Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods 9789042951457, 9789042951464, 9042951451

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KEES WAAIJMAN SPIRITUALITY Forms, Foundations, Methods

PEETERS 2023

SPIRITUALITY Forms, Foundations, Methods

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

STUDIES IN SPIRITUALITY Supplement 8

SPIRITUALITY Forms, Foundations, Methods

Kees Waaijman

Translator: John Vriend∞∞†

PEETERS LEUVEN - PARIS - BRISTOL, CT 2023

This book was published in hardcover in 2002. A catalogue record of this book is available from the Library of Congress. © Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven 2023 ISBN 978-90-429-5145-7 eISBN 978-90-429-5146-4 D/2023/0602/42 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.

CONTENT INTRODUCTION

1

Familiarity with the multiform phenomenon of lived spirituality is a prerequisite if we are to reflect meaningfully on such questions as: What is spirituality? and: How can we properly study this reality? PART I: FORMS

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SPIRITUALITY

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Within the area of lived spirituality we can distinguish three basic forms: lay spirituality, which is realized in the context of the family; schools of spirituality, which manifest themselves in the public domain; countermovements, which occur outside of the cultural and religious consensus. 1. Lay spirituality 18 2. Schools of spirituality 116 3. Countermovements 212 PART 2: FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH

305

The core question is, What in fact is spirituality? We will attempt to give an answer to this question from within two perspectives: from within lived spirituality and from within the discipline of spirituality. Our study leads to the following conclusion: Materially, spirituality is the jointed process of the divine-human relation which is, formally, a layered process of transformation. The methodology used is developed on the basis of this definition. Here, too, lived spirituality makes its own contribution. 1. Spirituality understood in the light of its praxis 313 2. Spirituality viewed in the light of its science 367 3. Divine-human transformation – The object of research 425 4. Discernment – A blueprint for the method 483 5. Design for the discipline of spirituality 516 PART 3: METHODS

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SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH

593

From the foundational research we acquire the main lines of method for our study of spirituality: the description of spiritual forms and configurations;

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CONTENT the interpretation of spiritual texts; systematic reflection on spiritual topics; clarification of spiritual processes of transformation. 1. Form-descriptive research 600 2. Hermeneutic research 689 3. Systematic research 774 4. Mystagogic research 869

INDICES 1. Abbreviations 2. Name Index 3. Subject Index

947 947 949 957

INTRODUCTION Spirituality as we have defined it touches the core of our human existence: our relation to the Absolute. This relation is variously described in the spiritual traditions. It is called: emanation from the One; creation by the all-good God; acceptance in Grace; being clothed with the way of Love; the way of Enlightenment; ultimate Deliverance. Biblically-oriented traditions express it by saying: man has been created in God’s image in order to grow toward conformity with God. In our daily life, as a rule, spirituality is latently present as a quiet force in the background, an inspiration and an orientation. Sometimes, however, it forces its way into our consciousness as an inescapable Presence, a presence which demands shaping and thorough reflection. It would appear that in the last few decades numerous people have experienced something of this kind. Spiritual centers have mushroomed. A lively book trade has grown around spirituality and mysticism. Numerous people have become fascinated by religious topics outside of the religious mainstream. Spirituality is frequently referred to or dealt with in the media. Spiritual countermovements have made themselves felt: environmental, liberation, peace, and feminist spirituality are clamoring for attention. Similar developments can be observed in the churches. The World Council of Churches, beginning in 1948, has integrated a concern for spirituality into a full range of activities.1 Post-Vatican II renewal in the Catholic Church has to a high degree been fueled by a growing interest in spirituality.2 Spirituality occupies an important place, not only within the churches,3 but also between the churches, and in interreligious dialogue.4

1 A. van der Bent, The Concern for Spirituality. An Analytical and Bibliographical Survey of the Discussion within the WCC Constituency, in: Ecumenical Review 38 (1986), 101-114. 2 J. Conn, Books on Spirituality in: Theology Today 39 (1982), 65-68; E. Megyer, Theological Trends. Spiritual Theology Today, in: The Way 21 (1981), 55-67; E. Cousins, Spirituality. A Resource for Theology, in: Proceedings of the Annual Convention (Catholic Theological Society of America) 35 (1980), 124-137. 3 H. Barth, Spiritualität, Göttingen 1993; Spirituality in Interfaith Dialogue, (Ed. T. Arai & W. Ariarajah), Geneva 1989. 4 E. Cousins, ibid., 124-125; W. Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love. Mysticism and Religion, London 1978; B. Butler, Just Spirituality in a World of Faiths, London 1996; M. Jaoudi, Christian and Islamic Spirituality. Sharing a Journey, Mahwah (NJ) 1993; A Parliament of Souls. In Search of a Global Spirituality. Interviews with 28 Spiritual Leaders from around the World, (Ed. M. Tobias,

2

INTRODUCTION Those who have carefully followed developments within today’s culture will be fully aware of the breadth and power of the “spirituality phenomenon” in almost every part of the world. In the West various theories have been developed to explain it. Some see it as a natural and even necessary culmination of the psychoanalytic movement inaugurated by Freud. Others attribute it to the final disillusionment with the Enlightenment’s faith in progress, disillusionment generated by the wars of the 20th century. Still others construe it as a response to the meaninglessness of existence in a mass culture. And some believe it is the proper name for the wholesome breeze which entered through the windows opened by Vatican II. Whatever its cause(s), no one can deny its grip on the contemporary imagination.5

Parallel to the phenomenon of lived spirituality we observe a revival in the study of spirituality. Programs have been developed for students who wish to specialize in the study of spirituality.6 Added to the classic French reference work Dictionnaire de spiritualité we now have also the Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle and World Spirituality. After the Sources chrétiennes, the Classics of Western Spirituality and Sources of American Spirituality made their debut. Each of these series is of a high scientific caliber. The Bibliographia internationalis spiritualitatis annually makes mention of hundreds of studies.7 One can truthfully say: The academic discipline which studies the lived experience of spirituality has developed rapidly in the past 30 years….. I note here two indications of its power and direction. The first is the proliferation in the academy of courses and programs in spirituality. The graduates of these programs are increasingly being invited to teach in their area of expertise, a sign that interest in the field at the undergraduate level is also increasing. The second indication of the development of the discipline is the extraordinary burgeoning of publications, especially of research tools, in the field of spirituality.8

The present study belongs to the category of research tools. It is an introduction to the study of spirituality which deals with the following questions: (1) How does lived spirituality present itself in its multiformity? (2) How can the “spirituality phenomenon” be defined? (3) What methodology has to be developed J. Morrison et al.), San Francisco 1995; L. Sita, Worlds of Belief. Religion and Spirituality, Woodbridge (CT) 1996; M. Piantelli, La spiritualità delle grandi religioni, Palermo 1989. 5 S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Modern Christian Spirituality. Methodological and Historical Essays, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990, 35-36. 6 A few examples: the doctoral programs in spirituality at the Gregorian in Rome, the Catholic University in Nijmegen, the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Fordham University in New York, Institut Catholique in Paris, Institut für Spiritualität in Münster. 7 We will encounter these reference works, series, bibliographies, and monographs in part 3, chapter 3.3. 8 S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, ibid., 18-19.

INTRODUCTION

3

in order for us to examine this area of reality thus documented and conceptualized? With these three questions we have sketched the basic outline of our introduction. Before canvassing this plan in detail, we will first roughly explore the field of spirituality with the aid of the 25-volume reference work World Spirituality.9 It is subdivided in five sections: (1) 5 volumes dealing with the indigenous spiritualities of Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and the three Americas (South, Central, and North); (2) 15 volumes dealing with the spiritual traditions of the Far East (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism), the Middle East (Zoroastrianism, the Sumerian, Assyro-Babylonian, and Hittite spiritualities) and the Mediterranean region (Egyptian, Greek, and Roman spiritualities), Jewish (including biblical), Christian, and Islamic spiritualities; (3) 2 volumes dealing with contemporary currents (esoteric and secular); (4) the interreligious dialogue on the subject of spirituality; (5) a dictionary of world spirituality. The fundamental concept which underlies this reference work is described as follows: The series focuses on that inner dimension of the person called by certain traditions “the spirit.” This spiritual core is the deepest center of the person. It is here that the person is open to the transcendent dimension; it is here that the person experiences ultimate reality. The series explores the discovery of this core, the dynamics of its development, and its journey to the ultimate goal. It deals with prayer, spiritual direction, the various maps of the spiritual journey, and the methods of advancement in the spiritual ascent.10

This fundamental concept is elaborated in a methodology – forged in an interdisciplinary fashion – which results in “a new discipline in the field of religion, the discipline of spirituality. In the context of modern scholarship, this discipline has not been extricated from the history of religions, the philosophy of religion, and theology.”11 Specialists in this field are divided over the central focus and distinct methodology, but in the reality of life as it is lived spirituality is a clearly distinguishable corpus of forms, behaviors, texts, and topics, with its own forms of schooling and transmission, even though all these features do not furnish it a place of its own in the academic world. The transmission of spiritual wisdom may be the oldest discipline in human history. Yet this ancient discipline needs to be accorded its own place in academic studies; at the same time it must integrate the findings of other disciplines such 9 World Spirituality. An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, (Ed. E. Cousins), New York, beginning in 1985. 10 E. Cousins, Preface, in: Christian Spirituality. Origins to the Twelfth Century (WS 16), London 1986, xiii. 11 Ibid., xiii.

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INTRODUCTION

as psychology, sociology, and critical historical research. The challenge of this series, then, has been to develop the academic methods, skills, and tools appropriate for this corpus of wisdom.12 World Spirituality conceives spirituality within the perspective of the global context in which the editors see emerging a new discipline, a “global spirituality” which stands out vis-à-vis the old mode of operation which usually scans its horizons from the perspective of one tradition or one era. The series aims to work “in a comprehensive geographic and historical context.”13 The expectation is “that the meeting of spiritual paths – the assimilation not only of one’s own spiritual heritage but of that of the human community as a whole – is the distinctive spiritual journey of our time.”14 Within the scope of just a few pages World Spirituality here lists four problem areas of importance for the study of spirituality. 1. The editors broaden the field of spirituality in three directions: (a) considerable space is assigned to indigenous spiritualities over against dominant spiritual traditions (in a ratio of 5 to 15). In that way justice is done to the less institutionalized forms of spirituality. (b) The field of the larger spiritual traditions is competently and representatively mapped out by a staff of approximately 500 scholars who know these traditions from the inside. With that, Euro-American dominance, which always slumbers beneath the surface, is broken, at least in principle. (c) Space is reserved for present-day spiritual currents in the Northern hemisphere: esoteric traditions which up until now have been suppressed by the dominant traditions and by a one-sided technical-scientific rationality, as well as secular forms of spirituality in which the usual religious nomenclature is absent. 2. The editors take a laconic view of the matter of definition. They proceeded on the basis of “a working hypothesis” about which there was “a consensus among the editors.”15 This working hypothesis, which we cited above, embraces a considerable number of decisions. (a) Spirituality is conceived as a polar structure: the relation of the human person (inner dimension, spirit, spiritual core, deepest center) to a transcendent dimension (ultimate reality, ultimate goal). (b) this relation is not a static structure, but a dynamic process (discovery, development, journey, spiritual ascent). (c) This spiritual process is fostered by specific means (prayer, spiritual direction, maps, methods). This working hypothesis functions as a broad framework within which “it was left to each tradition to clarify its own understanding of the meaning of the term ‘spirituality.’”16 However 12

Ibid., xiii. Ibid., xiv. 14 Ibid., xv. 15 Ibid., xiii. 16 Ibid., xiii. 13

INTRODUCTION

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laconically this working hypothesis is launched, it seems to us that for such a comprehensive reference work, which aims to found a new discipline and provide a basis for interreligious dialogue, a well-argued definition of spirituality should not be missing. 3. Methodologically, the study of spirituality is approached from two sides. On the one side, there is the interdisciplinary perspective: “drawing from psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, theology, and other disciplines where these intersect spirituality.”17 From the other side, the study of spirituality is seen as an independent discipline amidst the academic sciences from which it must extricate itself, specifically from the discipline of the history and philosophy of religion and theology. Hidden beneath this methodological option is a difficult question: how can the scientific description (“statute”) of the study of spirituality be developed so that the fragmenting and centrifugal effect of its interdisciplinary character remains in balance with the synthesizing and centripetal force of its development as a distinct discipline? 4. This reference work positions itself within the globalization process which is occurring especially from the direction of the northern hemisphere and in large part coincides with an advancing process of Americanization. It is within this globalization process that interreligious dialogue is taking place. Within this framework the editors of World Spirituality view the emergence of a new discipline called “global spirituality.”18 With a view to this end, the perspective of a single tradition or a single era has to be integrated in “a comprehensive geographic and historical context.” Here we witness the juxtaposition of two extremes: the particular (one tradition or one era) versus the universal (global, comprehensive). This contrast raises three questions: Are not all traditions in fact the resultant of an ongoing dialogue? Is an era not by definition the result of a unifying backward look? (2) Do not the words “global” and “comprehensive” strongly suggest association with the era of the 19th-century claims to universality, and do they not represent – to the extent they interpret a North-American ideal – a particular “tradition”? (3) Is it not the dialogue itself which constitutes the broadening of our horizon? Have we not entered the region of universal validity the moment we let go of our own particular perspective in the dialogue? The editors of World Spirituality seem to understand this fact, since they describe and interpret interspiritual dialogue as a spiritual process: “It may well be that the meeting of spiritual paths (…) is the distinctive spiritual journey of our time.”19

17

Ibid., xiii. Ibid., xiii. 19 Ibid., xv. 18

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INTRODUCTION

Against the background of this global field exploration with the aid of World Spirituality we will now describe in detail the basic plan of our study. Part 1 is an introduction to the phenomenon of lived spirituality. Fifty-four forms (configurations, aspects, currents) of spirituality are described here. This material is divided over three main forms: lay spirituality, schools of spirituality and countermovements. Each main form encompasses six subforms which are concretized each time in three examples: an example from biblical spirituality, followed by an example from postbiblical times and a contemporary example. Each subform is described in such a way that its spirituality dimension stands out clearly. In the bibliography we will establish the link with the reference works and monographs. The subforms described derive from divergent spiritual traditions in different contexts. They concern institutions, movements, and persons. However varied these examples may be, they nevertheless constitute only a tiny pars pro toto by comparison with the actual riches of lived spirituality. Part 2 contains a definition of the material and formal object of the study of spirituality and a methodological plan. This foundational investigation builds on the material gathered in part 1: the description of lived spirituality in its multiformity is the basis for our reflection on the structure of the study of spirituality. This reflection did not begin with us. In the context of lived spirituality, long before us, people used the basic words which opened up the area of reality we call spirituality (material object). Long before us, systematic treatises were written which offered a profile of the study of spirituality (formal object). In foundational research we perform, step by step, the reflections necessary for the definitioin of the material and formal object of the study of spirituality and for the development of the methodology which fits this object. Our reflections lead to the conclusion that the object of the study of spirituality can be defined as: the divine-human relational process (material object) considered from the viewpoint of transformation (formal object). It is only when the research object has been defined that the question concerning method can be posed, inasmuch as the method follows the object. To that end we will first examine the prescientific method of reflection: discernment (diakrisis). Next we will ask which present-day methods most closely tie in with this prescientific method. The conclusion we reach is that the phenomenological approach, combined with the practice of dialogic thinking, provides us with the most appropriate methodology for the investigation of the spirituality phenomenon. Part 3 concretizes the methodology discovered along four lines of investigation. (1) Descriptive research aimed at the proper description of forms of spirituality: the contours of a form are established, its contextual embeddedness is described, its internal horizon is disclosed. In this form-descriptive research the study of spirituality collaborates, in interdisciplinary fashion, with historical,

INTRODUCTION

7

history-of-religion, and sociological disciplines. (2) Hermeneutic research, aimed at the interpretation of texts of spirituality: in a jointed process of interpretation the preunderstanding, textual constitution, textual execution, and content analysis are oriented to the orative and mystical dimension of the text and its spiritual appropriation. This hermeneutic research is done in interdisciplinary collaboration with the literary sciences. (3) Systematic research which is aimed at the analysis and synthesis of spiritual themes: in dialogue with the scientific forum we examine a specific spiritual theme. We engage in critical reflection on the categories employed, the style of argumentation, and the orientation of the argument. In this research we cooperate, in interdisciplinary fashion, with systematic theology and philosophy. (4) Mystagogic research which concerns processes of spiritual awakening and spiritual conduct: we examine moments of awakening in the relation to God with the aid of spiritual accompaniment and spiritual autobiographies. In this branch of research we work together, in interdisciplinary fashion, with the human sciences. The core of our study is constituted by the definition of the object. That which precedes this (the description of the forms of spirituality, the basic words which open up the field and the theoretical viewpoints which clarify the phenomenon) is directed to this definition. That which follows this (the methodological reflection and the scheme of the four lines of research) flows from this definition. Subsumed in a simple scheme, our study looks like this: Part 1 Forms of Spirituality

Part 2 Foundational Research

Part 3 Methods of Research

1. Lay Spirituality

1. Spirituality in the light of praxis

1. Descriptive research

2. Schools of Spirituality

2. Spirituality viewed from within the discipline

2. Hermeneutic research

3. Countermovements

3. Divine-human transformation: the object of research

3. Systematic research

4. Discernment: blueprint for the method

4. Mystagogic research

5. Plan for the discipline of spirituality

Our study is situated in the field of tension between lived spirituality and the study of spirituality. This is evident from the overall plan: first we introduce the area of reality called “lived spirituality.” On the basis of this account we reflect on the object and method of the study of spirituality which ends with the plan

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INTRODUCTION

of research. It is also evident from the parts: the definition of the object of the study of spirituality occurs, in part, on the basis of prescientific intuitions; the determination of the method occurs on the basis of the notion of “discernment” (diakrisis), a form of reflection which was developed in the domain of lived spirituality; each line of research in part 3 first analyzes the relevant area of lived spirituality (the spiritual biography, spiritual reading, the spiritual conference, spiritual accompaniment) and on that basis develops a scientific mode of operation (description, hermeneutics, systematics, mystagogy). Thus this study is composed, both as a whole and in its parts, from within the field of tension between lived spirituality and the study of spirituality. This field of tension is methodologically examined and considered in foundational research. There we discover the reasons which prompted us to take this position. For more than 30 years, the research which moves in the field of tension between lived spirituality and the study of spirituality – a method that is typical for a phenomenological approach – has been the paradigm on which the spirituality research of the Titus Brandsma Institute, founded in 1968 by the Catholic University of Nijmegen and the Carmelite Order, is modeled. Associated with the University and rooted in the realities of church and society, the Titus Brandsma Institute is engaged in historical-hermeneutic studies and foundational research in direct connection with academic instruction and the work of formation. A library for the study of spirituality was built up – and now contains more than 80,000 volumes and well over 100 periodicals specialized in this area. Studies in Spirituality, an annual periodical, which serves as an international forum for research in spirituality, is published by the Titus Brandsma Institute. Approximately 20 academic staff members (circa 10 fte.) are associated with this Institute. I dedicate this study to my fellow staffers at the Titus Brandsma Institute and to the full-time and part-time students who participated in our search expedition. I expressly want to thank Henk Rutten for his help in collecting the bibliographic data; Wendy Litjens for processing the text; Astrid van Engeland for preparing the indexes; and Ineke Wackers and Robert Manansala for correcting the text. Titus Brandsma Institute Nijmegen, 2002

PART 1 FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY INTRODUCTION 11 In lived spirituality three basic forms stand out: lay spirituality, institutional forms of piety, and counter-currents from the margin. 1. LAY SPIRITUALITY 18 Lay spirituality takes shape in one’s personal life history. It unfolds within the genealogical framework of the family and has its center in the home. The home protects intimacy and mediates between the inside and the outside world. 1.1. The coming-into-being of humans (anthropogenesis) 28 1.2. Upbringing and formation 44 1.3. The inwardness of the home 61 1.4. The spirituality of marriage 72 1.5. Mercy in mutual relations 86 1.6. Piety in the context of death and dying 101 116 2. SCHOOLS OF SPIRITUALITY Schools of spirituality are spiritual (sub)cultures with their own rituals and social conventions. Situated within the context of history and the public domain, they pass on to their pupils spiritual models which call for appropriation. 2.1. Spiritual ways 123 2.2. Liturgical spirituality 138 2.3. Religious communities 151 2.4. Spirituality and culture 166 2.5. Reformation 179 2.6. The opening-up of the future 195 3. COUNTERMOVEMENTS 212 Outside the framework of the standard pattern, people are inwardly touched by an all-deregulating Presence to which they totally entrust themselves. This Presence makes itself so strongly felt in their life that the existing order is affected by it. 3.1. Liberation spirituality 217 3.2. Devotion 233 3.3. Ant-agonists 247 3.4. Uprootedness 261 3.5. The spirituality of martyrs 276 3.6. Eschatological spirituality 291

INTRODUCTION In this part the reader will encounter 54 forms (configurations, movements, units) of spirituality which are intended as examples. By “example” we do not mean a spiritual example or model (Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, the life of a saint, or a rule) to which one seeks to conform and which one tries to appropriate inwardly.1 Nor do we mean a rhetorical means (parable, story, anecdote, legend, incident) which is used to influence the hearer.2 Or a didactic means which was used especially by mendicant brothers to render the great truths of faith accessible to simple believers,3 and which was regarded by rationalist philosophy (Wolff, Lessing, Kant) as merely an illustration (an additional means) of a concept that had already been acquired.4 By “example” we mean a form which is understood as a specific instance of a general rule. The example functions in a cognitive process which leads a person from perceptual acquaintance (nosse) to intellectual understanding (intelligere).5 This view has been developed especially in phenomenology. Edmund Husserl sees the “example” as a cognitive form which offers insight into the basic structure of a given area of reality. This cognitive process passes through three stages: (1) a concrete datum is selected as example; (2) given this example, an assortment of variations are placed next to or over it; (3) in and through the differences between the variations the invariable now stands out: the basic structure (essence, eidos).6 The 54 forms of spirituality presented in part 1 are intended as examples in the Husserlian sense: in their diversity they disclose the area of reality called spirituality. The forms of spirituality presented are divided in three basic groups. This division is based on the insight that spiritual forms move within a triangle. We encounter this triangle over and over in the various spiritual traditions: (1) lay spirituality which occurs in the context of the family; (2) institutional spirituality which typically manifests itself in distinct schools: (3) the counter-spirituality which, operating from the margins of society, impacts the established cadres.

1

Cf. P. Adnès, Exemple, in: DSp 4 (1960), 1878-1885; see part 2, chapter 3. Cf. H. Pétré, Exemplum. I. Époque patristique, in: DSp 4 (1960), 1885-1892; R. Cantel & R. Ricard, Exemplum. II. Moyen âge, ibid., 1892-1893. 3 R. Cantel & R. Ricard, ibid., 1893-1896. 4 See G. Buck, Beispiel, Exemple, exemplarisch, in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie I (1971), 820-822. 5 Ibid., 819. 6 For an extensive description, see part 2, chapter 5.3.1. 2

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In the various spiritual traditions this triangle bears various names, depending on the manner in which the triangle came about. Indian spirituality, for example, derives from Brahman spirituality which is rooted in Vedic culture and characterized by a complex system of sacrificial rituals in which the Brahman priests play an exclusive role. Buddhist monastic spirituality dissociated itself from this Brahman spirituality. Within Buddhist spirituality we subsequently see the emergence of a field of tension between the school which holds that Enlightenment is attainable only by the monastic state of life (hinayana) and the later movement which sees Enlightenment as available to all, monks as well as laymen (mahayana). Jewish spirituality shows a very different development. Here spirituality is traditionally realized in the field of tension between the piety of the family circle and the spirituality of the synagogue. From time to time, in opposition to these two forms, movements occur which distinguish themselves by extreme forms of piety (chassidut). In the Christian tradition “the three states” develop on the basis of lay spirituality. We will come back to this subject in a moment. Taoist spirituality broke away from the dominant Chinese culture by a radicalization of the notion of “way”: everything is sustained by the Way (tao) with which non-activity unites us. Later a lay spirituality secured a place for itself in this philosophical taoism via the movement of the Heavenly Masters, which is more practically religious in nature and offers the religious mind the perspective of immortality. In Islamic spirituality the many paths (tariqah) of the Sufi movement stand out against the great “way” (shari’ah) which lies in the field of tension between the believing people and their spiritual leaders. All in all, we can say that within the spiritual tradition, as a rule, three perspectives stand out which engage each other and between which a wide range of transitional forms occur: the perspective of the laity (families), the perspective of the institutions (schools) and the perspective of the margins (countermovements). We now want to enlarge upon these three positions with the aid of the Christian paradigm of the three states: laypersons, clerics, and religious. 1. The perspective of the laity According to Yves Congar, the history of Christianity shows clearly that “the situation of the laity has its own profile compared to the religious state or holy orders.”7 In what does that distinctive profile of the laity consist? Vatican I saw obedience as its distinguishing feature: “No one can deny that the church is a non-homogenous communion in which God has appointed some to command and others to obey. The latter are the lay people, the former the clergy.”8 This 7 Y. Congar, Laïc et laïcat, in: DSp 9 (1976), 103, with reference to Lumen Gentium, ch. 4, no. 31. 8 Supremi Pastores, ch. 10.

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hierarchical description degrades the laity to a derivative of the spiritual state.9 Vatican II, on the other hand, defines the profile of laypersons in terms of their situatedness in the secular world: “What specifically characterizes the laity is their secular nature.”10 Yves Congar adopts this position which, for that matter, was highly influenced by him: “It is by its secular nature that the situation of the laity is characterized. Through the laity the church is where the world is.”11 This profile, too, is unsatisfactory. After all, not only laypersons, but also the clergy are involved in the secular world – by way of juridical ties, economic interests, and political positions. A similar involvement applies, mutatis mutandis, to religious institutions. The factor of secularity is not sufficiently distinctive for the laity: the whole people of God is in the world. A third attempt at profiling the laity is based on etymology. The word “layperson” derives from laos (Gr.) which means “people.” From there the step to the biblical theological notion of “people of God” (laos tou theou) is only a small one. This distinction, however, is also untrue inasmuch as all groups (laypersons, priests, and religious) together form the one people of God. Sometimes scholars, starting with the notion of “people,” take another tack: that of popular piety. Granted, popular piety is internally directed by a devotionality which touches broad layers of the population by virtue of its concern for life: health, fertility, protection, and so forth.12 But it is clear as day that this devotionality is not typical only for laypersons. Our study will show that the area of reality covered by the term “lay spirituality” is determined by the following constants. (1) It has its Sitz-im-Leben in the context of the family: husband-wife, parents-children, household-extended family, home-neighborhood, and so forth. (2) The temporal dimension of this familiar context is genealogical in nature, dealing with generations, and not with the periodization of the official calendar. (3) The spatial dimension has its center in the home, which on the one hand facilitates the intimacy of the familial context, and on the other mediates the connections with public life (labor, possessions, socio-religious organization, hospitality, and the like). (4) The basic material of this spirituality arises from the course of a person’s life. Now, considering the area of reality we have just sketched, what is the most appropriate nomenclature? Several attempts at naming it can be considered. Rainer Albertz, in his study entitled Persönliche Frömmigkeit und offizielle Religion defines lay spirituality as follows: “When I speak of personal piety, I am referring to what happens between a human being and God in the context of 9 J. Fontaine, The Practice of Spiritual Life. The Birth of Laity, in: Christian Spirituality. Origins to the Twelfth Century (WS 16), London 1986, 453-454. 10 Lumen Gentium, ch. 4, no. 31. 11 Y. Congar, ibid., 105. 12 See part 1, ch. 3.2.

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FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY

the life of the family.”13 In the term “personal piety” a fourth characteristic comes to expression: one’s personal course of life. In the term “family piety” our first characteristic is described: the familial context. Some opt for the designation “the spirituality of everyday life,”14 in which association with the holy comes to expression. In this description our fourth point comes to the fore: the concrete world of everyday life as basic material for the encounter with God. But the specific temporal-spatial and relational setting then recedes into the background. At this moment we see no better term than “lay spirituality.” 2. The perspective of the clergy The word “clerus,” Latin for the Greek word “kleros,” means “lot” or “inheritance.” In the Christian tradition the word gradually acquired “the specific meaning of a domain assigned to the church, of a religious function” in order finally to denote “the body of persons charged with this function, the clergy.”15 It is important to keep this semantic shift clearly in mind: initially, the “clerus” refers to a domain that belongs to the community of faith and to the functions it carries out; in the second place it refers to the people who have devoted themselves to this domain and to those functions. We have gone a further step away from its origin when a historically formed group identifies itself with these functions. Thus Brahman priests, who initially performed the sacrificial rituals, gradually began to identify themselves with this function and became a class of people assured of a certain position. On the basis of this position they finally set themselves apart from others whom they subsumed in lower classes. At stake originally, however, was a religious domain (the sacrifice of the community) and the exercise of a function (the performance of the ritual of sacrifice). 13

R. Alberts, Persönliche Frömmigkeit und offizielle Religion, Stuttgart 1978, 11. See, for example, Weltfrömmigkeit. Grundlagen, Traditionen, Zeugnisse, (Ed. A. Zottl), Eichstatt-Wien 1985; D. Bergant, The World is a Prayerful Place. Spirituality and Life, Wilmington (Delaware) 1987; C. Burini, La spiritualità della vita quotidiana negli scritti dei Padri, Bologna 1988; G. Lyons, Holiness in Everyday Life, Kansas City (MO) 1992; O. Betz, Das Unscheinbare ist das Wunderbare. Spiritualität im Alltag, Eschbach 1994; Gott finden. Auf dem Weg zu einer Spiritualität des Alltags, (Ed. W. Rück), Würzburg 1994; E. Klinger, Das absolute Geheimnis im Alltag entdecken. Zur spirituellen Theologie Karl Rahners, Würzburg 1994; A. Bettinger, Leben im Alltag der Gegenwart. Herausforderung an die christliche Spiritualität. Grundlegung und Kriterien gegenwartsbezogener Alltags-Spiritualität, Würzburg 1995; A. Ciorra, Everyday Mysticism. Cherishing the Holy, New York 1995; P. van Breemen, Erfüllt von Gottes Licht. Eine Spiritualität des Alltags, Würzburg 1995; D. Tamburello, Ordinary Mysticism, New York 1996; M. Hirschauer, G. Lohr et al., Gott finden im Alltag. Exerzitien zu Hause, Freiburg 1996; L. Sexson, Gewoon heilig. De sacraliteit van het alledaagse, Zoetermeer 1997; J. Schreiner, Glaube im Alltag. Exerzitien als ein Weg zur christlichen Selbstverwirklichung, Frankfurt a.M.-Berlin etc. 1997; D. Marmion, A Spirituality of Everyday Faith, Louvain 1998; M. De Haardt, ‘Kom, eet mijn brood…’. Exemplarische verkenningen naar het goddelijke in het alledaagse, Nijmegen 1999. 15 T. Mugnier, Clericature, in DSp 2 (1953), 964. 14

INTRODUCTION

15

In our description of the “clerus” we proceed from the notions of “community domain” and “religious function.” In this setting of the community domain we can distinguish between “introverted” and “extraverted” functions which, however, continually interlock. Thus in ancient Israel there were priests who devoted themselves to the cult, wise men who in the schools gave instruction in divine wisdom, and prophets who gave insight into God’s purpose for his people. So in addition to a functioning inward there is an outward working. This outward effect is strikingly present in the early church with its missionary outreach. When we compare the domain of the “clerus” with that of lay spirituality, a number of things stand out. (1) The domain of the “clerus” has its Sitz-imLeben, not within familial relations, but in public spaces. (2) This domain’s sense of time is not genealogically conditioned but governed by its own periodization which tends to take the date of its own founding as the starting point of time. (3) The spatial dimension is not a house but the temple, the church, the synagogue, the monastery or the house of study. (4) Central here is not the course of life with its existential features but the spiritual role within the faith community. What is the most accurate name for this domain? The traditional term “clergy” is much too narrow for this area. Many non-clergy devote themselves with equal energy and commitment to the domain of the faith community. Think of the liturgy (the hours), the missionary mandate (mission congregations), the apostolate (education, the care of the sick), the pastorate (pastoral weekends, volunteers).16 Add to this still another kind of overlap: many clergy, like religious, view their devotion as total surrender and submission to God.17 All in all it does not seem correct to equate the domain of the clergy with the persons who inhabit this domain (kings, priests, religious, prophets, teachers, pastors, evangelists, apostles, founders of institutions, and reformers). It is better to describe the domain with an institutional term. We opt for the name “schools of spirituality.” These schools can be larger or smaller and extend over a longer or shorter period. They do not have their Sitz primarily in familial relations but in public life. Their temporal-spatial dimension cannot be broken up into periods, certainly when it concerns the larger schools. The fundamental focus of the school is the pupils who are prepared to let the course of their life be transformed by the spiritual model offered by the school. 3. The perspective of the religious In the early centuries of Christianity Christian spirituality was practiced within the perspective of lay piety, motivated by eschatological expectation and the 16 For the office of the layperson after Vatican II and lay leadership, see E. Sellner, Lay Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 592-595. 17 See F. Mugnier, ibid., 965-966.

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FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY

transformation of martyrdom. “Precisely for this reason scholars speak of family asceticism as the most extensive form of premonastic asceticism.”18 In the third century the specific position of the monk became distinctive vis-à-vis the church community. This moment is aptly characterized in a remarkable saying: “In all ways a monk should flee women and bishops.”19 In this saying the bishops represent the Christian church community of the third century in which the ascetic had been unable to secure a place.20 The “women” stand for family-life (marrying, having children, pursuing an occupation, conforming to social standards, and the usual duties of a citizen). Together the “bishop” and the “wife” stand for the two dimensions of early Christian life: the church and the family. For the sake of his calling the monk must flee both, not in protest, but because in neither of these two settings does he have a place. The withdrawal (anachoresis) of the monk in a spatial way expresses the unique perspectives of the religious life: to withdraw from the common order. This area, which exists outside the boundaries of organized and organizable life, is populated by martyrs, desert folks, mendicant brothers, hermits, buffoons, fools, members of resistance movements, and dissidents. Striking here is that precisely outside of the institutional patterns sources of spirituality are discovered which are sometimes channeled in the course of only one generation, so that many people within the established order can find nourishment in them. In the course of time, however, these sources are so surrounded with regulations that they get blocked and the earlier spirituality is only still visible as a petrified trail. We see how this happened in ancient Israel. Israel’s spirituality originated as a liberation movement. Between 1200 and 1000 B.C. displaced persons, slaves, oppressed farmers and shepherds were motivated by a single passion: get away from Egyptian domination! In this connection they felt moved by the Spirit of Be-er21 who had made himself known to Moses as “I am: I am there!” When around 1000 B.C. this liberation movement settled down in the state of Israel under the house of David, a process of institutionalization began which ended in the exile, where everything again started from the beginning. We observe a similar process in Christianity. Early Christianity originated in the margins of the Jewish religion and the Roman state. The first few centuries were marked by persecution and martyrdom. From the third century on we see a process of institutionalization. Clerical spirituality moved toward the center of power. The religious life withdrew into the desert. When we compare the third basic form of spirituality with lay spirituality and the schools of spirituality, we note the following points: (1) That which is 18

K. Frank, Geschichte des christlichen Mönchtums, Darmstadt, 19935, 15. John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes 11, 18, London, 1999, 170. 20 Ibid., 11, 16, London, 1999, 169. 21 For a defense of this translation of the tetragrammaton YHWH, see part 2, ch. 3.1. 19

INTRODUCTION

17

originally religious takes place outside the prevailing patterns. It is an occurrence outside of the [public] order, not in order to stay there but in order, from that base, to influence the established order. (2) There is no way one can calculate time by the accepted measures of time. It happens when it happens. In the case of far-reaching experiences, they themselves afterwards serve as chronological marking points. (3) The spatial dimension is that of the desert, the “unplace,” the place of uprootedness. (4) The material of what happens is the human person as a person of limitless availability. What would be a true name for this basic form of spirituality? The traditional term “the religious state” is meaningful only when “religious” is understood here in its original sense: martyr, desert-dweller, beggar, the homeless, and so forth. In reality, by far the largest majority of the actually religious live in schools of spirituality. Also juridically most of them define themselves in terms of devotion to the ecclesiastical domain. To avoid overlappings we opt for the term “countermovements”: we are primarily talking about movements, after all, not institutions. These movements are fueled by contacts with the religious. As a result of being “touched,” the movements impact both lay spirituality and schools of spirituality, which, by the way, do not remain unaffected and unmoved by this impact. Usually they translate these countermovements in a school. The description of the three basic forms of spirituality is arranged in such a way that from each of them six subforms are treated. These subforms contain examples from the past and the present, and from different spiritual traditions. The arrangement here, accordingly, is not historical in the sense that we treat the subforms along the lines of successive periods. The disadvantage inherent in such an historical arrangement is that, given that arrangement, lay spirituality will be shortchanged from the beginning. Lay piety occurs in a different timeframe from that of the schools of spirituality. Something similar is true for the countermovements: although their contextuality is obvious, their historicity is diametrically opposed to the time sense of the institution of which they are the counter image.22

22

For a study in greater depth of the relationship spirituality-historicity, see part 2, ch. 2.2.4.

CHAPTER 1 LAY SPIRITUALITY INTRODUCTION 19 Lay spirituality, which is realized within a genealogical time span and characterized by a sociality which has its spatial center in the home, takes shape in the course of a person’s life. 1.1. THE COMING-INTO-BEING OF HUMANS (ANTHROPOGENESIS) 28 Not only the beginning of life is a mysterious occurrence: we realize the transition from non-being to being every moment. 1.1.1. “My Mighty One” 29 1.1.2. Divine birth 32 1.1.3. Life’s passage(s) and spirituality 34 Bibliography 42 1.2. UPBRINGING AND FORMATION 44 From generation to generation parents and educators are concerned about the spiritual formation of their children in the hope that their personal core will achieve full maturity. 1.2.1. Follow the torah of your parents 48 1.2.2. Education according to De la Salle 52 1.2.3. The spiritual dimension in education 54 Bibliography 59 61 1.3. THE INWARDNESS OF THE HOME The home unfolds as inwardness: here life turns in upon itself, the generations meet, intimacy flourishes, and the interior and exterior blend 1.3.1. Living together in tents 62 1.3.2. A house in the city 65 1.3.3. The home as inwardness 68 Bibliography 71 1.4. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MARRIAGE 72 In mutuality the “vis-à-vis” of love opens up. It is an adumbration of the love of God which seeks to embody itself in marriage. 1.4.1. “Male and female created He them” 73 1.4.2. Marriage mysticism in the Kabbala 76 1.4.3. Marriage as a dialogical reality 81 Bibliography 85

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1.5. MERCY IN MUTUAL RELATIONS 86 Mercy is the soul of mutual relations. This is especially experienced when these relations are threatened by injustice or increasing social isolation. 1.5.1. The patient as central figure 89 1.5.2. The good (merciful) Samaritan 92 1.5.3. Merciful care 96 Bibliography 100 101 1.6. PIETY IN THE CONTEXT OF DEATH AND DYING The last days of life, death, and burial evoke reflection and reverence. Reverence in dealing with the dead translates into comfort for the bereaved. 1.6.1. Sarah’s death and burial 103 1.6.2. The passage to eternal life 106 1.6.3. Face to face with death 109 Bibliography 115

Introduction Sellner, in his survey article Lay Spirituality, correctly states: “Christian spirituality has taken many forms throughout the centuries. One important form, consistently overlooked and unappreciated, is lay spirituality.”1 This neglect is understandable: the area of lay spirituality – in contrast with the schools of spirituality and the countermovements – has scarcely been documented; the form of its tradition is mainly oral; it has no monumental buildings (monasteries; cathedrals) and libraries; it does not propagate itself in followers who live by a set of rules.2 To open up the area of lay spirituality we will look at things from three perspectives. The first is diachronic: we will attempt to trace lay spirituality in the context of Jewish-Christian spirituality. The second is synchronic: we will attempt to gain an idea of the so-called indigenous spiritualities. The third is systematic in nature: we will analyze the 2-volume reference work Dizionario di spiritualità dei laici (1981). 1. A diachronic perspective By way of an historical sketch we will attempt to picture the phenomenon of lay spirituality.3 In the early period of biblical spirituality lay spirituality is dominant. 1

E. Sellner, Lay Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 589. B. Kelly, Lay Spirituality. Its Theory and Practice, London 1980; V. Finn, Pilgrims in This World. A Lay Spirituality, New York 1990; R. Garcia-Mateo, Teologia spirituale. Il laicato, Rome 1995. 3 For historical overviews, see Y. Congar, Laïc et laïcat, in: DSp 9 (1976), 79-108; A Barruffo, Laïc, in: DVSp (1983), 611-613; A. Erba, Storia del laico, in: DSL (1981), 369-393; E. Sellner, ibid., 589-593. 2

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In the period of the kings it is forced into the background by official religiosity in order in the exile to again become a factor in the survival of Israel’s spirituality. In Christian spirituality we observe a comparable undulatory movement. In the early centuries lay spirituality predominated. As the church developed in the Roman empire and the Europe that was coming into being, it was pushed into the background. In the 20th century it again came into the foreground, this time as an important factor in the survival of Christian spirituality. The patriarchal period. In his study Persönliche Frommigkeit und offizielle Religion mentioned above, Rainer Albertz shows how, in the context of the family, which in the patriarchal stories (Gen. 12-50) is the sustaining form of community, a kind of personal (not individualistic) piety was cultivated. This spirituality was defined by a relation to God in which God is called “my Mighty One,” that is, in which God is addressed as the God who shapes everyone in his or her mother’s womb, causes them to be born and leads them throughout life. This is evident from their proper names, prayers, and stories. This personal relation to God is experienced within the spirituality of the community as a whole: at the time of birth and death, on the occasion of the naming and the weaning of the child, in the child’s upbringing and at the time of marriage, upon entering new pasture grounds and leaving them, at the time of sickness and dangers, in the context of assemblies and mutual helpfulness. This form of spirituality obtains its religious connections from “the field of experience in which it belongs: the family. What an individual person hopes for and experiences from God has its frame of reference in what he has experienced in the years of his childhood from his parents in terms of love, affection, and security.”4 The period of the kings. In the period in which families united in tribal associations which broke the supremacy of Egypt and the Canaanite city states,5 as well as in the period of the state of Israel under the Davidic dynasty,6 lay spirituality was pushed into the background. The official religion which was “primarily activated in the annual festivals (macro-cultic) of the great sanctuaries”7 became dominant. Lay spirituality, however, characteristically remained distinct from Yahwist religion and its official institutions.8 In stories, prayers, and names the personal relation to God was continued within the frame of reference of the family. The exile. When the great story of the official religion lost its credibility as a result of the destruction of Jerusalem (587 B.C.), “the piety of the family was 4 5 6 7 8

R. Albertz, Persönliche Frömmigkeit und offizielle Religion, Stuttgart 1978, 76. For this, see part 1, chapter 3.1. For this, see part 1, chapter 2.1. R. Albertz, ibid., 12. Ibid., 92.

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much less affected by it” and “now gained a significance for the people as a whole which far surpassed the family circle.”9 We observe how lay spirituality supplied the matrix for the survival of the crisis of the exile.10 Exilic texts show paradigmatically how personal piety can take over a decisive function from official religion when the latter has entered a crisis.”11 The post-exilic period. Following the exile lay spirituality continued to play an important role.12 We can see that in deuteronomic spirituality. Aside from the ordinances which apply to the people as a whole, there are rules for the family: the house that has to be built and in which the family lives; agriculture; family life, mutual solidarity; upbringing; fertility and birth; sickness and death.13 Also the second temple makes space for the perspective of lay piety, as we can see in the collection of pilgrim songs (Pss. 120-124).14 In the exile, moreover, a new spiritual form had developed: the house of study. The foundation of the house of study was the ability to read. Now then, after the destruction of the Second Temple, this form of learning as well as the fact that the elite had lost its infrastructure (the temple) were to see to it that Jewish spirituality would predominantly remain a lay spirituality. The early centuries of Christianity. In early Christianity lay spirituality predominated. Jesus and his first disciples were laypersons. This laic element was reinforced by the fact that they found themselves far from the temple in “the Galilee of the Gentiles.” The first Christian churches, certainly in the diaspora, were little groups which formed house churches. They experienced the community of believers as a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9). All without distinction participated in the body of Christ (1 Cor.).15 In the first century of Christianity the conviction prevailed that all the baptized formed the church: all took part in the life of the church, practiced theology as well as their personal charism. The people was the subject of the liturgy. After 313 A.D. the laity stood out as those who introduced Christianity into all levels of the Roman Empire. The Middle Ages. Beginning in the early Middle Ages, we witness the rise to dominance of a dichotomy between those who were directly connected with Christ and heaven (clergy and religious) and the others (the lay people) who were permitted the use of earthly goods: possession and marriage. Gilbert of Lemerich regarded the church as a pyramid: “wide at the bottom where it embraces those who are carnal and those who are married, but narrow at the top 9

Ibid., 165. Ibid., 178-190. 11 Ibid., 169. 12 Ibid., 190-198. 13 Ibid., 169-178. 14 K. Seybold, Die Wallfahrtpsalmen, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1978. 15 E. Sellner, Lay Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 590. 10

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where it points out the narrow path to religious and consecrated folk.”16 The top people are the “spiritual” ones who devote themselves to spiritual matters, the folk at the bottom are the “carnal” ones who occupy themselves with temporal matters. Lay people are unlettered and non-spiritual inasmuch as they are married. Yet a married person can be holier than a mediocre monk, and lay people were also shown a spiritual roadmap!17 In addition, people held on to the principle that all, by virtue of baptism, belong to the body of Christ. Beginning in the 12th century, as a result of the democratization of education, a shift occurred in the status of the laity. Translations of important works were made in the vernacular. The “spirituals” (Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Ruusbroec; modern devotion) expressed themselves in the vernacular and made room for feeling and experience. “Outside of the traditional monastic and clerical cadres, lay people began to affirm themselves as Christian and spiritual. These are the initial moments in which the affirmation of a laical sentiment awakens.”18 This awakening consciousness was sustained by developments in the culture: urbanization, the rise of the universities, awakening humanism, the rise of commerce and industry. Lay movements arose which were destined to reform the religious and clerical life from within. Reformation and humanism. The reformers brought lay spirituality back to its central core: all Christians are priests. The distinction between laypersons, priests and monks can no longer be justified. In Christ there is no difference. Every person must serve God in accordance with his or her state in life. One’s profession or occupation is also one’s calling (1 Cor. 7:20-21). The spirituality of the layperson is given a fresh impulse by the humanism which affirms the dignity of man as its central teaching. In light of the idea of a really interiorized Christianity, a person like Erasmus integrated the classic view of man with the Christian person who is totally focused on God. Despite the Council of Trent, which stressed the laity-clergy dichotomy, certain basic lines of lay spirituality persisted: all the baptized are consecrated and called to holiness; every state of life offers the opportunity to conform oneself to the will of God; marriage is a positive value; the introduction of mental prayer; participation in the apostolate.19 Nineteenth and twentieth century. During the last two centuries the position of the laity has fundamentally changed, in part also by the changing position of the church in the world. As a result of processes of industrialization, urbanization and social massification, the church was marginalized in a secularizing world. The hierarchy began to protect the mass of beloved believers from dangers, errors, and illusions by developing a Catholic “pillar” of its own and by promoting 16

Gilbertus Lunicensis, De statu Ecclesiae (PL 159, 997 A). Y. Congar, Laïc et laïcat, in: DSp 9 (1976), 86-87. 18 Ibid., 90. 19 Ibid., 94-98. 17

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many devotions.20 At the same time it was above all the lay people who by way of an assortment of Catholic organizations began to make the church present in the world: Catholic schools, Catholic universities, Catholic hospitals, Catholic sports organizations, and so forth. Vatican II. With the advent of Vatican II a change occurred in the attitude of the church toward the world. This posture was no longer conceived in narrow ecclesiastical political terms but, more broadly, in social-cultural terms. In addition it was construed in a positive sense as referring to God’s creation and its completion. By implication the role of the laity was re-evaluated: lay persons have as their direct assignment the sanctification of the world, not by withdrawing from it, but by seeing God at work in it. “Their secular character is proper and peculiar to the laity (…) By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will.”21 Conclusion. When we look back, we discern two main lines. (1) It is not meaningful to cancel out the unique features of lay spirituality, not even by stressing the possession of one and the same foundation: baptism or human equality. (2) The unique profile of lay spirituality is defined by a number of structural elements: specific relational patterns (marriage partners, parents-children, family, neighbors, guests); a specific sense of time (generational consciousness, course of life, birth, death); a specific sense of space (the home), which mediates the connections with the immediate and more remote environment (world, church, labor, possessions); the personal life journey of the concrete individual is central. 2. A synchronic perspective The reference work World Spirituality reserved 5 volumes for the indigenous spiritualities of Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and the three Americas (North, Central, and South America).22 Usually the forms of spirituality which have the 20

Ibid., 98-101. Lumen Gentium, ch. 4, no. 31. 22 A. Hultkranz, The Religions of the American Indians, Berkeley (CA) 1979; P. Thomas, The Opened Door. A Celtic Spirituality, Brechfa 1990; E. de Waal, Celtic Light. A Tradition Rediscovered, London 1997; J. Brown, The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian, New York 1982; E. MacGaa, Mother Earth Spirituality. Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World, San Francisco 1990; Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands. Sacred Myths, Dreams, Visions, Speeches, Healing Formulas, Rituals and Ceremonials, (Ed. E. Tooker), London 1979; P. O’Dwyer, Towards a History of Irish Spirituality, Blackrock (CO)-Dublin 1995; Ph. Sheldrake, Living between Worlds. Place and Journey in Celtic Spirituality, London 1995; R. Simpson, Exploring Celtic Spirituality. Historical Roots for Our Future, London 1995; P. Guptara, Indian Spirituality, Bramcote 1984; D. Chandler, Toward Universal Religion. Voices of American and Indian Spirituality, Westport (CT)-London 1996; M. Charlesworth, Ancestor Spirits. Aspects of Australian Aboriginal 21

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same structure as the lay spirituality diachronically surveyed above are neglected. We will restrict our exploration to native American and African spirituality. This brief sketch will be sufficient, however, for us to take a further step in becoming acquainted with the area of lay spirituality. Native American spirituality.23 It is assumed that the indigenous population entered “America” more than 10,000 years ago via the Bering Strait. The cultural patterns of the various tribal groupings developed in accordance with the various ecological situations (North Pole or the region of the Amazon, seacoast or mountainous area). For all their diversity, it is still possible for us to list a number of constants in their spiritualities. (1) The tribes view themselves as part of creation. Plants, animals, and the elements are their kin, the relatives with whom they want to live in harmony. The great text that people had to master, if they were to become wise, was their environment. The more they could know about how the plants, animals, birds, seasons, weather, hills, streams, and all the rest of their surroundings functioned, the better off they would be. Certainly they would be better off practically, in the sense of being better provisioned. But, more importantly, they would be better off spiritually, more at one with their surroundings, better able to commune with the Holy Forces responsible for the world.24

(2) The tribe is the entity which mediates the people’s relation to their environment. It must fit itself harmoniously into the surrounding world. When it does, that world opens up to the tribe in a beneficent and awesome way. (3) There is a mediating agent (e.g. the shaman) between the Divine Reality and the tribe. Also moments of initiation (say, the rites of passage in puberty) can have such a mediating function. These moments of mediation offer a glimpse into the interior life of the tribe: problems in hunting and gathering; all things that have to do with protection from the destructive forces of the environment; the upbringing of children; the care of the sick; insight into the course of life; the accompaniment of the dead toward their final resting place. African spirituality25 Sub-Saharan African spirituality, like its American counterpart, displays a great variety of forms. Still here, too, one can find a number Life and Spirituality, Melbourne 1990; A. Gray, The Arakmbut. Mythology, Spirituality and History in an Amazonian Community, Providence (RI)-Oxford 1996; M. Goonan, A Community of Exiles. An Exploration of Australian Spirituality, Berkeley 1995. 23 For a succinct overview, see D. Lardner Carmody, Native American Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 697-700. 24 Ibid., 699. 25 For a brief survey, see C. Egbulem, African Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 17-21; A. Shorter, African Christian Spirituality, Maryknoll (NJ) 1980; B. Lele, Family Spirituality in Africa, Eldoret (Kenya) 1982; G. Huizer, Folk Spirituality and Liberation in Southern Africa, Talence (France) 1991; P. Paris, The Spirituality of African Peoples. The Search for a Common Moral

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of constants. (1) The natural environment is a divine reality: “The moon and the stars, the rivers and the seas, the hills and the mountains, fish and animals and human beings – all carry the message of God’s presence.”26 The power of God (Father and Mother) is alive and directly active in the creation: “God is the beginning without end. All that exists has its origin and meaning in God and will terminate in God.”27 This divine reality, while it calls for reverence, is at the same time a source of great joy. (2) Life is the Creator’s supreme gift. It is a matter of spirituality to receive, maintain, and preserve this gift. Marriage and procreation, accordingly, play a central role in African spirituality. Birth and death are surrounded by highly sophisticated rituals. The object of healing rituals is to preserve life, the life that is threatened by sickness, evil influences, and the aging process. (3) The actual Sitz-im-Leben is the family unit. By being born into a family, one participates in the current of life. There one receives his name – which frequently refers to the divine Source – one’s character, one’s place and significance in life. A person lives in fellowship with the other members of the community, as brothers and sisters, on the basis of equality. Hospitality and social justice are integral to this community life. (4) Genealogical awareness: by way of a kinship system one is part of an extended family. Here one receives his place in the generations. Within this system the ancestors, the “living dead,” play an important role. The living are their heirs and receive from them their life-giving influence. Parents deserve respect because they are close to joining their ancestors. Spiritually, the memory of one’s ancestors is of great importance. After all, they fulfill an intermediary role between God and the people. Memorial takes shape in the oral tradition. The experiences and insights of the past are transmitted in song and music, dance and poetry, proverbs and stories, rituals and prayers. In oral tradition one discovers one’s origin and destiny, receives one’s place in time and space, discovers one’s environment and the course of one’s life, is integrated into the community which mediates life. When we look back on these native spiritualities as living witnesses of a predominantly laical spirituality, we can distinguish three interlocking lines of continuity. Important for native spirituality are: (1) the bond with the natural environment – experienced as divine – which is mediated by the community; (2) the life of the community which unfolds in a network of relations which is genealogically structured and affords each person a place of equality in the succession of generations; (3) the personal life between life and death which unfolds by way of inhabiting a home and working, and joins the community by way of love and care. Discourse, Minneapolis 1995; A. Ehirim-Donko, African Spirituality. On Becoming Ancestors, Trenton (NJ) 1997. 26 C. Egbulem, ibid., 19. 27 Ibid., 18.

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3. A systematic perspective In order to gain an even clearer picture of the area of lay spirituality, we will now analyze the Dizionario di spiritualità dei laici which was published in 1981.28 This two-volumed work contains 113 lemmata (entries), a project in which 52 scholars collaborated. When we take a closer look at these lemmata, we discern the following fields of interest: 1. Theological frame of reference

2. Biblical frame of reference 3. Church 4. Liturgy and sacraments

5. Folk religion 6. Framework of spirituality

7. Virtues and attitudes

8. States of life

9. Movements

10. Socio-cultural reality

11. Existential basics

God; seeking God; sin; grace; Christ; Christ the king; incarnation; Mary; Joseph; cross; paschal mystery; Holy Spirit; eschatology Bible; covenant; decalogue; prophecy; the “Our Father”; beatitudes church; mission, apostolate; witness; mission in the world liturgy; sacraments; baptism; liturgy; sacraments; baptism; eucharist; sacrament of penance; anointing the sick; holy orders; diaconate; priesthood folk religion spirituality; history; spiritual organism; conversion; asceticism; spiritual exercises; meditation; trial; prayer; spiritual accompaniment; charism; ideal; holiness virtue; faith; hope; love; righteousness; mercy; works of mercy; purity; prudence; moderation; humility; obedience; strength, joy states of life; calling; religious; evangelical counsels; virginity; laity as office in the church; the layperson in history; the layperson in theology; marriage, family; singleness; widowhood movements and groupings in the church; secular third orders; secular institutions; Catholic action; revision of life; base communities world; social relations; politics; economy; poverty; labor; praying and working; leisure; culture; art; science; fashion; mass media; Marxism; humanism; human progress; secularization person; dialogue; man; woman; body; sexuality; youth; upbringing; study; the aging process; conscience; freedom; law; sickness; death

As we survey these fields we note that the first five are general in character and do not specifically concern the area of the layperson, not even that of spirituality. 28

Dizionario di spiritualità dei laici 1-2, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Milan 1981.

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The theological-biblical starting points and the ecclesiastical, sacramental, liturgical framework constitute the interpretive horizon. This framework (35 lemmata), which is sometimes, in part at least, focused on the laity, does not open up the specific field of lay spirituality. The same is true for the interpretive horizon of spirituality (27 lemmata) which here concerns the general themes, virtues, exercises and attitudes. The specific field of lay spirituality only comes into full view beginning with the states of life: over against the clergy and the religious the calling of the laity stands out as a unique state of life which is grouped around marriage and family (point 8), channels itself in lay movements (point 9), has a special relation with socio-cultural reality (point 10) and is heavily involved with anthropological basics (point 11). When we further analyze these data (in connection with which we will abstain from commenting on the rather dominant ecclesiastical-theological perspective of the Dizionario), the following elements seem important for a lay spirituality. (1) Lay spirituality is characterized by specific relational patterns (marriage, family); (2) Within that framework a number of existential basics come to specific expression (person, dialogue, husband, wife, the passage(s) of life, upbringing). (3) the relational patterns are not folded inward but open up to the outside (the world, membership of lay groupings, socio-cultural reality). An important omission in the Dizionario is the notion of “place.”29 When we compare the three perspectives to each other, the following structural elements of lay spirituality come into view. (1) There is reference here to a specific web of relations described as relational fields such as husband-wife, parents-children, nuclear family-extended family, family-acquaintances, and so forth. (2) These relational patterns are realized in specific periods described in words like genealogy (succeeding generations) and course of life (a process, however phased, between birth and death). (3) These relational patterns have their focal point in the home which, on the one hand, creates intimacy inward, and, on the other mediates the connections with the environment (labor, possessions, socio-religious participation, hospitality). (4) Central here is the individual person in his or her existential concreteness. These considerations prompt us to adopt the following scheme. We begin with the coming-into-being of humans (1.1) and their upbringings (1.2), and end with their death and burial (1.6). In between we treat the home (1.3) which not only accommodates intimacy and love (1.4) but serves at the same time as the intersection of a network of relations in which mutual solidarity is essential (1.5). At issue in all these facets is the course of life and the existential concreteness of the human person. 29 No special lemma is devoted to the home; also in the extensive index of topics the word “house” is lacking.

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1.1. The Coming-into-Being of Humans (Anthropogenesis) We will explore the process of coming-into-being as spiritual dimension from three perspectives: (1) the precarious process of birth associated by virtually all cultures with a divine origin; (2) the coming-into-being as a mystical birth; (3) the vital energy which manifests itself in human existence. 1. The divine origin of humans. The creation of man is one of the most widespread narrative motifs.30 The source of it lies in the existential question: “Who looks after my life?”31 Essential for the stories which tell us about man’s coming into being is that they point to the fundamental transition which every human being experiences: the transition from non-being to being.32 This is expressed by saying that human existence is by no means self-evident: man’s coming into being occurs as a unique event against the background of the precarious, the chaotic, the lost, that which is nothingness, which in many creation stories is conveyed in the phrase: “When there was not yet….”33 2. Mystical birth. Mystical traditions cultivate the consciousness of the creation’s transition from non-being to being. Mystics descend into the depths of their non-being in order to realize how at every moment they receive their being from God’s creative power. Thus the Islamic mystic Rumi says: “We and our existence are non-being. You are the Absolute who appears in the form of mortality. What moves us is your gift. Our whole being is your creation.”34 He who descends into the non-being which he is realizes the absolutely gratuitous creational transition he at every moment experiences from the side of God: “You revealed the beauty of Being in non-being after you had permitted a non-being to become infatuated with You.”35 In mystics the coming-into-being of a human being comes into awareness as a divine process.36 3. Contact with the source of life. In present-day centers of spirituality the body is conceived as the starting point of spirituality.37 The exercises offered teach a person to understand the language of the body: by our becoming still, the body 30

C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, Augsburg 1987, 35-47; 64-69. See ibid., 22-25. 32 Ibid., 38-47. 33 Ibid., 38-47. 34 Rúmí, Poet and Mystic, (Ed. R. Nicholson), Oxford 1995, 107. 35 Ibid., 107. 36 H. Blommestijn, God gebeurt in mijn menswording, in: Speling 38 (1986) no. 3, 92-98. 37 For extensive documentation, see K. Waaijman, Persoonsgerichte vormen van spiritualiteit, Nijmegen 1992. 31

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can begin to tell by what energies we are being moved; by movement, the deeper layers in our body-consciousness can be released; by certain forms of expression we can trace the inhibitions and distortions present in our spontaneous body language. Altogether, this is called “body work.” These physical exercises have a double focus: (1) They are aimed at putting the practitioner in touch with his inner world (deeper currents of energy, creative powers), so that he can breathe freely, move with the currents of life within him, open up to life itself. (2) The exercises are designed to help a person experience daily life (social contacts, the home, the job, the environment, society) in a more intense and balanced way. The exercises as a rule operate within the framework of human life as a whole which is seen as a spiritual journey.

1.1.1. “MY MIGHTY ONE” In addition to stories and prayers, it is proper names which give us insight into the biblical spirituality surrounding anthropogenesis. 1. The God of my mother In the oldest biblical stories it was the mother who cried out the name over her child (see Gen. 4:1, 25; 16:11; 21:6-7; 29:30; 35:16-20; 38:1-5). She placed the child’s coming-into-being under the dominant influence of the Mighty One: he gathered the child (Cain), my Mighty One helped the birth process (Eliezer), he opened the womb (Jephthah), he caused the mother to give birth (Molid), he gave life (Nathan). The mother seals the birth process with the imposition of the name which this child will read right down to its source: built by God (Bunah), he forms (Yetser), God is the maker (Elpaal). By marking her children with these proper names, the mother from their earliest beginning brings them into contact with the Mighty One who sustains their life. The Mighty One surrounds them as an aura.38 That is precisely the reason why they call him “mighty.”39 God is the sustaining Life force, the Blessing who bestows fertility: “The Mighty One has granted me offspring” (Gen. 4:25); “With the help of the Mighty One I have acquired a male (descendant)” (Gen. 4:1). When the childless Rachel wants a child from Jacob, he answers: “Am I perhaps in God’s place?” (Gen. 30:2). The Mighty One opens the womb (Gen. 29:31; 30:22), but can also close it 38 V. Maag, Der Hirte Israels, in: V. Maag, Kultur, Kulturkontakt und Religion, GöttingenZürich 1980, 111-144. 39 ’El (variants: ’Elohim, ’Eloha, ’Elah), goes back to the root ’wl or ’il, having as its basic meaning: power, might, strength. The same root ’wl or ’il also underlies the words for “tribe” and “tribal leader.”

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(Gen. 36:2). The generational stream is a single unbroken divine revelation: “the family event as such and the family relationships as such are based on God’s action and preserved by it.”40 2. The God of my father Also the father initiates his child into the relation to God. Repeatedly we encounter the phrase “the Mighty One of my father.” This phrase does not just mean: “the Mighty One who is the strength of my father,” but above all: “the Mighty One in whom I have been initiated by my father.” In the ancient song of Moses we read: My strength, my song, O Be-er! He was my salvation. This is my Mighty One, him will I praise, the Mighty One of my father, him will I extol (Exod. 15:2).

“My Mighty One” occurs in this verse as a parallel to “the Mighty One of my father.” This means: my father has so initiated me into the relation to his Mighty One that the latter became my Mighty One. 3. The God of my life My Mighty One is intimately interwoven with the coming-into-being of my person. Accordingly, in many proper names the personal relation to the Mighty One is built in: my Mighty One is the helper (in the birth process) (Eliezer); my Mighty One delivers (from the womb) (Elishuah), my father knows (Abuda); my father is good (Abitob); my brother supports (Achishamech). The Mighty One is intimately associated with my coming-into-being: he is my mighty One. Yes: You drew me out of the womb, you entrusted me to my mother’s breasts. On your lap I was stretched out from birth, from my mother’s womb you have been my Mighty One (Ps. 22:10-11).

My Mighty One, like a midwife, brings me out of the womb. He puts me safely by my mother’s breasts. On his knees I was born: “You have been my security from the time of my birth; on You I have relied from the womb, from the time I was in my mother’s womb You have been my helper” (Ps. 71:5-6). My Mighty

40

C. Westermann, Genesis 12-36. A Commentary, Augsburg 1985, 24.

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One, like a midwife, has taken me from my mother’s womb into an unprotected world. From now on he himself is like a mother’s womb around me. 4. My help My Mighty One is the Strength of my life. Therefore I call upon him for help when destructive forces undermine my life, when enemies demolish my defenses and my vital energies drain out of me. Help me. Be-er, my Mighty One, in your kindness deliver me (Ps. 109:26). Look, then, and bow to me, Be-er, my Mighty One (Ps. 13:4). Rescue me from my enemies, my Mighty One, let me be strong before those who rise up against me (Ps. 59:2). Rise up, Be-er, deliver me, my Mighty One (Ps. 3:8). In my distress I called to Be-er, for my Mighty One I groaned (Ps. 18:7).

My Mighty One is the Strength of my life, my vitality, as near to me as my heartbeat, my breathing. My Mighty One becomes the Wellspring of my life the moment I entrust myself to him. Because I seek refuge in the Mighty One, he becomes my Mighty One. This is why in so many psalms this trust is voiced. Watch over my soul, – Yes, I am a devotee! Rescue your servant, – You [are] my Mighty One! who secures himself in You (Ps. 86:2).

Especially this fragment beautifully shows the back-and-forth movement in which “my Mighty One” is the core. On the one side are the prayers which beg for Be-er’s nearness (“Watch over my soul […], rescue your servant”); beautifully interspersed between those lines is the movement of self-entrustment: “Yes, I am a devotee (…) your servant.” Essential for “my Mighty One” is this lived trust, something that can be so deeply interiorized that it sings in me. Be-er my Mighty One, I will acknowledge you forever (Ps. 30:13). I will acknowledge You with the lyre, Mighty One, my Mighty One (Ps. 43:4). My Mighty One You are I want to acknowledge You, my Mighty One, I want to extol You (Ps. 118:28).

32 1.1.2. DIVINE

FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY BIRTH

In his sermons Meister Eckhart discusses four motifs: detachment, God’s birth, the nobility of the soul, and the breakthrough into deity.41 We are especially interested in the birth of God. 1. Detachment means: to take leave of what you think you are and imagine you possess; renounce all self-interest and reward; and let go of every fixation on the self and attachment to creatures. But most important is the withdrawal from one’s God-concept. “Therefore I pray to God that he may make me free of ‘God,’ for my real being is above God if we take God to be the beginning of created things.”42 Man’s most essential being – “his truest is-ness,”43 is God’s operation on the level of being: “You should perceive him without images, without a medium, and without comparisons. But if I am to perceive God so, without a medium, then I must just become him, and he must become me. I say more: God must just become me, and I must just become God, so completely one that this ‘he’ and this ‘I’ become and are one ‘is,’ and, in this is-ness, eternally perform one work.”44 2. The nobility of the soul is that in its ground it is modeless. At that level it is the conception of God. Just as in a mirror the sun is still the sun, so in the soul God is still God.45 “God is nowhere more real than in the soul.”46 This ground of the soul, which is beyond all multiplicity, is unknowable: “What the soul is in its ground, no one knows….”47 Here it is so singular and simple that even God cannot look into it without losing his threefoldness. 3. The breakthrough of the deity is the definitive return into the God-beyondGod, the original and ultimate oneness. The deity is God on the other side of all unfoldings in creation and divine threefoldness. Here the deity is absolute in pure simplicity and purity, resting in the nobility of the soul. In the union of soul and deity God and the soul correspond to each other: the hidden darkness, the unfathomable sea, the source, the quiet room of eternal fatherhood, the deity in himself who is and will remain unknown because it merely is. Here God and man are born in each other.

41 For an elaboration of these motifs, see F. Maas, Introduction, in: Van God houden als van niemand. Preken van Eckhart, Kampen-Averbode 1997, 12-26. 42 Meister Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher, New York-Toronto 1981, 202. 43 Sermon 6, in: Meister Eckhart, The Essential Sermons, Commentaries and Treaties, New YorkToronto 1981, 187. 44 Ibid., 208. 45 Sermon 16.6, in: Meister Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher, 275-279. 46 Sermon 20, ibid., 292-295. 47 Sermon 7, ibid., 252-254.

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4. The divine birth is the process of becoming aware which leads to the breakthrough of the deity. That process starts with detachment: the soul “must first become nothingness,”48 so that only God still works in it and is finally in it. Detachment takes leave from the reality of the self in order to enter in God’s working: giving birth to a son. The Father urges and prods that we be born in the Son and become the same thing that the Son is. The Father gives birth to his Son, and in giving birth the Father has so much peace and delight that he consumes his whole nature in it. All that is in God moves him to give birth. His ground, his essence, and his being all move the Father to give birth.49

The birth of a human being occurs in the birth of the Son from the Father: we are born in the Son and become the same as the Son. “Therefore I say: the Father’s being consists in giving birth to the Son, the Son’s being consists in my being born in him and like him.”50 In the coming-into-being of a human God becomes manifest, just as in the coming-into-being of a house the work of the carpenter becomes manifest. This can only be understood if one realizes that creatures in themselves are nothing.51 To follow Eckhart in his sermons is to end up with a remarkable paradox. Those who want to achieve their actual being must abandon the usual divisions and patterns. What seems ordinary proves to be strange; what seems strange proves to be ordinary. The most ordinary thing to do – as we learn in the birth of mystical consciousness – is to understand one’s own coming-into-being (one’s birth; the entire course of one’s life) as the coming-into-being of God: the gift of being which the Father is in the Son. The strangest thing to do – as we learn in the birth of mystical consciousness – is to understand one’s coming-into-being as something one has accomplished himself. To understand my coming-intobeing as God’s coming-into-being in me is not something I can bring about myself. Above all, my working drives me away from that understanding. The consciousness that the works I do are my works blocks that other consciousness: my coming-into-being, my life and my works occur in God. It is up to us to receive this perfect gift of being which is God. Our coming-into-being, our life, and our work attain their true ground when they experience themselves as the birth of God.52 In the process of achieving this consciousness, detachment functions on two levels. It consists, on the one hand, in my letting go the images and 48

Sermon 39, ibid., 296-298. Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Sermon 4 (Omne datum optimum), in: Meister Eckhart, Deutsche Predigten und Traktate, (Hrsg. J. Quint), München 1955. 52 H. Blommestijn, God gebeurt in mijn menswording, in: Speling 38 (1986) no. 3, 70. 49

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life patterns that are so familiar to me: I must take leave – mentally, affectively, and actively – from a self-centered existence which has an interest in keeping the relation to God external (yes: God at some point in time created me; I can bring God about; I can picture God). On the other hand, precisely this leave-taking produces a wound which is a (sixth) sense. The break in my consciousness causes a new consciousness to awaken in me, a consciousness which immediately takes me to my true existence: the continual procession from God which is my own coming-into-being. This birth changes my consciousness of time. I am inclined to view myself as “a source of life” defined by dates on the calendar. In detachment, however, this breaking up of myself in dates and period stops. The power of the birth of God in me breaks through my calculations and brings to light God’s eternity in me.

1.1.3. LIFE’S PASSAGE(S) AND SPIRITUALITY Life as a course of development is a motif which has been fruitfully developed within the discipline of spirituality. Life is viewed as a phased process marked by changes: “Each stage can bring us into contact with the Secret in a different way. Each crisis can be an invitation to deal with the Secret. In each perspective the Secret can light up in a new way.”53 1. The beginning The beginning of life is marked by detachment from the security of the mother’s womb and exposure to insecurity. In this process we can discern three operative lines of force. Breach. At birth a human being is cast from the security of a mother’s womb into insecurity.54 In the face of this insecurity a child is helpless. It can only fight back in panic fear and blind rage. This experience of a breach, which is accompanied by feelings of hatred and frustration, is the means by which the distinction between “I” and “the other” is established. Apparently it can only be mediated by the experience of strangeness and resistance. This existential dread will also resonate when the spiritual “way” demands a letting go of familiar images of God. One of the tasks of the spiritual life is to become conscious of this hurdle.

53

H. Andriessen, Spiritualiteit en levensloop, Averbode-Apeldoorn 1984, 13. H. Henseler, Psychoanalytische Überlegungen zur Frömmigkeit, in: Frömmigkeit. Gelebte Religion als Forschungaufgabe, (Ed. B. Jaspert), Paderborn 1995, 254. 54

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Need. Abandoned to insecurity, a human being will attempt to adjust the surrounding world to meet his need.55 A good example of this endeavor is the wide-open mouth of the infant with which the mother’s nearness connects: “Her cautious, patient, caring, anxious, but tireless response to this tiny being corresponds, after all, to the perception of his distress and needs. Because she relates complementarily to this distress, she succeeds in conveying rest, satisfaction, and quiet.”56 This satisfaction offers a prereflexive sense of a blessed blending of two-into-one, an unbroken whole (wholism), a boundless unity.57 When in spirituality there is the experience of a mystical union, immersion in prayer, total surrender, oceanic feelings, ecstasy, and the like, these images (if they have not been made conscious) can imperceptibly dominate the spiritual process, a reality which may in turn result in far-reaching infantilization. Desire. The mother-child relation unfolds precisely in the child’s being stilled by the mother. By her mediation, “need” is transformed into “desire.” At this point the other can manifest her otherness vis-à-vis the child. It is the love dynamic of desire which is released in a need by which I can let the other be what she is. One of the purposes of the spiritual life is the detachment of desire from the need.58 This occurs in prayer. “Nowhere more fundamentally than in prayer will the believer gradually become conscious of the difference between the need for God and God himself. The prayer of those who do not arrive at the experience of no longer feeling a need for God in time assumes the color of a dream.”59 2. The potentiality of youth The spirituality of a child is colored by the character of the beginning: so many things can still happen. No fixed frame of reference has taken shape within which experiences can find their meaning. Most things happen by accident. There is no finished product, no rounded whole. It is all very open to influence.60 That is its weakness: it can be manipulated by evil forces. That is also its strength: a child can still learn much and is open to that which doesn’t yet fit in. What follows is two examples to make both sides visible. The first example has been taken from The Birth of the Living God by Rizzuto. Bernardine Fisher is 27, married, and the mother of 3 children. In addition to certain physical complaints, she suffers from depressions and fears which 55

D. Vasse, Le temps du désir, Paris 1969. H. Henseler, ibid., 255. 57 H. Henseler, Narcissism as a Form of Relationship, in: Freud’s ‘On Narcissism. An Introduction’, (Ed. J. Sandler, E. Spector Person et al.), New Haven 1991, 195-215. 58 D. Vasse, ibid., 78. 59 Ibid., 30. 60 H. Andriessen, Spiritualiteit en levensloop, Averbode-Apeldoorn 1984, 31. 56

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repeatedly drive her to the brink of suicide. She was the first child of a teenage marriage. At her birth her father fled; her mother pursued her with accusations. She felt guilty and powerless. Her childhood and adolescence were unhappy. At 18 she got married. From that point on her life seemed to become a copy of her mother’s life. When she looks back on her life, what she says about her parents and about God proves to run parallel: My whole family […] never listened to what I felt or wanted; I do not pray, because I feel that God will not listen to me. [My parents] didn’t love me; For me to fully please God I would have to be another person, because I don’t please him. If I could change my past I would like to change my parents; If I receive an absolute proof that God does not exist, I will be happy. I would like to be like my mother because I thought she was very strong; I would like to have the strenght that God had I wanted her [my mother] to like me; For me, the love of God towards me is important.61

The parallelism between her relation to her mother and her relation to God is striking. Obvious transference has occurred. Whatever her parents experienced in various phases of their life has been transferred, also on the religious level, to their child. This has been and is definitive for her initial religious formation.62 The second example comes from Conversations with Children63 by R. Laing. Natasha asks her father: “What kind of book is that?” Her father replies: “That’s the Bible.” A game of question-and-answer follows: Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha

what’s that book that’s the Bible what’s the Bible? it’s a book of stories about God and us does it tell stories about God? yes are these stories about God? they are stories that some people say are about God are they really about God? I don’t know will you read me one? I read her the first twenty-two verses of Genesis

61 A. Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God. A Psychoanalytical Study, Chicago 1979, 161-163, passim. 62 For a summary of precisely this point, see A. Rizzuto, ibid., 177-211. 63 R. Laing, Conversations with Children, Harmondsworth 1978; cited and commented by Andriessen in the chapter of his book on ‘Child and Spirituality’.

LAY SPIRITUALITY Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie

Natasha

Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha

Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha Ronnie Natasha

Ronnie Natasha

37

is it all about God? yes has this page got God in it? (leafing through the pages and picking out pages at random) yes and this page? yes and this page? yes and this page? yes I think God is on every page He’s given different names but He can’t really have a name we cannot really name Him I know, he’s not a girlie (pause) nor a boy (pause) you don’t know whether He’s a boy or a girl do you? no no one knows God but He knows us, and He knows Himself how do you know that? I don’t know how I know it but you know it yes. And no one can see God but He can see us and He can see Himself He could be in this house He could be outside the door He could knock on the door but He would have to knock very hard for us to hear Him, wouldn’t He? yes no we don’t hear the God-knocks (with a sad chuckle) He would have to knock on the God-door! and where shall we say the God-door is? how would someone like me know where the God-door is? do you think God minds us talking about Him like this? no. He doesn’t mind (pause) maybe we can see through Him, like your glasses (laughing, seriously, quizzically) (pause) do you think so? I don’t know (pause) He can see Himself. We can’t see Him. some gods can see Hem. He can see us.

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Ronnie

(she is leafing through the Bible as she is saying this) I can’t look at every page tonight otherwise I’ll get to stay up late and be tired so I’ll go now daddy. alright Natasha64

Striking here is the atmosphere of frankness and freedom. Certainly here too transfer occurs, but it seems it is rather elicited than closed off. Parallel to this open atmosphere, we observe an unrestrained manner of speaking about God in which the roles are unexpectedly reversed: a couple of times the father says: “I don’t know” when the conversation concerns God, while Natasha says that she does “know” something. Remarkable is her statement that “No one knows God but he knows us.” We can look through God as through a pair of glasses. In Natasha’s mind there is still plenty of “play” with respect to God: all kinds of things are still possible. But everything is still incomplete: there is no crystallized whole. 3. Growth toward maturity Gradually the life of a young person grows into a more-or-less fixed pattern of work, relations, commitments, loyalties, and positions. This structuration arises as a result of external necessity and choice, but often also as a result of frequent repetition. It is a combination of interactive factors. The primary fields of choice are: the job, family life, friendships and romantic relationships, place of residence, leisure time-activities, religion, politics, and the life of society.65 An important stabilizer is responsibility.66 Choices made call for follow-up; work started has to be finished. All sorts of things are developing which demand our attention. “This stage is the part of our life’s journey in which we ourselves are no longer able to choose a significant part of our field of responsibility but in which responsibilities choose us.”67 The way of growth has two important spiritual components. The first is the development of interiority. This interior space is uncomfortable at first inasmuch as it heightens the sense of strangeness which can sometimes come over a person. Still the connection with our interiority is of vital importance, since otherwise our growth solely consists in the stabilization of developed patterns. It is precisely with this inner journey that spirituality will have to connect.68 That is tensionproducing.

64

R. Laing, Conversations with Children, London 1978, 31-32. H. Andriessen, Spiritualiteit en levensloop, 52. 66 Ibid., 59-70. 67 Ibid., 61. 68 Ibid., 110. 65

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This tension is unavoidable and belongs to the “raw material” of spirituality. It cannot, nor may it, be resolved in favor of one pole. Conformity to the road which has been set forth externally blocks the impetus toward genuine, personal identity formation and a growing life stream of one’s own. Conformity solely to the interior way estranges us from concrete reality and, consequently, from the “resistance” in relation to which all personal consciousness awakens.69

A second spiritual component consists in that, through the development of one’s life, something of the Secret becomes perceptible. “Spirituality tries to see the reality of life in which we are involved in such a way that it is more than an instrument in which, and by which, we assert and maintain ourselves and make life subservient to ourselves.”70 The necessities and choices, the routines and eventualities, people and the things entrusted to our care, are the incarnation of our life form, but through it they reveal a “plus,” a mysterious “other side.”71 4. The reverse side of aging Youth and its flowering have their reverse side which in the course of life presents itself in a multiplicity of experiences: a decline of vitality and energy, the experience of one’s limitations, feelings of routine and brokenness, the awakening sense of life as a whole, the awareness of relativity, the recognition of onesidednesses in one’s development, activities, and relationships, appreciation for moments of reflection, the increasing importance of the question concerning one’s own destination. An important driving force in this reversal is death which begins to cast its shadows forward, wrapped in a whole array of experiences of finiteness, and the associated awakening consciousness of the whole of life, a finite whole.72 Thus the middle-aged person is forced, both consciously and unconsciously, to respond to an acute realization of personal death. Whether mortality is faced directly and worked through to new levels of appreciation, or whether it is hidden and denied by escape mechanisms, it becomes central to the mid-life turning point in personality organization. We begin to measure our lifetime from the distance to the end rather than from birth.73

At first blush it seems the reversal has to be interpreted as something negative. Youth and its development, after all, begin to show their boundaries: less strong, less swift, less vital, less pretty, less energetic. In addition, this reverse side does not present itself as a possibility – the basic tone of youth – but as a fact. Upon 69

Ibidem. Ibid., 52. 71 Ibidem. 72 J. Munnichs, Gerontologie, levensloop en biografie, Deventer 1990. 73 E. Bianchi, Aging as a Spiritual Journey, New York 1989, 12. 70

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closer scrutiny, however, these sharper sides of the change of life74 prove also to possess potential for spiritual growth.75 We will explore this ambiguity with the aid of a number of significant themes. Self-definition. Finitude reveals itself in questions which deal with personal development: were my life choices sound? Am I really the person I have become? My self-identity is called into question. The ego which we have described as unique is shaken.76 As the examples from Eastern and Western spirituality have shown, this shock to my self-identity offers the possibility of self-examination. People retreat into solitude, reflect on their destiny, attempt to admit death into their life. One no longer derives his identity exclusively from the social fabric but seeks it in confrontation with the Infinite. “The confrontation with finitude demanded during this transition can dispose individuals to contemplative experiences that enhance physical and spiritual integration of personality.”77 One’s way of working. The reverse side of work shows itself in various guises: loss of status in the work place, loss of meaning in working, no longer being able to work, having the feeling of continually being overtaken by events. The spirituality of middle age transforms one’s attitude toward worldly engagements. “While one’s situation in life may remain unchanged externally, a profound shift can occur in one’s inner purposes and outward stance.”78 One’s way of working becomes more contemplative, more open-minded, less domineering, more inwardly detached, yet very compassionate: “A new inwardness, a search for depths in the face of personal finitude and the brokenness of human society leads to nonviolent commitment toward nature and humankind.”79 Relational patterns. Our relations are usually structured from within ourselves as their center. The reverse side of our relational life is a spiritual opportunity: “There is more to the other than our internalized image. We see the other as an independent person, with a distinct individual history and with his or her own injuries from the past that may have been transmuted into hurtful conduct. From this recognition and insight flows the grace of forgiveness and new reconciliation with ‘enemies.’”80 This reconciliation as a rule is not just an interhuman reconciliation but at the same time an integration of aspects in our personality which up until that time we had driven apart as irreconcilable. Time. The reverse side of life is manifest as finiteness. We no longer have a sea of time, with freedom from cares, ahead of us. Gradually, however, the future 74

Cf. E. Bianchi, ibid., 10-33. Ibid., 34-87. 76 Ibid., 18. 77 Ibid., 46. 78 Ibid., 57. 79 Ibid., 71. 80 Ibid., 81. 75

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dimension, which up until then was absolutized, can be relativized. The memory can be unlocked. For Augustine, his Confessions were a descent into memory: a descent in search of this relation to God, to discover that from his very beginnings God had a relation to him of which he was not conscious. The reverse side of the experience of time above all gives access to the present: “Awareness that our life span is limited can lead to the wisdom and wonder that come from opening to the grace of the present moment.”81 5. The end It is inevitable that in the process of aging the complex whole of our life will begin to display moments of breakdown which together shift the balance toward death. The most important moments are: decline in the sensory and motor capacities; failure of organs; loss of vitality; loss of memory and intellectual faculties; the loss of a life partner; the inability to perform meaningful work; the loss of a familiar environment; the loss of social contacts. “For many persons, old age is a time for experiencing losses and diminishments that deeply affect basic self-image. This is especially true of a “throw-away” culture, in which we discard whatever is old as no longer stylish or useful. The losses may be mainly external, but they are internalized so as to diminish self images.”82 The spiritual question becomes: where does the life of a person derive its value when quality of life is lost? Dignity. The final challenge consists in facing up to the reality that somebody is no longer able to realize certain values. At best, such a person can still be these values. Dignity, which surpasses the realization of values, becomes the spiritual keyword. When growth, self-development, and quality of life have ceased, the only thing that gives us something to hang onto is the dignity of the person, more precisely: the absolute dignity of the person, a dignity that does not depend on any quality or valuation. In the eyes of God. When the process of aging is accompanied by the loss of memory and intellectual faculties, the person in question becomes passive and dependent. He himself is no longer able to give value to his existence. Words like “wisdom” and “maturity” fall flat in the face of this degrading reality. In the face of reality even our humanity can lose its meaning: all that we consider human can be lost. At such a time only the gaze of God’s unconditional goodness can be strong and durable enough for us to continue to see the dignity of the human person. Beyond the end? The loss of that which value and quality irrevocably raises the question: is this the end? The various spiritual traditions answer this question 81 82

K. Fischer, Aging, in: NDCSp (1993), 32. E. Bianchi, ibid., 137.

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in divergent ways. Some see themselves blending “into the energies of the universe, thereby realizing the natural cycle of life and death into which each of us is born.”83 Others “envision their personal future as a process of rebirths toward a more enlightened consciousness and a more perfect earthly world.”84 Still others see their immortality in the continuation of their works or in their progeny.”85 Some hope to be taken up into God’s future: the kingdom of God which, “though already partially present in the believer and in the world is yet to come in its fullness.”86 However people may picture the hereafter, we are always dealing with processes in which our self-definitions are dissolved and redefinitions lie outside our reach.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aging, Spirituality, and Religion. A Handbook, (Ed. M. Kimble, S. McFadden et al.), Minneapolis (MN) 1995. ANDRIESSEN, H., Spiritualiteit en levensloop, Averbode-Apeldoorn 1984. BELL, L., Discovery of Grace. The Birth of God in the Soul, Bury St. Edmund 1995. BIANCHI, E., Aging as a Spiritual Journey, New York 1989. BRUMET, R., Finding Yourself in Transition. Using Life’s Changes for Spiritual Awakening, Unity Village (MO) 1995. CONN, J., Spirituality and Personal Maturity, New York 1989. DULIN, R., A Crown of Glory. A Biblical View of Aging, New York 1988. FISCHER, K., Winter Grace. Spirituality for the Later Years, New York, 1985. FISCHER, K., Reclaiming the Connections. A Contemporary Spirituality, Kansas City (MO) 1990. GROESCHEL, B., Spiritual Passages. The Psychology of Spiritual Development, New York 1983. GROF, C. & GROF, S. The Stormy Search for the Self. A Guide to Personal Growth through Transformational Crisis, Los Angeles 1990. HAMILTON, M., Turning Points. Moments of Grace, Steps toward Wholeness. Valley Forge (PA) 1997. HOPE, M., Towards Evening. Reflections on Aging, Illness, and the Soul’s Union with God, Brewster (MA) 1997. KOENIG, H., Aging and God. Spiritual Pathways to Mental Health in Midlife and Later Years, New York 1994. Maturity and the Quest for Spiritual Meaning. Symposium on Maturity, Spirituality, and Theological Reconstruction, (Ed. C. Kao), Lanham (MD) 1988. 83

Ibid., Ibid., 85 Ibid., 86 Ibid., 84

140. 207. 207. 206.

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MOSELEY, R., Becoming a Self Before God. Critical Transformations. Nashville 1991. MUNGER, R., Leading from the Heart. Lifetime Reflections on Spiritual Development, Downers Grove (IL) 1995. SHELTON, C., Adolescent Spirituality, New York 1989. Spiritual Emergency. When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, (Ed. C. Grof & S. Grof ), Los Angeles 1989. Spiritual Maturity in the Later Years, (Ed. J. Seeber), New York 1990.

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1.2. Upbringing and Formation In order to orientate ourselves in the area of the spirituality of upbringing, we shall pass in review a number of examples of this spirituality. 1. A spirituality of survival. The family narratives of the seminomadic communities, as they have been handed down in Genesis, are sustained by two main genres: itinerary accounts and genealogies.87 The genealogies tell us how, despite the vulnerable transitions, life was passed on from generation to generation. Central here is the parents’ concern that their children would survive. The spirituality of upbringing was a spirituality of survival. This remains the case when seminomadic life passed over into the settled life of agriculture. As we listen to the proverbs – which were primarily passed down within the family communities – 88 we are struck by the deep concern with which parents instilled into their children that they should build up their “house” and not break it down by quarreling, adultery, and laziness. We will come back to this spirituality of survival in a moment. 2. The house of study. In the Jewish understanding of faith, responsibility for bringing up the children lay with the parents: What are the duties of a father to his son? “The father is bound in respect of his son to circumcise, redeem, teach him Torah, take a wife for him, and teach him a craft.”89 From the middle of the second century instruction in the torah was taken over by the local community: “When you see cites which have been eradicated from their place in Israel, know then that they have not paid for a teacher of an elementary school and the more advanced schools.”90 The central purpose of Jewish upbringing was to make a child into a pupil: someone completely transformed in the torah.91 The entire upbringing followed the track of the interiorization of the written and the oral torah: “At five one begins to study the Book, at ten the Mishnah, at thirteen, one becomes subject to the commandments, at fifteen a young man can start studying the Talmud, at eighteen he must marry, and at twenty he must look around for an occupation.”92 87

C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, Augsburg 1984, 6-18; Genesis 12-36, Augsburg 1985, 61, 74-

78. 88 G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, London 1972, 15-23; D. Morgan, Wisdom in the Old Testament Traditions, Oxford 1981, 30-44; I. Höver-Johag, thob, in: ThLOT II (1997), 486-495. 89 Kiddushin 29a. 90 Chagigah I, 7.76c. 91 Aboth II, 4.7.8; III, 14. 92 Aboth V, 21.

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3. Educate an athlete for Christ. In Hellenistic culture, beginning in the third century B.C. there developed a form of popular entertainment in which the rich, to enhance their social standing, saw themselves forced to maintain an entertainment industry. They spent fortunes on theaters where an assortment of games were performed before frenzied crowds which filled the stands to the top. This culture was still very much alive in the fourth century after Christ. In this context John Chrysostom wrote his work: An Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children.93 The “vainglory” he is referring to is the money-devouring theater culture which estranges people from themselves, prompting them to immerse themselves in clothing, eating and drinking, ostentation, physical culture, and sports mania. Against this vainglory Chrysostom poses the challenge of an education which makes children into athletes for Christ: “Raise up an athlete for Christ and teach him, though he is living in the world, to be reverent from his earliest youth.”94 Chrysostom then proceeded to work this out concretely as it applies to hairdo and clothing, to family relations, religious formation and prayer, dangers on the street, marriage, and life-orientation. The core of the issue is that the soul is shaped like soft wax, as a beautiful pearl, as a painting, and a work of sculpture,95 but above all as a city and its citizens.96 The idea is that parents should bring up their children for God: “Like the creators of statues, then, give all your leisure to fashioning these wondrous statues for God and as you remove what is superfluous and add that which is lacking, inspect them day by day….”97 4. The Modern devotion. For the modern devotionalists education and formation occurs within the broader framework of the spiritual renewal of the church.98 This renewal, according to Dirk van Herxen, has to begin with the young: “The restoration of the church and its culture has to start with the small children.”99 The spiritual renewal of school children was closely associated with the acquisition of knowledge via books. Thus Geert Grote entrusted the transcription of books to the Deventer students who attended the chapter schools; coupled with this work were spiritual conferences designed to give them a deeper spiritual life. The modern devotionalists also regularly held Bible-based discussions with the youth attending the schools (collatio). In addition they instilled 93 John Chrysostom, in: Christianity and Pagan Culture, (Ed. M.L. W. Laistner), Ithaca (NY) 1951 85-122. 94 Ibid., 95. 95 Ibid., summary of section 22, 96. 96 Ibid., section 25, 97. 97 Ibid., section 22, 96. 98 A. Weiler, Onderwijs en vorming bij de Moderne Devotie, in: Speling 45 (1993) no. 3, 14-22. 99 Quoted in A. Weiler, ibid., 18.

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in them the practice of the rapiarium and offered them spiritual accompaniment. The pedagogical spirituality of the modern devotionalists, which exerted wide influence in Europe,100 is succinctly summed up by Johannes Busch who testified concerning the rector Jan Cele that the latter, “though he vigorously fought for the ideal that his pupils would make great progress in the subjects of grammar, logic, ethics, and philosophy, he devoted no less – indeed, often more – care to their advancement in holy morals, a holy and Christian life, and in the love, knowledge, and fear of God.”101 5. Education orders and congregations after Trent. The Council of Trent, in dealing with the decline of the church, designated religious ignorance as one of its causes. The upbringing and education of youth were regarded as an important step of reform. Often, what was in view was small-scale projects for disadvantaged young people. These projects were carried out by lay people and later incorporated into religious institutions. In line with the reform after Trent evangelism was considered a core activity: catechetical instruction in the doctrine and life of Christianity. Only later did secular education become more important and even occupy first place. Originating in 16th-century Italy, the catechetical movement spread to France in the 17th and 18th century. In the 19th century we see a great flowering of it in The Netherlands. In view of the overwhelming number of congregations which in the context of either parochial or diocesan structures devoted themselves to the upbringing and education of youth, it is still not possible for us to form a global overview of this exceptional lay charism.102 6. The enlightened human being. In modern educational theory, fueled by philosophical idealism,103 the supreme goal pursued is that of the autonomously thinking and acting person. The articulation of this ideal is accomplished with a variety of phrases: “A vigorous and self-conscious personality,” “strong in body and mind,” “free and independent,” “spontaneous and creative,” “capable of standing up for him- or herself,” and “independent of others.”104 This educational ideal has been criticized from a variety of perspectives.

100

See ibid. 16-21. Des Augustinerpropstes loannes Busch Chronicon Windeshemense und Liber de reformatione monasteriorum, (Ed. K. Grube), Halle 1886, 206. 102 For a compact overview in Italy and France, see M. Sauvage, Ordres enseignants, in: DSp 11 (1982), 877-901. 103 Zie P. Gordon & J. White, Philosophers as Educational Reformers. The Influence of Idealism on British Educational Thought and Practice, London 1979. 104 A. Wright, The Child in Relationship. Towards a Communal Model of Spirituality, in: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, (Ed. R. Best), London 1996, 140. 101

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The Dialogical critique was voiced for the first time by Buber at the Third International Pedagogical Conference (1925) in Heidelberg. Upbringing and education, however, are not aimed at the development of freedom in the child but at the authentic encounter with the child. Within the encounter parents and educators sense where the child is and what is possible for the child. They represent a personal style of dealing with reality and lead the child toward personal and reciprocal participation in reality.105 A dialogical style of nurture teaches a person to listen to every situation, to distinguish and shape the values present in it.106 Dialogical pedagogy has been accorded wide reception107 also in spirituality.108 The personalistic approach, also called the pedagogy of the humanities, originated in Germany around 1900. It distinguishes itself from enlightened upbringing in three areas. (1) The value of a person does not consist in certain characteristics but in the uniqueness of the person herself.109 (2) The unique person exists in relation to another for whom she bears responsibility.110 (3) The person is open to the relation to God who guarantees her absolute value: she is an image of God.111 Wholistic education seeks to be comprehensive. It does not limit itself to intellectual formation and the training of the will but also aims at the formation of faith, the transmission of values, the personal history of the child, the affective and esthetic aspects and the unconscious side of the subject.112 It seeks to mold the different aspects of the child into an inner unity. Fröbel, for example, saw everything, including humans, pervaded by a divine Oneness, a transpersonal consciousness which transcends the boundaries of “I”-consciousness.113 Whereas some experts sharply criticize wholistic education,114 others are especially enthusiastic advocates of it.115 After this brief exploration of the field, we will now reflect, by way of example, on three concrete forms of the spirituality of upbringing and education. 105

M. Buber, Über das Erzieherische, in: Schriften zur Philosophie (Werke I), München 1962,

788. 106

R. Guardini & O. Bollnow, Begegnung und Bildung. Weltbild und Erziehung, Würzburg

1956. 107 See the chapter: Pädagogik der Begegnung. Dialogische Motive in der modernen Erziehungswissenschaft, in: H. Schrey, Dialogisches Denken, Darmstadt 1983, 113-128. 108 See, for example, A. Wright, ibid., 139-149; O. Bollnow, Existenzphilosophie und Pädogogik, Stuttgart 1959; F. Schulze, Begegnung und Untrricht, Nürnberg 1950. 109 J. Ungoed-Thomas, Respect for Persons. A Curricular Crisis of Identities, in: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, (Ed. R. Best), London 1996, 124. 110 T. Andree, Van jou is er maar één, in: Speling 44 (1992) no. 1, 6. 111 T. Andree, Geschapen naar Gods beeld, Utrecht 1991; J. Ungoed-Thomas, ibid., 125-126. 112 R. Prentice, The Spirit of Education. A Model for the Twenty-First Century, in: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, 319-339. 113 B. Lealman, The Whole Vision of the Child, ibid., 24. 114 T. McLaughlin, Education of the Whole Child?, ibid., 9-19. 115 B. Lealman, ibid., 20-29.

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1.2.1. FOLLOW THE TORAH OF YOUR PARENTS Those who listen to the hundreds of proverbial sayings with which children in ancient Israel were raised become familiar with the most important problem areas into which a simple family initiated a new generation. The proverbs which concern the economic sphere score high (about a third of them). The children have to learn to take care of their house (Prov. 11:29; 12:17, etc.), their fields (Prov. 12:11; 13:33, etc.), their cattle (Prov. 12:10; 14:2; 27:23-27), and the personnel (Prov. 29:19-21). The “house” is ruined by laziness (Prob. 6:6-11; 10:45; 26:13-16, etc.), addiction to drink (Prov. 20:1; 23:20-21, etc.), despondency (Prov. 12:25; 13:12, 19, etc.) and dishonesty (Prov. 14:5, 25; 17:8, 15, 23, etc.). The second problem area concerns relations with the neighbors and close relations (similarly about a third of them): no slander and backbiting (Prov. 11:13; 18:8; 20:19, etc.), no pride and mockery (Prov. 6:17; 14:20-21), no wrath or blackmail (Prov. 11:15; 14:30; 15:18, 28; 17:18, etc.). Especially quarreling, must be avoided like the plague: “To start strife is like cutting a dam, so stop before the quarrel bursts out” (Prov. 17:14; see 6:12-15; 10:12-14, etc.). The third area concerns the marriage relation (almost 20%). A solid relation with the wife of your youth is the foundation of the house: “House and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from Be-er” (Prov. 19:14). The wife is the foundation of the house (also cf. Prov. 11:16, 22; 12:4; 18:22; 30:16; 19, etc.). Fornication rots the foundation of the house (Prov. 2:18; 6:26; 7:2427). “He who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth” (Prov. 29:3). The final area of upbringing concerns a person’s civil duties (more than 10 percent of the proverbs). Young people must gain insight into the well-being of the country and the city. They must conduct themselves properly vis-à-vis the administration of justice in the gates: be a truthful witness (Prov. 14:5, 25; 17:8, 15, 23, etc.); put up security for the weak; do not bear false witness (Prov. 6:19), nor allow themselves to be blackmailed (Prov. 11:15; 17:18; 20:16, etc.). They must keep far away form crime: theft (Prov. 29:24), and criminal assault (Prov. 1:10-19; 4:14-19, etc.). Within the four areas of life sketched above, what does the spirituality of upbringing look like? 1. Dialogue between the generations Parents try to instill into their growing children the values and insights they consider of vital importance. More than 380 proverbs evince a direct impact of the parents’ will (and that of teachers) upon the will of the children. Hear, my child, your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teaching (Prov. 1:8).

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Hear, my child, and absorb my words, that the years of your life may be many (Prov. 4:10). My child, be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my insight (Prov. 5:1).

Thus winding through the book of Proverbs there are hundreds of appeals, questions, invitations, admonitions, warnings, commandments, prohibitions, motivations, and exhortations.116 This persuasive language is sustained by genealogical concern.117 The parents try to make their children strong in preparation for the future, so that they may survive. This genealogical concern is relatively independent from the historical setting. Whether we are dealing with seminomadic communities, families who depend on agriculture, families in exile or in the diaspora, it is always the parents (or teachers who substitute for them) who exert themselves to instill in their children the insights and values which will help them to survive. 2. Didactic forms In transmitting their philosophy of life the parents and teachers used a varied arsenal of instructional devices which are designed to instill an inner form in the youthful person. Parable.118 In the case of a parable we encounter two givens rooted in experience which are put side by side, each being read against the background of the other. The pupil is challenged to discover differences and similarities. Thus a quarrel between neighbors is read as a consuming fire (Prov. 26:20) and a continually leaking roof (Prov. 27:15). By carefully looking at the same problem situation from different angles the pupil penetrates more deeply into its essence. Thus the annoying fact of a fool who quotes a proverb at one time evokes the image of the limp legs of a cripple (Prov. 26:7) and at another time of a drunkard who puts his hands into a thornbush (Prov. 26:9). The learning occurs in the pupil himself when he shuttles back and forth between the two data of experience. This is especially important when the pupil is learning to distinguish the two ways: the way of life and the way of death. By continually contrasting and comparing the two perspectives (blossoming and withering, living somewhere and becoming uprooted, peace and destruction, safety and collapse, wellspring and desert), the pupil finally becomes deeply convinced of the only true chance

116 Cf. G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, London 1972, 15-23; 74-96; J. Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, London, 1981, 38; G. Liedke & C. Petersen, torah, in: ThLOT III (1997), 1415-1422. 117 G. von Rad, ibid., 40-41; J. Crenshaw, ibid., 38. 118 G. von Rad, ibid., 34-50.

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of survival: the way of wisdom which leads to life (Prov. 3:2; 16-22; 4:10, 13, 20, etc.). Riddle.119 Parents and teachers attempted to arouse in their pupils an attitude of inquiry. To that end they continually asked them questions (Prov. 30:4).120 Questions which pique the inquiring mind to the limit are riddles. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless wounds? Who had lack-luster eyes? (Prov. 23:29).

The trick here is, by way of these questions, to track down one situation which evokes weeping and wailing, leads to arguments and misfortune, and results in bruises and clouded eyes. The answer to this riddle is: “Those who linger over wine, who stare deeply into the mixing bowl” (Prov. 23:30). Riddles produce in pupils an attitude of inquiry (Prov. 1:6; Ps. 78:2; Wisd. 8:8; Jesus Sir. 39:2-3), which is needed to discover the wisdom which lies hidden in the world of experience (see Job 28). Autobiography.121 Repeatedly a parent or teacher will talk about personal experiences in the first person singular: “When I was still a child living in my father’s house, tender and an only child before the face of my mother, they instructed me and said: ‘Lay hold of my words with all your heart, keep my commands that you may live’” (Prov. 4:3-4). The personal narrative then continues (to vs. 11), but the tenor is clear: the child is persuaded to identify himself with the learning process of his parents. At one time they too were children; at one time they too received instruction; in order to survive they too had to appropriate their parents’ philosophy of life. Another parent or educator writes: “I was young and now I am old; yet I never saw the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread” (Ps. 37:25). The educator tries to persuade the youthful person to adopt his perspective on life: righteousness leads to a rich and socially happy life. Graphic language.122 To lure the young into the right attitude, rhetorical techniques were employed which speak to the imagination: didactic poems and fables, allegories and metaphors. For example: “Go, learn from the ant, you sluggard; study its ways and become wise. Though it has no captain, no leader or commander, it prepares its bread in summer and gathers its food in harvest time” (Prov. 6:6-8). The ant is presented as the sluggard’s opposite: it is wellorganized and has an eye for future needs. The fool, on the other hand, is com119

J. Crenshaw, ibid., 58-62; G. von Rad, ibid., 36-37. G. von Rad, ibid., 15-23. 121 G. von Rad., ibid., 37-38; J. Crenshaw, ibid., 38. 122 G. von Rad., ibid., 41-43; J. Crenshaw, ibid., 37. 120

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pared to a horse which, though splendidly arrayed with a bridle and halter, has no inner compass (Ps. 32:8-9). The most important fantasy is wisdom depicted as a dear lady with whom the youthful person may build a love relation.123 Over against her stands the harlot Folly who leads the naïve directly to destruction. 3. To stand in awe of the good The central value in the education of the young is the good (the virtuous, the pleasant, the pleasurable) which consists in having a safe home (Prov. 1:33; 2:79, 21; 3:23-26), prosperity (Prov. 3:13-18; 8:18, 21, etc.) and peace (Prov. 3:17).124 The good is life itself (Prov. 3:2, 16, 22; 4:10, 13, 20, etc.), a thriving tree, located by a spring, bearing abundant fruit (Prov. 3:18; 11:30; 15:4, 24). From within the sphere of the good its ferment affects everything: proper speech, appropriate silence, true witness, prudence, working with care, friendly association with one’s neighbor, love for wife and children. The atmosphere of the good is appropriated by an attitude of receptivity (Ps. 34:9) and deference: an obedient and tactful approach to God’s creation; no defamation, no lying, no collaboration with injustice; promoting the good, pursuing peace and mutual respect (Ps. 34:12-15). Receptivity and deference together form the “fear” that is the principle of wisdom. In every possible way the educators proclaim this insight (Prov. 1:7; 4:7; 8:22; 9:10).125 4. The Fear of Be-er Be-er is the soul and sculptor of the good. When a youthful person stands in awe of the good, that person stands in awe of Be-er (Ps. 34:9-15). Awe teaches a person to read life down to the level of the good in light of Be-er: “The experiences of the world were for Israel always divine experiences as well, and the experiences of God were for her experiences of the world.”126 This stands to reason because the teachers “were completely unaware of any reality not controlled by Yahweh.”127 Be-er is the center of creation, the origin of the good, the father of wisdom, the soul of the house, the source of fertility, the giver of the lifepartner, decision in battle, the helper before the court. Awe leads us into the awesome reality of Be-er (Prov. 14:27; 15:33; 22:4; Eccl. 3:14).128’

123

G. von Rad., ibid., 167-169. G. von Rad, ibid., 62-65. 125 G. von Rad, ibid., 53-73. 126 Ibid., 62. 127 Ibid., 64. 128 Ibid., 190-195. 124

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1.2.2. EDUCATION ACCORDING TO DE LA SALLE Jean Baptiste de la Salle was born at Reims in 1651.129 After his study of theology he encountered the issues of upbringing and education. He founded a parochial school for the poor of Reims. As a rule, the teachers of the small elementary schools were insufficiently formed, nor could they devote themselves fully to their task. De la Salle, accordingly, proceeding in stages (from 1679 to 1687), built up a community of teachers: “The Brothers of the Christian Schools.” At the time of his death in 1719, there were 25 such communities working in about 50 schools. After 1830 the De la Salle communities spread to all parts of the world. 1. Education for poor children The Brothers of the Christian Schools adopted as their goal the provision of a Christian education for the children of the working class and the poor: “It is the poor you must provide for.”130 In order to make the school accessible to this disenfranchised layer of the population, it was necessary, in De la Salle’s view, to provide this education free of charge. The brothers, moreover, had to establish their solidarity with them: “You are with the poor at all times.”131 This is how the brothers obey the evangelical summons to leave everything to follow Christ.132 Like the poor, they regard themselves as having no possessions. Community and poverty coincide: “The brothers will have no possessions of their own. In every house they will have all things in common, even their habits and other things the brothers need to use.”133 2. A Christian education The main aim is: the good life of the pupils, an aim which embraces three aspects: Elementary instruction: the subjects reading, writing and arithmetic. To De la Salle these basic subjects are very important, because the school aims “to enable the pupils to get a job when their parents consider them ready for it.”134 With 129 For his biography, see A. Hermans and M. Sauvage, S. Jean Baptiste de la Salle in: DSp 8 (1974), 802-821. 130 Jean Baptiste de la Salle, Méditations pour tous les dimanches de l’année et Méditations sur les principales fêtes de l’année, Rouen 1731, 153/3 (Cahiers Lasalliens, 12, Rome 1962). Henceforth we will cite Méditations, followed by the particular meditation. See for this A. Hermans, & M. Sauvage, ibid., 808. 131 Méditations 166/2; 189/1; 143/2; 133/3. 132 Ibid., 133/3; 80/3; 150/1. 133 Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, Règles communes des frères, 41. A first editing took place in 1694; see Cahiers Lasalliens, 25, Rome 1965. 134 Méditations 194/1.

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an eye to a materially and methodologically enriched education, De la Salle consistently introduced improvements, always with a view to the pupils’ well being.135 The pedagogical dimension: in carrying out his educational task a brother must “adopt himself to the intellectual range of the children.”136 This means taking account of their situation and age,137 treating all the students in keeping with their character and potential.138 Instruction in the faith: to instruct the children in the mysteries of the Christian religion. This catechetical dimension encompassed more than (a memorized) knowledge of Christian truths: it was directed toward the spirituality of the pupils139 and made them spiritually able to defend themselves.140 3. The spirituality of the educator Jean Baptiste de la Salle trained the brothers of the Christian schools to a level of spirituality which was inherently consistent with their educational work amidst the poor children for whom they exerted themselves.141 “All his spiritual works were written for them; the style, which is personal and direct, often makes for gripping and lively reading. He always has the brothers in mind when he writes and his writings, accordingly, are one extended expression of his patient endeavor, over a period of almost 40 years, to provide a continued spiritual education in a variety of forms.”142 The spirituality of the brother is marked by the following features. Instrument in God’s hand. De la Salle’s primary concern is to instill in his brothers the realization that in their nurturing activity God himself is at work: “God has chosen you to help him in this work of making known the gospel of his Son to these children.”143 Prayer. Praying is the humble request to be allowed to cooperate with God’s upbringing of the children: “You must frequently apply yourselves to prayer for success in your service. In this context you must incessantly present the needs of your pupils to Jesus Christ and tell him of the problems you have found in

135

M. Sauvage, Ordres enseignants, in: DSp 11 (1982), 899. Méditations 198/1; 197/1-2; 204/1. 137 Ibid., 91/3. 138 Ibid., 33/2; 64/2. 139 M. Sauvage, Ordres enseignants, in: DSp 11 (1982), 897. 140 Méditations 194/2. 141 For a description of the spiritual life of the brothers, see M. Sauvage, Ordres enseignants, in: DSp 11 (1982), 894-900. 142 A. Hermans & M. Sauvage, S. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, in: DSp 8 (1974), 809. 143 Méditations 193/3; 201/1; 205/1. 136

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their conduct.”144 The brothers are to pray for psychological sensitivity and insight and for a sound attitude in their relation to the pupils.145 Breathing-along with the Spirit. In order to become a willing instrument in God’s hand, the brother must, by prayer, be detached from his self-centeredness and begin to breathe along with the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who makes the brother fit to cooperate with God in the sanctification of the other.146 The inner life. The soul’s interior, to Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, is the space that is opened up by prayer, the place where a brother moves along with the Spirit: “The Holy Spirit who dwells in you must penetrate the core of your soul. In it the spirit must pray more particularly. In the deep center of your soul the Spirit communicates himself to it, unites with it, and makes it known what God demands of it to be totally there for him.”147 Now the brother is an instrument in God’s hand. The soul of the person has opened itself up in its true depth. Praying and working have become one: it is all one act of yielding to God.148

1.2.3. THE SPIRITUAL

DIMENSION IN EDUCATION

In 1993 the British National Curriculum Council issued a discussion paper on the education of children under the title Spiritual and Moral Development.149 The introduction of the word “spiritual” in the context of education was not new. The Education Act of 1944 had already pointed out the obligation of local education authorities to make a contribution “to the spiritual, moral, mental and physical development of the community.” The Educational Reform Act of 1988 stated that the schools were expected to furnish a curriculum which “promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental, and physical development of pupils at the school and of society.”150 The Office for Standards in Education was not intending to regard “the spiritual and moral development” of pupils a dead letter. It was going to be one of 144

Ibid., 196/1. Ibid., 195/1; 197/3; 204/2. 146 Ibid., 43/3. 147 Ibid., 62/3. 148 Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, Explication de la méthode d’oraison, s.l. 1739, 3 (Cahiers Lasalliens, 14, Rome 1963). 149 National Curriculum Council, Spiritual and Moral Development. A Discussion Paper. York 1993. 150 For an account of the development from 1944 on, see P. Gilliat, Spiritual Education and Public Policy 1944-1994, in: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, (Ed. R. Best), London 1996, 161-172; D. Rose, Religious Education, Spirituality and the Acceptable Face of Indoctrination, ibid., 173-183. 145

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the criteria in light of which a school would be judged. This led to requests for clarification. Spirituality was not a familiar item.151 What does spiritual development entail? What is the meaning of the much-used phrase “the whole child”? What is the connection and difference between spiritual and moral development? In the Handbook for the Inspection of Schools (1993) the Office for Standards of Education defines spiritual development from the perspective of the pupil as follows: the capacity to think and reflect; curiosity and a feeling of awe and wonder; the ability to discuss religious convictions; having open relations; having an appreciation for imagination, inspiration and contemplation; raising questions about meaning and purpose. In 1994 the same agency once again succinctly defined how pupils profit from provisions which foster spiritual development.152 A key text is a fragment from the above-mentioned discussion paper issued by the National Curriculum Council in 1993 (p. 2): The term “spiritual” applies to all pupils. The potential for spiritual development is open to everyone and is not confined to the development of religious beliefs or conversion to a particular faith. To limit spiritual development in this way would be to exclude from its scope the majority of pupils in our schools who do not come from overtly religious backgrounds. The term needs to be seen as applying to something fundamental in the human condition… it has to do with the universal search for human identity… with the search for meaning and purpose in life and for values by which to live.153 In July 1994 a congress was held in London on the role of spirituality in parenting, education, and formation under the title: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child.154 The congress considered the role of spirituality in education from a variety of angles. Of direct importance for this spirituality are the following three items.

1. The spirituality of the child If the spiritual dimension in the upbringing and education of the child is not to remain a dead letter, educators in home and school must take note of the spiritual world in which the child lives. That means listening long and without prejudice to their stories, along the lines drawn by Robert Coles who for thirty years interviewed children about their spirituality.155 His conclusion was that the spirituality of children is strongly interwoven with questions about death, life

151

D. Kibble, Spiritual Development, Spiritual Experience and Spiritual Education, ibid., 64. Office for Standards of Education, Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development, London, 1994, 9-10. 153 National Curriculum Council, ibid., 2. 154 The report came out under the same title (Ed. R. Best, London 1996). 155 R. Coles, The Spiritual Life of Children, London 1992. 152

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on earth, and the environment. Spirituality awakens in the context of direct relationships.156 Of interest is the Children and Worldviews Project in which a team of researchers attempt to gain insight into the learning processes of children, also on the point of their spirituality.157 To illustrate this point we now present a couple of fragments from the conversation between an interviewer and Kelvin (K) and Damien (D), both of whom attend the elementary school. Q K and D Q K

Q K and D

Do you believe in God? Yep. Can you tell me why? ‘Cos you should and it’s a good reason to do it. He gives you food and all that. If you believe in God, God the father as well. He’s the one who made us. Does believing in God mean being good? Yeah

The conversation turns to devils and angels. Everyone has a devil and an angel sitting on his shoulders. Kelvin managed to kill the devil. Damien loves to help old people. Q D Q D

Q D Q D Q D Q D Q D Q D 156

Why? Because they’re old and they can’t live very long, old people. Is that a problem? (nods) Because they die and people feel sad. My grandad died the other day. I think he had a heart attack in the hospital. I think he had cancer in his lungs and he had bad ribs. Did you help him? Yes, I was bringing him letters saying get well soon. But he didn’t get well. No, he died. He went in a deep sleep and he died. Where do you think your grandad is now? He’s in the grave. So, he’s just dead? (nods). We often go up to the grave to see him. How long ago did he die? About six months ago. I don’t remember all of it. When people die does life just stop for them or do they go somewhere else? Life just stops for them.

B. Lealman, The Whole Vision of the Child, in: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, 26. 157 For a brief report, see C. Erricker and J. Erricker, Where Angels Fear to Tread. Discovering Children’s Spirituality, ibid., 184-195.

LAY SPIRITUALITY K Q K Q D Q D Q K D Q K D

57

I think they go back to God. Become an angel. It is true. How do you know that, Kelvin? I’ve got a big Bible. Damien, you’re not sure about your grandad. Is it possible to be in touch with your grandad now? I’ll always be in touch with him. How will you stay in touch with him? By prayer, I pray for him every night before I go to bed. I say, please God could you make my grandad be alive soon. I want to see him. Do you think it’s possible for him to be alive again? He’s still alive, Damien. He’s an angel. I know he’s flying around now probably. Where are the angels, Kelvin, are they with us or somewhere else? At night they come. They’re in the air. They never come in your house. They look in through the window.158

In this short fragment we hear two children “describing” their spiritual world. It requires intuition and empathy to interpret their stories. What they convey is something more than superficially interiorized myths or universal structures. We are witnessing forms of creative exploration and realization in relation to divine reality in the fabric of experiences and stories, relational patterns and moments of self-reflection in the lives of children. 2. Aspects of spiritual development The National Curriculum Council of 1993 summed up the following aspects of spirituality. Religious conviction. In religious conviction we are dealing with something ultimate, trans-individual. To some that will be something that transcends the suprapersonal. To others this is God.159 Wonder. Spirituality is the awareness of someone who is respectfully present to what he or she encounters. It is to be personally involved in and to attach personal meaning to what is present in one’s awareness.160 The experience of transcendence. “We hope to give children a focus beyond themselves, a transcendent instead of an immanent point of reference. This does not mean that the individual ego is denied and surrendered. On the contrary it must be affirmed as a vital part of a larger whole: of the planet, the universe, the vast mystery we live in.”161 158 Ibid., 187-189. See also E. McCreery, Talking to Young Children About Things Spiritual, ibid., 196-205. 159 D. Kibble, Spiritual Development, Spiritual Experience and Spiritual Education, ibid., 70. 160 A. Rodger, Human Spirituality. Towards an Educational Rationale, ibid., 51. 161 B. Lealman, The Whole Vision of the Child, ibid., 27-28.

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A search for meaning. Spirituality “provides direction, purpose, values and a sense of meaning for the person whose life is shaped by it. It entails a process of transformation of the person in the direction of whatever is conceived as human fulfillment.”162 Self-knowledge. “This is the goal of self-understanding, which seeks to distinguish between the self as a product of the expectations of others and the self as a creative agent, only developing in directions which are chosen and understood.”163 Relationships. “A spiritually educated child must be more than one with a highly developed sensitivity towards his or her inner experiential depth. Rather, the whole child will be able to utilize the learning that is central to education in a way that allows him or her to develop communal relationships with themselves, with society, with nature, and with the presence or absence of divinity….”164 Creativity. “Individuals exercise the imagination, not only to throw light on the nature of that which is, but also to explore and exploit the considerable territory of metaphor for its own sake.”165 Feelings. “Children do experience things which give them deep feelings of well-being, feelings of ‘magic,’ things which give them a glimmer of hope for the future; they develop value systems of their own which incorporate emotions and feelings such as love, honesty, loyalty, devotion, trust, integrity, joy, tenderness, kindness, tolerance, empathy, and warmth; they experience moments of intensity where beauty and understanding are prominent and many experience religion with all its powerful and mystic message.”166 3. Spirituality and God The National Curriculum Council in its discussion paper introduced the tension between the sphere of “a specific faith” (“religious ideas,” “conversion,” an “explicit religious background”) and something fundamental in human existence (“the universal search for individual identity”; “responding to challenging questions,” “the search for meaning and purpose in life and for values by which we live”). This tension determines the ambivalent attitude of the educators. Some favor an “open” view that is called “secular” and “humanistic”:167 spirituality, 162

A. Rodger, ibid., 53. M. Newby, Towards a Secular Concept of Spiritual Maturity, ibid., 96. 164 A. Wright, The Child in Relationship. Towards a Communal Model of Spirituality, ibid., 148. 165 J. Ungoed-Thomas, Respect for Persons. A Curricular Crisis of Identities, ibid., 130. 166 J. Kirkland, Helping to Restore Spiritual Values in Abused Children. A Role for Pastoral Carers in Education, ibid., 261. 167 See, for example, J. White, Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child. A Humanist Perspective, ibid., 30-42. 163

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according to this view, is a human dimension marked by consciousness, a broad perspective, a wholistic vision, integration, wonder, gratitude, hope, courage, energy, detachment, acceptance, love, friendliness.168 Others simply declare: God exists whether we choose to acknowledge him or not;169 God is co-constitutive of our personhood.170 It is remarkable that educators who put spirituality at the center of education have an ambivalent attitude toward God. On this point the child himself or herself seems less ambivalent. Research shows that, in a conversational context that is not focused on the religious, children do not produce anthropomorphic caricatures when they spontaneously talk about God. It is only when they have to say what they mean that God changes into an old man with a white beard in heaven.171 Awakening spirituality, for that matter, is still an unexplored area of research.172 Meanwhile, it is an established fact that, when people look back upon their life, 50-60 percent of them say they have had a far-reaching spiritual experience.173 This is confirmed by research in which what children say about God is documented.174 Spiritual education will succeed only if it ties in with the spirituality of the children themselves.175 BIBLIOGRAPHY ANDREE, T., Geschapen naar Gods beeld, Utrecht 1991. BRADFORD, J., Caring for the Whole Child. A Holistic Approach to Spirituality, London 1995. BROWN, R., The Child as a Model of Spirituality. A Study in Biblical and Patristic Sources, Belfast 1981. 168 C. Beck, Better Schools, London 1991; cf. D. Evans, Spirituality and Human Nature, New York 1993; A. Rodger, Human Spirituality. Towards an Educational Rationale, in: Education Spirituality and the Whole Child, 45; G. Baldwin, Modern Spirituality, Moral Education and the History Curriculum, ibid., 207; J. White, Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child. A Humanist Perspective, ibid., 34. 169 M. Warner, Headteacher’s Perceptions of Their Role in Spiritual Education. Some Empirical Data and a Discussion, ibid., 225. 170 A. Wright, The Child in Relationship, ibid., 147. 171 O. Petrovich, An Examination of Piaget’s Theory of Childhood Artificialism (unpub. diss), Oxford 1989, cited in R. Nye, Childhood Spirituality and Contemporary Development Psychology, in: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, 112. 172 R. Nye, ibid., 108-120. 173 D. Hay, Religious Experience Today. Studying the Facts, London 1990. 174 See, e.g., J. Taylor, Innocent Wisdom. Children as Spiritual Guides, New York 1989; M. Coles, The Spiritual Life of Children, London 1998; C. Erricker & J. Erricker, Where Angels Fear to Tread, in: Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, 184-195; E. McCreery, Talking to Young Children About things Spiritual, ibid., 196-205. 175 A. Rodger, Human Spirituality. Towards an Educational Rationale, ibid., 46.

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COLES, R., The Spiritual Life of Children, Boston 1990. Education, Spirituality, and the Whole Child, (Ed. R. Best), London-New York 1996. HEATH, H., Answering to That of God in Our Children, Wallingford (PA) 1994. The International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, Abingdon 1996-…. LAING, R., Conversations with Children, Harmondsworth 1978. Leren om te leven, waarom zou dat niet kunnen?, Speling 31 (1979) no. 2. The Love of Learning, The Way 20 (1980) no. 4. MACKLEY, J. What is Meant by Spiritual Development and How Can the Secondary School Promote It?, Bristol 1993. National Curriculum Council, Spiritual and Moral Development. A Discussion Paper, York 1993. Office for Standards in Education, Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development, London 1994. Onderwijs wil wegwijs maken in het leven, Speling 45 (1993) no. 3. Opvoeden in geloof, Speling 44 (1992) no. 1. PALMER, P., To Know as We Are Known. A Spirituality of Education, San Francisco 1983. Religion and the Arts in Education. Dimensions of Spirituality, (Ed. D. Starkings), London 1993. The Spiritual Dimension in Education, (Ed. P. Souper), Southampton 1985. TAYLOR, J., Innocent Wisdom. Children as Spiritual Guides, New York 1989.

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1.3. The Inwardness of the Home In the Dicionario di spiritualita dei laici176 not a word is said about the house and inhabiting it. Yet it is a well-established fact that native spiritualities regard the house as the center of familial relations and the natural environment.177 It is also certain that from early modern times the dwelling was a gathering point for religious symbols and customs. To lay spirituality the dwelling is essential. An initial exploration is therefore in order. We will first describe two main forms: the nomadic and the sedentary type of dwelling. Next we will reflect on the act of dwelling. 1. The nomadic type of dwelling finds its material center in the tent (’ohel):178 several strips composed of sheepskins are held up by a wooden pole in the center and widely extended on the sides by cords and pins. The entrance was screened off by a curtain (Gen. 18:9-10). When the nomads moved to new grazing ground they folded their tent to pitch it elsewhere. The tent is not only an architectonic center but also describes the inhabitants (1 Chron. 4:41). A certain atmosphere prevails in a tent: it can be full of happiness (Job 5:24), but also marred by wickedness (Job 11:14).179 It is probable that holy objects were kept in the most interior part of the tent.180 The tent was part of a way of life. We clearly see this in the case of the Rechabites: “You shall never drink wine, neither you nor your children; nor shall you ever build a house, or sow seed; nor shall you plant a vineyard, or even own one; but you shall live in tents all your days, that you may live long in the land where you are a guest” (Jer. 35:6-7). Living in tents embodies a specific mentality. 2. A sedentary type of dwelling is an enclosed space made of wood (1 Kgs. 5:22, 23) or stone (1 Kgs. 6:7) which serves as a permanent place of residence.181 Like a tent, the house embraces its inhabitants along with all that belongs to them. The last of the ten commandments reads: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exod. 20:17). The

176

Dizionario di spiritualità dei laici 1-2, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Milan 1981. D. Carmody, Native American Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 698-699. 178 See Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament I, under bayit, house, 232-236 (E. Jenni). Also cf. K. Koch, ’ohel, in: TWAT I (1973), 128-141. 179 K. Koch, ibid., 131. 180 Ibid., 133. 181 H. Hoffner, bayit, in: TWAT I (1973), 629-638. 177

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house is where a man, his wife and children live (Deut. 6:7; 19:1). On the sabbath the whole “house” abstains from work (Exod. 20:10). The house is also a liturgical unit: the house will celebrate the passover (Exod. 12:3-4); the house goes up to the temple and enjoys the meal associated with the sacrifice (Deut. 14:26; 15:20); the house solemnly dedicates itself to Be-er (Josh. 24:15). The house preserves the intimacy of the community that is not limited to the generation now living but includes the dead as well as future generations. The house is a genealogical unit. People speak, for example, of “the house of Levi” (Exod. 2:1) and “the house of Judah” (2 Sam. 2:4, 7, 10, 11). 3. To dwell somewhere is not primarily a matter of just staying there: being attached to a specific place. It is primarily a matter of coming home somewhere.182 Essential in this concept is the idea of transition. The dead “dwell in the dust” (Isa. 26:19), that is, they change into dust. In the transition accomplished in “dwelling,” the dweller exerts influence: he permeates the dwelling place with his presence. When the breath of Be-er is poured out over us, the desert becomes a garden: “then justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness settles down in the garden” (Isa. 32:16). This transformation in turn again prepares a place where the people can unfold their presence: “My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, in undisturbed resting places” (Isa. 32:18). In three examples we will develop this spirituality of “dwelling” further. 1.3.1. LIVING TOGETHER IN TENTS In the family narratives of the book of Genesis we hear of communities which, with their flocks of small stock, migrate along the outer strip of the desert. Only in the rainy season do they move deeper into the desert with their flocks. The migratory area of the patriarchs and matriarchs runs from Mesopotamia via Canaan right into Egypt (Gen. 11:31-32; 12:4-5; 27:43; 28:10; 29:4; Gen. 24, and 29-31). 1. The migratory life An analysis of the narrative cycles of Genesis 12-50 yields two narrative structures: the genealogy and the itinerary account.183 Genealogies are narratives which, by way of kinship stories, introduce order in the area of familial relationships. By these stories a given group can situate itself in time. Itinerary accounts (not to be confused with travel stories which have a starting point and 182 183

M. Görg, shakan, in: TWAT VII (1993), 1337-1348. C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 12-36, 37-50, Minneapolis (MN), 1984-1986.

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a terminus) describe the migratory movements of seminomadic communities. With the aid of these accounts a given group can situate itself in space. For now we will concentrate on the itineraries. The nomadic life depends, economically, on the breeding of small stock (sheep and goats). For the maintenance of small stock good grazing ground is indispensable. In the dry season such grazing ground can be found on the margins of fruitful agricultural land. In the rainy season nomads migrate deep into the steppe. This alternation is what defines the life of nomads: in the rainy season (NovemberMarch) they move into the steppe; in the dry season (April-October) they move back in the direction of the cultivated land. Also within one given region migratory movements are made lasting only a few days. In exceptional situations (extreme drought or when a group splits off ) a given community occupied totally new summer or winter pastureland. This is called “transmigration.”184 It is completely natural that in such a migratory life185 the tent would be the permanent center. 2. The ritual of departure If a person reads through the Genesis stories in a single sitting, she discovers how often people pulled up stakes and left a given area: Abraham moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans (Gen. 11:31), from Haran (Gen. 12:4-5), from Shechem (Gen. 12:8), from Canaan (Gen. 12:10), from Egypt (Gen. 13:1), and so forth (Gen. 13:3; 20:1). In fact “he journeyed from one stopping place to the next” (Gen. 13:1-3). The same is true of Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 26:17-23; 28:10; 29:10; 31:22; 32:1; 32:9; 42:2-3; 46:1). In this manner the nomadic keepers of small stock traveled from 200 to 500 kilometers a year – within their own desert territory. The most significant moment of departure took place when they left the grazing grounds in the desert to return to the cultivated land. That occurred at the start of the dry season. The moment of departure was marked by the paschal ritual: people stood ready to leave, “loins girded, sandals on their feet and staff in hand” (Exod. 12:11; cf. vv. 33, 39), performed the blood rite (Exod. 12:7; cf. v. 22) and ate the meal (Exod. 12:8-9). Eating the roasted meat served to give people strength for the journey. The blood rite was performed to avert dangers. “These dangers were personified… as a demon, the destroyer (maschith; see Gen. 12:23). The houses were smeared with blood – in early times the tents were treated in this way – in order to protect them and their inhabitants….”186 In these departures God took the initiative (Gen. 12:1) and promised 184 V. Maag, Der Hirte Israels, in: V. Maag, Kultur, Kulturkontakt und Religion. GöttingenZürich 1980, 111-144. 185 Genesis contains the following migratory movements: 12:8; 21:33; 22:19; 28:10; 29:1; 37:17-21; 32:2.14.22-24.32; 33:17-20; 35:16-21; 46:1-5. 186 R. de Vaux, The Early History of Israel, London 1978, 367.

