E-Books →John of the Cross Desire, Transformation, and Selfhood

the Cross: Desire, Transformation, and Selfhood argues that these writings are animated by John's own creative and subtly conceptualized notion of erotic desire. John's understanding of desire has the potential to enrich recent theological discussion of the subject, but it has been curiously
neglected in past scholarship. To correct this lacuna, this study undertakes a detailed historical analysis in three parts. Firstly, it attends to the patristic, medieval, and sixteenth-century Spanish influences on John's writings, showing how John reworks a long tradition of biblical, Christian,
and Platonic reflection on the concept. Secondly, it traces the importance of desire through John's writings, demonstrating how he develops the theme through his poetry, his anthropology of the soul, and his account of the spiritual ascent. Thirdly, it explores the reception of his writings in the
twentieth century, demonstrating how particular modern philosophical and theological commitments have prevented scholars from recognising the rich and distinctive shape of John's theological vision. John's account of the transformation of the self, with its hopeful vision of the graced
transformation of the soul's desires, has significance beyond the constrained modern categories of systematic theology, Christian spirituality, pastoral theology, and mysticism-it is a vision that is worthy of recovery today.
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