Mysticism
Mysticism
The Place of Mysticism in Medieval Christianity. Although the medieval Church stressed the importance of good works to salvation, a strong mystical streak existed alongside this practical Christianity. Mysticism emphasizes individual and immediate communion with God through means beyond rational understanding. It may be manifested through dreams, raptures, and visions. Mystics spent days fasting, received signs of divine favor, and made prophesies. The medieval Church had an ambivalent attitude toward such mystics. On the one hand, the Church had no doubt that God could choose to communicate directly with Christians, and its theology stressed the importance of personal experience of the divine and how that experience would transcend all forms of worldly experience. On the other hand, how could they be sure these visions were from God? Satan was by definition the prince of deceivers, and sending false visions was something he would do to thwart Christians. For these reasons, many medieval mystics and their spiritual guides were often torn when they began having visions and other mystical experiences, and the Church generally regarded mystical movements quite closely and with great skepticism.
Revelation and Apocalypse. Religious life in the Middle Ages appears to have been lived in perennial expectation of the end of the world. Basing their belief on the Book of Revelations, medieval clergy and laity had a clear vision of this final battle between the forces of good and evil. Images of the Apocalypse (the final battle) adorned medieval churches, and descriptions of its terrors fill medieval manuscripts. Figures from the Apocalypse also provided a rhetoric of evil used long after the Middle Ages; to call an opponent the Antichrist (the opposite of Christ and the leader of the evil force in the final, 1,000-year battle) remained the ultimate condemnation in Christian society during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although much has been written about the supposed “terrors of the year 1000,” the expectation that the end of the world was near was a major feature of the whole medieval age rather than something people discovered only at the millennium. Yet, the coming of Christ in judgment was not only a fearful prospect but also a joyful one. One strand in the mille-narian tradition that was already very much present as early as the tenth century is the belief that a time of justice and joy will be enjoyed between the Second Coming of Christ and the end of time. Although emphasized less frequently than the terrors of battle and judgment, this expectation of a better age to follow the end of present decadence and injustice was an important part of medieval beliefs about the Apocalypse.
Orthodox Mysticism: Christ and Female Mysticism. A particularly enduring expression of mystical trends may be found in the experience of unity with the suffering Christ, which was experienced by a host of women mystics. In the high Middle Ages, this tradition of female mysticism included Hroswitha of Gandersheim (circa 1000) and Hildegard of Bingen (1109–1179), and it came to a fuller and more striking maturity with women who were linked to the Mendicant movement, such as Clare of Assisi (died 1253), Catherine of Siena (died 1380), Bridget of Sweden
(died 1373), and many others. Their mystical experiences had an intense visual quality; from their descriptions it is possible to draw detailed pictures of Christ’s crucifixion, of a spiritual marriage ceremony with Christ, and of Christ’s lifting them spiritually and physically. Although the themes of their piety were not radically different from those of their male counterparts, these women were often more identified with the Christ-like bearing of suffering. The description of mystical experience as a bridal relationship with Christ crucified also acquires a particular power with these women, as does their expression of desire for union with Christ in the eucharist. Through them these themes and approaches became characteristic of medieval, and of much modern, Christian piety.
Academic Mysticism: Meister Eckhart. Eckhart (circa 1260–1328) was a German Dominican who was trained in theology at Paris and Cologne, two of the leading universities of his time. It has been argued that while in Paris he saw the heresy trial of the mystic Marguerite Porete and was influenced by her courage. Certainly, he was exposed to the Movement of the Free Spirit in the Rhineland, and he preached in German to Beghard and Beguine groups. They wrote down his sermons and their interpretations of them, which could vary greatly from the content of Eck-hart’s original. In 1325–1326 he was accused of heresy by the archbishop of Cologne and attempted to defend himself in public debate. His case gained such international recognition that he pleaded it before the papal court. Censured for his sermons, in particular his focus on direct individual communion with God over the sacraments of the Christian Church, Eckhart retreated from preaching. In the fifteenth century, however, he became a model for people seeking more personalized religious expression.
Suspect Mysticism: Joachim of Fiore . One of the most influential mystics on marginal religious groups in the Middle Ages was the Italian Joachim of Fiore (1132–1202). Beginning as a courtier with the Norman kings of Sicily, he turned from worldly concerns after viewing a great calamity; later writings suggest that this event might have been an outbreak of disease, but there is no clear evidence. By the time he was twenty-seven he was preaching, without any theological training, without joining any religious order, and without becoming a priest. When the clergy objected to his activities, he took monastic vows. He spent the rest of his life moving from monastery to monastery in Italy, where many saw him as a prophet. Although Joachim disavowed this claim, his interpretations of the Apocalypse and the doctrine of the third age of the spirit, which he developed, influenced generations of mystics. According to Joachim, history could be divided into three ages, which correspond to the three persons of the Trinity. God the Father ruled the first age, the age of the Old Testament, while God the Son ruled the second age and its New Testament revelations. The third age, ruled by the Holy Spirit, will be an age of universal love that will transcend the Gospel, and in it disciplinary institutions will be unnecessary. For Joachim the second age was coming to an end, and the third age would begin around 1260, after some disaster. Although some of his teachings were condemned at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the idea of the ages was not suspect until the middle of the thirteenth century. By this time a group of radical followers, calling themselves Joachimists or Joachimites, had arisen in the Franciscans. The Joachimites argued that around 1200 the New and Old Testaments had lost their force and that the new age was at hand, prefigured by the persecutions of true believers (the Joachimites). Even more radical forms of Joachimites evolved. Joachim’s relatively harmless idea of an angelic pope, come to cleanse the Church, became a female pope, who—working with cardinals who were all women—would convert the Jews and write new scriptures guided by the Holy Spirit.
Sources
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, revised edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970).
Amy Hollywood, The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970).
Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages, expanded edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).
Ulrike Wiethaus, ed., Maps of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1993).