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Mystics of the Christian Tradition Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen MYSTICS OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION From divine visions to self-tortures, some strange mystical experiences have shaped the Christian tradition as we know it. Full of colorful detail, Mystics of the Christian Tradition examines the mystical experiences that have determined the history of Christianity over two thousand years, and reveals the often sexual nature of these encounters with the divine. In this fascinating account, Fanning reveals how God’s direct revelation to St. Fran- cis of Assisi led to his living with lepers and kissing their sores, and describes the mystical life of Margery Kempe who “took weeping to new decibel levels.” Through presenting the lives of almost a hundred mystics, this broad survey invites us to consider what it means to be a mystic and to explore how people such as Joan of Arc had their lives deter- mined by divine visions. Mystics of the Christian Tradition is a comprehensive guide to discovering what mysticism means and who the mystics of the Christian tradition actually were. This lively and authoritative introduction to mysticism is a valuable survey for students and the general reader alike. Steven Fanning is Associate Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of A Bishop and His World Before the Gregorian Reform, Hubert of An- gers, 1006–1047 (1988), as well as almost a dozen articles on late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:47 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:47 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen MYSTICS OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION Steven Fanning London and New York Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:48 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen First published 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2001 Steven Fanning All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Fanning, Steven Mystics of the Christian tradition / Steven Fanning p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Mysticism–History. 2. Mystics. I. Title. BV5075 .F36 2001 248.2’2–dc21 00–068358 ISBN 0-203-99584-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–22467–5 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–22468–3 (pbk) Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:48 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen CONTENTS List of plates and timelines vii Acknowledgements viii Plates ix Prologue 1 I Origins 6 Mysticism in the Greco-Roman world 6 Mysticism and the foundation of Christianity 14 The Post-Apostolic Church 20 II The Eastern Church 22 The Alexandrian Ascetics 22 The Desert Fathers 27 The Byzantine Church 30 The Russian Church 45 III The Western Church in the Middle Ages 75 The earlier Middle Ages 75 The New Mysticism 85 The Beguines 94 The age of repression and the mystics of the Rhineland and the Low Countries 101 English mystics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 119 Mystics in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 128 IV Mystics in Early Modern Europe: the Reformation, the effloresence of mysticism in Spain and France 139 Anabaptists and Lutherans 140 Spanish mystics of the Golden Age 149 French mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 158 v Mystics of the Christian Tradition 01 March 2001 12:27:32 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Contents — V Post-Reformation mystics in England and America: the twentieth-century revival of mysticism 175 English mysticism 175 American Protestant mysticism 190 Twentieth-century Catholic mysticism 202 Twentieth-century mystical writers on mysticism 209 Epilogue 216 Notes 221 Glossary 253 Timelines 257 Bibliography 259 Index 272 vi Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:48 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen PLATES AND TIMELINES 1 The Desert Fathers as depicted in a fifteenth-century Italian painting by Gherardo Starnina (The Thebaid: Hermits in the Wilderness; Uffizi, Florence) x 2 View of Mount Athos by Edward Lear, 1857 (Mount Athos and the Monastery of Stavroniketes) xii 3 A Russian monk’s cell (cell of Nicholas of Valaam) xii 4 St. Sergius and the Bear xiii 5 Hildegard of Bingen receives the Holy Spirit, illumination from a twelfth-century manuscript xiv 6 St. Francis renounces his worldly goods, detail of fresco in the Cappella Bardi, S. Croce, Florence, by Giotto di Bondone xv 7 Julian’s cell at the church of St. Julian, Norwich, rebuilt after bomb damage in 1942 xv 8 Detail of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, Cornaro Chapel, S. Maria della Vittoria, Rome xvi 9 View of Crucifixion of Jesus by St. John of the Cross xvii 10 William Blake, The Ancient of Days, from Europe: A Prophecy (1794), Plate i xviii 11 William Blake, The Soul in the Mystical Embrace of God, from Jerusalem (1804), Plate 99 (Jerusalem: ‘All Human Forms identified …’) xix Timeline 1 Timeline of mystics before the eleventh century 257 Timeline 2 Timeline of mystics, eleventh–twentieth centuries 258 vii Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:48 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am greatly indebted to a number of people for making this book possible. The deans of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Illinois at Chicago under whom I served, Sidney B. Simpson, Jr., Eric A. Gislason and Stanley E. Fish, kindly allowed me research time in the midst of my administrative duties, without which I could not have written this book. I am grateful to the library staff members of the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago for their invalu- able assistance in acquiring books from libraries in the Illinet Online system and on Interlibrary Loan. I am also very indebted to those who read the manuscript in the var- ious stages of its incarnation and provided me with their most helpful comments, crit- icisms and encouragement: Annette Chapman-Adisho, Suzanne A. Wells, Carlene Thissen, and my friend and colleague at UIC, Dr. Mary Sinclair. I am especially indebted to my wife Sarah, who not only read the entire manuscript but also cheer- fully carried home many books for my use from the Cudahy Library of Loyola Univer- sity Chicago. viii Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:48 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen PLATES CREDITS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS Plates 1 (and front cover), 6: Scala/Art Resource, NY. Plates 2, 10, 11: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven, CT. Plate 3: Valamo Society, Helsinki, Finland. Plate 4: Brotherhood of St. Herman of Alaska, Platina, CA. Plate 5: Art Resource, NY; plate 8: Alinari/Art Resource, NY. Plate 7: The Julian Centre, Norwich Plate 9: Institute of Carmelite Studies Press, Washington, DC from The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, copyright © 1979, 1990 by Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, ICS Publications, 2131 Lincoln Road., N. E., Washington, DC 20002-1199 USA. ix Mystics of the Christian Tradition 01 March 2001 12:30:07 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — Plate 1 The Desert Fathers as depicted in a fifteenth-century Italian painting by Gherardo Starnina (The Thebaid: Hermits in the Wilderness; Uffizi, Florence). x Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:52 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — xi Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:18:53 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — Plate 2 View of Mount Athos by Edward Lear, 1857 (Mount Athos and the Monastery of Stavroniketes). Plate 3 A Russian monk’s cell (cell of Nicholas of Valaam). xii Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:19:05 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — Plate 4 St. Sergius and the bear. xiii Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:19:09 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — Plate 5 Hildegard of Bingen receives the Holy Spirit, illumination from a twelfth- century manuscript. xiv Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:19:14 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — Plate 6 St. Francis renounces his worldly goods, detail of fresco in the Cappella Bardi, S. Croce, Florence, by Giotto di Bondone. Plate 7 Julian’s cell at the church of St. Julian, Norwich, rebuilt after bomb damage in 1942. xv Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:19:24 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — Plate 8 Detail of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, Cornaro Chapel, S. Maria della Vittoria, Rome. xvi Mystics of the Christian Tradition 22 February 2001 09:19:29 Color profile: Disabled Composite Default screen — Plates — Plate 9 View of Crucifixion of Jesus by St. John of the Cross.
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