Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Table of Contents
Professor Biography ....................................................................................i
0] Course Scope 1
===
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
===
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
===
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
===
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
===
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
===
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
===
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
===
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
===
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
===
Timeline ................................................................................................... 145
Glossary ................................................................................................... 154
Bibliography............................................................................................ 163
====
Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Scope:
The greatest human ambition is to seek God, and the only true tragedy is failing to become a saint. These are the convictions of the men and women that others often call mystics, although they more often speak of themselves simply as seekers, servants, lovers, and disciples. They are the most passionately personal practitioners of religion. Their chosen instrument is prayer. Their lifelong quest is to experience the living God. They regard their search for God as the expression of what is most authentic within themselves, as well as the greatest service they could pay to their fellow humans: If the greatest part of humanity is blind, is it not the truest form of love to show them a glimpse of light?
This course examines the magnificent tradition of mysticism within the major Western religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These religions are usually thought of in terms of external observance—doctrines, laws, rituals—rather than in terms of intense prayer experiences or forms of contemplation. In fact, however, all three monotheistic religions of the West have robust and complex mystical traditions. Indeed, those who follow the path of contemplation would argue that their way of being Jewish, Christian, or Muslim was the purest realization of that religion’s essence.
For whatever reason, mystics are also responsible for some of the most impressive literature produced by their respective religions. Mystics authored interpretations of Scripture, theological treatises, sermons, meditations, letters, stories, and poems, and all of them testify to the fact that a fervent love of the divine—and a search for contact with the inexpressible—does not require the rejection of literary art or the love of human beauty. Some mystical literature, indeed, is suffused with an intense eroticism that fuses human and divine passion in a single fire.
An introduction to the varieties of mystical literature through the ages, and to the great spiritual teachers within each tradition who composed such writings, is an important element in this course. It is impossible to appreciate the richness of the mystical way without some direct contact with the words that were forged out of the experience of prayer. As much as possible, then, this course will use the words of the mystics themselves.
A major goal of this course, however, is to create a context for those words. First, it places mystical literature squarely within the exoteric forms of each religion. There are, to be sure, clear similarities in mysticism across religious traditions, but it is worth asking about the forms it adopts within specific beliefs and practices. Second, despite being a highly personal form of religious sensibility, mysticism has flourished most within welldeveloped and firm communities of shared practice. Jewish mystics found their place within a community of halachic observance; Christian mystics are frequently located within monastic communities; and in Islam, Sufi fellowships support the practices that enable a personal quest for the divine. The tensions—creative and destructive—inherent in an esoteric appropriation of an exoteric tradition require attention, but such tensions exist because of a state of mutual dependence. Third, even though mysticism tends to exist with little reference to outside events, it is often important to situate specific forms of mystical expression within historical and social circumstances.
The course begins with three ground-laying presentations. The first takes up the matters of definition (what do we mean by “mysticism”?) and scope (literature rather than direct experience) and raises some preliminary questions (for example, why do mystics write at all?). The second sketches the family resemblances and squabbles within the three traditions that share common roots, as well as a history of controversy. The third examines the most important of the common roots, namely, the biblical basis for mystical experience and symbolism.
Lectures Four through Eleven trace the historical stages of mysticism in the Jewish tradition, beginning with the inchoate expressions of the Hellenistic period, moving through Merkabah and Kabbalah, and ending with Hasidism. Lectures Thirteen through Twenty-Four provide a similar survey of mysticism within Christianity, beginning with the figures of Jesus and Paul, then considering the radical challenge to exoteric Christianity posed by Gnosticism, before examining major movements and figures in the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant forms of Christianity. Lectures TwentySix through Thirty-Four are devoted to mysticism in Islam, beginning with
Muhammad as mystic, then sketching the exoteric form of the “House of Islam” and the mystical character of the Shi’a, before surveying the development of Sufism, with special attention to its great early teachers and masters in the West (North Africa) and East (India and Persia). At the end of each unit (Lectures Twelve, Twenty-Five, and Thirty-Five) are presentations devoted to contemporary expressions of mysticism within each of the three traditions. Although the greater part of this course is devoted to foundational figures of the distant past, it is necessary to note, however briefly, the continuation of the same pilgrimage toward God in the present.
The final lecture of the course will take up two questions that, in one way or another, run through all the preceding presentations. The first question concerns the truth claims of mystics: Are they merely writers of considerable charm, or are they in touch with what is most real? Are they self-deluded fools or the wisest of humans? Are they tragically mistaken, or are they, in fact, witnesses to a truth hidden to others because of distraction and denial? The second question concerns the viability of mysticism in the contemporary world: Will it survive the onslaughts of aggressive secularism, or will it survive and possibly even surmount a world shaped around the denial of what it holds most dear?
