Down Town / Down Soul: Early Modern Mysticism, the Self & the Political (Studies in Spirituality Supplements) 9789042941441, 9789042941458, 9042941448

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STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY Supplement 34

Titus Brandsma Institute

DOWN TOWN / DOWN SOUL Early Modern Mysticism, the Self & the Political

Edited by Marc DE KESEL & Inigo BOCKEN

PEETERS

DOWN TOWN / DOWN SOUL

STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY SUPPLEMENTS Edited by Kees Waaijman – Marc De Kesel – Inigo Bocken Titus Brandsma Institute – Nijmegen – The Netherlands

TITUS BRANDSMA INSTITUTE STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY Supplement 34

DOWN TOWN / DOWN SOUL Early Modern Mysticism, the Self & the Political Edited by Marc De Kesel & Inigo Bocken

PEETERS LEUVEN - PARIS - BRISTOL, CT 2020

© 2020, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3 Leuven ISBN 978-90-429-4144-1 eISBN 978-90-429-4145-8 D/2020/0602/28 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

CONTENTS Introduction – Marc De Kesel

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PART I – MYSTICISM Varieties of Mystical Annihilation in Seventeenth-Century France Bernard McGinn A Small Note Concerning Bernard McGinn’s Varieties of Mystical Annihilation in the Seventeenth Century Huub Welzen

Incarnation, Anéantissement, and the Formation of the Modern Self in Pierre Cardinal de Bérulle’s Christocentric Mysticism: A Critical Appraisal in Dialogue with Charles Taylor Cliff Knighten Meister Eckhart, A Man for all Creeds? Kees Schepers To Learn the Truth is to Learn Ourselves Michel Dijkstra

Schwenckfeld and Sudermann as Mediators of Late Medieval Spirituality in the Baroque Period Wolfgang Christian Schneider Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Politics of the Natural August Higgins Emerson, a Beautiful Surprise! Gerrit Steunebrink

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PART II – DOWN TOWN Love Thy Neighbour Purely: Mysticism & Politics in Fénelon Marc De Kesel Conjectural Politics: Nicholas of Cusa’s Very Early Modern Mystical Foundation of Political Consensus Inigo Bocken

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Mystique et supraconfessionalisme dans les stratégies politiques des chrétiens d’Orient Jad Hatem

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Money and Interior Life: The Spirituality of the Treasurer in Early Modern Religious Houses Eduard Kimman

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Consumerism Supported, Consumerism Opposed: A Look at Orthodoxy and Mysticism in Ancien Régime France 175 Joost Vandernet Jean de Labadie: Mystic – Activist – Politician Herman Westerink

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PART III – DOWN SOUL ‘Where Then Is the Self?’: Pascal’s Critique of the Ego Dominiek Hoens

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The Imaginary Pilgrimages and the Outbreak of the Subjectivity in the Early Modernity 209 François Manga Self and Loss of Self in Modern Literature Liesbeth Eugelink

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The Fractured Self of a Modern Mystic: Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (2013) 231 Theo Witkamp

INTRODUCTION

Mysticism is a private matter, a matter of the soul. It is about the inner path one goes in search for God. It is an inner path, indeed, a path not to be walked in the outside world. Does it not? Is the outside not a place for those who walk the spiritual path? The mystics who disagree in this are not the minor ones. Meister Eckhart, for instance, explicitly says that the place where one is when he walks the inner path can be everywhere, including in the center of a crowdy town. In his Talks of Instruction, we read: A man should receive God in all things and train his mind to keep God ever present in his mind, in his aims, and in his love. Note how you regard God: keep the same attitude that you have in church or in your cell, and carry it with you in the crowd and in unrest and inequality.1

In the heart of ‘down town’, one can live as deep down in the inner of his soul as in the quiet cell of a monastery. ‘Town’ and ‘soul’ are not in contradiction to each other. But do they really go together? If, absorbed by the inner path I go, I walk in the crowdy streets of my town, am I really in connection with that town? Has my inner life as a mystic an inner connection with the outer life of the town? Here a positive answer to that question is less evident. For, of course, I can be full of God in de midst of the most crowdy town, but does this not precisely mean that, even in town, I am spiritually outside of it? Is my inner life not essentially outside the town life? Do I not experience then, that, even in the midst of a tumultuous crowd, I am alone – alone with the Only One who really matters: God? In that case, there is no inner relation between my loneliness and the town. Or, to put it more generally: mysticism has no inner relation to politics. Precisely not. The inner path I go as a mystic is in no way contaminated by the outer ways my fellow citizens go. My living deep down in my soul has nothing to do with the life ‘down town’, even when I am lively in the midst of that town.

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Meister Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Work of Meister Eckhart, ed. Bernard McGinn, transl. Maurice O’C. Walshe, New York: Crossroad, 2009, 490.

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However, if the mystic is Christian, has he not to obey the commandment of neighborly love? Of course, he has. No mystic has the slightest intention to neglect the Christian virtue of charity. But do they ‘love’ the people for the sake of the people, or is their neighborly love ultimately for God’s sake? The more the mystic has progressed on the mystical path, the more the love for his neighbors will be lived as a means to find God. And if, for his part, he enjoys the love of his neighbour, he has to take it not so much from his neighbour as from God. The French mystical writer François de Fénelon worded it tellingly, when in one of his ‘spiritual letters’ he wrote: Receive from the hands of men the comfort that God will give you through them. You must receive it not from them, but through them from Him.2

Embracing an inner life deep down in his soul, the mystic is full of charity for his fellow citizen, and he himself is open for their charity. In that sense, he is engaged in his ‘polis’ and is showing the ‘political’ dimension of his mysticism. However, that engagement is not direct, but mediated via God. Or, what is more, it is instrumentalized: his charity has become an ‘instrument’, a useful ‘tool’ helping him to get in closer contact with God. Does this go for all mysticism? Is there not a mystic who acts directly politically, who relates unmediated with his fellow citizens and with his ‘town’ as such? Indeed there is. The mystical position is not unable to allow a direct critical relation to the society the mystic lives in. Here again, Fénelon can be an example. Even in the eyes of the atheists among the French revolutionaries, he was famous for his Lettre à Louis XIV, which was one of the sharpest critiques on the absolutistic politics of that monarch. Or, to mention just one more example, think of the twentieth-century mystic scholar Titus Brandsma, who precisely in Christian mysticism found the force and the courage to develop a huge resistance against the Nazi-oppression in The Netherlands during the Second World War – a resistance he paid with his live. He died in Dachau in July 1942.3 * * * ‘Down Town / Down Soul – Early Modern Mysticism, the Self and the Political’ – is the title of the international conference the Titus Brandsma Institute organized in Nijmegen (The Netherlands) on June 13 and 14, 2018. This conference 2

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Fénelon, Œuvres de Fénelon Archevêque-duc de Cambrai, rev. ed. Vol. V, Paris: Tenré et Boiste, (1822), 156-157 [author’s translation]. In my essay in this volume, this quote and its context is discussed; see 117. Maria Valabek (Ed.), Titus Brandsma: Carmilite, Educator, Journalist, Martyr, Rome: Carmel in the World Paperbacks, 1985; Josse Alzin, Ce petit moine dangereux: Le père Titus Brandsma, Recteur d’Université, martyr de Dachau, Paris: Bonne Presse, 1954.

INTRODUCTION

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was part of a number of events with which the institute celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. This volume contains the texts of the lectures presented at that conference. The first section, entitled Mysticism, collects papers that focus on the mystical as such. Bernard McGinn (Divinity School, University of Chicago, United States) opens the volume, jumping right away into a central, but problematic feature of seventeenth-century mysticsm: the annihilation of the mystic’s ego. He not only gives an overview of a number of influential authors dealing with that theme (including medieval mystical authors as well), but also provides important analytical tools to distinguish different kinds of self-annihilation. Only a few ‘reactions’ on papers presented during the conference are contained in this volume. Among them is the reaction on McGinn’s lecture by Huub Welzen (Titus Brandsma Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands). To McGinn’s list of authors referring to the annihilation of the soul, Welzen adds the rather unknown seventeenth-century Dutch mystic Jan Pelgrim Pullen and develops a reflection upon the annihilation of the soul in the work of Cardinal de Bérulle. Bérulle, that ‘giant’ of seventeenth-century French mysticism, is the topic of the essay by Cliff Knighten (Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas, United States). Knighten explains the influence of the cardinal’s Christo-centrism on his ideas about the mystical annihilation of the self, and refers to Charles Taylor’s genealogy of the modern self to elaborate a sympathetic critique of Bérulle’s spiritualité. Kees Schepers (Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp, Belgium) investigates the way Meister Eckhart’s thinking is received in contemporary thought. After having presented the central propositions of Eckhart’s mystical theory, Schepers criticizes the often ‘easy’ way in which that complex theory is appropriated by contemporary ‘creeds and ideologies’. In his reaction to Schepers’s essay, Michel Dijkstra (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) briefly goes into the Zen Buddhist reception of the German Meister, more especially by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki and Shizuteru Ueda. Dijkstra explains why he is rather critical with respect to these authors and illustrates his view on the relation between Zen Buddhism and Eckhart by referring to the thirteenth-century Japanese Zen Master Dōgen. Wolfgang Christian Schneider (University of Hildesheim, Germany) focuses on two less known German mystical authors, Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig and Daniel Sudermann. Schneider explores the place each of the authors occupies within the religious and political situation in the Upper Rhine region in the early sixteenth century. The essay by August Higgins (Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas, United States) is on Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the first great philosophers in the history of the United States. Higgins more specifically addresses

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the socio-political implications of Emerson’s spiritual writings, particularly as they relate to what Emerson saw as the moral crisis that was slavery. In his enthusiastic reaction, Gerrit Steunebrink (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) adds to Higgins’ essay some more reflections on Emerson’s engagements in favour of the slavery liberation movements. Emerson’s part in that movement should be considered more positively than usually. The second of the three sections of the volume, entitled Down Town, collects essays that discuss the often problematic relation between mysticism and the political. So, the seventeenth-century French mystic author, Fénelon, proscribes in his ‘lettres spirituelles’ an emphasis on the inner life of the soul in such a way that there seems to be no room left for any social and political commitment with the outside word. Yet, as Marc De Kesel (Titus Brandsma Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) in his essay states, there is definitely a political dimension in Fénelon’s work. See for instance his novel Télémaque and, as mentioned above, his Lettre à Louis XIV. De Kesel explains the logic of the pur amour behind the link between Fénelon’s inner spirituality and his political engagement. Inigo Bocken (Titus Brandsma Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) shows the inner relation between mysticism and political engagement in the work of the fifteenth-century philosopher and theologian Nicholas of Cusa (Latin name: Cusanus). For indeed, Cusanus is the author of an extensive œuvre in which the ‘inner way’ is a central issue; and yet, as cardinal, he was politically engaged in the highest milieus of the Catholic Church. Against the widespread ideas about the political conservatism of the German philosopher, Bocken shows the nuanced and subtle way in which Cusanus tried to think how people’s plurality can go together with a united form of government. Jad Hatem (Saint-Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon) analyzes the situation the religious minorities in his region are in, as they all live under the religious and/or political hegemony of the Islam. He discusses some works of Kahlil Gibran and other Lebanese authors in which the ‘supra-confessional’ dimension of mysticism is put forward as a possible means to overcome the tensions between religious communities. Eduard Kimman (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) explores the first decades of the Jesuit Order to see how poverty arrangements of their Constitutions had to be adopted to the final needs of the apostolic works, particularly the system of colleges they set up over almost entire Europe. Here we see in detail how a ‘mystic’ way of life goes together with a far-reaching social and political engagement. The essay by Joost Vandernet (independent scholar, The Netherlands), too, looks at the entanglement of orthodoxy, mysticism and the political. He, more precisely, examines how Catholicism was present at the birth of consumerism,

INTRODUCTION

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even supported it, but tried to find a way out as well. Van der Net shows how the French spiritualité tradition of the pur amour contributed to that attempt of ‘way out’. Herman Westerink (Titus Brandsma Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) discusses a figure from the early modern spiritual tradition whose turbulent life was both mystical and political: Jean de Labadie. Many times during his nomadic life he changed confession and religious community (he went from Jesuit, over Jansenist and Calvinist, to several form of being ‘Labadist), and as many times he tried to change the community he embraced or set up an own community that fitted to his religious and mystical life style. The third and last section of the volume, entitled Down Soul, concentrates on the problematic relation of the spiritual mystic to his own ego – or, more precisely, to the annihilation of that ego. Dominiek Hoens (Ghent University, Belgium) links Blaise Pascal’s mathematical reflections on the possibility of ‘nothingness’ (the ‘vacuum’ which, since Aristotle, was supposed to be impossible) to his theory of the ego – an ego which according to him was to be defined as ‘nothing’ as well. Though Pascal is, strictly spoken, not a mystic, his theory of the ego as ‘self-annihilation’ fits perfectly with the genuine spiritualité-authors of his time. François Manga (Fellow Titus Brandsma Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) explores the virtual pilgrimages of the Late Middle Ages. He more specifically focuses on a book by the sixteenth-century Leuven professor Jan Pascha that provides the reader the possibility to make an imaginary ‘spiritual journey’ to Jerusalem. Manga shows how the allegorical method, which is typical for that genre, supported the empowering of the ‘self’ which will characterize the modern self a century later. Liesbeth Eugelink (Fellow Titus Brandsma Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) investigates the ‘self’ and the ‘loss of the self’ (so typical for the mystical tradition) within the realm of modern literature. Starting from a comment upon a passage in John William’s novel Stoner, she discusses the theories of selflessness elabotated by Charly Coleman and Marc De Kesel. Theo Witkamp (Protestant Theological University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) discusses the ‘fractured self of the modern mystic’ by commenting upon Christian Wiman’s 2013 book: My Bright Abyss. There, a ‘modern believer’ is followed in his struggle with the ‘mystical’ abyss of his own ego. Without ignoring the valuable contribution of many people in organizing the conference and preparing this proceedings, I want to thank especially Ad Poirters for his excellent correction work on the articles included in this volume. Marc De Kesel, September 5, 2019

PART I MYSTICISM

BERNARD MCGINN VARIETIES OF MYSTICAL ANNIHILATION IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

The Dutch Jesuit Maximilian Sandaeus (Maximilian van der Sandt, 1578-1656), one of the founders of the science of mysticism in the seventeenth century, is best known for his 1630 defense of the mystics, Theologia mystica seu contemplatio divina vindicata, and its supplement, Pro theologia mystica clavis, published in Cologne in 1640.1 This last work is perhaps the best example of a new genre born at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a defense of the mystics and an explanation of mystical terminology as a special form of language with its own rules and ways of speaking. Here Sandaeus takes up the term Annihilatio mystica, distinguishing two kinds: annihilatio intellectiva by which we recognize that we can do nothing in the life of grace by our own powers, and annihilatio affectiva by which we desire to be humiliated and held as nothing. Under the subcategory Annullatio, citing Peter Blomevenn’s ‘Introduction’ to his edition of Harphius’s Theologia mystica, he warns: ‘It would be foolish to believe that this Mystical Doctor wished to assert that the rational soul be annulled or turned into God; the second is completely impossible, and the first totally absurd. Thus, in order for a person to be made blessed, it would be necessary to be reduced to nothing. Indeed, a person who does not exist, cannot be made blessed’.2 This caution expresses the common sense doctrinal approach to the 1

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For a general account of Sandaeus, Jos Andriessen, ‘Sandaeus (van der Sandt, Maximilien), jésuite, 1578-1656’, in: M. Viller, F. Cavallera & J. de Guibert (Eds.), Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique. 16 vols., Paris 1937-1994, Vol. 14 (1988), 311-316 (hereafter DS). For his place in the development of mystical ‘science’, Jacques Le Brun, ‘Histoires de la mystique et decline de la mystique au XVIIIe siècle’, in: A. Direckens & B. Beyer de Ryke (Eds.), Mystique: La passion de l’Un de Antiquité à nous jours, Brussels 2005, 163-174; and Michel de Certeau, The Mystic Fable. Vol. 1: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Chicago 1992, 75-76, 102, 108, 146, and 170. Maximilian Sandaeus, Pro theologia mystica clavis elucidarium, onomasticon…, Cologne 1640, 102: ‘… stultum esse credere, Doctorem Mysticum velle asserere, animam rationalem annulari, vel in Deum converti: cum secundum sit omnino impossibile, et primum absurdissimum: ut videlicet, cum quis beatus fieri deberet, oporteret eum in Nihilum redigi; cum utique, qui non est, beatus esse non possit’. For more on annihilation, see Sandaeus’s comments on

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use of the language of annihilatio/annullatio in mystical literature, and it is true that a good deal of this language can be reduced to Sandaeus’s two types.3 The problem, however, is that there was also a powerful trend in mystical literature from at least the thirteenth century on that seemed to say exactly what the Jesuit considered omnino impossibile et absurdissimum, that is, that the created soul should, at least on some level, be reduced to nothing, or annihilated, in order to attain God. Both kinds of annihilation language were widely used in seventeenth-century France. Annihilation language become so widespread at the time that one is tempted to call this century ‘the Age of Annihilation’. Many observers would want to side with Sandaeus and say, ‘Surely the mystics don’t mean us to take them literally when they speak of annihilation?’ Annihilation is only a strong metaphor for the stripping away of the faults and effects of sin that block the way to God. It is a mode of hyperbolic language denoting a moral process, not a metaphysical one; or, it may be used to indicate a lack of the perception of self in moments of mystical union.4 The earliest usage I have found seems to bear this out. Bernard of Clairvaux, in the tenth chapter of his De diligendo Deo, describes the fourth degree of love that will only be perfectly realized in heaven, but which can be proleptically tasted briefly in this life. He says: ‘To lose yourself in some way, as if you did not exist, and not to feel yourself in any way, and to be emptied out from yourself, and to be almost annihilated (et paene annullari), is not a matter of human affection, but is a heavenly way of acting (caelestis est conversatio, non humanae affectionis)’.5 In this carefully-crafted chapter Bernard several times uses strong language about union with God, but always pulls back to qualify what he says – the soul is almost annihilated. About the middle of the thirteenth century we begin to find mystics speaking more frequently about being ‘annihilated’ (annihilare/ anéantisser) in Romance languages and ‘reduced to nothing’ (entwerden, etc.) in Germanic languages. In

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‘Nihil-Pensio’ based on the Pseudo-Tauler, Institutiones spirituales, Cap. XXII: ‘Quanto namque Deus illi amplius exaltatus, et ipse ad quondam inattingibilem, incomprehensibilem, caliginosam magis ac magis pertingit cognitionem, tanto quoque spiritus in quoddam Nihilum, et sui abnegationem descendit’ (288). The survey of R. Daeschler, ‘Anéantissement’, DS 1 (1937), 560-565, treats most forms of annihilation as ‘hyperbole expressive’, but also noted that the word had been used in ways judged as having ‘un sens inexact ou meme hétérodoxe’. Annihilatio/annullatio are not Classical Latin words, but were developed in Christian Latin in the fourth century to translate Psalm passages about God totally destroying his enemies (e. g., Ps 14:4, 58:9, 72:20, 88:39). The earliest appearance seems to be Jerome, Ep. 106.57 and 67, but he did not invent them. For an overview, Sylvain Piron, ‘Adnichilatio’, in: I. Attucha et al. (Eds.), Mots médiévaux offerts à Ruedi Imbach, Oporto, Portugal 2011, 23-33. De diligendo Deo X.27 in: Jean Leclercq et al. (Eds.), Sancti Bernardi Opera, 8 vols., Rome 1957-1977, Vol. 3 (1963), 142.16-18.

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the Low Countries the Cistercian nun Beatrice of Nazareth († 1260) in her Seven Ways of Minne says that the power of Minne puts the soul into a situation ‘… in anxiety and cares, in languishing and in being reduced to nothing (en doyenne ende in verderuene), in great fidelity and in infidelity’.6 Similar language occurs several times in her contemporary, the Beguine Hadewijch of Antwerp.7 In Italy at the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Franciscan mystics Jacopone da Todi († 1306),8 as well as the tertiary Angela da Foligno († 1309) made use of annihilation language.9 In the same years the Cistercian nuns Gertrude the Great († 1301) and Mechthild of Hackeborn († 1298) in the convent of Helfta in Saxony were also employing annihilatio in their Latin visionary works.10 Many of these uses may be read as examples of soft, or metaphorical, annihilation, though perhaps not all, particularly in the case of Jacopone. But with two other mystics active in this period it is difficult to say that we are dealing just with rhetorical coloring. The Low Countries Beguine, Marguerite Porete, executed in 1310 as a relapsed heretic for continuing to teach and disseminate her book, the Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls, and the German Dominican, Meister Eckhart († 1328), the author of many vernacular sermons and important Latin Scholastic works, both seem to want to say more. In their distinctive ways they propose what might be called a hard, or strong, form of annihilation, which insists that on some level at least the soul, especially the soul’s created will, really is reduced to nothing, so that the eternal uncreated ‘I’, always one with God, takes over the place where the created subject used to live and act. 6

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Jos Huls, The Minne-Journey: Beatrice of Nazareth’s ‘Seven Ways of Minne’. Mystical Process and Mystagogical Implication, Leuven 2013. Seven Ways VII.213-215 (ed., 68-69); see also Seven Ways IV.56-58 (ed., 38). Comparable language (without the actual word annihilatio) can be found in the Vita Beatricis 3.9, nn. 223-225. See Hadewijch’s Lieder 38.49-51 (te niet werden al in minne), as well as Letters 6.34-35, and 19.52-61. Jacopone da Todi has several powerful laude on annihilation; see especially Laude 90-92, and the discussion in Bernard McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200-1350), New York 1998, 127-131. Laud 91.185 has a strong formulation – ‘Volere e non voler en te sì è annegato’. See Franca Ageno (Ed.), Iacopone da Todi: Laudi, Trattato e Detti, Florence 1953, 388. See also lines 99-104, and 165. Angela’s use of annihilation is restricted to her Instructiones, especially Instructio II, where she says: ‘Et ista est vera annihilatio, videre in veritate quod nos non sumus operatores alicuius boni’. See Ludger Their & Abele Calufetti (Eds.), Il Libro della Beata Angela da Foligno, Grottaferrata 1985, 438. Annihilatio is not used in the Memoriale, the account of Angela’s mystical path taken down by her Franciscan scribe. On the use of annihilation in Angela, Mechthild of Hackeborn and Marguerite Porete, see Barbara Newman, ‘Annihilation and Authorship: Three Women Mystics of the 1290s’, in: Speculum 91 (2016), 591-630. Mechthild uses annihilation three times in her Liber specialis gratiae, while Gertrude uses it once in her Documenta spiritualium exercitiorum.

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Annihilation language was infrequent in the other female mystics of the time; with Marguerite Porete it takes center stage, appearing some forty-five times in the Latin version of the work and in many of the book’s 140 chapters.11 The whole of Marguerite’s teaching cannot be surveyed here, but a brief look at two texts will show why she seems to be a proponent of hard annihilation. In Chapter 118, Marguerite lays out seven stages of the ascent of love.12 The first four follow a standard pattern of obedience to the commandments, following the evangelical counsels, giving the lover everything that he desires, and then being drawn up into a state of erotic union ‘through the exaltation of contemplation’ and ‘the touch of Love’s pure delight’. Many, according to Marguerite, consider this the height of the ascent of love, but the Beguine says there are two higher stages. In the fifth state she sees that God is ‘all goodness who has put free will into her, who is not, except in all evil’. Here the Soul recognizes that this free will is the source of her evil, and so it must be moved ‘from the place where it is, and where it must not be, so that it can be returned to where it is not, whence it came, and where it must be’. The soul thus abandons her created will and returns and surrenders to God, so that she is changed into Love’s nature. Marguerite continues, ‘Now such a Soul is nothing, for through the abundance of Divine Knowledge she sees her own nothingness, which makes her nothing and reduces her to nothingness’. The paradox of the sixth stage is even stronger. Here the soul and its created will are fully annihilated (although Marguerite does not use the word itself). ‘But this Soul’, she says, ‘thus pure and illumined, sees neither God nor herself, but God sees himself of himself in her, for her, without her, who (that is, God) shows to her that there is nothing except him’.13 In Chapter 7 Marguerite’s teaching on strong annihilation leads to a short formulation that was to have a long history. She says that ‘This Soul which has become nothing, thus possesses everything, and so possesses nothing; she wills everything, and she wills nothing; she knows all, 11

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The ‘Index Formarum’, in: Instrumenta Lexicologica Latina. Margarete Porete. Speculum Simplicium Animarum, Turnhout 1986, lists the forty-five appearances of annihilatio. Important chapters treating annihilation include 5, 7, 12, 16, 19, 41, 52, 58, 78, 85, 88, 94-95, 110-111, 114, 118, and 137, but the theme is touched on often, either through explicit use of the word, or through formulae like ‘reduction to nothing’. The best study of annihilation in Marguerite Porete is Joanne Maguire Robinson, Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete’s ‘Mirror of Simple Souls’, Albany 2001. On the relation between Marguerite’s teaching on love and that of Beatrice of Nazareth, see John Arblaster & Rob Faesen, ‘Commune a tous par largesse de pure charité: Common love in Beatrice of Nazareth and Marguerite Porete’, in: Ons Geestelijk Erf 83 (2012) no.4, 297-323. The French and Latin forms of the Mirror are in Romana Guarnieri & Paul Verdeyen (Eds.), Marguerite Porete: Le mirouer des simples ames, Turnhout 1986. Chap. 118 is found in the edition, 316-333. I use the translation of E. Colledge as reprinted in Bernard McGinn, The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, New York 2006, 172-179.

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and she knows nothing’.14 Having nothing, willing nothing, and knowing nothing will become a hallmark of some forms of strong annihilation. It seems clear that Meister Eckhart read Marguerite’s Mirror of Simple Souls in some form.15 Of course, the Dominican did not need the Beguine to tell him about the importance of the annihilation of the created ego and will as necessary for the return to God. As Eckhart often noted, it is only God who can truly say ‘I’ (ego), so it is always an error for the nothingness-filled false ego to pretend to separate existence.16 Eckhart’s mysticism, especially as found in his sermons, presents a deconstructive program designed to annihilate the false self and to allow the true divine self to speak and to act where the ersatz self once paraded its fictitious reality. Eckhart’s vocabulary for this process is Germanic: abegeschieden (‘cutting off’), gelassen (‘letting go’), durchbrechen (‘breaking through or beyond’), but some terms are more annihilative in import, such as entbilden (‘un-imaging’), and especially entwerden (‘un-becoming,’ or ‘annihilating’). This mystical deconstruction is the heart of Eckhart’s message.17 Here, I note only what is perhaps the most famous of all the Meister’s presentations, the so-called ‘Poverty Sermon’ (Armutspredigt) on Matthew 5:6, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the earth’. The structure of this sermon is based on the seventh chapter of the Mirror and its succinct formula about three forms of mystical annihilation noted above. After quoting Albert the Great’s definition of interior poverty, Eckhart says: ‘But we shall speak better, taking poverty in a higher sense: a poor person is one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing’.18 The sermon proceeds to give a 14

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Mirouer, Chap. 7 (ed., 26.14-16), ‘Et telle Ame, qui est devenue rien, a adonc tout/ et si n’a nyent, elle vieult tout et ne vieult et ne vieult nient, elle sçait tout et ne sçait nient’ (my italics). The Latin text (27.13-16) gives: ‘Et talis anima quae uere in nichilum est reducta, habet tunc totum et tamen nihil habet, scit totum et nichil scit; uult totum et nichil uult’. On the relation of Marguerite Porete and Eckhart, see the essays of Maria Lichtmann, Amy Hollywood, and Michael Sells in Bernard McGinn (Ed.), Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics, New York 1997. On the pronoun ‘I’ as rightly belonging only to God, see the texts and discussion in Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, New York 2001, 138. A key text is Sermon (Pr.) 117, ‘Ze dem êrsten suochet daz rîche gotes’, found in Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke, Berlin/ Stuttgart 1937- . This edition is divided into two sections, Die deutschen Werke (DW) and Die lateinischen Werke (LW). Pr. 117 is found in DW 4,2:1086-1138. There is a partial translation by Oliver Davies in Meister Eckhart: Selected Writings, London 1994, 241-51. Pr. 52 is found in DW 2:486-506. The text in question is at 488.5-6: ‘…daz ist ein arm mensche, der niht enwil und nit enweiz und niht enhât’. There was also a Latin version of this sermon, where the text in question reads: ‘Item iste dicitur esse pauper homo, qui nichil wlt[vult], et nichil scit Et nichil habet, …’ (DW 2:517.21). I use the translation of Edmund Colledge, in: Edmund Colledge & Bernard McGinn (Eds.), Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense, New York 1981, 199-203 (italics added).

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detailed investigation of these three forms of deconstruction of the created self, including another clear reminiscence of the Beguine, when Eckhart says, ‘For it is not God’s intention in his works that a person should have a place within himself for God to work in: for poverty of spirit means to be so free of God and all his works, that God, if he wishes to work in the soul, is himself the place where he works’.19 The ‘poor person’ is, therefore, the annihilated location where God is at work, a destruction that Maximilian Sandaeus conceived of as ‘totally impossible and completely absurd’. Eckhart’s Sermon 52, both in MHG and in Latin, had a long, if contentious, history. Marguerite’s Mirror also had its readers in several languages, despite her condemnation. The ‘annihilation imperative’, according to which many late medieval mystics became convinced that attaining union with God necessitated a kind of decreation of the self, and especially of the created will, went far beyond the mystics who did, or could, have had some contact with the Beguine or the Dominican.20 This is not the place to try to give a history of the annihilation motif in the late Middle Ages, but it is worth noting five sixteenthcentury texts dependent on late medieval sources which we know were influential on seventeenth-century French conceptions of mystical annihilation.21 The reformed Franciscan Hendrik Herp (ca. 1400-1477), Latinized as Harphius, wrote his important mystical handbook, The Mirror of Perfection (Spieghel der volcomenheit), in the 1460s. Deeply influenced by Ruusbroec, this popular work saw sixty-six editions in many languages. The Cologne Carthusian, Peter Blomeveen (1466-1536), translated it into Latin in 1509, and in 1538 it appeared as Book 2 in a collection of Harphius’s writings called De mystica theologia. Structured according to the triple pattern of the active life (dat werkende leuen), the contemplative spiritual life (dat gheestelick scouwende leuen), and the superessential contemplative life (dat ouerweselic scouwende leuen), annihilation language appears in the higher stages of the contemplative spiritual life and throughout the superessential stage. For example, in Book III.57, Herp says that the touch of the Holy Spirit causes the soul ‘to delight in God and to be required to be brought to nothing in the divine unity, and to die completely

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Colledge & McGinn, Meister Eckhart, 202. Late medieval mystics who use annihilation language include John of Sterngassen, Henry Suso, John Tauler, the anonymous Book of Spiritual Poverty, the Theologia Deutsch, Jan van Ruusbroec, Gerlach Peters, Alijt Bake, Maria van Hout, the Arnhem Mystical Sermons, Caterina Vigri (Catherine of Bologna), and the English Cloud of Unknowing. The following list does not include the writings of John of the Cross, whose teaching on annihilation did not become known until the translation of his works in French in 1622. A more complete treatment, especially of the period after 1625, would have to take him into account.

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in eternal happiness…’.22 Also from the world of Dutch mysticism was the treatise known as the Great Evangelical Pearl (Dye grote evangelische perle), composed by an anonymous woman in the Eastern Netherlands probably in the 1530s and first published in its full form in 1542.23 This late masterpiece of the mysticism of the Low Countries combines a wealth of traditions from late medieval northern European mysticism into a three-book mystagogical treatise. A Latin version, somewhat different from the Dutch, appeared in 1545, and this was translated into French by the Parisian Carthusians, published in 1602, and widely read by French mystics. The Pearl has a rich teaching on annihilation, best seen in Chapters 40-47 of Book I in the Latin and French texts. These are too long to be discussed here, but a passage from I.40 is a good summary. Here the anonymous author, following Eckhart’s ‘Poverty Sermon’, which had been translated into Dutch, outlines three practices for attaining God: letting go (laten/abnegatio), suffering (lijden/tolerantia), and the exercise of nothingness (nyet/nihil). Concerning the last she says that we must become ‘just like someone who possesses nothing, can do nothing, knows nothing, and has power in nothing. In this nothing is all our salvation’. Here the threefold formula found originally in Marguerite Porete’s Mirror has been expanded into four, but the link is obvious. The author goes on to say that we must go back into ‘that nothing in which we were when we had not yet been created’, so that God ‘can as freely act in us on behalf of his will as he was able to act when we were still uncreated in him’.24 A third text, also coming from the Cologne Carthusian mystical publishing house of Santa Barbara in the first half of the sixteenth century, is the Institutiones spirituales or divinae that often circulated under Tauler’s name, but have nothing to do with him. In 1548 Laurentius Surius (Laurent Sauer, ca. 1523-1578) published a Latin version of Tauler’s sermons that included the Institutiones. This 22

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Lucidius Verschueren, Hendrik Herp O.F.M.: Spieghel der Volcomenheit. 2 vols., Antwerp 1931, Vol. 2: 355.2-8. Annihilation also appears in Part IV; e.g., Vol. 2: 337.20, 339.55, 355.5, 357.41, and 369.108. For an introduction to Herp, Bernard McGinn, Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism (1350-1550), New York 2012, 130-136. For an introduction to the Pearl, McGinn, Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism, 143-159. The only full version of the text currently available is the reprint of the 1602 French version, Daniel Vidal (Ed.), La perle évangelique: Traduction française (1602), Grenoble 1997. There is an English translation of Book III in Rik van Nieuwenhove et al. (Eds.), Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, New York 2008, 215-322. Le perle évangelique I.40 (ed., 291): ‘Tiercement, nous devons toujours nous étendre en la consideration de notre néant, comme celui qui n’a rien, ne peut rien, ne sait rien et ne se puet prévaloir de rien: car c’est en ce néant que consiste tout notre salut’. The Dutch text is to be found in Book II.40. On the role of annihilation in the Pearl, see Vidal’s introduction, ‘Le coup terrible du néant’, in: La perle évangelique, 11-13, 26-28 (on this text), and 30-33. For other passages on annihilation, see, e.g., PL/PF I.21, 23, 31, 39, 44, 47; II.12, 17, 30, 37; III.4 and 19.

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compendium featured much material from Eckhart’s Talks of Instruction (Rede der underscheidunge) and other sources. The Institutiones proved to be quite popular and were translated into French as early as 1587.25 Chapter XII, entitled ‘Of Supreme Resignation in God which makes the spirit plunge entirely in God and makes it one with him in true poverty and the annihilation of self,’ contains a passage on interior abandonment that once again echoes the formula seen in Marguerite Porete and Eckhart: It [the soul] totally quits itself; it purely and simple abandons everything that it is, everything that it can do, everything that it knows. It surpasses itself; it loves; it possesses; it contemplates; it rejoices! Yes, I tell you, it is totally abandoned in an intimate self-resignation, totally cast into the inexhaustible abyss of the divinity. Everything has been drowned, lost, reduced to a sort of non-movement, non-life, non-worth, non-power.26

Annihilation was also strong in some circles in sixteenth-century Italian mysticism. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) did not write anything herself, but her two treatises were put together by her disciples after her death and only published in 1551, along with the life that tells her story.27 Her three works were translated into French in 1588 and were cited by a number of French mystics.28 Catherine’s mysticism centers on the essence of God as ‘pure charity’ (carità pura) and the concomitant need for humans to undergo total purgation of their selfishness, even to the point of annihilation, in order to attain God. Annihilation is as 25

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Surius translated Tauler’s sermons from the 1543 German edition made by his friend, Peter Canisius (1521-1597), but this edition did not include the pseudo-Tauler Institutiones. For a study of the Institutiones and its role in French mysticism, Jean-Marie Gueullette, Eckhart en France: La lecture des Institutions spirituelles attribuées à Tauler, Grenoble 2012. Gueullette surmises that the work might have been compiled by Gerard Kalckbrenner, prior of the Cologne Carthusian house from 1536 to 1562. Translated (my italics) from the modern French version found in Gueullette, Eckhart en France, 231: ‘…il s’est qutté totalement lui-même; il a abandonné purement et simplement tout ce qu’il est, tout ce qu’il peut, tout ce qu’il sait; il se surpasse, il aime, il possède, il contemple, il jouit! oui, vous dis-je, il a tout abandonné dans une intime resignation de lui-même, tout jeté dans l’inépuisable abîme de la divinité; tout a été submerge, perdu, réduit à une sorte de non mouvoir, non vivre, non valoir, non pouvoir’. Chap. XI on exterior resignation and Chap. XII on interior resignation go together, but the source has not been identified. For more on negation and annihilation, see Chap. XXII (Gueullette, Eckhart en France, 276-281). For a sketch of Catherine of Genoa and her circle, McGinn, Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism, 313-329. Catherine’s three works are the Life (Biografia) of forty chapters, and two brief treatises, the Purgation and Purgatory (Trattato del purgatorio) and the three-part Spiritual Dialogue (Il dialogo spirituale). All three contain materials that go back to Catherine, but were compiled by Catherine’s followers, especially the priest Cattaneo Marabotto and the layman Ettore Vernazza. On Catherine’s popularity in France, Jeanne-Lydie Goré, ‘La fortune de S. Catherine de Gênes au XVIIe siècle’, in: L’Humanisme en France au XVIIe siècle, Paris 1969, 63-77.

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central to Catherine as it had been to Marguerite Porete, but in a different, less speculative, vein. In one place she presents the following hymn: ‘O annihilation of the will, you are the Queen of heaven and earth! You are not subject to anything’.29 Some of Catherine’s formulations about the need for annihilation are as strong as those of Marguerite Porete, but she often applies ‘as if’ language to her descriptions, as in the passage from Purgation and Purgatory, where she speaks of the rays of divine love ‘that seem to be able to annihilate not only the body but also the soul, if that be possible’.30 Finally, we can note the treatise of the Italian Jesuit, Achille Gagliardi (15371607), the Brief Compendium of Christian Perfection (Breve compendio di perfezione Cristiana).31 In 1584 Gagliardi gave the Ignatian Exercises to a Milanese noblewoman, Isabella Cristina Berinzaga (1551-1624), who was already receiving mystical graces. Between 1585 and 1601 Berinzaga and Gagliardi collaborated in writing an account of her path to God under the title By the Way of Annihilation (Per via di annichilazione), but the text was not published until recently.32 From about 1585 though 1594, however, Gagliardi reworked this material in a more theological way in the Brief Compendium, a text that was printed in Italian in 1611, although a shorter and edited form translated by the young Pierre de Bérulle had appeared in French in 1597.33 Annihilation plays a large role in the Brief Compendium. Along with purificazione and umiltà, annichilazione indicates the continuing role of the recognition of one’s creation from nothing and personal sinfulness as necessary for attaining union with God both here and hereafter.34 It would be a mistake to think of the fascination of seventeenth-century French mystics with annihilation as a literary device by which certain authors merely re-cycled material from the past. The imperative to deconstruct the quotidian self in order to attain a new divine reconstruction was widespread and powerful in ways that speak to the political, cultural, and religious situation of the time, but whose roots are in many ways still mysterious and hidden from 29

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32 33

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Biografia 38, in: Umile Bonzi, S. Caterina Fieschi Adorno. 2 vols., Genoa 1960-1962, Vol. 2:303: ‘O nichilatione de voluntade, tu sei regina de lo caelo et de la terra! Non sei sugieta a cosa alcuna’. For similar passages, see Biografia 38, 40 (ed., 299-300, 316-317), Trattato (ed., 339340), and Dialogo II (ed., 428-429). Trattato (ed., 339). For other examples of such qualification language, see Biografia 33, 34, and 40 (ed., 270, 285, 314), and Dialogo II (ed., 428-429). See the edition of Mario Gioa, Breve Compendio di Perfezione Cristiana: Un testo di Achille Gagliardi S.I., Rome 1996, with a full Introduction. See Mario Gioa, Per Via di Annichilazione: Un inedito testo mistico del ‘500, Rome 1994. The Bref Discourse de l’abnegation interieure can be found in Oeuvres Complètes du Cardinal de Bérulle. Reproduction de l’Édition Princeps (1644), Mounsoult 1960, Tome II:645-677. For a summary of the meaning of annichilazione in both the Per Via di Annichilazione and the Breve Compendio, see the ‘Saggio Introduttivo’, in: Gioa, Breve Compendio, 115-119.

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us.35 Here I will confine myself to presenting the teaching of some of the seventeenth-century mystics on annihilation. Although French mysticism of the Early Modern period starts with the reforming Benedictine abbot Louis de Blois (Blosius, 1506-1566), he is curiously neglected in many modern treatments of French mysticism, perhaps because he wrote in Latin.36 Blosius was, nonetheless, a prolific author, who was widely read (thirty-one works appearing in forty-seven later editions and translations). He was a friend of the Cologne Carthusians, who popularized Northern European Germanic mystics in the sixteenth century, and was therefore well acquainted with Tauler, Suso, and Harphius. Blosius, however, was cautious about annihilatio, a word he never uses, although a few texts talk about being reduced to nothing.37 The origin of the flood of vernacular mystical literature in France is connected to the Parisian lay mystic Barbe Acarie (1566-1618), who began receiving ecstasies in 1588 after being converted by reading the PseudoTauler Institutions spirituelles mentioned above. Around 1592 the English Capuchin friar Benet of Canfield, another noted ecstatic, became her confessor, and in the next few years Madame Acarie gathered a circle, or salon, of mystics and those interested in mysticism, around her. It was an extraordinary moment and an impressive group, one whose foremost members were Francis de Sales (only for some months), as well as Pierre de Bérulle, but there were many others.38 Madame Acarie, famous as both an ecstatic and guide of souls, did not write of her own experiences, but there are some surviving fragments of her teaching in a few letters and ‘spiritual exercises’ that have recently been collected.39 A number of these texts, especially the letters, speak about her ecstasies, but there are also some passages that note her insistence on her own nothingness in relation to God. For example, in one place she prays, ‘O my God, draw me to You to burn me up in the very fierce fire of your love, in which I may be

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A helpful analysis of annihilation language is Mariel Mazzocco, ‘Perdersi per ritrovarsi: L’avventura del desiderio nella letteratura mistica’, in: Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 48 (2012), 65-98. There are some remarks in Louis Cognet, La spiritualité moderne I: L’essor: 1500-1650, Paris 1966, 48-52. Louis de Blois, Institutio spiritualis, Cap. XII.ii, as found in Charles Newsham (Ed.), Manuale vitae spiritualis continens Ludovici Blosii Opera Spiritualia quaedam selecta, London 1859, 244: ‘Defluit (inquam) amans anima, deficitque a seipsa; et velut ad nihilum redacta, in abyssum aeterni amoris collabitur, ubi sibi mortua vivit in Deo, nihil sciens, nihil sentiens praeter amorem quam gustat’. On Acarie, see Lancelot C. Sheppard, Barbe Acarie: Wife and Mystic, New York 1953. On the Acarie circle, Barbara B. Diefendorf, ‘Chapter 3. Madamoiselle Acarie’s Circle’, in her: From Penitence to Charity: Pious Women and the Catholic Reformation in Paris, Oxford 2004, 77-100. Bernard Sesé (Ed.), Madame Acarie: Écrits spirituels, Mesnil-sur-l’Estrée 2004.

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totally consumed and annihilated (anéantie)’.40 In another place there is a reprisal of Porete’s triple formula about annihilation. Addressing God as her ‘Well-Beloved’, and asking him to look upon her with his Holy Spirit, Acarie says, ‘This is why I hold myself here with profound reverence and a very great recognition of my own nothingness. I am nothing; I can do nothing; I know nothing’.41 Acarie could well have known this from the 1602 French translation of the Evangelical Pearl, or perhaps from Chapter XII of the Institutiones spirituelles, despite the slight differences in expression. It was Acarie’s friend and confessor, Friar Benet Canfield (1562-1610), who created the first major mystagogical exposition of annihilation in his popular treatise, The Rule of Perfection (Règle de perfection), first published in full in 1610, but substantially written during the Capuchin’s studies in Italy between 1588 and 1591.42 According to a story found in his vita, the book had been revealed to him in 1587 in an ecstasy during his novitiate days. Canfield’s methodical work in three books surveys the whole spiritual life through the central practice of growing conformity to the will of God. As the title announces: ‘The Rule of Perfection, containing a brief and perspicuous abridgment of the whole spiritual life, reduced to the single point of the will of God, divided into three parts…’. The three parts outlined in the title are: ‘The first, treating the exterior will of God, comprehending the active life; the second, treating the interior will, containing the contemplative life; the third, treating the essential will, speaking of the supereminent life’. Humans distinguish these three wills, but in God they are all one and the same. In Chapter 2 of Part I Canfield lists eleven other forms of spiritual practice that are contained in the exercise of the will, the seventh and most important of which is the exercise of annihilation.43 After discussing five ways or degrees of advancing in the practice of God’s interior will in Part II, Part III takes up God’s essential will and the vie supereminent. This part, though written early, had provoked considerable discussion and even some attacks, due to its teaching on passive annihilation, which some thought inclined to pre-Quietist views, so Canfield seems to have published it reluctantly 40 41

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Sesé, Madame Acarie: Écrits spirituels, 143 (my transl.); see also 144-145. Ibid., 140: ‘C’est pourquoi je me tiens ici avec une profonde reverence et une très grands reconnaissance de mon néant. Je ne suis rien, je ne puis rien, je ne sais rien’ (my transl.). The modern edition of the three books of the French and two books of the English is by Jean Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield: La Règle de Perfection. The Rule of Perfection, Paris 1982. The best study is Optat de Veghel, Benoît de Canfield (1561-1610), Rome 1949. See also Cognet, La spiritualité moderne, 244-258. There is an English study and translation in Kent Emery, Jr., Renaissance Dialectic and Renaissance Piety: Benet of Canfield’s ‘Rule of Perfection’. A Translation and Study, Binghamton, NY 1987. La Règle de Perfection I.2 (ed., 110-125, with annihilation being treated on 114-117). Annihilation also appears in I.14 (ed., 216-218).

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at the orders of his Capuchin superiors. There are three sections to Part III. Chapters 3-7 discuss the first means to attain God’s essential will, one described as ‘a means without means that is passive not active’. Chapters 8-15 contain the heart of Part III, the analysis of ‘the will of God manifested in annihilation’, while finally Canfield added a third section on the necessity and manner of contemplating Christ’s Passion to the 1610 edition (Chaps. 16-21). The language of denudation, abstraction, and annihilation signifying the necessity of not acting on our own, but being totally open to God’s ‘inworking’ in us appears in the treatment of the first means, but it is in the second means, the manifestation of the essential will in annihilation, that the Capuchin makes his most original contribution – the distinction between passive and active annihilation. The ‘means of annihilation’ is based on the most fundamental of contrasts of opposites – the contrast between the All that is the will of God and the nothingness of the created self. Recognizing that there is really nothing else but God’s essential will, however, leads to the question, ‘What is the creature?’ Canfield’s answer is ‘A pure dependency on God’. When viewed in itself, the creature is something; when viewed from God’s perspective, it is nothing. Canfield says: ‘The Creator assumes and appropriates the creature as some spark gone out from him, and when he recalls it to himself as its center and origin, in his infinity he annihilates and reduces it to nothing’.44 The practice of this passive form of annihilation (III.9-10) does not involve doing anything, but rather refraining from doing, that is, passively allowing God to draw the soul into himself and not interfering with his work by worries, exercises, or even seeking God. Chapters 11 to 14 deal with the distinction between passive annihilation and the more perfect active annihilation, which comes about when ‘a person and all things are not annihilated passively, but rather actively, that is by a light as much natural as supernatural of the understanding, by which one discovers and knows assuredly that he and all things are nothing…’.45 No images remain in the soul in passive annihilation; they do remain in active annihilation, but the person knows that they are really nothing: God is all in all. In active annihilation the spirit is just as passive as in passive annihilation, but, paradoxically, active annihilation co-exists with the mental and physical work God is now doing in and through us. This leads to some paradoxical formulations, as when Canfield says in Chapter 12: ‘By this means when one sees, he does not see; when he hears, he does not hear; when he tastes, smells and touches, he does none of these…’. In this state, which Canfield says can only be understood by those who have experienced it, the ‘he’ is no longer the created ‘he’. It is the divine ‘He’ of God’s essential will as the subject and agent 44 45

La Règle de Perfection III.8 (ed., 383; transl., Emery, 201). Ibid., III.11 (ed., 400; Emery, 210).

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of these activities. Both forms of annihilation are necessary and interdependent, says Canfield, because ‘These two annihilations serve two loves which comprehend the whole spiritual life, namely an enjoying love (amour fruitive) and a working love (amour pratique)’ – a distinction that goes back to Ruusbroec, although Canfield probably took it from Harphius.46 The truly annihilated person does not shun any necessary interior or exterior work, nor does he turn inward to God, because he knows God is present both within and without. His attitude towards God is the same in times of mystical joy and in times of spiritual dryness. In such a person action and contemplation are one and the same.47 Annihilation was an important theme for many of the mystical authors of the first half of the seventeenth century. Friar Benet’s fellow Capuchin, Lawrence of Paris (ca. 1563-1631), is a case in point. He is little known today, probably because his 1602 treatise the Palace of Divine Love (Palais d’Amour divin) is hard to find today, but Friar Lawrence saw mystical annihilation as necessary for a God-given reconstruction of the self, a form of ‘mystical humanism,’ according to one of his modern interpreters. Lawrence’s program of annihilation centers on the annihilation of self-will and all the imperfections it entails in order to effect transformation and come to union with God.48 Another example is Francis de Sales (1567-1622), whose Treatise on the Love of God (Traité de l‘amour de Dieu) of 1616 is the masterpiece of seventeenthcentury French mysticism. Annihilation is not a major theme of Francis’s thought, as it was for the Capuchins; but the claim that the bishop of Geneva has no teaching on annihilation is not correct.49 He mentions it at least twenty times. In Book VI of the Treatise, for example, Francis deals with the ‘Exercises of Holy Love in Prayer’. Chapters 9 and 10 treat ‘Holy Repose’, while Chapters 11 and 12 concern the abnegation of self and liquefaction of soul that takes place in such repose. The bishop cites the Song of Songs and the example of saints like Teresa of Avila to describe the excesses of holy love by which the 46 47

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Ibid., III.11 (ed., 401; Emery, 211). Ibid., III.14 (ed., 413-414; Emery, 218). On the union of action and contemplation in Canfield, Paul Mommaers, ‘Benoît de Canfield et ses sources flamandes’, in: Revue d’Histoire de Spiritualité 49 (1973), 37-66 (especially 60-66). Chapters 15-16 deal with the proper relationship between passive and active annihilation. M. Dubois-Quinard, ‘L’Humanisme mystique de Laurent de Paris: L’anéantissement de l’âme’, in: Études Franciscaines n.s. 14 (1964), 31-57. The author summarizes Lawrence’s teaching: ‘La transformation de rien humaine dans le Tout divin s’accomplit. C’est d’abord par son non-être et non vouloir que l’âme s’est faite un vrai portrait de la divinité, un miroir, un tableau où Dieu se plait d’empreindre son image et divine resemblance, ensuite le même que Dieu’ (57). In this connection it is interesting to note that neither of the major indices to Francis’s vocabulary, one in English the other in French, have an entry under ‘Annihilation’.

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saints ‘find nothing on earth that can content them, and living in an extreme annihilation of themselves, remain much weakened in all that belongs to the senses…’.50 In a number of other texts Francis talks about annihilation as the reduction to nothing of the natural operation of the will and the other faculties, as when he says in Book IX.13, ‘But the will which is dead to itself in order to live in God’s will is without any particular desire, remaining not only conformed and subject [to God], but totally annihilated in itself (toute aneantie en elle mesmes) and converted into the will of God…’.51 It is impossible in one essay to try to address all the seventeenth-century French mystics who spoke about annihilation. Among the Carmelites of the Touraine Reform, for example, there is the figure of Jean de Saint Samson (1571-1636), whose writings in both prose and verse provide much material on the topic. In the case of the Jesuits, there is the fascinating Jean-Joseph Surin (1600-1665), whose mystical writings have attracted so much attention over the past half-century. In this context I will only touch on two of the most significant seventeenth-century contributions to the history of mystical annihilation: what Pierre de Bérulle and one of his followers had to say about the theme; and the views of Madame Guyon (1648-1717). With Guyon the political aspects of annihilation are evident, because she insisted that it was only due to her total self-annihilation that she was called upon to undertake the task of the ‘apostolic state’.52 God granted this, she felt; but it was a source of considerable annoyance to the powers of the French State-Church of the time of Louis XIV. Bérulle’s extensive writings make it difficult to give a short account of what he has to say about annihilation.53 Anéantissement, along with the related terms abnégation, abaissement, and the Latinate exinanition (emptying),54 are found 50

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Treatise VI.12, in: Oeuvres de Saint François de Sales: Édition complete, Annecy 1894, Vol. IV, 346. I use the translation of Henry Benedict Mackey, Treatise on the Love of God by St. Francis de Sales, Westminster, MD 1953, 267. Treatise IX.13, in: Oeuvres. Vol. V, 151 (my transl.). Other appearances of annihilation in the Treatise can be found in II.16, VII.6, IX.2, IX.17, and XI.19. Annihilation also appears in the Bishop’s Letters and his Spiritual Conferences IV and XX. Madame Guyon was not the only female seventeenth-century mystic to claim an apostolic state. Similar claims are found in the Ursuline Marie de l’Incarnation (1599-1672). See the ‘Ninth State of Prayer’ in her Relation of 1654, in Irene Mahoney (Ed.), Marie of the Incarnation: Selected Writings, New York 1989, 112-114. Bérulle’s works are found in Pierre de Bérulle: Oeuvres complètes, under the general editorship of Michel Dupuy, Paris 1995 -. Twelve volumes have been published thus far. This edition will be cited as OC with volume and page number. Translations are my own, unless otherwise stated. Exinanition is based on Philippians 2:5-7, which invites the reader to follow the model of Jesus Christ, who ‘emptied himself taking the form of a servant’ (semetipsum exinanivit [Greek: ekenôsen] formam servi accipiens).

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throughout his major works, such as the Collationes he delivered to the priests of the Oratory from 1612 to 1615,55 the Works of Piety (Oeuvres de piété) of various dates,56 the twelve Discourses of the States and Grandeurs of Jesus (Discours de l’états et des grandeurs de Jésus) of 1623-1625,57 and the late works (1625-1629).58 For the Cardinal anéantissement first of all expresses the act of radical self-dispossession by which the Second Person of the Trinity takes on human nature and conceals his divine status and glory in the nothingness (néant) of created humanity. Thus, annihilation for Bérulle is founded in the logic of his whole thought, an outlook that has been described as a ‘theocentric Christocentrism’. As we have seen, many late medieval and Early modern mystics had spoken at length about annihilation, but their teachings primarily concerned human annihilation, that is, the necessity of the mystic to let go of self, sometimes conceived in a moral fashion, sometimes with a more ontological valence. Bérulle stands out for his rooting human anéantissement in the paradigmatic emptying of the Incarnation. This was the source of the controversial ‘Vow of Servitude’ that Bérulle enjoined on the Oratorians and also attempted to force on the French Carmelite nuns. An early form of this from 1612 begins: ‘I make to God the vow of perpetual servitude to Jesus Christ; to his divinized humanity and his humanized divinity…’. Later, the vow expresses the theological root of the act: ‘I reverence and adore the life and the annihilation of the divinity in the humanity, and the life, the subsistence, and the divinization of this humanity in the divinity…’.59 To paraphrase the noted Christological formula going back to Irenaeus: ‘The Word annihilated himself, so that humans too might be annihilated’. Bérulle’s teaching on anéantissement is based on a sophisticated notion of ‘nothingness’ (néant). There is the primordial néant out of which God created the world, which is the root of the néant of the creature considered in itself. Human freedom results in the more serious néant of sin. Divine love rescues humanity from sin by the néant of the Word’s emptying in the Incarnation. The Incarnation and life of the Savior involves a double annihilation: one by which the Second Person of the Trinity empties himself of divinity in taking on human nature (abnegatio divinitatis); a second in which the God-man leads a life of abasement ending in his Passion and death, thus surrendering everything 55 56 57 58

59

The Collationes are in OC 1 (French translation) and OC 2 (Latin original). The Oeuvres de piété are found in OC 3-4. The Discours de l’état et des grandeurs de Jésus (hereafter Grandeurs) are found in OC 7-8. Bérulle’s late works include: the Memorial for the Direction of Superiors (Mémorial) of 1625, the Elevations on St. Magdalene (Élevations sur Sainte Madeleine) of 1627, and the Life of Jesus (Vie de Jésus) of 1629. The translation of the Vow can be found in Raymond Deville, The French School of Spirituality: An Introduction and a Reader, Pittsburgh 1994, 55-57.

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to his Father. The anéantissement of the Incarnate Word is the source and inspiration of our own anéantissement. This annihilation is not a destruction of the being (être) of human nature, but is rather the end of our selfish subsistence and human mode of acting, so that we come to subsist in Christ as one with him in the Mystical Body.60 Annihilation results in a second form of being, not a new ontological reality, but a new spiritual relation (bene esse). As with many other Christian mystics, Bérulle found an apt text for this in Paul’s statement in Galatians 2:20, ‘I live now not I, but Christ lives in me’ (Vivo autem iam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus).61 In two articles on annihilation in Bérulle and his followers David Thayer provides one helpful way of looking at the Cardinal’s extensive discussions of annihilation.62 Thayer distinguishes three modes of annihilation in these thinkers. The first is the anéantissement of creation, in the sense that we must recognize that of ourselves we are nothing and therefore what constitutes us in reality is our relation to God, what Canfield called our ‘pure dependency’. The second anéantissement is the need to get rid of the néant of sin that hinders our relationship with God. The third is the anéantissement of salvation that forms the crown and completion of the first two. Thayer describes this last as ‘a nothingness in the reality of Christ’s redemptive and glorifying activity’, claiming, ‘This nothingness before and in divine grace overcomes the incapacitating nothingness of sin and perfects the nothingness of creation by recreating it in plenitude’. What Thayer does not sufficiently highlight, however, is that the redemptive annihilation begins with the Word’s own annihilation, the model and the cause of our emptying. He concludes that ‘The néant at the heart of creation entails the conclusion that we are never finished, indeed, can never be finished. Further, progression in the spiritual life is grounded in the deepening relationship [to

60 61 62

This is clear from many texts; e.g., Grandeurs V.iii (OC 7:216-217), and IX.iii (OC 7:359-360). E. g., Oeuvres de piété No. 249, ‘De la grâce chrétienne’ (OC 4:198). David Thayer, ‘Néants capables de Dieu: Anéantissement, Freedom and Individuation in the Anthropology of the French School’, in: Bulletin de Saint-Sulpice. L’École Française Aujourd’hui. The French School Today 22 (1996), 94-107; and ‘Kenosis and Anéantissement: The Abnegations of Christ as the Key to Christian Identity – Some Lessons from the French School’, in: Bulletin de Saint-Sulpice. Christology. Actualité – Enseignement. Teaching Christology 27 (2001), 192-207. Also important for annihilation in Bérulle is Vincent Carraud, ‘De l’état de néant à l’état anéanti: Le système du néant de Bérulle’, in: Cahiers de Philosophie de l’Université de Caen 43 (2007), 211-247; Cognet, La spiritualité moderne, 347-359; Michel Dupuy, Bérulle: Une spiritualité de l’adoration, Tournai 1964, Chap. IV, ‘L’Adoration par Anéantissement’ (71-96); Edward Howells, ‘Relationality and Difference in the Mysticism of Pierre de Bérulle’, in: Harvard Theological Review 102 (2009), 225-243; and Miklos Vetö, ‘La Christo-logique de Bérulle’ in: Jérôme Millon (Ed.), Pierre de Bérulle: Opuscules de piété (1644), Grenoble 1997, especially 42-48, and 117-123.

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God] from the very beginning’.63 This reading helps us see that Bérulle and his contemporaries, like the Capuchins Benet of Canfield and Lawrence of Paris, were primarily interested in the reconstitution of the true self that would result from the annihilation of the false self of ordinary existence. Bérulle maintained a strong sense of the nothingness of created reality throughout his writing career. In a letter he speaks of the soul as ‘a nothingness that tends to nothingness, which searches for nothingness, which is occupied with nothingness, which is content with nothingness…’. The soul’s nothingness, however, is primarily meant to signify its relation to God – ‘It is a nothingness in the hand of God, a nothingness directed to God, a nothingness referred to God’.64 Hence, the work of annihilation, both that which we work ourselves and that which God works in us, is meant to deepen our sense of dependence on God, as is clear even in his early work, the Brief Discourse about Interior Abnegation, which shows the influence of Canfield. Here Bérulle speaks of two forms of annihilation: This fidelity requires that the soul employ all its powers to lose and annihilate itself in God in the path it holds toward him, in order that afterwards God may use his divine power on the soul to annihilate it himself through his interior and secret actions which works a form of annihilation on the soul itself, rather different from that which the soul exercised previously through its own power over itself.65

A major shift in Bérulle’s view of annihilation came through his making of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises in 1602, an event which effected a Christological turn in his thinking. In his notes from the retreat he says: ‘As the Incarnation is the foundation of our salvation, I have also considered very deeply how great should be the annihilation of myself’.66 Thus, Bérulle had come to realize that our self-emptying is founded upon the divine annihilation of the Incarnation. Bérulle’s mature mysticism of the Incarnate Word, best expressed in his 1623 Discourses on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus, focused on the act of adoration as the essential human response to the Incarnation, the unifying principle of 63 64

65 66

Thayer, ‘Néants capable de Dieu’, 103, 106. Letter 683 of 1627 in: Jean Dagens (Ed.), Correspondence du Cardinal Pierre du Bérulle, Paris/ Louvain 1939, Vol. 3, 314. There is a similar passage in No. 209, ‘De la vocation des chrétiens à la sainteté’, in: Oeuvres de piété (OC 4:98). Created nothingness as a relation to God is summarized in No. 192, ‘Oblation à la Très Sainte Trinité,’ in: Oeuvres de pieté: ‘Vous êtes ma substance et je ne suis qu’une simple relation à vous. Vous êtes la fond et intime de mon être; et je ne suis qu’une simple dependence de vous. Mon Bonheur est d’être à vous et d’être une pure capacité de vous, remplie de vous’ (OC 4: 68). From the citation in Cognet, La spiritualité moderne, 355. The text of Bérulle’s surviving notes from the 1602 Retreat is found in the Oeuvres de piété No. 265 (OC 4:238-64). The passage in question is Art. V (245).

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the cosmos and history. Adoration, for Bérulle, expresses itself in two main actions: annihilation (anéantissement) as the movement of kenosis by which we, in imitation of Jesus, recognize God as the truth of our being; and elevation (élévation), the act by which we praise God and come to enter into the glory of the Trinitarian life. Jesus’s abnegation/annihilation becomes the model for ours: ‘He abases his grandeur even to the nothingness of nature and to a nature like the flesh of sin. He strips off all the rights of his glory, his power, and his rule. He makes himself carry not sin itself, but the state of sin and all the sins of humans’.67 Deeply influenced by Bérulle, Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-1657), the founder of the Sulpicians, also had a developed teaching on annihilation, one that has become clearer in light of the recent appearance of his more mystical works unpublished during his lifetime. In his Crystal Soul: The Divine Attributes in Us (L’âme cristal. Des attributes divins en nous) of 1654, Olier often refers to the need for annihilation.68 Inspired by his reading of the Dionysian Divine Names, Olier adopts a reverse perspective from his source. Rather than the soul’s ascent to God by way of the dialectic of positive and negative names, Olier insists that the practice of annihilation, by making the soul totally empty and purified like a crystal sphere, brings about an immediate descent of God with all his attributes into the soul. The program is announced in the Preface: The soul comes to perfect unity with God, who transforms it, penetrates it and makes it totally conformed to Him, placing it in the perfection of which Our Savior spoke in the Gospel, ‘Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48). That is to say, have in yourselves the same dispositions, have his immutability, his firmness, his wisdom, his love, his holiness. You have in yourselves his proper being, which penetrates into you from him, which you share from him, and which annihilates you in him, in such a way that nothing of you appears because of his establishment in you.69

Perhaps the most controversial proponent of mystical annihilation in the seventeenth century was Madame Jeanne-Marie Guyon, condemned for her Quietism and subject to a long arrest. Guyon’s three-volume Life tells the story of her path to annihilation and deep union with God.70 Her treatises, such as the Torrents 67 68

69

70

No. 114, ‘De l’abnégation’, in: Oeuvres de piété (OC 3: 317). Mariel Mazzocco (Ed.), Jean-Jacques Olier: L’âme cristal. Des attributes divins en nous, Paris 2008. On the history of the work, see ‘Introduction à la present edition,’ 13-43. For more on annihilation and loss of self in Olier, Mazzocco, ‘Perdersi per ritrovarsi’, 86-96. ‘Préface’, L’âme cristal, 57. For other important passages on annihilation, see 69-70, 78, 83-85, 92, etc. Each of the sixteen chapters deals with a particular divine attribute. Guyon began writing the Life in 1682, but did not finish until many years later. See Dominique Tronc (Ed.), Jeanne-Marie Guyon: La vie par elle-même et autre écrits biographiques, 2 vols., Paris 2014. There is a partial translation in Dianne Guenen-Lelle & Ronney Mourad (Eds.), Jeanne Guyon: Selected Writings, New York 2012, 181-316.

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(1682) and the Short and Easy Method of Prayer (Moyen Court) of 1685,71 as well as her lengthy scriptural commentaries (Explications), especially the Commentary on the Song of Songs of Solomon,72 provide much evidence for the role of annihilation in her path to the ‘apostolic state’ that moved her to undertake the public mission that proved so controversial to the politico-ecclesiastical power structure of France represented by her archenemy, Bishop Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704).73 After her conversion to an interior life in 1667, Guyon underwent a number of years of spiritual trials until in 1680 on the Feast of Mary Magdalene she was given the gift of ‘God-Peace’ (la paix-Dieu).74 In this new state she no longer possessed God as her own, but she herself was possessed by God, because, as she says, ‘he has destroyed me in him’ (Life I.28.5). Like Marguerite Porete, Guyon had lost her own will when God took over her actions (I.28.8). In describing this state of ‘Union of unity’ (I.28.9-10), Guyon does not use the term annihilation, but she does employ it in other places in Book I. In I.9.10, for example, talking about true rapture and perfect ecstasy, she says they ‘are brought about by total annihilation in which the soul, losing all sense of self, passes into God without effort and without violence as into a place that is totally and naturally its own’.75 She explains this later in analyzing the purgation of the three higher powers of the soul in I.10.9-12, where she says, ‘This loss is of the kind they call “annihilation of the powers”, in that it should not be understood of physical annihilation, which would be ridiculous, but they appear annihilated to us, although they remain still subsisting’.76 So it seems as if Madame Guyon avoids a metaphysical understanding of annihilation, at least with regard to the level of the powers of the soul. Nevertheless, it is important to note that she uses the term to describe the essence of her new state, as can be seen in the summary statement at the end of Book III: The ground of this [apostolic] state is a profound annihilation that finds nothing nameable in me. All I know is that God is infinitely holy, just, good, and happy; 71

72

73

74 75 76

Marie Gondal (Ed.), Madame Guyon: Le Moyen court et autres récits. Une simplicité subversive, Grenoble 1995. There is a translation in Jeanne Guyon: Selected Writings, 55-98. Claude Moradi (Ed.), Madame Guyon. Les Torrents et Commentaire au Cantique des cantiques de Salomon, Grenoble 1992. For a translation, Jeanne Guyon: Selected Writings, 99-180. The apostolic state involves a form of ‘active passivity’, or combination of action and contemplation, that bears comparison with Canfield’s notion of active annihilation. On Guyon’s teaching, Henri Bourgeois, ‘Passivité et activité dans le discours et l’expérience de madame Guyon’, in: J. Beaude et al., Madame Guyon, Grenoble 1997, 235-267. Vie I.28.1 (ed., 1:386-387). Vie I.9.10 (ed., 1:204; transl. Guenen-Lelle, 202). Vie I.10.9 (ed., 1:211-212; my transl.). This annihilation of the powers echoes John of the Cross, whose writings Guyon knew in their French translation published in 1622. For some other texts on annihilation in the Life, see Vie II.13.2, and III.10.16.

