What is Christian Mysticism?

for many people the word mysticism doesn't necessarily conjure associations with Christianity mysticism is often more so connected to non-abrahamic Traditions perhaps Hinduism or Buddhism different forms of Western or non-western esotericism or perhaps modern phenomena such as crystals astral projection and the so-called New Age movement but in fact it is within Christianity that the very term mysticism actually emerges and so is kind of the least problematic place to use this phrase uh you know we often talk about how the word mysticism can become an issue it can become problematic in different ways when applying it to uh Traditions like Islam and Judaism for various reasons this is not as true of Christianity since the term basically developed as a way to explain a particular aspect of Christianity throughout history still even within Christianity the word mysticism is often thrown around by different people which creates more confusion than than anything else uh but what actually is Christian mysticism where does this term come from and what is this vast and fasinating tradition that the term is referring [Applause] to mysticism in Christianity is obviously a very big topic to tackle which includes and interacts with some of the most major developments and figures in Christian history from the church fathers and monasticism to the core Theology of the Eastern Orthodox Churches the medieval figures like me eot Hildegard meld of magdor even later Protestant thinkers like yakob buma and all the way until the Contemporary age and its different developments but before we get into all of those particular subjects we need to take a step back first what do we actually mean when we say mysticism and what kind of my mysticism counts as Christian mysticism is a notoriously difficult term to talk about and to Define because everyone seems to have slightly different parameters through which they understand it when used today mysticism is often construed as a kind of overarching category there is such a thing as mystical or mysticism that can be applied to different Traditions or religions there is Christian mysticism Islamic mysticism Jewish mysticism Hindu mysticism Etc and in all this despite religious differences there seems to be something that all these quote unquote mysticisms have in common which makes them precisely that mysticism now I'm not saying that this is actually true only that this is the way that the word is often used and the assumptions that many people have as a result we often point to particular aspects of all these different religions that they have in common as being the mysticism in question but what is this quote unquote mysticism this is where think get a little difficult in his classic work the varieties of religious experience William James defines mysticism as pertaining in particular to experience mysticism is defined as individuals having mystical experiences often involving an encounter with the absolute and an absorption into the absolute but to many today this appears a bit too narrow surely when people talk about mysticism they also refer to specific expressions or ideas expressed in accounts or written texts as well as practices that relate to these experiences and ideas if we accept this idea of mysticism as a legitimate category it seems that what all these supposed mysticisms have in common are ideas about Transcendence that we can transcend our regular human consciousness and encounter the absolute or God that we can indeed somehow even Unite with God this is often the peak experience which mystical practice aims to end uce and mystical theologies or ideas try to theorize about but as always all of these terms can become an issue what do we mean by experience to begin with is this the same as Visions for instance or is it something else furthermore many of the most prominent quote unquote Mystics of the Christian tradition such as M eot often reject mystical experiences as totally useless and what's more what is meant by Union with God we see this concept and term used by many Christian Mystics in history but it can mean very different things depending on who is talking in light of all this the leading scholar of Christian mysticism today Bernard mcin suggests another definition or emphasis for what mysticism entails in the Christian context he says quote thus we can say that the mystical element in Christianity is that part of its belief and practices that concerns the preparation for the consciousness of and the reaction to What can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God here he chooses the term Consciousness rather than experience and rather than talking about Union which seems too narrow given the different ways that it can be understood he chooses the broader term of God's presence as the unifying factor in mysticism which I also feel is a rather Wise Choice so that will be our working definition for this episode which of course opens up to an absolutely enormous topic and subject nonetheless which we can only cover very briefly or or on a on a surface level in such a short episode as this there's also the important fact that mysticism although not necessarily mystical as we'll see is a relatively recent term especially the way it is understood as a kind of category of its own most quote unquote Mystics would never have considered themselves Mystics because that wasn't even a category that could be identified with mcin writes no Mystics at least before the present Century believed in or practiced mysticism they believed in and practiced Christianity or Judaism or Islam or Hinduism that is religions that contained mystical elements as part of a wider historical Hall these elements which involve both beliefs and practices can be more or less important to the wider body of believers they also can be present in various degrees of intensity and development when they reach a level of fully explicit formulation and Paramount importance for certain adherence of the religion I would argue that we can speak of mysticism proper though even then mysticism is inseparable from the larger whole so just like when we talk about the sufis or Sufism as not being distinct from Islam so with Christian mysticism the same is true that it has simply been an aspect of the wider uh theology practice and experience of Christianity in any case if we Define mysticism in the way that that we just have where do we find such ideas in the Christian tradition well basically right from the beginning and arguably even before that as we