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3 pages, 164 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Introduction to “Spanish Mysticism”

by Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes

Religions 2021, 12(9), 731; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090731 - 7 Sep 2021

Viewed by 2026

Abstract

As the Guest Editor for the special volume on “Spanish Mysticism”, my experience working with experts in this field has been excellent and very rewarding, especially in these current times, where we are dealing with COVID-19 [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

20 pages, 377 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Don Quixote and Saint John of the Cross’s Spiritual Chivalry

by Luce López-Baralt

Religions 2021, 12(8), 616; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080616 - 9 Aug 2021

Viewed by 4566

Abstract

Despite its ludic appearance, “The adventure Don Quixote had with a dead body” (part I, chapter XIX) is one of the most complex pieces of Cervantes’ famous novel. In the midst of a dark night, the Manchegan knight errant confronts an otherwordly procession [...] Read more.

Despite its ludic appearance, “The adventure Don Quixote had with a dead body” (part I, chapter XIX) is one of the most complex pieces of Cervantes’ famous novel. In the midst of a dark night, the Manchegan knight errant confronts an otherwordly procession of robed men carrying torches who transport a dead “knight” on a bier. Don Quixote attacks them to “avenge” the mysterious dead man, discovering they were priests secretly taking the body from Baeza to Segovia. He wants to see face to face the relic of the dead body, but humbly turns his back, avoiding the “close encounter”. Curiously enough, his easy victory renders him sad. Cervantes is alluding to the secret transfer of St. John of the Cross’ body from Úbeda to Segovia, claimed by the devoted widow Doña Ana de Peñalosa. However, Cervantes is also establishing a surprising dialogue with St. John’s symbolic “dark night”, in which he fights as a brave mystical knight. Concurrently, he is quoting the books of chivalry‘s funeral processions and the curiosity of the occasional knight who wants to glance at the dead body. Furthermore, we see how extremely conversant the novelist is with the religious genre of spiritual chivalry, strongly opposed to the loose fantasy of the books of chivalry. Unable to look at St. John’s relic, an authentic knight of the heavenly militia, Don Quixote seems to silently acknowledge that there are higher chivalries than his own that he will never reach. No wonder he ends the adventure with a sad countenance, gaining a new identity as the “Caballero de la Triste Figura”. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

20 pages, 819 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Giqatilla’s Philosophical Poems on the Hebrew Vowels: Poetry, Philosophy, and Theology in Giqatilla’s Ginnat Egoz and Sefer ha-Niqqud

by Federico Dal Bo

Religions 2021, 12(7), 554; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12070554 - 20 Jul 2021

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Abstract

In the present paper, I will examine Yosef ben Abraham Giqatilla’s philosophical poems on the Hebrew vowels that are included in his three early works on “punctuation:” the third section from the larger Ginnat Egoz (“The Nut Garden”), the longer version of Sefer [...] Read more.

In the present paper, I will examine Yosef ben Abraham Giqatilla’s philosophical poems on the Hebrew vowels that are included in his three early works on “punctuation:” the third section from the larger Ginnat Egoz (“The Nut Garden”), the longer version of Sefer ha-Niqqud (“The Book of Punctuation”), and a short version of the latter. Scholarship on the chronology of these three texts has been inconclusive. I will argue that a textual comparison of Giqatilla’s philosophical poems and an analysis of their paratextual function allow for a solution, and therefore a possible chronology of their composition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

18 pages, 884 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Qurrat al-ʿAyn, the Maiden of the Kaʿba: On the Themenophany Inspiring Ibn ʿArabī’s Tarjumān

by Pablo Beneito

Religions 2021, 12(3), 158; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12030158 - 27 Feb 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2719

Abstract

Qurrat al-ʿAyn is the name of the enigmatic Maiden who appeared alongside Ibn ʿArabī when he was inspired to recite the four verses that open The Interpreter of Desires, as he was wandering around the Kaʿba. In this article, through the analysis [...] Read more.

