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 BR 45 .B35 1899 
 Bampton lectures 
 
CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
THE BAMPTON LECTURES, 1899 
 
CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 CONSIDERED IN EIGHT LECTURES 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 WILLIAM RALPH INGE, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW AND TUTOR OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD ; FORMERLY FF.LLOW OF KING'S 
 COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND ASSISTANT MASTER AT ETON COLLEGE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 153, 15s. AND 157 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 LONDON: METHUEN & CO. 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 REV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 CANON OF SALISBURY. 
 
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the 
 
 Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford 
 for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands 
 and Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes here- 
 inafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and appoint that the 
 Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being 
 shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, 
 and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions 
 made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of 
 eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in 
 the said University, and to be performed in the manner 
 following : 
 
 " I direct and appoint that upon the first Tuesday in Easter 
 Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges 
 only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing- 
 House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in 
 the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the 
 year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the com- 
 mencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of 
 the third week in Act Term. 
 
VI 
 
 EXTRACT 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture 
 Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following 
 Subjects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and 
 to confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the Divine 
 authority of the Holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the 
 writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice 
 of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — 
 upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in 
 the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. 
 
 "Also I direct that thirty copies of the eight Divinity 
 Lecture Sermons shall be always printed within two months 
 after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the 
 Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the head of 
 every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the City of Oxford, 
 and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; and the 
 expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of 
 the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture 
 Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor entitled to 
 the revenue, before they are printed. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified 
 to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken 
 the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Uni- 
 versities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that tlTe same person 
 shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The first of the subjects which, according to the will of 
 Canon Bampton, are prescribed for the Lecturers upon 
 his foundation, is the confirmation and establishment of 
 the Christian faith. This is the aim which I have 
 kept in view in preparing this volume ; and I should 
 wish my book to be judged as a contribution to apolo- 
 getics, rather than as a historical sketch of Christian 
 Mysticism. I say this' because I decided, after some 
 hesitation, to adopt a historical framework for the 
 Lectures, and this arrangement may cause my object 
 to be misunderstood. It seemed to me that the 
 instructiveness of tracing the development and opera- 
 tion of mystical ideas, in the forms which they have 
 assumed as active forces in history, outweighed the 
 disadvantage of appearing to waver between apology 
 and narrative. A series of historical essays would, of 
 course, have been quite unsuitable in the University 
 pulpit, and, moreover, I did not approach the subject 
 from that side. Until I began to prepare the Lectures, 
 about a year and a half before they were delivered, my 
 study of the mystical writers had been directed solely 
 by my own intellectual and spiritual needs. I was 
 attracted to them in the hope of finding in their 
 writings a philosophy and a rule of life which would 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 satisfy my mind and conscience. In this I was not 
 disappointed ; and thinking that others might perhaps 
 profit by following the same path, I wished to put 
 together and publish the results of my thought and 
 reading. In such a scheme historical details are either 
 out of place or of secondary value ; and I hope this 
 will be remembered by any historians who may take 
 the trouble to read my book. 
 
 The philosophical side of the subject is from my 
 point of view of much greater importance. I have 
 done my best to acquire an adequate knowledge of 
 those philosophies, both ancient and modern, which 
 are most akin to speculative Mysticism, and also to 
 think out my own position. I hope that I have 
 succeeded in indicating my general standpoint, and 
 that what I have written may prove fairly consistent 
 and intelligible ; but I have felt keenly the disad- 
 vantage of having missed the systematic training in 
 metaphysics given by the Oxford school of LitercB 
 Huinaniores, and also the difficulty (perhaps I should 
 say the presumption) of addressing metaphysical 
 arguments to an audience which included several 
 eminent philosophers. I wish also that I had had 
 time for a more thorough study of Fechner's works ; 
 for his system, so far as I understand it, seems to me 
 to have a great interest and value as a scheme of 
 philosophical Mysticism which does not clash with 
 modern science. 
 
 I have spoken with a plainness which will probably 
 give offence of the debased supernaturalism which 
 usurps the name of Mysticism in Roman Catholic 
 countries. I desire to insult no man's convictions ; 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 and it is for this reason that I have decided not to 
 print my analysis of Ribet's work {^La Mystique Divine, 
 distinguh des Contrefa<^ons diaboliques. Nouvelle 
 Edition, Paris, 1895, 3 vols.), which I intended to 
 form an Appendix. It would have opened the eyes 
 of some of my readers to the irreconcilable antagon- 
 ism between the Roman Church and science ; but 
 though I translated and summarised my author faith- 
 fully, the result had all the appearance of a malicious 
 travesty. I have therefore suppressed this Appendix ; 
 but with regard to Roman Catholic " Mysticism " 
 there is no use in mincing matters. Those who find 
 edification in signs and wonders of this kind, and 
 think that such " supernatural phenomena," even if 
 they were well authenticated instead of being ridiculous 
 fables, could possibly establish spiritual truths, will 
 find little or nothing to please or interest them in 
 these pages. But those who reverence Nature and 
 Reason, and have no wish to hear of either of them 
 being " overruled " or " suspended," will, I hope, agree 
 with me in valuing highly the later developments of 
 mystical thought in Northern Europe. 
 
 There is another class of " mystics " with whom I 
 have but little sympathy — the dabblers in occultism. 
 " Psychical research " is, no doubt, a perfectly legitimate 
 science ; but when its professors invite us to watch the 
 breaking down of the middle wall of partition between 
 matter and spirit, they have, in my opinion, ceased to 
 be scientific, and are in reality hankering after the 
 beggarly elements of the later Neoplatonism. 
 
 The charge of " pantheistic tendency " will not, I 
 hope, be brought against me without due considera- 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 tion. I have tried to show how the Johannine Logos- 
 doctrine, which is the basis of Christian Mysticism, 
 differs from Asiatic Pantheism, from Acosmism, and 
 from (one kind of) evolutionary IdeaHsm. Of course, 
 speculative Mysticism is nearer to Pantheism than to 
 Deism ; but I think it is possible heartily to eschew 
 Deism without falling into the opposite error. 
 
 I have received much help from many kind friends ; 
 and though some of them would not wish to be as- 
 sociated with all of my opinions, I cannot deny myself 
 the pleasure of thanking them by name. From my 
 mother and other members of my family, and relations, 
 especially Mr. W. W. How, Fellow of Merton, I 
 have received many useful suggestions. Three past 
 or present colleagues have read and criticised parts of 
 my work — the Rev. H. Rashdall, now Fellow of New 
 College ; Mr. H. A. Prichard, now Fellow of Trinity ; 
 and Mr. H. H. Williams, Fellow of Hertford. Mr. 
 G. L. Dickinson, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, 
 lent me an unpublished dissertation on Plotinus. The 
 Rev. C. Bigg, D.D., whose Bampton Lectures on the 
 Christian Platonists are known all over Europe, did me 
 the kindness to read the whole of the eight Lectures, 
 and so added to the great debt which I owe to him 
 for his books. The Rev. J. M. Heald, formerly 
 Scholar of Trinity, Cambridge, lent me many books 
 from his fine library, and by inquiring for me at 
 Louvain enabled me to procure the books on Mysti- 
 cism which are now studied in Roman Catholic 
 Universities. The Rev. Dr. Lindsay, who has made 
 a special study of the German mystics, read my 
 Lectures on that period, and wrote me a very useful 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 letter upon them. Miss G. H. Warrack of Edinburgh 
 kindly allowed me to use her modernised version of 
 Julian of Norwich. 
 
 I have ventured to say in my last Lecture — and it is 
 my earnest conviction — that a more general acquaint- 
 ance with mystical theology and philosophy is very 
 desirable in the interests of the English Church at the 
 present time. I am not one? of those who think that 
 the points at issue between Anglo-Catholics and Anglo- 
 Protestants are trivial : history has always confirmed 
 Aristotle's famous dictum about parties — ^'uyvoviaL al 
 (7rda€c<; ov irepl fxcKpwv aW e'/c fXLKpwv, cnaaid^ovat he 
 Trepl /u,eyaXo3v — but I do not so far despair of our 
 Church, or of Christianity, as to doubt that a recon- 
 ciling principle must and will be found. Those who 
 do me the honour to read these Lectures will see 
 to what quarter I look for a mediator, A very short 
 study would be sufficient to dispel some of the pre- 
 judices which still hang round the name of Mysticism 
 — e.g:, that its professors are unpractical dreamers, and 
 that this type of religion is antagonistic to the English 
 mind. As a matter of fact, all the great mystics have 
 been energetic and influential, and their business capa- 
 city is specially noted in a curiously large number of 
 cases. For instance, Plotinus was often in request as 
 a guardian and trustee ; St. Bernard showed great 
 gifts as an organiser ; St. Teresa, as a founder of 
 convents and administrator, gave evidence of extra- 
 ordinary practical ability; even St. Juan of the Cross - 
 displayed the same qualities ; John Smith was an excel- 
 lent bursar of his college ; Fenelon ruled his diocese 
 extremely well ; and Madame Guyon surprised those 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 who had deahngs with her by her great aptitude for 
 affairs. Henry More was offered posts of high re- 
 sponsibiHty and dignity, but declined them. The 
 mystic is not as a rule ambitious, but I do not think 
 he often shows incapacity for practical life, if he con- 
 sents to mingle in it. And so far is it from being 
 true that Great Britain has produced but few mystics, 
 that I am inclined to think the subject might be ade- 
 quately studied from English writers alone. On the 
 more intellectual side we have (without going back to 
 Scotus Erigena) the Cambridge Platonists, Law and 
 Coleridge ; of devotional mystics we have attractive 
 examples in Hilton and Julian of Norwich ; while in 
 verse the lofty idealism ^ and strong religious bent of 
 our race have produced a series of poet-mystics such as 
 no other country can rival. It has not been possible 
 in these Lectures to do justice to George Herbert, 
 Vaughan " the Silurist," Quarles, Crashaw, and others, 
 who have all drunk of the same well. Let it suffice to 
 say that the student who desires to master the history 
 of Mysticism in Britain will find plenty to occupy his 
 time. But for the religious public in general the most 
 useful thing would be a judicious selection from the 
 mystical writers of different times and countries. Those 
 who are more interested in the practical and devo- 
 tional than the speculative side may study with great 
 
 ' It is really time that we took to burning that travesty of the British 
 character — the John Bull whom our comic papers represent " guarding his 
 pudding" — instead of Guy Fawkes. Even in the nineteenth century, 
 amid all the sordid materialism bred of commercial ascendancy, this 
 country has produced a richer crop of imaginative literature than any 
 other ; and it is significant that, while in Germany philosophy is falling 
 more and more into the hands of the empirical school, our own thinkers 
 are nearly all staunch idealists. 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 profit some parts of St. Augustine, the sermons of 
 Tauler, the TJieologia Genna?iica, Hilton's Sca/e of 
 Perfection, the Life of Henry Suso, St. Francis de 
 Sales and Fenelon, the Sermons of John Smith and 
 Whichcote's ApJiorisnis, and the later works of William 
 Law, not forgetting the poets who have been men- 
 tioned. I can think of no course of study more fitting 
 for those who wish to revive in themselves and others 
 the practical idealism of the primitive Church, which 
 gained for it its greatest triumphs. 
 
 I conclude this Preface with a quotation from 
 William Law on the value of the mystical writers. 
 " Writers like those I have mentioned," he says in a 
 letter to Dr. Trapp, " there have been in all ages of 
 the Church, but as they served not the ends of popular 
 learning, as they helped no people to figure or pre- 
 ferment in the world, and were useless to scholastic 
 controversial writers, so they dropt "^out of public uses, 
 and were only known, or rather unknown, under the 
 name of mystical writers, till at last some people have 
 hardly heard of that very name : though, if a man 
 were to be told what is meant by a mystical divine, 
 he must be told of something as heavenly, as great, as 
 desirable, as if he was told what is meant by a real, 
 regenerate, living member of the mystical body of 
 Christ ; for they were thus called for no other reason 
 than as Moses and the prophets, and the saints of 
 the Old Testament, may be called the spiritual Israel, 
 or the true mystical Jews. These writers began their- 
 office of teaching as John the Baptist did, after they 
 had passed through every kind of mortification and 
 self-denial, every kind of trial and purification, both 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 inward and outward. They were deeply learned in 
 the mysteries of the kingdom of God, not through the 
 use of lexicons, or meditating upon critics, but because 
 they had passed from death unto life. They highly 
 reverence and excellently direct the true use of every- 
 thing that is outward in religion ; but, like the Psalmist's 
 king's daughter, they are all glorious within. They 
 are truly sons of thunder, and sons of consolation ; 
 they break open the whited sepulchres ; they awaken 
 the heart, and show it its filth and rottenness of death : 
 but they leave it not till the kingdom of heaven is 
 raised up within it. If a man has no desire but to be 
 of the spirit of the gospel, to obtain all that renova- 
 tion of life and spirit which alone can make him to be 
 in Christ a new creature, it is a great unhappiness to 
 him to be unacquainted with these writers, or to pass 
 a day without reading something of what they wrote." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LF.CTURtt PACK 
 
 I. General Characteristics of Mysticism ..... 3 
 
 II. The Mystical Element in the Bible ..... 39 
 
 III. Christian Platonism and Speculative Mysticism — (i) In the 
 
 East 77 
 
 IV. Christian Platonism and Speculative Mysticism — (2) In the 
 
 West 125 
 
 V. Practical and Devotional Mysticism . . . . .167 
 
 VI. Practical and Devotional Mysticism — continued . . . 213 
 
 VII. Nature- Mysticism and Symbolism ..... 249 
 
 VIII. Nature-Mysticism — continued ...... 299 
 
 Appendix A, Definitions of " Mysticism " and " Mystical 
 
 Theology" 335 
 
 Appendix B. The Greek Mysteries and Christian Mysticism . 349 
 
 Appendix C. The Doctrine of Deification ..... 356 
 
 Appendix D. The Mystical Interpretation of the Song of Solomon 369 
 
 Index 373 
 
LECTURE I 
 
"'H.iJ.'ti> Sk diroSeiKT^ov ws ^tt' evrvxlq^ rji /xeylffrji Tapa OeQp ii toio.'utt) 
 fiavla SWoraf rj 8^ dij awdSei^ts iarai beivdls fi^v dTncrros, (XOKpoh di 
 ■^^"■^■n" Plato, Phadrus, p. 245. 
 
 " Thoas. Es spricht kein Gott ; es spricht dein eignes Herz. 
 Iphigenia. Sie reden nur durch unser Herz zu uns." 
 
 Goethe, Iphigenie. 
 
 "Si notre vie est moins qu'une journ^e 
 En r^ternel; si I'an qui fait le tour 
 Chasse nos jours sans espoir de retour; 
 Si p^rissable est toute chose nt^e; 
 Que songes-tu, mon ^me emprisonnt^e ? 
 Pourquoi te plait I'obscur de notre jour, 
 Si, pour voler en un plus clair s^jour, 
 Tu as au dos I'aile bien empenn^e ! 
 L4 est le bien que tout esprit d«^sire, 
 Li, le repos ou tout le monde aspire, 
 Li est I'amour, la le plaisir encore ! 
 Li, 6 mon ame, au plus haut ciel guid^e, 
 Tu y pourras reconnaitre I'id^e 
 De la beautt^ qu'en ce monde j'adore ! " 
 
 Old Poet. 
 
CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 General Characteristics of Mysticism 
 
 " Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest 
 what we shall be. We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be 
 like Him ; for we shall see Him even as He is." — i John iii. 2, 3. 
 
 No word in our language — not even " Socialism " — 
 has been employed more loosely than " Mysticism." 
 Sometimes it is used as an equivalent for symbolism or 
 allegorism, sometimes for theosophy or occult science ; 
 and sometimes it merely suggests the mental state of 
 a dreamer, or vague and fantastic opinions about God 
 and the world. In Roman Catholic writers, " mystical 
 phenomena" mean supernatural suspensions of phys- 
 ical law. Even those writers who have made a special 
 study of the subject, show by their definitions of the 
 word how uncertain is its connotation.^ It is therefore 
 necessary that I should make clear at the outset what I 
 understand by the term, and what aspects of religious 
 life and thought I intend to deal with in these 
 Lectures. 
 
 The history of the word begins in close connexion 
 
 ^ See Appendix A for definitions of Mysticism and Mystical Thea- 
 logy. 
 
 3 
 
4 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 with the Greek mysteries.^ A mystic (/aucttt?'?) is one 
 who has been, or is being, initiated into some esoteric 
 knowledge of Divine things, about which he must keep 
 his mouth shut (ixveiv) ; or, possibly, he is one whose 
 eyes are still shut, one who is not yet an eVoTTT?;?.'-^ The 
 word was taken over, with other technical terms of 
 the mysteries, by the Neoplatonists, who found in the 
 existing mysteriosophy a discipline, worship, and rule 
 of life congenial to their speculative views. But as the 
 tendency towards quietism and introspection increased 
 among them, another derivation for " Mysticism " was 
 found — it was explained to mean deliberately shutting 
 the eyes to all external things.^ We shall see in the 
 sequel how this later Neoplatonism passed almost entire 
 into Christianity, and, while forming the basis of 
 mediaeval Mysticism, caused a false association to cling 
 to the word even down to the Reformation.'* 
 
 The phase of thought or feeling which we call 
 
 1 See Appendix B for a discussion of the influence of the Greek mysteries 
 upon Christian Mysticism. 
 
 ' Tholuck accepts the former derivation (cf. Suidas, /xva-r-^pia sKX-qd-qaav 
 irapa rb tovs a.KoiovTO.'i fiveip rb (TTd/xa Kal fiyjdivi ravra i^yjyeladai) ; 
 Petersen, the latter. There is no doubt that fivrja-is was opposed to 
 iiroTrrda, and in this sense denoted incomplete initiation ; but it was also 
 made to include the whole process. The prevailing use of the adjective 
 /ai;(rrifc6s is of something seen "through a glass darkly," some knowledge 
 purposely wrapped up in symbols. 
 
 ^ So Hesychius says, Miycrrat, airb fj.6(j}, fivovres yap ras ala-drjaeis Kal ^^w 
 tQv aapKiKLOv (ppovrlSuiv yeu6fjLevoL, ouru) rds Oeias dva\dfM\peis edexovro. 
 Plotinus and Proclus both use /mvu of the "closed eye" of rapt con- 
 templation. 
 
 ■• I cannot agree with Lasson (in his book on Meister Eckhart) that "the 
 connexion with the Greek mysteries throws no light on the subject." No 
 writer had more influence upon the growth of Mysticism in the Church 
 than Dionysius the Areopagite, whose main object is to present Chris- 
 tianity in the light of a Platonic mysteriosophy. The same purpose is 
 evident in Clement, and in other Christian Platonists between Clement and 
 Dionysius. See Appendix B. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 5 
 
 Mysticism has its origin in that which is the raw 
 material of all religion, and perhaps of all philosophy 
 and art as well, namely, that dim consciousness of the 
 beyond, which is part of our nature as human beings. 
 Men have given different names to these " obstinate ques- 
 tionings of sense and outward things." We may call them, 
 if we will, a sort of higher instinct, perhaps an anticipa- 
 tion of the evolutionary process ; or an extension of 
 the frontier of consciousness ; or, in religious language, 
 the voice of God speaking to us. Mysticism arises 
 when we try to bring this higher consciousness into 
 relation with the other contents of our minds. Religious 
 Mysticism may be defined as the attempt to realise the 
 presence of the living God in the soul and in nature, 
 or, more generally, as the attempt to realise, in thought 
 and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, 
 and of the eternal in the temporal. Our consciousness 
 of the beyond is, I say, the raw material of all religion. 
 But, being itself formless, it cannot be brought directly 
 into relation with the forms of our thought. Accordingly, 
 it has to express itself by symbols, which are as it were 
 the flesh and bones of ideas. It is the tendency of all 
 symbols to petrify or evaporate, and either process is 
 fatal to them. They soon repudiate their mystical 
 origin, and forthwith lose their religious content. Then 
 comes a return to the fresh springs of the inner life — 
 a revival of spirituality in the midst of formalism or 
 unbelief. This is the historical function of Mysticism 
 — it appears as an independent active principle, the 
 spirit of reformations and revivals. But since every 
 active principle must find for itself appropriate instru- 
 ments, Mysticism has developed a speculative and 
 
6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 practical system of its own. As Goethe says, it is 
 " the scholastic of the heart, the dialectic of the 
 feelings." In this way it becomes possible to con- 
 sider it as a type of religion, though it must always 
 be remembered that in becoming such it has incorpor- 
 ated elements which do not belong to its inmost being.^ 
 As a type of religion, then. Mysticism seems to rest on 
 the following propositions or articles of faith : — 
 
 First, the soul (as well as the body) ca7i see and 
 perceive — eVrt 8e '^v-^]<^ aia6t](jl^ re?, as Proclus says. 
 We have an organ or faculty for the discernment of 
 spiritual truth, which, in its proper sphere, is as much 
 to be trusted as the organs of sensation in theirs. 
 
 The second proposition is that, since we can only 
 know what is akin to ourselves,^ inan, in order to know 
 God, must be a partaker of the Divine nature. " What 
 
 ^ It should also be borne in mind that every historical example of a 
 mystical movement may be expected to exhibit characteristics which are 
 determined by the particular forms of religious deadness in opposition 
 to which it arises. I think that it is generally easy to separate these 
 secondary, accidental chaiacteristics from those which are primary and 
 integral, and that we shall then find that the underlying substance, which 
 may be regarded as the essence of Mysticism as a type of religion, is 
 strikingly uniform. 
 
 " The analogy used by Plotinus [Ennead i. 6. 9) was often quoted and 
 imitated : " Even as the eye could not behold the sun unless it were itself 
 sunlike, so neither could the soul behold God if it were not Godlike." 
 Lotze (Microcosmus, and cf. Metaphysics, ist ed., p. 109) falls foul of 
 Plotinus for this argument. " The reality of the external world is utterly 
 severed from our senses. It is vain to call the eye sunlike, as if it needed 
 a special occult power to copy what it has itself produced : fruitless are all 
 mystic efforts to restore to the intuitions of sense, by means of a secret 
 identity of mind with things, a reality outside ourselves." Whether the 
 subjective idealism of this sentence is consistent with the subsequent 
 dogmatic assertion that "nature is animated throughout," it is not my 
 province to determine. The latter doctrine is held by a large school of 
 mystics : the acosmistic tendency of the former has had only too much 
 attraction for mystics of another school. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 7 
 
 we are, that we behold ; and what we behold, that we 
 are," says Ruysbroek, The curious doctrine which we 
 find in the mystics of the Middle Ages, that there is at 
 " the apex of the mind " a spark which is consub- 
 stantial with the uncreated ground of the Deity, is thus 
 accounted for. We could not even begin to work out 
 our own salvation if God were not already working in 
 us^ It is always " in His light " that " we see light." 
 The doctrine has been felt to be a necessary postulate 
 by most philosophers who hold that knowledge of God 
 is possible to man. For instance, Krause says, " From 
 finite reason as finite we might possibly explain the 
 thought of itself, but not the thought of something that 
 is outside finite reasonable beings, far less the absolute 
 idea, in its contents infinite, of God. To become aware 
 of God in knowledge we require certainly to make a 
 freer use of our finite power of thought, but the 
 thought of God itself is primarily and essentially an 
 eternal operation of the eternal revelation of God to the 
 finite mind." But though we are made in the image of 
 God, our likeness to Him only exists potentially.^ The 
 Divine spark already shines within us, but it has to be 
 searched for in the innermost depths of our personality, 
 and its light diffused over our whole being. 
 
 This brings us to the third proposition — " Without 
 holiness no man may see the Lord" ; or, as it is ex- 
 pressed positively in the Sermon on the Mount, 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God." 
 Sensuality and selfishness are absolute disqualifications 
 for knowing " the things of the Spirit of God." 
 
 ^ This distinction is drawn by Origen, and accepted by all the mystical 
 writers. 
 
8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 These fundamental doctrines are very clearly laid 
 down in the passage from St. John which I read as 
 the text of this Lecture. The filial relation to God is 
 already claimed, but the vision is inseparable from 
 likeness to Him, which is a hope, not a possession, and 
 is only to be won by " purifying ourselves, even as He 
 is pure." 
 
 There is one more fundamental doctrine which we 
 must not omit. Purification removes the obstacles to 
 our union with God, but our guide on the upward path, 
 the true hierophant of the mysteries of God, is love} Love 
 has been defined as " interest in its highest power " ; ^ 
 while others have said that " it is of the essence of love 
 to be disinterested." The contradiction is merely a verbal 
 one. The two definitions mark different starting-points, 
 but the two " ways of love " should bring us to the 
 same goal. The possibility of disinterested love, in the 
 ordinary sense, ought never to have been called in 
 question. " Love is not love " M'hen it asks for a 
 reward. Nor is the love of man to God any exception. 
 He who tries to be holy in order to be happy will 
 assuredly be neither. In the words of the Theologia 
 Germanica, " So long as a man seeketh his own highest 
 good because it is his, he will never find it." The 
 
 ^ Faith goes so closely hand in hand with love that the mystics seldom 
 try to separate them, and indeed they need not be separated. William 
 Law's account of their operation is characteristic. "When the seed of the 
 new birth, called the inward man, has faith awakened in it, its faith is not 
 a notion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting or magnetic 
 desire of Christ, which as it proceeds from a seed of the Divine nature in 
 us, so it attracts and unites with its like : it lays hold on Christ, puts on 
 the Divine nature, and in a living and real manner grows powerful over 
 all our sins, and effectually works out our salvation" {Grounds and 
 Reasons of Christian Regeneration). 
 
 ^ R. L. Nettleship, Remains. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 9 
 
 mystics here are unanimous, though some, like St. 
 Bernard, doubt whether perfect love of God can ever 
 be attained, pure and without alloy, while we are in 
 this life.^ The controversy between Fenelon and 
 Bossuet on this subject is well known, and few will 
 deny that Fenelon was mainly in the right. Certainly 
 he had an easy task in justifying his statements from 
 the writings of the saints. But we need not trouble 
 ourselves with the " mystic paradox," that it would be 
 better to be with Christ in hell than without Him in 
 heaven — a statement which Thomas a Kempis once 
 wrote and then erased in his manuscript. For wherever 
 Christ is, there is heaven : nor should we regard eternal 
 happiness as anything distinct from " a true conjunc- 
 tion of the mind with God." ^ " God is not without or 
 above law : He could not make men either sinful or 
 miserable." ^ To believe otherwise is to suppose an 
 irrational universe, the one thing which a rational man 
 cannot believe in. 
 
 The mystic, as we have seen, makes it his life's aim 
 to be transformed into the likeness of Him in whose 
 image he was created.* He loves to figure his path 
 as a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, which must 
 be climbed step by step. This scala perfectionis is 
 generally divided into three stages. The first is called 
 
 ^ "Nescio si a quoquam homine quartus (gradus) in hac vita perfecte 
 apprehenditur, ut se scilicet diligat homo tantum propter Deum. Asserant 
 hoc si qui experti sunt: mihi (fateor) impossibile videtur " {De diligendo 
 Deo, XV.; Epist. xi. 8). 
 
 "^ From a sermon by Smith, the Cambridge Platonist. Plotinus, too, 
 says well, ef rts dXXo eZSos rjdovTJs irepi tov crTrovdaTov ^Lov ^tjtu, ov rbv 
 airovhcuov ^lov ^TjTet {En?iead \. 4. 12). 
 
 "* From Smith's sermons. , 
 
 * Pindar's yipoio olos iaai /xaOuif is a fine mystical maxim. [Pyth. 2. 131-) 
 
lo CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 the purgative life, the second the illuminative, while 
 the third, which is really the goal rather than a part 
 of the journey, is called the unitive life, or state of 
 perfect contemplation.^ We find, as we should expect, 
 some differences in the classification, but this tripartite 
 scheme is generally accepted. 
 
 The steps of the upward path constitute the ethical 
 system, the rule of life, of the mystics. The first stage, 
 the purgative life, we read in the Theologia Gennanica, 
 is brought about by contrition, by confession, by hearty 
 amendment ; and this is the usual language in treatises 
 intended for monks. But it is really intended to 
 include the civic and social virtues in this stage.^ 
 They occupy the lowest place, it is true ; but this only 
 means that they must be acquired by all, though all 
 are not called to the higher flights of contemplation. 
 Their chief value, according to Plotinus, is to teach us 
 the meaning of oj'dej'- and limitation (rd^L'i and iripa'i), 
 which are qualities belonging to the Divine nature. 
 This is a very valuable thought, for it contradicts that 
 aberration of Mysticism which calls God the Infinite, 
 and thinks of Him as the Indefinite, dissolving all 
 distinctions in the abyss of bare indetermination. 
 When Ewald says, " the true mystic never withdraws 
 
 ^ Strictly, the unitive road {via) leads to the contemplative life (vita). 
 Cf. Benedict, xiv., De Servoruin Dei beaiijic., iii. 26, " Perfecta hsec 
 mystica unio reperitur regulariter in perfecto contemplativo qui in vita 
 purgativa et illuniinativa, id est meditativa, et contemplativa diu versatus, 
 ex speciali Dei favore ad infusam contemplativam evectus est." On the 
 three ways, Suarez says, " Distinguere solent mystici tres vias, purgativam, 
 illuminativani, et unitivam." Molinos was quite a heterodox mystic in 
 teaching that there is but a "unica via, scilicet interna," and this pro- 
 position was condemned by a Bull of Innocent XI. 
 
 - In Plotinus the civic virtues precede the cathartic ; but they are not, as 
 with some perverse mystics, considered to lie outside the path of ascent. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 1 1 
 
 himself wilfully from the business of life, no, not even 
 from the smallest business," he is, at any rate, saying 
 nothing which conflicts with the principles of Mysticism.^ 
 The purgative life necessarily includes self-discipline : 
 does it necessarily include what is commonly known 
 as asceticism ? It would be easy to answer that 
 asceticism means nothing but ti'aining, as men train 
 for a race, or more broadly still, that it means simply 
 " the acquisition of some greater power by practice." ^ 
 But when people speak of " asceticism," they have in 
 their minds such severe " buffeting " of the body as 
 was practised by many ancient hermits and mediaeval 
 monks. Is this an integral part of the mystic's 
 " upward path " ? We shall find reason to conclude 
 that, while a certain degree of austere simplicity 
 characterises the outward life of nearly all the mystics, 
 and while an almost morbid desire to suffer is found 
 in many of them, there is nothing in the system itself 
 to encourage men to maltreat their bodies. Mysticism 
 enjoins a dying life, not a living death. Moreover, 
 asceticism, when regarded as a virtue or duty in itself, 
 tends to isolate us, and concentrates our attention on 
 our separate individuality. This is contrary to the 
 spirit of Mysticism, which aims at realising unity and 
 solidarity everywhere. Monkish asceticism (so far as 
 it goes beyond the struggle to live unstained under 
 
 ^ Tauler is careful to put social service on its true basis. "One can 
 spin,'^he says, "another can make shoes; and all these are gifts of the 
 Holy;Ghost. I tell you, if I were not a priest, I should esteem it a great 
 gift that I was able to make shoes, and would try to make them so well 
 as to be a pattern to all." In a later Lecture I shall revert to the charge 
 of indolent neglect of duties, so often preferred against the mystics. 
 
 ^ R. L. Nettleship, Remains, 
 
12 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 unnatural conditions) rests on a dualistic view of the 
 world which does not belong to the essence of Mysticism. 
 It infected all the religious life of the Middle Ages, not 
 Mysticism only.^ 
 
 The second stage, the illuminative life, is the con- 
 centration of all the faculties, will, intellect, and feeling, 
 upon God. It differs from the purgative life, not in 
 having discarded good works, but in having come to 
 perform them, as Fenelon says, " no longer as virtues," 
 that is to say, willingly and almost spontaneously. The 
 struggle is now transferred to the inner life. 
 
 The last stage of the journey, in which the soul 
 presses towards the mark, and gains the prize of its 
 high calling, is the unitive or contemplative life, in 
 which man beholds God face to face, and is joined to 
 Him. Complete union with God is the ideal limit of 
 religion, the attainment of which would be at once its 
 consummation and annihilation. It is in the continual 
 but unending approximation to it that the life of 
 religion subsists.^ We must therefore beware of re- 
 garding the union as anything more than an infinite 
 process, though, as its end is part of the eternal 
 counsel of God, there is a sense in which it is already 
 a fact, and not merely a thing desired. But the word 
 
 ^ In a Roman Catholic manual I find: " Non raro sub nomine 
 theologire mysticse intelligitur etiam ascesis, sed immerito. Nam ascesis 
 consuetas tantum et tritas perfectionis semitas ostendit, mystica autem 
 adhuc excellentiorem viam demonstrat." This is to identify "mystical 
 theology " with the higher rungs of the ladder. It has been used in this 
 curious manner from the Middle Ages. Ribet says, " La mystique, 
 comme science speciale, fait partie de la theologie ascetique"; that part, 
 namely, "dans lequel I'homme est reduit a la passivite par Taction 
 souveraine de Dieu." "L'ascese" is defined as "I'ascension de I'ame 
 vers Dieu." 
 
 - Cf. Professor W. Wallace's collected Lectures and Essays, p. 276. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 13 
 
 deification holds a very large place in the writings of 
 the Fathers, and not only among those who have been 
 called mystics. We find it in Irenaeus as well as in 
 Clement, in Athanasius as well as in Gregory of Nyssa. 
 St. Augustine is no more afraid of " deificari " in Latin 
 than Origen of deoTroieladat in Greek. The subject is 
 one of primary importance to anyone who wishes to 
 understand mystical theology ; but it is difficult for us 
 to enter into the minds of the ancients who used these 
 expressions, both because 0e6<; was a very fluid concept 
 in the early centuries, and because our notions of 
 personality are very different from those which were 
 prevalent in antiquity. On this latter point I shall 
 have more to say presently ; but the evidence for the 
 belief in " deification," and its continuance through the 
 Middle Ages, is too voluminous to be given in the 
 body of these Lectures.^ Let it suffice to say here 
 that though such bold phrases as " God became man, 
 that we might become God," were commonplaces of 
 doctrinal theology at least till after Augustine, even 
 Clement and Origen protest strongly against the 
 " very impious " heresy that man is " a part of God," 
 or " consubstantial with God." ^ The attribute of 
 Divinity which was chiefly in the minds of the Greek 
 Fathers when they made these statements, was that of 
 imperishableness. 
 
 As to the means by which this union is manifested 
 to the consciousness, there is no doubt that very many 
 
 ^ See Appendix C on the Doctrine of Deification. 
 
 - So Fenelon, after asserting the truth of mystical " transformation," 
 adds: "It is false to say that transformation is a deification of the real 
 and natural soul, or a hypostatic union, or an unalterable conformity with 
 God." 
 
14 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 mystics believed in, and looked for, ecstatic revelations, 
 trances, or visions. This, again, is one of the crucial 
 questions of Mysticism. 
 
 Ecstasy or vision begins when thought ceases, to our 
 consciousness, to proceed from ourselves. It differs 
 from dreaming, because the subject is awake. It 
 differs from hallucination, because there is no organic 
 disturbance : it is, or claims to be, a temporary en- 
 hancement, not a partial disintegration, of the mental 
 faculties. Lastly, it differs from poetical inspiration, 
 because the imagination is passive. 
 
 That perfectly sane people often experience such 
 visions there is no manner of doubt. St. Paul fell 
 into a trance at his conversion, and again at a later 
 period, when he seemed to be caught up into the third 
 heaven. The most sober and practical of the mediaeval 
 mystics speak of them as common phenomena. And 
 in modern times two of the sanest of our poets have 
 recorded their experiences in words which may be worth 
 quoting. 
 
 Wordsworth, in his well-known " Lines composed 
 above Tintern Abbey," speaks of — 
 
 " That serene and blessed mood, 
 In which . . . the breath of this corporeal frame, 
 And even the motion of our human blood, 
 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 
 In body, and become a living soul : 
 While with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 We see into the life of things." 
 
 And Tennyson says,^ " A kind of waking trance I 
 
 ^ Life of Tennyson, vol. i. p. 320. The curious experience, that the 
 repetition of his own name induced a kind of trance, is used by the poet 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 15 
 
 have often had, quite from boyhood, when I have been 
 all alone. This has generally come upon me through 
 repeating my own name two or three times to myself 
 silently, till all at once, out of the intensity of the 
 consciousness of individuality, the individual itself 
 seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being : 
 and this not a confused state, but the clearest of the 
 clearest, and the surest of the surest, the weirdest of 
 the weirdest, utterly beyond words, where death was 
 an almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality 
 (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true 
 life." 
 
 Admitting, then, that these psychical phenomena 
 actually occur, we have to consider whether ecstasy and 
 kindred states are an integral part of Mysticism. In 
 attempting to answer this question, we shall find it 
 convenient to distinguish between the Neoplatonic 
 vision of the super-essential One, the Absolute, which 
 Plotinus enjoyed several times, and Porphyry only 
 once, and the visions and " locutions " which are 
 reported in all times and places, especially where 
 people have not been trained in scientific habits of 
 thought and observation. The former was held to be 
 an exceedingly rare privilege, the culminating point of 
 the contemplative life. I shall speak of it in my third 
 Lecture ; and shall there show that it belongs, not to 
 the essence of Mysticism, and still less to Christianity, 
 but to the Asiatic leaven which was mixed with 
 Alexandrian thought, and thence passed into Catholic- 
 
 in his beautiful mystical poem, " The Ancient Sage." It would, indeed, 
 have been equally easy to illustrate this topic from Wordsworth's prose 
 and Tennyson's poetry. 
 
i6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 ism. As regards visions in general, they were no 
 invention of the mystics. They played a much more 
 important part in the life of the early Church than 
 many ecclesiastical historians are willing to admit. 
 Tertullian, for instance, says calmly, " The majority, 
 almost, of men learn God from visions." ^ Such implicit 
 reliance was placed on the Divine authority of visions, 
 that on one occasion an ignorant peasant and a married 
 man was made Patriarch of Alexandria against his 
 will, because his dying predecessor had a vision that 
 the man who should bring him a present of grapes 
 on the next day should be his successor ! In course 
 of time visions became rarer among the laity, but 
 continued frequent among the monks and clergy. 
 And so the class which furnished most of the shining 
 lights of Mysticism was that in which these experiences 
 were most common. 
 
 But we do not find that the masters of the spiritual 
 life attached very much importance to them, or often 
 appealed to them as aids to faith.^ As a rule, visions 
 were regarded as special rewards bestowed by the 
 goodness of God on the struggling saint, and especially 
 on the beginner, to refresh him and strengthen him in 
 the hour of need. Very earnest cautions were issued 
 that no efforts must be made to induce them artificially, 
 and aspirants were exhorted neither to desire them, 
 nor to feel pride in having seen them. The spiritual 
 
 ^ See the very interesting note in Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. i. p. 53. 
 
 ^ The Abbe Migne says truly, " Ceux qui traitent les mystiques de 
 visionnaires seraient fort etonnes de voir quel peu de cas ils font des visions 
 en elles-memes." And St. Bonaventura says of visions, "Nee faciunt 
 sanctum nee ostendunt : alioquin Balaam sanctus esset, et asiua, qua; 
 vidit Angelum." 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 17 
 
 guides of the Middle Ages were well aware that such 
 experiences often come of disordered nerves and 
 weakened digestion ; they believed also that they are 
 sometimes delusions of Satan. Richard of St. Victor 
 says, " As Christ attested His transfiguration by the 
 presence of Moses and Elias, so visions should not be 
 believed unless they have the authority of Scripture." 
 Albertus Magnus tries to classify them, and says that 
 those which contain a sensuous element are always 
 dangerous. Eckhart is still more cautious, and Tauler 
 attaches little value to them. Avila, the Spanish 
 mystic, says that only those visions which minister to 
 our spiritual necessities, and make us more humble, are 
 genuine. Self-induced visions inflate us with pride, 
 and do irreparable injury to health of mind and body.^ 
 It hardly falls within my task to attempt to deter- 
 mine what these visions really are. The subject is 
 one upon which psychological and medical science may 
 some day throw more light. But this much I must 
 say, to make my own position clear : I regard these 
 experiences as neither more nor less "supernatural" 
 than other mental phenomena. Many of them are cer- 
 tainly pathological ; 2 about others we may feel doubts; 
 
 ^ The following passage from St. Francis de Sales is much to the same 
 effect as those referred to in the text: " Les philosophes mesmes ont 
 recogneu certaines especes d'extascs naturelles faictes par la vehemente 
 application de I'esprit a la consideration des choses relevees. Une marque 
 de la bonne et saincte extase est qu'elle ne se prend ny attache jamais 
 tant a I'entendement qu'a la volonte, laquelle elle esmeut, eschauffe, et 
 remplit d'une puissante affection envers Dieu ; de maniere que si I'extase 
 est plus belle que bonne, plus lumineuse qu'affective, elle est grandement 
 douteuse et digne de soupfon." 
 
 - Some of my readers may find satisfaction in the following passage of 
 Jeremy Taylor: "Indeed, when persons have long been softened with 
 the continual droppings of religion, and their spirits made timorous and 
 2 
 
r.8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 but some have every right to be considered as real 
 irradiations of the soul from the light that " for ever 
 shines," real notes of the harmony that " is in immortal 
 souls." In illustration of this, we may appeal to three 
 places in the Bible where revelations of the profoundest 
 truths concerning the nature and counsels of God are 
 recorded to have been made during ecstatic visions. 
 Moses at Mount Horeb heard, during the vision of 
 the burning bush, a proclamation of God as the " I 
 am " — the Eternal who is exalted above time. Isaiah, 
 in the words " Holy, Holy, Holy," perceived dimly 
 the mystery of the Trinity. And St. Peter, in the 
 vision of the sheet, learned that God is no respecter of 
 persons or of nationalities. In such cases the highest 
 intuitions or revelations, which the soul can in its best 
 moments just receive, but cannot yet grasp or account 
 for, make a language for themselves, as it were, and 
 claim the sanction of external authority, until the 
 mind is elevated so far as to feel the authority not 
 less Divine, but no longer external. We may find 
 fairly close analogies in other forms of that " Divine 
 madness," which Plato says is " the source of the 
 chiefest blessings granted to men " — such as the rapture 
 
 apt for impression by the assiduity of prayer, and the continual dyings of 
 mortification — the fancy, which is a very great instrument of devotion, is 
 kept continually warm, and in a disposition and aptitude to take fire, and 
 to flame out in great ascents ; and when they suffer transportations beyond 
 the burdens and support of reason, they suffer they know not what, and 
 call it what they please." Henry More, too, says that those who would 
 "make their whole nature desolate of all animal figurations whatever," 
 find only "a waste, silent solitude, and one uniform parchedness and 
 vacuity. And yet, while a man fancies himself thus wholly Divine, he is 
 not aware how he is even then held down by his animal nature ; and that 
 it is nothing but the stillness and fixedness of melancholy that thus abuses 
 him, instead of the true Divine principle." 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 19 
 
 of the poet, or (as Plato adds) of the lover.^ And 
 even the philosopher or man of science may be sur- 
 prised into some such state by a sudden realisation of 
 the sublimity of his subject. So at least Lacordaire 
 believed when he wrote, " All at once, as if by chance, 
 the hair stands up, the breath is caught, the skin 
 contracts, and a cold sword pierces to the very soul. 
 It is the sublime which has manifested itself!"^ 
 Even in cases where there is evident hallucination, e.g: 
 when the visionary sees an angel or devil sitting on 
 his book, or feels an arrow thrust into his heart, there 
 need be no insanity. In periods when it is commonly 
 believed that such things may and do happen, the 
 imagination, instead of being corrected by experience, 
 is misled by it. Those who honestly expect to see 
 miracles will generally see them, without detriment 
 either to their truthfulness or sanity in other matters. 
 The mystic, then, is not, as such, a visionary ; nor 
 has he any interest in appealing to a faculty " above 
 reason," if reason is used in its proper sense, as the 
 logic of the whole personality. The desire to find 
 for our highest intuitions an authority wholly external 
 to reason and independent of it, — a " purely super- 
 natural " revelation, — has, as Recejac says, " been the 
 cause of the longest and the most dangerous of the 
 aberrations from which Mysticism has suffered." This 
 kind of supernaturalism is destructive of unity in our 
 ideas of God, the world, and ourselves ; and it casts a 
 slur on the faculties which are the appointed organs 
 of communication between God and man. A revela- 
 
 ^ Plato, Plucdrus, 244, 245 ; Ion, 534. 
 - Lacordaire, Conferences, xxxvii. 
 
20 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 tion absolutely transcending reason is an absurdity : 
 no such revelation could ever be made. In the 
 striking phrase of Macarius, " the human mind is the 
 throne of the Godhead." The supremacy of the reason 
 is the favourite theme of the Cambridge Platonists, 
 two of whom, Whichcote and Culverwel, are never 
 tired of quoting the text, " The spirit of man is the 
 candle of the Lord." " Sir, I oppose not rational to 
 spiritual," writes Whichcote to Tuckney, " for spiritual 
 is most rational." And again, " Reason is the Divine 
 governor of man's life : it is the very voice of God." ^ 
 What we can and must transcend, if we would make 
 any progress in Divine knowledge, is not reason, but 
 that shallow rationalism which regards the data on 
 which we can reason as a fixed quantity, known to 
 all, and which bases itself on a formal logic, utterly 
 unsuited to a spiritual view of things. Language can 
 only furnish us with poor, misleading, and wholly 
 inadequate images of spiritual facts ; it supplies us 
 with abstractions and metaphors, which do not really 
 represent what we know or believe about God and 
 human personality. St. Paul calls attention to this 
 inadequacy by a series of formal contradictions : " I 
 live, yet not I " ; " dying, and behold we live " ; " when 
 I am weak, then I am strong," and so forth ; and we 
 
 ' Compare, too, the vigorous words of Henry More, the most mystical 
 of the group : "lie that misbelieves and lays aside clear and cautious 
 reason in things that fall under the discussion of reason, upon the pretence 
 of hankering after some higher principle (which, a thousand to one, proves 
 but the infatuation of melancholy, and a superstitious hallucination), is as 
 ridiculous as if he would not use his natural eyes about their proper 
 object till the presence of some supernatural light, or till he had got a 
 pair of spectacles made of the crystalline heaven, or of the ca:luni evipyreuvi, 
 to hang upon his nose for him to look through." 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 21 
 
 find exactly the same expedient in Plotinus, who is 
 very fond of thus showing his contempt for the logic 
 of identity. When, therefore, Harnack says that 
 " Mysticism is nothing else than rationalism applied 
 to a sphere above reason," he would have done better 
 to say that it is " reason applied to a sphere above 
 rationalism." ^ 
 
 For Reason is still " king." ^ Religion must not be 
 a matter oi feeling only. St. John's command to " try 
 every spirit " condemns all attempts to make emotion 
 or inspiration independent of reason. Those who thus 
 blindly follow the inner light find it no " candle of 
 the Lord," but an ignis fatuus ; and the great mystics 
 are well aware of this. The fact is that the tendency 
 to separate and half personify the different faculties 
 — intellect, will, feeling — is a mischievous one. Our 
 object should be so to tmify our personality, that our 
 eye may be single, and our whole body full of light. 
 
 We have considered briefly the three stages of the 
 mystic's upward path. The scheme of life therein 
 set forth was no doubt determined empirically, and 
 there is nothing to prevent the simplest and most 
 unlettered saint from framing his conduct on these 
 principles. Many of the medieval mystics had no 
 taste for speculation or philosophy ; ^ they accepted on 
 authority the entire body of Church dogma, and 
 
 ^ There is, of course, a sense in which any strong feehng Hfts us ' ' above 
 reason." But this is using "reason " in a loose manner. 
 
 ^ 6 vo\J% jSaertXei/s, says Plotinus. 
 
 ^ Roman Catholic writers can assert that "la plupart des contemplatifs 
 etaient depourvus de toute culture litteraire." But their notion of "con- 
 templation" is the passive reception of "supernatural favours," — on which 
 subject more will be said in Lectures IV. and VII. 
 
22 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 devoted their whole attention to the perfecting of the 
 spiritual life in the knowledge and love of God. But 
 this cannot be said of the leaders. Christian Mysticism 
 appears in history largely as an intellectual movement, 
 the foster-child of Platonic idealism ; and if ever, for a 
 time, it forgot its early history, men were soon found 
 to bring it back to " its old loving nurse the Platonic 
 philosophy." It will be my task, in the third and 
 fourth Lectures of this course, to show how speculative 
 Christian Mysticism grew out of Neoplatonism ; but we 
 shall not be allowed to forget the Platonists even in 
 the later Lectures. " The fire still burns on the altars 
 of Plotinus," as Eunapius said. 
 
 Mysticism is not itself a philosophyf-any more than 
 it is itself a religion. On its intellectual side it has 
 been called " formless speculation." ^ But until specula- 
 tions or intuitions have entered into the forms of our 
 thought, they are not current coin even for the thinker. 
 The part played by Mysticism in philosophy is parallel 
 to the part played by it in religion. As in religion it 
 appears in revolt against dry formalism and cold 
 rationalism, so in philosophy it takes the field against 
 materialism and scepticism.- It is thus possible to 
 speak of speculative Mysticism, and even to indicate 
 certain idealistic lines of thought, which may without 
 entire falsity be called the philosophy of Mysticism. 
 In this introductory Lecture I can, of course, only hint 
 at these in the barest and most summary manner. 
 And it must be remembered that I have undertaken 
 
 ^ "Die Mystik ist formlose Speculation," Noack, Christliche Mystik, 
 p. 1 8. 
 
 ^ The Atomists, from Epicurus downwards, have been especially odious 
 to the mystics. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 23 
 
 to-day to delineate the general characteristics of 
 Mysticism, not of Christian Mysticism. I am trying, 
 moreover, in this Lecture to confine myself to those 
 developments which I consider normal and genuine, 
 excluding the numerous aberrant types which we 
 shall encounter in the course of our survey. 
 
 The real world, according to thinkers of this school, 
 is created by the thought and will of God, and exists 
 in His mind. It is therefore spiritual, and above 
 space and time, which are only the forms under which 
 reality is set out as a process. 
 
 When we try to represent to our minds the highest 
 reality, the spiritual world, as distinguished from the 
 world of appearance, we are obliged to form images ; 
 and we can hardly avoid choosing one of the following 
 three images. We may regard the spiritual world as 
 endless duration opposed to transitoriness, as infinite 
 extension opposed to limitation in space, or as sub- 
 stance opposed to shadow. All these are, strictly 
 speaking, symbols or metaphors,^ for we cannot regard 
 any of them as literally true statements about the 
 nature of reality ; but they are as near the truth as 
 we can get in words. But when we think of time as 
 a piece cut off from the beginning of eternity, so that 
 eternity is only in the future and not in the present ; 
 when we think of heaven as a place somewhere else, 
 
 ^ The theory that time is real, but not space, leads us into grave diffi- 
 culties. It is the root of the least satisfactory kind of evolutionary 
 optimism, which forgets, in the first place, that the idea of perpetual 
 progress in time is hopelessly at variance with what we know of the 
 destiny of the world ; and, in the second place, that a mere progressus is 
 meaningless. Every created thing has its fixed goal in the realisation of 
 the idea which was immanent in it from the first. 
 
24 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 and therefore not here ; when we think of an upper 
 ideal world which has sucked all the life out of this, so 
 that we now walk in a vain shadow, — then we are 
 paying the penalty for our symbolical representative 
 methods of thought, and must go to philosophy to help 
 us out of the doubts and difficulties in which our error 
 has involved us. One test is infallible. Whatever 
 view of reality deepens our sense of the tremendous 
 issues of life in the world wherein we move, is for us 
 nearer the truth than any view which diminishes that 
 sense. The truth is revealed to us that we may have 
 life, and have it more abundantly. 
 
 The world as it is, is the world as God sees it, not 
 as we see it. Our vision is distorted, not so much by 
 the limitations of finitude, as by sin and ignorance. 
 The more we can raise ourselves in the scale of being, 
 the more will our ideas about God and the world 
 correspond to the reality. " Such as men themselves 
 are, such will God Himself seem to them to be," says 
 John Smith, the English Platonist. Origen, too, says 
 that those whom Judas led to seize Jesus did not 
 know who He was, for the darkness of their own souls 
 was projected on His features.^ And Dante, in a very 
 beautiful passage, says that he felt that he was rising 
 into a higher circle, because he saw Beatrice's face 
 becoming more beautiful.^ 
 
 This view of reality, as a vista which is opened 
 
 ^ Origen in Matth., Com. Series, lOO ; Contra Celsum, ii. 64. Referred 
 to by Bigg, Christian Flatonists of Alexandria, p. 191. 
 - Paradiso viii. 13 — 
 
 " lo non m'accorsi del salire in ella ; 
 Ma d'esserv' entro mi fece assai fede 
 La donna mia ch'io vidi far piu bella." 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 25 
 
 gradually to the eyes of the climber up the holy mount, 
 is very near to the heart of Mysticism. It rests on 
 the faith that the ideal not only ought to be, but is the 
 real. It has been applied by some, notably by that 
 earnest but fantastic thinker, James Hinton, as offering 
 a solution of the problem of evil. We shall encounter 
 attempts to deal with this great difficulty in several of 
 the Christian mystics. The problem among the specu- 
 lative writers was how to reconcile the Absolute of 
 philosophy, who is above all distinctions,^ with the God 
 of religion, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. 
 They could not allow that evil has a substantial exist- 
 ence apart from God, for fear of being entangled in an 
 insoluble Dualism. But if evil is derived from God, 
 how can God be good ? We shall find that the pre- 
 vailing view was that " Evil has no substance." 
 " There is nothing," says Gregory of Nyssa, " which 
 falls outside of the Divine nature, except moral evil 
 alone. And this, we may say paradoxically, has its 
 being in not-being. For the genesis of moral evil is 
 simply the privation of being.^ That which, properly 
 speaking, exists, is the nature of the good." The 
 Divine nature, in other words, is that which excludes 
 nothing, and contradicts nothing, except those attri- 
 butes which are contrary to the nature of reality ; it is 
 that which harmonises everything except discord, which 
 loves everything except hatred, verifies everything 
 except falsehood, and beautifies everything except 
 ugliness. Thus that which falls outside the notion 
 
 ^ " Deo nihil opponitur," says Erigena. 
 
 - Compare Bradley, Appearance and Reality, where it is shown that tlie 
 essential attributes of Reality are harmony and inchisiveness. 
 
26 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 of God, proves on examination to be not merely 
 unreal, but unreality as such. But the relation of 
 evil to the Absolute is not a religious problem. To 
 our experience, evil exists as a positive force not 
 subject to the law of God, though constantly overruled 
 and made an instrument of good. On this subject we 
 must say more later. Here I need only add that a 
 sunny confidence in the ultimate triumph of good 
 shines from the writings of most of the mystics, 
 especially, I think, in our own countrymen. The 
 Cambridge Platonists are all optimistic ; and in the 
 beautiful but little known Revelations of Juliana of 
 Norwich, we find in page after page the refrain of 
 " All shall be well" " Sin is behovable,^ but all shall 
 be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." 
 
 Since the universe is the thought and will of God 
 expressed under the forms of time and space, every- 
 thing in it reflects the nature of its Creator, though in 
 different degrees. Erigena says finely, " Every visible 
 and invisible creature is a theophany or appearance of 
 God." The purest mirror in the world is the highest 
 of created things — the human soul unclouded by sin. 
 And this brings us to a point at which Mysticism 
 falls asunder into two classes. 
 
 The question which divides them is this — In the 
 higher stages of the spiritual life, shall we learn most 
 of the nature of God by close, sympathetic, reverent 
 observation of the world around us, including our 
 fellow-men, or by sinking into the depths of our inner 
 consciousness, and aspiring after direct and constant 
 communion with God ? Each method may claim the 
 
 ^ I.e. "necessary" or "expedient." 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 27 
 
 support of weighty names. The former, which will 
 form the subject of my seventh and eighth Lectures, 
 is very happily described by Charles Kingsley in an 
 early letter.^ " The great Mysticism," he says, " is the 
 belief which is becoming every day stronger with me, 
 that all symmetrical natural objects . . . are types of 
 some spiritual truth or existence. . . . Everything 
 seems to be full of God's reflex if we could but see it. 
 . . . Oh, to see, if but for a moment, the whole harmony 
 of the great system ! to hear once the music which the 
 whole universe makes as it performs His bidding ! 
 When I feel that sense of the mystery that is around 
 me, I feel a gush of enthusiasm towards God, which 
 seems its inseparable effect." 
 
 On the other side stand the majority of the earlier 
 mystics. Believing that God is " closer to us than 
 breathing, and nearer than hands and feet," they are 
 impatient of any intermediaries. " We need not search 
 for His footprints in Nature, when we can behold His 
 face in ourselves,^ is their answer to St. Augustine's 
 fine expression that all things bright and beautiful in 
 the world are " footprints of the uncreated Wisdom." ^ 
 Coleridge has expressed their feeling in his " Ode to 
 Dejection " — 
 
 " It were a vain endeavour. 
 Though I should gaze for ever 
 
 On that green light that Hngers in the West ; 
 
 I may not hope from outward forms to win 
 The passion and the Hfe whose fountains are within." 
 
 " Grace works from within outwards," says Ruysbroek, 
 
 ^ Life, vol. i. p. 55. 
 
 ^ J. Smith, Select Discourses, v. So Bernard says {De Consid. v. l), 
 " quid opus est scalis tenenti iam solium ?" 
 * Aug. De Libera Arbitrio, ii. 16, 17. 
 
28 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 for God is nearer to us than our own faculties. Hence 
 it cannot come from images and sensible forms." "If 
 thou wishest to search out the deep things of God," 
 says Richard of St. Victor, " search out the depths of 
 thine own spirit." 
 
 The truth is that there are two movements, — a 
 systole and diastole of the spiritual life, — an expansion 
 and a concentration. The tendency has generally been 
 to emphasise one at the expense of the other; but they 
 must work together, for each is helpless without the 
 other. As Shakespeare says ^ — 
 
 " Nor doth the eye itself, 
 That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself. 
 Not going from itself, but eye to eye opposed, 
 Salutes each other with each other's form : 
 For speculation turns not to itself 
 Till it hath travelled, and is mirrored there. 
 Where it may see itself." 
 
 Nature is dumb, and our own hearts are dumb, until 
 they are allowed to speak to each other. Then both 
 will speak to us of God. 
 
 Speculative Mysticism has occupied itself largely 
 with these two great subjects — the immanence of God 
 in nature, and the relation of human personality to 
 Divine. A few words must be said, before I conclude, 
 on both these matters. 
 
 The Unity of all existence is a fundamental doctrine 
 of Mysticism. God is in all, and all is in God. " His 
 centre is everywhere, and His circumference nowhere," 
 as St. Bonaventura puts it. It is often arguerd that 
 this doctrine leads direct to Pantheism, and that specu- 
 lative Mysticism is always and necessarily pantheistic. 
 
 ^ Troilus and Cressida^ Act ni. Scene 3. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 29 
 
 This is, of course, a question of primary importance. 
 It is in the hope of dealing with it adequately that I 
 have selected three writers who have been frequently 
 called pantheists, for discussion in these Lectures. I 
 mean Dionysius the Areopagite, Scotus Erigena, and 
 Eckhart. But it would be impossible even to indicate 
 my line of argument in the few minutes left me this 
 morning. 
 
 The mystics are much inclined to adopt, in a 
 modified form, the old notion of an anima inundi. 
 When Erigena says, " Be well assured that the Word — 
 the second Person of the Trinity — is the Nature of all 
 things," he means that the Logos is a cosmic principle, 
 the Personality of which the universe is the external 
 expression or appearance.^ 
 
 We are not now concerned with cosmological specu- 
 lations, but the bearing of this theory on human 
 personality is obvious. If the Son of God is regarded 
 as an all-embracing and all-pervading cosmic principle, 
 the " mystic union " of the believer with Christ becomes 
 something much closer than an ethical harmony of 
 two mutually exclusive wills. The question which 
 
 ^ This idea of the world as a living being is found in Plotinus : and 
 Origen definitely teaches that "as our body, while consisting of many 
 members, is yet an organism which is held together by one soul, so the 
 universe is to be thought of as an immense living being which is upheld by 
 the power and the Word of God." He also holds that the sun and stars 
 are spiritual beings. St. Augustine, too [De Civitate Dei, iv. 12, vii. 5), 
 regards the universe as a living organism ; and the doctrine reappears much 
 later in Giordano Bruno. According to this theory, we are subsidiary 
 members, of an all-embracing organism, and there may be intermediate 
 will-centres between our own and that of the universal Ego. Among 
 modern systems, that of Fechner is the one which seems to be most in 
 accordance with these speculations. He views life under the figure of a 
 number of concentric circles of consciousness, within an all-embracing 
 circle which represents the consciousness of God. 
 
30 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 exercises the mystics is not whether such a thing as 
 fusion of personalities is possible, but whether, when 
 the soul has attained union with its Lord, it is any 
 longer conscious of a life distinct from that of the 
 Word. We shall find that some of the best mystics 
 went astray on this point. They teach a real substitu- 
 tion of the Divine for human nature, thus depersonalising 
 man, and running into great danger of a perilous 
 arrogance. The mistake is a fatal one even from the 
 speculative side, for it is only on the analogy of human 
 personality that we can conceive of the perfect person- 
 ality of God ; and without personality the universe 
 falls to pieces. Personality is not only the strictest 
 unity of which we have any experience ; it is the fact 
 which creates the postulate of unity on which all 
 philosophy is based. 
 
 But it is possible to save personality without re- 
 garding the human spirit as a monad, independent 
 and sharply separated from other spirits. Distinction, 
 not separation, is the mark of personality ; but it is 
 separation, not distinction, that forbids union. The 
 error, according to the mystic's psychology, is in 
 regarding consciousness of self as the measure of 
 personality. The depths of personality are unfathom- 
 able, as Heraclitus already knew ; ^ the light of 
 consciousness only plays on the surface of the waters. 
 Jean Paul Richter is a true exponent of this character- 
 istic doctrine when he says, " We attribute far too small 
 dimensions to the rich empire of ourself, if we omit 
 from it the unconscious region which resembles a 
 
 ^ V'X'?^ Treipara ovk h.v e^evpoio Tracrav iirnropevdfj.ei'Oi odoV ovtu ^adiiv 
 \6yov ^xf'i ^''^^- 7^- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 31 
 
 great dark continent. The world which our memory 
 peoples only reveals, in its revolution, a few luminous 
 points at a time, while its immense and teeming mass 
 remains in shade. . . . We daily see the conscious 
 passing into unconsciousness ; and take no notice of 
 the bass accompaniment which our fingers continue to 
 play, while our attention is directed to fresh musical 
 effects." ^ So far is it from being true that the self of 
 our immediate consciousness is our true personality, 
 that we can only attain personality, as spiritual and 
 rational beings, by passing beyond the limits which 
 mark us off as separate individuals. Separate indi- 
 viduality, we may say, is the bar which prevents us 
 from realising our true privileges as persons.^ And so 
 the mystic interprets very literally that maxim of our 
 Lord, in which many have found the fundamental 
 secret of Christianity : " He that will save his life — 
 his soul, his personality — shall lose it ; and he that will 
 lose his life for My sake shall find it." The false self 
 must die — nay, must " die daily," for the process is 
 gradual, and there is no limit to it. It is a process of 
 infinite expansion — of realising new correspondences, 
 new sympathies and affinities with the not-ourselves, 
 which affinities condition, and in conditioning consti- 
 tute, our true life as persons. The paradox is offensive 
 
 ^ J. P. Richter, 6'^/ma. Compare, too, Lotze, Microcosnius : "Within 
 us lurks a world whose form we imperfectly apprehend, and whose working, 
 when in particular phases it comes under our notice, surprises us with fore- 
 shadowings of unknown depths in our being." 
 
 ^ As Lotze says, "The finite being does not contain in itself the condi- 
 tions of its own existence." It must struggle to attain to complete per- 
 sonality ; or rather, since personality belongs unconditionally only to God, 
 to such a measure of personality as is allotted to us. Eternal life is nothing 
 else than the attainment of full personality, a conscious existence in God. 
 
32 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 only to formal logic. As a matter of experience, no 
 one, I imagine, would maintain that the man who has 
 practically realised, to the fullest possible extent, the 
 common life which he draws from his Creator, and 
 shares with all other created beings, — so realised it, I 
 mean, as to draw from that consciousness all the 
 influences which can play upon him from outside, — 
 has thereby dissipated and lost his personality, and 
 become less of a person than another who has built a 
 wall round his individuality, and lived, as Plato says, 
 the life of a shell-fish.-^ 
 
 We may arrive at the same conclusion by analysing 
 that unconditioned sense of duty which we call con- 
 science. This moral sense cannot be a fixed code 
 implanted in our consciousness, for then we could not 
 explain either the variations of moral opinion, or the 
 feeling of obligation (as distinguished from necessity) 
 which impels us to obey it. It cannot be the product 
 of the existing moral code of society, for then we could 
 not explain either the genesis of that public opinion or 
 
 ^ J. A. I'icton ( The Mystery of Matter, p. 356) puts the matter well : 
 ' ' Mysticism consists in the spiritual realisation of a grander and a boundless 
 unity, that humbles all self-assertion by dissolving it in a wider glory. It 
 does not follow that the sense of individuality is necessarily weakened. 
 But habitual contemplation of the Divine unity impresses men with the 
 feeling that individuality is phenomenal only. Hence the paradox of 
 Mysticism. For apart from this phenomenal individuality, we should not 
 know our own nothingness, and personal life is good only through the 
 bliss of being lost in God. [Rather, I should say, through the bliss of 
 finding our true life, which is hid with Christ in God,] True religious 
 worship doth not consist in the acknowledgment of a greatness which is 
 estimated by comparison, but rather in the sense of a Being who surpasses 
 all comparison, because He gives to phenomenal existences the only reality 
 they can know. Hence the deepest religious feeling necessarily shrinks 
 from thinking of God as a kind of gigantic Self amidst a host of minor 
 selves. The very thought of such a thing is a mockery of the profoundest 
 devotion." 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 33 
 
 the persistent revolt against its limitations which we 
 find in the greatest minds. The only hypothesis 
 which explains the facts is that in conscience we feel 
 the motions of the universal Reason which strives to 
 convert the human organism into an organ of itself, 
 a belief which is expressed in religious language by 
 saying that it is God who worketh in us both to will 
 and to do of His good pleasure. 
 
 If it be further asked, Which is our personality, the 
 shifting moi (as F^nelon calls it), or the ideal self, the 
 end or the developing states ? we must answer that it is 
 both and neither, and that the root of mystical religion 
 is in the conviction that it is at once both and neither.^ 
 The moi strives to realise its end, but the end being an 
 infinite one, no process can reach it. Those who have 
 " counted themselves to have apprehended " have 
 thereby left the mystical faith ; and those who from 
 the notion of a progressus ad infinitum come to the 
 pessimistic conclusion, are equally false to the mystical 
 creed, which teaches us that we are already potenti- 
 ally what God intends us to become. The command, 
 " Be ye perfect," is, like all Divine commands, at the 
 same time a promise. 
 
 It is stating the same paradox in another form to 
 say that we can only achieve inner unity by transcend- 
 ing mere individuality. The independent, impervious 
 self shows its unreality by being inwardly discordant. 
 It is of no use to enlarge the circumference of our life, 
 if the fixed centre is always the ego. There are, if 
 I may press the metaphor, other circles with other 
 centres, in which we are vitally involved. And thus 
 
 ^ See, further, Appendix C, pp. 366-7. 
 
 3 
 
34 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 sympathy, or love, which is sympathy in its highest 
 power, is the great atoner^ within as well as without. 
 The old Pythagorean maxim, that " a man must be 
 onel' ^ is echoed by all the mystics. He must be one 
 as God is one, and the world is one ; for man is a 
 microcosm, a living mirror of the universe. Here, 
 once more, we have a characteristic mystical doctrine, 
 which is perhaps worked out most fully in the *' Fo7is 
 Vitce" of Avicebron (Ibn Gebirol), a work which had 
 great influence in the Middle Ages. The doctrine 
 justifies the use of analogy in matters of religion, and 
 is of great importance. One might almost dare to 
 say that all conclusions about the world above us 
 which are not based on the analogy of our own 
 mental experiences, are either false or meaningless. 
 
 The idea of man as a microcosm was developed in 
 two ways. Plotinus said that " every man is double," 
 meaning that one side of his soul is in contact with the 
 intelligible, the other with the sensible world. He is 
 careful to explain that the doctrine of Divine Im- 
 manence does not mean that God divides Himself 
 among the many individuals, but that they partake of 
 Him according to their degrees of receptivity, so that 
 each one is potentially in possession of all the fulness 
 of God. Proclus tries to explain how this can be. 
 " There are three sorts of Wholes — the first, anterior to 
 the parts ; the second, composed of the parts ; the 
 third, knitting into one stuff the parts and the whole."^ 
 
 ^ «Va yeviijBai rbv SLvQputrov Set: Pythagoras quoted by Clement. Cf. 
 Plotinus, Enn. vi. 9. i, koL iiyUia 8i, Sraf eh iv crvvTaxdrj t6 aw/xa, Kal 
 KciWos brav t] tov fvi)s to. fxbpia KardaxV 4"^<^^^, '*'"' aperrj St '/'I'XV* ^Tav fi'y 
 ^f Kal eh p.lat> bfioXoyiav iviofffj. 
 
 - Proclus, ]>i Titn. 83. 265. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MYSTICISM 35 
 
 In this third sense the whole resides in the parts, as 
 well as the parts in the whole. St. Augustine states 
 the same doctrine in clearer language.^ It will be 
 seen at once how this doctrine encourages that class of 
 Mysticism which bids us " sink into the depths of our 
 own souls " in order to find God. 
 
 The other development of the theory that man is a 
 microcosm is not less important and interesting. It is 
 a favourite doctrine of the mystics that man, in his 
 individual life, recapitulates the spiritual history of the 
 race, in much the same way in which embryologists 
 tell us that the unborn infant recapitulates the whole 
 process of physical evolution. It follows that the 
 Incarnation, the central fact of human history, must 
 have its analogue in the experience of the individual. 
 We shall find that this doctrine of the birth of an 
 infant Christ in the soul is one of immense importance 
 in the systems of Eckhart, Tauler, and our Cambridge 
 Platonists. It is a somewhat perilous doctrine, as we 
 shall see ; but it is one which, I venture to think, has a 
 future as well as a past, for the progress of modern 
 science has greatly strengthened the analogies on 
 which it rests. I shall show in my next Lecture how 
 strongly St. Paul felt its value. 
 
 This brief introduction will, 1 hope, have indicated 
 the main characteristics of mystical theology and 
 religion. It is a type which is as repulsive to some 
 
 'Aug. Ep. 187. 19: " Deus totus adesse rebus omnibus potest, et 
 singulis totus, quamvis in quibus habitat habeant eum pro suae capacitatis 
 diversitate, alii aniplius, alii minus." More clearly still, Bonaventura, 
 Jlin. nienl. ad Deum, 5 : " Totum intra omnia, et totum extra : ac per 
 hoc est sphaera intelligibilis, cuius centrum est ubique, et circumferentia 
 nusquam," 
 
36 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 minds as it is attractive to others. Coleridge has said 
 that everyone is born a Platonist or an Aristotelian, 
 and one might perhaps adapt the epigram by saying 
 that everyone is naturally either a mystic or a 
 legalist. The classification does, indeed, seem to 
 correspond to a deep difference in human characters ; 
 it is doubtful whether a man could be found anywhere 
 whom one could trust to hold the scales evenly between 
 — let us say — Fdnelon and Bossuet. The cleavage is 
 much the same as that which causes the eternal strife 
 between tradition and illumination, between priest and 
 prophet, which has produced the deepest tragedies in 
 human history, and will probably continue to do so 
 while the world lasts. The legalist — with his con- 
 ception of God as the righteous Judge dispensing 
 rewards and punishments, the " Great Taskmaster " in 
 whose vineyard we are ordered to labour ; of the 
 Gospel as " the new law," and of the sanction of duty 
 as a " categorical imperative " — will never find it easy to 
 sympathise with those whose favourite words are St. 
 John's triad — light, life, and love, and who find these 
 the most suitable names to express what they know of 
 the nature of God. But those to whom the Fourth 
 Gospel is the brightest jewel in the Bible, and who can 
 enter into the real spirit of St. Paul's teaching, will, I 
 hope, be able to take some interest in the historical 
 development of ideas which in their Christian form are 
 certainly built upon those parts of the New Testament. 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 37 
 
"To ev ^Tjv ioiSa^ev eTnipavds ws 5i5dffKa\os, iVa to del i'fjv varepov ws 
 Oib^ xopvywv-" Clement ok Alexandria. 
 
 "But souls that of Ilis own good life partake 
 He loves as His own self: dear as His eye 
 They are to Him ; He'll never them forsake : 
 When they shall die, then God Himself shall die : 
 They live, they live in blest eternity." 
 
 Henry More. 
 
 " Amor Patris Filiique, 
 Par amborum, et utrique 
 Compar et consimilis : 
 Cuncta reples, cuncta foves, 
 Astra regis, coelum moves, 
 Permanens immobilis 
 
 Te docente nil obscurum, 
 Te pr^esente nil impurum ; 
 
 Sub tua praesentia 
 Gloriatur mens iucunda ; 
 Per te Iceta, per te munda 
 
 Gaudet conscientia. 
 
 Consolator et fundator, 
 Habitator et amator 
 
 Cordium humilium ; 
 Pelle mala, terge sordes, 
 Et discordes fac Concordes, 
 
 Et affer presidium." 
 
 Adam of St. Victor 
 
 S8 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 The Mystical Element in the Bible 
 
 " That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; to the end that ye, 
 being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all 
 the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to 
 know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled 
 with all the fulness of God."— Eph. iii. 17-19. 
 
 The task which now Hes before me is to consider how 
 far that type of rehgion and rehgious philosophy, which 
 I tried in my last Lecture to depict in outline, is re- 
 presented in and sanctioned by Holy Scripture. I 
 shall devote most of my time to the New Testament, 
 for we shall not find very much to help us in the Old. 
 The Jewish mind and character, in spite of its deeply 
 Ireligious bent, was alien to Mysticism. In the first 
 place, the religion of Israel, passing from what has 
 been called Henotheism — the worship of a national 
 God — to true Monotheism, always maintained a rigid 
 notion of individuality, both human and Divine. Even 
 prophecy, which is mystical in its essence, was in the 
 early period conceived as unmystically as possible. 
 Balaam is merely a mouthpiece of God ; his message is 
 external to his personality, which remains antagonistic 
 to it. And, secondly, the Jewish doctrine of ideas was 
 different from the Platonic. The Jew believed that 
 the world, and the whole course of history, existed 
 
40 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 from all eternity in the mind of God, but as an un- 
 realised purpose, which was actualised by degrees as 
 the scroll of events was unfurled. There was no 
 notion that the visible was in any way inferior to the 
 invisible, or lacking in reality. Even in its later 
 phases, after it had been partially Hellenised, Jewish 
 idealism tended to crystallise as Chiliasm, or in " Apo- 
 calypses," and not, like Platonism, in the dream of a 
 perfect world existing " yonder." In fact, the Jewish 
 view of the external world was mainly that of naive 
 realism, but strongly pervaded by belief in an Almighty 
 King and Judge. Moreover, the Jew had little sense 
 of the Divine i7i nature : it was the power of God over 
 nature which he was jealous to maintain. The majesty 
 of the elemental forces was extolled in order to magnify 
 the greater power of Him who made and could 
 unmake them, and whom the heaven of heavens can- 
 not contain. The weakness and insignificance of man, 
 as contrasted with the tremendous power of God, is 
 the reflection which the contemplation of nature gener- 
 ally produced in his mind. " How can a man be just 
 with God ? " asks Job ; " which removeth the mountains, 
 and they know it not ; when He overturneth them in 
 His anger ; which shaketh the earth out of her place, 
 and the pillars thereof tremble ; which commandeth 
 the sun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars. . . . 
 He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him, 
 that we should come together in judgment. There is 
 no daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon 
 us both." Nor does the answer that came to Job 
 out of the whirlwind give any hint of a " daysman " 
 betwixt man and God, but only enlarges on the pre- 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 41 
 
 sumption of man's wishing to understand the counsels 
 of the Almighty. Absolute submission to a law which 
 is entirely outside of us and beyond our comprehen- 
 sion, is the final lesson of the book.^ The nation 
 exhibited the merits and defects of this type. On the 
 one hand, it showed a deep sense of the supremacy of 
 the moral law, and of personal responsibility ; a stub- 
 born independence and faith in its mission ; and a 
 strong national spirit, combined with vigorous indi- 
 viduality ; but with these virtues went a tendency to 
 externalise both religion and the ideal of well-being: 
 the former became a matter of forms and ceremonies ; 
 the latter, of worldly possessions. It was only after 
 the collapse of the national polity that these ideals 
 became transmuted and spiritualised. Those disasters, 
 which at first seemed to indicate a hopeless estrange- 
 ment between God and His people, were the means of 
 a deeper reconciliation. We can trace the process, 
 from the old proverb that " to see God is death," down 
 to that remarkable passage in Jeremiah where the 
 approaching advent, or rather restoration, of spiritual 
 religion, is announced with all the solemnity due to so 
 glorious a message. ** Behold, the days come, saith the 
 Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house 
 of Israel, and with the house of Judah. . . . After those 
 days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward 
 parts, and write it in their hearts ; and I will be their 
 God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach 
 
 ^ In referring thus to the Book of Job, I rest nothing on any tlieory as 
 to its date. Whenever it was written, it illustrates that view of the rela- 
 tion of man to God with which Mysticism can never be content. But, of 
 course, the antagonism between our personal claims and the laws of the 
 universe must be done justice to before it can be surmounted. 
 
42 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 no more every man his neighbour, and every man his 
 brother, saying. Know the Lord : for they shall all know 
 Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, 
 saith the Lord." ^ That this knowledge of God, and the 
 assurance of blessedness which it brings, is the reward 
 of righteousness and purity, is the chief message of the 
 great prophets and psalmists. " Who among us shall 
 dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall 
 dwell with everlasting burnings ? He that walketh 
 righteously, and speaketh uprightly ; he that despiseth 
 the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from 
 holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing 
 of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil, he 
 shall dwell on high ; his place of defence shall be the 
 munitions of rocks : bread shall be given unto him ; his 
 waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the King in His 
 beauty ; they shall behold the land that is very far off." ^ 
 This passage of Isaiah bears a very close resem- 
 blance to the 15th and 24th Psalms; and there are 
 many other psalms which have been dear to Christian 
 mystics. In some of them we find the " amoris desi- 
 derium " — the thirst of the soul for God — which is the 
 characteristic note of mystical devotion ; in others, that 
 longing for a safe refuge from the provoking of all men 
 and the strife of tongues, which drove so many saints 
 into the cloister. Many a solitary ascetic has prayed 
 in the words of the 73rd Psalm: "Whom have I in 
 heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I 
 desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth : 
 but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion 
 for ever." And verses like, " I will hearken what the 
 
 ^ Jer. xxxi. 31-34. ^ Isa. xxxiii. 14-17. 
 
 fs 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 43 
 
 Lord God will say concerning me," have been only loo 
 attractive to quietists. Other familiar verses will occur 
 to most of us. I will only add that the warm faith 
 and love which inspired these psalms is made more 
 precious by the reverence for law which is part of the 
 older inheritance of the Israelites. 
 
 There are many, I fear, to whom " the mystical 
 element in the Old Testament" will suggest only the 
 Cabbalistic lore of types and allegories which has been 
 applied to all the canonical books, and with especial 
 persistency and boldness to the Song of Solomon. I 
 shall give my opinion upon this class of allegorism in 
 the seventh Lecture of this course, which will deal with 
 symbolism as a branch of Mysticism. It would be 
 impossible to treat of it here without anticipating my 
 discussion of a principle which has a much wider 
 bearing than as a method of biblical exegesis. As to 
 the Song of Solomon, its influence upon Christian 
 Mysticism has been simply deplorable. A graceful 
 romance in honour of true love was distorted into a 
 precedent and sanction for giving way to hysterical 
 emotions, in which sexual imagery was freely used to 
 symbolise the relation between the soul and its Lord. 
 Such aberrations are as alien to sane Mysticism as 
 they are to sane exegesis.^ 
 
 In Jewish writings of a later period, composed under 
 Greek influence, we find plenty of Platonism ready to 
 pass into Mysticism. But the Wisdom of Solomon 
 does not fall within our subject, and what is necessary 
 to be said about Philo and Alexandria will be said in 
 the next Lecture. 
 
 ' See Appendix D, on the devotional use of the Song of Solomon. 
 
44 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 In the New Testament, it will be convenient to say 
 a very few words on the Synoptic Gospels first, and 
 afterwards to consider St. John and St. Paul, where we 
 shall find most of our material. 
 
 The first three Gospels are not written in the 
 religious dialect of Mysticism. It is all the more 
 important to notice that the fundamental doctrines on 
 which the system (if we may call it a system) rests, 
 are all found in them. The vision of God is promised 
 in the Sermon on the Mount, and promised only to 
 those who are pure in heart. The indwelling presence 
 of Christ, or of the Holy Spirit, is taught in several 
 places ; for instance — " The kingdom of God is within 
 you " ; " Where two or three are gathered together in 
 My name, there am I in the midst of them " ; " Lo, I 
 am with you alway, even to the end of the world." 
 The unity of Christ and His members is implied by the 
 words, " Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the 
 least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." 
 Lastly, the great law of the moral world, — the law of 
 g^iin through loss, of life through death, — which is the 
 corner-stone of mystical (and, many have said, of 
 Christian) ethics, is found in the Synoptists as well as 
 in St. John. " Whosoever shall seek to gain his life 
 (or soul) shall lose it ; but whosoever shall lose his life 
 (or soul) shall preserve it." 
 
