Spanish Literature Commons^™

Plotinus And St. John Of The Cross: Concurrences And Divergencies, Elizabeth Wilhelmsen

Spanish Language and Literature

We propose to examine here two renowned champions of mysticism, Plotinus and St. John of the Cross. The former, the third-century Greek philosopher from Alexandria in northern Egypt, is the father of Neoplatonism. The latter, the sixteenth-century Castilian Carmelite, is known as reformer of his order, as theologian, as mystic, and as sublime poet of divine love. Both figures can be described, above all and specifically, as mystics: that is, as practitioners of mysticism and, at the same time, as theoreticians of mysticism. There is shared by both one dominating concern and objective: personal, experiential union with the transcendent Other, …