A COGNITIVE SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF THE COMPOUND KREUZESWISSENSCHAFT

The nominal compound Kreuzeswissenschaft seems to be transparent at first sight as one gets the impression that it can be broken down into the immediate constitu-entes Kreuz(es) and Wissenschaft. The appearances can however be deceptive as the general meaning of this compound cannot be computed simply on the basis of the meanings of its components: Wissenschaft (=science) hasn’t got here its usual meanings, as entrenched in English and German:

“1. knowledge about the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world, based on facts that you can prove, for example by experiments; 2. the study of science; 3. a particular branch of science; 4. a system for organizing the knowl-edge about a particular subject, especially one concerned with aspects of human behaviour or society.”17

“1. (ein begründetes, geordnetes, für gesichert erachtetes) Wissen hervorbrin-gende forschende Tätigkeit in einem bestimmten Bereich; exakte Wissenschaften (Wissenschaften, deren Ergebnisse auf mathematischen Beweisen, genauen Messungen beruhen); Wissenschaftlichkeit; im Bereich der Wissenschaft; 2. jmds.

Wissen in einer bestimmten Angelegenheit.”18

This fact is also stressed by Edith Stein: “When we speak of a science of the cross, this is not to be understood in the usual meaning of science; we are not dealing merely with a theory, that is, with the body of – really or presumably – true propositions. Neither are we dealing with a structure built of ideas laid out in reasoned steps.” (Cf. page 9.)

As one can see in Illustration 1, the general meaning of this compound cannot be found out by simple addition of the meanings of its parts but should be worked out with the help of the blending analysis.

16 Cf. research on the semantics of compounding conducted by Fauconnier – Turner 1996 and 2002, Coulson 2001 and Benczes 2006.

17 OALD 18 DUW

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The two inputs of conceptual integration are however not Kreuz(es) [=cross]

and Wissenschaft [=science], respectively, but Christentum/ Christliche Religion [Christianity/ Christian religion] and Wissenschaft [=science]. Kreuz, as the central symbol of Christianity, stands metonymically for Christianity, for the Christian religion itself. The target of this metonymic extension enters the process as Input1, while Wissenschaft takes part as Input2. The generic space “System of Ideas”

contains various roles such as Agent, Object, Central Elements, Aim, Method, Applying. These various roles can be related in Input1 and Input2 to appropriate

schematic frames. In Input1 the following correspondences should be pointed out:

Agent – Christians as believer (lay/priest/monk or nun/theologian/spiritual direc-tor); Object – faith in Jesus Christ and acceptance of the secrets of faith;

Central elements – baptism, acquisition of the Christian knowledge system and its integration into the life of believers;

Aim – realization of Christian way of life (based on charity);

Method – following of Christ (imitation Christi), prayer, deeds or works of charity, study of theology (optionally);

Application – faith is to be converted into deeds (“faith without deeds is dead”

James 2: 26)

In Input2 the following correspondences are to be mentioned:

Agent – scientist/researcher;

Object – research topic;

Central elements – socialising in one area of science, acquisition and systematiza-tion of knowledge, model building;

Aim – development of cognitive faculties, building of models of the world Method – falsifying and verifying of hypotheses;

Application – optional.

The integrated space created by selective projection, elaboration and overlap of Input1, Input2 and elements of discourse, contains the following correspond-ences between different roles:

Agent – St. John of the Cross as believer, monk, priest, poet, spiritual director and theologian;

Object – his poetic and mystagogic works and his life as well;

Central elements – integration of the message of the cross into his life and work;

Aim – checking and proof of unity in life and work;

Method – comparative investigation of the whole content of all his works and the details of his life on the basis of reliable sources and the testimony of contem-porary witnesses;

Application – proof of the realization of the doctrine of the cross in life and work of St. John of the Cross

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The general meaning of the compound which is created by conceptual integration focuses therefore on the unity in St. John’s life and work. This blending analysis presupposes the cross as the central religious symbol of Christianity. The cross as part of the frame “Christianity, Christian religion” can evoke the whole frame.

Ever since Lakoff and Johnson19 we have known that “[t]he conceptual systems of cultures and religions are metaphorical in nature […]” but we also know that there are also metonymically motivated cultural and religious symbols which mediate between our every day experiences and appropriate coherent metaphor systems.

Let me cite Lakoff and Johnson again: “Symbolic metonymies that are grounded in our physical experience provide an essential means of comprehending religious and cultural concepts.”20 The cross is an excellent example of a metonymically motivated cultural and religious symbol. The whole issue can be regarded as an extraordinary complex and multilayered phenomenon which cannot be dealt with in all its cultural, historical and religious aspects. I can mention only some aspects of the metonymic motivation of the cross.

According to the OALD there are 7 meanings of the lexeme cross: Meaning 1 utilizes the image schema of a cross, 2 refers to the ancient instrument of punish-ment, 3. refers as a proper name to the Christian symbol and means “the cross that Jesus Christ died on”, 4. is based on the SHAPE OF an OBJECT for an OBJECT metonymy. (The cross can in addition to the above cases also appear in the visual code as image schema or as symbol with different degrees of schematicity. Poetic imagery could be compared with representation by drawing the image)

The remaining 3 meanings are also based on different types of metonymies but they do not relate to the meanings of the cross in Christian context. Finally, the idiomatic construction “have a (heavy) cross to bear” is based on metonymy – as far as a part of a frame, scenario or narration can stand for the whole frame, scenario or narration – and metaphor – as far as the cross in the meaning ‘a dif-ficult problem’ puts suffering from the domain of crucifixion into other domains.

