becoming every day stronger with me, that all symmetrical natural
objects are types of some spiritual truth or existence. When I walk
the fields, I am oppressed now and then with an innate feeling that
everything I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this
feeling of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amounts
to indescribable awe sometimes. Everything seems to be full of God's
reflex, if we could but see it. Oh, how I have prayed to have the
mystery unfolded, at least hereafter! To see, if but for a moment, the
whole harmony of the great system! To hear once the music which the
whole universe makes as it performs His bidding! Oh, that heaven! The
thought of the first glance of creation from thence, when we know even
as we are known. And He, the glorious, the beautiful, the incarnate
Ideal shall be justified in all His doings, and in all, and through
all, and over all.... All day, glimpses from the other world, floating
motes from that inner transcendental life, have been floating across
me.... Have you not felt that your real soul was imperceptible to your
mental vision, except at a few hallowed moments? That in everyday life
the mind, looking at itself, sees only the brute intellect, grinding
and working, not the Divine particle, which is life and immortality,
and on which the Spirit of God most probably works, as being most
cognate to Deity" (_Life_, vol. i. p. 55). Again he says: "This earth
is the next greatest fact to that of God's existence."
Kingsley's review of Vaughan's _Hours with the Mystics_ shows that he
retained his sympathy with Mysticism at a later period of his life. It
would be impossible to find any consistent idealistic philosophy in
Kingsley's writings; but the sentences above quoted are interesting as
a profession of faith in Mysticism of the _objective_ type.
19. _R.L. Nettleship_. "The cure for a wrong Mysticism is to realise
the facts, not particular facts or aspects of facts, but the whole
fact: true Mysticism is the consciousness that everything that we
experience is an element, and only an element, in fact; i.e. that in
being what it is, it is symbolic of something more."
The _obiter dicta_ on Mysticism in Nettleship's _Remains_ are of great
value.
20. _Lasson_. "The essence of Mysticism is the assertion of an
intuition which transcends the temporal categories of the
understanding, relying on speculative reason. Rationalism cannot
conduct us to the essence of things; we therefore need intellectual
vision. But Mysticism is not content with symbolic knowledge, and
aspires to see the Absolute by pure spiritual apprehension.... There
is a contradiction in regarding God as the immanent Essence of all
things, and yet as an abstraction transcending all things. But it is
inevitable. Pure immanence is unthinkable, if we are to maintain
distinctions in things.... Strict 'immanence' doctrine tends towards
the monopsychism of Averroes.... Mysticism is often associated with
pantheism, but the religious character of Mysticism views everything
from the standpoint of teleology, while pantheism generally stops at
causality.... Mysticism, again, is often allied with rationalism, but
their ground-principles are different, for rationalism is deistic, and
rests on this earth, being based on the understanding [as opposed to
the higher faculty, the reason].... Nothing can be more perverse than
to accuse Mysticism of _vagueness_. Its danger is rather an
overvaluing of reason and knowledge.... Mysticism is only religious so
long as it remembers that we can here only see through a glass darkly;
when it tries to represent the eternal _adequately_, it falls into a
new and dangerous retranslation of thought into images, or into bare
negation.... Religion is a relation of person to person, a life, which
in its form is an analogy to the earthly, while its content is pure
relation to the eternal. Dogmatic is the skeleton, Mysticism the
life-blood, of the Christian body.... Since the Reformation,
philosophy has taken over most of the work which the speculative
mystics performed in the Middle Ages" (_Essay on the Essence and Value
of Mysticism_).
21. _Nordau_. "The word Mysticism describes a state of mind in which
the subject imagines that he perceives or divines unknown and
inexplicable relations among phenomena, discerns in things hints at
mysteries, and regards them as symbols by which a dark power seeks to
unveil, or at least to indicate, all sorts of marvels.... It is always
connected with strong emotional excitement.... Nearly all our
perceptions, ideas, and conceptions are connected more or less closely
through the association of ideas. But to make the association of ideas
fulfil its function, one more thing must be added--_attention_, which
is the faculty to suppress one part of the memory-images and maintain
another part." We must select the strongest and most direct images,
those directly connected with the afferent nerves; "this Ribot calls
adaptation of the whole organism to a predominant idea.... Attention
presupposes strength of will. Unrestricted play of association, the
result of an exhausted or degenerate brain, gives rise to Mysticism.