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that he holds in himself all that is good and in me all miseries (…). I recognize that God has accorded me graces capable of saving the world, and that maybe I have repaid everything with ingratitude.77

This apostolic state achieved through annihilation is also described in Guyon’s treatises and her Commentary on the Song of Songs.78 In the latter Guyon refers to annihilation some seven times. At the end of the Commentary, explaining Song 8:14, she summarizes the total indifference of the annihilated soul who has gone beyond all desires, even the desire for heaven: But these sorts of graces [divine visits and consolations] are hardly any longer in season for such an annihilated soul as she, who is established in the pleasure of the depths, and, having lost all her will in God’s will, she can no longer desire anything (…). Death and life are the same to her, and although her love is incomparably stronger than it ever has been, she cannot, however, desire Paradise, because she lives in the hands of her Bridegroom, like things that are not at all. This must be the effect of the most supreme annihilation (anéantissement plus profond).79

Such annihilation, as Guyon argued throughout her writings, is the necessary prerequisite for being given the gift of the ‘apostolic state’, the public mission that Guyon embarked upon during the years 1681-1686. This proved controversial. Chapters 13-14 of Book III of the Life record Guyon’s painful interview with Bossuet in 1694 before the Issy Colloque in 1695 that condemned errors said to have been found in her writings (both Guyon and her supporter, Archbishop Fénelon signed the Issy articles, agreeing that they represented mystical errors, but they denied that these errors were actually found in Guyon’s writings). Bossuet did not fixate on annihilation, but was totally opposed to any mere woman pretending to enjoy an apostolic state. Guyon’s defense had both theology and history on her side: ‘That this [apostolic] state is possible, we have only to open the stories of all times to show that God used laymen and women without training to instruct, edify, guide, and make souls arrive at a very high perfection’.80 77 78

79 80

Vie III.21.1 (ed., 2:873; transl. Guenen-Lelle, 313). In the Moyen Court there is an important treatment of annihilation in Chap. 20.3-4 (ed., 96-98; transl. Guenen-Lelle 79-80); see also Chap. 6 on ‘Abandonment’ (ed., 73-75; transl. Guenen-Lelle 65-66). In the Commentaire there are references to annihilation in Chap. II, verset 1 (ed., 226); Chap. IV, verset 13 (ed., 257-258), where both the bride and Divine Bridegroom are described as anéantie; Chap. VI, verset 4 (ed., 277); Chap. VI, verset 8 (ed., 281), where the mystical marriage is described: ‘…dit que cette Ame en qui le mariage a été parfaitement consommé, par son anéantissement total et par sa perte entière…’, as well as Chap. VIII, verset 14. Commentaire, Chap. VIII, verset 14 (ed., 305; transl., 180). Vie III.14.7 (ed., 2:806; transl. Guenen-Lelle, 29).

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Madame Guyon’s doctrine of annihilation and the active apostolic state proved dangerous, but at least she did not suffer the fate of Marguerite Porete, another transgressive mystic. A number of male ‘annihilation mystics’ of the late Middle Ages and Early Modern periods also created problems for the guardians of orthodoxy. Some of Meister Eckhart’s propositions were condemned as heretical; Harphius was placed on the ‘Index’ for a time, as were Achille Gagliardi and Canfield. In the Bull ‘Coelestis Pater’ issued by Innocent XI on November 20, 1687, two propositions regarding annihilation said to have been found in the writings of Miguel de Molinos (1628-1696) were formally condemned.81 Madame Guyon herself soon became the byword for ‘Quietist error’. Annihilation language, especially of the ‘hard variety’, represented a challenge to customary understandings of the soul’s relation to God. Maximilian Sandaeus saw annihilation as a mere metaphor for certain moral teachings of the mystics, and this does apply in the case of many writers. Nonetheless, such a view does not do justice to all the forms of this challenging type of mystical discourse.

81

For a translation of the Bull ‘Coelestis Pater’, see Robert P. Baird (Ed.), Miguel de Molinos: The Spiritual Guide, New York 2010, 185-194. Two of the three condemned annihilation articles appear at the beginning: ‘1. It is necessary for a person to annihilate his intellectual powers, and this is the interior way. 2. To wish to work in an active way is to offend God, who wants to be the only agent. Therefore, it is necessary to abandon oneself wholly in total fashion and to remain like a lifeless body’. Neither of these propositions can be found in Molinos’s discussion of annihilation and nothingness in the Spiritual Guide III.19-20 (transl., 176-180). Nonetheless, III.19.185 does say that the perfection of annihilation involves getting rid of the action of the intellectual and affective powers. It is interesting to see Molinos in III.19.184, using a threefold formula for attaining nothingness reminiscent of those we have seen in Marguerite Porete and others – ‘…y se humilla conociendo, que es nada, que puede nada y que vale nada…’. Cited from S. Gonzalez Noriega (Ed.), Miguel de Molinos: Guia Espiritual, Madrid 1977, 245.

HUUB WELZEN A SMALL NOTE CONCERNING BERNARD MCGINN’S VARIETIES OF MYSTICAL ANNIHILATION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Bernard Mc Ginn’s chapter gives an eminent and exciting overview of the development of self-annihilation from the thirteenth century via Marguerite Porete and Eckhart, via five text of the sixteenth century to the French mysticism of the seventeenth century. For the seventeenth century he zoomed in especially on Pierre de Bérulle and Madame Guyon. Annihilation as an expression of an absolute love that touches the life of all the people who want to live as disciples of Jesus Christ, is a topic that affects every person who wants to live a religious life. Commenting upon McGinn’s development of that topic, I would like to put forward two points. The first one concerns the distinction between active and passive annihilation that has been introduced by Benet of Canfield. Within the framework of the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the Titus Brandsma Institute I made a study of the way Titus Brandsma has interpreted Scripture.1 My sources were three articles of Titus Brandsma in the newspaper De Gelderlander about Jan Pelgrim Pullen. Jan Pelgrim Pullen is a very unknown Dutch mystic who lived in the sixteenth century. Titus wrote especially about a specific writing of Pullen: Den toepat om tot goddelijcke kennis te komen [The way to reach divine knowledge]. In the subtitle of this writing I recognize the language of annihilation: waar in geleert wort, hoe den mensch, doer een geheel ontblooten, vernieten ende ontsincken sijn selfs en alder dingen, tot de hoochste kennis, beschouwinge en vereeninge met Godt sal comen [in which is learned how to arrive at the highest knowledge, contemplation and union with God by way of complete denudation, annihilation and abnegation]. Brandsma summarizes the mystical process of Jan Pelgrim Pullen. The writings of Pullen stress the nothingness of human nature in relation to God and at the same time emphasize the deliciousness of being lost and sinking in God. The election by God is reason for the greatest joy. For these people have to abandon all, to disparage all including themselves, to detach and to undo. According to Pullen, it is in the annihilation that the sublimity of our nature is saved and preserved, and the lowest place we take, is at the same time the highest place we can have, the place nearest to God.

1

Huub Welzen, ‘Jan Pelgrim Pullen: Lezen met het oog op de Godsverbondenheid’, in: Anne-Marie Bos (Ed.), Titus Brandsma: Spiritualiteit dichtbij in veertien teksten, Baarn: Adveniat, 2018, 58-67.

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In his writing Pullen speaks about active and passive introspection. ‘We have to surrender ourselves to God. His light will illuminate us. In the denial of our nature the denial of our spirit is included. No wisdom of the world, no ingenuity or inventiveness of our imagination will help us here, but only the complete loss in God, who is all for us and without whom nothing has any significance. Attempting to enter the most inner part of ourselves to seek and find God there, we arrive in a state of rest, of putting our trust in God, which transforms us into a passive introspection, in which God grips us and captivates us and we stay directed towards him by his grace’.2 McGinn mentions the distinction between passive and active annihilation, made by Canfield. It is remarkable that Canfield lived in the same time as Pullen did. McGinn explained that the passive form of annihilation ‘does not involve doing anything, but rather refraining from doing, that is, passively allowing God to draw the soul into himself and not interfering with his work by worries, exercises, or even seeking God. (…) No images remain in the soul in passive annihilation; they do remain in active annihilation, but the person knows that they are really nothing: God is all in all. In active annihilation the spirit is just as passive as in passive annihilation, but, paradoxically, active annihilation co-exists with the mental and physical work God is now doing in and through us’.3 McGinn’s explanation gives a broader and deeper insight in what Pullen is talking about. Both similarities and differences between Canfield and Pullen become clear. My second point is on the possibility of a connection between annihilation in the New Testament and the seventeenth century. McGinn’s paper states that the roots of the way the seventeenth century mystics in France speak about annihilation are still mysterious and hidden for us. While reading his paper, many texts of the New Testament came into my mind. I thought of the mysticism of Saint Paul. For instance the text in the letter to the Galatians: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’. There are other texts in which Paul says that he is nothing and that Christ is all. I was also thinking of texts in the Gospels. For instance in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus speaks about the consequences of following him: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and taken up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life (the Greek text has psuchê) will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, will save it’. McGinn also mentions the Christological turn in the thinking of Bérulle. As Christ emptied himself in taking on human nature, we must therefore follow his example. ‘Bérulle’s mature mysticism of the Incarnate Word, best expressed in his 1623 Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus, focused on the act of adoration as the essential human response to the Incarnation, the unifying principle of the cosmos and history. Adoration, for Bérulle, expresses itself in two main actions: annihilation (anéantissement) as the movement of kenosis by which we, in imitation of Jesus, recognize God as the 2

3

Titus Brandsma, ‘Jan Pelgrim Pullen (1550-1608)’, in: De Gelderlander, 17 Sept. 1938, Supplement ‘Van ons Geestelijk Erf’, 13 (my translation). See in this volume: Bernard McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation’, 20.

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truth of our being; and elevation (élévation), the act by which we praise God and come to enter into the glory of the Trinitarian life. Jesus’s abnegation/annihilation becomes the model for ours’.4 In this I recognize the movements of the Christological hymn in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The first part of the hymn is about kenosis: Christ emptied himself. The second part is about hupsôsis (elevation): God exalted Christ highly. In the introduction of the hymn Paul puts Christ as a model for Christian life: let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. It might therefore be interesting to further investigate the possible roots of the hard and strong annihilation in the New Testament.

4

McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation’, 25-26.

CLIFF KNIGHTEN INCARNATION, ANÉANTISSEMENT, AND THE FORMATION OF THE MODERN SELF IN PIERRE CARDINAL DE BÉRULLE’S CHRISTOCENTRIC MYSTICISM A Critical Appraisal in Dialogue with Charles Taylor

Introduction Pierre Cardinal de Bérulle (1575-1629) is a central figure in the Christian mystical tradition with a rich, if ultimately problematic, legacy. Bérulle was a principal advocate of post-Tridentine religious reform in France. He was active politically as an influential member of the dévots party.1 Bérulle founded the French Oratory in 1611 and along with his cousin Madame Barbe Acarie2 was instrumental in bringing Teresian Carmel to France. Henri Bremond has described Bérulle as possessing ‘the original purity and breath’ of what Bremond called the ‘French School’ of spirituality.3 Bérulle and Bérullian mysticism played a seminal role in seventeenth-century French spirituality. Among those influenced by Bérulle and the Oratory movement were Vincent de Paul (15811660), founder of the Daughters of Charity and the Congregation of the Mission; John Eudes (1601-1680), founder of the Society of Jesus and Mary (Eudists); Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-1657), founder of the Sulpicians; and JeanBaptiste de la Salle (1651-1719), founder of the Christian Brothers.4 Bérulle and 1

2 3

4

The agenda of the devóts included opposition to Protestantism and restoration of Catholic hegemony as well as broad societal moral reform. Joseph Bergin, The Politics of Religion in Early Modern France, New Haven 2014, 88. Marie de l’Incarnation. Henri Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin des guerres de religion jusqu’à nos jours. III: L’Ècole française, Paris 1921; translated as A Literary History of Religious Thought in France from the Wars of Religion Down to Our Own Time. Vol. 3: The Triumph of Mysticism, transl. K.L. Montgomery, London 1936, 72. At a minimum, Bremond popularized the term ‘French School’ and perhaps coined it. Some scholars prefer the more specific term ‘Bérullian School’. Wendy Wright, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Mysticism’, in: Julia A. Lamm (Ed.), The WileyBlackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, Hoboken 2013, 444-445; Allison Forrestal,

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his Christocentric mysticism continue to influence contemporary Catholic spirituality. Despite his importance, Bérulle is relatively unknown in the Englishspeaking world when compared to other major figures in the Christian mystical tradition.5 Central to Bérulle’s mystical theology is what Myles Rearden has called its radical Christocentricism.6 Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism has also been called the first modern Christology.7 In contrast to late medieval Christologies which were dominated by the quaestio disputata methodology of scholasticism, Bérulle’s understanding of Christ resulted directly from a synthesis of experience and theological reflection.8 For Bérulle, a subjective appropriation of the mystery of Christ is the ground of both mystical experience and Christology. As Tavard observes: The approach initiated by Bérulle injects a subjective experience of Christ into the formulation and solution of Christological questions. Christology does not posit problems; rather, its questions point to mysteries. These cannot be unraveled by systematic study of the available evidence; they are to be faced and contemplated through an affective entrance into the mystery itself.9

Bérulle’s historical significance also reflects his role as a transition figure in the shift from late medieval mysticism to early modern mysticism.10 Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism reflects certain aspects of the late medieval German mystical tradition: inner annihilation after the pattern of Christ; a ‘pure’ or immediate experience of God within the soul; and participation in the divine emanation and return through union with Christ. Other aspects, however, reflect early modern developments in Western Christian mysticism. These include a more pronounced emphasis on Christ’s kenosis or self-emptying in the incarnation, the poverty of his infancy, and his sacred heart. What is strictly new in Bérulle, however, is not the objects of devotion but rather the way they were

5

6

7 8 9 10

‘“Fathers, Leaders, and Kings”: Episcopacy and Episcopal Reform in the Seventeenth-Century French School’, in: The Seventeenth Century 17 (2002) no.1, 26. One contemporary interpreter of Bérulle has noted: ‘The main studies of Bérulle’s thought are now mostly over thirty years old; they are mostly in French and not well known in the Anglophone world’. Edward Howells, ‘Relationality and Difference in the Mysticism of Pierre de Bérulle’, in: The Harvard Theological Review 102 (2009) no.2, 225. Myles Rearden, ‘Pierre de Bérulle’s Apostolate of the Incarnate Word’, in: Irish Theological Quarterly 72 (2007), 187. George H. Tavard, ‘Christology of the Mystics’, in: Theological Studies 42 (1981) no.4, 571. Tavard, ‘Christology of the Mystics’, 572. Ibid., 571. I draw here on Edward Howells, ‘From Late Medieval to Early Modern: Assessing the Mystical Theology of Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629)’, in: Louise Nelstrop & Bradley B. Onishi (Eds.), Mysticism in the French Tradition: Eruptions from France, Burlington 2015, 169-183.

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approached. While late medieval mystical writers tended to be suspicious of devotional practices, Bérulle placed an instrumental approach to devotion and devotional practices at the heart of the mystical journey. As Howells observes: ‘Similar devotions were prominent in late medieval Christianity, but Bérulle’s method of seeking to harness such devotional attitudes as the formal vehicle for mystical transformation is new. For Bérulle, devotion is the means to appropriate the dynamics of Jesus’ relationship with the Father’.11 Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism also reflects his familiarity with the broader philosophical and intellectual current of the early modern period in the West. He drew inspiration, for example, from Copernicus and his heliocentric theory of the universe to describe Jesus as the ‘sun of our souls’ and the ‘true center of the world’. Bérulle also met privately with Descartes in Paris in 1628 to recruit him to the cause of defending the Catholic faith.12 The precise nature of Descartes’ response is contested.13 Louis Dupré argues that Bérulle became Descartes’ ecclesiastical patron and that both Bérulle and Malebranche saw in Descartes’ philosophy a possible new foundation for spiritual theology.14 More substantively, Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism reflects a move toward what Charles Taylor has called a distinctively ‘modern identity’ or sense of selfhood.15 This modern identity includes a deepening sense of interiority and the concomitant awareness that one is an individual self with inner depths. Modern identity also includes what Taylor describes as an intensified reflexivity that makes it possible for us to disengage from our interior stream of thoughts and desires in a way that ‘allows us to see ourselves as objects of far-reaching reformation’.16 As we will see below, Bérulle’s mystical theology is an important early modern example of this belief that human beings can reflexively reform their lives.

11 12 13

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Howells, ‘From Late Medieval to Early Modern’, 170. Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford 1995, xvi, 183-186. ‘Those who believe Descartes to have been an ardent Catholic assume that Bérulle became his spiritual mentor, recruiting him to write a defense of orthodox theology and metaphysics. However, it seems just as likely that Descartes was frightened by Bérulle and anxious not to be drawn into this man’s schemes’. Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity, Chicago 2008, 182. For an impassioned argument that Descartes wanted nothing to do with Bérulle’s Counter-Reformation crusade see Richard Watson’s Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes, Boston 2007, 141-150. Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture, New Haven 1993, 117. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambridge 1989, ix-x. Taylor, Sources of the Self, 171.

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Bérulle’s mystical theology is also an intriguing Catholic expression of what Philip Gorski has called the ‘disciplinary revolution’.17 Gorski argues that various Protestant ascetic religious movements, most notably Calvinism, played an important role in the formation of nation states in early modern Europe by promoting personal and collective discipline as well as social reform: ‘Where such movements allied with rising political elites – in particular urban burghers or centralizing monarchs – the result was a profound transformation of social and institutional life, a disciplinary revolution, with far reaching consequences for state formation’.18 Drawing on Gorski’s work, Taylor traces these developing disciplinary practices to a long-running process of religious reform that predates the early modern period but culminates in the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic response.19 At the center of the Catholic response to Protestantism in France, Bérulle’s mystical theology and political activity sought to unify France under the dual discipline of the Roman Catholic Church and the French monarchy. Additionally, Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism reveals a dual emphasis on interiority: the interior life of the Christian is to be formed and sustained by the interior life of Christ. Bérulle thus radically interiorizes the traditional idea of imitatio Christi and articulates a process of transformation that enables Christians to remake themselves through a deepening appropriation of Christ’s own interior dispositions. In this paper, I first locate Bérulle in the broader trajectory of mystical renewal in seventeenth-century France. Then I examine his Christocentric mysticism as it emerges from his encounters with the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and later with Teresian Carmel. Bérulle’s mystical theology is given full expression in his most mature work: Discours de l’état et des grandeurs de Jésus/ Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus (1623). Specifically, I examine the way Bérulle united Incarnation and anéantissement (‘annihilation’) in a distinctive way to remake the self in the image of Christ. Finally, I offer a sympathetic critique of Bérulle’s project considering Charles Taylor’s genealogy of the modern self. While Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism is at times existentially compelling, it ultimately fails to avoid what Taylor has called the ‘dilemma of mutilation’. Thus, Bérulle’s mystical theology fails to make a place for the fully human. 17

18 19

Philip S. Gorski, ‘The Protestant Ethic Revisited: Disciplinary Revolution and State Formation in Holland and Prussia’, in: The American Journal of Sociology 99 (1993) no.2, 275-316; and The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe, Chicago 2003. Gorski, ‘Protestant Ethic Revisited’, 266. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Cambridge 2007, 90-145.

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Contextualizing Bérulle’s Christocentric Mysticism Bérulle’s mystical theology is part of a larger movement within what Evelyn Underhill has called a ‘mystical renaissance’ in seventeenth-century France.20 Underhill traces the beginning of this mystical resurgence to the salon that was organized by Bérulle’s cousin Madame Barbe Acarie (1566-1618) and locates its terminus with the death of Madame Guyon (1648-1717).21 Michael Buckley extends the period through the French Jesuit Jean Pierre de Caussade (16751751).22 Several factors within France made this mystical renaissance possible.23 First, there was relative civil and ecclesiastical peace between Catholics and Protestants after over three decades of brutal civil war. The French Wars of Religion that began with the Massacre of Vassy in 1562 were finally ended in 1598 when Henry IV expanded religious freedom to the Protestant (Huguenot) minority through the Edict of Nantes.24 Second, there was a significant increase in the number of mystical texts from the Rheno-Flemish tradition, Spain, and Italy translated into French from the middle of the sixteenth through the early seventeenth-century.25 From the Rheno-Flemish tradition were French translations of Henrik Harp’s (Latin: Harphius) A Mirror of Perfection in 1549,26 various texts from the Benedictine Louis de Blois beginning in 1553, The Evangelical Pearl in 1602, and Ruusbroec’s Ornament of the Spiritual Espousals in 1606; from Spain were works from Luis de Grenada from 1572-1577, Juan de Avila in 1586, Teresa of Avila in 20

21 22

23

24

25

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Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: The Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness, Oxford 2004, 470. Evelyn Underhill, The Mystics of the Church, Eugene, OR 2002, 187. Michael J. Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality: Three Figures’, in: Louis K. Dupré, Don E. Saliers & John Meyendorff (Eds.), Christian Spirituality: Post-Reformation and Modern, New York 1989, 29. I draw here on Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 28-32 and Howells, ‘Relationality and Difference’, 227-229. For more on the Edict of Nantes see Bergin, Politics of Religion in Early Modern France, 45-55. The Edict would be formally revoked in 1685. ‘During the last thirty years of the sixteenth century and the earliest part of the seventeenth, priests, religious (especially the Carthusians of Bourg-Fontaine), and laymen had put into French nearly all the great mystics, from S. Denis to Ste. Teresa’. Bremond, Literary History, 1:16. A Latin text had been translated in 1509 and subsequently available throughout Europe. ‘Through Herp’s writings (especially the Mirror) the mystical tradition of the Low Countries exerted a considerable influence throughout Europe in the Early Modern period’. Rik Van Nieuwenhove, Rob Faesen, & Helen Rolfson (Eds.), Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, New York 2008, 144. A complete French translation of the writings of Herp appeared in 1607.

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1601, and writings from John of the Cross including The Spiritual Canticle beginning in 1621; from Italy were Lorenzo Scupoli’s Spiritual Combat in 1595; and The Life and Works of Catherine of Genoa in 1598.27 These newly available texts contributed to an already rich spiritual and mystical milieu that included the writings of Augustine, Dionysius, and Tauler. Third, was the influential circle that gathered at the salon of Madame Acarie. In addition to Bérulle, this imposing group included the English Capuchin Benet of Canfield; Dom Richard Beaucousin the Carthusian translator into French of Ruusbroec’s Ornament of the Spiritual Espousals (1561-1610), the Sorbonne professor André Duval (1564-1638),28 and the Savoyard Francis de Sales (1567-1622).29 The spiritual ethos of the group was steeped in the mystical textual traditions noted above as well as the practices of anéantissement (‘annihilation’) and dépassement (‘by-passing’). Louis Cognet summarizes the ‘abstract mysticism’ of the salon: From these it derived a synthesis which, without being very original, laid great stress on the abstract side of this mysticism of essences. In this trend Christ is always the sole way of access to God, but the negative aspect of this way is emphasized, always seen under the aspect of annihilation. This annihilation presupposes not only the rejection of all created things but even the extinction of all conscious activity of the soul in the domain of the senses as in those of the understanding and the will. Such a way of negation must lead to a direct, unmediated union with the divine essence, which involves ‘by-passing’ the humanity of Christ, and takes place above the level of notions and concepts. It is attained by a fusion of the human will in the divine, resulting in a sort of depersonalization. This group thus earned the name abstract school.30

27

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Egan observes that the writings of Catherine of Genoa ‘were a bridge between the mystics of the late Middle Ages and the those of the 16th and 17th centuries’. Harvey Egan, An Anthology of Christian Mysticism. 2nd ed., Collegeville 1991, 407. Deville suggests that Bérulle was likely a student of Duval’s at the Sorbonne during part of the period the Jesuits were expelled from France (1595-1603) before he attended the Jesuit College at Clermont. Raymond Deville, The French School of Spirituality, transl. Agnes Cunninham, Pittsburg 1994, 31. ‘This group, by its deep and widespread activity and by its many pious and charitable foundations spread throughout France, was truly the starting point of a movement, the origin of that religious spring which revived French Catholicism in the early years of the seventeenth century. It was therefore quite naturally the source of a spiritual stream which flowed through the century’. Louis Cognet, Post-Reformation Spirituality, transl. P. Hepburne Scott, New York 1959, 59. Cognet, Post-Reformation Spirituality, 59-60. Cognet suggests that dépassement is used by these mystics ‘to express the act of transcending, leaving behind, going beyond, all that is not God [including the humanity of Jesus] in order to come directly to the divine nature’ while anéantissement suggests ‘absorption without destruction’ (ibid., 16).

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It was also at Madame Acarie’s salon that a young Bérulle was first exposed to the theological voluntarism of Benet of Canfield. Benet had a significant influence on Bérulle and it is helpful to look briefly at his attempt to subsume the entirety of the mystical path under the concept of the will of God.31 In Règle de perfection réduite au seul point de la volonté divine/Rule of Perfection Reduced to the Sole Point of the Divine Will (circulated in manuscript form as early as 1592 and published in 1609), Benet reduces the entire spiritual enterprise to that of conforming one’s will to the divine will. Benet’s reduction is based on the identity of the divine will and the divine essence.32 For Benet, the one divine will/essence is encountered by the soul under three different forms: ‘exterior’, ‘interior’, and ‘essential’. These different manifestations of the one divine will/essence correspond to the classical three stages of the human spiritual journey. The exterior will of God is reflected in the commandments and corresponds to the stage of beginners. The interior will of God is manifested in the inner aspirations of contemplatives and corresponds to the stage of the advanced. The essential will of God is expressed in the experience of true mystics and corresponds to the stage of perfection known by saints.33 Benet describes the essential will as ‘purely spirit and life, totally abstract, and stripped bare of all forms and images of created things, corporal or spiritual, temporal or eternal’.34 It is possible for a soul in this highest stage of the spiritual journey to be united immediately to the divine will/essence. Benet’s mystical itinerary also reflects the ontological poverty of created human beings when compared to the uncreated being of God. This poverty stands in stark contrast to the fullness of the divine being: ‘From God’s infinite undivided act of being Benet deduces the most extreme coincidence of opposites conceivable, that between All and nothing’.35 This infinite ontological chasm between created human being and uncreated divine being results in a severe apophaticism. Because God is All and the creature is nothing, ‘there is no proportion between [a person’s] faculties and the divine essence. There can therefore be no question of using the understanding in order to reach God, nor even of imagining any middle term where this union could be effected: the essential divine will must transform the human will by absorbing it into itself’.36 In this 31

32

33 34

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José Pereira & Robert L. Fastiggi, The Mystical Theology of the Catholic Reformation: An Overview of Baroque Spirituality, Lanham, MD 2006, 115. Kent Emery, Jr., ‘Mysticism and the Coincidence of Opposites in Sixteenth- and SeventeenthCentury France’, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (1984) no.1, 9-10. Pereira & Fastiggi, Mystical Theology of the Catholic Reformation, 115. Benet of Canfield, Reigle [sic] de perfection (1610; repr. Lyons, 1653), III, 1, 218-219. Cited and translated by Emery, ‘Mysticism and the Coincidence of Opposites’, 10. Emery, ‘Mysticism and the Coincidence of Opposites’, 12. Cognet, Post-Reformation Spirituality, 61.

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present life only the faculty of the will is capable of immediate union with the divine will/essence.37 Benet’s emphasis on the immediate union of the human will and the divine will also reflects his acceptance of dépassement or by-passing the humanity of Christ. As we will see below, Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism is a partial repudiation of dépassement but builds on Benet’s fundamental assertion that God is all and that the soul is nothing in itself. Bérulle’s Christocentric Mysticism One of Bérulle’s earliest texts, written while he was still a student at the Jesuit Collège de Clermont and two years before his ordination into the priesthood, the Bref discours de l’abnegation intérieure/Brief Discourse on Interior Abnegation (1597), reflects the influence of Canfield and the broader ethos of Madame Acarie’s salon. Essentially a reworking of Breve compendio intorno alla perfezione cristiana/Brief Interior Compendium on Christian Perfection by Isabella Bellinzaga (ca.1551-1624) and her spiritual director, the Milanese Jesuit Achille Gagliardi (1537-1607),38 this early text from Bérulle is primarily notable for its adoption of dépassement through the suppression of most of the references to Christ in Bellinzaga and Gagliardi’s text and need not detain us here.39 Bérulle’s most mature statement of his Christocentric mysticism is in his Discours de l’état et des grandeurs de Jésus/Discourse on the State and the Grandeurs of Jesus (1623). This text is a significant departure from the Brief Discourse on Interior Abnegation where Berulle had deemphasized the role of the Christ in the interior mystical journey. In this later text, Bérulle moves away, at least in part, from the position of dépassement. Two factors precipitated this shift. First, was Bérulle’s experience with the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Bérulle had studied with the Jesuits at their Collège de Clermont and had considered becoming a Jesuit. In 1602 he made the Exercises at the Jesuit House in Verdun. Bérulle’s journal from the retreat survived and it indicates a significant shift in his mystical theology giving new prominence to Christ.40 At one 37 38

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Emery, ‘Mysticism and the Coincidence of Opposites’, 12. Gagliardi was one of the first Jesuits to write a commentary on the Exercises. Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 42. Buckley summarizes the message of the Breve compendio: ‘Bérulle’s work proposes to guide the soul by way of successive deprivations to the annihilation of the human self and the transforming union with God. The stages of privation are but a preparation for the divine action upon the soul, a transcendence over that self-love which is religious narcissism and which inhabits passivity under the influence of God. Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 42. Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 43; Howells, ‘Mysticism of Pierre de Bérulle, 228-229.

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point in the journal Bérulle observes: ‘Jesus Christ alone is both end and means on the cross and in the Eucharist. There we ought to bind ourselves to him as to our end and to make use of him as our means. Our salvation and our perfection consists principally in being such, towards the end and towards the means, as God desires’.41 Here we see Bérulle begin to place Christ’s redemptive activity at the center of Christian spiritual experience. This passage is also notable for its introduction of the concept of ‘adherence’ or ‘binding’ oneself to Christ. This is a technical term in Bérulle’s mystical theology. Cognet suggests that the term as employed by Bérulle means to make a voluntary, conscious effort to conform all [one’s] interior life, in every moment of [one’s] life to the interior life of Jesus (…). It is not a matter of mere imitation which, however perfect it may be, leaves us external to Christ. This conformity must result in a genuine transfusion into us of the very being of Jesus, of his prayer, his feelings, his adoration.42

We see here Bérulle’s dual emphasis on interiority: the need to conform one’s inner life to the inner life of Christ. We also see here a radical interiorization of the classical idea of imitatio Christi. In adhering to Christ, we are creating a connection and a pathway for the inner dispositions and attitudes of Jesus to flow into our own lives. Thus, we participate in his aspirations in prayer, his affectivity, his adoration of the Father, and, as we will see below, his own interior anéantissement/annihilation. Adherence to Christ is the necessary human response to the generosity and self-giving of the Father and the Son. It is also the means whereby our humanity is linked to Christ’s divinity. As Bérulle will say in the Discourse on the State and the Grandeurs of Jesus, Let us give ourselves to him, for he is the gift of the Father and gives himself to us. Let us belong to him, for he belongs to us. He is totally ours, in his divinity, given for us, in his humanity, born for us, as his prophet and his church say. Let us go to him, for he comes to us, and he has the words of eternal life. Let us adhere to him for through him, our humanity adheres to his divinity.43

Bérulle’s journal from Verdun is also important because of the way he begins to ground anéantissement/annihilation in the Incarnation of Christ. The Incarnation in some way necessitates a posture of annihilation: ‘As the Incarnation is 41

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Retraite de Verdun, Art. ii, 1290. Cited in Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 43. Cognet, Post-Reformation Spirituality, 73. William Thompson (Ed. & introd.), Bérulle and the French School: Selected Writings, transl. Lowell.M. Glendon, New York 1989 (The Classics of Western Spirituality), 143 (emphasis in original). All quotations in this paper of Discourse on the State and the Grandeurs of Jesus are from this edition. I will cite the page number in brackets after each quotation.

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the foundation of our salvation, I have also considered very deeply how great should be the annihilation of myself’.44 We will see below how Bérulle explains this connection in the Discourse on the State and the Grandeurs of Jesus. We will also see how Bérulle links annihilation with ‘perpetual servitude’. What is most important at this point is to note how the necessary link between Incarnation and annihilation is becoming the guiding principle in Bérulle’s mystical theology. The second precipitating factor in Bérulle’s emerging Christocentrism was his association with the Teresian Carmelite movement in France. A year after making the Ignatian Exercises Bérulle was appointed one of three co-superiors of the Carmelite women religious in France. He was instrumental along with Madame Acarie in establishing the Carmel of the Incarnation in Paris the following year. Among the early group of Spanish Carmelite religious who came to Paris was Ana de Jesús, a close companion of Teresa. Ana was responsible for the initial formation of the group of French postulants who had already gathered with Madame Acarie at her home. Bremond cites a delightful excerpt from a letter that Ana wrote in which she describes her work with these postulants: From the moment of their taking the habit their minds seem to be renewed in a method of prayer strange to them. I am careful that they meditate on and imitate Our Lord Jesus Christ, for He is often forgotten here. All devotion is concentrated on the abstract idea of God: I do not know how it is done. Since the coming of the glorious S. Denis, author of the Mystic Theology, everyone has practiced a method of devotion rather passive than active. It is a strange affair. I can as little comprehend it as the language in which they seek to explain it; nay, I am unable even to read it.45

In Ana de Jesús and her emphasis upon Jesus, Bérulle had a clear and unambiguous confirmation of the new direction his own mystical theology was taking as expressed in his retreat journal. Howells argues, persuasively I believe, that Bérulle’s encounter with Carmel convinced him to develop a synthesis between his newfound emphasis on Christ and the earlier abstract mysticism of the salon: ‘These two elements come together in his later thought. The Christocentric mysticism of his mature teaching attempts to bring the encounter with the humanity of Christ together with annihilation and the ‘purity’ of the ‘abstract’ relationship with God as dual features of mystical union’.46 This new synthesis 44 45 46

Art. V, 1294 cited in Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 43. Bremond, Literary History, 2:229. Howells, ‘Relationality and Difference’, 229. Thompson concurs: ‘As [Bérulle] undergoes his so-called Christocentric conversion his Christology deepens. He never disowns his early acceptance of the abstract, Neoplatonic school of spirituality. But he rather creatively integrates it with a more biblical perspective’. Thompson, Bérulle and the French School, 35.

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is clearly seen in Bérulle’s Discourse on the State and the Grandeurs of Jesus. As I will argue below, however, Bérulle’s synthesis ultimately fails to integrate the full humanity of Christ. Bérulle so stresses the divine nature of Christ that his humanity recedes into the background. This will become particularly problematic in Bérulle’s discussion of the ‘states’ of Christ. It is also in the Discours, however, that we see Bérulle’s distinctive use of both Incarnation and anéantissement/annihilation to remake the self. Bérulle opens the Discours with a recital of praise for the ‘holy mystery of the Incarnation’ (109). The mystery of the Incarnation is both hidden in God’s heart and publicly revealed. It is ‘so deep that it is hidden from all eternity in the very bosom of the eternal Father’. Yet, it is also ‘realized in the fullness of time, in the center of the earth, so as to be seen by both earth and heaven’. The Incarnation holds in tension three important dualities: God and human nature, the uncreated and created, and heaven and earth. It is, therefore, a kind of axis mundi. It is ‘like the center of the created and uncreated world. It is the only place where God chose once and for all to contain and reduce to our level both the world and himself, that is, his own infiniteness and the immensity of the whole universe’ (110). Echoing Ana de Jesús and the Teresian Carmel, Bérulle then argues that the Incarnation ‘should be the focus for the devotion of [even] the most advanced souls’. The mystery of the Incarnation is worthy of devotion, in part, because it reveals another mystery: the mystery of the Trinity in both the ‘majesty of the divine essence’ as well as the ‘distinction of its persons and the depth of its designs’ (110). As Tavard observes: ‘The perspective adopted by Bérulle ties together the mysteries of the Trinity and of the Incarnation so that, strictly speaking, they constitute only one mystery. One cannot look at them separately without misunderstanding them’.47 The mystery of the Incarnation is also worthy of devotion because it is the ‘finest work of divinity; the masterpiece of his power, his goodness and his wisdom’. It is the product of both ‘uncreated love’ and ‘eternal wisdom’ (111). Bérulle then moves to a discussion of the grandeurs of the Incarnate Word. Through the mystery of the hypostatic union Jesus possesses ‘uncreated and infinite being’ (113). Thus, he ‘is the only one who has the divine Essence as one of his own essences and the divine Person as his own person’. Additionally, ‘Jesus is the true and living image of the eternal Father. He is [God’s] image both in his divine person and in his sacred humanity, which is united to the Godhead (…). He is the source of grace and the principle of true life on earth and in heaven…’ (115). In the text alluded to earlier, Bérulle then describes

47

Tavard, ‘Christology of the Mystics’, 572-573.

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Jesus as the ‘Sun of our souls’. It is a passage of rhetorical beauty and worth citing in full: For Jesus is the sun that is immovable in his greatness and that moves all other things (…). Jesus is the true center of the world and the world should be in continuous movement toward him. Jesus is the Sun of our souls and from him we receive every grace, every light and every effect of his power. The earth of our hearts should be in continuous movement toward him, so that we might welcome, with all its powers and components, the favorable aspects and benign influences of this great star. Let us bring, then, the movements and affections of our soul to Jesus. (117)

The mystery of the Incarnation also sanctified the earth and, more crucially for Bérulle, revealed a new and sublime adoration: ‘For it is through this mystery that heaven is opened, earth is made holy and God is adored. This adoration is new. It is ineffable and was unknown to earth and heaven even in former times. For although heaven previously had adoring spirits and an adored God, it had not as yet an adoring God’ (109). Thus, for Bérulle, the Incarnation made possible a qualitatively different order of adoration of God. The Incarnation made it possible for God – in the person of Jesus of Nazareth – to adore God’s Self. As the perfect adorer Jesus is the model and exemplar of our adoration for God. Human persons are invited to participate in this perfect adoration through adherence to the Incarnate Word. While Bérulle’s descriptions of the Divine Christ are undoubtedly valid, they also reflect a limited and overly abstract theoretical position. What seems to be missing in his discussion at least to this point is any parallel stress on the fleshly humanity of Jesus. The leitmotif throughout Bérulle’s reflections on the Incarnation so far is the divinity of Christ. To be sure, the Incarnation does manifest the ‘majesty of the divine essence’. But, does not the Incarnation also reveal more? Does it not also reveal something about the ultimate goodness of human being and human nature? Even when Bérulle mentions the ‘sacred humanity’ of Jesus, the primary emphasis of the text is the divine nature of Jesus. It is the divinity of Jesus that makes his humanity sacred. Bérulle rightly captures the divinity of Christ as well as the glorified humanity of the risen Christ, but he fails to properly balance this emphasis with sufficient reflection on the real humanity of Christ. Ultimately, Bérulle seems to subordinate the genuinely human within the divine, the humanity of Christ within his divinity, and the incarnation within the trinity. As we will see below, it also seems that Bérulle points Christian disciples only to the divinized humanity of Christ as the proper object of devotion. There is no esteem for the merely human or natural. Rather, it is the divinity of Jesus that ultimately makes his humanity acceptable and worthy of imitation.

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Just as the mystery of the Incarnation reveals the Incarnate Word as the perfect adorer, it also reveals the him as the perfect servant. Here we see the centrality of kenosis (Phil 2:6-8) and anéantissement/annihilation for Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism. Buckley describes Bérulle’s understanding of anéantissement/annihilation as ‘a theocentric or Christocentric self-transcendence into the mystery of God’ and ‘a kenotic movement of consciousness or of activity in which one realizes God as the truth of one’s being’.48 As the Eternal Logos emptied himself and became nothing (néant), taking the form of a servant, so Christian disciples are called to follow this example of and embrace ‘perpetual servitude’. Bérulle expresses this idea in a deeply personal way: Contemplating and thinking of your grandeurs I offer and present myself to you in the humble, blessed state and condition of servitude. I propose and make a constant, certain and inviolable promise of perpetual servitude to you, O Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God, my life and my Savior. It is an offer of servitude to you, to your sacred, deified humanity and to your humanized divinity. (121)49

Here again we see that Bérulle appears to conflate deity and humanity in a way that diminishes the human. While there is certainly a danger in drawing too sharp a distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ, the opposite danger is that of Monophysitism. There were, in fact, some who made this accusation against Bérulle at the time.50 Whether or not these accusations are true, at the very least, Bérulle’s formulations of ‘deified humanity’ and ‘humanized divinity’ give the appearance of the ‘drowning of humanity in divinity’.51 Bérulle’s use of the term anéantissement or annihilation also requires comment. We have already seen that anéantissement was as aspect of the abstract mysticism that informed Madame Acarie’s salon. Bernard McGinn has surveyed provenance of this concept and its use in seventeenth-century France.52 He traces its origin to the twelfth-century Cistercian Bernard of Clairvaux. The concept began to appear with some frequency by the middle of the thirteenth century. It is present, for example, in the writings of Beatrice of Nazareth, 48

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50 51 52

Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 66. We saw above Cognet’s definition of anéantissement/annihilation as ‘absorption without destruction’. This seems like an overly sympathetic reading of Bérulle’s use of the term. Bérulle’s stipulation that the members of the Oratory as well as the Carmelite nuns under his care should take vows of servitude to Jesus and Mary as well as his terminology ‘defied humanity’ and ‘humanized deity’ sparked a heated controversy that lasted almost a decade. For more on the controversy see Thompson, Bérulle and the French School, 14-15; Buckley, ‘SeventeenthCentury French Mysticism’, 53; and Howells, ‘Relationality and Difference’, 231-235. Thompson, Bérulle and the French School, 14-15. Ibid., 15. See Bernard McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation in Seventeenth-Century France’ in this volume.

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Hadewijch of Antwerp, Angela da Foligno, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart. The theme is prominent in several sixteenth-century texts that had a direct influence on Bérulle and other seventeenth-century French spiritual writers. These texts include Herp’s The Mirror of Perfection, the anonymous treatise entitled the Evangelical Pearl, a text attributed to Tauler but written by an unknown author and circulated under two names: Spiritual Institutions and Divine Institutions, The Life and Works of Catherine of Genoa, and Berinzaga and Gagliardi’s Brief Compendium. McGinn also notes two surviving fragments of the teaching of Madame Acarie that employ the language of annihilation. Among the seventeenth-century French writers in addition to Bérulle who incorporated the theme were Benet of Canfield, Francis de Sales, Jean-Joseph Surin, Jean-Jacques Olier, and Madame Guyon. McGinn identifies two broad categories of annihilation in these texts. One category, what McGinn calls ‘soft annihilation’, reflects a metaphorical and hyperbolic use of the term. In these texts, annihilation is used in a ‘moral’ sense as ‘a strong metaphor for the stripping away of the faults and effects of sin that block the way to God’.53 McGinn finds this understanding of the term in Bernard of Clairvaux, Beatrice of Nazareth, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Angela da Foligno, and in Bérulle. A second category of uses, however, reflects a more literal or ‘strong’ form of annihilation. This form of annihilation is metaphysical in nature. It is present in one form or another in most uses of the term by the other mystical writers cited by McGinn. This strong use of the term is paradigmatically reflected in Marguerite’s description of the annihilated soul: ‘This Soul which has become nothing, thus possesses everything, and so possesses nothing; she wills everything, and she wills nothing; she knows all, and she knows nothing’.54 Eckhart, who had read Marguerite’s Mirror of Simple Souls, uses the German term Entwerden (lit. ‘un-becoming’) to refer to a form of ‘mystical deconstruction’ which is ‘designed to annihilate the false self and to allow the true divine self to speak and to act’.55 These descriptions of annihilation by Marguerite and Eckhart informed many of the subsequent strong uses of term including the most important influences on Bérulle. We saw above that Bérulle began to connect annihilation with the Incarnation in his retreat journal from Verdun. The paradigmatic example of annihilation for Bérulle was Christ’s kenotic self-emptying described in Philippians 2:5-8.56 53 54

55 56

McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation’, 10. Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, trans. E. Colledge as reprinted in Bernard McGinn, The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism (New York: Modern Library, 2006), 172-179, cited in McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation’, 12-13. McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation’, 13. ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself

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This text exhorts Christians to have the same ‘mind’ (Greek: φρονέω; lit. ‘to think’ or ‘to judge’) of Christ who ‘emptied’ (Greek: κενόω) himself.57 Among other things, this self-emptying included Christ’s taking on created human nature. As McGinn observes: ‘For the Cardinal [Bérulle] anéantissement first of all expresses the act of radical self-dispossession by which the Second Person of the Trinity takes on human nature and conceals his divine status and glory in the nothingness (néant) of created humanity’.58 For Bérulle, however, Christ’s self-emptying also includes the anéantissement entailed in embracing the path of servitude all the way through the crucifixion. McGinn offers a helpful summary of Bérulle’s understanding of anéantissement: ‘This annihilation is not a destruction of the being (être) of human nature but is rather the end of our selfish subsistence and human mode of acting, so that we come to subsist in Christ as one with him in the Mystical Body. Annihilation results in a second form of being, not a new ontological reality, but a new spiritual relation’.59 If McGinn is correct, Bérulle’s use of anéantissement reflects the soft annihilation discussed above. I will return to the language of annihilation below. It is necessary first to trace some additional aspects of Bérulle’s mystical theology. The power for Christian disciples to remake themselves, for Bérulle, is found in the état or ‘states’ of Christ. These states are the enduring inner dispositions and attitudes of the Incarnate Word. They are rooted in the mysteries of Christ’s life. While the actions have passed, the inner dispositions and attitudes remain.60 Bérulle describes the states in this way: [Christ’s mysteries] are past in some circumstances, and they perdure and are present in another way. They are past in their execution, but they are present in their virtue; and neither will this virtue ever pass, nor the love with which they were fulfilled. Therefore, the spirit, the state, the virtue, the merit of the mystery remain present always. The Spirit of God, by which the mystery was acted, the interior state of the exterior mystery, the efficaciousness and virtue render this mystery alive and active in us; this state and virtuous disposition, the merit by which he acquired us for his Father and deserved heaven, life and himself, and even the present state, the acute disposition in which Jesus fulfilled this mystery, are always alive, actual and present in Jesus.61

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58 59 60 61

taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross’. Here the term connotes to ‘have the attitude of’ or to ‘be disposed to’ Christ’s way of thinking. Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, & William Arndt, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 539, 1065-1066. McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation’, 23. McGinn, ‘Varieties of Mystical Annihilation’, 24. Thompson, Bérulle and the French School, 213. Gaston Rotureau (Ed.), Bérulle: Opuscules de piété (Paris 1944), 201. Cited in Tavard, ‘Christology of the Mystics’, 575.

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Thus, the states are a present resource for personal reformation and growth in sanctity. What should be emphasized here, however, is that Bérulle ontologizes and reifies these inner dispositions of Christ in a way that effectively severs them from any organic connection to the human Christ. Among the most important of these states are annihilation and servitude as well as adoration and contemplation.62 As we saw earlier, Christian disciples participate in the inner life of Christ (that is, the states of Christ) by ‘adhering’ to him. For Bérulle, adherence to Christ reflects a progression from ‘relating to God as an exterior object to relating to God by participation in the interior reality of Jesus’ relationship with the Father’.63 This deepening interiorization also includes an ‘experiential ‘elevation’ of the soul to God’.64 For Bérulle, elevation is a technical term that signifies an upward movement of prayer and adoration to God in which the soul is effectively ‘absorbed’ into the mystery of God.65 In this way, the Christian disciple is progressively patterned after the interior life of Christ. Thus, our annihilation, our servitude, our adoration, and our contemplation are modeled on Christ’s paradigmatic example. In this way, the Christian’s interior journey is centered on Christ’s own interiority from beginning to end. We see here the profound outworking of Bérulle’s double interiority. Additionally, this center is not exterior to the Christian disciple. Rather, as Tavard suggests, ‘it lies within us by participation in the states of Jesus’.66 Here we see the profound outworking of Bérulle’s double focus on interiority. Bérulle’s Christocentric Mysticism and the Dilemma of Mutilation In this paper, we have seen that Bérulle’s Christocentric project can be described as the first modern Christology. For Bérulle, a subjective appropriation and experience of the mystery of Christ is the ground of both mystical experience and our theological representations of Christ. We have also seen how Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism reflects what Taylor has described as a modern sense of identity or selfhood. Bérulle reflected the modern trend toward interiority as well as the belief that human persons can reflexively reform their lives. For Bérulle, this reformation of life was possible through a radically interiorized understanding of the classical concept of imitatio Christi. Bérulle’s interiorized 62 63 64 65 66

Thompson, Bérulle and the French School, 41. Howells, ‘Relationality and Difference’, 230. Ibidem. Buckley, ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality’, 66. Tavard, ‘Christology of the Mystics, 575.

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imitatio Christi, includes a dual focus on interiority as the inner life of the Christian soul is formed and sustained by the interior life of Christ. In the last section of this paper, I develop a theme that I highlighted at several points in the above discussion. This theme is what appears to be Bérulle’s reluctance to include the fully human as part of his mystical theology. This is an important issue for any contemporary retrieval of Bérullian spirituality. In Sources of the Self, the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor suggests that the central spiritual challenge for the modern Western world is ‘the dilemma of mutilation’.67 In Taylor’s view, both the dominant Western religious traditions and Western secularity have tended to mutilate or in some way do violence to the human person. Taylor introduces this provocative claim at the end of Sources of the Self and develops it more fully in A Secular Age. Taylor’s claim regarding religion is that Western forms of religion – including Christianity – have too often required that some legitimate aspect(s) of our essential humanity be diminished or renounced in the name of God. The charge of religious mutilation is not new. There are clear echoes here of both the Radical Enlightenment critique of religion as well as Nietzsche’s bitter invective against the ‘slave morality’ of Christianity. Voltaire’s famous slogan – Écrasez l’infâme (‘crush the infamous’) – was directed against what he perceived to be the destructive fanaticism of the Catholic Church in France. Voltaire derided religion as ‘the source of all the follies and turmoils imaginable; it is the mother of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind’.68 For Voltaire, this destructive fanaticism was exhibited in an event that took place just a few years before Bérulle’s birth: the St. Bartholomew Day massacre in August 1572 when an estimated 5,000 Protestants were killed in France.69 Commenting on this unfortunate event, Voltaire observes: ‘The most detestable example of fanaticism was that of the burghers of Paris who on St. Bartholomew’s Night went about assassinating and butchering all their fellow citizens who did not go to mass, throwing them out of windows, cutting them in pieces’.70 As for Nietzsche, he writes in Beyond Good and Evil: 67 68

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Taylor, Sources of the Self, 521. Cited in Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy, New York 2016, 233. Gottlieb observes immediately before that quotation that ‘Voltaire was a supremely sarcastic and unrelenting scourge of the establishment, especially the Catholic Church. His attacks on the abuse of power by clerics, his defenses of toleration, and his intervention in several infamous miscarriages of justice were much admired by later radicals, particularly those who aimed to “dechristianise” France’. ‘All told approximately 2,000 Huguenots were killed in the massacre in Paris, and an additional 3,000 or so were slain in the provinces’. Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629. 2nd ed., Cambridge 2005, 95. Isaac Kramnick (Ed.), The Portable Enlightenment Reader, New York: Penguin, 1995, 118.

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‘From the start, the Christian faith is a sacrifice: a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit; at the same time, enslavement and self-mockery, self-mutilation’.71 While not conceding all aspects of these lines of criticism, Taylor nevertheless is sympathetic to the charges. In Taylor’s view, religious forms of mutilation are connected, at least in part, to the awareness of our imperfections and resulting debt to God as well as lingering Platonic influences in the Christian tradition. We feel an obligation to offer or sacrifice something of our being to God either from gratitude or guilt. We also feel the imperative – more Platonic than Christian – to somehow transcend the limitations of our bodily and material existence. This results in what Taylor calls ‘excarnation’. Taylor concludes his analysis of religious motivation by noting: [A] general truth emerges, which is that the highest spiritual ideals and aspirations also threaten to lay the most crushing burdens on humankind. The great spiritual visions of human history have also been poisoned chalices, the causes of untold misery and even savagery. From the very beginning of the human story religion, our link with the highest, has been recurrently associated with sacrifice, even mutilation, as though something of us has to be torn away or immolated if we are to please the gods.72

Here I want to offer a sympathetic critique to Bérulle’s elegantly conceived and, in many ways, compelling Christocentric mysticism in light of the dilemma of mutilation. This is a sympathetic critique for three primary reasons. First, Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism speaks to the desire of Christians to give themselves entirely and without reservation to God in love, adoration, and service. Language of annihilation and servitude, while distasteful to modern sensibilities, speaks to this desre. This desire is reflected in one of Bérulle’s favorite texts from the Pauline tradition: ‘It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20). Clearly, these were Bérulle’s desires for himself and for others. Bérulle’s mystical theology speaks to these desires. Second, Bérulle’s mystical theology rings true, at least partially, at the level of Christian experience. Many Christian mystics then and now have some firsthand knowledge of the experiences that Bérulle describes. They have been caught up in adoration of Jesus as the ‘sun of [their] souls’ from whom they receive every grace. They have also experienced something of kenosis or radical 71

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, transl. & ed. Walter Kaufmann, New York 2000, 250. Taylor, Sources of the Self, 519.

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self-emptying and self-transcendence. They have experienced, to some degree, the néant or nothingness that Bérulle places at the heart of the spiritual journey. Finally, I am sympathetic to Bérulle because he has clearly experienced the realities that he describes. There is an authenticity in Bérulle’s Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus. Bérulle passionately loved God and gave his life in service to the church. The question of religious mutilation is also difficult because of hermeneutical considerations. As we have already seen, Bérulle’s terminology can be understood in different ways. McGinn argues that Bérulle’s use of anéantissement reflects soft annihilation or a metaphorical and hyperbolic use of the term. This is certainly possible, perhaps even probable. Interpreting Bérulle’s precise meaning of this term in its many contexts is compounded by the cultural, linguistic, and historical differences that any contemporary interpreter brings to an early modern author like Bérulle. Finally, as we have seen, Bérulle was far from alone in using the language of annihilation. Despite these considerations, however, I suggest that Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism does not escape the dilemma of mutilation. In my view, it is important to argue this case despite the perennial risk of reading contemporary assumptions and values back into an earlier epoch. Minimally, the following considerations should be taken into account in any critical retrieval of Bérullian inspired spirituality. Maximally, these considerations point to a fundamental distortion in Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism, even when viewed solely through the lens of early modern assumptions and values. In my view, Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism fails to escape the dilemma of mutilation for three primary reasons. First, we have already seen that Bérulle’s understanding of the Incarnation consistently minimizes the human nature of Christ. This appears to be the case even after his experience with the Ignatian Exercises and Teresian Carmel. Bérulle’s decision to contextualize the Incarnation against the backdrop of the Trinity as well as his lack of clarity on the two natures of Christ minimize Jesus’ true humanity. We also saw that the leitmotif of Bérulle’s reflections on the Incarnation is the divinity of Christ. Finally, Bérulle’s move to ontologize and reify the inner dispositions of Christ ultimately detaches them from his full humanity. Thus, in my judgment, Bérulle does not fully succeed in overcoming the dépassement of the humanity of Christ as reflected in the salon and in his early treatise, Brief Discourse on Interior Abnegation. Second, the term anéantissement or annihilation denotes a degree of violence against our full humanity. At a purely semantic level, the term suggests that human nature must be obliterated or destroyed. This problem is not completely eradicated, in my view, even if we assume a ‘soft’ or hyperbolic and metaphorical use of the term. Of course, in using the language of annihilation Bérulle was

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drawing on a long-running tradition. Bérulle’s contemporaries would have understood his use of the term in the context of this tradition. Additionally, I have already conceded that something like what Bérulle describes as annihilation has been experienced by numerous Christian mystics. Even so, there is an imbalance in Bérulle’s use of the term that is striking. It seems that Bérulle fails to sufficiently nuance the concept of annihilation. At a minimum, in my judgment, language that evokes some kind of violence against our essential humanity is no longer helpful, if it ever was. Third, Bérulle’s terminology seems to imply an overly negative assessment of human nature in its ‘natural’ state. Bérulle seems to have consciously rejected, for example, the devout humanism of Francis De Sales for a more pessimistic appraisal of human nature along the lines of Jansenism. Despite occasional remarks that imply a more balanced understanding, Bérulle’s mystical theology seems to suggest that the our ontological poverty requires one to transcend her or his humanity to attain the mystical presence of the Divine. Finally, Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism seems to fall prey to the danger that any maximal commitment to one supreme good entails. In Taylor’s analysis, human aspirations toward one good that transcends all others – a ‘hypergood’ – is a primary source of metaphorical self-mutilation.73 The danger here is allowing one supreme good to so overshadow lesser but genuine goods that these latter goods are rejected or held in contempt. In my reading of Bérulle, his zeal for the glory of God and God’s uncreated being obscures the admittedly lesser intrinsic goodness of the human person and humanity’s created being. Ultimately, in evaluating any Christian spirituality, one must ask the following question: does this particular spirituality make us more or less authentically human? In my judgment, for all of its appealing characteristics, Bérulle’s Christocentric mysticism fails this test. Bibliography Bergin, J., The Politics of Religion in Early Modern France, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. Bremond, H., Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin des guerres de religion jusqu’à nos jours. 9 vols. Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1921-1936; First three volumes translated as A Literary History of Religious Thought in France from the Wars of Religion Down to Our Own Time, transl. K.L. Montgomery, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1928-1936.

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Taylor, Sources of the Self, 106-107.

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Buckley, M.J., ‘Seventeenth-Century French Spirituality: Three Figures’, In: L.K. Dupré, D.E. Saliers & J. Meyendorff (Eds.), Christian Spirituality: Post-Reformation and Modern, New York: Crossroad, 1989, 28-68. Cognet, L., Post-Reformation Spirituality, transl. P. Hepburne Scott, New York: Hawthorne Books, 1959. Deville, R., The French School of Spirituality, transl. A. Cunninham, Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 1994. Dupré, L., Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Egan, H., An Anthology of Christian Mysticism. 2nd ed., Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1991. Emery, Jr., K., ‘Mysticism and the Coincidence of Opposites in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France’, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (1984) no.1, 3-23. Forrestal, A., ‘“Fathers, Leaders, and Kings”: Episcopacy and Episcopal Reform in the Seventeenth-Century French School’, in: The Seventeenth Century 17 (2002) no.1, 24-47. Gaukroger, S., Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Gillespie, M.A., The Theological Origins of Modernity, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008. Gorski, P.S., ‘The Protestant Ethic Revisited: Disciplinary Revolution and State Formation in Holland and Prussia’, in: The American Journal of Sociology 99 (1993) no.2, 275-316. Gorski, P.S., The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Gottlieb, A., The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy, New York: Liveright, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2016. Holt, M.P., The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629. 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Howells, E., ‘Relationality and Difference in the Mysticism of Pierre de Bérulle’, in: The Harvard Theological Review 102 (2009) no.2, 225-243. Howells, E., ‘From Late Medieval to Early Modern: Assessing the Mystical Theology of Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629)’, in: L. Nelstrop & B.B. Onishi (Eds.), Mysticism in the French Tradition: Eruptions from France, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015, 169-183. Kramnick, I. (Ed.), The Portable Enlightenment Reader, New York: Penguin, 1995. Nietzsche, F.W., Basic Writings of Nietzsche, transl. & ed. W. Kaufmann, New York: Modern Library, 2000. Pereira, J. & R.L. Fastiggi, The Mystical Theology of the Catholic Reformation: An Overview of Baroque Spirituality, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006. Rearden, M., ‘Pierre de Bérulle’s Apostolate of the Incarnate Word’, in: Irish Theological Quarterly 72 (2007), 187-200. Tavard, G.H., ‘Christology of the Mystics’, in: Theological Studies 42 (1981) no.4, 561579. Taylor, C., Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.

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Taylor, C., A Secular Age, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007. Thompson, W. (Ed. & introd.), Bérulle and the French School: Selected Writings, transl. L.M. Glendon, New York: Paulist Press, 1989 (The Classics of Western Spirituality). Underhill, E., The Mystics of the Church, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002 (first publ. 1925). Underhill, E., Mysticism: The Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness, Oxford: Oneworld, 2004 (first publ. 1911). Van Nieuwenhove, R., R. Faesen & H. Rolfson (Eds.), Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, New York: Paulist Press, 2008 (The Classics of Western Spirituality). Watson, R., Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes, Boston: Godine, 2007. Wright, W., ‘Seventeenth-Century French Mysticism’, in: Julia A. Lamm (Ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, Hoboken: Wiley, 2013, 437-451.

KEES SCHEPERS MEISTER ECKHART, A MAN FOR ALL CREEDS?

Introduction Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328) was an exceptional medieval mystic, philosopher and theologian. For a long time he was an esteemed member of the largest, most influential and most powerful organization of his time: the western Church. Twice he was appointed magister regens for the Dominican order at the University of Paris; an honor that previously had only been granted to Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Nevertheless, Eckhart’s thinking was highly individual and idiosyncratic. Therefore one might still characterize him as someone who was essentially averse to any type of group thinking or ideology. Eckhart did not shy away from seeking the limits of what Church doctrine allowed. Shortly after his death, this led to the severest of consequences: the condemnation of his teaching as heretical. A further consequence of the ‘unideological’ nature of Eckhart’s thinking is that in modern times his teachings could be abused, aligned with, or appropriated by a diversity of mutually exclusive creeds and ideologies, from Nazism, to Zen-Buddhism, to New Age movements. These extremely dissimilar appropriations of Eckhart’s thought have had equally dissimilar consequences – as we will see – with regard to the status of the self within these creeds and ideologies, as well as in connection with the sociopolitical dimension of the pertinent appropriation. In this contribution I want to consider two questions. First, how can we explain that Eckhart’s thinking can so easily be appropriated? Second, what is the actual link between Eckhart and the appropriating ideologies and creeds? I will proceed in the following manner. In the first part of this contribution – Eckhart’s Thinking and Contemporary Criticism – I will present what I believe to be some central propositions in the work of Eckhart. This list of propositions is then followed by a discussion of the condemnation of Eckhart in the papal bull of 1329. Not surprisingly, there is a strong link between Eckhart’s central propositions and the condemned articles. In the second part of this contribution – Appropriation and Analogies – I will look at the appropriation by three different creeds and ideologies. Finally, I will draw some conclusions.

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1. Eckhart’s Thinking and Contemporary Criticism 1.1 Eckhart in his own Words Eckhart’s œuvre has a remarkable openness to particular interpretations. Therefore anyone may construct his or her ‘own Eckhart’ through a careful selection of quotes from his works. It is telling in this regard that scholars are unable to agree on whether Eckhart is a philosopher, mystic or theologian. So when I will now use the opportunity to construct my ‘own Eckhart’, it is for the reader to decide whether my selection of essential propositions does Eckhart justice. The first quotation comes from the general prologue to Eckhart’s Opus tripartitum. This major scholarly work in Latin remained for the most part unfinished. Not surprisingly, since it was a hugely ambitious project. Eckhart envisaged it to consist of three parts. The first part would be composed of more than thousand propositions or theses (propositiones), the second part was to discuss questions or problems (quaestiones), and the third would contain expositions (expositiones) on all the books of the Bible. The first part can be called philosophical, the second part theological and the third part exegetical. Few parts were actually written: the Prologus generalis in opus tripartitum, the Prologus in opus propositionum, the Prologus in opus expositionum, versions I and II, and various commentaries to books of the Bible (most importantly the Expositio sancti evangelii secundum Iohannem). Obviously, the significance of the general prologue as a testimony to Eckhart’s most fundamental views cannot be overstated. In the general prologue Eckhart expresses an awareness of the unconventional and even controversial nature of what is to follow. Let me quote what can best be characterized as a caveat: One should note that several of the following propositions, questions, and expositions may at first glance seem monstrous, doubtful or false, but it will be otherwise if they are considered cleverly and more diligently.1

1

‘Advertendum est autem quod nonnulla ex sequentibus propositionibus, quaestionibus, expositionibus primo aspectu monstruosa, dubia aut falsa apparebunt, secus autem si sollerter et studiosius pertractentur’; Prologus generalis in opus tripartitum, in: Magistri Echardi Prologi, Expositio Libri Genesis, Liber parabolarum Genesis, ed. Konrad Weiss, Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke. Die lateinischen Werke. Vol. 1, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964, 152, ll. 3-7. Furthermore abbreviated as LW (lateinischen Werke) and DW (deutschen Werke). Translation in: Bernard McGinn, The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300-1500), New York: Crossroad, 2005 (The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism 4), 99.

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In two further statements Eckhart leaves no doubt over the primacy of the book of propositions, in other words, the primacy of philosophy. First, in the same general prologue, he says: [I]t should be noted in advance that the second work, as well as the third, depend on the first work, namely that of propositions, to such an extent that they are of little use without it.2

That is a very firm statement, effectively saying that theology and exegesis – as I would characterize the content of the second and third book – are of little value in themselves, and that these books can only be properly understood from the perspective of the book of philosophy. In a crucial proposition from the general prologue Eckhart defines what God is: The first proposition then is: Being is God.3

Subsequently, in a related proposition, Eckhart connects the ultimate being to the being of all things, including creatures: [T]he being of all things immediately comes from the first cause and from the universal cause of everything. From this being then, and through it and in it all things are, it itself [this being] is not from anything else.4

When Eckhart later returns to this first proposition, he stresses its huge importance with regard to the books of questions and of expositions. He says: [O]ne should note that from the earlier mentioned first proposition [namely being is God], if deduced properly, every or almost every question that is being is asked about God, can be easily solved, and everything that is written about him in the Scriptures – most of the times also the obscure and difficult things – can be explained by natural reason.5

These basic principles, that Eckhart adhered to ever since the Opus tripartitum, naturally led to propositions about Christ and human nature that were to prove a major source of his doctrinal problems. In one of his German sermons – and 2

3 4

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‘Tertio et ultimo est praenotandum quod opus secundum, similiter et tertium sic dependent a primo opera, scilicet propositionum, quod sine ipso sunt parvae utilitatis’; Prologus generalis, 156, ll. 4-6. ‘Prima igitur propositio est: Esse est deus’; Prologus generalis, 156, l. 11. ‘…esse omnium est immediate a causa prima et a causa universali omnium. Ab ipso igitur esse et per ipsum et in ipso sunt omnia, ipsum non ab alio’; Prologus generalis, 153, ll. 4-6. ‘postremo notandum quod ex praemissa prima propositione [esse est Deus], si bene deducantur, omnia aut fere omnia quae de deo quaeruntur, facile solvuntur, et quae de ipso scribuntur – plerumque etiam obscura et difficilia – naturali ratione exponuntur’; Prologus generalis, 165, ll. 9-12.

