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Between the Mystical Savage and the Angelic Doctor: Jacques Maritain's Mystical Theology Revisited
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 June 2022
Abstract
De la vie d'oraison is an early and neglected work by Jacques Maritain. Exploring its major themes and biographical context reveals a tension in Maritain between his commitment to orthodox Catholic mystical theology and his belief in his godfather Léon Bloy's unique, tripartite vocation of lay mystic, prophet, and artist. This tension, I argue, has been overlooked due to Maritain's public image as an esteemed Thomist philosopher, but becomes clear when we study Maritain's defense of Bloy, especially in his dialogues with his Dominican peers and church authorities. I suggest that this tension reveals two deep-seated convictions at work in Maritain's life and writings. The first is that the reasons for the necessity of lay Catholic mysticism, and the diverse forms it may take, need to be spelled out more clearly. The second is that for Maritain, his godfather is an exemplar of such lay Catholic mysticism. Understanding Maritain's reasons for these convictions can open up a pathway for Catholic mystical theology to better accommodate and conceptualize alternative forms of mystical life among laypeople whose mystical and artistic experiences spill over traditional theological categories.
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References
1 The English translation of the book's title is Prayer and Intelligence. I refer to the original French title of the work because I am mainly concerned with Maritain's mystical theology rather than his epistemology or philosophy of education, as the English title may suggest.
2 Maritain, Jacques, Notebooks, trans. Evans, Joseph (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1984), 147Google Scholar.
3 Jacques Maritain and Raïssa Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, trans. Algar Thorold (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1928; Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2016), 20. Citations refer to the Cluny edition.
4 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 23–24.
5 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 20–21.
6 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 3–4.
7 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Christian Perfection and Contemplation According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (London: B. Herder Book Co., 1946), 16–21.
8 Garrigou-Lagrange, Christian Perfection and Contemplation According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross, 17–18.
9 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 8; Jacques Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald B. Phelan (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 367.
10 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 9.
11 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 13 (emphasis in the original).
12 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 12.
13 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 93.
14 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 382.
15 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 3–4; Saint John of the Cross, “The Spiritual Canticle,” in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, ed. and trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), stanza 22, 560.
16 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 13.
17 Saint John of the Cross, quoted in Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 27. The Maritains do not indicate which text of Sain John of the Cross they are quoting.
18 Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ II-II, q. 182, a. 1, ad 3, quoted in Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 17.
19 Raïssa Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together, trans. Julie Kernan (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., Inc., 1942), 76.
20 Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together, 87.
21 Claude Lorentz, “Jacques et Raïssa Maritai: origines, itinéraires,” in Maritain et les artistes: Rouault, Cocteau, Chagall…, ed. Claude Laurentz (Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg, 2016), 27.
22 Léon Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, ed. Raïssa Maritain, trans. John Coleman and Harry Lorin Binsse (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1947; Tacoma, WA: Cluny Media, 2017), 164, Kindle. Citations refer to the Cluny Kindle edition.
23 Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 235 (emphasis in original).
24 Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 241.
25 Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 33 (emphasis in original).
26 Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together, 105.
27 Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together, 120.
28 Jacques Maritain, Untrammeled Approaches, trans. Bernard E. Doering (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 29.
29 Cornelia. A. Tsakiridou, “Spiritual Expressionism: Léon Bloy, the Maritains, and the Mystery of Israel,” in Redeeming Philosophy: From Metaphysics to Aesthetics, ed. John J. Conley (Washington, DC: American Maritain Association and The Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 210.
30 Maritain, Notebooks, 145.
31 Maritain, Notebooks, 293.
32 Maritain, Notebooks, 144, 290.
33 William A. Hinnebusch, Dominican Spirituality: Principles and Practice (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1965; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014), 16. Citations refer to the Wipf and Stock edition.
34 Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ II-II, q. 180, a. 2, co, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: R. & T. Washbourne, 1920), https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3180.htm#23article4.
35 Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ II-II, q. 180, a. 2, ad 2; a. 4, co.
36 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 18.
37 Jean-Luc Barré, Jacques and Raïssa Maritain: Beggars for Heaven, trans. Bernard E. Doering (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 93.
38 Raïssa Maritain, Adventures in Grace, trans. Julie Kernan (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1945), 10.
39 Barré, Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, 136–37.
40 Maritain, Notebooks, 68.
41 Barré, Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, 93.
42 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 1.
43 Humbert of Romans, Opera de vita regulari, quoted in Hinnebusch, Dominican Spirituality, 100. Hinnebusch does not specify the location of the quote in Opera de vita regulari.
44 Maritain, Notebooks, 287.
45 Jacques Maritain and Jean Cocteau, Art and Faith, trans. John Coleman (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1948), 108.
46 Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, “Léon Bloy and Jacques Maritain: Fratres in Eremo,” in Understanding Maritain: Philosopher and Friend, ed. Deal W. Hudson and Matthew J. Mancini (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), 89.
47 Humbert Clérissac to Jacques Maritain, December 25, 1911 (my translation). I wish to offer my sincere thanks to Claude Lorentz, curator of the Maritain archives at the Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire (BNU), Strasbourg, for facilitating access to many of the extant letters sent to Maritain by his interlocutors, and to Florian Michel, vice president of the French Maritain Association, for his kind permission to quote this particular letter by Humbert Clérissac.