know Christianity essentially grew out of Judaism and in that earlier religion we already have features that could be deemed mystical many of the stories about the biblical prophets and the revelations from God take on a mystical character such as the famous Chariot vision of Ezekiel or even the character of the some of the Psalms I would argue further the movement known as apocalypticism which emerged from the first few centuries BC featured dramatic mystical visions and Indian works like The Book of Enoch in other words even by the time that Jesus himself is walking around in the Galilee preaching to fellow Jews he's inheriting a tradition full of mystical expression in a way the very figure of Jesus and his mission according to Christianity is somewhat mystical in nature God becomes present to human beings directly through Jesus God God literally walks the Earth as a human being but it is after the death of Jesus that the movement that would come to be known as Christianity develops by subsequent generations of followers and as soon as we have writings by early Christians we find traces of the mysticism which we have talked about Paul's Vision on the road to Damascus can certainly be considered a kind of mystical experience and with some of the earliest Church fathers its Expressions start to show up again this is perhaps most clear and relatively controversial figures like origin and Clement of Alexandria whose philosophizing vision of Christianity included colorful descriptions and ideas about the relationship between God and the world but also in more widely accepted and foundational figures of Christian thought such as Gregory of Nissa and the so-called capid doans here the topic of neoplatonism becomes relevant as it often does many of these early figures of Christianity were obviously highly familiar with and often took inspiration from the philosophical thoughts and ideas of the helenic peoples living around them and at the time the philosophical School of neoplatonism was especially powerful and popular a school you could say founded by the great platinus who taught about the emanating outflow of all things from the so-called the one and the goal of subsequent return from the world of Multiplicity back to Union with this one furthermore another key Heritage from neoplatonism is its apophaticism the idea that the absolute in this case the one or later in later Expressions perhaps God can never be grasped or described in any way it is completely Beyond human understanding or language I have dedicated several episodes to neoplatonism in particular already including one that deals specifically with neoplatonism and its relationship with Christianity so if you want to know about that topic more deeply you should check out that video and because that topic is so important for Christian mysticism there will be some overlap here between this video and that earlier one it is often argued that in many ways it is from neoplatonism and platinus that much of the vocabulary or ways of expressing mysticism actually comes the apophatic theology the idea of emanation and especially the theme of Union with the absolute which we Define here broadly as present um all comes from the neoplatonist to a certain extent and these themes are there in some of the earliest Church fathers in particular there's often talk in these early writings about contemplation or theoria in Greek U so contemplation of God such as for example in the powerful experience described by origin quote for the eyes of the Mind are lifted up from their preoccupation with Earthly things and from their being filled with the impression of material things and they are so exalted that they peer beyond the created order and arrive at the sheer contemplation of God and at conversing with him reverently and suitably as he listens how would things so great fail to profit those eyes that gaze at the glory of the Lord with unveiled face and that are being changed into his likeness from glory to glory for then they partake of some Divine and intelligible Radiance the goal for the early church fathers from these figures mentioned to people like Augustine and others was this sense of intimacy with God this is sometimes expressed through the language of Union with God in the early centuries monasticism and aesthetical practices became more more and more popular especially as Christianity became more accepted in the Roman Empire which meant that people didn't really become Martyrs anymore as a result of this there appeared new ways of being a modder in a symbolic sense by giving up one's body and life entirely for God it is thus with the desert fathers and mothers often said to have originated with Anthony the great that Christian monasticism becomes a prominent thing as well as other forms of aestheticism and pronunciation in the Middle East and Mediterranean region one would live a life of celibacy fast practice self-mortification of different sorts um in the case of the desert fathers they would go out and live alone in the desert and caves in the desert or in cloistered communities focusing entirely on prayer and devotional practice this development is very significant for Christian mysticism with the desert fathers and mothers something was started people who would go out into the Wilderness and live as Hermits dedicating their whole lives to prayers and self modifications of different sorts including of course the harsh climate itself these extreme practices would lead as they often do to intense experiences of a mystical sort and even though this aestheticism eventually became less extreme with the establishment of monasticism proper with its rules and communal living it is in these environments that quote unquote mysticism would really flourish it's worth pointing out that for much of History most of the mystics of Christian Christianity were connected to monasticism in some way and the ultimate achievement that was sought from all these practices and which was intellectually described by some of the great Scholars was precisely this idea of Union with God of being entirely conscious of God's all-encompassing presence the word that came to be used for this state or goal was theosis which literally means becoming Divine or becoming God perhaps this is well encapsulated in a famous saying a uted to both athanasius and Gregory of naanis that quote God became human so that we might become God through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross God opened up the possibility for humans to quote unquote become God or at least