Mysticism in English Literature | Page 7

universal soul. This first stage on the upward path is the purgative life, which includes all the civic and social virtues, gained through general purification, self-discipline, and balance, with, at the same time, a gradual attainment of detachment from the things of sense, and a desire for the things of the spirit.
The next step is to rise up to mind (Enn. v. 1, § 3) to the world of pure thought, the highest unity possible to a self-conscious being. This is often called the illuminative life, and it might be summed up as concentration of all the faculties--will, intellect, feeling--upon God. And lastly comes the unitive life, which is contemplation, the intense desire of the soul for union with God, the momentary foretaste of which has been experienced by many of the mystics. This last stage of the journey home, the supreme Adventure, the ascension to the One above thought, this cannot be spoken of or explained in words, for it is a state beyond words, it is "a mode of vision which is ecstasy." When the soul attains to this state, the One suddenly appears, "with nothing between," "and they are no more two but one; and the soul is no more conscious of the body or of whether she lives or is a human being or an essence; she knows only that she has what she desired, that she is where no deception can come, and that she would not exchange her bliss for the whole of Heaven itself" (paraphrased from Enn. vi. 7, § 24).
The influence of Plotinus upon later Christian mysticism was immense, though mainly indirect, through the writings of two of his spiritual disciples, St Augustine (354-450), and the unknown writer, probably of the early sixth century, possibly a Syrian monk, who ascribes his works to Dionysius the Areopagite, the friend of St Paul. The works of "Dionysius" were translated from Greek into Latin by the great Irish philosopher and scholar, John Scotus Erigena (Eriugena), and in that form they widely influenced later medi?val mysticism.
The fusion of Eastern mysticism with Christianity finally brought about the great change which constitutes the difference between Eastern and Western mysticism, a change already foreshadowed in Plato, for it was in part the natural outcome of the Greek delight in material beauty, but finally consummated by the teachings of the Christian faith. Eastern thought was pure soul-consciousness, its teaching was to annihilate the flesh, to deny its reality, to look within, and so to gain enlightenment. Christianity, on the other hand, was centred in the doctrine of the Incarnation, in the mystery of God the Father revealing Himself in human form. Hence the human body, human love and relationships became sanctified, became indeed a means of revelation of the divine, and the mystic no longer turned his thoughts wholly inwards, but also outwards and upwards, to the Father who loved him and to the Son who had died for him. Thus, in the West, mystical thought has ever recognised the deep symbolism and sacredness of all that is human and natural, of human love, of the human intellect, and of the natural world. All those things which to the Eastern thinker are but an obstruction and a veil, to the Western have become the very means of spiritual ascent[5]. The ultimate goal of the Eastern mystic is summed up in his assertion, "I am Brahman," whereas the Western mystic believes that "he who sees the Infinite in all things, sees God."
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the mystical tradition was carried on in France by St Bernard (1091-1153), the Abbot of Clairvaux, and the Scotch or Irish Richard of the Abbey of St Victor at Paris, and in Italy, among many others, by St Bonaventura (1221-1274), a close student of Dionysius, and these three form the chief direct influences on our earliest English mystics.
England shares to the full in the wave of mystical experience, thought, and teaching which swept over Europe in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and at first the mystical literature of England, as also of France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden, is purely religious or devotional in type, prose treatises for the most part containing practical instruction for the inner life, written by hermits, priests, and "anchoresses." In the fourteenth century we have a group of such writers of great power and beauty, and in the work of Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, we have a body of writings dealing with the inner life, and the steps of purification, contemplation, and ecstatic union which throb with life and devotional fervour.
From the time of Julian of Norwich, who was still alive in 1413, we find practically no literature of a mystical type until we come to Spenser's Hymns