The Dark Night of the Soul: The Complete Text

What feels like abandonment is the nearness of a God too bright to be seen.

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About this edition

The Dark Night of the Soul is Saint John of the Cross's account of the way God leads a soul to union with Himself. He wrote it to explain a poem he had composed in a prison cell, and it maps the two great purifications every contemplative must pass through: the night of sense, in which the beginner is weaned from the sweetness of prayer, and the deeper night of the spirit, in which the soul is stripped of its last hold upon itself.

What feels like abandonment, Saint John shows, is the nearness of a God too bright to be seen, and the darkness itself is the work of love.

This Sanctified Souls Press edition presents the complete treatise, both books, in the English translation David Lewis prepared in 1864. Newly set in Crimson Pro and Cinzel, on cream paper, for reading and keeping.

Details

• Saint John of the Cross (1542–1591), Doctor of the Church
• Translated by David Lewis, 1864
• The complete treatise, both books: the Night of Sense in fourteen chapters, the Night of the Spirit in twenty-five
• Sanctified Souls, Heritage Editions
• Paperback and hardcover, 6 × 9, 132 pages, cream paper

Cover: The Crucifixion, oil on canvas by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1617–1682). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Harry G. Sperling, 1971. Public domain.

Orders are placed and shipped through IngramSpark. This page is a catalogue listing.