The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism E-Book
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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: Blackwell Companions to Religion
- Sprache: Englisch
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism brings together a team of leading international scholars to explore the origins, evolution, and contemporary debates relating to Christian mystics, texts, and the movements they inspired.
- Provides a comprehensive and engaging account of Christian mysticism, from its origins right up to the present day
- Draws on the best of current scholarship by bringing together a collection of newly-commissioned readings by leading scholars
- Considers examples of mysticism in both Eastern and Western Christianity
- Offers a brilliant synthesis of the key figures and historical periods of mysticism; its core themes, such as heresy, gender, or aesthetics; and its theoretical considerations, including theological, literary, social scientific, and philosophical approaches
- Features chapters on current debates such as neuroscience and mystical experience, and inter-religious dialogue
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Seitenzahl: 1692
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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Table of Contents
Cover
The Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Religion
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Notes on Contributors
Preface
CHAPTER 1 A Guide to Christian Mysticism
What Is Christian Mysticism?
Who Are the Mystics?
Distinguishing Characteristics of a Mystical Text
Mystical Theology: Talking about God
Mystical Exegesis: Interpreting the Word of God
Mystical Prayer
Introduction to This Volume
PART I: Themes in Christian Mysticism
CHAPTER 2 The Song of Songs
Origen: The Song of Songs as Mystical Drama
Three Twelfth-Century Exegetes: The Song as the “Book of Our Experience”
Three Carmelite Mystics: Autobiographical Commentary on Canticles
CHAPTER 3 Gender
The Classic Couple
Queering the Soul
Feminizing God
Gendered Assumptions
CHAPTER 4 Platonism
Christian Mysticism and Platonism: Inherence and Inheritance
Christian Mysticism and Platonism: Tensions and Suspense
Mysticism and Platonism in Eriugena and Bonaventure
Platonism in Medieval Mysticism: Questions, Conclusions, and a Comment about Gender
CHAPTER 5 Aesthetics
The Senses of Aesthetic
Spiritual Senses and Spiritual Eroticism
Poetic Discourse and the Mystery of God
Embodied Acoustical Ecstasy and Praise
Apophatic Aesthetics: The Tensive Condition
Themes and Trajectories
CHAPTER 6 Heresy
Beguines, Beghards, and Free Spirits
Anxieties about “Lollards”: Middle English Mystics and Heretics
Dangerous Mysticism in Early Modern Spain
Conclusions
PART II: Early Christian Mysticism
CHAPTER 7 Mysticism in the New Testament
Revelation and Religious Experience in Paul
Experiencing God in Christ and the Mysticism of Immanence in John’s Gospel
The Mysticism of Endurance and Access to the Heavenly Sanctuary in Hebrews
CHAPTER 8 The Judaean–Jewish Contexts of Early Christian Mysticism
Religion and Mysticism
Judaeanism, Judaism, and Christianity
Emerging Mysticism in Late Second Temple Judaea: Toward the Enoch Literature
The Emergence of the Early Jewish Mystical Tradition
The Problem of Creation and the First Formal Jewish Mystical Text
Judaean and Early Jewish Mysticism Within and Not Within Early Christian Mysticism
CHAPTER 9 “Mysticism” in the Pre-Nicene Era?
Mystical Cosmology, Temple Mysticism, and Their Continuation in Christianity
Transformational Mysticism: From Angelification to Thesis
The Body as Temple: Ascetical and Mystical Anthropology
Heavenly Mysteries and the Mysteries of the Church: Eucharist and Martyrdom
Exegetical Mysticism: Biblical Interpretation as Mystagogy
Trinitarian Mysticism: “Three Powers in Heaven”?