 The Gospel of St. John — the " spiritual Gospel," as 
 Clement already calls it — is the charter of Christian 
 Mysticism. Indeed, Christian Mysticism, as I under- 
 stand it, might almost be called Johannine Christianity; 
 if it were not better to say that a Johannine Christianity 
 is the ideal which the Christian mystic sets before 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 45 
 
 himself. For we cannot but feel that there are deeper 
 truths in this wonderful Gospel than have yet become 
 part of the religious consciousness of mankind. Per- 
 haps, as Origen says, no one can fully understand it 
 who has not, like its author, lain upon the breast of 
 Jesus. We are on holy ground when we are dealing 
 with St. John's Gospel, and must step in fear and 
 reverence. But though the breadth and depth and 
 height of those sublime discourses are for those only 
 who can mount up with wings as eagles to the summits 
 of the spiritual life, so simple is the language and so 
 large its scope, that even the wayfaring men, though 
 fools, can hardly altogether err therein. 
 
 Let us consider briefly, first, what we learn from 
 this Gospel about the nature of God, and then its 
 teaching upon human salvation. 
 
 There are three notable expressions about God the 
 Father in the Gospel and First Epistle of St. John : 
 " God is Love " ; " God is Light " ; and " God is 
 Spirit." The form of the sentences teaches us that 
 these three qualities belong so intimately to the nature 
 of God that they usher us into His immediate presence. 
 We need not try to get behind them, or to rise above 
 them into some more nebulous region in our search 
 for the Absolute. Love, Light, and Spirit are for us 
 names of God Himself. And observe that St. John 
 does not, in applying these semi-abstract words to 
 God, attenuate in the slightest degree His personality. 
 God is Love, but He also exercises love. " God so 
 loved the world." And He is not only the " white 
 radiance " that " for ever shines " ; He can " draw " us to 
 Himself, and " send " His Son to bring us back to Him. 
 
46 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 The word " Logos " does not occur in any of the 
 discourses. The identification of Christ with the 
 " Word " or " Reason " of the philosophers is St. 
 John's own. But the statements in the prologue are 
 all confirmed by our Lord's own words as reported 
 by the evangelist. These fall under two heads, those 
 which deal with the relation of Christ to the Father, 
 and those which deal with His relation to the world. 
 The pre-existence of Christ in glory at the right hand 
 of God is proved by several declarations : " What if ye 
 shall see the Son of Man ascending where He was 
 before ? " " And now, O Father, glorify Me with 
 Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee 
 before the world was." His exaltation above time is 
 shown by the solemn statement, " Before Abraham 
 was, I am." And with regard to the world, we find in 
 St. John the very important doctrine, which has never 
 made its way into popular theology, that the Word is 
 not merely the Instrument in the original creation, — 
 " by (or through) Him all things were made," — but the 
 central Life, the Being in whom life existed and exists 
 as an indestructible attribute, an underived prerogat- 
 ive,^ the Mind or Wisdom who upholds and animates 
 the universe without being lost in it. This doctrine, 
 which is implied in other parts of St. John, seems to be 
 stated explicitly in the prologue, though the words 
 have been otherwise interpreted. " That which has 
 come into existence," says St. John, "was in Him life" 
 (o ye'yovev, iv avrw ^cor) rjv). That is to say, the Word 
 is the timeless Life, of which the temporal world is a 
 manifestation. This doctrine was taught by many of 
 
 * Leathes, T/ie Witness of St. John to Christ, p. 244. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 47 
 
 the Greek Fathers, as well as by Scotus Erigena and 
 other speculative mystics. Even if, with the school of 
 Antioch and most of the later commentators, we 
 transfer the words o yeyouev to the preceding sentence, 
 the doctrine that Christ is the life as well as the light 
 of the world can be proved from St. John.^ The 
 world is the poem of the Word to the glory of the 
 Father : in it, and by means of it. He displays in time 
 all the riches which God has eternally put within 
 Him. 
 
 In St. John, as in mystical theology generally, the 
 Incarnation, rather than the Cross, is the central fact of 
 Christianity. " The Word was made flesh, and taber- 
 
 ' The punctuation' now generally adopted was invented (probably) by the 
 Antiochenes, who were afraid that the words " without Him was not any- 
 thing made " might, if unqualified, be taken to include the Holy Spirit. 
 Cyril of Alexandria comments on the older punctuation, but explains the 
 verse wrongly. "The Word, as Life by nature, was in the things which 
 have become, mingling Himself by participation in the things that are." 
 Bp. Westcott objects to this, that "the one life is regarded as dispersed." 
 Cyril, however, guards against this misconception (ov Kara fiepia/xdv rtva Kal 
 dWoioiaiv). He says that created things share in " the one life as they are 
 able." But some of his expressions are objectionable, as they seem to 
 assume a material substratum, animated ad extra by an infusion of the 
 Logos. Augustine's commentary on the verse is based on the well-known 
 passage of Plato's Republic about the " ideal bed." "Area in opere non 
 est vita ; area in arte vita est. Sic Sapientia Dei, per quam facta sunt 
 omnia, secundum artem continet omnia antequam fabricat omnia. Quse 
 fiunt . . . foris corpora sunt, in arte vita sunt." Those who accept the 
 common authorship of the Gospel and the Apocalypse will find a confirma- 
 tion of the view that %v refers to ideal, extra-temporal existence, in Rev, 
 iv. II : "Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they were 
 {J]ijav is the true reading) and were created." There is also a very 
 interesting passage in Eusebius {Pnvp. Ev. xi. 19): *:ai oStos &pa rji> 6 
 \6yos Kad' 6v del Hivra rd yiyvbfxeva eyivero, ibawep 'Hpct/iXetros hv d^Lucrete. 
 This is so near to the words of St. John's prologue as to suggest that the 
 apostle, writing at Ephesus, is here referring deliberately to the lofty 
 doctrine of the great Ephesian Idealist, whom Justin claims as a Christian 
 before Christ, and whom Clement quotes several times with respect. 
 
48 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 nacled among us," is for him the supreme dogma. 
 And it follows necessarily from the Logos doctrine, 
 that the Incarnation, and all that followed it, is re- 
 garded primarily as a revelation of life and light and 
 truth. " That eternal life, which was with the Father, 
 has been manifested unto us," is part of the opening 
 sentence of the first Epistle.^ " This is the message 
 which we have heard of Him and announce unto you, 
 that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all." 
 In coming into the world, Christ " came unto His 
 own." He had, in a sense, only to show to them what 
 was there already : Esaias, long before, had " seen His 
 glory, and spoken of Him." The mysterious estrange- 
 ment, which had laid the world under the dominion of 
 the Prince of darkness, had obscured but not quenched 
 the light which lighteth every man — the inalienable 
 prerogative of all who derive their being from the Sun 
 of Righteousness. This central Light is Christ, and 
 Christ only. He alone is the Way, the Truth, the 
 Life, the Door, the Living Bread, and the True Vine. 
 He is at once the Revealer and the Revealed, the 
 Guide and the Way, the Enlightener and the Light. 
 No man cometh unto the Father but by Him. 
 
 The teaching of this Gospel on the office of the 
 Holy Spirit claims special attention in our present 
 inquiry. The revelation of God in Christ was com- 
 plete : there can be no question that St. John claims 
 for Christianity the position of the one eternally true 
 revelation. But without the gradual illumination of 
 the Spirit it is partly unintelligible and partly unob- 
 
 ^ It will be seen that I assume that the first Epistle is the work of the 
 evangelist. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 49 
 
 served.^ The purpose of the Incarnation was to reveal 
 God tJie Father : " He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
 Father." In these momentous words (it has been 
 said) " the idea of God receives an abiding embodi- 
 ment, and the Father is brought for ever within the 
 reach of intelligent devotion." ^ The purpose of the 
 mission of the Comforter is to reveal the Son. He 
 takes the place of the ascended Christ on earth as a 
 living and active principle in the hearts of Christians. 
 His office it is to bring to remembrance the teachings of 
 Christ, and to help mankind gradually to understand 
 them. There were also many things, our Lord said, 
 which could not be said at the time to His disciples, 
 who were unable to bear them. These were left to be 
 communicated to future generations by the Holy 
 Spirit. The doctrine of development had never before 
 received so clear an expression ; and few could venture 
 to record it so clearly as St. John, who could not be 
 suspected of contemplating a time when the teachings 
 of the human Christ might be superseded. 
 
 Let us now turn to the human side of salvation, and 
 trace the upward path of the Christian life as presented 
 to us in this Gospel. First, then, we have the doctrine 
 of the new birth : " Except a man be born anew (or, 
 from above), he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 This is further explained as a being born " of water 
 and of the Spirit " — words which are probably meant 
 to remind us of the birth of the world-order out of 
 chaos as described in Genesis, and also to suggest the 
 two ideas of purification and life, (Baptism, as a 
 symbol of purification, was, of course, already familiar 
 ^ Westcolt on John xiv. 26. ^ Westcott. 
 
 4 
 
50 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 to those who first heard the words.) Then we have a 
 doctrine oi faith which is deeper than that of the 
 Synoptists. The very expression Tnarevetv et'?, " to 
 believe on," common in St. John and rare elsewhere, 
 shows that the word is taking a new meaning. Faith, 
 in St. John, is no longer regarded chiefly as a condition 
 of supernatural favours ; or, rather, the mountains 
 which it can remove are no material obstructions. 
 It is an act of the whole personality, a self-dedication 
 to Christ. It must precede knowledge : " If any 
 man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the 
 teaching," is the promise. It is the "credo ut intelligam" 
 of later theology. The objection has been raised that 
 St. John's teaching about faith moves in a vicious 
 circle. His appeal is to the inward witness ; and 
 those who cannot hear this inward witness are informed 
 that they must first believe, which is just what they can 
 find no reason for doing. But this criticism misses 
 altogether the drift of St. John's teaching. Faith, for 
 him, is not the acceptance of a proposition upon 
 evidence; still less is it the acceptance of a proposi- 
 tion in the teeth of evidence. It is, in the first 
 instance, the resolution " to stand or fall by the noblest 
 hypothesis " ; that is (may we not say ?), to follow 
 Christ wherever He may lead us. Faith begins with 
 an experiment, and ends with an experience.^ " He 
 that believeth in Him hath the witness in himself"; 
 that is the verification which follows the venture. That 
 even the power to make the experiment is given from 
 
 ^ Cf. Theologia Germamca, chap. 48 : " He who would know before he 
 believeth cometh never to true knowledge. . . . I speak of a certain truth 
 which it is possible to know by experience, but which ye must believe in 
 before ye know it by experience, else ye will never come to know it truly." 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 51 
 
 above ; and that the experience is not merely subject- 
 ive, but an universal law which has had its supreme 
 vindication in history, — these are two facts which 
 we learn afterwards. The converse process, which 
 begins with a critical examination of documents, can- 
 not establish what we really want to know, however 
 strong the evidence may be. In this sense, and in this 
 only, are Tennyson's words true, that " nothing worthy 
 proving can be proven, nor yet disproven." 
 
 Faith, thus defined, is hardly distinguishable from 
 that mixture of admiration, hope, and love by which 
 Wordsworth says that we live. Love especially is 
 intimately connected with faith. And as the Christian 
 life is to be considered as, above all things, a state of 
 union with Christ, and of His members with one 
 another, love of the brethren is inseparable from 
 love of God. So intimate is this union, that hatred 
 towards any human being cannot exist in the same 
 heart as love to God. The mystical union is indeed 
 rather a bond between Christ and the Church, and 
 between man and man as members of Christ, than 
 between Christ and individual souls. Our Lord's 
 prayer is " that they all may be one, even as Thou, 
 Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may 
 be one in us." The personal relation between the soul 
 and Christ is not to be denied ; but it can only be 
 enjoyed when the person has "come to himself" as a 
 member of a body. This involves an inward transit 
 from the false isolated self to the larger life of 
 sympathy and love which alone makes us persons. 
 Those who are thus living according to their true 
 nature are rewarded with an intense unshakeable con- 
 
52 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 viction which makes them independent of external 
 evidences. Like the bHnd man who was healed, they 
 can say, " One thing I know, that whereas I was 
 blind, now I see." The words " we know " are repeated 
 again and again in the first Epistle, with an emphasis 
 which leaves no room for doubt that the evangelist 
 was willing to throw the main weight of his belief on 
 this inner assurance, and to attribute it without hesita- 
 tion to the promised presence of the Comforter. We 
 must observe, however, that this knowledge or illumina- 
 tion is progressive. This is proved by the passages 
 already quoted about the work of the Holy Spirit. It 
 is also implied by the words, " This is life eternal, that 
 they should know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ whom Thou hast sent." Eternal life is not 
 7i/wo-i9, knowledge as a possession, but the state of 
 acquiring knowledge (tW f^v^v^cTKtoaiv). It is significant, 
 I think, that St. John, who is so fond of the verb " to 
 know," never uses the substantive 'yvooai'^. 
 
 The state of progressive unification, in which we"* 
 receive " grace upon grace," as we learn more and 
 more of the " fulness " of Christ, is called by the 
 evangelist, in the verse just quoted and elsewhere, 
 eternal life. This life is generally spoken of as a 
 present possession rather than a future hope. " He / 
 that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life " ; " he 
 is passed irom death unto life"; "we are in Him that 
 is true, even Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and 
 eternal life." The evangelist is constantly trying to 
 transport us into that timeless region in which one 
 day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 
 one day. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 53 
 
 St. John's Mysticism is thus patent to all ; it is 
 stamped upon his very style, and pervades all his 
 teaching. Commentators who are in sympathy with 
 this mode of thought have, as we might expect, made 
 the most of this element in the Fourth Gospel, Indeed, 
 some of them, I cannot but think, have interpreted it 
 so completely in the terms of their own idealism, that 
 they have disregarded or explained away the very 
 important qualifications which distinguish the Johannine 
 theology from some later mystical systems. Fichte, 
 for example, claims St. John as a supporter of his 
 system of subjective idealism (if that is a correct 
 description of it), and is driven to some curious bits 
 of exegesis in his attempt to justify this claim. And 
 Reuss (to give one example of his method) says that 
 St. John cannot have used " the last day " in the 
 ordinary sense, " because mystical theology has nothing 
 to do with such a notion." ^ He means, I suppose, 
 that the mystic, who likes to speak of heaven as a 
 state, and of eternal life as a present 'possession, has 
 no business to talk about future judgment. I cannot 
 help thinking that this is a very grave mistake. There 
 is no doubt that those who believe space and time 
 to be only forms of our thought, must regard the 
 traditional eschatology as symbolical. We are not 
 concerned to maintain that there will be, literally, a 
 great assize, holden at a date and place which could 
 be announced if we knew it. If that is all that Reuss 
 means, perhaps he is right in saying that " mystical 
 theology has nothing to do with such a notion." But 
 
 * On the second coming of Christ, cf. John v. 25, xxi. 23 ; i John ii. 28, 
 iii. 2. Scholten goes so far as to expunge v. 25 and 28, 29 as spurious. 
 
54 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 if he means that such expressions as those referred to 
 in St. John, about eternal life as something here and 
 now, imply that judgment is now, and therefore not in 
 the fiiture, he is attributing to the evangelist, and to 
 the whole array of religious thinkers who have used 
 similar expressions, a view which is easy enough to 
 understand, but which is destitute of any value, for it 
 entirely fails to satisfy the religious consciousness. 
 The feeling of the contrast between what ought to be 
 and what is, is one of the deepest springs of faith in 
 the unseen. It can only be ignored by shutting our 
 eyes to half the facts of life. It is easy to say with 
 Browning, " God's in His heaven : all's right with the 
 world," or with Emerson, that justice is not deferred, 
 and that everyone gets exactly his deserts in this 
 life ; but it would require a robust confidence or a 
 hard heart to maintain these propositions while stand- 
 ing among the ruins of an Armenian village, or by the 
 deathbed of innocence betrayed. There is no doubt 
 a sense in which it may be said that the ideal is the 
 actual ; but only when we have risen in thought to 
 a region above the antitheses of past, present, and 
 future, where " is " denotes, not the moment which 
 passes as we speak, but the everlasting Now in the 
 mind of God. This is not a region in which human 
 thought can live ; and the symbolical eschatology of 
 religion supplies us with forms in which it is possible 
 to think. The basis of the belief in future judgment 
 is that deep conviction of the rationality of the world- 
 order, or, in religious language, of the wisdom and 
 justice of God, which we cannot and will not surrender. 
 It is authenticated by an instinctive assurance which 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 55 
 
 is strongest in the strongest minds, and which has 
 nothing to do with any desire for spurious " consola- 
 tions " ; 1 it is a conviction, not merely a hope, and we 
 have every reason to believe that it is part of the 
 Divine element in our nature. This conviction, like 
 other mystical intuitions, is formless : the forms or 
 symbols under which we represent it are the best that 
 we can get. They are, as Plato says, " a raft " on 
 which we may navigate strange seas of thought far 
 out of our depth. We may use them freely, as if they 
 were literally true, only remembering their symbolical 
 character when they bring us into conflict with natural 
 science, or when they tempt us to regard the world of 
 experience as something undivine or unreal. 
 
 It is important to insist on this point, because the 
 extreme difficulty (or rather impossibility) of deter- 
 mining the true relations of becoming and being, of 
 time and eternity, is constantly tempting us to adopt 
 some facile solution which really destroys one of the 
 two terms. The danger which besets us if we follow 
 the line of thought natural to speculative Mysticism, is 
 that we may think we have solved the problem in 
 one of two ways, neither of which is a solution at all. 
 Either we may sublimate our notion of spirit to such 
 an extent that our idealism becomes merely a senti- 
 mental way of looking at the actual ; or, by paring 
 down the other term in the relation, we may fall into 
 
 ^ The allegation that the Christian persuades himself of a future life 
 because it is the most comfortable belief to hold, seems to me utterly 
 contemptible. Certain views about heaven and hell are no doubt traceable 
 to shallow optimism ; but the belief in immortality is in itself rather awful 
 than consoling. Besides, what sane man would wish to be deceived in 
 such a matter ? 
 
56 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 that spurious idealism which reduces this world to a 
 vain shadow having no relation to reality. We shall 
 come across a good deal of " acosmistic " philosophy 
 in our survey of Christian Platonism ; and the senti- 
 mental rationalist is with us in the nineteenth century ; 
 but neither of the two has any right to appeal to St. 
 John. Fond as he is of the present tense, he will not 
 allow us to blot from the page either " unborn to- 
 morrow or dead yesterday." We have seen that he 
 records the use by our Lord of the traditional language 
 about future judgment. What is even more important, 
 he asserts in the strongest possible manner, at the 
 outset both of his Gospel and Epistle, the necessity 
 of remembering that the Christian revelation was 
 conveyed by certain historical events. " The Word 
 was made flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we 
 have seen His glory." " That which was from the 
 beginning, that which we have heard, that which we 
 have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and 
 our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life . . . 
 that which we have seen and heard declare we unto 
 you." And again in striking words he lays it down as 
 the test whereby we may distinguish the spirit of 
 truth from Antichrist or the spirit of error, that the 
 latter " confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh." The later history of Mysticism shows that this 
 warning was very much needed. The tendency of the 
 mystic is to regard the Gospel history as only one 
 striking manifestation of an universal law. Pie believes 
 that every Christian who is in the way of salvation 
 recapitulates " the whole process of Christ " (as William 
 Law calls it) — that he has his miraculous birth, inward 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 57 
 
 death, and resurrection ; and so the Gospel history 
 becomes for the Gnostic (as Clement calls the Christian 
 philosopher) little more than a dramatisation of the 
 normal psychological experience.^ " Christ crucified 
 is teaching for babes," says Origen, with startling 
 audacity ; and heretical mystics have often fancied 
 thatTthey can rise above the Son to the Father, The 
 Gospel and Epistle of St. John stand like a rock 
 against this fatal error, and in this feature some German 
 critics have rightly discerned their supreme value to 
 mystical theology.^ " In all life," says Grau, " there is 
 not an abstract unity, but an unity in plurality, an 
 outward and inward, a bodily and spiritual ; and life, 
 like love, unites what science and philosophy separate." 
 This co-operation of the sensible and spiritual, of the 
 material and ideal, of the historical and eternal, is 
 maintained throughout by St. John. " His view is 
 mystical," says Grau, " because all life is mystical." It 
 is true that the historical facts hold, for St. John, a 
 subordinate place as evidences. His main proof is, as 
 I have said, experimental. But a spiritual revelation 
 of God without its physical counterpart, an Incarna- 
 tion, is for him an impossibility, and a Christianity 
 which has cut itself adrift from the Galilean ministry 
 is in his eyes an imposture. In no other writer, I 
 think, do we find so firm a grasp of the " psycho- 
 
 ^ Henry More brings this charge against the Quakers. There are, he 
 says, many good and wholesome things in their teaching, but they 
 mingle with them a " slighting of the history of Christ, and making a mere 
 allegory of it — tending to the utter overthrow of that warrantable, though 
 more external frame of Christianity, which Scripture itself points out to 
 us" (Mastix, his letter to a Friend, p. 306). 
 
 * E.g. Strauss and Grau, quoted in Lilienfeld's Thoughts on the Social 
 Science of the Future, 
 
58 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 physical " view of life which we all feel to be the true 
 one, if only we could put it in an intelligible form.^ 
 
 There is another feature in St. John's Gospel which 
 shows his affinity to Mysticism, though of a different 
 kind from that which we have been considering. I 
 mean his fondness for using visible things and events 
 as symbols. This objective kind of Mysticism will 
 form the subject of my last two Lectures, and I will 
 here only anticipate so far as to say that the belief 
 which underlies it is that " everything, in being what 
 it is, is symbolic of something more." The Fourth 
 Gospel is steeped in symbolism of this kind. The 
 eight miracles which St. John selects are obviously 
 chosen for their symbolic value ; indeed, he seems to 
 regard them mainly as acted parables. His favourite 
 word for miracles is o-T/^eta, " signs " or " symbols." 
 
 ^ The intense moral dualism of St. John has been felt by many as a 
 discordant note ; and though it is not closely connected with his Mysticism, 
 a few words should perhaps be added about it. It has been thought 
 strange that the Logos, who is the life of all things that are, should have 
 to invade His own kingdom to rescue it from its de facto ruler, the Prince 
 of darkness ; and stranger yet, that the bulk of mankind should seemingly 
 be "children of the devil," born of the flesh, and incapable of salvation. 
 The difficulty exists, but it has been exaggerated. St. John does not 
 touch either the metaphysical problem of the origin of evil, or predestina- 
 tion in the Calvinistic sense. The vivid contrasts of light and shade in 
 his picture express his judgment on the tragic fate of the Jewish people. 
 The Gospel is not a polemical treatise, but it bears traces of recent con- 
 flicts. St. John wishes to show that the rejection of Christ by the Jews 
 was morally inevitable ; that their blindness and their ruin followed 
 naturally from their characters and principles. Looking back on the 
 memories of a long life, he desires to trace the operation of uniform laws 
 in dividing the wheat of humanity from the chaff". He is content to 
 observe how r\Bo% dj-^puiTry 5al/j,(i)v, without speculating on the reason why 
 characters differ. In offering these remarks, I am assuming, what seems to 
 me quite certain, that St. John selected from our Lord's discourses those 
 which suited his particular object, and that in the setting and arrangement 
 he allowed himself a certain amount of liberty. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 59 
 
 It is true that he also calls them " works," but this is 
 not to distinguish them as supernatural. All Christ's 
 actions are " works," as parts of His one " work." As 
 evidences of His Divinity, such " works " are inferior 
 to His " words," being symbolic and external. Only 
 those who cannot believe on the evidence of the words 
 and their echo in the heart, may strengthen their weak 
 faith by the miracles. But " blessed are they who 
 have not seen, and yet have believed." And besides 
 these " signs," we have, in place of the Synoptic parables, 
 a wealth of allegories, in which Christ is symbolised as 
 the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Door 
 of the Sheep, the good Shepherd, the Way, and the 
 true Vine. Wind and water are also made to play 
 their part. Moreover, there is much unobtrusive 
 symbolism in descriptive phrases, as when he says that 
 Nicodemus came by night, that Judas went out into 
 the night, and that blood and water flowed from our 
 Lord's side ; and the washing of the disciples' feet was 
 a symbolic act which the disciples were to understand 
 hereafter. Thus all things in the world may remind us 
 of Him who made them, and who is their sustaining life. 
 In treating of St. John, it was necessary to protest 
 against the tendency of some commentators to inter- 
 pret him simply as a speculative mystic of the 
 Alexandrian type. But when we turn to St. Paul, 
 we find reason to think that this side of his theology 
 has been very much underestimated, and that the 
 distinctive features of Mysticism are even more marked 
 in him than in St. John. This is not surprising, for 
 our blessed Lord's discourses, in which nearly all the 
 doctrinal teaching of St. John is contained, are for all 
 
6o CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Christians ; they rise above the oppositions which 
 must always divide human thought and human thinkers. 
 In St. Paul, large-minded as he was, and inspired as we 
 believe him to be, we may be allowed to see an example 
 of that particular type which we are considering. 
 
 St. Paul states in the clearest manner that Christ 
 appeared to him, and that this revelation was the 
 foundation of his Christianity and apostolic com- 
 mission. " Neither did I receive the Gospel from 
 man," ^ he says, " nor was I taught it, but it came to 
 me through revelation of Jesus Christ." It appears 
 that he did not at first ^ think it necessary to " confer 
 with flesh and blood " — to collect evidence about our 
 Lord's ministry. His death and resurrection ; he had 
 "seen" and felt Him, and that was enough. " It was 
 the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son in me," ^ he 
 says simpl)^, using the favourite mystical phraseology. 
 The study of " evidences," in the usual sense of the term 
 in apologetics, he rejects with distrust and contempt.^ 
 External revelation cannot make a man religious. It 
 can put nothing new into him. If there is nothing 
 answering to it in his mind, it will profit him nothing. 
 Nor can philosophy make a man religious. " Man's 
 wisdom," " the wisdom of the world," is of no avail 
 to find spiritual truth. " God chose the foolish things 
 of the world, to put to shame them that are wise." 
 " The word of the Cross is, to them that are perishing, 
 foolishness." By this language he, of course, does not 
 mean that Christianity is irrational, and therefore to 
 
 1 Gal. i. 12. 
 
 ^ I Cor. XV. shows that he subsequently satisfied himself of the tnith of 
 the other Christophanies. 
 
 ^ Gal. i. 15, 16, * I Cor. i, and ii. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 6i 
 
 be believed on authority. That would be to lay its 
 foundation upon external evidences, and nothing could 
 be further from the whole bent of his teaching. What 
 he does mean, and say very clearly, is that the carnal 
 mind is disqualified from understanding Divine truths ; 
 " it cannot know them, because they are spiritually 
 discerned." He who has not raised himself above " the 
 world," that is, the interests and ideals of human 
 society as it organises itself apart from God, and above 
 " the flesh," that is, the things which seem desirable to 
 the " average sensual man," does not possess in himself 
 that element which can be assimilated by Divine 
 grace. The " mystery " of the wisdom of God is 
 necessarily hidden from him. St. Paul uses the word 
 " mystery " in very much the same sense which St. 
 Chrysostom ^ gives to it in the following careful defini- 
 tion : " A mystery is that which is everywhere pro- 
 claimed, but which is not understood by those who 
 have not right judgment. It is revealed, not by 
 cleverness, but by the ,Holy Ghost, as we are able to 
 receive it. And so we may call a mystery a secret 
 {airopprjTov), for even to the faithful it is not committed 
 in all its fulness and clearness." In St. Paul the word 
 is nearly always found in connexion with words 
 denoting revelation or publication.- The preacher of 
 the Gospel is a hierophant, but the Christian mysteries 
 are freely communicated to all who can receive them. 
 For many ages these truths were " hid in God," ^ but 
 now all men may be " illuminated,"* if they will fulfil 
 
 ' Chrysostom in i Cor., Horn. vii. 3. 
 
 " See Lightfoot on Col. i. 26. •* Eph. iii. 9. 
 
 * 2 Tim. i. 10 {(j}i))Ti{iiv) ; cf. Eph. i. 9. 
 
62 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 the necessary conditions of initiation. These are, 
 to •' cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and 
 spirit," ^ and to have love, without which all else will 
 be unavailing. But there are degrees of initiation. 
 " We speak wisdom among the perfect," he says (the 
 reXeioi are the fully initiated) ; but the carnal must still 
 be fed with milk. Growth in knowledge, growth in 
 grace, and growth in love, are so frequently mentioned 
 together, that we must understand the apostle to mean 
 that they are almost inseparable. But this knowledge, 
 grace, and lo\^e is itself the work of the indwelling God, 
 who is thus in a sense the organ as well as the object 
 of the spiritual life. " The Spirit searcheth all things," 
 he says, " yea, the deep things of God." The man 
 who has the Spirit dwelling in him " has the mind of 
 Christ." " He that is spiritual judgeth all things," and 
 is himself "judged of no man." It is, we must admit 
 frankly, a dangerous claim, and one which may easily 
 be subversive of all discipline, " Where the Spirit of 
 the Lord is, there is liberty " ; but such liberty may 
 become a cloak of maliciousness. The fact is that 
 St. Paul had himself trusted in " the Law," and it 
 had led him into grievous error. As usually happens 
 in such cases, his recoil from it was almost violent. 
 He exalts the inner light into an absolute criterion of 
 right and wrong, that no corner of the moral life may 
 remain in bondage to Pharisaism. The crucifixion 
 of the Lord Jesus and the stoning of Stephen were 
 a crushing condemnation of legal and ceremonial 
 righteousness ; the law written in the heart of man, 
 or rather spoken there by the living voice of the Holy 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. vii. I. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 63 
 
 Spirit, could never so mislead men as to make them 
 think that they were doing God service by condemning 
 and killing the just. Such memories might well lead St. 
 Paul to use language capable of giving encouragement 
 even to fanatical Anabaptists. But it is significant 
 that the boldest claims on behalf of liberty all occur in 
 the earlier Epistles. 
 
 The subject of St. Paul's visions and revelations is 
 one of great difificulty. In the Acts we have full 
 accounts of the appearance in the sky which caused, or 
 immediately preceded, his conversion. * It is quite 
 clear that St. Paul himself regarded this as an appear- 
 ance of the same kind as the other Christophanies 
 granted to apostles and " brethren," and of a different 
 kind from such visions as might be seen by any 
 Christian. It was an unique favour, conferring upon 
 him the apostolic prerogatives of an eye-witness. Other 
 passages in the Acts show that during his missionary 
 journeys St. Paul saw visions and heard voices, and 
 that he believed himself to be guided by the " Spirit 
 of Jesus." Lastly, in the Second Epistle to the 
 Corinthians he records that " more than fourteen years 
 ago " he was in an ecstasy, in which he was " caught 
 up into the third heaven," and saw things unutterable. 
 The form in which this experience is narrated suggests 
 a recollection of Rabbinical pseudo-science; the sub- 
 stance of the vision St. Paul will not reveal, nor will 
 he claim its authority for any of his teaching.^ These 
 recorded experiences are of great psychological interest ; 
 
 * In spite of this, he is attacked for this passage in the Pseudo-Clementine 
 Homilies (xvii, 19), where "Simon Magus" is asked, "Can anyone be 
 made wise to teach through a vision ? " 
 
64 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 but, as I said in my last Lecture, they do not seem to 
 me to belong to the essence of Mysticism. 
 / Another mystical idea, which is never absent from 
 the mind of St. Paul, is that the individual Christian 
 must live through, and experience personally, the 
 redemptive process of Christ. The life, death, and 
 resurrection of Christ were for him the revelation of 
 a law, the law of redemption through suffering. The 
 victory over sin and death was won for us ; but it 
 must also be won in us. The process is an universal 
 law, not a mere event in the past.^ It has been 
 exemplified in history, which is a progressive unfurling 
 or revelation of a great mystery, the meaning of which 
 is now at last made plain in Christ.- And it must 
 also appear in each human life. " We were buried 
 with Him," says St. Paul to the Romans,^ " through 
 baptism into death," " that like as Christ was raised 
 from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we 
 also might walk in newness of life." And again,* 
 " If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 dwell in you. He that raised up Christ Jesus from the 
 dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through His 
 Spirit that dwelleth in you." And, " If ye were raised 
 together with Christ, seek the things that are above." ^ 
 
 ^ Compare a beautiful passage in R. L. Nettleship's Remains: "To live 
 is Lo die into-somelhing more perfect. . . . God can only make His work 
 to be truly His work, by eternally dying, sacrificing what is dearest to 
 Him." 
 
 - Col. i. 26, ii. 2, iv. 3 ; Eph. iii. 2-9. I have allowed myself to quote 
 from these Epistles because I am myself a believer in their genuineness. 
 The Mysticism of St. Paul might be proved from the undisputed Epistles 
 only, but we should then lose some of the most striking illustrations of it. 
 
 "* Rom. vi. 4. ■* Rom. viii. 11. 
 
 * St. Paul's mystical language about death and resurrection has given rise 
 to much controversy. On the one hand, we have writers like Matthew 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 65 
 
 The law of redemption, which St. Paul considers to 
 have been triumphantly summed up by the death and 
 resurrection of Christ/ would hardly be proved to be 
 an universal law if the Pauline Christ were only the 
 " heavenly man," as some critics have asserted. St. 
 Paul's teaching about the Person of Christ was really 
 almost identical with the Logos doctrine as we find it 
 in St. John's prologue, and as it was developed by the 
 mystical philosophy of a later period. Not only is His 
 pre-existence " in the form of God " clearly taught,^ but 
 He is the agent in the creation of the universe, the 
 vital principle upholding and pervading all that exists. 
 " The Son," we read in the Epistle to the Colossians,^ 
 " is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all 
 
 Arnold, who tell us that St. Paul unconsciously substitutes an ethical for 
 a physical resurrection — an eternal life here and now for a future reward. 
 On the other, we have writers like Kabisch {Eschatologie des Paulas), who 
 argue that the apostle's whole conception was materialistic, his idea of a 
 "spiritual body" being that of a body composed of very fine atoms (like 
 those of Lucretius' "a«/wa"), which inhabits the earthly body of the 
 Christian like a kernel within its husk, and will one day (at the resurrec- 
 tion) slough off its muddy vesture of decay, and thenceforth exist in a 
 form which can defy the ravages of time. Of the two views, Matthew 
 Arnold's is much the truer, even though it should be proved that St. Paul 
 sometimes pictures the "spiritual body "in the way described. But the 
 key to the problem, in St. Paul as in St. John, is that pyscho-physical 
 theory which demands that the laws of the spiritual world shall have their 
 analogous manifestations in the world of phenomena. Death must, some- 
 how or other, be conquered in the visible as well as in the invisible sphere. 
 The law of life through death must be deemed to pervade every phase of 
 existence. And as a mere prolongation of physical life under the same 
 conditions is impossible, and, moreover, would not fulfil the law in ques- 
 tion, we are bound to have recourse to some such symbol as "spiritual 
 body." It will hardly be disputed that the Christian doctrine* of the 
 resurrection of the whole man has taken a far stronger hold of the religious 
 consciousness of mankind than the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the 
 soul, or that this doctrine is plainly taught by St. Paul. All attempts to 
 turn his eschatology into a rationalistic (Arnold) or a materialistic (Kabisch) 
 theory must therefore be decisively rejected. 
 
 1 Col. iii. I. 2 Phil, ii. 6. 2 Col. i. 15-17. 
 
 5 
 
66 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 creation ; for in Him were all things created, in the 
 heavens and upon the earth; all things have been 
 created through Him, and unto Him ; and He is before 
 all things, and in Him all things consist " (that is, 
 " hold together," as the margin of the Revised Version 
 explains it), " All things are summed up in Christ," 
 he says to the Ephesians.^ " Christ is all and in all," 
 we read again in the Colossians.^ And in that bold 
 and difficult passage of the 15th chapter of the First 
 Epistle to the Corinthians he speaks of the " reign " of 
 Christ as coextensive with the world's history. When 
 time shall end, and all evil shall be subdued to good, 
 Christ " will deliver up the kingdom to God, even the 
 Father," " that God may be all in all." ^ Very im- 
 portant, too, is the verse in which he says that the 
 Israelites in the wilderness " drank of that spiritual 
 rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ." * 
 It reminds us of Clement's language about the Son as 
 the Light which broods over all history. 
 
 The passage from the Colossians, which I quoted 
 just now, contains another mystical idea besides that 
 of Christ as the universal source and centre of life. 
 He is, we are told, " the Image of the invisible God," 
 and all created beings are, in their several capacities, 
 images of Him. Man is essentially " the image and 
 glory of God " ; ^ the " perfect man " is he who has 
 come " to the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ." ^ This is our nature^ in the Aristotelian sense 
 of completed normal development ; but to reach it we 
 have to slay the false self, the old man, which is 
 
 1 Eph. i. 10. " Col. iii. ii. ^ i Cor. xv. 24-28. 
 
 •• J Cor. X, 4. ^ I Cor. xi. 7, I' Eph. iv. 13. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE G-j 
 
 informed by an actively maleficent agency, " flesh " 
 which is hostile to " spirit." This latter conception 
 does not at present concern us ; what we have to 
 notice is the description of the upward path as an 
 inner transit from the false isolation of the natural 
 man into a state in which it is possible to say, " I live ; 
 yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." ^ In the Epistle 
 to the Galatians he uses the favourite mystical phrase, 
 " until Christ be formed in you " ; - and in the Second 
 Epistle to the Corinthians ^ he employs a most beautiful 
 expression in describing the process, reverting to the 
 figure of the " mirror," dear to Mysticism, which he 
 had already used in the First Epistle : " We all with 
 unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the 
 Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory 
 to glory." Other passages, which refer primarily to 
 the future state, are valuable as showing that St. Paul 
 lends no countenance to that abstract idea of eternal life 
 as freedom from all earthly conditions, which has misled 
 so many mystics. Our hope, when the earthly house 
 of our tabernacle is dissolved, is not that we may be 
 unclothed, but that we may be clothed upon with our 
 heavenly habitation. The body of our humiliation is 
 to be changed and glorified, according to the mighty 
 working whereby God is able to subdue all things unto 
 Himself. And therefore our whole spirit and soul 
 and body must be preserved blameless ; for the body 
 is the temple of the Holy Ghost, not the prison-house 
 of a soul which will one day escape out of its cage and 
 fly away. 
 
 St. Paul's conception of Christ as the Life as well 
 
 ^ Gal. ii. 20. ^ Gal. iv. 19. 3 ^ Cor. iji. 18. 
 
68 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 as the Light of the world has two consequences besides 
 those which have been already mentioned. In the first 
 place, it is fatal to religious individualism. The close 
 unity which joins us to Christ is not so much a unity 
 of the individual soul with the heavenly Christ, as an 
 organic unity of all men, or, since many refuse their 
 privileges, of all Christians, with their Lord. " We, 
 being many, are one body in Christ, and severally 
 members one of another." ^ There must be " no 
 schism in the body," ^ but each member must perform 
 its allotted function. St. Augustine is thoroughly in 
 agreement with St. Paul when he speaks of Christ and 
 the Church as " unus Christus." Not that Christ is 
 " divided," so that He cannot be fully present to any 
 individual — that is an error which St. Paul, St. Augus- 
 tine, and the later mystics all condemn ; but as the 
 individual cannot reach his real personality as an 
 isolated unit, he cannot, as an isolated unit, attain to 
 full communion with Christ. 
 
 The second point is one which may seem to be of 
 subordinate importance, but it will, I think, awaken 
 more interest in the future than it has done in the 
 past. In the 8th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, 
 St. Paul clearly teaches that the victory of Christ over 
 sin and death is of import, not only to humanity, but 
 to the whole of creation, which now groans and 
 travails in pain together, but which shall one day 
 be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the 
 glorious liberty of the sons of God. This recognition 
 of the spirituality of matter, and of the unity of all 
 nature in Christ, is one which we ought to be thankful 
 1 Rom, xii. 5. " - I Cor. xii. 25. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 69 
 
 to find in the New Testament. It will be my pleasant 
 task, in the last two Lectures of this course, to show 
 how the later school of mystics prized it. 
 
 The foregoing analysis of St. Paul's teaching has, I 
 hope, justified the statement that all the essentials of 
 Mysticism are to be found in his Epistles. But there 
 are also two points in which his authority has been 
 claimed for false and mischievous developments of 
 Mysticism, These two points it will be well to con- 
 sider before leaving the subject. 
 
 The first is a contempt for the historical framework 
 of Christianity. We have already seen how strongly 
 St. John warns us against this perversion of spiritual 
 religion. But those numerous sects and individual 
 thinkers who have disregarded this warning, have often 
 appealed to the authority of St. Paul, who in the 
 Second Epistle to the Corinthians says, " Even though 
 we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we 
 know Him so no more." Here, they say, is a distinct 
 admission that the worship of the historical Christ, 
 " the man Christ Jesus," is a stage to be passed through 
 and then left behind. There is just this substratum of 
 truth in a very mischievous error, that St. Paul does 
 tell us ^ that he began to teach the Corinthians by 
 giving them in the simplest possible form the story of 
 *' Jesus Christ and Him crucified." The " mysteries " 
 of the faith, the " wisdom " which only the " perfect " 
 can understand, were deferred till the converts had 
 learned their first lessons. But if we look at the 
 passage in question, which has shocked and perplexed 
 many good Christians, we shall find that St. Paul is 
 ' I Cor. ii. I, 2. 
 
70 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 not drawing a contrast between the earthly and the 
 heavenly Christ, bidding us worship the Second Person 
 of the Trinity, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, 
 and to cease to contemplate the Cross on Calvary. 
 He is distinguishing rather between the sensuous pre- 
 sentation of the facts of Christ's life, and a deeper 
 realisation of their import. It should be our aim to 
 " know no man after the flesh " ; that is to say, we 
 should try to think of human beings as what they are, 
 immortal spirits, sharers with us of a common life and 
 a common hope, not as what they appear to our eyes. 
 And the same principle applies to our thoughts about 
 Christ. To know Christ after the flesh is to know 
 Him, not as man, but as a man. St. Paul in this 
 verse condemns all religious materialism, whether it 
 take the form of hysterical meditation upon the 
 physical details of the passion, or of an over-curious 
 interest in the manner of the resurrection. There is 
 no trace whatever in St. Paul of any aspiration to rise 
 above Christ to the contemplation of the Absolute — to 
 treat Him as only a step in the ladder. This is an 
 error of false Mysticism ; the true mystic follows St. 
 Paul in choosing as his ultimate goal the fulness of 
 Christ, and not the emptiness of the undifferentiated 
 Godhead. 
 
 The second point in which St. Paul has been sup- 
 posed to sanction an exaggerated form of Mysticism, 
 is his extreme disparagement of external religion — of 
 forms and ceremonies and holy days and the like. 
 " One man hath faith to eat all things ; but he that 
 is weak eateth herbs." ^ " One man esteemeth one 
 
 * Rom. xiv. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 71 
 
 day above another, another esteemeth every day 
 alike." " He that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, and 
 giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the 
 Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." " Why 
 turn ye back to the weak and beggarly rudiments, 
 whereunto ye desire to be in bondage again ? Ye 
 observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I 
 am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed labour upon 
 you in vain." ^ " Why do ye subject yourselves to 
 ordinances, handle not, nor taste, nor touch, after 
 the precepts and doctrines of men ? " ^ These are 
 strongly-worded passages, and I have no wish to 
 attenuate their significance. Any Christian priest 
 who puts the observance of human ordinances — fast- 
 days, for example — at all on the same level as such 
 duties as charity, generosity, or purity, is teaching, 
 not Christianity, but that debased Judaism against 
 which St. Paul waged an unceasing polemic, and 
 which is one of those dead religions which has to be 
 killed again in almost every generation.^ But we 
 must not forget that these vigorous denunciations 
 do occur in a polemic against Judaism. They bear 
 the stamp of the time at which they were written 
 perhaps more than any other part of St. Paul's 
 Epistles, except those thoughts which were connected 
 with his belief in the approaching end of the world. 
 St. Paul certainly did not intend his Christian con- 
 verts to be anarchists in religious matters. There 
 
 * Gal. iv. 9-1 1. ^ Col. ii. 20-22. 
 
 * I have been reminded that great tenderness is due to the ' ' sancta 
 simplicitas" of the "anicula Christiana," whose reUgion is generally of 
 this type. I should agree, if the " anicula" were not always so ready with 
 her faggot when a John Huss is to be burnt. 
 
72 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 is evidence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 that his spiritual presentation of Christianity had 
 already been made an excuse for disorderly licence. 
 The usual symptoms of degenerate Mysticism had 
 appeared at Corinth. There were men there who 
 called themselves " spiritual persons " ^ or prophets, 
 and showed an arrogant independence ; there were 
 others who wished to start sects of their own ; others 
 who carried antinomianism into the sphere of morals ; 
 others who prided themselves on various " spiritual 
 gifts." As regards the last class, we are rather sur- 
 prised at the half-sanction which the apostle gives 
 to what reads like primitive Irvingism ; ^ but he was 
 evidently prepared to enforce discipline with a strong 
 hand. Still, it may be fairly said that he trusts 
 mainly to his personal ascendancy, and to his teach- 
 ing about the organic unity of the Christian body, to 
 preserve or restore due discipline and cohesion. There 
 have been hardly any religious leaders, if we except 
 George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, who have 
 valued ceremonies so little. In this, again, he is a 
 genuine mystic. 
 
 Of the other books of the New Testament it is 
 not necessary to say much. The Epistle to the 
 Hebrews cannot be the work of St. Paul. It shows 
 strong traces of Jewish Alexandrianism ; indeed, the 
 
 ^ I Cor. xiv. 37. 
 
 ' There seem to have been two conceptions of the operations of the 
 Spirit in St. Paul's time : {a) He comes fitfully, with visible signs, and 
 puts men beside themselves ; {i>) He is an abiding presence, enlightening, 
 guiding, and strengthening. St. Paul lays weight on the latter view, 
 without repudiating the former. See H. Gunkel, Die IVir/cutigen des 
 H. Geistes iiach der popitl. Anscliaiiting d. apostol. Zeit und d. Lehre der 
 Fauliis. 
 
MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE 73 
 
 writer seems to have been well acquainted with the 
 Book of Wisdom and with Philo. Alexandrian ideal- 
 ism is always ready to pass into speculative Mysti- 
 cism, but the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 can hardly be called mystical in the sense in which 
 St. Paul was a mystic. The most interesting side 
 of his theology, from our present point of view, is 
 the way in which he combines his view of religious 
 ordinances as types and adumbrations of higher 
 spiritual truths, with a comprehensive view of history 
 as a progressive realisation of a Divine scheme. 
 The keynote of the book is that mankind has been 
 educated partly by ceremonial laws and partly by 
 " promises." Systems of laws and ordinances, of which 
 the Jewish Law is the chief example, have their place 
 in history. They rightly claim obedience until the 
 practical lessons which they can teach have been 
 learned, and until the higher truths which they con- 
 ceal under the protecting husk of symbolism can be 
 apprehended without disguise. Then their task is 
 done, and mankind is no longer bound by them. In 
 the same way, the " promises " which were made under 
 the old dispensation proved to be only symbols of 
 deeper and more spiritual blessings, which in the 
 moral childhood of humanity would not have appeared 
 desirable ; they were (not delusions, but) illusions^ 
 " God having prepared some better thing " to take 
 their place. The doctrine is one of profound and 
 far-reaching importance. In this Epistle it is cer- 
 tainly connected with the idealistic thought that all 
 visible things are symbols, and that every truth appre- 
 hended by finite intelligences must be only the husk 
 
74 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 of a deeper truth. We may therefore claim the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews as containing in outline a 
 Christian philosophy of history, based upon a doctrine 
 of symbols which has much in common with some 
 later developments of Mysticism. 
 
 In the Apocalypse, whoever the author may be, we 
 find little or nothing of the characteristic Johannine 
 Mysticism, and the influence of its vivid allegorical 
 pictures has been less potent in this branch of theo- 
 logy than might perhaps have been expected. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 76 
 
"Alb dr] OiKaiws ixovt} TTTepovraL ij tou (pi\oa6<pov didvoia' irphs yap 
 eKeiyoLS del eari /J-vvfJ-r] Kara. dOva/jiii', irpbs olcnrep 6ei)s wp 6ei6s eVrt. tois di 
 5»; ToiovTois d.vrjp viro/jLv/i/xaffiv dpOQs xpw/xevos, reXeovs del reXeras reXov/Mevoi, 
 riXeos 6i>tus iJ,bvos ylyverai." Plato, Phcedrus, p. 249. 
 
 Light und Farbe 
 
 " Wohne, du ewiglich Eines, dort bei dem ewiglich Einen ! 
 
 Farbe, du wechselnde, komm' freundlich zum Menschen herab ! " 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 " Nel suo profondo vidi che s'interna, 
 Legato con amore in un volume, 
 Ci6 che per I'universo si squaderna ; 
 Sustanzia ed accidente, e lor costume, 
 Tutti conflati insieme par tal modo, 
 Che cio ch'io dice c un semplice lume." 
 
 Dante, Paradiso, c. t^I- 
 
 " There is no sadder sight than the direct striving after the Unconditioned 
 in this thoroughly conditioned world." Goethe. 
 
 76 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 Christian Platonism and Speculative 
 Mysticism 
 
 i. in the east 
 
 "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man coming into the 
 world." — ^JOHN i. 9. 
 
 " He made darkness His hiding place, His pavilion round about Him ; 
 darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies." — Ps. xviii. 11. 
 
 I HAVE called this Lecture " Christian Platonism and 
 Speculative Mysticism." Admirers of Plato are likely 
 to protest that Plato himself can hardly be called a 
 mystic, and that in any case there is very little re- 
 semblance between the philosophy of his dialogues 
 and the semi-Oriental Mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius 
 the Areopagite. I do not dispute either of these 
 statements ; and yet I wish to keep the name of Plato 
 in the title of this Lecture. The affinity between 
 Christianity and Platonism was very strongly felt 
 throughout the period which we are now to consider. 
 Justin Martyr claims Plato (with Heraclitus ^ and 
 Socrates) as a Christian before Christ ; Athenagoras 
 
 ^ The mention of Pleraclitus is very interesting. It shows that the 
 Christians had already recognised their affinity with the great speculative 
 mystic of Ephesus, whose fragments supply many mottoes for essays on 
 Mysticism. The identification of the Heraclitean voOs-XSyos with the 
 Johannine Logos appears also in Euseb. Prap. Ev. xi. 19, quoted above. 
 
 77 
 
78 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 calls him the best of the forerunners of Christianity, 
 and Clement regards the Gospel as perfected Platon- 
 ism.i The Pagans repeated so persistently the charge 
 that Christ borrowed from Plato what was true in His 
 teaching, that Ambrose wrote a treatise to confute 
 them. As a rule, the Christians did not deny the 
 resemblance, but explained it by saying that Plato 
 had plagiarised from Moses — a curious notion which 
 we find first in Philo. In the Middle Ages the 
 mystics almost canonised Plato : Eckhart speaks of 
 him, quaintly enough, as *' the great priest " {der grosse 
 Pfaffe) ; and even in Spain, Louis of Granada calls 
 him " divine," and finds in him " the most excellent 
 parts of Christian wisdom," Lastly, in the seventeenth 
 century the English Platonists avowed their intention 
 of bringing back the Church to " her old loving nurse 
 the Platonic philosophy." These English Platonists 
 knew what they were talking of; but for the mediaeval 
 mystics Platonism meant the philosophy of Plotinus 
 adapted by Augustine, or that of Proclus adapted by 
 Dionysius, or the curious blend of Platonic, Aris- 
 totelian, and Jewish philosophy which filtered through 
 into the Church by means of the Arabs. Still, there 
 was justice underlying this superficial ignorance. Plato 
 is, after all, the father of European Mysticism.^ Both 
 the great types of mystics may appeal to him — those 
 who try to rise through the visible to the invisible, 
 through Nature to God, who find in earthly beauty 
 the truest symbol of the heavenly, and in the imagina- 
 tion — the image-making faculty — a raft whereon we 
 
 ^ 6 ■Ka.vTo. dpicrros nXdrwv — olov 0€O<popovfievos, he calls him. 
 ' " Mysticism finds in Plato all its texts," says Emerson truly. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 79 
 
 may navigate the shoreless ocean of the Infinite ; and 
 those who distrust all sensuous representations as 
 tending " to nourish appetites which we ought to 
 starve," who look upon this earth as a place of banish- 
 ment, upon material things as a veil which hides 
 God's face from us, and who bid us " flee away from 
 hence as quickly as may be," to seek " yonder," in 
 the realm of the ideas, the heart's true home. Both 
 may find in the real Plato much congenial teaching — 
 that the highest good is the greatest likeness to God 
 — 'that the greatest happiness is the vision of God — 
 that we should seek holiness not for the sake of 
 external reward, but because it is the health of the 
 soul, while vice is its disease — that goodness is unity 
 and harmony, while evil is discord and disintegration 
 — that it is our duty and happiness to rise above the 
 visible and transitory to the invisible and permanent. 
 It may also be a pleasure to some to trace the fortunes 
 of the positive and negative elements in Plato's teach- 
 ing — of the humanist and the ascetic who dwelt to- 
 gether in that large mind ; to observe how the world- 
 renouncing element had to grow at the expense of 
 the other, until full justice had been done to its 
 claims ; and then how the brighter, more truly Hel- 
 lenic side was able to assert itself under due safe- 
 guards, as a precious thing dearly purchased, a treasure 
 reserved for the pure and humble, and still only to be 
 tasted carefully, with reverence and godly fear. There 
 is, of course, no necessity for connecting this develop- 
 ment with the name of Plato. The way towards a 
 reconciliation of this and other differences is more 
 clearly indicated in the New Testament; indeed, 
 
8o CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 nothing can strengthen our behef in inspiration so much 
 as to observe how the whole history of thought only 
 helps us to understand St. Paul and St. John better, 
 never to pass beyond their teaching. Still, the tra- 
 ditional connexion between Plato and Mysticism is 
 so close that we may, I think, be pardoned for keep- 
 ing, like Ficinus, a lamp burning in his honour 
 throughout our present task. 
 
 It is not my purpose in these Lectures to attempt a 
 historical survey of Christian Mysticism. To attempt 
 this, within the narrow limits of eight Lectures, would 
 oblige me to give a mere skeleton of the subject, 
 which would be of no value, and of very little interest. 
 The aim which I have set before myself is to give a 
 clear presentation of an important type of Christian 
 life and thought, in the hope that it may suggest to 
 us a way towards the solution of some difficulties 
 which at present agitate and divide us. The path is 
 beset with pitfalls on either side, as will be abundantly 
 clear when we consider the startling expressions which 
 Mysticism has often found for itself. But though I 
 have not attempted to give even an outline of the 
 history of Mysticism, I feel that the best and safest 
 way of studying this or any type of religion is to con- 
 sider it in the light of its historical development, and 
 of the forms which it has actually assumed. And so 
 I have tried to set these Lectures in a historical frame- 
 work, and, in choosing prominent figures as represent- 
 atives of the chief kinds of Mysticism, to observe, so 
 far as possible, the chronological order. The present 
 Lecture will carry us down to the Pseudo-Dionysius, 
 the influence of whose writings during the next thou- 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 8i 
 
 sand years can hardly be overestimated. But if we 
 are to understand how a system of speculative Mys- 
 ticism, of an Asiatic rather than European type, came 
 to be accepted as the work of a convert of St. Paul, 
 and invested with semi-apostolic authority, we must 
 pause for a few minutes to let our eyes rest on the 
 phenomenon called Alexandrianism, which fills a large 
 place in the history of the early Church. 
 
 We have seen how St. Paul speaks of a Gnosis or 
 higher knowledge, which can be taught with safety 
 only to the " perfect " or " fully initiated " ; ^ and he 
 by no means rejects such expressions as the Pleroma 
 (the totality of the Divine attributes), which were 
 technical terms of speculative theism. St. John, too, 
 in his prologue and other places, brings the Gospel 
 into relation with current speculation, and interprets it 
 in philosophical language. The movement known as 
 Gnosticism, both within and without the Church, was 
 an attempt to complete this reconciliation between 
 speculative and revealed religion, by systematising the 
 symbols of transcendental mystical theosophy.- The 
 movement can only be understood as a premature and 
 unsuccessful attempt to achieve what the school of 
 Alexandria afterwards partially succeeded in doing. 
 The anticipations of Neoplatonism among the Gnostics 
 would probably be found to be very numerous, if the 
 victorious party had thought their writings worth pre- 
 
 ^ The doctrine of reserve in religious teaching, which some have thought 
 dishonest, rests on the self-evident proposition that it takes two to tell the 
 truth — one to speak, and one to hear, 
 
 - " Man kann den Gnosticismus des zweiten Jahrhunderts als iheologisch- 
 transcendente Mystik, und die eigentliche Mystik ala .substantiell-immanente 
 Gnosis bezeichnen" (Noack). 
 6 
 
82 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 serving. But Gnosticism was rotten before it was ripe. 
 Dogma was still in such a fluid state, that there was 
 nothing to keep speculation within bounds ; and the 
 Oriental element, with its insoluble dualism, its fan- 
 tastic mythology and spiritualism, was too strong for 
 the Hellenic. Gnosticism presents all the features 
 which we shall find to be characteristic of degenerate 
 Mysticism. Not to speak of its oscillations between 
 fanatical austerities and scandalous licence, and its belief 
 in magic and other absurdities, we seem, when we read 
 Irenaeus' description of a Valentinian heretic, to hear 
 the voice of Luther venting his contempt upon some 
 " Geistej'er" of the sixteenth century, such as Carl- 
 stadt or Sebastian Frank. " The fellow is so puffed 
 up," says Irenaeus, " that he believes himself to be 
 neither in heaven nor on earth, but to have entered 
 within the Divine Pleroma, and to have embraced his 
 guardian angel. On the strength of which he struts 
 about as proud as a cock. These are the self-styled 
 ' spiritual persons,' who say they have already reached 
 perfection." The later Platonism could not even graft 
 itself upon any of these Gnostic systems, and Plotinus 
 rejects them as decisively as Origen. 
 
 Still closer is the approximation to later speculation 
 which we find in Philo, who was a contemporary of St. 
 Paul. Philo and his Therapeutae were genuine mystics 
 of the monastic type. Many of them, however, had 
 not been monks all their life, but were retired men of 
 business, who wished to spend their old age in con- 
 templation, as many still do in India. They were, of 
 course, not Christians, but Hellenised Jews, though 
 Eusebius, Jerome, and the Middle Ages generally 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 83 
 
 thought that they were Christians, and were well 
 pleased to find monks in the first century.^ 
 
 Philo's object is to reconcile religion and philosophy 
 — in other words, Moses and Plato.^ His method ^ is 
 to make Platonism a development of Mosaism, and 
 Mosaism an implicit Platonism. The claims of ortho- 
 doxy are satisfied by saying, rather audaciously, " All 
 this is Moses' doctrine, not mine." His chief instru- 
 ment in this difficult task is allegorism, which in his 
 hands is a bad specimen of that pseudo-science which 
 has done so much to darken counsel in biblical exe- 
 gesis. His speculative system, however, is exceedingly 
 interesting. 
 
 God, according to Philo, is unqualified and pure 
 Being, but not superessential. He is emphatically wf, 
 the " I am," and the most general (to yeviKMrarov) of 
 existences. At the same time He is without qualities 
 (aTToio?), and ineffable (app7}To^). In His inmost nature 
 He is inaccessible ; as it was said to Moses, " Thou 
 shalt see what is behind Me, but My face shall not be 
 seen." It is best to contemplate God in silence, since 
 we can compare Him to nothing that we know. All 
 our knowledge of God is really God dwelling in us. 
 He has breathed into us something of His nature, and 
 is thus the archetype of what is highest in ourselves. 
 He who is truly inspired " may with good reason be 
 
 ^ See Conybeare's interesting account of the Therapeutre in his edition 
 of Philo, On the Contemplative Life, and his refutation of the theory of 
 Lucius, Zeller, etc., that the Therapeuta; belong to the end of the third 
 century. 
 
 " Stoical influence is also strong in Philo. 
 
 ^ The Jewish writer Aristobulus (about 160 B.C.) is said to have used the 
 same argument in an exposition of the Pentateuch addressed to Ptolemy 
 Philometor. 
 
84 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 called God." This blessed state may, however, be 
 prepared for by such mediating agencies as the study 
 of God's laws in nature ; and it is only the highest 
 class of saints — the souls " born of God " — that are 
 exalted above the need of symbols. It would be easy 
 to show how Philo wavers between two conceptions 
 of the Divine nature — God as simply transcendent, 
 and God as immanent. But this is one of the things 
 that make him most interesting. His Judaism will 
 not allow him really to believe in a God " without 
 qualities." 
 
 The Logos dwells with God as His Wisdom (or 
 sometimes he calls Wisdom, figuratively, the rfiother of 
 the Logos). He is the " second God," the " Idea of 
 Ideas " ; the other Ideas or Powers are the forces 
 which he controls — " the Angels," as he adds, sud- 
 denly remembering his Judaism. The Logos is also 
 the mind of God expressing itself in act : the Ideas, 
 therefore, are the content of the mind of God. Here 
 he anticipates Plotinus ; but he does not reduce God 
 to a logical point. His God is self-conscious, and 
 reasons. By the agency of the Logos the worlds were 
 made: the intelligible world, the Koa-fMO'i 1^077x09, is the 
 Logos acting as Creator. Indeed, Philo calls the in- 
 telligible universe " the only and beloved Son of God " ; 
 just as Erigena says, " Be assured that the Word is the 
 Nature of all things." The Son represents the world 
 before God as High Priest, Intercessor, and Paraclete. 
 He is the " divine Angel " that guides us ; He is the 
 " bread of God," the " dew of the soul," the " convincer 
 of sin " : no evil can touch the soul in which He dwells : 
 He is the eternal image of the Father, and we, who are 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 85 
 
 not yet fit to be called sons of God, may call ourselves 
 His sons, 
 
 Philo's ethical system is that of the later con- 
 templative Mysticism. Knowledge and virtue can be 
 obtained only by renunciation of self. Contemplation 
 is a higher state than activity. " The soul should cut 
 off its right hand." " It should shun the whirlpool of 
 life, and not even touch it with the tip of a finger." 
 The highest stage is when a man leaves behind his 
 finite self-consciousness, and sees God face to face, 
 standing in Him from henceforward, and knowing Him 
 not by reason, but by clear certainty. Philo makes no 
 attempt, to identify the Logos with the Jewish Messiah, 
 and leaves no room for an Incarnation. 
 
 This remarkable system anticipates the greater 
 part of Christian and Pagan Neoplatonism. The 
 astonishing thing is that Philo's work exercised so little 
 influence on the philosophy of the second century. It 
 was probably regarded as an attempt to evolve Platon- 
 ism out of the Pentateuch, and, as such, interesting 
 only to the Jews, who were at this period becoming 
 more and more unpopular.^ The same prejudice may 
 possibly have impaired the influence of Numenius, 
 another semi-mystical thinker, who in the age of the 
 Antonines evolved a kind of Trinity, consisting of God, 
 whom he also calls Mind ; the Son, the maker of the 
 world, whom he does not call the Logos ; and the 
 world, the " grandson," as he calls it. His Jewish 
 affinities are shown by his calling Plato " an Atticising 
 Moses." 
 
 ^ Compare Philo's own account (/;; Flaccunt) of the anti-Semitic outrages 
 at Alexandria. 
 
86 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 It was about one hundred and fifty years after Philo 
 that St. Clement of Alexandria tried to do for Christi- 
 anity what Philo had tried to do for Judaism. His aim is 
 nothing less than to construct a philosophy of religion — a 
 Gnosis, " knowledge," he calls it — which shall " initiate " 
 the educated Christian into the higher " mysteries " of 
 his creed. The Logos doctrine, according to which 
 Christ is the universal Reason,^ the Light that lighteth 
 every man, here asserts its full rights. Reasoned belief 
 is the superstructure of which faith ^ is the foundation. 
 
 " Knowledge," says Clement, " is more than faith." 
 " Faith is a summary knowledge of urgent truths, 
 suitable for people who are in a hurry ; but knowledge 
 is scientific faith." " If the Gnostic (the philosophical 
 Christian) had to choose between the knowledge of 
 God and eternal salvation, and it were possible to 
 separate two things so insepararbly connected, he would 
 choose without the slightest hesitation the knowledge 
 of God." On the wings of this " knowledge " the soul 
 rises above all earthly passions and desires, filled with 
 a calm disinterested love of God. In this state a man 
 can distinguish truth from falsehood, pure gold from 
 base metal, in matters of belief; he can see the con- 
 nexion of the various dogmas, and their harmony with 
 reason ; and in reading Scripture he can penetrate 
 beneath the literal to the spiritual meaning. But when 
 Clement speaks of reason or knowledge, he does not 
 mean merely intellectual training. " He who would 
 enter the shrine must be pure," he says, " and purity 
 
 ^ There is a very explicit identification of Christ with NoOs in the second 
 book of the Miscellanies : "He says, Whoso hath ears to hear, let him 
 hear. And who is ' He '? Let Epicharmus answer : Nous 6p^," etc. 
 
 - See Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria, especially pp. 92, 93. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 87 
 
 is to think holy things." And again, " The more a 
 man loves, the more deeply does he penetrate into 
 God." Purity and love, to which he adds diligent 
 study of the Scriptures, are all that is necessaiy to the 
 highest life, though mental cultivation may be and 
 ought to be a great help.^ 
 
 History exhibits a progressive training of mankind 
 by the Logos. " There is one river of truth," he says, 
 " which receives tributaries from every side." 
 
 All moral evil is caused either by ignorance or 
 by weakness of will. The cure for the one is know- 
 ledge, the cure for the other is discipline.^ 
 
 In his doctrine of God we find that he has fallen 
 a victim to the unfortunate negative method, which he 
 calls " analysis." It is the method which starts with 
 the assertion that since God is exalted above Being, 
 we cannot say what He is, but only what He is not. 
 Clement apparently objects to saying that God is 
 above Being, but he strips Him of all attributes and 
 qualities till nothing is left but a nameless point ; and 
 this, too, he would eliminate, for a point is a numerical 
 unit, and God is above the idea of the Monad. We 
 shall encounter this argument far too often in our 
 survey of Mysticism, and in writers more logical than 
 Clement, who allowed it to dominate their whole 
 theology and ethics. 
 
 The Son is the Consciousness of God. The Father 
 only sees the world as reflected in the Son. This bold 
 
 ' niiTTis is here used in the familiar sense (which falls far short of the 
 Johannine) of assent to particular dogmas. Yvdai^ welds these together 
 into a consistent whole, and at the same time confers a more immediate 
 apprehension of truth. 
 
 - Acricricns or irpa^is. 
 
88 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 and perhaps dangerous doctrine seems to be Clement's 
 own. 
 
 Clement was not a deep or consistent thinker, and 
 the task which he has set himself is clearly beyond his 
 strength. But he gathers up most of the religious and 
 philosophical ideas of his time, and weaves them 
 together into a system which is permeated by his 
 cultivated, humane, and genial personality. 
 
 Especially interesting from the point of view of our 
 present task is the use of mystery-language which we 
 find everywhere in Clement. The Christian revelation is 
 " the Divine (or holy) mysteries," " the Divine secrets," 
 " the secret Word," " the mysteries of the Word " ; 
 Jesus Christ is " the Teacher of the Divine mysteries " ; 
 the ordinary teaching of the Church is " the lesser 
 mysteries " ; the higher knowledge of the Gnostic, lead- 
 ing to full initiation (eVoTrTeta), " the great mysteries." 
 He borrows verbatim from a Neopythagorean docu- 
 ment a whole sentence, to the effect that " it is not 
 lawful to reveal to profane persons the mysteries of the 
 Word " — the " Logos " taking the place of " the 
 Eleusinian goddesses." This evident wish to claim the 
 Greek mystery-worship, with its technical language, 
 for Christianity, is very interesting, and the attempt 
 was by no means unfruitful. Among other ideas 
 which seem to come direct from the mysteries is the 
 notion of deification by the gift of immortality. Clement^ 
 says categorically, to yJi) (pdetpeadai OeiorrjTo^ ^ere'^eiv 
 iari. This is, historically, the way in which the 
 doctrine of " deification " found its way into the scheme 
 of Christian Mysticism. The idea of immortality as 
 ^ Slfout, V. lo. 6;. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 89 
 
 the attribute constituting Godhead was, of course, as 
 familiar to the Greeks as it was strange to the Jews.^ 
 
 Origen supplies some valuable links in the history 
 of speculative Mysticism, but his mind was less inclined 
 to mystical modes of thought than was Clement's. 
 I can here only touch upon a few points which bear 
 directly upon our subject. 
 
 Origen follows Clement in his division of the 
 religious life into two classes or stages, those of faith 
 and knowledge. He draws too hard a line between 
 them, and speaks with a professorial arrogance of the 
 " popular, irrational faith " which leads to " somatic 
 Christianity," as opposed to the " spiritual Christianity " 
 conferred by Gnosis or Wisdom." He makes it only 
 too clear that by " somatic Christianity " he means 
 that faith which is based on the gospel history. Of 
 teaching founded upon the historical narrative, he says, 
 " What better method could be devised to assist the 
 masses ? " The Gnostic or Sage no longer needs the 
 crucified Christ. The " eternal " or " spiritual " Gospel, 
 which is his possession, " shows clearly all things 
 concerning the Son of God Himself, both the mysteries 
 shown by His words, and the things of which His acts 
 were the symbols." ^ It is not that he denies or 
 doubts the truth of the Gospel history, but he feels 
 that events which only happened once can be of no 
 importance, and regards the life, death, and resurrection 
 of Christ as only one manifestation of an universal 
 law, which was really enacted, not in this fleeting world 
 
 ^ See, further, Appendices B and C. 
 ^ In Origen, ao^La is a higher term than yvdai!. 
 
 "The Greek word is aiviy/xara, "riddles." On the whole subject see 
 Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. i. p. 342. 
 
90 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 of shadows, but in the eternal counsels of the Most 
 High. He considers that those who are thoroughly 
 convinced of the universal truths revealed by the 
 Incarnation and Atonement, need trouble themselves 
 no more about their particular manifestations in 
 time. 
 
 Origen, like the Neoplatonists, says that God is 
 above or beyond Being ; but he is sounder than 
 Clement on this point, for he attributes self-conscious- 
 ness 1 and reason to God, who therefore does not 
 require the Second Person in order to come to Himself. 
 Also, since God is not wholly above reason, He can 
 be approached by reason, and not only by ecstatic 
 vision. 
 
 The Second Person of the Trinity is called by 
 Origen, as by Clement, " the Idea of Ideas." He is 
 the spiritual activity of God, the World-Principle, the 
 One who is the basis of the manifold. Human souls 
 have fallen through 'sin from their union with the 
 Logos, who became incarnate in order to restore them 
 to the state which they have lost. 
 
 Everything spiritual is indestructible ; and therefore 
 every spirit must at last return to the Good. For the 
 Good alone exists ; evil has no existence, no substance. 
 This is a doctrine which we shall meet with again. 
 Man, he expressly asserts, cannot be consubstantial 
 with God, for man can change, while God is immutable. 
 He does not see, apparently, that, from the point of 
 view of the Platonist, his universalism makes man's 
 
 ^ God, he says (Tbw. in Maith. xiii. 569), is not the absolutely un- 
 limited ; for then He could not have self-consciousness : His omnipotence 
 is limited by His goodness and wisdom (cf. Cels. iii. 493). 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 91 
 
 freedom to change an illusion, as belonging to time 
 only and not to eternity. 
 
 While Origen was working out his great system 
 of ecclesiastical dogmatic, his younger contemporary 
 Plotinus, outside the Christian pale, was laying the 
 coping-stone on the edifice of Greek philosophy by a 
 scheme of idealism which must always remain one of 
 the greatest achievements of the human mind.^ In 
 the history of Mysticism he holds a more undisputed 
 place than Plato ; for some of the most characteristic 
 doctrines of Mysticism, which in Plato are only thrown 
 out tentatively, are in Plotinus welded into a compact 
 whole. Among the doctrines which first receive a 
 clear exposition in his writings are, his theory of the 
 Absolute, whom he calls the One, or the Good ; and 
 his theory of the Ideas, which differs from Plato's ; 
 for Plato represents the mind of the World-Artist as 
 immanent in the Idea of the Good, while Plotinus 
 makes the Ideas immanent in the universal mind ; in 
 other words, the real world (which he calls the 
 " intelligible world," the sphere of the Ideas) is in the 
 mind of God. He also, in his doctrine- of Vision, 
 attaches an importance to revelation which was new in 
 Greek philosophy. But his psychology is really the 
 centre of his system, and it is here that the Christian 
 Church and Christian Mysticism, in particular, is most 
 indebted to him. 
 
 The soul is with him the meeting-point of the 
 
 ^ I hope it is not necessary to apologise for devoting a few pages to 
 Plotinus in a work on Christian Mysticism. Every treatise on religious 
 thought in the early centuries of our era must take account of the parallel 
 developments of religious philosophy in the old and the new religions, 
 which illustrate and explain each other. 
 
92 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 intelligible and the phenomenal. It is diffused every- 
 where.^ Animals and vegetables participate in it ; - 
 and the earth has a soul which sees and hears.^ The 
 soul is immaterial and immortal, for it belgngs to the 
 world of real existence, and nothing that is can cease 
 to be,'* The body is in the soul, rather than the soul 
 in the body. The soul creates the body by imposing 
 form on matter, which in itself is No-thing, pure in- 
 determination, and next door to absolute non-existence.'^ 
 Space and time are only forms of our thought. The 
 concepts formed by the soul, by classifying the things 
 of sense, are said to be " Ideas unrolled and separate," 
 that is, they are conceived as separate in space and 
 time, instead of existing all together in eternity. 
 The nature of the soul is triple ; it is presented under 
 three forms, which are at the same time the three 
 stages of perfection which it can reach.^ . There is first 
 and lowest the animal and sensual soul, which is closely 
 bound up with the body ; then there is the logical, 
 reasoning soul, the distinctively human part ; and, 
 lastly, there is the superhuman stage or part, in which 
 a man " thinks himself according to the higher intelli- 
 gence, with which he has become identified, knowing 
 himself no longer as a man, but as one who has become 
 altogether changed, and has transferred himself into the 
 higher region." The soul is thus *' made one with 
 
 ^ Enn. i. 8. 14, ovhiv i<XTi.v 6 dfjioip6v iari ^ux'^s- 
 
 * Etin. iii. 2. 7 ; iv. 7. 14, * Enn, iv. 4. 26. * Enn. iv. i, i. 
 
 * Matter is &\oyos, ctklo. XSyov Kai ^xtttwctis, Enn. vi. 3. 7 > etSuiXoi' kuI 
 (pdvracrfia 6yKov Kal virodTaffeus i^eais, Enn. iii. 6. 7- If matter were 
 iwthing, it could not desire to be something; it is only no-thing — 
 dirtipia, aopiaria. 
 
 *" These three stages correspond to the three stages in the mystical ladder 
 which appear in nearly all the Christian mystics. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 93 
 
 Intelligence without losing herself; so that they two 
 are both one and two." This is exactly Eckhart's 
 doctrine of the funkelein, if we identify Plotinus* JV0O9 
 with Eckhart's " God," as we may fairly do. The 
 soul is not altogether incarnate in the body ; part of 
 it remains above, in the intelligible world, whither it 
 desires to return in its entirety. 
 
 The world is an image of the Divine Mind, which is 
 itself a reflection of the One. It is therefore not bad 
 or evil. " What more beautiful image of the Divine 
 could there be," he asks, " than this world, except the 
 world yonder ? " And so it is a great mistake to shut 
 our eyes to the world around us, " and all beautiful 
 things." ^ The love of beauty will lead us up a long 
 way — up to the point when the love of the Good is 
 ready to receive us. Only we must not let ourselves 
 be entangled by sensuous beauty. Those who do not 
 quickly rise beyond this first stage, to contemplate 
 •' ideal form, the universal mould," share the fate of 
 Hylas ; they are engulfed in a swamp, from which 
 they never emerge. 
 
 The universe resembles a vast chain, of which every 
 being is a link. It may also be compared to rays of 
 light shed abroad from one centre. Everything flowed 
 from this centre, and everything desires to flow back 
 towards it. God draws all men and all things towards 
 
 ^ The passages in which Plotinus (following Plato) bids us mount by 
 means of the beauty of the external world, do not contradict those other 
 passages in which he bids us "turn from things without to look within" 
 (Enn. iv. 8. i). Remembering that postulate of all Mysticism, that we 
 can only know a thing by beconiiug it, we see that we can only know the 
 world by finding it in ourselves, that is, by cherishing those " best hours of 
 the mind " (as Bacon says) when we are lifted above ourselves into union 
 with the world-spirit. 
 
94 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Himself as a magnet draws iron, with a constant 
 unvarying attraction. This theory of emanation is 
 often sharply contrasted with that of evolution, and 
 is supposed to be discredited by modern science ; but 
 that is only true if the emanation is regarded as a 
 process in time, which for the Neoplatonist it is not.^ 
 In fact, Plotinus uses the word " evolution " to explain 
 the process of nature.^ 
 
 The whole universe is one vast organism,^ and if 
 one member suffer, all the members suffer with it."* 
 This is why a " faint movement of sympathy " ^ stirs 
 within us at the sight of any living creature. So 
 Origen says, " As our body, while consisting of many 
 members, is yet held together by one soul, so the 
 universe is to be thought of as an immense living 
 being, which is held together by one soul — the power 
 and the Logos of God." All existence is drawn 
 upwards towards God by a kind of centripetal attrac- 
 tion, which is unconscious in the lower, half conscious 
 in the higher organisms. 
 
 Christian Neoplatonism tended to identify the Logos, 
 as the Second Person of the Trinity, with the Nov^, 
 " Mind " or " Intelligence," of Plotinus, and rightly ; 
 but in Plotinus the word Logos has a less exalted 
 position, being practically what we call '* law," regarded 
 as a vital force.^ 
 
 ^ Plotinus guards against this misconception of liis meaning, Efin. v. 
 1 . 6, iKTTodCov 8i ijfjuv ^aro) yiveais ij iv XP^^V- 
 - f'WTj i^e\iTTo/j^v7], Enn. i. 4. i. 
 ^ See especially Enn. iv. 4. 32, 45. 
 
 * Enn. iv. 5- 3) cv/uLTraOes to ^'i'ov To8e to wai> iavTw ; iv. g, I, wore efiov 
 iraOdj/TOi cvvMuOdveadaL to irdv. 
 
 * Enn. iv. 5- 2, crv/xirddeia dfji,vdpd. 
 
 ^ See Bigg, Neoplatonism, jjp. 20j, 204. lie shows that with the Stoics, 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 95 
 
 Plotinus' Trinity are the One or the Good, who is 
 above existence, God as the Absolute; the InteUigence, 
 who occupies the sphere of real existence, organic unity 
 comprehending multiplicity — the One-Many, as he 
 calls it, or, as we might call it, God as thought, God 
 existing in and for Himself; and the Soul, the One 
 and Many, occupying the sphere of appearance or 
 imperfect reality — God as action. Soulless matter, 
 which only exists as a logical abstraction, is arrived at 
 by looking at things " in disconnexion, dull and spirit- 
 less." It is the sphere of the " merely many," and is 
 zero, as " the One who is not " is Infinity. 
 
 The Intelligible World is timeless and spaceless, and 
 contains the archetypes of the Sensible World. The 
 Sensible World is ou7' view of the Intelligible World. 
 When we say it does not exist, we mean that we shall 
 not always see it in this form. The " Ideas " are the 
 ultimate form in which things are regarded by Intelli- 
 gence, or by God. N0O9 is described as at once o-racri? 
 and KLV'qaL'i, that is, it is unchanging itself, but the 
 whole cosmic process, which is ever in flux, is eternally 
 present to it as a process. 
 
 Evil is disintegration.^ In its essence it is not 
 merely unreal, but unreality as such. It can only 
 appear in conjunction with some low degree of good- 
 ness, which suggests to Plotinus the fine saying that 
 
 who were Pantheists, the Logos was regarded as a first cause ; while with 
 the Neoplatonists, who were Theists and TranscendentaHsts, it was a 
 secondary cause. In Plotinus, the Intelligence (NoOj) is "King" [Enn. 
 V. 3. 3), and "the law of Being" {Enti. v. 9. 5). But the Johannine 
 Logos is both immanent and transcendent. When Erigena says, " Certius 
 cognoscas verbum Naturam omnium esse," he gives a true but incomplete 
 account of the Nature of the Second Person of the Trinity. 
 ^ See especially the interesting passage, E/ut. i. 8. 3. 
 
96 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 " vice at its worst is still human, being mixed with 
 something opposite to itself." ^ 
 
 The " lower virtues," as he calls the duties of the 
 average citizen,'^ are not only purgative, but teach us 
 the principles of measure and ru/e, which are Divine 
 characteristics. This is immensely important, for it 
 is the point where Platonism and Asiatic Mysticism 
 finally part company.^ 
 
 But in Plotinus, as in his Christian imitators, they 
 de not part company. The " marching orders " of the 
 true mystic are those given by God to Moses on 
 Sinai, " See that thou make all things according to 
 the pattern showed thee in the mount." * But 
 Plotinus teaches that, as the sensible world is a 
 shadow of the intelligible, so is action a shadow of 
 contemplation, suited to weak-minded persons.^ This 
 is turning the tables on the " man of action " in 
 good earnest ; but it is false Platonism and false 
 Mysticism. It leads to the heartless doctrine, quite 
 unworthy of the man, that public calamities are to 
 the wise man only stage tragedies — or even stage 
 
 ^ Enn. i. 8. 13, eVt audpioiriKov t/ KaKia, fj-eixir/fxiv-r} rivi fvavr'n^. 
 
