Christian Mysticism Part 17

4. "Pa.s.sive prayer," if it excludes the co-operation of free-will, is impossible.

5. There can be no "quietude" except the peace of the Holy Ghost, which acts in a manner so uniform that these acts seem, _to unscientific persons_, not distinct acts, but a single and permanent unity with G.o.d.

6. That the doctrine of pure love may not serve as an asylum for the errors of the Quietists, we a.s.sert that hope must always abide, as saith St. Paul.

7. The state of pure love is very rare, and it is intermittent.

In reply to this manifesto, the "Three Prelates[311]" rejoin that Fenelon keeps the name of hope but takes away the thing; that he really preaches indifference to salvation; that he is in danger of regarding contemplation of Christ as a descent from the heights of pure contemplation; that he unaccountably says nothing of the "love of grat.i.tude" to G.o.d and our Redeemer; that he "erects the rare and transient experiences of a few saints into a rule of faith."

In this controversy about disinterested love, our sympathies are chiefly, but not entirely, with Fenelon. The standpoint of Bossuet is not religious at all. "Pure love," he says almost coa.r.s.ely, "is opposed to the essence of love, which always desires the enjoyment of its object, as well as to the nature of man, who necessarily desires happiness." Most of us will rather agree with St. Bernard, that love, as such, desires nothing but reciprocation--"verus amor se ipso contentus est: habet praemium, sed id quod amatur." If the question had been simply whether religion is or is not in its nature mercenary, we should have felt no doubt on which side the truth lay. Self-regarding hopes and schemes may be schoolmasters to bring us to Christ; it seems, indeed, to be part of our education to form them, and then see them shattered one after another, that better and deeper hopes may be constructed out of the fragments; but a selfish Christianity is a contradiction in terms. But Fenelon, in his teaching about disinterested love, goes further than this. "A man's self," he says, "is his own greatest cross." "We must therefore become strangers to this self, this _moi._" Resignation is not a remedy; for "resignation suffers in suffering; one is as two persons in resignation; it is only pure love that loves to suffer." This is the thought with which many of us are familiar in James Hinton's _Mystery of Pain_. It is at bottom Stoical or Buddhistic, in spite of the emotional turn given to it by Fenelon. Logically, it should lead to the destruction of love; for love requires two living factors,[312] and the person who has attained a "holy indifference," who has pa.s.sed wholly out of self, is as incapable of love as of any other emotion. The attempt "to wind ourselves too high for mortal man" has resulted, as usual, in two opposite errors. We find, on the one hand, some who try to escape the daily sacrifices which life demands, by declaring themselves bankrupt to start with. And, on the other hand, we find men like Fenelon, who are too good Christians to wish to shift their crosses in this way; but who allow their doctrines of "holy indifference" and "pure love"

to impart an excessive sternness to their teaching, and demand from us an impossible degree of detachment and renunciation.

The importance attached to the "prayer of quiet" can only be understood when we remember how much mechanical recitation of forms of prayer was enjoined by Romish "directors." It is, of course, possible for the soul to commune with G.o.d without words, perhaps even without thoughts;[313] but the recorded prayers of our Blessed Lord will not allow us to regard these ecstatic states as better than vocal prayer, when the latter is offered "with the spirit, and with the understanding also."

The quietistic controversy in France was carried on in an atmosphere of political intrigues and private jealousies, which in no way concern us. But the great fact which stands out above the turmoil of calumny and misrepresentation is that the Roman Church, which in sore straits had called in the help of quietistic Mysticism to stem the flood of Protestantism, at length found the alliance too dangerous, and disbanded her irregular troops in spite of their promises to submit to discipline. In Fenelon, Mysticism had a champion eloquent and learned, and not too logical to repudiate with honest conviction consequences which some of his authorities had found it necessary to accept. He remained a loyal and submissive son of the Church, as did Molinos; and was, in fact, more guarded in his statements than Bossuet, who in his ignorance of mystical theology often blundered into dangerous admissions[314]. But the Jesuits saw with their usual ac.u.men that Mysticism, even in the most submissive guise, is an independent and turbulent spirit; and by condemning Fenelon as well as Molinos, they crushed it out as a religious movement in the Latin countries.

To us it seems that the Mysticism of the counter-Reformation was bound to fail, because it was the revival of a perverted, or at best a one-sided type. The most consistent quietists were perhaps those who brought the doctrine of quietism into most discredit, such as the hesychasts of Mount Athos. For at bottom it rests upon that dualistic or rather acosmistic view of life which prevailed from the decay of the Roman Empire till the Renaissance and Reformation. Its cosmology is one which leaves this world out of account except as a training ground for souls; its theory of knowledge draws a hard and fast line between natural and supernatural truths, and then tries to bring them together by intercalating "supernatural phenomena" in the order of nature; and in ethics it paralyses morality by teaching with St.

