Five-minute digest

The Dark Night of the Soul

John of the Cross

Summary

The Dark Night of the Soul is a prose commentary by the Spanish Carmelite friar John of the Cross on his own poem of eight stanzas beginning 'En una noche oscura' ('On a dark night'). The poem, probably written after his escape from imprisonment in Toledo in 1578, describes a soul slipping out of its quiet house at night, guided only by the light burning in its heart, to meet the Beloved. The commentary, written around 1584–1585, explains the poem as an allegory of the soul's journey to union with God, and it is a classic of Christian mysticism. John describes two 'nights' of purification that a person passes through on the way to that union. The night of sense, treated in Book I, comes when the comfort that beginners find in prayer and devotion dries up. John first lists the faults of beginners according to the seven capital sins: spiritual pride, spiritual greed for consolations, impatience and so on. He then explains that God withdraws sensible sweetness in order to wean the soul from attachment to feelings, and gives signs for distinguishing this night from mere lukewarmness or illness. The night of the spirit, treated in Book II, is a deeper and more painful purification experienced by those further advanced. The soul feels abandoned by God, aware of its own poverty and darkness. John explains this as the effect of divine light on a soul not yet able to bear it, comparing it to fire that first blackens a log before transforming it into flame. He presents the experience as a hidden 'ladder' of love and argues that the darkness is in fact a sign of God's nearness. The commentary breaks off after the opening stanzas, and it is closely connected to John's longer Ascent of Mount Carmel, which treats the active side of the same journey. Published in 1618, long after his death, it influenced Catholic spirituality and later Protestant and secular writers. The phrase 'dark night of the soul' has passed into general usage for a time of deep spiritual or emotional crisis, though John's meaning is more specific.

