Christian Mysticism by William Ralph Inge

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Of the other books of the New Testament it is not necessary to say
much. The Epistle to the Hebrews cannot be the work of St. Paul. It
shows strong traces of Jewish Alexandrianism; indeed, the writer
seems to have been well acquainted with the Book of Wisdom and with
Philo. Alexandrian idealism is always ready to pass into speculative
Mysticism, but the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews can hardly be
called mystical in the sense in which St. Paul was a mystic. The most
interesting side of his theology, from our present point of view, is
the way in which he combines his view of religious ordinances as types
and adumbrations of higher spiritual truths, with a comprehensive view
of history as a progressive realisation of a Divine scheme. The
keynote of the book is that mankind has been educated partly by
ceremonial laws and partly by "promises." Systems of laws and
ordinances, of which the Jewish Law is the chief example, have their
place in history. They rightly claim obedience until the practical
lessons which they can teach have been learned, and until the higher
truths which they conceal under the protecting husk of symbolism can
be apprehended without disguise. Then their task is done, and mankind
is no longer bound by them. In the same way, the "promises" which were
made under the old dispensation proved to be only symbols of deeper
and more spiritual blessings, which in the moral childhood of humanity
would not have appeared desirable; they were (not delusions, but)
_illusions_, "God having prepared some better thing" to take their
place. The doctrine is one of profound and far-reaching importance. In
this Epistle it is certainly connected with the idealistic thought
that all visible things are symbols, and that every truth apprehended
by finite intelligences must be only the husk of a deeper truth. We
may therefore claim the Epistle to the Hebrews as containing in
outline a Christian philosophy of history, based upon a doctrine of
symbols which has much in common with some later developments of
Mysticism.

In the Apocalypse, whoever the author may be, we find little or
nothing of the characteristic Johannine Mysticism, and the influence
of its vivid allegorical pictures has been less potent in this branch
of theology than might perhaps have been expected.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: In referring thus to the Book of Job, I rest nothing on
any theory as to its date. Whenever it was written, it illustrates
that view of the relation of man to God with which Mysticism can never
be content. But, of course, the antagonism between our personal claims
and the laws of the universe must be done justice to before it can be
surmounted.]

[Footnote 57: Jer. xxxi. 31-34.]

[Footnote 58: Isa. xxxiii. 14-17.]

[Footnote 59: See Appendix D, on the devotional use of the Song of
Solomon.]

[Footnote 60: Leathes, _The Witness of St. John to Christ_, p. 244.]

[Footnote 61: The punctuation now generally adopted was invented
(probably) by the Antiochenes, who were afraid that the words "without
Him was not anything made" might, if unqualified, be taken to include
the Holy Spirit. Cyril of Alexandria comments on the older
punctuation, but explains the verse wrongly. "The Word, as Life by
nature, was in the things which have become, mingling Himself by
participation in the things that are." Bp. Westcott objects to this,
that "the one life is regarded as dispersed." Cyril, however, guards
against this misconception ([Greek: ou kata merismon tina kai
alloiosin]). He says that created things share in "the one life as they
are able." But some of his expressions are objectionable, as they seem
to assume a material substratum, animated _ab extra_ by an infusion of
the Logos. Augustine's commentary on the verse is based on the
well-known passage of Plato's _Republic_ about the "ideal bed." "Arca
in opere non est vita; arca in arte vita est. Sic Sapientia Dei, per
quam facta sunt omnia, secundum artem continet omnia antequam fabricat
omnia. Quae fiunt ... foris corpora sunt, in arte vita sunt." Those who
accept the common authorship of the Gospel and the Apocalypse will
find a confirmation of the view that [Greek: en] refers to ideal,
extra-temporal existence, in Rev. iv. 11: "Thou hast created all
things, and for Thy pleasure they _were_ ([Greek: esan] is the true
reading) and were created." There is also a very interesting passage
in Eusebius (_Proep. Ev._ xi. 19): [Greek: kai outos ara en ho logos
kath' hon aei onta ta gignomena egeneto, hosper Herakleitos an
axioseie.] This is so near to the words of St. John's prologue as to
suggest that the apostle, writing at Ephesus, is here referring
deliberately to the lofty doctrine of the great Ephesian idealist,
whom Justin claims as a Christian before Christ, and whom Clement
quotes several times with respect.]

