Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Table of Contents
Professor Biography ....................................................................................i
0] Course Scope 1
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Judaism1]
Lecture One A Way into the Mystic Ways of the West 4
Lecture Two Family Resemblances and Differences 9
Lecture Three The Biblical Roots of Western Mysticism 14
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Judaism2]
Lecture Four Mysticism in Early Judaism 18
Lecture Five Merkabah Mysticism 22
Lecture Six The Hasidim of Medieval Germany 26
Lecture Seven The Beginnings of Kabbalah 30
Lecture Eight Mature Kabbalah—Zohar 34
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Judaism3]
Lecture Nine Isaac Luria and Safed Spirituality 38
Lecture Ten Sabbatai Zevi and Messianic Mysticism 42
Lecture Eleven The Ba’al Shem Tov and the New Hasidism 46
Lecture Twelve Mysticism in Contemporary Judaism 50
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Christian4]
Lecture Thirteen Mystical Elements in the New Testament 54
Lecture Fourteen Gnostic Christianity 58
Lecture Fifteen The Spirituality of the Desert 62
Lecture Sixteen Shaping Christian Mysticism in the East 66
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Christian5]
Lecture Seventeen Eastern Monks and the Hesychastic Tradition 70
Lecture Eighteen The Mysticism of Western Monasticism 74
Lecture Nineteen Medieval Female Mystics 78
Lecture Twenty Mendicants as Mystics 82
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Christian6]
Lecture Twenty-One English Mystics of the 14th Century 86
Lecture Twenty-Two 15th- and 16th- Century Spanish Mystics 89
Lecture Twenty-Three Mysticism among Protestant Reformers 93
Lecture Twenty-Four Mystical Expressions in Protestantism 96
Lecture Twenty-Five 20th-Century Mystics 100
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Islam7]
Lecture Twenty-Six Muhammad the Prophet as Mystic................. 104
Lecture Twenty-Seven The House of Islam........................................ 108
Lecture Twenty-Eight The Mystical Sect—Shi’a.............................. 112
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Islam8]
Lecture Twenty-Nine The Appearance of Sufism............................. 116
Lecture Thirty Early Sufi Masters.......................................... 120
Lecture Thirty-One The Limits of Mysticism—Al-Ghazzali ........ 123
Lecture Thirty-Two Two Masters, Two Streams............................ 127
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Islam9]
Lecture Thirty-Three Sufism in 12th–14th Century North Africa...... 131
Lecture Thirty-Four Sufi Saints of Persia and India....................... 134
Lecture Thirty-Five The Continuing Sufi Tradition....................... 137
Lecture Thirty-Six Mysticism in the West Today ........................ 141
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Timeline ................................................................................................... 145
Glossary ................................................................................................... 154
Bibliography............................................................................................ 163
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Lecture Seventeen
Eastern Monks and the Hesychastic Tradition
Scope: Although scarcely immune from
controversy (the iconoclastic
debate) or change (the
collapse of the Byzantine Empire), the mystical tradition of Orthodoxy has
remained as constant as the other elements in this most traditional form of
Christianity. After a brief look at Pseudo-Dionysius, whose fusion of Greek and
Christian thought
influenced both Eastern and Western
Christianity, this lecture
highlights five writers in the Hesychastic tradition. Maximus the Confessor
gave the stamp of proper Christological understanding to the contemplative
tradition, and his contemporary, John Climacus, offered a powerful vision of
the ascent to God. Gregory Palamas, in his Triads,
provided the definitive defense of Hesychasm. The Handbook of Spiritual Counsel of Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and
The Pilgrim’s Tale from 19th-century
Russia show the continuing vibrancy of the tradition.
Outline
I.
This lecture offers a quick
glimpse of some moments in the mysticism of Eastern monks and the Hesychastic
tradition, beginning with a number of factors that affected the development of
mysticism into Hesychasm in the Christian East.
A.
The great centers of monastic
life, such as those at Mount Sinai and Mount Athos, practiced a semi-eremitical
form of Monasticism devoted primarily to prayer and exercised both political
and theological influence.
B.
Eastern theology drew on
the monastic experience of prayer, as well as on the theological tradition of theosis, a conviction concerning human
transformation based on the incarnation
(2 Pet. 1:4).
C.
The political reality of
Caesaropapism meant that emperors were involved in theological controversies,
such as the dispute concerning Monothelitism, the question of whether Jesus had
a human will.
D.