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assistance to his faithful: “I will be with you (‘ehye) and keep you wherever you go and bring you back to this land; no, I will not leave you” (Gen. 28:15; cf. v. 20; Gen. 15:7; cf. 24:7; 26:3; 31:13-18; 35:1; 46:1-7; 48:15, 21). 3. The ritual of arrival When semi-nomads entered new grazing grounds, they performed a ritual of arrival, which can be most succinctly described as follows: Abraham pitched his tent, set up a stone as altar, and called out the name YHWH (Gen. 12:8; also see 13:4; 21:33; 26:25). This description contains three pivotal moments. (1) The tent is pitched. By this action the community makes itself present: the family now “dwells” here. Entering the center of the tent, the members of the community become identifiable: their faces become visible to each other. (2) An altar for sacrifice (mizbach) is erected and a sacrificial animal (zebach) is slaughtered. By jointly eating the animal in the presence of the Mighty One, the participants strengthen communion with one another as well as communion with the Mighty One. (3) They call on the Mighty One with the name that fit the arrival. This calling “out” (or “in”) was an act of making God present. “Be present here. Protect this dwelling place. Drive out the forces which threaten our life.” This is the original meaning of the Name YHWH, the name by which the ancient patriarchs invoked the presence of God as they started living in a new area: “Let him be present. May he let his face shine upon us. May he assert his power here.”187 4. The tent community Life in a tent calls for a close-knit community. It is for that reason that in the family stories of Genesis we hear so much about mutual relations. In this connection the dark side of family life is not concealed: Cain, filled with jealousy, beats his brother to death (Gen. 4); Sarah is offended by her servant girl Hagar and sends her away (Gen. 16); Rebekah deceitfully favors her younger son Jacob at the expense of her older son Esau (Gen. 27:5-10); Leah envies her sister Rachel (Gen. 29) and vice versa (Gen. 30:1); Tamar, disguised as a prostitute, exacts a child from Judah (Gen. 38) – all of them stories to make the listeners aware of the destructive powers present in a family and of the power of the Mighty One to restore damaged relationships: Hagar, sent into the desert and desolate, is helped by the Mighty One (Gen. 21:12-13); in the conflict between Leah and Rachel he counterbalances the situation (Gen. 29:31-32); Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers but assisted by the Mighty One, turns out to be 187 YHWH is the 3rd person singular imperfect of the verb hayah which means “being there, making one’s Presence felt.” See K. Waaijman, Betekenis van de naam Yahwe, Kampen 1984, 35-47. See further part 2, chapter. 3.

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their rescuer (Gen. 45:5); the Mighty One hears the blood of Abel crying out to him from the earth (Gen. 4:10). The Mighty One is fully involved in the weal and woe of the community. 5. Community exercises It is vitally important for a tent-community to cultivate mutual relations. Emerging from the family stories are the following exercises. Welcome. Rituals of greeting were very important in the Middle East (cf. 2 Kgs. 4:29). A greeting is a life-affirming gesture vis-à-vis another person (Gen. 27:29; 33:11), something one can clearly see from an enactment of it: seeing, approaching, a question, a friendly gesture, an embrace, a kiss. Meal. The meal is an event in which community comes to expression. We note this when guests are received (Gen. 18:6-8; 19:3; 24:33, 54) and when agreements are made between families (Gen. 31:44-54). Stories. Telling stories belongs to the center of life in a tent. Stories afford insight into the migratory areas, familiarize people with the genealogy of the family and initiate the young into God-consciousness. Affectivity. Community is created by building up emotional ties. Primary examples are Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel. The key word is “to feel” (yadah), a word which denotes the immediacy of a face-to-face connection. Reconciliation. The field of tension between conflict and reconciliation constitutes one of the most important narrative structures. The entire story of Jacob and Esau, for example, is organized around that field of tension (Gen. 27:33). Within this complex as a whole the quarrel between Laban and Jacob (Gen. 2931) is played out. And within that story there is the confrontation between Leah and Rachel (Gen. 29:29-30:24). All these tensions call for reconciliation: a kiss (Gen. 33:4-5), a process of reconciliation (Gen. 31:48-54) The exercise of mutual relations is the ritualization of community. It both expresses and interiorizes its spirituality.

1.3.2. A

HOUSE IN THE CITY

The pilgrim psalms 120-134 were written in the field of tension between Zion and the daily life of the pilgrim.188 The postexilic spirituality of Zion is the background against which lay spirituality is profiled: despite discrimination, pursue

188 K. Waaijman, Psalmen 120-134, Kampen 1978; K. Seybold, Die Wallfahrtpsalmen, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1978.

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peace (Ps. 120), undertake your journey with confidence (Ps. 121), joy and sorrow in agricultural pursuits (Ps. 126), the upbringing of a child (Ps. 131) and so forth. In two of these psalms there is mention of living in a house: Psalm 127 speaks of building a house and of work; depicted in Psalm 128 are work, the intimacy of love, and the solidarity of the children. 1. Building the house Psalm 127 starts with a proverb about the building of a house: the building of a material house by laying the foundations, putting up the walls, arranging the rooms, constructing the roof; setting up a household with all that belongs to it in the way of food, clothing, and furniture; starting and building a domestic community, meaning in particular a family. The proverb reads: “Unless Be-er builds a house, it is in vain that the builders torture themselves with the job” (vs. 1). If the house does not take shape within the multidimensional effect of the Name, it is built in emptiness. The house becomes “an illusion, a soap bubble”: there is neither a foundation nor perspective there. There is no heart in it. Be-er and “illusion” are diametrically opposed to each other. Be-er means the unfolding of real life. He provides inner connectedness, relates things to each other in mutual reciprocity, creates solidarity. Illusion is emptiness; it leads to dissolution and sows division. 2. Guarding the city Parallel to the proverb about building a house is the saying about guarding the city and its community. Surveillance of a city was oriented to two dangers. First of all, there was the danger from without: hostile armies, raiders, wild animals, With an eye to this danger Isaiah says: “Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted sentinels” (Isa. 62:6), that is, to defend the city community against attacks from without. Second, there was the danger from within: corruption, violence, theft, big time crime and petty crime. With an eye to this threat the sentinels made their rounds in the city (S. of Sol. 5:7). They protected the city community against wrongdoing in the city (cf. Ps. 55:10-12). The proverb reads: “Unless Be-er guards the city, it is in vain that the guard keeps watch” (vs. 1). When the Name no longer forms the core of the defensive strength and stability of the city community, the sentinels on the walls and the policemen on the streets watch in vain. Their surveillance is an illusion. The city, then, is no more than a hollow structure. In that case corruption, perjury, crime, and violence effortlessly gain access to the heart of the city. 3. A housekeeping economy that is receptive At this point the psalmist first develops the construction of the house (first proverb). Highlighted are the household, the working community, and the fruitfulness of the house. The poet contrasts two households: the household of illusion and the household of Be-er. The household of illusion is characterized

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by endless drudgery and toil which only produces grief: “It is vanity for you to rise up early, go late to rest, and eat the bread of inner torment” (vs. 2). With only a few swift brush strokes the household of illusion is characterized. It consists exclusively of hard work. Its members get up ever earlier and go to bed ever later. The “pleasure” they get from it is the sour bread of exhaustion. Such a life, which seeks by working to accumulate as many things around itself as possible is an illusion: emptiness. Diametrically opposed to this economy of illusion is the household of Be-er. Here again the household is swiftly sketched: “There he gives his darling sleep! Here, the heritage of Be-er: sons, the reward: the fruit of the womb!” (vs. 2-3). The labor of the devout worker is marked by moderation, rest, and receptivity: “Be-er gives to the laborer who loves him the time of a good night’s rest” (Sir. 30:25). Sleep is the symbol of receptive rest. After the psalmist has pictured the building of the house on the level of the household (labor and sleep), he sketches it on the level of fertility: the formation of a family. Harking back to the sphere of the household economy, and in a sense correcting himself, the poet says: “Look, your real possession is neither labor nor sleep. The possession that is really your own is your children. They are most uniquely your own, but at the same time least your own, for they are the possession of Be-er. You cannot fabricate children; they are thrown into your lap.” By this self-correction a new dimension in the building of a house comes to the fore: the inheritance which a person receives from God. Here “reward” becomes a paradoxical word. For a child is not a “reward for labor performed.” A child is a gift of God. The verb “to give” (used absolutely!) is charged with meaning here. There is room for surprise: “Here!” There is a reward not achievable by work: fertility. 4. Righteousness that is vigilant After developing the idea of building a house, the psalmist now proceeds to discuss the subject of watching over the city. We already stated earlier that city surveillance has two sides to it: the ability to defend the city against dangers from without and vigilance against dangers from within. The latter danger is foremost in the psalm. The psalmist takes us along with him to the city gate, the place where the stories are told, the news is exchanged, business deals are made, and justice is administered. In this gate we find the Yahweh-devotee with his sons, powerful in the battle against wrongdoing. Like arrows in the hand of a strongman are the sons of his youth. Prosperous is he whose quiver is filled with them. They are not afraid; indeed, they speak against their enemies in the fate (vv. 4-5).

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The maintenance of justice is one of the most essential “watchdog” functions of the city. It is the duty of citizens to secure the right and resist the wrong. The city’s enemies try, by means of corruption and violence, to undermine justice. Needed, to keep this from happening, are reliable witnesses. Now, then, that is precisely the contribution of the man who builds his house from Be-er’s perspective. When he fights with the doomers in a court trial, he resembles an archer who has many arrows in his quiver: standing together as one, father and sons are strong to defend the city against the wrongdoing and crime that assails the city from within. They are a positive example to everyone. They are the real watchmen of the city: they watch from Be-er’s perspective. 1.3.3. THE HOME AS INWARDNESS In the second part of his main work Totality and Infinity, the part that is entitled Interiority and Economy the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas describes the meaning of the home.189 Levinas shows how the field of interiority unfolds itself as dwelling. Hence the title: interiority and economy (= the arrangement of the dwelling). The interiority of the dwelling, which is the embodiment of being at home with oneself in enjoyment, constitutes the center from the perspective of which labor and possessions, intimacy and hospitality are manifest as meaningful. 1. To be at home with oneself as enjoyment “We live from ‘good soup,’ air, light, spectacles, work, ideas, sleep, and so forth.”190 This absorption in life is our glory and our independence. It is our happiness. this is where we are in our element. We live life. Here the I rejoices in its selfhood. Here we are personal. “Because life is happiness, it is personal. The personality of the person, the ipseity of the I (…) to the particularity of the happiness of enjoyment. Enjoyment accomplishes the atheist separation (…), the existence at home with itself of an autochthonous I.”191 To be at home with oneself, to be at ease in one’s own skin, and to be self-sufficient is “the mode in which the breakup of totality (…) is concretely accomplished” (…). “The selfsufficiency of enjoying measures the egoism or the ipseity of the Ego and the same.”192 It is “the exaltation of the existent as such.”193 In happiness the I originates in an original way: “Enjoyment is the very production of a being that is 189

E. Levinas, Totality and Infinity. An essay on Exteriority, Pittsburgh (PA) 1969, 110. Ibid., 110. 191 Ibid., 115. 192 Ibid., 118. 193 Ibid., 119. 190

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born, that breaks the tranquil eternity of its seminal or uterine existence to enclose itself in a person who in living from the world lives at home with itself.”194 2. Inwardness and dwelling In living his life a person is at home with himself. This at-home-ness is deepened and protected by the recollection which suspends immediate enjoyment with a view to paying more attention to oneself. Recollection coincides with “a movement of attention freed from immediate enjoyment.”195 Now it is precisely this movement of recollection by which the home is constituted: “Because the I exists recollected, it takes refuge empirically in the home. Only from this recollection does the building take on the signification of being a dwelling.”196 By going from the outside world to the inside, I realize the interiority of my dwelling: “The recollection (…) is realized as the home.”197 In the home a human being realizes his or her being-in-the world. “Concretely speaking, the dwelling is not situated in the objective world but the objective world is situated by its relation to my dwelling.”198 This makes the home the place of contemplation: “(…) every consideration of objects, and of buildings too, is produced out of a dwelling.”199 It is in the dwelling that the eyes of contemplation are opened: “(…) the subject contemplating a world presupposes the event of dwelling, the withdrawal from the elements (that is, from immediate enjoyment, already uneasy about the morrow), recollection in the intimacy of the home.”200 3. Intimacy Recollection in the intimacy of the home “is an intimacy with someone,”201 for the interiority of the home is like a hospitable reception by someone who already discreetly expected me: “To dwell (…) is a recollection, a coming to oneself, a retreat home with oneself as in a land of refuge, which answers to a hospitality, an expectancy, a human welcome.”202 The Other, quietly present and wordlessly familiar, shows itself “in its withdrawal and its absence.”203 It is “the ‘thou’ (you) of familiarity: a language without teaching, a silent language, an understanding 194

Ibid., Ibid., 196 Ibid., 197 Ibid., 198 Ibid., 199 Ibid., 200 Ibid., 201 Ibid., 202 Ibid., 203 Ibid., 195

147. 154. 154. 152. 153. 153. 153. 155. 156. 155.

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without words, an expression in secret.”204 Levinas calls this silent presence “the Woman”: “And the Other whose presence is discreetly an absence with which is accomplished the primary hospitable welcome which describes the field of intimacy is the Woman. The woman is the condition for recollection, the interiority of the Home, and inhabitation.”205 She constitutes the horizon within which the interior life occurs. “The empirical absence of the human being of ‘feminine sex’ in a dwelling nowise affects the dimension of femininity which remains open there, as the very welcome of the dwelling.”206 In the interest of complete clarity it is further stated: “(…) there is no question here of defying ridicule by maintaining the empirical truth or untruth that every home in fact presupposes a woman.”207 The quiet welcome which is the dwelling reveals “the primordial phenomenon of gentleness,” a gentleness which comes from the Other and from the face: “The welcoming of the face (…) is produced primordially in the gentleness of the feminine face in which the separated being can recollect itself, because of which it inhabits, and in its dwelling accomplishes separation. Inhabitation and the intimacy of the dwelling which make the separation of the human being possible thus imply a first revelation of the Other.”208 4. Labor and possession Enjoyment and happiness are continually being threatened. The elements threaten to overwhelm us.209 Their fury is tamed within the four walls of the house and calmed in possession.210 The things gained from the elements find rest in possession. By the acquisitive grasp of labor we detach things from the indeterminate, from matter, and bring it inside the dwelling. “By taking hold of things, by treating being as movable property, to be transported into a home, labor disposes of the unforeseeable future in which being’s ascendancy was manifested. It reserved this future for itself. Possession removes being from its inconstancy.”211 Labor and possession refer to the dwelling: “Man plunges into the elemental from the domicile, the primary appropriation. (…) He is interior to what he possesses, so that we can say that the domicile, the condition for all property, renders the inner life possible. In that way the I is at home with itself.”212

204

Ibid., 155. Ibid., 155. 206 Ibid., 158. 207 Ibid., 157-158. 208 Ibid., 150-151. 209 Ibid., 158. 210 Ibid., 158. 211 Ibid., 160 (with minor changes). 212 Ibid., 131-132 (with minor changes). 205

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5. Hospitality “The possibility for the home to open to the Other is as essential to the essence of the home as closed doors and windows.”213 The home has two possibilities. Separate being “can close itself up in its egoism, that is, in the very accomplishment of its isolation. And this possibility of forgetting the transcendence of the Other – of banishing with impunity all hospitality (that is, all language), from one’s home, thereby banishing the transcendental relation that alone permits the I to shut itself up in itself – evinces the absolute truth, the radicalism, of separation.”214 There is, however, another possibility as well: “The relation with infinity remains as another possibility of the being recollected in its dwelling.”215 One who opens her home to the Other receives her inwardness in a new way: “Recollection in a home that is open to the Other – hospitality – is the concrete and initial fact of human recollection and separation.”216 There is, however, another possibility as well: “The relation with infinity remains as another possibility of the being recollected in its dwelling.”217 One who opens her home to the Other receives her inwardness in a new way: “Recollection in a home that is open to the Other – hospitality – is the concrete and initial fact of human recollection and separation.”218 Only now does the home really open itself up.219 BIBLIOGRAPHY BASCOM, R., Prolegomena to the Study of the Itinerary Genre in the Old Testament and Beyond, Ann Arbor (MI) 1986. Bezit op zijn waarde schatten, Speling 39 (1987) no. 2. Des lieux habitables, La Vie Spirituelle t. 134 (1980) no. 3. GRUNDY, M., A Spirituality for Work, London 1993. Hoe kijk je tegen werk aan, Speling 44 (1992) no. 4. LEVINAS, E., Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority, Pittsburgh (PA) 1969. PALMER, P., The Active Life. A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring, San Francisco 1990. PEARCE, J., Inner-city Spirituality, Nottingham 1987. Wonen en spiritualiteit, Speling 28 (1976) no. 3. The World of Work, The Way 23 (1983) no. 3. WRIGHT, W., Sacred Dwelling. A Spirituality of Family Life, Leavenworth (KS) 1994. 213

Ibid., Ibid., 215 Ibid., 216 Ibid., 217 Ibid., 218 Ibid., 219 Ibid., 214

173. 172-173. 173. 172. 173. 172. 171.

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1.4. The Spirituality of Marriage Within the different cultures marriage assumes various forms. Also the spiritual traditions possess accents of their own. 1. Biblical traditions. In the husband-wife relation the biblical traditions see a reflection of the God-human relation established in creation (Genesis 1 and 2). Husband and wife, in their vis-à-vis relation, are an adumbration of the vis-àvis to which God creatively calls humans. This vis-à-vis of the husband-wife relation is a paradigm for all family relations and pervades all areas of life: affectivity, sexuality, genealogy, social relations, the economy. 2. Jewish mysticism. Jewish mysticism locates the secret of sexual love in God himself: the sexual union between husband and a wife and the union of God with his Shekinah are one. In the view of the Kabbala – whose insights are rooted in rabbinical traditions and exert continuing influence in Hasidism – sexual love is a spiritual exercise by which husband and wife are united with divine love. 3. Eastern spirituality. The tantra which, beginning in the fifth century before Christ, has pervaded Eastern spirituality – Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism – views sexuality as a way of achieving mystical union. The idea of the tantra is to unite the divine and the human world. The goal is a sexual experience achieved by practice as prescribed in tradition-mediated rituals. God who is a love-relation as such is mystically experienced in the union between a husband and a wife. 4. Catholic spirituality. The encyclical Casti connubii (Dec. 31, 1930) heralded in the Catholic Church the beginning of a new spirituality of marriage.220 People began to regard marriage as a process of growth in which husbands and wives themselves would be responsible for the way they would go. Essential is a dialogue between husband and wife as equals. Vatican II continued to develop this theme.221 With increasing consistency the experts described the spirituality of marriage as “as spirituality which is realized through the husband-wife relation in marriage.”222 This love-occurrence makes the divine love present.223 One can “say that their fruitful love is a reflection of divine fruitfulness, not just added to it and as it were externally manifesting itself through the creation, but essentially – internally – not as something in God but as God himself.”224 220 For a good survey, see P. de Locht, De huwelijksspiritualiteit tussen 1930 and 1960, in: Concilium 10 (1974) no. 10, 29-44. 221 See Gaudium et spes, no. 49. 222 G. Campanini & G. Campanini, Famille, in: DVSp (1983), 412. 223 Ibid., 413, with reference to Gaudium et spes, no. 48. 224 P. Adnès, Mariage et vie chrétienne, in: DSp 10 (1980), 373.

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5. Modern marriage. In the 12th century “courtly love” made its debut. Established forms of social contact had to yield to free love. The process began with the aristocratic youth of Southern France and Italy and was taken over by the citizenry – now growing in self-assurance – of the newly prospering cities.225 The free love which the awakening moderns captured from feudal society lost its freedom when it allowed itself to be banished to private life.226 Along with the split between “private” and “public” life, the atomization of marriage occurred. The patriarchal family which embraces several generations shrank into the nuclear family which consists of husband, wife, and children.227 With a view to exploring the area of the spirituality of marriage we selected three paradigms; (a) the “primeval history” (Westermann) of marriage as its story is told in Genesis 1 and 2; (b) the cabbalistic mysticism of marriage which sees an intrinsic relation between conjugal love and love in God; (c) the dialogical view of Martin Buber who opposes the reduction of conjugal love to emotionality. 1.4.1. “MALE

AND FEMALE CREATED

HE THEM”

In Genesis we are told twice about the creation of man (Gen. 1:26-28 and 2:425). In both accounts humans are created by God as male and female. Essential to an understanding of these accounts are two insights. (1) We are dealing here with pronouncements concerning a primordial occurrence which as such escapes historical inquiry.228 Genesis 1-2 speaks of the fundamental form of our humanity before God. (2) Man was created in accordance with the image of God-andman as a communal being: “as humans with humans.”229 As such the narrative of the creation of man as male and female is the paradigm for all those other communal forms: between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, and so forth. 1. As male and female before the face of God On the 6th day as the climax of all the work of creation, the creation of human beings occurs: “And the Mighty One created the Earthling as his reflection, as the reflection of the Mighty One created he them, male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27). The human being is not created “according to his kind” 225

T. van Eupen, Hoe de westerse mens omging met de vrije liefde, in: Speling 26 (1974) no. 1, 36. 226 See B. Willms, Revolution und Protest oder Glanz und Elend des bürgerlichen Subjekts, Stuttgart 1969. 227 P. Adnès, ibid., 356. 228 C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, Minneapolis (MN) 1974, 160. 229 Ibid., 229ff.

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(Gen. 1:21, 24), i.e. within his own species but as God’s “opposite” (Gegenüber).230 In using this language the narrator of Genesis 1 evokes the atmosphere of the liturgy in which humans stand before the face of God. Also, the male-female distinction is a typically liturgical distinction (see Lev. 12:2-7; 15:33; 27:2-7; Num. 5:3).231 Within the actual liturgy men played the dominant role: at Mount Sinai only men were counted (Num. 1:2, 20, 22); only men served as priests (Exod. 28:1ff.; Lev. 8:1ff.); only men ate the things consecrated to God.232 Against this exclusive focus on males, the creation story takes a critical position: the Earthling is the reflection of God precisely as male-and-female (also cf. Gen. 5: 1-2). Humans appear as God’s human opposite (“vis-à-vis”) before the Face. 2. Be fruitful After the Earthling’s creation as God’s opposite follows the fertility blessing: “The Mighty One blessed them and said to them. Be fruitful, become many, and fill the land” (Gen. 1:28). The blessing upon the animals (Gen. 1:22) only concerns the fruitfulness of the kind (Gen. 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25). Earthlings are blessed because in them an “opposite,” a reflection, a likeness is produced (Gen. 5:3). In this congener the husband and wife produce the human vis-à-vis which they themselves embody. Over against them arises a third human being who enjoys life from within his or her own origin and draws it from his or her own power.233 3. The woman, a help interpreting him In the second creation story it takes a long time (Gen. 2:4-25) before the Earthling becomes male-and-female. A garden already existed; animals were already there; all these animals had already received their names (Gen. 2:18-20). But Adam was still alone. There was still no “help which fit him” (Gen. 2:18-20).234 In this transition Adam is the fundamental form the woman has to “fit.” It is a question whether the Hebrew word neged has been correctly understood in this translation. Buber translates: “I want to make for him a help, a counterpart.” In this translation Eve becomes Adam’s partner. We have to take still one more 230

E. Waschke, Untersuchungen zum Menschenbild der Urgeschichte, Berlin 1984, 18. W. Schmidt, Die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1967, 145-147; P. Bird, ‘Male and Female He Created Them.’ Gen. 1:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation, in: Harvard Theological Review 74 (1981), 125-129. 232 R. Clements, zakar, in: ThDOT IV (1980), 82-87. 233 E. Levinas, Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority, Pittsburgh (PA) 1969, 277. 234 The majority of the exegetes agree that in reference to “help” we must not primarily think of help in working or help in begetting offspring but assistance in a general sense. See C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 227. 231

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step: “Together with the mutual help, there is the mutual correspondence, the mutual understanding in word and answer as well as in silence, which builds up life in common.”235 Eve is someone who interprets Adam. In Eve Adam has a real counterpart (vis-à-vis): someone who draws attention to him and explains him.236 4. And they shall be one flesh After Adam had fallen into a deep sleep, God took a rib from his side, made the woman from it, and brought her to the Earthling. To this new creation Adam reacts with great joy: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman (ishshah) for out of Man (ish) this one was taken” (Gen. 2:23). The demonstrative pronoun “this” occurs three times in Adam’s exclamation. By this device the narrator wants to give expression to the demonstrative character of the exclamation.237 After all the animals which stood before Adam and to which he gave a name, this one, indeed this one, is the one before him who can help him arrive at the deepest level of self-understanding. The reason why she is “the one” lies in the profound kinship he feels: “bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 29:14; 2 Sam. 19:13-14; cf. Jdgs 9:2; 2 Sam. 5:1; 1 Chr. 11:1).238 As “man” (ish) Adam experiences his solidarity with his “woman” (ishshah): this truly is my blood relative.239 This immediate perception is announced in the name “Wo-man”: she is the unique being, man’s opposite who is essentially related, for she was taken out of “man.” At this point, finally, the creation of the Earthling as a “vis-à-vis” being is completed.240 This “vis-à-vis” constitutes the foundation for the all-embracing life community between husband and wife. “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves (clings) to his wife and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). The man leaves his original blood-relatives in order to fit himself into a new “oneness” which is evidently so strong that it overcomes the former attachment. This is expressed by the phrase the “one flesh.” The elementary power of love between husband and wife transforms them into a single personal love-community.241 In this community a man and a woman open up to each other unhindered: “And the Earthling and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). The nakedness of the

235

Ibid., 227. See part 2, chapter 4.2.1. 237 Cf. Westermann, ibid., 231. 238 N. Bratsiotis, basar, in: ThDOT II (1975), 317-332. 239 Ibid., 328. 240 C. Westermann, ibid., 232. 241 Ibid., 234. 236

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“vis-à-vis” (which is to be without protection) in no way entails shame: the emotional act of blushingly withdrawing into one’s own interior. On the contrary: the encounter with the other especially triggers an opening up process. The nakedness interprets the original immediacy through which a man and a woman discover each other, an immediacy denoted by the verb “to feel” or “experience” (Gen. 4:1, 25).242 1.4.2. MARRIAGE MYSTICISM IN THE KABBALA The Kabbala, which in the 11th and 12th century spread from the Provence via Northern Spain (Gerona) over all of Spain, interprets reality as a single comprehensive emanation in 10 unfoldings of power, the so-called Sefiroth.243 The uppermost sefirah (crown) most intimately touches God, the Infinite (einsof), who is completely transcendent. The nethermost sefirah (kingdom) most intimately concerns the community of Israel, the Indwelling of God (Shekinah). Connected with the higher and lower sefiroth is a highly developed system of sexual symbolism. The nethermost sefirah (Indwelling of God, the community of Israel) is feminine and is called Mother, Spouse, Daughter, and Bride. The higher sefiroth (the king, the Righteous, Foundation, World columns) represent the masculine.244 The union between the uppermost and nethermost sefiroth is achieved in connection with the union between a husband and a wife in marriage. Conjugal intercourse effects the union of the two sefiroth, a union guaranteed by the stream of emanation from above meeting the energizing effect from below.245 The internal relations in the Deity are controlled by the secret of sexuality. To Kabbalists it is the symbol for the love relation between “the Holy One, blessed be he” and his Shekinah. Of all the events in the world of divine manifestations the sacred marriage of the heavenly Bridegroom and the heavenly Bride is the most central.246 Marriage participates in the mystery of sexual love in God and influences it.247 Jewish mysticism, which rejected sexual asceticism and which did not regard marriage as a concession to the imperfection of the flesh, led people to discover the mystery of sex within God himself. Kabbalism, accordingly, rejected asceticism and 242 M. Buber, Recht und Unrecht. Deutung einiger Psalmen, in: Schriften zur Bibel (Werke II), München 1964, 987. 243 G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton (NJ) 1987, 123-162. 244 J. Maier, Die Kabbalah. Einführung – Klassische Texte – Erlaüterungen, München 1995, 232233. 245 Ibid., 79. 246 J. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, London 1955, 227. 247 J. Maier, ibid., 233.

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favored viewing marriage, not as a concession to the weakness of the flesh, but as one of the most sacred mysteries. Thus every true marriage became a symbolic realization of the union of God with the Shekinah.248

To penetrate more deeply the mystical connection between the sacred marriage in God and earthly marriage, we will read a text from the Zohar.249 1. It behooves a human being to be both masculine and feminine The rabbis proceeded from the conviction that Adam has been created as male/ female, for God “created Adam male and female” (Gen. 1:27). The Kabbalists adopted this insight. Sexual differentiation and union occur in God himself. From him the soul proceeds and he himself is therefore sexually differentiated and one. This creaturely reality needs to be preserved, as the Zohar stresses. Rabbi Simeon opened his discourse with the text: And he went on his journeys from the South even to Bethel, to the place where his tent stood in the beginning, between Bethel and Ai (Gen. 13:3). He said: We would have expected “journey” here but instead we read “journeys,” which suggests that the Shekinah was journeying with him. It is incumbent on a man to be ever “male and female” in order that his faith may be firm and that the Shekinah will never leave him.

Rabbi Simeon here calls the reader’s attention to the fact that there is mention of “journeys” in the plural, while there is actually only one traveler, i.e. Abraham. Why the plural here? Simeon thinks the explanation is that there are perhaps two travelers: Abraham and God’s Indwelling. This explanation is plausible because it is fitting that the human being called Adam is both male and female. That’s how he was created, for two reasons. (1) If Adam remains male and female, his inner solidity remains durable as well. (2) The breakup of the unity between the masculine and the feminine in a human being ipso facto breaks the bond with God, the Shekinah. For the feminine here below is one with the feminine in God. Now then, if a man is no longer feminine, that ipso facto means that God’s Indwelling has left him. 2. Now then, how can a man be masculine and feminine without a wife What must be done when a man has to go on a journey and is not assured of the feminine by the presence of his wife? What, then, you will say, of a man who goes on a journey and, being absent from his wife, is no longer “male and female”? His remedy is to pray to God before he starts his journey, while he is still “male and female,” in order to draw to himself the presence of his Master. When he has offered his prayer and thanksgiving and 248 249

G. Scholem, ibid., 235. Zohar I, 49b.

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FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY the Shekinah rests on him, then he can depart, for through his union with the Shekinah he has become “male and female” in the country as he was “male and female” in the town, as it was written: “Righteousness (zedek, the fem. of zaddik) shall go before him and clear a path for his feet” (Ps. 85:14).

A man on a journey who because of the absence of his wife can no longer be “male and female” must attract to himself the divine Indwelling, the tenth Sefirah, which is feminine, with whom the divine Master is one. The manner in which the Indwelling is appropriated is: to pray to God before he departs while he is still “male and female” on the concrete level of humanity (that is: here below). By praying, a person pulls divine reality downward. He becomes attached to it (debukut). Only when by praying he has let himself be clothed with God’s Indwelling can he set out on his journey. For now, by virtue of the presence of the Shekinah, he is “male and female” on his lonesome journey through the country, as “male and female” as he was at home in the city. To support his thesis Simeon cites Psalm 85 in which Favor and Faithfulness meet and Preservation and Peace kiss each other (Ps. 85:11). Faithfulness (Solidity) springs up from below, Preservation comes from above (Ps. 85:12). This Preservation, which comes from above, is the Indwelling: it goes before him and clears a path for his feet (Ps. 85:14). 3. Preserving the holy union The union with the Shekinah is preserved by holy conduct. Observe this. All the time that a man is on his travels he should be very careful of his actions in order that the celestial partner may not desert him and leave him defective as a result of his lacking the union with the female. If this was necessary when his wife was with him, how much more so is it necessary when a heavenly partner is attached to him? And all the more so since this heavenly partner is his continuing protection on his journey till he returns to his home.

The notion of sanctity in the sphere of marriage is self-evident. We can clearly see this in the so-called Holy Letter, also called A Husband’s Union with his Wife. According to this kabbalistic tract, written by an anonymous 13th-century author, the sanctity of marriage consists in the fact that conjugal intercourse is sanctified by the correct time, the right food, the proper techniques… Now then, as the union of man and woman must be kept sacred at home, so the holy union with the Indwelling of God must be maintained by observing the proper time, the proper food, the proper techniques, but above all the proper intention (kawwana).250 250 M. Poorthuis, Spiritualiteit en seksualiteit, in: Stapstenen. Opstellen over spiritualiteit en filosofie, (Ed. B. Blans), Best 1997, 74-78.

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… but above all by the right intention (kawwana). Simeon here follows the hermeneutic rule which infers the heavier from the lighter: if it is already necessary to sanctify the union between a husband and a wife by conduct, how much more is that necessary when it concerns the holy union with the Indwelling? And there is a second reason as well: the heavenly union not only preserves the unity of “masculine” and “feminine,” it also protects the husband from dangers on his travels. 4. The duty to engage in conjugal intercourse Simeon now turns his attention to the normal situation when a husband is home again. Upon his arrival at home, the duty to have intercourse with his wife again applies. When he does reach home again, it is his duty to give his wife some pleasure, because it is she who obtains for him this heavenly partner. It is his duty to do this for two reasons. One is that this pleasure is a heavenly pleasure, and one which gives joy to the Indwelling of God also, and what is more, by its means he spreads peace in the world, as it is written, “you will feel that your tent is in peace, and you will visit your dwelling and not sin” (Job v. 24). Is it a sin, it may be asked, if he does not have intercourse with his wife? The answer is that it is so because he thereby derogates from the honor of the celestial partner who was joined with him on account of his wife. The other is, that if his wife becomes pregnant, the celestial partner imparts to the child a holy soul, for this covenant is called the covenant of the Holy One, blessed be He.

With one primary argument Simeon supports the thesis that it is the husband’s duty to give his wife sexual pleasure: it is his wife who obtains for him the holy union with the Shekinah. This primary motive contains two submotives. (1) As a result of the concurrence of the earthly (husband-wife) and the heavenly (God and his Indwelling) reality sexual pleasure is a source of peace. (2) If the wife subsequently becomes pregnant, the child is clothed with a heavenly soul for by this holy union between the “below” and the “above” holy seed is drawn from the supreme sefiroth down to the reality of this earth. Between the two motives a contrasting question is raised which in a new way highlights and motivates the marital duty: is it sin if a man does not have intercourse with his wife? Simeon’s answer is brief and forceful: it is a sin. The reason is: when he refuses conjugal intercourse, he dishonors the Shekinah which was granted him on account of his union with his wife. This motive, which occurs in between the two motives which were made explicit, is identical with the main motive which was foremost, it is his wife who obtains for him the Indwelling of God. 5. Conclusion Rabbi Simeon ends his argument with a few concluding comments which place this subject within Jewish piety as a whole.

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FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY Therefore he should be as diligent to obtain this joy as to obtain the joy of the Sabbath, when the sages experience union with their wives. Hence you will experience that your tent is in peace, for the Indwelling accompanies you and lodges in your home, and for that reason you will visit your home and not sin by performing your religious duty with joy and to have conjugal intercourse in the presence of the Indwelling.

By the words “hence” and “therefore” rabbi Simeon summarizes, by way of a conclusion, his mystical interpretation of marriage. First of all, he again stresses that there must be equilibrium (be as diligent… as) between “the enjoyment of this joy” and “the enjoyment of Sabbath joy.” The enjoyment of “this joy” refers back to the “heavenly joy which also communicates joy to the Indwelling of God.” The enjoyment of sabbath joy refers to a consensus among torah-scholars who recommend the sabbath (that is, Friday evening, for early Friday evening the sabbath begins) as the most appropriate time for sexual intercourse.251 This is also confirmed by the Holy Letter: the sabbath is a day of rest and spiritual consecration, and so on that day sexual intercourse is most appropriate. The letter takes a further step in the determination of the ideal time: not immediately after the sabbath meal; also: the husband must not be too excited by drink. It is further stressed that the husband’s intention must be pure: “A man must not hastily and against his wife’s will bring her to union and force her with violence, for then the Shekinah does not rest on them. A man must not quarrel with her but instead warm her heart with words.”252 The sabbath, as day of consecration and rest, is the appropriate spiritual context for the holy union.253 For that reason Simeon can speak about “being diligent in the enjoyment of this pleasure.” It is a spiritual way to learn to enjoy the divine-human pleasure which is granted in conjugal intercourse, to learn to feel that this way is a way of peace. To “feel” or “experience” (da‘at) denotes a mystical-sexual union. The “sanctity” of sexual union consists in the fact that the mystery of God is both wisdom (chokma), understanding (tenunah) and knowledge (da‘at). “True sexual intercourse, finally, is knowing (da‘at).”254 Those who follow this road live in connectedness with God, “for the Indwelling accompanies you and lodges in your home,” that is: it accompanies you on your journey but also lodges in your home through spiritually realized sexual intercourse. God-connectedness is the basis for the duty “to visit your dwelling,” that is: to have intercourse with your wife and thereby to avoid sin. The final words of the selected passage once more sum up, in a single sentence, the fundamental motive for sexual intercourse: “to perform with joy the religious duty of conjugal intercourse in the presence of the Indwelling.” 251

Talmud, Ketubot 62b. M. Poorthuis, ibid., 78. 253 See also J. Maier, Die Kabbalah, München 1995, 338-340. 254 M. Poorthuis, ibid., 75. 252

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The joy of the sexual union is a spiritual exercise which must be performed so that in God the Indwelling may unite with her King. When that happens the divine world and the human world are united. 1.4.3. MARRIAGE

AS A DIALOGICAL REALITY

According to Levinas, the intimacy of the dwelling derives from the presence of the Other who makes me unconditionally welcome, the “you of familiarity.”255 In this connection Levinas refers to the I and thou of Martin Buber.256 And I and thou indeed opens a refreshing perspective on intimacy and love and hence also on marriage. 1. The renewal of marriage Buber speaks of marriage in part 2 of I and Thou, the part in which he analyzes the process of progressive estrangement in Western society.257 Relations become business-like; humans classify each other; and society is split up into two separate compartments: institutions and feelings. Institutions are external: people in it are goaloriented.258 Feelings are the interior world “in which people live their life and recover from institutions (…) Here people enjoy their likes and hatreds, their pleasure, and if it is not too bad, their sorrow. Here they are at home and stretch themselves out on their rocking chair.”259 The split between the institution and feelings is hardest to maintain on the micro level: “In marriage, for instance, the line can occasionally no longer be fully drawn in any simple way. But in time it happens automatically.”260 The renewers of society target feelings to breathe new life into professionalized and externalized institutions: “Institutions must be loosened, or dissolved, or burst apart by the feelings themselves; they must be given new life from feelings by the introduction into them of ‘the freedom of feeling.’”261 Buber, however, does not regard affectivity as a real source of renewal for a pragmatized professionalized society, neither on a macro nor on a micro level. “Also institutions of the so-called personal life cannot be renewed on the basis of free feeling (though certainly not without it either). Marriage, for instance, will never be renewed by anything other than that out of which true marriage always comes into being: by two people who reveal the ‘you’ to each other.”262 In the manuscript 255

E. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 155. Ibid., 155. 257 M. Buber, I and Thou, Edinburgh 1937, 43-46. 258 Ibid., 43. 259 Cf. ibid., 43. 260 Ibid., 44. 261 Idem, 45 (freely rendered). 262 Idem, 45-46 (freely rendered). 256

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of Ich und Du that is located in the Martin Buber Archives at Jerusalem (Hebrew University) the last part of the sentence reads as follows: “(…) that two people reveal the ‘you’ to each other, each revealing to the other the ‘you’ through his ‘you,’ to become to each other a revelation of the ‘you.’”263 This original formulation makes clear that in marriage we are dealing with the “you” on two levels: the “you” which the one is to the other, and the eternal “You” which they reveal to each other. The reciprocal gift of the “you” is the raw material out of which the eternal “You” shapes the marriage: “Out of this a marriage is built up by the You that is neither of the two I∞’s. This is the metaphysically and metapsychical fact of the love to which feelings of love are mere accompaniments.”264 Feelings are secondary phenomena. They do not make up the core. The core is formed by the reciprocal donation of the human “you” which is the mediation of the Master Builder of the marriage himself: the eternal You. “Those who want to renew marriage from any other source are not essentially different from those who want to abolish it: both parties say they no longer know the reality of marriage.”265 The renewal which Buber opposes is the changing climate of thought that began to break through in the early 20th century: the sense of the importance of sexuality and eroticism for the understanding and experience of marriage, things which had been tabooed in the 19th century. Especially the writings of Freud – Traumdeutung (1900), Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905), Totem und Tabu (1913), Vorlesungen zur Einführung in der Psychoanalyse (1916-1918) – had set tongues wagging. The result was a climate of intense discussions between proponents and opponents. Buber, it must be noted, was not against breaking the taboos surrounding sexuality and eroticism. In 1933, in the series on society (Die Gesellschaft) which he edited, there appeared a volume by Lou Andreas-Solomé under the title Erotik. Buber actually only opposed the idea that sexual liberation as such was the key to a real renewal of marriage. He oriented sexuality and eroticism as feelings which could very easily mask an I-centered attitude (the it-attitude) toward the other. “Indeed, if in all the much-discussed erotic philosophy of the age we were to leave out of account everything that is I-relatedness, hence all the relations in which the one is totally non-present to the other, and is not at all made present by the other, but merely enjoys himself in the other – then what would be left?”266 Buber, accordingly, does not view sexuality and eroticism as basically I-centered but he doubts whether sexuality and eroticism de facto get beyond using the other for oneself. Buber ends his discussions with three conclusions: (1) true coexistence on the macro level (e.g. the state) and the micro level (e.g. marriage) are two basic 263

K. Waaijman, De mystiek van ik en jij, Utrecht 1976, 171, note 93. M. Buber, op. cit., 46. 265 Ibidem. 266 Idem (freely rendered). 264

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types of human connectedness; (2) while institutions give these basic types durability and structure and feelings furnish that connectedness its changing content, even when added to each other they do not create connectedness; (3) needed for that purpose is the eternal You that constitutes the heart of all human connectedness and is received in that human connectedness. We will now work out these three conclusions. 2. Human connectedness Buber distinguishes three spheres in which the relational life of humans unfolds: the sphere of nature, the sphere of the interhuman, and the sphere of intelligible forms (knowledge, ethics, art).267 In this connection only the sphere of the interhuman clearly stands out.268 At three points human connectedness distinguishes itself from the other two. (1) Between humans language goes back and forth in speech and counter-speech.269 This is not the case in our contacts with nature and the intelligible forms. There, in fact, we have no conversation. (2) Humans, when they speak, share one and the same medium: human language. We stand in relation with nature, similarly with the intelligible forms, be it in a very different way, but only in the case of human connectedness there is, in addition to the relation, a common element they share: the language in which they can straightforwardly and honestly discuss everything.270 (3) The person who appears across from me and represents himself across from me can be so deeply received by me that my seeing of the other is solely a being seen by him. This is the complete flowering of the “you”: the essence of reciprocity. This reciprocity is not possible with nature or the intelligible forms. Only between humans can passivity and activity completely coincide, a coincidence by which complete reciprocity arises and in which the “you” reveals itself completely.271 3. Love and feeling Frequently love and feeling are confused.272 Buber lists three characteristics which distinguish feeling from love. (1) Feelings are defined by polarities (male-female, young-old, black-white, ugly-beautiful, and so forth). The feeling-partners are entangled in a network of mutually defining qualities.273 (2) Feelings change (sympathy, antipathy, admiration, envy, and so forth).274 (3) Feelings are 267

Idem, 6-11; 101-102. Idem, 102. Buber most sharply articulates the uniqueness of the interhuman in part 3. 269 Idem, 102, 103. 270 Ibid., 102-103. 271 Ibid., 102, 103. 272 Ibid., 14. 273 Idem. 274 Idem. 268

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anchored in the I who with his or her feelings casts an emotional mesh over the fellow human. In all three points love differs from feeling. (1) Love does not become enmeshed in polarities but permits the other over against me to become a real “you”: “set free [from what surrounds him, KW], he steps forth in his uniqueness and is an opposite.”275 (2) Throughout all the emotional changes of the soul, love is the constant undercurrent: “Love is one,” that is, “Love is the responsibility of an I vis-à-vis a you: herein lies a likeness impossible in any feeling whatsoever.”276 (3) Love does not cling to the I; it is not ego-centric. “People ‘have’ feelings, love happens. Feelings dwell in a person but a person dwells in his love. That is no metaphor but reality: love does not cling to the I in such a way that it has the “you” only for its “content,” its object; it is between the I and you.”277 Thus Buber distinguishes “love” from “feelings.” By its being touched by the other love allows the other to grow into vital contact as it frees itself from the network of qualities, relations, activities and backgrounds. In this transformation in love, feelings are necessary as the changing content,278 but they are not constitutive for love; they only accompany it.279 4. The revelation of the eternal You In a simple I-you relation an I stands in relation to a you who in turn cannot become an I to the other. Such a simple relation exists in an educational or nursing care setting. In marriage and friendship, however, the I who receives the other as you is at the same time you to that other. In that case two I-you relations coincide reciprocally. Then, because both reveal the you to each other, they are jointly surrounded by the eternal You. In a simple relation the truth is: “Every particular you is a window through which we see him (the eternal You, KW). By each particular you the primary word I-you addresses the eternal You.”280 But in the doubly-woven conjugal relation this happens from two sides: both look out upon the eternal You which consequently surrounds both. True marriage comes into being because two humans reveal the you to each other, each revealing to the other the you by its own you and so become for each other the revelation of the You.281 For that reason Buber can say: “When a man and his wife are together, the longing of the eternal hills blows round about them.”282

275

Ibid., 15. Ibid. 277 Ibid., 14-15. 278 Martin Buber, Ich und Du, Köln, 1966, 57. 279 Ibid., cf. 22. 280 Ibid., 91. 281 Ibid. 56-57 with the addition from the Ms. of Ich und Du. 282 Ibid., 122. 276

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Here Buber refers to the passage in the Zohar which we discussed in the previous section. In line with the Zohar Buber sees the togetherness of the partners surrounded by the Shekinah. God’s Indwelling makes itself present in the love between a husband and a wife and that in such a way that in it God simultaneously unites himself with his Indwelling. The union-in-love in God and the union between a man and his wife are two aspects of a single event.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BORYS, H., The Way of Marriage. A Journal of Spiritual Growth through Conflict, Love, and Sex, Kirkland (WA) 1991. BOYER, E., A Way in the World. Family Life as Spiritual Discipline, San Francisco 1984. COHEN, S., The Holy Letter. A Study in Jewish Sexual Morality, London 1993. DONNELLY, D., Radical Love. An Approach to Sexual Spirituality, Fremont (CA) 1992. Enlightened Sexuality. Essays on Body-positive Spirituality, (Ed. G. Feuerstein), Freedom (CA) 1989. HARVEY, D., The Spiritually Intimate Marriage, Tarrytown (NY), 1991. INTAMS Review. Review of the International Acadamy for Marital Spirituality, Sint-Genesius-Rode 1995-… LOMBARDI, V., Crisis in Marriage. Efforts toward Spiritual Transformation, Washington (DC) 1981. MCDONALD, P., The Soul of a Marriage, New York 1995. MCPHERSON-OLIVER, M., Conjugal Spirituality (or Radical Proximity). A New Form of Contemplation, Spirituality Today 43 (1991) no. 1. MCPHERSON-OLIVER, M., Conjugal Spirituality. The Primacy of Mutual Love in Christian Tradition, Kansas City (MO) 1994. Marriage and the Family, The Way 23 (1983) no 2. MELDMAN, L., Mystical Sex. Love, Ecstasy, and the Mystical Experience, Tucson 1990. Spirituality and Couples. Heart and Soul in the Therapy Process, (Ed. B. Brothers), New York 1992. TIMMERMAN, J., Sexuality and Spiritual Growth, New York 1992. WAAIJMAN, K., De mystiek van ik en jij, Kampen 1991.

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1.5. Mercy in Mutual Relations Every community (family, street or neighborhood, work or leisure community) is vulnerable: someone becomes ill, someone is marginalized or excluded, a wife loses her husband, a child her parents, someone is robbed and beaten up, someone has been mentally molested, sexually abused, drought or floods have taken their toll. In all these situations routine falls short; something special is called for: care, legal assistance, mutual solidarity, mercy. Mercy is a spontaneous act of kindness motivated by the distress of the other. It sits down next to the other and offers concrete help. In this chapter we will first of all sketch the basic structure of biblical mercy: giving love (chesed)283 and compassion (rachamim).284 Next we will deepen our understanding of the concept of mercy with the aid of three examples from the sphere of care for weakened fellow human beings. 1. A giving love. Giving love wells up spontaneously in the heart and streams out in abundance. It focuses on the other to do him or her a favor. In this connection it proceeds with care and resourcefulness. It lets the other be who he or she is. While it pours itself out in love, it knows that everything depends on the reception by the person so favored. Let’s consider the various aspects. Spontaneous kindness. Givingness is not restricted to certain relations or specific role patterns. It functions between husband and wife (Gen. 20:13), between friends (1 Sam. 20:8), between a host and a guest (Gen. 19:9), between family members (Gen. 47:29), between kinsmen (1 Sam. 15:6), and so forth. It can well up between people everywhere: in a friendly gesture, a smile, a conciliatory word, a helping hand, a generous welcome, an attentive ear. Abundance. Givingness means abundance: good measure, pressed down, running over; it goes not just one mile but two; forgives, not 7 times, but 70 times 7. To be favorably disposed to another. Giving love is prepared to do favors. Abraham, afraid he will be murdered by lustful men who want to take Sarah as wife, asks her to do him a favor: “Do me a favor: at every place to which we come, say of me, he is my brother.” Jacob asked Joseph his son for the favor of a good burial (Gen. 47:29). Favor follows the will of the other: it forgets itself in reaching out to the other. 283 See H. Stoebe, chesed, in ThLOT II (1997), 449-464; H. Zobel, chesed, in ThDOT V (1986), 44-64. 284 See H. Stoebe, rchm, in: ThLOT III (1997), 1225-1230; H. Simian-Yofre & U. Dahmen, rchm, in: TWAT VII (1993), 460-477.

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To allow the other his or her freedom: Giving love is strongly oriented to the other. A mother gives her child “a direction in the spirit of kindness” (Prov. 31: 26), which is to say: she hopes with all her heart that her child may find happiness. But this giving love does not degenerate into making anxious demands. It accepts in advance the willfulness of the other. This disposition to leave another free sometimes goes so far as to wish him or her a crisis, that is, when it seems to it to be the only road to happiness. Charitableness. To be giving is work. The expression “works of mercy” testifies to that. They convert the attitude of mercy into the practice of mercy: to pay a visit to a sick person, to support the disenfranchised, to accompany someone on a trip, to help someone in her or his work. Giving love proceeds with sensitivity and displays great resourcefulness. It utilizes small spaces. Mercy is at its best, it seems, when the margins are most narrow. Receiving. Giving love finds its completion in the recipient. When a host wants to surprise his guest, he hopes the guest will really enjoy the meal. One who visits a sick person hopes that person will appreciate it. This is not to say that giving love makes this response a condition either for himself or the other. Mercy does not posit conditions. Yet it knows that the most characteristic feature of mercy is not the movement of giving itself but the manner in which it is received by the other. 2. Compassion. To be tenderhearted is to be moved to one’s innermost depths by the sight of the other whose plight releases in a person a current that knows no boundaries. Still it does not drag me along, inasmuch as I have a choice whether I will or will not yield to this inner commotion. Tenderheartedness seeks to concretize itself in tender expressions: reconciliation, care, caresses. We will follow the different aspects. The sight of the other. Tenderness is set in motion by the other. A mother is moved to tenderness by her child (Isa. 49:15); a father is inwardly moved to tenderness toward his son (Ps. 103:13). A person would have to be very hard “not to be moved to tenderness toward the fruit of the womb, and not pity the children” (Isa. 13:18). We are moved by people whose plight is pitiful: widows, orphans, exiles, the sick, and the oppressed (Isa. 9:16; Jer. 31:20; Hos. 14:4). It is only typical for merciless tyrants to remain unmoved (Jer. 6:23; 21:7; 50:42). Visceral tenderness. When the sons of Jacob appeared with their youngest brother Benjamin before their brother Joseph – the man who at the moment was viceroy of Egypt – Joseph could no longer control his tears: “With that, Joseph hurried out, for his tender heart burned for his brother Benjamin, and he looked for a place to weep. So he went into another room and wept” (Gen. 43:30). This attack of tenderness touched him where his tears were located. At seeing Benjamin, that is where he got warm. The tenderness is triggered in the inmost, the

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viscera, the womb (see Isa. 63:15). To Hebrew ears, this is self-evident, for in rachamim (visceral tenderness) the word “womb” (rechem) is implied.285 Unstoppable. Once the tenderness has been unleashed it can no longer be stopped. Joseph could no longer control his tears. All the grief that had for so long been held back now flowed outward without restraint. On account of this “flooding phenomenon” the rise of tenderness is frequently associated with abundance. Yielding to the rise of tenderness. The rise of tenderness is not an event in nature. The person who experiences it can yield to it but also restrain it. A person can “shut his or her intestines” to the needs of a brother (1 John 3:17-18). It is most natural, however, to yield to this unleashed wave of tenderness. Expressions of tenderness. The movement of tenderness inwardly looks for an appropriate tender gesture: an embrace, an act of caring, a friendly word.286 The good Samaritan followed the movement of his feelings of compassion by taking concrete steps to care for the beaten-up, half-dead traveler: “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke 10:34). Reconciliation. The rise of tenderness is sustained by the basic feeling that the other belongs to the human community. On account of this deep sense of connectedness, it touches a person immediately when a child cries, an orphan cries out for help, a widow begs for assistance. Their weakness cuts us to the heart, for they, like us, belong to the same community. 3. Favor and the rise of tenderness. Favor and the rise and flow of tenderness often go hand-in-hand (Zech. 7:9; Jer. 16:5; Hos. 2:21; Dan. 1:9; Isa. 63:7; Ps. 25:6; 40:12; 51:3; 69:17; 103:4; 106:45-46; Lam. 3:22). This does not by any means mean they are synonymous.287 On the contrary: the dynamic in each case differs. Giving springs from the spontaneous will to do good; the rise of tenderness is triggered by the other; giving shows itself in the sovereign will which prompts the person to give from within; the movement of tenderness is unleashed from without. Tenderness is a brilliant weakness: it cannot restrain itself. There are also similarities between the two. Both are marked by abundance: in the case of giving, it is abundance – abundance like that of a blossoming dogwood tree in the spring; in the case of the rise of tenderness the

285 To Stoebe the etymological connection is self-evident (H. Stoebe, rchm, in: ThLOT III (1997), 1226). To Kronholm this only partly explains its meaning (T. Kronholm, rechem, in: TWAT VII (1993), 477-478). Aside from the etymology, however, the connotative proximity between the two terms resulting from the high level of assonance is undisputed, certainly in poetic texts. 286 H. Simian-Yofre, rchm, in TWAT VII (1993), 475. 287 Simian-Yofre, accordingly, correctly states that one may not translate chesed we-rachamim as a hendiadys: “tender favor” (ibid., 475).

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dikes have been cut. Both are marked by the search to give concreteness to a feeling: giving proceeds professionally, carefully, and resourcefully; the upsurge of tenderness colors all its works with a tender gentleness. Both are marked by a reciprocity: giving waits till the other can receive the gift; the emotion of tenderness lets itself be carried along in the joy of reconciliation. To become further acquainted with the spirituality of mercy we will now reflect, by way of a paradigm, on caring for our weakened fellow human beings. We will do that by adopting two corresponding perspectives: the perspective of the patient and the perspective of the caretaker. Between the two we will treat the parable of the good Samaritan in which the movement of mercy is paradigmatically delineated.

1.5.1. THE

PATIENT AS CENTRAL FIGURE

People who become ill by that token become vulnerable. The danger threatens that their environment becomes aggressive. That often happens imperceptibly. The sick person reminds us of our own vulnerability, our own death. We resist this. So we isolate the sick in institutions or banish them to a realm of solitariness. The sick, moreover, tempt the malicious to exploit their vulnerable situation. The sick, after all, cannot defend themselves. Mercy, in contrast, counters this tendency. 1. Unconditional protection Sometimes a patient triggers massive aggression (Ps. 69:4), being made a taboo object via whisper campaigns (Ps. 31:14; 35:15): “A fatal sickness (a thing of Belial) has a grip on him; now that he is down, he will never get up again” (Ps. 41:7-8). People slander the sick person, accusing him of idolatry or possession by evil spirits (Ps. 31:6). In cases of serious illness these people attempt to gain possession of his goods: “They divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Ps. 22:19). Mercy combats this exploitation. Be-er himself protects the sick who are humiliated and exploited: “In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots, you hold them safe under your shelter from contentious tongues” (Ps. 31:20). Not only brute force but also more subtle forms of discrimination are resisted by mercy. It resists the tendency to be selective vis-à-vis the sick. In the case of some sick people we regard sickness as something unfair. We then have in mind friends, members of the family, people of the same class or race as we are, or people of the same occupational group. In the case of others, sickness seems an appropriate lot: for drug addicts, heroin-addicted prostitutes, asylum-seekers and criminals. It seems to us that sickness fits them and that caring for them is a waste of time.

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Mercy is opposed to such a discriminatory attitude. Jesus healed the slave of the Roman centurion (Luke 7:1-10) as well as the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30). In all his conduct Jesus shows that he does not lock himself up in the family circle, the village mentality, or popular feeling. Historically, Christian care and concern for the sick has sought to follow Jesus’ example.288 In the ancient church deacons and deaconesses cared for the sick, not only within their own communities of faith, but also outside of them. Saint Helena founded hospitals for the elderly. Medieval monasteries all had a hospice for the poor, the sick, and pilgrims. The hospitals of the crusaders were open to Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Vincent de Paul stressed that all sick people without distinction were entitled to nursing care: “A Daughter of Charity is always among people. You have a calling to assist without distinction all sorts of persons, men, women, children and – in general – all poor people who need you, as by God’s grace, you regularly do this.”289 In the 19th century we observe a revival of the Vincentian spirit in religious congregations which devote themselves to the care of the sick for everyone. We see the same thing in Reformation churches. The first goal of the Society of Protestant Sisters of Charity (later Institution of Nursing Sisters) was home care for people from all classes of society. 2. A true diagnosis When people are struck by illness, questions promptly rise to the surface: who will stand by me? (Ps. 94:16); woe is me! (Lam. 1:1); why have You left me? (Ps. 22:2); where is there still hope for me? (Job 17:15); how long must I bear pain in my soul? (Ps. 13:3).290 From these questions arises a many-sided clinical picture. Sometimes the sickness is something people bring on themselves; sometimes people damage each other; sometimes the sickness is due to a natural disaster; sometimes it is God who brings people into a crisis. This manysided image is equally present in the minds of those who take care of them.291 They too ask (usually in their minds): why was precisely this child struck by this illness? What is the meaning of illness? What has God to do with it? It is reductionistic when from the complex tangle of questions we select only the “why”questions which seek to locate the cause of an illness. Did he himself sin? 288 For the history of Christian care of the sick, see: Nursing, Science and Service. A Historical Perspective, in: V. Benner Carson, Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice, Philadelphia 1989, 52-73; A. Bradshaw, Lighting the Lamp. The Spiritual Dimension of Nursing Care, Harrow 1995, 97-170. 289 Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents X, (Ed. P. Coste), Paris 1920-1925, 452. 290 K. Waaijman, Waarom ik? in: Jota 4 (1993) no. 16, 46-56. 291 See, for example, J. Harrison and Ph. Barnard, Spirituality and Nursing Practice, Aldershot 1993, 85-94.

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Or did his parents? Is it the hand of God? Is it an accident? A natural event? Did fate strike a blow? Is the illness in her head? Is it the result of a bad environment? Primitive-religious feelings will univocally ascribe the illness to a sin that has been committed. Primitive-medical enlightenment minds will trace the sickness to medical-biological causes. Biblical spirituality is opposed to such one-dimensional interpretive schemes. This is also evident from the psalms. There we encounter a non-coercive interpretation of an illness. The cause of the illness may lie in the patient herself as the consequence of a derailed life (Ps. 38). Sometimes human aggression is the cause (Ps. 13 and 22). Sometimes a person gets sick because he completely identifies with the suffering of God’s people (Ps. 69). Sometimes God himself is, or is viewed as, the cause of someone’s illness (Ps. 80:8-12). Characteristic for the psalms is a nuanced interpretation of illness. We see something similar in the book of Job: there is no compelling connection between sin and sickness. As far as this is concerned, God himself sets matters straight. To Eliphaz he says: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). Jesus confirms this non-compulsive attitude when concerning the man who was blind from birth he said: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (John 9:3). Christian spirituality adopted this viewpoint: there is no interpretive model that is univocally applicable to every sickness. One must respect a sick person’s questions in their full scope and, within that range, take seriously the why-questions as signs which seek an explanation. 3. Sickness rituals It is striking to see how much space the psalms give to the sick to complain: “I am poured out like water, disjointed are my bones, my heart has turned to wax molten inside my body. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. You have delivered me up to the dust of death” (Ps. 22:14-15). All of human experience may resonate along with this lament: “I limp along (Ps. 35:15), I have been beaten senseless (Ps. 69:27), I am wasting away (Ps. 88:16), my pain is ever with me (Ps. 38:17), I am afflicted (Ps. 38:11). A significant part of the lament consists in voicing the isolation in which the sick person now finds himself. “I am like an owl of the wilderness, a little owl of the wasteplaces, (…) like a lonely bird on a housetop” (Ps. 102:6, 7). Even his immediate family avoids the sick person: “My friends and acquaintances stand aloof from my affliction, my relatives keep themselves at a distance” (Ps. 38:11). Mercy, however, rejects such discrimination. It seeks solidarity with the patient: it practices silence, weeps, curses, tears up one’s clothing, throws itself in the dust along with the sick

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person (see Job 2:12-13). “As for me, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting (…); as though I grieved for my friend, my brother. I stumbled about; as one laments for a mother, so in mourning. I bent myself ” (Ps. 35:14). This expressive behavior of weeping, cursing, tearing up one’s clothes, going about in sackcloth and ashes, and the like, is not arbitrary and merely emotional. What to us seems to be incidental emotions in ancient Israel were the parts of a coherent ritual handed down to the sick to help them survive their illness. By following the silence ritual a patient could appropriate his being touched by death. By throwing himself to the ground (Ps. 6:3) and clothing himself in sackcloth (Ps. 30:12), the sick person could live through his degradation and destruction. By shouting his questions (Why me? How long? To what end?), the patient could express his despair. By means of all these rituals the sufferer could give expression to his situation but above all process and appropriate it personally. The rituals described above aimed at more than expression and appropriation. They furnished the sick a complex of usages, gestures, and forms of expression by which they could enter into vital contact with the Source of life. Silence, reflection, rituals of self-abasement, forms of expression, laments and prayers, were all subservient to a person’s self-abandonment to the Name. “Heal me, Beer” (Ps. 6:2). “Contend, O Be-er, with those who contend with me” (Ps. 35:1). “How long, O Be-er, will You forget me?” (Ps. 13:2). “I called out the Name: O Be-er, let my soul escape” (Ps. 116:4). Calling out the Name is a love-movement of total self-surrender-in-trust. By calling out the Name “Be there!” the praying person fastens himself in the gracious Presence: “I am there!”292 Healing consisted in experiencing this divine Presence in the illness: “Be-er sustains him on his sickbed. You turn his entire period of lying in bed for good in his illness” (Ps. 41:3). As a result the patient realizes: “I am sound. You hold me fast. You set me before your Face forever” (Ps. 41:13). Be-er makes himself present through the calling out of his Name. The cry of distress “Be there!” is one side of it; the other (invisible) side is: “I [will be] there! Be not afraid!” It is the gracious experience of God which is the foundation for the conviction that the sick person cannot be equated with his illness. 1.5.2. THE

GOOD (MERCIFUL)

SAMARITAN

The parable of the good Samaritan, which is the model for Christian mercy, is part of an instructional spiritual dialogue between Jesus and a torah-scholar (Lk. 10:25-37). This dialogue consists of two rounds (vv. 25-28 and 29-37), 292

Kees Waaijman, Psalmen by ziekte en genezing, Kampen 1981, 8-12.

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both of which follow the same scheme: the torah-scholar poses a question (vs. 25 and vs. 29), Jesus poses a counter-question (vs. 26 and vv. 30-36); the torahscholar replies to the counter-question (vv. 27 and 37a) and Jesus confirms the response of the torah-scholar (vs. 28 and vs. 37b). We will follow the two rounds separately. 1. What must I do with respect to eternal life A torah expert rises to test the limits of Jesus’ interpretation of the torah: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (vs. 25). The torah-scholar addressed Jesus as a rabbi. Rabbis were accustomed, in their dialogues, to test each other as colleagues. In so doing they aimed at testing the limits of their interpretation of Scripture on the point of tenability.293 The torah scholar’s question concerns human conduct in relation to the reception of eternal life; “Teacher, what must I do to obtain eternal life?” (v. 25). “Eternal life” is life lived from within the relation to God: imperishable life. “Doing is praxis: what praxis of life offers access to participation in God’s life? Jesus replies with a counter-question and thereby tests the torah-scholar: “What is written in the law? And how do you read that?” (v. 26). Hence two questions. The first question concerns the selection of a Scripture passage: “Which texts, in your opinion, qualify as an answer to the question you posed concerning a suitable life praxis? The second concerns the interpretation of the Scripture passage selected: “How do you read that text?” Initially the lawyer only replies to the first counter question. In his reply he combines two Scripture passages. The first is taken from Deuteronomy, a text which is thoroughly familiar to Jewish ears: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind” (Deut. 6:5; 10:2; 30:6; the words “with all your mind” have been added). The second text comes from Leviticus: “And your neighbor as yourself ” (19:18). By his choice of texts the torah-scholar positions the “doing” of a person in a love triangle: love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. This triad constitutes the “action” which yields participation in “imperishable life.” Jesus confirms the answer of the torah-scholar: Do this, and you will live” (v. 28). Jesus expressively repeats the key words of the question: “What must I do to receive eternal life” (vs. 25). For the rabbinical scholar the repetition constitutes an affirmation: “Do this, and you will live” (vs. 28). This, however, does not end the discussion A second round follows. Jesus, remember, had posed two counter questions: “Which text from Scripture is fundamental here?” and “How do you read that text?” (vs. 26). The first question

293

On this type of talmudic dialogue, see part 3, ch. 3.1.

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has been answered, the second has not: how should the texts from Deuteronomy and Leviticus be interpreted? So the torah-scholar asks: “Who is my neighbor?” (vs. 29). 2. Who is my neighbor The torah-scholar’s intention is to penetrate more deeply into the texts he himself has quoted. He is seeking an interpretation (vs. 26). Such interpretation often begins with selecting a key word and making it problematic: “Who is my neighbor?” The scribe could also have asked: “Who is God?” or “What does it mean to love?” But he selects the term “neighbor.” Does neighbor mean a fellow citizen? A next-door neighbor? A fellow believer? Jesus, we note, does not reply to the request for explanation but poses a counter-question (vs. 26) introduced by a story in five brief scenes. Scene 1. A man (no name given) goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem is the place of the sanctuary, the location of temple worship. The implied suggestion is that the traveler was a devout person: he comes from Jerusalem, the holy city. This traveler, however, fell into the hands of robbers, who strip from him everything he had, maltreat him, and leave him half-dead. The raiders take off as if nothing had happened. Scene 2. By chance a priest went down the same road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Perhaps, like the traveler, he had attended and participated in a service of worship to God in the sanctuary, and was on his way home. By saying this the narrator draws a parallel between the traveler and the priest. Just as the traveler was “overtaken,” caught unawares, by robbers, so the priest is “overtaken” by the sight of the half-dead traveler: he sees him lie by the side of the road but goes by on the other side. As of result of Jesus’ use of the verb “to go” the priest suddenly resembles the robbers who also “went” away. The priest, making a halfcircle around the half-dead traveler, went on his way. The priest had no priestly excuse (one must not touch a dead body), for the half-dead traveler was still alive. Next to pass by that place was the Levite. He, too, ministered in the temple. He had to lead the singing and instruct the people in the torah. His “contact” with the half-dead traveler and his self-distancing from him is reported in exactly the same words as in the case of the priest: “A Levite, when he […] saw him, passed by on the other side” (vs. 32). The repetition is caustic. Scene 3. Now a Samaritan comes along – a man who did not view the temple in Jerusalem but the shrine in Samaria as God’s dwelling. Like the traveler, the priest, and the Levite, he too was “underway.” Like the priest and the Levite, he too came upon the man who was half-dead. The exact parallelism between the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan makes the difference all the more acute: “he was viscerally affected” (vs. 33). The viscera are the most sensitive part of a person. The half-dead man had an effect on the viscera of the Samaritan. The

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latter is moved from within to go to the former. He does not take off like the robbers (vs. 30); he does not pass by on the other side like the priest and the Levi (vv. 31 and 32); but he “went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them” (vs. 34). His course is clear: moved by compassion, he takes care of a half-dead human being to relieve his suffering. Scene 4. The Samaritan found the half-dead traveler in the inhospitable area between Jerusalem and Jericho. That is no place in which to take care of a sick person. So the Samaritan put the injured man on his mount and brought him to the nearest inn to provide care for him there. Evidently the Samaritan was not without means, since he possessed a riding animal (donkey or horse). He took the half-dead man to the inn on the animal he owned. The animal, unsolicited, solely because the Samaritan owned it, got to carry a half-dead traveler on his back. For mercy the emotion of compassion and first aid in distress are not enough. Further care is needed. In that connection the commitment of one’s own possessions plays an essential role. Scene 5. For that day and perhaps even part of the night the Samaritan took care of that critically injured man. But at break of day he transferred the care of the sick man to the innkeeper with the words: “Take care of him.” The innkeeper had to provide the same “care” the Samaritan had bestowed on the injured man: “Take care of him” (vs. 35). As compensation for this care the Samaritan gave him 2 denarii. A denarius is a Roman silver coin with the approximate value of a day’s labor (Matt. 20:2-13). The Samaritan apparently expected that the halfdead man would be better in a couple of days. By way of precaution he added: “If this stay should cost more, I will repay you when I come back.” Typical for mercy is the readiness to do “more.”294 Now the story of the good Samaritan is one great preamble to the counter question of Jesus (vs. 36) which follows the opening question of the torahscholar: “Who is my neighbor?” (vs. 29). Jesus’ counter question is: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” This counter-question completely turns the opening question around. The focus of the opening question is outward and asked: “Who is and who is not my neighbor?” The opening question inquired into the neighbor outside of me: who precisely falls into the category of “neighbor”? Are they my next-door neighbors, my relatives, my fellow citizens or my fellow believers? How must I interpret the word “neighbor”? (vs. 26)? Jesus’ counter-question reverses the direction of the opening question. The question is no longer: Who is my neighbor? but: Whose neighbor am I? Which of these three men allowed himself to be made “a neighbor”?

294

See P. Moyaert, De mateloosheid van het christendom, Nijmegen 1998, 15-96.

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The torah-scholar’s reply was: the one who showed mercy to him (the half-dead traveler).” Here, implicitly as well as explicitly, the key word “doing” returns, the word that formed the inclusion of the first round (vv. 25 and 27). To “show” mercy encompasses the whole story: the movement of the Samaritan from the moment of feeling the upsurge of compassion (vs. 33) up to and including the transfer to the innkeeper (vs. 35). Included are one’s own riding animal and the innkeeper. Jesus confirmed the answer of the torah-scholar: “Go and do likewise.” Again the key word is “do,” now as the last word: Go and do as the good (merciful) Samaritan did. The verb “go” here calls to mind the “going” at the beginning, the “going away” of the robbers (vs. 30), the “going by” of the priest and the Levite (vv. 31-32) and “the going to” of the Samaritan: “Go and do likewise” (v. 37). 1.5.3. MERCIFUL CARE We are inclined to define ourselves and others in terms of attributes, capacities or specific actions. To start with this last category: to be really human one should be able to reflect on oneself, to take oneself independently in hand, and to possesses a measure of well-being. When it comes to capacities, some capacity to remember, to will, or to understand is decisive. If these capacities have ceased to function or failed to develop, there would no longer be a human being. As for the attributes, there would have to be a certain physical and psychosocial quality to which in recent years a spiritual dimension has been added. Although this spiritual expansion of the image of man would as such be considered an enrichment for the field of health care, it is insufficient for the definition of man. It can even function detrimentally for the sick, if their humanity is measured by it. 1. The sick as image of God. In Christian spirituality humans are defined as living in the sight of God and existing in a creaturely relation to God. This fact invites them to absorb God’s attributes into themselves and to be transformed by God in love. Even when human beings cannot or will not respond to this invitation, God remains creatively connected with them. Vincent de Paul consistently instilled in his Sisters that the sick person is an image of God. This divine origin compels respect: “You must often meditate on the fact that your most important issue, that which God demands of you in particular, is with great care to serve the poor who are our masters. O yes, my sisters, they are our masters.”295 295

119.

Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents IX, (Ed. P. Coste), Paris 1920-1925,

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2. God’s healing power Several developments in nursing care have led to a mindset in which the relation to God is considered irrelevant. There is first of all the secularization which systematically leaves the relation to God out of consideration. Furthermore, physicians and nurses often no longer know how they must deal in practice with the spirituality of patients. It has now become standard practice to leave spiritual matters to the pastor or chaplain.296 Within the field of health care, however, attempts are being made to again give spirituality a place in nursing care. Verna Benner Carson mentions a number of interventions which can mediate God’s healing power: the presence of the nurse and physical touch; listening to the patient and being empathetic; keeping one’s own vulnerability and receptivity available; humility and solidarity; prayer; the use of Scripture or other religious sources; giving the patient a chance to take part in religious rituals; the protection of holy objects the patient wears or has with her; calling in the help of the pastor; championing the religious feelings and convictions of the patient.297 Here health care could learn a lot from the experiences of spiritual counselors in institutions of care.298 3. Competent care of the sick Jesus Sirach, a wisdom teacher who lived around 200 B.C., defines the role of the physician as follows: “Give the physician his place, for the Lord created him too. Do not let him leave you, for you need him. There are times, after all, when recovery lies in his hands, for they too pray to the Lord that he may grant them success in diagnosis and bring healing for the sake of preserving life” (Sir. 38:1214; cf. 38:1-8). Also rhetorically effective is the little word “too” (4≈) in this passage: (1) the physician, like the patient, stands in the Creator-creature relation to God; (2) sometimes also his intervention is necessary and decisive; (3) also physicians pray to God for help, just like the sick; (4) for that reason one must also make room, alongside the prevailing self-abasement rituals, for physicians. Thus on the one hand the work of the physician is fully assessed at its true worth (diagnosis and healing) and on the other hand expressly embedded in the same context as the patient (Creator-creature relation and prayer). In Christian spirituality the unique competence of nurses and physicians has always been respected. St. Helena (250-330), the mother of Constantine the

296

Spirituality and the Nursing Process, in: V. Benner Carson, Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice, Philadelphia 1989, 177. 297 Ibid., 164-175. 298 See, e.g., the Handboek geestelijke verzorging in zorginstellingen, Kampen 1996.

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Great, started a training school for nurses.299 Vincent de Paul (1576-1669) saw to it that his sisters were well-trained so that they could act as competent nurses to the sick at home. Included in that training was experience in hospitals.300 We can see the high esteem accorded to competent nursing in the hospital congregations which were established during the 19th century both in the Catholic church and the Protestant community of faith. In all these 19th-century initiatives the professional dimension in nursing care is highly regarded but never to the extent that it is detached from the broader context of Christian health care. Not everyone, for that matter, was convinced that nursing personnel needed schooling. Florence Nightingale, who in 1860 started the first nursing school in England, said to those who deemed such training unnecessary or even exaggerated: “Some people think that all a nurse has to learn is innate in a woman or that it can be learned without practice. To such people I should like to say: ‘send us as many of these genial women as possible, for we need them badly.’”301 4. Calling and profession The paradigm of Christian nursing is the good Samaritan. As we saw above, the ministry of mercy springs from the visceral emotion evoked by the sick. This upsurge of tenderness is the ongoing source of merciful care. Totally in keeping with this intuition, according to Vincent de Paul, is care spent on this tenderheartedness. “We must try to let our heart become tender, to make it sensitive to the suffering and misery of others, and ask God to grant us a spirit of mercy.”302 Those who care out of mercy are in God: “But do you know what it means to do something in charity? It is to do it in God, for God is love, that is, doing it purely for God’s sake.”303 On account of the intrinsic connection between the sick person and God’s presence, the care of the sick is viewed in Christian spirituality as a calling. The concept of caring for the sick grew predominantly from an understanding of care as service to God, a vocation that was the fulfilment of God’s covenant purpose. The essence of care was this spiritual ethos, a freely given mutual service within society, which distinguished it from any contractual or commercial basis. Furthermore, this principle was responsible not only for care of the sick, but also for the response that sought to cure the sick, to provide care through cure, by

299

V. Benner Carson, ibid., 57. Ibid., 60. 301 C. Dane, Geschiedenis van de ziekenverpleging, Lochem 1967, 86. 302 Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents XI, (Ed. P. Coste), Paris 1920-1925, 341. 303 Ibid., IX, 249. 300

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laying the groundwork for the growth of scientific medicine mediated through the compassion of agape.304

The care of the sick in the context of Christian spirituality, accordingly, integrates care for one’s neighbor, service to God, and medicine. In order to describe in part the final motivation for this care, people used words like “calling,” “ministry,” “dedication,” and “covenant.” Also Florence Nightingale, who firmly stressed the importance of professional training and proper payment, viewed a sense of calling as the primary motive. In her diary she refers to the voice of God who calls her to this work.305 In the past century the nursing profession detached itself from this all-embracing motivation of calling. This result was due to interactive processes of secularization, emancipation, and professionalization. The nursing profession gradually began to organize itself. It acquired recognized status, good working conditions, and the payment of a salary that could be contractually enforced. This professional group subsequently contributed significantly to the increase of expertise, especially by means of good curricula, protected certification, and professional codes. This emancipation and professionalization, however, were in fact driven by a predominantly positivistic medical-science approach which not only had a strong fragmentizing effect but also reduced the whole complex of care to a medical-biological process. These processes, viewed solely by themselves, are not bad. The actual effect, however, is that the spirituality of health care was impoverished. In the process, the deeper motivation of the caretakers, which is inherent in the care of the sick, was lost sight of. It is understandable, accordingly, that from within the field of health care people looked for ways to escape this impoverishment. Classic Christian elements such as service and dedication were again incorporated in the professional attitude as a whole. On the basis of her years of experience with cancer patients, Miriam Jacik describes as desirable the following attitude toward patients: entering into a relationship with them, sharing in the individual’s pain; listening even when it is inconvenient; saying little or nothing at times; being a companion to another’s journey, not a problem solver; seriously responding to another’s concerns; having the courage to be present to another; loving people, even the unlovable; admitting one’s own brokenness in the process; giving another a chance to change; not taking away another’s responsibility; acknowledging the limits of our own help; leaving others free to make their own decisions and promoting their own values, goals, and personal views.306 304

A. Bradshaw, Lighting the Lamp. The Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Care, Harrow 1995,

119. 305

C. Dane, Geschiedenis van de ziekenverpleging, Lochem 1967, 80. Nursing, Science and Service. A Historical Perspective, in: V. Benner Carson, Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice, Philadelphia 1989, 53-54. 306

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BIBLIOGRAPHY ALLEN, D., Coverage of the Spiritual Dimension of Health in Personal Health Textbooks in Higher Education, Denton-Dallas-Houston 1993. BARNUM, B. STEVENS, Spirituality in Nursing. From Traditional to New Age, New York 1996. BRADSHAW, A., Lighting the Lamp. The Spiritual Dimension of Nursing Care, Harrow 1995. BULLIS, R., Spirituality in Social Work Practice, Washington (DC)-London 1996. BENNER-CARSON, V., Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice, Philadelphia etc. 1989. CASSIDY, S., Sharing the Darkness. The Spirituality of Caring, London 1990. DYBOWSKI, S., Barmherzigkeit im Neuen Testament. Ein Grundmotiv caritativen Handelns, Freiburg 1992. FINNEY, H., A Spirituality of Compassion. Studies in Luke, Elgin (IL) 1996. HARRISON, J. & Burnard, Ph., Spirituality and Nursing Practice, Aldershot etc. 1993. HODGES, D., Science, Spirituality, and Healing, Guildford 1994. MORRIS, L. Hood, The Concept of Spirituality in the Context of the Discipline of Nursing, Vancouver 1995. Spirituality in Nursing. A New Perspective in Health, Milwaukee 1984. WAAIJMAN, K., Psalmen bij ziekte en genezing, Kampen 1981. WUTHNOW, R., Acts of Compassion. Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves, Princeton 1991.

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1.6. Piety in the Context of Death and Dying Death has an immediate effect on the next of kin. It is they who perform the mourning rituals. These rituals are aimed at the realization of three goals: identification with the deceased; the appropriation of the loss; expressing the emotions which make reintegration possible. In most cultures the accompaniment of the dying, the care of the dead body, the funeral service and the burial are regarded as acts of piety. 1. The Jewish tradition. Within the Jewish tradition there has been a multiplicity of ideas concerning death. In the patriarchal era death was pictured as “being gathered to one’s fathers” (Gen. 25:8, 17; 49:33; Num. 20:26). The wisdom tradition saw death as the end (Ps. 39; 49; Eccl.; Job). The Maccabees (cf. 2 Macc. 12:39-45) and Pharisees believed in a resurrection from the dead, while the Sadducees rejected it. The Kabbala believed in metempsychosis (transmigration of the soul). For all the differences among these conceptual worlds, there are also points of agreement: the rituals and views on death are aimed at life; caring for the dead is an act of piety; only God really has power over death.307 2. The Hellenistic world. In Hellenistic spirituality the intellect of man (nous) is considered divine and therefore immortal. At birth this core is clothed with corporeality which is again removed at death, whereupon the soul returns to the sphere of imperishable light. Care bestowed on the dead was universally considered an act of piety (eusebeia, pietas). In Rome the dead were laid on the ground. Relatives washed and anointed, clothed and garlanded the dead body. After the lament for the dead, the burial took place outside the city where a eulogy was given. A sacrifice and a funeral meal concluded the process. 3. Christian tradition. Christians believe that the death of Jesus of Nazareth is one side of an event of which the other is God’s life-giving power. Jesus’ resurrection, as a passover (pascha) from the death to life, transformed the hellenistic rituals enacted around death and burial.308 Christians opposed cremation, rejected the garlanding of the dead (sign of idolatry), prohibited candles and torches (used in connection with the sacrificial cult). They adopted the lament for the dead but replaced existing texts with psalms, scripture readings, and prayers of their own (wild laments and rituals of self-abasement did not comport with belief in the resurrection).309 An important shift occurred when in the 307 E. Grollman, Death in Jewish Thought, in: Death and Spirituality, (Ed. K. Doka & J. Morgan), Amityville (NY) 1993, 21-32. 308 E. Miller, A Roman Catholic View of Death, ibid., 33-49. 309 R. Kaczynski, Sterbe- und Begräbnisliturgie, in: Gottesdienst der Kirche. Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft 8, (Ed. H. Meyer, H. Auf der Mauer et al.), Regensburg 1984, 205-208.

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Middle Ages death was projected against the background of the Final Judgment. This shift was triggered in part by strong end-time expectation, penitential movements, epidemics, and fear of death. The liturgy in turn fueled this fear by the use of the liturgical color black, by its penitential prayers (Dies irae), by its emphasis on human transience (“dust you are and to dust you will return”), by viewing extreme unction as the final act, and by sharp divisions between heaven, hell, and purgatory. In the Reformation this note was reinforced.310 Vatican II revamped burial rituals in light of faith in the resurrection, thereby harking back to older traditions. 4. Eastern spiritualities. Eastern spiritualities noticeably differ among themselves.311 To a Hinduist, humans die within the process of an unending series of lives, just as the universe itself runs through an unending number of cycles of creation, destruction and recreation. In Buddhism it is possible for a person to reach perfect transformation in nirvana already in this life if he or she takes systematic leave of everything that binds humans to the thirst for life which is the source of all suffering. In Confucianism people must carefully maintain the rituals which unite the living with the dead; they must keep alive the memory of their ancestors, grateful for the life they have received from them. These rituals, furthermore, channel the grief they feel over the death of a dear one. Taoism views life and death as aspects of an all-sustaining Movement (tao). Death is part of the natural process of change: “Life is the companion of death; death is the beginning of life.”312 Eastern spiritualities do have a few lines of thought in common: death is a natural process that belongs to life; it is a matter of spirituality to see through this process down to its foundations and to accept it on that basis. To many people this process is only a part of an all-embracing, everrepeating process but also of one’s own cycle of living, dying, and being born again (reincarnation); these rebirths are purifications.313 5. A secularist way of dealing with death. Many persons in modern society proceed from the conviction that while this life ceases, life itself continues.314 On the level of the body, personal identity, and consciousness, this life ends. But this is not the end of the story. A new “art of dying” (ars moriendi) develops: people reflect on death, give expression to it, attempt to transcend it. Reflection on death as belonging to life enriches the quality of life and intensifies life’s ending. Indeed, even this “art of dying” can be experienced as a victory over crude death

310

D. Klass, Spirituality, Protestantism and Death, in: Death and Spirituality, 51-73. For a brief sketch, see part 1, chapter 2.1. 312 K.J. Doka & J.D. Morgan, Death and Spirituality, 87. 313 See D. Ryan, Death. Eastern Perspectives, in: Death and Spirituality, 75-92. 314 See P. Irion, Spiritual Issues in Death and Dying for Those Who Do Not Have Conventional Religious Belief, ibid., 93-112. 311

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itself.315 In order further to explore the spirituality of death we will enlarge upon three situations. 1.6.1. SARAH’S DEATH AND BURIAL The stories of semi-nomadic communities, as they have been handed down in the book of Genesis, are sustained by two underlying types of narrative: the itinerary account and genealogy. The itinerary account tells us how the community moves from one place to another. The genealogy relates how the community survives from generation to generation. Within one generation the passage (s) of life from birth to death is (are) accomplished. Thus Isaac’s life includes his birth, circumcision, and naming (Gen. 21:1-7); the feast of his weaning (Gen. 21:8); his marriage to Rebekah (Gen. 24:67); his death and burial (Gen. 35:28-29). With death the course of life has been completed. This ending, however, again has its own development. The story of Isaac’s life’s ending reads as follows: “Now the days of Isaac were one hundred eighty years. And Isaac breathed his last; he died and was gathered to his ancestors, old and full of days; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him” (Gen. 35:28-29). To understand the spirituality of life’s ending we will read the story of Sarah’s death and burial. 1. Sarah died Within the basic genealogical narrative death is usually briefly reported even when that death is extraordinarily tragic, as in the case of Rachel who died in giving birth to Benjamin (Gen. 35:18-19). The story of the end of Sarah’s life is told as follows: “Sarah lived one hundred twenty-seven years, this was the length of Sarah’s life. And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan” (Gen. 23:1-2). Dying is viewed as the completion of the years. In the case of Isaac this is expressly stated: he was old and full of years (“sated with life,” Gen. 35:29). Life is “the fulfillment of days” (2 Sam. 7:12; Exod. 23:26). A fully-matured life was “seventy years or perhaps eighty if we are strong” (Ps. 90:10). People pictured dying as the ebbing away of one’s life force (Gen. 25:8; 35:29). They “lay down to sleep with their ancestors” (Gen. 47:30; 49:29, 33), or were “gathered to their relatives” (Gen. 25:8; 17; 35:29). The gathering place of the dead is the underworld. Hence people spoke of the gates or chambers of death (Ps. 9:14; 107:18; Prov. 7:27). They went down into the depths of the earth (see Ps. 49). But even more elementary than descending to the underworld is the union with the dust of the earth: “You are dust and to dust you shall 315

Ibid., 110.

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return” (Gen. 3:19). This return to the dust is the lot of all humans (Num. 16:29). “You turn humankind back to dust and say, ‘Turn back, you children of men!’” (Ps. 90:3; see Ps. 49:14). 2. Abraham’s lament When Sarah died, “Abraham came to lament over Sarah and to weep for her” (Gen. 23:2). Abraham entered the tent where Sarah stayed and performed the lament for the dead which had its original setting in the family316 and is described by two verbs: to lament and to weep over. The lament is a ritual in which effusive expression is given to one’s grief. It is begun immediately after death in the presence of the dead (1 Sam. 25:1, 2; 2 Sam. 3:31).317 The ritual consisted in beating on one’s breast (Isa. 32:12) and uttering brief cries: “Alas! Alas!” (1 Kgs. 13:30; Jer. 34:5). The lament is accompanied by weeping; the mourners shed tears of sorrow. The lament and the weeping were part of a complex of rituals of self-abasement: fasting, rending one’s clothes, going about in sackcloth, shaving oneself, and throwing dust on one’s head. People removed from their bodies all elements of human splendor (clothing, hair), reduced the vitalities of life (weeping, fasting), and approached the dust of death (lying down on the ground; sprinkling dust and ashes on their heads), in order in this manner to become one with the lamented dead. The lament, with accompanying rituals, gives expression to grief. On the other hand, it interiorizes grief by bodily admitting death into one’s own life. The expressive phase of mourning was limited to the first day (Gen. 50:10). Then began a longer mourning period in which the process of interiorization was continued. To this end a coherent set of grieving behaviors (‘abal) was handed down and interiorized: going about in sackcloth and ashes, fasting, prayer, languishing, sinking to the ground (Ps. 35:13, 14).318 These customs were designed to bring mourners into contact with the harsh reality of death and with their grief. People reserved a fair amount of time for this purpose: 7 days (Gen. 50:10), 30 days (Deut. 34:8), or even longer (Gen. 27:35; 37:34; 2 Sam. 13:37-38, and so forth). The inner dynamic of this expression and interiorization is aimed at making space for new life. “Often mourning is emphasized so much that no hope seems to be in sight (e.g., Jer. 4:28; 14:2; Lam. 1:4; 2:8; Joel 1:9f.); but in many passages it is obvious that behind the mourning lies the silent expectation that a change will follow observance of the mourning customs (Num. 14:39 – in vain, to be sure; Ezr. 10:6; Neh. 1:4; Est. 4:3-1 S. 15:35; and 16:1 are also to be

316

C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11 (BK I/1), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983, 456. J. Scharbert, sapad, in: ThDOT X (1986), 299-303. 318 A Baumann, ‘abal, in: ThDOT 1 (1974), 44-48. 317

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understood on the basis of this concept).”319 This change is expressed in the biblical word “comfort” (nacham). Comfort is an event, act, or word which really influences the situation. In the case of an irreversible event like death, “comfort” liberates a person from his or her affective preoccupation. It brings one’s mind into a new relation to reality.320 From this perspective one can understand how the word “comfort” denotes the end of the mourning rituals (Gen. 24:67; 38:12; 2 Sam. 13:39). Comforting is materially the same as mourning. The difference is that mourning stresses the ritual interiorization, whereas comforting brings the spiritual import to the fore. “To be consoled” is to experience “the restoration of inward equilibrium.”321 After one’s inner life has been unsettled by death, it is restructured by the mourning ritual. That is consolation or comfort. 3. He rose up from her face After he had grieved over Sarah, weeping and lamenting, “Abraham rose up from the face of his dead” (Gen. 23:3). This gesture of Abraham is multi-layered. (1) After Abraham had cast himself, weeping, “upon the face” (cf. Gen. 50:1) of Sarah, he rose up and removed himself from his beloved dead in order to enter negotiations with the Hittites over a burial site for her. (2) Rising up “from the face of the dead” is a dialogic occurrence: Abraham permits his beloved dead to depart into the land of the dead and he himself returns to the land of the living. (3) The dead person and the surviving person release each other from the intimacy of the vis-à-vis relation which is characteristic for lay spirituality and specifically for marriage spirituality. We are told three times that Abraham and his dead removed themselves from each other’s face: “Abraham rose from the face of his dead (…), so that I may bury my dead out of my face (sight)” (Gen. 23:3, 4, 8). Jointly they deepen the level of the mourning ritual: Abraham detached himself from the visà-vis relation and releases Sarah from that vis-à-vis relation. This farewell ritual makes visible the fact that death is an event which touches the depths of intimacy. 4. And he buried his dead After purchasing a burial place in the field of Machpela in Hebron (Gen. 23:418), he buried his wife Sarah (Gen. 23:19). The words “to bury” and “burial place” serve as key words in this chapter (12x). Solemnly, with loud lamentation, the dead was carried to her grave. Relatives, friends, and acquaintances accompanied the dead as they performed the rituals of self-abasement (striking their breast, sprinkling dust on their head).322 To bury a person is to bring a person 319

Ibid., 47. H. Simian-Yoffre, nchm, in: ThDOT IX (1998), 340-355. 321 Ibid., 349. 322 K. Koch, qeber, in: TWAT VI (1989), 1153. 320

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to her grave, an event accomplished in the circle of the family community and immediate social surroundings. This act is performed at the burial place, also called one’s “eternal home” (Eccl. 12:5; cf. Ps. 49:11). The grave could be a pit, a cave in a rock, or mausoleum. Sometimes a grave was marked by a memorial (Gen. 35:20; 2 Kgs. 23:17; 2 Sam. 18:18). Poor folk were given a grave at a location for mass burial by the city gates (2 Kgs. 23:6; Jer. 26:23). Being buried meant to come home, to be gathered to one’s ancestors (Gen. 25:8, 17; 35:29), to be gathered to one’s place of origin.323 A burial was primarily a return to the community of origin. Also Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah and Jacob were to be buried in Sarah’s grave (Gen. 49:30ff.; 50:13). Not to be buried (Jer. 16:6) or to be buried among criminals (Isa. 53:9) meant permanent homelessness. 1.6.2. THE PASSAGE TO ETERNAL

LIFE

Although the care for the dying or dead person was primarily a task for the next of kin, the broader community was always moved to sympathy at the same time, precisely with a view to the next of kin. That is the Sitz im Leben for the rituals surrounding the death and burial which in Christian spirituality are bound up with the belief that the dying person is passing from this life to eternal life in God, mediated by the passover of Jesus Christ whose downfall in the world proved to be a paschal entry into God.324 No coherent picture of the rites surrounding death and burial has come down to us from the early centuries. Not until the 7th and 8th century do we see an overall sequence taking shape, having the following key features: communion for the dying as food for the journey into the new life; committal of the dead to God with prayers at the time of their departure; the “sojourn” in the church and the burial.325 This is the order which underlies the renewal of Vatican II.326 1. The final communion The Council of Nicea knew the “final and most necessary communion” for those who were in danger of dying (canon 13):327 the last communion as food for the journey to eternal life (ephodion, viaticum).328 It was received at the last possible 323

Ibid., 1151; 1153-1154. R. Kaczynski, Sterbe- und Begräbnisliturgie, in: Gottesdienst der Kirche. Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft 8 (Ed. H. Meyer, H. Auf der Mauer et al.), Regensburg 1984, 208. 325 Ibid., 209. 326 Ibid., 218-224. 327 Ibid., 210. 328 G. Wirix, The Viaticum. From the Beginning until the Present Day, in: Bread of Heaven. Customs and Practices Surrounding Holy Communion, (Ed. C. Caspers, G. Lukken, et al.), Kampen 1995, 247-259. 324

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moment before death so that the dying still had the food in their mouth at the moment of their departure. The final communion was the true and only sacrament for the dying.329 This custom vanished in the Middle Ages because communion was increasingly withheld from the laity and could only still be distributed by the priest (no longer by the deacon). The communion of the sick was moved up and the anointing of the sick became “extreme unction.” Vatican II again made possible a final communion after the anointing of the sick. The spirituality of the final communion is expressed in a 12th-century formula followed at the time of its administration: “Receive, brother/sister, the food-for-underway (viaticum), which is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. May he protect you from the malicious enemy and lead you into eternal life. Amen.”330 2. At the moment of death Considered under the heading of the “commendation of the soul” in the Roman Ritual of 1614 are the following elements: the greeting, the sprinkling with holy water, the sign of the cross, the lighting of a candle, the litany of all the saints, prayers, the passion of John, and the prayers said after the death. The core component is John’s passion, which used to be the only element and around which the prayers were woven like a wreath. The thrust of the prayers is not just that the dying person may entrust herself to God (commendo spiritum meum) but also that the community, gathered around the deathbed, entrusts itself to God (commendamus tibi, Domine).331 The Roman Rite of the 7th-8th century provides a reading from John’s passion up until the moment of death. By this means the death of the Christian is united with the suffering and death of Jesus. The moment of death is accompanied by prayer. After the death Psalm 114 is intoned: “when Israel went out from Egypt….” With this the passage of the dead person to eternal life is united with the exodus from the land of slavery to the land of promise. The inhabitants of this land are called upon to welcome the new arrival. Cantor: Saints of God, come to his (her) aid! Come to meet him (her), angels of the Lord! People: Receive his (her) soul and present him (her) to God the Most High332/ before the face of the Most High.333

329

R. Kaczynski, ibid., 210. Ibid., 214. 331 Ibid., 214-215. 332 The Catholic Burial Rite, Collegeville 1969-1970, 29. 333 Nationale Raad voor Liturgie, De uitvaartliturgie, Zeist 1983, 47. 330

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In the prayers and psalms we observe the spirituality of a community which on earth encourages the dying person on the occasion of his passover (proficiscere), and commits him to the care of the heavenly community (Subvenite and litany), all of this within the basic model of Christ’s passover (John’s passion, sign of the cross, burning candle). 3. The funeral The funeral begins with the transfer of the body from the home to the church,334 which marks the passage from the atmosphere of the home to that of the public domain. Psalms and prayers, which together formed the office of the dead, were traditionally sung in the church. Initially a cheerful mood prevailed. Jerome makes mention of the Hallelujah which resounded in the liturgy of the dead.335 In the Middle Ages the tone of the music darkened. Vatican II, however, has restored it to a spirituality of the resurrection. That is evident from the greeting, the prayers, the psalms, and the readings. As early as the second century, the celebration of the Eucharist in the church preceded the burial. At the end of the celebration of the Eucharist, in which the Easter candle burns and the homily explains the connection between baptism, death, and resurrection,336 follows “the final commendation and farewell.” The priest has spoken a few words of invitation and sprinkled and incensed the body; then follows the prayer for the dead, with the repeated petition: “Welcome him (her) into your dwelling, Lord, for we love him (her).” Death and burial are viewed as a passage from life on earth to life with God, with the church being present on both sides.337 In processing from the church, on their way to the final resting place, the mourners sing the In paradisum. May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come to welcome you and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem. May the choir of angels welcome you. Where Lazarus is poor no longer, may you have eternal rest.338

Upon arrival at the graveside, the priest sprinkles the coffin with holy water and says: “Today let your stay be in the city of peace and your dwelling in holy Zion.” After incensing, the priest marks the coffin with the sign of the cross and 334

R. Kaczynski, ibid., 211. Ibidem. 336 Ibid., 222. 337 Ibid., 224. 338 The Catholic Burial Rite, 25. 335

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says: “I mark your body with the holy sign of the cross that on the day of judgment it may rise again and possess eternal life.” He sprinkles earth on the coffin and continues: “Out of earth, Lord, You have made man and prepared him a body. Cause him (her) to rise again on the last Day.” The burial is concluded with prayers and the Our father.

1.6.3. FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH It is the experience of many who accompany the dying that precisely the final days can be overwhelmingly rich because of their facing death openly.339 Between the moment of the “fatal” diagnosis and the actual death an entire world may spring open.340 To discover how worlds may open up in the brief respite which death offers us at the end of our life, we will give the floor to three people who – face to face with death – in a new way discovered the secret of life. 1. What happens now On June 9, 1977, at the age of 51, the poet Hans Andreus died of cancer. Just before his death he wrote his Final Poem.341 This poem will be the last one that I write, now that my course of life is almost gone, and my creative spirit, too, worn down by the cancer which my body cannot fight, and, Lord (I’ll call you by that name again, although I hardly know just what it means; I’d rather talk to someone, though unseen, than into empty space; I find it then the simplest way to know what I should say) – What happens now? Where will I go to stay when this light of mine, of yours begins to fall into that nameless place beyond recall? Or will you find a word not yet in use, one that need not be spoken by the Muse? (translated by Henrietta Ten Harmsel) 339 P. Iron, Spiritual Issues in Death and Dying for Those Who Do Not Have Conventional Religious Belief, in: Death and Spirituality, (Ed. K. Doka and J. Morgan), Amityville (NY) 1993, 105. 340 J. Kauffman, Spiritual Perspectives on Suffering the Pain of Death, ibid., 165-170. 341 H. Andreus, Laatste gedicht, in: H. Andreus, Laatste gedichten, Haarlem 1977, 31.

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The poem has the structure of a sonnet: two strophes of four lines each followed by two of three lines; between them is the “volta” which usually indicates a shift in a poem. The poet starts out on a positive note: “This will be the last poem I’ll write,” a positive note crippled by uncertainty because death’s deferment always leaves room for still another last, a very last, word. To the poet, however, these are his “last words.”342 His life is virtually over and his creativity has run down – all because of the cancer that is wrecking his body. The link between “the final poem” and “the cancer in his body” is made by the word “literally.” Whereas he used to view the word of a poet as “an incredible little miracle of letters which acquire meaning,”343 now cancer, it seems, spells the last words. After the first positive strophe follows a shift, before the “volta” and reaching beyond it. The poet addresses the “Lord,” a “slip” for which he makes excuses: for a long time he had not used this appellative address but in this final poem he relapses into it, for lack of a better word. Although he can scarcely assign any meaning to it, it is still better than nothing. “Lord” is purely addressive speech. Consequently his last poem is not an act of babbling into a void but an act of speaking to “someone,” the easiest way to say something. An apology of five lines (past the “volta”!) is more, of course, than a hasty excuse. For a long time now the poet had not used the language of prayer common to a religious tradition. In his final poem he returns to this language with the word of address: “Lord.” The first excuse – “I’ll call you by that name again” – is a real turning to someone. The second excuse – “although I hardly know just what it means” – reinforces this addressive act because it is admittedly not aimed at an idea but directed to a person: I’d rather talk to someone than blather into space. Ultimately his purpose is to say something: “and this is the easiest way to do it.” Meanwhile we have gotten past the “volta” and the real import comes out. After the chattiness of the apologetic parenthesis the language hardens into a question: “What happens now?” further defined as “What do I do with this light of mine, of yours?” To Andreus light is a force which “dismantles forms into storms of light,” which paradoxically contain the modesty of a glimmer, a hint, and which holds itself so still “it’s almost as if it isn’t there.”344 Storms of light which contain the quiet mystery of virtual non-being. But now that the cancer dismantles his body the poet does not know what to do with this dismantling light: “What happens now? Where will I go to stay when this light of mine, of yours, begins to fall?” 342 K. Guthke, Letzte Worte. Variationen über ein Thema der Kulturgeschichte des Westens, München 1990; P. Nissen, Woorden voor het laatste uur. Over het bidden op het sterfbed in de christelijke traditie, Nijmegen 1999. 343 H. Andreus, Laatste gedicht, 7. 344 Ibid., 12.

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Meanwhile something significant is happening in this unknowing, this notknowing where I’ll be, this beginning free-fall, “into that nameless place beyond recall”: What is happening is a barely perceptible but essential transition from “me” to “you”: the light of life is not merely mine but also – indeed rather – “yours.” When death (literally cancer) unexpectedly lashes out and the free-fall into the indescribable begins, the question arises: “Now what happens?” In the concluding lines the subtle transition from “me” to “you” becomes an express alternative: “or have you found a word not yet in use, one that need not be spoken by the Muse?” The question of “what will happen now?” is continued and hence seems to offer an escape. But it remains a question! And if there is a future for that “light of mine, of yours,” it will be “you.” What will be the function of this “you”? A word. The poet does not rule out the possibility that with this free-fall into death there will be “a word.” This word has three characteristics. (1) It is word which will be found, not by the poet (I) but by the Lord (you). (2) It is not a “poem” (like the last poem I’ll write) but a word not forged or formed by a poet, a word marked by the prose of familiarity. (3) This familiar discourse need not be voiced in spoken words: it is the silent space between “I” and “you.” 2. I see a tiny seed. For those with sensitive ears the dying speak in a symbolic language which arises from the deeper layers of human experience. In his Conversations with the Dying Piper demonstrates how people facing death articulate their experiences, memories, and expectations in imagery, parables, and dreams. By way of example we have chosen the story of a 61-year-old patient for whom things were going very badly.345 At the very start of the conversation the patient (Pt) already blurted out: “I so wish I had a better view. I can’t see a thing and that in the spring.” The pastor (Ps) replies: Ps Pt

Ps Pt

It makes you sad not to be able to enjoy all the greenery… Yes – yes. I have a garden and gardening is my hobby. And now it is of absolutely no use to me. Nor was it last year. I already lay here then. Those flowers over there – my wife brought them here from the garden. You have missed those beautiful flowers for a long time already. Yes – I’ve been lying here for a long time. All at once, without any warning, I collapsed on the street.

The patient goes on to tell how the doctors found a brain tumor on which they operated. But the cancer was not gone. First he lay in a room with five others. But they made too much noise and he could not really talk with anybody. Ps Pt

345

Here you feel better and can quietly think about everything. Right. This room here is my little world. But then I still look up people with whom I can talk about this.

H. Piper, Gesprekken met stervenden, Antwerp 1979, 103-113.

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Pt Ps Pt Ps Pt

Ps Pt Ps Pt Ps Pt

Ps Pt

You don’t want to be alone with your own thoughts all the time. There’s too much going on in your head and then you are eager to talk about it with somebody else. Right. And there are always new ideas which come up! Exactly. And then it gets to be too much. Uh-huh! And then you need to talk about them! People don’t really realize what a precious gift their health is. They neglect it…. Here you discovered how precious your health was. Yes – and I also think there shouldn’t be any wars and all that…. In Northern Ireland, mind you, Catholics are fighting Protestants, [softly] I can’t for the life of me understand that. And in Vietnam…. Little children – totally mutilated – and then they have to find foster parents for them here. You don’t understand how God fits into all that, do you? No! Why all these wars – that first world war and later that second….? You wonder what God has in mind with these things? Exactly! And also the people who drop bombs on each other – and end up totally mutilated. That then is supposed to be the image of God! You’re asking: how can I still recognize God in those things? Uh-huh! And then I see a tiny seed and know for sure there’s bound to be a beautiful flower coming out of it. And that then again reconciles me a bit with everything. You yourself see it: God permits the beautiful but also the bad. (half rising from his pillow and questioningly reaching out with his hands) Yes – but why? I am fighting with God….

The patient says he “absolutely cannot see anything” and that of all times in the spring. He also says that his hobby is of “absolutely no use” to him. It is a deadend situation in which only the flowers from his wife bring some relief. All this is aggravated by the long duration: “Yes – I’ve been lying here for a long time.” The physical “viewlessness” represents an existential “viewlessness”: death is inescapable. People make his sense of isolation even worse: “They pay no attention to anything… They bang the doors…. Mind you, that is only the external side of things. But I could not talk with them either. They are so superficial.” No prospects, no time limit, no communication. In that situation he looks for a “view” and for conversation. What then comes out is: we ignore our health; we demolish each other with our violence and aggression. And how does he square that with God? Now that he has been able to unburden himself, a perspective opens: “And then I see a tiny seed and know for sure there’s bound to be a beautiful flower coming out of it. And that then again reconciles me a bit with everything.” The space the patient gets to express himself and to fight with God at the same time means the breakthrough of a flicker of hope in the image of the tiny seed. This flicker of hope is so strong that in a later exchange, in which the patient was in a very depressed state, he could be brought back to this little seed.

LAY SPIRITUALITY Ps

Pt

Ps Pt Ps Pt Ps Pt

Ps Pt

113

If I understood you correctly the last time we talked, you told me something about the hope that remains alive in you. Then you mentioned the tiny seed and the beautiful flower which would come out of it. O Yes! (pulls himself up). You see, there are so many little seeds, seemingly all alike, yet all sorts of different flowers come out of them. And they all have a different shape and different colors. Isn’t that fantastic?! It certainly is! And for you that is a miracle. You think it is amazing. Yes. Take a Christmas rose, for example. Do you know it – the Christmas rose? Yes. But I mean a Christmas rose right in the garden? No, I know it only as a potted plant. (laughs a bit pityingly). Yes, but in the garden – that’s different. There is blossoms even when it snows. In the middle of the winter. Push the snow aside, and whoopee! there it is. And snowdrops and crocuses. They are all ready as well and when their time comes they come up. Flowers know their time to do what they have to do. To you that’s a real miracle. Yes – there’s that power that is alive in them.

3. Discovery by death In a Parisian hospital the psychologist Marie de Hennezel accompanies terminal patients during the last weeks of their life. By listening attentively and by her comforting proximity she creates space not only for a dignified farewell but even more for an intensification of life. In her book Intimate Death she paints portraits of the dying she has experienced up close.346 One of the most impressive portraits is that of Danièle, a young woman with Charcot’s disease, a muscular disease which in its final stages leads to total paralysis. Danièle, a physics teacher before her illness, can only still move her eyelids and exert some pressure with the index finger of her left hand. She has two children, teenagers, and despite (or perhaps because of ) her illness, many friends. Her son has made a little lever which is fastened to her computer. In that way she can write with her left index finger and hence communicate. She says “yes” by closing her eyes and “no” by keeping them open. Danièle regards her muscular illness as a “virus” which, like a burglar, has quietly sneaked into her life. Deep inside herself she immediately knew that with this “virus” death had entered her body. “I was the only one who suspected what was happening, you understand (…). But saying it out loud was giving shape to the enemy, granting it the right to occupy my life. It was a declaration of war against the (…) unknown.”347 That unknown disease is the ‘virus.” With 346 347

M. de Hennezel, Intimate Death. How the Dying Teach us How to Live, New York 1997. Ibid., 102.

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all the energy at her disposal she fights against this deadly “virus,” hoping for a cure: “I want to live this difficult passage of my life as fully as possible. Everyone knows that once you cross the desert, you reach the Promised Land.”348 Aside from her battle with the advancing disease there is her courageous selfconfrontation. She has the courage to face the possibility that in part her disease is her own creation: “I created my illness as a response to being abandoned. Cunning! But now I have proof that people love me, and I want to live but my virus won’t listen!”349 To Danièle her disease was the embodiment of her fear of being abandoned, a fear which was rearoused every time a love relation broke up. With her twin sister Gisele she goes back to her youth to get a handle on the origins of her fear. In her struggle and self-confrontation she gradually learned to let go of the past. “Avoid all comparisons with the past and learn to live this as a particularly long and difficult passage. You see, I don’t know how many years the ordeal will last but there are difficult lessons [to learn] and they need time.”350 She also begins to let go of her future calculations: “The best should be not to have [a story] at all, but until that point I’m protected by my campaign to get better. I will keep a record of my dreams. They know more than I do!”351 Her dreams point out her way to the present: she knows herself to be in a mine field. Some people step on the grenades, others do not move at all. Danièle opposes the latter, who symbolize her illness: “Paralysis and immobility are not living! If you want to escape, you have to take a big chance.” What chance? “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned by experience: the people who are afraid are the ones who refuse death.” Is she afraid to die? “No, I’m not afraid. I think that’s where I’ll meet the answer to the question.”352 The present is one of an approaching death. There she will have to look for life. Danièle had no religious upbringing. She came from a family of nonobservant Polish Jews and considers herself an atheist. By way of meditation and silence, inspired by Krishnamurti, she seeks her own way in the mystery of life. I don’t believe in a God of justice, or a God of love. It’s too human to be possible. What a lack of imagination! But neither do I believe that we can just be reduced to some bundle of atoms. Whatever tells us that there’s something beyond matter – call it soul, or spirit, or consciousness, whatever you prefer – I believe in the immortality of that. Reincarnation or arriving at an entirely new plan of being – it’s discovery by death!353 348

Ibid., 150. Ibid., 92. 350 Ibid., 122. 351 M. de Hennezel, De intieme dood. Levenslessen van stervenden, Haarlem 1996, 168. 352 Ibid., 169. 353 Ibid., 176-177. 349

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Only the notion of “immortality,” to Danièle’s mind, is suited to convey the ‘more-than-matter’ dimension. At least as important as the correct image is the process of assimilation: “I didn’t let the emotion out before but now that my virus has taken my speech and my muscles, I can’t keep it in anymore.”354 Through her tears she learns to arrive at where she is: In the midst of life, infected by death, and yet sometimes unexpectedly happy: “Happiness comes unannounced even on the wings of illness.”355 After Danièle’s death the last words which Marie de Hennezel records about Danièle are the following: Now she’s lying on her bed, dressed in embroidered red silk pajamas, and there are flowers in her hair. The nurse’s aides wanted it that way. An expression of their admiration and gratitude, no doubt, because she taught us a lot these last months. She initiated us.356

BIBLIOGRAPHY DAVIES, D., Death, Ritual, and Belief. The Rhetoric of Funerary Rites, London 1997. Death and Spirituality, (Ed. K. Doka and J. Morgan), Amityville (NY) 1993. Dichter bij de dood, Speling 28 (1976) no. 4. Dood. En toch…, Speling 38 (1986) no. 1. Gottesdienst der Kirche. Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft, (Ed. H. Meyer et al.), Regensburg 1983-…. GRANTSON, E., Death in the Individual Psalms of Lament, Ann Arbor (MI) 1993. HENNEZEL, M. DE, Intimate Death. How the Dying Teach Us How to Live, (Trans. C. Brown Janeway), New York 1997. KÜNZL, H., Jüdische Grabkunst, Darmstadt 1999. Liturgy of the Catholic Burial Rite and Mass of Requiem, Collegeville 1969, 1970. NUGENT, C., Mysticism, Death and Dying, Albany (NY) 1994. PIPER, H., Gesprekken met stervenden, Antwerpen 1979. ROWELL, G., The Liturgy of Christian Burial, London 1977. SCHMIDT-ROST, R., Sterben, Tod, Trauer. Vom Umgang mit der Grenze des Lebens in der modernen Gesellschaft, Stuttgart 1995. Spiritualität der Sterbebegleitung. Wege und Erfahrungen, (Ed. L. Bickel & D. TauschFlammer), Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1997. WALD, F., In Quest of the Spiritual Component of Care for the Terminally Ill, New Haven 1986.

354

M. de Hennezel, Intimate Death, 122. Ibid., 164. 356 Ibid., 165. 355

CHAPTER 2: SCHOOLS OF SPIRITUALITY INTRODUCTION 117 Schools of spirituality spring from a Source-experience which they make accessible by way of mediations (liturgy, religious life, spiritual exercises, and the like). This Sourceexperience gives identity to the schools within a given socio-cultural context, forms the standard of verification in the event of reforms, and opens a window on the future. 2.1. SPIRITUAL WAYS 123 The Source-experience manifests itself in schools of spirituality as a spiritual way: those who travel this way unite themselves with the Source and by conforming to it come alive. 2.1.1. The way of Enlightenment 126 2.1.2. The threefold way 130 2.1.3. The way of Tao 133 Bibliography 136 2.2. LITURGICAL SPIRITUALITY 138 If rituals are to succeed in mediating the Source-experience, they must not just be externally but above all internally performed as a form of God-relatedness. 2.2.1. The temple liturgy 139 2.2.2. The Eucharist 143 2.2.3. Rituals in Islam 146 Bibliography 150 2.3. RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES 151 Religious communities offer a model of spiritual life which aims to have all dimensions of life shaped by the Source-experience from which the school of spirituality takes its inspiration. 2.3.1. The Sufis 154 2.3.2. The Carmelites 157 2.3.3. The Vincentians 160 Bibliography 165 2.4. SPIRITUALITY AND CULTURE 166 Schools of spirituality take shape within the culture of which they are a part. The cultural form retains its spiritual identity for as long as the Source-experience remains alive in it. 2.4.1. The wisdom schools 167

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2.4.2. The Benedictine centuries 2.4.3. Spirituality and art Bibliography

171 175 178

179 2.5. REFORMATION Reformation is a spiritual process in which the Source-experience and the changing circumstances of the time are creatively related to each other. Essential in this process is the creative mediation between the two poles. 2.5.1. The Deuteronomic reformation 180 2.5.2. The Modern Devotion 183 2.5.3. Renewal geared to the times 190 Bibliography 193 2.6. THE OPENING-UP OF THE FUTURE 195 The Source-experience opens up the future. This capacity to open up the future takes shape in prophecies and Utopias, creative projects and alternative forms of life. 2.6.1. Prophetic spirituality 196 2.6.2. Utopia 200 2.6.3. Ecological spirituality 204 Bibliography 210

Introduction Schools of spirituality are “historical syntheses” which display a great diversity of forms: the monastic system, the charism of Augustine, the Benedictine centuries, the regular canons, the mendicant orders, the Modern Devotion, the Jesuits, the Oratorians, the followers of Vincent de Paul, the spirituality of Grignon de Montfort, the congregations of the Passionists, Redemptionists, Salesians, the new congregation of Charles de Foucauld.1 Mentioned in the same series are: Reformational spirituality, Orthodox spirituality, and movements like the French School.2 Aside from a diversity of forms we also encounter a multiplicity of terms used to describe the phenomenon: school of spirituality, way of spiritual life, method of spirituality, orientation, mentality, style, currents and ideal types of Christian life and holiness.3 We define a school of spirituality as (1) a spiritual way that derives from a Source-experience around which (2) an inner circle of pupils takes shape which (3) is situated within the socio-cultural context in a specific way and (4) opens 1

Le grandi scuole della spiritualità cristiana, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Roma-Milano 1984, 83-131. Ibid., 133-729. 3 G. Thils, Santeté chrétienne, Tielt 1958, 24-30. 2

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a specific perspective on the future; a second generation (5) structures all this into an organic whole, by means of which (6) a number of people can share in the Source-experience; when the Source-experience, the contextual relevance, and the power to open up the future are blocked, (7) a reformation is needed. 1. The Source-experience Several studies point to the importance of a founding personality who opens a “way” in the field of tension between an original spiritual experience and the socio-religious context.4 This emphasis on the founder only partly corresponds to reality. Sometimes, though a person may be a great personality in a given school of spirituality, he or she is not the founder: Bernard, for example, marks the reform of the Cistercians but was not the founder of Citeaux. A school of spirituality can be a movement or trend which, though not associated with a religious community, is linked with the personality of a saint or with the riches of one of his (her) writings: The personality of Augustine, for example, is the founding inspiration of the Augustinian order but he himself did not start the order.5 The Story of a Soul by Therese of Lisieux had a formative impact on the piety of the 19th and 20th century. There are periods marked “by collective-spiritual currents which do not necessarily owe their existence to the influence of a dominant personality but which more or less influence all the then-existing spiritualities.”6 We may think in this connection of École Française and in our day of the spirituality of liberation. In both cases we are dealing with schools which synchronically influence all existing schools. It seems more fitting, therefore, to speak of a Source-experience.7 A Source-experience is the fundamental experience of being touched by God, an experience which touches and transforms specific people in their specific situation. 2. The circle of pupils Needed for the rise of a school of spirituality is not just a Source-experience but pupils who assimilate it, live out of it, and give practical expression to it.8 The participation of the pupils and the Source-experience jointly give shape to 4

See, e.g., R. Morçay, Les écoles de spiritualité chrétienne. La pensée catholique, Liège-Paris 1928, 26; J. Gaitán, Espiritualidad y espiridualidades, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 43 (1984), 683-687; M. Domergue, Aux sources de la diversité, in: Christus 16 (1969) no. 62, 192-193. 5 L. de Saint-Joseph, École de spiritualité, in: DSp 4 (1960), 116. 6 Ibid., 116. 7 Ibid., 124. 8 M. Dupuy, Spiritualité. II. La notion de spiritualité, in: DSp 14 (1990), 1172.

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a school of spirituality.9 Only when a founder groups around him pupils who attempt to imitate him and sanctify themselves with the same means and only when one of these pupils forges the practical instructions of his teacher into a single whole, do we have the fulfillment of the conditions needed for the formation of a school of spirituality.10 The two together, “the personal experience of the founder plus the experience of the spiritual formation of the first pupils,”11 constitute a school. A school of spirituality addresses pupils at the point where these pupils themselves, from within their own unique selfhood, try to find their way to God: “The only possible goal of every school of spirituality is to offer the soul a way to God.”12 The aim of a school of spirituality is to serve the search for God which is the same search, yet different, for all the pupils.13 3. The context In 1938 De Guibert wrote: “I shall not focus exclusively on the external circumstances which naturally group spiritual authors in the same school and considerably influence its unique character. (…) Circumstances to a high degree define a spiritual school, may help it to realize its unity and to distinguish it from other such schools.”14 In 1970 Bernard said: “Situated in the world and becoming conscious of himself, a human being attempts to unite himself with God. We can say, therefore, that the chief types of mediation are concretely situated in keeping with the constitutive relation of the human consciousness to itself, to the world, and to others.”15 Whereas in 1938 De Guibert could still call the circumstances of a school “external” and “natural,” some decades later Bernard calls them “intrinsic.” The origin of a school of spirituality has to do with historical circumstances.16 The historical situation makes a specific contribution to the origin, the basic concept, and the structuring of a school of spirituality.17 9

M. Dion, La spiritualité ignatienne, in: Église et Théologie 20 (1989), 228. See also: F. Cayré, Écoles de spiritualité, in: F. Cayré, Patrologie et histoire de la théologie 2, Paris 1933, 688. 10 J. Gautier, La spiritualité catholique, Paris 1953, 10. 11 J. de Guibert, En quoi diffèrent réellement les diverses écoles catholiques de spiritualité?, in: Gregorianum 19 (1938), 277. 12 L. de Saint-Joseph, École de spiritualité, in: DSp 4 (1960), 117. 13 M. Dion, La spiritualité ignatienne, in: Église et Théologie 20 (1989), 226. 14 J. de Guibert, En quoi diffèrent réellement les diverses écoles catholiques de spiritualité?, 267, see also 278. 15 C. Bernard, Médiations spirituelles et diversité des spiritualités, in: Nouvelle Revue Theologique 102 (1970), 609. 16 J. Gaitán, Espiritualidad y espiritualidades, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 43 (1984), 687689. 17 See A. Mataniç, Le scuole di spiritualità nel magistero pontifico, Brescia 1964, 31ff.; J. Sudbrack, Letzte Norm des Ordenslebens ist die im Evangelium dargelegte Nachfolge Christi, in: Geist und Leben 42 (1969), 439-440; C. Bernard, ibid., 609.

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4. Orientation Schools of spirituality are characterized by specific values and goals to which the school’s means are adjusted. Schools, accordingly, exist to do mission work, to provide education, to take care of the sick. Within the complex of the givens of faith, accents are laid which contribute to this goal-orientation. Some schools, therefore, focus on the Marian aspect, while others are more Christocentric. These special accents rarely suggest a doctrinal slant. They introduce the pupil to the value system and conceptual world of the school. They display its inner coherence and place it in the context of Christian spirituality as a whole. In the thirties people discussed the question whether a school of spirituality was the product of theological principles or arose from an original spiritual experience. Soon already the argument was settled in favor of this sequence: first there was the Source-experience, then came the crystallization of a spiritual teaching.18 The vast majority of the schools of spirituality had substantially taken shape before the theological elaboration of that spirituality had occurred. (This fact is obviously true for Franciscan spirituality and for many others as well). Nor is it strange to see that while spiritualities have the same essential theological principles, they nevertheless differ in orientation (Carmelites and Dominicans). The reverse also occurs: schools which resemble each other rather strongly on the point of their essential orientations can nevertheless differ from each other theologically (thus within the Ignation school we know theologians who work along the lines of Suarez and hold certain theological views which are rejected by other theologians of the same Jesuit order). Hence it is not in keeping with historical reality to justify the differences between the schools of spirituality in terms of metaphysical or theological options which in actual fact only arose later.19

5. A consistent whole After the first generation, having been in direct contact with the Source-experience, gave the school of spirituality its basic form, it was the task of the second and later generations to develop it further so as to make it accessible for many more. Gradually we see coming into being an entire complex that is organically articulated inward and a resistant whole outward. This phase of the school of spirituality has been depicted in the most balanced way by De Guibert: “It is an organic whole in which none of the elements which are indispensable for spiritual advancement can be lacking and in which these elements can be combined in a stable and resistant equilibrium. Every school of spirituality constitutes a whole in which not a single important element can be removed, replaced, or changed without endangering the stability and sanctifying action of the whole 18 19

J. de Guibert, Leçons de théologie spirituelle, Toulouse 1946, 111; see also 117. L. de Saint-Joseph, École de spiritualité, in: DSp 4 (1960), 124.

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and whose parts are not simply interchangeable with those of a neighboring school.”20 The question is: in how far can a school of spirituality distinguish itself from the greater whole to which it belongs? In Catholic spirituality that was an important discussion.21 Various solutions have been advanced to answer this question concerning oneness and plurality. Some make a distinction between “primary” and “secondary”: the commonality of all spirituality is primary; the different arrangements of the common elements are secondary.22 Others articulate the difference as a difference between foundation and development.23 Sometimes people see oneness and plurality as two theological principles dialectically related to each other.24 Sometimes the diversity is interpreted as a difference in ordering the elements that are common to all schools.25 Still others, finally, see the diversity as being rooted in the dialectic between means and end: the end of the spiritual life is the same in all spiritualities but the differences arise from a diversity of mediations.26 The discussion finally fizzled out. 6. Accessibility More important than the question concerning the connection with the larger whole is that concerning its accessibility. The Source-experience, after all, consisted in one or more person(s) devoting their life to the quest for God’s touch. Now then, the more a school becomes a system and a method,27 the more the unique way of the pupil is put under pressure. “Formation in this kind of spirituality easily takes on the form of indoctrination in a theory. Everything is directed toward accepting and incorporating this spirituality into one’s life but there is much less emphasis on the need to make it completely 20

J. de Guibert, En quoi diffèrent réellement les diverses écoles catholiques de spiritualité?, 275; see also J. de Guibert, Theologia spiritualis, Roma 1937, 20; F. Vandenbroucke, Spiritualiteit en spiritualiteiten, in: Concilium 1 (1965) no. 9, 48-49; M. Dion, La spiritualité ignatienne, in: Église et Theologie 20 (1989), 227-229; R. Morçay, Les écoles de spiritualité vers la piété moderne, in: Études religieuses, Liège-Paris 8 (1928); the same in: R. Morçay, Les écoles de spiritualité chrétienne. La pensée catholique, Liège-Paris 1928, 28. 21 Still in his History of Christian Spirituality (New York 1963), L. Bouyer makes a spirited plea for proceeding from the one spirituality of the Church focused on the one gospel. Also cf. L. Bouyer, Le sens de la vie monastique, Turnhout-Paris 1950. For an overview of the discussion, see J. Sudbrack, Vom Geheimnis christlicher Spiritualität, in: Geist und Leben 39 (1966), 24-44. 22 F. Cayré, Thèses spirituelles, in: F. Cayré, Patrologie et histoire de la théologie 2, Paris 1933, 688-689. 23 J. Gautier, La spiritualité catholique, Paris 1953. 24 So V. Truhlar, Problemata theologica de vita spirituali laicorum et religiosum, Rome 1960, 912; M. Domergue, Aux sources de la diversité, in: Christus 16 (1969) no. 62, 187-190. 25 G. Thils, Sainteté chrétienne, Tielt 1958, 27. 26 So C. Bernard, Médiations spirituelles et diversité des spiritualités, in: Nouvelle Revue Théologique 102 (1970), 605-633. 27 M. Dion, La spiritualité ignatienne, in: Église et Théologie 20 (1989), 229.

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one’s own.”28 Yet the process of freely appropriating what is offered in a school of spirituality constitutes the essence of the school: “A school of spirituality is the characteristic way in which a certain collectivity or period presents the spiritual journey which takes the soul to God.”29 A school of spirituality must offer space for this journey. “It is in the interior of this space that I must discover a spiritual reality, adhere to God, and unite myself with God around it.”30 7. Reform Following the first generations in which the Source-experience is still alive and formative come the later ones in which this experience is blocked by overinstitutionalization. At such times existing schools are reformed. The Source-experience is, as it were, reactivated. Thus we know the Cluny reform as a renewal of the Benedictines.31 In a comparable way the mendicant orders were renewed and reformed in the 16th century. Also a great spiritual movement like the École Française must be viewed as a reformation of several schools. The necessity of reform usually presents itself simultaneously from several directions: access to the Source-experience has become blocked by over-organization; the original synthesis is no longer relevant to the socio-religious context; the combination of means is no longer experienced as useful. The most pressing need then becomes ressourcement. This occurs when the pupils can no longer link their spiritual journey to that of the school. In the West we have seen something like that happen since the sixties. Those responsible for formation speak of a crisis in the situation of formation, of the critical mindset of the new members, of the abandonment of orders and congregations, of the inability of the leadership to understand the autonomy and sense of responsibility of the new members, of the integration of desires for self-fulfillment and personal freedom, as also of the demand for minimal regulations.32 Looking back, we now see the following basic structure: a school of spirituality is a spiritual way which stems from a Source-experience, to which it gives access by way of its mediations (liturgy, forms of religious life, and so forth); this Source-experience gives a school its own identity within the space of a culture, provides a standard of validation in the case of reforms, and opens a specific perspective on the future. 28 H. Blommestijn, Spiritualiteit en hoe je jezelf kunt bedriegen, in: Speling 29 (1977) no. 1, 112-113. 29 L. de Saint-Joseph, École de spiritualité, in: DSp 4 (1960), 116. 30 C. Bernard, ibid., 605. 31 See F. Cayré, Thèses spirituelles, 689. 32 See, e.g., V. Branick, Formation and Task, in: Review for Religious 28 (1969), 12-20; J. Keller, Some Observations on Religious Formation and Spirituality, in: Review for Religious 29 (1970), 506-513; see also the studies of L. Rulla, Depth Psychology and Vocation. A Psychosocial Perspective, Rome-Chicago 1971.

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2.1. Spiritual Ways When schools of spirituality characterize themselves, they as a rule make use of the fundamental metaphor of “the way.” Jewish spirituality describes itself with words like torah (instruction in the way of life) and halacha (the course of life). Christians who were viewed as being “of the Way” (Acts 9:2; cf. 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22) saw in Jesus “the true way of life” (John 14:6). Buddhist spirituality views itself as a vehicle (yana) on the road to Enlightenment (boddhi) within which three currents stand out: the Little Vehicle (hinayana), the Great Vehicle (mahayana) and the Diamond Vehicle (vajrayana). Taoism revolves around the tao, a word which means “way.” In Islam the form of life adopted by mystics is described by the term tariqa, which means “path.” We will stop to reflect for a moment on the “way”-metaphor which functions in the above spiritualities. 1. The way of the torah. The Hebrew language has numerous words for “way”: street (shuq), alley (chuts), highway (mesillah), course (halik), track (ma‘gal), avenue (natib), path (orach), movement (ashur) and so forth. The word “way” (derek) occurs most frequently (700 times). As a rule derek refers to human behavior. When the reference is to a physical road, what is in the foreground is not its destination and the fact of its being paved, but the way on which a person moves himself forward or the movement as such.33 In the case of a person’s “way of life” two aspects interlock: the course of life which is a person’s lot and the attitude (s)he develops within it.34 Intrinsically connected with making one’s life journey is the teaching of the way: “I teach you the way of wisdom” (Prov. 4:11). “Teaching” (torah) is derived from the verb “to point out” (yarah). To the pious it is Be-er himself who points out the way of life (Prov. 16:9). The way of Be-er and the way of the pious interlock: “Who are they that stand in awe of Be-er? He points out to them the way they choose” (Ps. 25:12). The way the pious choose is the way Be-er points out (Ps. 1:6; 25:4-5, 9; 27:11; 103:7; 143:8). That way leads to perfection: “The Mighty One! His way is sound (…) The Mighty One! He makes my way sound” (Ps. 18:31, 33). It is “the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:24). The way of the torah is further developed in the rabbinical halacha. “The word derives from the Hebrew word halach ‘to go’: accordingly it means the ‘true going,’ the conduct God desires. Jewish religion views itself as the way of 33 34

K. Koch, derekh, in: ThDOT III (1978), 276-283. F. Nötscher, Gotteswege und Menschenwege in der Bibel und in Qumran, Bonn 1958.