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they were scrutinized with even greater suspicion by the ecclesiastical authorities – Eckhart daringly says: He [= The master] also says that the Father, with regard to everything that he ever gave to his son Jesus Christ as to his human nature, rather had me in mind and loved me more than him, and gave it to me rather than to him. (…) whatever he gave to him, he intended to give it to me, and he gave it to me as much as to him; I do not exclude anything, neither union, nor sanctity of the divinity, nor anything else.6

Propositions like this did indeed bring on Eckhart’s doctrinal problems. This daring proposition is easy to explain within the context of Eckhart’s thinking, as it naturally comes forth from his primary proposition: ‘Being is God’. From this central proposition Eckhart develops the view that what is called the Son is merely the self-expression of this being. Everything that is, receives its being from God. Since there is only one original being, Christ as a human person, receives the same being from God that every person receives, and therefore, essentially, every person is the same son. Eckhart develops an emphatically ontological discourse with regard to the connection between God and man. If being is God; then every derivative being depends on the being of God. And since there can only be one being, the being of Christ and man must be the same. As a consequence, Eckhart expresses little to no interest in a salvation narrative. Consider what he said in one of his German sermons: ‘If, however, it [the eternal birth] does not happen in me, what use is it to me? But that it happens in me, that is what everything depends on’.7 However, since Christ’s unique status and redemptive role are the core of Christian doctrine, Eckhart inevitably had to deal with Christ’s role and function, but he had to do so in a way that would still be in accordance with his philosophical axioms. Eckhart had to find a way to give Christ a special status that would however not set him apart ontologically from all other men. In his system there would not really be a role for Christ in the process of deification, and even less so a redemptive role; Christ seems to have been reduced to the role of messenger. Eckhart does not explicitly say that there is a total identity between man and the only-begotten son. Obviously, this would immediately provoke his 6

7

‘Er [= Der Meister] spricht ouch, daz der vater an allem dem, daz er sinem sun Jesum Chrm ye gegab in menschlicher natur, so hat er mich ee angesehen und mich mer lieb gehebt dan in und gab es mir ee dann im; (…) was er im gab, do meinet er mich mit und gab mirs als wol als im; ich nim nut usz weder eynung noch heilikeit der gottheit noch nutzend nit’; Sermon 5a: In hoc apparuit, DW 1, 77, ll. 10-16. ‘so sie [die ewige geburt] aber in mir niht geschihet, was hilfet mich daz? Aber daz si in mir geschehe, dâ liget ez alles an’; Sermon 101: Dum medium silentium, DW 4.1, 336, ll. 1-2.

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condemnation as an heretic. Eckhart comes as close as possible to professing this identity, though, while continuing to use the term ‘only-begotten son’ for Christ in contradistinction of man. However, this division between Christ and man, that is carefully upheld in terminology, is undercut by phrases that define the status of man as son in relation to Christ as son. A very good example is: ‘now the human person should live so that he may be one with the onlybegotten Son and that he may be the only-begotten Son’.8 1.2 The Condemnation in the Papal Bull (1329) Now let us turn to the inquisitorial process regarding Eckhart, and see what the inquisitors found particularly disturbing in his teaching. Eckhart’s teaching was condemned as heretical in a bull promulgated by Pope John XXII (1244-1334), who resided in Avignon.9 The bull, entitled In agro dominico, was published on 27 March 1329, shortly after Eckhart’s death in 1327/1328.10 The bull was the culmination of an inquisitorial process that had started in Cologne in 1325.11 Nothing is known about the precise time, place and circumstances of Eckhart’s death. We only know that he had travelled to Avignon to argue his innocence against his accusers. There are no traces of him since his departure from Cologne. Before addressing the content of the inquisitorial criticism of Eckhart, we should consider the central tenets of the Christian religion. We will see that the inquisitors are very sensitive to Eckhart’s apparent departing from essential elements of Christian doctrine. The specificity of Christian doctrine lies in a 8

9

10

11

‘Nû sol der mensche alsô leben, daz er ein sî mit dem eingebornen sune und daz er der eingeborne sun sî’; Sermon 10: In diebus suis placuit deo, DW 1, 169, ll. 2-4. There is an important difference between texts condemned as heretical and an author condemned as heretic. Eckhart is ‘saved’ from the gravest possible condemnation as an heretic, but his works are deemed heretical or possibly leading to heresy. This means that Eckhart would need to retract his own works. Since he died before the bull was published, he could not retract the texts even if he wanted to. Eckhart did however defend himself beforehand. He tried to explain some of his suspect texts in an doctrinally acceptable way, and distanced himself from the actual phrasing of some others, saying that these last items did not properly reflect what he had said or written. The definitive critical edition of the bull was published in LW 5, 596-600; cf. Winfried Trusen, Der Prozeß gegen Meister Eckhart: Vorgeschichte, Verlauf und Folgen, Paderborn: Schöningh, 1988, 118-128. An initial investigation by Nicholas of Strasbourg, at the request of Henry of Virneburg, archbishop of Cologne, found him innocent. Nevertheless, Henry of Virneburg ordered an inquisitorial process in 1325. Before the expected condemnation was issued, Eckhart stated that he did not accept the authority of the inquisitors. He instead appealed to the Pope directly, and he took off to Avignon to argue his case.

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limited set of crucial beliefs. The following two propositions certainly belong to that set of beliefs:12 1. Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God. – (Christ is son by nature, man is son only by grace) 2. Salvation is reached through Christ.

Eckhart formulated daring propositions with regard to precisely these two aspects, and the inquisitors cleverly noticed them. The papal bull contains twenty-eight articles with condemned propositions. Seventeen are labeled as plainly heretical; eleven as suspect of heresy, even though, with ample explanation, they could be interpreted in an orthodox manner. Seven of those twentyeight articles are quotes from Eckhart that have to do with the equality of Christ and man. Among those are: The eleventh article. Whatever God the Father gave to his Only-Begotten Son in human nature, he gave all this to me. I except nothing, neither union nor sanctity; but he gave the whole to me, just as he did to him. The twentieth article. That the good man is the Only-Begotten Son of God. The twenty-first article. The noble man is that Only-Begotten Son of God whom the Father generates from all eternity. The twenty-second article. The Father gives birth to me as his Son and the same Son. Everything that God performs is one; therefore he gives birth to me as his Son without any distinction.13

The implication of propositions like these is that man does not need Christ for his salvation. Such a view obviously posed a fundamental threat to the role of the Church as a mediator in the process of salvation.

12 13

A concise summary of the crucial Christian beliefs is of course found in the Apostles Creed. ‘Undecimus articulus. Quicquid Deus pater dedit filio suo unigenito im humana natura, hoc totom dedit michi. Hic nichil excipio, nec unionem nec sanctitatem, sed totum dedit michi sicut sibi (…) Vicesimus articulus. Quod bonus homo est unigenitus filius Dei (…) Vicesimusprimus articulus. Homo nobilis est ille unigenitus filius Dei, quem pater eternaliter genuit (…) Vicesimussecundus articulus. Pater generat me suum filium et eundem filium. Quicquid Deus operatur, hoc est unum; propter hoc generat ipse me suum filium sine omni distinctione’. English translation of the articles taken from Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, tranls. & introd. Edmund Colledge & Bernard McGinn, New York: Paulist Press, 1981 (The Classics of Western Spirituality), 77-81.

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2. Appropriation and Analogies As stated before, there is a certain appealing ‘openness’ to Eckhart’s works. This ‘openness’ – for lack of a better word – allows for his work to be seen as unideological, of being trans-temporal, even of being trans-cultural and transreligious. It is not without reason that among the famous Christian mystics of the medieval or early-modern era, it is precisely Eckhart who has attracted the greatest interest. Eckhart talks about the ‘being’ of a human person, and beneath the constricting confines of ideologies that human persons are often subjected to, people sense the unideological nature of ‘being’ that is shared by all of humankind. In the early nineteenth century, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer articulated this perception of Eckhart as someone who is essentially free of any specific religious ideology: If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni [i.e. Buddha] and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing; only that the former dared to express his ideas plainly and positively, whereas Eckhart is obliged to clothe them in the garment of the Christian myth, and to adapt his expressions thereto.14

2.1 Eckhart and the Appropriation by Nazism I will start with a painful chapter in the history of Eckhart appropriation: the abuse of his work by Nazi ideology. There are two cases of Nazi appropriation of Eckhart that deserve attention. Let me say on the outset that it would not be right to speak of any sort of influence of Eckhart on Nazi ideology, since Eckhart’s thought was so thoroughly distorted by those who claimed to admire him, that this can only be called abuse.15 The first case, of implicit appropriation, is that by some of the founding fathers of the monumental critical edition of Eckhart’s work. It is a not too widely known fact that this prestigious series of editions of Meister Eckhart’s German and Latin works began as an idea born from the heart of Nazi-ideology. The idea for this edition, that began to be published in 1936 and is continued 14

15

‘Ueberhaupt, wenn man von den Formen, welche die äußern Umstände herbeiführen, absieht und den Sachen auf den Grund geht, wird man finden, daß Schakia Muni und Meister Eckhard dasselbe lehren; nur daß jener seine Gedanken geradezu aussprechen durfte, Dieser hingegen genötigt ist, sie in das Gewand des christlichen Mythos zu kleiden und diesem seine Ausdrücke anzupassen’, Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. 2 Vols., Leipzig: Kröner, s.a., vol. 2, ch. 48, 340-341. Cf. Ingeborg Degenhardt, Studien zum Wandel des Eckhartbildes, Leiden: Brill (Studien zur Problemgeschichte der antiken und mittelalterlichen Philosophie 3), 1967, 261-276.

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onto this day, was promoted by Erich Seeberg, a theologian, who was an enthusiastic member of the NSDAP.16 Seeberg later edited a small number of Eckhart’s Latin works. Some of the early editors of the series were influenced by the Nazi-ideology. Most prominent among them is Josef Quint (1898-1976), the editor of the first volume of Eckhart’s German sermons, who became a member of the NSDAP in 1937.17 The Nazi influence on the edition, however, lasted only a very short time. The second case, of explicit appropriation, is of much greater weight. Meister Eckhart was badly abused by the chief ideologue of the NSDAP Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946) to underpin the Nazi ideology. In 1941 he became minister responsible for the occupied territories in the East. He was put on trial in Nürnberg and sentenced to death by hanging. In his work Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, first published in 1930, Rosenberg turned Eckhart into an involuntary accomplice for his attempt to provide an intellectually acceptable foundation for the racist element in Nazi ideology.18 And shockingly, Eckhart plays no small role in this Nazi effort, for three reasons. First, Rosenberg was one of the most important Nazi ideologues. His work The Myth of the 20th Century, sold over one million copies, and was provided to every staff member of the NSDAP.19 Second, Eckhart is presented as the most important German thinker to ever have lived. Third, Eckhart is also the most important building block in Rosenberg’s racist concept of German superiority on the one hand and Jewish turpitude on the other. How does Rosenberg make the connection between Eckhart and Nazism? Rosenberg devotes a long chapter to Eckhart, in which he establishes a link that is however based on a deliberately false interpretation of Eckhart’s teaching.20 If it were not for history that ran its tragic course, we could simply ignore Rosenberg’s interpretation of Eckhart.21 As a deceitful literary surgeon he takes the essence out of Eckhart’s body of works, to replace it with a new essence. 16

17

18

19

20 21

Thomas Kaufmann: ‘Seeberg, Erich’, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie. Vol. 24, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2010, 136-137. After the war Josef Quint defended a staunchly Orthodox Catholic interpretation of Eckhart’s works. Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der seelisch-geistigen Gestaltenkämpfe unserer Zeit, München: Hoheneichen, 1930. by decrees of the Roman Catholic Church, dated February 7, 1934 and of July 17, 1935, Alfred Rosenberg’s Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts and his An die Dunkelmänner unserer Zeit: Eine Antwort auf die Angriffe gegen den ‘Mythus des 20. Jahrhundert’, were condemned, and placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Remarkably, Hitler’s Mein Kampf was not placed on the Index (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum). Book 1, Chapter 3: Mystik und Tat, 217-264. An early response to Rosenberg was Alois Dempf, Meister Eckhart: Eine Einführung in sein Werk, Leipzig: Hegner, 1934.

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He thus completely ignores what Eckhart wanted to say, while pretending to speak for him. Rosenberg’s interpretation is, however, no laughing matter, given its role in the tragic events that ensued. Therefore we must consider in more detail how he went about it, to see where Rosenberg latched onto Eckhart’s works, transformed them and fed them to the masses. Already on the first page of the chapter he uses the concept of a ‘northern essence’, ein nordisches Wesen. Eckhart is portrayed as the prime representative of a larger category, that of der deutsche Mystiker. This deutsche Mystiker is in turn defined as someone who is not only above desires for earthly pleasures, but who also deems the so-called ‘good works’ as non-essential. The latter is certainly a dig at Catholicism. The second objective of Rosenberg, apart from turning Eckhart into a Nazi, is to portray the organized religions of his day, the Catholic Church in particular, in the worst possible light, and to suggest that this institute intentionally repressed the Northern Spirit. Rosenberg presents a type of dichotomy that dictatorial ideologies always use: either we stand up to defend ourselves, or we will be forever enslaved. But let us return to what Rosenberg considers essential to the German mystic. It is the awareness of his spiritual power, honor and freedom – in German seelische Macht, Ehre and Freiheit.22 Rosenberg then posits that this proud awareness of power and freedom resides in Eckhart’s Fünklein of the soul. This constitutes the fundamental surgical replacement of Eckhart’s true essence with the Nazist fictitious one. In Eckhart’s work the Fünklein der Seele is the innermost part of the soul where God and man meet. The section ends with a general remark about the type that the German mystic is: ‘in the German mystic the reborn German person appears consciously and for the first time’.23 The racist ideology remains an implicit undercurrent in the analysis of Eckhart for a few pages, but it becomes explicit when Rosenberg attributes to Eckhart this awareness of freedom and might, that he calls a fundamental awareness of ‘the Aryan essence’. The view that Eckhart, in everything that he wrote, defended the honor and freedom of the Northern Spirit, remains the crucial point in the whole of the chapter. In one of the concluding pages, Rosenberg finally drops all pretence that he endeavoured an honest, albeit, provocative interpretation of Eckhart. Rosenberg exposes his vicious racism, for which he has tried to enlist Eckhart, when he deliberately misinterprets Eckhart in the most obvious fashion. In one sermon Eckhart speaks of blood and flesh, which he then interprets mystically – as he does in all of his sermons.24 Even 22 23

24

Rosenberg, Der Mythos, 217, 218. ‘Im deutschen Mystiker tritt zuerst und bewuβt (…) der neue, der wiedergeborene germanische Mensch in die Erscheinung’, Rosenberg, Der Mythos, 220. Sermon 26, 1963, 271.

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though Rosenberg for a brief moment acknowledges that Eckhart provides an allegorical interpretation of blood, a mere two sentences later Rosenberg understands blood in the most literal sense. He gives way to a gush of the clearest racism found in this chapter, as he says: ‘Meister Eckhart’s teachings is not fit for scoundrels, nor for that racial mixture of alien type which has seeped into the heart of Europe from the east (…) Eckhart’s teaching of the soul is directed at the carriers of the same or related blood (…) not to the spiritually alien or those of hostile blood’.25 Rosenberg is again abusive along the same lines in the interpretation of a line of Eckhart that he quotes twice. When Eckhart says that a person should be ‘one with himself’, then Rosenberg deliberately misunderstands this to mean that the German people must be united.26 Given Rosenberg’s monomaniacal focus on the nordic-germanic soul and it unique connection to God, it comes as no surprise that he gives little to no attention to Christ, let alone his role in salvation. 2.2 Eckhart and Analogies with Buddhism If we now turn our attention to an entirely different spiritual realm, we can consider the very real analogies between Eckhart’s thought and Buddhism, in particular Zen Buddhism. Of all religious systems this seems to be the one closest to Eckhart, and a wealth of scholarship has been devoted to analyze the parallels. In the case of Buddhism we find not so much appropriation of Eckhart (Buddhists seem to have little interest in appropriation), but rather a perceived natural resemblance between the religious views of Eckhart and Zen Buddhists. I am well aware that I can only scratch the surface of the comparison between both religious systems. Perhaps the most interesting perspective on the analogies between Buddhism and Meister Eckhart is that of Japanese Zen scholars who decided to turn their attention to Eckhart’s mysticism. Two of the most prominent Zen-scholars to reflect on the subject, were Shizuteru Ueda and Daisetsu T. Suzuki. Both came to Eckhart unprejudiced. On the one hand they recognized in Eckhart a kindred spirit, whose surprisingly comparable views were greeted with surprise and enthusiasm: on the other hand, however, they also pointed out remaining differences.

25

26

‘…für einen Bastard taugt Meister Eckeharts Lehre nicht, ebensowenig für jene fremdartige Rassenmischung, die von Osten in das Herz Europas eingesickert ist (…) Eckeharts Seelenlehre richtet sich an die Träger des gleichen oder verwandten Blutes (…) nicht an die seelisch Fremde und blutsmäβig Feindliche’, Rosenberg, Der Mythos, 258. ‘Mit sich selbst eins werden’, Rosenberg, Der Mythos, 273, cf. 699.

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Shizuteru Ueda wrote an entire book devoted to the analysis of the mystical anthropology of meister Eckhart.27 The actual comparison to Zen-Buddhism is restricted to the last chapter (145-169). Ueda identifies important correspondences between Eckhart’s teaching and Zen-Buddhism. Most importantly, Eckhart holds a radical view of the transcendence of the Godhead. One should try to go beyond God to reach the Godhead. Eckhart also postulates the identity of the Seelengrund and the Godhead. In his evaluation, however, Shizuteru Ueda points to remaining differences, which, in the final analysis, he finds to outweigh the correspondences. The fundamental difference is the personalistic theism that he attributes to Eckhart.28 This main assertion of Ueda – Eckhart’s alleged adherence to a personalistic theism – seems questionable. In order to show how Buddhism is different in this respect, Ueda quotes a typical Zen-Buddhist maxim: ‘move on quickly from where Buddha is’.29 There can indeed be no doubt that the person of Buddha, being merely a wise man, is only a distraction in Buddhism, and cultic veneration of Buddha is therefore a superficial phenomenon. The comparison with Christian veneration of the God-man Christ – if that is what Ueda aims at – is fundamentally incongruous. Furthermore, as I discussed earlier, the salvific role of Christ seems to be absent in Eckhart’s mysticism.30 Eckhart’s view on transcendence is even more radical, he deems it essential to transcend ‘God’. One might say that even ‘God’ is a distraction, since devotion to God necessarily places man opposite the divine entity, whereas Eckhart suggests we should overcome any dichotomy by merging with and into the Godhead. It is this view on God and transcendence from which some propositions came forth that ended up in the bull In agro dominico, in particular article 6: ‘Anyone who blasphemes God himself praises God’, and 7: ‘…he who prays for anything particular prays badly…’.31 I would argue, moreover, that Ueda provides an inaccurate characterization of Eckhart. First, Ueda fails to take into account the religious culture that Eckhart lived in, which necessarily influenced the religious foundation that 27

28

29 30

31

Shizuteru Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und der Durchbruch zur Gottheit: Die mystische Anthropologie Meister Eckharts und ihre Konfrontation mit der Mystik des Zen-Buddhismus, Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965. ‘Die Untrennbarkeit der auch theistisch gefärbten Unendlichkeitsmystik Eckharts von ihrem theistischen Unterbau wird unverkennbar klar, wenn man Meister Eckharts Mystik mit dem Zen-Buddhismus vergleicht’, Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt, 146. ‘Geh schnell vorbei, wo Buddha ist’, Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt, 146. I am well aware that there are different opinions on this matter; see for example: Colledge & McGinn (Eds.), Meister Eckhart, 45-57. Art. 6: ‘Item, Deum ipsum quis blasphemando Deum laudat’. Art. 7: ‘Item, quod petens hoc aut hoc malum petit et male, quia negationem boni et negationem Dei petit, et orat Deum sibi negari’.

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Eckhart built his speculative mysticism on (as Schopenhauer already noted). Second, Ueda incorrectly contextualizes Eckhart, when he says that the master had a great influence on Dutch spirituality through the Devotio Moderna. This spiritual movement was actually explicitly hostile to Eckhartian thinking and spirituality.32 Thirdly, and as a consequence of these two misrepresentations, the sixteenth-century painting that Ueda presents as an expression of Eckhartian spirituality, has no apparent connection to his spirituality. I am rather puzzled as to why Ueda would select a sixteenth-century painting by the Dutch Mannerist painter Pieter Aertsen, and present this work as an expression of Eckhart’s thoughts on transcendence.33 According to Ueda Aertsen would have expressed the spirit of Eckhart, probably through the mediation of the Devotio Moderna. However, even though Aertsen combined genre painting (often using still lifes) with biblical scenes in the background, there is no reason to assume that he invented this genre for other than artistic and commercial reasons. The second author to explicitly evaluate the connection between Eckhart and Zen-Buddhism is Daisetsu Suzuki.34 The first chapter of his book on Christian and Buddhist mysticism is entitled: ‘Meister Eckhart and Buddhism’.35 To Suzuki’s credit I should say that he has a more realistic appreciation than Ueda of the inevitable influence of the historic religious culture that Eckhart lived in and was part of: ‘He [Eckhart] attempts to reconcile them [= his own experiences] with the historical type of Christianity modeled after legends and mythology’.36 On the other hand, it is regrettable that Suzuki viewed Zen as a distinctive expression of Asian spirituality, superior to thinking in the West.37 An example of this exceptionalism is the following quote: ‘Buddhism may be considered more scientific and rational than Christianity, which is heavily laden with all sorts of mythological paraphernalia’.38 That being said, Suzuki tries to look beyond the culturally determined differences. He thus finds striking similarities, propositions that could have been uttered by Buddhists. With regard to Eckhart’s sermons he enthusiastically exclaims: ‘the ideas expounded there 32

33

34

35 36 37

38

Cf. R.A. Ubbink, De receptie van Meister Eckhart in de Nederlanden gedurende de middeleeuwen: Een studie op basis van middelnederlandse handschriften, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1978. Pieter Aertsen, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1553), oil on canvas 200×126cm, Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen. D.T. Suzuki, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, London: Routledge, 2002 (reprint; orig. publ. 1957). Suzuki, Mysticism, 1-30. Ibid., 2. Some scholars have argued that Suzuki’s conviction of the superiority of the East caused him to come close to embracing Japanese militaristic nationalism and even an understanding of Nazism; see Brian Daizen Victoria, Zen at war. 2nd ed., Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006; other scholars, however, argue that he did keep his distance from those ideologies. Suzuki, Mysticism, 6.

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closely approached Buddhist thought, so closely indeed, that one could stamp them almost as coming out of Buddhist speculation’.39 Suzuki is amazed over several concepts in Eckhart’s works that have close parallels in Buddhist thinking. Suzuki notes the ahistorical account of creation in one of the sermons, particularly German sermon Inventus est iustus.40 Suzuki finds this to be remarkably similar to the Buddhist doctrine of Emptiness (sūnyatā). Also Eckhart’s idea of God as being, expressed in German by the word isticheit (is-ness), has a parallel in Buddhist thought, through the concept of is-ness or suchness (tathatā). Suzuki concludes: ‘When I encounter such statements I grow firmly convinced that the Christian experiences are not after all different from those of the Buddhist. Terminology is all that divides us’.41 In view of Eckhart’s daring statements Suzuki finds it only natural that orthodox Christians of his time accused Eckhart of harboring heretical views.42 As an example Suzuki quotes from the sermon Iusti vivent in aeternum: ‘…God’s being is my life, but if it is so, then what is God’s must be mine and what is mine God’s. God’s is-ness is my is-ness, and neither more nor less’.43 Both Ueda and Suzuki are impressed, in particular, with Eckhart’s views on detachment, annihilation and the immediate connection between God and man in the innermost part of the spirit. Strikingly absent in their comparisons between Eckhart’s thought and Buddhist views are the elements of Christian doctrine that are seen by most people as essential to the Christian belief, more specifically the historical salvific role of Christ. It would seem that they both believed Eckhart to have departed largely from traditional views in this regard, or perhaps they considered these characteristics merely to be ‘mythological paraphernalia’. And maybe the explanation has a bit of both. Surely, Eckhart did move away from traditional views and from any Christian mythology in statements like the following, describing what he saw as the proper way to relate to God: ‘Love him as he is: a not-God, a not-spirit, a not-person, a not-image; as a sheer, pure, clear One’.44 Such statement certainly strikes a chord with Buddhists.

39 40 41 42 43 44

Ibid., 1-2. Sermon 10, DW 1. Suzuki, Mysticism, 5. Ibid., 7. Sermon 6, DW 1. Pr. 83, DW 3, 447-448.

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2.3 Eckhart and Analogies with Eckhart Tolle The third case of related doctrines that I would like to discuss is that of the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and Meister Eckhart. Eckhart Tolle (1948) is considered the most influential spiritual teacher of this time, in what might be called the New Age movement. His books sell millions of copies. His most important work is The Power of Now; it was first published in 1997. The cover looks like of one of those self-help book that you might find in book stores in airports and shopping malls. It has large lettering and no illustration. This esthetically unappealing cover is entirely in line with the intentions of Eckhart Tolle as described in the blurb on the back flap: ‘Eckhart Tolle (…) writes with the timeless and uncomplicated clarity of the ancient spiritual masters and imparts a simple yet profound message’.45 Eckhart Tolle, whose original name is Ulrich Leonard Tolle, was born in Germany. After personal and academic wanderings, he underwent an inner transformation following a prolonged state of profound depression. This event, which occurred in London in 1977, led him to remain in a state of bliss for several years. Gradually he came to be a spiritual teacher, eventually becoming the author of hugely successful books of spiritual guidance. Critics often say that Tolle’s teaching is superficial. Nevertheless, there has been both criticism and praise from theologians. The orthodox consensus surely is that Tolle ignores the ultimate distinction between Christ and man. Interestingly, this was precisely one of the core criticisms leveled against Meister Eckhart. The most obvious sign of influence of Meister Eckhart on Eckhart Tolle is his name, that he adopted after his ecstatic experience. It is interesting to note that the influence of Meister Eckhart on Eckhart Tolle, with regard to textual contents, is not all that obvious; it is certainly not explicit, although it is definitely there. An explanation for the implicit nature of the influence is the fact that Eckhart Tolle deliberately writes a very accessible English, consciously refraining from technical terminology that can be connected to any one religious system. He attempts to transcend the specifics of different religions. From the Christian tradition, meister Eckhart is the most important source of influence. At one occasion he is explicitly mentioned, in a passage where Tolle also refers the Zen master Rinzai, and the Sufi mystic Rumi.46 Tolle finds wisdom more important than knowledge. Most academics working on religion or philosophies of life consciously or unconsciously know this to be true. Knowledge is connected to the intellect, while wisdom is connected to a deeper sense of being. The experience of this deepest being is attained not by rational thought but 45

46

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. With a New Preface by the Author, Novato, CA: Namaste Publishing and New World Library, 1999, repr. 2004. Tolle, The Power of Now, 52-53.

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through supra-rational perception by the highest part of the spirit. This deeper perception and awareness is indeed the objective of Eckhart Tolle. His goal is to be a spiritual teacher, and he therefore tries to guide his readers towards wisdom, not to knowledge. Upon reading his work, it is obvious, though, that he has a profound understanding of mystics, both through knowledge and from personal experience. Tolle leaves out every aspect of religious ideology. The specifics of historic religious ideology are to him, as they were to Schopenhauer, only the garment that the essential wisdom is accidentally dressed in. If we now turn to the mostly implicit influence of Meister Eckhart, we find that there are two crucial concepts of Eckhart Tolle that seem to be rooted in the same concepts in the works of Meister Eckhart (I limit my comparison to what I consider to be essential). These are the two shared concepts. First, in the words of Tolle there is the essential connection of man to Being; with Meister Eckhart the essential connection is that of man to God as Being. Second, Tolle stresses – up to the title of his book – the importance of the ‘now’ and the ‘present’; this strongly resembles das ewige nun and the gegenwertige nu in the words of Meister Eckhart, which is the necessary precondition to attain the awareness of the connection with Being/God. We have seen that Meister Eckhart defined God as Being. Eckhart Tolle similarly presents ‘Being’ as the essence from which each person depends. I quote: ‘Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost and indestructible essence’.47 The one difference with Meister Eckhart is that Tolle does not use the term’ God’ for Being. Tolle consciously avoids the term ‘God’ in this context, because, as he says, the word ‘God’ has become empty of meaning, because everyone who uses it has his or her own idea about what it refers to.48 For Tolle there are several important positive aspects to the awareness of the ‘eternal now’. The first is that it allows for the awareness of the connection of the individual with its eternal being. Without experience of the Now the connection to the eternal being cannot be perceived. In Meister Eckhart’s work das ewige or gegenwertige Nun has the same meaning and function. A second positive aspect for Tolle of ‘now’ is that it is not ‘time’. He considers ‘time’ to be an aspect of institutionalized ideologies and religions, that all share the idea of some future fulfillment both on an individual and a communal level. More often than not, institutionalized ideologies and religions eventually lead to injustices as a regrettable side-effect of attempting to attain the ultimate goal.

47 48

Tolle, The Power of Now, 13. Ibidem.

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3. Conclusions The three ideologies and creeds discussed in this contribution all find something to their taste in the works of Eckhart, and therefore they relate to his thought in wholly different ways. Alfred Rosenberg, the main Nazi ideologue, distorts and exploits Eckhart’s thinking in order to construct a powerful ‘German’ identity for every German to adopt. The individual is implicitly discouraged to explore the inner self; rather, he or she is encouraged to feel part of the monolithic German people, united within a new political order, fighting for a common cause. The political exploitation of Eckhart, represented by the work of Rosenberg, is therefore key to the Nazi ‘appropriation’ of Eckhart. The Eckhart appropriation by Eckhart Tolle is the complete opposite. Tolle seeks to lead his readers towards the ecstatic, liberating experience that he himself had enjoyed. He had found a way out of existential suffering by experiencing the ultimate ‘being’ in the ‘now’. Tolle perceived that same connection to the ultimate being in the works of Meister Eckhart. It is Tolle’s deepest conviction that if one succeeds to life in the ‘now’, the ‘self’ is dissolved and all of its suffering ends with it. Tolle’s complete focus on the possibility to free oneself from suffering by living in the now, has led him to be criticized for ignoring the societal and political circumstances that may contribute to suffering. The Buddhist reading of Eckhart by Shizuteru Ueda and Daisetsu Suzuki is more complex. Both Ueda and Suzuki perceive strong analogies between Buddhism and Eckhart’s thought, particularly the overcoming of the limitations of the individual self to merge with the ultimate being. Both scholars, however, tended towards the superiority of Buddhism. Ueda was of the opinion that there were remains of a theistic concept of the ultimate being in Eckhart’s work, something that is completely absent in Buddhist thinking; Suzuki, for his part, felt that Asian spirituality in itself was superior to Western thinking. Whereas Ueda steered clear of the politicizing of Buddhist thought, Suzuki aligned himself with conservative political forces in Japan, for which he has been criticized. Finally, several more specific conclusions can be drawn from the brief comparisons between Eckhart’s teachings and three other creeds and ideologies. First, and most importantly, the aspects of Eckhart’s teaching that were criticized by his inquisitors are precisely those aspects that the appropriating ideologies and creeds use to connect their own beliefs to those of Meister Eckhart. Simply put, the appropriators latch onto the elements that the inquisitors criticize. And those aspects are: the apparent absence of a unique status of Christ as Son of God and as savior; and the unmediated connection between God and man.

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Second. Although the diverse ways in which Eckhart was appropriated are very different (and we can dismiss the Nazi-appropriation), they all seem to suggest, I would argue, that the inquisitors had it right. They perceived aspects of Eckhart’s work that were a threat in their eyes, but provided an opportunity in the eyes of all those who later appropriated Eckhart. Third. Following from the second conclusion: it seems easier to argue that Eckhart did indeed overstep the boundaries of Christian doctrine than to argue that he was misunderstood.

MICHEL DIJKSTRA TO LEARN THE TRUTH IS TO LEARN OURSELVES

As Kees Schepers lucidly pointed out, the work of Meister Eckhart can easily be appropriated because of his bold statements about the oneness of God and the innermost core of the soul, his rhetoric style and his fondness of seeking the boundaries of the Christian doctrine of his time by presenting (as he writes) the nova et rara or the ‘new and unusual’ in his commentaries on the Bible.1 Different creeds appropriated Eckhart according to their own ideologies, like Zen Buddhism or New Age. The seemingly absent role of Christ in Eckhart writings seems to be the argument that enables authors to dress up the Master with a Zen cloak or a New Age garment. As Daisetz Suzuki states: ‘I’m sure Eckhart knew satori or Zen enlightenment’.2 So, after all, Eckhart possessed a genuine Japanese soul, isn’t it? Let us, if you like, reflect for a moment on the Zen Buddhist appropriation of Meister Eckhart once again. I think it’s obvious that Suzuki shows strong Japanese essentialist characteristics in his writings on the Dominican. Shizuteru Ueda, however, proceeds more like a comparative philosopher, meticulously analyzing Meister Eckhart’s texts.3 It’s quite striking that Bernhard Welte, who was well aware of the crucial role of Christ in Eckhart’s writings, doesn’t criticize Ueda for neglecting this point of the Christian doctrine. He criticizes, however, the Japanese author for his lack of knowledge of the pagan sources of Eckhart’s philosophy, especially Aristotle.4 But it’s quite possible, as Kees Schepers stated, to see this lack of knowledge as a special form of appropriation.

1 2 3

4

Meister Eckhart, Lateinische Werke 1 (Prologus Generalis), Stuttgart 1965, n.2, 149. Cf. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Der westliche und der östliche Weg, Frankfurt a.M. 1957, 79. Cf. Shizuteru Ueda, ‘Freedom and Language in Meister Eckhart and Zen Buddhism, Part One’, transl. Richard F. Szippl, in: Eastern Buddhist 23 (1990) no.2, 18-59; and ‘Freedom and Language in Meister Eckhart and Zen Buddhism, Part Two’, transl. Richard F. Szippl, in: Eastern Buddhist 24 (1991) no.1, 52-80. See also: Shizuteru Ueda, ‘Ascent and Descent: Zen Buddhism in Comparison with Meister Eckhart, Part One’, transl. Ian Astley & James W. Heisig, in: Eastern Buddhist 16 (1983) no.1, 52-73; and ‘Ascent and Descent: Zen Buddhism in Comparison with Meister Eckhart, Part Two’, transl. Ian Astley & James W. Heisig, in: Eastern Buddhist 16 (1983) no.2, 72-91. Bernhard Welte, Gesammelte Schriften II/1: Denken im Begegnung mit den Denkern I: Meister Eckhart, Thomas von Aquin, Bonaventura, Freiburg 2007, 240-245.

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I believe that in comparing Zen Buddhism with the writings of Meister Eckhart we can develop a different kind of appropriation than that of Suzuki or Ueda. A form of appropriation between the two traditions that can be highly fruitful. Consider, for example, these lines of Eckhart from his work On the Nobleman: Be one, so that you may find God! And truly, if you are indeed one, you would also remain one in distinction, and distinction would be one in you, and there would be nothing that could in any way hinder you. One always remains one, in a thousand times a thousand stones just as in four stones, and a thousand times a thousand is as truly a single number as is four.5 One can view these words of Eckhart as a reflection on the intimacy between the One and the Many: both concepts are inseparable. Interestingly enough, Eckhart’s Japanese near-contemporary, Zen Master Dōgen (1200-1253), also holds the view that the One and the Many (Buddha Nature and everything that exists or ‘the myriad dharmas’) are inseparable.6 In this context, he uses his concept ji ji mu ge, the non-obstruction or universal openness between all things.7 In his piece Genjokoan, Dogen writes: To learn the Buddha’s truth is to learn ourselves. To learn ourselves is to forget ourselves. To forget ourselves is to be experienced [enlightened, affirmed, verified, practiced] by the myriad dharmas.8 If we compare Eckhart’s ‘nicht hindern’ (no hindrance) with Dōgen’s ‘non-obstruction between all things’, key features of both the medieval Christian and the medieval Zen Buddhist doctrines become clear. Eckhart states that if one can view all things from the ‘perspective’ of oneness, the Many doesn’t distract you anymore. Dōgen says that you can only view the oneness of all things if you emerge yourself deeply in the multitude of things that surround you. In both cases, a profound peace seems to be discovered, be it through different ways. Perhaps it’s possible for both the Christian and Zen Buddhist tradition to appropriate these ways. In that way, comparative philosophy can open up new perspectives. To say the least, it can enrich our interpretation of Meister Eckharts thought.

5

6

7 8

Edmund Colledge & Bernard McGinn (Eds.), Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense, Mahwah 1980, 244. Cf. Gudo Nishijima & Chodo Cross (transl.), Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Book 2, London 1994, 2. Cf. Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, New York 1977. Gudo Nishijima & Chodo Cross (transl.), Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Book 1, London 1994, 34.

WOLFGANG CHRISTIAN SCHNEIDER SCHWENCKFELD AND SUDERMANN AS MEDIATORS OF LATE MEDIEVAL SPIRITUALITY IN THE BAROQUE PERIOD

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Church reform and Reformation found themselves in conflict: on the one hand, there was the instance of the independent personality, acquired in the course of the fifteenth century, with its unconventional striving to create its own environment; on the other hand, there was the increasingly clear consciousness of a material world of objects and external worlds, a self-existing reality that human beings had to acknowledge and take as the basis for their activities. Below the surface, these two aspects were related to each other; they were simply mirror images, but there was little awareness of this. Nevertheless, it was necessary to balance out the claims of the independent person and of the factual reality in which man sees himself. However, the different perspectives did not manifest themselves in complete isolation, but often occurred interlocked, so that although judgments and evaluations resulted from the postulated independence, they resulted in factualities that were accepted as generally binding realities. At the same time, the singular positions tried to enforce these realities, which had been opened up on their own, with unconditional (and even violent) resistance to the other positions of self-reliance. In essence, then, the question arose how the individual, in his own individual value and in his self-responsible consciousness, could attain his own religious position and maintain it in the long run. This raised the question of the particular individual spirituality that permeates the early modern period. The newly experienced and claimed self-responsibility in the religious realm was accompanied by far-reaching problems: above all, the question of the actual content of the seemingly eternal words and sayings of the Gospels and other canonical writings. The Scriptures were now widely available in printed books and were read independently as literacy increased. This led to the question of their actual and personal meaning, a question which each reader had to grapple with in the end and could only be answered by the person himself.

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The Problem of Writing and the Subsequent Interpretation Some claimed to be able to determine the factuality of the statements in the – allegedly – clearly transmitted and clearly understandable texts of the Christian canon safely and bindingly, so that a solid platform for the pure understanding of what was laid down in the canonical writings could be provided, which merely needed to be implemented in the sense of a fixed order. From the claim of a human being’s interpretative autonomy there resulted an unavoidable, unambiguous facticity that was to be followed. Thus the representatives of this autonomy came to a new, specifically Scripture-based, orthodoxy. The line Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn (‘The Word it shall abide’),1 became, as it were, the watchword of this religiosity. Although those who claimed such religiosity did not follow these paths consistently, they nevertheless allowed themselves to be guided by this concept in their reception of Scripture and cultivated an almost pseudo-rational and moralizing interpretation of the Bible. Others did the same, except that they referred to the inherited Christian interpretive traditions grounded in late Antiquity. All of this caused the mystical aspects of religiosity that had emerged in the late Middle Ages and were subliminally present even in the sixteenth century (shaping, too, the so-called Reformers) to fade away and appear peripheral, even though in the late fifteenth century it had been possible for these mystical aspects to be connected with a high degree of intellectuality – as Cusanus shows. A third group of people combined the components of human autonomy, the factuality of reality and the inviolable truth of Scripture in another way: they allowedmore space for man’s autonomy, saw facticity in general, although understood as performed by God, appearing in human action, but found less quickly a closed interpretation of the reality described in Scripture. For some, this outlook led to a piety tinged with scepticism, which, while recognizing the individual’s ability to know and the autonomy of man, also saw their limitations and responded to these with a simple trust in divinely-given reality. The best-known representative of this position was Erasmus of Rotterdam. For others, this attitude allowed for interpretation on the basis of statements found in the Scriptures as well as of statements directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, who was seen as effective in each individual directly. Consciously or not, representatives of the third position resorted to spiritual impulses of the late Middle Ages, to spiritual traditions and practices of German mysticism and to lay spiritual movements that had been alive on the Upper and the Lower Rhine and in the Meuse region. In the course of the increasing 1

First line of the last verse of the Lutheran hymn ‘Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott’ (‘A mighty fortress is our God’) (1529).

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mental und spiritual hardening during the sixteenth century explicit efforts were made within these circles towards a reception of the mystical thought of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. I would like to pursue this in detail, at least in outline, guided by the work of two people who defied the antagonistic parties of Rome-oriented ‘Catholics’ and ‘Protestants’ (i.e. ‘Lutherans’ and the ‘Reformed’) – and for this were persecuted by both of them: first, Caspar Schwen(c)kfeld von Ossig (1490-1561), and second, Daniel Sudermann (1550-1631). The Spiritual Mystical Legacy in the Years around 1500 – the Taulerian Influence The mysticism of the late Middle Ages was quite alive around 1500, as exemplified by an incunabulum printed in Leipzig in 1498 with texts by Tauler and a Tauler print that appeared in Augsburg in 1508. But this was only the appearance of a broad handwritten tradition in the new medium of print. Its main area was the upper Rhineland, especially Alsace and the Breisgau. An important centre of this German mystical tradition that was still active in the early sixteenth century seems to have been Strasbourg. Meister Eckhart repeatedly visited the city between 1314 and 1322/1324, and the Strasbourgian Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) met him there several times. A Dominican since 1314, Tauler frequently worked in Strasbourg, especially in the Dominican convent of St. Nicholas in Undis (‘St. Nikolaus am Giesen’), and also in the Upper Rhine area, and later on in Basel and Cologne, until he returned to Strasbourg, where he died in the Dominican convent of his sister on June 16, 1361. This convent, which for some time had been headed by Meister Eckhart and then by Johannes Tauler, was reformed according to the strict observance in 1431, with the help of nuns from Basel and Kolmar.2 Henceforth, the cultivation of mystical literature played an important role in this institution, to which numerous sermon manuscripts, especially those with works by Tauler,3 bear witness. And a network of similarly active convents was set up, as was reflected in the exchange of manuscripts – and can to some extent still be traced today. 2

3

On the history of the convent: Andreas Rüther & Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘The Sermon Manuscripts of the Dominican Convent in St. Nicholas in undis: Historical Stock, History, Comparison’, in: Volker Mertens (Ed.), The German Sermon in the Middle Ages. International Symposium at the Department of German Studies of the Free University of Berlin from 3.-6. October 1989, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992, 169-193, here 175-180. See Wolfgang Christian Schneider, ‘Tauler’sches Schrifttum in späten Handschriften und im Frühdruck im Umkreis der spiritualistischen Bewegung’, in: Marie-Anne Vannier (Ed.), Mystique Rhénane et Devotio Moderna, Paris 2017, 135-150.

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Tauler took an active part in the spiritual movement. Early on, he supported the ‘Friends of God’, a group of laymen which, among others, included Heinrich von Nördlingen. Tauler also promoted the Beguine movement,4 but distanced himself from the ‘Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit’. Heinrich von Nördlingen also included Rulman Merswin (1307-1382) in this Taulerian circle of ‘God’s friends’. This wealthy citizen of Strasbourg had in 1367 acquired for his circle, to which other wealthy people also belonged, a decaying monastery on an island in the river Ill, which was subsequently renovated and expanded: the ‘Grüne Wörth’. In 1371 he gave it to the Knights of St. John, though the decisive influence in all matters of the house was contractually reserved for the three caretakers (all laymen) of the convent. Everyone, including laypeople, was admitted here on no other condition than having a large enough personal fortune to avoid being a burden on the house. Merswin himself also moved into the house and wrote his spiritual works there, such as the ‘Nine-Rock Book’ and the ‘Master Book’, which included references to Dante’s Commedia. The ‘House on the Grüne Wörth’ became a place of central importance to the spiritualist ‘friends of God’ on the Upper Rhine. The interdependencies, verifiable in the manuscripts, of numerous lay circles in the German south-west prove the success of their far-reaching endeavours even today. In particular, mystical literature was cultivated and preserved at the ‘Grüne Wörth’, where a rich library came together.5 Thus, for example, the oldest known manuscript of Heinrich Seuse’s ‘Exemplar’ was written for the ‘Grüne Wörth’, and other popular authors whose works were kept in the library were Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Heinrich von Nördlingen and Margareta Ebner, Otto von Passau, and Marquard von Lindau. Even after Merswin’s death, the institution he donated remained effective to a considerable extent. Numerous members of the rich urban class and the nobility withdrew there, such as the temporary mayor of Augsburg, Sigmund

4

5

The beguines’ closeness to heterodox, free-thinking tendencies on the Upper Rhine triggered strife and persecution in Strasbourg; see Alexander Patschovsky, ‘Straßburger Beginenverfolgungen im 14.Jh.’; in: Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 30 (1974), 56-198; especially 118-125 and 191-198. The library burned down in 1870, but a directory survives that provides its outlines; see Richard F. Fasching, ‘Büchererwerb und -produktion im “Grünen Wörth”: Ein Beitrag zur Bibliotheksgeschichte der Strassburger Johanniterkommende’, in: Wybren Scheepsma, Gijs van Vliet & Geert Warnar (Eds.), Friends of God: Vernacular literature and religious Elites in the Rhineland and the Low Countries (1300-1500), Rome 2018 (Temi e Testi 171), 163-198. For Nikolaus von Löwen’s ‘Pflegermemorial’ (Strasbourg, Bezirksarchiv, Cod. H 1383) see Christiane Krusenbaum-Verheugen, Figuren der Referenz: Untersuchungen zu Überlieferung und Komposition der ‘Gottesfreundliteratur’ in der Straßburger Johanniterkomturei zum ‘Grünen Wörth’, Tübingen/ Basel 2013 (Bibliotheca Germanica 58), 153-158.

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Gossembrot and the dean of Freiburg Cathedral, Heinrich Laufenberg. Emperor Maximilian visited the house during each of his seven stays in Strasbourg.6 Around 1500, Strasbourg therefore had two centres of spiritual and mystical traditions, both of which originated with Tauler: the Dominican Convent ‘St. Nikolaus am Giessen’ (St. Nicholas in Undis), which existed until 1592, and Merswin’s monastery on the ‘Grüne Wörth’, which was dissolved only in the course of the Napoleonic Wars. Both institutions had ties with the leading class of the imperial city of Strasbourg, and were at the same time in close contact with the spiritual movements on the Upper and the High Rhine. Ultimately – the network of mystically-tinged sermon manuscripts indicates this – they had strong relationships with the whole south-west of Germany, and also with Cologne, the spiritual centre of the Lower Rhine area. The Religious and Religio-Political Situations on the Upper Rhine in the Early Sixteenth Century Against the background of this intense spiritual, especially also lay-spiritual, life on the Upper and the High Rhine, it is understandable that in the German south-west the dispute between ‘Church reform’ and ‘Reformation’ proved to be particularly complicated. Although the Zwinglian and Calvinistic movements as well as that of the Lutherans were in part well received, they also faced important and sagacious representatives of the Roman ‘Church reform’, in addition to which there was a third group that had considerable weight: the adherents of a grassroot spiritualist belief. Most of these were of Anabaptist origin. Communities emerged especially in cities, particularly imperial ones, such as Zurich, Basel, Waldshut and Memmingen, but also Strasbourg. In almost all of these places, the local authorities, the Zwinglians as well as the Lutherans and the Catholics, opposed these grassroot religious communities. Their offence was the cultivation of the selfperceived interior of the spiritual (since they saw everything in religious life as dictated by the spiritual gifts of God to the individual). They were therefore regarded as dangerous to the established social order. After all, the rebellions of the peasants on the Upper Rhine, such as the ‘Bundschuh’, had brought to light revolutionary feelings, though this cannot be pursued in detail here. What is important is that the spiritually and mystically interested network of undogmatic laity in the German south-west, which also upheld the Taulerian tradition, was maintained for a long time in the turmoil of ‘reformatio’ efforts, reform and reformation. In particular, it supported diverse grassroot religious 6

Freimut Löser, ‘Merswin, Rulmann’, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 17 (1994), 177f.

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aspirations and therefore attracted those with an independent spiritual mindset. With an eye to the diversity of the religious scene in the German south-west, people moved by deep religious conviction made their way there, such as Thomas Münzer from Stolberg, but also Caspar Schwen(c)kfeld from Ossig in Silesia. In the aftermath he became one of the leaders of the tradition of spiritualmystical thought in the south-eastern part of the empire. Caspar Schwen(c)kfeld von Ossig, Valentin Crautwald, Adam Reissner Caspar Schwen(c)kfeld von Ossig (1490-1561) was expelled from his Silesian homeland for his undogmatic teachings about the Eucharist and from 1529 lived in south-western Germany, especially in the Neckar Valley and in Strasbourg. There, the Silesian nobleman found his way to members of the spiritualist tradition and to people who possessed knowledge of mystical texts, in particular the Taulerian tradition.7 For the decisive places, the convent of St. Nicholas in Undis and the Johanniter convent on the Grüne Wörth, and their social network, still existed. A community formed around Schwenckfeld, using the mystical heritage for their spiritual life beyond the Protestant and Catholic Orthodoxy,8 and also including contemporary sources, such as the thinking of Erasmus and Reuchlin. The community around Schwenckfeld, his humanistically-minded confidant Valentin Crautwald (1465-1545), who had likewise been driven from Silesia, and the Reuchlin student Adam Reissner [Reussner] (1496-1582), cultivated the Taulerian connections. This is certainly also due to the fact that Crautwald, like Reussner, through his proximity to Reuchlin had gained knowledge of Kabbalah and thus of Jewish Neoplatonism, so that they became familiar with Tauler’s Neoplatonic thought.9 To this circle in Strasbourg, which continued after Schwenckfeld’s death in 1561, Daniel Sudermann (born in Liège in 1550) now gained access: either in 7

8

9

For the followers of Schwenckhfeld in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and their network, see Caroline Gritschke, ‘Via media’: Spiritualistische Lebenswelten und Konfessionalisierung. Das süddeutsche Schwenckfeldertum im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2006. In addition to the writings of the Taulerian tradition, the ‘Theologia Deutsch’ and the ‘Imitatio Christi’ by Thomas a Kempis were of importance to the Schwenckfeld followers. For the writings of the Schwenckfeldians, see Gritschke, ‘Via media’, 118ff; highlighted are De Verbo Dei and De Coena Dominica by Valentin Crautwald. Margit Ksoll-Marcon, ‘Reissner, Adam’, in: Biographisch-Bibliographisch Kirchenlexikon. Vol. 7, Herzberg 1994, col. 1581-1584 judges: ‘The historical as well as the theological works are characterized by mysticism, Schwenkfeld’s spiritualism and Reuchlin’s Kabbalistik. Methodically, his works move on the symbolic-mystical interpretation, which is carried out in every little detail. He may be considered as one of Reuchlin’s most consistent disciples’.

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the years after 1564 (when he was a tutor in Strasbourg) or in 1585 (when he was at the Strasbourg Bruderhof, a teaching institution for young nobility from all over the empire). Through this relationship Sudermann, a baptized Catholic with a partially Calvinistic education, acquired knowledge of texts by Tauler and the other German mystics. He also began actively to search for manuscripts from the Taulerian tradition. On the basis of his findings Sudermann was able, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, to publish numerous printed editions of texts by Tauler and other Rhenish mystics. These editions were of great importance for the unorthodox spirituality of the Baroque period. Daniel Sudermann – From Manuscripts to the Printed Books What interested Sudermann most of all is exemplified by Tauler manuscript 1659 of the University Library in Leipzig, which was once in Sudermann’s possession. It escaped the attention of Hans Hornung, who assembled rich material illustrating Sundermann’s collecting activities.10 This manuscript comes from the centre of spirituality in Strasbourg: the Dominican convent of St. Nicholas in Undis, where Tauler spent his last years, and where his memory and teachings were cultivated. The monastery of St. Nicholas in Undis (‘St. Nikolaus am Giessen’) had long and tenaciously resisted when the imperial city of Strasbourg joined the Protestant doctrine. It was only in 1592 that the ‘Ammeister’ – with dubious legality – issued an order to dissolve the convent.11 In the course of this abolition Sudermann must have come into the possession of the library of the monastery of St Nikolaus am Giessen. However, Sudermann not only collected spiritual manuscripts of the Middle Ages in Strasbourg, but also – as reflected 10

11

Hans Hornung, Daniel Sudermann als Handschriftensammler: Ein Beitrag zur Straßburger Bibliotheksgeschichte, Diss. (typescript) Tübingen 1956 [http://bilder.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs// kataloge/HSK0590.htm]. Hans Hornung, ‘Der Handschriftensammler Daniel Sudermann und die Bibliothek des Straßburger Klosters St. Nikolaus in undis’, in: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 107 (1959), 338-399. M. Pieper, Daniel Sudermann (1550 – ca. 1631) als Vertreter des mystischen Spiritualismus, Wiesbaden 1985 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz 121), 31-43. Since cities are coniurationes, the city authorities are not a government in the full sense of the word, but only organs of the coniuratio, i.e. organs of the equal members of the city. Therefore, the authorities resorted to inappropriate – and untrue – legal rhetoric. For example, it was said that the members of the convent were running the affairs of their institution badly and leading an immoral life. At least the latter seems to have been untrue, for not a few nuns continued to refuse the ‘New Faith’ of the municipal authority and moved to the convent of St. Margaretha in Strasbourg, which remained Roman (Strasbourg II / 39, No. 1). That certainly does not suggest an immoral life. J.F. Vierling, Das Ringen um die letzten dem Katholizismus treuen Klöster Straßburgs, Straßburg 1914 (Straßburger Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte 8), 30ff.

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in his later printed editions – in the Cologne area, to which he was connected through his birthplace Liège and through his work there as well as in Cologne and Dusseldorf. Sudermann’s manuscript in Leipzig begins with the ‘Meisterbuch’ (‘Master Book’, ff. 2r-77r) of Rulman Merswin, the head of ‘God’s friends’ in Strasbourg, who were connected with Tauler. It mentions a ‘master’ who is converted from spiritual pride to humility by the ‘God-friend from the upper country’, an idiota in the sence of Cusanus. This is followed by a contemplative text, the ‘Ascension’ (ff. 77r-78r).12 Then follows (ff. 96r-98r) a short text, ‘Tauler in Purgatory’, in which the mystic himself serves as an example.13 Next comes a section from the ‘Buch der zwei Männer’ (‘Book of the Two Men’) by Rulman Merswin (ff. 165v-171r).14 This is followed (ff. 207v-235r) by a translation of the sermon ‘De corpore Christi’, originating in the Bodensee area, written by the Franciscan Marquard von Lindau,15 who was active in Constance, and perhaps also in Strasbourg. He uses not only Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler and John of Ruusbroec, but also the church fathers as well as Hugo of St. Victor and Heinrich von Friemar. The next text (on ff. 235r-239r) is the ‘Twelve Benefits of Corpus Christi’, a translation of a tract by Guiard of Laon, canon of Notre Dame and later bishop of Cambrai (c. 1170-1248).16 The codex closes with short pieces, some of them by Freidank (f. 240v), and two sermons by Tauler (ff. 242v-247v and 274v-275r).17 We are thus given a small overview, as it were, of the spiritual world that was cultivated in Strasbourg – most notably in ‘St. Nikolaus am Giessen’ and in the Grüne Wörth. Those two were both part of this mystic world and communicated with each other, as the inclusion of the ‘master book’ by Rulman Merswin in the codex of St. Nicholas shows. This look at the Leipzig manuscript, formerly in

12 13

14

15

16

17

Karin Schneider, ‘Geistliche Himmelfahrt’, in: Verfasserlexikon (2VL). Vol. 2 (1980), col. 1163f. Thomas Lentes, ‘“Tauler im Fegefeuer” oder der Mystiker als Exempel: Formen der MystikRezeption in 15. Jahrhundert. Mit einem Anhang zum Sterbeort Taulers und Textabdruck’, in: Claudia Brinker, Urs Herzog, Niklaus Largier & Paul Michel (Eds.), Contemplata aliis trader: Studien zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Spiritualität. Festschrift für Alois Maria Haas zum 60. Geburtstag, Bern 1995, 111-155 (without refering to this manuscript). It is an excerpt from chapter 5: Friedrich Lauchert (Ed.), Des Gottesfreundes im Oberland (= Rulman Merswins) Buch von den zwei Mannen, nach der ältesten Strassburger Handschrift [Aus d. Cod. germ. 642 d. Straßburger Univ.- u. Landesbibl.], Bonn 1896, 53. Nigel F. Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, in: 2VL. Vol. 6 (1987), col. 81-126 and vol. 11 (2004), col. 978. Kurt Ruh, ‘Guiard von Laon’, in: 2VL. Vol. 3 (1981), col. 295-299, herr col. 298 (Nr. 4e, without referring to this MS). Bl. 242v-247v contains the sermon Vetter No. 63, pp. 274v-275r, the sermon Vetter No. 38 [an excerpt?].

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the possession of Daniel Sudermann, suggests what Sudermann had available as the manuscript basis for his later printed books of mysticism. At the beginning of Sudermann’s editorial work, however, were the spiritual works of Caspar Schwenckfeld,18 whose teachings had awakened Sudermann’s interest in the mystical texts of the Middle Ages. His eucharistic doctrine and his eirenic attitude had kept distant from the Roman as well as the Lutheran and the Reformed orthodoxies, advocating instead of these a spiritual religiosity of its own, founded in a spirit of divine self-reference, which was experienced in the tradition of medieval mysticism. The tenor of Schwenckfeldt’s writings, all of which came out between 1586 and 1594, makes clear what had moved Sudermann to join Schwenckfeldt: the effort to cultivate the inner, spiritual life – beyond dogmatic demarcations, indeed, implicitly against them. And in this sense, Sudermann drew the texts of the Taulerian circle and the other German spiritualists of the Upper Rhine area in the tradition of Merswin into the rugged and disputed field of public religion in the late sixteenth century. This is reflected in the mystical and spiritual books published by Sudermann, which show a remarkable textual-critical attitude, and thus also reflect the continuance of mystical thinking and its survival into the Baroque period. One of Sudermann’s early edited mystic works, but given out anonymously, is ‘Doctor Johan Taulers Nachfolgung des Armen Lebens Christi. In zwey Theil abgetheilt, Deren der erste sagt viel Underschied der wahren Armut: Der ander lehret, wie man soll kommen zu einem volkommenen armen Leben. Nun zu erst aus einem alten, vor einhundert und siebentzig Jaren geschriebenen Exemplar von Wort zu Wort trewlich und ganz unverfälscht nachgetruckt, Franckfort [Drucker Lucas Jennis] 1621’.19 The full title makes clear what the book contains: a text based – it is claimed by Sudermann – on a manuscript from the middle of the fifteenth century (the preface suggests the year 1448). The text has been transferred from manuscript 18

19

Sudermann also included works that Schwenckfeld himself had consulted, revised or edited, such as the work of Johannes Staupitz: ‘Ein seligs Newes Jar, Von der Liebe Gottes. Von der Gottes Liebe, die in Christo ist unserm Herrn, wirt uns weder tod , leben, noch nichts scheiden: Dann wir in allem disem obsigen, durch den, so unns geliebet hat […]’, s.l. 1594 [‘A blessed New Year, on the love of God. Of the love of God, which is our Lord in Christ…’]. This emphasizes Schwenckfeld’s and Sudermann’s supra-denominational viewpoint, since Staupitz was indeed Luther’s teacher and mentor, but himself remained Rome-oriented all his life. ‘Doctor Johan Tauler’s emulation of the Poor Life of Christ. Divided in two parts, the first one says many different things of true poverty, the other teaches how one should come to a perfectly poor life. Now for the first time reprinted from an old copy, written one hundred and seventy years ago, word for word, literally and quite faithfully’; Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel: A: 224 Theol. (4); a second copy: A: 291.2 Theol. (1).

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to print, and only the marginalia and the chapter divisions come from the publisher. Modern scholarship (a purely philologically oriented scholarship, less interested in historical interdependencies) assigns the text to a Pseudo-Tauler. But in spiritualist circles, the naming of authors and the personalizing attribution of texts were commonplace.20 Sudermann’s special interest becomes clear in the preface to the volume: it points out that the ‘highly enlightened teacher’ Tauler was respected by the Catholic side, since he had been translated by the Carthusian Laurentius Surius from German into Latin. He was also held as a ‘testis veritatis’ by the Augsburg Confession, and appreciated by Luther. Nonetheless, the editor presumes that he may have been ‘improperly rejected, suspected of heresy (…)’ by some of a narrow confessional standpoint. Representatives of this position were Theodorus Beza and Johannes Eck, who had been refuted by Ludovicus Blosius, however. Finally, the author of the preface announces that he will soon publish more texts, and he mentions, besides Tauler, Heinrich Süß [Seuse], Johan Russbroch ‘and other God-enlightened teachers, who have written in our German mother tongue and hitherto mostly remain unknown’. For there had been a great number of teachers in the Christian Church’ and not all wisdom has been kept for this last time’. In line with this, at the end of the preface there is a Latin eulogy of Tauler by ‘Phaleucus’. In the same year 1621 Sudermann, this time indicating his name with the abbreviation ‘DS’,21 published another text by Tauler (which modern scholarship has acknowledged to be a ‘real’ text of his): ‘Ein Edles Büchlein, des von Gott hocherleuchteten Doctor Johann Taulers, Wie der Mensch möge Ernsthaftig, Innig, Geistlich Gottschawende werden. So noch nie gedruckt auch nit viel Offentlich gesehen worden, jetzo aber Publizieret worden’ (‘A noble booklet of Doctor Johann Tauler, enlightened by God, on how man may become sincere, intimate, spiritually God-seeing. Never before has it been printed, nor often seen in public, but now it has been published’; no place of printing given). Here, too, a preface (‘Vorred’) explains further details and reveals Sudermann’s early text-critical consciousness: diß edle Büchlin des Herren Doct. Johan. Tauleri, habe ich aus zwey uralten Exemplaren so mir zu Köllen und Straßburg aus Klöstern wurden, allhie von Wort zu Wort abgeschrieben. Und ob gleichwohl in den Worten (aber nit in der Meinung) ein wenig Unterscheid wegen der Sprache gewesen: hab ich doch aus beiderlei Worten gemelter Exemplaren dises dermaßen zusammengefügt, dass

20 21

For further argumentation, see Schneider, ‘Tauler’sches Schrifttum’, 140ff. In the print Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel: 384 Th (3) added by hand: D.[aniel] S.[udermanns].

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auch durchaus nicht ein Wort darzu gethon noch darvon ist kommen. Welches ohne grosse Mühe wegen der alten unläßlichen Schriften wie auch der Sprache halber, so etwas dunkel gewesen, nit hat mögen zugehen.22

Once again, a eulogy to Tauler closes the preface. So we are really dealing here with a text-conscious editorial activity, an exact use of the templates, which looks to the immediate wording so as to transmit Tauler’s statements as faithfully as possible. In fact, the origin of the first piece is defined precisely at the end of the text: ‘Until here this booklet can be found in the Cologne version of the manuscript’.23 In 1621 another edition of the collected mystical documents by Sudermann was published: ‘Ain alt und werdes Büchlein. Von der Gnade Gottes, genommen aus dem Anfang des Hohen Liedes Salomonis. So nun vor mehr als Dreihalbhundert Jahren von Johan Rüsebruch, einem Hayligen Walde=Priester in Brabandt (welcher bei Tauleri zeiten gelebt und selbigen in geistlichen Sachen viel unterrichtet hatt) geschrieben: Auch zuvor nie gedruckt und nuhn erstmahls an Tag gegeben worden durch D.S. Anno MDCXXI’.24 At the beginning of the edition, Sudermann provides some further information on the text: ‘Dies ist ein gewore fruchtber Nutze Lere, genommen ußer dem Anfange des Brutlufft Büchelins, das ein lieber Heiliger Waldpriester in Probant schreib, heisset Bruder Johannes Rüsebruch, und sandte es heruß in Oberlandt den Gottesfreunden, des Jubel Jores, da man zalte von Gottes Geburt 1350’ (‘This is a true, fruitful, useful doctrine, taken from the beginning of the Wedding Book, which was written by a dear, holy hermit in the woods in Brabant; he is called Brother Johannes Rüsebruch, and he sent it to the Upper Land to the friends of God, in the jubilee year 1350, as is counted from God’s birth’). As the short insert in the title of the edition reveals, for Sudermann and his free, undogmatic religious world, Tauler is the essential reference. He underlines this at the end with a marginal note on the word ‘Bruttlufft’: ‘Wedding Book. Rüssbruch is equal to Tauler and he has it from Tauler’. At the end of the text 22

23 24

‘This noble booklet of Dr. Johan. Tauler, I took from two ancient copies, which I got from monasteries in Cologne and Strasbourg, and I have here copied them word for word. And although in the words (but not in the opinion) there were some little differences because of the language, I combined the words of both before-mentioned copies to such an extent that not a single word was added or lost. Because of the old, difficult scripts as well as the language, which was rather dark, this was not possible without much effort’. Ibid., 3. ‘An old and worthy little book, about the grace of God, taken from the beginning of the Song of Solomon. More than three and a half centuries ago, it was written by Johan Rüsebruch, a holy hermit in Brabandt (who had lived in Tauleri’s time and taught much in spiritual matters): Never before has it been printed and it is now published for the first time by D.S. Anno MDCXXI’. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel: 394 Th (4).

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there is again a short factual note which also explains the dialectical differences between the title and the beginning of the text: Diß ist das Buch von der furkommenden Gnoden unnd von den verdienlichen Gnoden in dem auch geschriben stont die sieben Goben des Heiligen Geistes, dozu der lliebe Stiffter Rulman Merschwein [here a short marginal note by Sudermann’s says: ‘Meerschwein hats nur abgeschrieben’] von Gotte bezwungen wart, dass er dasselbige Buch schrieben must, in sinem allerhindersten Süchtagen [Siechtagen] der grossen Geschwölst [Geschwulst] des er auch zuhand darnoch starb. und da er sich diß schriben usser grosser Demutigkeit werete und sin leibliche grossse Kranckheit für bat, domit er sich des schribens gerne entschlahen hette, do ward innerlich von Gott zu ihm gesprochen, was ihm die Kranckheit seines Leibes schatte, Gott liesse ihm doch das Höbet [Haupt] gesundt und Starck, und er endürffe eß auch ihm selber nit zulegen, er solt es in des Bruttlufft Buchlein schreiben, und die Ehre Gottes geben, und das Werck zulegen B. Johannes van Rüsbruch dem lieben Heiligen Waldprieter in Broband, domit auch disselbe Materye angefangen und begriffen ist. Anno Tusent dry Hundert und Fuffzig Jor.25

What Sudermann says here by way of explanation is basically nothing other than Merswin’s own report. The language of this last section of the text, however, should be noted, because it is in Alemannic. This means that here Sudermann largely reproduces the intonation and wording of Merswin’s report. Along with the aforementioned, Cologne-sounding text, this proves that the Taulerian circle in Strasbourg also studied, picked up and reproduced material of other spiritual teaching traditions. This underlines once again the network character of the relationships and the transregional references of these spiritualists, who opposed the confessionalist parties, collected mystical ideas from manuscripts and made them available to the people of their time. When Sudermann, in his next edition of 1622, drew on John of the Cross, then here too he seems to have fallen back on texts of the Merswin circle. The latter looked far and wide to find spiritual stimulation, trying in this way to undermine the narrow Bible-oriented focus of 25

‘This is the book on prevenient grace and of mercy won by merit, in which the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are also included. The dear donator Rulman Merschwein [here a marginal note by Sudermann says: ‘Merschwein only copied it’] was forced by God to write the same book, in his last days of sorrow, because of the great tumor of which he died soon. And when he refused to write it, because of his great humility and his great bodily sickness, by which he would have liked to escape writing it, God spoke to him inwardly, that whatever the sickness of his body should mean to him, God would leave him his head healthy and strong; he was not allowed to attribute all this to himself; he had to write it in the booklet of the Wedding, and he had to give glory to God, and should credit the work to brother Johannes van Riissbruch, the dear hermit priest in Brabant. This is how this matter was started and named. In the year three thousand three hundred and fifty’.