48 Humbert Clérissac to Jacques Maritain, December 25, 1911 (my translation).
49 Maritain, Notebooks, 78, 86.
50 Maritain, Notebooks, 87.
51 Maritain, Notebooks, 95–96.
52 Le Paysan de la Garonne. Un Vieux Laïcs’ Interroge à propos du Temps Present (Paris: DDB, 1966) and Approches sans Entraves (Paris: A. Fayard, 1973). Here I cite the English translations: Jacques Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time, trans. Michael Cuddihy and Elizabeth Hughes (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968); Maritain, Untrammeled Approaches.
53 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 353–68.
54 See Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 231.
55 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 336, 338.
56 Leiva-Merikakis, “Léon Bloy and Jacques Maritain,” 72.
57 Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 241.
58 Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 294.
59 Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 294.
60 Jacques Maritain, quoted in Bernard E. Doering, Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 239. Doering locates the quote in a letter by Maritain published in Cahiers Jacques Maritain 2 (April 1981): 71–73.
61 Jacques Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xvii.
62 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 58.
63 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 58.
64 Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together, 152.
65 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 20. For the original quote, see Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, De la vie d'oraison (Saint-Maur: Editions Parole et Silence, 1998), 59.
66 Léon Bloy, The Woman Who Was Poor: A Contemporary Novel of the French ’Eighties, trans. I. J. Collins (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1939; South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2015), 88 (emphasis in original). Citations refer to the St. Augustine's edition.
67 Leiva-Merikakis, “Léon Bloy and Jacques Maritain,” 86.
68 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xv.
69 Jacques Maritain, “Lettre-préface,” in Georges Cattui, Léon Bloy (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1954), 7 (my translation). One should note that “poet” is Maritain's technical term for an artist in virtue of the fact that he employs the classical notion of poiesis for artistic inspiration and creativity, specifically denoting the “intercommunication between the inner being of things and the inner being of the human Self which is a kind of divination.” See Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York: New American Library, 1953), 3.
70 Jacques Maritain and Raïssa Maritain, Liturgy and Contemplation, trans. Joseph W. Evans (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1960), 24, 32–33, 45, 56.
71 Maritain and Maritain, Liturgy and Contemplation, 67–68.
72 Maritain and Maritain, Liturgy and Contemplation, 68.
73 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xix–xx.
74 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xix.
75 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute.
76 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 87–88.
77 Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 45.
78 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 404–05.
79 See 1 Corinthians 12:8–10.
80 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 404.
81 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge.
82 David Bentley Hart, “Foreword,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, vii.
83 Hart, “Foreword,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute.
84 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xvi.
85 See Leiva-Merikakis, “Léon Bloy and Jacques Maritain,” 79.
86 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xvii.
87 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xvii–xviii (emphasis in original).
88 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xviii.
89 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xix.
90 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xvii.
91 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xix.
92 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xvii.
93 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, 33 (emphasis in original).
94 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xxvii (emphasis in original).
95 Maritain, “Introduction,” in Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute, xxii–xxiii.
96 Maritain, Untrammeled Approaches, 27.
97 Maritain, Untrammeled Approaches, 235.
98 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 234–35.
99 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence, 75.
100 Maritain and Maritain, Prayer and Intelligence.
101 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 233.
102 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 196–97 (emphasis in original).
103 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 243.
104 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 196.
105 Maritain, We Have Been Friends Together, 199.
106 Ralph McInerny, “Maritain as Model of the Catholic Philosopher,” in Faith, Scholarship, and Culture in the 21st Century, ed. Alice Ramos and Marie L. George (Washington, DC: American Maritain Association, 2002), 194.
107 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 229.
108 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 229.
109 Jacques Maritain, The Range of Reason (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1953), 215.
110 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 367.
111 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 228–29.
112 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne.
113 Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, 231.
114 Maritain, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge, 298, 300; Maritain, Jacques, Man's Approach to God (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011), 25, 30Google Scholar; Maritain, Jacques, Art and Scholasticism with Other Essays, trans. Scanlan, J. F. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1930), 97Google Scholar. See also Trapani, John G., Poetry, Beauty and Contemplation: The Complete Aesthetics of Jacques Maritain (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 151, 159–60Google Scholar.
115 Paul Chu, “There Is No Power but Service and Charity,” Diocese of Bridgeport, January 24, 2019, https://www.bridgeportdiocese.org/there-is-no-power-but-service-and-charity/?fbclid=IwAR38FkZGgbxU_57-YtHNwnS73idtDsfCbnYQ4ggM_vi9gPH8CnEorcm7rXA.
116 Cole Matson, “Thoughts on an Institute of Consecrated Life Devoted to the Creation of Art and the Service of Artists,” 1 (unpublished material). I am grateful to Dr. Matson for sharing with me the foundational documents of the Servants of Christ in Beauty, which were reviewed by Bishop Stowe, as well as his kind permission to quote from and cite them.
117 Cole Matson, “Monastery of Christ in Beauty—Home of the Servants of Christ in Beauty,” 1 (unpublished material).
118 Cole Matson, “Help Wanted: Servants of Christ in Beauty,” 1 (unpublished material).
119 Matson, “Thoughts on an Institute of Consecrated Life Devoted to the Creation of Art and the Service of Artists,” 2.