to become Divine in some way now this must be understood in a more nuanced way Christianity is a monotheistic religion where the distinction between God and creation is greatly emphasized when these figures talk about the does of uniting with God this isn't meant in the direct sense of the human being becoming a God or deity or that there is ever a complete identity between the two although we do find expressions of this more monistic sort later on in history which we'll see this Union is described in different ways and seems to mean quite different things depending on who is talking like we said but generally it does mean some sort of participation in the Divine Life and a divinizing of the human being and around the year 500 we get one of the most significant written expressions of mysticism in early Christianity with the figure pseudo dionisius or dianus the areopagite who basically coins the term mystical in the sense that we use it in his famous short trus Mystic theologus or the mystical theology dianus lays out this quote unquote mystical theology as one of apophaticism the idea that we cannot make any positive statements about God that is completely Beyond any description or the grasp of human Minds significantly dianus also talks about God or the absolute as a total darkness or nothingness a nothingness that resides in the depths of human consciousness we can know God only through unknowing through stripping away everything we know and everything we are into the complete darkness and nothingness at the core of our being and only there can God be found this is just like Moses who climbs Mount Si to speak with God which dianus reads as a metaphor for Moses actually climbing the mountain of his own soul into increasing unknowing and nothingness until quote then the people stood at a distance while Moses Drew near to the thick Darkness where God was dianus explains quote but then he Moses breaks free of them away from what sees and is seen and he plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of Unknowing here renouncing all that the Mind May conceive wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything here being neither oneself nor someone else one is supremely United to the completely Unknown by an inactivity of all knowledge and knows beyond the Mind by knowing nothing [Music] an important point to be made here is that this isn't just some abstraction or theoretical philosophizing about this darkness of God and and and this apophaticism it's also a kind of practical instruction right this apophaticism this mystical theology is not just about thinking about God in fact it's quite the opposite it's about not thinking it's it's it's a kind of it's a way of of of the soul to to reach god um you know many people today sometimes actually want to make a distinction between mystical theology on the one hand which this would be an example of and mysticism on the other hand but this distinction this distinction is really not very useful especially in this case the late prominent Orthodox scholar kalistos or Timothy we said quote in fact many of those who use the apathetic approach saw it not just as a philosophical device for indicating God's utter Transcendence but also and much more fundamentally as a means of attaining Union with him through prayer all of these early developments would become core aspects of mystical Christianity for the rest of History the ideas of fosis and especially the expressions of someone like dianus became especially prominent in the so-called Eastern Orthodox church but it's also become influential in Catholic and Western Christianity too to many Christians there was a way to reach an intimacy with God to experience God's presence or even to be United to God a way that involved not looking for God externally in the world but internally by purifying the soul and traveling into that apophatic Darkness at our core where paradoxically the light of God can be experienced as one translation of the Gospel of Luke seems to indicate the kingdom of God is within you or in the saying of the aforementioned desert Father Anthony the great who said that quote he who knows himself knows God as we all know over the centuries the church would start to split apart due to uh theological and Authority related um differences uh which kind of reached it its culmination in 1054 with the so-called Great Schism all right when Christianity was divided into the Western Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church and while mysticism has played an important role in both of these across history it's often said that it played a more prominent role in the at least in the mainstream aspect of the Eastern Orthodox Church more so than in the western Catholic Church where things like um scholasticism in the later Middle Ages sort of made mysticism less popular and while there is some truth to this description and this this division it's also a lot more complicated than that in eastern Orthodoxy the dev key practices like hesm a meditative practice often involving the so-called Jesus prayer and certain movements of the body as a way to achieve mystical experiences and the ideas of mystically oriented theologians who defended hiasm such as Gregory palamas became part of the official Orthodox theology the 20th Century theologian Vladimir lki wrote quote the Eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology between personal experience of the Divine mystery and the Dogma affirmed by the church there is therefore no Christian mysticism without theology but above all there is no theology without mysticism in any case while such goals and Ambitions were present from the earliest periods of Christianity and arguably even before that um over the centuries they developed more particular uh practices and ideas um that aim to to induce these kinds of mystical um again using that word but mystical experiences and hesm is just one example of this it is also in this period in the later Middle Ages that we start to see some of the most famous and profound examples of mystical literature being written uh which will become very significantly famous for the rest of History both written in you know Scholastic language but also written in vernacular languages as we said many of these developments particularly in the Middle Ages and in Western Christianity are connected with monasticism and the Monas IC orders many of these are of course still alive and well today such as the benedictines the cians and mendicant orders such as the Dominicans and franciscans just like these