Joana Serrado The Discovery of Anxiousness

**Studies of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft** | Volume 2

#### **Editorial**

nheiro.

The series *Studies of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft* publishes groundbreaking scholarly books that pursue cultural studies issues from a theoretical-programmatic or empirical perspective. The series includes edited books and monographs addressing the main section topics of the German Cultural Studies Association (KWG): Material Cultures; Philosophy of Culture and Cultural Theory; Aesthetics of Culture; Cultural Border Studies; Media Cultures; NatureCulture; Language and Communication Practices; Transcultural Life-worlds; Space and Culture; Knowledge Cultures and Critical Methodology. In addition to the work of the KWG, the series welcomes original research contributing to strengthen methodological, theoretical and empirical approaches to cultural practices. The series is edited by Thomas Metten, Giulia Pelillo-Hestermeyer and Teresa Pi-

**Joana Serrado**, born in 1979, is an assistant professor at the Chair of Iberian Cultural Studies at the Technical University of Chemnitz. After studying philosophy, medieval studies and religion in Coimbra, Porto and Berlin, she completed her doctorate in the history of ideas and Christianity at the University of Groningen, funded by the Portuguese Research Council. Previous research posts include the Harvard Divinity School (Fulbright Fellow), the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Oslo (Yggdrasyl doctoral fellow), the University of Oxford (Gordon Millburn Junior Research Fellow in Mysticism and religious Experience) and the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz.

Joana Serrado **The Discovery of Anxiousness**

Philosophy and Mysticism in Baroque Portugal

This research was partially funded by the European Social Fund for Germany as well as the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, namely the Supporting Measures for Early Career Development, and The Camões Institute through the Chair for Cultural Iberian Studies at the Technical University of Chemnitz. The PhD Fellowship supported by the Portuguese Organization for Science and

Technology (Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia): SFRH/BD/27546/2006 Research done within QREN - POPH - Tipologia 4.1. - Advanced Formation cosponsored by the European Social Fund Portuguese national funds.

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#### **First published in 2023 by transcript Verlag, Bielefeld © Joana Serrado**

Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-6532-1 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-6532-5 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839465325 ISSN of series: 2749-8050 eISSN of series: 2749-8069

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## **Contents**



## **PROLOGUE**

#### **The cultural heartbeat of Anxiousness**

In the first volume of this series, Agatha Frischmuth explored the concept of *Inertia*/*Nichtstun* as an expression of Modernity's underlying vocation. Drawing on theoretical work of Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin, while seeking empirical evidence in the literary characters created by European canonic authors, Frischmuth's study is a case in point of the significant role played by Cultural Studies and its German counterpart *Kulturwissenschaften* in reaffirming the close relationship, fascination (or need) that European culture has had with privative language.Whether manifested through inertia, darkness, ignorance, apathy, melancholy, fear, void, vacuum, angst, terror, infection, illness, absence or death, the discourse of negation has inspired generations of scholars and provided methodological approches to the study of culture, as recently Lars Koch traced in epistemological dimension of Angst.

A similar engagement with negative discourse allows the present volume to be read as a sequel to *Nichtstun*.The *Discovery of Anxiousness* is an empirical and theoretical study to the seemingly privative character of Anxiousness. Anxiousness is here chosen as a translation of the Portuguese word *ânsias* ( also spelled *ancias* thoughout the baroque period). Empirically, this research is grounded in a historical and hermeneutic analysis of early modern sources, many of them in manuscript form and understudied by historians of ideas. One factor of this academic neglect may relay on its seemingly pious genre. The formulaic nature of many of the life-writings and the assumed hagiographic nature of the accounts of virtuous or extrardinary women, contributed to academic scholarship focused on their textual and literary apparatus, oftentimes at expense of a critical engagement with a wider body of Christian philosophy. *The Discovery of Anxiousness* aims, therefore, to embed the empirical findings derived from these historical research, in the wider questions arising from contemporary debates on subjectivity.

This approach is not unfamiliar to Cultural Studies. Michel de Certeau's theoretical project culminated on the *La Fable Mystique* (transl. The Mystic Fable) serve as a source of inspiration and reference throughout this study. His analysis of eary modern mystical experiences in a plethora of registers, expanded his scholarly impact beyond history of Christianity into historiography, philosophy of culture and historical ethnology. Simultanously, several feminist Caroline Walker Bynum, with *Jesus as a Mother* and *Holy Feast and Holy Fast* brought devotional texts to the forefront of academic history of Christianity. A decade later, Alison Weber's analyses of Teresa of Ávila' rhetoric strategies is as important as Grace Jantzen's philosophical reappraisal of the same gendered experienced. Recently, the cultural investigation on mystical discourse breakes through Eurocentric traditions, as Nancy van Deusen has shown with her work on recollection and embodiment practices in the Colonial America or Saba Mahmood methodological engagement with contemporary feminist Islamic devotional practices. Their restorative and inclusive project, claiming a sexualised, gendered, intersectional and diverse commitment within the specific canons, serve both as models and interlocutors in this book.

*The Discovery of Anxiousness* acknowledges and builds upon these academic genealogies, while also adding to that equation a still unexplored vector – the Portuguese and Lusophone sources, through the voices of Joana de Jesus and her religious communities. This intelectual legacy renders possible a discovery of Anxiousness, a category distinct from Anxiety, Angst, Lack or Need, which are embedded in a purely negative tradition. In a visionary and cataphatic narrative of her life, Joana de Jesus develops a conceptual vocabulary affirmatively different from her predecessors and direct sources.<sup>1</sup> Anxiousness persistently and qualitatively permeates the public narrative, manifesting as both the cause and product of the mystical connection with God. As the argument of this book unfolds, Anxiousness emerges as an embodied concept, intricately woven in the broader discourses of presence and Sehnsucht, while reclaiming the profound sense of a 'discovery': an entity waiting to be that is there to be unveiled, revealed, and thrown into the world.

<sup>1</sup> Cfr McGinn, Bernard, Mysticism in the Golden Age of Spain (1500–1650), Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, (vol. 6, Herder & Herder 2017) pp. 391–393.

## **NOTES AND LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS**

Throughout the book I will use the current Portuguese version of the names instead of the early modern spelling of the names, e.g., Joana instead of Joanna; Inês rather than Ignes. Likewise, I will only translate the names into English if they are already in use, for example, King John IV, Catherine of Braganza. Some words are in single quotation marks when they refer to foreign concepts.When certain concepts are crucial or have double meaning, they are described in italics. Words in Portuguese and other languages besides English are presented in single quotation marks in order to preserve the distinction between key concepts and foreign words. Please check the Glossary for other possible translations of key terms.

I will use four abbreviations:

**Notebook:** *Livro de Seus Apontamentos* (Lisbon, Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo, 1661)

**Copy:** *Vida da Venerável Joanna Freyre de Albuquerque*(Lisbon, BNL Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, post-1745)

**ANTT:** Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo

**BNL:** Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa

## **CHRONOLOGY**

1616 – death of the last perpetual Abbess of the Benedictine Monastery Ferreira d'Aves, D. Filipa de Albuquerque, Joanna's aunt. She and the two other Albuquerques who professed there were considered saints.

1617 – birth of Joana Freire de Albuquerque, in Mioma, Sátão.

1632 – Mateus de Albuquerque, Joana's father, gives her a Spanish translation of *De Deligendo Deo* and other Cistercians texts.

1 December 1640 – The Portuguese Restoration. End of Spanish rule (Filipe III). King João IV, House of Bragança, takes over ruling the country (This is not mentioned by Joana).

1652 – As ordered by one of her visions, Joana gathers a procession to control the rain and storms.

6 January 1654 – Vivardo de Vasconcellos founds the Recollect of St. Bernard in Lisbon, the Discalced Bernardins, profiting from the movement organized by Maria da Cruz, a non-ordered 'beata'.

1657 – Vivardo de Vasconcellos is elected General of the Cistercian Order. Joana has a vision of writing the Rule for female Cistercians. Joana Freire de Albuquerque becomes known as Joana de Jesus.

27 September 1659 – Joana departs with Vivardo de Vasconcellos to Lisbon and stays at the Monastery of Cós while Vivardo goes to the Monastery of Alcobaça.

Day of Holy Spirit, May 1659 – Begins writing her Rule.

8 October 1659 – Arrives at the Recollect of St. Bernard, in Lisbon.

1661 – Starts writing her autobiography.

19 August 1662 – Receives a letter from Vivardo de Vasconcelos accusing her of being a fake mystic.

21 September 1663 – Suffers from apoplectic incidents twice a day, for five hours each.

15 September 1664 – Begins the clean version of her Rule.

15 October 1664 – Completes the writing of the Rule (with titles and chapters).

17 March 1668 – Returns from Lisbon to Lorvão.

1678 – Begins writing the second part of her autobiography, about her life in Lorvão.

20 August 1681– Dies on St. Bernard's Day.

## **INTRODUCTION**

#### **Joana de Jesus, the Portuguese Nun**

The subject of my book is a Portuguese Cistercian nun, Joana de Jesus (1617–1681), who wrote an autobiographical mystical text. However, the most famous Portuguese nun is still Mariana Alcoforado (1640–1723), probably the fictional author of the *Lettres Portugaises*. <sup>1</sup> This book – an ardent correspondence between a cloistered nun and a French aristocrat – had wide appeal in the European literary scene of its time. Madame de Sevigné, a seventeenth-century French author, even identified the noun 'Portugaise' with a particular literary genre: the writing of passionate love letters.<sup>2</sup> The *Lettres Portugaises* also had a peculiar effect as far as Portuguese feminist theory was concerned. In the 1970s, just before the Carnation Revolution, *Novas Cartas Portuguesas* (*New Portuguese Letters*) appeared. In this book, three Portuguese women writers discuss the dictatorship, the colonial war, and the intellectual minority<sup>3</sup>– almost a certain minor age or the Kantian *Unmündigkeit* – Portuguese women were still experiencing.<sup>4</sup> These 'Portuguese Letters'– both old and new –marked the surge of both a Portuguese feminine character and feminist production.

Feminist scholars, however, neglected to study real seventeenth-century Portuguese nuns (who wrote theological 'love letters' to Christ) and their communities, despite the intellectual fame of their fictional counterparts. Joana de Jesus is one of the still-unstudied female authors in Portugal whose theological work, albeit in

<sup>1</sup> Eugene Asse, ed., *Lettres de Mlle Aisse : prec. de deux notices biographiques et litteraires* (Paris : Charpentier, 1873). See also Anna Klobucka, *The Portuguese Nun: The Formation of a National Myth* (Lewisberg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2000).

<sup>2</sup> Jean DeJan, "Lettres Portugaises," in *The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French*, ed. Peter France (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 457.

<sup>3 &</sup>quot;Minority" is the approximated English equivalent of the French "minorité" or the Portuguese "menoridade".

<sup>4</sup> Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta, and Maria Velho da Costa, *Novas Cartas Portuguesas*, ed. Ana Luísa Amaral. (Lisbon: Dom Quixote, 2010)*.* See also Darlene Sadlier, *The Question of How: Women Writers and New Portuguese Literature* (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989), 7.

manuscript form, has circulated in at least two religious convents in central and southern Portugal. Her work bears a philosophical witness to the mystical experience, insofar as Joana tries to reflect upon the nature and configurations of her relation to the God-Man whilst paying attention to the Catholic renewal movements and, more indirectly, to the social changes that Portugal experienced in the Early Modern period.

The goal of this book is, therefore, to provide the first historical and philosophical reflection upon the life and work of Joana de Jesus. The Portuguese nun merely describes her relation to theGod-Man; however,a systematization of some of the notions shementions but fails to theorize furtheris lacking. Frommy reading,one central term emerges – the notion of 'anxiousness' (ancias).<sup>5</sup> This notion is very important because it is reiterated more than 70 times throughout the whole manuscript, as the cause, sensation, and product of the mystical contact with God. It collides with and complements notions such as desire and love, lack and mourning, but it distinguishes itself from these insofar as anxiousness (as I will later show) is a more embodied concept. Likewise, anxiousness can be seen as a distinct theme in Joana's mystical tradition, taking into consideration that Teresa of Ávila, Joana's main intellectual point of reference, uses this notion very parsimoniously. That being said, my aim in studying the notion of anxiousness in Joana de Jesus is to show how this Portuguese nun erected a foundational concept of mystical experience that can be read from a historical, philosophical, theological, and feminist perspective. Unfortunately there are few sources of Joana's life and work remaining.The data gathered concerning the historical figure of the Portuguese nun is mainly based on her writings, which include some letters she receives from her family. I am indeed reflecting upon the fictional (literary, auto/biographical) constructed 'Joana' and the notion of anxiousness related to her written mystical experience. I shall argue that anxiousness may provide a useful insight into the wider discussion of religious and philosophical subjectivity from a feminist perspective.<sup>6</sup>

<sup>5</sup> Joana de Jesus writes 'ancias' and 'ancias amorozas' The current Portuguese orthography would write 'ânsias' and 'ânsias amorosas.´ In these key notions I maintain Joana's orthography.'

<sup>6</sup> For a critical of subjectivity in the field of religious studies in the past decennia see Constance M. Furey, "Body, Society and Subjectivity in Religious Studies," *Journal of the American Academy of Religion* 80, no. 1 (2012): 7–33., Maren Lorenz und Antja Flüchter within the 26. Tagung des Arbeitskreises Geschlechtergeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit (28–30.10.2021) apud Diemer and Graab, Tagungsbericht: Körper, In: H-Soz-Kult, 05.01.2022, www.hsozkult .de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-127798. (Accessed on 29.09.2023) and Lise Paulsen Galal "Between Representation and Subjectivity", *Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society* 6, 2 (2020): 449–472, doi: https://doi.org/10.30965/23642807-00 602011

Firstly,in thisintroductory chapter I am going to brieflyintroduce Joana de Jesus and her work. Secondly, I shall demonstrate what the focus of my analysis will be. Thirdly, I will conduct a state-of-the-art of early modern female authors in Portugal, with a discussion of the impact of Northern mysticism on Portugal and its nationalistic polemic. Before I conclude by outlining the following chapters, I will discuss the theoretical framework, sources, and methods that underlie my own approaches.

#### Joana Freire de Albuquerque and Joana de Jesus

Joana was born Freire de Albuquerque in Mioma, a village next to Sátão, in inland Portugal in 1617. According to her autobiographical account, Joana moved to Lorvão in order to be a nun of the Cistercian Convent of Lorvão, situated close to Coimbra, in central Portugal. Unfortunately the exact date of her move is unknown.There she lived and started corresponding with Vivardo de Vasconcelos, who would become her confessor in Lisbon. In 1659, at his invitation, she moved to Lisbon to live in a Recollect of Discalced Bernardins<sup>7</sup> . It was in 1661 that she started writing her *Life*, a work that was interrupted in 1668 when she returned to Lorvão. Later, under the protection of her sisters who lived at this Cistercian convent and the protection of a new confessor, António da Conceição, Joana continued writing descriptions of her visions of Christ and of her sickness that provided such an encounter. She died in 1681 on the 20th of August, Saint Bernard's Day, according to the obituary.<sup>8</sup>

Joana's writings are gathered in two manuscripts: the *Notebook* – the original – and the *Life* – a *Copy* that was intended for publication.The *Notebook* claims to be authored by Joana de Jesus, while the *Copy* mentions Joana Freire de Albuquerque. As I will show, the two manuscripts are quite similar except for certain parts, which were deleted from the original text. In her account, Joana describes her visions of Christ together with daily events surrounding her illness and contact with her companions and family.. In the present research I will just transcribe and translate passages of both manuscripts.The Portuguese edition appears as the inaugural title of the series "Do women Care?" by The Institute of Philosophical Studies (IEF) at the University of Coimbra, and the English Translation is expected as the number 141 at the Series "Other Voices in European Early Modern History" by the Iter Press, distributed by U. Chicago Press.<sup>9</sup>

<sup>7</sup> For more on the use of the term 'recollect', see the introduction to chapter 2 below.

<sup>8 &</sup>quot;Memorial das Vidas e Obitos das Religiosas deste Mosteiro," Torre do Tombo National Archives, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro de Lorvão, book 310, Accessed February 27, 2012, PT/TT/ MSML/A/L310, http://digitarq.dgarq.gov.pt/details?id=4616414.

<sup>9</sup> Cfr "Instituto de Estudos Filosóficos da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra, https://www.uc.pt/fluc/ief/publica/ and "Other Voices in European Early Modern History" **"**The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series" https: /othervoiceineme.co

#### Joana's Contribution: Anxiousness

In my reading, a main theme surfaces throughout Joana's life and writing: the notion of 'ancias' (anxiousness).<sup>10</sup> This theme of anxiousness is not so common in Teresa, whose influence and observant spirit permeates Joana's writing. However, it can be traced, for instance, to John of the Cross, whose work mentions 'ansias' associated with passing through one's soul's Dark Night. In the first stanza, John of the Cross writes:

*On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings —oh, happy chance!— I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.*<sup>11</sup>

The theme of 'love with yearnings' is recurrent throughout John of the Cross6532 to meet God. Perhaps here lies the subtle difference between Portuguese and Spanish. Peers translates 'ansia' as 'yearnings'. While in Spanish 'ansias' is only desire, in Portuguese there is an added sense of greediness, voraciousness, and, in the plural form, affliction.<sup>12</sup> Indeed it is these latter senses that Joana brings into her description of meeting the God-Man. Her 'ancias' is formulated in a less poetic and much more concrete way, as stated in this passage in the beginning of her account:

m/othervoice-toronto.html#Spanish\_Portuguese%20Authors/Texts. (Accessed: 29 Septem ber 2023).

<sup>10</sup> Cf. Jeannine Poitrey, *Vocabulario de Santa Teresa* (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Fundación Universitaria Española, 1983).

<sup>11</sup> John of the Cross, *Dark night of the soul,* third revised edition translated and edited, with an introduction, by E. Allison Peers (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, [1994]), 14. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john\_cross/dark\_night.pdf Accessed on November 11 2012. *En una noche oscura,* / *con ansias en amores inflamada,* / *(¡oh dichosa ventura!)* / *salí sin ser notada,* / *estando ya mi casa sosegada.* San Juan de la Cruz, *Subida del Monte Carmelo* in *Escritores del siglo XVI: San Juan de la Cruz, Fray Pedro Malon de Chaide, Fray Hernando de Zarate* (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1948)*,* 8: 1. On the Dark Night see, for example, the work of Jesús Martí Ballester*, Una nueva lectura de 'Noche Oscura' de San Juan de la Cruz* (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2008).

<sup>12 &</sup>quot;'ânsia s.f.' (1537G Leão 78) 1 manifestação física provocada pela contracção do epigástrio [...] 2. sensação de desconforto físico causada por uma pressão na região peitoral [...] 3. conjunto de fenónemos mórbidos que antecedem a morte; agonia, estertor [...] 4. p.ext. prfundo mal-estar provocado por cansaço, moléstia ou aborrecimesto; ansiedade [...] 5. ansiedade provocada pela dúvida [...] 6. fig. m.q. ANSEIO eETIM. lat. tar. anxia, ae 'angústia, inquietação'." Antônio Houaiss, Mauro de Salles Villar, Francisco Manoel de Mello Franco, and Instituto Antônio Houaiss de Lexicografia, *Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa* (Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2001), 1: 296.

Não foi por pouco o tempo em que de dia e de noite estava padecendo\* esta suave aflição\* que tenho dito com huma ancia tão crecida que me faltava o folguo\* para respirar. E como sempre estava apetecendo a soledade e ritiro era largo o tempo que tomava para a oração, e parece que o Senhor compadecido do disvelo com que aquella alma o desejava me dava dipois de estar algum espaço com aquella ancia amororosa, huma suavidade\* que me cercava toda, e a meu parecer [ANTT 11v] era como hum orvalho puro e dillicadissimo em que minha alma se hia pasando\* e embebendo\* toda, e loguo com grande força que me fasião a qual não podia riszistir me começava a recolher ao imtirior aonde ficavão metidas todas as potencias\*, e alli por hum modo admiravel se me começava a discubrir\* hum mundo tão dilatado\* que me paricia não tinha limite, nem fim. [ANTT 11r-v]

It was not for a short time that, day and night, I was patiating\*<sup>13</sup> this soft affliction\* that I have described with an anxiousness so heightened that I lacked the air\* to breathe. And, as I was always desiring solitude and withdrawal, long was the time that I took for prayer. It seems that the Lord, moved to compassion towards the caring that that soul aimed for, gave me after these [sic] some space with that loving anxiousness, a softness\* that surrounded me wholly and it seemed to me [ANTT 11v] a most delicate and pure dew through which my soul passed\* and absorbed\* whole into and immediately with great strength that was exerted upon me, which it could not resist, I started to recollect myself within, where all the potencies were dwelt\* into and there in an admirable way a world so dilated\* that it seemed not limitless or endless started to discover\* itself before me. [ANTT 11r-v]

From this statement it is possible to bring forward a tentative and provisory definition of this state. Anxiousness might be seen here as the psychosomatic cause, condition, and effect of her intellectual and emotional experience with the Divine, the basis for molding and writing her subjectivity. As I will discuss in the fourth chapter, anxiousness is the cause of Joana's contact with the Divine: she 'has' anxiousness; it is less a state and more a subject's possession, as the Romance languages allow.

Nonetheless a question remains:Why translate 'ancias'into anxiousness and not into anxiety, anguish, or Angst? First of all, this is due to the fact that there are the abstract nouns 'ansiedade' (anxiety) and 'angústia' (anguish) in the Portuguese language to describe such feelings, and Joana has chosen not to use them. Secondly, 'ancias' is a noun derived from the adjective 'ansioso/a', lat. 'anxius*/*a'.<sup>14</sup> As shown

<sup>13</sup> On the question of 'patiate', see the glossary and section 3.2.

<sup>14</sup> Antônio Houaiss, Mauro de Salles Villar, Francisco Manoel de Mello Franco, and Instituto Antônio Houaiss de Lexicografia, *Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa* (Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2001), 1: 296

by Saskia Murk-Jansen's thesis, the transition from affective to speculative mysticism is activated by the abstraction of nouns and verbs. <sup>15</sup> Thus, using 'anxiety' would mean getting farther from Joana's usage of language. Thirdly, the concepts 'anxiety' and 'anguish' are too easily connected with their modern use in psychology and philosophy, and using 'anxiousness' provides a new ground for opening the discussion. Linguistically speaking, the use of suffixes plays an important role here. According to Zandvoort and other grammaticians, the suffixes -ty and -ness are considered equivalent, but the latter differs from the former in its closer relationship to the adjective.<sup>16</sup>

Anxiousness does not relate merely to a cultural European history or its mystical tradition, as will be discussed in previous chapters of this book; it also conflates a theological and philosophical assessment of the anxious experience. In his multivolume history of mysticism, Bernard McGinn argues for the significance and distinctness constituted by religious women's voices, which foreshadowed the eruption of a vernacular theology, a 'concurrent knowledge' to both scholasticism and monastic theology. <sup>17</sup> Likewise,in Joana's day, there was a connection between post-Triden-

<sup>15</sup> Saskia Murk-Jansen, *The Measure of Mystic Thought: A Study of Hadewijch's Mengeldichten* (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1991).

<sup>16</sup> R.W.R. Zandvoort and Jan Ek, *A Handbook of English Grammar*, 7th ed. (London: Longman, 1975), 19. Most English adjectives can form nouns by adding the active (originally Old English) suffix -*ness*, and these nouns denote either a state or quality (*cleverness*, *happiness*) or an instance of a state or quality (*a kindness*). The suffix -*ty* (often in the form -*ity*) represents via Old French a Latin noun ending -*tas* or -*itas*, and is very common in English (e.g., *honesty, notoriety, prosperity, sanity, stupidity*); some forms also denote an instance of the quality in the way that some -*ness* nouns do (*an ability, an ambiguity, a curiosity, a fatality, a subtlety, a variety*). In most cases parallel nouns in -*ness* (*ableness*, *curiousness*, *honestness*, etc.) are not normally used, but in other cases a form in -*ty* has developed a special meaning or a sense of remoteness from the adjective that leaves room for an alternative in -*ness*, e.g., *casualty* / *casualness*, *clarity* / *clearness*, *crudity* / *crudeness*, *enormity* / *enormousness*, *ingenuity* (from *ingenious*) / *ingenuousness* (from *ingenuous*), *nicety* / *niceness*, *purity* (with sexual overtones) / *pureness*, *preciosity* (used of literary or artistic style) / *preciousness*, *specialty* / *specialness*. Some adjectives of Latinate origin that might have been expected to have forms in -*ty* in fact do not, and -*ness* forms are used instead, e.g., *facetiousness, massiveness, naturalness, seriousness, tediousness*. Conversely there are nouns in -*ty* for which no corresponding adjectives exist in English, e.g., *celerity, fidelity, integrity, utility*. See '-ty and –ness,' in *Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage,* ed. Robert Allen (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Oxford University Press, "Oxford Reference Online," accessed July 1, 2010, http://ww w.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t30.e4403. See also D.G. Miller, *Latin Suffixal Derivatives in English and their Indo-European Ancestry*. Oxford Linguistics (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

<sup>17</sup> On vernacular theology as 'concurrent knowledge' see Bernard McGinn, *The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200–1350)* (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 3: 19, and Bernard McGinn "Meister Eckhart and the Begines in the Context of Vernacular Theology," in *Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of*

tine Portuguese vernacular theology and its concurrence with the Second Scholasticism that prevailed in the Portuguese intellectual panorama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,mainly through her confessors who had had university training, as I will demonstrate throughout this book.This being said, and taking into account that scholarship in the field of Portuguese women writers is still in the inventory phase, Joana de Jesus can be considered one of the first female voices in Baroque Portugal with theological and philosophical relevance.<sup>18</sup>

#### **Embedding Joana de Jesus in Previous Scholarship**

Little has been written on Joana de Jesus until now. It is Sílvio Lima in his research on mystical love who acknowledges Joana de Jesus as a major figure in Portuguese theoeroticism.<sup>19</sup> My present study is the first research carried out on Joana de Jesus and the concept of anxiousness.<sup>20</sup> However, important research has been done, namely in the field of women writers and mysticism in early modern Portugal, which has proved to be crucial to my own reading of Joana de Jesus. Here I will proceed with a brief acknowledgment of the studies concerning Portuguese women religious writers – the ongoinginventorying, historical,and literary studies related to the sources. Later I will sketch out the wider discussion on Portuguese mysticism. Here I am

*Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete,* ed. Bernard McGinn (New York: Continuum, 1994), 4–14. Joana Serrado, "Competing Church and Competing Knowledge in Hadewijch of Antwerp. The Critique of Scholastic Method in the Beguines Circle" (paper presented at the International Colloquium 'L'Église chez les mystiques rhénans et Nicolas de Cues,' May 9 and 10, 2006). On the concept of vernacular theology see also N. Watson, "Censorship and Cultural Change in Late Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel's Constitutions of 1409," in *Speculum* 70, no. 4 (October 1995): 822–864, and Elizabeth Robertson et al*.*, "Cluster 1: Vernacular Theologies and Medieval Studies," in "Literary History and the Religious Turn," ed. Bruce Holsinger, *English Language Notes* 44, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 77–140.

<sup>18</sup> For a recent overview of Baroque as a cultural category, see: John Lyons (ed), *The Oxford Handbook of the Baroque*, Oxford, O.U.P., 2018.

<sup>19</sup> Sílvio Lima*, "*Amor Mistico," in *Obras Completas* (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002), 1: 677–678, 697. On Sílvio Lima, see 'Reception of Joana de Jesus's life and work' in chap. 1.

<sup>20</sup> In the course of my doctoral research I have published two articles on the Cistercian Nun: Joana Serrado, "Escreviver: a écriture féminine em Joana de Jesus, Mística do Lorvão," in 'Idade Média e Filosofia – I Colóquio da Sociedade Portuguesa de Filosofia Medieval, 21–22 de April de 2006', in *Mediaevalia. Textos e estudos* (2007): 99–110, and Joana Serrado, "Joana de Jesus (1617–1681). Ânsias amorosas a partir de João 20:17" in In *A Voz e os Silêncios. Religião e Textualidades Femininas*, ed. by Maria Filomena Andrade, João Luís Fontes and Tiago Pires Marques, pp. 49–62. Lisboa, Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa. http://hdl.handle.ne t/10400.14/17991. ISBN 978-972-8361-61-7.

mainly interested in the old but necessary discussion of the national and geographical identity of mysticism. As we will see, two problematic questions are posed by the scholarship: the issues of gender and nation in the mystical experience.

#### Religious Early Modern Women Writers in Portugal

In this subsection I will mention three major lines in the study of early modern women writers that have been achieved in Portuguese-speaking scholarship.

#### Inventorying

The canon of women writers, in particular prior to the twentieth century, is still under development, mainly by twenty-first century literary scholars and historians.<sup>21</sup> The Portuguese canon is no exception. The Portuguese members of this project, Teresa de Almeida and Vanda Anastácio, began working on the inventory

<sup>21</sup> See the International Projects held by the Women Writers' Networks, http://www.womenwriters.nl/, and The Brown University of Women Writers Project, http://www. wwp.brown.edu/, both accessed on October 30, 2013. An important outlet for Portuguese women writers has been *Revista das Escritoras Ibericas*, UNED, Since my doctoral research, important bibliography appeared on Baroque Portuguese women. Here is a selected version from 2016 to 2023. 2016: Hermann, Jacqueline and Martins, William de Souza (eds) *Poderes do sagrado: Europa católica, América Ibérica, África e Oriente portugueses (séculos XVI – XVIII)*, R. J. Multifoco 2016 and José Fernandes. *Soror Isabel do Menino Jesus: vida e obra de uma escritora mística, 1673–1752*. Doctoral Thesis in History at the Universidade Clássica de Lisboa, 2016. 2018 : Dimitri Almeida, Anastácio, Vanda. and Perez, M.D.M. *Mulheres em rede: convergências lusófonas = Mujeres en red*. Berlin Münster: LIT and Zulmira Santos "Norma e «imitação»: existe um modelo de santidade feminina no brasil da época moderna?', in Zarri, Gabriela, Scattigno, Anna, and Concetta, Bianca (eds) *Scritture carismi istituzioni. Percorsi di vita religiosa in età moderna. Studi per Gabriella Zarri: Biit: Libri*. Edizine de Storia e Letteratura. (Accessed: 9 October 2022); 2019: Anabela Galhardo Couto 'Centro e Margens no discurso amoroso de autoria feminina do periodo barroco: percursos e questões', in *Estudos sobre as Mulheres. Conhecimentos itinerantes, percursos partilhados*. Lisboa: Universidade Aberta Portuguesa, pp. 31–48; 2020: Helena Queirós, 'Genre, agentivité et performance du corps : la construction d'une rhétorique de l'exceptionnalité féminine dans des biographies spirituelles portugaises du XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles', *E-rea* [Preprint] ; 2021 : Bethencourt, Francisco, *Gendering the Portuguese-Speaking World – From the Middle Ages to the Present, Leuven,* Brill and Maria Luisa Jacquinet "Religiosidad femenina y discurso eclesiástico en Portugal durante el Siglo de las luces. Algunas notas – Dialnet', in *Las mujeres en el discurso eclesiástico: España, Francia, Portugal e Italia (siglos XVI-XVIII)*, 2021 pp. 201–224. 2023: Carla Avelino 2022. "A difusão da produção textual de pendor espiritual nos tempos modernos". *POLISSEMA – Revista De Letras Do ISCAP* 1 (22):109-24. https://do Mariana da Purificação'', *Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal*, 12(1), pp. 144–151 and "Three Willful Characters in Search of God: Political Identity and Visionary Action i.org/10.34630/polissema.v1i22.4792. My own contributions: "Playing Cards with Christ:

of modern and early modern writers; Isabel Morujão's work is dedicated to the writings of women from religious communities. Morujão's bibliographic catalogue of women writers and their published works shows that 39 written books by women were published in Portugal during the seventeenth century.<sup>22</sup> The majority of these were authored by Maria do Céu (1658–1753) and Violante do Céu (1601/07–1693). These two religious women from Lisbon were already known for their baroque poetry and dramaturgy.<sup>23</sup> An anthology published later in 2005 by the Gulbenkian Foundation mentions other names besides Clara do Santíssimo Sacramento, such as Madalena da Glória and the 'fictional' Sóror Mariana Alcoforado.<sup>24</sup> In 2013 Paula Almeida presented a PhD thesis on vitae written in Portugal, in which the name of Joana Freire de Albuquerque appears.<sup>25</sup> In addition, and as the fruit of pioneering work on Portuguese women writers, texts by other female writers continue to be rediscovered and edited, and a new anthology of women writers has just been released.<sup>26</sup>

in Seventeenth-Century Portugal., in Roe, Jeremy and Andrews, Jean (eds) *Representing Women's Political Identity in the Early Modern Iberian World*. London: Routledge, pp. 11–23

<sup>22</sup> Isabel Morujão, *Contributo Para uma Bibliografia Cronológica da Literatura Monástica Feminina Portuguesa dos Séculos XVII e XVIII: Impressos*, vol. 1 (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 1995), http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros /4720.pdf. See also João Francisco Marques, António Camões Gouveia, eds., *História Religiosa de Portugal*, vol. 2, *Humanismos e Reformas* (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 2000); Carlos Moreira Azevedo, ed., *Dicionário de História Religiosa de Portugal*, 4 vols. (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2000–2001).

<sup>23</sup> Isabel Morujão, "Verdades do tempo e máximas do século: Dois manuscritos de Soror Maria do Céu," in *Revista da Faculdade de Letras: Línguas e Literaturas*, II série, 9:299-307, accessed May 5, 2011, http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/2651.pdf. *História Critica da Literatura Portuguesa*, vol. 3*, Maneirismo e Barroco*, ed. José Adriano de Carvalho and Maria Lucília Gonçalves Pires (Lisbon: Verbo, 2005).

<sup>24</sup> Isabel Allegro de Magalhães et al*.*, "Literatura de conventos autoria feminina," in *Boletim Cultural da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian: História e antologia da Literatura Portuguesa. Século XVIII*. 32 (August, 2005): 7–98.

<sup>25</sup> Paula Cristina Almeida Mendes, "'Porque aqui se vem retratados os passos por onde se caminha para o Ceo': a escrita e a edição de 'Vidas' de santos e de 'Vidas' devotas em Portugal (séculos XVI – XVIII)" (PhD diss., Universidade do Porto, 2013). [I thank the author for sharing her thesis before it was published online.] See also *Paradigmas de Papel: a escrita e a edição de 'Vidas' de Santos e de 'Vidas' devotas em Portugal (séculos XVI-XVIII)*. Porto: Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar Cultura, Espaço e Memória, 2017.

<sup>26</sup> Vanda Anastácio et al*.*, *Uma antologia Improvável?A Escrita das Mulheres (1495–1830)*, ed. Vanda Anastácio (Lisbon: Relógio de Água, 2013).

#### Literary Approach

Female religious writings have been traditionally identified as spiritual autobiographies studied within the spectrum of literary studies.<sup>27</sup> In 1986 Mafalda Férin da Cunha analyzed the autobiography of AntóniaMargarida Castelo-Branco (whose religious name was Sóror Clara do Santíssimo Sacramento) as a literary work, and this analysis concentrates on the discussion of genre.<sup>28</sup> This thesis also presents a list of twenty-one spiritual autobiographies concurrently mentioned, including references to Joana's *Life* (the *Copy*). Férin da Cunha briefly mentions the appearance of the themes of godly love, nuptial encounter, the sacred heart, salvation of souls from Purgatory, visions of the Trinity, saints, the Holy Sacrament, and the Virgin Mary in Joana's work, as in the writings of other seventeenth-century nuns such as Mariana da Purificação, Mariana do Rosário, Rosa Maria do Menino Jesus, and Maria da Assunção.<sup>29</sup> The majority of Portuguese women writers wrote in Portuguese, though some of their works were written in Latin.<sup>30</sup>

#### Historical Approach

Likewise, cultural historians have devoted themselves to the study of early modern spiritual writings by Portuguese women from different perspectives. I will mention three cases here. In the first, the Brazilian historian Lígia Bellini and her group have researched the social life of several monasteries in early modern Portugal.The main themes of Bellini's research are the transmission of knowledge and the practices of writing and spirituality in the construction of authority.<sup>31</sup> In the second case, the

<sup>27</sup> Isabel Allegro de Magalhães et al*.*, "Literatura de conventos autoria feminina," in *Boletim Cultural da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian: História e antologia da Literatura Portuguesa. Século XVIII*. 32 (August, 2005): 7–98.

<sup>28</sup> Mafalda Maria Férin Cunha, "A Fiel e Verdadeyra relação que dá dos sucessos de sua vida a Creatura Mais Ingrata a Seu Creador...: Um género, um texto único," (unpublished master's thesis, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1992).

<sup>29</sup> Cunha, "A Fiel e Verdadeyra," 27–38.

<sup>30</sup> Jane Stevenson, "8 Women Latin Poets in Spain and Portugal," in *Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority, from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century* (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 199–223. For an overview of Portuguese Literature in English Language see T.F. Earle, Cláudia Pazos Alonzo and Stephen Parkinson, eds., *A Companion to Portuguese Literature* (Woodbridge ;Rochester, NY: Tamesis, 2009).

<sup>31</sup> Lígia Bellini, "Penas, e glorias, pezar, e prazer: espiritualidade e vida monástica feminina em Portugal no Antigo Regime," in Lígia Bellini, Evergton Sales Souza and Gabriela dos Reis Sampaio, eds., *Formas de crer. Ensaios de história religiosa do mundo luso-afro-brasileiro, séculos XIV – XXI* (Salvador: EDUFBA; Corrupio, 2006), 81–105; Bellini, "Cultura escrita, oralidade, e gênero em conventos portugueses (séc. XVII e XVIII)," in *Tempo*, vol. 15, no. 29 (2010): 211–23; Bellini, "Spirituality and women's monastic life in seventeenth and eighteenth-cen-

PhD research of Gilberto Moiteiro concentrates on the female Dominican community of Aveiro.<sup>32</sup> He studies their observance by focusing deeply on the notion of 'tears' as a social and spiritual practice.<sup>33</sup> Finally, the work of the Portuguese literary historian Pedro Villas-Boas Tavares deals with heresy. In his work on the reception of Miguel Molinos in Portugal, he mentions the appearance of several 'beatae' throughout the seventeenth century who were connected to a wider understanding of Portuguese 'molinosism'. Of these three scholars, Villas-Boas Tavares is the only one who refers to Joana's writings.<sup>34</sup>

#### Mysticism: Recollection, Politicization, and Borders

Joana de Jesus is indebted to a spiritual and mystical tradition in which both vernacular and Spanish influence is of great relevance to the blossoming of women authors on the Iberian Peninsula.<sup>35</sup> There are several trends that church and cultural historians have studied, mainly in Spain. For the present study of Joana, my

tury Portugal," in *Portuguese Studies* (Review of Modern Humanities Research Association, London) 21 (2005): 13–33; Bellini, "Vida monástica e práticas da escrita entre mulheres em Portugal e no Antigo Regime," in *Campus Social* 3/4 (2006/2007): 209–218; Bellini, "Cultura religiosa e heresia em Portugal no Antigo Regime: notas para uma interpretação do molinosismo," in *Estudos Ibero-Americanos* (2006): 187–203; Bellini, "Espiritualidade, autoridade e vida conventual feminina em Portugal no Antigo Regime" (paper presented at the conference *Fazendo Género, Simpósio Temático* no. 24, held by Universidade de Santa Catarina on August 28–30, 2006, accessed March 10, 2011, http://www.fazendogenero.ufsc.br/7/st\_ 24 \_B. html.

<sup>32</sup> Gilberto Coralejo Moiteiro, "As dominicanas de Aveiro (c1450-1525): Memória e identidade de uma comunidade textual" (PhD diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2013).

<sup>33</sup> Gilberto Coralejo Moiteiro, "As lágrimas na hagiografia do Mosteiro de Aveiro: expressão de uma comunidade emocional" in *Olhares sobre a História. Estudos oferecidos a Iria Gonçalves*, ed. Maria do Rosário Themudo Barata and Luís Krus; coord. Amélia Aguiar Andrade, Hermenegildo Fernandes, and João Luís Fontes (Lisbon: Caleidoscópio, 2009), 391–411, and "Concepções e técnicas corporais na edificação do discurso hagiográfico. O caso das santas de Aveiro," in *Cadernos de Literatura Medieval*, no. 3, *Hagiografia Medieval*, coord. Ana Maria Machado (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, forthcoming).

<sup>34</sup> Pedro Villas-Boas Tavares, *Beatas, Inquisidores e Teólogos: Reacção Portuguesa a Miguel Molinos* (Lisbon: FLUP/Universidade do Porto, 2002), 202, III and VI. Also, "Caminhos e Invenções da Santidade Feminina em Portugal nos Séculos XVII e XVIII: Alguns, Dados, Problemas e Sugestões," in *Via Spiritus* 3 (1996): 163–215.

<sup>35</sup> Bernard McGinn reconstructs the emergence of a new mysticism around the thirteenth century, when a 'new form of languages and modes of representation of mystical consciousness' appeared, written by women. McGinn, *The Flowering of Mysticism,* 3: 12. On the vernacular in Dutch, Italian and English traditions see also the recent volume, Bernard McGinn, "The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism (1350–1550)," in *The Presence of God: A History of Western Christicism* (New York: Crossroads, 2012).

point of departure is the research that has been done around themes such as recollection ('recogimiento'), ecstatic devotion, and the influence of 'Northern' authors in the south.

#### Recollection and the Politicization of Scholarship

Joana de Jesus belongs to a Spanish tradition and vocabulary through the influence of Teresa of Ávila and Luís de Granada. Joana's spiritual visions of the Divinity are achieved through mental withdrawals referred to as 'recolhimentos' (recollections). Like Teresa of Ávila, Joana develops a new mode of prayer, one in which we may consider recollection as a moment of such union with the Divinity.

The classic study concerning early modern religious thought in Portugal was published by José Sebastião da Silva Dias in 1960.<sup>36</sup> However, he did not mention Joana de Jesus; rather, this author contextualized Portuguese history within Iberian scholarship, which would later be enlivened by the work of Erasmianism in Spain.<sup>37</sup> In 1975, Melquiades Andrés Martin made the first historiographical attempt to trace a system of 'recogimiento' peculiar to the Iberian Peninsula.<sup>38</sup>

In *Los Recogidos* (*The Recollected*), Martin and his team intend to demonstrate how this concept was crucial and innovative in sixteenth-century spirituality, beyond famous authors such as Osuna or Bernardino Laredino, whose books were mentioned by Teresa. The spiritual characteristics of this movement were one's own annihilation through the practice of self-knowledge, the invocation of the soul's centre, the *imitatio Christi,* and mental prayer (also a synonym of 'recogimiento' prayer). <sup>39</sup> Francisco of Osuna was considered the greatest exemplar of this group, one of many within the Iberian tradition. In doing this, Martin is continuing the task first undertaken by the nineteenth-century literary scholar Menendés y Pelayo, who, in his

<sup>36</sup> José Sebastião da Silva Dias, *Correntes do sentimento religioso em Portugal*, 2 vol. (séculos XVI a XVIII), (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1960). See also his other works: *A Política Cultural da Época de D. João III* (Coimbra: Instituto de Estudos Filosóficos Universidade de Coimbra, 1969); *Camões no Portugal de quinhentos* (Lisbon: Instituto de Cultura e Língua Portuguesa, Ministério da Educação e Ciência, 1981); *O erasmismo e a Inquisição em Portugal: o processo de Fr. Valentim da Luz* (Coimbra: Instituto de História e Teoria das Ideias, Universidade de Coimbra, 1975).

<sup>37</sup> Marcel Bataillon, *Erasmo y España: Estudios sobre la Historia Espiritual del Siglo XVI* [Érasme et lꞋEspagne], 2nd ed., corrected and expanded, trans. Antonio Alatorre (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1966).

<sup>38</sup> Melquiades Andrés Martín, *Los Recogidos: Nueva Visión de la Mística Española (1500–1700)* (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española Seminario Suárez, 1975). For a review see Jose C. Nieto, "Review: [Untitled]; Los Recogidos. Nueva Vision de la Mistica Espanola (1500–1700)," *The Sixteenth Century Journal* 8, no. 1 (April 1977): 125–126, accessed May 27, 2011, doi: 10.2307/2540145.

<sup>39</sup> Martín, *Los Recogidos*, 16.

*Historia de los Heterodoxos Españoles* (*History of the Spanish Heterodoxies)*, distinguishes a true Spanish mystical tradition from a 'Beguine' and a 'Northern' influence, which culminated in sects such as the 'Lutheran', 'Alumbradist', and 'Quietist' movements in Spain.<sup>40</sup> These names were less technical and more offensive denominations, created mainly by their opponents.While the Lutherans negated the presence of Christ in Communion and the Quietists could achieve total grace without any effort or work, the Alumbrados (Illuminated) were those who experienced the spirit of Christ in a straightforward way, bypassing the presence of Christ in the Eucharist (at least according to their inquisitors). Nevertheless, all of these religious movements were present in a contemplative experience such as that of recollection.

This nationalistic tendency is the fruit of both Franco's regime, which regulated university scholarship, and its appropriation by Spanish Catholic theologians, with their reading of a true original 'Hispanic' mysticism. Academic research done outside Spain privileged foreign influence in Spanish mysticism, and this assumption was not well favored in a nationalistic regime.<sup>41</sup>

Antonio Márquez's work pursued a historical and philosophical analysis of the Alumbrados.<sup>42</sup> In the historical part, he underlined the relationships and similarities between the Recogidos and the heretics. In the philosophical part, he maintains that the Eros-Thanatos conflict was also present among the Spanish mystics (both within the Alumbrados and the Recogidos), and that this tradition even survived in the context of twentieth-century social movements.This controversial argument led to a revised and augmented edition with a preface, in which the author offers a defense of his work.<sup>43</sup> After this work, research on the Alumbrados continued to be carried out by historians and theologians, namely those interested in the inquisitional history of Spain.<sup>44</sup>

<sup>40</sup> Marcelino Menandez y Pelayo, "Sectas Místicas. Alumbrados. Quietistas. Miguel de Molinos, Embustes y Milagrerías," in *Historia de los Heterodoxos Españoles* (Madrid: Libraría Catolica, reprinted 1965–67), 2: 521–585.

<sup>41</sup> Pierre Groult, *Les Mystiques des Pays–Bas et la Littérature Espagnole du Seizième Siècle* (Louvain : Uystpruyst, 1927) ; Jean Orcibal, *La Rencontre du Carmel Thérésien avec les Mystiques du Nord*, vol. 70 (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1959) ; Helmut Hatzfeld*, Estudios literarios sobre mística española* (Madrid : Editorial Gredos [c. 1955]) and Helmut Hatzfeld*, Estudios sobre el Barroco* (Madrid : Editorial Gredos, 1966).

<sup>42</sup> Antonio Márquez, *Los Alumbrados; Orígenes y Filosofía, 1525–1559*, La Otra Historia de España; 2nd ed., corrected and expanded, vol. 4(Madrid: Taurus, 1980); Charles F. Fraker,"Review:[Untitled]; Los Alumbrados: Orígenes y Filosofía (1525–1559)," *Hispanic Review* 44, no. 3 (Summer, 1976): 286–289.

<sup>43</sup> Márquez, *Los Alumbrados*.

<sup>44</sup> Juan Gallego-Benot , 'La noche oscura de san Juan de la Cruz en el alumbradismo tardío sevillano', *Hipogrifo: Revista de literatura y cultura del Siglo de Oro*, vol. 11, no. 1, (2023) pp. 961–972. https://doi.org/10.13035/H.2023.11.01.55 .Fowler, J.J. '9 Assembling Alumbradismo: The Evolution of a Heretical Construct', in *After Conversion,* (Leiden*,*Brill, 2016), pp. 251–282.

In Portugal the situation is similar. In 2009, António Vítor Ribeiro completed a PhD thesis on the Alumbrados and the prophetic movements from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries in Portugal.<sup>45</sup> By analyzing several case studies based on inquisitional processes, Ribeiro shows a kaleidoscopic religious life in Portugal, which is also akin to the wider spectrum of political prophecy, the phenomenon of Sebastianism. Sebastianism was the mythic belief in the return of the Portuguese king Sebastian from the desert sands of Ksar El Kibir, where he participated in the crusades against the Moors in 1578.The return of the king would bring back the Portuguese independence usurped by the Spanish crown after his disappearance. <sup>46</sup>

The study of recollection mysticism has recently experienced a new intake, leaving aside the study of 'alumbradism'. American scholars have continued this research into the spiritual dimension of recollection, similar to the work done by Di Salvo.<sup>47</sup> William Short, for instance, inscribes 'recollection' in Franciscan spirituality.<sup>48</sup> Jessica A. Boon's research on Bernardino de Laredo focuses on his linguistic contribution to recollection. However, her most recent research goes beyond the spirituality of prayer, heading into the physiology of the soul.<sup>49</sup>

Mercedes García-Arenal and Felipe Pereda, "A propósito de los alumbrados: Confesionalidad y disidencia religiosa en el mundo ibérico," in *La corónica: AJournal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures* 41, no. 1 (Fall, 2012): 109–148. The classical works on alumbrados are of Alvaro Huerga, *Historia de los Alumbrados (1570–1630)*, vol. 3 (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1978), Alaistair Hamilton, *Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth Century Spain: The Alumbrados*. (Cambridge: J. Clarke, 1992), Pedro Santanoja, *La Herejia do los Alumbrados y la Espiritualidad en la España del Siglo XVI: Inquisición y Sociedade* ([Valencia]: Generalitat Valenciana, cop. 2001), Alaistair Hamilton "The *Alumbrados*: *Dejamiento* and its practicioners," in *A New Companion to Hispanic Mysticism*, ed. Hillary Kallendorf (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 103–126.

<sup>45</sup> António Vítor Ribeiro, *O auto dos místicos: alumbrados, profecias, aparições e inquisidores (séculos XVI-XVIII*) (PhD diss., Universidade de Coimbra, 2009).

<sup>46</sup> On the phenomenon of Sebastianism, see the classic Joel Serrão, *Do Sebastianismo ao Socialismo* (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 1969).

<sup>47</sup> Angelo J. Di Salvo, *The Spiritual Literature of Recollection in Spain (1500–1620): The Reform of the Inner Person*. Texts and Studies in Religion 84 (Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1999); Di Salvo, *Spanish devotional and meditative literature of Renaissance Spain* (Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 2005).

<sup>48</sup> William J Short, "From Contemplation to Inquisition: The Franciscan Practice of Recollection in Sixteenth-Century Spain," in *Franciscans at Prayer*, ed. Timothy J. Johnson (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007), 449–474.

<sup>49</sup> Jessica A. Boon, *The mystical language of recollection: Bernardino de Laredo and the* '*Subida del Monte Sion*' (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2004); Boon, "Medical Bodies, Mystical Bodies: Medieval Physiological Theory in the Recollection Mysticism of Bernardino De Laredo," in *Viator* 39, no. 2 (2008): 245–267; Boon, *The Mystical Science of the Soul: Medieval Cognition in Bernardino De Laredo's Recollection Method* (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012). I thank the author making me available her dissertation.

#### Southern vs. Northern Mysticism

Joana de Jesus' work is directly related to the Iberian mysticism of recollection, and that same mysticism also derives from an older and wider tradition that can be traced to what some authors have called 'Northern' influences.<sup>50</sup> Here I will analyze the most recent scholarship done in the area regarding this old polemic.

The article by Eulógio Pacho in *Fuentes Neerlandesas de la Mistica Espanola* (Dutch Sources of Spanish Mysticism) distinguishes the mystical texts from the ascetical ones, with the latter having compelled Spanish thought much more strongly, a conclusion which Silva Dias had already reached in his book. Despite being controversial in splitting the practice and the theory of mysticism, this article gives a powerful insight into the connections between North and South. For Pacho, the so-called 'mystical' authors – who had a higher experience and/or theorized about their experience with God – show only indirectly their reminiscent presence in sixteenth-century texts.The Iberian authors wereindeed under the stronginfluence of the Devotio Moderna and the Rhineland mystics. Pacho even compares the impact of the Spanish translation of the Carthusian Hugo of Balma's *Sol de Contemplativos* (*The Contemplatives' Sun*, and the original Latin *Viae Sion Lugent*) on sixteenth-century spirituality to the repercussions thatThomas Aquinas' *SummaTheologica* and Peter Lombard's *Sententias* had in mediaeval philosophy.<sup>51</sup> Nevertheless, Pacho argues that these texts were not intended to establish a doctrine, but were instead practical 'handbooks' of prayer technique. Neither were these mere descriptions of personal experiences. In the Spanish literature, the author mentions Sister Maria de Santo Domingo (better known as 'Beata' – pious woman – of Piedrahita) as an exception, possibly due to her connection with the Alumbrados.<sup>52</sup> If there was any Dutch or Flemish 'influence' upon themes, vocabulary, and lexicon, this occurred especially in the cases of some authors who lived and read in Flanders – as was the case of Francisco de Osuna. With greater legitimacy, Pacho says that we can speak of a 'crystallization' of medieval patristic themes, which were abundantly quoted by Spanish authors.

Regarding the situation in Portugal, scholars have been more cautious in establishing the presence of Northern authors. Alluding to the early printed books produced in Portugal on the broadly conceived concept of spirituality, José Adriano

<sup>50</sup> Miguel Norbert Ubarri and Lieve Behiels, *Fuentes Neerlandesas de la Mística Española*, vol. 37 (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2005); Miguel Norbert Ubarri, *Jan van Ruusbroec y Juan de la Cruz, la mística en diálogo* (Madrid: EDE, 2007).

<sup>51</sup> Eulógio Pacho, "Simiente Neerlandesa en la Espiritualidad Clásica Española," in *Fuentes Neerlandesas de la Mística Española,* ed. Miguel Norbert Ubarri and Lieve Behiels, vol. 37 (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2005), 28.

<sup>52</sup> Pacho, "Simiente Neerlandesa.," 29.

Freitas de Carvalho also shows the Portuguese preference for Northern books.<sup>53</sup> This scholar pointed out the circulation of Portuguese and Spanish translations of Henry Suso (1295–1366), John Tauler (c.1300-1361), Thomas a Kempis (1380–1471), Hendrik Herp (1400–1477), the French Louis de Blois (1506–1566), and Nicholas of Esch (1507–1578). Nevertheless, among the 1,891 books recorded by José Adriano de Carvalho that were published in Portugal (either in Castilian or in Portuguese) in the sixteenth-century, the 'Northern authors' comprise just over one percent. In another book, the same scholar points out the influence of Gertrude of Helfta in Spain and Mechthild of Hackeborn in early modern Spanish spirituality.<sup>54</sup>

There were important Portuguese mystical (or spiritual) male authors who have marked the intellectual life of early modern Portugal – namely, the Augustinians Sebastião Toscano (1515–1583) and Tomé de Jesus (1529–1582); the Capuchin Agostinho Cruz (1540–1619); the Franciscan António Chagas (1631–1682); and the Oratorian Manuel Bernardes (1644–1710).<sup>55</sup> The 'Northern' influences on Manuel Bernardes have already been researched.<sup>56</sup> These Portuguese authors, however, had been recognized, published, and circulated in Joana's time, although there is no proof that Joana had read them.

#### Ecstatic Devotion and Female Mystics

In the twenty-first century, Portuguese mysticism is still seen as being part of an 'Hispanic Mysticism'. José Adriano Freitas de Carvalho draws a sketch of mystical authors in early modern Portugal. <sup>57</sup> Freitas de Carvalho mentions female mystics

<sup>53</sup> José Adriano Moreira de Freitas Carvalho, *Bibliografia Cronológica da Literatura de Espiritualidade em Portugal 1501–1700*, vol. 2 (Oporto: Instituto de Cultura Portuguesa, 1988).

<sup>54</sup> José Adriano Moreira de Freitas de Carvalho, *Gertrudes de Helfta e Espanha: contribuição para o estudo da história da espiritualidade peninsular nos séculos XVI e XVII* (Oporto: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Ciêntífica, 1981).

<sup>55</sup> Maria Lurdes Belchior, José Adriano Freitas de Carvalho and Fernando Cristóvão, ed., *Antologia de Espirituais Portugueses* (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2004). For a more idiosyncratic approach to Portuguese mystics, and a crucial work in the development of Portuguese philosophy in the twentieth century, see Dalila Pereira da Costa, *Os místicos portugueses do século XVI* (Oporto: Lello Editores, 1986).

<sup>56</sup> Eugénia Magalhães, "Erotismo e Metáfora no discurso místico: autorres portugueses do Renascimento e do Barroco",(Lisbon: PhD thesis, 2016) Maria Clara Rezende Teixeira Constantino, *A Espiritualidade Germânica no Padre Manuel Bernardes*, coleção de Teses, vol. 2 (Marília: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Marília, 1963).

<sup>57</sup> José Adriano Freitas de Carvalho, "Traditions, Life Experiences and Orientations in Portuguese Mysticism (1513–1630)," in *A New Companion to Hispanic Mysticism*, ed. Hillary Kallendorf (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 39–70. See also José Adriano Freitas Carvalho and Maria de Lourdes Belchior Pontes, "Portugal (16e-18e siècles)," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique* (Paris: Beauchesne, cols. 1958–1973), 12: 958–973.

taken from the Agiológio Lusitano (Lusitane Hagiologium): the Clarisses Briolanja de Santa Clara (d. 1590), Clemência Baptista (d. 1611), and Mariana do Lado (d. 1628), among others, but not Joana.<sup>58</sup> However, these are what he calls examples of "ecstatic devotion," and he does not focus on writings authored by women.

As I shall show below, Joana's life and work is marked by the validity of her visions. For that reason, it is important to show previous research done on certain mystics whose visions have been also subject to a validation process. Maria da Visitação (b. 1551) was the Portuguese nun who served as the archetype for being a 'fake' female mystic and misleading reputable biographers, such as the renowned Dominican Fray Luis de Granada. According to Isabelle Poutrin, this case served as an example of the distrust of mystical accounts throughout the seventeenth century.<sup>59</sup> Recent scholarship also shows the political activity of Maria da Visitação, as seen in her support of Portuguese independence from Spain, and gives emphasis to the prophetic and semiotic dimension of her 'fake' wounds. Like Maria da Visitação, many other Portuguese women, whose holy status was not recognized, were condemned by the Inquisition.<sup>60</sup>

#### Joana de Jesus and Portuguese Early Modern Mysticism

Up until this point I have worked with two major themes that may help to situate my own research on Joana de Jesus, namely: the question of early modern Portuguese women religious authors, and the problems surrounding Iberian mysticism. I am following the previous studies insofar as I try to integrate Joana de Jesus in a

<sup>58</sup> Carvalho, "Traditions, Life Experiences," 51–52.

<sup>59</sup> Isabelle Poutrin, *Le Voile et La Plume : Autobiographie et Sainteté Féminine dans l'Espagne Moderne* (Madrid : Casa de Velázquez, 1995), 57. On Maria da Visitação see : Fray Luis de Granada, *Historia De Sor María De La Visitación y Sermón De Las Caídas Públicas*, vol. 9 (Barcelona : J. Flors, 1962); Ana Cristina Gomes and José Augusto Mourão, "A Verdade da Mentira : O Teatro do Corpo. Acerca da Sentença de Soror Maria da Visitação," in *Praedicatores, Inquisitores – III, I Domenicani e l'Inquisizione Romana, Atti del III Seminário Internazionale Su "I Domenicani e l'Inquisizione*," ed. Carlo Longo (Rome: Istituto Storico Domenicano, 2008), 559–590 [contains transcription of Maria da Vistação's Process]. See also Ana Cristina Gomes "Apoteose efémera e declínio: o caso de Maria da Visitação, a monja dominicana de Lisboa," in *Monjas Dominicanas. Presença, Arte e Património em Lisboa*, eds. Ana Cristina da Costa Gomes et al*.* (Lisbon: Alêtheia Editores, 2008), 89–100; Freddy Dominguez "From Saint to Sinner: Sixteenth-Century Perceptions of 'La Monja de Lisboa'," in *A New Companion to Hispanic Mysticism,* ed. Hillary Kallendorf (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 297–393.

<sup>60</sup> Adelaide Filomena Amaro Lopes Cardoso, "As Religiosas e a Inquisição no Século XVII. Quadros da vida da espiritualidade" (Master's thesis, University of Oporto, 2003), 147, htt p://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/10852 ý. For an overview of Spanish women, see Stephen Haliczer, *Between Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain* (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

tradition of recollection mysticism. I include the possible 'Northern' interferences through the Spanish mystical books she acknowledges that she read. The question of heterodoxy and ecstatic devotion will be evoked throughout this research, mainly when I do a close reading of certain passages of her text. My research, however, is concentrated on the construction of the central theme present in Joana's work: the notion of anxiousness. This will be done within a history of mystical ideas. I will necessarily opt for a philosophical and theological analysis of Joana's text, and therefore a rethinking of such a concept in the light of contemporary scholarship on subjectivity.

### **Theoretical Framework**

To think of anxiousness, as will be suggested in this work,is to reflect upon the presence and absence of God, which also sets the basis for a discourse on subjectivity. Anxiousness, as I will argue mainly in the fourd chapter, is a notion in which a (gendered) relationship with the Divineis developed, eitherin a psychosomatic or ontognoseological way. From this nonlinear relationship emerges the question of presence and absence – either of God, the Divine, or the sexualized being. I have supported my own reading of Joana's anxiousness with the work of several contemporary authors who have directly or indirectly dealt with this question, in two different disciplines: the historians of mysticism (Bernard McGinn and Michel de Certeau) and the philosophers, first the philosophers of feminist subjects (Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray) and second the Portuguese philosophers of*saudade*(Dalila Pereira Costa and Paulo Borges). The intersection between these two scholarly clusters has been researched mainly by Amy Hollywood. Now I will briefly introduce these authors and their works, which are present throughout thisbook..

#### The Historians

For twenty-five years Bernard McGinn worked on his history of mysticism under the overarching theme of 'the presence of God'. In his first volume, he defines mysticism as such:

[M]ysticism as a part of an element of religion; [...] mysticism as a process or way of life; [...] mysticism as an attempt to express a direct consciousness of the presence of God.<sup>61</sup>

<sup>61</sup> Bernard McGinn, *The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century.* In *The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism* (New York: Crossroad, 1998) 1: XV, XVI.

From this definition, we may extract four main concepts: way, life, direct(ness), and presence.These four become crucial as guidelines for analyzing Joana's anxiousness. Joana's work is a life that becomes a 'way of life', an exemplary method in which the 'directness' of the contact of the woman with God is rendered through the writing. Mysticism becomes Christocentric in Joana insofar as the presence of God is acquired through their nuptial and loving relationship. In this line, Joana can be read alongside the vernacular tradition Bernard McGinn recently developed in his latest volume of this series.<sup>62</sup>

Michel de Certeau concurs with this view. He says that the search for a path and methodology was something particular to early modern mystics. This French historian, however, emphasizes the role of language in the mystical process. In *La Fable Mystique* (*The Mystic Fable*), De Certeau analyzes the word 'mystics' ('la mystique').<sup>63</sup> He argues that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a change occurred: the French adjective 'mystique' (mystic) became a substantive noun, 'la mystique' ('mystics' or the science of mystics). This was due primarily to the bifurcation of the language: the instrumental, professional, artificialized language, which was Latin, and the nationalized, concrete, personal vernaculars. This cultural change developed within a social and economic transformation, namely the rise of the bourgeoisie, from which the women, the poor, and the illiterati remained excluded. They are the subjects of the new language.

Speaking-Hearing – such is the problem circumscribing the particular locus at which the universal project of the 'saints' develops. The objects of the mystics' discourse have the status of symptoms; essentially, they are prayer (from meditation to contemplation) and the 'spiritual' relation (in the form of communal exchanges and 'spiritual guidance'). 'Communication' (communications from God or those established among the saints) is everywhere a void to be filled, and forms the focal point of mystical accounts and treatises. They are writings produced from this lack. The rapture, ambiguity and falsity that plurality spreads throughout the world creates the need to restore dialogue. This colloquium would take place under the sign of the Spirit ('el que habla', the speaker, as St. John of the Cross phrases it), since the 'letter' no longer allows it. How can one hear, through signs transformed into things that which flows from a unique and divine will to speak? How can this desire in search of a thou cross through a language that betrays it by sending the addressee a different message, or by replacing the statement of an idea with utterance by an "I"?<sup>64</sup>

<sup>62</sup> McGinn, *The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism (1350–1550).*

<sup>63</sup> Michel de Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, [La Fable Mystique], trans. By Michael B. Smith, Religion and Postmodernism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

<sup>64</sup> Michel de Certeau "Mystic Speech" ['L'énonciation mystique], in *Heterologies: Discourse on the Other*, trans. Brian Massumi, foreword by Wlad Godzich (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1986), 88.

We may trace in Joana de Jesus the development of a divine communication through the feeling of (loving) anxiousness. The anxious 'I' slowly interrogates an emerging 'You/Thou', evolving into a self-writing: it becomes self because it is written in strict, direct, closed collaboration with the Divinity.The embodied symptology of such colloquium is the personal imitation of Christ, which Joana endures, both in the pain of humanity and the joy of partaking in the revealed yet unuttered mysteries. This emergent 'I' does not make God absent, but rather attests his presence.

#### The Philosophers

It is in the presence of the subject, however, particularly in the female subject, that Simone de Beauvoir is interested. Written in the light of Existentialism, a philosophical movement in which this French philosopher was one of the most important figures, De Beauvoir's *Le Deuxième Sexe* (*The Second Sex*) takes a closer look at the phenomenon of mysticism.<sup>65</sup> This happens in the chapter titled "Justifications," in which she deals with women's authority in a patriarchal society.Though supporting the action taken by a Teresa of Ávila or a Joan of Arc, the French philosopher points out that Madame Guyon and all of Teresa's 'minor sisters' have only perpetuated the inferior and negative 'definition' of women, embracing mystical discourse as an instigator of the dominance of 'confessors' and the patriarchal imagery of God, serving as a kind of female guerrilla in the religious discourse of authentic existence.

This striving for the (female) subject's presence through transcendence together with de Beauvoir's ambiguity towards mystical women serves as a starting point to ponder Joana's writing and the notion of anxiousness in the economy of transcendence. Both chronologically and typologically, Joana de Jesus is situated between Teresa and Guyon. The Portuguese nun also strove for the same intellectual and affective goals the other religious women held. Joana's actions and anxiousness could be read both with and against de Beauvoir's notion of female transcendence, as we shall see in the last chapter.

Another canonical figure in the history of feminist philosophy is Luce Irigaray. Educated both in linguistics and psychoanalysis, Irigaray broke away from a Lacanian tradition in the *Speculum of the Other Woman* (*Speculum de I' outre femme*), where, through a palimpsestic process of writing often called mimicry, she rewrites canonical philosophical tradition, searching for the place of women and sexual difference.<sup>66</sup>

<sup>65</sup> Simone de Beauvoir, *The Second Sex*, [*Le Deuxième Sexe*], trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, intro. Judith Thurman (New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 2011).

<sup>66</sup> Luce Irigaray, *Speculum of the Other Woman,* [*Speculum de I' outre femme*], trans. Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985). On mimicry see Ping Xu, "Irigaray's Mimicry and the Problem of Essentialism," *Hypatia*, vol, 10, no. 4 (Autumn, 1995): 76–89.

Contrary to de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray always saw in the 'place of the Mystérique' the hysterical, mystical, and mysterious as the (only) way for women's subjectivity to be heard in a patriarchal society.

Amy Hollywood, an American scholar, is an heir to the historical mysticism scholarship developed by Bernard McGinn and the philosophy of sexual difference developed by the second and third feminist waves. She is motivated by the questions of authority, embodiment, and sexual identity in Medieval and Early Modern mystical texts. <sup>67</sup> In her second book, *Sensible Ecstasy*, Hollywood extends her historical research into a twentieth-century philosophical debate.<sup>68</sup> Hollywood´s concern is to evaluate the presence of mysticism, as written and performed by Medieval women, in the work of French philosophers such as Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and others. Notions of sexuality, desire, and identity show ambivalence in the way the forgotten mystics were used and misused by these authors. More recently, in her compilation of articles featured in *Acute Melancholia: Christian Mysticism and Contemporary Historiography,* Hollywood continues her twofold research.<sup>69</sup> The issue here is how feminist philosophers see, construct, and develop their own intellectual history in relation to less intellectual experiences such as mysticism. In this sense, a history of female mystics could never be separated from a philosophical investigation of female subjectivity.

Similar to feminist philosophy that aims to reconstruct a subjectivity without forgetting gender and sexual difference, Portuguese philosophy aims at a related project: that philosophy has a language and an identity, and Portuguese thought has a singular expression.

The romantic tendency of searching for 'a Portuguese philosophy' bears its fruits in the twentieth century, in both the nationalistic and the progressive spectrums. Some philosophers like Dalila Pereira da Costa paid some attention to the male tradition of Portuguese mystics.<sup>70</sup> But many authors have written about the *saudade* (yearning, desire, longing) as a crucial theme in the philosophical realm of Portuguese culture that enables the appearance of a new knowledge and a new subjectivity favorable to the Portuguese expression. *Saudade* has been a crucial theme to subjectivity insofar it claims a philosophical reflection on time.

Would the work of Joana de Jesus, and especially her notion of anxiousness, be able to dialogue with the rewriting of the presence of God and the Subject, tasks

<sup>67</sup> Amy Hollywood, *The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart*, Studies in Spirituality and Theology, vol. 1 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1995).

<sup>68</sup> Amy M. Hollywood, *Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History*, Religion and Postmodernism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

<sup>69</sup> Amy M. Hollywood, *Acute Melancholia: Christian Mysticism and Contemporary Historiography* (Columbia University Press, forthcoming).

<sup>70</sup> Dalila Pereira da Costa, *Os místicos portugueses do século XVI* (Oporto: Lello Editores, 1986).

which the history of mysticism and both feminist and Portuguese philosophy try to accomplish?

### **Methodology: Appropriation or Poaching**

Feminists and historians receive the mystical tradition and try to rewrite the notion of subjectivityin anintense hermeneutical process of construction, destruction, and reconstruction of the past. The Dutch cultural historian, Willem Frijhoff, presents the concept of appropriation ('toeëigening').<sup>71</sup> It discusses several layers of what appropriating can mean: to become our own possession, or to lead to divine justice (in a reformed dogmatic context); but appropriating can also be a transmission of cultural goods to provide another meaning in another context. Appropriation could also mean' 'creolization', or a process where one dominant and one weaker power enter into contact with each other and something new is created. Frijhoff also points out different perspectives, e.g., where the patient, actor, or spectator in a museum becomes part of, or appropriates in his own way, what is given by others. Acculturation, assimilation, or reception do not transmit the same activeness appropriation brings. It is also a bottom-up approach and not a top-down one; it does not come from the world of norms, but rather the world of practices. The Dutch scholar presents the following definition:

Appropriation is the process of interpretation with which groups or individuals give their own meaning to bearers of meaning that are handed to them, imposed on them or prescribed by others, in order to make these bearers of meaning acceptable, endurable, bearable or dignified.<sup>72</sup>

Frijhoff 's view on appropriation and practice is indebted to the work of De Certeau, an author already mentioned. In his book*, L'Invention du Quotidien* (*The Practices of Everyday Life*), the French scholar develops this idea of appropriation together with other concepts, namely the military notion of tactics and the nomadic technique of poaching.<sup>73</sup> Tactics differ from strategy in that the latter is the prerogative of the stronger, of those who hold power, mainly through visualization and space. This is

<sup>71</sup> Willem Frijhoff, "Toeëigening: van bezitsdrang naar betekenisgeven," in *Trajecta*, vol. 6, no. 2, (1997): 99–118.

<sup>72 &</sup>quot;Toeëigening is dus het proces van zingeving waarmee groepen of individuele personen de betekenisdragers die door anderen worden aangereikt, opgelegd of voorgeschreven, met een eigen betekenis invullen en zo voor zichzelf acceptabel, leefbaar, dragelijk of menswaardig maken."Frijhoff, "Toeëigening," 108.

<sup>73</sup> Michel de Certeau, *The practices of everyday life*, [*L'Invention du Quotidien*], trans. Steven Randall (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), 29–44, 165–176.

always a "calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships." Tactics, on the contrary, "do not obey to [sic] the place, for they are not defined or identified by it."<sup>74</sup> What is at stake is the displacement of the agent, hiding and play in the place of the other, seizing the opportunity, by surprise, to attack, and, through that impetus, to evade them.

