72 years ago today we believe that
Edith Stein - feminist, atheist, Jew, Carmelite and Catholic - went to her death in the
killing fields of Auschwitz (we cannot be sure of the exact day but think it
must have been August 9th 1942). Of all the saints of the confused and
confusing 'short twentieth century' she is one of the most complicated. Born of a devout Jewish family in Breslau, Germany,
Edith developed an early love and skill in philosophy which was to remain with
her throughout her life. The greatest influence on her philosophical
development was the work of Edmund Husserl and the newly emerging
phenomenological school. From her Jewish faith Edith turned to atheism,
although always with a lively interest in the ‘God question’. In the dialogue
between the Orthodox bishop, Tikhon, and the enigmatic Stavrogin in
Dostoevsky’s 1872 novel The Demons, Tikhon informs the
unbelieving Stavrogin that: ‘A complete atheist stands on the next-to-last
upper step to the most complete faith’. This quote could have been directly
applied to the young Edith. In all her atheistic questing she sensed the
importance of the divine perspective for all phenomenological research. The key
moment of her conversion occurred in 1921 when she stayed at the house of some
friends, the Conrad-Martiuses, at their home near Bergzabern. Wanting some
reading for the evening she looked through the bookshelves of her hosts and
found Teresa of Avila’s ‘Book of the Life’. She was not able to sleep that
night and was completely gripped by the narrative that Teresa presented.
Afterwards she would say of Teresa’s book: ‘This is the truth’, finally she had
found what she had been looking for (See Herbstrith 1992:65). As she would
write later ‘It is just the people who at first passionately embrace the world
who penetrate farthest into the depths of the soul. Once God’s powerful hand
has freed them from its allurements, they are taken into their innermost
selves’ (From ‘Die Seelenburg’ in Welt
und Person: Beitrag zum christlichen Wahrheitsstreben, Stein 4:66).
Once
Edith had found ‘the treasure hidden in the field’ she went away, sold
everything she had and bought the field. She was baptised a Christian in 1922
and began an extended study of the Church Fathers and scripture, especially the
works of St Thomas Aquinas. The next ten years were ones of teaching and work
to reconcile Christian and atheist philosophy, in particular the phenomenology
of her ‘master’ Husserl and the high scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas. Perhaps
the most remarkable fruit of this time is the delightful Festschrift she wrote for Husserl’s seventieth birthday, What is Philosophy?, where a tired
Husserl slumps down on his sofa after a long day lecturing only to be surprised
by the shade of St Thomas Aquinas who then proceeds to question the master on
the nature of phenomenology and God (reprinted as Knowledge and Faith, Edith Stein, Collected Works, 8).
Husserl
would end his days a Christian having experienced a deathbed conversion in
1938. On hearing the news, Edith, just about to take her solemn vows in the
Cologne Carmel,[1]
wrote to another sister: ‘As regards my dear Master, I have no worries about
him. To me, it has always seemed strange that God could restrict his mercy to
the boundaries of the visible Church. God is truth, and whoever seeks the truth
is seeking God, whether he knows it or not’ (Stein, Letter 259, quoted in
Herbstrith 1992:139).
From the original fathers on the Jewish
mountain of Israel, to the converso Teresa
of Avila and John of the Cross, and now in these words Edith summarises the
Carmelite charism of openness to all cultures. For her, and for all true
Carmelites, God’s saving action does not stop at the doors of the church but
extends to all humanity in all its suffering and confusion. For Edith, this
would become a terrible reality as the Nazi persecution of the Jews gathered
pace and the net slowly closed in on her and her family. Despite her conversion
to Christianity she was still a target for Nazi persecution and after the
horrendous events of Kristallnacht on
November 8th 1938 she was forced to leave Germany to seek shelter
with the Carmelite community at Echt, Holland. Despite the persecution
throughout all this time Edith was able to continue her
philosophico-theological writings on the interface of phenomenology and
theology. We are fortunate today that most of them have been or are being
translated in the splendid series of her writings published by the Institute
for Carmelite Studies in Washington. What they reveal, and scholars are still
working hard on interpreting them,[2] is
a woman who grasped the essence of Carmelite spirituality in all its
intellectual depth and existential consequence. Since her student days Edith had been fascinated by the
‘nature of empathy’, and in fact had written her doctoral thesis on the subject
(published as On the Problem of Empathy in
The Collected Works, 3). Commenting on this interest, Roman Ingarden writes
that ‘What interested her most was the question of defining the possibility of
mutual communication between human beings, in other words, the possibility of
establishing community. This was more than a theoretical concern for her;
belonging to a community was a personal necessity, something that vitally
affected her identity’ (Ingarden 1979: 472 in Herbstrith 1992:146). Perhaps, as
Edith realised, our hope as alienated, atomized, late capitalist individuals,
lies in the return to community as the manifestation of our essential natures
as homo empathicus.
