The belief that knowledge of divine truth or the soul’s union with the divine is attainable by spiritual insight or ecstatic contemplation without the medium of the senses or reason
God is the ineffable One transcendent, yet not absolutely Other. As Absolute Self, God is linked to the Real Self of individuals. "The soul finds God in its own depths" (Ruysbroeck). Knowledge of being "one with God" is directly experienced in intuition. To know God is to understand that He is, not what He is. See Catholic mysticism; and Protestant mysticism
See CABALA.
(Greek: myeo, initiate)
The secret intercourse of a fervent soul with God. Considered in its entirety it forms a branch of theology, called mystical theology. The word mystical signifies something obscure, occult, or mysterious. A person initiated into mysteries may be called a mystic, and the science which treats of mysteries may be called mystical. This science may be called secret, in the sense that the great things of God are secret. They are secret on account of their magnitude, according to the words of Our Saviour: "He that can take, let him take it" (Matthew 19); their dignity: "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but to them it is not given" (Matthew 13); and the unfitness or inability of men to receive them: "Give not that which is holy to dogs" (Matthew 7). It is also a holy science, because it is ordained to the higher sanctification of souls, according to the three ways of perfection: the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. Among the eminent mystical writers in the Catholic Church are: Pseudo-Dionysius, the so-called Areopagite, Saint Bernard, Saint Thomas, Saint Anselm, Saint Bonaventure, Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, Gerson, Saint Teresa, and Saint John of the Cross.
(From myein, to initiate).Mysticism, according to its etymology, implies a relation to mystery. In philosophy, Mysticism is either a religious tendency and desire of the human soul towards an intimate union with the Divinity, or a system growing out of such a tendency and desire. As a philosophical system, Mysticism considers as the end of philosophy the direct union of the human soul with the Divinity through contemplation and love, and attempts to determine the processes and the means of realizing this end. This contemplation, according to Mysticism, is not based on a merely analogical knowledge of the Infinite, but as a direct and immediate intuition of the Infinite. According to its tendency, it may be either speculative or practical, as it limits itself to mere knowledge or traces duties for action and life; contemplative or affective, according as it emphasizes the part of intelligence or the part of the will; orthodox or heterodox, according as it agrees with or opposes the Catholic teaching. We shall give a brief historical sketch of Mysticism and its influence on philosophy, and present a criticism of it. HISTORICAL SKETCHIn his "History of Philosophy", Cousin mentions four systems, between which, he says, philosophical thought has continually wavered, viz., Sensism, Idealism, Scepticism, and Mysticism. Whatever may be thought of this classification, it is true that Mysticism has exercised a large influence on philosophy, becoming at times the basis of whole systems, but more often entering as an element into their constitution. Mysticism dominated in the symbolic philosophy of ancient Egypt. The Taoism of the Chinese philosopher Lao-tze is a system of metaphysics and ethics in which Mysticism is a fundamental element (cf. De Harlez, "Laotze, le premier philosophe chinois", in "Mémoires couronnés et autres de l’Académie", Brussels, January, 1886). The same may be said of Indian philosophy; the end of human reflection and effort in Brahmanism and Vedantism is to deliver the soul from its transmigrations and absorb it into Brahma forever. There is little of Mysticism in the first schools of Greek philosophy, but it already takes a large place in the system of Plato, e.g., in his theory of the world of ideas, of the origin of the world soul and the human soul, in his doctrine of recollection and intuition. The Alexandrian Jew Philo (30 B.C-A.D. 50) combined these Platonic elements with the data of the Old Testament, and taught that every man, by freeing himself from matter and receiving illumination from God, may reach the mystical, ecstatic, or prophetical state, where he is absorbed into the Divinity. The most systematic attempt at a philosophical system of a mystical character was that of the Neoplatonic School of Alexandria, especially of Plotinus (A.D. 205-70) in his "Enneads". His system is a syncretism of the previous philosophies on the basis of Mysticism--an emanative and pantheistic Monism. Above all being, there is the One absolutely indetermined, the absolutely Good. From it come forth through successive emanations intelligence (nous) with its ideas, the world-soul with its plastic forces (logoi spermatikoi), matter inactive, and the principle of imperfection. The human soul had its existence in