| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1941/08/28 | Leon Bloy | Salut par les Juifs |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 386
| "Les Juifs ne se convertiront que lorsque Jesus sera descendu de sa Croix, et precisement Jesus ne peut en descendre que lorsque les Juifs se seront convertis." ["The Jews will not be converted until Jesus comes down from His cross, but the fact is that Jesus can't come down from the cross until the Jews are converted."] Le Salut par les Juifs. p. 72. |
| 1957/05/13 | Karl Marx | Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 90
| Marx is, in some strange way, an heir of Ezechiel and Jeremias. Not that he is a conscious and willing instrument of God-but an instrument. We have to listen to his tune and understand it. Because it does not mean exactly what Marx himself thought it would mean or what the communists made it mean (for Marxism, in a sense, is dead. But the unintentional consequence of Marxism lives on and their work is terrible). |
| 1957/10/24 | Arthur Koestler | Thieves in the Night |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 128
| How can we sing the psalms, or understand them, if we are not Jews? Psallite sapienter [Sing praises with a psalm (Psalm 46:7)-in the Spirit, not in the flesh. Yes, but one can get too far away from the suffering and yearning of Israel in the flesh and these are inseparable from the Spirit. I think for example of Koestler and the Zionists. His work Thieves in the Night which is tremendous. And very loyal to the truth. |
| 1957/10/5 | Arthur Koestler | Thieves in the Night |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 128-29
| The ending of Thieves in the Night is something of an anticlimax. A very useful book for monks who can read such books. Insights on community life. Joseph the cellarer. The Psalms-they are something special when read through Zionist glasses. As I say, one has to sing them as a Jew, or not at all. |
| 1958/04/20 | Martin Buber | I and Thou |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 192-93
| Buber's I and Thou, in an execrable translation, very difficult to follow at first. An important book, in which I am confronted with the hollowness and falsity of my own life - yet the comfort that right here, this writing is an "I-Thou" writing - isn't it? But so much other writing which is nothing but a closed door. I close the door on Thee by giving Thee too many standard names, and hiding Thee with concepts - Then inviting everyone to stand in front of the door I have closed in their face. |
| 1958/04/20 | Martin Buber | I and Thou |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 193
| "How foolish and hopeless would be the man who turned aside from the course of his life in order to seek God; even though he won all the wisdom of solitude and all the powers of concentrated being, he would miss God. Rather is it as when a man goes his way and simply wishes that it might be the Way; in the strengths of his wish his striving is expressed." Buber's I and Thou, p. 80. |
| 1958/04/28 | Martin Buber | I and Thou |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 195-96
| Fine climax to Buber's I and Thou. "Meeting with God does not come to man in order that he may concern himself with God, but in order that he may confirm that there is meaning in the world. "All revelation is summons and sending. But again and again man brings about instead of realization, a reflection to Him who reveals. He wished to concern himself with God instead of with the world. Only in such a reflection he is no longer confronted by a Thou, he can do nothing but establish an It - God in the realm of things, believes that he knows of God as of an It and so speak about him"¦ "God remains present to you when you have been sent forth; he who goes on a mission has always God before him: the truer the fulfillment the stronger and more constant his nearness. He cannot concern himself directly with God but Its apparent turning towards the primal source belongs in truth to the universal movement away from it"¦" These are among the wisest religious truths written in our century. |
| 1959/05/10 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | Between God and Man. An Interpretation of Judaism |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 279
| Lax brought down the proofs of [Abraham] Heschel's God and Man - which looks very interesting. A Hasid, from Warsaw, teaching in the Jewish Theological Seminary in N.Y. In the introduction-a remarkable sentence: As an answer, religion becomes not only false but meaningless and irrelevant as soon as the question by which it is evoked no longer represents a challenge. A good starting point for a 3 day private retreat. |
| 1959/10/25 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | Man Is Not Alone |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 336-37
| I have been in St. Anthony's Hospital, Louisville, for the removal of a rectal fistula. Went on the 14th. and got back Friday.... Mostly, it was a very good retreat. I had several quiet days with plenty of time to read and think. (Heschel-Man Is Not Alone, Pieper, on Prudence, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and Villages in the Sun (Chandon)-to get some ideas about everyday life in Mexico.) |
| 1959/10/25 | Claude Tresmontant | Doctrine morale des prophètes d'Israel |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 337
| Fr. Tresmontant says "C'est au niveau politique que se posent les problèmes moraux les plus graves." ["The gravest moral problems are found at the political level."] Never was this more true than in our time. Hence the importance of political decisions-and of taking sides in crucial and "prophetic" affairs which are moral touchstones-and in which Xstians are often in large numbers on the side of the unjust and the tyrant. |
