Addendum 5...On the writings/translations of St. John of the Cross...

 and the difficulties they can present to readers.

Again, St. John of the Cross was a true spiritual master who dove deeply into the ways we delude ourselves and risk a false spirituality unless these falsehoods eliminated. The problem for readers is the archaic Spanish of florid style, including for modern native Spanish speakers.

I recently had an internet discussion in a comment section with a seeker who gushed over a particular translation published by the Carmelite Studies house, so with great interest I looked into this translation.

I already had a bad feeling about it, as the seeker praised how it lacked the cloying sweetness of so many translations....I was polite enough to only thank them for the resource while refraining from saying that Castilian Spanish WAS sickeningly sweet and flowery, IF accurately translated, and lacking that, it is not a translation but, instead, an edited rewrite.

Looking up the information on the Carmelite translators (Fathers Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez) I found this as published by the Carmelites regarding the three editions of the translation published to date.

"(1st edition) , Fr. Otilio recommended to Fr. Kieran that he translate the writings of St. John of the Cross for Americans. Initially, Kieran resisted, claiming insufficient knowledge of Spanish. After Otilio reassured Kieran that St. John’s Spanish is not difficult and that, in addition, he would help him, the two friars began the translation in the fall of 1957. The translation proved more difficult than Fr. Otilio imagined. What he thought could be completed in a few months took five years." ...In short, they were far from qualified to translate archaic Spanish.

"(2nd Edition) In 1979, the Institute of Carmelite Studies published a second edition of the translation that included two hitherto unknown autograph letters of St. John discovered after 1964. In addition to stylistic and editorial improvements to the original translation..."....so, they found fault and did a rewrite.

"(3rd Edition) He (Kavanaugh) also revised the text, replacing the generic masculine with gender-neutral language, while preserving John’s references to God and Christ in masculine nouns and pronouns."....A feature of Spanish is that it has masculine and feminine nouns and pronouns, which even English shares in pronouns. Spanish also features forms of address to those familiar/equal, and a separate formal means of addressing strangers or superiors. So did English, but that has fallen into disuse in modern times, where formerly God was addressed as a definite superior. The original writer spoke this way, and to eliminate that is to eliminate a "translation" and instead provide an "edited rewrite".

These "translators"/writers may have meant well, and even done a fine job, but the normal reader has no assurance that this is actually what St. John said or even meant. I will reemphasize the fact that taking suspect spiritual advice can be incredibly dangerous.

If you wish to augment your spiritual studies with St. John of the Cross, do so with an accurate literal-as-possible translation. I would say this regarding any translation on any subject, including scripture.



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