THE ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL

This treatise explains how to reach divine union quickly. It presents 
instruction and doctrine valuable for beginners and proficients alike that 
they may learn how to unburden themselves of all earthly things, avoid 
spiritual obstacles, and live in that complete nakedness and freedom of 
spirit necessary for divine union. It was composed by Padre Fray John of 
the Cross, Discalced Carmelite.


THEME

T. The following stanzas include all the doctrine I intend to discuss in 
this book, The Ascent of Mount Carmel. They describe the way that leads to 
the summit of the mount -- that high state of perfection we here call union 
of a soul with God. Since these stanzas will serve as a basis for all I 
shall say, I want to cite them here in full that the reader may see in them 
a summary of the doctrine to be expounded. Yet I will quote each stanza 
again before its explanation and give the verses separately if the subject 
so requires.


STANZAS

A song of the soul's happiness in having passed through the dark night of 
faith, in nakedness and purgation, to union with its Beloved.

		          1. One dark night,
		          fired with love's urgent longings
		           -- ah, the sheer grace! -- 
		          I went out unseen,
		          my house being now all stilled.

		          2. In darkness and secure,
		          by the secret ladder, disguised,
		           -- ah, the sheer grace! -- 
		          in darkness and concealment,
		          my house being now all stilled.

		     3. On that glad night,
		     in secret, for no one saw me,
		     nor did I look at anything,
		     with no other light or guide
		     than the one that burned in my heart.

		     4. This guided me
		     more surely than the light of noon
  	     to where he was awaiting me
		      -- him I knew so well -- 
		     there in a place where no one appeared.

		     5. O guiding night!
		     O night more lovely than the dawn!
		     O night that has united
		     the Lover with his beloved,
		     transforming the beloved in her Lover.

		     6. Upon my flowering breast
		     which I kept wholly for him alone,
		     there he lay sleeping,
		     and I caressing him
		     there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

		     7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
		     as I parted his hair,
		     it wounded my neck
		     with its gentle hand,
		     suspending all my senses.

		     8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
		     laying my face on my Beloved;
		     all things ceased; I went out from myself,
		     leaving my cares
		     forgotten among the lilies.


PROLOGUE

P.1. A deeper enlightenment and wider experience than mine is necessary to 
explain the dark night through which a soul journeys toward that divine 
light of perfect union with God that is achieved, insofar as possible in 
this life, through love. The darknesses and trials, spiritual and temporal, 
that fortunate souls ordinarily undergo on their way to the high state of 
perfection are so numerous and profound that human science cannot 
understand them adequately. Nor does experience of them equip one to 
explain them. Only those who suffer them will know what this experience is 
like, but they won't be able to describe it.

P.2. In discussing this dark night, therefore, I will not rely on 
experience or science, for these can fail and deceive us. Although I will 
not neglect whatever possible use I can make of them, my help in all that, 
with God's favor, I shall say, will be Sacred Scripture, at least in the 
most important matters, or those that are difficult to understand. Taking 
Scripture as our guide we do not err, since the Holy Spirit speaks to us 
through it. Should I misunderstand or be mistaken on some point, whether I 
deduce it from Scripture or not, I will not be intending to deviate from 
the true meaning of Sacred Scripture or from the doctrine of our Holy 
Mother the Catholic Church. Should there be some mistake, I submit entirely 
to the Church, or even to anyone who judges more competently about the 
matter than I.

P.3. I am not undertaking this arduous task because of any particular 
confidence in my own abilities. Rather, I am confident that the Lord will 
help me explain this matter because it is extremely necessary to so many 
souls. Even though these souls have begun to walk along the road of virtue, 
and our Lord desires to place them in the dark night that they may move on 
to the divine union, they do not advance. The reason for this may be that 
sometimes they do not want to enter the dark night or allow themselves to 
be placed in it, or that sometimes they misunderstand themselves and are 
without suitable and alert directors who will show them the way to the 
summit. God gives many souls the talent and grace for advancing, and should 
they desire to make the effort they would arrive at this high state. And so 
it is sad to see them continue in their lowly method of communion with God 
because they do not want or know how to advance, or because they receive no 
direction on breaking away from the methods of beginners. Even if our Lord 
finally comes to their aid to the extent of making them advance without 
these helps, they reach the summit much later, expend more effort, and gain 
less merit, because they do not willingly adapt themselves to God's work of 
placing them on the pure and reliable road leading to union. Although God 
does lead them -- since he can do so without their cooperation -- they do 
not accept his guidance. In resisting God who is conducting them, they make 
little progress and fail in merit because they do not apply their wills; as 
a result they must endure greater suffering. Some souls, instead of 
abandoning themselves to God and cooperating with him, hamper him by their 
indiscreet activity or their resistance. They resemble children who kick 
and cry and struggle to walk by themselves when their mothers want to carry 
them; in walking by themselves they make no headway, or if they do, it is 
at a child's pace.

P.4. With God's help, then, we will propose doctrine and counsel for 
beginners and proficients that they may understand or at least know how to 
practice abandonment to God's guidance when He wants them to advance.1

P.4.(2). Some spiritual fathers are likely to be a hindrance and harm 
rather than a help to these souls that journey on this road. Such directors 
have neither understanding nor experience of these ways. They are like the 
builders of the tower of Babel [Gn. 11:1-9]. When these builders were 
supposed to provide the proper materials for the project, they brought 
entirely different supplies because they failed to understand the language. 
And thus nothing was accomplished. Hence, it is arduous and difficult for a 
soul in these periods of the spiritual life when it cannot understand 
itself or find anyone else who understands it.

P.4.(3).It will happen to individuals that while they are being conducted 
by God along a sublime path of dark contemplation and aridity, in which 
they feel lost and filled with darknesses, trials, conflicts, and 
temptations, they will meet someone who, in the style of Job's comforters 
[Jb. 4:8-11], will proclaim that all of this is due to melancholia, 
depression, or temperament, or to some hidden wickedness, and that as a 
result God has forsaken them. Therefore the usual verdict is that these 
individuals must have lived an evil life since such trials afflict them.

P.5. Other directors will tell them that they are falling back since they 
find no satisfaction or consolation as they previously did in the things of 
God. Such talk only doubles the trial of a poor soul. It will happen that 
the soul's greatest suffering will be caused by the knowledge of its own 
miseries. That it is full of evil and sin is as clear as day to it, and 
even clearer, for, as we shall say further on, God is the author of this 
enlightenment in the night of contemplation. And when this soul finds 
someone who agrees with what it feels (that these trials are all its own 
fault), its suffering and distress grow without bounds. And this suffering 
usually becomes worse than death. Such a confessor is not satisfied with 
this but, in judging these trials to be the result of sin, he urges souls 
who endure them to go over their past and make many general confessions -- 
which is another crucifixion. The director does not understand that now 
perhaps is not the time for such activity. Indeed, it is a period for 
leaving these persons alone in the purgation God is working in them, a time 
to give comfort and encouragement that they may desire to endure this 
suffering as long as God wills, for until then no remedy -- whatever the 
soul does, or the confessor says -- is adequate.

P.6. With divine help we will discuss all this: how individuals should 
behave; what method the confessor should use in dealing with them; signs to 
recognize this purification of the soul that we call the dark night; 
whether it is the purification of the senses or of the spirit; and how we 
can discern whether this affliction is caused by melancholia or some other 
deficiency of sense or spirit.

P.6.(2). Some souls -- or their confessors -- may think that God is leading 
them along this road of the dark night of spiritual purgation, but perhaps 
this will not be so. What they suffer will be due to one of these 
deficiencies. Likewise, many individuals think they are not praying when, 
indeed, their prayer is deep. Others place high value on their prayer while 
it amounts to little more than nothing. 

P.7. Some people -- and it is sad to see them -- work and tire themselves 
greatly, and yet go backward; they look for progress in what brings no 
progress but instead hinders them. Others, in peace and tranquility, 
continue to advance well. Some others let themselves be encumbered by the 
very consolations and favors God bestows on them for the sake of their 
advancing, and they advance not at all.

P.7.(2). We will also discuss many other experiences of those who walk 
along this road: joys, afflictions, hopes, and sorrows -- some of these 
originating from the spirit of perfection, others from the spirit of 
imperfection. Our goal will be to explain, with God's help, all these 
points so that those who read this book will in some way discover the road 
they are walking along, and the one they ought to follow if they want to 
reach the summit of this mount.

P.8. Readers should not be surprised if this doctrine on the dark night -- 
through which a soul advances toward God -- appears somewhat obscure. This, 
I believe, will be the case as they begin to read, but as they read on they 
will understand it better since the latter parts will explain the former. 
Then, if they read this work a second time, the matter will seem clearer 
and the doctrine sounder.

P.8.(2). But if some people still find difficulty in understanding this 
doctrine, it will be due to my deficient knowledge and awkward style, for 
the doctrine itself is good and very necessary. But I am inclined to 
believe that, even if it were presented with greater accuracy and polish, 
only a few would find profit in it, because we are not writing on moral and 
pleasing topics addressed to the kind of spiritual people who like to 
approach God along sweet and satisfying paths. We are presenting a 
substantial and solid doctrine for all those who desire to reach this 
nakedness of spirit.

P.9. My main intention is not to address everyone, but only some of the 
persons of our holy order of the primitive observance of Mount Carmel, both 
friars and nuns, whom God favors by putting on the path leading up this 
mount, since they are the ones who asked me to write this work. Because 
they are already detached to a great extent from the temporal things of 
this world, they will more easily grasp this doctrine on nakedness of 
spirit.



BOOK ONE CHAPTER 1


1. Some remarks about the two different nights through which spiritual 
persons pass in both the lower and higher parts of their nature. A 
commentary on the first stanza.

			      [First Stanza]
			One dark night,
			fired with love's urgent longings
			 -- ah, the sheer grace! -- 
			I went out unseen,
			my house being now all stilled.

1.1. The soul sings in this first stanza of its good luck and the grace it 
had in departing from its inordinate sensory appetites and imperfections. 
To understand this departure one should know that a soul must ordinarily 
pass through two principal kinds of night -- which spiritual persons call 
purgations or purifications of the soul -- in order to reach the state of 
perfection. Here we will term these purgations nights because in both of 
them the soul journeys in darkness as though by night.

1.2. The first night or purgation, to which this stanza refers and which 
will be discussed in the first section of this book, concerns the sensory 
part of the soul. The second night, to which the second stanza refers, 
concerns the spiritual part. We will deal with this second night, insofar 
as it is active, in the second and third sections of the book. In the 
fourth section we will discuss the night insofar as it is passive.

1.3. This first night is the lot of beginners, at the time God commences to 
introduce them into the state of contemplation. It is a night in which 
their spirit also participates, as we will explain in due time. The second 
night or purification takes place in those who are already proficients, at 
the time God desires to lead them into the state of divine union. This 
purgation, of course, is more obscure, dark, and dreadful, as we will 
subsequently point out.


Commentary on the Stanza

1.4. In this stanza the soul desires to declare in summary fashion that it 
departed on a dark night, attracted by God and enkindled with love for him 
alone. This dark night is a privation and purgation of all sensible 
appetites for the external things of the world, the delights of the flesh, 
and the gratifications of the will. All this deprivation is wrought in the 
purgation of sense. That is why the poem proclaims that the soul departed 
when its house was stilled, for the appetites of the sensory part were 
stilled and asleep in the soul, and the soul was stilled in them. One is 
not freed from the sufferings and anguish of the confining appetites until 
they are tempered and put to sleep. So it was a sheer grace, the soul 
declares, to have gone out unseen without encumbrance from the appetites of 
the flesh, or from anything else. It was also fortunate the departure took 
place at night; that is, that God took from the soul all these things 
through a privation that was a night to it.

1.5. It was a sheer grace to be placed by God in this night that occasioned 
so much good. The soul would not have succeeded in entering it, because 
souls are unable alone to empty themselves of all their appetites in order 
to reach God.

1.6. Summarily, then, we have an explanation of the first stanza. Now we 
will expound on it verse by verse and explain whatever pertains to our 
subject. We will follow the method mentioned in the prologue: first cite 
each stanza and comment on it; then, the individual verses.3



CHAPTER 2


The nature of the dark night through which a soul journeys to divine union.

One dark night

2.1. We can offer three reasons for calling this journey toward union with 
God a night.

2.1.(2) The first has to do with the point of departure, because 
individuals must deprive themselves of their appetites for worldly 
possessions. This denial and privation is like a night for all one's 
senses.

2.1.(3). The second reason refers to the means or the road along which a 
person travels to this union. Now this road is faith, and for the intellect 
faith is also like a dark night.

2.1.(4). The third reason pertains to the point of arrival, namely God. And 
God is also a dark night to the soul in this life. These three nights pass 
through a soul, or better, the soul passes through them in order to reach 
union with God.

2.2. They are represented in the Book of Tobias [Tb. 6:18-22], where we 
read that the angel ordered the young Tobias to wait three nights before 
any union with his bride.

2.2.(2). On the first night he was to burn the fish heart in the fire. That 
heart signified the human heart that is attached to worldly things. To 
undertake the journey to God the heart must be burned with the fire of 
divine love and purified of all creatures. Such a purgation puts the devil 
to flight, for he has power over people through their attachment to 
temporal and bodily things.