Qurrat al-ʿAyn is the name of the enigmatic Maiden who appeared alongside Ibn ʿArabī when he was inspired to recite the four verses that open The Interpreter of Desires, as he was wandering around the Kaʿba. In this article, through the analysis of the passage in which she is mentioned, the identity of the Maiden is explored from various perspectives typical of the author’s theo-anthropo-cosmovision, characterised by his concept of theophany (tajallī) or divine self-revelation, resorting especially to both the analysis of the lexical inter-reference in the roots of the Arabic terms used by Ibn ʿArabī in his Tarjumān al-ashwāq, as well as the study of the symbolism characteristic of the Arabic alphanumeric system. Furthermore, the article proposes that the kaleidoscopic structure of this collection of odes, studied here for the first time, is the result of a themenophany of the Kaʿba: the Tarjumān has been “inspired” by/on the Kaʿba itself, so that in a sense it is a bibliophany of the so-called House of God, to whose geometry—four corners, six faces, seven ritual turns, eight vertices—its structural conception corresponds. The symbolism of Arabic geomancy in relation to the structure of the Tarjumān is also considered. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

24 pages, 2062 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Divine Feminine Presence in Ibn ‘Arabi and Moses de Leon

by Julia Alonso

Religions 2021, 12(3), 156; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12030156 - 27 Feb 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 6061

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of the divine feminine power as depicted in the texts of Hispanic mystics from Sufi, Hebrew, and Christian traditions. This work is intended to investigate the origin and subsequent development of a transcendent reconciliation of polarity, its diverse [...] Read more.

This paper is an investigation of the divine feminine power as depicted in the texts of Hispanic mystics from Sufi, Hebrew, and Christian traditions. This work is intended to investigate the origin and subsequent development of a transcendent reconciliation of polarity, its diverse manifestations, and the attainment of a common goal, the quintessential of the Perfect Human Being. The architect of the encounter that leads to Union is “Sophia”. She is the Secret. Only those who are able to discern Her own immeasurable dimension may contemplate the Lady who dwells in the sacred geometry of the abyss. Sophia is linked to the hermetic Word, She is allusive, clandestine, poetic, and pregnant with symbols, gnostic resonances, and musical murmurs that conduct the “traveler” through dwellings and stations towards an ancient Sophianic knowledge that leads to the “germinal vesicle”, the “inner wine cellar”, to the Initium, to the Motherland. She is the Mater filius sapientae, who through an alchemical transmutation becomes a song to the absent Sophia whose Presence can only be intuited. Present throughout the Creation, Sophia is the axis around which the poetics of the Taryuman al-ashwaq rotates and the kabbalistic Tree of Life is structured. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

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19 pages, 1215 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics in the Context of Andalusian Mysticism: Some Akbarian Concepts in the Light of Ibn Masarra and Ibn Barrajān

by Gracia López-Anguita

Religions 2021, 12(1), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12010040 - 8 Jan 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 6058

Abstract

The aim of this article is to trace the origins of some of the key concepts of Ibn Arabi’s metaphysics and cosmology in earlier Andalusian Sufi masters. Within the context of the seminal works on Ibn Arabi’s cosmology and metaphysics produced from the [...] Read more.

The aim of this article is to trace the origins of some of the key concepts of Ibn Arabi’s metaphysics and cosmology in earlier Andalusian Sufi masters. Within the context of the seminal works on Ibn Arabi’s cosmology and metaphysics produced from the second half of the 20th century onwards and through a comparison of texts by the Sufi masters Ibn Masarra and Ibn Barrajān, we will see which elements are taken from previous sources and how they are transformed or re-interpreted by Ibn ʿArabī in a philosophical-mystical system that would become the point of reference for the later Eastern and Western Sufi tradition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

12 pages, 292 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Ontology, Arrangement, and Appearance of Paradise in Castilian Kabbalah in Light of Contemporary Islamic Traditions from al-Andalus

by Avishai Bar-Asher

Religions 2020, 11(11), 553; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11110553 - 26 Oct 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2526

Abstract

This study is a comparative analysis of the appearances of the lower and upper Paradise, their divisions, and the journeys to and within them, which appear in mystical Jewish and Islamic sources in medieval Iberia. Ibn al-‘Arabī’s vast output on the Gardens of [...] Read more.