 - The " civil virtues " are the four cardinal virtues. Plotinus says that 
 justice is mainly " minding one's business" (oU^ low pay La). "The purify- 
 ing virtues " deliver us from sin ; but rj <jirov5y} ovk t^u) ajxapria^ elvai, dWa 
 6ebv elvai. 
 
 ^ Compare Hegel's criticism of Schelling, in the latter's Asiatic period : 
 " This so-called wisdom, instead of being yielde^J up to the influence of 
 Divinity l>y its contempt of all proportion and dejiniteness, does really 
 nothing but give full play to accident and caprice. Nothing was ever 
 produced by such a process better than mere dreams " ( Vorrede ::ur 
 Phdnomenologie, p. 6). 
 
 * Heb. viii. 5. 
 
 ® Enn, iii. 8. 4, orav dadefijawcriv ety r6 dewpeiv, aKiav Oeupias Kal X6yov 
 T7]V irpa^iv TroiovvraL. Cf. AiaiQVs Journal^ p. 4, "action is coarsened 
 thought." 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 97 
 
 comedies.! The moral results of this self-centred 
 individualism are exemplified by the mediaeval saint 
 apd visionary, Angela of Foligno, who congratulates 
 herself on the deaths of her mother, husband, and 
 children, " who were great obstacles in the way of God." 
 
 A few words must be said about the doctrine of 
 ecstasy in Plotinus. He describes the conditions 
 under which the vision is granted in exactly the same 
 manner as some of the Christian mystics, e.g. St. Juan 
 of the Cross. " The soul when possessed by intense 
 love of Him divests herself of all form which she has, 
 even of that which is derived from Intelligence ; for it 
 is impossible, when in conscious possession of any other 
 attribute, either to behold or to be harmonised with 
 Him. Thus the soul must be neither good nor bad 
 nor aught else, that she may receive Him only. Him 
 alone, she alone." ^ While she is in this state, the One 
 suddenly appears, " with nothing between," " and they 
 are no more two but one; and the soul is no more 
 conscious of the body or of the mind, but knows that 
 she has what she desired, that she is where no decep- 
 tion can come, and that she would not exchange her 
 bliss for all the heaven of heavens." 
 
 What is the source of this strange aspiration to rise 
 above Reason and Intelligence, which is for Plotinus 
 the highest category of Being, and to come out " on the 
 other side of Being " {iirkKuva rrj<i ovaia^) ? Plotinus 
 says himself elsewhere that " he who would rise above 
 Reason, falls outside it " ; and yet he regards it as the 
 
 ^ Enn. iii. 2. 15, viroKpiam and Traiyvtov ; and see iv. 3. 32, on love 
 of family and country, 
 - Enn. vi. 7. 34. 
 
 7 
 
98 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 highest reward of the philosopher-saint to converse 
 with the hypostatised Abstraction who transcends all 
 distinctions. The vision of the One is no part of 
 his philosophy, but is a mischievous accretion. For 
 though the " superessential Absolute " may be a logical 
 necessity, we cannot make it, even in the most 
 transcendental manner, an object of sense, without 
 depriving it of its Absoluteness. What is really 
 apprehended is not the Absolute, but a kind of 
 " form of formlessness," an idea not of the Infinite, 
 but of the Indefinite.^ It is then impossible to 
 distinguish " the One," who is said to be above all 
 distinctions, from undifferentiated matter, the form- 
 less No-thing, which Plotinus puts at the lowest end 
 of the scale. 
 
 I believe that the Neoplatonic " vision " owes its 
 place in the system to two very different causes. 
 First, there was the direct influence of Oriental philo- 
 sophy of the Indian type, which tries to reach the 
 universal by wiping out all the boundary-lines of the 
 particular, and to gain infinity by reducing self and 
 the world to zero. Of this we shall say more when 
 
 ^ It would be an easy and rather amusing task to illustrate these 
 and other aberrations of speculative Mysticism from Herbert Spencer's 
 philosophy. E.g., he says that, though we caimot know the Absolute, we 
 may have "an indefinite consciousness of it." "It is impossible to give 
 to this consciousness any qualitative or quantitative expression whatever," 
 and yet it is quite certain that we have it. Herbert Spencer's Absolute is, 
 in fact, matter withotit form. This would seem to identify it rather with 
 the all but non-existing "matter" of Plotinus (see Bigg, Neoplatonism, 
 p. 199), than with the superessential " One" ; but the later Neoplatonists 
 found themselves compelled to call both extremes to /itj 6v. Plotinus 
 struggles hard against this conclusion, which threatens to make shipwreck 
 of his Platonism. " Hierotheus," whose sympathies are really with Indian 
 nihilism, welcomes it. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 99 
 
 we come to Dionysius. And, secondly, the blank 
 trance was a real psychical experience, quite 
 different from the " visions " which we have already 
 mentioned. Evidence is abundant ; but I will content 
 myself with one quotation.^ In Amiel's Journal^ we 
 have the following record of such a trance : " Like a 
 dream which trembles and dies at the first glimmer of 
 dawn, all my past, all my present, dissolve in me, and 
 fall away from my consciousness at the moment when 
 it returns upon myself. I feel myself then stripped 
 and empty, like a convalescent who remembers nothing. 
 My travels, my reading, my studies, my projects, my 
 hopes, have faded from my mind. All my faculties 
 drop away from me like a cloak that one takes off, 
 like the chrysalis case of a larva. I feel myself return- 
 ing into a more elementary form." But Amiel, instead 
 of expecting the advent of " the One " while in this 
 state, feels that " the pleasure of it is deadly, inferior 
 in all respects to the joys of action, to the sweetness 
 of love, to the beauty of enthusiasm, or to the sacred 
 savour of accomplished duty." - 
 
 We may now return to the Christian Platonists. 
 We find in Methodius the interesting doctrine that 
 the indwelling Christ constantly repeats His passion 
 
 ^ The following advice to directors, quoted by Ribet, may be added : 
 " Director valde attendat ad personas languida; valetudinis. Si tales per- 
 sonse a Deo in quamdam quietis orationem eleventur, contingit ut in omni- 
 bus exterioribus sensibus certum defectum ac speciem quamdam deliquii 
 experiantur cum magna interna suavitate, quod extasim aut raptum esse 
 facillime putant. Cum Dei Spiritui resistere nolint, deliquio illi totas se 
 tradunt, et per multas boras, cum gravissimo valetudinis prceiudicio in tali 
 mentis stupiditate persistunt." Genuine ecstasy, according to these 
 authorities, seldom lasted more than half an hour, though one Spanish 
 writer speaks of an hour. 
 
 - Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation, p. 72. 
 
100 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 in remembrance, " for not otherwise could the Church 
 continually conceive believers, and bear them anew 
 through the bath of regeneration, unless Christ were 
 repeatedly to die, emptying Himself for the sake of 
 each individual." " Christ must be born mentally 
 (vo7)Toi)'i) in every individual," and each individual saint, 
 by participating in Christ, " is born as a Christ." This 
 is exactly the language of Eckhart and Tauler, and 
 it is first clearly heard in the mouth of Methodius.^ 
 The new features are the great prominence given to 
 immanence — the mystical union as an opus opei-atum, 
 and the individualistic conception of the relation of 
 Christ to the soul. 
 
 Of the Greek Fathers who followed Athanasius, I 
 have only room to mention Gregory of Nyssa, who 
 defends the historical incarnation in true mystical 
 fashion by an appeal to spiritual experience. " We 
 all believe that the Divine is in everything, pervading 
 and embracing it, and dwelling in it. Why then do 
 men take offence at the dispensation of the mystery 
 taught by the Incarnation of God, who is not, even 
 now, outside of mankind ? ... If the form of the 
 Divine presence is not now the same, we are as much 
 agreed that God is among us to-day, as that He was 
 in the world then." He argues in another place that 
 all other species of spiritual beings must have had 
 their Incarnations of Christ; a doctrine which was 
 
 ^ But we should not forget that the author of the Epistle to Diognetus 
 speaks of the Logos as iravrore vios iv aylwv KapSiais yepvii/xevos. In St. 
 Augustine we find it in a rather surprisingly bold form ; cf. injoh. tract. 
 21, n. 8 : " Gratulemur et grates agamus non solum nos Christianos factos 
 esse, sed Chiistum . . . Admiramini, gaudete : Christus facti sumus." 
 But this is really quite different from saying, " Ego Christus factus sum." 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM loi 
 
 afterwards condemned, but which seems to follow 
 necessarily from the Logos doctrine. These argu- 
 ments show very clearly that for the Greek theologians 
 Christ is a cosmic principle, immanent in the world, 
 though not confined by it ; and that the scheme of 
 salvation is regarded as part of the constitution of the 
 universe, which is animated and sustained by the same 
 Power who was fully manifested in the Incarnation. 
 
 The question has been much debated, whether the 
 influence of Persian and Indian thought can be traced 
 in Neoplatonism, or whether that system was purely 
 Greek.^ It is a quite hopeless task to try to disen- 
 tangle the various strands of thought which make up 
 the web of Alexandrianism. But there is no doubt 
 that the philosophers of Asia were held in reverence at 
 this period. Origen, in justifying an esoteric mystery- 
 religion for the educated, and a mythical religion for 
 the vulgar, appeals to the example of the " Persians 
 and Indians," And Philostratus, in his life of Apol- 
 lonius of Tyana, says, or makes his hero say, that 
 while all wish to live in the presence of God, " the 
 Indians alone succeed in doing so." And certainly 
 there are parts of Plotinus, and still more of his 
 successors, which strongly suggest Asiatic influences.- 
 When we turn from Alexandria to Syria, we find 
 Orientalism more rampant. Speculation among the 
 Syrian monks of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries 
 
 ^ "Greek" must here be taken to include the Hellenised Jews. Those 
 who are best qualified to speak on Jewish philosophy believe that it 
 exercised a strong influence at Alexandria, 
 
 ^ Proclus used to say that a philosopher ought to show no exclusiveness 
 in his worship, but to be the hierophant of the whole world. This 
 eclecticism was not confined to cultus. 
 
102 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 was perhaps more unfettered and more audacious than 
 in any other branch of Christendom at any period. 
 Our knowledge of their theories is very Hmited, but 
 one strange specimen has survived in the book of 
 Hierotheus/ which the canonised Dionysius praises in 
 glowing terms as an inspired oracle — indeed, he pro- 
 fesses that his own object in writing was merely to 
 popularise the teaching of his master, 1*he book 
 purports to be the work of Hierotheus, a holy man 
 converted by St. Paul, and an instructor of the real 
 Dionysius the Areopagite. A strong case has been 
 made out for believing the real author to be a Syrian 
 mystic, named Stephen bar Sudaili, who lived late in 
 the fifth century. If this theory is correct, the date of 
 Dionysius will have to be moved somewhat later than 
 it has been the custom to fix it. The book of the 
 holy Hierotheus on " the hidden mysteries of the 
 Divinity " has been but recently discovered, and only a 
 summary of it has as yet been made public. But it is 
 of great interest and importance for our subject, 
 because the author has no fear of being accused of 
 Pantheism or any other heresy, but develops his 
 particular form of Mysticism to its logical conclusions 
 with unexampled boldness. He will show us better 
 even than his pupil Dionysius whither the method of 
 " analysis " really leads us. 
 
 The system of Hierotheus is not exactly Pantheism, 
 but Pan-Nihilism. Everything is an emanation from 
 the Chaos of bare indetermination which he calls God, 
 and everything will return thither. There are three 
 
 ^ This account of " Hier(jtheus" is, of course, taken from Frothingham's 
 most interesting monograph. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 103 
 
 periods of existence — (i) the present world, which is evil, 
 and is characterised by motion ; (2) the progressive union 
 with Christ, who is all and in all — this is the period of 
 rest; (3) the period of fusion of all things in the 
 Absolute. The three Persons of the Trinity, he dares 
 to say, will then be swallowed up, and even the devils 
 are thrown into the same melting-pot. Consistently 
 with mystical principles, these three world-periods are 
 also phases in the development of individual souls. In 
 the first stage the mind aspires towards its first prin- 
 ciples ; in the second it becomes Christ, the universal 
 Mind ; in the third its personality is wholly merged. 
 The greater part of the book is taken up with the 
 adventures of the Mind in climbing the ladder of 
 perfection ; it is a kind of theosophical romance, much 
 more elaborate and fantastic than the " revelations " of 
 mediseval mystics. The author professes to have him- 
 self enjoyed the ecstatic union more than once, and his 
 method of preparing for it is that of the Quietists : 
 " To me it seems right to speak without words, and 
 understand without knowledge, that which is above 
 words and knowledge ; this I apprehend to be nothing 
 but the mysterious silence and mystical quiet which 
 destroys consciousness and dissolves forms. Seek, 
 therefore, silently and mystically, that perfect and 
 primitive union with the Arch-Good." 
 
 We cannot follow the " ascent of the Mind " through 
 its various transmutations. At one stage it is crucified, 
 " with the soul on the right and the body on the left " ; 
 it is buried for three days ; it descends into Hades ; ^ 
 
 ^ So Ruysbroek says, "We must not remain on the top of the ladder, 
 but must descend." 
 
I04 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 then it ascends again, till it reaches Paradise, and is 
 united to the tree of life : then it descends below all 
 essences, and sees a formless luminous essence, and 
 marvels that it is the same essence that it has seen on 
 high. Now it comprehends the truth, that God is 
 consubstantial with the Universe, and that there are 
 no real distinctions anywhere. So it ceases to wander. 
 " All these doctrines," concludes the seer, " which are 
 unknown even to angels, have I disclosed to thee, my 
 son " (Dionysius, probably). " Know, then, that all 
 nature will be confused with the Father — that nothing 
 will perish or be destroyed, but all will return, be 
 sanctified, united, and confused. Thus God will be all 
 in all." 1 
 
 There can be no difficulty in classifying this Syrian 
 philosophy of religion. It is the ancient religion of 
 the Brahmins, masquerading in clothes borrowed from 
 Jewish allegorists, half-Christian Gnostics, Manicheans, 
 Platonising Christians, and pagan Neoplatonists. We 
 will now see what St. Dionysius makes of this system, 
 which he accepts as from the hand of one who has 
 " not only learned, but felt the things of God." ^ 
 
 The date and nationality of Dionysius are still 
 matters of dispute.^ Mysticism changes so little that 
 
 ^ Another description of the process of ^TrXwo-is may be found in the 
 curious work of Ibn Tophail, translated by Ockley, and much valued by 
 the Quakers, The Itnprovernent of Human Reason^ exhibited in the Life 
 of Hai Ebn Tophail, newly traslated by Simon Ockley, 1708. 
 
 * o\j fibvov [xaOijiv aXKa Kal iraOCov ra. deta. 
 
 ^ See Harnack, vol. iv. pp. 282, 283. Frothingham's theory necessitates 
 a later date for Dionysius than that which Harnack believes to be most 
 probable ; the latter is in favour of placing him in the second half of the 
 fourth century. The writings of Dionysius are quoted not much later than 
 500. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 105 
 
 it is impossible to determine the question by internal 
 evidence, and for our purposes it is not of great import- 
 ance. The author was a monk, perhaps a Syrian 
 monk : he probably perpetrated a deliberate fraud — 
 a pious fraud, in his own opinion — by suppressing his 
 own individuality, and fathering his books on St. Paul's 
 Athenian convert. The success of the imposture is 
 amazing, even in that uncritical age, and gives much 
 food for reflection. The sixth century saw nothing 
 impossible in a book full of the later Neoplatonic 
 theories — those of Proclus rather than Plotinus ^ — 
 having been written in the first century. And the 
 mediaeval Church was ready to believe that this strange 
 semi-pantheistic Mysticism dropped from the lips of 
 St. Paul.2 
 
 Dionysius is a theologian, not a visionary like his 
 master Hierotheus. His main object is to present 
 Christianity in the guise of a Platonic mysteriosophy, 
 and he uses the technical terms of the mysteries when- 
 ever he can.^ His philosophy is that of his day — the 
 later Neoplatonism, with its strong Oriental affinities. 
 
 Beginning with the Trinity, he identifies God the 
 Father with the Neoplatonic Monad, and describes Him 
 as " superessential Indetermination," " super - rational 
 Unity," " the Unity which unifies every unity," " super- 
 essential Essence," " irrational Mind," " unspoken 
 
 ^ E.g., he agrees with lamblichus and ProcUis (in opposition to Plotinus) 
 that " the One " is exalted above " Goodness." 
 
 * At the present time the more pious opinion among Romanists seems to be 
 that the writings are genuine ; but Schram admits that " there is a dispute" 
 about their date, and some Roman Catholic writers frankly give them up. 
 
 ' E.g., KaOapCLS, (pum<T/j,6s, fJiVT](ns, iiroTrreia, Oeucri^ ; leporeKeffTaL and 
 fiuffrayuyoi (of the bishops), (}>uiti<xtlkoI (of the priests), KadapriKoi (of the 
 deacons). 
 
io6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Word," " the absolute No-thing which is above all 
 existence." ^ Even now he is not satisfied with the 
 tortures to which he has subjected the Greek language. 
 " No monad or triad," he says, " can express the all- 
 transcending hiddenness of the all-transcending super- 
 essentially super-existing super-Deity." ^ But even in 
 the midst of this barbarous jargon he does not quite 
 forget his Plato. "The Good and Beautiful," he says, 
 " are the cause of all things that are ; and all things 
 love and aspire to the Good and Beautiful, which are, 
 indeed, the sole objects of their desire," " Since, then, 
 the Absolute Good and Beautiful is honoured by 
 eliminating all qualities from it, the non-existent also (to 
 fxT) 6v) must participate in the Good and Beautiful." 
 This pathetic absurdity shows what we are driven to if 
 we try to graft Indian nihilism upon the Platonic doctrine 
 of ideas. Plotinus tried hard to show that his First 
 Person was very different from his lowest category — 
 non-existent " matter " ; but if we once allow our- 
 selves to define the Infinite as the Indefinite, the 
 conclusion which he deprecated cannot long be 
 averted. 
 
 " God is the Being of all that is." Since, then. 
 Being is identical with God or Goodness, evil, as such, 
 does not exist ; it only exists by its participation in 
 good. Evil, he says, is not in things which exist ; a 
 good tree cannot bear evil fruit ; it must, therefore, 
 have another origin. But this is dualism, and must be 
 
 ' VTrepovcrios dopLcrria — inr^p vovv ivdrris—evas evoiroibs aTrda-qs evddos — 
 vTrepovaios ovcria /cat vovs dv^T/ros /cai X670S dpp7)T0% — dXoyla koX dvorjala Kal 
 dvuvvnia — avrb 5e jxr) 6v (lis Trdcijs ovalas ^TreKetx'a. 
 
 ' ov5e/xia rj fiovd^ rj rpids i^dyet. ttjv vw^p irdvTO. KpV(pibT-qTa ttjs iiirkp irdvTO. 
 VTrepovaiois VTrepo6ai]S inrepdebTrjTOi. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 107 
 
 rejected.^ Nor is evil in God, nor of God ; nor in the 
 angels ; nor in the human soul ; nor in the brutes ; nor 
 in inanimate nature ; nor in matter. Having thus 
 hunted evil out of every corner of the universe, he asks 
 — Is evil, then, simply privation of good ? But priva- 
 tion is not evil in itself. No ; evil must arise from 
 " disorderly and inharmonious motion." As dirt has 
 been defined as matter in the wrong place, so evil is 
 good in the wrong place. It arises by a kind of 
 accident ; " all evil is done with the object of gaining 
 some good ; no one does evil as evil." Evil in itself is 
 that which is " nohow, nowhere, and no thing " ; " God 
 sees evil as good." Students of modern philosophy 
 will recognise a theory which has found influential 
 advocates in our own day : that evil needs only to be 
 supplemented, rearranged, and transmuted, in order to' 
 take its place in the universal harmony.^ 
 
 All things flow out from God, and all will ultimately 
 return to Him. The first emanation is the Thing in 
 itself {avTo to e7uai), which corresponds to the Plotinian 
 Nov^, and to the Johannine Logos. He also calls it 
 "Life in itself" and "Wisdom in itself" (avro^wr], 
 avToao^La). Of this he says, " So then the Divine 
 Wisdom in knowing itself will know all things. It 
 will know the material immaterially, and the divided 
 inseparably, and the many as one (hiaccos:), knowing 
 all things by the standard of absolute unity." These 
 
 ^ fiopas ^crraL irdaris Svados o-pxv is stated by Dionysius as an axiom. 
 
 ^ See especially Bradley's Appea7-a7ice and Reality, some chapters of 
 which show a certain sympathy with Oriental speculative Mysticism. The 
 theory set forth in the text must not be confounded with true pantheism, to 
 which every phenomenon is equally Divine as it stands. See below, at the 
 end of this Lecture. 
 
io8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 important speculations are left undeveloped by Dio- 
 nysius, who merely states them dogmatically. The 
 universe is evolved from the Son, whom he identifies 
 with the "Thing in itself," "Wisdom," or "Life in 
 itself." In creation " the One is said to become multi- 
 form." The world is a necessary process of God's 
 being. He created it " as the sun shines," " without 
 premeditation or purpose." The Father is simply 
 One ; the Son has also plurality, namely, the words 
 (or reasons) which make existence (toi»9 ovaio7rocov<i 
 Xoyovi), which theology calls fore-ordinations {irpoopio-- 
 fiov^). But he does not teach that all separate exist- 
 ences will ultimately be merged in the One. The 
 highest Unity gives to all the power of striving, on 
 the one hand, to share in the One ; on the other, to 
 persist in their own individuality. And in more than 
 one passage he speaks of God as a Unity comprehend- 
 ing, not abolishing differences.^ " God is before all 
 things " ; " Being is in Him, and He is not in Being." 
 Thus Dionysius tries to safeguard the transcendence of 
 God, and to escape Pantheism. The outflowing process 
 is appropriated by the mind by the positive method — 
 the downward path through finite existences : its con- 
 clusion is, " God is All." The return journey is by the 
 negative road, that of ascent to God by abstraction and 
 analysis : its conclusion is, " All is not God." ^ The 
 
 ^ See De Div. Nom. iv. 8 ; xi. 3. 
 
 * Dionysius distinguishes three movements of the human mind — the 
 circular, wherein the soul returns in upon itself; the oblique, which 
 includes all knowledge acquired by reasoning, research, etc. ; and the 
 direct, in which we rise to higher truths by using outward things as 
 symbols. The last two he regards as inferior to the " circular" movement, 
 which he also calls "simplification" (ctTrXwcrts). 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 109 
 
 negative path is the high road of a large school of 
 mystics ; I will say more about it presently. The 
 mystic, says Dionysius, " must leave behind all things 
 both in the sensible and in the intelligible worlds, till 
 he enters into the darkness of nescience that is truly 
 mystical." This " Divine darkness," he says elsewhere, 
 " is the light unapproachable " mentioned by St. Paul, 
 " a deep but dazzling darkness," as Henry Vaughan 
 calls it. It is dark through excess of light.^ This 
 doctrine really renders nugatory what he has said about 
 the persistence of distinctions after the restitution of all 
 things ; for as *' all colours agree in the dark," so, for 
 us, in proportion as we attain to true knowledge, all 
 distinctions are lost in the absolute. 
 
 The soul is bipartite. The higher portion sees the 
 " Divine images " directly, the lower by means of 
 symbols. The latter are not to be despised, for they 
 are " true impressions of the Divine characters," and 
 necessary steps, which enable us to " mount to the one 
 undivided truth by analogy." This is the way in 
 which we should use the Scriptures. They have a 
 symbolic truth and beauty, which is intelligible only 
 to those who can free themselves from the " puerile 
 myths " - (the language is startling in a saint of the 
 Church !) in which they are sometimes embedded. 
 
 Dionysius has much to say about love,^ but he uses 
 
 ^ The highest stage (he says) is to reach rbv viripcpurov yv64>ov Kal 5t' 
 d|3\ei/'/as Kal dyvwalas iSelv Kal yvCivai. 
 
 ^ ToX/xQaa deoirXaaia and Traidapiwdrj^ (pavTacria are phrases which he 
 applies to Old Testament narratives. 
 
 ^ As a specimen of his language, we may quote ?<tt( 5^ e /ctrrartKis 6 
 6e2os ^/3us, ovK iwv iavrOiv eXvai. roiis ipatyrks, dXXd tC)v ipw/j-ivuv {De Div. 
 Nom. iv. 13). 
 
no CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 the word epco?, which is carefully avoided in the New 
 Testament. He admits that the Scriptures " often 
 use " dyaTTT}, hut justifies his preference for the other 
 word by quoting St. Ignatius, who says of Christ, " My 
 Love (epco?) is crucified." ^ Divine Love, he finely 
 says, is " an eternal circle, from goodness, through 
 goodness, and to goodness." 
 
 The mediaeval mystics were steeped in Dionysius, 
 though his system received from them certain modifica- 
 tions under the influence of Aristotelianism. He is 
 therefore, for us, a very important figure ; and there 
 are two parts of his scheme which, I think, require 
 fuller consideration than has been given them in this 
 very slight sketch. I mean the "negative road" to 
 God, and the pantheistic tendency. 
 
 The theory that we can approach God only by 
 analysis or abstraction has already been briefly com- 
 mented on. It is no invention of Dionysius. Plotinus 
 uses similar language, though his view of God as the 
 fulness of all /i/e prevented him from following the 
 negative path with thoroughness. But in Proclus we 
 find the phrases, afterwards so common, about " sinking 
 into the Divine Ground," " forsaking the manifold for 
 the One," and so forth. Basilides, long before, evi- 
 dently carried the doctrine to its extremity : " We must 
 not even call God ineffable," he says, " since this is to 
 
 ^ I am inclined to agree with Dr. Bigg {Bampton Lectures, Introduction, 
 pp. viii, ix), that Dionysius and the later mystics are right in their interpre- 
 tation of this passage. Bishop Lightfoot and some other good scholars take 
 it to mean, " My earthly affections are crucified." See the discussion in 
 Lightfoot's edition of Ignatius, and in Bigg's Introduction. I am not 
 aware how the vindicators of " Dionysius " explain the curious fact that 
 he had read Ignatius ! 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM iii 
 
 make an assertion about Him ; He is above every 
 name that is named." ^ It was a commonplace of 
 Christian instruction to say that " in Divine matters 
 there is great wisdom in confessing our ignorance " 
 — this phrase occurs in Cyril's catechism.^ But con- 
 fessing our ignorance is a very different thing from 
 refusing to make any positive statements about God. 
 It is true that all our language about God must be 
 inadequate and symbolic ; but that is no reason for 
 discarding all symbols, as if we could in that way know 
 God as He knows Himself. At the bottom, the 
 doctrine that God can be described only by negatives 
 is neither Christian nor Greek, but belongs to the old 
 religion of India. Let me try to state the argument 
 and its consequence in a clear form. Since God is 
 the Infinite, and the Infinite is the antithesis of the 
 finite, every attribute which can' be affirmed of a finite 
 being may be safely denied of God. Hence God can. 
 only be described by negatives ; He can only be dis- 
 covered by stripping off all the qualities and attributes 
 which veil Him; He can only be reached by divesting 
 ourselves of all the distinctions of personality, and sink- 
 ing or rising into our " uncreated nothingness " ; and 
 He can only be imitated by aiming at an abstract 
 spirituality, the passionless " apathy " of an universal 
 which is nothing in particular. Thus we see that the 
 whole of those developments of Mysticism which despise 
 symbols, and hope to see God by shutting the eye of 
 
 ^ See Harnack, vol. iii. pp. 242, 243. St. Augustine accepts this state- 
 ment, which he repeats word for word. 
 
 * Compare also Hooker : " Of Thee our fittest eloquence is silence, while 
 we confess without confessing that Thy glory is unsearchable and beyond 
 our reach." 
 
IF.2 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 sense, hang together. They all follow from the false 
 notion of God as the abstract Unity transcending, or 
 rather excluding, all distinctions. Of course, it is not 
 intended to exclude distinctions, but to rise above them ; 
 but the process of abstraction, or subtraction, as it 
 really is, can never lead us to " the One." ^ The only 
 possible unification with such an Infinite is the arepfiodv 
 VTjypero'i vttvo<; of Nirvana.^ Nearly all that repels us 
 in mediaeval religious life — its " other-worldliness " and 
 passive hostility to civilisation — the emptiness of its 
 ideal life — its maltreatment of the body — its dispar- 
 agement of family life — the respect which it paid to in- 
 dolent contemplation — springs from this one root. But 
 since no one who remains a Christian can exhibit the 
 results of this theory in their purest form, I shall take the 
 liberty of quoting a few sentences from a pamphlet written 
 by a native Indian judge who I believe is still living. 
 His object is to explain and commend to Western 
 readers the mystical philosophy of his own country :2 — 
 " He who in perfect rest rises from the body and 
 attains the highest light, comes forth in his own proper 
 form. This is the immortal soul. The ascent is by 
 
 ^ Unity is a characteristic or simple condition of real being, but it is not 
 in itself a principle of being, so that "the One" could exist substantially 
 by itself. To personify the barest of abstractions, call it God, and then 
 try to imitate it, would seem too absurd a fallacy to have misled any one, 
 if history did not show that it has had a long and vigorous life. 
 
 ^ Cf. Sir W. Hamilton {Discussions, p. 21): " By abstraction we an- 
 nihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate the subject of con- 
 sciousness. But what remains ? Nothing. When we attempt to conceive 
 it as reality, we hypostatise the zero." 
 
 2 The Hon. P. Ramanathan, C.M.G., Attorney-General of Ceylon, 
 The Mystery of Godliness. This interesting essay was brought to my 
 notice by the kindness of the Rev. G. U, Pope, D.D., University Teacher 
 in Tamil and Telugu at Oxford. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 113 
 
 the ladder of one's thoughts. To know God, one must 
 first know one's own spirit in its purity, unspotted 
 by thought. The soul is hidden behind the veil of 
 thought, and only when thought is worn off, becomes 
 visible to itself. This stage is called knowledge of the 
 soul. Next is realised knowledge of God, who rises 
 from the bosom of the soul. This is the end of 
 progress ; differentiation between self and others has 
 ceased. All the world of thought and senses is melted 
 into an ocean without waves or current. This dis- 
 solution of the world is also known as the death of the 
 sinful or worldly ' I,' which veils the true Ego. Then 
 the formless Being of the Deity is seen in the regions 
 of pure consciousness beyond the veil of thought. 
 Consciousness is wholly distinct from thought and 
 senses ; it knows them ; they do not know it. The 
 only proof is an appeal to spiritual experience." In 
 the highest stage one is absolutely inert, " knowing 
 nothing in particular." ^ 
 
 Most of this would have been accepted as precious 
 truth by the mediaeval Church mystics.^ The words 
 
 ^ Hunt's summary of the philosophy of the Vedanta Sara [Pantheism and 
 Christianity, p. 19) may help to illustrate further this type of thought. 
 " Brahma is called the universal soul, of which all human souls are a part." 
 These are likened to a succession of sheaths, which envelop each other 
 like the coats of an onion. The human soul frees itself by knowledge from 
 the sheath. But what is this knowledge? To know that the human 
 intellect and all its faculties are ignorance and delusion. This is to 
 take away the sheath, and to find that God is all. Whatever is not 
 Brahma is nothing. So long as a man perceives himself to be any 
 thing, he is nothing. When he discovers that his supposed individuality 
 is no individuality, then he has knowledge. Man must strive to 
 rid himself of himself as an object of thought. He must be only a 
 subject. As subject he is Brahma, while the objective world is mere 
 phenomenon." 
 
 - We may compare with them the following maxims, which, enclosed in 
 8 
 
114 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 nakedness, darkness, nothingness, passivity, apathy, 
 and the Hke, fill their pages. We shall find that this 
 time-honoured phraseology was adhered to long after 
 the grave moral dangers which beset this type of 
 Mysticism had been recognised. Tauler, for instance, 
 who lays the axe to the root of the tree by saying, 
 " Christ never arrived at the emptiness of which these 
 men talk," repeats the old jargon for pages together. 
 German Mysticism really rested on another basis, and 
 when Luther had the courage to break with ecclesi- 
 astical tradition, the via negativa rapidly disappeared 
 within the sphere of his influence. 
 
 But it held sway for a long time — so long that we 
 cannot complain if many have said, " This is the 
 essence of Mysticism-." Mysticism is such a vague 
 word, that one must not quarrel with any " private 
 interpretation " of it ; but we must point out that this 
 limitation excludes the whole army of symbolists," a 
 school which, in Europe at least, has shown more 
 vitality than introspective Mysticism. I regard the 
 via negativa in metaphysics, religion, and ethics as the 
 
 an outline of Mount Caimel, form the frontispiece to an early edition of 
 St. Juan of the Cross : — 
 
 " To enjoy Infinity, do not desire to taste of finite things. 
 
 "To arrive at the knowledge of Infinity, do not desire the knowledge of 
 finite things. 
 
 "To reach to the possession of Infinity, desire to possess nothing. 
 
 "To be included in the being of Infinity, desire to be thyself nothing 
 whatever. 
 
 "The moment that thou art resting in a creature, thou art ceasing to 
 advance towards Infinity. 
 
 "In order to unite thyself to Infinity, thou must surrender finite things 
 without reserve." 
 
 After reading such maxims, we shall probably be inclined to think that 
 "the Infinite" as a name for God might be given up with advantage. 
 There is nothing Divine about a tabula rasa. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 115 
 
 great accident of Christian Mysticism. The break-up 
 of the ancient civilisation, with the losses and miseries 
 which it brought upon humanity, and the chaos of 
 brutal barbarism in which Europe weltered for some 
 centuries, caused a widespread pessimism and world- 
 weariness which is foreign to the temper of Europe, 
 and which gave way to energetic and full-blooded 
 activity in the Renaissance and Reformation. Asiatic 
 Mysticism is the natural refuge of men who have lost 
 faith in civilisation, but will not give up faith in God. 
 " Let us fly hence to our dear country ! " We hear 
 the words already in Plotinus — nay, even in Plato. 
 The sun still shone in heaven, but on earth he was 
 eclipsed. Mysticism cuts too deep to allow us to live 
 comfortably on the surface of life ; and so all " the 
 heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible 
 world " pressed upon men and women till they were fain 
 to throw it off, and seek peace in an invisible world of 
 which they could not see even a shadow round about them. 
 But I do not think that the negative road is a pure 
 error. There is a negative side in religion, both in 
 thought and practice. We are first impelled to seek 
 the Infinite by the limitations of the finite, which 
 appear to the soul as bonds and prison walls. It is 
 natural first to think of the Infinite as that in which 
 these barriers are done away. And in practice we 
 must die daily, if our inward man is to be daily 
 renewed. We must die to our lower self, not once 
 only but continually, so that we may rise on stepping 
 stones of many dead selves to higher things.^ We 
 
 ^ Cf. Richard of St. Victor, dc Prirp. Aiiiiu. 83, "ascendat per seme- 
 tipsuni super semetipsum." 
 
ii6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 must die to our first superficial views of the world 
 around us, nay, even to our first views of God and 
 religion, unless the childlike in our faith is by arrest 
 of growth to become the childish. All the good things 
 of life have first to be renounced, and then given back 
 to us, before they can be really ours. It was neces- 
 sary that these truths should be not only taught, but 
 lived through. The individual has generally to pass 
 through the quagmire of the " everlasting No," before 
 he can set his feet on firm ground ; and the Christian 
 races, it seems, were obliged to go through the sam.e 
 experience. Moreover, there is a sense in which all 
 moral effort aims at destroying the conditions of its 
 own existence, and so ends logically in self-negation. 
 Our highest aim as regards ourselves is to eradicate, 
 not only sin, but temptation. We do not feel that we 
 have won the victory until we no longer wish to 
 offend. But a being who was entirely free from temp- 
 tation would be either more or less than a man — 
 " either a beast or a God," as Aristotle says.^ There 
 is, therefore, a half truth in the theory that the goal of 
 earthly striving is negation and absorption. But it at 
 once becomes false if we forget that it is a goal which 
 cannot be reached in time, and which is achieved, not 
 by good and evil neutralising each other, but by death 
 being swallowed up in victory. If morality ceases to 
 be moral when it has achieved its goal, it must pass 
 
 ^ The same is true of our attitude towards external nature. We are 
 always trying to rise from the shadow to the substance, from the symbol 
 to the thing symbolised, and so far the followers of the negative road are 
 right ; but the life of Mysticism (on this side) consists in the process of 
 spiritualising our impressions ; and to regard the process as completed is to 
 lose shadow and substance together. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 117 
 
 into something which includes as well as transcends it 
 — a condition which is certainly not fulfilled by con- 
 templative passivity.^ 
 
 These thoughts should save us from regarding the 
 saints of the cloister with impatience or contempt. 
 The limitations incidental to their place in history do 
 not prevent them from being glorious pioneers among 
 the high passes of the spiritual life, who have scaled 
 heights which those who talk glibly about " the mistake 
 of asceticism " have seldom even seen afar off. 
 
 We must next consider briefly the charge of Pan- 
 theism, which has been flung rather indiscriminately 
 at nearly all speculative mystics, from Plotinus to 
 Emerson. Dionysius, naturally enough, has been 
 freely charged with it. The word is so loosely and 
 thoughtlessly used, even by writers of repute, that I 
 hope I may be pardoned if I try to distinguish (so 
 far as can be done in a few words) between the various 
 systems which have been called pantheistic. 
 
 True Pantheism must mean the identification of 
 God with the totality of existence, the doctrine that 
 the universe is the complete and only expression of 
 the nature and life of God, who on this theory is 
 only immanent and not transcendent. On this view, 
 everything in the world belongs to the Being of God, 
 who is manifested equally in everything. Whatever 
 is real is perfect ; reality and perfection are the same 
 
 ^ It may be objected that I have misused the term via negativa, which 
 is merely the line of argument which establishes the transcendence of God, 
 as the " affirmative road " establishes His immanence. I am far from 
 wishing to depreciate a method which when rightly used is a safeguard 
 against Pantheism, but the whole history of mediceval Mysticism shows 
 how mischievous it is when followed exclusively. 
 
ii8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 thing. Here again we must go to India for a perfect 
 example. " The learned behold God alike in the 
 reverend Brahmin, in the ox and in the elephant, 
 in the dog and in him who eateth the flesh of dogs." ^ 
 So Pope says that God is " as full, as perfect, in a hair 
 as heart." The Persian Sufis were deeply involved in 
 this error, which leads to all manner of absurdities and 
 even immoralities. It is inconsistent with any belief 
 in purpose, either in the whole or in the parts. Evil, 
 therefore, cannot exist for the sake of a higher good : 
 it must be itself good. It is easy to see how this view 
 of the world may pass into pessimism or nihilism ; for 
 if everything is equally real and equally Divine, it 
 makes no difference, except to our tempers, whether 
 we call it everything or nothing, good or bad. 
 
 None of the writers with whom we have to deal can 
 fairly be charged with this error, which is subversive of 
 the very foundations of true religion. Eckhart, carried 
 away by his love of paradox, allows himself occasionally 
 to make statements which, if logically developed, would 
 come perilously near to it ; and Emerson's philosophy 
 is more seriously compromised in this direction. Dio- 
 nysius is in no such danger, for the simple reason that 
 he stands too near to Plato, The pantheistic tendency 
 of mediaeval Realism requires a few words of explana- 
 tion, especially as I have placed the name of Plato at 
 the head of this Lecture. Plato's doctrine of ideas 
 aimed at establishing the transcendence of the highest 
 Idea — that of God. But the mediaeval doctrine of ideas, 
 as held by the extreme Realists, sought to find room in 
 the summum genus for a harmonious coexistence of all 
 
 ^ See Vaiighan, Hours with the Mystics, vol. i. p. 58. S 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 119 
 
 things. It thus tended towards Pantheism ;^ while the 
 AristoteHan Realists maintained the substantial char- 
 acter of individuals outside the Being of God. " This 
 view," says Eicken, " which quite inverted the historical 
 and logical relation of the Platonic and Aristotelian 
 philosophies, was maintained till the close of the Middle 
 Ages." 
 
 We may also call pantheistic any system which 
 regards the cosmic process as a real becoming of God. 
 According to this theory, God comes to Himself, attains 
 full self-consciousness, in the highest of His creatures, 
 which are, as it were, the organs of His self-unfolding 
 Personality. This is not a philosophy which commends 
 itself specially to speculative mystics, because it in- 
 volves the belief that time is an ultimate reality. If 
 in the cosmic process, which takes place in time, God 
 becomes something which He was not before, it cannot 
 be said that He is exalted above time, or that a thou- 
 sand years are to Him as one day. I shall say in my 
 fourth Lecture that this view cannot justly be attributed 
 to Eckhart. Students of Hegel are not agreed whether 
 it is or is not part of their master's teaching,^ 
 
 The idea of ivill as a world-principle — not in 
 Schopenhauer's sense of a blind force impelling from 
 
 ^ Seth, Hegelianism and Personality, states this more strongly. lie 
 argues that " the ultimate goal of Realism is a thorough-going Pantheism." 
 God is regarded as the sumimim getius, the ultimate Substance of which all 
 existing things are accidents. The genus inheres in the species, and the 
 species in individuals, as an entity common to all and identical in each, 
 an entity to which individual differences adhere as accidents. 
 
 ^ M'Taggart, Studies iji Hegeliati Dialectic, p. 159 sq., argues that 
 Hegel means that the Absolute Idea exists eternally in its full perfection. 
 There can be no real development in time. " Infinite time is a false 
 infinite of endless aggregation." The whole discussion is very instructive 
 and interesting. 
 
I20 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 within, but as the determination of a conscious Mind — 
 Hfts us at once out of Pantheism.^ It sets up the dis- 
 tinction between what is and what ought to be, which 
 Pantheism cannot find room for, and at the same time 
 implies that the cosmic process is already complete in 
 the consciousness of God, which cannot be held if He 
 is subordinated to the category of time. 
 
 God is more than the All, as being the perfect 
 Personality, whose Will is manifested in creation under 
 necessarily imperfect conditions. He is also in a sense 
 less than the All, since pain, weakness, and sin, though 
 known to Him as infinite Mind, can hardly be felt by 
 Him as infinite Perfection, The function of evil in the 
 economy of the universe is an inscrutable mystery, 
 about which speculative Mysticism merely asserts that 
 the solution cannot be that of the Manicheans, It is 
 only the Agnostic ^ who will here offer the dilemma of 
 Dualism or Pantheism, and try to force the mystic to 
 accept the second alternative. 
 
 There are two other views of the universe which 
 have been called pantheistic, but incorrectly. 
 
 The first is that properly called AcosfJiism, which we 
 have encountered as Orientalised Platonism. Plato's 
 theory of ideas was popularised into a doctrine of two 
 separate worlds, related to each other as shadow and 
 substance. The intelligible world, which is in the 
 mind of God, alone exists ; and thus, by denying 
 reality to the visible world, we get a kind of idealistic 
 Pantheism. But the notion of God as abstract Unity, 
 
 ' So Lasson says well, in his book on Meister Eckhart, " Mysticism 
 views everything from the standpoint of teleology, while Pantheism 
 generally stops at causality." 
 
 - As, for instance, Leslie Stephen tries to do in his Ai^nos/ic's Apology. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 121 
 
 which, as we have seen, was held by the later Neo- 
 platonists and their Christian followers, seems to make 
 a real world impossible ; for bare Unity cannot create, 
 and the metaphor of the sun shedding his rays explains 
 nothing. Accordingly the " intelligible world," the 
 sphere of reality, drops out, and we are left with only 
 the infra-real world and the supra-real One. So we 
 iare landed in nihilism or Asiatic Mysticism.^ 
 
 The second is the belief in the immanence of a 
 God who is also transcendent. This should be called 
 Panentheism, a useful word coined by Krause, and not 
 Pantheism. In its true form it is an integral part of 
 Christian philosophy, and, indeed, of all rational theo- 
 logy. But in proportion as the indwelling of God, or 
 of Christ, or the Holy Spirit in the heart of man, is 
 regarded as an opus operatJim, or as complete substitu- 
 tion of the Divine for the human, we are in danger of 
 a self-deification which resembles the maddest phase 
 of Pantheism.^ 
 
 Pantheism, as I understand the word, is a pitfall for 
 Mysticism to avoid, not an error involved in its first 
 
 ^ The system of Spinoza, based on the canon, " Omnis determinatio est 
 negatio," proceeds by wiping out all dividing lines, which he regards as 
 illusions, in order to reach the ultimate truth of things. This, as Hegel 
 showed, is acosmism rather than Pantheism, and certainly not " atheism." 
 The method of Spinoza should have led him, as the same method led 
 Dionysius, to define God as vTrepovcrMs aopLaria. He only escapes this 
 conclusion by an inconsistency. See E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, 
 vol. i. pp. 104, 105. 
 
 ^ There is a third system which is called pantheistic ; but as it has 
 nothing to do with Mysticism, I need not try to determine whether it 
 deserves the name or not. It is that which deifies physical law. Some- 
 times it is "materialism grown sentimental," as it has been lately de- 
 scribed ; sometimes it issues in stern Fatalism. This is Stoicism ; and 
 high Calvinism is simply Christian Stoicism. It has been called pan- 
 theistic, because it admits only one Will in the universe. 
 
122 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 principles. But we need not quarrel with those who 
 have said that speculative Mysticism is the Christian 
 form of Pantheism. For there is much truth in 
 Amiel's dictum, that " Christianity, if it is to triumph 
 over Pantheism, must absorb it." Those are no true 
 friends to the cause of religion who would base it en- 
 tirely upon dogmatic supernaturalism. The passion 
 for facts which are objective, isolated, and past, often 
 prevents us from seeing facts which are eternal and 
 spiritual. We cry, " Lo here," and " Lo there," and 
 forget that the kingdom of God is within us and 
 amongst us. The great service rendered by the 
 speculative mystics to the Christian Church lies in 
 their recognition of those truths which Pantheism 
 grasps only to destroy. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 123 
 
Heraclitus. 
 
 " La philosophic n'est pas philosophic si clle ne touche a I'abime ; mais 
 elle ccssc d'etre philosophic si elle y tombe." 
 
 Cousin. 
 
 " Denn Alles muss in Nichts zerfallen, 
 Wenn es im Sein beharren will." 
 Goethe. 
 
 " Seek no more abroad, say I, 
 House and Home, but turn thine eye 
 Inward, and observe thy breast ; 
 There alone dwells solid Rest. 
 Say not that this House is small, 
 Girt up in a narrow wall : 
 In a cleanly sober mind 
 Heaven itself full room doth find. 
 Here content make thine abode 
 With thyself and with thy God. 
 Here in this sweet privacy 
 May'st thou with thyself agree, 
 And keep House in peace, tho' all 
 Th' Universe's fabric fall." 
 
 Joseph Beaumont. 
 
 "The One remains, the many change and pass: 
 
 Heaven's light for ever shines ; earth's shadows fly : 
 Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity," 
 
 Shelley. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 Christian Platonism and Speculative 
 Mysticism 
 
 2. in the west 
 
 " Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you?"- i CoR. iii. i6. 
 
 We have seen that Mysticism, like most other types 
 of religion, had its cradle in the East. The Christian 
 Platonists, whom we considered in the last Lecture, 
 wrote in Greek, and we had no occasion to mention 
 the Western Churches. But after the Pseudo- 
 Dionysius, the East had little more to contribute to 
 Christian thought. John of Damascus, in the eighth 
 century, half mystic and half scholastic, need not 
 detain us. The Eastern Churches rapidly sank into a 
 deplorably barbarous condition, from which they have 
 never emerged. We may therefore turn away from 
 the Greek-speaking countries, and trace the course of 
 Mysticism in the Latin and Teutonic races. 
 
 Scientific Mysticism in the West did not all pass 
 through Dionysius. Victorinus, a Neoplatonic philo- 
 sopher, was converted to Christianity in his old age, 
 about 360 A.D. The story of his conversion, and the 
 joy which it caused in the Christian community, is told 
 
126 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 by St. Augustine.'^ He was a deep thinker of 
 the speculative mystical type, but a clumsy and ob- 
 scure writer, in spite of his rhetorical training. His 
 importance lies in his position as the first Christian 
 Neoplatonist who wrote in Latin. 
 
 The Trinitarian doctrine of Victorinus anticipates in 
 a remarkable manner that of the later philosophical 
 mystics. The Father, he says, eternally knows Him- 
 self in the Son. The Son is the self-objectification of 
 God, the " forma " of God,^ the utterance of the 
 Absolute. The Father is " cessatio" " silentiuml^ 
 " quies " ; but He is also " motus" while the Son is 
 " motto" There is no contradiction between *' motus " 
 and " cessatio" since " motus " is not the same as 
 " mutatto." " Movement " belongs to the " being " of 
 God ; and this eternal " movement " is the generation 
 of the Son. This eternal generation is exalted above 
 time. All life is now : we live always in the present, 
 not in the past or future ; and thus our life is a symbol 
 of eternity, to which all things are for ever present.^ 
 The generation of the Son is at the same time the 
 creation of the archetypal world ; for the Son is the 
 cosmic principle,* through whom all that potentially is 
 is actualised. He even says that the Father is to the 
 Son as 6 firj a>v to 6 a>v, thus taking the step which 
 Plotinus wished to avoid, and applying the same 
 
 1 Con/, viii. 2-5. The best account of the theology of Victorinus is 
 Gore's article in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. 
 
 ^ So Synesius calls the Son irarpbs fiopcf)ri. 
 
 '"Non enin vivimus prteteritum aut vivimus futurum, sed semper 
 praesenti utimur." " Jiternitas semper per prtesentiam habet omnia et 
 haec semper." 
 
 ■* " Effectus est omnia," Victorinus says plainly. Si> fe^t't. aU*. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 127 
 
 expression to the superessential God as to infra- 
 essential matter.^ 
 
 This actualisation is a self-Hmitation of God,^ but 
 involves no degradation. Victorinus uses language 
 implying the subordination of the Son, but is strongly 
 opposed to Arianism. 
 
 ^- The Holy Ghost is the " bond " (copula) of the 
 Trinity, joining in perfect love the Father and the Son. 
 Victorinus is the first to use this idea, which afterwards 
 became common. It is based on the Neoplatonic 
 triad of status, progression regressus {fiouij, irpooBo';, 
 eTTLcrTpo^rj). In another place he symbolises the Holy 
 Ghost as the female principle, the " Mother of Christ " 
 in His eternal life. This metaphor is a relic of 
 Gnosticism, which the Church wisely rejected. 
 
 The second Person of the Trinity contains in Him- 
 self the archetypes of everything. He is the " ele- 
 inentum" " habitaculuin" " habitator" " locus " of the 
 universe. The material world was created for man's 
 probation. All spirits pre-existed, and their partial 
 immersion in an impure material environment is a 
 degradation from which they must aspire to be 
 delivered. But the whole mundane history of a soul 
 is only the realisation of the idea which had existed 
 from all eternity in the mind of God. These doctrines 
 show that Victorinus is involved in a dualistic view of 
 matter, and in a form of predestinarianism ; but he has 
 
 ^ Victorinus must have got this phrase from some Greek Neoplatonist. 
 It was explained that to /xtj Gv may be used in four senses, and that it is not 
 intended to identify the two extremes. But the very remarkable passage 
 in Hierotheus (referred to in Lecture III.) shows that the two categories 
 of aopiarla. cannot be kept apart. 
 
 ^ " Ipse se ipsum circumterminavit." 
 
128 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 no definite teaching on the relation of sin to the ideal 
 world. 
 
 His language about Christ and the Church is 
 mystical in tone. " The Church is Christ," he says ; 
 " The resurrection of Christ is our resurrection " ; and 
 of the Eucharist, " The body of Christ is life." 
 
 We now come to St. Augustine himself, who at one 
 period of his life was a diligent student of Plotinus, 
 It would be hardly justifiable to claim St, Augustine 
 as a mystic, since there are important parts of his 
 teaching which have no affinity to Mysticism ; but it 
 touched him on one side, and he remained half a 
 Platonist. His natural sympathy with Mysticism was 
 not destroyed by the vulgar and perverted forms of it 
 with which he was first brought in contact. The 
 Manicheans and Gnostics only taught him to dis- 
 tinguish true Mysticism from false : he soon saw 
 through the pretensions of these sectaries, while he 
 was not ashamed to learn from Plotinus. The 
 mystical or Neoplatonic element in his theology will 
 be clearly shown in the following extracts. In a few 
 places he comes dangerously near to some of the 
 errors which we found in Dionysius. 
 
 God is above all that can be said of Him. We 
 must not even call Him ineffable;^ He is best adored 
 in silence,^ best known by nescience,^ best described 
 by negatives.* God is absolutely immutable ; this is a 
 doctrine on which he often insists, and which pervades 
 all his teaching about predestination. The world 
 
 1 De Trin. vii. 4. 7 ; de Doctr. Christ, i. 5- 5 ; Serin. 52. 16 ; De Civ, 
 Dei, ix. 16. 
 
 2 CorUr. Aditn. Man. ii. '^ Dc Ord, ii. 16. 44, 18. 47. 
 * Enarrat. in Fs. 85. 1 2. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 129 
 
 pre-existed from all eternity in the mind of God ; in 
 the Word of God, by whom all things were made, and 
 who is immutable Truth, all things and events are 
 stored up together unchangeably, and all are one. 
 God sees the time-process not as a process, but 
 gathered up into one harmonious whole. This seems 
 very near to acosmism, but there are other passages 
 which are intended to guard against this error. For 
 instance, in the Confessions ^ he says that " things 
 above are better than things below ; but all creation 
 together is better than things above"; that is to say, true 
 reality is something higher than an abstract spirituality.^ 
 He is fond of speaking of the Beauty of God ; and 
 as he identifies beauty with symmetry,^ it is plain that 
 the formless "Infinite" is for him, as for every true 
 Platonist, the bottom and not the top of the scale of 
 being. Plotinus had perhaps been the first to speak 
 of the Divine nature as the meeting-point of the Good, 
 the True, and the Beautiful ; and this conception, 
 which is of great value, appears also in Augustine. 
 There are three grades of beauty, they both say, 
 corporeal, spiritual, and divine,"* the first being an 
 image of the second, and the second of the third.^ 
 " Righteousness is the truest beauty," ^ Augustine says 
 
 ^ Conf. vii. 13 ad fin. 
 
 ^ Compare with this sentence of the Confessions the statement of 
 Erigena quoted below, that " the things which are not are far better than 
 those which are." 
 
 '^ Ep. 120. 20. St. Augustine wrote in early Hfe an essay "On the 
 Beautiful and Fit," which he unhappily took no pains to preserve. 
 
 * De Ord. ii. i6. 42, 59 ; Plot. Enn. i. 6. 4. 
 
 ^ De Lib. Arb. ii. 16, 41 ; Plot. Enn. i. 6. 8, iii. 8. 11. 
 
 ® Enarr. in Ps. xliv. 3 ; Ep. 120, 20. Plot. Enn. i. 6. 4, says with 
 more picturesqueness than usual, koKov ri ttjs BiKaioawris Kai aucjipoaivq^ 
 irpbffusTTOV, Kai oiire ^(nrepos ovre eyos ovtu KoXa,, 
 
I30 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 more than once, " All that is beautiful comes from 
 the highest Beauty, which is God." This is true 
 Platonism, and points to Mysticism of the symbolic 
 kind, which we must consider later. St. Augustine is 
 on less secure ground when he says that evil is simply 
 the splash of dark colour which gives relief to the 
 picture ; and when in other places he speaks of it as 
 simple privation of good. But here again he closely 
 follows Plotinus.-^ 
 
 St. Augustine was not hostile to the idea of a 
 World - Soul ; he regards the universe as a living 
 organism ; ^ but he often warns his readers against 
 identifying God and the world, or supposing that God 
 is merely immanent in creation. The Neoplatonic 
 teaching about the relation of individual souls to the 
 World-Soul may have helped him to formulate his own 
 teaching about the mystical union of Christians with 
 Christ. His phrase is that Christ and the Church are 
 " una persona." 
 
 St. Augustine arranges the ascent of the soul in 
 seven stages.^ But the higher steps are, as usual, 
 purgation, illumination, and union. This last, which 
 he calls " the vision and contemplation of truth," is 
 " not a step, but the goal of the journey." When we 
 have reached it, we shall understand the wholesomeness 
 of the doctrines with which we were fed, as children 
 
 1 Ench. iii. "etiam illud quod malum dicitur bene ordinatum est loco 
 suo positum ; eminentius commendat bona." St. Augustine also says 
 (Eitch. xi. ), "cum omnino mali nomen non sit nisi privationis mali"; 
 cf. Plot. Efin. iii. 2. 5, SXws 5^ rh KdKhv ^Xeiij/Li' rod dyaOoD deriov. 
 St. Augustine praises Plotinus for his teaching on the universality of 
 Providence. 
 
 2 De Civ. Dei, iv. 12, vii. 5. ^ Dc Quantitate Animce. xxx. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 131 
 
 with milk ; the meaning of such " hard sayings " as the 
 resurrection of the body will become plain to us. 
 Of the blessedness which attends this state he says 
 elsewhere/ " I entered, and beheld with the mysterious 
 eye of my soul the light that never changes, above the 
 eye of my soul, above my intelligence. It was some- 
 thing altogether different from any earthly illumination. 
 It was higher than my intelligence because it made 
 me, and I was lower because made by it. He who 
 knows the truth knows that light, and he who knows 
 that light knows eternity. Love knows that light." 
 And again he says,^ " What is this which flashes in 
 upon me, and thrills my heart without wounding it ? 
 I tremble and I burn ; I tremble, feeling that I 
 am unlike Him ; I burn, feeling that I am like 
 Him." 
 
 One more point must be mentioned before we leave 
 St. Augustine. In spite of, or rather because of, his 
 Platonism, he had nothing but contempt for the later 
 Neoplatonism, the theurgic and theosophic apparatus 
 of lamblichus and his friends. I have said nothing yet 
 about the extraordinary development of magic in all 
 its branches, astrology, necromancy, table-rapping, and 
 other kinds of divination, charms and amulets and 
 witchcraft, which brought ridicule upon the last 
 struggles of paganism. These aberrations of Nature- 
 Mysticism will be dealt with in their later develop- 
 ments in my seventh Lecture. St. Augustine, after 
 mentioning some nonsensical incantations of the 
 " abracadabra " kind, says, " A Christian old woman is 
 wiser than these philosophers." In truth, the spirit of 
 ^ Conf. vii. 10. I have quoted Bigg's translation. - Conf. xi. 9. 
 
132 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Plato lived in, and not outside Christianity, even in the 
 time of Porphyry. And on the cultus of angels and 
 spirits, which was closely connected with theurgic 
 superstition, St. Augustine's judgment is very instruct- 
 ive. " Whom should I find," he asks, " to reconcile 
 me to Thee ? Should I approach the angels ? With 
 what prayers, with what rites ? Many, as I hear, 
 have tried this method, and have come to crave 
 for curious visions, and have been deceived, as they 
 deserved."^ 
 
 In spite of St. Augustine's Platonism and the 
 immense influence which he exercised, the Western 
 Church was slow in developing a mystical theology. 
 The Greek Mysticism, based on emanation, was not 
 congenial to the Western mind, and the time of the 
 German, with its philosophy of immanence, was not 
 yet. The tendency of Eastern thinkers is to try to 
 gain a view of reality as a whole, complete and entire : 
 the form under which it most readily pictures it is 
 that of space. The West seeks rather to discover the 
 universal laws which in every part of the universe are 
 working out their fulfilment. The form under which it 
 most readily pictures reality is that of time?- Thus 
 Neoplatonism had to undergo certain modifications 
 
 ^ St. Augustine does not reject the belief that visions are granted by the 
 mediation of angels, but he expresses himself with great caution on the 
 subject. Cf. De Gen. ad litt. xii. 30, " Sunt quaedam excellentia et 
 merito divina, qu?e demonstrant angeli miris modis : utrum visa sua facili 
 quadam et prsepotenti iunctione vel commixtione etiam nostra esse 
 facientes, an scientes nescio quo modo nostram in spiritu nostro informare 
 visionem, difficilis perceptu et difficilior diclu res est." 
 
 ^ See Lotze, Microcosinns, bk. viii. chap. 4, and other places. We may 
 perhaps compare the Johannine Kdarfxos with the Synoptic ai'wc as examples 
 of the two modes of envisaging reality. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 133 
 
 before it could enter deeply into the religious con- 
 sciousness of the West. 
 
 The next great name is that of John Scotus 
 Erigena,^ an English or Irish monk, who in the ninth 
 century translated Dionysius into Latin. Erigena is 
 unquestionably one of the most remarkable figures of 
 the Middle Ages. A bold and independent thinker, 
 he made it his aim to elucidate the vague Ttheories of 
 Dionysius, and to present them as a consistent philo- 
 sophical system worked out by the help of Aristotle 
 and perhaps Boethius.^ He intends, of course, to keep 
 within the limits permitted to Christian speculation ; 
 but in reality he does not allow dogma to fetter him. 
 The Christian Alexandrians were, on the whole, more 
 orthodox than their language ; Erigena's language 
 partially veils the real audacity of his speculation. He 
 is a mystic only by his intellectual affinities ;^ the 
 warmth of pious aspiration and love which makes 
 Dionysius, amid all his extravagance, still a religious 
 writer, has cooled entirely in Erigena. He can pray 
 with fervour and eloquence for intellectual enlighten- 
 ment ; but there was nothing of the prophet or saint' 
 about him, to judge from his writings. Still, though 
 one might dispute his title to be called either a 
 
 ^ Eriugena is, no doubt, the more correct spelling, but I have preferred 
 to keep the name by which he is best known. 
 
 - Erigena quotes also Origen, the two Gregorys, Basil, Maximus, 
 Ambrose, and Augustine. Of pagan philosophers he puts Plato first, but 
 holds Aristotle in high honour. 
 
 ^ Stockl calls him " ein fiilscher Mystiker,'" because the Neoplatonic 
 ("gnostic-rationalistic") element takes, for him, the place of super- 
 naturalism. This, as will be shown later, is in accordance with the Roman, 
 Catholic view of Mysticism, which is not that adopted in these Lectures. 
 For us, Erigena's defect as a mystic is rather to be sought in his 
 extreme intellectualism. 
 
134 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Christian or a mystic, we must spare a few minutes to 
 this last flower of Neoplatonism, which bloomed so late 
 on our northern islands. 
 
 God, says Erigena, is called Essence or Being ; but, 
 strictly speaking, He is not " Being " ;^ for Being arises 
 in opposition to not-Being, and there is no opposition 
 to the Absolute, or God. Eternity, the abode or 
 nature of God, is homogeneous and without parts, one, 
 simple, and indivisible. " God is the totality of all 
 things which are and are not, which can and cannot be. 
 He is the similarity of the similar, the dissimilarity of 
 the dissimilar, the opposition of opposites, and the con- 
 trariety of contraries. All discords are resolved when 
 they are considered as parts of the universal harmony." 
 All things begin from unity and end in unity : the 
 Absolute can contain nothing self-contradictory. And 
 so God cannot be called Goodness, for Goodness is 
 opposed to Badness, and God is above this distinction. 
 Goodness, however, is a more comprehensive term than 
 Being. There may be Goodness without Being, but 
 not Being without Goodness ; for Evil is the negation 
 of Being. " The Scripture openly pronounces this," 
 says Erigena ; " for we read, God saw all things ; and 
 not^ lo, they were, but, lo, they were very good." All 
 things are, in so far as they are good. " But the things 
 that are not are also called good, and are far better 
 than those which are." Being, in fact, is a defect, 
 " since it separates from the superessential Good." 
 The feeling which prompts this strange expression is 
 that since time and space are themselves onesided 
 
 ^ " Dum vero (divina bonitas) incomprehensibilis intelligitur, per excel- 
 lentiam non immerilo nihilum vocitatui." 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 135 
 
 appearances, a fixed limit must be set to the amount of 
 goodness and reality which can be represented under 
 these conditions. Erigena therefore thinks that to 
 enter the time-process must be to contract a certain 
 admixture of unreality or evil. In so far as life 
 involves separateness (not distinction), this must be 
 true ; but the manifold is only evil when it is dis- 
 cordant and antagonistic to unity. That the many-in- 
 one should appear as the one-in-many, is the effect of 
 the forms of time and space in which it appears ; the 
 statement that " the things which are not are far 
 better than those which are," is only true in the sense 
 that the world of appearance is permeated by evil as 
 yet unsubdued, which in the Godhead exists only as 
 something overcome or transmuted, 
 
 Erigena says that God is above all the categories, 
 including that of relation. It follows that the Persons 
 of the Trinity, which are only " relative names," are 
 fused in the Absolute,^ We may make statements 
 about God, if we remember that they are only 
 metaphors ; but whatever we deny about Him, we 
 deny truly.- This is the " negative road " of Dionysius,-« 
 
 ^ This is really a revival of " modalism," The unorthodoxy of the 
 doctrine becomes very apparent in some of Erigena's successors. 
 
 ^ De Div. Nat. i. 36 : " lamdudum inter nos est confectum omnia quae 
 vel sensu corporeo vel intellectu vel ratione cognoscuntur de Deo merito 
 creatore omnium, posse prcedicari, dum nihil eorum quae de se prsedi- 
 cantur pura veritatis contemplatio eum approbat esse." All affirmations 
 about God are made "non proprie sed translative"; all negations " non 
 translative sedproprie." Cf. also z7;/af. i. i. 66, " veriusfideliusque negatur 
 in omnibus quam affirmatur" ; and especially ibid. i. 5. 26, " theophanias 
 autem dico visibilium et invisibilium species, quarum ordine et pulcritudine 
 cognoscitur Deus esse et invenitur non quid est, sed quia solummodo est."" 
 Erigena tries to say (in his atrocious Latin) that the external world can 
 teach us nothing about God, except the bare fact of His existence. No 
 
136 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 from whom Erigena borrows a number of uncouth 
 compounds. But we can see that he valued this 
 method mainly as safeguarding the transcendence of 
 God against pantheistic theories of immanence. The 
 religious and practical aspects of the doctrine had little 
 interest for him. 
 
 The destiny of all things is to " rest and be quiet " 
 in God. But he tries to escape the conclusion that 
 all distinctions must disappear ; rather, he says, the 
 return to God raises creatures into a higher state, in 
 which they first attain their true being. All individual 
 types will be preserved in the universal. He borrows 
 an illustration, not a very happy one, from Plotinus. 
 " As iron, when it becomes red-hot, seems to be turned 
 into pure fire, but remains no less iron than before ; 
 so when body passes into soul, and rational substances 
 into God, they do not lose their identity, but preserve 
 it in a higher state of being." 
 
 Creation he regards as a necessary self-realisation of 
 God. " God was not," he says, " before He made the 
 universe." The Son is the Idea of the World ; " be 
 assured," he says, " that the Word is the nature of all 
 things." The primordial causes or ideas — Goodness, 
 Being, Life, etc., in themselves, which the Father made 
 in the Son — are in a sense the creators of the world, 
 for the order of all things is established according to 
 them. God created the \\'orld, not out of nothing, nor 
 out of something, but out of Himself.^ The creatures 
 
 passage could be found to illustrate more clearly the real tendencies of the 
 negative road, and the purely subjective Mysticism connected with it. 
 Erigena will not allow us to infer, from the order and beauty of the world, 
 that order and beauty are Divine attributes. 
 
 ' But it must be remembered that Erigena calls God "nihilum." His 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 137 
 
 have always pre-existed " yonder " in the Word ; God 
 has only caused them to be realised in time and 
 space. 
 
 " Thought and Action are identical in God." " He 
 sees by working and works by seeing." 
 
 Man is a microcosm. The fivefold division of nature 
 — corporeal, vital, sensitive, rational, intellectual — is 
 all represented in his organisation. The corruptible 
 body is an " accident," the consequence of sin. The 
 original body was immortal and incorruptible. This 
 body will one day be restored. 
 
 Evil has no substance, and is destined to disappear. 
 " Nothing contrary to the Divine goodness and life 
 and blessedness can be coeternal with them." The 
 world must reach perfection, when all will ultimately 
 be God. " The loss and absence of Christ is the 
 torment of the whole creation, nor do I think that 
 there is any other." There is no "place of punish- 
 ment " anywhere. 
 
 Erigena is an admirable interpreter of the Alex- 
 andrians and of Dionysius, but he emphasises their 
 most dangerous tendencies. We cannot be surprised 
 that his books were condemned ; it is more strange 
 that the audacious theories which they repeat from 
 Dionysius should have been allowed to pass without 
 censure for so long. Indeed, the freedom of specula- 
 tion accorded to the mystics forms a remarkable 
 exception to the zeal for exact orthodoxy which 
 characterised the general policy of the early Church. 
 
 words about creation are, "Ac sic de nihilo facit omnia, de sua videlicet 
 superessentialitate producit essentias, de supervitalitate vitas, de super- 
 intellectualitate intellectus, de negatione omnium qux sunt et qucc non 
 sunt, affirmationes omnium qua; sunt et quce non sunt.'' 
 
138 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 The explanation is that in the East Mysticism has 
 seldom been revolutionary, and has compensated for 
 its speculative audacity by the readiness of its outward 
 conformity. Moreover, the theories of Dionysius about 
 the earthly and heavenly hierarchies were by no means 
 unwelcome to sacerdotalism. In the West things were 
 different. Mysticism there has always been a spirit of 
 reform, generally of revolt. There is much even in 
 Erigena, whose main affinities were with the East, 
 which forecasts the Reformation. He is the father, 
 not only of Western Mysticism and scholasticism, but 
 of rationalism as well.^ But the danger which lurked 
 in his speculations was not at first recognised. His 
 book on predestination was condemned in 855 and 859 
 for its universalist doctrine,^ and two hundred years 
 later his Eucharistic doctrine, revived by Berengar, was 
 censured.^ But it was not till the thirteenth century 
 that a general condemnation was passed upon him. 
 This judgment followed the appearance of a strongly 
 pantheistic or acosmistic school of mystics, chief 
 among whom was Amalric of Bena, a master of 
 theology at Paris about 1200. Amalric is a very 
 interesting figure, for his teaching exhibits all the 
 features which are most characteristic of extravagant 
 
 ^ So Kaulich shows in his monograph on the speculative system of 
 Erigena. 
 
 - Erigena was roused by a work on predestination, written by Gottes- 
 chalk, and advocating Calvinistic views, to protest against the doctrine 
 that God, who is hfe, can possibly predestine anyone to eternal death. 
 
 ^ Berengar objected to the crudely materialistic theories of the real 
 presence which were then prevalent. He protested against the statement 
 that the transmutation of the elements takes place "vere et sensualiter," 
 and that " portiunculse " of the body of Christ lie upon the altar. "The 
 mouth," he said, " receives the sacrament, the inner man the true body of 
 Christ." 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 139 
 
 Mysticism in the West — its strong belief in Divine 
 immanence, not only in the Church, but in the in- 
 dividual ; its uncompromising rationalism, contempt for 
 ecclesiastical forms, and tendency to evolutionary 
 optimism. Among the doctrines attributed to Amalric 
 and his followers are a pantheistic identification of man 
 with God, and a negation of matter ; they were said 
 to teach that unconsecrated bread was the body of 
 Christ, and that God spoke through Ovid (a curious 
 choice !), as well as through St. Augustine, They 
 denied the resurrection of the body, and the traditional 
 eschatology, saying that " he who has the knowledge 
 of God in himself has paradise within him." They 
 insisted on a progressive historical revelation — the 
 reign of the Father began with Abraham, that of the 
 Son with Christ, that of the Spirit with themselves. 
 They despised sacraments, believing that the Spirit 
 works without means. They taught that he who lives 
 in love can do no wrong, and were suspected, probably 
 truly, of the licentious conduct which naturally follows 
 from such a doctrine. This antinomianism is no part 
 of true Mysticism ; but it is often found in conjunction 
 with mystical speculation among the half-educated. 
 It is the vulgar perversion of Plotinus' doctrine that 
 matter is nothing, and that the highest part of our 
 nature can take no stain.^ We find evidence of 
 immorality practised " in nomine caritatis " among the 
 Gnostics and Manicheans of the first centuries, and 
 these heresies never really became extinct. The sects 
 of the " Free Spirit," who flourished later in the 
 
 ' Similar leaching from the sacred books of the East is quoted by E. 
 Caird, Evolution of Religion, vol. i. p. 355. 
 
I40 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 thirteenth century, had an even worse reputation than 
 the Amah-icians. They combined with their Pantheism 
 a Determinism which destroyed all sense of responsi- 
 bility. On the other hand, the followers of Ortlieb of 
 Strassburg, about the same period, advocated an 
 extreme asceticism based on a dualistic or Manichean 
 view of the world ; and they combined with this error 
 an extreme rationalism, teaching that the historical 
 Christ was a mere man ; that the Gospel history has 
 only a symbolical truth ; that the soul only, without the 
 body, is immortal ; and that the Pope and his priests 
 are servants of Satan. 
 
 The problem for the Church was how to encourage 
 the warm love and faith of the mystics without giving 
 the rein to these mischievous errors. The twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries produced several famous writers, 
 who attempted to combine scholasticism and Mysticism.^ 
 The leaders in this attempt were Bernard,^ Hugo and 
 Richard of St. Victor, Bonaventura, Albertus Magnus, 
 
 ^ This is the accepted phrase for the work of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 century theologians. We might also say that they modified uncom- 
 promising Platonic Realism by Aristotelian science. Cf. Harnack, History 
 of Dogma, vol. vi. p. 43 (English translation): "Under what other 
 auspices could this great structure be erected than under those of that 
 Aristotelian Realism, which was at bottom a dialectic between the Platonic 
 Realism and Nominalism ; and which was represented as capable of 
 uniting immanence and transcendence, history and miracle, the immut- 
 ability of God and mutability, Idealism and Realism, reason and authority."' 
 
 - The great importance of Bernard in the history of Mysticism does not 
 lie in the speculative side of his teaching, in which he depends almost 
 entirely upon Augustine. His great achievement was to recall devout and 
 loving contemplation to the image of the crucified Christ, and to found 
 that worship of our Saviour as the "Bridegroom of the Soul," which in 
 the next centuries inspired so much fervid devotion and lyrical sacred 
 poetry. The romantic side of Mysticism, for good and for evil, received 
 its greatest stimulus in Bernard's Poems and in his Sermons on the 
 Canticles. This subject is dealt with in Appendix E. 
 
FLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 141 
 
 and (later) Gerson. Their works are not of great value 
 as contributions to religious philosophy, for the School- 
 men were too much afraid of their authorities — Catholic 
 tradition and Aristotle — to probe difficulties to the 
 bottom ; and the mystics, who, by making the renewed 
 life of the soul their starting-point, were more inde- 
 pendent, were debarred, by their ignorance of Greek, 
 from a first-hand knowledge of their intellectual ances- 
 tors. But in the history of Mysticism they hold an 
 important place.^ Speculation being for them restricted 
 within the limits of Church-dogma, they were obliged 
 to be more psychological and less metaphysical than 
 Dionysius or Erigena. The Victorines insist often on 
 self-knowledge as the way to the knowledge of God, 
 and on self-purification as more important than philo- 
 sophy. " The way to ascend to God," says Hugo, 
 " is to descend into oneself." - " The ascent is through 
 self above self," says Richard ; we are to rise on 
 stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things. 
 " Let him that thirsts to see God clean his mirror, let 
 him make his own spirit bright," says Richard again. 
 The Victorines do not disparage reason, which is the 
 organ by which mankind in general apprehend the 
 things of God ; but they regard ecstatic contemplation 
 as a supra-rational state or faculty, which can only be 
 
 ^ Stockl says of Hugo that the course of development of mediaeval 
 Mysticism cannot be understood without a knowledge of his writings. 
 Stockl's own account is very full and clear. 
 
 ^ The "eye of contemplation" was given us "to see God within our- 
 selves"; this eye has been blinded by sin. The "eye of reason" was 
 given us " to see ourselves " ; this has been injured by sin. Only th"e " eye 
 of flesh " remains in its pristine clearness. In things "above reason " we 
 must trust to faith, "quce non adiuvatur ratione ulla, quoniam non capit 
 ea ratio." 
 
142 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 reached per mentis excessum, and in which the naked 
 truth is seen, no longer in a glass darkly.^ 
 
 This highest state, in which " Reason dies in giving 
 birth to Ecstasy, as Rachel died in giving birth to 
 Benjamin," is not on the high road of the spiritual life. It 
 is a rare gift, bestowed by supernatural grace. Richard 
 says that the first stage of contemplation is an ex- 
 pansion of the soul, the second an exaltation, the third 
 an alienation. The first arises from human effort, the 
 second from human effort assisted by Divine grace, the 
 third from Divine grace alone. The predisposing con- 
 ditions for the third state are devotion {devoiio), admira- 
 tion {admiratid)y and joy (exaltatio) ; but these cannot 
 produce ecstasy, which is a purely supernatural infusion. 
 
 This sharp opposition between the natural and the 
 supernatural, which is fully developed first by Richard 
 of St. Victor, is the distinguishing feature of Catholic 
 Mysticism. It is an abandonment of the great aim 
 which the earlier Christian idealists had set before 
 themselves, namely, to find spiritual law in the normal 
 course of nature, and the motions of the Divine Word 
 in the normal processes of mind. St. John's great 
 doctrine of the Logos as a cosmic principle is now 
 dropped. Roman Catholic apologists ^ claim that 
 
 ^ Richard, who is more ecstatic than Hugo, gives the following account 
 of this state: "Per mentis excessum extra semetipsum ductus homo . . . 
 lumen non per speculum in renigmatesed in simplici veritate contemplatur." 
 In this state " we forget all that is without and all that is within us." 
 Reason and all other faculties are obscured. What then is our security 
 against delusions? "The transfigured Christ," he says, "must be 
 accompanied by Moses and Elias"; that is to say, visions must not be 
 believed which conflict with the authority of Scripture. 
 
 ^ See, especially, Stockl, Geschichte der riulosophie des Mittela/ters, 
 vol. i. pp. 382-384. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 143 
 
 Mysticism was thus set free from the " idealistic 
 pantheism " of the Neoplatonist, and from the " Gnostic- 
 Manichean duahsm " which accompanies it. The world 
 of space and time (they say) is no longer regarded, as 
 it was by the Neoplatonist, as a fainter effluence from 
 an ideal world, nor is human individuality endangered 
 by theories of immanence. Both nature and man 
 regain a sort of independence. We once more tread 
 as free men on solid ground, while occasional " super- 
 natural phenomena " are not wanting to testify to the 
 existence of higher powers. 
 
 We have seen that the Logos-doctrine (as understood 
 by St. Clement) is exceptionally liable to perversion ; 
 but the remedy of discarding it is worse than the 
 disease. The unscriptural ^ and unphilosophical cleft 
 between natural and supernatural introduces a more 
 intractable dualism than that of Origen. The faculty 
 which, according to this theory, possesses immediate 
 intuition into the things of God is not only irrespon- 
 sible to reason, but stands in no relation to it. It 
 ushers us into an entirely new world, where the familiar 
 criteria of truth and falsehood are inapplicable. And 
 what it reveals to us is not a truer and deeper view of 
 the actual, but a wholly independent cosmic principle 
 which invades the world of experience as a disturbing 
 force, spasmodically subverting the laws of nature in 
 order to show its power over them.^ P'or as soon as 
 
 ^ It is hardly necessary to point out that St. Paul's distinction between 
 natural and spiritual (see esp. i Cor. ii. ) is wholly different. 
 
 - Contrast the Plotinian doctrine of ecstasy with the following : " Dieu 
 eleve a son gre aux plus hauts sommets, sans aucun merite prealable. 
 Osanne de Mantoue recoit le don de la contemplation a peine agee de six 
 ans. Christine est fiancee a dix ans, pendant une extase de trois jours ; 
 
144 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 the formless intuition of contemplation begins to ex- 
 press itself in symbols, these symbols, when untested 
 by reason, are transformed into hallucinations. The 
 warning of Plotinus, that " he who tries to rise above 
 reason falls outside of it," receives a painful corrobora- 
 tion in such legends as that of St. Christina, who by 
 reason of her extreme saintliness frequently soared 
 over the tops of trees. The consideration of these 
 alleged " mystical phenomena " belongs to objective 
 Mysticism, which I hope to deal with in a later 
 Lecture. Here I will only say that the scholastic- 
 mystical doctrine of " supernatural " interventions, 
 which at first sight seems so attractive, has led 
 in practice to the most barbarous and ridiculous 
 superstitions.^ 
 
 Another good specimen of scholastic Mysticism is 
 the short treatise, De adhcerendo Deo, of Albertus 
 Magnus. It shows very clearly how the " negative 
 
 Marie d'Agreda re5ut des illuminations des sa premiere enfance " (Ribet). 
 Since Divine favours are believed to be bestowed in a purely arbitrary 
 manner, the fancies of a child left alone in the dark are as good as the 
 deepest intuitions of saint, poet, or philosopher. Moreover, God some- 
 times "asserts His liberty" by "elevating souls suddenly and without 
 transition from the abyss of sin to the highest summits of perfection, just as 
 in nature He asserts it by miracles " (Ribet). Such teaching is interesting 
 as showing how the admission of caprice in the world of phenomena reacts 
 upon the moral sense and depraves our conception of God and salvation. 
 The faculty of contemplation, according to Roman Catholic teaching, is 
 acquired * ' either by virtue or by gratuitous favour. " The dualism of 
 natural and supernatural thus allows men to claim independent merit, while 
 the interventions of God are arbitrary and unaccountable. 
 
