LATER MYSTICS

 

The Medieval Mystics well knew the importance of Self Knowledge in the journey towards the Knowledge of God. We have read of the antiquity and meaning of the Delphic maxim. Throughout the ages the meaning has remained the same, even when independently discovered. The meaning is Know Thyself as a person, also in relationship to others and the universe, and most importantly Know Thyself mystically as part of God’s Self.

 

In the middle of the twelfth century St. Bernard set out the ‘Cistercian Program’ in which there is a path to the knowledge of God through self-knowledge. William of St. Thierry encapsulated the ‘Program’ thus:

 

That, when body and soul and spirit have each been ordered and disposed to their rightful place, each esteemed according to their merits and distinguished according to their qualities, a man may begin perfectly to know himself, and by progress in self-knowledge may ascend to the knowledge of God.[1]

 

In The Making of the Middle Ages, R.W. Southern stresses their teaching of the need for self-knowledge in the Medieval church:

 

St. Bernard owed his influence as a guide to the spiritual life largely to the fact that men’s minds had been turning already in the direction along which he impelled them. We have seen that both he and St. Anslem began their reconstituted ladders of humility with self-knowledge; and this theme of self-knowledge was deeply rooted in the monastic movements of this time. The first abbot of Citeaux wrote of his followers as ‘those to whom the grace has been given to know themselves’.[2]

 

Now, let us look at what the later Church though of the subject. The first is the Cloud of Unknowing, by an unknown English author in the early fourteenth century. Followed by the great German mystic Meister Eckhart who wrote, in the fourteenth century, many sermons on Knowing God.

 

So stamp down all knowledge and experience of anything whatsoever; above all you should concentrate on forgetting yourself. Your understanding and experience of everything else depends on knowledge of yourself and it is far easier to forget other creatures once you have laid yourself to one side.[3]

 

“One must have a pure, clear Knowledge of the Divine Truth...Such a person finds his goal in the Divine Nature and it is within himself...But when, for God’s sake, it becomes unself-conscious and lets go of everything, it finds itself again in God, for knowing God it therefore Knows Itself and everything else from which it has been cut asunder, in the Divine perfection.”[4]

 

His contemporary mystic Ruysbroek embraced the maxim in his writings;

 

“Knowledge of Ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are and whither we are going. We come from God and we are in exile; and it is because our potency of affection tends towards God that we are aware of this state of exile.”[5]

 

In the sixteenth century we find St. John of the Cross writing;

 

“It is only a soul in union with God that is capable of knowing this profound loving Knowledge, for it is itself that Union.”[6]

 

 

The Cloud of Unknowing in Christian Literature.[7]

 

Mystical Literature is not a literary tradition like history or the novel! It is an experiential continuity spontaneously expressed by each culture in its own terms. Though there are many different cultural environments the description of the ‘Religious Experience’ is similar in all important aspects. The Experience of the Light of Brahma, Nirvana of Buddha, the Seventh Heaven of Islam, The One of Plato, and the spiritual Body of Christ the Son, are all one and the same. The true Mystic will recognize in each culture those who have had the same Experience of God or what ever other name it may be called.

 

There are, so to say, two types of Mystic the Active and the Contemplative. Via Activa and Via Negativa are the terms used of the two paths which lead to the same goal. Perhaps this is to do with the different personalities of people, ‘extrovert and introvert’.

 

In any case however many ways there are to find and experience the ‘One’, the Experience is the same and the results are the same, Saintliness. Of the ancient writers that have survived most were saved because of their high moral and religious feelings. To understand the literary terms which Christian Mystics use it is essential to know Plato. In Plato all later Mystical writers found descriptions of what they had known themselves, put in a grand and reverent manner.

 

After Plato perhaps Plotinus, the exponent of Neo-Platonism, is the most important Mystical writer to have survived, (though Philo Judaeus, Plutarch and others also have a claim). Then Dionysus the Aeropagite, though misplaced in time, gave Christianity a Mystical terminology and structure.