Since the mystic cannot express his cloudy thoughts in ordinary
language, he loves mutually exclusive expressions. Mysticism blurs
outlines, and makes the transparent opaque."
The Germans have two words for what we call Mysticism--_Mystik_ and
_Mysticismus_, the latter being generally dyslogistic. The long chapter
in Nordau's _Degeneration_, entitled "Mysticism," treats it throughout
as a morbid state. It will be observed that the last sentence quoted
flatly contradicts one of the statements copied from Lasson's essay. But
Nordau is not attacking religious Mysticism, so much as that unwholesome
development of symbolic "science, falsely so called," which has usurped
the name in modern France. Those who are interested in Mysticism should
certainly study the pathological symptoms which counterfeit mystical
states, and from this point of view the essay in _Degeneration_ is
valuable. The observations of Nordau and other alienists must lead us to
suspect very strongly the following kinds of symbolical representation,
whether the symbols are borrowed from the external world, or created by
the imagination:--(a) All those which include images of a sexual
character. It is unnecessary to illustrate this. The visions of monks
and nuns are often, as we might expect, unconsciously tinged with a
morbid element of this kind. (b) Those which depend on mere verbal
resemblances or other fortuitous correspondences. Nordau shows that the
diseased brain is very ready to follow these false trains of
association. (c) Those which are connected with the sense of smell,
which seems to be morbidly developed in this kind of degeneracy. (d)
Those which in any way minister to pride or self-sufficiency.
22. _Harnack_. "Mysticism is rationalism applied to a sphere above
reason."
I have criticised this definition in my first Lecture, and have
suggested that the words "rationalism" and "reason" ought to be
transposed. Elsewhere Harnack says that the distinctions between
"Scholastic, Roman, German, Catholic, Evangelical, and Pantheistic
Mysticism" are at best superficial, and in particular that it is a
mistake to contrast "Scholasticism and Mysticism" as opposing forces
in the Middle Ages. "Mysticism," he proceeds, "is Catholic piety in
general, so far as this piety is not merely ecclesiastical obedience,
that is, _fides implicita_. The Reformation element which is ascribed
to it lies simply in this, that Mysticism, when developed in a
particular direction, is led to discern the inherent responsibility of
the soul, of which no authority can again deprive it." The conflicts
between Mysticism and Church authority, he thinks, in no way militate
against _both_ being Catholic ideals, just as asceticism and
world-supremacy are both Catholic ideals, though contradictory. The
German mystics he disparages. "I give no extracts from their
writings," he says, "because I do not wish even to seem to countenance
the error that they expressed anything that one cannot read in Origen,
Plotinus, the Areopagite, Augustine, Erigena, Bernard, and Thomas, or
that they represented religious progress." "It will never be possible
to make Mysticism Protestant without flying in the face of history and
Catholicism." "A mystic who does not become a Catholic is a
dilettante."
Before considering these statements, I will quote from another attack
upon Mysticism by a writer whose general views are very similar to
those of Harnack.
23. _Herrmann_ (_Verkehr des Christen mit Gott_). "The most
conspicuous features of the Roman Catholic rule of life are obedience
to the laws of cultus and of doctrine on the one side, and Neoplatonic
Mysticism on the other.... The essence of Mysticism lies in this: when
the influence of God upon the soul is sought and found solely in an
inward experience of the individual; when certain excitements of the
emotions are taken, with no further question, as evidence that the
soul is possessed by God: when at the same time nothing external to
the soul is consciously and clearly perceived and firmly grasped; when
no thoughts that elevate the spiritual life are aroused by the
positive contents of an idea that rules the soul,--then that is the
piety of Mysticism.... Mysticism is not that which is common to all
religion, but a particular species of religion, namely a piety which
feels that which is historical in the positive religion to be
burdensome, and so rejects it."
