Abstract What did Lossky expect his readers to understand by ‘mystical theology’? For when his Mystical Theology was published (in 1944), ‘mysticism’, or la mystique was very much in the air. Von Hügel had begun a trend, picked up by Heiler and Otto, and in Catholic circles by Bremond, Poulain, and Saudreau; Baruzi’s influential book on St John of the Cross discussed the problem of ‘mystical...
This chapter argues that the heart of the ‘mystical’ in the Christian faith is inalienably liturgical. Despite the fact that modern use of the ‘mystical’, and especially ‘mysticism’, is concerned wholly with the experience of the individual, whether in the context of the sacramental life or outside it, the root meaning of the mystical in Christian understanding is bound up with the sacraments,...