| 1959/11/04 | Claude Tresmontant | Doctrine morale des prophètes d'Israel |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 340
| "Les camps de concentration, les massacres, les tortures"¦nous rappelent queue est l'essence du paganisme: Le mepris de l'homme que l'on sacrifie sans pitie aux mythes et aux interêts." ["Concentration camps, massacres, tortures"¦reveal to us the essence of paganism: contempt for human beings who are sacrificed without pity for the sake of myths and ideologies."] Tresmontant. p. 125. De Rougemont traces personalism to the Council of Nicea. The concept yes. Tresmontant is right in showing how the Old Testament is in reality the first great charter of human rights-in opposition to all the other religious codes for which the individual does not count. But is this exaggerated? What about Confucius? Aman-enope? |
| 1959/11/08 | Claude Tresmontant | Doctrine morale des prophètes d'Israel |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 341
| Yet of what Laurens Van der Post says about the Bushmen. Tribal morality degenerated into collective immorality.T. says very convincingly that perhaps original sin is not sin which society inherited from one individual, but sin which each individual contracts from society (Adam = man in the collective sense). Very important idea that one must break with the exterior, "tribal," mechanical and collective society to which one is passively subject, and isolate oneself in order to be actively united in a spiritual community which transcends national, social, and especially tribal limitations. |
| 1960/04/14 | Gershom Gerhard Scholem | Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 384
| Excellent book by Scholem Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism and Traherne's Centuries, sent by Natasha Spender. Finished Fromm on love. And a little thing by Jungmann, The Sacrifice of the Church. |
| 1960/08/17 | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | House of the Dead |
Ltrs: HGL p. 138
| Yes, I too love Dostoevsky, very much. Staretz Zosima can always make me weep and a lot of the beat people in the books also. I love the little Jew in The House of the Dead (the one with the prayers, the weeping, the joy) "¦ |
| 1960/11/07 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | God in Search of Man |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 63
| Read sermons of St. Faustus of Rieg the other day, and liked them. Curious about the monks of Lerins. Reading Heschel, God in Search of Man [New York, 1955] and [C. H.] Dodd (very good), The Bible Today [Cambridge, 1956]. |
| 1960/11/15 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | God in Search of Man |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 66
| At the heart of Heschel's splendid book-God in Search of Man-the consistent emphasis on the importance of time, the event in revealed religion, Biblical, prophetic religion. Event, not process. The unique event, not repeated. The realm of the event is the realm of the person. Liberation from the process by decisions, by free act, unique, irreplaceable. The encounter with God. Contrast Buddhism. Yet of Zen - the event of enlightenment. But this is not an encounter. Part of a well-ordered process? "An event is a happening that cannot be reduced to a part of a process." [Heschel] p. 210 "To speak of events is to imply that there are happenings in the world that are beyond the reach of our explanation." [Heschel] |
| 1960/12/17 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | God in Search of Man |
Ltrs: HGL p. 430
| I think the one that really appeals to me the most of all is God in Search of Man. I do not mean that I think it contains all your best and deepest thought, but it is what most appeals to me, at least now, because it has most to say about prayer. This is what I can agree with you on, in the deepest possible way. It is something beyond the intellect and beyond reflection. I am happy that someone is there, like yourself, to emphasize the mystery and the Holiness of God. There are so many voices heard today asserting that one should "have religion" or "believe," but all they mean is that one should associate himself, "sign up" with some religious group. Stand up and be counted. As if religion were somehow primarily a matter of gregariousness. |
| 1961/10/01 | Henry Corbin | Imagination creatrice dans le soufisme d'Ibn 'Arabi |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 167
| The first book of Buber that has really gripped me is the one on the Origins and Meaning of Hasidism [New York, 1960]. The point about the seriousness of the Hasidic reaction against Sabbatian Messianism is very convincing. The whole question of the Gnostic trend and temptation. The question of gnosticism is an important one. I am at the same time much taken with H[enry] Corbin's book on Ibn al' Arabi [L'Imagination Creatrice dans Le Soufisme D'Ibn Arabi, Paris, 1958], and his gnostic sufism, this from a favorable viewpoint. The question is-is there an ineradicable opposition between gnostic and prophetic religion? This is stoutly maintained by Buber of course and by Protestants like H. Kraemer. It raises no doubt in the mind of staunch and staid Catholics (who oppose both prophecy and gnosticism). But I am not so sure after all. It is a big question, and the Corbin book shows it is not a simple one. |
| 1961/10/01 | Martin Buber | Origin and Meaning of Hasidism |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 167
