Light from Light: An Anthology of Christian Mysticism

360 Pages·2001·1.68 MB·English

by  Louis Dupré

Light from Light
An Anthology of Christian Mysticism
Second Edition Completely Revised and Updated
Edited by Louis Dupré and James A. Wiseman, O.S.B.
PAULIST PRESS
NEW YORK/MAHWAH, N.J.
Book design by Theresa M. Sparacio Cover design by Cynthia Dunne Copyright © 2001 by James A.
Wiseman and Louis Dupré All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Light from light : an anthology of Christian mysticism
/ edited by Louis Dupré and James A. Wiseman.—2nd ed., completely rev. and updated.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
EISBN 978-1-61643-075-7
1. Mysticism. I. Dupré, Louis K., 1925– II. Wiseman, James A., 1942– BV5072 .L54 2001b
248.2?2—dc21
00-068462
Published by Paulist Press
997 Macarthur Boulevard
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
www.paulistpress.com
C
ONTENTS
Preface
General Introduction
1. Origen (c.185–c.253)
2. Gregory of Nyssa (c.335–c.395)
3. Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
4. Pseudo-Dionysius (early sixth century)
5. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)
6. Francis of Assisi (c.1182–1226) and Clare of Assisi (c.1193–1253)
7. Bonaventure (c.1217–74)
8. Meister Eckhart (c.1260–c.1329)
9. Jan van Ruusbroec (1293–1381)
10. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359)
11. Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416)
12. The Cloud of Unknowing (fourteenth century)
13. Catherine of Siena (1347–80)
14. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556)
15. Teresa of Avila (1515–82)
16. John of the Cross (1542–91)
17. Francis de Sales (1567–1622) and Jeanne de Chantal (1572–1641)
18. Jonathan Edwards (1703–58)
19. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–97)
20.Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941)
21.Thomas Merton (1915–68)
P
REFACE
Light from Light has been in print for well over a decade, and its editors remain
grateful for the friendly reception of a project that grew out of a practical need.
But as the years have passed, readers, the publisher, and indeed the editors
themselves felt that it could be improved. The bulky format of the original
edition, with its wide pages and long lines, made reading uncomfortable. A
quick poll taken among some of its readers revealed what the original preface
had predicted, that satisfaction with the choice of the selections was not
universal. Recommendations from the poll were sufficiently specific, though by
no means unanimous, to allow us to make some changes. Spiritual writers of late
seventeenth-and early eighteenth-century France found little response from
contemporary Americans, so we omitted Fénelon, Jeanne Guyon, and Marie of
the Incarnation, though not without pain and in anticipation of future protests.
Some authors failed to invite readers because readers hardly recognized their
names. Such was regrettably the case with William Law and, in our time, Henri
Le Saux—surprisingly also with Maximus the Confessor.
On the opposite side, some readers expressed dissatisfaction with the absence
of Francis and Clare of Assisi, while others missed the saintly fellowship of
Francis de Sales and Jeanne de Chantal. They were right, and we hasten to
remedy the omissions. Having made the changes, however, we realize that they
may displease some readers. No one will be entirely satisfied with a limited
choice, but all may take comfort in the fact that the absence of any anthology of
this sort—which originally motivated our work—is no longer a problem. Since
the anthologies now available differ in their choice of subjects as well as of
excerpts, others may complement what ours does not offer.
The inclusion of such writers as Francis de Sales, Jeanne de Chantal, and
Evelyn Underhill in the present edition raises again, and more urgently, the
question of the principle of selection. These authors may never have enjoyed the
kind of extraordinary experiences that we have come to associate with the term
mysticism. As we pointed out in the original General Introduction and do so
again in the present one, such experiences were never the norm for inclusion,
since this would have excluded most spiritual writers of the patristic and
medieval epochs. An intense spiritual concern expressed in mostly non-
confessional writings determined the past use of the term. Today the term
spirituality might render the ancient meaning more accurately, but we have
preferred to retain the original subtitle of our anthology for the sake of
continuity. We have likewise retained the general format of the first edition, with
chapter introductions placing each selection in context within the Christian
mystical tradition and selected bibliographies, now updated, pointing the reader
to further resources.
Finally, we express our sincere thanks to all who made recommendations for
improving the first edition of this anthology, and to Donald Brophy, Theresa
Sparacio, and their associates at Paulist Press for their assistance in our work of
revision.
G I
ENERAL NTRODUCTION
I. M C M
YSTICISM AND HRISTIAN YSTICISM
Reading mystical writers—even if they are mediocre stylists, poorly educated,
and separated from us by antiquated theologies and questionable methods of
exegesis—may be an illuminating experience. It allows a rare glimpse of that
mystery that surrounds our entire existence. For a Christian, the translation of
doctrine into experience or even into theory about experience may also mean a
homecoming into his or her faith. But what counts as a mystical text? The
answers have varied from being almost indefinably comprehensive to being
almost inapplicably restrictive. No definitive answer has presided over our
choice. The history of the term itself has proven to be too slippery to provide
hard and fast answers. The adjective mystikos, derived from Greek mystery cults,
through the Alexandrian writers Clement and Origen, hesitantly found its way
into the Christian vocabulary.1 The objective quality of the original concept, so
different from our own emphasis upon private experience, persists through the
sixth century. Mystical applies to the hidden (Christian) meaning of the Old
Testament, to the hidden presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and eventually to
the universal Christian experience of God’s presence in scripture and in the
world around us. All these meanings convey the idea of a reality concealed by
surface appearances but accessible to all Christians. Indeed, I doubt whether
