The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Blackwell Companions to Religion
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 1692

Beschreibung

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

Leseprobe

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

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The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian MysticismEdited by Julia A. Lamm

This edition first published 2013

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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?