The other
great theme that emerges from these late writings of Edith is the need for radical Christian life. It is not
enough, says Edith, to be ‘ “a good Catholic” who “does his duty”, “reads the
right newspaper”, and “votes correctly” – and then does just as he pleases’.[3]
At a time of general Christian indifference to the fate of the Jews in Germany
(with some notable and noble exceptions), her critique of complacent bourgeois
‘Christendom’ [4]
is as striking as it is relevant to us in the West today who see a tired old
bourgeois church brought to its knees by complacency and indifference. Such
indifference, suggests Edith, will lead to disaster. Rather, we should strive
for radical Gospel living, ‘in the
presence of God, with the simplicity of a child and the humility of a
publican’. This call for radical Christian life, especially in the mystery of
following Christ on the path to Calvary, would come to her suddenly when the SS
officers arrived at Echt in the afternoon of 2nd August, 1942
demanding that she leave with her sister, Rosa, who had become an extern sister
at the convent. In the shock and surprise, the whole neighbourhood came out to
protest at this indecent act. In the crowd and confusion Rosa became alarmed
and upset. In this distress and confusion Edith gently took her hand and said
‘Come, Rosa. We’re going for our people’.[5]
We have fragmentary accounts of what happened to Edith next including reports
from Westerbork, the Nazi holding camp in Holland for all deported Jews (where
the other great Jewish mystic, Etty Hillesum, would also be held) and from
guards and functionaries as her train moved slowly East to the killing fields
of Auschwitz. One account, from the Dutch official Mr Wielek at Westerbork,
will suffice to give a sense of Edith’s last days on earth:
The one sister who impressed me immediately, whose
warm, glowing smile has never been erased from my memory, despite the
disgusting incidents I was forced to witness, is the one whom I think the
Vatican may one day canonize. From the moment I met her in the camp at
Westerbork… I knew: here is someone truly great. For a couple of days she lived
in that hellhole, walking, talking and praying… like a saint. And she really
was one. That is the only fitting way to describe this middle-aged woman who
struck everyone as so young, who was so whole and honest and genuine. (in
Herbstrith 1992:186)
Edith went to her death at Auschwitz on August 9th 1942, the day on which she is now celebrated as
Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross since 1998. From the mountains of Palestine
to the Gates of Auschwitz the Carmelite calling can be seen as one that places
the individual into the deepest and most intimate relationship with God as a
call to radical personal transformation. From this transformation arises the
need to seek God in all his beloved children, regardless of race, creed or
religion. As we have seen, Carmelite spirituality transcends the boundaries of
any small creed or sect to present a universal call to holiness.
As I read the daily terrible news from Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine and see a scramble to 'take sides', not only abroad but amongst my own friends and colleagues at home I pray that we might follow the example of this remarkable woman, who was able to cross boundaries between faith and creed, whilst retaining her integrity and orientation of life towards the fullness of life that is God.
[1]
She entered Carmel
[2]
See, for example, Alasdair McIntyre’s recent Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913 – 1922. London
[3]
From ‘Weihnachtsgeheimnis’ quoted in Herbstrith 1992:154.
[4]
As Kierkegaard called it in his critique a hundred years before, another
significant influence on the young Edith.
[5] From the Kölner Selig- und Heiligsprechungsprozess der Dienerin Gottes Sr.
Teresia Benedicta a Cruce – Edith Stein (Cologne 1962:92) in Herbstrith
1992:180.
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