Sufi orders in Islam these Christian orders are communities of men and women that take a vow to be initiated often involving living in celibacy for example and following a particular monastic rule associated with that order or spiritual techniques and practices associated with the founding figures of a given community so the franciscans follow the president of Francis of AI and the Dominicans that of St Dominic Etc Francis of AI is indeed one of the most important figures in the history of Christian mysticism who instigated a new kind of mysticism that wasn't completely cut off from the world as earlier Hermits had been but rather living aesthetically in the world and in service of other people which would become the norm for many orders going forward these monastic communities or or orders involved both men and women and indeed women are especially important for the history and development of Christian mysticism in particular some of the most famous and influential Mystics were indeed women whose reputation or writings have cemented them in history some of them were nuns thus part of organized monastic order such as the German figure hilard of bingan probably one of the most fascinating figures of medieval Europe she was a Benedictine and polymath of the 12th century who left a mark in many different fields she founded monasteries herself brought books of Theology and had incredibly intense mystical Visions which he would describe in colorful and breathtaking ways in famous works like the skas but on top of this she was also a composer who wrote religious pieces of music that still survive and is played today she was an artist who painted beautiful pieces to try to visualize some of those Visions she had as well as even inventing a language of her own Hildegard is an absolutely incredible figure and one of the most significant Christian Mystics in history but many of the most famous women were not connected to a monastic order per se but practiced their Christianity in various different ways in particular one of the most significant developments from the 13th century in northern Europe was the emergence of the so-called beins and beards in essence these were lay orders not directly connected to the church the beins who were the female side of it would live together in communities similar to nuns but they didn't take any formal vows and could technically leave and live a regular life any time they wanted this relative Independence also allowed the beins to express their spirituality in unique and very interesting ways from these be communities we get some of the most fascinating Christian Mystics such as me of magdog hadish and maybe margarit poret although the later's actual connection to the begins is somewhat uncertain the writings of these women are important not only for being some of the earliest examples of vernacular mystical writings in Christian Europe but also for the intimate and striking ways that they describe the consciousness of God's presence and Union that they experienced one of the most prominent themes or aspects here and again there are parallels with the episode on Sufism is of course love when you read these Mystics especially those often referred to as effective Mystics you will quick realize how the language of love and longing is one of the key ways that they talk about the relationship with God in the begin writers like mild and hadish this is very apparent and it even takes on outright erotic imagery a lot of the time taking inspiration from courtly love literature they describe their relationship with God as one of lover and beloved God being portrayed as a man whose Embrace they desperately long for and the ultimate wish to reach that ecstatic Union in the bridal chamber which as you can see is sometimes portrayed symbolically as a sexual act just listen to how hadish describes this love quote we see his mouth brought close to us to kiss him who wishes it his arms are outstretched the one who wishes to be embraced May throw oneself into them yes to put it briefly God has inclined himself toward us in time in all we can have and wish to have from him and all we can understand as much as we wish and according to as we wish in order that he may be with us in love and in fruition moreover metil describes in her famous work the flowing light of the godhead a deeply erotic description of the mystical Union quote the Bride of all Delights goes to the fairest of lovers in the secret Chamber Of The Invisible godhead there she finds the bed and the Abode of Love prepared by God in a manner beyond what is human our Lord speaks stay Lady Soul what do you bid me Lord take off off your clothes Lady Soul you are so utterly fored to my nature that not the slightest thing can be between you and me then a blessed Stillness that both desire comes over them he surrenders himself to her and she surrenders himself to him what happens to her then she knows and that is fine with me love is the primary drive that leads you to God and His presence and here Hide some profound and significant metaphysical and epistemological corner stones of Christian mysticism and in many ways mysticism in general while Mystics don't necessarily neglect reason and philosophy per se inherent in mysticism is often a clear demarcation of the limits of human reason we can know certain things about the created world through reason sure but when it comes to God things are different we might be able to reason that God exists and that he is transcendent Etc But ultimately God is so Transcendent in fact that human reason is entirely incapable of knowing him fully in other words mysticism will often present alternate ways of knowing that has to take over once we cross over that boundary Beyond which reason can never Venture this is that other kind of knowledge or Insight that isn't reached by reason but by other mystical means we saw a similar Concept in Sufism with the idea of mif and v as a kind of mystical unveiling or tasting as opposed to reasoned conceptual knowledge and we find very similar ideas in the Christian Mystics as well indeed just like the sufis Christian Mystics will use the term and concept of love as a signifier for this Metar rational knowledge it is only through love that we can truly reach and know God and in the be Mystics this takes on pretty radical expressions the love that is felt for God is painful the longing throws the person into Despair and it is in them that loving suffering that the goal is reached mirroring the suffering of Jesus on the cross the mystics suffer for their