school of the crimson mystics...prayerful contemplation of holy scripture (i.e., lectio divina)....
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Henry Epps | monograph | [Date]
School of the Crimson Mystics MONOGRAPH 1
PAGE 1
Monograph 1
Christian Mysticism
Christian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within
Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic
and Eastern Orthodox traditions.
The attributes and means by which Christian mysticism is studied and practiced are
varied and range from ecstatic visions of the soul's mystical union with God to simple
prayerful contemplation of Holy Scripture (i.e., Lectio Divina).
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"Mysticism" is derived from the Greek μυω, meaning "to conceal", and its derivative
μυστικός, mystikos, meaning 'an initiate'. In the Hellenistic world, a "mystikos" was an
initiate of a mystery religion. "Mystical" referred to secret religious rituals and use of the
word lacked any direct references to the transcendental.
In early Christianity the term "mystikos" referred to three dimensions, which soon
became intertwined, namely the biblical, the liturgical and the spiritual or contemplative.
The biblical dimension refers to "hidden" or allegorical interpretations of Scriptures. The
liturgical dimension refers to the liturgical mystery of the Eucharist, the presence Christ
at the Eucharist. The third dimension is the contemplative or experiential knowledge of
God.
Presence
Bernard McGinn defines Christian mysticism as:
[T]hat part, or element, of Christian belief and practice that concerns the preparation for,
the consciousness of, and the effect of [...] a direct and transformative presence of [the
Christian] God.
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Presence versus experience
McGinn argues that "presence" is more accurate than "union", since not all mystics spoke
of union with God, and since many visions and miracles were not necessarily related to
union. He also argues that we should speak of "consciousness" of God's presence, rather
than of "experience", since mystical activity is not simply about the sensation of God as
an external object, but more broadly about
...new ways of knowing and loving based on states of awareness in which God becomes
present in our inner acts.
William James popularized the use of the term "religious experience" in his The Varieties
of Religious Experience. It has also influenced the understanding of mysticism as a
distinctive experience which supplies knowledge.
Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to
the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who argued that religion
is based on a feeling of the infinite. The notion of "religious experience" was used by
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Schleiermacher to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique. It
was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which William James was the most
influential.
Personal transformation
Resurrection of Jesus, Matthias Grünewald.
Related to this idea of "presence" instead of "experience" is McGinn's emphasis on the
transformation that occurs through mystical activity:
This is why the only test that Christianity has known for determining the authenticity of a
mystic and her or his message has been that of personal transformation, both on the
mystic's part and—especially—on the part of those whom the mystic has affected.
Other critics point out that the stress on "experience" is accompanied with favoring the
atomic individual, instead of the shared life on the community. It also fails to distinguish
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between episodic experience, and mysticism as a process, that is embedded in a total
religious matrix of liturgy, scripture, worship, virtues, theology, rituals and practices.
Richard King also points to disjunction between "mystical experience" and social justice:
The privatisation of mysticism - that is, the increasing tendency to locate the mystical in
the psychological realm of personal experiences - serves to exclude it from political
issues as social justice. Mysticism thus becomes seen as a personal matter of cultivating
inner states of tranquility and equanimity, which, rather than seeking to transform the
world, serve to accommodate the individual to the status quo through the alleviation of
anxiety and stress.
Social constructionism
Mystical experience is not simply a matter between the mystic and God, but is often
shaped by cultural issues. For instance, Carolyn Walker Bynum has shown how, in the
late Middle Ages, miracles attending the taking of the Eucharist were not simply
symbolic of the Passion story, but served as vindication of the mystic's theological
orthodoxy by proving that the mystic had not fallen prey to heretical ideas, such as the
Cathar rejection of the material world as evil, contrary to orthodox teaching that God
took on human flesh and remained sinless. Thus, the nature of mystical experience could
be tailored to the particular cultural and theological issues of the time.
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Development
The idea of mystical realities has been widely held in Christianity since the second
century AD, referring not simply to spiritual practices, but also to the belief that their
rituals and even their scriptures have hidden ("mystical") meanings.