| The first book of Buber that has really gripped me is the one on the Origins and Meaning of Hasidism [New York, 1960]. The point about the seriousness of the Hasidic reaction against Sabbatian Messianism is very convincing. The whole question of the Gnostic trend and temptation. The question of gnosticism is an important one. I am at the same time much taken with H[enry] Corbin's book on Ibn al' Arabi [L'Imagination Creatrice dans Le Soufisme D'Ibn Arabi, Paris, 1958], and his gnostic sufism, this from a favorable viewpoint. The question is-is there an ineradicable opposition between gnostic and prophetic religion? This is stoutly maintained by Buber of course and by Protestants like H. Kraemer. It raises no doubt in the mind of staunch and staid Catholics (who oppose both prophecy and gnosticism). But I am not so sure after all. It is a big question, and the Corbin book shows it is not a simple one. |
| 1962/01/24 | Martin Buber | Tales of Rabbi Nahman |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 196
| Reading the Tales of Rabbi Nachman-some are a bit too drawn out, but the one about the Clever Man and the Simple Man was sobering. I was deeply moved by the one about the Rabbi and his son: the conventional and strict Rabbi going by the books and the son who tries his best to stick to the books and is led away by the interior voice. His desire to meet the holy Zaddik, and the way his Father half complied, and how the devil used his Father's superstition to prevent the meeting which would have meant "the coming of the Messiah." It is a profound story. |
| 1962/02/15 | Andre Schwartz-Bart | Last of the Just |
Ltrs: HGL p. 535
| Guess what, I just got through reading The Last of the Just. I think it is a really great book. It has helped crystallize out a whole lot of things I am thinking about. Chief of these is of course no news to anyone: that the Jews have been the great eschatological sign of the twentieth century. That everything comes to depend on people understanding this fact, not just reacting to it with a little appropriate feeling, but seeing the whole thing as a sign from God, telling us. Telling us what? Among other things, telling Christians that if they don't look out they are going to miss the boat or fall out of it, because the antinomy they have unconsciously and complacently supposed between the Jews and Christ is not even a very good figment of the imagination. The suffering Servant is One: Christ, Israel. There is one wedding and one wedding feast, not two or five or six. There is one bride. There is one mystery, and the mystery of Israel and of the Church is ultimately to be revealed as One. As one great scandal maybe to a lot of people on both sides who have better things to do than come to the wedding. |
| 1962/05/21 | Eliezer Steinmann | garden of Hassidism / Eliezer Steinmann ; transl. from the Hebrew by Haim Shachter |
Ltrs: HGL p. 536
| Glad you got The Banner "¦ I think it is a very interesting and illuminating book. So too is The Garden of Hassidism, which I love. This is not an adequate reply to your letters. Hope to write a decent one before August. |
| 1962/05/21 | Jacob B. Agus | Banner of Jerusalem: a Biography of Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine in the 1930s. |
Ltrs: HGL p. 536
| Glad you got The Banner "¦ I think it is a very interesting and illuminating book. So too is The Garden of Hassidism, which I love. |
| 1962/11/17 | Ernesto Cardenal | Salmos |
Ltrs: CforT p. 137
| Your Psalms [Salmos] are terrific. Those are the versions we should really be chanting in choir. How few monks think of the real meaning of the Psalms. If priests knew what they were reciting every day. I am sure some of them must realize. Do we have to be in the concentration camp before the truth comes home to us? |
| 1963/01/05 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | Prophets |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 286
| Began reading Heschel's new book, which he sent, on the Prophets [New York, 1962]. Exactly the kind of approach with which I am in sympathy and which makes sense to me. The kind of deep reflection leading to insights which enable us to "b" the prophet we are reading-while yet remaining in all our proper distribution. |
| 1963/01/26 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | Prophets |
Ltrs: HGL p. 431-32
| It is a great pleasure to have received your fine book on The Prophets. I have been anticipating this for a long time, and my anticipation is not disappointed. It is a fine book, perhaps your very best. Or at least it is one that says a great deal to me. You take exactly the kind of reflective approach that seems to me most significant and spiritually fruitful, for after all it is not the Prophets we study but the word of God revealed in and through them. They offer us examples of fidelity to Him and patterns of suffering and faith which we must take into account if we are to live as religious men in any sense of the word. The book is in many ways just the kind of reflection germane to monks, and I hope to be able to use it in my conferences with the novices. In any case, it is a privilege to be able to share your own meditations on the Prophets and indeed to find very little in those pages that I would not myself want to express in much the same way. Someday perhaps I will muster up courage to try the difficult task of saying what the Prophets must mean to a Christian: difficult because of the heritage of past interpretations and allegories. |
| 1963/12/21 | Bahya ibn Pakuda | Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs / transl. André Chouraqui, 1943 |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 47