love of God as that love becomes so strong that it completely annihilates the self of the person and then only God is left they have in other words reached that Union the UN mystica that we have talked about me kind of Echoes M ehart when she says quote no one is able or is permitted to receive this greeting unless one has gone beyond one self and has become nothing in this greeting I want to die living and hardik speaks very plainly as she exclaims quote I remained in passing away in my beloved so that I wholly melted away in him and nothing any longer remain to me of myself this theme of love as the impulse that leads to God and its relationship to reason becomes especially apparent in the writings of the French Mystic margarit poret in her master Masterpiece the mirror of simple Souls she essentially presents a metaphorical dialogue between different characters the soul which is probably herself love and reason this Dynamic is at the core of the book love is clearly the source of ultimate wisdom to margarit and represents her own views and teachings it isn't philosophical rational arguments but ineffable mystical knowledge that is conveyed by love in this book but margarit pet was fully aware that what she was teaching through this character of Love would be controversial this is why the character of reason is so important reason will always jump in and criticize or question the statements made by love obviously representing not only reason and its limitations in understanding the realities of mystical love but also the critics and Scholastics of the church at the time and the conclusions that love and thus margarit comes to in the book are quite radical just like her German contemporaries she essentially claims that the soul can become fully annihilated in God so that nothing of the individual remains in particular this is expressed through the will the individual will disappears so that her will is the will of God Only God and His will remain and the two are one in that sense quote reason says are you saying that the soul has no will at all love replies truly no for everything that she Wills by her con desent is that which God Wills that she would will and this she Wills so that the will of God may be accomplished not at all her own will and she cannot will this of herself but it is the will of God that wills it in her and so it is clear that this Soul has no will at all that she has to will the conclusions of these ideas became very controversial and actually led to margarit being burned at the stake in Paris in 1310 but the mirror of simple Souls continued to be influential and popular often under false authorship later on in history and might have influenced thinkers like my ekot so clearly these women and their writings are very significant for the history of mysticism but there were also of course men who had a similar Outlook even expressing themselves in a similar language of love and Union One such figure is the fascinating 12th century figure Bernard of clairo who among other things wrote a famous commentary on the Song of Solomon as the biblical book that exemplifies the Divine relationship of love as well as being an important monastic reformer and even being involved in the very founding of the night's Templar Bernard also talks about the Mystic path as essentially one of love we purify all our worldly desires and passions so that only love of God remains until we become so enveloped in this love that we become identified with love itself and Achieve that highest State of Union Bernard is careful to point out that this high highest state is temporary and will only be fully realized in the afterlife he also seems to mean that it is simply the will that becomes United the individual will becomes the will of God just like Margaret put it and not that there is an annihilation of the entire self in God as we seem to find more clearly in writers like hadish or Mech this is actually a good example to show that problem that we raised in the beginning that this idea of quote unquote Union can mean very different things and thus become a less use ful term about a century before Bernard the Eastern Church also saw one of its most influential and Visionary Mystics in Simeon the new Theologian as we mentioned the Eastern Church has often emphasized the Greek term theosis or divinization as the mystical goal and this divinization or Union is experienced and expressed by Simeon through his many intense visions of Light by turning inward in spiritual contemplation just like pseudo dius and others had had pointed to earlier he would have direct experiences of God's light in mystical Union quote at once I perceived a Divine warmth then a small Radiance that Shone forth then a Divine breath from his words then a fire kindled in my heart which caused constant streams of tears to flow after that a fine beam went through my mind more quickly than lightning this is what a lot of simeon's Visions looked like an experience of an Allen compassing immaterial light that envelops the person to where nothing else is seen or experienced Jesus is the light of the world the same light of God that was seen by the disciples on Mount Tabor that light at least potentially is present within each and every one of us and can be reached by contemplating ourselves and to use the paradoxical language of dianus diving into the darkness and nothingness where that light can be found quote if he is light therefore but we say that those who are clothed with him do not perceive him in what respect do we differ from a corpse if he is the vine and we are the branches unless we clearly show our Union with him we are soulless wood fruitless and withered matter which is fit for the unquenchable fire clearly as we can see these Mystics reach these experiences through rigorous practice and ways of living and while the Western Catholic Church developed its many monastic orders this was not really the case in the east the Eastern Orthodox church does not have such orders although monasticism itself is still very prominent although there have been monasteries and communities that have been very significant throughout history such as um St Catherine Monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt which has stood for a very long time since Antiquity and uh Mount AOS in Greece for example which is basically an island entirely made up of monasteries and monks and where a lot of very important developments took place um particularly when it comes to Eastern or Orthodox mysticism especially that tradition known as hzm