[Footnote 62: It will be seen that I assume that the first Epistle is
the work of the evangelist.]

[Footnote 63: Westcott on John xiv. 26.]

[Footnote 64: Westcott.]

[Footnote 65: Cf. _Theologia Germanica_, chap. 48: "He who would know
before he believeth cometh never to true knowledge.... I speak of a
certain truth which it is possible to know by experience, but which ye
must believe in before ye know it by experience, else ye will never
come to know it truly."]

[Footnote 66: On the second coming of Christ, cf. John v. 25, xxi. 23;
I John ii. 28, iii. 2. Scholten goes so far as to expunge v. 25 and
28, 29 as spurious.]

[Footnote 67: The allegation that the Christian persuades himself of a
future life because it is the most comfortable belief to hold, seems
to me utterly contemptible. Certain views about heaven and hell are no
doubt traceable to shallow optimism; but the belief in immortality is
in itself rather awful than consoling. Besides, what sane man would
wish to be deceived in such a matter?]

[Footnote 68: Henry More brings this charge against the Quakers. There
are, he says, many good and wholesome things in their teaching, but
they mingle with them a "slighting of the history of Christ, and
making a mere allegory of it--tending to the utter overthrow of that
warrantable, though more external frame of Christianity, which
Scripture itself points out to us" (_Mastix, his letter to a Friend_,
p. 306).]

[Footnote 69: E.g. Strauss and Grau, quoted in Lilienfeld's _Thoughts
on the Social Science of the Future_.]

[Footnote 70: The intense moral dualism of St. John has been felt by
many as a discordant note; and though it is not closely connected with
his Mysticism, a few words should perhaps be added about it. It has
been thought strange that the Logos, who is the life of all things
that are, should have to invade His own kingdom to rescue it from its
_de facto_ ruler, the Prince of darkness; and stranger yet, that the
bulk of mankind should seemingly be "children of the devil," born of
the flesh, and incapable of salvation. The difficulty exists, but it
has been exaggerated. St. John does not touch either the metaphysical
problem of the origin of evil, or predestination in the Calvinistic
sense. The vivid contrasts of light and shade in his picture express
his judgment on the tragic fate of the Jewish people, The Gospel is
not a polemical treatise, but it bears traces of recent conflicts. St.
John wishes to show that the rejection of Christ by the Jews was
morally inevitable; that their blindness and their ruin followed
naturally from their characters and principles. Looking back on the
memories of a long life, he desires to trace the operation of uniform
laws in dividing the wheat of humanity from the chaff. He is content
to observe how [Greek: ethos anthropo daimon], without speculating on
the reason why characters differ. In offering these remarks, I am
assuming, what seems to me quite certain, that St. John selected from
our Lord's discourses those which suited his particular object, and
that in the setting and arrangement he allowed himself a certain
amount of liberty.]

[Footnote 71: Gal. i. 12.]

[Footnote 72: 1 Cor. xv. shows that he subsequently satisfied himself
of the truth of the other Christophanies.]

[Footnote 73: Gal, i. 15, 16.]

[Footnote 74: 1 Cor. i. and ii.]

[Footnote 75: Chrysostom _in_ I _Cor_., Hom. vii. 2.]

[Footnote 76: See Lightfoot on Col. i. 26.]

[Footnote 77: Eph. iii. 9.]

[Footnote 78: 2 Tim. i. 10 ([Greek: photizein]); cf. Eph. i. 9.]

