Welcome to 111 Mystics

Welcome to "111 Mystics." I began this blog in October of 2004, it has evolved a bit, and migrated from its original home on LiveJournal to a brief sojourn on Squarespace, to its new home here on Blogger.

Over the next few weeks or so I hope to import the best posts from the blog's earlier incarnations into this space, so that new readers will be able to follow "the story so far." Of course, it's slow going — I suspect reading the 111 mystics will take me at least another 14 - 15 years!

Pseudo-Macarius on Begging, pt. 2

In regard to what I wrote about Pseudo-Macarius yesterday, the ever-perceptive Grateful Bear asks:

Why must we "beg while here on earth to receive the divine Spirit"? Doesn't the Holy Spirit already dwell within us? Why beg for something we already have? Begging for something God has already given seems like ungratefulness, or blindness to the blessings of God, or even a refusal to receive God's blessings.

Sometimes you step into a paradox, and you don't realize it until you've walked along a ways and start to wonder what that funky smell is that's coming up from your shoe.

This appears to be one of those times.

Of course the Holy Spirit already dwells within us — God is everywhere, even in hell. (if you proof-texters don't believe me, check out  Psalm 139:8).  And yet, how many of us find God in the stop-and-go of rush hour traffic? While listening to an annoying neighbor whine about her husband? While changing diapers, or completing our tax returns? In the midst of diarrhea? Or for that matter, while watching an exciting movie? While eating that third helping of ice cream after a stressful day at work? While flirting up that really cute someone who works two cubicles down?

Come on, now — be honest.  Again and again and again, we all dance away from any conscious recognition that we carry the indwelling presence of the Holy One.

And that is what I think Pseudo-Macarius  counsels us to beg for. The way I see it, "receiving the Holy Spirit" is not some one-time event that occurs at baptism or confirmation or when you're born again or whenever... it's a continual inpouring, a continual dance of participation, of re-recognition and re-turning to the Source of Love that is there all along. And while we may not particularly want to receive the Holy Spirit in the midst of rush hour (when it's so much fun to be angry) or during that flirt session with the married co-worker, perhaps those are the times we most need to be partakers of the Divine Nature.

And so, our begging God for the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is not about asking a miserly Other to begrudgingly give something that we might not otherwise get. On the contrary, it's a way of short-circuiting our own ego, which is so invested in being in control that it has a myriad of effective ways to ignore the very presence of that ever-giving Other within us. As I said yesterday, begging is undignified, and it's humiliating and embarrassing. In other words, it's a perfect way to tie the ego into apoplectically-appalled knots of self-righteous indignation: thereby distracting it long enough to allow the already-present presence of the Holy One to shine forth.

Pseudo-Macarius on Begging

For the 111 Mystics Project, I've been slowly reading Pseudo-Macarius' Fifty Spiritual Homilies. I'm taking my time not so much because his writing is a snooze; on the contrary, I'm finding it rich and dense with layers of meaning — worthy of a slow, lectio divina style of approach. Methodists, take note: the sermons of Pseudo-Macarius received high praise from John Wesley (among many others). Equalled only by Evagrius among the mystics of his day, this unknown homilist from the fourth century was believed to be Macarius of Egypt, but although he wrote in Greek  his theology and sensibility point rather to his being from Syria. Because his work consists of sermons, his style is largely exhortatory; he is continually calling his listeners/readers to a life of utter and single-minded devotion to the God who lovingly imparts grace on those who seek it, even while he is relentless in his judgment on those whose hearts lie elsewhere. Standard fare for a fourth-century preacher? Perhaps, although Pseudo-Macarius distinguishes himself with both a poetic style and occasional bursts of luminous imagery as he rhapsodizes on the resplendent joy of the indwelling presence of God.

Last night I was reading Homily 30 and this sentence caught my eye:

Therefore, he who seeks to believe and to approach to the Lord must beg while here on earth to receive the divine Spirit.

Wow. That sentence stayed with me, and turned over and over again in my mind during my prayer time this morning. I thought about how, as a middle class American, I'm "too proud to beg" — my self-esteem is wound up in being self-sufficient, able to take care of myself and my family, not needing anyone's help to get by. And when I do need someone's help (which is more of a reality when a handicapped person is part of your family), I have learned to ask. To ask, but never to beg.

My brother and I were talking the other day about how dad has a rough time in the hospital because he doesn't like to ask for what he needs. So I get it honestly.  As my brother put it, "Hey, it's self-reliance. I never ask my wife to get me something out of the refrigerator, I just go get it myself. Works great while you do those kinds of things, but it leaves you ill-equipped to function in a hospital setting, where you have to rely on others to care for you."

How true. And perhaps for those of us who seek the treasure of the Christian mystery, we are by nature "in hospital" — for we require the care of others (or at least, of The Other) to receive the transformation we seek. And what is that transformation? What is all healing, all embracing of joy, all empowerment and self-actualization, other than to become partakers of the Divine Nature? In other words, to be filled with the loving Spirit that is so graciously poured out upon us?