2.3. Tobias, on the second night, as the angel told him, was to be admitted 
into the society of the holy patriarchs, the fathers of the faith. After 
passing through the first night (the privation of all sensible objects), a 
person enters the second night by living in faith alone; not in a faith 
that is exclusive of charity but a faith that excludes other intellectual 
knowledge, as we shall explain later, for faith does not fall into the 
province of the senses.

2.4. The angel told Tobias that on the third night he would obtain the 
blessing, which is God. God, by means of faith, which is the second night, 
communicates himself so secretly and intimately that he becomes another 
night for the soul. This communication of God is a night much darker than 
those other two nights, as we will soon point out. When this third night 
(God's communication to the spirit, which usually occurs in extreme 
darkness of soul) has passed, a union with the bride, who is the Wisdom of 
God, then follows. Tobias was also told by the angel that, after the third 
night had come to an end, he would be joined to his bride in the fear of 
the Lord. Now when the fear of God is perfect, love is also perfect, which 
means that the transformation of the soul in God through love is 
accomplished.

2.5. In actuality these three nights comprise only one night, a night 
divided into three parts like natural night. The first part, the night of 
the senses, resembles early evening, that time of twilight when things 
begin to fade from sight. The second part, faith, is completely dark, like 
midnight. The third part, representing God, is like the very early dawn 
just before the break of day. To provide further enlightenment about all 
this, we will discuss each of these causes of night separately.



CHAPTER 3

The first cause of this night -- the privation of the appetite in all 
things. The reason for the use of the expression "night."

3.1. We are using the expression "night" to signify a deprival of the 
gratification of the soul's appetites in all things. Just as night is 
nothing but the privation of light and, consequently, of all objects 
visible by means of the light -- darkness and emptiness, then, for the 
faculty of sight -- the mortification of the appetites can be called a 
night for the soul. To deprive oneself of the gratification of the 
appetites in all things is like living in darkness and in a void.1 The eye 
feeds on its objects by means of light in such a way that when the light is 
extinguished the eye no longer sees them. Similarly do people by means of 
their appetites feed and pasture on worldly things that gratify their 
faculties. When the appetites are extinguished -- or mortified -- one no 
longer feeds on the pleasure of these things, but lives in a void and in 
darkness with respect to the appetites.

3.2. Let us draw an example from each of the faculties. By depriving itself 
of its appetites for the delights of hearing, a soul lives in darkness and 
emptiness in this sense faculty. And by depriving itself of the pleasure of 
seeing things, it lives in darkness and poverty in the faculty of sight. By 
denying itself the fragrances pleasing to the sense of smell, a soul abides 
in emptiness and darkness in this sense faculty. Then too by denying the 
palate the pleasures of delicious foods, it is also in the void and in 
darkness in the sense of taste. Finally, by mortifying itself of all the 
delights and satisfactions of the sense of touch, a soul likewise dwells in 
darkness and in a void in this faculty. The conclusion is that any 
individuals who may have denied and rejected the gratification that all 
things afford them, by mortifying their appetite for them, live as though 
in the night -- in darkness, which is nothing else than a void within them 
of all things.

3.3. The cause of this darkness is attributable to the fact that -- as the 
scholastic philosophers say -- the soul is like a tabula rasa [a clean 
slate] when God infuses it into the body. Without the knowledge it receives 
through its senses it would be ignorant, because no knowledge is 
communicated to it naturally from any other source. Accordingly, the 
presence of the soul in the body resembles the presence of a prisoner in a 
dark dungeon who knows no more than what he manages to behold through the 
windows of his prison and has nowhere else to turn if nothing is seen 
through them. For the soul possesses no other natural means of perceiving 
what is communicated to it than the senses (the windows of its prison).

3.4. We can easily affirm that if a soul denies whatever is perceptible 
through the senses, it lives in darkness and in a void since light can 
enter by no other natural means than these five senses. Now it is true that 
the sensory perceptions of hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch are 
unavoidable; yet they will no more hinder a soul -- if it denies them -- 
than if they were not experienced. It is true also that those desiring to 
keep their eyes closed will live in darkness just like the blind. David 
says on this subject: Pauper sum ego, et in laboribus a juventute mea. (I 
am poor and in labors from my youth) [Ps. 88:15]. Even though he was 
manifestly rich, he says he was poor because his will was not fixed on 
riches; and he thereby lived as though really poor. On the other hand, had 
he been actually poor, without his will being so, there would have been no 
true poverty, because the appetite of his soul would have been rich and 
full.

3.4.(2). Hence, we call this nakedness a night for the soul, for we are not 
discussing the mere lack of things; this lack will not divest the soul if 
it craves for all these objects. We are dealing with the denudation of the 
soul's appetites and gratifications. This is what leaves it free and empty 
of all things, even though it possesses them. Since the things of the world 
cannot enter the soul, they are not in themselves an encumbrance or harm to 
it; rather, it is the will and appetite dwelling within that cause the 
damage when set on these things.

3.5. This first kind of night refers to the sensory part of the soul, and 
it is one of the two nights mentioned above through which a person must 
pass to reach union with God. It is time to explain how fitting it is that 
the soul leave its house and journey through this dark night toward union 
with God.



CHAPTER 4

The necessity of truly passing through this dark night of sense (the 
mortification of the appetites) in order to journey to union with God.

4.1. The necessity to pass through this dark night (the mortification of 
the appetites and denial of pleasure in all things) to attain divine union 
with God arises from the fact that all of a person's attachments to 
creatures are pure darkness in God's sight. Clothed in these affections, 
people are incapable of the enlightenment and dominating fullness of God's 
pure and simple light; first they must reject them. There can be no 
concordance between light and darkness; as St. John says: Tenebrae eam no 
comprehenderunt (The darkness could not receive the light) [Jn. 1:5].

4.2. The reason, as we learn in philosophy, is that two contraries cannot 
coexist in the same subject.1 Darkness, an attachment to creatures, and 
light, which is God, are contraries and bear no likeness toward each other, 
as St. Paul teaches in his letter to the Corinthians: Quae conventio lucis 
ad tenebras? (What conformity is there between light and darkness?) [2 Cor. 
6:14] Consequently, the light of divine union cannot be established in the 
soul until these affections are eradicated. 

4.3. For a better proof of this, it ought to be kept in mind that an 
attachment to a creature makes a person equal to that creature; the 
stronger the attachment, the closer is the likeness to the creature and the 
greater the equality, for love effects a likeness between the lover and the 
loved. As a result David said of those who set their hearts on their idols: 
Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea, et omnes qui confidunt in eis (Let all 
who set their hearts on them become like them) [Ps. 115:8]. Anyone who 
loves a creature, then, is as low as that creature and in some way even 
lower because love not only equates but even subjects the lover to the 
loved creature.

4.3.(2). By the mere fact that a soul loves something, it becomes incapable 
of pure union and transformation in God; for the lowness of the creature is 
far less capable of the height of the Creator than is darkness of light.

4.3.(3). All creatures of heaven and earth are nothing when compared to 
God, as Jeremiah points out: Aspexi terram, et ecce vacua erat et nihil; et 
caelos, et non erat lux in eis (I looked at the earth, and it was empty and 
nothing; and at the heavens, and I saw they had no light) [Jer. 4:23]. By 
saying that he saw an empty earth, he meant that all its creatures were 
nothing and that the earth too was nothing. In stating that he looked up to 
the heavens and beheld no light, he meant that all the heavenly luminaries 
were pure darkness in comparison to God. All creatures considered in this 
way are nothing, and a person's attachments to them are less than nothing 
since these attachments are an impediment to and deprive the soul of 
transformation in God -- just as darkness is nothing and less than nothing 
since it is a privation of light. One who is in darkness does not 
comprehend the light, so neither will a person attached to creatures be 
able to comprehend God. Until a soul is purged of its attachments it will 
be unable to possess God, neither here below through the pure 
transformation of love nor in heaven through the beatific vision. For the 
sake of greater clarity we will be more specific.

4.4. We just asserted that all the being of creatures compared to the 
infinite being of God is nothing and that, therefore, anyone attached to 
creatures is nothing in the sight of God, and even less than nothing 
because love causes equality and likeness and even brings the lover lower 
than the loved object. In no way, then, is such a person capable of union 
with the infinite being of God. There is no likeness between what is not 
and what is. To be particular, here are some examples.

4.4.(2). All the beauty of creatures compared to the infinite beauty of God 
is the height of ugliness. As Solomon says in Proverbs: Fallax gratia, et 
vana est pulchritudo (Comeliness is deceiving and beauty vain) [Prv. 
31:30]. So a person attached to the beauty of any creature is extremely 
ugly in God's sight. A soul so unsightly is incapable of transformation 
into the beauty that is God because ugliness does not attain to beauty.

4.4.(3). All the grace and elegance of creatures compared to God's grace is 
utter coarseness and crudity. That is why a person captivated by this grace 
and elegance of creatures becomes highly coarse and crude in God's sight. 
Someone like this is incapable of the infinite grace and beauty of God 
because of the extreme difference between the coarse and the infinitely 
elegant.

4.4.(4). Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the 
creatures of the world can be called wickedness. Nothing is good save God 
only [Lk. 18:19]. Those who set their hearts on the good things of the 
world become extremely wicked in the sight of God. Since wickedness does 
not comprehend goodness, such persons will be incapable of union with God, 
who is supreme goodness.

4.4.(5). All the world's wisdom and human ability compared to the infinite 
wisdom of God is pure and utter ignorance, as St. Paul writes to the 
Corinthians: Sapientia hujus mundi stultitia est apud Deum (The wisdom of 
this world is foolishness in God's sight) [1 Cor. 3:19].

4.5. Those, therefore, who value their knowledge and ability as a means of 
reaching union with the wisdom of God are highly ignorant in God's sight 
and will be left behind, far away from this wisdom. Ignorance does not 
grasp what wisdom is. St. Paul says that such wisdom is foolishness to God, 
for in God's sight those who think they have some wisdom are very ignorant. 
The Apostle says of them in writing to the Romans: Dicentes enim se esse 
sapientes, stulti facti sunt (Taking themselves for wise, they became 
fools) [Rom. 1:22].

4.5.(2). Only those who set aside their own knowledge and walk in God's 
service like unlearned children receive wisdom from God. This is the wisdom 
about which St. Paul taught the Corinthians: Si quis videtur inter vos 
sapiens esse in hoc saeculo, stultus fiat ut sit sapiens. Sapientia enim 
hujus mundi stultitia est apud Deum (If anyone among you thinks he is wise, 
let him become ignorant so as to be wise. For the wisdom of this world is 
foolishness with God) [1 Cor. 3:18-19]. Accordingly, to reach union with 
the wisdom of God a person must advance by unknowing rather than by 
knowing.

4.6. All the sovereignty and freedom of the world compared to the freedom 
and sovereignty of the Spirit of God is utter slavery, anguish, and 
captivity. Those, then, who are attached to prelacies or to other such 
dignities and to freedom of their appetites will be considered and treated 
by God as base slaves and captives, not as offspring. And this because of 
their not wanting to accept his holy teaching in which he instructs us that 
Whoever wants to be the greater will be the least, and whoever wants to be 
the least will be the greater [Lk. 22:26]. Thus they will be unable to 
reach the royal freedom of spirit attained in divine union, for freedom has 
nothing to do with slavery. And freedom cannot abide in a heart dominated 
by desires, in a slave's heart. It abides in a liberated heart, in a 
child's heart. This is why Sarah told her husband Abraham to cast out the 
bondwoman and her son, declaring that the bondwoman's son should not be an 
heir together with the free son [Gn. 21:10].

4.7. All the delights and satisfactions of the will in the things of the 
world compared to all the delight that is God are intense suffering, 
torment, and bitterness. Those who link their hearts to these delights, 
then, deserve in God's eyes intense suffering, torment, and bitterness. 
They will not be capable of attaining the delights of the embrace of union 
with God, since they merit suffering and bitterness.

4.7.(2). All the wealth and glory of creation compared to the wealth that 
is God is utter poverty and misery in the Lord's sight. The person who 
loves and possesses these things is completely poor and miserable before 
God and will be unable to attain the richness and glory of transformation 
in God; the miserable and poor is very far from the supremely rich and 
glorious.

4.8. Divine Wisdom, with pity for these souls that become ugly, abject, 
miserable, and poor because of their love for worldly things, which in 
their opinion are rich and beautiful, exclaims in Proverbs: O viri, ad vos 
clamito, et vox mea ad filios hominum. Intelligite, parvuli, astutiam, et 
insipientes, animadverte. Audite quia de rebus magnis locutura sum. And 
further on: Mecum sunt divitiae et gloria, opes superbae et justitia. 
Melior est fructus meus auro et lapide pretioso, et genimina mea argento 
electo. In viis justitiae ambulo, in medio semitarum judicii, ut ditem 
diligentes me, et thesauros eorum repleam. The meaning of this passage is: 
O people, I cry to you, my voice is directed to the children of this earth. 
Be attentive, little ones, to cunning and sagacity; and you ignorant, be 
careful. Listen, because I want to speak of great things. Riches and glory 
are mine, high riches and justice. The fruit you will find in me is better 
than gold and precious stones; and my generations (what will be engendered 
of me in your souls) are better than choice silver. I walk along the ways 
of justice, in the midst of the paths of judgment, to enrich those who love 
me and to fill their treasures completely [Prv. 8:4-6, 18-21].