 * Those who are interested to see how utterly defenceless this theory 
 leaves us against the silliest delusions, may consult with advantage the 
 Dictionary of Mysticism, by the Abbe Migne (passim), or, if they wish to 
 ascend nearer to the fountain-head of these legends, there are the sixty folio 
 volumes of Acta Sanctorum, compiled by the Bollandists. Gorres and 
 Ribet are also very full of these stories. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 145 
 
 road " had become the highway of mediaeval Catholicism, 
 and how little could be hoped for civilisation and 
 progress from the continuance of such teaching. 
 " When St. John says that God is a Spirit," says Albert 
 in the first paragraph of his treatise, " and that He 
 must be worshipped in spirit, he means that the mind 
 must be cleared of all images. When thou prayest, 
 shut thy door — that is, the doors of thy senses . . . 
 keep them barred and bolted against all phantasms and 
 images. . . . Nothing pleases God more than a mind 
 free from all occupations and distractions. . . . Such a 
 mind is in a manner transformed into God, for it can 
 think of nothing, and understand nothing, and love 
 nothing, except God : other creatures and itself it only 
 sees in God. . . . He who penetrates into himself, and 
 so transcends himself, ascends truly to God. . . . He 
 whom I love and desire is above all that is sensible and 
 all that is intelligible ; sense and imagination cannot 
 bring us to Him, but only the desire of a pure heart. 
 This brings us into the darkness of the mind, whereby 
 we can ascend to the contemplation even of the 
 mystery of the Trinity. . . . Do not think about the 
 world, nor about thy friends, nor about the past, 
 present, or future ; but consider thyself to be outside 
 the world and alone with God, as if thy soul were 
 already separated from the body, and had no longer 
 any interest in peace or war, or the state of the world. 
 Leave thy body, and fix thy gaze on the uncreated 
 light. . . . Let nothing come between thee and God. 
 . . . The soul in contemplation views the world from 
 afar off, just as, when we proceed to God by the way of 
 abstraction, we deny Him, first all bodily and sensible 
 10 
 
146 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 attributes, then intelligible qualities, and, lastly, that 
 bemg (esse) which keeps Him among created things. 
 This, according to Dionysius, is the best mode of union 
 with God." 
 
 Bonaventura resembles Albertus in reverting more 
 decidedly than the Victorines to the Dionysian tradi- 
 tion. He expatiates on the passivity and nakedness 
 of the soul which is necessary in order to enter into 
 the Divine darkness, and elaborates with tiresome 
 pedantry his arbitrary schemes of faculties and stages. 
 However, he gains something by his knowledge of 
 Aristotle, which he uses to correct the Neoplatonic 
 doctrine of God as abstract Unity. " God is * ideo 
 omnimodum,' " he says finely, " quia summe unum." 
 He is " totum intra omnia et totum extra" — a succinct 
 statement that God is both immanent and tran- 
 scendent. His proof of the Trinity is original and 
 profound. It is the nature of the Good to impart 
 itself, and so the highest Good must be " summe 
 diffusivum sui," which can only be in hypostatic 
 union. 
 
 The last great scholastic mystic is Gerson, who lived 
 from 1363 to 1429. He attempts to reduce Mystic- 
 ism to an exact science, tabulating and classifying all 
 the teaching of his predecessors. A very brief summary 
 of his system is here given. 
 
 Gerson distinguishes symbolical, natural, and myst- 
 ical theology, confining the last to the method which 
 rests on inner experiences, and proceeds by the 
 negative road. The experiences of the mystic have 
 a greater certainty than any external revelations can 
 possess. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 147 
 
 Gerson's psychology may be given in outline as fol- 
 lows : The cognitive power has three faculties: (i) 
 simple intelligence or natural light, an outflow from the 
 highest intelligence, God Himself; (2) the understand- 
 ing, which is on the frontier between the two worlds ; 
 (3) sense-consciousness. To each of these three 
 faculties answers one of the affective faculties : ( i ) 
 synteresis;^ (2) understanding, rational desire; (3) 
 sense-affections. To these again correspond three 
 activities: (i) contemplation; (2) meditation;- (3) 
 thought. 
 
 Mystical theology differs from speculative [ix. scho- 
 lastic), in that mystical theology belongs to the 
 affective faculties, not the cognitive ; that it does not 
 depend on logic, and is therefore open even to the 
 ignorant ; that it is not open to the unbelieving, since 
 it rests upon faith and love ; and that it brings peace, 
 whereas speculation breeds unrest. 
 
 The " means of mystical theology " are seven : (i.) 
 the call of God ; (ii.) certainty that one is called to the 
 contemplative life — all are not so ; (iii.) freedom from 
 encumbrances ; (iv.) concentration of interests upon 
 God ; (v.) perseverance ; (vi.) asceticism ; but the body 
 must not be maltreated if it is to be a good servant ; 
 (vii.) shutting the eye to all sense perceptions.^ 
 
 ' See Appendix C. 
 
 ^ The difference between contemplation and meditation is explained by 
 all the mediffival mystics. Meditation is "discursive," contemplation is 
 " mentis in Deum suspensse elevatio." Richard of St. Victor states the 
 distinction epigrammatically — " per meditationem rimamur, per contempla- 
 tionem niiramur." ("Admiratio est actus consequens contemplationem 
 sublimis veritatis." — Thomas Aquinas.) 
 
 ^ This arbitrary schematism is very characteristic of this type of 
 Mysticism, and shows its affinity to Indian philosophy. Compare "the 
 
148 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Such teaching as this is of small value or interest. 
 Mysticism itself becomes arid and formal in the hands 
 of Gerson. The whole movement was doomed to 
 failure, inasmuch as scholasticism was philosophy in 
 chains, and the negative road was Mysticism blind- 
 folded. No fruitful reconciliation between philosophy 
 and piety could be thus achieved. The decay of 
 scholasticism put an end to these attempts at com- 
 promise. Henceforward the mystics either discard 
 metaphysics, and develop their theology on the devo- 
 tional and ascetic side — the course which was followed 
 by the later Catholic mystics ; or they copy Erigena in 
 his independent attitude towards tradition. 
 
 In this Lecture we are following the line of specu- 
 lative Mysticism, and we have now to consider the 
 greatest of all speculative mystics, Meister Eckhart, 
 who was born soon after the middle of the thirteenth 
 century.^ He was a Dominican monk, prior of Erfurt 
 and vicar of Thuringen, and afterwards vicar-general 
 for Bohemia. He preached a great deal at Cologne 
 about 1325; and before this period had come into close 
 k-elations with the Beghards and Brethren of the Free 
 Spirit — societies of men and women who, by their 
 implicit faith in the inner light, resembled the Quakers, 
 though many of them, as has been said, were accused 
 of immoral theories and practices. His teaching soon 
 attracted the attention of the Inquisition, and some of 
 his doctrines were formally condemned by the Pope in 
 1329, immediately after his death. 
 
 eightfold path of Buddha," and a hundred other shnilar classifications in 
 the sacred books of the East. 
 
 ' The date usually given, 1260, is probably too late ; but the exact year 
 cannot be determined. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 149 
 
 The aim of Eckhart's religious philosophy is to find 
 a speculative basis for the doctrines of the Church, 
 which shall at the same time satisfy the claims of 
 spiritual religion. His aims are purely constructive, 
 and he shows a distaste for polemical controversy; 
 The writers whom he chiefly cites by name are Dio- 
 nysius, Augustine, Gregory, and Boethius ; but he 
 must have read Erigena, and probably Averroes, 
 writers to whom a Catholic could hardly confess his 
 obligations,^ He also frequently introduces quotations 
 with the words, " A master saith." The " master " is 
 nearly always Thomas Aquinas, to whom Eckhart 
 was no doubt greatly indebted, though it would be 
 a great mistake to say, as some have done, that all 
 Eckhart can be found in the Sumnia, For instance, 
 he sets himself in opposition to Thomas about the 
 " spark," which Thomas regarded as a faculty of the 
 soul, while Eckhart, in his later writings, says that 
 it is uncreated.^ His double object leads him into 
 
 ^ Prof. Karl Pearson {Mind, 1886) says, "The Mysticism of Eckhart 
 owes its leading ideas to Averroes." He traces the doctrine of the NoD? 
 ■n-oir]TiK6s from Aristotle, de Aniiiia, through the Arabs to Eckhart, and finds 
 a close resemblance between the "prototypes" or "ideas" of Eckhart 
 and the " Dinge an sich " of Kant. But Eckhart's affinities with Plotinus 
 and Hegel seem to me to be closer than those which he shows with Aris- 
 totle and Kant. On the connexion with Averroes, Lasson says that while 
 there is a close resemblance between the Eckhartian doctrine of the 
 " Seelengrund" and Averroes' Intdkctus Agents as the universal principle 
 of reason in all men (monopsychism), they differ in this — that with Aver- 
 roes personality is a phase or accident, but with Eckhart the eternal is 
 immanent in the personality in such a way that the personality itself has 
 a part in eternity (Meister Eckhart der Mystiker, pp. 348, 349). Person- 
 ality is for Eckhart the eternal ground-form of all true being, and the 
 notion of Person is the centre-point of his system. He says, " The word 
 /aw none can truly speak but God alone." The individual must try to 
 become a person, as the Son of God is a Person. 
 
 - Denifle has devoted great pains to proving that Eckhart in his Latin 
 
I50 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 some inconsistencies. Intellectually, he is drawn to- 
 wards a semi-pantheistic idealism ; his heart makes 
 him an Evangelical Christian. But though it is 
 possible to find contradictions in his writings, his 
 transparent intellectual honesty and his great powers 
 of thought, combined with deep devoutness and child- 
 like purity of soul, make him one of the most interest- 
 ing figures in the history of Christian philosophy. . 
 
 Eckhart wrote in German ; that is to say, he wrote 
 for the public, and not for the learned only. His 
 desire to be intelligible to the general reader led him 
 to adopt an epigrammatic antithetic style, and to omit 
 qualifying phrases. This is one reason why he laid 
 himself open to so many accusations of heresy.^ 
 
 Eckhart distinguishes between " the Godhead " and 
 " God." The Godhead is the abiding potentiality of 
 Being, containing within Himself all distinctions, as 
 yet undeveloped. He therefore cannot be the object 
 of knowledge, nor of worship, being " Darkness " and 
 " Formlessness." - The Triune God is evolved from the 
 
 works is very largely dependent upon Aquinas. His conclusions are wel- 
 comed and gladly adopted by Harnack, who, like Ritschl, has little sym- 
 pathy with the German mystics, and considers that Christian Mysticism is 
 really " Catholic piety." " It will never be possible," he says, " to make 
 Mysticism Protestant without flying in the face of history and Catholicism." 
 No one certainly would be guilty of the absurdity of " making Mysticism 
 Protestant" ; but it is, I think, even more absurd to "make it (Roman) 
 Catholic," though such a view may unite the suffrages of Romanists and 
 Neo-Kantians. See Appendix A, p. 346. 
 
 ^ Preger (vol. iii. p. 140) says that Eckhart did not try to be popular. 
 But it is clear, I think, that he did try to make his philosophy intelligible 
 to the average educated man, though his teaching is less ethical and more 
 speculative than that of Tauler. 
 
 2 Sometimes he speaks of the Godhead as above the opposition of being 
 and not being ; but at other times he regards the Godhead as the universal 
 Ground or Substance of the ideal world. "All things in God are one 
 thing." "God is neither this nor that." Compare, too, the following 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 151 
 
 Godhead. The Son is the Word of the Father, His 
 uttered thought ; and the Holy Ghost is "-the Flower 
 of the Divine Tree," the mutual love which unites the 
 Father and the Son. Eckhart quotes the words 
 which St. Augustine makes Christ say of Himself: " I 
 am come as a Word from the heart, as a ray from the 
 sun, as heat from the fire, as fragrance from the flower, 
 as a stream from a perennial fountain." He insists 
 that the generation of the Son is a continual process. 
 
 The universe is the expression of the whole thought 
 of the Father ; it is the language of the Word. Eck- 
 hart loves startling phrases, and says boldly, " Nature 
 is the lower part of the Godhead," and " Before crea- 
 tion, God was not God." These statements are not 
 so crudely pantheistic as they sound. He argues that 
 without the Son the Father would not be God, but 
 only undeveloped potentiality of being. The three 
 Persons are not merely accidents and modes of the 
 Divine Substance, but are inherent in the Godhead.^ 
 And so there can never have been a time when the 
 Son was not. But the generation of the Son neces- 
 sarily involves the creation of an ideal world ; for the 
 Son is Reason, and Reason is constituted by a cosmos 
 of ideas. When Eckhart speaks of creation and of the 
 world which had no beginning, he means, not the world 
 of phenomena, but the world of ideas, in the Platonic 
 
 passage : " (Gottes) einfeltige natur ist von formen formlos, von werden 
 werdelos, von wesen wesenlos, und von sachen sachelos, und darum entgeht 
 sie in alien werdenden dingen, und die endliche dinge miissen da enden." 
 
 ^ I here agree with Preger against Lasson. It seems to me to be one of 
 the most important and characteristic parts of Eckhart's system, that the 
 Trinity is not for him (as it was for Plierotheus) an emanation or appear- 
 ance of the Absolute. But it is not to be denied that there are passages in 
 Eckhart which support the other view. 
 
152 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 sense. The ideal world is the complete expression of 
 the thought of God, and is above space and time. He 
 calls it " non-natured nature," as opposed to " diu gena- 
 tiirte nature," the world of phenomena.^ Eckhart's 
 doctrine here differs from that of Plotinus in a very im- 
 portant particular. The Neoplatonists always thought 
 of emanation as a diffusion of rays from a sun, which 
 necessarily decrease in heat and brightness as they 
 recede from the central focus. It follows that the 
 second Person of the Trinity, the Nov<i or Intelligence, 
 is subordinate to the First, and the Third to the 
 Second. But with Eckhart there is no subordination. 
 The Son is the pure brightness of the Father's glory, 
 and the express image of His Person. " The eternal 
 fountain of things is the Father ; the image of things 
 in Him is the Son, and love for this Image is the 
 Holy Ghost." All created things abide " formless " 
 (as possibilities) in the ground of the Godhead, and 
 all are realised in the Son. The Alexandrian Fathers, 
 in identifying the Logos with the Platonic NoO?, the 
 bearer of the World-Idea, had found it difficult to 
 avoid subordinating Him to the Father. Eckhart 
 escapes this heresy, but in consequence his view of 
 the world is more pantheistic. For his intelligible 
 world is really God — it is the whole content of the 
 Divine mind.^ The question has been much debated, 
 
 ' Compare Spinoza's " natura naturata." 
 
 - The ideas are "uncreated creatures " ; they are " creatures in God but 
 not in themselves." Preger states Eckhart's doctrine thus: " Gott denkt 
 sein Wesen in untergeordnete Weise nachahmbar, und der Reflex dieses 
 Denkens in dem gottlichen Bewusstsein, die Vorstellungen hievon, sind 
 die Ideen." But in what sense is the ideal world "subordinate"? The 
 Son in Eclchart holds quite a different relation to the Father from that 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 153 
 
 whether Eckhart really falls into pantheism or not. 
 The answer seems to me to depend on what is the 
 obscurest part of his whole system — the relation of 
 the phenonc^enal world to the world of ideas. He 
 offers the Christian dogma of the Incarnation of the 
 Logos as a' kind of explanation of the passage of the 
 " prototypes " into "externality." When God " speaks " 
 His ideas, the phenomenal world arises. This is an 
 incarnation. But the process by which the soul eman- 
 cipates itself from the phenomenal and returns to the 
 intelligible world, is also called a " begetting of the 
 Son." Thus the whole process is a circular one — from 
 God and back to God again. Time and space, he 
 says, were created with the world. Material things 
 are outside each other, spiritual things in each other. 
 But these statements do not make it clear how Eckhart 
 accounts for the imperfections of the phenomenal world, 
 which he is precluded from explaining, as the Neo- 
 platonists did, by a theory of emanation. Nor can 
 we solve the difficulty by importing modern theories 
 of evolution into his system. The idea of the world- 
 
 which the Novj holds to " the One " in Plotinus, as the following sentence 
 will show : "God is for ever working in one eternal Now ; this working 
 of His is giving birth to His Son; He bears Him at every moment. From 
 this birth proceed all things. God has such delight therein that He zises up 
 all His power in the process. He bears Himself out of Himself into Him- 
 self. He bears Himself continually in the Son ; in Him He speaks all 
 things." The following passage from Ruysbroek is an attempt to define 
 more precisely the nature of the Eckhartian Ideas : Before the temporal 
 creation God saw the creatures, " et agnovit distincte in seipso in alteri- 
 tate quadam — non tamen omnimoda alteritate ; quidquid enim in Deo est 
 Deus est." Our eternal life remains "perpetuo in divina essentia sine 
 discretione," but continually flows out "per reternam Verbi genera- 
 tionem." Ruysbroek also says clearly that creation is the embodiment 
 of the whole mind of God: "Whatever lives in the Father hidden in 
 the unity, lives in the Son ' in emanatione manifesta.' " 
 
154 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 history as a gradual realisation of the Divine Person- 
 ality was foreign to Eckhart's thought. Stockl, indeed, 
 tries to father upon him the doctrine that the human 
 mind is a necessary organ of the self-development of 
 God. But this theory cannot be found in Eckhart. 
 The " necessity " which impels God to " beget His 
 Son " is not a physical but a moral necessity. " The 
 good must needs impart itself," he says.^ The fact 
 is that his view of the world is much nearer to acosm- 
 ism than to pantheism. " Nothing hinders us so 
 much from the knowledge of God as time and place," 
 he says. He sees in phenomena only the negation 
 of being, and it is not clear how he can also regard 
 them as the abode of the immanent God.^ It would 
 probably be true to say that, like most mediaeval 
 thinkers, he did not feel himself obliged to give a 
 permanent value to the transitory, and that the world, 
 except as the temporary abode of immortal spirits, 
 interested him but little. His neglect of history, includ- 
 ing the earthly life of Christ, is not at all the result of 
 scepticism about the miraculous. It is simply due to 
 the feeling that the Divine process in the " everlasting 
 Now " is a fact of immeasurably greater importance 
 than any occurrence in the external world can be. 
 
 ^ It is true that Eckhart was censured for teaching " Deum sine ipso 
 nihil facere posse " ; but the notion of a real becoming of God in the human 
 mind, and the attempt to solve the problem of evil on the theory of 
 evolutionary optimism, are, I am convinced, alien to his philosophy. See, 
 however, on the other side, Carriere, Die philosophische Weltanschauung 
 der Keforinationszeil, pp. 152-157. 
 
 -See Lasson, Meister Eckhart, p. 351. Eckhart protests vigorously 
 against the misrepresentation that he made the phenomenal world the 
 IVesen of God, and uses strongly acosmistic language in self-defence. But 
 there seems to be a real inconsistency in this side of his philosophy. 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 155 
 
 When a religious writer is suspected of pantheism, 
 we naturally turn to his treatment of the problem of 
 evil. To the true pantheist all is equally divine, and 
 everything for the best or for the worst, it does not 
 much matter which.^ Eckhart certainly does not mean 
 to countenance this absurd theory, but there are pas- 
 sages in his writings which logically imply it ; and we 
 look in vain for any elucidation, in his doctrine of sin, 
 of the dark places in his doctrine of God.'^ In fact, he 
 adds very little to the Neoplatonic doctrine of the 
 nature of evil. Like Dionysius, he identifies Being with 
 Good, and evil, as such, with not-being. Moral evil is 
 self-will : it is the attempt, on the part of the creature, 
 to be a particular This or That outside of God. 
 
 But what is most distinctive in Eckhart's ethics is 
 the new importance which is given to the doctrine of 
 immanence. The human soul is a microcosm, which in 
 a manner contains all things in itself. At the " apex 
 of the mind " there is a Divine " spark," which is so 
 closely akin to God that it is one with Him, and not 
 
 * I mean that a pantheist may with equal consistency call himself an 
 optimist or a pessimist, or both alternately. 
 
 2 As when he says, " In God all things are one, from angel to spider." 
 The inquisitors were not slow to lay hold of this error. Among the twenty- 
 six articles of the gravamen against Eckhart we find, "Item, in omni 
 opere, etiam malo, manifestatur et relucet cequaliter gloria Dei." The 
 word aqualiter'xs the stamp of true pantheism. Eckhart, however, whether 
 consistently or not, frequently asserts the transcendence of God. " God is 
 in the creatures, but above them." "He is above all nature, and is not 
 Himself nature," etc. In dealing with sin, he is confronted with the 
 obvious difficulty that if it is the nature of all phenomenal things to return 
 to God, from whom they proceeded, the process which he calls the birth of 
 the Son ought logically to occur in every conscious individual, for all have 
 a like phenomenal existence. He attempts to solve this puzzle by the 
 hypothesis of a double aspect of the new birth (see below). But I fear 
 there is some justice in Professor Pearson's comment, "Thus his pheno- 
 menology is shattered upon his practical theology." 
 
156 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 merely united to Him.^ In his teaching about this 
 " ground of the soul " Eckhart wavers. His earlier 
 view is that it is created, and only the medium by which 
 God transforms us to Himself But his later doctrine 
 is that it is uncreated, the immanence of the Being and 
 Nature of God H imself. " Diess Flinkelein, das ist Gott," 
 he says once. This view was adopted by Ruysbroek, 
 Suso, and (with modifications by) Tauler, and became 
 one of their chief tenets.- This spark is the organ by 
 which our personality holds communion with God and 
 knows Him. It is with reference to it that Eckhart 
 uses the phrase which has so often been quoted to 
 convict him of blasphemous self-deification — " the eye 
 
 ^ Other scholastics and mystics had taught that there is a residue of the 
 GodUke in man. The idea of a central point of the soul appears in 
 Plotinus and Augustine, and the word scitjtilla had been used of this 
 faculty before Eckhart. The "synteresis" of Alexander of Hales, Bona- 
 ventura, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas, was substantially the 
 same. But there is this difference, that while the earlier writers regard 
 this resemblance to God as only a residue, Eckhart regards it as the true 
 Wesen of the soul, into which all its faculties may be transformed. 
 
 ^ The following passage from Amiel (p. 44 of English edition) is an 
 admirable commentary on the mystical doctrine of immanence: — "The 
 centre of life is neither in thought nor in feeling nor in will, nor even in 
 consciousness, so far as it thinks, feels, or wishes. For moral truth may 
 have been penetrated and possessed in all these ways, and escape us still. 
 Deeper even than consciousness, there is our being itself, our very sub- 
 stance, our nature. Only those truths which have entered into this last 
 region, which have become ourselves, Ijccome spontaneous and involuntary, 
 instinctive and unconscious, are really our life — that is to say, something 
 more than our property. So long as we are able to distinguish any space 
 whatever between the truth and us, we remain outside it. The thought, 
 the feeling, the desire, the consciousness of life, are not yet quite life. But 
 peace and repose can nowhere be found except in life and in eternal life, 
 and the eternal life is the Divine life, is God. To become Divine is, then, 
 the aim of life : then only can truth be said to be ours beyond the possi- 
 bility of loss, because it is no longer outside of us, nor even in us, but we 
 are it, and it is we ; we ourselves are a truth, a will, a work of God. 
 Liberty has become nature ; the creature is one with its Creator — one 
 through love," 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 157 
 
 with which I see God is the same as that with which 
 He sees me." ^ The " uncreated spark " is really the 
 same as the grace of God, which raises us into a God- 
 like state. But this grace, according to Eckhart (at 
 least in his later period), is God Himself acting like a 
 human faculty in the soul, and transforming it so that 
 " man himself becomes grace." 
 
 The following is perhaps the most instructive pas- 
 sage : " There is in the soul something which is above 
 the soul. Divine, simple, a pure nothing ; rather name- 
 less than named, rather unknown than known. Of this 
 I am accustomed to speak in my discourses. Some- 
 times I have called it a power, sometimes an uncreated 
 light, and sometimes a Divine spark. It is absolute 
 and free from all names and all forms, just as God is 
 free and absolute in Himself. It is higher than know- 
 ledge, higher than love, higher than grace. For in all 
 these there is still distinction. In this power God doth 
 blossom and flourish with all His Godhead, and the 
 
 ^ No better exposition of the religious aspect of Eckhart's doctrine of 
 immanence can be found than in Principal Caird's Introduction to the 
 Philosophy of Religion, pp. 244, 245, as the following extract will show : 
 "There is therefore a sense in which we can say that the world of finite 
 intelligence, though distinct from God, is still, in its ideal nature, one with 
 Ilim. That which God creates, and by which lie reveals the hidden 
 treasures of His wisdom and love, is still not foreign to His own infinite 
 life, but one with it. In the knowledge of the minds that know Him, in 
 the self-surrender of the hearts that love Him, it is no paradox to affirm 
 that He knows and loves Himself. As He is the origin and inspiration of 
 every true thought and pure affection, of eveiy experience in which we 
 forget and rise above ourselves, so is He also of all these the end. If in 
 one point of view religion is the work of man, in another it is the work of 
 God. Its true significance is not apprehended till we pass beyond its 
 origin in time and in the experience of a finite spirit, to see in it the revela- 
 tion of the mind of God Himself. In the language of Scripture, ' It is 
 God that worketh in us to will and to do of His good pleasure : all things 
 are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself.' " 
 
158 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Spirit flourisheth in God. In this power the Father 
 bringeth forth His only-begotten Son, as essentially as 
 in Himself; and in this light ariseth the Holy Ghost. 
 This spark rejecteth all creatures, and will have only 
 God, simply as He is in Himself. It rests satisfied 
 neither with the Father, nor with the Son, nor with the 
 Holy Ghost, nor with the three Persons, so far as each 
 existeth in its particular attribute. It is satisfied only 
 with the superessential essence. It is determined to 
 enter into the simple Ground, the still Waste, the 
 Unity where no man dwelleth. Then it is satisfied in 
 the light ; then it is one : it is one in itself, as this 
 Ground is a simple stillness, and in itself immovable ; 
 and yet by this immobility are all things moved." 
 
 It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do 
 of His good pleasure ; but our own nature and person- 
 ality remain intact. It is plain that we could not see 
 God unless our personality remained distinct from the 
 personality of God. Complete fusion is as destructive 
 of the possibility of love and knowledge as complete 
 separation.^ 
 
 Eckhart gives to " the highest reason " - the primacy 
 
 ^ Eckhart sees this (cf. Preger, vol. i. p. 421) : " Personality in Eckhart 
 is neither the faculties, nor the form {Bild), nor the essence, nor the nature 
 of the Godhead, but it is rather the spirit which rises out of the essence, 
 and is born by the irradiation of the form in the essence, which mingles 
 itself with our nature and works by its means." The obscurity of this con- 
 ception is not made any less by the distinction which Eckhart draws between 
 the outer and inner consciousness in the personality. The outer conscious- 
 ness is bound up with the earthly life ; to it all images must come 
 through sense ; but in this way it can have no image of itself. But the 
 higher consciousness is supra-temporal. The potential ground of the soul 
 is and remains sinless ; but the personality is also united to the bodily 
 nature ; its guilt is that it inclines to its sinful nature instead of to God. 
 
 ^ Eckhart distinguishes the intelleciics agens {diji wirkende Vernunft) 
 from the passive (lidcndc) intellect. The office of the former is to present 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 159 
 
 among our faculties, and in his earlier period identifies 
 it with " the spark." He asserts the absolute supremacy 
 of reason more strongly than anyone since Erigena. 
 His language on this subject resembles that of the 
 Cambridge Platonists. " Reasonable knowledge is 
 eternal life," he says. " How can any external revela- 
 tion help me," he asks, " unless it be verified by inner 
 experience ? The last appeal must always be to the 
 deepest part of my own being, and that is my reason." 
 " The reason," he says, "presses ever upwards. It cannot 
 rest content with goodness or wisdom, nor even with 
 God Himself; it must penetrate to the Ground from 
 whence all goodness and wisdom spring." 
 
 Thus Eckhart is not content with the knowledge of 
 God which is mediated by Christ, but aspires to pene- 
 trate into the " Divine darkness " which underlies the 
 manifestation of the Trinity. In fact, when he speaks 
 of the imitation of Christ, he distinguishes between 
 " the way of the manhood," which has to be followed 
 by all, and " the way of the Godhead," which is for the 
 mystic only. In this overbold aspiration to rise " from 
 the Three to the One," he falls into the error which we 
 have already noticed, and several passages in his 
 writings advocate the quietistic self-simplification which 
 belongs to this scheme of perfection. There are sen- 
 tences in which he exhorts us to strip off all that comes 
 
 perceptions to the latter, set out under the forms of time and space. In his 
 Strassburg period, the spark or Ganster, the inteUectus agens, diu oberstc 
 Vernicnft, and synteresis, seem to be identical ; but later he says, "The 
 active intellect cannot give what it has not got. It cannot see two ideas 
 together, but only one after another. But if God works in the place of 
 the active intellect, lie begets (in the mind) many ideas in one point." 
 Thus the "spark" becomes supra-rational and uncreated — the Divine 
 essence itself. 
 
i6o CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 to us from the senses, and to throw ourselves upon the 
 heart of God, there to rest for ever, " hidden from all 
 creatures." ^ But there are many other passages of an 
 opposite tendency. He tells us that " the way of the 
 manhood," which, of course, includes imitation of the 
 active life of Christ, must be trodden first by all ; he 
 insists that in the state of union the faculties of the 
 soul will act in a new and higher way, so that the 
 personality is restored, not destroyed ; and, lastly, he 
 teaches that contemplation is only the means to a 
 higher activity, and that this is, in fact, its object ; 
 " what a man has taken in by contemplation, that he 
 pours out in love." There is no contradiction in the 
 desire for rest combined with the desire for active 
 service ; for rest can only be defined as unimpeded 
 activity ; but in Eckhart there is, I think, a real incon- 
 sistency. The traditions of his philosophy pointed 
 towards withdrawal from the world and from outward 
 occupations — towards the monkish ideal, in a word ; 
 but the modern spirit was already astir within him. 
 He preached in German to the general public, and his 
 favourite themes are the present living operation of 
 the Spirit, and the consecration of life in the world. 
 There is, he shows, no contradiction between the active 
 
 ^ The following sentence, for instance, is in the worst manner of Dio- 
 nysius: "Thou shall love God as He is, a non-God, a non-Spirit, a non- 
 Person, a non-Form : He is absolute bare Unity." This is Eckhart's 
 theory of the Absolute ("the Godhead") as distinguished from God. In 
 these moods he wishes, like the Asiatic mystics, to sink in the bottomless 
 sea of the Infinite. He also aspires to absolute d.-KaQeia.{Abgeschiedenheit). 
 " Is he sick ? He is as fain to be sick as well. If a friend should die — in 
 the name of God. If an eye should be knocked out — in the name of God." 
 The soul has returned to its pre-natal condition, having rid itself of all 
 " creatureliness." 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM i6i 
 
 and the contemplative life ; the former belongs to the 
 faculties of the soul, the latter to its essence. In com- 
 menting on the story of Martha and Mary, those 
 favourite types of activity and contemplation,^ he sur- 
 prises us by putting Martha first. " Mary hath chosen 
 the good part ; that is," he says, " she is striving to be 
 as holy as her sister. Mary is still at school : Martha 
 has learnt her lesson. It is better to feed the hungry 
 than to see even such visions as St. Paul saw." " Besser 
 ein Lebemeister als tausend Lesemeister." He dis- 
 courages monkish religiosity and external badges of 
 saintliness — " avoid everything peculiar," he says, " in 
 dress, food, and language." " You need not go into a 
 desert and fast ; a crowd is often more lonely than a 
 wilderness, and small things harder to do than great." 
 " What is the good of the dead bones of saints ? " he 
 asks, in the spirit of a sixteenth century reformer ; " the 
 dead can neither give nor take." ^ This double aspect 
 
 ^ Many passages might be quoted. The ordinary conckision is that Mary 
 chose the better part, because activity is confined to this Hfe, while con- 
 templation lasts for ever. Augustine treats the story of Leah and Rachel 
 in the same way {Contra Faust. Manich. xxii. 52): " Lia interpretatur 
 Laborans, Rachel autem Visum principium, sive Verbum ex quo videtur 
 principium. Actio ergo humanre mortalisque vitse . . . ipsa est Lia prior 
 uxor Jacob ; ac per hoc et infirmis oculis fuisse commemoratur. Spes 
 vero oeternce contemplationis Dei, habens certam et delectabilem intelli- 
 gentiam veritatis, ipsa est Rachel, unde etiam dicitur bona facie et pulcra 
 specie," etc. 
 
 ^ Moreover, he is never tired of insisting that the Will is everything. 
 " If your will is right, you cannot go wrong," he says. " With the will I 
 can do everything." " Love resides in the will — the more will, the more 
 love." "There is nothing evil but the evil will, of which sin is the 
 appearance." " The value of human life depends entirely on the aim 
 which it sets before itself." This over-insistence on purity of intention as 
 the end, as well as the beginning, of virtue, is no doubt connected with 
 Eckhart's denial of reality and importance to the world of time ; he tries 
 to show that it does not logically lead to Antinomianism. His doctrine 
 that good works have no value in themselves differs from those of Abelard 
 II 
 
1 62 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 of Eckhart's teaching makes him particularly interest- 
 ing; he seems to stand on the dividing-line between 
 mediaeval and modern Christianity. 
 
 Like other mystics, he insists that love, when per- 
 fect, is independent of the hope of reward, and he 
 shows great freedom in handling Purgatory, Hell, and 
 Heaven. They are states, not places; separation 
 from God is the misery of hell, and each man is his 
 own judge. " We would spiritualise everything," he 
 says, with especial reference to Holy Scripture.^ 
 
 In comparing the Mysticism of Eckhart with that of 
 his predecessors, from Dionysius downwards, and of the 
 scholastics down to Gerson, we find an obvious change 
 in the disappearance of the long ladders of ascent, the 
 graduated scales of virtues, faculties, and states of 
 mind, which fill so large a place in those systems. 
 These lists are the natural product of the imagination, 
 when it plays upon the theory of etnanation. But 
 with Eckhart, as we have seen, the fundamental truth 
 is the immanence of God Himself, not in the faculties, 
 but in the ground of the soul. The " spark of the 
 soul " is for him really " divinae particula aurae." " God 
 begets His Son in me," he is fond of saying : and there 
 
 and Bernard, which have a superficial resemblance to it. Eckhart really 
 regards the Catholic doctrine of good works much as St, Paul treated the 
 Pharisaic legalism ; but he is as unconscious of the widening gulf which had 
 already opened between Teutonic and Latin Christianity, as of the discredit . 
 which his own writings were to help to bring upon the monkish view of 
 life. 
 
 ^ As an example of his free handling of the Old Testament, I may quote, 
 " Do not suppose that when God made heaven and earth and all things, 
 He made one thing to-day and another to-morrow. Moses says so, of 
 course, but he knew better ; he only wrote that for the sake of the populace, 
 who could not have understood otherwise. God merely willed, and the 
 world was" ~ 
 
PLATONISM AND MYSTICISM 163 
 
 is no doubt that, relying on a verse in the seventeenth 
 chapter of St. John, he regards this " begetting " as 
 analogous to the eternal generation of the Son.^ This 
 birth of the Son in the soul has a double aspect — the 
 " eternal birth," which is unconscious and inalienable,^ 
 but which does not confer blessedness, being -common 
 to good and bad alike ; and the assimilation of the 
 faculties of the soul by the pervading presence of 
 Christ, or in other words by grace, " quae lux quaedam 
 deiformis est," as Ruysbroek says. The deification of 
 our nature is therefore a thing to be striven for, and 
 not given complete to start with ; but it is important 
 to observe that Eckhart places no intermediaries 
 between man and God. " The Word is very nigh 
 thee," nearer than any object of sense, and any human 
 institutions ; sink into thyself, and thou wilt find Him. 
 The heavenly and earthly hierarchies of Dionysius, 
 with the reverence for the priesthood which was built 
 upon them, have no significance for Eckhart. In this 
 as in other ways, he is a precursor of the Reformation. 
 With Eckhart I end this Lecture on the speculative 
 Mysticism of the Middle Ages. His successors, Ruys- 
 broek, Suso, and Tauler, much as they resemble him 
 in their general teaching, differ from him in this, that 
 with none of them is the intellectual, philosophical 
 
 ^ E.g. " Da der vatter seynen sun in mir gebirt, da byn ich der selb sun 
 und nitt eyn ander." 
 
 ^ So Hermann of Fritslar says that the soul has two faces, the one turned 
 towards this world, the other immediately to God. In the latter God 
 flows and shines eternally, whether man is conscious of it or not. It is 
 therefore according to man's nature as possessed of this Divine ground, to 
 seek God, his original ; and even in hell the suffering there has its source 
 in the hopeless contradiction of this indestructible tendency. See Vaughan, 
 vol. i. p. 256 ; and the same teaching in Tauler, p. 185. 
 
1 64 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 side of primary importance. They added nothing of 
 value to the speculative system of Eckhart ; their 
 Mysticism was primarily a religion of the heart or a 
 rule of life. It is this side of Mysticism to which I 
 shall next invite your attention. It should bring us 
 near to the centre of our subject : for a speculative 
 religious system is best known by its fruits. 
 
LECTURE V 
 
 165 
 
" dpbvos r^s 6€iuT7)Tos 6 vous iariv tj/hQv." 
 
 Macarius, 
 
 " Thou comest not, thou goest not ; 
 Thou wert not, wilt not be ; 
 Eternity is but a thought 
 
 By which we think of Thee." 
 
 Faber. 
 
 " Werd als ein Kind, werd taub und blind, 
 Dein eignes Icht muss warden nicht : 
 
 All Icht, all Nicht treib feme nur ; 
 Lass Statt, lass Zeit, auch Bild lass weit, 
 Geh ohne Weg den schmalen Steg, 
 
 So kommst du auf der Wiiste Spur. 
 O Seele mein, aus Gott geh ein, 
 Sink als ein Icht in Gottes Nicht, 
 
 Sink in die ungegrtindte Fluth. 
 Flich ich von Dir, du kommst zu mir, 
 Verlass ich mich, so find ich Dich, 
 
 O iiberwesentliches Gut ! " 
 
 Medictval Geniian Hytnn. 
 
 " Quid caelo dabimus? quantum est quo veneat omne? 
 Impendendus homo est, Deus esse ut possit in ipso." 
 
 Man I LI us. 
 
 166 
 
LECTURE V 
 Practical and Devotional Mysticism 
 
 " We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are 
 transformed into the same image, from glory to glory." — 2 CoR. iii. 1 8. 
 
 The school of Eckhart ^ in the fourteenth century pro- 
 duced the brightest cluster of names in the history of 
 Mysticism. In Ruysbroek, Suso, Tauler, and the 
 author of the Theologia Germanica we see introspective 
 Mysticism at its best. This must not be understood 
 to mean that they improved upon the philosophical 
 system of Eckhart, or that they are entirely free from 
 the dangerous tendencies which have been found in his 
 works. On the speculative side they added nothing of 
 value, and none of them rivals Eckhart in clearness of 
 intellect. But we find in them an unfaltering con- 
 viction that our communion with God must be a fact 
 of experience, and not only a philosophical theory. 
 With the most intense earnestness they set themselves 
 to live through the mysteries of the spiritual life, as the 
 only way to understand and prove them. Suso and 
 
 ^ The indebtedness of the fourteenth century mystics to Eckhart is now 
 generally recognised, at any rate in Germany ; but before Pfeiffer's work 
 his name had been allowed to fall into most undeserved obscurity. This 
 was not the fault of his scholars, who, in spite of the Papal condemnation 
 of his writings, speak of Eckhart with the utmost reverence, as the 
 "great," "sublime," or "holy" master. 
 
 167 
 
i68 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Tauler both passed through deep waters ; the history 
 of their inner Hves is a record of heroic struggle and 
 suffering. The personality of the men is part of their 
 message, a statement which could hardly be made of 
 Dionysius or Erigena, perhaps not of Eckhart himself. 
 
 John of Ruysbroek, " doctor ecstaticus " as the 
 Church allowed him to be called, was born in 1293, 
 and died in 1381. He was prior of Vauvert, near 
 Brussels, and afterwards retired to the convent of 
 Griinthal, in the forest of Soignies, where he wrote 
 most of his mystical treatises, under the direct 
 guidance, as he believed, of the Holy Spirit. He was 
 the object of great veneration in the later part of his 
 life. Ruysbroek was not a learned man, or a clear 
 thinker.^ He knew Dionysius, St. Augustine, and 
 Eckhart, and was no doubt acquainted with some of 
 the other mystical writers ; but he does not write like 
 a scholar or a man of letters. He resembles Suso in 
 being more emotional and less speculative than most 
 of the German school. 
 
 Ruysbroek reverts to the mystical tradition, par- 
 tially broken by Eckhart, of arranging almost all his 
 topics in three or seven divisions, often forming a 
 progressive scale. For instance, in the treatise " On 
 the Seven Grades of Love," we have the following series, 
 which he calls the "Ladder of Love": (i) goodwill; 
 (2) voluntary poverty; (3) chastity; (4) humility; 
 (5) desire for the glory of God ; (6) Divine contempla- 
 tion, which has three properties — intuition, purity of 
 
 * " Vir ut ferunt devotus sed parum litteratus," says the Abbe Tritheme 
 (a/. Gessner, Biblioth.). " Rusbrochius cum idiota esset" {Dyon. Carth. 
 Serm. i. ). Compare Rousselot, Les Mystiques Espapiols, p. 493. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 169 
 
 spirit, and nudity of mind ; (7) the ineffable, unname- 
 able transcendence of all knowledge and thought. 
 This arbitrary schematism is the weakest part of 
 Ruysbroek's writings, which contain many deep 
 thoughts. His chief work, Ordo spii'itualiunt nup- 
 tiarum, is one of the most complete charts of the 
 mystic's progress which exist. The three stages 
 are here the active life {vita actuosd)^ the internal, 
 elevated, or affective life, to which all are not called, 
 and the contemplative life, to which only a few can 
 attain. The three parts of the soul, sensitive, rational, 
 and spiritual, correspond to these three stages. The 
 motto of the active life is the text, " Ecce sponsus venit ; 
 exite obviam ei." The Bridegroom " comes " three 
 times : He came in the flesh ; He comes into us by 
 grace ; and He will come to judgment. We must " go 
 out to meet Him," by the three virtues of humility, 
 love, and justice : these are the three virtues which 
 support the fabric of the active life. The ground of 
 all the virtues is humility ; thence proceed, in order, 
 obedience, renunciation of our own will, patience, 
 gentleness, piety, sympathy, bountifulness, strength 
 and impulse for all virtues, soberness and temperance, 
 chastity. " This is the active life, which is necessary 
 for us all, if we wish to follow Christ, and to reign 
 with Him in His everlasting kingdom." 
 
 Above the active rises the inner life. This has three 
 parts. Our intellect must be enlightened with super- 
 natural clearness ; we must behold the inner coming of 
 the Bridegroom, that is, the eternal truth ; we must " go 
 out " from the exterior to the inner life ; we must go 
 to meet the Bridegroom, to enjoy union with His Divinity. 
 
I70 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Finally, the spirit rises from the inner to the con- 
 templative life. " When we rise above ourselves, and 
 in our ascent to God are made so simple that the love 
 which embraces us is occupied only with itself, above 
 the practice of all the virtues, then we are transformed 
 and die in God to ourselves and to all separate in- 
 dividuality." God unites us with Himself in eternal 
 love, which is Himself. " In this embrace and essential 
 unity with God all devout and inward spirits are one 
 with God by living immersion and melting away into 
 Him ; they are by grace one and the same thing with 
 Him, because the same essence is in both." " For 
 what we are, that we intently contemplate ; and what 
 we contemplate, that we are ; for our mind, our life, 
 and our essence are simply lifted up and united to the 
 very truth, which is God. Wherefore in this simple 
 and intent contemplation we are one life and one 
 spirit with God. And this I call the contemplative 
 life. In this highest stage the soul is united to God 
 without means ; it sinks into the vast darkness of 
 the Godhead." In this abyss, he says, following his 
 authorities, " the Persons of the Trinity transcend 
 themselves " ; " thei'e is only the eternal essence, which 
 is the substance of the Divine Persons, where we are 
 all one and uncreated, according to our prototypes." 
 Here, " so far as distinction of persons goes, there is no 
 more God nor creature " ; " we have lost ourselves and 
 been melted away into the unknown darkness." And 
 yet we remain eternally distinct from God. The 
 creature remains a creature, and loses not its creature- 
 Hness. We must be conscious of ourselves in God, 
 and conscious of ourselves in ourselves. For eternal 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 171 
 
 life consists in the knowledge of God, and there can be 
 no knowledge without self-consciousness. If we could 
 be blessed without knowing it, a stone, which has 
 no consciousness, might be blessed. 
 
 Ruysbroek, it is plain, had no qualms in using the 
 old mystical language without qualification. This is 
 the more remarkable, because he was fully aware of the 
 disastrous consequences which follow from the method 
 of negation and self-deification. For Ruysbroek was 
 an earnest reformer of abuses. He spares no one — 
 popes, bishops, monks, and the laity are lashed in 
 vigorous language for their secularity, covetousness, 
 and other faults ; but perhaps his sharpest castigation 
 is reserved for the false mystics. There are some, he 
 says, who mistake mere laziness for holy abstraction ; 
 others give the rein to " spiritual self-indulgence " ; 
 others neglect all religious exercises ; others fall into 
 antinomianism, and " think that nothing is forbidden 
 to them " — " they will gratify any appetite which in- 
 terrupts their contemplation " : these are " by far the 
 worst of all." " There is another error," he proceeds, 
 " of those who like to call themselves ' theopaths.' 
 They take every impulse to be Divine, and repudiate 
 all responsibility. Most of them live in inert sloth." 
 As a corrective to these errors, he very rightly says, 
 " Christ must be the rule and pattern of all our lives " ; 
 but he does not see that there is a deep inconsistency 
 between the imitation of Christ as the living way to 
 the Father, and the " negative road " which leads to 
 vacancy.^ 
 
 ^ Maeterlinck, Ruysbroek's latest interpreter, is far too complimentary 
 to the intellectual endowments of his fellow-countryman. " Ce moine 
 
172 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Henry Suso, whose autobiography is a document of 
 unique importance for the psychology of Mysticism, 
 was born in 1295.^ Intellectually he is a disciple 
 of Eckhart, whom he understands better than Ruys- 
 broek ; but his life and character are more like those 
 of the Spanish mystics, especially St. Juan of the 
 Cross. The text which is most often in his mouth 
 is, " Where I am, there shall also My servant be " ; 
 which he interprets to mean that only those who 
 have embraced to the full the fellowship of Christ's 
 sufferings, can hope to be united to Him in glory. 
 " No cross, no crown," is the law of life which Suso 
 accepts in all the severity of its literal meaning. 
 The story of the terrible penances which he inflicted 
 on himself for part of his life is painful and almost 
 repulsive to read ; but they have nothing in common 
 with the ostentatious self-torture of the fakir. 
 Suso's deeply affectionate and poetical temperament, 
 with its strong human loves and sympathies, made 
 the life of the cloister very difficult for him. He 
 accepted it as the highest life, and strove to conform 
 himself to its ideals ; and when, after sixteen years 
 of cruel austerities, he felt that his " refractory body " 
 was finally tamed, he discontinued his mortifications, 
 
 possedait un des plus sages, des plus exacts, et des plus subtils organes 
 philosophiques qui aient jamais existe." He thinks it marvellous that 
 "il sait, a son insu, le platonisme de la Grece, le soufisme de la Perse, le 
 brahmanisme de I'lnde et le bouddhisme de Thibet," etc. In reality, 
 Ruysbroek gets all his philosophy from Eckhart, and his manner of 
 expounding it shows no abnormal acuteness. But Maeterlinck's essay in 
 Le Tresor des Humbles contains some good things — e.g. " Les verites 
 mystiques ne peuvent ni vieillir ni mourir. . . . Une oeuvre ne vieillit 
 qu'en proportion de sonantimysticisme." 
 
 * So Preger, probably rightly. Noack places his birth five years later. 
 The chronology of the Life is very loose. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 173 
 
 and entered upon a career of active usefulness. In 
 this he had still heavier crosses to carry, for he 
 was persecuted and falsely accused, while the spiritual 
 consolations which had cheered him in his early 
 struggles were often withdrawn. In his old age, 
 shortly before his death in 1365, he published the 
 history of his life, which is one of the most interesting 
 and charming of all autobiographies. Suso's literary 
 gift is very remarkable. Unlike most ecstatic mystics, 
 who declare on each occasion that " tongue cannot 
 utter" their experiences, Suso's store of glowing and 
 vivid language never fails. The hunger and thirst of 
 the soul for God, and the answering love of Christ 
 manifested in the inner man, have never found a more 
 pure and beautiful expression. In the hope of in- 
 ducing more readers to become acquainted with this 
 gem of mediaeval literature, I will give a few extracts 
 from its pages. 
 
 " The servitor of the eternal Wisdom," as he calls 
 himself throughout the book, made the first beginning 
 of his perfect conversion to God in his eighteenth 
 year. Before that, he had lived as others live, content 
 to avoid deadly sin ; but all the time he had felt a 
 gnawing reproach within him. Then came the tempta- 
 tion to be content with gradual progress, and to " treat 
 himself well." But " the eternal Wisdom " said to 
 him, " He who seeks with tender treatment to conquer 
 a refractory body, wants common sense. If thou art 
 minded to forsake all, do so to good purpose." The 
 stern command was obeyed.^ Very soon — it is the 
 
 ^ The extreme asceticism which was practised by Suso, and (though to 
 a less degree) by Tauler, is not enjoined by them as a necessar)' part of a 
 
174 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 usual experience of ascetic mystics — he was encour- 
 aged by rapturous visions. One such, which came to 
 him on St. Agnes' Day, he thus describes : — " It was 
 without form or mode, but contained within itself the 
 most entrancing delight. His heart was athirst and 
 yet satisfied. It was a breaking forth of the sweetness 
 of eternal life, felt as present in the stillness of con- 
 templation. Whether he was in the body or out of 
 the body, he knew not." It lasted about an hour and 
 a half; but gleams of its light continued to visit him 
 at intervals for some time after. 
 
 Suso's loving nature, like Augustine's, needed an 
 object of affection. His imagination concentrated 
 itself upon the eternal Wisdom, personified in the 
 Book of Proverbs in female form as a loving mistress, 
 and the thought came often to him, " Truly thou 
 shouldest make trial of thy fortune, whether this high 
 mistress, of whom thou hast heard so much, will 
 become thy love ; for in truth thy wild young heart 
 will not remain without a love." Then in a vision he 
 saw her, radiant in form, rich in wisdom, and overflow- 
 ing with love ; it is she who touches the summit of the 
 heavens, and the depths of the abyss, who spreads 
 herself from end to end, mightily and sweetly dispos- 
 ing all things. And she drew nigh to him lovingly, 
 and said to him sweetly, " My son, give me thy 
 heart." 
 
 At this season there came into his soul a flame of 
 intense fire, which made his heart burn with Divine 
 love. And as a " love token," he cut deep in his 
 
 holy life. "We are to kill our passions, not our flesh and blood," as 
 Tauler says. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 175 
 
 breast the name of Jesus, so that the marks of the 
 letters remained all his life, " about the length of a 
 finger-joint." 
 
 Another time he saw a vision of angels, and be- 
 sought one of them to show him the manner of God's 
 secret dwelling in the soul. An angel answered, 
 " Cast then a joyous glance into thyself, and see how 
 God plays His play of love with thy loving soul." He 
 looked immediately, and saw that his body over his 
 heart was as clear as crystal, and that in the centre 
 was sitting tranquilly, in lovely form, the eternal 
 Wisdom, beside whom sat, full of heavenly longing, 
 the servitor's own soul, which leaning lovingly towards 
 God's side, and encircled by His arms, lay pressed 
 close to His heart. 
 
 In another vision he saw " the blessed master Eck- 
 hart," who had lately died in disfavour with the rulers 
 of the Church. " He signified to the servitor that he 
 was in exceeding glory, and that his soul was quite 
 transformed, and made Godlike in God." In answer 
 to questions, " the blessed Master " told him that 
 " words cannot tell the manner in which those persons 
 dwell in God who have really detached themselves 
 from the world, and that the way to attain this detach- 
 ment is to die to self, and to maintain unruffled 
 patience with all men." 
 
 Very touching is the vision of the Holy Child 
 which came to him in church on Candlemas Day. 
 Kneeling down in front of the Virgin, who appeared 
 to him, " he prayed her to show him the Child, and to 
 suffer him also to kiss it. When she kindly offered it to 
 him, he spread out his arms and received the beloved 
 
176 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 One. He contemplated its beautiful little eyes, he 
 kissed its tender little mouth, and he gazed again and 
 again at all the infant members of the heavenly trea- 
 sure. Then, lifting up his eyes, he uttered a cry of 
 amazement that He who bears up the heavens is 
 so great, and yet so small, so beautiful in heaven 
 and so childlike on earth. And as the Divine Infant 
 moved him, so did he act toward it, now singing 
 now weeping, till at last he gave it back to its 
 mother." 
 
 When at last he was warned by an angel, he says, 
 to discontinue his austerities, " he spent several weeks 
 very pleasantly," often weeping for joy at the thought 
 of the grievous sufferings which he had undergone. 
 But his repose was soon disturbed. One day, as he 
 sat meditating on " life as a warfare," he saw a vision 
 of a comely youth, who vested him in the attire of a 
 knight,^ saying to him, " Hearken, sir knight ! Hitherto 
 thou hast been a squire ; now God wills thee to be 
 a knight. And thou shalt have fighting enough ! " 
 Suso cried, " Alas, my God ! what art Thou about to 
 do unto me? I thought that I had had enough by 
 this time. Show me how much suffering I have before 
 me." The Lord said, " It is better for thee not to 
 know. Nevertheless I will tell thee of three things. 
 Hitherto thou hast stricken thyself. Now I will strike 
 
 ^ It would be very interesting to trace the influence of the chivalric idea 
 on religious Mysticism. Chivalry, the worship of idealised womanhood, 
 is itself a mystical cult, and its relation to religious Mysticism appears 
 throughout the "Divine Comedy" and "Vita Nuova " (see especially 
 the incomparable paragraph which concludes this latter), and in the sonnet 
 of M. Angelo translated by Wordsworth, " No mortal object did ttie^e ^yes 
 behold," etc. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 177 
 
 thee, and thou shalt suffer pubHcIy the loss of thy 
 good name. Secondly, where thou shalt look for love 
 and faithfulness, there shalt thou find treachery and 
 suffering. Thirdly, hitherto thou hast floated in Divine 
 sweetness, like a fish in the sea ; this will I now with- 
 draw from thee, and thou shalt starve and wither. 
 Thou shalt be forsaken both by God and the world, 
 and whatever thou shalt take in hand to comfort thee 
 shall come to nought." The servitor threw himself on 
 the ground, with arms outstretched to form a cross, 
 and prayed in agony that this great misery might not 
 fall upon him. Then a voice said to him, "Be of 
 good cheer, I will be with thee and aid thee to 
 overcome." 
 
 The next chapters show how this vision or pre- 
 sentiment was verified. The journeys which he now 
 took exposed him to frequent dangers, both from 
 robbers and from lawless men who hated the monks. 
 One adventure with a murderer is told with delightful 
 simplicity and vividness. Suso remains throughout 
 his life thoroughly human, and, hard as his lot had 
 been, he is in an agony of fear at the prospect of a 
 violent death. The story of the outlaw confessing to 
 the trembling monk how, besides other crimes, he had 
 once pushed into the Rhine a priest who had just 
 heard his confession, and how the wife of the assassin 
 comforted Suso when he was about to drop down from 
 sheer fright, forms a quaint interlude in the saint's 
 memoirs. But a more grievous trial awaited him. 
 Among other pastoral work, he laboured much to 
 reclaim fallen women ; and a pretended penitent, whose 
 insincerity he had detected, revenged herself by a 
 12 
 
178 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 slander which almost ruined him.^ Happily, the chiefs 
 of his order, whose verdict he had greatly dreaded, 
 completely exonerated him, after a full investigation, 
 and his last years seem to have been peaceful and 
 happy. The closing chapters of the Life are taken 
 up by some very interesting conversations with his 
 spiritual " daughter," Elizabeth Staglin, who wished to 
 understand the obscurer doctrines of Mysticism. She 
 asks him about the doctrine of the Trinity, which he 
 expounds on the general lines of Eckhart's theology. 
 She, however, remembers some of the bolder phrases 
 in Eckhart, and says, " But there are some who say 
 that, in order to attain to perfect union, we must divest 
 ourselves of God, and turn only to the inwardly- 
 shining light." " That is false," replies Suso, " if the 
 words are taken in their ordinary sense. But the 
 common belief about God, that He is a great Task- 
 master, whose function is to reward and punish, is cast 
 out by perfect love ; and in this sense the spiritual 
 man does divest himself of God, as conceived of by the 
 vulgar. Again, in the highest state of union, the soul 
 takes no note of the Persons separately ; for it is not the 
 Divine Persons taken singly that confer bliss, but the 
 Three in One." Suso here gives a really valuable turn 
 to one of Eckhart's rashest theses. " Where is heaven ? " 
 asks his pupil next. " The intellectual where" is the 
 
 ^ Nothing in the book is more touching than the scene when the baby, 
 deserted by its mother, Suso's false accuser, is brought to him. Suso takes 
 the child in his arms, and weeps over it with affectionate words, while the 
 infant smiles up at him. In spite of the calumny which he knew was 
 being spread wherever it would most injure him, he insists on paying for 
 the child's maintenance, rather than leave it to die from neglect. The 
 Italian mystic Scupoli, the author of a beautiful devotional work called 
 the Spiritual Combat, was calumniated in a similar manner. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 179 
 
 reply, " is the essentially-existing unnameable nothing- 
 ness. So we must call it, because we can discover no 
 mode of being, under which to conceive of it. But 
 though it seems to us to be no-thing, it deserves to be 
 called something rather than nothing." Suso, we see, 
 follows Dionysius, but with this proviso. The maiden 
 now asks him to give her a figure or image of the self- 
 evolution of the Trinity, and he gives her the figure of 
 concentric circles, such as appear when we throw a 
 stone into a pond. " But," he adds, " this is as unlike 
 the formless truth as a black Moor is unlike the 
 beautiful sun." Soon after, the holy maiden died, and 
 Suso saw her in a vision, radiant and full of heavenly 
 joy, showing him how, guided by his counsels, she had 
 found everlasting bliss. When he came to himself, he 
 said, " Ah, God ! blessed is the man who strives after 
 Thee alone ! He may well be content to suffer, whose 
 pains Thou rewardest thus. God help us to rejoice in 
 this maiden, and in all His dear friends, and to enjoy 
 His Divine countenance eternally ! " So ends Suso's 
 autobiography. His other chief work, a Dialogue 
 between the eternal Wisdom and the Servitor, is a 
 prose poem of great beauty, the tenor of which may 
 be inferred from the above extracts from the Life. 
 Suso believed that the Divine Wisdom had indeed 
 spoken through his pen ; and few, I think, will accuse 
 him of arrogance for the words which conclude the 
 Dialogue. " Whosoever will read these writings of 
 mine in a right spirit, can hardly fail to be stirred 
 in his heart's depths, either to fervent love, or to new 
 light, or to longing and thirsting for God, or to 
 detestation and loathing of his sins, or to that 
 
i8o CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 spiritual aspiration by which the soul is renewed in 
 grace." 
 
 John Tauler was born at Strassburg about 1300, 
 and entered a Dominican convent in 131 5. After 
 studying at Cologne and Paris, he returned to Strass- 
 burg, where, as a Dominican, he was allowed to officiate 
 as a priest, although the town was involved in the great 
 interdict of 1324. In 1339, however, he had to fly 
 to Basel, which was the headquarters of the revivalist 
 society who called themselves " the Friends of God." 
 About 1346 he returned to Strassburg, and was 
 devoted in his ministrations during the " black death " 
 in 1348. He appears to have been strongly influenced 
 by one of the Friends of God, a mysterious layman, 
 who has been identified, probably wrongly, with 
 Nicholas of BaseV and, according to some, dated his 
 " conversion " from his acquaintance with this saintly 
 man. Tauler continued to preach to crowded con- 
 gregations till his death in 1361. 
 
 Tauler is a thinker as well as a preacher. Though 
 in most points his teaching is identical with that of 
 Eckhart,^ he treats all questions in an independent 
 manner, and sometimes, as for instance in his doctrine 
 about the uncreated ground of the soul,^ he differs from 
 
 ' By Schmidt, whose researches formed the basis of several popular 
 accounts of Tauler's life. Preger and Denifle both reject the identification 
 of the mysterious stranger with Nicholas ; Denifle doubts his existence 
 altogether. The subject is very fully discussed by Preger. 
 
 - Tauler was well read in the earlier mystics. He cites Proclus, 
 Augustine (frequently), Dionysius, Bernard, and the Victorines ; also 
 Aristotle and Aquinas. 
 
 ^ Tauler adheres to the doctrine of an " uncreated ground," but he holds 
 that it must always afct upon us through the medium of the "created 
 ground." He evidently considered Eckhart's later doctrine as too 
 pantheistic. See below, p. 183. ^ 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL i8i 
 
 his master. There is also a perceptible change in the 
 stress laid upon certain parts of the system, which 
 brings Tauler nearer than Eckhart to the divines of 
 the Reformation. In particular, his sense of sin is 
 too deep for him to be satisfied with the Neoplatonic 
 doctrine of its negativity, which led Eckhart into 
 difficulties,^ 
 
 The little book called the German Theology^ by an 
 unknown author, also belongs to the school of Eckhart. 
 It is one of the most precious treasures of devotional 
 literature, and deserves to be better known than it is 
 in this country. In some ways it is superior to the 
 famous treatise of a Kempis, On the Imitation of Christy 
 since the self-centred individualism is less prominent. 
 The author thoroughly understands Eckhart, but his 
 object is not to view everything stib specie cetej-nitatis, 
 but to give a practical religious turn to his master's 
 speculations. His teaching is closely in accordance 
 with that of Tauler, whom he quotes as an authority, 
 and whom he joins in denouncing the followers of 
 the " false light," the erratic mystics of the fourteenth 
 century. 
 
 The practical theology of these four German mystics 
 of the fourteenth century — Ruysbroek, Suso, Tauler, 
 and the writer of the German Theology, is so similar 
 that it is possible to consider it in detail without 
 taking each author separately. It is the crowning 
 achievement of Christian Mysticism before the Reforma- 
 tion ; and, except in the English Platonists of the 
 
 ^ Seep. 155. In my estimate of Tauler's doctrine, I have made no use of 
 the treatise on The Imitation of the Poverty of Christ, which Noack calls his 
 masterpiece, and the kernel of his Mysticism. The work is not by Tauler. 
 
1 82 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 seventeenth century, we shall not find anywhere a 
 sounder and more complete scheme of doctrine built 
 upon this foundation. 
 
 The distinction drawn by Eckhart between the God- 
 head and God is maintained in the German Theology, 
 and by Ruysbroek. The latter, as we have seen,^ 
 does not shrink from following the path of analysis 
 to the end, and says plainly that in the Abyss there 
 is no distinction of Divine and human persons, but 
 only the eternal essence, Tauler also bids us " put 
 out into the deep, and let down our nets " ; but 
 his " deep " is in the heart, not in the intellect. 
 *' My children, you should not ask about these great 
 high problems," he says ; and he prefers not to 
 talk much about them, " for no teacher can teach 
 what he has not lived through himself." Still he 
 speaks, like Dionysius and Eckhart, of the " Divine 
 darkness," " the nameless, formless nothing," " the 
 wild waste," and so forth ;) and says of God that 
 He is " the Unity in which all multiplicity is tran- 
 scended," and that in Him are gathered up both 
 becoming and being, eternal rest and eternal motion. 
 In this deepest ground, he says, the Three Persons are 
 implicit, not explicit. The Son is the Form of all 
 forms, to which the " eternal, reasonable form created 
 after God's image " (the Idea of mankind) longs to be 
 conformed. 
 
 The creation of the world, according to Tauler, is 
 rather consonant with than necessary to the nature of 
 God. The world, before it became actual, existed in 
 its Idea in God, and this ideal world was set forth by 
 
 ' See above, p. 1 70. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 183 
 
 means of the Trinity. It is in the Son that the Ideas 
 exist " from all eternity." The Ideas are said to be 
 *' living," that is, they work as forms, and after the 
 creation of matter act as universals above and in things. 
 Tauler is careful to show that he is not a pantheist. 
 '* God is the Being of all beings," he says ; " but He is 
 none of all things." God is all, but all is not God ; 
 He far transcends the universe in which He is 
 immanent. 
 
 VVe look in vain to Tauler for an explanation of the 
 obscurest point in Eckhart's philosophy, as to the 
 relations of the phenomenal to the real. We want 
 clearer evidence that temporal existence is not regarded 
 as something illusory or accidental, an error which may 
 be inconsistent with the theory of immanence as taught 
 by the school of Eckhart, but which is too closely allied 
 with other parts of their scheme. 
 
 The indwelling of God in the soul is the real centre 
 of Tauler's doctrine, but his psychology is rather 
 intricate and difficult. He speaks of three phases of 
 personal life, the sensuous nature, the reason, and the 
 " third man " — the spiritual life or pure substance of 
 the soul. He speaks also of an " uncreated ground," 
 which is the abyss of the Godhead, but yet " in us," 
 and of a " created ground," which he uses in a double 
 sense, now of the empirical self, which is imperfect and 
 must be purified, and now of the ideal man, as God 
 intended him to be. This latter is " the third man," 
 and is also represented by the " spark " at the " apex 
 of the soul," which is to transform the rest of the soul 
 into its own likeness. The " uncreated ground," in 
 Tauler, works upon us through the medium of the 
 
i84 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 y 
 
 " created ground," and not as in Eckhart, immediately. 
 The '* created ground," in this sense, he calls " the 
 Image," which is identical with Eckhart's " spark." It 
 is a creative principle as well as created, like the 
 " Ideas " of Erigena. 
 
 The German Theology says that " the soul has two 
 eyes," ^ one of which, the right eye, sees into eternity, 
 the other sees time and the creatures. The " right 
 eye " is practically the same as Eckhart's " spark " and 
 Tauler's " image." It is significant that the author 
 tells us that we cannot see with both eyes together ; the 
 left eye must be shut before we can use the right.^ 
 The passage where this precept is given shows very 
 plainly that the author, like the other fourteenth century 
 mystics,^ was still under the influence of mediaeval 
 dualism — the belief that the Divine begins where the 
 earthly leaves off. It is almost the only point in this 
 " golden little treatise," as Henry More calls it, to which 
 exception must be taken.* 
 
 ^ This expression is found first, I think, in Richard of St. Victor ; but 
 St. Augustine speaks of "oculus interior atque intelligibilis" {De div. 
 qiuest. 46). 
 
 ^ But Christ, he says, could see with both eyes at once ; the left in 
 no way hindered the right. 
 
 * Tauler often uses similar language ; as, for instance, when he says, 
 "The natural light of the reason must be entirely brought to nothing, if 
 God is to enter with His light." 
 
 '' Stockl criticises the Theologia Germanica in a very hostile spirit. He 
 finds it in " pantheism," by which he means acosmism, and also " Gnostic- 
 Manichean dualism," the latter being his favourite charge against the 
 Lutherans and their forerunners. He considers that this latter tendency 
 is more strongly marked in the Ge7-iiian Theology than in the other works 
 of the Eckhartian school, in that the writer identifies "the false light" 
 with the light of nature, and selfhood with sin; "devil, sin, Adam, old 
 man, disobedience, selfhood, individuality, mine, me, nature, self-will, 
 are all the same ; they all represent what is against God and without God." 
 Accordingly, salvation consists in annihilation of the self, and substitution 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 185 
 
 The essence of sin is self-assertion or self-will, and 
 consequent separation from God, Tauler has, perhaps, 
 a deeper sense of sin than any of his predecessors, and 
 he revives the Augustinian (anti-Pelagian) teaching on 
 the miserable state of fallen humanity. Sensuality and 
 pride, the two chief manifestations of self-will, have 
 invaded the zvkole of our nature. Pride is a sin of the 
 spirit, and the poison has invaded " even the ground " 
 — the " created ground," that is, as the unity of all the 
 faculties. It will be remembered that the Neoplatonic 
 doctrine was that the spiritual part of our nature can 
 take no defilement. Tauler seems to believe that under 
 one aspect the " created ground " is the transparent 
 medium of the Divine light, but in this sense it is only 
 potentially the light of our whole body. He will not 
 allow the sinless apex mentis to be identified with the 
 personality. Separation from God is the source of all 
 misery. Therein lies the pain of hell. The human 
 soul can never cease to yearn and thirst after God ; 
 " and the""' greatest pain " of the lost " is that this 
 longing can never be satisfied." In the German 
 Theology^ the necessity of rising above the " I " and 
 " mine " is treated as the great saving truth. " When 
 the creature claimeth for its own anything good, it 
 
 of God for it. There is no doubt that the writer of this treatise is deeply 
 impressed with the beUef that the root of sin is self-will, and that the new 
 birth must be a complete transformation ; but it must be remembered that 
 the language of piety is less guarded than that of dogmatic disputation, 
 and that the theology of such a book must be judged by its whole tendency. 
 My own judgment is that, taken as a whole, it is safer than Tauler or 
 Ruysbroek, and much safer than Eckhart. The strongly-marked "ethical 
 dualism " is of very much the same kind as that which we find in St. 
 John's Gospel. Taken as a theory of the origin and nature of evil, it no 
 doubt does hold out a hand to Manicheism ; but I do not think that the 
 writer meant it to be so taken, any more than St. John did. 
 
1 86 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 goeth astray." " The more of self and me, the more of 
 sin and wickedness. Be simply and wholly bereft of 
 self." " So long as a man seeketh his own highest 
 good because it is his, he will never find it. For so 
 long as he doeth this, he seeketh himself, and deemeth 
 that he himself is the highest good." (These last 
 sentences are almost verbally repeated in a sermon 
 by John Smith, the Cambridge Platonist.) 
 
 The three stages of the mystic's ascent appear in 
 Tauler's sermons. We have first to practise self- 
 control, till all our lower powers are governed by our 
 highest reason. " Jesus cannot speak in the temple of 
 thy soul till those that sold and bought therein are cast 
 out of it." In this stage we must be under strict rule 
 and discipline. " The old man must be subject to the 
 old law, till Christ be born in him of a truth." Of the 
 second stage he says, " Wilt thou with St. John rest on 
 the loving breast of our Lord Jesus Christ, thou must be 
 transformed into His beauteous image by a constant, 
 earnest contemplation thereof." It is possible that God 
 may will to call thee higher still ; then let go all forms 
 and images, and suffer Him to work with thee as His 
 instrument. To some the very door of heaven has 
 been opened — " this happens to some with a convulsion 
 of the mind, to others calmly and gradually." " It is 
 not the work of a day nor of a year." " Before it can 
 come to pass, nature must endure many a death, out- 
 ward and inward." 
 
 In the first stage of the " dying life," he says else- 
 where, we are much oppressed by the sense of our in- 
 firmities, and by the fear of hell. But in the third, " all 
 our griefs and joys are a sympathy with Christ, whose 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 187 
 
 earthly life was a mingled web of grief and joy, and this 
 life He has left as a sacred testament to His followers." 
 
 These last extracts show that the Cross of Christ, 
 and the imitation of His life on earth, have their due 
 prominence in Tauler's teaching. It is, of course, true 
 that for him, as for all mystics, Christ m us is more 
 than Christ /<7r us. But it is unfair to put it in this 
 way, as if the German mystics wished to contrast the 
 two views of redemption, and to exalt one at the 
 expense of the other. Tauler's wish is to give the 
 historical redemption its true significance, by showing 
 that it is an universal as well as a particular fact. 
 When he says, " We should worship Christ's humanity 
 only in union with this divinity," he is giving exactly 
 the same caution which St. Paul expresses in the verse 
 about " knowing Christ after the flesh." 
 
 In speaking of the highest of the three stages, 
 passages were quoted which advocate a purely passive 
 state of the will and intellect.^ This quietistic tendency 
 cannot be denied in the fourteenth century mystics, 
 though it is largely counteracted by maxims of an 
 opposite kind. " God draws us," says Tauler, " in three 
 ways, first, by His creatures ; secondly, by His voice in 
 the soul, when an eternal truth mysteriously suggests 
 
 ^ Throughout the fourteenth century, and still more in the fifteenth, we 
 can trace an increasing prominence given to subjugation of the will in 
 mystical theology. This change is to be attributed partly to the influence 
 of the Nominalist science of Duns Scotus, which gradually gained (at least 
 in this point) the ascendancy over the school of Aquinas. It may be 
 described as a transition from the more speculative Mysticism towards 
 quietism. In the fourteenth century writings, such as the Theologia Ger- 
 manica, we merely welcome a new and valuable aspect of the religious life ; 
 but since the change is connected with a distrust of reason, and a return to 
 the standpoint of harsh legalism, we cannot regard it as an improvement. 
 
I 88 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 itself, as happens not infrequently in morning sleep." 
 (This is interesting, being evidently the record of 
 personal experience.) " Thirdly, without resistance or 
 means, when the will is quite subdued." " What is 
 given through means is tasteless ; it is seen through a 
 veil, and split up into fragments, and bears with it a 
 certain sting of bitterness." There are other passages 
 in which he is obviously under the influence of Dio- 
 nysius ; as when he speaks of" dying to all distinctions"; 
 in fact, he at times preaches " simplification " in an 
 unqualified form. But, on the other hand, no Christian 
 teachers have made more of the active will than these 
 pupils of Eckhart.^ " Ye are as holy as ye truly will to 
 be holy," says Ruysbroek. " With the will one may do 
 everything," we read in Tauler. And against the per- 
 version of the " negative road " he says, " we must lop 
 and prune vices, not nature, which is in itself good and 
 noble." And " Christ Himself never arrived at the 
 ' emptiness ' of which these men (the false mystics) 
 talk." Of contemplation he says, " Spiritual enjoy- 
 ments are the food of the soul, and are only to be 
 taken for nourishment and support to help us in our 
 active work." " Sloth often makes men fain to be 
 excused from their work and set to contemplation. 
 Never trust in a virtue that has not been put into 
 practice." These pupils of Eckhart all led strenuous 
 lives themselves, and were no advocates of pious 
 indolence. Tauler says, " Works of love are more 
 acceptable to God than lofty contemplation " : and, 
 " All kinds of skill are gifts of the Holy Ghost." 2 
 
 ^ Compare p. i6i, for similar teaching in Eckhart himself. 
 " See the quotation on p. 11, note. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 189 
 
 The process of deification is thus described by Ruys- 
 broek and by Tauler. Ruysbroek writes: " All men who 
 are exalted above their creatureliness into a contem- 
 plative life are one with this Divine glory — yea, are that 
 glory. And they see and feel and find in themselves, 
 by means of this Divine light, that they are the same 
 simple Ground as to their uncreated nature, since the 
 glory shineth forth without measure, after the Divine 
 manner, and abideth within them simply and without 
 mode, according to the simplicity of the essence. 
 Wherefore contemplative men should rise above reason 
 and distinction, beyond their created substance, and 
 gaze perpetually by the aid of their inborn light, and so 
 they become transformed, and one with the same light, 
 by means of which they see, and which they see. 
 Thus they arrive at that eternal image after which they 
 were created, and contemplate God and all things 
 without distinction, in a simple beholding, in Divine 
 glory. This is the loftiest and most profitable con- 
 templation to which men attain in this life." Tauler, 
 in his sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 
 says: " The kingdom is seated in the inmost recesses of 
 the spirit. When, through all manner of exercises, the 
 outward man has been converted into the inward 
 reasonable man, and thus the two, that is to say, the 
 powers of the senses and the powers of the reason, are 
 gathered up into the very centre of the man's being, — 
 the unseen depths of his spirit, wherein lies the image 
 of God, — and thus he flings himself into the Divine 
 Abyss, in which he dwelt eternally before he was 
 created ; then when God finds the man thus firmly 
 down and turned towards Him, the Godhead bends 
 
190 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 and nakedly descends into the depths of the pure 
 waiting soul, and transforms the created soul, drawing 
 it up into the uncreated essence, so that the spirit 
 becomes one with Him. Could such a man behold 
 himself, he would see himself so noble that he would 
 fancy himself God, and see himself a thousand 
 times nobler than he is in himself, and would per- 
 ceive all the thoughts and purposes, words and works, 
 and have all the knowledge of all men that ever 
 were." Suso and the German Theology use similar 
 language. 
 
 The idea of deification startles and shocks the 
 modern reader. It astonishes us to find that these 
 earnest and humble saints at times express themselves 
 in language which surpasses the arrogance even of the 
 Stoics, We feel that there must be something wrong 
 with a system which ends in obliterating the distinction 
 between the Creator and His creatures. We desire in 
 vain to hear some echo of Job's experience, so different 
 in tone : " I have heard Thee by the hearing of the ear, 
 but now mine eye seeth Thee ; therefore I abhor myself, 
 and repent in dust and ashes." The proper effect 
 of the vision of God is surely that which Augustine 
 describes in words already quoted : " I tremble, and 
 I burn. I tremble, in that I am unlike Him ; I burn, 
 in that I am like Him." Nor is this only the 
 beginner's experience : St. Paul had almost " finished 
 his course " when he called himself the chief of sinners. 
 The joy which uplifts the soul, when it feels the motions 
 of the Holy Spirit, arises from the fact that in such 
 moments " the spirit's true endowments stand out 
 plainly from its false ones " ; we then see the " counten- 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 191 
 
 ance of our genesis," as St, James calls it — the man or 
 woman that God meant us to be, and know that we 
 could not so see it if we were wholly cut off from its 
 realisation. But the clearer the vision of the ideal, the 
 deeper must be our self-abasement when we turn our 
 eyes to the actual. We must not escape from this 
 sharp and humiliating contrast by mentally annihilating 
 the self, so as to make it impossible to say, " Look 
 on this picture, and on thisT Such false humility 
 leads straight to its opposite — extreme arrogance. 
 Moreover, to regard deification as an accomplished 
 fact, involves, as I have said (p. 33), a contradiction. 
 The process of unification with the Infinite must be 
 a progressus ad infinitum. The pessimistic conclusion 
 is escaped by remembering that the highest reality 
 is supra-temporal, and that the destiny which God 
 has designed for us has not merely a contingent 
 realisation, but is in a sense already accomplished. 
 There are, in fact, two ways in which we may 
 abdicate our birthright, and surrender the prize of 
 our high calling : we may count ourselves already to 
 have apprehended, which must be a grievous delusion, 
 or we may resign it as unattainable, which is also a 
 delusion. 
 
 These truths were well known to Tauler and his 
 brother-mystics, who were saints as well as philo- 
 sophers. If they retained language which appears to 
 us so objectionable, it must have been because they 
 felt that the doctrine of union with God enshrined a 
 truth of great value. And if we remember the great 
 mystical paradox, " He that will lose his life shall save 
 it," we shall partly understand how they arrived at it. 
 
192 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 It is quite true that the nearer we approach to God, the 
 wider seems to yawn the gulf that separates us from 
 Him, till at last we feel it to be infinite. But does not 
 this conviction itself bring with it unspeakable com- 
 fort ? How could we be aware of that infinite distance, 
 if there were not something within us which can span 
 the infinite ? How could we feel that God and man 
 are incommensurable, if we had not the witness of 
 a higher self immeasurably above our lower selves ? 
 And how blessed is the assurance that this higher self 
 gives us access to a region where we may leave behind 
 not only external troubles and " the provoking of all 
 men," but" the strife of tongues " in our own hearts, the 
 chattering and growling of the " ape and tiger " within 
 us, the recurring smart of old sins repented of, and the 
 dragging weight of innate propensities ! In this state 
 the will, desiring nothing save to be conformed to the 
 will of God, and separating itself entirely from all lower 
 aims and wishes, claims the right of an immortal spirit 
 to attach itself to eternal truth alone, having nothing in 
 itself, and yet possessing all things in God, So Tauler 
 says, " Let a man lovingly cast all his thoughts and 
 cares, and his sins too, as it were, on that unknown 
 Will. O dear child ! in the midst of all these enmities 
 and dangers, sink thou into thy ground and nothing- 
 ness. Let the tower with all its bells fall on thee ; yea, 
 let all the devils in hell storm out upon thee ; let 
 heaven and earth and all the creatures assail thee, all 
 shall but marvellously serve thee ; sink thou into thy 
 nothingness, and the better part shall be thine." This 
 hope of a real transformation of our nature by the free 
 gift of God's grace is the only message of comfort 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 193 
 
 for those who are tied and bound by the chain of 
 their sins. 
 
 The error comes in, as I have said before, when we 
 set before ourselves the idea of God the Father, or of 
 the Absolute, instead of Christ, as the object of imita- 
 tion. Whenever we find such language as that quoted 
 from Ruysbroek, about " rising above all distinctions," 
 we may be sure that this error has been committed. 
 Mystics of all times would have done well to keep in 
 their minds a very happy phrase which Irenaeus quotes 
 froiti some unknown author, " He spoke well who said 
 that the infinite (immensum) Father is measured {inen- 
 suratuni) in the Son : mensura enini Patris Filiusr ^ 
 It is to this " measure," not to the immeasureable, that 
 we are bidden to aspire. 
 
 Eternity is, for Tauler, " the everlasting Now " ; but 
 in his popular discourses he uses the ordinary expres- 
 sions about future reward and punishment, even about 
 hell fire ; though his deeper thought is that the hope- 
 less estrangement of the soul from God is the source 
 of all the torments of the lost. 
 
 Love, says Tauler, is the " beginning, middle, and 
 end of virtue." Its essence is complete self-surrender. 
 We must lose ourselves in the love of God as a drop 
 of water is lost in the ocean. 
 