The rise of Islam, a
tradition that is profoundly iconoclastic, influenced the Eastern Orthodox
tradition.
1.
Emperor Leo III sparked the
Iconoclastic Controversy when he ordered the destruction of religious images in
the monasteries; monks rose en masse in revolt against this decree.
2.
John of Damascus became a
hero because of his theological defense of the making and use of icons in
prayer.
II.
The writings of the 5th-
or 6th-century author known as PseudoDionysius had significant
influence on the theology of both the East and West because they provided a
conceptual framework for theology and mystical experience.
A.
His works, Mystical Theology, Divine Names, Celestial
Hierarchy, and Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy, had great authority because they were thought to come from a 1st-century
Christian.
1.
Again, we have an example
of writing to which great authority was ascribed because it was thought to be
ancient, although it was not.
2.
We don’t know who the
actual author was, but we know that he was one of the great theologians in the
Christian tradition.
B.
Pseudo-Dionysius possessed
a sophisticated grasp of theological language that enabled a criticism of the
anthropomorphism that is inherent in all propositions concerning the
divine.
1.
The names of God are
metaphors or symbols that point to characteristics or powers but are not to be
taken literally.
2.
Denial or negation of the
qualities of God (apophasis) is just as important as positive statements made
about him (kataphasis,
“affirmation”).
3.
The “ultimate radiance” of
God is a “dark cloud” to the human mind, which cannot grasp the infinite.
C.
In a manner similar to the
Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus (205–270), particularly his Letter 8, Dionysius constructed a view
of reality as a great chain of being, extending downward from the divine and
present in all existence.
1.
For humans, the God-man,
Jesus, represents the full offer of the divine to creation.
2.
The supreme gift of Christ
is theosis, the divinization of human
nature that prepares for a return to God’s glory.
3.
Everything that is—above
all, the mysteries of the church— point beyond themselves to God.
III. Two monks of the 7th century were of great importance for
shaping the mystical tradition that endured through the history of Orthodox
Christianity.
A.
Maximus the Confessor (c.
580–662) combined profound mystical insight with a steady commitment to correct
doctrine concerning Christ.
1.
He was a prominent figure
in Constantinople who left the city to become a monk; in the monothelite
controversy, he was arrested, tried, exiled, and maimed for maintaining the
full humanity of Jesus, that is, that Christ had a human will.
2.
His spiritual writings, the
Four Hundred Chapters on Love, Commentary on the Our Father, and Two Hundred Chapters on Knowledge,
combine theological rigor and deep piety.
B.
John Climacus (c. 579–c.
649) was abbot of the great monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. His name
derives from the title of his writing The
Ladder of Divine Ascent (klimakos means
“ascent”), arguably the most read composition among Orthodox monks.
1.
Discipleship is imaged as a
process of ascent of 30 steps taken by humans; the first 26 steps are standard
desert asceticism: discipline of the body and control of the emotions and the
passions.
2.
The final 4 steps introduce
the characteristic stillness or quiet (hesychia)
that gives the tradition its name; the highest form of prayer is stillness.
IV.
Gregory Palamas (1296–1359)
provides the most extensive argument for Hesychasm in his defense of monastic
spirituality, in his Triads.
A.
He argues against the
philosopher Barlaam the Calabrian that mystical knowledge should be the basis
of theology.
1.
It is not rational argument
that leads to truth but the direct experience of God.
2.
Such experience is possible
because of the incarnation, which has made theosis
possible.
B.
Gregory elaborates more
fully what is involved in Hesychastic prayer, particularly the role played by
the body and the control of breathing.
V.
Hesychastic prayer
continues to flourish within the Orthodox tradition as the main form of
mysticism.
A.
Nicodemus of the Holy
Mountain (1749–1809) published the five volumes of the Philokalia, a compendium of ascetical and mystical teaching from
the fathers of the Greek tradition, and in his Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, shows the vibrancy of the practice.
B.
The “Jesus Prayer” became
widely known through a disarmingly simple Russian composition from the 19th
century called The Pilgrim’s Tale.
1.
Over the course of time, a
monk learns to align the “Jesus Prayer” with his very breathing, so that the
prayer becomes automatic.
2.
The effect of this
discipline of Hesychasm is to make it possible to always have the name of Jesus
on one’s lips and to fulfill the instruction of the apostle: “Pray without
ceasing.”
Recommended Reading:
Pentovsky, A. ed. The Pilgrim’s Tale.