 

All following Christian mystics owe a debt to Dionysus whether they know it or not. The early poetry of the Church represents the purest Mystical thought as most prose writers were tangled up in debate. They had to establish a rational structure to survive attack from both pagans outside and heretics within. The wandering poets expressed the Mystical feeling much better than ecclesiastical scholars.

 

Christian Mysticism as a literary form grew from the German school of such as Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, and of course Ruysbroek. English tradition is at a peak in the 14th century with Rolle’s the Fire of Love, the Cloud of Unknowing, Walter Hilton’s ‘Ladder’, Juliana of Norwich, and Thomas A’Kempis. Later St. John of the Cross reached out to light the ‘Dark Night’ with the flame of Love.

 

These writers are all describing some­thing that each had personally experienced, not following a style or mode of literary expertise. Each statement is at once true for the author and all others who Experience the same God and who then attempt to express the feel­ings in their own cultural terms. That there is One God and One Experience, shared by all, of God, is the message of all Mystical Writers in all Times. They ‘Know Themselves’ and they ‘Know God’.

 

Of some interest is a footnote in a work on the Literary tradition in the English Middle Ages dealing with the early English mystics. Some of the works of the author of The Cloud and Walter Hilton are in an anthology entitled The Cell of Self-Knowledge by Edmund G. Gardner (1910).[8]

 

When we look at Walter Hilton in his Ladder to Perfection:

 

St. Augustine taught that God had created man in his own image and so it was by looking at his own soul that man would discover God: “May I know myself! May I know thee!”[9]

 

There is a very helpful and profitable exercise. A man must enter into himself and get to know his own soul - its abilities, beauties and failings. During this interior examination you will come to see the honour and dignity it was meant to have when it was created and also realize the wretchedness and evil mess you have fallen into because of your sin. The vision of self will result in an immense desire and longing springing up in your heart to recover the dignity and honour you have lost.[10]

 

I am not saying that you will be able to recover such a complete and perfect purity and innocence, knowledge and love of God as you had originally (before birth), or as you will have in the next world.[11]

 

There are many devout souls who by grace enter this darkness and attain self knowledge, but who do not yet fully understand this process..[12]

 

He (Jesus) opens the inner eyes of the soul when He enlightens the reason by touching and shining his blessed light upon it so that it can see and know him. This does not happen completely or all at once but gradually at different times as the soul is able to bear it. He does not see what God is... But he sees that He is:.. but the soul sees that God exists in his understanding, which is comforted and enlightened by the gift of the Holy Spirit with a marvellous reverence, a hidden and burning love, a spiritual savour and a heavenly delight. He sees more purely and completely that it is possible to describe in writing or speech....

 

Even though this vision may be brief and incomplete, it is so precious and powerful that it draws and ravishes the emotions of the soul from all thought and remembrance of things here below. The soul wishes that it was possible to stay in this state for ever. On this vision and knowledge, the soul bases all its interior activity and all its affections....

 

Indeed, I do not know what more a soul who has had a glimpse of this knowledge can expect....[13]

 

Now we turn to Julian(a) of Norwich, in her Revelations of Divine Love to see a female perspective:

It is a sublime thing to know within ourselves and to see that God, our creator, lives in our soul. And it is an even greater thing to know and see in an interior manner that our created soul dwells in the substance of God. From that substance of God we are what we are.[14]

 

And I saw with absolute certainty that it is easier for us to arrive at a knowledge of God than to know our own soul. For our soul is so profoundly rooted in God and so endlessly treasured by Him, that we cannot come to know it unless we have known God first, the Creator to whom we are united.[15]

 

Meister Eckhart, (1260-1328)

 

From the introduction of the works of Meister Eckhart,....