the world-soul until it was united with matter. The end of human life and of philosophy is to realize the mystical return of the soul to God. Freeing itself from the sensuous world by purification (katharsis), the human soul ascends by successive steps through the various degrees of the metaphysical order, until it unites itself in a confused and unconscious contemplation to the One, and sinks into it: it is the state of ecstasis.With Christianity, the history of Mysticism enters into a new period. The Fathers recognized indeed the partial truth of the pagan system, but they pointed out also its fundamental errors. They made a distinction between reason and faith, philosophy and theology; they acknowledged the aspirations of the soul, but, at the same time, they emphasized its essential inability to penetrate the mysteries of Divine life. They taught that the vision of God is the work of grace and the reward of eternal life; in the present life only a few souls, by a special grace, can reach it. On these principles, the Christian school of Alexandria opposed the true gnosis based on grace and faith to the Gnostic heresies. St. Augustine teaches indeed that we know the essences of things in rationibus aeternis, but this knowledge has its starting point in the data of sense (cf. Quæstiones, LXXXIII, c. xlvi). Pseudo-Dionysius, in his various works, gave a systematic treatment of Christian Mysticism, carefully distinguishing between rational and mystical knowledge. By the former, he says, we know God, not in His nature, but through the wonderful order of the universe, which is a participation of the Divine ideas ("De Divinis Nomin.", c, vii, §§ 2-3, in P. G., III, 867 sq.). There is, however, he adds, a more perfect knowledge of God possible in this life, beyond the attainments of reason even enlightened by faith, through which the soul contemplates directly the mysteries of Divine light. The contemplation in the present life is possible only to a few privileged souls, through a very special grace of God: it is the theosis, mystike enosis.The works of Pseudo-Dionysius exercised a great influence on the following ages. John Scotus Eriugena (ninth century), in his "De Divisione Naturæ", took them as his guide, but he neglected the distinction of his master, identifying philosophy and theology, God and creatures, and, instead of developing the doctrine of Dionysius, reproduced the pantheistic theories of Plotinus (see ERIUGENA, JOHN SCOTUS). In the twelfth century, orthodox Mysticism was presented under a systematic form by the Victorines, Hugh, Walter, and Richard (cf. Mignon, "Les Origines de la Scolastique et Hugues de St. Victor", Paris, 1895), and there was also a restatement of Eriugena’s principles with Amaury de Bène, Joachim de Floris, and David of Dinant. A legitimate element of Mysticism, more or less emphasized, is found in the works of the Schoolmen of the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was, as a protest against a sterile dialecticism, a revival of mystical systems, some orthodox--J. Ruysbroek, Gerson, Peter d’Ailly, Denys the Carthusian--and others heterodox--John of Ghent, John of Mirecourt, the Beguines and Beghards, and various brotherhoods influenced by Averroism, and especially Meister Eckhart (1260-1327), who in his "Opus Tripartitum" teaches a deification of man and an assimilation of the creature into the Creator through contemplation (cf. Denifle in "Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters", 1886), the "Theologia Germanica", and, to a certain extent, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64) with his theory of the coincidentia oppositorum. Protestantism, by its negation of all ecclesiastical authority and by advocating a direct union of the soul with God, had its logical outcome in a Mysticism mostly pantheistic.Protestant Mysticism is represented by Sebastian Frank (1499-1542), by Valentine Weiler (1533-88), and especially by J. Böhme (1575-1624), who, in his "Aurora", conceived the nature of God as containing in itself the energies of good and evil, and identified the Divine nature with the human soul whose operation is to kindle, according to its free will, the fire of good or the fire of evil (cf. Deussen, "J. Böhme ueber sein Leben und seine Philosophie", Kiel, 1897). Reuchlin (1455-1522) developed a system of cabalistic Mysticism in his "De arte cabalistica" and his "De verbo mirifico". We may also assign to the influence of Mysticism the ontological systems of Malebranche and of the Ontologists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The romantic Mysticism of Fichte (1762-1814), Novalis (1772-1801), and Schelling (1775-1854) was a reaction against the Rationalism of the eighteenth century. A pseudo-Mysticism is also the logical outcome of the Fideism and evolutionistic Subjectivism of modern Protestants, inaugurated by Lessing (1728-81), developed by Schleiermacher (1768-1834), A. Ritschl (1822-89; cf. Goyau, "L’Allemagne Religieuse, Le Protestantisme", 6th ed., Paris, 1906), Sabatier, etc., and accepted by