35. Ibid., p. 23, and Franz, ed., Wiedertaüferakten, p. 400. See David Mayes, “Heretics or Nonconformists? State Policies toward Anabaptists in Sixteenth-Century Hesse,” Sixteenth Century Journal 32, 4 (2001): 1003–26.
36. See Heinold Fast, “Die Aushebung einer nächtlichen Täuferversammlung 1574,” Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter 31 (1974): 103–06.
37. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren (Das große Geschichtbuch der Hutterischen Brüder) (Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing House, 1987), I: 223–24. The entries discussed here were written between 1542 and c. 1580 by Hans Kräl and Hauprecht Zapf (p. xv).
38. Ibid., I: 398–401.
39. Ibid., I: 373.
40. “Schleitheim Articles/Brotherly Union (1527),” trans. Cornelius J. Dyck et al., in Confessions of Faith in the Anabaptist Tradition, 1527–1660, ed. with an Introduction by Karl Koop, Classics of the Radical Reformation 11 (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, 2006), p. 28.
41. John D. Derksen sees 1540 as a turning point in nonconformist and Anabaptist culture in the Strasbourg region, citing “a more ‘survivalist’ world view among “settled nonconformists.” Their nocturnal meetings arose as “the radicals’ physical circumstances … affected their worldview.” “After 1535, with defeat, dislocation, numerical decrease and socioeconomic decline, the dissidents’ goal became more to survive than to change the world.” This corresponds to the shift from a stark “light against darkness” view to a more nuanced appreciation of the night. John D. Derksen, From Radicals to Survivors: Strasbourg’s Religious Nonconformists over Two Generations, Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica 61 (’t Goy-Houten: Hes & de Graaf, 2002), pp. 255–57.
42. For a detailed account of John’s escape see Crisógono de Jesús, The Life of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kathleen Pond (London: Longmans, 1958), pp. 108–13.
43. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, in The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1964), p. 413 (book 2, ch. 13).
44. See Alois M. Haas, “‘Die dunkle Nacht der Sinne und des Geistes.’ Mystische Leiderfahrung nach Johannes vom Kreuz,” in Die dunkle Nacht der Sinne: Leiderfahrung und christliche Mystik, ed. Alois M Haas (Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1989), pp. 108–25, here p. 109, and the extensive literature cited there.
45. Such as Ruud Welten, “The Night in John of the Cross and Michel Henry,” Studies in Spirituality 13 (2003), pp. 213–16.
46. Michel Florisoone, Esthétique et mystique d’après Sainte Thérèse d’Avila et Saint Jean de la Croix: suivi d’une note sur Saint Jean de la Croix et le Greco et d’une liste commentée des oeuvres de Saint Jean de la Croix (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1956), pp. 24–30.
47. John of the Cross, Complete Works, trans. and ed. Peers, pp. 425–26: “I entered in – I knew not where – / And, there remaining, knew no more, / Transcending far all human lore.”
48. See Haas, “‘Dunkle Nacht der Sinne und des Geistes’,” p. 113; George H. Tavard, Poetry and Contemplation in St. John of the Cross (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988), pp. 76–79; Laura Calvert, “Images of Darkness and Light in Osuna’s Spiritual Alphabet Books,” Studia Mystica 8, 2 (1985) 38–44; and Giovanna Della Croce, “Johannes vom Kreuz und die deutsch-niederländische Mystik,” Jahrbuch für mystische Theologie 6 (1960): 21–30.
49. Kieran Kavanaugh, “Introduction,” in John of the Cross, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), p. 33.
50. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, in Complete Works, trans. and ed. Peers, p. 325.
51. Ibid., pp. 325–26.
52. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, in Complete Works, trans. and ed. Peers, pp. 20–21.
53. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, in Complete Works, trans. and ed. Peers, pp. 349–61.
54. Ibid., pp. 349, 376–96.
55. Haas, “‘Dunkle Nacht der Sinne und des Geistes’,” pp. 113–24.
56. Jean Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix et le problème de l’expérience mystique, second edn. (Paris: Alcan, 1931), p. 300.
57. Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 43–68; on Clark’s discussion of witchcraft see above, chapter 2. See Tavard, Poetry and Contemplation, pp. 76–78.
58. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, in Complete Works, trans. and ed. Peers, pp. 58–60, and Tavard, Poetry and Contemplation, pp. 64–68, 75–92.
