Medieval Mysticism Research Articles

Mystical union and spiritual desire in late-Reformation devotion: The case of Martin Moller's The Great Mystery (1595)

This article examines the complex relationship between early-modern Protestantism and medieval mysticism. It does so through a case study of a late-Reformation work of devotion, The Great Mystery (1595), which has received very little scholarly attention. The author of this treatise, Martin Moller, an experienced Lutheran pastor, was familiar with mystical literature and drew on it directly in his numerous works of devotion. Especially evident in The Great Mystery, which presents the relationship between Christ and the Christian as a spiritual marriage, is a theme which rarely appeared in the Lutheran devotional literature of the sixteenth century: spiritual desire for God. Moller developed an evangelical theology and spirituality of desire, which marked a crucial development in early-modern Lutheran devotion. The presence of this theme also provides a potential clue for the ‘mystical turn’ in the late Reformation and why this period may have experienced a ‘crisis of piety’.

An Introduction from the Editor of Medieval Mystical Theology

On behalf of The Eckhart Society, I would like to welcome you to Medieval Mystical Theology 29.2. This issue comprises papers that were presented at the 32nd Annual Eckhart Conference on the theme ...

O Thesenblatt “A missão mundial jesuíta” de 1664: exemplo da importância da religio cordis como linguagem da religião na iconografia jesuíta

This article introduces to the iconography of Thesenblätter - posters advertising the theses of academic disputations, characteristic feature of an academic disputation in Catholic universities since the 16th until the 17th century - as a proper and important genre of Catholic European visual culture of the Baroque and Rococo. Next it introduces the Thesenblatt “Die Weltmission der Gesellschaft Jesu” (The World Mission of the Society of Jesus) engraved in 1664 by Bartholomäus Kilian to a design by Johann Christoph Storer. The article shows the wide and at the same time varied use of the religio cordis as imagetic language in this German Thesenblatt and points out how it characterizes the Jesuit world mission in particular and the Jesuit theology in general. The pictorial language of the religion of the heart establishes the idea of ​​continuity between Jesuit theology, the Mass of Gregory, great mystics of medieval times and the Catholic reform and sets up an interface with the Renaissance world, to reinforce and promote the triple way of medieval mysticism as an ideal and orthodox spirituality.

The Affective Dionysian Tradition in Medieval Northern Europe

Recent students of mysticism have sharply distinguished monistic from theistic mysticism. The former is more or less identified with the empty consciousness experience and the latter with the love mysticism of such figures as Bernard of Clairvaux. I argue that a sharp distinction between the two is unwarranted. Western medieval mystics, for example, combined the apophatic theology of Dionysius the Areopagite with the erotic imagery of the mystical marriage. Their experiences were clearly theistic but integrally incorporated ‘monistic moments’. I conclude by discussing Nelson Pike’s claim that these monistic moments were themselves phenomenologically theistic.

Literature and the Encounter with God in Post-Reformation England by Michael Martin (review)