CHAPTER 10 Origen and His Followers
Origen
Anthony the Great
Evagrius
The Ongoing Legacy
CHAPTER 11 Negative Theology from Gregory of Nyssa to Dionysius the Areopagite
Aetius and Eunomius: The Exile of the Unbegotten God
Gregory of Nyssa
Dionysius the Areopagite
Conclusion
CHAPTER 12 Syriac Mysticism
The Way of Christ
Purification and Perception
Stages and States
Fire and Fervour
Resurrection and Deification
CHAPTER 13 Mysticism and Contemplation in Augustine’s Confessions
The Ascension Narratives of Book Seven
The Vision at Ostia
The Nature of Christian Contemplation
CHAPTER 14 Augustine’s Ecclesial Mysticism
Glimpsing the Goal
Christ’s Ecclesial Body
Purifying the Body of Christ
Sharing Goods
Conclusion
CHAPTER 15 Benedictine Monasticism and Mysticism
The Psalms, Exegesis, Allegory, and Prayer
Monastic Tradition and Its Reception in the Early Middle Ages
John Cassian on Prayer
Benedict of Nursia and Benedictine Monasticism
Gregory the Great
“Benedictine” Mysticism after Gregory
PART III: Medieval Mystics and Mystical Traditions
CHAPTER 16 Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian Mystical Tradition
Bernard and the Coming of The Word
Seeing and Perceiving God
The Taste of God: William of Saint Thierry
Gilbert of Hoyland and John of Ford: Completing the Song
Guerric and Isaac: Desert and Community, Image and Likeness
Aelred of Rievaulx: God Is Friendship
Cistercian Visionary Literature: A Sense of God’s Presence
CHAPTER 17 The Victorines
Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141)
Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173)
Thomas (Gallus) of St. Victor (d. 1246)
Conclusion
CHAPTER 18 The Mystery of Divine/Human Communion in the Byzantine Tradition
The Legacy of Origen, Evagrius, the Cappadocians, and Dionysius
The Syntheses of Maximus the Confessor
Symeon the New Theologian and Mystical Pedagogy
New and Old in Hesychast Mysticism
Rethinking Lossky’s East/West Opposition
CHAPTER 19 Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure
A Mystical Social Imaginary
Francis of Assisi and the Early Companions
Clare of Assisi and Her Community
Bonaventure’s Franciscan Mystical Theology
Franciscan Trajectories: Theophany, Poverty, and Annihilation
CHAPTER 20 The Nuns of Helfta
Communal Authorship and Writing as a Spiritual Practice
Christ, Atonement, and Bridal Mysticism
Mary and the Saints
Purgatory
Sisters
Continuities and Discontinuities with Cistercian Predecessors
CHAPTER 21 Mysticism in the Spiritual Franciscan Tradition
The Formative Ethos of the Spiritual Franciscans
The Spiritual Franciscans at the Crossroads of History: Olivi and Ubertino
The Spiritual Franciscans and the Eremitical Life: Roger of Provence and John of La Verna
The Middle Ground Between Historical Consciousness and Eremitical Experience: Jacopone Da Todi
CHAPTER 22 The Low Countries, the Beguines, and John Ruusbroec
Beguines
John Ruusbroec
Devotio Moderna
The Legacy of Flemish Mysticism
CHAPTER 23 Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, and Henry Suso
Meister Eckhart
Johannes Tauler
Henry Suso
Conclusion
CHAPTER 24 The Late Fourteenth-Century English Mystics
Richard Rolle
Walter Hilton
The Cloud Author
Julian of Norwich
CHAPTER 25 Late Medieval Italian Women Mystics
Theological and Auto-Hagiographical Writings
Hagiographies
CHAPTER 26 Nicholas of Cusa and the Ends of Medieval Mysticism
Nicholas of Cusa in the Modern Quest to Bring an End to the Middle Ages
On the Vision of God: Discerning Nicholas of Cusa’s Path to Mysticism
The Sense of an Ending: Final Considerations
PART IV: Mysticism and Modernity
CHAPTER 27 The Protestant Reformers on Mysticism
History of Scholarship
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
John Calvin (1509–1564)
Conclusion
CHAPTER 28 Spanish Mysticism and Religious Renewal
Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises
Ignatian Mysticism?