Thomas Aquinas that "to love G.o.d _secundum se_ is more meritorious than to love our neighbour.[315]" All this is not of the essence of Mysticism, but belongs to mediaeval Catholicism. It was probably a necessary stage through which Christianity, and Mysticism with it, had to pa.s.s. The vain quest of an abstract spirituality at any rate liberated the religious life from many base a.s.sociations; the "negative road" is after all the holy path of self-sacrifice; and the maltreatment of the body, which began among the hermits of the Thebaid, was largely based on an instinctive recoil against the poison of sensuality, which had helped to destroy the old civilisation. But the resuscitation of mediaeval Mysticism after the Renaissance was an anachronism; and except in the fighting days of the sixteenth century, it was not likely to appeal to the manliest or most intelligent spirits. The world-ruling papal polity, with its incomparable army of officials, bound to poverty and celibacy, and therefore invulnerable, was a _reductio ad absurdum_ of its world-renouncing doctrines, which Europe was not likely to forget. Introspective Mysticism had done its work--a work of great service to the human race. It had explored all the recesses of the lonely heart, and had wrestled with the angel of G.o.d through the terrors of the spiritual night even till the morning.

"Tell me now Thy name" ... "I will not let Thee go until Thou bless me." These had been the two demands of the contemplative mystic--the only rewards which his soul craved in return for the sacrifice of every earthly delight. The reward was worth the sacrifice; but "G.o.d reveals Himself in many ways," and the spiritual Christianity of the modern epoch is called rather to the consecration of art, science, and social life than to lonely contemplation. In my last two Lectures I hope to show how an important school of mystics, chiefly between the Renaissance and our own day, have turned to the religious study of nature, and have found there the same illumination which the mediaeval ascetics drew from the deep wells of their inner consciousness.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 284: Rousselot, _Les Mystiques Espagnols_, p. 3.]

[Footnote 285: Among the latter must be mentioned the growth of Scotist Nominalism, on which see a note on p. 187. Ritschl was the first to point out how strongly Nominalism influenced the later Mysticism, by giving it its quietistic character. See Harnack, _History of Dogma_ (Eng. tr.), vol. vi. p. 107.]

[Footnote 286: Cf. the beginning of the _Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, corregida y emendada por Juan de Luna_ (Paris, 1620). "The ignorance of the Spaniards is excusable. The Inquisitors are the cause. They are dreaded, not only by the people, but by the great lords, to such an extent that the mere mention of the Inquisition makes every head tremble like a leaf in the wind."]

[Footnote 287: Pedro Malon de Chaide: "Las cosas en Dios son mismo Dios."]

[Footnote 288: Alejo Venegas in Rousselot, p. 78: Louis de Leon, who is indebted to the _Fons Vitae_.]

[Footnote 289: Louis de Leon: "The members and the head are one Christ."]

[Footnote 290: Diego de Stella affirms the mystic paradox, that it is better to be in h.e.l.l with Christ than in glory without Him (_Medit._ iii.).]

[Footnote 291: Juan d'Avila: "Let us put a veil between ourselves and all created things."]

[Footnote 292: This side of Platonism appears in Pedro Malon, and especially in Louis de Granada. Compare also the beautiful ode of Louis de Leon, ent.i.tled "Noche Serena," where the eternal peace of the starry heavens is contrasted with the turmoil of the world--

"Quien es el que esto mira, Y precia la bajeza de la tierra, Y no gime y suspira Y rompe lo que encierra El alma, y destos bienes la destierra?

Aqui vive al contento, Aqui reina la paz, aqui asentado En rico y alto asiento Esta el amor sagrado De glorias y deleites rodeado." ]

[Footnote 293: After his release he was suffered to resume his lectures. A crowd of sympathisers a.s.sembled to hear his first utterance; but he began quietly with his usual formula, "Deciamos ahora," "We were saying just now."]

[Footnote 294: The heresy of the "Alombrados" (Illuminati), which appeared in the sixteenth century, and was ruthlessly crushed by the Inquisition, belonged to the familiar type of degenerate Mysticism.

Its adherents taught that the prayers of the Church were worthless, the only true prayer being a kind of ecstasy, without words or mental images. The "illuminated" need no sacraments, and can commit no sins.

The mystical union once achieved is an abiding possession. There was another outbreak of the same errors in 1623, and a corresponding sect of _Illumines_ in Southern France.]

[Footnote 295: The real founder of Spanish quietistic Mysticism was Pedro of Alcantara (d. 1562). He was confessor to Teresa. Teresa is also indebted to Francisco de Osuna, in whose writings the principles of quietism are clearly taught. Cf. Heppe, _Geschichte der quietistichen Mystik_, p. 9.]

[Footnote 296: The fullest and best account of St. Teresa is in Mrs.

Cunninghame Graham's _Life and Times of Santa Teresa_ (2 vols.).]

[Footnote 297: "Hae imaginariae visiones regulariter eveniunt vel incipientibus vel proficientibus nondum bene purgatis, ut communiter tenent mystae" (_Lucern. Myst. Tract_, v. 3).]

[Footnote 298: So in Plotinus [Greek: phantasia] comes between [Greek: physis] (the lower soul) and the perfect apprehension of [Greek: nous].]

[Footnote 299: St. Juan follows the mediaeval mystics in distinguishing between "meditation" and "contemplation." "Meditation," from which external images are not excluded, is for him an early and imperfect stage; he who is destined to higher things will soon discover signs which indicate that it is time to abandon it.]