[Footnote 79: 2 Cor. vii. 1.]

[Footnote 80: In spite of this, he is attacked for this passage in the
_Pseudo-Clementine Homilies_ (xvii. 19), where "Simon Magus" is asked,
"Can anyone be made wise to teach through a vision?"]

[Footnote 81: Compare a beautiful passage in R.L. Nettleship's
_Remains_: "To live is to die into something more perfect.... God can
only make His work to be truly _His_ work, by eternally dying,
sacrificing what is dearest to Him."]

[Footnote 82: Col. i. 26, ii. 2, iv. 3; Eph. iii. 2-9. I have allowed
myself to quote from these Epistles because I am myself a believer in
their genuineness. The Mysticism of St. Paul might be proved from the
undisputed Epistles only, but we should then lose some of the most
striking illustrations of it.]

[Footnote 83: Rom. vi. 4.]

[Footnote 84: Rom. viii. 11.]

[Footnote 85: St. Paul's mystical language about death and
resurrection has given rise to much controversy. On the one hand, we
have writers like Matthew Arnold, who tell us that St. Paul
unconsciously substitutes an ethical for a physical resurrection--an
eternal life here and now for a future reward. On the other, we have
writers like Kabisch (_Eschatologie des Paulus_), who argue that the
apostle's whole conception was materialistic, his idea of a "spiritual
body" being that of a body composed of very fine atoms (like those of
Lucretius' "_anima_"), which inhabits the earthly body of the
Christian like a kernel within its husk, and will one day (at the
resurrection) slough off its muddy vesture of decay, and thenceforth
exist in a form which can defy the ravages of time. Of the two views,
Matthew Arnold's is much the truer, even though it should be proved
that St. Paul sometimes pictures the "spiritual body" in the way
described. But the key to the problem, in St. Paul as in St. John, is
that pyscho-physical theory which demands that the laws of the
spiritual world shall have their analogous manifestations in the world
of phenomena. Death must, somehow or other, be conquered in the
visible as well as in the invisible sphere. The law of life through
death must be deemed to pervade every phase of existence. And as a
mere prolongation of physical life under the same conditions is
impossible, and, moreover, would not fulfil the law in question, we
are bound to have recourse to some such symbol as "spiritual body." It
will hardly be disputed that the Christian doctrine of the
resurrection of the whole man has taken a far stronger hold of the
religious consciousness of mankind than the Greek doctrine of the
immortality of the soul, or that this doctrine is plainly taught by
St. Paul. All attempts to turn his eschatology into a rationalistic
(Arnold) or a materialistic (Kabisch) theory must therefore be
decisively rejected.]

[Footnote 86: Col. iii. 1.]

[Footnote 87: Phil. ii. 6.]

[Footnote 88: Col. i. 15-17.]

[Footnote 89: Eph. i. 10.]

[Footnote 90: Col. iii. 11.]

[Footnote 91: 1 Cor. xv. 24-28.]

[Footnote 92: 1 Cor. x. 4.]

[Footnote 93: 1 Cor. xi. 7.]

[Footnote 94: Eph. iv. 13.]

[Footnote 95: Gal. ii. 20.]

[Footnote 96: Gal. iv. 19.]

[Footnote 97: 2 Cor. iii. 18.]

[Footnote 98: Rom. xii. 5.]

[Footnote 99: 1 Cor. xii. 25.]

[Footnote 100: 1 Cor. ii. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 101: Rom. xiv.]

[Footnote 102: Gal. iv. 9-11.]

[Footnote 103: Col. ii. 20-22.]

[Footnote 104: I have been reminded that great tenderness is due to
the "sancta simplicitas" of the "anicula Christiana," whose religion
is generally of this type. I should agree, if the "anicula" were not
always so ready with her faggot when a John Huss is to be burnt.]

[Footnote 105: 1 Cor. xiv. 37.]