4.8.(2). Divine Wisdom speaks, here, to all those who are attached to the 
things of the world. She calls them little ones because they become as 
little as the things they love. She tells them, accordingly, to be cunning 
and careful, that she is dealing with great things, not small things, as 
they are; and that the riches and glory they love are with her and in her, 
not where they think; and that lofty riches and justice are present in her. 
Although in their opinion the things of this world are riches, she tells 
them to bear in mind that her riches are more precious, that the fruit 
found in them will be better than gold and precious stones, and that what 
she begets in souls has greater value than cherished silver, which 
signifies every kind of affection possible in this life. 



CHAPTER 5

5. Continuation of the same matter. Proofs from passages and figures of 
Sacred Scripture for the necessity of journeying to God through this dark 
night, the mortification of the appetites.

5.1. We have some idea, from what was said, of the distance that lies 
between what creatures are in themselves and what God is in himself, and, 
since love produces equality and likeness, of how souls attached to any of 
these creatures are just as distant from God. With a clear realization of 
this distance, St. Augustine addressed God in the Soliloquies: Miserable 
man that I am, when will my pusillanimity and imperfection be able to 
conform with your righteousness? You indeed are good, and I evil; You are 
merciful, and I unmerciful; You are holy, and I miserable; You are just, 
and I unjust; You are light, and I blindness; You are life, and I death; 
You are medicine, and I sickness; You are supreme truth; and I utter 
vanity.1 These are the words of the saint. 

5.2. People, indeed, are ignorant who think it is possible to reach this 
high state of union with God without first emptying their appetite of all 
the natural and supernatural things that can be a hindrance to them, as we 
will explain further on. For there is an extreme distance between such 
appetites and that which is given in this state, which is nothing less than 
transformation in God. Instructing us about this way, our Lord stated 
according to St. Luke: Qui non renuntiat omnibus quae possidet, non potest 
meus esse discipulus (Whoever does not renounce all that the will possesses 
cannot be my disciple) [Lk. 14:33]. This statement is clear, for the 
doctrine the Son of Man came to teach is contempt for all things so we may 
receive the gift of God's Spirit. As long as people fail to rid themselves 
of these possessions, they are incapable of receiving God's Spirit in pure 
transformation.

5.3. We have a figure of this in Exodus [Ex. 16] where we read that God did 
not give the children of Israel the heavenly manna until they exhausted the 
flour brought from Egypt. The meaning here is that first a total 
renunciation is needed, for this bread of angels is disagreeable to the 
palate of anyone who wants to taste human food. Persons feeding on other 
strange tastes not only become incapable of the divine Spirit, but even 
greatly anger the divine Majesty because in their aspirations for spiritual 
food they are not satisfied with God alone, but mix with these aspirations 
a desire and affection for other things. This is likewise apparent in the 
same book of Sacred Scripture [Ex. 16:8-13] where it states that the 
people, discontented with that simple food, requested and craved meat, and 
seriously angered our Lord because of their desire to commingle a food so 
base and coarse with one so high and simple that, even though simple, 
contained the savor and substance of all foods. Consequently, while morsels 
of manna were yet in their mouths, the wrath of God descended on them (as 
David also says: Ira Dei descendit super eos [Ps. 78:31]), spouting fire 
from heaven and reducing thousands of them to ashes [Nm. 11:1]. For God 
thought it shameful for them to crave other food while he was giving them 
heavenly food.

5.4. Oh, if spiritual persons knew how much spiritual good and abundance 
they lose by not attempting to raise their appetites above childish things, 
and if they knew to what extent, by not desiring the taste of these 
trifles, they would discover in this simple spiritual food the savor of all 
things! The Israelites did not perceive the taste of every other food that 
was contained in the manna, because their appetite was not centered on this 
manna alone. They were unsuccessful in deriving from the manna all the 
taste and strength they were looking for, not because the manna didn't have 
these but because of their craving for other foods. Similarly, those who 
love something together with God undoubtedly make little of God, for they 
weigh in the balance with God an object far distant from God, as we have 
said.

5.5. It is well known from experience that when the will is attached to an 
object, it esteems that object higher than any other, even though another, 
not as pleasing, may deserve higher admiration. And if people desire 
pleasure from two objects, they are necessarily offensive to the more 
deserving because through their desire for both they equate the two. Since 
nothing equals God, those who love and are attached to something along with 
God offend him exceedingly. If this is true, what would happen if they 
loved something more than God?

5.6. This was also indicated when God ordered Moses to climb to the top of 
the mountain. He did this that Moses might be able to speak to him. He 
commanded Moses not only to ascend alone and leave the children of Israel 
below, but to rule against even the pasturing of beasts on the mountainside 
[Ex. 34:3]. The meaning is that those who ascend this mount of perfection 
to converse with God must not only renounce all things by leaving them at 
the bottom, but also restrict their appetites (the beasts) from pasturing 
on the mountainside, on things that are not purely God. For in God, or in 
the state of perfection, all appetites cease.

5.6.(2). The road and ascent to God, then, necessarily demands a habitual 
effort to renounce and mortify the appetites; the sooner this mortification 
is achieved, the sooner the soul reaches the top. But until the appetites 
are eliminated, one will not arrive no matter how much virtue is practiced. 
For one will be failing to acquire perfect virtue, which lies in keeping 
the soul empty, naked, and purified of every appetite.

5.6.(3). We also have a striking figure of this in Genesis. When the 
patriarch Jacob desired to ascend Mount Bethel to build an altar to offer 
sacrifice to God, he first ordered his people to do three things: destroy 
all strange gods; purify themselves; and change their garments [Gn. 35:2].

5.7. Those desiring to climb to the summit of the mount in order to become 
an altar for the offering of a sacrifice of pure love and praise and 
reverence to God must first accomplish these three tasks perfectly. First, 
they must cast out strange gods, all alien affections and attachments. 
Second, by denying these appetites and repenting of them -- through the 
dark night of the senses -- they must purify themselves of the residue. 
Third, in order to reach the top of this high mount, their garments must be 
changed. By means of the first two works, God will substitute new garments 
for the old. The soul will be clothed in a new understanding of God in God 
(through removal of the old understanding) and in a new love of God in God, 
once the will is stripped of all the old cravings and satisfactions. And 
God will vest the soul with new knowledge when the other old ideas and 
images are cast aside [Col. 3:9]. He causes all that is of the old self, 
the abilities of one's natural being, to cease, and he attires all the 
faculties with new supernatural abilities. As a result, one's activities, 
once human, now become divine. This is achieved in the state of union when 
the soul, in which God alone dwells, has no other function than that of an 
altar on which God is adored in praise and love.

5.7.(2). God commanded that the altar of the Ark of the Covenant be empty 
and hollow [Ex. 27:8] to remind the soul how void of all things God wishes 
it to be if it is to serve as a worthy dwelling for His Majesty. It was 
forbidden that the altar have any strange fire, or that its own go out; so 
much so that when Nadab and Abihu, the sons of the high priest Aaron, 
offered strange fire on our Lord's altar God became angry and slew them 
there in front of the altar [Lv. 10:1-2]. The lesson we derive here is that 
one's love for God must never fail or be mixed with alien loves if one 
wants to be a worthy altar of sacrifice.

5.8. God allows nothing else to dwell together with him. We read, 
consequently, in the First Book of Kings that when the Philistines put the 
Ark of the Covenant in a temple with their idol, the idol was hurled to the 
ground at the dawn of each day and broken into pieces [1 Sm. 5:2-4]. The 
only appetite God permits and wants in his dwelling place is the desire for 
the perfect fulfillment of his law and the carrying of the cross of Christ. 
Scripture teaches that God ordered nothing else to be placed in the Ark 
where the manna was than the Law and the rod of Moses (signifying the 
cross) [Dt. 31: 6; Nm. 17:10]. Those who have no other goal than the 
perfect observance of the Lord's law and the carrying of the cross of 
Christ will be true arks, and they will bear within themselves the real 
manna, which is God, when they possess perfectly, without anything else, 
this law and this rod.



CHAPTER 6


6. The harm, privative as well as positive, that appetites cause in the 
soul.

6.1. For the sake of a clearer and fuller understanding of our assertions, 
it will be beneficial to explain here how these appetites cause harm in two 
principal ways within those in whom they dwell: They deprive them of God's 
Spirit; and they weary, torment, darken, defile, and weaken them. Jeremiah 
mentions this in Chapter 2: Duo mala fecit populus meus: dereliquerunt 
fontem aquae vivae, et foderunt sibi cisternas dissipatas, quae continere 
non valent aquas (They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and 
dug for themselves leaking cisterns that hold no water) [Jer. 2:13]. Any 
inordinate act of the appetite causes both this privative and positive 
damage.

6.1.(2). To begin with, it is clear in speaking of the privative harm that 
a person by mere attachment to a created thing is less capable of God; and 
this, in the measure that the appetite has entity in the soul. For two 
contraries cannot coexist in the same subject, as the philosophers say, and 
as we also mentioned in Chapter 4.1 Since love of God and attachment to 
creatures are contraries, they cannot coexist in the same will. What has 
creature to do with Creator, sensory with spiritual, visible with 
invisible, temporal with eternal, heavenly food that is pure and spiritual 
with food that is entirely sensory, the nakedness of Christ with attachment 
to something?

6.2. In natural generation a new form cannot be introduced into a subject 
without expulsion of the form already there, which is an impediment to the 
new form because of the existing contrariety. Similarly, insofar as a 
person is subject to a sensory spirit, an entirely spiritual one cannot 
enter. This is why our Lord said through St. Matthew: Non est bonum sumere 
panem filiorum et mittere canibus (It is unbecoming to take the children's 
bread and give it to the dogs) [Mt. 15:26]. Also in another part he says 
through the same evangelist: Nolite sanctum dare canibus (Do not give what 
is holy to the dogs) [Mt. 7:6]. All those who dispose themselves for the 
pure reception of God's Spirit through the denial of their appetites for 
creatures, our Lord compares to the children of God. And all those who 
desire to feed their appetites on creatures, he compares to the dogs. It is 
the privilege of children to eat at table with their father and from his 
dish, which is to share in his Spirit; but the dogs must eat the crumbs 
that fall from the table [Mt. 15: 26-27].

6.3. Our lesson here is that all creatures are like crumbs that have fallen 
from God's table. Those who go about feeding on creatures, then, are 
rightly designated as dogs and are deprived of the children's bread because 
they refuse to rise from the crumbs of creatures to the uncreated Spirit of 
their Father. This is precisely why they wander about hungry as dogs. The 
crumbs serve more to whet their appetite than to satisfy their hunger. 
David says of them: Famem patientur ut canes, et circuibunt civitatem. Si 
vero no fuerint saturati, et murmurabunt (They will suffer hunger like 
dogs, and wander around the city. And if they are not filled, they will 
murmur) [Ps. 59:14-15]. This is the characteristic of those with appetites; 
they are always dissatisfied and bitter, like someone who is hungry.

6.3.(2). What, then, has the hunger caused by creatures in common with the 
fullness caused by the Spirit of God? This uncreated fullness cannot enter 
a soul until this other hunger caused by the desires is expelled. Since 
hunger and fullness are contraries they cannot coexist in the same person.

6.4. It will be evident from our explanation that God accomplishes more in 
cleansing and purging people of these contraries than he does in creating 
them from nothing. These impediments of contrary attachments and appetites 
are more opposed and resistant to God than nothingness, for nothingness 
does not resist.

6.4.(2). Since we have already said a good deal about this first kind of 
harm (resistance to God's Spirit) caused by the appetites, our comments 
here should be sufficient.

6.5. Let us now deal with the second effect, the numerous kinds of 
impairment wrought in the soul. For the appetites weary, torment, darken, 
defile, and weaken it. We shall discuss these five effects separately.

6.6. As for the first, it is plain that the appetites are wearisome and 
tiring. They resemble little children, restless and hard to please, always 
whining to their mother for this thing or that, and never satisfied. Just 
as anyone who digs covetously for a treasure grows tired and exhausted, so 
does anyone who strives to satisfy the appetites' demands become wearied 
and fatigued. And even if a soul does finally fill them, it is still always 
weary because it is never satisfied. For, after all, one digs leaking 
cisterns that cannot contain the water that slakes thirst. As Isaiah says: 
Lassus adhuc sitit, et anima ejus vacua est, which means: He is yet faint 
with thirst and his soul is empty [Is. 29:8].

6.6.(2). A soul with desires wearies itself, because it is like someone 
with a fever whose thirst increases by the minute, and who feels ill until 
the fever leaves. It is said in the Book of Job: Cum satiatus fuerit, 
arctabitur, aestuabit, et omnis dolor irruet super eum (When he has 
satisfied his appetite, he will be more burdened and oppressed; the heat of 
appetite will have increased and every sorrow will fall upon him) [Jb. 
20:22].

6.6.(3). The appetites are wearisome and tiring because they agitate and 
disturb one just as wind disturbs water. And they so upset the soul that 
they do not let it rest in any place or thing. Isaiah declares of such a 
soul: Cor impii quasi mare fervens (The heart of the wicked is like a 
stormy sea) [Is. 57:20]. And anyone who does not conquer the appetites is 
wicked.