The link between mysticism and the vision of the Divine was introduced by the early
Church Fathers, who used the term as an adjective, as in mystical theology and mystical
contemplation
In subsequent centuries, especially as Christian apologetics began to use Greek
philosophy to explain Christian ideas, Neoplatonism became an influence on Christian
mystical thought and practice via such authors as Augustine of Hippo and Origen.
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Jewish antecedents
Jewish spirituality in the period before Jesus was highly corporate and public, based
mostly on the worship services of the synagogues, which included the reading and
interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures and the recitation of prayers, and on the major
festivals. Thus, private spirituality was strongly influenced by the liturgies and by the
scriptures (e.g., the use of the Psalms for prayer), and individual prayers often recalled
historical events just as much as they recalled their own immediate needs.
Of special importance are the following concepts:
Da'at (knowledge) and Chokhmah (wisdom), which come from years of reading, praying
and meditating the scriptures;
Shekhinah, the presence of God in our daily lives, the superiority of that presence to
earthly wealth, and the pain and longing that come when God is absent;
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The hiddenness of God, which comes from our inability to survive the full revelation of
God's glory and which forces us to seek to know God through faith and obedience;
"Torah-mysticism", a view of God's laws as the central expression of God's will and
therefore as worthy object not only of obedience but also of loving meditation and Torah
study; and
poverty, an ascetic value, based on the apocalyptic expectation of God's impending
arrival, that characterized the Jewish people's reaction to being oppressed by a series of
foreign empires.
In Christian mysticism, Shekhinah became mystery, Da'at became gnosis, and poverty
became an important component of monasticism.
Gospels
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Transfiguration of Jesus depicting him with Elijah, Moses and 3 apostles by Carracci,
1594
The Christian scriptures, insofar as they are the founding narrative of the Christian
church, provide many key stories and concepts that become important for Christian
mystics in all later generations: practices such as the Eucharist, baptism and the Lord's
Prayer all become activities that take on importance for both their ritual and symbolic
values. Other scriptural narratives present scenes that become the focus of meditation: the
Crucifixion of Jesus and his appearances after his Resurrection are two of the most
central to Christian theology; but Jesus' conception, in which the Holy Spirit
overshadows Mary, and his Transfiguration, in which he is briefly revealed in his
heavenly glory, also become important images for meditation. Moreover, many of the
Christian texts build on Jewish spiritual foundations, such as chokhmah, shekhinah.
But different writers present different images and ideas. The Synoptic Gospels (in spite of
their many differences) introduce several important ideas, two of which are related to
Greco-Judaic notions of knowledge/gnosis by virtue of being mental acts: purity of heart,
in which we will to see in God's light; and repentance, which involves allowing God to
judge and then transform us. Another key idea presented by the Synoptics is the desert,
which is used as a metaphor for the place where we meet God in the poverty of our spirit.
The Gospel of John focuses on God's glory in his use of light imagery and in his
presentation of the Cross as a moment of exaltation; he also sees the Cross as the example
of agape love, a love which is not so much an emotion as a willingness to serve and care
for others. But in stressing love, John shifts the goal of spiritual growth away from
knowledge/gnosis, which he presents more in terms of Stoic ideas about the role of
reason as being the underlying principle of the universe and as the spiritual principle
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within all people. Although John does not follow up on the Stoic notion that this principle
makes union with the divine possible for humanity, it is an idea that later Christian
writers develop. Later generations will also shift back and forth between whether to
follow the Synoptics in stressing knowledge or John in stressing love.
In his letters, Paul also focuses on mental activities, but not in the same way as the
Synoptics, which equate renewing the mind with repentance. Instead, Paul sees the
renewal of our minds as happening as we contemplate what Jesus did on the Cross, which
then opens us to grace and to the movement of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Like John,
Paul is less interested in knowledge, preferring to emphasize the hiddenness, the
"mystery" of God's plan as revealed through Christ. But Paul's discussion of the Cross
differs from John's in being less about how it reveals God's glory and more about how it
becomes the stumbling block that turns our minds back to God. Paul also describes the
Christian life as that of an athlete, demanding practice and training for the sake of the
prize; later writers will see in this image a call to ascetical practices.