These extracts from Harnack and Herrmann represent the attitude
towards Mysticism of the Ritschlian school in Germany, of which Kaftan
is another well-known exponent. They are neo-Kantians, whose religion
is an austere moralism, and who seem to regard Christianity as a
primitive Puritanism, spoiled by the Greeks, who brought into it their
intellectualism and their sacramental mysteries. True Christianity,
they say, is faith in the historic Christ. "In the human Jesus," says
Herrmann, "we have met with a fact, the content of which is
incomparably richer than that of any feelings which arise within
ourselves,--a fact, moreover, which makes us so certain of God that,
our reason and conscience being judges, our conviction is only
confirmed that we are in communion with Him." "The mystic's experience
of God is a delusion. If the Christian has learnt how Christ alone has
lifted him above all that he had even been before, he cannot believe
that another man might reach the same end by simply turning inward
upon himself." "The piety of the mystic is such that at the highest
point to which it leads Christ must vanish from the soul along with
all else that is external." This curious view of Christianity quite
fails to explain how "our reason and conscience" can detect the
"incomparable richness" of a revelation altogether unlike "the
feelings which arise within ourselves." It entirely ignores the
Pauline and Johannine doctrine of the mystical union, according to
which Christ is _not_ "external" to the redeemed soul, and most
assuredly can never "vanish" from it. Instead of the "Lo I am with you
alway" of our blessed Lord, we are referred to "history"--that is,
primarily, the four Gospels confirmed by "a fifth," "the united
testimony of the first Christian community" (Harnack, _Christianity
and History_). We are presented with a Christianity without knowledge
(Gnosis), without discipline, without sacraments, resting partly on a
narrative which these very historical critics tear in pieces, each in
his own fashion, and partly on a categorical imperative which is
really the voice of "irreligious moralism," as Pfleiderer calls it.
The words are justified by such a sentence as this from Herrmann:
"Religious faith in God is, rightly understood, just the medium by
which the universal law becomes individualised for the particular man
in his particular place in the world's life, so as to enable him to
recognise its absoluteness as the ground of his self-certainty, and
the ideal drawn in it as his own personal end." Thus the school which
has shown the greatest animus against Mysticism unconsciously
approaches very near to the atheism of Feuerbach. Indeed, what worse
atheism can there be, than such disbelief in the rationality of our
highest thoughts as is expressed in this sentence: "Metaphysics is an
impassioned endeavour to obtain recognition for thoughts, the contents
of which have no other title to be recognised than their value for
us"? As if faith in God had any other meaning than a confidence that
what is of "value for us" is the eternally and universally good and
true! Herrmann's attitude towards reason can only escape atheism by
accepting in preference the crudest dualism, "behind which" (to quote
Pfleiderer again) lies concealed simply "the scepticism of a
disintegrating Nominalism."
24. _Victor Cousin_. "Mysticism is the pretension to know God without
intermediary, and, so to speak, face to face. For Mysticism, whatever
is between God and us hides Him from us." "Mysticism consists in
substituting direct inspiration for indirect, ecstasy for reason,
rapture for philosophy."
25. _R.A. Vaughan_. "Mysticism is that form of error which mistakes
for a Divine manifestation the operations of a merely human faculty."
This poor definition is the only one (except "Mysticism is the romance
of religion") to be found in _Hours with the Mystics_, the solitary
work in English which attempts to give a history of Christian
Mysticism. The book has several conspicuous merits. The range of the
author's reading is remarkable, and he has a wonderful gift of
illustration. But he was not content to trust to the interest of the
subject to make his book popular, and tried to attract readers by
placing it in a most incongruous setting. There is something almost
offensive in telling the story of men like Tauler, Suso, and Juan of
the Cross, in the form of smart conversations at a house-party, and
the jokes cracked at the expense of the benighted "mystics" are not
always in the best taste. Vaughan does not take his subject quite
seriously enough. There is an irritating air of superiority in all his
discussions of the lives and doctrines of the mystics, and his hatred
and contempt for the Roman Church often warp his judgment. His own
philosophical standpoint is by no means clear, and this makes his
treatment of speculative Mysticism less satisfactory than the more
popular parts of the book. It is also a pity that he has neglected the
English representatives of Mysticism; they are quite as interesting in
their way as Madame Guyon, whose story he tells at disproportionate
length. At the same time, I wish to acknowledge considerable
obligations to Vaughan, whose early death probably deprived us of even
better work than the book which made his reputation.