6.6.(4). People seeking the satisfaction of their desires grow tired, 
because they are like the famished who open their mouths to satisfy 
themselves with air. But they find that instead of being filled the mouth 
dries up more since air is not one's proper food. With this in mind 
Jeremiah says: In desiderio animae suae attraxit ventum amoris sui (In the 
appetite of his will he drew in the air of his attachment) [Jer. 2:24]. To 
comment on the dryness in which the soul is left, he immediately adds the 
advice: Prohibe pedem tuum a nuditate, et guttur tuum a siti. This means: 
Hold back your foot (that is, your mind) from nakedness, and your throat 
from thirst (that is, your will from satisfying its desire, which only 
causes greater thirst) [Jer. 2:25].

6.6.(5). Just as a lover is wearied and depressed when on a longed-for day 
his opportunity is frustrated, so is the soul wearied and tired by all its 
appetites and their fulfillment, because the fulfillment only causes more 
hunger and emptiness. An appetite, as they say, is like a fire that blazes 
up when wood is thrown on it, but necessarily dies out when the wood is 
consumed.

6.7. In regard to the appetites, things are even worse. The fire dwindles 
as the wood is consumed, but the intensity of the appetite does not 
diminish when the appetite is satisfied, even though the object is gone. 
Instead of waning like the fire after the wood is burned, the appetite 
faints with fatigue because its hunger has increased and its food 
diminished. Isaiah refers to this: Declinabit ad dexteram, et esuriet; et 
comedet ad sinistram, et non saturabitur (He will turn to the right and be 
hungry, and eat toward the left and not be filled) [Is. 9:20]. When those 
who do not mortify their appetites turn to the right, they of course see 
the abundance of the sweet spirit that is the lot of those who are at the 
right hand of God but is not granted to them. When they eat at the left 
(satisfy their appetite with some creature), they of course grow 
discontented because, in turning from what alone satisfies, they feed on 
what augments their hunger. It is clear, then, that the appetites weary and 
fatigue a person.

CHAPTER 7

7. How the appetites torment a person. Proofs through comparisons and 
passages from Sacred Scripture.

7.1. Torment and affliction is the second kind of damage the appetites 
cause in an individual. The affliction they engender is similar to the 
torture of the rack, where a person has no relief until freed from the 
torment of being bound by these cords. David says of this torture: Funes 
peccatorum circumplexi sunt me (The cords of my sins -- my appetites -- 
have tightened around me) [Ps. 119:61].

7.1.(2). A soul is tormented and afflicted when it reclines on its 
appetites just as is someone lying naked on thorns and nails. Like thorns, 
the appetites wound and hurt, stick to a person and cause pain. David says 
of them: Circumdederunt me sicut apes, et exarserunt sicut ignis in spinis. 
(They circled around me like bees, stung me, and burned me like fire among 
thorns) [Ps. 118:12]. For among the appetites, which are the thorns, the 
fire of anguish and torment increases.

7.1.(3). Just as a peasant, covetous of the desired harvest, goads and 
torments the ox that pulls the plow, so concupiscence, in order to attain 
the object of its longing, afflicts the one who lives under the yoke of the 
appetites. This is evident in Delilah's desire to know where Samson 
acquired such strength. Scripture states that the desire was such a fatigue 
and torment to her that she fainted away and almost died: Defecit anima 
ejus, et ad mortem usque lassata est [Jgs. 16:15-16].1

7.2. The appetite torments in the measure of its intensity. Thus there is 
as much torment as there is appetite, and the more numerous the appetites 
that possess a soul the greater in number are its torments. In the person 
possessed by appetites we find fulfilled even in this life what is said of 
Babylon in the Apocalypse: Quantum glorificavit se, et in deliciis fuit, 
tantum date illi tormentum et luctum (In the measure of her desire for 
self-exaltation and fulfillment of her appetites, give her torment and 
anguish) [Rv. 18:7].

7.2.(3). Those who let their appetites take hold of them suffer torture and 
affliction like an enemy held prisoner. The Book of Judges contains a 
figure of this in the passage that narrates how the enemies captured mighty 
Samson, who was once the free, strong judge of Israel, and weakened him, 
pulled out his eyes, and chained him to grind at the millstone where he was 
grievously tortured and tormented [Jgs. 16:21]. This same thing happens to 
a person in whom the enemy appetites reside and triumph. First these 
appetites weaken and blind, as we shall point out below, then they afflict 
and torment by chaining that person to the mill of concupiscence, for they 
are the chains by which a soul is bound.

7.3. God, then, with compassion for all those who through such labor and 
cost to themselves strive to satisfy the thirst and hunger of their 
appetites for creatures, proclaims through Isaiah: Omnes sitientes, venite 
ad aquas; et qui no habetis argentum, properate, emite, et comedite: 
venite, emite absque argento vinum et lac. Quare appenditis argentum non in 
panibus, et laborem vestrum non in saturitate? [Is. 55:1-2]. This is 
interpreted: Come to the waters, all you who experience the thirst of your 
appetites; and you who have not the silver of your own will and desires, 
make haste; buy from me and eat; come and buy wine and milk (peace and 
spiritual sweetness) from me without the silver of your own will, without 
paying with labor as you do for the satisfaction of your appetites. Why do 
you offer the silver of your will for what is not bread (the bread of the 
divine Spirit) and waste the efforts of your appetites on what cannot 
satisfy them? Come, listen to me, and you will have the food you desire, 
and your soul will delight in abundance.

7.4. This coming to abundance is a going away from all the pleasures 
derived through creatures, because the creature torments while the Spirit 
of God refreshes. Accordingly, God calls us through St. Matthew: Venite ad 
me, omnes qui laboratis et oneratis estis, et ego reficiam vos, et 
invenietis requiem animabus vestris, as though he were to say: All you 
going about tormented, afflicted, and weighed down by your cares and 
appetites, depart from them, come to me and I will refresh you; and you 
will find the rest for your souls that the desires take away from you [Mt. 
11:28-29]. They are indeed a heavy burden, because David says of them: 
Sicut onus grave gravatae sunt super me [Ps. 37:5].2



CHAPTER 8


8. The appetites darken and blind a person.

8.1. The third kind of harm the appetites bring upon a person is blindness 
and darkness. Vapors make the air murky and are a hindrance to the bright 
sunshine; a cloudy mirror does not clearly reflect a person's countenance; 
so too muddy water reflects only a hazy image of one's features. In just 
this way a person's intellect, clouded by the appetites, becomes dark and 
impedes the sun of either natural reason or God's supernatural wisdom from 
shining within and completely illumining it. As a result David says when 
speaking of this: Comprehenderunt me iniquitates meae, et non potui ut 
viderem (My iniquities surrounded me and I was unable to see) [Ps. 40:12].

8.2. And because of the darkening of the intellect, the will becomes weak 
and the memory dull and disordered in its proper operation. Since these 
faculties depend on the intellect in their operations, they are manifestly 
disordered and troubled when the intellect is hindered. Thus David says: 
Anima mea turbata est valde (My soul is exceedingly troubled) [Ps. 6:4]. 
This is like saying the faculties of my soul are disordered. For, as we 
said, the intellect (as the murky air in relation to the sun's light) is 
incapable of receiving the illumination of God's wisdom; and the will is 
incapable of embracing God within itself in pure love (just as the mirror 
clouded with steam has not the capacity to clearly reflect the countenance 
before it); and the memory obscured by the darkness of appetite has still 
less capacity for receiving serenely the impression of God's image (as 
muddy water cannot clearly reflect the features of one who looks in it).

8.3. The appetite blinds and darkens the soul because the appetite as such 
is blind. It is blind because, of itself, it has no intellect. Reason 
always acts as a blind person's guide for the appetite.  Consequently, as 
often as people are led by their appetites, they are blinded, just as we 
might say that when a blind person guides someone who has good eyesight 
both are blind. The logical outcome is what our Lord proclaims in St. 
Matthew: Si caecus caeco ducatum praestet, ambo in foveam cadunt. (If one 
blind person leads another, both will fall into the ditch) [Mt. 15:14]. 

8.3.(2). A moth is not helped much by its eyes because, blinded in its 
desire for the beauty of light, it will fly directly into a bonfire. Those 
who feed on their appetites are like a fish dazzled by a light that so 
darkens it that the fisherman's snares cannot be seen. David describes this 
blindness well: Supercecidit ignis, et non viderunt solem (Fire, that gives 
off heat and dazzles by its light, came upon them) [Ps. 58: 8-9]. The 
appetites cause this in the soul: They enkindle concupiscence and overwhelm 
the intellect so that it cannot see its light. The reason is that a new 
light set directly in front of the visual faculty blinds this faculty so 
that it fails to see the light farther away. And since the appetite is so 
close to individuals as to be actually within them, they are impeded by 
this interior light, feed upon it, and are unable to see the clear light of 
the intellect; nor will they see it until they extinguish this blinding 
light of their appetite.

8.4. The ignorance of some is extremely lamentable; they burden themselves 
with extraordinary penances and many other exercises, thinking these are 
sufficient to attain union with divine Wisdom. But such practices are 
insufficient if these souls do not diligently strive to deny their 
appetites. If they would attempt to devote only half of that energy to the 
renunciation of their desires, they would profit more in a month than in 
years with all these other exercises. As the tilling of soil is necessary 
for its fruitfulness -- untilled soil produces only weeds -- mortification 
of the appetites is necessary for one's spiritual fruitfulness. I venture 
to say that without this mortification all that is done for the sake of 
advancement in perfection and in knowledge of God and of oneself is no more 
profitable than seed sown on uncultivated ground. Accordingly, darkness and 
coarseness will always be with a soul until its appetites are extinguished. 
The appetites are like a cataract on the eye or specks of dust in it; until 
removed they obstruct vision.

8.5. David, observing the blindness of such people, how impeded their souls 
are from seeing truth clearly, and the extent of God's anger with them 
warns: Priusquam intelligerent spinae vestrae rhamnum: sicut viventes, sic 
in ira absorbet eos, as though to say: Before your thorns (that is, your 
appetites) understand, God will absorb them in his wrath as he would the 
living [Ps. 58:9]. Before the appetites living in the soul come to an 
understanding of God, he will absorb them in this life, or in the next, by 
chastisement and correction, that is, through purgation. David says God 
will absorb them in wrath, because the suffering caused by the 
mortification of the appetites is a chastisement for the havoc they produce 
in the soul.

8.6. Oh, if people but knew what a treasure of divine light this blindness 
caused by their affections and appetites takes from them and the number of 
misfortunes and evils these appetites occasion each day when left 
unmortified! Individuals must not so rely on their good intelligence or the 
gifts received from God as to think that even though they have attachments 
or appetites these will not blind, darken, and cause them to grow gradually 
worse. Who would have thought that a man as perfect in the wisdom and gifts 
of God as Solomon could have sunk into such blindness and torpor of will, 
when he was already old, as to construct altars to countless idols and then 
worship them himself? Yet this was caused by nothing else than his 
affection for women and his neglect to deny the appetites and delights of 
his heart [1 Kgs. 3:12-13; 11:1-4]. He says in Ecclesiastes that he did not 
deny his heart what it asked of him [Eccl. 2:10]. Although in the beginning 
he was truly restrained, this rush after his desires and the failure to 
deny them, gradually blinded and darkened his intellect so that finally the 
powerful light of God's wisdom was extinguished. Consequently, in his old 
age, Solomon abandoned God.

8.7. If the unmortified appetites could do this in a man who possessed such 
lofty knowledge of the distance between good and evil, what terrible damage 
can they cause in us who are ignorant. For as God said to Jonah about the 
people of Nineveh: We do not know the difference between our right hand and 
our left [Jon. 4:11]. At every step we mistake evil for good and good for 
evil. This is peculiar to our nature. But what will happen if appetite is 
added to our natural darkness? Nothing else than what Isaiah says: 
Palpavimus sicut caeci parietem et quasi absque oculis attrectavimus: 
impegimus meridie quasi in tenebris [Is. 59:10]. The prophet is speaking 
with those who love to pursue their appetites, as though to say: We have 
felt our way along the wall as though blind, we have groped as if without 
eyes, and our blindness has reached the point that we stumble along in 
broad daylight as though walking in the dark. For this is a characteristic 
of those who are blinded by their appetites; when they are in the midst of 
the truth and of what is suitable for them, they no more see it than if 
they were in the dark.



CHAPTER 9


9. The appetites defile the soul. Proofs through comparisons and passages 
from Sacred Scripture.

9.1. The fourth way the appetites harm the soul is by defiling and staining 
it. The Book of Ecclesiasticus teaches: Qui tetigerit picem, inquinabitur 
ab ea (the one who touches pitch will be defiled by it) [Ecclus. 13:1]. And 
a person handles pitch by satisfying the will's appetite for some creature. 
It is noteworthy that the Wise Man compares creatures to pitch, for the 
difference between the excellence of the soul and the best in creatures is 
greater than that between pure gold, or a bright diamond, and pitch. The 
gold, or the diamond, when placed on hot pitch becomes more stained and 
unsightly as the heat melting the pitch increases. Similarly, those who are 
fired by their appetite for some creature are stained and blackened by that 
creature because of the heat of their desire.