De Certeau sees the act of reading as a sort of poaching, not a simple consumption or reception. Readers do not assimilate and are not informed or appropriated in the passive way, but rather transform the texts by fleeing to 'another world'.They are "travellers, they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write, despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it themselves."<sup>75</sup>

Throughout my book I will use different methods according to the discipline I am working with. In the historical part (chapters one and two), I will inscribe Joana de Jesus in her context by reading Joana's texts in relation either to her social context or to the history of mystical ideas. The second part (chapter three) will focus on the text: I will be doing a close reading and interpretation, taking into consideration the same early modern context to analyze how and where the theme of anxiousness occurs.The last part (chapter four) will be devoted to rethinking the same anxiousness in dialogue with feminist and Portuguese contemporary philosophy. This last task, as I will argue, bears in mind the challenges of appropriating or poaching, as Willem Frijhoff andMichel De Certeau have warned respectively. Instead, the fourth chapter intends to escape to a chronic (either anachronic, synchronic, or diachronic) reading.<sup>76</sup> The dialogue with contemporary feminist theory provides a new way to intervene in (rather than read, preserve, or canonize) older texts like Joana's manuscript or other mystics' writings as events under what I call a 'kairologic' approach. 'Kairos' is a rhetorical device of seizing the opportunity, looking for a 'situational context' where a dynamic meaning can be achieved.<sup>77</sup> 'Kairologic' also means another way of expressing time: not like Chronos, the Greek god who devours his children, but rather the tactical, cunning god who tricks and plays on the instant, making it now. The opportunity, which is etymologically also a gap, an entrance, is the possibility of seizing the moment provided by knowledge, either of the historical or more scien-

<sup>74</sup> Certeau, *The practices of everyday life*, 22, 35–36.

<sup>75</sup> Certeau, *The practices of everyday life*, 174.

<sup>76</sup> Ferdinand de Sausurre, *Course in General Linguistics*, [Cours de linguistique générale], trans. Wade Baskin, ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye in collaboration with Albert Reidlinger (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), 91–100.

<sup>77</sup> James L. Kinneavy, "Kairos: A Neglected Concept in Classical Rhetoric," in *Rhetoric and Praxis*, ed. Jean Dietz Moss (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 79–105.

tific kind.<sup>78</sup> This being said, despite being a seventeenth-century notion, it is only now, in the twenty-first century, that it is possible for Joana de Jesus' anxiousness to be grasped, as a result of the accomplishments in feminist philosophy and Portuguese philosophy.

#### **Outline of the Book**

This book develops itself around the life and work of Joana and her notion of 'anxiousness'. Due to its interdisciplinary intent, it is divided into three parts: the exploration of the historical context (chapters two and three), the theological and philosophical analysis of Joana's discourse (chapter four), and the dialogue between anxiousness, feminist theory, and the Portuguese *saudade* (chapter five).

In the second chapter, I introduce the life and work of Joana de Jesus. Likewise I will mention the main characters referred to in her autobiographical writing: her confessors, her sisters, and her fellow nuns in early modern Portugal. There I will focus on the source that will be the basis of my reading – her texts. In this chapter, by reflecting upon the genre issue (auto/biography vs. autohagiography), the text defines its uniqueness and exemplarity (as imitation and following the example) or even its authorship and authority. Here I argue that this text belongs to a mystical, literary, philosophical, and historical tradition.

In the second chapter, I contextualize Joana's thinking within theintellectual tradition of recollection mysticism. The meaning of recollection goes further than being a 'faculty of the soul' and a knowledge potency, as it contains a social renewal project within the Catholic Reformation. Moreover, to be recollected (i.e., to withdraw)<sup>79</sup> was also a state that women could avail themselves of, besides marriage, the monastery, or the single life/widowhood. It empowered women to choose another way where they could develop their own religious and intellectual path.

The situations of anxiousness are present throughout Joana's text. The third chapter will focus on an analysis of how the mystic constructs and develops this emotion-state. Here I distinguish the moments of 'encounter', 'operation of love', and 'notice', and relate Joana's unique vocabulary to her European sources. Anxiousness can be theological, but it can also be a philosophical emotion that encompasses a notion of embodiment, nature, and time. I will argue that 'ancias' is a key notion in understanding how Joana acknowledges the presence of the Divine while devel-

<sup>78</sup> Carolyne R. Miller, "Kairos in the Rhetoric of Science,*"* in *A Rhetoric of doing: Essays on written discourse in honor of James L. Kinneavy,* ed. Stephen Paul Witte and Neil Nakadate (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press), 310–327.

<sup>79</sup> For more on the use of the term 'recollected', see the introduction to chapter 2 below.

oping a sense of her own presence (and absence) with the incarnated God and her own subjectivity.

The passage from the study of anxiousness in Joana into the dialogue with contemporary notions of subjectivity will be dealt with in the concluding and reflective chapter, chapter four. There I read Joana's sense of anxiousness in dialogue with feminist philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray as well as the philosophers who dealt with Portuguese tradition of *saudade*. In response to de Beauvoir's valorization of female transcendence and her ambivalence toward quiet and unquiet mystical experience, as expressed in Teresa and Guyon, I argue that Joana's anxiousness and its art of patiating/patiency can be seen as a correlative to the search for agency. With Luce Irigaray's notion of (forgetting) air and the (need to) breathe, in her critique of Heidegger's (and male) philosophical tradition, I will juxtapose Joana's anxiousness as the lack of air being a positive moment in her acknowledgment of the incarnated God and her own subjectivity through 'daughtership'. Finally, I will discuss 'ancias' together with the Portuguese notion of *saudade* (yearning) in the context of Portuguese philosophy. Both concepts deal with a time of absence and presence. However, 'ancias' can deepen in eschatological and redemptive urgency to the sense of mourning that *saudade* already contains.

## **CHAPTER 1 – ENGENDERING JOANA'S LIFE**

#### **1.1. The Life of Joana, the Genre of Her** *Life*

This chapter provides an overview of Joana de Jesus' life and work. I use the expression 'engendering Joana's life' due to the polysemy of the word 'engendering'. To engender (something) means to cause or to give rise to a feeling, a situation, a condition.<sup>1</sup> Here,in this case, the present chapter deals with the facts,motives, and causes that sustain Joana's *Life*. However, *Life* is a double category. It can mean the space of time in which someone acts in a determined interrelational setting—life as a biological, social, and contextual concept—that can also be understood as a fact, in the realm of history: the life of*Joana*. Alternatively,it canmean the narrative of that same fact—life as an account or textual notion—which is close to the event and the fiction: the *Life* of Joana.

*Engendering* also etymologically contains the roots of genre (in literature),of gender (in language), and of genus (in logic). All of these are ontological attempts to classify nature or a whole. Nonetheless, the dynamism and organicity of nature always avoids its own classification. Nature manifests itself through a body or bodies that tend to become specific and particularized rather than generalized. The same happens with the literary *genre* itself: it can no longer be specified.<sup>2</sup>

Engendering Joana's *Life* is thus an attempt to point out what we are allowed to know from Joana's life and her work (her *Life).*This is the task of ascertaining Joana's own subject and subjectivity—in the quest of a self-narrative.<sup>3</sup> To find the subject´s body, we have to ask: Who is Joana de Jesus? We ask about the *author* and the *character*. What does she do/write? We ask about the *corpus* of the writer. How does she

<sup>1</sup> Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "engender, v.," accessed July 08, 2013, http://www.oe d.com/view/Entry/62214?rskey=Xld0OC&result=2&isAdvanced=false.

<sup>2</sup> Jacques Derrida, "The Law of Genre,"[La loi du genre] trans. Avital Ronell, in *Critical Inquiry*, vol. 7, no. 1, *On Narrative* (Autumn, 1980): 55–81.

<sup>3</sup> On self-narrative, see Froukje Pitstra, "Religious Voices in Autobiography and Biography. Analyzing Life: Stories Using Elements of the Theories of McAdams and Hermans," in *Religious Voices in Self-Narratives. Making Sense of Life in Times of Transition*, ed. Marjo Buitelaar and Hetty Zock (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 37–52.

write? We ask about the *form* and *formation* of a text. Finally, why does she write? We ask about the *intentions, tensions*, and the *dialogues* Joana infuses with her spiritual, intellectual, and cultural traditions. Asking these questions connects to my own attempt to reach a wider and aporetic question: the *when* or the time ('kairos') of Joana de Jesus' life and writing. Historically, Joana de Jesus is a seventeenth-century author, and her vocabulary and imagery belong to that period, as will be seen in the first three chapters. However, Joana only became a case study for the twenty-first century, and her notion of anxiousness is of special interest after the emergence of feminist theory, as will be shown subsequently in the fourth chapter.

This present chapter has five sections.The first deals with Joana's biography and what we know of her, her own early modern Portugal, and the manuscript. Likewise, I will discus the reception of her work.The second section problematizes the definition of Joana's text. Several options are presented: spiritual autobiography, autohagiography, and self-writing. From these different genres we might see the configuring of a subject. The third section presents the mystical dimension of this subject in her work. Here I will focus upon the division of both manuscripts, particularly by referring to the construction of the preface that allows the establishment of a mystical sense of hearing and the development of time. The fourth part of this chapter elaborates on Joana de Jesus' main literary source, Teresa of Ávila. It is through the Carmelite spirit that Joana engenders her own work and acquires her own signature and authorship. The fifth section argues that, besides a mystical and literary opus, Joana's text contains both a philosophical demand and the engendering of her own self.This is done through the title of her book (*Notebook*), the search for a genre 'treatise' that would attest the validity of the knowledge, and finally through this set of truths a 'new mode of prayer' could be rearranged.The search for prayer is quite important because it shows that it derives from a social and religious practice within a mystical experience.<sup>4</sup> On the other hand, being of a 'new mode', Joana renders the spirit of early modernity of establishing a guideline, a method of connecting to God in the briefest way.This endeavor is similar to both Teresa and Guyon's, and it is what De Certeau considers the project of attaining a new 'Divine language'.

#### 1.1.1 The Biography of Joana

Joana was born in Mioma, Sátão, in the province of Beira Interior (in the central inland region of Portugal) and was baptized on 21 January 1617.<sup>5</sup> While at the Cister-

<sup>4</sup> Rachel Fulton Brown "Oratio/Prayer," in *The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism*, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 166–177.

<sup>5</sup> Arquivo Distrital de Viseu, Paróquia de Mioma [Sátão], Registos de Mistos 1614–04-24/1655- 09-02, acessed November 22, 2013, http://digitarq.advis.dgarq.gov.pt/details?id=1212467.

cian Abbey of Lorvão, in the region of Coimbra, she took her vows as a Cistercian nun. There she lived surrounded by fellow nuns, some of whom were also her relatives. Her life was marked by visions, raptures, and illnesses. Joana shared these experiences with her community inside and outside the abbey walls. She also initiated a correspondence with several friars from the sameOrder.One of them,Vivardo de Vasconcelos, who would later become the Chief Abbot, invited her to come to the newly founded Recollect in Lisbon. In 1659 Joana moved to Lisbon, where she started to record her life in 1661.

The map below shows the trajectory Joana followed, first from Mioma, Sátão to Lorvão, Coimbra, and in 1659 from Lorvão, Coimbra to Lisbon. Also marked are the male Monasteries of Alcobaça (where the Chief Abbot of the Cistercians lived) and Tarouca (where Joana's younger brother was to be a monk).

*Figure 1: A map of Portugal depicting Joana de Jesus' Journeys*

Data sources: Environmental Atlas of Portugal ESRI data files of Europe

Only seventeen years after returning to Lorvão did Joana continue to write down her *Life*, sponsored by her new Confessor, António da Conceição. On 20 August 1680 Joana died with a reputation of holiness.

#### The Country

Portugal had been an independent country since 1143. However, in Joana's time, Portugal was under the control of three generations of Spanish kings. In 1580, King Philip II of Spain added the Portuguese Crown to his empire.This period lasted until 1640, when Portugal regained its independence through the Portuguese Restoration War (1640–1668), which, in fact, ended only in 1689, when the final peace treaty was signed. During this period of Portuguese subjection to the Spanish Empire, many new enemies were made; among these there were, for instance, the Dutch Republic that attacked Brazil in Latin America and Luanda in Africa and to whom Ceylon, the Moluccas Islands, and the Cape of Good Hope were lost. Portugal also lost its Indian commercial monopoly for some time, but the country re-established its transatlantic exchanges after regaining independence. This was mainly due to the new and uneven friendship Portugal established with England, whose military supported the Restorationmovement and defendedit against foreign attacks. In return, England acquired Tangiers in Morocco and Bombay in India, given as the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, the Queen Consort of Charles II.<sup>6</sup> The same princess is mentioned in Joana de Jesus' preface. Catherine, like her mother, Luisa de Gusmão, was known for sponsoring diverse female religious groups in Lisbon, such as the Recollects of the Discalced Bernardins, to which Joana belonged.<sup>7</sup>

In her text Joana never refers to the current political situation. Yet her life and work are marked by the ambiguity of Iberian culture. She had a religious fervor exhaled from the Catholic Reformation, and she profited from the bilingualism that

<sup>6</sup> For a new insight on the Portuguese-Spanish conflict, see David Tengwell, *The Portuguese Revolution (1640–1668: A European War of Freedom and Independence* (Lewiston: Edwin Mellon Press, 2010). On the history of seventeenth-century Portugal see, for instance, Joaquim Veríssimo Serrão, *O Tempo dos Filipes em Portugal e no Brasil (1580–1668): Estudos Históricos* (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 1994); José Mattoso, *História de Portugal,* vol. 3, *"*No alvorecer da modernidade (1480–1620)," and volume 4, "O Antigo Regime (1620–1807)," (Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1993); Fernando J. Bouza Alvarez, Ângela Barreto Xavier and Pedro Cardim, *Portugal no Tempo dos Filipes: Política, Cultura, Representações (1580–1668)*, vol. 34 (Lisbon: Edições Cosmos, 2000); Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert*. Nation upon the Ocean Sea, Portugal's Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Fernando Castelo-Branco, *Lisboa seiscentista*, (Lisbon: [Câmara Municipal], 1957).

<sup>7</sup> Monique Vallance, *A Rainha Restauradora: Luísa de Gusmão* (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2012); Vallance,"D. Luísa de Gusmão: Gender and Power in Seventeenth Century Portugal" (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2012).

was a common skill of the literate people of Portugal during those years.This is clear from Joana's use of the Spanish title Teresa of Ávila's works [ANTT. 2].<sup>8</sup>

#### The Family

Joana could not have forgotten that Spain was an occupying country. Joana's paternal grandfather, Lopo Vaz de Albuquerque, was a supporter and 'moço da Câmara' (chamberlain) of the last Portuguese king before the Spanish rule, the Cardinal Dom Henrique. Afterwards he was supporter of D. António, Prior do Crato, opponent of the Spanish candidates for the throne. For this reason, he saw his Sátão manor destroyed by a fire, causing his family to take refuge with the Monastery of Ferreira das Aves.<sup>9</sup> Lopo subsequently obtained official forgiveness but did not recover his estate. In 1551, the Albuquerque family lived in Mioma, a small village in Sátão county. He had eight children: Mateus de Albuquerque Freire, Joana's father, and seven others. One of them became the Abbess of the Monastery of Ferreira das Aves twice, and three other sisters were also nuns there, dying with reputations of great virtue. Mateus' brother, Dom António de Albuquerque, became a Capuchin at Santo António dos Olivais' Recollects.<sup>10</sup>

Joana's father, the first-born Mateus de Albuquerque Freire, formed a family with Maria Nunes de Andrade, a Mioma native. Joana's maternal family was under a slight suspicion of being 'cristã-nova' ('newly-Christian', i.e., in this case and period, Jewish converts).<sup>11</sup> Mateus was Lopo Vaz de Albuquerque's heir: he received the house and his office as 'escrivão da câmara' ([judicial] chamber clerk). The couple had eight surviving children: three boys and five girls, attesting to what Joana states in her text about her family [ANTT 1v, 49v].

Joana's sisters (Mariana, Sebastiana, and Inês) were members of the Cistercian Order at Lorvão, all except Catarina, who married in 1666. Catarina's daughter, Josefa, born in 1668, presumably became Joana's goddaughter.<sup>12</sup> In her text, Joana mourns the death of her sister while in Lorvão, probably refering to Mariana [ANTT 77v]. Inês would later become an abbess and would die in 1682. Sebastiana would die in August 1688, also with the reputation of a saint. Both sisters were known for

<sup>8</sup> See also Tomás Lino da Assunção, *As Freiras de Lorvão: Ensaio de Monographia Monastica* (Coimbra: França Amado, 1899), 200.

<sup>9</sup> Manuel Rosado Marques de Camões e Vasconcelos, *Albuquerques Da Beira* (Lisbon: 1948), 114.

<sup>10</sup> Vasconcelos, *Albuquerques Da Beira,* 115–116.

<sup>11</sup> The author of the Albuquerque's genealogy suggests the hypothesis of the 'newly-Christian' aspect of Joana's maternal family, by mentioning Joana's sister, Catarina de Alburquerque, and her process of rehabilitation, which happened in 1674. See Vasconcelos, *Albuquerques Da Beira,* 116.

<sup>12</sup> Vasconcelos, *Albuquerques Da Beira,* 118.

having mystical experiences.<sup>13</sup> Inocêncio, a brother she indirectly mentions as a monk, underwent a habilitation process in the Order of Christ in 1649.

Joana de Jesus' text includes a copy of two letters she received from her brother António, and two from her confessors Vivardo and António Amaral, to which I will later refer. Throughout the text it is possible to see how domestic and religious relationships are intermingled.

The text shows the close relationship her family (aunts and siblings) had with the Benedictine and Cistercian Orders.The support and influence of her family protected Joana in her two big changes: first when she came to Lorvão to become a Cistercian, and later in 1668 when she had to return back to Lorvão after the nine years spent at the Recollect of Lisbon. I will continue this discussion the importance of the family in the second chapter, when discussing the family network.

#### Her Confessors

Besides her family, it is necessary to note the role of Joana's confessors. Vivardo de Vasconcellos, the General Abbot of the Cistercian Order, was an important character in her life.<sup>14</sup> He invited her to Lisbon because of her visionary talent [ANTT 50r]. In addition, Father Alberto de Amaral, another religious man of the same order and a cleric at the Lisbon monastery, asked her to write down a new rule for these reformed nuns [ANTT 51r]. Joana refers to writing this rule in some notebooks that were given to her by the abbot. Unfortunately, this text seems to be lost or displaced.<sup>15</sup> The contemporary written source that mentions her is a catalogue of famous lives and deaths at the monastery of Lorvão.<sup>16</sup> Vivardo de Vasconcellos' notes on the foundation of the female 'Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth at Lisbon' also mention a 'nun from Lorvão' who had to return to her original monastery due to the lack of a dowry.<sup>17</sup>

<sup>13</sup> Tomás Lino da Assunção, *As Freiras de Lorvão: Ensaio de Monographia Monastica* (Coimbra: França Amado, 1899)*,* 141–142.

<sup>14</sup> João Manuel Esteves Pereira and Guilherme Rodrigues, "Vivaldo [sic] de Vasconcellos," in *Portugal; diccionario historico, chorographico, heraldico, biographico, bibliographico, numismatico e artistico*, vol. 3, T-Z (Lisbon: João Romano Torres, 1915), 336.

<sup>15</sup> Joana Braga, "A descrição do fundo do Mosteiro de Lorvão na Torre do Tombo: passado, presente e futuro," accessed May 11, 2011, http://www.iem.unl.pt. Likewise, in the collection of materials belonging to the Cistercian Order this document does not appear.

<sup>16 &</sup>quot;Memorial das Vidas e Obitos das Religiosas deste Mosteiro," Torre do Tombo National Archives, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro de Lorvão, book 310, accessed February 27, 2012, PT/TT/ MSML/A/L310, http://digitarq.dgarq.gov.pt/details?id=4616414.

<sup>17</sup> Vivardo de Vasconcellos, "De hum papel de varias noticias da origem e principios do mosteiro de Nossa Senhora de Nazare que fundou em Lisboa para monjas recolletas descalcas da Ordem de Nosso Padre Sao Bernardo – o nosso padre frei Vivardo de Vasconcellos e por elle escrita", Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, Codex Alcobacensis, Ms. 336, fol. 112r.

Joana wrote down her *Life* during her stay at Lisbon, presumably around 1661.<sup>18</sup> When she departed from the Recollects back to Lorvão, her notebook remained in Vivardo's possession. It was onlyin 1676, when ordered to do so by her second confessor, Father Antonio da Conceição, that the Cistercian nun continued the description of her visions and encounters with Jesus Christ.

#### Her Death

Joana died on 20 August 1681.<sup>19</sup> Her death is described in the *Memorial das Vidas*(*Lives Memorial*) of the Monastery of Lorvão. On the day before Saint Bernard's day, two people entered Joana's cell and saw that some light came from her eyes. On the next day, just as the procession was starting, she drew her final breath. She was said to have had performed miraculous deeds throughout her life. The *Memorial* states that Joana's second confessor saw a white butterfly coming from the sacrary into the Cistercian Nun's mouth. When she died, the confessor ordered other religious women to collect objects from her, and these people experienced many favors from them. In the preface of the *Copy*, the writer states that Joana died in an odor of saintliness.

#### The Manuscript

The Cistercian nun gives an account of her life, her devotions, and the description of her visions and revelations in one text. There are two versions of the same text, with minor differences. The original (hereafter referred to as *Notebook*) is a 163-folio manuscript, written on the front and reverse sides of the pages. It belongs to the collection of the Monastery of Lorvão at the National Archives of Torre do Tombo in Lisbon.<sup>20</sup> This is presumably an autograph.<sup>21</sup> The text, as in the marginalia written in pencil, indicates 1661 as the date of the commencement of the book. There are several white leaves between the first and second part. According to the author, the

<sup>18</sup> Tomás Lino da Assunção, *As Freiras De Lorvão: Ensaio De Monographia Monástica*, 207. The information provided by the Torre do Tombo National Archives [ANTT] catalogue also corroborates this hypothesis.

<sup>19</sup> There are two divergent dates. The writer of the copy's preface states 1680, but the *Memorial* says she died in 1681. *"*Memorial das Vidas e religiosas deste real Mosteiro," ANTT, Mosteiro do Lorvão, book 310, fol. 3r-v. No register of her death was found in the Parochial Archives. See Arquivo da Universidade de Coimbra, Paróquia de Figueira do Lorvão [Penacova], Registos Mistos, 1616–1730, acessed November 22, 2013, http://pesquisa.auc.uc.pt/details?id= 42251.

<sup>20</sup> Joana de Jesus, *Livro da Madre Soror Joana de Jesus para seus apontamentos* (1691), ANTT, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro do Lorvão, book n. 360.

<sup>21</sup> I thank Vanda Anastácio, Isabel Morujão, and Ricardo Ventura for their help with the dates. See also "A Fiel e Verdadeyra relação que dá dos sucessos de sua vida a Creatura Mais Ingrata a Seu Creador...: Um género, um texto único" (master's thesis, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1992), 16.

second part was written eighteen years after the ending of the first, thus in 1679, approximately two years before Joana's death.

*Figure 2: A sample of Joana's Notebook (Lisbon, Torre do Tombo, 1661).*

The *Copy*, in eighteenth-century handwriting, is a 262-folio manuscript, also written on the fronts and backs of the pages.<sup>22</sup> Its dating can be traced *post hoc* to 1748, as it contains excerpts of the last chapter ('De revelationibus') of Pope Benedict XIV´s *De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione* [BNL 5v-8r].<sup>23</sup> It was intended for publication, and it contains two introductions: one by the Abbess, the

<sup>22</sup> Joana Freire de Albuquerque, *Vida Da Venerável Madre Joana De Albuquerque*, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, F. 8666, *post hoc* 1748. [From now on the folia of this manuscript will be signaled as BNL.]

<sup>23</sup> Benedictus XIV, "De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione liber tertius," in *Opera,* 12 vols. (Rome: 1748), 3: 809–810.

other by a censor of the Colégio do Espírito Santo, a Cistercian College belonging to the University of Coimbra. The *Copy* is divided into two books. The first comprises ninety chapters containing the text written in Lisbon. The second one is incomplete and has ten chapters. Just as in the case of the original, this manuscript ends abruptly.

*Figure 3: A sample of Joana's Copy (Lisbon, BNL, post-1748).*

There are some differences within the body of the text of both versions. The orthography is less coherent in the*Notebook* than in the *Copy*. Few words are divergent; however, there are some passages of the text that were removed from the *Copy*. 24

<sup>24</sup> ANTT 66v; 86r-87r;95r-95v; 105v; 111v; 112v; 113r; 159r-159v; 163r-164r.

Likewise, there is an addition in the original that is clearly written in different handwriting, stating that the account in question should not be continued [ANTT 134r]. The last folia of the *Notebook* are probably written in a third handwriting.

The differences between the two manuscripts are crucial to an understanding of the trajectory of Joana's life and her notion of anxiousness. As I will show, this addition and other ellipses can clarify the polemic developed by the writer of the preface. The same addition can be the cause of her returning to Lorvão, as I will argue in the second chapter. In the third chapter, I will analyze further passages drawn from the text, which emphasize the embodiment and Christocentric aspect of anxiousness.

Throughout this study I will be quoting from the*Notebook,*using the folia numeration as it appears in ANTT. Whenever necessary, I will state the *Copy's* numeration in BNL. The division of chapters as the *Copy* presents them is maintained.

#### 1.1.2 Reception of Joana de Jesus' Life and Work

The first reference to Joana's life and work outside her Cistercian circle appeared in 1755. Continuing the work of Jorge Cardoso, Dom António Caetano de Sousa collected several descriptions of Portuguese religious people who were regarded as venerable or had a saintly reputation in the *Agiológio Lusitano* (*Lusitanian Hagiologium*).<sup>25</sup> For August 20th – both St Bernard's Day and the date of Joana's death – António Caetano de Sousa wrote a brief lemma on Joana de Jesus, tormented by illnesses and prophetic visions. In it, he points out the importance of changing her name from 'Joana de Albuquerque' to 'Joana de Jesus', a point that will be crucial in my own analysis of Joana's text.

Lino de Assumpção, a late nineteenth-century historian, provided the only interpretative 'reading' of Joana's manuscript, in his book *As freiras do Lorvão* ( The nuns of Lorvão).<sup>26</sup> There he considers Joana to be the most significant visionary of Lorvão and describes the various stages of her life, quoting extracts from her *Notebook* in nineteenth-century Portuguese. He points out four main aspects of Joana's work. Assumpção´s endeavors allowed me to develop a theoretical and contextual scope for an academic investigation of Joana's text.

<sup>25</sup> Jorge Cardoso, *Agiologio Lusitano dos Sanctos, e Varoens Illustres em Virtude do Reino ee Portugal, e Suas Conquistas: Consagrado aos Gloriosos S. Vicente, E S. Antonio, Insigns Patronos Desta Inclyta Cidade Lisboa e a Seu Illustre Cabido Sede Vacante*, 4 books in 4 volumes (Lisbon: Officina Craesbeekiana, 1652–1744); António Caetano de Sousa, *Agiológio Lusitano*, vol. 4, *Que comprehende os dous mezes de Julho, e Agosto, e com seus commentarios* (Lisbon: Regia Officina Sylviana, 1744), 622–623. On his library, see Maria de Lurdes Correia Fernandes, *"*A Biblioteca de Jorge Cardoso (1669), Autor do Agiológio Lusitano: Cultura, Erudição e Sentimento Religioso no Portugal Moderno," in *Revista da Faculdade de Letras. Línguas e Literaturas*, annex 10, vol. 10 (Oporto: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2000).

<sup>26</sup> Tomás Lino da Assunção, *As Freiras De Lorvão: Ensaio De Monographia Monastica*, 189–270.

Firstly, he proceeds with a psychological analysis of her life and work based on the theories of Charcot and the school of Montpellier, which were very popular at the time. Lino de Assumpção considered Joana a typical 'religious hysteric', probably suffering from epilepsy. Secondly, he searches, for any reference to Joana in the manuscripts of her confessor, Friar Vivardo de Vasconcellos, the General Abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Alcobaça, and for other documentary vestiges of her presence, but he does not find any. Thirdly, he supplies a general comparison of Joana's visions with Teresian mysticism. Finally, he suggests a possible link between Joana's visions and the later popular heresy of quietism, which was theorized and achieved its peak in the works of Miguel de Molinos and Madame Guyon, respectively.<sup>27</sup>

Joana de Jesus might have also been a source for Portuguese dramaturgy. A nineteenth-century naturalist writer, António Campos Júnior, wrote a play *A visão de Jesus* (*The Vision of Jesus*) (1902) in which he criticizes the Church, accusing it of fostering the 'monastic hysteria' exemplified by the nun's character, which was supposedly inspired by Joana.<sup>28</sup>

In 1930, Sílvio Lima, a psychologist of religion at the University of Coimbra, wrote his academic dissertation on the philosophical importance of 'mystical love'. Mainly influenced by psychoanalysis, he contributed to a wide selection of Portuguese sources in which Joana's religiosity was considered the most Portuguese case relevant to 'Theo-eroticism'.<sup>29</sup> He is interested mainly in her notion of kiss and the 'trueness' that Christ acquires in this contact. His research related to a critical but agnostic dialogue with Freud and nineteenth-century psychoanalysis; however, this was cut short by ecclesiastical censorship, which prohibited a wider publication of this unfinished work while banning its author from his chair at the University.<sup>30</sup>

More recently, in a 1992 dissertation on the history of art in the monastery of Lorvão, Nelson Correia Borges assessed Joana's spirituality, mainly following Lino de Assumpção's work, while framing her work in a wider movement of 'ecstatic visionaries' occurring at that time.<sup>31</sup> There were six more Cistercian women at Lorvão

<sup>27</sup> Assunção, *As Freiras De Lorvão*, 230.

<sup>28</sup> António Campos Júnior, *Visao de Jesus*, 2 vols. (Lisbon: Século, 1902), 80.

<sup>29</sup> Sílvio Lima*, "*Amor Mistico,*"* in *Obras Completas* (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002), 1: 677–678, 697.

<sup>30</sup> Barahona Fernandes, "Revivendo Um Ensaio De Sílvio Lima Decapitado Pela Censura 'O Amor Místico','' *Biblos*, no. 55 (1980), 7–33; Rui Lopo, "Sílvio Lima. Um Cavaleiro do Amor" in Revista *Metacrítica,* no. 4 (March, 2004)*,* acessed December 12, 2013, http://metacritica.ulu sofona.pt/Arquivo/metacricita4/pdf4/rui\_lopo.pdf.

<sup>31</sup> Nelson Correia Borges, *Arte Monástica em Lorvão: Sombras e Realidade: Das Origens a 1737* (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Ministério da Ciência e da Tecnologia, 2002), 197–202.

who experienced this divine contact, but their written accounts were not traced.<sup>32</sup> However, another document, a 'vita' attributed to another nun, Maria das Chagas, has survived.<sup>33</sup>

The social history of the Monastery of Lorvão also provides an indirect source of Joana's reception. The monastery itself was known for its political and economic power within Portuguese society, as several historians have shown.<sup>34</sup> Founded in 1109 as a male monastery, its evolution into a community of nuns of the Cistercian Order was due to the efforts of the princesses Sancha, Branca, and Teresa in the beginning of the thirteenth century, the daughters of the first Portuguese King, Dom Afonso Henriques. The abbey's estates became a major feudal territory, achieving their peak economic value in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The nuns' prestige rivaled the male clergy's and even the royalty's.<sup>35</sup> By the time Joana entered the convent, during the second half of the seventeenth century, there was great internal political instability due to the Cistercian Reformation operating within the wider Tridentine context. The community changed the office of abbess from an appointment for life to a triennial one. The internal and external instability that these repeated elections caused was mentioned in Joana's text. In 1663, Joana wrote a short description of this situation [ANTT 133v].

As we can see, Joana de Jesus had a small but transdisciplinary reception. Her work has been partially studied within the hagiographical, literary, psychological, and historical fields. From all of these approaches, two questions have triggered my own research and will be developed in the following chapters. The first one is: How does Joana's changing of her name affect the writing (and construction) of her subjectivity? The second question, which emerged from Sílvio Lima's work, is: In which

<sup>32</sup> Dona Isabel de Noronha (d. 1644), Dona Sebastiana de Albuquerque (Joana's sister, d. 1688), Dona Maria de Trindade (d. 1727), Dona Micaela de Carvalho (d. 1709), Dona Antónia da Cunha de Sá (d. 1724), Dona Inês de Albuquerque (d. 1682), Ana Machado de Figueiredo (d. 1676). See Nelson Correia Borges, *Arte Monástica em Lorvão: Sombras e Realidade: Das Origens a 1737*, 198–199. See also *Livro das Preladas do Mosteiro do Lorvão*, Lisbon, ANTT, Mosteiro do Lorvão, book 309; *Memorial das Vidas e religiosas deste real Mosteiro*, Lisbon, ANTT, Mosteiro do Lorvão, book 310.

<sup>33 &</sup>quot;Vida da Venerável D. Maria das Chagas*,"* Lisbon, ANTT, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro do Lorvão, book 366.

<sup>34</sup> See in particular the work of Maria Alegria Marques: "O Cister feminino em Português: fontes e estudos," offprint of *Cistercium,* year LI, no. 217, (October-December 1999): 841–851; "As primeiras freiras de Lorvão," *Cistercium,* year L, no. 213, (October-December, 1998): 1083–1129; and her book *Estudos sobre a Ordem de Cister em Portugal* (Lisbon: Edições Colibri and Faculdade de Letras de Coimbra, 1998).

<sup>35</sup> Teresa M. S. de Castello Branco Schedel, "Estudos sobre o Lorvão-I. As Abadessas Medievais de Lorvão. Cronologia e Esboço de Identificação," in *Separata das Actas do 17o Congresso Internacional das Ciências Genealógica e Heráldica*, *Lisboa 1986*, (Lisbon: [n.d.] 1990).

way has anxiousness contributed to the wider experience of theo-eroticism and the ontological dimension of Christ?

#### **1.2. The Genre of Joana's Text**

#### 1.2.1 Vita, Life, and Spiritual (Auto)Biographies

Joana de Jesus' work connects to a Christian tradition of 'vitae' or spiritual biographies.These have beenmainly written by another person(the biographer) or,in other some, as a first-person text (autobiographies). Such texts were usually an account of a person's saintly deeds and were used as proof for purposes of posthumous canonization.<sup>36</sup> However, the classification of such texts has been a matter of debate as to whether they are indeed mere autobiographies. Their fictionalization and authorship has been put to the test by contemporary literary scholars and philosophers.

The spiritual biographies of medieval nuns and religious women began to be acknowledged as testimonies of intellectual endeavors only after the groundbreaking work of Herbert Grundmann.<sup>37</sup> He was innovative in his comparative approach to the several religious movements of the later Middle Ages, rather than focusing on just one monastic order or one heretical group. Therefore, he was able to identify the common ground between these movements and get a clearer perspective on the differences. Furthermore, his approach enabled the discovery of the considerable impact of women in these movements, whereas the traditional monastic histories usually focused on male founders.

In the 1980s, Caroline Walker Bynum continued this line of study. She gave more emphasis to women's relations with their bodies and with food, mainly stemming from socially and culturally embedded practices, whilst affording less to psychological and biological differences. Bynum argued that religious women participated in and established the grounds to analyze women's religiosity sometimes as a different and gendered experience of the Divine.<sup>38</sup>

<sup>36</sup> André Vauchez, *The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices*, [Laics au Moyen Age] trans. Daniel Ethan Bornstein, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).

<sup>37</sup> Herbert Grundmann, *Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter: Untersuchungen über die geschichtlichen Zusammenhänge zwischen der Ketzerei, den Bettelorden und der religiösen Frauenbewegung im 12.und 13.Jahrhundert und über die geschichtlichen Grundlagen der deutschen Mystik: Anhang,Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der religiösen Bewegungen im Mittelalter* (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1961). For a recent take of this subject see Cordula Whyhe, *Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View*. Routledge, 2008.

<sup>38</sup> Caroline Walker Bynum, *Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion* (New York Cambridge, Mass.: Zone Books; Distributed by the MIT Press,

Devotional literature as an academic subject opened up space for investigation wherein gendered practices, lived experiences, and theoretical enterprises could not be separated from the text and its genre. During the last three decades, several studies on autobiographical writings by religious and non-religious women in Spain, France, Italy, England, and the Spanish colonies appeared.<sup>39</sup>

In early modernity, especially after the Council of Trent, these female autobiographic texts saw great expansion. They constituted both a *confession* and a *conversion:* a confession because these texts pretended to be an account of the events one's life; a conversion because this account reveals a change, a transformation which enables the author to become the scribe of God. In this sense, it was almost the writing of the 'Divine language', which was inaccessible to the majority of people except those elected few among the most unlearned and innocent, who become privileged enough to have God's imprint upon them, as Vernet argues.<sup>40</sup> This was, of course, a *topos*, but it was the way the autobiographies were perceived and acknowledged by official institutions.

Several spiritual autobiographical writings share the aim of saintliness or imitation of God in their successive historical approaches, constituting through this practice the vestige of a theological enterprise and a (philosophical) anthropology, derived more from the authorization of the God-Man's life (and Passion) than from the

<sup>1991);</sup> Bynum, *Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Bynum, *Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages* (Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1982).

<sup>39</sup> Recently : Nieves Baranda and Anne Cruz,*The Routledge research companion to early modern Spanish women writers*. New York: Routledge, 2018. Selection of now classic scholarship.: Ronald Bedford, Lloyd Davis, and Philippa Kelly, *Early Modern English Lives: Autobiography and Self-Representation, 1500–1660,* (Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007); Laura Lunger Knoppers, *The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing* (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Electa Arenal and Stacey Schlau*, Untold Sisters: Hispanic Nuns in their own Works* (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989); Patricia Francis Cholakian, *Women and the Politics of Self-Representation in Seventeenth-Century France* (London: Associated University Press, 2000); Claire Marrone, *Female Journeys: Autobiographical Expressions by French and Italian Women* (Connecticut: Greenwood, 2000); Anita Pacheco, ed., *A Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing* (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); Alison Weber, "The Three Lives of the Vida: The Uses of Convent Autobiography," in *Women, Texts and Authority in Early Modern Spain*, ed. Marta Vicente and Luis Corteguera (Burlington: Ashgate, 2004), 107–125; K.A. Meyers, *Neither saints nor sinners: writing the lives of women in Spanish America* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). For a discussion on recent scholarship of Hispanic spiritual life-writings, see Christine M. Cloud, "Embodied authority in the spiritual autobiographies of four early modern women from Spain and Mexico" (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2006).

<sup>40</sup> F. Vernet, "Autobiographie Spirituelle," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique*, 1142–1159.

intellectual, scholastic, and humanist tradition of authoritative sources that were not readily accessible to women.<sup>41</sup> The interior experience of the self with God, the promised union through the body, made it possible for women to become authoritative and therefore also to become authors of books for which they did not want the credit themselves, as credit for the individual author overshadowed these works' godly co-authorship.<sup>42</sup> This argument contradicts the notion of autobiography that proclaims the emergence of an omnipotent subject.<sup>43</sup>

#### 1.2.2 Autohagiographies and Autodidactism

If these medieval and early modern writings are accounts of collaborative saintliness between the subjected subject and Godly grace, a movement towards this elected 'I', then Kieckhefer and Greenspan prefer the designation 'autohagiography' to describe this enterprise.<sup>44</sup> Greenspan contrasts autohagiography with autobiography because the former has a different theme: universal and spiritual truth, rather than the personal kind. For Greenspan an autohagiography cannot have direct mentions of places, times, and persons; the choice not to mention these things gives the text a character of universality. This modality of writing has been predominant among female authors. Moreover, in an autohagiography it is possible to find didactic treatises, letters, revelations, poems, confessions, sermons, 'words uttered in ecstasy

<sup>41</sup> Anneke Mulder-Bakker, *Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learning in Medieval Europe 1200–1550*, vol. 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004). For the genre of hagiography in the Protestant world, see for example Lucia Bergamasco, *"*Hagiographie et sainteté en Angleterre: aux XVIe-XVIIIe siècles," in *Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales*, 48, no. 4 (July-August, 1993), 1053–1085, accessed April 20, 2010, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27584510.

<sup>42</sup> The claim to authority through writing has been a main preoccupation in feminist scholarship. Examples include Elizabeth Avilda Petroff, *Medieval Women's Visionary Literature* (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), and Grace Jantzen, *Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism*, Cambridge Studies in Ideology and Religion 8 (Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Mirjam de Baar, "*Ik moet spreken.* Het spiritueel leiderschap van Antoinette Bourignon (1616–1680)*"* (PhD diss., University of Groningen, 2004), 53–54*,* http://irs.ub.rug. nl/ppn/264413962. For exhaustive research on this theme, see Amy Hollywood, "Feminist Studies" in *The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality*, ed. Arthur Holder (Oxford, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 363–386.

<sup>43</sup> Nicholas Paige, *Being Interior: Autobiography and the Contradiction of Modernity in Seventeenth-Century France,* New Cutural Studies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 21–64.

<sup>44</sup> Kate Greenspan, "Autohagiography," in *Women and gender in medieval Europe: an encyclopedia,* ed. by Margaret C. Schaus; *The Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages*, vol. 14 (New York: Routledge, 2006), 52–56; Kate Greenspan, "Autohagiography and Women's Spiritual Autobiographies," in *Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages*, ed. Jane Chance (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1996), 216–236; Richard Kieckhefer, *Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and their Religious Milieu* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 6.

and oral recitations'.<sup>45</sup> That being said, Greenspan defends the concept of 'autohagiography' when refering to these sorts of texts.

Joana's text can also be considered an autohagiography insofar as it contains some letters and visions written in a confessional and public tone. Nevertheless, despite its embedded mystagogy, the text is not sufficiently universalized according to Greenspan's criteria. It still mentions many of the places, times, and persons involved, contrary to Greenspan's description of what an autohagiography should be. Joana's text remains embedded in an autobiographic tone.

Likewise, Joana's endeavor could be called an autodidactic enterpriseinsofar asit contains the narrative of the self.<sup>46</sup> Supported by Michel de Certeau,Willem Frijhoff distinguishes a form of autodidactics present in the 'enlightened illiterate'.Men and women devoted to religious wording (oral or written) and speech supplied the need for an institutionalized master. They did not neglect, however, the reading of the Scriptures or certain distinguished (wise) writers. Nonetheless, this infused or instantaneous education stumbles over the different sources of knowledge as they become more authoritative.<sup>47</sup>

This being said, the more general (and contemporary) terms 'life' or 'self-writing' may easily be adopted. In a study of early modern English nuns in Carmelite convents in the Low Countries, Nicky Hallet explains the use of this term:

'Life', 'Lives' or self-writing are used in preference to 'autobiography' and 'biography' since these last two terms are generally associated with generic preconceptions that do not always apply to personal spiritual testimony. For example, notions of autobiography as a 'unified, retrospective first-person narrative [which] uniquely totalizes its subject as both author and hero' (Mascuch. 1997, 23) are inapplicable to women's devotional life-writing which often has multiple authorship, a divine rather than human focus, and does not seem to chart the progress of a personality.<sup>48</sup>

<sup>45</sup> Greenspan, "Autohagiography," 53.

<sup>46 &</sup>quot;L'autodidaxie est le grand *narratif* qui rend compte de la transformation de cette trajectoire de vie, de la traversée solitaire d'un espace qui est souvent raconté ou représenté comme un désert social ou culturel. C'est la raison même pour laquelle la plupart des expériences autodidactiques fortes dans le passé ont été conservées dans les autobiographies ou des biographies. Ce sont les traces personnalisées – fugaces certes, mais déjà inscrites dans le langage d'une culture commune – d'autant de trajectoires personnelles qui se justifient par le caractère unique qu'elles s'attribuent et qui se racontent délibérément comme réfractaires à toute répétition. L'autodidaxie ne se pense que dans la perspective du 'moi'." In Willem Frijhoff, "Autodidaxies, XVIe-XIXe siècles. Jalons pour la construction d'un objet historique in 'Autodidaxies, XVIe-XIXe siècles'," in *Histoire de l'éducation*  : Département de la recherche historique, documentaire et comparée de I.N.R.P.,No 70 (May, 1996) : 70 (May 1996) : 7, Accessed on January, 15 2014 http ://bbf.enssib.fr/consulter/03-verrier.pdf.

<sup>47</sup> Frijhoff, "Autodidaxies," 25.

<sup>48</sup> Nicky Hallet, *Lives of Spirit. English Carmelite Self-writing in the Early Modern Period* (Abingdon, Oxon: Ashgate, 2007), 1.

*Life* and *Self-writing* becomes a project that transcends a mere literary endeavor: it becomes mystical and philosophical. In Joana's case, it deals with the quest for an emerging subjectivity, insofar as this subjectivity is acquired through privileged contact with the Divinity, mediated through feminine characters such as Teresa. It is the making of this subjectivity that is seen throughout the genre of Joana's texts.

#### **1.3. Mystical Text, Mystical Subjects**

Michel de Certeau sees the 'quest for the body' in medieval mystic knowledge.<sup>49</sup> The body in question is sacramented, is hidden, is the body of Christ that became an institutional body: the Church.With the emergence of writing about interiority in the seventeenth century, when this quest for the body became a science or a methodology, the body became a corpus of re-search. Joana's self*-*writing contains her own life (information she chooses to share) and describes a life to be followed (a *Life*), an *exemplum* and an *exception* that can make Joana the leader of her community. According to this Cistercian nun and many other religious women (such as Hadewijch), writing the self and the body based on acquired visions is an expression of a mystagogical tendency that reflects a cooperative authorship with God, enabling female authority within her community.<sup>50</sup> That is apparent in Joana's project as well as in the work of those who later compiled the text into the *Copy* and made Joana's life into a *Life*, as I shall explain.

#### 1.3.1 The Preface: Life as an *Exemplum*

As mentioned in the introduction, there are two versions of Joana's narrative. The presumed autograph is included in the Lorvão collection in the National Archive Torre do Tombo in Lisbon.<sup>51</sup> A handwritten copy of this tome was made in the eighteenth century. The first preface was added, seemingly written by the Mother Superior, showing the mystagogical meaning of that reading to the community.

'E como julgo que ella vos será bem agradavel, a vós Prodigiozas Santas a dedico, e taô bem porque he justo, que [BNL 1v] que a vos se consagre a copia daquela vida, de que vos fosteis o exemplar, e eu, e todas as mais Religiozas vossas Filhas e Subditas, e Dizcipulas vos rogamos que com as vossas supplicas alcanceis do Divino Sol, nos communique as suas Luzes, para tirarmos desta

<sup>49</sup> Certeau*, The Mystic Fable*, 79.

<sup>50</sup> Veerle Fraters, "Visioenen als literaire mystagogie. Stand van zaken en nieuwe inzichten over intentie en functie van Hadewijchs Visioenen*," in Ons geestelijk erf* 73 (1999): 111–130.

<sup>51</sup> Nelson Correia Borges, following Lino de Assunção, doesn't doubt this is an autograph. See Borges, *Arte Monástica Em Lorvão: Sombras e Realidade: Das Origens a 1737*, 201–202.

bella lição o dezejado fruto, caminhando sempre pelos Suavissimos caminhos da virtude athé chegarmos a gozar da vossa bem amável companhia nessa Jerusalem Celestial.' [BNL 1r-1]

And as I think that it will be very pleasurable to you, Prodigious Saints, and also because it is just that [BNL 1v] the copy of that life, of which you were the exemplar, is consecrated to you, and I, and all other religious women, who are your daughters, subjects, and disciples, beseech you to, with your pleas, obtain from the Divine Sun the communication of his Lights, for us to take this beautiful lesson's desired fruit, always walking the most tender paths of virtue until we arrive to enjoy your well amiable company in that Celestial Jerusalem. [BNL 1r-1v]

Despite the inclusion of such a dedication as a rhetorical device, the author's own philosophical commitment remains latent. For instance, the use of such vocabulary as "copy of that life" and "exemplar" is not random. This vocabulary relates to the religious commitment of the *imitatio Christi* as "daughters, subjects, and disciples." The *imitatio* is nothing less than the exemplarism or the likeness of God considered in philosophical and theological terms.<sup>52</sup> We shall see this in the third chapter.

The manuscript's copy does not name the abbess and does not give a date that could indicate under whose authority the text of Joana was so highly esteemed. It is dedicated to the female 'Prodigious Saints' ('Santas Prodigiosas'). In the eighteenth century there was a movement to beatify the founders of the female monastery at Lorvão, the three sisters Teresa, Sancha, and Mafalda, daughters of Dona Dulce of Leon and King Dom Sancho I, the second king of Portugal, who founded the monastery between the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth. In 1211, the three princesses handed over the former Benedictine monastery to the patronage of Citeaux. The process of beatification began under the auspices of Cardinal Dom Henrique (1394–1460), but only gained definitive papal support in 1705, with Pope Clement's bull *Sollicitudo Pastoralis Offici*. <sup>53</sup> In 1713, the abbess, Dona Bernarda Menezes de Telles, ordered the women's bodies to be moved to the newly renovated abbey church of Lorvão. This happened with great ceremony in the presence of King Pedro II.<sup>54</sup> In 1793, Mafalda was beatified by Pope Pius VI. Taking Dona Bernarda Menezes de Telles' actions to promote the cult of the founders into

<sup>52</sup> T. J. Kondoleon, "Exemparism" in *New Catholic Encyclopedia,* vol. 5 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 712–714.

<sup>53</sup> Borges, *Arte Monástica em Lorvão,* 207.

<sup>54</sup> Augusto Mendes S. de C., "Mosteiro de Lorvão," in *Archivo Pittoresco,* vol. 8 (Lisbon: Castro Irmão, n.d.), 75–87.

account, it is possible to conclude that the prefatory statement could be her work, therefore affirming the need for the revalorization of the Lorvão Monastery.<sup>55</sup>

In order to be published, a Portuguese book needed both royal and ecclesial approval.<sup>56</sup> Joana's *Life* does contain a preface, issued within the Cistercian Order, at the College of the Holy Spirit or College of Saint Bernard, in Coimbra. This preface was directed to the abbot general who was also the 'Esmoler-Mor', a courtly function of ecclesiastical supervision that was always held by the Cistercian Order.<sup>57</sup> The second preface to the *Copy* is a letter dedicated to him:

Reverendissimo Padre Dom Abbade G.al Esmer mor Li com gosto repetidas vezes a admiravel vida da V.M.D. Joana de Albuquerque Religiosa do N. P. S. Bernardo em o Real Mosteyro de Lorvaô, que ella mesma escreveo por ordem dos seus comfessores, e pertende dar á luz a M. Religioza M. D. Abbadeça, e as mais Religiozas suas subditas do Real Mosteiro de Lorvaô. E com muita rezaô, pois maô hera, que huma vida taô prodigioza ficasse sepultada nas trevas do esquecimento; Saya pois á luz para com os seus resplandores animar os peccadores, illustrar os Incipientes, illuminar os Proficientes, e abrazar em incendios de Divino amor aos perfeitos. Todos segundo os varios sucessos da vida desta V.M. podem a este espelho compor, e adornar as suas vidas, seguindo o seu exemplo. [BNL 3]

Most Reverend Father Dom Abbot General Esmoler Mor I have repeatedly read with pleasure the admirable life of the Venerable Mother Dona Joana de Albuquerque, religious woman of Our Father Saint Bernard in the Royal Lorvão Monastery, written by herself, following her Confessors' orders, and that the Much Religious Mother Dona Abbess and her subjects, the other religious women of the Royal Lorvão Monastery, wish to bring to light. And most rightly so, for it would be bad that such a prodigious life should remain buried in oblivion's darkness. So may it be brought to light, in order to animate the sinner, illustrate theincipient, illuminate the proficient, and set the perfectablaze with the fire of Divine Love in its resplendency. According to the various happenings of this Venerable Mother's life, everyone can, in front of this mirror, compose and adorn their lives, following her example. [BNL 3]

Once again, a mystagogical graduation is made clear. The life of Joana, the Cistercian nun, should not be neglected in the "darkness", but "animate," "illustrate," "il-

<sup>55</sup> Borges, *Arte Monástica em Lorvão,* 468.

<sup>56</sup> Graça Almeida Rodrigues, *Breve história da censura Literária em Portugal* (Amadora: Ministério da Educação e Ciência, 1980), 11–37, acessed December 12, 2013, http://cvc.instituto-camo es.pt/bdc/eliterarios/054/bb054.pdf.

<sup>57</sup> Dom Manuel dos Santos, *Alcobaça Illustrada* (Coimbra: Officina de B. Seco Ferreyra impressor do Santo officio, 1710).

luminate" with its "resplendency" instead and "embrace" the reader "in Divine Love fires." To be an exemple and examplar is to be full of the light of knowledge and to give formation or to educate a new generation of pupils, subjects ('súbditos') of God, human subjects.The *exemplum* offers the possibility of the singular, the exceptional, and the formational: the possibility to be followed.

#### 1.3.2 Listening to and Hearing God

The philosophical notion of exemplarism and the correlative spiritual (and social) practice of the imitation of Christ are related to an inner notion of order and obedience. In the beginning of her narrative, Joana states:

Por me ajustar com as leis de obediencia que me ordenão me ocupe em escrever o processo de minha vida trato de obedecer a quem me manda, e para que tudo o que diser seija para onra e glória de nosso Deus e proveito das almas invoco o dulcisimo nome de Jesus em cujo dia dou principio a esta obra, tomando por intercesora a Virgem Maria Senhora Nossa [sic] a quem remeto todas minhas obras e acçois[...]E sendo minha vida huma guerra apreguoada contra este Deus foi Ele tão benino que [ANTT 1v] que quis premear ofensas com misiricordias, e aguora para se mostrar mais amante, permite que oculte eu as ofensas e que publique as misiricordias, as quais Ele permita que todos cantemos para sempre amen. [ANTT 1r-v]

Adjusting myself to the laws of obedience, which order me to occupy myself with the writing of my life's process, I hereby obey who commands me. And in order for everything I say to be in honor and glory of our God and for the profit of souls, I call upon the sweetest name of Jesus, on whose day I begin this work, taking as intercessor Our Lady Virgin Mary, to whom I remit all my works and actions. […] And my life being a proclaimed war against this God, He was so benign that [ANTT 1v] [He] wanted to reward offenses with mercies; and now, to show Himself even more loving, He allows me to hide the offenses and publish the mercies which, with His permission, all shall sing forever, amen. [ANTT1r-v]

When Joana began her account, she perceived herself as a vessel. In the first chapter Joana states that she was asked to occupy herself with writing the process of (her) life through the laws of obedience. The human and especially the female, as a nonauthorized subject who hides herself and her project, are behind this religious *topos*. In chapter 85, she is determined to cut up the first pages of her 'caderno' (*Notebook*), but the Lord reprimands her and makes her understand that he appreciates her first impressions and that it is his work, and not *hers* [ANTT 133r]. At the end of her autobiography, in the tenth chapter of the second book, Joana justifies herself again, saying she continued her task at the behest of her second confessor [ANTT 163r].

Writing on (the confessor's) request or serving as a vessel through which God's intent is shown are the authoritative ways women had at their disposal to voice their own beliefs. Sonja Herpoel and Alison Weber have studied the role of this 'order' in Teresa and other Spanish female mystics. Herpoel points out how these women wrote "by request." Faced with "ideological control," these women reconfigure the genre of autobiography, especially the subgenre of the prologue.<sup>58</sup> On the other hand, Alison Weber shows that there is a "rhetoric of humiliation" in Teresa's *Life* that, less than the persistence of a derogatory female imagery, shows a classical tactic of capturing the audience's benevolence.<sup>59</sup>

Both scholars, however, are looking at the problem of authorship from a literary perspective and underplay the theological and mystical aspect.<sup>60</sup> Joana, like other religious women, is mainly concerned with the mystical appeal that underpins the 'laws of obedience'. Joana listens (passively) to the call for obedience, but hears (God's words) and 'hides and publishes' the mercies she was granted.The sense of hearing is quite important in Christian faith: that was already known thanks to Paul (Romans 10:17).<sup>61</sup> It is, likewise, through the auditory sense that Joana hears the God-Man's words, which she quotes in her *Life*. The senses become the medium of human, but also divine, knowledge.<sup>62</sup> They demand an extra spiritual sense. Following the Cistercian tradition started by William of Saint Thierry, Joana also mentions the 'eyes of the soul'.<sup>63</sup> She describes it as follows:

<sup>58</sup> Sonja Herpoel, *A La Zaga De Santa Teresa: Autobiografías Por Mandato* (Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999), 220–221. See also Sonja Herpoel, "'Nosce Te Ipsum' of Schrijven Op Bevel in Spanje. Over autobiografieën van vrouwen in de Spaanse zeventiende eeuw," in *De vrouw in de Renaissance*, ed. A.-J Gelderblom and H. Hendrix (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1994), 42–57.

<sup>59</sup> Alison Weber, *Teresa of Ávila and the Rhetoric of Femininity* (New York: Princeton University Press, 1996), 42–76.

<sup>60</sup> Robert T. Petersson, "Review of Teresa of Ávila and the Rhetoric of Femininity by Alison Weber," in *Renaissance Quarterly*, vol. 44, no. 2, (summer, 1991): 357–359.

<sup>61</sup> Christopher M. Woolgar, *The Senses in Late Medieval England,* (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 65.

<sup>62</sup> E. Ann Matter, "Theories of the Passions and the Ecstasies of Late Medieval Religious Women," in Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 18 (2001), 1–17. Katharina Berger-Meister, "Mouth, Ears, Eyes: The Body in, behind and between the Lines of the Text" in *Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters: Studies on the Medieval Body in Honour of Margaret Bridges*, ed. Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 27–51; Christopher M. Woolgar, *The Senses in Late Medieval England*, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 63–84.

<sup>63</sup> William of Saint Thierry*,* Song 1, Stanza 8.9 2 in *Exposition on the Songs of Songs,* [Expositio super Cantico Canticorum] *The Works of William of St. Thierry*, vol. 2, trans. Mother C. Hart, intro. J.M. Decharet O.S.B, Cistercians Fathers 6 (Shanon: Cistercians Publications, 1970), 74.

E de repente me via ante o trono daquella devina e real Magestade, em cuja presença todas as cousas são nada e eu como a minima e imfirior de todas ellas, desfeita em minha miseria me prostava diante daquele supremo e poderoso Deos e Senhor sem me atrever a levantar os olhos d'alma, que os do corpo estavão ceguos em estas ocasiois. E o meu Senhor e dulcissimo Jesus me tomava com hum amor e caridade exciciva, e me apresentava a seu eterno padre, o qual me recibia com grande benignidade, e misericordia. [ANTT 31r]

And all of a sudden, I was seeing myself before the throne of that dive and royal Majesty, in whose presence all things are nothing. And I, as the smallest and inferior to all of them, undone in my misery, prostrated myself before that supreme and mighty Lord and God, and I did not dare to raise the soul's eyes, for the bodily ones were blind on these occasions. And my Lord, the Sweetest Jesus took me with one love and excessive charity and presented me to His Eternal Father, who received me with great benignity and mercifulness. [ANTT 31r]

What remains is what the body hears, connecting what Joana sees internally to what she has to speak (or what has to be heard by others). The revelation of the God-Man can be understood by human reason by virtue of its mysterious character, and here appears the mystery or the dogma. By hearing and being heard, even when she cannot apprehend the meaning, Joana is contributing to the re-elaboration of dogmatic discourse, which is accessible to God's chosen ones. She continues:

e era tão admiravel a noticia\*, que a minha a alma tinha de todas as verdades de nossa Santa Fé Catolica, que ainda, que eu não tivera outro conhecimento della mais, que o que ali se me dava, era bastante pera o confessar por todo o mundo,e pera dar por ella muitas mil vidas.As cousas que entendia tocantes aquelle profundo, e altissimo mistério da Santisima Trindade, não se podem dizer, porque ainda que a alma o sabe entender, não os sabe explica. [ANTT 30v]

And so admirable was the notice\* that my soul had of all the truths of our Holy Catholic faith that, even if I had had no other knowledge beyond what I was given there, these were enough to confess for all the world to give many thousands of lives for. The things I understood regarding that profound and most high mystery of the Most Holy Trinity cannot be told; because even if the soul knows how to understand it, she cannot explain it. [ANTT 30v]

See also *The Nature and Dignity of Love*, [De natura et dignitate amoris] trans. Thomas X. Davis, (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercians Publications, 1981).

Could Joana write almostin ecstasy,as she claims? In chapter 85, reflecting on earlier work, she wants to reject her youthful considerations, but God prevents her from doing this.

Em estes mesmos dias em que me sucederão as cousas que vou contando, me achei na cela de huma religiosa serva de Deos, a qual me mostrou huns apontamentos que escrevia, em que apontava algumas cousas que pasava na oração e como eu sempre duvido das minhas, em nada me parece que acerto e asim por ver que ela se facilitava comiguo, lhe li as três primeiras folhas deste livro e por emtender que ela reparava em eu diser algumas cousas por estilo mais levantado, o que eu não podera cuidar, porque totalmente me paricia que todas as minhas erão as peiores, comecei a disgostar do livro e determinei sem dizer nada ao meu comfesor, cortar aquelas folhas primeiras e escrever outras de novo e estando com este pensamento em o Coro, de repente me acudiu\* o Senhor e a Virgem Senhora Nosa e com grande poder e majestade, como que me repreendião, me diserão que não bulise\* em o livro, que tudo o que estava nele era seu e que tudo lhe agradava a eles. Com isto fiquei toda compongida e umilhada e paricia-me que em o que estava em o livro não tinha eu nada, asim como se não fora, e como isto causou em mim tão grande operação, dei conta do que pasava ao meu confesor, o qual me mandou que não bulise\* em o livro e que escrevese em ele este mesmo suceso, o que faço por lhe obedecer em tudo. [ANTT 133]

On the same day the things I am telling happened, I found myself in the cell of a religious woman, a servant of God, who showed me some notes she wrote, where she annotated some things she went through while praying, and as I always doubt my own, as it seems to me that I am never right, and as I saw that she opened herself to me, I read to her the first six pages of this book. And as I understood that she noticed that was saying something in a higher style, which I could not have cared about for it totally seemed to me that all [pages] of mine were the worst, I began to abhor the book and decided, without saying anything to my confessor, to cut those first pages and to write others anew. All of a sudden, while being with this thought in the Choir, the Lord and Our Virgin Lady succored\* me, and with great power and majesty, as if they were reprimanding me, they told me I should not work\* on the book as everything that was in it belonged to them and wholly pleased them. This made me feel very remorseful and humiliated, and it seemed to me that what was in the book was nothing except what had happened: and as this had such a great influence on me, I told what was happening to my confessor, who ordered me not to work\* on the book and to write this same happening in it, which I do because I obey him in everything. [ANTT 133].

This does not prevent this event from being a literary *topos*, but thereis also the temptation of categorizing herself within what she has heard. She systematically refuses authorship and attributes it to more saintly characters, but what happens is not pure dictation, as she does not stop describing her miseries. Here we might even talk of Bakhtin's notion of double voice, where two voices and expressions emerge from one text to express authority.<sup>64</sup>

#### 1.3.3 Beyond Senses: Time, Age, and Sensing the Future

The need that permanently potentiates and actualizes 'the hearing', in terms of both what is and has to be heard, is the project of prophecy. Ramona Wray defines prophecy as "any utterance produced by God through human agency… including hymns, general moral exhortations, scriptural exegesis, prayers, spiritual autobiographies and mystical revelations, as well as predictions."<sup>65</sup> Early modern women's voices were heard in public forums mainly due to this competence; their manifestations of Godly presence engendered prophecy as a discourse of desire.<sup>66</sup>

Like many authors before and after her, Joana was an adult woman, a forty-four year-old nun, when she began to write her life story.<sup>67</sup> However it was 11 years earlier, in 1650 on the day of the Archangel Saint Michael (September 29th), that she claimed to have had her first vision and prophecy at Lorvão, in which her journey to Lisbon and the role that Friar Vivardo would have towards that end was announced [ANTT 47v].

Joana's journey to Lisbon is presented in chapter 33, after her very succinct description of her childhood with her parents, siblings, and extended family inMioma. Knowing that God wants her to go to Lisbon – and even having traveled there already in spirit [ANTT 48v] –one year and threemonths later, shementions Cristóvão Freire de Andrade, Inquisitor in Coimbra, with whom she had had some previous contact [ANTT 92r]. Before Vivardo arrived at Lorvão, she received a letter written in Latin

<sup>64</sup> Mikhail Bakthin, "Discourse of the novel," in *The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays,* trans.by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. ed. Michael Holquist (Houston: Univ. Texas Press, 1981), 324.

<sup>65</sup> Ramona Wray, "Autobiography," in *The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing*, ed. Laura Lunger Knoppers (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 202.

<sup>66</sup> Cf. Hilary Hinds, "Prophecy and Religious Polemic," in *The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing*, 239.

<sup>67</sup> See the examples in Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, ed., *Medieval Women's Visionary Literature*, 3–59. Peter Dinzelbacher, *'Revelationes,'* Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge Occidental, vol. 57 (Turnhout : Brepols, 1991). For views on the adolescence see Willem Frijhoff, *Wegen Van Evert Willemsz: Een Hollands Weeskind Op Zoek Naar Zichzelf, 1607–1647* (Nijmegen SUN, 1995).

from Father Alberto do Amaral, asking her to write a new reformed rule for the Cistercian Order's nuns. At the end of May in 1655, Vivardo went to Lorvão and gave her some notebooks he made himself [ANTT 53r], upon which she should write the new rule, which she did on the day of the Holy Spirit.

Dipois que tive algum sosseguo em esta amorosa ância que toda me fazia perder de mim, me tornei a ver com o Padre Frei Vivardo e contada a verdade lhe <dei> notícia\* do que tinha passado na oração, elle respondeu-me que não punha dúvida em que aqueles sentimentos fosem de Deus, pelos efeitos que causavão na minha alma e loguo me deu huns cadernos feitos por sua própria mão e me disse que, dia do Espírito Santo, que era dahi a outo dias, dipois de que cumunguasse, me pusesse em oração e que tomasse a pena na mão e que escrevesse aquillo que o Senhor me ditasse e dipois de me dar esta ordem e outros muitos santos [ANTT 53r]conselhos, se partiu de Lorvão para Lisboa, o Nosso Reverendíssimo Padre Frei Vivardo, anno do Senhor de mil seis centos e sincoenta e nove, no fim de Maio. Deixando-me tão edificada, como saudoza de sua santa conversação, em cujas palavras achava minha alma grande consolação e suavidade. [ANTT 52v-53]

After I had some rest from this loving anxiousness that wholly made me lose myself, I met Father Friar Vivardo again, and with entire truth I gave him a notice\* [report] of what had happened in my prayer. He answered me that he had no doubts about those feelings being godly due to the effects they caused in my soul and soon gave me some notepads made by his own hand and told me that as we would be in the day of the Holy Spirit, eight days after that day, I should take Communion, start praying, take a pen in my hand and write whatever the Lord dictated to me. After giving me this order and much other holy [ANTT 53r] advice, Our Most Reverend Father Friar Vivardo departed from Lorvão heading to Lisbon in the year of Our Lord one thousand six hundred fifty-nine at the end of May, leaving me, as much as I missed it, so edified by his holy conversation, for in his words my soul found great consolation and suavity. [ANTT 52v-53]

When the Abbess of Celas,a Cistercianmonastery at Coimbra, died,Vivardo traveled to Coimbra. Joana describes how, on Saint Matthew's Day in 1659, he unexpectedly stopped in Lorvão and took her to Lisbon with him.

In the middle of her life, Joana describes the circumstances in which she began writing down her *Life*. In chapter 52, she marks a new beginning in the text: she says she has to write some notes because she is going to be examined by Gabriel de Avé Maria, a famous man of letters and spiritual matters, who had the particular gift of discerning spirits.

e asim mandei pelo confesor pedir ao Padre Reverendissimo, que pois sua paternidade entendia que <eu> hia tão mal emcaminhada em o caminho de minha salvação, que pelo amor de Deos lhe pedia que me buscase alguma pesoa de ispírito e letras que me emcaminhase, admitiu ele esta minha petição e mandou vir à Recoleta o Padre Frei Guabriel d'Ave Maria, pesoa de muitas letras e que tinha particular don de conhecer ispíritos. [ANTT 83v]

And thus I asked through the confessor to the Most Reverend Father, as his fatherhood thought I was being so wrongly directed in the way to my salvation, that for the love of God I asked him to find me some person of spirit and letters to direct me. He admitted this petition and sent Father Friar Gabriel de Ave Maria to the Recollect, a person of many letters and particularly gifted in discerning spirits. [ANTT 83v]

This probably happened around 1662, when she was forty-five years old, which is the date she attributes to Vivardo's letter. We have no evidence as to whether or not these 'notes' intended for Gabriel de Avé Maria are indeed those which become the *Notebook*.

The authorship in her book arrives even later, after her life and work. The first 33 chapters are written by Joana Freire de Albuquerque, but she is successively allowed to use her rightly earned author's name. Given the right to be the author of this collaborative work by God, she acquires a new name, Joana de Jesus.

entendi tãobem que era o Senhor servido me chamasse Joana de Jesus. O que na verdade posso contar do que passei neste dia he isto, mas o que entendi e senti não o posso diser, porque não cabe na esfera de entendimento umano e tão limitado como o meu. [ANTT 47v]

I also understandood that the Lord saw fit that I called myself Joana of Jesus. What I can truthfully tell about what I underwent on that day is this, but what I understood and felt I cannot tell, for it does not fit in the sphere of human understanding as limited as mine. [ANTT 47v]

In this passage Joana understands that she must be called Joana de Jesus and leave behind her secular name. The acquiring of a new name, which was quite normal within a religious setting, became a problem of authorship in the Cistercian's case. The distinction between the 'I' and the author is not only a personal or theoretical dilemma mentioned by the eighteenth-century copyist who encountered the author of this document: Joana Freire de Albuquerque did not write a self-narrative, Joana de Jesus did. The presumably original manuscript is authored in the name of Joana de Jesus ('Soror Joana de Jesus. Pera seus apontamentos'), but the *Copy* of her text, with the two prefaces intended to help its publication,is attributed to the authorship of Joana Freire de Albuquerque ('A vida da Venerável Joana Freire de Albuquerque'). Joana de Jesus symbolized the person who experienced prophecies and revelations. Joana Freire de Albuquerque was a visionary, worthy of being venerated. In the eyes of the institution, she was not a (true) interpreter of what she had seen and therefore prophesied events that did not happen, as acknowledged by the writer of the preface, as I shall now demonstrate.

*Figure 4: The first page of the Notebook.*

In an age where printed books circulated, both of Joana's manuscripts were read.<sup>68</sup> The preface to the *Copy* manuscript of Joana's work was submitted to the 'Esmoler-Mor' *–* a courtly appointment given to ecclesiastics who were responsible

<sup>68</sup> Fernando Bouza Alvarez, "Espacios del Manuscrito en la Europa Altomoderna," in *Os espaços de sociabilidade na Ibero-América (sécs XVI-XIX), Nonas Jornadas de História Ibero-Americana*, ed. Maria da Graça A. Mateus Ventura (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 2004), 189–203.

for the distribution of alms and other charitable works *–* of the Holy Spirit College (alias Saint Bernard College) in Coimbra, who aimed to propose the publication of that work. As in Luis of Granada's book on the biography of Maria da Visitação in 1583, there is a distinction between vision and revelation.<sup>69</sup> This discussion motivated the *De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione* by Pope Benedict XIV, some excerpts of which are copied into the chapter. The Cistercian writer continues this polemic by remarking upon the validity of Joana's visions, distinguishing Joana's revelations from visions to explain why some of Joana's statements were not substantiated.

Mas porque entre os muitos favores que N.V.M. Joana recebeu de seu Divino Espozo, e ella narra nestes dous Livros da Sua vida principalmente no primeiro, que escreveo na Recolleta foraô muitas vizoens, e revelaçois, das quais muitas foraô verdaderias porqe se chegaraô verifi [BNL 6] verificar, algumas falsas, pois os sucessos demonstraraô que naô heraô verdadeiras, e outras que inda naô sabemos se foraô verdadeiras ou falsas, porque a sua verdade, ou falsidade, pende de futuros contingentes que só Deus sabe. He precizo notar primeiro, que as vizoens se destinguem das revelaçoens, pois ha vizoens, que naô saô revelaçoens, e sucede, quando Deus naô explica os significados das vizoens: [...] De sorte, que a revelaçaô suppoem vizao, porem a vizaô naô chega a lograr a prorogativa de revelaçaô, senaô quando Deus communica a alma taôbem a inteligencia da mesma vizaô.' [BNL 5v-6r]

But because among the many favors our V. M. Joana received from her Divine Spouse, which she tells of in these two books of her life, especially in the first, which she wrote at the Recollect, many were the visions and the revelations, among which many were true because they came to be verified [BNL 6] and some were false, because the events were shown to be untrue, and of others we still do not know whether they were true or false, because their truthfulness or falseness depends on contingent futures that only God knows. Firstly, it is necessary to note that visions are different from revelations, for there are visions that are not revelations, and this happens when God does not explain the meaning of the visions: [...] Therefore, revelation presupposes vision, but vision does not attain to the prerogative of a revelation, except when God also conveys to the soul the understanding of that vision. [BNL 5v-6r]

<sup>69</sup> Luis de Granada, *Historia de Sor Maria de la Visitação y Sermón de las Caídas Públicas* (Barcelona, Juan Flors, 1962), 16–21.