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life humans should go.”35 This halachah – the oral torah – enjoys a certain independence with respect to the written torah. “Generally speaking, the halachah is already fixed before it is grounded in Scripture.”36 The aim of Jewish spirituality is to align one’s life journey with God’s instruction. The God of Israel is “the great God of the way, who travels that way through the life of his believers.”37 2. The way to Enlightenment. The Buddhist way to salvation is contained for all Buddhists in the four noble truths which Buddha proclaimed after his Enlightenment (ca. 531 B.C.): (1) everything is permeated by transience (suffering, decay, unfreedom); (2) this transience is caused by yearning (desire, thirst, the drive to live); (3) transience is ended by detachment from the thirst for existence (detachment, annihilation, liberation); (4) there is a way which leads to the termination of thirst and transience (attitudes, virtues, exercises, and the like). This way includes insights which are obtained by meditation (everything is transient, the cause of all misery is the thirst for existence), and exercises which are directly aimed at the annihilation of needs – transience-generating needs – (nirvana) the divine flip side of which is the awakening (boddhi) by which one becomes an Enlightened One (boeddha). Essential in “going the way” are exercises. “The first instruction of the Buddhist teacher asked by a pupil for ‘the way’ is that he must devote himself with all his energies to exercise; that he must understand that life has been granted him as an exercise and that this earth is a unique place of exercise. The meaning of life is seen in exercising. The exercising human realizes his being in movement.”38 In Buddhist spirituality three main currents can be observed: (1) the Little Vehicle (hinayana), also called “the vehicle of the listener” (sravakayana) or “the school of the elders” (theravada),39 embraces the most ancient Buddhist traditions. (2) The Great Vehicle (mahayana), which originated at the time of early Christianity, has a broad view of the way to salvation. It promises the salvation of Enlightenment (boddhi) not just to those who submit to monastic disciplines, but also to laymen, provided they keep certain rules and exercise certain virtues. (3) The Diamond Vehicle (vajrayana) also called tantric Buddhism, arose in the 4th-5th century. For this vehicle gestures (mudra), ritual formulas (mantras) and expressions of deeper insight (mandala) are important aids on the way to Enlightenment. 3. The way which sustains and permeates the all. The Chinese noun tao means “way.” The verb means “to point the way” or “to go the way.” All things in some 35

G. Stemberger, Das klassische Judentum. Kultur und Geschichte der rabbinischen Zeit, München 1979, 139. 36 Ibid., 133; see also J. Neusner, Grondslagen van het jodendom, Boxtel-Leuven 1990. 37 M. Buber, Der Glaube der Propheten, in: M. Buber, Schriften zum Chassidismus (Werke III), München-Heidelberg 1963, 280. 38 H. Dumoulin, Spiritualität des Buddhismus, Mainz 1995, 20. 39 Ibid., 158-160.

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way or other find their unity in the principle of the “way.” For 4,000 years this idea has been operative in areas of Chinese culture and permeates all forms of Chinese spirituality. It has been lived and thought through in a particular way in taoism: “There is something out of which chaos came before heaven and earth originated, a solitary silent infinitely broad something: self-contained, unchanging, giving birth but never exhausting itself. One can call it the Arch-mother of the all. I do not know its name. I call it the Way.”40 Those who from within themselves move along with the Way know tao. This occurs in non-activity (woewei). The non-active are immersed in the Way of being. They are annihilated in Tao. “He who is in the Way remains nameless. Perfect virtue produces nothing. The non-self is the true self. And the greatest human is nobody.”41 He who abandons himself in the Ground movement of tao shares in “the unity of the Way, the unity of the true way of humans, finding again that which has become one in the world and in every thing: the Way as the unity of the world, as the unity of every thing.”42 4. The Way of Christ. The life of Jesus is viewed by Christian spirituality as “the true way of life” (John 14:6). His life as an itinerant preacher ends on the road to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51; Matt. 19:1-2; Mark 10:1), an “exodus” (Luke 9:31) which leads into death. “Following” this way evokes a deep dread (Mark 10:32). Discipleship means following Christ up to and into death (Mark 8:34). The narrow track (Matt. 7:14) is not a dead-end road; from the perspective of God it is a way to life. That’s why John can say: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The way of Jesus is viewed as the model for the life of every Christian. The history of Christian spirituality illustrates this in a richly variegated way. 5. Shari‘ah and tariqah. Islamic spirituality is grounded in the Koran (God’s self-communication) and the Sunna of the Prophet (his way of conducting himself in the various situations of life). Combined, these two sources form the shari‘ah which is related to the notion of “way” (= shar‘). The shari‘ah serves as the main road which every believer travels. The predominant orientation of the Koran is the absolute Oneness of God (Sura 73/19; 76/29). Those who recite and deeply interiorize the Koran will realize with increasing intensity that God is the One and only God.43 That which is true for the Koran also applies to the

40

Tao Te King, 25. Tsoeang Tse 17, 3 (quoted in K. Walf, Tao für den Westen, München 1989, 60). 42 M. Buber, Die Lehre vom Tao, in: M. Buber, Schriften zur Philosophie (Werke I), MünchenHeidelberg 1962, 1038. 43 S. Nasr, The Quran as the Foundation of Islamic Spirituality, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 3-10; A. Brohi, The Spiritual Significance of the Quran, ibid., 11-23. 41

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life of the prophet Mohammed. Externally Mohammed is the lawgiver; internally he is the incarnation of the spiritual way.44 From his life the believer can read the way to God.45 The path of the mystics, the tariqah, is considered a branch of the broad shari‘ah which all Muslims walk. The shari‘ah, as it were, constitutes the objective framework within which the mystics go their own specific way of complete consecration. Of decisive significance for this way is the experience of the teachers. Needed – to start going the spiritual way – is an initiation under the guidance of an experienced spiritual leader (sheik).

2.1.1. THE WAY

OF

ENLIGHTENMENT

“Of all the great religions, it is Buddhism that has focused most intensively on that aspect of religion which we call spirituality,” according to the first sentence of Buddhist Spirituality, Volume 8 of World Spirituality.46 As explanation the introduction continues as follows: “No religion has set a higher value on states of spiritual insight and liberation, and none has set forth so methodically and with such a wealth of critical reflection the various paths and disciplines by which such states are reached, as well as the ontological and psychological underpinnings that make those states so valuable and those paths so effective.”47 In its historical development Buddhist spirituality is a richly variegated phenomenon but all schools recognize the three “jewels” expressed in the traditional formula: “I take refuge in the Enlightened One (buddha), the Teaching (dharma), and Community (sangha).” 1. The Buddha Buddha (the enlightened or awakened one) refers to the historical figure of Gautama Siddharta, also called Sakyamuni, who in 566 B.C. was born in present-day Nepal, at 29 opted for a life of solitude and arrived, via meditation, at the Buddha-nature: a completely awakened understanding. This state is the ultimate goal toward which Buddhist spirituality is directed. Important for the spirituality of the Buddha life48 is the legend in which we are told of Gautama’s deep dissatisfaction with the spoiled and luxurious life the young nobleman led. 44

F. Schuon, The Spiritual Significance of the Substance of the Prophet, ibid., 48-63. Ibid., 49. 46 Buddhist Spirituality. Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan and Early Chinese (WS 8), London 1994, Introduction xiii. 47 Ibid., xiii. 48 H. Dumoulin, Spiritualität des Buddhismus, Mainz 1995, 121-145. 45

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He discovered that life is fundamentally marked by old age, disease, and death. In order to escape from this curse of impermanence he chose the antipode of a life of pleasure: extremely rigorous asceticism. Via self-castigation, fasting, and wakefulness he exhausted his body until not much more than a skeleton remained.49 While he learned to know personally the abyss of suffering, the extreme asceticism he practiced brought him no deliverance. At the nadir of his self-abasement Gautama remembered an experience of his youth: the experience of deep immersion in the shadow of a rose hip. He took leave of self-abasement and sat down in the lotus position on the bank of a river with the intention not to get up again until the inner light had begun to shine in him. In this meditation Gautama received his Enlightenment, an inexpressible depth-experience. This manner of mediation is called the “middle way” because it is located between the two extremes of a life of pleasure on the one hand and self-abasement on the other. In his first sermon in Benares, accordingly, Buddha stated: The person who leads a spiritual life must distance himself from two extremes. What are they? One is a life of pleasure, devoted to lust and enjoyment. This life is inferior, ignoble, unspiritual, unworthy, futile. The other is a life of self-affliction. This life is full of suffering, unworthy, futile. From these two extremes, monks, the Perfect One keeps his distance. He has learned to know the middle way, the way which opens one’s eyes and mind, and leads to rest, knowledge, enlightenment, annihilation (nirvana).50

The way Gautama went, the way of depth-meditation, constitutes the foundational model of all Buddhist ways. It is understandable, therefore, that the Buddha-image of an Enlightened One sitting in the lotus position is the center of the artistic and ritual imagination.51 2. The Teaching Distinguishable in the life of Buddha is his doctrine of salvation as it is succinctly defined in the four noble truths. (1) The starting point is heartfelt dissatisfaction with life as it presents itself to us: unsettled, impermanent, miserable. This existential suffering cannot be ended by surrender either to pleasure or to extreme self-abasement. While these two extremes may repress experience, they do not resolve it. (2) Only the middle way of depth-meditation leads to the awakened insight (sambhodi) that craving is the motor of existential discontent. (3) Dejectedness and misery can only be turned around when a person descends from superficiality into depth insight. It is superficial to think that “I” and the 49

H. Hecker, Das Leben des Buddha. Die innere und äussere Lebensgang des Erleuchteten dargestellt nach den ältesten indischen Quellen, Hamburg 1973, 97. 50 Quoted in H. Dumoulin, ibid., 125. 51 H. Dumoulin, ibid., 79-117.

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reality surrounding me are as I think they are. All our categories are deceptive and must be understood as projections fueled by the craving for self-preservation. (4) The way which this depth-reflection makes passable is the Eightfold Path. Buddha describes this path as follows: “Here, monks, is the holy Truth of the way which leads to the annihilation of impermanence. It is the holy Way which consists in eight aspects, that is: right insight, right intention, right speech, right action, right mode of living, right endeavor, right mindfulness, right concentration.”52 Every school works out these eight aspects differently but they always come down to these three exercises (trishiksha): the exercise of virtue (shila), exercises in concentration (samadhi) and wisdom (prayna). The exercise of virtue first of all encompasses right speech, that is, not lying, not slandering, not using coarse language, not gossiping. Next comes right action: not killing any living being, not stealing, abstaining from illicit sexual relation. Finally there is right nutrition: not indulging in strong drink or using narcotics; not dealing in harmful substances. This exercise of virtue applies to laymen as well as monks. Monks must practice this way in the extreme. It is essential to consciously choose and live this exercise of virtue. It must be completely internalized. Only then does it mark a trail in existence that favors the way toward Enlightenment. The exercises in concentration first of all call for strong commitment, that is, offering resistance to a mentality which is opposed to the four noble truths and doing everything possible to be conformed to them. Attention means becoming conscious of the activities of one’s body, of perceptions and emotions, of everything that is going on in one’s mind. To help a person to attain this concentration Buddhist spirituality offers him a number of techniques: fixing one’s eyes on a specific point; to evoke mental images; to counter evil tendencies; to meditate on frightening things in order to avoid them, or on some good things for the express purpose of being attracted to them. In all these exercises the purpose is to grow steadily in the direction of the four noble truths. They must penetrate the level where the instincts are rooted and the virtues are formed. They lead step by step to a state of complete emptiness: detaching oneself from something, rejoicing in pure attention, to remain indifferent in attention, completely devoid of joy or grief, to pass by the world of all forms, to contemplate infinite emptiness, to contemplate consciousness, empty in its infinity, in its being nothing, remaining in what is neither something nor nothing. This complete annihilation introduces the monk into divine reality without any form. One enters wisdom when the consciousness is freed from all impurity. This state of the mind is purified from all self-delusions, focused as it is on complete Annihilation. This annihilation, which is nirvana, “does not deny the reality of 52

A. Bareau, Bouddha, Paris 1962, 90-91.

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a transcendent and eternal principle attainable through human effort.”53 Annihilation is the essential transition to the spiritual way. Viewed from this side of the way this transition is annihilation (cessation of all thirst for self-preservation and hence complete loss of self ) but viewed from the other side it is the unborn, the unbegotten, the unmade, and the uncomposed.54 3. Community The third jewel is the community (sangha) of those who follow the Buddha and his teaching. The origin of the Buddhist study community lies in Benares, where the Buddha, upon his awakening, started his teaching career that was to last 45 years. Although his instruction was especially intended for his pupils, also many laymen were converted. As a result two distinct types of spirituality developed: one for monks, the other for laymen. The monastic community. The rise of male and female monastic communities probably goes back to Buddha himself. Every year, during the rainy season, he spent three months instructing his pupils in the path to Annihilation, which is Enlightenment. Just before his death Buddha gave the following instruction: “Inasmuch as I have never wanted to lead my community or subject it to my teaching, I have no directions for it. I am approaching my end. After my death, let everyone of you be his own island, his own refuge, and seek no other. If you so act, you will put yourself at the top of immortality.”55 All monks and nuns must themselves travel the road to complete Annihilation. Characteristic for the most ancient generations of pupils, accordingly, is an ultraradical homelessness which serves to detach the monk from every bond.56 The only thing a monk must do is meditate, that is, follow the eight-fold path to Enlightenment. Monastic Buddhism constitutes the dominant component of the Little Vehicle.57 The way of the laity. Aside from monks and nuns the study community also includes lay persons.58 During Buddha’s mission travels men and women from all classes of society affiliated themselves with the movement. Laypersons were closely connected with the monastic communities, supporting them in their livelihood. During the first councils already the monks and nuns resisted extreme austerities and specialized applications. Gradually, however, the laity agitated

53 G. Pande, The Message of Gotama Buddha and its Earliest Interpretation, in: Buddhist Spirituality (WS 8), London 1994, 13. 54 Udana 8,3. 55 E. Lamotte, Der Buddha. Seine Lehre und seine Gemeinde, in: Der Buddhismus. Geschichte und Gegenwart, (Ed. H. Berchert & R. Gombrich), München 1989, 67. 56 Ibid., 59. 57 H. Dumoulin, Spiritualität des Buddhismus, Mainz 1995, 159-176. 58 Ibid., 135-136.

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more basically against the monastically regulated spirituality of the Little Vehicle. From Buddha’s legacy they brought to the fore his life of virtues and among the virtues especially compassion (karuna). But also in the conceptual world they stressed different things: while the monks saw Buddha literally disappearing in nirvana, laypersons viewed the same occurrence rather as the apotheosis of Enlightenment. It is clear from Buddhist art that Buddha especially became an object of adoration, for lay people. And most importantly: in arriving at nirvana Buddha attained, not the end of his spiritual journey, but the beginning. The Buddha-nature in him (boddhi-sattva), which possesses a universal kind of perfection, is from this point on open to the entire cosmos as goodness and compassion to redeem the universe from the misery of suffering and impermanence. Thus was born the Great Vehicle. The path of the Buddha-nature invites all Buddhists without distinction – in a manner which fits their personal uniqueness, albeit after a long road of exercises – to reach the goal. As crystallized in the mahayana, the path of the boddhisattva offers a spirituality which is open to all Buddhists. The perfect virtues can bring laypeople to spiritual maturity. By way of the boddhisattva-ideal Buddhism evolves into a folk religion with a universal character.59

Tantric Buddhism, the Diamond Vehicle, is even more accommodating to lay people inasmuch as it does not just offer the way of intellectual concentration (samadhi) but mediations which unite pupils with the divine Buddha-nature: the (hand) gestures (mudra) unite them with the body of the Buddha, repeated invocations (mantra) identify pupils with Buddha’s speech and the portrayals (mandala) make visible the spirit of the Enlightened One. By these mediations the journey to Enlightenment is speeded up.60

2.1.2. THE THREEFOLD WAY In the history of Christian spirituality the motif of the threefold way has been distributed over wide areas.61 In this connection Bonaventure’s De triplici via and later Garcia de Cisneros’s Exercitatorio de la vida spiritual (1500)62 played an important role. By the end of the 16th century the threefold way had become the classic division – accepted by all spiritual writers. We are, for that matter, speaking here of a layered motif. Intertwined in it are Plato’s allegory of the cave, 59

Ibid., 183. A. Wayman, The Diamond Vehicle, in: Buddhist Spirituality (WS 8), London 220. 61 A. Solignac, Voies, in: DSp 16 (1994), 1206-1212. 62 See M. Alamo, Cisneros, in: DSp 2 (1953), 910-921. 60

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the ascent of Mt. Sinai, the way of the Christian faith, the three senses of Scripture and other systems. 1. Escape from the dark cave In his allegory of the cave Plato gives a succinct summary of the spiritual way: the ascent of the philosopher to wisdom.63 The allegory of the cave illustrates how the threefold way flows organically from Plato’s foundational insights. (1) Fundamental is the field of tension between the world of Ideas (the Good, the Beautiful, the One) in which the soul participates on the one hand, and the material world of illusion to which the body belongs on the other. This field of tension produces the matrix for the first level of the spiritual way: detachment from the material world to which we are connected by our body and through our physical soul (the passions). (2) One can only be freed from bondage to the material world, however, after gaining insight into the existence of the world of Ideas which is real. This insight hooks up with a deep-seated memory trail which the ideal world has left behind in the soul. Here lies the beginning of the second level of the spiritual way, gaining insight into the imprints of the True Reality which are present in the higher soul as memory and which as an illuminating power open the way to the Highest Being. (3) This approach to Supreme Being is the third level which culminates in the perfection (telos) of contemplation (theoria), a moment of being outside of oneself (ekstasis).64 In these three levels of the Platonic way we can clearly discern the scheme of the threefold way: the way of purgation (via purgativa) which leads one out of material existence, nonbeing; the way of illumination (via illuminativa), which produces and develops insight into the real world; the way of union (via unitiva) which is a kind of ecstatic (ekstasis) participation (metexis) in the highest reality. 2. The way of repentance Christian spirituality perceived the threefold way in its own way. (1) People must repent so as to be freed from sin; this happens by a saving act of Christ (via purgativa). (2) They must learn to know the truths of the faith and the moral goals as Christ and the church state them (via illuminativa). (3) The aim is complete sanctification by the Spirit who unites every Christian with God in keeping with his calling (via unitiva).65 This schematization of the spiritual way is grounded in the fact that in the New Testament there are a variety of fields of tension which smoothly facilitated a reception of the threefold Platonic way: moments of dissociation as they occur in the life of Jesus (the 40-day fast in the 63

Plato, Politeia, Bk. 7. R. Arnou, Contemplation. A.II. Monde gréco-romain, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1719-1742. 65 A Solignac, ibid., 1201. 64

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wilderness; repeated stays in solitude); moments of enlightenment (the glorification on Mt. Tabor) and moments of ecstasy (the Spirit who descends on him from heaven). Also Paul made his contribution, specifically his distinction between carnal, psychic, and spiritual (1 Thess. 5:23), and the “flesh-spirit” field of tension which on every page, as it were, documents the level of purgation on the one hand and the levels of illumination and union on the other. 3. The triads of Origen In the works of Origen the spiritual way is inwardly structured by the “spiritsoul-body” triad. (1) The spirit (pneuma) is the divine in humans, not as a part of their identity, but as a divine presence: the guide who initiates humans into virtue and full knowledge of God. (2) The soul (psyche) is the place where the soul can choose: when it chooses the spirit it becomes spiritual; when it turns to the flesh it becomes carnal. In keeping with that field of tension in the soul there is a higher and a lower soul. (3) The flesh (sarx) is the area of sin in the Pauline sense: the sphere in which God is absent. The anthropological field of tension “spirit-soul-flesh” forms the battlefield of spiritual warfare. The soul must turn to and let itself be guided by the Spirit: God’s Spirit who as a pedagogue initiates the soul into virtue and the knowledge of God. If the soul obeys, it becomes spiritual.66 4. The Ascent of Mount Sinai In his Life of Moses Gregory of Nyssa brought the Platonic-Christian continuities together in the image of the ascent of Mount Sinai: (1) the ascent of the soul which purges itself (2) to contemplate God in the darkness of the cloud and (3) become one with him. Dionysius the Areopagite captured the mystical ascent in the same image but with its own point from the perspective of the Heavenly Hierarchy. In his work the hierarchy is a spiritual model which mediates conformity to and union with God.67 From the perspective of God the hierarchy is a divine order, but from the human perspective a spiritual way. “Because the hierarchical order implies that some are purified and others purify, that some are enlightened and others enlighten, some are perfected and others perfect, everyone will be God-conforming in a way which corresponds to the place.”68 Purity, enlightenment, and perfect union are divine operations which pervade all degrees of being and effect in humans active and passive processes of purgation, enlightenment, and perfection.

66

H. Crouzel, Origène, in: DSp 11 (1982), 937-939. K. Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik I, München 1990, 43. 68 Dionysius the Areopagite, The Heavenly Hierarchy III, 2. 67

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5. The threefold meaning of Scripture Bonaventure ties in with “the threefold hierarchical act” (triplici actui hierarchico) of Dionysius, “viz. of purgation, illumination, and perfection. Purgation conduces to peace, illumination to truth, and perfection to love.”69 The unique feature of Bonaventure is that he links this triad with the overarching structure of “meditation, prayer, contemplation” in such a way that it returns under each of the lectio divina elements.70 Not only meditation is conducted in accordance with the “purgation-illumination-contemplation” scheme, accordingly, but also prayer and contemplation unfold in terms of this triad: “You must now know that one can practice (se exercere) the threefold way in three ways: by meditative reading, prayer, and contemplation.”71 In the same period the Carthusian Hugo of Balma composed his treatise Viae Sion (usually called Theologia mystica) according to the same scheme. The composition of it was possibly influenced by Bonaventure but the elaboration of the treatise pursues paths of its own. Hugo’s work is closely linked with the Song of Songs and with Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Gallus.72 David of Augsburg, a contemporary of Bonaventure and a member of the same order, connected the “interior-exterior” field of tension with the triad – already traditional by that time – of “beginner-proficient-perfect.” In his work De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione secundum triplicem statum incipientium, proficientium et perfectorum, he first offers directions for the external discipline of the novices (beginners); next he deals with internal re-formation, the condition for spiritual progress (the proficient); and finally he maps out in seven stages the road to contemplation (the perfect).73 2.1.3. THE WAY OF TAO In Taoist spirituality we must distinguish three layers of tradition.74 (1) The most ancient layer is speculative-philosophical in nature. The most important writing from this period is Tao te ching ascribed to Lao Tsu (ca. 300 B.C.). The first half of this work (chs. 1-37) is devoted to Tao; the other half to Te: the attributes of Tao and the conduct of humans. Essential in it is the return to the one sustaining ground of Tao by way of rest and letting oneself be nurtured by cosmic 69

Bonaventura, De triplici via, Prologus. Text: FC 14. For a more elaborate description of De triplici via, see part 3, ch. 3.2.2. 71 De triplici via, Prologus. 72 See A. Stoelen, Hugues de Balma, in: DSp 7 (1969), 859-873. 73 See A. Rayez, David d’Augsbourg, in: DSp 3 (1957), 42-44. 74 L. Kohn, Early Chinese Mysticism. Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist Tradition, Princeton 1992. 70

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energy. At about the same time as Lao Tsu, Chuang Tzu wrote The True Book Concerning the Flourishing South, a collection of brief stories and dialogues by Tao Chuang Tsu meant the flow of existence as such. In order to become one with that flow one has to realize that everything is part of Tao. In order to come to this realization we must restructure our consciousness, that is, annihilate one’s carefully constructed ego. This is called the process of “forgetting”: forgetting all distinctions and mental classifications.75 (2) The second layer is formed by the ecstatic-shamanistic tradition. This layer is religiously colored and practical in nature. This practical Taoism began in the second century after Christ with the movement of the Celestial Masters. The adherents of this movement were interested in rituals and visions. Immortality was the central focus. Lao Tsu was divinized.76 (3) The third stream of tradition is analytic and introspective in nature. Here we detect the influence of Buddhism. Buddhist elements, calculated to produce heightened awareness, asceticism, and meditation, transformed Taoism into a more active goal-oriented spirituality. “Where before mystical practice had consisted of ‘returning’ to the Tao and ‘forgetting’ one’s acquired personality and discriminating consciousness, now it became an active pursuit.”77 We will now elucidate a few facets of Taoist spirituality. 1. The primordial movement Tao is the all-sustaining, all-permeating movement, the primordial mother of the universe. Itself “ungraspable,” it underlies all that moves: “the Way forms and molds all things without itself ever being physical. It is silent and motionless, but it penetrates the chaos and the darkness.”78 Tao is the internal movement which comes to light in the unfoldings of reality: “Tao is the course of things, their nature, their unique order, their unity.”79 The uniquely individual way which every existent takes under Tao’s direction is called Te. It is the art of seeing things as the working out of the Way: “Good he calls the good, good also the not-good, for good is the working-out of all things. Upright he calls the upright, upright also the not-upright, for upright is the working-out of all things.”80 Tao makes things be what they are. It is the source of life and being from which we all come and to which we all return.81 75

L. Kohn, Taoist Mystical Philosophy, New York 1991, 13-14. A. Seidel, La divinisation de Lao-Tseu dans le Taoisme des Han, Paris 1969. 77 L. Kohn, Taoist Mystical Philosophy, 18. 78 Wen Tse 1, 3, (cited in A. Forke, Geschichte der alten chinesischen Philosophie, Hamburg 1964, 337). 79 M. Buber, Die Lehre vom Tao, in: M. Buber, Schriften zur Philosophie (Werke I), MünchenHeidelberg 1962, 1041. 80 Tao Te Ching, 49. 81 L. Kohn, Taoist Mystical Philosophy, 7. 76

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2. Non-action Woe-wei is non-calculating action: a mindset of acquiescence which does not intervene. It allows the Way to go its own way in every movement of being, yields to the fundamental movement of things and people, and traces them to their original dynamic. “He retraces the way people went to help things return to their nature.”82 “Non-action is realized on all levels: knowing, willing, remembering, expecting, acting, and so forth, but always it is a functioning of the whole being.”83 Those who have arrived at non-action have achieved complete unity and act in serenity.84 Those who have united themselves with the deepest movements of a thing can let it move from within its own nature. “He who holds onto the Great Unformed, to him the whole world flows; it flows toward him and experiences no disadvantage. It finds peace and rest.”85 Arriving at this non-action is a way of purification: it involves the increasing abandonment of all biases, distortions, dichotomies, injuries, reductions, and enlargements. The noble man must cleanse his spirit. By non-action action is heaven. To express without expression is character. To love one’s fellow humans and to do good to all is humanness. To regard the different things as common is great. Not to stand out by outstanding behavior is magnanimity. To possess multiplicity is riches. Therefore: to preserve one’s character is self-discipline. To mold one’s character is to possess power. To follow the Way is to be complete.86

3. Absolute Silence The Way pursues its movement in absolute silence.87 Silence marks the transcendent immanence with which the Way moves all things: “Unformed is the giant form: hidden and nameless is Tao.”88 The Way eludes all articulation. “One cannot say that the Way exists. Nor can one say that the Way does not exist. For one finds it in silence – when one is no longer busy with important matters.”89 Only those who are silent understand the silence of Tao: “From all things in their profuseness each thing returns to its root. To return to the root is to attain silence – what one can call: return to its being.”90 But not even silence can capture Tao, for the great principle and the great beginning elude us, says Chuang Tzu, and precisely this is “the highest manifestation of Tao and the beings. Neither words 82

Tao Te Ching, 64. M. Buber, ibid., 1046. 84 Ibidem. 85 Tao Te Ching, 35. 86 Chuang Tzu 12, 2 (cited in K. Walf, Tao für den Westen, München, 1989, 50). 87 Tao Te Ching, 45. 88 Tao Te Ching, 24. 89 Anonymous (cited in K. Walf, ibid., 60). 90 Tao Te Ching, 16. 83

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nor silence can contain it. It is beyond words as well as silence. It exists above all human reason.”91 4. Immortality Religious Taoism, solidly rooted in the most ancient speculative layer of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and nurtured by a stream of commentaries on their texts, regard Tao as the fulfillment of religious desire: immortality. In the beyond, past a long and healthy life, Taoists strive to escape death in an eternal and perfect life: to gain, via an ascent to heaven, a place in heaven or in the paradise of the immortals. Religious Taoism offers its adherents the means to that end. First of all, the “self-influencing” of the body: diet, breathing techniques, the art of movement (tai-tsi), sexual methods, mind-expanding means. By thus influencing oneself one’s body is detached from cultural patterns and its limited ego-consciousness, so that Tao can move unhindered and its energy (hi) can unfold. Based on a healthy and energetic body, meditation techniques can then be developed which tie in with the body work. At issue, in its many variations, is always a process of transformation which “results in a new personality of cosmic dimensions, and the imaginary body, the individual and the cosmos, are intimately merged where the ordinary human being has become a true Taoist saint, such as described by Zhoangzi.”92 This transformation process enables the Taoist to ascend to the world of Light, the land of immortality. This land is pictured as a mountain range, surrounded by water, palaces, gardens, and breathtakingly beautiful nature. The creatures who live there are completely free in their movements. They can freely choose the form in which they wish to appear.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BORCHERT, B., Mysticism. Its History and Challenge, York Beach (ME) 1994. Buddhist Spirituality. Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan and Early Chinese (World Spirituality 8), (Ed. T. Yoshinori et al.), New York 1993. Christian Spirituality. Origins to the Twelfth Century (World Spirituality 16), (Ed. B. McGinn & J. Meyendorff; in collab. with J. Leclercq), New York 1985. Christian Spirituality. High Middle Ages and Reformation (World Spirituality 17), (Ed. J. Raitt; in collab. with B. McGinn & J. Meyendorff ), New York 1987.

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Chuang Tzu 25, 10. I. Robinet, Visualization and Ecstatic Flight in Shangqing Taoism, in: Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques, (Ed. L. Kohn), Ann Arbor (MI) 1989, 160. 92

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Christian Spirituality. Post-Reformation and Modern (World Spirituality 18), (Ed. L. Dupré & D. Salies; in collab. with J. Meyendorff ), New York 1989. DUMOULIN, H., Spiritualität des Buddhismus, Mainz 1995. Early Islamic Mysticism. Sufi, Qur’an, Mi’raj, Poetic and Theological Writings (The Classics of Western Spirituality 86), (Ed. & introd. M. Sells), New York-Mahwah 1996. GRAMLICH, R., Islamische Mystik, Stuttgart 1992. GRAMLICH, R., Weltverzicht. Grundlagen und Weisen islamischer Askese, Wiesbaden 1997. HABITO, R., Total Liberation. Zen Spirituality and the Social Dimension, Maryknoll (NY) 1989. Hindu Spirituality. Vedas through Vedanta (World Spirituality 6), (Ed. K. Sivaraman), New York-London 1989. Hindu Spirituality. Postclassical and Modern (World Spirituality 7), (Ed. K. Sundararajan & B. Mukerji), New York-London 1997. Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (World Spirituality 19), (Ed. S. Nasr), New YorkLondon 1987. Islamic Spirituality. Manifestations (World Spirituality 20), (Ed. S. Nasr), New YorkLondon 1991. JAOUDI, M., Christian and Islamic Spirituality. Sharing a Journey, Mahwah (NJ) 1993. Jewish Spirituality. From the Bible to the Middle Ages (World Spirituality 13), (Ed. A. Green), New York-London 1986. Jewish Spirituality. From the Sixteenth-Century Revival to the Present (World Spirituality 14), (Ed. A. Green), New York-London 1987. KOHN, L., Early Chinese Mysticism. Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist Tradition, Princeton (NJ) 1992. KOHN, L., Taoist Mystical Philosophy The Scripture of Western Ascension, Albany 1991. MCGINN, B., The Presence of God. A History of Western Christian Mysticism, New York 1991-1998. MITCHELL, D., Spirituality and Emptiness. The Dynamics of Spiritual Life in Buddhism and Christianity, New York 1991. PYYSIÄINEN, I., Beyond Language and Reason. Mysticism in Indian Buddhism, Helsinki 1993. RUH, K., Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, München 1990. SCHIMMEL, A., Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975. SCHOLEM, G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, London 1955.

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2.2. Liturgical Spirituality With Vatican II the proponents of liturgical renewal had in mind two goals: “In this restoration both texts and rites should be drawn up so as to express more clearly the holy things which they signify. The Christian people, as far as is possible, should be able to understand them with ease and take part in them fully, actively, and as a community.”93 Articulated here are two relations. First of all: the relation between the liturgical form (the drawing up of “texts and rites”) and its meaning (“the holy things they signify”). Secondly: the relation between the liturgical form (the drawing up of texts and rites) and the Christian people (“understand” and “take part”). Both relational fields are important for liturgical spirituality. 1. The significance of the form. From the very beginning the Liturgical Movement devoted itself to a renewal of the language of liturgical forms such that it would be transparent to its origin in the early church, its recognizable unity with the world church, its unfolding of the Church Year, and its embeddedness in Scripture. The liturgical form must be transparent to divine reality, and at the same time mediate human reality:94 the gathered people of God; the articulation of the human condition; the description of human attitudes; the unfolding of certain perspectives. Guardini, accordingly, is correct when he says that a liturgical form is an epiphany: it makes present in a transparent way the elementary data of creation, man’s coming into being, and the church.95 2. Actual participation in the form. A second focus of the Liturgical Movement was “active participation” (participatio actuosa),96 the leitmotif of the liturgical renewal of Vatican II.97 The purpose of real participation is that the participant will grow into “the natural meaning of the movement and action of the gestures in question” but “at the same time let himself be impacted by the relevant religious content in its entire essential thrust and power.”98 Distinguishable in active participation are four layers. (1) Participation in the execution of the liturgy. By singing along, praying along, entering into dialogue with “everyone, even the 93

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Art. 21. P. Guéranger, Institutions liturgiques 1, Paris 1840-1851, v-vi. 95 R. Guardini, Die epiphanische Bedeutung der Liturgie (1941), in: R. Guardini, Angefochtene Zuversicht, Darmstadt 1985, 128. 96 For an overview see J. Lamberts, Active Participation as the Gateway Towards an Ecclesial Liturgy, in: Omnes circumadstantes, (Ed. C. Caspers & M. Schneiders), Kampen 1998, 234-261. 97 Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 11, 14, 19, 27, 30, 48, 50, 114. See the comments of J. Jungmann in LThK 12 (1986), 28. 98 R. Guardini, Liturgische Bildung. Die Aufgabe (1923), in: R. Guardini, Angefochtene Zuversicht, Darmstadt 1985, 222. 94

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most simple souls can nurture themselves with the piety of the liturgy. The liturgy has to be democratized.”99 (2) The participation of the people. The fact that the praying community, through a diversity of roles, performs the liturgy is based, not on the democratic mindset of a few who assign these roles, but on the foundational given that the people of God is the acting subject before God.100 Vatican II expressly states “that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy, and to which the Christian people (…) have a right and obligation by reason of their baptism (…). In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy the full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else (…).”101 (3) Participation in the mysteries. In his Motie proprio of 1903 Pius X stated: “Active participation in the sacred mysteries and the solemn prayer of the Church is the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit.”102 Pius X is referring here to spiritual connectedness with what happens in the liturgy, the mysterious interior of the rite.103 At issue in this layer of participation is “the proper disposition” so that the participants will “cooperate with heavenly grace, lest they receive it in vain.”104 Jungmann calls this “an understanding which really understands and is therefore fruitful.”105 (4) Participation in God-relatedness. Expressed in liturgical form (readings, gestures, periods of silence, dialogues, prayers) is the relatedness to God which is actualized when the people execute the form. This prayerful attitude is released, channeled, and directed by the ritual. Vital God-relatedness is made real (actuosa) in and through participation. The two dimensions we have pointed out in the Catholic liturgy (the liturgical form and the actual execution of it) are essential in all liturgical spiritualities. We will demonstrate this with the aid of three paradigms. 2.2.1. THE TEMPLE LITURGY In all the narrative and song traditions of ancient Israel the wilderness is a fixed item. It is the place of divine revelation (Exod. 19:16ff.), the place of the covenant (Exod. 24), the place of the quail and water miracle (Exod. 15-17). 99

O. Rousseau, Autour du jubilé du mouvement liturgique 1909-1959, in: Questions liturgiques 40 (1959), 208. 100 J. Lamberts, Active Participation, 253; 242. 101 Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 14. 102 Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini, in: Acta Sanctae Sedis 36 (1903), 331. 103 J. Lamberts, Paus Piux X en de actieve deelneming, in: Tijdschrift voor liturgie 71 (1987), 293-306. 104 Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 11. 105 J. Jungmann in the commentary on Sacrosanctum Concilium in: LThK 12 (1986), 26.

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However one interprets the sojourn in the “howling wilderness waste” (Deut. 32: 10) and particularly the events on Mt. Sinai (Exod. 20ff.),106 it is certain that here the origin of the covenant relation between Be-er and his people, the relation which constitutes the heart of Israel’s liturgy, is narrated.107 1. The self-communication of Be-er The memory of the temple liturgy harks back to the heart of the wilderness: Be-er’s self-communication on Mount Sinai (Exod. 33-34). The story starts with Be-er’s dramatic self-withdrawal: “I will not go up in your midst” (Exod. 33:3). This movement of withdrawal elicited the groaning of the people and Moses’ intervention (Exod. 33:12ff.). Moses therefore prays, imploring Be-er to have compassion on his people (Exod. 33:13-16). Within this dramatic context Be-er’s promise stands out in sharp relief: “I will make all my goodness pass before your face and proclaim before your face the Name ‘Be-er’. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will show tenderness toward whom I will show tenderness” (Exod. 33:19). Subsequently this promise is redeemed: “And Be-er descended in a cloud, stood with him, and called out the Name ‘Be-er.’ Be-er passed before him and cried out: Be-er! Be-er!” (Exod. 34:5-6). The context in which the proclamation of the Name was performed is cultic.108 Be-er, proclaiming his Name, makes himself present in the first person singular as an eminent form of self-obligation (Exod. 34:10), a cultic realization of “I am: I am there” (Exod. 3:14). 2. The communion between Be-er and his people In Israel’s most ancient cult the exclusive relation between Be-er and his people formed the core. We will elucidate this thesis with the aid of two examples. The first is the pre-Davidic Psalm 29.109 In this originally Canaanite song the axis between Baal and the gods was all-controlling. When the song was adopted in Israel’s cult, this Baalistic axis was replaced by the all-controlling power line Be-er-and-his-people. Especially the concluding line “Be-er gives strength to his people” (vs. 11), sharply expresses this reality: the fighting spirit and defensive power which is Be-er forms the fighting spirit and defensive power of his people in its war of liberation. To Israel God is not a god among gods. Be-er is there exclusively for his people. 106

For example, as a back projection of the Jerusalem cult to its origin (Mowinckel, Noth) or as the core of a feast legend which later flourishes (Von Rad; Beyerlin). 107 W. Schmidt, Exodus, Sinai und Mose, Darmstadt 1983, 71-90. 108 D. Niles, The Name of God in Israel’s Worship. The Theological Importance of the Name Yahweh, Princeton 1974, 124-128; A. van der Woude, shem, in ThLOT 3, 1349-1367. 109 K. Seybold, Die Geschichte des 29. Psalms und ihre theologische Bedeutung, in: Theologische Zeitschrift 36 (1980), 208-219.

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As our second example we chose the very ancient legal rules which were designed to protect the exclusive worship of Be-er (Deut. 13:2-19 and 17:27).110 We are dealing here with legal provisions against treasonous practices. Prophets (13:2), members of the family (13:7), men, or just people in general (17:2), who attempt to seduce fellow citizens to idolatry: “Let us go after other gods and worship them” (13:7, 14; cf. 17:3). Such an act of subversion carries the death penalty (13:6, 10-11; 17:5). It is evil in the midst of the people (13:6, 12; 17:7), for the midst or center of Israel is Be-er. He is Israel’s most intimate life. Following after other gods means the break-up of the people’s being. The legal provisions protect the exclusive relation between the center of the people and Be-er who forms that center.111 These early legal provisions are comprehensible only on the assumption that the exclusive relation between Be-er and his people was forcefully present even before the liberation process in Canaan and was celebrated in the cult.112 3. The rhythm of agriculture When Israel became sedentary, the structure of its liturgy changed. People then began to orient themselves to the rhythm of agriculture. They adopted the agrarian feast-calendar: the feast of unleavened bread at the beginning of the grain harvest (bread made of new corn meal baked without old leaven); the feast of weeks (the harvest feast celebrated at the end of the grain harvest; the feast of tabernacles), the feast of the wine harvest at the closing of the year’s harvest. Later the feast of unleavened bread was linked with the ancient Passover. On the feasts listed here everyone was obligated to take part in the assemblies. These are the three great annual pilgrimages. In the sanctuary the priests gave their directions and oracles, slaughtered the many kinds of sacrifices, purged and blessed the people. They initiated the pilgrims into the cult legends woven in the place of worship. For all the adaptations to Canaan, however, the essential reality was preserved: in the cult God and Israel were united exclusively with each other. The cult cultivated communion between Be-er and his people, made the visitor to the sanctuary partakers of the divine sphere, offered farmers the opportunity to turn to Be-er with thanks and prayer in order to receive his blessing for the immediate future and offered the people a chance to be restored by penitential rituals to a situation of well-being if it had been lost as a result of a misstep.113 110 G. Seitz, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Deuteronomium, Stuttgart-Berlin etc. 1971; M. Rose, Die Ausschliesslichkeitsanpruch Jahwes, Stuttgart-Berlin, etc. 1975, 19-41. 111 M. Rose, 39-41. 112 W. Schmidt, Königtum Gottes in Ugarit und Israel, Berlin 1966, 88. 113 G. Fohrer, Geschichte der israelitischen Religion, Berlin 1969, 194.

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4. We “equalize” your favor The climax of Psalm 48 is made up of the exclamation: “We equalize, O Mighty One, your favor in the midst of your palace” (vs. 40). That is to say: We impersonate your favor in the midst of your temple. Granted: the holy mountain radiates your power, the high walls your strength, and the ramparts your awesomeness (vv. 2-9), but they cannot do what your people do: admit your kindness to the innermost part of their heart. The kindness of the Mighty One can so transform their inmost self that they resemble him in his kindness. It is this interiorization which constitutes the interior of his temple: a heart which so lets itself be transformed by his kindness that it becomes “like” that kindness. The most intimate likeness which the pilgrims bring about in the temple is the exclamation of the Name “Be-er.” When the people in the temple cry “Be there!” they are like the Mighty One who communicates himself in pure kindness: “I’ll be there fore you!” Marching out from this intimate process of transformation “in the midst of your palace,” the community moves outside for a procession around the city wall to assure themselves of his mighty presence in their midst, a presence which sustains the people through time, yes, even through death itself (vv. 13-15). The spiritual core of the psalm lies in the interior of the temple where the experience of having heard and seen from the outside (vs. 8) is transformed into the enjoyment of his kindness and the appropriation of his enormous goodness. 5. Imageless but present Characteristic for Israel’s liturgy is its imagelessness.114 This imagelessness is not a lack but constitutes its essence: Be-er’s relatedness to his people. “Observed, observed have I the bentness of my people that is in Egypt; I have heard their groaning under their drivers. I have felt their pain” (Exod. 3:7). Liberation makes him present. It is therefore characteristic for Israel’s liturgy that in it his liberating action is memorialized.115 This liberation cannot be made present in an object; it can only be interiorized in a community which itself becomes a source of liberation, liberation which streams out from Zion over all the land, indeed, over all the nations (Ps. 67). Calling out the Name as a memorial of liberation could be called the “divine image” of Israel’s liturgy.116 This Name tolerates no “image,” for it is “Agitated Compassion” which moves people. Of this spirituality the imagelessness and the prohibition of images are the result. 114 K. Bernhardt, Gott und Bild. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung und Deutung des Bilderverbotes im Alten Testament, Berlin 1956; A. Kruyswijk, ‘Geen gesneden beeld…’, Franeker 1962. 115 F. Crüsemann, Studien zur Formgeschichte von Hymnus und Danklied in Israel, NeukirchenVluyn 1969. 116 Cf. G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology I, New York, 1962, 183.

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2.2.2. THE EUCHARIST Executed in a ritual manner in the eucharist are the proclamation of God’s word, the prayers of the community, and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The ritual consists of four parts: the opening rituals, the liturgy of the word, the eucharistic liturgy, and the concluding rituals.117 1. The opening rituals The opening of the eucharist consists of a cluster of six smaller rituals (entrance, greeting, penitential rite, Kyrie, Glory, prayer) which have a twofold purpose: “the purpose of these rites is that the faithful, coming together, form a community and rightly prepare themselves to listen to God’s word and to worthily celebrate the eucharist.”118 We will briefly examine these two purposes.119 (1) The first words of the ordo missae circle around the motif of community: “After the people have come together” (populo congregato). This beginning situation, which is a dynamic happening (in unum convenientes), is given depth in the opening ritual. By the entrance song, the greeting of the people, and the general confession a mutual connectedness among the people arises. At the same time, by the entrance song (which is a passage from Scripture), by the sign of the cross, by the confession before God and the Kyrie, by the song of praise to God and prayer, the people is (are) placed before the Face of God. (2) In order rightly to listen to the word of God and celebrate the eucharist, a specific disposition is required (recte and digne): receptivity, or more precisely, purity of heart. The heart that is distracted, closed, or preoccupied with itself, is first led by the ritual to the humble realization of not standing before God in the right attitude (actus poenitentialis); then ritual silence and prayer open the heart and make it turn to God. The prayer positions the people before God’s face in expectation of his Word. 2. The liturgy of the Word The ministry of the Word consists of several elements, in which three readings from Scripture stand out: the reading from the First Testament, the reading from the epistles, and the gospel reading. In addition there are other elements as well: the psalm, the rituals around the gospel, the homily, the credo, and the intercessions. Are these elements merely a sort of accompaniment of the main thing (the three readings) or do they fulfill a specific role?120 117 We are here following the order of mass as published in the editio typica altera (1975) of the Roman Missal. In our presentation we will lean on A. de Keyzer, Om voor Gods gelaat te staan. Een expositio missae, Baarn 1999. 118 Institutio generalis Missalis Romani, 24. 119 A. de Keyzer, ibid., 78-96. 120 Ibid., 97-130.

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(1) The sequence of the three readings is directed toward the gospel reading as climax. This is ritually underscored by the incensing of the gospel book, the confession before the reading and the ritual dialogue which precedes the reading. In the readings something essential happens: God himself speaks to his people. That, accordingly, is the import of their ritual conclusions: “This is the Word of God,” which means: “God himself speaks.” To this the people appropriately (recte) respond by saying: “Thanks be to God.” The people make known their gratitude for God’s self-communication. Hence we note how the ritual directs the participants toward this essential feature: God’s self-communication. The ritual conveys the same focus in the songs between the readings. (2) The readings are linked by songs: a psalm and the Alleluia. These songs aim to foster appropriation: “The people make this divine word their own by singing the songs.”121 Hence the purpose of the ritual is not only that the three (or possibly the two) readings will be performed in a ritually climactic arrangement but at the same time offers the ritual possibility of interiorizing the readings(s). (3) After the reading of the gospel, the homily, the creed, and the intercession seem an anticlimax. This is indeed the case if we only approach the readings in terms of their content. However, if we regard them as a word of Address (dabar), then the homily, creed, and intercessions ritualize the manner in which the people understand and process this Address and relate it to God. “The homily, profession of faith, and general intercessions or prayer of the faithful develop (evolvunt) the liturgy of the word and conclude (concludunt) it.”122 The readings offer “spiritual nourishment,”123 but the homily furnishes the opportunity to digest this food. In the Creed people give their assent to the Word.124 Finally, “moved by the word of the Lord, they pray in the general intercessions for the needs of the entire church and for the salvation of the world.”125 3. The liturgy of the eucharist The liturgy of the eucharist consists of three parts: the preparation of the gifts, the eucharistic prayer, and the communion rite. These three parts are interiorly structured by the rituals which Jesus performed during the Last Supper: taking the bread and wine, raising his eyes, giving thanks, the blessing, the breaking of the bread, pronouncing the words of institution, consuming the bread and

121

Institutio generalis, 33. Ibid., 33. 123 Ibid., 33. 124 Ibid., 43. 125 Ibid., 33. 122

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wine.126 In this three-part sequence we can see a climax. (1) To the accompaniment of song the gifts of bread and wine are dedicated to God. Because the people themselves bring these gifts they thereby express their participation in the sacrifice. In the blessing pronounced over the bread and wine we recognize the truth that we give back to God what we have received from him. The aim of this ritual is to induce in the participants “a spirit of humility” by which the people permit themselves to be transformed into a sacrificial gift to God. The people pray that this sacrifice may be accepted. The praying posture which was the climax of the liturgy of the Word (in the oratio universalis) now forms the preparation for the celebration of the eucharist. (2) In the eucharistic prayer the gifts prepared are offered to God with the petition that they may become the body and blood of Christ. This transformation of the gifts into the body and blood of Christ occurs by linking them to the so-called institution narrative: what Jesus said and did during the last supper. By the church’s linking this narrative with these gifts it actualizes what happened on the evening before Jesus’ death: he gave himself to his disciples in the bread and wine as an everlasting memorial. The prayers which sustain this event make concrete the universal prayer with which the liturgy of the word ended: all creatures in heaven and on earth, the living and the dead, are all summoned to join in eucharistic praise. (3) The liturgy of the eucharist reaches its climax in the ritual of eating of the bread and drinking of the wine in which Christ, himself the gift of God, is received. By eating bread and drinking the wine the people become the body of Christ: “Because the bread is one we who are many form one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). The communion rite is prepared by the Lord’s Prayer in which the people pray for bread and forgiveness and by the rite of peace which gives expression to the messianic sense of community existing among the participants. Following the communion there is a time of consecrated silence in which the enjoyment of God’s gifts is interiorized, something expressed also in the prayers: “That with a pure heart we may receive what we have partaken of with our mouth.” The rite of communion may be viewed as the contemplative moment par excellence. After the readings have been read (lectio) in the liturgy of the word, ruminated on by the homily (meditatio), and related to God by the prayers, God himself is received as gift in the body of the Messiah (contemplatio). 4. The concluding rites The concluding rites of the mass are brief: announcements, greeting, blessing, and dismissal.127 The core of these rites is formed by the blessing and the dismissal which can be understood in two ways: on the level of ritual there is the 126 127

A. de Keyzer, ibid., 131-224. Ibid., 225-231.

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termination of the ritual, but on the spiritual level a sending-away is accomplished in the summons ”Go!” The occurrence of the mass, which can be viewed as a process of ever-deepening communion (mutual communion which develops into the messianic body and communion with God in the reception of God’s giving himself ), is aimed at the world as its real objective. To go into the world (ite) is the actual import of the liturgical assembly (missa est). 5. The mass as participation However different the roles fulfilled in the eucharist may be, basically we are dealing only with two agents: God and his people.128 Throughout the ritual, from beginning to end, the two are in search of each other. Under different names (Lord, Father, Most High, the Living One, and so forth) God makes himself known. He imparts himself in his word and gives himself in the body and blood of the Messiah. The ritual of the mass so molds the attitude of the people that it really accepts the self-communication and self-donation of God (participatio actiosa): at the end of the opening rituals there occurs a ritual silence “so that all may realize they are standing before the Face of God.”129 The psalm between the readings helps the people “to make the word of God their own.”130 In the universal prayer which is the climax of the liturgy of the word the people are united with the eager longing of the whole creation (Rom. 8:19) which totally entrusts itself to God’s grace. In the eucharistic part the people are gathered and made ready – like the gifts of bread and wine – to be offered to God as a living sacrifice, which is Jesus Christ, in order in it, as a mystical antiphrasis, to receive God’s self-donation in him in communion, which in the great silence which follows can become not just a matter of physical consumption but above all a spiritual transformation. This entire event, finally, can be interiorized in the dismissal which is aimed at the realization of what took place in the ritual. After all, only the realization will show whether I have really appropriated something. And conversely, by actually doing something, I really make it my own. 2.2.3. RITUALS IN ISLAM The heart of Islamic spirituality is expressed in the credo: “There is no God but Allah.” Spirituality is the way by which this credo is interiorized. God revealed his unity in the Koran, the foundation of Islamic spirituality.131 Through its 128

Ibid., 239-269. Institutio generalis, 32. 130 Ibid., 33. 131 S. Nasr, The Quran as the Foundation of Islamic Spirituality, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 3-10. 129

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recitation the soul receives God on ever deeper levels and paths open up by which the soul can approach God. This approach reaches its culmination in total surrender to God. This is the offering up of one’s existence to God, the only one of whom it can be said that he is.132 God’s unity is revealed in the prophet Mohammed who received the word and made it known to humankind. The mystic follows the prophet through the different states of his mysterious unification with God.133 God finally reveals himself in prescribed rituals: prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and jihad. They are – precisely as the revelation of God’s will – ways by which the soul draws near to God. For that reason so many works in the area of Islamic spirituality are devoted to “the secrets of worship” and to the inner meaning of the rites.134 In this section we will describe the spirituality of these rituals.135 1. Prayer Ritual prayer is divided over five times: morning, midday, afternoon, evening, and night. Before people pray they must purify themselves by washing their hands, face, and feet. This purification is accompanied by prayer for forgiveness. The praying person stands, with bent head and crossed arms, before his Master as a servant. Realizing he is standing before the Face of God, he views himself as insignificant. The most important text of every canonical prayer is the opening chapter of the Koran (surat alfatihah): “In the name of God the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Praise be to God, the Master of the Universe, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment. It is Thee whom we adore and it is of Thee that we beg for help. Lead us upon the right path, the path of those to whom thou hast been most gracious, not of those on whom thy Wrath has descended, nor of those who have gone astray.” During the prayer the servant must listen. According to a mystical tradition, Mohammed explained the prayer as follows. The servant says: “In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful,” and God says: “My servant mentions me.” The servant says: “Praise be to God, the Master of the Universe.” God answers: “My servant lends me grace.” The servant says: “The Most Merciful, the most Compassionate,” and God replies: “My servant praises me.” The servant says: “The Master of the Day of Judgment,” and God says, “My servant glorifies me and submits himself to me.”136 In this interpretation all the statements made in the prayer are understood dialogically: statements made about God are statements 132

A. Brohi, The Spiritual Significance of the Quran, ibid., 11-23. F. Schuon, The Spiritual Significance of the Substance of the Prophet, ibid., 48-63. 134 S. Nasr, Introduction, ibid., xv-xxii, spec. xx. 135 See S. Ashraf, The Inner Meaning of the Islam Rites: Prayer, Pilgrimage, Fasting, Jihad, ibid., 111-130. 136 Ibid., 115. 133

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made about the divine-human relation. The same is true of the statements about man. The servant says: “It is thee whom we adore, and it is of thee that we beg for help” and God says: “This is shared between me and my servant, and my servant will receive that which he asks.”137 It is because of this mutual love between God and man in the opening sentences of the Koran “that the canonical prayer is regarded as not having been performed if this chapter is not recited.”138 As the prayer is performed the praying individual bows down and touches the ground with his head. When he straightens up, he says: God hears those who praise him.” When the “adorer” then prostrates himself, he says: “Glory be to my Lord, the Greatest of the Great.” This gesture is repeated in order to draw ever closer to God. Finally the “adorer” sits in the posture of a humble slave, in complete consecration and surrender. Throughout this process the praying individual directs his face toward the Ka’bah, the house of God in Mecca. The inner movement he discerns as he prays is that of complete surrender, the heart of Islam. “When you have raised your hands and say: ‘God is greater,’ let there be nothing in your heart other than glorification and at the time of the glorification let there be nothing in your heart but the glory of God, the Highly Exalted, so that you forget this and the coming world as you praise him.139 Prayer draws the individual out of himself, beyond himself, into God so that only God still is: until there is nothing in his heart except God, the Supremely Praiseworthy, and he thinks so little of himself that he feels he is less than a speck of dust.”140 Union with God in prayer transforms a person into what he essentially is: a being living out of God. He emerges from prayer as another person: “Because of the awe he feels before God’s majesty, he leaves prayer with a face so changed that his friends scarcely recognize him”141 2. Fasting Fasting is prescribed for all adults during the month of Ramadan: all such individuals must refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, or sexual intercourse during the day. This rule does not apply from sunset to sunrise. In the Sufi communities the period of fasting was extended. Rumi says: “Hunger is the food of God by which he makes alive the bodies of the upright.”142 Frequently the practice of fasting is linked with a word from the Koran: “I will remain with my Lord who feeds me and gives me to drink” (Sura 26/79). Fasting is a means of drawing near to God: by abasing one’s self one increases the presence and power of 137

Ibid. Ibid., 116. 139 A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 150. 140 Ibid., 150. 141 M. Smith, Readings from the Mystics of Islam, London 1950, no. 16. 142 Roemi, Mathnawi-yi ma’nawi V, 1756. 138

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God, being persuaded that “Gabriel’s power did not come from the kitchen but from contemplating the Creator of life.”143 External fasting is conducive to internal fasting in which there are three discernible phases.144 (1) Disciplining the lower soul (nafs) to control one’s passions in order to avoid the evils of telling lies, back-biting, jealousy or pride. Fasting, said Mohammed, is designed to transcend one’s physical limitations and “to cultivate within oneself the attributes of God.” (2) Abstaining from permitted things: righteous anger restrains itself; justice yields to mercy. One voluntarily restrains himself from doing certain deeds for fear of overstepping boundaries and in order to let a deep peace flow into one’s heart out of the experience of being accepted by God. (3) Abstaining from the presence of everything except God, to be focused on God and on nothing else. Anything that draws a veil between the soul and God is avoided. God is the Only Beloved One. This last phase of internal fasting fulfills the essence of Islam: total surrender to God. To have not a single kind of worldly food in oneself is one side of the coin; the other side is to be wholly filled with God. 3. The pilgrimage to Mecca The pilgrimage to Mecca is a rite composed of a number of ritual actions: wearing prescribed clothing, entering Mecca, and walking seven times around the Ka‘bah; visiting the Arafat, a plain in the vicinity of Mecca; spending a night in Muzdalifah, close to Mecca; throwing rocks at the three places where Satan tried to tempt Ishmael; sacrificing an animal at Mina; again circumambulating the Ka‘bah seven times; drinking water from the spring Zamzam; praying at the place where Abraham and his son stood after building the Ka‘bah. All these actions have to be performed with pure intentions. The pilgrim leaves everything behind as though he were dying, praying for forgiveness and illumination, devotes himself to the remembrance of God (dhikr) and concentrates only on one thing: “There is no god other than God alone.” The pilgrimage is a single act of drawing near to God with a view to totally surrendering oneself to God. Finally the pilgrim says goodbye and goes home again. Now begins the real journey; to the place where the pilgrim daily lives with God. Especially the mystics were aware that God has not set his throne on a stone but on the ka‘bah of the heart of the true worshipper.145 4. Fighting in and for God’s way Islam is a religion of peace but prescribes war (jihad) to ward off the enemy, to secure peace, and to make provision for a situation in which God’s prescribed 143

Ibid., III, 6. S. Ashraf, The Inner Meaning of the Islam Rites: Prayer, Pilgrimage, Fasting, Jihad, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 118-119. 145 A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 106. 144

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way of life can be maintained. The Koran says: “Those who follow the way of faith fight in the Way of God and those who follow the way of disbelief fight in the way of the devil. So fight against the adherents of Satan. Satan’s crafty schemes are in fact weak and bound to faith” (Sura 4/76). The battle against evil outside of a person is called “the smaller struggle.” “The greater struggle” is the struggle against the lower powers of the soul (nafs), a struggle which runs through three stages.146 (1) The first stage is the struggle against the soul that is completely controlled by evil powers at work within him and outside of him. (2) When humans become aware of their situation they begin to build up resistance. These are the souls which begin to feel their conscience, “the souls which accuse themselves” (Sura 75/2). (3) Finally the spirit begins to triumph over the evil forces as the will subjects itself completely to the will of God (Sura 89/27). This is the victory: complete union between the human will and the will of God. BIBLIOGRAPHY BERNHARDT, K., Gott und Bild. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung und Deutung des Bilderverbotes im Alten Testament, Berlin 1956. AUSTIN, G. et al., Called to Prayer. Liturgical Spirituality Today, Collegeville (MN) 1986. BRADSHAW, P., Two Ways of Praying. Introducing Liturgical Spirituality, London 1995. The Candles Are Still Burning. Directions in Sacrament and Spirituality, (Ed. M. Grey et al.), London 1995. CRÜSEMANN, F., Studien zur Formgeschichte von Hymnus und Danklied in Israel, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1969. FENWICK, J., Liturgy for Identity and Spirituality, Manganam 1992. IRWIN, K., Liturgy, Prayer and Spirituality, New York 1984. JUNGMANN, J., Missarum Solemnia. Eine genetische Erklärung der Römischen Messe, Wien etc. 1962. KEYZER, A. DE, Om voor Gods gelaat te staan. Een expositio missae, Baarn 1999. KRUYSWIJK, A., ‘Geen gesneden beeld…’, Franeker 1962. LAROCCA, J., Spiritual Transformation. The Liturgical Year and Spiritual Exercises, San Anselmo 1993. Het leven vieren tot voor God, Speling 47 (1995), no. 4. Liturgia e spiritualita, (Ed. Associazione professori di liturgia), Rome 1992. Liturgy and Spirituality in Context. Perspectives on Prayer and Culture, (Ed. E. Bernstein), Collegeville (MN) 1990. MEYER, H., Eucharistie. Geschichte. Theologie, Pastoral, Regensburg 1989. Omnes Circumadstantes (Ed. C. Caspers & M. Schneiders), Kampen 1990. Spirituality and Liturgy, The Way Supplement, no. 67 (1990). 146

S. Ashraf, ibid., 128-129.

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2.3. Religious Communities The multiformity of religious community life (the cenobitic life) unfolds in two fields of tension, one “eremitic-cenobitic” and the other “introvert-extravert.” 1. Eremitic communities. Also the purely eremitic life147 included elements of community: life in proximity to an abbot; regular assemblies (liturgy, the exchange and testing of experience); the common purchase and sale of products. Sometimes a group of hermits form a little street (lavra), a colony of cells (huts, caves) where they live together under the leadership of an abbot. The transition to the cenobitic life is made when hermits commit themselves for life to live in obedience to an abbot. Amma Syncletica puts it sharply: “As long as we are in a monastery, obedience is preferable to asceticism. The latter teaches pride, the former humility.”148 The cenobitic hermit voluntarily lays himself open to the will of another who breaks his narcissism; he provides for the livelihood of the other and strives for evangelical freedom from care. “They strip themselves of their power over the things which they procure by their own effort, just as they do of that over themselves.”149 The eremitic community is marked by a few common exercises (common meals, prayer) and a wall which demarcates the common living space. Pachomius was the first to write a rule for community life in the service of anachoresis: a program in which everything revolves around personal perfection in a community which introduces a monk into “the recesses of solitude.”150 2. Cenobitic communities. According to Basil, the eremitic life runs counter to the fundamental structure of human nature and Christian love. We are social beings and need each other. We must love the members of our race.151 Community leads to union with God. “It is an excellent way to make progress, a continual practice and observance of the Lord’s commandments, when brothers live together in one community.”152 We humans are directed by love to seek the salvation of all: “The solitary person buries himself in his charisms and does not use them in the service of the community. (…) There is general agreement that 147

See part 1, ch. 3.4.2. Cf. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, (Trans. B. Ward), London-Kalamazoo 1984, Syncletica, 16. 149 Cf. John Cassian, Conferences, 18, VII, 7 (New York, 1997; 641-642). 150 Cf. Ibid., 18, IV, 2; 637. 151 Regel van Basilius, in: H. Urs von Balthasar, Vijf bronnen van christelijke geest, Haarlem 1957, 35. 152 Ibid., 41. 148

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living separately offers no advantage but rather the contrary. This is even more true of living in total isolation.”153 In the background here is the ideal brotherhood of the apostles as it is pictured in Acts 2 and 4: “They were all of one heart and soul and had all things in common (…) and there was not a needy person among them.”154 Augustine, thinking along the same lines, also puts the community first: “Before all else, live together in harmony, being of one mind and one heart, on the way to God. For is it not precisely for this reason that you have come to live together?”155 The community is the way to God because love unites a person with God. 3. Introverted communities. Religious communities do not just move in the eremitic-cenobitic field of tension but are also familiar with the introvert-extravert polarity. Aside from such external features as locks, veils, barred spaces, social distance, and the like three factors give expression to the introverted character of the community. (1) Study. From the beginning study was an important aspect of the religious life in the West. Ireland was called “the island of scholars.”156 In the sixth century Cassiodorus founded a monastery that was simultaneously designed to be a center of scholarship. His Institutiones contain a complete program of intellectual schooling. The Benedictines in England applied themselves especially to study. The high point was Maurus’s reform: “An ignorant Benedictine is a contradiction in terms.”157 (2) Liturgy. In all introverted monasteries the liturgy played a large role. That is true of the eremitic but especially of the cenobitic type of communities. The liturgy consecrates time and forms the heart of the community. This was especially true of the Cluny reform. In this reform movement the liturgy determined and defined everything. The reform of Solesmes harks back to this: the monks abstain from all activity in the outside world and apply themselves totally to the practice and study of the liturgy. Here a new type of Benedictine monk was created: “The dominantly liturgical ordering of life pervaded the entire monastic life form, gave it aristocratic features, and led to a rigorously stylized attitude toward life.”158 (3) Prayer. Aside from the liturgy, the days are filled with prayer in its many forms, linked or not linked with manual labor. We note this emphasis on the life of prayer especially in the female branches of the orders: women Benedictines, Cistercians, Clarisses, Dominicans, Carmelites. 4. Extraverted communities. The extraverted character of religious communities comes to expression in the pastorate, apostolate, and social engagement of

153

Ibid., 41-42. Ibid., 41-42; 54; 70; 79; etc. 155 The Rule of Saint Augustine, Garden City (NY) 1986, 11. 156 K. Frank, Geschichte des christlichen Mönchtums, Darmstadt 1993, 45. 157 Ibid., 143. 158 L. Soltner, Solesmes et Dom Guéranger 1805-1875, Solesmes 1984. 154

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a community. (1) As it concerns the pastorate: the first religious community of clerics was formed around 370 by bishop Eusebius of Vercelli. At approximately the same time Augustine founded his cenobitic community of priests. In the Middle Ages there was a strong tendency to subsume the clergy under an monastic life form (canonice vivere). The mendicant brothers saw as their most important task the ideal of giving shape, by their poor and fraternal life together and their mendicant itineracy, to the itinerant life of Jesus with his disciples (vita apostolica). In the time of the restoration, especially in France, several congregations of priests originated who devoted themselves, through people missions, to the rebuilding of the church. (2) As it concerns the work of missions: in the Benedictine centuries159 monks played an active role in spreading the Christian faith in Europe. We see a similar movement in the mission congregations who went out to the New World in order, in the wake of colonization, to establish the Christian faith in the newly discovered continents outside of Europe. Specific forms of apostolate became necessary when the church had to face the challenge of modern culture: the rise of cities with their own rationality, church splits, the Enlightenment, and secularization. Needed, to meet this challenge, were suprapersonal organizations: from here on in individual persons could be transferred, groups could be composed and deployed from a central point. This system was further elaborated by the Jesuits. The supreme desideratum was the availability of the members. The central leadership had to prevail over horizontal and local organizations. The full implications of this extraversion were drawn by secular institutions. They function and live in the midst of the world. Here community has been absorbed in the apostolate. (3) Social engagement. From the beginning especially women religious devoted themselves to works of mercy. They took to heart the fate of prisoners, the sick, widows and orphans.160 Basil charged the monasteries in the cities to help with the upbringing of children in the home, with education and the care of the sick. Ever since then the work of mercy (hospitality, care of the sick, education, emancipation of slaves, taking care of foreigners and refugees) has played an active role. But it was especially in modern times, particularly the nineteenth century, that hundreds of congregations were founded – usually to meet the challenge of education and the care of the sick. From the immense quantity of religious forms we have selected three examples: the Sufis, who show how the religious life is a mystical way; the Carmelites, because among them an eremitic form of life developed, via an eremitic community, into a mendicant community; the Vincentians who lead a consistently thought-through form of extraverted religious life.

159 160

See part 1, ch. 2.4. See H. Chadwick, The Early Church, Harmondsworth 1967, 174-176.

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2.3.1. THE SUFIS The name “Sufi” is interpreted in various ways. Hujwiri, listing the meanings current in the 11th century, summed them up as follows: Some assert that the Sufi is so called because he wears a woollen garment (jama-i suf), others that he is so called because he is in the first rank (saff-i awwal), others say it is because the Sufis claim to belong to the ashab i Suffa (the people of the Bench who gathered around the Prophet’s mosque). Others, again, declare that the name is derived from safa (purity).161

The derivation from the word “wool” (suf) – on account of the coarse woollen garment which Sufis wear – is generally accepted. Still, the three explanations which follow are not uninteresting either. They point to tendencies in the Sufi orders to trace their communities back to Mohammed. The “foremost” refers to those who live near to God and “drink directly from the Spring from which God’s slaves drink, making it gush forth abundantly” (Surah 76/6).162 The explanation “people of the Bench” points in the same direction. By it is meant a group of poor pious people who had given up everything to follow Mohammed to Medina. There they sat on a bench near the entrance of the prophet’s mosque where they spent a large part of the day and the night. Both terms point toward intensely devout people who wanted to live in the prophet’s immediate proximity to share with him in the Source-experience. From this core of pious people, via a chain of teachers and pupils, developed the rich spectrum of Sufi communities.163 The essence of Sufism is: to interiorize the way of Islam (shari‘ah) into a spiritual inside track (tariqah). As we saw earlier, the Islamic way is expressed in a single truth: “there is no god but Allah.” This truth, in which God imparts himself, is the Koran. Those who by reciting and praying the Koran make it their own become one with divine human love (Surah 5/59). They will experience that God is closer to them than their jugular vein (Surah 50/16). “Whichever way you turn, the face of Allah is there” (Surah 2/109). God is the only reality (al-haqq). By knowledge and love, prayer and the practice of virtue, people sought to interiorize this truth and that in the strictest sense: there is no other “being,” no other “I,” no other reality. 161 Hujwiri, The Kashf al-Mahjub 30, quoted in A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 14. 162 See A. Siraj Ed-Din, The Nature and Origin of Sufism, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 223-225. 163 J. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, Oxford 1971; A. Schimmel, ibid., 23-97; V. Danner, The Early Development of Sufism, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 239-264; for the development of the many Sufi orders, see: Islamic Spirituality. Manifestations (WS 20), London 1991, 3-315.

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1. The community In order to become a member a pupil had to be a servant of humans, a servant of God, and a guardian of his own heart. When these conditions had been met he asked the spiritual leader of the community to be admitted to the order. His entry was effected ritually. In the hands of the spiritual leader he made a vow to serve God under all circumstances. After the blessing the novice received the Sufi cloak and the dervish cap. The rite ended with greetings by the brothers and a communal meal.164 By his rite of entry the novice became a member of a community of people with whom he could begin to feel one body: “He who wants to sit with God must sit with the Sufis.”165 The most important thing the brothers had to give each other is mutual assistance in walking the spiritual way. Brotherhood is an invitation to the practice of virtue: mutual love, humility, patience, good will, care of the sick, respect.166 In addition, it makes poverty possible: the Sufis renounce all ownership of possessions. Everything is designed to attain the state of complete detachment: the stage of completion, the stage of contemplative vision in which the existing [world] is blotted out and only the source of all existence remains.”167 Central in the community is the spiritual leader who protects the pupil from illusions and erroneous ways. The pupil entrusts himself to his master – who has completed the entire length of the path – “like a corpse in the hands of one who washes the dead.”168 The task of the sheik is to make possible spiritual regeneration and transformation.169 In the earliest stages of Sufism the house of the spiritual leader was the place where the Sufis met. Later they came together in centers which could accommodate more Sufis. In some of these centers the Sufis lived in small cells; other centers consisted of one large space in which the Sufis lived, studied, and worked. 2. Remembering God (dhibr) Among the spiritual exercises of the Sufis one is foremost: dhikr.170 Dhikr is the repeated recitation of certain divine names. By continually repeating a divine name the praying individual enters into the reality described in the name. This practice is supported by the Koran: “Remember Me and I shall remember you” 164 J. Michon, The Spiritual Practices of Sufism, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 270-271. 165 Roemi, Mathnawi I, 1529. 166 A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 228-229. 167 J. Michon, L’autobiografie du soufi marocain Ahmad Ibn ‘Ajiba (1747-1809) et son mi‘raj, Leiden 1969, 13. 168 J. Michon, The Spiritual Practices of Sufism, 272. 169 S. Nasr, Sufi Essays, Albany (NY) 1972, 57-59. 170 See A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 167-178.

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(Surah 2/152; also see 29/45 and 33/41-43). To that end the Koran furnishes formulas which are repeated. The most sublime invocation is Allah, the name in which God is present. By proclaiming the Name the worshipper becomes one with God.171 As a rule the worshipers cry out the Name within the Suficommunity, which forms a circle around the sheik. The Sufis keep their eyes closed. Breathing is important: when breathing-in the worshiper raises himself up; breathing-out serves to carry the name. The worshipers link up with each other and carry out a mystical dance.172 The purpose of dhikr is: “All that is created vanishes, and the only true subject, the eternal God, remains as he always was and always will be.”173 Remembrance of God takes the worshiper past all articulation and thought. Present in God’s being-by-himself, the worshiper is like a lily which, without breathing and absorbed in adoration, remains totally silent.174 What breaks through is the experience that “nothing exists but the One who is the Name, the One called and the Caller, in his Absolute and Unconditional Essence.”175 3. The spiritual way The spiritual way as a whole follows the same movements as the way of dhikr which is at the heart of it.176 The first phase is “full penitential conversion” (tauba): turning away from the world. This conversion can be effected in a variety of ways: by a word, a dream, a verse from the Koran, an encounter. The beginner must practice abstention (wara‘) and mortification (zuhd). All that draws the heart away from God is surrendered. The second phase is the continual struggle against the lower part of the soul (nafs), the instincts and desires. This struggle which is called “the greater holy war,” is the starting point of the way of self-purification. The intent is not that the inordinate instincts should be killed; rather, they must be transformed into a willing instrument serving a person’s consecration to God. The third phase is total surrender to God (tawakkul). This surrender leads to inner peace. Those who are totally centered on God and not on any secondary cause cannot be adversely affected by anything. The most important guide on the way is poverty (faqr), the word from which the name dervish (poor beggar) is derived. The fakir owns nothing and is possessed by nothing. The final consequence – after quitting this world and the next – is “to quit quitting” (tark at-tark), a surrender which forgets surrendering. At that point the dervish is inwardly freed from himself. Speaking of the 171

J. Michon, The Spiritual Practices of Sufism, 281. For a description of a sacred dance, see ibid., 182-186. 173 A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 177. 174 Ibid., 172. 175 J. Michon, The Spiritual Practices of Sufism, 289. 176 See A. Schimmel, ibid., 109ff. 172

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dervish, Hujwiri says: “When his affairs are freed from the bonds of acquisition, his actions are no more attributed to himself. Then he is the Way, not the wayfarer, i.e., the dervish is a place over which something is passing not a wayfarer following his own will.”177 After the Way and the traveler has traversed all the stages, both that mentioned above and all those included in it (longing, love, knowledge, and so forth) the Sufi arrives at annihilation-in-God. A standard saying in later Sufism is: “When poverty becomes perfect (complete), it is God.”178 An indescribable abundance of grace fills the heart with gratitude (shukr). Profound contentment comes over the Sufi (rida). Complete agreement between the beloved and the Beloved still occurs only in mystical love (mahabba) and mystical knowledge (ma‘rifa), the state of abiding in God (baqa).

2.3.2. THE CARMELITES Between 1206 and 1214 Albert of Avogrado,179 patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote – in the form of a letter – a “life model” (formula vitae) for the lay eremites who lived by the spring of Elijah in the Carmel mountain range.180 They were part of an eremitic movement which spread rapidly in the 11th and 12th centuries.181 They left hearth and home in search of solitude as a favored place for contemplation. Among them were the God-seekers who wished to complete their pilgrimage as hermits living on Mount Carmel. Thus, around 1200, a group of hermits lived in the Carmel mountain range, where “in little comb-like cells, those bees of the Lord laid up sweet spiritual honey.”182 These hermits “following the example of the holy hermit and prophet Elijah, lived a life of solitude on Mount Carmel.”183 A few of these hermits lived in obedience to a certain B (which is all we know of him).184 They lived in or near the Wadi-‘ain-es-Siah, three kilometers from the northernmost point of the Carmel mountain range, one kilometer from the coast, a couple of hundred meters from two springs (the southernmost of which was known as the spring of Elijah, or in short: the Spring).185 177

Ibid., 123. Ibid., 123. 179 V. Mosca, Alberto Patriarca di Gerusalemme, Rome 1992. 180 Here we will follow the text edition used in K. Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Carmel. A Commentary on the Carmelite Rule, Louvain 1999, 20-38. Henceforth the chapters of the Carmelite Rule will be indicated in parentheses. 181 J. Leclercq et al., L’eremitismo in Occidente nei secoli XI e XII, Milan 1965. 182 Jacques de Vitry, The History of Jerusalem, (Trans. A. Stewart), London 1896, 27. 183 Ibid. 184 A later tradition (around 1400) fills in “Brocard,” of whom we also know nothing. 185 See E. Friedman, The Latin Hermits of Mount Carmel, Rome 1979. 178

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For some time hermits must have had experience with this eremitic way of life under a superior before they asked Albert of Jerusalem for approval of their form of life, since they submitted a plan to him. Albert developed this plan into a fully written-out form of life (formula vitae) which embodies the idea that they will transform their eremitic life (remain in the cell, meditate day and night on Scripture, work in silence, pray the psalms, fasting and abstinence, fight against demons) into an eremitic community (live under the authority of a prior, community of goods, joint celebration of the eucharist, weekly chapter). This eremitic community did not last long. Even within one generation the Carmelites were forced to leave Mount Carmel. Beginning in 1238 – the time of the first expulsion and destruction by Islam – the Carmelites had to go back to Europe. In Europe they encountered a changed situation.186 Meanwhile there had occurred increased urbanization but also the new religious movements had developed a sharper profile. The mendicant brothers were enormously popular and supported by the popes. It was to them that the Carmelites felt attracted. After obtaining the necessary conditions for this form of life (public eucharist, hearing confessions, having a church and cemetery of their own, begging rights, permission to engage in pastoral care), they opted – driven to it in part by experience – for the life form of the mendicant orders: convents in the city, common meals, praying the hours, mendicant itinerancy. It is these developments (from being hermits to being hermits-in-community; from being an eremitic community to being a mendicant order) which have left their imprint on the Carmelite Rule.187 The Carmelite Rule, from a literary point of view, is a letter. After a brief beginning (prologus) follows the starting point (exordium) on which the letter is based. The main contents are formed by the exposition (narratio), followed by a request (petitio) and an ending (conclusio). Albert presents the life form (formula vitae) in the exposition (narratio) of his letter,188 unfolding it as a spiritual way in four stages.189 1. The basic provisions In the first few chapters the Carmelitan life-form is instituted: the institution of the priorate by which the hermits become an eremitic community (I); the assignment of a special cell for each hermit individually, the guarantee for the eremitic life form (III); the prohibition against changing cells independently (V) and a closed space with an entrance where the prior lives (VI). The last two stipulations serve the cenobitic dimension. Later, two mendicant chapters were inserted: the possibility of living in the city (II) and the common meal (IV). 186 For a description of this episode, see J. Smet, De geschiedenis van de karmel I, Almelo 1988, 35-40; C. Cicconetti, The Rule of Carmel, Darien (IL) 1984, 130-207. 187 O. Steggink, J. Tigcheler & K. Waaijman, Karmelregel, Almelo 1978. 188 The Carmelite Rule (chs. I-XVI). 189 Kees Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Carmel, 55-257.

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When we look carefully at this arrangement, we are struck by three architectonic features. (1) At issue is a community which, on the level of the relation to authority, is structured in terms of the pattern of “the prior-with-the-brothers” (I; see XVII-XVIII), who makes the essential decisions (II-III and IX). The community manifests itself in gatherings (eating together, listening to the reading of Scripture together, celebrating the eucharist together, the community’s weekly discussion of the general state of affairs and the weal and woe of every individual (IV, VIII, X, XI); in the economic order (X-XI) and in reverential silence, a time of cultivating justice (XVI). (2) Within the community live the individual brothers, each of whom has the active and passive right of suffrage (I). Each has his own cell (III) but not as a private possession (V). Account must be taken of each one’s age, primary needs, and health (IX, XII, XIII). Each must perform his work in silence (XV, XVI). In the weekly chapter attention is given to the personal weal and woe of each member (XI). (3) The eremitic community exists in dialogue with its context. The community was clearly in touch with the patriarch of Jerusalem (prologue), with supporters who granted living space (II) and gave alms (IX), with visitors (interested parties, pilgrims, colleagues) and with religious renewal movements in a rapidly changing culture (II, XIII). 2. Spiritual exercises A spiritual architecture only turns into a living interior reality when it is interiorized. That is the import of the second section of Albert’s exposition (VII-XIII) in which the exercises are central: remaining, meditating, and keeping vigil in the cell (VII), reading the psalms and saying the prayers (XIII), community of goods (IX), coming together in the midst of the cells (X), holding chapter (XI), fasting (XII) and abstinence (XIII). By remaining in the cell the consciousness of standing before God’s face awakens. In pondering Scripture one’s eyes are opened to God’s gracious reality. By communalizing the things of one’s own (things, talents, skills) the individual Carmelite becomes a brother to the others. Exercise requires constant repetition: meditating day and night (VII), continual prayer (XIII), working day and night in silence (XV-XVI). The practical goal of the spiritual exercises is purity of heart (prologue): the structuration of a purified interior which is receptive to the Other. 3. The armor of God In the third section of his exposition Albert shows how the formed, purified, and receptive interior is clothed with God’s attributes: the armor of God (XIV). This is the end goal (telos) which the Carmelite rule shares with all the forms of religious life: to be clothed with Christ (exordium), who is the embodiment of God’s virtues. This process of being clothed occurs in three phases. (1) First the pure and receptive heart is clothed with God’s purity and holiness. (2) Purity and

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holiness are God’s entryways for the essence of the armor of God: God’s righteousness which is received in works of love; God’s confidence which we receive by taking steps toward the Other; God’s expectation which is received by looking forward to the salvation (well-being, healing) which is reserved for us in the only Savior who heals everything: Jesus Christ. (3) God’s self-communication in faith, hope and love fills the soul with his presence so that the soul overflows with it. 4. Enduring interiorization Contemplation remains a vulnerable exercise if it is not preserved from corruption (conceit, routinization, superficiality). The durability of contemplation (being clothed with God’s attributes) demands specific provisions and exercises – the subject matter treated by Albert in the fourth section of his exposition (XV-XVI). The most fitting context for mystical transformation in God is working in silence. Work and silence together ensure that God’s self-communication (the armor of God) really ends up in ordinary life. Working in silence gives durability to contemplation. This is reinforced inasmuch as the spiritual practice is written in an eschatological key which takes away all pretension from the practitioners of it. Eschatological spirituality190 tears down all self-definition by the creation of “works.” Working in silence draws the Carmelite away from “the glitter of the present world.”191 By working in silence Carmelites see “God’s unfathomable being that is hidden in hope.”192 The meaning is no longer derived from “this time” (this aeon) but from the world beyond-all-this: “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived” (1 Cor. 2:9).

2.3.3. THE VINCENTIANS The Daughters of Charity are a caritative religious community founded by Vincent De Paul and Louise de Marillac. We find their life form in the General Rules,193 consisting of nine chapters. Following an introductory chapter in which the purpose, basic form, and the basic attitudes of a sister of charity are sketched come three chapters concerning the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

190

For this subject, see part 1, ch. 3.6. Philip Ribot, Decem libri de institutione et peculiaribus gestis religiosorum carmelitarum I, 8. We will quote from this work according to the text edition of P. Chandler (forthcoming). 192 John Cassian, Conferences, I, 15. 193 In M.A. de Pistoye, La Soeur de Charité, Paris 1862, 107-327. The text is interwoven with commentary by Vincent himself taken from conferences he devoted to these Rules. 191

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Four chapters on mutual relations plus one chapter on the order of the day, the week, and the month conclude the life rule. We will focus on the basic form.194 1. Exposure to the outside world The Vincentian way of life fundamentally unfolds from within the situation of the sick and the poor. Because the activities of the sisters of charity basically take place “outside” (among the sick at home), the classic cloister is ill-suited to give shape to it. For that reason Vincent above all stresses the following: They will keep in mind that, though they are not in a monastic order, because that state is not suited to the activities of their calling, nevertheless, since they are much more exposed to the outside than the religious (…), they are obligated to lead a life that is equally virtuous.

Exposure to the “outside” distinguishes the Daughters of Charity from the other religious: “Hospitals have been founded for the care of the sick. And, indeed, there are religious who have dedicated themselves to God in order to take upon themselves the care of the sick there. But up until now it has never happened that the sick were cared for in their homes” (IX, 246).195 To Vincent exposure to the “outside” is the most noble calling in the church (IX, 38, 41, 173, 459, 684; X, 113-116). 2. The Vincentian model The spiritual architecture introduced by Vincent de Paul is structured from within the living situation of the sick. The Daughters of Charity, accordingly, are much more exposed to the “outside” than other religious, because as a rule they have no other cloister than the homes of the sick, no other cell than a rented room, no other chapel than the parish church, no other walkway than the streets of the city, or the halls of the hospitals.

The classic religious way of life is evoked here by the words: cloister, cell, chapel, walkway, which structure “the seclusion which is characteristic for their cloister.” The cloister evokes the recollection of which the cell is the heart; the chapel

194 195

Règles communes, ch. 1, art. 2. Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents IX, (Ed. P. Coste), Paris 1920-1925.

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localizes prayer, the walkway around the courtyard the social contacts and conversations. In contrast, Vincent uses these images to sketch the “spatial arrangements” of the Sisters of Charity. Their cloister consists in the houses of the sick: the poor with their contagious diseases, the dying at whose bedsides they watch (II, 549; III, 54). Their cell is the rented room where the poor who have no house make their home. Their chapel is the parish church where the people connected with the poor and the sick go to church. Their quadrangular walkway is formed by the streets of the city on which the poor move along, by which the poor live, and by which you must go to minister to the sick (X, 662; IX, 82, 90). In the traditional model the outside-inside relation is regulated by the enclosure, the barred windows, the veil. Female religious, in contrast to male religious, were obligated to accept those barriers. Vincent designs a specific “outside-inside” relation. The Sisters of Charity know no other enclosure than obedience, no other bars than awe before God, no other veil than holy modesty.

By comparison with the usual arrangement of the “outside-inside” relation Vincent established a form of contact which is in stark contrast with it: obedience, reverence, and modesty. (1) Obedience. Vincentian obedience keeps the sisters consistently focused on the sick and the poor: “They only go where their work requires it and lose no time in useless visits. Is it not the case, my daughter, that that’s what you had in mind, when you said that religious have their cloisters but that the Daughters of Charity only have obedience?” (IX, 313; see also IX, 512-513). (2) Reverence. Because the poor are our masters, they ask for unconditional respect: “Sisters, be gracious and gentle in your dealings with the poor. You know that they are our masters and that we must love them with tenderness and respect them.”196 The awesomeness of the poor is grounded in the fact that they make the Lord present: “Treat them with respect just as we would treat our Lord” (IX, 119; see also X, 332). (3) Modesty. Modesty is the natural product of respectful service: “You must serve the poor”: hence “be extremely modest” (IX, 86). Modest conduct – restraint in conversations (IX, 86), in personal dealings (IX, 121; XIII, 555), in personal contacts (IX, 86; X, 662) – is designed to break one’s self-absorption in giving care: “Maintain this holy practice of modesty, always remembering that you are not sent out into the congregation to give full rein to your inclinations or to satisfy yourself physically” (X, 60). 196

52.

Cited in: De spiritualiteit van Vincent de Paul 1, (Ed. Daughters of Charity), Brussels 1993,

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3. The practice of virtue Immediately at the beginning of his General Rules Vincent de Paul indicates that the sisters “must connect the internal exercises of the spiritual life with the external activities of Christian love with respect to the poor.”197 The internal exercises include the practice of virtue and spiritual practices. Vincent first mentions the practice of virtue. On the basis of this consideration they are obligated to lead a life that is as virtuous as when they were professed in a religious order.

Since the life of the sisters is exposed to influences from “without,” they must counterbalance them with the practice of virtue: “Therefore, my sisters, although you are not locked up in a cloister, you must nevertheless be equally virtuous as, indeed more virtuous than, the traditional religious (X, 658). Why? “When a religious wants to do something bad, the grating is closed”(X, 658). The Sister of Charity does not have this protection: “There is no one who spends as much time among the people as the Daughters of Charity and who have so many opportunities to do evil as you, my sisters. It is therefore of great importance that you be more virtuous than the religious” (X, 658). The center of the life of virtue is made up of four virtues, which together form a cross: humility, love, obedience, and patience (X, 521-539). As a living memorial of this fact every sister wears a little wooden cross.198 Of these four love is the central virtue.199 “Love is the most sublime of all the virtues. It gives weight and value to all the other virtues. The goodness of God has chosen us to love him by calling us ‘Daughters of Charity’” (X, 472). Love brings the poor person into our heart, “Love makes it possible that we cannot see anyone suffering without suffering with him. Love opens the heart of one person to another and permits him to feel what the other experiences” (XII, 271). This love must become the interior of the Sisters of Charity: “It is not by length of time that people judge whether a daughter is worthy of the beautiful name ‘daughter of charity,’ but by whether she is inwardly clothed with this garment of love for God and neighbor. This is what makes a person a ‘daughter of charity’” (X, 461). This love unites us with God: “A way of doing it as God wants it done is to do it in love, in love, my daughters. Oh! I pray that that may make your service excellent! But do you know what it means to do something in love? It means doing it in God, for God is love; that is, doing it with complete purity for God’s sake” (IX, 249). Love gives 197

Règles communes, ch. 1, art. 1. The last article of the Règles communes. 199 See Charité, in: DSp 2 (1953), 507-691, esp. P. Pourrat, Charité, V. 5. L’école française depuis saint François de Sales, 610-627. 198

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God a chance to be present: “If you serve the poor with goodness, gentleness, and respect, you make the presence of God tangible. Doing what God has done is to be God oneself ” (X, 134). 4. The spiritual exercises After speaking of the life of virtue Vincent goes on to characterize the spiritual exercises. The Daughters of Charity are obligated to conduct themselves at all places where they find themselves among people with as much modesty, purity of heart and body, detachment from creatures, and edification as the true religious in the seclusion which is characteristic for their cloister.200

Vincent describes the spiritual exercises with just four words: modesty, purity of heart and body, detachment from creatures, and edification. (1) Modesty is a spiritual exercise in interiorization, simplification, and concentration.201 Vincentian modesty internalizes the effect of the neighbor right into the core of one’s existence. (2) Purity of heart and body is aimed at the reception of God: “Just as God is purity itself, so I too want to be attached to him to keep me in purity” (X, 663). Purity consists in concrete exercises (XII, 419-413) but beyond that it aims at purity of heart: “There is a purity of the body and a purity of the spirit. Those who have a pure body do not necessarily have chastity. It is purity of spirit which shapes this virtue from within and makes it perfect. It is even the very essence of this virtue” (XII, 418). (3) The purpose of detachment is to separate creatures from the cocoon of a fixed and closed world of meaning in order to open them up as signs which speak for their Creator.202 Detachment is “so necessary that without this attitude you cannot fulfill the duty of your calling” (X, 155). (4) In the context of the spiritual life “edification” denotes processes of upbuilding which are opposed to tendencies of destruction and subversion.203 How can a person who is continually “outside” (at the places where the poor live, among people) be edified? The answer can only be found in a radical interiorization of the poor: an inner reception effected by exposure to the other; to 200

Règles Communes. H. Sieben, Receuillement. I. Genèse et premiers développements, in: DSp 13 (1988), 247255 and S. López Santidrían, Receuillement. II. Dans la spiritualité classique espagnole, ibid., 255-267. 202 “Détachement” is treated under “Dépouillement” in: DSp 3 (1957). 203 A. Thibaut, Édification, in: DSp 4 (1960), 279-293. 201

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open oneself to him or her in an attitude of pure attention which arises from the one Source of all life. This is an identity created (built up, “edified”) by love.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ARRONDO, J. Espiritualidad de la vida consegrada, Madrid 1994. Der Benediktinerorden. Gott suchen in Gebet und Arbeit, (Ed. C. Schütz & P. Rath), Mainz 1994. BILLY, D., Evangelical Kernels. A Theological Spirituality of the Religious Life, New YorkStaten Island (NY) 1993. CHITTISTER, J., The Fire in These Ashes. A Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life, Kansas City 1995. Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, (Ed. G. Pelliccia & G. Rocca), Rome 1974-1983. FRANK, K., Geschichte des christlichen Mönchtums, Darmstadt 1993. GERMAIN, E., La vie consacrée dans l’église. Approche historique, Paris 1994. GOULD, G., The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, Oxford 1993. GRAMLICH, R., Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums, Wiesbaden 1995-1996. HAWEL, P., Das Mönchtum im Abendland. Geschichte, Kultur, Lebensform, Freiburg etc. 1993. HORNE, J., Mysticism and Vocation, Waterloo (Ontario) 1996. LEBEAU, P., La vie religieuse. Un chemin d’humanité, Namur 1992. MALONEY, R., He Hears the Cry of the Poor. On the Spirituality of Vincent de Paul, Hyde Park (NY) 1995. MALONEY, R., The Way of Vincent de Paul. A Contemporary Spirituality in the Service of the Poor, Brooklyn (NY) 1992. MEZZADRI, L., Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), Averbode-Den Bosch 1994. Mönchsvater und Ordensgründer. Männer und Frauen in der Nachfolge Jesu, (Ed. J. Weismayer), Würzburg 1991. RENARD, J., Seven Doors to Islam. Spirituality and the Religious Life of Muslims, Berkeley (CA)-London 1996. SILBER, I., Virtuosity, Charisma, and Social Order. A Comparative Sociological Study of Monasticism in Theravada Buddhism and Medieval Catholicism, Cambridge-New York 1995. SMET, J., The Carmelites. A History of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Barrington-Darien (IL) 1975-1985. VINCENT DE PAUL, Correspondance, entretiens, documents, Paris 1920-1925. WAAIJMAN, K., The Mystical Space of Carmel, Leuven 1999.

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2.4. Spirituality and Culture In 1990 the international project “Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy” began its work in Amsterdam. Its purpose was to bring artists, academicians, spiritual leaders, and economists together in an ongoing dialogue guided by the question: how can the three pillars of culture (art, science, and spirituality) bring about renewal in the economy?204 In this project spirituality is viewed as a key cultural factor – a view which is beginning to penetrate important sectors of our culture. 1. Spirituality in business and industry. In the life of business and industry we see signs of growing interest in spirituality. Five factors mark the spiritual caliber of a business enterprise: (1) a sound business code in which the central values of an enterprise are defined and strategies for reaching these goals are indicated; (2) attention to product quality and taking proper steps to test and guard this quality internally; (3) appreciation for the person of one’s fellow worker and attention to mutual relations; (4) the social outlook of the business: does this company cut itself off from or make a contribution to the common interest? (5) responsibility for the quality of the environment. 2. Spirituality in education. Spirituality as an operative factor in the sphere of education implies a cultural change on three levels. (1) Educational institutions must focus on values other than knowledge and skills (cultural dominants); the aspect of religious formation and the instillation of a philosophy of life needs to be given an important place in the stated goals. (2) A consciousness-raising and formation process among teachers for whom religion, and everything that is associated with it, is taboo. Spirituality and mysticism are often treated incompetently. (3) Systematic attention to the spiritual world inhabited by youth. 3. Spirituality and health care. In present-day health care spirituality is beginning to get a little more attention205 from two perspectives. (1) The perspective of the sick: sick people do not coincide with their illness; they must not be “medicalized,” isolated, eliminated or exploited; they need to be respected as people with an integrity of their own. (2) The perspective of care: the spiritual life of patients needs to be explicitly involved in the care provided; the nursing staff needs to be competent; attention needs to be paid to the integrity of those providing nursing care. 204 Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy, (Ed. C. Tisdall, L. Wijers et al.), The Hague-London-New York 1990. 205 See for example: V. Benner Carson, Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice, Philadelphia 1989; A. Bradshaw, Lighting the Lamp. The Spiritual Dimension of Nursing Care, Harrow 1995; J. Harrison & P. Burnard, Spirituality and Nursing Practice, Aldershot 1993.

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4. Natural science and spirituality. After centuries of alienation, common ground between the natural sciences and spirituality is beginning to emerge.206 (1) In the search for the depth-structure of reality, the human search for meaning and values is present as co-determinative;207 the physical and psychological are to be viewed as a whole.208 (2) Spirituality and natural science both investigate the deeper layers of reality, thereby seeking to make intelligible the meaning of the concrete world.209 (3) Spirituality and science are linked by the structure of the search process: refusal to be bound by images or models; propelled solely by a passion for truth.210 5. Art and spirituality. In modern times art and spirituality have experienced a parallel development. In the last century modern art increasingly asserted its independence from institutions, first with respect to the church but later also in regard to the cultural and esthetic code. In spirituality we see something similar: here as well we see distancing movements with respect to the socio-religious code. In the meantime spirituality and art have nevertheless continued to seek each other out and to enrich each other.211 In this chapter we wish to take a closer look at three examples: wisdom as a form of knowing in ancient Israel; the culture-creating power of monasticism in the Benedictine centuries; some areas of interface between spirituality and present-day visual arts.

2.4.1. THE WISDOM SCHOOLS Alongside of the ancient family wisdom,212 in the circles of the royal court in Jerusalem but with a certain spread over the broader layers of the population as well, there developed a wisdom culture that was embedded in the extensive wisdom culture of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Syria. Its pragmatic and experienceoriented knowledge, preserved in collections of proverbs, parables, fables, and 206 K. Waaijman, Raakvlakken tussen natuurwetenschap en mystiek, in: Wending 39 (1983) no. 8, 501-508. 207 R. Jones, Physics as Metaphor, New York 1983. 208 H. van Erkelens, Natuurkunde in gesprek met de dieptepsychologie, in: Speling 39 (1986) no. 1, 62-67. 209 F. Capra, The Turning Point, New York 1982; F. Capra, The Tao of Physics. An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, Berkeley 1975. 210 F. Maas, De niets-ervaring als aanknopingspunt tussen mystiek en technische cultuur, in: Speling 33 (1981) no. 4, 67-76. 211 B. Borchert & K. Waaijman, Raakvlakken tussen spiritualiteit en kunst, in: Speling 40 (1988) no. 3, 5-19. 212 For this see part 1, ch. 1.2.

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maxims, has in view a varied target group: courtiers, civil servants, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Wisdom teachers address these groups with respect to their public functions. Wisdom takes its stand at “the crossroads” (Prov. 8:2). In view of the high literary-culture displayed here, a developed educational system must have existed already in the early period of the kings. Wisdom spirituality is essentially a matter of “being schooled together.” On the one hand, this “being schooled together” took place in the broader framework of society, which is itself already an assimilation of experience and communication of values; on the other hand, it was expressly situated in a tradition: people pondered proverbs, parables, didactic poems as “experiences of orders, indeed of laws, of the truth of which men have become convinced in the course of many generations.”213 The ultimate goal of this training was to enable pupils, in well-turned phrases, to give advice, to render expert judgment on very divergent situations, and conduct themselves well. This wisdom culture spread an “enlightened” spirituality214 whose aim was to initiate a critical examination of immanent processes and laws: “In the community life of men, in their economic activity, but also in man’s keeping company with himself, either in moderation or in excess, certain inherent determining factors can be observed which would be worth having in fixed form.”215 1. Knowledge of experience Wisdom is a form of knowledge which is described with a number of different terms. The starting point is the distinction (bina and tebuna) which is based on the ability to see differences (Prov. 2:2-3; 3:18; 8:1). For that reason one of the key didactic devices is the similitude or parable (mashal) in which two data are held up side by side. The attentive pupil discerns both the difference and the connection. But discrimination is not enough. One must also be able to see the difference between surface and depth, between truth and illusion. This is possible only when the knower has a true intuitive “feel” (da‘at) for the object (Prov. 1:4; 9:10; 11:9). Such a grasp and such discernment is the condition for opening up the future: for perspective, planning, and assessment (mezimma). This construction of a “way” (Prov. 1:4; 3:2; 5:2) calls for a disciplined attitude (musar) which is acquired by discipline and education (Prov. 1:8; 3:11; 4:13). Wisdom (chokma) in all this is experience: familiarity with the object (cf. Ps. 104:27). This fabric of cognitive forms only works when it is guided by respect (yir’a): reverence, awe, astonishment, sensitivity. Those who do not have it do not accumulate experience and cannot make the necessary distinctions. 213

G. Von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, London 1972, 90. Ibid., 59. 215 Ibid., 61. 214

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2. Learning and doing Psalm 34 is a wisdom psalm alphabetically arranged. In the middle part (vv. 915) the wisdom teacher summons his pupils to “taste and see” what the core is of the experiences described just before this section. Taste and see: yes, Be-er is good! Happy the strong who seek refuge in him. Respect Be-er, you his saints, No lack have they who respect him (vv. 9-10).

The teacher makes an appeal to the pupil’s receptivity: he must taste and see that it is Be-er’s goodness which is imparted in experiences of suffering and happiness, fear and protection (vv. 4-7). This calls for an attitude of trust (taking refuge) and extreme sensitivity (deep respect). In the same middle section the teacher summons his pupils to an active receptivity which expresses itself in conduct. Go, sons, listen to me: I will teach you respect for Be-er. Who is the man who finds satisfaction in life, covets many days to enjoy the good? Keep your tongue from evil, your lips from deceitful speech. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it (vv. 11-14).

The teacher summons his pupils to behavior that is full of respect: no slander, no deceit, no evil doing; but doing good, pursuing peace. Now respect is no longer receptivity (“taste and see”) but practice (doing). The two forms of respect (receptivity and virtuousness) belong together and supplement each other. 3. The good life The sages thought about political, social and economical relations, about the fortunes and misfortunes of life, and about inevitable death. In this connection, they preferred to analyze people’s inner attitude: how the inner life manifests itself in a person’s outer conduct and especially how he can conceal his inner motives behind an external facade; the secrets of the heart, his fears and illusions: the ambiguous phenomenon of shame, and so forth (Job 8:20ff.; 20:22ff.; Jes. Sir. 4:20-26; 41:14-42:8; and so forth). In addition to psychological truths, also nature was the object of knowledge: plants, animals, land and water, celestial bodies and the seasons. In the wisdom schools the sages sought as open-mindedly as possible to illumine possible relations, states of affairs, and experiences. This did not mean that their judgments were value-free. “Explicitly or implicitly in the sentences, evaluations were continually being made and questions of judgment being decided; and this took place against a background of basic

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knowledge which also gave one moral obligations.”216 The central value was the good: the virtuous, the pleasing, the enjoyable all wrapped up together. “The good was experienced by her [Israel] quite simply as a force, as something which determined life, something experienced daily as effective, that is as something present, about which there need be as little discussion as about light and darkness.”217 Good and evil are all-pervasive powers. “Of life-forming forces whose power was obvious to all… there was no discussion among the teachers.”218 4. The Source of the good Wisdom spirituality is realized in the context of real life that is experienced as good. The essence of this goodness is Be-er: “The experiences of the world were for her [Israel] always divine experiences as well, and the experiences of God were for her experiences of the world.”219 The teachers simply did not know of any reality not controlled by Be-er.220 Be-er constitutes the core of creation (Prov. 3:19; cf. 16:1, 4; 22:2; 29:13) and the soul of the house (Ps. 127:1; cf. Prov. 10:22). He is the source of fertility, the giver of a life companion, the decisive factor in battle, a helper before the court. As he faces chaotic reality, the wise man orients himself to Be-er who is the center of knowable reality, a center that must consistently be sought out anew. This deeply respectful bond to Be-er comes to expression in a life that conserves things and so validates itself (see Prov. 3:7, 9, 33; 8:13, 35; 11:1; 12:22; 14:2; 16:11; 21:3; and so forth). 5. Divine inspiration In the book of Proverbs God comes to the fore as a personal God: a support for people who are weak and helpless, a helper to the righteous who attempts to live a wise, honest, humble, and devout life.221 This help especially applies to insight into reality: “While I was still young, before I went on my wanderings, I publicly sought wisdom in my prayer. Before the temple I asked for it and I will search for it until the end” (Sir. 51:13-14). Before the eyes of the entire community (in public; standing before the temple) the wise man appeals to God (to pray, implore, ask) that he may receive wisdom. “If Be-er, who is great, is willing, he [the wise man] will be filled with a spirit of discernment” (Sir. 39:6). The discovery of depth and the discernment of God’s workings are grace. The wise man is filled with it only if God is willing. Hence there are two sides to wisdom: 216

Ibid., 64. Ibid., 77. 218 Ibid., 77. 219 Ibid., 62. 220 Cf. Ibid., 64. 221 L. Boström, The God of the Sages, Stockholm 1990. 217

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the wise man tries “by prayer to obtain it” (Sir. 51:13-14) and he obtains it only “when God is willing” (Sir. 39:6). The wise man is situated in the field of tension between prayer and contemplation. He prays for a spirit of contemplation. Only a person who is blessed with this contemplative wisdom is truly a teacher: “he will pour forth words of wisdom of his own and give thanks to Be-er in his prayer. he excels in understanding and grasps that which was hidden from him” (cf. Sir. 39:7-9). 2.4.2. THE BENEDICTINE CENTURIES From the sixth through the tenth century Europe saw developments which were in large measure defined by the monastic life. Especially the Benedictines influenced culture on numerous levels: spiritual, liturgical, scientific, artistic, administrative, and economic. Mind you, we are speaking here of a gradual process. Several factors, among them the power and flexibility of the Rule of Benedict but certainly also major political and ecclesiastical policies, conspired to bring about that the richly variegated and locally conditioned religiosities of the West ultimately coincided with the Benedictine profile. Gradually, therefore, the charism of Benedict could achieve a cultural impact which warrants our speaking of the “Benedictine centuries.” 1. The distinctive features of Benedictism In the period of the decline of the Roman empire and the rise of new peoples we witness how the different local forms of religious life – which were initially marked by their own individual accents within a number of variables (social distance; ascetic severity; degree of organization; culture-connectedness; forms of prayer; study and prayer; stability or peregrination; mission and apostolate, and so forth) – grew, via a process of mutual exchange, political direction and church embeddedness, toward greater uniformity.222 In this process of increasing uniformity three lines of power emerged. (1) The growing influence of the Rule of Benedict. Initially the monasteries followed different rules: each monastery composed its own, the so-called “mixed rule” (regula mixta). Around 700 A.D. the monks took the Rule of Benedict to England. From Ripon, Wilfrid’s monastery, the Rule spread all over the island in order from there, through the work of missionary monks (Willibrord, Boniface), to conquer the continent of Northern Europe. Meanwhile the Rule had gained influence in Western France as well. 222 J. Leclercq, Monasticism and Asceticism. II. Western Christianity, in: Christian Spirituality. Origins to the Twelfth Century (WS 16), London 1986, 113-123; K. Frank, With Greater Liberty. A Short History of Christian Monasticism and Religious Orders, Kalamazoo 1993, 53-68.

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(2) Carolingian politics. Charlemagne, in expanding his empire, made adept use of the abbeys. On uncultivated ground he founded monasteries which, as a result of the dogged labor of monks, became flourishing oases. The so-called “royal” monasteries became the bridgeheads of the Carolingian imperial organization. In non-Christianized areas they were pawns in a missionary strategy.223 Between 800 and 820 A.D. some 600 monasteries (not counting Italy) were started in this manner and, as much as possible, brought under the same monastic regime. Under Louis the Pious this unification process was completed. At the Council of Aachen the Rule of Benedict was made obligatory for the entire imperial church. (3) The clericalization of the religious life. Several factors played a crossfertilizing role in this development. First of all: from ancient times there had been clerical communities which exhibited considerable resemblance to the monastic life. Further: many bishops founded monasteries from which they later recruited their clergy and which often again produced new bishops. Finally: monastic communities themselves needed priests for the celebration of the eucharist. To that end monks were consecrated from their own midst. In their construction the great abbeys mirrored the clerical hierarchy from top to bottom. 2. The cultural impact Initially a monastery consisted in a small building which gave shelter to from twelve to twenty residents. In the Carolingian period the monastery developed into an enormous complex built around one or more courtyards. Aside from the monastery church there were lodgings for large numbers of monks, offices for the administration of extensive farm lands, guest rooms and rooms for lay personnel. Add to this that in large abbeys a center was arranged for the citizenry with an almoner’s house, a hospital, a school, halls for assemblies of subordinates, and a judicial hall for the administration of criminal justice. An entire complex of intentions was reflected in the architecture of such a monastery city. “A place for monastic life, the base for missionary activity and a center of ecclesiastical and cultural activity.”224 The cultural impact of the abbey first of all consisted in the cultivation of the grounds, agriculture, cattle-breeding, and the building of a monastery plus annexes. With that an entire region was opened up to development.225 Within the monasteries a many-sided cultural life sprang up: science, art, jurisprudence. Scriptoria and libraries provided for the distribution and preservation of texts. In his Admonitio generalis of 789 Charlemagne called for the founding of schools in all monasteries. 223

K. Frank, ibid., 77. Boniface, Epistola 86, quoted in K. Frank, ibid., 76. 225 Ibid., 77. 224

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Cultural impact not only insured the presence of the monastery in the world but also the reverse: the world penetrated the monastery. Civil authorities obligated monks to furnish prayer support and economic quid pro quos; they asserted claims on guest lodgings and demanded a voice in the selection of abbots. This intertwinement of power ultimately meant the demise of the great abbeys, a fact which in turn provoked a thorough-going reform movement: the reform of Cluny at the beginning of the tenth century. Decisive in this reform movement was that reformed monasteries regained their autonomy (abbot selection by themselves) and freed themselves from the influence of the nobility and bishops (exemption). Consequently the door was opened for a reinterpretation of the Rule of Benedict. Another new feature was that the monasteries sealed off their local autonomy in a confederation of reformed monasteries. For the first time in the history of the religious life there was created a true order (ordo), with a central leadership, and established usages (consuetudinas). At the beginning of the twelfth century some 2000 monasteries had united within the order of Cluny. 3. Benedictine spirituality Benedictine spirituality can best be read from the Rule which is attributed to Benedict of Nursia and was designed for a monastic community in Monte Cassino (Italy).226 In an original way this rule integrates the eremitic (in the early chapters, based especially on the Rule of the Master [Regula magistri], the longest and most detailed rule of that time, early sixth century) with the cenobitic life form (in the later chapters, based more on Pachomius, Basil, and Augustine). It is practical and simple, flexible and wise. Spiritually severe, it is moderate in the direction of practice. It especially stresses harmony: pray and work; obedience and conscience. The Rule of Benedict views the monastic community as a school for those who are “really seeking God.”227 His presence is experienced in the protective and peaceful atmosphere which the place and the community breathe. His presence is experienced especially in two situations. (1) The liturgy is performed in God’s presence228 and is filled with reverence before him.229 (2) The abbot is Christ’s deputy230 and mediates the will of God.231 God is present in the guests, the sick,

226

T. Kardong, The Benedictines, Wilmington (DE) 1988. The Rule of Benedict, Dublin 1994, 58. 228 Rule of Benedict, 19. 229 Ibid., 11; 43. 230 Ibid., 2. 231 Ibid., 2; 5; 64. 227

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and the young.232 The intent of the spiritual exercises is for monks to “taste” the presence of God. There is first of all the life of the community which induces self-centeredness to turn outward,233 instills respect for others,234 and directs the soul toward God.235 What is true for obedience applies to all spiritual exercises (vigils, fasting, lectio divina, prayer): they are aimed at the purity of heart which is receptive to God’s presence.236 This purity has two aspects: with respect to God it is filled with awe,237 practiced in prayer and silence, obedience and Scripture reading;238 with respect to humans it is a humble and a contrite heart which expresses itself in tears but is at the same time filled with deep religious joy and peace.239 All exercises converge in love: love for God and love among brothers. The end of the Rule makes this point expressly.240 4. Longing for the heavenly Jerusalem To monks and the people who lived nearby the monastery is a symbol of the heavenly Jerusalem and expresses the longing for it. “Devotion to heaven” is the most important motif to which the monks of the Middle Ages gave expression: “Monks preferably used the new language they had created to express that longing for heaven which so captivated the heart of every contemplative that it became the most prominent characteristic of the monastic life.”241 The monastery presents the heavenly Jerusalem in tangible form. Everything that happens in or is initiated by the monastery is an opportunity to participate in this Jerusalem. In that sense the monastic life is a foretaste (praegustatio) of the joys of heaven. The monks and practicing Christians living in a monastery prayerfully interiorize this Jerusalem. Longing for Jerusalem is the manner in which they “taste” this heavenly fatherland. This longing springs from their having been touched by the pain of love (compunctio). Sorrow over their lostness arouses in them the longing which draws them into God. Thus the travelers already “taste” their homeland from afar.242

232

Ibid., 31; 53; 85. Ibid., 5. 234 Cf. ibid., 34. 235 Ibid., Prologue 1-3. 236 Ibid., 2; 20; 39-41; 48. 237 Ibid; Prologue 29; chs. 2; 65; 72. 238 Ibid., 2; 4; 6; 9; 11; 19; 20; 31. 239 Ibid., Prologue 49; chs. 6; 7; 49. 240 Ibid., 72. 241 J. Leclercq, Initiation aux auteurs monastiques du moyen âge, Paris 1963, 55. 242 Gregory the Great, Moralia lib 7, cap 13 (PL 75, 774-775). 233

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2.4.3. SPIRITUALITY AND ART In 787 A,.D., at the second council of Nicea, the controversy over the veneration of icons was settled in favor of its proponents. In order to justify the paradoxical situation of the presence of the transcendent God in a visible icon made by human hands the council conducted a defense in which three perspectives converged. These three perspectives may prove useful as we describe the spirituality operative in the visual arts.243 (1) There is no immediate divine presence in the icon. The presence of God imparts itself only to one who in his interpretive activity reaches out to the Transcendent.244 (2) The icon points away from itself; it respects the honor of the Holy One. Reverently to look up to the icon is to be seen by the Holy One from whom the icon receives its venerability and to whom the icon returns it.245 (3) Realized in the icon is the continual transition from the visible to the invisible, just as in Christ the human and the divine nature continually pass into each other.246 1. The element of interpretation “The original is not all at once at our disposal; true original reality does not break through all at once, nor do we all at once get into touch with it in order to create it.”247 A spiritual insight into a work of art is an interpretive insight, just as the creation of a spiritual work of art is an interpretive creation: groping for the quintessential. A good example of this interpretive component is Piet Mondrian’s way of painting. Looking at his paintings, one might think that he saw and gave shape to a pre-existing harmony. Actually, preceding this terminal point of a tranquil equilibrium of planes, lines, and colors, there were numerous studies in which, proceeding from concrete objects, he arrived at what he conceived to be their essential structure. By examining trees as he painted them one after another, he imagined and depicted the deeper reality. These studies were exercises in the art of really seeing. When Mondrian went to Paris, he explored the roofs and facades of the metropolis just as he had earlier attempted to “see” trees right down to their structural essence. In 1942 he described his manner of painting as follows: “Only over a long period of time did I arrive at

243 We are following F. Maas who builds on the study of Jean-Luc Marion, Das Prototyp des Bildes, in: Wozu Bilder im Christentum? Beiträge zur theologischen Kunsttheorie, (Ed. A. Stock), St. Ottilien 1990, 117-135. See F. Maas, Schoonheid vraagt om goed gezelschap, Vught 1997, 11-18. 244 F. Maas, ibid., 13. 245 Ibid., 13. 246 Ibid., 14. 247 Ibid., 14.

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the insight that individual forms and natural colors evoke subjective states of feeling which obscure the pure essence of reality. The appearance of natural forms changes, but reality remains true to itself. The depiction of pure reality necessarily requires that natural forms be reduced to the constant elements of form and natural color to the primary colors.”248 Hence, looking at a Mondrian painting, one is confronted with the terminal point of a process of searching. In the course of this search his gaze was thoroughly transformed into a tranquil “seeing” of the essential. We see the same thing in Paul Cézanne. According to him the true artist is in search of true reality. He leaves the exterior behind him. All his attention is focused on the elementary simplicity of reality itself. In that sense, says Cézanne, by producing or seeing a painting, one is born into a new world and achieves a new life.249 2. Awed respect The icon points away from itself; it respects the honor of the Holy One. This is its sublimity or rather its freedom from having to be sublime. The actual eludes it. This produces pain in the viewer or reduces him or her to silence, or arouses fear. Some paintings cause hurt by their sovereign particularity. Such a work of art rests in itself. It radiates sovereignty and arouses awed respect in the viewer. It is the experience of many artists that something remarkable happens during the artistic process. Poets call it “inspiration”: “You write something which – at least if it’s good – far exceeds your own intentions. That’ a religious experience. It would be ridiculous to deny it,” said Jean-Pierre Ravie in an interview.250 Painters experience that at the very moment when a painting – at least according to the rules of the art – seem to have reached the point of completion, it gets out of hand. Something that is bigger than the making of it insinuates itself into the process: “In any case, in that which is perceptible to the senses – form, color, language or sound – a dimension makes itself felt that cannot be simply reduced to these elements. The work of art escapes the control both of its maker and of the receiver. An unknown reality serves notice of its presence of which no human being can automatically claim to be in charge. One could call it grace.”251 There is a “surplus component” which, beyond the limits of the trade but fully employing its methods and skills, animates the work. 248 Cited by B. Borchert, in: K. Waaijman, Mystiek in het joodse leerhuis, in: Speling 33 (1981) no. 1, 106. 249 J. van der Lans, Kernervaring, esthetische emotie en religieuze betekenisgeving, Nijmegen 1998, 19-20. 250 In the daily Trouw, January 23, 1999. 251 F. Maas, Kunst, schoonheid en het religieuze, in: Speling 50 (1998) no. 3, 7.

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Jean-Michel Alberola: “The paintings take so long to come into being that I feel compelled to give thanks to the art of painting for this birth (…). It is simply a matter of giving thanks to God; I give thanks to the art of painting. That’s all.”252 To Jean Michel Alberola art is giving thanks, an attitude he expresses in his own painting. “In large elegant letters, as something from another time, he paints the word GRACIAS. Other canvases he calls Ex-votos – it is clearly readable in big red letters.”253 3. Involvement The interpretive act of reaching out to what is being mediated in and through a work of art and the acknowledgment of and awed respect for that which both makes itself present to and eludes the viewer is sustained by an assumed “dialogic,” which in Christian spirituality is trinitarian in structure and anchored in the person of Christ. “The enjoyment of beauty, from a Christian perspective, implies existential involvement in the God-given sanctification of that which is perceptible by the senses. It means to be in communication with the divine life of love which encompasses all of reality, also that which is perceptible by the senses. To enjoy beauty is to be fundamentally involved in the religious conviction that God is concerned about and penetrates this world.”254 The key phrase is “getting involved with.” This involvement, which is aroused by way of the senses, covers the whole spectrum from being “moved” to being “touched”: stimulation, amazement, excitement, bafflement. When a person is spiritually moved this “being touched” runs deeper. When people speak of what art does for them they almost always say that it has made them into different persons.255 Deeper layers of their personhood have been brought to the surface. In a situation where people have been touched spiritually we are looking at an experience so deep and so moving that viewers begin to view themselves differently than they do in the case of everyday conditionings.256 Being touched or moved is the starting point on this emotional spectrum. It sets fundamental layers of the viewer’s psyche in motion. The other end of this spectrum is “rapture,” “transport,” “the surrender to something bigger than oneself. It is not just a matter of

252

Quoted by D. van Speybroeck, Wat geeft ziel aan een kunstwerk? in: Speling 50 (1998) no.

3, 28. 253

Ibid., 29. F. Maas, ibid., 17-18. 255 C. Benson, The Absorbed Self. Pragmatism, Psychology and Aesthetic Experience, London 1993. 256 H. Mertens, Ook schoonheid is een naam voor God. Kunst als bron van theologie, in: Collationes 26 (1996), 227-249. 254

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releasing inner tension. The piece of art which moves us is recognized as something bigger than we are, something to which we can surrender ourselves.”257 BIBLIOGRAPHY Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy, (Ed. C. Tisdall et al), ’s-Gravenhage-Amsterdam 1990. Art Meets Science and Spirituality, London-New York 1990. BAGGLEY, J., Doors of Perception. Icons and Their Spiritual Significance, Crestwood (NY) 1995. BENEVENT, M., Entre science et spiritualité. L’indispensable renouveau, Nimes 1992. BOSTRÖM, L., The God of the Sages. The Portrayal of God in the Book of Proverbs, Stockholm 1990. BRUGHETTI, F., Estetica espiritual, Buenos Aires (Argentina) 1991. CAPRA, F., & STEINDL-RAST, D., Belonging to the Universe. Explorations on the Frontiers of Science and Spirituality, San Francisco 1992. CONSTABLE, G., Culture and Spirituality in Medieval Europe, Aldershot-Brookfield (VT) 1996. EATON, J., The Contemplative Face of Old Testament Wisdom. In the Context of World Religions, London-Philadelphia (PA) 1989. De geest verbeeld, Speling 50 (1998) no. 3. KARDONG, T., The Benedictines. Wilmington (DE) 1988. KARDONG, T., Commentaries on Benedict’s Rule, Richardton (ND) 1987. MAAS, F., Schoonheid vraagt om goed gezelschap, Vught 1997. NASR, S., Islamic Art and Spirituality, Ipswich-Albany 1987. Neglected Wells. Spirituality and the Arts, (Ed. A. Murphy & E. Cassidy), Blackrock (CO)-Dublin 1997. Ondernemerschap en spiritualiteit, Speling 45 (1993) no. 4. Quantum Questions. Mystical Writings of the World’s Great Physicists, (Ed. K. Wilber), Boulder-London 1984. RAD, G. VON, Wisdom in Israel, London 1972. Sacred Interconnections, Postmodern Spirituality, Political Economy, and Art, (Ed. D. Griffin), Albany 1990. SHELDRAKE, R., & FOX, M., Natural Grace. Dialogues on Science and Spirituality, London 1996. Spirituality and Culture, The Way 25 (1985) no. 3. Spirituality and the Artist, The Way Supplement, no. 66 (1989). VOGÜÉ, A. DE, Ce que dit saint Benoît. Une lecture de la règle, Bégrolles-en-Mauges (Maine-et-Loire) 1991. VOGÜÉ, A. DE, Etudes sur la règle de Saint Benoît. Nouveau recueil, Bégrolles-en-Mauges (Maine-et-Loire) 1996. De vormkracht van spiritualiteit, Speling 40 (1988) no. 3. 257

N. Frijda, De emoties, Amsterdam 1993, 373.

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2.5. Reformation Reformation is a complex occurrence in which there are three interactive components. (1) an appeal to the past by which a reformation is nurtured and legitimated; (2) an assessment of the present; (3) a hermeneutic mediation between the two. Depending on the component that is highlighted in a given reformation one speaks of ressourcement (renaissance, restoration), renewal (aggiornamento, adaptation, modernization), or renewed reflection (revival, reinterpretation, resumption, translation). 1. The appeal to the past. The most ancient reformation in the Jewish-Christian tradition is the reformation of Josiah (639-609 B.C.), which was started the moment a torah-book was “discovered” in the temple, the so-called second torah (Deuteronomy). Josiah sought a return to traditional values: unity around Be-er and the centralization of the cult that goes with it. Another example is the spirituality of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus expressly states that he does not want to change the text of the torah (Matt. 5:17-19) but only has in view a reinterpretation of Scripture which makes possible a reading of Scripture which goes beyond a legalistic interpretation (Matt. 5:20). Jesus makes this reading (Matt. 5:17) possible in a variety of ways: by laying bare the origin of an offense or commandment (Matt. 5:21-22; 27-28 and so forth); by broadening the scope of a commandment (Matt. 5:33-34; 38-39 and so forth); by harking back to the situation before Moses (Matt. 12:1-8; 19:8); or by appealing to the humanity that lies beyond every religious commandment (Matt. 12:9-12). The Sermon on the Mount reforms Jewish spirituality on the basis of its own Jewish origin. We see comparable ressourcements in the reformation which reads Scripture in light of its original languages and in the orders which go back to the original Rule. 2. Connectedness with the context. No reformation can be understood apart from its historical context. Josiah’s reformation, for example, took place at a time when the Assyrian empire was waning and Babylonia was not yet strong. The resulting power vacuum was exploited by Josiah to bring out the distinctive features of Israel’s identity: one people, with one capital in which the one Name Be-er dwells (Deut. 6:4-5). Another example: the reformation of the mendicant orders in large part consisted in finding a religiously acceptable form for the expanding poverty movement, a drive toward democratization and the rise of a new scientific culture.258 A third example: the Modern Devotion (Devotio 258 K. Frank, With Greater Liberty. A Short History of Christian Monasticism and Religious Orders, Kalamazoo 1993, 147-165.

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Moderna). This renewal movement cannot be understood apart from the context of the Late Middle Ages: a church which could not stand up to the Western schism; decline in the religious communities; national movements; the power of rationalism. 3. Mediation. Reformation is not a chemical process in which past and present interact without mediation. People are needed who experience the process of translation in themselves: Bernard of Clairvaux and William of St. Thierry, Dominic and Francis, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. They related tradition and the signs of the time to each other. In that way Cluny managed to escape local influences (exemption by securing the right to choose its own abbots and the creation of a confederation of monasteries) and used that freedom to read a new dimension in and out of the Benedictine tradition.259 Teresa of Avila linked a modern psychology oriented to inwardness with a re-reading of the Carmelite Rule in which she discovered strong signals of inner life, meditation, and contemplation. We will now explore the phenomenon of reformation in somewhat greater detail with the aid of three examples: the reformation of Josiah, the Modern Devotion, and the renewal of the religious life under the aegis of the Second Vatican Council. 2.5.1. THE DEUTERONOMIC REFORMATION The Deuteronomic reformation was spearheaded around 700 B.C. in circles which on the basis of collections of ancient laws aimed at a back-to-the-sources national renewal. Under King Josiah (639-609 B.C.) this movement got its chance to put its ideas into practice.260 Its program is spelled out in the so-called “core” of Deuteronomy (Deut. 12-26)261 which in the main agrees with the torah-book which was “discovered” in the temple in 622 B.C. The reformation occurred in the period in which the Assyrian empire lost its hegemony. Josiah used the resulting power vacuum to bring about a revival of a part of ancient Israel under David. The core of the reformation is the establishment of the Name (Be-er) in the center of the kingdom: Jerusalem. 1. The place He will choose as a dwelling for his Name The Deuteronomic reformation came to its most drastic expression in the centralization of the cult in Jerusalem. At the expense of local shrines the temple of Jerusalem became the only place where Be-er could be worshipped. In the Deuteronomic movement this centralization was described with phrases like: 259

K. Frank, Geschichte des christlichen Mönchtums, Darmstadt 1993, 61. M. Rose, Der Ausschliesslichkeitsanpruch Jahwes. Deuteronomische Schultheologie und die Volksfrömmigkeit in der späten Königszeit, Stuttgart-Berlin etc. 1975, 156-169. 261 Ibid., 18-100. 260

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“the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name” (Deut. 12:11; 14:23; 16:2, 6, 11; 26:2; Neh. 1:9), “the place he chooses to put his Name there” (Deut. 12:5, 21; 14:24; 1 Kgs. 14:21; 2 Kgs. 21:4, 7; 2 Chron. 6:20; 12:13; 33:7). Some scholars have interpreted these phrases on the assumption that the Deuteronomic movement viewed the Name as an independent entity, a hypostasis, which had to replace Be-er himself.262 Be-er had himself represented in the cult by his Name which received signs of homage there.263 Objections have been raised against this approach. The reference in these phrases, after all, is not to the Name as an hypostasis but to “a place where on divine instruction – and that no doubt also means on the basis of Yahweh’s manifestation – and with full authority, the I am Yahweh is spoken and under its auspices Yahweh’s merciful acts and law are proclaimed.”264 The reference is to “Yahweh’s personal presence manifest in the cultic realm.”265 It is correctly pointed out in this connection, moreover, that “causing his Name to dwell” concretely means that the Name was proclaimed: “the solemn proclamation of the name of God at the cult site by Yahweh himself.”266 In the proclamation of the Name by the priest or by the people Be-er makes himself present in Jerusalem in order to be present there in perpetuity.267 2. The place which he chooses Preceding the above-mentioned phrases one often encounters the verb “to choose.” Choosing indicates a personal act of “turning to.”268 Be-er moves himself to Jerusalem. There is no difference between “the place Be-er chooses” and “the place Be-er chooses to make his Name dwell there.”269 For “the place he chooses” implies an essential movement which is only made explicit in the addition “to make his Name dwell there.” In all this we must not forget that “the place he chooses” is understood as “the midst of the people.” The electing act of “turning to” centers the people. Be-er chooses a place in order that there the people will be found.270 The house of David and the well-being of the people take 262

G. von Rad, Das Gottesvolk im Deuteronomium, Stuttgart 1929, 37; O. Grether, Name und Wort Gottes im Alten Testament, Giessen 1934, 31-35; M. Rose, ibid., 88-90. 263 O. Grether, ibid., 34. 264 W. Zimmerli, Das Wort des göttlichen Selbsterweises, eine prophetische Gattung, in: Mélanges bibliques, rédigés en l’honneur d’André Robert, (Ed. G. Contenau et al.), Paris 1957. 265 A. van der Woude, shem, in: ThLOT III (1997), 1362. 266 Ibid., 1361. 267 A. Hulst, shkn, in: ThLOT III (1997), 1327-1330. 268 J. Bergman, H. Ringgren & H. Seebass, bachar, in: ThDOT II (1975), 73-87; H. Wildberger, bachan, in ThLOT I (1997), 209-226. 269 Against M. Rose, Der Ausschliesslichkeitsanspruch Jahwes, Stuttgart-Berlin etc., 1975, 84ff. 270 J. Bergman, H. Ringgren, & H. Seebass, ibid., 80-81; H. Kraus, Psalmen 60-150 (BK XV/2), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1978, 1056-1061.

