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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
DURING the sixteen years which have elapsed since
the publication of the first edition, several
reprints have been issued, and the demand is now such
as to justify a complete resetting. I have taken
advantage of this opportunity to revise the text
throughout, and hope that in some of the more
difficult passages I may have come nearer than before
to the Saint's mind. Recent researches have
necessitated a considerable amplification of
introductions and footnotes and greatly increased the
length of the bibliography. The only modification
which has been made consistently throughout the three
volumes relates to St. John of the Cross's quotations
from Scripture. In translating these I still follow
him exactly, even where he himself is inexact, but I
have used the Douia Version (instead of the
Authorized, as in the first edition) as a basis for
all Scriptural quotations, as well as in the footnote
references and the Scriptural index in Vol. III.
Far more is now known of the life and times of St.
John of the Cross than when this translation of the
Complete Works was first published, thanks
principally to the Historia del Carmen Descalzo of P.
Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D, now General of his
Order, and to the admirably documented Life of the
Saint written by P. Cris�gono de Jesus Sacramentado,
C.D., and published (in Vida y Obras de San Juan de
la Cruz) in the year after his untimely death. This
increased knowledge is reflected in many additional
notes, and also in the 'Outline of the Life of St.
John of the Cross' (Vol. I, pp. xxv-xxviii), which,
for this edition, has been entirely recast.
References are given to my Handbook to the Life and
Times of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, which
provides much background too full to be reproduced in
footnotes and too complicated to be compressed. The
Handbook also contains numerous references to
contemporary events, omitted from the 'Outline' as
being too remote from the main theme to justify
inclusion in a summary necessarily so condensed. My
thanks for help in revision are due to kindly
correspondents, too numerous to name, from many parts
of the world, who have made suggestions for the
improvement of the first edition; to the Rev.
Professor David Knowles, of Cambridge University, for
whose continuous practical interest in this
translation I cannot be too grateful; to Miss I.L.
McClelland, of Glasgow University, who has read a
large part of this edition in proof; to Dom Philippe
Chevallier, for material which I have been able to
incorporate in it; to P. Jos� Antonio de Sobrino, S.J.,
for allowing me to quote freely from his recently
published Estudios; and, most of all, to M.R.P.
Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D., and the Fathers of
the International Carmelite College at Rome, whose
learning and experience, are, I hope, faintly
reflected in this new edition.
E.A.P.
June 30, 1941.
PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS
A.V.--Authorized Version of the Bible (1611).
D.V.--Douai Version of the Bible (1609).
C.W.S.T.J.--The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of
Jesus, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers from
the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa,
C.D. London, Sheed and Ward, 1946. 3 vols.
H.-E. Allison Peers: Handbook to the Life and Times
of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. London,
Burns Oates and Washbourne, 1953.
LL.--The Letters of Saint Teresa of Jesus, translated
and edited by E. Allison Peers from the critical
edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D. London,
Burns Oates and Washburne, 1951. 2 vols.
N.L.M.--National Library of Spain (Biblioteca
Nacional), Madrid.
Obras (P. Silv.)--Obras de San Juan de la Cruz,
Doctor de la Iglesia, editadas y anotadas pot el P.
Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D. Burgos, 1929-31. 5
vols.
S.S.M.--E. Allison Peers: Studies of the Spanish
Mystics. Vol. I, London, Sheldon Press, 1927; 2nd
ed., London, S.P.C.K., 1951. Vol. II, London, Sheldon
Press, 1930.
Sobrino.-Jos� Antonio de Sobrino, S.J.: Estudios
sobre San Juan de la Cruz y nuevos textos de su obra.
Madrid, 1950.
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