The writer of the preface continues by introducing the notion of "future contingents."<sup>70</sup> The question appeared in the Greek dialectical context, with Diodorus Cronus (d. 284 BCE), a disciple of Euclide, belonging to the Megarian School, and was continued by Aristotle, in *De Interpretatione*. <sup>71</sup> A proposition relative to the future can be true or false: it is contingent on future happenings. Nonetheless, the author of the preface does not take the argument further, for he must have given up the concept of *truth* then. He prefers to subscribe to a scholastic definition of the difference between vision and revelation. A revelation contains in itself a true vision (given by God) and a true interpretation (proffered by humankind). In Joana's case, the problem lies in the second dimension. She lacked "intelligence" to interpret it, and thus if there was falsity in the vision; this was owing to the lack of understanding and discernment of the visionary [BNL 6r].<sup>72</sup>

The (presumably) scholastic writer continues the argument by distinguishing vision and revelation from prophecy. For revelation, a "divine communication" to one's soul needs the understanding of that same vision. The understanding of the signification is not granted to every saint: Saints Bridget (1303–1373) and Mary of Agreda (1602–1665) and even the Spanish scholastic Francisco Suárez (1548 –1617) do not concur on the events of the Crucifixion. According to the Bollandists, who are said to have written the Life of Magdalene of Pazzi (1566–1607), raptures can be supernatural and divine in substance, but the circumstances can occur in conformity with the species that are naturally acquired. For his purposes, God would leave them in the same state instead of changing them. The author continues, saying that the "more living species" conform to their own preoccupations,or toinstruction and doctrines, or even affections and passions, and thus their revelation (or explanation) proceeds less from God than from their "own preoccupied spirit with different species," quoting both Thomas Aquinas and the Scotist Nicolau de Nisse.<sup>73</sup>

<sup>70</sup> For another perspective on this, see the article by John MacFarlane, "Sea Battles, Future Contingents, and Relative Truth and Future Contingent and Relative Truth," in The Philoso phical Quarterly 53 (2003): 321–36.

<sup>71</sup> Aristotle, "De Interpretatione," chapter 9, in *Aristotle in twenty-three volumes*, The Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann, Harvard University Press, 1963). See also Peter Øhrstrøm and Per Hasle, "Future Contingents," in *The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* (summer 2011 edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed December 12, 2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/arch ives/sum2011/entries/future-contingents.

<sup>72</sup> The text cites Thomas Aquinas and Nicolau de Nise. Unfortunately it was not possible to trace the work of this last author (*Summa Theologiae,* tom. 2, opusc. 49). See also Igor Agostini, *L'Infinità di Dio. Il dibbatio da Suárez a Caterus (1597–1641)* (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 2008), 276.

<sup>73</sup> Thomas Aquinas, *Summa Theologica*, II, II, q. 179, a. 4 and the Nicolau de Nisse, tom. 2, opusc. p. 49.

The preface also mentions a difference between the prophecies. They are commutative and conditional, depending on "the merit of men" [BNL 7v]. The prophecy of Jonah did not come true because the Ninevites made penance for their sins.Thus, the author concludes, it should not "cause admiration nor diminish the reputation" [BNL 8], as Joana's prophecies of "some singular affairs" were not verified, especially those concerning her confessor, Vivardo de Vasconcellos. If her prophecies concerning her own and the foundation of a new Recollect did not come about, this only proves that those were conditional prophecies, conditioned by men, but not contingent upon godly will, as would be the case with "future contingents."

What is at stake here is something we could call the "logic of signification."<sup>74</sup> When Joana declares having heard from God that she will be the founder of a new Recollect in Santarém, something that never happened during her lifetime, she can only be a false or conditional prophet. Yet it may be a future contingent, for Joana in the future, aided by God, not as a living person but as a saint,may found a new Recollectin Santarém. In such a case, thereis still a slight correlation between the signifier (the idea of 'founder') and the signified (the concrete reality of being a founder).

The mystagogic and confessional discourse, however, does not belong to a logic of signification. It is, rather, performative and belongs to the logic of event, breaking the notion of time as present in past and present in future. An event, contrarily to a fact, may occur either in the past or in the future. There is a displacement in the event, and that is what brings sense or meaning to the fact. If Joana is aiming at writing the God-Man's words, or making use of a collaborative 'Divine language', this must contain the *Event*, the *Notice* or a divine Knowledge that is the *Notice* (see chapter 3.3). Her divine talk, being both exemplar and exceptional, transforms the truth in 'truths' – a common plural which Joana repeats throughout her account, reinforcing the singularity of one's own divinity (or subjectivity).

The publication-worthy manuscript (*Copy*) is the one that concerns the objective genitive (classificatory) life of Joana and not the subjective genitive (of origin) one. Only as object could Joana (de Albuquerque) survive. As a subject, Joana de Jesus, her own chosen genealogy, could not remain. In the second chapter of the second book, Joana sees this loss of her religious name as a punishment.

<sup>74</sup> Deleuze sees the problem of "future contingents" as a rupture in the "logic of signification." By being denotative and demonstrative and making use of the principle of non-contradiction, this logic needs some validity, a correlation between the two series: the signifier and the signified, the wording and the imaging of X. Gilles Deleuze, *Logic of Sense*, [Logique du sens] trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin Boundas (London: Continuum, 2003), 33. See also the critique of Bourdieu in Alain Badiou, "L'événement selon Deleuze," in *Logiques des mondes* (Paris: Seuil, 2006), acessed on July 14, 2012, http://www.lacan.com /baddel.htm.

Das virtudes me via tão pobre, que não avia em mim delas nem huma pequena sombra, via-me já de todo despojada do que trasia da Recoleta e disia comigo muitas veses: de tudo estou já despida\* agora, o nome de Soror Joana de Jesus nunca o deixarei senão com a vida, mas <não> pode isto ser porque até deste bem me despojarão as comtradiçois das criaturas, ou para melhor diser, meus pecados que erão merecedores destes e maiores castigos e asim os esperava sempre. [ANTT 154]

I saw myself so poor of virtues that there was not even a small shadow of them in me. I already saw myself despoiled of everything I brought from the Recollect and said often to myself that I was already stripped\* of everything, yet I will never leave the name of Soror Joana de Jesus, except along with my life, but this cannot be, for the creatures' contradictions or, better said, my sins, which have earned these and bigger punishments and as such I waited for them, will even deprived me of this good. [ANTT 154]

#### **1.4. Imitating Models**

As seen in the first chapter, concerning the acuity of the professional and family networks in promoting and blocking Joana's social and intellectual activity, by assessing and disseminating the 'name', 'honor', and 'reputation' of the Cistercians' narrative, we may encounter a wider group that allows one to be known, acknowledged, infamous, recognized, things she does not desire unless they happen in the service (or the name) of Jesus. In this sense, Joana de Jesus becomes more and more 'Jesus' – an *imitatio* that collides with identification, a nuptial union, in a genealogy that surpasses (human) history, or a true *filiatio* (sonship) that encroaches upon the whole third chapter. There is an intellectual tradition before and after Joana that develops this theme: Augustine, Teresa of Ávila, and Jeanne (or Madame) Guyon. However, in the section of this chapter, I will start first with Teresa, because she was a direct influence: Joana read Teresa and imitated her. Augustine and Guyon will be dealt with later in this chapter.

#### 1.4.1 Reading Teresa

Joana acquired her own signature mainly thanks to Teresa's intellectual spectrum.<sup>75</sup> The latter's prominence in the sixteenth century fervently inspired the religiosity

<sup>75</sup> For this research I have used the Spanish BAC Editions *Escritos de Santa Teresa I* (Madrid: BAC, 1952) and two different translations of each work: Allison Peers' translation in *The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus* [Escritos] (London: Sheed & Ward, 1946), and Kieran Kavanaugh and Otílio Rodriguez's translation of *The Interior Castle* [Moradas], The Classics

of Iberian (and Atlantic) women.<sup>76</sup> Teresa was born out of the renewal movements within the monasteries, as well as within the Catholic Reformation in general, as her work and life (and its swift recognition, as shown by the Church catapulting her beatification to only 40 years after her demise) served as a new model and *exemplum* to women throughout the Catholic world.<sup>77</sup> Contrary to the lay 'beatae,' Teresa pursued her religious life within the walls of a convent. Other reputedly holy women such as Maria do Domingo (also known as Beata de Piedrahita) and Isabel da Cruz (a mystic accused of being an Alumbrada) had been deeply admired, but their lives and preaching were likewise condemned throughout the first half of the sixteenth century.<sup>78</sup> This intellectual and spiritual environment prompts Alison Weber to speak of a 'mujercitas' (little women) theology.This epithet transmitted the search for humility and poverty but, after the Tridentine Reformation, acquired a negative connotation.<sup>79</sup>

In her book, Joana engenders her life; just as she was begotten by her blood and spiritual generation, Joana starts by presenting herself as the daughter of Christian parents, the first-born of fifteen children, and the most beloved of her father. This passage is quite similar to what Teresa has stated in her *Life* regarding her own father.<sup>80</sup> Joana asserts that her father raised her to be a nun. When she was 15, he gave

of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979); *The Book of Her Life* [Libro de Su Vida] (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008).

<sup>76</sup> Célia Maia Borges, "Santa Teresa e a espiritualidade mística: a circulação de um ideário religioso no Mundo Atlântico," accessed July 23, 2012, http://comsantateresa.org.br/website/images/textos/estudos/ideario\_teresa\_celia\_maia\_borges.pdf. See also Maria Viforcos Marinas and Rosalva Loreto López, *Histórias compartidas. Religiosidad y reclusión femenina en España, Portugal y America. Siglo XV-XIX* ([León]: Universidad de León, 2007).

<sup>77</sup> Isabelle Poutrin, *Le Voile Et La Plume,* 76–88. Poutrin, "Des 'livres extatiques' venus d'Espagne : Thérèse d'Ávila et Jeanne de la Croix, modèles de sainteté féminine," in *Confessional Sanctity (c.1550 – c. 1800)*, ed. Jürgen Beyer, Albrecht Burkardt, Fred van Lieburg and Marc Wingens (Mainz, Philipp von Zabern, 2003), 49–63. See also Elena Carrera-Marcén, *Teresa of Ávila's Autobiography: Authority, Power and the Self in Mid-Sixteenth-Century Spain* (London: Legenda, 2005); Gillian T.W. Ahlgren, *Teresa of Ávila and the Politics of Sanctity* (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).

<sup>78</sup> Jodi Bilinkoff, *The Ávila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City* (Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1989), 39–41; and Ronald E. Surtz, *Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Ávila*, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 85–103.

<sup>79</sup> Alison Weber, "Little Women: Counter-Reformation Misogyny," in *Teresa of Ávila and the Rhetoric of Femininity*, 17–41.

<sup>80 &</sup>quot;Eramos tres hermanas y nueve hermanos. Todos parecieron a sus padres, por la bondad de Dios, en ser virtuosos, si no fui yo, aunque era la más querida de mi padre." *Vida*, 1:3 ("We were three sisters and nine brothers: all of them, by the goodness of God, resembled their parents in virtue, except myself, though I was my father's favourite.") Translated by E. A.

her the Spanish Translation of the Cistercian anthology *Tratado de la Casa Interior* (*The Interior Castle*), an apocryph text attributed to Bernard of Clarvaux. <sup>81</sup>

Teresa appears here as the closest *exemplum* of religious life, an *exemplum* in both theory and practice. The *imitatio* of God was also transformed into an *imitatio* of Teresa or the sainthood, similar to other Western Christian figurations such as martyrdom, ascetism, or pure service.<sup>82</sup> This religious practice conforms to the theory of similitude, insofar as God created humans in his likeness. The saint becomes an *exemplum*, but he or she is also the model or reflection that allows the 'I' to extend into what we could call a 'modular self ': an identity that is formed by the imitation of a model or a form. To be a saint is not only to set an *exemplum* and to be bound to a species, but also to be the exception and the exceptional, which means to be separated or apart from the same species. For women, this relationship becomes even more complex. The creature's similarity with the Creator is made accessible to women's theology through a mystical experience based on a genealogy of women saints. Joana's chosen genealogy is not only of *divine* origin ('de'/of Jesus) but also female: a colloquium of love ('colloquio amoroso') between Joana, the God-Man, and the 'other woman', Teresa of Ávila. In the middle of her *Life*, Joana states:

Bem sei eu, meu amor e Senhor da minha alma, que sois vós Jesus <de> Teresa, por isso lhe fasieis tantos favores. E começando-se-me o coração a imflamar em amor, entendi do Senhor estas palavras: Tãobem sou Jesus de Joana. [ANTT 61r]

I do know well, my Love and Lord of my soul, that you are the Jesus of Teresa and that therefore grant her so many favors. And awhile my heart was beginning to inflame in love, I understood from the Lod these words: "I am also Jesus of Joana." [ANTT 61r]

In this excerpt, Joana is mimicking Ana de Saint Augustin (1555–1624), when Ana recalls in her writings her cohabitation with the female mystic of Ávila and tells how Teresa acquired her religious name:

Peers. The direct influence of Teresa is also stated by Lino de Assumpção, *As freiras do Lorvão*, 191–204.

<sup>81</sup> Possibly the de 1617 edition translated by Benito Alvarez, Monk of the Monastery of Valdeiglesias, also part of the Jorge Cardoso Library, see Tratado de la casa interior del anima, Transl. and Comment by Benito Alvarez, Madrid, Juan de La Cuenta, 1617. Check Ref. number 992, in Maria Lurdes Fernandes Correia, *A Biblioteca de Jorge Cardoso* (1669), Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2000.

<sup>82</sup> Richard Kieckhefer, "Imitators of Christ: Sainthood in the Christian Tradition," in *Sainthood: its manifestations in world religions*, ed. Richard Kieckhefer, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 1–42.

It is told that, once upon a time, while descending the stairs of the convent of la Encarnación, she came across a child. She asked him: What is your name, beautiful child? And the little boy asked her back: And you, what is your name? I am Teresa of Jesus, she said. And he said: Well, I am the Jesus of Teresa.<sup>83</sup>

The identification with Teresa also reflected a desire for a more temporal union with the God-Man. Joana's contemporary, the Portuguese-Brazilian Jesuit preacher António Vieira (1608–97) demonstrates his admiration for the spirituality of Teresa of Ávila and the importance of the name change. In a sermon on Teresa, he radicalizes the use of the genitive within the mystical betrothal:

Adam and Eve God has created, and so the sacred text continues: Masculum et feminam creavit eos, et vocavit nomen eorum Adam (Gen. 5,2) […] All that happened between Adam and Eve was a great mystery, for in the union of that matrimony God has drawn, as in an original sketch, the union that should be verified in the Church, between the betrothals of Christ with the saintly souls. Which Adam could this be but Jesus and what Eve, if not Teresa? Before this divine betrothal Teresa was Teresa of Jesus, and Teresa and Jesus, two subjects with two distinct names. Yet after Jesus gave the hand of a spouse to Teresa, the name Teresa of Jesus lost the distinction of that of and remained Teresa Jesus. The one who later was called Sara, was previously called Sarai, and God decreased her name to increase her dignity. It is likewise with Teresa of Jesus. [ Joana Serrado´s translation]<sup>84</sup>

António Vieira wanted to connect the transforming of Teresa's name to the one narrated in the Old Testament, when God renamed (female) characters such as Sara. This theological effort is akin to a textual network that concatenates different epochs and personages in the search for affiliation. The demand for a 'name', especially if this name was obtained through marriage, does not reveal an unequal human union but rather a unitive divine relationship. Every faithful woman has claimed to have

<sup>83 &</sup>quot;Cuéntase que una vez bajaba las escaleras del convento de la Encarnación y topó con un niño. Preguntó: -¿cómo te llamas niño hermoso? -Y el niño a su vez contestó: -¿Y tú, cómo te llamas? – Yo soy Teresa de Jesús – dijo ella. Y él – Pues yo soy Jesús de Teresa." In Ana de San Agustín, *Proces* (Villanueva de la Jara, 1596), a.6*.* See also *The Visionary Life of Madre Ana de San Agustín*, ed. and intr. Elizabeth Teresa Howe, Colección Támesis, Serie B: Textos, 46 (Rochester, N. Y.: Boydell & Brewer, 2004,) 6. Likewise, Germán Bleiberg, Maureen Ihrie and Janet Pérez, ed., *Dictionary of the literature of the Iberian peninsula*, vol. 1 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), 75.

<sup>84</sup> Padre Antonio Vieira*,* "Sermão de Santa Teresa e do Santíssimo Sacramento na Igreja da Encarnacão, de Lisboa concorrendo estas duas festas no domingo 19 post pentecostem, ano 1644," in *Sermões*, vol. 3 (Ministério da Cultura, Fundação Biblioteca Nacional, Departamento do Livro), accessed July 13, 2012, http://objdigital.bn.br/Acervo\_Digital/Livros\_ eletronicos/ sermoes\_vol\_iii.pdf.

such a union and, when entering the cloister, reiterated the female spousal fidelity to the God-Man.

#### 1.4.2 The Book of *Life*

Despite her reiterated discourse of humility, Joana was not illiterate. Her father,Mateus de Albuquerque, taught her alongside her brothers and sisters the Christian doctrine and the Latin language [BNL 1v]. She describes their daily prayer, the *officium* of Our Lady, of whom Mateus was a caring devotee. Every day, at dawn and at noon, the patriarch gathered all of the family together by ringing a bell at the oratory ('caza do oratorio') to pray the rosary.<sup>85</sup> Joana recalls that the servants were present while D. Mateus explained the 'divine mysteries'.

This may not have been uncommon in seventeenth-century Portugal. Rita Marquilhas,in *A Faculdade de Letras*, states that at that time, two-thirds of books in public and private collections were held for spiritual enrichment.<sup>86</sup> Several treatises written in vernacular language or common language ('lingoagem common') served as guidelines to devotional practices and confessional manuals to punish the "taste of sin."<sup>87</sup>

When Joana recalls Mateus saying that the most important asset of the inheritance ('morgado') he left to his children was the teaching of the love and fear of God, she may not be speaking only from within a religious *topos*. Her father was born into the impoverished low-nobility, which was a consequence of the Spanish Occupation, as we have seen in the introduction. All of his children, except for one daughter, went to the Benedictine and Cistercian Orders. The teaching of Christian doctrine provided them with more than 'spiritual food'.

Despite this devout background, Joana did not have Teresa's literary education, as the latter reiterates references to chivalric works and other secular readings. Joana mentions her interest in the *Summa* of Luis de Granada [ANTT 8], an author who was well representedin the library of Lorvão.<sup>88</sup> Joana and her fellow religious women also

<sup>85</sup> One example of a Rosary held at the Library of Monastery of Lorvão is Nicolau Diaz, *Rosairo da Gloriosa Virgem Nossa Senhora* (Lisbon: Pedro Crasbeeck, 1616).

<sup>86</sup> Rita Marquilhas, *A Faculdade Das Letras: Leitura e Escrita Em Portugal no Século XVII* (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2000).

<sup>87</sup> Ângela Almeida, *O gosto do pecado. Casamento e sexualidade nos Manuais de Confessores dos séculos XVI e XVII* (Lisbon: Rocco, 1994), 57–72.

<sup>88</sup> The Monastery of Lorvão collection in the National Library includes the 1584 edition of the *Memorial of Christian Life,* a bibliography of Luis de Granada written as a 'romance' and published by Jeronimo Gomes in 1594, and the translation by Luis de Granada of *Spiritual Ladder* by St Ivan Climacus.

devoted themselves to collective reading and meditation on the Passion of Christ, in the Benedictine tradition of 'Lectio divina'.<sup>89</sup>

Custumavão algumas religiosas deste santo convento de Lorvão rezarem o rosario da Virgem Maria, minha Senhora, para o que se ajuntavão em o capitollo ou no coro em alguma ora [ANTT 24v] que lhe fiquasse livre dos actos reguallares. E como eu em cousas dos serviço de meu Senhor nunqua fui a primeira não me ajuntava com as mais para resar o rosario. E um dia detrimineime em ir ao capitollo para ver o modo com que resavão, e loguo em huma riligiosa que lia por hum livro as consideraçois de cada misterio, começou a primeira me fui recolhendo ao imtirior com grande suavidade que apenas podia pronunciar as palavras da Ave Maria. E asim com aquelle sosseguo estive em companhia das mais ate se acabar o ultimo terço, e como me satisfes muito a devoção com que todas asistirão aquella santa obra, desejava de as acompanhar daquelle dia em diante, mas comecei a reparar se poderia ir ao rosario, e mais ter a oração que custumava, sem me ocupar o tempo em que avia de asistir em o coro. E indo dali para a oração com estes temores acertei, de <me> recolher em huma capela do orto, que tem todos os pasos da paixão de meu Senhor. [ ANTT 24r-v]

Some religious women of this Holy Convent at Lorvão used to pray the rosary of my Lady the Virgin Mary, so they gathered themselves at the Chapter room or at the Choir, during some hour [ANTT 24v] that was free from their regular acts. And as I was never the first in things done in service of my Lord, I did not join the others to pray the rosary. And one day I decided to go to the Chapter, to see how they prayed, and soon after a religious woman who was reading the considerations of each mystery in a book read the first, I started recollecting myself to the interior, with a great suavity, only being able to pronounce Ave Maria's words. And so, with that quietness, I was in the company of the others until the last Rosary prayer was finished, and as the devotion with which they all assisted that holy work much satisfied me, from that day onwards I yearned to accompany them, but I started to notice whether or not I could go to the rosary and have that prayer to which I was so accustomed, without occupying the time in which I had to assist at the choir. And going from there to the prayer in such fears, I ended up recollecting myself in a 'capela do orto', which has all the stances of my Lord's Passion. [ANTT 24r-v]

<sup>89</sup> See also Columba Stewart, *Prayer and community: the Benedictine tradition* (London: DLT, 1998) and "Prayer among the Benedictine," in *A History of Prayer. From the First to the Fifteenth Centuries*, ed. Roy Hammerling (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 201–221.

In this passage, Joana acknowledges the devotion to certain places where she and other religious women meditate on the Passion of Christ, a chapel belonging to the cloister of Lorvão.<sup>90</sup>

Joana, however, shows a need for a more personal guidance and a more spiritual reading when she describes the search for a certain book, popular among her community, which she did not have access to [ANTT 11v]. Without (many) books to read, she turns to reading the God-Man as a book:

Com esta presença de meu Senhor andava sempre recolhida e asim como crecião as mercês que o Senhor me fasia cricião em mim os deseijos de o Servir e como era tão imperfeita deseja<va> de conhecer alguma pesoa de vida espiritual que me aconselhasse em o que avia de fazer, deseijava tão bem hum livro que me guabavão muito que era de grande utillidade para quem tinha oração. E estando [ANTT 12v] hum dia recolhida do modo que tenho dito me deu o meu Senhor a entender que não desejasse outro livro mais que a elle, que era o verdadeiro livro da vida, e verdadeiro caminho, e a verdadeira verdade. E como as palavras do Senhor são o mesmo que obras, deste dia endiante o de mais das veses que me recolhia em oração se me representava este Senhor em o imtirior de minha alma, e alli estando as potencias para-das obedecendo aquelle a quem os mares e ventos obedecem por huma noticia admiravel me ensinava as verdades que se não podem aprender se não aos pés daquelle divino mestre. Humas vezes se me representava em os pasos de sua paixão sacratisima tão ferido, e lastimado dos açoutes, cravos, e espinhos como das ofensas e emgratidão como que lhe erão paguas estas finitas de seu amor e como eu tinha sido a mais emgrata de todas as criaturas, e<ra> tão dillicada a dor que em minha alma sentia que parece me levava as entranhas. Outras veses prostrada ante aqueles divinos pes dava-me licença para que huma e muitas veses lhos beijasse, e era tão admiravel a fermusura daquelle Senhor tão grandes os tesouros e riquesas que alli se me discubrião que de todo me perdia de mim e ficava como louca com tão grandes impitos de amor que não sabia aonde me fosse e desejava de dar voses e pedir a todos que não guastassem o tempo em louquices e [ANTT 12v] e passatempos mundanos, que se aproveitassem emquanto tinhão vida e a guastasem em servir e amar a hum Senhor tão digno de ser amado. E como via que erão poucos os que conhecião estas verdades rasguava-se-me o coração de dor por <ver> tão desconhecido em mundo hum bem que so ouvera de ser amado. [ANTT 11v-12v]

With that presence of my Lord I was always recollected and, as the graces the Lord granted me grew, so grew in me the desires of Serving him, and as I was so imperfect, I wished to know some person of spiritual life who would advise me about what I should do. I likewise desired a book that had been

<sup>90</sup> Borges, *Arte Monástica*, 186.

praised to me as being greatly useful for whoever had to pray. And one day, being [ANTT 12v] recollected in the way I have been telling, my Lord made me understand that I should not desire another book more than Him, who was the true book of life, the true way and the true truth. And as the words of God are the same as [His] works, from this day onwards, on most occasions I recollected myself in prayer, this Lord would present Himself to me inside my soul, and there, the potencies being still, obeying Him whom the seas and winds obey, through an admirable notice He taught me the truths that cannot be learned, except at that Divine Master's feet. Sometimes he presented Himself to me as in those steps of His most sacred passion, so wounded and sorrowed by beatings, nails, and thorns, as by offenses and ungratefulness with which his love's offenses were paid. As I had been most ungrateful of all creatures, the pain felt by my soul was so delicate that it seemed to remove my innards. Other times, as I lay prostrate at those Divine feet, he would allow me to kiss them once and many times more. And that Lord's beauty was so admirable, the treasures and richesses that were uncovered to me there were so great, that I utterly lost myself and became like a madwoman, with such great thrusts of love that I did not know where I was headed. I desired to shout and ask everyone to waste not their time in follies [ANTT 12v] and worldly pastimes, to use the opportunity while they were alive and dedicate themselves to serve and love a Lord so worthy of it. And as I saw that those who knew these truths were few, my heart was torn by pain for seeing a good, that only ought to be loved, so unknown by the world. [ANTT12 r-v]

In the beginning of Joana's account, God is described as hands and a big mouth, from which his Word created the world [ANTT 1r]. Humankind has failed to enjoy the royal food at God's table. On the other hand, with the act of reading words that are far from human, Joana remains at his table, because God "presented Himself to her" in the interior of her soul. She accepts the

gift of tasting God, of kissing God's feet and body. She can take part in this presentation – which God, with her own acceptance, gave her – with her body, after all potencies have achieved a state of deep quietness. The union in this act is possible because Joana can finally read God's works and words. She reads his lips, as God is a mouth from which the world is exhaled. God is the Word's mouth. He is the 'Book of Life', a book ready to be read. Her reading is her interpretation, her reformulation of the dogma.

Reading triggers more than the personal relationship with the object that is to be read. It contains the audience to whom someone reads. The Dutch medievalist Anneke Mulder-Bakker proposes another meaning of this term. 'Book of Life' could be the cooperation between God and woman's 'Divine language'. It establishes a true written relationship between the human 'I' before and toward God in her community.

The book of life is a term that encompasses all of those new discoveries and captures the life experiences of medieval men and women, as well as the written books that articulated them. The book of life operates from a perspective of producing a general religious account of one's life before God and one's fellow human beings and points toward the pivotal role of experience within that relationship.<sup>91</sup>

Joana also reads the God-Man as a book seen in their dialogues. As will be shown, throughout Joana's 'situations of anxiousness' the God-Man communicates with her through the Bible read in the Breviary.<sup>92</sup>Joana's favorites are the Psalms, the prophet David, the Song of Songs, and the Gospels of Matthew and John. From there she draws her own exegesis, mainly acquired through reading and singing hymns and missal antiphons.

Finally, reading is the primordial work of the relationship of the Divinity with humankind. The subject and object, which are constituted upon her self-writing, are an active work of Joana de Jesus.While she develops the genre of life, she stamps her authority on her own self-writing.<sup>93</sup> Yet she also thinks about her readers. She acknowledges knowing more things, but does not give an account of them, lest her book become too long [ANTT 177r]. The fulcrum of her mystical reading of the God-Man lies between the passivity and activity engendered by the Word.

#### **1.5. Writing the Self: Corpus, Body, and Subjectivity in Joana's Narrative**

In chapter 22, Joana evokes Songs of Songs 2:4:

E asim estando em oração em presença deste amante Deus, me paricia que estava elle dispidindo de sim huns incendidos raios de seu purisimo e divino amor, os quais me ferião com tanta veemencia, que me sentia abrasar, e dipois de estar desfeita em nada, tornava a renacer de novo em as chamas daquelle mesmo amor, o qual me fasia unir tanto a meu Deus, que me fasia a mesma cousa com elle, e dipois de me perder de mim, me paricia que me tomava a coroção e o levava consiguo, e ficando eu em hum desmaio de amor suavisimo

<sup>91</sup> Anneke Mulder-Bakker and Liz Herbert McAvoy, *Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing: Reading the Book of Life* (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 18.

<sup>92</sup> An example of an eighteenth-century Cistercians Breviary held at Lorvão was *Breviarium Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis,* (Lisbon: Typ. Francisci A'Sylva, 1744).

<sup>93</sup> See, for instance, this re-elaboration in Bourignon and von Schurmann. Mirjam de Baar, "Gender, genre and authority in seventeenth-century religious writing: Anna Maria van Schurman and Antoinette Bourignon as contrasting examples," in *A place of their own. Women writers and their social environment 1450–1650. Medieval to Early Modern Culture,* ed. Anne Bollmann (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2010), 135–156.

dessacordada\* de mim me achava muitas veses em huma rigião mui difrente desta, aonde me mitião em huma casa, e davão-me a entender, que era huma adegua de vinho, do qual me davão a beber, e era elle tão supirior que quanto mais delle bebia, mais me crecia a sede, e ao mesmo passo crecia aquelle imcendio de amor com tanto impito que se me dava a entender que estava louca, e frenetica de amor, e asim ficava com as potencias tão enogenadas\* que não sabia o que disia. Outras veses em esta mesma casa me davão a ber aseite e paricia-me que me ungião com hum olleo que me cercava de fortalesa, como que me sinalavão para cousas grandes, e de todos estes sentimentos era grande a umildade com que ficava, e conhicimento proprio, e esta ripitição que fasia de dar o coração a meu Senhor era muitas veses e se em alguma ocasião eu quiria dispor algua cousa, em que empasse o coração, e inda que fosse de pouco tomo e sem advirtir em o que fasia elle me lembrava que eu não tinha ja com coração, e esta advirtencia que meu Senhor me fasia, cau [ANTT 28v] causava em mim hum sentimento de amor tão dilicado, que me roubava os sentidos. [ANTT28r-v]

And thus, praying in the presence of this loving God, it seemed to me He was sending out some fiery rays of His pure and Divine love, which hurt me so violently that I felt myself burn. After being reduced to nothingness, I would be born anew in the flames of that same love, which united me so with my God that it made me the same thing as Him. After losing myself, it seemed to me He took my heart with Him, while I stayed in a faint of most soft love. Unawake\* I often found myself in a quite different region where I was put in a house and made to understand that it was a wine cellar, whose produce I was given to drink was so superior that, the more I drank, the more the Thirst grew. And at the same time the fire of love also grew so impetuously that it made me aware that I was mad and frantic with love and thus I stayed with my potencies deceived, so I did not know what I said. Other times, in this same house, I was given olive oil to drink and it seemed to me that I was being anointed with an oil that surrounded me with strength. It was as if I was marked to great things, and among all these feelings, great were the humility and self-knowledge that I got. And this repetition that I made of giving my Heart to my Lord happened many times. And if in any occasion I wanted to order something contained by the Heart, even if of scarce importance, without minding what I was doing, He reminded me that I did not have a heart anymore. This warning made by my Lord caused [ANTT 28v.] me a loving Feeling so delicate that it robbed me of my senses. [ANTT28r-v]

After hearing and reading God's Word, Joana could be *undone*('*desfeita'*). As shown by this text, she could be reborn in the union dance, lose herself in strange regions. She was just *unawake* ('*dessacordou'*). This negation (enacted by the prefix 'des') of awake

is not only the antonym of waking, as it also the means going or falling asleep.<sup>94</sup> It is almost like a conscious entrance into a vigil, into a waking sleep. However, Joana enters it rather than falling into it.When she says that God took her heart away from her, which is a *topos*, she is also using the etymological play on the heart within 'desacordar' ('cor' is the Latin noun for 'heart').<sup>95</sup> We could say that she was heartless because her heart was with him. She was not in accord, which perhaps shows God's only activity in the project.<sup>96</sup> In this union, in this strange region, on this strange house, inside a hidden cellar with a thirst-making wine, Joana places herself within the scriptural world (the Song of Songs) as her heart opens integrally to this journey. The writing (of her life) also turns out to be the mapping of an unspeakable journey, a way in which she grasps new knowledge of her ending with each step forward. If this is a conscious tracking of the self, as modernity proposes, then the role of the somewhat conscious unconscious that lies beneath her un-awakening ('desacordar') is no less residual.<sup>97</sup> The axis of this contradiction is the mystical endeavor that constitutes the writing of the self.

#### 1.5.1 Waking, Rebirth, Becoming

Joana's notion of subjectivity is expressed through her authorship, which is embodied in Joana's *work* (considered as a researchable *corpus*), achieved with the collaboration of God, and it fuses with her *life* (seen as a *body* that looks for transcendence).<sup>98</sup> We may speak of an embodied subjectivity because Joana deals with an 'I' that is engendered in collaboration with the Divine Incarnation and which insufflates the Word in her. It is possible to ascertain here an early modern subjectivity that challenges notions of subject, agent, author. Joana's notion of subjectivity, however, does

<sup>94</sup> Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v., "awake, v.," accessed September 19, 2012, http://ww w.oed.com/view/Entry/13864?rskey=4CmUl9&result=2&isAdvanced=false.

<sup>95</sup> Rafael Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino [...] autorizado com exemplos dos melhores escritores portuguezes, e latinos [...]*, 8 vols. (Coimbra, Collegio das artes da Companhia de Jesus, 1712–21), s.v. "acordar," 1:98, acessed September 19, 2012 http://www.brasiliana.usp.br/pt-b r/dicionario/1.

<sup>96</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino,* s.v. "desacordar," 3:82.

<sup>97</sup> Lloyd Davis "Critical Debates and Early Modern Autobiography," in *Early Modern Autobiography*, ed. Ronald Bedford, Lloyd Davis and Philippa Kelly, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 23–28. On the role of the unconscious in the Renaissance, see the work of Stephen Greenblatt, in particular, *Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Compare, for instance, with the self's breakthrough as seen by Charles Taylor, *Sources of the self: the making of the modern identity* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), part 3.

<sup>98</sup> See Heather Walton, introduction to *Self/same/other: Re-Visioning the Subject in Literature and Theology*, ed. Heather Walton and Andrew Hass (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 10–19.

not belong entirely to the philosophical seventeenth-century debate, where notions such as substance, individuum, and person are dealth with separately from a religious mystical experience.<sup>99</sup> However, still concentrating merely on her text, we might start talking already of an embodied subjectivity, a self and an other that are disguised throughout her writing.

She and her written 'self ' are the source, the trajectory of her writing: work and Word are united in her creation. The self here is the object and subject of writing: a body of work, the spirit of a soul that is materialized by writing.

Joana de Jesus, as such, does not write a *vita* or a *Life*. These are the dead genres, the dead word which the copyist and the institution have chosen to describe Joana's work.The copy is titled *Vita da Veneravel Soror Madre Joana de Albuquerque*, but the presumable autograph, the book that bears her signature, is named *Soror Joana de Jesus*. *Pera Seus Apontamentos*. The title's mutation reveals the transformation of the genre from the author to the copyist. Likewise, it shows the problem of the text as an *opus*. Joana makes clear that, more than a *Life* or a *Book*, this is a *Notebook*.

Joana describes the making of her *Notebook* with these words:

Tanto que eu soube que este Padre avia de vir a falar-me, fis hum apontamento\* de tudo <o> que tinha pasado em o discurso de minha [ANTT 84] vida e asim de meus grandes pecados, como de todas as mercês que o Senhor me tinha feito e modo de oração que tinha com todas as circunstâncias e sucesos que neste livro deixo referido, lhe dei inteira conta desejando de lhe poder mostrar aos olhos o mesmo coração, para que ele conhecese a verdade e me aplicase o remédio que era necesario para minha salvação e mais agradar a meu Senhor, que era todo o meu desvelo\*, porque o verdadeiro amor só se empenha em contentar a quem ama e não se lembra de imtereses próprios. [ANTT 84]

When I knew that this Father [Gabriel de Avé Maria] would be coming to speak with me, I made a note\* of all that had happened in the course of my [ANTT 84] life: and also, of my great sins, all the graces the Lord had granted me and the mode of prayer I had, with all the circumstances and the successes that I leave mentioned in this book to give him full account of, wishing to be able to show to [his] eyes the same heart, and that he may know the truth and would apply the remedy necessary to my salvation and to please my Lord more, who was all my effort\*, because the true love only pledges to content the one it loves and does not remember its own interests. [ANTT 84]

Joana only writes notes ('apontamentos'). 'Apontamento' is a derivation of the Latin 'pungere' (to prick, to pierce) and 'punctum' (a small hole made by pricking, a punc-

<sup>99</sup> Udo Thiel, *The early modern subject: self-consciousness and personal identity from Descartes to Hume* (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

ture).<sup>100</sup> It does not have the same meaning as the English word 'appointment', because it means the result of pointing *out* and not pointing *to.* This is a note pad, a scratch book, a space where she can let her thoughts be open, like small pungent perforations, like the small holes – wounds – she describes on her body, caused by apoplectic attacks that never healed completely [ANTT 13v, 155r].<sup>101</sup> These points, these minutes, these differences regarding the whole are the empty spaces where she can write her own song of union: "all the circumstances and the successes that I leave mentioned in this book." Joana's *apontamentos*, in this sense, could also fulfill the philosophical needs of a creative and dynamic element to achieve the wholeness, the system, the organism of a *life*. 102

#### 1.5.2 Augustine and Conversion

Like Teresa on a personal and direct level, (Saint) Augustine (354–430) was crucial to Joana's project of writing the self. Although the Cistercian nun does not mention him except as a saint, he is present throughout the philosophical and theological enterprise of the genre he mastered in *Confessiones* (*Confessions*). This is a work that shows Augustine's openness to the world: a kind of knowledge learned through *experientia,* through instilling humility through his sins. In his own path of conversion, he exposes his rendering of Christian dogma and Christian truths without negating their mystical component.<sup>103</sup> He unfolds the rebirth of an 'I' which is also a self: the reflection, the mirroring, and the speculation that the experience is connected to its theorization. In all these 'activities' there is the need to 'inquire'.<sup>104</sup> This inquiry is

<sup>100</sup> A. Ernout and A. Meillet, *Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Latine : Histoire des Mots*, s.v. "pungo-is-pupugi, punctum, -ere" (Paris : Klincksieck, 1951), 965.

<sup>101</sup> The image of God punctured with holes is also present in William of Saint Thierry. Amy Hollywood, ''That Glorious Slit': Irigaray and the Medieval Devotion to Christ's Side Wound,' in *Luce Irigaray and Pre-modern Culture: Thresholds of History*, ed. Elizabeth D. Harvey and Theresa Krier (New York: Routledge, 2005), 105–125.

<sup>102</sup> This parallels philosophical anthropology or philosophy of life. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the philosophical stream of 'Lebensphilosophie', which united Bergson, Dilthey, and Ortega y Gasset, also had Georg Misch as a disciple. This philosopher was the author of a *History of Autobiography*, in which he searched for the individual ('autos') in his self-historicization, a process known since Antiquity. Deeply imbued with nineteenth-century evolutionarism, Misch sees in the duration, the perception of time, and its vital force, the *becoming* rather than the being of a self. See Georg Misch, *Geschichte Der Autobiographie* (Bern: A. Francke, 1949), 113.

<sup>103</sup> Amy Hollywood, "Mysticism and Transcendence," in *Christianity in Western Europe c. 1100-c. 1500*, ed. Miri Rubin, Walter Simons, Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Amy M. Hollywood, Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 4 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 297–308.

<sup>104 &</sup>quot;Far from a text seeking 'resolution', where that is conceived as an ending, Augustine aims to produce a text showing us what it means to begin: he wants us to picture life as a way of

achieved through practice – his life experience – and the theory Augustine employs for the systematization of that same experience.

Following Platonic theories of recollection and exemplarism, Augustine points out that an idea or truth within the Divine mind has its reflection in human *truths*. 105 The plural is very important because, according to Mathewes, it marks the passage, or conversion, of the 'I' – that once belonged to the unity of the Trinity – to the self – where knowledge is obtained through rituals, sacraments, and theoretical practices.The personal search for truth is attained through living the mysteries, which is always a bodily reading of the mysteries.The notion of *dogma* recuperates the initial etymology: the Greek 'dokein', which means to seem (good), to think. This is an – inner – ethical and intellectual practice. Truth becomes just a tenet, something that is held.

It is not surprising that Joana, alluding to her communication with the God-Man, parrots the verb 'parecer' (to seem). The seventeenth-century dictionary of Bluteau demonstrates the intrinsic relationship of the Portuguese 'parecer' with the Latin 'videtur', though stating that 'parecer' implies less certainty.<sup>106</sup> 'Parecer' has two possible etymologies: it comes from 'parere' (to seem, to think, to sound like) and 'parire' (to bear, to hold, to give birth; to spawn, to produce; to procure, to acquire).This 'seeming' is not only intellectual but also sensorial: Joana says that she experiences it through higher senses. 'Parecer' (like the English word 'seem,' which in an old usage also means to conform, to fit, to conciliate<sup>107</sup>) is also associated with likeness (the same), with similitude. All these dimensions of 'parecer' – to sound, to see, to bear, to acquire, to be like – are a consequence of the exemplary – theoretical and practical – relationship inscribed in the 'truth-making' of Christian thought, which is the field of dogmatics. Over 200 repetitions of 'parecer' in Joana's book, as both verb and noun (a 'parecer' is a judgment, a report) represent a motivated action that asks for the truth. The visions and voices that were seen and heard by Joana are the substratum for an excerpt of autobiography (or autohagiographic narrative

inquiry, conceived not as a narrowly intellectual project but as a whole way of seeking God, exercized not simply in contemplative interiority but in the ecstatic communication with others in the world, framed and formed by the reading of the Scripture." C.T. Mathewes, **"**The liberation of questioning in Augustine's Confessions," *Journal of the American Academy of Religion*, 70 (2002): 543.

<sup>105</sup> Charles T. Mathewes, "Augustinian Anthropology: Interior intimo meo," *The Journal of Religious Ethics*, vol. 27, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 195–221, accessed Februrary 4, 2010, http://www .jstor.org/stable/40018228.

<sup>106</sup> Bluteau*, Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "parecer", 6: 265–68.

<sup>107</sup> Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "† seem, v.1," accessed September 19, 2012, http://w ww.oed.com/view/Entry/174811?rskey=y9KEEZ&result=3&isAdvanced=false.

in a dogmatic treatise), a genre hardly ascribed to or authored by women in the philosophical or theological canon.<sup>108</sup>

Joana begins the second part of the book without possessing the first part, which was held by her first confessor after her return to Lorvão. She describes her work as 'apontamentos' (notes), but the book includes a theological designation.

Deos de imfinita bondade e Pai de Misiri-córdia, a pecadora maior, que sustenta a ter[r]a, prostada a vosos devinos pés, vos pede socoro e misiricórdia para em tudo se ajustar com a vosa vontade devina, por man-dado de meus comfesores oije fará desasete anos, em dia do Ispirito Santo, tendo commungado comecei a escrever aquilo que o Senhor me hia ditando e neste tratado dava fiel e imteiramente notícia dos efeitos que em minha alma causava esta lus, que a meu ver me paricia me vinha do mesmo Deus, agora me orde<na> a mesma obidiência que vá continuando em escrever os sucesos de minha imperfeita vida. [ANTT 152r]

God of infinite goodness, Father of Mercy: the biggest sinner that the earth contains, prostrated at your Divine Feet, asks for succor and mercy for the world in order to adjust everything to your Divine will. Ordered by my confessors, on this day, seventeen years ago, on the day of the Holy Spirit, I, having taken Communion, began to write what the Lord was dictating to me. In this treatise I faithfully and entirely gave notice of the effects this light caused in my soul, and in my vision it seemed to me it came from the same God. Now the same obedience orders me to go on writing the events of my imperfect life. [ANTT 152r]

Joana calls her project a 'treatise' [ANTT 159v]. This classification is not without controversy. When analyzing the (auto)biographic writings of ordered and 'beatae' religious women in seventeenth-century Mexico, the literary scholar Asunción Lávrin states: "This is not a theological treatise, but rather pages of intimacy."<sup>109</sup> Liz Herbert McAvoy and Anneke Mulder-Bakker argue otherwise.<sup>110</sup> Nonetheless, as described in the first chapter, 'treatise' is also the term the Censor, presumably Francisco de Brandão, uses when he decides to interrupt Joana's narrative. This interruption will be dealt with in the last section of the next chapter.

Joana shows the conversion she continuously confronts herself with: the vow of obedience – to religion and to the Cistercian Superiors – and her commitment to

<sup>108</sup> Catherine Villanueva Gardner, introduction to *Women Philosophers: Genre and the Boundaries of Philosophy,* (Boulder: Westview Press, 2004), 1–16.

<sup>109</sup> Assunción Lavrín and Loreto López, *Monjas y Beatas: La Escritura Femenina En La Espiritualidad Barroca Novohispana Siglos XVII y XVIII* (Mexico City: Universidad de las Américas, Puebla/ Archivo General de la Nación, 2002), 6.

<sup>110</sup> Mulder-Bakker and McAvoy, *Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing*, 194.

salvation – obedience to God and, therefore, to her new self. The mysteries God reveals to her, and of which she cannot speak, as human understanding cannot grasp them, turn her voluntarily, as far as her will is God's will, towards a religious awareness, making her a collaborator regarding human truth. The treatise is not only the writing of held (*treated*) truths but also the caring (*treatment*) of the same *depositum fidei*.

#### 1.5.3 More than a Treatise: A Prayer

After hearing the 'Divine language', reading Teresa and the *Book of Life*, writing the 'holes' and taking care of truths, Joana has (the duty) to speak (the voice of God).The authority she received is also seen in her new mode of prayer. As in Augustine's *Confessions*, there is also the format of a prayer in Joana's *Life*. In chapter 24, Joana speaks of the mercies God shared with her. As they increased, something Joana viewed with growing admiration, the 'new mode of prayer' was hence the same prayer of recollection and union, but now in terms of an extreme and flying rapture.

e asim permitia este poderoso Deus dar-me outro novo modo de oração, suposto era toda huma, porque asim em aquelle mesmo recolhimento e união, em que estava com meu Senhor me paricia que elle se au-sentava, e loguo a minha alma se começava a anciar com hum impito de grande amor o qual me fasia com muita força ir arebatando o espirito com tanta veemencia que não era posivel poder lhe resistir, e paricia-me que até os cabelos da cabeça me levavão, e como eu me via ir asim, levando sem me poder valer, nem saber o para que me levavão, causa-me [ANTT 30v] isto grande temor e avia mister muito animo, e como conhecia, que não podia nadar, pedia ao meu Senhor me valesse, e deixando me toda em Suas poderosas mãos obedicia, ao que elle ordenava, e asim sentia, que aquella nuvem me hia arebatando\*, elevavão-me por hum caminho dilatadísimo, o qual em os prin-cipios que comecei a receber esta mercê me paricia dificultoso de subir, mas não me era posivel tornar atraz, nem menos podia ca-minhar com a pressa que pedia a força do ispirito que me levava, e muitas veses estan-do em este aperto me sahia ao encontro o gloriozo São Miguel, O Anjo, o qual me le-vava com mais pressa do que podia voar hum pensamento, e de repente me via em hum luguar que verdadeiramente me paricia, ser a caza de Deos, e porta do Ceu, e como esta amorosa ancia, em que minha alma se abrasava não podia admitir descanso sem achar aquelle Senhor, adonde todos os bens se emcerrão, permitia elle acudir aquelles anciosos deseijos, com que o buscava e muitas vezes se me representava com tanta fermosura, magestade e gloria que de todo me roubava\* os sentidos, e erão grandes as verdades que alli aprendia e rara humildade, com que ficava em todas as ocasiois, em que o meu Senhor me fazia estas merces [ANTT 30r-v].

And thus, this powerful God allowed me another, new, mode of prayer which was supposedly a whole one because, in that same recollection and union I was in with that Lord of mine, it seemed to me He was absent, and soon my soul began to be anxious again with an impetus of love, which forcefully wrenched my spirit with such vehemence that it was impossible to resist. It seemed to me that it was even pulling away my hair from my head. And, since I was going away, without being able to do anything, nor knowing whether I was being taken, that caused me [ANTT 30v] much fear as much heart was needed, and as I knew I could not swim, I asked my Lord if He would help me. Abandoning myself to His mighty hands, I obeyed His orders and so I felt that that cloud was wrenching\* me and taking me along an expanded path. At the beginning [when] I started receiving this new grace, it seemed difficult to ascend, but it was not possible for me to turn back anymore, much less could [I do] the path, such was the haste asked by the strength of spirit that took me. And oftentimes, being in this anguish, I would encounter the glorious Saint Michael, the Angel, who would take me even faster than a thought could fly, and suddenly I saw myself in a place that really seemed to me to be the house of God and the door of heaven. As this loving anxiousness where my soul blazed, could not allow rest if it did not find that God where all goods are contained, He eased those anxious desires which made me search for Him. Many times He represented [Himself] to me with so much beauty, Majesty and Glory, that [it] completely robbed\* the senses, and great were the truths that there I learned; the humility with which on every occasion I saw that that Lord of mine had shown these graces to me [ANTT 30r-v].

For Joana, the new mode of prayer was a flight and an entrance into heaven, for she flies with the Archangel Michael, God's favorite angel. Certeau sees in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries an "invention of a language of 'God' or 'of the angels' that would compensate for the dispersal of human languages."<sup>111</sup> Prayer as 'conversar' ('to speak', the term used by both Teresa and Joana) can be seen as an extension of the angels' language.<sup>112</sup> The value of 'speaking' resides more in its practice than in its meaning, making the construction of 'anti-Babel' possible. A language after the shattering of all languages is what Certeau calls 'anti-Babel'.<sup>113</sup> Certeau underlines the performative character that designates the supreme act: 'volo' (I want) or desire, or even the trace of a present loss. Truth or meaning is not a prerequisite of 'volo'.

<sup>111</sup> Michel de Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 175.

<sup>112</sup> See Carmen M. de la Vega, "La oración y el proceso de la liberación interior," in *Apuntes* 2, no. 3 (September 1, 1982): 60–66.

<sup>113</sup> Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 164. For the notion of Anti-Babel and violence see Henk de Vries, "Anti-Babel: The 'Mystical Postulate' in Benjamin, de Certeau and Derrida," in *MLN*, vol. 107, no. 3, German Issue (April 1992): 441–477, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904942.

"It is wanting that institutes knowing."<sup>114</sup> An intransitive wanting even erases the 'I': wanting all and wanting nothing become the same. In the wanting there is already the want that means the desire, the need, the lack, and, eventually, the loss. Certeau also mentions how important Teresa and Jeanne Guyon were for the search for prayer.

Throughout her work*,* Teresa devotes much attention to the several types of prayer.<sup>115</sup> There is recollection prayer, prayer of the quiet, and prayer of union. Teresa acknowledges the importance of both mental and vocal prayer, as we will see in the following chapter.

One of Joana's contemporaries was Madame Guyon, an extreme example of this need for a 'new mode of prayer'. Born in 1648, Jeanne Guyon was a very pious widow who devoted herself to a religious life of the kind usually lived within monastic walls. However, she was prevented from pursuing her vocation because of her wealth.<sup>116</sup> Instead she pursued prayer on her own. After gaining important friends, such as Fénelon (as well as important enemies, such as Madame de Maintenon and Bossuet), Guyon describes in her autobiography how she arrived at the new mode of prayer. This novelty was not so new: it derived from a tradition that can be traced back at least to the Beguines.<sup>117</sup> Nevertheless, the French word 'oraison' remained. Guyon herself tried throughout her work as a religious writer to show the genealogy of this true love and true prayer.<sup>118</sup> Through 'oraison' there is a total detachment of oneself and all the representations of knowledge of God.<sup>119</sup> All the mind's operations are a hindrance to perfect communication with God. There is destruction and annihilation of selfhood on the altar of God. Even discourse disappears for, in that moment, God does not have any attachment to the soul to provide words.This constituted one of many propositions condemned in 1698 by Pope Innocent XII, in the decretal *Cum*

<sup>114</sup> Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 168. See also Michel de Certeau, "Le Parler Angelique. Figures pour une poetique de la langue," in *Actes Semiotiques,* VI, 54, (1984) : 7–33.

<sup>115</sup> Teresa de Jesus, "The way of perfection," in *The Complete works of Saint Teresa*, chap. 22.

<sup>116</sup> Jeanne Guyon, *Autobiography of Madame Guyon*, [Vie de Madame Guyon, Ecrite Par Elle-Même] trans. Thomas Taylor Allen (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995,) 24, 55. See also *Jeanne Guyon: Selected writings* trans., ed. and introd. Dianne Guenin-Lelle and Ronney Mourad (New York: Paulist Press, 2012) and *Prision Writings,* trans., ed., and introd. by Dianne Guenin-Lelle and Ronney Mourad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

<sup>117</sup> Marie-Florine Bruneau, *Women Mystics Confront the Modern World: Marie De l'Incarnation (1599–1672) and Madame Guyon (1648–1717)* (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 17, 173–175, and Thérèse de Hemptinne and María Eugenia Góngora, *The Voice of Silence: Women's Literacy in a Men's Church*, vol. 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 110.

<sup>118</sup> Guyon, "Short Easy Way of Prayer," in *Autobiography of Madame Guyon*, 85–86.

<sup>119</sup> Bruneau, *Women Mystics Confront the Modern World*, 143–151.

*alias*. <sup>120</sup> Eleven years before, the papal bull *Coelestis Pastor* (November 2, 1687) had condemned Miguel Molinos for the 'prayer of the quiet'.<sup>121</sup> Although Joana was not considered a Quietist, both the old and new scholarship considered the Cistercian nun to be imbued with the same spirit.<sup>122</sup>

#### **1.6. Final Remarks on Engendering Joana's Life**

In this chapter I have aimed for an *engendering* of Joana's text: searching for the text's *genre* while constituting a dynamic notion of subjectivity. In the first place, I have presented Joana's biography, where I also paid close attention to her manuscript and its reception up to the present day. Then I discussed the genre of Joana's narrative, ranging from a traditional *vita* to a biography, autobiography, or autohagiography. Likewise, I have sought the constitution of the author and authority of the text: I have distinguished hearing from listening in the process of writing, giving emphasis to the mystical component of subjectivity. Later, I took a closer look at the preface, the introduction, and the presentation of Joana's copied version of her manuscript. The title of Joana's narrative and her signature were also seen as an important element of her project. Teresa's influence made it possible for Joana to be part of a female intellectual genealogy, in a 'divine union'. Furthermore, in her writing, Joana underwent a 'rebirth' ('desacordar') that allowed her to reacquire her own self and to begin writing not her own life but rather the *Notebook* she developed in a divine concordance. Joana's words become God's words not through her total passivity but rather in the course of her own rendering of desire through the imitating experience of the nuptial mysticism. The writing of the self is thus the basis for both a philosophical inquiry (as in Augustine) and theological treatise and the elaboration of a 'new mode of prayer', which will be continued by a tradition of mystics after her, as in the case of Guyon.<sup>123</sup>

<sup>120</sup> Heinrich Denzinger, Johann Baptist Umberg, and Clemens Bannwart, *Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum Et Declarationum De Rebus Fidei Et Morum* (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder & Co., 1932), 2340.

<sup>121</sup> Denzinger, Umberg and Bannwart, *Enchiridion Symbolorum*, 2201.

<sup>122</sup> Assunção, *As freiras do Lorvão*, 252. Pedro Villas-Boas Tavares, *Beatas, Inquisidores e Teólogos: Reacção Portuguesa a Miguel Molinos*, 202, 3 and 4. "Caminhos e Invenções da Santidade Feminina em Portugal nos Séculos XVII e XVIII: Alguns, Dados, Problemas e Sugestões," in *Via Spiritus* 3 (1996): 163–215.

<sup>123</sup> Compare, for instance, Anna Maria van Schurman (autobiography) and Antoinette Bourignon (tracts), and their success based on the choice of genres, with Mirjam de Baar "Gender, genre and authority in seventeenth-century religious writing: Anna Maria van Schurman and Antoinette Bourignon as contrasting examples*,"* in *A place of their own. Women writers and their social environment 1450–1650,* Medieval to Early Modern Culture, ed. Anne Bollman (Frankfurt : Peter Lang, 2010), 135–163.

## **CHAPTER 2 – RECOLLECTIONS IN JOANA DE JESUS: MEMORY, OBSERVANCE, AND REFUGE**

In order to understand anxiousness in Joana de Jesus, it is necessary to analyze how the author appropriates the mystical tradition to which she belongs: the *recollection* mysticism. Just like with anxiousness, Joana uses this notion quite often. Equivalent to the Spanish notion of 'recogimiento', this word derives from the Latin prefix 're' (backwards) and 'colligo' (to collect, to move).<sup>1</sup> It can be translated into English as both*withdrawal* and *recollection*. Both terms are interchangeably used in the jargon of Christian mystical tradition. However, when referring to the Spanish (and Iberian) authors, most scholars and translators prefer the Latin equivalent. Together with a singular stylistic and scholarly choice, these scholars are also showing the closer connection to its etymological roots as well as preserving its popular usage in seventeenth-century English language.

In Joana's text, the word 'recolhimento' appears 61 times as an abstract noun and 74 times as a verbal form: in the first person 'recolhi-me' ('I recollected myself ') or in the adjective participle 'recolhida' ('she is recollected'). The subject is either the 'I' or, less often the 'potencies of the soul'; in either case, the verb is reflexive,indicating the movement of the subject preparing itself for an encounter with the incarnated God. The anticipation of divine encounters involves intellectual and affective activity, a true agency of loving anxiousness. Nonetheless, 'the recollection' or 'the Recollect' is also a proper noun when ascribed to a social manifestation: it is a form of religious community, usually less formal, where people lived a devotional life and showed an observance which was usually stricter than the monastic orders.<sup>2</sup> Most of these individuals were women. In the Portuguese context, the word recollect is mainly used when referring to the Augustinian Recollects.<sup>3</sup>

<sup>1</sup> Ernout and Meillet, *Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Latine*, s.v. "lego, -is, legi, lectum," 622.

<sup>2</sup> Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "recollect, adj. and n.," accessed July 1, 2013, http:// www.oed.com/view/Entry/159681.

<sup>3</sup> Carlos Alonso, *Dicionário de História Religiosa de Portugal*, ed. Carlos Moreira Azevedo, vol. 1, s.v. "recoletos" (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2000), 27–32.

In this chapter I will show how these modes of recollection configure the mystical, the psychological, the social, and even the (geo)political contexts of Joana's thought. Firstly, after describing recollection for Joana and her traceable spiritual masters, this notion is presented as a faculty of the soul (the memory) and its relation with knowledge and love. Secondly, recollection is shown as a social practice in the wider trend of observance devotionalism, a constitutive part of the consecutive renewals Catholicism has experienced. Here, recollection is the activity Joana has chosen to pursue with reformed Cistercians in the newly founded monastery of Lisbon. Finally, the social dimension of the mystical experience is categorized through the noun, the space of refuge that women could constitute as their own state. Different communities and networks were subsumed under the notion of recollection: the familiar, the professional, and even wider textual networks.

This approach will allow us to perceive Joana's sense of recollection and its usage in verbal ('recolher-se'/to recollect), adjectival ('recolhidas'/recollected), and nominal ('recollecta', 'recolhimento'/recollection, recollect) forms. These sections show how the ways of usage are integrated into a wider '*modus loquendi'*: a way of speaking, but also a way to dwell in the language.<sup>4</sup> And it is only there that recollection can be fully comprehended in its social and gendered dimension.

#### **2.1. Recollection as Memory**

#### 2.1.1 The Spanish Mystics of Recollection

In her account, Joana mentions having read the Carmelite Teresa of Ávila and the Dominican Luis of Granada [ANTT 2, 8v]. Recollection was an important theme in both authors' works. Lorvão's monastery library contained works of this Dominican author.<sup>5</sup> However, it is impossible to ascertain whether these books were there in

<sup>4</sup> Compare with Michel de Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 76.

<sup>5</sup> Luis de Granada, *Adiciones al memorial de la vida Christiana; que compuso el Reurendo Padre Fray Luys de Granada de la Orden de Santo Domingo. En las quales se contienen dos tratados, vno de la perfeccion del amor de Dios, y otro de algunos principales mysterios de la vida de nuestro Saluador* (Madrid: Thomas de Iunta, 1594). Granada, *Libro de San Ivan Climaco, llamado Escala Espiritval / agora nuevamente romançado por el Padre Fray Luyz de Granada. – Agora nuevamente romançado por el padre Fray Luys de Granada* (Madrid: Juan de la Cuesta, a costa de Iuan de Berrilo, 1612). Luis de Granada and Jerónimo Gomes, *Tabla muy copiosa de las obras que el muy reverendo padre Fray Luis de Granada compuso en romance, que son, Guia de pecadores, Oracion y meditacion, Memorial de la vida Christiana, y Adiciones/compuesta por el R. P. F. Hieronymo Gomez de la orden de la Merced* (Madrid: Thomas Iunti, 1594).

Joana's time at Lorvão, or whether she indeed read them. Generally, his influence is easily recognizable in Portuguese spirituality.<sup>6</sup>

In his *Libro de la Oracion y Meditacion* (*Book of Meditation and Prayer*), Luis de Granada mentions the word recogimiento a few times, even though he is more concerned with testing the difference between mental and vocal prayer. According to the author, prayer itself consists of six steps: preparation, reading, meditation, thanksgiving, offering, and petition.<sup>7</sup> In *Memorial*, recogimiento is related to the sacraments: it is a moment and a feeling inherent to penance, after sorrow and contrition, which precedes the zeal one has to maintain in order to avoid sinning.<sup>8</sup> Recollection is a mental discipline: it goes beyond the realm of external senses and imaginations (images) and is necessary both before and after the sacrament taken in Communion.<sup>9</sup> To be recollected is a mark of introspection and modesty and thus the condition for mental prayer. <sup>10</sup>

In Teresa de Jesus' works, the concept of recollection was present in her three main texts: *Moradas*(*The Dwellings*), the *Camino de Perfección* (*Way of Perfection*), and in the *Vida* (*Life*). As we have seen, Joana read *The Interior Castle* when she was 15. The prayer of recollection is a solitary moment in her contact with God. Peacefulness, concentration, elevation,or consolation can be considered parallel to this stage. Recollection occurs when the potencies of the soul (understanding, will, and imagination/memory) are directed towards God, even though the nature of imagination is to be distracted and to wander. Thus recollection is not a total union but rather a momentary one. This juncture makes possible the dilation and enlargement of the soul.<sup>11</sup> It can be a rapture when it is supernatural or infused with God, but it must also be a labor that can be perfected: a habit to acquire, a method to advance, a state to be achieved andmaintained while receiving the sacraments of the Eucharist/ Communion and confession/penance. Furthermore, it is the possibility of a collo-

<sup>6</sup> Carvalho "Traditions, Life Experiences," 54–68. See also the work of Maria Idalina Resina, *Fray Luis De Granada y la Literatura de Espiritualidad en Portugal (1554–1632)* (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1988). Ana Cristina Gomes, "Frei Luís de Granada e os Círculos de Poder em Portugal: Novos Documentos," in *Revista Portuguesa de História do Livro,* Actas do Colóquio Internacional Frei Luís de Granada e o seu tempo, year 10 (2005), no. 18 (Lisbon: Távola Redonda, 2006), 41–83.

<sup>7</sup> Luis de Granada, *Libro de la Oracion y Meditacion* (Barcelona: Imprenta y librería de D. Antonio Serra, 1846).

<sup>8</sup> Luis of Granada, *Memorial of Christian Life: Containing all that a Soul Newly Converted to God Ought to do, that it may Attain the Perfection to which it Ought to Aspire*, revised and edited by F. J. L'Estrange (New York: The Catholic Publication Society, [187-?]), 167.

<sup>9</sup> Granada, *Memorial*, 215

<sup>10</sup> Granada, *Memorial*, 357

<sup>11</sup> Teresa of Ávila, *The Interior Castle* [Moradas], trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodríguez (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 4,3.

quium or conversation. In the *Way of Perfection*, Teresa exhorts her younger sisters to

[p]ay no mind, daughters, to these humilities but rather speak with Him as with a Father, a Brother, a Lord and a Spouse – and, sometimes in one way and sometimes in another, He will teach you what you must do to please Him. Do not be foolish; ask Him to let you speak to Him, and, as He is your Spouse, to treat you as His brides. Remember how important it is for you to have understood this truth – that the Lord is within us and that we should be there with Him. [...] If one prays in this way, the prayer may be only vocal, but the mind will be recollected much sooner; and this is a prayer which brings with it many blessings. It is called recollection because the soul collects together all the faculties and enters within itself to be with its God. Its Divine Master comes more speedily to teach it, and to grant it the Prayer of Quiet, than in any other way. For there, hidden within itself, it can think about the Passion and picture the Son, and offer Him to the Father, without wearying the mind by going to seek Him on Mount Calvary, or in the Garden, or at the Column.<sup>12</sup>

Here one can see how recollection is connected with the treatment or the conversation between the persons in a relationship.These relationships (Father, Son, Soul) will also lead to a Trinitarian presence of Godin the mystic.<sup>13</sup> The collection, however, is ultimately a 're-'collection, a return to the primordial state of union or quietness where the soul is not split.<sup>14</sup> With an emphasis upon the mind, Teresa insists on the mediation of images of Christ's life, as prescribed in the monastic 'lectio divina'.<sup>15</sup>

<sup>12 &</sup>quot;No os curéis, hijas, de estas humildades, sino tratad con El como padre y como con hermano y como con señor y como con esposo; a veces de una manera, a veces de otra, que El os enseñará lo que habéis de hacer para contentarle. Dejaos de ser; pedidle la palabra, que vuestro Esposo es, que os trate como a tal. […] Este modo de rezar, aunque sea vocalmente, con mucha más brevedad se recoge el entendimiento, y es oración que trae consigo muchos bienes. Llámase recogimiento, porque recoge el alma todas las potencias y se entra dentro de sí con su Dios, y viene con más brevedad a enseñarla su divino Maestro y a darla oración de quietud, que de ninguna otra manera. Porque allí metida consigo misma, puede pensar en la Pasión y representar allí al Hijo y ofrecerle al Padre y no cansar el entendimiento andándole buscando en el monte Calvario y al huerto y a la columna." Teresa de Jesus, *Way of Perfection*, trans. E. Allison Peers, chap. 28, 3–4.

<sup>13</sup> Anne Hunt, *Trinity: Insights of the mystics* (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2010), 122–143.

<sup>14</sup> Mary Margaret Anderson, "The word in me: on the prayer of union in St. Teresa of Ávila's Interior Castle," in *Harvard Theological Review* 99 (July 2006): 329–354

<sup>15</sup> Sam Anthony Morello, "Lectio Divina and the Practice of Teresian Prayer," in *Spiritual Life* (summer 1991), accessed August 8, 2011, http://discalcedcarmelites.net/docs/Lectio\_Divina\_ and\_Praxis\_of\_Teresian\_Prayer.pdf, See also E. Ann Matter "Lectio Divina," in *The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism*, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 147–156.

As she herself acknowledges in her *Life*, Teresa's sense of recollection derives directly from the work of Francisco Osuna (c. 1492– c. 1540).<sup>16</sup> In the third volume of his *Tercer Abecedario espiritual* (*The Spiritual Alphabet*), Osuna enumerates several ways through which a religious life can be accomplished when guided by biblical figures: doing penitence with Paul, meditating on the afflictions of the flesh with Solomon, assisting Martha in charity, visiting the needy and doing pilgrimage with Elisha, or even fasting with Saint John.<sup>17</sup> These could be interpreted as the way of charity or external works. Yet the Spanish mystic prefers to "advance further and imitate loftier things," made possible through the direct imitation of Christ, which is the method of recollection. Recollection is retiring to the desert and praying "secretly and spiritually" with the Father. Though humans have a mind that strays or gets off track, which hinders full communion, it is still possible to train oneself in the exercise of prayer. Osuna points out that this is not new, having had many names throughout the history of Christianity: abstinence, drawing near, enkindling, welcome, consent, the 'marrow and the fat' to burn as an offering to God, attraction, adoption, arrival of the Lord to the Soul, a 'height that rises to the soul', spiritual ascension, captivity, and rapture. While enumerating the reasons why this prayer should be called recollection, Osuna describes the different modes of this particular exercise:

[…] the devotion is called recollection because it gathers together those who practice it and, by erasing all dissension and discord, makes them of one heart and love. Not content with just this, recollection, more than any other devotion, has the known, discernible property by which someone who follows it can be greatly moved to devotion when he sees another person also recollected. […] The second reason why this devotion should be called recollection is that it gathers together the exterior person within himself; […] Third, this devotion recollects sensuality […] and places it under the jurisdiction of reason […]. The fourth way this exercise recollects us is by inviting the one who enjoys it to go off to secret places. [...] The fifth reason this exercise should be called recollection is that it calms the senses. […]; The sixth way this holy exercise recollects us in the members of our body […] Seventh, this exercise recollects virtues in the person who gives herself over the devotion […] The eighth function of this devotion is to gather together man's senses in his heart's interior where the glory of the king's daughter, meaning the Catholic soul, is found […]. The ninth thing is to recollect i the powers of the soul's highest part where the image of God is imprinted […]; it gathers God and the soul that has been greatly drawn into itself, into one.<sup>18</sup>

<sup>16</sup> Teresa of Ávila, *Life*, chap. 4, 7.

<sup>17</sup> Francisco de Osuna, *The Third Spiritual Alphabet,* [*Tercer Abecedario espiritual*] trans. and intro. Mary Giles, preface by Kieran Kavanaugh OCD (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 158–177.

<sup>18</sup> Osuna, *The Third Spiritual Alphabet*, 170–173.

The use of enumeration here is not random: it shows the progressive development of one's soul through the exercise and prayer toward God.<sup>19</sup> However, enumeration was also seen as an expenditure of memory in the medieval tradition.<sup>20</sup> The storage capacity of this faculty of the soul becomes, through the succession of images, the 'new mode of prayer' for which Teresa and Joana long. As Osuna enumerates, Teresa uses metaphors for the labor of the soul's potencies. Joana chooses the 'account' of that labor, and her act of recollection is something she (as soul) suffers, *patiates* for, and 'is given' by meditating upon the mysteries and humanity of Christ, which is possible through humility and the exercise of prayer.<sup>21</sup>

#### 2.1.2 Joana´s Recollection

Following Teresa and Luis de Granada, Joana refers to recollection in the context of preparation for the sacrament of the Eucharist. Before her description of the soul's recollection, she describes how her circle of religious women deals with Communion and its necessity:

[ANTT 98] No que toca has cumunhois sempre entendia do Senhor que se servia muito que fosem muitas veses e quando por alguma ocasião, as religiosas deixavão de cumunguar duas veses cada somana, como tinhão de custume emtendia que o Senhor se ofendia disto e tãobem emtendia que queria este Senhor, que todas se aparelhasem com verdadeira confisão e contrição e que estivesem recolhidas com ele antes e dipois de comunguarem que tudo fora disto era grande e[r]ro e mostras de pouco amor. A vinte e sinco de Maio da era de 1664, me deu huma ância e deseijo grande de dar a alma ao Senhor e ser com ele a mesma cousa e como este foguo fose crecendo, se me recolherão as potências com grande pas e suavidade e parecia-me que comunguava ispiritualmente e crecendo com isto mais o amor, se me derão a entender muitas cousas entre as quais me paricia que via hum grande nomero de gente separada em hum campo e entendia que esta gente se estava adereçando e preparando para cousas grandes do serviço do Senhor, por cujo mandado entendia que estavão ali entre as quais conheci só ao meu confessor e paricia-me que era entre todos o maior. [ANTT 98r]

<sup>19</sup> Paul Whitehill, "The 42 Names of 'Recollection': Meaning and Aesthetics in the Third Spiritual Alphabet,'" in *Mystics Quarterly* 33, no. 3–4 (09/01, 2007): 19–43. See also his monograph, *The Origins of Spanish Golden Age Mysticism: The third Spiritual Alphabet of Francisco de Osuna* (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K., 2008).