Reviewed by: Literature and the Encounter with God in Post-Reformation England by Michael Martin Rajiv Thind Martin, Michael, Literature and the Encounter with God in Post-Reformation England, Farnham, Ashgate, 2014; hardback; pp. 230; 4 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9781472432667. Michael Martin’s compelling study gives us phenomenological profiles of selected individuals who made attempts to ‘reach’ and encounter God in post-Reformation England. The book’s five chapters discuss the religious lives and writings of John Dee, John Donne, Sir Kenelm Digby, Henry and Thomas Vaughan, and Jane Lead, who all subscribed to fluid religiosities that defied distinct labels. In the post-Reformation seventeenth century, independent religious quests gave rise to new religious groups such as Ranters, Fifth Monarchists, Philadelphians, and many other antinomian groups. Such groups were not particularly concerned with understanding God through traditional theological studies, but rather with knowing God through personal and intuitive explorations. The first chapter introduces us to the religious life of John Dee (1527–1609). Dee had a serious interest in medieval mysticism, but he stayed away from the doctrinal and theological debates of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Dee’s theology ‘attained a surprising mutability between Protestant and Catholic, orthodox and heterodox modes of religious inquiry’, yet it would be misleading to compare it to the newly conceived Anglican via media (p. 27). In Chapter 2, on John Donne (1572–1631), Martin argues that Donne’s ‘religious aesthetic is grounded in humility’ (p. 48). Donne also stressed the communal aspect of religion and the significance of the Established Church. Yet his writings on religious ecstasies drew heavily on Catholic mysticism and vocabulary. Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–65) is the subject of Chapter 3. Martin describes his religious methodology as ‘the technological and the Catholic’ (p. 87). Digby was profoundly affected by his wife’s death and devoted his life [End Page 391] to the science of palingenesis, which was always intermixed with the idea of resurrection. The fourth chapter covers the Rosicrucian mysticism of Henry and Thomas Vaughan. Such mysticism proposed ‘that God can be discerned in nature’ via scientific study of the natural world ‘informed by scripture’ (p. 109). The last chapter focuses on Jane Lead (1624–1704) who led the evangelical Philadelphian Society. Lead’s writings were focused intensely on the Bible, especially ‘the Book of Revelation’s eschatological intensity’ (p. 155). Again, like the other figures studied in this book, Lead’s religious beliefs exhibit cross-confessional syncretism as evident by her support for the heretical (for Protestants) idea of Purgatory. The heterogeneous religiosities of these subjects owe much to their individual characteristics and lives, but, as Martin concludes, they were also ‘informed by their cultural and historical moments’ (p. 185). Rajiv Thind The University of Queensland Copyright © 2015 Rajiv Thind

The Secret Within: Hermits, Recluses, and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England by Wolfgang Riehle (review)

Reviewed by: The Secret Within: Hermits, Recluses, and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England by Wolfgang Riehle Carme Font Paz Wolfgang Riehle, The Secret Within: Hermits, Recluses, and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England, trans. Charity Scott-Strokes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2014) xviii + 427 pp. More than thirty years after the publication of The Middle English Mystics in 1981, Wolfgang Riehle revises and updates his own research on English medieval mysticism. If his previous work tended towards the metaphorical language of mysticism and relied fundamentally on philological analysis, The Secret Within seeks to interpret the main canon of English mystical works according to the authors’ own express intentions. To this purpose Riehle goes beyond the literary interpretation of early mystical texts in Medieval England and complements his previous analyses with an examination of their theological significance. While English mystics of the period between the twelfth and the early fifteenth century have usually been approached as an eclectic collection of individualities—Riehle’s book features the same case studies as Barry Windeatt’s English Mystics (1994) or Marion Glasscoe’s English Medieval Mystics (1993)—their distinctive theological nature as a group has been neglected in comparison. Riehle suggests that the assumption that English mystics were a disperse bunch of practitioners of a reclusive type of religious experience has hindered a deeper appreciation of the theology informing these practices, which was not only rich in exegesis and allegory but also inspired in the practice of contemplatio. The Secret Within delves into the nature of the contemplative experience as practiced by English mystics, and finds out that they share a theology around the theme of the human likeness to God. If mystical literature is characterized by its focus on the knowledge of God through the experience of the divine (cognitio Dei), it follows, according to Riehle, that “such a distinction allows for the inclusion of works by authors who write about mystical experience and knowledge of God without necessarily claiming to have been granted such experience themselves” (xiii). This is certainly the case with devotional writing at large and meditative texts. Whereas an unifying element in English and continental mysticism has been its enclosed character—the eremitical way of life as suggested by Riehle’s book subtitle–the experiential and secluded nature of mysticism is even more apparent in the English case. This is the secret within their walls as well as within their whole being. And it is not only to be found in the use of mystical [End Page 294] language as a vehicle of mediation between God and humans—a line of enquiry that has dominated the scholarship of medieval mysticism—but in the assumption of the ineffability of the mystical experience. Thus, The Secret Within does not attempt to explicate the mystical or the religious experience itself, but to find the theological base for its reason d’être. With this approach, Riehle avoids any pretense to understand the experience of God, as each one of these individuals lived it, but concentrates instead on explaining the intellectual motivations behind an experiential approach to the divine. The first two chapters highlight the historical and cultural context that favored the emergence of new religious orders: “The beginnings of vernacular mysticism in England, as on the Continent, can be traced back to the decisive transformations in theology, intellectual history, and the history of mentalities that have long been associated with the ‘twelfth-century Renaissance’” (1). If early anchorites dwelling in Britain wished to renew apostolic life by means of an ascetic lifestyle similar to the desert monks of the New Testament and the Church Fathers, the influence of English Cistercians in the spread and the theology of English mysticism cannot be underestimated. In their exploration of the soul as a vehicle that resonates with the essence of God, they develop the theme of dignity underlying canonical texts such as Ancrene Wisse (ca. 1225)—that would become a reference for feminine devotional discourses based on the notion of “nobility,” for example. Riehle shows the “critical role that England played in the formative years of this order of Reformed Benedictine monks” (15) which traces its origins back to Dijon in France. Under the supervision of Bernard...