Another Bible passage important, not only to the Middle Ages in general, but to Eckhart in particular, is Genesis 1:26-27, “Let us make man in our own image... so God created man in his own image.” Thence, the chief problem of divine studies became that of Socrates: “Know Thyself.”[16]

 

Further, I say that if the soul is to know God, it must forget itself and lose itself, for as long as it is self-aware and self-conscious, it will not see or be conscious of God. But when, for God’s sake, it becomes unself-conscious and lets go of everything, it finds itself again in God, for knowing God, it therefore knows itself and everything else from which it has been cut asunder, in the divine perfection.[17]

 

St. John of the Cross (John Yepes) 1542-1591[18]

 

Though it be true, as I have said, that God is always in every soul, bestowing upon it and preserving to it, by His presence, its natural being, yet for all this He does not always communicate the supernatural life. For this is given only by love and grace, to which all souls do not attain, and those who do, do not in the same degree, for some rise to higher degrees of love than others. That soul, therefore, has greater communion with God which is most advanced in love, that is, whose will is most conformable to the will of God.

 

The heavens are mine, the earth is mine, and the nations are mine! Mine are the just, and the sinners are mine; mine are the angels and the mother of God; all things are mine, God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me.

 

Knowledge of pure truth requires, for its proper explanation, that God should hold the hand and wield the pen of the writer. Keep in mind, my dear reader, that these matters are beyond all words.

 

In so far as this becomes pure contemplation the soul sees clearly that it cannot describe it otherwise than in general terms which the abundance of delight and happiness forces from it.

 

This divine knowledge concerning God never relates to particular things, because it is conversant with the Highest, and therefore cannot be explained unless when it is extended to some truth less than God, which is capable of being described; but this general knowledge is ineffable. It is only a soul union with God that is capable of this profound loving knowledge, for it is itself that union.

 

This knowledge consists in a certain contact of the soul with the Divinity, and it is God Himself who is then felt and tasted, though not manifestly and distinctly, as it will be in glory. But this touch of knowledge and sweetness is so strong and profound that it penetrates into the inmost substance of the soul, and the devil (World) cannot interfere with it, nor produce anything like it, because there is nothing else comparable with it, nor infuse any sweetness or delight which shall resemble it. This knowledge savours, in some measure, of the divine essence and of everlasting life, and the devil (world) has no power to simulate anything so great.

 

I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love. He has need of nothing, and so if He is pleased with anything it is the growth of the soul.

 

Hence the soul, because of its perfect love is called the bride of the Son of God, which signifies equality with Him.[19]

 

 

Stanzas Concerning an Ecstasy Experienced in High Contemplation.[20]

 

I entered into unknowing,

And there I remained unknowing,

Transcending all knowledge.

 

1. I entered into unknowing	2. That perfect knowledge
Yet when I saw myself there	Was of peace and holiness
Without knowing where I was	Held at no remove
I understood great things;	In profound solitude;
I shall not say what I felt	It was something so secret
For I remained in unknowing	That I was left stammering
Transcending all knowledge.	Transcending all knowledge.
3. I was so whelmed,	4. He who truly arrives there
So absorbed and withdrawn,	Cuts free from himself;
That my senses were left	All that he knew before
Deprived of all their sensing,	Now seems worthless,
And my spirit was given	And his knowledge so soars
An understanding while not understanding,	That he is left in unknowing
Transcending all knowledge.	Transcending all knowledge.
5. The higher he ascends	6. This knowledge in unknowing
The less he understands	Is so overwhelming
Because the cloud is dark	That wise men disputing it
Which lit up the height	Can never overthrow it
Whoever knows this	For their knowledge does not reach
Remaining always in unknowing	To the understanding of not understanding.
Transcending all knowledge.	Transcending all knowledge.
7. And this supreme knowledge	8. And if you should want to hear:
Is so exalted	This highest knowledge lies
That the power of man or learning	In the loftiest sense
Can grasp it;	Of the essence of God;
He who masters himself	That is a work of his mercy,
Will, with knowledge in unknowing,	To leave one without understanding,
Always be transcending.	Transcending all knowledge.

