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Mysticism and Ethics in Western Mystical Traditions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Steven T. Katz
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Extract

Having considered the role of ethics in Indian mystical teachings in a previous, related, essay I would like to consider the same question in its western religious contexts in the present paper, beginning with the Christian mystical tradition. As is the case with Asian traditions charges of moral unconcern are widely directed at Christian mystics, but they are false. Christian mystics are not indifferent to morality nor do they disconnect morality from an intrinsic relationship to their mystical quest. Augustine would already teach that the story of Leah and Rachel was an instructive allegory in which the active life represented by Leah was intrinsic to the contemplative life represented by Rachel while Gregory the Great would unambiguously assert: ‘We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of the active life’, defining the active life as: ‘to dispense to all what they need and to provide those entrusted to us with the means of subsistence’. These representative early samples of the salience of ethical behaviour to the life of contemplation could be multiplied at great length, and almost without exception in the teaching of the major Christian mystics. This historical exegetical exercise, however, is in the present circumstances, both out of place and I hope unnecessary. Instead, the more general, more enigmatic, more repercussive, issues raised by the place and significance of morality within the Christian mystical tradition need attending to.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1992 , pp. 407 - 423
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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Footnotes

*

This essay was originally delivered as the second of my two David Baumgardt Memorial Lectures, sponsored by the American Philosophical Association, at Harvard University on 14 November 1984. The first of my Baumgardt Lectures appeared in Religious Studies, XXVIII 2 (June 1992), 253–267.

References

1 Cited from Butler, Dom Cuthbert, Western Mysticism (London, 1922), p. 218.Google Scholar

2 Ibid. p. 214.

3 In very rare instances a mystic of the neo-Platonic type does not emphasize the centrality of ethics for mysticism – for example, Pseudo-Dionysius – but this rare exception only proves the general rule. Moreover, Christian neo-Platonists such as Eckhart do not follow Pseudo-Dionysius' lead in this respect.

4 Ruysbroeck, Jan Van, The Spiritual Espousals, trans. Colledge, Eric (London, 1952), p. 74.Google Scholar

5 Eckhart, Meister, Tractate to Sister Katri, trans. Evans, C. de B. (London, 1924), p. 315.Google Scholar

6 Eckhart, Meister, as cited by Kelley, Carl Franklin, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, 1977), p. 218.Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Eckhart, Meister, ‘Talks of Instruction’, translated by Blakeney, R. B., Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation (New York, 1941), p. 13.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. p. 238. The metaphysical doctrines underlying this position will be explored more fully below.

10 St Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 3.2, in The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, trans. E. Allison Peers (London, 1978).Google Scholar

11 Nearly all of Eckhart's, Teresa's and John's German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French, and English disciples, male and female, agree on this, as do Protestant mystical giants like Jacob Boehme.

12 For more on the ‘conservative’ character of mysticism in general see my essay by that title in Steven T. Katz, ed., Mysticism and Religious Traditions (New York, 1983), pp. 1–45.Google Scholar

13 Augustine, St, De quantitate animae, pp. 73ff.Google Scholar

14 On the central role that ‘models’ play in all mystical traditions, see my essay ‘Models, Modeling and Mystical Training’, Religion, XII (Fall, 1982), 247–75.Google Scholar

15 Gregory, St, Reg. Past, 1.5.Google Scholar

16 Origen, , Commentary on the Song of Songs, trans. Lawson, R. P. (Westminster [Maryland], 1957)Google Scholar. Rufinus' Latin translation can be found in Baerens', W. R. edition of Origines Werke in Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, vol. 33 (Berlin, 1925).Google Scholar

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18 For a useful survey of the whole of medieval Christian exegesis of the Song of Songs see Ohly, Friedrich, Hohelied-Studien (Wiesbaden, 1958).Google Scholar

19 St Teresa of Avila, The Life of Teresa Avila, trans. D. Lewis (London, 1970), p. 402Google Scholar. The Spanish original of the Life is most conveniently found in the edition of Teresa's works edited by de Dios, Efrén de la Madre and Steggink, Otger, published in the Biblioteca de Autores Christianos (Madrid, 1967).Google Scholar

20 Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, 6th Mansion, Ch. 4. Available in many editions.