[Footnote 106: There seem to have been two conceptions of the
operations of the Spirit in St. Paul's time: (a) He comes fitfully,
with visible signs, and puts men beside themselves; (b) He is an
abiding presence, enlightening, guiding, and strengthening. St. Paul
lays weight on the latter view, without repudiating the former. See H.
Gunkel, _Die Wirkungen des H. Geistes nach der popul. Anschauung d.
apostol. Zeit und d. Lehre der Paulus._]

LECTURE III

[Greek: "Dio de dikaios mone pteroutai he tou philosophou dianoia
pros gar ekeinois aei esti mneme kata dunamin, pros oisper theos on
theios esti. tois de de toioutois aner hupomnemasin orthos
chromenos, teleous aei teletas teloumenos, teleos ontos monos
gignetai."]

PLATO, _Phaedrus_, p. 249.

LICHT UND FARBE

"Wohne, du ewiglich Eines, dort bei dem ewiglich Einen!
Farbe, du wechselnde, komm' freundlich zum Menschen herab!"

SCHILLER.

"Nel suo profondo vidi che s'interna,
Legato con amore in un volume,
Cio che per l'universo si squaderna;
Sustanzia ed accidente, e lor costume,
Tutti conflati insieme par tal modo,
Che cio ch'io dico e un semplice lume."

DANTE, _Paradiso_, c. 33.

CHRISTIAN PLATONISM AND SPECULATIVE MYSTICISM

I. IN THE EAST

"That was the true Light, which lighteth every man coming into the
world."--JOHN i. 9.

"He made darkness His hiding place, His pavilion round about Him;
darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies."--Ps. xviii. 11.

I have called this Lecture "Christian Platonism and Speculative
Mysticism." Admirers of Plato are likely to protest that Plato himself
can hardly be called a mystic, and that in any case there is very
little resemblance between the philosophy of his dialogues and the
semi-Oriental Mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. I do not
dispute either of these statements; and yet I wish to keep the name of
Plato in the title of this Lecture. The affinity between Christianity
and Platonism was very strongly felt throughout the period which we
are now to consider. Justin Martyr claims Plato (with Heraclitus[107]
and Socrates) as a Christian before Christ; Athenagoras calls him the
best of the forerunners of Christianity, and Clement regards the
Gospel as perfected Platonism.[108] The Pagans repeated so
persistently the charge that Christ borrowed from Plato what was true
in His teaching, that Ambrose wrote a treatise to confute them. As a
rule, the Christians did not deny the resemblance, but explained it by
saying that Plato had plagiarised from Moses--a curious notion which
we find first in Philo. In the Middle Ages the mystics almost
canonised Plato: Eckhart speaks of him, quaintly enough, as "the great
priest" (_der grosse Pfaffe_); and even in Spain, Louis of Granada
calls him "divine," and finds in him "the most excellent parts of
Christian wisdom." Lastly, in the seventeenth century the English
Platonists avowed their intention of bringing back the Church to "her
old loving nurse the Platonic philosophy." These English Platonists
knew what they were talking of; but for the mediaeval mystics Platonism
meant the philosophy of Plotinus adapted by Augustine, or that of
Proclus adapted by Dionysius, or the curious blend of Platonic,
Aristotelian, and Jewish philosophy which filtered through into the
Church by means of the Arabs. Still, there was justice underlying this
superficial ignorance. Plato is, after all, the father of European
Mysticism.[109] Both the great types of mystics may appeal to
him--those who try to rise through the visible to the invisible,
through Nature to God, who find in earthly beauty the truest symbol of
the heavenly, and in the imagination--the image-making faculty--a raft
whereon we may navigate the shoreless ocean of the Infinite; and
those who distrust all sensuous representations as tending "to nourish
appetites which we ought to starve," who look upon this earth as a
place of banishment, upon material things as a veil which hides God's
face from us, and who bid us "flee away from hence as quickly as may
be," to seek "yonder," in the realm of the ideas, the heart's true
home. Both may find in the real Plato much congenial teaching--that
the highest good is the greatest likeness to God--that the greatest
happiness is the vision of God--that we should seek holiness not for
the sake of external reward, but because it is the health of the soul,
while vice is its disease--that goodness is unity and harmony, while
evil is discord and disintegration--that it is our duty and happiness
to rise above the visible and transitory to the invisible and
permanent. It may also be a pleasure to some to trace the fortunes of
the positive and negative elements in Plato's teaching--of the
humanist and the ascetic who dwelt together in that large mind; to
observe how the world-renouncing element had to grow at the expense of
the other, until full justice had been done to its claims; and then
how the brighter, more truly Hellenic side was able to assert itself
under due safeguards, as a precious thing dearly purchased, a treasure
reserved for the pure and humble, and still only to be tasted
carefully, with reverence and godly fear. There is, of course, no
necessity for connecting this development with the name of Plato. The
way towards a reconciliation of this and other differences is more
clearly indicated in the New Testament; indeed, nothing can
strengthen our belief in inspiration so much as to observe how the
whole history of thought only helps us to _understand_ St. Paul and
St. John better, never to pass beyond their teaching. Still, the
traditional connexion between Plato and Mysticism is so close that we
may, I think, be pardoned for keeping, like Ficinus, a lamp burning in
his honour throughout our present task.