which we have mentioned before the word hzm comes from the Greek term hesia which means something like inner Stillness or meanings related to things like Solitude and like we said these were practices or techniques of prayer that we can broadly call meditative repetitive recitals of the Jesus prayer for long periods accompanied by certain postures and movements of the head and body as already said the purpose of these contemplative practices was to turn inward to purify the soul of all external things and to make that journey into the apophatic darkness beyond all understanding where again paradoxically the light of God is experienced God is not reached out there in the external world but rather by turning to the inmost part of our own being after all as the account in Genesis says all human beings were created in the image of God this means that we all collectively have a Divine part of ourselves which is accessible Timothy we wrote quote each of us is a living Theology and because we are God's icon we can find God by looking within our own heart by returning within ourselves the hezek practitioners claimed to reach theosis and Union with God where they would experience or see the light or even essence of God this became quite controversial in the 14th century with the so-called Hast controversy which again I have covered in a previous episode but in the western church there were of course other similar developments for example we see in the 14th century the composition of the fascinating mystical work called The Cloud of Unknowing whose author is fittingly unknown but would become very influential the book is essentially a how-to manual for mystical practice and experience talking about how the Mystic focuses on specific phrases es or words until one reaches the kind of Stillness or silence inside to the so-called cloud of forgetting where we forget all about the outside world in our body and eventually when we go even further we reach the titular Cloud of Unknowing beyond all Concepts and ideas which of course is connected to the apophatic tradition associated with dianus and others in The Cloud of Unknowing we find many similarities with the Hast tradition in the East but of course with its own unique ways of looking at things and with its own language and particularities we have here so far talked about experiences visions and epistemologies so how one can know God and reach this Union with God and how these experiences have been expressed poetically and metaphorically but there's also often talk about the idea or or concept of a kind of mystical philosophy um in other words that there is a kind of metaphysical Outlook that is inherently mystical and that both on an anthological and and cosmological level explains all these phenomena how is it that the light of God is experienced by the Hast what is the nature of the so-called Union with God what indeed is the relationship between God and creation at all many had accused Mystics in Hast of being pantheists of saying that God and creation are identical but was this true we already saw a kind of philosophy like this with the pseudo dius and his influence who himself named it a so-called mystical theology but such metaphysical speculation and systematizations became more pronounced and clear in the Middle Ages partly in response to or as a part of the wider movement of scholasticism that dominated much of the church and the newly founded so-called universities and for this development there are few figures as interesting and famous in the Catholic West as the German Mystic philosopher and theolog olian Meister ekot a Dominican frier who taught at the University of Paris and had a rather High standing in the church eot became famous for his daring mystical ideas and his amazing and engaging sermons in the vernacular language of Middle High German at the core of Art's philosophy is a conception of God as the grun or ground the grun is God in his utmost Essence Beyond even the persons of the trinity in this we find Echoes of the iCal Theology of pseudo dianus especially as eart describes the ground as nothingness or n in German God in his ground is beyond thingness he is nothing or literally no thing it's a total Abyss or ABG grun in German of no thingness even more significantly what eart proposes as the core of his mystical vision is the idea that there is only one ground in other words the ground of the Soul at its deepest levels and the ground of God God is one and the same ground without distinction quote it is not because either the soul is grounded in its essential reality or God in his but because they are both grounded in the same ground in a fused identity that eart and his followers found the language of the ground so rich in meaning our ultimate ground is God's ground in other words as is the ground of all of reality eart proposes that ultimately God is the only thing that is e it says quote here God's ground is my ground and my ground is God's ground indeed one of the most recurring themes in eart is that he identifies the essence of God with being itself or more precisely indistinct being meaning that he doesn't have being in the sense that a creature or any thing has being or existence he is pure being or existence itself indistinctly and because God is the sole possessor of this attribute this means that when it comes to created things they are absolutely nothing in themselves any being or existence that you or I have is really God's being and that's identical to God himself at least in so far as it is being there is a certain distinction between created things who are truly nothing and God who is being itself but this also has the implication that God is all there is and thus presents what we could call a certain kind of non dualism eard says in a sermon that quote if my life is God's being then God's existence must be my existence and God's isness is my isness neither less nor more the world is both God and not God both complete nothingness and at the same time fundamentally participates in the absolute indistinct being of God as the ground of reality and he expresses this perhaps most profoundly in one of his most famous lines in which he says quote the eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me on a theological level eart builds his system in really interesting ways to put into words the paradoxical statements about the ground and the world that we find in his sermons and this system of his is decidedly neoplatonic in nature with the focus on uzgun and ingun going out and going back in other words everything