9.1.(2). There is as much difference between the soul and other corporeal 
creatures as there is between a transparent liquid and the filthiest mire. 
This liquid would be polluted if mud were mixed with it; so too attachment 
to a creature defiles a soul, because this attachment makes it similar to 
the creature. Strokes of soot would ruin a perfect and extraordinarily 
beautiful portrait, so too inordinate appetites defile and dirty the soul, 
in itself a perfect and extremely beautiful image of God.

9.2. Jeremiah, weeping over the ravages of unsightliness these inordinate 
appetites cause in a soul, first lists the soul's beauty and then its 
ugliness: Candidiores sunt nazarei ejus nive, nitidiores lacte, 
rubicundiores ebore antiquo, saphiro pulchriores. Denigrata est super 
carbones facies eorum, et non sunt cogniti in plateis (Its hair -- that is, 
of the soul -- is whiter than snow, more resplendent than milk, ruddier 
than ancient ivory, more beautiful than sapphire stone. Its surface became 
blacker than coal and went unrecognized in the public squares) [Lam. 4:7-
8]. The hair refers to the soul's affections and thoughts; when ordered to 
the end intended by God -- which is God himself -- it is whiter than snow, 
clearer than milk, ruddier than ancient ivory, and more beautiful than 
sapphire. These four objects of comparison indicate every kind of beauty 
and excellence in corporeal creatures; yet the beauty and excellence of the 
soul's operations, which are signified by the Nazarites or hair, are, he 
says, greater. If these operations of the soul are inordinate and occupied 
in an end not intended by God -- that is, in creatures -- their surface, 
says Jeremiah, will become blacker than coal.

9.3. Inordinate appetites for the things of the world do all this damage to 
the beauty of the soul, and even more. So great is the harm that if we try 
to express how ugly and dirty is the imprint the appetites leave in the 
soul we find nothing comparable to it -- neither a place full of cobwebs 
and lizards nor the unsightliness of a dead body nor the filthiest thing 
imaginable in this life.

9.3.(2). Although it is true that the disordered soul possesses in its 
natural being the perfection that God bestowed when creating it, 
nevertheless in its rational being it is ugly, abominable, dirty, dark, and 
full of all the evils here described, and many more besides. One inordinate 
appetite alone, as we will explain,1  suffices to make a soul so captive, 
dirty, and unsightly that until the appetite is purified the soul is 
incapable of conformity with God in union. This is true even though there 
may be no matter for mortal sin in the appetite. What then will be the 
ugliness of a soul entirely disordered in its passions and surrendered to 
its appetites? How far it will be from God and his purity!

9.4. The variety of filth caused in the soul is both inexplicable and 
unintelligible! For were it comprehensible and explainable it would be 
surprising and also distressing to see how in the measure of its quantity 
and quality each appetite leaves a deposit of filth and an unsightly mark 
in the soul. It would be a surprise and a pity to observe how only one 
inordinate act can in its own way occasion innumerable kinds and various 
degrees of filth. The well-ordered soul of the just in a single perfect act 
possesses countless rich gifts and beautiful virtues. Each of these gifts 
and virtues is different and pleasing in its own way according to the 
multitude and diversity of the affections the soul has had for God. 
Similarly, in an inordinate soul the deposit of filth and degradation is as 
miserable and has the same variety as the variety of its appetites for 
creatures.

9.5. We have an excellent figure of these varied appetites in Ezekiel. It 
is written that God showed this prophet all kinds of crawling reptiles and 
all the abomination of unclean animals painted on the interior walls of the 
temple. God then said to Ezekiel: Son of man, have you not seen indeed the 
abominations that each of these accomplishes in the secrecy of his chamber? 
And when God commanded the prophet to enter further and behold greater 
abominations, Ezekiel says he saw women seated there and weeping for 
Adonis, the god of love. Being commanded by God to penetrate still further 
for the sight of even greater abominations, he says he beheld there 25 old 
men whose backs were turned on the temple [Ez. 8:10-16].

9.6. The many reptiles and unclean animals painted on the walls of the 
first room in the temple represent intellectual thoughts of abject earthly 
things and of all creatures. These creatures are painted just as they are 
in the temple of the soul if it allows its intellect, the first chamber, to 
be encumbered with them.

9.6.(2). The women further within, in the second chamber, weeping for the 
god Adonis, represent the appetites residing in the second faculty of the 
soul, which is the will. These appetites weep as it were by coveting what 
the will is attached to; that is, they covet the reptiles painted in the 
intellect. 

9.6.(3). The men in the third room are a representation of the images of 
creatures that the third part of the soul, the memory, preserves and 
focuses on. The passage states that these men turned their backs on the 
temple, for when the soul is wholly joined with an earthly object by 
embracing it with these three faculties, we can say that soul has turned 
its back on the temple of God. And the temple of God represents the soul's 
right reason, which admits nothing of creatures.

9.7. What we have said is sufficient at present for some understanding of 
the unsightly disorder of the soul caused by its appetites. We would never 
finish if we tried to discuss in particular the lesser degree of ugliness, 
and its variety, that imperfections cause in the soul, or the still greater 
degree, and its variety, produced by venial sins, or the degree of total 
ugliness caused by mortally sinful appetites. The variety of the total 
ugliness corresponds to the extensive diversity of all three degrees. Not 
even the angelic intellect could have an adequate understanding of all this 
unsightliness. The point I am making and desire to make is that any 
appetite, even one that is just slightly imperfect, stains and defiles the 
soul.



CHAPTER 10


10. The appetites weaken a soul and make it lukewarm in the practice of 
virtue.

10.1. Weakness and tepidity is the fifth kind of harm the appetites produce 
in a person. The appetites sap the strength needed for perseverance in the 
practice of virtue. Because the force of the desire is divided, the 
appetite becomes weaker than if it were completely fixed on one object. The 
more objects there are dividing an appetite, the weaker this appetite 
becomes for each. This is why the philosophers say that virtue when united 
is stronger than when scattered. It is therefore clear that if the appetite 
of the will pours itself out on something other than virtue, it grows 
weaker in the practice of virtue. A person whose will is divided among 
trifles is like water that, leaking out at the bottom, will not rise higher 
and is therefore useless. This is why the patriarch Jacob compared his son 
Reuben, who had given rein to his appetites in a certain sin, to spilled 
water: You are poured out like water, grow not [Gn. 49:4]. This was like 
saying: Because according to the appetites you are poured out like water, 
you will not grow in virtue.

10.1.(2). Hot water quickly loses its heat if left uncovered, and aromatic 
spices when unwrapped eventually lose the strength and pungency of their 
scent. So the soul that is not recollected in one appetite alone, the 
desire for God, loses heat and strength in the practice of virtue. Clearly 
understanding this, David said to God: Fortitudinem meam ad te custodiam (I 
will keep my strength for you) [Ps. 59:9]. I will do this by concentrating 
the strength of my appetites on you alone.

10. 2. The appetites weaken a person's virtue because they are like shoots 
burgeoning about a tree, sapping its strength, and causing it to be 
fruitless. The Lord says of such people: Vae praegnantibus et nutrientibus 
in illis diebus! (Woe to them who will be with child in those days, and to 
them who will be nursing!) [Mt. 24:19]. Being with child and nursing refer 
to the growth of the appetites that, if not cut off, will weaken the soul 
in virtue. Their growth will be costly, like the growth of sprouts around 
the tree. Our Lord consequently advises us: Let your loins be girt [Lk. 
12:35]. The loins here indicate the appetites. They are indeed like 
leeches, always sucking blood from one's veins. This is what the Wise Man 
calls them: The daughters (the appetites) are leeches always calling: give! 
give! [Prv. 30:15].

10.3. Manifestly, then, the appetites do not bring any good to a person. 
Rather they rob one of what one already has. And if one does not mortify 
them, they will not cease until they accomplish what the offspring of 
vipers are said to do within the mother: While growing within her they eat 
away at her entrails and finally kill her, remaining alive at her expense. 
So the unmortified appetites result in killing the soul in its relationship 
with God, and thus, because it did not put them to death first, they alone 
live in it. This is why it says in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: Aufer a me 
Domine ventris concupiscentias et concubitus concupiscentiae ne 
apprehendant me [Ecclus. 23:6].1

10.4. Even though they do not go to this extent, it is sad to consider the 
condition of the poor soul in whom they dwell. How unhappy it is with 
itself, how cold toward its neighbors, how sluggish and slothful in the 
things of God! No illness makes walking as burdensome, or eating as 
distasteful, as do the appetites for creatures render the practice of 
virtue burdensome and saddening to a person. Ordinarily, the reason many 
people do not have diligence and eagerness for the acquisition of virtue is 
that their appetites and affections are not fixed purely on God.



CHAPTER 11


11. Proofs of how freedom from all appetites, even the smallest, is 
necessary to attain divine union.

11.1. The reader has apparently desired for quite a while to ask if the 
total mortification of all the appetites, large and small, is a requirement 
to attain this high state of perfection, or if it is sufficient to mortify 
just some of them and leave the others, at least those that seem trifling. 
For it seems it would be an arduous task for individuals to attain such 
purity and nakedness that they would have no attachment to anything.

11.2. First, I respond that it is true that the appetites are not all 
equally detrimental, nor are all equally a hindrance to the soul. I am 
speaking of the voluntary appetites because the natural ones are little or 
no hindrance at all to the attainment of union, provided they do not 
receive one's consent or pass beyond the first movements, those stirrings 
in which the rational will does not take part either before or after. To 
eradicate the natural appetites, that is, to mortify them entirely, is 
impossible in this life. Even though they are not entirely mortified, as I 
say, they are not such a hindrance as to prevent one from attaining divine 
union. A soul can easily experience them in its sensitive nature and yet be 
free of them in the rational part of its being. It will happen sometimes 
that while a person is experiencing an intense union of will in the prayer 
of quiet these appetites will be actually dwelling in the sensory part. Yet 
the superior part of the soul, which is in prayer, will be paying no 
attention to them.1 

11.2.(2). But all the other voluntary appetites, whether they be the most 
serious that involve mortal sin, or less grave in that they concern venial 
sin, or whether they be the least serious of all in that they only involve 
imperfections, must be mortified. A person must be liberated of them all, 
however slight they be, in order to arrive at this complete union. The 
reason is that in the state of divine union a person's will is so 
completely transformed into God's will that it excludes everything contrary 
to God's will, and in all and through all is motivated by the will of God.

11.3. Here we have the reason for stating that two wills become one. And 
this one will is God's will, which also becomes the soul's. If a person 
were to desire an imperfection unwanted by God, this one will of God would 
be undone because of the desire for what God does not will.

11.3.(2). Clearly, for a soul to reach union with God through its will and 
love, it must first be freed from every appetite, however slight. That is, 
one must not give consent of the will advertently and knowingly to an 
imperfection, and one must have the power and freedom to be able, upon 
advertence, to refuse this consent.

11.3.(3). I say "knowingly" because one will fall into imperfections, 
venial sins, and the above-mentioned natural appetites without having 
advertence or knowledge or control in the matter. It is written of these 
semivoluntary and inadvertent sins that the just will fall seven times a 
day and rise up again [Prv. 24:16]. But any one of the voluntary appetites 
that are advertent venial sins, even if trifling, if not conquered is 
sufficient to impede union, as I have said. I am referring here to habitual 
appetites because certain scattered acts of different desires are not such 
a hindrance to union when the habitual appetites are mortified. However, 
the soul must be liberated of these acts too, since they also proceed from 
habitual imperfection. Yet some habitual voluntary imperfections that are 
never completely conquered are an impediment not only to divine union but 
to spiritual progress as well.

11.4. Some examples of these habitual imperfections are: the common habit 
of being very talkative; a small attachment one never really desires to 
conquer, for example, to a person, to clothing, to a book or a cell, or to 
the way food is prepared, and to other trifling conversations and little 
satisfactions in tasting, knowing, and hearing things, and so on. Any of 
these habitual imperfections to which there is attachment is as harmful to 
progress in virtue as the daily commission of many other imperfections and 
sporadic venial sins that do not result from a bad habit. These latter will 
not hinder a person as much as will the attachment to something. As long as 
this attachment remains, it is impossible to make progress in perfection, 
even though the imperfection may be very small.2  

11.4.(2). It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin 
thread or by a cord. Even if it is tied by thread, the bird will be held 
bound just as surely as if it were tied by cord; that is, it will be 
impeded from flying as long as it does not break the thread. Admittedly the 
thread is easier to break, but no matter how easily this may be done, the 
bird will not fly away without first doing so. This is the lot of those who 
are attached to something: No matter how much virtue they have they will 
not reach the freedom of the divine union. 

11.4.(3). An individual's appetite and attachment resemble the remora, 
which, if successful in clinging to a ship, will hold it back and prevent 
it from reaching port, or even from sailing, even though this fish is 
exceptionally small. It is regrettable, then, to behold some souls, laden 
as rich vessels with wealth, deeds, spiritual exercises, virtues, and 
favors from God, who never advance because they lack the courage to make a 
complete break with some little satisfaction, attachment, or affection 
(which are all about the same) and thereby never reach the port of 
perfection. This requires no more than a sudden flap of one's wings in 
order to tear the thread of attachment, or to get rid of the clinging 
remora.

