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Bible Dictionaries
Mysticism
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or There are definitions of mysticism which place the subject outside the limits of this work. Harnack says: ‘Mysticism is Catholic piety in general, so far as this piety is not merely ecclesiastical obedience, that is, fides implicita.… If Protestantism is not at some time yet, so far as it means anything at all, to become entirely Mystical, it will never be possible to make Mysticism Protestant without flying in the face of history and Catholicism’ (History of Dogma, Eng. translation , London, 1894-99, vi. 98 ff.). E. Lehmann asserts that ‘the aim of mysticism … is and always has been quiescence and emptiness of soul, darkened consciousness, and the suspension of natural understanding. All this eventually ends in conventual practices and the technics of the confessional’ (Mysticism in Heathendom and Christendom, London, 1910, p. 235). But Christian mysticism cannot be identified with either its scholastic or its ecclesiastical forms; even Lehmann, in his sympathetic account of Santa Teresa, ‘the greatest saint of mysticism,’ significantly describes her thoughts as ‘almost Protestant.… Union with God did not mean union in a pantheistic sense, but rather a transformation of the soul through love, leading up to a condition of perfect acquiescence to the will of God’ (op. cit. p. 234). Harnack also acknowledges that ‘that Mysticism cannot certainly be banished which at one time is called Quietism, at another time “Spurious Mysticism”; for the Church continually gives impulses towards the origination of this kind of Christianity, and can itself in no way avoid training it, up to a certain point’ (op. cit. vii. 100). That mysticism degenerated into fanaticism which has no warrant in apostolic teaching is indisputable; it is, for this reason, essential that the false mysticism should be distinguished from the true. ‘It was always the Ultra’s, who, by making an appeal to them, brought discredit upon the “Church” Mystics’ (Harnack, op. cit. vi. 105 n. [Note: . note.] ).
Mysticism and historical religion are sometimes regarded as mutually exclusive alternatives. S. W. Fresenius, having expounded Luther’s teaching in his de Libertate Christiana, says: ‘that is historical religion as the Reformers understood it, but it is not Mysticism’ (Mystik und geschichtliche Religion, Göttingen, 1912, p. 94). There may, however, be a mystical element in Christianity, although it does not rest upon a mystical basis. Christianity is a historical religion founded on facts, apart from which the experience of Christian believers is inexplicable; that experience is mystical in proportion as the soul has direct personal intercourse with God through Christ. But this is not to affirm that every Christian realizes the mystical implications of his own experience. From Apostolic Christianity it is impossible to exclude the mysticism which has been defined as ‘the type of religion which puts the emphasis on immediate awareness of relation with God, on direct and intimate consciousness of the Divine Presence. It is religion in its most acute, intense, and living stage’ (Rufus Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, London, 1909, p. xv).
The result of the contact of Christianity with non-Christian philosophies was the intrusion of non-Christian elements into Christian mysticism. But its corruptions ought not to be identified with its essence. The mysticism which Harnack condemns had its origin in the philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (4th cent.): ‘The mystical and pietistic devotion of to-day, even in the Protestant Church, draws its nourishment from writings whose connection with those of the pseudo-Areopagitic can still be traced through its various intermediate stages’ (op. cit. i. 361). But Christian mysticism differs essentially from the ‘Platonic mysteriosophy’ of Dionysius with its pantheistic tendency and its exclusive insistence on the via negativa (W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, London, 1899, p. 105). The mystical element in the Christian religion is found in the earliest stages of its history. Divine revelation could not possibly ‘leave untouched the mystical yearnings of mankind.… Not only in John, but also in Paul, there are plentiful traces of Mysticism’ (S. M. Deutsch, ‘Theologie, mystische,’ in PRE [Note: RE Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche.] 3 xix. [1907] 635; cf. Expository Times xix. [1907-08] 304). To some of these traces attention must now be directed; it will then be necessary to inquire how far the apostles had the mind of Christ.
1. Pauline mysticism.-Inge has shown that the mystical element in St. Paul’s theology has been under-estimated; that ‘all the essentials of mysticism are to be found in his Epistles,’ and that his authority has been wrongly claimed for two false and mischievous developments of mysticism, namely, ‘contempt for the historical framework of Christianity,’ and ‘extreme disparagement of external religion-of forms and ceremonies and holy days and the like’ (op. cit. p. 69 ff.). Von Hügel finds ‘in St. Paul not only a deeply mystical element, but mysticism of the noblest, indeed the most daringly speculative, world-embracing type’ (The Mystical Element of Religion, London, 1908, i. 35). Referring to St. Paul as an ecstatic mystic, this able Roman Catholic interpreter of mysticism supplies a salutary test for such experiences: ‘Visions and voices are to be accepted by the mind only in proportion as they convey some spiritual truth of importance to it or to others, and as they actually help it to become more humble, true, and loving’ (op. cit. ii. 47). Inge says: ‘These recorded experiences are of great psychological interest; but … they do not seem to me to belong to the essence of Mysticism’ (op. cit. p. 63 f.).