Early church
The texts attributed to the Apostolic Fathers, the earliest post-Biblical texts we have,
share several key themes, particularly the call to unity in the face of persecution and
internal divisions, the reality of the charisms, especially prophecy, visions and Christian
gnosis, which is understood as "a gift of the Holy Spirit that enables us to know Christ"
through meditating on the scriptures and on the Cross of Christ. (This understanding of
gnosis is not the same as that developed by the Gnostics, who focused on esoteric
knowledge that is available only to a few people but that allows them to free themselves
from the evil world. These authors also discuss the notion of the "two ways", that is, the
way of life and the way of death; this idea has biblical roots, being found in both the
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Sermon on the Mount and the Torah. The two ways are then related to the notion of
purity of heart, which is developed by contrasting it against the divided or duplicitous
heart and by linking it to the need for asceticism, which keeps the heart whole/pure.
Purity of heart was especially important given the real threat of martyrdom, which many
writers discussed in theological terms, seeing it not as an evil but as an opportunity to
truly die for the sake of God—the ultimate example of ascetic practice. Martyrdom could
also be seen as symbolic in its connections with the Eucharist and with baptism.
Hellenism
The Alexandrian contribution to Christian mysticism centers around Origen and Clement
of Alexandria. Clement was an early Christian humanist who argued that reason is the
most important aspect of human existence and that gnosis (not something we can attain
by ourselves, but the gift of Christ) helps us find the spiritual realities that are hidden
behind the natural world and within the scriptures. Given the importance of reason,
Clement stresses apatheia as a reasonable ordering of our passions in order to live within
God's love, which is seen as a form of truth. Origen, who had a lasting influence on
Eastern Christian thought, further develops the idea that the spiritual realities can be
found through allegorical readings of the scriptures (along the lines of Jewish aggadah
tradition), but he focuses his attention on the Cross and on the importance of imitating
Christ through the Cross, especially through spiritual combat and asceticism. Origen
stresses the importance of combining intellect and virtue (theoria and praxis) in our
spiritual exercises, drawing on the image of Moses and Aaron leading the Israelites
through the wilderness, and he describes our union with God as the marriage of our souls
with Christ the Logos, using the wedding imagery from the Song of Songs. Alexandrian
mysticism developed alongside Hermeticism and Neoplatonism and therefore share some
of the same ideas, images, etc. in spite of their differences.
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Philo of Alexandria was a Jewish Hellenistic philosopher who was important for
connecting the Hebrew Scriptures to Greek thought, and thereby to Greek Christians,
who struggled to understand their connection to Jewish history. In particular, Philo taught
that allegorical interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures provides access to the real
meanings of the texts. Philo also taught the need to bring together the contemplative
focus of the Stoics and Essenes with the active lives of virtue and community worship
found in Platonism and the Therapeutae. Using terms reminiscent of the Platonists, Philo
described the intellectual component of faith as a sort of spiritual ecstasy in which our
nous (mind) is suspended and God's Spirit takes its place. Philo's ideas influenced the
Alexandrian Christians, Clement and Origen and through them, Gregory of Nyssa.
Desert Fathers
Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers
Inspired by Christ's teaching and example, men and women withdrew to the deserts of
Sketes where, either as solitary individuals or communities, they lived lives of austere
simplicity oriented towards contemplative prayer. These communities formed the basis
for what later would become known as Christian monasticism. Mysticism is integral to
Christian monasticism because the goal of practice for the monastic is union with God.
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Monasticism
The Eastern church then saw the development of monasticism and the mystical
contributions of Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius Ponticus and Pseudo-Dionysius.