11.5. It is a matter for deep sorrow that, while God has bestowed on them 
the power to break other stronger cords of attachment to sins and vanities, 
they fail to attain so much good because they do not become detached from 
some childish thing that God has asked them to conquer out of love for him 
and that amounts to no more than a thread or hair. What is worse, not only 
do they fail to advance, but they turn back because of their small 
attachment, losing what they gained on their journey at the cost of so much 
time and effort. Everyone knows that not to go forward on this road is to 
turn back, and not to gain ground is to lose. This is what our Lord wanted 
to teach when he said: The one who is not with me is against me, and the 
one who does not gather with me scatters [Mt. 12:30].

11.5.(2). If one small crack in a pitcher goes unrepaired, the damage will 
be enough to cause all the liquid to leak out. The Book of Ecclesiasticus 
gives clear teaching of this when it says: One who despises small things 
will fall little by little [Ecclus. 19:1]. For as it teaches elsewhere: A 
great fire is occasioned by a tiny spark [Ecclus. 11:32]. Accordingly, one 
imperfection leads to another, and these to still more. You will scarcely 
ever find a person negligent in the conquering of one appetite who will not 
have many others flowing from the identical weakness and imperfection 
caused by this one appetite. Such persons, consequently, are ever faltering 
along the road. We have witnessed many persons, whom God was favoring with 
much progress in detachment and freedom, fall from happiness and stability 
in their spiritual exercises and end up losing everything merely because 
they began to indulge in some slight attachment to conversation and 
friendship under the appearance of good. For by this attachment they 
gradually emptied themselves of both holy solitude and the spirit and joy 
of God. All this happened because they did not put a stop to their initial 
satisfaction and sensitive pleasure, and preserve themselves for God in 
solitude.3

11.6. The attainment of our goal demands that we never stop on this road, 
which means we must continually get rid of our wants rather than indulging 
them. For if we do not get rid of them all completely, we will not wholly 
reach our goal. A log of wood cannot be transformed into the fire if even a 
single degree of heat is lacking to its preparation for this.4  The soul, 
similarly, will not be transformed in God even if it has only one 
imperfection. As we shall explain in speaking of the night of faith, a 
person has only one will and if that is encumbered or occupied by anything, 
the person will not possess the freedom, solitude, and purity requisite for 
divine transformation.

11.7. We have a figure of this in the Book of Judges. It narrates that the 
angel announced to the children of Israel that because they had not 
completely destroyed their enemies but made a pact with some of them, these 
enemies would be left in their midst to be an occasion of their fall and 
perdition [Jgs. 2:1-3]. God does precisely this with some souls. He has 
withdrawn them from the world, slain the giants, which are their sins, and 
destroyed the multitude of their enemies (the occasions of sin encountered 
in the world) solely so that they can enter with greater freedom into the 
promised land of divine union. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, they 
fraternize and make pacts with the insignificant people -- their 
imperfections -- by not mortifying them completely. And God in his anger 
allows them to go from bad to worse in their appetites.

11.8. We find another figure of this in the Book of Joshua. There we read 
that God commanded Joshua, who was about to enter into possession of the 
promised land, to destroy everything in the city of Jericho without leaving 
anything alive, neither men nor women, young nor old, nor any animals. God 
ordered him not to covet or seize any of the booty [Jos. 6:18-19, 21]. The 
lesson here is that all objects living in the soul -- whether they be many 
or few, large or small -- must die in order that the soul enter divine 
union, and it must bear no desire for them but remain detached as though 
they were nonexistent to it, and it to them. St. Paul teaches  this clearly 
in Corinthians: What I tell you, brothers, is that the time is short; what 
remains and suits you is that those with wives should act as though they 
had none, and those who weep for the things of this world as though they 
were not weeping, and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing, and the 
buyers as though they did not possess, and the users of the world should 
behave as though they made no use of it [1 Cor. 7:29-31]. In this text the 
Apostle teaches us how detached our souls must be from all things in order 
to go to God.



CHAPTER 12


12. The answer to another question. An explanation of the kinds of 
appetites that can bring this harm on a soul.

12.1. We could explain this night of sense at greater length by mentioning 
everything relevant to the kind of damage the appetites cause, for they 
injure not merely in the ways described but in many others as well. What we 
have explained, however, is sufficient for our purpose. It has probably 
been understood how the mortification of the appetites can be called night 
and how suitable it is for people to enter this night in their approach to 
God. The only point that remains before we treat, in conclusion, the method 
of entering this night is to settle a doubt that may occur to the reader 
concerning this matter.1

12.2. First, can any appetite produce and cause the two evils mentioned 
above, namely: the privative, which removes God's grace from the soul; and 
the positive, which causes the five principal kinds of harm we explained?

12.2.(2). Second, is any appetite, however slight or of whatever kind, 
enough to produce all these types of harm together, or does each cause only 
a particular kind, in that one may produce torment, another weariness, 
another darkness, and so on?

12.3. To the first query, I answer that relevant to the privative evil, the 
loss of grace, only the voluntary appetites involving a matter of mortal 
sin can cause this completely, for they deprive the soul of grace in this 
life and of glory, the possession of God, in the next.

12.3.(2). To the second, my answer is that all these positive evils are 
together occasioned in the soul by each of these appetites. This is true 
whether the appetites concern mortal sin, venial sin, or imperfection. We 
call these evils positive, though in a certain fashion they are privative, 
because they correspond to a conversion to the creature, just as the 
privative evils correspond to the aversion from God.

12.3.(3). Yet there is this difference: The appetites for mortal sin 
produce total blindness, torment, filth, weakness, and so on; the others do 
not cause these kinds of harm to a complete and absolute degree. For they 
do not deprive the soul of grace -- a privation that would give them full 
possession, since the death of grace means life for the appetites. But 
these smaller appetites do cause this damage in a lesser degree according 
to the loss of grace they occasion. The extent of the torment, blindness, 
and defilement corresponds to the weakening of grace brought on by the 
appetites.

12.4. It is noteworthy, however, that, though each appetite causes all 
these kinds of positive harm, it will cause one kind principally and 
directly, and the others indirectly. For though it is true that a sensual 
appetite breeds all these kinds of evil, it principally and properly 
speaking defiles the soul and body. And an appetite of avarice produces 
them all too, yet principally and directly it causes afflictions. One of 
vainglory similarly causes them all, yet principally and directly it 
darkens and blinds. And whereas an appetite of gluttony begets all the 
evils, it chiefly produces lukewarmness in virtue. And so on with the 
others.

12.5. The reason any act of a voluntary appetite produces all these evils 
together is that it directly opposes the acts of virtue that produce the 
contrary effects. An act of virtue produces and fosters in the soul 
mildness, peace, comfort, light, purity, and strength, just as an 
inordinate appetite brings about torment, fatigue, weariness, blindness, 
and weakness. Through the practice of one virtue all the virtues grow, and 
similarly, through an increase of one vice, all the vices and their effects 
grow.

12.5.(2). These evils do not unmask themselves at the moment the appetite 
is being satisfied, since the pleasure of the moment is an obstacle to 
this. Yet sooner or later the harmful effects will certainly be felt. A 
good illustration of this is found in the Apocalypse. An angel commanded 
St. John to eat the book, which was sweet to the mouth but bitter in the 
stomach [Rv. 10:9]. When satisfied the appetite seems sweet and pleasant, 
but eventually the bitter effect is felt. This truth will certainly be 
clear to those who allow themselves to be carried away by their appetites. 
I realize, however, that there are some so blind and unaware that they do 
not experience this bitter effect. Since they do not walk in God, they do 
not perceive what keeps them from him.

12.6. I am not speaking here of the other natural, involuntary appetites, 
or of thoughts that do not pass beyond the first movements, or of other 
temptations in which there is no consent. These things do not give rise to 
any of the evils previously mentioned. Though the passion and disturbance 
they momentarily cause make it seem that one is being defiled and blinded, 
such is not the case; rather, they occasion the opposite good effects. 
Insofar as one resists them, one wins strength, purity, comfort, and many 
blessings, as our Lord told St. Paul: Virtue is made perfect in weakness [2 
Cor. 12:9].2

12.6.(2). But the voluntary appetites bring on all these evils, and even 
more. That is why the chief concern of spiritual masters with their 
disciples is the immediate mortification of every appetite. The directors 
should make them remain empty of what they desire so as to liberate them 
from so much misery.



CHAPTER 13


13. The manner and method of entering this night of sense.

13.1. Some counsels are in order now that the individual may both know the 
way of entering this night and be able to do so. It should be understood, 
consequently, that a person ordinarily enters this night of sense in two 
ways: active and passive.

13.1.(2). The active way, which will be the subject of the following 
counsels, comprises what one can do and does by oneself to enter this 
night.

13.1.(3). The passive way is that in which one does nothing, but God 
accomplishes the work in the soul while the soul acts as the recipient. 
This will be the subject of the fourth book, where we will discuss 
beginners. Since with God's help I will give many counsels regarding the 
numerous imperfections beginners ordinarily possess on this road, I will 
not take the time to offer many here. Nor is this the proper place to give 
them, since here we are dealing only with the reasons for calling this 
journey a night, and with the nature and divisions of this night.1

13.1.(4). Nevertheless, if we do not offer some immediate remedy or counsel 
for exercising oneself in this night of the appetites, this part would seem 
very short and of little help. Therefore I want to set down the following 
abridged method. And I will do the same at the end of my discussion of each 
of the next two parts (or reasons for the use of the term "night") which, 
with God's help, will follow.

13.2. Though these counsels for the conquering of the appetites are brief 
and few in number, I believe they are as profitable and efficacious as they 
are concise. A person who sincerely wants to practice them will need no 
others since all the others are included in these.2

13.3. First, have habitual desire to imitate Christ in all your deeds by 
bringing your life into conformity with his. You must then study his life 
in order to know how to imitate him and behave in all events as he would.

13.4. Second, in order to be successful in this imitation, renounce and 
remain empty of any sensory satisfaction that is not purely for the honor 
and glory of God. Do this out of love for Jesus Christ. In his life he had 
no other gratification, nor desired any other, than the fulfillment of his 
Father's will, which he called his meat and food [Jn. 4:34].

13.4.(2). For example, if you are offered the satisfaction of hearing 
things that have no relation to the service and glory of God, do not desire 
this pleasure or the hearing of these things. When you have an opportunity 
for the gratification of looking upon objects that will not help you love 
God more, do not desire this gratification or sight. And if in speaking 
there is a similar opportunity, act in the same way. And so on with all the 
senses insofar as you can duly avoid such satisfaction. If you cannot 
escape the experience of this satisfaction, it will be sufficient to have 
no desire for it.

13.4.(3). By this method you should endeavor, then, to leave the senses as 
though in darkness, mortified and empty of that satisfaction. With such 
vigilance you will gain a great deal in a short time.

13.5. Many blessings flow when the four natural passions (joy, hope, fear, 
and sorrow) are in harmony and at peace. The following maxims contain a 
complete method for mortifying and pacifying them. If put into practice 
these maxims will give rise to abundant merit and great virtues.

13.6. Endeavor to be inclined always:
	not to the easiest, but to the most difficult;
	not to the most delightful, but to the most distasteful; 
	not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant; 
	not to what means rest for you, but to hard work; 
	not to the consoling, but to the unconsoling; 
	not to the most, but to the least; 
	not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most 	
		despised; 
	not to wanting something, but to wanting nothing. 
	Do not go about looking for the best of temporal things, but for the 
worst, and, for Christ, desire to enter into complete nakedness, emptiness, 
and poverty in everything in the world. 

13.7. You should embrace these practices earnestly and try to overcome the 
repugnance of your will toward them. If you sincerely put them into 
practice with order and discretion, you will discover in them great delight 
and consolation.

13.8. These counsels if truly carried out are sufficient for entry into the 
night of senses. But, to ensure that we give abundant enough counsel, here 
is another exercise that teaches mortification of concupiscence of the 
flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life, which, as St. John 
says, reign in the world and give rise to all the other appetites [1 Jn. 
2:16].

13.9. First, try to act with contempt for yourself and desire that all 
others do likewise. 

13.9.(2). Second, endeavor to speak in contempt of yourself and desire all 
others to do so. 

13.9.(3). Third, try to think lowly and contemptuously of yourself and 
desire that all others do the same.

13.10. As a conclusion to these counsels and rules it would be appropriate 
to repeat the verses in The Ascent of the Mount [the drawing at the 
beginning of the book], which are instructions for climbing to the summit, 
the high state of union. Although in the drawing we admittedly refer to the 
spiritual and interior aspect, we also deal with the spirit of imperfection 
existent in the sensory and exterior part of the soul, as is evident by the 
two ways, one on each side of that path that leads to perfection. 
Consequently these verses will here bear reference to the sensory part. 
Afterward, in the second division of this night, they may be interpreted in 
relationship to the spiritual part.4

13.11. The verses are:
	To reach satisfaction in all 
	desire satisfaction in nothing.
	To come to possess all 
	desire the possession of nothing. 
	To arrive at being all 
	desire to be nothing. 
	To come to the knowledge of all 
	desire the knowledge of nothing.

