had a dangerous tendency to arrive at the doctrine that, when the soul of the believer is united in ecstatic devotion with God, the sins of the flesh are no sins at all. The common-sense of the Spaniard, which was never more conspicuous than in the greatest of his orthodox mystics, Santa Teresa, left him in no doubt as to the real meaning of such teaching as that. The stern handling it received from the Inquisition had his sincere approval. |Spanish mysticism.| The mysticism of the Spaniards consisted wholly in a certain Platonism or Neo-Platonism, in the doctrine which can be sufficiently well learnt in Spenser’s Hymne of Heavenly Love. This might have lent itself to the extreme of Quietism or Antinomianism, but it was restrained by the sense of the necessity for active virtue, which was strong in the Spaniard, and was the result of the Church’s teaching that there is no salvation without works.

It is not, however, the doctrine of the mystics, but their importance, and the literary quality of their work, which concern us here. As regards their position in the country, and their influence with all ranks of Spaniards, there can be no question. It was shown not only by the deference of the austere Philip II. to Santa Teresa, but by the docility of his grandson, Philip IV.—a very different and a very pleasure-loving man—to Maria de Jesus de Ágreda, a woman far inferior in intellect and force of character to the reformer of the Carmelites.[57] To their work we may apply the expression, very Platonist and old, which Diego de Estella uses of the soul in his Very Devout Meditations on the Love of God. “Da vida,” he says, and “es la forma del cuerpo”—“It gives life, and is the form of the body.”

“For soul is form, and doth the body make,”

as the same truth stands in Spenser’s hymn. The intense religious spirit of the Spaniards gives their work life, and is the form of their body. All the best of this side, if one ought not to say this basis, of their character has gone into the “mystic” works. |The influence of the Inquisition on Spanish religious literature.| The Spaniard has not been a great preacher. Part of the explanation of this, on the face of it, rather surprising fact, is no doubt to be found in saying that if the Inquisition had listened to every denunciation of a preacher, nobody would have been found to risk going into a pulpit. For, while denying that the Holy Office was felt to be oppressive by the majority of Spaniards, there can be no doubt that its yoke was heavy on the neck of individuals—even of the most orthodox. The persecution of Luis de Granada, who as a Dominican, and therefore as a member of the order which controlled the Inquisition, might have been supposed to be sure of the most favourable treatment, is an example of the vigilance exercised over all who even approached religious questions. Luis de Leon incurred an imprisonment of five years on accusations brought by envious rivals at Salamanca, and too favourably received by the jealousy of the Dominicans, who were hostile to him as an Augustinian.[58] Santa Teresa was sequestered by the Inquisition at Seville. Her disciple, Juan de la Cruz, who helped her in the reform of the Carmelites, was imprisoned for a year, and only released by the intrepid exertions of the saint and the use of the royal authority. It was dangerous to speak without much thought and care. So the Spaniards, who might have given their country what the great Caroline divines gave to English and Bossuet to French literature, preferred to confine themselves to writing, where they could weigh every word and subject their work to the revision of superiors.

The bulk of the Spanish mystic, religious, and ascetic writings is enormous. By far the greater part of them have fallen dead to the Spaniards themselves. They have never been made the subject of an exhaustive study by any native scholar.[59]

Malon de Chaide.

The great names among the Spanish mystics of the golden time of their literature are those of Malon de Chaide, Juan de Ávila, Luis de Granada, Luis de Leon, Santa Teresa, and San Juan de la Cruz—and of these Santa Teresa alone is a living force. It is difficult to understand what sense the word mystic bore to the first person who applied it to Pedro Malon de Chaide (?1530——?). He was of the Order of St Augustine, and was a master of a fine-flowing, rather unctuous style. The work by which he is known in Spanish literature is The Treatise of the Conversion of the Glorious Mary Magdalen. It was written for a young lady who had resolved to take the vows, but was not published till many years later. Malon de Chaide was one of those who denounced the evil influence of the books of chivalry; but his own style is very often—at least to our modern taste—more fit for a romance than a book of devotion. He wrote verse—and well. It must be read with a constant recollection that it was not written for us, but in a time when the application of the language of The Song of Solomon to devotion was justified by the all but universal belief in the allegorical character of the poem. In this practice, of which we have well-known examples of our own, Malon de Chaide never went to the extreme reached by Juan de la Cruz. |Juan de Ávila.| The venerable master Juan de Ávila (1502-1569), known as the Apostle of Andalucia, an older man than Malon de Chaide, was also much less the fashionable divine. The most famous of his many works is The Spiritual Treatise on the verse Audi, filia—“Hearken, O daughter, and consider,” &c. It was at first only a letter of advice written for a lady, Sancha Carrillo, who had resolved to take the vows, but Ávila added to it largely, and in its final form it is a complete guide for those who wish to lead the religious life, whether in a monastery or in the century. It is not, perhaps, a book to be recommended to those who cannot read with the eyes of a Spanish Roman Catholic, or at least with as much critical faculty as will enable them to understand, and to allow for, that point of view. The style of Juan de Ávila, though verbose in the weaker passages, has an ardent eloquence at times, and has always a large share of the religious quality of unction.

Luis de Granada.

Luis de Granada (1504-1588) and Luis de Leon (1527-1601) were contemporaries, younger men than Juan de Ávila, and to some extent his followers. The Guide for Sinners of the first, and the Perfecta Casada of the second, have remained more or less popular books of devotion. At least they are reprinted among the Spaniards. The Guide for Sinners was translated and read all over Europe. Granada’s Book of Prayer and Meditation on “the principal mysteries of our faith” was hardly less famous. He had both the qualities and the defects of the style of his master. |Luis de Leon.| Luis de Leon was probably the greatest of the mystics in intrinsic force of intellect and in learning, besides being master of a far more manly style than any of them. He was also a man of independent intrepid character, and it may be that the fear with which the Inquisition regarded him was largely inspired by his strictures on the ignorance of the clergy and their flocks. Inquiry and knowledge were dreaded at a time when the Protestants were using them as instruments against the Church. The Perfecta Casada was written for a lady, Doña Maria Varela Osorio. These writers, it will be seen, worked much for women. It was the age of the directors as distinguished from the old confessors. Pious people, and more especially women, who wished to lead a religious life, and had been taught that it was necessary not only to do but to believe what was right, were anxious for the constant guidance of a teacher who must be both orthodox and learned. Santa Teresa insisted greatly on this. The treatise is a long comment on the passage of Scripture which will suggest itself to everybody as fit for the purpose—the last chapter of Proverbs, beginning at the tenth verse. But the allegorical meaning is more insisted on than the plain sense of the words, and the Perfecta Casada is a treatise on doctrine. Luis de Leon wrote much else, including an exposition of the Names of Christ and of The Book of Job.