before the late Middle Ages the word ever referred to a purely private, inner
experience. The meaning continues to shift through the Middle Ages so much
that few authors here presented would have agreed on a common definition
before the end of the Middle Ages, and none would have used the one common
today of a secret knowledge communicated in an extraordinary, personal
experience.
Only toward the end of the Middle Ages, when spiritual life itself became
marginal to (a still publicly religious) society, did the term move toward the
highly individual, subjective meaning we tend to regard as its very essence. Thus
Chancellor Gerson, somewhat ahead of his time, defined it as cognitio
experimentalis de Deo. The last two centuries (at least in Western Christendom)
have narrowed that meaning further to an extraordinary grace granted to those
who directly experience the divine presence. However questionable one may
find those restrictions, we editors writing for a modern public have to take them
into account. This decision, in turn, creates further complications. For who, by
the subjective norms now prevailing, deserves to be included? Clearly,
compromises are inevitable, and we had to include much, indeed most, of what
was written according to very different definitions of the term mystical—and yet
with some relation to the modern, private, contemplative conception. This
strategy forced us to forgo any judgment concerning a writer’s private
experience and, even more, concerning the “natural” or “supernatural” quality of
what he or she describes. Few of the writers here presented ever appeal to
personal experience. Instead, they articulate various theories of God’s presence
to the soul that we have come to describe as mystical, but which in most cases
they themselves never even considered in the light of the private, subjective, or
extraordinary experience we attach to the meaning of the term. It remains
generally true that mystical texts place a greater emphasis upon the communally
or individually experienced presence of God than related systematic or pastoral
ones do. This provides the reader with no pretext for discarding the theoretical
husk in favor of some alleged core of pure experience. We can refer to
experience only as it is reflected in the text, that is, as the hidden factor to which
in some manner (not necessarily private!) the expression itself appeals and
which grants it its specific character.
But a text carries a second intentionality by which it refers to the reader’s
experience. Through the centuries we have come to consider certain texts as
mystical more for the unique insight—at once cognitive and affective—in the
spiritual nature of reality they convey to the reader than for the assumed (but
totally hidden) experience that led to their writing. Ideally, they evoke a response
related to the one described by the disciples of Emmaus after their mysterious
encounter with the risen Lord: “Did we not feel our hearts on fire at his words?”
In this respect the study of a mystical text may be compared to Luther’s reading
of scripture. Not so much the words as what the Spirit awakens in the hearer or
reader through these words—was Christum treibt—leads him or her to consider a
text inspired. To consider a text mystical, then, often amounts to regarding it as
conducive to that special religious perception of reality in which the various
functions of the mind, the affective as well as the cognitive, become united in a
uniquely harmonious and often intensively experienced manner.
How essential is the mystical element to the Christian faith? One need not
share the fierce opposition of extreme “transcendentists” (Catholics as well as
Protestants) to any kind of experiential partaking of the divine to question the
oft-heard statement that mysticism is the essence of religion. Unqualifiedly thus
to describe religion is seriously to distort its nature. Nevertheless, we believe that
the mystical belongs to the very essence of religion, even though that essence
usually contains other elements as well. Not only does it occasionally take a
complete hold of some but, more important, it shapes and informs, inspires and
renews all religious activity, whether ritual, moral, or theoretical. Without some
share of spiritual experience religion withers away in sterile ritualism, arid
moralism, or theological intellectualism. Nor is that experience entirely reserved
to the few. The same power that overwhelms some exerts an active though often
barely conscious momentum on all genuine religious endeavor.
To evaluate the mystical quality of the Christian faith would require a full
spiritual history of it. Over the centuries the significance of the mystical has
varied, without ever having dominated the entire faith or having lost its impact
on that faith altogether. Already the gospels strongly stress the continuous,
intimate presence of God to Jesus. The mystical quality of a life so thoroughly
penetrated by God’s own life receives a unique emphasis in the Fourth Gospel.
The presence of Jesus’ Spirit turns that quality into a promise to all true
believers. It entitles his followers to the very love with which God loves his own
Son.
The specific quality of Christian mysticism renders it, of course, distinct from
other mystical forms of religion. But it does not separate it from them. Indeed,
some mystics have been known to maintain a dialogue with one another across
confessional boundaries which exceeded that of officially accepted theoretical
exchange. Muslim mystics have been influenced by Christians, and some
medieval Jewish mystics betray the impact of Muslim doctrines, while
Christians have persistently derived mystical inspiration from pagan writings of
the classical age and their religious interpretations by Jews and Muslims. Today,
more than ever, spiritual men and women of different faiths tend to form an
invisible kinship that often allows them to communicate as easily with mystics
of another faith as with believers in their own confession—nor surprisingly, for
mystical texts, however distinct in quality, tend to have a universal appeal. This
fact has led some to conclude that, from a mystical point of view, all religions
are alike, or even that there is only one, universal mystical religion, which
subsequent interpretations distinguish according to theologies or schools. This
position is, of course, erroneously simplistic and, as our awareness of the
specific quality of each religion has increased, the number of advocates of a
universal mystical religion is rapidly dwindling. Today most students of the