59. High medieval authors did not use the imagery of darkness and the night to express spiritual truth. For example, Anselm of Canterbury grappled with the sense of Divine withdrawal described by John as “the dark night of the soul.” But Anselm had no sense of a purgative or beneficial Divine absence or night. For Anselm, images of darkness help to convey the problem (“Still thou art hidden, O Lord, from my soul in thy light and thy blessedness; and therefore my soul still walks in its darkness and wretchedness”) but not the solution, which Anselm describes as the soul’s return to the light of God. As a contemporary Benedictine scholar explains, “the seeming separation that constitutes that state [i.e., the ‘dark night’] cannot be instigated by perfect God, only by fallible humanity.” See Paschal Baumstein, “Anselm on the Dark Night and Truth,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 35, 2 (2000): 239–49; here 244.
60. On the reception of John Baconthorpe, John Tauler, and Jan van Ruysbroeck by John of the Cross, see Alois Winkelhofer, “Johannes vom Kreuz und die Surius-Übersetzung der Werke Taulers,” in Theologie in Geschichte und Gegenwart; Michael Schmaus zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, ed. Johann Auer and Hermann Volk (Munich: K. Zink, 1957), pp. 317–48; here pp. 317–23.
61. Elizabeth Wilhelmsen, Knowledge and Symbolization in Saint John of the Cross (Frankfurt: Lang, 1993), pp. 15–34; Tavard, Poetry and Contemplation, p. 77.
62. Tavard, Poetry and Contemplation, pp. 76–79.
63. Böhme’s works are cited from the 1730 edition as published in facsimile: Jacob Böhme, Sämtliche Schriften, ed. August Faust and Will-Erich Peuckert (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1955–61). References are by volume and page of the facsimile edition and by book, chapter, and section of the 1730 edition. Böhme, Christosophia, oder Der Weg zu Christo, IV: 167, book 6 (“Von Göttlicher Beschaulichkeit” [“On the visibility of God”]), ch. 1, §8: “Kein Ding ohne Wiederwärtigkeit mag ihme selber offenbar werden …”
64. Böhme, Mysterium Magnum, VII: 45, ch. 8, §27. See also Mysterium Magnum, VII: 25, ch. 5, §7: “Die Finsterniß ist die gröste Feindschaft des Lichts, und ist doch die Ursach, daß das Licht offenbar werde. Denn so kein Schwartzes wäre, so möchte ihme das Weisse nicht offenbar seyn; und wenn kein Leid wäre, so wäre ihr die Freude auch nicht offenbar.”
65. Böhme, Mysterium Magnum, VII: 45, ch. 8, §27 and VII: 66, ch. 10, §62: “in der Finsterniß wird das Licht erkant, sonst wäre es ihme nicht offenbar,” and “das Böseste muß das Beste Ursache seyn.”
66. Bernhard Pünjer, Geschichte der christlichen Religions-philosophie seit der Reformation (Braunschweig: C.A. Schwetschke, 1880), p. 195; Peter Sterry, The commings [sic] forth of Christ in the power of his death. Opened in a sermon preached before the High Court of Parliament, on Thursday the first of Novem. 1649 (London: Printed by Charles Sumptner, for Thomas Brewster and Gregory Moule, 1650 [i.e., 1649]), fo. aa1r.
67. Böhme, Quaestiones Theosophicae, oder Betrachtung Göttlicher Offenbarung, IX: 6–7, “Die 3. Frage,” §§2–3.
68. Ibid., §3.
69. Ernst-Heinz Lemper, “Voraussetzungen zur Beurteilung des Erfahrungs- und Schaffensumfelds Jakob Böhmes,” in Gott, Natur und Mensch in der Sicht Jacob Böhmes und seiner Rezeption, ed. Jan Garewicz and Alois M. Haas, Wolfenbütteler Arbeiten zur Barockforschung 24 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), pp. 41–69; here pp. 57–61.
70. Christoph Geissmar, “The Geometrical Order of the World: Otto van Veen’s Physicae et theologicae conclusiones,�
� Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 56 (1993): 168–82, here 180–81: “Setze den Grimm zur Lincken, und das Licht zur Rechten …; dann anderst kann mans nicht mahlen; aber es ist eine Kugel.” See Böhme, Viertzig Fragen von der Seelen, III: 31, Frage 1, §105.