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the surrounding confessionalist parties with the aim of following a free spiritual understanding. In 1622, Sudermann published another work of relevance, and again the editor was indicated by name as D.S. This book presents itself as an anthology, and includes the works of ‘many old divine church teachers’: in addition to ‘Johann Thauler’ (whose name is highlighted, headline-like), Heinrich Seussen, Johan Creutzers (i.e. John of the Cross), and others.26 However – at least in the copy in Wolfenbüttel – there is only a first part, which contains works by Heinrich Seussen. It is again emphasized on the title page that the book was printed from a manuscript: ‘den uralten Schriften gemeeß gantz unverfälscht an daß Licht gegeben’ (‘published completely faithfully on the basis of ancient manuscripts’). The subtitle of Seussen’s text explains, similarly that his selected letters and short sermons are taken ‘from the ancient (and still existing) originals in the books in my own possession, copied with great diligence and quite unchanged by D.S.’. Sudermann was well aware of editorial questions, because in a postscript to the preface he points out that the Seuse texts have been printed once before in Kostnitz [Konstanz] on Lake Constance, but could hardly be found any more. In addition, he announces that he will include variant readings, such as may arise in manuscripts.27 All of this means that for the Taulerian tradition the editions of Sudermann must be taken into account, since these in turn go back to the handwritten tradition and even partially preserve its wording. This tradition goes back to manuscripts from the centre of Tauler friends in Strasbourg, to which the neighboring Alemannic region, as well as Cologne (one of the centres of the Devotio Moderna), and the Lower Rhine area all contributed. The ‘publication activity’ of the circles around Schwenckfeld and Sudermann and the question of their effect must not, however, be seen as restricted to printing activity. For in addition to the printed books there were still handwritten traditions, especially copies of texts of both theologians by their followers, be it copies of printed books (that are reported), or independent handwritten texts, and letter collections.28 Once again the network of Tauler-inspired spiritualists appears, and it becomes apparent that the essential social mechanisms, which Tauler’s followers and the followers of Tauler’s mystical thought had already cultivated in the fifteenth century, were taken over and maintained despite 26

27 28

Daniel Sudermann, Guldene Sendtbrieff vieler alten gottseeligen Kirchen Lehrer als Johann Thaulers, Heinrich Seüssen, Johan Creützers und viel mehr anderer: in etliche Theil abgetheilt und den uralten Schriften gemeeß gantzunverfälscht an daß Licht gegeben, D. S. [o.O.] Anno 1622 [so correctly, in the catalogue of the library falsely 1618]. This happens in Piece XV on p. 26 and in Piece XVII on p. 32. For this see Gritschke, ‘Via media’, esp. 118-135.

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considerable external pressure – especially on the part of Protestantism – in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.29 This is how they had an effect on Pietism.30 Lutheran Tauler Editions Apart from Sudermann’s deliberately non-denominational text editions from the just outlined Strasbourgian Tauler context, there were also denominationallydetermined Tauler editions, such as the 1621 edition from Frankfurt; it documents its Lutheran origin by listing (as already announced on the title page) statements about Tauler by ‘Protestant’ authorities: Johann Tauler, Des hocherleuchteten und weitberumbten Lehrers Johannis Thauleri Predigten auf alle Sonn und Feyertage durchs gantze Jahr […]: An itzo in die HochTeutsche Sprach […] übersetzet, Franckfurt am Main: Schleich, 1621.31

As the preface shows, the edition prides itself on offering new and faithfully translated material, as well as justifying the edition as a response to the desires of highly-developed Protestant Christians. It is interesting that, for non-understandable words of the Middle High German text, the editor at the beginning refers to the translation of the Carthusian Laurentius Surius (1522-1578) of 1548, arguing that one monk understands the other! As its textual basis, the Lutheran edition from Frankfurt names the German-language editions from Basel of 1521 and 1522. The editor rushes of course to assure the reader that these texts have been read by vastly experienced Protestant teachers and ‘crossed out’ – meaning: denominationally censored. For their structure and arrangement, which the Middle High German texts did not offer (but that the publisher or translator would have had such in the hand, is not stated), the publisher describes himself as responsible. Soon, however, the mainstream of Lutheran orthodoxy largely silenced interest in Tauler, but Tauler’s spiritual attitude remained important to spiritualists. In this connection, another literary mediator is important for Tauler’s printed 29

30

31

See Gritschke, ‘Via media’, 225-232; as well as 370 and 383; see also the map for the distribution of Schwenckfelder communities at 390. See Wolfgang Christian Schneider, ‘Spirituels protestants’, in: Marie-Anne Vannier et al. (Eds.), Encyclopédie des mystiques Rhenans d’Eckhart à Nicolas de Cues et leur réception, Paris 2011, 760-763. Johann Tauler, The highly illuminated and widely known teacher Johannes Thauler’s sermons on all Sundays and feasts throughout the entire year […]: Translated now into the HighGerman […] language, Franckfurt am Main: Schleich, 1621; Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel: Tom. I: M: Lo 7506 // A: 48.8 Theol. Tom. II: M: Lo 7506.

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history, who must be mentioned because of his effect on mystical thought: Martin Moller (1547-1606). He came from the vicinity of Wittenberg and was part of the Lutheran context – but significantly its Melanchtonian character. As part of his pastoral efforts, Moller promoted devotional literature, for which he drew on mystical texts of the Middle Ages by authors such as Bernhard of Clairvaux and Arnulf of Lyon (1200-1250), but also Tauler. In Görlitz, where he had studied at the Gymnasium and later worked as a pastor, Moller edited the volume: ‘Meditationes sanctorum Patrum. Schöne, Andechtige Gebet, Tröstliche Sprüche, Gottselige Gedancken […] Aus den heyligen Altvätern: Augustino, Bernhardo, Taulero, vnd andern, fleissig […] zusammen getragen vnd verdeutschet. Görlitz: 1. Teil 1584, 2. Teil 1591’ (‘Meditationes sanctorum Patrum. Beautiful, reverent prayers, comforting sayings, godly thoughts […] From the holy old fathers: Augustine, Bernhard, Tauler, and others, […] dilligently collected and translated into German. Görlitz: 1st part 1584, 2nd part 1591’) [with many reprints]. Moller became influential because of the fact that one of his parishioners in Görlitz was the young Jacob Böhme. There is direct connection here to the spiritualist and pietist currents of the eighteenth century. Summary The spiritual world of the Rhenish mystics, and of Eckhart and Tauler, cannot be grasped on a scholarly level only through the analysis of mystical texts of the main authors and their traditions. It also comes to the fore in the textual interweavings of manuscripts and printed books, as well as in the networks of relationships of those affected and their texts and traditions – in the fifteenth century, for example, in the different varieties of lay piety, especially the Devotio Moderna and other spiritualist traditions. The well-preserved ideas recorded there, as they were originally spoken or written, transmitted the relevant teachings of Tauler and his followers and recipients in the way Tauler was understood there. Tauler’s and Taulerian teachings therefore stand side by side and interact with each other. The derogatory labeling of texts as Pseudo-Taulerian seems to make little sense from this point of view, which covers the ‘sublime’ entanglement of Tauler’s and Taulerian texts, taking into account their ties to late medieval lay piety up to the Devotio Moderna and its creative ‘thinking ahead’. The network of spiritualist urbanites in the south-west and south of the empire must be regarded as a significant supporter of this spiritualist tradition. In Strasbourg, there was the Tauler community around Merswin’s ‘Grüne Wörth’, and the Dominican nunnery in St. Nikolaus am Giessen (St. Nicholas in Undis). The network of these people extended over considerable distance, as shown not least

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of all by the late manuscripts and the editions by Sudermann, which were often produced on the basis of manuscripts, reaching as far as Cologne and the Lower Rhine area and even Nuremberg and Tegernsee, and showing the influence of other spiritualist groups with Taulerian traditions, such as the Devotio Moderna. A broad tradition is visible, which finds expression in the breadth and variety of the mystical-spiritualist circles, including the traditions of the Devotio Moderna, but undoubtedly going beyond these. After the confessional split, the carefully crafted editions of German and Rhenish mysticism by Daniel Sudermann, which opposed a banal denominational bias, acquired considerable significance, especially among the educated urban classes, because the spiritual orientation inherent in the mystical texts was in contrast to dogmatic and confessional boundaries. In this way, mystical ideas also reached Protestant pietism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – and influenced the Enlightenment and the philosophy of Idealism.

J. AUGUST HIGGINS RALPH WALDO EMERSON AND THE POLITICS OF THE NATURAL Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable.1 The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things…2 A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.3 Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping, if it were not. God delights to isolate us every day, and hide from us the past and the future.4 Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?5

1

2 3 4 5

Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘The Over-Soul’, in: Essays & Lectures, ed. Joel Porte, New York: Literary Classics of the U.S. 1983 (The Library of America), 383-400: 398. Emerson, ‘Self-Reliance’, in: Essays & Lectures, 257-282: 269. Emerson, ‘The Divinity School Address’, in: Essays & Lectures, 73-92: 75-76. Emerson, ‘Experience’, in: Essays & Lectures, 469-492: 483. Emerson, Nature, in: Essays & Lectures, 5-49: 7.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a leading public intellectual in the United States and central figure in the Transcendentalist movement of the nineteenth century. Emerson was ordained as a Unitarian minister in Boston’s Second Church, the same church where the famous puritans Increase and Cotton Mather served as pastors during the First Great Awakening, and the Revolutionary War. However, these five quotations of Emerson do not come from a prayer manual, nor his religious poems, his diary, or sermons. Rather, these five mystical quotes come from his public lectures and addresses after he had resigned his pastorate and formally left organized religion in 1832. This, I think, is instructive for the purposes of this volume ‘Down Town/Down Soul’ in that the mystical themes within Emerson’s work must be understood according to the context of nineteenth century New England public society. One of the most central concerns in this context was the crisis of African-American slavery. As a public intellectual and leading figure in liberal/progressive circles, Emerson would have been familiar with the leading social causes of his day, especially as it concerned African-American slavery. This essay will address the socio-political implications of Emerson’s spiritual writings, particularly as they relate to what Emerson saw as the moral crisis that was slavery. For Emerson specifically, there are three key events in his life that help to elevate both the mystical/spiritual pole as well as the social/public pole of his career. The first, briefly mentioned above, was his resignation of his pastorate at Boston’s Second Church in 1832 due primarily to his growing disdain for the traditionalism of Unitarian church practice that he viewed as stifling the social and moral progress of the church. The second event was his subsequent trip to Europe during the winter of 1832-1833 where he had a series of ecstatic experiences in the Vatican art museums and the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. This trip, and particularly these ecstatic experiences began a period of time which Emerson referred to as a ‘saturnalia of faith’, lasting from 1832 up until the death of his son Waldo in 1842.6 Moreover, it was during the return voyage from Europe that he began one of his most famous essays, Nature that became a central work in the emerging movement known as Transcendentalism. The third major event for our purposes here was the passage of the so-called Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act, that forced Emerson’s hand in becoming a more public voice against Slavery in the United States I will return to these events in more detail in what follows. During this same time-period, the 1830’s through the 1850’s, a large and diverse series of cultural reform movements, often referred to as the ‘American

6

Donald L. Gelpi, Varieties of Transcendental Experience: A Study in Constructive Postmodernism, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000, 100-101.

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Renaissance’,7 was developing in the United States alongside the growing national political crisis over slavery. Within this larger cultural context, Emerson stood at the epicenter of a group known as the Transcendentalists. The Transcendentalists, with much in common to the European Romantic movements a few decades before, launched a critique against the perceived excesses of Enlightenment rationalism and scientific empiricism. Similarly, the early stages of the movement came out of Christian liberal circles, (Unitarian Calvinism more specifically for Emerson), and by its later stages had extended beyond traditional religious affiliations. Of central concern for the Transcendentalists was what they saw as the failures of Modernist rationalism in fostering personal morality. And finally, the Transcendentalists, like their Romantic forbearers, attempted to retrieve Classical and Medieval emphases on aesthetics and the liberal arts as a corrective to the cold rationalism of the day, which they believed aided the present moral crisis of slavery in the United States. African Slavery came to North America with the European colonists in the seventeenth century, and continued up until its abolition at the culmination of the Civil War and the ratification of the thirteenth amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. While slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies and the first several decades of the United States Government, it became increasingly associated with the Southern states and territories as evidenced by the passage of the so-called Missouri Compromise of 1820 that created a political border-line along the 36th Parallel line of latitude. States and territories north of that line were to remain free states (with the exception of Missouri which was allowed to enter the Union as a slave holding state), and the states and territories below the line were allowed to continue slavery. Emerson, while personally and morally opposed to slavery, was hesitant to provide much public support to the abolitionist cause; especially when compared to fellow Transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau and Theodore Parker who were active leaders in the abolitionist cause.8 Emerson turned down several invitations to speak and rally support by various abolitionist leaders around Massachusetts during the 30s and 40s, at the prime of his public influence. Though he drafted several letters, one to United States President Martin Van Buren, 7

8

F.O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman, New York: Barnes & Noble, 2009; David S. Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. See Henry David Thoreau, ‘Civil Disobedience’, in: Selections from The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1906. Online Version, by the University of Virginia American Studies Program 2003-2004 accessed March 11, 2019 at http://xroads. virginia.edu/~hyper2/ thoreau/civil.html; and Theodore Parker, A Letter to the People of the United States Touching the Matter of Slavery, St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press, 1972.

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and did deliver three public addresses concerning slavery policies in the mid to late 40’s, he spent much of his time during this period working out his transcendental vision of true moral reform of the individual, with little attention given to wider social or public concerns. While it has been common in Emersonian scholarship to interpret Emerson as uninterested or personally unaffected by the social issues surrounding slavery in the United States, as Len Gougeon has written in his important publication, Emerson’s Anti-slavery Writings, it was not that Emerson was uninterested in the plight of African-American slaves, but rather, it was the development of his Transcendentalism that kept him from taking a more central social stand on the particular issue of slavery.9 This is to say that Emerson’s Transcendentalism itself developed in such a way that the focus of Emerson’s moral vision did not extend to arguably the most important moral and social issue of his day. William Westfall, on the other hand, concluded that it was precisely because of the elevation of the private individual inherent in Emerson’s Transcendentalism, that abolitionists were able to challenge the prevailing political and social majorities that supported the institution of slavery.10 In any event, it was not until much later in Emerson’s career, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, that he would assume a more public role in anti-slavery and abolitionist causes. The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) compelled all United States citizens to actively seek out and return runaway slaves.11 Prior to this act, many northern cities including Emerson’s Boston, were safe havens for escaped slaves, who were able to maintain their public freedom without fear of being arrested and returned to their former masters. Emerson, and many other Northerners, perhaps grew complacent in these policies and deemed themselves personally freed from the guilt of Southern slavery as a result of these Northern policies of simple goodwill toward escaped slaves. This new law now forced Northerners sympathetic with emancipation to either willfully break the law and risk the consequences on the one hand, or to directly enter into pro-slavery activities by turning in suspected escaped slaves on the other. For reasons that will be explored in more detail in what follows, this situation became unbearable for Emerson. For our present purposes, I am interested in the role that Emerson’s mystical vision of the world, developed in the saturnalia of his faith during the 1830’s and 40’s, served as a catalyst for public transformation from the 1850’s onward. In particular, I will analyze Emerson’s transcendental theory of Nature as both a source of mystical insight and the foundation for his public platform in relation to the crisis of slavery. 9

10

11

Len Gougeon, ‘Historical Background’, in: Emerson’s Antislavery Writings, ed. Len Gougeon & Joel Myerson, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995, xxxv-xliii, liii-lvi. William Westfall, ‘Tocqueville, Emerson, and the Abolitionists’, in: Journal of Thought 19 (1984) no.1, 62-63. Gougeon, ‘Historical Background’, xxxv-xliii.

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Nature and Emerson’s Aesthetic Moral Vision Emerson and the Transcendentalists were closely committed to a Platonic realism rooted in the immediacy of intuition as the means of accessing Truth and Goodness, through the revelatory capacities of Beauty. Unlike other groups within the American Renaissance, Emerson and several other leading Transcendentalists utilized explicitly religious language and vocabulary in their writings, as is clearly seen from the quotations I provided at the beginning. For them, Beauty, particularly as experienced through the natural world, served a very important spiritual role; it established and revealed an essential unity between the divine and the human soul. Moreover, the experience of the divine through the Beauty of Nature provided Emerson with an inspired language with which he expressed his moral vision. That Emerson was a Neoplatonist is not a new insight, nor one that is by itself of much interest in the realm of Christian spirituality. Neoplatonism runs deep within the Christian tradition itself and moreover features prominently in the works of some of Christianity’s greatest spiritual writers.12 The Neoplatonic influence on Emerson is a complex reality rather than something strait forward. For example, while he left the pulpit and became distanced from the Unitarian church after he delivered the commencement address to Harvard Divinity School in 1838, his writings both before and after continue to carry a heavily Christian overtone and while he is critical of certain church practices and structures, as evidenced by his critique of the Unitarian practice of Communion, or his adopting Neoplatonic language of ‘Over-Soul’ and ‘that Unity’ instead of the orthodox nomenclature ‘God’.13 However, we are not here concerned with entering into the debate concerning the validity of Emerson’s appropriation of Neoplatonism. Rather, we are here interested in the manner in which this Neoplatonic turn informs his aesthetics. More specifically, we are interested in the way in which Emerson’s aesthetics functions, that is, in what ways might 12

13

St. Augustine of Hippo’s famous movement toward Christian Orthodoxy through the Greek philosophical school of Neoplatonism is well documented in his Confessions; moreover, through the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius’ mystical theology, Neoplatonism became integrated into the monastic/mystical traditions of the Middle Ages, and influenced much if not all of the theological and spiritual writers up through the Protestant Reformation and continues today in both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions through the influence of Enlightenment philosophy. There is a great deal of literature documenting the history of Neoplatonic influence in Christianity, and thus it need not be explored in detail here. It is however helpful to remember that Emerson is not unique in being influenced by Greek philosophy, nor is this influence solely responsible for moving away from the Unitarian church. For a critical reading of Emerson’s religious rhetoric in contrast to the more favorable analysis of Gelpi see Perry Miller, ‘Jonathan Edwards to Emerson’, in: The New England Quarterly 13 (1940) no.4, 589-617.

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Emerson’s aesthetics inform his thought as a whole, and secondly how his aesthetics might be understood as a form of spiritual practice. In one of Emerson’s essays ‘The Poet’, published in his Second Series in 1844, Emerson provides us with a sense of the centrality of aesthetics in his thought by placing two important elements within the category of Beauty. The first element in Emerson’s aesthetics is a linguistic semiotics where he notes that nature is a ‘picture language’, ‘a symbol, in the whole, and in every part’.14 This nature-semiotics is not simply a theory concerning the processes of the communication of nature, but is instead that which mediates Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, or in other words, reality itself. This semiotic mediation is viewed by Emerson as a ‘holy place (…) where Being passes into Appearance, and Unity into Variety’.15 Ultimately Emerson’s metaphysical construction of this transcendent semiotics rests upon Beauty; ‘All form is an effect of character (…) and for this reason, a perception of beauty should be sympathetic, or proper only to the good’.16 Emerson’s aesthetic semiotics is composed of three elements, Nature, Spirit, subject, that in relation with one another tend to move towards unification through difference. Moreover, the aesthetic element in Emerson’s thought serves as the mediating and experiential entry point into an experience of the divine through Nature. Donald Gelpi comments on this point in Nature, that Emerson presents us with ‘a religious formula that would somehow unite mind and heart, reason and intuition, in a felt, creative response to divine Beauty’.17 According to Gelpi, Emerson’s aesthetics provides both the essence of transcendent unity of Nature as well as the particular mode of mediation between Nature and human persons. The second key piece in Emerson’s mysticism is temporality perceived as history. For Emerson, history ‘is the universal nature which gives worth to particular men and things’.18 There is a direct correlation between the reality of the past and the reality of the present. This correlation however must be mediated via history. And while it is apparent that History is very much a genuine element of all that is reality, there is a fundamental difference between history and the nature-semiotics discussed above. The difference is something that is inherent in history itself, namely that it is revealed derivatively as a construct of the human mind. Emerson claims at the outset of his essay Nature: ‘there is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to 14 15 16 17 18

Emerson, ‘The Poet’, in: Essays & Lectures, 452. Ibid., 453. Ibid., 452. Gelpi, Varieties of Transcendental Experience, 102. Ibid., ‘History’, 238.

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all of the same’.19 He continues by asserting that history in itself is nothing other than the record of the works of this singular and universal mind. These comments appear to suggest that history exists solely as a derivative constituent of reality rather than a fundamental or irreducible principle of reality itself; however, it is important to remember that like his semiotics above, for Emerson history in itself is fundamentally one universal reality that is mediated via the particularities of a given place, person, event, and so on. These mediations are revealed derivatively according to the will of particular minds, yet through this process of mediation, history itself does not lose its essential unity. ‘Epoch after epoch’, Emerson writes, ‘camp, kingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the application of his [i.e. history proper’s] manifold spirit to the manifold world’.20 When viewed in this light, the structure and nature of history functions in parallel with what we saw of Emerson’s semiotics, the essential unity of reality perceived via the mediation of particularity. This system is of course consistent with platonic substance metaphysics, as mediated through the German Idealism of Hegel, where all apparently diverse reality is merely a mediated form of the One. What is of interest however, are the implications of Emerson’s notion of history for his aesthetics. The key for this connection is the idea of history as the mediation of worth, or value. History, perhaps unlike his semiotics, is not simply mediating a given reality as such, but rather, the reception of history necessarily mediates the perception of value inherent within perceived reality as well; or to use Emerson’s language, history is the recorded perception of worth. By placing history itself within the subjective category of value, Emerson accomplishes two things. First, he critiques the Enlightenment presupposition from Descartes through Hegel that human persons have recourse to history objectively through rationality and the overcoming of the personal biases of the contemporary reader. Instead, Emerson claims that history in its creation is necessarily a mediated reality from its source, and thus the reality perceived in the present, in all of its biases and incompleteness, is on equal footing with the reality transmitted to us historically. It is by virtue of this critique that he writes: ‘I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age (…) has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day’.21 Secondly, this critique elevates the category of the aesthetic, the Beautiful, as the arbiter of history so that rather than relativizing the aesthetic to some secondary status as Kant would have it, Emerson elevates the aesthetic as the 19 20 21

Ibid., 237. Ibidem. Ibid., 239.

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ground for the mediation of reality in the present as well as the mediation of the past. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that aesthetics forms the ground for which all of the rest of Emerson’s work is established in that humanity perceives reality through the aesthetic revelation of sign/nature/language as well as the aesthetic value of history. In short, the phenomenon of Reality and the truth-value of that reality are mediated through the Beautiful (aesthetic). Nature, like Emerson’s semiotic mysticism (i.e. the mediation of divine through language) serves as a mediator of reality, that is conceived here ultimately as Spirit. Emerson’s conception of Spirit should not be confused with the Geist of Hegel, as a synthesis of subjective becoming.22 Rather, in a more organically Neoplatonic conception, Spirit is strictly speaking the only being whatsoever, the One, that is experienced in the diversity of Nature. It is mediated emanation of being, rather than the mediated becoming of subject. Here, Emerson is continuing an emerging theme within the North American religious tradition where Spirit, perceived reality, and ultimate reality, are mediated through human experience. An early example of this is the noted Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards, active in the mid-eighteenth century. Emerson argues; ‘that spirit, that is the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old’.23 It is in fact the reality of the Spirit that establishes the foundation upon which any reality may be perceived at all. This transcendent Spirit, perceptible in human experience, and mediated through Nature, establishes the experience of Spirit through Nature in its temporally perpetual present-at-handedness as the most fundamentally valid means of entering into a spiritual journey, and by extension into the virtuous life. For Emerson, it is not merely the idea of Nature that is spiritually transformative, though he would not deny that, it is rather Nature in its widest totality as experienced that is transformative and transcendent. ‘Nature’, he writes, ‘in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other’s hands for the profit of man’.24 Moreover, this natural material ministry towards humanity is not something that is true only after the fact or as a result of the efforts of human agency, but rather, ‘there seems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms (…) [that] preexist in necessary forms in the mind of God, and are what they are by virtue of preceding affections, in the world of spirit’. Thus, Emerson can claim that Spirit is immediately perceptible in Nature, precisely because that is 22

23 24

Dale M. Schlitt, Experience and Spirit: A Post-Hegelian Philosophical Theology, New York: Peter Lang, 2007, 77-80. Emerson, Nature, 40. Ibid., 12.

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the nature of Spirit. There is a co-naturality about the manner in which Nature is perceived and the reality of transcendent Spirit. Moreover, by virtue of the fact that ‘Nature is the symbol of spirit’ according to Emerson, he is able to assert that the present-ness of Nature as reality is able to semiotically mediate Spirit in a way that other modes of revelation are not.25 To return to Emerson and the pre-war abolitionists, we find that Emerson’s mystical aesthetics served as the basis for his personal moral stand against slavery, a situation that is for Emerson inherently un-natural. At the same time, however, Emerson’s Transcendentalism led him away from championing the sociopolitical cause of the abolitionists. Thus, while it is true on the one hand that Emerson’s Transcendentalism is ultimately a supreme moral vision, or to use Emersonian language, ‘a sally of the soul into the unfolding infinite’26 through the mystical unity of Natural Beauty. Emerson’s sense of duty, his moral compass, and the motivation for all right action, is rooted in and sustained by the mystical awareness of the unity of the whole of reality glimpsed through the partiality of finite existence. Thus, for Emerson, any single social platform, no matter how noble it may appear to be; abolitionism, temperance, poverty, illiteracy, war, etc. is inherently limited and thus fails to grasp the truth of transcendental virtue. This transcendental vision rests solely on the individual soul standing in an immediate mystical relationship with the divine. Where slavery is for Emerson a particularly grotesque distortion of the natural dignity of human persons, so too social institutions at large tend to distort of the divine dignity of individual persons. Public institutions, and communal sentiment are nothing more than distractions from the individual soul’s true potential. Emerson’s mysticism is simultaneously universal in transcendent scope and utterly individualistic in its application, leaving no room for neither social agendas, nor a motivation to legislate or attempt to direct a public morality. Consistent with his critique of Enlightenment rationality briefly outlined above, Emerson’s Nature seems to be an extended response to this question found in the Introduction to the work: ‘Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?’27 With the response being that the history of tradition is one of compromise, inefficiencies, corruption, and oppression. These, in turn, enslave individual 25

26 27

See specifically, the connection between Language and spiritual mediation from Chapters 4 and 7, ‘Language’ and ‘Spirit’ respectively. Emerson, Nature, 20-25, 40-42. Ibid., 47. Emerson, Nature, 7. This is also a striking parallel to Emerson’s younger contemporary William James and his notion of the essence of religious experience ini his seminal classic William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012 (Oxford World’s Classics 31; orig. publ. 1902).

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human potential in the name of social norms, convention, and the so-called common good. It is with these sentiments in mind, that Emerson can make the quite surprising remark: ‘I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions’.28 Emerson is here giving voice to a peculiarity of American mysticism; the paradoxical relationship between a vision of universal divine harmony and unity through the supposed national ideals of liberty and freedom on the one hand, and a bitterly divisive individualism that focuses exclusively on the sphere of the self as the place where this divine vision is perceptible on the other. Thus, the Anglo-North-American mystical tradition, particularly from Emerson through William James’s seminal 1902 work, the Varieties of Religious Experience, lacks a proper socio-communal foundation from which their mystical insights may serve as a catalyst of social salvation. Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ and the Issue of American Individualism Perhaps nowhere is Emerson’s rugged individualism more apparent than in his treatise ‘Self-Reliance’, quoted from at the beginning of this essay. Published in his First Series in 1841, ‘Self-Reliance’ provides an interesting comparative analysis with his Nature. As Nature was written and revised over a number of times between 1833 and 1849, we can use ‘Self-Reliance’ as a contemporaneous analysis of Emerson’s developing moral and ethical vision. As it relates to my present interest concerning the relationship between Emerson’s mysticism of Nature and the social crisis of slavery, I find two salient points of connection. First, ‘Self-Reliance’ helps to inform the spiritual or mystical dimension of Emerson’s understanding of human experience as articulated in Nature. As argued above, Nature serves as a primary element in Emerson’s metaphysics, as a mediated and mediating reality between the One and the Many. Whereas Nature is both a universal (when expressed as the whole of reality itself) and a finite particularity (as perceived and encountered in human experience), Emerson’s understanding of the ‘self’ mirrors this dynamic range through the two poles of ‘genius’ and ‘non-conformity’. These two conceptions help articulate the Neoplatonic structure to Emerson’s understanding of human experience more generally, and spiritual experience in particular. Genius is for Emerson, not simply some thought or deed of extraordinary quality (though these would be included), but rather genius is the very source of the Self: ‘What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? (…) The inquiry

28

Emerson, ‘Self-Reliance’, 263.

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leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life’.29 Continuing with this line of thought Emerson contends that the essence of genius is not ‘diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed’.30 Thus Emerson’s genius, as the essence of the Self creates the point of contact between the person and ultimate reality. On the other side stands Emerson’s conception of non-conformity. This is a slightly more nuanced and complex concept in Emerson’s anthropology. As expected, non-conformity is related to particularity vis-à-vis genius’ universality. At the same time, non-conformity is not simply particularity. Whereas in the other Neoplatonic structures of Emerson’s metaphysics, there is an essential quality to both universal reality as such and particular reality as manifest; this does not appear to be the case with Emerson’s conception of non-conformity. For Emerson, non-conformity is related to patterns of behavior that lead to the cultivation of a life of virtue rooted in the awareness and response to the inner genius inherent within individual persons.31 In this way, non-conformity relates more closely to ethics in general in its contingency to human agency, much like the role of history explored above in considering Emerson’s aesthetic ontology. But more importantly for our present purposes, is how the concept of non-conformity relates to Emerson’s understanding of the spiritual life. Alan Hodder makes a compelling argument in his essay ‘“After A High Negative Way”: Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” And the Rhetoric of Conversion’32 that Emerson’s work in general and ‘Self-Reliance’ in particular, cannot be understood correctly without taking into account the central role that mystical experience assumes in the essay. Drawing from two major traditions of mystical discourse, the cataphatic and the apophatic, Hodder identifies both streams as being present in ‘Self-Reliance’, with the apophatic filling the central position. According to Hodder, through a sort of via negativa, Emerson articulates an apophatic mysticism that calls for a person to renounce all external claims and demands on who he or she is expected to be in order to take responsibility for cultivating their essential Self.33 This apophatic non-conformity informs Emerson’s radical individualism in terms of the mediation of ultimate reality exclusively through the self-abandonment of the myriad competing claims of modern life in society. Moreover, this inward 29 30 31 32

33

Ibid., 268-269. Ibid., 269. Ibid., 274. Alan D Hodder, ‘“After a High Negative Way”: Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and the Rhetoric of Conversion’, in: Harvard Theological Review 84 (1991) no.4, 423-446. Ibid., 442.

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movement toward the true Self is paralleled by the inward mediation of Nature through particular experience in such a way that the individualized tendency implicit in Emerson’s Nature is made explicit in ‘Self-Reliance’ as one’s own experience of reality is formed by and informs one’s self-understanding. This leads directly into the second point of connection between Nature and ‘Self-Reliance’. Namely that, ‘Self-Reliance’ clearly delineates and individualist scope for interpreting Emerson’s developing Transcendentalist moral vision laid out in Nature. This is a step further than the observed parallel inward turn of Nature and the Self. The mutually reinforcing character of the mediation of reality and of one’s self through individual experience creates a clearly defined arena, not only of how reality is received and interpreted, but more fundamentally, how a person ought to respond. And it is at this point that the shortcomings of Emerson’s Transcendentalism come into view. By so severely limiting the sphere of interpretation to the individual alone, this suggests that Emerson views social relationships as essentially derivative to the individual pursuit of transcendental virtue. While Emerson gives some limited consideration to positive elements of social relationships, they are ultimately viewed as voluntary and beneficial only to the degree that a person is able to cultivate their own selfworth and identity through them.34 The problem of individualism has taken on a unique and pervasive quality in North American culture. In the 1990s, Robert Bellah and others conducted a landmark sociological study on the religious culture of North America.35 This survey was partly a study to compare the contemporary trends in the United States with Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic work Democracy in America, published in 1835. In that work, Tocqueville found three broad cultural issues facing the young nation: the tyranny of the majority over responsible discourse and thought, an extreme preoccupation with material goods, and a hard individualism that would result in isolating individuals and communities from one another.36 Skipping ahead more than one-hundred years, one of Bellah’s central findings saw that individualism continues to remain rooted in the American psyche, and that it has created a fracture in the cultural fabric. Religious discourse and classical Republican public discourse had become essentially privatized and 34 35

36

Emerson, ‘Self-Reliance’, 273. Robert N. Bellah et al., The Good Society, New York: Knopf, 1991; Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996 (rev. ed.); William G. McLoughlin & Robert N. Bellah (Eds.), Religion in America, Boston: Beacon Press, 1968. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeves, University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2002 (A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication), 292, 574, 599. Accessed Septermber 28, 2018 at http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/LojkoMiklos/Alexisde-Tocqueville-Democracy-in-America.pdf.

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therefore ceased to exist in a truly public space. ‘Expressive individualism’ is the neologism Bellah coined to refer to an individual’s private sphere, with its chief concern being what makes a person feel good. On the so-called public side of life, a utilitarian individualism had taken hold with its chief maxim as the creation and cultivation of material wealth and goods.37 While Emerson is not responsible for creating American individualism, it is nevertheless quite noticeable in his writings. Emerson echoes the former and latter of Tocqueville’s concerns in ‘Self-Reliance’ when he writes: ‘It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude’.38 A tension, if not an inconsistency, emerges in Emerson’s thought at this point of my analysis of Nature and ‘Self-Reliance’. This tension is a sort of variation of the classical tension of the One and the Many, seemingly ubiquitously present in Western thought; though with Emerson and our specific concern of the moral crisis of slavery, this tension takes on a unique dimension. That tension briefly stated is whether or not the universal scope of Emerson’s aesthetic ontology, rooted as it is in an acute awareness of the fundamental harmony of all things, is ultimately compatible with Emerson’s ethics, rooted in an isolating individualism that seems to undermine the supposed unity of his aesthetics. It would be unfair to adjudicate Emerson according to contemporary cultural critiques in light of the emergence of critical theory and theologies of liberation, which have exposed the systemic elements of institutional oppression endemic to modern societies. However, it is I think appropriate to ask whether or not Emerson’s radical individualism undercuts his overall transcendental vision, precisely in the context of public and social transformation. As mentioned above, Emerson shifted his involvement with abolitionist causes after the Compromise of 1850, when it became a crime to harbor runaway slaves in the North, and mandatory for all citizens to turn over suspected runaway slaves to the authorities. Underlying this shift is the issue of Emerson’s understanding of the proper or ideal relationship between society and individual persons. In matters of morality, society by and large acts as a constraint on the natural and proper freedom inherent in individuals, thus in line with his argument in ‘Self-Reliance’, freedom to live morally comes through the process of disentangling oneself from the trappings of society. In Emerson’s view then, the Compromise of 1850 was primarily problematic at the level of its infringement on the individual consciences of Northern citizens, without direct regard to the situation of enslaved persons in South. For Emerson, considered within 37 38

Bellah, Habits of the Heart, 161-165. Emerson, ‘Self-Reliance’, 263.

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himself as a self-reliant man, the relative distant issue of slavery in the South was not his concern; and moreover, to make it his concern would be to become subservient to a particular political persuasion with limited political ends. On the surface, the isolating effect of Emerson’s self-reliant individualism would seemingly result in an active disengagement in realizing the intended harmony of reality, in this case the natural freedom of African-American individuals, that his aesthetics in Nature might suggest. Moving deeper, if Emerson’s aesthetics serves to draw one’s self into harmonious engagement with all of reality through the mediation of Reality in experience and time; it would seem that Emerson’s ethics inherently limits one’s potential engagement of reality, precisely in its application of non-conformity in the private inner-life of individual persons. In other words, could a public understanding of non-conformity, something like abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison’s New England Anti-Slavery Society (founded in 1832), and its accompanying newspaper The Liberator, serve as an alternative model for bringing isolated, but like-minded people together? And, would such a socially oriented interpretation of non-conformity fundamentally undermine Emerson’s Transcendentalism? Conclusion By way of conclusion, I will offer a tentative answer to these questions, and point to where more research should be explored. Within the ranks of the Transcendentalists, Henry David Thoreau provides a socially conscious ethic that champions much of the aesthetic moral vision of Emerson. Of particular note are his works Walden (1854), that might serve as a companion to Emerson’s Nature in terms of its aesthetic emphasis and the central place of a nature-based mysticism; and his essay ‘Civil Disobedience’ (1849), serves as a counterpoint to Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’. Sharing similar concerns with Emerson related to the tendency for social institutions to infringe on personal autonomy, Thoreau recommended that it becomes necessary at times to actively resist and work together in order to change institutions which would otherwise compel individuals to become agents of injustice. It might be fruitful to explore in greater depth the differences between these two Transcendentalist leaders as it relates to how each of them relates the question of the individual and community in terms of mystical insight and application.39 39

For a starting place, Patrick K. Dooley, ‘Emerson on Civil Disobedience: The Question of an Immoral Law’, in: Journal of Thought 15 (1980) no.1, 11-20 has already brought up this question, though his interests do not explicitly engage in theological and religious concern.

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Following closely in the footsteps of the Transcendentalist movement was the emergence of American Pragmatism. Within this broad tradition stand two early voices that represent in some fashion the difference between Emerson’s and Thoreau’s ethics. Namely, William James’s important work The Varieties of Religious Experience, and his contemporary Josiah Royce’s (1855-1916) important concept of ‘communities of interpretation’.40 Of particular interest in this expanded conversation is each of these four men’s relationship to the question of religious, spiritual, or moral conversion. Earlier in our discussion of Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ the question of conversion was hinted at by Alan Hodder, who argued that Emmerson’s essay lays out a sort of ordo solutis, in the line of the Puritan heritage of the likes of Jonathan Edwards. As a suggestion for a more thorough engagement to the question of the private and public spheres of salvation in these authors, the theologian Donald Gelpi has written extensively on the history and theology of the American religious tradition, including several works on Emerson, Thoreau, James, and Royce. Moreover, Gelpi has developed a dynamic theology of conversion that may very well prove useful in comparing these authors with one another. Briefly stated, Gelpi’s notion of conversion encompasses five interrelated spheres of human life: intellectual, affective/ aesthetic, personal/moral, socio-political, and religious.41 Gelpi’s understanding of conversion I think provides a fruitful opportunity to further engage the North American religious-spiritual tradition in order to develop an active and transformative spirituality properly contextualized to the challenges of our contemporary context. Specifically, Gelpi’s model helps to recover and situate the profound influence that Emerson in particular has had on North American Christian spirituality on the one hand, while also providing a critical apparatus with which to correct some of Emerson’s more problematic elements, including his extreme individualism.42 40

41

42

Primarily explored in Josiah Royce, The Problem of Christianity, Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2011. See primarily Donald L. Gelpi, The Conversion Experience: A Reflective Process for RCIA Participants and Others, New York: Paulist Press, 1998; ‘Conversion: The Challenge of Contemporary Charismatic Piety’, in: Theological Studies 43 (1982) no.4, 606-628; Grace as Transmuted Experience and Social Process: And Other Essays in North American Theology, Lanham: University Press of America, 1988; The Gracing of Human Experience: Rethinking the Relationship between Nature and Grace, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008; and Encountering Jesus Christ: Rethinking Christological Faith and Commitment, Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2009 (Marquette Studies in Theology 65). This work is also well under way: see for example the work of Roman Catholic theologian John J. Markey on Gelpi and contemporary North American Christianity, John J. Markey, Moses in Pharaoh’s House: A Liberation Spirituality for North America, Winona, MN: Anselm Academic, 2014; and the Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong on contemporary trends in philosophy of religion and charismatic spirituality, Amos Yong, Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost,

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Finally, by comparing Emerson’s mysticism with Bernard McGinn’s classic definition of Christian mysticism ‘as that part, or element, of Christian belief and practice that concerns the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the effect of (…) a direct and transformative presence of God’,43 I find that Emerson was supremely interested in the former element of the consciousness and preparation for the presence of God, and simultaneously largely ambivalent concerning the transformative effect of that same presence. Emerson’s transcendental mysticism of the natural was a mysticism that was paradoxically readily available through the world of everyday individuals and tragically irrelevant to the most pressing concerns of his time.

43

Christian Practices, and the Neighbor, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008 (Faith Meets Faith Series); idem, Spirit, Word, Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006; idem, ‘Discerning the Spirit(s) in the Natural World: Toward a Typology of ‘Spirit’ in the Religion and Science Conversation’, in: Theology & Science 3 (2005) no.3, 315-329; idem, ‘In Search of Foundations: The Oeuvre of Donald L. Gelpi, Sj, and Its Significance for Pentecostal Theology and Philosophy’, in: Journal of Pentecostal Theology 11 (2002) no.1, 3-26. Bernard McGinn, The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, New York: Modern Library, 2006 (Modern Library Classics), xiv.

GERRIT STEUNEBRINK EMERSON, A BEAUTIFUL SURPRISE!

The American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is not very well known among contemporary European scholars in philosophy. For example, Dutch philosophical programmes treating American philosophy regularly start with William James (1842-1910), Charles Sanders Pearce (1839-1914), and John Dewey (1859-1952). This commentary on the contribution of Higgins wants to compensate this academical neglect at the same time. In fact American philosophy started with Emerson. He was well-known among European philosophers and literary writers. Friedrich Nietzsche read him, as did Henri Bergson. In France, Marcel Proust (1871-1922) and Albert Camus (1913-1960) were familiar with him. In Holland, psychiatrist and novelist Frederik van Eeden (1860-1932) was influenced by him. To find a clue to Emerson’s position in American intellectual life, one should read Harold Bloom’s ‘Introduction’ to the 150th anniversary edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. There Bloom writes: You can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular Scripture of the United States of America. They might include Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s two series of Essays and The Conduct of Life, and arguably there are others. None of those, not even Emerson’s, are as central as the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855).1 The authors mentioned roughly belong to the period of the American Renaissance (± 1830-1865). Mark Twain, a little bit earlier in time, is called the father of American literature. His Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often considered to be ‘the great American novel’, so Harold Bloom. The period is characterized as the coming of age of American literature, and, in the wake of the Romantic movement, as an expression of the American spirit. Walt Whitman, as the pinnacle of this movement, is the great American poet. Bloom calls him ‘the American bard, our Homer, our Milton’. And Emerson is of central importance for Walt Whitman’s development. Emerson invents ‘the American religion’, Walt

1

Harold Boom, ‘Introduction and Celebration’, in: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, The first (1855) Edition, New York: Penguin, 2005, vii-xxxviii: vii.

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Whitman incarnates it. Bloom does not shy away from the use of religious metaphors. Emerson is Whitman’s ‘prophet’. Whitman is Jesus, and Emerson is his John the Baptist. So Emerson is of central importance for the Romantic movement. And it is important to see that, at the time when American philosophy emerges, Emerson is not an academic philosopher, but a poet and a popular philosopher, an intellectual essayist and public lecturer. In his essay on education, he bluntly writes: Why should we go to Europe for our education! Here we meet a kind of unity of American philosophy, the American mentality (or the ideal of it), and therefore, in my opinion, American spirituality. His philosophy is characterized as ‘transcendentalism’, which was the philosophy that was dominant in the period of the American Renaissance. It was given its name by William James, in reference to the idea that there is a soul in the cosmos which is in every individual as well. By this, it is immediately clear that, as Higgins points out too, this philosophy has less to do with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant than the word ‘transcendentalism’ may suggest. It is more a kind of idealism or spiritualism. Despite Kant’s explicit rejection, it even reintroduces ‘intuitive’ knowledge as a possibility for human reason, transcending conceptual sense-bounded knowledge. Emerson only read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason at a very late stage. Moreover, the atmosphere of his work does not so much resemble the atmosphere of this first Critique, as that of Kant’s third Critique, the Critique of Judgment that influenced European Romanticism so much. It is through the reception of Kant by the English Romanticists that Emerson knew about Kant and his transcendental philosophy. The unity of nature and the intellectual and moral world of man is the centre of Emerson’s essays on nature. His point of departure is that the whole universe is characterized by analogous relations, in which nature plays the leading role. We are dealing here with a metaphysical concept of nature in which Neoplatonic mysticism too is present. Emerson’s philosophy is an interesting mix of modern Enlightenment ideas and Romantic criticism of modernity. Both tendencies are present in Emerson’s work. It is the Romantic dimension in Emerson that inspired American thinkers like Thoreau to utopian experiments with small communities in the woods like Walden. Emerson’s Individualism under Fire My contribution is the result of an enthusiastic reading by a newcomer in the field of Emerson studies. Higgins’ article presents a profound reading of Emerson, including the secondary literature, which stimulated him to to ask some essential critical questions. One of them is about Emerson’s engagement in the abolition of slavery. At first sight, it seems to be about Emerson’s personality, but at second glance it is about his philosophy itself. Some of Emerson’s critics mention the fact that, in times of heated discussions about slavery, Emerson did not engage himself, did not accept invitations to speak and so on, although we do have a draft of a letter from an earlier period addressed to president Van Buren, in which he criticized slavery as well as policies regarding the native Americans (the ‘Indians’). I myself would like to state here, that Emerson did not forget slavery in his basic work Nature, of 1836. There he talks about man’s historical activity within nature. He mentions some historical events as ‘gleams of a better light

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in thick darkness’, for instance: the history of Jesus Christ, the realisation of moral principles, as in religious and in political revolutions, and in the abolition of the slave trade’.2 In his Self-Reliance of 1841 he talks about the ‘bountiful cause of Abolition’.3 But Emerson is said by his critics to have neglected his duties in social engagement in the late forties of the nineteenth century. Only later on, in the fifties, did he show commitment again, forced by some legislative compromises about slavery politics. Critics object that this fact shows Emerson’s personal lack of interest in these questions. According to Higgins, it was the writing of his philosophical work that prevented Emerson from publically taking part in the slavery debate during the forties. Higgins’ idea that in the late forties Emerson could not be fully committed to this debate because of his work on his publications has some plausibility. I would even add that Emerson can be forgiven for it. But for Higgins it seems only to be a partial excuse. To make this clear, he goes deeper into the philosophical sources of Emerson’s possible neglect of his social duty regarding the abolition of slavery. He depicts in a very beautiful way the ‘mystical’ aspects of Emerson’s philosophy both of mankind and of the human individual. See the quotations at the beginning of his essay. For Emerson, man is immediately related to his fellow man in the idea of mankind. Mankind is one in reason and in its relation to God. At the same, time mankind and God are represented in each and every individual. As individuals, human beings are immediately in unity with God. Here Higgins seems to find a point of departure for his criticism. For what is lacking in Emerson’s thinking is the dimension of the social itself. Humanity is real in mankind in general and in the individual, and there is nothing in between. This neglect of the social might be the deeper source of Emerson’s lack of commitment with respect to the Abolition movement in a special period of his life. Of course, the very title of Self-Reliance already indicates that Emerson is an individualist. He preaches individual non-conformism. He is certainly not a communitarian thinker. But on the other hand, this non-conformism, this individual thinking about the rights of the slaves against all social pressure, may have been, I would like to claim, a source of Emerson’s principal commitment in the Abolition Movement. Certainly Emerson wants to distinguish his individualism from egotism. He stresses very much the need of education towards true, non-egoistic individualism. And sometimes he thinks about social forms. He expresses a predilection for small communities. And his ideas inspired Thoreau to the foundation of the utopian community of Walden. One could argue, however, that exactly this ‘impossible’ utopian character is the consequence of the absence of true insight in the communal nature of human beings. So, I do not see a necessary relation between Emerson’s abstract individualism and the absence of moral engagement in a specific period of his life. Higgins tries to reinforce his argument with the remark that Emerson, although a mystic, lacks an essential feature of the true Christian mystic: the personal transformation by the presence of God. Emerson’s mysticism of the natural and the transformative presence of the natural is a preparation for a transformation by God that does not really 2 3

Ralph Waldon Emerson, ‘Nature’, in: Nature, London: Penguin, 1-56: 52. Idem, ‘Self-Reliance’, in: Nature, 85-118: 90.

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take place. By the absence of this transformation, therefore, Emerson might lack a definite moral and social strength in everyday life. His mysticism of the natural is too easy, readily available through the world and, paradoxically, therefore tragically irrelevant to everyday society. Is not this criticism too harsh? Does Higgins not exaggerate the mystical aspects of Emerson’s thoughts? By understanding Emerson as a mystic, Higgins evaluates him in the light of what is called true mysticism and then concludes that he fails. But is he really a mystic? Of course there are mystical elements in his philosophy, but Emerson is not of the kind of Meister Eckhart or Thomas Merton. He is primarily an intellectual, a philosopher, a spiritual thinker who should be evaluated on the basis of his own criteria. His work could be the point of departure for a fruitful discussion about the relation between spirituality in general and mysticism in particular. We could set up a typology of the personalities of mystics and of spiritual people. In my ‘typology’, Emerson is first of all an intellectual with a spiritual dimension. He might therefore be called a spiritual thinker. This is also important for the evaluation of the relevance of Emerson’s thought for everyday life. Of course his work is not a guide or manual for everyday life like The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, or the works of Thomas Merton. But again: he should not be evaluated in light of these persons. He is an intellectual, a spiritual thinker. And in this quality he did and still does inspire people. He inspired Thoreau in his practical, although utopian, experiment of Walden. And in my opinion his philosophy of nature can still inspire ecological movements.4 So to conclude, I thank Higgins, who made me discover Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was entirely worthwhile. It is fascinating to see how movements of European thinking, modern Enlightenment ideas and Romantic criticism of modernity were received in America and went on to form a new philosophy and an intellectual challenge that is able to contribute to mutual American and European self-understanding.

4

See: Dewey W. Hall (Ed.), Romantic Ecocriticism: Origins and Legacies, London/ New York: Lexington, 2016.

PART II DOWN TOWN

MARC DE KESEL LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR PURELY Mysticism & Politics in Fénelon Unfortunately, you do not understand these truths. How could you appreciate them? You do not know God at all. You do not love Him at all. You do not pray to Him at all with all your heart, and you do nothing to try to know Him. (Fénelon to Louis XIV)

Christian love is thoroughly social. Since its very beginning, Christianity has been imbued with the ideal of agape, the term for the way the first Christians organized their communities. In those, so to speak, proto-communist societies no one was poor because all possessions were common property and all lived in perfect harmony. Such were the consequences of the fact that the participants defined God as love. The ‘Kingdom of God’, which Christians believed was about to be realised on earth, was meant to be the reign of love. ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’: this biblical commandment was practised in a radical way, so we read in the Acts of the Apostles.1 When later on, Christianity had become part of society’s official power, that power was again and again criticized by reference to the very idea of agape. Under all kinds of Christian regimes, ‘love’ was part of the slogans by which the sharpest criticism against them was expressed. To this day, Christian love has always been a motor behind all kinds of social revolt and political change. However, is Christian love not rather the name for that intimate relation the faithful have with God? Is love for God not first of all what matters to the soul 1

‘The group of followers all felt the same way about everything. None of them claimed that their possessions were their own, and they shared everything they had with each other. In a powerful way the apostles told everyone that the Lord Jesus was now alive. God greatly blessed his followers, and no one went in need of anything. Everyone who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles. Then they would give the money to anyone who needed it’ (Acts 4:32-35).

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– the soul considered neither in its relation to other souls nor in some social or political commitment, but the soul on her own, hoping to find in that loneliness a direct intimacy with God? Here, love is not something social, let alone political. Here, love is explicitly solitary and intimate, a matter of introspection, of inner life. This kind of love, too, has a long tradition in Christianity. Here, however, the background is not only agape, but eros as well. The intimate love for God is highly erotic, albeit in a sublimated way: ‘carnal’ longing is transformed into spiritual desire for truth or, what amounts to the same thing, for God. In other terms, it is Platonic eros that is at stake in this tradition, a tradition that started with Origenes’ comment on the Song of Songs and plays a dominant role in the entire Christian narrative, and is most explicitly expressed in what is commonly known as the tradition of Christian mysticism.2 Christian mystics love God by going an inner path that leads them deep down into their soul. And yet, at the same time, they pretend that this love is not in contradiction with explicitly social engagement. According to them, the inner path leading to God simultaneously leads beyond the boundaries of their own self. To them, mystical love is perfectly compatible with neighbourly love and with social commitment in general. Going down into the soul even coincides with going inside society’s political ‘downtown’. This essay follows an early modern defender of mystical love, François de Fénelon (1651-1715), in the way he considers mystical – or, as he calls it, spiritual – love to be compatible with social and political commitment. Even though my conclusion will be critical of the theoretical possibility of this compatibility, it must be said that, in fact, Fénelon combined an extremely intimate conceptualization of the love for God with one of the sharpest critiques of the political absolutism of his time. Fénelon did not succeed, however, in properly arguing the compatibility of the two kinds of Christian love he both practised: the intimate love and the social one. What is at stake in this failure, is – as I will show – the impact of the then emerging Cartesian cogito that became the new, typically modern subject. I will argue that the modernity of the subject position is problematic, both at the level of intimate love and at that of social love. In this sense, the social problem of Fénelonian love can shed light on the profoundly problematic character of the modern social and the modern political.

2

See for instance: E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990; Ann W. Astell & Catherine Rose Cavadini, ‘The Song of Songs’, in: Julia A. Lamm (Ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, Chichester (UK): Blackwell, 2013, 27-40.

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1. Loving Purely… Rather than a mystic, Fénelon considers himself a theorist defending the spiritual movement of his age and the mystical tradition this movement bases itself upon. This mystical tradition needs defence, so he repeats again and again, since it puts forward the very core of Christian life, which is love. In an age of religious wars, when God is no longer audible through the evidence of nature and the reality of everyday life, the inner path of love turns out to be the most appropriate manner to relate to God. Love – more precisely ‘pure love’, pur amour – became the core concept of the spiritualité movement, which dominated the devotional culture of seventeenth-century France.3 That century is already at its end when, confronted with the personality and the writings of Madame Guyon in 1688, François de Fénelon, an abbé affiliated to the Versailles Court, discovers this kind of spiritual love and makes its defence the central mission of his life. He gets involved in a committee that screens Guyon’s works and signs the document that condemns several passages of it. This, however, does not prevent him in the years that follow from striking a blow for the pur amour – as well as for the entire mystical tradition – as the core of both doctrine and practice of Christian faith. In 1697 he publishes the Explication des maxims des saints sur la vie intérieure, in which he explains that the ‘inner life’ – and the pur amour as practiced in it – is in perfect harmony with the ‘maxims of the saints’, i.e. the principles as we find them with the Church Fathers and the other authorities in Christian doctrine.4 This publication appears in the midst of a huge public debate about the pur amour, the famous Querelle du quiétisme, that lasts until 1699. Then, with a condemnation of twenty-three sentences in the Explication by the Magisterium in Rome, Louis XIV definitely closes the debate – a decision that stopped the then huge élan of French spiritualité. Fénelon will nonetheless continue to explain and defend the pur amour, albeit by writings that will only reach an audience in an indirect way and, later, in posthumously published outtakes of his intellectual and religious heritage.5 The condemnation of Fénelon’s pur amour has all kinds of reasons that are not ‘doctrinal’ at all (intrigues at the Versailles Court, competition with his former protector and later opponent, Bossuet, et cetera), and yet, the verdict is not without interesting ‘doctrinal’ aspects. For what is pur amour about? And 3

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See for instance: Michel Terestchenko, Amour et désespoir de François de Sales à Fénelon, Paris: Seuil, 2000. François de Fénelon, Selected Writings, ed., transl. & introd. Chad Helms, New York/ Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2006, 207-297. Peter J. Gorday, François Fénelon: A Biography, Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2012.

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why is it called pure? Is loving God not the condition the Christian lives in anyhow? God is love, so he reads in the Bible, and since his very being depends on God, he depends on his love, which implies that he shares in this love and that consequently, believing in Him, he loves God. But how can he take this love for God really seriously? How to guarantee that his love is love for God and not for himself? How to avoid that, by loving God, he is only concerned with himself; that his love is in fact nothing but self-love? Here we meet the conceptual difference underlying the devotional practice of pur amour, namely the unbridgeable gap that separates the human and the divine. On the one hand, there is God, who is infinite and in that sense sovereign; on the other hand, there is the human being, marked by finitude and for that very reason subjected to God’s sovereignty, a sovereignty on which he radically depends and which, therefore, he cannot but gratefully love. So how, then, can I really love the sovereign God? Must I love Him because I depend on Him, because He created me and promises to continue my being beyond my death? Must I love God because He will pay that love of mine with the reward of eternal beatitude? In the context of these questions Fénelon comes up with his famous ‘supposition’.6 Suppose, he says, that I know with absolute certainty that God has condemned me to the eternal pains of hell. This ‘supposition’ seems to be in contradiction with the eternal beatitude that God promises to every Christian. This is indeed the promise that God has made. However, we too easily forget, Fénelon replies, that this promise does not limit God’s sovereignty. God is no less God when He decides not to keep His promise. So, when I take God’s sovereignty seriously, I must approve of this possibility – which implies that this ‘supposition’ is valid and not unorthodox at all. So, Fénelon continues, suppose that I am sure that God will deprive me from afterlife in heaven: does loving God then make any sense? Contrary to the common sense reaction to this question, Fénelon replies with an unambiguous ‘yes’. What is more, he adds, it is precisely because I do not receive anything in return, that my love for God is pure. Only this kind of love has radically overcome the selfish love – l’amour-propre – that rules my natural life. Solely pur amour makes my love supra-natural. It is only then that I love God and nothing or no one else but God. Only then I take his divine sovereignty really seriously. The implications of this kind of pur amour are rather extreme, certainly for the loving subject. For pure love implies the annihilation of the I that loves.

6

François de Fénelon, Œuvres I, ed. Jacques Le Brun, Paris: Gallimard (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), 1983, 661-663.

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Pur amour coincides with the ‘holocaust’ of the subject, so Fénelon writes in one of his Lettres spirituelles:7 Be really a nothing, in all and everywhere; but do not add anything to this pure nothing. On this nothing you have no grip. It has nothing to lose. The real nothing offers resistance to nothing, there is no I that it takes care of. So, be nothing, and nothing more. Suffer in peace, abandon yourself; go, like Abraham, without knowing where. Receive from the hands of men the comfort that God will give you through them. You must receive it not from them, but through them from Him. Mix your abandonment with nothing, and do not mix that nothing with anything else either. Such wine must be drunk pure, unmixed; even one drop of water destroys its worth. One loses infinitely by willing to keep the slightest part of oneself. No restriction, I swear. (…) Love the hand of God that beats and destroys us. The creature is only made to be destroyed as the one who has made it for himself sees fit [au bon plaisir]. What a prosperous use of our substance! Our nothing glorifies the eternal Being and the entire God. May that which our amour-propre likes to preserve get lost. Let us be the holocaust which love’s fire reduces to ashes [Soyons l’holocauste que le feu de l’amour réduit en cendre]. (…) The only thing to do is to suffer, to renounce, and to lose; do not hold on to anything; never at any time stop the hand that crucifies you. Nature detests this non-resistance; but God donates it (…).8

What is love – love for the Love we have been created by? Here, we have already the answer that Simone Weil will formulate two and a half centuries later as ‘decreation’.9 Love for the creator coincides with disappearing as the created – here, by Fénelon, expressed as being nothing. A few decades earlier in the seventeenth century, the spiritual author Pierre Cotton expressed it as follows: ‘The mystical life (…) is a holocaust; the Christian is a man of sacrifices in the full sense of the term’.10 Christian love is thoroughly sacrificial, even selfsacrificial. What I offer God must at the same time acknowledge that, since God needs nothing, there is nothing to offer Him. If life is a gift of God, we can only honour that gift by a counter-gift that expresses it has nothing to give, except the ‘nothing’ we have reduced ourselves to. ‘Holocaust’ is indeed the metaphor for the inner path of Christian love. 7

8

9 10

Of course, ‘holocaust’ does not refer to the Shoah, but to the all-burning sacrifice as mentioned in the Old Testament. Fénelon, Œuvres de Fénelon Archevêque-duc de Cambrai, rev. ed. Vol. V, Paris: Tenré et Boiste, 1822, 156-157 [author’s translation]. Simone Weil, La pesanteur et la grâce, introd. Gustave Thibon, Paris: Plon, 1947, 36-45. Quoted in: Henri Bremond, Histoire littétaire du sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin des guerres de religion jusqu’à nos jours. Vol. 1, Grenoble: Millon, 2006, 514.

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2. …thy Neighbour However, is Christian love not love for our neighbour as well? We have to love God, sure, but are we not to love one another at the same time? The passage just cited refers to the neighbourly love practised between people – a love that has its origin in God and for which, consequently, we have to thank God in the first place: Receive from the hands of men the comfort that God will give you through them. You must receive it not from them, but through them from Him.

We all live in the love of God. We share that love. On this basis, we have to love one another and be grateful for the love we receive from others as well as for the love we can give them. But we must love one another purely: not because of the benefit we gain from it, not because of the love we receive from one another. All benefits and all love, we receive from God. It is through God that we give and receive one another’s love. God functions as a purifier. He purifies us from the self-interest involved in our mutual love, he makes us love the other not for what we get from it, but for the sake of love as such, pure love, pur amour. We have to love one another unselfishly, without any return to the self that inevitably is involved in that love. Is this possible? More precisely, is this possible within the context of neighbourly love? Is it not the ultimate obstruction for love between people, for love as the basis upon which a society can be built in which we live together? Pure love is unselfish love. Yet, precisely therefore, it requires an attentiveness with respect to the self, for this is what is to be destroyed for the sake of love’s purity. I must be preoccupied with the self in me. Even when I am together with others, I have to be preoccupied with myself, with that self of mine that must be tamed and put away. Of course, it is God who is between my fellows and me. It is his love that brings us together and only via Him are we able to love one another purely. But God at the same time obliges us to be occupied with the purification – and finally the annihilation – of our ‘self’. Does this, however, not imply that in the first place, we have to be preoccupied with ourselves and not with our fellow men and with society around us? And, in the end, when our love has finally reached the state of pureness, is this love not exclusively for God, a love in which there is not only no longer any self, but no other, no society either? So if society is based on love – the premise that is implied in the Fénelonian thesis – and love’s paradigm is the love of/for God (i.e. the pur amour that this requires from us), is society then not based upon what in fact disintegrates it? Between my neighbour and me, there is God, and finally it is not one another

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we have to love, but God.11 In the end, there is no ‘we’ to love God, there is rather a, so to say, randomly gathered set of individuals that love God, by going an inner path that tries to destroy each one’s ego. The Fénelonian pur amour appears to be an excellent precept for a kind of asocial and apolitical Christianity. Though loving his fellow men, the Christian is finally oriented towards a solitary relationship entirely submerged within a God to whom he has sacrificed his very self. Here, all social and political activism seems to be neutralized or even made impossible. 3. Fénelon – Political And yet, both Fénelon’s life and writings are far from asocial and apolitical. On the contrary, his writings contain some of the sharpest criticism on the absolutist regime of his time. Decades after his death, his reputation was such that the protagonists of the French Revolution played a while with the idea of honouring this Catholic priest as one of their inspiring geniuses by giving him an official tomb in the ‘Temple of the Revolution’, the Pantheon in Paris, besides the ones of Rousseau and Voltaire (the only ones who eventually made it there).12 Fénelon does not primarily owe this reputation to his most remarkable Lettre à Louis XIV, in which he criticizes vehemently the belligerent politics of the Sun King as well as the scandalous luxury of the Versailles Court and the French nobility in general, unconcerned as the entire political power was about the cruel poverty in which the the masses found themselves. The Lettre was a private document,13 certainly not meant to be read by the king in person, but probably by his unofficial (but extremely influential) wife, Madame de Maintenon, in order to nourish the advice – sometimes also political – that she was used to provide to the king.14 11

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14

Hence Fénelon’s conclusion that ‘En effet, Dieu ne nous chargerait de la responsabilité d’autrui’ (Fénelon, Œuvres I, 1041); see also: Fosca Mariani Zini, ‘Peut-on être indifférent à soi-même? Difficultés stoïciennes dans le pur amour de Fénelon’, in: Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (Ed.), Emotional Minds: The Passions and the Limits of Pure Inquiry in Early Modern Philosophy, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012, 259. Christoph Schmitt-Maass, Stefanie Stockhorst & Doohwan Ahn (Eds.), Fénelon in the Enlightenment: Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations, introd. Jacques le Brun, Amsterdam/ New York: Rodopi, 2014, 14. The document was first published by d’Alembert in the second half of the eighteenth century and then by Renouard in 1825; see: Antoine-Augustin Renouard, Lettre de Fénelon à Louis XIV, Paris: Paul Renouard, 1825, 5-8. For the most recent publication of the Lettre, see: Fénelon, Œuvres I, 541-551; Selected Writings, 198-205. This is at least a conclusion made by Jean Orcibal and approved by Jacques Le Brun: Fénelon, Œuvres I, 1410-1411.

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Fénelon undoubtedly owes his success in the enlightened circles of prerevolutionary France to his novel Les aventures de Télémaque (1699).15 This novel, too, is addressed to someone in the centre of French political power, the Duc de Bourgogne, the Dauphin’s son and, consequently, the possible heir to the French throne after Louis’ death. At the time when he is writing the novel, Fénelon is his ‘récepteur’, responsible for his education. The novel’s plot follows Telemachus, son of Ulysses, travelling around in search of his father. He is accompanied by Mentor, Fénelon’s alter ego, who instructs him how to respond to all the difficulties they encounter, providing in the meantime an entire course on politics – instructing the possible future king about how to install and guarantee a state ruled by justice and virtue. No reader – and certainly not Louis XIV himself – could have missed the criticism the novel levelled at the current situation in France. To summarize Fénelon’s ideas about politics, one can say – with Patrick Riley – that he pleads for a kind of ‘republican monarchy’, a political order that ‘combines monarchical rule with republican virtues’.16 In the eyes of Fénelon, the king’s power is not absolute, since he is not above the laws of the state.17 Together with his aristocracy and his people, he must cultivate such qualities as ‘simplicity, labour, the virtues of agriculture, the absence of luxury and splendour, and the elevation of peace over war and aggrandizement’.18 So, the ‘republican’ dimension of Fénelonian politics is above all of an ethical nature, and compatible with the morality as expressed in the Gospel.19 The power is with the king and his aristocracy, but both must behave according to Christian and ‘republican’ virtues. They must set aside their personal interest and act in favour of the res publica, the common good. In a small dissertation that is given the title Sur le pur amour (On Pure Love), after having explained the ‘supposition’ 15

16 17

18 19

It was ‘the most read literary work in eighteenth-century France (after the Bible), cherished and praised by Rousseau, it was first translated into English in the very year of its publication’, thus Patrick Riley in his introduction to the English translation: François de Fénelon, Telemachus, son of Ulysses, ed. & transl. Patrick Riley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, xvi. See also: Henk Hillenaar, Le secret de Télémaque, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994, 5ff. Fénelon, Telemachus, xvii. In Télemaque we read: ‘He [the king] can do anything to the people, but the laws can do anything to him. He has the absolute power in doing good, but his hands are tied from doing wrong. The care of the people, the most important of all trusts, is commited to him by the laws, on condition that he be the father of his subjects’. Fénelon, Telemachus, 60. Fénelon, Telemachus, xvii. See for instance Fénelon’s Examen de conscience sur les devoirs de la royauté, in: François de Fénelon, Œuvres II, ed. Jacques Le Brun, Paris: Gallimard (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), 1997, 971-1009. For an extract in English, see: Herbert H. Rowen (Ed.), From Absolutism to Revolution 1648-1848, New York: Macmillan, 1963, 68-73.