Teresa of Avila
Teresa’s Opponents and the Jesuits
Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle
John of the Cross
John of the Cross’s “Dark Night”
Conclusion
CHAPTER 29 Seventeenth-Century French Mysticism
The Context
The Salesian Tradition
The Bérullian or French School
The Carmelite Tradition in France
The Quietist Controversy
CHAPTER 30 The Making of “Mysticism” in the Anglo-American World
“Mysticism” before Nineteenth-Century Religious Liberalism
Mysticism Becomes “the Romance of Religion”
Returning History to the Historyless
CHAPTER 31 “We Kiss Our Dearest Redeemer through Inward Prayer”
Reform Impulses in the Seventeenth Century
Mysticism-Reception as a Formative Element for the Beginning of Pietism
Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714)
Sophia-Mysticism
Female Visionaries and Authors
Blood- and Wound-Mysticism
The Bible of Berleburg
Biographical Collections
Eighteenth-Century Trends
Conclusion
CHAPTER 32 Nineteenth- to Twentieth-Century Russian Mysticism
The Mystical Dimension of Russian Monastic Tradition
Mysticism in Modern Russian Religious Thought
Mystical Currents outside of Russian Orthodoxy
CHAPTER 33 Modern Catholic Theology and Mystical Tradition
The Baroque and Rationalism
Phenomenology of Experience
Intellectual Intuition
Spiritual Sensibility
Christian Transcendence
CHAPTER 34 Mystics of the Twentieth Century
Bearers of the Passion
Scholars and Writers
Interfaith Boundary Crossers
Advocates for the Reign of God
PART V: Critical Perspectives on Mysticism
CHAPTER 35 A Critical Theological Perspective
Patristic Origins of Mystical Theology
Medieval Mystical Theologies
Mystical Theology Since the Reformation
Modern Theological Appraisals
Liberation, Political, and Feminist Theologies
Conclusion: Mysticism as Theological Subversion
CHAPTER 36 What the Saints Know
Eden’s Puzzle: Knowledge, Good, and Evil
Knowledge Dispossessed: The Mystic’s Ascent
CHAPTER 37 Mysticism and the Vernacular
Contemplative Feeling
Vernacular Mysticism and Experiential Knowledge
Women and Textual Culture
Vernacular Mystical Theology Does Politics
Conclusion
CHAPTER 38 The Social Scientific Study of Christian Mysticism
Beginning the Conversation: A Brief History of the Debates over Mysticism
Two Contemporary Approaches Assessing Mysticism: From Text-Reports to Scales
Troeltsch on Church, Sect, and Mysticism
The Common Core Thesis
CHAPTER 39 Neuroscience
Introduction: The Perspective from the Clinic
Provinces of Meaning: The Perspectives of the Mystic and the Neuroscientist
The Scientific Background
Neuroscientific Studies of Mystical and Meditative States
Intrinsic Brain Activity and Complexity Theory
Interpreting Mystical Experiences in Light of the Principles of Neuroscience
Conclusions
CHAPTER 40 Christian Mysticism in Interreligious Perspective
In Search of a Definition
The Question of Method
A Fundamental Distinction: Mystical and Prophetic Religions
Mysticism as the Transcendent Unity of Religions
Mysticism in the Abrahamic Traditions
Hindu and Buddhist Traditions
Index
The Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Religion
The Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Religion series presents a collection of the most recent scholarship and knowledge about world religions. Each volume draws together newly-commissioned essays by distinguished authors in the field, and is presented in a style which is accessible to undergraduate students, as well as scholars and the interested general reader. These volumes approach the subject in a creative and forward-thinking style, providing a forum in which leading scholars in the field can make their views and research available to a wider audience.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Wiley-Blackwell companion to Christian mysticism / edited by Julia A. Lamm.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4443-3286-5 (cloth)
1. Mysticism. I. Lamm, Julia A., 1961– II. Title: Companion to Christian mysticism.
BV5082.3.W55 2013
248.2'2–dc23
2012015886
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Lady Julian of Norwich, illustration by Stephen Reid from The Mighty Army by Winifred M. Letts, 1912, color lithograph. © Alamy
Cover design by Nicki Averill.
For Alan and Aidan
Notes on Contributors
Ruth Albrecht is Professor of Church History at the University of Hamburg. She specializes in monasticism, the social history of gender and piety, Pietism, and Protestant reform movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her publications include Das Leben der heiligen Makrina auf dem Hintergrund der Thekla-Traditionen. Studien zu den Ursprüngen des weiblichen Mönchtums im 4. Jahrhundert in Kleinasien (1986); Johanna Eleonora Petersen. Theologische Schriftstellerin des frühen Pietismus (2005); Adeline Gräfin von Schimmelmann. Adlig. Fromm. Exzentrisch, co-editor (2011); and Fairy von Lilienfeld (1917–2009), co-editor (2011).
Douglas E. Anderson is Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, Illinois. He maintains a large clinical practice with specialization in benign skull base tumors, the surgical treatment of trigeminal neuralgia and autonomic cephalgias, functional surgery for movement disorders, intractable psychiatric conditions, and epilepsy surgery. He has written several book chapters, hundreds of abstracts and presentations, and over fifty papers in refereed journals. He is the baritone soloist for the Grace Lutheran Bach Cantata Vesper Series and a featured soloist with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque chorus and orchestra.
