ABSTRACT

In her famous Autodefensa espiritual (Spiritual Self-Defense, circa 1681; known also as the Carta de Monterrey), Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz argues against the censure of her confessor, the Jesuit priest Antonio Núñez de la Miranda, who strongly disapproved of female education and erudition. Reading Sor Juana’s accusations, it appears that Núñez claimed her dedication to a studious life jeopardized her path to salvation. Sor Juana challenges him to defend the dichotomy he draws between study and salvation, citing the famous examples of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and all the rest of the Church Fathers. 1 She even invokes the example of Núñez himself – “cargado de letras” (19) [bowed down under the weight of so much learning, 435] as he was. 2 She knows, however, that Núñez will not accept the comparison of men with women since, as she says, he believed men to be governed by “otra razón” (19) [other rules, 435]. She turns, then, to examples of erudite women of the past. Unlike in the Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz (Answer, 1691), where she will propose a lengthy list of scholarly women in support of her right to a studious life, here she lists just three: St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Gertrude, and St. Paula. It is St. Paula (307–404), the patron of her convent – “my Mother Saint Paula” – upon whom she focuses to challenge Núñez’s opinion about both the moral propriety of women’s study as well as their capacity to follow the example of these praiseworthy women:

¿No estudió Santa Catarina, Santa Gertrudis, mi Madre Santa Paula, sin estorbarle a su alta contemplación, ni a la fatiga de sus fundaciones, el saber hasta griego? ¿El aprender hebreo? ¿Enseñada de mi Padre San Jerónimo, el resolver y el entender las Santas Escrituras, como el mismo Santo lo dice? (19)

(Did not St. Catherine, St. Gertrude and my mother St. Paula study without harming their lofty contemplations, and was the latter’s travail in the founding of convents impeded by her knowledge even of Greek? By having learned Hebrew? By having been instructed by my Father St. Jerome to understand and interpret Holy Writ, as the Saint himself tell us?) (Scott 435)