Medieval Mystical Theology
January 2, 2025
N. Cheng
William of Saint-Thierry’s exploration on the theme of ‘resurrection’ in his moral reading of the Song of Songs argues for an eschatological orientation for the human person’s deification. This detailed research on the concept of ‘resurrection’ in the Exposition does not confine itself to a literary study of the term ‘resurrection’ as it appears in William’s the Latin critical edition text....
Medieval Mystical Theology
July 3, 2023
Rebecca Stephens
ABSTRACT Philosophers of the theory-of-mind have always grappled with how to describe and image human mental processes, given the impossibility of accessing a perspective outside consciousness from which to analyse it. This article considers the history of models of the mind before exploring in detail Meister Eckhart’s conception of psychology, epistemology and ontology. Eckhart’s German...
Medieval Mystical Theology
January 2, 2022
R. van Nieuwenhove
ABSTRACT This article considers a key topic from medieval theological anthropology by examining how ecstasy and self-transcendence relate to divine nothingness. It discusses this topic by examining a spiritual classic written by a female author and published in 1538 but largely forgotten, namely, The Evangelical Pearl, which encapsulates central themes from Jan van Ruusbroec and Meister Eckhart...
Medieval Mystical Theology
July 3, 2018
B. McGinn
ABSTRACT In the Prologue to his Ascent of Mount Carmel John of the Cross mentions the three sources of his mystical teaching–experience, theological science, and scripture – noting that scripture is his fundamental guide. Perhaps because he did not write formal biblical commentaries, it has not been sufficiently recognized that John’s mysticism is fundamentally mystical. This article presents...
Medieval Mystical Theology
January 2, 2018
A. Dupont
1 citation
The current article addresses the question concerning Augustine’s mysticism from two perspectives: practice and theory. In the Confessiones, Augustine recounts how he reached an experience of God – the ‘Ostia-ecstasy’, shortly after his baptism. After an extensive state of the art on the debate of Augustine’s mysticism, the first part of this article studies Confessiones IX, 23–6, in which...
Medieval Mystical Theology
August 19, 2011
David Lewin
8 citations
The recurring narrative of the relinquishment of human will animates the spiritual discourses of almost every mystical tradition. But contemporary discussions of spirituality gravitate towards exasperation when acknowledging the radical impotence of human agents, while much modern philosophy has found itself unable to think beyond the aporia of freedom and determinism.The ability to mediate...
Medieval Mystical Theology
August 19, 2011
Joseph Grafton Milne
"Robert J. Dobie, Logos and Revelation: Ibn 'Arabi, Meister Eckhart, and Mystical Hermeneutics." Medieval Mystical Theology, 20(1), pp. 101–102
Medieval Mystical Theology
August 19, 2011
Joseph Milne
Through an exploration of medieval Christian cosmology it is argued that an aspect of Christian mysticism emerges which has been submerged by modern materialist cosmology. There is thus a disparity between the ‘inner’ aspect of mystical experience and the ‘outer’ conception of nature and the universe. Through this disparity ‘religion’ has been relegated to the interior life and the cosmos to...