This study is a comparative analysis of the appearances of the lower and upper Paradise, their divisions, and the journeys to and within them, which appear in mystical Jewish and Islamic sources in medieval Iberia. Ibn al-‘Arabī’s vast output on the Gardens of divine reward and their divisions generated a number of instructive comparisons to the eschatological and theosophical writing about the same subject in early Spanish Kabbalah. Although there is no direct historical evidence that kabbalists knew of such Arabic works from the region Catalonia or Andalusia, there are commonalities in fundamental imagery and in ontological and exegetical assumptions that resulted from an internalization of similar patterns of thought. It is quite reasonable to assume that these literary corpora, both products of the thirteenth century, were shaped by common sources from earlier visionary literature. The prevalence of translations of religious writing about ascents on high, produced in Castile in the later thirteenth century, can help explain the sudden appearance of visionary literature on Paradise and its divisions in the writings of Jewish esotericists of the same region. These findings therefore enrich our knowledge of the literary, intellectual, and creative background against which these kabbalists were working when they chose to depict Paradise in the way that they did, at the time that they did. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

14 pages, 275 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“One Kind of Water Brings Another.” Teresa de Jesús and Ibn ‘Arabi

by María M. Carrión

Religions 2020, 11(10), 542; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11100542 - 21 Oct 2020

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Abstract

Mystical literature and spirituality from 16th-century Spain engage religious images from the three most prominent religions of al-Andalus—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism: among others, the dark night, the seven concentric castles, the gazelle, the bird, the sefirot‘s encircled iggulim or towering yosher, [...] Read more.

Mystical literature and spirituality from 16th-century Spain engage religious images from the three most prominent religions of al-Andalus—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism: among others, the dark night, the seven concentric castles, the gazelle, the bird, the sefirot‘s encircled iggulim or towering yosher, the sacred fountain, ruins, and gardens. Until the 20th-century, however, scholarship read these works mostly as “Spanish” mysticism, alienated from its Andalusī roots. This comparative study deploys theological, historical, and textual analysis to dwell in one of these roots: the figure of the garden’s vital element, water, as represented in the works of Teresa de Jesús and Ibn ‘Arabi. The well-irrigated life written by these mystics underscores the significance of this element as a path to life, knowledge, and love of and by God. Bringing together scholarship on Christian and Sufi mysticism, and underscoring the centrality of movement, flow, and circulation, this article pieces together otherwise disparate readings of both the individual work of these two figures and their belonging in a canon of Andalusī/Spanish mysticism. The weaving of these threads will offer readers a different understanding of early modern religion, alongside traditional readings of Spain’s mystical literature and its place in the global context. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

23 pages, 443 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Active Life and the Contemplative Life in St. John of the Cross: The Mixed Life in the Teresian Carmelite Tradition

by Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes

Religions 2020, 11(10), 509; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11100509 - 8 Oct 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4339

Abstract

The prophetic and the mystical are two key theological concepts in St. John of the Cross. The aim of this article is precisely to shed light on the essential role that St. John of the Cross played in the history of Christianity by [...] Read more.

The prophetic and the mystical are two key theological concepts in St. John of the Cross. The aim of this article is precisely to shed light on the essential role that St. John of the Cross played in the history of Christianity by acknowledging the prophetic and the mystical dimensions of his life testimonies and writings. The notion of prophetic mysticism is not altogether foreign to the Carmelite tradition, especially following the prophetic example of Elijah. This article will then explore the intrinsic relationship that exists between the active life (Martha) and the contemplative life (Mary) in St. John of the Cross and in the Teresian Carmelite tradition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

16 pages, 215 KiB

Open AccessArticle

St. John of the Cross and the Monopolar Concept of God in the Abrahamic Religions in Spain

by Daniel Dombrowski

Religions 2020, 11(7), 372; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11070372 - 21 Jul 2020

Viewed by 3207

Abstract

The aim of this article is to philosophically explore the tension between “the God of the philosophers” and “the God of religious experience.” This exploration will focus on the mystical theology of the 16th c. Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. It [...] Read more.

The aim of this article is to philosophically explore the tension between “the God of the philosophers” and “the God of religious experience.” This exploration will focus on the mystical theology of the 16th c. Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. It will be argued that a satisfactory resolution of the aforementioned tension cannot occur on the basis of the monopolar theism that has dominated the Abrahamic religions. That is, a better understanding of mystics in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can occur via dipolar theism as articulated by contemporary process philosophers in the Abrahamic religions, especially the thought of Charles Hartshorne. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

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