Monasticism, also known as anchoritism (meaning "to withdraw") was seen as an
alternative to martyrdom, and was less about escaping the world than about fighting
demons (who were thought to live in the desert) and about gaining liberation from our
bodily passions in order to be open to the Word of God. Anchorites practiced continuous
meditation on the scriptures as a means of climbing the ladder of perfection—a common
religious image in the Mediterranean world and one found in Christianity through the
story of Jacob's ladder—and sought to fend off the demon of acedia ("un-caring"), a
boredom or apathy that prevents us from continuing on in our spiritual training.
Anchorites could live in total solitude ("hermits", from the word erēmitēs, "of the desert")
or in loose communities ("cenobites", meaning "common life").
Monasticism eventually made its way to the West and was established by the work of
John Cassian and Benedict of Nursia. Meanwhile, Western spiritual writing was deeply
influenced by the works of such men as Jerome and Augustine of Hippo.
Middle Ages
Stigmatization of St Francis, by Giotto
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The Early Middle Ages in the West includes the work of Gregory the Great and Bede, as
well as developments in Celtic Christianity and Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and comes to
fulfillment in the work of Johannes Scotus Eriugena and the Carolingian Renaissance.
The High Middle Ages saw a flourishing of mystical practice and theorization
corresponding to the flourishing of new monastic orders, with such figures as Guigo II,
Hildegard of Bingen, Bernard of Clairvaux, the Victorines, all coming from different
orders, as well as the first real flowering of popular piety among the laypeople.
The Late Middle Ages saw the clash between the Dominican and Franciscan schools of
thought, which was also a conflict between two different mystical theologies: on the one
hand that of Dominic de Guzmán and on the other that of Francis of Assisi, Anthony of
Padua, Bonaventure, Jacopone da Todi, Angela of Foligno. Moreover there was the
growth of groups of mystics centered around geographic regions: the Beguines, such as
Mechthild of Magdeburg and Hadewijch (among others); the Rhenish-Flemish mystics
Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Henry Suso and John of Ruysbroeck; and the English
mystics Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and Julian of Norwich. This period also saw such
individuals as Catherine of Siena and Catherine of Genoa, the Devotio Moderna, and
such books as the Theologia Germanica, The Cloud of Unknowing and The Imitation of
Christ.
Reformation
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With the Renaissance came the Protestant Reformation, which in many ways downplayed
mysticism, although it still produced a fair amount of spiritual literature. Even the most
active reformers can be linked to Medieval mystical traditions. Martin Luther, for
instance, was a monk who was influenced by the German Dominican mystical tradition
of Eckhart and Tauler as well by the Dionysian-influenced Wesonmystik ("essence
mysticism") tradition. He also published the Theologia Germanica, which he claimed was
the most important book after the Bible and Augustine for teaching him about God,
Christ, and humanity. Even John Calvin, who rejected many Medieval ascetic practices
and who favored doctrinal knowledge of God over affective experience, has Medieval
influences, namely, Jean Gerson and the Devotio moderna, with its emphasis on piety as
the method of spiritual growth in which the individual practices dependence on God by
imitating Christ and the son-father relationship. Meanwhile, his notion that we can begin
to enjoy our eternal salvation through our earthly successes leads in later generations to
"a mysticism of consolation".
Counter-reformation
But the Reformation brought about the Counter-Reformation and, with it, a new
flowering of mystical literature, often grouped by nationality.
Spanish mysticsim
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Ecstasy of St. Theresa depicts Teresa of Ávila's meditation
The Spanish had Ignatius Loyola, whose Spiritual Exercises were designed to open
people to a receptive mode of consciousness in which they can experience God through
careful spiritual direction and through understanding how the mind connects to the will
and how to weather the experiences of spiritual consolation and desolation; Teresa of
Ávila, who used the metaphors of watering a garden and walking through the rooms of a
castle to explain how meditation leads to union with God; and John of the Cross, who
used a wide range of biblical and spiritual influences both to rewrite the traditional "three
ways" of mysticism after the manner of bridal mysticism and to present the two "dark
nights": the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul, during which the
individual renounces everything that might become an obstacle between the soul and God
and then experiences the pain of feeling separated from God, unable to carry on normal
spiritual exercises, as it encounters the enormous gap between its human nature and
God's divine wisdom and light and moves up the 10-step ladder of ascent towards God.