71. For those who preceded and influenced Böhme on the themes of light, darkness, immanence, and contrariety, see Andrew Weeks, Boehme. An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-Century Philosopher and Mystic (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991); Lemper, “Voraussetzungen,” in Gott, Natur und Mensch, ed. Garewicz and Haas; Günther Bonheim, “ward Jch dero wegen Gantz Melancolisch. Jacob Böhmes Heidnische gedancken bei Betrachtung des Himmels und die Astronomie seiner Zeit,” Euphorion 91 (1997): 99–132; Sibylle Rusterholz, “Jacob Böhmes Deutung des Bösen im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Innovation,” in Contemplata aliis tradere. Studien zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Spiritualität, ed. Claudia Brinker (Berne: Lang, 1995), pp. 225–40; Livia Datteri Rasmussen, “Jacob Böhme: doch ein Beispiel für den ‘heliozentrischen Chok’? Zur Interaktion von Naturwissenschaft, Theologie, Mystik und Literatur in der Frühen Neuzeit,” Morgen-Glantz: Zeitschrift der Christian Knorr von Rosenroth-Gesellschaft 3 (1993): 189–205; Russell Hvolbek, “Being and Knowing: Spiritualist Epistemology and Anthropology from Schwenckfeld to Böhme,” Sixteenth Century Journal 22 (1991): 97–110; Herbert Deinert, “Die Entfaltung des Bösen in Böhmes Mysterium Magnum,” PMLA 79, 4 (1964): 401–10; and Kurt Goldammer, “Lichtsymbolik in philosophischer Weltanschauung, Mystik und Theosophie vom 15. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert,” Studium Generale 13 (1960): 670–82, and Josef Koch, “Über die Lichtsymbolik im Bereich der Philosophie und der Mystik des Mittelalters,” Studium Generale 13 (1960): 653–70.
72. Böhme, Aurora oder Morgenröthe im Aufgang, I: 376–77, ch. 25, §61; Weeks, Boehme, p. 54.
73. Böhme, Aurora oder Morgenröthe im Aufgang, I: 265, ch. 19, §§4–5.
74. See Sibylle Rusterholz, “Jakob Böhmes spirituelle Erfahrung als ‘Grund’ seiner schriftstellerischen Existenz,” in Die Morgenröte bricht an: Jakob Böhme, naturnaher Mystiker und Theosoph, Herrenalber Forum 24 (Karlsruhe: Evangelische Akademie Baden, 1999), pp. 100–20, and Bonheim, “Böhmes Heidnische gedancken,” pp. 99–132.
75. The legacy of Giordano Bruno’s De l’infinito universo e mondi (1584) also figured in these concerns.
76. Böhme, Aurora oder Morgenröthe im Aufgang, I: 266, ch. 19, §§8–9.
77. John Donne, “The First Anniversary: An Anatomy of the World,” in John Donne’s Poetry, ed. Donald R. Dickson, Norton Critical Edition (New York: Norton, 2007), pp. 125–26.
78. See Andreas Mahler, “Jahrhundertwende, Epochenschwelle, epistemischer Bruch? England um 1600 und das Problem überkommener Epochenbegriffe,” in Europäische Barock-Rezeption, ed. Klaus Garber, Wolfenbütteler Arbeiten zur Barockforschung 20 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991), II: 1008.
79. Böhme, Aurora oder Morgenröthe im Aufgang, I: 266–67, ch. 19 (“Von dem erschaffenen Himmel und der Gestalt der Erden und des Wassers, sowol von dem Lichte und der Finsterniß”), §§10–14.
80. Genesis 32:35: “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.”
81. See Rusterholz, “Jacob Böhmes Deutung des Bösen,” in Contemplata aliis tradere, ed. Brinker, pp. 236–27, on darkness as an eternal aspect of the Divine.
82. Weeks, Boehme, pp. 93–98.
83. Ibid., p. 97.
84. Böhme, Mysterium Magnum, VIII: 745, ch. 68, §6: “As at this very day titulary Christendom is full of such magi as have no natural understanding, either of God or of nature more among them, but only an empty babbling of a supernatural magic ground … that indeed titulary Christendom’s idols which it maketh to itself might, through nature, be made manifest and known, that man might know in nature the outspoken or expressed formed Word of God, as also the new regeneration, and also the fall and perdition.”
85. Ibid. On Böhme’s critique of the “Belly-Servants of the Antichrist,” which he saw in all churches of his age, see Weeks, Boehme, pp. 97–98, and G. Haensch, “Gesellschaftskritik und Reformationsidee in der Philosophie Jakob Böhmes,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 36, 1 (1988): 66–72.
86. Böhme, Mysterium Magnum, VIII: 746, ch. 68, §7.
87. Jacob Böhme, Signatura rerum, or, The signature of all things shewing the sign and signification of the severall forms and shapes in the creation, and what the beginning, ruin, and cure of every thing is, trans. John Ellistone (London: Printed by John Macock for Gyles Calvert, 1651), p. 53, and Böhme, De Signatura Rerum, VI: 67, ch. 7, §43.
