Veritas liberabit vos
Jn 8:32
Introduction
Over the course of the last fifteen years, I have been making known a series of historical documents that attest to the veracity of the testimonies of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s contemporaries. These are: 1) two letters addressed by Don Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, Bishop of Puebla, to the Tenth Muse,[1] which prove not only that the prelate did not harass her, but that he was one of her greatest admirers; 2) clause 20 of the will of Father José de Lombeyda,[2] an old friend of the Phoenix — unquestionable proof that the Archbishop of Mexico did not seize her books but, on the contrary and as the first chroniclers of her life guaranteed, that she sold them by her own decision; 3) a baptismal certificate from December 1651, which confirms the date of birth of Sor Juana given in 1700 by her proto-biographer and completely invalidates the apocryphal date of 1648, put forward in the mid-twentieth century; 4) a petition to the Roman curia made by Mother Juana herself, in which, owing to her poor health, she requests to be relieved of her monastic duties. These momentous documents ratify the methodological importance of not, at hundreds of years’ distance and for merely ideological reasons, withholding credibility from those who lived alongside our nun. They likewise contribute new data for a better understanding of her work and existence. The interested reader may consult these documents, with the respective analyses, in my books Sor Filotea y Sor Juana. Cartas del obispo de Puebla a Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Toluca: FOEM, 2014) and Al amor de Sor Juana (Mexico: Bonilla Artigas Editores, 2023).
Now, the documentation discovered in the twenty-first century that vindicates the poetess’s contemporaries — presenting her as venerated by the majority of her compatriots — is not limited to the above, for as early as 2004 two writings were published that ratify it. The present article concerns them.
One of the greatest myths of Mexican history is the end of the life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. In the quarrel of the moderns with the ancients waged since the late nineteenth century, concepts such as obscurantism, prejudice, and hagiography[3] have been invoked by many of the former to discredit the testimonial evidence inherited from the latter. Self-satisfied, this sector of contemporary exegesis has, after dismissing the earliest testimonies of the nun’s contemporaries, come to place its confidence in its own conjectures, thereby falling into the error of treating its willful deafness as a pathway to conventionalism. In doing so, Mother Juana had to be harassed in her final years by the Church to which she proudly belonged,[4] simply because such a fate is the desirable one for a woman “ahead of her time.” It then fell to the philology and the historical analysis “of today” to demonstrate that the nun’s contemporaries lied when they guaranteed not only the orthodox and Christian love of the Hieronymite religious, but likewise the respect and affection of those who surrounded her (including, of course, her ecclesiastical superiors). In a word, liberal criticism was obliged (according to itself) to “demonstrate” (because it had to, because it was scandalous that what the past had transmitted should be true) that all of this was only a myth. (Meanwhile, ostracism, discredit, and scorn were rabid hounds set against those who, using common sense, continued to maintain that what was certified in the old books and papers must be true.)
To the surprise of the analysts bent on exposing it, the myth finally surfaced. Unfortunately, it did so where they least expected it: in their own house. The myth did not come from the past — it was born among them.
To their dismay, in 2004 the researcher José Antonio Rodríguez Garrido published a pair of manuscripts[5] that began to profoundly undermine the myth (here truly a myth) of a Sor Juana who was persecuted by the Church. Against the progressive exegesis, they prove that the voice of the ancients is true. Coming from the past, these texts leave no doubt as to the fidelity and orthodoxy of the poetess, nor as to the widespread love that surrounded her.
Until the appearance of Rodríguez Garrido’s work, liberal academics delighted especially in the thought (originating from the Erewhon of their fantasy) that Sor Juana was harassed by the principal members of the New Spain’s clergy. This blunder most probably arose from the fickle interpretation of certain phrases of the Reply to Sister Philothea of the Cross where its author speaks of those who “challenged” her. Alfonso Méndez Plancarte had already pointed out that very dark spectacles would be needed to “see” the “‘persecutions’ of the Ecclesiastical Authority, the Society of Jesus, and the Inquisition,” united “in a joint shock brigade to crush Sor Juana over her ‘Crisis’ of the Sermon of the Mandatum, by the great Jesuit Vieira.”[6]
As we know, when the Bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz read that Sorjuanine text, full of admiration he decided to publish it under the title Carta atenagórica. He offers the reason for his enthusiasm in that other Letter that, addressed to the Phoenix, he placed before his edition as a kind of prologue: “whoever reads Your Grace’s apologia [he tells her] will be unable to deny that she cut the finest quill.”[7] In those times perhaps no figure enjoyed greater renown than the Portuguese preacher Antonio Vieira, so to say that Sor Juana “cut the finest quill” before him was to glory in the poetess’s capacities.