The most important elements of St. Paul’s mysticism are derived from his experience of fellowship with the living Christ. W. K. Fleming gives a useful summary of ‘the special points with regard to which Mysticism gains its inspiration and direction from St. Paul’ (Mysticism in Christianity, London, 1913, p. 30 ff.). The subject is more extensively and most luminously treated by Miss Underhill (The Mystic Way, London, 1913, ch. iii.), though the technical phraseology of the great mystics is, at times, too rigidly applied to the Apostle’s spiritual experiences. Rufus Jones holds that the term ‘mystic’ more properly belongs to St. Paul than to St. John, because ‘Paul’s Christianity takes its rise in an inward experience, and from beginning to end the stress is upon Christ inwardly experienced and re-lived’ (op. cit. p. 16). St. Paul’s explanation of his initiation into the spiritual life is: ‘It was the good pleasure of God to reveal his Son in me’ (Galatians 1:15 f.). In his doctrine of mystical union with Christ he gives pregnant expression to his own consciousness of oneness with Christ: ‘when he came to analyze his own feelings, and to dissect this idea of oneness, it was natural to him to see in it certain stages, corresponding to those great acts of Christ, to see in it something corresponding to death, something corresponding to burial …, and something corresponding to resurrection’ (Sanday-Headlam, International Critical Commentary , ‘Romans’5, 1902, p. 162, note on Romans 6:1-14). Appealing from Kant and Ritschl and Herrmann to Luther and his doctrine of the unio mystica, Söderblom argues that ‘the mystical union … is a genuine constituent of evangelical Christianity, inasmuch as its mysticism is inseparably bound up with the essentials of every Christian life, that is to say, with the forgiveness of sins and with justification’ (Religion und Geisteskultur, vi. [1912] 298 ff.; cf. Expository Times xxiv. [1912-13] 117). Another truth which St. Paul put in the forefront of his teaching finds its highest expression in his great hymn in praise of Love (1 Corinthians 13), for therein he ‘declares the conditions, and sets the standard, to which the whole of Christian mysticism has since striven to conform’ (Underhill, op. cit. p. 205), Finally, as Moberly has impressively said, ‘the real truth of Christian Mysticism is, in fact, the doctrine, or rather the experience, of the Holy Ghost.’ Mysticism is ‘the realization of the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of the Creator of Heaven and Earth, in, and as, the climax of human personality’ (Atonement and Personality, London, 1901, p. 312). In this doctrine the key to St. Paul’s mysticism is found, for if Christ is to dwell in our hearts through faith we need to pray that we may be ‘strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man’ (Ephesians 3:16).
2. Johannine mysticism.-‘The greatest monument of most genuine appreciation of St. Paul’s mysticism … is the Gospel and the Epistles of St. John’ (Deissmann, St. Paul, Eng. translation , London, 1912, p. 133). The two apostles agree in giving prominence to the mystic idea of the believer’s oneness with Christ, to the pre-eminence of Love, and to the Holy Spirit as the Source of knowledge of the things of God, the Giver and Sustainer of spiritual life, and the witness to the Divine sonship of believers. St. John’s chief contributions to the mystical element in religion are (1) that by his insistence on a historical revelation in time ‘he counterpoises the strong mystical tendency in succeeding ages to regard the Gospel story as a kind of drama,’ as though the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ took place within the soul; ‘Yet he views what he holds as historical under so mystical an aspect, that it would be right to say that for him all life is sacramental; above all, the Life of lives’ (Fleming, op. cit. p. 38); (2) that, by his use of symbols in the expression of mystical thought, he so treats the words and works of Christ as to ensure that ‘all things in the world may remind us of Him who made them, and who is their sustaining life’ (Inge, op. cit. p. 59).
3. Mysticism of other NT writers.-The mystical element in the remaining NT Epistles is of minor importance. In the Epistle to the Hebrews visible things are regarded as symbols of invisible realities of the spiritual world; the mystic conception of life as an exile and a pilgrimage also has a place (Hebrews 11:13 ff; Hebrews 13:14; cf. 1 Peter 1:17; 1 Peter 2:11). ‘St. Peter, who shares the Johannine conception as to the “incorruptible seed,” echoes the thought of both St. John and St. Paul as to the timelessness of the redemptive process’ (Fleming, op. cit. p. 44).