But Pseudo-Macarius advises us to beg for the coming of this indwelling Spirit. To beg! Immediately I resist the idea. Begging seems so, well, undignified. And after spending ten years as an Episcopalian, nothing — I mean, nothing — is more important to me than to be dignified in worship. Okay, so I'm being facetious, but my humor is based so solidly on an unconscious  reality that it's just a little uncomfortable even to type out these words. The plain bald reality is, I don't want to beg for God.

And yet, deep down, I know I must.

I know that part of creating the space within me, a space where the Spirit can be poured into, is to simply get out of my own way. Which means letting go of my obstinate insistence on calling my own shots. No, I don't get to say how dignified my experience of mysticism or of God's indwelling presence gets to be. God is not my puppet to order around like that. I do not "ask" God for a Spiritual blessing in a manner similar to how I might ask my brother to loan me some money. This isn't an asking that implies a basic equality between the parties. No, begging makes more sense, for this is a  transaction where the lines are clearly drawn between the one who is in utter need (i.e., me) and the one who is in a position to give graciously and without any hope of return (i.e., the Source of all love and being). In my longing, my yearning, my desperate pleading for God's Spirit, I tell the  universe (and even more importantly, my own ego) that I am in such a position of need that I, as the old Temptations song so bluntly puts it, "ain't too proud to beg."

And it's in stepping away from that insidious pride — that "I'm in control here" sensibility — that I finally open myself up to receive the kinds of blessings that are not only beyond my capacity, but beyond even my imagining. 

Was Augustine a Mystic?

In response to my list of 111 mystics, the Grateful Heretic (aka Grateful Bear) writes:

I don't see how Augustine can be defined as a mystic. A dualist, the inventor of "original sin," one who brought Manicheanism into mainstream Christian theology, one who made Christianity even more body-negative and sex-negative than it already was - those definitions of Augustine I can see. But mystic???

Several random thoughts in response to this...

1. No less an authority than Evelyn Underhill considered Augustine a mystic. She wrote, "The influence of Plotinus upon later Christian mysticism was enormous though indirect... St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430) and Dionysius the Areopagite (writing between 475 and 525) are among his spiritual children; and it is mainly through them that his doctrine reached the mediæval world." (Mysticism, page 456).
2. Underhill's argument is basically that the pagan philosopher Plotinus, and his two Christian followers Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine, are essentially the three-legged stool upon which Christian mysticism rests, at least from the sixth century onward. Of those three, Augustine is the only westerner, so his importance to the development of western Christian mysticism cannot be overemphasized.
3. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church notes, "Without St. Augustine's massive intellect and deep spiritual perception Western theology would never have taken the shape in which it is familiar to us." (page 110; my italics).
4. Although Bernard McGinn notes in The Foundations of Mysticism that scholars have debated whether or not Augustine may properly be called a mystic at least since 1863, he notes that most of those who have denied Augustine as a mystic generally do so out of a narrow definition of mysticism. McGinn himself lauds Augustine as "the founding father" of western mysticism, while other scholars of mysticism including Dom Cuthbert Butler, Steven Fanning, and Louis Bouyer, all speak of Augustine's mysticism (Butler called Augustine "the Prince of Mystics"). Indeed, Butler's classic book Western Mysticism carries this subtitle: "The Teaching of Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life."
   
5. Even for those who do discount Augustine as a mystic, I should point out that he is hardly the only figure in my list of 111 whose mysticism is contested.
6. While as of this writing I have only read one biography of Augustine and have only read one text (the Confessions), this limited knowledge has already convinced me that he qualifies as a mystic, or at least as a contemplative. The Confessions include passages of tremendous spiritual beauty and eloquence that I believe could only have been written out of firsthand experience.
7. Finally, I think we need to be careful about creating theological or spiritual litmus tests by which we decide who is or is not a mystic. I have my arguments with Augustinian theology, but he is not the only mystic on my reading list with whom I hold theological disagreements. Part of my understanding of the splendid diversity of catholic experience is that I do not need to see eye to eye with every theologian (or mystic) in order to appreciate, and find nurturance in, his or her work. If I refused to read every mystic with whom I had "issues," I'd end up with a short reading list indeed!

So was Augustine a mystic? Who knows for sure — but enough scholars hold him as such that I have no problem including him in with my list of mystics worth reading. Is his theology above reproach? Hardly, although I don't think he's the boogeyman either. It has been fashionable to attack Augustine for going on 800 years now, but I'd rather read him and decide for myself than exclude him from my study just because he functions as a lightning rod for those who are angry with the church.

Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius Ponticus

For those of you who think I've abandoned my "101 Mystics" project (a commitment to read at least 101 of the greatest of western mystics in roughly chronological order, including voices from the Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim wisdom traditions), well, here's a long-awaited update. Early this year I finally finished reading Gregory of Nyssa's The Life of Moses, and followed that up with his younger contemporary Evagrius Ponticus' The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer. Both are wonderful books, but in very different ways. Of course, both also reflect the harshness of the desert milieu where Christian mysticism retreated in the fourth century, in response to the legalisation of the religion under Constantine.