It is not my purpose in these Lectures to attempt a historical survey
of Christian Mysticism. To attempt this, within the narrow limits of
eight Lectures, would oblige me to give a mere skeleton of the
subject, which would be of no value, and of very little interest. The
aim which I have set before myself is to give a clear presentation of
an important type of Christian life and thought, in the hope that it
may suggest to us a way towards the solution of some difficulties
which at present agitate and divide us. The path is beset with
pitfalls on either side, as will be abundantly clear when we consider
the startling expressions which Mysticism has often found for itself.
But though I have not attempted to give even an outline of the history
of Mysticism, I feel that the best and safest way of studying this or
any type of religion is to consider it in the light of its historical
development, and of the forms which it has actually assumed. And so I
have tried to set these Lectures in a historical framework, and, in
choosing prominent figures as representatives of the chief kinds of
Mysticism, to observe, so far as possible, the chronological order.
The present Lecture will carry us down to the Pseudo-Dionysius, the
influence of whose writings during the next thousand years can hardly
be overestimated. But if we are to understand how a system of
speculative Mysticism, of an Asiatic rather than European type, came
to be accepted as the work of a convert of St. Paul, and invested with
semi-apostolic authority, we must pause for a few minutes to let our
eyes rest on the phenomenon called Alexandrianism, which fills a large
place in the history of the early Church.

We have seen how St. Paul speaks of a _Gnosis_ or higher knowledge,
which can be taught with safety only to the "perfect" or "fully
initiated";[110] and he by no means rejects such expressions as the
_Pleroma_ (the totality of the Divine attributes), which were
technical terms of speculative theism. St. John, too, in his prologue
and other places, brings the Gospel into relation with current
speculation, and interprets it in philosophical language. The movement
known as Gnosticism, both within and without the Church, was an
attempt to complete this reconciliation between speculative and
revealed religion, by systematising the symbols of transcendental
mystical theosophy.[111] The movement can only be understood as a
premature and unsuccessful attempt to achieve what the school of
Alexandria afterwards partially succeeded in doing. The anticipations
of Neoplatonism among the Gnostics would probably be found to be very
numerous, if the victorious party had thought their writings worth
preserving. But Gnosticism was rotten before it was ripe. Dogma was
still in such a fluid state, that there was nothing to keep
speculation within bounds; and the Oriental element, with its
insoluble dualism, its fantastic mythology and spiritualism, was too
strong for the Hellenic. Gnosticism presents all the features which we
shall find to be characteristic of degenerate Mysticism. Not to speak
of its oscillations between fanatical austerities and scandalous
licence, and its belief in magic and other absurdities, we seem, when
we read Irenaeus' description of a Valentinian heretic, to hear the
voice of Luther venting his contempt upon some "_Geisterer_" of the
sixteenth century, such as Carlstadt or Sebastian Frank. "The fellow
is so puffed up," says Irenaeus, "that he believes himself to be
neither in heaven nor on earth, but to have entered within the Divine
Pleroma, and to have embraced his guardian angel. On the strength of
which he struts about as proud as a cock. These are the self-styled
'spiritual persons,' who say they have already reached perfection."
The later Platonism could not even graft itself upon any of these
Gnostic systems, and Plotinus rejects them as decisively as Origen.