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mentioned above, Fénelon underlines his thesis by referring to antique society. There, he writes: The idea of perfect disinterest ruled the politics of all ancient legislators. The laws and the fatherland must be preferred to oneself, for this is what justice wants; and one must prefer to oneself what is called beauty, good, just, perfect. (…) It is not a matter of being happy by adapting oneself to that order. On the contrary, out of love for that order, one must negate oneself, perish, and not keep any resource. This is the way in which, in Plato’s Criton, Socrates prefers dying to running away, fearing to disobey the laws that held him in prison.20

‘Setting aside personal interest’: this is what connects Fénelonian politics to the kind of mysticism he defends, the pur amour. In the pur amour, those who are in a position of power can find an excellent directive for their political engagement. Already the first lines in Fénelon’s Letter to Louis XIV point in this direction. The idea of pur amour guides the entire argument, and yet, as I will show, that is precisely why it reaches an impasse. The letter begins as follows: The person, Sir, who takes the liberty of writing you this letter, has no interest in the world. He writes it neither from hurt nor from ambition, nor from any desire to become involved in the affairs of the state. He loves you without being known by you. He sees God in your person. With all your might, you cannot give him any reward that he desires, and there is no pain that he would not suffer willingly in order to make you understand the truths necessary for your salvation.21

The first thing that stands out is Fénelon’s astonishing lack of subservience. Rather than with the king, here the ‘absolute’ is obviously with Fénelon. And this is definitely due to the position of pur amour that Fénelon pretends to occupy. Hence the ‘freedom’ he mentions in the first sentence. ‘I speak to you in “liberty”’, he addresses himself to the king. Why? Paraphrasing Fénelon’s argument, one could say: ‘Because I am free from all interest. I have no ambition, no desire whatsoever – except the desire to love God or, which amounts to the same thing, to love purely. And’, so he adds, ‘this is precisely the way I love you, my king. I expect no reward from you, whatever with all your might you can give me. It is not might or power that connects us, but love. You do not know me, which makes it impossible that you reward my love for you, but this is the very reason why I love you purely. It is the very reason as well why I see God in you – God whom I love purely. Even if you should know me and should not be pleased by my love for you, even if you should punish me severely 20

21

François de Fénelon, Œuvres II, ed. Jacques Le Brun, Paris: Gallimard (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), 1993: 668 [author’s translation]. Fénelon, Selected Writings, 198. For the French text, see: Fénelon, Œuvres I, 543.

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for the immodesty of my love for you, I from my side would continue to love you. And I would continue to do everything in order to bring you in line with God, to make you love God and your people as purely as I love God and, through him, my fellow men and your people’. Fénelon, then, anticipates the negative reaction of his addressee. Talking about himself in the third person, he continues the passage quoted above: If he speaks to you forcefully, do not be amazed; it is that the truth is free and strong. You are hardly accustomed to hearing it. People accustomed to being flattered easily mistake for spite, for bitterness, and for exaggeration that which is only the pure truth.22

With these sentences, Fénelon starts to develop the list of criticisable points in the way Louis XIV rules his country. The Sun King should resist the flattery in which he has been grown up and in which, more then before, the royal court in Versailles continues to live. Instead of putting his own person in the state’s centre, he should follow the selflessness as present in the ideal of pur amour and concentrate himself on the well-being of his subjects: not on the nobility’s prosperity, but on that of the majority of the population, who are being exploited by the gentry. In all this, the pur amour is central. It allows Fénelon to practise an astonishing freedom of speech, for it enables freedom in the locus from where he addresses the king. He loves the king purely, precisely because he is not bound to him by any interest. And this is how the king must love his people: not for his own interest, but for that of the people. The freedom Fénelon takes to criticize his king is precisely the freedom he wants his king to take: the king, too, must be free: free of himself, of his self-interest, of his amour-propre. This is, Fénelon adds, why the truth is also free. Just like God, the truth is sovereign; it has no need of anything in order to be what it is. So a king must be: sovereign for the very reason that he needs nothing. This is to say: that he does not give in to the slightest of his own needs or desires, that he does not give way to the temptation of taking advantage of his royal position and, thus, of giving in to selfish love. God – or, what amounts to the same thing, truth – is sovereign in the sense that He coincides with the perfection of his being, that He is not marked by lack or desire, that He is so much Himself that He does not need to be selfish at all. Society must be lead by this God, by this truth. People must live together and build up a society ‘in truth’ – which for Fénelon means ‘in love’, in pur amour for God. But, so Fénelon observes, this truth has been neglected, and even denied by the king. It is up to Fénelon – and to his confessant and spiritual pupil Madame de Maintenon – to bring it to him. 22

Ibidem.

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But not without the help of God! For God is indeed needed here, so Fénelon concludes in one of the most direct and hard attacks on Louis XIV in person. I quote it at length, also to illustrate the vigorous tone of Fénelon’s critique: …God will finally be able to remove the veil that covers your eyes and show you what you avoid to see. It has been a long time since He laid hands on you. But He is not quick to punishment, because He has compassion with a prince who has been obsessed by flatterers for his entire life, and because your enemies are also His. But He will know to separate his just cause from yours, which is not just, and to humiliate you in order to convert you, for you will only be Christian in the humiliation. You do not love God. You only fear Him with the fear of a slave. Your religion only consists of superstitions, of small superficial practices. You are like the Jews of whom God says: while their lips honour Me, their heart is far from Me. (…) You only love your glory and your comfort. You return everything to you as if you were the God of the earth and as if all the rest is but created in order to be sacrificed to you. On the contrary, God has created you for the sake of your people. Unfortunately, you do not understand these truths. How could you appreciate them? You do not know God at all. You do not love Him at all. You do not pray to Him at all with all your heart, and you do nothing to try to know Him.23

King Louis must ‘know’ God, which is to say that he must recognize Him as the principle that de-possesses him of any kind of false, egocentric self, from the illusive glory in which his amour-propre holds him captive. He has again to learn the truth, which is not in selfish but in pure love: in the love that kills the ego in order to enable the love for the people. Fénelon writes these hard words in the hope that they are at least clear in the ears of Madame de Maintenon, so that they can one day, in a more diplomatic way, enter those of Louis XIV himself. 4. The Pure Base of Politics What, according to Fénelon, is wrong with Louis XIV’s politics? Is it the absolutist character of his regime that represses even the tiniest form of democratic participation? Not exactly, for ‘democracy’ is of no concern to Fénelon. In no sense does he turn against monarchy as such. What is wrong with Louis XIV is that he does not ‘know’ God and does not recognize Him as the unique base of a just political order. And what does it mean that God constitutes the base of a just political order? To answer this question, Fénelon does not refer to the early Christian idea of 23

Fénelon, Selected Writings, 203; Œuvres I, 548-549.

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agape and the ‘perfect communities’ based on this principle. When he (rarely) mentions agape, he reduces its meaning to the eucharistic practice, and simply omits the political dimension as described in the Acts of the Apostles.24 If the basis of politics is love, which in the eyes of Fénelon is indeed the case, then it is not brotherly love, but love for God. Brotherly love is only the effect of the more basic love for God. Without that love for God, we would not be able to love one another in a proper and just way. Why not? Because then we should love the other for the love we expect from him in return or for other benefits that this implies. And in fact we normally do so. Such is our natural condition. However, this is precisely why that natural condition is a bad and wrong base for society. It grounds our living together in the selfish love – the amour-propre – of each of us. Fénelon can understand that most people stick to selfish love or, despite their attempts, never get beyond it. Human nature is selfish, and only a few, elected by God himself, are supposed to go the ‘inner path’ that conquers all amour-propre and reach the state of pur amour. It is not ordinary people who constitute the target of Fénelon’s political critique. Targeted are those who have power over them, those who are responsible for society as a whole. When they relate to their subjects, even when they claim to do so out of love, they are guided by selfish love. And unlike the love of ordinary people, their selfish love has a direct and disastrous effect on the entire population, on society as such. This is why they must do everything to limit the selfishness of their natural condition. More than anyone else, they must ‘know’ God and be aware that it is God who constitutes the base of society. So, if there is one person who has to ‘know’ God, it is the one pretending to be the substitute of the heavenly ruler on earth: the king. To call his power ‘absolute’ can only signify that, in his position as king (as father and guard of his kingdom), he is absolutely unselfish. Being king in a ‘just’ way implies loving his people in a pure way, i.e. in the way of pur amour. If, for his people, he is like God, this does not mean that his personal will shall be their law – like Louis XIV himself explicitly suggests in his Mémoires.25 What does God stand for? According to Fénelon, He stands for the principle of man’s essence as being his very ‘self-destruction’. Man only exists by the love of God, and he only finds this truth when emptying himself from any human self in order to make room for the real Self that he belongs to, which is God. This kind of pure love has its social implications. What enables human beings 24

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See the Lettre spirituelle with the title ‘Sur la fréquente communion’; Fénelon, Œuvres de Fénelon Archevêque-duc de Cambrai. Vol. III (1822), 92. ‘Quand on a l’État en vue, on travaille pour soi: le bien de l’un fait la gloire de l’autre’, quoted in: Albert Cherel, Fénelon ou la religion du pur amour, Paris: Denoël & Steele, 1934, 157.

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to relate to one another in a true and just way requires the elimination of their selfish reflexes. Absence of selfishness: this is society’s real base. It is in this sense that society is grounded in God, and that no society is possible without God’s substitute, i.e. a king. Hence Fénelon’s monarchism, despite the republican virtues that he puts forward both for those who have power and those who live under it. The powerful basis of society can be nothing else but God or – what amounts to the same thing – the king. Only, the king must ‘know’ God, which is to say that, in his quality of sovereign, he can only be ‘selfish’ in the way that God is ‘selfish’, which means: not marked by needs and desires – as a ‘self’ that, within the earthly world of needs and desires which is his kingdom, acts out of mere selflessness. In a way, the Fénelonian king shares a basic characteristic of the Hobbesian ‘sovereign’. Of course, Fénelon would never agree with Hobbes that the sovereign of a state (a ‘commonwealth’, in Hobbes’ term) has a mortal base, since for Fénelon, state and sociability in general are based in the immortal God. And yet, there is a common feature. For, despite the violence of the Leviathan being the origin of his power,26 the Hobbesian sovereign is supposed to be free from any personal violence, if only because he is free from interest in the society he rules. Located by ‘social contract’ in a position radically outside society and the mutual interests reigning there, the sovereign himself is free from any interest and therefore able to install an order of law that counts equally for everyone. It is his unselfishness that legitimizes him as sovereign. And on the part of his subjects, a similar unselfishness is required: that they put aside their own personal interests is the condition sine qua non to obey the law and to be proper subjects (i.e. to be justly subjected to the sovereign’s law). A ‘commonwealth’ is only possible when each of its subjects has renounced his natural rights and transferred them to the sovereign, and when the latter acts not on the base of his own natural ‘Rights’ (his personal interests), but only on the base of the rights that he has received from them and transformed into ‘Laws’. On that base only, the sovereign is able to create a just order of law.27 26

27

According to Hobbes, the power ruling society is based on a ‘social contract’ by which every participant has freely rendered his natural ‘rights’ (which are absolutely free and therefore the reason why they cause a ‘war of everyone against everyone’) for a ‘law’ attributed to the sovereign. So the sovereign delivers society from its natural violence (symbolized in the biblical figure of the Leviathan), transforming this violence into the power of the order of law. See the famous formulation of the Hobbesian ‘social contract’ in the seventeenth chapter of the Leviathan: ‘…as if every man should say to every man, I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing myself, to this Man, or to this Assemble of men [i.e. the sovereign], on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner. This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called COMMON-WEALTH, in Latin CIVITAS. This is the

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That unselfishness and its opposite play a basic role in the foundations of society is an idea that can be found in Rousseau as well, despite his huge criticism on Hobbes. According to Rousseau, too, selfishness, considered socially, is a most profound vice. It is at the very base of society, be it that society is not the base of the human as such. Man is not basically – in the words of Rousseau, ‘naturally’ – social. In the state of Nature, there are no societies, not, however, because – as Hobbes teaches – these are made impossible by the war of everyone against everyone. The state of Nature is the opposite of that of war, Rousseau explains, since there, in his needs and desires, man is directly provided for by Nature herself. There, living with others is really free and really peaceful at the same time because no one needs the other. This is why, in the state of Nature, selfish relations to others and selfishness as such are simply absent. Only when society comes into being, amour-propre emerges. And the social contract is there to repress that amour-propre and change it into a real social love, a love for the community. All three authors, Rousseau, Hobbes and Fénelon, have the idea in common that at the base of society, unselfishness is indispensable and that even the base as such is unselfish. For Rousseau it is Nature, for Hobbes the Sovereign, and for Fénelon God. Each of them has a different conception of the way man should relate to this base. For Rousseau, he should take that unselfish state of nature into account as being impossible to re-establish and, at the same time, as the regulative idea upon which society’s social contract is built. For Hobbes, the selfishness that dominates society should be repressed by the unselfish sovereign to whom the subjects should relate in absolute obedience. Fénelon locates just politics in the selfless way the king and all men of power relate to society’s ground, which for him is God. Yet, Fénelon is the only one who really goes into the selflessness required here. He does so not so much in his political, as well as in his spiritual writings. In order to train themselves in ‘loving’ their subjects, men of power can use the long and numerous reflections on the pur amour – so Fénelon implicitly suggests on almost every page of his Lettres spirituelles for instance, if only because these are for the most part addressed to people belonging to the centre of France’s political power, the Versailles Court. Madame de Maintenon is but one example – though an important one, since Fénelon wrote many letters to her and, by doing so, tried to influence directly the very heart of political France, Louis XIV.

generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence’. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (rev. ed.), 120 (Hobbes’s italics, capitals and orthography).

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There, in the Lettres spirituelles, the reflection on selflessness is much more elaborate and problematized than in Hobbes or Rousseau, where it is hardly touched upon. What is more, in Fénelon’s reflection the paradox of the intention to be selfless comes to the surface. And, as we will explain, the paradox sheds light on the paradoxical base of the modern political subject in general – a subject that in Fénelon’s time is about to emerge. What is this paradox? That the very attempt to get rid of the self, installs this very self. Remember the elementary line of Fénelon’s argument: ‘No, it is not me who wants to be the base of my being; I no longer want to live on the base of that mortal self of mine. I want to live on God’s base, and love is the way to achieve this goal: pure love, love purified from the self and its interests, even purified from the benefits God promises me. Suppose I know that I will be condemned to the eternal pains of hell, even then, and precisely then, I will love God, for then and only then, my love is really pure, truly unselfish’. Is it? Is that self of mine no longer operational here? Has it been overcome? Not at all. For my so-called unselfish love, contrary to what it pretends, does not depend on God, but only on myself. I, and no one else, give ground to my love for God. Even if God condemns me to hell, even if heaven is a mere chimaera, even if God does not exist at all, my love for God remains, for it depends only on me. Contrary to his own intentions to make God the source from where man relates to Him, Fénelon turns out to be himself that source, which can only keep his original intention by endlessly trying to destroy the source that he is himself. Despite his own objective, he turns out to be a modern, Cartesian subject: the point from where he relates to the world is no longer God, but Fénelon himself. He allows for the doubt whether God will keep his promise of heavenly beatitude and makes that doubt his very method. And where does he find the certainty overcoming this doubt? In the doubt itself, in the uncertainty of God’s promise. In this methodically maintained uncertainty, he finds the only certainty that remains: the absolute freedom of his will to love God. Modern politics is no longer grounded in God, but in the human. The citizen himself is supposed to be the base of his society. Hobbes is one of the first to think this through. In a different way, Rousseau does something similar a few decades later. But even if man himself is the base of his society, a kind of unselfishness is required. This, too, is clear to both Hobbes and Rousseau. Social coherence cannot be based on self-interest. Fénelon is interesting here in the sense that he radically opts for unselfishness as the very base of society. Yet, thinking trough that unselfishness by reflecting upon the inner path that the mystics go, he bounces against a persisting self. He more precisely bounces against the Cartesian ego that turns out to be the base even of the pur amour.

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In this perspective, one can find in Fénelon all elements to criticize the naive idea of selflessness as understood by Hobbes and Rousseau. To sacrifice the individual (natural) self in order to ground the social ‘self’ is not only far from easy, it is tricky as well, because it nonetheless installs a strong (Cartesian) self. Hence the absolutist character that persists in Hobbes and even in Rousseau. And yet, notwithstanding its tricky character, the kind of unselfishness that is at play here is indispensable in politics. More than in Hobbes and Rousseau, it shows its power in Fénelon. What else gives him the strength to stand up against the absolutist power of Louis XIV? Of course, it is the strength of his own self that is at the base of his critical stance – a self clearly taking the position of a Cartesian ego. And yet, this criticizing ego owes its power and its authority from a radical unselfishness. It is this unselfishness that is responsible for Fénelon’s political courage. A huge field of research appears here, an inquiry into the problematic entanglement of self and selflessness in the way in which we are modern subjects, both in the way we go the inner path in search of our real self (referring in this to the mystical tradition) and in the way we try to live together on the base of mutual respect, precisely, for each other’s self.

INIGO BOCKEN CONJECTURAL POLITICS Nicholas of Cusa’s Very Early Modern Mystical Foundation of Political Consensus

Discussing Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) who lived some two hundred years before René Descartes to elucidate the relationship between politics and mysticism in Modern Era may appear somewhat provocative. Between the era of the modern absolutism and its mystical interiority on the one hand and the discussions about the legitimation of power on the Council of Basel, of which Nicholas of Cusa was one of the main actors, there are the innumerable victims of religious wars, political transformations, philosophical and scientific revolutions. Should we not say that Nicholas of Cusa is perhaps the last main – though brilliant – representative of traditional pre-modern mystical theology affirming the political respectively ecclesial and mystical hierarchy of Dionysius Areopagite? As Michel de Certeau observes when he dedicated his most extended and most excellent chapter to Nicholas in his volumes on mysticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the traditional Dionysian worldview is already in a deep crisis at that moment – both on a theoretical and a practical level.1 Nevertheless, it is too easy to say that Nicholas of Cusa is just a conservative politician, trying to save the Dionysian hierarchy against the radical breakdown he seems to observe or at least foresee in his time.2 Far more, as I will show in this contribution, his theoretical and practical reforms can be seen as attempts to hold together inner experience and political institutions. What is at stake here is not so much to ‘control’ the anarchistic potential of mystical movements, but by understanding these as relevant societal and practical actors embedded in

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2

See Michel de Certeau, La fable mystique: XVIème-XVIIème siècle. Vol. II, Paris: Gallimard, 2013, 34-87; translated as The Mystic Fable. Volume II: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2015. P.E. Sigmund, ‘Medieval and Modern Constitutionalism: Nicholas of Cusa and John Locke,’ in: P. Casarella (Ed.), Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2006, 196-209.

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social practice – as it was the case with the Devotio Moderna during his legation travel through the Netherlands and Germany.3 The discussion whether Nicholas of Cusa is the first modern or the last medieval thinker is already for more than a century a topic of debate within Cusanus scholarship.4 This discussion starts over and again, although it is often not the most fruitful way of dealing with this original and innovative figure living, as Hans Blumenberg formulated it, on the threshold of Modernity. 5 In this case, the focus on Nicholas of Cusa’s struggling with the Dionysian metaphysics of order and the role of mystical theology however can deliver a contribution to a critical understanding of the genesis of modern absolutism and its counterpart, the inner spiritual way as it has been established in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.6 Exploring the argumentative strategies of Nicholas we will be able to see that the modern cartesian – and Hobbesian – idea of the self, conserving its interests and new fundament of the social order is just one of the possible answers to the nominalist crisis of the mystical body as a social theory at the end of the Middle Ages. Perhaps there are, as we will see, alternatives paths possible, also for our time. Understanding Cusa’s attempts to establish a new theoretical foundation for both the political order and mystical experience can put in perspective the turn towards the modern self, connected with the political absolutism which dominates modern society until today and will perhaps show that the paradigm of the cartesian subject is only one option of others. In the first part of this article, I will concentrate on the mystical foundation of political order as it can be found in Cusa’s early writing, De concordantia catholica, written during the Council of Basel, between 1430 and 1435. In the second part, I will focus on Cusa’s mystical theology as it has been elaborated 3

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6

See Nikolaus Staubach, ‘Nicolaus Cusanus und die Devotio Moderna’, in: Inigo Bocken (Ed.), Conflict and Reconciliation in Nicholas of Cusa, Leiden: Brill, 2004, 29-41; Inigo Bocken, ‘Visions of Reform: Lay Piety as a Form of Thinking in Nicholas of Cusa’, in: D.Z. Flanagin & C.M. Bellito (Eds.), Reassessing Reform, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012, 214-232. See: Hubert Benz, Individualität und Subjektivität: Interpretationstendenzen in der CusanusForschung und das Selbstverständnis des Nikolaus von Kues, Münster: Aschendorff, 1999; Inigo Bocken, ‘Praxis der Theorie: Cusanus und die Kritik der Moderne’, in: Matthias Vollet & Tom Müller (Eds.), Die Modernitäten des Nikolaus von Kues: Debatten und Rezeptionen, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013, 455-467. See Hans Blumenberg, Die Legitimität der Neuzeit: Cusaner und Nolaner, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1966, passim. English translation: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985. An exciting author who points to this relation is: Alois Dempf, Sacrum imperium: Geschichtsund Staatsphilosophie des Mittelalters und der politischen Renaissance, München: Oldenbourg, 1929.

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in his De visione Dei and this against the background of the political challenges of his time. In the third and last part, I will deal with the political application of this mystical concept in De pace fidei. 1. Politics and Mysticism in Basel It is well known that the modern concept of the self as initiated by Descartes is not only connected with the development of natural sciences, but also by the tragic political situation of Early Modernity.7 The endless confessional wars in Europe affirmed the early intuition of Erasmus, in his famous book De querela pacis where he let complain the personified ‘peace’ that what was in earlier days the source of harmony and political union, is now the reason for endless and insolvable conflicts.8 Erasmus is very well aware of the crisis of the metaphysical foundation of social order, the metaphysical paradigm of order – in the words of Henri de Lubac, the model of the mystical body of Christ.9 One of the most remarkable events in fifteenth century society which brought this crisis into real appearance was without any doubt the famous Council of Basel, which was opened on 1431, July 29th by Pope Martin V, and never was officially closed (which could be an argument to say that it is still going on).10 It was, in fact, the last general Council before the Reformation. Moreover, I hope to show that its breakdown is of central importance to understanding the political impact of mystical theology in early modern society. The Council was also the first public stage on which appeared the philosopher, theologian and mathematician Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) who came at Basel for a rather unimportant regional question: he came to defend the interests of Ulrich the Duke of Manderscheid to become appointed bishop of Trier.11 The central point of discussion at the Council was about the authority in the Church, i.e. about the point of reference for concordance and unity within the church. The debate opposed the reform-oriented conciliarists, pleading for 7

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See Marc De Kesel, Zelfloos: Over de mystieke afgrond van het moderne ik, Utrecht: Kok, 2017, passim. Erasmus of Rotterdam, De querela pacis, written in 1517. See: Erasmus, The Complaint of Peace, Chicago/ London: Aeterna, 2015. See Henri de Lubac, Corpus mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages, Norwich: SCM Press, 2006 (orig. publ. Paris 1944). See Johannes Helmrath, Das Basler Konzil 1431-1449: Forschungsstand und Probleme, Cologne: Bohlau, 1987; Stefan Sudmann, Das Basler Konzil: Synodale Praxis zwischen Routine und Revolution, Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2005. See Morimichi Watanabe, Nicholas of Cusa: A Companion to his Life and his Times, Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, 152.

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putting the highest Church authority with the council, to the more conservative defenders of putting that authority with the pope. Showing his brilliant intelligence and canonic respectively historical knowledge, Nicholas of Cusa became one of the central figures at the Council. At the beginning of the Council, Cusa was more on the side of the reform-oriented party, defending a legitimacy of power from ‘bottom-up’; later on, he chose the side of papal authority from above, though always searching for a balance between the two positions.12 Even this brilliant mind of Cusa was not able to bring about reconciliation: the abyss between the horizontal bottom-up authority and the vertical model of papal authority was too thick to bridge. The defenders of papal authority left the council and decided to meet again in Ferrara and Florence. Perhaps it is also premature to call this papal model ‘conservative’. Since, in a way (and as we may believe Eric Voegelin)13 this new papalism fits with the modern model of authority as we can find it in Hobbes or other liberal political thinkers. Moreover, looking to the history of the council, there are as many nominalist defenders of the reform-ideas as well as of the papal authority.14 It is in this context that the young canon lawyer and philosopher Nicholas of Cusa writes his first main work, De concordantia catholica, the Catholic or general concordance.15 This is a work of enormous importance, also for political philosophy and one can say that it delivers for the first time a kind of history of canon law, of different and changing ideas about justice and social order. The General Concordance contains a comprehensive theoretical project. Its three volumes offer a sketch of the complete social order. In the history of political theory, there has been a long discussion whether this work is the main representative of the old medieval imperial theory (Reichstheorie) or it is a kind of forerunner of modern liberal theories of society. Influential American scholars like Francis Oakley and Paul E. Sigmund showed arguments who seem to be similar with theories like we can find in the work of John Locke, e.g., that all authority finds its legitimation only if it is consented by those who are subject to it. It may however not surprise that interpretations like these were rebuked. An important scholar like Carry Nedermann, e.g. points to the fact that the 12

13

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15

See Inigo Bocken, ‘Die Wahrheit der Konsens: Theorie und Praxis der concordantia bei Nicolaus Cusanus’, in: Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 66 (2019) no.1, in print. See Eric Voegelin, History of Political Ideas. Vol. VII: Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man (The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. Vol. XXVI), Columbia/ London: University of Missouri Press, 1999, 250-252, 256. See: Jovino Guzman Miroy, Tracing Nicholas of Cusa’s Early Development: The Relationship between De concordantia catholica and De docta ignorantia, Leuven: Peeters, 2009. Nicolai de Cusa, De concordantia catholica (Opera omnia iussu et auctoritate Academiae litterarum Heidelbergensis, ed. Gerhardus Kallen, T. XIV), Hamburg: Meiner, 1963. From now on: ‘H’.

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whole work is at the end embedded in the traditional Dionysian hierarchical model of order, in an almost conservative manner. Pseudo-Dionysius, one of the most important frames of reference for Christian mystical discourse, whose theoretical reflections also delivered the foundation of the political order of medieval society. It is not by accident that Eric Voegelin, the political theorist, and historian of ‘order and history’ claims that this political and ecclesial book of Nicholas can be seen as mystical writing. It is interesting to see how Voegelin’s claim was criticized by many excellent scholars, like, e.g. the Philippinian Cusanus scholar Jovino Miroy, by saying that there is no single reason to be found in the texts to call De concordantia catholica a mystical book. Miroy’s observation may be true if one presupposes a late modern concept of mysticism, which seems to stress the difference between the discourse of mystical experience and political ways of dealing with reality – until our days. I think that Voegelin’s claim that De concordantia catholica can be seen as mystical writing is of great importance. For he shows us that we cannot understand mystical tradition without the political context in which it founds its way in the cultural history of the West, in such a way that even the a-political interpretations of mysticism as we can find it in late Modernity do have a political meaning. Before I elaborate on this point, it is important to know what is the position of Cusanus in his book. This is not easy to say, for the three volumes contain a large number of theoretical argumentations and historical considerations on the development of canon law. Cusanus is well aware of the fact that substantial institutions – like the Church and the Empire – and the metaphysical and religious ideas on which these are founded – are always becoming, they are changing as the Rhine, as he mentions in his later writing, De coniecturis II,15. Moreover, somewhere in between, Cusanus also finds an opportunity for demasking the forgery of the famous Donatio Constantini a document which was always used as the foundation of papal power. It may be true that the De concordantia catholica is still characterized by the traditional Dionysian celestial and ecclesial hierarchy and the reality of medieval corporatism is still present in its argumentations. The real innovation of the book can be found in Cusanus’ awareness of the fact that the social order is substantially founded in God, but that the institutional and legal mediators of this order are changeable and are entities with a history. This is the real ‘mysticism’ of the De concordantia catholica that all institutions and laws are well founded in God;16 however, there always remains a gap between the positive law or institution and the mystery of God. How is this possible?

16

‘Mysticism’ therefore refers here to the medieval corpus mysticum, which encompasses the unity of the worldly and the divine. Michel de Certeau has clearly demonstrated the connection

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2. The Mysticism of Concordance – Nulla proportio, Mutual Conjectures, and the Mystery of Consensus17 Cusa’s book consists of three volumes in which he sketches the societal order of his time, interpreted by some as an example of the medieval theory of empire and by others as the precursor of the theory of liberal democracy.18 Some regard this work as providing the procedures for quantifying justice. Cusa does refer to nominalist and voluntarist political theorists, such as Pierre d’Ailly (1351-1420) and Marsilius of Padua (1280-1342/3). Slightly more interesting than the question whether Cusa’s theory of society is medieval or modern is his increasingly historical notion of Church and governance in his later work De coniecturis, and his awareness that political institutions and the ideas of justice that they are based on are as changeable as the river Rhine: Notice, too, that although either religion or governance can be seen to be stable for a while in some nation or other of this world, nevertheless it is not stable in a precise way. For example, the Rhein river is seen to flow continuously for a while; but it never remains in the same state, since it is now more turbulent, far more clear, now rising, now receding. So too, it is the case that although it is right to say that the Rhein was larger and smaller and that it passed gradually from largeness to smallness, nevertheless it is evident that the Rhein was never before precisely as it now is. So too, religion fluctuates inconstantly between spirituality and temporality. Moreover, the situation is similar regarding governance: it persists while fluctuating between greater and lesser obedience.19

So, for Cusa, the political order represents a divine, Dionysian hierarchical order, yet it is finding its form in historical and changeable conditions. The historical genesis of political ideas gives the ontological order its dynamic, can reveal the difference between political interest and political power and to question the legitimacy of the latter.20

17

18 19

20

between the emergence of mysticism in the Modern Age and the fatal crisis of this paradigm. See Michel de Certeau, La fable mystique: XVIème-XVIIème siècle, Paris: Gallimard, 1984. This section is based on research done by Stephan van Erp and myself on the meaning of conciliarism for Catholic political theology: Stephan van Erp & Inigo Bocken, ‘Nulla proportio in concordantia: Catholic Political Theology and the Mystery of Consensus’, in: Modern Theology Vol. 35 (2019) no.2, in print. Sigmund, ‘Medieval and Modern Constitutionalism’. Nicholas of Cusa, De Coniecturis, II, 15. Heidelberger Edition H III, n.149; translation by Jasper Hopkins: Nicholas of Cusa, De conirecturis/On Surmises, Minneapolis: Banning Press, 2000, 239. Cusa would play an important role in proving the inauthenticity of the Donatio Constantini, see: Nicholas of Cusa, De concordantia catholica, ed. & transl. Paul E. Sigmund, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 216-222.

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De concordantia catholica was written during the Council of Basel and is, apart from a collection of views and theories that were topics of debate during the council, also a practical handbook for to search for concordance. Theory and practice are interwoven: Cusa’s theory of concordance is a performative one, presenting something that needs to be done, and which has no neutral or external standpoint as its ultimate goal. This early work needs to be read as a handbook that can only proof its theoretical foundations from a practical perspective. He would repeat this approach in his later works, such as De visione Dei (1453) and De ludo globi (1463), in which a specific practical experiment leads to a vision of God, or an insight into one’s perspective. It is significant that Cusa declined a chair at the University of Leuven, and instead chose a life as church diplomat, engaging with political conflicts and reconciliation (e.g., with the Hussites, and the Muslims in Constantinople). His works should be read in that light, often written for occasions in which political negotiations needed a different approach to finding consensus. The reader of Cusa’s books is usually asked to experiment and to imagine and to describe their experiences. In De concordantia catholica, the participants are also invited to do something, rather than merely argue as if concordance is rooted in or aimed at a neutral and external standpoint. The work is trying to create a space for conversation, rather than to present an objective order of reality. Concordance, according to Cusa, is a practice in two directions. First, he says that the council participants need to come to a consensual agreement. However, second, their agreement is also required between the pope as vicar of Christ and the bishops as representatives of the people. His legal insights told him that the fundamental conflict between the reforming conciliarists and the traditionalist papists could not be solved merely theoretically. Yet, as Johannes Hoff correctly concludes,21 this impossibility was no reason for Cusa to let go of a metaphysical foundation of concordance in favour of a voluntarist of nominalist epistemology, for which Jan Hus found his death at the stake, and in which the lack of consensus could only be compensated by an authoritarian appeal to the will of God. Cusa chose a radically different strategy, but at the same time, he made an effort of reconciliation with the Hussites.22 The division between conciliarists and papists does not overlap with the division between nominalists and realists. Cusa chose a realist position, which was pragmatic by nature. He was familiar with the fundamental critique of the voluntarist school, viz. that God resists any rational argumentation. In his later 21

22

Johannes Hoff, The Analogical Turn: Rehtinking Modernity with Nicholas of Cusa, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013, 6. G. Markert, Jan Hus und die böhmische Reformation, Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2013, 97-99.

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works, De docta ignorantia (1440) and De Deo abscondito (1444/5), he seems to confirm this critique, by arguing that there is no proportion between finitude and the infinite: nulla proportio.23 This ontology entails the epistemological implication that knowledge of God is impossible. He distances himself from the Thomist analogia entis. At the same time, he develops the idea of participation, and he claims that separation (chorismos) and participation (methexis) can only be understood through and concerning each other. The awareness of nulla proportio enables one to see beyond one’s own limits. This insight is based on Cusa’s experience when he sailed back from Constantinople to Europe, after a failed attempt to reconcile with the Eastern Church, and when he saw the widening horizon beyond which one cannot see, although one knows that there is land.24 Similarly, learned ignorance makes it possible to negotiate with others differently, not by leaving reason behind, but through understanding that nulla proportio is at the heart of reason, where it makes knowledge possible.25 Let us take a closer look at how Cusa understands consensus in a hierarchical relationship, and how ultimately the unknowable God is involved in that relationship: he writes ‘where God is, is consensus’ (ibi Deus, ubi consensus), and ‘there cannot be a council without a consensus’.26 The pope as vicar of Christ might have an important role to play in searching for consensus, but the consensus between the bishops, the conversation partners who represent the people of God, is primary. They have to interpret and explain the laws issued by the council and ensure the assent of all to whom these laws apply. Assent and application are co-constitutive, and belong to the validity of the law, according to Cusa. In De coniecturis (1442), he explains the interplay between authority and assent. He writes that the authority of a ruler is based on the conjecture that the ruler is concerned with the well-being of the people, and that similarly the obedience of the subjects is based on the conjecture that they will be rewarded for their efforts and submission.27 The behavior of both ruler and subjects are founded on a conjecture, which implies the possibility of political failure. These conjectures can only be tested by trial and error, and just be verified or falsified by practicing what is presumed. Political theory can never be found outside this interplay of perspectives based on a mutual conjecturing as if it were able to present and predict how both perspectives – of ruler and subject – will be co-constitutive of the political relationship. Although this relationship is 23 24 25 26 27

De docta ignorantia I,3, H I n.9. De docta ignorantia Epistola auctoris ad dominum Iulianum cardinalem, H I n.263. Miroy, Tracing Nicholas of Cusa’s Early Development, 79-104. De concordantia catholica II, cap. ix., H XIV, n.101, z.11-14. De coniecturis II, 13, H III n.139.

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hierarchical, it involves a mutual encounter in which authority can only be claimed if it can prove its usefulness to the well-being of the people and if it meets the expectation that the subjects’ efforts and obedience are not in vain. Concordance emerges in the process of verifying the presumed conjectures. Its success cannot be predicted by political theory, let alone be prescribed or ordinated by law. With his statement Ibi deus, ubi consensus Cusa claims that God becomes present where consensus emerges. Furthermore, he argues that there is no theory, protocol or law through which consensus can be achieved. Consensus cannot be founded on divine authority, let alone be enforced by divine authority. However, the experience of consensus can teach us that it is a state that is willed by God, even though his will cannot be known. Thus, God becomes present as nulla proportio within the interplay of perspectives, and in the conversation between opposites. Only God knows the reasons and motives at work in finding consensus, which is an insight that cannot be captured in formulas but only experienced in mutual understanding. De concordantia catholica is written within the practice of the council meetings, and it, therefore, can be seen as a manual for the theoretical discussions on that council. It is partly an expression of the debates between the council fathers, and partly a collection of theorems to deepen the debates and to situate these debates in a broader context – or in contemporary terms, a toolbox for the council-father. It is the position of theory, which is the real innovation of the young canon lawyer Cusanus. The practitioner Cusanus is very well aware of the fact that it is not possible for human beings to take a position outside the order of reality. As in his later philosophical or theological writings will be the case, De concordantia is not written from the outside point of view, trying to describe the objective order of social reality. It is a book written in the midst of a debating practice, trying out from within the network of arguments used in the discussions, with a view to find out the order which is presupposed within the debate. As such the book is a manual which helps to situate the readers finding a place within a historically grown order, which can be observed only from the inside. In this sense the Concordantia catholica offers a space for dialogue and discussion, together with different argumentative models – canonist ones, theological ones, biblical ones, and the once offerd by Pseudo-Dionysius, to name only these as elements of this toolbox. The concordantia – the desired unity and consensus – cannot be described in a static sense, it has to be found in practice by the dialogue partners. Concordance should be realized practically. There has to be found concordance between the Council fathers on a horizontal level.

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Moreover, concordance should be found between the authority from above – the pope – and the consent from below. These two directions are permanently present throughout the text, which is built around the tension of these two. They form the framework for the concrete, practical search for concordance. I think it is possible to call this principle a kind of pragmatic realism which is discovered by Cusanus in his reflections concerning the mystical body of the church, and therefore can be called ‘mystical.’ It is nothing else than the mystical moment of decision making through consent, different than the decision being an authoritarian principle (as is the case in Thomas Hobbes, 200 years later). This idea of consent by those who are the subjects of rules and laws is a principle which Cusanus developed further in his later, more philosophical works. However, still in De concordantia catholica, he writes that law only has legitimacy by more extended use and by consent of the different subjects in practice – this is a constitutive part of the law, and I am following the German philosopher Tilman Borsche who sees in this dynamics of laws their mystical meaning.28 Laws as such are not enough, the consent by the subjects of the law is their last justification. This could be the reason why at the end of his stay in Basel Cusanus left the reform party, which intended to change the structure of the church, whereas he started to understand that structural reforms are not enough. In the view of Cusanus, this was just a displacement of the problem. In terms of content, he remained true to the conciliar arguments, but he shrank from the radical belief in a reform of the rules. Later on, e.g., in De coniecturis, we meet (as already mentioned) this mystical principle again when Cusanus discusses the relationship between a sovereign and its subjects. The authority of the sovereign presupposes the awareness that he acts through his knowledge of the care for the people he reigns and its salvage. Vice versa the obedience of the subjects is only possible if they can trust that they get rewarded for their subjection. It is, as Cusanus mentions, a conjectural knowledge29 (using here a word from the juridical and medicinal tradition), this means knowledge based on trial and error, of which fundamental and substantial criteria appear when searching and finding this balance in practice – ibi deus, ubi consensus.

28

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This idea can be found in Tilman Borsche, ‘Aequitas: Abbild der unendlichen Gerechtigkeit im Recht’, in: Peter Kemp (Ed.), Ethics and Justice, Münster: Litt, 2017, 23-46: 24. See Inigo Bocken, Die Kunst des Sammelns: Philosophie der konjekturalen Interaktion nach Nicolaus Cusanus, Münster: Aschendorff, 2013.

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3. Mystical Exchanges of Perspectives in De visione Dei Later on, Cusanus developed this mystical principle in a somewhat broader context as that of the ecclesiastic discussions, but it remains in a way political. To understand this, I will now focus on Cusanus’ later work De visione Dei, which is explicitly about mystical theology in the line of Pseudo-Dionysius – who is, as always, quoted by Nicholas several times. The scenery of the De visione Dei may be well known. The book is written on behalf of the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Tegernsee, who asked the cardinal for help in their spiritual search. They receive a painting, an all-seeing portrait, whose gaze follows the viewer of the picture. It is interesting that Cusanus refers here in the text to a self-portrait of the Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden, which was in the town hall of Brussels in the time of Cusanus. This reference not only attests to the awareness of Cusanus of the newest developments in the visual arts of his time but also shows how he is of the opinion that the vision of God – or theoria – can be found within actual cultural and human practices.30 Cusanus develops a scene of a theatre, to which the monks are invited to participate. It is a kind of experiment, which only makes sense if the reader, like the viewer, really becomes part of it in an active way. The experiment is a practice (praxis), in which – in the words of the French historian and philosopher Michel de Certeau – the act enables the words.31 The vision of God cannot be achieved through theoretical efforts, but only since the reader/viewer of the painting himself follows the path which is shown by Cusanus. Whoever enters this scenic space understands how he will be able to see the invisible divine light. The monk has to move from the right to the left, and vice versa, around the portrait, getting the impression that it has been made only for him and that he is in the center of the attention of the gaze. The more the viewer explores this way of seeing, the more he feels he is confirmed in his impression that he is at the center. The amazement of the viewer circling the portrait is intensified further when his brother in faith, performing the same experiment, reports the same experience. The fact that the second monk, coming from the opposite direction, has the same experience, is incomprehensible for the first one. He cannot understand this, unless he believes what his colleague on the circle around the portrait is telling him – that he is in the center of the attention as well. And so, through the disclosure of the respondent, he will come to know that that face does not desert anyone who is moving – not even those who are moving in opposite 30 31

See Nicholas of Cusa, De visione Dei, H VI, n.1-2. Michel de Certeau, ‘The Gaze: Nicholas of Cusa’, in: Diacritics 17 (1987) no.3, 2-38.

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directions. He discovers that what he sees is only his way of seeing, from a concrete, determined point of view. He is not at the center at all; his way of seeing is just one of many forms of seeing. The point of the experiment, however, is that Cusanus does not see any reason to deny the truth of this concrete way of seeing – this perspective. Both perspectives are true. It is only within his specific way of seeing that the viewer understands that it is impossible to see perfectly and wholly what he sees.32 Furthermore, the viewer understands why he is not able to see the portrait as it is in itself. For it is impossible to take a point of view other than his own. In De docta ignorantia Cusanus stresses that even if we would try another thousand years to imitate the position of the other, we never will achieve it.33 We may be tied to our perspective, but we are not its prisoners. The fact of being bound to our concrete way of seeing and experiencing is, in the view of Cusanus, not the expression of a tragic situation at all. For it is only from within this perspective that we can understand that there are other ways of seeing and understanding. There always will be perspectives that we do not immediately grasp. However, this knowledge opens the possibility of seeing different perspectives. A human being can move in several directions to collect more points of view, though he only can integrate these within his way of seeing. Therefore, Cusanus can quote in the sixth chapter of De visione Dei the critical argument of the Greek philosopher Xenophanes.34 There he says that, for the lion, God is a lion, for the ox he is an ox, for the young man he appears as a young man, for the old man like an older man. It is exciting and also crucial that Cusanus quotes here Xenophanes – a citation that, as far as I know, is not found in any other medieval text.35 For Cusanus, the argument gets a new meaning: it does not demonstrate the anthropomorphic way of religious thinking, as was the case in Xenophanes. Instead, it stresses the unavoidable character of human practices, in this case, the practice of making images.36 In the view of Cusanus, the unavoidable need of making images gives reason to take serious concrete human practices. Even the most abstract metaphysical insights and ideas are bound to the practical human imagination. Therefore, the vision of God necessarily takes place within the context of human acting and practice, by interrupting the direction of the gaze. 32 33 34 35

36

Certeau, ‘The Gaze’, 34. See Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia III, 1; H I, n.250. See Nicholas of Cusa, De visione Dei VI, H VI, n.17-18. Pauline Moffit Watts, Nicolaus Cusanus. A Fifteenth-Century Vision of Man, Leiden: Brill, 1982, 115. See Inigo Bocken, ‘Jan van Eyck and the Active Mysticism of the Devotio Moderna’, in: Louise Nelstrop (Ed.), Art and Mysticism: Interfaces in the Medieval and Modern Period, Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, 89-103.

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It is the same mystical dynamics as can be found in De concordantia catholica, which we see here in De visione Dei. As the law is justified only by the consent and the use of its subjects – searching for consensus – here it is the all-seeing view of God which only can be justified by human beings looking to the divine – each on their own ways;37 they can discover on their way that they see the same inaccessible truth. A second important point which we also found in De concordantia catholica is Cusanus’ keen awareness that it is impossible to take a position outside of the circle of viewers. It is only God who can see all the perspectives at once. Nevertheless, we can understand from within our perspective that we are involved in an endless number of perspectives. 4. Political Mysticism in De pace fidei It is not by accident that the same logic can be found in De pace fidei (On the Peace of Faith), written only some weeks after The vision of God and meant to respond to the conquest of Constantinople on May 29 of the year 1453 – the 9/11 of the fifteenth century. In this book we find a dialogue between all the different religions and nations, known at that time, coming together around the throne of the heavenly king.38 They are all different perspectives on the divine truth, the same experience as the monks in De visione Dei around the all-seeing portray. At the end of the dialogue, no one has to change his or her perspective, but all the dialogue partners can understand that which they see from within their perspective can be seen from another perspective, which is part of my perspective. It is the inaccessible and hidden Divine which appears within the exchange of perspectives as the condition of the actual debate and dialogue – the una religio in rituum varietate is not only the goal, it is also the principle of the conversation. Therefore, it is so to say the mystical truth of the concrete forms – the signs, rites, and habits, or the longae consuetudines (old habits) as Cusanus calls it. The hidden Divine appears within the particular perspectives of the different religious contexts, concrete practices executed by specific human beings. Here we find the same logic as in the De concordantia catholica where the general rule only has legitimacy through consent and use. The longae consuetudines consitute only the contexts in which the Divine appears if the one who is living with these is aware of the fact that there are different ways of approaching, although knowing of the impossibility to take a different 37

38

This is in a way an argument for the conciliaristic position that he would never completely leave behind. See Nicholas of Cusa, De pace fidei, H VIII n.1.

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standpoint as the actual one.39 It is the same discovery as Cusanus made in De concordantia catholica and De visione Dei: there is an unbridgeable gap between the concrete signs and what is signified – this gap is the inaccessible mystery appearing to the mind. It is the mystical space which in the eyes of Cusanus is a space to live in and where creativity rules. Regarding Cusanus, this relation is ‘conjectural’, a concept which he elaborated in his De coniecturis and that has its origin in the history of law and the history of medicine. Conjectural does not only mean that there is an endless difference between the sign and what is signified, but that there is also an interactive relation, which one could call ‘mystical’ – for it is the hidden power of the mystical body, the living image of God, the real and open nature of human being. 5. Conclusion This conjectural being of man can be seen as an answer to the challenges of the nominalist crisis, different from the subject in later modernity – which is from a cusanian perspective a reduction to one side of the conjectural relation – it is the reduction towards the sign, absolutizing the unbridgeable gap between the sign and the signified. However, what is really at stake is the fact that the human ‘subject’ always is embedded in concrete ‘con-jectural’ relations, in concrete ways of life, argumentations, images. The conjectural mystical dynamics are everywhere. They are not reduced to the closed inner world of the subject. In De concordantia catholica Cusanus is very well aware of the fact that the ‘subjects’ of the law are always taking a concrete standpoint, have their place in the social hierarchy – one could say it is dynamical corporatism, avoiding an external perspective, which is impossible to take for human beings. The relationship between mysticism and politics, which also emerges in the medieval worldview (corpus mysticum), takes on a different meaning in the fifteenth century – and especially in the interpretation of Cusanus. According to him, the mystical character of the political agreement is no longer situated in the vertical hierarchical foundation, as was the case with Dionysius Areopagita’s model. With Cusanus, the inability to provide a philosophical base to the political agreement is paramount. The agreement itself is a mystery, and it is the mystery that is the very foundation of the human community. This abyss is not localized by Cusanus in the subject but in the social network. For Cusanus, however, this abyss is a space in which the secret of agreement can manifest itself. Thus, a road is opened that does not necessarily go to the political voluntarism of Thomas Hobbes. 39

See Nicholas of Cusa, De pace fidei, H VIII n.5.

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The difference between the consensus model of Cusanus and modern political thinking in the line of Hobbes lies in the position attributed to theory. Cusanus is aware that political theory can never take a position outside the network of human relations. This too is an aspect of conjectural thinking: the consciousness that the theoretician can never occupy a position outside the social network presupposes in the vision of Cusanus a unity that can never be embraced by thought, but that is not separate from it, and that is connected with social praxis. It is very different in the dominant modern political philosophy, in which the theory occupies a position from the outside and finds no other foundation than that of an abysmal will.

JAD HATEM MYSTIQUE ET SUPRACONFESSIONALISME DANS LES STRATÉGIES POLITIQUES DES CHRÉTIENS D’ORIENT

1. Le problème et sa solution nationaliste Parmi les stratégies de survie que mettent en place les minorités religieuses menant une existence inquiète et précaire dans un environnement hostile, on peut observer, sur un large spectre, à un bout, l’auto-sabordement : des individus se convertissent de guerre lasse à la religion dominante et, à l’autre bout, la communauté dresse les murailles de l’immuable tradition et de ses normes identitaires afin de résister coûte que coûte, s’il le faut par les armes, ayant en ligne de mire la perspective d’achever dans le martyre sa trajectoire terrestre. Entre ces deux extrêmes, toutes sortes de manœuvres, moins dramatiques, s’efforcent de prémunir individus et groupes contre le péril. Se faire passer pour l’autre, comme les druzes, susciter, comme Butrus al-Bustânî, après les massacres de 1860,1 une éthique patriotique ou créer des idéologies (que des entités politiques pourraient couronner – qui maintiennent l’unité organique de l’État tout en laissant se développer le principe de la subjectivité et de la liberté) qui fassent tomber les cloisons en promouvant, par-delà la simple tolérance, une acceptation de l’autre sur un pied d’égalité et ceci à la fois par la reconnaissance réciproque de la personnalité juridique, et par la mise en œuvre d’une sensibilité commune.2 Pour ne prendre comme exemple que les chrétiens d’Orient : on leur doit la conception de plusieurs nationalismes, libanais, syrien et, en partie, arabe, ayant pour dessein initial d’abolir les privilèges sectaires et de désengager politiquement de l’Oumma (et de l’idée du califat) les populations musulmanes partageant une même terre avec des juifs, des chrétiens, des alawites et des druzes,

1

2

On en soupçonne le prodrome dans Le Rocher de Tanios d’Amin Maalouf qui voit druzes et chrétiens en venir aux mains après avoir vécu en bonne intelligence. Que la tolérance soit insuffisante, et que le principe conjoint de la liberté et de l’égalité doive prévaloir, les chrétiens le répèteront sans se lasser de Francis Marrash à Nassif Nassar dans son Bâb al-hurriyyat (ch. X).

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voire même des imamites.3 Leur idée de base peut se résumer en un slogan : « La religion est à Dieu, mais la patrie est pour tous ».4 Antoun Saadé, le fondateur du nationalisme syrien (du Croissant fertile) ne s’est pas contenté de concevoir une idéologie strictement politique et de soutenir la thèse que les religions sont soumises aux lois historiques : « La religion se développe avec le développement de l’humanité et ne cessera pas de le faire. Son développement est néanmoins très lent, à quoi tient le secret du péril qu’il représente ». Il précise que moins un peuple est intellectuellement évolué plus a d’emprise sur sa mentalité la religion ; or à l’instar de cette dernière, l’unicité de la doctrine (‘aqîdat) est à même d’agréger les composantes d’un peuple.5 Il a donc cru bon d’œuvrer sur deux plans en vue de réaliser son objectif : d’une part édifier une idéologie conforme à son idée d’une nation syrienne dont la souveraineté est assurée par un État laïc6 et, d’autre part, pour en soutenir la réalisation dans un contexte encore fortement imprégné de religiosité, avancer la thèse que l’Islam et le christianisme partagent le même noyau (établir la croyance en Dieu au lieu de l’adoration des idoles, commander au bien et interdire le mal, soutenir la thèse de l’immortalité de l’âme, confesser la rétribution et le châtiment dans l’au-delà),7 noyau propre à réduire la piété à l’observance des préceptes moraux (dont le noyau est répandu sur toute la planète), un credo minimum dont les derniers articles font toutefois la croyance supra-confessionnelle sans culte ni prêtre plus proche des religions établies que de la religion naturelle en sorte qu’il ne sera pas inconsidéré de juger que la foi commune préconisée n’est pas cette croyance universelle qu’un Spinoza tirait de l’Écriture et qui se

3

4

5

6

7

L’idée de privatiser les pratiques religieuses sous le même dais ottoman fut avancée, au XIXe siècle, par Salîm al-Bustânî (« Nous devons être dans nos temples des musulmans, des arméniens, des druzes, des maronites, des grecs catholiques, des nuçayrites et des syriaques, alors qu’ailleurs, et dans nos domaines de travail, nous devons être des Ottomans ayant un seul fanion » (Al-Janân, vol. VI, 1874, 181). Solution pré-nationaliste et somme toute simplement pragmatique que Gibran rejettera. On notera quand même le courage de l’auteur qui mentionne les nuçayrites. L’omission des grecs orthodoxes est sans doute accidentelle. Rihani qui voit dans l’union arabe le moyen de laver la tare confessionnelle, caresse l’espoir qu’un jour toutes les patries se fondront en une seule, celle de l’humanité (Al-Qawmiyyât. I, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Rîhânî, 1956, 213). Émile Habîbî, Al-Waqâ’i‘ al-gharîbat fî ikhtifâ’ Sa‘îd Abî al-Nahs al-Mutashâ’il, Ammân : Dâr al-Shurûq, 2012, 66. Nushû’ al-umam, Beyrouth 1971, 161. ‘Aqîdat, doctrine, peut prendre la nuance plus étroite de dogme. De la racine ‘aqada, lier. La doctrine comme ciment. La plus grande séparation de l’autorité spirituelle et de l’autorité politique avait déjà été réclamée par Butrus al-Bustânî (Nafîr sûriyyat, 22 février 1861), Maronite passé à la Réforme. Difficile à réaliser sous l’Empire ottoman ! Al-Islâm fî risâlatayh al-masîhiyyat wa-l-muhammadiyat, Beyrouth 1980, 176. Ajoutons : l’amélioration de la créature (Al-Âthâr al-kâmilat. I : Adab, Beyrouth 1960, 24).

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résolvait dans la morale au-delà des allégeances confessionnelles.8 Un esprit aussi dénué de candeur que fut Saadé s’est aventuré à composer un livre au titre éloquent : L’Islam en ses deux messages, le christianisme et le mahométisme dans lequel, grâce à la distinction entre une essence et des formes accessoires (Dieu ne s’occupant que du fondamental)9 qu’il convient de transformer en une distinction entre un centre et une périphérie, il rattache les sourates mecquoises au centre afin d’établir une stricte identité (davantage donc qu’une affinité ou une conciliation) entre les deux religions. Ceci étant, il n’appelle pas leurs tenants à composer une foi combinée : il n’est pas sans savoir que pour l’une Jésus est le Verbe incarné, tandis que pour l’autre Mahomet est un prophète. Mais il pense que cette irréductible divergence peut être abandonnée aux arguties des théologiens à la condition qu’ils ne se mêlent pas de politique et admettent qu’ils ont affaire au même Dieu à qui ils auraient intérêt à laisser le soin de juger des divergences doctrinales10 tout de même qu’il lui revient, et à lui seul, de juger les consciences, au dernier jour, citant la parole évangélique : « Ne jugez pas afin que vous ne soyez pas jugés » (Mt 7:1).11 Une exégèse audacieuse de maint verset coranique réservera l’infamante qualité d’infidèle à l’athée12 afin d’en exonérer le chrétien. Reste que le réalisme politique de Saadé (qui s’absente rarement de sa réflexion) ne lui fait pas caresser l’utopique projet d’un retour à quelque religion adamique non-légaliste comme les druzes en eurent le dessein affiché. Il regarde en avant. S’il ne parvient pas à résorber dans l’universel les particularismes, il tente du moins d’en émousser les dangereuses pointes. Stratégie d’inclusion par voie de neutralisation. 2. La solution dans une nouvelle religion Aux antipodes, un exact contemporain de Saadé, un tenant de la version prophétique de la lumière (Ghazâlî contre Kant, cette fois-ci) exerçait une fascination sur les esprits presque égale (et singulièrement sur le père d’al-Hâj, Yûsuf), quoique de nature différente. Il parvint à susciter d’abord une dévotion effrénée à sa personne, ensuite, à l’intention d’une élite subjuguée, une nouvelle religion sur la base des anciennes. Protestant d’origine syriaque orthodoxe, Salîm Alîsha‘,13 mieux connu sous le nom de Dr Dahesh, manifestait des pouvoirs que 8 9 10 11 12 13

Tractatus theologico-politicus, ch. XIV. Al-Islâm fî risâlatayh al-masîhiyyat wa-l-muhammadiyat, 178 ; Shurûh fî l-‘aqîdat, 38. Al-Islâm fî risâlatayh al-masîhiyyat wa-l-muhammadiyat, 181. Shurûh fî l-‘aqîdat, 49. Al-Islâm fî risâlatayh al-masîhiyyat wa-l-muhammadiyat, 198. Devenu Alîshî, transcrit al-‘Ashshî sur le passeport libanais.

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ses adeptes jugeaient surnaturels dans lesquels ils avaient le vif sentiment d’observer des guérisons miraculeuses, des transmutations de métaux, des prédictions qui s’accomplissaient, des convocations des défunts à partir de leur nouveau lieu de résidence, des faits de télékinésie à grande échelle et de télépathie, etc., tout ceci, précise Yûsuf al-Hâj, « dans le but d’aider les gens à revenir à la religion authentique véritablement fondée sur le bien et la vertu, et surtout d’admettre l’existence du monde de l’esprit, de la rétribution et du châtiment. Cela doit être considéré comme une victoire de l’esprit sur la matière en un siècle témoin de la maîtrise de la matière sur l’esprit ».14 L’une des apparitions, Platon, félicite les dahéshistes pour ce que la vérité pure (khâliçat) leur a été divulguée.15 Une autre, de saint Pierre, annonce les tribulations dont auront à souffrir maître et disciples dans un monde corrompu, manière de placer la religion naissante dans le prolongement du christianisme, ce qui ne l’empêche pas de revendiquer, dès l’origine, sous le nom de « mission » ou de « Message » (risâlat), une extension mondiale (‘âlamiyyat) et universelle (kawniyyat) ».16 Al-Hâj prend soin de noter que Dahesh n’est pas un medium ou un hypnotiseur, mais un authentique prophète visité par des esprits.17 Ses faits « extraordinaires » sont, à l’instar de ceux du Christ, de ces merveilles que seul Dieu est à même d’accomplir18 et qui servent d’attestation de sa qualité de Messager.19 Comme il ne peut se prévaloir d’avoir, comme Mahomet, communiqué un Livre divin inimitable (ou un pseudo Livre prophétique à la manière de Gibran et de Naimy), il doit se rabattre sur ses « exploits ». La personne du thaumaturge est le Livre, mais vivant, parlant. Dahesh signe le retour du merveilleux dans un monde menacé conjointement, paradoxe inéluctable, par la mort de Dieu (c’est la dimension spiritualiste de son message) et par l’antagonisme des religions (dimension éthique).

14

15

16 17

18 19

Préface (datée du 20 décembre 1942) à Halîm Dammûs, Mu‘jizât mu’assis al-‘aqîdat al-dâhishiyyat wa mudhishâtuhu al-khâriqat, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Nâr wa-l-nûr, 1982, 18. Halîm Dammûs, Al-mu‘jizât wa-l-khawâriq al-dâhishiyyat al-mudhhilat, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Nâr wa-l-nûr, 1983, 41-43. Dammûs, Mu‘jizât mu’assis al-‘aqîdat al-dâhishiyyat wa mudhishâtuhu al-khâriqat, 41. Al-Hâj, ‘Préface à Dammûs’, 19, 24-25 ; Yûsuf al-Hâj al-dâhishî, Al-Duktûr Dâhish wa-l-rûhâniyyat, Beyrouth 1946, 55, 101. Le titre que s’attribue Dahesh à cette époque est « le prophète aimé qui guide » (al-nabî al-habîb al-hâdî) (occurrence chez Dammûs, Mu‘jizât mu’assis, 141, et chez al-Hâj, ‘Préface’, 83). Lui-même et ses disciples ne ratent pas une occasion de vilipender l’hypnotisme et le mesmérisme. On devine que le problème de la sincérité du personnage se pose ici avec acuité et que les humiliations qui lui ont été infligées eurent trait à des imputations de mystification et de charlatanerie. Al-Duktûr Dâhish wa-l-rûhâniyyat, 101. Qiçaç gharîbat wa-asâtîr ‘ajîbat. II, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Nisr al-muhalliq, 1979, 118-119.

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3. La solution mystique Il ne resta plus enfin, mais seulement pour des personnalités hors du rang, des âmes d’élite, qu’à éviter l’impasse en empruntant la voie de la mystique, non pas en tant qu’anachorèse radicale, comme fuite décidée du monde, mais bien en guise d’invitation à mettre son bien suprême dans les retrouvailles, par-delà les religions positives, en la communion au même Absolu. Pour prix de ne pas s’abandonner à la lamentation victimaire ou de ne s’adonner guère à la violence nationaliste, le supra-religieux mystique succombe, à la suite du moraliste abstrait, à la tentation de dégénérer en infidélité vis-à-vis de l’histoire et des vexations et discriminations dont porte mémoire la foi exposée.20 C’est ainsi que Gibran imagina dans sa pièce Iram aux colonnes la rencontre, en 1883, d’un maronite et d’une soufie qui est parvenue à visiter la légendaire Iram. Ce n’est pas leur entente qui importe et le fait que le jeune chrétien reconnaisse la maîtrise spirituelle de la musulmane. L’essentiel est dans la recommandation qu’elle lui adresse : « Dis il n’y a d’autre dieu que Dieu et il n’y a que Dieu et sois chrétien ! »21 On remarque une omission et une extension. D’une part, la profession de foi monothéiste est amputée de la reconnaissance que Mahomet est le Messager de Dieu, ce qui revient à dire qu’il n’est pas demandé au chrétien de se convertir à l’Islam. D’autre part, le monothéisme est élevé à la deuxième puissance pour devenir théomonisme, affirmation que seul Dieu possède l’existence, ce qui rejette dans la dépendance absolue ou même l’illusion tout ce qui n’est pas lui. Nombreux sont les bénéfices à en retirer comme de minimiser fortement la dimension du politique et de disqualifier toute velléité d’imposer à autrui telle ou telle croyance. Il y a tout lieu de craindre la suppression de tout le champ de l’éthique, puisque le théomonisme le rejetterait dans le relatif et l’inconsistance de l’effet de surface, ce qui paraît 20

21

Saadé n’a, par exemple, que mépris pour la mystique pacifiste et supra-confessionaliste d’un Naimy (Al-Âthâr al-kâmilat. I : Adab, 25). Il se veut comme lui anti-égoïste et même messianique, pour ainsi dire (« Il me faut penser d’abord aux souffrances des millions d’entre ma nation, je penserai ensuite à moi » (Al-Nizhâm al-jadîd, août 1950, 12), mais dans un sens tout à fait différent. Comme en représailles, Naimy range le nationalisme parmi les idoles du monde contemporain (Al-Awthân, ch. VI) et voit dans tous les hommes un seul corps et une seule âme (Muzakkarât al-arqash, Beyrouth : Naufal, 2006, 115), les diverses articulation du même Verbe (The Book of Mirdad, Londres : Arkana Penguin, 1993, 48), ce qui lui fait désirer l’avènement d’un État universel. Il se distingue des autres auteurs que j’examine par ceci que son supraconfessionalisme est également un métanationalisme et est franchement apolitique (cf. Sab‘ûn. III, Beyrouth : Dâr Çâdir, 1966, 109). Il peut considérer l’homme en Dieu et le Dieu en l’homme sans admettre pour autant le Dieu-Humanité. Sur le nationalisme comme quasi-religion, Tillich a dit l’essentiel en son Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions, New York/ London : Columbia University Press, 1963, 5-9. Al-Majmû‘at al-‘arabiyyat al-kâmilat, Beyrouth : Dâr Çâdir, 1961, 586.

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être le projet implicite de l’auteur dans cette pièce. En réalité, la base éthique est maintenue, mais sous une forme subtile, comme éthique de la mystique, non pas une éthique produite par la mystique au titre de l’un de ses effets ou de ses dégradés (comme d’initier les autres à la vérité transcendante), mais bien une position mystique de l’éthique, l’affirmation que la communion en ce même Dieu qui est tout est de nature à assurer la paix sociale, car s’il est tout, il ne se contente pas de faire lever son soleil sur les bons et les méchants, car il n’y a, en définitive, ni bons ni méchants en l’unique substance, ni autres ni mêmes. Si dans le Christ, on ne trouve d’homme, ni de femme, de juif, ni de païen, de maître, ni de serviteur, on cherchera en vain dans la substance unique un musulman ou un chrétien. Comme la reconnaissance doit avoir lieu à tous les degrés, il convient de renoncer à l’idée d’une communauté destinée au salut de façon élective. La vérité continue d’aspirer à contraindre la raison, elle y renonce pour ce qui regarde la volonté. Toute entreprise de conversion en devient ridicule et il faudrait se rabattre, dans ces conditions, sur un simple code moral minimum, comme d’ailleurs Maïmonide le fait, exigeant des non-juifs qu’ils se contentent d’adhérer aux lois noachides qui définissent l’humanité de l’homme. On trouve qui ajoute qu’aux temps messianiques ces lois seules seront prescriptives remplaçant les 613 commandements de la Torah. Il en advient des individus appartenant à des dénominations confessionnelles différentes ce qu’il en fut des trente oiseaux de ‘Attâr parvenus, à l’issue de leur périple, au château du Roi des oiseaux, le Sîmorgh : ils découvrent que finalement ils sont l’Absolu et que l’Absolu est eux. De même pour Naimy conjoignant deux thèses : qu’il y a l’Un qui est à jamais tel si nombreuses fois qu’il soit multiplié et divisé, et que l’humanité n’est qu’un seul Homme.22 Alors rester chrétien est une affaire de rite qui ne porte pas à conséquence (et qui de ce fait est déjà répudié), de même que se maintenir dans la foi musulmane, car l’essentiel est ailleurs. Mais si cela est sans incidence sur l’essentiel, à quoi sert-il de préserver ne serait-ce que l’écorce des religions historiques au lieu de se contenter de rendre à l’Humanité comme Être-Suprême un culte comme le préconisa Auguste Comte ? À cela deux réponses, l’une qui concerne le socioreligieux, l’autre le rapport entre la transcendance et l’immanence. La première va de soi, qui est que le but véritable est de sauvegarder les minorités. La seconde, sur laquelle il faudra revenir, établit que le vécu d’une collectivité ne saurait échapper à une inscription dans le relatif : Écrits inspirés, doctrine, dogmes, piédestal sur lequel est hissé le fondateur, apothéose de l’homme parfait, autant de paramètres qui déterminent le mouvement de la transcendance en lui conférant le poids de l’historicité.