<sup>20</sup> Mary Carruthers, *The Book of Memory: A study of memory in the medieval culture* (Cambridge England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

<sup>21</sup> On the question of *patiate* see the glossary and section 3.2.

[ANTT 98] Concerning the communions, I have always taken it from the Lord that it was very useful that there were many and when, on some occasions, the religious wo-men stopped taking Communion twice per week, as they used to, I took it from the Lord that he was offended thereat. I also took it that this Lord desired that every woman was to be prepared with a true confession and contrition, and that they were to be recollected with Him before and after taking Communion. Anything outside this was a great mistake and a demonstration of little love. On the twenty-fifth of May of the year of 1664, a great anxiousness, a desire of giving my soul to the Lord and to be one with Him, came upon me. And as this fire was growing, my [soul's] potencies were recollected, with great peace and suavity. It seemed to me that I was making a spiritual communion and with the love growing with this, so many things became understandable to me. Among these it seemed to me that I was seeing a great number of people separated in a field and I understood that these people were adorning and preparing themselves for great things in the service of the Lord, by whose order I understood that they were there. Among those people, I only recognized my confessor, who seemed to me he was the greatest of all. [ANTT 98r]

From this excerpt, it is possible to infer recollection as a movement of the soul. Being split into potencies or powers, this soul had to contrive itself "in great peace and suavity." Joana does not distinguish which potencies are held by the soul. Nonetheless, by being accredited to a spiritual tradition of Neoplatonic tripartition of the soul, of which Augustine was the most influential author, the potencies alluded to could be the memory, the will, and the intellect.<sup>22</sup> Recollection would be the path for interiorization, as seen in Augustine and in the Gregorian tradition, but also the path of purification and the ultimate union of a previous dispersion.

Following Plato's *Phaedon* and its multiple interpreters, recollection was the 'sulegehstai', the concentration and reunion of the dispersed elements.<sup>23</sup> Recollection would be that primordial reunion of body and soul, which had consequently given much "peace and suavity" to Joana. This is also the most necessary preparation for the reunion with the God-Man through the sacrament of the Eucharist: the physical partaking of divinity. Thus recollection was a movement, a reunion, and, more precisely, an exercise. This is similar to what happens in the Rhine mystics' writings.<sup>24</sup> For Eckhart, the soul unites and closes itself. For Tauler, there is a gradual recollection to the interior. And for Suso (who, as stated above, was a widely

<sup>22</sup> S. J. L. Raypens, "Âme (Son fond, ses puissances et sa structure d'après les mystiques)," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique*, 1: 433–441.

<sup>23</sup> Plato, "Phaedon," in *Complete Works*, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 83a, 70a and 83b. On recollection, see Lydia Schumacher "Rethinking Recollection and Plato's Theory of Forms," *Lyceum* 11:2 (Spring 2010): 1–19.

<sup>24</sup> Herman Josef Sieben and Saturnino López Santidrian, "Recueillement," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique,* 13:247-267.

read author in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Portugal), the recollection of the soul was the ultimate goal of prayer, in order to enjoy pure contemplation and love. Likewise, Joana says in the cited passage "with the love growing […] so that many things were now understandable."

#### 2.1.2.1 Knowledge and Love

Love and knowledge are therefore the effects of recollection. But what kind of love is this? And what kind of knowledge is this? For Joana, it is knowledge of the future (as will be shown in chapter 3.3, when Joana becomes a visionary), but it is inscribed in a traditional, creative, original (directly from the sources) way: a knowledge that is beyond storage, dwelling instead in the caverns of our being, in the memory.The relationship between love and memory, or the potencies of the soul, is rooted in the Cistercian tradition.<sup>25</sup> Bernard describes three kinds of consideration: the first, practical, connected to senses; the second, scientific, related to reason; and the third, speculative, being 'colligens in se' (withdrawn in itself). <sup>26</sup> This third consideration approximates closely to recollection. William of Saint Thierry also regarded the act of recollection as a memory concern.<sup>27</sup>

In the Latin origin, to *recollect* or to *record* something is simultaneously the act of perceiving, acknowledging, and remembering it. Recollection is a memory, an intellectual process of the soul.<sup>28</sup> But, even if mnemonic, recollection is also the testimony of love. This love cannot be seen only as in Nygren's dualism of the Greek Eros and Christian Agape, as classic scholarship on love as shown.<sup>29</sup> Love and knowledge are the products of the medieval meeting of monastic and scholastic theology, but through different trajectories.<sup>30</sup> Yet the vernacular mysticism that

<sup>25</sup> Jean Leclercq, *The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. Astudy of monostic culture*, [L'amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu.] trans. Catherine Misrahi (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 77–74.

<sup>26</sup> Bernard of Clairvaux, "On Consideration," in *Selected works of Bernard of Clairvaux*, [De consideratione] trans. G.R. Evans, The classics of Western spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 150. See Sieben and Santidrian, "Recueillement," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique*, 7:251.

<sup>27</sup> William of St. Thierry, *The Works of William of St. Thierry,* trans. Sister Penelope, vol. 1, *On Contemplating God: Prayer, Meditations*, [De contemplando; Meditativae orationes] Cistercian Fathers Series, no. 3 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercians, 1977). See also Paul Verdeyen, *Willem van Saint-Thierry en Liefde. De eerste mysticus van de Lage Landen* (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2001).

<sup>28</sup> Aimé Solignac, "Memóire," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique,* 10: 991–1002.

<sup>29</sup> Anders Nygren, *Erôs et agape: la notion chrétienne de l'amour et ses transformation*,[ Eros och Agape] trans. by Pierre Jundt (Paris: Aubier, 1944).

<sup>30</sup> For recent divergent views on the debate over love and knowledge in the mystical experience, see Andrew Louth "Apophatic and Cataphatic Mysticism," in *The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism*, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)*,* 137–146, and, in the same volume, Bernard McGinn "Unio Mystica",

erupted among the urban, female, thirteenth-century agglomerates in Northern Europe crossed the two respective discourses around the knowledge arriving from love (the monastic theology) and that arriving from reason (the scholastic theology). The Beguine mystics, such as Beatrice of Nazareth and Hadewijch of Flanders, or Mechthild of Magdeburg in Germany, or even Margarite Porete of Cambrai, France, are considered by Kurt Ruh to be the earlier seeds of the national languages, because they wrote in their native languages (Dutch, German, and French, respectively) and wanted to approach a new female audience.<sup>31</sup> Notwithstanding, there is a common theme: *minne*, a love that is mainly memory.<sup>32</sup>

*Minne* as a new term for love shows a new possibility for epistemological and ontological medieval philosophy.<sup>33</sup> *Minne*is the extreme activity of the soul.<sup>34</sup> *Minne* has no subject, nor object, nor verb: it is a character that acts towards her, Lady Minne. It is notmerely the Beloved of the exegeticalmonastic tradition of the Songs of Songs.<sup>35</sup> Since she is female, *Minne* is a Lady who invites the lover to win by being conquered in her.<sup>36</sup> This brings out a different feminine state to that courtly kind in which, according to Duby, the woman becomes the lady, but does not master her own body;

<sup>200–210,</sup> respectively. See also Bernard McGinn, 'The Changing Shape of Late Medieval Mysticism," *Church History* 65, no. 2 (1996): 197–219.

<sup>31</sup> Kurt Ruh, "Beginenmystik," in *Zeitschrift für deutsche Literatur der Altertum* CV (1977): 265–77. See also his major work *Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik. Band II Frauenmystik und Franziskanischen Mystik der Frühzeit* (München: Beck, 1993).

<sup>32</sup> Etymologically, the word 'minne'*,* like the Latin word 'amor', refers to menimi, 'remember'. See E. Verwijs et al., *Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek.* 's-Gravenhage, 1885–1952 (Published in CD-Rom: *CD-Rom Middelnederlands*. (The Hague/Antwerp: SdU/Standaard Uitgeverij, 1998). See also the work of Norbert Paepe, *Grondige Studie van een middelnederlandse Auteur: Hadewijch, Strophische Gedichten* (Gent/Leuven: Wetenschappelijke Uitgeverij en Boekhandel, 1968).

<sup>33</sup> Cfr. Joana Serrado, "Minnen: Varen: Verwandelen. Amar: Experienciar: Transformar. Três Verbos Místicos em Hadewijch de Antuérpia" (master's thesis, University of Porto, 2004), http://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/53695.

<sup>34 &</sup>quot;What is *minne?* Or should we rather ask, Who is *minne*? Both questions are appropriate and show why it is virtually impossible to define *minne* in any clear and simple way, [...]. Rather than seeing confusion here, it may be more appropriate to realize that the puzzling ambiguity and richness of *minne* are a strong argument for the theological sophistication (…) For the human perspective, *minne* is both the experience of being subjected to this overwearing force and our response to it, the power of our own activity of loving that brings us to God." Bernard McGinn, "*Mulieres Religiosae*: Experiments in Female Mysticism," in *The Presence of God: A history of Western Christian Mysticis*, 170 and 207.

<sup>35</sup> Denys Turner, *Eros and allegory. Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs.* Cistercians Studies Series no, 156 (Kalamazoo: Cistercians Press, 1995).

<sup>36</sup> Barbara Newman, "La mystique courtoise: Thirteenth-Century Beguines and the Art of Love," in *From Virile Woman to woman Christ: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature*, Middle Ages Series, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 137–167.

rather, it is just a promised land the Crusader must conquer.<sup>37</sup> Moreover, *Minne* is distinct from Eros, Agape*,* Charity or even a *'*Delectatio', where there is a prevalence of images and imagination.<sup>38</sup> Its survival is a pure annihilation of the will, and that is identical to the true God and *Minne*. 39

Could this mnemetic *Minne* be present in Joana's notion of recollection? Could both a physical withdrawal and seclusion from the world and a psychological/philosophical experience be the inward movement of the soul's faculties to recognize (acknowledge) the (female) subject related to the Divine? Another technical term associated with recollection is 'suspension'. Following the tradition of Teresa and other Spanish mystics, Joana speaks often on how the potencies of the soul are suspended as they are recollected. Through being suspended, these potencies do not work or act individually, as they are annihilated in a wider union.

Suspension,*minne*, and recollection could be part of the same experience that we will later see belonging to the 'loving anxiousness' expressed by Joana. However, in her work the links are weak. As already stated in the introduction, there is a strong historiographic scholarship that ascertains the presence of Northern mysticism in Iberia, particularlyin the recollectionmystics. Yet the Northern authors weremainly Tauler, Suso, and Ruusbroec, and the books that circulated were in Latin or were Spanish translated versions inspired by these readings. These books might have indirectly brought the notion of *minne* into recollection. Nonetheless, this only illustrates the genetic transmission of knowledge during late medieval and early modern times.There are also other transmissions to be taken into consideration.One, for instance,is the development of 'mystical theology'into a 'science' of mysticism, which, according to De Certeau, occurred throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This transformation of the adjective into the substantive might also be vital in understanding Joana's notion of 'recollection' in the Christian tradition, as I will now show.

#### 2.1.2.2 Recollection and 'Mystical Theology'

According to the historical theologian Denys Turner, the use of 'mystical' as an adjective is supported by a Neoplatonic tradition that sees a dialectic strategy to speak

<sup>37</sup> Peter Dinzelbacher, ed., *Minne ist ein swaerez spil: neue Untersuchungen zum Minnesang und zur Geschichte der Liebe im Mittelalter* (Göttingen*:* Kümmerle, 1986).

<sup>38</sup> Charles Baladier, *Eros au Moyen Age – Amour, désir et «delectatio morosa»* (Paris: Cerf, 1999), chap. 5.

<sup>39</sup> See Amy Hollywood, "Reading as Self-Annihilation," in *Polemic: Critical or Uncritical*, ed. Jane Gallop (New York: Routledge, 2004), 39–64, based on her earlier study *The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart*, Studies in Spirituality and Theology, vol. 1 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1995).

about God in the negativity discourse. <sup>40</sup> In Joana's texts there is no mention of it. Contrary to Osuna's or Teresa's work, in Joana's writings there is no mention of recollection as a technical discourse, or, as Teresa states, as something belonging to the realm of 'mystical theology'.<sup>41</sup> In *The Third Spiritual Alphabet*, Osuna shows that recollection is nothing more than what Gerson understood as mystical theology – the knowledge of what is hidden, the love that must be the prayer of union.<sup>42</sup>

Francisco de Osuna mentions Jean Gerson (1363–1429) forty-one times while discussing recollection. Eulogio Pacho says that this intellectual affiliation with Gerson is probably due to the time the former spent in Flanders. It may have been there that Osuna came into contact with the work of this renowned theologian. At the time, he was believed to be the author of Thomas A. Kempis' *Imitatio Christi* (*Imitation of Christ*)*.* <sup>43</sup> Gerson's contribution to the history and historiography of mysticism is crucial to understanding a certain geographical and political movement of recollection.

Both a university theologian and a vernacular writerinmystical circles, Jean Gerson tried to define the gnoseological experience of mysticism.<sup>44</sup> Following the traditional scholastic attitude, he distinguished two different kinds of mysticism. The speculative (theoretical, even essential) mysticism written by trained theologians differed from an affective mysticism, which, preferred by the laity and by women, was often confused, emotional, ecstatic, and visionary. He argued that the latter kind diverted the spirit towards sensual experiences, which were considered to provide less knowledge of God. In his opusculum *De Mystica Theologia Speculativa*, Gerson confronts Ruusbroec (1293–1381), arguing against the dangerous affective and ecstatic proximity between the bride (Soul) and the groom (God).<sup>45</sup> A debatable and difficult separation between different modes or species of mysticism, a distinction that prevailed in the history of mystical thought, began there. The issue was not the interpretative tradition of the Song of Songs that had been present within Christian

<sup>40</sup> Denys Turner, *The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism* (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 252–273.

<sup>41</sup> Teresa of Ávila, *Life*, 10,1.

<sup>42</sup> Osuna, *The Third Spiritual Alphabet*, 161.

<sup>43</sup> Pacho, "Simiente Neerlandesa", 28–30.

<sup>44</sup> Jean Gerson, *Jean Gerson: Early Works*, trans. Brian Patrick McGuire, introd. Bernad McGinn (New York: Paulist Press, 1998); Gerson, *Selections from A Deo exivit, Contra Curiositatem Studentium and De Mystica Theologia Speculativa*, trans. Steven Ozment (Leiden: Brill, 1969). For a recent overview of scholarship on Gerson, see Brian Patrick McGuire, "Jean Gerson on lay devotion," in *A Companion to Jean Gerson,* ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2006), 41–78.

<sup>45</sup> The classic work on this polemic is Andre Combes' *Essai sur la critique de Ruysbroeck par Gerson*, 3 vols., Etudes de theologie et d'histoire de la spiritualite 4.5 (Paris : 1945–1948). For a more up-to-date version, see Jeffrey Fischer, "Gerson´s mystical theology: a new profile for its evolution," in *A companion to Jean Gerson*, 205–248.

spirituality since the Church Fathers; it was rather the visionarism and the ecstatic experience that had appeared in the vernacular literature since the thirteenth century.

Dyan Elliot, a medievalist historian, shows the difficult dual relationship Gerson had with the feminine forms of mysticism.<sup>46</sup> Elliot argues that Gerson's writings on discernment (proving the spirits) showed his unique position within the intellectual landscape of late medieval thought. On the one hand, he defended the study of mysticism, having even promoted it at the University of Paris.On the other hand, on different levels, he attacked experiential and unlearned mysticism (mostly performed by women), as demonstrated in his criticism of Ruusbroec. This simultaneous admiration of and resistance to mystical texts made Gerson question Bridget of Sweden's canonization, although he later defended the validity of Joan of Arc's political visions. As Elliot points out, Gerson defended the validation/verification and circulation of mystic texts. This should be done by specialists, by those Foucault would later call 'fellowships of discourse' – but not by 'experientes' or through 'mystical experimentation', according to Gerson.<sup>47</sup> An inquisitor (theoretically, in its less violent meaning, as in someone who asks questions) is one who would dispute the truth of certain dogmatic assumptions, even if that mystic could have, at the primordial level, a personal character (a 'self-discernment'). And self-discernment is nothing less than the activity of reason that women, due to their weaker nature, were lacking, concludes Gerson.

It is not difficult to see how discernment and self-discernment can be crucial to a notion of recollection. In his early writings, Gerson mentions recollection only a few times. In *La Montagne de contemplation* (*The Mountain of Contemplation*), a work intended for a female audience, Gerson describes the path to the practice of contemplation. Following John Chrysostom, he mentions a mental retreat from the world.<sup>48</sup> However, this retreat is also physical, because it is through the capacity of recollection that the person can have and can control his or her emotions or passions. Later on in the text, Gerson shows how the "recollection turn[s] to God and saints […] against griefs, illnesses and distresses."<sup>49</sup> This movement of the embodied soul is, ultimately, a faculty of reason and can be a path to discernment. In another work intended for a professional(male) audience,*BriefveManierede confessionpourjones gens*

<sup>46</sup> Dyan Elliot, "Seeing Double: John Gerson, the Discernment of Spirits, and Joan of Arc," in *The American Historical Review* 107, no. 1 (February 2002): 26–54. See also her study, *Proving Woman: Female Spirituality and Inquisitional Culture in the Later Middle Ages* (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

<sup>47</sup> Elliot, "Seeing Double," 35

<sup>48</sup> Jean Gerson*,* "The Mountain of Contemplation," in *Jean Gerson: Early Works,* 97.

<sup>49</sup> Gerson, "The Mountain of Contemplation," 118.

(*The Art of Hearing Confessions*)*,* Gerson states that the confessor (who is the main 'discerner') must "recollect [the] fortress or watchtower of his reason."<sup>50</sup>

Even though Joana does not mention either Gerson's work or the debate on speculative or affective mysticism, it is present in her description of recollection, including the same ecstatic and visionary effects. While the potencies of her soul mingle and are suspended in a total immersion, Joana herself receives the visionary knowledge this recollection provides. In the third chapter, I shall analyze the situations of these recollections, and, in particular, the kind of knowledge this experience provides: an anxious knowledge. If the Neoplatonic mystical tradition imbued in the negative dialectic insisted on metaphors in order to go beyond a dichotomic knowledge, as Turner asserts, the vernacular tradition to which Joana belongs sees its higher achievement in experientialism. In mystical experience there is an insistence on personal and subjective relationships with the Divine.<sup>51</sup> The knowledge obtained from the mystical experience is practical and tangible, attributing a higher importance to the devotional and social aspects of recollection. Thus, it is understandable that the mysticism in Joana, as in other early modern Iberian mystics, contains the ascetic dimension that is indebted to the Catholic renewal movements. This was mainly known as the Observance in the religious orders.

#### **2.2. Recollection as Observance**

To recollect is much more than to be enclosed in a convent: it requires a stricter and ascetic urge to fulfill the true *imitatio Christi*.The relationship between ascetism and mysticism has been the object of many different reflections. In his book *Correntes do sentimento religioso,* Silva Dias distinguishes the mystical trend from the ascetic trend that characterized Early Modern Portugal.<sup>52</sup> For this author, the movement of recollection can not only be seen as a mystical moment; it is also taken as an ascetic practice. The tendency to retreat from the world was repeatedly seen throughout Christianity: in the apostolic turns of the Mothers and Fathers of the Desert, in the Gregorian reformations in the Church, and in the preaching and mendicant

<sup>50</sup> Gerson*,* "The Art of Hearing Confessions," in *Jean Gerson: Early Works*, 365.

<sup>51</sup> Bernard McGinn, "The Language of Inner Experience in Christian Mysticism," in *Spiritus* 1 (2001): 156–171.

<sup>52</sup> Dias, *Correntes Religiosas,* 1: 36.

orders.<sup>53</sup> Some of these tendencies were considered legitimate developments, but others were disregarded and even considered to be heretical.<sup>54</sup>

For Silva Dias, the 'Devotio Moderna' was mainly an ascetic movement greatly influenced by mystical schools such as that of Ruusbroec, which marked European late medieval thought into modernity. This view, nonetheless, has been contested: the ascetic practice of retreating from the world is imbued with a mystical experience.<sup>55</sup> Recollection can be considered a mystical moment within a wider reformatorial trend that accompanied Christianity.

Within the same framework, the Protestant Reformation can also be seen as one of several renewals that Christianity endured. Likewise, the influence of Germanmysticsin Luther's thought has also been acknowledged.<sup>56</sup> However, this pietist and reformatorial action of the Northern mystics was not only felt among Protestant reformers. Many of these medieval mystical texts likewise inspired renewal movements within Catholicism in the southern countries. The need to be 'reformed' was widespread among the monastic and preaching orders, appearing in houses that wanted to be stricter andmore observant.Theoretically thisis also seen, forinstance, in the early modern return of the medieval discussion of poverty to the public sphere along with urbanization and themendicant orders.<sup>57</sup> Theidea of being reformed also included an urgent need to be recollected or in God's service. Teresa de Ávila's foundation of a new convent and her writing of the respective rule constituted a major incentive to women and men in their pursuit of a good life, which meant being devoted to God and leading a truly exemplary Christian life.

<sup>53</sup> Bernard McGinn's article on '"Withdrawal and Return: Reflections on Monastic Retreat from the World," in *Spiritus* 6 (2006): 149–172; Jean Leclercq and Jean Gribomont, "Monasticism and Asceticism," in Bernard McGinn, ed., *Christian Spirituality: Origins to the twelfth century* (London: Routledge, 1986), 86–131.

<sup>54</sup> Robert E. Lerner*, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972); Steven Ozment, *Mysticism and Dissent: Religious Ideology and Social Protest in the Sixteenth Century* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).

<sup>55</sup> On 'Devotio Moderna', see John van Engen, *Sisters and brothers of the common life: the Devotio Moderna and the world of the later Middle* Ages (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 11–44.

<sup>56</sup> Steven E. Ozment, *Homo Spiritualis. A Comparative Study of the Anthropology of Johannes Tauler, Jean Gerson and Martin Luther (1509–16) in the Context of their Theological Thought*, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, vol. 6 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969).

<sup>57</sup> Bronislaw Geremek, *La potence ou la pieté : L'Europe et les pauvres du Moyen Âge à nos jours* (Paris : Gallimard, 1987), 51–71.

#### 2.2.1 The Cistercians and the Reformational Movements

Contrary to the monastic or preaching orders, the Cistercian Order did not incentivize many reformations.<sup>58</sup> The major reformation occurred in 1662, with the foundation of the Trappists, who were Cistercians of a stricter observance.<sup>59</sup> In Portugal, however, the situation was different. In 1459, Pius II exempted the Portuguese abbots from participating in the general chapter in France, contributing to an increasing independence of the Portuguese houses from the Cistercian mother abbey.<sup>60</sup> Concurrently, the number of national visitations multiplied. For instance, in the abbey of Lorvão, the visitation of 1536 reveals a set of instructions that put the power of the Eça family within the abbey's walls at stake.<sup>61</sup> Even so, during the seventeenth century, new reformed houses were also founded.<sup>62</sup> These were interchangeably called monasteries, convents, or even recollects.

Joana de Jesus bears witness to this reformatorial trend in her vita. After having heard that the Cistercian Order had founded a stricter house (the Recollect) in Lisbon, she immediately felt the need to participate in this movement:

[ANTT 47] Alguns meses dipois de se fundar em Lisboa a Recoleta de Nosa Senhora de Nazaré, da Ordem de Nosso patriarca e pai São Bernardo, foi o Senhor servido <de> me dar huns acesos deseijos de o servir, por hum modo tão ansioso e com hum sentimento tão dilicado que me não deixava soseguar, porque era huma seta tão penetrante que me rasguava o coracão, com huma dor suave que suposto me dava pena, sempre desejava de a aumentar e padecer\*

<sup>58</sup> For an overview of Cistercian history, see Rémy de Bourbon Parme, *Les Cisterciens, 1098–1998* (Bayeux: Heimdal, 1998).

<sup>59</sup> Although no reference is made to the female religious houses, see the work of Polycarpe Zakar, *Histoire de la Stricte Observance de l'Ordre Cistercien depuis ses Débuts jusqu'au Généralat du Cardinal de Richelieu (1606–1635)*, Bibliotheca Cisterciensis, 3 vol. (Rome : Editiones Cistercienses, 1966). For women´s reformations, see *Cîteaux et les femmes,* under the direction of B. Barrière, M.-E. Henneau, texts by A. Bonis, S. Dechevaenne and M. Wabont (Paris : Créaphis, 2001). See also Franz J. Felten, "Abwehr, Zuneigung, Pflichtgefülh. Reaktionen der frühen Zisterziensen auf der Wunsch religiöser Frauen, zisterziensich zu leben," in *Female 'vita Religiosa' between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages : Structures, Developments and Spatial Contexts*, ed. by Gert Melville and Anne Müller (Münster : LIT Verlag Münster, 2012), 391–416.

<sup>60</sup> Dias, *Correntes Religiosas*, 1:101-104.

<sup>61</sup> Dias, *Correntes*, 51. See also Saúl António Gomes, Isabel Lage and Miguel Soromenho, *Visitações a Mosteiros Cistercienses Em Portugal: Séculos XV e XVI* (Lisbon: Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico, 1998), 348–359.

<sup>62</sup> See, in particular, the work of Maur Cocheril, *Routier des abbayes cisterciennes du Portugal*, revised ed. by Gerard Leroux (Paris: Centre Culturel Portugais, 1986), 99–103. See also *Cister. Espaço. Teritórios. Paisagens. International Colloquium. 16–20 June 1998,* Mosteiro de Alcobaça (2 vols.) (Lisbon: M. Cultura/IPPAR, 2000).

pelos muitos proveitos que com ella sentia n'alma, pasando asim algum tempo com estas âncias, em que não podia admitir dúvida serem de Deos. Estando hum dia em Oração foi elle servido de me dar hum reculhimento grandisimo por larguo tempo e como as potências estavão todas unidas, obedecendo todo este mundo imtirior ao mando daquelle poderoso Deos, em cuja presença não podia duvidar que estava e como atónita e pasmada da Magestade e poder de hum Senhor, em cujo acatamento todas as cousas criadas não são nada, me vi fora de [mim mesma, desfeita\* naquelle nada de minha miséria, pobre e desazida\* de todas as cousas da Terra, com huma clara notícia do pouco que ellas valem e vendo como por vista de olhos o quanto vão erados aqueles que fasem por adquirir as dignidades da Terra, me vi vestida em hum abito umilde e mui pobre de capucha e dava-se-me a entender, tomaria este abito em a Recoleta da Nazaré, em Lisboa, da Ordem de nosso patriarca e pai Sao Bernardo e tãobem entendeu a minha alma, que desta nova reformação se fazia hum dilatado número da casa, para onra e glória de Nosso Deos. [ANTT 47r]

[ANTT 47r] Some months after the foundation of Lisbon's Recollection of Our Lady of Nazareth, of the order of our Patriarch and Holy Father Bernard, the Lord saw fit to grant me some burning desires to serve Him in such an anxious way, with such a delicate feeling that it left me no rest, because it was such a penetrating arrow that cut through my heart, with a pain so soft, that even though it gave me sorrow, I always desire it would grow and I would patiate\* for the many gains with it that I felt in my soul. I spent some time in this anxiousness of which I could not doubt that it came from God. One day, while praying, he saw fit to grant me a huge recollection for a longtime. As the potencies were all united, with all this inner world obeying the command of that mighty God, in whose presence I could not doubt I was; and as if astonished and overwhelmed by the Majesty and power of a Lord, in whose acceptance all the created things are nothing, I saw me outside myself, undone\* in that nothingness of my misery, poor and disengaged\* from all earthly things, with a clear notice of their small worth, and seeing as if with sight of my eyes, how wrong are those who strive to acquire the dignities of Earth. I saw myself dressed in a humble habit, a poor Capuchin [hooded]. It was given to my understanding that I would take this habit in Lisbon's Recollect of Nazareth, of the Order of our Patriarch Saint Bernard. My soul also understood that from this reformation a great number of houses were being created to Our Lord's honor and glory. [ANTT 47r]

The passage from the monastery in Lorvão to the congregation in Lisbon was not without difficulty for Joana. She states that her fellow nuns at Lorvão viewed this transition with disapproval, and her new recollected nuns at Lisbon complained about her non-obedience to the rule. This tendency to frame renewal as returning to a primordial state is not unknown in monastic settings. Elizabeth Rapley shows a parallel situation among seventeenth-century French and English nuns who wanted to create a new congregation. "It was therefore necessary, whatever innovation was attempted, to give it legitimacy by showing that it was, in fact, a return to old tradition."<sup>63</sup> In this excerpt, Joana sees herself with the habit of a Capuchin, but what does Capuchin mean in this context? Could this demonstrate the modeling influence that the Franciscan Observance had in Portugal during the High Middle Ages?<sup>64</sup> Could Joana have been thinking of her Capuchin uncle António de Mioma?<sup>65</sup> Silva Dias shows that between Capuchins and Recollects (as observants) there were merely tactical or political differences. The Capuchins were distinguished from the Recollected insofar as they were independent from an administrative hierarchy.<sup>66</sup>

Despite the scholarly emphasis on movements without a rule or monastic vows, life in a proper religious community would give women more benefits, as John van Engen demonstrated in the life of the modern devout.<sup>67</sup> Thus, many women opted for regulated institutions and tried to improve them. As Teresa had once done, Joana also feels the need to write a new rule. This is seen in an indirect way. She sees in the movement of Discalced Bernardin women a place for her revealed ideas. Joana demonstrates the receptivity to her intentions to be a founder by including a letter in Latin that she had received from Father Alberto Amaral, from the main Cistercian House in Alcobaça. In this letter Alberto Amaral says that God has chosen her from the unhealthy and ignorant of the world to write a new Reformation (Rule) for the Cistercians houses and calls her 'Catula leonis', a lion's whelp (De 33:22) [ANTT 51v-52r].

Unfortunately, the Rule Joana wrote has not been found either in the collection of Lorvão held at the National Library in Lisbon or in the National Archives of Torre do Tombo.<sup>68</sup> It is also a possibility that the Rule might be her *Notebook* as well, as discussed in the previous chapter.

However, the disappearance of the Rule does not mean it did not exist. The Recollects' need for a rule was the force that lay behind Joana's departure to Lisbon and

<sup>63</sup> Elizabeth Rapley, *Dévotes: Women & Church in seventeenth-century France* (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), 169. See also Rapley's book, *A social history of the cloister: daily life in the teachings of the Old Regime* (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001).

<sup>64</sup> On this movement in Portugal, see Vítor Rui Gomes Teixeira, *O movimento observante Franciscano em Portugal (1392–1517): história, cultura, e património de uma experiência de reforma religiosa* (Phd diss., Universidade do Porto, 2004).

<sup>65</sup> See above, footnote 87.

<sup>66</sup> Dias, *Correntes do sentimento Religioso*, 2: 144–155.

<sup>67</sup> Engen, *Sisters and brothers of the common life*, 123.

<sup>68</sup> Lino de Assunção also mentions not finding this Rule. See Assunção, *As freiras do Lorvão*, 205.

her subsequent expulsion from the Lisbon Recollect. Joana states that after receiving the letter from Alberto Amaral, she showed it to Father Vivardo de Vasconcellos, who was in Lorvão at that time and who had founded the Recollect of Discalced Bernardin women, where Joana went, had inspired her to write the Rule, and had sponsored her transfer to Lorvão.

The desire to be recollected or to withdraw oneself and protect oneself from worldliness reveals a mystical and mental process (to recollect one's mind, one's soul). In addition to that, there is a social and religious practice of recollection (to be recollected, to live as a recollected nun at a Recollect). Beyond *recollecting* (the verb, action), Joana feels the need to be *recollected* (the adjective, the description), to be apart from the world. The transformation of this operation into the noun or into a substantive that illustrates the possibility of establishing a new place will be seen in the next section.

### **2.3. Recollection as Refuge**

According to Michel de Certeau, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century mysticism (or 'mystics', as the translator suggests) constitutes a 'new' knowledge, a new methodology, a new way, which can be transformed into a science, being both a *modus loquendi* and a*modus agendi*. <sup>69</sup> Speech and practice, in their turn, demand the emergence of a new *space* and *apparatus*. In Joana´s case, this is seen through the several layers of the concept of recollection: the verb of the love of the soul, the adjective of the Observant practice, the noun of the religious space. The transformation of verb into adjective and adjective into noun could be seen as what de Certeau calls the 'redistribution of space' and the emergence of 'refuge'.

The gesture of 'going on retreat' or of 'withdrawing,' is the universal indication of the tendency that countered the necessary 'docility' or 'compliance' of Stateconnected religious institutions with the segregation of a place. Among the reformers, that closure was at once the consequence of the triumph of politicization from 1640 on and the condition of the possibility of an 'establishment' of the faith. It defined a 'policy' of meaning. The regular life, the religious congregations, the lay associations, the administering of the sacraments and their pastoral regulations, and the popular missions were all responses to the prime necessity of a rupture that organized (after the manner of a 'departure', a wall, a social selectivity, a secret, etc.), the circumscription of a field for specific practices. The 'mystic' groups and kinds of discourse offer a variant of these social redistributions of space and by new practices, a variant that at once calls into

<sup>69</sup> Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 14.

question the autonomization of a new historical figure and the passage from one sociocultural economy to another.<sup>70</sup>

The Recollection (or, more commonly, the Recollect71) as a place in the world of a new religious lifestyle is present in the Discalced Bernardin women of Lisbon, or in Flanders, with the Cistercian Recollect of Antwerp.<sup>72</sup>

#### 2.3.1 The Recollects and the Infamous Women

The Recollect Joana entered in 1659 had existed since before 1653, and was located in the south-eastern part of Lisbon, near the river and the port, in the Mocambo borough (nowadays called Santos-o-Velho) where many black people and former slaves lived. It was known by several names: the Recollect of Saint Magdalene, the Recollect or Convent of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, or merely the Recollect of Mocambo.

When Joana entered the Recollect, she dealt with a difficult period in which Maria da Cruz, the founder of that retreat, was banned and was being subjected to an inquisitorial trial, which lead to her arrest and degradation. Maria da Cruz, an 'old Christian' born in the district of Braga, was the daughter of Belchior Gomes, an 'oficial de peneiras' (probably a manual craftsman).<sup>73</sup> Besides leading a group of religious women in Lisbon, from a noble house, she was said to have made a pilgrimage to Rome, even having been imprisoned there and subsequently set free.<sup>74</sup> She was also known in the royal and noble networks. The available information about her comes from the inquisitorial process to which she was subjected.<sup>75</sup> When

<sup>70</sup> Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 21

<sup>71</sup> See footnote 202 above.

<sup>72</sup> Jean Baptiste Lefèvre, "La Communité Des Awirs-Aywières," in *Unanimité et Diversité Cisterciennes : Filiations, Réseaux, Relectures du XIIe au XVIIe Siècle : Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium of CERCOR, Dijon, 23–25 September 1998*, ed. Nicole Bouter (Saint-Etienne : Publications de l'Université de Saint-Etienne, 2000), 281–295.

<sup>73</sup> *O processo de Maria da Cruz*, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, proc. 4372, Portugal, Torre do Tombo, mf. 4420. 238fl., 20/08/1659-18/07/1668.

<sup>74</sup> Vivardo de Vasconcellos, "De hum papel de varias noticias da origem e principios do mosteiro de Nossa Senhora de Nazare que fundou em Lisboa para monjas recolletas descalcas da Ordem de Nosso Padre Sao Bernardo," in *Collecção histórica e litúrgica que compreende várias memórias sobre o Mosteiro de Alcobaça e outros, e sobre a Ordem de S. Francisco em Portugal, sobre os Duques de Bragança e a Guerra da Restauração,* Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, Codex Alcobacensis, ms. 336, fol. 93.

<sup>75</sup> On Maria da Cruz, the main source is the trial she underwent: *O processo de Maria da Cruz*, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, proc. 4372, Portugal, ANTT, mf. 4420. 238fl. 20/08/1659-18/07/1668. See also the work of Geraldo Pieroni, *Entre Deus e o Diabo: Santidade Reconhecida, Santidade Negada na Idade Média e Inquisição Portuguesa* (Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2007), 99 and 113; Pieroni, "Heréticas da Inquisição: mulheres portuguesas degredadas para o Brasil-Colônia," in *Saberes Brasileiros: Ensaios Sobre Identidades, Séculos XVI*

Vivardo de Vasconcellos, then abbot of Lisbon's Desterro Monastery, met her, he persuaded her to join her community to the Cistercian Order, turning it into the first branch of Discalced Bernardin women in Portugal. Vivardo gives an account of how he met beata Maria da Cruz:

Sendo eu Abbade do mosteiro de Nossa Senhora do Desterro desta corte e cidade de Lisboa me veyo a noticia que na freguesia de Santos o velho havia hum recolhimento que chamao da Magdalena no qual assistia por regent huma Maria da Cruz que tinha vindo de Roma. E dizendo-me certa pessoa que era molher de virtude me deu logo no coracao que a buscasse e no dia seguinte que foi o primeiro de Setembro de mil seiscentos cincoenta e tres a fui buscar e como esta visita era pera os fins que eu nam imaginava e o Senhor so sabia de tal modo me prendeo a conversacao daquella creatura que eu a buscasse os mais dos dias [Fol.78] para falarmos de Deos e eu lhe cobrei tanto respeito e veneracao que lhe falava de joelhos e quando a hia buscar hia rezando canticos e himnos ao Senhor porque deparara aquella sua serva. [Fol.77v-78r]

Being the Abbot of the Monastery of Our Lady of Desterro of this court and city of Lisbon, I came to know that, in the parish of Santos-o-velho, there was a recollect called Magdalena's, wherein a certain Maria da Cruz, who had come from Rome, attended as regent. And after a certain person told me that she was a woman of virtue, my heart immediately yearned to seek her. The following day, which was the first of September, sixteen hundred and fifty-three, I went to see her and, as this visit was done for purposes I could not imagine and the Lord knew, that creature's conversation was such that I went to see her most of the days [Fol. 78] to talk about God and I gained so much respect and veneration for her that I could only speak to her on my knees, and when I went to get her I was praying and chanting hymns for I had come across that servant of His. [Fol.77v-78r] [Joana Serrado´s translation]

When Joana arrived in 1659, the Recollect was already in the hands of Maria Antónia do Espírito Santo and two of Vivardo's sisters, Maria de Almeida and Francisca Vasconcellos Turjeiro, previously nuns at the Benedictine monastery of S. Bento de Castris at Évora.<sup>76</sup> The transfer of power from Maria da Cruz to Vivardo's sisters when

*a XX*, ed. Geraldo Pieroni and Cláudio De Nipoti (Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Bertrand Brasil, 2004) 43; Pieroni "No Purgatório mas o olhar no Paraíso: o degredo inquisitorial para o Brasil Colônia," in *Revista Textos de História*, vol. 6, no. 1 and 2 (1998), 115–141; Pieroni, *Os Excluídos do Reino: A Inquisição Portuguesa e o Degredo para o Brasil Colônia* (Brasília, DF; São Paulo, SP: Editora Universidade de Brasília; Imprensa Oficial do Estado, 2000), 90–99. Laura Mello e Souza, *Inferno Atlântico: demonologia e colonização, séculos XVI-XVIII* (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1993).

<sup>76</sup> Vasconcellos, "De hum papel," 81–82.

the Recollect became Cistercian was not without problems.<sup>77</sup> On 1 September 1653, Vivardo stated that he was talking to her "on his knees." But soon, by Christmas of 1654, Vivardo's sisters were arriving from Évora to take charge.<sup>78</sup> With Vivardo's sisters in charge, Maria da Cruz's leadership was contested. In August 1659, she was accused by the Holy Office of having fake visions and fake prophecies, which led to her being sentenced to a five-year exile in Brazil.<sup>79</sup>

Maria da Cruz personifies the life at a Recollect, both through her pious lifestyle and the dreadful consequences that may have arisen from it. During her inquisitional process, Maria da Cruz was accused of 39 propositions that she might have said or was heard saying.<sup>80</sup> This nun was accused, for instance, of saying that, in a vision, the Virgin Mary granted Maria da Cruz whatever she would ask and that the Lord was very disappointed with the world, while Christ was interceding for the community. In addition, the world and all religions would burn by God's hands for not having kept their rules, except for the people who were at the Recollect. According to the same propositions, God had promised her she would not lack anything: even if there was a shortage of men to work at the Recollect, he would send angels himself. God had also showed her who would be her 'female companion' ('companheira') or successor to continue her work posthumously. She is also said to have travelled in spirit to Évora's Saint Benedict monastery, where she had seen many lights.

These were mainly accusations of 'superbia', pride, or lack of humility. Her obedience was also contested: she was believed not to want to accept discipline from a prelate, not to wear the habit or to sleep in a chosen place, and even not to eat (except when there were good meals) because of her claim of being only spirit. She was also said to have seen Purgatory and to have felt the same pain the Virgin felt when Christ was crucified.

Maria da Cruz is a crucial character in understanding Joana de Jesus. When Joana appeared in Lisbon in 1659, invited by Vivardo, with her own spiritual and devotional teaching on recollection based on a direct experience with God-the-Man and her derived divine authority, Vivardo himself accused her of being "another Maria da Cruz." Joana transcribed the letter she received from her confessor Vivardo into her own writings.

Minha madre, eu não estou mal com Vossa Reverência, estou mal com o seu amor próprio, com a sua soberba, com o seu pouco sufrimento e com a sua língua, com que Vossa Reverência tem escandalisado até as paredes desta Casa Santa, e finalmente eu cuidei que tratava com huma ovelhinha de Deos e achei-

<sup>77</sup> Vasconcellos, "De hum papel," 77v.

<sup>78</sup> Vasconcellos, "De hum papel," 83v-85

<sup>79</sup> Vasconcellos, "De hum papel," 92–93v

<sup>80 &</sup>quot;Proposições," in *O processo de Maria da Cruz*, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, proc. 4372, Portugal, ANTT, mf. 4420. 238fl. 20/08/1659-18/07/1668.

me com outra Maria da Cruz, porém Vossa Reverência, não me enguanou a mim, nem a Deos que a conhece, Vossa Reverência he a que fiqua emguanada, que eu com o meu nada, entro nestas cousas e com o meu nada foi no a ficar, porque como o que amo, cuido que he Deos, tanto que conheço que me enguano, torno a ficar como estava, só o que me pasma, he o diser Vossa Reverência, a Prelada tantas veses e as religiosas, que se queria tornar para o seu mosteiro [ANTT 78r] sem ter vergonha de seus parentes e do mundo e niso conheci a violência com que Vossa Reverência vive neste paraíso e sua pouca umildade e como toda a sua doutrina he falsa, donde estes erros começarão, para Deos permitir eses emguanos, saberá Vossa Reverência ou nunqua o saberá, porque a sua cegueira e a sua soberba e prejunção não lhe dá luguar a iso. [ANTT 77v-78r]

Mother of mine, I am not on bad terms with your Reverence, I am on bad terms with your self-love, your pride, your scant suffering and with the tongue with which Your Reverence has scandalized even this holy house's walls and I thought I was finally dealing with a little sheep of God and found myself with another Maria da Cruz; however, Your Reverence has not fooled me nor God, who knows you; the one being fooled is, indeed, Your Reverence as I and what is mine have nothing to do with these things, and nothing of mine remains; because I consider what I love as God's belonging as soon as I understand that I am wrong I go back to where I was, only being staggered with the fact of Your Reverence saying so many times to the prelate and the religious women that you wanted to go back to your monastery [ANTT 78] without being ashamed before your parents and the world and in that I knew the violence with which Your Reverence lives in this paradise and your scarce humility, and how all your doctrine is false where these errors started for God to allow those mistakes, Your Reverence shall know, or never will; for your blindness and pride, and your presumption does not allow you that. [ANTT 77v-78r]

Vivardo's words make it quite clear that the spectre of Maria da Cruz was still present in the Recollect, and that her fate at the hands of the Inquisition served as a warning to more daring nuns who advocated a special teaching or presence. However, it is important to bear in mind the ambivalence of this relationship: Vivardo calls Joana 'madre' (mother) and not 'sor' or 'soror' (sister).There is a spiritual motherhood here that contains a leadership and a prophetic commitment, which is acknowledged by Phyllis Mackin in her investigation of the role of motherhood regarding seventeenth-century English Protestant visionaries.The author even suggests that the fatherly relationship served as the paradigm to the political sphere, while the motherly relationship did the same to the spiritual one.<sup>81</sup> The Dutch scholar Mirjam de Baar

<sup>81</sup> Phyllis Mack, "Die Prophetin als Mutter: Antoinette Bourignon," in *Im Zeichen der Krise, Religiosität im Europa des 17. Jahrhunderts*, ed. Harmut Lehmann and Anne-Charlot Trep (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1999), 79–100.

also describes in detail how Antoinette Bourignon, a Flemish mystic and prophetess, embodied the monastic experience of spiritual motherhood in her prophetic vocabulary and went beyond it, from a monastic leadership role to physical and doctrinal action for human believers.<sup>82</sup> In Joana de Jesus, her spiritual motherhood is merely recognized by her confessor and not further developed.

Vivardo, Maria da Cruz, and Joana de Jesus give testimonies to the different dimensions of what living at a recollect entailed. However, the social history of this community is difficult to trace. Only Vivardo's memories and, for comparative purposes, the Rule at the archive of the Cistercian monastery of Tabosa remain to reconstruct its history.This monastery, situated in the center of Portugal, is an important source of information on the lifestyle these religious women chose, as it was founded in 1692 to accommodate 25 nuns from the previous Lisbon Recollect.<sup>83</sup>

The nuns adopted a very strict lifestyle at the Recollect.<sup>84</sup> They fasted all year round, which means that they did not eat meat, only fish, except when they were sick. Likewise, they were not allowed to speak to anyone else and could only see their relatives four times a year. The vow of silence was also practiced: only with the permission of the prelate could they talk together on Sundays, from twelve to three o'clock. The Divine Office was held at two o'clock in the morning (matins), mental prayer at five, primes at six. They slept on straw mattresses and wore borrel tunics and sackcloth habits. The cells only contained a crucifix and some images of saints. They drank from the same tankard (drinking vessel). They also had to discipline themselves on Wednesdays and Fridays, and more often during Advent and Holy Week.

In her narrative, Joana de Jesus expresses her admiration for this secluded life:

[C]heguamos a Lisboa a oito dias de Outubro e loguo entrei na Recoleta, que me pareceu hum Ceo abitado de anjos, que assim me paricião cada huma daquelas servas do Senhor, em o qual as amava avia muito tempo. Todas me festejarão muito e me fizerão grandes caridades e descansei do caminho treze dias, e em dia das Onze Mil Virgens, tomei o abito da Recoleta, o qual me lançou o Padre Reverendíssimo com grande <de>voção e lágrimas, [ANTT 58r] com que se solinizou esta acção, em a qual o meu Senhor <se> mostrou comiguo muito liberal de suas miziricórdias, paricia-me que sempre o tinha presente e não podia duvidar de aquela obra ser sua e se por alguma via me atimorizava o riguor e asperesa daquela vida, loguo este piadoso Senhor me consolava, pondo-me naqueles amargu[r]as tanta suavidade e duçura que muitas veses

<sup>82</sup> Mirjam de Baar, "Geestelijke moederschap," in "*Ik moet spreken.* Het spiritueel leiderschap van Antoinette Bourignon" (PhD diss., University of Groningen, 2004), 437–460.

<sup>83</sup> Maria Luísa Gil dos Santos, *O Ciclo Vivencial do Mosteiro de Nossa Senhora da Assunção de Tabosa* (master's thesis, Universidade do Porto, 2000), 62.

<sup>84</sup> Vasconcellos, "De hum papel," 86r-v.

me suspendia todos os sentidos e não podia duvidar daquele socorro me ser imviado de Sua poderosa mão. Todas as cousas me agradavão muito e as apertadas celas e casas daquela Santa Recoleta, que ainda neste tempo ho erão muito, me paricião melhor e mais agradáveis que os sumtuosos edifícios que tinha deixado em Lorvão. As religiosas me edificavão muito pelas muitas virtudes e mortificação que via em cada huma dellas. [ANTT 57v-58r]

We arrived at Lisbon on the eighth of October and I immediately entered the Recollect, which seemed to me a Heaven inhabited by angels, for so each one of those servants of the Lord within whom I already loved for a long time seemed to me. Everyone greeted me and did great charities to me. I rested from my travelling for thirteen days and on the day of the eleven thousand virgins, I took the habit of the Recollect which was thrust upon me by the Most Reverend Father with great devotion and tears, [ANTT 58r] that made this act solemn in which my Lord has shown himself most liberal with His mercies towards me. It seemed to me that I always had Him present and could not doubt that that work was His and if the rigor and harshness of that life scared me in any way, soon the pious Lord would console me, putting so much suavity and sweetness into that bitterness that oftentimes He would suspend all my senses and I could not doubt that that aid was sent by His powerful hand; all things pleased me much and the narrow cells and houses of that saint Recollect, which at that time were still very small, seemed to me much better and more pleasant than the sumptuous edifices I had left at Lorvão. The religious women edified me much through the many virtues and the mortification I saw in each one of them. [ANTT 57v-58r]

Maria da Cruz and other religious women were subject to inquisitorial trials and subsequent deportation based on their practices of holiness during the seventeenth century.<sup>85</sup> Joana de Jesus, however, escapes this fate mainly due to the fact that she moved around and was part of several communities and networks. Her refuges were the physical Recollect at Lisbon and also the deviances that emerged from that.

These communities served as shelters but also held some kind of social control in which her thought could be tested. This was the case with the recognition and success of Joana's texts, both *Notebook* (original) and *Copy*, as we have already seen. The manuscripts moved from Lisbon to Lorvão and were controlled by the confessors and the readers. In the case of England, for instance, Jason Scott-Warren speaks of the existence of true textual communities, where the manuscripts circulated along-

<sup>85</sup> Women within cloisters were not exempt from that. Cf. Adelaide Filomena Amaro Lopes Cardoso, "As religiosas e a Inquisição. Quadros de vida e espiritualidade" (Master's thesis, University of Oporto, 2003).

side printed books.<sup>86</sup> In Joana's case, as we shall see, the need for publication is concomitant with the survival of the manuscript, and the communities read, shared, and probably also wrote following the example of Joana. Whether or not this happened at Lorvão we do not know, but in a book on early modern Spanish mysticism, Isabelle Poutrin shows how crucial these multiple networks were to the appraisal of someone's work, even constituting real "workshops of autobiographical writing," where they could develop their own writing skills and share ideas related to visions.<sup>87</sup>

We can think of two locally based social and intellectual networks that received and disseminated Joana's writings. Her extended, mainly female family network, dispersed through several branches of the Cistercian (and wider Benedictine) houses, provided her with a 'safety net' that allowed her to jump forward intellectually – to manifest herself – but also to attenuate the possibly dangerous consequences of her speaking out. In both cases, the 'honor' and the weight of the 'family name' served as a shield that protected her but also had to be preserved. The second, more professional network, ranging from Lorvão to Lisbon's reformed Recollect, simultaneously both female and male, formed her 'reputation' or 'opinion', which might have equally led to either the subsequent recognition of her saintliness or her intellectual neglect as well as, to some extent, her social and physical punishment (public beatings and deportation to Brazil), as happened in the case of Maria da Cruz.

#### 2.3.2 The Family Network

Throughout her life, Joana showed the permanence and importance of her family ties. She claimed to have received her domestic education from her father. This section´s main focus will be on the influence of her siblings and relatives during her adult life.

As her aunts held high positions within the Benedictine and Cistercian hierarchy, Joana had a privileged entreé to several monasteries (Mioma, Ferreira das Aves, and Lorvão). While at Lorvão, she also mentions how her relatives used their influence in her religious circle (ANTT 4r,5v,48v,57r-60r). After coming to Lisbon, she loses this support and 'comfort' (ANTT 79v).

Lorvão was to be a 'second home' for the Albuquerque sisters (at least for Inês, the future abbess, and Sebastiana), often hosting their younger brother António when

<sup>86</sup> Jason Scott-Warren, "Reconstructing Manuscript Networks: The Textual Transactions of Sir Stephan Powle," in *Communities in Early Modern England. Network, Place, Rhetoric,* eds. Alexandra Shepard and Phil Withington (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000), 18–37.

<sup>87</sup> Poutrin, *Le Voile Et La Plume*, 131.

he traveled from Tarouca (his own monastery,in Northern Portugal) to Alcobaça (the order's main house, to the south-east of Lorvão, in the Coimbra district). In Lisbon, in proximity to Friar Vivardo de Vasconcellos, the head of the Cistercian Order, Joana directly encouraged (through visions) her brother's religious fellowship and put in a 'good word' with her confessor, Vivardo de Vasconcellos.

The Albuquerques never interrupted their contact with each other. Joana continued exchanging letters with her family and acted as confidante and social and spiritual intercessor to her siblings. She promoted the religious (monastic) life in the Cistercian Order by disapproving of the marriages of her brother António and her sister Catarina.

Minha irmã e todo o meu bem, o gosto com que recebo vosas novas, me obrigua a molestar-vos com estas letras e nelas grangiar o logro de mas concederes, boas de vosa saúde asim como este irmão vos deseija eu com ela fiquo ainda neste vale de Lorvão, asistindo com estas irmasinhas no que tenho grande alívio de alguns cuidados que me têm penalisado por muitas veses e afirmovos minha irmã que particularmente me recreo em as ver, tão bem acomodadas e livres dos contrastes do mundo que estão oje pesimo. De huma carta que escrevestes a Mariana, me constou leres huma que vos escrevi. Nela vos dizia algumas cousas a respeito de huma causa em que ando decaído a alguns anos a esta parte e como esta demanda hé de crimes e ofensas que tenho cometido contra Deos Noso Senhor, me <quero> pôr em livramento, apresentando-me preso diante de sua devina misiricórdia para que com ela ponha os seus olhos em este pobre pecador e asim que minha irmã, tratai loguo de em meu nome faseres huma petição com algumas religiosas desa santa casa, apresentando-a a este Senhor para que <me> conceda perdão e despacho nesta preposta que vos quero perguntar. Como tenho visto <o> que sempre desejei com grande ância que he ver minhas irmãs religiosas. Catherina já a considero por esa, que fio da sua capacidade que nao trocará ela este estado por nenhum do mundo e como só eu me veijo no labarinto dele, tendo-me mostrado ter nele poucos descansos e acho-me homem sem tomar estado e por ver niso dilaçois que me têm ocasionado alguns cuidados que aqui não manifesto. Me tenho resuluto em seguir destes 2 caminhos hum de casado ou de religioso, o que for mais comviniente para o serviço de Deos e meu [ANTT 100v] crédito, asim que vos peço parecer nisto e o que me mandares diser e ei-de seguir que fiquo resoluto niso e sendo o de riligioso peço-vos que trateis loguo diso com a brevidade posivel com o Noso Padre Frei Vivardo de Vasconcelos, que como he Pai de nós todos, será servido de querer emparar este seu filho e pedi-lhe que tome este neguócio por sua conta, para me pedir patente para comverso ou de misa que para iso me parece a mim, que tenho ainda conhecimento bastante de latim e isto vos relato debaixo de confisão, que trateis isto com todo o segredo de modo que o não chegue a saber nunqua pesoa alguma, nem chegue ha notícia de nosa Mai e irmãos, exceto Dona Mariana Freire, que lhe discubri o coração a respeito de me avisar do que se pasa a respeito desta matéria, porque vindo a patente que ao Reverendissimo Padre Frei Vivardo peço por amor de Deos, há-de agenciar com o segredo que diguo para o Mosteiro que a ele lhe parecer hia eu escondido da nosa gente e da de fora tomar o abito e nesta resulução não tendes que duvidar e disto me avisai loguo, mandandome a carta com a de Nosa Irmã, Dona Mariana Freire a quem avisai em papel apartado para loguo se rasguar tanto que for visto. Com isto o Ceo vos guarde, oije, 31 de Maio, 1664= Voso Irmão António Freire de Albuquerque. [ANTT 100r-v]

My sister and all my good: the pleasure with which I receive your news obliges me to bother you with these letters and in them I reach the aim of you granting me good news about your health just as this brother wishes you: I stay healthy, still in this Lorvão valley, abetting these little sisters, which gives me great relief of some cares that have often weighed upon me, and I state to you, my sister, that I have a particular pleasure in seeing them so well installed and free from the adversities of the world, which is dreadful nowadays. From a letter that you have written to Mariana, I came to know that you read the one I have written you. I told you therein something regarding a cause in which I have been involved for some years, and as this process is about crimes and offenses that I have committed against God, our Lord, I want to get acquitted, presenting myself as imprisoned before His Divine mercy so that he may put his eyes upon this poor sinner. And thus, my sister, take immediate care to make a petition with some religious women of that Holy House in my name, presenting it to this Lord for him to grant me forgiveness and dispatch this proposal I want to ask you about. As I have been seeing what I have always desired with great anxiousness, which is to see my sisters being religious women, [as] I already consider Catharina thus for I trust her capability to keep this state not exchanging it for any other in the world and as only I see myself in his labyrinth, having been shown to have scarce rest in it, finding myself without having taken the state and as I see in this a lateness that has caused me some cares that I will not clarify here, I remain resolute in following these two paths: that of a married man or a religious man, the one more convenient to God's service and my [ANTT 100v] credit. So I ask for your opinion about this and what you will tell me I will resolutely follow. And if [your opinion] is the religious path, I beg you to handle that as soon as possible with our Father Friar Vivardo de Vasconcelos, who, as the Father of us all, will deign himself to support this son of his and I asked him to take care of this matter personally, by asking a permit for a convent or one for mass as it seems to me that I still have enough knowledge of Latin, and I tell you this as a confession. Handle this wholly secretly so nobody ever gets to know it, nor arrives to be known by our Mother and brothers, except Dona Mariana Freire, to whom I have uncovered my heart about her having to warn me about what is happening regarding this matter because when it comes to light that I ask the Most Reverend Father Friar Vivardo by the love of God to act with the secrecy I describe, so I go to the

Monastery that seems fit to him, hiding from our own people and outsiders, to take the habit: of this resolution you do not have to doubt and you must warn me immediately, sending me the letter, together with that of our sister Dona Mariana Freire, whom you must warn in a different paper to be torn up as soon as it is seen. With this, may Heaven keep you, today, the thirty-first of May, 1664, your brother, Antonio Freire de Albuquerque. [ANTT 100r-v]

Joana would subsequently explain that António was successful in becoming a religious man, thanks to her spiritual and temporal intercession with God. Despite the role she purported to have kept within her family, Joana lost power in Lisbon. As we have seen in Vivardo's letter, when Joana was accused of being too proud and vain by her confessor and her fellow religious women of the Recollect, she was also charged with having 'dishonored' her relatives [ANTT 78r].

Nonetheless, Joana's return to her original religious home may have been due to her sisters' efforts, with those of Inês de Albuquerque, who became the abbess of Lorvão's Monastery in 1668, being the most relevant.<sup>88</sup> The last words she wrote in Lisbon,in 1663, may be an indication of this protection. Joana describes how pleased the Lord was with the advancement of virtues by the religious women of Lorvão [ANTT 98v]. Later, one unnamed sister wrote to her, describing the election for the abbess in which the continuation of the titular head is predicted. Joana never mentions names, but if this was indeed written in or after 1663, the abbess in question was either Maria de Carvalho or Madalena de Castro.<sup>89</sup> Nevertheless, Joana is told by divine revelation that this would not come to pass, for the nun in question would die soon and, due to Joana's intervention, Maria de Carvalho's or Madalena de Castro's soul would be saved from Purgatory.

There was a continuous presence of the family and the 'business affairs' of family members – regarding the achievement of a (new) state either in temporal life or the afterlife – and Joana was asked to intervene in those same affairs and was also held to account for their results. This situation of interference (in and after life) was typical as a means to access early modern female agency in spiritual endeavors, which Isabelle Poutrin also describes as being common in the Spanish setting.<sup>90</sup>

Eight years after her return to Lorvão, Joana was spurred to continue to write about her life, in a new *Notebook*, with the support of a new confessor, António de Conceição. At the end of her narrative Joana states her decision "to be subjected to the obedience of two sisters of a lower grade and age" [ANTT 157], one of whom she is, however, able to cure through her intercession with John the Baptist and Saint Blaise [ANTT 157v]. Thanks to her family network, Joana regained her intellectual,

<sup>88</sup> Borges, *Arte Monástica*, 966.

<sup>89</sup> Borges, *Arte Monástica*, 966.

<sup>90</sup> Poutrin, *Voile et Plume,* 47.

spiritual, and healing roles in the Lorvão community, turning the monastery into a sort of sheltered community.

#### 2.3.3 The 'Professional' Network

As previously seen, when dealing with the mysticism of recollection, the discernment of spirits is at issue within the mystical experience. Dyan Elliot's reading of Jean Gerson states that he promoted an epistemological certification of visionary thought when he proposed the existence of an "assessor for mystical phenomena" who should "have the advantage of both practical experience and theological training."<sup>91</sup> This would constitute a validation network that would normalize and further some mystical writings to the detriment of others.This would also constitute a place of refuge *per se*. This will be illustrated by some examples from Joana's life-writing.

In the first instance, there are the confessors. Vivardo de Vasconcellos sponsored her writing and her travel to Lisbon. Alberto do Amaral, also a confessor in Lisbon, maintained a correspondence with Joana and inspired her to write a new Rule – also called 'Reformação' (Reformation) – while she was at Lorvão, but he also suspected of her visions and ailments during her stay at the Recollect of Lisbon.There may have been some more spiritual directors, such as those in the Cistercian Chapter in 1661: elderly priests trained only to assist Cistercian women.<sup>92</sup> However, in her account, Joana mentions Cristóvão Freire de Andrade, who was an inquisitor at Lisbon and gave the initial approval for her departure to Lisbon:

Pasado já hum ano e três meses do trianio deste nosso Reverendíssimo Padre, sem eu para isso dar ocasião, se disse em Lorvão que eu avia de ir para a Recoleta de Lisboa e como eu alli tinha muitas parentas e irmãs, começarão a se levantar alguns ditos que ião causando perturbação em algumas pessoas, e como em esta ocasião estivesse nequella santa casa, Cristovão de Andrada, Freire Imquisidor, que era naquelle tempo em Coimbra, ao qual eu tinha por vezes comonicado algumas cousas de minha alma, mandou-me chamar e pediu-me lhe disese o fundamento que avia para se dizerem aquelas cousas, ao que lhe respondi as razois, que me pareceu convinhão e juntamente lhe disse em confisão o que em oração me avia sucedido. Respondeu-me que achava naquillo muito em que reparar e que tinha grande mistério, que nada era imposivel a Deos. Com isto fiquei quieta e sosseguada e as mais pessoas tãobem se quietarão com o si , lên cio do tempo, mas o meu coração não podia ter descansso, porque sempre

<sup>91</sup> Elliot, "Seeing double", 32. See also Jean Gerson, "De theologia Mystica lectio sex" in McGuire, *Jean Gerson*, 270–271.

<sup>92</sup> Jo Ann McNamara, *Sisters in Arms: Catholic nuns through two millennia* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 497–498.

andava ancioso, com hum fervor que me cricia tanto em alguns dias, que parece se me acabava a vida. [ANTT 48v]

Already after one year and three months of the three-year mandate of this Very Reverend Father of ours, without any pretext of mine for that, it was said at Lorvão that I would be going to the Recollect of Lisbon. As I had many relatives and sisters there, some rumors were raised, causing some disturbance to some and as Christovão de Andrade Freire, then Inquisitor in Coimbra and to whom I had sometimes communicated some affairs of my soul, was in this Holy House at the time, he sent to call for me, and asked me to tell him the basis for those things being said, which I answered with the reasons that seemed to be convenient and also told him in the confession what happened to me while in prayer. He answered me he found it much worthy of notice and to contain a great mystery, as nothing was impossible for God. With this I came to rest and also the other persons calmed themselves with the silence of time; but my heart could not rest as it was always anxious with a fervor that someday grew so much in me that it seemed that my life was about to end. [ANTT 48v]

The rumors ('ditos') Joana complains of illustrate the reciprocal clash of her family networks and her more religiously confessional, even 'professional' networks. Why did Joana want to leave a familiar environment to which she had generational ties and where she could easily intervene and acquire a key position? Taking the wealth enjoyed by the Lorvão monastery into account, the change to a new, urban, 'reformed' setting must have been regarded with suspicion by Joana's influential relatives. Thus, the coming of the inquisitor to Lorvão would serve to legitimize Joana's somewhat strange desire to change religious home. Despite their similar family name, there is no mention in the life-writing that this inquisitor belonged to the maternal side of Joana's family.

In her account Joana mentions Gabriel de Avé-Maria (1637–1677). A theologian born in Óbidos, a small town near Lisbon, he taught at the University of Coimbra and authored one book on the *Mary officium* and two on *Cistercian dispositions*. <sup>93</sup> Gabriel de Avé-Maria was known for dealing with 'spiritual affairs'. Due to this expertise, he was asked to check Joana's visionary accounts, having stated that those did not feature any theological divergences [ANTT 84r].

<sup>93</sup> In his bibliographical dictionary, Diogo Barbosa Machado gives the references for Gabriel de Avé-Maria's works: *Officium B. Mariae Virginis secundum morem Monachorum*. Ullisipone apud Dominicum Carneiro, 1665.8, *Breviario dos Conversos Segundo o uzo da Ordem de Cister e Congregaçaõ dae Santa Maria de Alcobaça*. Lisbon by Domingos Carneiro, 1669.8. and *Formulario de todo o genero de Provisoens que se custumaõ passar na Secretaria dos Geraes da Ordem de Christo*, fol. M.S. Diogo Barbosa Machado, *Biblioteca Lusitana*, 3:310.

On the third occasion, Joana was less lucky with the external opinions about her work. Later on, already back in Lorvão, she would recall the official invitation to leave Lisbon which she received:

estando eu em o relo da Recoleta, despedindo-me de meu irmão que estava para se partir, chegou huma provisão do nosso padre geral, que era em este tempo Frei Francisco Brandão, em que mandava em virtude da santa obediência e excomunhão ipso facto, à Prelada da Recoleta me largase e ha de Lorvão, donde era filha, me recolhese e a mim que visto não se afectuar a fundação de Santarém, para donde avia de ir por fundadora e os meus achaques e doenças serem tão grandes, obedecese logo debaixo das mesmas cemsuras e me pusese a caminho em companhia de meu irmão, que não ficou pouco assustado, asim por ver aquela repentina detriminação, como pelo grande sentimento com que me via, sem poder admitir comsolação alguma. [ANTT 152r]

Whilst by the Recollect's grille, saying farewell to my brother who was about to depart, a provision arrived, sent by our general father, who, at the time, was Friar Francisco Brandão. By virtue of the holy obedience and ex communio ipso facto, he ordered the Recollect's Prelate to release me and that of Lorvão, of whose house I was daughter, to recollect me. As the foundation of Santarém (where I should have gone as a founder) would not come to pass, together with my ailments and illnesses being so great, I should obey immediately, under those same reprieves. I had to depart, accompanied by my brother who was thus quite scared by such sudden determination as well as the heavy feeling which he saw me experiencing without admitting any consolation. [ANTT 152r]

The person Joana mentions, Francisco de Brandão (1601–1680) was also a 'lente' (lecturer) in theology at Coimbra's Saint Bernard's College. In 1668, he became the Chief Abbot of the Cistercians for a period that lasted less than a year.<sup>94</sup> Throughout his life, he held several important religious and political functions, such as being the kingdom's chief chronicler ('cronista-mor') and inquisitor of the Holy Office. He was a fervent supporter of the Portuguese Restoration and continued the historiographical work of his uncle, Friar António Brandão. Despite his short time as Chief Abbot, he vetoed Joana's extension of her writings.<sup>95</sup>

Below are the words that interrupt Joana's *Livro de Apontamentos* (*Notebook*):

<sup>94</sup> Diogo Barbosa Machado, *Biblioteca Lusitana*, vol. 2 (Lisbon: Lisboa Occidental, na Officina de Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, 1741), 122–124.

<sup>95</sup> This might be associated with the later accusation of alumbradism that Vivardo had received. See Pedro de Azevedo, "A Inquisição e alguns setecentistas," in *Archivo Histórico Portugues*, vol. 3 (1905), 460–465. See also Tavares, *Beatas, inquisidores e teólogos*, 1.

"Este tratado que me parece se não deve fiar de todos e menos de pessoas que não tiverem letras; nem o leiam enquanto não está approvado por varões doutos. Não é útil para quem segue a vida espiritual por muitos fundamentos e perigos que se expõem, e menos entre pessoas do sexo feminino: me não parece conveniente ande de mão em mão porque ainda que a doutrina seja muito util e muito clara, trata nela aguns pontos que teem maior dificuldade, e sem aprovação de maior exame não devem decorrer, ainda que bem vejo que se sabe que a nada d'isto se ha de assentir em fé divina, no que toca a revelações, senão com fé humana." [ANTT 134r]

"This treatise does not seem to be trustworthy for anyone, at least not for non-learned persons. They should not read it until it is approved by learned men. It is not useful to those who follow the spiritual life due to many dangers and fundaments that therein are exposed, even less among persons of the feminine sex. It does not seem convenient that it be circulated because, although the doctrine may be very useful and very clear in it there are treated some points of major difficulty, and without the approval of greater examination, they should not be pursued. Still I see very well that one knows that nothing of this one must assent in divine faith, which regards revelations, but with human faith." [ANTT 134r]

This excerpt was omitted in the eighteenth-century *Copy* of Joana de Jesus. Her writing continues with another section, the second book,written on Holy Spirit Day, seventeen years after she began writing her life story. As stated above, she first began writing in 1661, which dates the second book to at least c. 1678 [ANTT 152r]. However, the preface dates the second book to four years before her death (1676–1677) [BNL 5v].

As she herself stated, Joana wrote because she was ordered to do so by "the same obedience." According to the author of the preface, António da Conceição, Joana's second confessor, was "well known in Coimbra for his letters and talents."<sup>96</sup> In the city's university register of lecturers there is no mention of his name.<sup>97</sup> Diogo de

<sup>96 &#</sup>x27;Fr. Antonio da Conceiçaô bem conhecido na Universidade de Coimbra pelas suas letras e talento' [BNL. 5r].

<sup>97</sup> F. T. Fonseca, "A Teologia na Universidade de Coimbra," in *História da Universidade em Portugal*, vol. 1.2, *1537–1771* (Coimbra, Lisbon: Universidade de Coimbra – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1997), 782–783, 788.

Barbosa Machado mentions two anonymous writers who might have been Joana's second confessor, but this cannot be conclusively established.<sup>98</sup>

By sponsoring her writing, the second confessor was also acting as a counter peer-review to the statement (presumably) proffered by Francisco de Brandão, and, to some extent, also to Vivardo de Vasconcellos, who had given official support to the Cistercian nuns. Again, the influence of the Albuquerque's network in the Cloister and the Coimbra region is not to be underestimated when considering their elder sister's evaluation.

#### **2.4. Final Remarks on the Recollections of Joana de Jesus**

In this chapter, I have contextualized Joana de Jesus' intellectual history from the angle of 'recollection'. Through its inscription in recollection mysticism mainly acquired through the work of Teresa of Ávila, Joana's text acquires a psychological and gnoseological dimension that is not immediately evident.Her gendered soul 'knows' when her potencies are being recollected. This experience of love and nuptial mysticism could be traced to a wider tradition to which Joana, as well as other Spanish mystics, is indebted. However, Joana's use of recollection is not confined to a merely mystical moment or a verb,*to recollect*. Recollection also means a social and observant state. *To be recollected* is to participate in the Catholic renewal movement, which she conveys through her desire to move from a Cistercian house to a discalced branch in Lisbon. Moreover, and again like Teresa of Ávila, Joana wants to write a new reformation (rule) for a new house, in a stricter environment.

Recollection becomes a noun – the *Recollect* – when it stops being a characteristic and evolves into a wider social phenomenon. It becomes a state but also a refuge, a 'non-place' utopia that aggregates visionary women under the same roof and shelter. Sponsor-ship, censorship, and protection can be seen as the common traits within the different networks that made it possible for Joana de Jesus' writings and influence to be known.

Nonetheless, for Joana, this Recollect (as a refuge) is not only the Recollect of Lisbon that she enters, but also the way in which she is protected and sponsored. Likewise, there are several networks in which Joana further develops her intellectual and spiritual refuge, despite her changing from being a Strict to a Reformed Cistercian. By moving from Lorvão to Lisbon and subsequently returning to her original

<sup>98</sup> Father Antonio da Conceição (1658–1698) professed in Tibeans (Benedictine Cloister) and was 'jubilated master' in theology as a preacher. He was an abbot at the Convent of Santarém and Lisbon and rector at the Colegio da Estrela (Lisbon). His homonym (1653–1713) was Franciscan and 'lente' (lecturer) at the University of Coimbra. Cf. Machado, *Bibliotheca Lusitana,* 1: 246.

monastery, Joana consolidates her family honor and acquires status, fame, and a reputation. Joana's name must be read on a par with other women introduced in her narrative: Teresa de Ávila and Maria da Cruz.