Ann W. Astell is Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. She was Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Purdue University from 1988 until 2007. The author of six books, beginning with The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (1990) and including, recently, Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages (2006); she is also the editor or co-editor of five collections of essays, including Lay Sanctity, Medieval and Modern: The Search for Models (2000), Joan of Arc and Spirituality (2003), and Sacrifice, Scripture, and Substitution: Readings in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (2011).
Bogdan G. Bucur is Assistant Professor of Theology at Duquesne University. His research explores the intersection of biblical exegesis, doctrinal development, and spirituality in early Christianity and Byzantium. Aside from several articles, he is the author of Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses (2009).
J. Patout Burns is Edward A. Malloy Professor of Catholic Studies, Emeritus, Vanderbilt University Divinity School. His research has been primarily into the practice and theology of North African Christianity. His publications include The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace, Cyprian the Bishop, and Romans in The Church’s Bible series.
Peter J. Casarella is Professor of Catholic Studies and Director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University. He edited Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance and is President of the American Cusanus Society.
Augustine Casiday is Senior Lecturer in Historical Theology at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His research to date has focused on early Christian asceticism and his resultant publications include Tradition and Theology in St. John Cassian, Evagrius Ponticus, and (with Tim Vivian) Mark the Monk: Counsels on the Spiritual Life. He also studies the modern practices of interpreting and receiving ancient and medieval Christian teachings, with particular emphasis on contemporary western responses to eastern Christianity. A book on that topic is forthcoming (Remember the Days of Old), as is an edited volume on a broadly related topic (The Orthodox Christian World).
Catherine Rose Cavadini teaches in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, where she is Assistant Chair of the Department and Director of the Masters Program. Her area of research is in the history of Christianity and medieval theology. Her dissertation (2010) is entitled “The Commercium of the Kiss Who Saves: A Study of Thomas the Cistercian’s In Cantica Canticorum.”
Zhuo Chen obtained his M.S. degree in psychology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he is adjunct professor of psychology. Before that he studied philosophy at Wuhan University of China. He currently is active in research in the psychology of religion, with added research interests in personality and culture and the study of ambiguity and certainty.
Brian Edric Colless is a graduate of Sydney University and Melbourne University; from 1970 until 2001 he taught religious studies at Massey University (New Zealand) and is currently an Honorary Research Associate there; publications include The Wisdom of the Pearlers (2008) and The Maharajas of the Isles (2007, with Roy Jordaan).
Boyd Taylor Coolman is Associate Professor of Theology at Boston College. He is the author of Knowing God by Experience: The Spiritual Senses in the Theology of William of Auxerre (2004) and The Theology of Hugh of St. Victor: An Interpretation (2010). He is co-editor of Trinity and Creation in Victorine Texts in Translation, Exegesis, Theology and Spirituality from the Abbey of St. Victor (2010).
Michael F. Cusato, O.F.M. is the former Director of the Franciscan Institute and Dean of the School of Franciscan Studies at St. Bonaventure University in western New York State. He is currently adjunct professor at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. A specialist in medieval Franciscan history, he has published widely on various aspects of the minorite phenomenon. He has especially written on the Early Franciscan rule, the encounter between Francis of Assisi and the sultan al-Kamil, the stigmatization accounts, the career of Elias of Cortona, and aspects of the Spiritual Franciscans.
George E. Demacopoulos is Associate Professor of Theology and Co-Founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Program at Fordham University. His research emphasizes points of contact and discord between Christian east and Christian west from late antiquity to the early modern period. His monograph, Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church explores the impact of the ascetic movement on practice of spiritual direction. He has also completed work on a second monograph that examines the creation and reception of a Petrine discourse at the end of Christian antiquity.
Stephen M. Fields, S.J. is Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University. He has published Being as Symbol (2000) and articles on God’s relation with the world, nature and grace, Newman, recent papal thought, and Catholic higher education.
Mary Frohlich, R.S.C.J. is Associate Professor of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She is author of The Intersubjectivity of the Mystic: A Study of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle (1993) and editor of The Lay Contemplative (2000) and St. Therese of Lisieux: Essential Writings (2003). Her areas of expertise include Carmelite spirituality, mysticism, ecospirituality, and methodological issues in the study of spirituality.
Paul L. Gavrilyuk is Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Theology Department, University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (2004) and Histoire du catéchuménat dans l’Église ancienne (2007). He also co-edited with Sarah Coakley, The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity (2011).
