imprisoned priests: thomas cramner and john of the cross

i have just finished reading diarmaid mcculloch's huge biography of thomas cranmer. it was one of the most imformative books i've read in a while, and i find it inhabits my dreams. it has also done much to confirm my opinion that i find cranmer a much better writer than theologian, and has broadened my understanding of the complex ways in which what has come to be "the church of england" and "anglicanism" has been formed by the vagarities of english foreign policy.

cranmer famously spend the last several months of his life in prison, first in london and then in oxford. it was in oxford that he was burned for treason and heresy. just before his death, he was "visited" by spanish friars, who allegedly convinced him to recant. then of course he recanted his recanting in his last sermon in the oxford cathedral.

things were a little easier for john of the cross, who was a monk, not a friar, but who was also considered for a while at least a heretic by some of his own order, the carmelites. they were a little gentler in spain than in england, at least at that time, and he was released from his cell, although his life was not easy after that; he remained for all practical purposes still a prisoner.

i am reading john of the cross's poems as a sort of chaser to cranmer, partly because of the spanish connection to cranmer's last days, and partly because today is john's feast.

i am struck by how entirely differently cranmer and john of the cross approach truth. cranmer recognized that he was no poet. s. john was a consumate poet, and must have been aware of the gift, since most of his writings were commentaries on his own poems. what i find ironic is that the truth that has endured in cranmer's writings, the truth we find today, is what is expressed in the poetic nature of his prose. despite his anguished efforts to say exactly one thing at a time, whether about where authority is found in the church, or how we are saved, or what happens in the liturgy, his readers have found, again and again, many meanings, sometimes contradictory, often meanings the archbishop would have rejected angrily.

ultimately, i find both thomas cranmer and s. john of the cross, if not proof, then surely strong corraboration that the only safe way to "do theology" is apophatically. so i'm back to read more of john of the cross. i leave you with his

"i came into the unknown"

"i came into the unknown
and stayed there unknowing
rising beyond all science.

i did not know the door
but when i found the way,
unknowing where i was,
i learned enormous things,
but what i felt i cannot say,
for i remained unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

it was the perfect realm
of holiness and peace.
in deepest solitude
i found the narrow way:
a secret giving such release
that I was stunned and stammering,
rising beyond all science.

i was so far inside,
so dazed and far away
my senses were released
from feelings of my own.
my mind had found a surer way:
a knowledge of unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

and he who does arrive
collapses as in sleep,
for all he knew before
now seems a lowly thing,
and so his knowledge grows so deep
that he remains unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

the higher he ascends
the darker is the wood;
it is the shadowy cloud
that clarified the night,
and so the one who understood
remains always unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

this knowledge by unknowing
is such a soaring force
that scholars argue long
but never leave the ground.
their knowledge always fails the source:
to understand unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

this knowledge is supreme
crossing a blazing height;
though formal reason tries
it crumbles in the dark,
but one who would control the night
by knowledge of unknowing
will rise beyond all science.

and if you wish to hear:
the highest science leads
to an ecstatic feeling
of the most holy being;
and from his mercy comes his deed:
to let us stay unknowing,
rising beyond all science."