It is not so long ago that mysticism was a dirty word, the Reformation was regarded as a ‘good thing’, and a scientific education was seen as having more value than one in the ‘humanities’. But fashions change, and even genuine perspectives alter. The current fortunes of St John of the Cross are an example of what can happen and will repay examination, for this mystic, poet, and outstanding representative of Counter-Reformation Spain is again becoming popular and arousing interest. Lectures about him are attended eagerly and received with enthusiasm; books once again are being published about him.

But there is danger in this if what is happening is simply a reversion to earlier perspectives. One suspects this, for example, with regard to the reappearance from the early 1950s of Thomas Merton’s introduction to and presentation of the Maxims, Cautions and Counsels of St John of the Cross (Counsels of Light and Love, Burns & Oates, 95 pages, £1.50). Perhaps this book represents the most attractive of old-style presentations of John and his teaching, based as it is on a liberal humanism tailored to the inadequacies of modern urbanised man; but whether it really represents what John stood for is another matter. Apart from anything else, as with so much that has been written about him, it suffers from an almost total failure to take account of the appropriate context. The lesser writings of St John of the Cross presented in this book, as also his letters, arose from a very particular cultural and social situation which must be appreciated if the nature and significance of his ‘advice’ is to be understood. Even more perhaps than with his major works it is necessary to realise that these writings were addressed to particular people, or groups of people, in very special circumstances, and are dependent upon a very close relationship between him and them.