The notion of recollection in all these variants provides a fertile ground for understanding the rise of the crucial concept that is anxiousness.

## **CHAPTER 3 – SITUATIONS OF ANXIOUSNESS IN JOANA DE JESUS**

The first two chapters have mainly been devoted to the historical analysis of Joana de Jesus, either in her biography and texts, or in her tradition of recollection mysticism and in the early modern reformatorial movement. Here I focus on the vocabulary through which Joana conveys the mystical experience of ancias (anxiousness), the main theme of the present research project.

Joana de Jesus' writings will be read within the spectrum of a Cistercian spirituality. However, she also belongs to a wider tradition of European female mystics and visionaries who embodied vernacular theological and philosophical reflections through their writing. Joana contributes with the notion of anxiousness, which she uses to describe her encounter with God.

Before carrying out a closer reading of Joana's texts, I will sketch out the tradition to which the topic of anxiousness might relate: the notion of *anxietas*. Likewise, I will briefly mention the reading of *ancias* in two crucial authors of Joana's time: John of the Cross and his Italian interpreter, Scaramelli.

The next three sections will be devoted to Joana's own texts. First, I show the situations of *encounter* that made her own personal seventeenth-century *imitatio* of Christ possible. Several themes are present: the communication, the cross, the dowry, and the mourning configure this uneven encounter. The body of God in the encounter becomes the body of the *daughter's soul*. The encounter is also another way to express the dogmas of Sonship (*filiatio*), Incarnation, and Trinity, which, throughout this chapter, Joana reshapes and rewrites.

Second, I will argue that the physical, mental, and intellectual state of anxiousness can be seen as an inescapable moment of the *operation of love*. The God-Man reveals himself to Joana in a vernacular theological vocabulary. This revelation occurs within some sacraments that are perlocutionary speech-acts: when she hears the sacred words in the diverse situations of religious life, Joana acquires a private view of what the mysteries of the Christian faith are. Here, Joana develops a thesaurus of mystical experience in her mother tongue: Portuguese.

Third, I will show how Joana positions her anxiousness through the acquisition of knowledge. If in the encounter she feels, in the operation she sees, now she can *know* the Divine. Joana's conversation and her privileged position among what I will call the *juridical community of saints* can transform her knowledge, in its novelty, tradition, and even in revelation. This will confer legitimacy, a degree of validity, so that her visions become truths—part of the sacred knowledge (the explanation of the 'mysteria', the dogmas of the Church)—which leads her into a theological discourse, namely on Mariology.

Throughout her narrative, Joana proceeds to a true dialogue with Christ.Many of his words are biblical passages the Cistercian nun hears in her practices of the daily office, and Joana appropriates them during her visions. Sometimes she cites directly from the Vulgate, attributing these words to the God-Man. On other occasions she paraphrases the passage in her own words, in Portuguese. When Joana interprets them, she is aiming at an unsystematic biblical exegesis that traverse all text.

Animportant remark before proceeding to the analysisis that although 'ancias'is translated as anxiousness, we should not forget that Joana uses the plural: 'ancias'. As this is grammatically inappropriate in English language, I must always refer to anxiousness in the singular.

#### **3.1. Anxiousness as a Theme**

In the early eighteenth century, Raphael Bluteau published the first monolingual dictionary of the Portuguese Language. In it, 'ancia'*,* spelled as 'ansia'\*, is defined as a physical and spiritual state.

Ancia/ansias derives from the Latin 'anxietas' and 'angor', but with this difference: the Latin words refer only to the spirit of disquietness ('inquietação'), sorrows ('penas'), and anxiousness, while in Portuguese the word carries not only these meanings but also some reference to physical ailments ('achaques'), pains that punish and tighten the heart. Therefore we can say that the patient is sick with great anxiousness or suffers ('padece') deadly anxiousness.<sup>1</sup>

<sup>1</sup> Thus 'Male vexatur æger' or 'dolores ægrum exagint': the infirm entered in deadly anxiousness. See *Correção de Abusos,* p. 56. See also the following definitions relating to anxiousness: spiritual anxiousness, *Sollicitudo*, *inis*. Fem. Anxietas, atis. Fem. ou anxietudo, dinis. *Fem. Cic*; with anxiousness, *Anxie. Saluste*. *Sollicite.Sucton*; to be with anxiousness, *In sollicitudine esse. Urgeri sollicitudine, sollicitudinem habere.* Cic; to ask with anxiousness, *Sollicitare com accusat. liv.*; to desire something with anxiousness, *Allicujus rei cupidatate ardere*. Bluteau*, Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "ansia," 395.On this dictionary see Marquilhas, Rita. "Em torno do Vocabulário de Bluteau: o reformismo e o prestígio no século XVIII." In *Caminhos do Português*, 105–118. Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional, 2001.

Joana uses anxiousness in all of these senses, as we shall see throughout this chapter. From a sense of sadness and languor to a 'deadly anxiousness', a medical state as cited in the seventeenth-century medical handbook *Correção de Abusos* (*Corrections of Abuses*), anxiousness becomes a major psychosomatic problem, which Joana, like other religious persons, endured.<sup>2</sup> However, before taking a closer look at such situations of anxiousness, I will carry out a brief sketch of the tradition of anxiousness to which Joana's notion belongs.

#### 3.1.1 The Latin Tradition of Anxietas

The task of tracing the history of the concept and the usage of the word anxiousness within its Latin tradition is now easier thanks to several databases of classic and medieval authors. One such example of is the Brepols Library of Latin texts.<sup>3</sup> From this research,itis possible to see which terms were used,where,andin what context. For instance, in the entry "anxius/anxia/anxietas," the names of Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300–368), Cassiodorus (c. 485-c. 585), Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), William of Saint-Thierry (c. 1070–1085), Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Thomas of Aquinas (1225–1274), and John Calvin (1509–1564), who borrowed the notion from Gregory the Great, must be highlighted due to their frequent use of this notion.

It is also most interesting to see the context in which these authors have used the terms 'anxius/anxia/anxietas'. In the Vulgate, for example, the adjective 'anxius' refers to the Psalms (101, 141, and 142), Ecclesiastes, and the book of Baruch. Many of the above-mentioned authors, such as Cassiodorus, mention the words anxious and anxiety in their commentaries on the Psalms.When commenting on Psalm 101, Cassiodorus makes the distinction that anxiety is an attribute of humankind, not of the Divinity. Being anxious is related to danger and uncertainty of what to do.Thus, the anxious man must supplicate and pray to God. <sup>4</sup>

Another relevant author is Gregory the Great, whose influence in high medieval thought is crucial to the development of the juncture of theology and mysticism, and who is quoted by John Calvin frequently. Gregory the Great uses this notion in

<sup>2</sup> Frey Manoel de Azevedo, *Correção de abusos introduzidos contra o verdadeiro methodo de medicina* (Lisboa: Officina de Diogo Soares de Bulhoens, 1668).

<sup>3</sup> Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis, Lovanii Novi, *CETEDOC library of Christian Latin texts, CLCLT 3* (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), accessed July 28, 2011, http://clt.brepolis.net.proxy-ub. rug.nl/llta/Default.aspx.

<sup>4</sup> Cassiodorus, *Expositio psalmorum* LXXI-CL*,* ed. M. Adriaen, Corpus Christianorum Series Lati na (CCSL 98), (Tornhout: Brepols, 1956). See also *Explanation to the Psalms* [Expositio psalmorum] vol. 3, trans. P.J. Walsh (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), 1.

his commentaries on the Song of Songs and to the book of Job. In this last work, anxiety is seen as trouble, connected with desire but also with punishment.<sup>5</sup>

The Cistercians continued this approach, investigating anxiety as an emotion related to the text of the Song of Songs.William of SaintThierry, for instance, shows that being anxious is an attribute of both the bride and the groom, and may be seen as an affection that has no cure or consolation.<sup>6</sup>

Thomas Aquinas, however, was the first to theorize on the role of 'anxietas' in his *Summa Theologiae*. .7 According to this famous Scholastic, 'anxietas' is an effect of sadness ('tristitia'), which weighs the mind down, causing torpor, making the limbs motionless, and depriving a man of speech, because the spoken word and the 'external movements' are expressions of the human and the animal 'inward desire'. <sup>8</sup> When it is an overwhelming sorrow, it is called 'acedia' or sloth, which causes an abhorrence to work and opposes spiritual joy.<sup>9</sup>

Similarly, 'anxietas'is also related to fear ('timor'). ForThomas Aquinas, the emotion of fear has a close connection to evil: it is the awareness of an approaching evil. As this evil is, among other characteristics, unforeseen ('ratione improvisionis'), anxiousness ('agonia') is the kind of fear that reacts to the *time* of evil.When evil is present, the soul's reaction is anger ('ira').<sup>10</sup> Thomas uses 'anxietas', 'agonia', and 'anger' distinctively, but in a gradation of the soul's responsiveness to evil. All have the same Indo-European root – ang<sup>11</sup> – which means anger or wrath. In extremis, anxietas contains the sprit of one of the seven mortal sins.<sup>12</sup>

<sup>5</sup> Gregory the Great, *Morals on the Book of Job*, [Moralia a Job], trans. members of the English Church (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1847), 18: 91.

<sup>6</sup> William of Saint Thierry, *Exposition on the Songs of Songs,* [Expositio super Cantico Canticorum], 39, 118.

<sup>7</sup> Thomas of Aquinas, *Summa Theologiae*, ed. and trans. Thomas Gilby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1a2a, q.41, a.4.

<sup>8</sup> V. M. Martin, *New Catholic Encyclopedia*, ed. Catholic University of America, 2nd ed., s.v. "Anxiety" (Detroit; Washington, D.C.: Thomson/Gale: Catholic University of America, 1967–1996), 1: 649–650. See also James E Loather et al, "Anxiety and Fear," in *Religion Past & Present: Encyclopedia of theology and religions*, ed. Hans Dieter Betz et al., (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 291–293.

<sup>9</sup> Thomas of Aquinas, *Summa Theologiae*, 2a2a, q.35.

<sup>10</sup> Thomas of Aquinas, 1a2a, q. 23, a4. Robert C. Miner, *Thomas Aquinas on the Passions: A Study of Summa Theologiae: 1a2ae 22–48* (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 213–286.

<sup>11</sup> Ernout and Meillet, *Dictionnaire Étymologique De La Langue Latine*, 58.

<sup>12</sup> For an historical overview on the seven deadly sins, see Morton Wilfred Bloomfield, *The seven deadly sins: an introduction to the history of a religious concept, with special reference to medieval English literature* (Michigan: State College Press, 1952), and Carla Casagrande, Silvana Vecchio, and Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat*, Histoire des péchés capitaux au Moyen Âge*, [I sette vizi capitali. Storia dei peccati nel Medievo] trans. Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat (Paris: Aubier, 2009).

All these variants help to ascertain the meaning of the Portuguese 'ancias' and the correlative English anxiousness. AsinThomas Aquinas, Joana's anxiousness contains emotions of sadness, abhorrence, fear, agony, and, to some extent, anger. Anxiousness is also akin to the concept of 'acedia', belonging to the spectrum of the soul's passions. 'Acedia', the Greek term for sloth, becomes a sin typified by such authors as the Desert Father Evagrius Ponticus and Cassian.<sup>13</sup> Like other passions of the soul, fear, anxiety, sadness, and anguish may trigger torpor and melancholia, therefore becoming a sin. Such psychological architecture prevailed until early modern times and was carried forward by mystics such as Maddalena de Pazzi (1566–1607), an Italian Carmelite.<sup>14</sup> The biography of this female mystic was widely diffused in Joana's epoch, and Joana even mentions this Italian saint in her own narrative [ANTT 61v].<sup>15</sup>

Joana belongs to this Latin tradition of 'anxietas' as desire and fear. As will be described throughout this chapter, anxiousness is both a burden and a possibility, a potentiality. Anxiousness means openness to transcendence – where the subject can find freedom – but also a burden of all the 'works' or hardships she must endure before and after the recollection and experience of union with the Divine.

#### 3.1.2 Juan de la Cruz and Giovanni Battista Scaramelli

Perhaps the most direct source for Joana's notion of anxiousness is John of the Cross (Juan de la Cruz). Like the patristic commentators on the *Songs of Songs*, Juan de la Cruz proceeds with a recreation of this biblical text and an explanation of how the anxious soul can strive toward encountering God.<sup>16</sup> However, it is in his *Dark Night of the Soul*, the sequel to the *Ascent of Mount Carmel*, where John of the Cross digresses on the 'ansias' (yearnings, anxieties) as he comments in the first stanza. The night is

<sup>13</sup> For a history of sloth in the medieval and early modern ages, see Siegfried Wenzel, *The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature* (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1960), and Julius Rubin, "Melancholy," in *The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion*, ed. John Corrigan (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2007).

<sup>14</sup> E. Ann Matter, "Theories of the Passions and the Ecstasies of Late Medieval Religious Women," in *Essays in Medieval Studies* 18 (2001), 8–10.

<sup>15</sup> In the *Copy's* preface of Joana's account this mystic is mentioned [BNL 6v]. Likewise there were several editions of her *Life* circulating in Portugal during the seventeenth century. See for instance the Portuguese version of Luis de la Presentacion, *Vida de la Bienaventurada Madre Soror Maria Magdalena de Pazzi* (Lisbon: Geraldo da Vinha, 1620).

<sup>16</sup> San Juan de la Cruz, "Cantico Espiritual entre el alma y Cristo, su Esposo*,"* in *Escritores del siglo XVI: San Juan de la Cruz, Fray Pedro Malon de Chaide, Fray Hernando de Zarate*, vol. 27 (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1948)*,* 143–215.

the temporal path that enables progress toward union with God.When anxious, the soul is striving, fighting its imperfections and enduring penitence.<sup>17</sup>

Giovanni Battista Scaramelli (1687–1752) was an Italian Jesuit author who was interested in mystical women and Iberian mysticism, and in particular the work of John of the Cross.<sup>18</sup> In his *Mystical Handbook* (Directorium Mysticum)*,* he argues against the dangers of quietism, but still he continues to safeguard the infused knowledge obtained from the mystical experience.<sup>19</sup> The third treatise deals with dreams, and in the eleventh chapter, Scaramelli talks about supernatural prayer, in particular the concept of 'ansias' (anxiousness) and the thirst of love.<sup>20</sup> Following Teresa, he argues that before and after the nuptial union, the soul might be set up in loving fires and be impatient and troubled. He provides a definition of anxiousness: "The Anxiousness, thus, of love, is a living desire of God, pleased and loved, and even though not completely possessed by the soul which is, almost totally, or partially purged."<sup>21</sup> For the Jesuit, the underlying question remains: if this is just an appetite of the rational soul (impatient and short-term desire), then it must be called 'loving anxiousness'; if it is a fixed and continuous drive in the soul, then it is 'thirst'. <sup>22</sup> In Teresa's terms, this is the *impetus* or a lower grade of anxiousness before the prayer of the union. Scaramelli finishes this chapter by instructing the spiritual director on how to deal with such a state, preventing the soul from lingering in such an imperfect state.

#### 3.1.3 Situations of Everyday Life

Joana does not theorize about anxiousness, neither does she explain what she means by it. She uses the notion on different occasions and always in different situations. The aim of this chapter is to reveal Joana's *modus loquendi*: the way in which she voices her central theme of *ancias amorozas*, how she uses and constructs language

<sup>17</sup> San Juan de la Cruz, *"*Noche Escura" in *Escritores del siglo XVI,* book 1, chap. 1–9. On the *Dark Night*, see also the work of Jesús Martí Ballester*, Una nueva lectura de 'Noche Oscura' de San Juan de la Cruz* (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2008).

<sup>18</sup> Giovanni Battista Scaramelli, *Vita di Suor Maria Crocifissa Satellico Monaca francescana nel monastero di monte Nuovo'* (Venice: 1750); Scaramelli, "Dottrina d S. Giovanni della Croce compresa quali si contiene la 'Salita del Monte', nel secondo le 'Notti oscue', nel terzo 'lꞋEsercizio di Amore' e la 'Fiamma di Amor vivo'" (Lucca: 1860). Giuseppe Mellinato, "Scaramelli (Jean-Baptiste)," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique*, 14: 396–402.

<sup>19</sup> Giovanni Battista Scaramelli, *Directorium mysticum, sive Norma dirigendi animas ad perfectionem christianam per vias contemplationis extraordinarias* (Impensis Episcopalis Seminarii, et Typis Thomae Weger, 1778) .

<sup>20</sup> Giovanni Battista Scaramelli, *Directorium mysticum*, treatise 3, chap. 9, 91.

<sup>21</sup> Scaramelli, *Directorium mysticum*, treatise 3, chap. 9, 92.

<sup>22</sup> Scaramelli, *Directorium mysticum*, treatise 3, chap. 9, 96.

to express it.<sup>23</sup> Ancias (both in singular and plural forms), for example, appears when Joana desires [ANTT 4v], moans [ANTT 7v], prays [ANTT 8v], talks [ANTT 10r], breathes [ANTT 11r], and when she feels hardships and sufferings [ANTT 16r], just to give some examples. Here we will analyze the contexts where these situations emerge.

In her discourse, Joana transforms daily events in *acts*like praying, working, eating, talking, reading, listening, and singing into present *events*, the experience of those acts in the presence of the God-Man. How does she express this transformation from act to event? In the previous chapter, we talked about the difference between fact and event in the truth-making process.<sup>24</sup> In his *Mystic Fable*, de Certeau speaks of a "liberation of the ethical principle," which occurs when the 'volo' (the intention) obtains autonomy from its objects and circumstances, and which is a characteristic process of early modern mystical writing.<sup>25</sup>

The written language of Joana's narrative is what we have at our disposal for a historical quest into mystical situations. However, Joana's *account* is a discursive and social practice. An *account* is a synonym of enumeration, repetition (account of); but itis also considered as ameans of storage or a bookkeeping of subjectivity's value(account for). This subjectivity is always (some)one's own body, namely hers, in its variegated daily activities and the ways she expresses the feeling/state/notion of anxiousness. These activities become equivalent to a series of divinized events, which leads to the quest for an angelic language, where meaning loses itself and acquires a state of performance or speech-act.

The *volo,* intended to make possible mystic speech and hearing, is therefore already both, and also their identity in a 'yes'. From this point of view, there is in language the function of the angel as the late medieval theories presented: a pure speech-act. Again like the angel, the *volo* struggles against the lies of the discourse. By hollowing out an 'interior', the *volo* restores the possibility of mutual understanding.<sup>26</sup>

Joana's speech is characterized by a predominance of adjectival and verbal language. In the expression of her mystical thought (which never intends to be a systematic effort), Joana de Jesus induces the states, the agency, and the narration by positioning her adjective/ accessory ability, her subjective situatedness, which is immanent to the spiritual and ontological tension rendered in the activity/passivity dichotomy felt in a reformed Cistercian Order,in post-Tridentine Portugal. And in this

<sup>23</sup> The search for a *modus loquendi* is also an expression used by Augustine in the search for biblical meaning. G. R. Evans, *Problems of authority in the Reformation debates* (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 57.

<sup>24</sup> See the subchapter "Beyond Senses: Time, Age and Sensing the future."

<sup>25</sup> Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 172.

<sup>26</sup> Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 175.

context ancias plays a rather important role: it is the motto of such mystical experiences.

Despite Joana's vocabulary being mainly domestic and non-literary, her writing entails a theological construction of a female subjectivity. Her quest for a certain agency and her subjectivity is seen through the conflict of some of the verbs that collaborate with her anxiousness. There is a gradualism and inner tension in the verbs 'bulir' (to move), 'obrar' (to act upon), 'operar' (to operate upon), 'trabalhar' (to work, to labor), 'sofrer' (to suffer), and 'padecer' (to suffer, to be patient, to patiate).<sup>27</sup> As is shown throughout this chapter, she becomes an agent insofar as she is patient, in an urgent, anxious patience, which is a work of suffering. In Joana's writing, this gradualistic set of words can be translated into a single polysemic English verb: to work.<sup>28</sup> Work is a wider concept that involves both the agency of God (creation) and human activity (opus).<sup>29</sup> Workis mainly connected with suffering: thereis an instrumental use of torture in 'tripalium' (three stakes), the word from which 'trabalho' is etymologically derived. In an ambiguous way, this occurs wherever the worker can be both its victim (the patient) and executioner (the agent).<sup>30</sup>

The *imitatio Christi*, in which Joana sees the possibility of attaining saintliness, operates in the same way. Experiential agency and intellectual activity are seen throughout the diverse works Joana does, makes, and suffers – as subjectivity and as subjected to God's own work. In the evolution of these situations, saintliness is positioned and reflected in Joana's life/world-writing, from which the discourse of anxiousness develops.

<sup>27</sup> Check the glossary for more on these notions.

<sup>28</sup> Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "work, v.," accessed September 20, 2012, http://www .oed.com/view/Entry/230217?rskey= iJg1CP&result=2.

<sup>29</sup> See Amy Hollywood, "Gender, Agency, and the Divine in Religious Historiography," in *The Journal of Religion,* vol. 84, no. 4 (October 2004): 514–528, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.10 86/422478.

<sup>30</sup> Ernout and Meillet, *Dictionnaire Étymologique De La Langue Latine*, s.v. "Tripalium," 156. For a different analysis of this etymology, see the work of the Portuguese philosopher Agostinho da Silva: Agostinho da Silva, "Nota Filológica sobre o verbo trabalhar" (*A Águia*, nos. 48–54 [February, 1927]), in *Agostinho da Silva. Estudos sobre a Cultura Clássica*, org. Paulo A.E. Borges, (Lisbon: Âncora/Círculo de Leitores, 2002), 203–204. See also Ricardo Ventura, "Agostinho da Silva e os estudos de Cultura Clássica: o filólogo, o tradutor, o pensador," in *Agostinho da Silva, um pensamento a descobrir* (Torres Vedras: Cooperativa de Comunicação e Cultura, 2004), 51–62.

#### **3.2. The Encounter**

#### 3.2.1 Positioning Saintliness: Filiatio, Cross, and Communication

Saintliness is the activity of closing distances, of approaching contact with what is sacred (apart) from the world. In Joana, this is expressed through the *encounter* of the Son (of God) with the Daughter (of humankind/womankind). Both are and have a body and a soul. A reflection on these subjects collides with the most important themes of dogmatic theology: *filiatio* (Sonship), Incarnation, and Trinity.<sup>31</sup> Joana de Jesus has these dogmas in mind when she writes down her narrative. Only after explaining this encounterit is possible to proceed to a detailed analysis of anxiousness.

At the end of her narrative, after describing a divine encounter that occurred between her and the God-Man during Communion, the Cistercian nun feels the presence of the Trinity and, like Mary Magdalene, she understands how she becomes accepted as a daughter.

emtão indo já para a comonidade me deu o Senhor a emtender que o Eterno Padre me aceitava por filha e tendo eu com isto grande temor e umildade, o Senhor me deu a emtender aquelas palavras que dise à Santa Maria Magdalena, dipois de resuscitado: Vou a meu Pai e a voso Pai, a meu Deus e a voso Deus e que se ele era Pai de todos, como reparava eu em que ele me aceitase por filha, com isto fiquei fora de dúvidas e com grande fé, mas com maior umildade e grande comfusão e todo aquele dia senti a presença das três devinas pesoas e quando queria buscar ao filho, achava-o em o Padre e o Padre achava-o em o filho e o filho em o ispirito santo e conhecendo que estas devinas pesoas erão distintas, conhecia que todas erão hum só Deos verdadeiro, com quem a minha alma com grande fé e amor se abraçava, desejando de dar muitas mil vidas pela comfisão de todas as verdades de Nosa Santa Fé Católica e pela mor onra e glória deste amante e poderoso Deos, a cujo nome ela seija dada por todos os séculos do[s] séculos. [ANTT 131v]

Then, while already going to the community, the Lord gave me to understand that the Eternal Father accepted me as a daughter. And with me feeling great fear and humility, the Lord gave me to understand those words He said to Holy Maria Magdalene after His resurrection: "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" [John: 20,17]: and if He was the Father of all, as I noticed, He would accept me as a daughter. With this I moved beyond doubt and with a great faith, but with bigger humility and great confusion. The whole day I felt the presence of the three Divine Persons, and when I wanted to search for the Son, I found Him in the Father, and the

<sup>31</sup> E. M. Bruke, *The New Catholic Dictionary*, s.v. "Dogmatic Theology", 4: 949–956. See John O'Donnel, *Introducción a teología dogmática* (Estella, Navarra: Editorial Verbo Divino, 1996).

Father I found in the Son, and the Son in the Holy Spirit. And knowing these Divine Persons were distinct, I knew that all of them were just one true God with whom my soul with great faith and love would embrace, desiring to give many thousand of lives for the confession of all the truths of Our Holy Catholic Faith and for the honor and glory of this loving and powerful God, to whose name this glory and honor may be given for all centuries of centuries. [ANTT 131v]

In this quote Joana reinterprets John 20:17. For her, and in contrast to the tradition, this passage is not about the resurrection of Christ or the news of a future human resurrection.<sup>32</sup> The emphasis is rather upon Mary Magdalene, whose role as a messenger is transformed into a true daughtership. Becoming a daughter is achieved mainly through the inclusivity doubly stressed in "my Father and your Father, and to my God, and your God." For Joana this is a revelatory *speech-act*, where words of Christ give per se the meaning and the truth to the act.This is a kind of baptism or,in less sacramental and more dogmatic terms, this is a divine adoptive *filiatio* that includes Mary Magdalene and Joana herself.<sup>33</sup> It includes the others, those who have not heard the news of the Son of God, in a later moment, and depends on Joana's (and Magdalen's) words.

The doubt remains: does Joana omit, disregard, or merely ignore the famous introduction ("Touch me not") to the passage?<sup>34</sup> Taking the literature and iconography based on 'noli me tangere' into account, it is hardly imaginable that Joana just ignores it.<sup>35</sup> She does not emphasize the distance between the human/mortal and the divine/immortal in this passage. Instead, she sees this dialogue between Magdalene and Christ as the beginning of a true relationship. The God-Man's words initiate a

<sup>32</sup> See, for instance, the commentary of Thomas Aquinas. He cites previous interpreters such as Arius, Chrisostomos, and Augustine. For Aquinas, this passage deals with the resurrection and the privileged role that women, especially Magdalene, had in the sharing of this news with the Apostles and the rest of the community. Thomas Aquinas, *Commentary on the Gospel of John,* [[Super Evangelium S. Joannis lectura]*,* trans. Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. (Albany, N.Y.: Magi Books, Inc., 1998) part 2, chap. 20, accessed August 5, 2013, in http://www .dhspriory.org/thomas/John20.htm.

<sup>33</sup> Cf. Charles Baumgartner, "Grace II Le mystére de la Filiation adoptive," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique*, 6: 711.

<sup>34 &</sup>quot;Jesus saith unto her, 'Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.'" (King James Version of the Bbile, John 20:17).

<sup>35</sup> Barbara Baert, "'Do not hold on to me' or The Gaze in the Garden: Body and Embodiment in Noli me tangere (John 20:17)," in *Interspaces between work, gaze and touch: the Bible and the visual medium in the Middle Ages. Collected Essays on 'Noli me Tangere', the woman with Haemorrhage, the head of John of Baptist* (Leuven; Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2001), 11–33.

close and intimate dialogue, which extends to Joana, in an individualized conversation.<sup>36</sup>

Nelson Correia Borges states that the veneration of Mary Magdalene was widespread in post-Tridentine Iberia.<sup>37</sup> In the iconography, for instance, it is possible to identify Magdalene with knowledge and light, as was done in the work of the Spanish-Portuguese painter Josefa de Óbidos, herself a contemporary of Joana de Jesus.<sup>38</sup>

*Figure 5: Mary Magdalene, by Josefa de Óbidos (1630–1684); Machado de Castro Museum Collection, University of Coimbra.*

<sup>36</sup> For the notion of 'conversar' in the Spanish mystics, see Certeau, *The Mystic Fable*, 157–187.

<sup>37</sup> Borges, *Arte Monástica em Lorvão*, 238.

<sup>38</sup> This historical connection and the mystical discourse of Josefa Obidos was followed by Jean Andrews "Josefa de Ayala and the Penitent Magdalen: 'Huma suavidade que me cercava toda'", Portuguese Studies, 38:1 (2022), 25–44 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/855299. On this painter, see Vitor Serrão, *O essencial sobre Josefa de Óbidos* (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1985), and his other book *The Sacred and the profane: Josefa de Óbidos de Portugal* [catalog of an exhibition held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts] (Lisbon: Ministério da Cultura, Gabinete das Relações Internacionais;Washington, D.C.: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1997).

Judging from the passage quoted above, Magdalene inspired Joana de Jesus to rethink the dogma of *filiatio*. *Filiatio* cannot be just the continuation of the platonic notion of participation.<sup>39</sup> Throughout her account, Joana shows how she has to mystically ingress, traverse, or even transgress the realm of the limited into the prohibited, into what is sacred.<sup>40</sup> She touches Christ indeed: in a suffering way, developing a true 'via dolorosa', her own private way of the cross.

The path of the cross is the sign, the mark which makes possible the union, the encounter. The cross stands not only as the symbol of an ecstatic God-Man at the hands of his enemies, petitioning to his Father; rather, this happens at the crossroads between grace (God) and piety (men, women): the true encounter. Isn't the Passion of Christ, with its several stances, a pathway full of encounters?<sup>41</sup> It does not stand for the distance, the gap that separates humanity from the Divinity. Instead, this gap becomes the gap that makes communication possible. Joana says, "He wanted to communicate to me a secret of great love" [ANTT 14v]. His communication of grace literally aches in the favors, mercies, or gifts offered to her. Later in this chapter, we will reflect on the surrender of giving.

Now let us just concentrate on the visions and voices which cultivate a 'colóquio amoroso' (loving colloquium) and 'razões amorosas' (loving reasons) through the sharing of the same crucified position. While the Son of God is tied up on the cross, suffering immobile and vertically, Joana is suffering from ailments, blisters, abscesses, and seizures which keep her confined, tied to her bed, horizontally [ANTT 14]. This is not the fruit of speculative imagination but shows Joana's daily life. In her somber room, the Cistercian only has a bed and an image on the wall of Christ on the cross [ANTT 155].

In Joana's aspiration to a communication and a communion between the Godon-the-cross and the daughter-on-the-bed, we may argue that an embodiment that surpasses a mere search for psychological or physiological approaches towards a reading of this mystical experience is present. <sup>42</sup> What is at stake here is the philosophical and theological situation explicit in the dogma of Incarnation. Verticality

<sup>39</sup> On the platonic concept of participation and its relation to Trinity and Christology, see Torstein Tollefsen, "The concept of participation," in *The Christian Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 190–224.

<sup>40</sup> On this separation, see the work of Georges Bataille,*: Death and Sensuality*, [L'Érotisme] trans. Mary Dalwood (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1968). Cf. Amy Hollywood, "Bataille mystique 'the Philosopher-Sartre and Me'" in *Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History*, 25–34. Peter Tracey Connor, *Georges Bataille and the Mysticism of Sin* (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

<sup>41</sup> Michel-Jean Picard, "Croix (Chemin de)," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique,* 2: 2576–2606.

<sup>42</sup> Assumpção, *As freiras do Lorvão*, 202.

and horizontality become intersected and become a common experience of embodiment: the dogma of Incarnation becomes the force of transcendence. According to Amy Hollywood, the search for transcendence is intrinsically related to mystical experience. Hollywood argues that this is due to Augustine, who "sets the agenda for the mysticism of the high and late Middle Ages." For Augustine, the mystical experience contains four dimensions of movement of ascension. The first is the transcendence from the material to one's own soul; the second, a transfer from love to knowledge; the third, an uplifting of meaning from the literal to the proliferation of metaphors, which leads to ineffability; and finally, the sense of community that is exhaled from an individual experience.<sup>43</sup>

These same four characteristics are present in Joana's Christology, namely in the notion of anxiousness. It is at the cross,or more exactly at the column, that Joana can challenge the material (of their bodies) to the Divinity; that her pious love leads to a certain knowledge; that this same knowledge surpass metaphors and leads to the impossibility of speaking, or, conversely, to speaking of the mysteries of Christian faith; and, finally, that her experience has to be shared and communal through writing her *Life*. Each of these four stages is accompanied by the sense of need, urgency, desire, and suffering contained in the polysemy of ancias*.* This same anxiousness makes possible a profound sense of likeness between the Son-on-the-cross and the daughter-on-the-bed.

#### 3.2.2 Anxious Crossing: The Embrace

In the following passage, anxiousness is closely related to the vision and knowledge of Christ on the cross through the experience of an even deeper union: the embrace.

Outras veses estando com estas mesmas ancias se me representou\* o meu Senhor quando por nosso amor e remedio o encravarão em a crus, e quando cheguarão a emcravar aqueles pes sacratisimos que trinta e tres anos andarão neguociando o remedio de nosa salvação crecia com esta consideração, tanto a dor, que me não atrivia a ver aquelle lastimado Senhor, e quasi ja sem alento lhe pedia que pois não permitia dispensar com aquelle tromento que permitisse que o meu coração se metesse emtre aqueles divinos pes, para que de algum modo ajudasse a sustentar aquelle duro cravo, e o meu Senhor pondo seus olhos divinos em <as> ancias com que lhe fazia esta petição, permitia que o meu pobre coração fosse juntamente pasado\* com aquelle cravo, e alli ficava tão presa\* que não podia tornar em mim.Outra ves se me representou quando estava em a culuna dipois dos açoutes, e parece que me pedia que lhe

<sup>43</sup> Amy Hollywood, "Mysticism and Transcendence," 298–306. Cf. Amy Hollywood, introduction to *The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism*, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 1–4.

desse em aquelle trabalho algum allivio\*, e isto causava em mim hum amor tão exsicivo, e huma ancia tão apertada que me sentia morer, e pedia-lhe com grande instancia que me desse lus para acertar em aquillo que fose seu gosto, e vontade que bem sabia que ja eu não tinha querer mais que o seu. Mas que como avia eu sendo hum bicho tão feo e mi [ANTT 21v] e miseravel de dar allivio ao meu Senhor, e criador, e elle che<gua>va-se a mim e apertandome\* com hum doce abraço\* me dava a entender que o allivio que queria era estar comiguo, porque [BNL 47v] os seus deleites erão estar com os filhos dos homens. [ANTT 21r-v.]

On other occasions, feeling this same anxiousness my Lord represented\* Himself to me when, for our love and remedy, He was nailed to the Cross, when some dared to pierce those most holy feet that were negotiating the remedy of our salvation for thirty-three years; with this consideration the pain grew so much that I dared not to look at that sorrowful Lord, and already breathless\*, I asked Him if, as He would not allow himself to do without that torment, he would allowed [my] heart to put itself between those Divine feet, so that somehow it helped support that hard nail. And my Lord putting His Divine eyes upon the anxiousness with which I pleaded with Him this, allowed my poor heart also to be pierced/trespassed\* with that nail, and it stayed so stuck\* there that I could not return to myself. Another time, He represented Himself to me as He was tied to the column after His whipping and it seemed that He asked me to give Him some solace\*, and this caused in me a love so excessive and such a tight anxiousness that I felt myself dying and asked Him with great urgency to enlighten me to get whatever was to His taste and will right, because he knew well that I had already no other wish further than His. But how should I, being an ugly and [ANTT 21v] miserable little animal, give relief to my Lord and creator, and He got nearer to me and held me tight\* me with a sweet embrace, and gave me to understand that the alleviation he wanted was to be with Him, because His delights were to be with the children of men. [ANTT 21r-v.]

These words, taken from the first pages of her account, show three important constituents of Joana's anxiousness in her ongoing dogmatic discussion of adoptive *filiatio* and Incarnation, namely through the mentioning of Christ's feet, the nail, and his/their arms.The Cistercian nun clearly states that a 'pierced' togetherness is possible through human relief. The divine unity joins his feet to her heart, his eyes to her will, which shows cooperation between the God-Man's body and woman-Joana's faculties (memory as heart and will). This is what lies at the basis of the discourse of the embrace.

We may argue that to embrace is to use the arms, limbs, the strength of human labor, reaching, contacting what is set aside, apart, separated – what is sacred. The embrace might be characterized by the tremendous, a classic category of the numinous that contains awfulness before the union, the overpowering feeling before the disproportion between human and the Divine, and the consequences of such an encounter: the energy and urgency to act (and write down) such an experience.<sup>44</sup> Could the God-Man indeed embrace Joana in his own humanity (insofar as Christ acquires a heterosexual form of masculinity) to fulfil his delights, and to be relieved of his own divinity?

To embrace brings a closeness and a new sense of space. Joana often uses the word 'aperto' (tightness) or 'apertado' (the condition of being strained or tightened, crushed).<sup>45</sup> She feels her will tightened, not loosened, when her heart is crushed, contrite. 'Aperto' can refer to a crowded place, an urgent need, poverty, a psychological state when the person (heart) is scared or anguished, which can even be related to danger: 'perigo', 'trabalhos'.

Elsewhere Joana speaks of having a 'growing loving anxiousness', of being closed up and locked in the sacrary with Christ. This happens after Mass, when the priest shows the image of Christ and keeps it locked in the sacrary. Joana says that Christ has given to her the understanding that he had always been obedient to his eternal Father, even though he wanted to be left sacramented under the *species* of bread and wine, to become *subject* to men and imprisoned at their hands [ANTT 112].

Similarly to Christ, Joana is 'imprisoned and tied up to his will' ('preza e atada ao seu querer') [ANTT 69v]. She even uses a necklace (a chain) almost as a relic through which she certifies her imprisoned/bound state [ANTT 127v].<sup>46</sup> Their tightened vinculum ('vínculo') is almost an intimate covenant between the God-Man and his *own* daughter.

The polysemic character we may encounter in the vinculum and embrace which Joana argues the God-Man sustains with humankind is not merely a speculative effort with no connection to daily reality. We may hypothesize that there is a relationship between spiritual vinculum and a certain iconography. As previously said in the historical chapter concerning the Cistercians' Renewal,many new chapels were built in the cloister during this period. According to the art historian Borges, the abbess Margarida da Silveira ordered the construction of the chapel in 1601. The statue of 'The Lord Bound to a Column' was characteristic of Coimbra's 'mannerism' and was

<sup>44</sup> Rudolf Otto, *The idea of the Holy*, trans. John W. Harvey (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959), 12–24.

<sup>45</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "aperto," 1: 424–425.

<sup>46</sup> On the practices of relics and cults of saints in the Middle Ages, see Jane Tibbetts Shulenberg, "Women's monasteries and Sacred Space. The Promotion of Saints' Cults and Miracles," in *Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe: New Perspectives*, ed. Lisa M. Bitel and Felice Lifshitz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 68–76. For a systematic history of relics, see Arnold Angenendt, *Heilige und Reliquien. Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart*, 2d ed. (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1997).

probably executed by John of Rouen, a Norman sculptor, or by some of his disciples, for an identical statue of his exists at the Monastery of Celas in Coimbra.<sup>47</sup> This chapel was part of an artistic and devotional route throughout the centuries, which may even have increased the worship of this particular scene in Christ's Passion.

*Figure 6: 'Senhor prezo à coluna'. 16th century. Monastery of Lorvão. (Photo by Joana Serrado)*

This image is not only venerated by Joana de Jesus. Teresa also mentions the Christ bound at the column.<sup>48</sup> Lino de Assumpção, following the information in *Memorial das Vidas e religiosas deste real Mosteiro*, talks of another nun of Lorvão who hadintense conferences with theGod-Man at this statue.<sup>49</sup> The legend regarding this nun says that because of that dialogue, his mouth remained semi-open.<sup>50</sup> Another example is described in the *Memorial*. The nun Joana Luisa da Costa, who died on 6

50 Assumpcão, *As Freiras do Lorvão*, 32–33

<sup>47</sup> Nelson Correia Borges, "As Capelas do claustro do Lorvão: percurso devocional e artístico," in *Cister: Espaços, Territórios, Paisagens: Actas* (Lisbon: Ministério da Cultura, Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico, 2000), 475–76.

<sup>48</sup> See footnote 212.

<sup>49</sup> *Memorial das Vidas e religiosas deste real Mosteiro*, Lisbon, ANTT, Mosteiro do Lorvão, book 310.

January 1756, is said to have spent much time at this same chapel.<sup>51</sup> This eighteenthcentury nun states that Jesus had unbound himself from the column in order to embrace her, which Dona Joana Luisa had modestly refused, as she was a mere mortal.

#### 3.2.3 At the Crossroads of Anxiousness

In the same citation, besides embrace, Joana mentions another even deeper form of contact with the God-Man: the incision of the flesh through piercing and flagellation. The emphasis here is not upon the scourging of Christ, the famous fourth stance of Christ's Passion, but instead upon his immobility, which parallels Joana's own immobility, her confinement to her bed. Christ's salvation of the humanity was through the cross, in an upright and rigid position. However, in Joana's reading, there is the necessity for flexion, relaxing, and relieving of his limbs, which the God-Man does by involving the "Children of Men." Could Joana also be entering into a dialogue with the passage of the Psalms where the author/s evokes the anger and forgiveness of God?<sup>52</sup> However, Joana's God-Man embraces because he loves in excess, and the possibility of transience through the cross, and through death and love, fuels the perennial movement of transcendence that challenges Christ's *masculine* verticality and transforms it, as we will see in the fourth chapter, into Joana's *feminine* horizontal transcendence.

God's openness to the creature is seen in this next passage, where Joana develops her theological imagery.

se me davão a emtender grandes cousas emtre as quais emtendi que me disia o Senhor, que a Nau segura em que se avião de embarcar os que quisesem [ANTT 116r] cheguar haquele seguro porto, era seu divino corpo sacramentado e como isto causase em mim grande admiração, derão-me huns exsicivos deseijos de pedir por todos os pecadores e o Senhor com os braços abertos me dise estas palavras: Com os braços abertos, estou para receber a todos os que arependidos me buscarem. E como eu me admirase do grande afecto com que isto me dise me tornou a retificar: Venhão todos a mim que eu os receberem. E aqui me deu a emtender este amante Deos e Senhor hum amor tão imfinito com que amava aos homens que fiquei de todo pasmada e estava com as mãos abertas e o coração me quiria sair fora de seu mesmo centro, para dar voses e para acabar de emtender as maravilhas deste grande Deos que suposto emtendia tanto, que me admirava, não era capas minha miséria para poder emtender o que por junto se me representava

<sup>51 &</sup>quot;Memorial das Vidas e Obitos das Religiosas deste Mosteiro," ANTT, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro de Lorvão, book 310, accessed February 27, 2012, PT/TT/MSML/A/L310, http://digitar q.dgarq.gov.pt/details?id=4616414.

<sup>52 &</sup>quot;Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men" (Ps 90:3).

naquele mar, oceano aonde todos se perdem. Tãobem emtendia que a minha alma se comonicava com aqueles bem-aventurados e que todos me davão dons e tendo eu saudade de sua companhia me davão a emtender que dali a muitos anos hiria para ela e o mesmo emtendi do meu confesor. [ANTT 115v-6r]

I was given to understand great things, amongst which, I understood that my Lord was telling me that the safe carrack in which would embark those who wanted [ANTT 116r] to arrive at that safe harbor was His sacramented divine body, and as this caused in me a great admiration I was caught by some excessive desires of asking for all sinners and the Lord with open arms told me these words: with open arms I am ready to receive all those who with repentance search for me: and as I was admiring the great affection with which He told me this, He ratified again: Let them all come to me as I will receive them: and here this loving God and Lord gave me to understand the infinite love with which He loved men, so that I was wholly swooned and with open hands and my heart wanted to leave its own center to voice and to finish understanding the marvels of this great God that obviously understood so much that He astonished me. My misery was not able to possibly understand what was represented to me in that oceanlike sea where all lose themselves. I also understood that my soul communicated with those fortunate ones and that all of them gave me gifts and with me missing His company, gave me to understand that many years from that moment I would go there, and the same I understood from my confessor. [ANTT 115v-6r]

In this excerpt, God's body is compared to a 'nau'. The theme of sea, journey, and boat is transcultural, almost an archetype of a mythological experience.<sup>53</sup> However, Joana does not use the word boat, but instead the word 'nau'. A 'nau' (or carrack) is a late fifteenth-century ship developed by the Portuguese in order to circumnavigate Africa. It was a type of ship capable of both war and cargo transportation, making possible the transatlantic crossings and, therefore, the Iberian expansion to the New World.<sup>54</sup> Did Joana have this in mind when she used this word? Or was she simply translating directly from the Latin 'navis'?<sup>55</sup> *Nau* is the possibility of movement, of a

<sup>53</sup> See for instance Mircea Eliade's classic work, *The Myth of The Eternal Return [Mythe de l'éternel retour], translated from the French by Wilard R. Trask* (New York: UP of Princeton, 1991).

<sup>54</sup> Filipe Vieira de Castro, *A Nau De Portugal. Os Navios Da Conquista Do Império Do Oriente 1498–1650* (Lisbon: Prefácio, 2003). Fernão de Oliveira, *Livro Da Fabrica Das Naos,* (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional, ca.1580). See also the use of 'nau' by Francisco Melo Rodrigues, *Os Relógios Falantes* (Coimbra: CELGA, 2007), accessed October 31, 2012, http://www.uc.pt/ui d/celga/recursosonline/cecppc/textosempdf/11osrelogiosfalantes.

<sup>55</sup> I thank Joana Jacinto, PhD candidate in History of Portuguese Language, for proposing this hypothesis and guiding me though the specific literature on linguistic matters.

spiritual path that includes the journey from life to death and from death to life, as seen in the sixteenth-century poetry of Camões.<sup>56</sup>

Joana continues to speak about the peregrination, which is tight/ened ('apertada') in God's arms [ANTT 75r and ANTT 81v].While God is the*Nau*, the divine steering wheel [ANTT 46r] or the captain of the Divine Nau, the world is described as the tormented and unpredictable *sea* from where the living creatures emerge [ANTT 1v].

*Peregrination* as a word and a notion is crucial to religious and mystic thought in general.<sup>57</sup> It may exist in Joana's work as a notion of crusade and spiritual peregrination, akin to Cistercian thought.<sup>58</sup> The French philosopher Stanislas Breton argues that in mystics such as Eckhart or Surin, the idea of 'oportet transire' (the need to move) is both henological (inwards) and exodological (outwards).<sup>59</sup> In these two mystics, following Breton, we may even speak of a true 'odologic mysticism': a mysticism that is based on the path, on the journey; the encounter is the basis of Joana's peregrination.

Peregrination is not only spiritual but is also intrinsically related to acquiring material relics.<sup>60</sup> According to Juergen Hahn, a German literary scholar, the theme of peregrination also acquires a true momentum in the Christian Baroque period.<sup>61</sup> Moreover, we should not forget the importance that Fernão Mendes Pinto's (c. 1509–1583) travel writings in *Peregrinação* (*Peregrination* or *Pilgrimage*) had in Portuguese early modern culture. We may conclude that machinery ('nau'), cartography, human agency (journeys), and their accounts (travel writings) made possible the domination of the sea, which was also the symbol for chaos and nature.

<sup>56</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "nau," 5:671-672. On Camões, see also Helena Langrouva*, A Viagem na Poesia de Camões* (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian-FCT, 2006).

<sup>57</sup> See the concept of mystical pilgrimage in, for example, Evelyn Underhill, *Mysticism: a Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness* (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, orig. 1911, rep. 2005), 122–142. For a more anthropological perspective, see the work of Victor Turner in Victor and Edith Turner, *Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives* (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 243–55.

<sup>58</sup> Jean Leclerq, introduction to *Bernard and the Cistercian Spirit* (Kalamazoo, MI : Cisterciens Publications, 1976), 24.

<sup>59</sup> Stanislas Breton, *Deux Mystiques De l'Excès : J.-J. Surin Et Maître Eckhart*, Cogitatio Fidei 135 (Paris : Cerf, 1985). See also Pierre-Jean Labarriére, "La Mystique et la philosophie Stanislas Breton et l'Odologie excessive," in *Archives de Philosophie*, 50 (1987): 679–686.

<sup>60</sup> Andre Vauchez, "Reliquie, santi e santuari, spazi sacri e vagabondaggio religioso nel medioevo," in *Storia dell ́Italia religiosa. L antichità e il medioevo*, directed by Andre Vauchez (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1993), 474.

<sup>61</sup> Juergen Hahn, *The Origins of the Baroque Concept of Perigrinatio* (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina, 1973), 173.

For the Portuguese nun, peregrination is both a spiritual journey and a physical one. It is her own path from Mioma, Sátão to Lorvão, Coimbra, and from there to the religious house at Lisbon. On the anniversary of this last journey, she writes:

[ANTT 91r] Dia do glorioso Apóstolo São Mateus, na era de 1663, dipois de comunguar, estando emcomendando ao Senhor por mandado do meu confessor, huma religiosa que estava doente em a Recoleta de Lisboa, aonde eu estava, se me arebatou\* o ispirito com grande força e suavidade e parecia-me que via em o Ceo aquela riligiosa que ainda estava viva e loguo se me apresentou a saída, que em aquele mesmo dia fizera de Lorvão e deu-se-me a entender que o ano se fenalisava em aquela mesma ora em que eu comecei aquela pirigrinação e me detriminei a deixar pelo Senhor, casa, parentes e irmãs e o mesmo Senhor com grande poder e magestade me ritificou, que ele fora o que me trouxera, que naquele dia fasia quatro anos completos, que lhe ofrecese os trabalhos que em eles avia padicido e sem eu, por mim, poder obrar nada, porque estavão as potências absortas\*, se me puserão diante todos os trabalhos, que em o discurso daqueles quatro anos tinha padicido\*, e era tão grande o volume que fasião, que fiquava a minha alma de todo admirada e toda se dilatava pela grandesa daqueles padecimentos, os quais com grande umildade ofrecia ao Senhor e parecia-me que era como hum fumosinho mui dilicado que hia subindo ao Ceo e o mesmo Senhor que me dispunha para lhe apresentar aquela pobre oferta a recibia e se agradava muito dela, mas suposto me permitia que eu lha ofrecese. Conhecia eu, como por vista de olhos que não tinha ali nada mais, que ser hum pobre instromento a quem o Senhor tomara para se excercitar em aqueles trabalhos que avia padicido e com esta imtiligência fiquei tão umilde e dispida\* de mim que o não sei declarar Deu-me tãobem a entender que começase com grande valor o outro ano que emtrava e parecia-me que o Senhor tinha para obrar cousas grandes, em o fim desta minha perigrinação e parece que o comprimento destes anos era como hum termo que o tempo fasia para se vir cheguando, aquele mais desejado do que a minha alma recibia grande jubilo ispiritual e com isto tornou a fiquar em si, mas com hum impito de lágrimas tão grande, que se me rasguava o coração e asim sem saber por onde hia, me fui para o coro asistir ha ora que [ANTT 91v] se dis dipois da misa e estando ainda como fora de mim, se me deu a entender que aquela religiosa, que dise que estava doente, avia de morrer daquela doença <como em effeito foi assim> e que loguo avia de ir para o Ceo, e com isto entendia a grande dita, que a esperava em <a>quella ditosa pátria e o quanto errados hião, aqueles que emquanto tinhão vida, não fasião po-los alcançar. Isto tudo me acabou de derreter o coração como cera, com grandes deseijos de me ver de pose daqueles eternos bens, comprados com o precioso sangue do noso Bom Jesus, cujo nome dulcisimo seija de todos adorado e para sempre servido. Amém.

Em a oração da tarde, em este mesmo dia, se me tornou a retificar tudo o que deixo referido asim da religiosa, a qual o Senhor levou para si dahi a hum mês, como das mais cousas tocantes ha minha perigrinação e de novo se me deu a entender que o Senhor se paguara e servira muito do Noso Reverendissimo Padre Frei Vivardo me traser para a Recoleta, que o Senhor o avia de premiar muito por esta obra, que fisera por lhe parecer que era vontade sua e derãose-me a entender estas palavras: quia facisti hanc rem. Outras cousas entendi tocantes a este servo de Deos, todas de grande consolação que não relato por não alarguar esta leitura. [ANTT 91r-v]

[ANTT 91r] On the Day of the glorious Apostle Saint Matthew, in the year of one thousand and six hundred and sixty-three, after taking Communion, while commending, by mandate of my confessor, a religious woman that was sick in Lisbon's Recollect in which I was, my spirit was enraptured\* with great strength and suavity, and it seemed to me that I saw that still-living religious woman in Heaven, and soon the exit from Lorvão that I did that same day presented itself to me, which gave me to understand that the year was finishing in the same hour when I started that peregrination and determined to leave home, relatives and brothers, and the same Lord with great power and majesty ratified me that He had been the one that had brought me, four years ago completed in that same day. I was to offer Him the works that I had suffered during those years. And without my own possibility of doing anything, as the potencies were otherwise occupied\*, all the works that, during the course of those four years, I had patiated\* placed themselves before me and their volume was so large that my soul became wholly admiring and dilated\* itself entirely due to the greatness of those sufferings which, with great humility, I offered TO the Lord, and it seemed to me that it was like a very delicate and small thread of smoke that was ascending into Heaven, and the same Lord that had disposed me to present Him that poor offering, received it and was much pleased with it, but supposedly allowed me to offer it to Him. I knew, as if just after a swift look, that I had nothing more to do there than to be a poor instrument, taken by the Lord to be exercised in those works that I had been patiating. With this insight, I become so humble and stripped\* of myself, that I don't know how to declare it. He also gave me to understand that I should start the incoming year with great valor, and it seemed to me the Lord had great works to undertake at the end of my peregrination and that the length of these years was like a term that time made to close in to the most desired one, which made my soul receive a great spiritual joy and with this, it came back to its senses but with a thrust of tears so big that my heart was tearing itself apart, and thus without knowing the path I was taking, I went to the choir, to attend the hour that is said [ANTT 91v] after the mass and still being as if out of myself, I was given to understand that that religious woman I said that was ill, would succumb to that disease – as in fact would happen and would soon go to Heaven and with this I understood the great happiness that awaited her in that blissful home and how wrong those were that did not do enough to reach it while alive. All this ended up melting

my heart like wax, with big desires to see myself owning those eternal goods, bought with the precious blood of our good Jesus whose most sweet name shall be adored and served forever. Amen.

During the afternoon prayer in this same day all that I leave mentioned was again ratified, not only about the religious woman that God took to his side one month later but about the other things related to my pilgrimage, and again I was made to understand that the Lord had paid and much served himself with Our Most Reverend Father Friar Vivardo having brought me to the Recollect, as the Lord would reward him much for this work, the latter did as it seemed to him that it was His will and I was made to understand these words: quia facisti hanc rem ["because thou hast done this thing" Gen 22:16]. Other things I understood related to this servant of God, all of Great consolation, which I do not tell so this reading is not extended. [ANTT 91r-v]

In this passage we must highlight several motives for peregrination. The description and revelation of a dying woman's pilgrimage from life to death could be the first. The second is the anniversary of Joana's own journey from Lorvão to Coimbra: it was on the same date, four years beforehand, that Joana had initiated her life at the Recollect. The third motive is the vision and revelation she receives regarding her future in Lisbon. The Cistercian nun deals here mainly with time: the past she commemorates; the future she envisages; the present of a dying religious woman, a 'small thread of smoke' she relates to her vision.

Joana's peregrination amounts to the overcoming of many obstacles, of her own private crusade into another religious house. Her hardships in the form of sickness and physical impairment, as the abandonment of her own "home, relatives and sisters" – the powerful family network mentioned in the second chapter – are accepted by God as a testimony of her most personal sacrifice. This is shown to her by different tokens on her fourth anniversary at the Recollect. The scent, the prediction, and the prevision of the death of a religious woman signal the infused knowledge of the close bond Joana has with the God-Man.

There is a crescendo in this encounter. From the cross to the embrace, the vinculum to the peregrination, Joana is uniting herself with the God-Man in a close and intimate relationship. This crescendo acquires a special tone when Joana quotes the Latin version of Genesis 22:16, "because thou hast done this thing." The thing was, for Abraham, the sacrifice of his own son Isaac.This thing is, for Joana, her personal sacrifice of her own family ties and, ultimately, her own will. Joana is truly assured of creating her own covenant with the God-Man.

#### 3.2.4 Positioning the Gift: The Dowry

In the discourse of embrace and encounter, the flexibility of the God-Man's limbs is what makes possible his 'dom', the gift. Joana says:

são as notícias\* e mais sentimentos que nacem desta fonte e que suposto, quando verdadeiramente são de Deos, traguão grandes riquezas para a alma não convém que se abrace com o dom e deixe ao autor e dador do mesmo dom. [ANTT 45v.]

the notices\* and more feelings are [those] that sprout from this fountain. When they are truly from God, they bring great richness for the soul. It is not convenient that [someone] embraces in the gift, and ignores to the author and donor of the same gift. [ANTT 45v.]

For Joana the gift ('dom') is not only an object. Repeatedly, almost to exhaustion, Joana uses the verb *to give* associated with knowledge. She does not say: "I understood it from God," but rather, "He gave me to understand."

The gift is another token of her Cistercian heritage as the gift of truth. This is present in all of Bernard's works, but particularly in his *Commentaries on the Songs of Songs* and in *De Diligendo Deo*. <sup>62</sup> In the first book, in the eighth sermon on the kiss of the mouth, Bernard speaks of the threefold knowledge that God gives to the bride. The knowledge of eternal life is through the union of Father and Son, but by being "the kiss of the mouth," the (holy) spirit or breath is present, making the union, the bonding, the gift of revelation. Not surprisingly, Bernard corroborates this with two passages from Paul (1Cor 2:6-10 and Rom 5:5) on the gift of knowledge and love. The Cistercian monk says:

It is by giving the Spirit, through whom he reveals and shows himself to us; he reveals himself in the gift, his gift is in the revealing. Furthermore, this revelation which is made through the Holy Spirit not only conveys the light of knowledge but also lights the fire of love.<sup>63</sup>

In *De Diligendo Deo*, Bernard speaks of three higher gifts: dignity (will), knowledge, and virtue.<sup>64</sup> These gifts are not rewards, neither can they be returned or paid back; they must be cherished and not neglected through charity; satisfaction lies in true love.<sup>65</sup> Thus, it is again the bridal union that provides the intimate satisfaction of true love.

<sup>62</sup> Bernard of Clairvaux, *Bernard Clairvaux: Selected Writings*, trans. G. R. Evans, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Crossroads, 1985).

<sup>63</sup> Bernard of Clairvaux, "The Commentaries of the Songs of Songs. Sermon 8," [Sermones super cantica canticorum] in *Bernard Clairvaux: Selected Writings*, chap. 5.

<sup>64</sup> Bernard of Clairvaux, "Of Loving God," [De diligendo Dei] chap. 2.

<sup>65</sup> Bernard of Clairvaux, "Of Loving God," chap. 7.

The same gift and bridal company motivated by the encounter, experienced on the cross and through the Incarnation, achieves its likeness and joins human with God, compelling Joana to write these words:

perpetuamente sentia comiguo esta divina companhia, e tanto que me recolhia em oração se me representava\* este Senhor em <o> centro de minha alma, e me tratava com tanta familiaridade e amor que se não pode dizer. Metia-me consiguo em huma recamara mui secreta, e com hum laço\* de amor me apertava\* com tanta força, que me levava o coração, e muitas veses me dava a entender cousas tão admiraveis e [ANTT 19] e com tão grande segredo que suposto a alma entendia que ellas erão altisimas não podia acabar de entender o que erão porque parece que não era posivel emquanto estava em esta vida mortal cheguar a penetrar aque <le> uculto e secreto misterio. Mas ficava deste amoroso ritiro e suavisimo abraço\* com tantas guanancias\* e riquesas\* que bem entendia era grande a mercê que avia recibido. E muitas veses temerosa de meus grandes pecados, lhe dizia, toda abrasada\*, em o mesmo amor que elle me dava: "se for vossa vontade meu Jesus, não me deis noticia de cousas tão grandes, não fieis de mim, vosos tesouros, que suposto não demenuis os que tendes, com dares tantos, não mereço eu ser depositaria\* de tão ricas joias, basta-me por pagua destes deseijos que tenho, ou me tendes dado de voso servir, o saber-vos amar." E elle me respondia: 'quem verdadeiramente ama não sabe por limite em o que dá, nem menos pode ocultar o que sabe'. Com estas amorozas rezois julgue quem o divino sabe amar, o estado em que ficaria huma pobre pecadora vendo-se deste modo tratada do mesmo Deus. Não sei, em verdade como vivo, nem sei acertar em o que escrevo, porque nem as lagrimas me deixão nem eu sei atinar em o que diguo. E veijo-me em este destero sem segurança de perder a este divino Senhor a quem tanto devo. [ANTT 19r]

I perpetually felt this Divine company with me, so much that I would recollect myself in prayer and the Lord would represent\* Himself to me in the center of my soul. And He treated me with such familiarity and love that it cannot be put into words. He put me with Him in a most secret chamber and, with a loving bond\* He tightened\* me so strongly that he took my heart . Oftentimes, He gave me to understand quite admirable things, [ANTT 19] so greatly secret that, even when the soul understood that they were of the most high, I could not totally understand what those were because it seemed impossible to eventually be able to penetrate that secret hidden mystery while still in this mortal life. But from this loving retreat and most suave embrace\*, I kept so many gains\* and richesses\* that I well understood the greatness of the mercy I had recieved. And many times, fearful for my great sins, I said to Him, all ablaze\* in the same love he gave me, "If this be your will, my Jesus, do not give me news of such great things; do not entrust me with your treasuries for even you do not diminish those you have by giving so many, I am not worthy

to be the custodian\* of such rich jewels; that you allow me to serve you and to know how to love you is payment enough for the desires I have." He replied: "The one who loves truly does not know the limit of what he gives, neither can he hide what he knows." With these loving reasons who knows how to love the Dive may judge the state a poor sinner would be in seeing herself being treated this way by the selfsame God. I do not know in truth how I live, nor conceive of what I write, for not even my tears leave me, neither can I unearth what I say. And I see myself in this exile without security, loosing this Divine Lord, to whom I am so much in debt. [ANTT 19r-v]

There is eagerness within the experience of anxiousness, a crescendo of the God-Man's givenness in the space of mystical union. The words 'company', 'familiarity', 'chamber', 'secret', 'hidden mystery', 'retreat', 'embrace', and 'treasuries' are vestiges of the great wealth Joana cannot pay back. If the God-Man gives without asking for anything back, it is only due to his desiring nature. Only then is the gift truly possible.Therein, the salvation and redemption can happen. It can never be an exchange, in which the giver and the receiver establish a personal relation with the object, creating a social bond.<sup>66</sup> This gift is less of a commodity, for there is no private propriety. It is instead a mutual relationship, but an unbalanced and disproportionate one between everything (the act of giving) and nothing (the act of receiving). God's givenness is what grace means. The favor is indeed a poisoned, mortal gift. It can never be returned, it can never be exchanged, and it is the gift of God's humanity, of mortality, creation, reshaping, and, of course, love, as we will subsequently see in chapter four.

God's gift is neither an object nor an essence.He does not give the being but gives the supreme present: the dowry *in* and *of* time. In another passage, Joana writes explicitly on the importance of that dowry.

como eu hera só e estrangeira\*, imaginava que as podia molestar com meus trabalhos e para que estes me paricesem mais amarguosos, punha-se-<me> diante dos olhos, que viera para aquela santa casa sem traser dote. Lembravãome minhas parentas e irmãs e o muito <amor> que me tinhão e o cuidado com que em aquelas ocaziois me [ANTT 60r] acudiao com todo o necesário e finalmente não avia cousa penosa que se me não pusese diante para <me> desconsolar e fazer guera e como eu não tinha nimguém em que tivese imteira confiança, asim cercada de penas e metida em trevas, me apresentava ao meu Senhor e ele por Sua imfinita bondade me socorria sempre humas

<sup>66</sup> For a classic view on the gift, see Marcel Mauss, *The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, [Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l'échange dans les sociétés archaïques*], trans. by Ian Cunnison (New York: Norton, 1967) ,and Michel Panoff, "Marcel Mauss's 'The Gift' Revisited," in *Man* 5, no. 1 (1970): 60–70.

veses, dipois de ter batalhado muito com estas imaginaçois e outras loguo, em me começando acercar, me dava a entender que ele me trouxera para padecer só com ele e muitas veses entendia estas palavras: Eu sou o teu dote, per minha conta corre a pagua do que gastas não te ei-de faltar nem a esta casa. Com estas mercês tão grandes de meu Senhor, fiquava toda trocada\* e chea de fortalesa e deseijos de mais padecer por quem tanto devia. [ANTT 59v-60r]

As I was both alone and a stranger\*, I imagined that I could bother them [the other religious women] with my labors; and in order for the latter to seem more bitter, the fact that I had come to this holy house without bringing a dowry cast itself before my eyes. I would recall my relatives and sisters and the great love they had for me and the care with which in those occasions they [ANTT 60r] aided me with all that was necessary. And finally there was no sorrowful thing that did not set itself before me, to disconsole me and wage war at me. As I had nobody that I wholly trusted, surrounded by sorrows and set in darkness, I presented myself to my Lord and He, through His infinite kindness, would always come to my side, sometimes after giving much battle to many of these imaginations and others as soon as they started surrounding me, He would make me understand that He had brought me here to suffer alone with Him. I often understood these words: "I am your own dowry. The payment of what you spend is at my expense. I will not leave you nor this House." With such great mercies from my Lord, I remained all changed\* and full of fortitude and desires to suffer more for the one to whom I owed so much. [ANTT 59v-60r]

Here Joana describes how her dowry (a legal procedure in both monastic and conventual life), and especially the lack of it, intensifies the situations of anxiousness she is experiencing. What she is describing here is the second dowry she must have obtained to enter the Recollect.<sup>67</sup>

As already mentioned in the first chapter, the dowry was of much importance in the conventual life of the Lisbon Recollect and may have been an issue regarding Joana's return to Lorvão.<sup>68</sup> In this excerpt, Joana speaks of a historical given fact – her coming to the Recollect,invited by Vivardo de Vasconcellos, her confessor, who at that moment no longer protected her. However, taking her point of departure from

<sup>67</sup> The problems related to the dowry also happened in the case of the seventeenth-century Flemish mystic Antoinette Bourignon. Her *Sa vie exterieure* relates her father's unwillingness to pay the Carmelites for her entrance into the Cloister and the Carmelites' reluctance to fulfill Bourignon's desire to enter the Cloister made her realize the true path of Christian faith. Mirjam de Baar, "*Ik moet spreken.* Het spiritueel leiderschap van Antoinette Bourignon." (PhD diss., University of Groningen, 2004), 53–54*,* http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/26 4413962.

<sup>68</sup> Vasconcellos, "De hum papel," 112r.

an actual fact, Joana depends from God-Man twofold: she is under his patronage and only he has the faculty of giving whatever that is, including the dowry.The God-Man's words reiterate the lost symbolism of the dowry. The dowry is more than a payment; it is a gift. It is the excess behind God-Man's omnipotency.

Joana's saintliness also lies here, in God's givenness. To be a saint is, therefore, is to have the ability of accepting a favor, a mercy that God is naturally impelled to give – infused knowledge, or, in other terms, grace. But the Son's humanity is in his flexibility towards humanity and not in its inflexible righteousness ('justificatio') toward a law. Grace here underlines more the event of *santificatio* with/in God than its *justificatio* against/before God.<sup>69</sup>

Dowry is also a symbol for a change of state that goes beyond exchange. In the text, Joana was transformed, changed, ex-changed, 'trocada'.<sup>70</sup> This occurred in her humor and disposition; she does "battles with [her] imaginations," but acquires fortitude, re-inscribing herself in the discourse of anxiousness as well as in the divine economy of the gift. Although the nature of the gift does not ask for return, it is not merchandise; it produces an inner exchange in the person who receives it. She cannot give it back – then it would no longer be a gift. She must keep it, as she will be naturally affected by it. The ideal of *affectus* has less of a scholastic-Aristotelian base and more of a Cistercian one; despite its passional nature, it is a higher state of receptivity and suffering of what is there, what is given.<sup>71</sup> As in the case of Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167), an English Cistercian abbot, this relationship is the closest bond that one can have with an Other. It is an *affectus*: both attachment and affection.<sup>72</sup>

Affection is not merely passive. Amy Hollywood has already pointed out the activeness of this concept.<sup>73</sup> The affection achieved is based on the close communication of the suffering (Son-on-the-cross) with the *patiating*\* (daughter-on-the-bed). It is the crux of positions. The gift is the communication, the knowledge, this particular wisdom that cannot be shared or validated, a taste of wisdom: *saper*. It is the extreme gift: the present of presenting time (the brief time of humanity's nuptials

<sup>69</sup> See the two moments of grace, santificatio and justificatio, in Charles Baumgartner, "Grace II Le mystére de la Filiation adoptive," in Baumgartner, *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique*, 6: 711.

<sup>70</sup> Bluteau*, Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "trocado", 8: 302.

<sup>71</sup> Caroline Walker Bynum, "Jesus as Mother, Abbot as Mother' Some Cistercians themes in the twelfth century-writing," in *Jesus as a Mother. Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 110–170.

<sup>72</sup> Aelred de Rievaulx, *Spiritual Friendship*, [*De spiritali amicitia]* trans. Lawrence Braceland, ed. Marsha Dutton, Cistercians Publications (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010), 49.

<sup>73</sup> Amy Hollywood, "Song, Experience, and the Book in Benedictine Monasticism," in *The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism*, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 67.

with God) becomes the present of death.<sup>74</sup> In the first pages of her account, Joana states:

Repetia muitas veses com lagrimas e suspiros saidos d'alma aquelle verso do salmo que se resa na pri<ma> de quinta feira = us quequo Domine obbliveceris me infinem us quequo avertis faciem tuão a me= e quando me paricia que este amante Deos punha em mim seus divinos olhos não me sofria o coração que esta tão misaravel e torpe criatura fosse obgecto daquella divina vista em cuja presença me estava toda desfasendo\* em o nada de minha miseria aniquillada e pasmada\* da grandesa de minhas culpas, pedia a Deos me desse tempo para chora-las.[ANTT 8v]

I repeated, many times with tears and moans leaving my soul, the psalm that is prayed on Thursdays' Prime: "Usquequo Domine oblivisceris me inflinem? Usque-quo avertis faciem suam a me?" [How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? (Ps 13:1)] And when it seemed to me that this loving God cast His divine eyes upon me, my heart could not bear that a miserable and torpid creature such as me could be the object of that divine sight, in whose presence I was undoing\* myself into the nothingness of my annihilated misery. Astounded\* by the greatness of my guilt, I begged God to give me the time to cry about it. [ANTT 8v]

Here there is an interplay within the Psalm she hears about abandonment, hiddenness, and the contrast the Cistercian nun experiences by having God's 'eyes' cast upon her. This paradox within God's givenness turns Joana to a pious state of tears.

For her, the time of the gift is the time to 'chorar' (to cry, bemoan, weep for) one's guilt. I believe the Portuguese nun uses the plural when mentioning favors, mercies, miseries, etc., indicating the repetitive and continuous character of her relation to God. Throughout this chapter I will show more examples of this language of repetition when analyzing the operations of love. The reiteration and periphrasis "nothingness of this annihilated misery" attests several goals. The first is the affectivity and passivity that were lived in the Cistercian spiritual tradition. The second is the rhetoric of a female subjectivity, as Alison Weber has shown in Teresa's life.<sup>75</sup> The third is a wholly open position to receive God's own humanity. Joana begged for more time to bemoan her guilt, her fallibility, and her nature. She was seen through God's capacity of loving (of giving himself through Christ), and she asked him for time to cry or weep. Crying is the way she found to establish a thankful but not re-

<sup>74</sup> Check the glossary and the subchapter, "Deathly Anxiousness."

<sup>75</sup> Weber, *Teresa of Ávila and the Rhetoric of Femininity*, 42–76.

tributive relationship with the God-Man. Finally, crying is a performative ritual as well, seen also in other religious mystics of diverse orders.<sup>76</sup>

Joana cannot return the divine gift of creation, but she can give thanks for it by crying (aloud). In chapter 17, on Christmas night, Joana shows how human thankfulness is connected to the gift of Incarnation. She warns that all men, especially the priests, must be thankful for being able to consecrate and to have in their hands the Son of God.This thankfulness comes with an obligation, as 'obriguada por sentimento' ['obliged by feeling', ANTT 7]. Obliged is also the Portuguese word for thanking someone for something. It means: "I am obliged to return what you give me."<sup>77</sup> It seals, performatively, a contract between the giver and the receiver. But Joana cannot be obliged to return God's mercy. She can only give thanks, or give grace for the mercies that are her sanctity. In this way, she is also showing the impossibility of giving back: she even asks for more in return. She asks for time.