26. _James Hinton_. "Mysticism is an assertion of a means of knowing
that must not be tried by ordinary rules of evidence--the claiming
authority for our own impressions."
Another poor and question-begging definition, on the same lines as the
last.
APPENDIX B
The Greek Mysteries And Christian Mysticism
The connexion between the Greek Mysteries and Christian Mysticism is
marked not only by the name which the world has agreed to give to that
type of religion (though it must be said that [Greek: mystêria] is not
the commonest name for the Mysteries--[Greek: orgia, teletai, telê]
are all, I think, more frequent), but by the evident desire on the
part of such founders of mystical Christianity as Clement and
Dionysius the Areopagite, to emphasise the resemblance. It is not
without a purpose that these writers, and other Platonising
theologians from the third to the fifth century, transfer to the faith
and practice of the Church almost every term which was associated with
the Eleusinian Mysteries and others like them. For instance, the
sacraments are regularly [Greek: mystêria]; baptism is [Greek:
mystikon loutron] (Gregory of Nyssa); unction, [Greek: chrisma
mystikon] (Athanasius); the elements, [Greek: mystis edôdê] (Gregory
Naz.); and participation in them is [Greek: mystikê metalêpsis].
Baptism, again, is "initiation" [Greek: myêsis]; a baptized person is
[Greek: memyêmenos], [Greek: mystês] or [Greek: symmystês] (Gregory Ny.
and Chrysostom), an unbaptized person is [Greek: amyêtos]. The
celebrant is [Greek: mystêriôn lanthanontôn mystagôgos] (Gregory Ny.);
the administration is [Greek: paradosis], as at Eleusis. The
sacraments are also [Greek: teletê] or [Greek: telê], regular
Mystery-words; as are [Greek: teleiôsis, teleiousthai, teleiopoios],
which are used in the same connexion. Secret formulas (the notion of
secret formulas itself comes from the Mysteries) were [Greek:
aporrêta]. (Whether the words [Greek: phôtismos] and [Greek: sphragis]
in their sacramental meaning come from the Mysteries seems doubtful,
in spite of Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 295.) Nor is the language of
the Mysteries applied only to the sacraments. Clement calls purgative
discipline [Greek: ta katharsia], and [Greek: ta mikra mystêria], and
the highest stage in the spiritual life [Greek: epopteia]. He also
uses such language as the following: "O truly sacred mysteries! O
stainless light! My way is lighted with torches, and I survey the
heavens and God! I am become holy while I am being initiated. The Lord
is my hierophant," etc. (_Protr._ xii. 120). Dionysius, as I have
shown in a note on Lecture III., uses the Mystery words frequently,
and gives to the orders of the Christian ministry the names which
distinguished the officiating priests at the Mysteries. The aim of
these writers was to prove that the Church offers a mysteriosophy
which includes all the good elements of the old Mysteries without
their corruptions. The alliance between a Mystery-religion and
speculative Mysticism within the Church was at this time as close as
that between the Neoplatonic philosophy and the revived pagan Mystery
cults. But when we try to determine the amount of direct _influence_
exercised by the later paganism on Christian usages and thought, we
are baffled both by the loss of documents, and by the extreme
difficulty of tracing the pedigree of religious ideas and customs. I
shall here content myself with calling attention to certain features
which were common to the Greek Mysteries and to Alexandrian
Christianity, and which may perhaps claim to be in part a legacy of
the old religion to the new. My object is not at all to throw
discredit upon modes of thought which may have been unfamiliar to
Palestinian Jews. A doctrine or custom is not necessarily un-Christian
because it is "Greek" or "pagan." I know of no stranger perversity
than for men who rest the whole weight of their religion upon
"history," to suppose that our Lord meant to raise an universal
religion on a purely Jewish basis.