Fifty years earlier, Vieira had delivered a Sermon of the Mandatum in Europe in which he developed the theme of the finezas of Christ, that is, the greatest demonstrations of love given by Him. In the body of the text, its author boasted that “no fineza of the love of Christ will the Saints [Augustine, Thomas, and Chrysostom] name, to which I do not give a greater one; and to the fineza of the love of Christ that I name, no one will give me another that equals it.” In 1690 Sor Juana was engaged with this sermon,[8] which led her to examine it with an interlocutor whose identity we still do not know, but who enjoyed the authority to ask her to put to paper the arguments he had heard. Compelled by such a request and with some displeasure,[9] the nun fulfilled the commission.[10]
Surely, for her the matter ended when she handed over the text. At last, she was free of a commission which, in addition to being contrary to her nature, had required a time and energy she did not have.[11] Things, however, did not turn out so simply.
When our unknown figure had Sor Juana’s Crisis in hand, he did what any of us would have done: he showed it to his friends. They in turn, as was natural given that it was a work not only by the Phoenix, but in which she theologically disputed on equal terms with someone of Vieira’s fame, requested permission to copy it. The copies began to circulate until one of them reached Bishop Fernández de Santa Cruz.
On November 25, 1690 (this is the date of the license), the Puebla edition of the Carta atenagórica came off the presses.[12] It was backed by the necessary ecclesiastical approvals. Days later it was being sold in Mexico City.
What a surprise that was for many New Spain’s readers! If Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz had previously cultivated great renown as the Tenth Muse, the formidable poetess, on that day she displayed her no less outstanding theological talents. Ah, what a surprise and what emotion! For the majority of the nun’s fellow countrymen, it was a revelation. They were then able to verify that there lived among them someone capable of contradicting the highly esteemed Vieira. They then read the arguments their compatriot gave, and confirmed not only that she truly “cut the finest quill,” but that she did so with great advantage: against each thesis of the Jesuit against the Doctors of the Church, she set a better one, and before the fineza of Christ’s love that he proposed, there rose a reasoning as solid as a wall of truths.
The majority had no doubt: Sor Juana had defeated Vieira.[13] Unfortunately, alongside that majority arose the tiny voice of the ever-present resentful. In the Reply to Sister Philothea, we hear the Sorjuanine complaint concerning those who frequently tormented her with their envy. It is an age-old lament, for, as she explains, the ‘reward’ for being singled out is suffering.[14] “Just as no one wishes to be less than another [she says in the Reply], so no one admits that another understands more, for this follows from being lesser.”[15] And so, for our beloved nun, the calvary of jealousy was part of her existence.
However, what occurred in 1690 was, in proportion and effects, different. If that diffuse envy, which generally could not materialize beyond the habitual gossip of a few, had — insofar as such things are possible — become almost habitual to her, the resentment demonstrated by those who could not tolerate that she had criticized Vieira was something different. The printed version of the Carta atenagórica stoked a controversy whose most certain origin lay in the fact that a woman, a nun, and, to make matters worse, a Novohispana had “dared” to confront the Portuguese preacher. The animosities of the lesser spirits that had accompanied her throughout her life now took the cowardly form of wounding libels circulating among the lettered persons of the viceroyalty. Some of these did hurt the ever-magnanimous Sor Juana.
We know this from the way she complains to Sister Philothea. Speaking of her “challengers,” she refers specifically to one of them, saying:
If the crime lies in the Carta Atenagórica, was that anything more than simply stating my opinion, with all the deference I owe to our Holy Mother Church? For if she, with her most holy authority, does not forbid it to me, why must others forbid it? Was holding an opinion contrary to Vieira an act of boldness on my part, yet it was not so for His Paternity [Vieira] to hold one contrary to the three Holy Fathers of the Church? Is my understanding, such as it is, not as free as his, since it comes from a common stock? Is his opinion one of the revealed principles of Holy Faith, such that we must believe it with our eyes closed? Moreover, I neither failed in the decorum owed to so great a man as his defender [has failed] here […]; nor did I touch the Sacred Society by a thread of its garment; nor did I write more than for the judgment of the one who suggested it to me […] For had I believed it would be published, it would not have been presented in so careless a manner. If it is, as the censor says, heretical, why does he not denounce it? And with that he would be avenged and I content, for I esteem, as I should, the name of Catholic and obedient daughter of my Holy Mother Church more than all the applause of the learned. If it is barbarous — in which he speaks rightly — let him laugh, though it be with the laugh they call the laugh of the rabbit,[16] for I do not tell him to applaud me, since, as I was free to dissent from Vieira, anyone will be free to dissent from my opinion.[17]
Beyond the evident Sorjuanine pain expressed in these lines, we find one of the very probable causes of the progressive criticism’s fancies.