On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

A Welcome and Update from the Editor of Medieval Mystical Theology

With individual and institutional subscriptions steadily increasing world-wide and a healthy stock of papers constantly being received from international authors, the journal’s reputation appears to be growing positively. With this in mind, and to help with the added pressure, I am delighted to welcome three associate editors to the team. These are, Dr Joseph Milne, Dr Rico Monge, and Dr Rebecca Stephens. Both Joseph and Rebecca are stalwarts and long-serving trustees of The Eckhart Society, and possibly share the record for contributions to the journal when it was under the name of the Eckhart Review. Both bring with them a wealth of academic and editorial experience. Joseph is also the editor of a journal for the Henry George Foundation called Land and Liberty, while Rebecca is also a novelist. Rico previously served as a guest editor for volume 21, number 1, of Medieval Mystical Theology, a process made that much easier by his enthusiasm, organization, and professionalism. Rico is based in the US and will represent the journal at conferences while also looking out for quality papers. In July 2014, I was pleased to organize with my colleagues, David Lewin and Simon Podmore, an enjoyable and successful conference titled, Mystical Theology and Continental Philosophy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. This collaboration between the Mystical Theology Network and the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion was held at Liverpool Hope University, and attracted a strong international delegation of speakers bringing with them a thought-provoking array of papers. Prominent at the conference were our publishers, Maney, and I would like to thank Liverpool Hope University, The Eckhart Society, and Ashgate for generously sponsoring different aspects of the event. Selected proceedings from the conference will be published as part of an ongoing series by Ashgate, while a good number of authors have also expressed an interest or have already sent their papers to MMT for consideration. I hope you enjoy the papers in this present issue as well as the introduction from Martin Ganeri, who was responsible for first gathering the authors together for this comparative theme that comprised the 26 Annual Eckhart Society Conference. medieval mystical theology, Vol. 23 No. 2, November, 2014, 99

EROS. FROM PLATO TO JOHN LENNON THROUGH MEDIEVAL MYSTICISM

The article is devoted to the analysis of eroticism in the texts of medieval mystics (St. Umilta, St. Francis, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Julian of Norwich). The connection between late medieval mysticism and John Lennon’s and Freddie Mercury’s lyrics is investigated.