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place in the movement of election (Ps. 132:13-17), in the Place Yahweh chooses.271 3. The establishment of the Name The name “Yahweh” which dwells in Jerusalem has both an exterior aspect and an interior one. The exterior aspect is the radiance which the Name sends forth from Jerusalem over Israel and the whole world. Just as a name, “inlaid” in a stone, emits its radiance over a wide surrounding area,272 so the Name emits its radiance from within Zion. The radiance of the Name is the rule of Be-er.273 The proclamation of the Name is the affirmation of ownership, the act of making it public.274 The “interior aspect” of the Name-event is the cultic proclamation of the Name which must certainly have been surrounded with stipulations for a cultically correct pronunciation. The protection of the divine name, in terms of form and pronunciation, was one of the most important tasks of the priest. Now then, the fact that according to the Deuteronomic movement the name “Be-er” could only be cultically proclaimed in Jerusalem meant that the authorized pronunciation was preserved there: the one Yahweh. 4. Yahweh is one Central in the Deuteronomic reformation is the summons: “Hear, O Israel, Be-er, our Mighty One, Be-er is one! You shall love Be-er your Mighty One, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:4, 5). This summons comprises three semantic layers. (1) There is only one Yahweh.275 It is the intent of the summons to create a barrier against the fragmentation of Yahweh over various sanctuaries, each with a divergent depiction of Yahweh, a different liturgy, a (politically-important!) divergent reading of history and a popularizing legitimization of its own.276 The summons is foundational to the centralization of the cult: there is just one place chosen by Yahweh to make his Name dwell there, for Yahweh is one.277 The Shema “most clearly expresses Yahweh’s unity and exclusivity.”278 As such the Deuteronomic school features this 271 272

K. Waaijman, Psalmen 120-134, Kampen 1978, 101-110. E. Sollenberger & J. Kupper, Inscriptions royales Sumériennes et Akkadiennes, Paris 1971, 128-

129. 273

M. Rose, ibid., 92. J. Bergman, H. Ringgren, & H. Seebass, ibid., 80-81. 275 N. Lohfink & J. Bergman, ’echad, in: ThDOT I (1975), 193-201; M. Rose, ibid., 136140; G. Sauer, ’echad, in: ThLOT I (1997), 78-80. 276 O. Bächli, Israel und die Völker. Eine Studie zum Deuteronomium, Zürich-Stuttgart 1962, 29. 277 M. Rose, ibid., 139, 167. 278 G. Sauer, ibid. 274

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summons at the beginning of its framework, at the beginning of its introductory discourse.279 (2) There is but one spelling of the Name. “For the history of the Yahweh-name the Josiah-reform meant a decisive change with respect to the spelling: from yhw into yhwh.”280 Why did the Josiah-reformation introduce the uniform spelling YHWH which, after Josiah, barring a few exceptions (proper names, hallelujah, and the like), was to be rigorously maintained throughout the entire written tradition? The primary motive must have been that this spelling clearly distinguished the Name from every other name. The spelling prevents any confusion with the Yahwistic sanctuaries in the South.281 It especially meant a firm rejection of the yhw-worship of Bethel and the other yhwsanctuaries in the Northern kingdom.282 Furthermore, the spelling ensured a clear distinction between Yahweh and the Yoa- and Yau- gods in the Middle East. (3) The proclamation “Yahweh is one” cannot be read apart from what follows: “You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5).283 The statement “Yahweh is one” must be understood in light of the love-commandment of Deuteronomy.284 Be-er is uniquely one in the undivided love of Israel. The total orientation toward Israel which is Be-er finds its corresponding answer in the wholeness of Israel’s love, “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (vs. 5). Just as Be-er is one in his orientation, so Israel has to be one and undivided in its orientation.285 Already in the most ancient texts we find this declaration of love: “Today Be-er tells you he will be your Mighty One (…). Today Be-er has you tell him that you will be his own people” (Deut. 26:17-18).286 The partners mutually agree to a declaration of undivided attachment.287 2.5.2. THE MODERN DEVOTION The Late Middle Ages (14th-15th century) are a time of contrasts. On the one hand, there are acutely depressing things: plague epidemics, failed harvests, floods, the Hundred Years’ War, conflicts between the nobility and citizenry, 279

M. Rose, ibid., 138-140. M. Rose, Jahwe, Zürich 1978, 39, 43. 281 Ibid., 37. 282 Ibid., 35-36. 283 N. Lohfink, Das Hauptgebot, Rome 1963, 163-164; N. Lohfink, Höre, Israel!, Düsseldorf 1965, 63. 284 N. Lohfink & J. Bergman, ’echad, in: ThDOT I (1977), 196. 285 M. Rose, Der Ausschliesslichkeitsanspruch Jahwes, Stuttgart-Berlin etc. 1975, 141-142. 286 R. Smend, Die Bundesformel, Zürich 1963, 7-9; L. Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament, Neukirchen 1969, 105, 114. 287 M. Rose, Der Ausschliesslichkeitsanspruch Jahwes, 105. 280

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criminality, rising nationalism, oppressive church taxes, trade in church offices, the secularization of the clergy, decline in the religious life, the derailment of the hierarchy, conciliarism, the Western Schism, in short, “the Waning of the Middle Ages” (Johan Huizenga). On the other hand, there are hopeful tendencies: the poor of Christ (pauperes Christi) who from the beginning of the twelfth century already depicted Christ in personal poverty; the women’s movement (mutieres religiosae) which linked up with the monastic reforms of the Premonstratensians and Cistercians; the mendicant brothers (mendicantes) who in the emerging city culture teamed up with the minors (minores); the Beguines who opened themselves up to divine Love; the early humanist movement; the reform synods. Within this field of tension the Modern Devotion distinguished itself as a reform movement which from its center in the Yssel river valley spread out over North Western Europe.288 The initiator of this movement was Geert Grote (1340-1384).289 When he was ten years old his parents died of the plague. After attending the local city school, as a fifteen-year-old boy, he went to Paris where he obtained the degree of master of arts. He led the life of a simple cleric and gained ecclesiastical offices for himself. In 1374, as a result of a serious illness or a conversation with someone, he experienced a conversion. He burnt his books on magic, renounced his benefices, made his home available to poor devout women, gave away his possessions, and withdrew into a Carthusian monastery called Monnikhuizen (near Arnhem). There he became familiar with the most important sources of the Christian tradition. After a couple of years he came back into the world with the firm resolve to make his contribution to the renewal of the church. He had himself ordained as a deacon and started an itinerant preaching ministry to stimulate the inner renewal of the church and to expose abuses. By his zeal as a reformer, while he found approval, Geert Grote also made enemies among the owners of monasteries, benefice hunters, and priests living in concubinage. In 1383, after preaching a sensational sermon against the clergy, Grote was forced into silence. In this period of silence, however, he gave spiritual direction by letter, wrote his book on the Hours, and gave himself to building up the devout religious life. In 1384 he died of the plague. The Modern Devotion is a richly variegated movement which in the course of its development distinguished itself in several areas: church reform, the renewal 288

The term Modern Devotion was first used around 1450 by Pomerius and Busch, the chroniclers of this reform movement. 289 Th. van Zijl, Gerard Groote, Ascetic and Reformer (1340-1384), Washington 1963; G. Epiney-Burgard, Gérard Grote (1340-1384) et les débuts de la Dévotion moderne, Wiesbaden 1970. For a brief summary, see A. Weiler, Leven en werken van Geert Grote, 1340-1384, in: C. de Bruin, E. Persoons & A. Weiler, Geert Grote en de Moderne Devotie, Deventer-Zuthpen 1984, 9-55.

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of the religious life, the development of education, the articulation of the spiritual life, artistic depiction and book culture. Within this complex of activities a number of “power lines” stand out. 1. The common life Like so many other forms of religious community life, so also “the common life” of the Modern Devotion modeled itself on the mother church in Jerusalem: they were of one heart and soul and had all things in common. To the New Devout this common life is grounded in God, who is the most common and general good, in which as image of God we share and in which we enable others to share. This basic inspiration took shape in several forms of devout religious life.290 The first form is that of the sisters and brothers of the common life who, without distinction in status, without a monastic rule or vow, and without distinctive clothing, helped each other to find their way to God in poverty and silence. The second form is that of the third-order movement which in 1399 started the chapter of Utrecht and in the 15th century numbered more than 160 houses. The third form is the monastic movement which developed from its base in Windesheim (1387). As life model that of the regular canon was chosen and as rule that of Augustine. From Windesheim as base several cloisters were founded which in 1395 united in the chapter of Windesheim. 2. A book culture291 For Geert Grote – certainly influenced on this point by the Carthusians – books occupied an important place in his concept of reform. Books preserve the legacy of tradition. In this connection Scripture, naturally, has first place. The New Devout were committed to the edition of the Vulgate and worked hard for a Dutch translation. In his Book of Hours Grote translated a number of psalms and Bible pericopes. Not only Scripture but also other important works were collected and copied by the New Devout. This work served as an economic base for the first Devout communities. In addition it served as a source of meditation: in the course of copying these works, the copyists selected sayings deemed suitable for meditation and spiritual conversations.292 290

For descriptions from a historical and spiritual viewpoint, see the studies of R. van Dijk: De constituties der Windesheimse vrouwenkloosters vóór 1559, Nijmegen 1986; Die Devotio moderna als geistliches Raum des Klosters Frenswegen, in: Kloster-Leben. Vom Augustinerchorherrenstift zur ökumenischen Begegnungsstätte, (Ed. H. Vervoort), Nordhorn 1994, 7, 32; De spiritualiteit van de devote regulier, in: Ons Geestelijk Erfgoed 72 (1998), no. 1, 54-104. For an overview see E. Persoons, De verbreiding van de Moderne Devotie, in: C. de Bruin, E. Persoons & A. Weiler, Geert Grote en de Moderne Devotie, Deventer-Zutphen 1984, 57-100. 291 T. Kock, Die Buchkultur der Devotio Moderna, Frankfurt a.M.-Berlin,etc. 1999. 292 T. Mertens, Introduction, in: Florent Radewijns, Petit manuel pour le dévot moderne (Tractatulus devotus), (Ed. F. Legrand), Turnhout 1999, 7-37.

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3. Meditation In his treatise De quattor generibus meditabilium Geert Grote indicates four areas for meditation: Holy Scripture, revelations to the saints, pronouncements of the church fathers and later teachers, and the imagination. In relation to Scripture, meditation aimed at far-reaching identification with Jesus, especially in his suffering and death on the cross. As for revelations to the saints, by these revealed data the life of Jesus acquired color and concreteness.293 As for discursive reflection, from the literature of the Devout we know294 that it concerns reflection on one’s sins, meditations on death, judgment, and the joys of heaven. The last section (and here Geert Grote is most detailed) concerns the imagination: the imagination makes it possible for us to experience the life of Jesus from up close. 4. Inward devotion Meditation is part of a process. One reads a text (lectio) in order to picture vividly what has been read (meditatio). One fills his or her imagination with the material pictured, specficially of the suffering and crucified Christ, so that one’s heart may ignite in love for God (oratio). Sometimes this prayerful immersion in God is filled with consolation (contemplation). In this process the key is inwardness: one inwardly appropriates that which has been pictured in one’s meditation. The life of Jesus, especially his suffering, may not remain external but must be deeply imprinted in one’s heart. The same applies to one’s own sinfulness, death, the final judgment, God’s benefits, and heavenly joy. The final end of inwardness is union with God, a state modeled in Christ. 5. The Imitation of Christ The spirituality of the Modern Devotion has been brought to paradigmatic expression in The Imitation of Christ, written by Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471), a Devout of the second generation who lived as a contemplative in the Mount St. Agnes cloister for almost 72 years. The work consists of four little books (libelli) which were composed at intervals between 1420 and 1441 and finally gathered into a single volume.295 Each of the four booklets lays bare a dimension of the devout spirituality. The first booklet is situated in the field of tension between light and darkness: the monastery is the way to the light. The second booklet is situated in the field of tension between God and man: by recollection 293

See, for example, B. Ridderbos, De melancholie van de kunstenaar, ’s-Gravenhage 1991. See M. Goossens, De meditatie in de eerste tijd van de Moderne Devotie, Haarlem-Antwerpen 1954. 295 We are following the translation of G. Wijdeveld: Thomas a Kempis, De Navolging van Christus, Kapellen-Kampen 1995. We are following the autograph of 1441 in which book 4 follows book 3. In parentheses we first refer to the book, then to the chapter and finally, if necessary, to the verse. 294

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a person opens his or her inward self in order to receive God there. The third booklet concretizes this inwardness in the celebration of communion. The fourth booklet, finally, circles around the Self-communication of the Lord in the hearing of the son. Between light and darkness. The first booklet opens with the sentence: “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness” (John 8:12). With that statement the basic tension between darkness and light has been set forth. In the early chapters the darkness dominates. It is caused by self-sufficient knowledge (1.1-5), unregulated passions (1.6) and snares in social life (1.7-14). In describing this self-obscuration Thomas a Kempis keeps his eyes strictly focused on the light of Truth: “Happy are those to whom truth communicates itself directly, not by the intervention of passing images and sounds, but by truth as it is in its very nature” (1.3.1).* To be able to undergo the working of Truth one must turn away from the finite and turn to the Infinite: “Make up your mind to detach your heart from the love of visible things and turn it to invisible things” (1.1.20). The attitude which makes us fit to receive the invisible light of the truth is described with words like humility and respect based on self-knowledge (1.2), simplicity (1.3), and obedience (1.9). But the core is love (1.15-16). “Without love the performance of an action is worthless. The moment something is done out of love, however, no matter how little and insignificant it is, it produces a rich harvest. After all, what God takes into account is not so much the thing we do as the love that went into doing it. Those do much who love much” (1.15.3-5). There is a way out of the darkness: the light shining in the monastery (1.7) with its regular meditation on Scripture (1.5), its illustrious examples (1.18) and its wellaimed exercises (1.19-24). Thomas encourages “the fervent desire to make progress” (1.25.2) and despises lukewarmness and half-heartedness. The inward life. The second book opens with the sentence: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Here the axis of tension is no longer darkness versus light but the God-man relation: the kingdom of God in Christ seeks to take shape in a recollected life (2.1). For that reason the first chapters are occupied with the inward life which consists in a humble attitude and the preservation of inner peace, simple attention and purity of heart, introspection and a pure conscience (2:2-6). This life of increasing inwardness is not concentration on the self but on God (1.1.44). At issue is the interiorization of the divine life in the concreteness of daily living: “To walk inwardly with God and not to be kept out by any desire is the state of the inner man” (2.6.27). The last chapters concern the divine pole which communicates itself in Jesus. Love for Jesus and close * In translating the author’s text here and in the following pages I am at the same time leaning on the English translation of The Imitation of Christ by Ronald Knox and Michael Oakley (New York 1959). Tr.

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friendship with him, therefore, are foremost (2.7-8). In Christ God grants us deep comfort which must be received with gratitude (2.9-10). Love for Christ reaches its critical point when suffering presents itself. The true imitation of Christ consists in going the way of the Cross (2.11-12). This is the strongest proof of love, for in that way a person in his suffering unites himself with the suffering of Christ. “Set out, then, as a good and faithful servant to Christ, to bear with courage the cross of your Lord who for love of you was nailed to it” (2.12.43). This way of the cross is not the end but the turning point to God: “The more a person dies to himself, the more he begins to live to God” (2.12.59). Union with Christ. The third book296 is an introduction into eucharistic piety. Whoever receives Christ regularly in communion (3.3. and 10) must surround this happening with the greatest care (3.12), i.e. with deep reverence (3.1) and piety (3.2), realizing the sublimity of this event (3.5). One must carefully perform the necessary exercises (3.6-7). Needed are especially a fervent desire and great devotion (3.13-15 and 17). The care with which communion is surrounded relates to its core: becoming one with God by receiving God’s self-communication in bread and wine (3.2; 3.13). Communion is a reciprocal occurrence. On the one hand there is the fervent desire of the learner: “Ah, Lord my God, when shall I be totally united with you, be devoured in you, and completely forget myself?” (3.13.3). On the other hand, there is the answer of the Beloved who gives himself to the soul: “No other food is set before her than you, her only Beloved, one to be desired above all the desires of her heart!” (3.11.1). The core of reciprocity is transformation in God: “If only you would wholly set me aflame with the fire of your presence, consume me with those flames, and I transformed you, so that, by the grace of that inward union, that melting away beneath the heat of burning love, you and I would become a single spirit” (3.16.10). The Self-communication of the Lord in love. The fourth book297 is a lively exchange between the Lord and his servant. The movement starts with the servant: “Speak, Lord” (4.2.1), the Lord’s part is: “Listen, my son” (4.3.1). The Lord’s speaking is not by external words but by direct Self-communication (4.2.8) in the soul which devotedly takes the Lord’s speaking to heart (4.3). “Blessed is the soul that hears the Lord speaking within and receives from his lips a word of consolation” (4.1.2). The son knows himself to be, in truth and humility, before God’s face (4.4). The love event between God and his soul goes up and down. The initial upward movement leads to a hymn to love (4.5). “Love 296

As stated earlier, we are following the autograph of 1441. In most translations Book 4 is located here. 297 We are following the autograph. In the ordinary editions this is chapter 3.

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knows no limits; its fire leaps across every boundary (…). Let love seize me as with impetuous fervor and wonder I rise above my self ” (4.5.18 and 26). Then the focus shifts to the militancy of love, to the humility that keeps a person modest, to the love of God which makes every burden light, and is the final goal of all things (4.6-9). These chapters lead to the realization that the love of God is everything (4.10). This is the contemplation in comparison with which all other things are as nothing: “There are no words to describe the sweetness of that sight of yourself which you lavish on those who love you” (4.10.4). After this the servant asks how he can become an instrument in the hand of love by changing the focus of his desires, learn patience and obedience, and adjust to God’s insight and will, patiently bearing all things (4.11-20). There is, accordingly, no other comfort and rest than God alone (4.21). O Lord my God, you are the sum of all good, surpassing all things; you alone are most high and most powerful; you alone are completely self-sufficient and perfect; you alone are most sweet and consoling. You alone are most beautiful and most loving, most noble and most glorious above all else; in you are found existing together in all their perfection all good things that now are or ever have been or ever will be. Thus it is that anything you give me apart from yourself, anything you reveal or promise me of yourself, is too little, too unsatisfying, for as yet I have not seen you, have not fully gained possession of you” (4.21.3).

This is the core of love-suffused contemplation: realizing God’s goodness, seeing everything in his light, receiving himself in everything (4.22-23). The following dialogues are again about everything that distracts us (meddlesome curiosity, self-love, fear of men, human attachments, desires, inconstancy) and about everything that leads to God: freedom through the surrender of prayer; prayerfully living through all afflictions, and directedness toward God (4.24-33). Whoever loves God tastes him above all and in all (4.34). At that point the author shifts to the counterpoint of the consolations of love: temptations, injustice, self-love, externalism, unrest, absorption in perishable things, fear of human opinion, worldly knowledge, credulity, in short, all the miseries of life (4.3547). The trick in all these situations is to direct ourselves to God’s ultimate goodness and to long fervently for the light of eternal life (4.48-49). Needed – for us to obtain this eternal light – is an attitude of trust in God in all abandonment, an attitude of humility and submission, an attitude of detachment from nature and attachment in grace, an attitude of self-emptying without becoming depressive, an attitude of modesty in the desire for knowledge (4.50-58). The core of all these attitudes is trust in God alone (4.59). “You are the perfection of all good things, the highest peak of our life, the lowest deep that underlies all speech. Nothing is so great a comfort to your servants as to trust in you above all else. It is to you, my God, I raise my eyes; it is in you, O Father of mercies, that I place my trust” (4.59.17-18).

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2.5.3. RENEWAL GEARED TO THE TIMES The Second Vatican Council sought to renew the religious life by a return to the sources and adapting it to the changing times, as the title of the Decree indicates: Decree on the adaptation and renewal of Religious Life.298 In this endeavor the Council handed down five principles. 1. The imitation of Christ The first principle is “the constant return to the sources of all Christian life” (Art. 2). This principle unites religious with all Christians. Like them, religious must constantly return to the sources: Scripture and the spiritual traditions. The nature of this continual return is described in the norms for implementation as follows: “The study and meditation of the Gospel and of the whole of Holy Scripture by all religious, from the time of the novitiate, should be more strongly encouraged” (Art. 16 of Norms for Implementing the Decree on the Up-to-date Renewal of Religious life). This renewal is aimed at the core of the religious life: “the imitation of Christ and union with God” (Art 2e). Expressed in that formulation are two aspects of a single spiritual process. (1) Foremost is vital participation in the spiritual way of Jesus Christ: “being more fervently joined to Christ by the total life-long gift of themselves” (Art. 1). This discipleship relativizes the evangelical counsels (to be unmarried, poor, and obedient for the sake of the kingdom of God) which up until then had dominated the spiritual purview of religious. The focus is the manner in which Christ lived, “chaste and poor” (Art. 1). In the treatment of the evangelical counsels the Decree consistently articulates this fundamental movement by saying: the unmarried state is practiced for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (Art. 12); poverty is participation in Christ’s poverty (Art. 13) and obedience is modeled on the example of Jesus Christ (Art. 14). (2) The imitation of Christ is aimed at union with God: “Let those who make profession of the evangelical counsels seek and love above all else God who first loved us (cf. 1 John 4:10) and let them strive to foster in all circumstances a life hidden with Christ in God (cf. Col. 3:3)” (Art. 6). Following Christ aims at a life hidden in God. Religious respond to a “divine call” which invites them “to live for God alone,” for “they have dedicated their entire lives to his service” (Art. 5). Because all religious institutes “seek God solely and before everything else,” they are all marked by “the contemplation by which they fix their minds and hearts on him” (Art. 5).

298 In this English translation we will follow – with mostly only minor modifications – the version of Vatican Council II. The Conciliar and Post-conciliar Documents, (Gen. Ed. A. Flannery), Wilmington 1975 (Tr).

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2. The original inspiration The reformation of the religious life must not only be oriented to “the sources of all Christian life” but also return to “the original spirit of the institutes” (Art. 1). This return is further explicated in these words: “Therefore they will faithfully examine and preserve their founders’ spirit and real intentions as well as their sound traditions – all of which make up the patrimony of each institute” (Art. 2b). The purpose of this return is to discover and preserve the “particular characteristics” and function of each institute for “the good of the church” (Art. 2b). The original inspiration of an institute has two layers: the spirit of the founder and the later spiritual traditions. Appended to both of these components is a critical note. The “real intentions” (propria proposita) must be distinguished from the later – often devotional – intentions which were added over time. By the word “sound” a norm is added to the later “traditions”: they must serve the well-being of the members in keeping with common sense.299 The notions of “soundness and real intentions” make possible a critical reflection on the two main sources (the original charism and later traditions) which all together (omnia) make up the patrimony of a religious community. Also the notion “all together” is critical: at stake in religious reform is not simply a return to the beginning but a reinterpretation of the entire tradition: the basic texts including the reception of these texts plus the new experiences which over time enriched a given religious tradition. 3. The life of the church The renewal of religious life, stated the council, must take place “under the guidance of the Church” (Art. 2). A person might be inclined to associate the word “Church” with the hierarchy. The decree itself suggests another interpretation: “All institutes should share in the life of the Church, adapting as their own and implementing in accordance with their own characteristics, the Church’s undertakings and aims in matters biblical, liturgical, dogmatic, pastoral, ecumenical, missionary, and social” (Art. 2c). The life of the Church offers guidance to the renewal of religious life; that is, the religious communities need to be wherever new life springs up in the church. They must participate in the life of the Church by appropriating (taking notice of, assimilating, and being transformed by) the renewal initiated by the Church and to the best of their ability foster this renewal from within (Bible and liturgy, dogma and pastorate, ecumenical relations and mission, social engagement).

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tions.”

The adjective “sound” was chosen deliberately. The earlier draft reads: “venerable tradi-

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4. The changed conditions of our time “Adaptation to the changed conditions of our time” (Art. 2) was one of the primary intentions of Vatican II. Hence the title of the decree: “Decree on the up-to-date renewal of religious life [translation by Austin Flannery, O.P.]. This intention is further made explicit as follows: “Institutes should promote among their members an adequate knowledge of the social conditions of the times they live in and of the needs of the Church. In such a way, judging current events wisely in the light of faith and burning with apostolic zeal, they may be able to assist men more effectively” (Art. 2d). Religious must acquire “adequate knowledge” (congruam cognitionem) of the circumstances in which contemporary people live and so learn to understand what the church really needs. The purpose of this knowledge is twofold: (1) the ability to judge wisely the things which currently characterize our culture; and (2) the ability to help the people inhabiting this culture. This knowledge may not remain external (“knowledge-about)” but needs to be translated inward: “The manner of living, praying and working should be suitably adapted (…) to the modern physical and psychological circumstances of the members and also, as required by the nature of each institute, to the necessities of the apostolate, the demands of culture, and social and economic circumstances” (Art. 3). The entire religious form of life needs to be congruent with the basic psychosomatic patterns within which modern people live their lives. The religious form of life must mesh with present-day circumstances not only within its own circle but also outwardly (apostolate, culture, socioeconomic situation). The restructuration of the inward life form (lifestyle, prayer, work) as well as the outward life form (apostolate, culture, socio-economic context) needs to be extended to the clothing (Art. 17) and education of religious (Art. 18). It also constitutes an important principle in starting new foundations (Art. 19) and choosing specific ways of working (Art. 20). 5. Spiritual renewal The renewal sketched above has two main coordinates: return to the sources (points 1 and 2) and adaptation to changed circumstances (points 3 and 4). These two coordinates, however, cannot be connected mechanically. We need intermediation between the two: the hermeneutic component of renewal. Consequently, the Council stresses that renewal must include both (simul complectitur): return to the sources plus adaptation to culture (Art. 2). Together they constitute renewal: together they make up the “impulse of the Holy Spirit” (Art. 2) which ensures that renewal does not degenerate into “restoration” or “external adaptation.” The decree, accordingly, consistently states “that even the best adjustments made in accordance with the needs of our age will be ineffectual unless they are animated by a renewal of Spirit. This must take precedence over even the active ministry” (Art. 2e). The back-and-forth movement between

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the sources and the spirit of the times which embodies the “both together” (simul) is the work of the Spirit who turns renewal into a spiritual process, a process of spiritual renewal. This insight has two important implications. (1) The interaction between the sources and the spirit of the times is effected by the bearers of the institutes: the concrete religious. Hence the decree states as its foremost concern – before all other intra-institutional concerns – that “an effective renewal and adaptation demands the cooperation of all the members of the institute” (Art. 4). Genuine renewal from within the sources and appropriate adaptation to the circumstances of the time can only succeed if the two coordinates interact in all religious and so become a current of religious creativity in them. (2) Because the religious themselves constitute the indispensable link between return to the sources and adaptation of the times, formation is needed: “Rightly-attuned renewal of the institutes essentially depends on the formation of the members” (Art. 18). This formation concerns all levels: religious and apostolic formation; theoretical as well as practical training. If this formation “in keeping with their intellectual capacity and personal talent” does not occur, the renewal will be “merely external” (Art. 18). Essential here is the inner renewal which takes place in the person of the religious who immerses herself (himself ) in Scripture and the sources of her institute and at the same time (simul) reflects on “the customs, thought, and sentiments prevalent in society today” (Art. 18). It is the obligation of every religious, with a view to this inner renewal, to enter upon a process of ongoing formation: “Religious should strive intensely during the whole course of their lives to realize the schooling they have received in matters spiritual, scientific and practical” (Art. 18). BIBLIOGRAPHY BRUIN, C. DE, PERSOONS, E., & WEILER, A., Geert Grote en de Moderne Devotie, Deventer-Zuthpen 1984. CARSON, D., A Call to Spiritual Reformation. Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, Leicester 1992. CONSTABLE, G., The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, Cambridge 1998. Der einzige Gott. Die Geburt des biblischen Monotheismus, (Ed. B. Lang), München 1981. ELM, K., Reformbewegungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, Berlin 1989. EPINEY-BURGARD, G., Gérard Grote (1340-1384) et les débuts de la Dévotion moderne, Wiesbaden 1970. MCGRATH, A., Spirituality in an Age of Change. Rediscovering the Spirit of the Reformers, Grand Rapids (MI) 1994. MCGRATH, A., Roots that Refresh. A Celebration of Reformation Spirituality, London 1992. Reformatio ecclesiae. Beiträge zu kirchlichen Reformbemühungen von der Alten Kirche bis zur Neuzeit, (Ed. R. Bäumer), Paderborn 1980.

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ROSE, M., Der Ausschliesslichkeitsanpruch Jahwes. Deuteronomische Schultheologie und die Volksfrömmigkeit in der späten Königszeit, Stuttgart etc. 1975. ROSE, M., Jahwe, Zürich 1978. SCHMIEDL, J., Das Konzil und die Orden. Krise und Erneuerung des gottgeweihten Lebens, Vallendar-Schoenstatt 1999. SCHNEIDERS, S., Finding the Treasure. Locating Catholic Religious Life in a New Ecclesial and Cultural Context, New York 2000. SCHNEIDERS, S., Selling All. Commitment, Consecrated Celibacy, and Community in Catholic Religious life, New York 2001. SUDBRACK, J., Das Charisma der Nachfolge. Um die zukünftige Gestalt geistlichen Gemeinschaften, Würzburg 1994. WEILER, A., Volgens de norm van de vroege Kerk. De geschiedenis van de huizen van de broeders van het Gemene leven in Nederland, Nijmegen 1997.

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2.6. The Opening-up of the Future A culture cannot survive unless its present is open to an imaginable future. This perspective on the future is disclosed by prophets, utopians, futurologists, artists and thinkers, people who are able to illumine the present from the vantage point of the future. 1. Prophets. A prophet, standing amidst the actualities of the present, foresees future developments, discerns a hidden plan, or has premonitions of things to come. In the present the prophet represents the vantage point of the future. In ancient Israel this future viewpoint was granted by God who spoke personally to his prophets, making them privy to his plans for good or ill. This future plan often provokes strong resistance in the present. 2. Utopians. “Utopia” is a word Thomas More coined for his book by that name. It is a play on a word, since “utopia” can derive from ou-topos (= no place) or from eu-topos (= good place). Utopia is a place outside of the known world, a prototype of the good life. Over the centuries Utopian thought has assumed various forms. Sometimes people idealize the past which is viewed as a Paradise or Golden Age marked by unspoiled innocence, justice, and peace. Sometimes people project the ideal on an extremely remote country: the island of Pheaken, the city island of the Sun, Atlanta. Here, too, it is a land without evil. Usually Utopia is located in the future: the island of the Blessed, the pure land of the West, the city of God. In this future dream the ideal society is projected as lying behind the actual situation. From the time of the Renaissance, and in increased measure from the eighteenth century on, idealistic thinkers tried to picture and bring closer a better society. In so doing they often harked back to Plato’s Republic. These are exercises in designing models of culture which are sustained by the ideal of universal progress. 3. New-Age thinking. In the interconnected developments occurring in the areas of medicine, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, education, philosophy and spirituality New Agers see a signal of a world-wide network of likeminded people who “conspire” under the influence of Aquarius (the Water Carrier). The soil in which this conspiracy is rooted is the decline of the rationalistic thought systems and established religions of the Age of Pisces. All artificial dichotomies are replaced by a wholistic worldview which implies the suspension of the boundaries of human subjectivity. The Age of Pisces isolated, fragmented, and boxed in human subjectivity. In the New Age the subject is freed from boundaries on all sides: the expansion of consciousness, contact with the great Spirit, the opening up of the ego to the transcendent interior, attachment to the

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umbilical cords of life, reincarnation. To free up human inwardness in all directions New Agers draw on mystical traditions. 4. Alternative movements. Whereas New-Age thought ultimately rests on cosmic changes, the alternative movements are guided by the conviction that, if present developments continue unhindered, life on earth will end. On the local level there are any number of alternative movements: communes, cooperatives, relational forms, educational methods, forms of therapy, which in some way give shape to a dream of justice, mutual respect, love for the earth, and peace. As paradigms of future-oriented spirituality we will consider (1) the prophetic spirituality of ancient Israel; (2) Thomas More’s Utopia; and (3) environmental spirituality.

2.6.1. PROPHETIC SPIRITUALITY Prophetism in Israel, which for the biblical storytellers started with Moses (Num. 11:16-17, 24-30), is a variant within a widespread phenomenon.300 Like their colleagues in the Middle East, however much their names differed (seer, prophet, visionary, herald, man of God, and so forth), however much their social position varied (at the sanctuary, at the court, going about as solitary figures), however diverse their external conduct and appearance may have been (ecstatic, dressed in fur, featuring a specific tonsure, and so forth), and however much their activities differed (preaching repentance, performing symbolic acts, responding to requests for an oracle, performing miracles, making intercessions, and so forth), the prophets in Israel had a profile of their own. This profile becomes visible from three perspectives. (1) Prophetic circles viewed themselves as belonging to a tradition. The narrator of Kings sees a series of prophets and seers as his predecessors who uninterruptedly warned Judah and Israel (2 Kgs. 17:13; cf. Deut. 18:15-22). To Jeremiah his tradition went back to ancient times (Jer. 28:8); to the prophet Hosea, it went back to the Exodus (Hos. 12:13; see Hos. 6:5; 9:17; 12:10-11). Prophets situated themselves in that prophetic tradition.301 (2) The prophets viewed themselves as members of one community. That is precisely the meaning of the term “sons of the prophets” (bene ha-nebiim; see

300 S. Herrmann, Prophetie in Israel und Ägypten. Recht und Grenze eines Vergleichs (1963), in: Das Prophetenverständnis in der deutschsprachigen Forschung seit Heinrich Ewald, (Ed. P. Neumann), Darmstadt 1979, 515-536; P. Neumann, Prophetenforschung seit Heinrich Ewald, ibid., 1-50; H. Ringgren, Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, in: Israel’s Prophetic Tradition, (Ed. R. Coggins et al.), Cambridge-New York 1982, 1-11. 301 Cf. J. Porter, The Origins of Prophecy in Israel, in: Israel’s Prophetic Tradition, 12-31.

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2 Kgs. 4:38; 6:1 and so forth).302 In difficult situations prophets helped each other (2 Kgs. 4:38, 39). When one of them died, they helped his widow and children in their distress. They came together at set times and ate together (2 Kgs. 4:38-44). A small inner circle possibly formed a somewhat closer community, for example in Gilgal. Prophets are “members” of a company (1 Kgs. 20:35). A prophet from Judah is called “my brother” by a prophet from the Northern Kingdom (1 Kgs. 13:30). (3) The prophetic milieu forms a world of its own over against society. Army officers called the “son” of the prophets who came to anoint Jehu a “madman” (2 Kgs. 9:11). Children, upon seeing Elisha, called him a “baldhead” (2 Kgs. 2:23; cf. Jer. 22:12; Isa. 16:6; Mic. 1:16). Elijah is known as the “hairy man with a leather belt around his waist” (2 Kgs. 1:8); prophets conjure up an image of “drivelers” (Am. 7:16; Mic. 2:6, 11). Some perhaps had a mark on their forehead (1 Kgs. 20:38). Still they were very much a part of society: people consulted them in case of illness (2 Kgs. 5), military operations (2 Kgs. 6:8-23), famine (2 Kgs. 4:38-44), or for intermediation with the royal court (2 Kgs. 8:1-6), and so forth. What was typical for this prophetic spirituality? 1. A prophetic ritual In all likelihood an important spiritual component in a circle of prophets was the act of “sitting before the face” of the leading prophet (2 Kgs. 4:38). Thus the prophets lodge a complaint with Elisha: “As you see, the place where we sit before your face is too small for us” (2 Kgs. 6:1). Such a place was evidently important since they built a special room for it (2 Kgs. 6:2). Later texts from Ezekiel perhaps cast some light on this “sitting before the face” of a prophet. The first text reads: “In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before my face, the hand of Be-er my Master fell upon me” (Ezek. 8:1). The elders “sit” together awaiting a vision until the hand of the Lord comes over a prophet. This picture is confirmed by the second text: “Son of man, your people talk about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses. One says to another, each to his neighbor: ‘Come along with me and hear what the word is that has come from Be-er’. They come to you en masse; they sit before your face and hear your words but do not obey them” (Ezek. 33:30-31). People “sit before the face” of a prophet to hear what the word is that has come from Be-er. What we are dealing with here is a specific prophetic “ritual” (Be-er warns Ezekiel not to trust this ritual!) which is directed toward a prophetic revelation intended for “the people.”

302 H. Schmitt, Elisa. Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur vorklassischen nordisraelitischen Prophetie, Gütersloh 1972, 163.

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2. Touched by Be-er A prophet is transformed down to his very core by the Word (dabar) of Be-er (see Jer. 18:18; 27:18). This Word (address) “happens” to him and has an immediate effect on his being. It is a contact event. Unlike amar (“say”), which describes the material side of a dialogic event, dabar (dialogue, address, conversation) denotes the entirety of the word-event.303 Be-er speaks directly to the prophet. Formulated in that word of address is the “This says Be-er…” (Hos. 1:4, 6, 9). The prophet experiences “a moment of deep personal contact with God” 304 This “secret experience”305 is an experience of total transformation by Be-er.306 3. Seeing from the vantage point of God’s future Be-er snatches his prophet out of and away from the present and positions him in the future from which he can see the present: “Prophets do not look into the future from a base in the present but from the future into the present, from tomorrow into the now.”307 A prophet sees as already having happened (prophetic perfect) what is still only a possibility in the present. In order to let go of the vantage point of the present the prophet must absolutely surrender himself to Be-er, for Be-er alone can sovereignly assume the vantage point of the future. In Yahwism, accordingly, all preparation is relative. A person can train himself in discerning coming events; one can let music put one into a trance, but the actual change of perspective comes from Be-er. 4. Death and life A prophetic word can turn out positive or negative. During the campaign against Moab Elisha’s word was positive (2 Kgs. 3). Having been carried into a state of ecstasy by a musician (2 Kgs. 3:15) he announced the advent of water for the army and predicted victory over Moab (2 Kgs. 3:16-19). Strikingly negative was his predecessor Elijah. He was the first to see Israel perishing as a result of its divided mind (1 Kgs. 18:21). He heard the “silence of death” in the illusory life of Israel. Several writing prophets followed Elijah in this negativity (Amos 8:2; 303

G. Gerleman, dabar, in: ThLOT I (1997), 325-332; W. Schmidt, dabar, in: ThDOT III (1978), 84-125. 304 G. Fohrer, History of Israelite Religion, Nashville 1972, 238. 305 H. Gunkel, Die geheimen Erfahrungen der Propheten (1903/1923), in: Das Prophetenverständnis in der deutschsprachigen Forschung seit Heinrich Ewald, (Ed. P. Neumann), Darmstadt 1979, 106-143, 1923. 306 G. Fohrer, ibid., 239-244; P. Neumann, Prophetenforschung seit Heinrich Ewald, in: Das Prophetenverständnis, 39-44. 307 W. Schmidt, Die Prophetische “Grundgewissheit.” Erwägungen zur Einheit prophetischer Verkündigung (1971), ibid., 539.

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cf. 5:2; 9:1ff.), Hosea (Hos. 1:9), Isaiah (Isa. 6:11), Jeremiah (Jer. 1:14). The destruction they announce is irreversible. A new beginning is possible only through destruction. The prophecies of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah lead through point zero. They, accordingly, hark back to the Exodus, hoping for a new election.308 5. Kings and prophets The prophets of Israel consistently played an accompanying role with respect to kingship. God and Nathan cooperate positively with David (1 Sam. 22:5; 2 Sam. 7:2ff.). Nathan assists Solomon in gaining the throne (1 Kgs. 1:8-37). Ahijah, on divine orders, confers the kingship over the Northern kingdom upon Jeroboam (1 Kgs. 11:29-39). An unnamed prophet announces to Ahab victory over the Arameans (1 Kgs. 20:13-20; cf. 2 Kgs. 6:9-23; 7:1-20). Elisha maintains close relations with the royal court (2 Kgs. 4:13). He lives in Samaria, the residence of the king (2 Kgs. 2:25; 5:3, 9; 6:32), and is apparently part of the army as the prophet who on military expeditions had to get an oracular word from Be-er (2 Kgs. 3:1-27). On the word of Isaiah King Hezekiah was healed of an incurable disease (2 Kgs. 20:5-11). The conflict between kings and prophets breaks out only when the king breaks the relation with Be-er. Nathan took action against David (2 Sam. 12:1-25), because David violated Bathsheba. A prophet from Judah announced the destruction of Bethel (1 Kgs. 13:2), because Jeroboam instituted the worship of the golden calf there, built temples on the heights, appointed priests from all layers of society and introduced new feasts (1 Kgs. 12:25-32). The core is: the exclusive relation between Be-er and his people has been broken. That is also the reason why Ahijah announced the destruction of Jeroboam’s house (1 Kgs. 14:1-16; see 15:29-30). For the same reason all the prophets indict all the kings of the Northern kingdom: they continue to walk “in the way of Jeroboam” and “cause Israel to sin” (1 Kgs. 15:26, 34; 16:19, 25-26). For that reason, too, Elijah pronounced doom over the house of Ahab, which was to end in the Jehu revolution, a revolution in which the company of the prophets, under the leadership of Elisha, took the initiative (2 Kgs. 9:1). The tension between kings and prophets cannot be traced to the tension between “charisma” and “institution”: also prophetism is an institution, and also kingship is a charisma. It is not a principial tension between the two Yahwehinstitutions which constitutes the core of the conflict between kings and prophets. On the contrary: Be-er-based prophecy indicts the kings (not all of them! see, e.g. Josiah in 2 Kgs. 22-23) when they abandon the source of their charisma and pull the people along with them in their faithlessness. A similar

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W. Schmidt, ibid., 557-561.

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conflict can break out among the prophets! In that case one prophet accuses another of prophesying lies in the Name of Be-er (see 1 Kgs. 22:8; 2 Kgs. 3:13).

2.6.2. UTOPIA Between 1500 and 1650 we see a dramatic increase in the volume of Utopian writings.309 This increase fits into the larger picture of the time: after the dark ages, some perspective again begins to emerge in the sixteenth century. Scholars drew inspiration from the classic authors. Education and formation used techniques which speak to the imagination.310 Utopian thinking was nurtured by several sources: the classics, especially Plato’s Republic; the first Christian community as Luke depicts it in Acts 4:32-35; the ideal Christian community as Augustine portrays it in The City of God; the ideal image of the monasteries which were viewed in the Benedictine tradition as centers of light and an adumbration of the heavenly Jerusalem.311 The basic model of the Utopian genre is Utopia by Thomas More (14781535), published in Louvain in 1516.312 Utopia consists of two books. The first book contains a conversation between three persons: Raphael Hythlodaeus who has explored the new world and learned to appreciate the institutions of distant peoples, the culture of the island Utopia among them; Peter Giles a highly placed citizen of Antwerp and a true scholar; Thomas More himself, who, accordingly, is both one of the partners in the dialogue and the author of the – staged but realistically sketched – dialogue. The dialogues between these three philosophers are focused on a single fundamental question: what is the best society and by what means can it be attained? All kinds of partial solutions pass in review: the return of privately owned estates to the common domain, the elimination of monopoly positions (68-71),313 the deposition of a king who exploits his subjects (94-97), restrictions on private property (104-107), and the like. But the only real solution is a society in which “everything belongs to everyone.” Toward the end of book I Hythlodaeus launches an attack on all private property and 309

R. Trousson, Voyages au pays de nulle part. Histoire littéraire de la pensée utopique, Bruxelles

1979. 310

G. Bedouelle, Utopie, in: DSp 16 (1994), 101-102. For a detailed overview of sources, parallels, and influences culminating in More’s Utopia, see E. Surtz, Utopia as a Work of Literary Art, in: The Complete Works of Saint Thomas More, (Ed. E. Surtz & J. Hexter), New Haven-London 1979, cxxv-clxxiv. 312 For the author, see G. Marc’hadour, Thomas More, in: DSp 15 (1991), 849-865. For the work, see G. Bedouelle, ibid., 101-113. 313 We are quoting from The Complete Works of Saint Thomas More. Page references in the text are indicated in parentheses; in the case of literal quotations the number of the line follows. 311

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proposes a radical solution: a form of communism such as he saw it practiced in Utopia. The other two partners in the dialogue, having now become curious, ask him to describe the island Utopia. This is done in book II. The description can be divided in three sections, followed by a peroration in which Hythlodaeus sums things up.314 Described in the first section are the geographical, political, economic, and social circumstances (110-159). Discussed next are philosophy, especially ethics and education (158185). Finally, following a number of topics which concern the boundaries of society, specifically the topic of war, religion is treated (184-245). These three sections, viewed from the perspective of spirituality, are interrelated. First, the society in which “everything belongs to everyone” is presented as a form of life. Described next is the ethos by which this life form is appropriated. Finally religion is described: shared happiness is increated in everyone by the goodness of God. These three sections, in their interconnectedness, reveal the ideal society as a spiritual way. 1. Everything belongs to everyone Hythlodaeus begins his description of Utopia by picturing the exterior: it is an island in the shape of a sickle on which 54 identical city-states are located. Each city-state has sufficient farm land for itself, land which is cultivated by an annually changing group of workers. The harvests are abundant (110-117). Hythlodaeus describes the city-states with the aid of a sketch of the capital, Amaurotum, a city situated on the two sides of a wide river and connected by a large bridge (117-119). The houses front the street and have a garden behind them. The doors are open to everyone. “As a result, nothing is in any way private” (120/12). Furthermore, every ten years the citizens exchange homes. The city is guided by delegates who are chosen in accordance with a multi-stage system, with a governor at the head (122-125). Agriculture is practiced by all but in addition each person also learns a craft. People work six hours a day. The rest of the time is for recreation and study. Each person is very simply dressed (124134). After describing the infrastructure (city lay-out, countryside architecture, government, work and leisure, houses and dress), Hythlodaeus focuses on the social organization of the city (134-145). Every household comprises from ten to sixteen persons. These households obtain (without money!) what they need, and as much as they need, from common storehouses. The families eat together in a spacious dining hall. Special attention is paid to the sick and the weak. The children up to five years of age eat separately, assisted by special nurses. Every dinner or supper is begun with the reading of something edifying but “briefly, so as not to be boring” (145/8). 314

E. Surtz, ibid., cxxx-cxxxiv.

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Following the internal relations come the external ones (144-159). People can travel where they wish on the island, provided they have permission from the local governor. They travel without any baggage, “for they are at home everywhere” (146/4). If in the one place the harvest is disappointing, the lack is met from the supplies of another (without money!). “Thus, the whole island is like a single family” (149/3). The overall surplus of the harvest is exported to other countries, a seventh part is given to the poor, and the rest is sold at a moderate price. They save the silver and the gold they get for it for emergency situations or for war. They themselves use no money. The gold they use for the humblest objects and adorn their slaves with it. The utopian form cannot be conveyed more pithily than by the words: “where everything belongs to everybody” (239/10), or, in More’s own words as partner in the dialogue, “where all things are common” (107/6). Community of goods is “the one and only road to the general welfare (ad salutem publican)” (105/78). Hence Hythlodaeus’s statement: “I am fully persuaded that no just and even distribution of goods can be made and that no happiness can be found in human affairs unless private property is utterly abolished” (105/18-21). 2. A healthy and contemplative life The inhabitants of Utopia have appropriated the fundamental form of community because they have been reared and instructed in this society (159/2-5). They are people who spend much time in study; some have been relieved from all other tasks in order to pursue scholarship. Their science (excepting logic) differs but little from ours (159-161). This is especially true for ethics. Among them, too, the debate circles around such fundamental notions as the good and the virtuous, pleasure and happiness (161/163). In this connection the basic idea of the Utopians is this: happiness rests in good and decent pleasure. To such our nature is drawn by virtue. Reason knows that this is good and that this is how God has created us (163/18-25). The pleasurable life is not just my concern but also the concern of others (163/25-165/2). Concern over the happiness of others implies that not just private relations but also one’s mutual relations must be respected – indeed this is regarded as the hallmark of piety (165/23-25). Everything is grounded in well-understood pleasure: “By pleasure they understand every movement and state of body or mind in which, under the guidance of nature, man delights to dwell” (167/7-9) Reason helps us to distinguish spurious pleasures from the good. Spurious pleasures are to esteem oneself on account of the clothing one wears, the honors one receives, or the class to which one belongs; to take pleasure in jewels and precious metals; to experience pleasure in gambling and hunting (167-175). The resulting pleasure does not arise from the nature of the thing itself (natura) but from a perverse habit (consuetudo). In the case of good pleasure Utopians distinguish between the pleasures of the soul and the pleasures

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of the body. “To the soul they ascribe intelligence and the sweetness which is bred by contemplation of truth. To these two are joined the pleasant recollection of a well-spent life and the sure hope of happiness to come” (173, 10-15). Physical pleasure similarly has two aspects: the first is that which fills the senses with clearly perceptible sweetness (restoration from fatigue, the elimination of waste matter, stipulations of various kinds), and the experience of a harmonious state of the body (stable health; 173-174). They esteem the pleasures of the soul more highly than those of the body. The basic form of the utopian life (everything is common to everyone), accordingly, is interiorized by an ethos (consuetudo; mores), a process in which the notion of “happiness,” which is the form of the highest good, is made concrete in the pleasurable life of the other and of myself. This pleasure is called piety (pietas). 3. The one God After first treating a number of marginal areas of human life-in-community (slavery, euthanasia, adultery, civil penalties, and the like) and then exploring the fringe area of human society, namely war (the legitimation of war; rising conflict; war strategies; the aftermath of war, 198-217), Hythlodaeus finally talks about the religion of Utopia (216-237). The majority of Utopians believe in a certain “single being, unknown, eternal, immense, inexplicable, far above the reach of the human mind, diffused throughout the universe not in mass but in power (virtus). To him alone they attribute the beginnings, the growth, the increase, the changes and the ends of all things as they perceive them. To no other do they give divine honor” (216/12-17). But they permit everyone to adhere to the image he or she has formed of “this one nature to whose unique power and majesty the sum of all things is attributed” (217/23-25). Tolerance in religious matters is held to be the supreme virtue (217-223). They distinguish two forms of a devout life. Some religious “think that the contemplation of nature with the praise which arises from it is an act of worship acceptable to God” (225/25-26). Others shun scientific pursuits and commit themselves totally to public wellbeing (attention to the sick, the repair of roads, digging turf, transporting wood) and to individual persons (224-227). Of the latter, some live lives of celibacy, others are married. “The Utopians regard the latter as the saner, the former as the holier” (227/16-17). Together these two kinds of people are called “the religious” of Utopia (227/24-25). There are only a few priests who are men of extraordinary holiness. They preside over divine worship, order religious rites, judge the customs, and educate the children and youths (227-231). The first and the last day of the month and the year are feast days. “No image of the gods is seen in the temple so that the individual may be free to conceive of God with the most ardent devotion in any form he pleases” (233/12-14). The liturgy “reminds them of God’s benefits toward them and, in turn, of their own piety toward

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God and their duty toward one another” (235/28-30). When the priest enters, they all cast themselves on the ground. “The silence all around is so deep that the very appearance of the congregation strikes one with awe as if some divine power were really present” (235/32-34). In the closing prayer God is recognized as the Creator and Preserver of all things. “He thanks him for all the benefits received, particularly that by God’s grace he may be a member of that commonwealth which is the happiest and has received that religion which he hopes to be the truest” (237/14-17). Should he be wrong about this, however, he hopes that God will make him aware of it, “for he is ready to follow in whatever path he may lead him” (337/17-21). In Utopia society, ethics and religion are all extensions of each other. They mediate each other: the society, in which all things belong to everyone, is interiorized in an ethos in which this form is experienced as a natural pleasure and the highest happiness, a piety (pietas) in which the goodness of the God who is common to them all is recognized and honored. 2.6.3. ECOLOGICAL SPIRITUALITY The future perspective of environmental spirituality is marked by contrast to a rapidly deteriorating ecosphere: the earth is adversely affected by monocultures, soil erosion, pollution, overpopulation, bio-industries; water is polluted by chemical waste, oil spills, atomic tests; the air is adversely affected by acid rain, chemical emissions, exhaust gases, the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, radio-active materials; raw materials are depleted on account of the overproduction of certain goods and the excessive use of energy. This deterioration of the ecosphere is structurally caused by a network of five factors.315 (1) The natural sciences which mediate our knowledge of nature are, in their modern form, partial and reductionistic. They isolate segments of nature and examine them from a quantitative viewpoint. This, in conjunction with technologies designed for this purpose, makes possible the intense manipulation of nature. (2) Technology in its many forms (industries, administration, communication, information and military technology) is expanding without constraints all over the globe via multinational business enterprises. (3) The global economy, moving as it does in the field of tension between production and consumption mediated by (a more or less) free market, is rudderless: consumption exploits the sphere of human needs; production is not governed by any internal norm, either quantitatively or qualitatively; the market sees to it that needs 315 Technology and the Environment, (Ed. F. Ferré), Greenwich 1992; J. Cobb, Sustainability. Economics, Ecology and Justice, New York 1992; M. de Geus, Politiek, milieu en vrijheid, Utrecht 1993.

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develop in step with available products; the only real guideline is the principle of profit. (4) Politics comes into play only after the facts. Despite the Green parties, the many international summits and national programs, the state of the environment is rapidly worsening. The power of industrial pressure groups is stronger than that of legally elected governments. (5) Population growth: the number of people inhabiting the globe has quadrupled since 1900. Every 40 years the world population, accompanied by increasing urbanization, doubles. These demographic developments put heavy pressure on the environment, also in view of the demands which these urban concentrations make on the surrounding countryside. This network of causes does not hang in the air. It is sustained by what is usually referred to with the grandiose term “Western thought.” Integral to this thought are two traditions. The first is a certain interpretation of the Christian tradition which is accused of the following: the idea of creation robs nature of its intrinsically divine character; humanity is positioned over against nature; the primitive polytheistic experience of nature was pushed out by monotheism; an exclusive Revelation-Scripture linkage robs nature of what it has to say; the Jewish-Christian tradition exaggerates the importance of (salvation) history versus the cyclical structure of nature.316 Because these insights are rooted in Scripture, the criticism also addresses itself to biblical motifs: celestial bodies are degraded into “lamps”; humanity is put over creation as lord and master, with the mandate to have dominion over it; the earth is given to humanity to “till it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). The second tradition is that of humanism.317 This worldview conceives human beings as self-determining (developing, realizing) powers, who have assigned to themselves a central position in the world. In this view of humanity, development, progress, and growth are paradoxically bound up with a proclivity toward domination and security, with the result that Western people, feeling homeless in an alien universe, surround themselves with masses of

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Christianity and Ecology, (Ed. E. Breuilly & M. Palmer), London-New York 1992; D. Larsen & S. Larsen, While Creation Waits. A Christian Response to the Environmental Challenge, Shaw 1992; T. Koch, Das göttliche Gesetz der Natur. Zur Geschichte des neuzeitlichen Naturverständnisses und zu einer gegenwärtigen theologischen Lehre von der Schöpfung, Zürich 1991; Geen hemel zonder aarde. Over de wezenlijke taak van de kerk en theologie redding te brengen in een wereld die gekenmerkt wordt door natuurlijke en sociale ecologische problemen, in: Concilium 27 (1991) no. 4; W. Granberg-Michaelson, Redeeming the Creation. The Rio Earth Summit. Challenges for the Churches, Geneva 1992. 317 P. Sherrard, The Rape of Man and Nature. An Enquiry into Origins and Consequences of Modern Science, Ipswich 1987; Natur und Mensch, (Ed. H. Dembowski), München 1990; M. Schlitt, Umweltethik. Philosophisch-ethische Reflexionen, theologische Grundlagen, Kriterien, Paderborn 1992; F. Soontiens, Natuurfilosofie en milieuethiek. Een teleologische natuurfilosofie als voorwaarde voor milieu-ethiek, Amsterdam 1993.

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material goods. Beside its anthropocentrism, this tradition is marked by a “mindmatter” dualism (Descartes); the mind is defined by rationality, matter by extension. Strictly speaking, reason only applies to humans, not to matter. It is not hard to see that the inanimate matter is an easy prey to objectivization and manipulation. Toward the end of the 19th century the environmental movement rose up in protest against this exploitation. Initially this movement took the form of a romantically colored love of nature which expresses itself in poetry, philosophical ideas, visionary language, and informal groups. Quite rapidly, however, this romantic love of nature developed into a passion to conserve nature. Individuals simply began to form their own funds, organizations, and philosophy. Gradually these private interests merged. Smaller organizations united into larger societies for the conservation of nature. In the seventies the resulting environmental movement developed in three directions. The one can be characterized as environmental defense: the culture of environmental exploitation must be combated. An example of such an organization is Greenpeace. Another direction is that of deep ecology: surface actions on behalf of the environment must be anchored in, and directed toward, a fundamental change in the culture.318 The third direction is the political movement of the Greens which does not limit itself to defense of the environment but attempts to integrate various aspects of society under the umbrella of a nature-friendly set of policies. We will explore a number of these aspects of this developing ecological spirituality. 1. A responsible relationship Present-day culture is dominated by an objectivizing attitude toward the environment. This objectivizing attitude is grounded in an anthropocentric dualism: humans dominate an objectivized world existing outside of themselves. In contrast to this position, the ecological design for the future proceeds from the notion of a partnership “relation.”319 Some authors express this relation most empathetically: nature is afraid, calls, and cries out; nature has feelings which call for friendlier treatment. Others view the relation as one of participation in a whole: humans are part of a whole which they only grasp in part. Still others stress the personal dimension: nature is a person one can meet, with whom one 318 D. Fox, Deep Ecology and the Environmental Crisis. An Anthropological Inquiry into the Viability of a Movement, Arizona 1992; C. Merchant, Radical Ecology. The Search for Livable World, New York 1992. 319 H. Kessler, Das Stöhnen der Natur. Plädoyer für eine Schöpfungsspiritualität und Schöpfungsethik, Düsseldorf 1990; Th. Berry, Befriending the Earth. A Theology of Reconciliation between Humans and the Earth, Mystic 1991; J. Nash, Loving Nature. Ecological Integrity and Christian Responsibility, Nashville 1991: K. O’Gorman, Toward the Cultivation of Ecological Spirituality. The Possibilities of Partnership, in: Religious Education 87(1992), 606-618.

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can form a friendship, a partner who asks for solidarity, a fellow creature. In ecological spirituality one frequently encounters the use of a relational language game. Ecological spirituality “is shaped by a distinctive way of thinking and feeling: one that emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things, the intrinsic value of all life, the continuity of human with nonhuman life, and the compassion of God for all life.”320 If the humanity-nature relation is viewed as “relational,” then the notion of “responsibility” follows.321 Humans are obligated to give an account of their conduct to nature and to future generations. Both, speaking with authority, demand accountability. The context in which responsibilities and obligations are important is that of stewardship and management. Humans exercise control and supervision over the environment that has been entrusted to them and over which they have been appointed as stewards, trustees or conservators. That stewardship needs to be inwardly focused on values such as justice, reverence, intrinsic value and integrity. These values must be embodied in action. 2. A process of liberation The point of departure in which the environment finds itself is that of exploitation and oppression. Imperatively needed is a rescue operation, a liberation struggle. Two conceptual complexes stand out. The first is apocalyptic in character. It proclaims that nature is as good as dead. What matters now is finding a survival strategy. Just as a physician fights against a deadly disease, so we must try to save a critically ill and mortally wounded environment from death and heal it. The second conceptual complex is derived from liberation theologies: the environment is oppressed and exploited. Needed is a liberation struggle, a “preferential option for the environment.” Ecofeminists, in this connection, stress the link with a macho culture which oppresses women and the anthropocentric culture which exploits nature. The history of the oppression of women and the history of environmental oppression run parallel.322 Over against the utilitarian attitude toward the environment which holds sway over nature by knowledge and power, these authors picture a way of dealing with nature in which astonishment,

320

J. McDaniel, Earth, Sky, Gods and Mortals. Developing an Ecological Spirituality, Mystic 1990, 182. 321 D. Hall, The Steward. A Biblical Symbol Come of Age, Grand Rapids-New York 1990; A. Meyer & J. Meyer, Earthkeepers. Environmental Perspectives on Hunger, Poverty and Injustice, Scottdale (PA) 1991; W. van Nunen, De intrinsieke waarde van de natuur als ethisch dilemma. Pleidooi voor een participerende houding ten opzichte van de natuur als basis voor een ecologishe ethiek, Tilburg 1993; M. Oelschlager, Caring for Creation. An Ecumenical Approach to the Environmental Crisis, New Haven 1994. 322 A. Primavesi, From Apocalypse to Genesis. Ecology, Feminism and Christianity, Wellwood 1991.

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celebration, and art are central.323 Hence the frequency of lyrical passages even in down-to-earth books. The whole is a function of the Originating Mystery. Reawakening to the whole is reawakening to that mystery. To reawaken to Mystery is to reawaken to our own nature, to all of nature, and to the Earth […] The Twelve Steps of Ecological Spirituality are designed to provide us with the experience of just that sort of reawakening, the Second Western Renaissance. But even as we feel the ecstacy of this reawakening, we will also begin to feel the horror of the present in the full impact of its deep pathology. Everywhere we will see, as though for the first time, the garish ruins of a culture bottoming out in addiction.324

3. A journey of discovery The home which is the earth has to be discovered. It is hidden beneath a hard crust of estrangement, like a text that has to be deciphered. The well-known ecosopher Arne Naess pleads for everyone to attempt to decipher their environment from within their own situation, motivated by “a deep yes to nature”: What do we say yes to? Very difficult to find out – there is a deep unconditionality, but at the same time there is a kind of regret, sorrow or displeasure.”325 It is from within the lived experience that a personal-ecological significance comes to light: “I’m not much interested in ethics or morals. I’m interested in how we experience the world. […] If deep ecology is really deep it must relate to our fundamental belief, not especially to ethics. Ethics follows from how we experience the world.”326 Experience is interpretation and interpretation is a voyage of discovery. Where will God, where will the experience of the divine, be found in our time? Creation spirituality responds: the divine will be found in these places: In the Via Positiva. In the awe, wonder, and mystery of nature and of all beings, each of whom is a “word of God,” a “mirror of God that glistens and glitters,” as Hildegard of Bingen put it. This is Path One. 323

A. Forman, Full Circle. Song of Ecology and Earthen Spirituality, St. Paul (MN) 1992; B. Bruteau, Eucharistic Ecology and Ecological Spirituality, in: Cross Currents 40 (1990-1991), 499-514; R. Morris, Invocation of the Creatures. Learning to Pray with the World Again, in: Weavings 8 (1993), 27-33; A. Booth, Learning to Walk in Beauty. Critical Comparisons in Ecophilosophy Focusing on Bioregionalism. Deep Ecology, Ecological Feminism and Native American Ecological Consciousness, Madison 1992; S. McCarthy, Celebrating the Earth. An Earth-Centered Theology of Worship with Blessings, Prayers and Rituals, San Jose 1991. 324 A. LaChange, Greenspirit. Twelve Steps in Ecological Spirituality, Rockport-Shaftesbury 1991, 176-177. 325 D. Rothenberg, Ecosophy T. From Intuition to System, in: A. Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, New York 1991, 20. The label “T” refers to the mountain hut “Tvergastein” (= “over against the rocks”). 326 Ibid.

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In the Via Negativa. In darkness and nothingness, in the silence and emptying, in the letting go and letting be, and in the pain and suffering that constitute an equally real part of our spiritual journey. This is path Two. In the Via Creativa. In our generativity we co-create with God; in our imaginative output, we trust our images enough to birth them and ride them into existence. This is Path Three. In the Via Transformativa. In the relief of suffering, in the combating of injustice, in the struggle for homeostasis, for balance in society and history, and in the celebration that happens when persons struggling for justice and trying to live in mutuality come together to praise and give thanks for the gift of being and being together. This is Path Four.327

4. The power of imagination An essential component in ecological spirituality is imagination. It expresses itself in metaphorical language328 which offers inward guidance to the journey of discovery (via creativa). It extracts meanings from nature which the dominant culture has degraded to nonsense. Obvious are the images from the familial sphere (mother, brother, sister, and the like) and images of “place” (garden, paradise, house, farm, temple, ark) in which the spatial character of the environment is expressed.329 Teilhard de Chardin, for example, speaks of nature as “the divine milieu.”330 Metaphorical speech creates the possibility for nature to regain its symbolic character. It can again become a source of divine imagination. It can again begin to speak of non-objectively-perceptible realities. It can be freed from being reduced to mere matter, mere quantity, and experienced as ensouled and enspirited. In the Christian tradition this enspirited nature is viewed as the cosmic Christ, body of God, the icon of his form, the imprint of his hands, a place of transfiguration, the sacrament of God. When the world is thus disclosed as sacrament of God, there is nothing left in it – no particle, however small – in which the believer cannot perceive and find God. To clearly envision this is not only of the greatest importance for the 327

M. Fox, Creation Spirituality, San Francisco 1991, 18. L. Gilkey, Nature, Reality and the Sacred. The Nexus of Science and Religion, Minneapolis 1993; An Ecology of the Spirit, (Ed. M. Barnes), Lanham 1993; E. Johnson, Women, Earth and Creator Spirit, New York 1993; Stories of Nature and Humankind, (Ed. C. Rainier & P. Berry), Hillsboro 1993; Spirit and Nature. Why the Environment is a Religious Issue. An Interfaith Dialogue, (Ed. S. Rockefeller & J. Elder), Boston 1992; S. McFague, The Body of God. An Ecological Theology, Minneapolis 1993. 329 L. Andrews, Shakkai. Women of the Sacred Garden, New York 1992; G. Orth, Vom Garten Eden aus. Schöpfung in Gefahr? Frankfurt a.M. 1992; R. Taylor, The Search for a Sacred Place. Essays toward a Spirituality of Nature, Ann Arbor (MI) 1992. 330 P. Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu. An Essay on the Interior Life, New York-EvanstonLondon 1960. 328

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realization of faith in an increasingly secularized world; here, too, lies the specific contribution of faith and theology to the contemporary ecological discussion. A symbolic view of reality, one which integrates both our experience of the world and faith in God, guarantees an attentive, thoughtful, and responsible “association” with the world. From this perspective the world is not simply an object of human control but a sacrament of God who allows himself to be sought and found in it.331

BIBLIOGRAPHY Creation Spirituality and the Dreamtime, (Ed. C. Hammond), Newtown 1991. Creation-centered Spirituality, The Way 29 (1989) no. 1. CUMMINGS, C., Eco-Spirituality. Toward a Reverent Life, Mahwah (NJ) 1991. DORR, D., Integral Spirituality. Resources for Community, Justice, Peace and the Earth, Maryknoll (NY)-Dublin 1990. Earth and Spirit. The Spiritual Dimension of the Environmental Crisis (Ed. F. Hull), New York 1993. Essays in Spirituality and Ecology, (Ed. J. Snelling), Leicester 1992. FOX, M., Creation Spirituality. Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth, San Francisco 1991. Heel de schepping, behoed de natuur, Speling 41 (1989) no. 4. Israel’s Prophetic Tradition, (Ed. R. Coggins et al.), Cambridge-New York 1982. JUNG, S., We are Home. A Spirituality of the Environment, New York 1993. KESSLER, H., Das Stöhnen der Natur. Plädoyer für eine Schöpfungsspiritualität und Schöpfungsethik, Düsseldorf 1990. KUMAR, K., Utopianism, Minneapolis (MN) 1991. LEVITAS, R., The Concept of Utopia, Hertfordshire 1990. MCDANIEL, J., Earth, Sky, Gods and Mortals. Developing an Ecological Spirituality, Mystic 1990. Milieucrisis en spiritualiteit, Speling 46 (1994) no. 4. MORE, T., The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, New Haven etc. 1963-1997. NAESS, A., Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, New York 1991. New Age Spirituality, (Ed. D. Ferguson), Louisville (KY) 1993. PICHT, G., Zukunft und Utopie, Stuttgart 1992. Das Prophetenverständnis, (Ed. P. Neumann), Darmstadt 1979. SAAGE, R., Utopieforschung. Eine Bilanz, Darmstadt 1997. SCHNEIDER, M., Gottes Utopia. Anstösse zur Nachfolge, Würzburg 1989. SCHORSCH, C., Die New Age-Bewegung. Utopie und Mythos der Neuen Zeit. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung, Gütersloh 1988. 331

G. Greshake, Gott in allen Dingen finden, Freiburg 1986, 69.

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SNODGRASS, M., Encyclopedia of Utopian Literature, Santa Barbara (CA) 1995. Sustaining the Prophets, The Way 27 (1987) no. 2. TAYLOR, R., The Search for a Sacred Place. Essays toward a Spirituality of Nature, Ann Arbor (MI) 1992. WAAIJMAN, K., Psalmen over de schepping, Kampen 1982. WILBER, K., Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. The Spirit of Evolution, Boston-London 1995.

CHAPTER 3: COUNTERMOVEMENTS INTRODUCTION 213 Sometimes people are so profoundly touched by the Absolute that they are drawn outside of the cadres of the prevailing cultural and religious consensus. Their intense passion then challenges the established order. Their “counter-game” deregulates its dominance. Their intransigence breaks its power. 3.1. LIBERATION SPIRITUALITY 217 On the underside of society the oppressed and despised begin to move. Their sense of dignity breaks the stranglehold of power under which they suffer. In their resistance they experience God’s liberating power. 3.1.1. The song of Miriam 219 3.1.2. Joan of Arc 222 3.1.3. Dorothee Sölle 226 Bibliography 231 233 3.2. DEVOTION Devotion is often viewed as inferior by institutional spirituality. Schools of spirituality nevertheless try to channel it. It does not, however, just allow itself to be disciplined. 3.2.1. The pilgrimage to Jerusalem 236 3.2.2. The image of saints 239 3.2.3. Modern devotionality 242 Bibliography 245 247 3.3. ANT-AGONISTS On the margins of cultural and religious establishments we find the buffoons and fools, dissidents and satirists who, inspired by a contrary Spirit, regularly disturb the members of the establishment. 3.3.1. Elijah 248 3.3.2. Symeon the Fool 252 3.3.3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer 256 Bibliography 259 3.4. UPROOTEDNESS 261 Having gotten outside the security-zone of their own homes, refugees and exiles, desert monks and hermits are brought back to the Core of life. Each time this happens this situation proves to be a source of renewal. 3.4.1. Exile 261

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3.4.2. The Desert 3.4.3. Solitude Bibliography

264 269 274

276 3.5. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MARTYRS An unconditional no to dictatorial claims is paid for by death. But this witness of the martyrs schools the resistance and finally breaks the tyranny. 3.5.1. The seven brothers and their mother 278 3.5.2. The martyrdom of Polycarp 281 3.5.3. The holocaust 284 Bibliography 290 291 3.6. ESCHATOLOGICAL SPIRITUALITY Beyond the end mystics contemplate the redemptive approach of God. While this approach eludes the schemes of creation and history, it does bring about their culmination. 3.6.1. Eschatological prophecy 292 3.6.2. Death on a cross and glorification 295 3.6.3. The “unbecoming” in God 298 Bibliography 302

Introduction In music we observe a counter-movement when two voices move against each other: in play and counterplay they profile each other. A counter-movement can also be less playful: an action evokes a reaction. A still stronger reaction presents itself: resistance which turns against a dominant power. Whether playful or less playful a counter-movement denotes a power which offers a counterplay or counterweight against an existing power configuration. Counter-movements in spirituality are legion. The origin of Israel is connected with a counter-movement arising from the wilderness: oppressed farmers, shepherds, and stateless people took action against the Egyptian dominance of the Middle East. Prophets like Elijah, Micah, and Jeremiah formed a counter-movement against kings who violated the rights of the people. Devotionality takes its own tack against established schools of spirituality. Holy fools, clowns, dissidents, anchorites, and exiles form a constant counter current against established relations. Mary’s Magnificat, Francis’s Ode to the Sun, Pascal’s Thoughts, and Buber’s I and Thou are all countervoices which continue to undermine the self-delusion of power. Counter-movements in spirituality are found outside the sphere of power structures and established relations: outside of their concepts, their spatial orders, their time period, their

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hierarchies, their great narratives. But they do not let themselves be locked up in this “outside” state. They swim against the current. We can elucidate the phenomenon of spiritual counter-movements from within the field of tension called “structure-antistructure” which Victor Turner described to explain cultural processes in preliterate cultures, but also in Western culture. By structure he means a coherent whole of social roles and positions which functions in accordance with legitimated norms and sanctions. Antistructure is the area outside of this: fruitful chaos, a place of incubation for new ideas and lifestyles, of resistance and creativity. Turner distinguishes three forms of antistructure: liminality, inferiority, and marginality.1 This three-part division can help us explore the field of spiritual counter-movements in further detail. 1. Liminal spirituality. Following Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner distinguishes three phases which play a role in every rite of passage: the phase of separation (a person or group is detached from the social structure); the phase of liminality (individuals find themselves outside of the social structure in a state of indeterminacy) and the phase of reintegration (individuals are again incorporated in the social structure). The liminal phase is the main one. It is no unmixed blessing to be in this phase, since those who are in it are literally nowhere: outside the established cadres, outside of any time frame. Death, darkness, and nothingness prevail here. Liminal entities are tabulae rasae, without possessions, passive. Yet there is a current of life here: creativity, community, equality, vital energy, insight, imagination, wholeness, naturalness.2 Liminality is marked by the continual alternation between death and life. Liminal entities experience the extremes of ordinary life: the most profound experience of being valued and the most intense experience of being devalued; the intense experience of meaning and the experience of being made totally ridiculous. From within this transitional phase of liminality arise forms of spirituality which develop outside the established cadres of culture: the spirituality of the slaves who fled Egypt and went into the wilderness; the spirituality of the exile; the spirituality of the desert monks; the spirituality of poverty movements; the spirituality of the Jews who were driven out of Spain and Portugal; holocaust spirituality; end-time spiritualities. However, one can also call to mind here the spirituality that is lived in the loneliness of modern mass culture; the spirituality which is developed outside the standard cadres of religious or humanistic institutions. 2. “Inferior” spirituality. “Inferiority” is the position (transient or permanent) of those who find themselves on the underside of the social pyramid or, even 1 V. Turner, The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-structure, London 1969, 125-128; V. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, Ithaca-London 1974, 231-271. 2 V. Turner, The Ritual Process, 94-130; Dramas, Fields and Metaphors, 231-233, 151-153.

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lower, in the cellars of humankind: the outcast, the unemployed, the unskilled worker, the impoverished, the court jester, the misshapen, the “strange bird,” the handicapped, the child, the woman in a patriarchal society. This position can be described in terms of destitution (without status, power, or identity). At the same time people attribute a certain power to this position. Inherent in it is sharp insight into society. It functions as a symbol of humanity (Isa. 53); indeed it is regarded as the true representative of humanity. It is experienced as being endowed with a kind of divine power which can turn everything upside down (the Magnificat). It represents people of integrity. It is regarded as authentic and natural (the shepherd, the beggar, the savage, the primitive).3 We see the counterspirituality of inferiors typically embodied in the shepherds and farmers who rose up against Egypt and the Canaanite city states. The “inferiority” of the early Christian communities was expressed by Paul as follows: “Just consider your own call, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what was foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are nothing to reduce to nothing things that are something” (1 Cor. 1:26-28). The early Hassidic groups in Eastern Europe occupied an inferior position in the Judaism of that day. They were not schooled in torah and talmud, were not far removed from folk religiosity, followed divergent customs and leaned strongly toward popular traditions of ecstasy and mass enthusiasm. 3. Marginal Spirituality. Marginality is a position marked by a double loyalty. On the one hand, marginals belong to a given prestigious group in society. That is where they live; that is where their chances of advancement are located; that is their frame of reference. On the other hand, they are connected by their origin with groups outside, or on the underside, of society. Examples are: secondgeneration immigrants, children of the déclassé, migrants from the countryside to the city, women in emancipated positions, artists with recognized status.4 By their double loyalty they can offer radical criticism of the structures of society from the inside. One frequently finds them among writers, artists, and philosophers. Their positions make them well-suited to keep alive the human conscience. In the history of spirituality we observe this marginality in mendicant brothers who have become rich: Francis continues to attend to the necessary unrest. We also find it in prophetic movements which remember Israel’s liminal origins (in the wilderness). Christian spirituality always carries with it the “dangerous memory” of the cross. In this chapter we will try to make the field of antistructural spirituality visible. We will do this by means of examples, as we 3 4

See V. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, 234-235. Ibid., 233.

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explained in the introduction to Part I. Through the paradigms we make visible an aspect of spirituality which is essential to a correct understanding of the phenomenon. First, we will explore the “inferior” forms which emerge most clearly in liberation spiritualities and in devotionality. Next, we investigate the marginal forms: the countervoices (Elijah, for example, and the holy fools, but also the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany) and the homeless (exiles, hermits, the socially isolated). Finally, we will consider the liminal forms in the spirituality of martyrs and eschatological prophets.

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3.1. Liberation Spirituality The arch-paradigm of liberation spiritualities is the Exodus. From 1500 B.C. on, nomads from the desert penetrated the wealthy country of Egypt. Ramses II sought to break the growing influence5 of these infiltrators – who were regarded as Apiru (outlaws)6 – by making them do grunt work (Exod. 1:11; 5:4; 6:6) for the construction of Pithom and Ramses.7 The aggrieved slaves, whose dignity had been violated, resisted. When Ramses II died (1234 B.C.) and Egypt was hard pressed (Exod. 2:23), a group of forced laborers escaped from Egypt under the leadership of Moses who, to that end, had been given the divine promise: “I will be unconditionally with you” (Exod. 3:14). On their flight toward the desert they came upon the Sea of Reeds, where the Egyptian soldiers who pursued them threatened to enclose them. But a strong east wind (Exod. 14:23) provided a fordable place. The slaves escaped; the pursuers, probably overtaken by a storm, were swallowed up in the same place. In this marvellous escape the slaves saw the hand of Heaven. It fundamentally changed their image of God: God is One who champions the cause of the oppressed. On their journey through the desert a “mixed crowd” (Exod. 12:28) and all sorts of “rabble” (Num. 11:4) joined them. When the Moses group entered Canaan, it combined with groupings which had gone into opposition also in that area. Via these groupings Mosaic spirituality spread to farmers and shepherds. “Rescued from Egypt” became the basis on which the tribes found each other.8 The tribes felt they were a tool in the hand of Be-er.9 With the name “YHWH” on their lips they entered into battle against their oppressors (Ps. 44:5; see vs. 8). The exodus from Egypt became the archetype of the different forms of liberation spirituality. 1. From the decade of the 1960s the Latin American spirituality of liberation spread out, in regionally adapted forms, over Africa and Asia. Liberation spiritualities develop at the intersection between two givens: the experience of oppression and God who makes himself known as One who takes the side of the poor. The two dimensions are related to each other within the context of community 5

J. Hayes & J. Miller, Israelite and Judaean History, London 1977, 156-157. M. Mulder & A. van der Woude, Geschiedenis van het volk Israël en zijn godsdienst tot de tijd van Alexander de Grote, in: Bijbels Handboek 2a, (Ed. M. Mulder, B. Oosterhoff et al.), Kampen 1982, 17, 28. 7 J. Hayes & J. Miller, ibid., 153; W. Schmidt, Exodus 1-6 (BK II/1), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1988, 34. 8 C. Westermann, Elements of Old Testament Theology, Atlanta 1982, 36-37. See J. Hayes & J. Miller, ibid., 280; G. Fohrer, History of Israelite Religion, Nashville 1972, 93-94, 97-98. 9 G. Von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel, Grand Rapids (MI) 1991, 41ff., 72. 6

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(base communities). Scripture casts backlighting on the (structurally) inferior position of farmers and laborers; it is both a source of power and an incentive for liberation. Conversely, the situation of oppression casts a decisive light on Scripture; God reveals himself as a just and liberating God who confronts oppressors with their godless behavior. At the point of intersection between the experience of oppression and reading Scripture arises a new liturgy in which the connection between the praxis of life and the celebration of God’s presence is intrinsic. A new type of piety comes into being: spiritual praxis is intrinsically determined by social praxis. Within spiritual/intellectual praxis the analysis of social structures, the option for the oppressed and personal involvement in processes of change constitute an ever-recurring triad. 2. Black Spirituality, which originated within the broader context of the growth of racial consciousness in black communities in North America, is marked by four aspects: (1) the consciousness that the original roots of black people lie in Africa; (2) the shared memory of slavery; (3) the shared experience of racial oppression; (4) the struggle for liberation.10 In black spirituality practical charity and political involvement essentially belong together. Characteristic, also, is a specific feeling for prayer. Prayer is part of life and performed with one’s whole body. This experience of prayer is linked with a strong focus on Scripture, which is primarily experienced as an oral text and through dramatic presentation, a fact which goes back to the period of slavery. To black spirituality Scripture is above all a text that comes alive in contemporary situations. 3. Feminist spirituality originated in the 1980s within the context of feminism: it is the shared experience of women who had become conscious of living in a male-dominated cultural system. They opposed the structural inferiority of women vis-à-vis the men who fancy themselves superior. Underlying dichotomies which feminism seeks to eliminate are: the division between spirit and body, human and nonhuman creation, transcendence and immanence, the rational and the intuitive, intelligence and emotion. Over against a one-sided male version of God (“He”; transcendent; tri-unity as the union of three male persons; the man Jesus as the normative image of God; men as the sole imagers of God and bearers of spiritual power), the feminine side of God is brought to the fore (“She” transcendent-immanent; the “spirit” and “wisdom” as feminine; nature as divine). Feminist spirituality is marked by the following aspects:11 (1) It is rooted in women’s experience, especially their experience of being disempowered and re-empowered. The sharing of experience is important here as a technique for consciousness-raising and source of mutual support. (2) Giving voice to and celebrating bodiliness, especially the experiences associated with 10 11

C. Davis, African-American Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 21. S. Schneiders, Feminist Spirituality, ibid., 399-401.

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reproduction and childbirth, experiences which have frequently been viewed as inferior. (3). The intrinsic connection between men’s possession of women and violence inflicted on the environment. (4) The emphasis on rituals that invite participation, are circular, appeal to the aesthetic sense and are life-affirming, as opposed to a liturgical practice that is verbal and hierarchical. (5) Finally, feminist spirituality is committed to the view that there is an intrinsic relationship between personal spiritual growth and the pursuit of social justice. 4. Homospirituality is a form of spirituality which has developed in the last few decades. John Fortunato views the situation of gays and lesbians as that of exiles: banished from the family, from the church, and from creation. They have interiorized the myth that they are failed (sick, sinful, evil) creatures. Homospirituality, accordingly, begins with a process of incorporation that bears much resemblance to the classic practice of detachment: i.e. overcoming the desire to be accepted by the structures of society. “What gay people ultimately have to give up is attachment to rejection and the need for people [who are frequently unable or unwilling to do this] to affirm their wholeness and loveableness.”12 Hence they must detach themselves from every form of negative or positive dependence and entrust themselves – through a profound crisis experience – to the Creator who made them and in whose eyes they are unconditionally loveable. Through this spiritual process of transformation a fundamental self-confidence can arise, a trust of the body, nature, cosmos, and God, a second naiveté which yields a deeper appreciation of the beauty of creation. 3.1.1. THE

SONG OF

MIRIAM

At the time of Ramses II a group of grunt workers from Pithom and Ramses succeeded in making their “escape” (Exod. 14:5). On their flight they were held back by the “Sea.”13 When they were thus trapped, “Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and Be-er drove the sea back by a strong east wind” (Exod. 14:21). The Israelites escaped, while the Egyptians ran stuck in the wetlands possibly surprised by a storm.14 Having escaped death, Miriam and all the women danced a choral dance and sang: Sing to Be-er! Yes, proud is he, proud:

12

J. Fortunato, Embracing the Exile. Healing Journeys of Gay Christians, San Francisco 1984, 91. G. Fohrer, Geschichte Israels, Heidelberg 1977, 60-61; W. Schmidt, Exodus 1-6 (BK II/1), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1988, 66-68. 14 See G. Fohrer, Geschichte Israels, 59-62. 13

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This song, which probably originated under the impression of the event itself15 and reflected the most ancient form of Israel’s worship,16 is an example of the specifically Israelitish song form,17 of which the typical structure is: a summons, followed by the actual song, in which historical acts and events are recounted. Be-er is Compassion who reveals himself in historical processes in which the oppressed are exalted and the power of oppressors is broken. In this regard Israelitish poetry is structurally distinguished from the a-historical accumulation of participles one finds in the poetry of surrounding cultures.18 1. Sing to Be-er The community is summoned to acclaim the Name. The name Be-er is incorporated, as something completely self-evident in the summons.19 In the song Be-er and the exodus belong inseparably together: He who has validated his Name by enabling the oppressed to escape the military violence of Egypt. This is the characteristic nature of the Mosaic experience of God: the ancient divine promise ’ehye (I [shall] be there) is extended to a political community: the imprisoned slaves who as forced laborers have to do the grunt work (Exod. 1:11; 5:4; 6:6) at the construction projects of Pithom and Ramses (Exod. 1:11). The pledge “I shall be there (’ehye)” gives the signal for the exodus: “God said: ‘I shall be with you (…); I shall be: I shall be there (…).’ Say to the Israelites: ‘I-shall-bethere’ sends me to you’” (Exod. 3:12, 14). In Exodus this promise or pledge is expressed in all sorts of ways (see Exod. 5:24; 6:1-7; 7:1-5, 17; 8:1, 21; 9:1, 13-18; 10:2). The new feature here is this: The arch-nomadic assurance: “I shall be there: I will join you on your trek” is now sounded in a political context. The slaves with their nomadic background understood this as well as everything that surrounded it: the favorable “signs” before striking camp (cf. Exod. 3:20; 7:1-12:30), the departure on passover (Exod. 12-13), the pastoral hand that led them out and away (Exod. 14), the numerous moments of departure later in the desert (Exod. 17:1, 6; Num. 9:17-23; 10:11-34, etc.). The core of the promise is contained in Exodus 3:14 where the God of the Fathers pledges: “I shall be:

15

F. Crüsemann, Studien zur Formgeschichte von Hymnus und Danklied in Israel, NeukirchenVluyn 1969, 19-20 with bibliography; K. Waaijman, Psalmen over de uittocht, Kampen 1983, 9-17. 16 N. Gottwald, The Tribes of Jahweh, London 1979, 117. 17 See F. Crusemann, ibid., 19-80. 18 Ibid., 83-154. 19 Ibid., 21.

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I shall be there.” Expressed here is the unconditional and absolute involvement of God with his people20 which implies complete sovereignty: “I shall be there as I shall be there, concretely, in unpredictable and unmanipulable ways.” This sovereignty sometimes comes through so strongly that one can feel in the promise the refusal of God to define himself.21 The two components are interlocked: unconditional self-obligation is unconditional because it will not allow itself to be conditioned by any past or future experience. 2. The horse and its rider In the song the “I be there” is opposed to “the horse and its rider,” an accurate designation of the military-religious system of Egypt. From the time of Ramses II we have depictions22 which show the pharaoh and his crack troops standing on their chariots of war. Pictured under the legs of proud horses are swarming masses of people.23 Expressed in the imagery here (among other things by the iron!) is military superiority. We find the same masses of people again depicted elsewhere but now neatly ordered in an economic system: as grunt workers for Ramses II’s building projects.24 We are looking at economic exploitation securely held in place by the military. In still other depictions we see a chariot of war set up in a place of prayer and flanked by cult ministers.25 This completes the picture: a military-economic system of exploitation which is religiously sanctioned. 3. Shot into the sea The actual event of victory is very briefly described: “He shot them into the sea.” This leaves room for a variety of conceptions: (1) the conception of an archer (see Ps. 78:9 and Jer. 4:29). Perhaps the Egyptian cavalry was struck by the lightning bolts of a severe thunderstorm. From the ancient Near East we encounter numerous depictions of God as an archer who fires off his lightning bolts (cf. Ps. 18:14; Job 16:13).26 (2) Be-er throws the Egyptians into the sea the way one throws a stone or piece of lead into the sea (cf. Exod. 15:4-5 and 10; Ps. 136:15). (3) The Egyptians, driven by Be-er, become like animals pursued by a hunter (Exod. 14:27). The most likely image is that of the archer.

20

S. Amsler, hyh, in ThLOT I (1997), 363-364. L. Köhler, Theologie des Alten Testaments, Tübingen 1936, 234-235. 22 O. Keel, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament, Köln-Neukirchen 1972, 277-279. 23 O. Keel, ibid., Taf. XVII. 24 L. Grollenberg, Kleine atlas van de bijbel, Amsterdam-Brussel 1973, 75. 25 O. Keel, ibid., 214-215. 26 Ibid., 193-196. 21

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This tracks with the living environment of nomads who were probably armed with bow and arrows.27 4. Yes, proud is he, proud The song of Miriam, for all its brevity, holds onto the contrast between Be-er’s proud victory and the bringing down of the horses and riders who moments earlier were so very proud. The contrast is at bottom a contrast in spirituality. Pride summons up the Dignity which now rises from the pit of humiliation, the Dignity to which the Voice unconditionally commits itself: “I [shall] be there!” It is a power which overthrows empires and defies tyrants. This is the Power which struck a lethal blow against the military-economic-religious superiority of Egypt. Be-er is the “pride” of his people. From the depths of their humiliation, his Dignity rises up in them and assumes a fighting posture. 3.1.2. JOAN OF ARC Joan of Arc was probably born on January 6, 1411, in Domremy, a small village on the Meuse in Lorraine, one of the regions which suffered most under the Hundred Years War (1356-1453) between England and France. England dominated the North, but the area south of the Loire was French. In the border regions (on both sides of the Seine, the Meuse, and the Loire rivers), the land was ravaged by war: farms were plundered, churches burned to the ground, and armies demanding ransom from the local population. An important background issue was the Western Schism (after 1377). At the beginning of the 14th century the pope, leaning on the French monarchy, had transferred his residence from Rome to Avignon. After the death of Gregory XI in 1377, and alongside his successor Clement VII, a Roman pope was chosen, Urban VI, who was supported by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, an ally of England. Joan of Arc grew up in a time when France’s future looked very bleak. In 1422 Charles VI died. His successor, Charles VII, was not recognized as king. One of the first acts of Joan of Arc occurred in 1429 when, on instructions from heavenly voices, she assured the dauphin that he was the legitimate successor to the French throne. Following this recognition Charles VII included her in his court. An army of 3,000-5,000 troops was formed around her. As supreme commander of the French forces she marched them to Orleans which she relieved in 1429. The French people were beside themselves with joy. It again felt a rising sense of strength for battle. The moment Orleans had been liberated Joan urged the king to march on and conquer Rheims. On July 16 Joan, with the 27

Ibid., 67.

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dauphin, entered Rheims where he was solemnly crowned as king by the archbishop of Rheims with Joan’s banner by his side. France now had a legitimate king and was reborn as a nation. After Rheims Joan wanted immediately to push on to Paris. The advance started in September 1429. All the signs were favorable. But suddenly the king gave orders to retreat: his own army had been weakened and Paris was too big. In 1430 she made another attempt. But Compiègne, from which she had launched her first attack on Paris and from which she now undertook a second attempt, became her downfall. She was taken prisoner and handed over to the English. On February 21, 1431, she was put on trial in Rouen under the guidance of bishop Cauchon and 43 council members (canons, abbots, clerks of the court, doctors of the Sorbonne, and monks), to which a representative of the Inquisition was added later. On May 30, 1431, at the age of 20, she was sentenced for heresy and burned alive. Her ashes were scattered over the Seine. In 1427, however, the political situation changed. The English weakened and the Burgundians turned their back on England. Charles VII marched into Paris and reformed almost all of France. In 1450 he opened the rehabitation trial of Joan of Arc in Paris, which in 1456 declared her condemnation void. 1. Heavenly voices Joan of Arc was the daughter of a fairly well-to-do gentleman-farmer. At home she received a devout upbringing. “My mother taught me the Pater, our Ave and the Creed. No one other than my mother taught me my faith.”28 According to her own statement, Joan for the first time heard the voices of saints on her 13th birthday. They did not come to her frontally but from a certain direction. Every time she heard the voices she was startled by a great light. When I was thirteen years old I heard a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. The first time I was very fearful. The voice came around noon, in the summer-time, in my father’s garden. I had not fasted the day before. I heard the voice on the right hand side, the side of the church. I rarely heard it without a brightness. This brightness came from the same side as the voice. Usually it was a great light (…). I felt that the voice was a good voice, and believed it had been sent by God. After I had heard it three times I knew it was the voice of an angel. The voice has always guided me well and I have always understood it clearly.29

Over a period of several years the voices came two or three times a week.30 At first they guided Joan in her prayers and conduct. Gradually the voices initiated 28

R. Pernoud, La spiritualité de Jeanne d’Arc, Paris 1992, 15. P. Tisset, Procès de condemnations de Jeanne d’Arc I, Paris 1960, 47. 30 Ibid., 48. 29

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her into her political-military assignment. They spoke with her about the miserable state in which France found itself, about the king who would ascend to his throne, and so forth. Finally she received the clear mission to go to France to liberate Orleans and to conduct the king to the cathedral of Rheims where he would be crowned. All this was to be done for the purpose of helping the French people in their distress and to liberate France from its foreign rulers. During her military actions the voices were always with her. They suggested to her when to advance and when to hold back. They also indicated the tactics she should follow: to attack from behind or frontally. The voices assisted her on all her ways, even into prison. They promised “to lead her into Paradise.”31 The voices belonged to the intimacy of her God-relation. Before her judges Joan declared firmly and even fiercely that she would never tell the full truth about her voices to anybody; “even if you should threaten to cut off my head I would still tell no more about my saints than I have done, for they themselves have forbidden me to speak about them with you or with the world.”32 2. La Pucelle In the same year in which Joan of Arc first heard the voices, she promised to remain a virgin: “The first time I heard the voice I promised to keep my virginity for as long as it should please God. I was about 13 at the time.”33 Around the age of 12 or 13 a girl was considered an adult. The judges, accordingly, did not find her statements strange. They only wanted to know to whom she had made the promise: “Did you speak to God when you promised to keep your virginity?” Joan replied: “It was enough for me to make that promise to those who had been sent to me from God, that is, Saint Catharine and Saint Margaret.”34 To be a virgin meant that she belonged unconditionally to God. At the same time this bond meant complete freedom. Joan had nothing left to lose. She was totally concentrated on the will of the One who protected her from herself and from others. Joan of Arc commanded spontaneous respect by her unconditional dedication. As a result there was no room for doubts, hesitations, and ambiguities. During the months of her trial Joan came across as a woman who, despite her still youthful age, radiated great integrity. “Joan was a person with great strength of mind. She remained this even in suffering, in prison, and in the face of death; and this

31

Ibid., 126. Cited in F. Grayeff, Jeanne d’Arc, Brugge-Vught 1982, 109. 33 P. Tisset, ibid., 123. 34 Ibid. 32

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is what gave her conduct its enterprising character and her person this transparency.”35 Her virginity gave her an indestructible center. “The transformation of the self which Joan underwent the first time she heard the voice reorganized her life around the virginity of her soul.”36 The state of belonging unconditionally to God touched the deepest layers of her soul. This was no pious isolation: “The result of her transformation was no narcissistic self-absorption. It was a giving of the self in the service of justice. She had to fight for justice if she wanted to preserve her virginal soul.”37 This virginity made her sovereign before her unjust judges. Before the supreme judge Cauchon she declared: “You say that you are my judge. I do not know if you are, but be careful that you do not judge unjustly, for in so doing you would put yourself in great danger. I am warning you so that, if our good Lord chastises you for it, I have done my duty in telling you this.”38 3. I entrust myself Always, and in all the circumstances of her life, Joan of Arc relied on the voice of God: “The voice comes from God and I think that I will not just tell you everything I know. I am more afraid that I will say something that displeases these voices than I am about the answers I give you.”39 Her soul was completely turned toward God; from her judges she feared nothing. She was from God: “I have come from God; there is nothing here for me to look for. Send me back to God from whom I have come.”40 This was the mystical core of her life: she lived from God; she received everything from God, also what she heard in the voices: “I entrust myself to my Judge who is God. My revelations are from God without any intermediary.”41 Out of this mystical connectedness with God she prayed in her distress: O sweetest God, by your holy passion I request of you, if you love me, that you will reveal to me what I must say to these people of the church.”42 35

R. Pernoud, La spiritualitá de Jeanne d’Arc, Paris 1992, 38. G. Tavard, The Spiritual Way of St. Jeanne d’Arc, Collegeville (MN) 1998, 47. 37 Ibid., 48. 38 P. Tisset, Procès de condemnations de Jeanne d’Arc I, Paris 1960, 147-148. 39 Ibid., 60. 40 Ibid., 56-57. 41 Ibid., 345. 42 Cited by R. Pernoud, ibid., 9. 36

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The church people (prelates, canons, abbots, theologians, monks) wanted her dead. Her greatest concern, however, was that her answers conformed to the voice of God. Also now, in this extreme situation, she begged God that she might speak in accordance with his will. In the meantime the divine voice gave her comfort and encouragement. She, on her part, trusted herself to God. Most moving is what she said a few weeks before her death, surrounded as she was by people who were seeking her downfall. Saint Catherine has told me that I shall receive help. I do not know whether this will happen by my being liberated from prison or whether by my being brought to judgment, disturbances will break out by means of which I shall be set free. Both of these outcomes are possible. Most frequently my voices tell me that I shall be delivered by a great victory. But afterward my voices tell me: ‘Accept everything; do not be anxious about your martyrdom. By it you will at last come into the Kingdom of Paradise.’ And this my voices say to me simply and absolutely. It is absolutely certain. I call it martyrdom because of the pain and hostility I experience in prison. I do not know if I will suffer even more misery. But I entrust myself to Our Good Lord.43

The judge, unmoved, continued his line of questioning: “Since your voices have told you that in the end you will go to paradise, are you assured of being saved and of not being condemned to hell?” Joan answered: “I firmly believe what my voices have told me, namely, that I will be saved, just as firmly as if I had already been there.” The judge continued: “That answer is of great weight.” To which Joan replied: “Which is why I consider it to be a great treasure.”44 3.1.3. DOROTHEE SÖLLE Dorothee Sölle was born in Cologne in 1929. She grew up in a bourgeoisliberal Lutheran family which was critical of the rising National Socialism.45 She lived through the spiritual and material malaise of 1945. World War II had made her critical vis-à-vis the established powers in Germany. In 1954, following her studies in theology, she married the artist Sölle. The couple had three children. In 1960, totally unexpectedly, he left her.46 To her this meant the end of her life. At the same time a new wellspring was tapped within her. 43

P. Tisset, ibid., 148. Ibidem. 45 For the biographical data, see the conversations with her in D. Sölle, Wie zich niet weert, Baarn 1981; see also D. Sölle, Against the Wind, Memoir of a Radial Christian, Minneapolis 1999. 46 D. Sölle, ibid., 16. 44

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1. “My grace is sufficient for you” In 1975, looking back on her divorce after 15 years, she tells us in Die Hinreise47 how everything on which she based her life had been destroyed. It took her more than three years to come to terms with the suicidal thoughts and desires that filled her mind. It seems as though the only hope and desire I had was to die. It was in this state of mind that while on a trip to Belgium I visited a late-Gothic style church. I realize now that “prayer” is not the right term. I was crying out. I was crying out for help, and the only kind of help I could conceive of or want was that my husband would come back to me, or that I would die and my misery would be over and done with. Then and there the Bible passage came to mind: “My grace is sufficient for you.48

She did not have the faintest idea what to do with this statement by Paul. In fact she hated it. She did not understand what “grace” was. Yet “God” had told her precisely this and nothing else. “After I left that church I stopped praying for my husband to come back to me, although for a long time I did pray to die. Little by little I began to accept the fact that my husband was going another way – his way. I had reached the end of the line and God had scrapped the first draft of the design for my life.”49 Dorothy Sölle began to root her life in the Pauline dictum she had received. “The experience of the sufficiency of grace for life and the experience that nothing – not even our own death – can separate us from the love of God are experiences we can recognize only after the fact.” They are not experiences we can incorporate in our plans in advance.50 Here her inner resistance – based on “my grace is sufficient for you” – was born. Resistance in light of this experience would from this time on mark her life. 2. Substitution Her first book Stellvertretung was published in 1965.51 Substitution means: one person replaces another, stands in for him, represents the other. This substitution confirms the uniqueness and irreplaceability of that other inasmuch, though in his absence it puts itself in his place, it does not put him permanently out of circulation.” The idea of representation actually acquires its basis in the very

47

D. Sölle, Die Hinreise, Stuttgart, 1975 (English translation: Death by Bread Alone, Philadelphia 1978). 48 D Sölle, Death by Bread Alone, 32. 49 Ibidem. 50 Ibdem, 32-33. 51 D. Sölle, Christ the Representative, An Essay in Theology After the “Death of God” (English translation of Stellvertretung), London 1967.

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place where the individual’s irreplaceability is maintained. Indeed, all the conditions which make representation necessary appear only where irreplaceability is presupposed. Where I am irreplaceable, I must be represented; because I am irreplaceable, I must be represented.”52 By means of the concept of “substitution” Sölle gained for herself a critical position with respect to the autarchy of bourgeois liberalism and the throw-away mentality which marks the modern system of work and consumption. Substitution, after all, implies dependence plus responsibility. “We experience representation when we are dependent on another or on others and when we bear responsibility for another or for others.”53 Furthermore, the notion of “substitution” implies a time factor: ‘I am temporarily represented by someone, i.e. for as long as I am absent. In the Christian tradition substitution is a core concept: Christ, in his suffering and death, represents those who, though innocent, suffer for God. In imitation of Christ also Christians put themselves in the place of others. In this way they in turn represent Christ who is irreplaceable (non-interchangeable) but precisely for that reason needs representation (in time, being absent), just as Christ also substitutes for God in a culture marked by the death of God54 and we as Christians represent Christ in his substitutionary role.55 3. Political evening prayer The late sixties, in the city of Cologne, saw the emergence of a political evening service, a monthly celebration inspired by the views of Dorothee Sölle. Important ingredients in this service were documentation and analysis. The Benedictine Fulbert Steffensky, with whom Sölle entered into a second marriage in 1969, was one of the regular participants. The basic premise of the service was that faith and politics are inseparable: the gospel demands that it be given a chance to impart social realities in a critical and constructive way so as to open new perspectives.56 The common perspective of the work group was formed by way of conversations on a concrete topic. After the selection of a theme came a phase in which material was collected on the basis of which conversations were conducted and prayer texts were written. The more concrete and well-defined the topic, the better the documentation can be, the more efficiently the conversation can be conducted, and the more clearly targeted the action can be. Two elements, which also played a role in the preparatory phase, were of great importance. (1) The conversation was an integral part of the prayer meeting. 52

Idem, 55. Idem, 56. 54 Ibid., 130-149. 55 Ibid., 148. 56 D. Sölle and F. Steffensky, Politiek avondgebed, Baarn 1970, 7. 53

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Often such conversation did not come off very well (acoustics, number of participants, divergent backgrounds). “But even where little that is constructive is contributed for the objective result of the topic discussed, the discussion still made it possible for the participants to identify with the issue in question.”57 (2) The effect of the service depended strongly on available possibilities of active engagement. The preparation group was responsible for a detailed plan of action which had to be concrete, limited, and workable. Action was the intended effect of the service and an essential part of it.58 4. The journey outward In the sixties Dorothee Sölle envisioned two foci of action: being a lobby for the Third World and the liberation of the First World from consumerism. In the seventies she focused especially on the second point without, however, neglecting the first. “There is a need for a new piety: for me radicalism and piety must go hand in hand, the one reinforcing the other. That is the point of intersection between horizontalism and verticalism.”59 Dorothee Sölle gave expression to this radical piety in Die Hinriese.60 By the “journey outward” she means “the journey of persons who break the bonds by which they are shackled to a consumer society devoid of transcendence, who abandon the most banal atheism of our day, and who have the courage to venture creatively on the road toward a new religiosity, toward God.”61 Coupled with this journey outward there has to be the return journey to the heart of the world, in order “there – engaged and politicized – to collaborate in the construction of justice and truth.”62 The main theme in Die Hinreise is the death which comes over us in this life: a meaningless and empty life, without connections, dominated by fear, speechlessness, and boredom, an “omnipresent dreadful death: death by bread alone, death by mutilation, death by asphyxiation, the death of all relationships.”63 “We are so alienated from other people that we experience neither the bitterness nor the sweetness of grief. This is the hell that swallows us up in the midst of life as we go about the motions and routines of life.”64 She observes the organized absence of relationships everywhere about us: the taking away of playgrounds from youth; constructing buildings in such a way that people never encounter each 57

D. Sölle & F. Steffensky, Politiek avondgebed, Baarn 1970, 9. Ibid., 9. 59 D. Sölle, Wie zich niet weert, Baarn 1981, 21. 60 D. Sölle, Die Hinreise, Stuttgart, 1975. (English translation: Death by Bread Alone, Philadelphia 1978). 61 D. Sölle, Wie zich niet weert, 21. 62 Ibid., 21. 63 Cf. D. Sölle, Death by Bread Alone, 3. 64 Idem, 6. 58

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other; putting foreign workers on assembly lines [where they cannot speak to each other]; letting refugees smash themselves to death against an unresponsive bureaucracy, and so forth. The only way out that Sölle can see is “to transcend”; i.e.: to rise up and leave the region of death and to become free to love life. 5. Mysticism and resistance Almost 70 years old, Dorothee Sölle wrote Mystik und Widerstand, with the subtitle “Du stilles Geschrei” (You silent scream).65 In this magnum opus the radical piety of Die Hinreis is continued and deepened. All the social situations on which she had reflected for years and for which she gave herself in numerous connections come together here. Here we find in its full scope what in 1963 began to glow from a bulb the size of a pinhead: “For many years already I felt attracted to and sustained by mystical experience and the mystical consciousness. I considered it the focal point of the complex phenomenon called ‘religion.’”66 For Sölle, mysticism is first of all very simply the desire for God which expresses itself in the love of God: “The fact that people love, protect, renew, and save God sounds, in the ears of most people, like megalomania or absolute foolishness. But it is precisely this foolishness of love on which the mystics live.”67 To Dorothee Sölle, the desire for God is focused on the world and daily praxis: “Whether it concerns a withdrawal from it, the refusal to be aligned with it, deviation, dissidence, reformation, resistance, rebellion or revolution – in all these forms there is a ‘no’ to the world as it is now.”68 This ‘no’ which is rooted in the desire for God for Sölle – bears the name “resistance” (Widerstand), because this word evokes the resistance against national socialism and militarism, against Stalinism and the violation of human rights, the resistance of people throughout the world who have put into practice their ‘no’ to hopeless situations. At stake for Sölle is the intrinsic unity between mysticism and resistance: a resistance which flows inwardly from mysticism and a mysticism which grows out of the solidarity experienced in resistance. After an introductory section on the phenomenon of mysticism and possible approaches to it, she points out in section II certain areas in which mysticism can be experienced: nature, eroticism, suffering, community and joy. But these sections only form an overture to the real thing: a description of mysticism and resistance (section III). With an assortment of examples she indicates a way out of “our prison of the First World at the end of the second millennium” in which

65

D. Sölle, Mystik und Widerstand, Hamburg 1997. D. Sölle, Mystiek en Verzet, Baarn 1998, 17. 67 Ibid., 18. 68 Ibid., 20. 66

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“humankind has fallen asleep without any thought of God.”69 This way out leads – via a way into homelessness but through the unity of action and contemplation – away from the heavily armored and self-assured self, away from captured and insured possessions, away from the world of violence to an “I” that is selfless, a community where justice and peace hold sway: a mysticism of liberation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BOFF, L. & BETTO, F., Mistica e espiritualidade, Rio de Janeiro 1994. BOYER, M., Biblical Reflections on Male Spirituality, Collegeville (MN) 1996. CARSON, A., Feminist Spirituality and the Feminine Divine. An Annotated Bibliography, Trumansburg (NY) 1986. CASALDALIGA, P. & VIGIL, J.-M., Espiritualidad de la liberación, Santander 1992. The Feminine Mystic. Readings from Early Spiritual Writers, (Ed. L. Deming), Cleveland (OH) 1997. Feminist Voices in Spirituality, (Ed. P. Hegy), Lewiston (NY) 1996. FISCHER, C., Of Spirituality. A Feminist Perspective, Lanham (MD)-London 1995. FORTUNATO, J., Embracing the Exile. Healing Journeys of Gay Christians, San Francisco 1984. GALILEA, S., The Way of Living Faith. A Spirituality of Liberation, San Francisco 1988. GOTTWALD, N., The Tribes of Jahweh, London 1979. GUTIÉRREZ, G., We Drink from Our Own Wells. The Spiritual Journey of a People, Maryknoll (NY)-Melbourne (Australia) 1984. JAMES, D., What Are They Saying about Masculine Spirituality?, New York 1996. MOINOT, P., Jeanne d’Arc. Le pouvoir et l’innocence, Paris 1994. PERLSTEIN, E., Jewish Men’s Spiritual Growth, New York 1995. PERNOUD, R., La spiritualité de Jeanne d’Arc, Paris 1992. SCHMIDT, W., Exodus, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1988. SCHULENBURG, A., Feministische Spiritualität. Exodus in eine befreiende Kirche?, Stuttgart 1993. SOBRINO, J., Spirituality of Liberation, Maryknoll (NY) 1988. SÖLLE, D., Mystik und Widerstand, Hamburg 1997. SÖLLE, D., On Earth as in Heaven. A Liberation Spirituality of Sharing, Louisville (KY) 1993. The Spiral Path. Explorations in Women’s Spirituality, (Ed. T. King), St. Paul (MN) 1992. Spirituality of the Third World. A Cry for Life, (Ed. K. Abraham & B. Mbuy-Beya), Maryknoll (NY) 1994. TAVARD, G., The Spritual Way of St. Jeanne d’Arc, Collegeville (MN) 1998. THOMPSON, M., Gay Spirit. Myth and Meaning, New York 1987.

69

Ibid., 267.

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TOWNES, E., In a Blaze of Glory. Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness, Nashville 1995. VAN DYKE., A., The Search for a Woman-centered Spirituality, New York-London 1992. The Virago Book of Spirituality. Of Women and Angels, (Ed. S. Anderson), London 1996. WAAIJMAN, K, Psalmen over de uittocht, Kampen 1983. We Shall Overcome. A Spirituality of Liberation, (Ed. M. Worsnip & D. van der Water), Pietermaritzburg 1991. What We Have Seen and Heard. A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization from the Black Bishops of the United States, Cincinnati 1984. Women Resisting Violence. Spirituality for Life, (Ed. M. Mananzan et al.), Maryknoll (NY) 1996. ZAPPONE, K., The Hope for Wholeness. A Spirituality for Feminists, Mystic (CT) 1991.

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3.2. Devotion Devotionality and popular piety as a rule fall outside the perspective of institutional spiritualities. The reason is that this form of spirituality concerns itself with such everyday matters as procreation, health, interpersonal relations and property. In addition, its ritual language does not conform to the rational frameworks of the schools of spirituality which consider it stupid and vulgar.70 This depreciation is even reinforced when the devotional is combined with the feminine.71 The great difficulties which institutional piety experiences with respect to the phenomenon of devotionality are evident from the treatment of it in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Whereas most topics are assigned only one entry, devotionality is given four: Devotio,72 Dévotion,73 Dévotions,74 and Dévotions prohibées.75 The positive role is reserved for the singular: devotion is the fervent dedication of the heart,76 the religious act par excellence, which sustains the other acts (prayer, adoration, self-sacrifice) from within.77 By comparison with this inner fervent movement of the heart the practices of devotion appear as negative. They are considered external and instrumental: “Devotion is the religious dedication of one’s entire being to God. By contrast the ‘devotions’ are said to be something inferior. A means (the devotions) threatens to become the goal (the essential devotion) and in that way to effect a complete reversal of the spiritual attitude: from service to God to self-promotion.”78 One can also reverse the roles, however: by comparison with the devotional attitude devout practice is affective (rooted in the deeper passions of the heart), concrete (interwoven with the culture and the character of concrete people), organic (a structuring line of power), and multicolored (ever seeking new forms).79 One can further say that devotional practices precede the attitude of devotion which they evoke: “The devotions, considered in terms of their object and practice, have as their goal the

70 See K. Schreiner, Laienfrömmigkeit von Eliten oder Frömmigkeit des Volkes, in: Laienfrömmigkeit im späten Mittelalter, (Ed. K. Schreiner), München 1992, 2-26. 71 J. Thiele, Madonna mia. Maria und die Männer, Stuttgart 1990. 72 J. Chatillon, Devotio, in: DSp 3 (1957), 702-716. 73 J. Curran, Dévotion, in: DSp 3 (1957), 716-727. 74 E. Bertaud & A. Rayez, Dévotions, in: DSp 3 (1957), 747-778. 75 A. de Bonhome, Dévotions prohibées, in: DSp 3 (1957), 778-795. 76 J. Chatillon, ibid., 710-716. 77 J. Curran, ibid., 716-727. 78 E. Bertaud & A. Rayez, ibid., 747. 79 Ibid., 748-750.

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maintenance and nurture of devotion which itself is heedless of everything but God.”80 The praxis generates the attitude. As praxis it is original. It does not, accordingly, live a derivative life. This is confirmed by the “forbidden devotions.” After all, one can only forbid something that has first proved itself irreducibly vital. Devotions are a threat to a given school of spirituality by “what constitutes their originality: the affective whole they encompass.”81 Devotionality is part of the broader complex of a folk religiosity which as a rule is judged in equally pejorative terms: an impassive reservoir of passive, conservative, anti-intellectual, feeling-governed, pragmatic and everlastingly pagan attitudes.82 With respect to the dominant religion this folk religiosity delineates itself as “the other religion”83 which largely wraps itself in silence: “The history we describe here is a history of silence. Not only are the people in question silent; established society itself helps to maintain this silence.”84 What we see is only the tip of the iceberg. What we do not see is “the part of the iceberg that is under water (…), namely the folk religiosity for which neither the people of the press nor painters reserve any space.”85 Beneath the surface “the two religions”86 continually interact with each other. On the one hand, official religion tries to penetrate and imbue popular religion as deeply as possible with its own structures and involve it as much as possible in its conceptual world. In popular religion, on the other hand, “the world of the magical is remodeled and reconceived in the inmost depths of the popular consciousness in the service of an interpretation which more nearly conforms to the religious representation.”87 Within the compass of spirituality as a whole “devotionality” describes a sphere of its own. John of the Cross discusses this sphere in the context of the spiritual goods which lead the will toward God.88 Within devotionality he differentiates three categories: 1. Images of saints. Images of the saints are designed “to awaken the dormant devotion of the faithful and their inclination to prayer.”89 Herein lies their specific function: to kindle devotion through the instrumentality of the image.”90

80

Ibid., 749. Ibid., 754. 82 M. Vovelle, Mentaliteitsgeschiedenis, Nijmegen 1985, 84-125. 83 Ibid., 114. 84 Ibid., 106. 85 Ibid., 123. 86 Ibid., 117. 87 Ibid., 113-114. 88 John of the Cross. The Ascent of Mount Carmel III, 33-45. Of the 56 times John of the Cross uses the word “devotion,” we find 44 in these chapters. We are here following the text edition of San Juan de la Cruz, Obras completas, (Ed. J. Rodriguez & F. Salvador), Madrid 1988. 89 John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel III, 36.2. 90 Ibidem. 81

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If this is to occur authentically, they must represent the “uniqueness and liveliness of the saint,”91 which lies beyond the clever workmanship and ornamentation which “hinder devotion to the saint.”92 The image “must bring God and the saints home to us and move the will to devotion.”93 Devotion wants “to journey to God, love him, and forget all things out of love for him.”94 Later we shall return to the subject of images in the works of John of the Cross. 2. Devotional places. John of the Cross mentions three kinds of devotional places by which God arouses the will to devotion. The first kind is determined by a certain special setting. “They naturally awaken devotion by the pleasant sight of their variations, by the lie of the land or the division of the trees, or by solitary quietude.”95 The second kind of place is linked to one’s personal life history. It is a place where God has bestowed a particular favor on a person. “The heart of such a person who has received a special favor there will therefore ordinarily feel drawn to the place where he received that favor.”96 It may be good from time to time to return to that place for prayer: God evidently wants to be praised there for the favor he bestowed; the soul, when there, will be more disposed to thank God for the grace received; when the soul remembers the grace received there, a more fervent devotion will be kindled. The third kind has been selected by God himself, Mount Sinai for example. The devotional places have the same function as the images of the saints: they awaken the devotion which inwardly desires to be lifted up above itself toward God. 3. Prayer rituals. John of the Cross has in mind here the rituals which surround prayer: the number of candles that must burn, a certain liturgist, a specific time, the number of prayers, specific ceremonies, certain physical postures and gestures. He prefers two particular ritualizations. The first is: prayer in the concealment of our secret chamber where without noise and without paying attention to anyone else we can pray with a more undivided and pure heart.”97 The second is: prayer in solitary places, as he [Jesus] did, and at the best and most quiet time of day: during the night.”98 Prayer rituals should be bound as little as possible to specific times, methods, words or gestures. It is best to focus the devotionality of prayer inwardly on the seven petitions of the Our Father, for “included in them is everything that God desires of us and everything we need.”99 91

Ibid., III, 35.3. Ibid., III, 38.2. 93 Ibid., III, 37.1. 94 Ibid., III, 38.2. 95 Ibid., III, 42.1. 96 Ibid., III, 42.3. 97 Ibid., III, 44.4. 98 Ibid., III, 44.1. 99 Ibid., III, 44.4. 92

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We will now explore devotionality with the aid of three examples: a psalm of pilgrimage; images of the saints in the thought of John of the Cross; and contemporary sensibility.

3.2.1. THE PILGRIMAGE TO JERUSALEM Ps. 122 is one of the fifteen songs of pilgrimage (Pss. 120-134) which pilgrims sang on their way up to Jerusalem. What comes to expression in these songs, on the one hand, is popular piety: “Coming to the fore here is the life world of simple persons, the little people, the farmer, the craftsman, the mother with her small children, the father of a family who works from dawn to dark, experiencing bitterness as well as joy.”100 On the other hand, this popular piety is oriented to Zion theology around central notions like: the presence of Be-er on Mount Zion, the blessing of Be-er bestowed from Mount Zion, Israel as people of God grouped around Zion.101 Psalm 122 is located in this field of tension. The psalm follows the movements of a pilgrim: the departure, the pilgrim’s journey, the city gates, the breadth of the city, the house of Be-er. 1. The pilgrim’s departure and journey Alongside the sabbath, the ceremony of circumcision, and the torah, there was no institution which, after the exile, so much stirred up popular devotion as the pilgrimages made during the great feasts: Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles.102 Jewish families went up to Jerusalem from all points of the compass, leaving home in little groups. Gradually a caravan grew. Whatever place the pilgrims came by they invited people to join them on their pilgrimage to the house of Be-er! I was glad when they said to me: “We are going to the house of Be-er!” (vs. 1)

The journey to the holy city takes long – sometimes a few days; for those who have to travel a great distance, several weeks. The journey itself is quite an event. From the perspective of the departure, it hurts; but from the point of destination it generates new life, as one pilgrim testifies: “As they pass through a weeping depth, they [the pilgrims[ open up springs in it.” (Ps. 84:6). Leaving behind their familiar life opened up in them a “weeping depth” but approaching their point of destination made this “weeping depth” into a place of “living springs.” 100

K. Seybold, Die Wallfahrtpsalmen, Neukirchen 1978, 42. ibid., 83. 102 S. Safrai, Die Wallfahrt in Zeitalter des Zweiten Tempels, Neukirchen 1981. 101

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“Going” is a going-away, a loss, a leaving behind. “Coming” is receiving, being blessed. In the pilgrim’s journey these two are one. 2. In the gates the city opens itself up On the horizon at the end of the pilgrims’ journey rises the holy city of Jerusalem – a splendor to the eye, a joy to all the land (Ps. 48:2). The high point of the journey is entering the city gates which for the pilgrims marked the transition from the inhospitable region outside the city to the well-shaded security of the holy city. Our feet came to a halt within your gates, O Jerusalem (vs. 2).

In the gates the pilgrims settle down. With their feet they feel the holy ground. They see the inner city: the houses standing shoulder to shoulder, a symbol of Israel’s solidarity. Jerusalem, built as a city bound together in a sworn union, to which the tribes go up – a sign for Israel to acknowledge the Name of Be-er (vv. 3-4).

As the pilgrims stand in the gates, the innermost part of the holy city comes out to meet them: a solidly built city joined together in a sworn union. This is Israel: tribe beside tribe, family beside family, friend beside friend. This solidarity is not a statistical datum. The pilgrims know it in a physical way: without this coming together in streams there will be no center. By their own coming together they build up Jerusalem: the heart of Israel. And what is more: in assembling themselves they experience the One. In its pilgrimage Israel witnesses to the Source from which it lives. 3. The ascent to the house of Be-er The movement does not end in the gates. The pilgrims make their way into the city. They ascend mount Zion in the northern part of the city. To the left the royal palaces are situated. There are set the thrones of judgment the thrones of the house of David (vs. 5).

The seats of judgment are set up in the royal reception hall. There the king administers justice, assigning to each his due. They stand there to insure mutual respect among the tribes so that each has its rightful place in the nation. Responsibility for justice has been entrusted to the house of David.

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Situated next to the king’s house is the house of Be-er. After the pilgrims have passed the first court and by a stairway have entered the inner court, the house of Be-er arises before their eyes. This is the goal of the journey. Their hearts are now directed toward Be-er who dwells here, not to be captured in an image but present only in the Ten Words he gave to Moses, Words which serve to deepen people’s respect for each other as an expression of the One who led them out of bondage to the land of liberation. 4. The prayers Now that the physical pilgrimage has been completed a new movement is set in motion. Standing before the house of Be-er they are invited to pray for Jerusalem Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: contentment for those who love you. Peace be within your walls, contentment in your palaces (vv. 6-7).

By word repetition and assonance the core of the petitions is aptly expressed: shalom, as it already came through in the name Yerushalaim. The pilgrims pray for the shalom of Yerushalaim: that it may be a city which preserves her people in a solid union; that contentment may prevail among her inhabitants; that she may be the heart of a kingdom of peace; that she may gather her children in a spirit of reciprocity; that it may go well with her; that there may be safety within her walls; that the house of David may live in peace and prosperity. After praying for the city and the people, the pilgrim now prays for family and friends. He prays that the shalom of Jerusalem may descend as a blessing upon his whole family and all who are well-disposed toward him. For love of my brothers and my friends I will say: “Peace be upon you!” (vs. 8).

Finally the pilgrim prays for the house of Be-er and all who serve there. He prays that all good things may come to them (Ps. 84:5). For the house of Be-er our Mighty One, I will seek what is good for you (vs. 9).

The praying makes visible the essence of the pilgrimage: it is a prayer voyage (Dutch: bedevaart). The ways of the pilgrim are performed “in the heart” (Ps. 84:5). Only when the pilgrim’s journey is a going forth to God can the Mighty One become their “strength” (Ps. 84:5). Only when they “progress” as they pray can they ultimately “show themselves to the Mighty One on Mount Zion” (Ps. 84:7; cf. Ps. 42:2).

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5. The story of a journey The psalm is the report of a “trip” made – perhaps after one’s homecoming – to members of their family and friends who stayed at home. The report begins at the beginning: how happy he was when the invitation reached him to come join the others on the journey to the house of Be-er (vs. 1); how they arrived in Jerusalem and their feet found rest in the gates (vs. 2); how he saw the oneness of the city embodied in the assembling tribes making their pilgrimage (vv. 3-4); how the house of David insures that everyone will get justice done to him (vs. 5); how he was invited to pray for the city, for his family, and for the house of Be-er. In this report the pilgrim’s journey opens up as a “prayer space.” Prayer space, from a physical viewpoint, is a static entity, but from a spiritual viewpoint it is a pilgrimage: those who enter the space of prayer detach themselves from their own familiar space. They step out of themselves. Those who step out of themselves gradually become people who are drawn out of themselves. Those who are drawn out of themselves can be beside themselves in amazement over God’s presence. The pilgrimage to Jerusalem is a spatial ordinance which takes devotion to its destination: the departure marks a going away from that which is peculiarly one’s own and undertaking a journey toward God; the time spent in the gate marks the transition from the profane to the sacred; the ascent to the sanctuary marks the appearance before God’s face. 3.2.2. THE

IMAGE OF SAINTS

For John of the Cross an image is an object of devotion, like a place of prayer and prayer ceremonies. They awaken devotion in a person’s heart and lead it “to union with God.”103 1. A well-carved image Foremost is the idea that the image must be artistically of high quality. John of the Cross had evidently been repeatedly exposed to images which reflected very poor taste: “There are people who carve so inexpertly that the finished statue subtracts from devotion rather than adding to it. Some artisans so unskilled and unpolished in the art of carving should be forbidden to continue their craft.”104 Images must be so carved that they arouse devotion, with the additional motive that by their attractiveness they draw people’s attention away from that which is material and distracting. Beginners, accordingly, may take some pleasure in the images: “This is good because by finding some satisfaction in them they may 103 104

John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel III, 33.1. Ibid., III, 38.2. (cf. Kavenaugh-Rodriguez translation).

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renounce the other. This is what we do with a child when we desire to take something away from him; we give him another thing to play with so that he will not begin to cry when left empty-handed.”105 But the core function of a religious image is to excite devotion. Devotion, therefore, is the only criterion by which to choose an image. “Granted, there is a notable difference in the workmanship [of images] but their fitness [with respect to contact with God, KW] derives from the fact that the devotion of individuals is awakened more by means of the one image rather than the other.”106 A religious image is “necessary to move the will to devotion.”107 It causes people to be awakened from their “lukewarmness”108 and “to divine love.”109 2. The unique character of the saints An image must not only arouse devotion but must also be an authentic representation of the saint. It must “bring God and the saints to our remembrance and move the will to devotion.”110 This furnishes us with a new criterion in the selection of an image: “Therefore we must choose those images that are most true and lifelike and that most move the will to devotion.”111 The saint must be authentically depicted in the image. One must therefore guard against covering the image with all sorts of things which conceal the saint himself – for example by covering it with clothing of one’s own making. John of the Cross is here referring to a custom in his own day (“a pernicious misuse which some in our time make of images”).112 It is the custom of dressing up images of saints as dolls with all sorts of fashionable clothing: “Some never tire of adding statue upon statue in their prayer room and take pleasure in the arrangement and ornamentation of these images so that their prayer room will look well-decorated and beautiful.”113 John of the Cross is very sarcastic here: Without any repugnance for vain worldly fashions, they adorn statues with the jewelry conceited people in the course of time invent to satisfy themselves in their pastimes and vanities, and they clothe the statues in garments that would be reprehensible if worn by themselves – a practice that was and still is abhorrent to the

105

Ibid., III, 39.1. Ibid., III, 36.1. 107 Ibid., III, 35.2. 108 Ibidem. 109 Ibid., III, 35.8. 110 Ibid., III, 37.1. 111 Ibid., III, 35.3. 112 Ibid., III, 35.4. 113 Ibid., III, 38.2. 106

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saints represented by the statues. In company with the devil they strive to canonize their vanities, not without serious offense to the saints. By this usage the authentic and sincere devotion to the soul, which in itself uproots and rejects every vanity and trace of it, is reduced to little more than doll-dressing. Some use the statues for nothing more than idols upon which they center their joy.114

3. Being caught up in the image The danger of religious representation is that devotion becomes inextricably entangled in sensoriness. It is immersed in “the decoration and external attractiveness [of the image]. Thus sensoriness takes pleasure and delight in them, and the love and enjoyment of the will are caught up in them.”115 Devotion is then absorbed by the sensory structures of the image and dies. “The engulfment of the senses in the joy of the means swallows up everything that could cause the soul to soar to God if it immediately forgot everything.”116 In order to escape the surface structures the soul must detach itself; it must “empty itself ” of all finite contents on all levels.117 Beautiful external forms, richly adorned and sparking sensible or spiritual devotion even when they manifest supernatural things – “to all these incidental things it may not attach even the least value.”118 The intent of the image is “not to stop with the image itself, but from there immediately to raise one’s mind to what it represents. One should prayerfully and devotedly center the satisfaction and joy of one’s will in God or the saint being invoked.”119 The will must “incline toward the invisible.”120 That happens when a person shifts his attention away from the image to what it represents. “Images will always help a person toward union with God, provided that he does not pay more attention to them than is necessary, and that he allows himself to soar – when God bestows the favor – from the painted image to the living God, in forgetfulness of all creatures and things pertaining to creatures.”121 4. Union with God Images help in setting one’s feelings and will in motion in the direction of the Invisible. Affectivity (emotion, feeling, pleasure) is excited and moves, in a single movement, past the visible in the direction of the Infinite. “Images serve as a

114

Ibid., III, 35.4 (Kavenaugh and Rodriguez). Ibid., III, 35.5. 116 Ibid., III, 35.6. 117 Ibid., III, 34.1. 118 Ibid., III, 15.2. 119 Ibid., III, 37.2. 120 Ibidem. 121 Ibid., III, 15.2. 115

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motivating means toward invisible things. We must try, then, to direct the passion, affection, and enjoyment of the will vis-à-vis the living object they represent, solely to the invisible things.”122 With an eye to this point of concentration John of the Cross speaks of the invisible saint: “Interior devotion (…) ought to (be) direct(ed) spiritually to the saint whom they see not.”123 In the context of the subject of images the reference to the invisible saint seems strange: Is not the saint especially visible in the image? Yet the paradox “invisible saint” is a useful absurdity. The word “saint” summons up the word “image”: by the word “invisible” we are directed toward God. The invisible saint is hidden in God. He has entered the invisible world of God. It is there that John of the Cross wants to draw the attention of the pious: “the person who is truly devout sets his devotion principally upon that which is invisible.”124 The “invisible saint” draws the devout soul via the image of the saint into the Invisible world. To that end devotion must “forget the image at once, since it serves only as a motive.”125 The images only help the spirit to soar “if one immediately forgets them in order to remain in God.”126 The religious representation is solely intended to lead [those who value them] into the world of God: “God must be served because He is Who is; and other motives must not be intermingled with this one. If a person does not serve God because of Who He is, God would not be the final cause of this person’s service.”127 The essential function of the image, then, is to draw people toward the Invisible. 3.2.3. MODERN DEVOTIONALITY In The Netherlands research is being conducted into the religious views of all Netherlanders, both churched and unchurched. The first survey took place in 1966; the second in 1979; the third in 1996. This last survey, called God in Nederland,128 contains interesting information about spirituality. A majority of the Dutch population say they have something going with “God” (66%), see something meaningful in prayer (62%), say they have had a religious experience (47%), view themselves as religious (67%). The number of people who consider themselves “religious” is higher than the number of those who call themselves “church-affiliated” (43%). In the recent past church affiliation has declined, 122

Ibid., III, 37.2. Ibid., III, 35.3. 124 Ibid., III, 35.5. 125 Ibid., III, 35.3. 126 Ibid., III, 39.2. 127 Ibid., III, 38.3. 128 G. Dekker, J. de Hart & J. Peters, God in Nederland 1966-1996, Amsterdam 1997. 123

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therefore, but “religiousness” (in the judgment of the people themselves of course) has not. “Developments in the life of the institutional church and those in personal religiosity do not run parallel.”129 That church-affiliation and religiosity can diverge is the conviction of the vast majority (96%). They believe that one can be a religious person without ever going to church (90% in 1996; in 1979 it was 94%). We will now attempt to explore further a few aspects of this modern form of spirituality with the aid of four items: the experience of faith, prayer, the idea of God, and religious experience. 1. Experience of faith Clearly visible in this term is the field of tension in which modern spirituality finds itself: “faith” and “experience.” In this binomial expression “faith” refers to the institutional form which religiosity has assumed in the churches. Over a span of years this has declined to 43%. But “experience” does not run parallel with that: a majority call themselves in some fashion religious (67%) and “having a belief in God” (63%). In 1979 that number was 68%. In “the experience of faith” one can distinguish two accents. (1) In the case of many people the intensity of the experience has increased: from 24% in 1979 to 34% in 1996. Fewer people align themselves with the institutional form of the faith (this leaves them cold) while more people have seen their interest grow where it concerns the experience of faith.130 (2). In 1996 a higher number of people assigned meaning to their experience of faith (from 33% in 1979 to 35% in 1996), that is: they think that the experience of faith deserves a place in their system of meaning bestowal. Generally speaking in the experience of people since 1979 personal faith has become more intense and of greater importance.131 2. Prayer To the question: “Do you think that it is meaningful for you to pray?” 45% answered: “Yes – it is” whereas 17% have doubts: “Perhaps it is.”132 Among church-affiliated people the percentages are higher: a majority find prayer meaningful (63% of the Catholics, 76% of the mainline Reformed; 80% of the Reformed (“Gereformeerden”). It is remarkable that 31% of the church-affiliated do not see prayer as meaningful for themselves while a considerable number of unchurched individuals do regard it as meaningful.133 What could be the significance of the clause “that it is meaningful for you yourself?” The researchers 129

Ibid., 27. Ibid., 69-71, and 120. 131 Ibid., 23. 132 Ibid., 76. 133 Ibid., 61. 130

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think it implies the expectation that the prayer will be heard.134 I myself doubt that. I think that one must first of all link it with the idea that it is intrinsically worthwhile to pray. In that case, the question is: Is prayer meaningful to you regardless of the result, regardless of the theoretical rationale, regardless of the opinion of others? I believe the people being interviewed did not think primarily of formulaic or liturgical prayers; certainly the unchurched did not. They perhaps had in mind personal prayer. But here too one can start at the high end of the spectrum: prayer is to lift up one’s heart to God, but one can also, with Therese of Lisieux, start lower: “Prayer, to me, is a spontaneous expression of the heart, simply an upward glance toward heaven, a cry of acknowledgment and love in the midst of trial, but just as much in the midst of joy.”135 I agree with this low starting point. Prayer wells up from the heart as a cry of astonishment: “What is man?” (Ps. 8); as a cry of distress: “Why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22); as a curse: “May they eat themselves to death at their own dinner table” (Ps. 69:21); as an admiring greeting: “What happiness!” (Ps. 1). Before they are a formula, prayers are “upwellings” of the heart. 3. Idea of God The idea people in 1996 had of God was less sharply defined than in 1966. The firm statement: “there is a God who concerns himself with everyone personally” lost support (from 47% in 1966 to 24% in 1996). People now prefer more tentative statements like “There has to be something like a higher power which controls life” (from 31% in 1966 to 39% in 1996) and “I do not know whether there is a God or a higher power” (from 16% to 27%). While the idea of God has become more tentative, his location has become more definite: “God is not up there but only in the hearts of people” (52%). The idea that God is no longer “up there” is interpreted by the researchers as “vague belief in transcendence” or as “horizontal immanentism.”136 This interpretation is governed by systematic-theological categories. God’s residence in the hearts of people, however, points rather in the direction of spirituality. The heart is the place where devotion is engendered. It is natural for people to situate spirituality in the center of human affectivity. God is moved by the ways of human beings and their soul feels it intensely (Ps. 139). This is not introversion but the interiorization of God’s presence.