The Life of Moses is on the surface precisely what the title suggests — a biography of the great lawgiver of the Hebrews. But it also is "mystical" in the most ancient sense of the word, for Gregory's sustained meditation on the key events in the life of Moses unpacks layer after allegorical layer of symbolism and theological insight. It seems as if every detail of Moses' career in Egypt, his leadership of the Exodus, his negotiations with God that culminated in the giving of the 10 Commandments, all the way to the culmination of his life just outside the Promised Land, all becomes fodder for Gregory's richly metaphorical reading of the inner truths beneath the outer form. Of course, for us who approach mysticism here in the third millennium, this study could seem disappointing, for to Gregory "mysticism" merely means the unpacking of the mysteries of the faith — which may or may not have anything to do with the elevation of consciousness or the experience of Divine Union. Indeed,  The Life of Moses seems ultimately to be about the cultivation of Christian virtue more than anything else. Seen against the backdrop of later models of the mystical life, this is a book wholly concerned with the purgative way, rather than the ways of illumination or union.

Evagrius Ponticus was a disciple of Gregory's colleague, Gregory of Naziansus (the two Gregorys, along with Basil the Great, are collectively known as the "Cappadocian Fathers," three important fourth-century theologians from the region of Cappadocia in modern Turkey). Evagrius eventually took his faith literally into the desert, and became one of the most renowned of the 4th century Desert Fathers and Mothers. Alas, he was also a student of Origen, the great 3rd century mystic/theologian of Alexandria; and when Origen was eventually condemned for heresy, Evagrius suffered a similar fate. But just as many scholars of mysticism in our day have attempted to rehabilitate Origen's reputation by pointing out that bulk of his teaching falls within the bounds of orthodoxy, so too does Evagrius have his advocates. Scholars point out that only in a few of Evagrius' more theologically speculative writings does he exhibit the influence of Origen; most of his ascetical writings — that is to say, writings aimed at supporting the nurture of the spiritual life — are not only theologically orthodox, but filled with profound common sense and psychological acumen.


The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer certainly delivers the contemplative goods. Basically, these are two short manuals of instruction on the life of prayer, written for monastics (here begins the long history of Christian mysticism as essentially being the province of the cloister) but clearly astute about the challenges of cultivating a mindful approach to the effort to "pray without ceasing." Like Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius' writings might strike the modern reader as being overly concerned with morality and the taming of the passions. Once again, here we see in the early centuries of the Christian mystical tradition an emphasis on purgation (which, of course, will never fully fade away from what orthodox mystics consider important). But Evagrius is perhaps the earliest of Christian mystics to write beautifully and poetically about the necessity of moving beyond discursive thought into a place of repose in Divine Presence. The first contemplative (in the modern sense of the word)? Who can say. But probably the first writer to articulate the promise of engaging with profound silence as a doorway to the mystical life. And within all of the harsh desert-inspired rhetoric about taming the passions (and the body), Evagrius still manages to pierce through the veil and offer up simple, epigrammatic statements of profound insight, such as this little gem from toward the end of the Chapters on Prayer: "Happy is the monk who considers all men as god — after God."

Amen. 

Philo of Alexandria

To begin this journey through the great writings of the western mystics, we're dipping a good two thousand years back in time... to the great city of Alexandria, where a Hellenized Jew named Philo‚ — arguably the father of western mysticism‚ — lived and wrote.

Philo lived from approximately 20 BCE to 50 CE. Scholars appear hesitant to call him a "philosopher," seeing his work less in terms of original thought and more as a matter of exegesis (interpretation of other texts, particularly the Hebrew Scriptures) and eclectic sythesis (integrating Greek pagan philosophy with Jewish spirituality). He came from an affluent background and was influential enough to appear before the emperor Caligula to plead for the welfare of the Jewish community. A prolific author, his writings covered not only philosophy and exegesis, but also history, apologetics, and‚ — of signal interest to us‚ — mysticism. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says, "As a spiritual leader, Philo stands in the tradition of the philosophical mystics. The highest grade of the inner life is ecstasy, which conveys the felt Presence of God to the soul." Philo was one of the earliest exegetes to champion an allegorical approach to understanding the Hebrew scriptures, a strategy that allowed him to argue for the essential coherence between Greek and Hebrew thought.

Philo became quite influential, particularly in his hometown of Alexandria. Both Origen and Clement of Alexandria, as two of the earliest Christian mystics, drew heavily on Philo's thought.

I will be reading Philo with two particular questions in mind: how can his efforts to integrate pagan and Abrahamic wisdom be useful to spiritual seekers today? and, in what ways is his thought important for understanding the grand tradition of mystics who followed him?

Click here to buy a copy of Philo's The Contemplative Life, The Giants and Selections