Excommunication: three inquiries in media and mediation

Always connect - that is the imperative of today's media. But what about those moments when media cease to function properly, when messages go beyond the sender and receiver to become excluded from the world of communication itself - those messages that state: There will be no more messages? In this book, Alexander R. Galloway, Eugene Thacker, and McKenzie Wark turn our usual understanding of media on its head by arguing that these moments reveal the ways the impossibility of communication is integral to communication itself - instances they call excommunication. In three linked essays, Excommunication pursues this elusive topic by looking at mediation in the face of banishment, exclusion, and heresy, and by contemplating the possibilities of communication with the great beyond. First, Galloway proposes an original theory of mediation based on classical literature and philosophy, using Hermes, Iris, and the Furies to map out three of the most prevalent modes of mediation today-mediation as exchange, as illumination, and as network. Then, Thacker goes boldly beyond Galloway's classification scheme by examining the concept of excommunication through the secret link between the modern horror genre and medieval mysticism. Finally, Wark evokes the poetics of the infuriated swarm as a queer politics of heresy that deviates from both media theory and the traditional left. Reexamining commonplace definitions of media, mediation, and communication, Excommunication offers a glimpse into the realm of the nonhuman to find a theory of mediation adequate to our present condition.

Flesh made word: medieval women mystics, writing, and the incarnation

Flesh made word: medieval women mystics, writing, and the incarnation

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism Edited by Julia A. Lamm (review)

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Edited by Julia A. Lamm. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2013. Pp. xx, 651. $199.95. ISBN 978-14443-3286-5.)Julia Lamm has assembled a valuable collection of forty articles by leading scholars in this treasury of studies of (mainly) Christian mysticism. A lengthy and expert introduction by Lamm leads to the first section: five articles on Themes in Christian Mysticism. These include an exploration of the Song of Songs, gender, Platonism, aesthetics, and heresy, which, although incisive and richly detailed, seem somewhat randomly selected. The more explicitly historical sections include scriptural and early Christian elements, late-ancient Christian (i.e., Patristic) contributions (including Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, St. Augustine, and St. Benedict), eleven essays on medieval mystics and mysticism (the largest section), and eight on Reformed traditions and modernity (including the twentieth century). The concluding section provides six articles on Critical Perspectives from theology, epistemology, linguistics, and neuroscience, including brief examinations of the social-scientific study of mysticism and interreligious aspects of the comparative study of mysticism, two excellent and heuristic contributions.As with the introductory essays, much more could be said in this section and elsewhere, but at more than 600 pages, much has been. Perhaps unavoidably in so wide-ranging a compendium, some repetitiveness occurs, not least in the medieval section. Topics include St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians; the Victorines; the Byzantine tradition; the principal Franciscans (Ss. Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure) as well as the Spiritual Franciscans; the Nuns of Helfta; the Beguines and the Low Countries (including Ruusbroec); the Rhineland tradition of Meister Eckhart, Henry Suso, and Johannes Tauler; the English mystics of the fourteenth century; Italian women mystics of the later Middle Ages; and Nicholas Cusa and his era. Under the rubric of Reformation and Modernity are found an essay on the Protestant reformers (mainly Martin Luther and John Calvin), the great Spanish mystics (mainly Ss. Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross), the French School, Pietism, Russian mysticism, and five contributions that cover the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Despite its largely sequential organization and the emphasis on historical figures and movements, the volume is a semi-encyclopedic resource, not a history of Christian mysticism on the order of the monumental series by Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God (New York, 1991-), although McGinn's presence is felt throughout. …

Word From The Chair: Youth Ministry through the Lens of Medieval Mysticism

Word From The Chair: Youth Ministry through the Lens of Medieval Mysticism

Lettera e spirito nell’esegesi neotestamentaria di Francisco Ribera (1534-1591)

The hermeneutic principle of Spanish exegete is ruled by a preference for Hebrew and New Testament prophecy. What must come first and foremost, before any interpretive or ecclesiastical aspect, is recognition of the efficacious presence of the Word made flesh and diffused throughout this world by the Spirit. This is readily seen 1. in early Greek exegesis, particularly of John Chrysostom, 2. in medieval mysticism, and 3. in later Catholic theology of a humanistic stamp such as found in Erasmus, Thomas de Vio, and Cornelius Jansenius the Elder. These are all steps along a very long path adumbrated in holy scripture itself and in the devotion of any serious reader.