Anna Harrison is Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. She is the recipient of a 2010–2011 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for her book project, “Thousands and Thousands of Lovers”: Sense of Community Among the Nuns of Helfta.
Ralph W. Hood, Jr. is Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is a former editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and formerly co-editor of the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and the Archive for the Psychology of Religion. He is a past president of division 36 (psychology of religion) of the American Psychological Association and a recipient of its William James, Mentor, and Distinguished Service awards.
J. Patrick Hornbeck II is Assistant Professor of Theology and Medieval Studies at Fordham University. He is the author of What Is a Lollard? and co-editor of Wycliffite Controversies and Wycliffite Spirituality.
Edward Howells is Lecturer in Christian Spirituality at Heythrop College, University of London. He has written John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila: Mystical Knowing and Selfhood (2002) and various articles on mystical theology.
Kevin L. Hughes is Associate Professor in the departments of Humanities and Theology at Villanova University. He is the author of Constructing Antichrist (2005) and co-editor of Augustine and Politics (2005) and Augustine and Liberal Education (2008). His current research in medieval historical theology focuses on St. Bonaventure and the Franciscan tradition.
John Peter Kenney is Professor of Religious Studies at Saint Michael’s College. He was previously Professor of Religion and Humanities at Reed College. He is the author of Mystical Monotheism: A Study in Ancient Platonic Theology (1991), The Mysticism of Saint Augustine: Rereading the Confessions (2005), and Contemplation and Classical Christianity (forthcoming).
Julia A. Lamm is Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University. She is author of The Living God: Schleiermacher’s Theological Appropriation of Spinoza (1996) and co-editor and translator of Schleiermacher: The Christmas Dialogue and Other Selections, Classics of Western Spirituality (forthcoming).
Leo D. Lefebure is the Matteo Ricci, S.J., Professor of Theology at Georgetown University. He is the co-author of The Path of Wisdom: A Christian Commentary on the Dhammapada, together with Peter Feldmeier, which received the Frederick J. Streng Book Award from the Society for Buddhist–Christian Studies. He is the author of Revelation, the Religions, and Violence and The Buddha and the Christ. He is an honorary research fellow of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Armando Maggi is Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Committee on History of Culture at the University of Chicago. His main areas of research are early modern thought and religion. He has published essays and books on medieval mystical poetry, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women mystics, and Renaissance love treatises and hagiographies. Among his books are Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi: Selected Revelations (2000), Satan’s Rhetoric: A Study of Renaissance Demonology (2001), and In the Company of Demons: Unnatural Beings, Love, and Identity in the Italian Renaissance (2006). He is currently working on a book project on the religious plays of Calderón de la Barca.
Brian Patrick McGuire is Professor of Medieval History at Roskilde University, Denmark. His books include: Friendship and Community (2010) and (editor) A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux (2011). He has published extensively on Cistercian life and thought.
Alan C. Mitchell is Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins and the Director of the Annual Georgetown University Institute on Scripture at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Hebrews in the Sacra Pagina series (2007). He is a member of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas.
Barbara Newman is Professor of English, Religion, and Classics and John Evans Professor of Latin at Northwestern University. She is the winner of a 2009 Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award. Her recent books include Thomas of Cantimpré: The Collected Saints’ Lives (2008) and Frauenlob’s Song of Songs: A Medieval German Poet and His Masterpiece (2006), and her forthcoming book is Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred. Professor Newman is also the author of God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (2003), From Virile Woman to Woman Christ (1995), and several books on Hildegard of Bingen.
Willemien Otten is Professor of the Theology and History of Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Among her publications are The Anthropology of Johannes Scottus Eriugena (1991) and From Paradise to Paradigm: A Study of Twelfth-Century Humanism (2004). With Karla Pollmann, she edited the multi-volume Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, to appear in 2013.
Charlotte C. Radler is Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Her research interests include the mysticism of Meister Eckhart, women in medieval mysticism, and the construction of heresy and orthodoxy in early and medieval Christianity. She has published widely on the mysticism of Meister Eckhart and is currently working on a book on the role of love in Meister Eckhart’s thought.
Denis Renevey is Professor of Medieval English Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His research interests include late medieval mystical and devotional literature, medieval religious writings for and by women, and Chaucer. He has co-edited The Doctrine of the Hert and A Companion to the Doctrine of the Hert (2010), Convergence/Divergence: The Politics of Late Medieval English Devotional and Medical Discourses, in Poetica, Special Issue 72 (2009), and The Medieval Translator. Traduire au Moyen Age. Lost in Translation? (2010).
