Doing it for God: Renaissance Rhetoric and the Beginnings of Spanish Mystical Writing

DOING IT FOR GOD: RENAISSANCE RHETORIC AND THE BEGINNINGS OF SPANISH MYSTICAL WRITING by Paul Whitehill Raritan Valley Community College LATE medieval and Renaissance Spain’s most well known mystical practice was called recogimiento (recollection).1 Practiced informally since the 1480s, it was not fully explored until the Franciscan friar Francisco de Osuna produced the Tercer abecedario espiritual2 of 1527. Aside from its formative influence on Teresa of Avila,3 recogimiento influenced nearly all the major Spanish religious writers from 1527 through to the middle of the 1600s. For over thirty years after his book appeared, Osuna was the most widely read religious writer in Spain. The Tercer abecedario espiritual embraces more than recogimiento, but this topic formed its most important element and was the reason for the book being written at the time it was. Recogimiento referred to a meditative exercise performed in a dark and silent place with the eyes closed or lowered and focused on one point. Three forms of prayer are used. These three prayers form a double symmetry with the Christian stages of the mystical path and with the medieval notion of the three faculties, both in ascending order. The initial mental effort is that of collecting or gathering in (hence, “re-collecting” or recogiendo) the senses, and the first prayer is vocal, preferably the Lord’s Prayer. It corresponds to the first stage of the mystical path called the via purgativa (purgation) during which the lowest faculty, the memory, is perfected by means of emptying it of all that distracts from the spiritual ascent. The second prayer is that of the “heart” and consists of meditating on the life and 39 passion of Christ. This is the via illuminitiva (illumination) in which the emotions are directed to the task at hand; the next faculty, the understanding, is perfected by means of this meditation. In this phase the practitioner may experience “spiritual gifts” such as visions, raptures, clairvoyance, telekinesis and other supranormal physical and psychic phenomena. It is the transitional state in which there still exists an awareness of the self, and the intellect continues to function. The third prayer is the “mental” or spiritual prayer which corresponds to the via unitiva (unification). In this final phase the highest faculty, the will, is perfected because the ultimate surrender to God takes place. The highest part of the soul, according to scholastic theology, is raised to God through desire and love. In this third phase, there takes place an interchange of wills with God, although both wills still retain their separate essences. Nevertheless, the sense of the self no longer exists and the intellect ceases to function. Though recogimiento by itself did not seem to possess any radical meditative features, the problem Osuna faced was that his approach had to be counterposed against several competitors. Spanish Erasmists, proto-Protestants, and illuminists all raised their own challenges to the need for the mystical path. More important for Osuna was that even among his fellow Franciscans, variations in recogido practice had begun to develop, variations that presented genuine theological problems. Therefore, the Tercer abecedario espiritual reveals a serious concern to persuade the reader. Many suasive strategies are evident throughout the book, but none possesses such authoritative force as the deployment of Christ. Osuna relies upon Christ in three ways. First and most simply, Christ’s name is used just as an exhortation to buttress the text’s argument but without any substantive argument having to do with Christ. Second , he often utilizes a fact about or a quote from Christ in order to make a point unrelated to recogimiento, that is, the author selectively interprets Christ’s actions and/or words to his own purposes. Third and most importantly, Osuna’s use of Christ is as a direct support to his construction of recogimiento. In the sections that follow, I shall explore these strategies of invocation, manipulation , and direct argument. CHRIST AND THE RHETORIC OF INVOCATION Osuna targeted three concentric reader audiences. The broadest target was the entire population regardless of literacy level, then the Franciscan friars who would teach recogimiento, and finally the scholars and theologians (including the Inquisition) who would examine the text more thoroughly. Mentions...