Lost in the Abyss: The Function of Abyss Language in Medieval Mysticism

Lost in the Abyss: The Function of Abyss Language in Medieval Mysticism

On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

The mystique of the self in German preromanticism


 The paper surveys the extent of the connection between German idealism and Preromanticism on the one hand, and Medieval mysticism on the other. For the Romantic model of identity and subjectivity in Novalis and Schlegel, Fichte’s idealist position remains a starting point, as changes of terminology and approach have changed the way the Self was articulated very considerably.
 This shift in meaning is the beginning of Romanticism, but despite its significance, the change has its precursors. The desire towards the absolute, the shifting value of religious experience, positing identity without objectification are all positions that can already be found in Medieval thinkers like Eckhardt and Böhme. In some cases, one can even locate a direct connection. The paper focuses on how the connection between Medieval philosophers’ paradox ideas on non-being and emptiness relate to theories of the self in preromantic authors.

Mary Kept These Things, Pondering Them in Her Heart: Breastfeeding as Contemplative Practice and Source for Theology

����� ��� Spiritus 13 (2013): 163–186 © 2013 by The Johns Hopkins University Press Throughout the history of Christianity, women have engaged in sustained theological reflection on experiences—of God, themselves, and the world—that they have undergone in the course of practices of contemplation. Contemplative women of the past were not seen by their contemporaries as theologians, but what little survives of their spiritual writings represents a mother lode of rich theological insight. Today record numbers of women are formally trained theologians, but the academic discipline of systematic theology is generally resistant to making a space for spiritual practice and personal experience (especially women’s spiritual practice and personal experience of embodiment) in its well-ordered, cerebral discourse. What’s more, the demands of work and family life on many lay theologians today result in a lack of time and freedom to spend hours on end in the silent, contemplative prayer that provided the desert mothers and medieval mystics with such rich fodder for theological reflection. Contemporary women theologians are faced, then, with a dual challenge: first, to integrate contemplative practice into their daily lives—in the spirit of St. Teresa of Avila, to find God among the pots and pans; and second, to integrate contemplative practice into their work as constructive theologians. As if these challenges were not enough, women theologians committed to this integration of contemplative spirituality and theology are faced with an additional obstacle. Given that we are human beings and not angels, contemplation is always an embodied practice, and it often involves intense and even ecstatic bodily experiences. Historically dominated by a hierarchical understanding of the relationship between mind and matter, Christian theology has often approached the body (especially the female body) with ambivalence or even hostility. 1 There are few models for contemporary women theologians who seek to reflect on women’s bodies and bodily experiences as sites of spiritual practice, divine revelation, and theological reflection. As Marcia Mount Shoop insists, the language of our bodies is “not easily ‘heard,’ but it cries out

On becoming God: late medieval mysticism and the modern Western self

Do we have to conceive of ourselves as isolated individuals, inevitably distanced from other people and from whatever we might mean when we use the word God? On Becoming God offers an innovative approach to the history of the modern Western by looking at human identity as something people do together rather than on their own, as a way of managing and keeping at bay the impulses and experiences associated with the word God. The self is a way of doing things, or of not doing things, with God. The book draws on phenomenology (Heidegger), gender studies (Beauvoir, Butler), and contemporary neuroscience. It surveys existing approaches to modern selfhood (Foucault, Charles Taylor) and proposes an alternative account by investigating late medieval mysticism, in particular texts written in Germany by Meister Eckhart and others. It concludes by exploring the parallel between late medieval confessors and their spiritual charges, and late-nineteenth-century psychoanalysts and their patients, in search of a vocabulary for acknowledging and nurturing our everyday commitments to others and to our spiritual longings.