Another prominent mystic was Miguel de Molinos, the chief apostle of the religious
revival known as Quietism. No breath of suspicion arose against Molinos until 1681,
when the Jesuit preacher Paolo Segneri, attacked his views, though without mentioning
his name, in his Concordia tra la fatica e la quiete nell' orazione. The matter was referred
to the Inquisition. A report got abroad that Molinos had been convicted of moral
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enormities, as well as of heretical doctrines; and it was seen that he was doomed. On
September 3, 1687 he made public profession of his errors, and was sentenced to
imprisonment for life. Contemporary Protestants saw in the fate of Molinos nothing more
than a persecution by the Jesuits of a wise and enlightened man, who had dared to
withstand the petty ceremonialism of the Italian piety of the day. Molinos died in prison
in 1696 or 1697.
Italy
The Italians had Lorenzo Scupoli.
French school of spirituality
The French had Francis de Sales, Jeanne Guyon, François Fénelon, Brother Lawrence
and Blaise Pascal.
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England
The English had a denominational mix, from Catholic Augustine Baker to Anglicans
William Law, John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes, to Puritans Richard Baxter and John
Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress), to the first "Quaker", George Fox and the first
"Methodist", John Wesley, who was well-versed in the continental mystics.
Germany
Similarly well-versed in the mystic tradition was the German Johann Arndt, who, along
with the English Puritans, influenced such continental Pietists as Philipp Jakob Spener,
Gottfried Arnold, Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf of the Moravians, and the hymnodist
Gerhard Tersteegen. Arndt, whose book True Christianity was popular among
Protestants, Catholics and Anglicans alike, combined influences from Bernard of
Clarivaux, John Tauler and the Devotio moderna into a spirituality that focused its
attention away from the theological squabbles of contemporary Lutheranism and onto the
development of the new life in the heart and mind of the believer. Arndt influenced
Spener, who formed a group known as the collegia pietatis ("college of piety") that
stressed the role of spiritual direction among lay-people—a practice with a long tradition
going back to Aelred of Rievaulx and known in Spener's own time from the work of
Francis de Sales. Pietism as known through Spener's formation of it tended not just to
reject the theological debates of the time, but to reject both intellectualism and organized
religious practice in favor of a personalized, sentimentalized spirituality.
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Pietism
This sentimental, anti-intellectual form of pietism is seen in the thought and teaching of
Zinzendorf, founder of the Moravians; but more intellectually rigorous forms of pietism
are seen in the teachings of John Wesley, which were themselves influenced by
Zinzendorf, and in the teachings of American preachers Jonathan Edwards, who restored
to pietism Gerson's focus on obedience and borrowed from early church teachers Origen
and Gregory of Nyssa the notion that humans yearn for God, and John Woolman, who
combined a mystical view of the world with a deep concern for social issues; like
Wesley, Woolman was influenced by Jakob Böhme, William Law and The Imitation of
Christ. The combination of pietistic devotion and mystical experiences that are found in
Woolman and Wesley are also found in their Dutch contemporary Tersteegen, who
brings back the notion of the nous ("mind") as the site of God's interaction with our souls;
through the work of the Spirit, our mind is able to intuitively recognize the immediate
presence of God in our midst.
Mystic traditions
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Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity has especially preserved a mystical emphasis in its theology and
retains a tradition of mystical prayer dating back to Christianity's beginnings.
Catholicism
The practice of Lectio Divina, a form of prayer that centers on scripture reading, was
developed in its best-known form in the sixth century, through the work of Benedict of
Nursia and Pope Gregory I, and described and promoted more widely in the 12th century
by Guigo II. The 9th century saw the development of mystical theology through the
introduction of the works of sixth-century theologian Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,
such as On Mystical Theology. His discussion of the via negativa was especially
influential.
Protestantism
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