Still closer is the approximation to later speculation which we find
in Philo, who was a contemporary of St. Paul. Philo and his Therapeutae
were genuine mystics of the monastic type. Many of them, however, had
not been monks all their life, but were retired men of business, who
wished to spend their old age in contemplation, as many still do in
India. They were, of course, not Christians, but Hellenised Jews,
though Eusebius, Jerome, and the Middle Ages generally thought that
they were Christians, and were well pleased to find monks in the first
century.[112]

Philo's object is to reconcile religion and philosophy--in other
words, Moses and Plato.[113] His method[114] is to make Platonism a
development of Mosaism, and Mosaism an implicit Platonism. The claims
of orthodoxy are satisfied by saying, rather audaciously, "All this is
Moses' doctrine, not mine." His chief instrument in this difficult
task is allegorism, which in his hands is a bad specimen of that
pseudo-science which has done so much to darken counsel in biblical
exegesis. His speculative system, however, is exceedingly interesting.

God, according to Philo, is unqualified and pure Being, but _not_
superessential. He is emphatically [Greek: ho on], the "I am," and the
most _general_ ([Greek: to genikotaton]) of existences. At the same
time He is without qualities ([Greek: apoios]), and ineffable
([Greek: arretos]). In His inmost nature He is inaccessible; as it
was said to Moses, "Thou shalt see what is behind Me, but My face
shall not be seen." It is best to contemplate God in silence, since we
can compare Him to nothing that we know. All our knowledge of God is
really God dwelling in us. He has breathed into us something of His
nature, and is thus the archetype of what is highest in ourselves. He
who is truly inspired "may with good reason be called God." This
blessed state may, however, be prepared for by such mediating agencies
as the study of God's laws in nature; and it is only the highest class
of saints--the souls "born of God"--that are exalted above the need of
symbols. It would be easy to show how Philo wavers between two
conceptions of the Divine nature--God as simply transcendent, and God
as immanent. But this is one of the things that make him most
interesting. His Judaism will not allow him really to believe in a God
"without qualities."

The Logos dwells with God as His Wisdom (or sometimes he calls Wisdom,
figuratively, the mother of the Logos). He is the "second God," the
"Idea of Ideas"; the other Ideas or Powers are the forces which he
controls--"the Angels," as he adds, suddenly remembering his Judaism.
The Logos is also the mind of God expressing itself in act: the Ideas,
therefore, are the content of the mind of God. Here he anticipates
Plotinus; but he does not reduce God to a logical point. His God is
self-conscious, and reasons. By the agency of the Logos the worlds
were made: the intelligible world, the [Greek: kosmos noetos], is
the Logos acting as Creator. Indeed, Philo calls the intelligible
universe "the only and beloved Son of God"; just as Erigena says, "Be
assured that the Word is the Nature of all things." The Son represents
the world before God as High Priest, Intercessor, and Paraclete. He is
the "divine Angel" that guides us; He is the "bread of God," the "dew
of the soul," the "convincer of sin": no evil can touch the soul in
which He dwells: He is the eternal image of the Father, and we, who
are not yet fit to be called sons of God, may call ourselves His
sons.

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