What Mysticism is. 143 happy, to sink into his own nothingness and see and know nothing but God; this is true humility, the cardinal virtue of Christian mysticism. Hence it follows that the love by which this union with God is to be brought about must be totally free from any thoughts of his own happiness; it must be pure and disinterested, without regard either to reward or punishment; in a word, it must be simply love. The more this union with God is effected, the more the mystic learns to see God in all things, and all things in God. Hence this outer world and all that is in it, from the noblest work of creation down to the smallest insect or the commonest weed that grows in the field, is to the mystic a copy of the Deity; everything visible is a type of the invisible, all outer matter a symbol of the inner; and that not by any fanciful analogy, but in actual reality. But to enter into all this there is need of a religious sense-not reason, not conscience, but something higher than either. This religious sense must be felt to be understood. To attempt to explain what it is to one who is destitute of it, would be like trying to point out the sunrise on the sea to a blind man, or to teach one who is born deaf and dumb to enjoy sweet music. How is this religious sense to be acquired? A man must enter into the holy place of his own heart, and he will find it there. Then he will gain a new birth, not in any figurative, but in the most literal sense of the term. It must not, however, be supposed that, because he lays so much stress upon the Inner Light and the Inner Life, the true mystic depreciates the outward Written Word. On the contrary, the 'spiritual writers' (as Law generally calls them) brought out a depth of meaning from that Word which has never been so well brought out by others. In fact, to many well-read men, the very word 'mysticism' chiefly conveys the notion of a mode of interpreting Holy 144 Mysticism founded on plain Texts of Scripture. Scripture which is rightly called 'the mystical interpretation': that is, the development of a latent, figurative sense over and above the literal sense, which shows, as S. Augustine says, that in the Old Testament the New was foreshadowed, and the New was nothing else than the revealing of the Old.' It was in this sense chiefly that the early Fathers of the Church were mystics, though many of them were also mystics in the other sense as well. Indeed, the two phases of mysticism are very closely connected together, for the same tone of mind which would attract a Christian to the one, would also, as a rule (Law was an exception on this point), attract him to the other. He who loved to trace a latent spiritual meaning throughout the Book of Nature would also love to trace a latent spiritual meaning in the Written Book of Revelation.' At the same time, the true mystic would be the very last man in the world to allow the mystical meaning of Holy Scripture to take the place of the literal or historical sense. On the contrary, the very stronghold of mysticism is the extreme literalness of its interpretations of Scripture. The mystic contends that he has chapter and verse for every one of his fundamental tenets, and that it is not he but his opponents who have to explain away the plain letter of Scripture. He would ask, for example, how could language express more unmistakably that the Divine Word is instilled into all men,' than the text: 'That is the True Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world' (John i. 9); or, that the union of the soul with God is to be the Christian aim, than the prayer of our Lord, in John xvii.; or, that this union is to be effected For modern specimens of this form of mysticism, see the Mystical Sermons of that good man, the late Rev. W. R. Wroth, of S. Philip's, Clerkenwell, edited by the Rev. J. E. Vaux; also Dr. Littledale's Commentary on the Song of Songs; Dr. Neale On the Psalms, etc. Mysticism as old as Mankind. 145 through love, than 'He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him' (1 John iv. 16); or, that this love must be disinterested, than 'Love seeketh not her own' (1 Cor. xiii. 5); or, that the Christian must look within if he would find God, than 'The kingdom of God is within you' (Luke xvii. 21); or, that the outer world is in all its parts a type of the unseen world, than 'The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made' (Rom. i. 20), and, in fact, almost every parable of Christ? Having thus seen what mysticism is, a brief sketch of a few of the principal mystic writers may help us the better to understand Law's position. We shall be travelling over ground which he travelled over before us, for 'of these mystical divines,' he writes, 'I thank God I have been a diligent reader through all ages of the Church; from the apostolical Dionysius the Areopagite down to the great Fénélon, Archbishop of Cambray, the illuminated Guion, and M. Bertot.' Of course such a sketch must necessarily be very imperfect and superficial, and strictly limited to