Helen Rolfson, O.S.F. is Professor Emerita of Theology at the School of Theology in St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota. She is a translator of medieval Dutch mystical writings, having participated in the Opera omnia of Jan van Ruusbroec (1283–1381). For many years, she has been engaged in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, locally and internationally.
Don E. Saliers is Wm. R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Liturgy Emeritus at Emory University. Among his publications are: Music and Theology, Worship As Theology, Worship Come To Its Senses, The Soul in Paraphrase and A Song to Sing, A Life to Live (co-authored with Emily Saliers). He served as president of the North American Academy of Liturgy and the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.
Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward Mallinckrodt University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of numerous books, including Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment (2000); Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (2005), which will appear in an updated edition in 2012; Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (1995); and Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (1989). His recent book is Heaven’s Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman (2010).
Philip Sheldrake is Senior Research Fellow in the Cambridge Theological Federation and Honorary Professor of the University of Wales. Previously he was Leech Professor of Applied Theology at Durham University. His current research and writing focuses on the study of spirituality and mysticism in both Christian and interreligious contexts and on the theology of place and of the public realm, particularly the meaning of cities in Christian thought. He is the author or editor of twelve books including A Brief History of Spirituality (2007), Explorations in Spirituality: History, Theology & Social Practice (2010), and Heaven in Ordinary: George Herbert & His Writings (2010).
Ori Z Soltes teaches theology and art history at Georgetown University. He is the author of publications that cross various disciplines. Among these are Our Sacred Signs: How Jewish, Christian and Muslim Art Draw from the Same Well and Searching for Oneness: Mysticism in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Traditions.
Charles M. Stang is Associate Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School. He is the co-editor (with Sarah Coakley) of Rethinking Dionysius the Areopagite (2009) and author of Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite (forthcoming).
Columba Stewart, O.S.B. is a Benedictine monk of Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, and teaches monastic studies in the Saint John’s School of Theology. He is Executive Director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John’s University, and has published extensively on monastic topics, including Cassian the Monk and Prayer and Community: the Benedictine Tradition. His recent publications have been on the legacy of Evagrius Ponticus, the origins of monasticism, and the transmission of monastic culture between east and west.
Dennis E. Tamburello, O.F.M. is Professor of Religious Studies at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, where he teaches courses in theology and the history of Christianity. He is the author of Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (1994), Ordinary Mysticism (1996), and Bernard of Clairvaux: Essential Writings (2000). He is currently working on a new book for Paulist Press, 101 Questions and Answers on the Reformation.
James Wetzel is Professor of Philosophy and Augustinian Endowed Chair, Villanova University. He is the author of Augustine and the Limits of Virtue (1992) and Augustine: A Guide for the Perplexed (2010).
Christiania Whitehead is an Associate Professor (Reader) in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. She has published widely in the fields of allegory, monastic spirituality, and Latin and vernacular devotional writing. Her publications include Castles of the Mind: A Study of Medieval Architectural Allegory (2003); A Critical Edition of the Doctrine of the Hert (co-ed.) (2010), and A Companion to the Doctrine of the Hert: The Middle English Translation in its Latin and European Contexts (co-ed.) (2010).
Wendy M. Wright is Professor of Theology at Creighton University and holds the John C. Kenefick Faculty Chair in the Humanities. Her books include Bond of Perfection: Jeanne de Chantal and François de Sales, Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction, Francis de Sales: Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God, Sacred Heart: Gateway to God, and Heart Speaks to Heart: The Salesian Spiritual Tradition.
Preface
Quite self-consciously, this book did not begin with any single definition of mysticism or any common rubric. Those authors who had asked me whether there was a common working definition of “Christian mysticism” were relieved to learn there was none. The contributors are scholars from different disciplinary fields, with different specialities, hailing from different academic, religious, and geographical backgrounds, and as editor I did not want to restrict them in any way. They are the experts, and I wanted to see what definitions would emerge, what questions and debates would take form. And these authors have not disappointed. Each has succeeded in walking that difficult line between, on the one hand, introducing their topics to readers new to the study of Christian mysticism (or to a particular aspect of it) and, on the other hand, engaging other specialists and creatively advancing the scholarly conversation.