| Zwi Werblowsky has sent Bahya [ben Joseph] ibn Pakuda in the remarkable [André] Chouraqui translation. This is a very great book [Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs, trans. André Chouraqui, 1943]. The translation itself is classic. It was made in the time when the Nazis occupied France, and the furnaces of Auschwitz were in operation. Chouraqui was writing in occupied France. His rhythms in translation of the Psalms (the book is full of Biblical quotations) are superb. I think I have never seen such high religious quality in any translation of the Psalms except perhaps the Vulgate. But I think Chouraqui is even better. |
| 1964/01/01 | Bahya ibn Pakuda | Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs / transl. André Chouraqui, 1943 |
Ltrs: HGL p. 586
| First of all I want to thank you for the Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs [by Bahya] which has arrived. I really like it very much indeed. I thank you also for your offprint. I was especially interested in the one about Gilbert Crispin, about which you had told me. It fits with my own ideas about Anselm and his school. I have done two articles on Anselm, in which I agree with Barth that to call him an "apologist" is really absurd. I cannot imagine why Schmitt, the editor of Anselm's works, is so silly as to insist that Anselm is writing apologetics. Your thesis on Crispin seems to me exactly right. |
| 1964/02/01 | Bahya ibn Pakuda | Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs / transl. André Chouraqui, 1943 |
Ltrs: HGL p. 538
| "¦ Zwi Werblowsky has sent Bahya Ibn Paquda and a couple of good books by Vajda on medieval Jewish mysticism. This is right up my alley and very helpful. I like this material very much. |
| 1964/07/14 | Michael Serafian | Pilgrim: Pope Paul VI, & the Church in Time of Decision / pseudonym of Malachi Martin |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 127
| Heschel is convinced that Serafian's Pilgrim is perfectly right. We both look at this book in the same way, as crucially important. Heschel thinks the Jewish Chapter will never be accepted, in the Council. We spoke of how symbolic this fact was! In my opinion the acceptance of this chapter and the consequent at least implicit act of repentance is necessary for the Church and in reality the Church stands to benefit most by it. Heschel said, "Yes, but when I was a child I was beaten up often (by Catholic Poles) for being a Christ-killer, and I want to see that fewer Jewish children are beaten up for this reason." He thinks [Cardinal] Bea is really finished, that he suffered a crushing defeat in the Second Session (obvious). The envy aroused by his American trip brought him many enemies, and he had plenty before that. Heschel very impressed by Willebrands, now a bishop. Has much hope in him. Scorns Monella and the new Secretariat for Non-Christian Religions (in which I have no interest!). |
| 1964/07/27 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | Earth Is the Lord's: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe |
Ltrs: HGL p. 432
| Your books and offprints arrived promptly. I am at the moment most involved in The Earth Is the Lord's and The Sabbath. I note that your preoccupation with the sanctification of time runs parallel to some ideas of my own in a recent ms. I have sent to the publisher on Liturgy [Seasons of Celebration]. But I am not at all satisfied with my book. Fortunately I have received permission to publish the material on peace that was still swinging in the balance, I think, when you were here "¦ Please think of us when you are in this area again. The door is always open to you, if you let us know when you are coming. Also I would always be glad to hear any news, especially anything that may affect the Jewish Chapter in the Council, and other such things. |
| 1964/07/27 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | Sabbath |
Ltrs: HGL p. 432
| Your books and offprints arrived promptly. I am at the moment most involved in The Earth Is the Lord's and The Sabbath. I note that your preoccupation with the sanctification of time runs parallel to some ideas of my own in a recent ms. I have sent to the publisher on Liturgy [Seasons of Celebration]. But I am not at all satisfied with my book. Fortunately I have received permission to publish the material on peace that was still swinging in the balance, I think, when you were here "¦ Please think of us when you are in this area again. The door is always open to you, if you let us know when you are coming. Also I would always be glad to hear any news, especially anything that may affect the Jewish Chapter in the Council, and other such things. |
| 1966/12/12 | Abraham Joshua Heschel | Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence |
Ltrs: HGL p. 435-36
| I have still to thank you for a couple of books of yours which came in during the past months. I appreciate them very much, though I have not yet finished both of them. I have found much that is very stimulating indeed in The Insecurity of Freedom and I have been reserving Who Is Man for a time of freedom and thoughtfulness. I should of course be always free and thoughtful but I get myself reading and thinking in terms of current work a lot of the time, and cannot always fit other things in. |
| 1968/01/26 | Martin Buber | Ten Rungs |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 47
| I had Buber's Ten Rungs in my pocket and couldn't read a line of it, only looked at the sun, the dead grass, the green soft ice, the blue sky, and felt utterly blank. Will there never be any peace on earth in our lifetime? Will they never do anything but kill, and then kill some more? Apparently they are caught in that impasse: the system is completely violent and involved in violence, and there is no way out but violence: and that leads only to more violence. Really"”what is ahead but the apocalypse? |