the Modernists in their theories of vital immanence and religious experience (cf. Encyclical "Pascendi"). (See MODERNISM.) CRITICISMA tendency so universal and so persistent as that of Mysticism, which appears among all peoples and influences philosophical thought more or less throughout all centuries, must have some real foundation in human nature. There is indeed in the human soul a natural desire for, an aspiration towards the highest truth, the absolute truth, and the highest, the infinite good. We know by experience and reason that the knowledge and enjoyment of created things cannot give the fulness of truth and the perfection of beatitude which will completely satisfy our desires and aspirations. There is in our soul a capacity for more truth and perfection than we can ever acquire through the knowledge of created things. We realize that God alone is the end of man, that in the possession of God alone we can reach the satisfaction of our aspirations. (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I:2:1; I:12:1; I:44:4; I-II:3:8; "Contra Gentes", III, cc. i, xxv, l; "De Veritate", Q. xxii, a. 2; "Compend. Theologiæ", 104, etc.) But the rational effort of our intelligence and positive aspirations of our will find here their limits. Is there truly possible a union of our reason and will with God more intimate than that which we possess through created things? Can we expect more than a knowledge of God by analogical concepts and more than the beatitude proportionate to that knowledge? Here human reason cannot answer. But where reason was powerless, philosophers gave way to feeling and imagination. They dreamt of an intuition of the Divinity, of a direct contemplation and immediate possession of God. They imagined a notion of the universe and of human nature that would make possible such a union. They built systems in which the world and the human soul were considered as an emanation or part of the Divinity, or at least as containing something of the Divine essence and Divine ideas. The logical outcome was Pantheism.This result was a clear evidence of error at the starting-point. The Catholic Church, as guardian of Christian doctrine, through her teaching and theologians, gave the solution of the problem. She asserted the limits of human reason: the human soul has a natural capacity (potentia obedientialis), but no exigency and no positive ability to reach God otherwise than by analogical knowledge. She condemned the immediate vision of the Beghards and Beguines (cf. Denzinger-Bannwart, "Enchiridion", nn. 474-5), the pseudo-Mysticism of Eckhart (ibid., nn. 501-29), and Molinos (ibid., nn. 2121-88), the theories of the Ontologists (ibid., nn. 1659-65, 1891-1930), and Pantheism under all its forms (ibid., nn. 1801-5), as well as the vital Immanence and religious experience of the Modernists (ibid., nn. 2071-109). But she teaches that, what man cannot know by natural reason, he can know through revelation and faith; that what he cannot attain to by his natural power he can reach by the grace of God. God has gratuitously elevated human nature to a supernatural state. He has assigned as its ultimate end the direct vision of Himself, the Beatific Vision. But this end can be reached only in the next life; in the present life we can but prepare ourselves for it with the aid of revelation and grace. To some souls, however, even in the present life, God gives a very special grace by which they are enabled to feel His sensible presence; this is true mystical contemplation. In this act, there is no annihilation or absorption of the creature into God, but God becomes intimately present to the created mind and this, enlightened by special illuminations, contemplates with ineffable joy the Divine essence.----------------------------------- PREGER, Gesch. der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1881); SCHMID, Der Mysticismus in seiner Entstehungsperiode (Jena, 1824); GÖRRES, Die christl. Mystik (Ratisbon, 1836-42); COUSIN, Histoire générale de la philosophie (Paris, 1863); IDEM, Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien (23rd ed., Paris, 1881), v; GENNARI, Del falso Misticismo (Rome, 1907); DELACROIX, Essai sur le mysticisme spéculatif en Allemagne au xive siècle (Paris, 1900); UEBERWEG, Hist. of Philos., tr. MORRIS with additions by PORTER (New York, 1894); DE WULF, Hist. de la Philos. médiévale (Louvain, 1900); TURNER, Hist. of Philos. (Boston, 1903).GEORGE M. SAUVAGE Transcribed by Elizabeth T. Knuth Dedicated to Thomas S. Charters The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
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’ (Gal_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 Rom_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’ (Eph_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 (Heb_11:13 ff; Heb_13:14; cf. 1Pe_1:17; 1Pe_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.
Mysticism and mystical experiences have been a part of Judaism since the earliest days, but specific beliefs in this area are open to personal interpretation.