As I said above, this is an inconsistent reading in which the words “crime,” “forbid,” “boldness,” “Sacred Society,” “heretical” (and with it the suggestion of the involvement of the so seductive — because artificially feared — Holy Office) set free an excitable fantasy prone to expanding upon itself. Summarizing (for lack of space) such a reading, the result was that the “religious establishment”[18] of New Spain would have “besieged” a “rebellious” poetess who had “dared” to “confront it.”
As is evident, such a hypothesis takes for granted that the chimerical Sorjuanine “confrontation” would have been precisely against those “aggrieved” by the publication of the Carta atenagórica, i.e., the principal members and institutions of the Novohispana Church (“the Ecclesiastical Authority, the Society of Jesus, and the Inquisition […] in a joint shock brigade,” in the words of Father Alfonso Méndez Plancarte).
Now, such a delirious supposition could be more or less sustained (I say, with the pertinacious will of those interested in believing it and their no less capricious disregard of the depositions of the Phoenix’s contemporaries) until 2004, the year in which the publication of two documents found in the National Library of Peru[19] definitively assigned it to the “category of myth.”[20] These are the Defense of the Sermon of the Mandatum of Father Antonio Vieira, whose author is the notary Pedro Muñoz de Castro, and the Apologetic Discourse in Response to the Certificate of Errors That a Soldier Published Concerning the Carta atenagórica of Mother Juana Inés de la Cruz, anonymous.[21]
Both texts dispel any existing doubt about the identity of those aggrieved by the printed appearance of Sor Juana’s Crisis. They also make clearly visible how, in Mexico, she was respected and loved by the greater part of the population, including the members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.[22]
Let us see how it was a few figures, timorous and of lesser standing, who harassed her with their envious libels.
In his Defense of the Sermon of the Mandatum of Father Antonio Vieira, Pedro Muñoz de Castro allows us to glimpse what occurred after the Atenagórica appeared in print. According to the text, on Tuesday, January 9, 1691, after six in the evening, he arrived home and there found, alongside a “paper” that a friend had left for him, the Hieronymite’s writing.[23] The author does not spare words of astonishment:
And in truth only such a woman could oppose such a man, and only her angelic understanding could undertake so difficult a work as would be for any other than hers, for it seems that the sovereign Omnipotence of the Creator excelled itself in the production of both, for the greater credit of His greatness.[24]
Suddenly, the notary finds himself in a predicament, for his friend urges him in his “paper” that, being “so devoted” to Vieira, “he should defend him from the strong woman who contradicted him.” “I would not wish it!”, exclaims Muñoz de Castro, resisting any polemic with
a woman to whom, priding herself on being what she is, solely for being so, all courtesy is owed, and anyone would justly reproach me as rude, for was she the one being impugned, I would be the first to defend her — beyond being a Phoenix — for being a woman, our compatriot, singular in the affection of the Republic, a magnet of hearts, a charm and admirable enchantment of the finest minds.[25]
In the phrase I highlight, one can see how deeply Novohispanos esteemed Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Phoenix of her homeland by virtue of her learned prestige, she also captivated with a most generous nature.
There remains no doubt, then, that in the viceroyalty of New Spain the Hieronymite nun was almost universally celebrated. As I said, it was a minority of resentful individuals who turned against her. Unlike Muñoz de Castro, who entered the debate only because he was pressed to do so,[26] and unlike some others who — as we shall see shortly — despite contradicting her, behaved courteously, there were those who scoffed at her.
The Defense of the Sermon of the Mandatum of Father Antonio Vieira stands at the beginning of the controversy sparked by the public appearance of the Atenagórica. A varied series of texts followed; we know of them thanks to the enumeration made by the anonymous author of the Apologetic Discourse. Up to the moment of composing his work, he had seen the following:
Serafina de Cristo of the Discalced — though she signs herself of the Hieronymites — how profound! The Soldier, whether the poor one or the Painter, how rude! Caravina, whether with the mouth of a trumpet or the eye of a lynx, how witty! The Notary, how discreet! Doña María de Atayde, whether resurrected or appeared, how erudite! A Mari Dominga or Dominga or Maringas, of the Soldier’s standing, how revolting! Besides these I have seen the quintillas of a chaplain, how sharp!, and the ballad of a priest, what a jurist![27]
Although we do not know the content of the majority of them, the titles of the manuscripts and the expressions of Sor Juana’s defender allow us to glimpse it. As can be inferred, those in favor of the poetess (and even among her opponents, those who behaved chivalrously) predominated in the dispute.