what bears upon the subject of this biography, otherwise it would quickly swell into a bulky volume instead of a single chapter. In one sense, mysticism is as old as mankind. There is a mystic element in every man's nature. For who has not sometimes felt a tendency to turn from the world that is without him and is no part of him, to the world which is within and which is the very centre of his life? Who has not sometimes thought that there is something in this outer world more than meets the eye, something that is but a type of the invisible? So far as a man follows these tendencies, so far he is a mystic. The Christian mystic Some Animadversions upon Doctor Trap's Reply.' Law's 'Works,' vol. vi. p. 319. L 146 'Fathers of the Desert'-Pseudo-Dionysius. would certainly assert that he owed his mysticism to no human teacher, but that he was taught by none other than by God Himself; by God speaking both internally to his soul, and externally through the Holy Scriptures. The points of resemblance between Christian mysticism and Platonism, and even older philosophies, need not here be discussed; for, whether they were as striking as they have been affirmed to be or not, they are never referred to by William Law, and do not, therefore, come within our purview. For the same reason, it is unnecessary to dwell upon the mysticism of the later Platonists at Alexandria. In fact, the first mystics who attract our attention in connexion with William Law are those whom he terms the Fathers of the Desert.' Among these the most famous were the two hermits Macarius, who, in the enthusiastic language of the editor of one of them, shone like two lights of Heaven in those deserted places.' Macarius Ægyptius was read and admired greatly by William Law. The fragments of his letters which have come down to us are full of the most pronounced mysticism.' In speaking of the Fathers of the Desert as the earliest mystic Christians who attracted William Law, it is assumed that the Epistles of the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite are spurious. If, as many of the mystic writers, William Law among the number, believed, these writings were really the product of S. Paul's convert at Athens, he must of course be regarded as the founder of Christian mysticism. It is, however, now pretty generally agreed that the works belong to a later date. Still the writer, whoever he may have been, cannot have lived later than the sixth century. See 'Macarii Ægyptii Epistolæ,' ed. Floss. (1850) passim. In one of the epistles (p. 234) occurs this fine sentence, Ο θρόνος τῆς θειότητος ὁ νοῦς ἔστιν nuv. Among Law's books are Les Vies des Saints Pères des Déserts and the Spiritual Homilies of S. Macarius Ægyptius. Abbots of S. Victor-S. Bernard. 1 147 His writings were deeply valued both in early and mediæval times; and, if they are now less thought of, it cannot be denied that, through them, a nobler and more spiritual element was introduced into the arid region of Aristotelian scholasticism. They contain all the crucial points of mysticism, and one can well understand that they would be deeply appreciated by Law, and his wish might be father to the thought' that their author derived his instruction directly from the mouth of an apostle. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries mysticism flourished greatly, especially in France. The two great abbots of S. Victor, Hugo and his pupil and successor, Richard, and the still greater abbot of Clairvaux, Bernard,' the last of the Fathers,' were the most remarkable among a host of mystics belonging to this period, and their names alone were sufficient to shed a lustre upon any cause. It is somewhat remarkable that Law makes few if any allusions to mystics of this date. One would have thought that S. Bernard in especial would have been a mystic after his own heart. No doubt this great and good man was a mystic of a very moderate and sober type. Many of the characteristic features of mysticism are not found in his writings; but on many points-such, for instance, as the mystic ecstasy, the abstraction from earthly things, the application of terms of human love to the relation between La traduction des ouvrages de St. Denis l'Aréopagite par Scot Erigène marque la date précise de l'introduction du mysticisme dans la philosophie scolastique.'-De la Controverse de Bossuet et de Fénelon sur le Quiétisme, L. A. Bonnel, Introd. See also Enfield (ii. 314), who was thoroughly in accord with the spirit of the eighteenth century in strongly condemning Dionysius. It was the translation of this book [of Dionysius] which revived the knowledge of Alexandrian Platonism in the West, and laid the foundation of the mystical system of theology which afterwards so generally prevailed. Thus philosophical enthusiasm, born in the East, nourished by Plato, educated in Alexandria, matured in Asia, and adopted into the Greek Church, found its way, under the pretext and authority of an apostolic name, into the Western Church, and there produced innumerable mischiefs.' |