#### 3.2.5 Saudade and the Impossible Time

The time Joana receives is a time of absence. She expresses this absence and yearning through the use of the Portuguese word 'saudade'.<sup>78</sup> Though it is not as recurrent a word as anxiousness,*saudade*is an important feature, as Mafalda Férin Cunha has already briefly mentioned.<sup>79</sup> Joana uses this word throughout her account<sup>80</sup> The presence of *saudade* related to the God-Man shows, simultaneously, the loss, lack, and desire of such a relationship.They are apart but they were and will be re-united. Dowry and gift are the present time and the presence.

The theme of *saudade* is of utmost importance to Portuguese thought. According to one of the first Portuguese dictionaries, the *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latim* by Raphael Bluteau, the word *saudade*, "accordingly to all extension of its signification, is the finest feeling ('sentimento') and sorrow ('pena') of a lost good, and desire to attain it."<sup>81</sup> The early modern linguist suggests that it is not a mere 'desiderium', but a sorrowful 'desiderium'. It is a yearning for someone or something.

The Portuguese King, Dom Duarte (1391–1438), in his work *Leal Conselheiro*, distinguishes several notions, such as 'tristeza' (sadness), 'nojo' (mourning), 'pesar' (grief), 'desprazer' (displeasure), and 'avorrecimento' (abhorrence) from 'suidade' – an older version of *saudade*. The *latter* is described as being a 'sense of the heart'

<sup>76</sup> Moiteiro, "As lágrimas na hagiografia do Mosteiro de Aveiro," 391–411.

<sup>77</sup> Bluteau*, Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, 6: 20.

<sup>78</sup> Check the glossary.

<sup>79</sup> Cunha, "A Fiel e Verdadeira Relação," 54–55.

<sup>80</sup> See folia ANTT3, 4v, 5, 16v, 35v, 37, 38, 53, 57, 104v, 107, 128.

<sup>81 &</sup>quot;Saudade, segundo toda a extensão da sua significação hé um finissimo sentimento e pena de um bem ausente, com o desejo de o lograr." Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, 7: 512–513.

that does not belong to the realm of reason, that causes feelings of sadness and mourning, while remembering and not regretting its implicit pleasure.<sup>82</sup>

In the seventeenth century, the theme of *saudade* was present in the work of António das Chagas (1631–1682), an author of spiritual books who, like Joana, had been widely influenced by Luis de Granada.<sup>83</sup> He turned the theme of *saudade/s* toward the celestial goods, which were not yet attained.<sup>84</sup> Another seventeenth-century author, Dom Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608–1666), the most important exponent of the Portuguese Baroque era, affiliates *saudade* with love and absence in his *Epanáforas Amorosas*. According to this baroque author, the two feelings were very strong in Portuguese sensibility, as the Portuguese were known in other countries for possessing a "loving nature" and for their extended journeys, which were a synonym of absence.<sup>85</sup>

When Joana speaks about *saudade*, she mentions the plural, and it is frequently connected with a feeling of tenderness and tears, as we will see in the next section. But Joana associates *saudade* with the 'ditoza patria' ['blessed fatherland', ANTT 128r, 135r], or with the feeling of yearning for her family [ANTT 4v]. She relates *saudades*to both objects of her past privation (her family, her home region, her first convent) and objects of future encounter (the God-Man). By asking for time, she asks for the time of reunion, of encounter, of communication, for the possibility of salvation, which is also inscribed in a possible etymology of *saudade*. This etymology was studied by CarolinaMichäelis,a Luso-German scholar,who traces *saudade* on the one hand back to the *soïdade/soidão* (loneliness), as seen in Portuguese troubadour poetry related to both nostalgia and abandonment of the beloved one, and on the other hand back to salutation (*saudar*), health (*saúde*), and salvation (*salvação*).<sup>86</sup>

*Saudade*is the discourse of both presence and absence. Like encounter and reencounter, *saudade* happens in time, through the deeper capacity of sight. In this passage, Joana recalls a particular knowledge she had received from God, and how a new sense of vision emerged from that:

E suposto que esta noticia\* me não largava em todo o luguar e tempo, dipois que o meu Senhor me fes esta mercé, que deixo escrita, de me dar a entender que todas as cousas estavão nele, e ele em todas elas. Foi este conhecimento

<sup>82</sup> Afonso Botelho and António Braz Teixeira, *Filosofia da Saudade*, Colecção Pensamento Português (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1986), 14.

<sup>83</sup> On António das Chagas see Maria Lurdes Belchior, *Frei António das Chagas – Um Homem e Um Estilo do Século XVII* (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1953).

<sup>84</sup> António das Chagas, "Carta XLII," in *Cartas Espirituaes de Frei António de Chagas com suas notas* (Lisbon: Officina de Miguel Deslandes, 1664).

<sup>85</sup> Botelho and Teixeira, *Filosofia da Saudade*, 19.

<sup>86</sup> Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos, *A Saudade Portuguesa* (Oporto: Renascença Portuguesa, 1917), 49–64.

por outro modo tanto mais superior e dilicado que me fazia andar atonita\* e sempre recolhida, porque me parecia que em tudo o que obrava e cuidava, asim de dia como de noite, tinha por testemunha de minhas obras, aquele poderoso Deos da Magestade, que me estava vendo como se actualmente estivera em [ANTT 32r] sua presença. E esta companhia que sentia, não a via com os olhos corporais, nem menos com os d'alma, mas sentia comiguo aquela Divina Companhia, como huma pesoa, que está com outra às escuras, e suposto que a não vê, sabe que a tem consiguo e ainda com mais certeza, porque em asistencia da criatura poderia aver a duvida e em est'outra não a pode aver, porque a mesma alma sente sempre consiguo aquele mesmo Senhor, que está amparando e encaminhando em todas suas acois e obras e do mesmo modo, quando o Senhor se ausenta fica a pobre alma em hum desemparo\*, e desserto tão grande que senão conhece nem sabe o que faça, vesse como roubada\* de hum bem, que lhe levou consiguo todos os bens, e para tornar a gozar dele não pode fazer nada, porque todas as diligencias são perdidas, não pode nesta obra cousa alguma, a criatura toda inteiramente he do criador, não tem mais que humilhar-se e conhecer que não merece mais que o imferno e que tudo o que o Senhor reparte com ela de suas misiricordias he porque ele quer por sua imfinita bondade, que como Senhor absoluto, e poderoso dá quando quer, e a quem quer, e como quer. Não he por ser mais santo, quem as recebe, que muitas veses fez ele mercês aos grandes pecadores para assim os tirar do mau estado em que vivem, não he prova de mayor virtude o recebelos, se não o exercitar as proprias virtudes e servir, amar e padecer pelo amado, e não apetecer nem desejar mais que a sua crus e aborrecer o descanso e regalos. [ANTT 31v-32r]

This notice\* would not let go of me in all places and at all times after my Lord granted me this mercy of giving me to understand that all things were in Him and He Himself in all of them, as I have written. This knowledge was, in another way, so much more superior and delicate that it made me walk in astonishment\* and always recollected, as it seemed to me that in everything I did and thought, during the day as well as at night, I had as a witness to my works that mighty God of Majesty that was seeing me as if I actually was in [ANTT 32r] His presence; and this company that I felt, I did not see with the eyes of the body, much less with those of the soul, but I felt that Divine company with me, as a person that is with another in the dark and, although the former does not see the latter, the first knows she has the second with her and even with more certainty, for the creature's presence may raise doubt, but this other one's not; as the same soul feels always with herself that same Lord that is supporting and directing her in all her actions and works, and if the Lord goes away that poor soul remains in such a forlornness \* and in a desert so big that she does not know herself nor knows what to do, seeing herself as if bereft\* of a good that took all her goods with it. And to enjoy it again she can do nothing, because all diligences

are lost and in this work she is not capable of anything; the creature is wholly, entirely, of the creator. There is nothing more it can do than humiliate itself and know that it does not deserve more than hell. Everything that the Lord shares with a creature of His mercies is because He wants to His infinite goodness. Being an absolute and almighty Lord, He gives when, to whom, and how He wants. It is not because someone is saintlier that He will receive them. Many times He did mercies to great sinners in order to free them of the bad state in which they were living. Receiving them is no proof of greater virtue than exercising the proper virtues: serving, loving, and patiating for the beloved, and not coveting nor desiring more than His cross, and abhorring respite and pleasures. [ANTT 31v-32r]

In this passage, anxiousness becomes voraciousness, as can be seen in Joana's astonishment at being notified of God's plenitude and omnipresence. Joana distinctly uses the Cistercian vocabulary of the 'eyes of the soul', and she might be alluding to William of Saint Thierry through Teresa.<sup>87</sup> The feeling of presence is the ultimate gift which God grants, which is even out of reach of the 'eyes of the soul'. Joana's notion of support and holding when the Cistercian nun says "that same Lord who was supporting me" is similar. She is inscribing herself in an equal relationship, into the spiritual tradition based on the commentaries on the Songs of Songs. This support and its deprivation are nothing less than the giving essence of diversity in the arms of God. Anxiousness is to be both embraced (in God's arms) and 'desamparada'(helpless, lost, desperate, without support, forlorn) for Christ's Man, in the *saudade*. The paradox is implicit in the mystical experience, in and out of time: life and death.

The encounter comes from a salutation and ends in *saudade*. The latter also contains the salutation, the greeting, the mourning of all the impossible though experienced relationships. Therefore *saudade* is extreme health, the extremely gifted life, the possible salvation for humankind.

The *present* is now also a time of loss, of missing, of absence, of the gift. When this *gift* becomes poisoned, it only gives off the bitter flavor of *saudade*. Joana writes her own confessions, calling on the possibility of a *present* for her memory. As shown in the first chapter, Augustine is always present in the discourse of *saudade*, because confession, memory, recollection, and writing are moments, events, and states of experiencing *saudade*. This is the impossible but perennial movement of rotating – almost a somersault – toward one's own *vita*/life.

The time and movement of *saudade* lie in the formation of anxiousness/ancias. These *anxiousnesses* (always in the plural) are recurrently situated: they intensify throughout the life as 'amorozas ancias' (loving anxiousness) [ANTT 19v], 'ancias

<sup>87</sup> William of St. Thierry, *The Nature and Dignity of Love*, 8.31-23. This theme, however, is also present in Theresa, from whom Joana might have taken directly. See, for instance, Teresa de Jesus, "The Way of Perfection," chap. 24.

continuas' (continuous anxiousness) [ANTT 20r], 'entranhaveis ancias' (estranging anxiousness) [ANTT 45r], 'ancias do coração' (anxiousness of the heart) [ANTT 92r], into 'ancias tão mortais' (such deadly anxiousness) [ANTT 105r].

Anxiousness is a state that makes Joana move and be a part of the 'operation of love' – another expression the Cistercian nun uses. It suggests a new aspect of the subjectivity's saintliness: its *excessiveness*.The positioning, forwarding, and thinking of/reflecting excessiveness (as a possible synonym of ecstasy) are the next limit-situations of loving anxiousness.

#### **3.3. Operation of Love**

So far I have shown that, in Joana, anxiousness is transmitted in the encounter. The situation of the encounter is the meeting place, the possibility of a colloquium on the cross, and the crossing between humanity and the Divinity in the female *daughtership*: the movement of the God-Man's givenness (mercies, favors, knowledge) and human-daughter receiving; the impossible exchange of the dowry (a symbol of mystical marriage, but also a symbol arising from the quotidian monastic practice of paying a fee to enter a religious house, as happened twice to Joana). This is the time of salutation, salvation, and mourning – the time of*saudade* after the long journey in the rough sea. *Saudade* becomes a sign of exile or, better yet, a sign of displacement in time (from eternity to temporality), which is concurrently a desire, a yearning (desire and lack), and a home*sickness*. There is a growing sense of sickness, which is felt mainly in Joana's recurrent embodied usage of ancias/anxiousness. Now I will proceed to analyze how anxiousness is an operation of Christocentric love in Joana's imagery. The Cistercian and Iberian mystical traditions inscribed in her account show how she builds a discourse of excess, which shall not be without dogmatic consequences. Anxiousness here is what Joana de Jesus calls an 'operation of love'.

#### 3.3.1 Deadly Health: Patiating Anxiousness

For Joana, the state of anxiousness is entirely a state of (lack of) health. In chapter 30, the nun describes her fear, which is her deficit of virtues and surplus of imperfections. However, what 'afflicted' her most was the impossibility of doing her penance, due to the seizures she suffered starting from her arrival in Lisbon. Throughout the years, she claimed to have 'perilous illnesses' which took away her strength. She was always feverish and suffered from 'continuous bodily pains', which prevented her from working and moving. Some 'dangerous blisters' in which holes were opened appeared all over her body. Even the 'lint' that was used to prevent the holes from getting wider was the cause of many maladies. She also had 'apoplectic attacks' that lasted up to five hours, causing the physicians to have doubts about her survival [ANTT 40-v]. Her body could not keep food down and she vomited. Her companions prayed for her and the end of her 'trabalhos'(hardships, trials,and works). Joana even drank from a relic of Saint Paul, which provided her with one hour of respite from her seizures [ANTT 41]. She was ill to the point of having received the Extreme Unction, but (as occurred once with Teresa de Ávila) God allowed her to survive. Joana describes this experience as if she had returned from the dead, acquiring an embodied and half-living state.

muitas veses era o Senhor servido, que di noite me tornasem outra ves estas âncias e tormento, e sem me lançar em cama, o pasava estando muitas veses em estado que de todo me faltava o alento\* da vida, porque além das dores serem tão tiríbeis, que me paricia, que me tiravão todos os os[s]os do corpo, via-me metida\* em humas sombras tão penosas e mortais, que me tiravão o Juiso e sentidos, suposto os não perdia de todo, mas como esta nuvem me tomava a rispiração, paricia-me que moria, e asim o cuidavão todas as que me vião em aquelle estado. [ANTT 41v]

Often it pleased the Lord that this anxiousness and torment returned during the night, without throwing me into a bed, I underwent this many times in a state wholly lacking life's breath\*; for besides the terrible pains to the point it seemed to me that all my bones were being extracted from my body, I saw myself set in\* such deadly and sorrowful shadows that they deprived me of my judgment and senses insofar as I did not lose them totally; but, as this cloud would take my breath away, it would seem to me that I was dying, and all those that saw me in that state feared the same. [ANTT 41v]

In this passage, we see the semantic field of anxiousness transforming into a state of mental and bodily health. Dealing with the state of eminent death, the fear of dying, and the pain of surviving, Joana mentions the two wars she has waged. One was the war she fought for her own survival, in which the anxiousness she felt made it difficult for her to move, eat, or breathe; she was in a state of utter tightness or constriction that gave her no rest, that made her walk through her cell and hold herself against its walls without being able to stay standing.The other was a mental war she fought with herself. She mentions the shadows, darkness, and clouds that would take her reason and breath (life) away. She claims the doctors said that her feelings towards 'some people's contradictions' were causing her loss of health [ANTT 42]. And whenever she got better, Joana began wondering whether God was abandoning her, for she did not feel him and his service through the suffering. The Cistercian nun continues:

e se alguma me via com algum pequeno alivio, loguo temia e cuidava se me tiria deixado o meu Senhor, por que já não sabia viver sem padecer\*, e bem conhecia, que erão mui limitados aqueles trabalhos, para o que meus pecados mericião, mas só o que sentia com huma pena tão dilicada, que me firia a alma, era o não poder com estes males e doença dar imteira satisfação às obrigaçois do meu estado e isto penalisava-<me> muito, porque me paricia que por minha negligência faltava a eles e que me encareguava em tudo, de modo que andava sempre em duas guerras, que me tiravão a vida, huma dos males que padicia e outra dos escurpulos de cuidar, que me encareguava é não faser o que fasião as que erão sãs. [ANTT 41v]

And if sometimes I saw myself a little relieved, I soon feared and wondered if my Lord had left me, for I already did not know how to live without patiating\* and I knew well that those labors were very limited for what my sins deserved, but the only thing I felt, with a delicate sorrow that wounded my soul, was that with these illnesses and this sickness I was unable to give an entire satisfaction to my state's obligations and this penalized me much as it seemed to me that out of negligence I did not live up to them while I imposed them on myself in everything and so I was always in two wars that took my life, one through the illnesses that I suffered and the other due to the scruples of fear, which burdened me with not doing what healthy persons did. [ANTT 41v]

This excerpt shows the recurrent vocabulary of Joana's description of her illness, within her relationship with God and her community. She does not mention ancias, but does refer to a 'delicate sorrow', which is almost a replacement for her anxious state. 'Relief ', 'fear', 'care', 'abandonment', 'labors', 'sorrow', 'evils', 'disease', 'satisfaction', 'state', and 'in charge' are other frequent associations with anxiousness. Nonetheless,one of her *Lieblingsworten* is 'patiating'.The English verb *to patiate*is now obsolete, but was used in the seventeenth century to describe suffering from an infirmity.<sup>88</sup> The Latin root 'pateo/patere' and the Greek 'pathos' come from the proto Indo-European origin 'pei', which means to damage, injure, hurt.<sup>89</sup> It survived in multiple dynamics, all of which could help to delve deeper into the meaning of the Portuguese (and Spanish) 'padecer'.<sup>90</sup>

<sup>88 &</sup>quot;Though he patiate infirmities, yet he shall recover." Richard Saunders, in *Physiognomie*, 1653. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "patiate, v.", accessed July 30, 2011, http://ww w.oed.com/view/Entry/138812. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1904.

<sup>89</sup> *The Online Etymology Dictionary*, s.v. "pacience," accessed 30 July, 2011, www.etymonline. com. See also *Oxford Dictionary of English*, ed. Angus Stevenson, s.v. "patience" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/97801 99571123.001.0001/m\_en\_gb0610210.

<sup>90</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "padecer," 6: 175.

The Greek 'pathos', for instance, the root of 'pathology', 'patience', and 'patient' (as a noun both in linguistics, as the contrary of 'agent', and in medical usage, as in 'the patient'), contains both passivity and reception of some action. Aristotle saw 'pathos' as a rhetorical device which, if not divorced from 'ethos' and 'logos', would achieve 'phronesis' (wisdom), 'arête' (virtue), and 'eunoia' (good will) with an audience.<sup>91</sup>

'Pathos' also evolved into passion in the Latin tradition.The theme of passions of the soul became very important to Patristic and Medieval thought, culminating in Descartes, with his *Treatise of Passions*. <sup>92</sup> 'Passions' was the classic term for emotions related, to some extent, to the body, constituting the basis of a psychological and anthropological philosophy.<sup>93</sup> They were, likewise, of vital importance to the Christian doctrines of Incarnation and Resurrection. The passions of Christ were his humanity's sufferings: In whichmeasure could Christ be 'proficiens', 'nesciens', 'orans', 'passibilis', and *'*patiens' while continuing to be the Son of God?<sup>94</sup>

For Joana, to *patiate* her illness means her surrender to Christ's humanity. Joana is the *patient* (as a noun) of her doctors, but *patient* (as an adjective) of her health. While waging wars with herself and her community by not being able to be the agent of her obligations to her religious (recollected) state, she is a patient of God's actions. Her illness, her *pathos*, is not apart from *ethos* and *logos*. She acquires wisdom and virtue before the eyes of her audience: God and the reader. But does she acquire *eunoia* ('benevolentia') from the others? My hypothesis is that to *patiate* fosters a sense of *metanoia*. Joana repents humanity's sins, corrects her human limitations (not inflicting pain on herself, but suffering what is given instead), breaks through, and acquires what we could call self-healing.<sup>95</sup> She redeems the world's own death and *patiates* anxiousness. Joana finishes her description by writing:

Em o tempo em que padicia\* estes aciden-tes que tenho dito, se me ajuntava a este trabalho, outro que não era menor, por que erão humas sequedades\* e trevas\*, em que me via sem ter caminho, para poder admitir hum pensamento,

<sup>91</sup> Aristotle, "Art of Rhetoric,"[Rhetorica] trans. J. H. Freese, vol. 22, Loeb Classical Library (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1926), book 2, chap. 1.

<sup>92</sup> Cf. René Descartes, *The passions of the soul*, [Les passions d´ âme], trans. Stephen Voss (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1989).

<sup>93</sup> Thomas Dixon, *From passions to emotions: the creation of a secular psychological category* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1–26.

<sup>94</sup> Kevin Madigan, *The Passions of Christ in High-Medieval Thought – An Essay on Christological Development* (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

<sup>95</sup> *Metanoia* has many usages, both biblical and rhetorical. In psychology, [Zivilization im Übergang] considered *metanoia* a moment in which one experiences a change of mind. See Carl G. Jung, "Civilization in transition," in *The Collected Works Of C.G. Jung*, ed. Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler, vol. 10 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), 89.

que fosse de Deus, e quando aquelas dores e âncias me cercavão mais e me afligião o corpo, tentava-me o Demónio e punha-me diante dos olhos, que era parvoice sofrer tanto, que não sofrese, nem tivesse paciência, por que tantas miu-desas de trabalhos tão rigorosos, que só eu as padicia, com estas tentaçois Diabólicas me tentava com tanto aperto\*, que não po-dera eu sair vitoriosa, se o meu Senhor me não socor[r]era em esta aflição, com hum valor [ANTT 42v] que me dava, que <eu> conhecia era seu, com o qual cobrava hum ânimo mui valeroso e come-çava a diser-me muitas veses em vos alta, que não qui-ria que se fisese de mim mais, que aquillo que o meu Senhor permitisse e que se elle fosse servido, que eu padecesse aqueles trabalhos até o dia do Juizo, que eu quiria asim, por<que> já para mim não quiria descanso, nem pelos trabalhos quiria outra pagua mais, que o gosto\* que tinha de os padecer por elle, que aquilo era o que qui-ria e que em tudo se comprisse perfeitisimamente sua divina vontade e que nun-qua em cousa alguma, a minha se fizesse, senão a sua, com esta risinação, que fasia na von-tade de meu senhor, ficava tão valerosa e esforçada\*, e melle (sic) mesmo, que assi os males do corpo, como as tentaçois do i[ni]miguo, tudo me paricião flores e bo-ninas. E muitas veses me cerca-va, estando com estes trabalhos huma suavidade mui espiritual em presença de meu Senhor, com a qual me alentava para mais padecer. Outras ne dava a entender, que se compa-dicia de mim, mas que era vontade sua, que eu padecesse e com isto me dava muitas veses imtiligências de cou-sas futuras e de mercês que me avia de fa-ser, ou a outras pesoas, isto com hum amor tão dilicado, que me roubav a alma e me cricião os de-seijos de mais padecer tra-ba-lhos, por hum Senhor a quem tanto devia. [ANTT 42r-v]

At the time I was patiating\* these accidents I have been describing, this labor were joined by other not lesser ones; for they were a dryness\* and darkness\* wherein I saw myself without a path\* to be able to admit a thought about God. When those pains and that anxiousness besieged me and afflicted my body more, the Devil would tempt me and put before my eyes the silliness of suffering so much. I should not suffer neither should I have patience for so many rigorous labors which I alone suffered. With these devilish temptations he tempted me with such tightness\* that I would not be able to leave victorious if my Lord had not succoured me in this affliction with a valor [ANTT 42v] He gave me that I knew to be His, with which I received a most valorous courage and started to say many times aloud to myself that I did not want that more should be made of me than what my Lord should allow, and if He saw fit that I suffered those labors until Judgment day, for such was my will; because I already did not want rest for me and I did not want further reward for the labors than the pleasure\* I had in patiating them for Him, for that was what I wanted and that His Divine will should be followed entirely in everything and mine would never intervene in anything, except His. With this resignation, that I practiced in the will of my Lord, I became so valorous and daring\* in Himself that, thus, all the body's evils as well as the enemy's

temptations seemed flowers and daisies to me. And when I was with these labors I was often surrounded by a very spiritual suavity in the presence of my Lord, which made me gain more spirit\* to patiate. On other occasions, He gave me to understand that He felt compassion for me, but that it was His will that I should suffer. Through this He often gave me intelligences of future things and mercies He would grant me or other persons, all this with a love so delicate that it robbed\* my soul and started\* my desires of patiating more works for a Lord to whom I owed so much. [ANTT 42r-v]

In this excerpt, anxiousness continues to be related to afflictions, pains, hardships, dryness, and darkness, but mainly with the lack of a guide, or being 'without a path'. This could mean falling into the hands of the enemy.The fight with the devil is a *topos* of mystical life-writings, which even evolved into the science of demonology.<sup>96</sup> The devil persuades Joana to neither suffer nor be patient.These two dimensions of patiating despised by the devil are the possibilities of a 'union of wills', the great moment of transcendence that joins humanity with the Divinity.The breakthrough or the 'intelligences of future things' can thus be the metanoic aspect of the enduring activity that is to *patiate*, for it reveals the self-healing and the changes that are necessary to one's own transformation.

The sense of presence is also connected with suffering or patiating. Joana is imitating Christ, and this intimate relationship makes her reiterate the "very spiritual suavity coming along with these labors and the presence of my Lord, which made me gain more spirit to patiate."

#### 3.3.2 Patiating Dryness and Fire

To *patiate* is the operating verb and notion within anxiousness. It is through receptivity and enduring desires that Joana may wait for/upon, act for/on, or be a subject to/of God. Once again, this fearful desire is a token of time. If the time of desire was a time of mourning, the absence, the time of loving anxiousness, is a time of urgency, immediacy, and extremes, of fearful action. For Joana does not claim virtuosity (strength, courage, virility,manhood) in her encounter/presence with the God-Man. Quite the contrary, she mentions the quiet *operation of love*that occurs either in her orin her soul.This operationismade possible by anxiousness (as fear, desire, and time). She suffers the latter several times, which provokes in her a sense of dryness, or 'sequedades'.

<sup>96</sup> See, for instance, Alison Weber, "Saint Teresa, Demonologist," in *Culture and Control in Counter-Reformation Spain*, ed. Anne J. Cruz and Mary Elizabeth Perry (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 171–95. Cf. also the wider work of Dyan Elliot, *Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).

Grandes forão os sentimentos que a minha alma teve com esta mercê que o meu Senhor me fes, mas loguo emtendi que ele ma fasia para me fortalecer para outros muitos e asim foi porque as dores do corpo e sequedades d'alma, crecerão de modo que imaginava eu que se acabava a vida, a puras afliçois e penas com as quais pasei sem ter huma ora de descanso para a alma, que do corpo já não trato, dele padeça\* e mais padeça que para iso hé, e não para regualos, mas nem hum bom pensamento, nem poder dar hum suspiro que emtendese me sahia do coração pelo meu senhor, nem pela Virgem Maria que era a minha lus e a minha consolação. [ANTT 123]

Great were the feelings my soul had with this mercy my God did to me, but I soon understood that He did it to me to make me strong to many others and so it was, for the pains of my body and the dryness of my soul grew so much that I imagined my life was ending in pure afflictions and punishments, which I spent without having one hour of rest for my soul as I am no longer talking about my body – let it patiate\* and patiate\* more, as it is for that and not for pleasures -, but neither a good thought nor an audible sigh came out of my heart for my Lord, nor for the Virgin Mary, who is my light and my consolation. [ANTT 123]

Anxiousness continues to be seen not only as a period of darkness but also of dryness. This word, however, was not included in the eighteenth-century Portuguese language dictionary.<sup>97</sup> In fact,it was most certainly directly borrowed from the Teresian vocabulary. Teresa uses the word *'*sequedad', which is present in *The Interior Castle*, a work that Joana claims to have read in her youth. The soul's experience of fear and dryness is the third mansion or dwelling of the soul in her path toward God. <sup>98</sup>

Ever since I began to speak of these Mansions I have had that young man in mind, for we are exactly like him; and this as a rule is the origin of our long periods of aridity in prayer, although these have other sources as well. I am saying nothing here of interior trials, which vex many good souls to an intolerable degree, and through no fault of their own, but from which the Lord always rescues them, to their great profit, as He does also those who suffer from melancholy and other infirmities.<sup>99</sup>

<sup>97</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino,* 7:597. For the Spanish usages of the word 'sequedad' since the eleventh century, see: http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/x.asp.

<sup>98</sup> Teresa of Ávila, "Third Castle," in *The Interior Castle*, chap. 1, 9.

<sup>99</sup> "Desde que comencé a hablar en estas moradas le traigo delante; porque somos así al pie de la letra, y lo más ordinario vienen de aquí las grandes sequedades en la oración, aunque también hay otras causas; y dejo unos trabajos interiores, que tienen muchas almas buenas, intolerables y muy sin culpa suya, de los cuales siempre las saca el Señor con mucha ganancia, y de las que tienen melancolía y otras enfermedades." Teresa of Ávila, *The Interior Castle*, chap. 1, 9.

In the third mansion there is no mastery of one's soul, and there is also no consolation or sweetness. The sweetness and the 'prayer of the quiet' can only be found in the next mansion. Sequedades*,* or the feeling of thirst, is what Scaramelli mentions when analyzing 'loving anxiousness'.<sup>100</sup>

Dryness is the psychosomatic discourse of melancholy.<sup>101</sup> According to the Greek-Islamic tradition of humors, the melancholic type, or humor, is related to dryness, wakefulness, and deprivation of vigor. During the Renaissance and early modernity, a change occurs in the concept of melancholy: the seventeenth-century Robert Burton in his *Anatomy of Melancholy* sees a difference between worldly and religious melancholies.<sup>102</sup>

Dryness becomes an important feature in mystical rapture, especially if not only the psychological, but the medieval physiology of women is also taken in consideration. In the article "The Physiology of Rapture and Female Spirituality," the historian Dyan Elliot says that the Aristotelian notion of woman's deficient nature makes her prone to higher dryness. Women would be much more susceptible to rapture (a violent 'rape' of a weak body): an action associated with their coldness.<sup>103</sup> In Joana's texts, dryness surrounds Joana's uttermost nature in order to fulfil the conditions of her heart being robbed ('roubou-me') and broken into ('arrombado'), which announces a true rapture.

When speaking of 'dryness', Joana also speaks of *saudade* [ANTT 104v, 107]. Just as is the case with *saudade*, dryness is the discourse of loss and lack. Lack of water, or thirst; lack of breath; lack of gravity; and lack of spatial orientation: Joana does not know her whereabouts when she experiences a dry anxiousness. In this lack (which is also reiterated through the lack of virtues, or faults), her consciousness is also the hallmark of inflammability.

<sup>100</sup> Scaramelli, *Directorium mysticum*, treatise 3, chap. 9.

<sup>101</sup> On melancholia, see Julius Rubin "Melancholy," in *The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion*, ed. John Corrigan (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 290–309, and Wenzel, *The Sin of Sloth*, 61–63. See also the classic studies by R. Klibansky, E. Panofsky, Erwin, and F. Saxl, *Saturne et la mélancolie: études historiques et philosophiques: nature, religion, médecine et art* ([Paris]: Gallimard, 1989), 39–44 and 123–124, and Jennifer Radden*, The nature of melancholy: from Aristotle to Kristeva* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). See also Radden's introduction to "Melancholie: modeziekte in de middeleeuwen en vroegmoderne tijd," Groniek vol. 40 (Groningen: Stichting Groniek, 2007), and Amy M. Hollywood, *Acute Melancholia: Christian Mysticism and Contemporary Historiography* (Columbia University Press, forthcoming).

<sup>102</sup> Robert Burton, *The anatomy of melancholy*, ed. Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling, Rhonda L. Blair (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

<sup>103</sup> Dyan Elliot,"The Physiology of Rapture and Female Spirituality," in *Medieval Theology and the Natural Body*, ed. Peter Biller and Alastair Minnis.(Woodbridge, Suffolk: York Medieval Press/Boydell and Brewer, 1997), 141–173.

Again, like Teresa, Joana needs the element of fire to express her transformation, her rebirth or 'desacordar' (unawakening), as shown in the second chapter. She mentions fire, burning, conflagration, all the signs of the combustible matter of the encounter with the Divine, the extreme *filiatio*. One of the most notable symbols of the Holy Spirit is fire or flame, e.g., "Quench not the spirit" (1 Thes 5:19).

Fire and dryness are connected.<sup>104</sup> As opposed to the organic, fertile life of earth, dryness appears as a 'psychic climate' in which passion, virility, and fire predominate (as wetness belongs to femininity). Eliade speaks of the fleshless state, of the spiritual character of fire, in opposition to the body. Nevertheless, fire has a twofold nature. According to Marius Schneider, the 'fire-earth' axis brings out eroticism, the solar and physical energy, while the 'fire-air' axis is associated with mysticism, purification, and sublimation.<sup>105</sup> There is both death and renewal.

It is not surprising that, as a woman theologian, Joana resorts to the language of annihilation and erotic desire while *writing* her own subjectivity.<sup>106</sup> Fire is the change, the possibility of being 'undone', and, consequently, the rebirth constituted by the *conversio*. A destruction that enables fire is also the condition of virginity (as a genderless state), the silence and disturbance in another person's gaze.<sup>107</sup> Joana is not body anymore; what she sees is not even due to the eyes of the soul, but to those of God:

Com esta presença de meu Senhor e luz que elle me dava, fui continuando em escrever esta sua obra, em a qual via que não tinha nada, porque conhecia por huma noticia mui clara, que toda ella era de Deus e que a mim me não tocava. Sempre em este tempo andava em oração, ainda quando não escrivia e ordinariamente sentia comiguo a presença de meu Senhor, que suposto o não via com os olhos d'alma, nem do corpo, não podia duvidar de que estava comiguo, com muita mais certeza do que se o vira muitas vezes, estando escrevendo, me dava huma ância tão grande de seu amor, com huns deseijos tão exsecivos de sua onra e glória e da salvação das almas, que me desfasia em lágrimas e emlouquicia de amor. E huma ves cresceu tanto este foguo, que me desfasia\* e abrasava\* toda e a umildade era tão rara que me não atrivia a hir por diante em o que hia escrevendo. E fiquando asim parada, emtendi estas palavras: Ad omnia qua mitam te ibis et qua mandevero tibi logueas ad eos. [ANTT 53v]

<sup>104</sup> Juan Eduardo Cirlot, *A Dictionary of Symbols,* 2nd ed. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962), 98.

<sup>105</sup> Marius Schneider, *El Origen Musical De Los Animales-Símbolos En La Mitología y La Escultura Antiguas: Ensayo Histórico-Etnográfico Sobre La Subestructura Totemística y Megalítica De Las Altas Culturas y Su Supervivencia En El Folklore Español*, vol. 12 (Madrid: Siruela, 1998), 50.

<sup>106</sup> Juan Marion, "Annihilation and Deification in Beguine Theology and Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls," *Harvard Thelogical Review* 103 (2010): 89–109.

<sup>107</sup> Compare with the work on Joan of Arc, Françoise Meltzer, *For Fear of the Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

With this presence of my Lord and light that He gave me, I continued to write this work of His, in which I saw I had nothing of mine, for I knew through most clear notice\* that it all belonged to God and was not meant for me. By then I was always praying when I did not write, and I normally felt the presence of the Lord next to me, and although I did not see Him with the eyes of the soul nor those of the body, I could not doubt that He was with me with much more certainty that if I had seen Him many times. While writing, I would fall into such a great anxiousness for His love with such excessive desires of His honor and glory, and the salvation of souls that I undid myself in tears and became mad with love. And once this fire grew so much that it undid\* me and set me all ablaze\* and the humility was so rare that I would not dare to proceed with what I was writing. Being so still, I understood these words: "Ad omnia qua mittam te íbis et qua mandevero tibi loqueris ad eos" ["You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you," Jer 1:7]. [ANTT 53v]

In this passage Joana acknowledges the presence of the Lord during the process of writing her account. He gives her a 'great anxiousness' and 'excessive desires' to become his own. Thus she is 'undone in tears' and in fire, while entering into a maddening state of extreme *filiatio*/sonship. Sonship is a recurrent preoccupation for Joana, as seen withMagdalene and her commentary on John 20:17. In this case, Joana quotes Jeremiah. The complete passage is: "But the LORD said to me, 'Do not say, "I am only a child." You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,' declares the LORD"(Jer 1:7–8).The *filiatio* Joana aches for is not a synonym for youth or immaturity. Just as God commanded Jeremiah to leave his minor age, Joana also accepted her godly prescribed mission. Jeremiah symbolizes the prophet and the importance of a close relationship with God.<sup>108</sup> She needs to be taken seriously.<sup>109</sup> Writingis seen here as the preferred way of communication, even considering the non-imagetical

<sup>108</sup> J. D. Douglas, org, N. Hillyer, *The New Bible Dictionary* (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1982), 563. See also Jeremiah 31.

<sup>109 &</sup>quot;The great advantage for prophetic women was that not just their prophecy but they themselves were taken seriously; they could be called upon to account for the interpretations that they gave. Not merely divine megaphones but independent-thinking Christians, these women acquired, through prophecy, a recognized medium to issue opinions on religious – even theological – questions. The gain for the theologians was that they did not have to accept the visions as God's dictations without question, but guide the interpretation with their own suggestions, at least insofar as the clergy accepted them as inspired prophetesses (and there was, as we know, a need to grant such acceptance)," in Anneke Mulder Bakker, "Two women of Experience," in *Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing*, 93.

representation of Christ. Here, Joana does not see with her soul's eyes: she feels the presence, an awareness of Christ, beyond any doubt.

#### 3.3.3 The Wounds of Anxiousness

Joana's encounters with the Divinity bring out the vulnerability she felt through such impossible contact. The imagery of elements continues in another passage, chapter 21 [ANTT 26v-27]. Joana describes how, whilst at prayer, surrounded by the 'most suave dew', she felt so violently that her sight and exterior senses began to fail.Then an angel 'was represented' to her, standing at a higher level, holding in his hand a feather that looked like a rosary, with five small holes. Through each hole sprang blood, flowing all over his body. Joana describes how she opened her mouth and drunk from that 'singular river'. Afterwards, she was raised from the earth and the Lordmade her understand that those threads of blood with which she wasimprinted were the most holy wounds ('chagas'). As her health declines, her appetite diminishes. Once, when she thought that maybe wine would do her some good, although she had never used such 'medicine', the Lord gave her to understand that his body was her only food, and his blood was her only drink. During a recollection,it seemed to her 'with most certainty' that to be drinking from that divine wine, by which she was totally engulfed, was to be consuming the body and blood. Later, while wanting to relieve herself from a fever she had, Joana drank water as the Lord made her understand that that same liquid was also mixed in the blood that came from Christ's blessed side [ANTT 107].

The importance of this liquid imagery, where the dew, wine, water, and blood reconfigure the 'corpus mysticum'*,* is shown here. Caroline Walker Bynum states that wine was important for women mystics, because women in general, as well as laity, had no access to the chalice and thus no possibility to drink from it. Blood was nurturing, fecund, inebriating, being also about the testimony of sacrifice and violence in the death of the body – possibly meaning the death of the unfaithful or of their own bodies.<sup>110</sup>

The devotion to Christ's wound or side was highly important in monastic and lay spirituality. Cistercian authors like Bernard of Clairvaux, Gertrude of Helfta or Aelred of Rievaulx commented on this subject, presenting the wound as a place of refuge, a fountain from which someone could drink, and an opening to the revelation of the mysteries.<sup>111</sup> Aelred had a particular affection for Christ's 'side's wound',

<sup>110</sup> Caroline Walker Bynum, "The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages," in *Church History* 71 (December 2002): 689, accessed July 9, 2009, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4146189. See also her previous work: *Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 150–187.

<sup>111</sup> Amy Hollywood "That glorious slit': Irigaray and the medieval devotion to Christ's side wound," in *Luce Irigaray and Premodern Culture: Thresholds of History*, ed. Theresa M. Krier

proclaiming transubstantiation from honey/milk/wine/blood and increasing its degree of sweetness.<sup>112</sup> As happens with Angela Foligno or other mystic authors, Hollywood shows that the wound is a refuge, but also the place for the union of the soul. Much in the same way, Luis de Granada, an author read by Joana, sees the wound as his dwelling.<sup>113</sup> Joana continues this tradition, describing the side wound in an apostolic and missionary tone:

Loguo ao outro dia, que erão 16 de Maio se me tornou apresentar o mesmo e o Senhor com mais poder e magnini[mi]dade me deu a emtender que me apresentava abertas as portas do sacrário, porque aquelas misiricórdias, que avia de repartir com todas as criaturas que estavão já na Terra, que só lhe faltava manifesta-las e correr a cortina que as ocultava e loguo emtendia que naquela devina ostia estavão humas letras que disião Jesus. O qual se me representava Deos e homem verdadeiro, cheo de grande glória e fermusura e neste Senhor se me discubrião as suas devinas cinco chaguas, suposto não erão com dores nem cravos, senão já em corpo glorioso, das quais emtendia que corrião cinco caudolosos rios, os quais se dilatavão tanto, que recolhião e abraçavão em si a toda a redondesa da Terra e loguo se apresentou ali aquele soldado, que deu a lançada a Cristo Senhor Noso em <a>quele mesmo paso em que correu a lança e com aquele sangue precioso e augua que sahiu do lado sacrosanto do Salvador, alcançou remédio para a alma e juntamente para o corpo e deu-me o Senhor a emtender que com aquela fonte que aquele ceguo abrira em seu sacratisimo costado, avia de alumiar todos os ceguos, que estavão sepultados em as trevas da gentilidade e juntamente emtendi que aquele rio que coria do santisimo lado do Senhor, era <mais> particularmente para os paguãos e ereiges, porque se eles ate aguora o alanceavão com suas sodomias e culpas, quiria ele como Pai piadoso remedia-los, asim como remediara aquele que o alanceou quando estava preguado em a crus [ANTT 119r] causava esta noticia\* em mim tão grande operação que me paricia que o coração me quiria sair fora do peito e com huma sede insaciável de que todos se salvasem, dava no imtirior huns gritos que me paricia se dilatavão muito e falando com todas as criaturas disia: Todos os que tendes sede, vinde has auguas da fonte da mesma vida, que a todos vo-las esta oferecendo, vinde. E a certesa do que emtendi que estava vendo, era tão grande que me paricia que todos vião e emtendião o mesmo que eu estava emtendendo. [ANTT 118v-119r]

and Elizabeth D. Harvey, Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, 4, vol. 4 (London; New York: Routledge, 2004), 107.

<sup>112</sup> On the sweetness of God, see Rachel Fulton, "'Taste and see that the Lord is sweet (Ps. 33:9)': The Flavor of God in the Monastic West," in *The Journal of Religion*, vol. 86, no. 2 (April 2006): 169–204, accessed February 23, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/49 9638.

<sup>113</sup> Hollywood, "'That glorious slit,'" 107.

As soon as the next day, which was the sixteenth of May, the same Lord presented Himself to me, and with more power and magnitude, He gave me to understand that He presented me with the open tabernacle doors, for He would share those mercies with every creature who was already on earth; He only had to make them manifest and open the curtain that hid them, and soon I understood that in that divine unleavened host there were letters that spelt Jesus: who presented Himself to me as God and true man, full with great glory and beauty and in this Lord, His five divine wounds discovered themselves to me, although these obviously had no pains nor nails, being instead in a glorious body, from which I understood that five rivers were flowing abundantly which dilated themselves so much that they gathered and embraced all the earth's roundness within them. And soon the soldier who speared Christ Our Lord presented himself too, in that same passage when he thrusted the spear and with that precious blood and water that left the Savior's sacrosanct side, [He] reached the remedy for the soul and for the body as well and the Lord gave me to understand that, with that the fountain that that blind man had opened in his most sacred side, He would enlighten all the blind who were buried in the darkness of gentilehood\* and I also understood that the river that ran from the most holy side of the Lord was more particularly intended for the pagans and heretics, because they still speared Him with their sodomies and guilt, he wanted as a pious Father, to amend them, as He had amended the one who had wounded Him with a lance when He was nailed to the cross [ANTT 119r]. This notice\* caused such a great effect in me that it seemed that my heart wanted to leave my breast and, with an insatiable thirst to see all sinners saved, inside of me I shouted cries that seemed to dilate much, and speaking to all creatures, I was saying: "Everyone who is thirsty, come to the source of the waters of life itself, He is offering it to every one of you; come!": And the certainty about what I understood and was seeing was so great that it seemed to me that everyone saw and understood the same thing as I. [ANTT 118v-119r]

In this passage, Joana addresses the awareness of the wounded Jesus Christ "who presented Himself as God and true man," full of grace. She corroborates the same Christocentric concern of Incarnation (true man) and Trinity (God and grace). Her mentioning of the Roman soldier who wounds Christ in his left side is of no less importance.<sup>114</sup> The soldier can be interpreted as sinful humanity who hurts and touches the Son of God.

<sup>114</sup> Aelred of Rievaulx, "Rule of Life for a Recluse,"[*De institutione inclusarum*] in *The Works of Aelred of Rievaulx 1: Treatises and Pastoral Prayer*, trans. M. P. Macpherson. Cistercian Fathers Series 2 (Spencer, Mass.: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 90. Cited in Caroline Walker Bynum, "The Blood of Christ in Middle Ages," in *Church History* 71 (December 2002): 685.

In the wound, Joana encounters both the nurturing and the healing aspects of Christ's body and an opening into proselytizing the 'gentiles'.This is the idea of sacrifice that is also present in Bynum's interpretation of blood in medieval culture. Following Catherina of Siena, Joana sees in the wound a place for (doctrinal) redemption.<sup>115</sup> There, the Portuguese nun finds union with God as well as her own messianic voice. She 'sees' and 'understands', but it is not an internal, psychological, or nuptial event: Joana is *calling out* her own insights and understanding to those who suffer the thirst of God.

#### 3.3.4 Drinking God

Within the image of the godly wound, thirst dominates human nature, particularly in the Cistercian tradition. <sup>116</sup> Water, as well as blood, is an element of life and rebirth, and Joana continues this imagery of God as a sensorial response to thirst. In chapter ten of her self-writing, Joana describes how she loses her 'discourse' and prayer because of extreme physical and spiritual dryness. Lost, she sees the 'innards of earth', which amount to hell. This is described as an abyss, where great and deep sticky rivers flow, with dark water and fiery blue flames ('lavaredas'). She states that the mere representation of those flames, even for an instant, could kill someone. These waters were inhabited by a multitude of hopeless souls, suffering terrible punishments. Many creatures and serpents came from there, 'infernal beasts' which, 'with great furor', despised her. God protected her, held her fast against him, and laid her in a 'most beautiful castle'. There they were observing from a scaffold ('de palanque') the place to which, through his mercifulness, God had snatched her. This interior castle was the soul itself, in grace and friendship with God [ANTT 96v].

Contrary to Teresa, Joana does not present a topology of mansions or castles. However, the latter sees hell (i.e., extreme punishment) from a superior castle. The true water for her thirst cannot come from that river, nor from a cistern; there, she drowns herself and cannot breathe [ANTT 73v].

Teresa uses theimagery of waterin her prayermethodology.Godis the water, the element of knowledge, and in order to collect his water, the faithful must transport it from the river in a vase or build a well, but all these methods are strained and difficult.When the water is poured from the sky, no effort is necessary.The goal is to acquire an easier, quicker, and more efficient way to profit from God's knowledge.<sup>117</sup>

<sup>115</sup> Hollywood, "'That glorious slit,'" 108.

<sup>116</sup> Michael Casey*, A Thirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs*, Cistercian Studies Series no. 77 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications/Liturgical Press, 1987).

<sup>117</sup> Teresa of Ávila, "Fourth Castle," in *The Interior Castle*, chap. 2.

Joana is less preoccupied with a pedagogical method of praying than with communicating with the God-Man. As stated above, the wound is the path of imitating Christ. The path can be a 'river of hearts' [ANTT 50r] or a queue ('fileira') of crosses pointing to heaven [ANTT 13v]. But only God himself is the nurturing food – fountain, water, blood, 'bitter chalice' – [ANTT 49v] of incessant knowledge. She hears these divine words:"*Potestis bibere calicem quem ego bibituros sum"* ["Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?" (Matthew 20:22)] [ANTT 49v].

The 'fountain of Life', which is God and which makes human thirst grow even more, and the permitted divine knowledge of God are the purest water of life. In Joana's writing, God is ultimately a fountain, a source from which only clean and pure water, not 'murky water', can spring. He is the food that feeds the saints and holy people, on which she inebriates herself. In another passage, Joana says:

Estando em oração me veio ao pensamento isto mesmo que deixo referido e como eu fisese por tirar de mim aquelas cousas por me parecerem escusadas, lembrarão-me as religiosas daquela casa como algumas se acomodarião mal com terem por Prelada a huma criatura inútil como eu era e loguo em aquele mesmo instante entendi isto do Senhor: Quando ho ispirito Santo deceu sobre meus dicipolos, nenhum ficou em trevas, todos conhecerão as verdades de meu Evangelho e ficarão alumiados asim serão tãobem as vontades destas religiosas, quando eu o permitir. E com esta notícia parece que me ferião aqueles raios da devina lus, com que a minha alma se foi embebendo\* e juntamente me dava huma sede tão exciciva daquele Senhor, em cuja presença estava, que me sentia emlouquecer de amor e ele como que se compadicia daquelas amorosas âncias me dava de beber aquela augua e me derão a entender estas palavras: Aqua salutis de fontibus salvatoris. Com as quais a alma se anciou com mores emcêndios de amor e toda lançada em as correntes daquela devina fonte bebia sem medida e não acabava de satisfazer-se, mas já como enagenada\* e perdida de si começou a sentir huma fraguância mui dilicada e ispiritual com que lhe paricia que [ANTT 96v] daquele luguar adonde estava, subia a outro mais supirior e devino e como se admirava do que ali sentia, se me apresentarão as palavras seguintes: quam magna est multitudo dulcedinis tua Domine quam abscondisti timentibus te. E com isto sentiu a minha alma que se dilatava muito e paricia-lhe que hia por hum caminho mui apertado e dificultuoso de andar e lá no fim e mais oculto dele se discubria huma fonte e me davão a entender que naquela fonte bebião todos os Santos do Ceo, dos quais conhecera muitos que tinha por meus a[d]vogados e parecia-me que era mui dificultoso o poder-se cheguar aquele luguar. [ANTT 96r-v]

What I refer to here came into my thoughts exactly when I was in prayer. And as I tried to withdraw from me those things that seemed unnecessary, the religious women from that house reminded me how some of them would feel uncomfortable if they had as a Prelate such a useless creature as I was. Immediately, in the same instant I understood this from the Lord: "When the Holy Spirit came upon my disciples, not even one of them remained in the dark; all of them knew the truths of my Gospel and became enlightened. Thus will also be these religious women's wills when I allow it." And with this notice, it seemed that those rays of divine light with which my soul was imbibing\* itself were wounding me and I also felt such an excessive thirst for that Lord before whose presence I was, feeling myself going mad with love and He, as if feeling compassion for that loving anxiousness, gave me that water to drink and I was given to understand these words: "Aqua salutis de fontibus salvatoris" ["water out of the wells of salvation" (Isa 12:3)] with which my soul became anxious with even bigger love fires and wholly thrust in the currents of that divine source, it drank immeasurably and did not cease to satisfy itself; but as if alienated\* and out of herself, it began to feel a very delicate and spiritual fragrance with which it seemed to it that, from the place where it was, it ascended to another, more superior and divine and as it was astonished with what it felt there, the following words presented themselves to me: "quam magna est multitudo dulcedinis tua Domine; quam abscondisti timentibus te" ["O how great is the multitude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which thou hast hidden for them that fear thee" (Ps 30:20)]. With this my soul felt itself dilating plenty and it seemed to walk through a very narrow and hard path to walk and at its end and the more hidden part of it a source was discovered and I was given to understand that all the Heavenly Saints, many of whom I had known and which I had as my advocates, drank from that source. Is seemed to me that is was very difficult to arrive at that place. [ANTT 96r-v]

In this passage trans-ascendence is at stake; the Spirit descends upon the disciples and enlightens them. Joana even "ascend[s] to another [place] more superior and divine." Here, anxiousness is the state in which she can come closer to God and drink from him directly. Anxiousness, the state of thirst, 'sequedades', and purgation of the soul, according to the interpretation of the Jesuit Scaramelli, is no longer present, because Joana is in a higher degree of knowledge. She ascends to and receives the word – the promise of what is hidden to most. Joana begins to walk this hidden path and to drink together in community with other already-known saints.

Joana continues the liquid imagery of God. Beyond water, blood, and invigorating food as wine, the Divinity is even transmitted through (olive) oil and ointments within the nuptial seclusion. In the beginning of her account, Joana was 'unawake' ('desacordada'), as already stated in the previous chapter.<sup>118</sup> The Cistercian recalls entering into a cellar, in an unknown region, where she is given some olive oil to drink that made her thirst grow with desire.

<sup>118</sup> See the section "Writing the Self: Corpus,Body, and Subjectivity in Joana's Narrative," in chap. 1*.*

Joana's anxiousness is connected to a threefold thirst: concurrently physical, spiritual, and what we could call 'gnoseological'. It can only be (incessantly) satisfied through a fountain from which life, knowledge, and salvation flow. Yet the fountain itself is also a place of travelling and passing where, almost in a paradoxical way, humanity dwells.

#### 3.3.5 Trinity as the Household

Joana's anxious *state*(of*unawakingness)* and *estate(region,house, cellar)*isin this 'abode'; this dwelling that she describes, following Teresa, as the 'interior castle' is the soul, and it is the growing desire for companionship and knowledge. Thus, in chapter 82, Joana perceives the God-Man as Martha and Magdalene had once perceived and received Jesus: she hears "Intravit Jesus in quoddam castelum" (Luke 10:38) [ANTT 130r]. This knowledge is admiration, wonder, and awe. Joana's soul uncovered and discovered ('descobrir') the 'highest Mystery', and it is the mystery of the Trinity that is evoked throughout her writing [ANTT 18r]. The Trinity itself is also a place of discovery. In chapter 83, Joana feels the need to share an explanation of this: it is a place to theologize, enduring a lemmatical process of reading (out loud) the God-Man's body. Just as for Teresa, for the Cistercian nun the Trinity is a fundamental theme that characterizes both of their mystical writings.<sup>119</sup> In a tradition that could be traced to the *Minne* mysticism of Hadewijch and Ruusbroec, the Trinity as a theme marked the transition from Northern mysticism to Southern female mysticism, according to Bouyer.<sup>120</sup> It expresses the relationship with the God-Man, the achievability of communion, and participation in the Divine Household, where the Divinity is communal and accessible through the incessant thirst or desire to partake in this economy. <sup>121</sup> Joana describes this relationship with the following words:

<sup>119</sup> Louis Bouyer, *Women Mystics: Hadewijch of Antwerp, Teresa of Ávila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Edith Stein* [Figures mystiques féminines : Hadewijch d'Anvers, Térèse d'Avila, Thérèse de Lisieux, Elisabeth de la Trinité, Edith Stei], translated by Anne Englund Nash. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 13–130.

<sup>120</sup> See, for instance, Louis Dupré, *Common Life: The Origins of Trinitarian Mysticism and Its Development in Jan Ruusbroec* (New York: Crossroad, 1984); Jessica A. Boon "Trinitarian Love Mysticism: Hadewijch, Ruusbroec, and the Gendered Experience of the Divine," *Church History* 72 (2003): 484–503; Anne Hunt, *The Trinity. Insights from the Mystics* (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010).

<sup>121</sup> Sarah Coakley "Why three? Some further reflection on the Origins of the Trinity," in *The Making and Remaking of Christian doctrine: Essays in honour of Maurice Wiles,* ed. Sarah Coakle y, David Arthur Pailin (Oxford: Clarendon Press Oxford, 1993), 29–56. Anne Hunt "Christology, Trinity and pneumatology," in *Companion to the Trinity,* ed. Peter C. Phan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 365–380, and Susak K. Wood, 'The Trinity in the liturgy, sacraments, and mysticism," in the same book, 381–397.

E suposto que a auguoa desta fonte da vida satisfas a sede aos que a bebem, não he como as iguarias da tera, que a poucas veses que se comão loguo emfastião. Esta auguoa de vida não hé asim, porque quanto mais della se bebe mais crescem os deseijos de a tornar a beber. Com estes andava eu o mais do tempo porque o Senhor mos dava, e como elle quando da deseijos loguo acode com remedio, estando hum dia em oração me <deu> hum grande recolhimento alli naquele mundo imtirior de nosa alma, bem em o centro della, dipois de estar abrasada\*, em o foguo daquelle divino amor, por <huma> noticia admiravel. Se me reprezentavão as tres divinas pesoas da Santisima Trindade. E eu toda atonita e com [ANTT 18r] e com grande temor e umildade não <me> atrivia a admitir tão grande mercê, e loguo se me representavão aquelas palavras do sagrado evangelho 'Pater, meus diliget eum et ad eum veniemos e mansionem aput eum faciemos' (Jo: 13, 23) com os quais creceu tanto em mim o amor e admiração como o não poder duvidar daquella verdade que me deixou grandes riquisas em minha alma. E deste dia em diante o mais das veses que tinha oração, achava comiguo aquella devina companhia. E como huma fosem grandisimos os favores que esta pecadora recebeu destas devinas pesoas, comecei a temer e a duvidar, e como quem me quiria tirar daquella duvida se me refirião estas palavras "Numquão Pater e Filius fuerint sine Espiritu Sancto", não se pode dizer o que sentiu esta alma em aquella hora. As verdades que se lhe discubrirão tocantes àquelle altisimo misterio, com huma fe e fortalesa tão grande que me paricião limitadas. Muitas mil vidas para dar pella confissão desta ver[da]de. [ANTT 17v-18r]

Even if the water of this source of life satisfies the thirst of those who drink it, it is unlike the earth's delicacies of which you grow tired the scarce times you eat them . This water of life is not like that, because the more you drink of it the more the desires grow to drink it anew. Most times I had these; for the Lord gave them to me, and when he gives desires he soon responds with remedy. One day, while in Prayer, I was caught there by a great recollection in that interior world of our soul, right in its center, after being ablaze and on fire with that Divine love because of some admirable news. The three Divine persons of the Most Holy Trinity represented themselves to me, and I, wholly astonished\* [ANTT 18r], and with great fear and humility, dared not admit such a great mercy, and soon those words of the Holy Gospel presented themselves to me: "Pater meus, diliget eum et ad eum veniemus e mansionem aput eum faciemus" ["My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 13:23)], with which grew in me such love and admiration to the point of being impossible to doubt that truth which left great riches in my soul. And from this day on, on the majority of occasions when I had Prayer, I found that Divine Company with me. And as these most great favors were received by this sinner, I started to fear, to doubt and as if somebody wanted to dispel that doubt, these words spoke themselves to me: "Nunquam Pater e Filius fuerint sine Espiritu Sancto" ["The

Father and the Son never ought to be without the Holy Spirit"]. What this soul felt at that time cannot be said. The truths that discovered\* themselves to her regarding that most high Mystery with a faith and fortitude so great that many thousands of lives seemed limited to become aware of this truth's confession. [ANTT 17v-18r]

The 'companionship', the dwelling with, the friendship, and the presence of the Father with the Son are not possible without the Holy Spirit. Joana's use of 'sine' gives a sense of condition, of necessity to the union. Could Joana be privileging the Holy Spirit's role in the Trinity, following a tradition began by the Cistercian Joachim Fiori?<sup>122</sup> Or could the Holy Spirit, both animal (dove), feminine, and disembodied (in its fiery state), be a place where Joana's soul (for she was chosen) could be *'*metida' (set to dwell or abide in)? The 'third' Person in the Divine Household could be both the present and the unexchangeable gift.

In chapter 16, Joana describes her desire to take Communion more often. Her taking of Communion happens spiritually, and in it she clearly sees the Lord consecrated in the sacramental bread. Her soul is compared to and treated as God's dwelling, and, in one of her recollections, the center of her soul transforms itself into the most beautiful city, where she partakes with the angels and the Virgin Mary. Probably mimicking Teresa, Joana speaks of the innumerable closed rooms, whose keys were in the hands of her Lord. He himself would eventually allow her to "enjoy the sight of those rich jewelleries" [ANTT 22v]. Later on, Joana would mention the making of the tabernacle for their communal living area.

E fasendo-lhe eu de novo a mesma petição e oferta, parecia-me que este piadoso Senhor tirava de penas\* hum grande nomero de almas, as quais em aquela mesma ora voavão ao ceo e a minha toda admirada das [ANTT 36v] maravilhas deste devino monarqua, sahia fora de sua esfera e tornava <se> a ver em aquela região de vivos e luguar de verdadeiro descanso e estando guosando dele por algum espaço, desejei de faser ali meu tabernáculo, em companhia daquelas ditosas almas que novamente o hião povoar. E estando com estas âncias toda ocupada, esqueci-me do meu Senhor e ele como que estava zeloso me repreendeu e disse-me: QUEM ME TEMA MIM NEM O CEO HÁ DESEJAR POR QUE EM MIM TEM TUDO. E como quem me quiria retificar em aquella verdade, me arrebatava o ispirito com hum sentimento dilicadíssimo e ilustrando-me o entendimento com huma lus admiravel se me representavão as Três Divinas pesoas da Santisima Trindade em hum trono de grande majestade e glória e dizia-me o Senhor: Ves aqui o ceo que desejavas

<sup>122</sup> On the relation between the Trinity and the historic conception of Joachim of Fiore, see Delno C. West and Sandra Zimdars-Swarts, *Joachim of Fiore: A Study in Spiritual Perception and History* (Indiana University Press, 1983), 55–58.

guosar, fora de mim não há que ver. E naquelle mesmo instante conheceu a minha alma tão grandes verdades e ficou tão ilustrada com os raios daquella devina lus, que não sabia dar acordo de mim, nem me paricia que a ciencia que alli aprendera, em aquelle breve espaço de tempo, se podia aprender em muitos anos em as escolas da Tera, por que em estas, ainda que se ensinem as verdades de nossa Santa Fé, não ficão esculpidas n'alma com aquella claresa e lus que as ensina aquelle devino mestre [de] sabiduria infinita e lus da mesma lus e glória da mesma glória. [ANTT 36r-v]

And making of Him again the same petition and offer, it seemed to me this pious Lord took away the punishments\* of a great number of souls, which in the same hour were flying to heaven. And mine, completely astonished by these Divine Monarch's [ANTT 36v] wonders, left its sphere and I saw myself again in that region of the living and the place of true rest. While enjoying it for some space of time, I desired to build my tabernacle there in the company of those blissful souls that were once again going to populate it, and being fully occupied\* with this anxiousness, I forgot my Lord, and as He was zealous, He reprehended me and told me: "WHOEVER HAS ME SHALL NOT EVEN DESIRE HEAVEN FOR HE HAS EVERYTHING IN ME." And as if He wanted to ratify me in that truth, he abducted my spirit with a most delicate sentiment and illustrating my understanding with an admirable light, the three Divine persons of the Most Holy Trinity presented themselves to me on a throne of great majesty and glory and the Lord told me: "Here you see the Heaven you wished to enjoy, which is nowhere to be seen outside myself." And in that same instant my soul knew truths so great and became so illustrated by the rays of that divine light that I did not know how to give accord of myself, nor it seemed to me that the science I learned there during that brief space of time, could be learned during many years at the earthly schools; for in these, even if they teach the truths of our Holy Faith, these would not stay carved in the soul with that clarity and light that are taught by that Divine Master of infinite wisdom and light of the same light, glory of the same glory. [ANTT 36r-v]

Heaven is not the ultimate goal for Joana; this is rather the extreme *filiatio* and communion in the Trinitarian Household. Joana acknowledges that true heaven is participation in and union with the Trinity. Yet, the desire to 'be in heaven' vanishes when the faithful, such as Joana, in fact do prefer the glory. Heaven cannot be seen as a reward and cannot be objectified as the last goal, being rather the participation in this relational Trinity that makes possible the 'quick illustration', higher than the knowledge provided by any human sciences. The knowledge becomes printed, carved in the soul, in a complete likeness of the Divinity: "light of the same light, glory of the same glory."

#### 3.3.6 The Way of Glory

God gives one's soul 'feelings' through the exercise of prayer, and there lies the true communication. In chapter 26, Joana states that her spirit was enraptured and flew "quicker than an instant thought" when seeing herself in the presence of the highest majesty. Again,it seemed to her that "thousands upon thousands of Angels" were incessantly hailing the glory and praising their Creator.And "set up above all the Choirs of Angelic Spirits" was the Virgin Mary, spreading her power and majesty, with "so many divine prerogatives and graces," making Joana's soul rapture even more intense with this knowledge and the goodness that came out of the former's sphere. The beatitudes were exhaled throughout the space.The Beati and the Saints were full of eternal glory, each one of them feeling they could not know a higher enjoyment. Even if each one's degrees of glory differed, it equally existed among all.

mas avia em todos huma tão encendida caridade e riciprico amor com que em Deos se estavão amando, que a glória de hum era de todos com tanta igualdade como se fora hum só e com esta mesma igualdade festejavam todos a glória de hum, e hum a glória de todos como sua própria. E naquela pas e tranquilidade guosavão daqueles eternos bens, participados daquele sumo bem donde sem princípio procedem todos os bens, dos quais guosavão eternamente todos aqueles que forem umildes e puros de coração, como o promete o mesmo Senhor e nosso redentor Jesus Cristo cuijas palavras não podem faltar. [ANTT 33r]

But there was in all such an enkindled charity and a reciprocal love, with which they loved each other in God, that one's glory belonged to everyone in a constant equality, as if they were only one; and with this same equality all celebrated the one's glory as the latter did with everyone's, and in that peace and tranquility they enjoyed those eternal goods, partaken from that highest of goods, from where, without a beginning, all goods precede to be eternally enjoyed by all those who are humble and pure at heart, as promised by the same Lord and Our Redeemer Jesus Christ, whose words cannot fail. [ANTT 33r]

In this passage, Joana emphasizes the reciprocity and participation of love, charity, and glory. She speaks of an equality acquired in the union of peace, a tranquility which is a complete and equal enjoyment of the Godhead.

Joana's soul becomes greedy for such glory, but her humility and self-knowledge "which [she] saw undone in the nothingness" [ANTT 28r] also gave her the strength to be embraced and comprehended within God's light, although she was as the most sinful and faulty of all.These themes are not unfamiliarinmedievalmysticism, especially in female vernacular elaborations such as Hadewijch. Still, in this subchapter on the 'operation of love', we will see some resemblances.

The exercise of prayer was the way for sinful people like Joana to reach the highest truths. Joana even mentions how she helped a lost nun to acquire this 'supernatural' prayer, through her intercession with God. However, the 'supernatural' state or the plenitude of glory is not achievable by everybody. In her visions there are constant reminders of the 'degrees' of glory or grace. Her father, for instance, in chapter 28, is said to have acquired a higher level of glory in heaven than her also pious aunt. Later in her narrative, Joana mentions how she also saw through a recollection all her siblings and her mother, who wanted to offer all her children to religion (to a religious Order).Through Joana's initiative, as stated in the first chapter of this book, António Freire de Albuquerque, her youngest brother, was granted a place in another Cistercian Monastery. In her vision, the Lord allows the younger child to hold the higher degree in glory. Afterwards, theThree Kings (Three Wise Men) appeared to her when they came to adore the God-Child. As had occurred in the case of her brother, the younger king was the first one allowed to praise the child. Thus it was revealed that God aimed not to reward people through a superiority of condition, but through the "carats [mass] of Love" instead [ANTT 119r].This effort to quantify glory and blissfulness is comparable to the "List of Perfects," in which the thirteenth-century Beguine Hadewijch appears, and which was added to her visions.<sup>123</sup> However, contrary to the Flemish mystic, Joana mentions more concretely people from her own family, and particularly her younger brother António.

com isto entendi grandes verdades, que se não sabem diser e estando asim recolhida, me acordei de mim e juntamente do meu confesor reparando em como naquele ofrecimento o não vira a ele nem a mim e loguo com <hum> repente que me admirou muito, me deu o Senhor a entender que a ele e a mim nos tinha em luguar separado para cousas de seu serviço e esta separação emtendia eu que era com huma particular tendência de que me admirava e entendia que era favor particular e emtendia tãobem que recebera primeiro a este meu irmão mais moço, porque buscara ao Senhor com mais amor que os outros e com isto ficou a minha alma consoladisima. [ANTT 119v]

With this I understood great truths that cannot be told, and being thus recollected, I woke myself up and with my confessor noticing how, in that offering I had not seen him nor myself, and soon, all of a sudden, to my great admiration, the Lord gave me to understand that He had my confessor and me in a separate place to do things in His service. I understood that this separation had a particular tendency which admired me and I also understood

<sup>123</sup> Hadewijch, *The Complete Works of Hadewijch*, trans. Columba Hart (New York: Paulist Press, 1980).

that it was a particular favor, and I understood as well that He had received my younger brother first, because this one had sought the Lord with more love than others had done, and with this my soul became most consoled. [ANTT 119v]

This participation in the glory (ante- and post-mortem) is constantly featured in her narrative.There is an active *filiatio*, a distinctive likeness either through her family or the divine economy in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.This is also transmitted from her textual network to her professional and family ones: Joana actively partakes in the well-being of her confessor and her siblings as well as dead and dying souls, as shown in the quotations above. She copies the divine economy of the Trinity into her own familiar relationships.

The question of participation on this divine glory is also a feature that is present in Joana's contemporary, Maria da Cruz, the founder of the Recollect at Lisbon and the visionary who was later expelled to Brazil.The fifteenth proposition of which this beata was accused said:

that God Our Lord has infused grace [in her] with more highness than in all apostles, even than Saint John the Baptist.<sup>124</sup>

Joana is more careful in her assessments regarding the degree of glory she can acquire in her lifetime. However, the infused and superior knowledge she receives from the Godhead is present in Joana's writings, just as it was attributed to Maria da Cruz.

#### 3.3.7 Operation of Love or of Excess

The 'operation of love', which occurs after God's gift of recollection through anxiousness, is felt either in the soul or in Joana herself. When Joana says 'herself ', she does not distinguish the body from the soul or herself altogether; there is a psychological discourse that concerns what happens with the soul's faculties when the will becomes one with God's. However, at other times, the discourse refers to the 'I'/self 's experience. There is not a theological precision as there is in Teresa's case, for instance. Nevertheless, this shows an embodiment of the experience: I am my soul and my body.

The anxiousness is felt before and/or after love's operation: there is a delicate feeling of suavity, a sweetness that liquefies and corrupts words, concepts, and even

<sup>124 &</sup>quot;que Deos Nosso Senhor lhe infundia a graca com mais altura que a todos os apostolos e que a S. Joao Baptista." "Porposisons que proferio a delata Maria da Crus," in *O processo de Maria da Cruz*, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, proc. 4372, Portugal, ANTT, mf. 4420. 238fl. 20/08/1659-18/07/1668, fol. 64v.

images. An operation is the synonym of quietness: love's operation is the possibility for God's will and Joana's will to join each other, together. This is the time of the *impetus*, the arrow, the spear ('lançada') – the inevitable trespass that crosses through one's own body, one's own *corpus,* anew.

It is not surprising that words vanish even from her writing, which is already an 'account', an enumeration, the repetition of the same uniqueness.The Cistercian nun has no words, and yet she keeps on writing. Not because she uses negative (or apophatic) language, which she also does, but because she 'dilates' and extends those words. We have seen that from 'desacordo' (unwilling) she makes 'desacordada', or the verb 'desabrir' (not continue) becomes 'desabrimento'<sup>125</sup> [ANTT 105]. Yet there are other examples, especially regarding suffixes: 'aflição' (affliction) becomes 'afligimento'(affliciousness, a more creative way of afflictedness)<sup>126</sup>\* [ANTT 131v].There is a certain kind of abstraction of the language through the use of suffixes. These new words that Joana creates are marks of her knowledge of Latin and her direct transposition to Portuguese. <sup>127</sup> However, we may also speak of a mystical *docta ignorantia*, a knowledge that Joana de Jesus looks for but does not find in language.

The language of excess lives throughout the text. Her love for God is excessive, as was Joana's (and Teresa's) biological father's love for his children. It would be a mistake to view Joana's inventive vocabulary as proof of limited literacy. Her (positive) language of excess, through its more or less conscientious break with semantics, is a creative expression of her desire to describe in positive terms something for which she has no words. <sup>128</sup>

Besides the excessiveness of her vocabulary, the images become more and more concrete. It is not just the soul or the visions she has: it is an *I* and a *You* that relate to *themselves*. In this subchapter we have seen that this union is achieved through suffering (*patiatiang*) the (nurturing) wounds of Christ. Nonetheless, the most open wound/openness in the God-Man's body is the mouth, where lies the possibility of a word and a kiss. Joana continues her exegesis of the Song of Songs, especially the passage that appealed so much Bernard of Clairvaux: "Let him kiss me with the kiss

<sup>125</sup> Cf. Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "desabrir," 3: 81.