 It only remains to show how Tauler combats the 
 fantastic errors into which some of the German mystics 
 had fallen in his day. The author of the German 
 Theology is equally emphatic in his warnings against 
 the " false light " ; and Ruysbroek's denunciation of the 
 Brethren of the Free Spirit has already been quoted. 
 * Irenseus, Centra ffcer, iv, 6, 
 13 
 
194 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Tauler, in an interesting sermon,^ describes the heady 
 arrogance, disorderly conduct, and futile idleness of these 
 fanatics, and then gives the following maxims, by which 
 we may distinguish the false Mysticism from the true. 
 " Now let us know how we may escape these snares of 
 the enemy. No one can be free from the observance 
 of the laws of God and the practice of virtue. No one 
 can unite himself to God in emptiness without true love 
 and desire for God. No one can be holy without becom- 
 ing holy, without good works. No one may leave off 
 doing good works. No one may rest in God without love 
 for God. No one can be exalted to a stage which he has 
 not longed for or felt." Finally, he shows how the example 
 of Christ forbids all the errors which he is combating. 
 
 The Imitation of Christ has been so often spoken 
 of as the finest flower of Christian Mysticism, that it is 
 impossible to omit all reference to it in these Lectures. 
 And yet it is not, properly speaking, a mystical treatise. 
 It is the ripe fruit of mediaeval Christianity as concen- 
 trated in the life of the cloister, the last and best 
 legacy, in this kind, of a system which was already 
 decaying ; but we find in it hardly a trace of that 
 independence which made Eckhart a pioneer of modern 
 philosophy, and the fourteenth century mystics fore- 
 runners of the Reformation. Thomas a Kempis 
 preaches a Christianity of the heart \ but he does not 
 exhibit the distinguishing characteristics of Mysticism. 
 The title by which the book is known is really the title 
 of the first section only, and it does not quite accurately 
 describe the contents of the book. Throughout tlie 
 treatise we feel that we are reading a defence of th^ 
 
 ' No. 31, on Psaljn xci. 13. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 195 
 
 recluse and his scheme of life. Self-denial, renunciation 
 of the world, prayer and meditation, utter humility and 
 purity, are the road to a higher joy, a deeper peace, 
 than anything which the world can give us. There are 
 many sentences which remind us of the Roman Stoics, 
 whose main object was by detachment from the world 
 to render themselves invulnerable. Not that Thomas 
 a Kempis shrinks from bearing the Cross. The Cross 
 of Christ is always before him, and herein he is superior 
 to those mystics who speak only of the Incarnation. 
 But the monk of the fifteenth century was perhaps 
 more thrown back upon himself than his predecessors 
 in the fourteenth. The monasteries were no longer 
 such homes of learning and centres of activity as they 
 had been. It was no longer evident that the religious 
 orders were a benefit to civilisation. That indifference 
 to human interests, which we feel to be a weak spot in 
 mediaeval thought generally, and in the Neoplatonists 
 to whom mediaeval thought was so much indebted, 
 reaches its climax in Thomas a Kempis. Not only 
 does he distrust "and disparage all philosophy, from 
 Plato to Thomas Aquinas, but he shuns society and 
 conversation as occasions of sin, and quotes with 
 approval the pitiful epigram of Seneca, " Whenever I 
 have gone among men, I have returned home less of a 
 man." It is, after all, the life of the " shell-fish," as 
 Plato calls it, which he considers the best. The book 
 cannot safely be taken as a guide to the Christian life 
 as a whole. What we do find in it, set forth with 
 incomparable beauty and unstudied dignity, are the 
 Christian graces of humility, simplicity, and purity of 
 heart. 
 
196 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 It is very significant that the mystics, who had 
 undermined sacerdotalism, and in many other ways 
 prepared the Reformation, were shouldered aside when 
 the secession from Rome had to be organised. The 
 Lutheran Church was built by other hands. And yet 
 the mystics of Luther's generation, Carlstadt and 
 Sebastian Frank, are far from deserving the con- 
 temptuous epithets which Luther showered upon them. 
 Carlstadt endeavoured to deepen the Lutheran notion 
 of faith by bringing it into closer connexion with the 
 love of God to man and of man to God ; Sebastian 
 Frank developed the speculative system of Eckhart 
 and Tauler in an original -and interesting manner. 
 But speculative Mysticism is a powerful solvent, and 
 Protestant Churches are too ready to fall to pieces 
 even without it. " I will not even answer such men 
 as Frank," said Luther in 1545 ; "I despise them too 
 much. If my nose does not deceive me, he is an 
 enthusiast or spiritualist, who is content with nothing 
 but Spirit, spirit, spirit, and cares not at all for Bible, 
 Sacrament, or Preaching." The teaching which the 
 sixteenth century spurned so contemptuously was 
 almost identical with that of Eckhart and Tauler, 
 whose names were still revered. But it was not wanted 
 just then. It was not till the next generation, when 
 superstitious veneration for the letter of Scripture was 
 bringing back some of the evils of the unreformed 
 faith, that Mysticism in the person of Valentine Weigel 
 was able to resume its true task in the deepening 
 and spiritualising of religion in Germany, 
 
 But instead of following any further the course of 
 mystical theology in Germany, I wish to turn for a 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 197 
 
 few minutes to our own country. I am the more 
 ready to do so, because I have come across the state- 
 ment, repeated in many books, that England has been 
 a barren field for mystics. It is assumed that the 
 English character is alien to Mysticism — that we have 
 no sympathy, as a nation, for this kind of religion. 
 Some writers hint that it is because we are too 
 practical, and have too much common sense. The 
 facts do not bear out this view. There is no race, 
 I think, in which there is a richer vein of idealism, 
 and a deeper sense of the mystery of life, than our 
 own. In a later Lecture I hope to illustrate this 
 statement from our national poetry. Here I wish 
 to insist that even the Mysticism of the cloister, which 
 is the least satisfying to the energetic and independent 
 spirit of our countrymen, might be thoroughly and 
 adequately studied from the works of English mystics 
 alone. I will give two examples of this mediaeval 
 type. Both of them lived before the Reformation, 
 near the end of the fourteenth century ; but in them, 
 as in Tauler, we find very few traces of Romish error. 
 
 Walter Hilton or Hylton,^ a canon of Thurgarton, 
 was the author of a mystical treatise, called The Scale 
 {or Ladder) of Perfection. The following extracts, 
 which are given as far as possible in his own words, 
 will show in what manner he used the traditional 
 mystical theology. 
 
 ^ Hilton's book has been reprinted from the edition of 1659, with an 
 introduction by the Rev. J. B. Dalgairns. Very little is known about the 
 author's life, but his book was widely read, and was "chosen to be the 
 guide of good Christians in the courts of kings and in the world." The 
 mother of Henry VH. valued it very highly. I have also used Mr. Guy's 
 edition in my quotations from The Scale of Pe7-fectioii. 
 
198 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 There are two lives, the active and the contemplat- 
 ive, but in the latter there are many stages. The 
 highest state of contemplation a man cannot enjoy 
 always, " but only by times, when he is visited " ; 
 " and, as I gather from the writings of holy men, the 
 time of it is very short." " This part of contemplation 
 God giveth where He will." Visions and revelations, 
 of whatever kind, "are not true contemplation, but 
 merely secondary. The devil may counterfeit them " ; 
 and the only safeguard against these impostures is to 
 consider whether the visions have helped or hindered 
 us in devotion to God, humility, and other virtues. 
 
 " In the third stage of contemplation," he says finely, 
 " reason is turned into light, and will into love." 
 
 " Spiritual prayer," by which he means vocal prayer 
 not in set words, belongs to the second part of con- 
 templation. " It is very wasting to the body of him 
 who uses it much, wounding the soul with the blessed 
 sword of love." " The most vicious or carnal man on 
 earth, were he once strongly touched with this sharp 
 sword, would be right sober and grave for a great 
 while after." The highest kind of prayer of all is the 
 prayer of quiet, of which St. Paul speaks, " I will pray 
 with the understanding also." ^ But this is not for 
 all ; " a pure heart, indeed, it behoveth him to have 
 who would pray in this manner." 
 
 We must fix our affections first on the humanity of 
 Christ. Since our eyes cannot bear the unclouded 
 light of the Godhead, " we must live under the shadow 
 of His manhood as long as we are here below." St. 
 
 ' I Cor. xiv. 15. This text was also appealed to by the Quietists of the 
 post- Reformation period. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 199 
 
 Paul tells his converts that he first preached to them of 
 the humanity and passion of Christ, but afterwards of 
 the Godhead, how that Christ is the power and wisdom 
 of God.i 
 
 " Christ is lost, like the piece of money in the 
 parable ; but where ? In thy house, that is, in thy 
 soul. Thou needest not run to Rome or Jerusalem to 
 seek Him. He sleepeth in thy heart, as He did in the 
 ship ; awaken Him with the loud cry of thy desire. 
 Howbeit, I believe that thou sleepest oftener to Him 
 than He to thee." Put away " distracting noises," and 
 thou wilt hear Him. First, however, find the image 
 of sin, which thou bearest about with thee. It is no 
 todily thing, no real thing — only a lack of light and 
 love. It is a false, inordinate love of thyself, from 
 whence flow all the deadly sins. 
 
 " Fair and foul is a man's soul — foul without like a 
 beast, fair within like an angel." " But the sensual 
 man doth not bear about the image of sin, but is borne 
 by it." 
 
 The true light is love of God, the false light is love 
 of the world. But we must pass through darkness to 
 go from one to the other. " The darker the night is, 
 the nearer is the true day." This is the " darkness " 
 and " nothing " spoken of by the mystics, " a rich 
 nothing," when the soul is " at rest as to thoughts of 
 any earthly thing, but very busy about thinking of 
 God." " But the night passeth away ; the day 
 dawneth." " Flashes of light shine through the chinks 
 of the walls of Jerusalem ; but thou art not there yet." 
 
 ^ The texts to which he refers are those which Origen uses in the same 
 manner. Compare I Cor. i. 23, ii. 2, Gal. vi. 14, with i Cor. i. 24. 
 
200 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 " But now beware of the midday fiend, that feigneth 
 Hght as if it came from Jerusalem. This light appears 
 between two black rainy clouds, whereof the upper one 
 is presumption and self-exaltation, and the lower a 
 disdaining of one's neighbour. This is not the light of 
 the true sun." This darkness, through which we must 
 pass, is simply the death of self-will and all carnal 
 affections ; it is that dying to the world which is the 
 only gate of life. 
 
 The way in which Hilton conceives the " truly 
 mystical darkness " of Dionysius is very interesting. 
 As a psychical experience, it has its place in the history 
 of the inner life. The soul does enter into darkness, 
 and the darkness is not fully dispelled in this world ; 
 " thou art not there yet," as he says. But the 
 psychical experience is in Hilton entirely dissociated 
 from the metaphysical idea of absorption into the 
 Infinite. The chains of Asiatic nihilism are now 
 at last shaken off, easily and, it would seem, uncon- 
 sciously. The " darkness " is felt to be only the herald 
 of a brighter dawn : " the darker the night, the nearer 
 is the true day." It is, I think, gratifying to observe 
 how our countryman strikes off the fetters of the time- 
 honoured Dionysian tradition, the paralysing creed 
 which blurs all distinctions, and the " negative road " 
 which leads to darkness and not light ; and how in 
 consequence his Mysticism is sounder and saner than 
 even that of Eckhart or Tauler. Before leaving Hilton, 
 it may be worth while to quote two or three isolated 
 maxims of his, as examples of his wise and pure 
 doctrine. 
 
 " There are two ways of knowing God — one chiefly 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 201 
 
 by the imagination, the other by the understanding. 
 The understanding is the mistress, and the imagination 
 is the maid." 
 
 " What is heaven to a reasonable soul ? Nought 
 else but Jesus God." 
 
 " Ask of God nothing but this gift of love, which 
 is the Holy Ghost. For there is no gift of God that 
 is both the giver and the gift, but this gift of love." 
 
 My other example of English Mysticism in the 
 Middle Ages is Julian or Juliana of Norwich,^ to whom 
 were granted a series of " revelations " in the year 
 1373) she being then about thirty years old. She 
 describes with evident truthfulness the manner in which 
 the visions came to her. She ardently desired to have 
 a " bodily sight " of her Lord upon the Cross, " like 
 other that were Christ's lovers " ; and she prayed that 
 she might have "a grievous sickness almost unto death," 
 to wean her from the world and quicken her spiritual 
 sense. The sickness came, and the vision ; for they 
 thought her dying, and held the crucifix before her, till 
 the figure on the Cross changed into the semblance of 
 the living Christ. " All this was showed by three 
 parts — that is to say, by bodily sight, and by words 
 formed in my understanding, and by ghostly sight." - 
 
 ^Julian (1343-I443?) was probably a Benedictine nun of Carrow, near 
 Norwich, but lived for the greater part of her life in an anchorage in the 
 churchyard of St. Julian at Norwich. There is a copy of her Revelations 
 in the British Museum. Editions by Cressy, 1670 ; reprint issued 1843 ; 
 by Collins, 1877, See, further, in the Dictionary of National Biography. 
 In my quotations from her, I have used an unpublished version kindly 
 lent me by Miss G. II. Warrack. It is just so far modernised as to be in- 
 telligible to those who are not familiar with fourteenth century English. 
 
 -This was a recognised classification. Scaramelli says, " Le visioni 
 corporee sono favori propri dei principianti, che incomminciano a cam- 
 minare nella via dello spirito. . . . Le visioni immaginari sono proprie 
 
202 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 " But the ghostly sight I cannot nor may not show it 
 as openly nor as fully as I would." Her later visions 
 came to her sometimes during sleep, but most often 
 when she was awake. The most pure and certain 
 were wrought by a " Divine illapse " into the spiritual 
 part of the soul, the mind and understanding, for these 
 the devil cannot counterfeit. Juliana was certainly per- 
 fectly honest and perfectly sane. The great charm of 
 her little book is the sunny hopefulness and happiness 
 which shines from every page, and the tender affection 
 for her suffering Lord which mingles with her devotion 
 without ever becoming morbid or irreverent. It is 
 also interesting to see how this untaught maiden (for 
 she shows no traces of book learning) is led by the 
 logic of the heart straight to some of the speculative 
 doctrines which we have found in the philosophical 
 mystics. The brief extracts which follow will illustrate 
 all these statements. 
 
 The crucified Christ is the one object of her devo- 
 tion. She refused to listen to " a proffer in my 
 reason," which said, " Look up to heaven to His 
 Father." " Nay, I may not," she replied, " for Thou 
 art my heaven. For I would liever have been in that 
 pain till Doomsday than to come to heaven otherwise 
 than by Him." " Me liked none other heaven than 
 
 dei principianti e dei pioficienti, che non sono ancor bene purgati. . . . 
 Le visioni intellectuali sono proprie di quelli che si trovano gia in istato 
 di perfezione." It comes originally from St. Augustine {De Gen. ad litt. 
 xii. 7, n. 16): " Hsec sunt tria genera visionum. . . . Primum ergo 
 appellemus corporale, quia per corpus percipitur, et corporis sensibus ex- 
 hibetur. Secundum spirituale : quidquid eniin corpus non est, et tamen 
 aliquid est, iam recte dicitur spiritus ; et utique non est corpus, quamvis 
 corpori similis sit, imago absentis corporis, nee iile ipse obtutus quo 
 cernitur. Tertium vero intellecluale, ab intellectu." 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 203 
 
 Jesus, which shall be my bliss when I come there." 
 And after describing a vision of the crucifixion, she 
 says, " How might any pain be more than to see Him 
 that is all my life and all my bliss suffer ? " 
 
 Her estimate of the value of means of grace is very 
 clear and sound. " In that time the custom of our 
 praying was brought to mind, how we use, for lack 
 of understanding and knowing of love, to make [use 
 of] many means. Then saw I truly that it is more 
 worship to God and more very delight that we faith- 
 fully pray to Himself of His goodness, and cleave 
 thereto by His grace, with true understanding and 
 steadfast by love, than if we made [use of] all the 
 means that heart can think. For if we made [use of] 
 all these means, it is too little, and not full worship 
 to God ; but in His goodness is all the whole, and 
 there faileth right nought. For this, as I shall say, 
 came into my mind. In the same time we pray to 
 God for [the sake of] His holy flesh and precious 
 blood, His holy passion, His dearworthy death and 
 wounds : and all the blessed kinship, the endless life 
 that we have of all this, is His goodness. And we 
 pray Him for [the sake of] His sweet mother's love, 
 that Him bare ; and all the help that we have of her 
 is of His goodness." And yet " God of His goodness 
 hath advanced means to help us, full fair and many ; 
 of which the chief and principal mean is the blessed 
 nature that He took of the maid, with all the means 
 that go afore and come after which belong to our 
 redemption and to endless salvation. Wherefore it 
 pleaseth Him that we seek Him and worship Him 
 through means, understanding and knowing that He is 
 
204 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 the goodness of all. For the goodness of God is the 
 highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part 
 of our need. It quickeneth our soul, and bringeth it 
 on life, and maketh it for to wax in grace and virtue. 
 It is nearest in nature and readiest in grace ; for it is 
 the same grace that the soul seeketh, and ever shall 
 seek till we know verily that He hath us all in Himself 
 beclosed." 
 
 " After this our Lord showed concerning Prayers. 
 In which showing I see two conditions signified by our 
 Lord ; one is rightfulness, another is assured trust. 
 But oftentimes our trust is not full ; for we are not 
 sure that God heareth us, as we think because of our 
 un worthiness, and because we feel right nought ; for we 
 are as barren and dry oftentimes after our prayers as 
 we were before. . . . But our Lord said to me, ' I am 
 the ground of thy beseechings : first, it is My will that 
 thou have it ; and then I make thee to wish for it ; 
 and then I make thee to beseech it, and thou be- 
 seechest it. How then should it be that thou shouldest 
 not have thy beseeching ? ' . . . For it is most impos- 
 sible that we should beseech mercy and grace and not 
 have it. For all things that our good Lord maketh us 
 to beseech. Himself hath ordained them to us from 
 without beginning. Here may we see that our be- 
 seeching is not the cause of God's goodness ; and that 
 showed He soothfastly in all these sweet words which 
 He saith : ' I am the ground.' And our good Lord 
 willeth that this be known of His lovers in earth ; and 
 the more that we know it the more should we beseech, 
 if it be wisely taken ; and so is our Lord's meaning. 
 Merry and joyous is our Lord of our prayer, and He 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 205 
 
 looketh for it ; and He vvilleth to have it ; because 
 with His grace He would have us like to Himself in 
 condition as we are in kind. Therefore saith He to 
 us, * Pray inwardly, although thou think it has no 
 savour to thee : for it is profitable, though thou feel 
 not, though thou see not, yea, though thou think thou 
 canst not,' " 
 
 " And also to prayer belongeth thanksgiving. Thanks- 
 giving is a true inward knowing, with great reverence 
 and lovely dread turning ourselves with all our mights 
 unto the working that our good Lord stirreth us to, 
 rejoicing and thanking inwardly. And sometimes for 
 plenteousness it breaketh out with voice and saith : 
 Good Lord ! great thanks be to Thee : blessed mote 
 Thou be." 
 
 - " Prayer is a right understanding of that fulness of 
 joy that is to come, with great longing and certain 
 trust. . . . Then belongeth it to us to do our diligence, 
 and when we have done it, then shall we yet think 
 that it is nought ; and in sooth it is. But if we do as 
 we can, and truly ask for mercy and grace, all that 
 faileth us we shall find in Him. And thus meaneth 
 He where He saith : ' I am the ground of thy beseech- 
 ing.' And thus in this blessed word, with the Showing, 
 I saw a full overcoming against all our weakness and 
 all our doubtful dreads." 
 
 Juliana's view of human personality is remarkable, 
 as it reminds us of the Neoplatonic doctrine that there 
 is a higher and a lower self, of which the former is 
 untainted by the sins of the latter. " I saw and 
 understood full surely," she says, " that in every soul 
 that shall be saved there is a godly will that never 
 
2o6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 assented to sin, nor ever shall ; which will is so good 
 that it may never work evil, but evermore continually 
 it willeth good, and worketh good in the sight of 
 God. . . . We all have this blessed will whole and 
 safe in our Lord Jesus Christ." This " godly will " or 
 " substance " corresponds to the spark of the German 
 mystics. 
 
 " I saw no difference," she says, " between God and 
 our substance, but, as it were, all God. And yet my 
 understanding took, that our substance is in God — 
 that is to say, that God is God, and our substance a 
 creature in God. Highly ought we to enjoy that God 
 dwelleth in our soul, and much more highly, that our 
 soul dwelleth in God. . . . Thus was my understanding 
 led to know, that our soul is made Trinity, like to the 
 unmade Blessed Trinity, known and loved from with- 
 out beginning, and in the making oned to the Maker. 
 This sight was full sweet and marvellous to behold, 
 peaceable and restful, sure and delectable." 
 
 " As anent our substance and our sense-part, both 
 together may rightly be called our soul ; and that is 
 because of the oneing that they have in God. The 
 worshipful City that our Lord Jesus sitteth in, it is 
 our sense-soul, in which He is enclosed, and our natural 
 substance is beclosed in Jesus, sitting with the blessed 
 soul of Christ at rest in the Godhead." Our soul can- 
 not reach its full powers until our sense-nature by the 
 virtue of Christ's passion be " brought up to the sub- 
 stance." This fulfilment of the soul " is grounded in 
 nature. That is to say, our reason is grounded in 
 God, which is substantial Naturehood ; out of this 
 substantial Nature mercy and grace spring and spread 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 207 
 
 into us, working all things in fulfilling of our joy: 
 these are our ground, in which we have our increase 
 and our fulfilling. For in nature we have our life and 
 our being, and in mercy and grace we have our increase 
 and our fulfilling." 
 
 In one of her visions she was shown our Lord 
 •' scorning the fiend's malice, and noughting his un- 
 might," " For this sight I laught mightily, and that 
 made them to laugh that were about me. But I saw 
 not Christ laugh. After this I fell into graveness, 
 and said, ' I see three things : I see' game, scorn, and 
 earnest. I see game, that the fiend is overcome ; I see 
 scorn, in that God scorneth him, and he shall be 
 scorned ; and I see earnest, in that he is overcome by 
 the blissful passion and death of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, that was done in full earnest and with sober 
 travail.' " 
 
 Alternations of mirth and sadness followed each 
 other many times, " to learn me that it is speedful to 
 some souls to feel on this wise." Once especially she 
 was left to herself, " in heaviness and weariness of my 
 life, and irksomeness of myself, that scarcely I could 
 have pleasure to live. . . . For profit of a man's soul 
 he is sometimes left to himself; although sin is not 
 always the cause ; for in that time I sinned not, where- 
 fore I should be so left to myself ; for it was so sudden. 
 Also, I deserved not to have this blessed feeling. But 
 freely our Lord giveth when He will, and sufifereth us 
 to be in woe sometime. And both is one love." 
 
 Her treatment of the problem of evil is very char- 
 acteristic. "In my folly, often I wondered why the 
 beginning of sin was not letted ; but Jesus, in this 
 
2o8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 vision, answered and said, ' Sin is behovable,i but all 
 shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of 
 thing shall be well.' In this naked word sin our Lord 
 brought to my mind generally all that is not good. . . . 
 But I saw not sin ; for I believe it had no manner of sub- 
 stance, nor any part of being, nor might it be known 
 but by the pain that is caused thereof ; and this pain . . . 
 purgeth and maketh us to know ourself, and ask mercy. 
 In these same words (* all shall be well ') I saw an high 
 and marvellous privity hid in God." She wondered 
 how " all shall be well," when Holy Church teacheth 
 us to believe that many shall be lost. But " I had 
 no other answer but this, ' I shall save my word in all 
 things, and I shall make all thing well. ' " " This is 
 the great deed that our Lord God shall do ; but what 
 the deed shall be, and how it shall be done, there is 
 no creature beneath Christ that knoweth it, ne shall 
 wit it till it is done." 
 
 " I saw no wrath but on man's party," she says, 
 " and that forgiveth He in us. It is the most impos- 
 sible that may be, that God should be wroth. . . . Our 
 life is all grounded and rooted in love. . . . Suddenly 
 is the soul oned to God, when it is truly peaced in 
 itself; for in Him is found no wrath. And thus I 
 saw, when we be all in peace and love, we find no 
 contrariousness, nor no manner of letting, through that 
 contrariousness which is now in us ; nay, our Lord God 
 of His goodness maketh it to us full profitable." No 
 visions of hell were ever showed to her. In place 
 of the hideous details of torture which some of the 
 Romish visionaries describe almost with relish, Juliana 
 
 * That is, " necessary" or "profitable." 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 209 
 
 merely reports, " To me was showed none harder hell 
 than sin." 
 
 Again , and again she rings the changes on the 
 words which the Lord said to her, " I love thee and 
 thou lovest Me, and our love shall never be disparted 
 in two." " The love wherein He made us was in Him 
 from without beginning ; in which love," she concludes, 
 " we have our beginning, and all this shall be seen in 
 God without end." 
 
 U 
 
LECTURE VI 
 
 BU 
 
" O heart, the equal poise of Love's both parts, 
 Big alike with wounds and darts, 
 Live in these conquering leaves, live still the same, 
 And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame ! 
 Live here, great heart, and love and die and kill. 
 And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still. 
 Let this immortal life, where'er it comes. 
 Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms. 
 Let mystic deaths wait on it, and wise souls be 
 The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee. 
 O sweet incendiary ! show here thy art 
 Upon this carcase of a hard, cold heart ; 
 Let all thy scattered shafts of light, that play 
 Among the leaves of thy large books of day, 
 Combined against this breast at once break in, 
 And take away from rne myself and sin ; 
 This glorious robbery shall thy bounty be. 
 And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me. 
 O thou undaunted daughter of desires ! 
 By all thy dower of lights and fires, 
 By all the eagle in thee, all the dove, 
 By all thy lives and deaths of love, 
 By thy large draughts of intellectual day, 
 And by thy thirsts of love more large than they ; 
 By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire. 
 By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire. 
 By the full kingdom of that final kiss 
 That seized thy parting soul and seal'd thee His ; 
 By all the heavens thou hast in Him, 
 Fair sister of the seraphim ! 
 By all of Him we have in Thee, 
 Leave nothing of myself in me : 
 Let me so read thy life, that I 
 Unto all life of mine may die." 
 
 Crashaw, On SL Teresa. 
 
 "In a dark night, 
 Burning with ecstasies wherein I fell. 
 
 Oh happy plight. 
 Unheard I left the house wherein I dwell. 
 The inmates sleeping peacefully and well. 
 
 Secure from sight ; 
 By unknown ways, in unknown robes concealed. 
 
 Oh happy plight ; 
 And to no eye revealed, 
 My home in sleep as in the tomb was sealed. 
 
 Sweet night, in whose blessed fold 
 
 No human eye beheld me, and mine eye 
 
 None could behold. 
 Only for Guide had I 
 His Face whom I desired so ardently." 
 
 St. Juan ok the Cross (translated by Hutchings). 
 
LFXTURE VI 
 
 Practical and Devotional Mysticism — continued 
 
 "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth 
 that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth : but God is the 
 strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." — Ps. Ixxiii. 25, 26. 
 
 We have seen that the leaders of the Reformation in 
 Germany thrust aside speculative Mysticism with im- 
 patience. Nor did Christian Platonism fare much 
 better in the Latin countries. There were students of 
 Plotinus in Italy in the sixteenth century, who fancied 
 that a revival of humane letters, and a better acquaint- 
 ance with philosophy, were the best means of combating 
 the barbaric enthusiasms of the North. But these 
 Italian Neoplatonists had, for the most part, no deep 
 religious feelings, and they did not exhibit in their lives 
 that severity which the Alexandrian philosophers had 
 practised. And so, when Rome had need of a Catholic 
 mystical revival to stem the tide of Protestantism, she 
 could not find what she required among the scholars 
 and philosophers of the Papal court. The Mysticism 
 of the counter-Reformation had its centre in Spain. 
 
 It has been said that " Mysticism is the philosophy of 
 Spain." ^ This does not mean that idealistic philosophy 
 flourished in the Peninsula, for the Spanish race has 
 never shown any taste for metaphysics. The Mysticism 
 
 ^ Rousselot, Les Mystiques Espagnols, p. 3. 
 213 
 
2 14 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 of Spain is psychological ; its point of departure is not 
 the notion of Being or of Unity, but the human soul 
 seeking reconcilation with God. We need not be on 
 our guard against pantheism in reading the Spanish 
 mystics ; they show no tendency to obliterate the divid- 
 ing lines of personality, or to deify sinful humanity. The 
 cause of this peculiarity is to be sought partly in the 
 strong individualism of the Spanish character, and partly 
 in external circumstances.^ Free thought in Spain was 
 so sternly repressed, that those tendencies of mystical 
 religion which are antagonistic to Catholic discipline 
 were never allowed to display themselves. The Spanish 
 mystics remained orthodox Romanists, subservient to 
 their " directors " and " superiors," and indefatigable in 
 making recruits for the cloister. Even so, they did not 
 escape the attention of the Inquisition; and though 
 two among them, St. Teresa and St. Juan of the Cross, 
 were awarded the badge of sanctity, the fate of Molinos 
 showed how Rome had come to dread even the most 
 submissive mystics. 
 
 The early part of the sixteenth century was a period 
 of high culture in Spain. The universities of Salamanca 
 and Alcala were famous throughout Europe ; the former 
 is said (doubtless with great exaggeration) to have 
 contained at one time fourteen thousand students. But 
 the Inquisition, which had been founded to suppress 
 Jews and Mahometans, was roused to a more baneful 
 activity by the appearance of Protestantism in Spain. 
 Before the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish 
 
 ^ Among the latter must be mentioned the growth of Scotist Nominalism, 
 on which see a note on p. 187. Ritschl was the first to point out how 
 strongly Nominalism influenced the later Mysticism, by giving it its quiet- 
 istic character. See Harnack, History of Dogma (Eng. tr. ), vol. vi. p. 107. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 215 
 
 people, who up to that time had been second to none 
 in love of Hberty and many-sided energy, had been 
 changed into sombre fanatics, sunk in ignorance and 
 superstition, and retaining hardly a trace of their former 
 buoyancy and healthy independence.^ The first Index 
 Expurgatorius vfdiS published in 1546; the burning of 
 Protestants began in 1559. Till then, Eckhart, Tauler, 
 Suso, and Ruysbroek had circulated freely in Spain. 
 But the Inquisition condemned them all, except 
 Ruysbroek. The same rigour was extended to the 
 Arabian philosophers, and so their speculations in- 
 fluenced Spanish theology much less than might have 
 been expected from the long sojourn of the Moors 
 in the Peninsula. Averroism was known in Spain 
 chiefly through the medium of the Fons Vitce of Ibn 
 Gebirol (Avicebron). Dionysius and the scholastic 
 mystics of the Middle Ages were, of course, allowed 
 to be read. But besides these, the works of Plato 
 and Plotinus were accessible in Latin translations, and 
 were highly valued by some of the Spanish mystics. 
 This statement may surprise those who have identified 
 Spanish Mysticism with Teresa and Juan of the Cross, 
 and who know how little Platonism is to be found in 
 their theology. But these two militant champions of 
 the counter-Reformation numbered among their con- 
 temporaries mystics of a different type, whose writings, 
 little known in this country, entitle them to an honour- 
 able place in the roll of Christian Platonists. 
 
 ^ Cf. the beginning of the Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, corregida y eme7i- 
 dada por Jumt de Luna {P&ns, 1620). "The ignorance of the Spaniards 
 is excusable. The Inquisitors are the cause. They are dreaded, not only by 
 the people, but by the great lords, to such an extent that the mere mention 
 of the Inquisition makes every head tremble like a leaf in the wind," 
 
2i6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 We find in them most of the characteristic doctrines 
 of Christian Neoplatonism : the radiation of all things 
 from God and their return to God ; the immanence of 
 God in all things ; ^ the notion of man as a microcosm, 
 vitally connected with all the different orders of creation ;2 
 the Augustinian doctrine of Christ and His members as 
 "one Christ " ; ^ insistence upon disinterested love ; * and 
 admonitions to close the eye of sense.^ This last precept, 
 which, as I have maintained, is neither true Platonism 
 nor true Mysticism, must be set against others in which 
 the universe is said to be a copy of the Divine Ideas, 
 " of which Plotinus has spoken divinely," the creation of 
 Love, which has given form to chaos, and stamped it 
 with the image of the Divine beauty ; and in which 
 we are exhorted to rise through the contemplation of 
 nature to God.*' Juan de Angelis, in his treatise on 
 
 ^ Pedro Malon de Chaide : " Las cosas en Dios son mismo Dies." 
 
 ^ Alejo Venegas in Rousselot, p. 78 : Louis de Leon, who is indebted to 
 
 the Fotis VitcE. 
 
 ^ Louis de Leon : " The members and the head are one Christ." 
 
 * Diego de Stella affirms the mystic paradox, that it is better to be in 
 
 hell with Christ than in glory without Him {Medit. iii. ). 
 
 ^Juan d'Avila : "Let us put a veil between ourselves and all created 
 
 things." 
 
 ^ This side of Platonism appears in Pedro Malon, and especially in 
 
 Louis de Granada. Compare also the beautiful ode of Louis de Leon, 
 
 entitled "Noche Serena," where the eternal peace of the starry heavens is 
 
 contrasted with the turmoil of the world — 
 
 " Quien es el que esto mira, 
 
 Y precia la bajeza de la tierra, 
 
 Y no gime y suspira 
 
 Y rompe lo que encierra 
 
 El alma, y destos bienes la destierra ? 
 
 Aqui vive al contento, 
 
 Aqui reina la paz, aqui asentado 
 
 En rico y alto asiento 
 
 Esta el amor sagrado 
 
 De glorias y deleites rodeado." 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 217 
 
 the spiritual nuptials, quotes freely, not only from 
 Plato, Plotinus, and Virgil, but from Lucretius, Ovid, 
 Tibullus, and Martial. 
 
 But this kind of humanism was frowned upon by the 
 Church, in Spain as elsewhere. These were not the 
 weapons with which Lutheranism could be fought 
 successfully. Juan d'Avila was accused before the 
 Inquisition in 1534, and one of his books was placed 
 on the Index of 1559 ; Louis de Granada had to take 
 refuge in Portugal ; Louis de Leon, who had the 
 courage to say that the Song of Solomon is only a 
 pastoral idyll, was sent to a dungeon for five years.^ 
 Even St. Teresa narrowly escaped imprisonment at 
 Seville ; and St. Juan of the Cross passed nine months 
 in a black hole at Toledo. 
 
 Persecution, when applied with sufficient ruthlessness, 
 seldom fails of its immediate object. It took only 
 about twelve years to destroy Protestantism in Spain ; 
 and the Holy Office was equally successful in binding 
 Mysticism hand and foot.^ And so we must not 
 expect to find in St. Teresa or St. Juan any of the 
 characteristic independence of Mysticism. The inner 
 light which they sought was not an illumination of the 
 intellect in its search for truth, but a consuming fire to 
 
 ^ After his release he was suflered to resume his lectures. A crowd of 
 sympathisers assembled to hear his first utterance ; but he began quietly 
 with his usual formula, " Deciamos ahora," " We were saying just now." 
 
 " The heresy of the " Alombrados " (lUuminati), which appeared in the 
 sixteenth century, and was ruthlessly crushed by the Inquisition, belonged 
 to the familiar type of degenerate Mysticism. Its adherents taught that 
 the prayers of the Church were worthless, the only true piayer being a 
 kind of ecstasy, without words or mental images. The " illuminated " need 
 no sacraments, and can commit no sins. The mystical union once achieved 
 is an abiding possession. There was another outbreak of the same errors 
 in 1623, and a corresponding sect of Illumines in Southern France. 
 
2i8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 burn up all earthly passions and desires. Faith pre- 
 sented them with no problems ; all such questions had 
 been settled once for all by Holy Church. They were 
 ascetics first and Church Reformers next ; neither of 
 them was a typical mystic.^ 
 
 The life of St. Teresa ^ is more interesting than her 
 teaching. She had all the best qualities of her noble 
 Castilian ancestors — simplicity, straightforwardness, 
 and dauntless courage ; and the record of her self- 
 denying life is enlivened by numerous flashes of 
 humour, which make her character more lovable. She 
 is best known as a visionary, and it is mainly through 
 her visions that she is often regarded as one of the 
 most representative mystics. But these visions do not 
 occupy a very large space in the story of her life. They 
 were frequent during the first two or three years of her 
 convent life, and again between the ages of forty and 
 fifty : there was a long gap between the two periods, 
 and during the last twenty years of her life, when she 
 was actively engaged in founding and visiting religious 
 houses, she saw them no more. This experience was 
 that of many other saints of the cloister. Spiritual 
 consolations seem to be frequently granted to encourage 
 young beginners ; ^ then they are withdrawn, and only 
 recovered after a long period of dryness and darkness ; 
 
 ^ The real founder of Spanish quietistic Mysticism was Pedro of Alcantara 
 (d. 1562). He was confessor to Teresa. Teresa is also indebted to Fran- 
 cisco de Osuna, in whose writings the principles of quietism are clearly 
 taught. Cf. Heppe, Geschichie der quietistichen Mystik, p. 9. 
 
 ^ The fullest and best account of St. Teresa is in Mrs. Cunninghame 
 Graham's Life and Times of Satita Teresa (2 vols. )■ 
 
 •^ " Ws. in-.nginarice visiones regulariter eveniunt vel incipientibus vel 
 proficientibus nondum bene purgatis, ut communiter tenent mystse " 
 {Lticern. Myst. Tract, v. 3). 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 219 
 
 but in later life, when the character is fixed, and the 
 imagination less active, the vision fades into the light 
 of common day. In considering St. Teresa's visions, 
 we must remember that she was transparently honest 
 and sincere ; that her superiors strongly disliked and 
 suspected, and her enemies ridiculed, her spiritual 
 privileges ; that at the same time they brought her 
 great fame and influence ; that she was at times 
 haunted by doubts whether she ever really saw them ; 
 and, lastly, that her biographers have given them a 
 more grotesque and materialistic character than is 
 justified by her own descriptions. 
 
 She tells us herself that her reading of St. Augustine's 
 Confessions, at the age of forty-one, was a turning-point in 
 her life. " When I came to his conversion," she says, 
 " and read how he heard the voice in the garden, it 
 was just as if the Lord called me." It was after this 
 that she began again to see visions — or rather to have 
 a sudden sense of the presence of God, with a suspen- 
 sion of all the faculties. In these trances she generally 
 heard Divine " locutions." She says that *' the words 
 were very clearly formed, and unmistakable, though not 
 heard by the bodily ear. They are quite unlike the 
 words framed by the imagination, which are muffled " 
 {cosa sorda). She describes her visions of Christ very 
 carefully. First He stood beside her while she was 
 in prayer, and she heard and saw Him, " though not 
 with the eyes of the body, nor of the soul." Then 
 by degrees " His sacred humanity was completely 
 manifested to me, as it is painted after the Resur- 
 rection." (This last sentence suggests that sacred 
 pictures, lovingly gazed at, may have been the source 
 
220 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 of some of her visions.) Her superiors tried to per- 
 suade her that they were delusions ; but she replied, 
 "If they who said this told me that a person who had 
 just finished speaking to me, whom I knew well, was 
 not that person, but they knew that I fancied it, doubt- 
 less I should believe them, rather than what I had 
 seen ; but if this person left behind him some jewels 
 as pledges of his great love, and I found myself rich 
 having been poor, I could not believe it if I wished. 
 And these jewels I could show them. For all who 
 knew me saw clearly that my soul was changed ; the 
 difference was great and palpable." The answer shows 
 that for Teresa the question was not whether the 
 manifestations were " subjective " or " objective," but 
 whether they were sent by God or Satan. 
 
 One of the best chapters in her autobiography, and 
 perhaps the most interesting from our present point 
 of view, is the allegory under which she describes the 
 different kinds of prayer. The simile is not original — it 
 appears in St. Augustine and others ; but it is more fully 
 worked out by St. Teresa, who tells us " it has always 
 been a great delight to me to think of my soul as a 
 garden, and of the Lord as walking in it." So here she 
 says, " Our soul is like a garden, rough and unfruitful, 
 out of which God plucks the weeds, and plants flowers, 
 which we have to water by prayer. There are four 
 ways of doing this — First, by drawing the water from a 
 well ; this is the earliest and most laborious process. 
 Secondly, by a water-wheel which has its rim hung 
 round with little buckets. Third, by causing a stream 
 to flow through it. Fourth, by rain from heaven. 
 The first is ordinary prayer, which is often attended 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 221 
 
 by great sweetness and comfort. But sometimes the 
 well is dry. What then ? The love of God does not 
 consist in being able to weep, nor yet in delights 
 and tenderness, but in serving with justice, courage, 
 and humility. The other seems to me rather to 
 receive than to give. The second is the prayer of 
 quiet, when the soul understands that God is so near 
 to her that she need not talk aloud to Him." In this 
 stage the Will is absorbed, but the Understanding and 
 Memory are still active. (Teresa, following the scho- 
 lastic mystics, makes these the three faculties of the 
 soul.) In the third stage God becomes, as it were, 
 the Gardener. " It is a sleep of the faculties, which 
 are not entirely suspended, nor yet do they understand 
 how they work." In the fourth stage, the soul labours 
 not at all ; all the faculties are quiescent. As she 
 pondered how she might describe this state, " the 
 Lord said these words to me : She (the soul) unmakes 
 herself, my daughter, to bring herself closer to Me. 
 It is no more she that lives, but I. As she cannot 
 comprehend what she sees, understanding she ceases to 
 understand." Years after she had attained this fourth 
 stagQ, Teresa experienced what the mystics call " the 
 great dereliction," a sense of ineffable loneliness and 
 desolation, which nevertheless is the path to incomparable 
 happiness. It was accompanied by a kind of catalepsy, 
 with muscular rigidity and cessation of the pulses. 
 
 These intense joys and sorrows of the spirit are the 
 chief events of Teresa's life for eight or ten years. 
 They are followed by a period of extreme practical 
 activity, when she devoted herself to organising com- 
 munities of bare-footed Carmelites, whose austerity 
 
222 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 and devotion were to revive the glories of primitive 
 Christianity. In this work she showed not only 
 energy, but worldly wisdom and tact in no common 
 degree. Her visions had certainly not impaired her 
 powers as an organiser and ruler of men and women. 
 Her labours continued without intermission till, at the 
 age of sixty-seven, she was struck down by her last 
 illness. " This saint will be no longer wanted," she 
 said, with a sparkle of her old vivacity, when she knew 
 that she was to die. 
 
 It is not worth while to give a detailed account of 
 St. Teresa's mystical theology. Its cardinal points are 
 that the religious life consists in complete conformity 
 to the will of God, so that at last the human will 
 becomes purely " passive " and " at rest " ; and the 
 belief in Christ as the sole ground of salvation, on 
 which subject she uses language which is curiously like 
 that of the Lutheran Reformers. Her teaching about 
 passivity and the " prayer of quiet " is identical with 
 that which the Pope afterwards condemned in Molinos ; 
 but it is only fair to remember that Teresa was not 
 canonised for her theology, but for her life, and that 
 the Roman Church is not committed to every doctrine 
 which can be found in the writings of her saints. The 
 real character of St. Teresa's piety may be seen best 
 in some of her prayers, such as this which follows : — 
 
 " O Lord, how utterly different are Thy thoughts 
 from our thoughts ! From a soul which is firmly 
 resolved to love Thee alone, and which has surrendered 
 her whole will into Thy hands, Thou demandest only 
 that she should hearken, strive earnestly to serve Thee, 
 and desire only to promote Thine honour. She need 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 223 
 
 seek and choose no path, for Thou doest that for her, 
 and her will follows Thine ; while Thou, O Lord, takest 
 care to bring her to fuller perfection." 
 
 In theory, it may not be easy to reconcile " earnest 
 striving " with complete surrender and abrogation of 
 the will, but the logic of the heart does not find them 
 incompatible. Perhaps no one has spoken better on 
 this matter than the Rabbi Gamaliel, of whom it is 
 reported that he prayed, " O Lord, grant that I may 
 do Thy will as if it were my will, that Thou mayest do 
 my will as if it were Thy will." But quietistic Mysti- 
 cism often puts the matter on a wrong basis. Self- 
 will is to be annihilated, not (as St. Teresa sometimes 
 implies) because our thoughts are so utterly different 
 from God's thoughts that they cannot exist in the 
 same mind, but because self-interest sets up an 
 unnatural antagonism between them. The will, like 
 the other faculties, only realises itself in its fulness 
 when God worketh in us both to will and to do of 
 His good pleasure. 
 
 St. Juan of the Cross, the fellow-workman of St. 
 Teresa in the reform of monasteries, is a still more 
 perfect example of the Spanish type of Mysticism. 
 His fame has never been so great as hers ; for while 
 Teresa's character remained human and lovable in the 
 midst of all her austerities, Juan carried self-abnegation 
 to a fanatical extreme, and presents the life of holiness 
 in a grim and repellent aspect. In his disdain of all 
 compromise between the claims of God and the world, 
 he welcomes every kind of suffering, and bids us choose 
 always that which is most painful, difficult, and humili- 
 ating. His own life was divided between terrible 
 
224 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 mortifications and strenuous labour in the foundation 
 of monasteries. Though his books show a tendency to 
 Quietism, his character was one of fiery energy and 
 unresting industry. Houses of " discalced " Carmelites 
 sprang up all over Spain as the result of his labours. 
 These monks and nuns slept upon bare boards, fasted 
 eight months in the year, never ate meat, and wore the 
 same serge dress in winter and summer. In some of 
 these new foundations the Brethren even vied with 
 each other in adding voluntary austerities to this severe 
 rule. It was all part of the campaign against Protest- 
 antism. The worldliness and luxury of the Renaissance 
 period were to be atoned for by a return to the purity 
 and devotion of earlier centuries. The older Catholic 
 ideal — the mediseval type of Christianity — was to be 
 restored in all its completeness in the seventeenth 
 century. This essentially militant character of the 
 movement among the Carmelites must not be lost 
 sight of: the two great Spanish mystics were before 
 all things champions of the counter- Reformation. 
 
 The two chief works of St. Juan are The Ascent of 
 Mount Carmely and The Obscure Night of the Soul. 
 Both are treatises on quietistic Mysticism of a peculiar 
 type. At the beginning of La Subida de Monte 
 Cannelo he says, " The journey of the soul to the 
 Divine union is called night for three reasons : the 
 point of departure is privation of all desire, and com- 
 plete detachment from the world ; the road is by faith, 
 which is like night to the intellect ; the goal, which is 
 God, is incomprehensible while we are in this life." 
 
 The soul in its ascent passes from one realm of 
 darkness to another. First there is the " night of 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 225 
 
 sense," in which the things of earth become dark to 
 her. This must needs be traversed, for " the creatures 
 are only the crumbs that fall from God's table, and 
 none but dogs will turn to pick them up." " One 
 desire only doth God allow — that of obeying Him, 
 and carrying the Cross." All other desires weaken, 
 torment, blind, and pollute the soul. Until we are 
 completely detached from all such, we cannot love 
 God. " When thou dwellest upon anything, thou hast 
 ceased to cast thyself upon the All." "If thou wilt 
 keep anything with the All, thou hast not thy treasure 
 simply in God." " Empty thy spirit of all created 
 things, and thou wilt walk in the Divine light, for God 
 resembles no created thing." Such is the method of 
 traversing the " night of sense." Even at this early 
 stage the forms and symbols of eternity, which others 
 have found in the visible works of God, are discarded 
 as useless. " God has no resemblance to any creature." 
 The dualism or acosmism of mediaeval thought has 
 seldom found a, harsher expression. 
 
 In the night of sense, the understanding and reason 
 are not blind ; but in the second night, the night of 
 faith, " all is darkness." " Faith is midnight " ; it is 
 the deepest darkness that we have to pass ; for in the 
 " third night, the night of memory and will," the dawn 
 is at hand. " Faith " he defines as " the assent of the 
 soul to what we have heard " — as a blind man would 
 receive a statement about the colour of an object. We 
 must be totally blind, " for a partially blind man will 
 not commit himself wholly to his guide." Thus for 
 St. Juan the whole content of revelation is removed 
 from the scope of the reason, and is treated as some- 
 15 
 
226 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 thing communicated from outside. We have, indeed, 
 travelled far from St. Clement's happy confidence in 
 the guidance of reason, and Eckhart's independence 
 of tradition. The soul has three faculties — intellect, 
 memory, and will. The imagination {fantasia) is a 
 link between the sensitive and reasoning powers, and 
 comes between the intellect and memory .^ Of these 
 faculties, " faith (he says) blinds the intellect, hope the 
 memory, and love the will." He adds, " to all that is 
 not God " ; but " God in this life is like night." He 
 blames those who think it enough to deny themselves 
 " without annihilating themselves," and those who 
 " seek for satisfaction in God." This last is " spiritual 
 gluttony." " We ought to seek for bitterness rather 
 than sweetness in God," and " to choose what is most 
 disagreeable, whether proceeding from God or the 
 world." " The way of God consisteth not in ways of 
 devotion or sweetness, though these may be necessary 
 to beginners, but in giving ourselves up to suffer." 
 And so we must fly from all " mystical phenomena " 
 (supernatural manifestations to the sight, hearing, and 
 the other senses) " without examining whether they be 
 good or evil." " For bodily sensations bear no propor- 
 tion to spiritual things " ; since the distance " between 
 God and the creature is infinite," " there is no essential 
 likeness or communion between them." Visions are at 
 best " childish toys " ; " the fly that touches honey 
 cannot fly," he says ; and the probability is that they 
 come from the devil. For " neither the creatures, nor 
 intellectual perceptions, natural or supernatural, can 
 
 ^ So in Plotinus tpavraala comes between (pvcn^ (the lower soul) and the 
 perfect apprehension of vovs, 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 227 
 
 bring us to God, there being no proportion between 
 them. Created things cannot serve as a ladder ; they 
 are only a hindrance and a snare," 
 
 There is something heroic in this sombre interpreta- 
 tion of the maxim of our Lord, " Whosoever he be of 
 you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be 
 My disciple." All that he hath — " yea, and his own 
 life also " — intellect, reason, and memory — all that is 
 most Divine in our nature — are cast down in absolute 
 surrender at the feet of Him who " made darkness His 
 secret place. His pavilion round about Him with dark 
 water, and thick clouds to cover Him." ^ 
 
 In the " third night " — that of memory and will — 
 the soul sinks into a holy inertia and oblivion {santa 
 ociosidad y olvido), in which the flight of time is unfelt, 
 and the mind is unconscious of all particular thoughts. 
 St. Juan seems here to have brought us to something 
 like the torpor of the Indian Yogi or of the hesychasts 
 of Mount Athos. But he does not intend us to regard 
 this state of trance as permanent or final. It is the last 
 watch of the night before the dawn of the supernatural 
 state, in which the human faculties are turned into 
 Divine attributes, and by a complete transformation the 
 soul, which was " at the opposite extreme " to God, 
 " becomes, by participation, God." In this beatific 
 state " one might say, in a sense, that the soul gives 
 God to God, for she gives to God all that she receives 
 of God ; and He gives Himself to her. This is the 
 
 ^ St. Juan follows the medieval mystics in distinguishing between 
 " meditation " and "contemplation." " Meditation," from which external 
 images are not excluded, is for him an early and imperfect stage ; he who 
 is destined to higher things will soon discover signs which indicate that it 
 is time to abandon it. 
 
228 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 mystical love-gift, wherewith the soul repayeth all her 
 debt." This is the infinite reward of the soul who has 
 refused to be content with anything short of infinity 
 [no se llenan menos que con lo Infinitd). With what 
 yearning this blessed hope inspired St. Juan, is shown in 
 the following beautiful prayer, which is a good example 
 of the eloquence, born of intense emotion, which we 
 find here and there in his pages : " O sweetest love of 
 God, too little known ; he who has found Thee is at 
 rest ; let everything be changed, O God, that we may 
 rest in Thee, Everywhere with Thee, O my God, 
 everywhere all things with Thee ; as I wish, O my Love, 
 all for Thee, nothing for me — nothing for me, every- 
 thing for Thee. All sweetness and delight for Thee, 
 none for me — all bitterness and trouble for me, none 
 for Thee. O my God, how sweet to me Thy presence, 
 who art the supreme Good ! I will draw near to Thee 
 in silence, and will uncover Thy feet,^ that it may please 
 Thee to unite me to Thyself, making my soul Thy 
 bride ; I will rejoice in nothing till I am in Thine arms. 
 O Lord, I beseech Thee, leave me not for a moment, 
 because I know not the value of mine own soul." 
 / Such faith, hope, and love were suffered to cast 
 gleams of light upon the saint's gloomy and thorn- 
 strewn path. But nevertheless the text of which we 
 are most often reminded in reading his pages is the verse 
 of Amos : " Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness 
 and not light ? even very dark, and no brightness in it ?" 
 It is a terrible view of life and duty — that we are to 
 denude ourselves of everything that makes us citizens 
 of the world — that nothing which is natural is capable 
 
 ^ The reference is to Ruth iii. 7. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 229 
 
 of entering into relations with God — that all which is 
 human must die, and have its place taken by super- 
 natural infusion. St. Juan follows to the end the 
 " negative road " of Dionysius, without troubling him- 
 self at all with the transcendental metaphysics of 
 Neoplatonism. His nihilism or acosmism is not the 
 result of abstracting from the notion of Being or of 
 unity ; its basis is psychological. It is " subjective " 
 religion carried almost to its logical conclusion. The 
 Neoplatonists were led on by the hope of finding a 
 reconciliation between philosophy and positive religion ; 
 but no such problems ever presented themselves to the 
 Spaniards. We hear nothing of the relation of the 
 creation to God, or why the contemplation of it should 
 only hinder instead of helping us to know its Maker. 
 The world simply does not exist for St. Juan ; nothing 
 exists save God and human souls. The great human 
 society has no interest for him ; he would have us cut 
 ourselves completely adrift from the aims and aspira- 
 tions of civilised humanity, and, " since nothing but the 
 Infinite can satisfy us," to accept nothing until our 
 nothingness is filled with the Infinite. He does not 
 escape from the quietistic attitude of passive expectancy 
 which belongs to this view of life ; and it is only by a 
 glaring inconsistency that he attaches any value to the 
 ecclesiastical symbolism, which rests on a very different 
 basis from that of his teaching. But St. Juan's 
 Mysticism brought him no intellectual emancipation, 
 either for good or evil. Faith with him was the 
 antithesis, not to sights as in the Bible, but to reason. 
 The sacrifice of reason was part of the crucifixion of 
 the old man. And so he remained in 'an attitude of 
 
230 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 complete subservience to Church tradition and author- 
 ity, and even to his " director," an intermediary who 
 is constantly mentioned by these post-Reformation 
 mystics. Even this unqualified submissiveness did not 
 preserve him from persecution during his lifetime, and 
 suspicion afterwards. His books were only authorised 
 twenty-seven years after his death, which occurred in 
 1 591; and his beatification was delayed till 1674. 
 His orthodoxy was defended largely by references to 
 St. Teresa, who had already been canonised. But it 
 could not be denied that the quietists of the next 
 century might find much support for their contro- 
 verted doctrines in both writers. 
 
 St. Juan's ideal of saintliness was as much of an 
 anachronism as his scheme of Church reform. But no 
 one ever climbed the rugged peaks of Mount Carmel 
 with more heroic courage and patience. His life shows 
 what tremendous moral force is generated by complete 
 self-surrender to God. And happily neither his failure 
 to read the signs of the times, nor his one-sided and 
 defective grasp of Christian truth, could deprive him of 
 the reward of his life of sacrifice — the reward, I mean, 
 of feeling his fellowship with Christ in suffering. He 
 sold " all that he had " to gain the pearl of great price, 
 and the surrender was not made in vain. 
 
 The later Roman Catholic mystics, though they 
 include some beautiful and lovable characters, do not 
 develop any further the type which we have found in 
 St. Teresa and St. Juan. St. Francis de Sales has 
 been a favourite devotional writer with thousands in 
 this country. He presents the Spanish Mysticism 
 softened and polished into a graceful and winning 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 231 
 
 pietism, such as might refine and elevate the lives of 
 the " honourable women " who consulted him. The 
 errors of the quietists certainly receive some counten- 
 ance from parts of his writings, but they are neutralised 
 by maxims of a different tendency, borrowed eclectically 
 from other sources.^ 
 
 A more consistent and less fortunate follower of St. 
 Teresa was Miguel de Molinos, a Spanish priest, who 
 came to Rome about 1670. His piety and learning 
 won him the favour of Pope Innocent XL, who, accord- 
 ing to Bishop Burnet, " lodged him in an apartment of 
 the palace, and put many singular marks of his esteem 
 upon him." In 1675 he published in Italian his 
 Spiritual Guide, a mystical treatise of great interest. 
 
 Molinos begins by saying that there are two ways 
 to the knowledge of God — meditation or discursive 
 thought, and " pure faith " or contemplation. Contem- 
 plation has two stages, active and passive, the latter 
 being the higher.^ Meditation he also calls the 
 " exterior road " ; it is good for beginners, he says, but 
 can never lead to perfection. The " interior road," the 
 goal of which is union with God, consists in complete 
 resignation to the will of God, annihilation of all self- 
 
 ^ The somewhat feminine temper of Francis leads him to attach more 
 value to fanciful symbolism than would have been approved by St> Juan, or 
 even by St. Teresa. And we miss in him that steady devotion to the 
 Person of Christ, and to Him alone, which gives the Spaniards, in spite of 
 themselves, a sort of kinship with evangelical Christianity. St. Juan could 
 never have written, ' ' Honorez, reverez, et respectez d'un amour special la 
 sacree et glorieuse Vierge Marie. Elle est mere de nostre souverain pere et 
 par consequent nostre grand'mere" (!). 
 
 - The three parts into which the book is divided deal respectively with 
 the " darkness and dryness" by which God purifies the heart ; the second 
 stage, in which he insists, complete obedience to a spiritual director is 
 essential ; and the stage of higher illumination. 
 
232 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 will, and an unruffled tranquillity or passivity of soul, 
 until the mystical grace is supernaturally " infused." 
 Then " we shall sink and lose ourselves in the 
 immeasurable sea of God's infinite goodness, and rest 
 there steadfast and immovable." ^ He gives a list of 
 tokens by which we may know that we are called from 
 meditation to contemplation ; and enumerates four 
 means, which lead to perfection and inward peace — 
 prayer, obedience, frequent communions, and inner 
 mortification. The best kind of prayer is the prayer of 
 silence ; ^ and there are three silences, that of words, 
 that of desires, and that of thought. In the last and 
 highest the mind is a blank, and God alone speaks to 
 the soul.^ With the curious passion for subdivision 
 which we find in nearly all Romish mystics, he 
 distinguishes three kinds of " infusa contemplazione " — 
 (i) satiety, when the soul is filled with God and 
 conceives a hatred for all worldly things ; (2) " un 
 mentale eccesso " or elevation of the soul, born of Divine 
 love and its satiety; (3) "security." In this state the 
 soul would willingly even go to hell, if it were God's 
 will. " Happy is the state of that soul which has slain 
 and annihilated itself." It lives no longer in itself, for God 
 lives in it. "With all truth we may say that it is deified." 
 
 ^ "Cola c' ingolfiano e ci perdiamo nel mare immenso dell' infinila sua 
 bonta in cui restiamo stabili ed immobili." 
 
 ^ It is interesting to find the "prayer of quiet" even in Plotinus. Cf. 
 Enn. V. I. 6 : " Let us call upon God Himself before we thus answer — not 
 with uttered words, but reaching forth our souls in prayer to Him ; for thus 
 alone can we pray, alone to Him who is alone." 
 
 ^ He speaks, too, of "inner recollection" (il raccoglimento interiore), 
 "mirandolo dentro te medesima nel piu intimo del' anima tua, senza 
 forma, specie, modo 6 figura, in vista e generale notitia di fede amorosa ed 
 oscura, senza veruna distinzione di perfezione 6 attributo." 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 233 
 
 Molinos follows St. Juan of the Cross in disparaging 
 visions, which he says are often snares of the devil. 
 And, like him, he says much of the " horrible tempta- 
 tions and torments, worse than any which the martyrs 
 of the early Church underwent," which form part of 
 " purgative contemplation." He resembles the Spanish 
 mystics also in his insistence on outward observances, 
 especially *' daily communion, when possible," but 
 thinks frequent confession unnecessary, except for 
 beginners. 
 
 " The book was no sooner printed," says Bishop 
 Burnet, " than it was much read and highly esteemed, 
 both in Italy and Spain. The acquaintance of the 
 author came to be much desired. Those who seemed 
 in the greatest credit at Rome seemed to value them- 
 selves upon his friendship. Letters were writ to him 
 from all places, so that a correspondence was settled 
 between him and those who approved of his method, in 
 many different places of Europe." " It grew so much 
 to be the vogue in Rome, that all the nuns, except 
 those who had Jesuits to their confessors, began to lay 
 aside their rosaries and other devotions, and to give 
 themselves much to the practice of mental prayer." 
 
 Molinos had written with the object of " breaking 
 the fetters " which hindered souls in their upward 
 course. Unfortunately for himself, he also loosened 
 some of the fetters in which the Roman priesthood 
 desires to keep the laity .^ And so, instead of the 
 
 ^ Cf. Bp. Burnet : " In short, everybody that was thought either sincerely 
 devout, or that at least affected the reputation of it, came to be reckoned 
 among the Quietists ; and if these persons were observed to become more 
 strict in their lives, more retired and serious in their mental devotions, 
 yet there appeared less zeal in their whole deportment as to the exterior 
 
234 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 honours which had been grudgingly and suspiciously 
 bestowed on his predecessors, Molinos ended his days 
 in a dungeon.^ His condemnation was followed by a 
 sharp persecution of his followers in Italy, who had 
 become very numerous ; and, in France, Bossuet pro- 
 cured the condemnation and imprisonment of Madame 
 Guyon, a lady of high character and abilities, who was 
 the centre of a group of quietists. Madame de Guyon 
 need not detain us here. Her Mysticism is identical 
 with that of Saint Teresa, except that she was no 
 visionary, and that her character was softer and less 
 masculine. Her attractive personality, and the cruel 
 and unjust treatment which she experienced during 
 the greater part of her life, arouse the sympathy of 
 all who read her story ; but since my present object is 
 not to exhibit a portrait gallery of eminent mystics, 
 but to investigate the chief types of mystical thought, 
 it will not be necessary for me to describe her life 
 or make extracts from her writings. The character of 
 her quietism may be illustrated by one example — the 
 
 parts of the religion of that Church. They were not so assiduous at Mass, 
 nor so earnest to procure Masses to be said for their friends ; nor were they 
 so frequently either at confession or in processions, so that the trade of 
 those that live by these things was terribly sunk." 
 
 ^ The Spi7-itual Guide was well received at first in high quarters ; but in 
 l68i a Jesuit preacher published a book on "the prayer of quiet," which 
 raised a storm. The first commission of inquiry exonerated Molinos ; but 
 in 1685 the Jesuits and Louis XIV. brought strong pressure to bear on the 
 Pope, and Molinos was accused of heresy. Sixty-eight *<alse propositions 
 were extracted from his writings, and formally condemned. They include 
 a justification of disgraceful vices, which Molinos, who was a man of 
 saintly character, could never have taught. But though the whole process 
 against the author of the Spiritual Guide was shamefully unfair, the book 
 contains some highly dangerous teaching, which might easily be pressed 
 into the service of immorality. Molinos saved his life by recanting all his 
 errors, but was imprisoned till his death, about 1696. In 1687 the In- 
 quisition arrested 200 persons for "quietist" opinions. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 235 
 
 hymn on " The Acquiescence of Pure Love," translated 
 by Cowper : — 
 
 " Love ! if Thy destined sacrifice am I, 
 
 Come, slay thy victim, and prepare Thy fires ; 
 Plunged in Thy depths of mercy, let me die 
 The death which every soul that loves desires ! 
 
 I watch my hours, and see them fleet away ; 
 
 The time is long that I have languished here ; 
 Yet all my thoughts Thy purposes obey, 
 
 With no reluctance, cheerful and sincere. 
 
 To me 'tis equal, whether Love ordain 
 My life or death, appoint me pain or ease 
 
 My soul perceives no real ill in pain ; 
 In ease or health no real good she sees. 
 
 One Good she covets, and that Good alone ; 
 
 To choose Thy will, from selfish bias free 
 And to prefer a cottage to a throne, 
 
 And grief to comfort, if it pleases Thee. 
 
 That we should bear the cross is Thy command 
 Die to the world, and live to self no more ; 
 
 Suffer unmoved beneath the rudest hand. 
 As pleased when shipwrecked as when safe on shore." 
 
 Fenelon was also a victim of the campaign against 
 the quietists, though he was no follower of Molinos. 
 He was drawn into the controversy against his will by 
 Bossuet, who requested him to endorse an unscru- 
 pulous attack upon Madame Guyon. This made it 
 necessary for Fenelon to define his position, which he 
 did in his famous Maxims of the Saints. The treatise 
 is important for our purposes, since it is an elaborate 
 attempt to determine the limits of true and false 
 Mysticism concerning two great doctrines — " dis- 
 interested love " and "passive contemplation." 
 
236 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 On the former, F^nelon's teaching may be sum- 
 marised as follows : Self-interest must be excluded 
 from our love of God, for self-love is the root of all 
 evil. This predominant desire for God's glory need 
 not be always explicit — it need only become so on 
 extraordinary occasions ; but it must always be 
 implicit. There are five kinds of love for God : 
 (i.) purely servile — the love of God's gifts apart from 
 Himself; (ii.) the love of mere covetousness, which 
 regards the love of God only as the condition of 
 happiness ; (iii.) that of hope, in which the desire for 
 our own welfare is still predominant ; (iv.) interested 
 love, which is still mixed with self-regarding motives ; 
 (v.) disinterested love. He mentions here the " three 
 lives " of the mystics, and says that in the purgative 
 life love is mixed with the fear of hell ; in the illuminat- 
 ive, with the hope of heaven ; while in the highest 
 stage " we are united to God in the peaceable exercise 
 of pure love." " If God were to will to send the souls 
 of the just to hell — so Chrysostom and Clement 
 suggest — souls in the third state would not love Him 
 less." 1 " Mixed love," however, is not a sin : " the 
 greater part of holy souls never reach perfect dis- 
 interestedness in this life." We ought to wish for our 
 salvation, because it is God's will that we should do so. 
 Interested love coincides with resignation, disinterested 
 
 ^ This " mystic paradox " has been mentioned aheady. It is developed 
 at length in the Meditations of Diego de Stella. Fenelon says that it is 
 found in Cassian, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, Anselm, "and a great 
 number of saints." It is an unfortunate attempt to improve upon Job's 
 fine saying, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," or the line 
 in Homer which has been often quoted—^;/ 5^ ^det koX S\€ff<TOP, iwel vu 
 Toi eiiaSev outus. But unless we form a very unworthy idea of heaven and 
 hell, the proposition is not so much extravagant as self-contradictory. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 237 
 
 with holy indifference. " St. Francis de Sales says 
 that the disinterested heart is like wax in the hands of 
 its God." 
 
 We must continue to co-operate with God's grace, 
 even in the highest stage, and not cease to resist our 
 impulses, as if all came from God. " To speak other- 
 wise is to speak the language of the tempter." (This 
 is, of course, directed against the immoral apathy 
 attributed to Molinos.) The only difference between the 
 vigilance of pure and that of disinterested love, is that 
 the former is simple and peaceable, while the latter 
 has not yet cast out fear. It is false teaching to say 
 that we should hate ourselves ; we should be in charity 
 with ourselves as with others!' ^ 
 
 Spontaneous, unreflecting good acts proceed from 
 what the mystics call the apex of the soul. " In such 
 acts St. Antony places the most perfect prayer — 
 unconscious prayer." 
 
 Of prayer he says, " We pray as much as we desire, 
 and we desire as much as we love." Vocal prayer 
 cannot be (as the extreme quietists pretend) useless to 
 contemplative souls ; " for Christ has taught us a vocal 
 prayer." 
 
 He then proceeds to deal with " passive contempla- 
 tion," and refers again to the " unconscious prayer " 
 of St. Antony. But " pure contemplation is never 
 unintermittent in this life." " Bernard, Teresa, and 
 John say that their periods of pure contemplation 
 lasted not more than half an hour." " Pure con- 
 templation," he proceeds, " is negative, being occupied 
 with no sensible image, no distinct and nameable idea ; 
 
 ^ The doctrine here condemned is Manichean, says Fenelon rightly. 
 
238 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 it stops only at the purely intellectual and abstract 
 idea of being." Yet this idea includes, " as distinct 
 objects," all the attributes of God — " as the Trinity, 
 the humanity of Christ, and all His mysteries." " To 
 deny this is to annihilate Christianity under pretence 
 of purifying it, and to confound God with 7teant. It is 
 to form a kind of deism which at once falls into 
 atheism, wherein all real idea of God as distinguished 
 from His creatures is rejected." Lastly, it is to 
 advance two impieties — (i.) To suppose that there is or 
 may be on the earth a contemplative who is no longer 
 a traveller, and who no longer needs the way, since he 
 has reached his destination. (ii.) To ignore that 
 Jesus Christ is the way as well as the truth and 
 the life, the finisher as well as the author of our 
 faith. 
 
 This criticism of the formless vision is excellent, but 
 there is a palpable inconsistency between the definition 
 of " negative contemplation " and the inclusion in it of 
 " all the attributes of God as distinct objects." Contra- 
 dictions of this sort abound in Fenelon, and destroy 
 the value of his writings as contributions to religious 
 philosophy, though in his case, as in many others, we 
 may speak of " noble inconsistencies " which do more 
 credit to his heart than discredit to his intellect. We 
 may perhaps see here the dying spasm of the " negative 
 method," which has crossed our path so often in this 
 survey. 
 
 The image of Jesus Christ, Fenelon continues, is not 
 clearly seen by contemplatives at first, and may be 
 withdrawn while the soul passes through the last 
 furnace of trial ; but we can never cease to need Him, 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 239 
 
 " though it is true that the most eminent saints are 
 laccustomed to regard Him less as an exterior object 
 than as the interior principle of their lives." They are 
 in error who speak of possessing God in His supreme 
 simplicity, and of no more knowing Christ after the 
 flesh. Contemplation is called passive because it 
 excludes the interested activity of the soul, not because 
 it excludes real action. (Here again Fenelon is rather 
 explaining away than explaining his authorities.) The 
 culmination of the " passive state " is " transformation," 
 in which love is the life of the soul, as it is its being 
 and substance. " Catherine of Genoa said, I find no 
 more me ; there is no longer any other / but God." 
 " But it is false to say that transformation is a deifica- 
 tion of the real and natural soul, or a hypostatic union, 
 or an unalterable conformity with God," ^ In the 
 passive state we are still liable to mortal sin. (It is 
 characteristic of Fenelon that he contradicts, without 
 rejecting, the substitution-doctrine plainly stated in the 
 sentence from Catherine of Genoa.) 
 
 In his letter to the Pope, which accompanies the 
 " Explanation of the Maxims," Fenelon thus sums up 
 his distinctions between true and false Mysticism : — 
 
 1. The "permanent act {i.e. an indefectible state of 
 union with God) is to be condemned as " a poisoned 
 source of idleness and internal lethargy." 
 
 2. There is an indispensable necessity of the distinct 
 exercise of each virtue. 
 
 3. " Perpetual contemplation," making venial sins 
 
 ' St. Bernard {^De diligendo Deo, x. 28) gives a careful statement of the 
 deification-doctrine as he vinderstands it : " Quomodo omnia in omnibus 
 erit Deus, si in homine de homine quicquara supererit ? Alanebit stibstantia 
 sed in alia forma" See Appendix C, 
 
240 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 impossible, and abolishing the distinction of virtues, is 
 impossible. 
 
 4. " Passive prayer," if it excludes the co-operation 
 of free-will, is impossible, 
 
 5. There can be no "quietude" except the peace of 
 the Holy Ghost, which acts in a manner so uniform 
 that these acts seem, to unscientific persons, not distinct 
 acts, but a single and permanent unity with God. 
 
 6. That the doctrine of pure love may not serve as 
 an asylum for the errors of the Quietists, we assert that 
 hope must always abide, as saith St. Paul. 
 
 7. The state of pure love is very rare, and it is 
 intermittent. 
 
 In reply to this manifesto, the " Three Prelates " ^ 
 rejoin that Fenelon keeps the name of hope but takes 
 away the thing ; that he really preaches indifference to 
 salvation ; that he is in danger of regarding contempla- 
 tion of Christ as a descent from the heights of pure 
 contemplation ; that he unaccountably says nothing of 
 the " love of gratitude " to God and our Redeemer ; 
 that he " erects the rare and transient experiences of a 
 few saints into a rule of faith." 
 
 In this controversy about disinterested love, our 
 sympathies are chiefly, but not entirely, with Fenelon. 
 The standpoint of Bossuet is not religious at all. 
 " Pure love," he says almost coarsely, " is opposed to the 
 essence of love, which always desires the enjoyment of 
 its object, as well as to the nature of man, who neces- 
 sarily desires happiness." Most of us will rather agree 
 with St. Bernard, that love, as such, desires nothing but 
 
 ^ The Archbishop of Paris, the Bishop of Me^^^U?; (Bossuet), and the. 
 Bishop of Chartres. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 24 1 
 
 reciprocation — " verus amor se ipso contentus est : 
 habet prcemium, sed id quod amatur." If the question 
 had been simply whether reHgion is or is not in its 
 nature mercenary, we should have felt no doubt on 
 which side the truth lay. Self-regarding hopes and 
 schemes may be schoolmasters to bring us to Christ ; 
 it seems, indeed, to be part of our education to form 
 them, and then see them shattered one after another, 
 that better and deeper hopes may be constructed out 
 of the fragments ; but a selfish Christianity is a contra- 
 diction in terms. But F^nelon, in his teaching about 
 disinterested love, goes further than this. " A man's 
 self," he says, " is his own greatest cross." " We must 
 therefore become strangers to this self, this mot." 
 Resignation is not a remedy ; for " resignation suffers 
 in suffering ; one is as two persons in resignation ; it is 
 only pure love that loves to suffer." This is the thought 
 with which many of us are familiar in James Hinton's 
 Mystery of Pain. It is at bottom Stoical or Buddhistic, 
 in spite of the emotional turn given to it by Fenelon. 
 Logically, it should lead to the destruction of love ; for 
 love requires two living factors,^ and the person who 
 has attained a " holy indifference," who has passed 
 wholly out of self, is as incapable of love as of any 
 other emotion. The attempt " to wind ourselves too 
 high for mortal man " has resulted, as usual, in two 
 opposite errors. We find, on the one hand, some who 
 
 ^ If two beings are separate, they cannot influence each other inwardly. 
 If they are not distinct, there can be no relations between them. Man is 
 at once organ and organism, and this is why love between man and God 
 is possible. The importance of maintaining that action between man and 
 God must be reciprocal, is well shown by Lilienfeld, Gedanken iiber die 
 Socialwissinschaft der Zukunfi, vol. v. p. 472 sq, 
 16 
 
242 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 try to escape the daily sacrifices which life demands, 
 by declaring themselves bankrupt to start with. And, 
 on the other hand, we find men like Fenelon, who are 
 too good Christians to wish to shift their crosses in 
 this way ; but who allow their doctrines of " holy 
 indifference " and " pure love " to impart an excessive 
 sternness to their teaching, and demand from us an 
 impossible degree of detachment and renunciation. 
 
 The importance attached to the " prayer of quiet " 
 can only be understood when we remember how much 
 mechanical recitation of forms of prayer was enjoined 
 by Romish " directors." It is, of course, possible for 
 the soul to commune with God without words, perhaps 
 even without thoughts ; ^ but the recorded prayers of 
 our Blessed Lord will not allow us to regard these 
 ecstatic states as better than vocal prayer, when the 
 latter is offered " with the spirit, and with the under- 
 standing also." 
 
 The quietistic controversy in France was carried on 
 in an atmosphere of political intrigues and private 
 jealousies, which in no way concern us. But the great 
 fact which stands out above the turmoil of calumny and 
 misrepresentation is that the Roman Church, which in 
 sore straits had called in the help of quietistic Mysti- 
 cism to stem the flood of Protestantism, at length found 
 the alliance too dangerous, and disbanded her irregular 
 troops in spite of their promises to submit to discipline. 
 In Fenelon, Mysticism had a champion eloquent and 
 learned, and not too logical to repudiate with honest 
 conviction consequences which some of his authorities 
 
 " Thought was not," says Wordsworth of one in a state of rapture ; 
 and again, " All his thoughts were steeped in feeling." 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 243 
 
 had found it necessary to accept. He remained a 
 loyal and submissive son of the Church, as did Molinos ; 
 and was, in fact, more guarded in his statements than 
 Bossuet, who in his ignorance of mystical theology 
 often blundered into dangerous admissions.^ But the 
 Jesuits saw with their usual acumen that Mysticism, 
 even in the most submissive guise, is an independent 
 and turbulent spirit ; and by condemning Fenelon as 
 well as Molinos, they crushed it out as a religious 
 movement in the Latin countries. 
 
 To us it seems that the Mysticism of the counter- 
 Reformation was bound to fail, because it was the 
 revival of a perverted, or at best a one-sided type. The 
 most consistent quietists were perhaps those who 
 brought the doctrine of quietism into most discredit, 
 such as the hesychasts of Mount Athos. For at bottom 
 it rests upon that dualistic or rather acosmistic view 
 of life which prevailed from the decay of the Roman 
 Empire till the Renaissance and Reformation. Its 
 cosmology is one which leaves this world out of account 
 except as a training ground for souls ; its theory of 
 knowledge draws a hard and fast line between natural 
 and supernatural truths, and then tries to bring them 
 together by intercalating " supernatural phenomena " in 
 the order of nature ; and in ethics it paralyses morality 
 by teaching with St. Thomas Aquinas that " to love 
 God secundum se is more meritorious than to love our 
 
 ^ ^.^. , he writes to Madame Giiyon, "Jen'ai jamais hesiteun seul moment 
 sur les etats de Sainte Therese, parceque je n'y ai rien trouve, que je ne 
 trouvasse aussi dans I'ecriture." It is doubtful whether Bossuet had really 
 read much of St. Teresa. Fenelon says much more cautiously, " Quelque 
 respect et quelque admiration que j'aie pour Sainte Therese, je n'aurais 
 jamais voulu donner au public tout ce qu'elle a ecrit." 
 
244 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 neighbour." ^ All this is not of the essence of Mysti- 
 cism, but belongs to mediaeval Catholicism. It was 
 probably a necessary stage through which Christianity, 
 and Mysticism with it, had to pass. The vain quest 
 of an abstract spirituality at any rate liberated the 
 religious life from many base associations ; the " negat- 
 ive road " is after all the holy path of self-sacrifice ; 
 and the maltreatment of the body, which began among 
 the hermits of the Thebaid, was largely based on an 
 instinctive recoil against the poison of sensuality, which 
 had helped to destroy the old civilisation. But the 
 resuscitation of mediaeval Mysticism after the Renais- 
 sance was an anachronism ; and except in the fighting 
 days of the sixteenth century, it was not likely to 
 appeal to the manliest or most intelligent spirits. The 
 world-ruling papal polity, with its incomparable army 
 of officials, bound to poverty and celibacy, and therefore 
 invulnerable, was a reductio ad absurdum of its world- 
 renouncing doctrines, which Europe was not likely to 
 forget. Introspective Mysticism had done its work — 
 a work of great service to the human race. It had 
 explored all the recesses of the lonely heart, and had 
 wrestled with the angel of God through the terrors of 
 the spiritual night even till the morning. " Tell me now 
 Thy name " ..." I will not let Thee go until Thou 
 bless me." These had been the two demands of the 
 contemplative mystic — the only rewards which his soul 
 craved in return for the sacrifice of every earthly delight. 
 The reward was worth the sacrifice ; but " God reveals 
 Himself in many ways," and the spiritual Christianity 
 
 ^ Of course there is a sense in which this is true ; but I am speaking of 
 the way in wliich it was understood by medieval Catholicism. 
 
PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL 245 
 
 of the modern epoch is called rather to the consecration 
 of art, science, and social life than to lonely contempla- 
 tion. In my last two Lectures I hope to show how an 
 important school of mystics, chiefly between the Renais- 
 sance and our own day, have turned to the religious 
 study of nature, and have found there the same illumi- 
 nation which the mediaeval ascetics drew from the deep 
 wells of their inner consciousness. 
 
LECTURE VII 
 
'Ev Traai tois (pvcriKOLS ^uearl n dav[xa<XT6v Ka66.irep 'IlpdK\eiTos Xiyerai 
 (liretv elvat /cat ivravda deovs. 
 
 Aristotle, de Partibus Animalium, i. $. 
 
 "What if earth 
 Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein 
 Each to each other like, more than on earth is thought ? " 
 
 Milton. 
 
 " God is not dumb, that He should speak no more. 
 If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness, 
 And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor ; 
 There towers the mountain of the voice no less. 
 Which whoso seeks shall find ; but he who bends, 
 Intent on manna still and mortal ends. 
 Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore." 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 "Of the Absolute in the theoretical sense I do not venture to speak; 
 but this I maintain, that if a man recognises it in its manifestations, and 
 always keeps his eye fixed upon it, he will reap a very great reward." 
 
 Goethe. 
 
LECTURE VII 
 
 Nature-Mysticism and Symbolism 
 
 " The creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption 
 into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." — Rom. viii. 21. 
 
 It would be possible to maintain that all our happiness 
 consists in finding sympathies and affinities underlying 
 apparent antagonisms, in bringing harmony out of 
 discord, and order out of chaos. Even the lowest 
 pleasures owe their attractiveness to a certain tem- 
 porary correspondence between our desires and the 
 nature of things. Selfishness itself, the prime source 
 of sin, misery, and ignorance, cannot sever the ties 
 which bind us to each other and to nature ; or if it 
 succeeds in doing so, it passes into madness, of which 
 an experienced alienist has said, that its essence is 
 " concentrated egoism." Incidentally I may say that 
 the peculiar happiness which accompanies every glimpse 
 of insight into truth and reality, whether in the scien- 
 tific, aesthetic, or emotional sphere, seems to me to 
 have a greater apologetic value than has been generally 
 recognised. It is the clearest possible indication that 
 the true is for us the good, and forms the ground of a 
 reasonable faith that all things, if we could see them as 
 they are, would be found to work together for good to 
 those who love God. 
 