Questions to Consider:
1.
How does the practice of
Hesychasm make sense within the context of Monasticism?
2.
Consider (as aids to
mystical experience) the similarities and dissimilarities in the “Jesus Prayer”
of Hesychasm and the “loosening of the knots” practiced by Rabbi Abraham
Abulafia.
Lecture
Eighteen The Mysticism of Western Monasticism
Scope: Benedict of Nursia admired and
drew from the wisdom of The Desert
Fathers and Cassian, but in his Rule
for Monks (c. 540), he established a form of Monasticism that emphasized
the common life (Cenobitism). The framework of work and prayer legislated by
Benedict provided a remarkably stable context for a contemplative life grounded
in the asceticism of simple life together. Gregory the Great championed
Benedictine life, and his Moralia on Job
was a standard text for monks. Benedictine (and Cistercian) spirituality was
grounded in the meditative reading of Scripture. Three superb examples are the Sermons on the Song of Songs by Bernard
of Clairvaux, the Exposition on the
Epistle to the Romans by William of St. Thierry, and Richard of St.
Victor’s Twelve Patriarchs and The Mystical Ark.
Outline
I.
In contrast to the
continuity that characterized the mysticism of the Christian East, that in the
West was marked by a variety that owed something to greater social change.
A.
Politically, the collapse
of the Roman order made the position of the bishop of Rome more central, but
the papacy itself tended to be disputed and divided.
B.
Culturally, the Dark Ages
represented the effort to encompass and “civilize”—even at the level of
agricultural technology—tribal peoples; the Greek and Roman city survived only
vestigially.
C.
Intellectually, there was a
narrowing: Ancient Greek learning was largely lost or transmitted only
selectively through Latin ecclesiastical teachers, such as Rufinus, Augustine,
and Jerome; contact with ancient and contemporary Greek literature of the East
was minimal and often misunderstood.
D.
Benedictine Monasticism and
its subsequent reform manifestations were supremely important for social order,
culture, and forms of mysticism.
II.
Benedict of Nursia (c.
480–c. 550) wrote a simple Rule for Monks
that provided a sane framework for human life and a context for contemplative
prayer.
A.
Benedict owed much to the
desert fathers and to John Cassian but focused on providing a stable structure
for the “common life”
(Cenobitism) as a “school
for the Lord’s service.”
1.
The Rule strikes a balance between “work and prayer” (ora et labora), regarding both as
sacred.
2.
Benedict avoided harsh
asceticism; his view was that life in common is itself the greatest form of
asceticism.
3.
Prayer is centered in the
public “work of God” (opus dei), the
daily round of Psalms and prayers recited in common.
4.
Contemplation is not made a
value in itself but emerges from the ruminative reading of Scripture.
B.
Gregory the Great (c.
540–604; Pope Gregory I, 590–604) played an important role in shaping the
monastic piety of the West.
1.
Although a dynamic and
powerful leader, he was also committed to the monastic life, calling himself a
“servant of the servants of God.”
2.
He wrote an admiring life
of Benedict (in his second Dialogue)
and supported the foundation of Benedictine houses.
3.
His Moralia on Job in 35 books became standard monastic reading and
popularized the reading of Scripture at three levels: literal, allegorical, and
moral.
III. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was a Cistercian abbot whose public
activities were wide-ranging and whose mystical teaching was influential.
A.
Bernard’s career serves to
rebut the idea that mystics cannot be effective participants in public life.
1.
He was a key figure in the
spread of the Cistercian reform and governed as abbot of Clairvaux.
2.
He was an active sponsor of
the Second Crusade (1147–1149) against the “infidel” Muslims and helped found
the Order of Knights Templar (1129).
3.
He viciously opposed Peter
Abelard (1079–1142) and the development of Scholastic theology in the
universities.
4.
He intervened in a disputed
papal contest that created a schism in the church (1130–1138).
B.
The 86 sermons he preached
to his own monks on the Song of Songs perfectly exemplify the emerging
mysticism of Western Monasticism.
1.
Bernard was himself a
mystic who experienced the warming love of God in his life (Sermon 74).
2.
His sermons uncover layer
after layer of the meaning of divine love as it is communicated allegorically
through the ancient erotic poem in Scripture.
IV.
Two other monastic writers
show how the powerful reading of Scripture opened up deeper meanings of the text.
A.