is always flowing out from the ground and returning back to it he describes God as being in a process of bito a kind of inner boiling which creates the and which then eventually boils over eulito to create the rest of the world and it is in the ingun or return that we find the keys to the mystical path that he proposes just like so many of his fellow Mystics eart emphasizes that we are to penetrate back into God to detach from the world of particularities and individualism and return back to our source eventually the further we reach on this journey even God himself unbe becomes as quote the Mystic is not content to return to the God who acts but affects a breaking through to the silent unmoving godhead if we can completely detach from the created world and return inward to our inmost ground where there is no distinction between my ground and God's ground that is how Union is achieved quote you should completely sink away from your Unice and flow into his his and your you and his his shall become one hour so totally that with him you eternally comprehend his Unbecoming isness and his unnamed nothingness this is a cutting off of all attachments to the world including the ego self and its Works in a sense it is to annihilate ourselves until there is nothing at all remaining to echart Detachment means to empty ourselves of creative things and return to the silent desert of the Soul which is endless and it's only in this absolute abyss and emptiness of the soul that God God shows himself you must know that to be empty of all created things is to be full of God and to be full of created things is to be empty of God when one is detached completely from the created world when we have become nothing and realize the unity of the ground quote Art's mystical way will be an invitation to the soul to give up the nothingness of its created self in order to become the Divine nothing that is also all things it's interesting to point out here that eart really wasn't interested in experiences or visions at all this is a good example to show that this idea of defining mysticism as being essentially uh concerned with these things with experiences of God or Union with God and these things uh because ekart you know few people would deny the fact that eart was a Mystic I'm sure most of us would um to some degree at least call eart a Mystic but he was actually quite critical of mystical experiences seeing them as essentially useless in a way that's maybe some hyper herbally but he definitely was critical of experiences U and did not see this kind of experience as being the goal of of the mystical path of Detachment in any stretch of the imagination this was not what eart was after even though you know experiences maybe could give you a glimpse into to the reality of God and the ground uh it was not the goal of the path whatsoever what eart sees as the full achievement of the Mystic is not some Vision or grand experience as such but quote new ways of knowing and loving based on states of awareness in which God becomes present in our inner acts Master eot is one of the most profound mystical thinkers in history but he was also quite controversial some of his statements even being considered heretical but regardless he would have a lasting influence on later thinkers in the Christian West from his more immediate admirers and and students like Henry suso and Johannes Toler to later figures like Nicholas of kuuza and even remaining an influence to many in the modern world in the Eastern Orthodox Church a contemporary and similarly systemizing figure is of course the great Gregory palamas he was a monk at the famous monastery at Mount AOS who became a deciding factor in the aforementioned hessy cast controversy for some context some Scholars had raised concerns over the Hast form of prayer particularly the claim by its practitioners that they would uh witness God or the light of God um to experience God in some way at the heights of their Unity visions God himself can never be witnessed they argued and many of the statements made by the Hast about unity and God's presence seem to be dangerously close to pantheism this is where Gregory palamas comes in as the greatest defender of hesm and its mysticism in treatises like the Triads for the defense of those who practice sacred quietude known usually as the Triads he formulated a distinction between God's Essence on the one hand and his energies on the other being being a good apophatic Christian Theologian he totally and unequivocally considers the essence of God in other words God in his true absolute reality as totally beyond all comprehension or experience quote God is not a nature for he is above all nature he is not a being for he is above all beings no single thing of all that is created has or ever will have even the slightest communion with the Supreme nature or nearness to it however when it comes to God's energies the situation is different the energies of God are the relationship of God to the created World they are the ways that God you could say manifest himself in creation and through experience now this is a very complex theological doctrine of course that requires a lot of study to fully grasp but God's energies are not created things they are uncreated and are in some way fully God himself but in the way that he communicates himself to humans and to the world generally it is these energies of God that are perceived quote to say that the divine nature is communicable not in itself but through its energy is to remain within the bounds of right devotion God in his Essence is completely beyond all creation he transcends it completely and cannot be experienced or conceived of but in his energies God is present everywhere his energy pering all of the created World quote all creation is a gigantic burn Bush permeated but not consumed by the ineffable and wondrous fire of God's energies unlike eart who was controversial in the Catholic Church the doctrines of palamas basically became an official part of Orthodox Doctrine in the East and remain so until today he is thus one of the most significant theologians and Mystics in Christian history needless to say from The 14th Century forward mysticism continue to develop and appear in different places and guises there are so many figures that there just isn't enough time to go through properly in an episode like this from John of the Cross and his famous Dark Night of the Soul Tera of Avila and her important role in The Counter Reformation in Spain uh the English Mystic Julian of Norwich and her ecstatic