 249 
 
250 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 " The true Mysticism," it has been lately said with 
 much truth, " is the belief that everything, in being 
 what it is, is symbolic of something more." ^ All 
 Nature (and there are few more pernicious errors than 
 that which separates man from Nature) is the language 
 in which God expresses His thoughts ; but the thoughts 
 are far more than the language.^ Thus it is that the 
 invisible things of God from the creation of the world 
 may be clearly seen and understood from the things 
 that are made ; while at the same time it is equally 
 true that here we see through a glass darkly, and 
 know only in part. Nature half conceals and half 
 reveals the Deity ; and it is in this sense that it may 
 be called a symbol of Him. 
 
 The word " symbol," like several other words which 
 the student of Mysticism has to use, has an ill-defined 
 connotation, which produces confusion and contradict- 
 ory statements. For instance, a French writer gives 
 as his definition of Mysticism " the tendency to ap- 
 proach the Absolute, morally, by means of symbols." ^ 
 On the other hand, an English essayist denies that 
 Mysticism is symbolic.^ Mysticism, he says, differs 
 from symbolism in that, while symbolism treats the 
 connexion between symbol and substance as some- 
 
 ^ In R. L. Nettleship's /Remains. 
 
 - In addition to passages quoted elsewhere, the following sentence from 
 Luthardt is a good statement of the symbolic theory : " Nature is a world 
 of symbolism, a rich hieroglyphic book : everything visible conceals an 
 invisible mystery, and the last mystery of all is God." Goethe's " Alles 
 vergiingliche ist nur ein Gleichniss " would be better without the " nur," 
 from our point of view. 
 
 ^ Recejac, £ssai sur les Fojidernents de la Connaissance Mystique. 
 
 * In the Edinburgh Review, October 1896. The article referred to, on 
 "The Catholic Mystics of the Middle Ages," is beautifully written, and 
 should be read by all who are interested in the subject. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 251 
 
 thing accidental or subjective, Mysticism is based on 
 a positive belief in the existence of life within life, of 
 deep correspondences and affinities, not less real than 
 those to which the common superficial consciousness 
 of mankind bears witness. I agree with this state- 
 ment about the basis of Mysticism, but I prefer to 
 use the word symbol of that which has a real, and 
 not merely a conventional affinity to the thing sym- 
 bolised.^ The line is by no means easy to draw. 
 An aureole is not, properly speaking, a symbol of 
 saintliness,^ nor a crown of royal authority, because 
 in these instances the connexion of sign with sig- 
 nificance is conventional. A circle is perhaps not a 
 symbol of eternity, because the comparison appeals 
 only to the intellect. But falling leaves are a symbol 
 of human mortality, a flowing river of the " stream " 
 of life, and a vine and its branches of the unity of 
 Christ and the Church, because they are examples 
 of the same law which operates through all that God 
 has made. And when the Anglian noble, in a well- 
 known passage of Bede, compares the life of man 
 to the flight of a bird which darts quickly through 
 a lighted hall out of darkness, and into darkness 
 again, he has found a symbol which is none the less 
 
 ^ This is Kant's use of the word. See Bosanquet, Ilislory of Esthetic, 
 p. 273 : " A symbol is for Kant a perception or presentation which repre- 
 sents a conception neither conventionally as a mere sign, nor directly, but 
 in the abstract, as a scheme, but indirectly though appropriately through a 
 similarity between the rules which govern our reflection in the symbol and 
 in the thing (or idea) symbolised." " In this sense beauty is a symbol of 
 the moral order." Goethe's <lefinition is also valuable: "That is true 
 symbolism where the more particular represent.'-' the more general, not as a 
 dream or shade, but as a vivid, instantaneous' revelation of the inscrutable." 
 
 ^ Or rather of power and dignity ; for in some early Byzantine works 
 even Satan is represented with a_nimbus. 
 
252 . CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 valid, because light and darkness are themselves only 
 symbolically connected with life and death. The 
 writer who denies that Mysticism is symbolic, means 
 that the discovery of arbitrary and fanciful resemblances 
 or types is no part of healthy Mysticism.^ In this he 
 is quite right ; and the importance of the distinction 
 which he wishes to emphasise will, I hope, become 
 clear as we proceed. It is not possible always to say 
 dogmatically, " This is genuine Symbolism, and that 
 is morbid or fantastic " ; but we do assert that there 
 is a true and a false Symbolism, of which the true 
 is not merely a legitimate, but a necessary mode of 
 intuition ; while the latter is at best a frivolous amuse- 
 ment, and at worst a degrading superstition.^ 
 
 But we shall handle our subject very inadequately 
 if we consider only the symbolical value which may 
 be attached to external objects. Our thoughts and 
 beliefs about the spiritual world, so far as they are 
 conceived under forms, or expressed in language, 
 which belong properly only to things of time and 
 
 ^Emerson says rightly, "Mysticism (in a bad sense) consists in the 
 mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one." 
 
 - The distinction which Ruskin draws between the fancy and the 
 imagination may help us to discern the true and the false in Symbolism. 
 *' Fancy has to do with the outsides of things, and is content therewith. 
 She can never /«<;/, but is one of the most purely and simply intellectual of 
 the faculties. She cannot be made serious ; no edge-tool, but she will 
 play with : whereas the imagination is in all things the reverse. She 
 cannot but be serious ; she sees too far, too darkly, too solemnly, too 
 earnestly, ever to smile. . . . There is reciprocal action between the 
 intensity of moral feeling and the power of imagination. Hence the 
 powers of the imagination may always be tested by accompanying tender- 
 ness of emotion. . . . Imagination is quiet, fancy restless ; fancy details, 
 imagination suggests. . . . All egotism is destructive of imagination, 
 whose play and power depend altogether on our being able to forget 
 ourselves. . . . Imagination has no respect for sayings or opinions : it 
 is independent" {Modern Painters, vol. ii. chap. iii.). 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 253 
 
 space, are of the nature of symbols. In this sense 
 it has been said that the greater part of dogmatic 
 theology is the dialectical development of mystical 
 symbols. For instance, the paternal relation of the 
 First Person of the Trinity to the Second is a symbol ; 
 and the representation of eternity as an endless period 
 of time stretching into futurity, is a symbol. We 
 believe that the forms under which it is natural and 
 necessary for us to conceive of transcendental truths 
 have a real and vital relation to the ideas which they 
 attempt to express ; but their inadequacy is manifest 
 if we treat them as facts of the same order as natural 
 phenomena, and try to intercalate them, as is too 
 often done, among the materials with which an abstract 
 science has to deal. 
 
 The two great sacraments are typical symbols, if 
 we use the word in the sense which I give to it, as 
 something which, in being what it is, is a sign and 
 vehicle of something higher and better. This is what 
 the early Church meant when it called the sacra- 
 ments symbols.^ A " symbol " at that period implied 
 a mystery, and a " mystery " implied a revelation. 
 The need of sacraments is one of the deepest con- 
 
 ^ Cf. Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. ii. p. 144: "What we nowadays 
 understand by ' symbols ' is a thing which is not that which it represents ; 
 at that time (in the second century) ' symbol ' denoted a thing which, in 
 some kind of way, is that which it signifies ; but, on the other hand, 
 according to the ideas of that period, the really heavenly element lay 
 either in or behind the visible form without being identical with it. 
 Accordingly, the distinction of a symbolic and realistic conception of the 
 Lord's Supper is altogether to be rejected." And vol. iv. p. 289: "The 
 ' symbol ' was never a mere type or sign, but always embodied a mystery." 
 So Justin Martyr uses cvix^o\ikCo% eiTre'iv and direlv iv yui/UTT/ptCfj as inter- 
 changeable terms ; and Tertullian says that the name of Joshua was 
 no/ninis futiiri sacramcnttim. 
 
254 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 victions of the religious consciousness. It rests ulti- 
 mately on the instinctive reluctance to allow any 
 spiritual fact to remain without an external expres- 
 sion. It is obvious that all morality depends on the 
 application of this principle to conduct. All voluntary 
 external acts are symbolic of (that is, vitally connected 
 with) internal states, and cannot be divested of this 
 their essential character. It may be impossible to 
 show how an act of the material body can purify or 
 defile the immaterial spirit ; but the correspondence 
 between the outward and inward life cannot be denied 
 without divesting morality of all meaning. The 
 maxim of Plotinus, that " the mind can do no wrong," 
 when transferred from his transcendental philosophy 
 to matters of conduct, is a sophism no more respect- 
 able than that which Euripides puts into the mouth 
 of one of his characters : " The tongue hath sworn ; 
 the heart remains unsworn." Every act of the will 
 is the expression of a state of the soul ; and every 
 state of the soul must seek to find expression in an 
 act of the will. Love, as we should all admit, is not 
 love, so long as it is content to be only in thought, 
 or " in word and in tongue " ; it is only when it is 
 love " in deed " that it is love " in truth." ^ And it 
 is the same with all other virtues, which are in this 
 sense symbolic, as implying something beyond the 
 
 ^ So some thinkers have felt that " the Word" is not the best expression 
 for the creative activity of God. The passage of Goethe where Faust 
 rejects "Word," "Thought," and "Power," and finally translates, "In 
 the beginning was the ^r/," is well known. And Thilo, in a very 
 interesting passage, says that Nature is the language in which God speaks ; 
 "but there is this difference, that while the human voice is made to be 
 heard, the voice of God is made to be seen : what God says consists of acts, 
 not of words" ^De Decern Ornc. Ii), 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 255 
 
 external act. Nearly all the states or motions of 
 the soul can find their appropriate expression in 
 action. Charity in its manifold forms need not seek 
 long for an object ; and thankfulness and penitence, 
 though they drive us first to silent prayer, are not 
 satisfied till they have borne fruit in some act of 
 gratitude or humility. But that deepest sense of 
 communion with God, which is the very heart of 
 religion, is in danger of being shut up in thought 
 and word, which are inadequate expressions of any 
 spiritual state. No doubt this highest state of the 
 soul may find indirect expression in good works ; but 
 these fail to express the immediacy of the communion 
 which the soul has felt. The want of symbols to 
 express these highest states of the soul is supplied 
 by sacraments. A sacrament is a symbolic act, not 
 arbitrarily chosen, but resting, to the mind of the 
 recipient, on Divine authority, which has no ulterior 
 object except to give expression to, and in so doing 
 to effectuate,^ a relation which is too purely spiritual 
 to find utterance in the customary activities of life. 
 There are three requisites (on the human side) for the 
 validity of a sacramental act. The symbol must be 
 appropriate ; the thing symbolised must be a spiritual 
 truth ; and there must be the intention to perform 
 the act as a sacrament. 
 
 The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper 
 
 ^Aquinas says of the sacraments, "efficiunt quod figurant." The 
 Thomists held that the sacraments are "causos" of grace; the Scotists 
 (NominaHsts), that grace is their inseparable concomitant. The mainten- 
 ance of a real correspondence between sign and significance seems to be 
 essential to the idea of a sacrament, but then the danger of degrading it , 
 into magic lies close at hand. 
 
256 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 fulfil these conditions. Both are symbols of the mystical 
 union between the Christian and his ascended Lord. 
 Baptism symbolises that union in its inception, the 
 Eucharist in its organic life. Baptism is received but 
 once, because the death unto sin and the new birth 
 unto righteousness is a definite entrance into the 
 spiritual life, rather than a gradual process. The fact 
 that in Christian countries Baptism in most cases 
 precedes conversion does not alter the character of 
 the sacrament ; indeed, infant Baptism is by far the 
 most appropriate symbol of our adoption into the 
 Divine Sonship, to which we only consent after the 
 event. It is only because we are already sons that we 
 can say, " I will arise, and go unto my Father." The 
 Holy Communion is the symbol of the maintenance 
 of the mystical union, and of the " strengthening and 
 refreshing of our souls," which we derive from the 
 indwelling presence of our Lord. The Church claims 
 an absolute prerogative for its duly ordained ministers 
 in the case of this sacrament, because the common 
 meal is the symbol of the organic unity of Christ and 
 the Church as " unus Christus," a doctrine which the 
 schismatic, as such, denies.^ The communicant who 
 believes only in an individual relation betwen Christ and 
 separate persons, or in an " invisible Church," does not 
 understand the meaning of the sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper, and can hardly be said to participate in it. 
 
 There are two views of this sacrament which the 
 " plain man " has always found much easier to under- 
 
 1 In the case of irregular Baptism, the maxim holds : " Fieri non debuit ; 
 factum valet." Cf. Bp. Churton, The Missionm-y' s Foundation of Doctrine, 
 p. 129. The reason for this difference between the two sacraments is 
 quite clear. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 257 
 
 stand than the symboUc view which is that of our Church. 
 One is that it is a miracle or magical performance, 
 the other is that it is a mere commemoration. Both 
 are absolutely destructive of the idea of a sacrament. 
 The latter view, that of some Protestant sects, was 
 quite foreign to the early Church, so far as our 
 eyidence goes ; the former, it is only just to say, is 
 found in many of the Fathers, not in the grossly 
 materialistic form which it afterwards assumed, but 
 in such phrases as " the medicine of immortality " 
 applied to the consecrated elements, where we are 
 meant to understand that the elements have a mys- 
 terious power of preserving the receiver from the 
 natural consequences of death.^ But when we find 
 that the same writers who use compromising phrases 
 about the change that comes over the elements,^ also 
 use the language of symbolism, and remember, too, 
 
 ^ It is, of course, difficult to decide how far such statements were meant 
 to be taken literally. But there is no doubt that both Baptism and the 
 Eucharist were supposed to cottfer immortality. Cf. Tert. de Bapt. 2 (621, 
 Oehl. ), "nonne mirandum est lavacro dilui mortem?" ; Gregory of Nyssa, 
 Or. cat. niagn. 35, IM) Swac^at 5^ ^'JA't ^'x** ■'"'J' ko-to. rh Xovrpbv ivayev- 
 PTiaeus iv dvaa-rdaei yeviadai rhv B-vOpuirov. Basil, too, calls Baptism 
 dfjva/Ms els TT]v avdaracnv. Of the Eucharist, Ignatius uses the phrase 
 quoted, (papfiaKov ttjs adavaala,^, and olvtISotos rod firj aTTodaveiv ; and 
 Gregory of Nyssa uses the same language as about Baptism. See, further, 
 in Appendices B and C. 
 
 - E.g. fierdWa^is (Theodoret), ixera^oXr] (Cyril), fieTaTrolrjcns (Gregor}- 
 Naz.), yuerao-rotxe^wcriy (Theophylact). The last-named goes on to say that 
 "we are in the same way transelementatid'wiiQ Christ." The Christian 
 Neoplatonists naturally regard the sacrament as symbolic. Origen is 
 inclined to hold that every action should be sacramental, and that material 
 symbols, such as bread and wine, and participation in a ceremonial, cannot 
 be necessary vehicles of spiritual grace ; this is in accordance with the 
 excessive idealism and intellectualism of his system. Dionysius calls the 
 elements (jiy-^oKa., eUdves, dvTlrvwa, aladryrd nva dvTl votjtQv fxeroKafi- 
 Pav6fieva ; and Maximus, his commentator, defines a symbol as alaOrjrdv rt 
 dfrl voTjToO neTaXafi^avd/xevov. 
 
258 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 that a " miracle " was a very different thing to those 
 who knew of no inflexible laws in the natural world 
 from what it is to us, we shall not be ready to 
 agree with those who have accused the third and 
 fourth century Fathers of degrading the Lord's Supper 
 into a magical ceremony. 
 
 Most of the errors which have so grievously obscured 
 the true nature of this sacrament have proceeded from 
 attempts to answer the question, " How does the 
 reception of the consecrated elements affect the inner 
 state of the receiver ? " To those who hold the 
 symbolic view, as I understand it, it seems clear that 
 the question of cause and effect must be resolutely 
 cast aside. The reciprocal action of spirit and matter 
 is the one great mystery which, to all appearance, 
 must remain impenetrable to the finite intelligence. 
 We do not ask whether the soul is the cause of the 
 body, or the body of the soul ; we only know that the 
 two are found, in experience, always united. In the 
 same way we should abstain, I think, from speculating 
 on the effect of the sacraments, and train ourselves 
 instead to consider them as divinely-ordered symbols, 
 by which the Church, as an organic whole, and we as 
 members of it, realise the highest and deepest of our 
 spiritual privileges. 
 
 There are other religious forms for which no Divine 
 institution is claimed, but which have a quasi-sacra- 
 mental value. And those who, " whether they eat, or 
 drink, or whatever they do," do all to the glory of God, 
 may be said to turn the commonest acts into sacra- 
 ments. To the true mystic, life itself is a sacrament. 
 It is natural, but unfortunate, that sorne of those who 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 259 
 
 have felt this most strongly have shown a tendency to 
 disparage observances which are simply acts of devo- 
 tion, " mere forms," as they call them. The attempt 
 to distinguish between conventional ceremonies, which 
 have no essential connexion with the truth symbolised, 
 and actions which are in themselves moral or immoral, 
 is no doubt justifiable, but it should be remembered 
 that this is the way in which antinomianism takes its 
 rise. Many have begun by saying, " The heart, the 
 motive, is all, the external act nothing ; the spirit is 
 all, the letter nothing. What can it matter whether I 
 say my prayers in church or at home, on my knees or 
 in bed, in words or in thought only ? What can it 
 matter whether the Eucharistic bread and wine are 
 consecrated or not ? whether I actually eat and drink 
 or not ? " And so on. The descent to Avernus is 
 easy by this road. Perhaps no sect that has pro- 
 fessed contempt for all ceremonial forms has escaped 
 at least the imputation of scandalous licentiousness, 
 with the honourable exception of the Quakers. The 
 truth is that the need of symbols to express or repre- 
 sent our highest emotions is inwoven with human 
 nature, and indifference to them is not, as many have 
 supposed, a sign of enlightenment or of spirituality. It 
 is, in fact, an unhealthy symptom. We do not credit 
 a man with a warm heart who does not care to show 
 his love in word and act ; nor should we commend the 
 common sense of a soldier who saw in his regimental 
 colours only a rag at the end of a pole. It is one of 
 the points in which we must be content to be children, 
 and should be thankful that wc may remain children 
 with a clear conscience, 
 
26o CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 I do not shrink from expressing my conviction that 
 the true meaning of our sacramental system, which in 
 its external forms is so strangely anticipated by the 
 Greek mysteries, and in its inward significance strikes 
 down to the fundamental principles of mystical 
 Christianity, can only be understood by those who are 
 in some sympathy with Mysticism. But it has not 
 been possible to say much about the sacraments sooner 
 than this late stage of our inquiry. We have hitherto 
 been dealing with the subjective or introspective type 
 of Mysticism, and it is plain that this form, when 
 carried to its logical conclusion, is inconsistent with 
 sacramental religion.^ Those who seek to ascend to 
 God by the way of abstraction, the negative road, 
 must regard all symbols as veils between our eyes and 
 reality, and must wish to get rid of them as soon as 
 possible. From this point of view, sacraments, like 
 other ceremonial forms, can only be useful at a very 
 early stage in the upward path, which leads us 
 ultimately into a Divine darkness, where no forms 
 can be distinguished. It is true that some devout 
 mystics of this type have both observed and exacted a 
 punctilious strictness in using all the appointed means 
 of grace ; but this inconsistency is easily accounted 
 for.^ The pressure of authority, loyalty to the estab- 
 
 ^ liarnack {History of Dogma, vol. vi. p. 102, English edition) says : 
 " In the centuries before the Reformation, a growing value was attached 
 not only to the sacraments, but to crosses, amulets, relics, holy places, etc. 
 As long as what the soul seeks is not the rock of assurance, but means for 
 inciting to piety, it will create for itself a thousand holy things. It is 
 therefore an extremely superficial view that regards the most inward 
 Mysticism and the service of idols as contradictory. The opposite view, 
 rather, is correct." I have seldom found myself able to agree with this 
 svriter's judgments upon Mysticism ; and this one is no exception. The 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 261 
 
 lished order, and human nature, which is stronger than 
 either, has prevented them from casting away the 
 time-honoured symbols and vehicles of Divine love. 
 But a true appreciation of sacraments belongs only 
 to those who can sympathise with the other branch of 
 Mysticism — that which rests on belief in symbolism. To 
 this branch of my subject I now invite your attention. 
 
 If we expect to find ourselves at once in a larger 
 air when we have taken leave of the monkish 
 mystics, we shall be disappointed. The objective or 
 symbolical type of Mysticism is liable to quite as 
 many perversions as the subjective. If in the latter 
 we found a tendency to revert to the apathy of the 
 Indian Yogi, we shall observe in the former too many 
 survivals of still more barbarous creeds. Indeed, I 
 feel that it is almost necessary, as an introduction to 
 this part of my subject, to consider very briefly the 
 stages through which the religious consciousness of 
 mankind has passed in its attempts to realise Divine 
 immanence in Nature, for this is, of course, the founda- 
 tion of all religious symbolism. 
 
 "most inward Myslicism "' does not occupy itself much with external 
 "incitements to piety," nor is this the motive with which a mystic could 
 ever {e.j^.) receive the Eucharist. The use of amulets, etc., which Harnack 
 finds to have been spreading before the Reformation, and which was 
 certainly very prevalent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 had very little to do with "the most inward Mysticism." My 
 view as to the place of magic in the history of Mysticism is given in 
 this Lecture ; I protest against identifying it with the essence of Mysticism. 
 Symbolic Mysticism soon outgrew it ; introspective Mysticism never valued 
 it. The use of visible things as stimulants to piety is another matter ; 
 it has its place in the systems of the Catholic mystics, but as a very 
 early stage in the spiritual ascent. What I have said as to the inconsistency 
 of a high sacramental doctrine with the favourite injunctions to "cast 
 away all images," which we find in the mediceval mystics, is, 1 think, 
 indisputable. ' 
 
262 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 The earliest belief seems to be that which has been 
 called Animism, the belief that all natural forces are 
 conscious living beings like ourselves. This is the 
 primitive form of natural religion ; and though it leads 
 to some deplorable customs, it is not a morbid type, but 
 a very early effort on the lines of true development.^ 
 
 The perverted form of primitive Animism is called 
 Fetishism, which is the belief that supernatural powers 
 reside in some visible object, which is the home or 
 most treasured possession of a god or demon. The 
 object may be a building, a tree, an animal, a particu- 
 lar kind of food, or indeed anything. Unfortunately 
 this belief is not peculiar to savages. A degraded 
 form of it is exhibited by the so-called neo-mystical 
 school of modern France, and in the baser types of 
 Roman Catholicism everywhere.- 
 
 Primitive Animism believes in no natural laws. The 
 next stage is to believe in laws which are frequently 
 suspended by the intervention of an independent and 
 superior power. Mediaeval dualism regarded every 
 breach of natural law as a vindication of the power 
 
 ' The most recent developments of German idealistic philosophy, as set 
 fonh in the cosmology of Lotze, and still more of Fechner, may perhaps be 
 described as an attempt to preserve the truth of Animism on a much higher 
 plane, without repudiating the universality of law. 
 
 - I refer especially to Iluysmans' two "mystical" novels, En Route and 
 • La Cathedrale. The naked Fetishism of the latter book almost passes 
 belief. We have a Madonna who is good-natured at Lourdes and cross- 
 grained at La Salette ; who likes " pretty speeches and little coaxing ways" 
 in "paying court" to her, and who at the end is apostrophised as "our 
 Lady of the Pillar," "our Lady of the Crypt." It may perhaps be 
 excusable to resort to such expedients as these in the conversion of savages ; 
 but there is something singularly repulsive in the picture (drawn apparently 
 from life) of a profligate man of letters seeking salvation in a Christianity 
 which has lowered itself far beneath educated paganism. At any rate, let 
 not the name of .Mysticism be given to such methods. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLIS]\I 263 
 
 of spirit over matter — not always, however, of Divine 
 power, for evil spirits could produce very similar dis- 
 turbances of the physical order. Thus arose that 
 persistent tendency to " seek after a sign," in which 
 the religion of the vulgar, even in our own day, is 
 deeply involved. Miracle, in some form or other, is 
 regarded as the real basis of belief in God. At this 
 stage people never ask themselves whether any spiritual 
 truth, or indeed anything worth knowing, could possibly 
 be communicated or authenticated by thaumaturgic 
 exhibitions. What attracts them at first is the evi- 
 dence which these beliefs furnish, that the world in which 
 they live is not entirely under the dominion of an uncon- 
 scious or inflexible power, but that behind the iron 
 mechanism of cause and effect is a will more like their 
 own in its irregularity and arbitrariness. Afterwards, 
 as the majesty of law dawns upon them, miracles are 
 no longer regarded as capricious exercises of power, 
 but as the operation of higher physical laws, which are 
 only active on rare occasions. A truer view sees in 
 them a materialisation of mystical symbols, the proper 
 function of which is to act as interpreters between the 
 real and the apparent, between the spiritual and 
 material worlds. When they crystallise as portents, 
 they lose all their usefulness. Moreover, the belief in 
 celestial visitations has its dark counterpart in super- 
 stitious dread of the powers of evil, which is capable of 
 turning life into a long nightmare, and has led to 
 dreadful cruelties.^ The error has still enough vitality 
 
 ' I refer especially to the horrors connected with the belief in witchcraft, 
 on which see Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. " Remy, a judge of 
 Nancy, boasted that he had put to death eight hundred witches in sixteen 
 
264 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 to create a prejudice against natural science, which 
 appears in the light of an invading enemy wresting 
 province after province from the empire of the super- 
 natural. 
 
 But we are concerned with thaumaturgy only so far 
 as it has affected Mysticism. At first sight the con- 
 nexion may seem very slight ; and slight indeed it is. 
 But just as Mysticism of the subjective type is often 
 entangled in theories which sublimate matter till only 
 a vain shadow remains, so objective Mysticism has 
 been often pervaded by another kind of false spiritual- 
 ism — that which finds edification in palpable super- 
 natural manifestations. These so-called " mystical 
 phenomena " are so much identified with " Mysticism " 
 in the Roman Catholic Church of to-day, that the 
 standard treatises on the subject, now studied in 
 continental universities, largely consist of grotesque 
 legends of " levitation," " bilocation," " incandescence," 
 " radiation," and other miraculous tokens of Divine 
 favour.^ The great work of Gorres, in five volumes, is 
 
 years." " In the bishopric of Warlzburg, nine hundred were burnt in one 
 year." As late as 1850, some French peasants burnt alive a woman 
 named Bedouret, whom they supposed to be a witch. 
 
 ^ The degradation of Mysticism in the Roman Church since the Reforma- 
 tion may be estimated by comparing the definitions of Mysticism and 
 Mystical Theology current in the Middle Ages with the following from 
 Ribet, who is recognised as a standard authority on the subject: "La 
 Theologie mystique, au point de vue subjectif et experimental, nous 
 semble pouvoir etre definie ; une attraction surnaturelle et passive de 
 I'ame vers Dieu, provenant d'une illumination et d'un embrasement 
 interieurs, qui previennent la reflexion, surpassent I'effort humain, et 
 peiivent avoir sur le corps tin reteyttissenient merveilletix et irresistible.^^ 
 "Au point de vue doctrinal et objectif, la mystique peut se d^finir : la 
 science qui traite des phenomenes sitmatji7-e!s, soit intimes, soit exterieurs, 
 qui preparent, accompagnent, et suivent la contemplation divine." The 
 time is past, if it ever existed, when such superstitions could be believed 
 without grave injury to mental and moral health. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 265 
 
 divided into Divine, Natural, and Diabolical Mysticism. 
 The first contains stories of the miraculous enhance- 
 ment of sight, hearing, smell, and so forth, which results 
 from extreme holiness ; and tells us how one saint had 
 the power of becoming invisible, another of walking 
 through closed doors, and a third of flying through 
 the air. " Natural Mysticism " deals with divination, 
 lycanthropy, vampires, second sight, and other barbar- 
 ous superstitions. " Diabolical Mysticism " includes 
 witchcraft, diabolical possession, and the hideous stories 
 of incubi and succubse. It is not my intention to say 
 any more about these savage survivals, as I do not wish 
 to bring my subject into undeserved contempt.^ " These 
 terrors, and this darkness of the mind," as Lucretius 
 says, " must be dispelled, not by the bright shafts of 
 the sun's light, but by the study of Nature's laws." - 
 
 1 This language about the teaching of the Roman Church may be con- 
 sidered unseemly by those who have not studied the subject. Those who 
 have done so will think it hardly strong enough. In self-defence, I will 
 quote one sentence from Schram, whose work on "Mysticism" is con- 
 sidered authoritative, and is studied in the great Catholic university of 
 Louvain : "Qureri potest utrum dcemon per turpem concubitum possit 
 violenter opprimere marem vel feminam cuius obsessio permissa sit ob 
 finem perfectionis et contemplationis acquirendse." The answer is in the 
 affirmative, and the evidence is such as could hardly be transcribed, even 
 in Latin. Schram's book is mainly intended for the direction of confessing 
 priests, and the evidence shows, as might have been expected, that the 
 subjects of these "phenomena" are generally poor nuns suffering from 
 hysteria. 
 
 - At a time when many are hoping to find in the study of the obscurer 
 psychical phenomena a breach in the "middle wall of partition" between 
 the spiritual and material worlds, I may seem to have brushed aside too 
 contemptuously the floating mass of popular beliefs which "spiritualists" 
 think worthy of serious investigation. I must therefore be allowed to say 
 that in my opinion psychical research has already established results of 
 great value, especially in helping to break down that view of the irupervi- 
 onsness of the ego which is fatal to Mysticism, and (I venture to think) to 
 any consistent philosophy. Monadism, we may hope, is doomed. But 
 
266 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Some of these fables are quite obviously due to a 
 materialisation of conventional symbols. These sym- 
 bols are the picture language into which the imagination 
 translates what the soul has felt. A typical case is 
 that of the miniature image of Christ, which is said to 
 have been found embedded in the heart of a deceased 
 saint. The supposed miracle was, of course, the work 
 of imagination ; but this does not mean that those who 
 reported it were deliberate liars. We know now that 
 we must distinguish between observation an^ imagina- 
 tion, between the language of science and that of 
 poetical metaphor ; but in an age which abhorred 
 rationalism this was not so clear.^ Rationalism has 
 its function in proving that such mystical symbols are 
 not physical facts. But when it goes on to say that 
 they are related to physical facts as morbid hallucina- 
 tions to realities, it has stepped outside its province. 
 
 Proceeding a little further as we trace the develop- 
 ment of natural or objective religion, we come to the 
 belief in magic, which in primitive peoples is closely 
 associated with their first attempts at experimental 
 science. What gives magic its peculiar character is 
 that it is based on fanciful, and not on real corre- 
 spondences. The uneducated mind cannot distinguish 
 between associations of ideas which are purely arbitrary 
 
 n the more popular kind of spiritualism is simply the old hankering after 
 , supernatural manifestations, which are always dear to semi-regenerate 
 minds. 
 
 ' It is, I tliink, signilicant that the word "imagination" was slow in 
 making its way into psychology. •ta/'Tacria is defined by Aristotle (de 
 Amma, iii. 3) as fclfTja-is inrb ttjs aicrOrjcreus t^s icar ivipryeiav yiyvo/j-ivyj, but 
 it is not till Philostratus that the creative imagination is opposed to ix[in]<ns. 
 Cf. Vif. Apoll. vi. 19, filfXTjaLS fxii> o-ijjMoi'pyriaei 6 elSev, ^ai'racrla di Kal <S 
 fj-r) doev. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 267 
 
 and subjective, and those which have a more universal 
 validity. Not, of course, that all the affinities seized 
 upon by primitive man proved illusory ; but those 
 which were not so ceased to be magical, and became 
 scientific. The savage draws no distinction between 
 the process by which he makes fire and that by which 
 his priest calls down rain, except that the latter is a 
 professional secret ; drugs and spells are used indiffer- 
 ently to cure the sick ; astronomy and astrology are 
 parts of the same science. There is, however, a 
 difference between the magic which is purely natural- 
 istic and that which makes mystical claims. The 
 magician sometimes claims that the spirits are subject 
 to him, not because he has learned how to wield the 
 forces which they must obey, but because he has so 
 purged his higher faculties that the occult sympathies 
 of nature have become apparent to him. His theosophy 
 claims to be a spiritual illumination, not a scientific 
 discovery. The error here is the application of 
 spiritual clairvoyance to physical relations. The 
 insight into reality, which is unquestionably the reward 
 of the pure heart and the single eye, does not reveal to 
 us in detail how nature should be subdued to our needs. 
 No spirits from the vasty deep will obey our call, to 
 show us where lies the road to fortune or to ruin. 
 Physical science is an abstract inquiry, which, while 
 it keeps to its proper subject — the investigation of the 
 relations which prevail in the phenomenal world — is self- 
 sufficient, and can receive nothing on external authority. 
 Still less can the adept usurp Divine powers, and bend 
 the eternal laws of the universe to his puny will. 
 
 The turbid streams of theurgy and magic flowed 
 
268 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 into the broad river of Christian thought by two 
 channels — the later Neoplatonism, and Jewish Cabbal- 
 ism. Of the former something has been said already. 
 The root-idea of the system was that all life may be 
 arranged in a descending scale of potencies, forming a 
 kind of chain from heaven to earth. Man, as a 
 microcosm, is in contact with every link in the chain, 
 and can establish relations with all spiritual powers, 
 from the superessential One to the lower spirits or 
 " daemons." The philosopher-saint, who had explored 
 the highest regions of the intelligence, might hope to 
 dominate the spirits of the air, and compel them to do 
 his bidding. Thus the door was thrown wide open 
 for every kind of superstition. The Cabbalists followed 
 much the same path. The word Cabbala means " oral 
 tradition," and is defined by Reuchlin as " the symbolic 
 reception of a Divine revelation handed down for the 
 saving contemplation of God and separate forms." ^ 
 In another place he says, " The Cabbala is nothing else 
 than symbolic theology, in which not only are letters 
 and words symbols of things, but things are symbols of 
 other things." This method of symbolic interpretation 
 was held to have been originally communicated by 
 revelation,- in order that persons of holy life might 
 
 ' Reuchlin, Dc arte cabbalistica : " Est enim Cabbala divince revclationis 
 ad salutiferam Dei et formarum separatarum contemplationem traditre 
 symbolica receptio, quam qui coelesti sortiuntur afflatu recto nomine 
 Cabbalici dicuntur, eorum vero discipulos cognomento Cabbala?os 
 appellabimus, et qui alioquin eos imitari conantur, Cabbalistce nominandi 
 sunt." 
 
 - The mystical Rabbis ascribe tlie Cabbala to the angel Razael, the 
 reputed teacher of Adam in Paradise, and say that this angel gave Adam 
 the Cabbala as his lesson-book. There is a clear and succinct account of 
 tlie main Cabbalistic docrines in Hunt, Fautheism and Christianity, 
 pp. 84-88. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 269 
 
 by it attain to a mystical communion with God, or 
 deification. The Cabbalists thus held much the same 
 relation to the Talmudists as the mystics to the 
 scholastics in the twelfth century. But, as Jews, they 
 remained faithful to the two doctrines of an inspired 
 tradition and an inspired book, which distinguish them 
 from Platonic mystics.^ 
 
 Pico de Mirandola (born 1463) was the first to bring 
 the Cabbala into Christian philosophy, and to unite it 
 with his Neoplatonism. Very characteristic of his age 
 is the declaration that " there is no natural science 
 which makes us so certain of the Divinity of Christ as 
 Magic and the Cabbala."- For there was at that 
 
 ' But the notion that the deepest mysteries should not be entrusted to 
 writing is found in Clement and Origen ; cf. Origen, Against Cehus, vi. 26 : 
 ovK 6.kIv8wov tt]v tQiv TOLOirrwy ffacp-fjveLav irLaTevaai, ypatpfj. And Clement 
 says : ra. anbppriTa, KaOdirep 6 debi, Xdyip TrtareveTai ov ypafifxari. The curi- 
 ous legend of an oral tradition also appears in Clement {Hypotyp. Fragm. 
 in Eusebius, H. E. ii. I. 4) : 'la/cwjScfJTy diKaitp /cat 'Iwcij't; kuI TliTp({i /ierd 
 TT]!' avaaraffiv TrapiScoKe ttjv yvQcnv 6 Kvpio?, odroi toIs \onroh dTroaroXots 
 irapiSiiJKav, oi 8e \onrol dwocrToXoi Toli e^Soix-qKOVTa, uiv eU Tjv Koi liapva^a'!. 
 Origen, too, speaks of " things spoken in private to the disciples."' 
 
 - The following extract from Pico's Apology may be interesting, as illus- 
 trating the close connexion between magic and science at this period : 
 ' ' One of the chief charges against me is that I am a magician. Have I not 
 myself distinguished two kinds of magic? One, which the Greeks call 
 yo7]Teia, depends entirely on alliance with evil spirits, and deserves to be 
 regarded with horror, and to be punished ; the other is magic in the proper 
 sense of the word. The former subjects man to the evil spirits, the latter 
 makes them serve him. The former is neither an art nor a science ; the 
 latter embraces the deepest mysteries, and the knowledge of the whole of 
 Nature with her powers. While it connects and combines the forces 
 scattered by God through the whole world, it does not so much work 
 miracles as come to the help of working nature. Its researches into the 
 sympathies of things enable it to bring to light hidden marvels from the 
 secret treasure-houses of the world, just as if it created them itself. As the 
 countryman trains the vine upon the elm, so the magician marries the 
 earthly objects to heavenly bodies. His art is beneficial and Godlike, for 
 it brings men to wonder at the works of God, than which nothing conduces 
 more to true religion," 
 
270 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 period a curious alliance of Mysticism and natural 
 science against scholasticism, which had kept both in 
 galling chains ; and both mystics and physicists invoked 
 the aid of Jewish theosophy. Just as Pythagoras, Plato, 
 and Proclus were set up against Aristotle, so the occult 
 philosophy of the Jews, which on its speculative side 
 was mere Neoplatonism, was set up against the divinity 
 of the Schoolmen. In Germany, Reuchlin (145 5-1 522) 
 wrote a treatise, On the Cabbalistic Art, in which a 
 theological scheme resembling those of the Neoplaton- 
 ists and speculative mystics was based on occult 
 revelation. The book captivated Pope Leo X. and the 
 early Reformers alike. 
 
 The influence of Cabbalism at this period was felt 
 not only in the growth of magic, but in the revival of 
 the science of allegorisni, which resembles magic in its 
 doctrine of occult sympathies, though without the 
 theurgic element. According to this view of nature, 
 everything in the visible world has an emblematic 
 meaning. Everything that a man saw, heard, or did 
 — colours, numbers, birds, beasts, and flowers, the 
 various actions of life — was to remind him of some- 
 thing else.^ The world was supposed to be full of sacred 
 cryptograms, and every part of the natural order testi- 
 fied in hieroglyphics ^ to the truths of Christianity. 
 Thus the shamrock bears witness to the Trinity, the 
 
 ' This was a very old theory. Cf. Lecky, Rationalism in Europe^ vol. i. 
 p. 264. "The Clavis of St. Melito, who was bishop of Sardis, it is said, 
 in the beginning of the second century, consists of a catalogue of many 
 hundreds of birds, beasts, plants, and minerals that were symbolical of 
 Christian virtues, doctrines, and personages." 
 
 ^ The analogy between allegorism in religion and the hieroglyphic writ- 
 ing is drawn out by Clement, Strom, v. 4 and 7. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 271 
 
 spider is an emblem of the devil, and so forth. This 
 kind of symbolism was and is extensively used merely 
 as a picture-language, in which there is no pretence 
 that the signs are other than artificial or conventional. 
 The language of signs may be used either to instruct 
 those who cannot understand words, or to baffle those 
 who can. Thus, a crucifix may be as good as a sermon 
 to an illiterate peasant ; while the sign of a fish was 
 used by the early Christians because it was unintelli- 
 gible to their enemies. This is not symbolism in the 
 sense which I have given to the word in this Lecture.^ 
 But it is otherwise when the type is used as a proof 
 of the antitype. This latter method had long been in 
 use in biblical exegesis. Pious persons found a curious 
 satisfaction in turning the most matter of fact state- 
 ments into enigmatic prophecies. Every verse must 
 have its " mystical " as well as its natural meaning, and 
 the search for " types " was x\ recognised branch of 
 apologetics. Allegorism became authoritative and 
 dogmatic, which it has no right to be. It would be 
 rash to say that this pseudo-science, which has proved 
 so attractive to many minds, is entirely valueless. The 
 very absurdity of the arguments used by its votaries 
 should make us suspect that there is a dumb logic 
 of a more respectable sort behind them. There is, 
 underlying this love of types and emblems, a strong 
 
 ^ The distinction, however, would be unintelligible to the savage mind. 
 To primitive man a name is a symbol in the strictest sense. Hence, " the 
 knowledge, invocation, and vain repetition of a deity's name constitutes in 
 itself an actual, if mystic, union with the deity named " (Jevons, Introduc- 
 tion to the History of Religion, p. 245). This was one of the chief reasons 
 for making a secret of the cultus, and even of the name of a patron-deity. 
 To reveal it was to admit strangers into the tutelage of the national god. 
 
272 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 conviction that if " one eternal purpose runs " through 
 the ages, it must be discernible in small things as well 
 as in great. Everything in the world, if we could see 
 things as they are, must be symbolic of the Divine 
 Power which made it and maintains it in being. We 
 cannot believe that anything in life is meaningless, 
 or has no significance beyond the fleeting moment. 
 Whatever method helps us to realise this is useful, 
 and in a sense true. So far as this we may go with the 
 allegorists, while at the same time we may be thankful 
 that the cobwebs which they spun over the sacred 
 texts have now been cleared away, so that we can at 
 last read our Bible as its authors intended it to be read.^ 
 
 ^ I do not find it possible to give a more honourable place than this to a 
 system of biblical exegesis which has still a few defenders. It was first 
 developed in Christian times by the Gnostics, and was eagerly adopted by 
 Origen, who fearlessly applied it to the Gospels, teaching that " Christ's 
 actions on earth were enigmas (alviyfiara), to be interpreted by Gnosis." 
 The method was often found useful in dealing with moral and scientific 
 difficulties in the Old Testament ; it enabled Dionysius to use very bold 
 language about the literal meaning, as I showed in Lecture III. The 
 Christian Platonists of Alexandria meant ^t to be an esoteric method : 
 Clement calls it a-vfipoXiKQ^ (pcXoaocpeiv. It was held that ra fivar-qpia 
 fjLV(TTiKQ>% irapaSiSoTai ; and even that Divine truths are honoured by 
 enigmatic treatment (-^ Kpv\l/ts t; fxvariKT] cre/jLvoiroie? to Oelov). But the main 
 use of allegorism was pietistic ; and to this there can be no objection, 
 unless the piety is morbid, as is the case in many commentaries on the Song 
 of Solomon. Still, it can hardly be disputed that the countless books 
 written to elaborate the principles of allegorism contain a mass of futility 
 such as it would be difficult to match in any other class of literature. The 
 best defence of the method is perhaps to be found in Keble's Tract (No. 89) 
 on the " Mysticism" of the early Fathers. Keble's own poetry contains 
 many beautiful examples of the true use of symbolism ; but as an apologist 
 of allegorism he does not distinguish between its use and abuse. Yet 
 surely there is a vast difference between seeing in the " glorious sky 
 embracing all " a type of "our Maker's love," and analysing the 153 fish 
 caught in the Sea of Galilee into the square of the 12 Apostles + the square 
 of the 3 Persons of the Trinity. 
 
 The history of the doctrine of "signatures," which is the cryptogram 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 273 
 
 Theosophical and magical Mysticism culminated in 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Just as the 
 idealism of Plotinus lost itself in the theurgic system 
 of lamblichus, so the doctrine of Divine immanence 
 preached by Eckhart and his school was followed by the 
 Nature-Mysticism of Cornelius Agrippa ^ and Paracel- 
 SUS.2 The " negative road " had been discredited by 
 Luther's invective, and Mysticism, instead of shutting 
 her eyes to the world of phenomena, stretched forth her 
 hands to conquer and annex it. The old theory of a 
 World-Spirit, the pulsations of whose heart are felt in 
 all the life of the universe, came once more into favour. 
 Through all phenomena, it was believed, runs an 
 intricate network of sympathies and antipathies, the 
 threads of which, could they be disentangled, would 
 
 theory applied to medicine, is very curious and interesting, "Citrons, 
 according to Paracelsus, are good for heart affections, because they are 
 heart-shaped ; the saphena riparu7n is to be applied to fresh wounds, 
 because its leaves are spotted as with flecks of blood. A species of ofew/ar/d, 
 whose roots resemble teeth, is a cure for toothache and scurvy." — Vaughan, 
 Hours with the Mystics, vol. ii. p. 77. It is said that some traces of this 
 quaint superstition survive even in the modern materia medica. The 
 alliance between medicine and Mysticism subsisted for a long time, and 
 forms a curious chapter of history. 
 
 ^ Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, a contemporary of Reuchlin, studied 
 Cabbalism mainly as a magical science. He was nominally a Catholic, but 
 attacked Rome and scholasticism quite in the spirit of Luther. His three 
 chief works are, On the Threefold Way of Knowing God, On the Vatiity of 
 Arts and Sciences (a ferocious attack on most of the professions), and On 
 Occult Philosophy [ixtz-im^ of natural, celestial, and religious magic). The 
 "magician," he says, "must study three sciences — physics, mathematics, 
 and theolog}'." Agrippa's adventurous life ended in 1533. 
 
 - Theophrastus Paracelsus (Philippus Bombastus von Hohenheim) was 
 born in 1493, and died in 1 541. His writings are a curious mixture of 
 theosophy and medical science : "medicine," he taught, "has four pillars 
 — philosophy, astronomy (or rather astrology), alchemy, and religion." He 
 lays great stress on the doctrine that man is a microcosm, and on the law of 
 Divine manifestation by contraries — the latter is a new feature which was 
 further developed by Bohme. 
 18 
 
274 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 furnish us with a clue through all the labyrinths of 
 natural and supernatural science. The age was im- 
 patient to enter on the inheritance from which 
 humanity had long been debarred ; the methods of 
 experimental science seemed tame and slow ; and so 
 we find, especially in Germany, an extraordinary 
 outburst of Nature-Mysticism — astrology, white magic, 
 alchemy, necromancy, and what not — such as Chris- 
 tianity had not witnessed before. These pseudo- 
 sciences (with which was mingled much real progress 
 in medicine, natural history, and kindred sciences) 
 were divided under three provinces or " vincula " — 
 those of the Spiritual World, which were mainly 
 magical invocations, diagrams, and signs ; those of the 
 Celestial World, which were taught by astrology ; and 
 those of the Elemental World, which consisted in the 
 sympathetic influence of material objects upon each 
 other. These secrets (it was held) are all discoverable 
 by man ; for man is a microcosm, or epitome of the 
 universe, and there is nothing in it with which he can- 
 not claim an affinity. In knowing himself, he knows 
 both God and all the other works that God has made. 
 
 The subject of Nature-Mysticism is a fascinating 
 one ; but I must here confine myself to its religious 
 aspects. An attempt was soon made, by Valentine 
 Weigel (15 3 3-1 5 88), Lutheran pastor at Tschopau, to 
 bring together the new objective Mysticism — freed from 
 its superstitious elements — and the traditional subject- 
 ive Mysticism which the Middle Ages had handed 
 down from Dionysius and the Neoplatonists. Weigel's 
 cosmology is based on that of Paracelsus ; and his 
 psychology also reminds us of him. Man is a micro- 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 275 
 
 cosm, and his nature has three parts — the outward 
 material body, the astral spirit, and the immortal soul, 
 which bears the image of God. The three faculties of 
 the soul correspond to these three parts ; they are 
 sense, reason {Verfiunft), and understanding {Ver- 
 stand). These are the " three eyes " by which we get 
 knowledge. The sense perceives material things ; the 
 reason, natural science and art; the understanding, 
 which he also calls the spark, sees the invisible and 
 Divine, He follows the scholastic mystics in distin- 
 guishing between natural and supernatural knowledge, 
 but his method of distinguishing them is, I think, 
 original. Natural knowledge, he says, is not conveyed 
 by the object ; it is the percipient subject which creates 
 knowledge out of itself. The object merely provokes 
 the consciousness into activity. In natural knowledge 
 the subject is " active, not passive " ; all that appears 
 to come from without is really evolved from within. 
 In supernatural knowledge the opposite is the case. 
 The eye of the " understanding," which sees the Divine, 
 is the spark in the centre of the soul where lies the 
 Divine image. In this kind of cognition the subject 
 must be absolutely passive ; its thoughts must be as still 
 as if it were dead. Just as in natural knowledge the 
 object does not co-operate, so in supernatural know- 
 ledge the subject does not co-operate. Yet this 
 supernatural knowledge does not come from without. 
 The Spirit and Word of God are ivithin us, God is 
 Himself the eye and the light in the soul, as well as 
 the object which the eye sees by this light. Super- 
 natural knowledge flows from within outwards, and in 
 this way resembles natural knowledge. But since God 
 
276 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 is both the eye that sees and the object which it sees, 
 it is not we who know God, so much as God who 
 knows Himself in us. Our inner man is a mere 
 instrument of God. 
 
 Thus Weigel, who begins with Paracelsus, leaves off 
 somewhere near Eckhart — and Eckhart in his boldest 
 mood. But his chief concern is to attack the Biblio- 
 laters {Buchstabentheologeti) in the Lutheran Church, 
 and to protest against the unethical dogma of imputed 
 righteousness. We need not follow him into either of 
 these controversies, which give a kind of accidental 
 colouring to his theology. Speculative Mysticism, 
 which is always the foe of formalism and dryness in 
 religion, attacks them in whatever forms it finds them ; 
 and so, when we try to penetrate the essence of 
 Mysticism by investigating its historical manifestations, 
 we must always consider what was the system which in 
 each case it was trying to purify and spiritualise. 
 Weigel's Mysticism moves in the atmosphere of Lutheran 
 dogmatics. But it also marks a stage in the general 
 development of Christian Mysticism, by giving a posit- 
 ive value to scientific and natural knowledge as part of 
 the self-evolution of the human soul. " Study nature," 
 he says, " physics, alchemy, magic, etc. ; for it is all in 
 you, and you become what you have learnt." It is true 
 that his religious attitude is rigidly quietistic ; but this 
 position is so inconsistent with the activity which he 
 enjoins on the " reason," that he may claim the credit of 
 having exhibited the contradiction between the positive 
 and negative methods in a clear light ; and to prove a 
 contradiction is always the first step towards solving it. 
 
 A more notable effort in the same direction was 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 277 
 
 that of Jacob Bohme, who, though he had studied 
 VVeigel, brought to his task a philosophical genius 
 which was all his own. 
 
 Bohme was born in 1575 near Gorlitz, where he after- 
 wards settled as a shoemaker and glover. He began to 
 write in 161 2, and in spite of clerical opposition, which 
 silenced him for five years, he produced a number of 
 treatises between that date and his death in 1624. 
 
 Bohme professed to write only what he had " seen " 
 by Divine illumination. His visions are not (with 
 insignificant exceptions) authenticated by any mar- 
 vellous signs ; he simply asserts that he has been 
 allowed to see into the heart of things, and that the 
 very Being of God has been laid open to his spiritua 
 sight.^ His was that type of mind to which every 
 thought becomes an image, and a logical process is 
 like an animated photograph. " I am myself my own 
 book," he says ; and in writing, he tries to transcribe 
 on paper the images which float before his mind's eye. 
 If he fails, it is because he cannot find words to 
 describe what he is seeing. Bohme was an unlearned 
 man ; but when he is content to describe his visions in 
 
 ^ "I saw," he says, "the Being of all Beings, the Ground and the 
 Abyss ; also, the birth of the Holy Trinity ; the origin and first state of the 
 world and of all creatures. I saw in myself the three worlds — the Divine 
 or angelic world ; the dark world, the original of Nature ; and the 
 external world, as a substance spoken forth out of the two spiritual worlds. 
 ... In my inward man I saw it well, as in a great deep ; for I saw right 
 through as into a chaos where everything lay wrapped, but I could not 
 unfold it. Yet from time to time it opened itself within me, like a growing 
 plant. For twelve years I carried it about within me, before I could bring 
 it forth in any external form ; till afterwards it fell upon me, like a bursting 
 shower that killeth wheresoever it lighteth, as it will. Whatever I could 
 bring into outwardness, that I wrote down. The work is none of mine ; I 
 am but the Lord's instrument, wherewith He doeth what He will." 
 
278 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 homely German, he is lucid enough. Unfortunately, 
 the scholars who soon gathered round him supplied 
 him with philosophical terms, which he forthwith 
 either personified — for instance the word " Idea " 
 called forth the image of a beautiful maiden — or used 
 in a sense of his own. The study of Paracelsus ob- 
 scured his style still more, filling his treatises with a 
 bewildering mixture of theosophy and chemistry. The 
 result is certainly that much of his work is almost 
 unreadable ; the nuggets of gold have to be dug out 
 from a bed of rugged stone ; and we cannot be sur- 
 prised that the unmystical eighteenth century declared 
 that " Behmen's works would disgrace Bedlam at full 
 moon." ^ But German philosophers have spoken with 
 reverence of " the father of Protestant Mysticism," who 
 " perhaps only wanted learning and the gift of clear 
 expression to become a German Plato " ; and Sir 
 Isaac Newton shut himself up for three months to 
 study Bohme, whose teaching on attraction and the 
 laws of motion seemed to him to have great value.^ 
 For us, he is most interesting as marking the transi- 
 tion from the purely subjective type of Mysticism to 
 Symbolism, or rather as the author of a brilliant 
 attempt to fuse the two into one system. In my 
 brief sketch of Bohme's doctrines I shall illustrate his 
 teaching from the later works of William Law, who is 
 by far its best exponent. Law was an enthusiastic 
 admirer of Bohme, and being, unlike his master, a man 
 of learning and a practised writer, was able to bring 
 
 ' This is from Bp. Warburlon. " Sublime nonsense, inimitable Imm- 
 bast, fustian not to be paralleled," is John Wesley's verdict, 
 - See Overton, Life of Williatn Law. p. i88. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 279 
 
 order out of the chaos in which Bohme left his specula- 
 tions. In strength of intellect Law was Bohme's 
 equal, and as a writer of clear and forcible English he 
 has few superiors. 
 
 Bohme's doctrine of God and the world resembles 
 that of other speculative mystics, but he contributes a 
 new element in the great stress which he lays on 
 antithesis as a law of being. "In Yes and No all 
 things consist," he says. No philosopher since 
 Heraclitus and Empedocles had asserted so strongly 
 that " Strife is the father of all things." Even in the 
 hidden life of the unmanifested Godhead he finds the 
 play of Attraction and Diffusion, the resultant of which 
 is a Desire for manifestation, felt in the Godhead. As 
 feeling this desire, the Godhead becomes " Darkness " ; 
 the light which illumines the darkness is the Son. 
 The resultant is the Holy Spirit, in whom arise the 
 archetypes of creation. So he explains Body, Soul, 
 and Spirit as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis ; and the 
 same formula serves to explain Good, Evil, and Free 
 Will ; Angels, Devils, and the World. His view of 
 Evil is not very consistent ; but his final doctrine is 
 that the object of the cosmic process is to exhibit the 
 victory of Good over Evil, of Love over Hatred.^ He 
 at least has the merit of showing that strife is so 
 inwoven with our lives here that we cannot possibly 
 soar above the conflict between Good and Evil. It 
 must be observed that Bohme repudiated the doctrine 
 that there is any evolution of God in time. " I say 
 
 ^ I have omitted Bohme's gnostical theoiies as to the seven Qtiellgeister 
 as belonging rather to theosophy than to Mysticism. The resemblance to 
 Basilides is here rather striking, but it must be a pure coincidence. 
 
28o CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 not that Nature is God," he says : " He Himself is all, 
 and communicates His power to all His works." But 
 the creation of the archetypes was not a temporal 
 act. 
 
 Like other Protestant mystics, he lays great stress 
 on the indwelling presence of Christ. And, con- 
 sistently with this belief, he revolts against the 
 Calvinistic doctrine of imputed righteousness, very 
 much as did the Cambridge Platonists a little later. 
 " That man is no Christian," he says, " who doth 
 merely comfort himself with the suffering, death, and 
 satisfaction of Christ, and doth impute it to himself as 
 a gift of favour, remaining himself still a wild beast and 
 unregenerate. ... If this said sacrifice is to avail for 
 me, it must be wrought in me. The Father must 
 beget His Son in my desire of faith, that my faith's 
 hunger may apprehend' Him in His word of promise. 
 Then I put Him on, in His entire process of justifica- 
 tion, in my inward ground ; and straightway there 
 begins in me the killing of the wrath of the devil, 
 death, and hell, from the inward power of Christ's 
 death. I am inwardly dead, and He is my life ; I live 
 in Him, and not in my selfhood. I am an instrument 
 of God, wherewith He doeth what He will." To the 
 same effect William Law says, " Christ given for us is 
 neither more nor less than Christ given into us. He 
 is in no other sense our full, perfect, and sufficient 
 Atonement, than as His nature and spirit are born and 
 formed in us." Law also insists that the Atonement 
 was the effect, not of the wrath, but of the love of God. 
 " Neither reason nor scripture," he says, " will allow us 
 to bring wrath into God Himself, as a temper of His 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 281 
 
 mind, who is only infinite, unalterable, overflowing 
 Love." " Wrath is atoned when sin is extinguished." 
 This revolt against the forensic theory of the Atone- 
 ment is very characteristic of Protestant Mysticism.^ 1 
 The disparagement of external rites and ordinances, 
 which we have found in so many mystics, appears in 
 William Law, though he was himself precise in ob- 
 serving all the rules of the English Church. " This 
 pearl of eternity is the Church, a temple of God 
 within thee, the consecrated place of Divine worship, 
 where alone thou canst worship God in spirit and in 
 truth. In spirit, because thy spirit is that alone in 
 thee which can unite and cleave unto God, and receive 
 the working of the Divine Spirit upon thee. In trutJi, 
 because this adoration in spirit is that truth and reality 
 of which all outward forms and rites, though in- 
 stituted by God, are only the figure for a time ; but 
 this worship is eternal. Accustom thyself to the holy 
 service of this inward temple. In the midst of it is 
 the fountain of living water, of which thou mayst 
 drink and live for ever. There the mysteries of thy 
 redemption are celebrated, or rather opened in life and 
 power. There the supper of the Lamb is kept ; the 
 bread that came down from heaven, that giveth life to 
 the world, is thy true nourishment : all is done, and 
 known in real experience, in a living sensibility of the 
 work of God on the soul. There the birth, the life, the 
 sufferings, the death, the resurrection and ascension of 
 Christ, are not merely remembered, but inwardly found 
 and enjoyed as the real states of thy soul, which has 
 followed Christ in the regeneration. When once thou 
 
 ' And of English Mysticism before the Reformation ; cf. p. 20S'. 
 
282 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 art well grounded in this inward worship, thou wilt 
 have learnt to live unto God above time and place. 
 For every day will be Sunday to thee, and wherever 
 thou goest thou wilt have a priest, a church, and an 
 altar along with thee." ^ 
 
 In his teaching about faith and love. Law follows 
 the best mystical writers ; but none before him, I 
 think, attained to such strong and growing eloquence 
 in setting it forth. " There is but one salvation for 
 all mankind, and the way to it is one ; and that is, the 
 desire of the soul turned to God. This desire brings 
 the soul to God, and God into the soul ; it unites with 
 God, it co-operates with God, and is one life w^ith God. 
 O my God, just and true, how great is Thy love and 
 mercy to mankind, that heaven is thus everywhere 
 open, and Christ thus the common Saviour to all that 
 turn the desire of their hearts to Thee ! " And of love 
 he says : " No creature can have any union or com- 
 munion with the goodness of the Deity till its life is a 
 spirit of love. This is the one only bond of union 
 betwixt God and His creature." " Love has no by- 
 ends, wills nothing but its own increase : everything is 
 as oil to its flame. The spirit of love does not want 
 to be rewarded, honoured, or esteemed ; its only desire 
 is to propagate itself, and become the blessing and 
 happiness of everything that wants it." 
 
 The doctrine of the Divine spark {synteresis) is held 
 by Law, but in a more definitely Christian form than 
 by Eckhart. "If Christ was to raise a new life like 
 
 ^ From the Spi'nt of Prayer. The sect of Behmenists in Germany, 
 unlike Law, attended no church, and took no part in the Lord's Supper. 
 — Overton, Life of IVilliaiii Law, p. 214. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 283 
 
 His own in every man, then every man must have had 
 originally in the inmost spirit of his life a seed of 
 Christ, or Christ as a seed of heaven, lying there in a 
 state of insensibility, out of which it could not arise 
 but by the mediatorial power of Christ. . . . For 
 what could begin to deny self, if there were not some- 
 thing in man different from self? . . . The Word of 
 God is the hidden treasure of every human soul, 
 immured under flesh and blood, till as a day-star it 
 arises in our hearts, and changes the son of an earthly 
 Adam into a son of God." Is not this the Platonic 
 doctrine of anamnesis, Christianised in a most beautiful 
 manner ? 
 
 Very characteristic of the later Mysticism is the 
 language which both Bohme and Law use about the 
 future state. " The soul, when it departs from the 
 body," Bohme writes, " needeth not to go far ; for 
 where the body dies, there is heaven and hell. God is 
 there, and the devil ; yea, each in his own kingdom. 
 There also is Paradise ; and the soul needeth only to 
 enter through the deep door in the centre." Law is 
 very emphatic in asserting that heaven and hell are 
 states, not places, and that they are " no foreign, 
 separate, and imposed states, adjudged to us by the 
 will of God." " Damnation," he says, " is the natural, 
 essential state of our own disordered nature, which is 
 impossible, in the nature of the thing, to be anything 
 else but our own hell, both here and hereafter." 
 " There is nothing that is supernatural," he says very 
 finely, " in the whole system of our redemption. 
 Every part of it has its ground in the workings and 
 powers of nature, and all our redemption is only nature 
 
284 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 set right, or made to be that which it ought to be.^ 
 There is nothing that is supernatural but God alone. 
 . . . Right and wrong, good and evil, true and false, 
 happiness and misery, are as unchangeable in nature 
 as time and space. Nothing, therefore, can be done to 
 any creature supernaturally, or in a way that is without 
 or contrary to the powers of nature ; but every thing 
 or creature that is to be helped, that is, to have any 
 good done to it, or any evil taken out of it, can only 
 have it done so far as the powers of nature are able, 
 and rightly directed to effect it."" 
 
 It is difficult to abstain from quoting more passages 
 like this, in which Faith, which had been so long directed 
 only to the unseen and unknown, sheds her bright 
 beams over this earth of ours, and claims all nature for 
 her own. The laws of nature are now recognised as 
 the laws of God, and for that very reason they cannot 
 be broken or arbitrarily suspended. Redemption is a 
 
 ' This stimulating doctrine, that the soul, when freed from impediments, 
 ascends naturally and inevitably to its "own place," is put into the mouth 
 of Beatrice by Dante [Paradiso, i. 136) — 
 
 " Non dei piu ammirar, se bene stimo, 
 
 Lo tuo salir, se non come d'un rivo, 
 
 Se d'alto monte scende giuso ad imo. 
 
 Maraviglia sarebbe in te, se privo 
 
 D'impedimento giu ti fossi assiso, 
 
 Cora' a terra quieto fuoco vivo. 
 
 Quinci rivohi; in ver lo cielo il viso." 
 - Il may be interesting to compare the following passage from George 
 t'ox, which dramatises the irruption of natural science, with its faith in 
 fixed laws, into the sphere of the religious consciousness : — " One morning, 
 while I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, a temptation 
 beset me ; and I sat still. It was said, All things come by Nature ; and 
 the elements and stars came over me, so that I was in a manner quite 
 clouded by it. And as I sat still under it and let it alone, a living hope 
 and a true voice arose in me, which said, T/iere ?s a living God who wade 
 all things. Immediately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and life 
 rose over it all ; my heart was glad, and I praised the living God." 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 285 
 
 law of life. There will come a time,^ " the time of the 
 lilies," as Bohme calls it, when all nature will be 
 delivered from bondage. " All the design of Christian 
 redemption," says Law, " is to remove everything that 
 is unheavenly, gross, dark, wrathful, and disordered 
 from every part of this fallen world." No text is 
 oftener in his mouth than the words of St. Paul which 
 I read as the text of this Lecture. That " dim sym- 
 pathy " of the human spirit with the life of nature 
 which Plotinus felt, but which mediaeval dualism had 
 almost quenched, has now become an intense and happy 
 consciousness of community with all living things, as 
 subjects of one all-embracing and unchanging law, the 
 law of perfect love. Magic and portents, apparitions 
 and visions, the raptures of " infused contemplation " 
 and their dark Nemesis of Satanic delusions, can no 
 more trouble the serenity of him who has learnt to .see 
 the same God in nature whom he has found in the 
 holy place of his own heart. 
 
 It was impossible to separate Law from the " blessed 
 Behmen," whose disciple he was proud to profess 
 himself. But in putting them together I have been 
 obliged to depart from the chronological order, for 
 the Cambridge Platonists, as they are usually called, 
 come between. This, however, need cause no confu- 
 sion, for the Platonists had no direct influence upon 
 Law. Law, Nonjuror as well as mystic, remained a 
 High Churchman by sympathy, and hated Rational- 
 ism ; while the Platonists sprang from an Evangelical 
 
 ' So we may fairly say, if we remember thai we are speaking of what 
 transcends time. Neither Bohme nor Law looks forward to a golden age 
 on this earth. 
 
286 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 school, were never tired of extolling Reason, and 
 regarded Bohme as a fanciful " enthusiast." ^ And yet, 
 we find so very much in common between the Platon- 
 ists and William Law, that these party differences 
 seem merely superficial. The same exalted type of 
 Mysticism appears in both. 
 
 The group of philosophical divines, who had their 
 centre in some of the Cambridge colleges towards the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, furnishes one of the 
 most interesting and important chapters in the history 
 of our Church. Never since the time of the early 
 Greek Fathers had any orthodox communion produced 
 thinkers so independent and yet so thoroughly loyal 
 to the Church. And seldom has the Christian temper 
 found a nobler expression than in the lives and writ- 
 ings of such men as Whichcote and John Smith.- 
 
 * Henry More's judgment is as follows : "Jacob Behmen, I conceive, is 
 to he reckoned in the number of those whose imaginative faculty has the 
 pre-eminence above the rational ; and though he was a good and holy 
 man, his natural complexion, notwithstanding, was not destroyed, but re- 
 tained its property still ; and, therefore, his imagination being very busy 
 about Divine things, he could not without a miracle fail of becoming an 
 enthusiast, and of receiving Divine truths upon the account of the strength 
 and vigour of his fancy ; which, being so well qualified with holiness and 
 sanctity, proved not unsuccessful in sundry apprehensions, but in others it 
 fared with him after the manner of men, the sagacity of his imagination 
 failing him, as well as the anxiety of reason does others of like integrity 
 with himself." 
 
 '^ Canon G. G. Perry, in his Sfudenfs^ English Church History, disposes 
 of this noble group of men in one contemptuous paragraph, as a "class of 
 divines who were neither Puritans nor High Churchmen," and makes the 
 astounding statement that "to the school thus commenced, the deadness, 
 carelessness, and indifference prevalent in the eighteenth century are in 
 large measure to be attributed." It is of these same same men that Bishop 
 Burnet writes, that if they had not appeared to combat the "laziness 
 and negligence," the "ease and sloth" of the Restoration clergy, "the 
 Church had quite lost her esteem over the nation." Alexander Knox 
 ( lVo7-Jcs, vol. iii. p. 199) speaks of the rise of this school as a great instance 
 of the design of Providence to supply to the Church what had never before 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 287 
 
 These men made no secret of their homage to Plato. 
 And let it be noticed that they were students of Plato 
 and Plotinus more than of Dionysius and his succes- 
 sors. Their Platonism is not of the debased Oriental 
 type, and is entirely free from self-absorbed quietism. 
 The via negativa has disappeared as completely in 
 their writings as in those of Bohme ; the world is for 
 them as for him the mirror of the Deity ; but, being 
 philosophers and not physicists, they are most inter- 
 ested in claiming for religion the whole field of intel- 
 lectual life. They are fully convinced that there can 
 be no ultimate contradiction between philosophy or 
 science and Christian faith ; and this accounts not 
 only for their praise of " reason," but for the happy 
 optimism which appears everywhere in their writings. 
 The luxurious and indolent Restoration clergy, whose 
 Hves were shamed by the simplicity and spirituality of 
 the Platonists, invented the word '* Latitudinarian " 
 to throw at them, " a long nickname which they have 
 taught their tongues to pronounce as roundly as if it 
 were shorter than it is by four or five syllables " ; but 
 they could not deny that their enemies were loyal sons 
 of the Church of England.^ What the Platonists meant 
 
 been produced, writers who do " full honour at once to the elevation and 
 the rationality of Christian piety. ... In their writings we are invited to 
 ascend, by having a prospect opened before us as luminous as it is sub- 
 lime. . . . They are such writers as, had never before existed. . . . No 
 Church but the English Church could have produced them." Of John 
 Smith he says, "My value for him is beyond what words can do justice 
 to." The works of Whichcote, Smith, Cudworth, and Culverwel are 
 happily accessible enough, and I beg my readers to study them at first 
 hand. I do not believe that any Christian could rise from the perusal of 
 the two first-named without having gained a lasting benefit in the deepen- 
 ing of his spiritual life and heightening of his faith. 
 
 ^ A writer who signs himself S. P. (probably Simon Patrick, bishop of 
 
288 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 * by making reason the seat of authority may be seen 
 by a few quotations from Whichcote and Smith, who 
 for our purpose are, I think, the best representatives of 
 the school. Whichcote answers Tuckney, who had 
 remonstrated with him for " a vein of doctrine, in 
 which reason hath too much given to it in the mys- 
 teries of faith " ; — " Too much " and " too often " on 
 these points ! " The Scripture is full of such truths, 
 and I discourse on them too much and too often ! Sir, 
 I oppose not rational to spiritual, for spiritual is most 
 rational." Elsewhere he writes, " He that gives reason 
 for what he has said, has done what is fit to be done, 
 and the most that can be done." " Reason is the 
 Divine Governor of man's life ; it is the very voice of 
 God." " When the doctrine of the Gospel becomes 
 the reason of our mind, it will be the principle of our 
 life." " It ill becomes us to make our intellectual 
 faculties Gibeonites." ^ How far this teaching differs 
 from the frigid " common-sense " morality prevalent 
 in the eighteenth century, may be judged from the 
 following, which stamps Whichcote as a genuine 
 mystic. " Though liberty of judgment be everyone's 
 right, yet how few there are that make use of this 
 right ! For the use of this right doth depend upon 
 self-improvement by meditation, consideration, examina- 
 tion, prayer, and the like. These are things antece- 
 
 Ely), in a pamphlet called A Brief Arcouut of Ihe Jiew Sec/ of Latitude 
 Men (1662), vindicates their attachment to the "virtuous mediocrity" of 
 the Church of England, as distinguished from the " meretricious gaudiness 
 of the Church of Rome, and the squalid sluttery of fanatic conventicles." 
 
 ^Compare with these extracts the words of Leibnitz: "To despise 
 reason in matters of religion is to my eyes certain proof either of an 
 obstinacy that borders on fanaticism, or, what is worse, of hypocrisy." 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 289 
 
 dent and prerequisite." John Smith, in a fine passage 
 too long to quote in full, says : " Reason in man being 
 lumen de lumine, a light flowing from the Fountain and 
 Father of lights . . . was to enable man to work out 
 of himself all those notions of God which are the true 
 groundwork of love and obedience to God, and con- 
 formity to Him. . . . But since man's fall from God, 
 the inward virtue and vigour of reason is much abated, 
 the soul having suffered a 7rT€poppv7]ai<i, as Plato speaks, 
 a defiuviunt pennaru7n. . . . And therefore, besides the 
 truth of natural inscription, God hath provided the 
 truth of Divine revelation. . . . But besides this out- 
 ward revelation, there is also an inward impression of 
 it. . . . which is in a more special manner attributed 
 to God. . . . God only can so shine upon our glassy 
 understandings, as to beget in them a picture of Him- 
 self, and turn the soul like wax or clay to the seal of 
 His own light and love. He that made our souls in 
 His own image and likeness can easily find a way 
 into them. The Word that God speaks, having found 
 a way into the soul, imprints itself there as with the 
 point of a diamond. ... It is God alone that acquaints 
 the soul with the truths of revelation, and also 
 strengthens and raises the soul to better apprehen- 
 sions even of natural truth, God being that in the 
 intellectual world which the sun is in the sensible, as 
 some of the ancient Fathers love to speak, and the 
 ancient philosophers too, who meant God by their 
 Intellectiis Agens} whose proper work they supposed 
 to be not so much to enlighten the object as the 
 faculty." 
 
 ^ See Appendix C. 
 19 
 
290 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 The Platonists thus lay great stress on the inner 
 light, and identify it with the purified reason. The best 
 exposition of their teaching on this head is in Smith's 
 beautiful sermon on " The True Way or Method 
 of attaining to Divine Knowledge." " Divinity," he 
 says, " is a Divine life rather than a Divine science, to 
 be understood rather by a spiritual sensation than by 
 any verbal description. A good life is the prolepsis 
 of Divine science — the fear of the Lord is the be- 
 ginning of wisdom. Divinity is a true efflux from the 
 eternal light, which, like the sunbeams, does not only 
 enlighten, but also heat and enliven ; and therefore our 
 Saviour hath in His beatitudes connext purity of heart 
 to the beatific vision." " Systems and models furnish 
 but a poor wan light," compared with that which 
 shines in purified souls. " To seek our divinity merely 
 in books and writings is to seek the living among the 
 dead " ; in these, " truth is often not so much enshrined 
 as entombed." " That which enables us to know and 
 understand aright the things of God, must be a living 
 principle of holiness within us. The sun of truth 
 never shines into any unpurged souls. . . . Such as 
 men themselves are, such will God Himself seem to 
 be. . . . Some men have too bad hearts to have good 
 heads. . . , He that will find truth must seek it with a 
 free judgment and a sanctified mind." 
 
 Smith was well read in mystical theology, and was 
 aware how much his ideal differed from that of 
 Dionysian Mysticism. His criticism of the via negativa 
 is so admirable that I must quote part of it. " Good 
 men . . . are content and ready to deny themselves 
 for God, I mean not that they should deny their own 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 291 
 
 reason, as some would have it, for that were to deny a 
 beam of Divine light, and so to deny God, instead of 
 denying ourselves for Him. ... By self-denial, I mean 
 the soul's quitting all its own interest in itself, and an 
 entire resignation of itself to Him as to all points of 
 service and duty; and thus the soul loses itself in God, 
 and lives in the possession not so much of its own 
 being as of the Divinity, desiring only to be great in 
 God, to glory in His light, and spread itself in His 
 fulness ; to be filled always by Him, and to empty 
 itself again into Him ; to receive all from Him, and to 
 expend all for Him ; and so to live, not as its own, 
 but as God's." Wicked men " maintain a vieum and 
 tuiim between God and themselves," but the good man 
 is able to make a full surrender of himself, " triumph- 
 ing in nothing more than in his own nothingness, and 
 in the allness of the Divinity. But, indeed, this his 
 being nothing is the only way to be all things ; this his 
 having nothing the truest way of possessing all things, 
 . . . The spirit of religion is always ascending up- 
 wards ; and, spreading itself through the whole essence 
 of the soul, loosens it from a self-confinement and 
 narrowness, and so renders it more capacious of Divine 
 enjoyment. . . . The spirit of a good man is always 
 drinking in fountain-goodness, and fills itself more and 
 more, till it be filled with all the fulness of God." " It 
 is not a melancholy kind of- sitting still, and slothful 
 waiting, that speaks men enlivened by the Spirit and 
 power of God. It is not religion to stifle and smother 
 those active powers and principles which are within us. 
 . . . Good men do not walk up and down the world 
 rnerely like ghosts and shadows j but they are indeed 
 
292 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 living men, by a real participation from Him who is 
 indeed a quickening Spirit." 
 
 " Neither were it an happiness worth the having for 
 a mind, like an hermit sequestered from all things else, 
 to spend an eternity in self-converse and the enjoy- 
 ment of such a diminutive superficial nothing as itself 
 is. . . . We read in the Gospel of such a question of 
 our Saviour's, What went ye out into the wilderness to 
 see? We may invert it, What do you return within 
 to see ? A soul confined within the private and 
 narrow cell of its own particular being ? Such a soul 
 deprives itself of all that almighty and essential glory 
 and goodness which shines round about it, which 
 spreads itself throughout the whole universe ; I say, it 
 deprives itself of all this, for the enjoying of such a 
 poor, petty, and diminutive thing as itself is, which yet 
 it can never enjoy truly in such retiredness." 
 
 The English Platonists are equally sound on the 
 subject of ecstasy. Whichcote says : " He doth not 
 know God at all as He is, nor is he in a good state 
 of religion, who doth not find in himself at times 
 ravishings with sweet and lovely considerations of 
 the Divine perfections." And Smith : " Who can tell 
 the delights of those mysterious converses with the 
 Deity, when reason is turned into sense, and faith 
 becomes vision ? The fruit of this knowledge is 
 sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. ... By the 
 Platonists' leave, this life and knowledge (that of the 
 * contemplative man ') peculiarly belongs to the true 
 and sober Christian. This life is nothing else but an 
 infant-Christ formed in his soul. But we must not 
 mistake: this knowledge is here but in its infancy." 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 293 
 
 While we are here, " our own imaginative powers, 
 which are perpetually attending the best acts of our 
 souls, will be breathing a gross dew upon the pure 
 glass of our understandings." 
 
 " Heaven is first a temper, then a place," says Which- 
 cote, and Smith says the same about hell. " Heaven 
 is not a thing without us, nor is happiness anything 
 distinct from a true conjunction of the mind with 
 God." " Though we could suppose ourselves to be at 
 truce with heaven, and all Divine displeasure laid 
 asleep ; yet would our own sins, if they continue unmorti- 
 fied, make an JEtna. or Vesuvius within us." ^ This 
 view of the indissoluble connexion between holiness 
 and blessedness, as between sin and damnation, leads 
 Smith to reject strenuously the doctrine of imputed, 
 as opposed to imparted, righteousness. " God does 
 not bid us be warmed and filled," he says, " and deny 
 us those necessities which our starving and hungry 
 souls call for. ... I doubt sometimes, some of our 
 dogmata and notions about justification may puff us 
 up in far higher and goodlier conceits of ourselves than 
 God hath of us, and that we profanely make the 
 unspotted righteousness of Christ to serve only as a 
 covering wherein to wrap our foul deformities and 
 filthy vices, and when we have done, think ourselves 
 in as good credit and repute with God as we are with 
 ourselves, and that we are become Heaven's darlings as 
 much as we are our own." ^ 
 
 ^ The classical reader will be reminded of Lucretius, iii. 979-1036. 
 Smith, however, would not have relished this comparison. He devotes 
 part of one sermon to a refutation of the Epicurean poet, in whom he sees 
 a precursor of his /v/£ noire, Hobbes ! 
 
 * Compare with this the following passage of Jean de Labadie (1610- 
 
294 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 *rhese extracts will show that the English Platonists 
 breathe a larger air than the later Romish mystics, and 
 teach a religion more definitely Christian than Erigena 
 and Eckhart. I shall now show how this happy result 
 was connected with a more truly spiritual view of the 
 external world than we have met with in the earlier 
 part of our survey. That the laws of nature are the 
 laws of God, that " man, as man, is averse to what is 
 evil and wicked," that " evil is unnatural," and a " con- 
 tradiction of the law of our being," which is only found 
 in " wicked men and devils," is one of Whichcote's 
 " gallant themes." And Smith sets forth the true 
 principles of Nature-Mysticism in a splendid passage, 
 with which I will conclude this Lecture : — 
 
 " God made the universe and all the creatures con- 
 tained therein as so many glasses wherein He might 
 reflect His own glory. He hath copied forth Himself 
 in the creation ; and in this outward world we may 
 read the lovely characters of the Divine goodness, 
 power, and wisdom. . . . But how to find God here, and 
 feelingly to converse with Him, and being affected 
 with the sense of the Divine glory shining out upon 
 the creation, how to pass out of the sensible world into 
 the intellectual, is not so effectually taught by that 
 
 1674), the founder of a mystical school on the Continent : " Flusieurs sont 
 bien aises d'ouyr dire qu'ils sont justifies par Jesus-Christ, laves de leurs 
 peches en son sang par la foi, par la repentance et par le bapteme chrestien, 
 et volontiers ils I'embrasent comme Justificateur, comme crucifie et niort 
 pour eux ; mais peu prennent part a sa croix, k sa mort, pour se faire 
 spirituellement mourir avec Luy, crucifier leur chair avec la sienne, et 
 porter en eux-memes les vives marques de sa croix et de sa mort. Peu le 
 goutent comme Justificateur au dedans par I'Esprit consacrant et immolant 
 le vieil honime a Dieu el par une pratique vraiment sainte, laquelle dompte 
 le peche." 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 295 
 
 philosophy which professed it most, as by true reh"gion. 
 That which knits and unites God and the soul together 
 can best teach it how to ascend and descend upon 
 those golden links that unite, as it were, the world to 
 God. That Divine Wisdom, that contrived and beauti- 
 fied this glorious structure, can best explain her own 
 art, and carry up the soul back again in these reflected 
 beams to Him who is the Fountain of them. . . . Good 
 men may easily find every creature pointing out to 
 that Being whose image and superscription it bears, 
 and climb up from those darker resemblances of the 
 Divine wisdom and goodness, shining out in different 
 degrees upon several creatures, till they sweetly repose 
 themselves in the bosom of the Divinity ; and while they 
 are thus conversing with this lower world . . . they find 
 God many times secretly flowing into their souls, and 
 leading them silently out of the court of the temple 
 into the Holy Place. . . . Thus religion, where it is in 
 truth and power, renews the very spirit of our minds, 
 and doth in a manner spiritualise this outward creation 
 to us. . . . It is nothing but a thick mist of pride and 
 self-love that hinders men's eyes from beholding that 
 sun which enlightens them and all things else. ... A 
 good man is no more solicitous whether this or that 
 good thing be mine, or whether my perfections exceed 
 the measure of this or that particular creature ; for 
 whatsoever good he beholds anywhere, he enjoys and 
 delights in it as much as if it were his own, and what- 
 ever he beholds in himself, he looks not upon it as his 
 property, but as a common good ; for all these beams 
 come from one and the same Fountain and Ocean of 
 Hsrht in whom he loves them all with an universal 
 
296 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 love. . . . Thus may a man walk up and down the 
 world as in a garden of spices, and suck a Divine 
 sweetness out of every flower. There is a twofold 
 meaning in every creature, a literal and a mystical, 
 and the one is but the ground of the other ; and as the 
 Jews say of their law, so a good man says of every- 
 thing that his senses offer to him — it speaks to his 
 lower part, but it points out something above to his 
 mind and spirit. It is the drowsy and muddy spirit of 
 superstition which is fain to set some idol at its elbow, 
 something that may jog it and put it in mind of God. 
 Whereas true religion never finds itself out of the 
 infinite sphere of the Divinity ... it beholds itself 
 everywhere in the midst of that glorious unbounded 
 Being who is indivisibly everywhere. A good man 
 finds every place he treads upon holy ground ; to him 
 the world is God's temple ; he is ready to say with 
 Jacob, " How dreadful is this place ! this is none other 
 than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven." 
 