As regards the mystical element in the writings of apostolic men before the close of the 1st cent. it is sufficient to say that the judgment of Rufus Jones as to the Church Fathers in general applies especially to this early period: ‘The Fathers were not “mystics” in the ordinary sense of the word. Their type of religion was mainly objective and historical, rather than subjective and inward’ (op. cit. p. 80).
4. Christ ‘the true mystic.’-When Moberly asserts that ‘it is Christ who is the true mystic,’ he is referring to the disproportionate emphasis which mystics of various schools (ascetic, contemplative, symbolic, etc.) have laid upon their own aspect of truth, and he claims that ‘one and all the exaggerations find their full correction in the Person of the Incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ; for all the exaggerations are partial lights from the full splendour of the presence of His Spirit, which is the ideal meaning of Christian personality.’ To those who hesitate to speak of Christ as the true mystic, Moberly says: ‘If the mode of expression be preferred, it is He who alone has realized all that mysticism and mystics have aimed at.… In Him this perfect realization evidently means a harmony, a sanity, a fitly proportioned completeness.… In being the ideal of mysticism, it is also the ideal of general, and of practical, and of all, Christian experience’ (op. cit. p. 314). When the Synoptic narratives are read in this light, the main elements of mysticism are found therein. Miss Underhill is more ambitious, and strives to show that the characteristic experiences of great mystics, as, e.g., Suso and Teresa, ‘are found in a heightened form in the life of their Master’ (op. cit. p. 77). This involves some straining of the records and the anachronistic application to our Lord’s experiences of mediaeval phraseology. But it remains true that although ‘the first three Gospels are not written in the religious dialect of Mysticism,’ yet in the earliest accounts of the teaching of Christ ‘the vision of God is promised … only to those who are pure in heart,’ the inwardness of the blessings of His Kingdom is emphasized, and He identifies Himself with the least of His brethren. In the Synoptists is also found ‘the law of gain through loss, of life through death,-which is the corner-stone of mystical (and, many have said, of Christian) ethics’ (Inge, op. cit. p. 44).
Of mysticism which is impatient of the historical facts which are the foundation of the Christian religion and has no need of Christ as Mediator, the apostolic writers know nothing. P. T. Forsyth, who has no sympathy with mysticism of this type (cf. Expository Times v. [1893-94] 401 ff.), has, nevertheless, said: ‘We need more mystic souls and mystic hours. But the true mysticism is not raptly dwelling in the mystery of God, it is really living on His miracle.… And the only mysticism with a lease of life is that which surrounds the moral miracle which makes Christianity in the end evangelical or nothing. It is the mysticism of the cross’ (The Principle of Authority, London, 1912, p. 465). Christian mysticism, as understood by the apostles, is also the mysticism of the Spirit. ‘The Christianity which is content to remain “non-mystical” is impoverished at the very centre of its being. All Christians profess belief in the Holy Ghost. Had only all Christians understood, and lived up to, their belief, they would all have been mystics’ (Moberly, op. cit. p. 316).
Literature.-In addition to the works mentioned in the article , see H. Hering, Die Mystik Luthers im Zusammenhange seiner Theologie, Leipzig, 1879; M. Reischle, Ein Wort zur Controverse über die Mystik, Freiburg i. B., 1886; G. Klepl, Zur Umbildung des religiösen Denkens, Leipzig, 1908; P. Mehlhorn, ‘Christliche Mystik,’ in RGG [Note: GG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart.] iv. [Tübingen, 1912-13] 600 ff.; G. Lasch, ‘Mystik und Protestantismus,’ in Religion und Geisteskultur, v. [Göttingen, 1911] 34 ff.; N. Söderblom, Religionsproblemetinom Katolicism och Protestantism, Stockholm, 1910; W. Herrmann, The Communion of the Christian with God, Eng. translation 2, London, 1906; W. Major Scott, Aspects of Christian Mysticism, do., 1907; J. M. Campbell, Paul the Mystic, do., 1907; E. C. Gregory, An Introduction to Christian Mysticism2, do., 1908; H. B. Workman, Christian Thought to the Reformation, do., 1911; W. T. Davison, The Indwelling Spirit, do., 1911; F. von Hügel, Eternal Life, Edinburgh, 1912; A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, ‘Mysticism,’ in Encyclopaedia Britannica 11 xix. 123 ff.; O. C. Quick, ‘The Value of Mysticism in Religions Faith and Practice,’ in Journal of Theological Studies xiii. [1911-12] 161 ff., and ‘Mysticism: its Meaning and Danger,’ in ib. xiv. [1912-13] 1 ff.; H. Kelly, The Meaning of Mysticism, in ib. xiii. 481.
J. G. Tasker.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Mysticism'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/m/mysticism.html. 1906-1918.