descriptions of unity with God uh there is Nicholas of kuuza who expresses a unique yet kind of echaran neoplatonism in works like unlearned ignorance and where he drops bombs like quotes oh Lord when you look upon me with an eye of graciousness what is your seeing other than your being seen by me in seeing me you who are deos abicus the hidden God give yourself to be seen by me no one can see you except in so far as you grant that you be seen to see you is not other than that you see the one who sees you kuza talks about God as the not other which leads him to give us gems of literary Clarity such as quote not other is not other nor is it other than any other nor is it an other in another for no other reason than that it is not other which can in no way be other as if something were lacking to it as to an other for an other which is other than something lacks that than which it is other but not other because it is not other than anything does not lack anything nor can anything be outside it anyway like I said there are so many gems of mysticism in both the Catholic and and Orthodox churches that are so fasting and important for the history of the topic that we're discussing and which we can maybe hopefully focus on more individually in dedicated later episodes but another topic that of course should be brought up when we talk about the history of Christianity and the history of of mysticism Christianity is of course the Protestant Reformation what did this development mean for Christian mysticism in general many will say that there is no such thing as Protestant mysticism that the Reformation of people like Martin Luther completely did away with this aspect of Catholicism but this is of course a bit of an overe exaggeration to be sure mysticism was significantly altered and changed as a result of the Reformation but to say that it completely disappeared that or that there is no mysticism at all in protestantism is not very true in fact mystical writers influenced the early reformist themselves in some ways Martin Luther read The Works of Johannes Toler for instance although he would significantly disagree with many of his ideas but what happens with the Protestant Reformation is an abolishment of many features of Catholicism as it had stood for centuries before that point the Protestants for instance abolished monasticism in a general sense in other words no more monks and nuns and as we've seen it was in these monastic environments that mysticism really had their Center points for most of History Luther's focus on faith as the only salvific factor for humans rendered all aesthetic practices and even so-called experiences kind of useless in a sense but we shouldn't take this too far either remember how we Define mysticism the preparation for consciousness of and the response to the presence of God certainly within protestantism we find several figures who have claimed to experience the presence of God in some way just look at Pentecostalism and its emphasis on the Holy Spirit entering the person and phenomena like speaking in tongues all of this could certainly be defined as a kind of mysticism especially with our working definition today what did change significantly with protestantism and of of course mysticism had to change in the face of such significant theological and organizational differences was their attitude to the central concept of Union With God all these claims that Mystics throughout the centuries had made about being united with God or the Dian and echaran claims that God is somehow present in the depths of the human self and can be discovered there these are the things that were rejected by the reformers completely this is interesting because this means that if we Define mysticism simply as the relationship to Union with God as many often do then protestantism certainly seems rather anti- mystical but as we know things are more complicated than that the history of protestant Christianity is full of all kinds of Mystics from imanos deori to yakob BMA and even certain aspects of the Quaker movements and other modern denominations as we saw can certainly have Tendencies and aspects that are mystical in nature the situation today is quite complex the topic of Christian mysticism has become a topic of interest and inspiration for people in Europe and and America as an alternative to what is perceived as a more dry form of Christianity that many experience growing up at the same time it has never stopped being being a prominent feature of the religion there are still monasteries that function in Europe and the Eastern Orthodox church has always upheld a strong connection to mysticism and its Theology and practice as we can see it isn't something to be only associated with new age movements and modern popular religion but has been a core aspect of Christian Orthodoxy for much of History a serious and often painful way of somehow reaching intimacy with God or being conscious of his presence however that presence is interpreted in a theological sense from Gregory of Nissa and pseudo dianus to eart and the beins margarit pet and John of the cross the Christian Mystics continue to be a source of Fascination and inspiration to both practitioners academics and regular people alike and they can just like their peers from other religious Traditions show just how varied and colorful religions can actually be as always I want to thank all my patrons over on patreon for keeping this channel alive none of this would be possible without you um I would of course highly appreciate if anyone else wanted to become a patron too so I will leave links to that in the description um and you can check it out if you want to uh but of course also thank you everyone to uh or for just watching the the videos for subscribing for for liking and engaging in the comment section um I really appreciate all of you and I am as I I always say I'm I'm honored to be able to do this work uh so thank you all so so much I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 371,224

Keywords: what is christian mysticism, christian mysticism, mysticism, christianity, spirituality, spiritual christianity, neoplatonism, mystical, meister eckhart, beguines, dionysius, hadewijch, mechtild of magdeburg, gregory palamas, hesychasm, orthodox church, protestant mysticism, let's talk religion, filip holm, augustine, origen, christianity documentary, religion, history of religion, mysticism documentary, mysticism explained

Id: r4LoXCl7drQ

Length: 55min 42sec (3342 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 05 2023