LECTURE VIII 
 
 297 
 
" For nothing worthy proving can be proven, 
 Nor yet disproven ; wherefore thou be wise, 
 Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, 
 And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith I 
 She reels not in the storm of warring words, 
 She brightens at the clash of Ves and No, 
 She sees the Best that glimmers through the Worst, 
 She feels the sun is hid but for a night. 
 She spies the summer thro' the winter bud. 
 She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, 
 She hears the lark within the songless egg, 
 She finds the fountain where they wail'd 'Mirage I'" 
 
 Tennyson, The Ancient Sage. 
 
 "Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognises and 
 worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us ; 
 and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form. Everything 
 that lies between these two is idolatry." 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 " My wish is that f may perceive the Cxod whom I find everywhere 
 in the external world, in like manner within and inside me." 
 
 Keplek. 
 
 " Getrost, das Leben schreitet 
 
 Zum ew'gen Leben hin ; 
 Von innrer Gluth geweitet 
 
 \'erklart sich unser Sinn. 
 Die Sternwelt wird zerfliesscn 
 
 Zum goldnen Lebenswein, 
 Wir werden sic geniessen 
 
 Und lichte Sterne sein. 
 
 Die Lieb' ist freigegebcn 
 
 Und keine Trennung mehr 
 Es wogt das voile Leben 
 
 Wie ein unendlich Meer. 
 Nur eine Nacht der Wonne, 
 
 Ein ewiges Gedicht ! 
 Und unser Aller Sonne 
 
 Ist Gottes Angesicht." 
 
 NOVAI.IS. 
 
 298 
 
LECTURE VIII 
 
 Nature-Mysticism — continued 
 
 " The invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly 
 seen, being understood through the things that are made, even His ever- 
 lasting power and Divinity." — Rom. i. 20. 
 
 In my last Lecture I showed how the later Mysticism 
 emancipated itself from the mischievous doctrine that 
 the spiritual eye can only see when the eye of sense is 
 closed. After the Reformation period the mystic tries 
 to look with both eyes ; his aim is to see God in all 
 things, as well as all things in God. He returns with 
 better resources to the task of the primitive religions, 
 and tries to find spiritual law in the natural world. It 
 is true that a strange crop of superstitions, the seeds 
 of which had been sown long before, sprang up to 
 mock his hopes. In necromancy, astrology, alchemy, 
 palmistry, table-turning, and other delusions, we have 
 what some count the essence, and others the reproach, 
 of Mysticism. But these are, strictly speaking, scien- 
 tific and not religious errors. From the standpoint of 
 religion and philosophy, the important change is that, in 
 the belief of these later mystics, the natural and the 
 spiritual are, somehow or other, to be reconciled ; the 
 external world is no longer regarded as a place of exile 
 from God, or as a delusive appearance ; it is the living 
 
300 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 ^ vesture of the Deity ; and its " discordant harmony," ^ 
 though " for the many it needs intepreters," ^ yet " has 
 a voice for the wise " which speaks of things behind the 
 veil. The glory of God is no longer figured as a 
 blinding white light in which all colours are combined 
 and lost ; but is seen as a " many-coloured wisdom " ^ 
 which shines everywhere, its varied hues appearing not 
 only in the sanctuary of the lonely soul, but in all the 
 wonders that science can discover, and all the beauties 
 that art can interpret. Dualism, with the harsh 
 asceticism which belongs to it, has given way to a 
 brighter and more hopeful philosophy ; men's outlook 
 upon the world is more intelligent, more trustful, and 
 more genial ; only for those who perversely seek to 
 impose the ethics of selfish individualism upon a world 
 which obeys no such law, science has in reserve a 
 blacker pessimism than ever brooded over the ascetic 
 of the cloister. 
 
 We shall not meet, in this chapter, any finer 
 examples of the Christian mystic than John Smith 
 and William Law. But these men, and their intel- 
 lectual kinsmen, were far from exhausting the treasure 
 of Nature-Mysticism. The Cambridge Platonists, 
 indeed, somewhat undervalued the religious lessons 
 of Nature. They were scholars and divines, and what 
 lay nearest their heart was the consecration of the 
 reason — that is, of the whole personality under the 
 guidance of its highest faculty — to the service of truth 
 and goodness. And Law, in his later years, was too 
 much under the influence of Bohme's fantastic theosophy 
 
 ^ Horace, Ep. i. 12. 19. ^ Pindar, Olymp. ii. 154. 
 
 •* ttoXvitoIkCKos aocpla, Eph. iii. 10. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 301 
 
 to bring to Nature that childlike spirit which can best 
 learn her lessons. 
 
 The Divine in Nature has hitherto been discerned 
 more fully by the poet than by the theologian or the 
 naturalist ; and in this concluding Lecture I must deal 
 chiefly with Christian poetry. The attitude towards 
 Nature which we have now to consider is more con- 
 templative than practical ; it studies analogies in order 
 to knoiu the unseen powers which surround us, and has 
 no desire to bend them or make them its instruments. 
 
 Our Lord's precept, " Consider the lilies," sanctions 
 this religious use of Nature ; and many of His parables, 
 such as that of the Sower, show us how much we may 
 learn from such analogies. And be it observed that it 
 is the normal and regular in Nature which in these 
 parables is presented for our study ; the yearly harvest, 
 not the three years' famine ; the constant care and 
 justice of God, not the " special providence " or the 
 " special judgment." We need not wait for catastrophes 
 to trace the finger of God. As for Christian poetry 
 and art, we do not expect to find any theory of aesthetic 
 in the New Testament ; but we may perhaps extract 
 from the precept quoted above the canon that the 
 highest beauty that we can discern resides in the real 
 and natural, and only demands the seeing eye to find it. 
 
 In the Greek Fathers we find great stress laid on the 
 glories of Nature as a revelation of God. Cyril says, 
 " The wider our contemplation of creation, the grander 
 will be our conception of God," And Basil uses the 
 same language. We find, indeed, in these writers a' 
 marked tendency to exalt the religious value of natural 
 beauty, and to disparage the function of art — a pre- 
 
302 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 monition, perhaps, of iconoclasm. Pagan art, which 
 was decaying before the advent of Christ, could not, 
 it appears, be quietly Christianised and carried on 
 without a break. 
 
 The true Nature - Mysticism is prominent in St. 
 Francis of Assisi. He loves to see in all around him 
 the pulsations of one life, which sleeps in the stones, 
 dreams in the plants, and wakens in man. " He would 
 remain in contemplation before a flower, an insect, or a 
 bird, and regarded them with no dilettante or egoistic 
 pleasure ; he was interested that the plant should have 
 its sun, the bird its nest ; that the humblest manifesta- 
 tions of creative force should have the happiness to 
 which they are entitled." ^ So strong was his conviction 
 that all living things are children of God, that he would 
 preach to " my little sisters the birds," and even under- 
 took the conversion of " the ferocious wolf of Agobio." 
 
 This tender reverence for Nature, which is a mark 
 of all true Platonism, is found, as we have seen, in 
 Plotinus, It is also prominent in the Platonists of the 
 Renaissance, such as Bruno and Campanella,- and in 
 Petrarch, who loved to offer his evening prayers among 
 the moonlit mountains. Suso has at least one beauti- 
 ful passage on the sights and sounds of spring, and 
 exclaims, " O tender God, if Thou art so loving in Thy 
 creatures, how fair and lovely must Thou be in Thy- 
 self! " -^ The Reformers, especially Luther and Zwingli, 
 
 * Barine in Revue Jes Deux iMomies, April 1891. 
 
 - Tlie latter, like Fechner in our own century, holds that the stars are 
 living organisms, whose "sensibility is full of pleasure." 
 
 •* See Illingworth's Divine Itiunamnce, where this and other interesting 
 passages are quoted. But Suso was, of course, not a " Protestant mystic." 
 And 1 cannot agree with the author when he says that Lucretius found no 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 303 
 
 are more alive than might have been expected to the 
 vahie of Nature's lessons ; and the French mystics, 
 Francis de Sales and Fenelon, write gracefully about 
 the footprints of the Divine wisdom and beauty which 
 may be traced everywhere in the world around us. 
 
 But natural religion is not to be identified with 
 Mysticism, and it would not further our present inquiry 
 to collect passages, in prose or poetry, which illustrate 
 the aids to faith which the book of Nature may supply. 
 Nor need we dwell on such pure Platonism as we find 
 in Spenser's " Hymn of Heavenly Beauty," or some of 
 Shelley's poems, in which we are bidden to gaze upon 
 the world as a mirror of the Divine Beauty, since our 
 mortal sight cannot endure the " white radiance " of 
 the eternal archetypes.^ We have seen how this view 
 
 religious inspiration in Nature. Tiie poet of the Nature of Things shows 
 himself to have been a lonely man, who had pondered much among the 
 hills and by the sea, and who loved to taste the pure delights of the 
 spring. Thence came to him the "holy joy and dread" ("quredam divina 
 voluptas atque horror ") which pulsates through his great poem as he 
 shatters the barbarous mythology of paganism, and then, in the spirit of 
 a priest rather than of a philosopher, turns the "bright shafts of day" 
 upon the folly and madness of those who are slaves to the world or the 
 flesh. The spirit of Lucretius is the spirit of modern science, which tends 
 neither to materialism nor to atheism, whatever its friends and enemies mav 
 say. 
 
 ^ Christian Platonism has never been more beautifully set forth than in 
 the poem of Spenser named above. Compare, especially, the following 
 stanzas : — 
 
 " The means, therefore, which unto us is lent 
 
 Him to behold, is on His works to look, 
 
 Which He hath made in beauty excellent, 
 
 And in the same, as in a brazen book 
 
 To read enregistered in every nooke 
 
 His goodness, which His beauty dotli declare : 
 
 For all that's good is beautiful and fair. 
 
 Thence gathering plumes of perfect speciilation. 
 To imp the wings of thy high-flying mimL 
 
304 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 of the world as a pale reflection of the Ideas leads in 
 practice to a contempt for visible things ; as, indeed, it 
 does in Spenser's beautiful poem. He invites us, after 
 learning Nature's lessons, to 
 
 " Look at last up to that sovereign light, 
 From whose pure beams all perfect beauty springs ; 
 That kindleth love in every godly spright, 
 Even the love of God ; which loathing brings 
 Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things ; 
 With whose sweet pleasures being so possessed, 
 Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest." 
 
 This is not the keynote of the later Nature-Mysticism. 
 We now expect that every new insight into the truth 
 of things, every enlightenment of the eyes of our under- 
 standing, which may be granted us as the reward of 
 faith, love, and purity of heart, will make the world 
 around us appear, not viler and baser, but more glorious 
 and more Divine. It is not a proof of spirituality, but 
 of its opposite, if God's world seems to us a poor place. 
 If we could see it as God sees it, it would be still, as 
 as on the morning of creation, " very good." The 
 hymn which is ever ascending from the earth to the 
 throne of God is to be listened for, that we may join in 
 it. The laws by which all creation lives are to be 
 
 Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation, 
 From this dark world, whose damps the soul do blind, 
 On that bright Sun of glory fix thine eyes, 
 Cleared from gross mists of frail infirmities." 
 
 Shelley sums up a great deal of Plotinus in the following stanza of 
 " Adonais" : — • 
 
 " The One remains; the many change and pass; 
 Heaven's light for ever shines ; earth's shadows fly ; 
 Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of eternity." 
 Compare, too, the opening lines of " Alastor." 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 305 
 
 studied, that we too may obey them. As for the 
 beauty which is everywhere diffused so lavishly, it 
 seems to be a gift of God's pure bounty, to bring 
 happiness to the unworldly souls who alone are able to 
 see and enjoy it. 
 
 The greatest prophet of this branch of contemplative 
 Mysticism is unquestionably the poet Wordsworth. It 
 was the object of his life to be a religious teacher, and 
 I think there is no incongruity in placing him at the 
 end of the roll of mystical divines who have been dealt 
 with in these Lectures. His intellectual kinship with 
 the acknowledged representatives of Nature-Mysticism 
 will, I hope, appear very plainly. 
 
 Wordsworth was an eminently sane and manly spirit. 
 He found his philosophy of life early, and not only 
 preached but lived it consistently. A Platonist by 
 nature rather than by study, he is thoroughly Greek in 
 his distrust of strong emotions and in his love of all 
 which the Greeks included under a-w^poavvT). He was 
 a loyal Churchman, but his religion was really almost 
 independent of any ecclesiastical system. His ecclesi- 
 astical sonnets reflect rather the dignity of the Anglican 
 Church than the ardent piety with which our other poet- 
 mystics, such as Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw, adorn 
 the offices of worship. His cast of faith, intellectual 
 and contemplative rather than fervid, and the solitari- 
 ness of his thought, forbade him to find much satisfac- 
 tion in pubHc ceremonial. He would probably agree 
 with Galen, who in a very remarkable passage says 
 that the study of nature, if prosecuted with the same 
 earnestness and intensity which men bring to the con- 
 templation of the " Mysteries," is even more fitted than 
 20 
 
3o6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 they to reveal the power and wisdom of God ; for " the 
 symbolism of t/ie mysteries is more obscure than that of 
 nature." 
 
 He shows his affinity with the modern spirit in his 
 firm grasp of natural law. Like George Fox and 
 William Law, he had to face the shock of giving up his 
 belief in arbitrary interferences. There was a period 
 when he lost his young faculty of generalisation ; when 
 he bowed before the inexorable dooms of an unknown 
 Lawgiver — " the categorical imperative," till the gift ^ 
 of intuition was restored to him in fuller measure. 
 This experience explains his attitude towards natural 
 science. His reverence iox facts never failed him ; " the 
 sanctity and truth of nature," he says, " must not be 
 tricked out with accidental ornaments " ; but he looked 
 askance at the science which tries to erect itself into a 
 philosophy. Physics, he saw plainly, is an abstract 
 study : its view of the world is an abstraction for cer- 
 tain purposes, and possesses less truth than the view of 
 the poet.^ And yet he looked forward to a time when 
 science, too, shall be touched with fire from the altar ; — 
 
 " Then her heart shall kindle ; her dull eye, 
 Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang 
 Chained to its object in brute slavery." 
 
 And in a remarkable passage of the " Prefaces" he says, 
 " If the time should ever come when that which is now 
 
 ^ Compare the following sentences in Bradley's Appearance and Reality : 
 " Nature viewed materialistically is only an abstraction for certain pur- 
 poses, and has not a high degree of truth or reality. The poet's nature 
 has much more. . . . Our principle, that the abstract is the unreal, moves 
 us steadily upward. ... It compels us in the end to credit nature with 
 our higher emotions. That process can only cease when nature is quite 
 absorbed into spirit, and at every stage of the process we find increase in 
 reality." 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 307 
 
 called science shall be ready to put on as it were a 
 form of flesh and blood, the poet will lend his Divine 
 spirit to aid the transformation, and will welcome the 
 Being thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of 
 the household of man." He feels that the loving and 
 disinterested study of nature's laws must at last issue, 
 not in materialism, but in some high and spiritual 
 faith, inspired by the Word of God, who is Himself, as 
 Erigena said, " the Nature of all things." 
 
 In aloofness and loneliness of mind he is exceeded 
 by no mystic of the cloister. It may be said far more 
 truly of him than of Milton, that " his sdul was like 
 a star, and dwelt apart." In his youth he confesses 
 that human beings had only a secondary interest for 
 him ; ^ and though he says that Nature soon led him 
 to man, it was to man as a " unity," as " one spirit," 
 that he was drawn, not to men as individuals.^ Herein 
 he resembled many other contemplative mystics ; but 
 it has been said truly that " it is easier to know man in 
 general than a man in particular." ^ The sage who 
 " sits in the centre " of his being, and there " enjoys 
 bright day," ^ does not really know human beings as 
 persons. 
 
 It will be interesting to compare the steps in the 
 ladder of perfection, as described by Wordsworth, with 
 the schemes of Neoplatonism and introspective Mystic- 
 ism. The three stages of the mystical ascent have 
 been already explained. We find that Wordsworth, 
 too, had his purgative, disciplinary stage. He began 
 
 ^ " Prelude," viii. 340 sq. " " Prelude," viii. 66S. 
 
 ^ La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 * These words, from Milton's " Comus," are applied to Wordsworth by 
 Hazlitt. 
 
3o8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 by deliberately crushing, not only the ardent passions 
 to which he tells us that he was naturally prone, but 
 all ambition and love of money, determining to confine 
 himself to " such objects as excite no morbid passions, 
 no disquietude, no vengeance, and no hatred," and 
 found his reward in a settled state of calm serenity, in 
 which all the thoughts flow like a clear fountain, and 
 have forgotten how to hate and how to despise.^ 
 
 Wordsworth is careful to inculcate several safe- 
 guards for those who would proceed to the contem- 
 plative life. First, there must be strenuous aspiration 
 to reach that infinitude which is our being's heart and 
 home ; we must press forward, urged by " hope that 
 can never die, effort, and expectation, and desire, and 
 something evermore about to be." ^ The mind which 
 is set upon the unchanging will not " praise a cloud," ^ 
 but will " crave objects that endure." In the spirit of 
 true Platonism, as contrasted with its later aberra- 
 tions, Wordsworth will have no blurred outlines. He 
 tries always to see in Nature distinction without 
 separation ; his principle is the exact antithesis of 
 Hume's atheistic dictum, that " things are conjoined, 
 but not connected." ^ The importance of this caution 
 
 ' " Prelude," iv. 1207-1229. The ascetic element in Wordsworth's ethics 
 should by no means be forgotten by those who envy his brave and unruffled 
 outlook upon life. As Hutton says excellently (Essays, p. 81), "there is 
 volition and self-government in every line of his poetry, and his best 
 thoughts come from the steady resistance he opposes to the ebb and flow of 
 ordinary desires and regrets. He contests the ground inch by inch with 
 all despondent and indolent humours, and often, too, with movements of 
 inconsiderate and wasteful joy — turning defeat into victory, and victory 
 into defeat." See the whole passage. 
 
 2 " Prelude," vi. 604-608. •■ " Miscell. Sonnets," xii. 
 
 ^ See the Essay in which he deals with Macpherson : " In nature every- 
 thing is distinct, yet nothing defined into absolute independent singleness. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 309 
 
 has been fully demonstrated in the course of our 
 inquiry. Then, too, he knows that to imperfect man 
 reason is a crown " still to be courted, never to be won." 
 Delusions may affect " even the very faculty of sight," 
 whether a man "look forth," or " dive into himself."^ 
 Again, he bids us seek for real, and not fanciful 
 analogies ; no " loose types of things through all 
 degrees " ; no mythology ; and no arbitrary symbolism. 
 The symbolic value of natural objects is not that they 
 remind us of something that they are not, but that 
 they help us to understand something that they in 
 part are. They are not intended to transport us away 
 from this earth into the clouds. " This earth is the 
 world of all of us," he says boldly, " in which we find 
 our happiness or not at all." ^ Lastly, and this is 
 perhaps the most important of all, he recognises that 
 the still small voice of God breathes not out of nature 
 alone, nor out of the soul alone, but from the contact 
 of the soul with nature. It is the marriage of the 
 intellect of man to " this goodly universe, in love and 
 holy passion," which produces these raptures. " Intel- 
 lect " includes Imagination, which is but another name 
 for Reason in her most exalted mood ; ^ these must 
 assist the eye of sense. 
 
 In Macpherson's work it is exactly the reverse — everything is defined, 
 insulated, dislocated, deadened — yet nothing distinct." 
 
 ^ "Excursion," v. 500-514. 
 
 * This seemed flat blasphemy to Shelley, whose idealism was mixed with 
 Byronic misanthropy. " Nor was there aught the world contained of 
 which he could approve." 
 
 ' " Prelude," xiv. 192. Wordsworth's psychology is very interesting. 
 " Imagination" is for him ("Miscellaneous Sonnets," xxxv.) a "glorious 
 faculty," whose function it is to elevate the more-than-reasoning mind ; 
 "'tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower of Faith," and "colour life's 
 dark cloud with orient rays." This faculty is at once " more than reason," 
 
3IO CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Such is the discipline, and such are the counsels, by 
 which the priest of Nature must prepare himself to 
 approach her mysteries. And what are the truths 
 which contemplation revealed to him ? 
 
 The first step on the way that leads to God was the 
 sense of the boundless^ growing out of musings on the 
 finite ; and with it the conviction that the Infinite and 
 Eternal alone can be our being's heart and home — " we 
 feel that we are greater than we know." ^ Then came 
 to him — 
 
 "The sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air. 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, 
 And rolls through all things." ^ 
 
 The worldliness and artificiality which set us out of 
 tune with all this is worse than paganism.^ Then this 
 " higher Pantheism " developed into the sense of an 
 all-pervading Personality, " a soul that is the eternity 
 of thought." And with this heightened consciousness 
 of the nature of God came also a deeper knowledge of 
 his own personality, a knowledge which he describes in 
 true mystical language as a " sinking into self from 
 thought to thought." This may continue till man can 
 at last " breathe in worlds to which the heaven of 
 
 and identical with " Reason in her most exalted mood." I have said (p. 
 21 ) that "Mysticism is reason applied to a sphere above rationalism" 
 and this appears to be exactly Wordsworth's doctrine. 
 
 ^ " Sonnets on the River Duddon," xxxiv. 
 
 ^ " Lines composed above Tintern Abbey," 95-102. 
 
 * " Miscell. Sonnets," xxxiii. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 311 
 
 heavens is but a veil," and perceive " the forms whose 
 
 kingdom is where time and space are not." These 
 
 last Hnes describe a state analogous to the o\/rt9 of the 
 
 Neoplatonists, and the excessus mentis of the Catholic 
 
 mystics. At this advanced stage the priest of Nature 
 
 may surrender himself to ecstasy without mistrust. 
 
 Of such minds he says — 
 
 "The highest bliss 
 That flesh can know is theirs — the consciousness 
 Of whom they are, habitually infused 
 Through every image and through every thought, 
 And all affections by communion raised 
 From earth to^ heaven, from human to divine ; ... 
 Thence cheerfulness for acts of daily life, 
 Emotions which best foresight need not fear, 
 Most worthy then of trust when most intense." ^ 
 
 There are many other places where he describes 
 
 this " bliss ineffable," when " all his thoughts were 
 
 steeped in feeling," as he listened to the song which 
 
 every form of creature sings " as it looks towards the 
 
 uncreated with a countenance of adoration and an eye 
 
 of love," - that blessed mood — 
 
 " In which the affections gently lead us on, — 
 Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, 
 And even the motion of our human blood 
 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 
 In body, and become a living soul : 
 While with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy. 
 We see into the life of things." ^ 
 
 Is it not plain that the poet of Nature amid the 
 
 Cumberland hills, the Spanish ascetic in his cell, and 
 
 the Platonic philosopher in his library or lectOfe-room, 
 
 have been climbing the same mountain from different 
 
 ' " Prelude," xiv. 1 12-129. " "Prelude," ii. 396-418. 
 
 " " Lines composed above Tintern Abbey," 35-4S. 
 
312 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 sides ? The paths are different, but the prospect from 
 the summit is the same. It is idle to speak of collusion 
 or insanity in the face of so great a cloud of witnesses, 
 divided by every circumstance of date, nationality, 
 creed, education, and environment. The Carmelite 
 friar had no interest in confirming the testimony of 
 the Alexandrian professor ; and no one has yet had 
 the temerity to question the sanity of Wordsworth, or 
 of Tennyson, whose description of the Vision in his 
 " Ancient Sage " is now known to be a record of per- 
 sonal experience. These explorers of the high places 
 of the spiritual life have only one thing in common 
 — they have observed the conditions laid down once 
 for all for the mystic in the 24th Psalm, " Who shall 
 ascend into the hill of the Lord ? or who shall stand in 
 His holy place ? He that hath clean "^hands and a 
 pure heart ; who hath not lifted up his soul unto 
 vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the 
 blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the 
 God of his salvation." The " land which is very far 
 off" is always visible to those who have climbed the 
 holy mountain. It may be scaled by the path of 
 prayer and mortification, or by the path of devout 
 study of God's handiwork in Natyre (and under this 
 head I would wish to include not only the way traced 
 out by Wordsworth, but that hitherto less trodden 
 road which should lead the physicist to God) ; and, 
 lastly, by the path of consecrated life in the great 
 world, which, as it is the most exposed to temptations, is 
 perhaps on that account the most blessed of the three.^ 
 
 ' Wordsworth's Mysticism contains a few subordinate elements which 
 are of more questionable value. The "echoes from beyond the grave," 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 313 
 
 It has been said of Wordsworth, as it has been 
 said of other mystics, that he averts his eyes 
 " from half of human fate." Religious writers have 
 explained that the neglected half is that which lies 
 beneath the shadow of the Cross. The existence of 
 positive evil in the world, as a great fact, and the 
 consequent need of redemption, is, in the opinion of 
 many, too little recognised by Wordsworth, and by 
 Mysticism in general. This objection has been urged 
 both from the scientific and from the religious side. 
 It is held by many students of Nature that her laws 
 affirm a Pessimism and not an Optimism. " Red in 
 tooth and claw with ravine," she shrieks against the 
 creed that her Maker is a God of love. The only 
 morality which she inculcates is that of a tiger in the 
 jungle, or at best that of a wolf-pack. " It is not 
 
 which "the inward ear" sometimes catches, are dear to most of us ; hut 
 we must not be too confident that they always come from God. Still less 
 can we be sure that presentiments are "heaven-born instincts." Again, 
 when the lonely thinker feels himself surrounded by "huge and mighty 
 forms, that do not move like living men," it is a sign that the "dim and 
 undetermined sense of unknown modes of being " has begun to work not 
 quite healthily upon his imagination. And the doctrine of pre-existence, 
 which appears in the famous Ode, is once which it has been hitherto im- 
 possible to admit into the scheme of Christian beliefs, though many 
 Christian thinkers have dallied with it. Perhaps the true lesson of the Ode 
 is that the childish love of nature, beautiful and innocent as it is, has to die 
 and be born again in the consciousness of the grown man. That Wordsworth 
 himself passed through this experience, we know from other passages in 
 his writings. In his case, at any rate, the " light of common day" was, 
 for a time at least, more splendid than the roseate hues of his childish 
 imagination can possibly have been ; and there seems to be no reason for 
 holding the gloomy view that spiritual insight necessarily becomes dimmer 
 as we travel farther from our cradles, and nearer to our graves. What 
 fails us as we get older is only that kind of vision which is analogous to the 
 "consolations" often spoken of by monkish mystics as the privilege of 
 beginners. Amiel expresses exactly the same regret as Wordsworth : 
 "Shall I ever enjoy again those marvellous reveries of past days? . . ." 
 See the whole paragraph on p. 32 of Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation. 
 
314 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 strange (says Lotze) that no nature -religions have 
 raised their adherents to any high pitch of morality or 
 culture." ^ The answer to this is that Nature includes 
 man as well as the brutes, and the merciful and moral 
 man as well as the savage. Physical science, at any 
 rate, can exclude nothing from the domain of Nature. 
 And the Christian may say with all reverence that 
 Nature includes, or rather is included by, Christ, the 
 Word of God, by whom it was made. And the Word 
 was made flesh to teach us that vicarious suffering, 
 which we see to be the law of Nature, is a law of God, 
 a thing not foreign to His own life, and therefore for 
 all alike a condition of perfection, not a reductio ad 
 absurdum of existence. The reductio ad absurdum is 
 not of Nature, but of selfish irrdividualism, which 
 suffers shipwreck alike in objective and in subjective 
 religion. It is precisely because the shadow of the 
 Cross lies across the world, that we can watch Nature 
 at work with " admiration, hope, and love," instead of 
 with horror and disgust. 
 
 The religious objection amounts to little more than 
 that Mysticism has not succeeded in solving the 
 problem of evil, which no philosophy has ever attacked 
 with even apparent success. It is, however, with some 
 reason that this difficulty has been pressed against 
 the mystics ; for they are bound by their principles to 
 attempt some solution, and their tendency has been to 
 attenuate the positive character of evil to a somewhat 
 
 ^ These objections are pressed by Lotze, and not only by avowed 
 Pessimists. Lotze abhors what he calls "sentimental symbolism " because 
 it interferes with his monadistic doctrines. I venture to say that any philo- 
 sophy which divides man, as a being sui generis, from the rest of Nature, 
 is inevitably landed either in Acosmism or in Manichean Dualism. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 315 
 
 dangerous degree. But if we sift the charges often 
 brought by religious writers against Mysticism, we shall 
 generally find that there lies at the bottom of their 
 disapproval a residuum of mediaeval dualism, which 
 wishes to see in Christ the conquering invader of a 
 hostile kingdom. In practice, at any rate, the great 
 mystics have not taken lightly the struggle with the 
 law of sin in our members, or tried to " heal slightly " 
 the wounds of the soul.^ 
 
 It is quite true that the later mystics have been 
 cheerful and optimistic. But those who have found_a 
 kingdom in their own minds, and who have enough 
 strength of character " to live by reason and not by 
 opinion," as Whichcote says (in a maxim which was 
 anticipated by that arch - enemy of Mysticism — 
 
 ' This is perhaps the best place to notice the mystical treatise of James 
 Hinton, entitled Maji and his Divelling-place^ which is chiefly remarkable 
 for its attempt to solve the problem of evil. This writer pushes to an 
 extremity the favourite mystical doctrine that we surround ourselves with a 
 world after our own likeness, and considers that all the evil which we see 
 in Nature is the "projection of our own deadness." Apart from the 
 unlikelihood of a theory which makes man— " the roof and crown of 
 things " — the only diseased and discordant element in the universe, the 
 writer lays himself open to the fatal rejoinder, "Did Christ, then, see no 
 sin or evil in the world?" The doctrines of sacrifice (vicarious suffering) 
 as a blessed law of Nature ("the secret of the universe is learnt on 
 Calvary"), and of the necessity of annihilating " the self" as the principle 
 of evil, are pressed with a harsh and unnatural rigour. Our blessed Lord 
 laid no such yoke upon us, nor will human nature consent to bear it. The 
 "atonement" of the world by love is much better delineated by R. L. 
 Nettleship, in a passage which seems to me to exhibit the very kernel of 
 Christian Mysticism in its social aspect. " Suppose that all human beings 
 felt permanently to each other as they now do occasionally to those they 
 love best. All the pain of the world would be swallowed up in doing 
 good. So far as we can conceive of such a state, it would be one in which 
 there would be no ' individuals ' at all, but an universal being in and for 
 another ; where being took the form of consciousness, it would be the 
 consciousness of 'another' which was also 'oneself — a common con- 
 sciousness. Such would be the ' atonement ' of the world." 
 
3i6 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Epicurus), are likely to be happier than other men. 
 And, moreover, Wordsworth teaches us that almost, if not 
 quite, every evil may be so transmuted by the " faculty 
 which abides within the soul," that those " interpositions 
 which would hide and darken " may " become contin- 
 gencies of pomp, and serve to exalt her native bright- 
 ness " ; even as the moon, " rising behind a thick and 
 lofty grove, turns the dusky veil into a substance 
 glorious as her own." So the happy warrior is made 
 " more compassionate " by the scenes -of horror which 
 he is compelled to witness. Whether this healing and 
 purifying effect of sorrow points the way to a solution 
 of the problem of evil or not, it is a high and noble 
 faith, the one and only consolation which we feel not 
 to be a mockery when we are in great trouble. 
 
 These charges, then, do not seem to form a grave 
 indictment against the type of Mysticism of which 
 Wordsworth is the best representative. But he does 
 fall short of the ideal held up by St. John for the 
 Christian mystic, in that his love and sympathy for 
 inanimate Nature were (at any rate in his poetry) 
 deeper than for humanity. And if there is any ac- 
 cusation which may justly be brought against the 
 higher order of mystics (as opposed to representatives 
 of aberrant types), I think it is this : that they have 
 sought and found God in their own souls and in 
 Nature, but not so often in the souls of other men and 
 women : theirs has been a lonely religion. The grand 
 old maxim, " Vides fratrem, vides Dominum tuum," has 
 been remembered by them only in acts of charity. 
 But in reality the love of human beings must be the 
 shortest road to the vision of God. Love, as St. John 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 317 
 
 teaches us, is the great hierophant of the Christian 
 mysteries. It gives wings to contemplation and Hghtens 
 the darkness which hides the face of God. When our 
 emotions are deeply stirred, even Nature speaks to us 
 with voices unheard before ; while the man who is 
 without human affection is either quite unmoved by 
 her influences, or misreads all her lessons. 
 
 The spiritualising power of human love is the re- 
 deeming principle in many sordid lives, Teutonic 
 civilisation, which derives half of its restless energy 
 from ideals which are essentially anti-Christian, and 
 tastes which are radically barbarous, is prevented from 
 sinking into moral materialism by its high standard of 
 domestic life. The sweet influences of the home deprive 
 even mammon-worship of half its grossness and of some 
 fraction of its evil. As a schoolmaster to bring men 
 and women to Christ, natural affection is without a 
 rival. It is in the truest sense a symbol of our union 
 with Him from whom every family in heaven and earth 
 is named. It is needless to labour a thesis on which 
 nearly all are agreed ; but it may be worth pointing 
 out that, though St. Paul felt the unique value of 
 Christian marriage as a symbol of the mystical union 
 of Christ and the Church, this truth was for the most 
 part lost sight of by the mediaeval mystics, who as 
 monks and priests were, of course, cut off from domestic 
 life. The romances of true love which the Old Testa- 
 ment contains were treated as prophecies wrapped up 
 in riddling language, or as models for ecstatic contem- 
 plation. Wordsworth, though his own home was a 
 happy one, does not supply this link in the mystical 
 chain. The most noteworthy attempt to do so is to 
 
31 8 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 be found in the poetry of Robert Browning, whose 
 Mysticism is in this way complementary to that of 
 Wordsworth,^ He resembles Wordsworth in always 
 trying " to see the infinite in things," but considers 
 that " little else (than the development of a soul) is 
 worth study." This is not exactly a return to subject- 
 ive Mysticism, for Browning is as well aware as Goethe 
 that if " a talent grows best in solitude," a character is 
 perfected only "in the stream of the world." With 
 him the friction of active life, and especially the ex- 
 perience of human love, are necessary to realise the 
 Divine in man. Quite in the spirit of St. John he 
 asks, " How can that course be safe, which from the 
 first produces carelessness to human love ? " " Do not 
 cut yourself from human weal . . . there are strange 
 punishments for such " as do so.^ Solitude is the death 
 of all but the strongest virtue, and in Browning's view 
 it also deprives us of the strongest inner witness to the 
 existence of a loving Father in heaven. For he who 
 " finds love full in his nature " cannot doubt that in 
 this, as in all else, the Creator must far surpass the 
 creature.^ Since, then, in knowing love we learn to 
 know God, and since the object of life is to know God 
 (this, the mystic's minor premiss, is taken for granted 
 by Browning), it follows that love is the meaning of 
 life ; and he who finds it not " loses what he lived for, 
 and eternally must lose it." * " The mightiness of love is 
 curled " inextricably round all power aud beauty in the 
 world. The worst fate that can befall us is to lead " a 
 
 1 Charles Kingsley is another mystic of the same school. 
 
 - Browning, Paracelsus, Act i. ^ Browning, "Saul," xvii. 
 
 ^Browning, "Cristina." 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 319 
 
 ghastly smooth life, dead at heart." ^ Especially inter- 
 esting is the passage where he chooses or chances upon 
 Eckhart's image of the " spark " in the centre of the 
 soul, and gives it a new turn in accordance with his 
 own Mysticism — 
 
 " It would not be because my eye grew dim 
 Thou could'st not find the love there, thanks to Him 
 Who never is dishonoured in the spark 
 He gave us from His fire of fires, and bade 
 Remember whence it sprang, nor be afraid 
 While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark." - 
 
 Our language has no separate words to distinguish 
 Christian love (a'yd'rr'q — caritas) from sexual love (e/jtu? 
 — aino}') ; " charity " has not established itself in its 
 wider meaning. Perhaps this is not to be regretted — 
 at any rate Browning's poems could hardly be trans- 
 lated into any language in which this distinction exists. 
 But let us not forget that the ascetic element is as 
 strong in Browning as in Wordsworth. Love, he 
 seems to indicate, is no exception to the rule that 
 our joys may be " three parts pain," for " where pain 
 ends gain ends too." ^ 
 
 " Not yet on thee 
 Shall burst the future, as successive zones 
 Of several wonder open on some spirit 
 Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven ; 
 But thou shalt painfully attain to joy, 
 While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man."^ 
 
 He even carries this law into the future life, and will 
 have none of a "joy which is crystallised for ever." 
 
 ^ Browning, " Christmas Eve and Easter Day," xxx., xxxiii. 
 - Browning, " Any Wife to any Husband." 
 
 •' Compare Plato's well-known sentence : 5t' oX-^rihtivwv koX oSvvuiv 
 yiyyerai t) CxpiXeta, ov yap olov re dWus aSiKia^ airaWaTreadai. 
 ■* Browning, Parace/sus. 
 
320 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Felt imperfection is a proof of a higher birthright : ^ if 
 we have arrived at the completion of our nature as 
 men, then " begins anew a tendency to God," This 
 faith in unending progress as the law of life is verjr 
 characteristic of our own age,'-^ It assumes a question- 
 able shape sometimes ; but Browning's trust in real 
 success through apparent disappointments — a trust 
 even based on the consciousness of present failure — 
 is certainly one of the noblest parts of his religious 
 philosophy. 
 
 I have decided to end my survey of Christian 
 Mysticism with these two English poets. It would 
 hardly be appropriate, in this place, to discuss 
 Carlyle's doctrine of symbols, as the " clothing " of 
 religious and other kinds of truth. His philosophy 
 is wanting in some of the essential features of 
 Mysticism, and can hardly be called Christian with- 
 out stretching the word too far. And Emerson, 
 when he deals with religion, is a very unsafe guide. 
 The great American mystic, whose beautiful char- 
 acter was as noble a gift to humanity as his writings, 
 is more liable than any of those whom we have 
 described to the reproach of having turned his back 
 on the dark side of life. Partly from a fastidious- 
 ness which could not bear even to hear of bodily 
 ailments, partly from the natural optimism of the 
 ,dweller in a new country, and partly because he 
 made a principle of maintaining an unruffled cheer- 
 fulness and serenity, he shut his eyes to pain, death, 
 
 ^ Compare Pascal : " No one is discontented at not being a king, except 
 a discrowned king." 
 
 - It is almost as prominent in Tennyson as in Browning : " Give her the 
 wages of going on, and not to die," is his wisli for the human soul. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 321 
 
 and sin, even more resolutely than did Goethe. The 
 optimism which is built on this foundation has no 
 message of comfort for the stricken heart. To say 
 that " evil is only good in the making," is to repeat 
 an ancient and discredited attempt to solve the great 
 enigma. And to assert that perfect justice is meted 
 out to individuals in this world, is surely mere 
 dreaming. Moreover, we can hardly acquit him of 
 playing with pantheistic Mysticism of the Oriental 
 type, without seeing, or without caring, whither such 
 speculations logically lead. " Within man," he tells 
 us, " is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the 
 universal beauty, to which every part and particle 
 is equally related — the eternal One." This is genuine 
 Pantheism, and should carry with it the doctrine that 
 all actions are equally good, bad, or indifferent. 
 Emerson says that his wife kept him from anti- 
 nomianism ; but this is giving up the defence of his 
 philosophy. He also differs from Christianity, and 
 agrees with many Hegelians, in teaching that God, 
 " the Over-Soul," only attains to self-consciousness in 
 man ; and this, combined with his denial of degrees 
 in Divine immanence, leads him to a self-deification 
 of an arrogant and shocking kind, such as we find 
 in the Persian Sufis, and in some heretical mystics 
 of the Middle Ages. " I, the imperfect, adore my 
 own Perfect. I am receptive of the great soul. I 
 become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I 
 see all. The currents of the universal Being circulate 
 through me. I am part of God " ; and much more 
 to the same effect. This is not the language of those 
 who have travelled up the mystical ladder, instead of 
 21 
 
322 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 only writing about it. It is far more objectionable than 
 the bold phrases about deification which I quoted in 
 my fifth Lecture from the fourteenth century mystics ; 
 because with them the passage into the Divine glory 
 is the final reward, only to be attained " by all 
 manner of exercises " ; while for Emerson it seems to 
 be a state already existing, which we can realise 
 by a mere act of intellectual apprehension. And the 
 phrase, " Man is a part of God," — as if the Divine 
 Spirit were divided among the organs which express 
 its various activities, — has been condemned by all the 
 great speculative mystics, from Plotinus downwards. 
 Emerson is perhaps at his best when he applies his 
 idealism to love and friendship. The spiritualising 
 and illuminating influence of pure comradeship has 
 never been better or more religiously set forth. And 
 though it is necessary to be on our guard against 
 the very dangerous tendency of some of his teaching, 
 we shall find much to learn from the brave and serene 
 philosopher whose first maxim was, " Come out into 
 the azure ; love the day," and who during his whole 
 life fixed his thoughts steadily on whatsoever things 
 are pure, lovely, noble, and of good report. 
 
 The constructive task which lies before the next 
 century is, if I may say so without presumption, to 
 spiritualise science, as morality and art have already 
 been spiritualised. The vision of God should appear 
 to us as a triple star of truth, beauty, and goodness.-^ 
 
 1 I had written these words before the publication of Principal Caird's 
 Sermons, which contain, in my judgment, the most powerful defence of 
 what I have called Christian Mysticism that has appeared since William 
 Law. On p. 14 he says : " Of all things good and fair and holy there is a 
 spiritual cognisance which precedes and is independent of that knowledge 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 323 
 
 These are the three objects of all human aspiration ; 
 and our hearts will never be at peace till all three 
 alike rest in God. Beauty is the chief mediator 
 between the good and the true ; ^ and this is why the 
 great poets have been also prophets. But Science 
 at present lags behind ; she has not found her God ; 
 and to' this is largely due the " unrest of the age." 
 Much has already been done in the right direction 
 by divines, philosophers, and physicists, and more 
 still, perhaps, by the great poets, who have striven 
 earnestly to see the spiritual background which lies 
 behind the abstractions of materialistic science. But 
 much yet remains to be done. We may agree with 
 Hinton that " Positivism bears a new Platonism in 
 its bqsom " ; but the child has not yet come to the 
 birth.' 
 
 which the understanding conveys." He shows how in the contemplation 
 oPnature it is " by an organ deeper than intellectual thought" that "the 
 revelation of material beauty flows in upon the soul." "And in like 
 manner there is an apprehension of God and Divine things which comes 
 upon the spirit as a living reality which it immediately and intuitively 
 perceives." . . . "There is a capacity of the soul, by which the truths of 
 religion may be apprehended and appropriated." See the whole sermon, 
 entitled, IV/iat is Religion ? and many other parts of the book. 
 
 ^ Cf. Ilegel {Philosophy of Religion, vol. ii. p. 8) : " The Beautiful is 
 essentially the Spiritual making itself known sensuously, presenting itself 
 in sensuous concrete existence, but in such a manner that that existence is 
 wholly and entirely permeated by the Spiritual, so that the sensuous is not 
 independent, but has its meaning solely and exclusively in the Spiritual 
 and through the Spiritual, and exhibits not itself, but the Spiritual." 
 
 - Some reference ought perhaps to be made to Drummond's Natural 
 J.aw in the Spiritual World. But ^fysticism seeks rather to find spiritual 
 law in the natural worjd — and some better law than Diummond's Calvin- 
 ism. (And I cannot help thinking that, though Evolution explains much 
 and contradicts nothing in Christianity, it is in danger of proving an ignis 
 fatttus to many, especially to those who are inclined to idealistic pantheism. 
 There can be no progress or development in God, and the cosmic process 
 as we know it cannot have a higher degree of reality than the categories of 
 time and place under which it appears. As for the millennium of per- 
 
324 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Meanwhile, the special work assigned to the Church 
 of England would seem to be the development of a 
 Johannine Christianity, which shall be both Catholic 
 and Evangelical without being either Roman or Pro- 
 testant. It has been abundantly proved that neither 
 Romanism nor Protestantism, regarded as alternatives, 
 possesses enough of the truth to satisfy the religious 
 needs of the present day. But is it not probable 
 that, as the theology of the Fourth Gospel acted as 
 a reconciling principle between the opposing sections 
 in the early Church, so it may be found to contain 
 the teaching which is most needed by both parties 
 in our own communion ? In St. John and St. Paul 
 we find all the principles of a sound and sober 
 Christian Mysticism ; and it is to these " fresh 
 springs " of the spiritual life that we must turn, if 
 the Church is to renew her youth. 
 - I attempted in my second Lecture to analyse the 
 main elements of Christian Mysticism as found in St. 
 Paul and St. John. But since in the later Lectures I 
 have been obliged to draw from less pure sources, and 
 since, moreover, I am most anxious not to leave the 
 impression that I have been advocating a vague spiritu- 
 ality tempered by rationalism, I will try in a few words 
 to define my position apologetically, though I am well 
 aware that it is a hazardous and difficult task. 
 
 The principle, " Cuique in sua arte credendum est," 
 applies to those who have been eminent for personal 
 holiness as much as to the leaders in any other branch 
 
 fected humanity on this earth, which some Positivists and others dream 
 of, — Christianity has nothing to say against it, but science has a great deal.) 
 See below, p. 32S. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 325 
 
 of excellence. Even in dealing with arts which are 
 akin to each other, we do not invite poets to judge of 
 music, or sculptors of architecture. We need not then 
 be disturbed if we occasionally find men illustrious 
 in other fields, who are as insensible to religion as to 
 poetry. Our reverence for the character and genius of 
 Charles Darwin need not induce us to lay aside either 
 our Shakespeare or our New Testament.i The men 
 to whom we naturally turn as our best authorities in 
 spiritual matters, are those who seem to have been 
 endowed with an " anima naturaliter Christiana," and 
 who have devoted their whole lives to the service of 
 God and the imitation of Christ. 
 
 Now it will be found that these men of acknowledged 
 and pre-eminent saintliness agree very closely in what 
 they tell us about God. They tell us that they have 
 arrived gradually at an unshakable conviction, not 
 based on inference but on immediate experience, that 
 God is a Spirit with whom the human spirit can hold 
 intercourse ; that in Him meet all that they can 
 imagine of goodness, truth, and beauty ; that they can 
 see His footprints everywhere in nature, and feel His 
 presence within them as the very life of their life, so 
 that in proportion as they come to themselves they 
 come to Him. They tell us that what separates us 
 
 ^ In the Life of Charles Darwin there is an interesting letter, in which he 
 laments the gradual decay of his taste for poetry, as his mind became a 
 mere "machine for grinding out general laws " from a mass of observations. 
 The decay of religious feeling in many men of high character may be 
 accounted for in the same way. The really great man is conscious of the 
 sacrifice which he is making. " It is an accursed evil to a man," Darwin 
 wrote to Hooker, "to become so absorbed in any subject as I am in mine." 
 The common-place man is itot conscious of it: he obtains his heart's desire, 
 if he works hard enough, and God sends leanness withal into his soul. 
 
326 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 from Him and from happiness is, first, self-seeking in all 
 its forms ; and, secondly, sensuality in all its forms ; that 
 these are the ways of darkness and death, which hide 
 from us the face of God ; while the path of the just is 
 like a shining light, which shineth more and more unto 
 the perfect day. As they have toiled up the narrow 
 way, the Spirit has spoken to them of Christ, and has 
 enlightened the eyes of their understandings, till they 
 have at least begun to know the love of Christ which 
 passeth knowledge, and to be filled with all the fulness 
 of God. 
 
 So far, the position is unassailable. But the scope 
 of the argument has, of course, its fixed limits. The 
 inner light can only testify to spiritual truths. It 
 always speaks in the present tense ; it cannot guarantee 
 any historical event, past or future. It cannot guaran- 
 tee either the Gospel history or a future judgment. It 
 can tell us that Christ is risen, and that He is alive for 
 evermore, but not that He rose again the third day. 
 It can tell us that the gate of everlasting life is open, 
 but not that the dead shall be raised incorruptible. 
 We have other faculties for investigating the eviden.ce 
 for past events ; the inner light cannot certify them 
 immediately, though it can give a powerful support to 
 the external evidence. For though we are in no 
 position to dogmatise about the relations of the 
 temporal to the eternal, one fact does seem to stand 
 out, — that the two are, for us, bound together. If, 
 when we read the Gospels, " the Spirit itself beareth 
 witness with our spirit " that here are the words of 
 eternal life, and the character which alone in history is 
 absolutely flawless, then it is natural for us to believe 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 327 
 
 that there has been, at that point of time, an Incarna- 
 tion of the Word of God Himself. That the revelation 
 of Christ is an absolute revelation, is a dogmatic state- 
 ment which, strictly speaking, only the Absolute could 
 make. What we mean by it is that after two thousand 
 years we are unable to conceive of its being ever super- 
 seded in any particular. And if anyone finds this 
 inadequate, he may be invited to explain what higher 
 degree of certainty is within our reach. With regard to 
 the future life, the same consideration may help us to 
 understand why the Church has clung to the belief in a 
 literal second coming of Christ to pronounce the dooms 
 of all mankind. But our Lord Himself has taught us 
 that in " that day and that hour " lies hidden a more 
 inscrutable mystery than even He Himself, as man, 
 could reveal. 
 
 There is one other point on which I wish to make 
 my position clear. The fact that human love or 
 sympathy is the guide who conducts us to the heart 
 of life, revealing to us God and Nature and ourselves, is 
 proof that part of our life is bound up with the life of 
 the world, and that if we live in these our true relations 
 we shall not entirely die so long as human beings 
 remain alive upon this earth. The progress of the 
 race, the diminution of sin and miseiy, the advancing 
 kingdom of Christ on earth, — these are matters in 
 which we have a personal interest. The strong desire 
 that we feel — and the best of us feel it most strongly 
 — that the human race may be better, wiser, and 
 happier in the future than they are now or have been 
 in the past, is neither due to a false association of 
 ideas, nor to pure unselfishness. There is a sense in 
 
328 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 which death would not be the end of everything for us, 
 even though in this Hfe only we had hope in Christ. 
 
 But when this comforting and inspiring thought is 
 made to form the basis of a new Chiliasm — a belief in 
 a millennium of perfected humanity on this earth, and 
 when this belief is substituted for the Christian belief 
 in an eternal life beyond our bourne of time and place, 
 it is necessary to protest that this belief entirely fails 
 to satisfy the legitimate hopes of the human race, that 
 it is bad philosophy, and that it is flatly contrary to 
 what science tells us of the destiny of the world and of 
 mankind. The human spirit beats against the bars of 
 space and time themselves, and could never be satisfied 
 with any earthly Utopia. Our true home must be in 
 some higher sphere of existence, above the contradic- 
 tions which make it impossible for us to believe that 
 time and space are ultimate realities, and out of reach 
 of the inevitable catastrophe which the next glacial age 
 must bring upon the human race.^ This world of 
 space and time is to resemble heaven as far as it can ; 
 but a fixed limit is set to the amount of the Divine 
 plan which can be realised under these conditions. 
 Our hearts tell us of a higher form of existence, in 
 which the doom of death is not merely deferred but 
 abolished. This eternal world we here see through a 
 glass darkly : at best we can apprehend but the out- 
 
 ^ The metaphysical problem about the reality of time in relation to 
 evolution is so closely bound up with speculative Mysticism, that I have 
 been obliged to state my own opinion upon it. It is, of course, one of the 
 vexed questions of philosophy at the present time ; and I could not afford 
 the space, even if I had the requisite knowledge and ability, to argue it. 
 The best discussion of it that I know is in M 'Taggart's Studies in Hegelian 
 Dialectic, pp. 159-202. Cf. note on p. 23. 
 
NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 329 
 
 skirts of God's ways, and hear a small whisper of His 
 voice ; but our conviction is that, though our earthly 
 house be dissolved (as dissolved it must be), we have a 
 home not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In 
 this hope we may include all creation ; and trust that 
 in some way neither more nor less incomprehensible 
 than the deliverance which we expect for ourselves, all 
 God's creatures, according to their several capacities, 
 may be set free from the bondage of corruption and 
 participate in the final triumph over death and sin. 
 Most firmly do I believe that this faith in immortality, 
 though formless and inpalpable as the air we breathe, 
 and incapable of definite presentation except under 
 inadequate and self-contradictory symbols, is neverthe- 
 less enthroned in the centre of our being, and that 
 those who have steadily set their affections on things 
 above, and lived the risen life even on earth, receive in 
 themselves an assurance which robs death of its sting, 
 and is an earnest of a final victory over the grave. 
 
 It is not claimed that Mysticism, even in its widest 
 sense, is, or can ever be, the whole of Christianity. 
 Every religion must have an institutional as well as a 
 mystical element. Just as, if the feeling of immediate 
 communion with God has faded, we shall have a dead 
 Church worshipping " a dead Christ," as Fox the 
 Quaker said of the Anglican Church in his day; so, 
 if the seer and prophet expel the priest, there will be 
 no discipline and no cohesion. Still, at the present 
 time, the greatest need seems to be that we should 
 return to the fundamentals of spiritual religion. We 
 cannot shut our eyes to the fact that both the old seats 
 of authority, the infallible Church and the infallible 
 
330 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 book, are fiercely assailed, and that our faith needs 
 reinforcements. These can only come from the depths 
 of the religious consciousness itself; and if summoned 
 from thence, they will not be found wanting. The 
 " impregnable rock " is neither an institution nor a book, 
 but a life or experience. Faith, which is an affirmation 
 of the basal personality, is its own evidence and justi- 
 fication. Under normal conditions, it will always be 
 strongest in the healthiest minds. There is and can 
 be no appeal from it. If, then, our hearts, duly pre- 
 pared for the reception of the Divine Guest, at length 
 say to us, " This I know, that whereas I was blind, 
 now I see," we may, in St. John's words, " have con- 
 fidence towards God." 
 
 The objection may be raised — " But these beliefs 
 change, and merely reflect the degree of enlightenment 
 or its opposite, which every man has reached." The 
 conscience of the savage tells him emphatically that 
 there are some things which he must not do ; and blind 
 obedience to this " categorical imperative " has produced 
 not only all the complex absurdities of " taboo," but 
 crimes like human sacrifice, and faith in a great 
 many things that are not. " Perhaps we are leaving 
 behind the theological stage, as we have already left 
 behind those superstitions of savagery." Now the 
 study of primitive religions does seem to me to 
 prove the danger of resting religion and morality on 
 unreasoning obedience to a supposed revelation ; but 
 that is not my position. The two forces which kill 
 mischievous superstitions are the knowledge of nature, 
 and the moral sense ; and we are quite ready to give 
 both free play, confident that both come from the 
 
/ 
 
 NATURE-MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM 331 
 
 living Word of God. The fact that a revelation is 
 progressive is no argument that it is not Divine : it is, 
 in fact, only when the free current of the religious life 
 is dammed up that it turns into a swamp, and poisons 
 human society. Of course we must be ready to admit 
 with all humility, that our notions of God are probably 
 unworthy and distorted enough ; but that is no reason 
 why we should not follow the light which we have, 
 or mistrust it on the ground that it is " too good to 
 be true." 
 
 Nor would it be fair to say that this argument 
 makes religion depend merely on feeling. A theology 
 based on mere feeling is (as Hegel said) as much con- 
 trary to revealed religion as to rational knowledge. 
 The fact that God is present to our feeling is no proof 
 that He exists ; our feelings include imaginations 
 which have no reality corresponding to them. No, it 
 is not feeling, but the heart or reason (whichever term we 
 prefer), which speaks with authority. By the heart or 
 reason I mean the whole personality acting in concord, 
 an abiding mood of thinking, willing, and feeling. The 
 life of the spirit perhaps begins with mere feeling, and 
 perhaps will be consummated in mere feeling, when 
 " that which is in part shall be done away " ; but 
 during its struggles to enter into its full inheritance, 
 it gathers up into itself the activities of all the faculties, 
 which act harmoniously together in proportion as the 
 organism to which they belong is in a healthy state. 
 
 Once more, this reliance on the inner light does not 
 mean that every man must be his own prophet, his 
 own priest, and his own saviour. The individual is not 
 independent of the Church, nor the Church of the 
 
332 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 historical Christ. But the Church is a living body, 
 and the Incarnation and Atonement are living facts, 
 still in operation. They are part of the eternal counsels 
 of God ; and whether they are enacted in the Abyss of 
 the Divine Nature, or once for all in their fulness on 
 the stage of history, or in miniature, as it were, in your 
 soul and mine, the process is the same, and the tre- 
 mendous importance of those historical facts which our 
 creeds affirm is due precisely to the fact that they are 
 not unique and isolated portents, but the supreme 
 manifestation of the grandest and most universal 
 laws. 
 
 These considerations may well have a calming 
 and reassuring influence upon those who, from what- 
 ever cause, are troubled by religious doubts. The 
 foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, 
 The Lord knoweth, and is known by, them that are 
 His. But we must not expect that " religious diffi- 
 culties " will ever cease. Every truth that we know is 
 but the husk of a deeper truth ; and it may be that 
 the Holy Spirit has still many things to say to us, 
 which we cannot bear now. Each generation and 
 each individual has his own problem, which has never 
 been set in exactly the same form before : we must all 
 work out our own salvation, for it is God who worketh 
 in us. If we have realised the meaning of these words 
 of St. Paul, which I have had occasion to quote so' 
 often in thes^ Lectures, we cannot doubt that, though 
 we now see through a glass darkly, and know only in 
 part, we shall one day behold our Eternal Father face 
 to face, and know Him even as we are known. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 Definitions of "Mysticism" and "Mystical Theology" 
 
 The following definitions are given only as specimens. The 
 list might be made much longer by quoting from other 
 Roman Catholic theologians, but their definitions for the most 
 part agree closely enough with those which I have transcribed 
 from Corderius, John a Jesu Maria, and Gerson. 
 
 1. Corderius. "Theologia mystica est sapientia experi- 
 mentalis, Dei affectiva, divinitus infusa, qus mentem ab omni 
 inordinatione puram per actus supernaturales fidei spei et 
 caritatis cum Deo intime coniungit. . . . Mystica theologia, si 
 vim nominis attendas, designat quandam sacram et arcanam de 
 Deo divinisque rebus notitiam." 
 
 2. Joh7i a Jesu Maria. " [Theologia mystica] est caelestis 
 qusedam Dei notitia per unionem voluntatis Deo inhaerentis 
 elicita vel lumine cselitus immisso producta." 
 
 3. Bojiaventura (adopted also by Gerson). " Est animi 
 extensio in Deum per amoris desiderium." 
 
 4. Gerson. " Theologia mystica est motio anagogica in Deum 
 per amorem fervidum et purum. Aliter sic : Theologia mystica 
 est experimentalis cognitio habita de Deo per amoris unitivi 
 complexum. Aliter sic : est sapientia, id est sapida notio 
 habita de Deo, dum ei supremus apex affcctivee potentice 
 rationalis per amorem iungitur et unitur." 
 
 5. Scarafnelli. " La theologia mistica esperimentale, secondo 
 il suo atto principale e piu proprio, e una notizia pura di Dio 
 che 1' anima d'ordinario riceve nella caligine luminosa, o per 
 di meglio nel chiaro oscuro d' un' alta contemplazione, insieme 
 con un amore esperimentale si intimo, che la fa perdere tutta 
 a se stessa per unirla e transformarla in Dio." 
 
336 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 6. Ribet. " La theologie mystique, au point de vue subjectif 
 et experimental, nous semble pouvoir etre definie : une 
 attraction surnaturelle et passive de I'ame vers Dieu, prove- 
 nant d'une illumination et d'un embrasement interieurs, qui 
 previennent la reflexion, surpassent I'effort humain, et pouvent 
 avoir sur le corps un retentissement merveilleux et irresistible. 
 . . . Au point de vue doctrinal objectif, la mystique peut se 
 definir : la science qui traite des phenomenes surnaturels, qui 
 preparent, accompagnent, et suivent I'attraction passive des 
 ames vers Dieu et par Dieu, c'est a dire la contemplation divine ; 
 qui les coordonne et les justifie par I'autorite de I'Ecriture, 
 des docteurs et de la raison ; les distingue des phenomenes 
 paralleles dus a I'action de Satan, et des faits analogues 
 purement naturels ; enfin, qui trace des regies pratiques pour 
 la conduite des ames dans ces ascensions sublimes mais 
 perilleuses." 
 
 7. EAbhe Migne. " La mystique est la science d'etat sur- 
 naturel de I'ame humaine manifeste dans le corps et dans I'ordre 
 des choses visibles par des effets egalement surnaturels." 
 
 In these scholastic and modern Roman Catholic definitions 
 we may observe {a) that the earlier definitions supplement 
 without contradicting each other, representing different aspects 
 of Mysticism, as an experimental science, as a living sacrifice of 
 the will, as an illumination from above, and as an exercise of 
 ardent devotion ; {b) that symbolic or objective Mysticism is 
 not recognised ; (c) that the sharp distinction between natural 
 and supernatural, which is set up by the scholastic mystics, 
 carries with it a craving for physical " mystical phenomena " 
 to support the belief in supernatural interventions. These 
 miracles, though not mentioned in the earlier definitions, have 
 come to be considered an integral part of Mysticism, so that 
 Migne and Ribet include them in their definitions ; {d) lastly, 
 that those who take this view of "la mystique divine" are 
 constrained to admit by the side of true mystical facts a parallel 
 class of " contrefagons diaboliques." 
 
 8. Vo7i Harfmatm. " Mysticism is the filling of the con- 
 sciousness with a content (feeling, thought, desire), by an 
 involuntary emergence of the same out of the unconscious." 
 
 Von Hartmann's hypostasis of the Unconscious has been 
 
APPENDIX A 337 
 
 often and justly criticised. But his chapter on Mysticism is of 
 great value. He begins by asking, "What is the JVesen of 
 Mysticism ? " and shows that it is not quietism (disproved by 
 mystics like Bohme, and by many active reformers), nor ecstasy 
 (which is generally pathological), nor asceticism, nor allegorism, 
 nor fantastic symbolism, nor obscurity of expression, nor 
 religion generally, nor superstition, nor the sum of these things. 
 It is healthy in itself, and has been of high value to individuals 
 and to the race. It prepared for the Gospel of St. John, for the 
 revolt against arid scholasticism in the Middle Ages, for the 
 Reformation, and for modern German philosophy. He shows 
 the mystical element in Hamann, Jacobi, Fichte, and Schelling ; 
 and quotes with approval the description of "intellectual 
 intuition " given by the last named. We must not speak of 
 thought as an antithesis to experience, "for thought (includ- 
 ing immediate or mystical knowledge) is itself experience." 
 This knowledge is not derived from sense-perception, — the 
 conscious will has nothing to do with it, — " it can only have 
 arisen through inspiration from the Unconscious." He would 
 extend the name of mystic to " eminent art-geniuses who owe 
 their productions to inspirations of genius, and not to the work 
 of their consciousness (e.g. Phidias, ^schylus, Raphael, Beeth- 
 oven"), and even to every "truly original" philosopher, for 
 every high thought has been first apprehended by the glance 
 of genius. Moreover, the relation of the individual to the 
 Absolute, an essential theme of philosophy, can on/y be 
 mystically apprehended. "This feeling is the content of 
 Mysticism Kar iioxqv, because it finds its existence only in it." 
 He then shows with great force how religious and philosophical 
 systems have full probative force only for the few who are able 
 to reproduce mystically in themselves their underlying supposi- 
 tions, the truth of which can only be mystically apprehended. 
 " Hence it is that those systems which rejoice in most adherents 
 are just the poorest of all and most unphilosophical (e.g. 
 materialism and rationalistic Theism)." 
 
 9. Dii Prel. " If the self is not wholly contained in self- 
 consciousness, if man is a being dualised by the threshold of 
 sensibility, then is Mysticism possible ; and if the threshold of 
 sensibility is movable, then Mysticism is necessary." "The 
 22 
 
338 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 mystical phenomena of the soul-life are anticipations of the 
 biological process." "Soul is our spirit within the self- 
 consciousness, spirit is the soul beyond the self-consciousness." 
 This definition, with which should be compared the passage 
 from J. P. Ritcher, quoted in Lecture I., assumes that Mysticism 
 may be treated as a branch of experimental psychology. Du Prel 
 attaches great importance to somnambulism and other kindred 
 psychical phenomena, which (he thinks) give us glimpses of 
 the inner world of our Ego, in many ways different from our 
 waking consciousness. "As the moon turns to us only half 
 its orb, so our Ego." He distinguishes between the Ego and 
 the subject. The former will perish at death. It arises from 
 the free act of the subject, which enters the time-process as a 
 discipline. " The self-conscious Ego is a projection of the 
 transcendental subject, and resembles it." " We should regard 
 this earthly existence as a transitory phenomenal form in 
 correspondence with our transcendental interest." " Con- 
 science is transcendental nature." (This last sentence suggests 
 thoughts of great interest.) Du Prel shows how Schopenhauer's 
 pessimism may be made the basis of a higher optimism. 
 " The path of biological advance leads to the merging of the 
 Ego in the subject." "The biological aim for the race 
 coincides with the transcendental aim for the individual." 
 "The whole content of Ethics is that the Ego must subserve 
 the Subject." The disillusions of experience show that earthly 
 life has no value for its own sake, and is only a means to an 
 end ; it follows that to make pleasure our end is the one fatal 
 mistake in life. These thoughts are mixed with speculations of 
 much less value ; for I cannot agree with Du Prel that we shall 
 learn much about higher and deeper modes of life by studying 
 abnormal and pathological states of the consciousness. 
 
 10. Goethe. " Mysticism is the scholastic of the heart, the 
 dialectic of the feelings." 
 
 11. Noack. " Mysticism is formless speculation." 
 Noack's definition is, perhaps, not very happily phrased, for 
 
 the essence of Mysticism is not speculation but intuition ; 
 and when it begins to speculate, it is obliged at once to 
 take to itself "forms." Even the ultimate goal of the via 
 negativa is apprehended as " a kind of form of formlessness." 
 
APPENDIX A 339 
 
 Goethe's definition regards Mysticism as a system of religion or 
 philosophy, and from this point of view describes it accurately. 
 
 12. Ewald. " Mystical theology begins by maintaining that 
 man is fallen away from God, and craves to be again united 
 wit^h Him." 
 
 13. Canon Overton. "That we bear the image of God is 
 the starting-point, one might almost say the postulate, of all 
 Mysticism. The complete union of the soul with God is the 
 goal of all Mysticism." 
 
 14. Pfleiderer. " Mysticism is the immediate feeling of the 
 unity of the self with God ; it is nothing, therefore, but the 
 fundamental feeling of religion, the religious life at its very 
 heart and centre. But what makes the mystical a special 
 tendency inside religion, is the endeavour to fix the immediate- 
 ness of the life in God as such, as abstracted from all inter- 
 vening helps and channels whatever, and find a permanent 
 abode in the abstract inwardness of the life of pious feeling. 
 In this God-intoxication, in which self and the world are alike 
 forgotten, the subject knows himself to be in possession of the 
 highest and fullest truth ; but this truth is only possessed in the 
 quite undeveloped, simple, and bare form of monotonous feel- 
 ing ; what truth the subject possesses is not filled up by any 
 determination in which the simple unity might unfold itself, 
 and it lacks therefore the clearness of knowledge, which is only 
 attained when thought harmonises differences with unity." 
 
 15. Professor A. Seth. "Mysticism is a phase of thought, 
 or rather, perhaps, of feeling, which from its very nature is 
 hardly susceptible of exact definition. It appears in connexion 
 with the endeavour of the human mind to grasp the Divine 
 essence or the ultimate reality of things, and to enjoy the 
 blessedness of actual communion with the highest. The first 
 is the philosophic side of Mysticism ; the second, its religious 
 side. The thought that is most .intensely present with the 
 mystic is that of a supreme, all-pervading, and indwelling 
 Power, in whom all things are one. Hence the speculative 
 utterances of Mysticism are always more or less pantheistic in 
 character. On the practical side, Mysticism maintains the 
 possibility of direct intercourse with this Being of beings. . . . 
 God ceases to be an object, and becomes an experience." 
 
340 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 This carefully-worded statement of the essence of Mysticism 
 is followed by a hostile criticism. Professor Seth considers 
 quietism the true conclusion from the mystic's premisses. " It 
 is characteristic of Mysticism, that it does not distinguish 
 between what is metaphorical and what is susceptible of a 
 literal interpretation. Hence it is prone to treat a relation of 
 ethical harmony as if it were one of substantial identity or 
 chemical fusion ; and, taking the sensuous language of religious 
 feeling literally, it bids the individual aim at nothing less than 
 an interpenetration of essence. And as this goal is unattainable 
 while reason and the consciousness of self remain, the mystic 
 begins to consider these > as impediments to be thrown aside. 
 . . . Hence Mysticism demands a faculty above reason, by 
 which the subject shall be placed in immediate and complete 
 union with the object of his desire, a union in which the con- 
 sciousness of self has disappeared, and in which, therefore, 
 subject and object are one." To this, I think, the mystic 
 might answer : " I know well that interpenetration and absorption 
 are words which belong to the category of space, and are only 
 metaphors or symbols of the relation of the soul to God ; but 
 separateness, impenetrability, and isolation, which you affirm of 
 the ego, belong to the same category, and are no whit less 
 metaphorical. The question is, which of the two sets of words 
 best expresses the relation of the ransomed soul to its Redeemer? 
 In my opinion, your phrase ' ethical harmony ' is altogether 
 inadequate, while the New Testament expressions, * member- 
 ship,' ' union,' ' indwelling-,' are as adequate as words can be." 
 The rest of the criticism is directed against the " negative 
 road," which I have no wish to defend, since I cannot admit 
 that it follows logically from the first principles of Mysticism. 
 
 1 6. Recejac. "Mysticism is the tendency to approach the 
 Absolute morally, and by means of symbols." 
 
 Recejac's very interesting Essai sur les Fondeitients de la 
 Connaissance mystique has the great merit of emphasising the 
 symbolic character of all mystical phenomena, and of putting 
 all such experiences in their true place, as neither hallucina- 
 tions nor invasions of the natural order, but symbols of a 
 higher reality. " Les apparitions et autres phenomenes mys- 
 tiques n'existent que dans I'esprit du voyant, et ne perdent rien 
 
APPENDIX A 341 
 
 pour cela de leur prix ni de leur verite. . . . Et alors n'y a-t-il 
 pas au fond des symboles autant ^etrc que sous les pheno- 
 menes ? Bien plus encore : car I'etre phenomenal, le re'el, se 
 pose dans la conscience par un enchainement de faits tellement 
 successif que nous ne tenons jamais ' le meme ' ; tandis que 
 sous les symboles, si nous tenons quelque chose, c'est I'identique 
 et le permanent." Rec(5jac also insists with great force that 
 the motive power of Mysticism is neither curiosity nor self- 
 interest, but love : the intrusion of alien motives is at once 
 fatal to it. " Its logic consists in having confidence in the 
 rationality of the moral consciousness and its desires." This 
 agrees with what I have said — that Reason is, or should be, the 
 logic of our entire personality, and that if Reason is so defined, 
 it does not come into conflict with Mysticism. Recdjac also has 
 much to say upon Free Will and Determinism. He says that 
 Mysticism is an alliance between the Practical Reason (which 
 he identifies with " la Liberte ") and Imagination. " Deter- 
 minism is the opposite, not of ' Liberty,' but of 'indifference.' 
 Liberty, as Fouillee says, is only a higher form of Deter- 
 minism." "The modern idea of liberty, and the mystical con- 
 ception of Divine will, may be reconciled in the same way as 
 inspiration and reason, on condition that both are discovered in 
 the same fact interior to us, and that, far from being opposed 
 to each other, they are fused and distinguished together dans 
 quelque implicite reeliement present a la conscience" R^cejac 
 throughout appeals to Kant instead of to Hegel as his chief 
 philosophical authority, in this differing from the majority of 
 those who are in sympathy with Mysticism. 
 
 17. Bonchitte. "Mysticism consists in giving to the spon- 
 taneity of the intelligence a larger part than to the other 
 faculties." 
 
 18. Charles Kings ley. "The great Mysticism is the belief 
 which is becoming every day stronger with me, that all sym- 
 metrical natural objects are types of some spiritual truth or 
 existence. When I walk the fields, I am oppressed now and 
 then with an innate feeUng that everything I see has a meaning, 
 if I could but understand it. And this feeling of being sur- 
 rounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amounts to inde- 
 scribable awe sometimes. Everything seems to be full of God's 
 
342 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 reflex, if we could but see it. Oh, how I have prayed to have 
 the mystery unfolded, at least hereafter ! To see, if but for a 
 moment, the whole harmony of the great system ! To hear 
 once the music which the whole universe makes as it performs 
 His bidding ! Oh, that heaven ! The thought of the first 
 glance of creation from thence, when we know even as we are 
 known. And He, the glorious, the beautiful, the incarnate 
 Ideal shall be justified in all His doings, and in all, and through 
 all, and over all. . . . All day, glimpses from the other world, 
 floating motes from that inner transcendental life, have been 
 floating across me. . . . Have you not felt that your real soul 
 was imperceptible to your mental vision, except at a few 
 hallowed moments ? That in everyday life the mind, looking 
 at itself, sees only the brute intellect, grinding and working, 
 not the Divine particle, which is life and immortality, and on 
 which the Spirit of God most probably works, as being most 
 cognate to Deity" {Life, vol. i. p. 55). Again he says : "This 
 earth is the next greatest fact to that of God's existence." 
 
 Kingsley's review of Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics 
 shows that he retained his sympathy with Mysticism at a later 
 period of his life. It would be impossible to find any consistent 
 idealistic philosophy in Kingsley's writings ; but the sentences 
 above quoted are interesting as a profession of faith in Mysti- 
 cism of the objective type. 
 
 19. R. L. Nettleship. " The cure for a wrong Mysticism is 
 to realise the facts, not particular facts or aspects of facts, but 
 the whole fact : true Mysticism is the consciousness that 
 everything that we experience is an element, and only an 
 element, in fact ; i.e. that in being what it is, it is symbolic of 
 something more." 
 
 The obiter dicta on Mysticism in Nettleship's Remaitis are 
 of great value. 
 
 20. Lasson. "The essence of Mysticism is the assertion of 
 an intuition which transcends the temporal categories of the 
 understanding, relying on speculative reason. Rationalism 
 cannot conduct us to the essence of things ; we therefore need 
 intellectual vision. But Mysticism is not content with sym- 
 bolic knowledge, and aspires to see the Absolute by pure 
 spiritual apprehension. . . . There is a contradiction in regard- 
 
APPENDIX A 343 
 
 ing God as the immanent Essence of all things, and yet as an 
 abstraction transcending all things. But it is inevitable. Pure 
 immanence is unthinkable, if we are to maintain distinctions 
 in things. . , . Strict ' immanence ' doctrine tends towards 
 the monopsychism of Averroes. . . . Mysticism is often asso- 
 ciated with pantheism, but the religious character of Mysticism 
 views everything from the standpoint of teleology, while pan- 
 theism generally stops at causality. . . . Mysticism, again, is 
 often allied with rationalism, but their ground-principles are 
 different, for rationalism is deistic, and rests on this earth, 
 being based on the understanding [as opposed to the higher 
 faculty, the reason]. . . . Nothing can be more perverse than 
 to accuse Mysticism of vagueness. Its danger is rather an 
 overvaluing of reason and knowledge. . . . Mysticism is only 
 religious so long as it remembers that we can here only see 
 through a glass darkly ; when it tries to represent the eternal 
 adequately, it falls into a new and dangerous retranslation of 
 thought into images, or into bare negation. . . . Religion is a 
 relation of person to person, a life, which in its form is an 
 analogy to the earthly, while its content is pure relation to the 
 eternal. Dogmatic is the skeleton, Mysticism the life-blood, 
 of the Christian body. . . . Since the Reformation, philosophy 
 has taken over most of the work which the speculative mystics 
 performed in the Middle Ages " {Essay on the Essence and 
 Value of Mysticism). 
 
 2 1. Nordau. "The word Mysticism describes a state of 
 mind in which the subject imagines that he perceives or 
 divines unknown and inexplicable relations among phenomena, 
 discerns in things hints at mysteries, and regards them as 
 symbols by which a dark power seeks to unveil, or at least to 
 indicate, all sorts of marvels. ... It is always connected 
 with strong emotional excitement. . . . Nearly all our per- 
 ceptions, ideas, and conceptions are connected more or less 
 closely through the association of ideas. But to make the 
 association of ideas fulfil its function, one more thing must be 
 added — attention, which is the faculty to suppress one part of 
 the memory-images and maintain another part." We must 
 select the strongest and most direct images, those direcdy 
 connected with the afferent nerves ; " this Ribot calls adapta- 
 
344 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 tion of the whole organism to a predominant idea. . . . 
 Attention presupposes strength of will. Unrestricted play of 
 association, the result of an exhausted or degenerate brain, 
 gives rise to Mysticism. Since the mystic cannot express his 
 cloudy thoughts in ordinary language, he loves mutually ex- 
 clusive expressions. Mysticism blurs outlines, and makes the 
 transparent opaque." 
 
 The Germans have two words for what we call Mysticism — 
 Mystik and Mysticismus, the latter being generally dyslogistic. 
 The long chapter in Nordau's Degeneration, entitled " Mys- 
 ticism," treats it throughout as a morbid state. It will be 
 observed that the last sentence quoted flatly contradicts one 
 of the statements copied from Lasson's essay. But Nordau is 
 not attacking religious Mysticism, so much as that unwholesome 
 development of symbolic "science, falsely so called," which 
 has usurped the name in modern France. Those who are 
 interested in Mysticism should certainly study the pathological 
 symptoms which counterfeit mystical states, and from this 
 point of view the essay in Degeneration is valuable. The 
 observations of Nordau and other alienists must lead us to 
 suspect very strongly the following kinds of symbolical 
 representation, whether the symbols are borrowed from the 
 external world, or created by the imagination : — {a) All those 
 which include images of a sexual character. It is unnecessary 
 to illustrate this. The visions of monks and nuns are often, 
 as we might expect, unconsciously tinged with a morbid 
 element of this kind, {b) Those which depend on mere 
 verbal resemblances or other fortuitous correspondences. 
 Nordau shows that the diseased brain is very ready to follow 
 these false trains of association, {c) Those which are con- 
 nected with the sense of smell, which seems to be morbidly 
 developed in this kind of degeneracy, {d) Those which in 
 any way minister to pride or self-sufficiency. 
 
 22. Harnack. "Mysticism is rationalism applied to a 
 sphere above reason." 
 
 I have criticised this definition in my first Lecture, and have 
 suggested that the words " rationalism " and " reason " ought 
 to be transposed. Elsewhere Harnack says that the dis- 
 tinctions between " Scholastic, Roman, German, Catholic, 
 
APPENDIX A 345 , 
 
 Evangelical, and Pantheistic Mysticism " are at best super- 
 ficial, and in particular that it is a mistake to contrast 
 " Scholasticism and Mysticism " as opposing forces in the 
 Middle Ages. " Mysticism," he proceeds, " is Catholic piety 
 in general, so far as this piety is not merely ecclesiastical 
 obedience, that is, fides i?nplicita. The Reformation element 
 which is ascribed to it lies simply in this, that Mysticism, when 
 developed in a particular direction, is led to discern the 
 inherent responsibility of the soul, of which no authority can 
 again deprive it." The conflicts between Mysticism and 
 Church authority, he thinks, in no way militate against both 
 being Catholic ideals, just as asceticism and world-supremacy 
 are both Catholic ideals, though contradictory. The German 
 mystics he disparages. " I give no extracts from their 
 writings," he says, " because I do not wish even to seem to 
 countenance the error that they expressed anything that one 
 cannot read in Origen, Plotinus, the Areopagite, Augustine, 
 Erigena, Bernard, and Thomas, or that they represented 
 religious progress." "It will never be possible to make 
 Mysticism Protestant without flying in the face of history and 
 Catholicism." " A mystic who does not become a Catholic is 
 a dilettante." 
 