	To come to enjoy what you have not 
	you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
	To come to the knowledge you have not 
	you must go by a way in which you know not.
	To come to the possession you have not 
	you must go by a way in which you possess not.
	To come to be what you are not 
	you must go by a way in which you are not.

	A Method to Avoid Impeding the All
	
13.12. When you delay in something 
	you cease to rush toward the all. 
	For to go from the all to the all 
	you must deny yourself of all in all. 
	And when you come to the possession of the all 
	you must possess it without wanting anything. 
	Because if you desire to have something in all 
	your treasure in God is not purely your all.

13.13. In this nakedness the spirit finds its quietude and rest. For in 
coveting nothing, nothing tires it by pulling it up and nothing oppresses 
it by pushing it down, because it is in the center of its humility. When it 
covets something, by this very fact it tires itself.



CHAPTER 14


14. An explanation of verse 2 of the first stanza.

		  fired with love's urgent longings

14.1. Now that we have explained the first verse of this stanza, which 
treats of the night of sense, and have discussed the nature of this night, 
the reason for calling it night, and the method of actively entering it, we 
should, in due order, continue with an explanation of the admirable 
properties and effects contained in the remaining verses of this stanza. I 
will explain these verses, as promised in the prologue, by merely touching 
on them, and then proceed to Book Two, a treatise on the remaining, or 
spiritual, part of this night.1

14.2. The soul, then, states that "fired with love's urgent longings" it 
passed through this night of sense to union with the Beloved. A love of 
pleasure, and attachment to it, usually fires the will toward the enjoyment 
of things that give pleasure. A more intense enkindling of another, better 
love (love of the soul's Bridegroom) is necessary for the vanquishing of 
the appetites and the denial of this pleasure. By finding satisfaction and 
strength in this love, it will have the courage and constancy to readily 
deny all other appetites. The love of its Bridegroom is not the only 
requisite for conquering the strength of the sensitive appetites; an 
enkindling with urgent longings of love is also necessary. For the sensory 
appetites are moved and attracted toward sensory objects with such cravings 
that if the spiritual part of the soul is not fired with other, more urgent 
longings for spiritual things, the soul will be able neither to overcome 
the yoke of nature nor to enter the night of sense; nor will it have the 
courage to live in the darkness of all things by denying its appetites for 
them.2

14.3. This is not the appropriate section for a description -- nor would 
this be possible -- of the nature of these longings of love or of the 
numerous ways they occur at the outset of the journey to union. Neither is 
it the place for a discussion of the diligence and ingenuity of persons in 
departing from their house (self-will) into the night of the mortification 
of their senses, or of how easy, sweet, and delightful these longings for 
their Bridegroom make all the trials and dangers of this night seem. It is 
better to experience all of this and meditate on it than to write of it. We 
will proceed, consequently, to the next chapter and explain the remaining 
verses.



CHAPTER 15


15. An exposition of the remaining verses of the first stanza.

		     -- Ah, the sheer grace! --  
		    I went out unseen, 
		    my house being now all stilled. 

15.1. The soul uses as a metaphor the wretched state of captivity. It is a 
sheer grace to be released from this prison without hindrance from the 
jailers.1 The soul through original sin is a captive in the mortal body, 
subject to passions and natural appetites; when liberated from this bondage 
and submission, it considers its escape, in which it is unnoticed, 
unimpeded, and unapprehended by its passions and appetites, a sheer grace.

15.2. To achieve this liberation it was advantageous for the soul to depart 
in the dark night, that is, in the privation of all satisfactions and in 
the mortification of all appetites, as we mentioned. "My house being now 
all stilled" means that the house of all the appetites, the sensitive part 
of the soul, is now stilled, and the desires conquered and lulled to sleep. 
Until slumber comes to the appetites through the mortification of 
sensuality, and until this very sensuality is stilled in such a way that 
the appetites do not war against the spirit, the soul will not go out to 
genuine freedom, to the enjoyment of union with its Beloved.

The End of the First Book 



BOOK TWO

1. This book is a treatise on faith, the proximate means of ascent to union 
with God. It consequently considers the second part of this night, the 
night of spirit to which the following stanza refers.



CHAPTER 1

			     The Second Stanza
		            In darkness and secure,
		            by the secret ladder, disguised,
		             -- ah, the sheer grace! -- 
		            in darkness and concealment,
		            my house being now all stilled.

1.1. This second stanza tells in song of the sheer grace that was the 
soul's in divesting the spirit of all imperfections and appetites for 
spiritual possessions. The good fortune is far greater here because of the 
greater hardship involved in quieting the house that is one's spiritual 
nature and entering this interior darkness (the spiritual nakedness of all 
sensory and immaterial things), leaning on pure faith alone, in an ascent 
by it to God.

1.1(2). The secret ladder represents faith, because all the rungs or 
articles of faith are secret to and hidden from both the senses and the 
intellect. Accordingly the soul lived in darkness, without any light from 
the senses and intellect, and went out beyond every natural and rational 
boundary to climb the divine ladder of faith that leads up to and 
penetrates the deep things of God [1 Cor. 2:10].

1.1.(3). The soul declares that it was disguised because in the ascent 
through faith its garments, apparel, and capacities were changed from 
natural to divine. On account of this disguise, neither temporal nor 
rational things nor the devil recognized or detained it. None of these can 
do harm to the one who walks in faith.

1.1.(4). The soul's advance, moreover, was so concealed, hidden, and 
withdrawn from all the wiles of the devil that it indeed involved darkness 
and concealment. That is, the soul was hidden from the devil, to whom the 
light of faith is worse than darkness. We can say as a result that a person 
who walks in faith walks concealed and hidden from the devil; this will be 
more evident as we proceed.

1.2. The soul, consequently, affirms that it departed "in darkness, and 
secure." For anyone fortunate enough to possess the ability to journey in 
the obscurity of faith, as do the blind with their guide, and depart from 
all natural phantasms and intellectual reasonings, walks securely.

1.2.(2). The soul also asserts that it departed in this spiritual night 
because its house was now all stilled. That is, the spiritual and rational 
part of the soul was stilled, because once the soul attains union with God, 
the natural faculties and the impulses and anxieties of the spiritual part 
remain at rest. The poem does not proclaim that the soul went out with 
urgent longings, as it does of the first night of sense. To enter the night 
of sense and denude itself of sensible things, the soul needed the longings 
of sensitive love. But all that is required for complete pacification of 
the spiritual house is the negation through pure faith of all the spiritual 
faculties and gratifications and appetites. This achieved, the soul will be 
joined with the Beloved in a union of simplicity and purity and love and 
likeness.

1.3. It is noteworthy that the first stanza of the poem, in speaking of the 
senses, asserts that the soul departed on a dark night, and this second 
stanza, in speaking of the spirit, says that the soul went out in darkness. 
The obscurity of the spirit is far more intense, just as "in darkness" 
indicates thicker obscurity than "dark night." For however dark a night may 
be, some objects are still visible, but in total darkness nothing at all 
can be seen. In the night of sense there is yet some light, because the 
intellect and reason remain and suffer no blindness. But this spiritual 
night, which is faith, removes everything, both in the intellect and in the 
senses. As a result the soul declares in this stanza that it departed in 
darkness and secure, which it did not assert in the former. For the less a 
soul works with its own abilities, the more securely it proceeds because 
its progress in faith is greater.

1.3.(2). This darkness of faith will be the subject matter of Book Two, and 
we shall discuss it at length. The devout reader, consequently, must 
proceed thoughtfully, because our explanation will be most important for 
persons of genuine spirituality. Though these truths are somewhat obscure, 
they so shed light on one another that I believe they will all be clearly 
understood.



CHAPTER 2


2. Faith, the second cause or part of this night. Two proofs of why it is 
darker than the first and third parts.

2.1. Faith, the second part of this night, is our next subject for 
discussion. Faith is that admirable means of advancing to God, our goal. 
And God, we said, is also for the soul naturally a part, or the third 
cause, of this night.1 

2.1.(2). Faith, the means, is comparable to midnight. We can affirm, then, 
that it is darker for a person than the first part of the night and, in a 
certain way, darker than the third. The first part, pertinent to the 
senses, resembles twilight, the time sensible objects begin to fade from 
sight. Accordingly, it is not a time so far removed from all light as is 
midnight.

2.1.(3). The third part, that period before dawn, approximates the light of 
day. The darkness is not like that of midnight, since in this third period 
of the night we approach the illumination of day. And this daylight we 
compare to God. Although naturally speaking God is indeed as dark a night 
to the soul as is faith, it can be affirmed that he is less dark. For when 
these three parts of the night -- which are night to the soul from a 
natural viewpoint -- have passed, God supernaturally illumines the soul 
with the ray of his divine light. This light is the principle of the 
perfect union that follows after the third night.

2.2. The first night pertains to the lower, sensory part of human nature 
and is consequently more external. As a result the second night is darker. 
The second, darker night of faith belongs to the rational, superior part; 
it is darker and more interior because it deprives this part of its 
rational light, or better, blinds it. Accordingly, it is indeed comparable 
to midnight, the innermost and darkest period of night.

2.3. We must prove, now, how this second part, faith, is night to the 
spirit just as the first part is to the senses. Then we will also discuss 
the factors in opposition to this night and how a person actively prepares 
to enter it. In its proper place we shall speak of passivity, that is, of 
God's work -- without the soul -- in effecting this night. I plan to 
discuss this matter in the third book.2 



CHAPTER 3


3. Arguments, passages, and figures from Scripture in proof that faith is a 
dark night for the soul.

3.1. Faith, the theologians say, is a certain and obscure habit of soul.1  
It is an obscure habit because it brings us to believe divinely revealed 
truths that transcend every natural light and infinitely exceed all human 
understanding. As a result the excessive light of faith bestowed on a soul 
is darkness for it; a brighter light will eclipse and suppress a dimmer 
one. The sun so obscures all other lights that they do not seem to be 
lights at all when it is shining, and instead of affording vision to the 
eyes, it overwhelms, blinds, and deprives them of vision since its light is 
excessive and unproportioned to the visual faculty. Similarly, the light of 
faith in its abundance suppresses and overwhelms that of the intellect. For 
the intellect, by its own power, extends only to natural knowledge, though 
it has the potency to be raised to a supernatural act whenever our Lord 
wishes.

3.2. The intellect knows only in the natural way, that is, by means of the 
senses. If one is to know in this natural way, the phantasms and species of 
objects will have to be present either in themselves or in their 
likenesses; otherwise one will be incapable of knowing naturally. As the 
scholastic philosophers say: Ab ojecto et potentia paritur notitia 
(Knowledge arises in the soul from both the faculty and the object at 
hand).2  If we were told of objects we had never known or seen resemblances 
of, we would in the end have no more knowledge than before.

3.2.(2). For example, if we were informed that on a certain island there 
was an animal whose like or kind we had never seen, we would then have no 
more idea or image of that animal in our mind than previously, no matter 
how much we were told. 

3.2.(3). Another clearer example will shed more light on this subject: If 
those born blind were told about the nature of the colors white or yellow, 
they would understand absolutely nothing no matter how much instruction 
they received. Since they never saw these colors nor others like them, they 
would not have the means to form a judgment about them. Only the names of 
these colors would be grasped since the names are perceptible through 
hearing; but never their form or image, because these colors were never 
seen by those born blind.3

3.3. Such is faith to the soul; it informs us of matters we have never seen 
or known, either in themselves or in their likenesses. In fact, nothing 
like them exists. The light of natural knowledge does not show us the 
object of faith, since this object is unproportioned to any of the senses. 
Yet we come to know it through hearing, by believing what faith teaches us, 
blinding our natural light and bringing it into submission. St. Paul 
states: Fides ex auditu [Rom. 10:17]. This amounts to saying that faith is 
not a knowledge derived from the senses but an assent of the soul to what 
enters through hearing.

3.4. Faith, moreover, far exceeds what these examples teach us. Not only 
does it fail to produce knowledge and science but, as we said,4 it deprives 
and blinds people of any other knowledge by which they may judge it. Other 
knowledge is acquired by the light of the intellect, but not the knowledge 
of faith. Faith nullifies the light of the intellect; and if this light is 
not darkened, the knowledge of faith is lost. Accordingly, Isaiah said: Si 
no credideritis, non intelligetis (If you do not believe, you will not 
understand) [Is. 7:9].

3.4.(2). Faith, manifestly, is a dark night for souls, but in this way it 
gives them light. The more darkness it brings on them, the more light it 
sheds. For by blinding, it illumines them, according to those words of 
Isaiah that if you do not believe you will not understand; that is, you 
will not have light [Is. 7:9].

3.4.(3). Faith was foreshadowed in that cloud that separated the children 
of Israel, just before their entry into the Red Sea, from the Egyptians 
[Ex. 14:19-20]. Scripture says of the cloud: Erat nubes tenebrosa et 
illuminans noctem (The cloud was dark and illuminated the night) [Ex. 
14:20].

3.5. How wonderful it was: A cloud, dark in itself, could illumine the 
night! This was related to illustrate how faith, a dark and obscure cloud 
to souls (also a night in that it blinds and deprives them of their natural 
light), illumines and pours light into their darkness by means of its own 
darkness. This is fitting so that the disciple may be like the master.