22

Muzakkarât al-arqash, 115 ; The Book of Mirdad, 58.

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Bien qu’il ne soit pas certain que l’acosmisme soit le prix à payer pour rejoindre la sphère du supra-confessionnel, il est hors de doute que plus on insiste sur l’inconsistance du monde et plus on vide le fanatisme de son ressort. De surcroît, lorsque un jeune homme comme Naimy, aiguillonné par sa découverte des enseignements de la Société Théosophique, fait la découverte, en étudiant les textes ésotériques (bâtiniyyat) et toutes sortes de religions, que les Védas, l’Avesta, l’hermétisme, le taoïsme, le Évangiles, le Bouddha, Boehme, François d’Assise, Swedenborg, Ibn ‘Arabî, Hallâj, Râmakrishna, Aurobindo, Gurdjieff et William Blake s’accordent quant à l’essentiel,23 il est tenté de rejoindre la source unique de tant de richesses au lieu de demeurer fidèle à l’une des ramifications au risque de la mal comprendre, prise séparément, et de mépriser les autres, au lieu que la conquête du point de vue central est à même de lui assurer la pleine compréhension de la vérité. Mais n’y a-t-il pas un moyen moins onéreux que l’acosmisme ou le synchrétisme ? 4. Le supra-religieux Le terme même de supra-religieux, qui est absent de la pièce de Gibran et de la page de Naimy citée, se retrouve, mention furtive, dans le remarquable essai de Farah Antoun sur Averroès qui comporte une joute menée contre Muhammad ‘Abduh.24 Cependant, chez lui, ce qui est « fawq al-adyân » au-dessus des religions, c’est le droit humain (al-haqq al-basharî),25 autrement dit la rationalité des droits de l’homme revêtant une valeur universelle et soustrayant l’individu à la particularité du groupe. Le dépassement des religions dégage l’espace pour simultanément penser par soi-même et travailler au perfectionnement de l’espèce humaine dans une marche à l’ennoblissement. C’est ce pas qu’emboîte Rihani lorsqu’il fait un de ses personnages inviter à récuser toutes les lois religieuses afin de ne retenir que la Loi originelle, sainte et universelle que Dieu imprima en tout être et que la nature révèle,26 ce qui ne se peut, pour un chrétien, qu’à la 23

24 25 26

Sab‘ûn. III, 48. Découverte analogue faite par Salâma Mûsâ lisant Annie Besant (Fî l-hayât wa-l-adab, Le Caire [s. d.], 120) laquelle croit à un enseignement originel diversement transmis et même à une confrérie secrète à laquelle appartinrent les fondateurs des grandes religions (voir A. Besant, La Sagesse antique, Paris : Adyar, 1953, 12) et qui continue de veiller sur l’humanité et de guider son évolution (ibid., 51). Le jeune Jésus aurait lu, chez les Esséniens, les ouvrages fondamentaux de l’Inde et reçu en Égypte la consécration solennelle… (Besant, Le Christianisme ésotérique, ch. IV). Publiée dans Al-Jâmi‘at à partir de juin 1902. Ibn Rushd wa falsafatuh, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Fârâbî, 1988, 264. Al-Muhâlafat al-thulâthiyyat fî-l-mamlakat al-hayawâniyyat, in : Amîn al-Rihani, Al-Qissat wa-l-riwâyat, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Jîl, 1989, 59.

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faveur du congédiement des dogmes de la divinité du Christ et de la Trinité.27 Il y a une foi qui unifie les hommes et pas seulement Dieu et qui ne doit pas se confondre avec telle dénomination monothéiste. Le syntagme de Rihani (« al-dîn al-tawhîdî »), que nous pouvons traduire par religion unitaire, recouvre un projet et non un état de fait : « La religion unitaire n’est qu’une seule religion car nous sommes tous unis dans le Seigneur et tous adorons un seul Dieu ».28 Le tout est de la trouver. Serait-ce dans le déisme éthique qui prend appui sur l’autonomie, l’obligeant à n’admettre que les produits des jugements de la raison, ou une nouvelle révélation qui puisse prétendre à englober toutes les croyances supérieures soit en les inscrivant dans la mystique, soit en les synthétisant (en un douteux éclectisme) ? Rihani s’invite dans la querelle qui met aux prises le dogmatisme et le criticisme avant d’avoir purifié les concepts dont il fait usage. Tout de même que le supra-religieux éthique est appelé à transcender la lettre du christianisme et souvent même sa substance, et c’est bien cela qui arrive avec Antoun dès lors qu’il prend le syntagme christique de « Fils de Dieu » pour une métaphore de l’homme juste,29 le méta-religieux doit impérativement prendre à partie la religion des prêtres caractérisée par son réflexe identitaire et son propre fanatisme qui peut tout aussi bien s’exercer contre les récents convertis au protestantisme. Le supra-confessionnalisme est donc inconcevable, en ses vecteurs nationaliste et mystique, sans un démantèlement de la citadelle de la superstition et de la mystification et un combat décidé contre tous ceux qui, dans son sein, rivalisent d’iniquité. Il n’est pas besoin de médiation cléricale, martèle Antoun30 suivi par la plupart de nos auteurs. Moïse, Jésus et Mahomet ne peuvent d’ailleurs être sauvés qu’en se faisant passer pour des socialistes.31 Il y a moyen d’atténuer les retombées négatives de l’acosmisme par l’intégration du schème de l’imaginal dans la construction en sorte de ménager un site théophanique, intermédiaire entre le sensible et l’intelligible ou les conjoignant. C’est bien le rôle dévolu par Gibran à la Cité invisible d’Iram en ceci d’abord qu’elle fait pièce à la Mecque à laquelle précisément Âmina, la soufie, renonce à se rendre, ce qui lui permet d’accéder au Temple supra-confessionnel et, qu’ensuite, elle épanche sur ses élus les illuminations du monde supérieur, ce que précisément l’idée entend communiquer : qu’il y a un lieu de vérité et de paix et qui est précisément un monde, l’espace d’une pluralité articulée dans laquelle faire séjour. Un séjour qui ne saurait toutefois pas se prolonger. Comme Socrate 27

28 29 30

31

Ibid., 64, 69, 77. Cette allégorie a suscité une violente réaction de Louis Cheikho dans son Al-Sirr al-maçûn fî shî‘at al-farmasûn, Beyrouth : Dâr el-Machreq, 19992, fascicule III, 8. Al-Rîhâniyyât, Beyrouth-Le Caire : Dâr al-Kitâb al-lubnânî- Dâr al-kitâb al-miçrî, I, 50. Ibn Rushd wa falsafatuh, 317. Al-Dîn wa-l-‘ilm wa-l-mâl, in : Farah Antoun, Al-Mu’allafât al-riwâ’iyyat, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Talî‘at, 1979, 73, 79. Ibid., 61.

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qui redescend dans la Caverne afin de communiquer la bonne nouvelle, Âmina retrouve terre humaine en vue de propager sa doctrine, rencontrant autant de mécompréhension et presque même mesure de persécution. Il n’est guère besoin de dire que l’acosmisme n’occupe pas tout le champ de la conscience. D’elle-même la mystique s’inverse en souci pour l’autre en sorte de rouvrir la dimension avec trop de légèreté fermée : celle du politique. Le supra-confessionnalisme mystique d’un Gibran, d’un Rihani et, dans une moindre mesure, d’un Naimy, se fait un devoir de travailler à la réalisation du Souverain Bien à l’extérieur du paradis, de l’hortus conclusus des bienheureux. Bref, la cité imaginale, comme utopie, est placée sous le signe de l’émancipation sociale. C’est cela aussi et d’abord défendre le droit de l’Éternel ! C’est que le monde a urgemment besoin d’une deuxième rédemption, selon Farah Antoun, au dessein de quoi il rêve d’une Jérusalem nouvelle dont le « Patriarche » digne de ce titre sera l’enfant qui distribuera son pain aux pauvres32 et où chacun sera son propre prêtre,33 une Jérusalem qui serait l’emblème d’une nouvelle religion, celle de la compassion et de l’amour envers toutes les créatures. Les termes dont use Antoun lorsqu’il en envisage la naissance sont précautionneux car ils pourraient en effet s’appliquer à un christianisme réformé. Au lieu, d’ailleurs, de prétendre formellement à une nouveauté, son personnage, le moine nestorien sur qui ses confrères ont jeté l’anathème en raison de doutes sur son admission de la divinité du Christ, prophétise que telle sera la croyance autour de laquelle les gens se retrouveront dans un avenir imprévisible. Cependant il prend soin de préciser qu’il faut aimer « l’humanité » (insâniyyat) en tous les méchants,34 ce qui me paraît faire écho à la religion de l’humanité d’Auguste Comte plutôt qu’à l’orthodoxie chrétienne et, dans ce cas, l’humanité des méchants ne réduirait pas seulement leur appartenance à l’espèce commune, mais reconduirait à l’altruisme obnubilé par les méfaits. Il appartiendra au héros du roman, le dénommé Iliyyâ, de proposer d’édifier « la nouvelle religion » fondée sur la justice et l’amour permettant l’union des amants séparés par leurs fois respectives, l’israélite Esther et lui-même, chrétien.35 Néanmoins, la jeune fille, par cela que viscéralement attachée à sa judéité, n’espère qu’en une rencontre « là-haut » (fawq) où il n’y aura plus ni chrétien, ni juif et ni païen.36 À défaut de savoir réaliser ici-bas, en terre humaine, le programme suprareligieux, il ne reste qu’à en abandonner le soin à l’au-delà céleste. 32

33 34 35 36

Urashalîm al-jadîdat, in : Al-Mu’allafât al-riwâ’iyyat, 185. Le roman est une sorte d’antithèse au séraphique De Nova Hierosolyma et ejus Doctrina Coelesti de Swedenborg. Ibid., 211, 232. Ibid., 208. Ibid., 236. Ibid., 305.

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Il va sans dire que la nouvelle religion qui d’ailleurs sera l’unique, ne fera pas valoir ses prétentions sans se réserver le meilleur de celles qui l’ont précédée et en quelque sorte préparée. Comte ne disait pas autre chose dans l’Introduction de son Catéchisme positiviste. Il faudra l’entrée du nietzschéisme en Orient pour concevoir une nouvelle affectation de la fonction fawq, l’aspiration à un nouvel homme, plus viril qui puise s’élever au-dessus de l’humain (« wa-taj‘aluhu fawqa l-insân »).37 Ce n’est pas sans bonne raison qu’Antoun romancier confie ce programme (poursuivi par Gibran et Rihani)38 à un Romain établi en Terre sainte au temps de Jésus. Bien que Farah Antoun partage avec Saadé le même programme négatif, qui est d’éloigner le spectre de la théocratie musulmane, il n’étaie pas son propos sur le nationalisme, c’est-à-dire un particularisme où prend conscience d’ellemême une substance éthique trouvant en elle-même ses seules garanties. Resté franc-maçon, il met son espérance (qui déjà tient pour sien ce qu’elle ne possède pas encore) dans l’avènement d’une religion de l’humanité qui saurait protéger la liberté individuelle que nul désastre ne devrait atteindre. Projet qui est de promouvoir l’universalisme éthique, accordant crédit et suprématie à la raison et à la religion naturelle, pour ne laisser aux religions positives et à leurs mystères que le privilège du cœur.39 Le télos de la tolérance et de la totale liberté de croyance et de pensée ne se trouvera pas dans la splendeur de la vérité, mais dans la sobriété de la rationalité à condition que ce ne soit pas à une rationalité instrumentale que nous ayons affaire.40 Antoun s’empresse de préciser que le droit humain est éternel (abadî) et ne relève que de la décision de Dieu à l’exclusion de toutes les religions.41 S’il est éternel, il est alors divin, ce que confirme l’un de ses personnages qui, pour divulguer le contenu des « lois divines éternelles »,42 propose une charte de l’humanisme. Cette libération de Dieu (et des humains avec lui) doit s’accompagner et d’une séparation stricte de la religion et de l’État, et d’une redéfinition de la tâche de ce dernier laquelle 37

38

39 40 41 42

Farah Antoun, Maryam qabl al-tawbat, in : Al-Kinânat, New York, 1 octobre 1906, 63. Contemporain de la rédaction du roman (qui restera malheureusement inachevé) est un hymne à la volonté victorieuse de toute résistance au progrès inspiré de Nietzsche et le nommant qu’Antoun publie dans sa revue Al-Jâmi‘at, année 6, New York, septembre 1908, 212. Signalons aussi l’article du jeune Salâma Mûsâ sur « Nietzsche et le fils de l’homme » dans Al-Muqtataf en 1909. Lwîs ‘Awad s’efforcera également de rendre justice au penseur allemand dans un chapitre de ses Dirâsât fî-l-nuzum wa-l-madhâhib, Le Caire : Dâr al-Hilâl, 1967. Pensons à cet aphorisme : « Combien méprisable l’homme s’il ne peut s’élever au-dessus de soi ! » (Rihani, Budhûr li-l-zâri‘în, Beyrouth : Dâr al-Rîhânî [s. d.], 76). Ibn Rushd wa falsafatuh, 223, 264. Position confirmée par Salâma Mûsa dans son Hurriyyat al-fikr wa ab-taluhâ fi-l-târîkh. Ibn Rushd wa falsafatuh, 264. Urashalîm al-jadîdat, 231.

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n’est pas de régir le temporel comme le soutient ‘Abduh (et ceci en complément de la religion qui doit régir le spirituel), mais simplement « de défendre la liberté de la personne ».43 Pour autant, Antoun ne conçoit pas une égalisation de toutes les doctrines car la raison pratique s’érige en juge entre elles. Il adopte à ce propos le principe d’Averroès qui veut que « le meilleur est aboli par ce qui est meilleur que lui »44 – principe en lequel il n’est pas impossible qu’il ait vu une adaptation de la loi comtienne des trois états ou une reprise de la parole de l’Apôtre : « Quand viendra la perfection, ce qui est partiel sera abrogé » (1 Cor 13:10). 6. L’humanisme Pour ce qu’elle ne propose son programme qu’à une élite (tout ce qui monte converge, encore faut-il vouloir et pouvoir s’élever à des sommets où l’air est raréfié), la mystique se prive d’envisager une libération à grande échelle. Elle court d’ailleurs le risque d’envisager, pour chacun, la création d’une religion personnelle. Cette même libération, le bahâisme est à même de l’envisager, mais il s’en éloigne en régressant au statut de religion particulière restant de surcroît rattachée, par sa conception de l’histoire sainte, à la religion dont il émane. Le gros effort fourni pour penser l’irénique religion de l’avenir commence par la notion de Dieu-Homme pour culminer finalement dans celle de DieuHumanité. C’est pousser le principe chrétien jusqu’à ses ultimes conséquences, au point de sortir du christianisme en faisant mine de ne pas claquer la porte. Qu’adviendra-t-il du culte ? La réponse, je crois, se lit chez Schleiermacher, réclamant pour l’humanité de pouvoir adorer le Dieu qui sera en elle.45 Il est légitime de se demander si la foi en pareil Dieu ne signifie pas plus que l’adhésion à sa propre voix intérieure. C’est du moins ce que nous pouvons déduire d’une parole de Mani, non le personnage historique, mais celui du roman d’un chrétien d’Orient répondant au nom d’Amin Maalouf : « Ils ont entendu de ma bouche les vérités qui étaient en eux. On n’écoute jamais que sa propre voix ».46 Le romancier a pris prétexte du fondateur d’une nouvelle religion pour avancer ses propres convictions d’une religiosité qui se doit d’être tolérante et pacifique. Des religions qu’il côtoie Mani se demande parfois si elles ne sont pas inspirées « par le Maître des Ténèbres (…) à seule fin de défigurer l’image de Dieu ! »47 43 44 45 46 47

Ibn Rushd wa falsafatuh, 284. Al-Dîn wa-l-‘ilm wa-l-mâl, 80. « der in Euch sein wird » (Über die Religion, Berlin : Unger, 1799, 312). Les Jardins de lumière, Paris : Lattès, 1991, 329. Ibid., 119.

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La visée partout de l’Inconditionné qui autorise à concevoir pour toutes les religions un même noyau dès lors que l’on part de l’expérience mystique, conduit, par dérivation, à la conviction qu’elles partagent un contenu identique reçu et exprimé différemment selon l’esprit de la périphérie. Au sujet de cette dernière, il semble légitime de se demander si les analyses qu’on vient de proposer la font sombrer irrémédiablement dans la sphère de l’inauthentique. N’est-elle pas l’effet de la production du centre ? Ce qu’il y a en elle de vrai n’est qu’un habillement que la raison, dit Antoun, ne saurait respecter surtout lorsqu’un simple revêtement fait écran à la diffusion de la lumière de la vérité.48 Si une religion renouvelle le sang du centre au contact des mystiques qui naissent en son sein, il est également avéré que la périphérie n’est que l’effet du rayonnement du centre dans la matière de l’histoire. Ce qu’il y a en elle de faux repose sur ce qui a été produit en elle par le vrai. Là aussi, Hermès Trismégiste a sans doute visé juste : « …même ces opérations mensongères d’ici-bas sont en dépendance de la Vérité supérieure elle-même ; et puisqu’il en est ainsi, je déclare que l’illusion (pseudos) est l’ouvrage de la Vérité ».49 Bien que par illusion l’auteur entende ici le monde sensible soumis à la mutation, le transfert que j’ai opéré est de nature à légitimer que s’applique encore le propos à la religion. On obtient alors ceci : que même les illusions de la religion sont l’ouvrage de la Vérité, soit indirectement, par distorsion de la vérité, soit directement par une procédure d’élargissement, jusque dans l’empirie, des effets de l’arborescent noyau. La théologie mystique appuierait volontiers ce point de vue pour peu qu’elle verrait dans les religions, celle des prêtres autant que celle des prophètes, la conséquence de la déchéance aux haltes successives de l’homme privé de la communion immédiate avec la divinité. Ce n’est pas le moindre paradoxe que celui de ces tentatives désespérées d’outrepassement des religions qui finissent par s’inventer une nouvelle. Le Christianisme n’est pas en reste. C’est que ladite misère n’est pas la conséquence de l’expulsion d’un paradis. Elle provient de l’inversion de cet élan vers l’Inconditionné qui met l’inquiétude au cœur de l’homme. Qu’est-ce que, par exemple, la pulsion scientifique ? Le héros du roman philosophique de Farah Antoun intitulé La Religion, la science et l’argent, fournit la réponse : «… un combat entre la terre et le ciel, le connu et l’inconnu, la matière et l’esprit, le limité et l’illimité. Ceci parce que l’homme terrestre, indigent et faible, s’efforce de parvenir, par la pensée, à celui auquel la pensée ne peut parvenir, lors même que l’intellect limité désire s’emparer de l’intellect illimité ».50 De toutes les défaites dans lesquelles ne cesse 48 49 50

Urashalîm al-jadîdat, 208. Ibid., 8 (tr. A.-J. Festugière). Al-Dîn wa-l-‘ilm wa-l-mâl, 54.

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d’être précipité l’homme de par sa finitude ou sa contingence, nulle qui ait plus de grandeur, pour ce qu’elle rend témoignage de son auto-transcendance absolue, que cette impuissance à se saisir de l’Inconditionné qui se traduit par la création des religions, trace de l’échec et relance du désir. En son suprême effort, la conscience religieuse a conçu l’idée de l’Homme-Dieu en tant qu’elle appelle son complément, l’idée du Dieu-Homme, rien qu’un rêve évanescent sur lequel un Farah Antoun, admirateur et traducteur51 de la Vie de Jésus de Renan, a dit l’essentiel : Il y a deux mille ans, la matière terrestre de notre bas monde s’est ruée pour s’unir à la substance divine. À ce moment, la terre s’est saisie d’un morceau de ciel. Mais le ciel a pu s’en libérer en sorte qu’est revenu à la terre ce qui est de la terre et au ciel ce qui est du ciel. La lumière qui avait diffusé la clarté s’est effacée, livrant les hommes à une nuit noire.52

On observe que, considéré à nouveaux frais, le dogme de l’union hypostatique devient l’effet d’une auto-transcendance qui est d’audace et de violence. Ce n’est pas Dieu qui s’incarne ou qui pense à se révéler dans la forme humaine, c’est l’humain qui s’empare du divin. Pour peu qu’on prenne le texte d’Antoun à la lettre, l’événement christique a vraiment eu lieu, non pas en un simple homme qui s’entremet entre les réalités intelligibles et les choses sensibles (comme diraient les judéo-chrétiens, les adoptianistes ou les renaniens), mais bien en l’union de l’humain et du divin, avec ce remarquable retournement par rapport à la christologie de la Grande Église, que l’initiateur et le réalisateur de ladite union est le fini plutôt que l’Infini. Modification qui se double d’une précarité puisque le ciel parvient à se libérer de l’étreinte de la terre – ceci de par l’inconditionnalité de l’Inconditionné ou, en termes théologiques, de par l’abscondité rémanente du Dieu révélé, et non pour raison d’humaine défaillance. Mais étreinte il y eut, ne serait-ce que pour un faible moment, attestation incompréhensible du séjour raptique de l’Éternel dans le temporel. À la religion incombe le rôle d’en ranimer le souvenir et de le tourner éventuellement en espérance car si elle organise le culte de la vie indivise, c’est seulement parce qu’elle a su prendre acte de la partition. Mais avec le déferlement des jours, il devient de plus en plus difficile de sauvegarder la mémoire de l’événement ayant eu lieu. « Cela est tellement loin, pourrait-on dire avec Hegel, que ce ne sera bientôt plus vrai ».53 La tentation est grande alors de se 51

52 53

Voir Al-Jâmi‘at, année 3, Alexandrie. Antoun publia également une traduction arabe de la Prière sur l’Acropole (Al-Jâmi‘at, année 6, novembre 1908). Urashalîm al-jadîdat, 154. La suite de la phrase chez Hegel : « De même, le Christ est mort pour nos péchés depuis si longtemps déjà, que ce ne sera bientôt plus vrai » (Jenaer Schriften, Francfort : Suhrkamp,

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rabattre sur le pur sentiment de l’Inconditionnel incapable, par définition, d’avoir un contenu éthico-substantiel, ou sur une simple religion de l’humanité enfermée dans le cercle vicieux de conférer l’inconditionalité à l’être qui pose l’Inconditionnel.

1971, 545). Toutes les religions vont successivement à leur ruine, dit Farah Antoun (Urashalîm al-jadîdat, 192). Le Christianisme qui fut pour un temps la Jérusalem nouvelle par rapport à l’ancienne, israélite (ibid., 218), est supplanté par l’Islam qui conquiert précisément la cité sainte au cours du roman. À l’Islam est appelé à succéder, en Orient, la religion de l’autonomie de la raison et non quelque bahâïsme sous couvert d’une nouvelle révélation.

EDUARD KIMMAN MONEY AND INTERIOR LIFE The Spirituality of the Treasurer in Early Modern Religious Houses

The rise of the individual from the Renaissance onwards has been made possible by enormous religious, political and scientific developments. Priests and religious played an important role before, during, and after the Renaissance in mediating religious values. During the Middle Ages great buildings such as cathedrals, churches, monasteries, and convents fulfilled religious and social functions. Civic buildings had a religious atmosphere: statues of saints would adorn town halls, Latin schools, and guild halls. The age of Renaissance innovated cultural life, citizens slowly became individuals and adherence to a religion or a set of religious convictions eventually would become an individual affair. The Reformation was the fitting response to these changes by bringing responsibility to the individual believer. On the contrary, the Catholic Church continued accentuating hierarchy and community. The rules laid down for ecclesiastical practices and obligations and, particularly, the rules laid down for the life of religious women and men hardly conveyed a feeling of responsibility. Particular constitutions and rule books defined the traditions of the group, the sort of activities to be undertaken and the boundaries of individual behaviour for those who belonged to the clergy or to the religious state. In a way these constitutions and rule books prescribed the spirituality of a religious community or congregation. The founding of the Jesuit Order and the anchoring of Jesuit life in the (individual) Spiritual Exercises is somewhat influenced by the Reformation by trusting the individual Jesuit in the discharge of his duties and in his apostolic conduct. Particularly, the first generations of Jesuits display remarkably original and individual behaviour. From their third General Superior Fr. Frances Borgia onwards the Jesuits developed much more a life style in line with other Catholic developments: hierarchy and community. Founders of religious orders or congregations wrote constitutions which carried a character of immutability. Indeed, constitutions supposedly enshrined the ideals of the founder or foundress concerning community life, apostolic works and governance. A novitiate or a seminary was the place where compliance with the rules was drummed into

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the young monks, nuns or seminarians. Vows of obedience and other vows would commit the individual on the level of conscience. In this way communal traditions became personal obligations. Prayer, the common life, the care for each other, the very spirituality of the priestly or religious life became personal and moral commitments. The commitment on a deep and personal level capacitated a priest or a religious to work outside the walls of the church or the monastery. However, working out in the streets and caring for people outside institutional walls carried the risk that the worker could meet unknown challenges not foreseen in the rulebooks. Life in a religious house continued thanks to the protection provided by a claustrum. Out in the streets one easily would discover that times were changing and that, therefore, the apostolic approach had to be changed drastically. In this paper I restrict myself to some remarks on the way poverty arrangements of the Jesuit Constitutions soon had to be adapted to the financial needs of the apostolic works, particularly the colleges, in order to prevent that they could become counterproductive. I start with two visits: one to a former abbey, one to a former Jesuit university. The (former) Cistercian abbey Noirlac, situated in the Department Cher, Central France, was founded in the twelfth century. Constructions started around 1150. At the end of the Middle Ages a decline set in. A revival in the seventeenth century caused a make-over of some buildings; the dormitory was then divided into individual cells. In the eighteenth century, the number of monks diminished. Around 1790 the last four surviving monks left the abbey. The causes of the decline and, finally, the suppression of this abbey may be found in declining religious fervour, a governance structure unfit for a new age and the unsupportable burden of the annual tithes and other payments to the commendatory abbot. The apartment of the last prior in the abbey and the little palace of the last abbot in the near-by town of Saint-Armand-Montrond are now museums. In the twentieth century out of heaps of stones, the church, the refectory, the cells, the kitchen and the storehouse have been rebuilt. Today, they bear witness of the onetime vita communis of the monks. Wrocław, situated in Lower Silesia, had been in the sixteenth century a very Lutheran city. From 1621 onward, the Habsburgs were sovereign and tried to foster Catholicism. From the middle of the seventeenth century a Jesuit college existed but it lacked the right to graduate until it received a university charter in 1702 by Emperor Leopold I. When Prussia acquired Silesia in 1741 the university turned into a state college. Wrocław was left with the splendid baroque buildings of the university, with its church, its congregation chapel, its Aula Leopoldina, its various departments for sciences, etc. Two centuries later Wrocław became a Polish town due to the geographical changes in post-war Europe. Nowadays, the university buildings that were damaged during the Second World War have been restored and are, again, in use as university. So, this onetime

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apostolic work survived as a secularized university without remnants of the erstwhile vita communis of the Jesuits. These two little histories of an abbey and a university illustrate a few things. First, the ideal of religious life can be translated into stone, masonry, and space. The living quarters of the monks in Noirlac abbey give a witness to their communal life. The university compound in Wrocław nowadays tells something about the ideal of Jesuit education three centuries ago. Secondly, erecting, decorating and maintaining buildings require management. If the number of monks drastically decreases it becomes tricky to find monks with managerial qualities. Religious life in the abbey during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries degenerated into a rather bourgeois lifestyle which, in turn, did not attract vocations. But why did the university in Wrocłlaw not collapse when the Jesuits disappeared? In changed political circumstances the university went on under a new name and under a new management. Does this tell something about the management style of the Jesuits? Thirdly, sound home economics is not only an essential precondition in the founding era but it is paramount for the well-ordered running of an ecclesiastical institute with a functional set-up. In this paper I focus on the interplay between the traditional spirit of a religious community, the need for a new way of working, and its financial management in the early modern period. 1. Abbeys with Landholdings Poverty is a lofty ideal. The founder of a religious congregation may have said beautiful and profound things about it, yet the community needs food and shelter and, moreover, the temporal goods are to be managed wisely. The monks in Western Europe had discovered that the moderate climate with its seasons asks for farming, for husbandry, for, in one word, agricultural planning. So, the communal way of living in a convent or in a religious house established an office for a monk who was charged with the planning of food and shelter: the cellarius. Such a monk could rely on experiences, lessons, and some formal and informal rules given by his predecessor. This was a position at the interface with the world outside the religious community. The cellarius, and not the abbot, dealt with tenants, employees, and occasionally with the brothers of the community. With help of a shrewd cellarius the abbeys and other convents could exploit land in such a way that the output guaranteed the living of the community and, in addition, delivered cash crops. Quite often abbeys had leasehold farms. The earnings from the agricultural over-production and the rent of the landholdings provided the economic basis for the vita communis, the communal religious life with its chapel or church, its prayer life, its house, its guest quarters, and its educational or cultural activities. The vow of poverty meant ‘common property’.

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Once a community of monks was able to feed itself, to enjoy a neat complex of functional buildings, and to live a communitarian life, then there came energy to look outdoors, to contribute to the economy of the region, to commit oneself to works of charity, or to start pastoral activities. Around 1400 Europe was covered by abbeys with monks (Benedictines, Cistercians, Carthusians, etc.), convents with nuns, and some form of alms houses for poor, itinerant, ill, or destitute people. Time and again new religious movements felt uncomfortable with the successes and the secure life style of the established religious communities so they tried to reinvent a more radical lifestyle and to regain a spirit of poverty. Why does a sober life style and sober housing inevitably produce rich communities and congregations? Even the ascetic Cistercians would develop impressive, efficient buildings and huge estates just as the wealthy Benedictines had done before them. It seems to me that well managed monasteries and other ecclesiastical institutions tend to grow and to become rich as they are able to save and to invest just as capitalists would do centuries later. In case they do not turn capitalistic then the root cause seems to me a lack of division of labour and, thus, a lack of a specialized cellarius. When abbots or bishops themselves try to exercise the function of cellarius or treasurer they stop being a religious leader. When treasurers become too outspoken and try to impose profitable activities religious life loses its glow. By the end of the fifteenth century life in the convens got affected by economic and social changes such as population growth, increasing urbanization and impoverishment of the rural masses. The average peasant owned less than five hectares land, the minimum to feed a family. The convents did have enough holdings and quite often had got the proper know-how to manage their landholdings in a profitable way. The costs of seed, of labour, of equipment, of taxes and tithes and of other seigneurial obligations had to be weighed in order to know whether the holdings were viable in the long run. It was no accident that a Franciscan friar, fra Luca Pacioli (± 1446-1517), had described for the first time the double-entry bookkeeping method. In this way both the cellarius and the merchants could analyze the profitability of business operations. This is important in trade and production with silent partners who provide capital, or in ecclesiastical arrangements with an absent commanditaris with the title of bishop or abbot. Having such a titular bishop or abbot at distance, implied that one of the main worries of the chancellor or the prior was whether the promised rent could be paid. Would timely delivering the fruits of the land have become more important than delivering souls? Interestingly, in the twentieth century this type of worries would be identified by economists as the agency problem: an agent, such as the cellarius or a warden of church property, is to take economic decisions on behalf of a distant principal who would benefit from the transaction. So, the cellarius or treasurer is not simply serving the best

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interests of the community, the parish or the diocese but rather the interests of the principal or commanditaris as well. Around the turn of fifteenth to the sixteenth century the decline of religious and ecclesiastical life had set in after the Black Death had halved the population of many a convent or abbey. To face the economic worries religious life gradually had become more individualistic and less rigorous. The fundamentals of vita communis such as community life, claustrum and absence of personal belongings were at stake. Proprietarii or religious with some property and own income became quite normal. In vain (apostolic) visitations and new foundations tried to return to austerity. 2. Reformation and Counter-Reformation At the end of the Middle Ages many villages, parishes, and farmhouses carried enormous financial burdens at the benefit of absent lordships, bishops, and abbots. This discomfort made the faithful ready for the Protestant cause. Centuries earlier, the universal church had burdened its faithful with the huge costs of the Crusades. Now the project of rebuilding the St Peter basilica was to be financed through the sale of indulgences. As some archbishops and abbots saw this as a danger to their own income, they became friends and protectors of Luther’s endeavour. In 1517 the Reformation began with Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, who was upset by the superstitious way of proclaiming faith, by the lack of biblical grounding of the faith, and by the excrescences of the indulgences. The consequence of religious strife and political divisiveness created by the Reformation in Europe was the undermining of the very idea of a Christian commonwealth. Early modern Christianity began here. Where the population had received the Reformation enthoustically Luther and his fellows would take over the convents and turn them into houses for parsons with their families. Luther’s wife gave an example how to run such a household. The Protestant ideas of personality and responsibility would bring about a new ethics in family life, in business and in the economy. The Catholic response to the Reformation was, first, impulsive measures such as strengthening the Inquisition, repression of reform-minded women and men, and pushing for anti-heresy edicts by governing bodies. The Catholic Church reacted against all forms of lay involvement by stipulating its self-definition as societas perfecta and, therefore, the necessary approval by a bishop or another ecclesiastical ordinarius to approve all sorts of transactions between Catholic institutes and society. The unrest of the faithful was not merely a matter of theology and religious practice but of money, taxes, and ‘voluntary loans’ by the

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cities to the Emperor as well. From 1545 onwards the Council of Trent tried to deal with the challenges set by the Reformation but it failed in reconciling the various factions. The twofold purpose of the Council was: redefining the content of the Catholic faith and reforming Catholic institutional life. The Council produced reform decrees concerning the liturgy, seminaries for candidates for the priesthood, residential requirements of bishops in their dioceses, etc. The Council redefined the theology of chastity, formulated rules for celibacy, and ordered enclosure for nuns. The Council imposed its reforms through Catholic princes and kings who were charged with promulgating the decrees. The cardinal archbishop of Milan, St Carlo Borromeo, set the tone with his dodgy way of reorganizing his diocese along the lines set out by the Council. Interestingly, Borromeo allowed the Ursulines to accept gradually enclosure but maintaining devout activity. In a way, here we find something new: a connection between a religious community and an institute of ‘good work’ such as an orphanage or a school. If you connect you may also, eventually, disconnect: the orphanage or the school without its brothers, sisters, or fathers could turned over to another institute or to the municipality. Medieval communities, such as the mendicants, reformed themselves and sometimes developed a branch with a stricter observance of the rules. These stricter branches attracted many vocations. For example, the strict Franciscans called Capuchins, after having been in existence little more than in century, numbered some 30.000 around 1650. By and large, the other Franciscans and also the Dominicans doubled their numbers between 1550 and 1650. The new religious congregations such as the Oratorio (S. Filippo Neri), the Theatines, the Jesuits, the Ursulines, etc. not only grew in size but also opened completely new works such as hospitals, schools, or homes for the destitute. The mendicants and the new orders did not have the problem of the old orders and monasteries, i.e. that a large part of the funds was being siphoned off by figurehead abbots and bishops. During the heydays of feudal benefices and tithes, the mendicants (Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.) had challenged by their life style the religious ‘format’ of the monks and nuns living in abbeys and convents. The mendicants strived for a poor life and lived from the work of their hands or heads (theologians at universities) or from alms. They built their houses in or close by towns, worked as popular preachers and pastors, went out as missionaries to unknown heathen territories, and learned to maintain the basic rules of Franciscan or Dominican life while moving around. As said before, money in the hands of religious and ecclesiastics turns easily into wealth provided the management is in the hands of competent functionaries who understand the not for profit character of the institution. That character or identity of such a work of charity should be visible in the attitude of the sisters or brothers engaged in that work but also in the way such a work is being run.

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It fits the idea of early modernity that professional requirements are being formulated. Not every zealous religious brother or sister could function as a nurse in a hospital or as a teacher in a school. These works are no longer a spin-off of an established community house but the beginnings for large works of charity or education with a trained staff living in an adjacent community. 3. The Jesuits and their Colleges The founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, prescribes in his Spiritual Exercises, after the so-called First Week, an exercise which is not meant as a meditation or a contemplation but as a consciousness-raising exercise into the discipleship: first, the introductory story (nrs 92-94); then, the call of Christ to serve (nr. 95); finally, two levels of response (nrs 96-98). Christ invites all women and men of good will to share in his work in this world and in the cost of discipleship especially to follow Him in his poverty (nr. 98). In a way, this exercise is foundational to the membership of the Society of Jesus. The life of a Jesuit is not the quiet, prayerful life of an eremite. On the contrary, Jesuits are supposed to be dispersed to all parts of Christ’s vineyard (Const. nr. 603). The Spiritual Exercises have, in an appendix after the Fourth Week, the wellknown rules for discernment (nrs. 313-336) and the lesser known rules for almsgiving (nrs. 337-344).1 In the final years of his life Ignatius of Loyola as Superior General of the Jesuits drafted constitutions. He esteemed poverty as much as Francis of Assisi had done before him. The very first sentence of the section in the Constitutions about poverty sounds Franciscan: ‘Poverty, as the strong wall of religious life, should be loved…’ (Part VI, chapter 2). At the time of the shaping of the Jesuit Order religious poverty took on two quite different forms: monks without private property living a communal life in monasteries with communal holdings and the mendicants with some private books and instruments belonging to an ecclesiastical province with houses. Ignatius took first the mendicant way of life as the prototype for the style of working and living of the Jesuits. For instance, Ignatius prohibited remuneration for the works delivered by Jesuit priests. In 1540 the first Formula Instituti added to the objective of the first Jesuits dedicating their lives to ‘the service of our Lord Jesus Christ’ the words ‘and to 1

The Spiritual Exercises by St Ignatius of Loyola are based on his spiritual experiences during 1522. Ignatius developed a method of a retreat of thirty days during which a person individually learns to pray, meditate and contemplate and to make fundamental and practical choices in his or her life. These Exercises have been translated in many languages and have been published in many editions.

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that of the Roman Pontiff’. This serving was to be done through means of preaching the word of God, encouraging the faithful to devout meditations and to a good and blessed life, by serving in hospitals, by teaching the children and unlettered persons in the Christian faith, and all the services of charity which pertain to the edification of souls.2 In the papal bull Exposcit debitum (1550) these objectives were expanded. The new list ends with the words ‘and indeed in performing any other works of charity, (…). Furthermore, all these works should be carried out altogether free of charge and without accepting any salary for the labour expended in all the aforementioned activities’.3 This papal bull by Pope Julius III is published two years after the first group of Jesuits, including Peter Canisius, established a collegio in the city of Messina, in 1548, at the insistence of the Spaniard Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily. This very first college added a new apostolic work to the then rather traditional works of charity undertaken by the Society of Jesus. Also, the very first novitiate was attached to this college, in 1550. These educational works soon proved successful. By the time Ignatius died in 1556, the Society of Jesus counted twelve provinces, with some thousand Jesuits and thirty-three colleges: a few were fully operative, most were in the making. The last eight years of his life the founder of the Society of Jesus witnessed an immense growth of the educational works, which required an approach opposite to the mendicant way of life he had conceived for his societas professa. In 1558 the Constitutions were approved by the first General Congregation, which elected Diego Laynez as successor to Ignatius. In the Constitutions a large section treats the ways Jesuits should help other believers and the ways Jesuits should employ as missionaries to the non-believers. Only a meagre section is devoted to the way the colleges could help their fellow men. In 1560 the secretary of the Society of Jesus, Juan Polanco, wrote a letter in Lainez’s name saying that there were two ways of helping our neighbours: one in the colleges and the other in the ministries. The schools by that date were becoming the premier under the ministries of Society. Yet, the provincial superiors were hardly involved in the management of the schools, apart from assigning Jesuits to these schools as rector, teacher, prefect or treasurer. The school or college had its own arca which means capital in a foundation. A decade later the commitment to education would be predominant and began to push out other pastoral activities. From then onward, more and more Jesuits would live in colleges. Gone was the dependency on alms as symbol of poverty as desired by Saint Ignatius. 2

3

Cf,. This Formula Instituti is a sort of pre-constitution, approved by the Pope. See St Ignatius of Loyola, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, ed. George E. Ganss, St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970, 64. Ibid., 67.

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Working in schools meant that Jesuits – priests, scholastics and lay brothers – were committed on an annual basis to these schools. As the schools were not meant to ask for fees, financial endowments had to form the secure basis of the Jesuit colleges, both the ones intended for the training of young Jesuits as well as the boarding houses and the schools for pupils from outside the Order. From Peter Canisius we know that he founded seven colleges in Europe above the Alps. In the beginning the Jesuit professors tended not to remain for more than a year or a few years in a school. After a first flowering of the schools a second generation enjoyed the buildings and the endowments but some colleges struggled to survive. The bursar had to make all sorts of accommodations.4 How was the situation in the seventeenth century? From England, we know that the Jesuits opened three Colleges in 1687 at the invitation of King James II. The Rules of the School of the Jesuits in Fanchurch street, City of London, declare: ‘The invention of operating these Schools is to teach yomen (youth) Virtue and Learning. They shall be taught Gratis nor shall they be at any further Charges or Expenses than the buying of their own Pens, Ink, Paper, and Books’. These rules stipulate also that both Catholics and Protestants were welcome.5 Of the Jesuit education in France we know that the schools had a broad social make-up thanks to its endowments.6 At the middle of the eighteenth century the five French provinces counted some 3,300 members and some 100 colleges. In France the Jesuit Order was gradually suppressed from 1762 onwards, before the universal suppression in 1773. The colleges differed in size: from 200 pupils to 1,000 pupils with a Jesuit community that counted 30 and sometimes 60, or 100 Jesuits. The larger communities were usually the houses for the formation of Jesuits. ‘The financial underpinnings of Jesuit institutions were very uncertain. The main problem was that many of the French colleges were seriously indebted. They had never been well-endowed’. What is unclear is how the colleges have improved their revenues: more income from better investments of by asking money from the families that sent their sons tot the schools and convicts?7 John W. O’Malley terms the development of the colleges as a significant redefinition of the order that was never fully articulated in official documentation. Despite of the almost Franciscan avoidance of money transactions, at the 4

5

6

7

See, for example, Kathleen M. Comerford, ‘Jesuit Colleges in the Early 17th Century’, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting 2015. See: http://jesuitinstitute.org/Pages/History.htm: History of the Jesuit Schools (accessed March 25, 2019). Francois de Dainville, L’Education des jesuites (XVI-XVIII siecles), Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1978 (Collection Le sens commun). See Gillian Thompson, ‘The Jesuit Province of France on the Eve of its Destruction in 1762’, in: Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 87 (2018) Fasc. 173, 3-74.

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beginning of the Society, the Jesuits became professional fund-raisers in order to set up and sustain their schools.8 Fundraising was not something foreign to the Jesuits. Throughout his life Saint Ignatius has been a fund-raiser himself. Thomas Clancy sees five principles in the Ignatian way of fund-raising: 1. Believe in the value of the schools, 2. Make use of publicity (as Ignatius wished to keep the Jesuits and their schools in the public eye), 3. Appreciate your benefactors not for their moral exemplary life but for their generosity and their willingness to help the colleges. 4. Look not down on people of money and trade but pray for bankers and merchants and learn from them. 5. Ingratitude is to be abhorred and remembrance of the founders and benefactors of the colleges is to be fostered.9 4. Works of Charity During the sixteenth and seventeenth century there were very diverging socioeconomic developments in the European countries. For some countries years of trade expansion, economic growth and improving agrarian productivity alternated with years of stagnation, impoverishment, and civil strife. A constant factor were the masses of the poor. Organizing works of charity was the answer by the new religious communities. For the Jesuits, the ministry at schools was a work of charity as they did not charge tuition fees. The Jesuits were no exception as there was also free hospitalization, free lodging for destitute people, free shelter for foundlings and orphans. Early modern Europe was a landscape full of migration, rural depopulation, deforestation, exacting high tolls and duties that did not advantage economic growth. Impoverishment of the peasants and the village populations went hand in hand with the expansion of merchant entrepreneurs, bankers, and early capitalist producers. Sixteenth-century capitalism was an easily transferable commercial capitalism. The Antwerp merchants would flee the Spanish fury and take refuge in Amsterdam, where they continued their activities. Competition was so great that producers without sufficient capital risked to be penniless the next year. Uncertainty for many a family and socio-economic inequality were the results. The festivities, the marriages, and spectacles organized by officeholders were exclusive occasions. The bulk of the population was excluded. It is in this context of exclusion, poverty, and beggary, 8

9

See JohnW. O’Malley, The First Jesuits, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, chapter 6. See also idem, ‘Five Missions of the Jesuit Charism Content and Method’, in: Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 38 (2006) no.4. See Thomas H. Clancy, ‘Saint Ignatius as Fund-Raiser’, in: Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 25 (1993) no.1.

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that the works of charity delivered by the Jesuits, the Ursulines or the Brothers of St John must be situated. The early developments of the Ursulines show some similarities with the Jesuits. At the beginning Angela Merici, from Brescia, started with unmarried women and widows helping in hospitals for incurables, looking after orphans, and instructing girls. These women took private vows and often resided at home. Increasingly they conventualized and from the early years of the seventeenth century onward, they lived in communities doing their works of charity. Like the Jesuits they would attract money for financing their hospitals, schools, and other buildings. And these buildings were the prerequisite of their activities. Benefactors were sought not for financing the household (mendicants as they longed to be) but for financing the necessary outfit for doing works of charity. In turn, these works had to have endowments that provided income for the necessary investments, the boarding costs of the pupils, and the salaries of the lay workers with their families who lived in a simple corner of the hospitals or schools. These new religious families, erected in the sixteenth century, received their identity not from their lifestyle (such as mendicants) but from their works (teaching order, sisters of charity, hospital brothers). Early modern religious life, so to speak, was basically a working life with intervals of prayer and rest. In contrast to the medieval monks and nuns living a virtuous life of prayer, of common property, and of simple rather anonymous work every day, the early modern religious communities were running huge works of charity, including hospitals and schools where teachers, surgeons, head masters or matrons of the orphanage would have very distinct identities. Grouped together as religious they were no longer called with the name of their founder or foundress but with the name of their work. Hospitals and colleges were highly visible, very endowed and clearly ecclesiastical institutes where the ill, the pupils, or the students were taken care of. A rector or a director would be the head of the institute and a treasurer or procurator had to make arrangements in such a way that everybody would be able to perform his or her task. The bigger the hospital or the college, the more important the endowments, the investments and the other financial aspects became. In short, Jesuit education at the schools was about education of mind, shaping of character, about acquiring virtues and a deep understanding of the Catholic faith. I am inclined to consider these schools in the perspective of a Renaissance endeavour of reforming the mores of individuals by teaching them the humanities and educating the pupils towards priests, merchants, and administrators, who would become useful church men and citizens and together foster the common good. Not all colleges were big institutes. Some colleges were just grammar schools in provincial towns. Some schools got status and practically offered a training that guaranteed entrance to the universities. Around 1750 the

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Jesuits maintained 669 colleges (in the sense used in France or Germany: secondary schools comparable to a gymnasium) with 169 boarding houses in Europe. All these establishments needed sound investments, financial security, and a slightly imposing church building. But who managed the wealth? The Ratio Studiorum, definitively approved in 1599 by the then Superior General of the Jesuits, gives extensive guidelines about the study programs, about discipline and about the way of life in the colleges. However, it does not mention how the colleges and the universities were to be funded or to be maintained financially in good shape. The rules for the provincial, the rector or the prefect of studies nowhere mention to take care of funding or to bother about finances. That was left to the procurator who was not in command but who limited himself to financial matters. Did outsiders advise the procurator or treasurer? Did some fortunate parent play a role? What type of financial instruments was being used? And there are much more of such questions which I may answer in the future. 5. The Personal Spirituality of the Treasurer François de Sales (1567-1622) was himself an alumnus of the Collège de Clermont in Paris. Once having become priest and bishop, he wrote his Introduction to the Devout Life, where in Chapter III, § 14-16, he ponders about living poor in a rich environment and living rich in a poor environment. As an example of the first category I would immediately think about our present Pope Francis who leads a life of personal poverty, a life full of prayer, in a rich Vatican City. In the mentioned hospitals and schools, the religious nuns, brothers, or fathers lived a life of hardship, prayer ans service. They served also outside the walls of their hospitals or school. For example, the Jesuit Claude la Colombiere (1642-1682) was sent to Paray-le-Monial as rector collegii. This school was rather a grammar school for village boys. La Colombière was already famous as preacher and theologian. Besides his work at the college his mission at Paray-le-Monial was acting as the spiritual director of a convent of Sisters of the Visitation, with among them sister Margaretha Maria Alacoque (1647-1690). His work at the school clearly was ad utilitatem civitatis but the main spiritual work of the Jesuits here was outside the school. The school just offered them an outlet, a place in town. What was the spirituality of these religious men concerned with money and endowments? Few letters, diaries or reports surfaced so far. In 1614 was published in Cracow the Monita secreta Societatis Jesu (Private money of the Society of Jesus) presumably by the Superior General addressed to rectores of houses and colleges. The text is widely considered as forgery. Yet, such fake instructions give an indication how people looked at the successes of the schools. The

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real instructions for the bursar or the treasurer who, more often than not, lacked any formal training in business administration, was to apply common sense to the business, and to ask permission from the superior in cases generosity was at stake. If one makes a comparison with other reformist movements such as the Mennonites, Moravian Brothers, or Shakers then you may discover that these movements, indeed, disposed of a peculiar ‘common sense’. They started as poor dissenters but tended to become ‘rich’ after two or three generations. Again, an explanation for their relative wealth and financial security is to be found with the financial administrator. It seems to me that the very practice of the simple life style of a religious community is the beginning of its economic success. In times of acute hardship no man or woman would complain, in times of plenty the treasurer would save the money and, perhaps, invest it. This form of community economics was a form of early capitalism. The description of a Methodist ethics of trade by Max Weber may give some insight: no haggling, no circumventing custom tariffs, no charging of interest higher than the law of the country permits, no transforming of endowments into luxury, no borrowing of money without being sure of one’s ability to pay back the debt, no luxuries of all sorts.10 At this point it is clear that the Jesuits, the Ursulines and other active religious congregations with their institutionalized works of charity had developed an economic interchange with the world around them. The procurator was paymaster, manager of the buildings, administrator of the endowments and the economic link to the outside world. Endowments had to be reinvested and enlarged if the school, the orphanage, or the hospital was to become bigger. So, the hundreds of educational institutes were accompanied by hundreds of arcae. I have not found so far consolidated figures, balance sheets, or whatsoever from the colleges in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. In 1773 the Society of Jesus was dissolved by the Pope. Some remnants of the Jesuit Order continued through schools and universities in the United Kingdom, in Lithuania, in Russia, and in other places. Stoneyhurst College (United Kingdom), and other schools served as a life line between the suppression in 1773 and the reestablishment in 1814. Individual former Jesuits expelled from a suppressed Society of Jesus continued to work in the schools and other institutes. More than two centuries after the Renaissance brought about the birth of the individual very isolated former Jesuits demonstrated this by staying active as teachers in schools and as priests in parishes. As individual persons they held on and, in this way, provided the bridge to the reestablishment of the Jesuit Order in 1814 by Pope Pius VII. 10

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Original in German, 1905; transl.by Talcott Parsons), New York 1958, chapter 4: ‘The Religious Foundations of Wordly Ascetism’, section C: ‘Methodism’.

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The colleges in the nineteenth and twentieth century did not see for themselves a special active solidarity with the poor. They saw themselves merely as educational institutes. It was all about intellect, about study, about the possibility of learning languages, about culture and Bildung. When in the second half of the twentieth century the life of the poor became idealized or romanticized (the very word ‘romanticism’ belongs to the eighteenth century, of course), the then superiors of the Jesuit Order decided to leave behind the colleges. By then, the fathers and brothers in the schools and universities were living decent lives of hard work and rigorous educational standards. Did they consider themselves as engaged in a work of charity? This question may be raised too in matters of the behaviour of the Jesuits in the eighteenth century. The financial security of the endowed schools resulted, at times, in splendid buildings, ornate chapels, and well-equipped class rooms. The development of an interior life was left to the individual Jesuit. There was money in the Jesuit schools but this money was not at the disposal of the community members but was continuously ploughed back in the institute. In short, the running of the works of charity in the early modern period were early forms of capitalism. Without capitalist thinking by the treasurer or bursar the hospitals, schools or other apostolic works would have lacked a secure foundation. Through these works religious convents took care for the poor, deprivileged, and insecure ones, but from a personal secure position. With a capitalist spirit. Rather similar to Max Weber’s innerweltliche Askese. End of an Era The end of the eighteenth century saw the dispersion of many religious houses, the secularization of the hospitals, orphanages and schools. The works of charity turned quite often into institutes run by the municipality. At the turn of that century the spirit of the new, worldly, raw ‘purely economic’ capitalism would start an Industrial Revolution which brought a profound change in the methods of production, trade, and consumption. Craftsmen were no longer their own master but became laborers. They were brought together in a place owned by the entrepreneur who bought raw material, provided for equipment, decided what was to be made, and sold it afterwards. These ‘fabricants’ or entrepreneurs were able to invest in machinery in order to save labour costs. The workmen had become employees with the legal status of servants in the household of the entrepreneur. The worldly entrepreneurs did never look back at the old hospitals and colleges as an example for cooperative industrial organization and did never consider the simple life style of the religious person as something praiseworthy. The worldly capitalists did never value the way of decent conducting business

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by nuns, priests, or brothers as something useful and instructive. The experience of non for profit home economics by sisters, brothers, monks and priests ‘in business’ (so to speak) was forgotten. The Industrial Revolution invented new ways of organizing labour relations without looking back to the religious precursors in schools and hospitals. The spiritual life of the paymaster or the treasurer in a religious house in pre-industrial or early modern Europe needs much more research. Once unearthened it may offer insight in their dealing with money without becoming too involved in it. This paper offers more questions than answers about the admirable and responsive way religious women and men organized works of charity in tune with their times from the sixteenth till the eighteenth century. Their innerweltliche Askese prevented them to lose their heads and to continue a frugal lifestyle.

JOOST VANDERNET CONSUMERISM SUPPORTED, CONSUMERISM OPPOSED A Look at Orthodoxy and Mysticism in Ancien Régime France1

Moving towards the third decade of the twenty-first century, we know that if we want to avoid the destruction of our planet, we must soon check capitalism and its great attendant ill: consumerism, that unstoppable urge of individuals to acquire, possess and use up temporal goods. Pope Francis has said as much, not only in his well-received encyclical Laudato Si’, but also in an exclusive interview with the Italian journalists Tornielli and Galeazzi, published in their stirring 2015 book Questa economia uccide (‘This Economy Kills’).2 Let me assure you: our pope is no Marxist and neither am I, but I follow his lead when he states that our current economics seem beyond repair. Within the context of the Down Town / Down Soul Conference, I propose to look at the entanglement of orthodoxy, mysticism and the socio-political order in early modern times by focusing on specific economic aspects of this entanglement. In this essay, I would like to take up the intellectual task, first, of examining how Catholicism not only was present at the birth of consumerism but also somehow supported it, and, second, of trying to find ways out of it. To serve both ends I’m going to take a look at the Catholic Church of prerevolutionary France. First, I will briefly show that orthodox French Catholics, true to the teachings of the Council of Trent, went out of their way to celebrate the possession of biens spirituels or ‘spiritual goods’, and that this celebration helped promote a view of man as a possessive individual. The Church helped French men and women to become possessive individuals: to become Frenchmen, that is, who wanted to own not only their so-called ‘selves’ but also, in addition, sought to own as many spiritual and material goods as possible. 1

2

At the conference ‘Down Town / Down Soul’, I presented some notes as a co-speaker to father Kimman SJ. These notes I subsequently expanded to the current paper, first read at a meeting of the Thomas More Academy in the Dutch city of Utrecht, September 20th 2018. Andrea Tornielli & Giacomo Galeazzi, Papa Francesco: Questa economia uccide, Milan 2015; Andrea Tornielli & Giacomo Galeazzi, This Economy Kills: Pope Francis on Capitalism and Social Justice, Collegeville, MN 2015.

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Second, I will present some oppositional French mystics. For there were those, who felt that the strong emphasis on the acquisition of goods spiritual aligned the Church too much with forces that were touting an unrestrained enjoyment of things material, thereby, in effect, promoting sin. The opposition, led by prominent mystics, celebrated a radical love of God and even a quite radical abandonment of all possible possessions. By cracking down on the cultivation of radical abandonment, the French Ancien Régime church contributed, wittingly or unwittingly, to the triumph of possessive individualism. The orthodox emphasis on biens spirituels helped align the Catholic Church with possessive individualism, thus preparing the way for modern-day consumerism, but this very same emphasis on spiritual goods, I will argue in the third and final part of my essay, might be mobilized today to argue and agitate against the unchecked lust for consumption. Emphasizing the specific enjoyment of spiritual goods, we Catholics, as I see it, could actually sound a prophetic voice against an economy that kills; a prophetic voice that would, ideally, resonate not only in our own community, but also in society at large. 1. Spiritual Goods and the Road to Possessive Individualism During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in England and its American colonies, in France and in the Dutch Republic, a broad consensus developed concerning the possessive character of the human self. In France, an unlikely coalition of the mind took form, arguing for the self as being primarily an owner of both spiritual and material goods, and an owner of itself to boot. This coalition of the mind consisted, according to the American historian Charly Coleman, of mainstream philosophes, of apologists for venal office holding, fans of luxury consumption and – last but not least – orthodox Catholics.3 Here, I will focus on the latter. First off, it is important to realize that, contrary to popular belief, the economy of Ancien Régime France was positively booming, especially during the eighteenth century.4 New consumer goods quasi flooded the French kingdom. True mass markets emerged, bringing, for instance, mirrors and religious objects into the households of all. It is, of course, a tenet of central Catholic tradition that there is no shame in owning material goods that may assist us in our ascend toward God and toward the spiritual goods he so abundantly provides for us. Let us zoom in on these spiritual goods. 3

4

Charly Coleman, The Virtues of Abandon: An Anti-Individualist History of the French Enlightenment, Stanford, CA 2014, 3. Coleman, The Virtues of Abandon, 12-13.

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Especially after the ratification of the teachings of the Council of Trent by the French clergy at the start of the seventeenth century, orthodox French Catholics tried to remain true to these. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, in the words of a French translation of 1694, taught that ‘il y a une communication entière de toutes sortes de biens spirituels’5 or in English: taught that in the Church there is ‘a full communion of all kinds of spiritual goods’. Let me briefly list the most important ‘spiritual goods’ people envisaged back then, just as a reminder of what we are talking about. To that end, I quote from the Catechism of the Diocese of Bayeux, published in 1778. To the question ‘What are the spiritual goods of the Church?’ the correct answer reads: ‘Ce sont les Sacremens, le sacrifice de la Messe, les mérites de Jésus Christ, les bonnes œuvres des Fidèles, leurs prières, et celles des Saints qui ont été, et de ceux qui sont dans le monde’.6 That is, with the merits of Christ laid out in some detail: ‘Spiritual goods are the Sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the merits of Faith, Hope and Love, the Good Works of the Faithful, their Prayers and the Prayers of all the Saints’. In France, the association of spiritual goods with goods temporal seems to have suggested itself quite strongly. Another part of the French edition of the Catechism establishes this, where it puts les biens spirituels & éternels next and in contrast to les biens temporels & périssables de cette vie, in the very same sentence.7 So we are talking here of God-given ‘spiritual & eternal goods’, set next to the ‘temporal & perishable goods of this life’. Now, in daily life, there was a strong connection between both kinds of goods. Crucifixes, rosaries, religious books and pamphlets, and also statuettes and pictures representing Christ, Mary and the Saints were being manufactured and distributed as mass-market items. Although these material goods were positively intended to fix the mind upon things eternal, acquisition of them did condition the faithful for an emerging new world of material prosperity, in which a plethora of goods, from curtains and mirrors to coffee sets and clocks, could be acquired by all but the completely destitute.8 Yes, France underwent a true consumer revolution during the eighteenth century. This would not have been possible without at least the acquiescence of the Catholic faithful. But we are not talking acquiescence here. No, the Catholic faithful actively and enthusiastically embraced a view of themselves as creatures of a possessive nature. Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Condillac, and scores of theologians in the Tridentine mold all helped steer the minds of Frenchmen and -women towards the acquisition and enjoyment of temporal 5 6 7 8

Le Catechisme du Concile de Trente. Traduction nouvelle, Paris 1694 (5th ed.), 109. Catechisme [etc.] par ordre de Monseigneur De Cheylus, Evêque de Bayeux, Caen 1778, 78. Le Catechisme du Concile de Trente, 630. Argument by Cissie Fairchilds, as presented in: Coleman, Abandon, 12.

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and material possessions. Men and women, so these eminent thinkers argued, were or at least should be in possession of themselves, owning their proper souls and bodies. Mainstream theologians and philosophes in addition commended the acquisition of as many spiritual and material goods as possible. The possessive individual, already fully formed in seventeenth century England, gradually became the mannequin on which French people of all classes and estates began to model themselves. To be clear: this meant that men and women started to define themselves by what they already possessed individually, and what they still wanted or needed to have. The Ancien Régime was a corporative society, in which a person’s identity was defined by the membership of estates, guilds, fraternities and the like. Possessive individualism undermined this kind of identity, substituting individual forms of acquisition and possession for corporate ones. During the first phase of the French Revolution, propertied Frenchmen would systematically destroy the corporative order of the Ancien Régime, at the same time establishing a new one that enshrined the possessive individual and its claims to private property. Thus, the French Revolution would make sure that France and, later on, also those parts of Europe that came under French dominion, were able to embrace a new form of capitalism, and with it the consumerism that exists until this very day. To be sure, before the French Revolution, in the French kingdom there existed quite a vocal opposition against possessive individualism. Let us try to determine whether the opposition of these bygone days might be able to inspire us, so that we, today, may be able to better raise our voices against consumerism. 2. Oppositional Voices – Pur Amour and Quietist Abandon In seventeenth and eighteenth century France a broad coalition of the mind effectively pushed for man’s self-understanding as a possessive individual. During these centuries, there were many thinkers who argued and agitated fervently against this new, disturbing understanding. In the seventeenth century the opposition was led by radical Catholic mystics. Some of them preached a pure love of God against the claims of self-love, others propagated the radical abandonment of all things spiritual and temporal. Let’s go into some detail. During the first three decades of the seventeenth century, a new and distinct ‘French’ school of mysticism took form.9 Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus (15841652) acted as one of the voices of this school, sounding one its main themes: that of pur amour or pure charity. At age 26, Camus was consecrated bishop 9

Coleman, Abandon, 48-49.

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by the great mystic François de Sales. Camus looked to the older man for council and support, and soon became his friend and disciple. In books like Théodoxe, ou la Gloire de Dieu (1637) and La Défense du pur amour contre les attaques de l’amour propre (1640), Camus defended ‘pure love’ against sinful ‘self love’. Camus taught that we should love God only for the good and interest of God himself, and not for any recompense. He railed against those who could only be persuaded to do good works out of a ‘servile or mercenary mind’, that is to say: for personal gain, out of love for themselves and their own temporal and spiritual interests.10 Camus angrily denounced the new possessive mentality that was establishing itself in France, arguing that it was ungrateful to view God’s good gifts, les bien-faits de Dieu, as some sort of personal property. In his view – a rather orthodox Catholic view, to be sure – we should credit neither health, beauty, riches and offices, nor virtues and intellectual gifts to ourselves, but only to God. According to Camus, it is self-love or amour propre that deludes us into thinking that material and spiritual gifts are, or could ever be said to be truly our own.11 It was cause for some controversy that Camus went against the new narrative of individual possession, but his teachings contained no heresies. They were part of a main stream of Catholic tradition. Not so the Quietism that manifested itself in France towards the end of the seventeenth century. In the Quietist movement that profoundly unsettled France during the 1690s, the central figure was a woman. Her maiden name was Jeanne-Marie de la Motte. Born 1648 into a well-to-do family, Jeanne-Marie did not want to play the gendered roles of wife and mother. The only escape available, at the time, to women like her, was to take up holy orders, but her family barred her from doing so. In 1664 she married wealthy Jean Guyon and became ‘Madame Guyon’. A few years into her marriage, Jeanne-Marie awakened to a mystical calling. The death of her husband, 1676, set her free. Now she was able to completely abandon herself to mysticism. She parted with most of her money and took up travelling France with her daughter. Her two sons she abandoned to the care of others. Soon, she became a spiritual mother to people she met on her travels, and in addition to all who were willing to read her books. Among her many followers, she eventually counted the eminent Fénelon, a court favourite. In her writings, Mme Guyon advocated the same radical abandonment she practised herself. Abandon, she stated, consisted in reducing care for the self to 10

11

[Jean-Pierre Camus], Théodoxe, ou la Gloire de Dieu, Caen 1637, 47-48: ‘…ceux qui ne faisans bien que par esprit Servile & Mercenaire, c’est à dire, pour l’amour d’eux-mesmes & pour leur interest, ou Temporel ou Eternel…’. Jean-Pierre Camus, La Défense du pur amour contre les attaques de l’amour propre, Paris 1640, especially 347-348.

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an absolute minimum, in order to give oneself over to God completely. According to Mme Guyon, we should become like children, thinking of neither past nor future, just living in the moment, only following directions from our benevolent Father. She taught four propositions:12 – we should, first, give up our own will or volonté propre, become indifferent to all stirrings inside our self, and will only with and in God; – second, we should become indifferent to all things relating to the body or the soul, and become indifferent, also, to all goods temporal or eternal; – we should, third, let the past slip into oblivion, leave the future to providence, and give the present to God working in us; – fourth, we should not attribute anything we receive or experience to ourselves, but view everything and anything as handed to us by God. To be sure, the last proposition echoes the teachings of Camus. It was and is fully compatible with Catholic orthodoxy. The first proposition, if put in proper context, need not give offence; it fits with our mystical tradition. The middle two propositions, however, are something different altogether. The advocacy of indifference to biens spirituels et temporels and the abandonment of all care for past, present and future, carried the distinct whiff of heresy. Controversial propositions like these sparked and fed the famous ‘Quietist Affair’ that captivated the French court during the 1690s. Its story has often been told13 and does not need retelling here. Suffice it to say, that in the affair the eminent Fénelon took the side of Mme Guyon, being her devout disciple, and that the equally eminent Bossuet forcefully defended Tridentine orthodoxy. The end of the affair was a clear-cut victory for orthodox Catholicism, with Mme Guyon incarcerated in the Bastille, and Fénelon, no longer a favourite at Versailles, exiling himself from court. For our purposes, it is important to note that the Quietist Affair confirmed mainstream French churchmen as advocates of the acquisition and enjoyment of goods spiritual and temporal. Further, it seems clear to me that the mystical abandonment advocated by Guyon and Fénelon did not and could not stem the tide of possessive individualism. This is self-evident, really: abandonment, in its very essence, means a retreat from the world so radical as to be totally incompatible with modern life. If we are looking for a prophetic voice against the questionable economics of today, Quietism does not fit the bill. Now let me go on to show you that the Catholic tradition of pre-revolutionary France may nevertheless inspire prophetic protest against an economy that kills. To that end, we are going to look at les biens spirituels under the aspect of their jouissance or enjoyment. 12 13

[Mme Guyon], Règle des associés à l’enfance de Jesus, Cologne 1705, 49-50. For instance in: Coleman, Abandon, 55-75.