Top Lessons

Growth through difficulty
John argues that times of spiritual dryness can be a sign of growth rather than failure.
Related across the library
- No Cross, No Crown, Lesson: Inward discipline
  Inward discipline. Penn argues that religion is a matter of daily self-denial, not outward forms.
- Veazie Bank v. Fenno, Lesson: Who checks the taxing power?
  Who checks the taxing power?. Chase holds that judges cannot limit an acknowledged power because it is exercised heavily; the check is the ballot. Nelson, drawing on McCulloch's warning about the power to tax, argues that the federal system itself protects each government's essential functions from the other's taxation.
- The Poetic Edda, Lesson: Ordinary wisdom in the High One's sayings
  Ordinary wisdom in the High One's sayings. Much of Hovamol is practical counsel: be wary entering a strange hall, drink ale in moderation, keep faith with friends, rise early if you have few workers, do not be ashamed of poor clothes. Its sayings resemble the wisdom literature of other peoples, rooted in the hard life of a Norse farmstead and its hospitality.
- Agnes Grey, Lesson: True and false religion
  True and false religion. Weston's plain, caring faith contrasts with Hatfield's vanity.
- West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Lesson: Unity by persuasion or by force
  Unity by persuasion or by force. Jackson does not doubt the value of national unity; he doubts that compulsion produces it. He surveys efforts from Rome's campaign against Christianity to the totalitarian regimes then at war with America, and concludes that coercion fails. Frankfurter, in turn, warned that judges who substitute their own views for a legislature's endanger democratic self-government.
Language for the inexpressible
John uses poetry, images and paradox to describe experiences he says cannot be fully put into words.
Related across the library
- Selected Sermons, Lesson: Evangelism became an event system
  Evangelism became an event system. The sermon operates with music, counseling, publicity, and logistics. Moody helps reveal modern preaching as organized experience, not solitary speech.
- Kim, Lesson: Who is Kim?
  Who is Kim?. Kim belongs to many worlds, Irish, Indian, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist, and keeps asking who he is. The novel invites reflection on identity formed by place and relationship as much as birth.
- Kim, Lesson: Reading empire
  Reading empire. The novel presents British rule as natural and benevolent. Reading it alongside critics allows students to enjoy its art while analyzing its assumptions.
- Julius Caesar, Lesson: The power of rhetoric
  The power of rhetoric. Brutus speaks to the crowd's reason in plain prose; Antony moves their passions with irony, the wounds and the will. The funeral scene is a lesson in how speech can sway a people for good or ill.
- Kim, Chapter IX
  Lurgan Sahib's test of Kim with the jar.
The faults of beginners
John lists spiritual faults that appear even in sincere beginners, arranged by the seven capital sins.
Related across the library
- The Shorter Poems and Samson Agonistes, Samson Agonistes, preface ('Of that sort of Dramatic Poem which is call'd Tragedy')
  Milton explains Aristotle's purgation of pity and fear by comparison with physic, where things of melancholic quality are used against melancholy and salt against salt humours.
- The Shorter Poems and Samson Agonistes, L'Allegro, ll. 1-10; Il Penseroso, ll. 1-30
  The banishment of a monstrous Melancholy born of Cerberus and blackest midnight, then the praise of a sober, studious Melancholy; useful for the Renaissance double sense of the term.
- An Introduction to Metaphysics, Lesson: Time lived and time measured
  Time lived and time measured. For Bergson, the clock divides time into equal units for practical purposes, but lived duration is continuous and qualitative. His three images of the self, each offered and then set aside, show both the reality he wants to describe and the limits of language in describing it.
- Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Ch. I
  In the individual's mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent, and so from the very first Individual Psychology is at the same time Social Psychology as well Freud's opening refusal to separate the psychology of the individual from the psychology of groups.
- On the Incarnation of the Word, Lesson: Argument from evidence
  Argument from evidence. Athanasius points to changed lives and the courage of martyrs as evidence for the resurrection.
For the Christian reader
John of the Cross, a Carmelite reformer and Doctor of the Church, teaches that seasons when prayer feels dry and God seems absent can be God's way of purifying love and drawing the soul closer. Christians of many traditions have found comfort in his teaching during times of trial, alongside psalms of lament such as Psalm 42 and Psalm 88.
Related across the library
- The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Lesson: Equality in suffering
  Equality in suffering. The account places a noblewoman and a slave side by side; Felicity's fear of dying separately from her friends shows the bond between them.
- Patriarcha, Full Text
  chastised by their Commonwealths The latter in his Book De jure Regni apud Scotos maintains A Liberty of the People to depose their Prince Cardinal Bellarmine and Calume both look asquint this way This desperate Assertion whereby Kings are made subject to the Censures and Deprivations of their Subjects follows as the Authors of it conceive as a necessary Consequence of that former Position of the supposed Natural Equality and Freedom of Mankind and Liberty to choose what form of Government it please And though S...
- Ain't I a Woman?, Lesson: For the Christian reader
  For the Christian reader. Truth, a Methodist convert who became a traveling preacher, took her name because she believed God had sent her to travel and declare the truth. Her speech rests on the conviction that God made women in His image and honored them in the gospel story, and it shows faith giving courage to a woman whom the world held in low esteem.
- Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, Full Text
  become loquacious telling his histories to the tune of the creaking of the boats Holy-eve night too is a great time and in old days many tales were to be heard at wakes But the priests have set faces against wakes In the Parochial Survey of Ireland it is recorded how the story-tellers used to gather together of an evening and if any had a different version from the others they would all recite theirs and vote and the man who had varied would have to abide by their verdict In this way stories have been handed dow...
- Poems: First, Second and Third Series, Lesson: Much said in little
  Much said in little. Dickinson's poems are often only eight or twelve lines long, yet a single image, a carriage, a bird, a frigate, carries a whole argument. Reading her teaches slow attention: each word is chosen, and a single dash or capital can turn the meaning.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Summary

Top Lessons

Growth through difficulty

Language for the inexpressible

The faults of beginners

For the Christian reader

Verified Quotes