Cross in the 2nd and 3rd meaning can stand metonymically for the whole frame, scenario or narration of crucifixion in Biblical context. The cross appears in these cases as frame-based, scenario-based or narration-based metonymy. There are however some overlaps between frame and scenario on the one hand and between scenario and narration on the other hand. Overlaps between frame and scenario can show up (1) when the stereotyped temporal order of event sequences can vary within certain boundaries and is not absolutely fixed and (2) when two or more in their temporal order fixed scenarios are conceptualized as parts of a predominant

19 Lakoff – Johnson 1980: 40.

20 Lakoff – Johnson 1980: 40.

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general frame. Overlaps between scenario and narration can occur in those cases when a scenario in a culture community is handed down as part of a narration.

Up to this point, the analysis has concentrated on Kreuz and Kreuzeswissenschaft.

A purely structural study could stop at this point. However, as already mentioned, the concept of night plays a definitive role in the works of St. John of the Cross.

Edith Stein herself devotes a couple of chapters to the clarification of the relation-ship between cross and night. This problem can be dealt with here only from the perspective of the semantics of Kreuzeswissenschaft. The poetic image of night, the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the spirit appear very often as discourse unfolds. It is certain that the deeper sense of these expressions also shapes the general meaning of Kreuzeswissenschaft. Consequently, the metonymically used Kreuz(es) is preceded by another linguistic image, a metaphor: the cosmic night stands here for the mystic night of the soul.

The cosmic night is structured into three parts. This structure of the cosmic night is then mapped onto the image of the mystic night:

“The submersion of the world of the senses is like the oncoming of night, when a mere twilight remains of the day’s brightness. Faith, on the contrary, is mid-night darkness because here not only are the senses inactive but the knowledge from natural understanding is eliminated. The dawn of the new day of eternity, however, breaks into her night when the soul finds God.” (Cf. page 31.) The parallels between the stages of the mystic night on the one hand and crucifixion,

death on the cross and resurrection on the other hand are therefore obvious.

The dark night of the senses presupposes “the mortification of joy in the desire for all things.” (Cf. page 38.) Edith Stein parallels the active entrance into this night with following of the cross, the passive night is interpreted on the other side as crucifixion. The night of the spirit is darker then the night of senses and it presup-poses in first order the night of faith as the path leading to union with God. The emptying of the three faculties of the soul – understanding, memory and will – in the active night is described as way of the cross (leading to Golgotha) and as death on the cross. The experience of the abandonment by God in the passive night of the spirit is on the other hand interpreted as way leading to union with God, presented as death as resurrection. There is also more than one night metaphor here, there are at least as many as the number of stages of the mystic night. Consequently, the metonymic cross is preceded by a complex network of metaphors. We are faced here with an unusual situation: The first Input to conceptual integration is here the target of metonymic meaning transfer which is in turn the target of metaphoric meaning transfers.

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This is however by far not the whole story. The semantics of the compound Kreuzeswissenschaft is namely much more complex then it could be shown in a brief paper in which we can get only a glimpse of its complexity. The image of the night is for St. John of the Cross not only, or not primarily, something negative, bad or painful. To name only a few examples: Night is for him also the time of deep contemplative prayer outdoors, it is the time of permanent search and separation, but also of love union as well, as it is namely also the night of Shir Hashirim, the Song of the Songs, which was so precious to St. John that he asked for it just before dying. As St. John knew the Bible by heart and very often cited it, there is another intertextual layer here that should be taken seriously: the parallel imagery of the Holy Scripture. Let me mention two examples:

Genesis 1:2:

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

This lines of the Creation (Old Testament) are echoed in the Gospel in Matthew 27:50:

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”21

As Creation is paralleled by salvation on the Cross, so could the dark night of the spirit of St. John of the Cross be seen as paralleling these quotations from Scripture, as St. John’s imagery tries to describe the spiritual way of the individual believer to the union with God.

Another example is Philippians 2:6:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

21 This is a well known quotation of Psalm 22:1: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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And being found in appearance as a  man,he humbled himself

and became obedient to death–even death on a cross!

The above lines evoke St. Paul’s theology of the cross. “Made himself nothing” is rendered in some other translations as “emptied himself”. It must be stressed that Christ emptied himself as a man, his humility and obedience are the Gospels’

narrow path of redemption. St. John’s “nada”, which means “nothing”, and which image is visually represented in his sketch of the Ascent of Mount Carmel22 with the narrow path in the middle and with nothing on the top of the mountain, is interlocked both with the imagery of taking up one’s cross and of the night. An interim conclusion might be that Kreuzeswissenschaft seems to be only the tip of an iceberg in the sense of Fauconnier and Turner23 and that the iceberg is appar-ently made of complex networks of conceptual integration. The main function of blending seems to be in this case also the compression which adapts complexity to a human scale, as Fauconnier and Turner24 put it.