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3. To Find a Prophetic Voice, we Look at the Jouissance of Spiritual Goods Temporal goods can be enjoyed, and the same holds true, of course, for spiritual goods. In French, enjoyment of goods is called jouissance. Let’s first take a closer look at the phenomenon of jouissance in general, and then that at the jouissance of worldly goods, keeping in kind what we have learned about Ancien Régime Catholicism. After that, we will discuss the jouissance of things spiritual and eternal. Jouissance or enjoyment relates, in general, to property and the theory of property. According to Roman Law, property consists of three elements: – usus, being the right to use or enjoy the thing in our possession without altering or destroying it; – fructus or the right to enjoy fruits derived from the thing in our possession: think of emoluments, rents, entrance fees, etc.; – abusus or the right to freely dispose of the thing in our possession: we may sell it, give it away, abandon it, consume it, and even wantonly destroy it. Now, full property or what the Romans called dominium is only established by the combination of use, fruit and abuse. It should be evident that the right to abuse is the most important part of full property, since only abusus establishes true mastery or dominium over what we have in our possession. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries possessive individualism gripped the minds of European elites, so much so, that they came to establish, in custom and in law, true dominion for all individuals over all temporal goods in their possession. Now, it is important to note, that there can be no doubt about the importance that was accorded, next to simple possession and jouissance, to dominion. Listen, for instance, to the voice of the Jesuit Louis Richeome, speaking to us from the year 1621: Man exists as the most exalted creature in the world, to enjoy (iouyr) the world and possess it (le posseder) in the most noble way it can be possessed, by spirit and by body, which are the most important parts of man, for which and by which he must take possession and enjoyment (possession & iouissance) of the good that is destined for him. (…) The world exists for man, he is its heir and King, and must possess and enjoy it (le doit posseder & iouyr) (…) and have complete dominion (l’entiere domination) in all its parts, a dominion (domination) ruled by God at the creation of man with the words: ‘Be rulers (soyez seigneurs) over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the animals that scurry on the ground’.14

14

Louys Richeome, L’immortalité de l’ame, Paris 1621, 117, 118.

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Here we have all the necessary elements for full possession put together. There is possession pure and simple, there is jouissance, and there is also, quite prominently, true dominion – more specifically: that true dominion the French reserved for feudal lords of the land, the so-called seigneurs. Now, when the French elites, embracing possessive individualism, at the end of the eighteenth century succeeded in establishing true dominion for all propertied individuals, this was quite a revolution. It was a revolution, I say, because full property under the feudal system used to be reserved for great lords or seigneurs only, and it was even more of a revolution because where these same seigneurs only had enjoyed full property in theory, having in practice been restrained by numerous use- and fruit-rights of lesser folk, the newly established true dominion took full practical effect. With the establishment of the Civil Code, property was defined as an absolute droit de disposer, restrained only by general laws and regulations.15 From now on, property rights could be exercised more absolutely than had ever been the case under feudal law. It would take the genius of a Balzac to spell out the grim workings of this absolute dominion in all levels of society. Of course, I would gladly get into the intricacies of older French Law up to and including the Code Civil, but within the constraints of this essay, I shouldn’t. Let me turn our attention, instead, back to the phenomenon of jouissance, especially the jouissance des biens spirituels. To be sure, the phrase jouissance des biens spirituels or, in English, ‘enjoyment of things spiritual’, had already by the seventeenth century established itself as a stock phrase in French Catholic parlance. Jouissance of spiritual goods meant that these goods could be used and their fruits enjoyed. But: if every man might enjoy these goods, no one was allowed to abuse them. The biens spirituels et eternels, they were outside of all human dominion. It is easy to see why this was the case, and still is. All spiritual goods, taken together, form an immense treasure that will never run out, cannot be diminished, and is and always will be the common possession of all the faithful, to be enjoyed by each and every one. Spiritual goods are, clearly, not 15

Code Civil, Titre II, De la Propriété. (Décrété le 6 pluv. an xi. Promulgué le 16 du même mois [= January 1803]), 544: ‘La propriété est le droit de jouir et disposer des choses de la manière la plus absolue, pourvu qu’on n’en fasse pas un usage prohibé par les lois ou par les réglemens’. For sources and a contemporary discussion of this part of French Law, see: Julien Michel Dufour, Code Civil des Français avec les sources où toutes ses dispositions ont été puisées. Tome I, Paris 1806, 307. Interestingly enough, Dufour tries to steers his readers away from abusus as actual ‘abuse’ (l’abus). Not so, approximately half a century later, C. Demolombe, in an excellent disquisition on article 544 in his Cours de Code Civil. Tome XV, Bruxelles 1854, 176-177. For Demolombe, when property in the Civil Code is concerned, abusus is as much part of it as are usus and fructus. To uphold the absolute right (droit total) of property, he even, if somewhat grudgingly, defends those cases in which abusus takes the form of real misuse.

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possessions that can be abused by any single person. Neither the Sacraments, nor the Holy Sacrifice of Mass can be sold or inherited. To claim dominion over Faith, Hope and Love would be sheer madness. The Good Works of the Faithful? They cannot be bought and sold. Also: neither the Prayers of the faithful nor those of the Saints can be wantonly destroyed. The spiritual goods of the Church form a common stock for the enjoyment of all. Every member of the Catholic community can use them, every member can profit from them, but no one may claim them for himself and abuse them. These goods simply do not fall under the dominion of any man; they belong to the Dominus Deus: to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the one and only seigneur when it comes to things spiritual and eternal.16 Now, in light of our current predicament, I would like to ask whether we might regard not only the stock of things spiritual, but also the stock of things temporal as a common trust, to be used and enjoyed by all, and over which no man can or may have dominion. This way, we would acknowledge emphatically that the world – the earth – can only be the full possession of the Lord, and that we are no more than his humble stewards. For sure, I think this is the place to bring up the notion of stewardship. Most people will be familiar with it, especially Christian Democrats. Stewardship is all about the management of use and enjoyment. It is from this notion of stewardhip that I propose we take a leap with our imagination. I want to expand the idea of stewardship so, that we consider to let our relation to the plethora of worldly goods fully mimic our relation to spiritual goods. Rather radical, this, for nothing short of a renunciation of the full property currently enjoyed by individuals and corporations would be involved. I am imagining all individual and corporate abuse of temporal goods outlawed, save for the abuse of food, drink and energy: goods that cannot but be consumed. ‘Communism?’ you may ask. Not quite, although I do want to imagine all worldly goods under the dominion of a community that acts as steward for our Lord, the only one who can truly be said to fully possess anything. Let me stress, however, that doing away with individual and corporate abuse would, in the thought-experiment I am proposing, not preclude a bewildering complexity of intertwined rights to use, fruit and usufruct, exercised by individuals as well as corporations; rights, moreover, that might be bought and sold. I also imagine plenty of work for entrepreneurs. It will be up to them to find ways to increase the fruits of the earth, without consuming too much of its resources. 16

Of course, the stock of spiritual goods was thought to be in the power of the Church. The Church even appeared to have these goods at its disposal, as the quaint practice of the sale of indulgences made abundantly clear. Therefore, the thought experiment that I propose in this paper, would have been outside the frame of Tridentine orthodoxy.

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Entrepreneurs will be rewarded for their efforts of course, but not, in the world I am imagining, with heaps of worldly goods, but rather with a plenitude of spiritual possessions. In this essay, we are not going to get carried away by trying to translate my little flight of fancy into the languages of law or politics. I do, however, want to state emphatically that to my mind any attempt to establish dominance-free property in reality, should only be made by a community that is able to positively, absolutely steer clear of any and all Soviet-style arrangements. One failed experiment with so-called ‘communism’ has been quite enough, I’m sure we’ll all agree. Nearing the end of my essay, I would like to persuade my readers, with only a few examples, that the thought of giving up the individual and corporate right to abuse, might not be as strange or undesirable as it perhaps at first appears. First: a somewhat negative approach. If we are going to take the notion of stewardship seriously, I ask, can we, given the state of our world today, really keep on granting individuals the right to abandon or destroy material goods at will? Is it not unacceptable that the executor of an estate is free to clear a house by throwing perfectly functional couches, beds, cupboards, sinks, doors, and even whole collections of books into containers destined for the local landfill? I also think it is strange, to say the very least, that couples who have bought a house are free to wantonly destroy, either whole or in parts, perfectly functional kitchens and bathrooms simply because these do not fit their personal sense of style. Looking at corporations, it seems quite unacceptable to me when an oil-company builds a huge refinery, enjoys enormous profits from it, and then, when it deems necessary repairs and upgrades too costly, is free to dupe local politicians into buying the plant for a dollar, effectively saddling the community with the task and cost of cleaning up. Now for a second and more positive approach. There are indeed encouraging signs that our world is changing for the better; that we are moving away from abusive property rights and toward the celebration of the more fulfilling and equitable rights of use and fruit. Let me first give a prime example on the corporate level. Not so long ago Schiphol Airport told the Dutch multinational Philips that it was done buying bulbs, tubes and the like. For its main Lounge, Schiphol wanted to purchase the continuous enjoyment of ‘light’, nothing less, nothing more. Philips happily obliged. Instead of manufacturing scores and scores of bulbs and tubes, trying to turn a profit by making these goods go to waste as soon as possible, the company has started to sell ‘lighting’. Philips now has a clear incentive not to promote waste, but to produce bulbs and tubes that last a lifetime or longer.

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With regard to individuals, I turn to a curious thing. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of Schiphol, many youngsters today are positively ruling out the private possession of a car. Stating they merely want ‘transportation’, these young men and women will apparently welcome whichever form of transport best suits a given time and trajectory. It is quite a spectacle to observe how the fathers of these youngsters tend to lose their minds or at least their tempers when contemplating the apparent loss not only of property but also of status that awaits their ‘crazy’ offspring. In Dutch, we may call our current society a ‘consumptiemaatschappij’. The French have an equivalent: they may speak about our ‘société de consommation’. In English, we have ‘consumerism’. We must balk at it, since ‘consumerism’ is that unstoppable urge of individuals to acquire, possess, and consume goods temporal. Of course, consumption is the ultimate form of abuse, for what we consume, we destroy or use up. The image of primitive energy-consumption makes this perfectly clear: when we burn a fire in order to warm ourselves, forge certain tools, or cook a meal, we observe how the logs burning in the fire are literally consumed by the flames. I think it would be wonderful if we, Catholics, heeding the voice of pope Francis, would be able to stem ourselves against the consumerism of our time. Perhaps, celebrating our wonderful Catholic conception of biens spirituels, we might come up with a prophetic new way of looking at the possession of worldly goods. Perhaps, inspired by the old doctrine of pur amour that teaches us we can never be in full possession of things, we might imagine a future in which consumption is reduced to the necessary minimum. In this imagined future, abuse will be frowned upon, but people – all people – will be free to use and enjoy all sorts of spiritual and temporal goods, so that they may flourish as good, loving neighbours of each other: as true children of God. Whether there really is something in the thought-experiment I have proposed in this essay, I cannot say for sure, but I do I hope that our rich Catholic tradition may help us, one way or another, to find appropriate new ways of caring for the earth, our common home.

HERMAN WESTERINK JEAN DE LABADIE Mystic – Activist – Politician

Labadie’s Hatred of the World In his chapter in La fable mystique on Jean de Labadie (1610-1674) Michel de Certeau describes this remarkable historical figure as a ‘nomad’ desperately wandering through institutional and doctrinal ‘places’ in search of a body. ‘The stages of the journey are marked by the “religions” he passes through, one by one (…). He passes on. He cannot stop’.1 But what kind of a body is Labadie searching for? And does he perhaps in some sense find this body? Certeau describes his quest as a search for the ‘true body’ of the church, but not in the sense of pilgrimage towards an already established site. Labadie’s nomadic journey is in fact the reverse of a pilgrimage. He starts from a site in order to ‘fall out of the places that cannot hold him’.2 Labadie is in search of the impossible ideal of a ‘true body of the church’ that sets the criterion for his evaluation of the places he lingers and the bodies he encounters on his nomadic quest. Certeau maps the places and routes of Labadie’s actual journey through half of Europe. His nomadic life starts somewhere in the South of France with him entering the Jesuit order in order to become priest. Then he turns into a Jansenist at Port Royal in Paris, and from here he moves to Calvinism in Geneva, in order to finally become a Calvinist minister in Middelburg in the Dutch Republic. But not for a long time, because after a conflict with the Dutch Reformed Church he founds his own community in Amsterdam – a community that will then move to Wieuwerd in Friesland and from there to Altona near Hamburg. Each and every actual institutional body appears to be merely an imperfect and corrupted place. They are places Labadie must pass through while aiming his desire at a true body that is never reached or established. 1

2

Michel de Certeau, The Mystic Fable. Vol. 1: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century, Chicago 1992, 271. Ibid., 272.

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The geographical journey and quest, so Certeau states, is the actual form of a spiritual quest that reveals itself in the nomadic style of writing. Labadie’s writing is indeed ‘nomadic, endless, pamphletary, and prophetic, hastily executed, its rhythm determined by the interval between the place he condemns in leaving it behind and the (uncertain), necessary one he announces as an imminent miracle’.3 His writings are rejections of the places he leaves behind and projections of fictitious places he never finds. Each time, his writings ‘construct a land of fiction relative to a lacking institution’.4 His writings, so to say, constitute a ‘body’ that falls apart in a quantity of fragments, each fragment expressing a way of leaving without finding. That ‘body’ reveals the a-topia from which it stems and which it searches to undo. In other words, these writings are produced by an endless and desperate desire for a ‘true’ body, while the actual bodies do not meet the ideals of the nomadic spirit. There is a paradox in Labadie’s desire. On the one hand, it points towards a true body that is imagined as something to be found or established in this world. On the other hand, notably in the context of the Dutch Calvinism where Labadie for a short time finds a ‘place’, everything actual in this world is always already considered to be fundamentally corrupted by sin. It is because of this that Labadie’s desire takes the form of hatred towards any and every body, and towards everything that is corrupted, that is, every place that is already an established site, an organized institution with a more or less ‘civil’ character. His desire, Certeau writes, takes this form of an ‘absolute hatred’ of the bodies he encounters. Labadie – most notably in his final ‘Labadist’ years – is a man furious with a desire lacking an object, a true body, and hence a desire that manifests itself in the hatred for all the various ‘untrue bodies’. Indeed, when reading some of Labadie’s last writings, one finds this hatred for what Labadie in very general terms calls ‘the world’, a word that captures everything characterized by ‘flesh’, sin, corruption and untruth, hence, everything that actually exists. In his Brief-Understanding of the Real and True Christianity (published in Dutch: Kort-Begryp van’t rechte en ware Christendom) written in 1670, Labadie devotes a whole chapter to the issue of hatred and desertion of the sinful world. He speaks of a ‘world that humankind has to hate and desert’.5 For Labadie, the desire to be a ‘true Christian’, i.e. a reborn and chosen ‘godly’ person, means to make radical choices and pursue a desire that ‘does not allow loving anything but God alone, and commits to hate everything 3 4 5

Ibidem. Ibidem. Jean De Labadie, Kort-Begryp van’t rechteen ware Christendom, of Gewigtige Grondregels betreffende beyde het recht Christelicke Geloove en de ware Godsaligheyt, Amsterdam 1685, 61, 63.

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for His sake, even that which is closest and dearest to us, ourselves, our lives, and our souls’.6 The quest for true bliss in God means that all worldly things to which one can be attached – food and drink, friendship, family – and everything related to the person or valued as their own motives and capacities is fundamentally distrusted as being of no relevance for spiritual life. The true Christian is the one who is prepared to give up his life, as it had been motivated and lived up until then, in order to achieve true blessedness. Labadie calls this the ground rule of Christ: ‘to lose his life and hate everything for His [God’s] sake’.7 To hate everything for God’s sake… Certeau emphasizes this hatred that characterizes both God and Labadie himself, this turning away from a disappointing, corrupt creation in which God as well as a handful of Labadists are unable to find a true body. Indeed, for Labadie, the abandonment of the world and the desire for blessedness with God means forfeiting all ties with worldly objects. In a chapter on ‘The lonely and withdrawn life’ in Brief-Understanding this is thematized. Labadie engages with inner spiritual loneliness here. This kind of loneliness does not mean that someone looking for true pleasure would have to avoid contact with people but rather that an elect godly person should no longer cherish any love for worldly objects and has to be ‘insensitive’ – the antique apatheia – to everything pleasurable the world has to offer. In short, in this world it is about ‘dying yourself, or being dead’. Or more emphatically: ‘The world is our enemy, which we should hate with a complete hate’.8 One can hardly overlook the radicalism of this position. At first sight, it seems to connect to a tradition of early Christian radical phenomena such as martyrs, hermits and desert monks choosing a life of sacrifice for the truth or a life in solitude and small communities while exercising themselves in mortifications. But, so one could argue, Labadie’s desertion of the world is even more radical, to a point where it becomes sheer madness. The early Christian hermits and ascetics not only deserted the world, but chose a form of life that was also organized in practices and in (semi-)institutions. They did not abandon the world because of a deep hatred of it, but because of a choice for a life devoted to Christ and God. Of course, in this spiritual tradition there is the notion of ‘fleeing the world’, but this movement is not motivated by a hatred of what is established – it is primarily motivated by a religious ideal that can be pursued through ascetic exercises and by following the examples set by others. In the case of Labadie things are a bit different, it seems. His nomadic life and hatred is a movement of departure, that is to say, every departure already anticipates the 6 7 8

Ibid., 23. All citations from Dutch sources in this text are translated by the author. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 15, 308.

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next departure in a never-ending quest for a ‘true body’ that is the supposed home of the few chosen ones. Certeau rightly underscores this aspect of Labadie’s life and writings. All his writings in all his periods and stages of life are characterized by the combination of a desire to be united with the truth and to live a true life on the one hand, and the conviction that in order to do so one has to hate the worldly ‘bodies’ and abandon the world he is ‘passing through’.9 But who can be certain of being one of the few elect when one is still and always on the move, leaving over and again places discovered as being corrupted? There is a hatred here and a departure without the certainty of finding a tranquil steady place anywhere. There are only the gestures of giving up and letting go, provoking the risk of being oneself abandoned by God who, after all, regards the ever-sinful world as an enemy. Labadie chooses death without the certainty of an ‘after-life’. The quest does not have a progressive character, i.e. does not evidently lead to an increase of certainty about the spiritual state. Here, we should not overlook that in the journey from Jesuit spirituality to the Further Reformation Calvinism, Labadie keeps moving within a voluntaristic theological tradition in which God’s will is seen as absolute, free and also hidden and inaccessible. This implies that there never can be any definite certainty about one’s spiritual state. In fact, much more the opposite is the case.10 The Ever-ongoing Reformation of the Church We cannot reduce Labadie’s nomadic life to being only the private and particular expression of a nomadic desire, a hatred for existing bodies and an impossible desire for a true body. There is a political context in which Labadie’s quest can be seen as a form of activism that is itself situated in an institution. In this context the various institutions Labadie passes through are not random or interchangeable. There is a certain progression, maybe even a homecoming without ever being fully realized. There is a movement from a Jesuit order that demands strict obedience and loyalty of its militia, towards an orthodox Calvinist position in which the leading motto is that of the ecclesia semper reformanda est – the church has to be reformed continuously. This notion implies that the existing church can never be considered to be the true body or place. To the contrary, the ‘true’ church is always yet to appear. And the established institutions 9 10

Certeau, The Mystic Fable, 279. In a Calvinist context this is evidenced by the literature on despair and spiritual desertion. See on this issue Herman Westerink, Modernity, Melancholy and Predestination: Cultural Historical, Philosophical and Psychoanalytical Perspectives on the Modern Religious Subject, Leuven: Peeters, 2019.

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always have to disappear or, as an alternative, have to be left behind in order to establish the ‘true body’. Labadie’s nomadic quest leads him to an institution that strives for its own disappearance, and that, in a sense, hates its own current existence. Seen from this perspective, Labadie’s quest does bring him the desired body, namely a body that tries to dispose of itself and aims to reestablish itself through a process of purification. Let us have a closer look through some historical material. An important moment in the history of the Dutch Reformed Church is the famous Synod of Dordrecht held in 1618-1619. The orthodox party of that church, known as the counter-remonstrants, basically came to the position that at this Synod true doctrine had prevailed (against the remonstrants, the ‘Arminians’) and been confirmed.11 The next task would be the further reformation of the church into a community of true believers, of godly men and women, that is to say, the doctrine should now become lived piety. Already in the late 1620s we see the first major publications that call for a general further reformation of the church and even of the society as a whole, arguing that not only the church but the Dutch Republic itself should be recreated and become a ‘new Israel’. Willem Teellinck, one of the protagonists of the Dutch Further Reformation and a predecessor of Labadie in the community of Middelburg, writes in Necessary Plea (‘Noodtwendigh Vertoogh’) from 1627 that the Dutch reformed people should regard themselves as a chosen people, and that the Republic can be compared to a pregnant woman that is about to give birth to a ‘true reformation’.12 In other texts, he speaks of the church and the Republic as being in a state of ruin, a ransacked Jerusalem with a destroyed temple that needs to be rebuilt. Meanwhile the destruction of protestant cities in the Thirty Years War, notably the siege and fall of Heidelberg, are interpreted as signs, indications of God’s wrath and impatience with his own people. Everywhere in Teellinck’s writings one finds the imagery of a furious God impatient with the necessary reform of the church through a reform of the inner life of its members. There is no time to loose, Teellinck is eager to emphasize, as God is an impatient and jealous 11

12

The conflict between remonstrants and counter-remonstrants started in the early 1600s as a dispute between two theology professors at Leiden University, Jacob Arminius and Francis Gomarus. The debate was on fundamental issues such human free will, effectual grace and the doctrine of predestination. The conflict found its zenith at the Synod of Dordrecht where the remonstrant teaching were condemned. The victory of the counter-remonstrants paved the way for the Dutch Further Reformation that would dominate the theological discourse throughout the seventeenth century. Willem Teellinck, Noodtwendigh Vertoogh, aengaende den tegenwoordigen bedroefden Staet van Gods volck; waerinne getrouwelijck aengewesen wort, in wat swaricheyt ende vervallinghe wy ghecomen zijn, in wat perijckel wy noch staen met de noodighe remedien om ons verderf te behoeden, Middelburg 1647.

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God who will not hesitate when it comes to the punishment of sinners. In Necessary Plea this is dramatically expressed in an opening prayer that speaks of God as a lonely hero and a stranger in this world, wandering through the night in search of the few souls that are also wandering in darkness in search of Him.13 In this context it is no surprise seeing Labadie being welcomed by some front men in the movement of the Further Reformation. Labadie is initially seen, by some of these important representatives, such as Gisbertus Voetius, Jodocus van Lodenstein and Jacobus Koelman, as a ‘man of God’ and ‘a second Calvin’ tasked with the special mission of reforming the entire church into a community of true believers. And indeed this is also how Labadie understands his own mission when he has to defend himself against accusations of schismatic activities. He claims not to strive for anything other than what had determined the agenda of the Further Reformation since the 1620s, namely that the believers ‘are like a heart and soul together, doing what is granted by their faith, and living in accordance with their doctrine’.14 This one sentence comprises different dimensions of the Further Reformation: a mystic-ascetical dimension that is aimed at living true piety through experienced grace and rebirth, the true experience of confessed doctrine; a practicalsocial dimension in which devotion is made into a sacred and godly way of life; and an ecclesiastic dimension in which the visible church is transformed into the body of Christ.15 In his Defense (‘Protestatie’) Labadie argues that he is to be seen as ‘orthodox’ – he uses that word –, that is to say, pure and sincere in matters of doctrine. And for this very reason he cannot be anything but a critic of the church. He writes that his sole aim is ‘the purification of Jerusalem and the downfall of Babel’.16 Labadie’s Defense marks an important moment in what in the history of the Reformation in the Netherlands is known as the ‘Labadist crisis’. What was at stake in this crisis? At stake was not the issue of the necessity as such of a further reformation of church and society, but the question what form this further reformation should take. The dominant political view on this was that a stable and coherent church could make a powerful contribution to both societal cohesion (indispensable in times of ongoing wars with neighbouring countries, notably England) and the moral resilience of the citizens. Radical reformers, 13

14

15

16

On Teellinck see Herman Westerink, Met het oog van de ziel: Een godsdienstpsychologische en mentaliteitshistorische studie naar mensvisie, zelfonderzoek en geloofsbeleving in het werk van Willem Teellinck (1579-1629), Zoetermeer 2002. Jean de Labadie, Protestatie nopende het oprechte Geloof, de suyvere en gesonde Leer, ende der algemeene Orthodoxy, Amsterdam 1669, 7. Willem Frijhoff, Wegen van Evert Willemsz. Een Hollands weeskind op zoek naar zichzelf, 1607-1647, Nijmegen 1995, 359-360. Labadie, Protestatie, 7.

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however, aimed at turning the Republic into a theocratic state, a new Israel indeed. When in 1672 – the famous disaster year in which the Republic was almost overrun by a coalition of neighbouring powers (England, France, Münster) – there is political revolt in which the Orange stadtholder could again become the dominant political factor, radical reformers see in these events an opportunity for realizing their agenda. It is in this period that Voetius, Lodensteyn and Koelman write their major political treatises. The most important of these texts are Voetius’ Politica Ecclesiastica (1663-1676), Van Lodenstein’s Contemplation of Zion (‘Beschouwinge van Zion’) (1674-1677) and Koelman’s Points of Necessary Reform of the Church (‘De Pointen van Nodige Reformatie omtrent de Kerk’) (1678). Hence, when in ‘the disaster year’ 1672, the Orange party achieved political victory, these front men immediately publish large tracts on an encompassing reformation of church and society finding that now the time is ripe for such radical reformation. In the aftermath of the 1672 events they hope and await the establishment of a ‘new Israel’ in the Republic – a project that had its historical forerunner in the Cromwell era in England just a few decennia earlier.17 This orthodox Calvinist movement however did not have the political strength and the public’s support needed for such reform. The ‘Labadist crisis’ marks the moment in which basically the general reform attempts shatter even before the major treatises were written. One might say, that Labadie was the first to draw this conclusion. The further reformation of the church can only be actualized through establishing a purified church of the few godly chosen ones – and this eventually proves to be impossible without abandoning the main church – or even churches – and through wandering off into unknown territory. In this, Labadie is the first indeed. Koelman, whom I just mentioned, tried to reform his community in Sluis in Zeeland, but was expelled by local authorities and was then forced to become a nomadic minister preaching in small radical semi-sectarian groups (‘conventikels’) that were scattered throughout the Low Countries. Labadie placed himself and a handful of faithful followers outside the church, thus undermining the theocratic ideals Voetius, Lodensteyn and Koelman still clinged onto. From Labadie’s perspective, this step was nothing else than the logical consequence of the fact that the true church remained invisible despite the possibilities that allegedly had emerged from the Synod of Dordrecht to transform the visible church into the true church. As a consequence, he left with the few elect he could gather (including the famous Anna-Maria van Schurman).18 17

18

From 1653 to 1659 Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector in the Commonwealth of England. In this period English Puritans dominated English politics and pushed for a further reformation of English society. Certeau mentions Schurman’s Eucleria (1669) as an example of a Labadist text. Schurman was a student of Voetius and belonged to the circles of the Further Reformation. She was seen as one of the most distinguished scholars of her time. Certeau, The Mystic Fable, 285.

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God’s Hidden Works and the Body as Surface of Symptoms The final question this chapter discusses is how the body appears and functions in Labadie’s writings and in those of his Puritan and radical Calvinist contemporaries. In my recently published monograph the central topic is melancholia and predestination in reformation thought. I started that book from a case study that was quite famous in Calvinist and Puritan circles in the seventeenth century, an exemplary case of what is known as spiritual abandonment or spiritual desertion. The case is about an Italian protestant lawyer who in 1548 is forced by the inquisition to renounce his protestant convictions. Tormented by the idea that he has forsaken and betrayed Christ, he becomes convinced of his damnation and rejection by God. He falls ill, refuses to eat and dies a miserable death. The case is important because of its publication by some of his friends who present his spiritual torment as an example of an experience of spiritual desertion that should actually be interpreted as a sign of faith. Both his bodily torments and his utterings of complaint are seen as surface on which symptoms and signs are displayed. The stronger the lawyer laments and confesses his rejection, the more his friends are convinced that he adheres to a protestant faith. And the more the lawyer expresses a sincere concern about his spiritual state before God, the more his friends are convinced that this concern can only be caused by a hidden ‘working’ of God in the man’s soul. The body, the utterings, the emotional force and clarity of argumentation – all these aspects of his state display signs of a hidden presence that works in mysterious and indirect ways. The lawyer merely experiences despair, but his friends interpret this despair as a likely sign of desire and grace. The experience of desertion produces a practice of searching for signs of divine interventions. What one is inquiring into, in other words, is a sick and corrupted ‘body’ that nevertheless displays signs of a hidden divine presence.19 It is tempting to use this model of spiritual desertion and the search for signs of a hidden presence of God as a model for further reflection on Labadie’s Calvinist period and his involvement in the movement of the Further Reformation. The protagonists of the Further Reformation focused their attention and polemical writings on the present corrupted institutional body and firmly expressed their desire for another true ‘body’. They firmly criticize those church members that are addressed as name-Christians or fake-Christians – people that confess to the truth of doctrine and lead virtuous lives, but do not show signs of true faith or true concern about their spiritual state. Their rhetoric is aimed against spiritual indifference, not only outside the church but notably also inside the church communities. The Further Reformation literature aims at an increase 19

Westerink, Modernity, Melancholy and Predestination, chapter 1.

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of signs of faith, of conversions, rebirths, experiences of grace and faith, etc. The aim is to renew the established institutions from within, bringing to light, supporting and facilitating the divine presence in the lives of the elect godly ‘members’ of the ‘body’ – the body of Christ as the composition of its parts and members. Ecclesia semper reformanda est in this context refers to the constant and necessary renewal of the whole body from within. Labadie confesses to this Further Reformation programme, insisting on the necessary reformation of the ‘body’. Like the other protagonists of this movement, he is searching for signs of grace in his community, searching for the few elect in the dark of night, so to speak. He is looking into his Middelburg community as a body – a body of Christ – and he is searching for signs of election in this body’s parts and members. He is not here (in Middelburg) to leave this place. We should not forget: Labadie does not want to leave the Reformed church; he is expelled from it, because of so-called schismatic activities. Schismatic, because he opts for the most radical treatment of the sick body he finds himself in: cutting off the spiritually dead members and parts in order to heal the other, healthy parts. In his Defense he formulates this as follows: I am absolutely sincere when I state I merely wanted to see the sour dough purified, the walls of Jerusalem rebuild, (…) the wounds of the daughters of Sion healed, that is to say, the Reformed Christian church. (…) I wanted to see that someone calling another person a brother, is not an idolatrous, avaricious or unchaste person, a slanderer or drunkard; I wanted to ban the world from the church; I wanted the church to carry the name of the family of the father, to be the body of the son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and to be a true home and temple of the Holy Spirit; and eventually I wanted to see the true community of believers and peoples such as I depicted this in its distinct characteristics in previous books.20

It was not the pursuit of this ideal of a true community as such that evoked the crisis that bears Labadie’s name. It was the way in which he wanted this community realized: banning the world from the church, amputating the dead members of the body, which in fact produced something he did not intend – his own banning from that church.

20

Labadie, Protestatie, 7.

PART III DOWN SOUL

DOMINIEK HOENS ‘WHERE THEN IS THE SELF?’ Pascal’s Critique of the Ego I care only about knowing that I am nothing. Blaise Pascal1

An apt title for a longer essay on Blaise Pascal – the French, seventeenth-century scientist, mathematician, philosopher and theologist – developed along a chronological line, could be: from nothing to nothing. The first ‘nothing’ plays a pivotal role in one of his earliest contributions to the field of physics, and concerns the discussion about the possibility of a vacuum in nature. For more than two thousand years, first by the Aristotelian philosophy of nature, then subsequently supported by Christian theology and philosophy, the existence of nothing, a pure void within the plenitude of being was considered as an impossibility, an odd idea contradicting the widely shared conviction that nature abhors a vacuum. Of course, Pascal was not the first to perform experiments with tubes filled with mercury, water or wine to produce the remarkable creation of seemingly – as we know now thanks to those experiments, also really – empty spaces within those tubes. He may not have been the first to conduct these experiments (Torricelli and Galileo preceded him), reading the reports and discussions of the experiments, reveals Pascal’s tenacity.2 Therein he is not directly arguing in favour or against the philosophically problematic idea of empty space; relying on the impossible idea of a vacuum, he explains the phenomena observed. This eventually allows him to conclude that the lowering of liquids in a tube, turned upside down in a vessel containing the same liquid and producing the vacuum in the upper part of the tube, is entirely due to air 1

2

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. A.J. Krailsheimer, London: Penguin 1966, 240. This English translation relies on Louis Lafuma’s edition of the Pensées. Following a common practice in referring to Pensées, the number of the pensée will be added, according to the Lafuma, Léon Brunschvicg and Philippe Sellier editions, respectively. The motto above is taken from: Laf. 656 / Br. 368 / Sel. 743. See Dominique Descotes, ‘Pascal: Le calcul et la théologie’, in: Pour la Science 16 (2003), 1-93.

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pressure. Which is indeed, as Alexandre Koyré once put it, a remarkable way of explaining the real via the impossible,3 that is via the counter-intuitive idea of a natural nothingness. Taking a leap from the scientific observations and calculations stemming from the early stages of Pascal’s adult life, to the months preceding his premature death in 1662 at the age of 39, we discover another void, another application of the idea of ‘nothingness’. This we find in his commercial enterprise, commonly known as the carosses à cinq sols, a network of carriages spread out over Paris that cost five sous, five ‘pennies’, which would equal in our times the amount of 10 euros. This transportation business, created by Pascal and two of his friends, the duke of Roannez and the marquis of Crenan, is usually taken to be an example of Pascal’s pragmatic and commercial attitude, even at the time when he was suffering from different bodily ailments and when he may have been experiencing death’s increasing proximity. And, indeed, it is quite remarkable how the ‘old’ Pascal, alongside the work on the Apology for the Christian Religion – left unfinished and posthumously published as Pensées – could get enthused by the idea of something as mundane as Parisian semi-public transport. However, closer inspection reveals the ingenuity of this idea. Carriages had been used for centuries to transport people and all sorts of things from point a to b. Yet, it was an almost entirely novel idea4 to organize transportation according to a fixed schedule independent of the question if anyone actually needed a carriage at that specific moment of that specific day or not. As Pascal clearly states in the documents addressed to the authorities, requesting permission for the establishment of his enterprise, the carriages would ride even if no one had bought a ticket, that is even when they would be empty (vide).5 So, if one tries to imagine Pascal’s transportation network, one can only perceive it as empty carriages necessarily riding from one point to another, yet only accidentally taking people from here to there. Perhaps it is emphasizing this void, this vide too much, but as such, it is quite a revolutionary idea to introduce moving emptiness, which only later, in a second moment, gets filled with people and things. The profundity of the idea becomes even clearer if one gives Pascal’s ideas about transportation a structuralist twist. From that point of view, the carriages are not only moving voids, they themselves as material, empirically observable things are negated, somehow ‘voided’ by the system they belong to. Simply put, 3 4

5

Alexandre Koyré, Etudes d’histoire de la pensée scientifique, Paris: Gallimard, 1966, 185-186. The idea was almost entirely novel, for this sort of transportation already existed between cities and towns. The details of Pascal’s commercial activity can be found in Eric Lundwall, Les Carrosses à cinq sols: Pascal entrepreneur, s.l.: Science Infuse, 2000.

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only if there is a transportation system like Pascal has invented one, then one can speak of the 10am carriage riding from rue Saint-Antoine to Place Dauphine, while that carriage may be a different one each time it arrives at the station. If one particular carriage were not to arrive – for it got robbed and then burned by some villains – it still makes sense to refer to ‘the carriage of 10am’. Even if the one carriage that was supposed to leave at that time no longer exists and no other carriage is available to replace it, there is nothing incomprehensible about inquiring about the ‘10am carriage’ and getting the answer that ‘due to unforeseen circumstances the 10am carriage will only leave at 11’.6 Therefore, what may look as an ambitious but, in the end, trivial way to make money out of people’s restlessness, their desire to be elsewhere,7 actually requires a mathematical mind like Pascal’s. A mathematical mind not so much needed for calculating the return on investment, but to allow for a rationalist approach that, as we have seen, does not refrain from introducing impossible, counterintuitive ideas such as ‘empty space’ in nature and, here, to build a transportation system upon voids, empty spaces that only at a later stage get filled with actual carriages moving actual people and things. Hence, the supposed genius of Pascal does not need to be corroborated by taking into account his cleverness even with regard to practical, commercial activities, but by giving full weight to his way of, what one may call, in lack of a better expression, making voids operational. Perhaps the best example in Pascal’s work of making ‘nothing’ operational, of turning nothing into something, can be found in his most famous pensée, the one on the wager.8 In that fragment, commonly known as ‘the wager’, but actually entitled ‘infinity – nothing’ (infini – rien) one’s earthly life of pleasure is, indeed, considered to be nothing (rien) compared to the infinity of an infinitely happy life that may await the believer. Yet this nothing is at the same time something one can and should wager in order to enter the game of chance, where it gets turned into something, that is into an element within a calculation that leads to the conclusion that it is rational to bet on God’s existence. This shift from the nothing one’s life is, to one’s life as something that one has, that one can stake, win or lose is definitely one of the more intriguing aspects of Pascal’s argument.9 6

7

8 9

This observation, of course, is inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistics as developed in his Cours de linguistique Générale, Paris: Payot, 1995, 151. Cf. ‘I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room’. Pascal, Pensées, 67 (Laf. 136 / Br. 139 / Sel. 168). Pascal, Pensées, 149-153 (Laf. 418 / Br. 544 / Sel. 705). This ambiguity of the stake – is it something or rather nothing – is discussed in detail by Jacques Lacan in his commentary on Pascal’s wager: see Le Séminaire. Livre XVI: D’un Autre à l’autre [1968-1969], Paris: Seuil, 2006, 105-183.

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In Pascal’s work, there are at least two other variations on this general idea of an ‘operative void’. The first of these ‘voids’ concerns political power, the other one the self. One does not have to delve deep into the body of Pascal’s works to find them, because they are quite well-known texts, that is the fragment from Pensées, entitled “What Is the Self?, and Three Discourses on the Condition of the Great, written around the same time, 1660, and published posthumously in 1670. The Three discourses are addressed to the eldest son of the Duke of Luynes, Charles Honoré de Chevreuse, and propose to him the following thought: In order to enter into genuine [véritable] knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image. A man is cast by a storm onto an unknown island, whose inhabitants were at a loss to find their king, who had gone missing. Bearing a great resemblance, both in face and physique, to this lost king, he was taken for him, and recognized as such by all the people of the island. At first, this man was unsure what action to take, but he eventually resolved to give himself over to his good fortune. He accepted all the respect and honors that the people sought to give him and he allowed himself to be treated as a king. (…) Do not imagine that you find yourself master of the riches you possess by any lesser chance than that by which this man found himself king. You have no right in virtue of your self or your nature, no more than he: and not only the fact that you find yourself the son of a duke, but that you find yourself in the world at all is the result of an infinite string of contingencies. Your birth depended on a marriage, or rather on all the marriages of your ancestors. But on what do these marriages depend? On a chance meeting, on a speech in the air, on a thousand unforeseen, incidental occasions. (…) Thus the whole title by which you possess your property is not a title of nature, but of human establishment.10

The first thing to remark about this quote is that Pascal makes use of a tale, an ‘image’, to reveal to the Duke his genuine nature. As so often, fiction, if not disclosing a truth one could never have thought of in any other way, is helpful as a means to make a certain truth understood. However, it is striking that the image of the shipwrecked person taken by the inhabitants of an island to be their king, is intended to teach us a lesson about the power of images.11 Certainly, Pascal argues that the king (or any other man of noble power, like the young Duke of Chevreuse) is in the end just an ordinary man who simply happens to be recognized as a king by his fellow human beings, but it is equally important to highlight the other side, the kingside as it were, where the king appears as an image of the king. As a king he is entirely caught up in the laws and customs 10

11

Blaise Pascal, Three Discourses on the Condition of the Great, trans. S. Webb. Accessed from https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/pascal/1630/three-discourses.htm This observation is inspired by Louis Marin, Des pouvoirs de l’image, Paris: Seuil, 1993, 186-195.

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of human establishment and is only king to the extent that he gets recognized by his subjects as one. As a king he not only has to veil his natural condition of being an ordinary man – a truth, about which Pascal quickly remarks that one should not disclose this to ordinary people – as a king he needs to play the king, he needs to uphold the image of the king. In that sense the tale is particularly well-chosen, for the shipwrecked man is not chosen to be king because of some natural or accidental qualities as such, but because his natural qualities – his physical appearance – remind the inhabitants of their king who got missing. The image of the king precedes the king, and the best he can do is to act as if he is one. In order to be a real king he has to impress the inhabitants with the image of an image, he has to become the image of the memory the inhabitants retain of their lost king. The tragic condition our king finds himself in is due to the fact that he has to forget who he really is – a common man like all of us – but also that he needs to conform to an image that he himself has no clear idea about: the inhabitants know what their real king looks like, he does not. As a king, our shipwrecked person solely exists in the imagination of his subjects, as an image that precedes him and that he only afterwards, in a second moment, can make into his own. Here, the crucial rift is not so much between, on one hand, the social role our young duke has to play and, on the other hand, who he, as a human being, really is. It is also not to be situated between, on one hand, the contingency of his political power – the laws could be different or he could have been born as a peasant, instead of a nobleman etcetera – and, on the other hand, the necessity of his political power – the fact someone has to be king. The tragic secret that is haunting our duke is not that his ordinariness would be disclosed – or more fundamentally that the mystic basis of his authority, would be revealed, namely that it has no basis12 – but that people take him to be a real king. They may have an idea, a recollection of what a real king is, how he looks like, how he acts etcetera, but our duke as a shipwrecked person does not. In brief, he is not so much an imposter because he is as ordinary as the people who admire him, he is an imposter because he borrows his kingship from someone else. He is a second-hand king, as a king he can only resemble a king that has gone missing. So, Pascal does not argue that our young duke does not deserve to be duke – he is undoubtedly entitled to this honourable position – but he should keep in mind that there is something irresolvably fake about his being a duke: he is not a duke, he inherits the noble title and therefore takes in the place of what was once the real duke. The task our young duke is facing is to make operative the emptiness the disappearance of the real duke has left his subjects with. To use the distinction between something and nothing again: our duke is definitely 12

Pascal, Pensées, 45-47 (Laf. 60 / Br. 583 / Sel. 28).

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something, he exists as an image in the eyes of his subjects and may consider himself as human as any ordinary man, but as a duke he occupies the nothing of an empty place. The fragment on the self, qu’est-ce que le moi?, reveals a similar problematic. A man goes to the window to see the people passing by; if I pass by, can I say he went there to see me? No, for he is not thinking of me in particular. But what about a person who loves someone for the sake of her beauty; does he love her? No, for smallpox, which will destroy beauty without destroying the person, will put an end to his love for her. And if someone loves me for my judgement or my memory, do they love me? me, myself? No, for I could lose these qualities without losing myself [moi-même]. Where then is this self [moi], if it is neither in the body nor the soul? And how can one love the body or the soul except for the sake of such qualities, which are not what makes up the self, since they are perishable? Would we love the substance of a person’s soul, in the abstract, whatever qualities might be in it? That is not possible, and it would be wrong [et serait injuste]. Therefore we never love anyone, but only qualities. Let us then stop scoffing at those who win honour through their appointments and offices, for we never love anyone except for borrowed qualities [qualités empruntées].13

There is not much interpretative labour required to discern the general argument of this fragment: the domains of love for a fellow human being, of admiration for those in power, of intersubjective vision where one person looks at another, all those domains are alike in that sense that one loves, admires or sees nothing but qualities and not the self of the subject loved, admired or perceived. One sees, loves, admires accidents, but no substances. Unlike Three Discourses on the Condition of the Great, here the distinction between natural greatness and greatness by human establishment gets blurred as well: anything personal, any greatness, be it a natural or a social one, is accidental. And these accidents, Pascal adds, these qualities are borrowed qualities. That means that they are transient and that possessing these qualities is not without the possibility of not possessing them. And perhaps, with the Three Discourses on the Condition of the Great in mind, we can give their borrowed nature a strong interpretation, in the sense that the qualities for and by which we are recognized, loved or admired are never our own, for they belong to someone else, that is the image in the eyes of our fellow human beings. Besides this, Pascal suggests that there is no way to get beyond these appearances. One may surmise that there is some sort of true self beyond any visual appearance; that the functions and ranks of those in power, demanding our respect and admiration, are not merely accidental, but somehow based upon their 13

Pascal, Pensées, 245 (Laf. 688 / Br. 323 / Sel. 567).

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being, upon who or what they are independent of these functions and ranks; and that, finally, in love we may indeed love someone for their qualities, for what they have, yet also for what they are. Yes, isn’t it precisely in love that we aim at and are touched by someone’s being and not their having? Or, to the extent that love is mysterious, doesn’t its mystery also manifest itself in the ways we cannot distinguish between being and having, more precisely, when in love we do not know what exactly makes a person loveable. Indeed, we may know that we love this person, but that does not necessarily entail knowledge about what we love about him or her. As common as these observations may be, Pascal rules them out with four simple, enigmatic words: ‘it would be wrong’ (ça serait injuste). It would be wrong, unjust or not fair to love ‘the substance of a person’s soul, in the abstract’. This means that it is first and foremost impossible to do so, and to pretend to be able to do so, may result in another instance of trying to act the angel and ending up acting the beast14 and in that sense unjust in a double way: first of all, not taking into account the rules and customs governing of our earthly life, and secondly, forgetting the corruption of our will, which is marked by sin and hence it is not only willing something that is actually out of its reach that is problematic, but it is this willing itself that is the problem, for the will as such is marked by an overestimation of its own rightfulness. Returning to the question of the ‘I’, the moi, the first thing to observe is that this fragment seems to be directed against Descartes, who famously claimed that: ‘I am a substance whose whole essence or nature is simply to think, and which, in order to exist, does not need any place, or depend on any material thing. Accordingly, this self – this soul that makes me what I am [l’âme par laquelle je suis ce que je suis] – is entirely distinct from the body’.15 Pascal’s fragment on the ‘self’ differentiates itself from Descartes’ conclusion in three different ways. Firstly, for Pascal the self is definitely related to the body in the sense that, at least in this pensée, the self is approached via outer appearances: beauty, one’s bodily figure and humanly established signs of one’s belonging to a certain class, rank or profession. For Pascal – quite different than Descartes’ lonely quest for certainty – the question of the self is raised and made poignant in, what we now would call, an intersubjective or social context, where one’s identity, stable or not, is a perceived or recognized identity. Secondly, Descartes argues that the soul makes ‘me what I am’, whereas for Pascal nothing seems to be as uncertain as one’s coincidence with oneself. Remember Pascal’s almost desperate question, when his persona finds itself to be the object of someone’s

14

15

This expression is borrowed from Pensées, 242 (Laf. 678 / Br. 358/ Sel. 557); see also 60 (Laf. 121 / Br. 418 / Sel. 153). René Descartes, Discours de la méthode, Paris: Flammarion, 1992, 54 (my translation).

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love, ‘do they love me, myself?’, only to conclude that love and other signs of interest only concern qualities, borrowed qualities and not any self. Another intriguing aspect of Pascal’s discussion of the self, concerns love. One of the three situations within which the question about the self is raised, mentions love – when I am loved for my qualities, does one love me? – and the last situation, concerning the men with a high social status, also refers to the love they deserve, whereas one may have expected the words ‘admiration’ or ‘respect’. More circumstantial, but not irrelevant, is the fact that in the first publication of the Pensées in 1670, an explanatory footnote was inserted in which the Port-Royal editors explained, at that time, the novel and odd use of the word ‘moi’. Moi, me or self, was a common word, but no one before had been using the word, as explicitly as Pascal does, in a substantivized way as le moi, the ‘self’. Therefore, in a footnote to one of Pascal’s famous pensées, ‘The self is hateful’ (le moi est haïssable),16 the editors point out that one should understand Pascal’s ‘le moi’ or ‘the self’ only as amour-propre, that is as self-love. That one should understand the self only as a matter of self-love is arguably an exaggerated statement, but this is further evidence of a tight connection between the problem of the self and love. For, what is self-love for Pascal? Self-love is ‘to love only self and consider only self’. Yet, this kind of love runs immediately into deep troubles for ‘[this self] wants to be perfect and sees that it is full of imperfections; it wants to be the object of men’s love and esteem and sees that its faults deserve only their dislike and contempt’.17 In brief, searching for my self, longing to coincide with myself, I only find the self, that is an object as it is perceived by or via others, and which happens to be a far from perfect one. Does this explain Pascal’s qualification of the self as hateful? Should one hate one’s self because one knows about its imperfections and continuously runs the risk that this self, beyond appearances, would shamefully reveal its flaws to others? No, the self is hateful because others hate my self. It demands continuously for recognition – as we have seen, it only exists in and via the other – to the detriment of other people’s self. The self is an insatiably competitive thing, and that is why Pascal’s libertine friends, the honnêtes hommes, the men of wisdom and refined manners, do their utmost best to hide this self, to never or hardly ever use the pronouns I or me. Yet, according to Pascal, this does not change anything, this conscious self-effacement does not make the self any less present in its tyrannical vanity. The mistake human beings make – including the ones of good manners hardly ever using the words I or me, doing their best to be forthcoming, etcetera – is not to see or to have forgotten that the love 16

17

Pascal, Pensées, 229 (Laf. 597 / Br. 455 / Sel. 494). See also: Vincent Carraud, L’invention du moi, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010, 15-28. Pascal, Pensées, 347-348 (Laf. 978 / Br. 100 / Sel. 743).

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involved in self-love cannot be separated from its object, unless it is redirected towards another object. Therefore, the critique of self-love does not imply that we should make others’ hatred for our self into our own and hate our self, we should rather hate the love for our self. Neither the love, nor the self as such are problematic, but the connection between the two.18 Love should, according to Pascal, only concern its original object, God, and therefore self-love should be qualified as, borrowing an expression from Freud, a mere false connection.19 As the analysis above has brought to light, what human beings consider to be self is only ‘the self’, the thing as it is perceived by others, including myself acting as an other looking at this self as if it were a thing. So, where then is my self, where am I beyond, besides or before the objectifying gaze that always already provides me with a self, while at the same time robbing me of any genuine self? The answer is, that one’s true self is not some hidden substantial core, a solid basis or a natural condition hidden from view, my true self is, generally put, a love, which commonly manifests itself as a love for one’s self. Yet, the latter addition, the accidental connection of love to self, constitutes the core of the problem. Simply put, the self is not an appropriate object for the love that fundamentally characterizes human beings. As an object of this love the self tries to be an object worthy of this love; it tries to be king, but cannot hide from itself that it is a dispossessed king.20 Or to use our couple of antonyms, something and nothing, again: the self may well tempt to be something, yet cannot forget that it is, from the perspective of love, an unworthy object and, therefore, a nothing. Is, then, this love, something one can rely on? On one hand, yes. If one is searching for one’s self, the one defining characteristic that provides some sort of identity is love. Even if self-love is the ordinary way love manifests itself and is denounced by Pascal as both effect and cause of human beings’ miserable condition, (self-)love provides the sole possible alternative. On the other hand, no, for it does not provide a solid basis onto which one’s existence rests. After denouncing and giving up upon the vain, illusory nature of the self as an object 18

19

20

In a careful discussion of love in Pascal’s work, Frigo demonstrates that Pascal avoids the Jansenist distinction between two kinds of love – one concerning the self, the other relating to God –, although many passages from Pensées could be quoted in support of this idea. The more fundamental problem, however, concerns not so much love as possibly corrupt and sinful, but rather its object, namely what deserves our love? Cf. Alberto Frigo, L’esprit du corps: La doctrine pascalienne de l’amour, Paris: Vrin, 2016, 234-241. Sigmund Freud, ‘The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence’ [1884], in: James Strachey (Ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, London: The Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1962, Vol. 3, 41-61: 52. Pascal, Pensées, 59 (Laf. 116 / Br. 398 / Sel. 148).

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of love, it is not simply God who appears as the appropriate object for our love. This, for the very reason that God cannot be an object of our love; not only because there is ‘no link [rapport] between me and God’21 or because of our impossibility ‘to love what is outside us’,22 but because God is, as Pascal puts it, ‘both outside and inside us’.23 The trajectory sketched above does not discuss spirituality, but provides us with the elements to situate spirituality in Pascal’s thought. From the physical nothing (the void), to the nothing of the self beyond its appearances, God is not so much an alternative or the ‘true’ object of love, but decenters the self from its ‘king-like’ self-centered position. As what is most intimate to the self – while never being present as an object of perception, love or desire – it destroys this self as the point of view from which one relates to the world and one’s existence.24

21 22 23

24

Pascal, Pensées, 315 (Laf. 919 / Br. 425 / Sel. 717). Pascal, Pensées, 222 (Laf. 564 / Br. 253 / Sel. 466). Pascal, Pensées, 147 (Laf. 407 / Br. 465 / Sel. 26). Cf. Pascal, Pensées, 222 (Laf. 564 / Br. 253 / Sel. 466): ‘…the kingdom of God is within us, universal good is within us, and is both ourselves [nous-même] and not ourselves [nous]’. This possibly changes the nature of love, from a (self-interested) passion supported by a ‘self’ into a love of which one is not so much the subject (relating to an object), but rather the object. For more on this remarkable twist of terms and their intricate topology, see Frigo, L’esprit du corps, 239-241.

FRANCOIS MANGA THE IMAGINARY PILGRIMAGES AND THE OUTBREAK OF THE SUBJECTIVITY IN THE EARLY MODERNITY

Introduction This contribution focuses on Early Modern traveling with an explicitly spiritual or religious motivation. Such ‘pilgrimages’ were under strict control due to the feudal system with its rigid worldly and ecclesiastical hierarchy or to the religious status of the pilgrim, certainly when he/she was a monk or a nun. More clearly, performing a pilgrimage was not permitted to everyone. A written and explicit permission of the Pope was required. Without that document, one risked excommunication. Such restrictions, however, were not without provoking protests and, consequently, ways to circumvent them. This is the context of a phenomenon, popular in that time, which is the genre of the ‘virtual pilgrimage’: books describing travelling to (for instance) the Holy Land, enabling the ‘pilgrim’ to travel in mind while staying home. Such ‘virtual pilgrimages’ were mostly based on travel accounts from physical pilgrims. The experience of the imaginary pilgrimage was an answer to the need for everyone to perform devotional journeys. Nevertheless, these texts could have some hidden agenda since not only cloistered consecrated persons got real profit of it, but that approach became a subtle way of liberating the self and contributed to the self-decision and the individual initiative. The current text offers a reading of one of those ‘virtual pilgrimages’: The Spiritual Pilgrimage to Jerusalem by Jan Pascha, and investigates the way the emancipation of the subject is a central issue in this book. This will be elaborated in three sections where the first is dedicated to the spiritual pilgrimages as a literary genre in the Late Middle Ages with a focus on the book of Jan Pascha. In the second part, the rise of the ‘self’ will be discussed from the perspective of the text of Pascha, while the last section will show how far the allegorical method allowed Pascha to empower the ‘self’ at an epoch of many restrictions.

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1. The Rise of a Literary Genre 1.1 An Author Called Jan Pascha and His Text Jan Pascha was the son of Arnold van Paesschen and Catherine Picquot. Having lived in Mechelen for the more significant part of his time, he is also known as Joannes de Mechlinia or Joannes a Malinis.1 According to his biographers, Pascha was born in Brussels between the years 1450 and 1459.2 At around the age of 30 years old, he joined the Carmelite Order and was professed on July 14th, 1482, in the Convent of Mechelen. In his religious Order, Pascha had been Prior of the Mechelen Convent for more than 30 years. This long period was marked by the support and progress of the Reform introduced by Jean Soreth.3 Pascha also functioned as Definitor of the Province of Lower Germany, and Visitor of the Carmelite Monastery of Vilvoorde. He received a doctorate in Theology in 1504 at the University of Louvain where he taught the same topic. He died in Mechelen on January 17th, 1539.4 Pascha wrote many sermons collected under the title Sermoenen van Jan van Pascha,5 he authored a book on the history of the Mechelen Convent of and another on the Carmelite Order.6 Among his many writings, there are The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Our Lady and about eight other manuscripts; unfortunately, all lost.7 Still, his best-known work could have been composed around the years 1527 under the title: Een devote maniere om gheestelyck pelgrimagie te trecken, tot den heylighen lande als te Iherusalem, Bethleem, ter Jordanen, etc. Met die rechte gheleghentheyt der heyligher plaetsen (…) [A devote way to spiritually perform the pilgrimage to the Holy Land likewise to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, to Jordan (…) with the right vision of the holy (…)].8 1

2 3 4

5 6

7 8

Albert Ampe, Nieuwe belichting van de persoon en het werk van Jan Pascha, Antwerpen: Handelingen der Koninklijke Zuidnederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis, 1964, 5. Ibid., 6. He was Prior General and Reformer of the Carmelite Order (1394-1471). Hein Blommestijn, ‘Pascha’, in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Vol. 12, Paris: Beauchesne, 1984, 291-294. Ibidem. Norbert de Sainte Julienne, ‘Jean Van Paesschen’, in: Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire littéraire des dix-sept Provinces des Pays-Bas de la Principauté de Liège, et de quelques contrées voisines. Vol. 1, Louvain: de l’Imprimerie Académique, 1775, 451. Ampe, Nieuwe belichting, 56. In this text, the translation of Pascha from Middle-Dutch into English is ours, unless indicated otherwise. Hathitrust, accessed January 25th, 2018. www. hdl.handle.net/2027/gri.ark:/13960 /t1xd20zlc. Public Domain http://www.hathitrust.org/access-use#pdf.

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That book contains many interesting elements like the question of the origin of the Stations of the Cross.9 In 1563, Peter Calentyn posthumously edited the most reliable and oldest printed version. A few years later, in 1566, Nicolas de Leuze edited a French translation; moreover, an anonymous English edition is available as from 1604-05. 1.2 The Virtual Pilgrimage – A Literary Tradition in the Middle Ages The virtual pilgrimage of Pascha is part of a tradition that includes other examples such as the Benedictine nun Mechtild von Hackeborn (ca. 1241-1298) who made an imaginary pilgrimage in her Monastery; the Dominican nun Adelheid Langmann (1306-1375) who performed the same experience in her cloister, or the Windesheim Regular Canon Jan Mombaer (ca. 1460-1501) who completed a similar practice. Another example is in the book of Felix Fabri entitled Die Sionpilger (1492) that contains both physical and imaginary pilgrimages for knights and consecrated people. The practice of spiritual pilgrimages started in cloisters.10 Kathryn M. Rudy writes that nuns from around Swabia came in large numbers to the Dominican convent in Ulm to hear Fabri describe and narrate his travels, so that ‘they could also make the journey spiritually’, according to a note in the text, and so that they might also travel to Jerusalem and kiss the footsteps of Christ, and even obtain the indulgences, without exposing themselves to danger and expense.11

This reveals that several authors set up spiritual or imaginative or virtual pilgrimages from the accounts of former pilgrims. Those texts combine internal and external movements, with explanations, additional discoveries and devotional exercises on the one hand. On the other hand, that practice is a contemplative walk throughout the biblical text. That is how the pilgrimage’s genre appeared as way for spiritual growth. 1.3 What Is Known So Far about the Book of Pascha Historical, geographical, and religious contexts influenced the composition of the book of Pascha. Among some of them are the frameworks. On the historical aspect, this document is edited in a crucial moment. The fifteenth and sixteenth 9

10

11

Ursulla Ganz-Blättler, Andacht und Abenteuer: Berichte europäischer Jerusalem- und SantiagoPilger (1320-1520), Tübingen: Günter Narr, 2000, 414. Nine Robijntje Miedema, Rompilgerführer in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit: Die Indulgentiae mecclesiarum urbis Romae: Edition und Kommentar, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2003, 401. Kathryn M. Rudy, ‘A Guide to Mental Pilgrimage: Paris, Bibliothèque de L’Arsenal Ms. 212’, in: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 63 (2000) no.4, 494-515: 514-515.

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centuries are the periods of discoveries, inventions, travels and social changes. For instance, the improvement of printing procedures by Gutenberg in 1453 led to larger dissemination of literary works and indirectly, a greater diffusion of ideas and opinions.12 It is also the period of the expanding of horizons with the completion of the Imago mundi in 1410 by Pierre d’Ailly, that enabled the navigation around the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama and, later, Christopher Columbus’s reaching America in 1492.13 Geographically, few names could be mentioned for their involvement in the life of Pascha and his book. For instance, Brussels was the birthplace of Pascha while Mechelen was his most regular residence place. Other locations like Douai, Gent and Leuven referred to the book as publishing sites from 1563 to 1612. In the sixteenth century, these cities are located in the Holy Roman Empire, the Seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries, particularly in the Duchy of Brabant and the Lordship of Mechelen.14 About the religious context, Pascha lived in a period of Reformations,15 of Inquisition,16 also, the Western Schism.17 Moreover, Philip II, who replaced his father Charles V as King of Spain, and whose realm included the Netherlands, governs with strength and wants a monolithic Catholic faith.18 At the same time, the territories around the Rhine engaged religious reforms under the influence of Martin Luther since 1517.19 Some decades before these previous events, Gerard Groote initiated a spiritual revitalisation throughout the Devotio Moderna movement which will spread in Europe, especially in the Low Countries, and will produce some high standard spiritual works such as The Imitation of Jesus Christ written by Thomas a Kempis.20 12

13 14 15

16

17

18 19 20

See Encyclopaedia Britannica: A New Survey of Universal Knowledge, Chicago/ London/ Toronto: Encyclopaedia Britannica LTD, 1961, Vol. 11, 17-18. See idem, Vol. 6, 78-83. See idem, Vol. 14, 436. For instance the reform of Religious Orders like that of the Carmelites, inspired at that time by the work of Jean Soreth. See Joachim Smet, The Carmelites. A History of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Vol 1, rev. ed., Darien, IL: Carmelite Spiritual Center, 1988, 72-91. The Inquisitions that started in the Early Middle Ages were still widely practised. See Edward Peters, Inquisition, Berkeley/ Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989, 40-74. The Schism evoked here is the one of the Protestant Churches vis-à-vis the Roman Catholic Church. There will also be divisions within Protestantism, between the Lutherans and the Calvinists for instance. See Peters, Inquisition, 161. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 17, 725. Ibid., Vol. 14, 495. See John Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, 9. It could also be worthwhile to read Albert Hyma, The Christian Renaissance: A History of the Devotio Moderna, New York/ London: The Century Co and Kissinger Legacy Reprints, 1925, 9-40.

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2. The Expression of the ‘Self’ in the Text of Pascha 2.1 A Method Widely Spread in the Middle Ages In a supplement of the daily paper De Gelderlander of 24th June 1939, Titus Brandsma had an article attributing to Pascha the fatherhood of the Way of the Cross in its nowadays form, and placing his Gheestelijck pelgrimagie within a fruitful line of mystical authors who borrowed the allegory of Geestelijk ‘spiritual’. Among them, there is Beatrijs van Nazareth with her Een geestelijk klooster; Hendrik Mande and his Geestelijke Hof; Jacobus de Cessolis with his Geestelijk Scaecspel; Jan van den Berghe in his Geestelijk kaetspel or Jan van Ruusbroeck in Die cierheid der geesteliker Brulocht.21 Brandsma by the way paid tribute to Pascha by reminding that in the Low Countries, his ‘Spiritual Pilgrimage’, is one of the medieval spiritual designers with an impressive allegoric method. Therefore, looking back to the writing of Pascha, there are new insights when talking about the spiritual pilgrimages with a potentially hidden agenda. Seen as allegoric texts, they can be analyzed like a story, a poem, or a picture concealing a hidden moral or political meaning. Precisely about the allegory, it may be important to remind that it can be understood as a method of representation, usually literary but also including the visual arts, in which the thing portrayed stands also for something else; the thing may be a person, an act, or an abstract idea. Aristotle and Quintilian first defined it as an extended metaphor (…) The term is most commonly applied to a fictional narrative in which the author intends the characters and their actions to be understood in a sense different from the surface meaning, so that the secondary meaning becomes more significant than the primary. The clearest example in English, and one of the best anywhere is Bunyan’s The pilgrim’s progress.22

Consequently, the allegoric method used in the virtual pilgrimages does not only match with the equivalent found in parables, metaphor or analogy, but this allegory is also a smart suggestive method provided to empower the reader. 2.2 Pascha’s Allegorical Approach – Some Examples… Reading the book of Pascha, one notices that the allegorical mode as defined above is in the imaginary or fictional display of the trip, connected however to real facts and places. Pascha knew the routes from the testimonies of other 21

22

See T.B. [Titus Brandsma], ‘Van Ons Geestelijk Erf: De Geestelijke Palmboom’, in: De Gelderlander n. 147, 24 June 1939, 13. Paul Franklin Baum, ‘Allegory’, in: Colliers Encyclopedia, London/ New York: Collier Macmillan Educational Company, 1988, Vol 1: 571-572.

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persons. However, he designed a book to allow people to mentally or fictitiously travel throughout the same pilgrim’s routes. So, virtually travelling as fashioned by Pascha can contain allegorical elements. The first of the allegorical items is the duration of the trip. In the introduction of the text, the author, as well as the editors, already indicate that the journey lasts 365 days, that is a whole year. The permanence of the trip allegorically shows that the ‘spiritual pilgrimage’ is endless. Accordingly, the rhythm of the voyage is weekly, although there is a continuous counting of days from one to three hundred and sixty-five. This can also suggest that the book of Pascha is a kind of diary. Hier is te wetene dat dese gheestelijcke reyse, is gheordineert op drije hondert ende lxv. dachreysen die brenghen out een heel iaer.23 [Here it is to notice that the spiritual trip comprises three hundred and sixty-five journey’s days which together make one year]

The full year as the metaphor of the whole human life is one of the possible interpretations. Therefore, ‘the whole year’ can also mean an endless trip. Thus, the journey is a cycle where the lifetime becomes a space for growing and transformation. Another allegorical element in that book is the name ‘Jerusalem’ which can designate the ‘Holy City’ in its geographic location inside the Holy Land: Een devote maniere om gheestelyck pelgrimagie te trecken / tot den heylighen lande als te Jherusalem.24 [A devote way to spiritually perform the pilgrimage to the Holy Land likewise to Jerusalem]

Allegorically, that city can be the spiritual Jerusalem evoked in the Letter to the Hebrews,25 and in the Book of the Revelations.26 Or it can be the heavenly Jerusalem as expressed by Augustine of Hippo.27 Moreover, Jerusalem can cover all kinds of interests and achievements. It can be the place of the encounter with God, with a talented friend, or an inspiring element. Pascha suggested that the term Jerusalem can also include the site where unexpected events unforgettably 23 24 25

26

27

Pascha, Een devote maniere, 22v. Cover page of Pascha, Een devote maniere. ‘But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem’ (Heb 12:22). ‘Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth”, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband’ (Rev 21:1-2). See Aurelius Augustine, The City of God, cir. 426.