 

 

 

 

To examine what St. John means by knowledge and knowledge we must look at the poem in his own language, Spanish. His choice of words in Spanish to denote the differences in what we translate merely as “knowledge” is of great importance. The whole understanding of the term ‘knowledge’ goes back to the Greek words ‘episteme’ and ‘gnosis’. Episteme being science knowledge, while gnosis is the higher intellectual knowledge. The word “ciencia” equates with episteme, while “saber” relates to gnosis. The words no supe and no sabiendo are related to gnosis and the cloud of unknowing. On the other hand ciencia relates to scientific knowledge, which is completely transcended.

 

His introduction expresses this difference in terms;

 

I entered into unknowing,

And there I remained unknowing,

Transcending all knowledge.

 

Entreme donde no supe,

Y quedeme no sabiendo,

Toda ciencia transcendiendo

 

I have chosen Stanza 7 for another example:

 

7. Y es de tan alta exelencia                              7. And this supreme knowledge

Aqueste sumo saber,                                        Is so exalted

Que no hay facultad ni ciencia               That no power of man or learning

Que le puedan emprender;                                Can grasp it;

Quien se supiere vencer                                    He who masters himself

Con un no saber sabiendo,                                Will, with knowledge in unknowing,

Ira siempre transcendiendo.                              Always be transcending.

 

 

Note that this Stanza is the only one not ending with the line;

Transcending all knowledge.  =  Toda ciencia transcendiendo

 

The stress is on the transcendence of learning or worldly knowledge and is contrasted with the gift of godly knowledge. This comes to He who masters himself, who, Will, with knowledge in unknowing, fix his thought on the essence of God. The mystic will know this to be the essential message of the transcendent knowledge of God, through the Cloud of Unknowing; as our earlier English writer has expressed so well in his work of the same name.[21]

 

 

Jacob Behmen, 1575-1624 [22]

 

“The gate was opened to me that in one quarter of an hour I saw and Knew more than if I had been many years together at a university, at which I exceedingly admired and thereupon turned my praise to God for it. For I saw and knew the being of all beings, the byss and abyss and the eternal generation of the Holy Trinity, the descent and original of the world and of all creatures through the divine wisdom: I knew and saw in myself all the three worlds, namely, (1) the divine [angelical and paradisiacal] (2) and the dark [the original of the nature to the fire] and (3) then the external and visible world [being a procreation or external birth from both the internal and spiritual worlds]. And I saw and knew the whole working essence, in the evil and the good and the original and the existence of each of them; and likewise how the fruitful-bearing-womb of eternity brought forth. So that I did not only greatly wonder at it but did also exceedingly rejoice.[23]

 

If you will behold your own self and the outer world, and what is taking place therein, you will find that you, with regard to your external being are that external world.

 

You are a little world formed out of the large one, and your external light is a chaos of the sun and the constellations of stars.

 

Not I, the I that I am, know these things: But God knows them in me.

 

Suddenly my spirit did break through even into the innermost birth of Geniture of the Deity, and there I was embraced with love, as a bridegroom embraces his dearly beloved bride. But the greatness of the triumphing that was in the spirit I cannot express either in speaking or writing; neither can it be compared to anything, but with that wherein the life is generated in the midst of death, and it is like the resurrection from the dead. In this light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in and by all the creatures, even in herbs and grass, it knew God, who He is, and how He is, and what will is; and suddenly in that light my will was set upon, by a mighty impulse, to describe the being of God.

 

If thou climbest this ladder on which I climb up into the deep of God as I have done, then thou hast climbed well: I am not come to this meaning or to this work and knowledge through my own reason, or through my own and purpose; neither have I sought this knowledge, nor so much as know any thing concerning it. I sought only for the heart of God, therein to hide myself from the tempestuous storms of the devil.[24]