21 Ruysbroeck, Jan van, Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, trans. Underhill, E. (London, 1951), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

22 Catherine of Siena, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin dedicated to Herself while in a State of Ecstasy, trans. A. Thorold (London, 1896).Google Scholar

23 Cited in Thurston, Herbert, The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism (Chicago, 1952), p. 131.Google Scholar

24 A Book of Contemplation, the which is called The Cloud of Unknowing, in the Which a Soul is Oned with God, edited by Evelyn Underhill (London, 1934), p. 60.Google Scholar

25 I discuss aspects of this issue more fully in my essay ‘Mystical Speech and Mystical Meaning’, in Steven T. Katz, ed., Mysticism and Language (New York, 1992), pp. 4–50.Google Scholar

26 Pseudo-Dionysius, , Mystical Theology (Milwaukee, 1980)Google Scholar, Ch. IV, 1040Dff. The Latin text can be found in Chevalier, Philippe et al., eds., Dionysiaca: Recueil donnant l'ensemble des traductions latines des ouvrages attribués au Denys l'Aréopage (Burges, 1937), vol. 1 (of 2).Google Scholar

27 Eckhart, Meister, Die deutschen Werke, Josef Quint et al., eds. (Stuttgart, 1938– ), vol. 1, p. 168.Google Scholar

28 Eckhart, Meister, Die deutschen Werke, vol. 1, p. 195.Google Scholar

29 Eckhart, Meister, Die deutschen Werke, vol. 1, p. 276.Google Scholar

30 I use this term in the sense proposed by Paul Tillich, i.e. as the sympathetic coming together of man's will/being and God's Will/being thereby overcoming the tensions extant within the opposition of autonomy vs. heteronomy.

31 It is just here on the level of ethical concern, rather than in relation to the metaphysics of ‘nothingness’, that the oft-made comparison of Eckhart and Buddhism is both apt and interesting.

32 Eckhart, Meister, Die deutschen Werke, vol. 1, pp. 194f.Google Scholar

33 Eckhart, Meister, ‘This, Too, Is Meister Eckhart Who Always Taught the Truth’, in Blakeney, Meister Eckhart, pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

34 St Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 36.7, in Complete Works, trans. A. Peers. See also Teresa, Interior Castle, 6.4; 6.6.Google Scholar

35 Boehme, Jacob, The Way to Christ, trans. Erb, Peter (New York, 1978), 3.24.Google Scholar

36 St John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk 2, Ch. 24.6, in The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Garden City, New York, 1964)Google Scholar. For the philosophical issues raised by this and like texts see essay, Nelson Pike's ‘On Mystic Visions as Sources of Knowledge’, in S. Katz, ed., Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, pp. 214–34.Google Scholar

37 Cloud of Unknowing, trans. E. Underhill, Ch. 19, pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

38 Ruysbroeck, Jan Van, trans, by Hello, Ernest, Flowers of a Mystic Garden (London, 1912), p. 89.Google Scholar

39 Richard of Victor, St, ‘The Four Degrees of Passionate Love’, in Claire, Kuchberger, ed., Richard of St Victor: Select Writings on Contemplation (London, 1957), p. 232.Google Scholar

40 Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, trans, by Suzanne Noffke (New York, 1980), p. 27.Google Scholar

41 St Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon on the Song of Songs, LXXI, 5ff.Google Scholar

42 St Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, trans. by John K. Ryan (Garden City, New York, 1963)Google Scholar, Bk 9, Ch. 3.

43 Eckhart, Meister, Die deutschen Werke, vol. 5, p. 221.Google Scholar

44 Boehme, Jacob, Forty Questions Concerning the Soul (London, 1911), XII: 39.Google Scholar

45 Eckhart, Meister, Die deutschen Werke, vol. 3, p. 441.Google Scholar

46 Tikkun 10. See also the exposition of this doctrine in R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi's Likutei Amarim-Tanya (London, 1973)Google Scholar, Ch. 30.

47 Luzzatto, Moshe Chaim, The Path of the Upright, trans. Kaplan, Mordecai (Philadelphia, 1966)Google Scholar, Ch. on ‘Holiness’.

48 For a fuller explanation of kabbalistic theosophy in its totality and complexity see Scholem, Gershom, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1973).Google Scholar

49 Zohar, I. 164a.

50 Luzzatto, M., The Path of the Upright, p. 224.Google Scholar

51 Cordovero, Moses, Palm Tree of Deborah, trans. Jacobs, Louis (New York, 1974), p. 69.Google Scholar

52 R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Tanya, Ch. 53.

53 M. Luzzatto, Meshillat Yesharim, Ch. on Holiness.

54 Zohar, ‘Vayera’, 106A.

55 For this and related notions see Dresner, Samuel, The Zaddik (London, N.D.).Google Scholar

56 Published in Religious Studies, XXVIII 2 (1992), 253–267.Google Scholar