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occur. Furthermore, Jerusalem seems to be the access point of the renewal of expectations for the whole life. een yegelijck in sijn voornemen mach die steden der dachreysen veranderen, nae die ghelegentheyt der quartieren, daer hij woonachtich is om die rechte bane te houden.28 [and everyone in his scheme can change the cities of this journey according to the situation of the place where he lives to keep right on his way]

2.3 …and a Case Study The case study of this paper is about the freedom of travelling to Jerusalem. Since, according to the established religious system, the performance of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was conditioned by a written permission from the Pope. Without that document, the pilgrim faced the excommunication: Enden eersten vraecht hij oft sy oorlof hebben vanden hey. vader den Paus van Roomen, in dat heylighe lant te comen, wantet verboden is op die pene vanden ban sonder sijnen oorlof die cruysvaert aen te nemen.29 [And he first asks if the pilgrim before coming to the Holy Land, has the licence from the Holy Father the Pope of Rome, because it is forbidden under the excommunication to make the such a pilgrimage without that permission.]

The word targeted here is oorlof.30 It refers to a set of practical administrative procedures in order to get the permission to start the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The pilgrim needed a precise written permission from the Pope to enter into the city of Jerusalem. At that time indeed, the Holy City was under the control of the Muslim headed by the Great Turk, Grooten Turck,31 while few places called the Holy Places were governed by the Guardian of Sion, Guardiaen van Syon,32 on behalf of the Catholic side. Many reasons can be evoked to justify the mandatory requirement of the oorlof. Thus, some would remind safety conditions of the pilgrim; other would compare it to the political and diplomatic 28 29 30

31 32

Pascha, Een devote maniere, 23v. Pascha, Een devote maniere, 175th journey’s day at Jaffa, 77r. ‘Verlof, vergunning, toestemming. Voc. Cop. oorlof, licentia; orlof gheven, licentiare. Teuth. II, 91c: ‘licencia, orlof, volburt, verleenyngh, gunnyng off medeghanck’. Kil. oorlof, verlof, copia, venia, facultas, licentia, permissus, commeatus; oorlof gheven, potestatem dare, facere; veniam dare, copiam facere, licentiam dare; oorlof vraeghen, veniam petere. Plant. orlof oft verlof, congé, commeatus, permissio, copia, permissus; orlof ende macht geven, orlof geven om yet te doen; orlof geven om te strijden; de kinderen orlof geven om te spelen; orlof vragen om te passeren; orlof verkrijgen, veniam impetrare’. In https://ivdnt.org/zoeken-in-woordenboeken? w=oorlof Pascha, Een devote maniere, 175th journey’s day at Jaffa., 76r. Ibidem.

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standard procedure, while some other would argue for the control of penitent and the consecrated people in order to avoid the phenomenon of vagus or homeless monks. The one who attempted to perform a pilgrimage to the Holy Land without a written permission of the Pope was excommunicated as Pascha explained previously. However, there was a second chance given to the pilgrim who could receive the absolution from the Guardian of Sion. Then, the same Guardian of Sion had the power to grant the permission or licence to visit the Holy Land. Therefore, the heart of the problem emerges as a limitation of the movement of the individual, the ‘self’. Subsequently, according to the regulations of that time, it was a sin, a great sin to travel to Jerusalem without the oorlof of the Pope and the immediate retribution is the excommunication letae sententiae, that is by the fact itself, without any delay nor a juridical process. This was not a simple situation for the pilgrim since the excommunication is the highest ecclesiastical punishment. As an illustration of the gravity of the excommunication, here is the today’s definition from the Canon Law: An excommunicated person is forbidden: 1) to have any ministerial participation in celebrating the sacrifice of the Eucharist or any other ceremonies of worship whatsoever; 2) to celebrate the sacraments or sacramentals and to receive the sacraments; 3) to exercise any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions whatsoever or to place acts of governance.33

This shows the decision to excommunicate is a severe one and has significant consequences. The people concerned by that decision are also clearly mentioned in the statement. However, if the pilgrims in a general way are the target of such a rule, the Catholic faithful are the most concerned because the ‘ecclesiastical laws bind those who have been baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it, possess the efficient use of reason, and, unless the law expressly provides otherwise, have completed seven years of age’.34 3. The ‘Self’ in Front of a Limitation Rule 3.1 The Awareness of the ‘Self’ From the perspective of his audience,35 Pascha stands as an awakener of the free individual. This is due to the fact that the text of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem 33 34 35

Can. 1331. Can. 11. The audience here refers to the reader and the public who listened to the text because at that time, on the one hand, not everybody could read. On the other hand, the book could have been used by groups like in the case of a monastery. Therefore, only one copy was necessary.

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in the Holy Land still conveys some unusual characteristics. On the one hand, the topic is part of Northern Europe medieval practice known as the ‘spiritual or the imaginary pilgrimages’. There are many works done on that topic, especially on the issues of their sources, the indulgences, the Station of the cross and the audiences for instance. On the other hand, talking precisely about this last point, most of the results say these texts were addressed to consecrated people to be practiced in their cloisters and their convents. As an example, the book of Felix Fabri, Die Sionpilger which is ‘part of a body of larger works that Fabri produced during his work as a preacher and spiritual pastor’.36 He was famous for his service as Preacher General and Lector at Ulm and in the neighbourhood, where there are many Monasteries and Convents of different religious orders, such as the Cistercians nuns at Offenhausen, Carthusians at Güterstein, the Cistercians Friars at Gutenzell.37 About the readers of Pascha, a significant clue is observable at the beginning of his book: Eerst van hier tot Thienen. Ende is te weten, dat his int beghinsele een ieghelijc in sijn voornemen mach die steden der dachreysen veranderen, na die gheleghentheyt der quartieren, daer hij woonachtich is om die rechte bane te houden.38 [First from here to Tienen. Also, it must be known that everyone in his scheme can change the cities of this journey according to the situation of the place where he lives to keep right on his way.]

Therefore, regarding the audience of the text, by using the term ‘everyone’, iegelijck, Pascha goes beyond the traditional audience of such books, the members of cloistered religious Orders. So, as he clearly says, everyone can change the departure point according to her or his location, since it is a virtual journey, which means it is a trip in mind, without physically move from one place to another. The precision iegelijck (‘iegelijk’, everyone) says that the text is for a vast public. It is to all those who intend to perform the trip to Jerusalem in an imaginary manner, no matter the status of life, the place, the gender, the race and the age. Furthermore, it is possible to associate the concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘will’ to this kind of travel. Pascha somehow intended to empower the individual, so that everyone can freely decide to perform the pilgrimage. Although the Roman Catholic faithful seem to be the first concerned in his text, it is possible to argue that to some extent, the virtual pilgrimage was considered to be open also to the 36

37 38

Kathryne Beebe, Pilgrim and Preacher: The Audiences and Observant Spirituality of Friar Felix Fabri (1437/8-1502), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 68. Beebe, Pilgrim and Preacher, 61. Pascha, Een devote maniere, 23v.

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non-Catholics and the non-Christians. Anyway, it is clear that Pascha does not put a restriction regarding the group, the club or the church. This pilgrimage is doable by everyone without any form of restriction. In further elaboration, the individual can start the trip, whenever and wherever he wants; and the prayers will substitute the various permissions, the money, the accommodation and other stuff. 3.2 The Empowerment of the ‘Self’ Taking into account the excommunication or the exclusion from the Catholic community because of the absence of a written permission of the Pope to enter the Holy Land, the text of Pascha can be considered as a form of denunciation of some restrictive practices. By deploring in an imaginary style, he calls to resist against the incriminated situation. On the one hand, Pascha indirectly criticises the limiting law, namely the excommunication without any form of judgment, for journeying to Jerusalem without a formal permission of the Pope. Pascha does not go directly in his accusation, instead he used the concept of a virtual or imaginary trip where almost everything is fictional. The resistance against the social and religious orders of the Middle Ages is managed through such a method. As a result, the text of Pascha suggests a mental transgression of abusive rules. Pascha can then avoid the accusation of being dissident, of violating the established ecclesiastical law that foresees sanctions such as the suspension or even the excommunication. At the same time, this way of escaping the spirit of the law preserves Pascha and the user of his book from the blame of attempting the transgression of the papal rule. On the other hand, the use of the imaginary method provides possibilities of action which could not be done in a real situation. For, in the virtual travel, the author creates an ambience in which the forbidden thing can be done without any fear. With the possibility of repeating that trip, the virtual voyageur is mentally empowered to perform his trip regardless of the restrictions. Therefore, the allegoric method in that book looks like a mental subversion of the intention of the rule. Therefore, through the edition of books such as the one of Pascha, the possibility of going beyond the regulation is offered and widespread. These texts provided the individual with an instrument to give room to his own individual freedom. A close analysis of the initiative of such authors shows that the liberation of the individual is not always the task of the crowd. Instead, the individual is invited to personally conquer the subjectivity. The practice of that innovative form of devotion can be therefore described as domestic, on the contrary of public or official practice. Concerning precisely this characteristic as a private devotion, many writers of such texts in the late medieval era in the Low Countries addressed their works to a particular audience, the consecrated people, while on the contrary, the text of Pascha is supposed to be usable for everybody.

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3.3 A Smart Call for the Engagement of the Individual The imaginary pilgrimage was very audacious because it disregarded the medieval hierarchical and religious systems by setting the individual as self-master. Because the process of taking back the ‘self’ from the highly hierarchised communitarian system needed a courageous and smart attitude. The text of Pascha by using the allegory of a trip was able to uncover the over-controlled condition of the individual. The author of the fictitious pilgrimage mixes imaginary pictures with real rules; true places names while pointing out a real problem. As he used the allegorical approach to express the issue, he calls on the responsibility of every individual. Therefore, he does not provide concrete action to do in order to set the ‘self’ free. Perhaps, he does not want to be a guru and an obstruction to a true and complete liberation of the ‘self’. Furthermore, he does not intend to replicate the attitude of an almighty master towards his readers. On the contrary, as a mystagogue, he shows the way to the freedom of the ‘self’; he uses one example which remains connected to his reality. As such, Pascha gives the room and the opportunity for everyone to implement the rights of the ‘self’ according to every particular situation. He does not give a panacea, an all-in-one pill, or a global solution; rather, he opens the eyes to the reader, he leads the people to think about their conditions and to reflect about the suitable means to undertake in order to stimulate the idea of the ‘self’. Therefore, Pascha’s work can be seen as original, relevant and influential in the rise of the subject in the Early Modern Times. In his field which is the theology, he used literary technics, the anthropology, the history and the printing process to create an arena for the uprising of the ontology. Hence, the view of Pascha on the ‘subject’ or the ‘self’, the way he expressed it and its condition resemble those of some other authors such as Thomas a Kempis, Nicolas Cusanus and Michel de Certeau. Conclusion Jan Pascha and the ‘Spiritual Pilgrimage’ are not entirely unknown. Scholars such as Desiderius Erasmus,39 Jan Van Hewaarden,40 Hein Blommestijn41 and 39

40

41

See Joannis Francisci Foppens, Bibliotheca Belgica sive virorum in Belgio vita, scriptisque illustrium catalogus, librorumque nomenclatura, Bruxellis: Petrum Foppens Typographum & Bibliopolam, 1739, 709. Jan van Herwaarden, Studies in Late-Medieval Religious Life: Devotion and Pilgrimages in the Netherlands, transl. Wendie Shaffer & Donald Gardner, Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2003. Hein Blommestijn, ‘De virtuele reis van Jan van Paesschen (ca. 1450-1539)’, in: Speling: Tijdschrift voor Bezinning 66 (2014) no.3, 87-93; ‘Jean Pascha, O.Carm. († 1539) e l’origine della via crucis’, in: La Sapienza della Croce oggi. Atti del congresso internazionale, Roma,

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Titus Brandsma42 quote them. The latter described Pascha as a profound, innovative spiritual author and recognized him as one of the flowers of the mystical life. The ‘Spiritual Pilgrimage’ also opens up to a crucial context which is the move from the Middle Ages, and the beginning of the Modernity and Pascha might have a particular place. On the one hand, that book breaks the taboos of the feudal society, and on the other hand, it challenges the hierarchy by empowering the individual in an over-controlled Christendom. Concerning that, the place of the person seen as a subject was questioned likewise the impact of the book of Pascha in the liberation process of the ‘I’. He used the allegorical method to enter a political topic, namely the public position of the ‘self’. In order to denounce the abusive restriction to travel to the Holy Land, he conceived an allegorical trip, a virtual pilgrimage to Jerusalem in which everything becomes possible regardless of the limitation imposed by the existing regulations.

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13-18 ottobre 1975, Vol. 2, Leumann-Torino: Elle Di Ci, 1976, 259-265; ‘Pascha’, in: Dictionnaire de spiritualité. Vol. 12, 291-294. Titus Brandsma, ‘Bedevaart’, in: De Katholieke Enclyclopaedie. Vol. 4, Amsterdam: Joost v.d. Vondel, 1933, 215.

LIESBETH EUGELINK SELF AND LOSS OF SELF IN MODERN LITERATURE1

Once, late, after his evening class, he returned to his office and sat at his desk, trying to read. It was winter, and a snow had fallen during the day, so that the out-of-doors was covered with a white softness. The office was overheated; he opened a window beside the desk so that the cool air might come into the close room. He breathed deeply, and let his eyes wander over the white floor of the campus. On an impulse he switched out the light on his desk and sat in the hot darkness of his office; the cold air filled his lungs, and he leaned toward the open window. He heard the silence of the winter night, and it seemed to him that he somehow felt the sounds that were absorbed by the delicate and intricately cellular being of the snow. Nothing moved upon the whiteness; it was a dead scene, which seemed to pull at him, to suck at his consciousness just as it pulled the sound from the air and buried it within a cold white softness. He felt himself pulled out toward the whiteness, which spread as far as he could see, and which was part of the darkness from which it glowed, of the clear and cloudless sky without height or depth. For an instance he felt himself go out of the body that sat motionless before the window; and as he felt himself slip away, everything – the flat whiteness, the trees, the tall columns, the night, the far stars – seemed incredibly tiny and far away, as if they were dwindling to a nothingness. Then, behind him, a radiator clanked. He moved, and the scene became itself.2

Now, what does this scene, about a man, looking out of the window during a winter evening, has to do with mysticism? At first sight, so it seems, nothing at all. The man, returning home after his evening classes, only looks out of the window, gets lost in the view outside and is pulled back into his usual state of mind after hearing the clanking of a radiator. Nothing out of the extraordinary, so it seems. And still, so I will put forward in this essay, this passage, taken from the novel Stoner (written by the American writer John Williams [1922-1994]) addresses a sincere but overseen longing in modern men and women, namely that for 1

2

This article is a revised and extended revision of the Dutch article ‘“Er is niets meer”: Zelf en zelfloosheid in modern fictie’, which appeared in Liter: Literair Tijdschrift 21 (2018) no.90. John Williams, Stoner, London: Vintage, 2012, 185.

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self-forgetfulness, abandon, even self-loss, which we can detect in many novels nowadays and probably even in all modern fiction. In this article I will explore the theme of mysticism in modern fiction and I will substantiate the claim that the novel, in its essence, is deeply attached to mysticism and the mystical drive (longing) for self-loss. I will substantiate this claim by focusing on two recent studies: The Virtues of Abandon: An Anti-Individualist History of the French Enlightenment (2014) written by Charly Coleman, assistant professor at Colombia University, and Zelfloos: De mystieke afgrond van het moderne ik [Self Loss: The Mystical Abyss of the Modern Self] (2017), written by Marc De Kesel. Abandon The eighteenth century is, as we all know, considered as the century of the Enlightenment. In the underlying philosophical framework of the Enlightenment, the ‘self’ was considered as an autonomous subject. The ‘I’ is a Cartesian subject that acts and thinks rationally, freely and out of its own will, on its own account. In Coleman’s words: this is the ‘possessive self’. In his study, Coleman states that, beside this development towards the modern, possessive self, there has also been an undercurrent, in which the ‘dispossessive self’ plays the main role. Instead of striving for autonomy, the dispossessive self undermines the culture of self-ownership and instead valorizes the human person’s loss of ownership over itself and external objects. According to Coleman ‘an unholy trinity subscribed to this position’, in which he refers to the awkward alignment of radical Christian mystics with radical materialist philosophers and political thinkers during the eighteenth century. The Quietist Affair Seventeenth century mystics like the Quietists played a key role in the development of this dispossessive self. Especially the influence of the clash of ideas between the mystic François Fénelon (1651-1715) and bishop Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) can hardly be overrated. Fénelon was a theologian, archbishop and teacher of the grandson of the king, Louis XIV (1638-1715). In his thinking, he was influenced by JeanneMarie Guyon (1648-1717), a French mystic. Madame Guyon was convinced that the individual had to ‘open’ him- or herself totally to God, in order to come as close as possible to Him. In that way it did not really matter if you behaved like a good Christian (good Catholic); the individual in contact with God was

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beyond religious mediation (sacraments, priests, Church) and, in a certain sense, even beyond good and evil. At least, such were conclusions one might draw from some passages in Madame Guyon’s writing. ‘Since divine will, rather than human impulses, determined the movements of the soul, mind and body, it followed that “one who is truly abandoned can no longer sin”’, so Coleman quotes Madame Guyon’s Règle des associés à l’Enfance de Jésus.3 This way of thinking has become known as the Quietist movement. Bossuet though adhered vehemently to a different opinion. The recollection of ‘spiritual goods’, as for instance: going to church and behaving like a good Christian, were, according to his vision, of utmost importance. Only if you stay in control of your own thoughts and deeds, you will deserve the kingdom of God. In his elaborate essay ‘Quietism, A Heresy of Divine Love’, Henri DanielRops sums up the fundamental differences between the two theological giants of those times. While Bossuet ‘insists primarily upon dogmas, the doctrinal propositions to which faith adheres, and upon the commandments that must govern our life, (…) Fénelon places religious experience on the psychological plane. (…) it is the complete union with God that is the goal of all authentic religious experience…’.4 Although Fénelon in his thinking never went as far as Madame Guyon, he and Bossuet launched, in the period 1694-1699, into a fierce dispute, culminating in the almost simultaneous publication of their books. Fénelon’s Explication des maximes des saints appeared in 1697, only one month before Bossuet’s released his book Instructions sur les états d’oraison, in which they defended their opposing views.5 After publication of Fénelon’s book, a flow of texts followed, mostly critical of Fénelon. Among his criticasters were people in the center of power like Godet des Marais (bishop of Chartres) and Noailles (bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne). While the Maximes des Saints were violently attacked, Fénelon made a tactical mistake: he refused to participate in a proposed discussion of his book if Bossuet was going to take part in it. The dispute escalated on an even larger scale and, in 1699, culminated in Bossuet being put into the right and Fénelon being condemned by pope Innocentius XII.

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Guyon, Règle des associés à l’Enfance de Jésus, Modèle de Perfection pour tous les états (Cologne: Jean de la Pierre, 1705), in Les Opuscules spirituels de Madame J.M.B. de la Mothe Guion (Cologne: Jean de la Pierre, 1712), vol. 2: 19-20. Quoted in: Charly Coleman, The Virtues of Abandon: An Anti-Individualist History of the French Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014, 58. Henri Daniel-Rops, ‘The Quietist Affair’, www.catholicculture.org. Originally published in: Thought: Fordham University Quarterly 32 (1957) no.4, 485-515. Daniel-Rops, ‘The Quietist Affair’.

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‘On the plane of action it was a sordid affair’, Henri Daniel-Rops writes, ‘With palace and police intrigues, interceptions of correspondence, public insults and calumnities, and private defamations, the affair lacked nothing to make it, as Innocent XII correctly declared, “wretched and deplorable”’.6 After his condemnation Fénelon withdrew in Cambrai, but, according to Coleman, he remained engaged in politics, ‘secretly corresponding with the heir to the throne, passing damning judgments on Louis XIV, and conspiring with like-minded nobles to reform the monarchy after the latter’s long and disastrous reign’.7 For mysticism in itself though, the Quietist Affair had a disastrous effect. Mystics and mysticism were discredited for a long time. Mystical ecstasy was more and more seen as an obscure phenomenon and, later on, even as a mental illness. For Coleman though, these Quietist thoughts are evidence of the undercurrent of the dispossessive self during that period. Fénelon’s teachings ‘continued to reverberate in subsequent trials, scandals and causes célèbres during the first third of the eighteenth century’, including ‘lengthy prosecutions of supposed Quietists in Dijon, Paris, Rodez, and Toulon’.8 And he continues: ‘These episodes provide insight into how men and women attempted to put the mystical ideal of self-abandon into practice through prayer manuals, liturgical rites, and public demonstrations’.9 The ideal of selflessness was also taken up by eighteenth century radical thinkers as Baruch Spinoza and so called materialists such as Baron Paul Henri Dietrich d’Holbach and Denis Diderot. So while mystics and mysticism in itself were discredited for a long time, their ideals continued to live on. And also had, as we will see later on, a profound influence on the development of the modern novel. Abyss In Marc De Kesel’s study Zelfloos: De mystieke afgrond van het moderne Ik [Self Loss: The Mystical Abyss of the Modern Self],10 François Fénelon is frequently mentioned. In the chapter that bears the same title as the book, De Kesel compares the mystical thinking of Fénelon with the thoughts of Meister Eckhart (circa 1260-1328) in order to acknowledge the fundamental differences between seventeenth century mysticism and medieval mysticism. He reads that difference 6 7 8 9 10

Ibidem. Coleman, The Virtues of Abandon, 75. Coleman, The Virtues of Abandon, 5. Ibidem. Utrecht: Kok, 2017.

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in the light of the emergence of the modern subject in the seventeenth century. For medieval man, God was the basis, the ground of his existence; or, what amounts to the same thing, God was the subjectum. Medieval mystics, when losing themselves, loose themselves in God. Medieval mystical writing gives witness to this inner journey and to the mystical ecstasy that goes with it. Modernity implies a radical rupture with this thinking. For modern man, not God is the ground on the base of which he relates to reality, but his ‘Self’ – a paradigm-shift for the first time philosophically argued by Descartes’ famous thought-experiment. Descartes started his thought experiment by asking himself the following question: What happens if I doubt everything and only stop doubting if I meet something which is really beyond doubt? Is it possible to find an undoubtable certainty? The sole thing Descartes finds being beyond any possible doubt is the fact of doubting itself. I can doubt the fact that I doubt, and exactly this shows that there is something that is (in the act of) doubting. That something is the ‘I’ doubting, ‘thinking’; Cogito ergo sum, I doubt (think) so I am. Hence, this cogito becomes the ground (subjectum) on the base of which man relates to the world. This thesis has far-reaching consequences. It posits the ‘I’ in front of reality. Reality, including the God that created reality, ceased to be the ground on the base of which I relate to it. Or, to put it in reference to the medieval paradigm: God no longer was the subjectum; now, the Self had become the subjectum. The religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth century were in this respect crucial. During these religious wars God – read the ground on the base of which all humans relate to reality – was put into question, and eventually He was even dismissed, according to De Kesel: ‘Long before Descartes put man into the front as subject, the Reformation had done something similar. The “sola fide” it preached, brought into the front a strong Self. Me, and not the church or any other mediation, is the basis of my relation with God, so claimed the new protestant creed’.11 Descartes’ thinking marked the beginning of the development of modern science (in which man claims an objective position towards reality), and the development of modern self-consciousness. For mysticism, too, this new position of the Self had farfetched consequences. For in his search for self-loss, the mystic always meets, one way or the other, his own (Cartesian) Self. That Self is, as we saw, the ground of his relation toward reality. Trying to get lost of his self and re-unite with God, he cannot avoid ending up but meeting that very self of his. It is this paradoxical drive of the modern subject, which makes modern mysticism fundamentally different from medieval mysticism. The Self of a modern mystic can never really escape from himself, no matter how hard 11

De Kesel, Zelfloos, 73 (author’s translation).

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he tries. This is what Fénelon shows us. Or better: this is what De Kesel’s closereading of Fénelon shows: ‘In a few of his texts this problem comes to the surface very clearly. The I or the Self re-appears as a fundamental certainty, exactly at the moment when that Self is rigorously thought over’.12 Contemporary Literature De Kesel’s theory proves to be very helpful in understanding the (mystical) imagination of self and loss of self in contemporary literature. In chapter 7, which focuses on the relationship between mysticism, materialism and psychoanalysis, he states the following: ‘Scripts wherein a person willingly seeks for situations in which he puts himself at risk and wherein he wavers upon the brink of self-destruction, are legion in movies, games and other outings of our visual universe in which we move daily. (…) And of course, in the end everything turns out right and the threatened I only gets stronger’.13 In erotic movies like Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015), based on the same titled novel by E.L. James published in 2011, formally, you see the same thing happening. The two main characters, in search of self-loss, give themselves over to erotic excess. But that ‘I’ doesn’t end up to be destroyed. On the contrary, it becomes more then ever the bourgeois possessive self, totally in control of itself and the other. So Christian Grey frees himself from his demons and he and Anastasia Steele finally get a normal relationship and get married.14 De Kesel’s statement may count though for modern popular genres, but not for modern fiction per se. Because, when you take a close look at contemporary novels, most of the times they show us the opposite outcome. The main character doesn’t find the Bildung he or she is after, but is most likely being destroyed. In modern fiction we see, most of the times, persons who on the one hand are being formed into that responsible, civil and civilized bourgeois citizen, totally in control of himself and his thoughts. But on the other hand that person is putting himself at risk, trying to destroy himself. Sometimes the focus is on the movement of self-development. At other times the focus is on self-loss, but most of the time both movements go together. Moments of absolute bliss are followed by the merciless fall into nothingness. Contemporary fiction shows both sides of the coin; it’s about Bildung (the Self) and about self-loss. 12 13 14

Ibid., 75. Ibid., 224. The Dutch philosopher Ad Verbrugge gives a different analysis of the bestseller in his study Staat van verwarring: Het offer van liefde [State of Confusion: The Sacrifice of Love] (2013). In the ultimate success of the novel Verbrugge recognizes a deep longing for community which our society lacks in a fundamental and structural way.

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It’s fascinating to see that this distinguishing feature of the modern novel can be traced back to the eighteenth century, the period during which the novel emerged from its predecessor, the picaresque novel15 and developed itself towards the modern literary genre of the Bildungsroman: a novel about the development of mind and character of the protagonist during youth to adulthood, including awareness of their own identity and one’s role in the world. (The novel is, for that matter, also linked to the upcoming democracy at that time.)16 The novel became more psychologically refined, by putting the internal, psychological development (‘adventures’) of the main characters central, instead of his or her adventures in the outside world – therewith also becoming less plot-driven then the picaresque novels of the time. Famous examples of that time are Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749) (in a sense both a picaresque novel and a Bildungsroman), and Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa (1748), a fullblown Bildungsroman. But we can also see a counter movement. For the picaresque novel did not only develop itself into the more mature genre of the Bildungsroman, the picaresque novel in itself also stayed in full swing, although not in the centre of literary culture anymore, but in the margin, ‘under the counter’ literally. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the picaresque novel proved to be a nice vehicle for pornographic content, putting forward stories with a simple, linear plot, enabling it to focus on the critical, political messages put into it (one of the characteristics of pornographic novels at the time), and not very much disturbed by a refined, psychologically motivated plot. Robert Darnton, who wrote the intriguing study The Forbidden Bestsellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (1995), states for instance: ‘Works that in retrospect seem central to the history of pornography also belonged to the rise of the novel as a genre: L’Ecole des filles (1655), L’Académie des dames (published in Latin around 1660 and in French by 1680) and Vénus dans le cloître’ (about 1682)’.17 Thus, while the modern novel appeared and became the vehicle of the modern civilian, who had to develop him- or herself as a well-to-do, civilized, rational, democratic Bürgermann, the less ‘heavy’ picaresque novel also stayed in existence, 15

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‘The picaresque novel is an early form of the novel, usually a first-person narrative, relating the adventures of a rogue or lowborn adventurer (Spanish pícaro) as he drifts from place to place and from one social milieu to another in his effort to survive’ (Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/art/picaresque-novel). ‘Since the eighteenth century, reading as well as writing counts as acts of good citizenship: by reading novels, the reader-civilian enhances his democratic resilience, by writing the authorcivilian mingles with the public debate and ads to the public expression of opinions’ (Thomas Vaessens, De revanche van de roman, Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2009, 90 [author’s translation]). Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, New York: Norton, 1995, 86.

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addressing another part of the modern self, a part not striving for education and development, but for something totally different. These novels addressed a sincere but overseen longing in modern men and women, namely that for self-forgetfulness, abandon, even self-loss. Or, as Coleman would put it: these novels show the exact same yearning for dispossession as we have seen in the lives and writings of the Quietists. The dispossessive self, so it seems when we look back, lived on, not only in obscure mystical writings and in the thinking of materialistic philosophy, but also in the modern literary genre of that time, the novel. Coleman puts his finger on exactly this double-bind development of the modern novel, by analyzing the erotic bestseller of that period, namely Thérèse Philosophe (1748), traditionally ascribed to Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens. In this famous ‘little’ novel, which is partially based upon the scandalous affair in 1730 between the priest Jean-Baptiste Girard and the young woman Catherine Cadier, Thérèse is being formed into a libertarian; her erotic escapades are meant to do exactly that. The sex ‘lessons’ she receives subscribe the materialistic philosophy that states that we have no free will and that we are subjected (!) to our needs and passions. Our freedom rests in succumbing (!) to these ideas, in total abandonment to one another’s desires. After her lessons by Father Dirrag, Madame C***, Abbé T*** and Bois-Laurier, Thérèse has become, in word and deed, a libertarian ‘philosopher’ and chooses for a life under the sign of (sexual) pleasure with the count of her choice. So, in a sense, Thérèse’s ‘scandalous’ education can be seen as Bildung, though with a somewhat different outcome; usually the heroin finds herself, after much ado about nothing, a good man, gets married and lives happily ever after. To our eyes, this famous erotic bestseller is, at the utmost, funny in a somewhat awkward manner, but hardly disconcerting. The acts described in it were most of all meant to provoke and shock the religious (Catholic) authorities or to analyze in a rather ‘cool’ manner the hypocrisy of the catholic church of those times, rather than to raise sexual arousal. Thérèse Philosophe is for that matter more like a pamphlet that turns against the hypocritical religious thoughts that state that good deeds lead to grace. But from the viewpoint of mysticism and abandonment, this novel is absolutely interesting. As may become clear from the following passage: ‘“What!” I cried out to myself. “The Gods give themselves happiness I refuse! Ah, dear lover, I can resist you no longer! Appear, God! (…) Come pierce your love! You may take when, where, how you will – it’s all the same to me. I’ll suffer any pain from you, gladly, without murmuring”’.18 18

Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens, Thérèse the Philosopher, transl. H.F. Smith, New York: Grove, 1970, 135.

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In this passage, in which Thérèse receives her count in her bedroom, I have purposefully changed the word ‘count’ into ‘God’. And now, instead of a pornographic text, the passage rather appears as a mystic text in which pleasure and longing for self-loss also aren’t clearly divided. So, as we have seen, Thérèse Philosophe is on the one hand about Bildung, but at the same time it’s about (mystical) abandonment and self-loss. It’s the same double bind we meet in modern fiction, up until now. Thérèse Philosophe, so it seems, absorbed both movements; that of the possessive self, in control of herself, and that of dispossessive self, that wants to get rid of herself. The famous little bestseller therefore plays a key role when it comes to the transfer of mysticism from the religious domain – out of which it was cast away – to the cultural-literary domain during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Or, to put it otherwise: seventeenth-century mysticism, materialistic philosophers and libertarian writers such as Marquis d’Argens and, later on, Marquis de Sade19 did know something about the modern self we still struggle with. Modern fiction of our times shows this double bind to our inner self all too well, as we can see in the passage at the beginning of this essay, in which the main character gets lost in the white ‘nothingness’ outside his window, before he is pulled back into his usual state of mind, his ‘normal’, daily self. Study of the Quietists not only sheds new light on mysticism and modern literature, it also makes clear that, in their longing for abandonment, they essentially speak of a new world order. One not based on possession, but on dispossession, even of one’s own self. Mysticism encompasses a worldview, and can there upon be seen as a radical, disruptive political choice. It’s probably because of these disruptive qualities that Quietism was so vehemently attacked in their own time; a whole religious and political power system was at stake. And that is probably the only idea that Bossuet and Fénelon, in retrospect, agreed on. Conclusion Modern fiction is usually seen as being built upon the principles of the so called Bildungsroman: it’s about the development of mind and character of the protagonist during youth to adulthood, including awareness of one’s own identity and one’s role in the world. But in the modern novel we can also see an undercurrent that opposes this drive and focuses upon the opposite (outcome), namely a longing for self-loss and abandon. 19

Thérèse Philosophe was for Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) a famous source of inspiration. Juliette, the not-so-innocent sister of Justine, the main character in Justine, ou les malheurs de la vertu, kept an example of the book in her library.

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This striving for self-loss becomes most clear in erotic literature, as we can see in the famous erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey, but we can also detect it in less obvious examples like Stoner. This startling aspect of modern fiction can be traced back to a crucial period in (literary) history, namely the sixteenth and seventeenth century during which mysticism, due to the notorious theological clash between Bossuet and Fénelon, was discredited for a long time. Mysticism went ‘underground’, but its ideals lived on and found other ways of expression, among which literary ways. The modern novel, which came into being in this same period, proved to be a perfect vehicle for the mystical tendencies towards self-loss and abandon. This counts especially for the pornographic novels of those times, as we can see in Thérèse Philosophe. This famous pornographic bestseller is as much about Bildung as it is about abandon and thus demonstrates exactly the two poles of modern fiction (Bildung and self-loss) which we detect in the novel up to now. Mysticism as a phenomenon therefor puts a whole new light on the emergence of the novel. Mysticism and the modern novel go hand in hand in paying attention not only to the possessive self of modern man but also to the dispossessive self. Mysticism therefore can be ‘useful’ in claiming new ‘rights of existence’ for the reviled novel, whose demise and loss of status is stated time after time. Just like (modern) mysticism, the modern novel is strongly attached to the rise of modern society and modern thinking. And just as mysticism in its day proved to be a good vehicle for church criticism, the novel in our times can be a good vehicle for social criticism in a world that attaches so much value to the successes of the possessive self and discredits the equally strong meaning of and yearning for self-loss and abandon (of the dispossessive self) in modern men and women. Mysticism lives on and even flourishes, also in places where we might least expect it like the novel. Bibliography Boyer, J.-B. de [Marquis d’Argens], Thérèse the Philosopher, transl. H.F. Smith, New York: Grove, 1970. Coleman, C., The Virtues of Abandon: An Anti-Individualist History of the French Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. Daniel-Rops, H., The Quietist Affair, www.catholicculture.org. Originally published in: Thought: Fordham University Quarterly 32 (1957) no.4, 485-515. Darnton, R., The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, New York: Norton, 1995. De Kesel, M., Zelfloos: De mystieke afgrond van het moderne ik, Utrecht: Kok, 2017. Vaessens, T., De revanche van de roman: Literatuur, autoriteit en engagement, Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2009. Williams, J., Stoner, London: Vintage, 2012 (orig. publ. 1965).

THEO WITKAMP THE FRACTURED SELF OF A MODERN MYSTIC Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (2013)

The ‘Self’ is not an easy subject. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to unearth the structures and movements that define or create our ‘selves’.1 Naturally, the study of spirituality has contributed much to this search, starting its neverending journey with the apostle Paul.2 In this essay we call attention to the modern mystical self as we encounter it in Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013). Wiman is a poet by trade who nowadays works at Yale University as a professor of the Practice of Religion and Literature. His book is eminently suitable for our question because it consists entirely of introspection and soliloquy. Immediately after its publication the book received much praise. It baffled readers with its paradoxes, aphorisms, its existential and spiritual depth and its trenchant honesty. Many have even hailed the book as an instant classic.3 The Dutch writer Willem Jan Otten, for instance, called it the ‘new Pensées’ of Pascal and made much effort to translate the book into Dutch.4 However, after 1

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Cf. e.g. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989; Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, Chicago: UP, 1992, J. David Velleman, Self to Self: Selected Essays, Cambridge: UP, 2006; L. Turner, Theology, Psychology and the Plural Self, Farnham/ Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008; Kristján Kristjánsson, The Self and Its Emotions, Cambridge: UP, 2010. Cf. Simon Butticaz, ‘The Construction of Paul’s Self in his Writings: Narrative Identity, Social Memory and Metaphorical Truth’, in: Biblical Interpretation 26 (2018), 244-265. One can get a good impression of these reactions by making a small tour on the internet, but the praise on the dust jacket of the first paperback edition of 2014 is telling already. Otten, in the Dutch daily paper Trouw, Oct. 25, 2014. Translated in Dutch as Mijn heldere afgrond: Overpeinzingen van een moderne gelovige, Barneveld: Brandaan, 2016. Cf. Stevo Akkerman in Trouw, Oct. 17, 2016: the book ‘is as phenomenal as it is impossible and inimitable – a mosaic of poetry, biography, prose, philosophy and theology, built from one sparkling aphorism after another’ (my translation). Wiman’s work as a whole has been characterised by Marilynne Robinson in the following words: ‘His poetry and scholarship have a purifying urgency that is rare in this world. This puts him at the very source of theology, and

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the initial praise it has become silent. We are unaware of any publication that analyzes the book or engages critically with it. This might be due to its literary style or its seemingly disparate contents which make it difficult to argue with. Its genre could also easily relegate the book to the bedchamber to be used for personal reflection and meditation, and bar it from study at the desk. Although it does have its place on the bedside table, it would be a pity if it stays only there because it has much to offer for a reflective spirituality. In this essay we advance two questions: what kind of self do we encounter in Wiman’s Meditation of a Modern Believer? And in what respect is it modern? Our goal is explorative and our method is close reading. This means that a new theory on the ontology of the self is not in view, but by making a case study we hope to see how a modern, reflective and spiritually alive ‘self’ manifests itself. In order to be able to address our questions some words on the literary character of the book are needed first. Literary Character It is impossible to dwell on the self without attending to the literary character of My Bright Abyss because the latter pertains to the former. What immediately strikes the eye is that the book does not contain a running story or argument. It consists entirely of fragments, sometimes as long as a couple of pages, sometimes only as a couple of sentences. These fragments are grouped together under a series of headings, the logic of which is often hard to understand. As a reader one feels like having to jump from ice floe to ice floe, not knowing whether you are hopping around in circles or coming closer to another shore. This sounds tiring, but in reality it is the beauty and quality of these ice floes that keeps you going. One is tempted to just quote whole passages from the book and do nothing more, since Wiman expresses himself masterfully, articulating profound thoughts in simple terms. He himself is very much aware that his book is not a unity and he apologizes for this by declaring that the form of the book reflects the process of its history. This history was that of his illness. He worked on his book for several years in the shadow of an incurable cancer, which turned his life upside down and made continuous work impossible. Therefore it is ‘very much a mosaic’ and has a ‘fragmentary and episodic quality,’ he explains (VIII). But I think the book’s lack of unity is more than a simple reflection of the fragmentation of his outward life and that Wiman himself silently knows this enables him to say new things in timeless language, so that the reader’s surprise and assent are one and the same’ (https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/christian-wiman; accessed May 9, 2018).

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and even values it. If this were not the case, he could have left the unfinished manuscript in his drawer. In fact, the book’s fragmentary form also resembles its author’s mind and heart. We meet Wiman, who is in constant dialogue with himself. Indeed, he confesses that the book consists of ‘Exhortations to myself, mostly’ (142). He is always on the move and continuously interrupting himself. He has different internal voices. He calls them ‘My restless, useless parishioners’ (142). Elsewhere he complains, ‘I have a hornet’s nest of voluble and conflicting parishioners inside of me’ (124). That is why he laments that we do not read ‘the clear, true notes of what I believe, but the varieties of quiet in between’ (142) – which is a beautiful way of phrasing it, of course, but also a reflection of inner turmoil and pain. These inner dialogues are real and unavoidable, but are also felt by him as ‘useless’ and ‘a hornet’s nest’. He does not hide this fragmentary nature of his thinking and his existence, since his goal was ‘to write a book that might help someone who is at once as confused and certain about the source of life and consciousness as I am’ (VIII). He shares his own thoughts and life experiences in order to make himself available for the purpose of helping others, and he does this in a form that will appeal to readers whose lives and minds are often as fragmented as his. So when he quotes Auden, that poetry is ‘the clear expression of mixed feelings’ (174), it is as if he describes his own work. The book is heavily filled with poets and poetry. Indeed, this is its second remarkable literary feature: the steady combination of prose and poetry. One can find poems of his own and of countless other poets all over the book accompanied by interpretations in prose. To Wiman poetry means inspiration and grace, prose means reflection and understanding. He combines them because he longs for an integration of inspirational experience and rational reflection in real life. As a poet he knows how evocative language can be. As a prose writer his style is rather pedestrian, but accurate and even precise. A good example of the combination of poetry and prose is the opening of his book. Here we find a poem of his own: My God my bright abyss into which all my longing will not go once more I come to the edge of all I know and believing nothing believing this:

And there the poem ends, because he has not been able ‘to feel my way into its ending’ ever since he wrote this stanza several years earlier, as he says in prose now (3). This way of phrasing is remarkable: ‘to feel my way into’ something, and he explains a little further: ‘that is the way I have usually known my own mind, feeling through the sounds of words to the forms they make, and through the forms they make to the forms of life that are beyond them’ (3). Now he

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wants to find words for this ‘beyond’. ‘I crave, I suppose, the poetry and the prose of knowing’ (4). That is what the book is about. A combination of inspiration and clear thinking, a fusion of imagination and discourse.5 In this way he tries to move beyond the colon. The Self Wiman uses the word ‘self’ in three different ways, without explicitly distinguishing between them: a. in a neutral way as simply another word for ‘I’ or ‘person’; b. in a reflective way as the person who watches himself and reflects upon himself; c. in a moral way when self-experience turns to self-evaluation. These three ways of looking at the self can be analytically distinguished but in reality they are indivisible. It is the one person who existentially experiences himself in varying ways. The moral way, however, is the most interesting, because now choices are made and values are at stake, so most of our attention will be devoted to this category. But we shall start with the more neutral sense of the word and see what kind of person presents itself. Despite the book’s fragmentary nature, we feel that we meet a real person. The strength of this personality shows itself in the ways he opens himself up to the disparate and disquieting experiences and thoughts he has. He does not muffle the ‘conflicting parishioners inside of me’ (124). This means that we get to know Wiman in this book, and that he lets us partake in the way he deals with life and with faith. He has a strong and lively mind and shows himself to be an intensely sensitive and honest person who is not afraid of dealing seriously with hard questions. So we experience a real self or, in common language, a personality.6 I would call him an integrated man, not because he comes to unisonous conclusions, but because he is able to listen to and deal with the different and even belligerent voices inside his head in a thorough and respectful way. He could have neglected, evaded or forbidden these voices, but he feels, honours and attends to them instead.7 5

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Cf. ‘Human imagination is not simply our means of reaching out to God but God’s means of manifesting himself to us’ (60-61). One is reminded of Cardinal Newman and Thomas Merton and their highlighting of inspiration and creativity, cf. C. Pramuk, Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009, ch. 2 and 3. To be clear, I do not claim an ontological subject in the philosophical sense, see below. The word ‘unisono’ derives from the musical arts, of course. I use it partly because Wiman is not only deeply at home in art and an eloquent defender of its importance, but also because his art is almost exclusively poetical, and music is seldom mentioned. I wonder whether the history of (classical) music would have given him more linguistic tools to give expression to his ‘composition’ of the book, e.g. the place of disharmonies and counterpoint.

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This self approaches the outside world in an evidently existentialist8 and, most of all, experiential9 way. There is an ‘I’ who experiences life and whose experiences count. He himself is at stake all the time. There is no ironic distancing himself from the world – on the contrary, he engages wholeheartedly with the world as it is. He says that he writes about faith, but this means that he writes about life, his life and life in general, because ‘faith in God is, in the deepest sense, faith in life’ (7). ‘God calls to us at every moment, and God is life, this life’ (8). The place where the reality of God or Being itself presents itself is the ‘I’ as it finds itself in the midst of this life. In other words, the experiential ‘I’ matters in a spiritual and theological way. As such it is a (religious) reality and not a matter of dispute. It is a reality, yes, but the way the ‘I’ experiences itself is not the norm. The self as we encounter it is not allowed to be king in its own kingdom. On the contrary, Wiman is very critical about the self-contained self. This self can be called ‘overweening’ (12). It ‘destroys a person’ and ‘poisons all (…) gifts of God’ (12). The idea that ‘you are the origin of everything, that the self is its own world, its own god’ is a ‘fatal belief’ (24-25). Elsewhere he says that ambition ‘has (…) the relentless smell of the self’ and he criticises the effort ‘to make ourselves more real to ourselves, to feel that we have selves, though the deepest moments of creation tell us that, in some fundamental way, we don’t (45).10 It is ‘the isolated self, the self wilfully held apart from God’ (166), which is ‘the source of so much of our suffering and unhappiness’ (167).11 And he can pray with words from the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, ‘mortify our wolves’, i.e. the wolves of our modern, sovereign selves, too (153-154).12

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He speaks approvingly of the strength and weakness of the existentialism of Camus and others and their courageous acceptance of the absurd (8-11). Cf. e.g. ‘learn to let experience play upon our inner lives’ (27); ‘If faith requires you to foreclose on an inspiration, surely it is not faith’ (60); ‘not as refugees of experience, but as devotees of it’ (73); ‘he (=Christ) lives with us, lives in us, through imagination and experience’ (166); ‘Falling in love (…) brings most of us closer to a knowledge of God than anything else in our lives’ (168). Elsewhere he speaks about ‘a cry (…) that is not merely the self’ (53). Here, the word ‘self’ is used in the pejorative sense of the closed self, which possesses itself, without ‘something that is beyond ourselves’ (53). In other words, this is the modern sovereign self which receives so much emphasis in our culture. He quotes Abraham Joshua Heschel: ‘To hoard the self is to grow a colossal sense for the futility of living’ (167). One is also reminded of Luther’s cor incurvatus in se, of course. For this reason he is very critical about many expressions of the Christian hope for an afterlife: ‘contemporary Christianity all too often preaches an idea of resurrection that is little more than a means of projecting our paltry selves ad infinitum, and the result is a grinning, selfaggrandizing, ironclad kind of happiness that has no truth in it’ (167).

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Over against this isolated and inflated modern self Wiman preaches an open, vulnerable and receptive self; or we might better phrase it in a more paradoxical way: he advocates determined openness, strong vulnerability, and active receptivity. Our selves should change, lose their sovereignty, and become ‘finely tuned instruments’ in order to be receptive and ready to be played upon by life itself and our experiences of it, and so by God (27). When the self is called an instrument, it is automatically decentred. It becomes a means of interaction with reality, not a stable point of reference or a fixed identity. He agrees with William James ‘that our inner lives are fluid and restless and always in transition and that our experience “lives in transitions”’(26). Life itself is messy, so our inner lives will be, too.13 Life is a double-edged experience and we should be ready not to attempt control (which would be futile), but to really accept this. It means not only life, but life and death. Life ‘tears us apart’ (161), he says, just as ‘God comes as an annihilating silence’ (108). Life creates terrible ‘wounds’ (161) and, sometimes, ‘nothingness, suffering without meaning’ (163). At the same time, however, ‘through these wounds, if we have tended them, love may enter us’ (161) and he adds that God’s annihilating silence is something ‘we must endure as well as enjoy’ (108, his italics). This is one of the many paradoxes of life. Paradox is not equilibrium, however.14 Sometimes there really is only a deep black night and we are blown off our feet, while at other times there really is peace and tranquillity, joy and love. We should not run away from these experiences in order to avoid the dangers and pains of life. In an exposition of the works of Lee Bontecou, Wiman sees what he means. Here he comes across a mature vision which occurs ‘when death and life are so woven together that they are completely indistinguishable: you cannot see one without the other’ (151). He admires Bontecou and her art. She is an example of those people who are characterised, like his grandmother, by ‘creation streaming through them’ (153). It is a feminine consciousness, which has been badly neglected and suppressed by much of Western theology.15 13

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Cf. ‘Faith is change (…) folded into change (…) the mutable and messy process of our lives rather than any fixed, mental product’ (17-18). ‘Just when I think I’ve finally found some balance between active devotion and honest modern consciousness, all my old anxieties come pressuring up through the seams of me, and I am as volatile and paralyzed as ever’ (9). ‘Lee Bontecou, my wife, my grandmother – if this consciousness I’m describing is gendered (and I think it is), it is clearly feminine. The single most damaging and distorting thing that religion has done to faith involves overlooking, undervaluing, and even outright suppressing this interior, ulterior kind of consciousness. So much Western theology has been constructed on a fundamental disfigurement of the mind and reality. In neglecting the voices of women, who are more attuned to the immanent nature of divinity, who feel that eruption in their very bodies, theology has silenced a powerful -perhaps the most powerful- side of God’ (153). It is worthwhile noticing that Wiman is in strong agreement here with Thomas Merton and his

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The self he discovers and advocates is also a mystical self – mystical in the classic sense of the word. He does not only refer explicitly to ‘the mystical writers along the lines of Thomas Merton, Meister Eckhart, Simone Weil’ (72, cf. 81), but the pivotal mystical idea of ‘the re-centering of subjectivity from the self to God’16 also pervades his work. So he can say, ‘we come closer to the truth of the artist’s17 relation to divinity if we think not of being made subject to God, but of being subjected to God – our individual subjectivity being lost and rediscovered within the reality of God’ (60). Mystical keywords abound, such as ‘ultimate insight, ultimate unknowingness’ which has ‘silence’ as its ‘source’ (78-79), ‘paradox’,18 ‘an essential unity between man and God’ (110), the overriding presence of God (12, 178) , devotional doubt (76), humility, annihilation, the dark night of the soul (173), ‘innocence’ (71), insufficiency and mystery (76), including the distaste for theological discussions that can be pointless, even pernicious (71). As a good mystic he also warns for overvaluing one’s own experiences, as when he says, ‘The temptation is to make an idol of our own experience, to assume our pain is more singular than it is. (…) In truth, experience means nothing if it does not mean beyond itself’ (162). ‘Beyond itself’, that is, toward God, Christ, the world, the other human being, toward reality itself. He loathes an easy-going religion. Wiman quotes the poet Geoffrey Hill, who speaks of a heart ‘that will not harbor you,/ that keeps itself religiously secure’ and calls the words ‘keeps itself religiously secure’ ‘a brilliant phrase’ (122).

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praise for Hagia Sophia, Cf. Pramuk, Sophia; and idem, ‘Theodicy and the Feminine Divine: Thomas Merton’s “Hagia Sophia” in Dialogue with Western Theology’, in: Theological Studies 77 (2016) no.1, 48-76. To use Christopher Pramuk’s words, Sophia, 99, cf. 67 and 79. Cf. My Bright Abyss, 71 on the personal ego, or 75: ‘without ego’, etc. Occasionally we are also reminded of Abraham Joshua Heschel, as in this quote: ‘Our minds are constantly trying to bring God down to our level rather than letting him lift us into levels of which we were not previously capable. This is as true in life as it is in art’ (49-50). From n.10 supra we know that Wiman read Heschel. Wiman sees himself (and every religious person in a sense) as an ‘artist’, because they are all waiting for and dependent on grace, cf. 4 and 12 (‘grace woke me to God’s presence in the world and in my heart’). Paradoxes can be plucked from almost every page. To mention some: ‘that wonderful, terrible time’ (7); ‘the bare abundance of a winter tree’ (13); hallmarks of poetry are ‘encompassing compression and lucid paradox’ (48); ‘ that paradox of attentive oblivion out of which any sustaining faith grows (…) there is a seed of peace in the most savage clamor. There is a kind of seeing that, fusing attention and submission, becomes a kind of being, wherein you may burrow into the very chaos that buries you, and even the most binding ties can become a means of release’ (99). And, of course, the title of the book ‘My Bright Abyss’ itself. Although he does not say so, Wiman seems to have taken this title from a passage in Thomas Merton, The Ascent to Truth, Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oats, 1976 (orig. publ. 1951), 9: ‘Then he [the man in whom Christ is living] can watch at the frontier of an abyss of light so bright that it is darkness’.

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Religion can keep God at arm’s length and so can mysticism. That is why he calls out, ‘Get off your mystified ass and do something’ (84), or in more polite words, ‘this is how you ascertain the truth of spiritual experience: it propels you back toward the world and other people, and simply more deeply within yourself’ (75).19 According to Wiman ‘Christ abhors a vagueness’ (121). Our problem is not that God is too distant, but that he is too near: Jesus ‘is a shard of glass in your gut’ (121). And ‘Christ is not an answer to existence, but a means of existing’ (91). In other words, ‘mystical’ does not mean ‘safely detached from the world’ but ‘intensely immersed in the world’. This includes the world of the body. Originally, Wiman says, he did not want to mention his illness in the book, but in the end it seemed dishonest not to do so. Especially so since it had heavily affected the book’s form (VIII). But there is more to this, too. The illness of his body also heavily affected his mystical spirituality. Bodily experiences both closed and opened doors to the experience of God. We will come back to this in the final, theological section of our paper. For now it suffices to know that the mystic Wiman is not satisfied with the safe middle road; he wants the real stuff of the spiritual, which is the real life, the sun and the rain, heaven and hell, the joy and the pain.20 A Modern Self In what sense is the self in Wiman’s My Bright Abyss also a modern self? Ever since Augustine, the soliloquy – understood as the internal dialogue of different voices – has been a possibility for the spiritual life. The same holds true for paradox and mysticism. So it is understandable that these are not the things Wiman thinks of when he calls himself ‘a modern believer’. He does not give a definition of the term ‘modern’, but he consistently uses it in the sense of ‘secularized’. He feels himself a secularized American man of the twentieth or twenty-first century. Secularization means ‘the fact that God is gone’ (121) and it implies a naturally denigrating attitude to religious belief, he says (90). He, too, saw religious belief as ‘preposterous’, ‘atavistic’, ‘laughable’ (90), and ‘uselessly absurd’ (91). He, too, went through ‘the crucible of doubt’ that modernity 19

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In this case ‘self’ is not the ego, but our inner reality, and can be used in a neutral or even positive sense. Wiman does not discuss the relation between mysticism and politics, which was the subject matter of the conference ‘Down Town, Down Soul’ in June 2018 and the original setting of this paper, but the reality of the body and the possibility of conflict in social realities over the exigencies of the body would seem a good point of departure for speaking about the politics of Wiman’s mysticism. Cf. ‘I begin to think that anything that abstracts us from the physical world is “of the devil”’ (117-118).

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ushered in (Dostoevsky, Camus, 9). It is not a matter of choice, however. It is the age we live in. The critical, skeptical gaze, which inspects and analyzes all real experiences, is ‘inevitable’ (79). We all live in a rational, scientific age, dominated by measure and control; it is our ‘iron cage’, as Max Weber called it (87).21 In spite of this, his secularized self also became a believing self, more or less to his own surprise. He would not call this change a ‘conversion’, however, but rather an ‘assent to the faith that was latent within me’ and an ‘awakening’ (12).22 Not that God meant an answer to his problems, not at all, ‘the turn toward God has not lessened my anxieties’ (9). Moreover, he also did not lose his skepticism or his critical attitude. Much of Christianity is still preposterous, atavistic, laughable and uselessly absurd to him, he admits.23 And much in Christian teaching looks like ‘a discount shopping mall of myth’ (117). This has a bearing on the concept of the self. His modern self, we could say, is primarily a fractured self. This self cannot be sure of what it believes anymore. Doubt is not only a possibility, it has become inevitable. This is what Charles Taylor described in his Sources of the Self when he talked of ‘Fractured Horizons’. According to Taylor we have multiple and rival sources today that can shape our lives and this fact ‘contributes to our sense of uncertainty’; ‘no one sees it as obvious that there is a God’ and ‘no one in our pluralistic age can reach quite that degree of unruffled confidence’ as in former times.24 Christian Wiman is an eloquent specimen of this fractured self. 21

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Quoting from Charles Taylor. Cf. also 154 where Wiman speaks of the ‘amnesiac authority of modern science’. Cf. the title of the essay from which the book grew: ‘Love bade me welcome’, which also is the first sentence of the famous poem by George Herbert. And ‘…having my heart ripped apart by what, slowly and in spite of all my modern secular instincts, I learned to call God’ (VII); ‘When I assented to the faith that was latent within me – and I phrase it carefully, deliberately’ (12); ‘grace woke me to God’s presence in the world and in my heart’ (12). Cf. 90-91, also: The terms ‘omnipotent, eternal, omniscient’ are ‘rotten words’ (18). Or: ‘So long as faith is something that “withstands” the assaults of reason, experience, secularization, or even simply the slow erosion of certainty within my own heart and mind; so long as that verb accurately describes the dynamic between my belief and all that seems too threaten it, then faith is an illusion in me, a dream that weakness clings to, rather than the truest form and fruition of strength’ (107). Or: ‘One of my problems with Christianity is that all talk of heaven seems absurd to me’ (134). Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self, ch. 18 ( 305-320), quotations from 317, 312 and 318. Cf. also David Tracy, ’Fragments: The Spiritual Situation of Our Times’ in: John D. Caputo & Michael J. Scanlon (Eds.), God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999, 170-184 (including an ensuing dialogue with J. Derrida): ‘Fragments are our spiritual situation’. He continues, ‘And that is not so bad a place to be’ (173). Tracy privileges the image of fragments because of its anti-totalitarian power. He mentions Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin and Simone Weil, but also Nicholas of Cusa

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The term ‘fractured self’ is stronger than the often-used expressions ‘plural self’ or ‘dialogical self’. Identity psychology has taught us that in a plural society we develop a plural self and that we have to be in constant dialogue with ourselves in order to be an authentic human being.25 The word ‘dialogue’, however, is too serene for the process that takes place. It is often not a polite dialogue, but a real struggle, one in which the self is immersed and where it can drown. The self can become a permanent battlefield where different voices cry for attention and try to gain supremacy. This is also the case in Wiman’s book. He opens the gates of his mental polis and lets us participate in the political struggles of the internal parties at his forum. Sometimes this is a painful, sometimes an exhilarating experience.26 Usually, however, the pain is more apparent in Wiman’s book. This means that the ‘dialogical self’ cannot be seen as an ideal, as the expression might suggest, but as a reflection of living in a confusing multifaceted reality full of suffering and having to make sense of it all.27 The term ‘fractured self’ suits this experience better. We could even argue that the expression ‘fracturing self’ might be more apt, because the process never comes to an end, as life is exactly what it is, life.28 On the other hand, the suggestion of total collapse which this expression bears in it is less fitting. We do not find a multiplicity of subpersonalities without centre in Wiman’s Meditation. The fear that ‘things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’ does not become reality.29 We encounter a mind that is able of dealing with the painful diversities of life and in doing so shows a certain unity. On a literary level we see that the fragments have been ordered according to a chosen pattern. On a

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and Pascal as his spokesmen, who all protested against closed theological and philosophical systems. In his view, fragments are not primarily reminders of a former whole (as Derrida objects), but tokens of an excessive, ‘eschatological’, spiritual reality, ‘an infinite universe’ (180). Cf. L. Turner, Theology, Psychology and the Plural Self. Interestingly Turner uses ‘plural self’ and ‘fragmented self’ as equivalents, which I do not. E.g. when he experiences pure terror during a night, ‘an abyss of pure meaninglessness’ and ‘nothingness, suffering without meaning’ (163, cf. also 177) or, on the other hand, when he speaks of joy as ‘the default setting of human emotion’ at the sight of his little daughters (159). See also the quotations supra where I commented on the fragmented literary character of the book. The metaphor of the internal polis can be found i.a. in W. Schmid, Mit sich selbst befreundet sein: Von der Lebenskunst im Umgang mit sich selbst, Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, 20169 (orig. publ. 2004). Cf. ‘Contemporary despair is to feel the multiplicity of existence with no possibility for expression or release of one’s particular being’ (49). Cf. Wiman’s remark that the language we use when speaking about ‘our sense of abandonment, our hellish astonishment at finding ourselves utterly alone, utterly helpless (…) must bear the mark of being lost. Not having been lost. Being lost’ (134-135). The words are taken from the famous poem ‘The Second Coming’ from William Butler Yeats, of course.

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psychological level Wiman shows himself able to live with these inner tensions. On a metaphysical level he can even speak of ‘our truest self’ which in itself is not a matter of unity, but a matter of intensity and focus (49).30 On a theological level it is the person of Christ bringing focus.31 By doing this, one could say, Wiman realizes his self. On the other hand, he also claims to have received himself as grasped by grace and to have been confronted by both material and spiritual reality. The self in Wiman’s My Bright Abyss has to make sense of this reality in active receptivity. His self is not a stable point in time, but it looks like a field of interaction, where a felt ‘I’ consciously struggles to come to terms with reality itself, even when reality is more than his consciousness of it.32 This modern, fractured self is also a spiritual or devotional self. Wiman is very much aware of this, for example, when he critically comments on an old poem of his. He calls it ‘in a peculiar and very modern sense, a devotional poem, or at least an early unconscious attempt at one, though God is nowhere in it. That’s what makes it modern’ (44-45). Devotion without God, that is what makes the poem modern, or more in line with what he says elsewhere: devotion without realizing the presence of God.33 This does not make him uncritical toward some secularized forms of art, on the contrary. He says, ‘I distrust those skeptics who admit no spiritual element into their most transfiguring experiences’; but this criticism is turned against himself, too, when he continues, ‘because I am so easily and so often one of them, stepping outside of my own miraculous moments to inspect, analyze, explain’ (78). The uncomfortable tension of being a skeptical believer, who examines himself critically while acting religiously, is a matter of daily routine to Wiman. The resulting double-edged

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Interestingly, this self-experience comes very close to the way E. Husserl described the self: it ‘is an ineluctable focus of intentionality toward the world of experience’. Quoted from Charles D. Laughlin, ‘The Self: A Transpersonal Neuroanthropological Account’, in: International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 32 (2013) no.1, 100-116, here 110 (he uses the word ‘ego’ in the original for ‘self’, but the word ‘ego’ is used in a value-neutral and descriptive sense, just as we use the word ‘self’ here). Cf. also: ‘All that remains of my self is an enduring point of view always present within the stream of consciousness, a point of view that is devoid of content, and yet is identical to the unity of each moment of consciousness’ (ibid., 110) Or: ‘the self-construal is an adaptational process no different than adaptation to other aspects of extramental reality’ (ibidem) made possible by the prefrontal lobes of the cortex. Cf. ‘part of that change [that Christ brings] is the ability to see your life as a whole (…) rather than a desperate, fragmented man’ (148). Cf. ‘reality is the only possibility of God’, not ‘consciousness’ which is ‘a setting apart from reality’ (20). Or: ‘We feel God in the coming and going of God – or no, the coming and coming of consciousness (God is constant)’ (28). Cf. e.g. ‘Christ is God crying I am here’ (121) and the quotations supra in n.22.

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experience of this attitude is humorously and sharply captured by Kavanagh – another favourite poet of his (78): Having confessed, he feels that he should go down on his knees and pray for forgiveness for his pride, for having dared to view his soul from the outside.

Typically modern in this devotion is that the human predicament is not primarily sin (Wiman distances himself from the word), but rather feelings of loneliness and anxiety, or separation and confusion.34 Doubt and innate uncertainty are constituent factors of this spirituality. But his doubt lacks the irony of postmodernism. Wiman takes position by using two words at the same time. He is both modern and a believer, he lives with skepsis and with faith. This may sound clear, but the truth of this answer cannot easily be ascertained or held in equilibrium. Permanent doubt remains. So Wiman comes to ‘the vital and futile truth that to live in faith is like the Jesus lizard, quick and nimble on the water into which a moment’s pause would make it sink’ (164). This is not necessarily bad, though. In the tradition of the mystics Wiman can even speak of ‘devotional doubt’ (76). This is a doubt marked by humility, insufficiency and mystery, not by the static, self-enthralled and self-assured position of the ironical bystander. We should distinguish between fruitful and cheap doubt: ‘You know the validity of your doubt by the quality of the disquiet that it produces in you’ (75). This means that modern skepticism is not embraced or rejected, but dialectically made fruitful for a life-embracing spirituality. Wiman contests that the real question about truth can only be answered by one’s own sweat and blood. It is impossible to find the answer to life by watching it or merely thinking it. One has to live it. No theory, no religious doctrine, no modern irony will enable us to really know anything. Knowing implies loving and bleeding. Knowing means participating in the heaven and hell of life itself. That is to say that in the end, fragmentation is not just a character trait of modernity anymore, it is the reality of life itself. We live in a fractured world and we are fractured people. Semantically this would mean that we are broken people. But in reality this is not true, because by fully participating in this fractured life, we are participating in the life of Christ. 34

E.g. ‘one wants / in the end / just once / to befriend / ones own / loneliness, / to make / of the ache / of inwardness (…)/ something’ (129). And: ‘Anxiety comes from the self as ultimate concern, from the fact that the self cannot bear this ultimate concern’ (93). See further 93-94, 98, 104, 107-108, 128-129, 155-156, 183. Charles Taylor calls it a typically modern (and romantic) discomfort caused by a loss of transcendence (A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007, 307ff; cf. Iemke Epema, Niets gaat ooit verloren: Transcendentie en transformatie in het denken van Charles Taylor, Middelburg: Skandalon, 2018, 117).

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It was the story of Christ, especially the story of his death and resurrection, which started to make sense to Wiman. Here he found adequate ideas of the extremes of joy and grief (91, 132-135, 155). This means that his fractured self can also be called a crucified self, partaking as it is in the crucified and abandoned Christ.35 Here we find the point of departure to faith: ‘I do understand – or intuit, rather – the notion of God not above or beyond or immune to human suffering, but in the very midst of it’ (134). And only by fully participating in this life do we discover that our worst fear, to be all alone, does not come true (155). This implies that the autonomous and caged subject is also fractured in another sense than we said before. It is fractured in the sense that it is cracked and opened in the crucible of the death of Christ in which it receives real life, not by denying the fractures, but by fully living and experiencing them. Paradoxically this will not break a person, but lead him to his goal, to life itself and the source of life, God. One important corollary must be mentioned: if this is the case, the fractured self is, by definition, not a modern problem that needs to be remedied by some sort of therapy (a psychological or a communitarian form of identity building, for instance), but it remains an experiential source of lasting spiritual insight.36 This is why, after a long voyage, the book can end where it began: My God my bright abyss into which all my longing will not go once more I come to the edge of all I know and believing nothing believing this.

These are exactly the same words as the poem with which the work began. But there is a difference. The last line has a full stop and not a colon anymore. In the end this fragment is enough. This fracture means life. Epilogue Wiman’s is a strong, modern voice in the field of spirituality. He reminds us partly of Thomas Merton, but he is more modern in the sense that his self shows 35

36

Remarkably, Wiman does not engage with the famous line from the apostle Paul, which is often quoted by mystical writers, ‘I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:19-20 NRSV). Paul’s way of thinking (not limited to this one quotation, of course) is so germane to what Wiman says about the implications of the death and resurrection of Christ for the self! Cf. Simon Butticaz, The Construction of Paul’s Self in his Writings, supra n.2. Cf. ‘if God has no relation to your experience, if God is not in your experience, then experience is always an end in itself, and always, I think, a dead end’ (58).

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much more doubt and insecurity. The sure way in which Merton can still speak about our ‘supernaturally revealed religion’37 cannot be found in Wiman’s thinking. Wiman’s self reflects the fractures in and of our modern culture. But he does not give in to them. He keeps knocking on the door of reality. At last, he finds himself invited to enter into its bright abyss. Here, in the paradoxes of abandonment and hope, his self is shaped.

37

E.g. in A Thomas Merton Reader, ed. Thomas P. McDonnell, New York etc.: Doubleday, 1989 (rev. ed.), 302.

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