The number of the boors is, then, very small;[28] so that now we can verify how the aforementioned paragraph of the Reply to Sister Philothea, the beachhead of liberal criticism, was and has been arbitrarily misinterpreted. Indeed, when the Phoenix spoke in it of “crime,” “prohibition,” “boldness,” “Sacred Society,” “heresy,” etc., she did so lamenting exclusively the most senseless of her challengers: the Soldier.
It was of him, and not of the ecclesiastical authority or of the Society of Jesus or of the Inquisition (and far, far less of a prodigious “shock brigade”), that Sor Juana complained to Sister Philothea.[29] Likewise, it was solely against him, because of his singular rudeness, that the creator of the Apologetic Discourse broke lances. If the poetess referred to such themes and institutions, it was because the Soldier accused her both of having insulted the Jesuits in the person of Father Vieira and, on account of certain details of the Crisis, of heresy, and consequently of being deserving of the Tribunal of the Holy Office.[30] Of course, such imputations were absolutely false, something that the apologist of the Discourse took care to demonstrate with graceful sufficiency.
Now, for years multiple anticlerical thinkers have shown themselves “indignant” at the reprimands the bishop directed at the Hieronymite in his well-known letter-prologue. Without understanding either, the mode of interpreting the Christian faith of the period or the fact that Sister Philothea (dazzled by the Crisis![31]) was flattering her to such a degree as to urge her to exchange secular studies and poetic composition for the far more prestigious discipline of theology,[32] such critics take offense. In this way, they not only see in the bishop of Puebla one more of the (in their imagination) varied enemies of Sor Juana but go so far as to suppose that the Reply was written in a kind of solitary and bravely desperate outburst of its author against him.[33]
Unfortunately for them, it did not happen that way. As I have shown elsewhere,[34] Sor Juana composed her autobiography following the instruction of the Bishop of Puebla himself.[35] So that, rather than continuing to commit the stale injustice of calling him “obscurantist,”[36] we must return to exalting him by considering him her principal defender. This is precisely what the Apologetic Discourse does.
Let us see how in his libel the Soldier took aim not only at Sor Juana, but also at Sister Philothea. The reason is obvious: by printing the Sorjuanine text, the bishop was publicly acclaiming (with all due ecclesiastical licenses!) both the theological faculties and the superiority of the Hieronymite over Vieira. That was enough to fill the jealousy of those who, like the Soldier, judged that there was no one (and much less a Novohispana nun!) capable of confronting the Portuguese priest.
According to what emerges from the Apologetic Discourse, the Phoenix’s detractor, far from being a prestigious figure in Church circles, was a solitary individual of low (or middling) standing.[37] He is described by Rodríguez Garrido as “a blond, white Jesuit wearing spectacles who unleashes his rages and mockeries against Sor Juana.”[38] His knowledge was deficient and, of course, not up to the level of the nun’s dissertation.[39]
As happens frequently with small spirits, the Soldier found it difficult to gauge the measure of his capacities, so that, blinded by the petty passion that tormented him, he began to charge clumsily not only at the direct object of his fury (the author of the Crisis), but also — mischievously — at the one who had given her notoriety (Fernández de Santa Cruz).