William of St. Thierry
(1085–1148) was raised in a Benedictine house, sought to join Bernard at
Clairvaux, served as abbey at St. Thierry, then spent the rest of his life in
prayer and study at the Cistercian abbey of Signy.
1.
With Bernard, he opposed
Peter Abelard and wrote the first part of a life of Bernard.
2.
His Exposition on the Epistle to the Romans provides a splendid example
of how scriptural interpretation flows into contemplative prayer.
B.
Richard of St. Victor (d.
1173) may have known Bernard but was more open to the pedagogical approaches of
Peter Abelard.
1.
He is genuinely a student
of mysticism in the highly intellectual way he dissects the psychology and
epistemology of contemplative prayer.
2.
In The Twelve Patriarchs (Benjamin
Minor), he focuses on the path toward contemplation, with an emphasis on
the virtuous life.
3.
The Mystical Ark (Benjamin Major)
uses Moses’s Ark of the Covenant as the basis for an analysis of contemplative
prayer and mystical experience.
4.
With Richard of St. Victor,
we find, in the Western tradition, as we have seen in Judaism and as we will
see in Sufism, an emphasis on both the ontological union with God and the
constraints and capacities of the human mind with regard to this union with
God.
Recommended Reading:
McGinn, B. The Presence of God: A History of Western
Christian Mysticism.
Questions to Consider:
1.
How does the cenobitical
form of Western Monasticism serve to cultivate a certain form of spiritual
life?
2.
Consider what is common in
the scriptural interpretations of Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux,
William of St. Thierry, and Richard of St. Victor.
Lecture Nineteen
Medieval Female Mystics
Scope: The contemplative life flourished
as much among women as among men in the medieval period, perhaps even more so.
Female mystics can be found in at least three contexts. The first is in
specifically monastic houses belonging to established orders, such as the
Benedictines or Dominicans; the second is in lay orders, such as the Beguines;
and the third is in the role of anchorite. This lecture gives examples of all
three settings. Hildegard of Bingen, Birgitta of Sweden, and Catherine of
Sienna all lived and wrote in contemplative houses, though this choice did not
prevent active participation in ecclesial affairs. Mechtilde of Magdeburg and
Hadewijch wrote from within the Beguines. Finally, the 13thcentury Ancrene Wisse was written for female
anchorites.
Outline
I.
The emergence—even the
prominence—of female mystics in medieval Christianity is striking, especially
in comparison with Judaism and Islam.
A.
Some antecedents can be
found for powerful women in Scripture and earlier Christian tradition.
1.
In the Old Testament,
female prophets and heroines, such as Huldah and Judith, took active roles in
saving the people of Israel.
2.
In the New Testament, women
prophesied (1 Cor. 11) and worked “in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7). The conditions of
virginity and widowhood liberated women for service.
3.
Such women as Perpetua,
Felicity, and the desert mothers served as precedents for female mystics.
B.
The social conditions of
medieval Europe also made the contemplative life—and the celibate
life—attractive to women.
1.
Even among noble families,
women married young (around age 13) and bore many children; virginity was a
desirable option when married life was short and hard.
2.
The religious life was
virtually the only means of education available to women and the only source for
meaningful work outside the realm of domesticity.
3.
No official role was
allowed for women in the hierarchy of the church, but prophetic visions were a
medium for women to exert teaching authority.
4.
The role of males could be
supportive (confessors and spiritual directors) or suppressive.
C.
Female mystics can be found
in three social settings, which are, in some ways, interconnected.
1.
Monastic (e.g.,
Benedictine) and mendicant (e.g., Dominican) orders lived by canonical rules
and had female houses. They also had third orders for laypeople who were more
loosely associated with the religious life.
2.
In northern Europe, during
the 12th and 13th centuries, the Beghards and the
Beguines lived communally in local houses and practiced religious vows and good
works. These relatively independent movements tended to make the church
hierarchy nervous.
3.
Anchorites and anchoresses
(from Greek anachorein means “to
withdraw”) lived as hermits in local churches under the supervision of pastors.
II.
Three women visionaries of
various styles and from different parts of Europe give us a glimpse of an even
greater diversity.
A.
Hildegard of Bingen
(1098–1179) came from a noble family, was dedicated to the Lord at age eight,
and became a Benedictine abbess whose work in several fields was notable.
1.
In addition to her mystical
writings, she wrote music (the Symphonia),
drama (Ordo Virtutum), and works on
plants and medicine. Her experience of pain and visions has been correlated to
a form of migraine.
