Edith Stein Letters to Roman Ingarden: The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Volume 12
About this ebook
Through Stein’s letters, the reader can follow her through her student days, her conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, her professional life, and her decision to become a Carmelite nun in the Carmel of Cologne, where she took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. The letters end in 1938, when the Nazi threat escalating throughout Eastern Europe made correspondence difficult, especially across national borders. Four years later Edith Stein was arrested in the Netherlands by the Nazi SS, transported to Auschwitz, and was killed in the gas chambers. Roman Ingarden survived World War II, continued his academic work in Poland, and died in 1970.
Although Ingarden’s letters to her have not been found, Stein’s to him also help us understand the life of this Polish phenomenologist and aesthetician, his life in Poland, his intellectual development, his own writings and academic career, and the editorial assistance Stein provided for all of the works he published in German.
Translated from the newest critical German edition by Dr. Hugh Candler Hunt, this premiere English edition of her correspondence—volume 12 of ICS Publications’ Collected Works of Edith Stein—gives us a fascinating and intimate window into Edith Stein’s rich life and personality, revealing her warmth and humor, deep capacity for friendship, and remarkable intellectual and spiritual depth.
Book has 13 photos, bibliography and linked index.
About the author
Edith Stein, born on October 12, 1891, of Jewish parents, converted to Catholicism and was baptized on January 1, 1922. After her conversion, Edith spent her days teaching, lecturing, writing and translating, and she soon became known as a celebrated philosopher and author, but her own great longing was for the solitude and contemplation of Carmel, in which she could offer herself to God for her people. She entered the Discalced Carmelite Nuns cloistered community at Cologne-Lindenthal on October 14, 1933. The following April, Edith received the Habit of Carmel and the religious name of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and on Easter Sunday, April 21, 1935, she made her Profession of Vows. When the Jewish persecution increased in violence and fanaticism, Sister Teresa Benedicta soon realized the danger that her presence was to the Cologne Carmel, and she asked and received permission to transfer to a foreign monastery. On the night of December 31, 1938, she secretly crossed the border into Holland where she was warmly received in the Carmel of Echt. There she wrote her last work, The Science of the Cross. She died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942. She was canonized on October 11, 1998.