134

Ibid., 21. Theresia van Lisieux, Manuscrits autobiographiques C25 recto. We are following Thérèse de Lisieux, Oeuvres complètes. Textes et Dernières Paroles, (Ed. J. Lonchampt), Paris 1992. 136 G. Dekker, J. de Hart & J. Peters, God in Nederland 1966-1996, Amsterdam 1997, 18, 5557, 62. 135

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4. Religious experience Against the background of the above it no longer surprises us that 47% of all Netherlanders say they have had a religious experience. After all, the “worthwhileness” of prayer and the presence of God in the heart constitute the “humus layer” of the experience of God. The question was framed in an open way: “Many people have moments when they have the feeling that they are experiencing a higher power, a higher force, or God. How is that with you? Have you ever in any way experienced the presence of a higher power, a higher force, or God?”137 It is noteworthy that almost half of the respondents answered in the affirmative and additionally stated that this experience did not stop there but continued to have an impact in their life (75%). In the case of the church-affiliated this ongoing impact was somewhat higher: 77%. We do not know in what way the religious experience impacted the life of the respondents. Yet we can discern contours of a new form of devotion: it is centered on life in its concreteness and on living with others in the here and now;138 it is bound up with values, supported in that connection by institutional forms;139 it values its significance for one’s personal life and seeks intensification on the level of experience;140 its engagement is aimed at social justice (e.g., against poverty and discrimination);141 it works hard for others, by rendering services without remuneration;142 no contrast is experienced between spirituality and social-political engagement.143

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bedevaartplaatsen in Nederland, (Ed. P. Margry & C. Caspers), Amsterdam-Hilversum 1997-2000. BRÜCKNER, W. et al., Volksfrömmigkeitsforschung, Würzburg-München 1986. DEKKER, G. et al., God in Nederland 1966-1996, Amsterdam 1997. Heilige Stätten, (Ed. U. Tworuschka), Darmstadt 1994. OSBORNE, D., Pilgrimage, Cambridge 1996. La piété populaire en France. Répertoire bibliographique, (Ed. B. Plongeron & P. Lerou), Paris-Turnhout 1984-…. SAFRAI, S., Die Wallfahrt im Zeitalter des Zweiten Tempels, Neukirchen 1981. SAUCKEN, P. VON, Pilgerziele der Christenheit, Darmstadt 1999.

137

Ibid., 138. Ibid., 31. 139 Ibid., 24. 140 Ibid., 120. 141 Ibid., 113; see also 37. 142 Ibid., 108-110. 143 Ibid., 114. 138

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SEYBOLD, K. Die Wallfahrtpsalmen, Neukirchen 1978. Spiritualität des Pilgerns. Kontinuität und Wandel, (Ed. K. Herbers & R. Ploetz), Tübingen 1993. THIELE, J. Madonna mia. Maria und die Männer, Stuttgart 1990. Volksfrömmigkeit, (Ed. H. Ehalt), Wien 1989. Volksreligie, liturgie en evangelisatie, (Ed. J. Lamberts), Leuven-Amersfoort 1998. Vovelle, M., Mentaliteitsgeschiedenis, Nijmegen 1985. WAAIJMAN, K., Psalmen 120-134, Kampen 1978.

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3.3. Ant-agonists David chose five smooth stones and put them in his shepherd’s bag. Sling in hand, he walked toward Goliath the giant. Putting his hand in his bag, he took out a stone, slung it toward the Philistine, and struck him on the forehead. The stone penetrated his head and the man fell face downwards on the ground (1 Sam. 17:40-49). This incident is a graphic metaphor for what we see happening from time to time in the sphere of spirituality: a single “piece of gravel” is enough to hit the center of power where it hurts. A few examples follow. Elijah – without the support of the Yahweh prophets, mind you, and in defiance of the royal court with its hundreds of Baal prophets – outfaces the power of Ahab and Jezebel. After him Hosea and Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah stand up to organized power and its shalom prophets. Paul preaches the foolishness of the cross (1 Cor. 1:18-25) as “the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18) which dethrones “the powers of this world” (1 Cor. 2:6). He is “a fool for the sake of Christ” (1 Cor. 4:10).144 Palladius tells of a woman who worked in a sister convent in Tabennisi: she wore a rag around her wild hairs, ate the leftovers she found when she did the dishes, kept silent when other sisters beat her or doused her with dishwater, but in her heart was deeply attached to God.145 She lived the life of a holy fool. The Russian calendar numbers 36 holy fools of whom 26 (from the 14th to the 17th century) have been canonized. Their personalities live on in the fictional characters of the mentally deficient Grisha in Tolstoy and the idiot prince Myshkin in Dostoyevski. One of the greatest fools was Francis of Assisi who sold his father’s inheritance and threw away the money he got for it. Some members of the early generations of Franciscans followed him in this folly. Rufius, for example, who walked naked through the city of Assisi and above all Jacopone da Todi, also called “crazy Jimmy,” who on account of his agitation against Boniface VIII was excommunicated and imprisoned for six years.146 Erasmus, pillorying the Christianity of his day, wrote The Praise of Folly. Sören Kierkegaard, the great buffoon of the 19th century, with his irony, humor and caustic sarcasm, exposed the pedantic nature of inhumanity, the neurosis of the workaholic, and the pseudo-religiosity of Sunday Christians.147 Hitler’s Third Reich was blasted by the mordant T. Splidlík, ‘Fous pour le Christ.’ I. En Orient, in: DSp 5 (1964), 752-761. Palladius, The Lausiac History (Trans. R. Meyer), London 1965, 96-98. 146 Jacopone da Todi, Lauden (Trans. M. Federmann), Köln 1967, 187. 147 S. Scholtens, Het tragi-komische bij Sören Kierkegaard, in: Speling 23 (1971) no. 3, 57-71. 144 145

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ridicule of Berthold Brecht; the concentration camps of Soviet communism were exposed in Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago; Pablo Neruda gave voice to the Chilean people in his Canto general; Dennis Brutus wrote his Brieven van het Robbeneiland (“Letters from Robben Island”). Amnesty International not only bombards governments with its protests but also offers support to many who are oppressed, imprisoned and tortured because of their convictions about life. 3.3.1. ELIJAH Elijah lived in a period of fantastic economic well-being. Under the Omri dynasty the northern kingdom Israel enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. This affluence, however, concealed a deeper crisis: beneath the surface festered a process of religious disintegration. Elijah saw through this crisis, and history vindicated him: Israel was destroyed by it. Elijah’s contemporaries found his diagnosis “divisive” (1 Kgs 18:18; also cf. 2 Kgs. 2). Later generations, however, valued him as a second Moses. Elijah’s public ministry took place between 870 and 850 B.C. The root of his resistance is expressed in his proper name eli-yahu which at the same time forms the basic theme of the narrative cycle: “YHWH is my Mighty One.”148 This corresponds to the Carmel creed: “YHWH: He the Mighty One” (1 Kgs. 18:39). The two confessional statements together express the core of the resistance offered by the circle of prophets residing on Mount Carmel.149 1. Be-er’s word of address A careful reading of the most ancient Elijah-narratives (1 Kgs. 17-18) shows how Elijah let himself be unconditionally guided by the Word (dabar) of Be-er.150 This is already evident at the very beginning. Elijah literally carries out Be-er’s address word-for-word. Be-er’s Word Go from here, turn eastward and hide in the brook Cherith, which issues into the Jordan. 148

Elijah He went… he went, and settled by the brook Cherith which issues into Jordan.

For lengthy analyses of the Elijah-cycle, see G. Fohrer, Elia, Zürich 1968; O. Steck, Überlieferung und Zeitgeschichte in den Elia-Erzählungen, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1968; H. Schmitt, Elisa. Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur vorklassischen nordisraelitischen Prophetie, Gütersloh 1972; G. Hentschel, Die Elijaerzählungen. Zum Verhältnis von historischen Geschehen und geschichtlicher Erfahrung, Leipzig 1977; S. Timm, Die Dynastie Omri. Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Israels im 9. Jahrhundert vor Christus, Göttingen 1982; K. Waaijman, De profeet Elia, Nijmegen 1985. 149 R. Smend, Der biblische und der historische Elia, in: Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 28 (1975), 176-177 and 181. 150 R. Smend, Das Wort Jahwes an Elia, in: Vetus Testamentum 25 (1975), 525-543.

COUNTERMOVEMENTS You shall drink from the brook. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there (17:2-4). Arise, go now to Zarephath. I have commanded a widow (17:8-9).

249 He drank from the brook. Ravens came… (17:5) So he set out and went to Zarephath. And look: a widow was there (17:10).

The effect of God’s address to Elijah is immediate. It is precisely this that the narrator sought to express by his word repetitions. The effect of this address on Elijah can be splendidly witnessed at the end of the three years of drought when Be-er’s life-giving speech again begins to flow. He says to Elijah: “Go, present yourself to Ahab” (18:1). Immediately following this we read: “And Elijah went to present himself to Ahab” (18:2). Elijah embodies the speech of Be-er: he approaches Ahab (18:7), comes into his presence (18:17) and frankly tells him “You have troubled (lit. “dislocated”) Israel” (18:18). At his suggestion the king assembles all of Israel (18:19-20). Elijah now comes face-to-face with the people and plainly addresses them: “You are limping.” When they do not react, he proposes a battle between the two cults. They agree to the proposal: “Agreed!” (18:24). Elijah then invites, badgers, and mocks the Baalprophets. First he builds an altar and cries out the Name: “You, Be-er, are the Mighty One” (18:37). This utterance then becomes Israel’s own: “Be-er’ he is the Mighty One!” (18:39). The entire story is driven by Be-er’s speech which permeates the speech and action of his servant Elijah. It is all one address (dabar): a personal address to Ahab, a personal address to the people, an address which shapes what happens, an address which is itself a happening, a relational event, a dialogue.151 2. The prophet of Carmel In the most ancient narratives Elijah is pictured as a prophet: “A hairy fellow with a leather belt around his waist” (2 Kgs. 1:8). Some think here of a coarse-haired prophet mantle (1 Kgs. 19:19; 2 Kgs. 2:8, 13-14), a relic of the nomadic lifestyle and a symbolic protest against the cultured life in Canaan.152 Others think of “long hairs,” the sign of complete dedication to Be-er.153 In both cases Elijah is recognizable as a prophet, a person totally dedicated to God. He is, accordingly, called a “prophet” (1 Kgs. 18:22), a “man of God” (1 Kgs. 17:18). Elijah considers himself the only prophet left after Jezebel’s bloodbath. They have killed your prophets with the sword, Now I alone am left,

151

J. Bergman, H. Lutzman & W. Schmidt, dabar, in: ThDOT III (1978), 84-125. H. Schmitt, Elisa, Gütersloh 1972, 182. 153 R. Smend, Der biblische und der historische Elia, ibid., 178. 152

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FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY And they are seeking to take away my life (1 Kgs. 19:10, 14; cf. 1 Kgs. 18:4, 13).

Elijah was probably a member of the company of prophets living on Mount Carmel. Repeatedly his public actions were connected with this mountain: on Mount Carmel he went out to meet the representatives of the Baal cult; here he had a premonition of the coming rain (1 Kgs. 18) and from the top of the mountain range he opposed Ahaziah (2 Kgs. 1). These three signals support the suspicion “that this mountain was the place where Elijah frequently or regularly spent time.”154 We also encounter Elisha, Elijah’s successor, on Mount Carmel (2 Kgs. 2:25; 4:25). From this vantage point he also led the resistance against the house of Ahab and executed Elijah’s threat against the house of Ahab, viz. that it would fall prey to a revolt. This happened in the Jehu-revolution in which the company of the prophets, under Elisha’s leadership, took the initiative (2 Kgs. 9:1). 3. The Elijan resistance The prophet circles were fiercely opposed to the religious policies of the house of Ahab. The first to give definite shape to their resistance was Elijah. He was the antagonist of Ahab, Jezebel, and Ahaziah. What was the core of the conflict? Let us start with the viewpoint of the house of Ahab. The royal court pursued a balancing policy: on the one hand, it structurally valued Yahwism as the state religion, but in addition gave a structural position to Baalism in Samaria. Ahab anchored this balance in his marriage to Jezebel, who brought her “Baal of Sidon” with her to Samaria. By this means the local Baal shrines acquired a central base of support in the capital.155 And precisely in this way, as a focal point of collective power, this center became a formidable adversary of Yahwism. This structural advancement of the Baalist position also became visible in the king’s conduct: he erected a Baal temple, built an altar for Baal in it, and participated in the Baal cult, and added to all this still other – unnamed – policy decisions (1 Kgs. 16:33). Ahab possibly saw in these measures the only way to keep the state on its feet.156 The prophet circles could absolutely not put up with a structural equivalence between Yahweh and Baal. For them the introduction of two ‘gods” in the one Israel was a contradiction in terms. To them Be-er was the Only One. To the slaves in Egypt he had unconditionally pledged his presence: “I will be: I will be there” (Exod. 3:14). As a great power in their midst he had entered Canaan

154

Ibid., 181; see also H. Schmitt, ibid., 186-187. S. Timm, Die Dynastie Omri, Göttingen 1982, 302. 156 G. Hentschel, Die Elijaerzählungen, Leipzig 1977, 306-310. 155

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with them. Around him, “May he be there!”, along with rebellious farmers and shepherds, they had gone to battle against the dominant Philistines and the city states. Around him they had become one people. Baal had no personal relations with people. Baalism was operative in the sphere of nature and fertility; Yahwism took place in the sphere of history and a liberation movement. To Elijah and the prophet circles one thing is beyond dispute: only Be-er, and no one else, is God. Baal is no god. What people say of him belongs in truth to Be-er. The Elijah and Elisha-narratives, accordingly, assign to Be-er all the attributes of Baal (rainmaker, fire-slinger, donor of oil and flour, he who raises from the dead and lifts people up to heaven, the giver of children, healer and so forth). In these stories Baal nowhere makes an appearance as a living entity! What we are witnessing, then, is a grand polemic against the non-existent Baal and for Be-er, the God of life and death, sickness and healing, rain and drought.157 4. Be-er, he is the Mighty One The prophets of Mount Carmel attacked the house of Ahab and all of Israel on the point of their ambivalence.158 From that collision stems the originally Elijan word:159 How long will you limp in two directions? If Be-er is the Mighty One, follow him; but if Baal is, then follow him! (1 Kgs. 18:21)

This is the core of the conflict between Elijah and Israel, a conflict that is settled on Mount Carmel. The exclusive relation between Be-er and Israel is “dislocated.” The religious split, practiced and propagated at the highest level, had crippled Israel (18:21), had made it a grotesquely limping Baal prophet (18:20). That is the real “dislocation” of Israel: the life-giving union between Be-er and Israel had been broken. An important thread in the impressive occurrence on Mount Carmel (beside designating and removing the cause of the dislocation: Baalism), therefore, is the healing of Israel. From being a loose “collection” of Israelites Israel again became a solid community which with one voice confessed: “Be-er is the Mighty One.” From being a crippled limping Baal prophet, Israel

157 L. Bronner, The Stories of Elijah and Elisha as Polemics against Baal Worship, Leiden 1968; G. Saint-Laurin, Light from Ras Shamra on Elijah’s Ordeal upon Mount Carmel, in: Scripture in Context. Essays on the Comparative Method, (Ed. C. Evans, W. Hallo et al.), Pittsburgh 1980, 123-139. 158 G. Fohrer, Elia, Zurich, 1968, 65-67. 159 G. Hentschel, ibid., 177 and 280-291; S. Timm, ibid., 74.

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is again transformed into a Be-er prophet: eli-yahu. “All the people,” as one undivided cultic community, cries out the name eli-yahve: Be-er, he is the Mighty One!” (18:39). This is the end of a process which began with death, drought, starvation, dislocation – without Be-er and without Elijah. The reversal occurs when the king (!) “assembles all Israel” (18:19, 20). This “assembly” can now be addressed by the prophet (18:21). And though at that moment the people do not let themselves be genuinely addressed (18:21), they will let themselves be bound by an agreement (also a dabar! 18:24). Once bound by this agreement the people could approach the scene on Mount Carmel (vs. 30) and feel that Be-er, the Mighty One of Israel, was at work (18:36-37). So, finally, the people could confess in adoration: “Be-er, the Mighty One, he” (18:39). Of this rebirth the altar which Elijah healed and built up (18:30 and 31-32) was the symbol.

3.3.2. SYMEON THE FOOL The story of the life of Symeon the Fool has been told us by Leontius of Neapolis who was the patriarch of Alexandria from 610 to 619.160 Aside from the introduction (19-24) and the epilogue (93-95), the account of Symeon’s life is divided in two parts: Symeon’s anchoritic life (24-56) and his foolish life in the city (56-93). We will first situate the life of the holy fool. Then we will bring to the fore the motive(s) of this hidden life. Finally we will consider its interior: the mystical life of prayer. 1. Living foolishly as the perfect form of the spiritual life The foolish life of Symeon in the city of Emesa is the conclusion of his spiritual journey which began when Symeon and a certain John, both of whom came from Syria, joined a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. During this journey they learned to know each other and became friends (24). On the way back, just past Jericho, they saw the monasteries by the Jordan river. After praying and casting lots, they entered the Gerasimos monastery led by Abba Nikos (25-37). After only a few days they left the monastery and retreated into solitude. A stone’s throw away from each other, for 29 years, they lived a hermit’s life in asceticism, and prayer (45-52). Then Symeon, completely filled with the power of the Holy 160 The text can be found in PG 93, 1669 A-1748 A. It has been edited by L. Ryden, Das Leben des heiligen Narren Symeon von Leontius von Heapolis, Uppsala 1963. We are following the translation published in the series: Monastieke Cahiers. Sources: Leontius van Neapolis, Leven van Symeon de Dwaas, Bonheiden, 1977. The page number of the translation is found in parentheses in the text. An English translation can be found in an appendix to the text of Derek Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1996, 131-171.

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Spirit, wanted to go back to the world. “What sense does it make, brother, for us to stay in the desert here? Listen to me: let’s go away from here to save others as well” (52). After some resistance Abba John, having lavished advice and prayers on him, let him go (52-56). After a three-day stay in Jerusalem Symeon traveled to Emesa where he committed a wide assortment of “follies” (58-91). He remained in this city till he died. Two men finding him dead under a pile of branches, quietly buried him in the cemetery for strangers where, incidentally, his remains have never been found (91-93). The structure of this biographical account shows that the life of a fool for Christ’s sake is a state of life which comes after all other forms of life: after the life of all the devout who make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem; after the cenobitic life in a monastery; after a full-blown life as a hermit or almost 30 years. Only after he had fought the good fight well and in accordance with the law; only after he had seen that he had been armed with the power of the spirit and only after he had acquired the power to trample snakes and scorpions under foot; only after he had quenched the burning heat of the flesh with the dew of the Holy Spirit; only after he spat upon all the wealth and fame in life as though it were only a spider’s web – nothing can be clearer than that! – only after he had by his humility clothed himself, both inside and outside as it were, in the garment of inviolability and was deemed worthy of adoption as a son according to the word in the Song of Songs [4:7] concerning the purity and inviolability of the soul which says: “Altogether beautiful,” says Christ to the soul; you who are right by me are altogether beautiful; there is no flaw in you – only then, obeying the divine summons, he sprang forth out of the desert and at the world as though into single combat against the devil (23).

2. The visible side of the game On the occasion of his farewell to the eremetic life Symeon had clearly said to Abba John: “In the power of Christ I am going to play a game with the world” (53; next see 57, 66, 72, 84, 88). What does Symeon’s game look like? Unpredictable behavior. Symeon’s life as a fool began when he came into the city dragging a dead dog behind him (58). The following day, Sunday, he went to church with a bag of nutshells which he scattered around. When people tried to catch him he ran up into the pulpit and from there pelted the women, besides blowing out the candles (58). One moment he would limp, then again he would dance around; he dragged himself forward on his buttocks and tripped up someone who ran past him; at the time of the new moon he stared at the sky, let himself fall on the ground, and thrashed about in all directions (73). Antimonastic behavior. He ate a whole barrel of sweet peas (59); ate meat as though he feared neither God nor respected his commandments (72); early on the morning of Holy Thursday he entered a cake shop and gorged himself (75); on Sunday morning he went around wearing a string of sausages all of which he

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then proceeded to eat (81). He refused to have a spiritual conversation with two monks and cuffed one of them about the ears so badly that three days later he still felt it. Scandalous behavior. When the wife of a tavern keeper, where Symeon helped, took a nap, he frightened her by pretending to undress (61). He walked into the bathhouse of the women (63); danced with prostitutes and let them fondle him (72); took prostitutes as his mistress for payment (73-75); healed cross-eyed girls by kissing them (77). When visiting the rich, he kissed the female slaves. When one of them falsely claimed that she was pregnant by him, he said: “Do not worry; before long there will be a little Symeon” (66-67). He defecated in the marketplace (62). Miracles. With his bare hands Symeon took live coals out of an oven (59). He imposed his will on pillars by whipping them (65). School children whom he had kissed were struck by the plague; the others remained alive (66). He served a copious meal to guests in his cave when actually he had nothing there (79). He shattered drinking glasses by making the sign of the cross over them (84). He turned wine into vinegar (86-87). Revelations. Symeon brought to light the unchastity of the son of Deacon John (64); disclosed the heretical ideas of a tavern keeper (59); made a slave girl say by whom she had become pregnant (67); he clairvoyantly saw which mistress had deceived him (74). He was aware when someone had not kept his promises (79), stolen something (82), or committed an act of unchastity (88). Exorcisms. In the case of the son of Deacon John Symeon drove out the devil in the shape of a black dog (64). Playing a lute, he expelled an unclean spirit from a tavern (70). One day he saw the devil in an alley. He made sure he did not pass into one of the pedestrians but into a dog which came by (76). He shared the life of the demon-possessed: “Although he was not one of them, he acted as though he were” (83). 3. The hidden back side of the game The visible side of the game Symeon played was incomprehensible and scandalous. What, for example, did it mean when he entered the city with a dead dog dragging behind him? Was the dead dog Satan? Or did the dead dog symbolize “the corpse we have inside us” (19), i.e. our being dead, while alive, because of sin? Or did the dog denote Symeon’s own mortified life? Or is the scene a contrasting parallel to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem? Why did Symeon hurl empty nutshells into the church? Do they signify the empty words used there? Did he blow out the candles because there is no resurrection? The visible side of the game Symeon played is enigmatic: “No one figured out what the blessed one had done” (66). Yet (to those who saw through the game) the hidden back side was clear: “Some of the deeds the righteous one did sprang from compassion and were aimed at the salvation of humans, and others he did to hide his

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achievements” (63-64). This two-sidedness creates the riddle. In everything he did Symeon sought to do good (21, 23, 63, 76-77): to bring about repentance, to heal people from their demon-possession, to deliver them from the bonds of unchastity, to generate God-consciousness, to heal illness, to help the poor, to convert to faith, to protect from dangers. At the same time he wanted to keep all these good deeds hidden from people (56-58; 87, 93). The only person who saw through everything and with whom Symeon spoke openly was Deacon John (26, 62, 78, 81, 89). All others were kept in perpetual uncertainty. Sometimes they saw something but when that happened Symeon immediately set about to take away their certainty. “Symeon often performed his miracles by the same behavior which made some conclude that he was living a licentious life” (66). Precisely this ambiguity is its hiddenness. The all-wise Symeon’s whole goal was this: first, to save souls, whether by besieging them with jokes or ruses or by performing miracles in such a way that no one caught on to him, or through maxims which he said to them while playing the fool. Second, he made sure that his good deeds were not recognized as such. He did not want to receive approval or honor from humans (76-77).

4. Hidden in God Symeon’s life was all one systematic anachoresis: to withdraw from ordinary social life, yet doing it in a city. He lived in the city to save souls but to live the hidden life in God he systematically cloaked himself in his unpredictable and scandalous behavior. The back side of his game is his hiddenness in God. This came out paradigmatically when to Deacon John Symeon gave an explanation of his strange behavior in the women’s bath house: “Believe me, son, I was there as a piece of wood among other pieces of wood. I felt neither that I had a body nor that I had ended up among bodies. The whole of my mind was on God’s work and I did not depart from him” (63). Symeon was totally centered on God’s work and hidden in him. This is the source of his strangeness: his deep connectedness with God. This is the source of all his work: his miracles, his jokes, his obscenities, his ruses, his maxims, his revelations. Symeon’s secret was his mystical prayer life, the fruit of 29 years of solitude in the desert. Deacon John regularly sought out the spot where he knew Abba Symeon to be always in prayer. But when from a distance he saw him sitting and stretching out his hands toward heaven, he was afraid. For he swore that he saw balls of fire going up from him to heaven, and he said, around about him there was as it were a burning baker’s oven, so that I did not dare to approach him until he had finished his prayer. And he turned and saw me and immediately said to me: “What is it, Deacon? By Jesus, by Jesus, you almost drank from that cup. But come and pray. This trial has come upon you because yesterday you turned away two poor people who came to you, although

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FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY you were quite able to give them something. The things which you give – are they perhaps yours, brother? Or do you not trust him who said that you will receive a hundredfold in this life and eternal life in the life to come? So if you believe, give. If you don’t give, it is clear you do not believe in the Lord.” Behold, the words of a fool, or rather of a wise man, a saint (81).

3.3.3. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau on February 4, 1906. He grew up in the sheltered milieu of a well-to-do and highly educated family of mayors and ministers. In 1912 the Bonhoeffer family moved to Berlin where Dietrich, after a year in Tübingen, studied theology beginning in 1924. At the age of 21 he obtained his degree on the basis of a doctoral thesis on Sanctorium communio. Two years later, in 1929, he finished his inaugural dissertation Act and Being. The academic world lay open before him. The remarkable thing, however, was that now his spirituality was unfolding: he devoted himself to a meditative reading of the Bible, thought about a common life in obedience and prayer, and reflected on the Sermon on the Mount. From being a theologian Bonhoeffer now became a Christian.161 “I had never prayed, or prayed only very little. For all my loneliness, I was quite pleased with myself. Then the Bible, and in particular the Sermon on the Mount, freed me from that. Since then everything has changed. I have felt this plainly, and so have other people about me. It was a great liberation.”162 From the start Bonhoeffer opposed Hitlerdom and the German Christians who collaborated with the national-socialist regime. This opposition was to determine the course of his life – to the point of death. 1. The Confessing Church In 1934, at the Confessional Synod in Barmen, the Confessing Church, which disqualified the doctrinal positions of the German Christians as heresies, manifested itself. For Bonhoeffer, certain doctrinal points were absolutely certain: discrimination against Jews is contrary to the very essence of the church; the Church is under unconditional obligations with respect to the victims of every social order, even if they are not members of the Christian Church; the Church “must not only bind up the wounds of victims who have fallen under the wheels, but grab the wheel itself.”163 When, in 1935, Hitler proclaimed the anti-Jewish laws, the measure was full. He was scandalized by the German people who 161

E. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A Biography, Minneapolis 2000, 202-206. Cited in Bethge, ibid., 205. 163 D. Bonhoeffer, Kirchenkampf und Finkenwalde. Resolutionen, Aufsätze, Rundbriefe 1933 bis 1943 (Gesammelte Schrifte 2), München 1965, 48. 162

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walked blindly behind their leader. But he was even more scandalized by the German Christians who, with an appeal to God and the gospel, compromised themselves with the unconscionable regime of Nazism. Even in the Confessing Church there were people who made excuses for the persecution of the Jews! The fact that there can be people in the Confessing Church who dare assume that they are entitled, even called, to preach God’s justice and mercy to the Jews in the present historical situation when their present sufferings are our crime, is a fact that must fill us with icy fear. Since when has the evildoer had the right to pass off his evil deed as the will of God?164

2. Discipleship The serious crisis precipitated in theological faculties and regional churches by the Nazi regime and the German Christians forced the Confessing church to start new preachers’ seminaries. In 1935 it appointed Bonhoeffer as director of the seminary in Pomerania. With his young preachers he moved into the poorly furnished houses in Finkenwalde where they led a simple communal life. The day began and ended with prayer, reading, and meditation. One weekday evening they discussed current issues and problems.165 Among the prescribed courses (homiletics, catechetics, pastoral care, liturgy, and the like) one discipline stood out: discipleship, a course of which the Sermon on the Mount was the core. What especially engaged Bonhoeffer was the tension between chapter 5 and chapter 6 of the gospel of Matthew. Chapter 5 refers to a righteousness that is visible to everyone; chapter 6 insists that this righteousness should be practiced in secret: “Hence something has to be made visible but – and here is the paradox: take care that it does not occur for the purpose of being seen by humans.”166 For Bonhoeffer the paradox discloses the core of discipleship. (1) The righteousness in question must not remain hidden from other people but from those who practice it. “From whom are we to hide the visibility of our discipleship? Certainly not from other men…. No. We are to hide it from ourselves.167 (2) The visible action is hidden because it disappears in the measureless goodness of the cross of Christ. Following Christ in his crossbearing makes the follower disappear in total goodness. Thus the paradox between chapter 5 and chapter 6 is resolved in discipleship – in its fundamental dynamics and its content.

164 E. Bethge, ibid., 488-489. The quotation is not directly from Bonhoeffer (the author is Marga Meusel) but written in a spirit similar to his [Tr.]. 165 Ibid., 459-472. 166 D. Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, New York 1959, a paraphrase of p. 141. 167 Ibid., 142.

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FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY All that the follower of Jesus has to do is to make sure that his obedience, following and love are entirely spontaneous and unpremeditated. If you do good, you must not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, you must be quite unconscious of it. Otherwise you are simply displaying your own virtue, and not that which has its source in Jesus Christ. Christ’s virtue, the virtue of discipleship, can only be accomplished so long as you are entirely unconscious of what you are doing. The genuine work of love is always a hidden work. Take heed therefore that you know it not, for only so it is the goodness of God.168

3. Life in community Finkenwalde gave Bonhoeffer a chance to build a community in the preachers’ seminary, the so-called House of Brothers. Beginning in 1932 already, he had cherished the idea of a common life: daily prayer, brotherly admonition, voluntary personal confession, communal theological work, a simple communal lifestyle, responding to the distress of the church.169 This life in community unfolded in three dimensions.170 (1) A Christian only comes alive in the Word of God in Jesus Christ. But God has put this Word in the mouth of humans. “Therefore one Christian needs another to bring the Word of God to him. And he needs the other again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged.”171 (2) A Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ: “Without Christ there is discord between God and man and between man and man. Christ became the Mediator and made peace with God and among men.”172 (3) Community exists in Christ: “The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us.”173 4. Prayer Just before Finkelwalde was dissolved and Bonhoeffer received an order prohibiting him from writing, he wrote a little book entitled: Das Gebetbuch der Bibel (Engl.: The Psalms. The Prayerbook of the Bible). “Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life. It is the antithesis of selfdisplay. When men pray, they have ceased to know themselves, and know only God whom they call upon. Prayer does not aim at any direct effect on the world;

168

Ibid., 143. E. Bethge, Ibid., 462-472. 170 D. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, New York 1954, 17-39. 171 Ibid., 23. 172 Ibid., 24-25. 173 Ibid., 26. 169

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it is addressed to God alone, and is therefore the perfect example of undemonstrative action.”174 When we pray in secret our prayers becomes a word from God. The reason this happens is that the praying of Jesus Christ in us liberates our words from their I-centeredness. Jesus Christ brought all human distress, all human joy, all human gratitude and all human hope before God’s face. In his mouth our human speech becomes the word of God, and when we pray Christ’s prayers with him God’s word, conversely, becomes a human word.175 5. Letters and Papers from Prison After the closing down of Finkenwalde Bonhoeffer continued to work for the Confessing Church. At the same time he became involved in the underground struggle.176 This meant the beginning of the end. From April 5, 1943, to October 8, 1944, Bonhoeffer was held in the military prison of Tegel. But when the attempt on Hitler’s life failed and Bonhoeffer’s involvement became known, his own end was certain: Prinzalbrecht-Strasze, Buchenwald, Schonberg, Flossenburg. On Sunday, April 8, 1945, pastor Bonhoeffer held a brief service in which he spoke to his fellow prisoners. He had hardly finished his last prayer when the door opened and two evil-looking men in civilian clothes came in and said: ‘Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us!’ These words ‘Come with us’ had come to mean one thing only – the scaffold. We bade him good-bye – he drew me aside, ‘This is the end, but for me the beginning of life.’ … The next day at Flossenbürg, he was hanged.177

BIBLIOGRAPHY BETHGE, E., Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A Biography, Minneapolis 2000. BOHLEN, R., Der Fall Nabot. Form, Hintergrund und Werdegang einer alttestamentlichen Erzählung, Trier 1978. BONHOEFFER, D., Gesammelte Schrifte, München 1959-1965. CARENA, O., La communicazione non-verbale nella Bibbia. Un approccio semiotico al ciclo di Elia e Eliseo, Torino 1981. The Folly of the Cross, The Way 13 (1973) no. 1. HENTSCHEL, G., Die Elijaerzählungen. Zum Verhältnis von historischen Geschehens und geschichtlicher Erfahrung, Leipzig 1977. KRUEGER, D., Symeon the Holy Fool, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1996. 174

D. Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 146. D. Bonhoeffer, Psalms. The Prayerbook of the Bible, Minneapolis, 1970, 15, 16, 21. 176 E. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A Biography, 722-928. 177 The witness of the British officer Payne Best, cited in Bethge’s brief biography in D. Bonhoeffer, Psalms. The Prayerbook of the Bible, 84. 175

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LEONTIUS VAN NEAPOLIS, Leven van Symeon de Dwaas, Bonheiden 1977. NIGG, W., Von Heiligen und Gottesnarren, Freiburg 1960. Rare gekken, Speling 23 (1971) no. 3. RYDÈN, L., Das Leben des heiligen Narren Symeon von Leontius von Neapolis, Uppsala 1963. RYDÈN, L., Bemerkungen zum Leben des heiligen Narren Symeon von Leontius von Neapolis, Uppsala 1970. SAWARD, J., Perfect Fools. Folly for Christ’s Sake in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality, Oxford 1980. STECK, O., Überlieferung und Zeitgeschichte in den Elia-Erzählungen, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1968. TIMM, S., Die Dynastie Omri. Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Israels im 9. Jahrhundert vor Christus, Göttingen 1982. WAAIJMAN, K., De profeet Elia, Nijmegen 1985. WALSH, J., The Elijah Cycle. A Synchronic Approach, Ann Arbor (MI) 1983. Was suchst du hier, Elia? Ein hermeneutisches Arbeitsbuch, (Ed. K. Grünwald & H. Schroeter), Rheinbach-Merzbach 1995.

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3.4. Uprootedness Homelessness takes on several forms: refugees who have been driven from their own country; hermits who have voluntarily withdrawn from all social life; people who have become estranged from their familiar surroundings. 1. The ejected. Involuntary homelessness is as old as humankind: people who have been driven by war or famine from the area in which they lived – refugees, deportees, exiles. The history of spirituality preserves the memory of their fortunes: the Babylonian captivity; the mass expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal beginning in 1492; millions of refugees in modern times. 2. Solitary monks. Voluntary homelessness is a recurrent phenomenon in the history of spirituality: Gautama left his home and family to be by himself; the desert monks withdrew to the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; Irish monks sought out the inhospitable conditions prevailing in uninhabited islands. Some lived in cells, huts, or caves; had themselves locked up in a hermitage, stood for years on end on a pillar like Simeon the Elder, or lived in a tree. Open air ascetics in Syria lived under bridges or in dried-up ditches and lived off what they could find in the wild. 3. Abandonment. The modern era is marked by processes of social isolation: children who at an early age are left to themselves by divorced or working parents; people who are unable to find a life partner or are left by their partner; older people who have seen all their friends and acquaintances die. Loneliness can also strike people in more subtle ways, as for example when they can no longer in any way feel at home in a military-industrial culture which is all about making money. In order to explore the spiritual dimension of homelessness in some detail, we have selected three paradigms: the forced homelessness of the Babylonian exile; the voluntary homelessness of a desert monk and the modern homelessness of a hermit in a metropolis. 3.4.1. EXILE In 589 B.C. Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonians. The city and the temple were Israel’s last bridgehead, the only “standard” to which the Judeans could flee (Jer. 4:5-8). Jerusalem faced invincible military superiority. Its only ally, the southern neighbor Edom, joined the forces of the enemy (Pss. 60; 137; Obadiah 11-14; Amos 1:9-12). In 507, after a period of starvation, the city was finally conquered by the Babylonians, who established a foreign government, reduced the city to ashes, and set fire to the temple.

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1. Lamentations The ruination of the temple was lamented at set times (cf. Zech. 7:5). In the month of the conquest, the month of the burning, the murder of Gedaliah, and the month of the beginning of the siege. In the book of Lamentations we observe by what rituals those faithful to Yahweh assimilated the catastrophe. (1) Quietly moaning, then again groaning loudly, even screaming and roaring, people gave expression to their grief. This tearful lamentation was not just the exteriorization of sorrow but the interiorization of suffering. (2) People in ancient Israel who were struck by serious affliction expressed the incomprehensible, unreasonable, even the desperate nature of their suffering by asking questions: Why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many days? (Lam. 5:20). Raising these questions gave expression to their desperation and at the same time interiorized the incomprehensibility. (3) Remembering was an active posture: not forgetting a person, focusing attention on him or her. At the same time this activity was receptive: to carry the person along with them, to bear them in mind. “Jerusalem remembers, in the days of her affliction and wandering, all the precious things that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was no one to help her, the foe looked on mocking over her downfall” (Lam. 1:7). (4) Being quiet refers to a process: people grow silent when they are confronted by a catastrophe (war, disease, death). This silence is deliberately maintained (Jer. 47:5; Ezek. 24:16-17; Job 30:27-31) in order to ripen into quiet expectation (Lam. 3:26-29.49-50). (5) Being bowed down is to be bent under the burden of suffering. But this state also applies to a spiritual posture: one inwardly conforms to the bentness caused by suffering, not in order to resign oneself to it, but to live through it from beginning to end. Finally the sufferer, out of inner contact with suffering, gains an attitude of humility. 2. The mysticism of suffering Mourning rituals are not an end in themselves. They are aimed at a process of surrender in which “I be there” is experienced afresh. We can see this in Psalm 77. There we read: “In the watches of the night you grab me” (vs. 5). This means: “In the farthermost movement of prayer, in the night when there is nothing to hang on to, in the selfless migration in the night Be-er unites himself with my prayer.” The same idea is expressed further down as follows: “My relenting – that is the change in the right hand of the Most High” (vs. 11). This means: “My beatenness so affects Be-er that he has already become tender. My suffering softens Be-er, so that he lets go of his anger and becomes tender.” The deep undertone here is: “Even though we are totally abandoned and made numb by suffering, it is precisely here in our suffering that Yahweh’s occupation with us becomes clear. Our suffering evidences his hand. Be-er suffers our suffering.” We find a similar mystically experienced suffering in Psalm 22. At

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precisely the moment the psalmist feels the lethal aggressiveness of the curved horns of the buffaloes (vv. 22ab as the climax of vv. 1-22), he cries out: “You are bending toward me” (vs. 22c). We taste the same spirituality in Isaiah 53: the servant, abused, bears his abuse in silence and precisely in that way becomes a seer (Isa. 53:11). To entrust themselves completely to calling out the Name is a mystical process which the prophets want to teach the people in their exile: “Which of you fears Be-er? Who listens to the voice of his servant? Which of you goes about in darkness and sees no light anywhere? Let him trust in the name of Be-er and lean on his Mighty One” (Isa. 50:10). This is what saved the exiles. They flung me alive into the pit and hurled stones on me, Water rose over my head; I thought: I am lost. I called out your Name, Be-er! from the depths of the pit, and you heard my voice (Lam. 3:53-56).

The “pit” from which the exile cries is a place which belongs completely to the domain of death. “There, at the darkest point of God’s absence, the reversal takes place. The sufferer calls out the name Be-er!”178 The miracle is that in calling the Name, the sufferer experienced Yahweh’s closeness: “You came near the day I called You. You said: Be not afraid” (Lam. 3:57). Calling out the Name is the space where Be-er dwells. He took the prayer to heart. Be-er makes himself present in the sufferer’s calling. The cry of distress “Be there!” is one side of an event of which the invisible flip side is: “Be not afraid.” 3. A new identity The fall of the Southern kingdom, the destruction of the temple and city, and the deportation to Babylonia deprived the Israelites of their final basis of belief. In addition, in the unclean land of their exile, it was impossible for them to give expression to their understanding of the faith. Yet in this setting of complete destruction we witness the miraculous development of a new spirituality. We see it happen in Psalm 8. The “babes and infants” of Psalm 8 are the deported exiles – without city, without temple, without sacred spaces, without rituals. They are the children and infants of the “widowed” Jerusalem of which the Lamentations sing.179 In exile these “babes and infants” discover the sacred space of the study circle on the Sabbath. There they perform the new ritual: the “mouth” which 178

H. Kraus, Klagelieder. Threni (BK XX), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1960, 67. W. Beyerlin, Psalm 8. Chancen der Uberlieferungskritik, in: Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche 73 (1976), 1-22. 179

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devotedly puts itself at the service of the sacred tradition, tenderly mumbling the texts and attentively discussing their meaning. These study circles build a new city wall on the foundation of the Sabbath: they “found a bulwark” which is able to stand “against the terrifying foes” of Be-er and silences the enemy and avenger (shabbat!).180 The poet of Psalm 8 prays that this new city may be Be-er’s answer to the pagan gods seated high in the heavens where the Babylonian gods boast of their conquests! Standing under the night sky the exile poses the ancient wisdom question: “What is a human being?” The answer of the psalm clothes humans with attributes which before the exile were only accorded to a king’s son: he was “crowned with glory and honor” (vs. 5), and given “dominion” over the creation (vs. 6); he knew himself “put” over all creatures: “tame animals, wild animals, birds in the air, fish in the sea and all that passes along the paths of the sea” (vv. 6-8). The inquiring exile in the study circle is now what the son of David was in Jerusalem before 587 B.C. In utter abandonment, standing under the unfathomable darkness of the sky, the exile feels: “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, that you, Mighty One, care about them, that you have made them little less than a Mighty One and crown them with weightiness and splendor, and let them have dominion over the work of your hands?” 3.4.2. THE DESERT In the course of the third century we increasingly see Christians withdraw into the desert. What we are looking at here is a complex process which has its roots in the early Christian churches.181 A number of factors interact to produce this effect. (1) The early Christian churches were part of a world in which asceticism was highly esteemed. Various schools of philosophy (the Pythagoreans, Stoics, cynics) which deemed a sustained ascetic practice (fasting, sobriety, self-control, abstinence) necessary with a view to achieving wisdom and insight gave early Christianity a blueprint which placed Christian discipleship (Mark 6:7-9; 10:1731; Matt. 19:10-12, 27-28; Luke 12:22-31, etc.) in an ascetic perspective. (2) The ascetic mindset easily links up with ascetic impulses: the end-time expectation which moves people to vigilance and persevering prayer. An ascetic lifestyle began to be viewed as a lifelong martyrdom. (3) Implied in the growth of Christian congregations was a leveling process. An ascetic life offers a possibility of giving shape to the original holiness and heroism of Christianity. (4) Asceticism in the church produced from within itself three types which can be regarded as a 180

The words between parentheses refer to literature which originated in the period of the exile: Lamentations, Psalm 74, Psalm 44. 181 Askese und Mönchtum in der alten Kirche, (Ed. K. Frank), Darmstadt 1975.

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prefiguration of the desert monk. We already mentioned the first type: the martyr. This type embodies the imitation of Christ to the ultimate limit and therefore serves as a model for later monks. The second type is that of the itinerant preacher who renounces all kinds of possession (Matt. 10:9-15). The third type is that of the person who remains single for the sake of the kingdom of God and leaves house and hearth (Matt. 19:29; also cf. 1. Cor. 7). All these factors led third and fourth-century Christians to withdraw into the desert to lead a life there that was totally concentrated on God. In broad outline we will now sketch the spirituality of the desert monk. 1. Anachoresis The desert monk’s life was marked by a movement away from social life (anachoresis). He distanced himself both from family ties and from public life (the church). Hence the name “monk” which comes from the Greek monachos: one who lives by himself.182 In the introduction to Part 1, we already cited a saying current among monks: “that in all ways a monk should flee women and bishops.” Cassian offers as motivation the following: “ Neither would allow him, once entangled in their company, either to apply himself to peaceful work in his cell, or to cleave to divine contemplation, in the consideration of holy things with undistracted eye.”183 The saying of the desert monks cited above touches the core of anachoresis. The bishop represents the public order, especially that of the church. The monk had no function within the church organization which had meanwhile developed. Participation in pastoral activities meant ipso facto the betrayal of one’s own charisma: to go uncompromisingly in search of God. Cassian himself had to “admit with shame” that he could not “elude the hands of his bishop.”184 A woman represents the sphere of the family. Cassian thinks here of his “girl cousin, whom he failed to escape.”185 When Eusebius looks back on the development of the monastic life, he observes that their manner of life distanced itself from public life: marrying, having children, pursuing one’s calling, fulfilling one’s ordinary duties as a citizen.186 The monk withdraws himself from the social order, from the social organization around family and relatives.187 For the nun anachoresis meant emancipation: life as a nun liberated a woman from social entanglement and the doom of a lifelong duty to care for others. 182 The word surfaced for the first time around 324. See E. Judge, The Earliest Use of Monachos for ‘Monk,’ in: Jahrbuch fur Antike und Christentum 20 (1977), 72-89. 183 John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes XI, 18, London 1999, 170. 184 John Cassian, ibid., 170. 185 John Cassian, ibid., 120. 186 Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratio evangelica I, 8 (PG 22, 75-78). 187 P. Brown, The Notion of Virginity in the Early Church, in: Christian Spirituality. Origins to the Twelfth Century (WS 16), London 1986, 427-443.

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2. Solitude The movement of dissociating oneself leads into solitude: the Egyptian deserts (Nitria, Scetis, Kellia, Thebais); the deserts in Palestine and Syria; inhospitable little islands along the coast (Italy, Southern France; later England and Ireland), mountains (Karmel) and primeval forests (later in Europe). The aim of anachoresis is solitude (erèmos). Hence the name eremite. Three motives gave solitude (the desert) a spiritual physiognomy.188 (1) Israel’s stay in the desert is the arch-paradigm. The desert is the place of the first love (Jer. 2:2-3; Hos. 9:10), the place where Elijah heard Be-er in the whisper of a gentle breeze (1 Kgs. 19). (2) In contrast to the city, the symbol of evil and corruption, the desert represents unspoiled nature, “where the air is purer and heaven is open wider and God is closer and more familiar.”189 This idea is even stronger in Italy where the ancient Roman idyll of the rustic life was associated with life in solitude: “Selfbaked bread, vegetables from one’s own garden, fresh milk, all the delectable products of the land offer us modest but welcome nourishment. When we live thus, sleep does not keep us from prayer, nor satiation from reading.”190 (3) The desert is the dwelling place of demons. Living in the desert was viewed as a direct battle with the powers of death. Jesus’ stay in solitude and his being tested by Satan (Matt. 4:1ff.) served as model. He faced the devil openly and won. As a result of the spread of Christianity the devil was driven ever more deeply into the desert. When the monks marched into the desert with Anthony, Satan was afraid that now even his last place of refuge would be taken from him.191 A monk fights against the power of evil on the side of Christ. In order to remain on his feet in this combat the monk, with prayer and meditation, clothed himself with the armor of God.192 3. Rest The desert monk withdrew from social life in order to achieve complete rest (hèsuchia) in solitude.193 This is why, in the case of the desert monks, the terms “anachoresis,” “being an eremite” and “hesychasm” are synonymous.194 This rest has an external dimension (no noise, no activity, no cares, no relations) and an 188

R. Bäumer and M. Plattig, Aufmerksamkeit ist das natürliche Gebet der Seele, Würzburg 1998, 23-29. 189 Origen, Homelia in Lucam cap. 11, 3-4 (PG 13, 1826-1828). 190 Jerome, Epistola 22, 14 (CSEL 54-56). 191 See Athenasius, Vita Antonii, cap. 8 (SC 400). 192 See John Cassian, Conferences, New York-Mahwah 1997, 7.5. 193 In speaking of the “hesychast” we do not think first of all of one who prays the Jesus-prayer or of the theory of Palamas but of the hermit who sought out the rest (hèsuchia) of the solitary cell. 194 P. Adnès, Hesychasme, in: DSp 7 (1969), 381-399.

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internal dimension (no passions, no fantasies, no introspection). In order to achieve this external and internal rest the desert monks found the cell to be the best medium. “Remaining” or “sitting” in the cell was the all-embracing exercise: “Interior peace (hèsuchia) is sitting (kathestenai) in his cell with fear and knowledge of God.”195 The cell mediates quiet tranquillity: “Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace.”196 Remaining in the cell is the exercise of all exercises: “Therefore one must abide constantly in one’s cell.”197 It takes great skill to let the cell do its work. Initially it makes a person anxious: “There is nothing surprising in the fact that someone staying in a cell, whose thoughts are gathered together as if in a very narrow closet, should be suffocated with a multitude of preoccupations.”198 The idea is to admit the cell into the most interior part of the soul so that it gathers and purifies the soul and brings it to purity of heart. In order to achieve this goal the monk performs his spiritual exercises there. (1) Reading Scripture. By repeating the words of Scripture in the quiet rhythm of his breathing the monk is transformed in the sacred fabric of God’s Word. The result is the soul’s acquisition of a reliable immune system and the formation of a humus layer in the bottom of one’s soul from which deep insights spring up later.199 (2) Prayer. Saying the prayers (the psalms, the Our-Father, short psalm verses) is an essential part of remaining in the cell. The prayers will “purify the heart and guide you to the contemplation of that which is invisible and heavenly and to that inexpressible passion of prayer which only a few experience.”200 (3) An important aspect of remaining in one’s cell is the scrutinizing of one’s thoughts (logismoi). These “thoughts” encompass all the stirrings of the soul: ideas, feelings, moods, brainwaves, purposes, plans, motives, and reasonings. It is the ability first to become familiar with the thoughts, then to bring them to mind, in order finally to think them through. “He must note their intensity – also when they stay away, when they originate and again disappear. He must observe the multiformity of his thoughts, the regularity with which they keep surfacing, the demons who are responsible for them, those which take the place of the preceding ones and those which do not.”201 (4) The hermit provided for his own maintenance by manual labor: the braiding of mats, baskets, and cords. Work accompanied,

195

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Trans. B. Ward), London-Kalamazoo 1984, Rufus 1. Ibid., Anthony 10. 197 John Cassian, Conferences, 6.15. 198 Ibid., 24.5 199 Ibid., 14.10. 200 Ibid., 10.10. 201 Evagrius of Pontus, Capita practica ad Anatolium 31 (PG 40, 1229 C). 196

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gave rhythm to, and supported, the life of prayer.202 It was the calming constant of remaining in the cell. By working the monk kept his thoughts active. He diverted them by the regularity of his actions. His mind was concentrated, brought to unity by solitude and silence. In the shelter of work there arose a pure attentiveness which was the condition for contemplation.203 4. Contemplation Remaining in the cell with all the exercises performed there is the active side (praktike) of the monastic life which one can practice (askesis). They have as their specific working goal (skopos) purity of heart: “We must therefore practice the less weighty – fasts, vigils, solitude, meditation on Scripture – for the sake of the most weighty working goal: purity of heart.”204 This purity of heart is not the final goal (telos).That is the contemplation which is conceived in the purified heart: “For it is impossible for the impure soul… to acquire spiritual knowledge. No one pours a choice ointment or the finest honey or any kind of precious fluid into a foul-smelling and filthy vessel.”205 Contemplation is not a working goal (skopos) but a final goal (telos), which cannot be reached by working: “The Lord placed the highest good not in carrying out some work, however praiseworthy and abundantly fruitful it may be, but in the truly simple and unified contemplation of him.”206 This final goal is called: eternal life, the eternal prize,207 the kingdom of God,208 cleaving to God, divine contemplation,209 union with the invisible and incomprehensible God.210 This final goal is not one we ourselves can bring about: it is grace. God, who communicates himself in contemplation, is not manipulable. He only becomes apparent in the purified heart as a gentle touch, a trace which leaves no impression but transforms a life from within. 5. Accompaniment In his ascent to contemplation the desert monk needed the help of another monk who had already advanced to a new stage on the road: “The subject needs to be discussed earnestly with spiritual men and kept fresh, lest it slip away from 202

John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes X, chs. 7-8. John Cassian, Conferences, 24.4. 204 Ibid., 1.7. 205 Ibid., 14.14. 206 Ibid., 1.8. 207 Ibid., 1.5. 208 Ibid., 1.3-4. 209 Ibid., 1.8 and 13. 210 Ibid., 1.12. 203

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the careless memory.”211 The conversation starts with the younger monk asking the Abba: “Say a word for me,” or: “Tell me how I can be saved,” or: “Tell me what I must do.” These questions can also be very concrete, as for example: “An inheritance has been left me, what ought I to do?”212 From the Apophthegms we learn how the fathers shared in the life of their pupils. “They always gave specific advice to a specific person in a specific situation.”213 Sometimes the concrete situation is not mentioned, or only hinted at, in the sayings: “A brother who shared a lodging with other brothers asked Abba Bessarion: “What should I do?” The old man replied, “Keep silence and do not compare yourself with others.’”214 Apparently the reference is to problems inherent in communal living: gossip, backbiting, jealousy, competition. As a rule, however, the questions concerned the spiritual journey: a brother came to Abba Makarios and said: “Abba, give me a word that I may be saved.” So the old man said, “Go to the cemetery and abuse the dead.” The brother went there, abused them and threw stones at them; then he returned and told the old man about it. The latter said to him, “Didn’t they say anything to you?” He replied “No.” The old man said, “Go back tomorrow and praise them.” So the brother went away and praised them, calling them, “Apostles, saints and righteous men.” He returned to the old man and said to him, “I have complimented them.” And the old man said to him, “Did they not answer you?” The brother said no. The old man said to him, “You know how you insulted them and they did not reply, and how you praised them and they did not speak; so you too if you wish to be saved must do the same and become a dead man.”215 On the way to contemplation, the pupil must detach himself from all human regard. Similarly, countless “words” have been handed down from the Fathers, words which contain directions for the spiritual journey: words about prayer and silence, about discernment and obedience, about humility and patience, always aimed at contemplation.

3.4.3. SOLITUDE Dag Hammarskjöld was born in 1905 as the offspring of Swedish nobility. Following his studies in economics, he started his political career in 1933. This career was crowned in 1953 when he was appointed Secretary General of the 211

John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes, Preface. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, London-Kalamazoo 1984, Abbas Poimen 33. 213 C. Joest, Das frühe ägyptische Wüstenmonchtum. Gestalt und Gestalten, in: Erbe und Auftrag 71 (1995), 143. 214 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Bessarion 10. 215 Ibid., Makarios 23. 212

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United Nations Organization. In 1961 he died in an airplane accident. After his death his friends found notes in which he described his inner journey. They were published in 1963 under the title Markings.216 Hammarskjöld’s life unfolded in the field of tension between social-political commitment and personal reflection. He thought intensely about his involvement in public life and, prompted by his religious convictions, engaged in politics. Intertwined with this field of tension (reflection-public life) was the field of tension which shaped his character: on the one hand, there was the person who set high goals for himself (doing one’s duty, total commitment, selfless service); on the other, the person who sought a warm kind of proximity to others (a passion for concreteness; equality). This tension was resolved as he learned to let go of the forced grip he kept on himself and to accept himself as he actually was.217 This was a painful process. “To let go of the image which, in the eyes of this world, bears your name, the image fashioned in your consciousness by social ambition and sheer force of will. To let go and fall, fall – in trust and blind devotion. Towards another, another….”218 Increasingly, “the image which, in the eyes of the world, bore his name,” dissolved. Ever more alone, ever less exchangeable. But the farther this loneliness revealed itself, the broader and deeper it became. In retrospect the “image fashioned in your consciousness by social ambition and sheer force of will” proved to be the solitary in the negative sense of the word: isolated, enclosed within himself. The mystical formation of Hammarskjöld can be described as an exodus from anxious loneliness into the wide spaces of solitude. 1. The fear of loneliness Everyone faces “a choice between two alternatives: either to despair in desolation, or to stake so high on the ‘possibility’ that one acquires the right to life in a transcendental co-inherence.”219 Despairing desolation seeks applause, wants to be considered interesting. It is afraid that people will “not find it entertaining enough.”220 This solitude, this self-enclosure in narcissism,221 is a form of selfdeification: “You are your own God – and are surprised that the wolf pack is hunting you across the desolate icefields of winter.”222 The drive to maintain 216

Dag Hammerskjöld, Markings, New York 1964. H. Blommestijn, Ja aan het onbekende – Dag Hammarskjöld, in: Speling 36 (1984) no. 1, 90-94; J. Huls, Dag Hammarskjöld. De ander als onze meester, in: Speling 47 (1995) no. 2, 67-74; J. Huls, Wagen jezelf te zijn – Dag Hammarskjold, in: Speling 49 (1997) no. 4, 39-44. 218 Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, New York 1964, 24. 219 Ibid., 70. 220 Ibid., 46. 221 Ibid., 12. 222 Ibid., 15. 217

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oneself and the fear of death feed this “poisoning”223 of “thick-skinned, self-sufficient loneliness.”224 Over against a fearful solitude stands self-loss: “Only what you have given, be it only in the gratitude of acceptance – is salvaged from the nothing which some day will have been your life.”225 2. The loneliness of the one called The person called follows “the call of the Way of Possibility.”226 “Possible” because the road before me lies open; “unknown” because I have no blueprint of this possibility. Only one thing is certain: the call makes its unconditional claim upon my life journey. This claim sets me apart, makes me special, while all the time his freedom of choice is respected: Summoned To carry it, Alone To assay it, Chosen To suffer it, And free To deny it, I saw For one moment The sail In the sun storm Far off On a wave crest, Alone, Bearing from land.227

A striking image for a positive solitude: a ship that leaves behind the coast of the familiar frame of reference, heads for the unknown, the sail driven by wind and light, sustained by the waves. Another image Hammarskjöld uses is that of the mineworker who, deep underground, crawling through a narrow shaft, illumined by nothing more than a minelamp, hews out a narrow path for himself: “Continual darkness. The same continual cold, dripping with moisture. The same continual loneliness – hemmed in by walls of rock, but without the safety of a wall.”228 The miner is inescapably enclosed within his tunnel through the darkness. There is no escaping it: the narrow, dark underground work shaft, 223

Ibid., 8. Ibid., 59. 225 Ibid., 38. 226 Ibid., 120. 227 Ibid., 211. 228 Ibid., 49. 224

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enclosed by the unsafe condition of dripping walls, drives the miner on within the boundaries of his mole tunnel, cut off from the social life that takes place above ground. The only possibility left to him in this darkness is the “journey inwards”: feeling my unexchangeable existence in the realization of my life where my choosing coincides with my being chosen. “At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose your self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I’s. But in only one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected.”229 That is one’s calling: solitude to unite oneself with the irreplaceable uniqueness of his life journey,230 to unite oneself without compromise to the road one must travel and to have the courage, precisely in this irreplaceable concreteness, to be lonely.231 The loneliness of the called only has the loneliness of the journey to death: “To reach perfection, we must all pass, one by one, through the death of self-effacement. And, on this side of it, he will never find the way to anyone who has passed through it.”232 3. The way of loneliness The way of solitude is painful, but must not be confused with the pain of isolation: “What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear.”233 The inescapability of the life journey which is realized in my life generates the pain of loneliness which equates me with the way that has chosen me and drives me into the destiny which is realized in my life, a pain which sparks the consciousness of ultimate loneliness: “Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.”234 Loneliness confronts me with two painful things: Because I am going the way which has chosen me I am deprived of all external references; at the same time I am fused with the unexchangeable concreteness of the course of my life. To escape this nakedness we flee into our work: “Work as an anesthetic against loneliness.”235 The work so exhausts one’s nervous system that the confrontation with the uniqueness of one’s life journey is neutralized: “Fatigue dulls the pain, but awakes enticing thoughts of death. So! That is the way in which you are tempted to overcome your loneliness – by making the ultimate escape from life.”236 At the same time the exhaustion presents an exquisite chance: it confronts me with the question whether this was in 229

Ibid., 19. Ibid., 58. 231 Ibid., 68. 232 Ibid., 25. 233 Ibid., 85. 234 Ibid., 85. 235 Ibid., 82. 236 Ibid., 86. 230

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fact my life while at the same time it deprives me of the strength and desire to enter into the lonely self-confrontation with something else: “Too tired for company you seek a solitude you are too tired to fill.”237 The exhaustion confronts me with a basic choice: to say yes or to flee. Tired And lonely, So tired The heart aches. Meltwater trickles Down the rocks, The fingers are numb, The knees tremble. It is now, Now, that you must not give in. On the path of the others Are resting places, Places in the sun Where they can meet. But this Is your path, And it is now, Now, that you must not fail. Weep If you can, Weep, But do not complain. The way chose you – And you must be thankful.238

4. The space of loneliness By choosing the way that chose me I enter into “a solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.”239 My conduct is no longer entangled in the rumor of my narcissism. Fearful loneliness has been freed from its oppressiveness, immersed as it is in the quiet solitude of all that exists: “Alone in his secret growth, he found a kinship with all growing things.”240 Viewed from the outside: the way of solitude is a liminal process, but this liminality creates inner fellowship. It transforms a person into “one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow and called 237

Ibid., 172. Ibid., 213. 239 Ibid., 8. 240 Ibid., 191. 238

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a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion.”241 Outside of the social order new life springs up as from a spring: “Alone beside the moorland spring, once again you are aware of your loneliness – as it is and always has been. As it always has been – even when, at times, the friendship of others veiled its nakedness. But the spring is alive. And your sentry duty remains to you.”242 The living of a life in its unrepeatability lays existence bare. Detached from the social dimension (“Alone, by the spring on the heather”) one’s original existence stands out in its nakedness: “the spring is alive.” At the same time, enduring one’s lot continues. Going the way which chose me offers no other support than the way itself. The way is executed in pure faith. Present here is the dark journey itself, the solitary course without points of reference – and nothing else. But precisely so, hidden from the eyes of all others and hidden to oneself, God, too, goes his way with his creation. He, too, goes the way which chooses him. He, too, goes his way in solitude: “Thou who at this time art the one among us who suffereth the uttermost loneliness.”243 The loneliness of God is bound to his work, to us whom he has created as free people. This connection is a credit from which “He withdraws (…) into His solitude.”244 God exerts himself for us where we exert ourselves for him. “Rejoice if God found a use for your efforts in His work. Rejoice if you feel that what you did was ‘necessary,’ but remember, even so, that you were simply the instrument by means of which he added one tiny grain to the Universe He has created for His own purposes.”245 In the unity between my way and God’s way, between my commitment and God’s commitment, God and man are united with each other. This is the “inner solitude” which affords a person an imperturbable rest, “no matter where or with whom he may be.”246 BIBLIOGRAPHY Askese und Mönchtum in der alten Kirche, (Ed. K. Frank), Darmstadt 1975. BARTELINK, G., De bloeiende woestijn. De wereld van het vroege monachisme, Baarn 1993. BROWN, P., Die letzten Heiden, Frankfurt a.M. 1995. BURTON-CHRISTIE, D., The Word in the Desert. Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism, New York etc. 1993. 241

Ibid., 40. Ibid., 116. 243 Ibid., 98. 244 Ibid., 108. 245 Ibid., 143. 246 Ibid., 143. 242

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CERTEAU, M. DE & ROUSTANG, F., La solitude. Une vérité oubliée de la communication, Paris 1967. FRANK, K., Geschichte des christlichen Mönchtums in der alten Kirche, Darmstadt 1993. HAMMARSKJÖLD, D., Vägmarken, Stockholm 1963. English translation: Markings, New York 1964. KRAUS, H., Klagelieder (Threni), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1968. Loneliness, The Way 16 (1976) no. 4. MUTO, S., Celebrating the Single Life. A Spirituality for Single Persons in Today’s World, New York 1990. Les pères du désert des maîtres actuels? La Vie Spirituelle t. 140 (1986) no. 669. Les pères du désert des maîtres actuels? La Vie Spirituelle t. 140 (1986) no. 670. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, (Trans. B. Ward), Kalamazoo 1984. SCHNEIDER, M., Aus den Quellen der Wüste. Die Bedeutung der frühen Mönchsväter für eine Spiritualität heute, Köln 1989. Tegenspel vanuit de woestijn, Speling 40 (1988) no. 1. WAAIJMAN, K., Psalmen vanuit de ballingschap, Kampen 1986.

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3.5. The Spirituality of Martyrs The word “martyr” goes back to the Greek verb martyrein, which means “to witness.” A martyr is one who with his life bears witness to God’s rule over against a power which denies this divine claim. Also the Islamic martyr (shahid) is a witness. In Jewish spirituality martyrdom is described by the phrase quiddush ha-shem: “the sanctification of the name.” But here, too, the point at issue is a public witness. There have always been people who with their blood witnessed to the unconditional validity of God’s rule. 1. “Qiddush ha-shem” in the Hellenistic period. In the days of Daniel devout Israelites for the first time had to witness in large numbers to God’s unconditional validity when Hellenistic rulers began to abuse religious syncretism as a political tool. Philip of Macedon developed the idea of one kingdom with one culture and one religion. The Jewish people opposed this development. Under Antiochus IV (175-164) an open confrontation resulted: “Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people and that all should give up their particular customs” (1 Macc. 1:41-42). Concretely this meant the adoption of pagan images, the abolition of the sabbath and of circumcision, the offering of unclean sacrifices and eating pork (1 Macc. 1:45-49). “Whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die” (1 Macc. 1:50). All the written scrolls were burnt. Even the mere possession of Scripture was fatal (1 Macc. 1:56-57). Women and children were executed; entire families wiped out (1 Macc. 1:60, 61; also see 2 Macc. 6:9-12). 2. The church of the martyrs. The first three centuries of Christianity were marked by martyrdom (“blood witness”): Jesus of Nazareth who uncompromisingly proclaimed the rule of God; the martyr’s death of Stephen (Acts 6:8-7:60; 8:1-3; 9:1-2) and James (Acts 12:1-11) and the many who followed them during the persecutions of Christians by the Romans, persecutions which in the first two centuries were still incidental and local but assumed a systematic and general character in the third century, especially under Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian (between ca. 250 and 325 A.D.). The unconditional validity of God’s rule clashed with the allegedly divine claims of the emperor. In the Christian communities, which were still small and young at the time, these cruel executions left deep marks, marks which served precisely however to engrave the unconditional validity of God’s rule indelibly in the heart of the Roman empire. It is not strange, therefore, that the spirituality of the martyrs belongs to the very core of Christian spirituality.247 247

W. Rordorf, Martyre, I. Les Martyrs des premiers siècles, in: DSp 10 (1980), 723-726.

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3. Martyrdom in Shiite Islam. For Shi-ite Islam the prototype of all martyrs is Husayn, the grandson of Mohammed and third imam.248 In 680 Husayn was murdered, along with his relatives and companions, at the plain of Karbala by Yazid, the second Umayyad caliph of Islam. Yazid demanded absolute submission to his tyrannical regime. Husayn refused. His plan – which was to save the peace-loving and dignified character of Islam – cost him his life. No other event has had as much influence on the spirituality of Shi-ite Islam as this event. Husayn’s martyrdom is annually commemorated on the 10th of Muharram 61/680, “the day of the bloodbath,” with processions, passion stories and plays, accompanied by mourning rituals, dirges, and self-chastisements. Expressions of grief and sorrow over Husayn are acts of piety which will be richly rewarded in the hereafter (cf. Sura III, 169; IX, 20). To the devout Shi-ite Husayn is the outstanding example of patience and endurance. The supreme form of piety is to follow him in his unconditional surrender to God’s will and to accept suffering for the sake of righteousness to the point of death. This is the shahid: the martyr who bears witness with his life to the unconditional validity of God’s rule in this world.249 4. The persecutions of Jews in Western Europe. In Western Europe the Jews have always been a minority which saw itself forced, virtually without interruption, “to hallow the Name.”250 In this unbroken stream of persecutions four periods stand out: (1) The first period was that of the crusades.251 The first crusade (1096-1099) especially affected Jewish communities in the Rhineland: 5,000 Jews lost their life. The second crusade (1146-1147) was anti-Jewish from the beginning: participants were promised that any debts they owed to Jews would be canceled. Although the government was able to head off the worst excesses, many Jews were killed. The third crusade (1190) was devastating for the Jewish communities in England. (2) The second wave of violence struck the Jews during the plague epidemic between 1348 and 1350. Blame for the “black death” was shifted to the Jewish minority when it was rumored that the Jews had poisoned the wells. Many were killed. (3) The third period was that in which the Jews living on the Iberian peninsula were targeted in 1492. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were driven out of Spain and later in 1497 from Portugal. Prior to this expulsion, some 12,000 Jews were condemned and executed by the Inquisition. (4) The fourth wave is unequaled in its scope and systematic

248 For the place of this martyrdom in Shi-ite Islam, see: J. ter Haar, Volgelingen van de Imam, Amsterdam 1995, 97-109; S. Jafri, Twelve-imam shi’ism, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 160-178. 249 S. Jafri, ibid., 168-171. 250 H. Hillel Ben-Sasson, Kiddush ha-Shem and chillul ha-Shem, in: EJ 10 (1971), 982-983. 251 Ibid.

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thoroughness: the holocaust.252 Six million Jews were murdered for no other reason than that they belonged to the Jewish race. 5. The martyrs in the Third World. The spirituality of liberation is directed against the systematic oppression of peoples in the Third World. This brings “political holiness”253 into conflict with the military-industrial centers of power. In this struggle many people are losing their life. Sobrino differentiates between the following aspects of this form of martyrdom.254 (1) The martyrs in the Third World die, like Jesus, for the cause of humanity and the poor. (2) They share in the martyrdom of the people, sometimes of entire peoples. (3) The Christian presence and the socio-religious reality are a close match and bring each other out into the open. (4) Dying in the pursuit of justice is the most perfect form of political holiness. Impassioned involvement in everything is the love which gives its life for its friends. Thousands of people have died in the Third World because they risked their life for the disenfranchised. We will now present three paradigms, in which the voice of the martyr’s spirituality can be heard.

3.5.1. THE SEVEN BROTHERS AND THEIR MOTHER In the period of the Maccabees many Jews died a martyr’s death. Hellenic despots forced them to act contrary to their holiest convictions and customs. Coming down to us from this period are several martyr stories and apocalypses: the martyrdom of rabbi Eleazar (2 Macc. 6). The three young men in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3). Daniel in the lions’ den (Dan. 6). Among these stories the martyrdom of the seven brothers and their mother (2 Macc. 7:1-42) enjoyed a strong reception.255 In this story we can point to three motives which together profile the “model” (hupodeigma) of the Maccabean martyr. Inasmuch as in the story of the seven brothers the story of martyrdom is told seven times over, spirituality automatically defines itself there.

252

J. Robinson, Holocaust, in: EJ 8 (1971), 902-905. J. Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation. Toward Political Holiness, New York 1988. 254 See J. Sobrino, Spirituality and the Following of Jesus, in Mysterium Liberationis. Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, Maryknoll-Collins Dove 1993, 694-695. 255 For the different versions in Maccabees 4, Lamentations Rabba, Seder Eliyahu Rabba, Pesichta Rabba, Midrash Zutta, and Yalkut Shimoni, see G. Cohen, The Story of Hannah and the Seven Sons in Hebrew Literature, in: Mordecai M. Kaplan Jubilee Volume, New York 1953, 109122. For the additional resonance in this reception of the Akeda-motif (the binding of Isaac for sacrifice), see A. Agus, The Binding of Isaac and Messiah in Law, Martyrdom, and Deliverance in Early Rabbinic Religiosity, New York-Albany 1988, 11-32. 253

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1. The clash of two worlds The Hellenic ruler attempted, by the threat of violence, to persuade the pious to give up their faith. The seven brothers were beaten with whips and thongs to force them to eat swine’s flesh (2 Macc. 7:1). Upon their refusal, the tortures rapidly mounted. The king’s servants scalped the brothers (7:4, 7), cut off their tongues (7:4, 10), and threatened they would torture them in this manner “limb by limb” (7:1) and end by cutting off their hands and feet (7:4, 10-11). Finally they were burned alive (7:5). Stepping up the tortures matched the increasing fury of the ruler when he did not get his way. Contradiction, refusal, and resistance were answered with mounting ruthlessness (7:3-5.8). Especially the resistance of the last of the seven brothers elicited from the tyrant an exhibition of unprecedented cruelty: “The king fell into a rage and, being exasperated at his scorn, treated the young man even worse than the others” (7:39). The despot appealed to him with words, promising him a reward if he would give in. Thus Antiochus promised under oath that he would make the last brother “rich and happy, include him in the circle of his friends and entrust him with the management of public affairs” if he would listen (7:24). Next he sought to persuade his mother to bring him to the insight “that it was in his own interest to comply” (7:26). The tortured on their part employed the power of the word and the firm nobility of their conviction. The first brother, stepping forward at once, boldly confronted the tyrant: “What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers” (7:2). The brothers answered brute force with pride, sarcasm, and indomitability. Sometimes they formulated their refusal in a snappy and almost lofty “no!” (7:8), speaking “in their native tongue” (7:8), thus excluding the tyrant. The third brother, “at the executioner’s request immediately stuck out his tongue and fearlessly stretched out his hands” and “nobly” added: “I got these from Heaven but, because of God’s Instruction, I will gladly part with them in the hope of some day getting them back from him” (7:10-11). This spirited response even impressed the tyrant (7:12). The brothers also proceeded to bring into play a verbal threat: “You just wait, and witness how God’s mighty power will chastise you and your descendants (…). But don’t imagine you will go unpunished for having tried to fight against God!” (7:17, 19). 2. The martyr’s witness The contest is settled with physical violence. The brothers refuse to comply and show their “sovereignty” and magnanimity, but following each of these demonstrations there is increased violence until finally the victim dies. In each case this death is coupled with a testimony. At the death of the first brother, the brothers and their mother testify that “God watches over his tortured children and will surely have compassion on us” (7:6). The second brother, before breathing out

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his last breath, says that God “will raise up to an everlasting life” those who have given their life for the Instruction (7:9). The third and fourth brothers testify that the death of martyrdom carries within it the “hope” that God will raise us up again, “but,” adds the fourth, “for you there will be no resurrection to life” (7:14). The fifth and sixth brother speak to their tormentors of the prospect of divine retribution (7:17, 19). The last brother sums up all the preceding testimonies: indeed, the despot causes great suffering but he will not escape his punishment: God will reconcile himself with his faithful servants; the martyrs inherit eternal life (7:31-36). A martyrdom is a witness to God and his Instruction: “I, like my brothers, give up body and life out of reverence for the Instruction of our fathers and I pray to God that he will soon have compassion on our people and by trials and plagues force you to acknowledge that he alone is God” (7:37). 3. Impact on the community After the death of her sixth son, the mother’s role was praised at length: “The mother was especially admirable and her memory deserves to be held in honor forever. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage, because she put her trust in the Lord” (7:20). The mother encouraged her sons to faithfully persevere in their refusal and to die for God’s honor (7:5, 21). She motivated them in their native tongue” (7:21-23) so that the tyrant could not understand her, and reinforced their motivation: “God will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again since you now do not spare yourself for the sake of his Instruction” (7:23). She similarly motivated also her seventh son “in their native language” (7:27-29). Again she puts everything in the perspective of “God who shows mercy’ (7:29). The mother who died last of all, after her sons (7:41), represents the perspective of the oppressed community which supports the martyrs not only in their conduct but especially in their motivation, and that in her native language. The mother sustains the martyrdom and is edified by it. In her witness God’s perspective becomes manifest: his compassion, his life-giving power, and his retribution. In the midst of violence the death of the martyr establishes God’s perspective. In the martyrdom of Eleazar – which precedes that of the seven brothers – this is expressly stated. Eleazar said; “Therefore, I prefer to take my leave from this life with courage, for then I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young an example of how to die willingly and nobly for the venerable and holy Instruction. After these words he went at once to the rack” (6:27-28). This martyrdom sealed “the exemplary life he had led from his childhood” (6:23) and indelibly impressed this example in people’s memory: “So in this way he died, leaving in his death an example of nobility and a memorial of courage, not only to the young, but to the greater part of his people” (6:31).

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MARTYRDOM OF

281 POLYCARP

The Martyrdom of Polycarp,256 composed by Marcion (20:1) and committed to paper by Evarestes (20:2), tells of tortures which “took place” (1,1; 2,1) at Smyrna (prologue).257 The testimony, intended for the church of Filimelium which had asked for “a more detailed account of what happened” (20:1), first relates the story of the martyrdom of Germanicus and his companions (2,1-3,2). Their martyrdom provoked so much aggression that the authorities finally sought to kill (3,2) Polycarp, the teacher and bishop of Smyrna (16,2). “His martyrdom would put an end to the persecution by – as it were – sealing it” (1,1). Polycarp had hidden outside the city a number of times (5,1-6,2), but was arrested by the city police one Friday in the evening (7,1). He surrendered, conversed with the policemen, ordered food and drink to be given to them, and asked for one hour in which to pray undisturbed (7,2-3). He was brought to the city and met by Herod, the chief of police, and his father Nicetas, who sought to persuade him to worship the emperor and make a sacrifice to him (8,1-3). Polycarp, who did not respond to this proposal, was taken to the arena where a huge crowd awaited him (8,3-9,1). In the arena he was questioned by the proconsul who for his part tried also to persuade Polycarp to deny Christ (9,2-12,1). When Polycarp continued to refuse he was condemned to death (12,2-3). The execution was carried out by means of fire and a dagger-thrust (13,1-16,2). Following his death the Christians buried his bones in a “fitting” location (17,1-18,3). In The Martyrdom of Polycarp we encounter a spirituality which can be sketched under three headings. 1. Conformity to Christ Polycarp was “not only an excellent teacher but also an outstanding martyr,” states The Martyrdom of Polycarp (19,2). This is a strange statement. How can a person excel in martyrdom? But Christians felt differently about that. A martyrdom could more or less resemble the death of Christ, the archparadigm of all martyrdoms. In the eyes of the Christians the martyrdom of Polycarp excelled, “because it was in accord with the gospel of Christ” (19,1). The Martyrdom of Polycarp expressly states this in the very beginning: “By almost every step that led up to it the Lord intended to exhibit to us anew the type of martyrdom 256 We are following the text-critical edition in Sources Chrétiennes 10, (Ed. P. Camelot), Paris 1958, 242-275. The numbers in parentheses refer to this edition. [In translating the Dutch I have leaned, at times heavily, on the translation by James A. Kleist published in the Ancient Christian Writers, series, Westminster-Maryland 1948, Trans.] 257 The year of Polycarp’s death is dated around 167. See D. van Damme, Polycarpe de Smyrne, in: DSp 12 (1986), 1904.

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narrated in the gospel” (1,1). There is an essential similarity between Christ and a martyr: “For it is a mark of true and steadfast love, not only to desire one’s own salvation, but that of all brothers as well” (1,2). Another essential point of similarity between Christ and Polycarp was that “just as the Lord had done, he waited until he was betrayed” (1,2). When Polycarp heard that the Romans wanted to kill him (3,3), he immediately left Smyrna and withdrew to a country estate outside the city (5,1). “Since the search for him continued, he went to another country estate” (6,1). Only when he could no longer escape the threat of death because one of his own slaves betrayed him, he surrendered. From Polycarp’s conduct it had to be evident that to report oneself to the government, an action to which the defector Quintus had incited himself and others, is not according to the gospel: “For this reason, brothers, we do not commend those who volunteer to come forward, since this is not the teaching of the gospel” (4). Aside from these essential points of similarity the narrator also draws the following parallels: the betrayal was perpetrated by a member of the community who, accordingly, met with the same fate as Judas (6,2); the police acted “as if they were in pursuit of a robber” (7,1); at the moment of his arrest Polycarp prayed that God’s will might be done (7,1); he was brought into the city on the back of a donkey (8,1); the people unanimously demanded his execution (12,2-3); he prayed just before his death (14,1-3); the authorities refused to give his dead body to the Christians (17,1-18,2). 2. The unconditional choice for God When Polycarp, amid a thunderous uproar from the grandstands, was led into the arena, he heard a divine voice from heaven which encouraged him: “Be strong, Polycarp, and act bravely” (9,1). By focusing on the reality of the divine, the martyrs shielded themselves from the violence: “And so their minds fixed on the grace of Christ, they despised the world’s torments” (2,3). They lived outside themselves: “To them the fire of their inhuman torturers seemed cold…. With their mind’s eyes they gazed upon the good things reserved for those who persevere – things which neither ear has heard nor eye seen nor human heart conceived, but which the Lord showed to those who were no longer humans but already angels”(2,3). This complete surrender to the will of God was the exact opposite of the surrender which the Romans expected from their citizens: “swear by and offer incense to the emperor” (4). On the way to the arena Herod (the police chief ) and his father Nicetas tried to win him over to the emperor cult: “Really,” they said, “ what harm is there in saying: ‘Caesar is lord’! and in offering incense and in all those other things, if by so doing you can save your life?” (8,2). Also the proconsul tried to persuade him to worship the emperor: “Swear by the Fortune of Caesar! (…) Swear, and I will let you go free! Curse the Christ! (…) Swear by the Fortune of Caesar!” (9,2; 9,3; 10,1). Polycarp refused. The reason

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for his death sentence, accordingly, was: “He is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods, who by his teaching has persuaded many no longer to sacrifice to our gods and no longer to worship them” (12,2). 3. Prayer The “power line” which sustains The Martyrdom is the focus on divine reality. This comes to expression in the prominent place of prayer in the story. When Polycarp heard that he was being sought, he withdrew to an estate in the countryside where “day and night he did nothing but pray for all and for the churches throughout the world, as was his custom” (5,1). During this prayer he received the vision that he would die by fire (5,2). The second “prayer-moment” is reported in connection with his arrest. After the words “God’s will be done,” he let the police in and asked them for permission to pray for an hour undisturbed. They granted his request. Standing, he prayed so full of God’s grace that for two hours he was unable to stop speaking! (7,2-3). The highpoint was the prayer he prayed before his execution: “Lord God, Ruler of all, Father of your beloved Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge concerning you, God of the angels and powers and of all creation and of the whole race of the righteous who live before your face” (14,1). Then follows a blessing: “I bless you because you have seen fit to bestow upon me this day and this hour, that I may share, among the number of the martyrs, the cup of your Christ and rise to eternal life, both in soul and in body, in the immortality of the Holy Spirit” (14,2). After the blessing comes a petition: “May I be accepted among them before your face as a rich and pleasing sacrifice, such as you, the true God who cannot utter a falsehood, have prearranged, revealed in advance, and now consummated” (14,2). The prayer concludes with a doxology: “Therefore I praise you for everything, I bless you, I glorify you through the eternal and heavenly high priest Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, through whom be glory to you together with him and the Holy Spirit, both now and in the ages yet to come. Amen” (14,3). After his prayer Polycarp was consumed as a burnt offering by the fire of divine love (14,1; 14,3). 4. The martyr as spiritual model We saw that Polycarp was called an “outstanding martyr” because his witness had all the characteristics of the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. Precisely this conformity made his martyrdom a spiritual model. The martyr exists so that Christians may have a concrete model to enable them to follow Christ (1,2).258 “Everyone 258 B. Dehandschutter, Hagiographie et histoire. À propos des actes et passions des martyrs, in: Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective, (Ed. M. Lamberigts & P. van Deun), Leuven 1995, 298-301.

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desires to imitate his martyrdom because it was in accord with the gospel of Christ” (19,1). This “blood witness” of the martyrs is not just a model for the present generation, however, but also for the coming ones. The epilogue of The Martyrdom of Polycarp clearly makes this point. After Polycarp’s dead body had been burned, the Christians took his bones with them and buried them in a “fitting” location (18, 1-2). There the Christians would come together annually to celebrate his martyrdom: “his birthday” (18,3). This celebration is explained as follows: “as a commemoration of those who have fought the good fight in the past and as training (askesis) and preparation (hetoimasia) for the coming generations (18,3). The cult of martyrs, therefore, is not only related to the past (the martyrdom must be in accord with the gospel) but also received with a view to the future: the commemoration of the day of death and telling the passion stories with a view to “appropriation” and “equipment,” so that the participants may be inwardly imbued with the spirit of the martyrs. This is the reason why the churches pass on to each other the histories of the eyewitnesses (prologue and 20,1).

3.5.3. THE HOLOCAUST The inhumane suffering which the Hitler regime inflicted on the Jews cannot be properly remembered. The events associated with the holocaust are inevitably perceived from the perspective of a certain interpretive context.259 Two examples may serve to illustrate this point. (1) When the events, which up until then had been nameless, were described with the names holocaust, shoah and churban, this was consistently done from within a specific interpretive context.260 Holocaust means “burnt offering.” By that term the events are read against the background of the temple and the sacrificial rituals performed there. Shoah, on the other hand, evokes the image of destruction and exile, a fate which over the centuries struck Israel over and over again. Churban, finally, interprets the events against the background of the destruction of the first and second temple. Hence already in the name a certain slant is given to the memory. (2) The arrangement of memorial sites in the various countries reflects the local interest of the designers: in Polish memorial sites the suffering of the Jews is expressly linked with the lot of the Polish people under Hitler; in Germany the design is abstract and estheticizing; in Israel the events are read against the backdrop of Israel’s long 259

J. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust. Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation, 1988. I am following the German translation: Beschreiben des Holocaust. Darstellung und Folgen der Interpretation, Frankfurt a.M. 1992. 260 J. Young, Beschreiben des Holocaust, 142-149, 287-291.

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history and in the light of the establishment of the state of Israel; predominant in America is the image of “liberation” by the Americans and the deathblow they delivered to the plans of the Nazis.261 The commemoration of the events is inwardly directed by the ideals of the local communities. Warned by these examples, it seems to us advisable to let our description be guided as much as possible by the reflections of the victims and survivors. 1. Past all human decency “And then came the Holocaust, which shook history and by is dimensions and goals marked the end of civilization,” writes Elie Wiesel.262 All the boundaries of what was called “civilization” were crossed. “More than a quarter of a century ago our life, and probably history itself, was interrupted. Not a single standard was big enough to measure the monstrous things which then occurred,” writes Levinas.263 He wonders what one could still pass on of “the inexpressible emotion of that Suffering” to the next generation. “Perhaps from the experience of the concentration camps and from the Jewish resistance movement which made all of Europe one big concentration camp, we can draw three truths which we can pass on to the new people and which they need.”264 (1) To be able to live humanly infinitely less is needed than the civilization in which we are living. This civilization surrounds us with food and possessions, decency and art, rest and relationships, science and an army, cathedrals and world empires, but beyond civilization, in “the desert, a space without scenery, which – like the grass – is just big enough to contain us,”265 human life remains possible. (2) In the critical hours when all the values of civilization are destroyed, human dignity consists in believing that these values will return. And that means: “Not concluding, in a universe full of war, that only the conduct of war can provide security; not making common cause with the tragic situation which goes with the male virtues of dying and murdering in despair.”266 (3) Teaching the coming generation what strengths they need to stand firm in isolation and how they can appreciate the inner life in a new way. This is “the moment in which the just individual can find no help. No institution will protect him. The consolation of divine presence to be found in infantile religious feeling is equally denied him, and the individual can prevail only through his conscience, which necessarily

261

Ibid., 266-294. E. Wiesel, A Jew Today, New York 1978, 8. 263 E. Levinas, Het menselijk gelaat. Essays van Emmanuel Levinas, (selected and introduced by A. Peperzak), Utrecht 1969, 69. 264 Ibid., 70. 265 Ibid., 70-71. 266 Ibid., 71. 262

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involves suffering.”267 Nothing in the culture, nothing in the mind, nothing in the world of ideas any longer offers anything to hold onto. The only reality is Suffering: being a victim. The condition of the victims in a disordered world – that is to say, in a world where good does not triumph – is that of suffering. This condition reveals a God Who renounces all aids to manifestation, and appeals instead to the full maturity of the responsible man. But this God Who hides His face and abandons the just man to a justice that has no sense of triumph, this distant God, comes from within.268

2. The martyrs of silence When Uri Zwi Grinberg in a single saying sums up what has happened to the Jews, he speaks of “The Martyrs of Silence.”269 Andre Neher differentiates a threefold silence.270 The first silence is the absolute silence which sealed off the annihilation from the outside world. The concentration camp was completely withdrawn into itself, the victims with their executioners, completely separated from the outside world. “At Auschwitz everything unfolded, was fulfilled, and accomplished for weeks, months, and years on end in absolute silence, away from and out of the mainstreams of history.”271 A grotesquely inhuman world closed in upon itself, smothered in silence. Not only the Nazis had wrapped the annihilation in a deadly smothering silence but also friendly nations, though knowing everything, kept silent. One merely has to consult the newspapers and magazines of the period: it was all there, it is all there. From late 1942 on they printed detailed plans of the Final Solution. The names Treblinka and Auschwitz were known in New York and Stockholm much earlier than in Bialystok and Sighet (…). Not one commander shifted his troops in order to liberate this or that camp ahead of schedule. The living dead did not warrant such action.272

This indifference was shared by Jewish leaders. “Yes, we are all guilty, declares Nahum Goldmann, speaking of himself and his former colleagues. Yes, we did

267 E. Levinas, Loving the Torah more than God, in: Difficult Freedom. Essays on Judaism, (Trans. S. Hand), Baltimore 1997, 143. 268 Ibid., 143. 269 U. Grinburg, Rehovot Ha-nahar, Jerusalem 1956. 270 A. Neher, The Exile of the Word. From the Silence of the Bible to the Silence of Auschwitz, Philadelphia 1981, 141-239. 271 Ibid., 142. 272 E. Wiesel, A Jew Today, New York 1979, 190-191.

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know everything, we were informed, and we kept silent.”273 American Jews regarded the prisoners in the death camps “as lost; surely it was best not to undertake any action that was doomed from the start. Why waste the effort?”274 The second silence: the conduct of the victims themselves was marked by resignation. From the beginning the annihilation took place as an indescribable descent from one improbable step to the next as the executioners violated every form of humanity. The victims were struck dumb. Silence. On the day of the departure the same silence prevailed in the courtyard of the Great Synagogue which served as the collection center. Crazy with fury, the military policemen, with plumes on their hats, ran in all directions, uttering howls and beating men, women, and children, not so much to harm them as to break their silence. But the people kept silent. No screaming, no wailing. An old man, his head wounded, again rose to his feet with a wild gaze. A woman, her face bloodied, kept walking without slowing her pace. Never had a city known such silence. No sigh or complaint. Even the children did not cry. It was the perfect silence of the last Act. The Jews left the scene for ever.275

The third silence. God himself kept silent amidst the deadly silence. This silence of God is impressively depicted in Elie Wiesel’s cantata Ani ma’amin. The patriarchs confront God with the reality of the holocaust, taking turns lamenting, accusing, questioning, rebellious yet imploring. They tell God the hideous things they have seen. But God remains silent. The witnesses bear witness and the heavenly court listens in silence. The supreme judges keep silent while an entire people enters the darkness as into a divine abyss of which only God knows (…). But heaven kept silent and the silence was like a wall. They call upon God, they praise God, the three prosecutors keep speaking, speaking, speaking – while the Judge says nothing. Abraham becomes angry, Isaac presses the point, Jacob begs: God, however, says nothing. Abraham speaks and God keeps silent. Isaac remembers and God keeps silent. Jacob consults with himself and God keeps silent.276

God’s silence provokes anger, complaint, accusation, questions, rebellion, hatred, resignation, despair and cynicism. It is incomprehensible, therefore, that in this furnace of silence Elie Wiesel can still experience the odd dark glimmer of his presence. At the end of the cantata Ani ma’amin, when Jacob as the last to speak had finished speaking against the silent heaven, the Narrator says:

273

Ibid., 191. Ibid., 191-192. 275 E. Wiesel, Le chant des morts. Nouvelles, Paris 1966, 153-154. 276 E. Wiesel, Een jood, vandaag, 177-187. 274

288

FORMS OF SPIRITUALITY After Jacob had said this he went away and did not – could not – see that God, amazed at his people wept for the third time – this time with complete abandon and with love. He wept over his creation – and perhaps over even more than just his creation alone (…). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob withdrew, their soul enlightened by renewed hope, a hope they derived from their children. They left heaven and saw, could not see, that they were no longer alone: God accompanied them, wept, laughed, and whispered: Nitschoeni banai, my sons have defeated me, they are entitled to my gratitude. After he had spoken these words, he repeated them: The word of God ever continues to be heard. Like the silence of those who have vanished.277

3. The impossible witness The Jewish prisoners, having been driven past all forms of human decency and locked up in a furnace of silence, felt themselves compelled after the war to witness about the liminal experiences which they had endured in the death camps.278 For them to bear witness was a “biological necessity,”279 indeed “the only reason for surviving.”280 Consequently the survivors ended up in an almost intolerable field of tension. On the one hand, their experiences were indescribable: “Auschwitz negates all literature as it negates all theories and doctrines; to lock it into a philosophy means to restrict it. To substitute words, any words, for it is to distort it.”281 On the other hand, the survivors had to witness. It was a necessity of life: “I write to prove that I am alive, that I exist, that I too am still on this planet. The world condemned me to die. I write because, through my books, I bear witness to my existence.”282 Hence the survivor bearing his witness is therefore subject to great tension. “His survival imposes a duty on him: the duty to testify. Offered to him as a reprieve, his future must find its raison d’être as it relates to his past experience. But how is one to say, how is one to communicate that which by its very nature defies language? How is one to tell without betraying the dead, without betraying oneself?”283 In the testimonies of the survivors one can discern three distinct layers. (1) The witnesses attempt to let the facts speak for themselves. They view themselves as an “instrument of the events.”284 Thus Elie Wiesel, in Night, bears witness to what happened to him and his family from the moment of deportation to the moment of liberation. He in the nature of the case selects the facts but 277

Ibid., 204. J. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1988, 40-50. 279 T. Des Pres, The Survivor. An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps, New York 1976, 31. 280 J. Young, ibid., 37. 281 E. Wiesel, A Jew Today, 197. 282 Cited in S. Ezrahi, By Words Alone. The Holocaust in Literature, Chicago-London 1980, 21. 283 E. Wiesel, A Jew Today, 198. 284 L. Edelman, A Conversation with Elie Wiesel, in: Response to Elie Wiesel, (Ed. H. Cargars), New York 1978, 14. 278

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the dynamics of selection are clear: here is someone who lets the unimaginable facts speak for themselves. (2) The narrator is personally involved in his witness. The witness does not merely reproduce the events but is himself a part (a victim) of the events which have left their imprint on the witness. Readers of Night do not merely see a succession of events pass by them. They also experience how the narrator increasingly falls a victim to and is marked by the events he describes until both the narrator and the reader are finally looking in the same mirror: “Three days after the liberation of Buchenwald I became very ill with food poisoning. I was transferred to the hospital and spent two weeks between life and death. One day, after gathering all my strength, I was able to get up. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.”285 The things that happened and what happened to the author and relating what happened are inseparably bound up with each other.286 (3) The intent of the witness is instruction. The events, which as such are incomparable, become an image of the “world” in which the listener or reader finds himself.287 “Concentration-camp existence had taught us that the whole world is really like the concentration camp; the weak work for the strong, and if they have no strength or will to work – then let them steal, or let them die.”288 “Civilization”, as it is called, becomes transparent down to its basic structure: Only now do I realize what price was paid for building the ancient civilizations. The Egyptian pyramids, the temples, and Greek statues – what a hideous crime they were! How much blood must have poured on to the Roman roads, the bulwarks, and the city walls. Antiquity – the tremendous concentration camp where the slave was branded on the forehead by his master, and crucified for trying to escape! Antiquity – the conspiracy of free men against slaves!289

In this manner the experiences of the death camps became an “interpretive horizon” for life afterward and an evaluative criterion for new situations. We begin to understand why Elie Wiesel works so hard for the victims of massacres in Cambodia, for the Vietnamese boat people, the forgotten Armenians, the blacks in South Africa, indeed even for humankind as a whole as a potential victim of a nuclear holocaust.

285

E. Wiesel, Night, New York 1960, 127. See L. Langer, Preliminary Reflections on the Videotaped Interviews at the Yale Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, in: Facing History and Ourselves News (Winter 1985), 4. 287 J. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust, 164-189. 288 T. Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman, New York 1967, 168. 289 T. Borowski, ibid., 131. 286

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BIBLIOGRAPHY AGUS, A., The Binding of Isaac and Messiah. Law, Martyrdom, and Deliverance in Early Rabbinic Religiosity, Albany 1988. BARKAT’ALI, A., The Tragedy of Karbala and Martyrdom of Imam Hussain, FaisalabadHuddersfield 1984. BAUMEISTER, T., Genese und Entfaltung der altkirchlichen Theologie des Martyriums, Bern etc. 1991. BOWERSOCK, G., Martyrdom and Rome, Cambridge etc. 1995. COHEN, A., La Shoah. L’anéantissement des juifs d’Europe (1933-1945), Paris 1990. DEHANDSCHUTTER, B., Martyrium Polycarpi. Een literair-kritische studie, Leuven 1979. Die Entsehung der jüdischen Martyrologie, (Ed. J. van Henten et al.), Leiden 1989. From Ashes to Healing. Mystical Encounters with the Holocaust. Fifteen true Stories Collected and Annotated, (Ed. Y. Gershom), Virginia Beach (VA) 1996. LANGER, L., Versions of Survival. The Holocaust and the Human Spirit, Albany 1982. Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective, (Ed. M. Lamberigts & P. van Deun), Leuven 1995. Martyrs and Martyrologies, (Ed. D. Wood), Oxford 1993. MASSIGNON, L., La Passion de Husayn Ibn Mansur Hallaj, Paris 1975. NEHER, A., The Exile of the Word. From the Silence of the Bible to the Silence of Auschwitz, Philadelphia 1981. NOCE, C., Il martirio. Testimonianze e spiritualità nei primi secoli, Rome 1987. SCHINDLER, P., Hasidic Responses to the Holocaust in the Light of Hasidic Thought, Hoboken (NJ) 1990. Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament, (Ed. W. Horbury & B. McNeil), Cambridge 1981. TALEQANI, M. et al., Jihad and Shahadat. Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam, Houston (TX) 1986. WEINRICH, W., Spirit and Martyrdom, Washington 1981. WIESEL, E., A Jew Today, New York 1979. WIESEL, E., Night, New York 1960. YOUNG, J. Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation, Bloomington, etc. 1988.

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3.6. Eschatological Spirituality Eschatology relates to the end of a human life and the end of the world and the things that are concealed behind these ends. The end (ta eschata: the last things) and the mystery which lies beyond it are viewed in diverse ways. 1. The most ancient form of eschatology is probably that of Zarathustra (“Zoroaster” in the Greek tradition). Around 600 B.C. he mapped out a picture of the future in which history comes to an end through a comprehensive struggle between the forces of light (truth) and the forces of darkness (falsehood). In the end the light prevails. 2. Inspired by the end-time vision of Zoroaster, an eschatological form of spirituality (Isa. 40-55) developed from the old trunk of Israel’s prophecy. These prophets distinguished between a period before and after the end, a division which was not familiar to the earlier prophets. For them the line of separation ran in the present: the way to death or the way to life. Eschatological prophecy interprets the prophetic scheme “either-or” (before the exile) in the context of the eschatological scheme “before-and-after”: before and after the end. 3. In Jewish spirituality eschatology flourished intermittently. In the Qumran community the end of time was viewed as a life-and-death struggle between good and evil. The living (i.e. the last generation) needed to align themselves with the powers of the good in order thus to bring the final victory closer. We witness a strong revival of eschatological mysticism after 1492 when the Jews were driven out of Spain and Portugal. In the extreme situation of people being driven from their home we see the rise of eschatological movements. When endtime expectations were not fulfilled, they turned inward in an eschatologically oriented kabbala: by way of mystical practices people engendered the messianic woes and brought divine redemption closer. This form of mysticism is called Tsafad mysticism (after the little town of Tsafad in Upper Galilee where many kabbalists had gathered) or Lurian mysticism (after the central figure of this movement: Isaac Luria). 4. In the Christian tradition eschatology is bound up with Jesus Christ, in whom the Kingdom of God, the realm of the end-time characterized by righteousness and peace, had drawn near. His life, based on and guided by this Kingdom of God, led to death, death on a cross. This downward movement, however, was not the end. In the Crucified One, from the being of God, from beyond the end, a new beginning opened up: the Kingdom of God. The way of the cross as a resurrection originating from the being of God is a basic paradox which marks Christian spirituality.

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5. The Buddhist variant of eschatological spirituality is “pure land” Buddhism.290 The “pure land” refers to a region which lies millions of Buddha lands to the West – so far away in fact that it lies past every form of self-preservation, hence: pure. The pure land is reached by the invocation: “Hail, Buddha of the Light” (Amida Buddha). The pure land is filled with light, of which one catches a glimpse in meditation. Believers have a limitless trust in the redemptive power of Amida Buddha, who before his enlightenment was a monk who made 48 vows to save all sufferers from their distress in the paradise of the pure land. Thereupon he received the Buddha-nature: the Buddha of immeasurable Light. Those who call upon him with this name will be redeemed. 6. Religious Taoism, partly under the influence of Buddhism, looked for a place in heaven or in the paradise of the immortals, after a long and happy life. Even during this life the devout can be detached from their limited ego by an assortment of exercises to achieve freedom in the heavenly realm: “Their mind is one with the rhythmic changes in creation; they breathe along with these changes and so enter eternal life.”291 The ascent to eternal life is represented as an ascension to heaven: “The ultimate goal of mystical practice is to gain a position in the heaven or paradise of the immortals.”292 7. Eschatology is an essential element in Islamic spirituality.293 Life after death is a topic which is treated at great length in the spiritual literature. It is called the “Return” (ma’ad). By way of example we will describe three forms of eschatological spirituality: eschatological prophecy in ancient Israel; the messianic way of the cross, which behind the scenes leads believers into God’s Future; the absolute transformation in God after death as it comes to the fore in Islamic mysticism. 3.6.1. ESCHATOLOGICAL

PROPHECY

Eschatological prophecy arose during the exile (Isa. 40-55). The most important prophecies concern the return from exile made possible by the Persian king Cyrus who as an instrument in God’s hand freed Israel from its imprisonment (Isa. 44: 24-45:8). God, who performs this liberation, is viewed as the First who is there before all beginnings and has created all things and the Last who is there 290 See R. Corless, Pure Land Piety, in: Buddhist Spirituality. Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan and Early Chinese (WS 8), London 1994, 242-271; H. Dumoulin, Spiritualität des Buddhismus, Mainz 1995, 235-244. 291 L. Kohn, Taoist Mystical Philosophy, Albany (NY) 1991, 17. 292 Ibid., 17. 293 See W. Chittick, Eschatology, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 378-409.

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past all endings and will redeem everything (Isa. 41:4).294 The First and the Last encompasses all of history (Isa. 46:10). This all-embracing presence makes Be-er incomparable (Isa. 40:25; 46:5, 9), unique (Isa. 41:23; 44:6, 24; 45:18), and causes all the powers to sink into nothingness (Isa. 44:6; 45:5-6, 20-22; 46:6-7, 9; 48:12). Initially the eschatological way of thinking was well received among wide segments of the population. Later, when expectations of a speedy ending proved an illusion, it remained restricted to smaller groups, especially the weaker members of society. The eschatological groups practiced extreme forms of purity and cherished glowing expectations concerning a purified temple, a dawning divine kingdom and the rise of a son of David.295 As a rule the eschatological drama unfolds in five acts. 1. The collapse of world empires The end-time dawns with the collapse of world empires. At that time humans lose all control. The exclamation of the Name is the only way in which an escape is possible amid earthly and celestial catastrophes. “It shall be that everyone who invokes the Name Be-er will be saved. Yes; on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance as Be-er has said. And of them who escape will be those who call out the name Be-er” (Joel 3:5). In this eschatological context the invocation of the Name implies an unconditional acknowledgment: “O Be-er you are my Mighty One; I will exalt you; your Name I acknowledge” (Isa. 25:1). People trusted that in their calling out the Name, Be-er would manifest himself in a saving way. 296 That is the end on which the languishing exclamation of the Name is focused: “For you, O Be-er, we are waiting; the desire of our soul goes out to your Name and your renown; my heart longs for you in the night; also in the morning my breath (spirit) yearns for you” (Isa. 26:8; cf. Ps. 9:3, 11). In the distress of the end-time the Name is the only thing people can cling to (Zech. 13:9). Also the powers which oppress the people of Yahweh will feel the Name. The Name will reveal itself to the oppressors “as fire that sets the brushwood aflame, as fire that causes water to boil over – to make your Name felt by your adversaries, so that the peoples learn to tremble before your face” (Isa. 64:1). 2. The liberation of Israel The second phase of the eschatological drama is the liberation of the people, the purification of Israel, and the ingathering of all the dispersed. Also this 294 We encounter the same basic structure in Psalm 33: K. Waaijman, Psalmen over de schepping, Kampen 1982, 43-52. 295 R. Rendtorff, Das Alte Testament. Eine Einführung, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983, 66. 296 See H. Wildberger, Jesaja 13-17 (BK X/2), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1978, 988.

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eschatological liberation takes place in the Name: “In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the Name which they will call out over them: ‘Be-er our preservation’” (Jer. 23:6). The preservation of Judah is accompanied by the exclamation of the Name over the people. Be-er restores the righteous order, lets the people receive its due, validates it. On that day Be-er will put to shame the oppressors who “despise my Name” (Isa. 52:5; cf. Mal. 1:6). His people, on the other hand, “will feel my Name on that day, that it is I who speak: look, here am I” (Isa. 52:6). In the liberation of Israel the name of Be-er and the name of Israel will once and for all be validated and made effective. One who despises Israel despises the Name (Isa. 66:5). This liberation is coupled with a thorough cleansing. Also in this cleansing everything turns on the Name: I will cut off from this place [Jerusalem, KW] every remnant of Baal” (Zeph. 1:4). Only those who sanctify (Isa. 29:23), value (Mal. 2:2), revere (Mic. 6:9; Mal. 3:20) and stand in awe (Mal. 2:5) of the Name will be liberated. 3. The restoration of paradise A new phase in the eschatological sequence of events is inaugurated when Be-er restores the original creation order. Paradisal relations again come into being. Also in this paradisal time of renewal the Name is central: “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and celebrate the Name of Be-er, your God. Yes, he has dealt exceptionally with you; never again will his people be ashamed. Then you will feel; I am in the midst of Israel, I, Be-er, your God, and no one else. Never again will my people be ashamed” (Joel 2:26-27). The time of renewal is characterized by full satisfaction as compared with the present time which is marked by the word: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground” (Gen. 3:19). 4. The kingdom of God In this period of renewal the Name is central for a good reason: the actual events of the end-time consist in the breakthrough of God’s rule. In the end it becomes manifest that Be-er is the essence of creation and history. He is king; that is: He, the First and the Last, unifies creation and history. It is as if the sun rises and reveals itself as the true and only center of the universe: “On that day Yahweh will be one and his Name one” (Zech. 14:9). In the end only Be-er proves to be. Over and over this oneness of Be-er is the fundamental theme celebrated at the heart of eschatological expectations (Jer. 33:39; Ezek. 24-23; 37:22, 24; Hos. 2:2; Zeph. 3:9). Sometimes the breakthrough of Yahweh’s rule is connected with the public appearance of the Messiah who establishes dominion as Be-er’s deputy. But even then what basically happens is to make the Name present. The Messiah “will appear and work as a shepherd with the strength of Be-er, with the pride of the Name Be-er, his God” (Micah 5:3).

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5. The conversion of the peoples The final phase in end-time history is the about-face of all peoples or of the remnant that has survived the catastrophes. The peoples will flock together “to the place of the Name ‘Be-er of the throngs,’ to Mount Zion” (Isa. 18:7). The ships of Tarshish will come to Jerusalem, bringing back all the dispersed of Israel and bringing with them their silver and gold for the Name of Be-er” (Isa. 60:9). From the distant coastlands one hears people “giving glory to the Name Be-er” (Isa. 24:15). Like the people of Israel, so also all other peoples will be cleansed and turned to the Name of Be-er. “Then I shall give the nations other, pure lips that they may proclaim the Name Be-er” (Zech. 13:9). Then it will be that Be-er will make his Name felt by the peoples. That is the absolute end. “I said to a people that did not call out my Name: here am I!” (Isa. 65:1).

3.6.2. DEATH ON A CROSS AND GLORIFICATION The life of Jesus of Nazareth takes a definitive turn when he starts out on his journey to Jerusalem. Luke recounts this moment in solemn language: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51; cf. Matt. 19:1-2; Mark 10:1). The tone had already been set in the first passion prediction (Matt. 16:21; cf. Mark 8:31-33; Luke 9:22) and at the time of his transfiguration on the mount where he spoke with Moses and Elijah about “his departure (exodus) which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). Jesus chose this departure. The disciples marveled at this and others were afraid: “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus walked ahead of them and they were astonished. Those who followed trembled” (Mark 10:32). Then follows the third passion announcement: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death” (Mark 10:33; cf. Matt. 20:17-19; Luke 18:31-34). 1. Jesus’ departure The journey to Jerusalem, a journey which will turn out to be an exodus from life, is a dark series of events. It is John who touches the inner meaning of it. He does this first of all by bringing out into the open the obvious misinterpretations of the events. To the Pharisees he has Jesus say: “I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me but you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come” (John 7:33-34). They think instinctively of a trip abroad (John 7:35) but they are not sure of their interpretation (John 7:36). A little while later Jesus says the same thing: “Where I am going you cannot come” (John 8:21). This time, they think of suicide: Surely he is not going to kill himself! Is that what he means when he says:

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where I am going you cannot come” (John 8:22). Shortly before his death Jesus again brings up his going away – this time to his disciples. To Peter he says: “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow me later” (John 13:36). Peter is on the right track when he realizes that the way Jesus is going has to do with the loss of his own life (John 13:37; see also 21:19). Finally Jesus himself explains the meaning of his departure: “I am going away to prepare a place for you” (John 14:1-3). The road of Jesus’ suffering and death leads into the Father’s house (14:2), a place where one cannot come apart from this road. With that statement, Jesus thinks, the way of his self-giving as the way to God has been adequately explained. He assumes that his disciples certainly understood what he was saying: “Where I go you know the way” (John 14:4). But Thomas is honest; “Master, we do not know where you are going. How then can we know the way?” (John 14:5). To this Jesus replies: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). His death on the cross opens the way to God, to authentic life, to eternal life: “I am the light of the world: whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but has the light of life” (John 8:12). John holds onto the motif of departure even on the other side of death. The empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, the linen bandages, the sweat cloth which had covered his head – they are all silent witnesses of his departure: “They have taken him away and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2). The beloved disciple “saw” this fact of departure and “believed” (John 20:8). The life of Jesus is depicted as a going away, an irreversible disappearance into death which is read as an irreversible disappearance into God. Striking in this connection is that all Jesus’ ties are cut: with Mary his mother (John 19:26-27), with his disciples (John 20:1-10), and with Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18). 2. The crucified one Jesus’ departure, viewed from the perspective of those who remained behind, is a disgraceful death on a cross. It is well-known that in the Roman context crucifixion was a humiliating death. This, accordingly, is how Jesus’ death on a cross is depicted: i.e. as an event that evokes the mockery of the bystanders (Matt. 27:27-44). This social humiliation, however, is at the same time a religious degradation. “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Isn’t he the king of Israel? Let him come down from the cross now and we will believe in him” (Matt. 27:42). This religious comedown constitutes the real disappointment of the disciples. The disciples of Emmaus sum the matter up tersely: “The things that happened with Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people – how our chief priests and government personnel handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. And we had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel” (Luke 24:19-21).

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Jesus’ death on a cross is a religious comedown: a prophet, mighty in the eyes of God, is brought down. The cross, however, is more than a religious degradation. The cross means the end of every religious frame of reference. Everything that can be understood on the basis of rational a prioris is smashed to pieces against this ultimate nonsense. Not even the category of “miracle” can give meaning to the cross, let alone the category of “wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22). The cross stands for absolute meaninglessness. That God should latch onto this absolute end as the revelation of a new beginning beyond the end can, accordingly, be understood only by the poor in spirit, by children who do not yet have a frame of reference. They can grasp this incomprehensible “twist” of God (1 Cor. 1:27-28). 3. Glorification From God’s view this degradation to the level of the cross is glorification: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name” (Phil. 2:9). In the language of John: “the hour of departure is the hour of glorification” (John 17:1). Jesus in his lifetime glorified God; may God glorify him in his death: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed” (John 17:4-5). By the “work” of his crossbearing Jesus was divested of all “weight” (kabod), but God on his part gave him a weight (“glorified”) which surpasses all other glory. From the perspective of this world order (kosmos), Jesus was completely snuffed out, but God filled him with radiance (doxa) in death so that he became transparent to God: “Father I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). The contemplation of the glorified one is not the contemplation of a restored Messiah. It is precisely the crucified one who is glorified. God’s glory is manifested in the degraded Messiah. 4. The imitation of Christ Christ’s entire way is subordinated to the theme of his self-giving to the end: love for one’s enemy, mercy toward one’s neighbor, forgiveness without end, total trust in God, continual prayer, abstention from all judgment, attention to the least, respect for strangers, freedom vis-à-vis the torah, all these things come together in his last journey to Jerusalem. It is this journey which the followers of Jesus must go: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34; Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23). To be a disciple of Jesus is to lose one’s life for the sake of Jesus and the gospel; that is, for the sake of the Way which God in Jesus inscribed in the heart of history (Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24). “Whoever does not carry the cross

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and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Following Jesus to the point of death is not a broad highway which ends in a wide city gate. The way of selfgiving to the end is a narrow way which ends in a narrow little gate. “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction” (Matt. 7:13). The entrance into the kingdom of God is narrow: “For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:14). The way to life leads through the death of self-offering. Christian spirituality can be viewed as an unremitting attempt to walk the Messiah’s way of the cross to the end and in this sense to follow him.297 Paul says: “Each of us must try to please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor, for even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’ (…) Welcome one another, therefore, just as God has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Rom. 15:2, 7). Peter says: “If you do good and have to suffer for it, then you have God’s approval. For to this end you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter. 2:21; cf. 3:18-20). Beginning with these first testimonies, Christian spirituality exhibits a multicolored palette of “Christ-imitations”: Polycarp and Anthony, Origen and Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila, Charles de Foucauld and Edith Stein. They all tried, with the wager of their lives, to “follow in his footprints” in order, by conforming themselves to him, to be found by God in death.

3.6.3. THE “UNBECOMING” IN GOD The final unification with God, which from the human perspective is the unbecoming of all that is finite, is treated by the mystics of Islam under the heading of Return in which they refer to the following verses from the Koran. They say: “When we are turned to bones and bits shall we first be raised as a new creation?” Tell them: “(Even if ) you turn to stones or steel or some other created thing which seems to you even more difficult.” They will then say: “Who will revert us back?” Say: “He who created you in the first place.” Then they will shake their head at you and say: “When will that be?” Say: “In the near future, perhaps.” The day on which he will summon you! 297 É. Cothenet, É. Ledeur, P. Adnès & A. Solignac, Imitiation du Christ, in: DSp 7 (1971), 1536-1601.

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Then you will respond by praising him and you will think that for you it lasted only a little while. (Sura 17/49-52)

These surahs contain the central motifs of the eschatological spirituality of Islam. 1. The event of death and resurrection When the soul of a dying person has arrived in the grave, it is questioned concerning its deeds. After that comes the “intermediate span of time” which lasts till the resurrection. This intermediate stage is a state of soul sleep in which the attributes which the person has acquired during their life are externalized. In the sleep of death the dead awaken to the reality of their life: “How many children of your thoughts will you see in the grave, all surrounding your soul crying, ‘Papa!’?298 Just as in this life a dream pictures that which goes on in us, so the sleep of death manifests what we concealed in our life: “You are your thought, brother, the rest of you is bones and fiber. If you think of roses, you are a rose garden; if you think of thorns, you are fuel for the furnace.”299 After the sleep of death comes the day of resurrection which occurs immediately after the end of the world. When the trumpet blast is sounded they will come out of their graves and hasten to their Lord (Sura 36/51). The risen one receives a book in which everything he has done is recorded (Sura 69/18-26), and he is asked to give an account. Then follows the crossing of the bridge which stretches over hell: for the faithful it is wide, for infidels thinner than a hair and sharper than the edge of the sword. The bridge leads into paradise, a region of happiness and plenty (Sura 2/25; 3/15; 4/57, etc.). Unbelievers are plunged into the eternal fire. 2. The infinite potentiality of humans In response to the question concerning the new creation the Koran answers: “You may be stones or steel or some other created thing which seems to you even more difficult.” To understand this answer we must know the specific place humans occupy in the creation: God created man after his own form and taught him all the divine names. All creatures, each in its own way, mirror a divine name. The creation as a whole mirrors Allah. Of all this man is the mirror. In man everything else achieves unity. The spiritual journey of humans consists in interiorizing all realities as names of God, a process culminating in the complete interiorization of the name Allah.300 It is only as a form of all the divine names 298 Quoted in W. Chittick, Eschatology, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 397. 299 Rumi, Mathnawi 2, 277-278. We are following Rúmi. Poet and Mystic (1207-1273), (Ed. R. Nicholson), Oxford 1995. 300 W. Chittick, ibid., 383-386.

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that each human being lives in complete harmony with the creation, which has no other being that its being-from-God. In reality numerous people do not get that far. They limit themselves to this or that and in so doing become this or that creature. Aziz al-Din Nasafi says: “According to whether he assumes the qualities of this or that creature, it is this or that creature that he becomes, even though outwardly he may have the form of a man.”301 Now we understand the Koran answer: after death it will become manifest with what creature a person identified himself. Thus it can happen that at the resurrection one who completely attached himself to stone becomes a stone. One who identified himself with iron becomes iron or “some other created thing which seems to you even more difficult.” In order to receive God after death a person must appropriate within himself the many names of God during his life. “My heart has become a receptacle for every form,” says Ibn Arabi, “a pasture for gazelles and a cloister for Christian monks.”302 At the resurrection God will appear in a multitude of forms, but his creatures will deny him until he appears in a form that corresponds to their own belief, that is, to their own identifications. It is only the perfect human who has interiorized all the divine names in equilibrium, who will recognize God in whatever form he displays. “He who delimits God denies him in everything other than his own delimitation, acknowledging him only when he reveals himself within that delimitation. But he who frees him from all delimitation never denies him, acknowledging him in every form in which he appears.”303 3. Becoming and unbecoming “Who will revert us back?” was the question. The answer: “He who created you in the first place.” In this reply the end is linked to the beginning. Against the background of the above this is understandable: the end is enclosed within the beginning. The Koran says: “You will be reverted back to what you were when he made you in the beginning” (Sura 7/29). Eschatology is implicit in the origin. This fundamental insight is voiced by Rumi as follows: I died as mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal. I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar 301

Cited in F. Meier, The Problem of Nature in the Esoteric Monism of Islam, in: E. Buonaiuti et al., Spirit and Nature, Princetown (NJ) 1972, 195. 302 W. Chittick, ibid., 388. 303 Ibn Arabi, cited in W. Chittick, 388-389.

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With angels blest; but even from angelhood I must pass on: all except God doth perish. When I have sacrificed my angel-soul, I shall become what no mind e’er conceived. O let me not exist! For Non-existence Proclaims in organ tones “To him we shall return!”304

Rumi describes the entire journey from mineral to non-existence, from inanimate matter to “return” (the eschaton). This journey is a process of dying and rising again. Not a single state is final, not even that of the angels. The final state is the non-state, the unbecoming (fana). Then the soul has returned to the One who created it. 4. The eschaton is now “When will that be?” was the question. The Koran answered: “In the near future, perhaps.” The end is at work in the present but our consciousness is closed to it. The Koran with spicy sayings tries to open up the awareness of the end in the now: “Whatever is with you is temporary, but whatever is with God is permanent” (Sura 16/96). “Everything is perishable except his face” (Sura 28/88). “Truly, we belong to God and are returning to him” (Sura 2/156).305 The mystic lives in the awareness of the resurrection. He has made his escape from becoming; he has “unbecome” (fana), he is no longer in the “state” attributed to him from the outside. For that reason Rumi can say: “There is no dervish in the world; and if there be, that dervish is really non-existent. He exists relative to the survival of his essence but his attributes are extinguished in the attributes of God. Like the flame of a candle in the presence of the sun, he is really nonexistent, though he exists in terms of the form.”306 In reality the dervish that is, the perfectly detached, the completely selfless one, has vanished in God’s existence as the light of a candle vanishes in the light of the sun. This is Mohammed’s mode of existence: “Mohammed is the twice-born in the world: he died to all temporal losing and finding: he was a hundred resurrections here and now.”307 5. Only God is The Koran says: “When he calls you you shall hear.” Mystics read this pronouncement as the two sides of a single event: our hearing is his calling. As Rumi says: “Without your speech the soul has no ear/Without your ear the soul has no 304 Rumi, Mathnawi 3, 3901. Cited in A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 321-322. 305 See W. Chittick, Eschatology, 379. 306 Rumi, Mathnawi 3, 3669. 307 Rumi, Mathnawi 6, 742.

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tongue.”308 The word of God creates the ear, the ear of God creates speech. Resurrection is to become the truth that only God is real. To illustrate this truth Rumi uses the splendid image of the horse which leaves its hoof print in the dust: “My ego passed away for the sake of his Ego. My ego passed away, he alone remains. I roll like dust under his horse’s feet. The individual soul became dust: the only trace of it is the print of his feet upon its dust. Become dust at his feet for the sake of that footprint and be as the diadem on the head of an Emperor.”309 The human ego is transformed in the One. This Oneness is the eschaton to which all life aspires. When a fly is plunged in honey, all the members of its body are reduced to the same condition, and it does not move. Similarly the term “absorption in God” is applied to one who has no conscious existence or initiative or movement. Any action that proceeds from him is not his own. If he is still struggling in the honey, or if he cries out: “Oh, I am drowning,” he is not said to be in the state of absorption. This is what is signified by the words “I am God.” People imagine that it is a presumptuous claim, whereas it is really a presumptuous claim to say “I am the slave of God”; and “I am God” is an expression of great humility. The man who says “I am the slave of God” affirms two existences, his own and God’s, but he that says “I am God” has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says “I am God,” i.e., “I am nothing, He is all: there is no being but God’s.” This is the extreme of humility and self-abasement.310

BIBLIOGRAPHY ANCONA, G., Il significato escatologico cristiano della morte, Rome 1990. CHUNG, Y., Following in Christ’s Footsteps. The Ideal of the Imitation of Christ in Origen’s Spirituality, Ann Arbor (MI) 1998. Croix, crucifié, chemin de croix, La Vie Spirituelle t. 141 (1987) no. 674. DURCHHOLZ, E., & KNOEPFFLER, N., Franziskus, Ignatius und die Nachfolge Jesu. Eine theologische und psychologische Deutung, Innsbruck-Wien 1995. GANDLAU, T., Trinität und Kreuz. Die Nachfolge Christi in der Mystagogie Johannes Taulers, Freiburg etc. 1992. KAVUNGUVALAPPIL, A., Theology of Suffering and Cross in the Life and Works of Blessed Edith Stein, Frankfurt, a.M. etc. 1998. KIECHLE, S., Kreuzesnachfolge. Eine theologisch-anthropologische Studie zur ignatianischen Spiritualität, Würzburg 1996.

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Rumi, cited in A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 320. Rumi, Mathnawi 2, 1170. Cited from Rumi. Poet and Mystic, 178. 310 Rumi, Fihi, ma fihi, 49. Cited from Rumi. Poet and Mystic, 184. 309

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KLAPPERT, B., Worauf wir hoffen. Das Kommen Gottes und der Weg Jesu Christi, Gütersloh 1997. MARTIN, D., Al-Faña’ (Mystical Annihilation of the Soul) and Al-Baqâ’ (Subsistence of the Soul) in the Work of Abû al-Qâsim al-Junayd al-Baghdâdî, Ann Arbor (MI) 1990. MITCHELL, D., The Message of the Psalter. An Eschatological Programme in the Book of Psalms, Sheffield 1998. NANDKISORE, R., Hoffnung auf Erlösung. Die Eschatologie im Werk Hans Urs von Balthasar, Rome 1997. O’KANE, J., The Secret of God’s Mystical Oneness, Costa Mesa-New York 1992. REVENTLOW, H., Eschatology in the Bible and in the Jewish and Christian Tradition, Sheffield 1997. ROTZETTER, A., Im Kreuz ist Leben, Freiburg (Schweiz) 1996. SPRONK, K., Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, KevelaerNeukirchen-Vluyn 1986.

PART 2 FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH INTRODUCTION 307 Foundational research posits two questions: (1) What are the fundamental characteristics of the area of spirituality? (2) Which methodology best fits this area? 1. SPIRITUALITY UNDERSTOOD IN THE LIGHT OF ITS PRAXIS 313 Lived spirituality articulates the fundamental characteristics of the area of spirituality in its basic categories (key words). Each period has its own basic categories. 1.1. The basic words of Scripture 316 1.2. Hellenistic terms 333 1.3. Modern designations 352 367 2. SPIRITUALITY VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF ITS SCIENCE The science of spirituality studies spiritual praxis with critical detachment. From a consciously adopted stance it illumines important facets of this multiform phenomenon. 2.1. Intradisciplinary perspectives 369 2.2. Interdisciplinary viewpoints 392 2.3. A retrospective summary 423 3. DIVINE-HUMAN TRANSFORMATION – THE OBJECT OF RESEARCH 425 On the basis of lived spirituality, listening to the basic words of praxis and instructed by the scientific traditions, we can describe spirituality as the divine-human relational process (material object) viewed from the perspective of transformation (formal object). 3.1. The divine-human relational process 427 3.2. The transformation process 455 4. DISCERNMENT: A BLUEPRINT FOR THE METHOD 483 Discernment (diakrisis) is a form of critical reflection which developed within lived spirituality. It recognizes the direction of the way, discovers the deeper motives beneath the surface, tests the soundness of the end and the means, and describes God’s possibilities in the course of life. 4.1. The discernment of the two ways 486 4.2. Discerning God’s significance 492 4.3. The mean of discernment 501 4.4. Discerning the way to God’s destination 508

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5. A DESIGN FOR THE DISCIPLINE OF SPIRITUALITY 516 The methodology of the study of spirituality is developed in three stages. First, the discipline of spirituality is epistemologically situated within the complex of the sciences. Presented next are the contemporary scientific approaches which tie in with the object. Finally, in keeping with the blueprint of discernment, spirituality research is articulated in four directions: description, hermeneutics, systematics, mystagogy. 5.1. Situating the discipline epistemologically 518 5.2. Defining a scientific approach 535 5.3. A methodological design 563

INTRODUCTION Foundational research revolves around two central questions. (1) What are the fundamental characteristics which define the area of reality to be studied? (2) What methodology is best suited to this area of reality? By “fundamental characteristics” we mean the basic categories which open up “the thing itself ” of a certain region of being.1 By “methodology” we mean the research strategy which corresponds to the area of reality being opened up. Depending on the fundamental characteristics by means of which one opens up an area of reality, one will pursue one or another research strategy. “Foundational research furnishes guidelines for the methodology.”2 From the central questions flow the secondary questions: questions surrounding the definition of the area of research and the determination of the object; questions surrounding the method of research and the development of the discipline; questions surrounding the interdisciplinary relations. In her first presidential address before the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, which was founded in 1974, Sandra Schneiders treated these foundational issues. She had already raised these issues earlier3 and in the first volumes of the Christian Spirituality Bulletin they remained subjects for discussion. To acquaint ourselves with the foundational research we will briefly mention a number of issues which came up for discussion in the Society. 1. The term “spirituality” Many a discourse on spirituality opens with a historical-semantic consideration of the term “spirituality.” Such an opening move gives authors a chance to open up the area of spirituality in a manner that is desirable to them and to guide the reader into the mental attitude they favor. For example: although the word “spirituality” was contextually bound up with the Catholic tradition, as a result of the vigorous growth which lived spirituality has exhibited in recent decades, the meaning of the word has been detached from its original Catholic setting. In this way a consideration of the term “spirituality” functions as an initial opening up 1 Th. de Boer, Edmund Husserl, in: Filosofen van de 20 eeuw, (Ed. C. Bertels & E. Petersma), Assen 1981, 61-73. 2 Ibid., 66. 3 S. Schneiders, Theology and Spirituality. Strangers, Rivals, or Partners?, in: Horizons 13 (1986), no. 2, 253-274; S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Modern Christian Spirituality, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990, 15-37.

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of the area of spirituality in view. In this connection one may well ask, however, whether the term “spirituality” has in fact been as unproblematically accepted as is being suggested. In many a publication, especially from within the tradition of the Reformation, the dominance of the term has from time to time been challenged. Also the embrace of the term by the World Spirituality series “was not without its conflicts and difficulties.”4 In our opinion it is better to relativize the preferential position of “spirituality” and to listen also to other terms which have been used over time to denote the area of spirituality. 2. The object Schneiders links up with the traditional distinction between the material object (the what being studied) and the formal object (the perspective from which something is investigated).5 After discussing several variants,6 she arrives at the following definition of the material object: “the experience of conscious involvement in the project of life-integration through self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives.”7 In this definition, spirituality displays the following fundamental characteristics: (1) spirituality is a “project” in which a person seeks to “integrate” his or her “life”; (2) the process by which this happens is “self-transcendence,” directed toward “the ultimate value,” as one “perceives” it; (3) the project is intrinsically shaped by the “experience” of “being consciously involved in the project.” The all-determining characteristic is “experience.” This category, accordingly, determines the study of spirituality: “Spirituality is the field of study which in an interdisciplinary way attempts to investigate spiritual experience as such, i.e. as spiritual and as experience.”8 Questions can also be raised in connection with the determination of the material object. As a result of such notions as “project” and “integration,” does not spirituality too much become a human undertaking? This self-agency is reinforced by the notion of “self-transcendence.”9 And the most important question: Is the notion of

4 B. McGinn, The Letter and the Spirit. Spirituality as Academic Discipline, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 1 (1993) no. 2, 4. 5 S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality. Contours and Dynamics of a Discipline, in: Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998), 39. 6 S. Schneiders, Theology and Spirituality, 265-267; S. Schneiders, Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 1 (1993) no. 2, 11-12; S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994), no. 1, 9-11. 7 S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality, in: Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998), 39-40. 8 S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Theological Studies 50 (1989), 692. 9 W. Principe, Christian Spirituality, in: NDCSp (1993), 935-937.

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“experience” critical enough?10 And does not the addition “spiritual” reposition the problem? For what is “spiritual”? And as for the formal object, here too experience is the determining factor: “I would propose that the distinguishing formality of spirituality is its focus on ‘experience.’”11 But is the notion of “experience” distinctive enough?12 3. The method The method which determines how the object must be studied ties in with the what, the object. In the discussions there is interplay among several levels. (1) the most abstract level is that of the “approaches to the study of spirituality.”13 This level comes to expression in formulations such as “the hermeneutical approach,”14 or “the holistic approach,”15 and so forth. For example: “I would argue that it has an approach which is characteristically hermeneutical in that it seeks to interpret the experience it studies in order to make it understandable and meaningful in the present without violating its historical reality.”16 (2) A somewhat more concrete level is that of the discipline: people speak about disciplines which are constitutive for the study of spirituality (exegesis and church history),17 about theological, anthropological, and historical-contextual disciplines,18 about disciplines which are oriented to the problematics of spirituality (psychology, sociology, literary science, natural sciences, and the like),19 and about the interdisciplinary character of the study of spirituality.20 Listed are: exegesis, liturgics, moral theology, dogmatic theology, history, psychology, sociology, science of religion, cultural anthropology, literary and aesthetic disciplines and “a variety of other 10 Ph. Sheldrake, Some Continuing Questions. The Relationship between Spirituality and Theology, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994) no. 1, 16; C. Eire, Major Problems in the Definition of Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, in: Modern Christian Spirituality, 57-58. 11 S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality, in: Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998), 40. 12 For an analysis of this kind of experience, see: J. Wiseman, “I have experienced God.” Religious Experience in the Theology of Karl Rahner, in: American Benedictine Review 44 (1993) no. 1, 22-57; B. McGinn, The Letter and the Spirit. Spirituality as Academic Discipline, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 1 (1993) no. 2, 7. 13 S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, 9. 14 S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, 12; S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 6 (1998) no. 1, 3; B. McGinn, The Letter and the Spirit, 4. 15 S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 6 (1998) no. 1, 10. 16 Ibid., 3. 17 Ibid., 4-6. 18 B. McGinn, ibid., 4-7; S. Schneiders, Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, 12-14. 19 S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 6 (1998) no. 1, 4-6. 20 S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality, in: Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998), 40.