[Footnote 300: The reference is to Ruth iii. 7.]

[Footnote 301: The somewhat feminine temper of Francis leads him to attach more value to fanciful symbolism than would have been approved by St. Juan, or even by St. Teresa. And we miss in him that steady devotion to the Person of Christ, and to Him alone, which gives the Spaniards, in spite of themselves, a sort of kinship with evangelical Christianity. St. Juan could never have written, "Honorez, reverez, et respectez d'un amour special la sacree et glorieuse Vierge Marie. Elle est mere de nostre souverain pere et par consequent nostre grand'mere"

[Footnote 302: The three parts into which the book is divided deal respectively with the "darkness and dryness" by which G.o.d purifies the heart; the second stage, in which he insists, complete obedience to a spiritual director is essential; and the stage of higher illumination.]

[Footnote 303: "Cola c' ingolfiano e ci perdiamo nel mare immenso dell' infinita sua bonta in cui restiamo stabili ed immobili."]

[Footnote 304: It is interesting to find the "prayer of quiet" even in Plotinus. Cf. _Enn_. v. 1. 6: "Let us call upon G.o.d Himself before we thus answer--not with uttered words, but reaching forth our souls in prayer to Him; for thus alone can we pray, alone to Him who is alone."]

[Footnote 305: He speaks, too, of "inner recollection" (il raccoglimento interiore), "mirandolo dentro te medesima nel piu intimo del' anima tua, senza forma, specie, modo figura, in vista e generate not.i.tia di fede amorosa ed oscura, senza veruna distinzione di perfezione attributo."]

[Footnote 306: Cf. Bp. Burnet: "In short, everybody that was thought either sincerely devout, or that at least affected the reputation of it, came to be reckoned among the Quietists; and if these persons were observed to become more strict in their lives, more retired and serious in their mental devotions, yet there appeared less zeal in their whole deportment as to the exterior parts of the religion of that Church. They were not so a.s.siduous at Ma.s.s, nor so earnest to procure Ma.s.ses to be said for their friends; nor were they so frequently either at confession or in processions, so that the trade of those that live by these things was terribly sunk."]

[Footnote 307: The _Spiritual Guide_ was well received at first in high quarters; but in 1681 a Jesuit preacher published a book on "the prayer of quiet," which raised a storm. The first commission of inquiry exonerated Molinos; but in 1685 the Jesuits and Louis XIV.

brought strong pressure to bear on the Pope, and Molinos was accused of heresy. Sixty-eight false propositions were extracted from his writings, and formally condemned. They include a justification of disgraceful vices, which Molinos, who was a man of saintly character, could never have taught. But though the whole process against the author of the _Spiritual Guide_ was shamefully unfair, the book contains some highly dangerous teaching, which might easily be pressed into the service of immorality. Molinos saved his life by recanting all his errors, but was imprisoned till his death, about 1696. In 1687 the Inquisition arrested 200 persons for "quietist" opinions.]

[Footnote 308: This "mystic paradox" has been mentioned already. It is developed at length in the _Meditations_ of Diego de Stella.

Fenelon says that it is found in Ca.s.sian, Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus, Augustine, Anselm, "and a great number of saints." It is an unfortunate attempt to improve upon Job's fine saying, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," or the line in Homer which has been often quoted--[Greek: en de phaei kai olesson, epei ny toi euaden outos.] But unless we form a very unworthy idea of heaven and h.e.l.l, the proposition is not so much extravagant as self-contradictory.]

[Footnote 309: The doctrine here condemned is Manichean, says Fenelon rightly.]

[Footnote 310: St. Bernard (_De diligendo Deo_, x. 28) gives a careful statement of the deification-doctrine as he understands it: "Quomodo omnia in omnibus erit Deus, si in homine de homine quicquam supererit?

_Manebit substantia sed in alia forma._" See Appendix C.]

[Footnote 311: The Archbishop of Paris, the Bishop of Meaux (Bossuet), and the Bishop of Chartres.]

[Footnote 312: If two beings are separate, they cannot influence each other inwardly. If they are not distinct, there can be no relations between them. Man is at once organ and organism, and this is why love between man and G.o.d is possible. The importance of maintaining that action between man and G.o.d must be reciprocal, is well shown by Lilienfeld, _Gedanken uber die Socialwissenschaft der Zukunft_, vol.

v. p. 472 sq.]

[Footnote 313: "Thought was not," says Wordsworth of one in a state of rapture; and again, "All his thoughts were steeped in feeling."]

[Footnote 314: E.g., he writes to Madame Guyon, "Je n'ai jamais hesite un seul moment sur les etats de Sainte Therese, parceque je n'y ai rien trouve, que je ne trouva.s.se aussi dans l'ecriture." It is doubtful whether Bossuet had really read much of St. Teresa. Fenelon says much more cautiously, "Quelque respect et quelque admiration que j'aie pour Sainte Therese, je n'aurais jamais voulu donner au public tout ce qu'elle a ecrit."]

[Footnote 315: Of course there is a sense in which this is true; but I am speaking of the way in which it was understood by mediaeval Catholicism.]