<sup>126</sup> \*Check the glossary.

<sup>127</sup> On Portuguese suffixes see Maria do Céu Caetano, "Rivalidade sufixal e polissemia," in *Cadernos WGT – Polissemia*, org. Clara Nunes (Lisbon: CLUNL, 2008), 23–35. On the suffix -mento see also Maria C. Caetano, "O sufixo -mento em Gramáticas Históricas do Português," in *Saberes no Tempo. Homenagem a Maria Henriqueta Costa Campos*. *Revista da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas* (special edition), ed. Maria Helena M. Mateus and Clara Nunes Correia (Lisbon: Colibri, 2002), 147–154.

<sup>128</sup> In his analysis of the theological thought of Hadewijch, Paul Mommaers also finds the tension between gebruken (to enjoy) and gebreken (to lack). Paul Mommaers, *Hadewijch: schrijfster, begijn, mystica* (Averbode: Altiora, 1989), 126.

of his mouth."<sup>129</sup> She does this in a very excessive way – so excessive that this part was removed from the second manuscript, the eighteenth-century *Copy*, which was circulated for publication.

Neste mesmo dia, depois de completa, quando me queria recolher cheguem como sempre custumava ao hum Senhor que tinha na cela posto na crus e dei-lhe hum osculo no peito e emtendi que o Senhor me fasia grande força que lho dese na boca, mas eu tive hum temor e parece-me que por umildade, lho não dei e assim como quem não fasia o que lhe mandavam, me recolhi\*. Ao outro dia has cinco oras da manhã, fui para a oração conventual e comeceime com grande pas e suavidade a recolher-me ao imtirior, aonde emtendia, com grande certesa, [que] tinha comiguo o meu Senhor Deos e homem verdadeiro, o qual com hum amor eisicivo, se cheguava a mim e dava-me a entender que aquele ósculo, que eu lhe não quisera dar, quando ele mo pedira, mo daria ele a mim. E cheguando-me assim me tomava e apertava comsiguo e pondo, eu pecadora, a minha imdigna boca em a sua, com huma duçura e suavidade que me tirava de meus sentidos, estava guosando aquele soberano favor e como com ele me sintia emlouquecer, o Senhor me tornava há apertar consiguo, como quem se não satisfaz de huma cousa que muito deseija de lograr e tornava a renovar o favor pasado e a minha alma de todo a morticida\* sem saber o que disia, parece falava imtiriormente muitas palavras, todas de grande amor e emtendia que o Senhor me respondia outras muitas, das quais me acordo destas: Quirida esposa minha, quanto te amo e quanto me deleito em estar contiguo aqui. Me lembrei do meu confesor, como quem desejava de lhe dar parte daqueles grandes bens que estava guosando. E o Senhor me disia com grande amor: Aqui o tenho comiguo. E loguo emtendi que tãobem ele ali estava. [ANTT 112v]

On the same day, after the compline, when I wanted to recollect, I came closer, as usual, to a Lord that I had in my cell put on a cross, and gave Him a kiss on the chest. I understood that the Lord was insisting I should kiss Him on the mouth. Yet I had a fear, and – it seems to me by humility -, I did not do it, and as someone who did not do what he was ordered to do , I retreated\*.

On another day, at five o'clock in the morning, I went to the conventual prayer, and began, in great peace and suavity, to recollect to the interior, where I understood, with great certainty, that I had with me my Lord God and true man, who, with an excessive love, was coming closer to me, and gave me to understand that that kiss I did not want to give Him which He had asked me for it, He would give Himself to me. And coming closer to me, He held me tight to Him, and I, sinner, putting my unworthy mouth to

<sup>129</sup> Bernard of Clairvaux, "Sermons on the Songs of Songs," in *Selected Writings*, trans. G. R. Evans (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), sermon 3, I.i, 221.

His, with a sweetness and suavity that took away my senses, was enjoying that sovereign favor, and as I felt that I was going mad with this, the Lord again held me tight, as someone who could not be satisfied by something he very much desired to possess, and again He renewed me the past favor. My soul, completely deadened\* without knowing what it was saying, seemed to speak internally many words, all of great love, and I understood that the Lord answered many others, of those I recall these: "Dear spouse of mine, how much I love you and how delightful is it to be here with you." I remembered my confessor, as I would desire to give him part of those great goods I was enjoying. And the Lord said to me with great love: "I have him here with me." And immediately I understood that he was also there. [ANTT 112v]

This passage speaks of the kiss or 'osculum' of the God-Man materialized in a statue which Joana possessed. For her, the "Lord God and true man, with an excessive love" becomes personified in a vision through that small object (of art) she venerates. Verbal communication and fleshly contact is established through the desire: he wants to kiss her, and her humility is greater than her obedience.The love is excessive as he forces her to kiss him on his own mouth, with a desire which he cannot satisfy. Her soul has no other way than to die ('amortecida') and to be speechless.

Though this is a moment of closeness, secrecy, and longing, Joana cannot but remember the need to testify, verify, and share that experience she is enjoying.Therefore, she calls for her confessor, and Christ assures her of that man's presence.

In this passage we can see how Joana's sense of anxiousness, which culminates in the osculum, is so similar to Hadewijch's notion of 'oerewoet'. In the seventh vision, for instance, the thirteenth-century Beguine says that the God-Man embraced her, joined to her, filled her, and they were one without distinction. This sense of unity is given by 'oerewoet', the mark (torment, insanity), a theme that is a moment of an anxious and unquiet relationship with the 'true man', just as for Joana.

This 'disquiet union' may be considered the culmination of an 'operation of love', where the anxious encounter Joana develops with Christ becomes an act or operation of the embodied soul. Anxiousness prevails in both moments. Firstly, in the encounter, as she prepares for the union, and anxiousness is a *condition* of such a meeting. Secondly, in the operation, as Joana's body, in an anxious *state*, aches in pain, hardships, and joy for a state of glory, bliss, and participation in the mysteries of Christian faith. Finally, as we shall now see, anxiousness is an *effect,* or a need to share the knowledge obtained from the closeness and secrecy of the mystical experience.Thus, anxiousness becomes *notícia*, which encompasses knowledge, news, novelty, and notice.

#### **3.4. The Notice (Notícia)**

The philosophical and theological Christian traditions have always been obsessed by the pursuit of knowledge.The mystical path – either cataphatic or apophatic – does not escape that demand.Thus, when one reads Joana's writing, the recollection (considered as memory) of her recollections (psychosomatic experiences) or its reiteration throughout the text (an account that becomes an accountability of her deeds), the experience cannot be exempt of meaning. Beyond fear, doubt, urgency, absence, and excess, anxiousness becomes a sort of parasympathetic system that enables the *notícia* (here translated as 'notice') to flow throughout the speech.

'Notícia' is the word Joana uses. It derives from the Latin 'notitia', which is a central concept in Augustine.<sup>130</sup> For the author of *Confessions*, 'notitia sui' is self-knowledge.<sup>131</sup> However, this word can also refer to a list or a catalogue.<sup>132</sup> In its latter meaning, it became a genre in the diplomatics: it means a variety of texts that contain a substantive presence of informal redaction and a general absence of validation.They are 'notitias', memories, inventories, etc. Historically, they are not considered trustworthy, being situated at the margins of the true *document*. 133

'Notícia', however differs from 'conhecimento'. In her narrative, Joana uses the word 'conhecimento' (knowledge) in different ways. First, when she mentions *conheci-mento* as acquaintance with Friar Alberto do Amaral through letter writing [ANTT 66], or the erudition of the Latin language [ANTT 100v]. However, *conhecimento* is mainly described as 'conhecimento próprio' ('cognitio sui').<sup>134</sup> This is achieved by the operation of love and is accompanied with an extreme humility.The knowledge is still very formal and methodological (or instrumental) in the sense that it formalizes the relationship with God.

On the other hand, Joana uses the word 'noticia' three times while referring herself to 'cognitio Dei': the information or the news that the God-Man gives to her during their intimate encounter and 'communication'.The contemporary translation of

<sup>130</sup> Jacques-Guy Bougerol, "The Church Fathers and *Auctoritates* in scholastic theology to Bonaventure," in *The reception of Church Fathers in the West: from the Carolingians to the Maurists,* ed. Irena Backus with Antonina Bevan (Leiden, New York: Brill, 1995), 387–390.

<sup>131</sup> E. Brooks, "St. Augustine's '*notitia sui*' related to Aristotle and the early neo-Platonists," in *Augustiniana* 27 (1977): 70–132 and 364–401; *Augustiniana* 28 (1978): 183–221; *Augustiniana* 29 (1979): 97–124.

<sup>132</sup> Adolf Berger, *Encyclopedic dictionary of Roman law,* Series of the Transactions of the Ame rican Philosophical Society vol. 43, part 2 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1953), 599.

<sup>133</sup> Susana Maria de Albuquerque Emiliano de Figueiredo Tavares Pedro, "O género diplomático 'notícia' na documentação medieval portuguesa (séculos X-XIII)" (PhD diss., Universidade de Lisboa, 2008), 13. I thank the author for guiding me in this question.

<sup>134</sup> See folia ANTT 34, 38, 39, 47v, 52v, 54v, 107v.

Joana's *noticias* would be 'news'. According to Bluteau's eighteenth-century *Vocabulario*, *notícia* is something between 'knowledge' and 'acknowledgement':

Notícia: Knowledge, or business (thing) that comes to knowledge. There are many castes of notices. Some are certainties, as the science is; others doubtful and obscure, as the opinion, the conjecture, the suspicion; another firm but obscure as the Faith; others are firm and most clear, as the light of glory is. Also there are natural notices, as the intelligence, others acquired, like Metaphysics; others infused, like all the revelations are. To these latter the moral, celestial, terrestrial, profane or mundane, political or diabolical notices are adjoined Notice. To know. Cognitio, onis. Fem. Cic. [my translation].<sup>135</sup>

This is similar in the English language.*Notice* contains both knowledge and acquaintance.<sup>136</sup> Even 'to notify' or 'paying notice' (attention) still conveys the economy of indebtedness and withdrawal. In *notice* there is also stamped the novelty, the urgency, and the redemptive character that is lacking in the notion of mere 'knowledge'. The 'Good News', within the Evangelium, is what the word of God entails.

For Joana, the *noticia* she receives is also the involuntary pretext to extend the secret communication to those who were not chosen. Continuing with the image of the well and God inherited from Teresa, Joana states:

Parece me a mim, que asim como da fonte\* que nace, corre [p]ara o rio, o qual traz a auguoa da mesma fonte, porém os que vão buscar desta auguoa não deixão a da fonte pela que corre e dece ao rio, porque bem conhecem que melhor he beber na fonte pura, que no rio que vai já turvado. Asim tãobem podem considerar todos os que o Senhor levar por este caminho sobrenatural, que a fonte pura he o mesmo Deos e o rio são as notícias e mais sentimentos que nacem desta fonte e que suposto, quando verdadeiramente são de Deos, traguão grandes riquezas para a alma não convém que se abrace com o dom e deixe ao autor e dador do mesmo dom, porque se pelo rio deixar a fonte [ANTT 46r] verdadeira, pode-lhe suceder que quando queira tornar a ela, achar o caminho insilvado e não poderá atinar por donde veo, nem saberá por donde há-de caminhar. O verdadeiro caminho he Noso Senhor e Redemtor Jesus Cristo, como elle mesmo dis, que nimguém pode ir ao padre senão por ele. Este Senhor <he> o verdadeiro caminho, a verdadeira verdade e vida da mesma vida. [ANTT 45v-46r]

It seems to me that the water springs from its springing source\* [and] runs to the river, bringing water from that same source, yet those who seek

<sup>135</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "noticia," 5: 754.

<sup>136</sup> Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. "notice, n.," accessed October 31, 2012, http://www .oed.com/view/Entry/128591?rskey=a4YvTI&result=1&isAdvanced=false.

water do not leave the source, no matter how much it pours and flows down to the river, as they know well that it is better to drink from the pure source than in the river which is already murky. We can thus also consider all those that the Lord carries along this supernatural path, for the pure source is that same God and the river are the notices and further feelings that are born from this source and which, when they truly come from God, will bring great riches for the soul. It is inconvenient to welcome the gift with open arms and abandon its author and giver; because if the river abandons the true [ANTT 46r] source it can happen that, whenever he wants to go back to the former, he will find the path full of brambles and will not be able to find the way through which he came, nor shall he know the path which he must walk. The true path is Our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ. As said by Him, nobody can reach the Father unless they go through Him. This Lord is the true path, the true truth, and life of the same life. [ANTT 45v-46r]

The river of Godhead is the flow of 'noticias e sentimentos' (notice and feelings) redeeming humankind. This revelatory and interpretive communication of the mystery is the primordial news or notice Joana constantly repeats. The ontological dimension of anxiousness, which is always correlated to the physicality of its experience, evolves into a gnoseological demand: the notice consists in what is knowledgeable and what is urgent (the news). It is not only what is known but also what *ought* be known, and to be saved (the News).<sup>137</sup>

This need and urgency constitutes the revelation: the drift and *duty* towards otherness. What is ethical mixes with what is desirable, gnoseological, and epistemological, because news/notice not only pays attention to the other or the others (ethical concern) but also because news/notice aspires to belong in the 'depositum Fidei', where it can be established as dogma, during its transformation into truthfulness. Consequently, it needs to be submitted to an epistemological praxis or validation. The language of need trespasses all the situations of anxiousness: there is a need for an encounter (which correlates to desire and the mourning for its eminent loss), as was seen above, in section 3.1. There was also an elemental need within anxiousness: the lack of air,water,and awareness brought outits explosion; a needful knowledge and its impossible acknowledgement by those who were not chosen for the encounter, as in section 3.2.

The positioning of *notice* is, therefore, consequent to the extreme gift received through the encounter. It is in Joana's response and responsiveness to the (secret) commu-nication and (open) gathering in the several networks where she preaches the *notice*.

<sup>137</sup> Compare, for instance, with other mystics; see Leonce Reypens, "Connaissance mystique," in *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique*, 3: 883–930.

#### 3.4.1 The Community of Saints

In the second chapter, I presented the several networks (the family, the professional) that could become part of a community of the faithful and through which Joana circulated. Besides these human networks, it is also possible to speak of a 'network of saints' that can serve as spiritual sacrifice within fleshly and deathly realms.<sup>138</sup>

Throughout her narrative, Joana introduces a number of well-known saints that enable her to speak with the God-Man. The notices she receives, or, at least, shares with her community's other members, are a result of grace's endeavors, which, paradoxically, also enable her to achieve her own saintliness. Her longing for and her sense of belonging to the community of saints are ascertainable when Joana receives notice from specific ones. Some exemplary and exceptional beings that maintain direct conversations with the Divine are extremely relevant to her.

Among these, Saint Bernard, for instance, has a vital role. Joana states that Bernard is responsible for aiding her father in choosing Lorvão instead of the Benedictine monastery of Ferreira, where her family was known to be very influential [ANTT 4v]. Saint Bernard also appears with 'his friend' Malachia, saying a personal mass when she is not healthy enough to attend. During this event she is dressed in a white garment by the Virgin Mary [ANTT 16r]. Years later, these two friends repeat this private mass and reveal to her that Vivardo, her confessor, will be wearing the pontifical, due to having become a bishop [ANTT 102v]. However, Joana does not mention anywhere the papal prophecies that Malachia had become famous for.

Saint Benedict is often mentioned as well. He protects her and assures her that the decisions concerning the move from Lorvão to Lisbon are correct. She also states the devotion of other people to this particular saint and mentions his votive day as an

<sup>138</sup> Arnold Angenendt defines saintliness as "Heiligkeit erfordert im Christentum Hörbereitschaft für das Gotteswort und Sozialbereitschaft für die Armen. Beide Forderungen gehen so weit, daß es das eigene Leben kosten kann," in "Christliche Heiligkeit," in *Saints without Borders. Ecumenical Reflections on the Great Cloud of Witnesses* (paper presented at the 47th International Ecumenical Seminar, Strasbourg, July 3–10, 2013), accessed August 13, 2013, http://www.strasbourginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Angenendt-Chri stliche-Heiligkeit.pdf. See also his main book: *Heilige und Reliquien. Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart*. For a sociological definition of saints, Weinstein and Bell write: "Saints were those who were recognized as having experienced so much reverence and achieved such degree of purity that they had transcended the sinfulness of ordinary existence. Thus they took their places among the heavenly host and themselves became reverence to the rest of the faithful, acting as intercessors for divine favor on behalf of those among whom they once had lived. Through their love of God, saints had achieved this superior state; now their love for God's creatures moved them to use their merit on behalf of human need." Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell, *Saints & Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000–1700* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 5.

important date of those divine encounters [ANTT 106, 132, 156v]. Another one of the usual visitors Joana mentions is the archangel Michael, whom she also calls a saint. The archangel takes her twice, flying into heaven "quicker than a thought's flight" [ANTT 30v].

The celebration of the Cistercian Saint Lutgard (1182–1246) is also an occasion for the nun to reiterate her union with the God-Man [ANTT 98]. The latter makes Joana understand the meaning of "Introduxit me Rex in cubiculum suum" (SS:1:3): intimacy and inner dwelling in the private household of the Godhead [ANTT. 98]. This sentence also shows the predominance of the Hexaplaric Latin text that served as the basis for the third Antiphon of the Vespers of the Virgin.<sup>139</sup> It is, perhaps, possible to conclude that Joana acquired further biblical knowledge through the singing of the Officium.

She also invokes martyrs such as Agnes (291–304). On Saint Agnes' Day, Joana states that, 'recollected within itself ', her soul felt the presence and the company of the Lord, who released a spark of fire and 'consumed' her in a most suave love embrace [ANTT 37v]. As we have seen, the theme of fire is certainly recurrent. Knowing Agnes' legend, which describes her as having escaped intact from a bonfire, this connection must not be in any way coincidental. A similar story is told about the martyr Lucia (283–304). Lucia was known for her resolute virginity and her steadfastness in the fact of her persecutors.On thismartyr's day, Joana was not able to accompany her fellow nuns to confession due to her extreme suffering. Her body was shuddering and she had lost her senses: the other women brought her to her cell, where she was feverish, could not breathe, and had 'anxiousness of the heart'. Refusing to drink or eat, Joana longed for no human remedy except the presence of her confessor. When he finally came, his prayers for her made her recover her fortitude and spirit [ANTT 103].

The third martyr Joana mentions is Ursula and the 11,000 virgins. When Joana was praying out loud before Ursula's image in Lisbon's Recollect, the Cistercian felt 'surrounded by a suavity' [ANTT 90v], and through a 'very spiritual intelligence', Joana knew that the 11,000 virgins were given to her as advocates. Ursula, who was a British martyr widely venerated in Cologne, along with her mythic army of virgins, acquired an unexpected relevance in Joana's time. In 1570, King Philip II of Spain and his spouse, Queen Anne, brought relics from Cologne to Spain. In 1585, in the third synod council, held in the Portuguese province of Goa in India, the cult of Ursula and her maids was rekindled. Maria Cristina Oswald implies the influence of the Jesuit order in this promotion. Three years later, the Church of Saint Roch acquired, through a benefactor, an "incredible array of relics, including eighteen

<sup>139</sup> See Peter Dronke, *The medieval poet and his world* (Rome: Edizione Di Storia E Letteratura, 1984), 210.

heads, four arms, two teeth, forty non-specified bones and a hundred and eight relics of the companions of Ursula."<sup>140</sup>

Joana mentions as many female as male saints. However, there is a particular proximity with female ones, especially with Teresa, who often appears as her advocate. Bernard, on the other hand, is very much present (as is Benedict, to some extent) due to his patronage of the new Rule she is writing. Joana de Jesus does not directly address the role gender assumes in subjectivity (either human or saintly). Yet this construction is always achieved through a relationship with Christ, the 'true man', and the saints perform the determined roles that tradition has already ascribed to them.

The saintly network she acquires is very valuable and probably borrowed from devotional books that circulated in the Monastery of Lorvão.<sup>141</sup> The *Livro de Orações* contains several hymns and 'lectiones', which Joana mentions in her narrative: Bernard, Benedict, Malachia, Ursula and the 11,000 virgins, Michael the Archangel, and Mary, both the legends of visitation and conception. Indeed it is Mary, the greatest saint of all, whom Joana addresses in a more personal and authoritative tone.

#### 3.4.2 Virgin Mary as 'Dispenseira'

Amongst all the saints, the Virgin Mary holds the greatest power.<sup>142</sup> Mary's motherhood, which implies both corporeal and nurturing aspects, as well as her attributes

141 *Livro de Orações*, Mosteiro do Lorvão, book 366. See also the collection of female lives that circulated in Portuguese: *Flos Sanctorum em linguagem português*, (Lisbon: Hermão de Campos e Roberto Rabelo, 1513). On this theme, see Fr. António-José de Almeida, O.P.**, "**Vidas e ilustrações de Santas penitentes desnudas, no deserto e em peregrinação, no Flos Sanctorum de 1513," in *Via Spiritus. Peregrinação e Espaços Penitenciais* 16 (2009): 109–158.

<sup>140</sup> Maria Cristina Oswald, "The Society of Jesus and the diffusion of the cult and iconography of Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins in the Portuguese Empire during the second half of the 16th century," in *A Companhia de Jesus na Península Ibérica nos séculos XVI e XVII – espiritualidade e cultura: actas*, 2 vols. (Lisbon: Instituto de Cultura Portuguesa da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto: Centro Inter-Universitário de História da Espiritualidade da Universidade do Porto, 2004), 601. Elizabeth Schönau's veneration was analogous. Recent studies show that this German mystic contributed to these relics' authentication process. See Mary Marshall Campbell, "Sanctity and Identity: The Authentication of the Ursuline Relics and Legal Discourse in Elisabeth von Schönau's *Liber Revelationum*," in *The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures*, vol. 38, no. 2 (2012): 159–192.

<sup>142</sup> See, for instance, the big chapter Heiko Obermann has written on Mary devotion in late medieval times. Heiko Obermann, *The Harvest of Medieval Theology*: *Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism* [Der Herbst der mittelalterlichen Theologie] (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1983), 281–322.

of intercession and devotion, gave her an important dimension in the divine economy. Mary de Agreda (1602–1665), for instance, a Spanish mystic contemporary of Joana who is mentioned in the censor's preface to Joana's book, describes the life of the Virgin Mary with a knowledge she acquired through visions.<sup>143</sup> The Spaniard's work was quite popular in Portugal: not only Joana's preface writer mentions it [BNL 6v], as there were copies of it in several religious houses' libraries.<sup>144</sup> This mariological trend is also present in the work of other seventeenth-century Italian women writers.<sup>145</sup>

Joana herself interrogates the role of Christ's mother during her Son's passion. Her own description follows:

Com isto se me começou a imflamar o coração, em o amor deste Senhor, o qual me paricia que estava comiguo. Asim como estava no Sacrário, aonde emtendia, estava todo o ceo e tive neste ponto lembrança da Virgem Senhora Nosa desejando de estar com ela, juntamente com o meu Senhor, o qual me dava a emtender que tãobem ela ali estava e loguo sentiu a minha alma esta companhia e asim como estava recolhida, me veio ao sentido, porque causa a Senhora não asistiria na Cea do Senhor, asim como asistirão os Apóstolos, ao que o mesmo Senhor <me disse>: Não asistiu pesoalmente, porque a tinha comiguo e naquele mesmo instante em que consagrei meu sacratisimo corpo para o deixar aos homens, ficou comiguo minha mai, para o dar aos mesmos homens, porque ela he a dispenseira deste devino pão, porque todas as misiricórdias e bens que dou a minhas criaturas, são repartidas pelas mãos de minha mai. Com estas palavras e emteligência do Senhor, se me acendeu muito o foguo de seu divino amor e da Virgem Maria Senhora Nosa, de cujas eiselências a minha alma estava admirada. [ANTT 109r]

With this my heart began to be inflamed in the love of this Lord who seemed to be with me, as He was at the Sacrary, where I understood the whole of Heaven was. And in this moment I remembered the Virgin, Our Lady; wishing to be with her, together with my Lord, who gave me to understand that she was also there. And soon my soul felt this companionship and so, while I was recollected, the reason why the Lady had not attended the Lord's Supper, as the Apostles had, came to my mind, to which the same Lord told me: "She did not witness it personally, because I had her with me and in that

<sup>143</sup> María de Jesus Agreda, *Mystica ciudad de Dios..: historia divina, y vida de la Virgen Madre de Dios...* (Lisbon: Antonio Craesbeeck de Mello, 1681, 1680, 1681).

<sup>144</sup> According to the catalogue of Lisbon's National Library, the "Mystical City" belonged to several religious houses in Lisbon.

<sup>145</sup> Vittoria Collona, Susan Haskins, Chiara Matraini, and Lucrezia Marinella, *Who is Mary? Three Early Modern Women on the Idea of the Virgin Mary*, ed. and trans. Susan Haskins, Other Voices Series (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008).

same instant when I consecrated my most sacred body to leave it to men, my mother stood with me to give it to the same men, for she is the dispensatrix of this divine bread. All the mercies and goods I grant to my creatures are divided by my mother's hands." With these words and insight from the Lord, the fire of His divine love and of Our Lady the Virgin Mary, whose excellences were admired by my soul, was much enkindled in me. [ANTT 109r]

In this passage Joana uses the word 'dispensatrix' (dispensora). To be a *dispensatrix* is to have power.The Latin meaning of 'dispensatio' was ascribed to the government or administration of property or household.<sup>146</sup> Within Christianity, it was used as a technical term in canonical law: those who can administer the mysteries of faith and, by that power, may mediate within the community. A dispensator is a legislator and executor of Christian doctrine. Dispensations acquired the meaning of exemption, favor, or even indulgence. According to the sixteenth-century Spanish (but also Portugal-based) theologian Francisco Suarez (1548–1617), dispensation differs from abrogation and derogation. It does not suppress the law, but allows a human agent to withdraw the divine law's power.They can also deprive somebody of a privilege as well.<sup>147</sup> The dispensators are,in a diminishing order of power, the Pope, the Bishops, and the regular clerics.<sup>148</sup>

It is interesting to see Joana's appropriation of the etymological and legislative sense of 'dispensator'.The Virgin Mary becomes a dispenser in the most crucial moment of Christ's life: the Last Supper, when he shares his own body with his disciples, a ritual that will remain in the sacrament of the Eucharist throughout the centuries.

This might not be as original as it looks. In some iconography, Mary is already present, as in Tintoretto's *Lord's Last Supper*.

Like other religious women, Joana brings a *domestic* reflection to theology. <sup>149</sup> In the case of the Portuguese nun, this is the situation of Mary at the Last Supper. This domesticity or participation in the divine economy is one of the most striking attributes of Joana's Mariology. In another passage, Joana de Jesus describes in more detail the juridical functions of the Mother of God.

<sup>146</sup> Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen,"The Monastery as a Household within the Universal Household," in *Household, Women, and Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages*, ed. Anneke Mulder-Bakker and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, vol. 14 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005), 167–190.

<sup>147</sup> Alan McCormack, *The Term "Privilege": A Textual Study of Its Meaning and Use in the 1983 Code of Canon Law* (Rome: Pontificia Univ. Gregoriana, 1997), 266.

<sup>148</sup> See Francisco Suarez, *De legibus* (Naples, 1882), Bk. VI, x sqq., and *Opera Omnia* (Paris, 1856), VI, cited in *The Catholic Encyclpedia*, s.v. "dispensations," accessed October 31, 2012, www.newadvent.org .

<sup>149</sup> See also Cristina Mazzoni, *The Women in God's Kitchen: Cooking, Eating, and Spiritual Writing* (New York: Continuum, 2005), and Anneke Mulder-Bakker's already refered book , *Household, Women, and Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages*.

Dia de Nosa Senhora d'Apresentação da era de 1662, dipois [de] comunguar, me deu hum grande recolhimento e com huma dili-cadesa\* muito espiritual, se me arebatou\* o espirito ao Ceo e parecia-me que estava diante daquela Devina e Real Magestade, donde a minha alma participava\* de huma lus, com que entendia que aquele dia era muito grande para todos, por ser o primeiro em que a Terra ofrecera ao Ceo a mais riqua e preciosa jóia que jamais produzira a Terra e emcerara\* o Ceo, a Virgem Maria Senhora Nosa e entendia que suposto esta Senhora abaixo do mesmo Deos, era a que guovernava estas duas machinas\*, entendia a mi-nha alma que daquela fonte viva do mesmo Deos, participava esta soberana Senhora, aquela enchente e mar de graças de que estava chea\*. Entendia que diante daquelas três divinas pesoas com quem aquela Senhora estava unida, se punha huma mesa adonde se apresentavão muitas cousas e petiçois, todas da parte dos pecadores, e esta Senhora todas admitia e <ne>nhuma deixa-va sem despacho\* e suposto que em o mesmo Deos, estavão todas estas cousas, esta soberana princesa era a que mandava, como Rainha Universal do Ceo e da Terra e suposto que as cousas erão muitas e para todas esta Senhora [ANTT 88r] mostrava grande begninidade e misericórdia, entre todas elas se apresentava huma que a minha alma emtendia ser a mor de todas e esta era huma reformação universal que o Senhor queria faser em o seu mundo, em o qual avia de ter grande parte a religião e Ordem de Cister. Apresentava-se\* loguo hum número de gente de todos os estados, tão grande que se não podia contar emtre todos, conheci somente o noso Reverendissimo Padre Frei Vivardo de Vasconcelos e o Padre Frei Alberto do Amaral, os quais com grande sumição e umildade estavão prostrados, co-mo de gielhos, diante das três devinas pessoas, as quais juntamente com a Virgem Maria, Senhora Nosa, lhe lançavão bênçãos, como quem os dispunha e adereçava para cousas muito grandes, tocantes aquela refor-mação e loguo tanto, que receberão estas soberanas bençãos se levantarão e forão ajeolhar-se aos pés de Noso Patriarca São Bento e São Bernardo e asim forão fasendo o mesmo, tomando a bênção a todos os Pa-triarcas e Fundadores das riligiois, os quais os aceitavão e união comsiguo e todos jun-tos e vinculados\* com aquele vinculo da verdadeira caridade de Deos, ficavão todos em huma mesma vontade e união de faternal amor. [ANTT 87v-88r]

On the Day of the Blessed Virgin's Presentation, in the year one thousand six hundred sixty-two, after taking Communion, a great recollection happened to me and, with a very spiritual delicateness\*, my spirit was abducted/enraptured\* to Heaven, and it seemed to me that I was before that Divine and Royal Majesty, from whom my soul partook\* a light with which it understood that that day was very big for all as it was the first in which the earth had offered Heaven the richest and most precious jewel that it had ever produced and that Heaven had withheld\*, the Virgin Mary Our Lady, and it understood that although this Lady was below God Himself, she was the one governing these two machines\*. My soul understood that this sovereign Lady partook from that living source of God Himself, that flood and sea of graces she was full\* of. I understood that before those three Divine Persons with whom that Lady was united stood [BNL 149v.] a table where many things and petitions were represented, all coming from the sinners, and this Lady granted all of them and left none without dispatch\*, and although all these things were within the same God, this sovereign princess was the one in command, as the Universal Queen of Heaven and Earth; and although these things were plenty, to all of them this Lady [ANTT 88r] showed great benignity and mercy; among all of them, one, which my soul understood to be the biggest, presented\* itself, and this was the universal reformation the Lord wanted to do in His world, in which a great part was assigned to the Cistercian Order. A number of people of all states immediately presented themselves to me, so big that it was impossible to count, and among all of them I only knew our Most Reverend Father Friar Vivardo de Vasconcellos and Father Friar Alberto do Amaral, who with great submission and humility were prostrated, as if on their knees, before the three Divine persons, who, together with the Virgin Mary Our Lady, threw blessings at them, as if they were disposing and addressing them for very great things regarding that reformation. As soon as they received these sovereign blessings, they stood up and knelt at the feet of the Our Patriarch Saint Benedict and Saint Bernard, and so they kept doing the same, taking the blessing from all Patriarchs and Founders of religions, who were accepting and were uniting them with themselves, and all together linked\* to that vinculum of the true charity of God: they all were in the same will and union of fraternal love. [ANTT 87v-88r]

In this excerpt, Joana mentions Mary's importance within the celestial hierarchy as well as her direct contribution to the 'universal reformation' to be made by the Cistercian Order. In the feast of Mary's own presentation, humankind can also present their requests to Mary.

But what is the meaning of the Feast of Presentation in which this scene takes place? Based on the apocryphal Evangelium of James, Mary was 'presented' by her parents Anna and Joachim at the Temple of Jerusalem.<sup>150</sup> *Presented* has a double meaning: she was not just given an acquaintance *with* God's Temple, but was also given *to* the service of God. Mary's acknowledgment at the Temple, imitating her Son, shows the common veneration that the Son and the Mother both achieved throughout Christianity. Joana states that Mary is the most precious jewel "begotten on Earth and enclosed to Heaven."

It is easy to see that the Mother accompanies the Son. However, how is the relationship between the Mother and the Father? In the last chapter we have seen how

<sup>150</sup> J.K. Elliott ed., *The apocryphal New Testament: Collection of apocryphal Christian literature in English translation* (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 46–122.

God was water, a river, and how Joana was thirsty for this liquid. Now Joana shows us that Mary is under the God who is a 'living fountain', and that Mary herself is *full* ('cheia'). In Portuguese, *cheia* is both a noun (meaning flood) and an adjective (meaning full, Latin 'plenus').<sup>151</sup> The passage from the adjective (Mary, full of grace) to the noun (Mary, flood of grace) shows the speculative effort that Joana makes in the narration of her visions, as well as how visible the effects of Francisco Suarez's elaborations on the role of Mary as co-redeemer were.<sup>152</sup>

Following a common tradition with many other early modern mystics, Joana de Jesus keeps thinking and proclaimingMary's rolein both the divine economy and the difficult mystery of *filiatio*, which must include the Mother.<sup>153</sup> Rachel Fulton reformulates the dilemma that Joana and other theologians have come to find themselves in:

How was it that God, creator of heaven and earth, should enter into his own creation, not simply by taking on a material body (which would have been miracle enough) but, rather, by taking on the very flesh of one of his human creatures and doing so, moreover, by spending nine months within the likewise fleshy confines of her womb?<sup>154</sup>

Joana answers this question by promoting Mary to the role of *dispensatrix*. Not only does Mary redeem, she also governs. Being before the table, the Virgin Mother accepts the petitions without dispatch, which means without a previous legal decision.<sup>155</sup> In this excerpt we see how important the *presentation* of Mary is. From now on, the Mother of Christ has to be there, in order to administer the household and also to govern according to the law, which is also hers. If Christ gives his body and his Mother is there, the Mother is also sharing her own body, which becomes law and

<sup>151</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v. "Cheia," 2: 292, 296.

<sup>152 &</sup>quot;Just as Christ, because He redeemed us, is our Lord and king by a special title, so the Blessed Virgin also (is our queen), on account of the unique manner in which she assisted in our redemption, by giving of her own substance, by freely offering Him for us, by her singular desire and petition for, and active interest in, our salvation." F. Suárez, *De mysteriis vitae Christi*, disp. 22, sect. 2 (ed. Vivès, 19, 327), apud Pope Pius XII, *Ad Caeli Reginam*, 37.

<sup>153</sup> Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczykim, ed., *Marienlexikon.* Auftrag des Institutum Marianum Regensburg E.V. (St. Ottilien: EOS, c1988-c1994).

<sup>154</sup> Rachel Fulton, "Mary," in *The Cambridge History of Christianity,* 288. See also Fulton's work *Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200* (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Cleo McNelly Kearn, *The Virgin Mary, Monotheism, and Sacrifice* (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Amy-Jill Levine and Maria Mayo Robbins, *A Feminist Companion to Mariology*. Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings, vol. 10 (London; New York: T & T Clark International, 2005).

<sup>155</sup> Bluteau, *Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino*, s.v., "despacho," 3: 161.

mystery. She can administer and share, and, for that reason, it is also through her that humankind can make petitions for forgiveness of their sins.

Mary gives and governs God's flesh while she interprets and executes the divine law. Joana does not randomly reiterate a *juridical* language related to Mary or to other saints. Mary, like Teresa or Lutgard, is her advocate and witness; they all listen to Joana's petitions. Mary even promotes forgiveness, favors, and, particularly, has power in the present as well as on judgment day. She dispatches, she orders, she administers. In sum, she reforms.

This citation is also very important in the way that Joana shows how Mary supports the writing and establishing of a new reformation. Joana's *Notebook* revolves around this theme: the writing of a rule and the importance of founding a new religious house, where Joana would be the founder. In this image, the two friars Vivardo de Vasconcelos and Alberto de Amaral "were prostrated, as if on their knees" at the Virgin's feet, as they would be before Saint Benedict and Saint Bernard.These three patrons were not randomly chosen. In a recent article, Walter Simons summarizes the four reformatory movements seen in the Middle Ages, which complemented each other: the Benedictine-Cistercian model; the regular canons emerging from an Augustinian root; the mendicants; and, finally, the informal movements such as the Beguines, the Anchoresses, etc.<sup>156</sup> It is possible to trace these movements in Joana's need to reform, though this happens in the seventeenth century. Joana de Jesus invokes Bernard and Benedict, a tradition in which she is inserted, but lives and tries out a more informal way of life through the Recollect and the writing of a new 'universal reform'.

It is interesting to note also that the majority of sections that were removed from Joana's original text are connected to the same need for reform and the support the Virgin Mary gives to this process and to Joana specifically. One of the passages is the following:

E estando asim todo desfeita em aquele nada de minha miséria, me paricia que a Virgem Maria, Mai de Deus e Senhora Nosa, me tornavam e me abraçava consiguo e com grande amor, me dava a entender que me tinha postos seus devinos olhos e que avia de servi-la em muitas cousas grandes, tocantes haquela nova reformação, que eu tinha entendido da nosa sagrada religião de Cister. Com esta notícia emtão soberana, fiquei tão umilde e fortalecida em todas as virtudes, que estava como pasmada e fora de mim e não sabia o que fizese por hum Senhor, a que tanto devia e lastimava-me o ver-me com tantas faltas, que me emtibiavão para o servir como devia. [ANTT 87]

<sup>156</sup> Walter Simons, "New Forms of Religious Life in Medieval Western Europe," in *The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism*, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 80–113.

And being thus undone in the nothingness of my misery, it seemed to me that the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Lady of Ours, came to me and embraced me, and with great love gave to my understanding that she had her divine eyes cast upon me, and that I would serve her in many great things regarding the new reformation I had understood as being of our sacred religion of Cisteaux. With this very sovereign notice, I became so humble and fortified in all virtues that I seemed astonished and out of myself and did not know what to do for a Lord to whom I was so indebted, and it sorrowed me to see myself with so many faults that weakened my capacities to serve Him as I ought to. [ANTT 87]

This passage is complementary to many others which Joana wrote and which were accepted. Nonetheless, this one was rejected because, as we have mentioned above, this deals with the prophecy that was not fulfilled.

The role of the Virgin as *dispensatrix* and supporter of a new reform is not only seen in Joana. Maria da Cruz is believed to have said that the Virgin was supporting her personally as well as supporting the reformation of Cistercian religion, and that the Mother of God would concede everything that Maria da Cruz requested.<sup>157</sup>

#### 3.4.3 Juridical Language

The Virgin is the administrator at the same court which, as seen above, was also an allegory of the Trinity:

E estando outro dia em oração queria o Senhor que lhe pedisse sempre por esta causa, e parece que me senti arebatar com grande força de espirito e que me via em o ceo adonde se tratava daquelle neguocio diante do tribunal do poderoso Deus que era servido lhe pedisem pelos pecadores. E dipois de elle por em aquella causa os olhos de sua devina misiricordia a remetia\* a sua santisima Mai, e dava-me a entender <que> não podião os pecadores receber mercês suas sem pasarem pelas mãos santisimas daquella Senhora Mai sua e dos mesmos pecadores. E a minha Senhora e Seu glorioso esposo São Jose punha aquelle despacho com grande magninidade, e loguo ao outro dia pella manhã, estando eu em oração me certificou o meu Senhor que naquelle mesmo se começarião as procisois. E [ANTT 26v.] E indo eu para o coro ouvi diser a cantor mor que tirasem o Santo Lenho, e preparasem o pallio e o mais que fosse necesario porque se avia de faser procisão. E suposto eu tinha dito ao confesor que o Senhor era servido, que se fisesem, não lhe pratiquei a solenidade com que se avião de faser. E asim do mesmo modo que meu Senhor mas tinha mostrado se fizerão, e loguo

<sup>157 &</sup>quot;First Proposition," in *O processo de Maria da Cruz*, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, proc. 4372, Portugal, ANTT, mf. 4420. 238fl. 20/08/1659-18/07/1668.

melhorou o tempo, e o Senhor me deu a entender que concediria o que lhe pedisem se com fé e devoção se valesem de sua sacratisima crus. [ANTT 26r-v.]

And another day, while I was praying, the Lord wanted me to always beg Him for this cause, and it seemed like I was abducted/overtaken\* with great strength of Spirit and that I saw myself in Heaven where that business was being treated in front of the mighty God's Court, for He was served in being petitioned for the sinners. And after He cast His divine mercy's eyes on that cause, He remitted\* it to His Most Holy Mother, and gave me to understand that the sinners could not receive His mercies without passing through the Most Holy hands of that Lady, His Mother and of those same sinners. And my Lady and Her glorious Spouse Saint Joseph would dispatch\* that with great magnanimity, and already in the morning of the following day, while I was praying, my Lord certified\* me that in that same [moment] the processions would be started. And [ANTT 26v.] as I was going to the choir, I heard somebody say to the Cantor mor [Master singer] to take out the Holy Wood/Cross and to prepare the canopy and whatever else was necessary because there was going to be a procession. And although I had told my confessor that the Lord would be pleased if these were made, I did not tell him about the solemnity with which these needed to be done. And so, in the same way my Lord had shown me, these were done and the weather got immediately better and the Lord gave me to understand that He would grant whatever was asked if, with faith and devotion they availed themselves of His Most Holy Cross.[ANTT 26rv.]

Throughout her narrative Joana uses a certain technical language borrowed from legal discourse. Though this may not be new, especially when considering Anselm of Canterbury and his *Cur Deus homo,* Joana does employ these terms in the vernacular. The Cistercian reiterates the saints' and, particularly, the Virgin Mary's legal importance as her advocate. Not only does this scene happen in the court, but also there are many mentions of petitions, commendations, submissions, and dispatches in her writing. Mary is an advocate of the sinners, but she is also their judge.

This juridical activity of Mary and the saints, known to Joana through presentation and representation,makes Joana herself a mediator between the realm of divinity and humanity. While enforcing her idea of 'dezazimento', which means absence of willingness or detachment [ANTT 156], Joana's actions are, as seen above, 'inajenadas'in all senses of the word: alienated, without her own propriety, and, therefore, ecstatic [ANTT 95v].<sup>158</sup> Thus, Joana does not act as herself, but as a mediator instead, representing and presenting the notices that constitute a knowledgeable truth. In

<sup>158</sup> *Diccionario de la Lengua Española,* 22nd ed., s.v. "enajenar" (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 2009), accessed October 1, 2012, http://www.rae.es.

the following excerpt, Joana understands the risk she takes by receiving these notices and revelations:

[ANTT 45r] Outras muitas vezes, encomen-dando vocalmente ao Senhor algumas cousas, dipois de elle me dar vontade de lhas pedir, entendia que se avião de fazer e tãobem entendia muitas vezes que não era o Senhor servido que outras se fizessem, e qualquer destas imteligencias trasião consiguo grandes proveitos para a minha alma, porque trasião em primeiro luguar huma suavidade e sose-guo\* humilde, com hum conhecimento\* clari-simo da minha miséria e admiração das maravilhas de Deos, a quem desejava com entranháveis\* âncias, fosse dado todo o louvor e glória. Mas suposto estas noticias que o Senhor dá ha alma, em as cousas que lhe apresenta e porque lhe pede, causem os efeitos e tenhão os sucesos que deixo referidos. As que ao meu ver se podem ter por mais seguras e certas, sãoaquelas que o Senhor dá sem a alma as esperar, nem lhe ter vindo ao pensamento aquilo que ali se lhe apresenta sem ela o percurar nem esperar, porque aquilo que já foi imaginado, com mais facilidade se podem engua<nar> em os afectos, asim do que sente como do que entende, ainda que os de Deos loguo os conhecerá quem só puramente desejar de agradar ao mesmo Senhor, sem ter outro imterese mais que o de sua onra e glória, porque o que he seu, trás consiguo tantas riquezas que loguo se conhece que só o Criador as pode dar.[ANTT 45v] já se entende que nestas cousas sobrenaturais não he a alma nada, nem pode per si mesma obrar cousa alguma, porque toda esta obra imteiramente he do Criador e o mais certo sinal de ella ser sua, he o conhecer a criatura que não tem parte nela nem a pode ter, porque tudo o que ali pasa\* são cousas tão supiriores e dilicados, que não pode o nosso enten-dimento fabrica-las\* nem adquiri-las\* por si mesmo, por mais saber e letras que tivera, porque não cabe em nosa esfera o podermos dar paso, em aquilo que só pertence ao Criador e asim como as não podemos adquirir, tãobem nos convém não as desejar, pelo menos revelacois nem outras notícias, as quais são mui ariscadas, e quando de todo a alma não poder resistir àquilo a que Deos a leva, não há de dar crédito a revelação como a cousa da fé, com a qual somente se há-de abraçar. E o que sentiu, deixe-o a Deos, a quem há-de remeter tudo e nunqua se aparte do mesmo Deos que he a fonte donde todos os bens nacem. [ANTT 45r-v]

Many other times, while vocally asking the Lord some things, after He gave me the will to ask for them, I understood that these were going to be done. I also understood often that the Lord did not deem it appropriate to do others things. Each of these intelligences brought great profits to my soul; for they brought firstly a suavity and humble quietness\* with a most clear knowledge\* of my misery and admiration of the wonders of God, to whom I desired with strange/inwardly\* anxiousness all Praise and glory to be given; but although these notices\* that the Lord gives to the soul in those things he

presents to it because he is asked to cause the effects and have the successes\* that I leave mentioned, the ones that, according to my point of view, can be considered the safest and most right are those that the Lord gives without the soul expecting them and without having come to its mind what presents itself without the soul searching or hoping for it. For what has already been imagined with more facility can be misleading\* in its effects, both what is felt and what is understood, even if the Godly ones will soon be known by whom only purely desires to please the same Lord, without other interest besides His honor and glory. For what belongs to Him brings with it so many riches that the fact that only the Creator can grant them is soon known. [It is to be] understood that in these supernatural affairs the soul amounts to nothing and it cannot do anything on its own; for all this work belongs entirely to the Creator, and the most certain signal of it being His, comes from the creature that has and can have no part in it for everything what happens there are things so superior and delicate that our understanding cannot fabricate\* nor acquire\* them by itself, no matter the knowledge and letters it might attain. For to be able to step in what belongs exclusively to the Creator does not fit our sphere and as we cannot acquire them, it is inconvenient to desire them, at least revelations or other news, which are very risky, and when the soul cannot resist at all what God brings to it, no credit should be given to revelations as a thing of faith to be exclusively embraced, and what is felt must be left to God, to whom one will have to leave everything, and one should never apart himself of the same God who is the source and birthplace of all goods. [ANTT 45r-v]

Joana is aware of the perils she incurs due to receiving this knowledge. As she mentions, this knowledge is not fabricated nor acquired, not transformed by reason, but directly infused from the source, which is God. From the notion of notice, as well as from Joana's partaking in the community of saints, it is also possible to infer that the Cistercian nun is establishing the basis for an emerging sense of subjectivity and agency. *Notice* is the knowledge she shares, as is the sexual and the self-awareness Joana acquires throughout her self-writing, while describing her several 'representations' of divine agency in the rethinking of the Incarnation.

The sense of anxiousness is expressed and felt throughout the *notice* as well. And in this passage, this is seen in two ways. The original version speaks of an 'entranháveis ancias' (entrailable anxiousness or anxiousness in/of the entrails). These entrails are the mysterious knowledge that Joana receives, in the same fashion as Mary conceives in her entrails the Son of God. However, in the *Copy*, anxiousness is described – either accidentally or on purpose – as 'estranháveis ancias' (uncanny anxiousness), as bringing out the oddity and uneasiness that surrounds the mystical experience that brings both knowledge and the presence of God.

#### **3.5. Final Remarks on Situations of Anxiousness**

My goal in these three sections of this chapter was to highlight a series of recurrent themes that mark the writing of Joana de Jesus. Several events or situations described here have a common thread: the state of anxiousness through which they are felt, lived, and situated in her *Life* becomes a self through writing.

After exposing the tradition of 'anxietas', I divided the theological and philosophical hermeneutics of her anxiousness into three moments: the encounter, the operation of love, and the notice. Anxiousness is conceived during the first moment as a meeting and a crossing.Theologically this is seen in an inclusive *filiatio* or a condition of daughtership. Christ's cross and the nun's bed are places and situations of meeting, unity, and vinculum through common suffering. Joana also continues a traditional imagery of the relationship between God and humankind,in which some Portuguese elements, such as the *nau* or*saudade*, which contribute to the language of inner and outer journey, belong to a wider European mystical tradition. Joana contributes to a theology of the gift when she reflects upon her own dowry and contribution, the God-Man's givenness, and her acceptance. Anxiousness is almost a *motor* and *effect* of such divine relationships.

In the second moment, the operation of love, the physiological aspect of anxiousness is very important and collides with an elemental search for inner senses. Air, fire, water, and earth are present in Joana's visions and in the embodied nature of her rapture. Joana continues and enriches the classicalimagery of God as nurturer and healer in the water. Anxiousness contains suffering (anxiety), desire (lack), and overwhelming (rapture) to a great extent. Anxiousness is expressed as related to images and biblical exegesis, but also through language less commonly used, as in the suffixes of some words. Anxiousness is a *cause* and a *condition* of such experience.

Finally, anxiousness is reflected in knowledge, revelation, and saintliness. Joana's special relationship with her network of saints enables her to participate in a closed community full of power and knowledge. There, Mary has a special function, almost as high as Christ's. Anxiousness reflects on the redeeming character of the visionary and prophetic, but also the eschatological dimension of the need for reformation, the *notice* per se, which is the extremely mysterious and urgent 'news' that will save humanity, and in which Joana and the community of saints so deeply partake.

The Cistercian mystical tradition of Latin expression is highly visible throughout her passages. However, vernacular mysticism,in which female theologians were quite proficient, is also to be found throughout Joana's texts. As already stated, the Breviary, the works of Teresa of Ávila, and the tradition of the Iberian spirituality are the direct written sources which Joana claims and demonstrates she has read.

By closely analyzing Joana de Jesus' sense of anxiousness, we may argue that the work of this Cistercian Nun, a devout woman, becomes passable as a philosophical and theological reading.Whereas God's incarnated presence is stressed, Joana is slowly constructing the emergence of a subject. Agency and subjectivity are demonstrated in her vocabulary and practices: *trabalho* (works, trials, or hardships) and *padecer* (to patiate, to endure, to suffer) are the *technical* words of Joana's own *imitatio Dei* and a sign of the loving anxiousness that emerges from the text and turns Joana de Jesus into a thinker.

The Cistercian nun becomes a theologian insofar as she insistently ponders the dogmas of *filiatio*, Incarnation, and Trinity. She establishes a true Christology in the tradition of a bridal and affective mysticism, while also presenting her own interpretation of certain passages of the Scriptures. Likewise, Joana contributes to Mariology by describing Mary's place and attributes imbued in a juridical language that enables Mary and other saints to be inscribed in the divine economy and in temporal life.

Joana's notion of anxiousness and her writings in general make it possible to regard Joana as both a philosopher and a theologian. Nonetheless, women like Joana and such texts are seldom acknowledged as such.

## **CHAPTER 4 – ANXIOUS SUBJECT: JOANA DE JESUS AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY**

#### **4.1. Anxiousness: Appropriating and Poaching**

The present study has so far had one aim: to conduct historical, theological, and philosophical research on the mystical notion of 'anxiousness' in the context of the Portuguese female author, Joana de Jesus.

Firstly, I presented Joana de Jesus and the context of her life and work. Then I moved further into a closer look at Joana's texts, her narrative, and showed how she constructs a subjectivity through mystically perceiving the God-Man, reading and imitating Teresa, transforming her narrative into a treatise, and striving for both contemplation (developing mental prayer) and action (writing a new rule or reform for a new Cistercian recollected branch).

In the second chapter I proceeded mainly to a historical contextualization of Joana de Jesus' mystical tradition of Iberian recollection. I inserted her thought into the context of observant movements in seventeenth-century Portugal and showed how Joana interacted with other characters – her family, her confessors, religious women – building up her social networks of spiritual diffusion.

In the third chapter, I showed how an 'I' emerged in her discourse and pointed out how Joana configured 'situations of anxiousness'. This long analysis of several passages of her manuscript served to argue that Joana's crucial notion, even when not directly cited, is best rendered as 'anxiousness': the anxious, urgent, voracious, eager, uneasy feeling that somatically and mentally makes Joana write down and share her special meeting with the Divinity. While Joana writes, she is reflecting upon the mysteries or dogmas of the Catholic Church she was brought up in: the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Sonship of Christ are the theological questions Joana tries to answer mystically. She acknowledges the God-Man's presence (and absence) through a loving anxiousness while she slowly discovers herself, an anxious subject, through the encounter, operation, and *notícia* (knowledge, notice) of love.

But what does it mean to develop a subjectivity based upon mystical anxiousness? So far, I have tried to contextualize, describe, and interpret anxiousness in Joana's time. As Gerda Lerner would state: I have tried to fill a gap in the history of Portuguese women mystical theologians by doing first a restorative project through a 'compensatory history', followed by a 'contributive history', where I tried to systematize Joana's notion anxiousness and interpret it based on specialist studies. However, Gerda Lerner further advised that women's history might also need a 'transitional history', which demands different skills. <sup>1</sup> This is the project I aim to complete in the present chapter.<sup>2</sup>

Thus, in this last, transitional, reflective chapter, I proceed to a rereading of my findings on anxiousness within a twenty-first century philosophical context. How can Joana de Jesus, so far an unknown and unedited nun, really participate in the discussion of the subject? What does her anxiousness have to offer to contemporary theories of the embodied agent? How can *ancias* contribute to a philosophy expressed in the Portuguese language, whose apotheosis has been the discussion around the *saudade*?

For these questions I chose three meaningful themes configured in these different philosophical traditions, namely: the concept of transcendence in Simone de Beauvoir; the concept of immanence in Luce Irigaray; and the theories of *saudade*

<sup>1 &</sup>quot;The next stage may be to explore the possibility that what we call women's history may actually be the study of a separate women's culture. Such a culture would include not only the separate occupations, status, experiences, and rituals of women, but also their consciousness, which internalizes patriarchal assumptions. In some cases, it would include the tensions created in that culture between the prescribed patriarchal assumptions and women's efforts to attain autonomy and emancipation. The questions asked about the past of women may demand interdisciplinary approaches. They also may demand broadly conceived group research projects that end up giving functional answers; answers that deal not with slices of a given time or society or period, but which instead deal with a functioning organism, a functioning whole, the society in which both men and women live." In Gerda Lerner, "Placing Women in History: Definitions and Challenges," *Feminist Studies*, vol. 3, no. 1/2 (Autumn, 1975): 13. See also Gerda Lerner, *The creation of feminist consciousness: from the Middle Ages to eighteen-seventy* (Oxford University Press, 1994).

<sup>2</sup> Recent attempts in working the canon of history of Philosophy see Sandrine Berges *A Feminist Perspective on Virtue Ethics*. Palgrave Macmilllan, Springer. Her recent project The Home: A Philosophical project, forthcoming at OUP. See http://www.sandrineberges.com /the-home-a-philosophical-project (Accessed: 2 July 2023)

Graneß et Elberfeld *Geschichten der Philosophie in globaler Perspektive*, Wien, Wiener Gesellschaft für Interkulturelle Philosophie, 2021; Adamson, *A history of philosophy without any gaps*. Oxford University Press, 2020–22; See also the research made by following centres in the recent years: *Rede Brasileira de Mulheres Filósofas, Filósofas Brasil*. Available at: https://www.filosofas.org (Accessed: 8 October 2022), *Project Vox*. Project Vox. Avaliable at: https://projectvox.org Accessed: October 8, 2022), *Centre for the History of Women philosophers and Scientists, University of Paderborn* (no date). Available at: https://historyof womenphilosophers.org/ (Accessed: 8 October 2022)., "Center for New Narratives in Philosophy", Columbia University, https://newnarratives.philosophy.columbia.edu. (Accessed: 2 July 2023)

that sparked the Portuguese philosophy of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.<sup>3</sup> I chose two alternative philosophical streams: feminist and Portuguese philosophies, because they promote the emergence of a subject that acknowledges sexual and linguistic boundaries.

However, before introducing these themes, important methodological questions arise: How will I read these texts that change culturally, historically, and linguistically? How should I select my sources to conduct this difficult dialogue? Frijhoff and de Certeau provide some clues on how one should conduct such an endeavour: by *appropriating* or *poaching* Joana into the contemporary philosophical discourse.

My goal in this chapter is to conclude my study on seventeenth-century Portuguese mystical anxiousness by reading Joana de Jesus' crucial notion in similar ways to those described above. By entering into the realm and field of philosophy, especially by making use of authors such as Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray, who are already canonized in feminist philosophy and who themselves discuss subjectivity in their respective works, along with mainstream authors such as Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger, I am deliberately displacing myself from the seventeenthcentury mystical anxiousness that Joana describes in her narrative.<sup>4</sup> Likewise, I am consciously reading in the Portuguese theories of *saudade* some wealth that can be poached from Joana's sense of anxiousness.

#### 4.1.2 Co-reading and Negotiating

This tactic, however, is not new. Feminist history and theory has tried, more or less successfully, to develop a canon, a genealogy that could establish a linkage between contemporary theories and older texts, a technique which would surpass mere hermeneutics or (non-existent) reception.

<sup>3</sup> Simone de Beauvoir, *The Second Sex*, trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 2011). Luce Irigaray, *The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger* [L'Oubli de l'air], trans. by Mary Beth Mader, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999). Rocha e Teixeira, *Filosofia da Saudade*. Paulo Borges, *A Saudade como via da Liberação* (Lisbon: Quidnovi, 2008), and Miguel Real*, O Pensamento Português Contemporâneo 1890–2010. O Labirinto da Razão e a Fome de Deus* (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2011).

<sup>4</sup> Other authors within the feminist spectrum, whose work is less philosophical, could also be of interest. See Hélène Cixous, *Angst* (London: J. Calder; Riverrun Press, 1985); Julia Kristeva, *Black Sun: depression and melancholia* [Soleil Noir: Dépression et mélancholie], trans. Leon S. Roudlez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989). On Kristeva's mysticism, especially Teresa of Ávila, see Kristeva, *Thérèse, mon amour: sainte Thérèse d'Ávila: récit* (Paris: Fayard, 2008). On Kristeva's relationship with mysticism, see Arthur Bradley, "'Mystic Atheism': Julia Kristeva's Negative Theology'," in *Theology & Sexuality*, vol. 14, no. 3 (May 2008): 279–292, doi: 10.1177/1355835808091418.

There are several examples of historical studies getting *theorized*. The 1996 book *Gender and Text inthe Later Middle Ages* brought medievalists to rethink 'écriture féminine'.<sup>5</sup> Studies on *New Trends on Liège Spirituality,* where the contributors engaged with recent scholarship on this female religious movement, were published in 1999.<sup>6</sup> However, three essays move beyond the medievalist agenda: Irigaray's text "The Way of the Feminine," in which she revisits images of religious women to demonstrate female elusiveness; the poetical "Acta Sanctorum" by Anne Blonstein; and Antonia Lacey's reading of Irigaray, with reference to Catherine of Siena's case. These efforts point out the possibility of an engagement outside of a specialized discourse in re-questioning women's religious tradition.

This acknowledgement also comes from philosophy and gender studies. Bibi Straatman's works on Teresa's agency attest to this need.<sup>7</sup> Derived from a poststructuralist framework, Straatman uses postcolonial theories such as those of Walter Mignolo to engage in what she calls a 'conversation' with 'subaltern knowledge'.<sup>8</sup> Instead of a historical or theological object of scholarship, early modern Teresa becomes a meaningful partner in a philosophical debate on such an urgent theme as agency. Published in 2013, *Becoming God* by Ben Morgan, the German literary scholar, continues a fruitful dialogue between several continental notions of the 'self ' (from Freud to Butler) while engaging with the thirteenth-century mystical sermons of Meister Eckhart and other late medieval mystics <sup>9</sup>

In the study where Jorunn Økland reads Paul, the thirteenth Apostle in the light of Simone of Beauvoir, an article which will be discussed later in this present reading of de Beauvoir with Joana de Jesus, the Norwegian theologian and gender studies specialist defends this methodology by stating that

<sup>5</sup> Jane Chance, introduction to *Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages*, ed. Jane Chance (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1996), 1–22.

<sup>6</sup> Antonia Lacey, "Gendered Language and the mystic voice. Reading from Irigaray to Catherine of Siena," in *Trends in feminine spirituality; The Holy women of Liege and their impact*, Medieval Women, ed. Juliette Dor Lesley Johnson and Jocely Wogan-Browne, New Texts and Contexts 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 329–340.

<sup>7</sup> Bibi Straatsman, "In herhaling onstaat iets nieuws. Agency in het discourse van Teresa van Ávila," in *Tijdschift voor Genderstudies*, vol 12, no. 21, (2009), 7–18. See also her PhD dissertation, "*Palympsest*. Palympsest. Palimpsest. Langzaam denken, over actorschap en revolutie," (Phd diss., Proefschrift Universiteit Utrecht, 2011), and "Dit is geen tekst over Teresa: psychoanalytische methoden voor feministische epistemologie," in *Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies*, vol. 13 , no. 4 (2010): 64–76.

<sup>8</sup> Walter Mignolo, *Local histories/global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking* (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000).

<sup>9</sup> Ben Morgan, *On Becoming God. Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self*, Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (Fordham University Press, 2013). See also the Pattison and Kirckpatrick; The Mystical Sources of Existentialism, Abindon, Routledge, 2019.

[t]here has been a further, implicit point in this exercise, of trying to get beyond a hermeneutic-ex-egetical model of using a method to force out the true meaning of a text in today's world, and also beyond a literary-theoretical model of 'application' of a theory upon a text, more in direction of a 'co-reading', a conversation between an ancient and modern text. The modern text should not be reduced to speak 'theory' only, and the old text should also be allowed to criticize the modern text back, not only be the victim of its inherent 'theory'-content.<sup>10</sup>

The question of anachronism or over-theorization has been an obvious and serious obstacle in all historiographic tasks, but more explicitly in conducting women's intellectual history. In this passage, Økland suggests a co-reading of both texts, without forcing the theory into the content of another or, on the other hand, reading the older text uncritically, oblivious to the contributions that in this case feminist theory has made to the meaning of the text.

Amy Hollywood pays much attention to this problem in her work *Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History*, where she engages in a critical discussion of the reading of twentieth-century French philosophers with medieval and early modern mystical and feminist philosophers such as George Battaile, Jacques Lacan, Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Jacques Derrida, Hélène Cixous, Julie Kristeva, and female mystics such as Hadewijch, Beatrijs of Nazareth, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Margerite Poerete, Meister Eckhart, Angela Foligno, Teresa of Ávila, and Madame Guyon, or male writers who can be close to écriture feminine. Hollywood reveals the extent to which the philosophers are indebted to the mystical writers but often misread them for their own purposes. There she incites contemporary theory when she states:

Feminist philosophy can learn from the doubleness of the mystical discourse and practice, which reflects and speaks to the deep ambiguities within bodily existence. Poised between the desire of transcending the body's limitations and the recognition that transcendence occurs only through the body, women like Beatrice of Nazareth, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hadewijch and Angela of Foligno hold out the possibility that endless, ceaseless, illimitable desire might be thought and lived outside of a phallic law of impotence. For this, neither politics nor religion will suffice. Read critically, then, these exorbitant mystical writings and others like them may help us devise new ways to negotiate the often fraught relationship between the political, the religious, and the mystical.

<sup>10</sup> Jorunn Økland, "Textual Reproduction as Surplus Value: Paul on Pleasing Christ and Spouses, in Light of Simone de Beauvoir," in *Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible*, *Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible*, ed. Roland Boer and Jorunn Økland, Bible in the Modern World 14, (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008), 62.

At very least, feminist philosophy should follow these women in opening itself to the messiness, multiplicity, and pain – as well as to the pleasure, beauty, and joy – of embodied subjectivity.<sup>11</sup>

From this passage, Hollywood suggests a negotiation between the political, the religious, and the mystical in the ambiguous configurations of the writing of subjectivity. The American scholar also points out the conflicts between transcendence and immanence, joy and pain that coexist in the mystical writings and challenge feminist conceptions of gender and sexual difference.

Anxiousness, as a mystical phenomenon, is the searching and aching for a presence: a presence of God and a presence of the subject. How can one write down his/her own subjectivity? In what terms? In this chapter I will argue that the same notions of transcendence, immanence, and time as *saudade* (yearning) are present in Joana de Jesus' anxiousness, and that they can contribute to the same notions already developed by de Beauvoir, Irigaray, and Portuguese contemporary philosophers when they dealt with the presence and absence of a subjectivity.

#### **4.2. Her Presence: Negotiating Anxiousness in de Beauvoir's Search for Transcendence**

As we have seen throughout this work, and mainly in chapter 3.2, the verb of anxiousness is 'padecer' or the obsolete English verb 'to patiate'. When Joana becomes the accountant, bookkeeper, narrator, and teller by being anxious and experiencing God-(made-)man, she acquires both an awareness and a consciousness that empower the nature of her receptivity: more than an agent, she is a patient, she 'patiates'. Could this notion endanger the emancipating values that underlie the constitution of a feminist subject? How can 'mystical suffering' contribute to the emergence of female value, labor, and authorship?

To dialogue with Joana's discourse of anxiousness, implicating it in a feminist philosophy of action, it is necessary to return to the ground zero of writings of second wave feminism: Simone de Beauvoir's *Second Sex*.The most interesting aspect to me here is the notion of nature and culture through labor ('travail') and opus ('oeuvre').These concepts will be illustrated through the dichotomy expressed in Teresa of Ávila and Madame de Guyon, two early modern mystics who, according to de Beauvoir, have different approaches to prayer and action.

Historically and typologically, Joana de Jesus is situated between them: as described in the second chapter, the Cistercian nun reads Teresa while anticipating the quietist discourse, which was exacerbated by Madame de Guyon. Can mystical

<sup>11</sup> Hollywood, *Sensible Ecstasy*, 278.

prayer be useful to the eruption of a (feminist) subjectivity that would break through the contingency within nature and culture?

#### 4.2.1 De Beauvoir, Surplus Value, and Women

In the *Second Sex*, de Beauvoir considers the subjectivity of women but is dependent on existentialism for the notion of the subject.<sup>12</sup> This means that the subject is always seen as an individuum rather than a system or a collective, and freedom, choice, and responsibility are the most important constituents of subjectivity.

That being said, for de Beuvoir, the concept of 'women'is not researched as a predefined and circumscriptive essence (the 'feminine character', the 'female nature', or the 'eternal feminine'), but rather as a *situation*, which assumes different forms in accordance with its political, economic, and social interests. The philosophical reflection on the subject has always emanated from the neutral perspective, but it has been perpetrated by male philosophers serving their gender's interests as the ruling group. For de Beauvoir, to study subjectivity is to rethink it in the possible light of human emancipation. Using Hegelian vocabulary, de Beauvoir considers female subjectivity as belonging to the realm of *immanence*, as opposed to (male) humanity, which rules and achieves inner *transcendence* through its actions. To emancipate female subjectivity is to get rid of its historical inferiority and 'minor age' by means of an active and fulfilling collective project. Emancipation, or freedom, comes from a project that enables true self-transcendence, a project that is ultimately an *oeuvre*, an opus, a work.The existentialist philosopher sees the failure of this self-transcendence due to the commodification of the female body as a reproductive force of labor, which is therefore assigned a different value.<sup>13</sup>

The feminist conception of labor derives from Marx, who began to analyze human subjectivity from the worker's perspective.<sup>14</sup> Marx sees in labor or (human) force of labor the subject's identifying factor: one is either buying it or selling it.<sup>15</sup>

<sup>12</sup> On existentialism see, for instance, Steven Earnshaw, *Existentialism: a guide to the perplexed* (London: Continuum, 2007). This book, one of many that are still being produced on this theme, has the distinction of extending the concept of existentialist authors to others such as Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, and Camus.

<sup>13</sup> The idea of women as a commodity is also continued by Irigaray in "Women and the Market" and "Commodities among themselves," in *The Sex which is not one*, trans. Catherine Porter (with Carolyn Burke) (Itacha, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 170–194..

<sup>14</sup> See also Andrea Veltman "Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt on Labor," *Hypatia* 25 (2010): 55–78, doi: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2009.01084.x.

<sup>15</sup> Karl Marx, *Wage Labour and Capital, the original 1891 pamphlet,* trans. Friedrich Engels, accessed October 1, 2012, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/in dex.htm. For Marxist concepts, see *A Dictionary of Marxist Thought*, ed. Tom Bottomore (London: Blackwell 1988), or more recently *Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus*, ed. Wolfgang Fritz Haug (Argument-Verlag, Hamburg, 1994- 2008).

The (capitalist) society is established upon this work's value and the profit that the one buying it obtains from the one selling it. The worker loses out in this exchange, because his force of labor is less valued than the product and its surplus, and it goes to the one who buys the force of labor. The worker is not only objectified (giving up her labor as a product) but is also alienated in the process of trading, being selfestranged in the course of this process' recognition, which also creates a meaningless and repetitive life. This annihilation occurs within the extreme valorization of the commodity: the value is not (for) the subject but is instead attributed to what he 'makes', leading to a fetishization of society. Although the capitalist is also annihilated within society, this alienation empowers him at the worker's expense.

Like Marx, within female emancipation de Beauvoir sees the need to regain this *surplus*that has been a profit for male-oriented society.The women's case is extreme, for not only do they lose their *surplus* as workers but, by belonging to their sex, they suffer a double taxation due to their nature: their reproductive labor power and its implicit cultural repercussions (their role as nurturers and those associated with the former). Women relinquish their value.

However, de Beauvoir acknowledges that, throughout history, some women have been distinguished by their work and personality, having achieved a placement in memory. Yet their success was provided by the (ruling) social justification. Women could only achieve a fake transcendence through narcissism, love, or mysticism. These three ways had been challenging women's subjectivity and agency: they made her known and active in man's society. However, as de Beauvoir explains, following Sartre's terminology on *Being and Nothingness* (*L´être et le néant*), in these three justifications the (female) self was still unable to attain supremacy, even if either 'en-soi' or 'pour-soi', meaning that women could not be independent of the remaining objects, nor could they be determined by conscience or project themselves into the future and into freedom.<sup>16</sup> The narcissist strives for the 'I' as an immanent and rigid image projected by male transcendence, and the 'amoreuse' and the mystic try to reach a supreme spousal and an idealized union with a man or with God. Both of these approaches are unsuccessful in filling the gap between non-existence and total-existence, between being *nothing* and being *all*, the French philosopher concludes.

However, subjectivity achieves its maximum incredulity as an empowering agent in mystical discourse, due to the need for *annihilation* as one of the most im-

<sup>16</sup> Jean-Paul Sartre, *Being and Nothingness: an essay on phenomenological ontology ontology*, [*L'Être et le néant : Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique]* trans. Hazel E. Barnes, Routledge Classics (London: Routledge, 2003). On the influence each had had on the other, see Andrea Veltman "The Concept of Transcendence in Beauvoir and Sartre," in *Beauvoir & Sartre: the riddle of influence*, ed. Christine Daigle and Jacob Golomb (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2009), 222–240.

portant parts of mystical knowledge. The religious rhetoric of unity and integration raises de Beauvoir's suspicions: unity vanquishes subject/human activity, resulting in godly governance. Thus, she points out two diverging types of mysticism: the positive-active and the negative-passive kind.

### 4.2.2 Teresa, Guyon, and the Minor Sisters

The first mystical discourse is represented by Teresa of Ávila.The Spanish mystic acts through her most intimate contact with God, building foundations and projecting herself into a future and historical project. De Beauvoir's Teresa is not a slave to her nerves, her hormones, or her body; she is disembodied from her femininity, longing for freedom rather than longing for love. Teresa can never be seen as a simple 'hysteric'.