Christian mysticism is more a story than it is an identifiable, single phenomenon. In order to tell that story, this Companion moves from the particular to the general and back again; it approaches the subject matter from different vantage points; it pursues continuities while noting departures and innovations; and it considers context and personalities as it weighs ideas and images. The decidedly historical approach of this volume – whereby the middle three Parts (II–IV) are devoted to three major eras in Christianity, each of those subdivided according to smaller lines of influences embedded in particular historical, intellectual, spiritual, linguistic, and geographical contexts – is an inherent challenge to an essentialist approach. At the same time, these mystics and mystical trends are not totally disparate or unrelated but instead constitute trajectories and sub-traditions within the larger Christian tradition itself, with recognizable themes, recurring issues, and noticeable affinities. It is the task, therefore, of the two “bookends” of this volume to consider Christian mysticism as a whole, tracing these “Themes in Christian Mysticism” (Part I) and providing “Critical Perspectives on Mysticism” (Part V). By way of introduction, the first chapter, “A Guide to Christian Mysticism,” also takes a wider view of Christian mysticism, beyond a particular time frame or place; it considers the kinds of questions that regularly resurface and discusses four broad characteristics of mystical texts in Christianity.
When I decided to take on this project of editing a volume with over forty authors, many people warned me about the frustrations of such a job. I must say, however, that my experience has been overwhelmingly positive due to the support and good grace of my publisher, Rebecca Harkin, and the collegiality and professionalism of the authors. I am truly grateful to all of them, both for the pleasure of working with them and for how much they have taught me. I owe a special debt of gratitude to J. Patout Burns and John Peter Kenney, two renowned Augustine scholars, for their willingness to contribute chapters at the eleventh hour, after something else had fallen through.
There are many people who lent advice and help along the way to whom I owe my profound thanks. Bernard McGinn, Patout Burns, and the external readers of the original proposal offered invaluable feedback at early stages of this project, thus helping to shape and fill out the volume; it is a much better volume because they took the time to give detailed critiques. Carole Sargent, Director of Scholarly Publications here at Georgetown University, advised me while drawing up the proposal and then went beyond the call of duty by editing my own contribtion; she is a true asset to this scholarly community and a valued colleague. A colleague in my department, Joseph Murphy, was also generous enough to read a draft of my chapter and offer advice as one whose teaching often touches on mysticism. I have had the good fortune of having access to able and energetic research assistants who helped me track down needed material: Maureen Walsh, Jerusha Lamptey, Sara Singha, Rahel Fischbach, and George Archer.
And finally, my eternal thanks go to my husband, Alan C. Mitchell, and our son, Aidan Gratian Lamm Mitchell, the joy of our life. This volume is dedicated to them. Their love, patience, and laughter sustain me.
CHAPTER 1
A Guide to Christian Mysticism
Julia A. Lamm
Christian mysticism is a variegated landscape, and this chapter will provide a Guide. In it, I help orient the reader by highlighting the main roads and some by-ways, some sign posts, and some description of difficult, fascinating, and (some might say) wild terrain that is Christian mysticism. It is written primarily for students and scholars who, in one sense or another, are new to the study of mysticism: for those completely new to the topic, who have never read mystical texts or specifically Christian mystical texts; for those perhaps familiar with one era or text, but who want to explore others; for those familiar with a text from one perspective or discipline, but who may want to delve into it more deeply as a specifically mystical, religious text; and, finally, for those who teach, or want to teach, some aspect of mysticism, but who are unsure about how to field certain questions.
The point of this Guide is not, therefore, so much to determine and define Christian mysticism as it is to provide tools, reference points, and categories so that readers themselves may explore, determine, define, and judge. I begin with some fundamental issues of definition (what is Christian mysticism?) and classification (who are the mystics? what distinguishes a text or experience as mystical?) and then turn, in the last part of the chapter, to discuss just four of what are countless elements of mystical texts in the Christian tradition and the challenges they present for interpreting those texts (what do you look for in a mystical text? how do you interpret it?). This chapter thus begins with more abstract matters and moves increasingly toward the more concrete. To the degree possible, I resist citing other scholarship on mysticism, which would only direct the reader out to other secondary sources; collectively, the other chapters do that work, offering extensive coverage of the state of scholarship in the field. The point of this Guide is to direct readers to the primary texts and, as further aid, to refer them to relevant discussions in the other chapters, so that the full potential of this volume as a true companion might be realized.
What Is Christian Mysticism?
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