The Greek Mysteries were perhaps survivals of an old-world ritual,
based on a primitive kind of Nature-Mysticism. The "public Mysteries,"
of which the festival at Eleusis was the most important, were so
called because the State admitted strangers by initiation to what was
originally a national cult. (There were also private Mysteries,
conducted for profit by itinerant priests [Greek: agyrtai] from the
East, who as a class bore no good reputation.) The main features of
the ritual at Eleusis are known. The festival began at Athens, where
the _mystæ_ collected, and, after a fast of several days, were
"driven" to the sea, or to two salt lakes on the road to Eleusis, for
a purifying bath. This kind of baptism washed away the stains of their
former sins, the worst of which they were obliged to confess before
being admitted to the Mysteries. Then, after sacrifices had been
offered, the company went in procession to Eleusis, where
Mystery-plays were performed in a great hall, large enough to hold
thousands of people, and the votaries were allowed to handle certain
sacred relics. A sacramental meal, in which a mixture of mint,
barley-meal, and water was administered to the initiated, was an
integral part of the festival. The most secret part of the ceremonies
was reserved for the [Greek: epoptai] who had passed through the
ordinary initiation in a previous year. It probably culminated in the
solemn exhibition of a corn-ear, the symbol of Demeter. The obligation
of silence was imposed not so much because there were any secrets to
reveal, but that the holiest sacraments of the Greek religion might
not be profaned by being brought into contact with common life. This
feeling was strengthened by the belief that _words_ are more than
conventional symbols of things. A sacred formula must not be taken in
vain, or divulged to persons who might misuse it.
The evidence is strong that the Mysteries had a real spiritualising
and moralising influence on large numbers of those who were initiated,
and that this influence was increasing under the early empire. The
ceremonies may have been trivial, and even at times ludicrous; but the
discovery had been made that the performance of solemn acts of
devotion in common, after ascetical preparation, and with the aid of
an impressive ritual, is one of the strongest incentives to piety.
Diodorus is not alone in saying (he is speaking of the Samothracian
Mysteries) that "those who have taken part in them are said to become
more pious, more upright, and in every way better than their former
selves."
The chief motive force which led to the increased importance of
Mystery-religion in the first centuries of our era, was the desire for
"salvation" ([Greek: sôtêria]), which both with pagans and Christians
was very closely connected with the hope of everlasting life.
Happiness after death was the great promise held out in the Mysteries.
The initiated were secure of blessedness in the next world, while the
uninitiated must expect "to lie in darkness and mire after their
death" (cf. Plato, _Phædrus_, 69).
How was this "salvation" attained or conferred? We find that several
conflicting views were held, which it is impossible to keep rigidly
separate, since the human mind at one time inclines to one of them, at
another time to another.
(a) Salvation is imparted by _revelation_. This makes it to depend
upon _knowledge_; but this knowledge was in the Mysteries conveyed by
the spectacle or drama, not by any intellectual process. Plutarch (_de
Defect. Orac._ 22) says that those who had been initiated could
produce no demonstration or proof of the beliefs which they had
acquired. And Synesius quotes Aristotle as saying that the initiated
do not _learn_ anything, but rather receive impressions ([Greek: ou
mathein ti dein alla pathein]). The old notion that monotheism was
taught as a secret dogma rests on no evidence, and is very unlikely.
There was a good deal of [Greek: theokrasia], as the ancients called
it, and some departures from the current theogonies, but such doctrine
as there was, was much nearer to pantheism than to monotheism. Certain
truths about nature and the facts of life were communicated in the
"greatest mysteries," according to Clement, and Cicero says the same
thing. And sometimes the [Greek: gnôsis sôtêrias] includes knowledge
about the whence and whither of man ([Greek: tines esmen kai ti
gegonamen], Clem. _Exc. ex Theod._ 78). Some of the mystical formulæ
were no doubt susceptible of deep and edifying interpretations,
especially in the direction of an elevated nature-worship.