Ascent of Mt. Carmel - St. Patrick's Basilica

and fourth, however, are justified, and for these, as for a few minor improvements, the
editor deserves every commendation.
The remaining years of the eighteenth century produced few editions; apart from
a reprint (1724) of the compendium of 1701, the only one known to us is that published
at Pamplona in 1774, after which nearly eighty years were to pass before any earlier
edition was so much as reprinted. Before we resume this bibliographical narrative,
however, we must go back over some earlier history.
VII
NEW DENUNCIATIONS AND DEFENCES -- FRAY NICOLçS DE JESòS MARêA --
THE CARMELITE SCHOOL AND THE INQUISITION
WE remarked, apropos of the edition of 1630, that the reasons which led Fray Diego de
Jesœs to mutilate his texts were still in existence when Fray Jer—nimo de San JosŽ
prepared his edition some twelve years later. If any independent proof of this statement
is needed, it may be found in the numerous apologias that were published during the
seventeenth century, not only in Spain, but in Italy, France, Germany and other
countries of Europe. If doctrines are not attacked, there is no occasion to write vigorous
defences of them.
Following the example of Fray Basilio Ponce de Le—n, a professor of theology in
the College of the Reform at Salamanca, Fray Nichol‡s de Jesœs Mar’a, wrote a
learned Latin defence of St. John of the Cross in 1631, often referred to briefly as the
Elucidatio. 53 It is divided into two parts, the first defending the Saint against charges of a
general kind that were brought against his writings, and the second upholding censured
propositions taken from them. On the general ground, P. Nichol‡s reminds his readers
that many writers who now enjoy the highest possible reputation were in their time
denounced and unjustly persecuted. St. Jerome was attacked for his translation of the
Bible from Hebrew into Latin; St. Augustine, for his teaching about grace and free-will.
The works of St. Gregory the Great were burned at Rome; those of St. Thomas Aquinas
at Paris. Most mediaeval and modern mystics have been the victims of persecution --
Ruysbroeck, Tauler and even St. Teresa. Such happenings, he maintains, have done
nothing to lessen the eventual prestige of these authors, but rather have added to it.
Nor, he continues, can the works of any author fairly be censured, because
misguided teachers make use of them to propagate their false teaching. No book has
been more misused by heretics than Holy Scripture and few books of value would
escape if we were to condemn all that had been so treated. Equally worthless is the
objection that mystical literature is full of difficulties which may cause the ignorant and
pusillanimous to stumble. Apart from the fact that St. John of the Cross is clearer and
more lucid than most of his contemporaries, and that therefore the works of many of
them would have to follow his own into oblivion, the same argument might again be
applied to the Scriptures. Who can estimate the good imparted by the sacred books to
those who read them in a spirit of uprightness and simplicity? Yet what books are more
pregnant with mystery and with truths that are difficult and, humanly speaking, even
53Phrasium mysticae Theologiae V.P. Fr. Joannis a Cruce, Carmelitarum excalceatorum Parentis primi
elucidatio. Compluti, 1631.
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