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fields of study.”21 (3) A still more concrete level is that of method. Historians know the methodical steps they have to take to arrive at a description of a certain historical phenomenon. Anyone wanting to publish a text follows a carefully defined strategy. (4) The most concrete level of all is that of methodology: conducting interviews, doing field research, consulting concordances, making statistical calculations, analyzing texts, describing sets of circumstances, and so forth. Important, above all, is that the researcher will distinguish between the different methodological levels, so as to avoid making categorical mistakes, and integrate the methods and methodologies into a consistent scheme of (inter) disciplinarity. 4. The academic discipline called “spirituality” Recent decades have shown a strong increase in academic activities: the publication of monographs and serial works, the edition of mystical writers, the development of graduate programs and the founding of research institutes. At the same time this academic expansion has brought to light the ambivalent position in which the discipline of spirituality finds itself. On the one hand, it has a long history: reflection on lived spirituality goes back to the first centuries of Christianity.22 Contemporary spirituality, on the other hand, has forcibly brought about large-scale discontinuity vis-à-vis the traditional discipline of spirituality.23 The question is: How can the phenomenon of spirituality be properly viewed as an object of science now that it has so radically enlarged itself and detached itself from its original context? How must the formal object be defined now that it is being studied in so many academic disciplines? Caught up in this ambivalence, scholars may prefer the discontinuity: because spirituality is no longer exclusively Roman Catholic, no longer dogmatic, no longer prescriptive, no longer centered around perfection but around growth, no longer focused on the inner life but on the whole person,24 a new discipline has to be developed.25 One may wonder, however, how strong the epistemological arguments for this discontinuity are. 5. The relation between theology and spirituality The relation between theology and spirituality deserves special attention.26 In traditional theology the academic discipline of spirituality was subject to the dominance of dogmatics and morality, the content of which it was supposed to interiorize. In recent decades, however, it detached itself from its traditional-theological setting 21

S. Schneiders, Theology and Spirituality, 271. Ibid., 260-264. 23 Ibid., 264-265. 24 Ibid. 25 S. Schneiders, Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, 15. 26 S. Schneiders, Theology and Spirituality, 269-273. 22

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(and hence also from the traditional name “spiritual theology”), in order, like church history and exegesis, to become an independent, non-theological (i.e. nondogmatic-theological) discipline. The question, however, is whether the study of spirituality does not have too stereotypical a view of theology, a discipline which has changed over the years.27 Theology is often portrayed, caricature-like, as abstract, impersonal, technical, dogmatic, systematic in an old-fashioned way, sterile, one-dimensional.28 Does this image correspond to what we actually find in today’s theology?29 6. Lived spirituality and the study of spirituality An ever-recurrent issue is the relation between lived spirituality (practice; praxis; participation, involvement) and the study of spirituality.30 If this discussion is not to bog down, one will also have to distinguish several levels here. On the most general epistemological level there is, in the nature of the case, an inseparable interwovenness between the world in which we live and science: “There is no question about the fact that living the spiritual life has an ontological and existential priority over studying it.”31 This priority, as pre-understanding, is (co-)constitutive for the understanding (hermeneutics) of the academician.32 Sometimes the study of spirituality, along with other factors, will foster this necessary pre-understanding (praxis, internship).33 Another level comes into play (even though there is a hermeneutical connection) when we note the way the study of spirituality impacts lived spirituality: “As students readily testify, research in the area of spirituality is self-implicating, often at a very deep level and the transformation experienced through study reverberates in the ongoing research.”34 27

W. Principe, Christian Spirituality in: NDCSp (1993), 936. Ph. Sheldrake, Some Continuing Questions. The Relationship between Spirituality and Theology, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994) no. 1, 15-17. 29 Ph. Endean, Theology out of Spirituality. The Approach of Karl Rahner, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 3 (1995) no. 2, 6-8. 30 S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, 13; S. Schneiders, Theology and Spirituality, 273; S. Schneiders, Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, 10-11. For this problematic also see B. Hanson, Spirituality as Spiritual Theology, in: Modern Christian Spirituality, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990, 50; B. Hanson, Theological Approaches to Spirituality. A Lutheran Perspective, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994) no. 1, 7-8; M. Frohlich, Participation and Distance. Modes in the Study of Spirituality, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994) no. 1, 24; Ph. Sheldrake, Some Continuing Questions, 16; B. Lane, Galesvile and Sinai. The Researcher as Participant in the Study of Spirituality, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994) no. 1, 18-20. 31 S. Schneiders, Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, 11. 32 S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, 13. 33 Ibid. 34 S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Theological Studies 50 (1989), 695. 28

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This reverberation is part of the hermeneutical process: understanding is transformative.35 We are again speaking of a different level when the study of spirituality is part of a program of formation as that is sometimes the case in monastic environments. Although the study of spirituality is an essential part of lived spirituality,36 the truth is that formation is not the direct aim of the academic study of spirituality.37 Still another level, finally, is the study of practice. Just as there is such a thing as practical theology, so there is the study of practical spirituality: research into spiritual praxis, the facilitation of the spiritual life.38 Sometimes, in order for people to do this research, participation is necessary. This kind of (participatory) research has its own problems and possibilities and also its own rationale. Our foundational research is guided by the central questions which determine this type of research. (1) What are the fundamental characteristics of the area of spirituality? (2) Which methodology ties in with this area? In the first three chapters we will deal with the first question. First, with the aid of 13 basic words, including the term “spirituality”, we will explore the field that occupies us. One could call this the material object: the divine-human relational process (chapter 1). Next we will examine the perspectives from which the academic discipline of spirituality (intra-disciplinarily) and the other disciplines (interdisciplinarily) study the area of reality we have uncovered. One can call this the formal object: the divine-human transformation (chapter 2). In the third chapter we will delve more deeply into the material and formal object in light of our form descriptions in Part 1. Summed up in a single synthesis, our formulation of the material and formal object is: the divine-human relational process as transformation (chapter 3). Following this fundamental characterization we will study the required methodology. First we will consider how lived spirituality reflects critically and methodically on its practice (chapter 4). Then, and on that basis, we will draw up a plan for spirituality as an academic discipline: its epistemological position; the scientific approach which best fits with the area of reality in view; the main lines of a scientific method (chapter 5).

35

S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, 14. S. Schneiders, Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, 11; S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, 13-14. 37 See B. Hanson, Spirituality as Spiritual Theology, 50; B. Hanson, Theological Approaches to Spirituality, 8. 38 Cf. S. Schneiders, Spirituality as an Academic Discipline, 11-14; S. Schneiders, A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality, 13. 36

CHAPTER 1: SPIRITUALITY UNDERSTOOD IN THE LIGHT OF ITS PRAXIS INTRODUCTION 314 The basic words which have been forged by lived spirituality to convey the reality it experiences bring to the fore important aspects of the relational process which unfolds between God and man. 1.1. BASIC WORDS OF SCRIPTURE 316 The basic words of Scripture describe the domain of spirituality as a polar tension between God and man. What especially stands out in this connection is the divine pole: how – awesomely holy and completely merciful – it impacts the human subject. 1.1.1. Fear of God 316 Bibliography 319 1.1.2. Holiness 320 Bibliography 322 1.1.3. Mercy 323 Bibliography 328 1.1.4. Perfection 328 Bibliography 332 1.2. HELLENISTIC TERMS 333 The key Hellenistic words show how in the relational process which occurs between the divine and the human the human pole feels its way to God via knowledge, training, attention, devotion and dependence. 1.2.1. Gnosis 333 Bibliography 337 1.2.2. Asceticism 338 Bibliography 342 1.2.3. Contemplation 342 Bibliography 344 1.2.4. Devotion 345 Bibliography 348 1.2.5. Piety 348 Bibliography 351 352 1.3. MODERN DESIGNATIONS Modern designations mark the domain of spirituality vis-à-vis the sociocultural context: over against the one-sided rational culture of the West, spirituality constitutes a sphere of its own, with a logic and a language of its own.

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352 354 355 357 358 360 360 366

Introduction Praxis has a language of its own in which it tells us how it understands reality. That language contains a number of elementary words: I, you, she, he, we, man, life, world, God, here, there, formerly, now, tomorrow, and so forth. There is no culture that can do without these basic words, words which point to fundamental realities and, in pointing them out, bring them to light.1 Martin Heidegger puts it this way: in its own original way the language of praxis gives an account of a given understanding of lived experience.2 Over against this original interpretation of praxis there is the scientific articulation which, from a theoretical perspective, makes statements about things considered objectively. “Between the kind of interpretation which is still wholly wrapped up in concernful understanding and the extreme opposite case of a theoretical assertion about something present-at-hand, there are many intermediate gradations.”3 In this first chapter of our foundational research we will listen to the first extreme: the basic words of lived spirituality in which an understanding of the praxis arises in an original manner. In the next chapter we opt for the perspective of the second extreme: spirituality considered from a scientific perspective. As stated above, praxis uses elementary words (basic words, fundamental categories, root metaphors) by means of which it points out and evokes fundamental realities. The more accurately these basic words lay reality bare, the more convinced we are that that reality is really so. Also the field of spirituality has its basic words. First of all, of course, the word “spirituality.” Up until a few decades ago this word had a limited scope within a relatively small users group. Now it possesses a semantic reach which far exceeds the boundaries of a particular group. By comparison with it words like “piety” and “devotion” sound dull. Perhaps only 1

C. van Peursen, Verhaal en werkelijkheid. Een deiktische ontologie, Kampen-Kapellen 1992, 54-

2

M. Heidegger, Being and Time, London, 1962, 138-203. Ibid., 201.

79. 3

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the word “mysticism” can come somewhere near the evocative power which the word “spirituality” has acquired over the last 50 years. Against this background it is understandable that discussions about the field of spirituality (introductions, reference works, lead articles in anthologies) often open with a longer or shorter consideration of the word “spirituality.” With such an etymologizing introduction the authors do not just wish to convey information, but disclose with it, for themselves and their readers, the area of spirituality. By way of example we will quote a sentence from the brief introduction of the reference work entitled World Spirituality: “The series focuses on the inner dimension of the person called by certain traditions ‘the spirit.’”4 We see here how by way of the etymology of the word “spirituality” (“spirituality” refers to “spirit”) the field of the “inner dimension of the person” is disclosed, the dimension which is then described as “the deepest center of the person,” where the person is open to the transcendent and ultimate dimension.5 Other authors, following the same etymological procedure, arrive at the “spirit” (nous) of Western philosophy, at the “spirit” of Paul, or at the “spirit” of God which hovered over the waters and was breathed into the nostrils of man. This state of affairs calls for a critical marginal comment. “Spirituality” is not the only basic word which praxis uses to explain its original understanding of the field in question. There are still other basic words by which, in other times and cultures, the understanding of that reality was explained. There have been times in which terms like Hasidism, contemplation, kabbala, asceticism, mysticism, perfection, devotion, and piety were words with the same evocative power which “spirituality” has for us today. It will also be worthwhile for us to listen to reality with the aid of these basic words because they open their own perspective on the area of spirituality. We will first look at a few basic words from Scripture: godliness, holiness, mercy, and perfection. They explain the phenomenon called “spirituality” as we encounter it in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. At the same time they are so fundamental that they self-evidently evoke parallels in other spiritual traditions. Next, we will consider terms which the Hellenistic world used to explain its understanding of the field of experience we call “spirituality”: gnosis, contemplation, asceticism, devotion, and piety. Here too we note parallels with other spiritual traditions. Finally we will study expressions which explain the phenomenon of spirituality in the context of Western culture: kabbala, mysticism, inner life and spirituality.

4 E. Cousins, Preface to the Series, in: Jewish Spirituality. From the Bible to the Middle Ages (WS 13), London 1986, xii. For further analysis of this sentence see the “Introduction” of our study. 5 Ibid., xii.

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1.1. Basic Words of Scripture In ancient Israel people used a number of elementary words to describe the area of spirituality. The key terms in this spiritual vocabulary were: the fear of God, holiness, mercy, and perfection. We shall discover that these basic words encompass the entire process of encounter between God and man – from the first awesome touch up to and including respectful completion in love (the fear of God); from the first act of breaking with a besmirched life up to and including the state of being consumed by divine purity (holiness); from the first awareness of God’s grace up to and including immersion in his generous abundance (mercy); from the original soundness which a person receives from God to a complete unfolding in selfless love (perfection). These basic words from Scripture are so fundamental that they keep surfacing. “The fear of God” functioned as a central spiritual term in several distinct periods. “Holiness constitutes the core of all the lives of saints. “Mercy” is the fundamental attitude of Hasidism. For centuries “perfection” defined the concept of spirituality. The importance of these basic biblical notions is not limited to the Jewish Christian and Islamic traditions. This is self-evident in the case of the notion of “holiness.” That basic word belongs to the core of all spiritualities. But also a term like “mercy” immediately evokes the compassion (karuna) of Buddhist spirituality. We will discuss the various parallels under each of the appropriate headings that follows.

1.1.1. FEAR OF GOD “The fear of God” (fear, awe, respect before God) is a fundamental biblical expression which evokes the area of spirituality as a process that begins with the shocking experience that God is and remains an awesome mystery. From the human perspective this shocking experience is marked both by passivity (to stagger, flinch, recoil) and activity (involvement, fascination). The fear of God takes shape in a reverent life and is perfected in a reverent love. It is entirely understandable that in ancient Israel “the fear of God” was virtually synonymous with “piety.”6

6 J. Becker, Gottesfurcht im Alten Testament, Rome 1965, 75; S. Plath, Furcht Gottes, Stuttgart 1963, 122.

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1. The awesome mystery Where God appears in his holiness (see Ps. 99:3; 111:9) and greatness (Deut. 7:11; 9:4; Ps. 47:2; 96:4), he elicits profound respect. Moses covered his face when God appeared, “for he was afraid to look at God” (Exod. 3:6). When Elijah heard the voice of God, having been struck dumb, he wrapped his face in his mantle (1 Kgs. 19:12-13). Not just God’s appearance elicits awed respect, but also his action in creation and history, his creative power (Ps. 33:8, 9), deliverance from Egypt (Exod. 14:31), his judicial action (Ps. 76) is experienced as awesome. 2. The paradoxical structure of the fear of God God’s awesome presence evokes a paradoxical reaction in the soul: it is simultaneously shocked and fascinated, horrified and captivated, fearful and trusting, frightened and full of longing. This paradoxical structure also appears from the fact that on the one hand this fear parallels words like shuddering, trembling, dreading, being shaken, and is linked, on the other hand, with terms like loving, adhering to, serving and following.7 This tension between alarm and love which is inherent in the fear of God is sometimes explained away by a careless exegesis of John’s saying: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love” (1 John 4:18). John is not speaking here of the fear of God but of the fear of punishment (which is just one aspect of the budding fear of God). Complete reverence (as an extension of initial fear) is completely respectful love. The structure of “respect” is paradoxical: it is the result of dislocation by being touched. We exist in a state of shock before the incomprehensible Mystery of reality (Prov. 15:33; 22:4; Eccl. 3:14). Precisely as such this Reality appeals to us. Only now do we feel its gracious exceptionality (Prov. 1:7; 2:5). 3. The door to life The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10; Ps. 111:10; Job 28:28; Sirach 1:14, 20). It opens the door to life. As a true teacher, it puts its children on the right track.8 On the way to God one begins with the fear of God to gain strength.”9 The fear of God directs the devout person to and on the way of life: “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, so that one may avoid the snares of death” (Prov. 14:27; 19:23; Sirach 1:13). Those who have gained this fear are past the entrapment of death (cf. Prov. 7:27). In their nakedness they have

7

See H. Fuhs, yare, in: ThDOT VI (1990), 290-315. Origenes, In Epistolam ad Romanos lib. 7 no. 2 (PG 14, 1105A). 9 Gregory the Great, Moralia lib. 5 cap. 16 (PL 75, 697A). 8

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exposed themselves to God who now carries them through the deepest darkness: “Who among you fears Be-er? Walking in darkness and deprived of all light, he entrusts himself to the name of Be-er” (Isa. 50:10; Prov. 19:23). The fear of God is the fountain of life and makes us feel “how good Be-er is” (see Ps. 34:8-9): “I know that it will be well with those who fear the Mighty One, precisely because they respect his presence” (Eccl. 8:12). 4. To fear God is to live a virtuous life God-fearers are virtuous (Job 1:1; Exod. 18:21); they seek peace and depart from evil (Ps. 34:15); they do not practice sorcery, commit adultery, swear falsely, withhold wages, oppress widows and orphans, or thrust aside aliens (Mal. 3:5). To fear God is to act respectfully (Ps. 34:15; Job 1:1, 8; 3:7; 8:13; 16:6; 28:28, etc.). In such conduct the fear of God is manifest. All the commandments are to be read in the light of this one: “You shall not cheat one another, but fear your God; for I am Be-er your God!” (Lev. 25:17; 19:14, 32). In the history of spirituality, therefore, the fear of God and a life of virtue are always linked together as a matter of course.10 5. The fear of God and love The fear of God and love are intrinsically connected. When this bond is broken, the fear of God turns into a servile fear of God. For that reason the tradition distinguishes between a pure and an impure fear of God.11 The impure fear of God is fearful of punishment and separation. It is servile. The pure fear of God totally respects the other. That is the respect of the son for his father.12 The ancient Fathers emphasized the bond between respect and love: God only causes us to fear him that he may be loved.13 The fear of God leads to love for God: “The more we recognize to ourselves that we must fear God, the more God pours out in us the internal grace to love him.”14 Love casts out servile fear but preserves the awed respect: Whoever, therefore, has been established in the perfection of this love will certainly mount by a degree of excellence to the more sublime fear of love, which is begotten not by dread of punishment or by desire for rewards but by the greatness of one’s love…. inasmuch as they are afraid not of blows or of insults but of the slightest offense against love. And so they are always preoccupied with a concerned

10

E. Boularand, Crainte de Dieu, in: DSp 2 (1953), 2478. Maximus, Quaestiones ad Thalassium quaest. 10 (PG 90, 288B-289D). 12 F. Boularand, ibid., 2484-2488. 13 Ibid., 2511. 14 Gregory the Great, Moralia lib. 22 cap. 20 (PL 76, 242D.) 11

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devotion not only in every action but also in every word, lest the ardor of the other’s love for them become to the slightest extent lukewarm.15

The unity of love and respect is also an important motif in Jewish spirituality.16 Medieval Hasidism revolves around this motif: awe before the Creator makes love glow.17 “When the soul reflects deeply in awe before God, the flame of the love of the heart blazes up in it and the loved cries of inner joy refreshes the heart.”18 Everything turns on love and awe: “So at all times and in every moment a man should dwell on the love of God who searches out the heart and the reins and let him cleave to His commandments and let the fear of God always be upon his face.”19 Conclusion. The fear of God encompasses the entirety of the spiritual way. It brings about one’s turning away from evil, leads to penitence, and repentance, fosters the observance of the commandments, opens a perspective on respectful love and continues the principle of mystical wisdom.20 Cassian therefore writes: “The one who is blessed and perfect in the fear of God (…), that is, the one who mounts with eager mind from fear to hope, is invited again to a more blessed state which is love….”21 The fear of God elevates the soul to mystical wisdom.22 BIBLIOGRAPHY BECKER, J., Gottesfurcht im Alten Testament, Rome 1965. DEROUSSEAUX, L., La crainte de Dieu dans l’ancien Testament. Royauté, alliance, sagesse dans les royaumes d’Israël et Juda. Recherches d’exégèse et d’histoire sur la racine yaré, Paris 1968. GOLDSTEIN, N., Forests of the Night. The Fear of God in Early Hasidic Thought, Northvale (NJ) 1996. MARSHUETZ, G., Die verlorene Ehrfurcht. Über das Wesen der Ehrfurcht und ihre Bedeutung für unsere Zeit, Würzburg 1992. NEW, D., & PETERSEN, R., How to Fear God without Being Afraid of Him, Wheaton (IL) 1994. 15

John Cassian, The Conferences, New York-Mahwah 1997, 419-420. E. Borowitz, Love. Love and Fear of God, in: EJ 11 (1971), 528-529. 17 Sefer Chassidim 1, 5, 29, 786, 811, 815, 987, 1017. 18 Eleazar of Worms, Heikalot Chassidoet – Shoresh ha-Akabah. 19 Eleazar of Worms, Sodei Razayya, in: L. Jacobs, Jewish Mystical Testimonies, Jerusalem 1976, 48-55. 20 E. Boularand, ibid., 2475-2483. 21 John Cassian, ibid., 11, 11-12. 22 Gregory the Great, Homilia in Ezechielem lib. 2 hom. 7 (PL 76, 1016C-1017D). 16

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PLATH, S., Furcht Gottes. Der Begriff jra’ im Alten Testament, Stuttgart 1962. VREEKAMP, H., De vreze des Heren. Een oorsprongswoord in de systematische theologie, Utrecht 1982. WORSLEY, C., The Fear of God in the Old Testament. A Lexiographical Study, London 1972.

1.1.2. HOLINESS The basic term “holiness” concerns a core component present in all spiritualities. Every spirituality has its own saints; every spirituality has its own processes of sanctification in which one moment the active component (self-sanctification), another the passive component (being sanctified) predominates. Those who interpret spirituality in light of the basic term “holiness” situate the phenomenon in a specific field of tension: on the one hand there is the holy, which is inviolable; on the other, the perishable which is impure. Spirituality is the transition from the unholy (the profane, impure, perishable) to the holy (the pure, eternal, inviolable). Involved in this transition are all the layers of human existence: the physical, psychological, ethical, social and religious. And it seeks to be complete: to be totally consumed by God and to radiate him without being conscious of it. The basic category called “holiness,” in which the essence of religious experience as such comes up,23 first of all refers to the Source of holiness (God, the Absolute), but secondarily also everything that exists within its sphere of influence (things, people, spaces, times, processes). We will study the most important aspects of holiness as they come to the fore in Scripture24 and tradition.25 1. The holy In Scripture there are no synonyms for the word “holy”: that which is holy sovereignly withdraws itself and remains absolute. Therefore, when Moses approaches the burning bush, he is told: “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Exod. 3:5). The holy distinguishes itself from everything that is outside of it. “Holy fire” (Exod. 3:2-3; Lev. 10:3) wards off all else or consumes it. It is like pure water (Num. 20:13): it purifies and removes all dirt. It is like light which “covers the heavens with its glory” and “shines with the brightness of the sun” 23

R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, London 1936. See H. Ringgren & W. Kornfeld, qds, in: TWAT 6 (1989), 1179-1204. 25 J. Guillet, Sainteté de Dieu, in: DSp 14 (1990), 184-192; A. Solignac, Sainteté – Sanctification, in: DSp 14 (1990), 192-194; T. Spidlik, J. Picard et al., Saints, ibid., 196-230; P. Molinari, Saint, in: DVSp (1983), 977-986. 24

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(Hab. 3:3-4), excluding all darkness. The holy emits an atmosphere of unapproachability, Moses must draw a boundary around Mount Sinai (Exod. 19:1024). The holy mountain demands total respect before it may be approached. For that reason, too, it is very important to distinguish between the holy and the common (Lev. 10:10; cr. Num. 18:32; Lev. 22:15; Lev. 19:8; Exod. 31:14; Lev. 21:12, 23).26 That which is holy must not be mixed with anything else, for that would violate its essence. 2. The Holy One The Only One who is truly holy is “the Holy One of Israel” (25x in Isaiah). The seraphim acclaim him as thrice “holy” (Isa. 6:3). He is lifted up on high and lives there. “For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isa. 57:15). He is the incorruptibly true one (Isa. 5:16) who is present in Israel’s midst as a purifying force. His holiness distinguishes him from all else and makes him incomparable (Isa. 40:25). He dwells in unapproachable light: “I am God and no earthling. I am holy in your midst”(Hos. 11:9). 3. Sanctification Sanctification consists in complete consecration to the Holy One. In this consecration a person is active (he gives himself up) as well as passive (he is touched and consumed). Sanctification in the active sense is the consecration of persons and things by which they are brought into the sphere of the holy: the priest and his garments (Exod. 29:21), everything that has to do with the altar, the cult objects, and sacrifice (Exod. 29:37; 30:29; Lev. 6:11, 20). Thus Moses has to sanctify the people so that they can live through God’s appearance on Mount Sinai (Exod. 19:10-15). This consecration implies purification: the people must wash their clothes (Exod. 19:10-15). Moses must take off his sandals (Exod. 3:5). This applies not only to physical impurity but also and even more to ethical pollution (Isa. 6:5-7). Ritual purification which has to be physically concretized therefore symbolizes the purification of the whole person. In sanctification people are making the transition to the region of the holy, away from the non-holy. This transition is accomplished in the practice of everyday life.27 Those who consecrate themselves conform themselves as completely as possible to the Holy One: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 9:2). As people consecrate themselves, they are being consecrated. This is the passive component in sanctification: to be touched by the Holy One; to be consumed by the Holy 26 27

H. Ringgren & W. Kornfeld, qds, in: TWAT 6 (1989), 1181. L. Sexson, Gewoon heilig. De sacraliteit van het alledaagse, Zoetermeer 1997.

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One. He alone is the Holy One who sanctifies; “I am Be-er who sanctifies you” (Lev. 22:32). 4. The saint One who has made the transition from the non-holy to the holy is holy. This transition withdraws the saint from the sphere of the non-holy: The originally holy person exists in the mysterious darkness and twilight of history in a way that is very different from that of geniuses, heroes, or leading minds. He is hidden, as it were, by the enormous glow which radiates from his being. It is hard to get through to him as a historical person, whether we are speaking of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, or Laotze. This fact is a sign of the awesome life which proceeds from these persons.”28

The saint is consumed by the holy. We only see the radiant face of Moses. In the same way Israel must be “holy” (Exod. 19:6; Deut. 7:6; 26:19). The holy person is incorporated in the holiness of the Holy One. Without realizing it he or she radiates God’s holiness, like the glow of a burnt offering.29 In that sense the martyrs are the saints par excellence. Conclusion. Spirituality, understood from the perspective of the basic term “holiness,” is a dynamic process: God’s holiness attracts people, purifies them, and leads them into his inaccessible light. Spirituality is the ongoing transition from the non-holy to the Holy One. This transition is made by the saints who thereby become models of spirituality for others.30 The saints are the real connoisseurs of the field of spirituality.31

BIBLIOGRAPHY ARMSTRONG, J., The Idea of Holiness and the Humane Response. A Study of the Concept of Holiness and Its Social Consequences, London-Boston 1981. ARNOLD, P., La santità per l’uomo d’oggi. Un itinerario di fede fra tradizione e modernità, Milano 1991.

28

M. Scheler, Schriften aus dem Nachlass (Gesammelte Werke 10), Bern 1957, 278-279. E. Levinas, De Dieu qui vient à l’idée, Paris 1982, 119. 30 S. Spinsanti, Modèles spirituels, in: DVSp (1983), 691-711; Andere structuren, andere heiligen. Het veranderende beeld van de heilige in de Middeleeuwen, (Ed. R. Stuip & C. Vellekoop), Utrecht 1983; W. Berschin, Biographie und Epochenstil, Stuttgart 1986-1991; D. von Nahmer, Die lateinische Heiligenvita, Darmstadt 1994. 31 The Wisdom of the Saints, (Ed. H. Adels), New York-Oxford, 1987. 29

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CARMODY, J., & LARDNER-CARMODY, D., Mysticism. Holiness East and West, New York etc. 1996. CARMODY, J., & LARDNER-CARMODY, D., Serene Compassion. A Christian Appreciation of Buddhist Holiness, New York-Oxford 1996. Christian Spirituality. Five Views of Sanctification, (Ed. D. Alexander), Downers Grove (IL) 1988. CIORRA, A., Everyday Mysticism. Cherishing the Holy, New York 1995. DIAMOND, B., The Biblical View of Purity and Holiness, Cincinnati 1991. JACOBS, L., Holy Living. Saints and Saintliness in Judaism, Northvale (NJ) 1989. JENSON, P., Graded Holiness. A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World, Sheffield 1992. Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam, (Ed. G. Martin-Smith), Berkeley (CA) 1987. OUSLEY, D., The Way of Holiness, Oxford 1993-1994. Sainteté et martyre dans les religions du livre, (Ed. J. Marx), Brussels 1989. Sainthood. Its Manifestations in World Religions, (Ed. R. Kieckhefer & G. Bond), Berkeley (CA) etc. 1990. SEXON, L., Gewoon heilig. De sacraliteit van het alledaagse, Zoetermeer 1997. SHELDRAKE, P., Images of Holiness. Explorations in Contemporary Spirituality, London 1987. SPROUL, R., The Holiness of God, Wheaton (IL) 1985. STUART, E., Spitting at Dragons. Towards a Feminist Theology of Sainthood, London 1996.

1.1.3. MERCY The Jewish tradition more than once opened up the area of spirituality by means of the basic word “mercy” (chassidut, derived from chesed). In all Hasidic spiritualities God’s abundant goodness is central. The Hasidim rejoice in God’s mercy and attempt to receive it and to exemplify it in their life. “Mercy,” however, is not only a basic term in Jewish spirituality; also Christianity (cf., its movements of mercy), Islam (rahman) and Buddhism (karuna) view the field of spirituality as a sphere of divine abundance in which human beings share. Already in Part I we described the basic structure of biblical mercy in the framework of lay spirituality. That is the setting in which it originally belongs. In this section we shall offer a description of mercy as it functions within the spiritual traditions mentioned above. 1. Jewish Hasidism In Jewish spirituality we can observe three periods marked by a strong upsurge of hasidism. The first period is that of the Second Temple. This is the first time we hear of the hasidim (the merciful, pious ones). They are presented as a solid community (Ps. 50:5; 79:2; 85:9; 148:14), a group of law-abiding zealots (1 Macc. 7:13; 2 Macc. 14:6), a pious sect (the movement of the Essenes). We learn about their piety from the earliest rabbinical writings. Here the “earlier

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hasidim” (chassidim ha-rishonim) are described as people who conducted themselves with extreme devotion, benevolence, purity, and penitence.32 Before praying, they would wait an hour to direct their hearts to God. Once they were immersed in prayer, they would never interrupt this prayer. They would bury thorns and glass three handbreadths deep in the ground so that no one would get hurt. The “later hasidim” (after the destruction of the Second Temple) were further characterized by abstinence and extreme asceticism. They were also extremely tolerant: “Whoever hears someone curse him and nevertheless keeps silent is called a hasid.”33 The hasid views himself as an imitator of God, the only one who is completely merciful (Exod. 34:5). Like a credo, this conviction runs throughout Scripture. God is merciful (Ps. 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Num. 14:18; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Neh. 9:17); that is his Name (Exod. 33:19; Ps. 44:27). God’s mercy is an inexhaustible fountain of grace and tenderness which flows eternally (Ps. 136:1-26; 100:5; 106:1, etc.) and arches over his people like the heavens (Ps. 103:11; 36:6). The hasid tries to stand as completely as possible in the moving stream of God’s mercy. The second period is that of medieval hasidism. While Rhineland mysticism flourished in Christianity, Jewish hasidism experienced a revival in the same region: Chassidei ashkenaz.34 The profile of the hasid is drawn in Sefer chassidim. From the hasid people expect that he will do “more.” He will act with greater intensity, with deeper surrender, with a more ardent zeal, with purer intention, with more complete attention. “The utterance of every word must be slowed down so that with every word that comes out of his mouth there is consecration in a person’s heart.”35 The conduct of the hasidim is marked by penitence, extreme righteousness, almost unbelievable equanimity and humility. Here, too, the archparadigm is the mercy of God. The hasid tries, in love and profound respect, to receive God’s abundant mercy in order to let it stream out of him in a merciful life. The third period is that of Eastern European hasidism, the form that is most familiar to us. It originated in the second half of the eighteenth century and became a dominant presence in modern Judaism. It is typical for this hasidism that all areas of life and all aspects of human experience are involved in the total cleaving (debekut) to and union (yichud) with God. Not only the specifically religious but the not-specifically religious (eating, drinking, sleeping, dancing, physical needs, passions, strange thoughts, and so forth) must be united with God. The sparks of his Essence, the embodiment of his Indwelling, are to be discovered precisely in this down-to-earth setting. The emphasis is on the life of 32

Hasidim, in: EJ 7 (1971), 1383-1388. Midrash Tehillim 6:11. 34 Hasidei Ashkenaz, in: EJ 7 (1971), 1377-1383. 35 Sefer Chassidim 11. 33

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everyday, on the here and now. This total attachment to God permeates the gatherings of the hasidim with joy. A similar fervency kindles with joy the Hasidim’s study, prayer, and the keeping of the commandments. 2. Buddhist compassion In Buddhist spirituality karuna (pity, compassion) and prajna (wisdom) are the two pillars on which Buddhism is based. Compassion is a form of love which starts out, not from the self, but from the other. Pity is aroused before any decision or non-decision, or any act of the will, has taken place. Karuna is cultivated in meditation, along with friendliness, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Friendliness makes the other person happy; sympathetic joy is happy over the good fortune of the other; equanimity frees a person from attachment to the two attitudes described. This gives compassion its chance; compassion for the other elicited by the other.36 The Buddhist vow to regard one’s own happiness as incomplete as long as there is still one human being who is unhappy is the purest expression of compassion. Compassion springs from Enlightenment because in Enlightenment the I-perspective of the self is definitively abandoned: in Enlightenment the self and the other are absolutely one.37 This makes a person readily take upon himself the suffering of the other. A famous sutra in the Pali-canon says: “Just as a mother protects her own son, her only child, with her life, so one may unfold one’s mind toward all living beings. Full of compassion for the whole world, let us limitlessly unfold our mind” (Metta-Sutra). Compassion flows forth from the fundamental experience of unity in which all differentiation has vanished. Wisdom (prajna), therefore, is the fountain of compassion (karuna). Buddhist compassion manifests itself in deeds: giving alms, assisting people in distress, being good to animals, being grateful, giving food to the poor and clothing them, digging wells alongside a highway, and so forth. 3. Christian mercy The earliest period of Christianity is marked by mercy: your righteousness must overflow (Matt. 5:20); your left hand must not know what your right hand is giving (Matt. 5:3; 6:3-4); do not resist an evildoer (Matt. 5:39); if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile (Matt. 5:41); love your enemy (Matt. 5:44); do not judge (Matt. 7:1); and so forth. The beatitudes sum up this mentality in a single sentence: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will experience mercy” (Matt. 5:7). The mercy of the Christian is rooted in the mercy of God who sends rain on the good and the bad (Matt. 5:45), who dresses field crops in beauty and feeds 36 37

T. Unno, Karuna, in: EncRel(E) 8 (1987), 269-270. H. Dumoulin, Spiritualität des Buddhismus, Mainz 1995, 58-65.

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the birds of the air (Matt. 6:26-29). We encounter the same picture in Luke, especially in the parable of the merciful father who, “filled with compassion” (Luke 15:20), put his arms around his lost son, and the parable of the merciful Samaritan who, “moved with compassion” (Luke 10:33), took care of a badlyinjured traveler. Central in Luke’s sermon on the plain, therefore, is the saying: “Be merciful as Abba is merciful” (Luke 6:36). New Testament mercy has had its effect in Christian spiritual theology.38 Meister Eckhart, for example, says: “The highest work of God is mercy, which means that God places the soul into the highest and purest that it can attain: into vast regions, into the sea, into unchartered depths. There God works mercy.”39 Mercy takes shape in “the works of mercy.”40 The works of mercy were already known in the first Christian communities: mutual forgiveness (Col. 3:17), distribution of goods (Acts 4:34-35), giving alms (Acts 9:36), hospitality (1 Tim. 5:10), care for the dead (Acts 8:2), and so forth. In patristic piety the fathers reflected on the interconnectedness of these works.41 The numbers differ: 20 in Hermas, 8 in Cyprian, 6 in Augustine. But more important than the numbers are the motives: the works of mercy give the forgiveness of sins, make prayer valuable, are rewarded in the hereafter, touch the Messiah himself, are a sign of human solidarity and conform [us] to God’s mercy. In the Middle Ages the works of mercy constitute one of the most widespread motives in preaching, iconography, and theology. From 1200 on they are summed up in the memorable list of 7: visito, poto, citeo, redimo, tego, colligo, condo. At the same time we observe a trend toward institutionalization. In the 12th and 13th centuries congregations were founded with a view to performing the works of mercy. Monasteries became centers of hospitality. Guilds regulated burials. Congregations for the redemption of slaves were started. From the 16th century on this trend became increasingly stronger. We see the rise of congregations for the care of the sick and education, for the freeing of prisoners and the rescue of youth, for the care of the mentally ill and the handicapped. 4. Mercy in Islam Almost every chapter in the Koran starts with the opening: “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.” The divine names “Compassionate” (Ar-Rahman) and the “Merciful” (Ar-Rachim) are dominant in Muslim 38

Th. Köhler, Miséricorde, in: DSp 10 (1980), 1321-1328. Meister Eckhart, Populi eius, in: Meister Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher, (Ed. B. McGinn), New York 1986, 253. 40 I. Noye, Oeuvres de miséricorde, in: DSp 10 (1980), 1328-1349. 41 This occurs under various headings: opera (or studia, exercitia) misericordiae (or justitiae, miserationis, pietatis, dilectionis, caritatis). 39

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spirituality.42 By adopting the divine name “Merciful,” God “prescribed mercy for himself ” (Surah 6/12; 6/54). Like the Hebrew rachamim (softening, becoming tender), the Arabic rahman (mercy) is connected with the womb (rechem in Hebrew; rahm in Arabic). God brings forth his creation with loving care and surrounds it with warm affection. Chapter 55 of the Koran entitled “the Merciful” is totally devoted to God’s giving love toward his creation. The mission of Mohammed within creation is proof of God’s supreme mercy (Surah 21/107). God’s mercy is especially discovered in boundary situations. In this respect Job is a great example. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, the afflictions he had to endure, he is able to say: “Adversity has seized me, but You are the most merciful of all the merciful” (Surah 21/83). Another situation in which there is a strong sense of God’s mercy is forgiveness: “Your Lord has prescribed for himself mercy. If anyone of you has done something wrong out of ignorance and repents and does right, for him Allah is certainly forgiving and merciful” (Surah 6/54). In following God, Islamic spirituality seeks to appropriate God’s mercy for itself. Although humans are limited in this regard, they can grow. Two ways are pointed out to them: The first is that of the deed: humaneness, friendliness, helpfulness, compassion, and unselfish love. Always what matters is that the boundaries of the self-seeking ego (nafs) are exceeded. The other way, a way which is precisely parallel to the first, is that of relating the divine name “the Merciful” by which human deeds of mercy are experienced as acts of God: thus they are divested of self-seeking, the need for applause, the yearning for reward and appreciation. With his heart and his hands the merciful person ultimately realizes that God alone is merciful. Truly grace is in the hand of God, he gives of it to whom he will – and God is all-embracing and all-knowing. He privileges with his mercy whom he will, God is the possessor of inexhaustible grace (Surah 3/73-74).

Conclusion. The basic word “mercy” evokes the field of spirituality as a mentality and kind of conduct which in its goodness exceeds all boundaries determined by convention: extreme kindness, extreme helpfulness, compassion for all the living, an unlimited willingness to forgive. This mercy flows directly from the spiritual core experience: the sense of God or the experience of enlightenment. Spirituality is the experience of unconditional Love and Oneness which requires that it be allowed to flow forth in acts of mercy. This emanation of divine mercy 42

S. Sattar, Barmhartigheid in de islam, in: Speling 51 (1999) no. 1, 69-76.

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into human mercy is essential. Mercy is abundance. The mercy of God seeks to permeate human beings in their attitudes, their conduct, their thinking, and their entire society, and to incorporate into itself the whole of human life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barmhartigheid, Speling 51 (1999) no. 1. CALLAHAN, S., With All Our Heart and Mind. The Spiritual Works of Mercy in a Psychological Age, New York 1988. FOX, M., A Spirituality Named Compassion and the Healing of the Global Village, Minneapolis 1979. GALLOWAY, K., Struggles to Love. The Spirituality of the Beatitudes, London 1994. LECHMAN, J., The Spirituality of Gentleness. Growing Toward Christian Wholeness, London 1989. POFFET, J., La patience de Dieu. Essai sur la miséricorde, Paris 1992. Rethinking the Spiritual Works of Mercy, (Ed. F. Eigo), Villanova (PA) 1993. SCHATZ-UFFENHEIMER, R., Hasidism as Mysticism. Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth Century Hasidic Thought, Princeton (NJ)-Jerusalem 1993. STORMS, C., To Love Mercy. Becoming a Person of Compassion, Acceptance and Forgiveness, Colorado Springs (CO) 1991. VONHOFF, H., Herzen gegen die Not. Weltgeschichte der Barmherzigheit, Kassel 1960.

1.1.4. PERFECTION For centuries the basic word “perfection” denoted the area of spirituality. People spoke about “the way of perfection,” distinguished “stages of perfection,” and called spiritual persons “the perfected.” Like “the fear of God,” so also “perfection” encompasses the whole complex of the spiritual way. But whereas “the fear of God” reads this whole complex from the perspective of the beginning (the fear of God is the beginning of the knowledge of God), “perfection interprets the same complex from the perspective of the end (telos). This is confirmed by the word usage of the Bible. Perfection (tmm) is completely contained already in our original integrity, integrity which via a process of gradual growth blossoms into the complete surrender which is the hallmark of perfection (Isa. 18:5; Prov. 20:7; Ps. 18:26). We will now describe a number of aspects of perfection which have played a role in the history of spirituality.43

43

See the survey article ‘Perfection chrétienne’, in: DSp 12 (1984), 1074-1156.

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1. Original integrity In the temple cult the sacrificial animals had to be sound, completely without blemish: “you shall take from the flock a year-old male without blemish” (Exod. 12:5; 29:1; Lev. 1:3). Christians transferred this image of the perfect sacrificial animal to Christ and to themselves. Paul blesses God, “who has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before his Face” (Eph. 1:4; cf. 5:27; Col. 1:22, etc.). Humans are perfect because they are created after God’s image. This original image is restored by baptism in Christ. In dialogue with Gnosticism this concept was then given greater depth.44 Over against the gnostics, who viewed perfection as something only the perfect possessed, the Fathers regarded perfection as a germ which is increated in everyone and seeks to grow: man has been thus created, like an infant, a work shaped by the hands of God from the uncorrupted earth in which God then breathed the breath of life. He is called to become perfect by obtaining the power of that which was increated.45 2. Maturity Original integrity looks forward to complete maturity. In Scripture Noah (Gen. 6:9), Abraham (Gen. 17:1) and David (2 Sam. 22-24) are such mature people. The gospels describe Jesus as a person who lived completely “after God’s heart.” He was perfect. There exists a tendency to objectivize this perfection. Then it becomes static: a “state of perfection” which can be localized in biographies (martyrs, virgins), places (abbeys, monasteries), patterns of conduct (poverty, obedience, purity), ideals (the first church of Jerusalem, the life of the apostles) and positions (bishop, hermit, mendicant brother, priest). Over and over, however, these states of perfection are relativized. This occurs when the provisional character of each [stage of ] perfection is pointed out. “Perfection implies, among other things, that everyone recognizes that he has not yet reached it.”46 Another form of relativization occurs when the different states of perfection react against each other: monks distance themselves from the institutional perfection of the hierarchy; mendicant brothers relativize the perfection of the monks; lay persons relativize priestly perfection, and so forth. A third form of relativization points out that affiliation with a state of perfection by no means implies that those affiliated actually reach the perfection represented in that state: “I have never yet seen a perfect or free Christian,” says a Syrian teacher.47 44 See ‘Perfection et Gnose’ in: G. Couilleau, Perfection chrétienne. Il. Pères et premiers moines, in: DSp 12 (1984), 1084-1104. 45 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses IV, 38, 1 (SC 100 II, 942-949). 46 Augustinus, Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum lib. III, cap. 5, 15 (PL 44, 599). 47 Pseudo-Makarios, Homiliae Spirituales hom. 8, no. 4-5 (PG 34, 529C-532A).

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3. Growth in perfection Between the original integrity of the child which still lives on milk and the complete development of the adult who can handle solid food (1 Cor. 3:1; Eph. 4:13; Heb. 5:13-14), a process of growth in perfection is realized. Perfection is a dynamic concept. In Paul’s words: “Not that I have already obtained or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:12). Perfection grows through perseverance: “Perseverance must complete its work so that you will become fully developed, complete, not deficient in any way” (James 1:4). In the history of spirituality repeated attempts have been made to get a grip on growth in perfection by using certain images (a ladder, a stream, a way, a journey, the course of one’s life) or to make divisions (phases, stages or degrees of growth), so much so even that people could as it were measure the growth.48 At the same time, however, writers have always brought to the fore the infinite dynamics of perfection. “The end of virtue is without end (…). We never cease to make progress in it, either in the present, or in the future, ever adding light to light. Even the spiritual substances continue to make progress. Without ceasing, they add glory to glory and knowledge to knowledge.”49 4. Complete surrender Perfection consists in love. This truth does not so much derive from the fact that love is the highest virtue as from the basic given that perfection itself consists in full surrender. A graphic example, as far as this topic is concerned, is the archer who is “perfectly” absorbed in drawing his bow (1 Kgs. 22:34), or King David who is “perfectly” lost in the cultic dance (2 Sam. 6:16; 1 Chron. 15:29). Perfection is by its very nature complete surrender without any remaining trace of curving back upon oneself (Prov. 10:9; 19:1; 28:6; cf. Isa. 47:9), just as the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing when it really gives something away (Matt. 5:20). The gift is “perfectly” (exhaustively) absorbed in the hiddenness of the giving. This is what characterizes the perfection of God, who sends rain upon the good and the bad, a perfection which the Sermon on the Mount holds up as the example for us to follow: “Be perfect as Abba is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), unrestricted goodness which enables the birds in the air to live and the flowers in the field to bloom (Matt. 6:25-34). Perfect love is precisely there where it lets itself go and in no way any longer fears for itself (1 John 4:18). This is also the intrinsic bond between perfection and martyrdom: complete surrender in love. “We call martyrdom perfection, not because the martyr has reached the end of his life like other people, but because he has demonstrated 48 49

M. Dupuy, Perfection chrétienne. IV 16e-17e siècles, in: DSp 12 (1984), 1133. Johannes Climacus, Scala paradisi, Gradus 26: De discretia discretione (PG 88, 1068 AB).

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the perfect work of love.”50 The death of the martyr is the perfect end (telos) because in it his existence is completely (teleios) consumed in love.51 Martyrdom and love, accordingly, will remain the deep undertones of all talk about perfection, because in them the component of abandonment and surrender assumes perfect form: “Do not remain by yourselves alone, curved in upon yourselves as though you were already justified, but gather yourselves to advance your common interest. (…) Let us become spiritual; let us become a perfect temple for God.”52 Not curving back upon yourself, self-giving in love even to the point of death: that is perfection. Teresa of Avila says: “The highest perfection obviously does not consist in interior delights or in great raptures or in visions or in the spirit of prophecy but in having our will so much in conformity with God’s will that there is nothing we know He wills that we do not want with all our desire.”53 This desire for perfection runs like a purple thread through the history of spirituality.54 5. Kamal In Islam the notion of “perfection” (kamal) is most purely expressed in the “perfect human being” (insan kamil) through whom God, step by step, manifests himself. Needed for this, according to some, are 40 phases: 20 from the First Understanding to the earth, 20 for the ascent to being a perfect human being. The “path of perfection”55 begins with the creation of man “by God’s hands” (Surah 38/75). God gives him spirit and life “by breathing his breath into him” (Surah 15/29; 38/72). Adam is the prototype of the perfect human being, especially because God taught him the names (Surah 2/31) and gave him the faith (Surah 33/72). In history this prototype is most purely embodied in the saints and the prophets but especially in Mohammed. Mohammed acquired this special position in Islam at an early stage. He is the “splendid example” (Surah 33/21), which every Muslim must follow: the perfect human being.56 The perfect human being participates in the divine perfection which reveals itself in beauty and fascination, in grace and goodness, in majesty and power, in might and vengeance. As such he is the Spirit who is the origin of all things. The created spirit of Mohammed is thus a mode of the uncreated divine spirit and the 50

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata IV, cap. 4, 14, 3 (GCS 255). Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Romanos 1, 1 (CS 10, 126-127). 52 Letter of Barnabas 4, 10-11 (SC 172, 100-103). 53 The Book of her Foundations 5, 10 (The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. III), Washington (DC) 1985, 120. 54 A. Dauchy, Désir de la perfection, in: DSp 3 (1957), 592-604; M. Dupuy, Perfection chrétienne. IV. 16e-17e siècles, in: DSp 12 (1984), 1138-1143. 55 A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 98-186. 56 Ibid., 213. 51

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medium through which God becomes conscious of himself in creation.”57 His perfection exists in the ability to see and experience all things in the light of God, called by Khwaya Mir Dard “the station of the perfect unveiling and to the Reality of Islam,” “the honor of the perfection of Prophethood” and “complete annihilation.”58 Conclusion. The basic word “perfection” evokes the area of spirituality as an allembracing process: from the original soundness characteristic of human beings up to and including its ultimate completion. Mediating between the two is the growth by which both the active component (striving for and working at perfection) and the passive component (self-forgetful self-giving in love) play a role. When we look back on the four basic words in Scripture, we are struck by the following points. (1) They lay bare the area of spirituality as a relational process between God and man. (2) Holiness and mercy bring the divine pole to the fore: holiness is the divine purity which inwardly attracts humans and consumes them; mercy is the divine abundance which overcomes and permeates humans. (3) The fear of God and perfection bring the human pole to the fore: the fear of God looks at the spiritual way from the perspective of the beginning; perfection looks at the same way from the perspective of the end. (4) All basic words interpret spirituality as a process in which humans are active as well as passive. (5) The basic words all evoke a field of tension with respect to ordinary reality which to a certain extent is not God-fearing, not holy, not merciful, and not perfect.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AU, W., & CANNON, N., Urgings of the Heart. A Spirituality of Integration, New York 1995. ELAHI, B., The Path of Perfection, Shaftesbury (Dorset)-Rockport (MA) 1993. INCHAUSTI, R., The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People, Albany (NY) 1991. WALTERS, J., Perfection in New Testament Theology: Ethics and Eschatology in Relational Dynamic, Lewiston (NY) etc. 1995.

57 58

Ibid., 224. Ibid., 373.

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1.2. Hellenistic Terms In Greek and Latin antiquity the phenomenon of “spirituality” was referred to in basic terms which in their own way interpreted this area of reality: “gnosis” points to the moment of awakening and knowledge, “asceticism” brings to the fore the human intentionality, “contemplation” verbalizes the aspect of intensive concentration, “devotion” expresses the fervent application of the self, and “piety” the intimate relation to God.

1.2.1. GNOSIS Gnosis means “knowledge.” This word, which is basic in gnostic spirituality does not refer to analytic knowledge or scientific insight, but to a process of awakening which encompasses all the facets of the spiritual way: Who we were and what we have become where we were and in what we are plunged, to what we are speeding and from what we are saved, what birth is and what the second birth.”59

In this statement we encounter all the elements in the process of awakening: the lostness in which we are plunged, the manner in which we become estranged from our origin, the way to salvation, rebirth in God. Gnostic spirituality probably originated in Jewish-Hellenistic circles in Alexandria.60 These diaspora-circles were deeply affected by apocalyptic visions. For them, the world in which we live is the absolute opposite of the reality which emanates from God. In short order, the conceptual world of the Jewish diaspora combined with religious and philosophical institutions from their Hellenistic environment. The gnostic understanding of reality has been a constant undercurrent in Western spirituality and formed many different syntheses with Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and philosophical ideas: the Redeemer-Figure of the Christ in the

59

The text of Theodotus, in Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto 78, 2, in: R. van den Broek, De taal van de Gnosis. Gnostische teksten uit Nag Hammadi, Baarn 1986, 7. 60 É. Cornelis, Gnose et gnosticisme. II. Gnosticisme, in: DSp 6 (1967), 525; R. van den Broek, ibid., 166-175; I. Gruenwald, From Apocalypticism to Gnosticism, Frankfurt a.M. 1988.

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gnostic gospels; the spiritual ascent in merkawa mysticism; the emanations in the kabbala; the revelations in Sufi mysticism; alchemy in the Renaissance, up to and including the active imagination of Carl Jung and the astrological intuitions of New Age.61 Gnosis has been called “the third component of the European cultural tradition,” alongside of faith and reason.62 We will now describe the most important features of the Gnostic awakening process. 1. Awakening from estrangement An essential component in gnostic spirituality is the realization that one is living in a strange and threatening world. Suddenly the gnostic sees through the world of experience as a refined sort of illusion. Awakening from this nightmare is a two-sided process. The gnostic wakes up with a start by himself but the one arousing him is the Spirit: “And the Spirit ran after him, hastening from waking him up. Having extended his hand to him who lay upon the ground, he set him up on his feet, for he had not yet risen. He gave them the means of knowing, the knowledge of the Father and the revelation of his Son.”63 The first cognitive component of gnosis, accordingly, is an experience of contrast. The insane world we live in is suddenly experienced in contrast with the world of God: “The unit (monad) has nothing that presides over it, god and parent of the entirety, presides over incorruptibility, existing in uncontaminated light, toward which no vision can gaze.”64 The Father is absolutely holy, in no way contaminated by the world of the gods, time, neediness, limitations, multiplicity, measure, sensibility, and language. It is immeasurable light, which is uncontaminated, holy, and pure; it is ineffable and perfect in incorruptibility: not in perfection, nor in blessedness nor in divinity; rather as being far superior to these. It is not corporeal, it is not incorporeal, it is not large, it is not small, it is not quantifiable, nor is it a creature. Indeed, no one can think of it. It is not something among the existents; rather it is something far superior to these: (yet) it is not as though it were “superior”; rather, its proper characteristic is not to share in eternal realms (aeons)…65

61

For an overview, see D. Merkur, Gnosis. An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions, Albany 1993. 62 Gnosis. De derde component van de Europese cultuurtraditie, (Ed. G. Quispel), Utrecht 1988. 63 The gospel of truth, in: The Nag Hammadi Library in English (Ed. J.M. Robinson), San Francisco 1988, 45-46. 64 The Secret Book According to John, in: The Gnostic Scriptures, (Ed. B. Layton), New York 1987, 29. 65 The Secret Book According to John, ibid., 29.

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2. The story of degeneration An important element in the gnostic’s repertoire of knowledge is the story (mythos) of the degeneration that is told in all sorts of different ways. The story comes down to the notion that the Unknowable God emanates in a second divine person and these two together in a third, and so forth. Thus, in The Secret Book According to John (The Apocryphon), the Mother proceeds from the Father. The Mother named Barbelo, is the perfect power. She in turn brought forth her own emanations. All emanations together formed the fullness (pleroma) of the Invisible. A dramatic moment in the emanations occurred when one of the “offsprings” produces an emanation with a mind of its own. In The Secret Book According to John we read: “Now our sibling, Wisdom, since she is an aeon, thought a thought derived from herself.”66 She did this on her own initiative, apart from the Fullness: “She wanted to show forth within herself an image, without the Spirit’s will and without the consent of her consort” that is, that virginal male Spirit.67 This self-willed emanation is the creation as we know it, a serpentine monster with the face of a lion and eyes gleaming like flashes of lightning. Wisdom then proceeded to cast out her offspring. This is how the creation removed itself from the Fullness of God into estrangement: darkness, insanity, ignorance, desire, wrath, jealousy to a divine degree, maliciousness. Unashamed and ignorant, the apostate world propagates itself.68 3. The Way Back Those who gain acquaintance “know whence they have come and whither they will go; they know in the manner of a man who, after having been intoxicated, has recovered from his intoxication: having returned into himself, he has caused his own to stand at rest.”69 So now, added to the disillusionment and the feeling of estrangement, there is a third element in the awakening: the element of return, the beginning of salvation. Wisdom repents of her “miscarriage,” does penance and weeps loudly. The holy invisible Spirit hears her prayer, sends the Son, who deposits the soul in her as a divine power – hidden deep within her so that the Darkness cannot touch it.70 The Father sends his Light and his Wisdom into the Darkness, “the good Spirit, his great Compassion,”71 Life for the world.

66

Ibid., 35 (cf. note 9d; somewhat altered to fit the Dutch text, Tr.). Ibid., 35 (altered). 68 Ibid., 35ff. 69 The Gospel of Truth, in: The Gnostic Scriptures, New York 1987, 256. 70 The Secret Book According to John, ibid., 38. 71 Cf. ibid., 38-39. 67

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Impressive are the stories which tell about Wisdom, who passes through all the circles of heaven and descends into the depths of the abyss, searching for a place of residence among human beings, fervently desiring to bring her children back to the Light. In the Poem of Deliverance she descends as many as three times into the densest darkness to enter the midst of the prison: the third time she awakens the child of man from his deep sleep and weeps bitter tears. He wipes them away and asks: “Who is calling my name? And from where has my hope come, as I dwell in the bonds of the prison?”72 And the perfect Forethought of the All answers: It is I who am the forethought of the uncontaminated light; It is I who am the thinking of the virgin spirit, And I who am leading you to the place of honor. Arise! Keep in mind that you are the person who has listened; Follow your root, which is myself, the compassionate; Be on your guard against the angels of poverty and the demons of chaos and all those who are entwined with you; and be wakeful, (now that you have come) out of heavenly sleep and out of the garment of the interior of Hades.73

4. He who knows himself knows the All By awakening to knowledge the gnostic knows reality as it really is: the Fullness as it proceeds from the Unknowable. It is to this Fullness of the true All that the gnostic returns. When the gnostic makes contact with the Light deposited in his soul and totally identifies with it, he is back at the place he came from: the Father who is himself the place of repose from which all the worlds (times and spaces) have emanated. There everything finds rest. There the knower receives himself in the Son who rests completely in the Father. “It is in unity that all will gather themselves, and it is by acquaintance that all will purify themselves out of multiplicity into unity, consuming matter within themselves as fire, and darkness by light, and death by life.”74 5. The knowledge of God “When man comes to know himself and God who is over the truth, he will be saved and crowned with an unfading crown.”75 This gnostic pronouncement, after what is said above, is clear: the light which, in the soul, constitutes the core of man is in its proper place when it breathes along with the Fullness and 72

The Poem of Deliverance, in: The Gnostic Scriptures, New York 1987, 51. Ibid., 50. 74 The Gospel of Truth, ibid., 257. 75 The Testimony of Truth, in: The Nag Hammadi Library, ibid., 454 (slightly altered to match the Dutch text, Tr.). 73

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lives out of the Father. At that moment the soul in its self-consciousness and the Father who knows himself in the Son are one. The soul shares in the knowledge with which the Father knows the Son. All the little children share in the knowledge of this love. It is they “to whom the knowledge of the Father belongs. When they were confirmed they learned to know the features of the Father’s face. They knew and were known; they were glorified and they glorified.”76 They have returned to their home perfected. “They rest in him who is at rest, not striving nor being ensnared in searching for the truth. They themselves are the truth; and the Father is in them and they are in the Father, being perfect, undivided in the truly good.”77 They share, face to face, in the intimacy of the Father: “They possess his head as their resting place and find support by being close to him. By kisses, so to speak, they have obtained a share in his face.”78 Conclusion. In gnosticism, spirituality is manifest as an awakening process. Striking is the sharp contrast between the world that is estranged from God, which is our normal world, and reality as it proceeds from God. This divine reality is in no way mixed with Darkness. The spiritual way consists in freeing the Light that dwells in us and constitutes our true being so that it returns to its rightful Place – “breathing along” with the reality (Fullness: pleroma) as it emanates from God.

BIBLIOGRAPHY COULIANO, I., The Tree of Gnosis. Gnostic Mythology from Early Christianity to Modern Nihilism, New York 1992. DEUTSCH, N., The Gnostic Imagination. Gnosticism, Mandaeism, and Merkabah Mysticism, Leiden 1995. DIEM, A., The Gnostic Mystery. A Connection between Ancient and Modern Mysticism, Walnut (CA) 1992. Gnosis. De derde component van de Europese cultuurtraditie, (Ed. G. Quispel), Utrecht 1988. Gnosis und Mystik in der Geschichte der Philosophie, (Ed. P. Koslowski), Zürich etc. 1988. Gnosticism and the Early Christian World, (Ed. J. Goehring et al.), Sonoma (CA) 1990. Gnosticism in the Early Church, (Ed. D. Scholer), New York 1993. GRUENWALD, I., From Apocalypticism to Gnosticism. Studies in Apocalypticism, Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism, Frankfurt a.M. 1988. JONAS, H., Von der Mythologie zur mystischen Philosophie, Göttingen 1993.

76

The Gospel of Truth, ibid., 41 (altered). The Gospel of Truth, ibid., 51 (altered). 78 The Gospel of Truth, ibid., 50 (altered). 77

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LÜDEMANN, G. & JANSSEN, M., Unterdrückte Gebete. Gnostische Spiritualität im frühen Christentum, Stuttgart 1997. MERKUR, D., Gnosis. An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions, Albany (New York) 1993. Modern Esoteric Spirituality, (Ed. A. Faivre & J. Needleman), New York 1992. NURBAKHSH, J., The Gnosis of the Sufis, London 1983. RUDOLPH, K., Gnosis. The Nature and History of Gnosticism, San Francisco 1983. SHOHAM, S., The Bridge to Nothingness. Gnosis, Kabala, Existentialism, and the Transcendental Predicament of Man, London-Toronto 1994. STROUMSA, G., Hidden Wisdom. Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism, Leiden 1996. The Gnostic Scriptures, (Ed. B. Layton), New York 1987. The Nag Hammadi Library, (Ed. J.M. Robinson, 3rd edition), San Francisco 1988. WEBBER, M., An Introduction to Gnostic Hebrew Qabbal, Toronto 1995.

1.2.2. ASCETICISM The Greek word askesis, which means “exercise,” explains the area of reality called “spirituality” as a deliberate human effort. This effort touches all the facets of the spiritual way: distancing oneself from undesirable habits, control over one’s passions, the ordering of one’s daily life, the practice of the virtues, the purification of one’s faculties, and the fostering of receptivity. In Hellenistic culture “ascesis” referred to the methodical physical training undertaken by athletes and soldiers, the systematic training of the will and the intellect practiced by philosophers, and the practice of pious and religious conduct.79 From the Hellenistic world this word found its way into Western spirituality. 1. The Hellenistic world In the Hellenistic world “ascesis” was used as a means to combat evil influences.80 On “evil days,” for example, people sought to ward off the influence of evil spirits by abstaining from important actions: the temples and theaters were closed, and no marriages were contracted. “Ascesis” was also used as a way of preparing for cultic exercises: priests restricted themselves in the use of food and drink and abstained from sexual intercourse. Rigorous ascetic practices were followed in the mystery cults: fasting, abstinence, self-control, and purification. In philosophical schools (Pythagoreans, Stoics, Platonists) “ascesis” functioned as a way to

79 80

M. Olphe-Galliard, Ascèse. II. Développement historique, in: DSp 1 (1937), 939-941. M. Olphe-Galliard, Ascèse. II. Développement historique, in: DSp 1 (1937), 941-960.

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release the power of the mind in thinking. By controlling themselves, by overcoming blind passions, and sometimes by negating themselves, people tried to detach themselves from human “nature” in order thus to free the “spirit.” “Ascesis” was a necessary means in the pursuit of blessedness. For the Pythagoreans, who saw human beings imprisoned in a circle of transmigrations (reincarnations), philosophy functioned as an “ascesis” which made people conscious of their divine origin and pointed out a way out of the prison of the body. The examination of one’s conscience, the purification of one’s passions, fasting, abstinence, and the practice of virtue accompany the process of philosophical awakening. In the case of the Stoics “ascesis” focused on even tempered indifference (apatheia, ataraxia) and on moral integrity guided by the discriminating faculty of thought. Excess, riches, garrulousness, and exaggerations, must be avoided. (Neo-)Platonists tried, by means of the practice of virtue and the light of contemplation, to escape the merely mundane in order to be united with God. To that end they directed the will toward the good and purified their thinking. This was the end in view in intellectual and moral exercise. The grand goal was the purification of the intellect and the will. Mingling with corporeal and material multiplicity was a barrier to union with the Good and the One. Externality, materiality, and corporeality had to be annihilated as much as possible. This annihilation was accompanied with intense concentration on God by way of continual meditation. 2. The virginal life From the 2nd century on we witness the rise in Christianity of a unique form of asceticism. It revolves around two basic motifs: martyrdom and virginity. In light of these basic motifs the imitation of Christ, taking up one’s cross, expecting his return, and living in union with him, became a single concept of life. When in the 3rd century the dialogue with the surrounding culture got started, Hellenistic ideas of asceticism began to deeply influence the ideas of martyrdom and virginity already present in Christian circles and to call forth their deepening and concretization. Especially the negative aspects were highlighted: detachment, purification, self-denial, struggling against the passions, detachment from the body, and the fight with demons – all this as a means of following Christ even to the cross. A virginal life included asceticism as a bloodless form of martyrdom. In the early church, accordingly, virgins were second only to martyrs.81 “Ascesis” was a sacrifice, voluntary and total, to the point of death. It encompassed life as such. This made “ascesis” a basic term for “spirituality.”

81

M. Viller, Le martyre et l’ascèse, in: Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique 6 (1925), 104-142.

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3. The monastic life To put themselves completely at the disposal of God monks sought to break with the world (anachoresis) even more decisively than the virgins. In their imitation of Christ they withdrew into the desert in order to die completely to the world and live in union with him. Anthony was their model. The examination of one’s conscience, continual prayer, control of one’s passions, the sanctification of one’s thought life, Scripture reading, the discernment of spirits, fighting with demons, the practice of virtue, solitariness, silence, self-chastisement, poverty, fasting, and abstinence were the ingredients of an ascetic life which died to the world. Later when monks tried to integrate the tradition of the desert monks into their communal life, the virtue of obedience was added. Obedience meant dying to one’s self-will, the heaviest sacrifice. In addition, life-in-community required more regulation, a need met by the Rules of Pachomius, Basil, and Benedict. Asceticism was thus subjected to a standard – the Rules provided an ascetic framework with an average standard (the moderate) by which the ascetic life becomes a possibility with room for different characters and several degrees of intensity. The ascetic exercises formed, as it were, a spiritual architecture. Many authors, for example, saw the ascetic exercises as grouped around purity of heart as their direct goal. Within the exercises themselves distinctions were made between practices which ordered the body, the feelings, the passions, the memory, thought, and the will, and practices which aimed at growth in virtuousness. This complex as a whole, in turn, was viewed as a condition for the really important: the reception of contemplation.82 4. The modern era Beginning in the 12th century the architecture of asceticism was conceived as conformity to Christ. Penitence, mortification, and the ordering of one’s passions, for example, were linked with the suffering of Christ. The same thing was done with the virtues, the life of prayer, fasting and so forth, with an accent on the poverty of Jesus. Christ incarnates all forms.83 From that same period on, people developed methods which were designed to help a person appropriate the ascetic practices. For example: repetitive schemes to learn more easily to pray continually (the rosary). Or aids for meditation (the way of the cross). In modern times in reaction to antiascetic currents (humanists, reformation, quietism), we witness the rise of an asceticism which is becoming ever more one-sided and disoriented. The one-sidedness consists in an overemphasis on the negative aspects (mortification, detachment, abstinence, 82 M. Viller and M. Olphe-Galliard, Ascèse. II. Développement historique, in: DSp 1 (1937), 974-975. 83 J. de Guibert, Ascèse. II. Développement historique, in: DSp 1 (1937), 978-979.

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dissociation) at the expense of the positive (concentration on the essential). Asceticism became disoriented: it became abstract and developed into an accumulation of practices of which people no longer understood the inner coherence, while losing their inner focus on contemplation. In the 1960s, the edifice of asceticism almost completely collapsed. Like snow before the sun, the exercises vanished from the landscape of spirituality. New practices (Scripture reading, communal prayer, bibliodrama, religious conversation, and so forth) were sparingly introduced; exercises from Eastern spirituality were integrated, and some discipleship courses (the practice of prayer, liturgical training) were offered. 5. Yoga The Sanskrit word yoga, which originally meant “yoke,” “union,” refers in Eastern spiritualities to ascetic techniques and methods of meditation.84 An important contribution to the shaping and meaning of yoga is the Yoga sutra collection of Patanjali. He organized existing traditions into a well thought-out system. The starting point of yoga is the discovery that suffering is the fundamental law of all existence. The aim of yoga, therefore, is liberation from suffering. Because suffering is rooted in ignorance, the first step on the path of “ascesis” is to discern how pain and sorrow are caused. At the same time one must concentrate the mind on a single point, in order thus to begin the process of detachment from a distracting multiplicity. Needed for this concentration are supporting exercises: a good posture and controlled breathing. These exercises constitute the infrastructure of the exercises of virtue: restraint from violence, falsehood, stealing, sexual activity, and avarice. In addition one seeks to appropriate a serene, studious, and well-ordered lifestyle. After the exercises in virtue come the specific yoga exercises by which the basic physical and psychic processes are influenced to such an extent that they can no longer in any way dominate the yogi (asana and pranayama). The most important are the breathing exercises, since they touch all the above processes and especially the consciousness in its many forms. Gradually all feelings and thoughts are liberated from the dominance of external objects and blind passions. The senses come to themselves. The yogi experiences the current of unified thought. This is the enstasis of the samadhi, the immediate knowledge of what is, the absolute knowledge, the revelation of the Supreme Self. Grounded in this state of knowing, mysterious powers are released in the yogi. The yogi is completely free and has unhindered disposal over what is: he comes to know his previous existence, foresees his future, knows the mental states of others, and so forth.

84

M. Eliade, Yoga, in: EncRel (E) 15 (1987), 519-523.

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But the essence of all this is illumination (prajna), the consciousness of absolute freedom. Conclusion. The basic word “ascesis” interprets the reality called “spirituality” as a deliberate methodical effort of a human being which touches upon the entire complex of psychomental life: the way in which a person distances himself from customary patterns; the way in which the passions are ordered; the ordering of time and space; the interiorization of the virtues; the development of receptivity; the purification of the memory, intellect, and will. These facts cover all the levels of spiritual life: somatic, psychic, social, and religious.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ascèse et renoncement en Inde, ou, La solitude bien ordonnée, (Ed. S. Bouez), Paris 1992. Ascetic Behaviour in Greco-Roman Antiquity. A Sourcebook, (Ed. V. Wimbush), Minneapolis 1990. Asceticism, (Ed. V. Wimbush & R. Valantasis), New York-Oxford 1995. BRONKHORST, J., The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism, Bern-New York 1993. ELM, S., Virgins of God. The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford-New York 1994. The Good Body. Asceticism in Contemporary Culture, (Ed. M. Winkler & L. Cole), New Haven etc. 1994. HARPHAM, G., The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, Chicago etc. 1987. NIKOLAOU, T., Askese. Mönchtum und Mystik in der orthodoxen Kirche, St. Ottilien 1996. PETERSEN-SZEMERÉDY, G., Zwischen Weltstadt und Wüste. Römische Asketinnen in der Spätantike, Göttingen 1993. PODIMATTAM, F., Asceticism Today, Bangalore 1990. SHIRAISHI, R., Asceticism in Buddhism and Brahmanism. A Comparative Study, Tring (U.K.) 1996. VAN NESS, P., Spirituality, Diversions, and Decadence. The Contemporary Predicament, Albany (New York) 1992. WILTSHIRE, M., Ascetic Figures before and in Early Buddhism. The Emergence of Gautama as the Buddha, Berlin-New York 1990.

1.2.3. CONTEMPLATION For centuries the basic word “contemplation” served as designation for the reality called spirituality. In the word “contemplation” spirituality comes to the fore as a carefully reserved space and time in which a person, with unremitting attention, focuses on the divine. This spiritual culture finds expression in the numerous forms of contemplative life.

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1. The world of classic antiquity To form an idea of “contemplation” in the Hellenistic world, it is best to consult the etymology of the word. “Contemplation” is derived from con (together) and templum (a space sectioned off by the augur with his rod within which he observes the flight of birds).85 Contemplation, accordingly, is the act of entering into an observational space in which, with full attention, to observe the movements of the divine. Something similar is expressed in the Greek equivalent theoria: to follow attentively that which appears to us as a divine spectacle. For ancient philosophy86 contemplation (the search for ultimate Truth, fascination with Good, union with the One) was the purpose of human existence. This contemplation thrived best in the context of an ascetic lifestyle: detaching oneself from the cares of life, applying oneself to the exercise of virtue, purifying oneself from obstructive patterns. 2. Christianity Early Christianity87 integrated philosophical contemplation within a Christian frame of reference but in the process also featured accents of its own. It especially emphasized the unity of practice and contemplation.88 Contemplation both presupposes and issues into the praxis of life.89 A second accent was that purification is before all else moral. Moreover: contemplation involves so immersing oneself in creation that it is not just viewed in terms of its own internal logic but above all in terms of its origin in God. Finally, however necessary one’s own involvement may be, contemplation as such is a gift of grace. This Christian type of contemplation constitutes the purpose (telos) of the monastic life.90 All the immediate ascetic ends (skopos) serve the final goal of contemplation (telos). This remains true right into the Middle Ages. The monastic life and the contemplative life are identical: by a certain separation from worldly cares, by the ordering of time and activities, by certain ascetic exercises, prayer, the liturgy, and silence, a space was set aside in which contemplation could occur. Even when in the 13th century certain shifts took place (especially as a result of the rise of the universities and the founding of mendicant orders), contemplation remained the center around which a new praxis grouped itself. All movements of religious renewal, however different their socio-cultural situation may be, are centered 85

Van Dale, Etymologisch woordenboek, Utrecht-Antwerpen 1989, 168. R. Arnou, Contemplation, A. II. Monde gréco-romain, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1716-1762. 87 J. Lemaitre, R. Roques et al., Contemplation, A. III. Grecs et orientaux chrétiens, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1762-1911. 88 Origenes, In Lucam, fragm. 39 (SC 897, 490-491). 89 J. Lemaitre, Contemplation, A. III. Grecs et orientaux chrétiens, in: DSp 2 (1953), 18021805. 90 John Cassian, Conferences, ch. 1. 86

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around contemplation as the real “middle in which” (medium in quo) life is realized. In this connection certain shifts occur: people give more weight to the heart than to the intellect; they begin to put more emphasis on external phenomena (ecstasy, for example); they orient contemplation more in the direction of practice; they tend to systematize more; increasingly the life of Jesus becomes the model for them to imitate. In addition people’s attention shifts from the divine pole (the knowledge of God the Trinity) to the human pole (felt love and consolation). 3. The modern era From the 15th century on the role of the word “contemplation” as a self-evident term for the whole of the spiritual way began to diminish. People were actively engaged with reform; the possibility of the direct contemplation of God was doubted; they abhorred speculation; they were interested in the psychic repercussions; interest in the ascetic became stronger. Once more, in the 16th century, contemplation would fulfill its integrating role in the great reforms and renewal movements, especially in the case of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, as well as in the case of Ignatius of Loyola. But this golden age, in which contemplation formed the vital center of methodical exercises, psychological insight and orientation to practice, would also prove to be the end of the overarching role which the term “contemplation” fulfilled with respect to the entirety of the spiritual way. Contemplation became something separate, something individual, and the object of involved speculations, say, on the difference and similarity between contemplatio infusa and contemplatio acquisita. Conclusion. The basic word “contemplation” brings to the fore a specific reading of the reality called “spirituality”: spirituality is the attentive God-seeking endeavor which so orders time and space that there arises a reserved area in which God’s impassioned involvement with his creation can be tasted. This endeavor is aimed at the acquisition of a pure and deeply loving knowledge of God. That being the case, however, a certain tension between one’s ordinary conduct and a contemplative lifestyle is programmatically present from the beginning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY CASEY, M., The Undivided Heart. The Western Approach to Contemplation, Petersham (MA) 1994. The Contemplative Path. Reflections on Recovering a Lost Tradition, (Ed. R. Elder), Kalamazoo (MI) 1995.

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DAVIS, A., The Way of Flame. A Guide to the Forgotten Mystical Tradition of Jewish Meditation, San Francisco 1996. DUNNE, J., Love’s Mind. An Essay on Contemplative Life, Notre Dame (IN)-London 1993. LECLERC, É., Chemin de contemplation, Paris 1995. MOLINOS, M. DE, Defensa de la contemplación, Madrid 1988. PANIKKAR, R., Invisible Harmony. Essays on Contemplation and Responsibility, Minneapolis 1995. ROBERTS, B., The Experience of No-self. A Contemplative Journey, Albany (NY) 1993. VERMAN, M., The Books of Contemplation. Medieval Jewish Mystical Sources, Albany (NY) 1992.

1.2.4. DEVOTION The basic word “devotion” situates the reality called “spirituality” in a typical field of tension: on the one hand, “devotion” suggests an attitude of deep and intimate dedication and on the other it opens the whole field of devotional practices. By means of the word “devotion” spirituality is thus read as a tension-filled reality: the sphere of the heart (inwardness, fervency, dedication) and the sphere of the external (devotionals, practices, consecrated spaces and times). 1. Antiquity and early Christianity Even in ancient Rome already the word “devotio” referred on the one hand to the ritual execution of a human sacrifice which was brought to the gods of the underworld, and on the other to the absolute dedication one promised to the emperor. Both meanings (the ritual execution and the absolute dedication in perfect loyalty and obedience) continue to come through in the Christian use of the word “devotion.”91 In the ancient Christian use of the word, therefore, the accent is on the external execution of the liturgy and the inner fervency with which this is done. At the same time, however, this “devotion” must permeate the behavior. 2. The Middle Ages In the Middle Ages we witness a broadening and deepening of the internal side of devotion. The word “devotion” increasingly began to denote the religious feelings, especially the fervency the worshippers felt during the prayer and other exercises. The whole of people’s spiritual life must, in its expressions and in its 91 J. Chatillon, Devotio, in: DSp 3 (1957), 702-716; and J. Curran, Dévotion, in: DSp 3 (1957), 716-727.

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ascent, be permeated by a glowing inwardness. Via the Cistercians and Victorians this concept of devotion (the inner fervency of the soul seized by the fire of love) was widely disseminated. This inward dedication was viewed as so essential that it was regarded as the basic virtue by which the praying soul is ordered to God (Bonaventure) or as the internal act of the virtue of religiousness (Thomas). In the Modern Devotion,92 this line of interior devotion is continued. Devotion here means the total dedication to God, a posture in which one especially focuses on the inwardness of the heart and is averse to any form of externalization. 3. The modern era In the 16th century the word “devotion” was even more widely disseminated in the context of the religious renewal movements which flourished. While the emphasis on interiorization continues, we at the same time see a remarkable “objectification” take place. “Devotion” now begins to refer to concrete exercises: devotional practices. Devotion can now be used in the plural: “God is invisible and hidden; our devotions are all visible and external.”93 Furthermore, our devotions do not have to be directed toward God. They can also concern the saints, relics, or holy places.94 At the same time, however, “devotion” retains its basic meaning as referring to an absolute and total dedication to God such that the foundations of the soul are touched. From the perspective of this basic meaning Francis de Sales could view devotion as the highest degree of perfection, in which the love for God prompts us to act carefully, frequently and immediately. Devotion, to him, is the perfection of love.95 4. Bhakti In Hindu spirituality, bhakti, usually translated by the word “devotion,” is a key feature.96 Bhakti is the spiritual road (bhaktimarga) a person travels by completely and exclusively dedicating himself to God. In contrast to the ascetic path of yoga, bhakti is an impassioned adherence to the Lord. This is not to say that bhakti refrains from detachment and the like. These components serve as functions of communion with the Lord: people detach themselves from the finite in order to obtain a part in God’s all-surpassing Beauty. Fervent dedication to God

92

P. Debongie, Devotio moderna, in: DSp 3 (1957), 727-747. Saint-Cyran, Lettres inédites, (Ed. A. Barnes), Paris 1962, 99. 94 E. Bertaud & A. Rayez, Dévotions, in: DSp 3 (1957), 747-778; and A. de Bonhome, Dévotions prohibées, in: DSp 3 (1957), 778-795. 95 P. Serouet, François de Sales, in: DSp 5 (1964), 1064-1065. 96 J. Carman, Bhakti, in: EncRel (E) 2 (1987), 130-134. 93

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is realized in the case of most of the devout in the midst of their daily activities. At most, people are full-time devotees for a time, for example during a long pilgrimage. Bhakti performs the ordinary Hindu rituals such as the offering of sacrifices and the saying of prayers, but these actions become really bhakti only when they are performed in the right spirit. These sacrifices are not offered in order to get something back for them, but to gain the privilege of receiving God’s presence. Songs, drama, and dance seek, experientially, to share in the reality of the divine. Bhakti is a communal event; people feel mutually connected but also united with preceding generations. Bhakti is movement: the impassioned movement between God and man, the impassioned movement among the devout themselves on the one hand and the socio-religiously demonstrable movement on the other; it is a movement with a history of its own and saints who make the identity of the movement palpable. 5. Islam “Islam” can be defined as complete dedication. Specifically three texts in the Koran, texts which are continually cited over the course of time, view islam as the surrender of the whole self to God as the only worship that is worthy of God. The first text: “This day have I perfected your religion for you and have bestowed upon you the full measure of my blessings, and willed that self-surrender (islam) unto me shall be your religion” (Surah 3/5). In this text the complete surrender to God which constitutes the heart of Islamic mysticism is viewed as the full flowering of the God-relation. The second text confirms this: “Behold, the only [true] religion in the sight of God is [man’s] complete surrender (islam)” (Surah 3/19). The core of religious conduct is the complete abandonment of one’s own perspective. This surrender cannot be effected by man himself. It is a gift which proceeds from God. This is what the third text says: “Do not deem your surrender a favor done to me; no, but it is God who bestows a favor upon you” (Surah 49/17).97 In complete surrender (islam) the essence of the faith (iman) is interiorized. The complete surrender to God and the religious framework within which this act is performed (self-surrender to the will of God as he reveals himself in the Koran; obedience to his commandments; conforming oneself to the community of faith) do not form a contrast. Each expresses itself in the other. Neither is there a contrast between the perfect surrender and the integrity of a person. The root slam from which islam is derived, means above all to form a sound whole. God makes a person whole when he or she surrenders completely to God’s will.98

97 98

L. Gardet, Islam, in: The Encyclopedia of Islam 4, Leiden 1978, 171-174. F. Rahman, Islam. An Overview, in: EncRel (E) 7 (1987), 303-322.

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Conclusion. The basic word “devotion” (devotio, bhakti, islam) situates the reality of spirituality in the field of tension between an inward attitude (dedication, surrender) with vivid affective colors (inwardness, fervency) on the one hand, and external practices (rituals, prayers, times, places, objects) on the other. The goal is that these practices should be sustained by fervent surrender to God. BIBLIOGRAPHY BHAKTIVEDANTA, A., The Nectar of Devotion. The Complete Science of Bhakti-yoga, London 1985. Devotion Divine. Bhakti Traditions from the Regions of India, (Ed. D. Eck & F. Mallison), Groningen-Paris 1991. KAPLAN, M., Devotion, London 1996. Love Divine. Studies in Bhakti and Devotional Mysticism, (Ed. K. Werner), Richmond (Surrey) 1993. TINSLEY, L., The French Expressions for Spirituality and Devotion. A Semantic Study, Washington, D.C. 1953. TOWNSEND, R., Faith, Prayer and Devotion, Oxford 1983. VIVEKANANDA, S., Bhakti or Devotion, Calcutta-Bourne End 1982.

1.2.5. PIETY The basic word “piety” opened up the reality of spirituality till deep into the 20th century. “Piety” discloses spirituality as a sturdy fundamental attitude which encompasses the whole of life: the God-relation, one’s social interactions, and the organization of one’s personal life. It can be described as deeply respectful dependency which, while it concerns the core of one’s affectivity, at the same time validates itself in conduct. 1. Antiquity “Piety” goes back to the Greek word sebeia (veneration, respect) and the Latin word pietas (purity, integrity). Both terms can refer to God, one’s homeland, one’s parents, and the dead. Within the religious sphere piety encompasses cultic actions (sacrifices, processions, prayers, oracles), a virtuous life, and feelings of esteem and respect. It is something like our word “reverence,” a fundamental attitude which is fitting in worship, is the source of all virtue, and articulates the basic feeling in which awed respect, wonder, serious attention and esteem come together. Reverence as the fundamental attitude was gradually integrated in both Judaism and Christianity.99 99

A. Méhat, Piété. I. La piété antique, in: DSp 12 (1986), 1694-1714.

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2. The Middle Ages In the Middle Ages some accents peculiar to this period were featured.100 Gregory the Great saw God himself as the source and model of piety: God provides for us and gives us his devoted care. In Christ he made himself poor for our sake. From God’s piety proceeds the human piety which seeks to conform itself to God’s favorable disposition and affection. Piety means: to remember God, to appropriate the knowledge of God, to move one’s heart toward God’s love.101 A second accent is an extension of the former: piety is no longer viewed as a virtue but a gift of the Holy Spirit (Bonaventure, Thomas). Childlike dependency in relation to God as Father has been put in our hearts by the Spirit. Gradually the affective connotations begin to dominate.102 Piety makes righteousness tender, affection warm, and reverence dependent. Piety is marked by impassioned involvement and warm affection. This interiorization implies individualization. Originally piety had its place within the public space of the cult; now it is realized in the intimacy of a warm affection. The interiorization of piety which starts with the Cistercians and Franciscans but then expands in ever-widening circles, is not only the soul of one’s relation to God but also sustains the relation to one’s fellow humans. The relation to the other is marked by inner respect and warm affection. We witness this broadening especially among humanists. With this development piety has in fact become so broad and so deep that it can describe the inner dynamics of the Christian life in all of its facets. 3. The modern era Based on the occupational ethics of the Middle Ages, those were regarded as “pious” who mastered their trade and displayed an inner attitude which enabled them to develop a lifestyle which matched this competence. The Reformation linked up with this usage. In Luther’s thinking piety became an upright life which validated itself in the life of everyday.103 This is the semantic scope which the words “Frömmigkeit” (German)104 and “vroomheid” (Dutch)105 have from the 16th century on as translations of the Latin term “pietas.” “Fromm” and “vroom” go back to the basic meaning of “standing

100

A. Solignac, Piété. II. Au moyen âge, in: DSp 12 (1986), 1714-1725 William of St. Thierry, The Golden Epistle, no. 27 (SC 223, 166-167). 102 I. Noye, Piété. III. Depuis le 16e siècle, in: DSp 12 (1986), 1725-1744. 103 V. Drehsen, Theologische Frömmigkeitsforschung?, in: Frömmigkeit. Gelebte Religion als Forschungaufgabe, (Ed. B. Jaspert), Paderborn 1995, 54-56. 104 A. Auer, Frömmigkeit II. Frömmigkeit als menschliche Grundhaltung, in: LThK 4 (1986), 400-405. 105 Woordenboek der Nederlandsche taal XXIII (1987), 933-951. 101

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out in front.” Hence also: leading the way, magnanimous, plucky, brave, upright.106 As a result of the influence of Scripture this magnanimity acquired the connotation of a sound, faithful, humble and upright life oriented to God and one’s fellow human beings. Soon, however, “piety” was equated with “piosity” and pietism which was criticized (Kant, Hegel). But others (Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Heidegger) continued to hear in it the core of the truly religious. Nevertheless not even they could prevent the emotional and individual aspects of it from becoming dominant at the expense of the more objective and public characteristics which originally marked piety.107 However this may be on account of these pejorative connotations, the word “piety” vanished as a designation for the reality called “spirituality.” Conclusion. The basic word “piety” interprets the reality of spirituality as a sensitive but strong attachment to God and his creatures. This attitude is inwardly aimed at permeating all sectors of life: the relation to God, the life of society, and one’s personal lifestyle. Moreover, it encompasses all the layers of human conduct: the inner affections, a heartfelt reverence, the shaping of one’s personal life, an authentic life praxis, and trustworthy religiousness. If we now look back on the Hellenistic terms, we note that they disclose the following basic features of the reality called “spirituality”: (1) In all these basic words the reference is to the relational process realized between God and man. (2) The words especially evoke the human pole: awakening to one’s divine origin, one’s methodically developed receptivity, one’s God-seeking attention, one’s surrender and attachment. (3) The spirituality which comes to light concerns all the levels of one’s human existence: one’s cognitive faculties (gnosis, contemplation), affectivity (devotion, piety), actions (asceticism). (4) This spirituality covers all the sectors of life: the sphere of one’s personal life, social life, and religious institutions. (5) The attitudes evoked, since they are part of the relational process between God and man, are active-passive in structure: gnosis seeks detachment from this world in order to share in God’s outflowing Fullness; asceticism arranges life with a view to gaining an increasing receptivity to God; contemplation focuses on the vision of God; devotion dedicates itself to a complete surrender to God; piety attaches itself firmly to God in order to become totally dependent on him.

106

Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie 2, Darmstadt 1972, 1123-1126. H. Thilo, Akzente evangelischer und katholischer Frömmigkeit, in: Lebendige Seelsorge 43 (1992) 15-22. 107

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Frömmigkeit. Formen, Geschichte, Verhalten, Zeugnisse, (Ed. I. Bauer), München 1993. Frömmigkeit. Gelebte Religion als Forschungsaufgabe. Interdisziplinäre Studientage, (Ed. B. Jaspert), Paderborn 1995. Glaube und Frömmigkeit, (Ed. J. Degenhardt et al.), Bielefeld-Kevelaer 1986. OOSTERHOOF, B., & STEENBERGEN, W., Vroomheid in het Oude en Nieuwe Testament, Kampen 1974. SCHLEPPER, W., Pity und piety. Eine Wortgeschichte, Bonn 1971.

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1.3. Modern Designations Also the modern era interprets its understanding of spirituality with the aid of basic words. In Jewish spirituality, the dominant term has been “kabbala,” which evokes the field of spirituality in the form of a mystical knowledge which is passed down from teacher to pupil. In Christian spirituality the noun “mysticism” has been all the rage: in this term spirituality unfolds itself as a specific sphere with a language and epistemology of its own. In the same period the basic word “inner” or “inward” became important: spirituality manifests itself as inner life. Finally there is the basic word “spirituality” which initially described the reality of spirituality only in the context of Catholicism and even then only in a restricted circle. But in recent decades this basic word seems to have gained a monopoly on this point. Not one of the four modern basic words mentioned above is new. They are not neologisms. The new feature is that they have become terms for the area of reality called “spirituality.” The word “kabbala” was known in the Talmudic period but toward the end of the 12th century it gained a new meaning. The same is true for “mysticism”: the adjective “mystical” was known, but from the 17th century on the term “mysticism” gained currency as a term for “spirituality.” “Inner life” has deep roots in Scripture and in Hellenism, but as a specific designation for the field of spirituality it is new. The word “spirituality,” finally, universally accepted as the designation for an area of which we can hardly imagine that it can be described with another term, is of recent date. 1.3.1. KABBALA The basic word “kabbala,” which literally means “tradition,” or even more literally “reception,” refers to the mystical tradition as this occurred in Jewish congregations. 1. The Talmudic period In the Talmudic period Kabbala did not as yet describe the area of spirituality, but simply meant “reception,” since “kabbala” is derived from the Hebrew qbl which means “to receive.” The reference is to a personal, conscious and committed acceptance of instructions with a view to the formation of one’s behavior (cf. Prov. 4:20).108 In the Talmud “kabbala” more particularly referred to the 108

F. Reiterer, qbl, in: TWAT 6 (1989), 1139-1143.

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Bible books other than the torah of Moses. In post-Talmudic literature the entire “body” of oral torah was called “kabbala.” 2. From 1200 a.d. on In the 13th century the word “kabbala” gained a new meaning: the spiritual knowledge passed down in the Jewish community. Concerning his specific usage of the word Meir ben Salom Abi-Sahula speaks as follows: The sages109 have never spoken on that subject110 in order to prevent people from anxiously inquiring into what is above and the like.111 For that reason they were accustomed, whispering and in secret, to transmit these things to their pupils and to the sages as tradition.112 It is our task to study all these things113 in accordance with our understanding, and in relation to them114 to pursue the way which was taken by those who in our generation115 and the generations before us 200 years ago were already called kabbalists. They call the science of the ten sefiroth116 and of certain groundings of the commandments kabbala.117 An important characteristic of kabbalistic spirituality is that Scripture is not merely read in terms of its surface structure but also understood as a secret text which calls for a specific interpretation. Using the striking linguistic and numerical characteristics of Hebrew Scripture, ferreting out the meaning of the different divine names, delving deeply into certain words, phrases, and contents, the kabbalists attempted to lay bare the mystical depth structure of the text. In this interpretation the sefiroth play an essential role. Sefiroth are divine attributes, divine modes of operation. The numbered sequence describes the emanation process from within God: from above to below, from unity to multiplicity, from the hidden to the manifest. Inasmuch as every sefira is linked with a certain divine name, the sefiroth describe the process of God’s self-revelation. The system of the ten sefiroth and their mutual arrangement developed in stages. Around 1300 the sefiroth system was completed. The upper three (crown, 109

“Sages” is a term for mystics. “On that subject,” viz. about the creation of the Holy Spirit who is the Shekhinah. 111 In the Mishnah esoteric inquiry is prohibited: “Whoever gives his mind to four things it were better for him if he had not come into the world – what is above? What is beneath? What was before time? and What will be hereafter” (Hagigah 2:1). 112 That is: as Kabbala. 113 That is: the hidden divine reality. 114 That is: in relation to these things which have just been mentioned. 115 The text was written around 1330. 116 The ten sefiroth are the ten primordial powers of God. They describe the dynamic structure of the hidden divine world. On this see G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton (NJ) 1987, 49-198. 117 Meier ben Salomo Abi-Sahula, in the preface to his Commentary on Yetsira. 110

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insight, and wisdom) are deeply involved in the transcendence of the Infinite One (Ein-sof). The three nethermost (beauty, foundation, kingdom) are connected with the creation and at the same time effect the reversal upward. The four in the middle (might, victory, greatness, majesty) impact virtually all the others and may disturb the balance. The ten sefiroth are a world of divine forms which shape humans in all of their layers, yet at the same time models the way back by which they can enter into the divine reality. 3. The triumph of the kabbala In the kabbala, which spread out from Southern France via Gerona over Spain, the sefiroth occupied a central place: the world of God unfolds by stages from its ever-flowing Source. Humans are called to reverse this outflowing from God and to return it to its Origin. Needed, to find this way back, are directedness (kawwanath) and cleaving to (debequt) during prayer, study, work, and social life. When the kabbala had once leavened public life through and through, its course could no longer be stopped. Within three centuries it was to permeate virtually all Jewish congregations and thoroughly impact people’s religious sensitivities. From that time on Jewish spirituality was simply called “kabbala.”118 Conclusion. The basic word “kabbala” bears a strong resemblance to the basic word “gnosis.” In both cases the reference is to God (’ein-sof ), who, though unknowable in himself, unfolds himself in emanations. The difference between the two is that in gnosis the creation is extremely unreliable, whereas in the kabbala it is the extended hand of God. Furthermore, the way back to God is not primarily an awakening process, as in gnosticism, but a style of conduct (halakah) and self-orientation (kawwanah).

BIBLIOGRAPHY BISCHOFF, E., The Kabbala. An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism and Its Secret Doctrine, York Beach (ME) 1985. GUTWIRTH, I., The Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism, New York 1987. HALEVI, Z., The Way of Kabbalah, Bath 1991. IDEL, M., Kabbalah. New Perspectives, New Haven-London 1988. MAIER, J., Die Kabbalah. Einführung – Klassische Texte – Erläuterungen, München 1995. Mysticism, Magic, and Kabbalah in Ashkenazi Judaism, (Ed. K. Grözinger & J. Dan), Berlin-New York 1995.

118

G. Scholem, Kabbalah, Jerusalem 1974, 3-7.

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SAFRAN, A., Sagesse de la kabbale, Paris 1986. SCHOLEM, G., Kabbalah, Jerusalem 1974-1975. SPECTOR, S., Jewish Mysticism. An Annotated Bibliography on the Kabbalah in English, New York-London 1984.

1.3.2. MYSTICISM Like “kabbala,” in Jewish spirituality, so the word “mysticism” carries a polemical charge in Christian spirituality. Over against a rational theology spirituality brings its own logic to bear, viz., that of mysticism. 1. The patristic period Originally the word “mysticism” is connected with the Greek verbs muo (closing one’s eyes or mouth) and mueo (initiating into the mysteries). The adjective mustikos (Latin: mysticus), accordingly, means: connected with the mysteries into which one is initiated (mystes, mustagogos, mustagogia) and about which one keeps silent (muo). This adjective mustikos, which does not occur in the New Testament (though a verb form occurs in Phil. 4:12) and in the Apostolic Fathers, begins to function in Christian spirituality from the third century on. The true gnosis in Clement of Alexandria makes the soul soar to mystical heights.119 Beginning with Origen, mustikos pertains to the hidden sense of Scripture and, closely connected with this, to the “mysterious” in the liturgy. People speak of mystical bread, mystical wine, and the mystical cup. What is true for Scripture and the liturgy applies to all the sacraments. Gregory of Nyssa refers to “the one reality of mystical customs and symbols.”120 2. Mystical theology In his Mystical theology Dionysius the Areopagite, thinking along the lines of Gregory of Nyssa, conflates Plato’s cave allegory (the philosopher is no longer content with shadows but leaves the cave and exposes himself to the light of true being) and the ascent of Mount Sinai (Moses purifies himself, ascends the mountain; God takes him up in a dark cloud and speaks with him face to face). From then on “mysticism” is the ascent of a human being to God who dwells in a dark light (beyond all affirmations and negations), which is invisible to the eyes of our knowledge, the cloud of “un-knowing.”121 119

Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, Bk I, 59, 1 (SC 80, 214-217). Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium Bk 11 (PG 45, 880B). 121 For this see D. Turner, The Darkness of God. Negativity in Christian Mysticism, Cambridge 1995, 1-49. 120

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3. “Feeling” mysticism From the Middle Ages on the mystical ascent is increasingly combined with the purification of desire. A purified desire enters the cloud of unknowing more deeply than the intellect, so much so even that love is sometimes understood as the apophatic dimension of the intellect: love possesses knowledge of that which surpasses the intellect. Mysticism leans in the direction of the (purified) feeling and will. At about the same time mysticism was equated with the way inward. Whereas in Dionysius the Areopagite the mystical ascent was still a gradual rising above the hierarchy of beings, after the Middle Ages the mystical ascent is directed toward God “who is closer to me than I am to myself.” This way inward is a process of re-member-ing: under the guidance of God himself the soul arrives at its Origin where, divested of all self-relatedness, it enters into the simplicity of God. Dionysius’s hierarchy of being has as it were turned inward and forms the inner map of the way to God.122 4. The 17th century In the 17th century a decisive shift in meaning occurs. Ever more emphatically the adjective “mystical” acquires the meaning of: enigmatic, mysterious. The science which studies these extraordinary things is called “mystical science” or, in short, “mysticism.” The adjective “mystical” turns into the noun “mysticism” whose specific meaning is a distinct area of reality with its own language, its own logic, and its own experts: the mystics.123 Surin views mysticism as “a science which is totally separate from the other sciences.”124 Mysticism is a separate world, described by an unusual way of speaking, one that is strange to ordinary believers: “Mysticism is the name for what in religion or in one science or another tends to the sacral and mysterious and does not seem to be in accord with the sentiments of ordinary people.”125 Only mystics understand the secret language which gives access to the world of mysticism. They are the mystical teachers.126 In the past three centuries this mysticism has elicited vehement reactions in both ecclesiastical and theological circles. Mysticism became synonymous with fanaticism and error. We are no longer far removed from Bossuet who, with all the means at his disposal, fought against the “great fanaticisms” of that “new mysticism.” Mysticism became a term of opprobrium.127 122

Ibid., 50-185. For this see: M. de Certeau, La fable mystique. XVIe-XVIIe Siècle, Paris 1982. 124 J. Surin, Guide spirituel, (Ed. M. de Certeau), Paris 1963, 179 (first edition 1661). 125 C. Hersent, In Divi Dionysii de mystica theologia librum, 1626, 7. 126 L. de la Puente, Vie du Père Balthasar Alvarez, 1628, 162-167. 127 See M. de Certeau, La fable mystique, 151-153. 123

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5. The 20th century A reassessment of mysticism arising from the psychology of religion, theology, and history broke through only after 1900. At the same time, a positive image was developed on the basis of Romanticism in contrast with the rational mindset of the Enlightenment. Mysticism thus became situated in a sphere of intensified emotions, genial experience, the exceptional experience reserved for an elite. This romantic kind of mysticism was intuitive and governed by feeling. A consequence was that mysticism and art started to overlap.128 In addition mysticism attracts everything that is “foreign.” Meditation techniques from the East (zen, yoga), for example, are called “mysticism” because they are foreign. Animism, alchemy, anthroposophy, astrology, spiritism, hypnosis and clairvoyance are ranked under the label “mysticism” because of their esoteric character. This romantic mysticism is then pejoratively colored by pseudo-enlightened journalism: a bad movie “wades in mystical primal ooze”; a television show “stages a mystically corrupted parable”; a novel is faulted for its “mystical/religious fanaticism”; an “aura of mysticism” must hang over a certain product.129 Conclusion. The basic word “mysticism” opens up the area of spirituality as a relational process between God and man, a process which has its own language and logic and withdraws itself from the objectivizing gaze of reason. The intimacy of mystical love purifies the intellect, the will, and the memory until they are completely attuned to God. Spirituality, understood as mysticism, is at odds with rationality as it has developed in Western culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ANDIA, Y. DE, Mystique d’Orient et d’Occident, Begrolles-en-Mauges (Maine-et-Loire) 1994. ASKELAND, L., Ways in Mystery. Explorations in Mystical Awareness and Life, Ashland (OR) 1997. BOFF, L. & BETTO, F., Mistica e espiritualidade, Rio de Janeiro 1994. BOKSER, B., The Jewish Mystical Tradition, Northvale (NJ) etc. 1993. BORCHERT, B., Mystiek. Het verschijnsel, de geschiedenis, de nieuwe uitdaging, Haarlem 1994. CERTEAU, M. DE, La fable mystique. XVIe-XVIIe Siècle, Paris 1982. CUPITT, D., Mysticism after Modernity, Oxford-Malden (MA) 1997. GEDUHN, A., Mystik als Grundstrom neuer Innerlichkeit, Olten-Freiburg i.Br. 1990. GILBERT, R., The Elements of Mysticism, Shaftesbury 1991. KELLER, C., Approche de la mystique, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne 1989-1990. 128

H. Bremond, Prière et poésie, Paris 1926. For this romantic word usage, see O. Steggink & K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit en mystiek 1. Inleiding, Nijmegen 1985, 28-30. 129

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Mysticism and the Institutional Crisis, (Ed. C. Duquoc & G. Gutierrez), London-Maryknoll (New York) 1994. Mysticism and the Mystical Experience. East and West, (Ed. D. Bishop), Selingrove (PA) etc. 1995. La mystique pour tous, La Vie Spirituelle t. 142 (1988) no. 679. PANDIT, M., The Mystical Search for the Absolute, Belgaum 1990. SCHOCHET, J., The Mystical Dimension, New York 1990.

1.3.3. INNER LIFE The area of spirituality is situated in the interior of the human subject by the basic term “inner life.” It is given a place in interiority in contrast to the public nature of the cosmos and society. Spirituality presents itself as a kind of intimacy of love in the soul, an intimacy that is withdrawn from the gaze of what is public and objective. Of course interiority was an important reality in spirituality all through the ages. But in the modern era it became a basic term which discloses the area of spirituality as such. 1. Scripture In Scripture, especially in the psalms, the inner self is present in many ways.130 It is a many-sided reality: vulnerable, needy, yearning and receptive, concerned for the other and capable of consciousness. This inner self – which is not static and closed but continually in motion, outward (externally) and inward (internally) – cannot be fathomed by man. Only the word of God can “pierce it so deeply that it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow and judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). 2. Among the desert monks The intent of the inner self is that it opens itself inwardly before God. This is called “purity of heart,” the operational goal (skopos) of all spiritual exercises. “For it is impossible for the impure soul, with whatever effort it may have toiled in reading, to acquire spiritual knowledge. No one pours a choice ointment or the finest honey or any kind of precious liquid into a foul-smelling and filthy vessel (…). Therefore, unless the vessel of our heart has first been cleansed of every foul-smelling vice it will not deserve to receive the oil of blessing ….”131 The final goal is the reception of God’s blessings which only really open up the inner self. God himself opens the depths of the inner self, the depths which the 130 131

J. Lévêque, Intériorité. I. Le thème dans la Bible, in: DSp 7 (1971), 1877-1889. John Cassian, The Conferences, New York 1997, 519.

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inner self cannot itself open up. That is why Augustine calls these depths disclosed by God interior intimo meo. For the same reason Bonaventure views God as “the only inner Master whom we must honor, obey, and petition before all else.” In Rhineland mysticism the divine birth takes place in the deepest interior of the soul where the Deity dwells and not a single multiplicity. “Here God’s ground is my ground, and my ground is God’s ground. Here I live from what is my own, as God lives from what is his own.”132 3. The modern interior self In the 12th and 13th centuries people began to pay increasing attention to the inner movements of the spiritual life: affections, the intentions of the will, purity of motives, inner dispositions, and the analysis of feelings. Spirituality occurs in the soul in the form of inwardness and fervent feelings. The role of the inner self was strengthened by the crisis in the 16th and 17th centuries which caused Western civilization to rock on its foundations: wars of religion, church splits, peasant uprisings, epidemics, the superior powers of nature, scientific discoveries, and the boundlessness of the new world.133 “The man of this day was indeed driven back to search for certainty and order.”134 The “center” of a human being is viewed as the starting point and the end-point of his or her spiritual journey. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle is a paradigm of it. The macrocosm has been transformed into a microcosm: “This is a world that is constituted by each single person, whose center is the ‘mansion’ of God, a world that is surrounded by ‘the dark abyss.’ […] This is the place where the faithful will find the sure token of God, with a certainty that will henceforth be founded upon a consciousness of self. Man discovers in himself what transcends self and roots him firmly in existence.”135 4. Criticism of the inner self Halfway down the 20th century the inner life fell into discredit. The criticism was aimed at three points: (1) the dualistic inner self. In Hellenistic culture the interior self of man was viewed as a spiritual substance which is immortal; placed over against it was the body as a perishable material shell. People rejected this dualism. (2) The bourgeois inner self. Some analysts see the inner self as a creation of the Western European burgher who, beginning in the 12th century, detached himself from feudal structures in order to capture his autonomy.136 132

Meister Eckhart, The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, New York 1981,

183. 133

M. de Certeau, Cultural and Spiritual Experience, in: Concilium 19 (1966), 12-14. Ibid., 12. 135 Ibid., 14-15. 136 See, e.g., B. Willms, Revolution und Protest oder Glanz und Elend des bürgerlichen Subjekts, Stuttgart, 1969. 134

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This inner world developed as a gentle interior space against the harshness of the exterior world. Spirituality confirmed and reinforced this process. (3) The anxious inner self. According to some, the inner self is the product of a contextual disturbance: the moment the other rejects me, that other splits up into a cold, neutral exterior and an unreachable interior, which is elsewhere and cannot be reached by a powerless gesture on my part. This metamorphosis of the other throws me back upon myself: I discover with shame that I too fall apart into a surface self and an inner self.137 “The inner self is the manner in which I involuntarily withdraw into myself because my concept of the world is not working. The inner self, therefore, is basically an unhappy inner self.”138 The result of the negative criticism has been that the expression “inner life” almost completely disappeared from the field of spirituality. Conclusion. The basic term “inner life” localizes the area of spirituality in subjectivity: the inner self is the privileged location for the relational drama between God and man. When the inner self is viewed as dynamic, the term highlights that in dealing with spiritual processes we are dealing with processes of interiorization: spiritual values are appropriated; this appropriation does not confine itself to external exercises but seeks to transform the deepest inner self of the human person, the self which in the mystical union proves to be God’s Indwelling. The basic term “inner life” interprets spirituality as a phenomenon which withdraws from the external world: the public and objective world about us. BIBLIOGRAPHY FORDER, J. & E., The Light Within. A Celebration of the Spiritual Path, Dent 1995. MASUI, J., De la vie interieure, Saint-Clement-la-Rivière 1993. ROTZETTER, A., Neue Innerlichkeit, Mainz-Stuttgart 1992. SPINK, P., Beyond Belief. How to Develop Mystical Consciousness and Discover the God Within, London 1996. UNDERHILL, E., Concerning the Inner Life, Oxford 1995. WIRT, S., The Inner Life of a Believer, Wheaton (IL) 1991.

1.3.4. SPIRITUALITY “Spirituality” is the basic word which has forced all other names for the field of spirituality into the background. The basic word “spirituality” has a comprehensive semantic range: it embraces the divine and human spirit; overarches 137 138

T. Lemaire, De tederheid. Gedachten over de liefde, Utrecht 1968, 30-31. Ibid., 34.

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asceticism and mysticism; integrates biblical traditions (ruach) with Hellenistic intuitions (nous); exceeds the boundaries of religions and philosophies of life. The core process evoked by the term “spirituality” is the dynamic relation between the divine Spirit and the human spirit. 1. Biblical background The word “spirituality” goes back via the French spiritualité to the Latin spiritualitas which is rooted in the biblical semantic field of ruach, pneuma. This is also true for the parallel expression “spiritual life” (vie spirituelle). We encounter the Hebrew word ruach139 in three areas of experience. (1) In the sphere of air, wind, and storm the ruach shows itself as a power which is in motion (Jer. 4:12; Exod. 1:12) and sets other things in motion (Ps. 1:4; Isa. 7:2; Exod. 10:13). It follows an inner track of its own (Ezek. 1:12; Exod. 10:13; Prov. 25:23; cf. Ezek. 5:10-12), which, however, eludes our observation (Eccl. 1:6; 8:8; John 3:8; Prov. 27:16). (2) Within the sphere of respiration and the heartbeat ruach makes itself felt as the drive to live, the most intimate and impassioned feeling, personhood; it is vulnerable and can be broken (Ps. 51:17; 34:18; 77:3; Isa. 57:15) and then revive (Gen. 45:27; Judg. 15:19). (3) In the sphere of the psychological it presents itself as drivenness, temper, passion, anger (Eccl. 10:4), a lack of self-control (Prov. 29:11), pride (Prov. 16:18; Eccl. 7:8), jealousy (Num. 5:14, 30), sexual desire (Hos. 4:12; 5:4) and depression (1 Sam. 16:14, 22; 18:10). This ruach can so strongly control people that it turns into an obsession. When Scripture refers to the ruach of God, it is speaking not of God’s inner life but of the manner in which his ruach is creatively at work in all his creatures (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:30; Eccl. 11:5), recreates them when they are injured or exhausted (Ps. 51:8-12; Ezek. 37:2-10), liberates them from oppression (Jdg. 6:34; 3:10; 14:6, 19; 15:4), endows them with a spirit of wisdom (Isa. 11:2) and justice (Isa. 11:3-10) and redeems them in the end (Rom. 8:21-27). Pivotal in Scripture is that the “draft” (breath, movement of air through a narrow passage) of man, which continually threatens to be wafted along by estranging drafts from without, is moved by God’s Draft. In the Gospels and in Acts this basic tension emerges in the field of tension between the Holy Spirit and an unclean spirit.140 The person who is dragged along by a demonic draft must be transformed down to his inner draft by the Draft of God, a fundamental liberation in which Jesus plays the central role (Mark 1:8, 10, 12, 2328; John 3:3, 6, etc.).

139

See R. Albertz & C. Westermann, Ruach, in: ThLOT 3 (1997), 1202-1220. Of the 170 times that pneuma occurs, it concerns this field of tension 120 times. The Holy Spirit (85x) numerically surpasses the unclean spirit (35x). 140

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Paul repeatedly discusses the same process with the binomial: pneuma sarx.141 For Paul sarx (= flesh) denotes a spiritual attitude which is the same as that of the unclean spirit of the gospels: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, feuds, strife, jealousy, explosions of anger, self-seeking, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like” (Gal. 5:19; cf. 5:15-26; 6:3, etc.). Pneuma, on the other hand, is the Holy Spirit who moves people toward “love, joy, peace, patience, friendliness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22). This biblical field of tension continues to play a vital role in Christian spirituality. Spiritus-spiritualis is used, analogously with carocarnbalis,142 to translate the Pauline pneuma-pneumatikos (especially in 1 Cor. 2:14-3:3). Spiritualitas, a rare term, accordingly means total transformation in the Spirit. At the dawn of the Benedictine centuries spiritualitas referred to something which one can exercise (exercere),143 in which one advances (proficere),144 which entails purposiveness (assequi),145 and has an affective coloring.146 This meaning persists. 2. Modern connotations A semantic shift in the use of the term spiritualitas occurred in the 11th century. From that time on spiritualitas was contrasted with materiality. Berengarius of Tours, for example, placed the spirituality of the Eucharistic presence in opposition to the sense-related elements of bread and wine (sensualitas).147 In Thomas spiritualitas is reserved for virgins, carnalitas is the portion of the married.148 Marriage possesses “the least spiritualitas” of all the sacraments.149 Here we see the impact of Hellenistic influences. In Hellenism pneuma, spiritus referred to the celestial sphere of light as opposed to the dark world of matter. This type of thought seemed to experience a renaissance in the new thought of the

141 This field of tension is present approximately 25 times in his letters. In addition, in Paul, also the Holy Spirit continues to play his usual role (approx. 35x) against the unclean spirit (2x). 142 Chr. Mohrmann, Études sur le latin des chrétiens I, Rome 1961, 25, 89; III (1965), 104, 115. 143 See Alcimus, Epistola 12 (PL 59, 231-232CD). 144 Cf. the letter of Jerome, De scientia divinae legis (PL 30, 114D-115A). 145 Cf. Dionysius Exiguus, De creatione hominis 8. 146 “You have shown with how much spiritual affection (quanta spiritualitate) you find pleasure in making good the forgetting of which has caused you so much pain,” writes Avitus, bishop of Vienne in the Dauphiné (490-518) to his brother, bishop of Valence, in: Epistola 12 (PL 59, 231-232CD). 147 Berengarius van Tours, Berengarii Turonensis, De Sacra Coena Adversus Lanfrancum 37, (Ed. W. Beekenkamp), The Hague 1941. 148 Sententiae IV, d.49, q.5., a.2, sol.3. 149 Summa Theologiae 3a, q.65, a.2, ad 1.

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11th/12th century which marks off spiritualitas as a sphere of its own over against everything that is animalis, carnalis, materialis, corporeus, naturalis, civilis, saecularis, mundanus, and temporalis.150 In the 13th century this process continues in two directions. (1) From a sociological perspective, spirituality set out to reserve everything that, in the broadest as well as in the most external sense, belongs to the “clergy”: the ecclesiastical as opposed to the temporal goods; the authority of the church as opposed to that of the secular authorities; the clergy as opposed to the laity; spiritual goods as opposed to material possessions.151 (2) From a psychological viewpoint, spirituality set out to mark off the sphere of the inner life: purity of motives, affections, intentions of the will, inner dispositions, the psychology of the spiritual life, the analysis of the feelings. Spirituality “took place” in the sphere of the heart, in inwardness, in felt fervency, in the inner life.152 In the 17th and 18th century this dichotomization process was further accentuated when a distinction was made in spirituality between higher and lower forms of it. A spiritual person is someone who is “more abundantly and more profoundly a Christian” than others.153 On account of its close tie with mysticism, the word “spirituality” finally began to share in the ill repute associated with the so-called “modernist-spirituality” of quietists, visionaries and other mystics.154 At the end of the 19th century the word had almost completely vanished. 3. The 20th century At the start of the 20th century the word “spirituality” resurfaced, initially as designation for systematic scientific reflection on lived spirituality.155 In 1917 Saudreau’s Manuel de spiritualité made its appearance. In 1918 the first part of Pourrat’s La spiritualité chrétienne, a scholarly survey of the history of spirituality, was published. In 1928 the Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique was started. Beginning in 1919, chairs in spirituality were established at papal universities in Rome.156 These are all indications that the word “spirituality” was considered fit to serve as an umbrella concept for asceticism and mysticism. Beginning in the 1960s “spirituality” became, in almost all languages and for virtually all philosophies of life, the overarching concept for everything that had

150

For the texts, see A. Solignac, ibid., 1145-1146. See L. Tinsley, The French Expression for Spirituality and Devotion, New York 1953, 89-91. 152 Ibid., 116-117. 153 Jean-Baptiste Saint-Jure, L’homme spirituel, Paris 1646, 129. 154 Also see L. Tinsley, ibid., 268-277. 155 See ibid., 273-278; A. Solginac, ibid., 1149. 156 A. Solignac, ibid., 1157. 151

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to do with “spiritual life.”157 A contributing factor in the enormous expansion of the word outside of the study of spirituality is probably that “spirituality” is an unencumbered word. “Spirituality” stands for something undefined, like “religiosity,” “the experience of faith,” and “religious experiences,” terms which keep open an area that has not yet been occupied by institutional frameworks. In that way “spirituality” can be a term for a “new” outlook on life (“New Age,” for example, is preferably linked to “spirituality”), for movements of emancipation (liberation spirituality, peace spirituality, feminist spirituality, environmental spirituality, and so forth) and for widespread motivations which cannot be subsumed under articulations of established institutions of faith. Conclusion. The basic word “spirituality” interprets the area of spirituality as “spirit”: the Spirit of God and the spirit of man which interact with and impact each other. The range and weight of the spirit is enormous. It includes the movement of the spirit (ruach) and the existential intensity of the mind (nous). By its weight spirituality is able to exceed the boundaries of the established religions and to open up new areas. Final conclusion. When we look back upon the basic modern words for the area of spirituality, the following points leap out at us. (1) The four basic words interpret the relational process between God and man. (2) This relational process is understood as an intensive, purifying, and unifying process of interiorization (kabbala, inner life, mysticism). (3) Spirituality stands for a sphere of its own with language and a logic of its own, one that exists in tension with the rational theology of the universities and the instrumental rationality of Western culture. (4) The spiritual “way” includes the purification of one’s faculties (intellect, will, memory) and the formation of one’s conduct. (5) Spirituality is situated in the intimacy of the relational process (kabbala, mysticism) and in the inwardness of the human spirit (inner life, spirituality); it withdraws itself from the external world: from the public order and from objectivity. Basic words bring up the interpretation of praxis. The 13 basic terms to which we have listened open up the area of spirituality. Its contours are as follows. 1. All basic words denote a relational process between God and man. The accent falls one moment on the divine pole (the Awesome, the Holy, the Merciful, the Infinite One), the next on the human pole (application, dedication, awakening). These poles are not first considered separately and then related to

157

For the shifts in meaning incurred by the word “spirituality” after Vatican II, see J. Heagle, A New Public Piety. Reflections on Spirituality, in: Church 1 (1985), 52-55.

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

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each other, but constitute an original relational whole within which the two poles make their appearance. The two poles interlock: for humans the divine emanations form the way back to God; God’s abundant mercy takes shape in human works of mercy; God’s holiness is received by believers in the sanctification of their life. As a result of this reciprocity human conduct is both active and passive: God’s mercy is received in deeds of mercy; the fear of God trembles at the Secret to which it reaches out; the knowledge of God is God-given knowledge. The relation between God and man is a process extending from the very first awesome touch to respectful love (“fear”); from living in the commonplace world to being completely consumed in the reality of God (holiness); from the ultimate emanation of God to a state of attachment to the Infinite (kabbala), from original wholeness to complete maturity (perfection). The original wholeness of man looks forward to a compete surrender-in-love; the human spirit finds its completion in union with the Spirit of God; the divine core reaches its resting place when it breathes along with the self-giving of the Father. The relational process is realized in the substance of human existence: the intellect (knowledge, attention, awakening, contemplation), the will (devotion, attachment, kawwana, fervency, inwardness), the memory, control of one’s drives, lifestyle, the ordering of time and space, social interaction, the religious life, culture. The intimacy of the relational process and the concentration which flows from it effect a contraction in that which is peculiar to itself (its own language and logic, inwardness, mysticism, kabbala) and a dissociation from the prevailing patterns (the world, instrumental rationality, that which has been secularized and objectivized, the unmerciful, externality). In spirituality the goal is not to name or define the divine pole. It appears within the whole of the relational process in accordance with the phase in which this process finds itself: as wholly other than the finite (holiness), as awesome touch (“fear”), as an unfolding of power in which man shares (kabbala), as Spirit who animates our spirit (spirituality). The views held concerning God and the divine names must be understood in light of the relational process in which they function. Also the human pole must be read in light of this process. In accordance with its position in the spiritual process the human pole is touched and made to tremble (“fear”), applies itself to the search for God (contemplation), devotes itself fervently to God (devotion, piety), makes itself receptive and allows itself to be purified (asceticism), appropriates God’s life to itself (inner life), lets itself be transported outside of itself in love (mysticism), and that on all the levels of existence (asceticism, inner life). Through this relational process its original wholeness and ultimate maturity comes to light (perfection).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY BACIK, J., Spirituality in Transition, Kansas City 1996. CHATTERJEE, M., The Concept of Spirituality, Ahmedabad 1989. DEUTSCH, E., Religion and Spirituality, Albany 1995. HUDDLESTON, M., Springs of Spirituality, Liguori (MO) 1995. De kracht van de Geest, Speling 50 (1998) no. 1. SINGH, S., Was ist Spiritualität?, Bern 1983. TINSLEY, L., The French Expressions for Spirituality and Devotion. A Semantic Study, Washington (DC) 1953. TOON, P., What is Spirituality? and is It for Me?, London 1989. What Do We Mean by Spirituality? The Way 32 (1992) no. 1.

CHAPTER 2: SPIRITUALITY VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF ITS SCIENCE

INTRODUCTION 368 A critical reflection on the phenomenon of spirituality is carried out from two perspectives: the “inside” perspective of the study of spirituality (intradisciplinary) and the “outside” perspective of the other sciences (interdisciplinary). 2.1. INTRADISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES 369 In the course of centuries many introductions to spirituality have been written. They were intended for instruction in spirituality, both inside and outside of the academic world. When we analyze these introductions in somewhat greater detail we discover several viewpoints from which the phenomenon of spirituality has been perceived – in light of the end or the means, from the perspective of mysticism or asceticism, on the basis of principles or the praxis of experience. 2.1.1. Treatises on perfection 370 Bibliography 372 2.1.2. Mystical theologies 373 Bibliography 377 2.1.3. Ascetic theologies 378 Bibliography 380 2.1.4. Spiritual theologies 381 Bibliography 383 2.1.5. The perspective of experience 385 Bibliography 389 2.2. INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES 392 A number of different academic disciplines which in the modern age have gained independent status within the body of the humanities view spirituality as belonging to their object of research: theology, philosophy, science(s) of religion, literaryhistorical as well as social-science disciplines. These sciences bring out relevant aspects of the phenomenon of spirituality. 2.2.1. Theology 392 Bibliography 396 2.2.2. Philosophy 397 Bibliography 402 2.2.3. Science(s) of religion 403 Bibliography 405

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2.3. A

406 410 410 413 414 418 420 422 423

RETROSPECTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction Lived spirituality in its basic words discloses in an original way the area of spirituality (chapter 1). This interpretation is called “original” because it connects immediately with the experience of reality discussed in it. The study of spirituality, on the other hand, creates some distance vis-à-vis the immediate experience from a self-selected critical perspective (chapter 2). In this chapter we will examine the different scientific perspectives which have been adopted. Two major perspectives can be distinguished. (1) We encounter the first major perspective in the introductions and treatises which have been composed over the centuries with a view to education in spirituality, both in and outside an academic setting. We could call this the inside perspective: here spiritual forms of expression and texts are critically interpreted in light of the dynamics of spirituality itself. (2) We could call the second main perspective the outside perspective: here the phenomenon of spirituality is critically considered from the perspective of a specific scientific discipline. Traditionally this was done from a theological and philosophical perspective. Added to these in the modern age are the science(s) of religion, letters and history, psychology and sociology. We call the first perspective “intradisciplinary” (the investigation occurs within the specific field of the study of spirituality), the second “interdisciplinary” (the investigation is carried out in dialogue with the different sciences). Whereas chapter 1 in its original interpretation of the basic words made present the material object of the study of spirituality, chapter 2 makes us familiar with the formal object by way of the many perspectives adopted.

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2.1. Intradisciplinary perspectives “At the risk of going directly against all current opinions, we believe we must assign to the treatises concerning the spiritual life a very early date,” writes Aimé Solignac in his survey article Spiritualité in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité.1 By “very early” he means: around 200! He mentions The Pedagogue of Clement of Alexandria, De oratione (On prayer) by Origen, De virginibus (On virgins) by Ambrose, De agone Christiano (The Christian combat) by Augustine. In distinction from the more speculative works intended to explain and defend dogma, people from the 3rd century on wrote “practical works the most important aim of which is the promotion of the personal life of Christians.”2 When, from 1200 on, city culture began to take shape in Western Europe, and in that culture the university evolved and the Jewish-Hellenistic-Islamic body of ideas was transformed into what would later become modern science,3 the practice of theology emancipated itself from a system of Scripture readings and opted for a conceptual framework derived from philosophy. Parallel to these processes, spirituality too began to systematize itself and to develop its own conceptual patterns around such basic modern categories as affectivity and experience.4 This systematization trend culminated in a specific genre of writings which is hidden under such titles as summa, directorium, tractatus, manuale, compendium, lectio, introductio, cursus, theologia, spiritualis, “overview,” “fundamental themes,” and so forth,5 all of them writings which “despite their diversity in titles have the study of spiritual life in its entirety as their object.”6 Their aim is to present in a systematic way (i.e., broadly documented, articulated in an orderly sequence, and thoroughly thought through) the phenomenon of spirituality. In the Islamic world this process already took place earlier. There, from the 10th century on, we find thematic treatises, biographical dictionaries, lexicons, and essays on one’s relation to a given spiritual leader.7 1

A. Solignac, Spiritualité. I. Le mot et l’historie, in: DSp 14 (1990), 1156-1160. Ibid., 1156. 3 E. Grant, The Foundation of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, Cambridge 1996. 4 See D. Turner, The Darkness of God. Negativity in Christian Mysticism, Cambridge 1995. 5 A. Solignac, ibid., 1157. 6 Ibid., 1156. 7 See, for example, Najm ad-Din Daya Razi, The Path of God’s Bondsmen, New York 1982; Hujwiri, The Kashf al-Mahjuh, London 1976; Abad al-muluk. Ein Handbuch zur islamitischen Mystik aus dem 4./10. Jahrhundert, (Ed. B. Radtke), Stuttgart 1993. 2

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When we examine these treatises and introductions more closely, we observe repeated changes of perspective: one moment spirituality is seen from one viewpoint, the next from another. By these changes certain aspects are brought to the fore while others are shifted to the background. 2.1.1. TREATISES ON PERFECTION Liber Graduum, a Syrian composition from around 400, is the first treatise to describe the spiritual way as a way of perfection.8 Perfection, the goal of the spiritual life, is attained by fasting, incessant prayer, the renunciation of all property and the unconditional practice of virtue, centered around love. The way to perfection is a process of relinquishment until the Spirit is present as completely active. Before that moment there is an infinite number of degrees of participation in the Spirit; after that moment the infinite way of love. Room for such a systematization of the spiritual life came about in early Christianity because after 313 the way of perfection became part of a process of institutionalization which was also strongly directed inward.9 “Henceforward people were inclined to view perfection in itself and intra-ecclesiastically.”10 They began to note phases and structures and sought to gain insight into the complex and unpredictable movements of the spiritual life. Gradually the triad “beginners-advanced-perfected” took shape. Beginners are like infants who still need mother’s milk; the perfected are the adults who can handle solid food (“the word of perfection”) (Heb. 5:1114). Between the two lies the process of maturation: “The Creator is always the same but the creature must pass through a beginning, a middle, an increase, a progression.”11 The beginners’ stage is marked by “conversion” (the turning away from evil and toward the good). The advanced live in the hope of reaching the goal. The perfected are completely led by love. Gregory the Great, accordingly, says that the life of the converted has three aspects: “The beginning, the middle, and perfection.12 William of St. Thierry says the same thing in other words: “As one star differs from another in brightness, so cell differs from cell in its way of life: there are beginners, those who are making progress and the perfect.”13 In his 8

A. Guillaumont, Liber Graduum, in DSp 9 (1976), 749-754. G. Couilleau, Perfection chrétienne. II. Chez les Pères et les premiers moines, in: DSp 12 (1984), 1104-1108. 10 Ibid., 1104. 11 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses lib. 4 cap. 11 (PG 7, 1002A). 12 Gregory the Great, Moralia lib. 22 cap. 20 (PL 76, 240D-244D). 13 William of St. Thierry, The Golden Epistle. A Letter to the Brethren at Mount Dieu, Spencer 1971, 25. 9

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treatise De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione secumdum triplicem statum incipientium, proficientium et perfectorum (ca. 1240), David of Augsburg connects the triad “beginners-advanced-perfected” with the scheme “external /internal”: The external exercises of the novice belong to the stage of beginners; the internal transformation of the will, the intellect, and the memory marks the phase of the advanced; the seven degrees of contemplation pertain to the phase of perfection.14 Thomas Aquinas adopts the classic tripartite division as the starting point for his treatise on perfection: “In every human effort one finds a beginning, a middle, and an end. Consequently, the spiritual state of slavery and freedom is divided according to these three, the beginning, which constitutes the state of beginners; the middle, which constitutes the state of the advanced; and the end, which constitutes the state of the perfect.”15 Thomas views the spiritual way as a process of liberation: an exodus out of slavery, an entrance into freedom. Essential in this connection is human effort (humanum studium). Equally essential, however, is the final cause, which is love. “It is love which unites us to God, who is the ultimate end of the human soul.”16 It is love, accordingly, which produces the actual division into three: “In love a threefold distinction is discerned: the stage of beginners, advanced, and perfected; the love of beginners primarily consists in withdrawing from sin; the love of the advanced consists in practicing the virtues; the third stage is when a man applies himself to the work of cleaving to God and enjoying him.”17 The perfection of beginners excludes that which is opposed to love and resists the desire of the soul that is totally directed toward God.18 The perfection of the advanced consists in practicing love as the core of all virtues. The highest degree of perfection is the complete transformation in love which is attained only in the hereafter. This threefold effort and threefold love articulate a mediated process. The most important means are the commandments, the virtues, and the counsels. The commandments and the virtues flow intrinsically from the end of love; the evangelical counsels, on the other hand, belong in principle to the order of the means: they are only instruments and as instruments are ordained to the end of love.19 Consequently, the state of perfection in which the hierarchy and the religious participate is instrumentally determined: their state is determined by the means available for sanctification.20 14

A. Rayez, David d’Augsbourg, in: DSp 3 (1957), 42-44. Summa Theologiae, 2a, 2ae, q.183, art.4. 16 Ibid., 2a, 2ae, q.184, a.1. 17 Ibid., 2a, 2ae, q.24, a.9. 18 Ibid., 2a 2ae, q.184, a.2. 19 Ibid., 2a, 2ae, q.184, a.3. 20 Ibid., 2a, 2ae, q.184, a.4. 15

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The triad “beginners, advanced, perfected” has been widely received. In the process different aspects were stressed: sometimes the human effort (beginning), other times the divine “inworking” (end) or the “means” character (middle) was emphasized; sometimes the degrees were viewed as stages or phases, then again as aspects or moments of growth, early already as stages of the way. Various basic metaphors were associated with it (reversal, internal-external, journey, organic growth, metabolism, lectio divina). However this happened, for the masters in the spiritual life the triad “beginners, advanced and perfected” is a generally accepted structure which as a matter of course became “the blueprint for treatises on spirituality.”21 Conclusion. In the treatises on perfection the areas of spirituality is viewed as a purposive, phased, and mediated process. The goal can be viewed from the perspective of man and from the perspective of God. The phases of the process are segmented in keeping with the most important moments of transition. The means consistently serve the final goal but are at the same time adapted to the phase in which a person finds himself or herself.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ALVAREZ DE PAZ, J., De vita spirituali ejusque perfectione, Lyon 1608. ALUMANN, J., The Meaning of Christian Perfection, London 1956. CROMBECIUS, J., De studio perfectionis, Antverpiae 1613. DAVID OF AUGSBURG, De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione secumdum triplicem statum incipientium, proficientium et perfectorum, ± 1240. FECKES, K., Die Lehre vom christlichen Vollkommenheitsstreben, Freiburg i.Br. 1947. GAGLIARDI, A., Abrégé de la perfection chrétienne, Paris 1596. GAZZERA, A., La via della perfezione, Fossano 1960. GRANDMAISON, L. DE, La religion personelle, Paris 1927. HAUSHERR, I. & OLPHE-GALLIARD, M., La perfection du chrétien, Paris 1968. JUAN DE LOS ÁNGELES, Manual de vida perfecta, Madrid 1608. LE MASSON, I., Introduction à la vie religieuse et parfaite, 1677. LOMAZZI-BELLINZAGA, I., Breve compendio intorno alla perfezione cristiana, 1584-1594. MENDIZÁBAL, A., De natura perfectionis christianae, Romae 1966. MORETTI, R., Itinerario alle santità, Brescia 1965. MOROZZO, C., Cursus vitae spiritualis facili ac perspicuo methodo perducens hominem ab initio conversionis usque ad apicem sanctitatis, Ratisbonae etc. 1905. PETITOT, H., Les conditions de la renaissance spirituelle. Vie ascétique – vie active – vie unitive. Introduction à la sainteté, Paris 1934.