88. Donne was the first to use “nocturnal” as a noun to refer to a poem about the night in his “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day.” See Fitter, “Poetic Nocturne,” paragraphs 24–28, and Clarence H. Miller, “Donne’s ‘A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day’ and the Nocturns of Matins,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 6, 1 [The English Renaissance] (1966): 77–86.
89. Rzepinska, “Tenebrism,” p. 93. Michel de Certeau’s The Mystic Fable, trans. Michael B. Smith (University of Chicago Press, 1995) focuses on this period as marked by the formation and decline of mystics as a discourse. His survey of mysticism from Teresa of Avila to Angelus Silesius opens and closes with authors who used darkness and the night to describe their path to the divine. See pp. 16–26, 75–150.
90. Certeau, Mystic Fable, p. 77. See also Michael Kapeller, Auch Finsternis finstert dir nicht: ein Versuch über die Nacht des Glaubens und die Reflexion dieser Erfahrung in der Dogmatik, Theologie der Spiritualität 7 (Münster: Lit, 2004), pp. 94–95.
91. Maximilianus Sandaeus, Pro theologia mystica clavis: elucidarium onomasticon vocabulorum et loquutionum obscurarum (Louvain: Éditions de la Bibliotheque S.J., 1963; facsimile of Cologne: Officina Gualteriana, 1640), pp. 288–89.
92. “Nox. Multa apud Mysticos indicari possunt metaphora Noctis, qua frequentissimè utitur Iohannes à Cruce, excellens nostri temporis Mysticus, cuius sunt Libri de Asensu Montis Carmeli.” Ibid., “Index Vocabulorum.”
93. Richard Crashaw, The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw, ed. George Walton Williams (New York: Norton, 1972), p. 45.
94. Mary W. Helms, “Before the Dawn: Monks and the Night in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Europe,” Anthropos 99 (2004): 177–91.
95. Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of S. Ignatius of Loyola. Founder of the Society of Jesus (Saint-Omers: Printed by Nicolas Joseph Le Febvre, 1736), p. 22. The deliberate use of darkness was integral to Jesuit culture in this period. See below, chapter 4, section 4.2, “Darkness and the perspective stage.”
96. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, in The Complete Works of St Teresa of Jesus, ed. and trans. E. Allison Peers (London: Sheed and Ward, 1972), II: 210, 218; Joseph Chorpenning, “The Image of Darkness and Spiritual Development in the Castillo interior,” Studia Mystica 8, 2 (1985): 45–58.
97. John Donne, “A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s Last Going into Germany” (1619), in John Donne’s Poetry, ed. Dickson, pp. 154–55. See Jeffrey Johnson, “Gold in the Washes: Donne’s Last Going into Germany,” Renascence 46, 3 (1994): 199–207. For similar comments by Luther and Calvin, see Daniel Ménager, La Renaissance et la nuit, Seuils de la modernité 10 (Geneva: Droz, 2005), pp. 164–65, although these sixteenth-century Protestants describe the spiritual night in more passive terms, in contrast with Catholic baroque references to actively seeking or creating darkness and the night for spiritual benefit.
98. Note that the sermon was preached “in the evening.” John Donne, Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, ed. Charles M. Coffin (New York: Random House, 1978), p. 629.
99. Ibid., p. 585.
100. Francis Quarles, Emblemes by Fra. Quarles (London: Printed by G[eorge] M[iller] and sold at Iohn Marriots shope, 1635), p. 131.
101. Paul Gerhardt, “Abend-Lied,” in Gedichte des Barock, ed. Ulrich Maché and Volker Meid (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1980)
, pp. 174–75:
Nun ruhen alle Wälder /
Vieh / Menschen / Städt und Felder /
Es schläfft die gantze Welt:Ihr aber meine Sinnen /
Auf / auf ihr solt beginnen
Was eurem Schöppfer wol gefällt.
See Martha Mayo Hinman, “The Night Motif in German Baroque Poetry,” Germanic Review 42, 3 (1967): 83–95.
102. Gerhardt, “Abend-Lied,” p. 175. Almost as an afterthought, Gerhard offers in the penultimate stanza a more traditional prayer for protection from “Satan.”
103. See Stuart McClintock, The Iconography and Iconology of Georges De La Tour’s Religious Paintings, 1624–1650, Studies in Art and Religious Interpretation 31 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), and Paulette Choné, ed., L’âge d’or du nocturne (Paris: Gallimard, 2001).
104. Georges de La Tour (1593–1652), The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, c. 1638–40. Painting, oil on canvas, 46 1/16 × 36 1/8 in. Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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