The editorial projects of John of Saint Samson's complete works

Abstract

In his mystical discourses Jean de Saint-Samson frequently uses the image of ashes. Generally, this is the image he uses to describe our nothingness and the nothingness of creation before the Majesty of God. Nonetheless, over these ashes and dust God lavishes his immense love. For example, in the treatise Des exercices de l'amour unique, he frequently repeats in awe before this mystery, as if in a litany, variations of the following phrase : 'But tell me: why did you burn and reduce me to ashes? And while doing this you played with me in the love that you poured into me!' Then in Plusiers belles sentences tant des Peres que de Seneque, he cites Gregory the Great: 'Without humility all virtues are but ashes and dust that the wind dissipates through the air with the smallest of efforts! Vainglory is the wind which diss ipa tes that dust from there'. Stefanotti takes this image to call Jean de Saint-Samson as the Phoenix of Rennes. The phoenix is a mythical bird which is said to rise from the ashes. In Christianity it is the symbol of the Risen Christ. The same image keeps coming to mind as I find myself reflecting on the present re-emergence of interest in Jean de Saint-Samson, not only in France but throughout the Order.