21

P. Pourrat, Commençants, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1146.

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PUENTE, L. DE LA, De la perfección del cristiano en todos sus estados, Valladolid 1612-1616. REYNAERT, J., Over de christelijke volmaaktheid, Gent 1920. RODRIGUEZ, A., Exercitio de perfección y virtutes cristianas, 1609. ROSSIGNOLI, B., De disciplina christianae perfectionis pro triplici hominum statu, incipientium, proficientium en perfectorum, Ingolstadt 1600. ROYO MARIN, A., Teología de la perfección cristiana, Madrid 1954. TEMPEL, J. VAN DEN, De wetenschap der heiligen. Beschouwingen over ascese en mystiek, Roermond 1926. THOMAS VAN AQUINO, De perfectione vitae spiritualis, ± 1270.

2.1.2. MYSTICAL THEOLOGIES Around 1106 the Islamic mystic and theologian Al-Ghazali wrote his spiritual autobiography Deliverance from Error.22 Celebrated as a great theologian, he gave up his academic position in Baghdad in 1095. He had come to the realization, he wrote, “that I was occupied with sciences which were of no importance and utility on the way to the hereafter.”23 For ten years he wandered around as a Sufi and immersed himself in mysticism. “During these periods innumerable and inexpressible things manifested themselves to me. I only want to say about this that I learned with certainty that it is above all the mystics who walk the way of God.”24 From that time on Al-Ghazali developed his theology in the light of his mystical insights. This is his significance for Islam.25 Maimonides wrote his Guide for the Perplexed26 between 1186 and 1190. In this book he calls attention to three forms of confusion. (1) Someone is captivated by Greek philosophy and feels hard pressed by the externals and irrationalities of the torah: “Hence he would remain in a state of perplexity and confusion as to whether he should follow his intellect, renounce what he knew concerning the terms in question, and consequently consider that he has renounced the foundations of the Law.”27 (2) Someone has been schooled in philosophy but interprets religious texts literally; such a person “is overtaken by great perplexity.

22

Al-Ghazali, Deliverance from Error and Attachment to the Lord of Might and Majesty, in: The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali, (Trans. W. Montgomery Watt), Oxford 1994, 17-92. 23 Ibid., 58-59. 24 Ibid., 63. 25 Al-Ghazali, Der Retter aus dem Irrtum, (Introd. & Trans. ‘Abd Elsamad Abd-Elhamid Elschazli), Hamburg 1988, xviii-xx. 26 The book, which was originally written in Arabic (from 1165 on Maimonides made his home in Egypt) was later translated into Hebrew. Our quotations are from The Guide of the Perplexed, (translated with an Introduction and Notes by Schlomo Pines), Chicago-London 1963. 27 Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed Part I, Introduction 3a (p. 5).

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But if we explain these parables to him or if we draw his attention to their being parables, he will take the right road and be delivered from this perplexity.”28 (3) Someone is still young and his mind “is occupied with the flame of growth,” a “flame which gives rise to perplexity.” Only where this flame is extinguished is there sufficient rest and tranquility to “raise themselves up to the stage of contemplation,” by which Maimonides means: “the divine knowledge that is designated as ma‘aseh merkabah (the mysticism of the chariot, K.W.).”29 From these three forms of confusion we learn for whom the Guide is intended: young people who have come through the worst confusion of their growth, but captivated as they are by Aristotelian philosophy, do not know what to do with traditional Jewish beliefs. In this confusion Maimonides offers them the perspective of Jewish mysticism which reveals to them “the mysteries of the Torah” and teaches them to read the Torah as a parable. It is a completely new thing that the mystical tradition, surrounded by the mishna, with so much trepidation, is openly and centrally offered here to help young people face the confusion generated by Aristotelian philosophy and its influence on Jewish beliefs. The similarity between Al-Ghazali and Maimonides is that both theologians were very well schooled in Aristotelian philosophy; that both of them were confronted with the crisis triggered by the rise of rationalism in their respective communities of faith; and that both advanced the mystical tradition as a counterweight to the rationalization of their religious tradition by philosophers and theologians. We observe the same pattern in the Christian community of faith. Here too the mystical perspective was marshaled to counter the advancing rationalization of scholasticism. In the works of medieval authors, accordingly, mysticism and scholasticism are opposites.30 The mystical perspective is an attempt to mediate theologically between reason (ratio) which declares that God is unknowable and the belief that God makes himself known. “Confronted with this impasse the theologians find in the Mystical Theology of the Areopagite (where God is always ‘beyond being’ and ‘beyond knowledge’ in the denial of all knowledge) the key to an answer that satisfies both philosophy and faith.”31 In his Mystical Theology Dionysius the Areopagite (the pseudonym for a Syrian Christian with a strong Neoplatonic cast of mind) guides his pupil Timothy into the cloud of unknowing, the absence of knowledge (agnosis) beyond both the knowable and the unknowable, on a level beyond the speakable (apophasis), the

28

Ibid., Part I, Introduction 3b (p. 6). Ibid., Part I, chapter 34, 40b (p. 77). 30 A. Adnès, Mystique. II.A. Théories de la mystique chrétienne; du 16e au 20e siècles, in: DSp 10 (1979), 1926. 31 A. Deblaere, Mystique. II.A. Théories de la mystique chrétienne; jusqu à la fin du 15e siècle, in: ibid., 1905. 29

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darkness where God who is beyond everything (panta epekeina) dwells in blinding light. The soul must be freed from all familiar cognitive patterns (ekstasis) to become one with the light.32 Mystical Theology was especially popular in the urban universities springing up in the 12th century. It furnished basic terms for a specific genre of introductions to spirituality mystical theology.33 Along the lines of Dionysius the Areopagite, Albert the Great for example viewed the whole of theology from the standpoint of union with God in the ecstasy of perfect knowledge.34 To him theology and mysticism were intrinsically connected.35 When in the beginning of the 13th century Thomas Gallus (d. 1246) joined the Victorines in Paris, a mystical reaction had just erupted there against “the Aristotelian mindset” and “frivolous scholasticism.” In this context he wrote his Extractio and Explanatio on Dionysius’s Theologia mystica.36 We observe this Dionysian manner of theologizing in the works of many spiritual theologians.37 An important spiritual theologian who thought in terms of the Dionysian framework is Bonaventure. In his influential De triplici via he fell back on Pseudo-Dionysius.38 For his basis he chose the “threefold hierarchical action of purgation, illumination, and perfective union.”39 In his Celestial Hierarchy Pseudo-Dionysius had described it as the threefold outpouring of God’s beatitude which as it were offers a ladder by which the God-seeking person can return to God: “As soon as the soul has mastered these three, it becomes blessed.”40 The idea is that human beings begin to participate in God’s purity, light, and perfection. Bonaventure offers a model in which this triad is practiced in three ways: “Now you must know that one can practice this threefold way in three ways: by reading and meditating, by praying, and by contemplation.”41 The Dionysian way of purgation, illumination, and perfective union was very widely received in mystical theologies. It proved to be so powerful that it absorbed the other triad (beginners, advanced, perfect). This produces a remarkable duplication: the way of purification for beginners, the way of illumination for the advanced, and the way of union for the perfect. This duplication “rather 32 33

For a more extensive discussion, see part 3, section 3.2.4. See P. Chevallier et al., Denys l’Aréopagite. V. Influence en Occident, in: DSp 3 (1957), 318-

429. 34

J. Turbessi, Denys l’Aréopagite. V.B. 13e siècle, ibid., 348-349. See the prologue to his Summa Theologiae. 36 For the special place of Thomas Gallus in the Dionysian circle, see B. McGinn, Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism, in: Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998), 81-96. 37 See P. Philippe, Contemplation. VI. 13e siècle, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1979-1981. 38 For an extended discussion of this treatise, see part 3, section 3.2.2. 39 Bonaventura, De triplici via. Über den dreifachen Weg, prologus (Ed. M. Schlosser), Freiburg i.B. etc. 1993, 95. 40 Bonaventura, De triplici via, prologus. 41 Ibid. 35

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soon became the common property and the basic outline of the treatises on spirituality.”42 The subjects were selected and arranged in accordance with this outline: prayer, penance, self-control, mortification, affliction, purgation, the practice of virtue, the eucharist, contemplation, mystical phenomena, theological virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, holiness, mystical stages, spiritual direction, and the discernment of spirits. This genre of mystical theologies persisted right into the 17th century43 in close conjunction with the academic chairs that were established in mystical theology.44 A classic example is the Summa theologiae mysticae of the French Carmelite Philippe de la Trinité. After a long introduction, in which the author deals with the nature of mystical theology, come three parts: about the way of purgation peculiar to beginners; the way of illumination peculiar to the advanced; and the way of union peculiar to the perfect. Within this double-layered tripartite division the subjects of the spiritual life are then treated consecutively: in part I mental prayer, the doing of penance for sins, and mortification, trials, and purifications; in part II contemplation in its many facets, the practice of virtue, infused contemplation, and mystical phenomena; in part III the higher forms of prayer, the theological virtues, and the heroic practice of virtue, spiritual marriage, and the Eucharist. Hence the name “mystical theology,” which after Thomas Gallus adorned the introductions to spirituality,45 must not deceive us. In these mystical theologies we are dealing not with a certain part of spirituality (mysticism), but with a complete spiritual program in which the term “mystical” is applied to every stage of the spiritual journey.46 “Technically speaking, the term ‘mystical theology’ begins to denote the specific doctrinal and scientific study of the way which conducts the soul to union with God in contemplation through the various stages of the spiritual life understood as a preparation for this union.”47 The “newness” of these mystical theologies therefore does not consist in the material treated (the material object) but in the perspective from which the entire field of spirituality is approached (the formal object).

42

P. Pourrat, Commençants, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1146. See for example Thomas a Vallgornera, Mystica theologia divi Thomae (1662); Antonius a Spiritu Sancto, Directorium mysticum (1677); C. Morotius, Cursus vitae spiritualis (1674); M. Godinez, Practica de la theologia mistica (1682). 44 P. Adnès, Mystique. II.B. Théories de la mystique chrétienne; du 16e au 20e siècles, in: DSp 10 (1979), 1927-1928. 45 M. Dupuy, Spiritualité. II. La notion de spiritualité, in: DSp 14 (1990), 1165. 46 P. Adnès, ibid., 1928. 47 Ibid., 1926. 43

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Conclusion. Spirituality is viewed as a cognitive process which is marked by three transitions: (1) purgation which turns the soul around within the stream of the emanations in order, via these emanations, to attain to him who is beyond all these things; (2) the illumination which detaches itself from all cognitive structures (knowing and being known) in order to participate in the absolute darkness of the absence of knowledge; (3) the union which detaches us from ourselves so that we may belong totally to him who is beyond everything.48 What emerges sharply in these mystical theologies is the processive character, the cognitive aspect, and the rigorously phased nature of spirituality. BIBLIOGRAPHY ANTONIUS A SPIRITU SANCTO, Directorium mysticum in quo tres difficillimae viae (…) illustrantur, 1677. ARINTERO, J., Evolución mística, Salamanca 1930. AUGUSTIN DE SAINT-ILDEPHONSE, Theologia mystica, Alcala 1644. BONAVENTURA, De triplici via, ± 1260. BRÉTON, J. Mística teología y doctrina de la perfección evangélica, Madrid 1614. CALDEIRA, F., Mística teología y discreción de espíritus, Madrid 1623. CONSTANTIN DE BARBANSON, Secrets sentiers de l’amour divin, 1622. DEVINE, A., A Manual of Mystical Theology, London 1903. Dictionnaire de mystique chrétienne ou essai d’encyclopédisation historique et méthodique de tous les phénomènes merveilleux, Paris 1858. DIONYSIUS THE CARTHUSIAN, De contemplatione, ± 1450. FIOCCHI, A., Praelectiones theologicae mysticae, Roma 1934. GABRIELE DI S.M. MADDALENA, Le ricchezze della grazia, Terni 1953. GELEN, V., Summa practica theologiae mysticae, Köln 1646. GERSON, J. DE, De mystica theologia, ± 1400. GERSON, J. DE, Theologia mystica speculativa et practica, ± 1400. GODINEZ, M., Práctica de la teología mística, 1682. GORRINO, A., La vita interiore. Dottrina, fatti, consigli, Torino 1936. GUADALUPE, A. DE, Mystica theologia supernaturalis infusa, Madrid 1665. HERP, H., Theologia mystica, 1538. HUGO VAN BALMA, Theologia mystica (between 1250 and 1290). JOHANNES A JESU MARIA, Theologia mystica, 1607. JOSEPH A SPIRITU SANCTO LUSITANUS, Enucleatio mysticae S. Dionysii Areopagitae, Köln 1684. JOSEPH DU SAINT-ESPRIT, Cursus theologia mysticae-scholasticae, Sevilla 1710-1740. KRONSEDER, F., Das Leben in Gott. Einführung ins geistliche Leben, Regensburg 1935. LAMBALLE, E., Mystical Contemplation, or, The Principles of Mystical Theology, London 1913. LEJEUNE, P., Introduction à la vie mystique, Paris 1899. 48

For a more extensive discussion, see part 3, section 3.2.4.

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LEJEUNE, P., Manuel de théologie mystique, Paris 1897. MCINTOSH, M., Mystical Theology. The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology, Chicago 1997. MAES, B., Mystieke Theologie ofte verborghen Godgeleerdheid, Gent etc. 1921. MAXIMILIANUS A BERNEZAY, Traité de la vie intérieure, 1687. MENDEZ DE SAN JUAN, J., Praxis theologiae mysticae, Madrid 1673. MICHAEL A S. AUGUSTINO, Institutiones mysticae, Anvers 1671. NAVARRO, G., Teología mística, Madrid 1641-1651. PHILIPPUS A SS. TRINITATE, Summa theologiae mysticae in qua demonstratur via montis perfectionis, 1656. PIZAÑO DE LÉON, F., Compendium totius mysticae theologiae, Madrid 1649. POULAIN, A., Des grâces d’oraison. Traité de théologie mystique, Paris 1901. REGUERA, M. DE LA, Praxis theologiae mysticae, Rome 1740-1745. ROCABERTI, J. DE, Theología mystica, Barcelona 1669. SAUDREAU, A., La vie d’union à Dieu et les moyens d’y arriver d’après les grands maîtres de la spiritualité, Paris-Angers 1909. SCHRAM, D., Institutiones theologiae mysticae ad usum directorum animarum, 1774. STOLZ, A., Teologia della mistica, Brescia 1940. THOMAS A JESU, De contemplatione divina, Anvers 1620. THOMAS GALLUS, Explanatio, 1242. TRUHLAR, K., L’esperienza mistica. Saggio di teologia spirituale, Rome 1984. VALLGORNERA, T. DE, Mystica theologia divi Thomae, utriusque theologiae scholasticae et mysticae principis, Barcelona 1662. VIVES Y TUTO, J., Compendium theologiae ascetico-mysticae seu theologiae mysticae fundamentalis et specialis, Ratisbonae-Neo-Eboraci 1907. ZAHN, J., Einführung in die christliche Mystik, Paderborn 1908.

2.1.3. ASCETIC THEOLOGIES The name theologia ascetica surfaces for the first time in the 17th century.49 Schorrer defines the new view of spirituality expressed in this name as follows: “It is the science which studies action in accordance with its ultimate goal; the corresponding virtue in the will is generally a disposition (habitus) or a steadfast and persistent will to act in keeping with its goal.”50 In this definition the ascetic profile comes through clearly, goal-oriented action is central and sustained by a steadfast will. In this will-centered and goal-oriented action the order of the means becomes important. Not surprisingly we see this happening in the treatises. In one of the first ascetically-oriented introductions (De natura et statibus perfectionis, 1629, of 49 P. Adnès, Mystique, in: DSp 10 (1979), 1933; see also J. de Guibert, Ascétique, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1010-1011. 50 C. Schorrer, Theologia ascetica sive Doctrina spiritualis, Rome 1658, 3.

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Le Gaudier) the “means”-character comes powerfully to the fore. The treatise opens with an essay “on perfection” (part I). Then (part II) follows the familiar picture of the spiritual life which unfolds in keeping with the three stages of perfection. Up until this point this textbook still completely conforms to the tradition of the perfection manuals. But then follow parts III-V. These parts number the most pages and are completely devoted to the treatment of the ascetic means (1156 out of the 1562 pages).51 The order of the means comes even more sharply to the fore in the Direttorio ascetico of Scaramelli (1753), which is considered a classic example of the ascetic genre. In his four-part work the spiritual life is completely conceived as the way to the goal of perfection which all Christians have in common.52 The orientation to this goal determines the structure of the Direttorio: successively treated are the means which help people to reach the goal (part I), the obstacle which stand in the way and must be overcome (part II), the moral virtues which embody perfection (part III), and the divine virtues which constitute the essence of perfection (part IV).53 Within this framework Scaramelli arranges the great themes of the spiritual life: spiritual direction, the reading of Scripture, meditation, prayer, the examination of conscience, the eucharist, devotion to the saints, the control of one’s drives, the practice of virtue, and the divine virtues. Mysticism is here regarded as “the extraordinary.”54 By defining the specific character of spirituality in terms of the goal, the means, action, the will and the cultivation of virtue, the author drives mysticism – which is characterized by deregulation, grace, relinquishment, and passivity – into the margins. The ascetic genre was to be dominant throughout the 18th and 19th century55 and continued into the 20th.56 Sometimes authors attempt to integrate mysticism into this pattern, be it conditionally, which even more clearly brings out the ascetic focus: “Ascetic theology; as the science of Christian perfection, occupies itself with mystical phenomena only insofar as they relate to perfection and the pursuit of it.”57

51

The reference here is to the edition A. Micheletti, De perfectione vitae spiritualis, Turin 1934. J. Scaramelli, Direttorio ascetico (1753) I, 19. 53 See ibid., I, 52. 54 Ibid., I, 17. 55 See for example K. Kazenberger, Scientia salutis (1727); M. Ribet, L’ascétique chrétienne (1887). 56 F. Mutz, Christliche Aszetik, Paderborn 1907; O. Zimmermann, Lehrbuch der Aszetik, Freiburg i.B. 1929; L. von Hertling, Lehrbuch der aszetischen Theologie, Innsbruck 1930; P. Parente, The ascetical life, London 1946; A. Lanz, Lineamenti di ascetica e mistica, Milano 1953; C. Feckes, Die Lehre vom christlichen Vollkommenheitsstreben, Freiburg 1953. 57 L. von Hertling, ibid., 273; compare F. Murawski, Die aszetische Theologie. Ein systematischer Grundriss, München-Kösel 1928, 21ff. 52

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The ascetic perspective comes unambiguously to the fore when we compare Le Gaudier and Scaramelli. In Le Gaudier the goal (perfection), the way of the spiritual life (according to the three phases) and the means (more than 70% of the material) are still kept apart and related to each other. In Scaramelli everything is telescoped: the whole way of the spiritual life (according to the three phases) belongs to the order of the means (100% of the material). Here the final implications of the ascetic perspective stand out in sharp relief: the “goal-means” relation begins to control the spiritual life in its entirety. Scripture reading and liturgy, meditation, silence and prayer, the practice of virtue, doing penance, mortification and the examination of conscience, sacraments and devotions, self-control and spiritual direction, the states of life and evangelical counsels, the love of neighbor, apostolate and retreat – they are all means employed in the service of energetic goal-directed action. Conclusion. The ascetic perspective is focused on action which, sustained by a steadfast will and directed toward the ultimate goal, employs the necessary means. By comparison with the mystical perspective we note the following shifts: (1) the human pole is central whereas the mystical perspective places the One who is beyond everything in the foreground; (2) the spiritual process is not primarily cognitive (speculative) but volitive and practical; (3) dominant is the order of the means: the spiritual forms which direct and focus the will and shape the action. BIBLIOGRAPHY AUMANN, J., Spiritual Theology, Huntington-London 1980. DENDERWINDEKE, A. DE, Compendium theologiae asceticae, Hong Kong 1921. DEVINE, A., A Manual of Ascetical Theology, London 1902. DOBROSIELSKI, C., Summarium asceticae et mysticae theologiae ad mentem D. Bonaventurae, Cracovie (Krakow) 1655. HENGSTENBERG, H., Christliche Askese. Eine Besinnung auf christliche Existenz im modernen Lebensraum, Regensburg 1936. HERTLING, L., Lehrbuch der aszetischen Theologie, Inssbruck 1930. HERTLING, L., Theologiae asceticae cursus brevior, Rome 1939. JAROSZEWICZ, F., Principia theologiae asceticae ad usum et capta tirocinii religiosi, Lwow 1752. LE GAUDIER, A., De natura et statibus perfectionis, Paris 1643. MILES, M., Fullness of Life. Historical Foundations for a New Asceticism, Philadelphia 1981. MURAWSKI, F., Die aszetische Theologie. Ein systematischer Grundriss, München-Kosel 1928. MUTZ, F., Christliche Aszetik, Paderborn 1923. NEUMAYR, F., Idea theologiae asceticae scientiam sanctorum (…) exhibens, Augsburg 1781. NIEREMBERG, J.,Doctrinae asceticae sive Spiritualium institutionum pandectae iuxta religiosa instituta, maxime mendicantium, et constitutiones Societatis Jesu, Lugduni 1643. NIGRONIUS, Tractatus ascetici, 1624.

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PARENTE, P., The Ascetical Life, St. Louis (MO)-London 1946. PICCIOLI, G., Manuale di teologia ascetica, Torino 1932. RIBET, J., L’ascétique chrétienne, Paris 1913. ROLDÁN, A., Introducción a la ascética diferencial, Madrid 1960. ROSENBERG, E., Christliche Askese, Regensburg 1939. ROUËT DE JOURNEL, M. & DUTILLEUL, J., Enchiridion asceticum. Loci ss. patrum et scriptorum ecclesiasticorum ad ascesim spectantes, Barcinone etc. 1965. ROUSSET, M., Directorium asceticum in quo de viri spiritualis eruditione tutissima sanctorum patrum documenta traduntur, Friburgi Brisgoviae 1893. SCARAMELLI, G., Direttorio ascetico, Venezia 1753. SCHMIDT, H., Organische Aszese. Ein zeitgemässer psychologisch-orientierter Weg zur religiösen Lebensgestaltung, Zürich-Altstetten 1939. SCHORRER, C., Theologia ascetica sive doctrina spiritualis universa, Rome 1658. STOLZ, A., L’ascesi cristiana, Brescia 1943. THILS, G., Sainteté chrétienne. Précis de théologie ascétique, Tilet (Belgique) 1958. ZIMMERMANN, O., Lehrbuch der Aszetik, Freiburg 1929.

2.1.4. SPIRITUAL THEOLOGIES As spirituality was equated with a number of means executed by the will and designed to influence the level of conduct, arbitrariness and inconsistency took possession of it. Spirituality became estranged from its sources. This inner disintegration prompted the need for an internally coherent view of spirituality. Such a view was sought in two directions: the direction of a dogmatic theology and the direction of an historical synthesis. 1. Theological reorientation. Toward the end of the 19th century we for the first time see, prefacing a treatise on the spiritual life, a separate section dealing with the theological principles of the spiritual life. Meynard, for example opens his Traité de la vie intérieure58 with an essay on the principles of the spiritual life. Asceticism and mysticism are then developed as the flowering of these theological principles which terminate under the influence of divine grace. In these treatises the principles are designated in various ways: revelation, sanctifying grace, the supernatural life, the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, participation in the divine life, the Trinity, the life of grace in Jesus Christ, the spiritual organism, and so forth. As the antecedent divine givens, these principles permeate all the spiritual themes which follow.59 58 A. Meynard, Traité de la vie intérieure ou petite somme de la théologie ascétique et mystique, Clermont-Ferrand 1884. 59 See J. Arintero, Evolución mistica (1908), Salamanca 1930; C. de Smedt, Notre vie surnaturelle. Son principe, ses facultés, les conditions de sa pleine activité (1910-1911), Brussels 1912-1913; F. Naval, Curso de teologia ascética y mistica (1914), Madrid 1955; A. Farges, Les voies ordinaires

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A classic example is the introduction of Tanquerey, for a long time the main textbook on ascetic and mystical theology.60 The book consists of two parts, which immediately illustrate the shift that has taken place. The first part deals with the principles, preceded by a historical survey of the schools of spirituality. The second part discusses the three ways: the way of purgation for the beginners, the way of illumination for the advanced, and the way of union for the perfected. In that framework all the familiar spiritual themes are treated: prayer, penance, mortification, the cultivation of virtue, and so forth, up to and including mysticism. Under the heading of the principles the familiar issues surrounding perfection are treated: its nature, necessity, and means. Preceding this section we find a brief dogmatics in which the sources of the supernatural life and the nature of the Christian life are discussed (almost 200 pages). The tenor is clear: “This treatise then is first of all doctrinal in character and aims at bringing out the fact that Christian perfection is the logical outcome of dogma, especially of the central dogma of the Incarnation.”61 For almost a century this dogmatic-theological approach was to control the introductions. In 1980 Aumann, quoting Gilson, stated: Spirituality “will proceed dogmatically, starting from the word of God, of which the Church is the custodian and interpreter…. Based as it is on the authority of the word of God, the theology of the spiritual life itself proceeds by the way of authority… It states dogmatically the laws which every authentic spiritual life ought to obey, because these laws are deduced from its origin and its end.”62 Sagne, in 1992, starts his treatise with the presence of the Risen One, following which he treats baptism and the spiritual motherhood of Mary (part 1). Life in Christ is followed by life in the Spirit (part 2). The treatise ends with life as a child of God (part 3).63 A final example dates from 1998: according to Sicari, the task of spirituality is “to give expression to the whole of dogmatics as in a mirror,” for it is, “as it were, its soul, its lifeblood.”64 2. The historical syntheses. Completely along the lines of the 19th century, the history of spirituality was construed in such a way that it acquired a normative and directorial character. That is the reason why Tanquerey prefaces his de la vie spirituelle, Paris 1925; Chrysogono a Jesu Sacramentato, Asceticae et mysticae Summa, Rome 1935; R. Garrigou-Lagrange, Les trois âges de la vie intérieure. Traité de théologie ascétique et mystique, Paris 1938; F. Tonnard, Traité de la vie spirituelle, Paris 1959; A. Dagnino, La vita interiore secundo la Rivelazione, studiata della theologia e insegnata della chiesa, Milano 1963. 60 A. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, a Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology, Tournai et al. 1930. 61 Ibid., Author’s preface, v-vi. 62 J. Aumann, Spiritual Theology, Huntington-London 1980, 20. 63 J. Sagne, Traité de théologie spirituelle, Paris 1992. 64 A. Sicari, Das geistliche Leben des Christens, Paderborn 1998, 57.

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introduction with a historical overview in which he treats “the schools of spirituality.” In fact, what he is presenting is a dogmatically streamlined synthesis. In a comparable way several introductions offer an overview of the history of spirituality. An example is The Study of Spirituality.65 After an introductory chapter entitled “The Theology of Spirituality,” in which divergent themes like liturgy, devotion, mysticism and prayer are treated (1-44), comes the real “introduction”: a historic overview from its biblical roots up until the present (45-490), a brief look at non-Christian spiritualities and contemporary currents (491-562), and a few applications of a pastoral nature (563-591). The frame of reference is the history of Christian spirituality. Conclusion. The dogmatically-oriented introductions study the phenomenon of spirituality in light of a conceptual viewpoint: they look for a theological principle which structures (deduction) and raises opposites into a higher synthesis (asceticism-mysticism; goal-means; God-man). Spirituality is viewed as the appropriation of a certain sphere of ideas and values. BIBLIOGRAPHY ADLER, F., The Essentials of Spirituality, New York 1905. AGUILÓ LÓPEZ DE TURISO, H., Teologia ascético-mistica, Barcelona 1903. ALBINO DEL BAMBINO GESÙ, Ascetica e mistica, Padova 1954. ALBINO DEL BAMBINO GESÙ, Compendio di teologia spirituale, Torino 1966. ARRESE, M., Suma de la vida espiritual. Ascética y mistica, Salamanca 1982. ARZUBIALDE, S., Theologia spiritualis. El camino espiritual del seguimiento de Jesús, Madrid 1991. BALTHASAR, H. VON, Spiritus Creator, Einsiedeln 1967. BALTHASAR, H. VON, Verbum caro, Einsiedeln 1960. BENIGAR, A., Compendio di teologia spirituale, Rome 1959. BERNARD, C., Teologia spirituale, Rome 1983. BERNARD, C., Traité de théologie spirituelle, Paris 1986. BONA, G., Corso di vita spirituale, Rome 1943. BOUYER, L., Introduction à la vie spirituelle. Précis de théologie ascétique et mystique, Paris 1960. CRISÓGONO DE JESÚS SACRAMENTADO, Compendio de ascética y mistica, Avila 1933. COGNET, L., Introduction aux problèmes de la spiritualité, Paris 1962-1963. CONGAR, Y., Les voies du Dieu vivant. Théologie et vie spirituelle, Paris 1962. DAGNINO, A., La vita cristiana, Rome 1978. DAGNINO, A., La vita interiore secundo la Rivelazione, studiata dalla Teologia e insegnata dalla Chiesa, Milano 1960. 65

The Study of Spirituality, (Ed. C. Jones, G. Wainwright et al.), Cambridge 1986.

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DARRICAU, R. & PEYROUS, B., La spiritualité, Paris 1988. SMEDT, K. DE, Notre vie surnaturelle. Son principe, ses facultés, les conditions de sa pleine activité, Brussels 1910. FARGES, A., Les voies ordinaires de la vie spirituelle, Paris 1925. FERLAY, P., Abrégé de la vie spirituelle, Paris 1988. GAETANO DA CASTELLAMARE, Interpretazioni di vita spirituale, Milano 1938. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE R., Principes de spiritualité, Juvisy 1933. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE R., Les trois âges de la vie intérieure. Traité de théologie ascétique et mystique, Paris 1938. GOODIER, A., An Introduction to the Study of Ascetical and Mystical Theology, London 1938. GOZZELINO, G., Al cospetti di Dio. Elementi di teologia della vita spirituale, Torino 1989. GUERRA, S., Espiritualidad fundamental, Madrid 1983. GUIBERT, J. DE, Theologia spiritualis ascetica et mystica, Rome 1926. HERTLING, L., Das geistliche Leben, Wien 1933. JIMINEZ DUQUE, B., Temas de teologia espiritual, Avila 1986. LEECH, K., True God. An Exploration in Spiritual Theology, London 1985. MALET, A., La vie surnaturelle, ses éléments, son exercice, Mulhouse 1933. MASSON, Y., Vie chrétienne et vie sirituelle. Introduction à l’étude de la théologie ascétique et mystique, Paris 1929. MESCHLER, M., Aszese und Mystik, Freiburg 1922. MESCHLER, M., Drei Grundlehren des geistlichen Lebens, Freiburg 1909. MEYNARD, A., Traité de la vie intérieure. Petite somme de théologie ascétique et mystique d’après l’esprit et les principes de saint Thomas d’Aquin, Clermont-Ferrand 1885. MURA, E., Le corps mystique du Christ. Sa nature et sa vie divine. Synthèse de thélogie dogmatique, ascétique et mystique, Paris 1936-1937. NAVAL, F., Theologiae asceticae et mysticae cursus ad usum seminariorum, institutorum religiosorum clericorum necnon moderatorum animarum, Rome 1919. NAVAL, F., Curso de teologiá ascética y mistica, Madrid 1955. NEYEN, F., Une méthode de vie spirituelle, Avignon 1928. PANI, S., I principi fondamentali della spiritualità, Rome 1954. PETITOT, H., La doctrine ascétique et mystique intégrale, Paris 1930. REISER, W., Drawn to the Divine. A Spirituality of Revelation, Notre Dame (IN) 1987. SAGNE, J., Traité de théologie spirituelle. Le secret du cœur, Paris 1992. SCHAEFFER, F., True Spirituality, Wheaton (IL) 1970. SCHRIJVERS, J., Les principes de la vie spirituelle, Brussels 1912. SERTILLANGES, A., Spiritualité, Paris 1938. SICARI, A., Das geistliche Leben des Christen, Paderborn 1998. SIMPLEX, F., Theologia spiritualis fundamentalis, Oliva 1867. Spiritualiteit, (Ed. W. van ‘t Spijker et al.), Kampen 1993. The Study of Spirituality, (Ed. C. Jones et al.), London 1986. TANQUEREY, A., Abrégé de théologie ascétique et mystique, Paris 1927. TANQUEREY, A., The Spiritual Life. A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology, Tournai-Paris-Rome-New York 1930. VALLE RODRIGUEZ, F. DEL, La vida interior, Madrid 1991. VANDENKOORNUYSE, F., Tractatus de vita spirituali, Paris 1933.

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Verità di Cristo, verità dell’uomo. Corso di spiritualità, (Ed. Studio Teologica S. Bernardino), Vicenza 1983. WEISMAYER, J., Leben in Fülle. Zur Geschichte und Theologie christlicher Spiritualität, Innsbruck-Wien 1983. ZIGROSSI, A., La perfezione cristiana. Saggio sui fondamenti teologici della vita spirituale, Brescia 1968.

2.1.5. THE

PERSPECTIVE OF EXPERIENCE

Beginning in the 1960s as a reaction to the dogmatic-historical perspective of deduction, we witness a shift in the direction of experience (induction). This shift was first articulated by Truhlar. Up until ten years ago spiritual theology was still the discipline which, based on the revelation of Christ and using the research methods offered by theology, reflected on the question of how the church could deepen the inner life of Christians. Since then people began increasingly to view, as the essential and central factor of such deepening, a unique aspect: the human and Christian element of their own existence, the growing discovery and development of self-consciousness as the ground of one’s own being, the experience of the absoluteness of God, of Christ, in the interior center of this being.66 From this standpoint Truhlar came to the following description of spirituality: “Initiation into the experience of faith.”67 By the experience of faith Truhler meant a specific form of the experience – common to all human beings – of one’s own being and of the Absolute. “Therefore, ‘spiritual theology’ in our day implies broad access to the awakening and development of this common substratum of experience.”68 To Truhlar spiritual theology is initiation into human life on the level of experience: “an observation by which the mind, or better, man in his totality, gains contact with a content (himself, the Absolute), not via concepts but via an immediate ‘impression’ of the presence of his own being, of the Absolute, and via his reaction as the answer of a person who takes in this impression.’”69 Then from within the context of this initiation into life-on-the-level-of experience the themes of the spiritual life are arranged: “Only against the background of experience and inside of that experience the spiritual themes: prayer, work, leisure, are then treated in mystagogy.”70 Truhlar offers a systematic treatment of this insight in his Concetti fondamentali della teologia spirituale. The first 66

C. Truhlar, Concetti fondamentali della teologia spirituale, Brescia 1971, 19-20. Ibid., 8. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid., 19-20. 70 Ibid. 67

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part entitled “La vita esperienzialo” in 25 chapters treats life on the level of experience: the desire for it on the part of contemporary man; the role of spirituality as initiation into this life of experience; the method, nature, and basis of life on the level of experience; the socio-cultural embeddedness of it; the somatic aspects; the maturation and testing of this experience. In the second part the author treats spiritual themes which, on the basis of such an experiential starting point, call for treatment: the church and the world, Scripture and liturgy, grace and the cultivation of virtue, the reassessment of ancient means and the discovery of new ones, work and leisure, culture and everyday life. Truhlar bases his views on insights derived form Karl Rahner,71 one of whose pronouncement has become proverbial: “the devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic,’ one who has ‘experienced’ something, or he will cease to be anything at all.”72 In the thought of Karl Rahner experience is the fundamental category of the study of spirituality.73 In this way of thinking, certainly, Truhlar and Rahner do not stand alone74 Friedrich Wulf, editor-in-chief of Geist und Leben, wrote in 1969: “The spirituality of present-day Christians is formed to a high degree from the bottom up by the experiences which they incur in their contacts with the modern world, their fellow human beings, and themselves.”75 In virtually all the newer introductions the notion of “experience” functions as a basic category. Within the field of experience we discern two distinct poles: the psycho-existential and the socio-cultural. 1. Psycho-existential experience. As early as 1960, Bouyer wanted to set straight certain “mistaken notions in present-day spirituality” among which, as the primary and most serious error, he singled out “the temptation, so strongly felt in our age, to reduce the spiritual life to certain states of consciousness,” which he labeled “psychologism.”76 His “correction” proved futile. From the 1960s on, the psychological and existential aspects, which had been accepted in principle in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité,77 had already come clearly into the light of day 71

K. Rahner, Christian Living Formerly and Today, in: Theological Investigations Vol. III, Baltimore-London 1967, 3-24. 72 K. Rahner, Christian Living Formerly and Today, 15. 73 E. Wolz-Gottwald, Theologie zur spirituelle Erfahrung, in: Theologie der Gegenwart 35 (1992), 280-293. 74 They had already been preceded by J. Mouroux, The Christian Experience, New York 1952. 75 F. Wulf, Merkmale christlicher Spiritualität, in: Geist und Leben 42 (1969), 352. For an account of the changes in thought which occurred during these years in Wulf and others, see: L. Schulte, Aufbruch aus der Mitte. Zur Erneuerung der Theologie christlicher Spiritualität im 20. Jahrhundert – im Spiegel von Wirken und Werk Friedrich Wulfs S.J. (1908-1990), Würzburg 1998. 76 L. Bouyer, Introduction to Spirituality, New York etc. 1961, 17. 77 Aside from the theory and history of spirituality, experimental psychology, pathology, and therapeutic psychology also were to gain a voice. See in Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique 10 (1929).

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in personal initiatives78 and had conquered a modest place in the Bibliographia internationalis spiritualis,79 became constitutive for the study of spirituality. 2. Socio-cultural experience. The socio-cultural dimension first announced its presence in periodicals and journals.80 Geist und Leben promised to discuss questions which “arise from the multiform religious concerns of our days.”81 The Way seeks to reflect on current problems from the perspective of spirituality. Vie Spirituelle’s orientation is the critical assessment of industrialized society and its rationalization and criticizes the failure of the church in this crisis. Speling defines its purpose as reflection on fundamental contemporary events and currents, while searching for liberating elements at work in the world.82 The socio-cultural dimension of experience has been sharply described by Michel de Certeau. What he had already shown83 in his historical studies from the perspective of the attitudinal history of the Annales,84 he then developed into a coherent perspective in his article “Culture and Spiritual Experience” of 1966: “The essential element in any spiritual experience is not some ‘otherness’ quite outside the language of the time. This very language is what the spiritual man takes seriously; it is in this very cultural situation that his yearnings and his predicament ‘take flesh’; it is through this medium that he finds God, yet ever seeks him, that he expresses his faith, that he carries on simultaneous experiments in colloquy with God and with his actual brothers.”85 The socio-cultural language is itself the language of spiritual experience; the socio-cultural context is itself “the element from which the experience takes its form and its expression.”86

78 J. Maréchal wrote his Études sur la psychologie des mystiques (Paris 1924 and 1937). Gabriel de St. Maria Magdalena de Pazzi pointed out the psychological aspects in the works of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. See École thérésienne et problèmes mystiques contemporaines, Brussels 1936; and: Indole psicologica della teologica spirituale, in: Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 32 (1940), 31-42. Beginning in 1935, Père Bruno assembled in Études Carmelitaines and at the annual Congress at Avon, “the most eminent psychologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists” around diverse topics in spirituality (L. Beirnaert, Expérience chrétienne et psychologie, Paris 1964, 41). See also C. Truhlar, Structura theologica vitae spiritualis, Rome 1961, 213. 79 See BIS, section VIII. Disciplinae Adnexae, no. 4: Psychologia. 80 See at greater length part 3, section 3.3.2. 81 F. Wulf on the occasion of the name change in 1947. 82 Editorial foreword on the occasion of the name change in 1969: Speling 21 (1969) no. 1, 4. 83 For an introduction to this topic, see M. Vovelle, Ideologies and mentalities, (transl. E. O’Flaherty), Cambridge 1990. 84 See esp. Le guide spirituel de J.-J. Surin (1963); La correspondance de J.-J. Surin (1966); L’étranger ou l’union dans la différence (1969); La possession de Loudun (1970); L’absent de l’histoire (1973); L’écriture de l’histoire (1978); La fable mystique XVI-XVIIe siècle (1982). 85 M. de Certeau, Cultural and Spiritual Experience, in: Spitituality in the Secular City, New York 1966, 9 (Concilium, 1966, vol. 19). 86 Ibid., 10.

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This perspective of the socio-cultural experience has been systematically developed by the spirituality of liberation.87 Thus Casaldaliga and Virgil’s “handbook”88 describes spirituality as the motivation which most deeply drives people forward; every human being is propelled by the utopia which he or she favors.89 This passion is not reserved for an elite or a religion; it is universal human characteristic, the basis of an ethical-political spirituality, and comes to expression in a praxis of liberation (part 1). On this basis Christians develop a religious-evangelical-ecclesiastical spirituality (part 2). Part 1 deals with the virtues: a passion for reality; ethical indignation (arising from the deepest roots of a person); joy and festival; hospitality and openness; an option for the people; purposive action in contemplation; solidarity; radical faithfulness. Part 2 focuses on the Christian tradition: the historical Jesus, the Christian God, the Trinity, a focus on the reign of God; incarnation; following Jesus; contemplatives in liberation; prayer life; prophecy; putting love into practice; the option for the poor; martyrdom; penance and liberation; macro-ecumenism; political holiness; a new way of being church; everyday faithfulness; the Easter hope. Conclusion. The perspective of experience casts a new light on the area of spirituality.90 (1) The notion of “experience” affords us a “broad entry” (Truhlar) into the area of spirituality: the experience of becoming persons, the experience of one’s own being,91 religious experience, the experience of transcendence, the experience of faith,92 one’s socio-cultural experience.93 Everything falls under the heading of spirituality: “Spirituality (…) must now touch every area of human experience, the public and social, the painful, negative, even pathological byways of the mind, the moral and relational world.”94 (2) The category of “experience” offers the possibility of bringing up for discussion the different levels of the spiritual process: awakening, depth, peak-experiences, ecstatic experience, esthetic 87 See, e.g., P. Casadáliga & J. Vigil, Political Holiness. A Spirituality of Liberation, Maryknoll (NY), 1994; G. Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells. The Spiritual Journey of a People, New York 1985; J. Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation. Toward political Holiness, New York 1988; E. Bonnin, Spiritualität und Befreiung in Latein Amerika, Würzburg 1984. 88 P. Casaldaliga & J. Vigil, Political Holiness, Maryknoll (NY) 1994, xiii, xx and 14. 89 Ibid., 1-14. 90 For a discussion of the notion of “experience” as a basic concept in spirituality, see Teologia spirituale. Temi e problemi, (Ed. M. Gioia), Rome 1991, 185-281. 91 C. Truhlar, Concetti fondamentali della teologia spirituale, Bresica 1971, 19-20. 92 For example, see O. Steggink, Het traditionele jargon is gaan schuiven, in: Speling 38 (1986) no. 1, 32-42. 93 M. de Certeau, Cultural and Spiritual Experience, in: Spitituality in the Secular City, New York 1966, 8-10 (Concilium, 1966, vol. 19). 94 R. Williams, Christian Spirituality. A Theological History from the New Testament to Luther and St. John of the Cross, Atlanta 1979, 2.

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experience, momentary and lasting experience, immature and mature experience, and so forth. (3) The word “experience” implies a phased process. (4) The notion of “experience” implies emancipation from an exclusively theological perspective and introduces the human sciences (humanities).

BIBLIOGRAPHY ANCILLI, E. et al., L’uomo nella vita spirituale, Rome 1980. AU, W., By Way of the Heart. Toward a Holistic Christian Spirituality, London 1990. BAHRO, R. et al., Radikalität im Heiligenschein. Zur Wiederentdeckung der Spiritualität in der modernen Gesellschaft, Berlin 1984. BESNARD, A., Ces chrétiens que nous devenons. Vrai et faux départ dans la vie spirituelle, Paris 1967. BIES, J., Retour à l’essentiel. Quelle spiritualité pour l’homme d’aujourdhui, Paris 1986. BORACCO, P. & SECONDIN, B., L’uomo spirituale, Milano 1986. BROWN, R., Spirituality and Liberation. Overcoming the Great Fallacy, Philadelphia 1988. CAPDEVILA, V., Liberación y divinización del hombre, Salamanca 1984. CASADÁLIGA, P. & VIGIL, J., Political Holiness. A Spirituality of Liberation, New York 1994. Contemporary Spirituality. Responding to the Divine Initiative, (Ed. F. Eigo), Villanova 1983. Corso di spiritualità. Esperienza, sistematica, proiezioni, (Ed. B. Secondin & T. Goffi), Brescia 1989. Dimensions of Contemporary Spirituality, (Ed. F. Eigo), Villanova 1982. DORR, D., Spirituality and Justice, Maryknoll (NY) 1984. ESPEJA PARDO, J., Espiritualidad y liberación, Lima 1986. FEIST, T., Spirituality and Holistic Living, Mercier 1990. FISCHER, K., Reclaiming Connections. A Contemporary Spirituality, Kansas City (MO) 1990. FOX, M., Whee! We, Wee, All the Way Home. A Guide to the New Sensual Spirituality, Wilmington (NC) 1976. FRANCUCH, P., Fundamentals of Human Spirituality, Santa Barbara (CA) 1982. GABOURY, P., Une religion sans murs. Vers une spiritualité ouverte, Montreal 1984. GALILEA, S., El camino de la espiritualidad, Bogata 1983. GALILEA, S., Espiritualidad de la liberación, Bogata 1979. GARRIDO, J., Una espiritualidad para hoy, Madrid 1988. GODINA, V., Espiritualidad de compromiso con los pobres, Bogata 1988. GODINA, V., Espiritualidad y liberación. Cuardernos de Noticias Obreras, Madrid 1985. GONZALEZ BUELTA, B., El Dios oprimido. Hacia una espiritualidad de la inserción, Santander 1989. GONZALEZ. L., Liberación para el amor. Ensayo de teología espiritual, Mexico City 1985. GOFFI, T., L’esperienza spirituale, Brescia 1984. GRIGSBY, D., Reflections on Liberation. Essays on Spirituality and Freedom, San Diego 1985.

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GUTIÉRREZ, G., Beber en su propio pozo, Salamanca 1986. HOLMES, C., Christian Spirituality in Geologic Perspective, Philadelphia 1975. HOLOTIK, G., Ansätze zu einer zeitgemässen Spiritualität nach dem II. Vatikanum, Bern 1985. ILUNGA, B., Paths of Liberation. A Third World Spirituality, Maryknoll (NY) 1984. JAÉN, N., Hacia una espiritualidad de la teología de la liberación, Santander 1987. JONES, W., Trumpet at Full Moon. An Introduction to Christian Spirituality as Diverse Practice, Louisville (KY) 1992. JUBERÍAS, F., La divinización del hombre, Madrid 1972. KAAM, A. VAN, Formative Spirituality, New York 1983-1992. KRAXNER, A., Elemente einer neuen Spiritualität. Ein richtungweisendes Modell, Wien etc. 1977. KUNTHER, F., Leben in Freiheit. Grundzüge einer christlichen Spiritualität, SalzburgWien 1993. MAGSAM, C., The Experience of God. Outlines for a Contemporary Spirituality, Maryknoll (NY) 1975. MEEHAN, F., A Contemporary Social Spirituality, Maryknoll (NY) 1987. MOIOLI, G., L’esperienza spirituale. Lezioni introduttive, Milano 1992. MULLER, R., New Genesis. Shaping a Global Spirituality, Garden City (NY) 1984. Naar een verankerde spiritualiteit, Tijdschrift voor geestelijk leven 35 (1979) no. 6. OGER, H., Spiritualité pour notre temps. Une introduction à la vie spirituelle, Paris 1963. PAOLI, A., Ricerca di una spiritualità per l’uomo d’oggi, Assisi 1984. POLLANO, G., Dio presente e trasformante. Saggio di teologia spirituale, Torino 1993. Problemi e prospettive di spiritualità, (Ed. T. Goffi & B. Secondin), Brescia 1983. RAHNER, K., Chancen des Glaubens. Fragmente einer modernen Spiritualität, Freiburg etc. 1971. RAHNER, K., The Theology of the Spiritual Life, in: Theological Investigations Vol. III, Baltimore-London 1967. RAHNER, K., Further Theology of the Spiritual Life, in: Theological Investigations Vol. VIII, Baltimore London 1971. RIZZI, A., Dieu cherche l’homme, Paris 1989. RODRIGUEZ GARCIA, J., Nuevas imágenes de espiritualidad, Salamanca 1985. ROTZETTER, A., Leidenschaft für Gottes Welt. Aspekte einer zeitgemässen spiritualität, Zürich 1988. ROUSTANG, F., Une initation à la vie spirituelle, Paris 1963. RUIZ SALVADOR, F., Caminos del espíritu. Compendio de teología espiritual, Madrid 1974. RUIZ SALVADOR, F., Espiritualidad sistemática, Madrid 1984. SECONDIN, B., Nuovi cammini dello Spirito. La spiritualità alle soglie del terzo millennio, Milano 1990. SOBRINO, J., Spirituality of Liberation. Toward political Holiness, New York 1988. La spiritualità. Ispirazione – ricerca – formazione, (Ed. B. Secondin & J. Janssens), Rome 1984. Tijdgeest en spiritualiteit, Speling 37 (1985) no. 1. STRINGFELLOW, W., The Politics of Spirituality, Philadelpia (PA) 1984. TANGHERONI, M. et al., La realizzazione spirituale dell’uomo, Milano 1987.

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Teología espiritual. Reflexión cristiana sobre la praxis, Madrid 1980. TRUHLAR, K., Antinomiae vitae spiritualis, Rome 1958. TRUHLAR, K., Concetti fondamentali della teologia spirituale, Brescia 1971. WEITZMANN, K., Age of Spirituality, New York 1980. Women’s Spirituality. Resources for Christian Development, (Ed. J. Conn), New YorkMahwah (NJ) 1996. WULF, F., Geistliches Leben in der heutigen Welt. Geschichte und Uebung der christlichen Frömmigkeit, Freiburg etc. 1960. ZAVALLONI, R., Le strutture umane della vita spirituale, Brescia 1971. ZEVALLOS, N., Contemplación y política, Lima 1975. ZEVALLOS, N., Espiritualidad del desierto. Espiritualidad de la inserción, Bogotá 1981.

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2.2. Interdisciplinary viewpoints In 1923, when the Catholic University in Nijmegen was founded, the authorities placed the chair of “spirituality” (with a teaching assignment in philosophy and mysticism) in the department of philosophy. After World War II, the chair was moved to the department of Letters. Since the 1970s the chair is in theology. These shifts indicate that the discipline called “spirituality” can be positioned in philosophy, letters, and theology. To these three sciences one can add others: aside from theology, “one of the relevant disciplines,” and psychology, “one other relevant discipline,” “comparative religion, anthropology, theory of myth and symbolism, history, literary interpretation and other disciplines are also relevant.”95 In this chapter we will examine the most important interdisciplinary viewpoints from which spirituality is studied: theology, philosophy, the sciences of religion, the literary-historical disciplines, psychology and the social sciences.

2.2.1. THEOLOGY The relation between theology and spirituality has had an eventful history.96 Before the rise of theology as an independent science, asceticism and mysticism, dogma and morality, the Bible and philosophy were interconnected. In the basic back-and-forth movement between biblical-inspiration and participation in Hellenic culture (the framework for the faith reflection of ancient Christianity) the partial disciplines, which did not become independent till later (theology, philosophy, literature, psychology, sociology, exegesis), were all interconnected. In the second half of the 11th century a change occurred in the early-medieval manner of doing theology. Up until that time Scripture had supplied the basic categories and inner logic for doing theology. Now, however, philosophy supplied the basic categories, while the syllogism shaped logic. This new rationality was incapable of understanding the area of spirituality properly. In consequence, mystical theologies97 arose in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the resistance of

95

S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Modern Christian Spirituality. Methodological and Historical Essays, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990, 31. 96 O. Steggink & K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit en mystiek 1. Inleiding, Nijmegen 1985, 39-71. 97 See part 2, section 2.1.2.

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the mystics notwithstanding.98 Around 1400 the increasingly one-sided practice of dialectics led to estrangement between theology and spirituality.99 “Toward the end of the 13th century Western theology, which had become exclusively abstract and technical, was no longer interested in the problems of the spiritual life.”100 The break between the experience of faith and theology, which is regarded as “the great schism of the 15th century,”101 in the 16th century became antagonistic, a development which even Christian humanists, among whom was Erasmus who wanted to restore the unity between theology and spirituality,102 could not stop. Under the influence of the Reformation and the political-religious consequences of a torn Christianity theology, especially in Catholic countries, became the guardian of objective orthodoxy over against the subjective faith-experience of Protestants and spirituals within the Catholic fold. At the beginning of the 16th century a conflict erupted in Spain “between the mystics and the intellectualists.”103 All the great mystics of the Spanish golden age were targeted by the theological inquisitors. Toward the end of the 17th century the conflict reached its low point in the agitations of Bossuet against the mystic Fénélon, a battle which broke out over the writings of Madame Guyon who was accused of quietism. In 1695, after Madame Guyon’s teaching was condemned, Bossuet mercilessly continued his polemic against Fénélon, who wrote his defense in 1697 but was condemned two years later. As a result of Bossuet’s victory spirituality became a questionable business. Virtually all mystical literature disappeared from the scene till deep into the 19th century. Toward the end of the 19th century a process of reintegration was set in motion. In this process one can discern five options. 1. Spirituality as subdivision of moral theology. Following in the track of Thomas’s Summa theologiae the spiritual life was assigned a place in moral theology: the way back to God as the supreme end of man (part 2), to which he is called by God (part 1), and destined in Christ (part 3). From a speculative perspective this arrangement is splendid, but how must we view in concreto the relation between spirituality and moral theology? As the whole versus the part? 98

H. Blommestijn, Waar begon het conflict tussen rede en ervaring? Willem van St. Thierry, in: Speling 37 (1985) no. 1, 56. 99 F. Vandenbroucke, Le divorce entre théologie et mystique. Ses origines, in: Nouvelle Revue Théologique 82 (1950), 372-389. 100 M. Dupuy, Spiritualité. II. La notion de spiritualité, in: DSp 14 (1990), 1165. 101 S. Axters, Geschiedenis van de vroomheid in de Nederlanden, Antwerp 1956, 11. 102 L. Richard, Theology in Need of Spirituality. A Historical Perspective, in: Studies in Formative Spirituality 13 (1992) no. 1, 161-171. 103 E. Colunga, Intelectualistas y místicos en la teología espanola del siglo XVI, in: Ciencia Tomista 9 (1914), 209-221 and 377-394; 10 (1914-1915), 223-242.

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As obligation versus the evangelical counsels? Or as the negative prohibitions versus the positive cultivation of virtue? Or as the speculatively practical versus the practico-practical? The basic structure versus the application? The principle versus the execution of the principle? The act versus the process of growth? Broad and general versus the intensely personal? The general goal versus specific means?104 The option of moral theology as the place for the discipline of spirituality has been abandoned by virtually everyone.105 2. Spirituality as an aspect of dogmatics. According to Tanquerry dogmas are “the generators of piety.”106 In saying this he was articulating a conviction which was held from the beginning of the 20th century: in mysticism GarrigouLagrange saw the fulfillment of the central intentions of dogmatics;107 according to Bouyer, spirituality is a reaction to dogmatics;108 Aumann states laconically: “spirituality proceeds dogmatically;109 Hans Urs von Balthasar calls spiritual theology “the subjective side of dogmatics.”110 In Reformed theology one witnesses an attempt to integrate the study of spirituality, burdened by a negative prejudice from the side of dialectical theology (Barth, Brunner, and others), liberal theology (interested more in church-and-culture issues) and religious socialism (oriented to society) into the sphere of dogmatics from the standpoint of Schleiermacher who understood piety as “man’s consciousness of being absolutely dependent” on, or of being in relation with, God.111 Also the view that dogmatics is the place where spirituality belongs is still held by only a few people. 3. Theology as a function of spirituality. Even before Vatican II Chenu already stated: “An authentic theology is nothing other than a spirituality which has dis-

104

F. Giardini, La natura della teologia spirituale, in: Introduzione allo studio e insegnamento della teologia spirituale, (Ed. L. Bono, G. Colombo et al.), Firenze 1965, 363-415; H. Rotter, Moraal en spiritualiteit, in: Benediktijns Leven 38 (1977), 141-151; E. Megyer, Theological Trends. Spiritual Theology Today, in: The Way 21 (1981), 55-67; A. di Marino, Morale e spiritualità, in: Teologia spirituale. Temi e problemi, (Ed. M. Gioia), Rome 1991, 97-102. 105 See, however, S. Pinckaers, Das geistliche Leben des Christen. Theologie und Spiritualität nach Paulus und Thomas von Aquin, Paderborn 1998. 106 A. Tanquerry, Dogmes générateurs de la piété, Paris-Tournai etc. 1926. 107 J. Sudbrack, Um den Stellenwert der Spiritualität im Gesamt der Theologie, in: Geist und Leben 37 (1964), 388. 108 L. Bouyer, Introduction to Spirituality, New York 1961. 109 J. Aumann, Spiritual Theology, Huntington-Londen 1980, 20. 110 H. Urs von Balthasar, Spiritualität, in: Geist und Leben 31 (1958), 341. 111 F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, Edinburgh 1994, 12. For the integration of spirituality into evangelical theology, see V. Drehsen, Theologische Frömmigkeitsforschung?, in: Frömmigkeit. Gelebte Religion als Forschungsaufgabe, (Ed. B. Jaspert), Paderborn 1995, 45-63; E. Axmacher, Fromm aus Glauben. Überlegungen zu einem theologischen Begriff von Frömmigkeit, ibid., 65-78; C. Albrecht, Erwägungen zur Leistungsfähigkeit von Schleiermachers Frömmigkeitstheorie im interdisziplinären Disput, ibid., 101-111.

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covered the proper rational expression of its fundamental religious experience.”112 Here theology is identified with a spirituality which has been appropriately expressed on the level of reason. Theology is the scientific interpretation and systematization of revelation that has “arrived” in its spiritual expression.113 This reflection must determine “theology as a whole and in all its pronouncements.”114 In this view theology as a whole and dogmatics in a special way is “a function of spirituality.”115 However noble this option may be, it does not make much sense to upgrade a discipline which still has to acquire its place within theology and make it into an all-embracing renewal factor. This upgrading inflates the discipline. 4. Spirituality as a function of theology. “Spirituality cannot be classified under other ‘sciences’ [such as dogmatics and morality, KW]); it is something like an ‘umbrella science’ in which the foundations and the results of many other sciences are combined. (…). One can even understand spirituality better as a ‘crosssectional science’ which gathers up all the contributions of the other sciences as in a concave lens and brings them together in the focal point of a person’s encounter with Christ.”116 This pivotal function of the study of spirituality within the field of theology presupposes that it is itself a consistent discipline which, on top of this, integrates the other sciences. Both assumptions are inflated and, accordingly, rejected by most scholars in the field.117 5. Spirituality as an independent discipline. The separation between theology and spirituality (comparable to the breakup between philosophy and theology) meant emancipation for the study of spirituality: a distinct academic discipline began to distinguish itself from theology. For this reason several scholars favor the recognition of an independent discipline called “spirituality.” There are good grounds for this option. (1) Spirituality is based on a specific body of texts and

112

M. Chenu, Une école de théologie, Tournai-Le Saulchoir 1937, 75. G. Greshake, Dogmatik und Spiritualität, in: Dogma und Glaube, (Ed. E. Schockenhoff & P. Walter), Mainz 1993, 240. 114 Ibid., 241. 115 Ibid., 251. Cf. A. Rotzetter, Theologie und Spiritualität, in: Geist wird Leib. Theologische und anthropologische Voraussetzungen des geistlichen Lebens, (Ed. A. Rotzetter), Zürich-Einsiedeln etc. 1979, 19-39; G. Moioli, Théologie spirituelle, in: DVSp (1983), 1120-1128; R. Bechtle, Theological Trends. Convergences in Theology and Spirituality, in: The Way 25 (1985), 305-314; E. Wolz-Gottwald, Theologie und spirituelle Erfahrung, in: Theologie der Gegenwart 35 (1992), 280-293 and 36 (1993), 58-59; L. Richard, Theology in Need of Spirituality. A Historical Perspective, in: Studies in Formative Spirituality 13 (1992) no. 1, 161-171. 116 J. Sudbrack, Vom Geheimnis christlicher Spiritualität. Einheit und Vielfalt, in: Geist und Leben 39 (1966), 24-44. 117 See J. Weismayer, Spirituelle Theologie, Theologie der Spiritualität, in: Spiritualität in Moral, (Ed. G. Virt), Wien 1975, 75. 113

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forms of expression which justify a position of its own.118 (2) From the 12th century on spirituality developed its own form of reflection which from the beginning of the 20th century was reinforced by the creation of its own academic chairs, doctoral programs, scientific institutes and organs of publication. The advantage of such a specialty is that the study of spirituality can solidify itself by thoroughly reflecting on its object and method in the light of its own tradition. This gives it a principled foundation for functioning “as an autonomous discipline (…) in partnership and mutuality with theology.”119 This option does not demand that the relation between spirituality and theology be totally cleared up.120 Conclusion. The viewpoints which come to the fore from the standpoint of interdisciplinary cooperation with the theological disciplines are the following. (1) Spirituality is the lived relation to God as it is realized within a concrete tradition which finds its bearings within a concrete frame of reference (exegesis, church history, systematic theology). (2) The god-relation is articulated in linguistic and other forms of expression which are indeed connected with but also differ from rituals (liturgy), doctrinal contents (dogma), and norms and values (morality). (3) The lived god-relation is realized within a socio-cultural context (exegesis, church history, systematic theology) and is ever again resumed within a concrete faith, praxis (pastoral theology). BIBLIOGRAPHY BEUMER, J., Intimiteit en solidariteit. Over het evenwicht tussen dogmatiek, mystiek en ethiek, Baarn 1993. BROWN, N., Spirit of the World. The Moral Basis of Christian Spirituality, Manly (Australia) 1990. CODINA, V., Teología y experiencia espiritual, Santander 1977. DUFFEY, M., Be Blessed in What You Do. The Unity of Christian Ethics and Spirituality, New York 1988. 118

R. Körner, “Geistliche Theologie” – wie und warum? In: Denkender Glaube in Geschichte und Gegenwart, (Ed. W. Ernst & K. Feiereis), Leipzig 1992, 357-366; S. Schneiders, Theology and Spirituality. Strangers, Rivals or Partners?, in: Horizons 13 (1986) no. 2, 253-274; A. Huerge, El caracter cientifico de la teologia espiritual, in: Teologia Espiritual 36 (1992), 41-63; J. Ziegler, Theologie des geistlichen Lebens. Eine theologische Disziplin, in: Geist und Leben 66 (1993), 272-282. 119 S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Modern Christian Spirituality, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990, 29. 120 A. Guerra, Teología espiritual, una ciencia no identificada, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 39 (1980), 335-414.

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Éthique et spiritualité, La Vie Spirituelle t. 138 (1984) no. 658. LEECH, K., Experiencing God. Theology as Spirituality, San Francisco 1989. LOUTH, A., Theology and Spirituality, Oxford 1976. L’expérience spirituelle, lieu philosophique et théologique, (Ed. F. Marty & J. Dhôtel), Paris 1992. MOIOLI, G., Guida allo studio teologico della spiritualità cristiana. Materiali e problemi per la sintesi, Milano 1983. NICOLAU, M., Teología y vida espiritual. Estudio de sus mutuas relaciones, Toledo 1980. O’KEEFE, M., Becoming Good, Becoming Holy. On the Relationship of Christian Ethics and Spirituality, New York-Mahwah (NJ) 1995. RUHBACH, G., Theologie und Spiritualität. Beiträge zur Gestaltwerdung des christlichen Glaubens, Göttingen 1987. Spirituality and Morality. Integrating Prayer and Action, (Ed. D. Billy & D. Orsuto), New York-Mahwah (NJ) 1996. Studies in Spirituality and Theology, (Ed. L. Cunningham, B. McGinn & D. Tracy), Notre Dame (IN)-London 1995-…. Teologia spirituale. Temi e problemi, (Ed. M. Gioia), Roma 1991. ZELLER, W., Theologie und Frömmigkeit. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Marburg 1971-1978.

2.2.2. PHILOSOPHY In antiquity the relation between philosophy and spirituality was self-evident. Philosophy wanted to be pious (sebeia) and was accompanied by the cultivation of virtue and asceticism. For the classic thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, followed by all the Neo-platonists) contemplation (theoria), which follows naturally from metaphysics, is the final goal. Although Jewish, Christian, and Islamic spirituality proceeded from a revealed idea of God, it offered sufficient points of contact for Greek thought. Especially the translation (itself influenced by Greek thought) of the divine name: “I am that I am” (Exod. 3:14) opened the field of a fruitful dialogue.121 It forged a strong bond between the metaphysical idea of being and the central idea in the view of God. This bond formed the foundation for both spirituality and philosophy. Thomas, Maimonides, and Al-Ghazali, however differently they conceived the relation between the divine and the human, were masters in the spiritual life as well as great philosophers. The same is true for Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugo of St. Victor, Albert the Great, Bonaventure and Duns Scotus. In the modern era, which has seen the separation of the disciplines, the mystics (Eckhart, Ruusbroec and others) in turn exerted influence on philosophical thought: Nicolas of Cues, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Descartes, Hegel, 121

Dieu et l’Être. Exégèses d’Exode 3,14 et de Coran 20,11-24, (Ed. P. Vignaux), Paris 1978.

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up to and including Heidegger. At the same time, however, spirituality and philosophy distanced themselves from each other. In the modern era the relation between them is therefore characterized, at least in terms of the surface structure, by mutual disinterest. But in this regard a change came in the 19th century. Especially phenomenology, with its eye for experience, prompted leading thinkers to view spiritual experience as an important aspect of philosophical reflection on human consciousness. Some (Bergson, Jaspers, Heidegger) even consider mystical consciousness as the highest form of thought. Spirituality, conversely, in the last few decades basically opened itself up to philosophy via the basic category of experience, which is the basis for the interdisciplinary conversation that is being conducted on several levels. We shall discuss four of them. 1. The clarification of experience. Philosophy can be understood as systematic reflection on experience.122 For spirituality, especially phenomenology meant a breakthrough for the better. Important phenomenologists (Otto, Scheler, Van der Leeuw, Eliade) have thoroughly reflected on religious experience and the phenomenon of mysticism. This reflection is being continued. Cantone shows how the spiritual life is basically a single experience of love, a love circle with three dialectical moments: Eros, Logos, and Agape;123 Van de Camp brings the experience of boredom, philosophically deepened by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger, into systematic connection with the acedia-experience of spirituality;124 Zweerman thinks deeply about human vulnerability with a view to a viable spirituality;125 Albert explores the most important experiential moments underlying philosophical mysticism: experiences of unity, presence, happiness, love and death.126 By “experience” he means a cognitive journey made to the very end (Erfahrung comes from er-fahren [to travel through; to get to know]; cf. the Latin ex-per-ire [to pass through] in experientia), by which I experience myself “as a self which finds itself in existence.”127 This unity of personhood and existence, perceived in lived experience, constitutes the basis for the experiences of love, presence, and happiness, but also for experiences of transience and death. 122

A. de Waelhens, La philosophie et les expériences naturelles, Den Haag 1961. C. Cantone, Per una filosofia della vita spirituale. Alle radici metafisiche dell’esperienza religiosa, in: Salesianum 51 (1989), 515-522. 124 L. van de Camp, De kracht van de leegte, Nijmegen 1992. 125 Th. Zweerman, Als een schelpdier. Gedachten over kwetsbaarheid en weerbaarheid, in: Th. Zweerman, Om de eer van de mens. Verkenningen op het grensvlak van filosofie en spiritualiteit, Delft 1993, 190-210; Th. Zweerman, Vreemde vruchtbaarheid. Kwetsbaarheid als kans, in: K. Waaijman, Th. Zweerman et al., Kansen voor spiritualiteit. Kwetsbaarheid, meerstemmig zelf, differentie-denken, Baarn-Nijmegen 1996, 31-63. 126 K. Albert, Einführung in die philosophische Mystik, Darmstadt 1996, 17-70. 127 Ibid., 19. 123

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2. Systematic reflection on the conditions. Philosophers reflect not only on experience but also investigate the actual conditions needed for their reflection. Thus the Greek philosophers saw that clear thinking presupposes a degree of asceticism. Hence they developed ascetic programs: the cultivation of virtue, food restrictions, restraint in acquiring possessions, control of one’s drives. By these practices they effected an inner freedom which they regarded as the sine qua non for their thinking.128 We see something similar in the work of modern thinkers. Heidegger, for example, writes: “Questioning is the piety of thinking.” That is to say, it consists in submitting to what thinking has to think about.129 Initially Heidegger had in mind an attitude of questioning which opens up horizons of thought. Later he matured to an attitude of composure (Gelassenheit: Eckhart), an act of attentively listening to what has always already spoken to us in order thus to bring out of its hiddenness the non-hiddenness of Being (aletheia). Finally questioning became: spending time at the place where the gods disappear in order to let it be what it is, a place where the new god-relation is born.130 The absence of God (Fehl Gottes) does not break the god-relation but instead creates it: at the place of the disappearance there arises a questioning “which is attracted by that which withdraws itself, which finds its destiny in watchful waiting and listening to what is calling out to us.”131 This questioning is the piety of thinking which yields to the beckonings of the receding and listens to its promise (zusage).132 Real questioning takes place “within the very grant of what is put in question.”133 Another kind of reflection on the conditions of experience can be found in the work of Peter van Ness. In his book Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence he investigates ascetic practices (prayer, fasting, meditation, solitude) from a philosophical angle.134 He observes that spiritually disciplined practices are “most often undertaken in antagonism with persons, institutions, and other social forces which seek to induce behavior that is predictable and controllable, and in some cases, addictive and deadly. This is the political drama of the spiritual life.135 Following the critiques and apologias, from Socrates and Clement of Alexandria to Pascal and Nietzsche,136 Van Ness argues for a spiritual discipline. By this 128

See P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, Cambridge (MA) 1995. See Heidegger’s explanation of a statement he made at the end of this lecture called “The Question Concerning Technology.” See M. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, San Francisco 1982, 72. 130 B. Blans & H. van Immerzeel, De vroomheid van het denken, in: Stapstenen, (Ed. B. Blans), Best 1997, 142-148. 131 Ibid., 147. 132 M. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, 71-72. 133 Ibid., 71. 134 P. van Ness, Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence, Albany 1992. 135 Ibid., 15. 136 Ibid., 19-92. 129

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means people enable themselves both to participate in natural reality and to transcend it. It enables them to build up integrity which functions within a larger whole, and to advance both personal well-being and the well-being of the community.137 Asceticism is a way of influencing oneself such that it makes it possible for people to open up to themselves, the other, and the Unconditional, right in their cognitive structures, memory, and affectivity. 3. Epistemological reflections. For the great Greek philosophers true knowledge coincided with contemplation: the divine Eros draws the soul into true Being (Plato); the spiritual soul becomes divine when it participates in pure act (energeia) that is to say, in God who is the act of thinking in contemplation (Aristotle). In his study The Darkness of God Denys Turner investigates the basic structure of mystical knowledge since Plato, Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, Eckhart, The Cloud of Unknowing, and John of the Cross, and finds it in apophatic discourse (beyond all affirmations and negations) and the apophatic subject (beyond all definitions and negations of the self.).138 Philosophy is particularly interested in the specific nature of mystical processes of knowing139 and in the question of truth.140 Is God really knowable? What is the cognitive faculty and what are the cognitive forms involved here? What happens with this knowing when it approaches the unsayable truth? With a view to this kind of questions scholars analyze mystical writing from diverse mystical traditions.141 137

Ibid., 95-200. D. Turner, The Darkness of God, Cambridge 1995. 139 See the studies of C. Arthur, Ineffability and Intelligibility. Towards an Understanding of the Radical Unlikeness of Religious Experience, in: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 20 (1986), 109-129; R. Bambrough, Intuition and the Inexpressible, in: Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, (Ed. S. Katz), London 1978, 200-213; J. Hick, Mystical Experience as Cognition, in: Mystics and Scholars. The Calgary Conference on Mysticism 1976, (Ed. H. Coward & T. Penelhum), Waterloo (Ontario) 1977, 41-56; R. Jones, Experience and Conceptualization in Mystical Knowledge, in: Zygon 18 (1983) no. 2, 139-165; R. Jones. Rationality and Mysticism, in: International Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1987), 263-279; S. Payne, John of the Cross and the Cognitive Value of Mysticism. An Analysis of Sanjuanist Teaching and its Philosophical Implications or Contemporary Discussions of Mystical Experience, Dordrecht-Boston-London 1990; N. Pike, On Mystic Visions as Sources of Knowledge, in: Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, (Ed. S. Katz), London 1978, 214-234, B. Schomakers, Over mystieke theologie, Kampen 1990. 140 J. Carloye, The Truth of Mysticism, in: The Monist 59 (1976) no. 4, 551-562; J. Forgie, Hyper-Kantianism in Recent Discussions of Mystical Experience, in: Religious Studies 21 (1985), 205-218; J. Forgie, Mystical Experience and the Argument from Agreement, in: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 17 (1985), 97-113; J. Price, The Objectivity of Mystical Truth Claims, in: The Thomist 49 (1985), 81-98. 141 Cf. e.g. C. Albrecht, Das mystische Erkennen. Gnoseologie und philosophische Relevanz der mystischen Relation, Bremen 1958; W. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy, London 1961; R. Demeyer, De relevantie van de mystiek voor de filosofie, in: Collationes 22 (1976), 177-201; R. van den Brandt, Godsontvankelijkheid en ‘fornuftikeit,’ Nijmegen 1993. 138

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4. Systematic reflection. Philosophy forges concepts designed to help us understand and verbalize lived experience: Tao and Atman in Eastern mystical-philosophical traditions, Ein-soph in the kabbala, “Unity” and “Being” in the Western tradition.142 On the basis of these concepts philosophy and the spiritual life are related to each other and their intrinsic connectedness is brought out into the open.143 Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, made the following statement: “The true goal of all philosophers is mystical intuition,”144 which means that mysticism, understood as the intuition of oneness and coherence is the original and directional motive of all philosophizing. Another example: Emmanuel Levinas attempts time and again to give a systematic account of his spirituality from the perspective of the idea of the Infinite. Thus, in God and Philosophy, he shows how “the unassimilable trauma inflicted by the in of the infinite, devastates the present [ontology, KW] and awakens subjectivity to the proximity of the other.”145 This wounding of a person by the Infinite is “immediate,” that is to say, it is prior to any movement of the will or the mind, because “the other is incumbent on me” or “disturbs me,” that is: “is close to me.”146 The god-relation is conceived as absolute difference, which however touches me immediately and does not leave me indifferent.147 There are, accordingly, several philosophers who involve spirituality in questions concerning the ultimate coherence between the two.148

142

K. Albert, Einführung in die philosophische Mystik, Darmstadt 1996, 71-147. Ibid., 148-208. 144 Cited and discussed by K. Albert, ibid., 1. 145 God and Philosophy, in: E. Levinas, Of God who Comes to Mind, 1998, 70 (altered to fit the Dutch text, Tr.). 146 Ibid., 72. 147 See also F. Maas, Godsrelatie en differentiedenken, in: K. Waaijman, Th. Zweerman et al., Kansen voor spiritualiteit, Baarn-Nijmegen 1996, 141-176; R. van Riessen, De notie van het sublieme en de christelijke ervaring van God, ibid., 177-183; K. Waaijman, Het verschil dat spiritualiteit maakt, ibid., 185-192. 148 S. King, Two Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of Mysticism, in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56 (1988), 257-279; D. MacKinnon, Some Epistemological Reflections on Mystical Experience, in: Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, (Ed. S. Katz), London 1978, 132-140; A. Moore, Mystical and Philosophy, in: The Monist 59 (1976) no. 4, 493-506; P. Moore, Mystical Experience, Mystical Doctrine, Mystical Technique, in: Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, 101-131; P. Morewedge, Critical Observations on some Philosophies of Mysticism, in: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (1976) no. 4, 409-424; C. Norrman, Mystical Experiences and Scientific Method. A Study of the Possibility of Identifying a ‘Mystical’ Experience by a Scientific Method, with Special Reference of the Theory of Walter T. Stace, Stockholm 1986; R. Oakes, Religious Experience and Epistemological Miracles. A Moderate Defense of Theistic Mysticism, in: Religious Studies 18 (1982), 47-54; C. Riedel, Das Wissen der Einsicht. Philosophische Überlegungen zur Theorie der Mystik, in: Franziskanische Studien 65 (1983), 369-392; J. Shear, Mystical Experience, Hermeneutics and Rationality, in: International Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1990), 391-401. 143

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Conclusion. In philosophical reflection the area of spirituality comes to the fore as follows. (1) Spirituality is an intensive experiential process in which cognitive and awakening processes play an important role. This process is realized under certain indispensable conditions and bears within itself the intuition of a final coherence. (2) Philosophical reflection does not simply accept opinions, images, and practices which have been handed down, but passes beyond a first impression to a Reality which is not bound to a single condition but communicates itself by itself. (3) Philosophers attempt to illumine spiritual experiences, to articulate them conceptually, and to think them through, in the context of the interplay between the philosophical disciplines, on the level of knowledge, the will, and memory as well as on the level of spiritual practice. BIBLIOGRAPHY ALBERT, K., Einführung in die philosophische Mystik, Darmstadt 1996. ALBERT, K., Mystik und Philosophie, St. Augustin 1986. BÖHM, T., Theoria-Unendlichkeit-Aufstieg. Philosophische Implikationen zu ‘De vita Moysis’ von Gregor von Nyssa, Leiden etc. 1996. BOTTING, M., Spirituality and Time, Cambridge 1997. CAPUTO, J., The Mystical Element in Heideggers Thought, New York 1986. COUDERT, A., Leibniz and the Kabbalah, Dordrecht-London 1995. L’expérience spirituelle, lieu philosophique et théologique, (Ed. F. Marty & J. Dhôtel), Paris 1992. GRIFFIN, D., Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality. A Postmodern Exploration, Albany (New York) 1997. IIDA, S., Reason and Emptiness. A Study in Logic and Mysticism, Tokyo 1980. The Innate Capacity. Mysticism, Psychology, and Philosophy, (Ed. R. Forman), New YorkOxford 1998. JONAS, H., Von der Mythologie zur mystischen Philosophie, Göttingen 1993. JONES, R., Mysticism Examined. Philosophical Inquiries into Mysticism, Albany (NY) 1993. Knowing Other-wise. Philosophy and the Threshold of Spirituality, (Ed. J. Olthuis), New York 1997. MYNAREK, H., Mystik und Vernunft. Zwei Pole einer Wirklichkeit, Olten-Freiburg i.Br. 1991. Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, (Ed. S. Katz), London 1978. PANIKER, S., Filosofia y mistica. Una lectura de los griegos, Barcelona 1992. The Problem of Pure Consciousness. Mysticism and Philosophy, (Ed. R. Forman), New YorkOxford 1990. Probleme philosophischer Mystik, (Ed. E. Jain & R. Margreiter), St. Augustin 1991. SHERRILL, J., The Metaphysics of Higher Spiritual Consciousness, New York 1992. SIKKA, S., Forms of Transcendence. Heidegger and Medieval Mystical Theology, Albany (NY) 1997. STACE, W., Mysticism and Philosophy, London 1961.

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TELMO, A., Filosofia e kabbalah, Lisboa 1989. VAN NESS, P., Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence. The Contemporary Predicament, Albany (NY) 1992. VULCANESCU, M., Pentru o noua spiritualitate filosofica, Bucharest 1992-…. ZWEERMAN, T., Om de eer van de mens. Verkenningen op het grensvlak van filosofie en spiritualiteit, Delft 1991.

2.2.3. SCIENCE(S) OF RELIGION The religion sciences have significantly contributed to helping spirituality and mysticism move away from the atmosphere of prejudice which shaped the climate in the late 19th century. The more descriptive and comparative mentality which marks them showed that mysticism is a fundamental given in every religion. It also made clear that mysticism is not a morbid aberration. William Inge, looking at it from a science-of-religion perspective, showed that mysticism is present in all religions as a focus of the mind on suprarational reality.149 Over against the negative-dogmatic approach of scholastic theology Evelyn Underhill offered a refreshing look at mysticism, one which was grounded in an unbiased description of texts from Christian as well as non-Christian traditions.150 A few years earlier her spiritual mentor, Friedrich von Hügel, had demonstrated that religion is a complex containing several elements: mysticism, dogma, and institution. There always exists a threat that one of these elements will dominate and absorb the other two. A mature mysticism accepts the tension between itself and the dogmatic and communitarian. The specific nature of mysticism is that the Infinite Spirit permeates the finite mind, a phenomenon which first of all reveals itself in experiences of contingency and transitoriness, but finally leads to the mystical union. This mystical way, however, never locates itself outside of the doctrinal or institutional element.151 From the beginning of the 20th century a stream of publications was set in motion in which spiritual traditions are made accessible and brought into dialogue with each other. We will simply point to two foci: the one focus is Das Gebet (1918; 19235) and Die Bedeutung der Mystiek für die Weltreligionen (1919) of Fr. Heiler from the beginning of the 20th century; the other is World Spirituality (25 volumes),152 and Classics of Western Spirituality (60 volumes)153 from 149

W. Inge, Christian Mysticism, London 1899. E. Underhill, Mysticism. A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (1911), Cleveland (NY) 1963. 151 F. von Hügel, The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and her Friends, London 1908. 152 New York, 1985-…. 153 New York, 1978-…. 150

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the end of the same century. Between these two foci of the study of spirituality from a science-of-religion perspective lie countless editions, interpretations, and cross-cultural dialogues. Names like Merton, Panikkar, Enomiya-Lasalle, Durkheim, Griffith and numerous others mark this path of comparative and cross-cultural research. Sandra Schneiders correctly notes that especially spirituality seems to possess the potential for a fruitful interreligious dialogue.154 Science-of-religion research moves between the two extremes of a continuum. At the one extreme we encounter the studies which by comparing spiritual and mystical phenomena aspire to come to a description of something that transcends all religions and in a certain sense forms their core, like “Christians without the church” (Kolokawski). Thus in the 1930s Baruzi stated that the contents of faith (e.g. the Trinity) were only secondarily and under a kind of compulsion added from without to the original, pure, mystical experience: “It is ultimately by subjecting a mystical faith to a dogmatic faith that John of the Cross was to view absolute Being as a tri-unity.”155 Since Baruzi, many attempts were made to divest spirituality and mysticism of their so-called secondary qualifications with a view to reaching the original form assumed to underlie them. On the other extreme, one encounters studies which, in line with Von Hügel, see spirituality functioning concretely within the whole of an actual religion. Spirituality is formed by the way in which people existing within a many-sided tradition (dogma, morality, liturgy, institutions) enter into a relation with the core of this tradition and find their way to that core.156 Spirituality (the lived relation between God and man), along with the doctrinal element (the consistent formulation of the God-man relation), the ethical element (the Godman relation expressed in conduct) and the ritual element (the execution of the God-man relation within a community), constitutes the whole of a religion.157 The elements interlock. Spirituality detached from its religious setting is non-existent.158 There is no mysticism as such, there is only the mysticism of a particular religious system, Christian, Islamic, Jewish mysticism and so on. That there remains a common characteristic it would be absurd to deny, and it is this element which is brought out in the comparative analysis of particular mystical experiences. But only in our days has the belief gained ground that there is such a thing as an abstract mystical religion.159 154 S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Modern Christian Spirituality, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990, 15-37. 155 J. Baruzi, S. Jean de la Croix et le problème de l’expérience mystique (1924), Paris 1931, 448. 156 R. Flasche, Religiosität und Frömmigkeit in der neueren Religionen-Wissenschaft, in: Frömmigkeit. Gelebte Religion als Forschungsaufgabe, (Ed. B. Jaspert), Paderborn 1995, 11-19. 157 J. Walgrave, Op de grondslag van het Woord, The Hague 1965, 121-126. 158 G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, London 1955, 1-39, esp. 6; J. Dan, In Quest of a Historical Definition of Mysticism, in: Studies in Spirituality 3 (1993), 58-90. 159 G. Scholem, ibid., 7-9.

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Scholem puts his finger on the weak spot of one extreme: the search for similarities is readily sustained by emotional resistance against religious institutions (dogma, morality, juridical forms). This aversion fuels the need for a pure religion divested of all institutional aspects. It is assumed that one can find this uncontaminated originality in spirituality and mysticism. Nevertheless Scholem, too, keeps open the possibility of the search for commonality within the field of spirituality and mysticism without ipso facto adhering to the faith of an “abstract religion.” It is possible to study the concrete forms of spirituality in the context of religions and philosophies of life and in the process note similarities and differences. For the rest, the invention of the abstract religion of mysticism is not entirely without foundation in reality and (perhaps without knowing it) a sign of spirituality. It is remarkable, after all, that spirituality and mysticism consistently revive when tensions emerge with regard to established structures. When people experience dissociation from the tradition, spirituality, by way of personal paths of experience, leaps into action to bridge the tensions that have developed.160 Now then, it is in such a period that many established Western religions find themselves at this moment. This explains the leaning toward spirituality and mysticism. Once this has been recognized, it can be very fruitful for us to take an unbiased look at the role and function of spirituality in the context of religions and philosophies of life, in the process noting the core around which these spiritualities revolve. Conclusion. The science-of-religion approach highlights two moments in the area of spirituality. (1) Forms of spirituality, their inner structure and function within the whole of a given religion or philosophy of life come sharply to the fore. (2) The multiplicity of comparable forms gives rise to the question concerning their mutual resemblances and differences and, through them, the question concerning their basic structure.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ALMOND, P., Mystical Experience and Religious Doctrine. An Investigation of the Study of Mysticism in World Religions, Berlin etc. 1982. BARNARD, G., Exploring Unseen Worlds. William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism, Albany (NY) 1997. BOCK, E., Meine Augen haben Dich geschaut. Mystik in den Religionen der Welt, Zürich 1991. DEUTSCH, E., Religion and Spirituality, New York 1995. GARDET, L., L’expérience du soi. Étude de mystique comparée, Paris 1981.

160

Ibid., 8-10.

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HOLLENBACK, J., Mysticism. A Comparative Historical Study, Ann Arbor (MI) 1991. JONG, S. DE, Varen naar de overkant. Een vergelijking van oosterse en westerse mystiek, Kampen 1987. LASALLE, E., Zen und christliche Mystik, Freiburg i.Br. 1986. PARRINDER, G., Mysticism in the World’s Religions, London 1976. SCHMID, G., Die Mystik der Weltreligionen. Eine Einführung, Stuttgart 1990. STRAELEN, H. VAN, Selbstfindung oder Hingabe. Zen und das Licht der christlichen Mystik, Abensberg 1981. WALDENFELS, H., Meditation – Ost und West, Einsiedeln etc. 1975. WUNDERLI, J., Schritte nach innen. Östliche Meditation und westliche Mystik, Freiburg etc. 1977.

2.2.4. HISTORY The first bridgehead into the historiography of spirituality is the work of Pourrat.161 His La spiritualité chrétienne made history and boosted the study of spirituality. The second bridgehead is the Histoire de la spiritualité of Bouyer, similarly a work in four volumes [also available in English translation, Tr.].162 In part I, Bouyer treats the spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers; in part II Leclercq, Vandenbroucke and Bouyer describe the spirituality of the Middle Ages; in part III Bouyer describes the spirituality of the Orthodox church, Protestants and Anglicans, in part IV modern spirituality is described by Cognet. Striking in this series is that the Old Testament, Judaism, Islam, ancient and indigenous spiritualities, are absent. The Historia de la Espiritualidad,163 again in four volumes, made up for this lack: it is aware of extra-Christian forms of spirituality (Judaism, Islam, gnosis, Hellenism, and so forth) and of modern atheism. Now the third bridgehead announces its arrival: the reference work (mentioned earlier) entitled World Spirituality – An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest,164 flanked by Christian Spirituality.165 These three bridgeheads are surrounded by monographs on periods, currents, and persons,166 and by detail studies in compilations and periodicals.167 161

P. Pourrat, La spiritualité chrétienne I-IV, Paris 1921-1930. In the same period was published A. Saudreau, La piété à travers les âges, Paris 1927. 162 Histoire de la spiritualité chrétienne I-IV, (Ed. L. Bouyer), Paris 1960-1966. 163 Historia de la Espiritualidad I-IV, (Ed. J. Flors), Barcelona 1969. 164 World Spirituality, (Ed. E. Cousins), New York 1985- (25 vols.). 165 Christian Spirituality. The Essential Guide to the Most Influential Spiritual Writings of the Christian Tradition, (Ed. F. Magill & I. McGreal), San Francisco 1988. 166 For a brief overview of the most important works, see O. Steggink & K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit en mystiek 1. Inleiding, Nijmegen 1985, 117-120; A. Matanic, La spiritualitá come scienza, Milano 1990, 162-170. 167 See section 6: ‘History of Spirituality’ in de Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis a Pontificio Instituto Spiritualitatis (BIS); the Index of Articles on Jewish Studies (RAMBI) under

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In Jewish spirituality the publication of Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism is still a high point,168 but not the end point. The historical research of Gershom Scholem, of which he gave accounts in a large quantity of publications, had its sequel in the works of numerous researchers: Katz, Dan, Idel, Jacobs, Green, Eliot, Grözinger, Tishby, Lièbes, Schäfer, Grünwald, Halperim, Cohm, Werblowsky, and so forth. From a Reformation point of view the situation is different. In 1917 Preuss observed: “The history of Christian piety has not yet been written. Indeed, even the most essential preliminary studies for such a history are lacking.”169 In 1995 Jaspert arrived at the same conclusion,170 although in the meantime several preliminary studies had become available. A critical point in connection with this flood of historiographies is the question concerning the selection mechanisms which shape the historical reconstructions. Which stories are regarded as being less important? How has the story been divided? Where were the high points created? Which stories were written from the top down? On what grounds? The underlying question, of course, is: from what perspective (and that always means, from the standpoint of what interest?) has the history been constructed?171 It is striking, for example, to see the pains which Pourrat and Bouyer take to make the history of Christian spirituality into a sign of unity: to them all the differences remain expressions of one and the same (Catholic) mind. Also Greek-Latin dominance at the expense of national spiritualities is accepted as self-evident. The perspective is preponderantly clerical and monastic. The newer overviews (e.g. The Study of Spirituality and World Spirituality) practice greater openness, do not proceed from a specific theological framework and are more aware of cultural plurality.172 These newer overviews, however, will also prove to be guided by a time-bound perspective. A history of spirituality is a story, and a story omits and includes, brings to the fore and shifts into the background. In that diachronic fashion a history originates which creates the impression that its course was necessarily thus and not otherwise, while the facts frequently fail to show a coherent sequence. Equally problematic, however, is the synchronicity of the story: how closely is the spirituality in question tied in with the (reconstructed) context or how far is it kept away from it? In historiography we observe two extremes. The one extreme stresses especially the continuity between spirituality and its historical ‘Spiritual Trends in Judaism’; the bibliography in the Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique en de Revue d’Histoire de la Spiritualité (1920-1978). 168 G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, London 1955. 169 H. Preuss, Luthers Frömmigkeit, Leipzig 1917, 1-2. 170 B. Jaspert, Frömmigkeit und Kirchengeschichte, in: Frömmigkeit. Gelebte Religion als Forschungsaufgabe, (Ed. B. Jaspert), Paderborn 1995, 123-168. 171 P. Sheldrake. Spirituality and History. Questions of Interpretation and Method, London 1991. 172 Ibid., 83-104.

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context; the other extreme emphasizes the difference. The two extremes form a field of tension. 1. Continuity. At the one extreme is the tendency to read spirituality in terms of its socio-cultural context: the dominant zeitgeist, the political-economic relations, the religious institutions, and so forth. People read the “life” of Teresa of Avila in the light of her time. In that case a number of lines become visible that mark her spiritual growth: her marginalized and banished Jewish background; the dominant religious consciousness of the hey-day of the Catholic Spanish counter-reformation; the male-dominated society in which Teresa functioned as a woman; the importance of affective relations in the context of a rigorously ordered monastic celibate lifestyle; the uncertainty which the discovery of new worlds laid bare; the prevailing scholastic theology which necessitated “new words”; the threat of the Inquisition; the desire for religious renewal; the need for a return to the “Origin”; and so forth. Here the “life” of Teresa is made intelligible in the light of “her time.”173 In a comparable way the rise of Hasidism can be read against the background of the economic circumstances in which Eastern-European Jews found themselves and the bankruptcy of Jewish mysticism after the public activities of Sabbatai Zwi. One can interpret Therese of Lisieux from the perspective of the bourgeois milieu of 19th-century France. 2. Discontinuity. Historical research in spirituality also knows the other extreme of the continuum: spirituality, especially in its mystical component, differs from its context. There is discontinuity between the sociocultural context and the phenomenon of spirituality. We can make this discontinuity concrete with the aid of the “historical definition of mysticism” proposed by Joseph Dan.174 On the basis of his research in Jewish mysticism he arrives at the conclusion “that mysticism as a historical phenomenon in “book” religions can generally be characterized only in negative terms: rejection of the senses and logic as denoting divine truth; rejection of accepted exegetical methodologies as providing insights into divine intentions; rejection of communicative language as an instrument of conveying supreme truth; and, usually, a critical attitude, overt or implied, concerning rituals and social norms of the religious culture. In many cases, a rebellious attitude can be discerned.”175 Only on the basis of this discontinuous relation to the socio-religious context can one cautiously proceed to discover a few contingent similarities between the various mystical figures and currents. 3. Dialectic. Continuity and discontinuity between spirituality and context are extremes in a field of tension. The historian of spirituality Michel de Certeau 173 O. Steggink, Tiempo y vida de Santa Teresa, Madrid 1968; O. Steggink & E. de la Madre de Dios, Santa Teresa y sy tiempo I-II, Salamanca 1982-1984. 174 J. Dan, In Quest of a Historical Definition of Mysticism, in: Studies in Spirituality 3 (1993), 58-90. 175 Ibid., 89.

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has strikingly described this field of tension.176 On the one hand, spirituality expresses itself in the language of a certain period, a reality by which its search for God gains form and content: The essential element in any spiritual experience is not some “otherness” quite outside the language of the time. This very language is what the spiritual man takes seriously; it is in this very cultural situation that his yearnings and his predicament “take flesh”; it is through this medium that he finds God, yet ever seeks him, that he expresses his faith, that he carries on simultaneous experiments in colloquy with God and with his actual brothers.177

On the other hand, that same spirituality eludes the cultural language in which it expresses itself. It cannot find the words needed; it is “unsayable”. Lived spirituality cannot express itself in the language of the time. The language of the culture falls short. For that reason spirituality speaks of the “Inexpressible”. It is precisely in this “Unsayable” that spirituality expresses itself most sharply. In reality this “constitutes” the specific discourse of spirituality.178 Spirituality seeks out the culture but at the same time experiences that it cannot fully express its core in it: “When he launches out in full faith and with all his heart into human history, he is surprised that he is met with a ‘vacuum,’ as much on the part of religious teaching as in the activities and the knowledge which could yet, in a given situation, provide a meeting point with God.”179 The spiritual experience, which in terms of its core is inexpressible, strives to achieve consciousness from within this nonsayability in structures of experience and to express itself in the language of the culture. The tragic reality is that this striving alienates spirituality from its tradition. “For the solitude of the Christian over against his own tradition is the reverse side of a certain solidarity, a sharing in a kind of language that has not been put into Gospel terms. The ‘spiritual person’s’ disappointment is expressed in a language that has not yet acquired or created its Christian punctuation.”180 Conclusion. The historical eye profiles the area of spirituality in its own way. (1) It makes spirituality visible as a form against the background of a socio-cultural context. (2) The relation between this form and the historical context is paradoxical: on the one hand, spirituality speaks the language of the culture of which it is a part; on the other hand, it distances itself from the cultural language because it is incapable of expressing the spiritual experience. (3) At the same time, this tension makes the relation to the tradition problematic: to the 176 M. de Certeau, Cultural and Spiritual Experience, in: Spirituality in the Secular City, New York 1966, 3-31 (Concilium, 1966, vol. 19). 177 Ibid., 9. 178 M. de Certeau, Cultures et spiritualités, in: Concilium 2 (1966) no. 9, 17. 179 M. de Certeau, Cultural and Spiritual Experience, 18-19. 180 Ibid., 20.

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extent spirituality engages itself more deeply with the culture, to that degree it alienates itself from the tradition out of which it lives and which it must therefore rediscover. BIBLIOGRAPHY Christian Spirituality. The Essential Guide to the Most Influential Spiritual Writings of the Christian Tradition, (Ed. F. Magill & I. McGreal), San Francisco 1988. The Classics of Western Spirituality. A Library of the Great Spiritual Masters, London-New York 1978-…. DARRICAU, R. & PEYROUS, B., Histoire de la spiritualité, Paris 1991. DINZELBACHER, P., Christliche Mystik im Abendland. Ihre Geschichte von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Mittelalters, Paderborn 1994. FARRE, L., Breve historia de la espiritualidad, Buenos Aires 1988. Frömmigkeit. Gelebte Religion als Forschungsaufgabe, (Ed. B. Jaspert), Paderborn 1995. Geest en tijdgeest, Speling 50 (1998) no. 4. Histoire de la spiritualité chrétienne, (Ed. L. Bouyer et al.), Paris 1960-1966. Historia de la espiritualidad, (Ed. B. Jiménez Duque & L. Sala Balust), Barcelona 1969. HOLLENBACK, J., Mysticism. A Comparative Historical Study, Ann Arbor (MI) 1991. HOMES, U., A History of Christian Spirituality. An Analytical Introduction, New York 1980. MCGINN, B., The Presence of God. A History of Western Christian Mysticism, New York 1991-1998. MOLINER, J., Historia de la espiritualidad, Burgos 1972. PABLO MAROTO, D., Historia de la espiritualidad, Madrid 1986. PACHO, E., Storia della spiritualità moderna, Roma 1984. POURRAT, P., La spiritualité chrétienne, Paris 1921-1930. ROYO MARIN, A., Los grandos maestros de la vida espiritual. Historia de la espiritualidad cristiana, Madrid 1973. RUH, K., Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, München 1990-1993. SCHOLEM, G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, London 1955. SHELDRAKE, P., Spirituality and History. Question of Interpretation and Method, LondonNew York 1991. Spiritualität und Geschichte, (Ed. D. Berg), Werl 1993. Tijdgeest en spiritualiteit, Speling 37 (1985) no. 1. World Spirituality. An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, (Ed. E. Cousins), New York 1985-….

2.2.5. LITERARY SCIENCES In his above-cited article Definition of Mysticism, Joseph Dan states: “It seems that the adjective ‘mystical’ is used by scholars studying religion mainly in two different contexts: when describing the character of a text or portion of a text, and

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when describing a historical religious phenomenon, a movement, a group, or the work of a religious thinker.”181 Joseph Dan correctly makes a distinction between a discussion of texts and a description of forms. The treatment of a text calls for a different modus operandi than a form description. In form research we are dealing with the description of spiritual paths and the way people pursue them. In text-research we are dealing with the interpretation of lingual utterances with a view to the experience conveyed in them. In this section we are focusing on spirituality from a literary viewpoint. The relation between spirituality and literary science is played out on three levels. 1. Editing. In the transmission of texts lived spirituality is more concerned than a critical text edition to serve the interests of edification. Often the first publishers were simultaneously interpreters who sought to escape condemnation from the side of orthodoxy. Not infrequently they were also members of the socalled “second generation,” who felt duty-bound to routinize the original experience. From Migne onward, editors attempted to produce critical editions of the sources of spirituality. Within the study of spirituality, on the basis of a limited number of manuscripts, authors like Ruusbroec, Thomas à Kempis, John of the Cross and others, were similarly edited and published critically. In the case of others, no complete (Geert Grote) or trustworthy (Jean de Saint-Sampson) edition was ever provided. The same is true for Jewish mysticism. It was not till the studies of Gershom Scholem appeared that a scientific breakthrough was effected here. In the 20th century, meanwhile, important text-critical editions were provided, whether in a series (e.g. Sources Chrétiennes or Corpus Christianorum) or apart from a series (e.g. Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, and Bernard). In the case of text editions one encounters such problems as: the recovery of the autographs, the reconstruction of mutilated passages, the orthography and syntax of dictated texts, the extent of the reception of the manuscripts and so forth. 2. Translation. Within lived spirituality the translation is performed by pious authors who without too many scruples adapt the text to the aims of edification. A scientifically responsible translation makes high demands on the target language. The translation must not only transmit thoughts but as a text and structure must have the same effect as the original: not the referential function but the poetics of the textual structure are primary, especially in the case of mystical texts. In addition, the spiritual process must be correctly reproduced. Add to this that spiritual texts as a rule have a strong intertextual character. The Shir ha-Yehud, a text from medieval Hasidism, consists primarily of borrowings from Scripture. Martin Buber’s I and Thou is incomprehensible without reference to

181

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J. Dan, In Quest of a Historical Definition of Mysticism, in: Studies in Spirituality 3 (1993),

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the numerous spiritual texts which Buber had read (Eckhart, Scheler, Kierkegaard, Buddha, John, Taoism, and so forth). In the science of translation the science of spirituality must find its own way. 3. Hermeneutics. The most essential level is that of hermeneutics. Without hermeneutics text editions and translations fail at crucial points. Text-critical and translation problems, after all, always present themselves when the logic of the editor or translator cannot follow the logic of the text. At that moment the editor or translator faces a dilemma: either follow the text (and hence publish something incomprehensible) or follow one’s own logic (and hence adapt the text). The history of Bible editions has shown how decisive the understanding of the editor(s) and translator(s) is. Gunkel, for example, changes the text of the Psalms at decisive points in keeping with his notions of piety and his poetic taste. Kraus, who performs his surgical interventions much less drastically, nevertheless still changes the text at many points for “text-critical” reasons, which in fact comes down to personal taste: the text is incomprehensible; this verse is too long; this is a needless repetition, and so forth. Also translations of contemporary writings like I and Thou (by R.G. Smith) and Totalité et Infini (by A. Lingis) show how decisive the (in)comprehension of the translator is. A text edition and translation are first and last (i.e.: precisely where the text presents the lectio difficilior or contains a crux interpretum) dependent on interpretation. This applies above all to mystical texts which exist in close proximity to the – non-rationalizable – experience of God’s “inworking” in man. But also without returning to the work of editing and translation the interpretation of spiritual texts is above all a literary-spiritual assignment. From the 17th and 18th century on, poetic speech and the discourse of mystics face both the power of the language used by the modern sciences and in political journalism. Literature and mysticism understand themselves as alternative modes of language, each of which needs a grammar of its own.182 “Mystical discourse continually reacts to language by means of language; it is a constant battle with words, where the combatants attempt as much to free themselves from words as to conquer them.”183 This conflict with language is intensified by the fact that mystics must express an inexpressible experience and in expressing it, experience that the language falls short.184 It is precisely here, in this tension between the noun “speech” and

182

E. Ribbat, Aussagen des Unsagbaren in der Literatur, in: Der Christ der Zukunft – ein Mystiker, (Ed. P. Gordan), Salzburg 1991, 210-219. 183 K. Porteman, Mystiek tegenover taal en literatuur in de zeventiende eeuw, in: Ons Geestelijk Erf 50 (1976), 130. 184 J. Quint, Mystik und Sprache. Ihr Verhältnis zu einander, insbesondere in der spekulativen Mystik Meister Eckharts, in: Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 27 (1953), 48-76.

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the adjective “inexpressible,” that mysticism expresses itself. The mystical paradox is a breach in the language which does not contain the content but in its incapacity bears witness to a lived relation.185 That in mystical language we are dealing with a special deregulatory language which can only be seen and interpreted in a specific hermeneutics implies – with retroactive force, as it were – that in the process of editing and translating mystical texts hermeneutics is in charge. The text, after all, by its word usage, phrases, contrasts, grammatical and syntactical aberrations, imagery, and figures of speech, will communicate the pain of lack and incapacity, and precisely therein communicate the inexpressible experience. Well then, one who in dealing with a difficult passage is not conscious of these specific language problems will, grounded as he is in a general knowledge of language, inevitably miscalculate and lead the language into the tensionless equivalence of his own logic. Conclusion. The literary sciences profile spirituality as follows: (1) Spirituality is accessible in language forms which bear the imprint of the inner reality of the spiritual process. (2) These texts call for a text-critical edition, guided by a careful hermeneutics. (3) Spiritual texts which from a historic vantagepoint can be utilized for the reconstruction of spiritual forms within their context, from a hermeneutic vantagepoint offer insight into the internal event-character of the spiritual form, right up to the “unsayable” of the mystical experience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ACHT, C. VAN, Mystieke poëzie, poëtische mystiek, Nijmegen 1982. DIENBERG, T., Ihre Tränen sind wie Gebete. Das Gebet nach Auschwitz in Theologie und Literatur, Würzburg 1997. DHAR, A., Mysticism in Literature, New Delhi 1985. DOEL, H. VAN DEN, Zingen als een gek. Het verschijnsel Gerrit Achterberg, als mens met een handicap, dichter en mysticus, Culemborg 1995. EVERSON, W., Naked Heart. Talking on Poetry, Mysticism, and the Erotic, Albuquerque (NM) 1992. HAAS, A., Mystik als Aussage. Erfahrungs-, Denk- und Redeformen christlicher Mystik, Frankfurt a.M. 1996. Literature and Spirituality, (Ed. D. Bevan), Amsterdam etc. 1992. Littérature européenne et spiritualité, (Ed. Association européenne Francois Mauriac), Sarreguemines 1992. Mysticism and Language, (Ed. S. Katz), New York etc. 1992. 185

215.

M. de Certeau, L’énonciation mystique, in: Recherches de Science Religieuse 64 (1976), 183-

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OEGEMA, J., Lucebert, mysticus. Over de roepingsgedichten en de ‘Open brief aan Bertus Aafjes,’ Nijmegen 1999. Poésie et mystique, (Ed. P. Plouvier), Paris 1995. SELLS, M., Mystical Languages of Unsaying, Chicago etc. 1994. WILSON, C., Poetry and Mysticism, London 1970.

2.2.6. PSYCHOLOGY Up until the beginning of the 20th century the dialogue between spirituality and psychology was blocked on both sides. Only very gradually did the two sciences begin to open up to each other. We shall follow the process from both sides. 1. Spirituality had locked itself up in (scholastic) theology: mysticism can only be properly studied from the standpoint of dogmatics. Krebs accurately formulated this view in the title of his book Grundfragen der Kirchlichen Mystik dogmatisch erörtert und für das Leben gewertet (1921).186 Over against Poulain and Grabmann, who had stressed the experiential side of mysticism as point of access,187 he wrote: “The road taken in the direction of a German Poulain school only leads to a false epistemology, a transfer of Erlebnis-theology into the literature of Catholicism.”188 In 1936 Stolz offered a thin rehash of the same position: mysticism is fueled by dogmatics and can only be understood by dogmatics; mysticism is a trans-psychological phenomenon.189 The negative attitude of Krebs, Stolz, and others proved to be their swan song. Critiques abounded.190 Reviewers pointed out the experiential nature of mysticism: “The fact is that God’s ‘inworking’ is experienced by the soul.”191 This characterizes mysticism. The psychology of mysticism will therefore above all study the divine ‘inworking’ in the soul: “We are of the opinion that it is the task of the psychology of mysticism to explore and demonstrate how the soul with its attributes conducts itself when it receives the life of grace and learns to know it in experience.”192 Psychology is given a place of its own in the study of spirituality. As early as 1929, 186 E. Krebs, Grundfragen der kirchlichen Mystik dogmatisch erörtert und für das Leben gewertet, Freiburg i.B. 1921. 187 A. Poulain, Des grâces d’oraison. Traité de théologie mystique, Paris 1901; M. Grabmann, Wesen und Grundlagen der katholischen Mystik, München 1923. 188 Cited in A. Mager, Mystik als seelische Wirklichkeit. Eine Psychologie der Mystik, Graz-Salzburg 1946, 13. 189 A. Stolz, Theologie der Mystik, Regensburg 1936. 190 Esp. that of Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Indole psicologica della teologia spirituale, in: Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 32 (1940), 31-42; A. Mager, Mystik als seelische Wirklichkeit, GrazWürzburg 1946; J. Maréchal, Études sur la psychologie des mystiques, Paris 1924. 191 A. Mager, ibid., 15. 192 Ibid., 22.

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in his book De theologiae spiritualis studio,193 Heerinckx already observed that the study of spirituality draws on two sources: theological sources194 and the sources of experience.195 Among the latter he mentions experimental psychology (referring to Cassian, Teresa, and to modern authors such as Schryvers, Zahn and Farges); the psychology of religion (he mentions Maréchal with his Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics [Engl. tr.] and Reflexions sur l’étude comparee des mystiques and Joly’s Psychologie des saints); the storehouse of experience present in the lives of the saints and the spiritual biographies; and his personal experience, especially from the practice of spiritual accompaniment. The ice was broken; openness was growing. Beginning in 1935 Père Bruno organized his annual international congresses on the psychology of religion in Avon, where psychologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers met each other, culminating in the famous series Etudes Carmelitaines. We witness a similar openness to psychology in the Supplément de la Vie Spirituelle (from 1947 on). 2. Up until the beginning of the 20th century psychology assumed a one-sided medical-positivistic attitude. Psychologists noted extraordinary symptoms and on that basis classified the mystics in accordance with their syndromes. Teresa of Avila was a hysteric: “The contractures, described by Teresa as nervous cramps, are among the most common phenomena of a serious form of hysteria.”196 Paul the apostle and Dostoyevski were diagnosed as epileptics, and Francis of Assisi as a genetic degenerate.197 Nor did the non-medical-biological psychology of Freud offer any more solace. His abstract-negative attitude toward religiosity as such offered few openings for dialogue. A breakthrough came with The Varieties of Religious Experience of William James which was published in 1902. Here, for the first time, mysticism was treated as a unique phenomenon which cannot be reduced to other psychic phenomena. James, in documenting and analyzing autobiographical testimonies, discovered there the basic themes of spirituality: conversion experiences, a sense of Presence, and mysticism. Since then a lot has happened. The climate changed. Numerous studies appeared which examined the phenomenon of spirituality from the perspective of psychology. It was entirely in line with these developments, therefore, that the American Psychological Association in 1988 added “spirituality” to the official index of key terms.198 193 J. Heerinckx, De theologiae spiritualis studio, in: Antonianum 4 (1929), 209-230; 303-336; 431-454. 194 Ibid., 432-438. 195 Ibid., 439-442. 196 G. Hahn, Die Probleme der Hysterie und die Offenbarungen der Heiligen Therese, Leipzig 1906, 114. 197 For this medical psychiatric view, see J. Leuba, The Psychology of Religious Mysticism, London-Boston 1925; H. Delacroix, Études d’historie et de psychologie du mysticism, Paris 1908. 198 American Psychological Association, Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, Arlington 1988.

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3. Interfaces. Surveying the literature, we discern a number of interdisciplinary lines: some look at spiritual processes from the standpoint of a particular psychological scheme. Others immerse themselves in the spiritual traditions with an eye to their psychological implications. Still others reserve for spirituality a scientific field of its own alongside psychology. We will represent these different positions by means of a few examples. The Swedish psychologist of religion Hjalmar Sundén, in his book Die Religion und die Rollen: eine psychologische Untersuchung der Frömmigkeit, analyzed religious experience with the aid of the concept of “role” derived from the psychology of perception and social psychology. When we speak of a “role” we are not just dealing with behaviors which one takes over and appropriates, but also and at the same time with frames of reference which make the perceptions possible. When, for example, “someone identifies himself with a human figure from the biblical tradition, we say he takes over his role. But at the same time he assumes the role of God, i.e., by virtue of the biblical story he can anticipate God’s action and observe the entire future process of his own life as the action of God.”199 Hubert Hermans proceeds from his concept of the many-voiced self which he calls the “dialogical self ”: “a dynamic plurality of relatively autonomous I-positions in an imaginary space.”200 The self, as in a space, can move from one I-position to another in close rapport with changes in the situation. Hermans shows how this many-voiced self offers conceptual access to spiritual motifs like: the spiritual way; receptivity to otherness; sudden reversals and changes in character; the dynamic concurrence of opposites; the presence of a core experience.201 Other psychologists link up more closely with the spiritual literature and spiritual praxis. In his book Le temp du désir,202 Denis Vasse describes prayer in light of the psychoanalytically-stamped binomium of need and desire. “Need” refers to the inner necessity of an organism to convert the other into itself. “Desire” is the love-dynamic of the need to let the other be the other. This tension between “need” and “desire” also applies to the god-relation. To pray is to pass continually from the need for God to desire for God himself.203 199 H. Sundén, Die Religion und die Rollen. Eine psychologische Untersuchung der Frömmigkeit, Berlin 1966, 29; also cf. J. van der Lans, Religieuze ervaring en meditatie, Deventer 1980. 200 H. Hermans, Het meerstemmige zelf. Op het raakvlak van psychologie en spiritualiteit, in: K. Waaijman, Th. Zweerman et al., Kansen voor spiritualiteit, Baarn-Nijmegen 1996, 98; see at length H. Hermans & H. Kempen, The Dialogical Self. Meaning as Movement, San Diego (CA) 1993. 201 H. Hermans, Het meerstemmige zelf, 106-123. 202 D. Vasse, Le temps du désir, Paris 1969. 203 See also P. Moyaert, Mystiek en liefde, in: J. Walgrave & P. Moyaert, Mystiek en liefde, Leuven 1988; A. Vergote, Religion, Belief and Unbelief. A Psychological Study, Leuven-Amsterdam 1997.

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The psychiatrist Noordzij has designed his own psychology of spiritual development: change, repentance, metanoia, relinquishment of the little self, surrender to the transcendent reality are all conceived as being within reach of a spiral movement which leads to ever deeper and more comprehensive contact with the reality of God. Noordzij’s study is aimed at our getting to know ultimate reality and the meaning of existence and at fostering growth in our going of the way: a way that is marked by permanent transformation from self-preservation to self-surrender.204 It is Han de Wit’s aim to make visible the psychological insights and methods found within the contemplative traditions and to bring them into dialogue with academic psychology. He proceeds from the metaphor of the “way” which can be described in terms of states or phases of the experience of reality through which the way passes. The experience of reality always proves to be relative to the phase in which one finds him- or herself. Every phase possesses a number of layers: a mental, communicative, and behavioral layer. De Wit then deepens and concretizes these layers: the trustworthiness of acquired (and to be again relinquished) knowledge; the difficulty of transferring the experiences incurred; the understanding and experience of one’s body; and so forth. Gradually an image of what a contemplative psychology could encompass emerges, limited as it is of course by the sources read (especially Buddhist) and the manner of reading them (especially in an “inventorying” way).205 A way completely his own has been taken by Helminiak. His plea is that the science of spirituality be assigned an area of its own alongside psychology.206 On the basis of Lonergan’s analysis of the human consciousness he marks off the area of spirituality in relation to psychology as follows: over against the psyche (emotions, feelings, affects, images, memories, and the like) is the spirit (self-consciousness, understanding, deliberation, choice) which gives access to the true and the valuable, provided the spirit is open, questioning, honest, and loving. In our opinion, the basis of Helminiak’s construction is too narrow: he onesidedly defines spirituality in terms of the word “spirit-uality,” proceeds from an arbitrary epistemology, and in no way refers to existing research in spirituality. An important field of tension in all the psychological interpretations of the phenomenon of spirituality lies between an intrapsychic versus a dialogical interpretation. Some studies reduce mystical experience a priori to an intrapsychic 204 J. Noordzij, Religieus concept en religieuze ervaring in de christelijke traditie. Proeve van een psychologie van de spirituele ontwikkeling, Kampen 1994; J. Noordzij, Opmerkzaam onderweg. Contouren van een spirituele ontwikkelingspsychologie, in: Geïnspireerd leven. Op zoek naar een bijbels georiënteerde spiritualiteit, (Ed. B. Voorsluis), Zoetermeer 1996, 30-50. 205 H. de Wit, Contemplatieve psychologie, Kampen 1987; H. de Wit, De verborgen bloei. Over de psychologische achtergronden van spiritualiteit, Kampen 1995. 206 D. Helminiak, A Scientific Spirituality. The Interface of Psychology and Theology, in: The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 6 (1996) no. 1, 1-19.

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process or a subjective state of consciousness: the spiritual event is read as an immanent process of a subject who turns inward and descends to the deeper structures of consciousness. Other studies interpret spiritual experience as an encounter with an irreducible Otherness: the dialogical-interaction between God and man.207 However this may be, the study of spirituality is most benefited by a hermeneutical approach to the psychic in general and in that setting to the spiritual in particular.208 Conclusion. The psychological angle of vision profiles spirituality as follows. (1) Especially the human pole in the phenomenon of spirituality comes to the fore: its growth and development but also its destructive side (regression, pathological behavior); its propensity for projection and desire for encounter; its will to really appropriate spirituality and the temptation to adapt itself only externally; its capacity for traversing a way which bridges discontinuous transitions but also for getting stuck in familiar patterns. (2) Psychology shows how the critical consciousness accompanies the spiritual way, often externalized in a process of spiritual accompaniment in which one’s personal participation in the spiritual process is scrutinized in a self-critical manner. BIBLIOGRAPHY BAKAN, D., Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition, London 1990. BEDNAR, R. & PETERSON, S., Spirituality and Self-esteem. Developing the Inner Self, Salt Lake City (UT) 1990. BODNAR, A., Dialogues at the Meeting Place of Psychotherapy and Spirituality. A Movement toward Integration, Toronto 1992. CAMPBELL, O., An Investigation into Distinguishing Personality Correlates to Mysticism, Ann Arbor (MI) 1990. CATALAN, J., Expérience spirituelle et psychologie, Paris 1991. COLLINS, J., Mysticism and New Paradigm Psychology, Savage (MD) 1991. CONN, J., Spirituality and Personal Maturity, New York-Mahwah (NJ) 1989. DANESH, H., The Psychology of Spirituality, Victoria (British Columbia) 1994. FINLEY, J., The Contemplative Dimensions of Psychotherapy. A Transpersonal Approach, Pasadena (CA) 1987. GROESCHEL, B., Crecimiento espiritual y madurez psicológica, Madrid 1987. HALEVI, Z., Kabbalah and Psychology, Bath 1986. 207 H. Blommestijn, Psicologia della mistica, in: La spiritualità come teologià, (Ed. C. Bernard), Milano 1993, 232-251; H. Blommestijn, Découverte de soi-même ou quête de Dieu. L’itinéraire de soi en Dieu chez Maître Eckhart, in: Studies in Spirituality 1 (1991), 25-35. 208 See, e.g., W. Stangl, Das neue Paradigma der Psychologie, Braunschweig 1989; S. Terwee, Hermeneutics in Psychology and Psychoanalysis, Berlin-New York 1990.

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HELMINIAK, D., The Human Core of Spirituality. Mind as Psyche and Spirit, Albany (NY) 1996. HELMINIAK, D., Spiritual Development. An Interdisciplinary Study, Chicago 1987. HOFFMAN, E., The Way of Splendor. Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology, Boulder (CO)-London 1981. IMODA, F., Human Development. Psychology and Mystery, Leuven 1998. The Innate Capacity. Mysticism, Psychology, and Philosophy, (Ed. R. Forman), New YorkOxford 1998. JAFFE, L., Liberating the Heart. Spirituality and Jungian Psychology, Toronto 1990. KAKAR, S., The Analyst and the Mystic. Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism, Chicago 1991. KASSEL, M., Das Auge im Bauch. Erfahrungen mit tiefenpsychischer Spiritualität, Olten 1986. KEATING, C., Who We Are Is How We Pray. Matching Personality and Spirituality, Mystic (CT) 1987. MCDERMOTT-SHIDELER, M., Spirituality. An Approach through Descriptive Psychology, Ann Arbor (MI) 1992. MAY, R., Cosmic Consciousness Revisited. The Modern Origins and Development of a Western Spiritual Psychology, Rockport (MA) 1993. MAZZONI, C., Saint Hysteria. Neurosis, Mysticism, and Gender in European Culture, IthacaLondon 1996. MIHALAS, D., Depression and Spiritual Growth, Wallingford (PA) 1996. MORTAZAVI, D., Soufisme et psychologie, Monaco 1989. NIETO, J., Religious Experience and Mysticism. Otherness as Experience of Transcendence, Lanham (MD) 1997. NOORDZIJ, J., Religieus concept en religieuze ervaring in de christelijke traditie. Proeve van een psychologie van de spirituele ontwikkeling, Kampen 1994. O’LEARY, D., Windows of Wonder. A Spirituality of Self-esteem, New York 1991. PATTERSON, R., Becoming a Modern Contemplative. A Psychospiritual Model for Personal Growth, Chicago 1995. PROVITOLA, G., Perfection Quest or Spiritual Quest. Narcissism and Its Relationship to Spiritual Discipline, New York 1987. RICHARD, R. & DEZE, C., Psychologie et spiritualité. À la recherche d’une interface, SainteFoy (Quebec) 1992. ROBERTS, R., Spirituality and Human Emotion, Grand Rapids (MI) 1982. SHAH, I., Learning How to Learn. Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way, London 1978. SIGLAG, M., Schizophrenic and Mystical Experiences. Similarities and Differences, Ann Arbor (MI) 1988. Spirituality. Perspectives in Theory and Research, Journal of Psychology and Theology 19 (1991) no. 1. Spirituality and Psychology, The Way Supplement no. 69 (1990). ULANOV, A., Carl Jung and Christian Spirituality, New York 1988. VIERL, K., Psychologie als spirituelle Betätigung, Stuttgart 1994. VIGNE, J., Elements de psychologie spirituelle, Paris 1993. WELSH, A., The Other Side of the Mountain. The Value and Limitations of Analytic Psychology in the Traditional Stages of Christian Spiritual Development, Berkeley (CA) 1995.

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WIMBER, J. & SPRINGER, K., The Dynamics of Spiritual Growth, London etc. 1990. WIT, H. DE, Contemplatieve psychologie, Kampen 1987. WIT, H. DE, De verborgen bloei, Kampen 1995.

2.2.7. SOCIOLOGY Over the last few decades spirituality and the social sciences have appeared in each other’s field of vision. With that development, important aspects of the phenomenon of spirituality have come into clear focus depending on the perspective adopted. 1. The structural perspective examines “the way in which society is organized as a whole, in its principles of organization”:209 the way in which its social systems (economy, politics, government, education, health care, security apparatus), its religious institutions (churches, creeds, movements), and the cultural sector (art, sports, mass media) interlock. This macrosocial fabric, which contains larger and smaller coherences (meso- and micro-level) is not a static whole: the structures influence each other at all levels, either in an atmosphere of competition or of harmony, disintegration or reconstruction, affirmation or criticism, challenge or discouragement, mutual respect or a conflict of interests. The structural perspective is characteristic for liberation spirituality which locates itself within the field of political-economic forces in order there – on the basis of social analysis and the dangerous memory of the Christian tradition – to let God’s liberation happen. The same is true for all forms of emancipation spirituality: ecological spirituality examines the socio-economic system that is the cause of the pollution of the elements and the exhaustion of the earth; the spirituality of the peace movement analyzes the military-industrial complex; feminist spirituality brings to light androcentric power concentrations. Analysis of the socio-cultural system is a first step in the spiritual process. The second step is strategic action. In this connection the group itself and the network which the group develops are important means. The group is the spiritual milieu in which the values pursued and the desired processes of change are realized: base communities, peace groups, women groups. Via social action and communication, these ideals are shared with a broader group. 2. The “values” perspective is one which studies the unitive experience of reality which gives meaning to social systems on all levels.210 Parsons calls this the cultural system: the precipitate of symbols, ideas, values, and religious convictions in a given society.211 Spirituality takes note of the values-orientations which 209

M. Coulson & C. Riddell, Approaching Sociology, London-Boston-Henley 1980, 33. P. Berger & B. Berger, Sociology. A Biographical Approach, New York 1972. 211 T. Parsons, The Social System, New York 1951. 210

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influence the conduct and community life of people. Max Weber, for example, has shown that Calvinistic piety (thrift being an important virtue and the verification of one’s election in the form of earthly prosperity) is an important ingredient in “the spirit of capitalism.”212 The value-perspective also opens one’s eyes to the connection between modern Western society, which attaches importance to autonomy, health, self-development, profit, progress and technology, and modern spirituality which has been dominated by self-sanctification. 3. The actor-perspective looks at society “from the standpoint of or on the basis of the action and thinking of the participants in a social situation.”213 The premise underlying this perspective is that social structures as such are not observable. They only become visible in the action and thinking of people who maintain these structures. This perspective has been especially developed in the symbolic interactionism of which George Herbert Mead is the father,214 and in ethnomethodology.215 For spirituality this actor perspective can be instructive. Spirituality, after all, is “not merely a static whole of values but also a process in which the whole person is transformed.”216 4. From the perspective of cultural anthropology Victor Turner encountered the field of tension between structure and antistructure.217 Structure is present where a coherent whole of social role patterns and positions operates in accordance with legitimated norms and sanctions.218 Antistructure is present where this structure no longer or not yet functions: outside the structure, at the underside of the structure, in the gaps of the structure.219 Structure and antistructure form a polarity. Within this polarity spirituality delineates itself on the one hand as antistructure. “a fructile chaos, a storehouse of possibilities, not a random assemblage but a striving after new forms and structures, a gestation process, a fetation of modes appropriate to postliminal existence”;220 on the other hand as structure insofar as it is assumes form in schools of spirituality and established 212 M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York 1958; see also D. McClelland, The Achieving Society, Princeton 1961. 213 P. Buiks & G. van Tillo, Het sociologische perspectief, Assen 1981, 120. 214 G. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, Chicago 1934. 215 See, e.g., J. Matthes et al., Alltagswissen, Interaktion und gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit, Reinbek b.Hamburg 1973; S. Bruyn, The Human Perspective in Sociology. The Method of Participant Observation, Englewood Cliffs (NJ) 1966. 216 H. Blommestijn, Spiritualiteit en hoe je jezelf kunt bedriegen, in: Speling 29 (1977) no. 1, 99-114. 217 See the introduction to part 1, chapter 3, where we deal with this field of tension. 218 V. Turner, The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure. London 1969, 125-126. 219 Ibid., vii and 126; V. Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors, Ithaca-London 1974, 50, 225, 268. 220 V. Turner, Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama. An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience, in: The Anthropology of Experience, (Ed. V. Turner & E. Bruner), Urbana-Chicago 1986, 42.

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traditions. Between antistructure and structure there is lively traffic: “We are social beings, and we want to tell what we have learned from experience. The arts depend on this urge to confession or declamation. The hard-won meanings should be said, painted, danced, dramatized, put into circulation.”221 Corresponding to this is a movement from within the social structure: the public, listening, singing and dancing, fits the experience into the social reality it represents. The antistructure of the experience incarnates itself in the structural system of the culture.222 Conclusion. The perspective of the social sciences delineates the phenomenon of spirituality as follows. (1) Spirituality becomes evident against the background of the socio-cultural context. (2) One discovers by what value-system a given form of spirituality is inspired and how the actors participate via this form in that world of values. (3) One further discovers the position this form assumes with respect to the social fabric: whether it belongs more to the entire complex of social roles and positions (structure) or rather falls outside of that complex and moves against it (antistructure).

BIBLIOGRAPHY MEEHAN, F., A Contemporary Social Spirituality, Maryknoll (NY) 1982. MOBERG, D., Spiritual Well-Being. Sociological Perspectives, Washington (DC) 1979. Spiritualiteit als bondgenoot. De verbinding tussen geestkracht en daadkracht, (Eds. C. Hogenhuis et al.), Kampen 1998. TILLO, G. VAN, Onthullingen. Spiritualiteit sociologisch benaderd, Amsterdam-Tilburg 1994. Spirituality and Society. Postmodern Visions, (Ed. D. Griffin), Albany (NY) 1988. WINTER, G., Community and Spiritual Transformation. Religion and Politics in a Communal Age, New York 1989.

221

Ibid., 37. For the intrinsic connection between experience and its expression on the one hand, and liminality (antistructure) and social structure on the other, see ibid., 41-44. 222

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2.3. A retrospective summary When we look back on the intra- and interdisciplinary viewpoints from which we considered the phenomenon of spirituality, this phenomenon appears as a complex whole that is constructed out of elements which are complementarily interrelated. The different viewpoints critically and systematically bring this complicated whole into view. Before describing the elements in their interconnectedness we will first briefly sum up each of the two most important viewpoints, the intra- as well as the interdisciplinary. 1. The intradisciplinary perspective. When we look back on the viewpoints assumed by the discipline of spirituality (intradisciplinarily) we get the following picture. (1) Spirituality is viewed as a relational process which constitutes an original whole (spiritual theology) in which God and man are reciprocally related (treatises on perfection). (2) The relational process can be viewed from the standpoint of the divine pole: God communicates himself as a dark light (mystical theology); on the way to this divine self-communication man appropriates for himself God’s truth and worth (spiritual theology) in order to become perfect in God (treatises on perfection). It can also be viewed from the standpoint of the human pole: humans in various ways prepare themselves for union with God (asceticism) in order to grow in the direction of perfection in God (treatises on perfection). (3) The relational process is layered: the whole of human experience (the faculties, affectivity, praxis) is involved in it on a personal, social, and socio-cultural level (the perspective of experience). (4) This relational process is a phased process marked by several transitions (treatises on perfection; mystical theology). (5) The relational process is mediated: there are forms which serve as intermediaries to take humans in the direction of God (forms of knowing, willing, acting, and so forth) and forms which serve as intermediaries to bring God in the direction of man (Scripture, sacraments, the neighbor, and so forth). 2. The interdisciplinary perspective. From the standpoint of the different disciplines the area of spirituality is delineated as follows. (1) The phenomenon of spirituality comes to the fore as a historical form, concretized in forms of language and expression, sustained by spiritual communities and religious traditions (history, sciences of religion, theology). This historical form has an “inside” which can be made accessible by interpretation (literary sciences) and more or less interiorized by actors (psychology, actor-oriented sociology). The form delineates itself against the background of a context: a religious, social, and cultural context (theology, sciences of religion, social sciences), where the measure of distance or closeness can vary: adaptation, resistance from below, liminality, marginality (Turner). (2) The interdisciplinary network delineates spirituality as

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a human enterprise: a process which revolves around sound growth and distorted growth, projection and deprojection, development and stagnation (psychology). Forms of spirituality are the tracks which the human search for God leaves behind (history, literary sciences) in a world of human interactions (social sciences). (3) The reality of the divine is either approached critically (theology, philosophy, the sciences of religion, the psychology of religion) or uncritically assumed (in some theologies). The critical approach makes one keen to discover processes of projection and deprojection and stresses the unknowability of the Infinite. Theologies with a positive orientation give prominence to the data of revelation and try to orient spirituality to them. 3. The connection between them. When we attempt to integrate the two perspectives, we get the following picture of the formal object of the study of spirituality. Both perspectives converge in the notion of “form,” a configuration consisting in forms of language and expression which may have been handed down by a tradition, but may also have been arranged via personal selection. This form discloses its inner side in a process of participation (interiorization and interpretation) and delineates itself against a socio-cultural background (interdisciplinary perspective); the same form is experienced – by participation in it – as a mediation between the divine and the human reality (intradisciplinary perspective). (2) Both perspectives exhibit the intertwinement of the human and the divine perspective: spirituality is a human enterprise with moments of real growth and false growth, inwardness and selftranscendence, a search process in which a human being takes shape and God’s reality is appropriated (interdisciplinary perspective); at the same time spirituality is a divine enterprise with moments of revelation and eclipse (intradisciplinary perspective). (3) The interactivity between the divine and the human reality is a phased and layered process: the human reality makes transitions which are marked by a large measure of discontinuity. The same is true for the divine reality which discloses within a single spiritual process aspects which cannot be grasped in just one rational concept. 4. Conclusion. On the basis of the above we think we can define the formal object of the study of spirituality as divine-human transformation. (1) Central in this definition is the notion of “form”: trans-form-ation. (2) Further expressed in it is that the divine and the human reality are involved in a process of reciprocal change; the two poles stand out in relation to each other, precisely through the mediating form: transform-ation. (3) Finally, the definition expresses the fact that this process of change involves moments of discontinuity: trans-form-ation.