2.
Hildegard’s mystical works
in Latin (Scivias, Book of Life’s Merits, Book of Divine Works) include highly
detailed visions accompanied by drawings, the meaning of which she explicates.
3.
The Scivias contains 26 visions, beginning with creation and extending
to the end of time. In this work, Hildegard also sets forth an argument
concerning why women should not be priests.
B.
Bridget (Birgitta) of
Sweden (1303–1373) came from a wealthy family, married at 13, and bore eight
children. When her husband died in 1344, she started the Order of the Holy
Savior (Birgittines).
1.
As the plague struck
Sweden, Bridget traveled extensively in Italy and made a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem; she sought approval for her order, the reform of the clergy, and the
unification of the then divided papacy.
2.
She received visions for
the last 30 years of her life; they were translated from Old Swedish into Latin
by her confessor as the Heavenly Book of
Revelations.
3.
Her visions contained
revelations in the form of answers to questions.
C.
Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
was born the 23rd of 25 children and received no real education,
learning to read only later in life.
1.
She consecrated herself to
Christ at age seven and, at 16, took the habit of the third-order Dominicans.
She spent her life in fasting, prayer, and the care of the sick. Catherine died
at age 33, four years after founding a monastery of strict observance in Siena.
2.
She involved herself in
papal politics (seeking to unify the papacy), a new crusade, and the reform of
the church. Some 300 of her letters survive.
3.
The teachings in her Dialogue of Divine Providence were so
powerful that she was one of two women, along with Teresa of Ávila, declared a
doctor of the church.
III. The extant evidence suggests that mystical gifts flourished among
the Beguines, as well.
A.
Mechtilde of Magdeburg
(1208–1282/94) was born of a noble family and lived in a house of Beguines
until she was 62, spending her last years in a Cistercian monastery.
1.
She had her first visionary
experiences at age 12 and, in her 40s, began recording her visions at the
command of her Dominican confessor, completing seven books of The Flowing Light of the Godhead.
2.
Composed in Low German, the
book has considerable literary merit, using the genres and subgenres of courtly
literature and transposing the language of erotic love into that of mystical
rapture.
B.
A substantial collection of
writings, including letters, poetry, and visions, is associated with a 13th-century
Beguine known only as Hadewijch, about whom we know very little.
1.
Her letters to a young
friend make clear that life among the Beguines was not always peaceful.
2.
The poetry is of a high
order, with eroticism, again, serving to express the divine-human passion.
IV.
The role of male advisors
and confessors in the lives of female mystics is revealed in the several
surviving manuscripts in Middle English written for anchoresses.
A.
The Ancrene Wisse takes a moderate approach to the external rule of
life and emphasizes the inner rule of the heart and inner transformation.
B.
In these writings, love for
God and for Christ is the dominant note of a life defined by devotion.
Recommended Reading:
Bynum, C. W. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality
of the High Middle Ages.
Questions to Consider:
1.
Consider the claim that
divine revelations serve to authorize the teaching of a female in a strictly
patriarchal context.
2.
How do the social contexts
of the religious life provide a relatively greater degree of freedom for women
of the medieval period?
Lecture Twenty
Mendicants as Mystics
Scope: In the High Middle Ages, the
mendicant orders (primarily the
Franciscans and
Dominicans) were founded as a form of radical Christian witness. Members of
these active orders did not live in monasteries but preached and worked among
the people, and mysticism thrived as much among them as among monks. In this
lecture, we consider the remarkable witness of Francis and Clare of Assisi to a
life of evangelical poverty, the profound spiritual teaching of the Franciscan
Bonaventure, and the trio of German Dominicans known as the Rhineland mystics,
each a significant teacher: Meister Eckhardt, Johannes Tauler, and Henry Suso.
Outline
I.
In the High Middle Ages,
religious orders called mendicants arose as a response to changing social and
ecclesial circumstances. Within those orders, powerful mystical teaching was
generated.
A.
Externally to the church,
the growth of cities helped spread the plague and increased the numbers of the
urban poor. Further, Islam presented a tremendous spiritual and intellectual
challenge.
B.
Internally to the church,
monasteries became inadequate to meet pastoral needs, and local clergy were
morally and intellectually incompetent.
C.
The emergence of the
mendicant orders and the great medieval universities—Bologna (1088), Paris (c.
1160), and Oxford (c. 1167)—together
represent a spiritual and intellectual response to the church’s needs.
II.