With this in mind, one will understand that Sor Juana’s defender was also Sister Philothea’s. If we recall now the indignation of the modern liberal critics at the reprimands with which the latter called the former to abandon her secular studies in favor of theological ones, we will see how, in being angry with the bishop, these critics adopt a position similar to that of the Soldier.[40]
On the contrary, the Apologetic Discourse shows that its contemporaries shared the opinion of Fernández de Santa Cruz. Rodríguez Garrido is right when he asserts that the Soldier’s work was “directed not only against Sor Juana, but also indirectly against ‘Sister Philothea.'”[41] To send the Sorjuanine writing to press meant, in effect, “an explicit recognition on the part of the ecclesiastical censorship apparatus of its content.“[42] Indignation against the latter then had to manifest itself against the former. There is no better demonstration, setting aside the very fact of the publication and the praises contained therein, of the love that Don Manuel bore for Sor Juana and, because of it, of his pride in her refutation of Vieira.[43]
The name Certificate of Errors given to the Soldier’s libel, argues Rodríguez Garrido,[44] discredited the prelate’s publication, in that it possessed none:
The detractor’s work thereby assumed the guise of the omitted text that normally served to reconcile the correspondence between the printed text and the one approved by the censorship. But in this case, the “certificate of errors” did not correct the carelessness of the typesetters, but rather that of its author and even of the censor.[45]
In this way, we see how those who took to the arena in defense of Sor Juana also took to it in defense of Sister Philothea. Such is the case of Serafina de Cristo, who, before the Soldier’s rage at the appearance in print of the Atenagórica, explains that
The Most Illustrious Sister Philothea of the Cross was not so mistaken in her printing that it was not of the utmost glory its printing to the Fathers […] For what was the legitimate offspring of the fecundity of genius in writing could not be a dishonor, but a very honorable credit to the printed Fathers […] Thus I conversed very inwardly on this point of the honor of the Fathers; and I heard said a good thing: that the error […] was not in the printing by Sister Philothea of the Cross; for that has no errata, for in everything that Most Illustrious Lady was correct in the City of the Angels…[46]
If the poetess was right in her defense of the Fathers before Vieira, Don Manuel did the same when he published it. The author of the Apologetic Discourse would later say the same, asserting that
Philothea did very well, and let the Soldier feel it, for a work like that deserves eternal memory. It spoke of her subtlety, her comprehension, her study, her novelty, and being the first who attempted it. It is enough that she is a woman and so admirable that she should be printed not only on paper, but also on marble.[47]
But the praises of the bishop’s edition included those of his recommendations to Sor Juana:
This Mother Cruz of Puebla then printed that work for the Mother Cruz of Mexico, giving her those good counsels that a nun must give, for she is a Cruz, and to a crucified nun.[48]
As can be seen, the apologist connected the prudence of the publication with the prudence of the reprimands. Without finding (as our current liberal critics groundlessly tend to do) any “ambiguity” in this, he affirmed that the Hieronymite had earned “esteem all the way to the Angels [that is, to Puebla] and praises all the way to the presses.” Don Manuel’s loving act was patent.[49]
Probably spurred by this reason, some of Vieira’s devotees (the intolerant ones), their rancor now overflowing at what they considered the undeserved fame of the Tenth Muse, decided to circulate their libels. However, the generality of Mother Juana’s enthusiasts in Mexico soon gave an account of the absurdities in those shabby papers, relegating them to oblivion — until, with their shared hatred of New Spain’s ecclesiastical hierarchy, modernity gave them new life.
Nevertheless, if before there were few doubts, history today leaves us with far fewer: in the land where she was loved and revered, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz received the support of an enormous majority. Her few and lowly detractors, silenced by the panegyrics of so many partisans, gradually faded into the mist from which they had emerged: anonymity. Lacking names, they vanished without leaving barely a trace, leaving in their place vague presences, phantoms.
Unfortunately for the culture of Mexico and the West, these original apparitions proliferated in the minds of certain moderns. Centuries after the intellectual struggle with which the Bishop of Puebla and the other defenders of the poetess drove them away, progressive Sorjuanism continued to see apparitions here and there. From such visions sprang the myth of the nun besieged by perverse and influential enemies. Lacking positive data, the academic establishment held sessions in which, come from the realm of delirium, tormented specters abandoned their malign occupations (clerical, always clerical) to occupy themselves for a while gnawing at the spirit of the “updated” and unhappy beloved nun.
The myth of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz thus wished to divest itself of everything that smelled of incense and sacristy. For this reason it also robbed her of her greatest glories: the sale of her books and scientific instruments to use the money for the benefit of the needy.[50] Until today, liberal exegesis has been at loggerheads with the historical documentation and the testimony of the Tenth Muse’s contemporaries, who in unison sang not only of these achievements of her soul, but also of her final abandonment in the arms of faith and divine mercy.[51] With greater confidence in their prejudices than in the words of those who knew her, the modernist critics devoted to the study of the Hieronymite have overlooked (and, unfortunately, continue to overlook) the most elementary rules of historical analysis, which has led them to “create the bogeyman and then be afraid of him.” Thunderstruck by their own phantoms, they thus created a particular myth. Such a myth asserted the poetess’s insubordination and the hatred toward her of many of those who surrounded her. The evidence today categorically refutes it. Let us open our eyes and our hearts: the Phoenix of Mexico was, has been, and will always be loved by her compatriots and co-religionists.
Naucalpan, April 3 of the year 330 of the death of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.