3.5.(2). A person in darkness does not receive adequate enlightenment save 
by another darkness, according to David's teaching: Dies diei eructat 
verbum et nox nocti indicat scientiam (The day brims over and breathes 
speech to the day, and the night manifests knowledge to the night) [Ps. 
19:3]. Expressed more clearly, this means: The day, which is God (in bliss 
where it is day), communicates and pronounces the Word, his Son, to the 
angels and blessed souls, who are now day; and this he does that they may 
have knowledge and enjoyment of him. And the night, which is the faith, 
present in the Church Militant where it is still night, manifests knowledge 
to the Church and, consequently, to every soul. This knowledge is night to 
souls because they do not yet possess the clear beatific wisdom, and 
because faith blinds them as to their own natural light.

3.6. Our deduction is that since faith is a dark night, it illumines the 
soul that is in darkness. We verify, then, David's assertion on this 
matter: Et nox illuminatio in deliciis meis (Night will be my illumination 
in the midst of my delights) [Ps. 139:12]. This amounts to saying: The 
night of faith will be my guide in the delights of my pure contemplation 
and union with God. By this passage David clearly informs us of the 
darkness demanded on this road if a soul is to receive light.



CHAPTER 4


4. A general discussion of how the soul with respect to its own efforts 
must remain in darkness so as to be well guided by faith to supreme 
contemplation.

4.1. I believe you are learning how faith is a dark night for the soul and 
how the soul as well must be dark -- or in darkness as to its own light -- 
that it may allow itself to be guided by faith to this high goal of union. 
But for knowledge of how to do this, a somewhat more detailed explanation 
of the darkness required for entering this abyss of faith will be 
beneficial. In this chapter I will deal with this darkness in a general 
way. Further on I will explain, with God's help, more in particular about 
the behavior necessary for obviating error in faith and any encumbrance to 
its guidance.

4.2. I affirm, then, that if people take faith as a good guide to this 
state, not only must they live in darkness in the sensory and lower part of 
their nature (concerning creatures and temporal things), which we have 
already discussed, but they must also darken and blind themselves in that 
part of their nature that bears relation to God and spiritual things. This 
latter part, which we are now discussing, is the rational and higher part 
of their nature. Attaining supernatural transformation manifestly demands a 
darkening of the soul and an elevation above all the sensory and rational 
parts of nature, for the word "supernatural" indicates that which is above 
nature; nature, consequently, remains beneath.

4.1.(2). Since this transformation and union is something that does not 
fall within the reach of the senses and of human capability, the soul must 
perfectly and voluntarily empty itself -- I mean in its affection and will 
-- of all the earthly and heavenly things it can grasp. It must do this 
insofar as it can. As for God, who will stop him from accomplishing his 
desires in the soul that is resigned, annihilated, and despoiled?

4.1.(3). But people must empty themselves of all, insofar as they can, so 
that however many supernatural communications they receive, they will 
continually live as though denuded of them and in darkness. Like the blind, 
they must lean on dark faith, accept it for their guide and light, and rest 
on nothing of what they understand, taste, feel, or imagine. All these 
perceptions are darkness that will lead them astray. Faith lies beyond all 
this understanding, taste, feeling, and imagining. If they do not blind 
themselves in these things and abide in total darkness, they will not reach 
what is greater: the teaching of faith.

4.3. Those who are not yet entirely blind will not allow a good guide to 
lead them. Still able to perceive a little, they think that the road they 
see is the best, for they are unable to see other and better ones. And 
because these individuals themselves are the ones giving the orders, they 
will consequently lead astray their young guide who has better vision. 
Similarly, if the soul in traveling this road leans on any elements of its 
own knowledge or of its experience or knowledge of God, it will easily go 
astray or be detained because it did not desire to abide in complete 
blindness, in the faith that is its guide. However impressive may be one's 
knowledge or experience of God, that knowledge or experience will have no 
resemblance to God and amount to very little.

4.4. St. Paul also meant this in his assertion: Accedentem ad Deum oportet 
credere quod est (Whoever would approach union with God should believe in 
His existence) [Heb. 11:6]. This is like saying: Those who want to reach 
union with God should advance neither by understanding, nor by the support 
of their own experience, nor by feeling or imagination, but by belief in 
God's being. For God's being cannot be grasped by the intellect, appetite, 
imagination, or any other sense; nor can it be known in this life. The most 
that can be felt and tasted of God in this life is infinitely distant from 
God and the pure possession of him. Isaiah and St. Paul affirm: Nec oculus 
videt, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis ascendit quae praeparavit Deus 
iis qui diligunt illum (No eye has ever seen, nor ear heard, nor has the 
human heart or thought ever grasped what God has prepared for those who 
love him) [Is. 64:4; 1 Cor. 2:9].

4.4.(2).Now souls in this life may be seeking to unite themselves perfectly 
through grace with what they will be united to in the next through glory  
(with what St. Paul says eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the human, 
fleshly heart grasped). But, manifestly, the perfect union in this life 
through grace and love demands that they live in darkness to all the 
objects of sight, hearing, and imagination, and to everything 
comprehensible to the heart, which signifies the soul.

4.4.(3). Those are decidedly hindered, then, from attainment of this high 
state of union with God who are attached to any understanding, feeling, 
imagining, opinion, desire, or way of their own, or to any other of their 
works or affairs, and know not how to detach and denude themselves of these 
impediments. Their goal, as we said, transcends all of this, even the 
loftiest object that can be known or experienced. Consequently they must 
pass beyond everything to unknowing.

4.5. As regards this road to union, entering on the road means leaving 
one's own road; or better, moving on to the goal. And turning from one's 
own mode implies entry into what has no mode, that is, God. Individuals who 
reach this state no longer have any modes or methods, still less are they 
attached to them, nor can they be. I am referring to modes of 
understanding, tasting, and feeling. Within themselves, though, they 
possess all methods, like one who though having nothing yet possesses all 
things [2 Cor. 6:10]. By being courageous enough to pass beyond the 
interior and exterior limits of their own nature, they enter into 
supernatural bounds -- bounds that have no mode, yet in substance possess 
all modes. To reach these supernatural bounds, souls must depart from their 
natural bounds -- and leave self far off in respect to both bounds -- in 
order to mount from a low state to the highest.

4.6. Passing beyond all that is naturally and spiritually intelligible or 
comprehensible, souls ought to desire with all their might to attain what 
in this life could never be known or enter the human heart. And parting 
company with all they can or do taste and feel, temporally and spiritually, 
they must ardently long to acquire what surpasses all taste and feeling. To 
be empty and free for the achievement of this, they should by no means 
seize on what they receive spiritually or sensitively (as we shall explain 
in our particular discussion of this matter), but consider it of little 
import. The higher the rank and esteem they give to all this knowledge, 
experience, and imagining (whether spiritual or not), the more they 
subtract from the Supreme Good and the more they delay in their journey 
toward him. And the less they esteem what they can possess -- however 
estimable it may be relative to the Supreme Good -- the more they value and 
prize him, and, consequently, the closer they come to him. In this way, in 
obscurity, souls approach union swiftly by means of faith, which is also 
dark. And in this way faith gives them wondrous light. Obviously, if they 
should desire to see, they would be in darkness as regards God more quickly 
than anyone who looks to see the blinding brightness of the sun.

4.7. By blinding one's faculties along this road, one will see light, as 
the Savior proclaims in the Gospel: In judicium veni in hunc mundum: ut qui 
non vident videant, et qui vident caeci fiant (I have come into this world 
for judgment, that they who see not, may see, and that they who see may 
become blind) [Jn. 9:39]. In reference to the spiritual road, these words 
should be understood literally, that is: Those who both live in darkness 
and blind themselves to all their natural lights will have supernatural 
vision, and those who want to lean on some light of their own will become 
blind and be held back on this road leading to union.

4.8. That we may continue with less confusion, I believe it will be 
necessary in the following chapter to explain this reality we call union 
with God. Since an understanding of the nature of union will shed more 
light on the subsequent doctrine, I think this is the suitable place for a 
discussion of it. Although our thread of thought will be interrupted, we 
will not be digressing, because an explanation of this union will serve to 
illustrate the matter we are treating. The following chapter will be like a 
parenthesis within the same enthymeme, since in this second night we plan 
to treat of the relationship of the three faculties of the soul to the 
three theological virtues.



CHAPTER 5


5. Explanation of the nature of union with God. An illustration.

5.1. In our previous discussion, we have already given some indication of 
the meaning of the phrase "union of the soul with God." Thus our teaching 
here about the nature of this union will be more understandable.

5.1.(2). It is not my intention now to discuss the divisions and parts of 
this union. Indeed, I would never finish were I to begin explaining the 
union of the intellect, or that of the will or the memory, or trying to 
expound the nature of the transitory and the permanent union in each of 
these faculties, or the significance of the total, the transitory, or the 
permanent union wrought in these three faculties together. We will discuss 
all this frequently in the course of our treatise. But such an exposition 
is unnecessary for an understanding of what we now wish to state about 
these different unions. A better explanation of them will be given in 
sections dealing with the subject, and then we shall have a concrete 
example to go with the actual teaching. In those sections the reader will 
note and understand the union being discussed and will form a better 
judgment of it.

5.2. Here I intend to discuss only this total and permanent union in the 
substance and faculties of the soul. And I shall be speaking of the obscure 
habit of union, for we will explain later, with God's help, how a permanent 
actual union of the faculties in this life is impossible; such a union can 
only be transitory.1 

5.3. To understand the nature of this union, one should first know that God 
sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially, even though it may be 
that of the greatest sinner in the world. This union between God and 
creatures always exists. By it he conserves their being so that if the 
union should end they would immediately be annihilated and cease to exist. 
Consequently, in discussing union with God we are not discussing the 
substantial union that always exists, but the soul's union with and 
transformation in God that does not always exist, except when there is 
likeness of love. We will call it the union of likeness; and the former, 
the essential or substantial union. The union of likeness is supernatural; 
the other, natural. The supernatural union exists when God's will and the 
soul's are in conformity, so that nothing in the one is repugnant to the 
other. When the soul rids itself completely of what is repugnant and 
unconformed to the divine will, it rests transformed in God through love.

5.4. Ridding oneself of what is repugnant to God's will should be 
understood not only of one's acts but of one's habits as well. Not only 
must actual voluntary imperfections cease, but habitual imperfections must 
be annihilated too.

5.4.(2). No creature, none of its actions and abilities, can reach or 
encompass God's nature. Consequently, a soul must strip itself of 
everything pertaining to creatures and of its actions and abilities (of its 
understanding, satisfaction, and feeling), so that when everything unlike 
and unconformed to God is cast out, it may receive the likeness of God. And 
the soul will receive this likeness because nothing contrary to the will of 
God will be left in it. Thus it will be transformed in God.

5.4.(3). It is true that God is ever present in the soul, as we said, and 
thereby bestows and preserves its natural being by his sustaining presence. 
Yet he does not always communicate supernatural being to it. He 
communicates supernatural being only through love and grace, which not all 
souls possess. And those who do, do not possess them in the same degree. 
Some have attained higher degrees of love, others remain in lower degrees. 
To the soul that is more advanced in love, more conformed to the divine 
will, God communicates himself more. A person who has reached complete 
conformity and likeness of will has attained total supernatural union and 
transformation in God.

5.4.(4). Manifestly, then, the more that individuals through attachment and 
habit are clothed with their own abilities and with creatures, the less 
disposed they are for this union. For they do not afford God full 
opportunity to transform their souls into the supernatural. As a result, 
individuals have nothing more to do than to strip their souls of these 
natural contraries and dissimilarities so that God, who is naturally 
communicating himself to them through nature, may do so supernaturally 
through grace.

5.5. This is what St. John meant when he said: Qui non ex sanguinibus, 
neque ex voluntate carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt 
[Jn. 1:13], which can be interpreted: He gives power for becoming the 
children of God (for being transformed in God) only to those who are not 
born of blood (combinations of the natural humors), or of the will of the 
flesh (the free will included in one's natural aptitude and capacity), or 
even less of the human will (which includes every mode and manner by which 
the intellect judges and understands). To none of these has he conferred 
the power of becoming the children of God; only to those who are born of 
God (those who, in their rebirth through grace and death to everything of 
the old self [Eph. 4:22], rise above themselves to the supernatural and 
receive from God this rebirth and relationship as his children, which 
transcends everything imaginable).

5.5.(2). St. John affirms elsewhere: Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et 
spiritu Sancto non potest videre regnum Dei (The one who is not reborn in 
the Holy Spirit will be unable to see the kingdom of God, which is the 
state of perfection) [Jn.3:5]. To be reborn in the Holy Spirit during this 
life is to become most like God in purity, without any mixture of 
imperfection. Accordingly, pure transformation can be effected -- although 
not essentially -- through the participation of union.

5.6. Here is an example that will provide a better understanding of this 
explanation. A ray of sunlight shining on a smudgy window is unable to 
illumine that window completely and transform it into its own light. It 
could do this if the window were cleaned and polished. The less the film 
and stain are wiped away, the less the window will be illumined; and the 
cleaner the window is, the brighter will be its illumination. The extent of 
illumination is not dependent on the ray of sunlight but on the window. If 
the window is totally clean and pure, the sunlight will so transform and 
illumine it that to all appearances the window will be identical with t