 Before considering these statements, I will quote from 
 another attack upon Mysticism by a writer whose general 
 views are very similar to those of Harnack. 
 
 23. Herrmann {Verkehr des Christen mit Gott). "The 
 most conspicuous features of the Roman Catholic rule of life 
 are obedience to the laws of cultus and of doctrine on the one 
 side, and Neoplatonic Mysticism on the other. . . . The 
 essence of Mysticism lies in this : when the influence of God 
 upon the soul is sought and found solely in an inward ex- 
 perience of the individual; when certain excitements of the 
 emotions are taken, with no further question, as evidence that 
 the soul is possessed by God : when at the same time nothing 
 external to the soul is consciously and clearly perceived and 
 firmly grasped ; when no thoughts that elevate the spiritual 
 life are aroused by the positive contents of an idea that rules 
 the soul, — then that is the piety of Mysticism. . . . Mysticism 
 is not that which is common to all religion, but a particular 
 
346 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 species of religion, namely a piety which feels that which is 
 historical in the positive religion to be burdensome, and so 
 rejects it." 
 
 These extracts from Harnack and Herrmann represent the 
 attitude towards Mysticism of the Ritschlian school in Ger- 
 many, of which Kaftan is another well-known exponent. They 
 are neo-Kantians, whose religion is an austere moralism, and 
 who seem to regard Christianity as a primitive Puritanism, 
 spoiled by the Greeks, who brought into it their intellectualism 
 and their sacramental mysteries. True Christianity, they say, 
 is faith in the historic Christ. " In the human Jesus," says 
 Herrmann, "we have met with a fact, the content of which is 
 incomparably richer than that of any feelings which arise 
 within ourselves, — a fact, moreover, which makes us so certain 
 of God that, our reason and conscience being judges, our con- 
 viction is only confirmed that we are in communion with Him." 
 " The mystic's experience of God is a delusion. . If the 
 Christian has learnt how Christ alone has lifted him above all 
 that he had even been before, he cannot believe that another 
 man might reach the same end by simply turning inward upon 
 himself." "The piety of the mystic is such that at the highest 
 point to which it leads Christ must vanish from the soul along 
 with all else that is external." This curious view of Christianity 
 quite fails to explain how " our reason and conscience " can 
 detect the "incomparable richness" of a revelation altogether 
 unlike "the feehngs which arise within ourselves." It en- 
 tirely ignores the Pauline and Johannine doctrine of the 
 mystical union, according to which Christ is not " external " 
 to the redeemed soul, and most assuredly can never "vanish" 
 from it. Instead of the "Lo I am with you alway" of our 
 blessed Lord, we are referred to "history" — that is, primarily, 
 the four Gospels confirmed by " a fifth," " the united testimony 
 of the first Christian community " (Harnack, Christianity atid 
 History). We are presented with a Christianity without 
 knowledge (Gnosis), without discipline, without sacraments, 
 resting partly on a narrative which these very historical critics 
 tear in pieces, each in his own fashion, and partly on a cate- 
 gorical imperative which is really the voice of " irreligious 
 moralism," as Pfleiderer calls it. The words are justified by 
 
APPENDIX A 347 
 
 such a sentence as this from Herrmann : " Religious faith in 
 God is, rightly understood, just the medium by which the 
 universal law becomes individualised for the particular man in 
 his particular place in the world's life, so as to enable him to 
 recognise its absoluteness as the ground of his self-certainty, 
 and the ideal drawn in it as his own personal end." Thus the 
 school which has shown the greatest animus against Mysticism 
 unconsciously approaches very near to the atheism of Feuer- 
 bach. Indeed, what worse atheism can there be, than such 
 disbelief in the rationality of our highest thoughts as is ex- 
 pressed in this sentence : " Metaphysics is an impassioned 
 endeavour to obtain recognition for thoughts, the contents of 
 which have no other title to be recognised than their value 
 for us " ? As if faith in God had any other meaning than a 
 confidence that what is of " value for us " is the eternally and 
 universally good and true ! Herrmann's attitude towards 
 reason can only escape atheism by accepting in preference the 
 crudest dualism, " behind which " (to quote Pfleiderer again) 
 lies concealed simply "the scepticism of a disintegrating 
 Nominalism." 
 
 24. Victor Cousin. "Mysticism is the pretension to know 
 God without intermediary, and, so to speak, face to face. 
 For Mysticism, whatever is between God and us hides Him 
 from us." " Mysticism consists in substituting direct inspira- 
 tion for indirect, ecstasy for reason, rapture for philosophy." 
 
 25. R. A. Vmighan. "Mysticism is that form of error 
 which mistakes for a Divine manifestation the operations of a 
 merely human faculty." 
 
 This poor definition is the only one (except " Mysticism is 
 the romance of religion ") to be found in Hours with the 
 Mystics, the solitary work in English which attempts to give a 
 history of Christian Mysticism. The book has several con- 
 spicuous merits. The range of the author's reading is 
 remarkable, and he has a wonderful gift of illustration. But 
 he was not content to trust to the interest of the subject to 
 make his book popular, and tried to attract readers by placing 
 it in a most incongruous setting. There is something almost 
 offensive in telling the story of men like Tauler, Suso, and 
 Juan of the Cross, in the form of smart conversations at a 
 
348 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 house-party, and the jokes cracked at the expense of the 
 benighted "mystics" are not ahvays in the best taste. 
 Vaughan does not take his subject quite seriously enough. 
 There is an irritating air of superiority in all his discussions of 
 the lives and doctrines of the mystics, and his hatred and 
 contempt for the Roman Church often warp his judgment. 
 His own philosophical standpoint is by no means clear, and 
 this makes his treatment of speculative Mysticism less satis- 
 factory than the more popular parts of the book. It is also a 
 pity that he has neglected the English representatives of 
 Mysticism ; they are quite as interesting in their way as 
 Madame Guyon, whose story he tells at disproportionate 
 length. / At the same time, I wish to acknowledge con- 
 siderable obligations to Vaughan, whose early death probably 
 deprived us of even better work than the book which made - 
 his reputation. 
 
 26. James Hinton. "Mysticism is an assertion of a means 
 of knowing that must not be tried by ordinary rules of 
 evidence — the claiming authority for our own impressions." 
 
 Another poor and question-begging definition, on the same 
 lines as the last. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 The Greek Mysteries and Christain Mysticism 
 
 The connexion between the Greek Mysteries and Christian 
 Mysticism is marked not only by the name which the world has 
 agreed to give to that type of religion (though it must be said 
 that ixva-Trjpia is not the commonest name for the Mysteries — 
 opyta, TeXerat, TeXrj are all, I think, more frequent), but by the 
 evident desire on the part of such founders of mystical Christi- 
 anity as Clement and Dionysius the Areopagite, to emphasise 
 the resemblance. It is not without a purpose that these 
 writers, and other Platonising theologians from the third to the 
 fifth century, transfer to the faith and practice of the Church 
 almost every term which was associated with the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries and others like them. For instance, the sacraments 
 are regularly fjLva-TrjpLa ; baptism is /jlvcttlkov Xovrpov (Gregory of 
 Nyssa) ; unction, ■)(piaixa (jlvo-tlkov (Athanasius) ; the elements, 
 /Avo-Tts cSwSt; (Gregory Naz.) ; and participation in them is 
 fjiva-TiKT] fjL£TdXrnJ/is. Baptism, again, is " initiation " (/avt/o-is) ; a 
 baptized person is fjcefxyrjixevo?, fxv(rT7]<s, or a-vfjiixva-Trjs (Gregory 
 Ny. and Chrysostom), an unbaptized person is dixvr]To<;. The 
 celebrant is fjLva-T-qpLtxyv XavOavovrwv fxv(TTaywy6<; (Gregory Ny.) ; 
 the administration is TrapaSoo-is, as at Eleusis. The sacraments 
 are also Tf-X^rrj or tIXtj, regular Mystery-words ; as are reActwo-ts, 
 TcXciovcr^at, TfAeioTToto?, which are used in the same con- 
 nexion. Secret formulas (the notion of secret formulas itself 
 comes from the Mysteries) were aTropprjra, (Whether the words 
 ^wTicr/Ao's and cr(/)pay6s in their sacramental meaning come from 
 the Mysteries seems doubtful, in spite of Hatch, Hibbert 
 Lectures, p. 295.) Nor is the language of the Mysteries 
 applied only to the sacraments. Clement calls purgative disci- 
 pline TO. KaOdpcria, and to. fj.iKpa fjivcrrypia, and the highest stage 
 
 349 
 
350 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 in the spiritual life eVoTrrcta. He also uses such language as 
 the following : " truly sacred mysteries ! O stainless light ! 
 My way is lighted with torches, and I survey the heavens and 
 God ! I am become holy while I am being initiated. The 
 Lord is my hierophant," etc. {Protr. xii. 120). Dionysius, as I 
 have shown in a note on Lecture III., uses the Mystery words 
 frequently, and gives to the orders of the Christian ministry 
 the names which distinguished the officiating priests at the 
 Mysteries. The aim of these writers was to prove that the 
 Church offers a mysteriosophy which includes all the good 
 elements of the old Mysteries without their corruptions. The 
 alliance between a Mystery-religion and speculative Mysticism 
 within the Church was at this time as close as that between 
 the Neoplatonic philosophy and the revived pagan Mystery- 
 cults. But when we try to determine the amount of direct 
 influence exercised by the later paganism on Christian usages 
 and thought, we are baffled both by the loss of documents, 
 and by the extreme difficulty of tracing the pedigree of religious 
 ideas and customs. I shall here content myself with calling 
 attention to certain features which were common to the Greek 
 Mysteries and to Alexandrian Christianity, and which may 
 perhaps claim to be in part a legacy of the old religion to the 
 new. My object is not at all to throw discredit upon modes 
 of thought which may have been unfamiliar to Palestinian 
 Jews. A doctrine or custom is not necessarily un-Christian 
 because it is " Greek " or " pagan." I know of no stranger 
 perversity than for men who rest the whole weight of their 
 religion upon "history," to suppose that our Lord meant to 
 raise an universal religion on a purely Jewish basis. 
 
 The Greek Mysteries were perhaps survivals of an old- 
 world ritual, based on a primitive kind of Nature-Mysticism, 
 The "public Mysteries," of which the festival at Eleusis was 
 the most important, were so called because the State ad- 
 mitted strangers by initiation to what was originally a national 
 cult. (There were also private Mysteries, conducted for profit 
 by itinerant priests {ayvprai) from the East, who as a class 
 bore no good reputation.) The main features of the ritual 
 at Eleusis are known. The festival began at Athens, where 
 the mystcE collected, and, after a fast of several days, were 
 
APPENDIX B 351 
 
 " driven " to the sea, or to two salt lakes on the road to 
 Eleusis, for a purifying bath. This kind of baptism washed 
 away the stains of their former sins, the worst of which they 
 were obliged to confess before being admitted to the Mysteries. 
 Then, after sacrifices had 'been offered, the company went in 
 procession to Eleusis, where Mystery-plays were performed in 
 a great hall, large enough to hold thousands of people, and 
 the votaries were allowed to handle certain sacred relics. A 
 sacramental meal, in which a mixture of mint, barley-meal, and 
 water was administered to the initiated, was an integral part 
 of the festival. The most secret part of the ceremonies was 
 reserved for the cVoVrai, who had passed through the ordinary 
 initiation in a previous year. It probably culminated in the 
 solemn exhibition of a corn-ear, the symbol of Demeter. The 
 obligation of silence was imposed not so much because there 
 were any secrets to reveal, but that the holiest sacraments of 
 the Greek religion might not be profaned by being brought 
 into contact with common life. This feeling was strengthened 
 by the belief that words are more than conventional symbols 
 of things. A sacred formula must not be taken in vain, or 
 divulged to persons who might misuse it. 
 
 The evidence is strong that the Mysteries had a real 
 spiritualising and moralising influence on large numbers of 
 those who were initiated, and that this influence was increasing 
 under the early empire. The ceremonies may have been trivial, 
 and even at times ludicrous ; but the discovery had been made 
 that the performance of solemn acts of devotion in common, 
 after ascetical preparation, and with the aid of an impressive 
 ritual, is one of the strongest incentives to piety. Diodorus is 
 not alone in saying (he is speaking of the Samothracian Mys- 
 teries) that " those who have taken part in them are said to 
 become more pious, more upright, and in every way better 
 than their former selves." 
 
 The chief motive force which led to the increased im- 
 portance of Mystery-religion in the first centuries of our era, 
 was the desire for " salvation " (crwTT^pta), which both with 
 pagans and Christians was very closely connected with the 
 hope of everlasting life. Happiness after death was the great 
 promise held out in the Mysteries. The initiated were secure of 
 
352 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 blessedness in the next world, while the uninitiated must expect 
 "to lie in darkness and mire after their death" (cf. Plato, 
 Fhcsdrus, 69). 
 
 How was this " salvation " attained or conferred ? We find 
 that several conflicting views were held, which it is impossible 
 to keep rigidly separate, since the human mind at one time 
 inclines to one of them, at another time to another. 
 
 {a) Salvation is imparted by revdation. This makes it to 
 depend upon knozv ledge ; but this knowledge was in the Mys- 
 teries conveyed by the spectacle or drama, not by any intel- 
 lectual process. Plutarch {de Defect. Orac. 22) says that those 
 who had been initiated could produce no demonstration or 
 proof of the beliefs which they had acquired. And Synesius 
 quotes Aristotle as saying that the initiated do not learn 
 anything, but rather receive impressions (ou jxadCiv tl Setv dXAa 
 Tradftv). The old notion that monotheism was taught as a 
 secret dogma rests on no evidence, and is very unlikely. 
 There was a good deal of OeoKpacrta, as the ancients called it, 
 and some departures from the current theogonies, but such 
 doctrine as there was, was much nearer to pantheism than to 
 monotheism. Certain truths about nature and the facts of 
 life were communicated in the " greatest mysteries," according 
 to Clement, and Cicero says the same thing. And sometimes 
 the yvwo-is (TwTrjpia'i includes knowledge about the whence and 
 whither of man (rtvc? itr/xev koI tI ycydva/Aci/, Clem. JSxc. ex 
 Theod. 78). Some of the mystical formulae were no doubt 
 susceptible of deep and edifying interpretations, especially in 
 the direction of an elevated nature-worship. 
 
 {h) Salvation was regarded, as in the Oriental religions, as 
 emancipation from the fetters of human existence. Doctrines 
 of this kind were taught especially in the Orphic Mysteries, 
 where it was a secret doctrine (dTroppiyros Ao-yos, Plat. Phcedr. 
 62) that "we men are here in a kind of prison," or in a tomb 
 ((rrjfji.a. rives to crMfxa elvat t^s ij/v)(yj^, ws Te^a/AyLieVT/s iv tw irapovTL, 
 Plat. Cral. 400). They also believed in transmigration of 
 souls, and in a kvkXos t^s yeve'creo)? (rola fati et generationis). 
 The " Orphic life," or rules of conduct enjoined upon these 
 mystics, comprised asceticism, and, in particular, abstinence 
 from flesh; and laid great stress on "following of God" 
 
APPENDIX B 353 
 
 {IwecrOaL OX aKoXovOelv to3 ^ew) as the goal of moral endeavour. 
 This cult, however, was tinged with Thracian barbarism ; its 
 heaven was a kind of Valhalla (fi^Or] atwvto?, Plat. J?cJ>. ii. 363). 
 Very similar was the rule of life prescribed by the Pythagorean 
 brotherhood, who were also vegetarians, and advocates of vir- 
 ginity. Their system of purgation, followed by initiation, 
 liberated men "from the grievous woeful circle" (kvkXov 8' 
 i^iTTTav /3apviriv6eos apyaXeoio on a tombstone), and entitled 
 them "to a happy life with the gods." (For the conception of 
 salvation as deification, see Appendix C.) Whether these sects 
 taught that our separate individuality must be merged is un- 
 certain ; but among the Gnostics, who had much in common 
 with the Orphic //mte, the formula, " I am thou, and thou art 
 I," was common {Fi'stis Sophia ; formulse of the Marcosians ; 
 also in an invocation of Hermes : to crov ovofia ifiov /cat to 
 ifiov crov. cyoj yap clfxi to el'ScuXov (tov. Rohde, JPsyche^ VOl. 
 ii. p. 61). A foretaste of this deliverance was given by initia- 
 tion, which conducts the mystic to ecstasy^ an oXtyoxpoVios 
 /xavia (Galen), in which " animus ita solutus est et vacuus ut 
 ei plane nihil sit cum corpore " (Cic. De Divin. i. i. 113); 
 which was otherwise conceived as ivOovaiaa-fxos {Ivdovcnwa-q^ 
 KoX ovkIti ovarj'i iv iavTrj Stavota?, Philo). 
 
 ((t) The imperishable Divine nature is infused by mechanical 
 means. Sacraments and the like have a magical or miraculous 
 potency. The Homeric hymn to Demeter insists only on 
 ritual purity as the condition of salvation, and we hear that 
 people trusted to the mystic baptism to wash out all their 
 previous sins. Similarly the baptism of blood, the taurobolium^ 
 was supposed to secure eternal happiness, at any rate if death 
 occurred within twenty years after the ceremony ; when that 
 interval had elapsed, it was common to renew the rite. (We 
 find on inscriptions such phrases as " arcanis perfusionibus in 
 aeternum renatus.") So mechanical was the operation of the 
 Mysteries supposed to be, that rites were performed for the 
 dead (Plat. Rep. 364. St. Paul seems to refer to a similar 
 custom in i Cor. xv. 29), and infants were appointed 
 " priests," and thoroughly initiated, that they might be clean 
 from their " original sin." Among the Gnostics, a favourite 
 phrase was that initiation releases men "from the fetters of 
 
 2X 
 
354 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 fate and necessity " ; the gods of the inteUigible world {6eol 
 vorjTOi), with whom we hold communion in the Mysteries, 
 being above "fate." 
 
 (d) Salvation consists of moral regeneration. The efficacy 
 of initiation without moral reformation naturally appeared 
 doubtful to serious thinkers. Diogenes is reported to have 
 asked, "What say you? Will Patgecion the thief be happier 
 in the next world than Epaminondas, because he has been 
 initiated?" And Philo says, " It often happens that good 
 men are not initiated, but that robbers, and murderers, and 
 lewd women are, if they pay money to the initiators and hiero- 
 phants." Ovid protests against the immoral doctrine of 
 mechanical purgation with more than his usual earnestness 
 (Fasfi, ii. 35) :— 
 
 " Omne nefas omnemque mali purgamina causam 
 
 Credebant nostri tollere posse senes. 
 Greecia principium moris fuit ; ilia nocentes 
 
 Impia lustratos ponere facta putat. 
 A ! nitnium faciles, qui tristia crimina csedis 
 
 Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua ! " 
 
 Such passages show that abuses existed, but also that it was 
 felt to be a scandal if the initiated person failed to exhibit any 
 moral improvement. 
 
 These different conceptions of the office of the Mysteries 
 cannot, as I have said, be separated historically. They all 
 reappear in the history of the Christian sacraments. The 
 main features of the Mystery - system which passed into 
 Catholicism are the notions of secrecy, of symbolism, of 
 mystical brotherhood, of sacramental grace, and, above all, of 
 the three stages in the spiritual life, ascetic purification, 
 illumination, and cTroTrraa as the crown. 
 
 The secrecy observed about creeds and liturgical forms had 
 not much to do with the development of Mysticism, except by 
 associating sacredness with obscurity (cf. Strabo, x. 467, tj Kpvij/is 
 rj fxvcTTLKr] o-e/AVOTTOtct TO 6eiov, iii[xovfxivq t^v (f>va-LV avTOv ck^cu- 
 yovorav t^v aLo-Orjo-iv), a tendency which also showed itself in 
 the love of symbolism. This certainly had a great influence, 
 both in the form of allegorism (cf. Clem. Stro7n. i. i. 15, eori 
 S^t a KoX alviierai jxol rj ypat^rf Treipda-CTai. 8k Koi \av6dvov(ra 
 
APPENDIX B 35 5 
 
 ttTTCtv Koi tTTLKpvTVTOjxivq iKcf)rjvai KOL Sei^at (TtcoTraicra), which 
 
 Philo calls "the method of the Greek Mysteries," and in the 
 various kinds of Nature-Mysticism. The great value of the 
 Mysteries lay in the facilities which they offered for free 
 symbolical interpretation. 
 
 The idea of mystical union by means of a common meal 
 was, as we have seen, familiar to the Greeks. For instance, 
 Plutarch says (JVon posse suav. vivi sec. Epic. 21), "It is not 
 the wine or the cookery that delights us at these feasts, but 
 good hope, and the belief that God is present with us, and 
 that He accepts our service graciously." There have always 
 been two ideas of sacrifice, alike in savage and civilised cults 
 — the mystical, in which it is a cotnnrmiion, the victim who is 
 slain and eaten being himself the god, or a symbol of the god ; 
 and the commercial, in which something valuable is offered to 
 the god in the hope of receiving some benefit in exchange. 
 The Mysteries certainly encouraged the idea of communion, 
 and made it easier for the Christian rite to gather up into itself 
 all the religious elements which can be contained in a sacra- 
 ment of this kind. 
 
 But the scheme of ascent from KaOapcn^ to fjLvrjcrL?, and from 
 fivr](TL<; to i-TroTTTeia, is the great contribution of the Mysteries to 
 Christian Mysticism. Purification began, as we have seen, 
 with confession of sin ; it proceeded by means of fasting (with 
 which was combined dyveia a-rro o-ui'ovcrtas) and meditation, 
 till the second stage, that of illumination, was reached. The 
 majority were content with the partial illumination which 
 belonged to this stage, just as in books of Roman Catholic 
 divinity "mystical theology" is a summit of perfection to 
 which "all are not called." The elect advanced, after a year's 
 interval at least, to the full contemplation {iTroTnda). This 
 highest truth was conveyed in various ways — by visible sym- 
 bols dramatically displayed, by solemn words of mysterious 
 import ; by explanations of enigmas and allegories and dark 
 speeches (cf. Orig. Cels. vii. i o), and perhaps by " visions 
 and revelations." It is plain that this is one of the cases in 
 which Christianity conquered Hellenism by borrowing from it 
 all its best elements ; and I do not see that a Christian need 
 feel any reluctance to make this admission. 
 
APPENDIX C 
 
 The Doctrine of Deification 
 
 The conception of salvation as the acquisition by man of 
 Divine attributes is common to many forms of religious 
 thought. It was widely diffused in the Roman Empire at 
 the time of the Christian revelation, and was steadily growing 
 in importance during the first centuries of our era. The 
 Orphic Mysteries had long taught the doctrine. On tomb- 
 stones erected by members of the Orphic brotherhoods we 
 find such inscriptions as these : " Happy and blessed one ! 
 Thou shalt be a god instead of a mortal " (oX/Ste nal /xa/cap- 
 icrre, 6e6<; 8' eo-r] avrl ppoTolo) ; " Thou art a god instead of a 
 wretched man " (^eos el eXeetvoD l^ avOpwnov). It has indeed 
 been said that " deification was the idea of salvation taught in 
 the Mysteries " (Harnack). 
 
 To moiiern ears the word "deification" sounds not only 
 strange, but arrogant and shocking. The Western conscious- 
 ness has always tended to emphasise the distinctness of indi- 
 viduality, and has been supicious of anything that looks like 
 juggling with the rights of persons, human or Divine. This is 
 especially true of thought in the Latin countries. Deus has 
 never been a fluid concept like 6e6<;. St. Augustine no doubt 
 gives us the current Alexandrian philosophy in a Latin dress ; 
 but this part of his Platonism never became acclimatised in 
 the Latin-speaking countries. The Teutonic genius is in this 
 matter more in sympathy with the Greek ; but we are AVesterns, 
 while the later "Greeks "were half Orientals, and there is 
 much in their habits of thought which is strange and unin- 
 telligible to us. Take, for instance, the apotheosis of the 
 emperors. This was a genuinely Eastern mode 'Of homage, 
 
APPENDIX C 357 
 
 which to the true European remained either profane or 
 ridiculous. But Vespasian's last joke, " Vce I pttto Dens fio /" 
 would not sound comic in Greek. The associations of the 
 word 6€6<i were not sufficiently venerable to make the idea of 
 deification (6co-iroLr]arL<i) grotesque. We find, as we should 
 expect, that this vulgarisation of the word affected even 
 Christians in the Greek-speaking countries. Not only were 
 the " barbarous people " of Galatia and ISIalta ready to find 
 " theophanies " in the visits of apostles, or any other strangers 
 who seemed to have unusual powers, but the philosophers 
 (except the "godless Epicureans") agreed in calling the 
 highest faculty of the soul Divine, and in speaking of "the 
 God who dwells within us." There is a remarkable passage of 
 Origen (quoted by Harnack) which shows how elastic the word 
 Oeo^ was in the current dialect of the educated. " In another 
 sense God is said to be an immortal, rational, moral Being. 
 In this sense every gentle (ao-rei'a) soul is God. But God is 
 otherwise defined as the self-existing immortal Being. In this 
 sense the souls that are enclosed in wise men are not gods." 
 Clement, too, speaks of the soul as "training itself to be 
 God." Even more remarkable than such language (of which 
 many other examples might be given) is the frequently 
 recurring accusation that bishops, teachers, martyrs, philo- 
 sophers, etc., are venerated with Divine or semi-Divine honours. 
 These charges are brought by Christians against pagans, by 
 pagans against Christians, and by rival Christians against each 
 other. Even the Epicureans habitually spoke of their founder 
 Epicurus as "a god." If we try to analyse the concept of 
 ^£0?, thus loosely and widely used, we find that the prominent 
 idea was that exemption from the doom of death was the 
 prerogative of a Divine Being (cf. i Tim. vi. i6, ^' Who onfy 
 hath immortality "), and that therefore the gift of immortality 
 is itself a deification. This notion is distinctly adopted by 
 several Christian writers. Theophilus says (ad Autol. ii. 27) 
 "that man, by keeping the commandments of God, may 
 receive from him immortality as a reward (/xto-^oV), mid becotne 
 God." And Clement {Stro7?i. v. 10. 63) says, "To be im- 
 perishable {to /jly] (ftOeLpea-Oai) is to share in Divinity." To 
 the same effect Hippolytus {Philos. x. 34) says, "Thy body 
 
358 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 shall be immortal and incorruptible as well as thy soul. For 
 thoii hast become God. All the things that follow upon the 
 Divine nature God has promised to supply to thee, for thou 
 wast deified in being born to immortality.^'' ^Vith regard to 
 later times, Harnack says that "after Theophilus, Iren^eus, 
 Hippolytus, and Origen, the idea of deification is found in all 
 the Fathers of the ancient Church, and that in a primary 
 position. We have it in Athanasius, the Cappadocians, 
 Apollinaris, Ephraem Syrus, Epiphanius, and others, as also in 
 Cyril, Sophronius, and late Greek and Russian theologians. 
 In proof of it, Ps. Ixxxii. 6 ('I said, Ye are gods') is very 
 often quoted." He quotes from Athanasius, " He became 
 man that we might be deified " ; and from Pseudo-Hippolytus, 
 "If, then, man has become immortal, he will be God." 
 
 This notion grew within the Church as chiliastic and 
 apocalyptic Christianity faded away. A favourite phrase was 
 that the Incarnation, etc., "abolished death," and brought 
 mankind into a state of " incorruption " (d^^apcrta). This 
 transformation of human nature, which is also spoken of as 
 OeoTT-oLfjcn?, is the highest work of the Logos. Athanasius 
 makes it clear that what he contemplates is no pantheistic 
 merging of the personality in the Deity, but rather a renovation 
 after the original type. 
 
 But the process of deification may be conceived of in two 
 ways : (a) as essentialisation, (b) as substitution. The former 
 may perhaps be called the more philosophical conception, the 
 latter the more religious. The former lays stress on the high 
 calling of man, and his potential greatness as the image of 
 God; theTatter, on his present misery and alienation, and his 
 need of redemption. The former was the teaching of the 
 Neoplatonic philosophy, in which the human mind was the 
 throne of the Godhead ; the latter was the doctrine of the 
 Mysteries, in which salvation was conceived of realistically as 
 something imparted or infused. 
 
 The notion that salvation or deification consists in realising 
 our true nature, was supported by the favourite doctrine that 
 like only can know like. "If the soul were not essentially 
 Godlike (^coetSTys), it could never know God." This doctrine 
 might seem to lead to the heretical conclusion that man is 
 
APPENDIX C 359 
 
 6fjLoov(TLo<: to) JJarpL in the same sense as Christ. This conclusion, 
 however, was strongly repudiated both by Clement and Origen. 
 The former {Strom, xvi. 74) says that men are not /j.epos 6eov 
 Koi Tw 6€<2 ofxoovo-Loi ; and Origen {in J oh. xiii. 25) says it is 
 very impious to assert that we are o/xoovctlol with " the un- 
 begotten nature." But for those who thought of Christ 
 mainly as the Divine Logos or universal Reason, the line was 
 not very easy to draw. Methodius says that every believer 
 must, through participation in Christ, be born as a Christ, — a 
 view which, if pressed logically (as it ought not to be), implies 
 either that our nature is at bottom identical with that of Christ, 
 or that the life of Christ is substituted for our own. The 
 difficulty as to whether the human soul is, strictly speaking, 
 " divinae particula aurae," is met by Proclus in the ingenious 
 and interesting passage quoted p. 34; "There are," he says, 
 "three sorts of wholes, (i) in which the whole is anterior to 
 the parts, (2) in which the whole is composed of the parts, 
 (3) which knits into one stuff the parts and the whole (17 toIs 
 oAois TO. /Acp?/ crwv^atvouo-a)." This is also the doctrine of 
 Plotinus, and of Augustine. God is not split up among His 
 creatures, nor are they essential to Him in the same way as He 
 is to them. Erigena's doctrine of deification is expressed (not 
 very clearly) in the following sentence {De Div. Nat. iii. 9) : " Est 
 igitur participatio divinae essentiae assumptio. Assumptio vero 
 eius divinae sapientiae fusio quse est omnium substantia et 
 essentia, et quaecumque in eis naturaliter intelliguntur." Accord- 
 ing to Eckhart, the Wesen of God transforms the soul into itself 
 by means of the " spark " or " apex of the soul '" (equivalent to 
 Plotinus' KevTpov ijyvxv% Eym. vi. 9. 8), which is "so akin to 
 God that it is one with God, and not merely united to Him." 
 
 The history of this doctrine of the spark, and of the closely- 
 connected word synteresis, is interesting. The word "spark" 
 occurs in this connexion as early as Tatian, who says {Or, 13): 
 " In the beginning the spirit was a constant companion of the 
 soul, but forsook it because the soul would not follow it ; 
 yet it retained, as it were, a spark of its power," etc. See also 
 Tertullian, De Anima, 41. The curious word synieresis (often 
 misspelt sinderesis), which plays a considerable part in 
 mediaeval mystical treatises, occurs first in Jerome (on Ezech. i.): 
 
36o CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 " Quartamque ponunt quam Gr?eci vocant a-vvr^prja-tv, quae 
 scintilla conscientiae in Cain quoque pectore non exstinguitur, 
 et qua victi voluptatibus vel furore nos peccare sentimus. . . . 
 In Scripturis [earn] interdum vocari legimus Spiritum." Cf. 
 Rom. viii. 26 ; 2 Cor. ii. 11. Then we find it in Alexander of 
 Hales, and in Bonaventura, who {/tinerare, c. i) defines it as 
 " apex mentis seu scintilla " ; and more precisely {B reviloquium. 
 Pars 2, c. 11): "Benignissimus Deus quadruplex contulit ei 
 adiutorium, scilicet duplex naturae et duplex gratiae. Duplicem 
 enim indidit rectitudinem ipsi naturae, videlicet unam ad recte 
 iudicandum, et h?ec est rectitudo conscientiae, aliam ad recte 
 volendum, et haec est synteresis, cuius est remurmurare contra 
 malum et stimulare ad bonum." Hermann of Fritslar speaks 
 of it as a power or faculty in the soul, wherein God works 
 immediately, "without means and without intermission." 
 Ruysbroek defines it as the natural will towards good im- 
 planted in us all, but weakened by sin. Giseler says : " This 
 spark was created with the soul in all men, and is a clear light 
 in them, and strives in every way against sin, and impels steadily 
 to virtue, and presses ever back to the source from which it 
 sprang." It has, says Lasson, a double meaning in mystical 
 theology, {a) the ground of the soul ; {!)) the highest ethical 
 faculty. In Thomas Aquinas it is distinguished from "intel- 
 lectus principiorum," the former being the highest activity of 
 the moral sense, the latter of the intellect. In Gerson, 
 "synteresis" is the highest of the affective faculties, the organ 
 of which is the intelligence (an emanation from the highest 
 intelligence, which is God Himself), and the activity of which 
 is contemplation. Speaking generally, the earlier scholastic 
 mystics regard it as a remnant of the sinless state before the 
 fall, while for Eckhart and his school it is the core of the soul. 
 There is another expression which must be considered in 
 connexion with the mediaeval doctrine of deification. This is 
 the intelledus agens, or vov^ TroiT^rtKos, which began its long 
 history in Aristotle {De Afiima, iii. 5). Aristotle there dis- 
 tinguishes two forms of Reason, which are related to each 
 other as form and matter. Reason becomes all things, for the 
 matter of anything is potentially the whole class to which it 
 belongs ; but Reason also makes all things, that is to say, it 
 
APPENDIX C 361 
 
 communicates to things those categories by which they become 
 objects of thought. This higher Reason is separate and 
 impassible (;((ijpio-Tos kol u/xtyr;s Koi diraOrj^) ; it is eternal and 
 immortal ; while the passive reason perishes with the body. 
 The creative Reason is immanent both in the human mind 
 and in the external world ; and thus only is it possible for the 
 mind to know things. Unfortunately, Aristotle says very 
 little more about his voC? ttoit^tikos, and does not explain how 
 the two Reasons are related to each other, thereby leaving the 
 problem for his successors to work out. The most fruitful 
 attempt to form a consistent theory, on an idealistic basis, out 
 of the ambiguous and perhaps irreconcilable statements in the 
 Z)e Afiima, w^as made by Alexander of Aphrodisias (about 
 200 A.D.), who taught that the Active Reason "is not a part 
 or faculty of our soul, but comes to us from without " — it is, in 
 fact, identified with the Spirit of God working in us. Whether 
 Aristotle would have accepted this interpretation of his theory 
 may be doubted ; but the commentary of Alexander of 
 Aphrodisias was translated into Arabic, and this view of the 
 Active Reason became the basis of the philosophy of Averroes. 
 Averroes teaches that it is possible for the passive reason to 
 unite itself with the Active Reason, and that this union may 
 be attained or prepared for by ascetic purification and study. 
 But he denies that the passive reason is perishable, not wishing 
 entirely to depersonalise man. Herein he follows, he says, 
 Themistius, whose views he tries to combine with those of 
 Alexander. Avicenna introduces a celestial hierarchy, in 
 which the higher intelligences shed their light upon the lower, 
 till they reach the Active Reason, which lies nearest to man, 
 " a quo, ut ipse dicit, eflluunt species intelligibiles in animas 
 nostras " (Aquinas). The doctrine of " monopsychism " was, of 
 course, condemned by the Church. Aquinas makes both 
 the Active and Passive Reason parts of the human soul. 
 Eckhart, as I have said in the fourth Lecture, at one period 
 of his teaching expressly identifies the "intellectus agens" 
 with the "spark," in reference to which he says that "here 
 God's ground is my ground, and my ground God's ground." 
 This doctrine of the Divinity of the ground of the soul is very 
 like the Cabbalistic doctrine of the Neschamah, and the 
 
362 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Neoplatonic doctrine of Nors (cf. Stockl, vol. ii. p. 1007). Eck- 
 hart was condemned for saying, "aliquid est in anima quod 
 est increatum et increabile ; si tota anima esset talis, esset 
 increata et increabilis. Hoc est intellectus." Eckhart cer- 
 tainly says explicitly that " as fire turns all that it touches into 
 itself, so the birth of the Son of God in the soul turns us into 
 God, so that God no longer knows anything in us but His 
 Son." Man thus becomes " filius naturalis Dei," instead of 
 only " filius adoptivus." We have seen that^ Eckhart, towards 
 the end of his life, inclined more and more to separate the 
 spark, the organ of Divine contemplation, from the reason. 
 This is, of course, an approximation to the other view of 
 deification — that of substitution or miraculous infusion from 
 without, unless we see in it a tendency to divorce the per- 
 sonality from the reason. Ruysbroek states his doctrine of the 
 Divine spark very clearly : " The unity of our spirit in God 
 exists in two ways, essentially and actively. The essential 
 existence of the soul, qu(Z secundum (Rternam ideavi t?i Deo fios 
 sumus, itemqtie quam in ?wbis habemus, medii ac discriminis 
 expers est, Spiritus Deum in nuda natura essentialiter 
 possidet, et spiritum Deus. Vivit namque in Deo et Deus 
 in ipso ; et secundum supreinam sui partem Dei claritatem 
 suscipere absque medio idoneus est; quin etiam per seterni 
 exemplaris sui claritudinem essetitialiter ac personaliter in ipso 
 lucentis, secufidum supremam vivacitatis siice portionem, in 
 divifiam sese demittit ac detnergit essentiam, ibidemque per- 
 severanter secundum ideam manendo aeternam suam possidet 
 beatitudinem ; rursusque cum creaturis omnibus per aeternam 
 Verbi generationem inde emanans, in esse suo creato con- 
 stituitur." The "natural union," though it is the first cause of 
 all holiness and blessedness, does not make us holy and 
 blessed, being common to good and bad alike. "Similitude" 
 to God is the work of grace, "quae lux quaedam deiformis est." 
 We cannot lose the " unitas," but we can lose the " similitudo 
 quae est gratia." The highest part of the soul is capable of 
 receiving a perfect and immediate impression of the Divine 
 essence ; by this "apex mentis " we may " sink into the Divine 
 essence, and by a new (continuous) creation return to our 
 created being according to the idea of God." The question 
 
APPENDIX C 363 
 
 whether the " ground of the soul " is created or not is obviously 
 a form of the question which we are now discussing. Giseler, 
 as I have said, holds that it was created with the soul. Stern- 
 gassen says: "That which God has in eternity in uncreated 
 wise, that has the soul in time in created wise." But the 
 author of the Treatise on Love, which belongs to this period, 
 speaks of the spark as "the Active Reason, which is God" 
 And again, "This is the Uncreated in the soul of which Master 
 Eckhart speaks." , Suso seems to imply that he believed the 
 ground of the soul to be uncreated, an emanation of the 
 Divine nature ; and Tauler uses similar language. Ruysbroek, 
 in the last chapter of the Spiritual Nuptials, says that con- 
 templative men "see that they are the same simple ground as to 
 their uncreated nature, and are one with the same light by 
 which they see, and which they see," The later German 
 mystics taught that the Divine essence is the material sub- 
 stratum of the world, the creative will of God having, so to 
 speak, alienated for the purpose a portion of His own essence. 
 If, then, the created form is broken through, God Himself 
 becomes the ground of the soul. Even Augustine countenances 
 some such notion when he says, " From a good man, or from 
 a good angel, take away ' man ' or ' angel,' and you find God." 
 But one of the chief differences between the older and later 
 Mysticism is that the former regarded union with God as 
 achieved through the faculties of the soul, the latter as inherent 
 in its essence. The doctrine of immanence, more and more 
 emphasised, tended to encourage the belief that the Divine 
 element in the soul is not merely something potential, some- 
 thing which the faculties may acquire, but is immanent and 
 basal. Tauler mentions both views, and prefers the latter. 
 Some hesitation may be traced in the Theologia Germanica on 
 this point (p. 109, "Golden Treasury" edition): "The true 
 light is that eternal Light which is God ; or else it is a 
 created light, but yet Divine, which is called grace." Our 
 Cambridge Platonists naturally revived this Platonic doctrine 
 of deification, much to the dissatisfaction of some of their 
 contemporaries. Tuckney speaks of their teaching as "a 
 kind of moral divinity minted only with a little tincture 
 of Christ added. Nay, a Platonic faith unites to God!" 
 
364 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Notwithstanding such protests, the Platonists persisted that 
 all true happiness consists in a participation of God ; and 
 that " we cannot enjoy God by any external conjunction with 
 Him." 
 
 The question was naturally raised, " If man by putting on 
 Christ's life can get nothing more than he has already, what 
 good will it do him ? " The answer in the Theologia 
 Germanica is as follows : " This life is not chosen in order 
 to serve any end, or to get anything by it, but for love of its 
 nobleness, and because God loveth and esteemeth it so 
 greatly." It is plain that any view which regards man as 
 essentially Divine has to face great difficulties when it comes 
 to deal with theodicy. , 
 
 The other view of deification, that of a subsiitiiiion of the 
 Divine Will, or Life, or Spirit, for the human, cannot in history 
 be sharply distinguished from the theories which have just been 
 mentioned. But the idea of substitution is naturally most 
 congenial to those who feel strongly " the corruption of man's 
 heart," and the need of deliverance, not only from our ghostly 
 enemies, but from the tyranny of self. Such men feel that 
 there must be a real change, affecting the very depths of our 
 personality. Righteousness must be imparted, not merely 
 imputed. And there is a death to be died as well as a life to 
 be lived. The old man must die before the new man, which 
 is "not I but Christ," can be born in us. The " birth of God 
 (or Christ) in the soul" is a favourite doctrine of the later 
 German mystics. Passages from the fourteenth century writers 
 have been quoted in my fourth and fifth Lectures. The 
 following from Giseler may be added: "God will be born, 
 not in the Reason, not in the Will, but in the most inward 
 part of the essence, and all the faculties of the soul become 
 aware thereof. Thereby the soul passes into mere passivity, 
 and lets God work." They all insist on an immediate, sub- 
 stantial, personal indwelling, which is beyond what Aquinas 
 and the Schoolmen taught. The Lutheran Church condemns 
 those who teach that only the gifts of God, and not God 
 Himself, dwell in the believer ; and the English Platonists, as 
 we have seen, insist that " an infant Christ " is really born in 
 the soul. The German mystics arc equally emphatic about 
 
APPENDIX C 365 
 
 the annihilation of the old man, which is the condition of this 
 indwelling Divine life. In quietistic (Nominalist) Mysticism 
 the usual phrase was that the will (or, better, "self-will") must 
 be utterly destroyed, so that the Divine Will may take its 
 place. But Crashaw's " leave nothing of myself in me," 
 represents the aspiration of the later Catholic Mysticism 
 generally. St. Juan of the Cross says, "The soul must lose 
 entirely its human knowledge and human feelings, in order to 
 receive Divine knowledge and Divine feelings " ; it will then 
 live "as it were outside itself," in a state "more proper to the 
 future than to the present life." It is easy to see how 
 dangerous such teaching may be to weak heads. A typical 
 example, at a much earlier date, is that of Mechthild of 
 Hackeborn (about 1 240). It was she who said, " My soul 
 swims in the Godhead like a fish in water ! " and who 
 believed that, in answer to her prayers, God had so 
 united Himself with her that she saw with His eyes, and 
 heard with His ears, and spoke with His mouth. Many 
 similar examples might be found among the mediaeval 
 mystics. 
 
 Between the two ideas of essentialisation and of substitution 
 comes that of gradual transformation^ which, again, cannot in 
 history be separated from the other two. It has the obvious 
 advantage of not regarding deification as an opus operatum, but 
 as a process, as a hope rather than a fact. A favourite maxim 
 with mystics who thought thus, was that " love changes the 
 lover into the beloved." Louis of Granada often recurs to 
 this thought. 
 
 The best mystics rightly see in the doctrine of the Divinity 
 of Christ the best safeguard against the extravagances to which 
 the notion of deification easily leads. Particularly instructive 
 here are the warnings which are repeated again and again in the 
 Theologia Germanica. " The false light dreameth itself to be 
 God, and taketh to itself what belongeth to God as God is in 
 eternity without the creature. Now, God in eternity is without 
 contradiction, suffering, and grief, and nothing can hurt or 
 vex Him. But with God when He is made man it is otherwise." 
 "Therefore the false light thinketh and declareth itself to be 
 above all works, words, customs, laws, and order, and above 
 
366 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 that life which Christ led in the body which He possessed in 
 His holy human nature. So likewise it professeth to remain 
 unmoved by any of the creature's works ; whether they be good 
 or evil, against God or not, is all alike to it ; and it keepeth 
 itself apart from all things, like God in eternity ; and all that 
 belongeth to God and to no creature it taketh to itself, and 
 vainly dreameth that this belongeth to it." " It doth not set 
 up to be Christ, but the eternal God. And this is because 
 Christ's life is distasteful and burdensome to nature, therefore 
 it will have nothing to do with it ; but to be God in eternity 
 and not man, or to be Christ as He was after His resurrection, 
 is all easy and pleasant and comfortable to nature, and so it 
 holdeth it to be best." 
 
 These three views of the manner in which we may hope to 
 become " partakers of the Divine nature," are all aspects of the 
 truth. If we believe that we were made in the image of 
 God, then in becoming like Him we are realising our true idea, 
 and entering upon the heritage which is ours already by the 
 will of God. On the other hand, if we believe that we have 
 fallen very far from original righteousness, and have no power 
 of ourselves to help ourselves, then we must believe in a 
 deliverance from outside, an acquisition of a righteousness not 
 our own, which is either imparted or imputed to us. And, 
 thirdly, if we are to hope for a real change in our relations to 
 God, there must be a real change in our personality, — a pro- 
 gressive transmutation, which without breach of continuity will 
 bring us to be something different from what we were. The 
 three views are not mutually exclusive. As Vatke says, " The 
 influence of Divine grace does not differ from the immanent 
 development of the deepest Divine germ of life in man, only 
 that it here stands over-against man regarded as a finite and 
 separate being — as something external to himself. If the 
 Divine image is the true nature of man, and if it only possesses 
 reality in virtue of its identity with its type or with the Logos, 
 then there can be no true self-determination in man which is 
 not at the same time a self-determination of the type in its 
 image." We cannot draw a sharp line between the operations 
 of our own personality and those of God in us. Personality 
 escapes from all attempts to limit and define it. It is a 
 
APPENDIX C 367 
 
 concept which stretches into the infinite, and therefore can 
 only be represented to thought symboHcally. The personaUty 
 must not be identified with the "spark," the "Active Reason," 
 or whatever we Hke to call the highest part of our nature. 
 Nor must we identify it with the changing Moi (as Fenelon 
 calls it). The personality, as I have said in Lecture I. 
 (P- 33)> is both the end — the ideal self, and the changing 
 Moi^ and yet neither. If either thesis is held divorced from 
 its antithesis, the thought ceases to be mystical. The two 
 ideals of self-assertion and self-sacrifice are both true and 
 right, and both, separately, unattainable. They are opposites 
 which are really necessary to each other. I have quoted from 
 Vatke's attempt to reconcile grace and free-will : another 
 extract from a writer of the same school may perhaps be 
 helpful. " In the growth of our experience," says Green, " an 
 animal organism, which has its history in time, gradually 
 becomes the vehicle of an eternally complete consciousness. 
 What we call our mental history is not a history of this con- 
 sciousness, which in itself can have no history, but a history of 
 the process by which the animal organism becomes its vehicle. 
 ' Our consciousness ' may mean either of two things : either a 
 function of the animal organism, which is being made, gradually 
 and with interruptions, a vehicle of the eternal consciousness ; 
 or that eternal consciousness itself, as making the animal 
 organism its vehicle and subject to certain limitations in so 
 doing, but retaining its essential characteristic as independent 
 of time, as the determinant of becoming, which has not and 
 does not itself become. The consciousness which varies from 
 moment to moment ... is consciousness in the former sense. 
 It consists in what may properly be called phenomena. . . . 
 The latter consciousness . . . constitutes our knowledge " 
 {Prolegomena to Ethics, pp. 72, 73). Analogous is our moral 
 history. But no Christian can believe that our life, mental 
 or moral, is or ever can be necessary to God in the same sense 
 in which He is necessary to our existence. For practical 
 religion, the symbol which we shall find most helpful is that of a 
 progressive transformation of our nature after the pattern of 
 God revealed in Christ ; a process which has as its end a real 
 union with God, though this end is, from the nature of things, 
 
368 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 unrealisable in time. It is, as I have said in the body of the 
 Lectures, d. progessus ad infinitum^ the consummation of which 
 we are nevertheless entitled to claim as already ours in a tran- 
 scendental sense, in virtue of the eternal purpose of God made 
 known to us in Christ. 
 
APPENDIX D 
 
 The Mystical Interpretation of the Song of Solomon 
 
 The headings to the chapters in the Authorised Version 
 give a sort of authority to the "mystical" interpretation of 
 Solomon's Song, a poem which was no doubt intended by its 
 author to be simply a romance of true love, f According to our 
 translators, the Lover of the story is meant for Christ, and 
 the Maiden for the Church. But the tendency of Catholic 
 Mysticism has been to make the individual soul the bride of 
 Christ, and to treat the Song of Solomon as symbolic of 
 "spiritual nuptials" between Him and the individual "contem- 
 plative." It is this latter notion, the growth of which I wish 
 to trace. 
 
 Erotic Mysticism is no part of Platonism. That "sensuous 
 love of the unseen " (as Pater calls it), which the Platonist 
 often seems to aim at, has more of admiration and less of 
 tenderness than the emotion which we have now to consider. 
 The notion of a spiritual marriage between God and the soul 
 seems to have come from the Greek Mysteries, through the 
 Alexandrian Jews and Gnostics. Representations of "marriages 
 of gods " were common at the Mysteries, especially at those of 
 the least reputable kind (cf. Lucian, Alexander, 38). In other 
 instances the ceremony of initiation was made to resemble a 
 marriage, and the fxva-T-qs was greeted with the words x°^^P^r 
 vvfxfjiu. And among the Jews of the first century there existed 
 a system of Mysteries, probably copied from Eleusis. They 
 had their greater and their lesser Mysteries, and we hear that 
 among their secret doctrines was "marriage with God." In 
 Philo we find strange and fantastic speculations on this subject. 
 For instance, he argues that as the Bible does not mentions 
 24 
 
370 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 Abraham, Jacob, and Moses as yvw/jt'^ovras ras yvvaLKa<;, we 
 are meant to believe that their children were not born naturally. 
 But he allegorises the women of the Pentateuch in such a way 
 (Aoyo) /xev elcTL yvvaiKes, epyw Sc dperat) that it is difficult tO 
 say what he wishes us to believe in a literal sense. The 
 Valentinian Gnostics seem to have talked much of "spiritual 
 marriage," and it was from them that Origen got the idea 
 of elaborating the conception. But, curiously enough, it is 
 TertuUian who first argues that the body as well as the soul 
 is the bride of Christ. " If the soul is the bride,' he says, "the 
 flesh is the dowry " (de Resurr. 63). Origen, however, really 
 began the mischief in his homilies and commentary on the 
 Song of Solomon. The prologue of the commentary in Rufinus 
 commences as follows : " Epithalamium libellus hie, id est 
 nuptiale carmen, dramatis in modum mihi videtur a Salomone 
 conscriptus, quem cecinit instar nubentis sponste, et erga 
 sponsum suum qui est sermo Dei ccelesti amore flagrantis. 
 Adamavit enim eum sive anima, quc^ ad imaginem eius facta 
 est, sive ecclesia." Harnack says that Gregory of Nyssa exhibits 
 the conception in its purest and most attractive form in the 
 East, and adds, " We can point to very few Greek Fathers in 
 whom the figure does not occur." (There is a learned note 
 on the subject by Louis de Leon, which corroborates this 
 statement of Harnack. He refers to Chrysostom, Theodoret, 
 Irenaeus, Hilary, Cyprian, Augustine, TertuUian, Ignatius, 
 Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril, Leo, Photius, and Theophylact as 
 calling Christ the bridegroom of souls.) In the West, we 
 find it in Ambrose, less prominently in Augustine and Jerome. 
 Dionysius seizes on the phrase of Ignatius, " My love has been 
 crucified," to justify erotic imagery in devotional writing. 
 
 Bernard's homilies on the Song of Solomon gave a great 
 impetus to this mode of symbolism ; but even he says that the 
 Church and not the individual is the bride of Christ. There 
 is no doubt that the enforced celibacy and virginity of the 
 monks and nuns led them, consciously or unconsciously, to 
 transfer to the human person of Christ (and to a much slighter 
 extent, to the Virgin Mary) a measure of those feelings which 
 could find no vent in their external lives. We can trace this, 
 in a wholesome and innocuous form, in the visions of Juliana 
 
APPENDIX D 371 
 
 of Norwich. Quotations from Ruysbroek's Spiritual Nuptials, 
 and from Suso, bearing on the same point, are given in the 
 body of the Lectures. Good specimens of devotional poetry 
 of this type might be selected from Crashaw and Quarles. (A 
 few specimens are included in Palgrave's Golden Treasury of 
 Sacred Song.) Fenelon's language on the subject is not quite so 
 pleasing ; it breathes more of sentimentality than of reverence. 
 The contemplative, he says, desires " une simple presence de 
 Dieu purement amoureuse," and speaks to Christ always 
 " comme I'epouse a I'epoux." 
 
 The Sufis or Mohammedan mystics use erotic language very 
 freely, and appear, like true Asiatics, to have attempted to give 
 a sacramental or symbolic character to the indulgence of their 
 passions. From this degradation the mystics of the cloister 
 were happily free ; but a morbid element is painfully prominent 
 in the records of many medieval saints, whose experiences are 
 classified by Ribet. He enumerates — (i) "Divine touches," 
 which Scaramelli defines as "real but purely spiritual sensa- 
 tions, by which the soul feels the intimate presence of God, 
 and tastes Him with great delight " ; (2) " The wound of love," 
 of which one of his authorities says, " hsec pcena tam suavis 
 est quod nulla sit in hac vita delectatio qus magis satisfaciat." 
 It is to this experience that Cant. ii. 5 refers : " Fulcite me 
 floribus, stipate me malis, quia amore langueo." Sometimes 
 the wound is not purely spiritual : St. Teresa, as was shown 
 by a post-mortem examination, had undergone a miraculous 
 " transverberatioa of the heart ": "et pourtant elle survecut 
 pres de vingt ans \ cette blessure mortelle " ! (3) Catherine of 
 Siena was betrothed to Christ with a ring, which remained 
 always on her fingers, though visible to herself alone. Lastly, 
 in the revelations of St. Gertrude we read: " Feria tertia Pasch^e 
 dum communicatura desideraret a Domino ut per idem sacra- 
 mentum vivificum renovare dignaretur in anima eius matri- 
 monium spirituale quod ipsi in spiritu erat desponsata per 
 fidem et religionem, necnon per virginalis pudicitias integritatem, 
 Dominus blanda serenitate respondit : hoc, inquiens, indubi- 
 tanter faciam. Sic incUnatus ad earn blandissimo affectu eam 
 ad se stringens osculum praedulce animse eius infixit," etc. 
 
 The employment of erotic imagery to express the individual 
 
372 CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM 
 
 relation between Christ and the soul is always dangerous ; 
 but this objection does not apply to the statement that " the 
 Church is the bride of Christ." Even in the Old Testament 
 we find the chosen people so spoken of (cf. Isa. liv. 5 ; Jer. iii. 
 14). Professor Cheyne thinks that the Canticles were inter- 
 preted in this sense, and that this is why the book gained 
 admission into the Canon. In the New Testament, St. Paul 
 uses the symbol of marriage in Rom. vii. 1-4 ; i Cor. xi. 3 ; 
 Eph. V. 23-33. On the last passage Canon Gore says : "The 
 love of Christ — the removal of obstacles to His love by atoning 
 sacrifice — the act of spiritual purification — the gradual sancti- 
 fication — the consummated union in glory ; these are the 
 moments of the Divine process of redemption, viewed from 
 the side of Christ, which St. Paul specifies." This use of the 
 " sacrament " of marriage (as a symbol of the mystical union 
 between Christ and the Church), which alone has the sanction 
 of the New Testament, is one which, we hope, the Church will 
 always treasure. The more personal relation also exists, and 
 the fervent devotion which it elicits must not be condemned ; 
 though we are forced to remember that in our mysteriously 
 constituted minds the highest and lowest emotions lie very 
 near together, and that those who have chosen a life of detach- 
 ment from earthly ties must be especially on their guard against 
 the " occasional revenges " which the lower nature, when 
 thwarted, is always plotting against the higher. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acosmism, distinguished from Pan- 
 theism, I20-2I ; in Eckhart, 154 ; 
 in Juan of the Cross, 243. 
 
 Adam of St. Victor, 38. 
 
 Agrippa, Cornelius, 273. 
 
 Albertus Magnus, 17, 140-46. 
 
 Alejo Venegas, 216. 
 
 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 361. 
 
 Alexander of Hales, 360. 
 
 Alexandrianism, 81 sq. See P/a/on- 
 ism and Neoplatonism. 
 
 Allegorism, 3, 43 ; in Dionysius, 
 109 ; 270-72, 369. 
 
 Aloinhrados, The, 217. 
 
 Amalric of Bena, 1 38-9. 
 
 Amiel's Journal Intime, 96, 99, 
 122, 156, 313. 
 
 "Analysis," method of, 87. See 
 Negative Koad. ^^ 
 
 Angela of Foligno, 97. 
 
 Anima Mitndi, 29, 273, 321, 
 
 Animism, 262. 
 
 Antinomianism, at Corinth, 72 ; of 
 Amalricians, etc., 139, 140; cen- 
 sured by Ruysbroek, 171 ; 259. 
 
 Antithesis as a law of being, in 
 Bohme, 279. 
 
 Antony, St., 237. 
 
 Apocalypse, 74. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 147, 149, 243, 
 255, 360-61. 
 
 Aristobulus, 83. 
 
 Aristotle, 116, 141, 149, 24S, 266, 
 360-61. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, on St. Paul, 65. 
 
 Asceticism, its connexion with Mys- 
 ticism, II ; of Suso, 173 ; of 
 Juan of the Cross, 226 ; 244, 308, 
 
 319- 
 Association of ideas, 343-4. 
 Athanasius, 358. 
 
 Atomists, 22. 
 
 Augustine, 27, 29, 35, lOO, 128-32, 
 
 202, 219, 363. 
 Authority in Religion, Seat of, 329, 
 
 330. 
 Averroes, 149, 361. 
 Avicebron, 34, 215. 
 Avicenna, 361. 
 Avila, Juan d', 17, 216-7. 
 
 B 
 
 Basilides, no, 279. 
 
 Beaumont, Joseph, 124. 
 
 Beauty, Augustine on, 129 ; 322. 
 
 Bede, 251. 
 
 Beghards, 148. 
 
 Benedict, 10. 
 
 Berengar, 138. 
 
 Bernard, 9, 1 40-41, 239, 240, 3 70. 
 
 Bigg, C, 86, 94, 98, no, 131. 
 
 Birth of Christ in the Soul, 35, 280, 
 
 364. See Ivinianeitce. 
 Bohme, Jacob, 277-86. 
 Bonaventura, 16, 28, 35, 140-42, 
 
 146, 335. 360. 
 Bonchitte, 341. 
 Bosanquet, B., 251. 
 Bossuet, 9, 234-42. 
 Bradley, F. H., 25, 107, 306. 
 Browning, Robert, 54, 31S-20. 
 Bruno, Giordano, 29, 302. 
 Burnet, Bp., 231-3. 
 
 C 
 
 Cabbalism, 268, 361. 
 Caird, E., 139. 
 Caird, J., 157, 322-3. 
 Cambridge Platonists. See Platon- 
 ists. 
 
374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Campanella, 302. 
 
 Carlstadt, 196. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 320. 
 
 Carmelites, 224. 
 
 Catherine of Genoa, 239. 
 
 Catherine of Siena, 371. 
 
 Cheyne, 372. 
 
 Chivalry and Mysticism, 176. 
 
 Christina, 144. 
 
 Chrysostom, 61. 
 
 Church, Mystical Union of Christ 
 
 and the, 68, 256, 370-72. 
 Clement of Alexandria, 38, 86-9, 
 
 349. 350. 354, 357, 359- 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 27, 36. 
 
 Contemplation, the highest stage, 
 10, 12, 21 ; in the medieval 
 mystics, 141-2 ; in Ruysbroek, 
 170, 227; "infused contempla- 
 tion," 232 ; in Fenelon, 237 ; in 
 Wordsworth, 311. 
 
 Conybeare, F. C, on Philo, 83. 
 
 Corderius, 335. 
 
 Cousin, v., 124, 347. 
 
 Cowper, W. , 235. 
 
 Crashaw, 212, 365. 
 
 Creation of the World, in Erigena, 
 136; in Eckhart, 151-2 ; 182-3. 
 
 Cunninghame Graham, Mrs., on 
 Teresa, 218. 
 
 Cyril of Alexandria, 47, 301. 
 
 D 
 
 Dante, 24, 76, 176, 2S4. 
 
 " Darkness," 109, 199, 200, 22S. 
 
 Darwin, C, 325. 
 
 Degeneration, 344. 
 
 Deification, 13 ; in Philo, 83 ; by 
 gift of immortality, in Clement, 
 88; in Eckhart, 155-9, 163; in 
 fourteenth century mystics, 189- 
 93, 232 ; in Emerson, 321 ; 
 discussion of the doctrine, 356- 
 68. 
 
 Denifle, 149, 180. 
 
 " Dereliction," 207, 221. 
 
 Destiny of the world, 328. 
 
 Diego de Stella, 216. 
 
 Diodorus, 351. 
 
 Diognetus, Epistle to, 100. 
 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, 104-22 ; 
 
 257- 
 Disinterested love, 8, 234-42. 
 
 Drummond, H., 323. 
 
 Dualism, ascribed to St. John, 58 ; 
 rejected by Dionysius, 106 ; of 
 Ortlieb, etc., 140; of scholastic 
 Mysticism, 143, 184 ; of Spanish 
 mystics, 225, 262 ; of Herrmann, 
 
 347- 
 Du Prel, 337-8. 
 
 Eckhart, 148-64, 175, 359, 362. 
 
 Ecstasy, 14-19 ; in Plotinus, 97-9 ; 
 in Richard of St. Victor, 142 ; 
 the Cambridge Platonistson, 292 ; 
 in Wordsworth, 292 ; in the 
 Greek mysteries, 353. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, on Catholic 
 mystics of the Middle Ages, 250. 
 
 Emanation, in Plotinus, 94 ; in 
 Hierotheus, 102 ; in Dionysius, 
 107 ; in Erigena, 136 ; con- 
 trasted with immanence, 152. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 54, 78, 252, 
 320-22. 
 
 English Mysticism, characteristics 
 of, 197, 294. 
 
 Erigena, John Scotus, 26, 133-8, 
 
 259- 
 
 Erotic imagery, in Dionysius, no; 
 in Suso, 174; based on Song of 
 Solomon, 369-72. 
 
 Eschatology, of St. John, 53 ; of 
 St. Paul, 64, 65 ; of Bohme and 
 Law, 283 ; of the Cambridge 
 Platonists, 293 ; in relation to 
 the reality of time, 327-9. 
 
 Eternity, in St. John, 53-5 ; in 
 Tauler, 193. 
 
 Eunapius, 22. 
 
 Eusebius, 47. 
 
 "Evidences," 60, 324-7. 
 
 Evil, problem of, 25 ; in Plotinus, 
 95-6 ; in Dionysius, 106-7 ', '" 
 Augustine, 130 ; in Erigena, 
 134-5, 137 ; in Tauler, 185 ; in 
 Juliana of Norwich, 207-8 ; 
 alleged optimism of the mystics, 
 314 ; Emerson on, 321. 
 
 Evolution, in Plotinus, 94 ; modern 
 evolutionary pantheism, not in 
 Eckhart, 153; no development 
 in the Divine nature, 323. 
 
 Ewald, 10, 339. 
 
INDEX 
 
 375 
 
 Externals of religion, disparagement 
 of, attributed to St. Paul, 70-72 ; 
 in Amalric, etc., 139 ; in Sebas- 
 tian Frank, etc., 196 ; in Bohtne, 
 281 ; necessity of maintaining, 
 329- 
 
 Faber, 166. 
 
 Faith, love and, 8 ; in St. John, 
 50; in St. Paul, 60-61 ; defined 
 as blind assent, by Juan of the 
 Cross, 225 ; in W. Law, 282. 
 
 " False Light," The, 193, 199, 365. 
 
 Fechner, G. T., 29, 302. 
 
 Fenelon, 9, 13, 3^, 235-42, 37i- 
 
 Fetishism, 262. 
 
 Fichte, 53. 
 
 Ficinus, 80. 
 
 "Fans Vif(v" 34, 215. 
 
 Fox, George, 72, 2S4, 329. 
 
 Francis de Sales, 17, 230-31, 237. 
 
 Francis of Assisi, 302. 
 
 Frank, Sebastian, 196. 
 
 Free Spirit, sects of, 139, 148. 
 
 " Friends of God," iSo. 
 
 Frothingham, on Hierotheus, 102. 
 
 " Finiklein''' in Eckhart. See 
 S/ark. 
 
 Galen, 305, 353. 
 
 Gamaliel, 223. 
 
 German Theology. See Theologia 
 
 Gerinatiica. 
 Gerson, 146-8, 335, 360. 
 Gertrude, 371. 
 Giseler, 360, 364. 
 '■'■Gnosis" 52, 81 ; in Clement, 
 
 86-7 ; in Origen, 89. 
 Gnosticism, S1-2, 353. 
 Goethe, 2, 6, 76, 124, 248, 250, 
 
 251, 254, 298, 338. 
 Gore, C, 372. 
 Gorres, 264. 
 Grau, 57. 
 
 Green, T. H., 367. 
 Gregory of Nvssa, 25, loO, 257, 
 
 370. 
 Gunkel, 72. 
 Guyon, Madame, 234-5, 
 
 H 
 
 Hamilton, Sir W., 112. 
 
 Harnack, 16, 21, 104, I40, 253, 
 260, 344-5; 
 
 Hartmann, Von, 336-7. 
 
 Hatch, 349. 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to the, 72-3. 
 
 Hegel, 96, 119, 323, 331, 
 
 Henotheism, 39. 
 
 Heppe, 218. 
 
 Heraclitus, 30, 77, 124, 279. 
 
 Hermann of Fritslar, 163, 360. 
 
 Herrmann, 345-6. 
 
 Hesychasts, 227, 243. 
 
 Hierotheus, 102-4. 
 
 Hilton or Hylton, Walter, 197-201. 
 
 Hinton, James, 25, 241, 315, 348. 
 
 Hippolytus, 357. 
 
 Historical facts of Christianity, 
 alleged neglect of, in St. Paul, 
 69, 70 ; in Origen, 95 ; in Eck- 
 hart, 154 ; not proved by the 
 "inner light," 326; Ritschlian 
 school on, 345-7. 
 
 Holy Spirit. See Spirit. 
 
 Hooker, iii. 
 
 Hugo of St. Victor, 140-42. 
 
 Hume, 308. 
 
 Hunt's Pmitheisnt and Ckristian- 
 iiy, 113, 268. 
 
 Hutton, R. H., 308. 
 
 Huysmans, 262. 
 
 I 
 
 lamblichus, 105, 131. 
 
 Ibn Tophail, 104. 
 
 Ideas, Jewish and Platonic doctrines 
 of, 40-41 ; idealism of Plotinus, 
 91 ; of Eckhart, 152, 183. 
 
 Ignatius, IIO, 257. 
 
 Illumination as the second stage of 
 the mystic's ascent, 10, 12. 
 
 "Illumines" in France, 217. 
 
 Illusions, education by means of, 
 
 73-. 
 Imagmation, Plotmus on, 226 ; 
 
 Juan of the Cross on, 226 ; 
 
 defined by Aristotle and Philo- 
 
 stratus, 266 ; Wordsworth on, 
 
 309- 
 Imitation of Chnst, The, 194-5- 
 Immanence : Mysticism is the 
 
376 
 
 INDEX 
 
 attempt to realise it, 5; the im- 
 manent Deity is not divided, 34 ; 
 in Fliilo, 84 ; in Methodius, 100, 
 121; in Amahic, 139; in 
 Eckhart, 155-8, 162, 183; in 
 Weigel, 275 ; in Bohme, 280 ; in 
 the Cambridge Platonists, 290 sq. ; 
 its nature, 340, 343, 363. 
 
 Immortality, considered to be con- 
 ferred by sacraments, 257- 
 
 Incarnation, the central fact in 
 history, 35 ; St. John on, 47, 49, 
 
 55- . ... 
 
 Indian philosophy of religion, its 
 
 influence on Christian Mysticism, 
 
 loi, 112, 118, 147. 
 Infinite, The, as a name of God, 
 
 10, 98, 1 1 3-4, 129. 
 Inquisition, The, 148, 214. 
 ' Jiitellectus Agens," 149, 158-9, 
 
 288, 360-61. 
 Irensus, 193. 
 
 J 
 
 Jerome, 359. 
 
 Jevons, Introduction to the History 
 
 of Religion, 271. 
 Johannine Christianity, 44, 324. 
 John, St., the mystical element in 
 
 his Gospel, 44-59. 
 John a Jesu Maria, 335. 
 Juan d'Avila, 17, 216-7. 
 Juan of the Cross, 114, 212, 223- 
 
 30, 365- 
 Julian or Juliana of Norwich, 201-9. 
 Justin Martyr, 253. 
 
 K 
 
 Kabisch, 65. 
 
 Kant, 149, 251. 
 
 Keble, on allegorism, 272. 
 
 Kempis, Thomas a, 9, 194-5. 
 
 Kepler, 298. 
 
 Kingsley, C, 27, 341-2. 
 
 Knox, Alexander, 286. 
 
 Krause, 7, 121. 
 
 Labadie, 293. 
 Lacordaire, 19. 
 
 Lasson, 120, 149 sq. ; 342-3, 360. 
 
 Law, W., 8, 278-86. 
 
 Leathes, S., 46. 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H., 263, 270. 
 
 Legalism, 36. 
 
 Leibnitz, 288. 
 
 Lilienfeld, 57, 241. 
 
 Logos, the, as cosmic principle, 
 29 ; in St. John, 46-7 ; in St. 
 Paul, 65-6 ; in Clement, 86 ; in 
 Origen, 90 ; identified with 
 Platonic NoOs, 94 ; in the later 
 Greek Fathers, loi ; in Dionysius, 
 107; in Erigena, 136; in Eck- 
 hart, 151 ; in J. Smith, 2S9. 
 
 Lotze, 6, 31, 132, 314. 
 
 Louis de Granada, 216-7. 
 
 Louis de Leon, 216-7 '< 370- 
 
 Love, the hierophant of the Christian 
 mysteries, 8 ; in St. John, 45 ; 
 in Dionysius, no; in Augustine, 
 131; in Law, 282; 316-7; 
 Browning on, 318-9, 365. See 
 also Disinterested. 
 
 Lowell, J. R., 248. 
 
 Lucretius, 265, 302. 
 
 Luthardt, 250. 
 
 Luther, 196. 
 
 M 
 
 Macarius, 20. 
 
 M'Taggart, 119. 
 
 Maeterlinck, 1 7 1-2. 
 
 Magic, 131, 261, 266, 269. 
 
 Manilius, 166. 
 
 Maximus, 257. 
 
 Mechthild of Hackeborn, 365. 
 
 Meditation distinguished from con- 
 templation, 227, 231. 
 
 Methodius, 99, 100, 359. 
 
 Microcosm, man as, 34-5 ; in 
 Erigena, 137 ; in the later 
 Neoplatonists, 268 ; in Paracelsus, 
 etc., 274. 
 
 Migne, Abbe, 144, 336. 
 
 Milton, 248. 
 
 Miracle. See Siipernaturalism. 
 
 Modalism in Erigena, 135. 
 
 Molinos, 10, 231-4. 
 
 Monopsychism, 361. 
 
 More, Henry, 18, 20, 38, 57, 286. 
 
 Mysteries, the Greek, 2 ; technical 
 terms of, in Clement, 88, in 
 Dionysius, 105 ; their influence 
 
INDEX 
 
 377 
 
 on Christian Mysticism, 349-55, 
 
 369. 
 "Mystery," in St. Paul, 86. 
 "Mistical" interpretation of the 
 
 Bible, 43. See AUegorisui. 
 " Mystical phenomena,"' 3, 364-5. 
 
 See also Supey-naturalisin. 
 Mystical union, in St. John, 51 ; in 
 
 St. Paul, 67-8 ; in Augustine, 
 
 1 30 ; sacraments are symbols of, 
 
 255-6, 340, 346, 372. 
 
 N 
 
 Nature, God in, 26, 27, 40, 249 sq., 
 276, 2S3, 294, 299 sq.; Nature- 
 Worship in the Mysteries, 350. 
 
 "Negative Road," The, %"] ; in 
 Hierotheus, 103 ; in Dionysius, 
 108; discussion of, 1 10-17; in 
 Augustine, 128 ; in Erigena, 
 135 ; in Albertus Magnus, 144-6 ; 
 in Bonaventura, 146, in Eck- 
 hart, 160 ; 200, 244, 260, 290-92. 
 
 Neo-Kantians, 346. 
 
 Neoplatonism, its connexion with 
 the mysteries, 4 ; of Plotinus, 
 91-9; of his successors, 131. 
 See also PlatonisDi. 
 
 Neschamah, 361. 
 
 Nettleship, R. L., 8, 11, 64, 250, 
 3i5> 342- 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 27S. 
 
 Nicholas of Basel, 180. 
 
 Nihilism, in Hierotheus, 102 ; in 
 Dionysius, 105-6. 
 
 Nirvana, 112. 
 
 Noack, 22, 81, 338. 
 
 Nominalism, 214, 347, 365. 
 
 Nordau, Max, 343-4. 
 
 Novalis, 298. 
 
 Numenius, 85. 
 
 O 
 
 Old Testament, mystical element in, 
 
 39-43- 
 Origen, 7, 24, 89-91, 357, 359, 
 
 370. 
 Orphic mysteries, 352, 356. 
 Ortlieb of Strassburg, 140. 
 "Over-Soul" in Emerson, 321. 
 Overton, on Law, 278 sq., 339. 
 Ovid, 139, 354. 
 
 Pantheism : speculative Mysticism 
 and, 117-22; of Amalricians, 
 139; tendency to, in Eckhart, 
 152, 155-8; in Emerson, 321, 
 339. 343- 
 Paracelsus, Theophrastus, 273. 
 Pascal, 320. 
 Pater, W., 369. 
 Patrick, Bp. .Simon, 287. 
 Paul, St., mystical element in, 59- 
 
 72. 
 Pearson, K., 149. 
 Pedro Malon de Ghaide, 216. 
 Pedro of Alcantara, 218. 
 Perry, G. G., 2S6. 
 Personality, 29-35, 205, 340, 361, 
 
 366-7. 
 Pfleiderer, 339, 346-7. 
 Philo, 82-5, 254, 354, 369-70. 
 Philostratus, lOl, 266. 
 Pico of Mirandola, 269. 
 Picton, J. A., 32. 
 Pindar, 9. 
 
 " Fist is Sophia,''' 353. 
 Plato, 2, 18, 19, 55, 76, 77-9, 285, 
 
 3i9> 352. 
 Platonism, 22, 77-80 ; in Italy, 
 213 ; in Spain, 2 1 5-7 ; in Eng- 
 land, 285-96, 303. 
 Platonists, the Cambridge, 20, 285- 
 
 96, 363. 
 Plotinus, 6, 9, 10, 21, 34 ; his 
 philosophy, 91-9 ; 129, 130, 136, 
 226, 232, 359. 
 Plutarch, 352, 355. 
 Porphyry, 15. 
 
 Prayer, Juliana on, 204-5 5 Teresa 
 on, 220-21 ; "the prayer of 
 quiet," 222. 
 Preger, 150 sq. 
 Proclus, 6, 34, 105, no. 
 Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, 63. 
 Psychical research, 265. 
 Purgation or purification, 10, 
 
 355- 
 Pythagoreans, 34, 353. 
 
 Quakers, 72, 259. 
 
 Quietism, 43, 103, 187, 222, 231- 
 45. 365- 
 
378 
 
 INDEX 
 
 R 
 
 Ramanathan, P., 112. 
 Rationalism, its limitations, 20, 21, 
 
 266, 343, 344. 
 Reason, the logic of the whole 
 
 personality, 1S-21 ; Platonists on, 
 
 287-90 ; Wordsworth on, 309 ; 
 
 its office, 331, 341, 360-61. See 
 
 also Intellec/tis Agens. 
 Recejac, 19, 250, 340-41. 
 Reuchlin, 268, 270. 
 Reuss, 53. 
 
 Ribet, 12, 99, 143, 264, 336, 371. 
 Richard of St. \'ictor, 17, 28, 1 15, 
 
 140-42, 147. 
 Richter, J- 1'-, 30. 
 Ritschl, 214, 346. 
 Rohde, 353. 
 Rousselot, 168, 215 sq. 
 Ruskin, J., 252. 
 Ruysbroek, 7, 153, 16S-71, 181 sq., 
 
 362-3. 
 
 Sacraments as symbols of mystical 
 union, 253-8 ; in the mysteries, 
 
 353- 
 "Scale of Perfection,'''' The, 197. 
 Scaramelli, 20I, 335, 371. 
 Schelling, 96. 
 Schiller, 76. 
 
 Scholastic mystics, 140 sq. 
 Schopenhauer, 1 19, 338. 
 Schram, 265. 
 Science, Wordsworth on, 306 ; 
 
 spiritualisation of, 322-3. 
 Scotus, Duns, 187. 
 Scotus, John. See Erigena. 
 Scupoli, 178. 
 Seneca, 195. , 
 
 Seth, A., 119, 339-40. 
 Shakespeare, 28. 
 Shelley, 303-4. 
 
 "Signatures," doctrine of, 272. 
 Smith, John, of Cambridge, 9, 285- 
 
 Song of Solomon, mystical inter- 
 pretation of, 43, 369-72. 
 
 Spain, Mysticism in, 213 sq. 
 
 " Spark " {Fiinklein — Apex mentis, 
 etc.), 7, 93, 155-7. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 98. 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, 303. 
 
 Spinoza, 121. 
 
 Spirit, the Holy, St. John on, 48-9; 
 St. Paul on, 62-4 ; two concep- 
 tions of His operations, 72 ; 
 Victorinus on, 127. 
 
 Stages, the three, in the mystical 
 life, 9 sq. ; in Plotinus, 93 ; in 
 Augustine, 130; in Ruysbroek, 
 168-9 ; in Tauler, 186 ; in 
 Wordsworth, 307. 
 
 Staglin, Elizabeth, 17S. 
 
 Sterngassen, 363. 
 
 Stcickl, 133, 141-2, 1S4-5. 
 
 Stoicism, 121, 195. 
 
 Strabo, 354. 
 
 Suarez, 10. 
 
 " Substance" = the higher self, 206. 
 
 Sudaili, Stephen bar, 102-4. 
 
 Sufism, 118, 321, 371. 
 
 Suidas, 4. 
 
 Supernaturalism, in the mediaeval 
 Catholic mystics, 1 42-4, 243 ; 
 craving for miracles, 262-4 ! Law 
 on, 283-4. 
 
 Suso, 172-80, 181 sq., 302. 
 
 Symbols, the flesh and blood of 
 ideas, 5 ; symbolism in St. John, 
 58-9 ; in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, 73 ; in Origen, 89 ; 
 religious symbolism discussed, 
 250 sq. 
 
 Sympathies and antipathies in 
 nature, 273. 
 
 Synesius, 126. 
 
 '■'■ Synteresis,'' 147, 156, 159,282, 
 359. 360. 
 
 Syrian Mysticism, loi sq. 
 
 Tatian, 359. 
 
 Tauler, 11, 180 sq. 
 
 Taiiroboliuni, 353. 
 
 Taylor, Bp. Jeremy, 17. 
 
 Tennyson, 14, 51, 29S, 320. 
 
 Teresa, 218-23, Zl^- 
 
 Tertullian, 16, 253, 270. 
 
 Themistius, 361. 
 
 Theologia Germaiiica, 8, 10, 50, 
 
 181 sq., 363-5. 
 Theophilus, 357. 
 Therapeuta;, 82. 
 Theurgy, 131, 267 sq. 
 Thomas a Kempis. See Keinpis. 
 
INDEX 
 
 379 
 
 Thomas Aquinas. See A(]ni7ias. 
 Time, question as to reality of, 23, 
 
 327-9- 
 
 Transubstantiation, 257. 
 
 Trinity, the Neoplatonic, 94-5 ; 
 the Christian, in Dionysius, loS ; 
 in Victorinus, 127 ; in Eckhart, 
 150 sq. ; in Ruysbroek, 170; in 
 Suso, 178. 182; in Bohme, 279. 
 
 Tuckney, 288, 363. 
 
 U 
 
 Unitive stage, the highest, 10. 
 Unity of existence, 28. 
 Universalism, in Origen, 90 ; 
 Erigena, 137. 
 
 Valentinian Gnostics, 82, 370. 
 Vatke, 366. 
 
 Vaughan, Henry, 109. 
 
 Vaughan, R. A., 163, 273, 347-8. 
 
 Victorinus, 125-8. 
 
 Visions, 14-19 ; St. Paul's, 63-4 ; 
 Neoplatonic, 98, 99 ; Augustine 
 on, 132; in Suso, 175; of Teresa, 
 218 ; rejected by Juan of the 
 Cross, 226. 
 
 W 
 
 Wallace, Prof. W., 12. 
 Weigel, 274-6. 
 Westcott, Bp., 47, 49. 
 Whichcote, B., 285-96, 315. 
 Will, in Eckhart, 161 ; prominence 
 
 given to, in fifteenth century 
 
 and later, 187-8. 
 "Wisdom, the Eternal," in Suso, 
 
 174 sq. 
 Word. See Logos. 
 Wordsworth, W., 305-18. 
 
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