Both adversaries and admirers of mystics think that giving a sexual content to Saint Teresa's ecstasies is to reduce her to the rank of a hysteric. But what diminishes the hysterical subject is not the fact that his body actively expresses his obsessions: it is that he is obsessed, that his freedom is subjugated and annulled; the mastery a fakir acquires over his body does not make him slave; bodily gestures can be part [enveloppée] of expression [elan] of a freedom.<sup>17</sup>

This freedom is also a dimension of self-transcendence; for de Beauvoir, Teresa also intellectualizes the dramatic relation between the neutral individual and the Supreme Being. The Spanish saint is the 'éclatante exception' (striking exception) to the affective female mysticism because she theorized metaphysically about the problem of attaining transcendence, just as any male mystic, such as, for instance, John of the Cross. Thus, Teresa deserves a place in the chapter "The Independent Woman," which concludes the feminist manifesto *The Second Sex.*

A woman could never have become Kafka: in her doubts and anxieties, she would never have recognized the anguish of Man driven from paradise. Saint Teresa is one of the only women to have lived the human condition for herself, in total abandonment: we have seen why. Placing herself beyond earthly hierarchies, she, like Saint John of the Cross, felt no reassuring sky over her head. For both in them it was the same night, the same flashes, the same nothingness, in God the same plenitude.<sup>18</sup>

The second opposing mystical discourse de Beauvoir presents is of a seventeenthcentury female mystic, Madame de Guyon. She claimed authority through her liter-

<sup>17</sup> Beauvoir, *The Second Sex*, 712.

<sup>18</sup> Beauvoir, *The Second Sex,* 750.

ary and foundational works in order to perpetuate the *self-idolatry*, that is, the self melted into a spousal union with God. This *apostolic state*, in which affectivity is a synonym for inactivity and quietism as the most significant moment of the so-called nuptial mysticism, is to de Beauvoir a sort of *annihilating* process of subjectivity, a destructive project oriented toward emotions, toward the instantaneous, breaking through continuity and into the future.<sup>19</sup> Consequently, its political dimension annihilates its goal, that is, the fight for (full) feminine emancipation.

For de Beauvoir, Madame de Guyon and all of Teresa's 'minor sisters' have only perpetuated the inferior and negative *definition* of women, embracing mystical discourse as an instigator of the confessor's dominance and the patriarchal imagery of God, serving as a kind of feminine tentacle or female guerrilla in the religious discourse that blocks its authentic existence. True self-transcendence becomes impossible.

#### 4.2.3 The Surplus of Prayer and Patiency in Mystical Discourse

The relation between de Beauvoir's feminism and religious/mystical experience has been reflected by third-wave feminist scholars of various disciplines, and the issues of value and transcendence are also present in their works. In the article cited above, Jorunn Økland, for instance, even sees in de Beauvoir's search for total transcendence and repudiation of nature a certain asceticism akin to Paul's demand for celibacy within the unity of the human with God, the true freedom (1 Cor 7:22). Teresa acquires this *surplus* value because she is the possible 'new woman', the author.

For Beauvoir, to exit the re-production line and enter instead into textual production is the only way for a woman to be fully human. Beauvoir seems on the one hand to lament this limited choice but on the other hand to celebrate it. The 'new woman' Beauvoir describes towards the end of her book is the intellectual writing woman, the artist, the scholar. The 'free woman' is described in a language and tone imitating the biblical creation stories and apocalypses: "Rimbaud's prophecy will be fulfilled: 'There shall be poets!' When woman's unmeasured bondage shall be broken, when she shall live for and through herself… She, too, will be poet!" … It is not sure that her 'ideational worlds' will be different from those of men, since it will be through attaining the same situation as theirs that she will find emancipation.<sup>20</sup>

Amy Hollywood demonstrates and criticizes de Beauvoir's ambiguity towards mysticism. The American philosopher argues that de Beauvoir's admiration of Teresa

<sup>19</sup> Beauvoir, *The Second Sex,* 714–5.

<sup>20</sup> Jorunn Økland, "Textual Reproduction" 160.

rests on the desire the Spanish nun derived from her mystical experiences, and that that empowered her to "achieve a degree of free subjectivity unprecedented among women." Hollywood contests the notions of 'absolute freedom', 'transcendence' of subjectivity, and 'bodiliness and immanence' ascribed to the female sex.<sup>21</sup> Nevertheless, as unveiled in *The Second Sex*, the importance of subjectivity's recognition resides in the intersubjectivity that enables Teresa (as well as de Beauvoir) to constitute a *self-*consciousness. Beyond desire, the issues of death, loss, and suffering are present in the existentialist reading of Teresa. In those reflections (we could call them 'labors'), the role of sexual difference would not be decisive. Teresa's authenticity would then reside less in the erotic encounter with God than in the urge for total potentiality and creativity. Hollywood also adds the further possibility of a (positive) mysticism in de Beauvoir.

Mysticism is thus a site of absolute freedom from, and transcendence of, the limitations of situatedness. In its ideal form, it is the place where one faces death (and implicitly rejects it) and so becomes capable of encountering the world as a project.<sup>22</sup>

Based on other writings, especially Beauvorian memoirs and fiction, Hollywood also sees in the French philosopher a certain mystical temptation of 'being everything', an absolute which is very close to a religious belief or an 'unfulfilled metaphysical desire' that was not recognized by the others.This could be interpreted as the project of an *unquiet* autonomy, an emancipation from the age of minority or, as happened with Guyon, a failure, to a certain demand of a subject's history.<sup>23</sup>

The *labor* and *opus* of women mystics, especially the contemplatives and Cistercians, were primarily held in the activity of prayer.We have seen in chapter two how Teresa, Joana, and Guyon sought a method, a new guide that could ease the contact and the relationship with the God-Man. Prayers such as the Rosary, the singing of hymns and antiphons, all those scheduled 'works' of the Divine Office, can be seen as a practice and also as a product with a *use value*(to the person who uses and practices it). However, it can also be an *exchange value*. In chapter three, Joana's recollections lead to prayer as a petition, on different occasions, celebrations, and events: praying *for* and praying *to*. The sacraments and rituals are evolved with a plethora of speech acts, of performing stances in which affiliation and fellowship are reiterated. It is prayer as *Credo*, a creed, a confession and profession of one's collective salvation and redemption—the ultimate freedom, achieved through death. It is here that prayer begins to have an exchange value.

<sup>21</sup> Hollywood, *Sensible Ecstasy*, 371.

<sup>22</sup> Hollywood, *Sensible Ecstasy*, 143.

<sup>23</sup> Hollywood, *Sensible Ecstasy*, 145.

The tradition of prayer as value-in-use is ascertainable in the monastic principle of *lectio divina*. <sup>24</sup> This was a four-step self-development training that consisted of 'lectio' (a repetitive recitation of a scriptural passage), meditation (to absorb the meaning of that experience as it connected to one's self, in *imitatio Christi),* prayer itself (the moment of response and begging for grace), and finally the union with God (the communion) and contemplation; beyond the cognitive (interpretive and responsive) moment, there was experience itself, with the text as reality, beyond the mystery it held.

Yet the prayer was never a monastery's monopoly, nor was it exclusively done behind closed doors. The calling of religious life and the imitation of Christ has appeared and been renewed throughout history. Movements such as that of the thirteenth-century mendicants and Beguines or the Modern Devout attracted many women.<sup>25</sup> Teresa of Ávila lived during an age of renewal and is indebted to Cisneros' policy of divulgation of the *Devotio Moderna* texts and to the printing of many treatises and manuals of good, effective, and quick prayer. Teresa's titles reflect that trend and are themselves programmatic: *Way*, *Life*, *A Foundation*, *Dwellings*, *Relations*. She became, as did many others, a consumer and a producer of more efficient methodologies of prayer.<sup>26</sup>

Madame de Guyon's method was not completely different. De Beauvoir's 'error' was to diminish the French mystic in comparison to Teresa of Ávila: both were mystics, but Guyon also had her own project as founder, religious leader, and writer or author.<sup>27</sup> Teresa acquired self-transcendence because she became a *Doctor* (of the Church), and Guyon remained merely a *Madame*: a widow whose entrance into a cloister was replaced by imprisonment in her own house. Teresa had a religious *status*, while Guyon had an *estate*. Prayer, especially outside the convent walls, had no intrinsic worth; it would be a total non-labor, for there was no surplus through which women could enhance their value. The state of non-action and total receptivity to God's works allowed society to despise their activity and 'work' (even if it referred to the soul's potencies). Nevertheless, this was the way they subverted the economy of

<sup>24</sup> Duncan Robertson, *Lectio divina: the medieval experience of reading* (Trappist, Ky.: Cistercian Publications; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2011).

<sup>25</sup> See chap. 2 and Gertrud Jaron Lewis, *By women, for women, about women: The Sisterbooks of fourteenth-century Germany* (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996). See also Annette Maria Bollmann*, Frauenleben und Frauenliteratur in der Devotio moderna: volkssprachige Schwesternbücher in literarhistorischer Perspektive* (PhD diss. University of Groningen, 2004).

<sup>26</sup> Certeau, *The Mystical Fable*, 128.

<sup>27</sup> Jeanne Guyon, *Jeanne Guyon: Selected Writings* and *Prison Writings*.

exchange, ownership, and reference and proposed a new model, the economy of the gift.<sup>28</sup>

#### 4.2.4 Anxious Givenness and the Embrace of Patiating

In chapter 3.2, we saw how Joana's concept of the gift was intimately related to a Cistercian tradition dating back to Bernard of Clairvaux and Aelred of Rievaulx. We have also seen that this notion was a *situation* that Joana experienced when she moved from Lorvão to Lisbon without a dowry of her own. Conversations with the God-Man, visions, and prayers were the only dowry that she could take with her to the Recollect of Discalced Bernardin women. Joana's givenness – what she actually gives by receiving – are the God-man's attributes. Joana can only accept them. To accept the gift is not to receive or to consume it, nor is it merely the gift's counterpart. As a female (mystic), Joana is not the one who gives; the femaleness is not the place of generosity, as certain theories of the gifts advocate.<sup>29</sup> Joana participates in the givenness through her talks with the God-Man, through her prayers to him, for herself and for the others. Joana reiterates throughout the text that 'the Lord was represented to me and gave me to understand', in an almost continuous Anselmian sort of prayer.This givenness is also seen in God's and woman's own positions. Both the female mystic and the God-Man share those positions: the Son, standing vertical on the cross, giving himself to all; and the daughter, who lies horizontally on her bed, expanding into community and society.<sup>30</sup> Both of them are *patiating* (enduring) their pains.

The insistence of mystical and ascetic discourse on suffering as purification toward a union with Christ is deeply present in Joana's texts. Yet this does not make Joana's own cross an ecstatic and unbearable weight that shatters human agency.

<sup>28</sup> On the different reformations in early modernity and the success of Teresa in comparison to Joana, see Edward Howells, "Early modern reformations," in *The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism*, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 114–134.

<sup>29</sup> Morny Joy, introduction to *Women and the Gift. Beyond the Given and the All-Give*, ed. Morna Joy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana U Press, 2013), 1–52.

<sup>30</sup> We could even speak of a horizontal trans-ascendance that is both vertical and horizontal. In his foreword to the poems of the Flemish mystic Hadewich, Schillebeckx says: "'the trans-ascendance'; the going-beyond-oneself-and-upward as it were cannot be dissociated from transcendence from the other in 'horizontal sense', that is to say, towards nature, towards our society, our fellow human-beings, and the community. This transcending is not a thing to happen automatically, it is not a cognitive process purely and simply. It is a particular way of life, a sort of traction towards wholeness, authentic well-being and liberation by way of very actively undergoing the divine. In reciprocal action and reaction." Eduard Schillebeeckx, foreword to *Poetry of Hadewijch*, trans. Marieke van Baest (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 1998), 1.

Again, through the God-Man's example, i.e.,*imitatio Christi*, Joana can transform the path of crosses into a true *filiatio*. In chapter 69, while describing a vision she had on the day of 'Holy Cross', Joana is *given* to understand the Psalm's words: "At[t]endite popule meus legem meam" (Give ear, O my people, to my law) (Ps 78:1).Then the nun states that, through an intellectual vision, she sees the Lord, already resurrected, at an altar, where a stairway from which angels ascended and descended was placed. Among those angels, Joana was able to recognize the biblical character Jacob. The stairway transformed itself into a tree, and Joana explains how this image impels her companions to action by carrying the holy cross on her back, while she is embracing it [ANTT 111]. However, Joana continues, in an excerpt deleted from the *Copy*, by stating that her confessor is seen with the same cross, but in his hand [ANTT 111v], thus showing less involvement with the same God.

Joana mentions the impossible badge ('devisa'),mwhich is also a currency of God's gift, the prayer, and their intersubjectivity. The cross is something that only she can embrace and not carry as a burden, like her fellow religious women. Nor does she need the angels' help. Joana fully embraces this task, thus allowing herself to be directly sustained by the Lord. And here lies the fullness of anxious *patiating*: she receives the pain and suffering and becomes one with the Divine — agent and patient.

Joana can indeed be an agent, thanks to her patience and the patiency expressed in the obsolete (but so necessary) English verb *to patiate*. To patiate God's suffering through her own illness is for her the supreme *action* of anxiousness. In this sense, anxiousness surpasses the basic state of passivity, or the annihilation of God's will. Becoming *patient* is, in the philosophy of action, another possibility of intersubjectivity. The ethicist Soran Reader admits:

To be patient is not to cease from being human subject – a knower a thinker, a moral being. A patient is not reduced to the status of an object: I am a patient all the time, and that is not, as such, a reduced or unpleasant condition. I am a patient not just when I am treated in hospital, but when I use the world's resistances to speak, and when I take my turn to be quiet and listen; not just when I "lie back and think of England" but also when I experience my own lovemaking; not just when I am caught in a downpour, but also when I dive into a lake, or surf to shore on a wave. I am fully alive, fully human while I am a patient, and I may indeed be more myself: Hannah Arendt has expressed the evocative idea of conscience as the subjective presence of self to self, away from the distractions of action.<sup>31</sup>

<sup>31</sup> Soran Reader, "Agency, Patiency, and Personhood," in *A Companion to the Philosophy of action*, Timothy O'Connor and Constantine Sandis, Blackwell Companion to Philosophy (Sussex: Wiley-Blackwel, 2010), 202. See also Reader's other works, "The Other Side of Agency,"

In this way, Joana's anxiousness brings a sense of patiency that goes beyond the dualism of activeness-passiveness in the religious contemplative tradition which has been highlighted, and which de Beauvoir cannot fully deal with, bestowing an ambiguous answer by preferring some mystics to others. By 'padecedendo' (suffering and awaiting), Joana is striving for transcendence in a fully embodied relationship with Christ, pointing to this dimension of anxiousness.

\*

#### **4.3. His Absence: Reading Anxiousness in Irigaray's search for Immanence**

There are, however, other dimensions of anxiousness – anxiousness as voraciousness,impetus, and longing – that are expressed somatically. For those dimensions, a striving for immanence and the consciousness of a body are present. Luce Irigaray's works are a fruitful source of inspiration for rethinking these issues. The Belgian philosopher has written very enthusiastically aboutmystical experience and the positive effect of women acquiring their own voice through it. In this regard, significant scholarly progress has been made.<sup>32</sup> Here in my present research I would like to take a closer look at Irigaray's book *The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger*, where Irigaray reflects upon the element of air. In this book, Irigaray states that the philosophical tradition invigorated by Heidegger has chosen the steady path of earth, instead of the dizziness of vertigo, of the abyss – almost an ultimate state (and symbol) of freedom. Before demonstrating Irigaray's critique of this tradition, I will provide a brief sketch on the existentialist philosophers and theologians who support this negative idea of vertigo and anxiousness.

in *Philosophy* 82 (4): 579–604, and *The Philosophy of Need,* ed. Soran Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

<sup>32</sup> Besides the work of Amy Hollywood on Luce Irigaray, see Alison Martin, *Luce Irigaray and the question of the divine* (Leeds: Maney Pub. for the Modern Humanities Research Association, 2000); Luce Irigaray, introduction to *Religion in French feminist thought: critical perspectives*, ed. Morny Joy, Kathleen O'Grady, and Judith L. Poxon (London; New York: Routledge, 2003); Morny Joy, *Divine love: Luce Irigaray, women, gender and religion* (Manchester/ New York: Manchester University Pres, 2006); Anne Claire Mulder, *Divine flesh, embodied word: incarnation as a hermeneutical key to a feminist theologian's reading of Luce Irigaray's work* (PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 2006); and Luce Irigaray, "Toward a Divine in the Feminine", in *Women and the divine: touching transcendence*, ed. by Gillian Howie and J'annine Jobling (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 13–26.

#### 4.3.1 The Existentialist Vertigo

The ascent of existentialism in both philosophical and theological forms has dealt extensively with the question of anxiousness through analogous concepts such as anxiety, angst, and anguish.

Kierkegaard (1813 -1855) saw anxiety ('Angst') as a fear, but also as an impulse towards the abyss, which means God, finitude, and possibility's own possibility. This feeling develops the sense of vertigo and dizziness in the constitution of one's own subjectivity.<sup>33</sup> Heidegger (1889–1976) continues the description of this anxiety regarding existence ('Dasein'). Based on the linguistic difference of fear and angst in the Germanic languages – with the first claiming the determinability of the feared object and the second the non-definability of a (feared) reality – Heidegger says that anxiety appears within the realm of nothingness, revealing 'a primordial being-inthe-world' cognate to an innocent state.<sup>34</sup> Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) continues the discussion on nothingness regarding freedom. For the French author, freedom is the consequence of living in this nothingness, as it is individual and subject to contingency. The possibility of its determination is ever-present, thus making our own responsibility possible.<sup>35</sup> Hence the bittersweet sense of openness, void, and de-familiarization before reality and even before one's own self.

Two books that investigated anxiety in the theological spectrum were published in 1952.<sup>36</sup> Paul Tillich's *Courage To Be* mentions three types of anxiety that occur at the end of an age: anxiety before death, anxiety before meaninglessness, and anxiety before condemnation. Both narrowness and openness provide the same sense of terror that constitutes the non-being. To overcome this fearful state, a virtue is necessary: the courage to intervene and to act. Hans Urs von Balthasar authored another essay, *The Christian and the Anxiety*. <sup>37</sup> Within his biblical hermeneutics, this Swiss Catholic names two types of anxiety: the anxiety of the wicked man, which is mentioned mainly in the Old Testament, and the anxiety of the just man, which is present in both testaments. However, in the New Testament, anxiety is not only a

<sup>33</sup> Søren Kierkegaard, *The concept of anxiety: a simple psychologically orienting deliberation on the dogmatic issue of hereditary sin*, [Begrebet angst]. Edited. and trans. Reidar Thomte, in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson, Kierkegaard's Writings, vol. 8 (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 41.

<sup>34</sup> Martin Heidegger*, Being and Time,* trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962).

<sup>35</sup> Sartre, *Being and Nothingness*, 29–36.

<sup>36</sup> Paul Tillich, *The Courage to Be* (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952).

<sup>37</sup> Hans Urs von Balthasar, *The Christian and the Anxiety* [Der Christen und die Angst], translated by Michael J. Miller. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000). See also John Cihak, *Balthasar and Anxiety* (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2009).

negative feeling (a sin) of humankind before God; it is rather an inescapable constituting element of the Gospel. God was made man, and thus, he also shares in the same emotions as humanity, including even humanity's abandonment of God. Just like the other existentialist author, von Balthasar speaks of the sense of vertigo that one has when confronted with fear and hope.

It cannot be denied that something like vertigo can come over a man, even a believer, in this transitional state between fear and hope; after all, it is a routine fact. But Christianity cannot be blamed for this loss of footing: it has to be laid at the door of the man who does not want to take Christianity seriously. Christianity offers man not a bottomless pit, but solid ground – grounding in God, of course, and not in itself. To place oneself on this solid involves relinquishment of one's own ground. The sinner wants to stand on his own, not on God. And whoever tries to stand both on God and on his own is sure to fall into the bottomless in between.<sup>38</sup>

In all of these so-called existentialist authors, whether more or less conservative, abyss and dizziness are embroidered into a negative image, which is quite different from the mystical tradition of *abyssality* that makes human enjoyment of the divine possible, beyond the fall into nihilism, as argued by Grace M. Jantzen and feminist theology. The British scholar argues that thirteenth-century Hadewijch brings out an erotic, gendered, and divine dimension: the abyss as the womb.<sup>39</sup>

However, it is Luce Irigaray who invites us to rethink the abyss in a direct relationship with an existentialist tradition, namely that of Heidegger, when she addresses the question of forgetting the air. For Irigaray, a subject cannot be perceived without a body,and the female body constitutes a symbiotic relationship with nature and matter, which enables a closer commitment to knowledge and common living.

#### 4.3.2 A Feminist Mourning of the Tradition

In *The Forgetting of Air*, Irigaray is mourning Heidegger. She is not only remembering his final breath (his death) as she is striving for the remembrance of air (acknowledging her own life).<sup>40</sup> She says: "The danger [of thinking the Being without air] is

<sup>38</sup> Hans Urs von Balthasar, *The Christian and the Anxiety*, 99–100.

<sup>39</sup> Grace Jantzen, "Eros and the Abyss. Reading Medieval Mystics in the Post/Modernity," in *Religious Experience and contemporary theological epistemology,* ed. Lieve Boeve, et al. (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 111–132.

<sup>40 &</sup>quot;I began writing The Forgetting of Air a few days after Martin Heidegger's death, in May 1976. The task of continuing the philosopher's work imposed itself upon me without any consideration. His thought enlightned me at a certain level more than any other and it has done so in a way that awakened my vigilance, political as well as philosophical, rather than constraining me to submit to any program." Luce Irigaray, "From the Forgetting of

not deadly, it is death. Aletheia – the death that thought is."<sup>41</sup> The image of Heidegger walking into the clearing in the woods is also for Irigaray the need for a *clearing of air, a clearing for appearing and disappearing, for presence and absence* to lose track in the wood, to lose footing, taking place into nature. Heidegger searches for being, while Irigaray proposes searching for beings, the plurality. And Irigaray undertakes this search consciously, as even in the English translation she 'forces' the use of female/male pronouns to refer to Nature, matter, woman [she], and man [he]. Is she using the pronoun explicitly to show this presence/absence of being? Can the he of the text also be the Heidegger and the male philosophical traditions whose absence she mourns?

Is language remaining a tongue, a device for sound-making, food-tasting, texture, and love-making? Is language the only *solid crust* that, contrary to metaphysics, cannot give rise to any construction? We thus need a place to dwell, where we could have an Eks-sistance, in standing with our feet firmly on the ground, says the male philosopher. Or could we dwell on air? Could air be the true habitation? asks the female philosopher. Air, says Irigaray, escapes boundaries: the boundary of thinking or the bounding of the world by thinking.We do not need a bridge as Heidegger proposed, because a bridge does not unite anything; it is just a connection to the void that brings the vertigo, the abyss, the dizziness.

[T]o have a ground, for the finite Being that is a man, she who bears this foundation is exiled from her dwelling that is infinitely space.<sup>42</sup>

Irigaray continues to compare man's (Heidegger's?) erection as a sort of Anaisthesis, a "trait that passes from the matter-potency to the act, from flesh to the form, from the sensible to the intelligible*.*" <sup>43</sup> Erection is also in tune with ejaculation (because it throws out, casts aside, emits) and again reduces to nothingness. Possessing, clearing, cultivating the earth (the nature, the soil, the feminine) makes this same nature recollect, 'ingather', which is always a mediating 'gathering' to become fecund and fertile, and ultimately to blossom.<sup>44</sup> But this blossom, suggests Irigaray, must be a "blossom without a why." And this *without a why* is already the answer that Angelus Silesius (1624–1677), the German mystic, has given to both Heidegger and Irigaray. The famous passage, "The rose is without 'why'; it flowers because it flowers," is the

Air to To be Two," in *Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger*, ed. Nancy J. Holland and Patricia Huttington (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press), 315.

<sup>41</sup> Irigaray, *The Forgetting*, 7.

<sup>42</sup> Irigaray, *The Forgetting*, 10.

<sup>43</sup> Irigaray, The Forgetting, 97.

<sup>44</sup> Irigaray, *The Forgetting,* 132, 151.

epigraph of Irigaray's book, and it is expounded in chapter nine, when the Belgian philosopher writes about the rose:

The rose, for example. And its flowering without a 'why'. Its gift beyond all reason, unless to give itself a reason. Its unpretentious blooming/unconcealment, its adorned beauty. Its becoming that is foreign to Being's destiny, except in its appropriation by thinking. A fundamental mimesis, through the fundamentally impossible of its phuein. Whence the abyss? For if the flower's blooming/unconcealment find its soil in earth, where is the soil for one who wants to flower without staying planted in earth? Is it in the air? From whence he expects to receive himself as a rose? A future that has not finished keeping others waiting for it. Unless, perhaps, a god.<sup>45</sup>

Irigaray does invite us to take a leap, a leap that goes beyond thinking itself. Is this leap beyond thinking a step into a mystical experience? Could a non-canonical, hidden Portuguese mystic be helpful for such a leap?

#### 4.3.3 Joana's Lack of Air

Three centuries before, Joana de Jesus had also not forgotten the physicality of the subject that cannot be seen outside anxiousness and abyssality.

Throughout chapter 3.3, we saw how Joana describes anxiousness. This is associated with the Spanish word 'sequedad', the notion of dryness that prevails in the mystical (and ascetic) traditions of perceiving God. As we have already seen, anxiousness, or rather 'ansias', was the word used by John of the Cross to describe his "Dark Night of the Soul," and the Italian Jesuit Scaramelli interprets it. Unlike John of the Cross and his Italian interpreter, for Joana anxiousness is not merely the negative moment of abandonment by God, the night or darkness, or a catharsis. Rather, anxiousness essentially derives from the acknowledgment of this lack and the possibilities it brings forth. Anxiousness is the effect of the *lack* of air, the desire and longing for it.Hence the recognition of the elemental presence of God is crucially felt in his absence. Joana's anxiousness is closely related to the perception of air. Air can be the medium of transportation, of angels and ascension to heaven, where Joana is 'enraptured' and 'robbed from' her body. This experience of transience, which is so peculiar to mystical experience, provides Joana with a new sense of her body. The rarefaction of atmosphere makes her enter a new level of consciousness, in which she can easily perceive God and God can be revealed to her. For her, anxiousness is this experience of space and presence, where the proportions of the world begin to

<sup>45</sup> Irigaray, *The Forgetting*, 148–9.

have "neither limit nor end" [ANTT 11-v]. Anxiousness surpasses the sense of tightness or narrowness that is etymologically contained by the notion of anguish that Derrida has alerted us to.<sup>46</sup>

The deadly anxiousness Joana talks about is closely related to a physical state that impeded her sight and speech,oppressed her breast(lungs, heart),and caused a general sensation of choking and suffocation that obstructed her. A cloud of darkness takes her breath away [ANTT 41v].

Air, however, cannot be thought of without spirit. Joana uses the word spirit ('Espírito') when alluding to the Holy Spirit as well as to 'vital spirits', or her 'courage' or strength. Through anxiousness Joana perceives her limitations, her strength, and her resistance.

Concomitantly, anxiousness develops itself into a pneumatology that is both doctrinal and experiential, almost a parallel domain of mysticism proper, generally termed spirituality.<sup>47</sup> The Holy Spirit, Trinity's third term*,* is the genderless moment of the union between form and matter.These unite but are dissociated in their characteristics. The spirit is the air, the element and the force that corroborates Incarnation's combustion.

The idea of the Spirit is often genderless, ethereal, and feminine. It is present in a feminist endeavor of spirituality because it confronts the duality between form and matter in traditional (phallocentric) religious narratives. Nicola Slee points out the feminist reconstruction of the feminine naming of God, and "naming the Spirit in feminine imagery," that accompanies both (male) theologians (such as Boff, Congar, and Gelpi) and (female) religious scholars (such as Bynum).<sup>48</sup> Nonetheless, this naming must be accompanied by a reformulation of the Trinity theory, as proposed by theologians such as Elisabeth Johnson, Sally McFague, and Sarah Coakley.The feminine must go beyond essentialism and its often negative and subordinated counterpart, the ontologization of sexual difference in God.<sup>49</sup>

Joana's text can be seen through the lens of a feminist spirituality in the making, due to the inherent re-appropriations of the Trinity and the *filiatio* that the nun conducts. As a seventeenth-century woman, intellectually begotten by both a Cistercian tradition and a recollection mysticism, Joana feels the need to rethink the mysteries of godly paternity and the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity. Two important conclusions are thus reached.

<sup>46</sup> Jacques Derrida, "Force and signification" in *Writing and Difference* [L´écriture et la différence], trans. Alan Bass, Routledge classics series (London: Routledge, 2001), 7.

<sup>47</sup> Anne Hunt, "Christology, Trinity and pneumatology," in *Companion to the Trinity,* 365–380.

<sup>48</sup> Nicola Slee, "The Holy Spirit and spirituality," in *The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology*, ed. Susan Frank Parsons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 182.

<sup>49</sup> Slee, "The Holy Spirit and spirituality," 183.

The first one is that *filiatio* occurs both with God, the Father-Son, but also between God the Father and Magdalene the Daughter [ANTT 131v]. John's quote, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20: 17), is mainly directed at the parenthood of Magdalene, and by extension at Joana's, and is not exclusively directed at Christ or an abstract humankind. On one hand, *filiatio* becomes more inclusive, because it also fully embodies concrete human beings (like Joana herself). On the other hand, there is a sense of exclusion, insofar as Joana separates herself from the rest of humanity.

The second conclusion is reached after Joana's interpretation of John 13:23: "My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" [ANTT 17v-18]. This abode or dwelling is the interrelated project of communion and partnership in the Trinity, in which a new dynamic can be understood: an 'in-between' that is 'not without', so familiar to Irigaray's project of intersubjectivity. <sup>50</sup>

The emphasis given by Joana to the conditionality and relatedness of God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit undergoes the peril noted by Coakley, disguised as the Spirit's subordination to the Father.<sup>51</sup> When this British scholar rereads Gregory of Nyssa, particularly his commentaries on the Song of Songs, what is relational is accentuated when speaking about subjects, and the feminine as well as the masculine both obtain a place of their own within the perception of God. In itself, the Trinity must be a pneumatology, as theology must not separate itself from spirituality, and this task is understood and undertaken by feminist theology.<sup>52</sup>

Is Joana deliberately losing ground and breathing the air she cannot breathe? Are the nausea and dizziness the Cistercian feels the possibility of an embodied abyss, a mourning and contact with the Divinity, a 'without why' which Irigaray also describes by beginning and ending her reflection upon the female subject whilst rethinking Heidegger's last breath?

\*

<sup>50</sup> See Luce Irigaray's, *I Love to You. Sketch of a Possible Felicity in History*, trans. A. Martin (London: Routledge, 1996), 162. See also Anne Claire Mulder, "Towards a Practice of Respecting the In-between: Condition Sine Qua Non of Living Together Peacefully," in *Feminist Theology,* vol. 17, no. 2 (January 2009): 250, doi: 10.1177/0966735008098726.

<sup>51</sup> Sarah Coakley, "Living into the Mystery of Holy Trinity: Trinity, Prayer and Sexuality," *Anglican Theological Review*, 80: 2, and "'Persons' and 'Social Doctrine' of Trinity," in *Powers and Submissions: spirituality, philosophy and gender* (London, Blackwell, 2002), 109–129. See also Janet Martin Soskice, "Trinity and Feminism," in *The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology,* ed. Susan Frank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 135–152.

<sup>52</sup> Patricia A. Fox, "16 Feminist Theologies and the Trinity," in *Companion to Trinity*, ed. Peter C. Phan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 274–292.

#### **4.4. The Presence and Absence of [Portuguese] Time: Ancias and Saudade**

Throughout Joana's writing, we encountered her explicit need to be humble and her quest for humility and self-knowledge, which is characteristic of the Cistercian vocabulary, as noted in the several quotes in the second chapter of this work. However, humility, which is a virtue in itself, requires a certain fear of God. And fearfulness disables action; a fearful person is not courageous, not virile (and thus manly) enough to fight the world's adversities. Being passive can be a synonym for inactivity and thus of patiency, as one is a *subject* of what is exterior. Taken to its extreme, this can easily lead to attacks by demons and evil.<sup>53</sup> This fear is akin to loss, mourning, and nostalgia.<sup>54</sup> It is this sense of loss that makes Joana yearn for her reunion with God.

However, one cannot address the theme of loss, particularly in the context of Portuguese culture, without mentioning *saudade*. In chapter 3.2, we saw that Joana also mentions *saudade,* and we explored how that concept was crucial to early modern Portuguese literary culture, especially early modern authors such as King Dom Duarte and Francisco Manuel de Melo. Now we shall see how these authors were appropriated by the contemporary Portuguese intellectual debate and how *saudade* could be seen together with a discourse of anxiousness. *Saudade* can be seen as a hermeneutical model or as a *place* in which to understand Portuguese culture and identity. Many authors developed this thematic, creating a 'philosophy of *saudade*'. Here I will focus more on how *saudade* can be seen as a category for understanding the emergence of a subject in time.

#### 4.4.1 Saudade: Loss, Hope, and Memory of Time

Several authors have engaged in this philosophical debate.<sup>55</sup> The Portuguese philosopher Afonso Botelho (1919–1996) speaks of several cycles of *saudade*, en-

<sup>53</sup> Andrew Crislip, "The sin of sloth or the illness of the demons? The demon of acedia in early Christian monasticism," in *Harvard Theological Review*, no. 2 (April 2005): 143–169, h ttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4125242.

<sup>54</sup> Amy M. Hollywood, *Acute Melancholia: Christian Mysticism and Contemporary Historiography* (Columbia University Press, forthcoming).

<sup>55</sup> Botelho and Teixeira, *Filosofia da Saudade.* See also António Braz Teixeira's new and updated book on this theme, *Filosofia da Saudade* (Lisboa: Quidnovi, 2006) and its developed review by Rui Lopo, "Pensar a Saudade. Um incompleto ponto da situação da bibliografia mais recente sobre o tema e uma recensão de duas obras," in *Revista Nova Águia* 4 (2009): 190–198. See also Miguel Real, *O pensamento português Contemporâneo 1890–2010: O Labirinto da Razão e a Fome de Deus* (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2011).

visioned as always relating to death, love, and God.<sup>56</sup> The first cycle of *saudade* in Portuguese intellectual history deals with desire, human loneliness, and feelings of sexual love in the courtly medieval literature written in Galician-Portuguese. The second is reflected in the work of Portuguese King Dom Duarte, in which *saudade* is described as a feeling of absence, and not merely as a minor passion of the soul. *Saudade* would bring joy to those who could actualize it in the absence of what/who they were missing, and this is seen especially throughout the whole project of the Portuguese "Discoveries" or Colonial Expansion in the Early Medieval period. The sexual love felt in human sexualized loneliness was replaced by the fraternal and collective love felt in the remembrance of and loyalty to D. Sebastião and the movement of Sebastianism that longed for the return of this king. *Saudade* would bring joy, expectation before death, and progress. Dom Francisco Manuel de Melo defines *saudade* as the desire for unity among similar things. Here, *saudade* would be greater than love, which would recall a true existence. The third cycle is that of Teixeira de Pascoaes (and Leonardo Coimbra), whose works turned *saudade* into a philosophical current, *saudosismo*. 57

I will here pay a little closer attention to Teixeira de Pascoaes (1877–1950), due to his contribution to the 'philosophy of *saudade*'. He read Portuguese culture in the light of this feeling. Teixeira de Pascoaes was a Portuguese poet, writer, and philosopher close to the European symbolist tendency that enlivened literature towards the end of the nineteenth century. As a philosopher, he saw in *saudade* the true calling of the Portuguese soul, ignited by both Semitic and Arian origins.<sup>58</sup> *Saudade* was the primordial feeling, appearing even before creation, which yearned for, missed, and remembered the union that humanity had experienced with God. *Saudade* was constitutive of the 'human man', the 'beyond man', that the Portuguese soul would purportedly impersonate.<sup>59</sup> He would transform *saudade* into a philosophical stream, the so-called 'saudosismo'.

*Saudade* and *saudosismo* have been seen as Portugal's temporal project, both in the past and in the future. The former would lead to nostalgia and the latter to Messianism. However, we must add the distinction Svetlana Boym has made between

<sup>56</sup> Afonso Botelho, *Da saudade ao saudosismo*, Colecção Biblioteca Breve, (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1990). I am particularly indebted to Real's reading of Botelho. Miguel Real, *O Pensamento Português Contemporâneo 1890–2010: O Labirinto da Razão e a Fome de Deus*, 845–851.

<sup>57</sup> António Braz Teixeira, "Em torno da metafísica de Teixeira de Pascoaes," in *Revista da Faculdade de Letras do Porto, Teixeira de Pascoaes*, 3rd serie, 21 (2004): 13–26. See also his main work, *Filosofia da Saudade.*

<sup>58</sup> Teixeira de Pascoaes, *A Saudade e o Saudosismo (diversos e opúsculos),* ed. Jesué Pinharanda Gomes, Obras Teixeira de Pascoaes 7 (Lisbon: Assírio e Alvim, 1988).

<sup>59</sup> Teixeira de Pascoaes, "O génio Português na sua expressão filosófica, poética e religiosa," in *A Saudade e o Saudosismo (diversos e opúsculos),* 95–96.

'restorative nostalgia' and 'reflective nostalgia'.<sup>60</sup> The first would just stress the return aspect, while the latter would en*joy* the longing for the irrecoverability of remembrance.

Dalila da Costa Pereira's (1918–2012) contribution to *saudade* was quite important because she played a role in thinking *saudade* as a mystical experience. She saw in the mystical experience a moment of *saudade*, because *saudade* had to become universalized and no longer served a territorial notion of Portugal.<sup>61</sup> *Saudade* would conduct knowledge and operate the connection between transcendence and immanence within Portuguese history.<sup>62</sup>

In recent years, the philosophical discourse on *saudade* has tried to go beyond the positioning of Portuguese culture.This would build a metaphysic of presence rather than an absence-based one.<sup>63</sup> And if this is so, how could we look for presence in *saudade*, in subjectivity, when *saudade* itself escapes the distinction between subject and object?

In his book *Da Saudade como via de Libertação,* Paulo Borges invites the reader to read *saudade* as beyond presence. *Saudade* is the "memory-desire of perfection and absolute, of a good beyond being, thus without concept, contrast or opposition."<sup>64</sup> He does acknowledge the Galician-Portuguese origin of the word that contains health, desire, solitude, and salvation. But the *saudade* that is grounded in the past but thrown into the future is merely that of "having lived, momentarily, the plenitude of the now [...] without before or after." This feeling would bring a "dissatisfaction and unquiet state" that would bring an "even wider dimension

<sup>60 &</sup>quot;Restorative nostalgia puts emphasis on *nostos* [return] and proposes to rebuild the lost home and patch up the memory gaps. Reflective nostalgia dwells in *algia*, in longing and loss, the imperfect process of remembrance. The first categories of nostalgic do not think of themselves as nostalgic; they believe that their project is about truth… Restorative nostalgia manifests itself in total reconstructions of monuments of the past, while reflective nostalgia lingers on ruins, the patina of time and history, in the dreams of another place and another time." Svetlana Boym, *The Future of Nostalgia* (New York: Basic, 2001), 41. See also Amy Hollywood, "Joan of Arc and the Politics of Nostalgia –Review of 'For Fear of the Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity' by Françoise Meltzer," in *The Journal of Religion*, vol. 83, no. 1 (January 2003): 94–99, accessed March 8, 2010, http://www.jsto r.org/stable/1205438.

<sup>61</sup> Dalila Pereira da Costa, "Saudade, unidade perdida, unidade reencontrada," in *Introdução à Saudade (Antologia Teórica e Aproximação Crítica),* with Jesué Pinharanda Gomes (Oporto: Lello& Irmão, 1976), 81.

<sup>62</sup> Miguel Real, *O Pensamento Português Contemporâneo*, 776–777.

<sup>63</sup> For *saudade* as a metaphysics of presence, see Bruno Béu de Carvalho, "Fernando Pessoa e a saudade do presente," in *Revista Cultura Entre Culturas*, Pessoa: caderno especial, no. 3 (spring-summer 2011): 21–31.

<sup>64</sup> Paulo Borges, *A Saudade como via da Liberação* (Lisboa: Quidnovi: 2008), 88.

of a world to be discovered, an ideal to be fulfilled or a subject and a world to be transformed."<sup>65</sup>

*Saudade* would be degraded if still seen in time, as renovation or attachment to what is lost. It had to be configured beyond configurations, beyond feeling or thought. *Saudade* would come from the 'abyssal indetermination' felt in the 'unionschism', the 'groundless ground', where every potency *non exists*('in-existe').<sup>66</sup> In his analysis of the Portuguese *saudade*, Borges borrows the language of the mystics, and in particular that of the Renanian mysticism to which he is indebted.<sup>67</sup>

#### 4.4.2 Expecting the Divine: Ancias and the Discourse of Presentness of the God-Man

It is here, in this ground of mystical experience and the striving between memory and loss, where Joana's anxiousness lies, and where a notion such as *saudade* could both participate in and contribute to the same philosophies of *saudade* and anxiousness.

Joana's anxiousness goes beyond the fear of attachment and losing, engulfing the true loss in the paradoxical 'loving anxiousness': the urgency, the desire, and the overwhelming feeling that this motivates are a consequence of the abyssal experience of God-(made-)Man. The discourse of anxiousness redirects the subject to the God-Man in expectation, beyond absence (seen in the apophatic) or presence (cataphatic discourse): Joana rediscovers in chapter 3.3 the *notícia* (notice), the knowledge, news, and News that, once seen, she must reveal. This theme is reiterated throughout her self-writing in the descriptions of her visions.

As it was mentioned in chapter two, *saudade* in Joana is related to her family, to her convent in Lorvão, and to the 'blessed fatherland' [ANTT 128r], which means her true identity: being the daughter of God, partaking in a Christian Kingdom. Nonetheless,Christ himself suffers from the same feeling: heis 'saudozo'of the choir at the Convent of Lorvão, which was being renovated [ANTT 24r].

In 3.3, I showed how Joana's construction of*saudade*is also related to rapture ('arrombamento') and the tenderness and tearful experience of the encounter with the God-Man. This experience is of both mourning and desire, joy and sickness, body and lack. The waiting for redemption is always *in* and *for* time. *Saudade* becomes

<sup>65</sup> Borges, *A Saudade como via da Liberação,* 88.

<sup>66</sup> Borges, *A Saudade como via da Liberação*, 102–103.

<sup>67</sup> Paulo Borges, "Do Bem de Nada ser. Supra-existência, aniquilamento e deificação em Margarida Porete," accessed October 31, 2012, http://pauloborgesnet.files.wordpress.com /2010/03/do-bem-de-nada-ser.pdf. See also Borges, *"Ser ateu graças a Deus ou de como ser pobre é não haver menos que o Infinito. A-teísmo, a-teologia e an-arquia mística no sermão 'Beati pauperes spiritu…' de Mestre Eckhart*," in *Philosophica* 21 (2003): 61–77, accessed October 31, 2012 http://pauloborgesnet.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/do-bem-de-nada-ser.pdf.

a deadly loving anxiousness because Joana acknowledges her subjectivity and the God-Man's humanity.

Joana's usage of *saudade* does not contribute to a deeper reflection on the *time* of the subject: for her it is just a longing, a memory, a mourning for something that is lacking. However,*saudade* in connection with anxiousness brings out another dynamic of time. Joana, simultaneously,misses a *place* and expects a *time* of union. Her subjectivity is constructed around this suspense: tracking down something lost, remembering it, expecting, and almost giving birth (by revelation) to future actions (being the hopeful founder of a new reformed House, which was never realized.). Again, here lies the future contingent of action: the possibility of being *something* or even being *all.*

The anxiousness, urgency, and voraciousness felt regarding her contact with God conducted Joana to the greatest of all feelings, even beyond *saudade*: instead of joy, desire, longing, memory, future, progress, health, or salvation (all constituents of *saudade*), Joana accounts for a *tremendous* abandonment.

emtrou a Quaresma e loguo em a <segunda> somana me deu hum acidente dos que me custumão a dar das cinco oras e juntamente com aquele grande trabalho extirior se me ajuntou huma teribilidade imterior tão grande, que me paricia estava deixada de Deos e esta deixação causa<va>-me humas raivas e desesperação que toda me fasia pedaços. [ANTT 105r]

In the second week of Lent, I was given an accident which usually lasted for five hours, and together with that great exterior hardship gathered such interior terribleness it seemed I was left by God and this leavingness caused me such wrath and despair that it tore me apart. [ANTT 105r]

Here we see that *saudade* continued to be crucial in Portuguese philosophical debate right up until the present day. Could Joana's ancias (anxiousness) contribute to this debate?Moreover,if the Portuguese vocabulary of*saudade* contributes to a specificity (and openness) of Portuguese philosophy, as we have seen, could this be also seen in ancias? Could Joana indeed be 'the Portuguese Nun', beyond the character, myth, and fiction that marked an autonomous subject, as in *Letters of Mariana* or the *New Portuguese Letters* of the feminist writers?

\*

#### **4.5. Final Remarks on the Anxious Subject**

In this reflective chapter, I questioned both contemporary philosophers and Joana de Jesus. How far could Joana's anxiousness aid in recognizing the presence and inscription of a subjectivity? My objective here was not to provide a positive answer or an anachronistic or genealogical dialogue; I rather aimed to invite readers of contemporary philosophy to read and dialogue with Joana de Jesus.

In the first place, I questioned de Beauvoir's conception of transcendence in relation to the dichotomy she established between Teresa and Guyon. If we position Joana de Jesus between the two female mystics and take into account her notion of *patiating* that underlies anxiousness, we may contribute to a rethinking of the surplus value de Beauvoir is so eager to obtain for female emancipation.

Secondly, I juxtapose Luce Irigaray's remembering of air in Heidegger's thought by seeing this as an act of mourning for a lost philosophical tradition. In her reading, the Belgian philosopher searches for the immanence for which air is both the main symbol and literal constituent. By criticizing the male philosophical tradition of ignoring the abyss and vertigo, Irigaray takes refuge in the ingathering and mystical experience of the blossom 'without a why'. Joana de Jesus, on the other hand, perceives (the lack of) air in the somatic experience of anxiousness. For the Cistercian nun, air becomes the possibility of the encounter with the Divine matter that, not being erected, is resurrected, and shares with her the possibility of female redemption through a participative daughtership.

Thirdly, I turn to the Portuguese philosophical debate around *saudade*. This feeling of mourning, greeting, loss, love, and sadness has been directed either to the past or to the future. It has always been a discourse of time, wherein the identity of Portugal itself plays a role. With Joana's anxiousness, the time of *saudade* becomes a moment of bodily expectation, urgency, and even voraciousness. It is a time that conducts an expectant (pregnant) salvation that is felt at every moment. Anxiousness, together with *saudade*, becomes almost a project of *desassossego* (disquietness), and could be inscribed in Portuguese philosophical tradition as it has been in the feminist tradition.

*Senti-me inquieto já. De repente, o silêncio deixara de respirar. I felt already unquiet. Suddenly, the silence had ceased to breathe.*

*Bernardo Soares/Fernando Pessoa, O Livro do Desassossego (The Book of Disquiet)*

## **EPILOGUE – THINKING ANXIOUSNESS**

This study aims to investigate the notion of anxiousness in the narrative of the Portuguese Cistercian nun, Joana de Jesus.This endeavor was an interdisciplinary effort that crossed histories of concepts and ideas, mysticism, theology, feminist theory, and Portuguese philosophy, and which was based upon the autobiographical texts of Joana Freire de Albuquerque, also known as Joana de Jesus. My main goal was to contextualize, analyze, and think about the notion of ancias (anxiousness), which Joana de Jesus presents in an unsystematic way throughout her work.

In the introduction, I presented the goal of studying Joana de Jesus and discussed previous scholarship done around early modern women mystics and recollection mysticism in Portugal. Likewise, I displayed a theoretical framework within history, philosophy, and feminist theory that enabled me to give a contextualized and contemporary reading of Joana de Jesus. Frijhoff 's *appropriation* and de Certeau's *poaching* were notions that made possible the reassessing of seventeenth-century Cistercian Portuguese mysticism together with Francophone feminist theory and Portuguese theories of *saudade* (yearning, desire).

The first chapter provided an overview of Joana de Jesus' life in seventeenth-century Portugal and her family background: her familial ties to the Cistercian order and low nobility status in a homeland subjugated by Spain. I have also described her reception, which occurred mainly through the eighteenth-century *Hagiologium* and the nineteenth-century monograph on the nuns of Lorvão.Here I have also dealt with the question of the classification of Joana's text. Abandoning the autobiography as a possible genre, I tried to demonstrate that the category of self-writing could be the most helpful to describe Joana de Jesus' corpus. The mystical hearing of the God-Man's body and reading Teresa de Jesus' work allowed Joana to acquire her own signature and develop a writing of gendered subjectivity. Likewise, in Joana de Jesus' writing both the spirit of Augustine and the 'quietist' prayer tone of Madame de Guyon could be felt.

I have placed Joana de Jesus' self-narrative within the context of the Iberian mysticism of Teresa of Ávila and Luis de Granada, the direct sources of her recollection mysticism. In this current of thought, recollection could be seen as: 1) a psychological faculty (memory) based on 'Northern' mysticism and the conflicting distinction of 'affective' and 'speculative' mysticism derived from Gerson's approach to mysticism; 2) a social and religious movement within the Catholic Reformation that was also seen in the Cistercian Order; and 3) a religious although individual movement of 'Recollects'(houses) where religious women such as Joana could develop their own networks of power and sociability.

Throughout the four sections of the third chapter, "Situations of Anxiousness," I have analyzed the excerpts in which Joana deals with a possible construction of anxiousness. In the first section, I searched the Latin tradition of 'anxietas' and authors closer to Joana who have worked with such a notion. In the second section, I systematized the language of encounter in which Joana thinks of the dogmas of *filiatio*, Incarnation, and Trinity. In the third section, I commented upon her imagery of anxiousness,in which the notion of 'patiating' bestows another possibility of agency. Finally, in the fourth section, I showed how her visionary experiences also contain a revelatory need and a gnoseological performance, where her own singular subjectivity is achieved alongside her participation in the saints' lives and, in particular, in the Mariological cult.

I have concluded my research with a chapter on Joana's possible contribution to contemporary questions on the presence of subjectivity in both French-speaking feminists and Portuguese philosophy on *saudade*. Anxiousness can be seen as a new concept in dialogue with the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray, where these philosophers discuss subjectivity, freedom, value, authorship, transcendence, nature,and the body asmore or less related tomystical experience. Likewise, the several theories of *saudade* provided a cultural grounding to anxiousness, which could be seen as another contribution to the theories of time: a time that mourns not the past or a future to come, as *saudade* does, but instead is an urgent and bodily anxious-to-You *now*. Anxiousness enhances a subjectivity that is in constant search and remembrance of eternal salvation in the instant of desire. Anxiousness overcomes and turns the *saudoso* subject – the one who is looking to the past or to the future – into a redemptive and expectant present, where now the impossible becomes tangible.

My main objective here was to show that Joana de Jesus, the seventeenth-century Portuguese Cistercian, could be read with and after contemporary feminist theory and Portuguese philosophy – two alternative philosophical traditions that persist in rethinking the subject respectively as a sexual composite and as a vernacular-bound referent. I do hope that Joana's work, albeit unknown, can somehow evoke seemingly new (though also already known) questions that still stir twenty-first century philosophy.

## **GLOSSARY**



## **BIBLIOGRAPHY**

#### **Manuscripts**


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#### **Research Centres cited**


## **INDEX**

#### **A**

Abraham (biblical character), 144 absence, 30, 37, 151, 152, 154, 160, 181, 194, 199, 204, 216, 217, 221–223 abyss, 168, 213–217, 219, 225, 248 Aelred of Rievelaux, 149, 165, 167, 211, 231 affliction, 16, 17, 159, 178, 229 agency, 37, 62, 89, 116, 129, 130, 141, 196, 202, 206, 211, 228 Agnes, Martyr, 185 air, 17, 37, 163, 183, 201, 213, 215–219, 225, 230, 247 Albuquerque, António de, 43 Albuquerque, Inês de, 50, 116 Albuquerque, Lopo Vaz de, 43 Albuquerque, Sebastiana de, 50 Alcoforado, Mariana, 13, 21 Almeida, Teresa de, 20 alumbrados, alumbradism, 26, 119, 244, 258 Amaral, Alberto do, 63, 117, 181, 189, 190 anachronism, 203 Anastácio, Vanda, 20, 21, 45 Andrade, Cristóvão Freire de, 62, 117 anguish, 17, 85, 127, 207, 214, 218 annihilation, 24, 86, 98, 163, 206, 212, 229 Anselm of Canterbury, 194 anxiety, 17, 125–127, 197, 214, 229, 249

apontamentos, 45, 61, 64, 80, 83, 231 apophatic, 178, 181, 223 appropriating, 34, 35, 201 Aquinas, Thomas, 27, 67, 126, 127, 132, 262 Arendt, Hannah, 205, 212, 263 Aristotle, 67, 158, 162, 181, 233, 238, 258 asceticism, 208 Assumpção, Lino de, 48, 49, 71, 138 Augustine, Saint, 69, 81, 82, 84, 87, 95, 129, 132, 135, 154, 181, 227, 238, 252 authorship, co-authorship, 36, 40, 51, 53–55, 59, 62, 64, 79, 204, 228 autohagiography, 36, 40, 53, 54, 87

#### **B**

Baptista, Clemência, 29 Bataille, Georges, 33, 134, 234, 240 Beata de Piedrahita, 70 Beatrice of Nazareth, 97, 203 Beauvoir, Simone de, 30, 32, 33, 37, 200, 201, 203–205, 228, 234, 263, 265 Bellini, Lígia, 22, 234, 235 Benedict XIV, Pope, 46, 66 Bernard of Clairvaux, 96, 125, 145, 165, 168, 178, 179, 211, 235, 249 Bernardes, Manuel, 28, 240 Blaise, Saint, 116

Blois, Louis de, 28 Blonstein, Anne, 202 Bluteau, Raphael, 124, 151 Bollandists, 67 book of Baruch, 125 Boon, Jessica A., 26, 171, 236 Borges, Nelson Correia, 49, 50, 55, 133, 138, 236 Borges, Paulo, 30, 201, 222, 223, 237 Bossuet, 86 Botelho, Afonso, 152, 220, 221, 237 Bourignon, Antoinette, 53, 77, 87, 110, 111, 148, 233, 251 Boym, Svetlana, 221, 222, 237 Brandão, Francisco de, 83, 119, 121 Brazil, 42, 109, 113, 177 Breton, Stanislas, 141, 237, 249 Bridget of Sweden, 100 Briolanja de Santa Clara, 29 Burton, Robert, 162, 238 Butler, 202 Bynum, Caroline Walker, 51, 149, 165, 167, 238

#### **C**

Caetano de Sousa, António, 48 Calvin, John, 125 Campos Júnior, António, 49, 238 Cardinal Dom Henrique, 43, 56 Cardoso, Jorge, 48, 238, 243 Carnation Revolution, 13 Carvalho, José Adriano Freitas de, 28, 234, 239 Cassiodorus, 125, 239 Castelo-Branco, Antónia Margarida / Clara do Santíssimo Sacramento, 21, 22 cataphatic, 181, 223 Catherine of Braganza, 9, 42 Catherine of Siena, 202 Catholic Reformation, 36, 42, 70, 228

Certeau, Michel de, 30, 31, 34, 54, 55, 85, 86, 90, 106, 239 Chagas, António, 28 Charcot, 49 Cixous, Hélène, 201, 203, 240 Clement, Pope, 56 Coakley, Sarah, 171, 218, 219, 240 Coimbra, 15, 23, 24, 26, 41, 43–45, 47, 49, 50, 57, 62, 63, 66, 79, 114, 117–121, 133, 137, 140, 142, 144, 221, 233, 236, 241, 252, 254, 258, 259 Coimbra, Leonardo, 221 communion, 93, 95, 134, 171, 174, 210, 219 Conceição, António da, 15, 42, 120 Costa, Joana Luisa da, 138 Cronus, Diodorus, 67 Cruz, Isabel da, 70 Cruz, Maria da, 11, 107–113, 122, 177, 193, 231, 255 Cunha, Mafalda Férin, 151

#### **D**

D. António, Prior do Crato, 43 daughtership, 37, 132, 155, 197, 225 demonology, 160 depositum fidei, 84 Derrida, Jacques, 33, 39, 85, 203, 218, 241, 263 desire, 14, 31, 33, 62, 69, 72, 76, 85, 87, 95, 104, 106, 118, 121, 124, 126–128, 135, 148, 151, 155, 160, 163, 170, 171, 173, 174, 178, 180, 183, 191, 196, 197, 203, 209, 217, 221–224, 227, 228 Devotio Moderna, 27, 102, 210, 242 Di Salvo, 26, 241 Dias, José Sebastião da Silva, 24, 241 discernment, 67, 100, 117 dispensatio, 188 disquietness, 124, 225

dogmatics, 82 Dom Duarte, 151, 220, 221 dowry, 42, 44, 123, 147, 148, 155, 197, 211

#### **E**

Ecclesiastes, 125 ecstasy, 53, 61, 155 Elisha (biblical character), 93 emancipation, 200, 205, 206, 208, 209, 225 embodiment, 33, 36, 48, 134, 177 embrace, 58, 132, 135–137, 139, 144, 146, 147, 185, 212, 229, 230 England, 19, 42, 52, 59, 94, 112, 113, 212, 234, 260, 264 Eucharist, 25, 91, 94, 95, 188 events, 15, 35, 52, 65–67, 83, 129, 154, 197, 209 evil, 126, 220 excessive, 60, 136, 140, 141, 164, 170, 178–180, 249 exemplarism, 56, 58, 82 Existentialism, 32, 205, 242 expectation, 221, 223, 225

#### **F**

family, 14, 15, 43, 44, 62, 69, 73, 103, 113, 114, 116, 118, 122, 144, 152, 176, 177, 184, 199, 223, 227 fatherland, 152, 223 feminist waves, second, third, 33 Filiatio (sonship), 69, 123, 131, 132, 134, 136, 163, 164, 174, 177, 191, 197, 198, 212, 218, 219, 228 Fiori, Joachim, 173 Foligno, Angela, 166, 203 France, 13, 25, 52, 53, 97, 103, 105, 239, 241, 243, 255, 256, 258 Francisco Suárez, 67 Franco, 16, 17, 25, 244 freedom, 127, 205–209, 213, 214, 228

Freire, Mateus de Albuquerque, 43 Freud, 49, 202

#### **G**

Gabriel de Avé Maria, 63, 64, 80 Gerson, Jean, 99–102, 117, 243, 244, 253, 256 Gertrude of Helfta, 28, 165 gift, 63, 76, 144–147, 149–151, 154, 173, 177, 183, 197, 211, 212, 217 givenness, 147, 149, 150, 155, 197, 211 Gomes, Belchior, 107 Greenspan, Kate, 53, 245 Gregory of Nyssa, 219 Gregory the Great, 125, 126, 245 grief, 151 Grundman, Herbert, 51 Gusmão, Luisa de, 42 Guyon, Jeanne/ Madame Guyon, 32, 49, 86, 203, 210, 238, 245

#### **H**

Hadewijch, 18, 55, 97, 171, 176, 178, 180, 203, 211, 215, 236, 237, 245, 252–254, 256, 259, 260 Hahn, Juergen, 141, 245 Hallet, Nicky, 54, 245 health, 115, 152, 154–156, 158, 165, 222, 224 Hegel, 201 Heidegger, 37, 201, 213–216, 219, 225, 246, 247 Henriques, Afonso, 50 heresy, 23, 49 Herp, Hendrik, 28 Herpoel, Sonja, 59, 246 Hilary of Poitiers, 125 holes, 81, 84, 155, 165, 230 Hollywood, Amy, 30, 33, 40, 53, 81, 92, 96, 98, 130, 134, 135, 149, 165, 192, 203, 208, 211, 213, 222,

238, 246, 247, 250, 252, 253, 261 Holy Sacrament, 22 Holy Spirit, 11, 57, 63, 66, 83, 120, 132, 145, 163, 170, 173, 177, 218, 219, 261 horizontality, 135

#### **I**

imitatio Christi, 24, 56, 101, 130, 210, 212 immanence, 200, 204, 205, 209, 213, 222, 225 incarnation, 213, 254 intersubjectivity, 209, 212, 219 Irigaray, Luce, 30, 32, 33, 37, 81, 165, 200, 201, 203, 213, 215, 219, 225, 228, 245–248, 252, 254

#### Italy, 52

#### **J**

Jantzen, Grace M., 215 Joan of Arc, 32, 100, 163, 222, 242, 246, 253 John of the Cross, 16, 31, 123, 127, 128, 207, 217, 248 John the Baptist, 116, 177 Johnson, Elisabeth, 218 Josefa de Óbidos, 133, 260

#### **K**

Kieckhefer, Richard, 53, 71, 248 Kierkegaard, 214, 249 kiss, 49, 76, 145, 178–180 knowledge, 18, 22, 24, 33, 35, 36, 40, 54, 55, 58–60, 78, 79, 81, 82, 86, 90, 96, 98, 99, 101, 106, 115, 123, 128, 133, 135, 144, 145, 149, 152, 153, 155, 168–171, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180–183, 185, 187, 195–197, 199, 202, 207, 215, 220, 222, 223, 230 Kristeva, Julia, 201, 237, 249

#### **L**

Lacan, Jacques, 33, 203 Lacey, Antonia, 202, 249 Laredino, Bernardino, 24 Lectio divina, 74, 210, 258 Lerner, Gerda, 199, 200, 250 Lima, Sílvio, 19, 49, 50, 242, 250 Lisboa, 9, 22, 23, 29, 42, 44–46, 48, 50, 63, 72, 103, 104, 107–109, 111, 117, 119, 125, 142, 177, 181, 193, 220, 222, 231, 238–240, 242, 244, 254–256, 260, 263 logic of signification, 68 Lombard, Peter, 27 Lorvão, 12, 15, 19, 41–45, 48–50, 55–57, 62, 63, 71, 73–75, 77, 83, 87, 90, 103–106, 112–119, 121, 133, 134, 138, 139, 142–144, 148, 184, 186, 211, 223, 227, 231, 233, 236, 237, 250, 251, 253, 259, 260 love, 13, 14, 16, 19, 22, 36, 49, 60, 64, 71, 73, 76, 78, 80, 85, 86, 90, 93, 95–97, 99, 106, 110, 115, 121, 123, 128, 132, 134–136, 139, 140, 145–148, 150, 152, 155, 160, 164, 170, 172, 175–181, 184, 185, 187, 190, 193, 197, 199, 206, 207, 213, 216, 219, 221, 225, 248 Low Countries, 54 Lucia, martyr, 53, 185, 235 Luís de Granada, 24, 91, 244, 250, 251

#### **M**

Machado, Diogo de Barbosa, 121 Madalena da Glória, 21 Madalena de Castro, Abbess, 116 Madame de Maintenon, 86 Madame de Sevigné, 13 Malachia, Saint, 184, 186

Maria Antónia do Espírito Santo, 108 Maria da Assunção, 22 Maria da Visitação, 29, 66, 244 Maria das Chagas, 50, 251 Maria de Almeida, 108 Maria de Carvalho, Abbess, 116 Maria de Santo Domingo, 27 Maria do Céu, 21, 178, 238, 254 Maria do Domingo, 70 Maria Nunes de Andrade, 43 Mariana da Purificação, 22 Mariana do Lado, 29 Mariana do Rosário, 22 Márquez, Antonio, 25, 252 Marquilhas, Rita, 73, 124, 252 Martin, Melquiades Andrés, 24 Marx, 201, 205, 206, 252 Mary of Agreda, 67 Mathewes, C., 82, 252 Matthew, Apostle, 63, 77, 143, 169 McAvoy, Liz Herbert, 77, 83, 255 McFague, Sally, 218 McGinn, Bernard, 18, 23, 30, 31, 33, 96, 97, 101, 102, 249, 252, 253 Mechthild of Hackeborn, 28 Mechthild of Magdeburg, 19, 33, 97, 98, 203, 247, 252, 253 Megarian School, 67 Meister Eckhart, 18, 33, 98, 202, 203, 247, 252, 253 melancholia, 127, 162, 201, 249 Melo, Francisco Manuel de, 152, 220, 221 memory, 90, 91, 94–96, 136, 154, 181, 206, 222–224, 227, 230 metanoia, 158 method, 31, 40, 91, 93, 169, 203, 209, 210 Mexico, 24, 52, 83, 232, 234, 240, 249 Mignolo, Walter, 202, 254 minne, 97, 98 Mioma, Sátão, 11, 15, 40, 41, 43, 62, 105, 113, 142, 233

moans, 129, 150 modus loquendi, 90, 106, 128, 129 Moiteiro, Gilberto, 23, 254 Molinos, Miguel, 23, 87, 261 Monastery of Celas, 138 Monastery of Lorvão, 45, 50, 73, 138, 186 Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, 44 monastic hysteria, 49 Morgan, Ben, 202, 254 Morujão, Isabel, 21, 45, 254 mourning, 14, 37, 123, 151, 154, 155, 160, 183, 215, 219, 220, 223–225 Mulder-Bakker, Anneke, 53, 76, 77, 83, 188, 255, 256 Murk-Jansen, Saskia, 18 mystagogy, 54 mysticism, Iberian mysticism, recollection mysticism, northern mysticism, 15, 18, 19, 23, 25–30, 32–34, 36, 49, 87, 89, 96, 98–101, 106, 113, 117, 121, 123, 125, 128, 135, 141, 163, 171, 175, 197, 198, 201, 206–208, 218, 223, 227, 239, 242, 264

#### **N**

nau, 140, 141, 197 Nicholas of Esch, 28 Nisse, Nicolau de, 67 Notebook, 9, 15, 40, 45–48, 58, 64, 65, 80, 87, 105, 112, 116, 119, 192 notice, 36, 60, 63, 74, 76, 83, 104, 118, 153, 164, 167, 170, 180–184, 193, 196, 197, 199, 223, 230 Novas Cartas Portuguesas, 13, 234 Nygren, Anders, 96, 255

#### **O**

observance, 23, 89, 90, 103 Officium, 118, 185

Økland, Jorunn, 202, 203, 208, 236, 265 Oratorian, 28 Osuna, Francisco de, 27, 93, 94, 99, 243

#### **P**

Pacho, Eulogio, 27, 99 parecer, 82, 114, 143 Pascoaes, Teixeira de, 221, 256, 261 pathos, 157, 158 patiate, patiating, 17, 37, 94, 104, 130, 143, 149, 154, 157–161, 198, 204, 211, 212, 225, 228, 230 patiency, 37, 212, 213, 220 Paul, Apostle, 36, 59, 93, 94, 96, 145, 156, 158, 178, 202, 203, 206, 208, 214, 245, 248, 254, 259, 262–265 peregrination, 141–144 Pereira, Dalila da Costa, 222 Pinto, Fernão Mendes, 141 Plato, 95, 257, 260 pneumatology, 171, 218, 219, 247 poaching, 34, 35, 201, 227 Poerete, Margerite, 203 Portugal, 13, 15, 19–24, 26–28, 36, 40–44, 48, 50, 56, 57, 70, 73, 87, 89, 91, 96, 101, 103, 105, 107–109, 111, 114, 120, 127, 129, 133, 140, 177, 187, 188, 193, 199, 221, 222, 225, 227, 231–239, 241, 243, 244, 251–253, 255, 256, 258, 260–263 potencies of the soul, 89, 91, 96, 98 Poutrin, Isabelle, 29, 70, 113, 116, 257 prayer, 17, 24, 26, 27, 31, 40, 63, 73, 74, 76, 80, 84–87, 91–94, 96, 99, 111, 118, 128, 144, 146, 161, 162, 165, 168, 169, 175, 176, 179, 199, 204, 205, 209–212, 227, 232 Purgatory, 22, 109, 116

#### **Q**

quietism, 49, 128, 208

#### **R**

Rapley, Elizabeth, 105, 258 raptures, 41, 67 Reader, Soran, 212, 258 recogimiento, 92 recolhimento, 84, 89, 90, 108, 172, 189 Recollect, 11, 15, 41, 44, 64, 66, 68, 69, 89, 103, 104, 106–113, 116–119, 121, 143, 144, 148, 177, 185, 192, 211 recollected, 36, 75, 89–93, 95, 98, 102, 104, 106, 121, 153, 158, 176, 185, 187, 199 recollection. see recollected, recogimiento, recolhimento, 24–27, 30, 36, 82, 84–86, 89–96, 98–101, 104, 106, 109, 117, 121–123, 127, 154, 165, 172, 176, 177, 181, 189, 199, 218, 227, 236 revelations, 45, 53, 62, 65, 66, 120, 182, 195, 196 Ribeiro, António Vítor, 26, 258 Rosa Maria do Menino Jesus, 22 Ruh, Kurt, 97, 259

#### **S**

sadness, 125–127, 151, 225 Saint Bernard/ Bernard of Clarvaiux, 15, 45, 57, 66, 104, 119, 184, 190, 192 Saint Michael, Archangel, 62, 85 saintliness, 45, 52, 53, 113, 130, 149, 155, 184, 197 salutation, 152, 154, 155 salvation, 22, 64, 80, 84, 136, 139, 147, 152, 154, 155, 164, 170, 171, 191, 209, 222, 224, 225, 228 Sancho I, 56

Sara (biblical character), 72 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 134, 206, 214, 240, 259, 263 saudade, 30, 33, 36, 37, 140, 151, 152, 154, 155, 162, 197, 200, 201, 204, 220–225, 227, 228, 237, 239 saudosismo, 221, 237 Scaramelli, Giovanni Battista, 127, 128, 259 Scott-Warren, Jason, 112, 113, 260 Sebastianism, 26, 221 Second Scholasticism, 19 Short, William, 26, 260 Silveira, Margarida da, 137 sin, 16, 73, 127, 161, 214, 215, 220, 240 Slee, Nicola, 218, 261 Song of Songs, 77, 79, 97, 99, 126, 168, 178, 219, 262 soul, 16, 17, 24, 26, 36, 59, 60, 63, 66, 67, 71, 76, 80, 83, 85, 86, 89–98, 100, 101, 104, 106, 116, 118, 121, 123, 126–128, 131, 132, 135, 140, 143, 145, 146, 150, 153, 154, 157, 158, 160–168, 170–175, 177, 178, 180, 183, 185, 187, 189, 195, 210, 221, 241, 248 Spain" 22–26, 28, 29, 42, 43, 52, 70, 160, 185, 227, 238, 240, 241, 245, 260, 261, 263, 264 spiritual autobiography, 40 Straatman, Bibi, 202 subjectivity, 14, 17, 30, 33, 34, 37, 39, 50, 55, 68, 79, 87, 129, 130, 150, 155, 163, 186, 196, 198, 199, 201, **T V**

224, 225, 227, 228 suffer, 130, 148, 159–161, 168, 198, 206, 230

204–206, 208, 209, 214, 222,

Suso, Henry, 28

Tauler, John, 28 Tavares, Pedro Villas-Boas, 23, 87, 261 tears, 23, 112, 143, 147, 150, 152, 164 Telles, Bernarda Menezes de, 56 Teresa of Ávila/ Teresa de Jesus, 14, 24, 32, 40, 43, 59, 69–72, 86, 90–93, 99, 121, 150, 154, 161, 168, 171, 197, 201, 203, 204, 207, 210, 227, 237, 257, 262 theo-eroticism, 19, 51 Thomas a Kempis, 28 Tillich, Paul, 214, 262 Tomé de Jesus, 28 Toscano, Sebastião, 28 transcendence, 32, 37, 79, 127, 135, 139, 160, 200, 203–211, 213, 222, 225, 228, 247 tremendous, 136, 224 Tridentine, 19, 50, 70, 129, 133 Trinity, 22, 60, 82, 92, 123, 131, 134, 167, 171–174, 177, 193, 198, 199, 218, 219, 228, 237, 240, 243, 247, 257, 261, 264 Turjeiro, Francisca Vasconcellos, 108 Turner, Denys, 97–99, 262

#### **U**

urgency, 37, 135–137, 160, 181–183, 223–225 Ursula, Saint, 185, 186, 255

Vasconcelos, Vivardo de, 12, 15, 41, 114, 115, 189, 192 vernacular theology, 18 verticality, 139 vertigo, 213–216, 225 Vieira, António, 72 vinculum, 137, 144, 190, 197 Violante do Céu, 21

visions, 11, 15, 22, 24, 29, 41, 45, 48, 49, 54, 55, 66, 82, 100, 109, 113, 114, 117, 124, 134, 164, 176, 178, 187, 191, 197, 211, 223 void, 31, 214, 216 volo, 85, 129 voraciousness, 16, 154, 213, 224, 225

#### **W**

Weber, Alison, 52, 59, 70, 150, 160, 257, 264 William of Saint Thierry, 59, 81, 96, 126, 154, 264 Wray, Ramona, 62, 264

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