The two largest mendicant
orders (Franciscans and Dominicans) had extraordinary founders with similar
visions.
A.
Both Francis of Assisi
(1181–1226) and Dominic of Calaruega (1170–1221) were committed to a radical
ideal of evangelical poverty and to an active ministry among the poor; both
spent their lives in missionary travel.
B.
Both founded religious
orders committed to active ministry, and their organizations struggled with the
consequences of phenomenal growth.
1.
Both generated second-order
female members (nuns) and third-order associates (laypeople) who shared the
ideals of the founders.
2.
Both the Franciscans and
the Dominicans sought to maintain institutional as well as individual poverty,
although the Franciscans were divided on the issue of how much institutional
wealth was compatible with a commitment to evangelical poverty.
III. Franciscan spirituality is deeply marked by the character of
Francis, one of the most charismatic figures in the history of Christianity.
A.
We have seen the pattern of
Francis’s life (abandonment of personal wealth, life among the poor) among
other religious seekers, but the passionate character of his devotion to the
poverty of Christ in his incarnation was distinctive.
1.
His mysticism reached a
climax on September 14, 1224, at Mount La Verna when he had a vision of Christ
crucified and received the stigmata.
2.
He wrote little (a few
letters, a rule) but is universally admired for his “Canticle of Brother Sun.”
B.
In her letters and Rule of
the Poor Clares, Francis’s close associate Clare of Assisi (c. 1193–1254)
combined simplicity of style with a passionate love for Christ.
1.
She praises a noblewoman
named Agnes of Prague, who had the opportunity for a royal marriage but joined
the Poor Clares instead.
2.
Clare assures Agnes that
her commitment of celibacy and poverty will be rewarded by a special
relationship with the bridegroom who is Christ.
C.
Franciscan spirituality
finds its perfect expression in Bonaventure (born Giovanni Di Fidanza, c.
1217–1274), who taught at the University of Paris and served as general of the
order, a bishop, and a cardinal who attended the Unity Council of Lyon (1274).
1.
He wrote two lives of
Francis, the longer of which expresses much of Bonaventure’s own spirituality.
2.
The Soul’s Journey into God is a
masterpiece of theological and mystical compression, linking Francis’s
Mysticism to medieval, Eastern, and even Islamic spirituality.
3.
Bonaventure’s Tree of Life is a set of meditations on
Jesus’s life that continues Francis’s focus on the incarnation.
IV.
Dominican spirituality is
marked by a strong intellectual emphasis, as we find in the University of Paris
theologians Albert the Great (c.
1200–1280) and his student Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and in the three great
Dominicans known as the Rhineland mystics of 13th- and 14th-century
Germany.
A.
Eckhart von Hochheim
(Meister Eckhardt, c. 1260–1328) taught at Paris and Cologne. His more
technical theological works were in Latin but extant also are sermons in
German.
1.
He was bold in expression,
using negative theology, much like Dionysius. His paradoxical style and
speculation on the birth of God’s word in the human soul led to a charge of
heresy that darkened his last days.
2.
We see in his sermons how
exciting and disturbing his statements could be.
B.
Johannes Tauler (c.
1300–1361) was a student of Eckhardt but spent his ministry in preaching at
Strasbourg and Basel. He softened Meister Eckhardt’s emphases without rejecting
them.
1.
Tauler worked closely with
the Friends of God, an association of laypeople who pursued the path of
mystical experience, and preached to communities of Dominican nuns.
2.
His German sermons are easy
to read and possess a solid piety that is suffused with quiet passion.
C.
Henry Suso (1300–1366) also
studied with Eckhardt at Cologne but spent his life in pastoral work in
Constance and Ulm. Also associated with the Friends of God, he traveled as a
preacher and worked to restore religious observance especially among Dominican
nuns.
1.
Suso’s The Exemplar contains four distinct parts: “The Life of the
Servant,” “The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom,” “The Little Book of Truth,” and
“The Little Book of Letters.”
2.
His life was marked by
severe physical mortification and asceticism, but his teaching on detachment
shows a movement from self-preoccupation to surrender to God.
Recommended Reading:
Cousins, E. trans. Bonaventure (Classics of Western Spirituality.)
Questions to Consider:
1.
Discuss the distinct
emphasis on the affections in Franciscan spirituality and on the intellect in
Dominican spirituality.
2.
How do convictions
concerning the incarnation and the Eucharist shape medieval Catholic Mysticism?