CHAPTER 3: DIVINE-HUMAN TRANSFORMATION – THE OBJECT OF RESEARCH INTRODUCTION 426 The area of reality studied by the science of spirituality is the divine-human relational process (material object) which is viewed as a layered process of transformation (formal object). 3.1. THE DIVINE-HUMAN RELATIONAL PROCESS 427 The divine-human relational process (material object) is a relational whole in which the divine and human realities shape each other reciprocally. In this relational process we can distinguish three perspectives: the divine reality which we will paradigmatically explore on the basis of the name Yahweh; the human reality which we will examine on the basis of the notion of “the soul” (nephesh); the relational moment which we will thematize on the basis of the Imago-Dei motif. 3.1.1. The divine reality 427 3.1.2. The human reality 435 3.1.3. The relational moment 446 3.2. THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS 455 In the divine-human relational process there are recurrent form changes in the human pole, in the divine pole, and in the mutual relationship. These form changes (formal object) occur on five levels, each of which has its own specific transitions: the transformation from non-being to being, interpreted by several spiritual traditions as a creation process; the transformation from malformation to reformation; being conformed to the divine-human transformation model; transformation in love; transformation in glory; a process people situate on the other side of death. 3.2.1. Transformation in creation 456 3.2.2. Transformation in re-creation 459 3.2.3. Transformation in conformity 463 3.2.4. Transformation in love 469 3.2.5. Transformation in glory 476 Bibliography 481

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Introduction The preceding chapters have led to the following conclusions. (1) The area of spirituality can be defined as a divine-human relational process: a bipolar whole in which the divine and the human realities take shape reciprocally (material object). (2) This area of reality can be properly studied as a process of transformation: the process of taking shape (form) reciprocally which is realized between the divine and the human pole (-ation) in which especially the transitional moment (trans) are important (formal object). This chapter explores in greater depth both the material and formal object of the study of spirituality and unfolds its fundamental structure.

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3.1. The Divine-Human Relational Process The divine-human relational process can be further described from three angles: the divine reality, the human reality, and the relation between the two. 3.1.1. THE

DIVINE REALITY

In the opinion of a number of authors, by including the word “God” in the definition of spirituality one would confine oneself to the sphere of the religious. As a result, secular forms of spirituality (peace-oriented spirituality, environmental spirituality, liberation spirituality, feminist spirituality, black spirituality, gay spirituality, humanistic spirituality, nature-mysticism, New-Age spirituality) and non-theistic forms of spirituality (Buddhist spirituality, Taoist spirituality) would all be excluded in advance. Also, the use of the word “God” would give personal views of God too great an advantage, while numerous people actually have much more sympathy for the non-personal aspects of the divine reality. In addition the word “God” would imply a methodological reduction to the scope of the discipline of theology. At first sight these objections seem convincing. On closer scrutiny, however, we discover that categories are being used which, though seemingly clear, in reality contain all sorts of ambiguity. Religious. “Religious” is a perspectival term. From the viewpoint of established religion the elementary-religious character of lay spirituality will have a secular “feel” to it: the existential experiences around birth, love, and death must first be transformed into religion-bound language before it can be recognized as religious. The same is true of the spiritual countermovements: the Mosaic spirituality of liberation, viewed from an Egyptian perspective, is a secular resistance movement which is a-religious, even anti-religious. By comparison with the religion of the first temple the study circles developed in captivity seem secular and, in the Babylonian context, are a-religious. One thing is clear: the word “God” occurs not only in religion-bound language games but equally in secular-seeming spiritualities. It is therefore incorrect to say that the word “God” confines spirituality to the sphere of religion. If one views the religious dimension of life as religion-bound, then the proposition is untrue, for God is a manifest phenomenon outside of “religion.” If one also puts the elementary-religious, the socially-religious and religion criticism and even the anti-religious under the heading of “the religious,” the proposition is equally untrue, for then one can no longer speak of “confinement.”

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Theistic. Theism is an umbrella concept. It covers pantheism which views God and the world as one; pan-en-theism which views reality as being incorporated in God; polytheism which perceives the divine reality in a multiplicity of forms; monotheism which holds that there is but one God; deism, which regards God as being separate from the reality known to us. It is clear that “God” occurs in all these variants. But there is more. “God” also occurs in atheistic conceptions which reject the formation of certain images: the Jews were called atheistic because there was no God-image in their temple. The mystical tradition owns many forms of apophatic discourse. Dorothee Sölle suggests that we should believe in God atheistically. Heidegger adopts as his aim “to remain close to the absence of God – without fear of the appearance of ungodliness – until from our nearness to the absent God is granted the initial word which mentions the High.”1 God here become purely a question or still more precisely: “the source of the [radically] questionable.”2 Personal. By a personal God-image people frequently mean a conception of God in a human form (father, mother, son, child, beloved), having human attributes (merciful, wrathful, punishing, forgiving) and human capacities (eye, ear, heart, mouth, hand). With this personal God people have a personal relationship (love, devotion, reverence), which expresses itself in direct speech (prayer, worship services) and the use of proper names (Yahweh, Allah, Abba, Zeus). In the case of an impersonal mode of representation God is pictured in the form of an animal (lamb), or an inanimate object (Bread, Light, Water, Cross), or as an abstraction (wisdom, love), or as an “I do not know what” (John of the Cross). This seemingly lucid distinction between “personal” and “impersonal” conceals a variety of ambiguities. An impersonal form, after all, can become personal by the mere fact of being personally addressed: “Thou, Light of the World”; “Thou, Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.” Even non-personal abstract categories can become personal: “O Thou, beyond everything, how else can I call on thee?” (Gregory of Nazianze); “Thou, Secret of my life.” Sometimes a personal involvement in an – as such – non-personal occurrence can yield a personal God-image. In lay piety, as we saw, the divine is experienced as a powerful atmosphere which sustains and leads communal life and events; that constitutes the core of the good and the merciful; that grants fertility and success; and grounds interhuman love. Thus an impersonal image of God becomes personal by direct speech or involvement. By contrast, a relation with a personal 1

M. Heidegger, Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (Gesamtausgabe IV), Frankfurt a.M. 1981, 28. 2 W. Weischedel, Der Gott der Philosophen. Grundlegung einer Philosophischen Theologie im Zeitalter des Nihilismus II, Darmstadt 1972, 227.

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god-as-Father can be impersonal. For dialogicians like Buber and Levinas the personal dimension of the god-relation, accordingly, does not consist in that God possesses the form of a person but in that God registers his presence in human life and in that this is not immaterial to humans: God can be read clearly in the human response. The form he assumes is relative: an apparition or a prayer, a dream or a desire, a form or a word, an effect in space or a dimension of time, an experience or an intuition. Non-personal terms for the transcendent (Wholeness, Deliverance, Goodness, Righteousness, Peace) can touch someone personally so that a personal relation comes into being that transforms the person. And what are we to think of a god-conception in which all personalization of the divine and the fixation of man in the concept of a person that comes with it is left behind in a god-conception which is beyond personality? According to Eckhart, the soul must bid farewell to the concept of personhood that is based on self-definition.3 Although Buddhist spirituality (aside from Pure-Land Buddhism) knows of no personal relation with an absolute Being who resides in a transcendent world, it does permit itself to be transformed through and through by the Unborn, Unbecome, Unmade, and Uncomposited.4 Theological. At first blush it sounds plausible to say that God belongs in theology. A moment of reflection, however, tells us that this thesis is untenable. Heidegger does not become a theologian because his Geviert (Fourfold) contains “gods.” Rizzuto did not leave psychology behind her when she wrote a study about The Birth of the Living God; a literary scholar does not become a theologian when he investigates the etymology of “God,” Theos,” “Deus,” “Elohim” or “Allah,” anymore than historians abandon their field when they study the god-image of a given culture or sociologists of religion abandon their special discipline when they do research in God in the Netherlands. The use of the word “God” in a scientific argument does not imply a scholar has by that token entered the academic domain of theology. The richness of non-theological discourse about God becomes evident when, by way of example, we look back at the god-conceptions we encounter in the history of philosophy: God as the Unity of all opposites (Heraclites), God as the all-transcending Good and Beautiful who thoroughly forms all things (Plato), God as the necessary, perfect and uncaused Being that realizes itself as Thought thinking itself (Aristotle), God as clearly intuited, perfect Infinity (Descartes), God as the supreme Monad who encompasses and pervades all monads (Leibnitz), God as self-existent Substance whose essential being unfolds itself in an infinite number of modes (Spinoza), God as the supreme Good who is our ultimate end (Kant), God as absolute Spirit (Hegel), God as the enduring Life Force 3 4

Part 1, chapter 1.1.2. Udana VIII, 3.

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from which the worlds spring (Bergson), God as the Source of all that can be and the Fulfillment of all that actually becomes (Whitehead), God as the Transcendence of all transcendences (Jaspers).5 Some thinkers even deliberately situate their discourse about God outside the circle of theological discourse. Thus, in his Schriften zur Philosophie, Martin Buber says that “God” admittedly constitutes for him the foundation of his thinking, but “not as a deduction from a datum of tradition, of however fundamental importance that is for me, and hence not as ‘theology,’ but as the faith experience to which I owe the independence of my thinking.”6 Considering all this, it does not seem warranted, on the basis of a number of uncritically adopted stereotypes (religious, theistic, personal, or theological), to delete the notion of God from the definition of spirituality. In this we are guided by the following arguments: (1) Missing in the non-theistic alternatives is the desired openness. In the notion of “ultimate reality” the origin remains unclear. In the notion of the “absolute,” the nearness of it slips into the background. In “self-transcendence” the immanence is too much lost from sight. The attributes “infinite” and “unconditional” stress the apophatic aspects at the expense of the affirmative ones. The “secret” obscures the plain and the public. All the substitutes for God listed up to this point remain aspectual and are by that token exclusive. That is also true for the One, the All, the Good, the Supreme, the first Cause, and so forth. Whatever substitute terms we may fashion, the perspective of the fashioner will always be dominant in it. The notion of “God,” on the other hand, has gone through so many divergent experiences that it has acquired the desired inclusiveness. (2) We are cautioned by the fact that the secular forms of spirituality are found especially in Western (Euro-American) culture, and within that culture especially in urbanized and industrialized milieus. This temporally and spatially limited area must not be confused with an all-inclusive openness. This fact can be simply illustrated from the reference work World Spirituality: only one of its 25 volumes is devoted to the secular quest. We are still waiting for a thorough discussion of this volume. Following this discussion of the use of the notion of “God” in the definition of spirituality we now want, by way of a paradigm, to bring the divine reality up for discussion with the aid of the divine name Yahweh.7 In this context we will pick up again the points of discussion touched upon above. 5 Argumente für Gott. Gott-Denker von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, (Ed. K. Weger & K. Bossong), Freiburg i.Br-Basel etc. 1987. 6 M. Buber, Antwort, in: Martin Buber, (Ed. P. Schilpp & M. Friedman), Stuttgart 1963, 590. 7 In this connection we will lean on our earlier study: K. Waaijman, Betekenis van de naam Jahwe, Kampen 1984.

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1. Present The divine name Yahweh is rooted in the transmigratory experiences of seminomadic families. When they entered new pastureland, they pitched their tents, built an altar, and called on God with the name Yahweh: “Be present here. Protect us from misfortune. Be there!” The name Yahweh was originally a petition which – literally translated – reads: “May he be there!” In time this litany became an independent divine name: Be-er. The divine name “Be-er” had its setting in life in lay spirituality, particularly in its core domain: the dwelling. Originally the Name was a petition for (God’s) protective Presence. From the core domain of the dwelling the Name spread to the other dimensions of life: birth, sickness, injustice and death. Also the course of life as a whole was governed by the theme of God’s protective Presence. Just as in Taoism the Way sustains and permeates all movements,8 so Be-er is compassionately involved in the ways of human beings. In making this very life’s journey the pious feel that Be-er is companionately journeying with them. One cannot call the god-consciousness expressed in the Name religious in the sense of religion-bound. It is not determined by the symbolic world of a dominant religion. Neither can one call this consciousness theistic in the sense of a sharply defined god-image as in the monotheistic form associated with a dogmatically crystallized religion. Be-er is image-less. The name Be-er makes God present in an atmosphere of prayer and self-surrender. Be-er is an all-pervasive and all-sustaining atmosphere, like the unknown God of whom Paul spoke on the Areopagus: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God is intimately interwoven with human becoming; the sustaining ground of the course of life; the core of the good life; the guiding power to which we must learn to yield; the vital energy which sustains and protects the life of community; the power of love and the source of mercy; our final resting place and ultimate home.9 God spontaneously participates in human life. He is intimately involved in human love, reveals himself as protective Presence.10 This elementary-religious sense of God’s presence is not impersonal. For though ancient Israel did not confine Be-er to the clearly-defined figure of a person, his Presence was intimately connected with the genesis of personhood; as the force of life he is interwoven with birth; he is companionately present in every person’s life journey; he does not forsake his creature in the end.11 God is experienced as personal in the sense that he is intimately involved in one’s personal life story. The mystical dimension of this god-consciousness consists in the 8

L. Kohn, Taoist Mystical Philosophy, New York, 1991, 12-13. See part 1, chapters 1.1.1; 1.1.3; 1.2.1; 1.2.2; 1.3.1; 1.3.2; 1.4.1; 1.5.1-3; 1.6.1; 1.6.3. 10 See part 1, chapters 1.1.1; 1.1.3; 1.3.1; 1.4.2. 11 See part 1, chapters 1.1.1; 1.1.3; 1.2.2; 1.3.1; 1.6.2. 9

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fact that people realize, with trembling awe, that they are totally in God’s hand. The entire course of their life is experienced as being shaped and sustained by God (Ps. 139). When we reflect on this form of biblical god-consciousness we have to say that from the perspective of a highly-developed religion this elementary-religious experience is a-religious and secular. For here God appears in a “naïve” way within a secular context. This is the way in which God manifests himself in lay spirituality.12 In family wisdom God usually remains in the background, but can – all at once – come up for discussion. In the nurture of children the good life is in the foreground, while the divine is present as background. To Buber, marriage is an interhuman process in which the eternal “Thou” manifests himself. To Levinas the dwelling is a form of immanent Transcendence. The poet Andreus is a secularized person but face to face with death he speaks of the “Lord.” Mercy is an interhuman occurrence but the divine is at work in the background. Sarah’s burial is a secular event but at any moment God can come up. We could even call this elementary-religious spirituality a-theistic in the sense of Apostel, for present here is transcendence without a supernature.13 Spirituality, here, is an attitude which shapes our relation to the most profound reality.14 2. Liberator The name Yahweh underwent a vast transformation when it became a “line of force” in the liberation movement which arose between 1200 and 1000 B.C. against Egyptian oppression. The semi-nomadic families which lived in the boundary areas of Egypt and Canaan were profoundly aggrieved by the exploitation of the Egyptians and the city states in Canaan. These disenfranchised shepherds who were joined by exploited farmers and numerous displaced persons heard, along with Moses and his family, a new sound in the Name: “Be present in our struggle against Egypt, the house of bondage. Come liberate us. Create living space for us and our children.” We are dealing here with an elementaryreligious and simultaneously secular process: with all their strength these people committed themselves to the secular goal of freedom. In the power of their engagement they experienced Be-er. From the perspective of Egyptian and Canaanite spirituality these shepherds and farmers were a-religious: they had no temples and god-images; they only possessed this imageless exclamation of the Name. Their god-consciousness

12

See part 1, chapters 1.2.1; 1.2.2; 1.3.3; 1.4.3; 1.5.1-3; 1.6.3. L. Apostel, Een ander geloven. Een nieuwe transcendentie. Over niet-theistische spiritualiteit, in: U. Libbrecht et al., De geur van de roos, Leuven 1994, 38-39. 14 Ibid., 46. 13

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expressed itself in a secular liberation process. At a deeper level their godconsciousness is even anti-religious: the god of Egypt is unmasked as the legitimation of existing power structures. Miriam’s song, for example,15 makes the religious god-conception of Egypt, which legitimates the military might of “the horse and rider,” look ridiculous. Standing in the same tradition Elijah16 crushes the Baalism which legitimates the power of the royal house. 3. God and non-God Two hundred years after the liberation from Egypt by the inspiring power of Beer this liberation struggle culminated in the state of Israel under the kingship of David. From this point on Be-er dwelt in the temple at Jerusalem. In a process of a few centuries the Mosaic spirituality of liberation sought to permeate the different institutions of Israel: the kingship and the judiciary, the temple and the liturgy, the administration and wisdom, the narrative traditions and the poetry. The king was viewed as Be-er’s anointed: in the midst of the people he represented God (Pss. 2; 72). The temple became God’s dwelling place among the people who in their celebrations made him present (Pss. 48; 150). In wisdom spirituality, the good life was interpreted from the perspective of Be-er (Pss. 34; 111-112). The great narratives took shape: the Yahwist, the Elohist, the priestly narrator. The Canaanite legacy of song was transformed (Ps. 29). The process of “Yahwehization” implies that the originally imageless Presence attracted a variety of god-conceptions: King, the Supreme God, Lord, the Merciful, the Righteous. That which was initially a monolatry (Israel exclusively worships Be-er) became monotheism (only Be-er is God; all other gods are nothing). This monotheistic god-consciousness was in the nature of the case religionbound. It is the very way in which Israel’s religion profiles itself in its uniqueness. Upon critical reflection, however, this self-profile proves to be a layered godconception. The adherents of this religion do not see this. They experience their god-image as intrinsically coherent. They view other religions (Indian, Canaanite, Greek, Roman, German, New-Age spiritualities) as incoherent and syncretistic. This is an optical illusion. In reality the religions which call themselves monotheistic are syncretistic. The process of Yahwehization was accompanied by a countermovement: prophecy. Elijah was opposed to every form of synthesis. The prophets after him made an appeal to the Mosaic origin: naked trust in the wilderness. They were anti-religious within their own religion. We encounter this form of religioncritique in virtually all spiritualities: Achnaton who in his Ode to the Sun praised the One, Zoroaster who saw God combating Evil, Buddha who opposed the 15 16

See part 1, chapter 3.1. See part 1, chapter 3.3.

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god of the Brahmans, up to and including Nietzsche who announced the death of the god of Western metaphysics. One must not be deceived by appearances here: the fierce critique of religion is in fact an expression of a very personal god-relation. Nietzsche wrote his prayer to the unknown God. Heinrich Heine, who distanced himself from the God of religion and the theistic discourse associated with it, held, along with German idealism, to the conviction that “the world is not only saturated with God, it is identical with God.”17 It is often profound spiritual processes which lead people to renounce the god of their tradition. That is why spiritual atheism, which refrains from all determination of God (also the determination that God is or exists) must be distinguished from the theoretical atheism which not only denies that God exists, but also posits that existing reality is without any divine characteristic, as in mechanical materialism (Holbach) and in the view that everything is energy and matter (Büchner, Haeckel). The paradoxical nature of the spiritual critique of religion is that, while the god-conception as it were totally evaporates (down to nothingness), one can at the same time speak of a personal transformation process in which later generations discern an intensely religious event. It appears as if a new god-consciousness – but one that is still devoid of language, indeed in an anti-language – leaves its footprints in the personality of the critic, while the latter remains unable to read these footprints as having been drawn by the Unknown God. We are, accordingly, not dealing here with flat, verbal, cognitive denials, but with existential destructions which are revelations of the Absolute. 4. From the angle of the exile The exile brought the faith of Israel back into the wilderness. The destruction of the holy city and the temple, the termination of kingship and the deportation of significant segments of the population meant a complete dismantling of Yahwism. The existential experience of many was that Yahweh was dead. At the same time, however, the exile was for some the beginning of a spiritual process in which Yahwism was reduced to its core: “He is there – though we do not know how.” Every form of mediation vanished. Elementary data began to speak: creation, history. Be-er became the Creator of heaven and earth, the Beginning and the End of everything, the Incomparable One (Deutero-Isaiah). Be-er surpasses all categories, exceeds all things, is before all time. And from beyond the end of time he awaits his creation. Especially Jewish mysticism was to welcome this divine transcendence. In Lurian mysticism, for example, the Infinite (Einsof) absolutely withdrew himself (tsimtsum) from himself into himself in order 17 H. Heine, Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland II, in: Heinrich Heine, Sämtliche Schriften in zwölf Bänden II, (Ed. K. Briegleb), Frankfurt a.M. 1981, 565.

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thereby to create room for free creation. Levinas, with his notion of the “Infinite,” stands in this tradition. But this absolute distance does not leave him cold: the “in” of the Infinite traumatizes him with an injury from which he cannot recover.18 The paradoxical thing is that the spirituality of the exile, along with its tendency toward transcendence, exhibits a penchant for immanence. After the religious-institutional supports had been destroyed (city, sanctuary, liturgy, kingship) and the grand narratives had lost their reliability, room emerged for lay spirituality (Genesis before Exodus) and hence for creation-spirituality (Creation before the Exodus). Created reality proved a more reliable starting point than history (Pss. 8; 19; 33; 104). Be-er was experienced as the One who forms the essence of all that is. This spirituality was reinforced on account of the rising influence of Hellenism after the exile. We can clarify this process with the aid of the Exodus text: “I be, I be there” (3:14). In the Greek translation this verse is interpreted as saying: “I am that am” or “I am who is.” Here God is viewed as the Being One, that is, as the One who essentially is. This interpretation exerted strong influence on the traditions which have their roots in post-exilic spirituality. Added to the two motifs mentioned above was a third: a focus on the torah. The miracle of the exile is that out of the ashes of devastation a new institution was born: the house of study. These houses were practical in nature. They focused on day-by-day conduct. Those who live according to the torah embody the will of Be-er. In this spirituality the Name acquired a practical ethical content, it is made true – validated – in conduct (tzaddik). The real proclamation of the Name is conduct (halakhah); to respectfully say to the other: “Be there!” The Name dwells among people who deal ungrudgingly with each other (chassidim). 3.1.2. THE

HUMAN REALITY

The notion of “man” [human being] as spirituality tries to define it, seems less ambiguous at first blush than the idea of “God.” Actually, this is not the case. The notion of “man” is variously understood. Western idealism defines “man” as being complete in or sufficient to oneself. In humanistic psychology this selfrelation is interpreted as a dialogue between the conscious self and the deeper psyche. Marxism criticizes this bourgeois subject as the alienation of man as a nature-transforming force in the labor process. Feminism points out that “man” [collective noun] in fact stands for “man” [male], grounded in a male “God,” who makes the male self-image reproducible and legitimates male dominance on the 18

E. Levinas, Of God who comes to mind, Stanford (CA) 1998.

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cultural, religious, social, and sexual level. Ecological spirituality criticizes Western anthropocentrism which distinguishes humans from the natural environment and puts them above it. Postmodernism doubts the reality of the human subject: those who view themselves as subjects are in fact the product of a complex whole of great stories which makes a small elite think it is unique and original. Dialogical thinkers point out that in all these definitions an image of man is conceived which is fundamentally detached from the intersubjective and divinehuman relations which they regard as fundamental. In the history of spirituality the human reality operative in the divine-human relational process is above all described with the word “soul” (nephesh, psyche, anima, nafs). This is understandable inasmuch as the soul understood in light of the biblically-oriented traditions is a many-sided phenomenon: a reserved space which can open itself up but simultaneously has the ability to close itself; a source of life but with the capacity to jam up within itself; surrender in love but also capable of devouring one’s life; it can live together in peace with the core of one’s personality but also depress the inner self; it can turn inward and be beside itself. The peculiar nature of the soul is that it is multidimensional and highly mobile. As we let the 754 Scripture passages in which the word nephesh occurs sink in,19 we are struck by the widely divergent meanings which the term turns out to have. It is not surprising, therefore, that the efforts to reduce the soul to a single basic idea – such as vitality20 or joy in living21 – have failed. What is one to do with the fact that nephesh can sometimes mean “corpse”? Also the attempt to distribute the many meanings of nephesh over the different periods of history has proved futile. Research has demonstrated that every period reflects the multivalence of nephesh.22 We can best follow the tracks of Wolff23 and Westermann24 who leave the multidimensional semantic field called ‘soul’ intact. 1. The delimitation of what is peculiarly one’s own The soul presents itself as a vulnerable inner space which marks itself off as exterior to what surrounds it. Inner space. The human form has its interior spaces: the stomach where food is digested (Job 20:14), the lungs which inhale and exhale breath (1 Kgs. 17:22); the interior where we foster thoughts and feelings (Gen. 18:12; 1 Kgs. 3:28). 19 For the frequency and distribution over the biblical narratives, cf. C. Westermann, nephesh, in: ThLOT II (1997), 743; and H. Seebass, nephesh, in: ThDOT IX (1998), 497-502. 20 A. Johnson, The Vitality of the Individual in the Thought of Ancient Israel, Cardiff 1964. 21 H. Seebass, nephesh, in: ThDOT IX (1998), 504. 22 D. Lys, Nèphèsh. Historie de l’âme dans la révélation d’Israël au sein des religions proche-orientales, Paris 1959. 23 H. Wolff, Anthropologie des Alten Testaments, München 1973, 26-48. 24 C. Westermann, nephesh, in: ThLOT II (1997), 743-759.

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These interior spaces are the soul spaces (Ps. 103:1), which have been reserved vis-à-vis the surrounding area.25 The soul is a little ark which bobs up and down on the sea (Ps. 107:26-27; cf. Acts 27:10, 22) and seeks to anchor itself (Heb. 6:19). The inner space of the soul especially defines itself from its social surroundings: in Israel every “soul” distinguishes itself from the collective of the people (see, for example, Gen. 46:15, 18, 22, 25-27 and so forth to and including Acts 2:41; 7:14; 27:37). It is one’s proper name (cf. Gen. 46:15 and 46:27), one’s self-described identity (Gen. 14:21; 36:6) and the unique territory for which each person is responsible. When someone does not meet this responsibility (he neglects the commandments: Lev. 4:2; 5:17; defiles himself: Lev. 5:2; 7:21; mistreats his neighbor, Lev. 5:21; and so forth), this “soul” has to be cut off from the community (Lev. 19:8; 22:3; Num. 5:6; 9:13).26 Vulnerable. The interior of the soul emerges sharply into view when it is threatened from without. The psalms express in graphic images (cords, chains, shackles) how the soul’s living space is restricted (cf. Ps. 40:13; 116:3; 149:8) and injured (Ps. 105:18; also cf. Prov. 23:2). Sometimes evil enters this inner space the way people make a breach in a wall (Ps. 17:4), or pull down the hedges from around a vineyard (Ps. 80:13). The worst thing happens to a soul when the fences around it are themselves demolished. The soul is then robbed of its home. Numerous images describe this loss of one’s home: being snatched out of one’s tent (Ps. 52:7); being removed like a live coal from the fire (Ps. 52:7), being uprooted (Ps. 52:7; 140:12), being cut off ( cf. Ps. 109:13, 15; 101:8; 37:38), being raked in the dust (Ps. 22:15), a casualty on a field of dead soldiers (Ps. 88:6), a leper shunned by the community (Ps. 88:9). Exterior. Inner space is marked off from outer space. This is the external soul which Scripture calls “flesh.”27 This fleshly soul is splendidly pictured in the book of Job. Satan robbed Job of his cattle, his servants, his sons and daughters (Job 1:13-19). But he was not satisfied. He wanted more. He wanted Job’s soul. After all, Job’s piety can only be really demonstrated if he is attacked in his very soul (Job 1:8; 2:3). Satan’s position is: “A skin for a skin! A person will give everything he has for his soul” (Job 2:4).28 God then takes over Satan’s position: Yes, It is reasonable that the price should go up when it concerns a test of Job’s

25 The Dutch word “soul” preserves this aspect of meaning in the expressions: the “soul” of a firearm, the hollow shaft through which the bullet travels; the “soul” of a feather, pen, or violin. 26 See R. Rendtorff, Die sündige naefesj, in: Was ist der Mensch …? Beiträge zur Anthropologie des Alten Testaments, (Ed. F. Crüsemann, C. Hardmeier et al.), München 1992, 211-220. 27 G. Gerleman, basar, in: ThLOT I (1997), 283-285. 28 “A skin for a skin” is an expression derived from the trade in animal skins. At the end of the negotiation there has to be an equivalent exchange: a skin for a skin (HALAT III, Leiden 1983, 757).

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piety: “Very well, he is in your power. Only spare his soul” (Job 2:6). Remarkable! Satan asks for Job’s soul. God agrees (Job 2:5a), but in the same breath adds: “Only spare his soul” (2:6). How can we possibly understand this remarkable communication? That is possible only if we bear in mind that the soul is two-sided. On the one hand, it is turned outward; it is external: Job’s social configuration. This is the soul Satan is gunning for: his possessions, his servants, his children, his bodily figure. On the other hand, it is turned inward. This is the soul that escapes Satan. But this is the soul God has in mind when he commands: “Spare his soul” (Job 2:6). And this is what happens. For while the external soul is broken down, the internal soul grows all the more against this pressure. Job keeps the inner space of his soul open to the end (cf. Matt. 10:28). Identification with the external soul. The soul is minded to secure itself by means of all sorts of protective measures. To the degree this self-protection is carried out consistently it can happen that the interface between the interior and the exterior assumes an independence of its own. The soul then begins to identify itself with its own enclosure and thus becomes a corpse. Nephesh, remember, means “corpse” when it has become exclusively exterior. It is then called a “dead soul” (Lev. 21:11; Num. 6:6) or simply “soul” (Lev. 19:18; 21:1; 22:4; Num. 5:2; 19:11, 13; 9, 6, 7, 10, 14; Hag. 2:13). Against this background it is completely understandable that Jesus sharply opposed all identification with one’s external soul, particularly with its social position: “Whoever comes to me and does not shun father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own soul, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). 2. Needy and sensitive The inner space of the soul is empty and seeks to be filled. It wants to swallow things. The needy soul. Isaiah envisions the following misfortune: “It shall be as with a hungry man who dreams of eating. When he wakes up his soul is empty; or a thirsty man who dreams of drinking. He wakes up and look: his soul is still faint! (Isa. 29:8). The soul is the hollow space which is felt in case of hunger (Prov. 10:3) and thirst (Isa 32:6). On account of its insatiable hunger, also Sheol – the earth’s undercroft – is connected with the soul: “Sheol has enlarged its soul and opened its mouth beyond measure” (Isa. 5:14). Of a predatory man it is said: “He opens his soul wide as Sheol; he is as insatiable as Death” (Hab. 2:5). The soul is a covetous hungering and thirsting cavity (Prov. 13:4; 13:19; 19:15; 21:10). The spirituality of upbringing is aimed at helping the child to make the transition from neediness (the mouth opened wide) to receptivity (the unfolded hand).29 29

Part 1, chapter 1.1.3.

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The sensitive soul. The soul often parallels the sensitive life that is peculiarly and intimately my own: physicality with its emotions of love (S of S 5:4) and excitement (Jer. 4:19), fear and horror (Lam. 1:20) and the birth of tenderness (Jer. 31:20; Isa. 63:15); the body of the intestines (2 Sam. 20:10) in which the heart melts (Ps. 22:14); the womb where new life is engendered (Jdg. 33:21-22), conceived and borne (Jer. 1:5; Isa. 46:3; Ps. 22:10, etc.); the place where we feel peace (Prov. 18:20) and are deeply moved (Job 32:18-19). The soul is the soft place (Gen. 43:30) where we grow tender at sight of a child (Isa. 49:15; Ps. 103:13) and a fellow human in distress (Hos. 14:4). Tenderness marks the “womb” of the soul which can be deeply moved,30 the heart,31 the internal core (1 Sam. 25:37; Hos. 13:18) which is hidden from the eye but present in everything.32 Is not the soul more? When the soul equates itself with what fills and satisfies it, it is estranged from itself. That is why the Preacher says: “All the toil of the earthling is for his mouth but his soul is not filled by it” (Eccl. 6:7). Standing in this wisdom tradition Jesus says: “Be not anxious for your soul, what you will eat or drink. (…) Is not the soul more than the food?” (Matt. 6:25). He poses the wisdom question: “What will it profit human beings if they gain the whole world; but suffer damage to their soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). 3. Life’s core Scripture relates the story of the creation of the Earthling in two acts. In the first act we are told how the human form comes into being: the soul as it delineates itself in its uniqueness in relation to what is exterior to it and constitutes a sensitive inner space. The second act tells us how God breathes the breath of life into the nostrils of this human form. The two together, the soul form and the breath of life, constitute the human being: “Thus the Earthling would be a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). Frequently this summarizing and concluding sentence is related to the second act. The reason is that we instinctively equate the breath of life with the living soul. The narrator, however, has a different view. He expressly seeks to unite the two acts into a single statement and does this by repeating the core words. From the first act he brings back the “Earthling” (the Earthling, remember, was formed from the dust of the earth). From the second act he brings back the word “living” (the breath of life, remember, had been breathed into his nostrils). Soul is a synthesis of the breath of life and an earthly form. In lay spirituality God is experienced as the very life of the soul: the God of my becoming, my Mighty One.33 30 The link between rechem (womb, viscera) and rechamim (the process of becoming tender) is retained by H. Stoebe, rechem, in: ThLOT III (1997), 1225-1230. 31 H. Wolff, Anthropologie des Alten Testaments, München 1973, 68-95; H. Fabry, leb, in ThDOT VII (1995), 399-437. 32 H. Wolff, ibid., 73. 33 Part 1, chapter 1.1.1.

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Life. The word “life” articulates a core element in the Hebrew nephesh. Life means the power to germinate, growth, spontaneity (cf. Job 6:11). Life is movement.34 Within the inner space of the soul, the soul appears as life’s core. One can say of man that his soul is in him (Acts 20:10; Jonah 4:3; cf. 1. Kgs 19:4), as it is also in animals (Gen. 1:30); that my soul can depart from me (Gen. 35:18) and return to its place of origin (Ps. 19:8; 23:3; 35:17; 66:9; Lam. 1:11). Breath. Breath is the basis for and realization of life.35 This breath is breathed into humans by God (Gen. 2:7; Isa. 42:5; 57:16) and belongs to each person individually (Deut. 20:16; Josh. 10:40; 11:11, 14; 1 Kgs. 15:29). When a person is out of breath as a result of heavy labor or an exhausting trip, he has to “re-soul” (2 Sam. 15:14-30; 16:1, 5, 14). When someone dies, “he blows out his soul” (Jer. 15:9; Job 11:20). Blood. Blood, along with breath, is the seat of life.36 In the case of the son of the widow of Zarephath, we see how breath and blood together embody life. The boy was critically ill “until there was no breath left in him” (1 Kgs. 17:17). Elijah stretched himself out on the child (1 Kgs. 17:21). What this means is plain in the parallel story about Elisha: “He lay upon the child, putting his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, his hands upon his hands (…). Then the flesh of the child became warm. (…) The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes” (2 Kgs. 4:34-35). The warmth of the blood and the breath returned so that the child’s life “came into him again and he revived” (1 Kgs. 17:22). Blood is the most essential element in the life of a person. For that reason it is strictly forbidden to eat it (Gen. 9:4-6; Lev. 3:17; 7:26; 19:26; Deut. 12:16, 23; 15:23). For the “soul” of all flesh is the blood (Lev. 17:10-12, 13-14; Deut. 12:23). The threat to life’s core. The soul, as the core of life, is liable to three kinds of destruction. In the first place there is dissolution: the soul is like a plant that withers (Ps. 88:16), fades like green grass (Ps. 37:2), wilts and dries up (Ps. 102:4, 11). The second kind is that of being eaten like prey (Ps. 44:12, 23), like sheep marked for slaughter (Ps. 44:12) or like bread (Ps. 14:4; 53:4), being devoured like the spoils of war (Ps. 27:2; 79:7). The third form of destruction is disappearance: the soul that is being poured out like water (Ps. 22:15; 58:8; 79:3; 112:10), like wax that melts away (Ps. 22:15), like the snail that dissolves into slime or the moth that is consumed (Ps. 58:9; 39:12), smoke that blows away (Ps. 37:20; 68:3), an all-consuming fire (Ps. 21:10) and a fire of thorns that dies out (Ps. 58:10; 118:12).

34

H. Ringgren, chayah, in: ThDOT IV (1980), 324-344. H. Lamberty-Zielinski, neshama, in: TWAT V (1986), 669-673. 36 B. Kedar-Kopfstein, dam, in: ThDOT III (1978), 234-238. 35

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4. The self-presentation of the I The soul and the I are inseparably bound up with other. Of the 754 occurrences of nephesh, 455 are accompanied by a suffix of the first, second, or third person.37 From a statistical view alone this evidences a close relation between the soul and the personal core. The soul is so closely tied up with the I as its personal selfmanifestation38 that it itself acquires the attributes of being personal, worthy, unique, non-interchangeable, precious (Ps. 116:15; cf. vs. 8). The soul in turn furnishes space and mobility to the I. I belong to my soul. In Psalm 131 the soul is compared to a child that has outgrown his mother’s breast. Seated on his mother’s shoulders, he looks wide-eyed at the big world around him (Ps. 131:2).39 The mother is the one who bore him, nursed him, took care of him and formed him (2 Macc. 7:28). She depicts the I. In relation to mother (I) the child (soul) distinguishes itself as being born, growing, needy, vulnerable, eager to learn. As “my only child” (Ps. 22:21; 35:17) the soul demands care and attention When I am unable to provide that care, its vulnerable insecurity surfaces. “My soul lies loosely on the palm of my hand” (Ps. 119:109; Jdgs. 12:3; 1 Sam. 19:5; 28:21). Sometimes the I is hostile to the soul. By going against wisdom (Prov. 8:36), by withdrawing its soul from all discipline (Prov. 15:32), by erupting in anger (Job 18:4), by choosing the company of wrongdoers (Prov. 22:24-25), the I injures the soul. But the I can also watch over its soul: by taking the right way to live (Prov. 16:17), by avoiding the wrong way (Prov. 22:5), by being generous toward others (Prov. 11:7), and by being careful in one’s speech (Prov. 13:3). My soul belongs to me. The soul is the environment in which the I realizes itself (Prov. 23:7). It is that in which the I develops its strengths (S of S 6:12). The reverse can also be true: my soul, with its sorrow, may sicken my life and embitter my speech: “My soul is an abomination in my life; I let my groanings down on myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 10:1). It spoils my life, embitters my language, indeed it can waste away in me on account of its grief (Job 14:22). My soul and I belong together. The I and the soul form a relational unity. I can say to my soul: “Why are you sinking so low, O my soul, why roar over me? Expect the Mighty One! I will praise him still, deliverance of my face, my Mighty One” (Ps. 42:6; see also Ps. 62:6; 103:1-2). It is the place where I take counsel about my situation (Ps. 13:3). Jesus joins in this soul-consultation with his parable about the rich farmer who counsels with his soul about what he must 37

My soul, 191x; your soul, 75x; his soul, 105x; her soul, 17x; our soul, 12x; your (pl.) soul, 14x; their soul, 41x. 38 K. Günther, ’ani, in: ThLOT I (1997), 162-166. 39 K. Waaijman, Psalmen 120-131, Kampen 1978, 93-100.

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do about his ever-expanding harvest. He decides to build even bigger barns to store his growing prosperity. “I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry!’ But God said to him: ‘You fool! This very night your soul is being demanded of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (Luke 12:19-20). 5. Soul movements Around 200 B.C. the wisdom teacher Qoheleth fashioned the following saying: “Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the soul” (Prov. 6:9). Ecclesiastes links “wandering” with the soul as readily as “sight” with the eyes. Apparently, it belongs to the nature of the soul to leave its house and to wander outside.40 The soul goes out, goes forth, goes up, goes down, goes out into space, goes into the depths. That is its nature. On account of this mobility nephesh is analogous to ruach. Ruach brings to the fore the mobility of nephesh, its inner drive: “My soul yearns for you in the night, my draft within me earnestly seeks you” (Isa. 26:9). The movements of the soul are not limited to a specific direction. The soul goes upward and downward, forward and sideways. Striking is the fact that all these movements are ambiguous. Should the soul go downward, this can be a manifestation of humility or of depression. Its upward movement can be indicative both of prayer and pride. Its sideways movement can open up the broad expanse of freedom but also the spaciousness of greed. It can be driven forward by love but also by bloodthirstiness. Upward. When the soul arises41 and exalts itself,42 it is frequently pride. He who exalts himself imagines he is God (Ezek. 28:1-10) and ends up in the fantasy world of religious hubris (Ps. 24:4; 131:1), a source of unconscionable behavior (Ps. 73:8-12). Such a person will swiftly “lift his soul to manslaughter” (Prov. 19:18) or “lift his soul to iniquity” (Hos. 4:8). The only permitted form of soul-elevation is to lift the soul toward the Exalted One himself (Ps. 25:1; 86:4; 143:8). Downward. The soul goes down to the depths of Sheol as a result of oppression (Ps. 44:26; 57:7; 35:7; 119:25), sickness or guilt (cf. Ps. 16:10; 30:4; 86:13; 88:4; 94:17). But it can also be a form of self-abasement: “I bowed down my soul with fasting” (Ps. 35:13; Isa. 58:3, 5). “I wept my soul out” (Ps. 69:11; Jer. 13:17). A third way is depressiveness: “Why are you sinking so low, O my soul, and how you roar over me!” (Ps. 42:6, 7, 12; 43:5). The soul empties itself over the I that bears it: “My soul is poured out over me” (Job 30:16). It is so despondent that it comes down like rain: “My soul drips with sorrow” (Ps. 119:28). 40 In the Hebrew verb “to go” the idea, both literally and metaphorically, is to travel a road from a specific point of departure to a consciously chosen destination. See F. Helfmeyer, halak, in: ThDOT III (1978), 88-403. 41 R. Hentschke, gabah, in: ThDOT II (1975), 356-360. 42 V. Dahmen, roem, in: TWAT VII (1993), 425-434.

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Sideways. The soul can also go sideways and measure the broad expanses.43 This going into a broad place is stimulated by Be-er: “Out of the narrows I cried to Be-er. Be-er bowed himself toward me and set me in a broad place” (Ps. 118:5). He made a wide place under someone’s feet (Ps. 18:37; 31:9; 18:20). Going into a broad place expands the soul (Isa. 60:5; Ps. 25:17; 119:32). Here, too, there are ambivalences. The soul can also enlarge itself to swallow up everything (Isa. 5:14; Hab. 2:5; Prov. 28:25; cf. 21:4; Ps. 101:5). Forward. When the bride in the Song of Solomon opens the door to admit her bridegroom who knocks, it turns out he is gone (S of S 5:6). Immediately her soul goes out to find him (3:1-2). Several motives can make the soul go out: finding a lifepartner (Gen. 34:2-3), eating and drinking (Deut. 12:15-20; 14:26; Prov. 13:4, 19), kingship (2 Sam. 3:21; 1 Kgs. 11:37), secret consultation (Gen. 49:6). Also the Mighty One can draw a person out (Isa. 26:9; Ps. 42:23; 63:2). Sometimes the soul is out to destroy another: “Aha! We have our soul’s desire! Aha! We shall devour him!” (Ps. 35:25). The distressing thing is that the malicious soul aims at the very soul of the other (Ps. 35:4; 38:13; 40:15; 54:5; 56:7; 59:4; 63:10; 70:3; 86:14). To step out of oneself brings with it homelessness (cf. Ps. 142:5) and nakedness (cf. Ps. 14:8; 35:12). The soul runs the risk of being tackled and tripped up by evil. People run it underfoot, trample it to the ground (Ps. 147:6), let it bite the dust (Ps. 7:6), and humble it to the level of dung (Ps. 113:7). It only still serves as fertilizer for the ground (Ps. 83:11). 6. Resting in the other The soul has the capacity to step out of itself and to be by the other.44 Jesus calls everyone to come and find rest in him: “Come to me, all you that are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me: for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28-29). Going to the other. The soul most dearly wants to go to the “one whom my soul loves” (S of S 1:7; 3:1-4). The bride of the Song of Solomon graphically brings out what this entails. In the middle of the night she rises to look for “him who my soul loves” (S of S 3:1-2). She asks the sentinels: “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” (S of S 3:3) Finally she finds him “whom my soul loves” (S of S 3:4). The soul yearningly steps out of itself, goes out to the beloved, in order to be met by him: “My soul failed me when he spoke” (S of S 5:6). Shechem is so infatuated with Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, that he can no longer stand being separated from her: “His soul was drawn to Dinah, daughter of Jacob; he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her” (Gen. 34:3). The soul seeks 43 44

R. Barthelmus, rachab, in: TWAT VII (1993), 449-460. C. Westermann, nephesh, in: ThLOT II (1997), 743-759.

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the soul of the other (Prov. 29:10; 27:7). The soul most of all seeks God: it thirsts for the Mighty One (Ps. 63:2), thirsts for him as parched land thirsts for water (Ps. 143:6), and waits for him with intense yearning (Ps. 33:20; 130:56). It lifts itself up above itself to him (Ps. 25:13; 143:8) and clings to him (Ps. 63:9), hides itself in him (Ps. 57:2), is ecstatic with joy in him (Ps. 34:3; 146:1), rejoices in him and sings his praises (Ps. 35:9; 71:23); indeed, it lives in him (Ps. 119:175). It loves him (Deut. 4:29; 6:5; 11:13; 26:16; 10:12; 30:2, 6, 10; 1 Kgs. 8:48; Josh. 23:14; 22:5). Being with the other. Being with the other is called “being-in-touch” in Scripture: it consists in personal contact, communion, intimacy. A proverb says: “Without contact, no, not good the soul, and one who runs too hurriedly misses the way” (Prov. 19:2). Being-in-touch not only characterizes conjugal intimacy (Gen. 4:1) but all family ties (cf. Ruth 2:1; 3:2; 3:12). This “being-in-touch” is familiarity like that of experienced sailors who sense the moods of the sea (1 Kgs. 9:27), and that of a cither player who knows his instrument inside out (1 Sam. 16:16, 18; further cf. 1 Kgs. 5:20). In contrast to this empathetic contact with reality stands the compulsive rush on one’s feet: the blind drive that errs. What being-in-touch means for the soul is depicted in the love between Jonathan and David: “The soul of Jonathan became tightly bound to David’s. Jonathan came to love him as its own soul (…). Jonathan and David made a pact because Jonathan loved him as his own soul. He took off the cloak he was wearing and gave it to David, and his coat of mail too, even his sword, his bow and his belt” (1 Sam. 18:1-4). Jonathan’s clothing symbolizes the soul as his own life’s sphere. One who gives his clothing to another gives him his soul and invites the other into his soul. He loves the other “as his soul.” For me to “love someone with the love of my soul” (1 Sam. 20:17) is to admit the other into my life so intimately that he is a part of me, and conversely: to know myself to be unconditionally at home with the other. How this soul-attachment comes about in the relation to God is evident from Psalm 63. The psalm starts with a deep lack: “My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you in a dry and weary land without water” (Ps. 63:2). This deprivation which extends ever further the more all points of support have fallen away (see Ps. 143:6) finally reaches its limit (see Ps. 84:3) but the soul stretches out “its neck” even further. And that is precisely “how I looked upon You” (Ps. 63:3). This surpassing of one’s own perspective is the condition for the appearance of God who can now be greeted as the power of blessing and as food for the soul: “So I bless you in my life. (…). As with fat and marrow my soul satisfies itself ” (Ps. 63:4-5; cf. Isa. 53:11). The life center of the soul has shifted to the You-pole: “My soul clings after You, your right hand upholds me” (Ps. 63:9; cf. Gen. 32:33). In lay spirituality this resting in another is an important aspect: in marriage spirituality this being with the other to rest in him (her) is the form in which God’s love manifests itself; in mercy for the

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sake of the other. God’s mercy takes form; in mutual love God’s protective presence is tasted.45 7. Giving one’s life for another People can give their soul for another and thereby lose it. According to Jesus, people who lose their soul by this route will save it. How are we to picture this process? In any case, we are not talking here about a subtle form of selfdestruction. Jesus puts this gift of self in the perspective of love: “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this than that he lays down his soul for his friends” (John 15:12-13). Love is the immediate context for the laying down of one’s life that Jesus envisages here. To give one’s very soul. The New Testament repeatedly speaks of “giving one’s soul in the place of someone” (tithemi ten psychen huper tinos): the Son of Man came “to give his soul as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28); “the good shepherd lays down his soul for the sheep” (John 10:11, 15); the apostles “risked their soul for the sake of Jesus’ name” (Acts 15:26); the evangelist “does not count his soul” (Acts 20:24) so long as he is allowed to proclaim the gospel in Jesus’ name. Paul is grateful to his fellow workers for the fact that they “risked their necks” to protect him (Rom. 16:4). In all these examples the “investment” of the soul is an expression of love (1 Thess. 2:8). “By this we have learned to know love that he laid down his soul for us. Therefore we ought to lay down our souls for one another” (1 John 3:16). Self-loss. Those who put their life in the place of the other “lose their soul” (Matt. 10:38; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; John 12:25). About Epaphroditus who totally invested his soul in the proclamation of the gospel Paul says; “For the work of Christ he came close to death, risking his soul to make up for those services that you could not give me” (Phil. 2:30). To be a substitute for Christ means death for the soul. Peter asked Jesus: “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will put my soul in your place! Jesus answered: Will you put your soul in my place? You will deny me!” (John 13:37, 38). To put one’s soul in the place of the other means to give one’s life,46 to sacrifice one’s life.47 For the soul this does not just mean that it loses its protective enclosure, gives up its neediness, and entrusts itself totally to the other, but above all that it loses its being [complete] by itself.48 Becoming the answer-for-the-other (responsibility) means the dissolution of the I-and-my-soul. The ultimate consequence of 45

See part 1, chapters 1.1.3; 1.2.1; 1.3.1-3; 1.5.1-3. T. Schramm, tithèmi, in: EWNT III (1980), 854. 47 A. Sand, psychè, in: EWNT III (1983), 1202. 48 E. Levinas, Of God who comes to mind, Stanford (CA) 1998, 73. 46

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this self-evacuation for the sake of the other is death-by-sacrifice, being consumed by the other “whose very light glimmers and illuminates out of this ardor, without the cinders of this consummation being able to make themselves into the kernel of a being that is in itself and for itself.”49 Saving one’s life. All New Testament traditions on the one hand say: “Those who find (love, want to save) their soul will lose it”; on the other hand, they say: “those who lose their soul for my sake (hatred in this world) will find it (preserve it unto eternal life)” (Matt. 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; John 12:25). Everyone who locks himself up in his soul-enclosure, in the needs of his soul, in the core of his soul, in his being-by-himself locks himself up in himself. To live the soul must entrust itself to the movement which takes it to the other and makes it into the other’s substitute: “For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my soul. No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again” (John 10:17-18). Out of love for his sheep the shepherd gives up this life. Delivered up to a sacrificial death, the soul rediscovers itself in God’s love which sees and accepts me in my irreplaceable responsibility.50 The one who has lost his soul in substitution finds his true I: “The word I means here I am, answering for everything and for everyone.”51 3.1.3. THE RELATIONAL

MOMENT

Spiritual authors who draw on biblical traditions express the divine-human relation in just this one sentence: man has been created after God’s image and unto his likeness (Gen. 1:26). This Imago-Dei motif,52 which is solidly rooted in the 49

Ibid., 72. E. Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, The Hague-Boston-London 1981, 103. 51 Ibid., 115. 52 See: Image, in: DSp 7 (1971), 1401-1536; P. Tomson, De mens als Godsbeeld in de joodse traditie, in: Schrift (1983) no. 87, 83-86; J. Fossum, Genesis 1,26 and 2,7 in Judaism, Samaritarism and Gnosticism, in: Journal for the Study of Judaism 16 (1985). For orientation: Der Mensch als Bild Gottes, (Ed. L. Scheffczyk), Darmstadt 1969 (with litt. up to 1969: 526-538); H. Haag, Menschen im Alten Testament, Stuttgart 1971; H. Wolff, Anthropologie des Alten Testament, München 1973; D. Tettamanzi, L’uomo immagine di Dio, Padova 1973; J. Fichtner, Man the Image of God, a Christian Anthropology, New York 1978; W. Pannenberg, Gottebenbildlichkeit als Bestimmung des Menschen in der neueren Theologiegeschichte, München 1979; W. Janzen, Still in the Image. Essays in Biblical Theology and Anthropology, Newton 1982; B. Lang, Old Testament and Anthropology. A Preliminary Bibliography, in: Biblische Notizen. Beiträge zur exegetischen Diskussion (1983) no. 20, 37-46; Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament, (Ed. B. Lang), Philadelphia 1985; A. Deissler, Wer bist du, Mensch? Die Antwort der Bibel, Freiburg-Basel etc. 1985; J. Cascant, Estructura de la persona humana en el origen. Estudio exegético de los relatos de la creación del hombre, Pamplona 1985. 50

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faith of Israel,53 verbalizes the ways in which God and man are reciprocally related. We shall highlight four relational moments: (1) the creation-relation which John of the Cross calls the substantial union between Creator and creature; (2) the representative relation which makes man God’s deputy in creation; (3) the teacher-pupil relation in which man learns to see with God’s eyes; (4) the covenant relation which makes man share in God’s glory. These relational moments articulate the most important layers of the divine-human relational process.54 1. Man as the adumbration of God The climax of the creation story according to the Priestly narrator is the divine decree: “Let us make the earthling as our adumbration unto our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The decree is carried out immediately: “And God created the earthling as his adumbration, as adumbration of God he created them, male and female created he them”(Gen. 1:27). The word “adumbration”(tselem) refers to a substantial relation between the sculptor and the sculpted: the sculpted stands or falls with the influence of the sculptor. The created form comes into existence by the agency of the One who forms it and is preserved by the power of the One who formed it: “In or even with the adumbration caused by his shadow God makes man.”55 This divine tselem is so indestructibly increated in man that it remains preserved in all the generations (toledot) of Adam (Gen. 5:1-3).56 Human beings are created as God’s adumbration. Should they cut this vital connection, they would volatilize into shadowy beings. Two Psalm texts sketch this shadowy existence. The first (Ps. 39:7) is a reflection on the fundamental inadequacy of human beings when left to their own busyness. Of themselves Earthlings are “mere shadows” (vs. 7). It is not surprising, therefore, to hear the psalmist continue: “And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? I am waiting for you” (vs. 8). My hope is fixed, not on my length or breadth (vs. 6), not on my own

53

H. Wildberger, Das Abbild Gottes. Gen. 1,26-30, in: Theologische Zeitschrift 21 (1965), 245; H. Wildberger, tselem, in: ThLOT III (1997), 1080-1085; cf. E. Lehmann, Skabt i Guds billende, Lund 1918, 17. 54 See H. Blommestijn & K. Waaijman, L’homme spirituel à l’Image de Dieu selon Saint Jean de la Croix, in: Juan de la Cruz: espiritu de Llama, (Ed. O. Steggink), Rome-Kampen 1991, 623656. 55 Martin Buber, cited by K. Schmidt, Homo imago Dei im Alten und Neuen Testament, in: Der Mensch als Bild Gottes, (Ed. L. Scheffcyzk), Darmstadt 1969, 28. Schmidt himself does not rule out that in the case of tselem one must proceed from the idea of the image of a shadow, an adumbration, a shadow, from which follows the idea of a form, an image. Loretz touches this layer of meaning when he says that tselem refers to an “intimate, close relation,” almost to “kinship.” 56 P. Duncker, Das Bild Gottes im Menschen (Gen. 1,26-27). Eine physische Ähnlichkeit?, in: Der Mensch als Bild Gottes, 81.

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ingathering (vs. 7), but solely on my Creator who is realizing his original creation blessing in me.57 In the second text (Ps. 73:20) there is mention of a dream which, when the dreamer wakes up, dissolves into nothingness. This is also what happens in the case of the doomer (the wicked) pictured in the preceding as somebody who in all respects cuts his connection with God and imagines himself to be God (vv. 4-12). He has amputated himself from the Source whose being suffused his adumbration. Now he is like a dream detached from the dreamer and dissolves into vapor. Apart from his Origin the adumbration which man is is merely a free-floating shadow: a delusion, a dream in the morning. A living adumbration, however, is one who, despite all his bitter experiences, remains “with You” (vv. 22-23).58 The view of human beings as God’s adumbration is dominant in lay spirituality. The Living One animates them, permeates them with his power, weaves their community ties, and builds their house.59 The face-to-face intimacy between husband and wife is a living icon of divine love and deeds of mercy flow forth from God’s goodness.60 Should the divine influence withdraw itself only a shadowy existence would remain.61 Some mystical ways are designed to make human beings conscious of this divine presence in created being: our very being participates immediately in God’s being and is destined to make this participation complete.62 2. Man as God’s representative In the ancient Semitic world the king was viewed as God’s image on earth: “You are my beloved son, come forth from my limbs, my very own image which I have put upon the earth. I have permitted you to rule over the earth in peace.”63 The image represents God on earth. This representative relation takes shape in Israel in the messianic king,64 who radiates the power of God.65 During the exile this 57

For a further analysis of this psalm see: K. Waaijman, Psalmen bij ziekte en genezing, Kampen 1981, 88-95. 58 For an exposition of this psalm, see K. Waaijman, Psalmen bij het zoeken van de weg, Kampen 1982, 90-101. 59 Part 1, chapters 1.1.1; 1.3.1; 1.3.2; see also 1.6.3. 60 Part 1, the chapters 1.4.1-3 and 1.5.1-3. 61 Part 1, chapter 1.6.1. 62 Part 1, chapter 1.1.2. 63 W. Schmidt, Die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1967, 139. 64 C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, Minneapolis 1984, 148-153. 65 This dynamic-representative element as one of the semantic layers in tselem is evident from passages like 1 Sam. 6:5 (precise reproductions of mice and tumors) and Ezek. 23:14 (erotic religious depictions of male figures). Here it becomes clear that “the essence of the image is to bring something to manifestation” (W. Schmidt, Die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift, 144). Essential in this connection is the bond between the original image and its depiction.

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representative relation was democratized: every human being is appointed king in God’s creation. The psalm which most strikingly expresses this representative relation is psalm 2.66 In this poem we see the Messiah – mentioned in the same breath with Be-er (vs. 2) – set up on Zion as a god-image cast by Be-er himself. “I myself have cast my king on Zion, my holy mountain!” (Ps. 2:6).67 Of this cast image we are told – in a divine commentary on the “decree” – that Be-er confided to him: “You are my son; today I am begetting you” (2:7). The image of the king is begotten by Be-er who is the interior of his “being cast.” This “being cast” is at the same time the exterior of the king that is visible to all. Hence the summons to the kings to “kiss” this “pure” depiction of Be-er (vs. 12, cf. Hosea 13:2; Job 31:27). The king as the pure image of Be-er creates order: “I give you the nations as heritage, the margins of the land as your belongings. You can pasture them with a rod of iron, dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:8-9). The king, cast and raised up as Be-er’s image, is appointed as one who can rule over the nations entrusted to him. The embodiment of God’s compassionateness: The compassionate concern of the Messiah for God’s people, indeed for his entire creation,68 gives expression to the compassionateness which is Be-er himself.69 The king embodies Be-er in his compassionate concern for his creatures.70 He is one with Be-er because he performs the same acts in the midst of his people. In his conduct the king is pure and transparent to Be-er when he does justice to the least (Ps. 72:12-14; 45:4-6; 101:5-8). It is precisely thus that the king shares in the universal justice of Be-er and the permanence of his kingship: “Your throne, the throne of God, endures forever and ever” (Ps. 45:7). This oneness of attitude between Be-er and his king is characteristic for the spirituality of the kings.71 “With the loyal you 66

K. Waaijman, Psalmen rond bevrijdend leiderschap, Kampen 1984, 16-22. This “pouring” or “casting” must not just be understood as the “facts-creating and legitimating effect of an act of anointing” (K. Seybold, mashach, in: ThDOT IV (1998), 43-54), but above all as the “casting” of an image (cf. Isa. 40:19), or the “formation” of an image (cf. Prov. 8:23). 68 Görg refers to the ancient eastern iconography in which the image of humans “astride” nonhuman beings was understood as a way of maintaining the necessary balance against the deadly chaos. See M. Görg, Das Menschenbild der Priesterschrift, in: Bibel und Kirche 42 (1987) no. 1, pp. 23 and 26. 69 This dynamic linkage is well captured by Görg where he says that “the royal person as ‘image of God,’ in the exercise of his responsibility for the whole created world, agrees with the ‘Spirit of God’ (Gen. 1:2) in his omnipotent control over all phenomena.” See ibid., p. 26. 70 It seems to me incorrect, therefore, to regard man’s dominion in creation as merely a consequence of the Imago Dei – at least within this tradition – and not as its essence, as many exegetes think. See J. Stamm, Die Imago-Lehre von Karl Barth und die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, in: Der Mensch als Bild Gottes, (Ed. L. Scheffcyzk), Darmstadt 1969, 64; O. Loretz, Der Mensch als Ebenbild Gottes (Gen. 1,26ff.), ibid., 123. 71 K. Waaijman, Psalmen rond bevrijdend leiderschap, Kampen 1984, 5-15. 67

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show yourself loyal; with the blameless strong you show yourself blameless, with the pure you show yourself pure” (Ps. 18:26-27). Accurate depiction. In the king who acts as Be-er the divine life is present in perfection. It is for that reason that in this spirituality the words “blameless” and “pure” (see Ps. 2:12; 18:21, 24-27; 72:16; 101:2) are used so frequently in this spirituality. Being the image of God in this spirituality of the kings neither means an attribute, nor intimate contact with the Source of life, not even resemblance in form, but simply the fact that the king shares in God’s compassionate concern: “Just as in the provinces an earthly ruler sets up an image of himself as the hallmark of his rule, so human beings in their being “image of God” are set on earth as signs of God’s highness and called to protect and realize God’s claim to sovereignty on earth.”72 Spiritual oneness. The intentional oneness between God and his anointed is brought about in prayer. Night and day the king calls out the Name and with all his being waits for Be-er: “When will you come to me?” (Ps. 101:2). In prayer he is immersed in Be-er as his element; in prayer he delights in the strength that is Be-er, and rejoices in his liberating power, secures himself in his lovingkindness, and knows himself safe in the Name as in a fortified tower (see Pss. 20 and 21). The people identify with this praying identity (Ps. 110:3). It prays that the uprightness of Be-er may dwell in their king (Ps. 72:1). Then life in the land will be good, the people will revive and flourish, and with awed respect they will see Be-er in their king (Ps. 72:5). Prayerfully the people immerse their king in God (Ps. 20:2-5, 10). 3. Human beings as pupils of God During the exile several spiritual traditions converged and formed a melting pot. One of those fusions is that between the messianic king and the sage. We see this happening in Psalm 8.73 Here the vulnerable questioning human being (vs. 5) is clothed with royal attributes (vss. 6-9). We find the wisdom teacher Jesus Sirach in the same tradition when he says: “Be-er fashioned earthlings from the earth and consigned them back to it, giving them so many days and so much time. He made them rule over everything that lives on earth: He clothed them in strength; he made them in his own image. He filled all living things with dread of human beings, making them masters of wild life and birds” (Jes. Sir. 17:1-4). This is the traditional image of the king who represents God on earth. Jesus Sirach, however, extending the line of Psalm 8, takes it a step further: “He formed their tongue, their eyes, their ears, and gave them a heart to think 72 G. von Rad, Von Menschenbild des Alten Testaments, in: G. von Rad, H. Schlier et al., Der alte und der neue Mensch. Aufsätze zur theologischen Anthropologie, München 1942, 7. 73 For this, see part 1, chapter 3.4.1.

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with. He filled them with intuition and intelligence, and showed them what was good and what was evil. He put his own eye in their hearts to make them see the magnificence of his works, so that they would celebrate his holy Name as they told of his magnificent works” (Jes. Sir. 17:6-10). The Creator makes his representative into his pupil: he forms his tongue, eyes, ears, but especially his heart where he comes to understanding: understanding of good and evil and of what the creation is basically. Thus human beings became what they were intended to be: pupils carrying God’s eye in their heart (vs. 8). This eye enables them to see the magnificence of God’s works. They can explain the meaning of those works: the holy Name which is celebrated by them. The Creator further enriched this eye by giving human beings the torah (Jes. Sir. 17:11-14). The vulnerable king who reigns over all living creatures (vs. 2) and rules over wild life and birds (vs. 4) is shaped by God into a contemplative pupil. Included in this formation into pupils are the human figure74 and faculties. Some manuscripts therefore add: “They obtained the use of the five faculties of the Lord; as sixth he distributed to them the gift of mind and as seventh speech, the interpreter of these faculties” (Jes. Sir. 17:5). They are the five human senses, to which the Stoa added three more.75 The text mentions two (nous and logos) but omits the third (spermatikon). With this addition began an interminable series of attempts to formulate the most essential human attribute: man’s spiritual excellence (Philo), the soul (Ambrose), free will (Tertullian), intellect (Athanasius), the three faculties of the soul (Augustine), up to and including the soul (Herder), the religious nature (Dorner), the will and freedom of action (Seeberg), dignity (Schmidt), the physical form (Gunkel), I-consciousness (König), the spiritual faculties (Duncker), and so forth.76 Essential in these attempts is the search for the fundamental structure of man as image of God. The danger does 74

This is the aspect highlighted by Köhler when he interprets tselem as plastic figure, the erect figure, statue, pillar, and the like. See L. Köhler, Die Grundstelle der Imago-Dei-Lehre. Genesis 1,26; in: Der Mensch als Bild Gottes, 6-7, also cf. K. Schmidt, Homo Imago Dei im Alten und Neuen Testament, ibid., 32-33; J. Stamm, Die Imago-Lehre von Karl Barth und die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, ibid., 63-64; O. Loretz, Der Mensch als Ebenbild Gottes (Gen. 1,26ff.), ibid., 124; J. Soggin, ‘Imago Dei’ – Neue Überlegungen zu Genesis 1,26 ff., in: Altes Testament und christliche Verkündigung (Festschrift A. Gunneweg), (Ed. M. Öming & A. Graupner), Stuttgart 1987. Earlier already E. Osterloh, Die Gottebenbildlichkeit des Menschen, in: M. Albertz et al., Theologia viatorum. Theologische Aufsätze, München 1939, 9-10. Humbert put it succinctly as follows: “All the Old Testament passages referring to tselem only mean the external depiction, the plastic representation (italics mine, KW), without moral or spiritual import.” See P. Humbert, Études sur le récit du Paradis et de la chûte dans la Genèse, Neuchâtel 1940, 157. 75 J. de Fraine, Het loflied op de menselijke waardigheid in Ecclesiasticus 17,1-14, in: Bijdragen 11 (1950), 13. 76 For an overview of the attempts to define the resemblance between God and man on the level of attributes, see C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, Minneapolis 1984, 148-158.

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not so much reside in the speculative character of it as in the fact that the dialogic dynamics get lost and man is viewed as an attribute.77 Fundamental is the Teacher-pupil relation. Realized within that relation is the equipment of humans with senses (the tongue, eyes, ears) and above all with a heart by which they can realize and understand what the creation is in God’s eyes. The perfect pupil of Abba is the person who perceives reality with the eyes of God.78 4. Man as covenant partner For the Priestly narrator the creation of man is dominated by the theme of covenant: God created man as his image, that is, as his covenant partner (Gen. 1:26-28). In the flood this creational covenant ceased to exist. But the covenant relation was restored when God made a covenant with Noah (Gen. 9). A new phase in the covenant began when God chose Abraham and placed himself under obligation to him. Finally he made a covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai (Exod. 24:15ff.). For the Priestly narrator the creation of man is oriented to man as covenant partner to whom God committed himself and willed to reveal his glory. We will elucidate this covenant relation in the light of the revelation at Mount Sinai and Ezekiel’s vision. God’s glory on Mount Sinai. The glory of Be-er (Exod. 24-40; Lev. 9) establishes Israel’s cult and constitutes Israel as a people.79 A cloud covered the mountain “and the glory of Be-er settled on Mount Sinai (…) like a devouring fire” (Exod. 24:15ff.). Moses enters the cloud and receives God’s plans for the construction of the tent of meeting and his instructions for the institution of the priesthood (Exod. 25-29). Finally “the glory of Be-er” filled the newly-constructed tabernacle (Exod. 40:34). Moses preceded the people in what Be-er unveiled as the final goal: “You shall be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy people” (Exod. 19:6). The consecration and self-purification of the people occur with a view to the priestly approach to Be-er (see e.g., Exod. 19:10-17, 21-23), which is finally accomplished only by Moses (Exod. 24:12ff.). Then Moses went up on the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of Be-er settled on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for six days; on the 77

An important impulse to the understanding of the dialogic structure came from K. Barth, Church Dogmatics III/2, Edinburgh 1958. However much his exegesis was criticized, the outcome was widely received: viz. that God “speaks to a being as ‘You’ and makes that You responsible as ‘I’”, ibid., 188-189. See: J. Stamm, Die Imago-Lehre von Karl Barth und die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, in: Der Mensch als Bild Gottes, (Ed. L. Scheffcyzk), Darmstadt 1969, 68; E. Schlink, Die biblische Lehre vom Ebenbilde Gottes, ibid., 108; R. Koch, Der Mensch als Ebenbild Gottes, in: Theologie der Gegenwart 15 (1972), 16-18; for a discussion see C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 150-151; 157. 78 See more extensively: K. Waaijman, Abba was zijn Vader, in: Speling 25 (1973), 187-197. 79 W. Schmidt, Einführung in das Alte Testament, Berlin-New York 1985, 107.

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seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of Be-er was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain and he remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights (Exod. 24:15-18).

To Moses was revealed the entire cultic order: the tabernacle, the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altar of burnt offerings, the court, the oil, the priestly garments, the consecration to the priesthood, the sacrifices, and so forth (Exod. 25-31). After the worship of the golden calf (Exod. 32) and the resulting crisis in the relation to Be-er (Exod. 33), Moses again asked for permission to see the glory of Be-er: “Show me your glory, I pray” (Exod. 33:18). After that has happened, we read: “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai – the two tables of the testimony were in the hands of Moses when he came down from the mountain – he did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been speaking with God” (Exod. 34:29). When Aaron and the Israelites saw with astonishment that the skin of his face shone they dared not come near him (Exod. 34:20). In order not to shock the Israelites Moses put a veil on his face (Exod. 34:33). “But whenever Moses went in before Be-er to speak with him he took the veil off until he came out. When the Israelites saw from the face of Moses that the skin of his face shone, Moses put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him” (Exod. 34:34-35). Then follow instructions concerning the sabbath, the structure of the tabernacle, the appointment of the builders, the construction of the tabernacle, and so forth (Exod. 35-40:30). “And the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, so that Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it and the glory of the Be-er filled the tabernacle” (Exod. 40:34-35). The book of Deuteronomy concludes with the testimony that after Moses there had never been anyone “like Moses whom Be-er knew face-to-Face” (Deut. 34:10). Ezekiel’s vision. The vision of Ezekiel, the priest-prophet, takes the reader into the secret of God’s glory. First a stormy wind came from the north, a great cloud with flashing fire and brilliant light around it and in the middle, on the heart of the fire, there was something that looked like bright-shining metal (Ezek. 1:4). In the middle of that there was something that looked like four living creatures – whose appearance is then described (Ezek. 1:5-14). After describing the wheels in front of the four living creatures and their operation (Ezek. 1:15-21), the vision and its focus move upward: spread out over the heads of the living creatures there was a dome consisting of a single ice-crystal (Ezek. 1:22). Between the heads of the living creatures and the dome there were wings which are then described in terms of their nature and operation (Ezek. 1:23-25). Above the dome there was something like a throne, like sapphire in appearance, and seated above the throne was a figure that looked like an earthling (Ezek. 1:26). Then

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the figure “that looked like an earthling” is described: Ezekiel sees something gleam like metal, something that looks like fire coming from what looks like his loins and downward from what looks like his loins he sees something like fire surrounded by a kind of splendor (Ezek. 1:27). Then appeared something like the rainbow which resembled the appearance of the surrounding splendor just described (Ezek. 1:28). The vision finally ends with the words: “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Be-er. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of One speaking” (Ezek 1:28). The human being who has been created as the image of the Mighty One looks searchingly toward him who surpasses all similarities.80 It is all the more telling that at the end of all this graphic groping for the comparable the seer’s gaze is suddenly overtaken by the glory of God in the image of an earthling (Ezek. 1:26). According to the Priestly point of view, it is not only the case that man is created as God’s image but above all that God himself shares in the existence of the earthling: the glory of Be-er shows the features of “a figure like that of an earthling” (Ezek. 1:26). The earthling who has been created as demut of God sees God in the demut of an earthling. At the climax of a mystical-priestly vision the fundamentally reciprocal structure of the Godman relation becomes manifest.

80 It is of essential importance for the reader to sense in the word demut the element of groping or searching for similarity. The seer searches for parallels from the world of experience but wants to point beyond them to the ineffable.

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3.2. The Transformation Process The word “transformation” is part of a richly varied semantic field: to form, malform, reform, be conformed and transform. Throughout the centuries spiritual authors have used this semantic field to bring out the inner logic of the spiritual way.81 For them this semantic field – and within it especially the term “transformation” – refers to the most significant transitions in the divine-human relational process. In John of the Cross, for example, the spiritual way which passes between “the substantial union by which God keeps man in being,” and “the union-by-likeness” by which humans lose themselves in God82 is conceived in terms of form, malformation, reformation, conformity and transformation,83 with the last term, in keeping with the tradition, indicating the intentionality of the spiritual way.84 Also contemporary authors frequently use the word “transformation” precisely in the places where they seek to conceptualize spirituality in terms of its essence.85 Thus Sandra Schneiders writes that “spirituality as an academic discipline studies the transformative Christian experience as such.”86 81

For an initial presentation of this semantic field, see M. Sandaeus, Pro theologia mystica clavis (1640), Heverlee-Leuven 1963, 150-152, 177-178, 354-356. 82 John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 5, 3; Spiritual Canticle B 11, 4. The translation used is that of K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Washington (DC) 1979. 83 In John of the Cross the semantic field conformar, conforme, conformidad, deiforme, deiformidad, forma, formal, formalment, formar, reformación, reformar, transformación, transformar occurs 524 times. 84 In the concordance on the works of John of the Cross, there are more than 40 references to “transformation in God,” “to transform in God,” and to the idea that God “transforms the soul in himself.” 85 By way of example, a few titles: M. Fox, Educating for Transformation. The Spiritual Task, in: Horizons 9 (1982), 74-80; M. Agnew, Transformed Christians. New Testament Messages on Holy Living, Kansas City (MO) 1974; T. Sustar, Transforming Faith. Reproducing the Christlife, Cleveland (TN) 1992; G. Turner, The Vision Which Transforms. Is Christian Perfection Scriptural? Kansas City (MO) 1964; L. Vaughan-Lee, Sufism. The Transformation of the Heart, Inverness (CA) 1995; C. Vale, Mystical Consciousness∞ / Transformation. An Examination of the Christian Tradition from a Teilhardian Perspective, Ann Arbor (MI) 1990; M. Frohlich, Mystical Transformation. Intersubjectivity, and Foundations. A Study of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle, Ann Arbor (MI) 1990; U. Wiethaus, Ecstatic Transformation. Transpersonal Psychology in the Work of Mechthild of Magdeburg, Syracuse (NY) 1996; Transformations of Consciousness. Conventional and Contemplative Perspectives on Development, (Ed. K. Wilbur, J. Engler et al.), Boston 1986, R. Moseley, Becoming a Self Before God. Critical Transformations, Nashville 1991. 86 S. Schneiders, The Study of Christian Spirituality. Contours and Dynamics of a Discipline, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 6 (1998) no. 1, 3; also cf. Coleman who regards spirituality “as

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McGinn calls mysticism a “process of personal transformation.”87 Spirituality is in search of “the immediate and transforming consciousness of God’s presence.”88 According to Frohlich, this transformation is not only a transforming relation between God and an individual; it is the transformation of that individual as an intersubjective being and, therefore, of all the relations in which that individual participates.”89 In the transformation process we distinguish five layers: (1) the transformation from non-being to being in God’s creation of man; (2) transformation from being malformed to being re-formed in God’s re-creation of man; (3) man’s becoming conformed to a divine-human transformation model which introduces a person into divine reality; (4) transformation in love in which the soul is led into God, while God takes up his abode in the soul; (5) the transformation in glory which awaits us after this life but of which the transformation in love already contains a sketch. 3.2.1. TRANSFORMATION IN CREATION Lay spirituality views man’s becoming as a fundamental transformation.90 This intuition is unfolded in richly varied stories about the creation of man.91 In a very ancient song fragment (Ps. 139:13-16),92 it is verbalized as follows: Yes, You acquired my kidneys, Wove me together in my mother’s belly. I want to thank you, because I am awesomely exceptional – peculiar are your makings and my soul feels it extremely! My strength was not hidden from you, the key to transformation”; see J. Coleman, Exploding Spiritualities. Their Social Causes, Social Location and Social Divide, in Christian Spirituality Bulletin 5 (1997) no. 1, 11. 87 B. McGinn, Quo Vadis? Reflections on the Current Study of Mysticism, in: Christian Spirituality Bulletin 6 (1998) no. 1, 19. 88 Ibid. 89 M. Frohlich, Mystical Transformation. Intersubjectivity, and Foundations, Ann Arbor (MI) 1990, 345. 90 Part 1, chapter 1. 91 C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, Minneapolis 1984, 47-56, 181-183, 256-278; see R. Albertz, Weltschöpfung und Menschenschöpfung, Stuttgart 1974; see also R. Alberts, Persönliche Frömmigkeit und offizielle Religion, Stuttgart 1978; cf. P. Doll, Menschenschöpfung und Weltschöpfung in der alttestamentlichen Weisheit, Stuttgart 1985. 92 We still find interplay here between becoming out of mother earth and birth from the physical mother. See C. Westermann, ibid., 26, 36, 125, 204.

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when I was made in secret, embroidered in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me – still a ball of yarn; in your story were written all the days, formed before even one of them was there (Ps. 139:13-16).

1. God forms human beings Psalm 139 celebrates the events of creation with several verbs: to acquire, weave, except, make, embroider, see, tell, write, form. All these verbs articulate the most important transitional moments. God’s action begins with designing the form; then comes the realization of the form: gathering (acquiring), making special (excepting), structuring (making) and making pretty (embroidering); finally there is the creation of a destiny: disclosing the meaning (writing, telling). The Hebrew word “to form” (yatsar) encompasses all these transitional moments.93 This is probably the reason why this word is especially singled out to describe the creation of man.94 Designing. In Psalm 139 we read that my days “were formed before even one of them was there” (Ps. 139:16). So there is something in formation that comes before the realization: the form that is present in the one who forms. For that reason the psalmist can say: “Your eyes saw me – still a ball of yarn” (Ps. 139:16); that is: while I was still all rolled up and inwardly in disorder, the Creator’s eyes saw my form (Isa. 46:11; see further Isa. 37:26 = 2 Kgs. 19:25; Jer. 18:11; Isa. 29:15-16). Realizing. In the realization of the form we can discern two aspects. The first aspect: assembling, acquiring, gathering. Psalm 139 speaks of “acquiring” the kidneys; that means: that which is scattered is brought within the domain of the body. The psalm also speaks of “setting aside,” that is, the body is separated, set aside, from what is common (see also Isa. 44:2; 43:1; 43:21; 47:7). The second aspect: furnishing inner coherence. Psalm 139 speaks of “weaving” and “embroidering.” This aspect illumines the crafting of a whole (Isa. 44:24). Destining. A thing is formed for a specific purpose: “I, Be-er, I have called you in righteousness (“preservation”), I have taken you by the hand, formed you, given you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations” (Isa. 42:6). The formation of the servant has a specific purpose. The text therefore continues as follows: “to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon” (Isa. 42:7). Isaiah elsewhere speaks of “Be-er who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and that Israel might be 93 W. Schmidt, yatsar, in: ThLOT II (1997), 566-568; B. Otzen, yatsar, in: ThDOT VI (1990), 257-265. 94 C. Westermann, Genesis, 1-11, 203.

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gathered to him” (Isa. 49:5). The formation of the servant is intended to bring the people back to Be-er so that Israel would be restored (Isa. 49:8, 9). 2. Becoming conscious The fact that God forms man can penetrate and permeate the human consciousness. In the midst of the story of his marvelous formation by Be-er the Psalmist cries out: “My soul feels it extremely!” (Ps. 139:14). The soul feels like clay on a potter’s wheel (2 Sam. 17:28; Isa. 18:23-6; 29:16; 30:14; 41:25; 45:9; Jer. 18:2-6; 19:1-11). This image for the Creator-creature relation95 is particularly useful for making the soul conscious of its transformation from non-being to being. This is the reason why Be-er sent Jeremiah to the potter’s house. The potter was just making a vessel on his wheel (Jer. 18:1-3). “Whenever the vessel he was making came out wrong, as happens with clay in the hand of a potter, he would start over and make of it another pot, as it seemed good to the potter” (Jer. 18:4). The transformation from non-form to form is in the hands of the one who forms. This is something Israel has to realize: “as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so you are in my hand” (Jer. 18:6). The form does not reside in the capacity of the clay. Of itself clay is formless. The form is in the hand of Him who forms. A human being defines himself against the background of non-being. The transition from non-being to being is brought about by God’s shaping hand. It is precisely in the realization of this transition that the so-called “mysticism of the self” has its Sitz im Leben: created being and divine being are experienced as a unity, as two sides of a single process. I have within my soul a strength that is totally receptive to God. I am as certain as I am that I am alive that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than myself. My being depends on the fact that God is near to me and present for me. He is also near and present for a stone or piece of wood, but they know nothing about this fact. If a piece of wood knew about God and perceived how near he is to it, as the highest angel perceives this fact, then the piece of wood would be just as happy as the highest angel.96

3. The transitional moment “If you are the work of God, the hand of your Craftsman, who doing everything at the right moment, waits for the right moment with respect to you who are in process of becoming.”97 In my becoming God’s shaping hand reveals itself. According to Mohammed God created man “upon his own Form.”98 We emerge 95

God is the subject 42x of the 63x the verb yatsar occurs. Meister Eckhart, Scitote, quia prope est regnum Dei, in: Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke III, (Ed. J. Quint), Stuttgart etc. 1976, 141-142. 97 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4, 39 (SC 100II, 966-967). 98 W. Chittick, Eschatology, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 383384. 96

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in immediate relation to Someone who creates and follows the rhythm of our becoming. The clay for its part must yield to that shaping hand: “Put your heart at his disposal, gentle and amenable, and fulfill the form in which your Craftsman has formed you by keeping his moistness in you in order that you do not, having become hard, lose the traces of this fingers.”99 The consciousness of being in God’s hand is accompanied by the realization of not being self-created. People must “regard themselves as being nothing (ayin), understanding that in reality they would be nothing, as before the creation, apart from the power of the Creator, blessed be his Name, who created them and keeps them alive. There is, therefore, nothing in the world other than the Creator, blessed be He.”100 One who realizes that he himself is nothing (like clay in the hands of the potter) realizes that the Shaper is everything. All that is is shaped from within God. Eckhart says the same thing in almost the same words: “In themselves creatures are a pure nothing. I do not just say that they are insignificant or are only a little something: they are a pure nothing. Whatever has no being is nothing. Creatures have no being in themselves because their being consists in God’s presence.”101 3.2.2. TRANSFORMATION IN RE-CREATION Humans make the transition from non-being to being every moment of their life. This transition substantially unites them with their Creator. Once our form exists, however, it can open itself up to its Creator or shut itself up in itself (Gen. 6:5; 8:21; 1 Chron. 28:9; cf. Deut. 31:21). From within the depths of their heart people can go in two directions: there is in them an orientation toward the good (1 Chron. 29:18; cf. Isa. 26:3) and an orientation toward the evil (Gen. 6:5; 8:21). In rabbinic literature these two orientations (yetser) jointly point (as a merism) to the dramatic pre-given reality in people that at any moment they can let themselves be pulled in two directions.102 Aside from the orientations there are faculties. The will calls for being transformed in love.103 Knowing is formed to receive the divine reality.104 To knowing and willing is added the memory in which all forms of knowing and willing are preserved. The orientations and faculties contain a profound 99

Irenaeus, op. cit., 4, 39. Meschullam Foebus of Zoaraz, Yosher Divrei Emeth, Munkácz 1905, 15b. 101 Meister Eckhart, Omne datum optimum, in: Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke I, (Ed. J. Quint), Stuttgart etc. 1958, 69-70. 102 H. Strack & P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament IV, München 1924, 466-483. 103 William of St. Thierry, Super Cantica 63. We are following the text edition of SC 82. 104 Ibid., 28. 100

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ambiguity: they can get focused on the person himself and be filled with the finite. Thereby they distort (deform) themselves. But this distortion (deformation) ever looks for re-formation. 1. Deformation Those who let themselves be defined by finite forms finitize themselves.105 Included among these finite forms are “the jewels of images and supernatural forms.”106 All these “forms are represented in some limited mode or manner.”107 When people let themselves be defined by finite creatures they get detached from God. Aside from attachment to the finite, there is the curving back upon ourselves. Self-orientation must not be confused with self-acceptance: in self-acceptance we receive ourselves out of the hand of life; in self-orientation we shut ourselves up in ourselves. Nor must self-orientation be confused with introspection or selfcriticism: self-orientation ensnares us in ourselves. Added to attachment to the finite and to self-orientation there is the finitization of God: “All people in their own way form for themselves a conception of their God, for as the praying person is himself, so also that person pictures God to be.”108 The memory, the intellect, and the will, each according to its capacity and scope, form an idea of God.”109 Over and over again people are tempted to form a golden calf for themselves (Exod. 32:4). Through this finitization of God into something man-made (Isa. 45:16) the creature injures himself. “Those who form images all dance around. Their precious creations are useless. They themselves witness that they neither see nor feel. And so they will be shamed. Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do him no good? Look: all its devotees shall be put to shame” (Isa. 44:9-11). The weightiest reason for this shame is that from finite materials (iron, wood; stone, clay) with finite tools (an axe, hammer, measuring line, plane, compass), by finite beings (a smith, carpenter) a finite thing is made that is elevated into a god (Isa. 44:12-19). 2. Re-formation Paul says: “Do not follow the pattern of this world but be re-formed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). The “divine passive” indicates that the reformation proceeds from God. Humans cooperate with this reformation: a continual renewal of the mindset whose purpose is to “recognize what is the will of God 105

John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel I, 4, 3-4. Ibid., II, 16, 4. 107 Ibid., II, 16, 7. 108 Super Cantica, 13. 109 Super Cantica, 122. See also his Epistola 242 and 247-249, for which we follow the text edition of SC 223. 106

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– what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). The real reformation (metamorphosis) proceeds from God: the pattern (schèma) of the world must be abandoned, the form of God must again gain its grip on us. The spiritual writers continually thematize the field of tension: formation-reformation-transformation: “People must turn away from that deformation in which, by worldly desires, they were conformed to this world, and be re-formed by him.”110 The tradition illuminates several aspects of this re-formation. The Greek Fathers. According to Origen, “no one will lose the possibility of rediscovering within himself the form of the image of God.”111 The rediscovery of this image is pictured in three ways. (1) The paradisal picture: humans return to their creaturely integrity, to paradise.112 (2) Man as form of God: by returning to our original form God’s formating hand becomes visible. We discover God’s image in us.113 Man as king: all human beings are kings or queens, bearing the kingdom of God within them (Luke 17:21). As God establishes his kingship within us the king (or queen) is born in us.114 The Latin Fathers. In the Latin Fathers the accents differ.115 In their writing reformation touches the basic form itself. Man who had already been very well formed by God and been thoroughly deformed by himself (fall), in being reformed, is reformed into something better (in melius reformatus).116 A beautiful painting by a great master, when it is being restored, may be found to have underlying it an even more beautiful painting by the same master. Because the reformation of God’s image goes deeper than the original form and reaches farther than that original form could even begin to grasp, it is necessary for God’s recreating hand itself to perform this restoration. If we ourselves should do it we would only restore the image that was already familiar to us. “We always refashion and reform in our own way. But who could do it otherwise, other than the craftsman who himself formed it? We are indeed able to deform the image in us but we cannot reform it.”117 The later tradition. Reformation maintains its systematic place within the whole of the spiritual way. To David of Augsbourg, “the reformation of the inner man” is a condition for the spiritual life. It calls for the formation of reason, will,

110

Augustine, De Trinitate lib. 14 cap. 16, 22 (PL 42, 1053). Origen, In Genesim Homilia hom. 1, 13 (PG 12, 157CD). 112 G. Ladner, The Idea of Reform. Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers, Cambridge (MA) 1959, 63-82. 113 Ibid., 83-107. 114 Ibid., 107-132. 115 Ibid., 133-167. 116 See, e.g., Tertullian, Adversus Hermogenem 37, 4 (CCSL I, 429). 117 Augustine, Sermo 43, cap. 3 (PL 38, 255). 111

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and memory.118 Of the treatise in which he develops this position an exceptionally large number of manuscripts (more than 400) have been preserved. This fact points to great influence. For John of the Cross, accordingly, reformation is naturally among the first steps in the spiritual life. By taking these steps a people put themselves into the right form. This is the night of the senses which is aimed at reformation on the sensory level.119 “God places them in this night solely to exercise and humble them, and reform their appetite lest in their spiritual life they foster a harmful attraction toward sweetness.”120 The reformation of the appetite implies ordering and restraint. “Hence the night of the senses we explained should be called a certain reformation and bridling of the appetite rather than a purgation.”121 The goal is that, in this reordering, the appetite (the capacity to strive) is pacified and becomes available for union with God. “The sensory and spiritual parts of the soul, in order to go out to the divine union of love, must first be reformed, put in order, and pacified.”122 3. The moment of reversal The biblical verb “to turn” (shub) sums up all the dramatics of deformation and reformation in a single word. The deformation comes about because people turn away (shub) from their original orientation to God. Those who turn away move in a direction that is opposed to the original relation: a bride turns away from her bridegroom (Jer. 3). When aversion has reached its nadir the desire for reversal arises (teshuwah): when conformity to the world (conformatio mundi) is experienced as deformation (deformitas) a process of reformation (reformatio) is set in motion. Having become conscious of their deformation, people search for a way back to God so that they “are reformed to the image of God for which God created them.”123 The real moment of transformation is the reversal (teshuwah). In this connection three aspects interconnect. Return to the origin. Aversion is a turning away from one’s origin, reversal is a turning back to one’s origin. Noah’s dove returned to the ark as long as the earth was still covered by water. The moment the water subsided the dove returned to the trees where it originally belonged (Gen. 8:9-12). The Earthling returns to the earth (Gen. 3:19; Ps. 90:3); messengers [are supposed to] return to those who send them (cf. 2 Kgs. 9:17-20); the wind returns to where it came 118

David of Augsbourg, De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione, Quarrachi 1899. John of the Cross, The Dark Night I, 4, 2, in: The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (Trans., Intr. & Ed. K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez), Washington (DC) 1979. 120 Ibid., I, 9, 9. 121 Ibid., II, 3, 1. 122 Ibid., II, 24, 2. 123 William of St. Thierry, Tractatus de contemplando Deo 7. For this treatise we are following the text edition of SC 61. See further Epistola 88, 278; Meditativae orationes 12, 23 (SC 324). 119

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from (Eccl. 1:6); a stone thrown up into the air returns to the ground (Ps. 7:17). The moment of reversal consists in the birth of awareness that I bear the image of God in me from the beginning. With this realization “a movement of ongoing conversion or transformation begins.”124 Mutual return. In conversion Israel returns to its original relation to Be-er (Ezek. 16:1-14). Jeremiah summons the people: “Return, O faithless children, says Be-er, for I am your Master” (Jer. 3:14). This return is healing (Hos. 6:1). Israel’s return is this side of the reversal of which Be-er is the other: “When you return to Be-er your Mighty One (…), Be-er your Mighty One (…), will return because of your return” (Deut. 30:2-3). Be-er answers Israel’s return with his own (Ps. 126:1). A change of consciousness. The restoration of the divine-human relational process in mutual embrace implies a transformation of one’s understanding of God.125 Manifest in the restored relation (reformation, conversion) is the infinite mercy of God. This is a transformation of one’s consciousness (metanoia). We see it in the life of Paul. What is usually called his conversion experience can perhaps be better called a “transformation.” His conversion was not “a change of religions but a radical reinterpretation of his understanding of God’s actions in and will for the world.”126 3.2.3. TRANSFORMATION IN CONFORMITY Reformation is aimed at the recovery of the original form of man, the image of God. To that end it orients itself to a form which makes present the original figure: the torah in Judaism, Christ in Christianity, Buddha in Buddhism, Mohammed in Islam, the reformation of the original image of God in man and conformation to the divine-human figure are extensions of each other. “We are formed after God’s image, deformed by sin, reformed by grace by becoming conformed to Christ, and finally transformed in glory.”127 By the interiorization of Christ’s life the original image rises to the surface and a person achieves union with God who is above all creatures and surpasses all knowledge.128 The spiritual form has a mediating effect which is grounded in its divine-human structure. We clearly observe this in the Letter to the Philippians. The Messiah is pictured here 124

R. Byrne, Journey (Growth and Development in Spiritual Life), in: NDCSp (1993), 565. Alchuin, Expositio in psalmos poenitentiales, praefatio (PL 100, 574C). 126 B. Gaventa, Conversion, in: The Anchor Bible Dictionary 1, (Ed. D. Freedman), New YorkLondon etc. 1992, 1132. 127 M. Casey, Suspensa expectatio. Guerric of Igny on Waiting for God, in: Studies in Spirituality 9 (1999), 86. 128 Bonaventura, Itinerarium. De weg die de geest naar God voert, (Trans. & Comm. J. van Winden), Assen 1996, 159. 125

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in “the form of a slave” and in “the form of God” (Phil. 2:7). The notion of “form” refers to a specific mode of being: the “form of a slave” refers to the status of a slave; the “form of God” refers to the sphere of the divine. The Messiah participates in both modes of being.129 To bring Christians to the perfect knowledge of God, “he who is equal to the Father in divine majesty became like us in the existence of a slave and shapes us into likeness with God. Thus the only Son of God, having become son of man, made many children of human parents into children of God.”130 1. Conformation Conformation refers to a process in which a person appropriates for himself (herself ) a selected model of transformation in behavior, thinking and willing, remembering, feeling and focus. With the aid of three examples we will clarify this process of conformation. Conformity to torah. In Jewish spirituality the torah is a divine-human form. In its concrete knowability it offers ideas, patterns of conduct, motivations and perspectives which can be interiorized by the reader. How such a process of conformation works is shown in the mystical writing Sefer Yetsira. Ten proto-numbers and twenty-two letters constitute the foundation of creation. The Creator “formed in them everything that is formed and every soul that is destined to be formed (…). With them he created the entire universe and formed in them everything that is and everything that is destined to be formed.”131 The heart of this fundamental form is the Name: “everything that is formed and everything that is spoken issues in one Name. (…) He makes everything that is formed and everything that is spoken into a single Name.”132 The mystic conforms himself to the ten proto-numbers and the twenty-two letters which together form “the thirty-two marvelous ways of wisdom.”133 Thereby he becomes one with the Creator and himself creative from within: “Come to understanding in wisdom and be wise in understanding; test yourself in them and conduct your search on the foundation they provide: know, count, form. Understand the issue from within and set the Former in his place. He alone is the Former and the Creator.”134 Conformity to Christ. A central datum in Christian spirituality is “that Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). Paul is speaking here in the language of pregnancy 129

W. Pöhlmann, Morphè, in: EWNT II (1981), 1089-1091. Augustine, Sermo 194, ch. 3 and 4 (PL 38 1016-1017). 131 Sefer Jetsira 2.2; 2.6; 6.6. 132 Sefer Jetsira 2.5-6. 133 Sefer Jetsira 1.1. 134 Sefer Jetsira 1.4. 130

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and birth: Christ must assume form in the church just as a child is formed in the womb. Paul is experiencing birth pangs over this process. Christ is the spiritual form of the Christian life. The spiritual way of Christians is that they are “transformed into a new creation through the Spirit’s work of conforming them to the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection.”135 Christian spirituality attempts in all things to conform itself to Christ: “For this did he come, to hand down to us a form and to point out a way,”136 a “form of holiness,”137 a “form of perfection.”138 Religious life forms. In the 12th century we witness the emergence of a specific spiritual idiom around such words as “example” (exemplum), “form” (forma), “rule” (regula) and “model” (propositum).139 The idea is this: people arrive at inner renewal by appropriating a “form.” The Carmelite Rule, for example, offers a “life form” (formula vitae) which calls for appropriation in the concreteness of daily life. The conclusion of the Rule, accordingly, reads: “We have written these things briefly for you, thus establishing a formula for your way of life (conversationis vestrae formulam), according to which you are to live.”140 A religious life form is “a form of piety,”141 that is, a form of conduct, clothing, work, rest, solitude; in short “everything that belongs to the external culture of a human being.”142 In this context William of St. Thierry refers to Scripture reading,143 work,144 the form of faith (symbolon) which shapes prayer,145 the prayer form which is given us in the Our Father146 or which arises from meditation,147 forms of poverty, chastity and simplicity;148 the form of faith which expresses itself in the pronouncements and religious intuitions of the Fathers,149 and the suffering in which a holy simplicity is formed.150 The process of conformation only 135

T. McGonigle, Three Ways, in: NDCSp (1993), 965. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo in Natali S. Benedicti 8. We are following the text edition Sancti Bernardi Opera I-VIII, (Ed. J. Leclercq, C. Talbot & H. Rochais), Rome 1957-1977. 137 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones de psalmo ‘Qui habitat’ in Quadragesima 14, 5. 138 Bernard of Clairvaux, Vita Sancti Malachiae Episcopi 43. 139 C. Bynum, Docere verbo et exemplo. An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality, MissoulaMontana 1979, 82-109. 140 Carmelite Rule, Conclusion. Text edition and commentary: K. Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Carmel, Leuven 1999, 38. 141 William of St. Thierry, Epistola I; 24; 31. 142 Ibid., 75. 143 William of St.Thierry, Tractatus de contemplando Deo 12. 144 Epistola 113. 145 William of St.Thierry, Super Cantica 18. 146 William of St.Thierry,, Meditativae orationes 4, 2 and 5, 1. 147 Epistola 123. 148 Ibid., 148; 150; 187. 149 Ibid., 7. 150 Super Cantica 70. 136

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becomes authentic when three things are carefully borne in mind. (1) A form of piety must be interiorized to such a degree that its power impacts the person inwardly.151 (2) In the process of conformation the goal is not uniformity.152 (3) The form must simultaneously be interiorized and abandoned so that it can fulfill its true purpose: to transform a person in God. 2. Divine-human transformation According to Paul there will be people in the last days who, though they possess the formation of piety, deny its power (1 Tim. 3:15). Paul here makes a distinction between the “formation” and the “power” of piety. By “formation” Paul means the process of form-appropriation. This process can be accomplished without getting into touch with the core of that piety: the “power” of God. Transformation through conformity presupposes that people will not only appropriate the external form for themselves but through it achieve contact with the divine form which animates it. Henry Suso says: “A resigned person must be stripped of his creaturely form, formed in Christ, and transformed by the Deity.”153 Ruusbroec says the same: By conformity to the divine-human form the souls are “both with images and without. They have the images of the life of our Lord, his suffering and his death and all virtue. And in their spirit they are free and idle and empty of all things. And for this reason they are without images and transformed in divine clarity. (…) They go out with the image of the humanity of our Lord (…). They go in without images with the Spirit of our Lord where they find and possess eternal clarity, unfathomable wealth, taste and comfort more than they can grasp or comprehend.”154 3. The moment of transformation The moment when the divine-human form performs its mediating function, the spiritual form and God are one. For that reason Rumi can say that the prophets, God’s deputies, do not represent two forms: “To the form-worshiper they are two; when you have escaped from consciousness of form, they are One. Whilst you regard the form, you are seeing double: look not at the eyes, but at the light which flows from them.”155 You cannot distinguish the light of ten lamps if you look at the light: “The lamps are different, but the light is the 151

Ibid., 193. Epistola 39. 153 “Das Leben des seligen Heinrich Seuse”, in: Deutsche mystische Schriften, (Ed. G. Hofmann), Düsseldorf 1966, 174. 154 John Ruusbroec, Letters I, 98-117. We are following the text edition John Ruusbroec, Opera Omnia 10, (Ed. G. de Baere), Tielt-Turnhout 1991, 528. 155 Rumi, Unity of Spirit, in: R. Nicholson, Rumi. Poet and Mystic, Oxford 1995, 134. 152

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same: it comes from Beyond. If you keep looking at the lamp, you are lost.”156 While you look at the form you have to let go of it to receive the divine unity which flows through it. The spiritual form deprives me of every form and all that has been formed, and precisely thus, “naked and unencumbered by images,” the soul is “drawn into transformation in God’s unity.”157 Transformation brings me “into a form of God.”158 All spiritual forms want to take [people] into God without form. For that reason these forms have to be relinquished so that the soul can fall past them into God’s unfathomableness. This unformation in God occurs at all levels but the spiritual authors focus especially on the three faculties (the intellect, the will, and the memory). The unformation of the intellect. If our intellect is determined by finite forms – and that is inescapable, since the intellect knows by way of finite forms which reach us through the senses159 – then it will have to be unformed if it is to know the Unformed.160 This unformation concerns both the natural and the supernatural forms.161 As it concerns the natural objects: “Yet particular knowledge, forms of things, imaginative acts, and any other apprehensions involving form and figures are all lost. (…). Transformation in God makes her so consonant with the simplicity and purity of God in which there is no form or imaginative figure, that it leaves her clean, pure, and empty of all forms and figures.”162 Also the supernatural forms will have to be removed: the soul must “also darken and blind itself in the part of its nature that bears relation to God and spiritual things.”163 Especially the mental representations which occur during meditation (Jesus against the scourging column, God seated on his throne, and so forth) must be relinquished.164 These considerations, forms, and manners are necessary for beginners to ignite their soul in love via the sensory level. One must go through them, not remain stuck in them, just as one must not remain half-way up a stairway on the assumption that one now has the hoped-for perspective. For the rest, one needs to note carefully at what moment one relinquishes the forms. One must not cut short the process of conformation too early. Nor must one do it too late, or one gets entangled in the form.165

156

Rumi, op. cit., 166. John Ruusbroec, Sparkling Stone, 95-11, in: Opera Omnia 10, Tielt-Turnhout 1991, 529. 158 William of St. Thierry, Meditativae Orationes, 12, 18. 159 John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 3, 2. 160 Ibid., II, 12-16. 161 Ibid., II, 12, 3. 162 John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle B, 26, 17; see The Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 8, 5. 163 The Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 4, 2. 164 Ibid., II, 12-16. 165 Ibid., II, 13, 1. 157

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The unformation of the will. The typical problematic of the will is that it wills the other but at the same time realizes that that other has his or her own inner story. It cannot “invent” the other. To the extent that the will seeks the other it is dependent on the other. The will can only “be formed in all patience” by submitting “to the will of its Shaper.”166 The will must be denuded of everything that is not the will of God. Positively this means that the soul must conform itself completely to the will of God: “The person of whom we speak prays to God as God. (…). He does not conform God to himself but himself to God. Those who conform themselves to God do not ask of God anything for themselves and ask nothing but God himself as God is for himself.”167 The will only wants what God’s will is. God’s will gently and tenderly makes itself felt in the will of man, drives out all hardness and self-orientation, and transforms the will in himself.168 Through this transformation of the will “the soul performs in this measure in God and through God what he through himself does in it. For the will of the two is one will.”169 God and the will breathe into each other, move on all levels from the same base to the same goals.170 At that moment the will, divested of itself, is solely open to being influenced by God without form: “You have formed the will without form because You are neither form nor something formed. Your love cannot consist in any single form. Hence it can also not be formed into something that has been formed in some fashion.”171 The unformation of the conscience. Everything that has passed through the soul leaves a track behind in the memory.172 That is also true for spiritual forms – whatever the spiritual man has experienced,173 supernatural images174 or spiritual communications.175 God, however, cannot be grasped in any single form or perceptible communication, nor in any image of the memory: “God has no form or image comprehensible to the memory. Therefore the memory is without form, figure, or fantasy when united to God.”176 If the memory is to be united with God, the memory needs to be unformed: “The annihilation of the memory in regard to all forms is an absolute requirement for union with God: the memory must empty and divest itself of all communications and forms. 166

William of St. Thierry, Epistola 68. William of St. Thierry, Super Cantica 23. 168 John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love I, 23. 169 Ibid., III, 78. 170 John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 5, 4. 171 William of St. Thierry, Meditativae Orationes 12, 17. 172 John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel III, 7, 1. 173 Ibid., III, 8, 1. 174 Ibid., III, 12, 1. 175 Ibid., III, 14, 1. 176 Ibid., III, 2, 4. 167

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(…). Union with God cannot be wrought without a complete separation of the memory from all forms that are not God.”177 Initially this emptying will elicit fear and disorientation but gradually to the degree that God becomes the form of the memory, a person will feel secure: “Neither should there be any fear because the memory is void of forms and figures. Since God is formless and figureless, the memory walks safely when empty of form and figure, and it draws closer to God.”178 3.2.4. TRANSFORMATION IN LOVE Transformation into conformity sees to it “that the sensory and lower part is reformed, purified, and brought into conformity with the spiritual part.”179 Now the soul is capable of going out to God to be transformed by him. God, conversely, assumes the form of the soul “by totally and completely transforming it in love and glory.”180 To John of the Cross love and glory describe two phases in the process of glorification. Transformation in love is “the highest state attainable in this life.”181 Transformation in glory “will be effected perfectly in heaven, in life with God, in all those who merit seeing themselves in God.”182 We will discuss the transformation in glory in the following section and now focus on the transformation in love. The peculiar nature of transformation in love is that love prompts God and man to rest completely in each other: “Love produces such likeness in this transformation of lovers that one can say each is the other and both are one.”183 The lovers, in being with the other, completely give themselves up to the Other: “In the transformation of love each gives possession of self to the other, and each leaves and exchanges self for the other. Thus each one lives in the other and is the other, and both are one in the transformation of love.”184 In the transformation in love three distinct perspectives stand out: (a) the soul’s outgoing movement toward God who draws it into himself; (b) the movement of God toward the soul to take up residence in it; (c) the intimacy of the Spirit who holds sway between the two, a reality which is called “spiritual marriage.”185 177

Ibid., III, 2, 4. Living Flame of Love III, 52. 179 Spiritual Canticle B, 40, 1. 180 Ibid., B, 9, 2. 181 Ibid., B, 12, 8. 182 Ibid. 183 Ibid., B, 12, 7. 184 Ibid. 185 Ibid., B, 22, 3-5. 178

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1. The soul goes out in love In the transformation in love God grants the soul the favor “of recollecting her in the intimacy of his love, which is the union with, or transformation in, him through love.”186 This love-movement implies that the soul goes out in love, lets go of itself, to be brought outside of itself in the Beloved. To make oneself conform (sese conformare) to the Creator in love means to make a transition (transire).187 By this transition the soul is made divine (deificari). Just as a little drop of water mixed with a lot of wine seems entirely to lose its own identity, while it takes on the taste of wine and its color; just as iron, heated and glowing, looks very much like fire, having divested itself of its original and characteristic appearance; and just as air flooded with the light of the sun is transformed into the same splendor of light so that it appears not so much lighted up as to be light itself; so it will inevitably happen that in saints every human affection will then, in some ineffable manner, melt away from self and be entirely transfused into the will of God.188

This does mean the destruction of man: “the substance, indeed, will remain, but in another form.”189 What happens is: “Great power of love catches up their souls inward.”190 They now find themselves outside of themselves in God. Rumi says: “My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless; ‘Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call. He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward.”191 Letting oneself go. The Cloud of Unknowing advises us to do everything within our power to forget all creatures so that our thought and longing do not turn or reach out to them: “It is the work of the soul that pleases God most.”192 Transformation in God can only happen when the soul lets itself go. Only then is our spirit permeated “with modelessness, that is, with incomprehensible light.”193 The unformed soul ends up in modelessness. “In the darkness he is enveloped and falls into modelessness as one who wanders about lost. In the bareness, he loses perception and distinction of all things, and is transformed and 186

Ibid., B, 26, 2. Bernard of Clairvaux, De Diligendo Deo 10, 28. 188 Ibid. 189 Ibid. 190 Ibid., 10, 29. 191 Rumi, Selected Poems from the Divan-I Shams-I Tabriz, (Ed. R. Nicholson), Cambridge 1898, 125. 192 Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 3. Cf. The Cloud of Unknowing, (Ed. J. Walsh), New York-London 1981. 193 John Ruusbroec, The Spiritual Espousals B 2160, in: Corpus Christianorum C111, Opera Omnia 3, 1988, 524. 187

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permeated by simple brightness. In the nothingness, he fails in all his activity, for he is overcome by the activity of the fathomless love of God.”194 This transformation is necessary to the transformation in love. It serves to introduce in the spirit the spiritual form of the spirit and to unite it with it, an action which consists in the union in love.”195 Only when a person lets go of all forms, the natural as well as the supernatural, can the transformation in love take place.196 “For a truly perfect man should be accustomed to be dead to himself, stripped of himself in God, and so conformed to God’s will that his whole happiness consists in not knowing himself or anything but God alone, to will nothing nor to know anything, but God’s will and to wish to know God as God knows me, as St. Paul says. God knows everything that he knows and loves.”197 Such a person is God’s son, formed in his image and in him.”198 Withdrawn from itself. The soul that leaves itself in love is outside of itself in God’s love. “For our immersion in the transformation of God remains eternal, unceasing, once we have gone out of ourselves and possess God in immersion of loving. For if we possess God in immersion of loving, that is: lost to ourselves, God is our own and we are his own and we sink away from ourselves for ever, without return.”199 Immersed in God we are suffused by a divine light which makes our face shine from within and inwardly illumines our reason. This light of union [with God] is “the mode above all modes in which one goes out into a divine contemplation and into an eternal gazing, and in which one is transformed and transfigured into divine brightness.”200 In this brightness of union the soul is in God: “We feel that we are living in God and from that life in which we feel ourselves in God there shines a brightness in our inner countenance that illumines our reason and mediates between ourselves and God.” We sink away from ourselves in his eternal life and “we receive the transformation in God in the wholeness of ourselves. And so we feel completely enfolded in God. (…) Through the transformation we receive from God we feel swallowed in the fathomless abyss of our eternal bliss where we can never again find a distinction between ourselves and God. (…) Yet at the very moment we want to test and examine what it is we are feeling, we fall back into reason and then we find distinction and otherness between ourselves and God.”201 194

Ibid., B 2183-2187, 526. John of the Cross, Dark Night II, 3, 3. 196 John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel I, 5, 2. 197 Meister Eckhart, The Book of Divine Consolation II, 4, in: Meister Eckhart, treatises and sermons, (Sel. & Ed. J.M. Clark & J.V. Skinner), New York 1958, 117-118. 198 Ibid., 134. 199 John Ruusbroec, The Sparkling Stone, 501-505, in: Opera Omnia 10, 152. 200 John Ruusbroec, Spiritual Espousals, c 170-173, in: Opera Omnia 3, 594. 201 The Sparkling Stone, 564-584, in: Opera Omnia 10, 158-160. 195

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2. God’s residing in the soul While the soul is outside of itself in God, God communicates himself to the soul. “In this transformation the soul drinks of God in her substance and in her spiritual faculties.”202 Eckhart says: “God is nowhere more truly God than in the soul. There is something of God in all created beings but it is only in the soul that God is divine, for it is his resting place.”203 The soul longs for the form of love to become the form of its soul. God forms the soul. To make clear what happens when God forms the soul in love the mystics make use of two images. The first image is that of sense perception: A thing “cannot be seen at all by him who sees, unless the visible element of it is first formed in the mind of him who sees, by the likeness of a certain image, through which he who perceives is transformed into the thing perceived.”204 When the form enters the sense it is transformed by the form of the thing perceived. The sense, therefore, is not materially the thing but only transformed formally.205 Thus the soul is transformed in the Beloved: not because the nature of the soul is replaced by the nature of the Beloved but because the soul is conformed to him.206 “When the soul reaches out in love to anything, a certain change takes place in it by which it is transmuted into the object loved.”207 God informs 208 the soul with his grace and conforms it to himself;209 it is now reconformed to his image and likeness.”210 The other image is that of the form which is introduced into matter: “love is introduced as form is introduced into matter; it is done in an instant, and until then there is no act but only the disposition toward it.”211 This transformation in love can in no way be effected by the soul itself.212 The only thing that can prepare for this transformation is to pacify and silence the senses, the intellect, the will, and the memory, so that the Beloved can give himself without form.213 The three faculties must be so emptied of all form that they “are completely present to the love of God.”214 The love of God on its part 202

John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle B, 26, 5. Meister Eckhart, Ditectus deo et hominibus, in: Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke III, (Ed. J. Quint), Stuttgart-Berlin 1976, 267. 204 William of St. Thierry, Exposition on the Song of Songs 94, Spencer (MA) 1970, 77. 205 William of St. Thierry, Meditativae Orationes 3, 9. 206 Ibid., 3, 10. 207 Ibid. 208 Song of Songs 21. 209 Ibid., 100. 210 Ibid., 160. 211 John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love I, 33. 212 Ibidem. 213 John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle B, 18, 7. 214 Ibid., B, 16, 10. 203

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imparts itself without form, without a shred of anything whatever from without.215 God communicates himself to the soul “without intermediaries, without angels, without people, without forms, without figures.”216 He communicates himself by himself. This self-communication “has no bulk or volume, because the Word who grants it is alien to every mode and manner and free from all the volume of form, figure, and accident.”217 John of Kronstadt says: “It is not the eyes which give me tidings of my God (…) not the hearing by means of words or sounds of the voice that carries to me the message of the Incomprehensible, but the soul itself becomes, so to say, dissolved in God.”218 This dissolution in God is the Face of God in the beloved. This is what the soul longs for: “Therefore whoever is a Bride has but one desire, one aspiration – namely that her face may continually be joined to your Face in the kiss of charity, that is, that she may become one spirit with you through unity of will with you; that the form of her life may be ardently impressed to the form of your love, by the ardor of great love.”219 When the soul is transformed in the Beloved, the Beloved dwells in the soul which he opens up more deeply than the soul can open itself up. The Beloved takes up residence in this abyss of the soul. “A person is transformed in God when (…) only God resides in his heart, when he is occupied with nothing else but with God (…). O desirable transformation! (…). The transformed person belongs entirely to God and seeks only God. His heart is full of God himself.’220 When the soul enters into God, God enters into the soul. All its faculties are now “divested of their own form” and “transformed in God alone” and born “in and of God.”221 Transparency. When God inhabits the soul and has transformed it in himself it becomes transparent to him. Gregory compares this with a mirror: “It is as with a mirror when it is skillfully made and useful, it will exhibit on itself, on its pure surface, precisely the features of the one who appears in it. So also the soul, when it has become fit for use and shed all impurity, it again begins to express in itself the pure form of unmixed beauty.”222 Ruusbroec compares this divine transparency to the sunlight which illumines the air. “We undergo the inworking of God and are enlightened in divine light, just as the air is enlightened by the sun’s light and as iron is permeated by the strength and heat of fire. 215

Living Flame of Love II, 8. Spiritual Canticle B, 35, 2. 217 Living Flame of Love II, 20. 218 St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ, (Trans. E. Goulaeff ), Jordanville (NY) 1984, 25. 219 William of St. Thierry, On the Song of Songs 131. 220 Jacques de Milan, Stimulus Amoris XX, publ. in: Bibliotheca Franciscana ascetica medii aevi IV, Quaracchi 1905. 221 Meister Eckhart, The Book of Divine Consolation I, 1. 222 Gregory of Nyssa, In Cantica Canticorum hom. 15 (PL 1093 D-1096 A). 216

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So we are transformed and penetrated from splendor to splendor, in the very image of the Holy Trinity.”223 In the same breath he mentions the fire that permeates the wood: “For that fire makes one with itself and like unto itself all the things that it can master and transform.”224 In John of the Cross this comparison occupies an important place: “Fire, when applied to wood, first dehumidifies it, dispelling all moisture and making it give off any water it contains. Then it gradually turns the wood black, makes it dark and ugly, and even causes it to emit a bad odor. (…). Finally, by heating and enkindling it from without, the fire transforms the wood into itself and makes it as beautiful as it is itself.”225 In John of the Cross we find an abundance of images for expressing the divine transparency in the soul: a ray of sunlight transforms a window into its own light;226 a plentiful fountain overflowing on all sides with divine waters;227 a clear and pure crystal totally reflecting the light that shines upon it;228 a love-wound which only heals the deeper it is wounded;229 wax in process of absorbing the impress of the seal; a sketch which begs the artist to finish his painting.230 Transformation in God is something that “resembles the union of the light of a star or candle with the light of the sun, for what then sheds light is not the star or the candle, but the sun, which has absorbed the other lights into its own.”231 3. The intimacy of love Transformation in love is the unity of two movements: (1) the self-donation of the soul to the Beloved and the reception of this self-donation; (2) the self-donation of the Beloved to the soul and the reception of the self-donation. The two love movements interpenetrate and open up the space of intimacy. The unity of love. Transformation in love makes the two love-movements into a single love that so “strongly joins God and the soul that it unites and transforms them both.”232 The two lovers enjoy the love in which they behold each other in beauty.233

223

John Ruusbroec, The Seven Enclosures, in: Opera Omnia 2, 644-648, 172. John Ruusbroec, The Spiritual Espousals, in: Opera Omnia 3, b214-216, 310. 225 John of the Cross, The Dark Night II, 10, 1; see also the Prologue to The Living Flame of Love. 226 John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 5, 6; see also II, 16, 10-11; Spiritual Canticle B, 26, 4, and 26, 17. 227 The Living Flame of Love III, 8. 228 Ibid., I, 13. 229 Ibid., II, 7. 230 The Spiritual Canticle B, 12, 1. 231 Ibid., B, 22, 3. 232 Ibid., B, 31, 1. 233 Ibid., B, 36, 5-8, and 38, 1. 224

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May I be so transformed in Your beauty that we may be alike in beauty, and both behold ourselves in Your beauty, possessing now Your very beauty; this in such a way that each looking at the other may see in the other his own beauty, since both are Your beauty alone; (…) And may my beauty be Your beauty, and Your beauty my beauty; wherefore I shall be You in Your beauty, and You will be me in Your beauty, because Your very beauty will be my beauty; and therefore we shall behold each other in Your beauty.”234

The flame of love. Transformation in love has its gradations: “Although in the stanzas we have already commented on [i.e. the stanzas of The Spiritual Canticle, K.W.] we speak of the highest degree of perfection one can reach in this life (transformation in God), these stanzas [i.e. the stanzas of The Living Flame of Love, K.W.] treat of a love within this very state of transformation that has a deeper quality and is more perfect.”235 John of the Cross explains the difference by further developing the image of the fire and the block of wood: “Although the fire has penetrated the wood, transformed it, and united it with itself, yet as this fire grows hotter and continues to burn, the wood becomes much more incandescent and inflamed, even to the point of flaring up and shooting out flames from itself.”236 Applied to the transformation in love this means that “the soul now speaking has reached this enkindled degree, and is so inwardly transformed in the fire of love and has received such quality from it that it is not merely united to this fire but produces within it a living flame.”237 The burning flames stand for the acts which flow from the transformation in love; “The acts of this soul [i.e. of the soul for which transformation in love is its common state, K.W.] can be compared to the flame that blazes up from the fire of love. The more intense the fire of union, the more vehemently does this fire burst into flames.”238 The specific nature of these acts is that they are not performed by a subject that is completely at the disposal of itself: “The acts of the will are united to this flame and ascend, carried away and absorbed in the flame of the Holy Spirit.”239 The acts, therefore, do not so much flow from the soul itself as from the divine fire of Love that burns within: “Thus in this state the soul cannot make acts because the Holy Spirit makes them all and moves it toward them. As a result all the acts of the soul are divine, since the movement toward these acts and their execution stems from God.”240 It is by the nature of the Holy Spirit that a person “is consumed, melted down, and transformed in 234

Ibid., B, 36, 5. Living Flame of Love, Prologue, 3; see also I, 16. 236 Ibid. 237 Ibid., Prologue, 4. 238 Living Flame of Love I, 4. 239 Ibid. 240 Ibid. 235

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love.”241 This state of being inwardly moved by the Spirit of love intensifies the sense of being a participant in the life of God: “Hence it seems to a person that every time this flame shoots up, making him love with delight and divine quality, it is giving him eternal life, since it raises him up to the activity of God in God.”242 This flaring up of the flame of love gives the soul a foretaste of eternal life: “The delight which that flaring up of the Holy Spirit generates in the soul is so sublime that it makes it know that which savors of eternal life. Therefore, too, it refers to this flame as living.”243 As the wood flares up in flames it unites itself more deeply with the fire: “It is by means of love, after all, that the soul becomes one with God. The more degrees of love it has, the more deeply it enters into God and centers itself in him.”244

3.2.5. TRANSFORMATION IN GLORY John of the Cross makes a distinction between transformation in love and transformation in glory. Transformation in love occurs in this life; transformation in glory belongs to the life after this life. About that we as yet know nothing. We only catch a glimpse of it to the degree that our transformation in love contains a sketch of the transformation in glory. 1. The glory of the Risen One In the New Testament Jesus is the One glorified in God. That is what the three disciples saw on the Mount of Transfiguration: “And his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Matt. 17:2). In Christian spirituality there are four important texts each of which illuminates Jesus’ glory-in-God. The key text is found in the Letter to the Corinthians: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Transformation consists in likeness to the Risen One, a likeness which takes one from glory to glory: a never-ending transformation. One who looks in a mirror sees himself in the mirror. Thus the Risen One sees himself in Christians. His likeness enters their unveiled face ever more deeply. Glory lights up in them on ever deeper levels and dwells in them in ever greater abundance. The text from the Letter to the 241 Meister Eckhart, Justus in perpetuum vivet, in: Meister Eckhart, Deutsche Predigten und Traktate, (Ed. J. Quint), München 1955, 270. 242 John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love I, 4. 243 Ibid., I, 6. 244 Ibid., I, 13.

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Corinthians which is frequently cited245 keeps the ever-receding perspective of transformation open.246 The second text is found in the Letter to the Romans. God has “predestined Christians to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). This conformity is not a static fact but a dynamic process: ever increasingly our form will take on the likeness (eikon) of the glorified Lord, which is possible only when we “become conformed to his death” (Phil. 3:21). This third Pauline text states that the unformation in his death is necessary for us to be conformed to his glory: then he will change the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to his glory” (Phil. 3:21). The fourth text is Paul’s testimony in his Letter to the Galatians: “I live but it is no longer I myself but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). John of the Cross interprets this text as follows: “In saying I live, now not I, he meant that, even though he had life it was not his, because he was transformed in Christ and it was more divine than human. He consequently asserts that he does not live but that Christ lives in him.”247 It is precisely this not-I-myself kind of life which John of the Cross unites with “the life with God” after death. Transformed in God, these blessed souls will live the life of God and not their own life – although, indeed, it will be their own life, because God’s life will be theirs. Then they will truly proclaim: We live, now not we, but God lives in us. Although transformation in this life can be what it was in St. Paul, it still cannot be perfect and complete, even though the soul reaches such transformation of love as is found in the spiritual marriage, the highest state attainable in this life. Everything can be called a sketch of love in comparison with that perfect image, the transformation in glory.248

2. The glorification of man in God Transformation in love is a sketch of something else: transformation in glory. However deep and thorough the transformation in love may be it cannot in this life become complete transformation in glory. That is possible only when this life is relinquished in death. “Since the soul sees that through her transformation in God in this life she cannot, even though her love is immense, equal the perfection of God’s love for her, she desires the clear transformation of glory in which she will reach this equality.249 Transformation in glory consists in that the

245 See for example, Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica Canticorum 31, 2; 62, 5; 62, 7; 67, 8. 246 William of St. Thierry, Epistola 45; Super Cantica 1; Meditativae orationes 3, 6. 247 John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle B, 12, 8. 248 Ibid., B, 12, 8. 249 Ibid., B, 38, 3.

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soul then “passes into God (transire in Deum).”250 The possibility for this transition into God lies in the creation of man as God’s covenant partner. The solemn decree: “Let us make the Earthling” (Gen. 1:26), in which “God’s personal interest” (Gen. 1:27)251 is expressed, comes to its ultimate fulfillment when God has completely introduced man into his covenant and revealed his glory to him. The creation of man assumes the primal form of the covenant which culminates in the human beings who see God in glory. 3. Complete reciprocity Paul says; “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to Face. Now I know only in part but then I will know as I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12). Usually this is translated explicatively: “Then I will be fully known.” The addition “fully” is too much. The fullness of knowing consists in its reciprocity: to know is to be known. John of the Cross comments on Paul’s text as follows: Then “the soul will know as she is known by God,” that is to say, the soul’s activity completely coincides with its passivity (being known), “for then her knowing will be God’s knowing, her will will be God’s will, and thus her love will be God’s love.”252 The point of dissimilarity with the transformation in love, accordingly, is that in the transformation in glory the soul loves “God as fervently and perfectly as she is loved by him. (…). In this manner the soul loves God with the will and strength of God himself, united as these are with the strength of the love with which God loves her.”253 The reciprocity is complete. To know is to be known. This implies that it is the intimacy of reciprocity itself which breathes. The soul breathes in the love that is God. This breathing is perfect because it is in no way hindered by fear or self-orientation. It is an act of unimpeded breathing along with. This is the life in the Spirit, the breath of Love in which the Father and the Son are one. This is the life of the Risen One: “the Lord who is Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:18). Transformation in glory escapes all definition. Yet transformation in love catches a glimpse of it. “And even though in this state of spiritual marriage which we are now discussing there is not that perfection of glorious love, there is nonetheless a living and totally ineffable semblance of that perfection.”254 Transformation in love has a “hunch” of the transformation in glory because the “perfect transformation of the state of spiritual marriage which the soul reaches in this life” is actually “always to some extent consummated in glory by virtue 250

Bernard of Clairvaux, De diligendo Deo 11, 30. E. Waschke, Untersuchungen zum Menschenbild der Urgeschichte, Berlin 1984, 18. 252 John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle B, 38, 3. 253 Ibidem. 254 Ibid., B, 38, 4. 251

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of that [earlier] transformation.”255 At the same time this feeling for the transformation in glory escapes all definition. “A suitable expression for the ‘what’ of which the soul here speaks and which is the happiness toward which God predestined her is undiscoverable.”256 It is a “what” which will completely surprise us. It is “the glory which you will give me then on the day of my espousals and nuptials and on my day of gladness of heart when loosed from the flesh and within the high caverns of Your chamber, gloriously transformed in You, I shall drink with You the juice of the sweet pomegranates.”257 Nevertheless, as stated above, this does not alter the fact that we have a certain foretaste of this transformation in glory. “Since the soul in this state of spiritual marriage knows something of this ‘what,’ she desires to say something about it, for by her transformation in God something of this ‘what’ occurs within her. She now feels within herself the signs and trace of the ‘what.’”258 John of the Cross mentions five aspects of the “what” for which the transformation in love yearns and of which it has a foretaste.259 Co-spiration with the Holy Spirit. The soul is elevated by the breath of the Holy Spirit, “rendering it capable of breathing in God the same spiration of love that the Father breathes toward the Son and the Son toward the Father. Thus, in this transformation, the Holy Spirit himself breathes out, in the Father and the Son, to the soul in order to unite her to himself.”260 This spiration in the Spirit is inexpressible, “for the soul, united and transformed in God, breathes out in God to God the very divine spiration which God – she being transformed in him – breathes out in himself to her.”261 During the transformation in love the person experienced this communication of Spirit, “the spiration from God to the soul and from the soul to God, with frequency, be it in an imperfect manner.”262 “Although this participation will be perfectly accomplished in the next life, still in this life when the soul has reached the state of perfection, as has the soul we are here discussing, she obtains a foretaste and noticeable trace of it.”263 Jubilation in God in the pleasure of God. The spiration of the Spirit in the soul lifts its voice into a jubilation in God. In the perfect transformation, “the soul rejoices in and praises God with God himself. We have said the same of love.

255

Ibidem. Ibid., B, 257 Ibidem. 258 Ibid., B, 259 Ibid., B, 260 Ibid., B, 261 Ibidem. 262 Ibid., B, 263 Ibid., B, 256

38, 9. 39, 1. 39, 2. 39, 3. 39, 4. 39, 6.

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For that reason that jubilation is highly perfect and pleasing to God.”264 God rejoices in this voice of jubilance. It is one voice that sounds. Such is the song of the soul in the transformation that is hers in this life, the delight of which is beyond all exaggeration. Yet since this song is not as perfect as the new song of the glorious life, the soul in this bliss becomes mindful of the new song of glory, hearing faintly in the song of this life the excellence of the possession of glory, which is incomparably more precious.”265 The knowledge of creation. Transformation in glory introduces the soul into the heart of creation where “God nurtures and gives being to all creatures rooted and living in him.”266 The soul experiences how creation proceeds from God, how God “makes himself known to it precisely as Creator.”267 In that knowledge the soul also experiences its own genesis. The soul desires perfect knowledge of creation’s inner coherence in light of God the creator: “the mutual harmony manifest in the wise, well-ordered, gracious and friendly relations among creatures generally.”268 The contemplation of God’s essence. In the transformation in love “God teaches the soul very quietly and secretly, without its knowing how, without the sound of words, and without the help of any bodily or spiritual faculty, in silence and quietude, in darkness to all sensory and natural things.” In this transformation God communicates himself in a most sublime way. Yet this contemplation is a dark night “when compared with the blessed vision the transformation in love looks forward to: a clear and beatific contemplation.” This is the contemplation of transformation in glory. There “the night of the dark contemplation of this earth” makes way for “the contemplation of the clear and serene vision of God in heaven.”269 Total transformation in the measureless love of God. The transformation in love is a painful process because the penetration of the divine Flame in the wood has to burn away and consume, as it were, the ways in which the wood differs from it. Transformation in love resembles “fire in glowing wood: the wood has indeed been transformed and become one with the fire and no longer weeps as it did before when the fire transformed the wood in itself. But though the wood has become fire, it is also consumed and reduced to ashes by that fire.”270 During its transformation in love “the soul still suffers a kind of pain and detriment: first, because of the lack of the beatific transformation whose absence is always felt in 264

Ibid., B, Ibid., B, 266 Ibid., B, 267 Ibidem. 268 Ibidem. 269 Ibid., B, 270 Ibid., B, 265

39, 9. 39, 10. 39, 11.

39, 12. 39, 13.

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the spirit: second, because of the detriment the weak and corruptible sense suffers from the strength and height of such great love.”271 Transformation in glory occurs without detriment and without pain, “although her understanding will be very deep and her love immeasurable.”272 The divine Flame is nothing other than tender love. For by the transformation of the soul in this flame, there is unanimity and beatific satisfaction on both sides. (…) This transformation, therefore, is not like the one the soul possesses in this life. Although the flame in this life is very perfect and consummating in love, it is still also somewhat consuming and destructive.”273 The transformation in glory is perfect and immeasurable, that is to say, completely reciprocal and unhindered.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ALLINSON, R., Chang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation, New York 1989. Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament, (Ed. B. Lang), Philadelphia 1985. Argumente für Gott. Gott-Denker von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, (Ed. K. Weger & M. Bossong), Freiburg etc. 1987. BERNARD, C., Le Dieu des mystiques. Les voies de l’intériorité, Paris 1994. CARSON, D., A Call to Spiritual Reformation. Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, Grand Rapids (MI) 19942. CASCANT, J., Estructura de la persona humana en el origen. Estudio exegético de los relatos de la creación del hombre, Pamplona 1985. Conversion. Perspectives on Personal and Social Transformations, (Ed. W. Conn), New York 1978. CURTIS, E., Man as the Image of God in Genesis in the Light of Ancient Near Eastern Parallels, Philadelphia (PA) 1984. DE MIELESI, U., La transformazione d’amore in San Giovanni della Croce, Milano 1981. DEISSLER, A., Wer bist du, Mensch? Die Antwort der Bibel, Freiburg etc. 1985. Dieu et l’Être. Exégèses d’Exode 3, 14 et de Coran 20, 11-24, (Ed. P. Vignaux), Paris 1978. FERGUSON, H., Religious Transformation in Western Society. The End of Happiness, New York 1992. FICHTNER, J., Man the Image of God. A Christian Anthropology, New York 1978. FROHLICH, M., Mystical Transformation, Intersubjectivity, and Foundations. A Study of Teresa of Avila’s ‘Interior Castle’, Ann Arbor (MI) 1991. God is uit zijn begrip gegroeid, Speling 38 (1986) no. 3. Harper, K., Seven Hindu Goddesses of Spiritual Transformation. The Iconography of the Saptamatrikas, Lewiston (NY) 1989. Images of God, The Way 26 (1986) no. 4. 271

Ibidem. Ibid., B, 39, 14; See also The Living Flame of Love I, 19. 273 Ibidem. 272

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JANZEN, W., Still in the Image. Essays in Biblical Theology and Anthropology, Newton 1982. JOHNSTON, W., The Mirror Mind. Spirituality and Transformation, San Francisco-London 1981. KAAM, A. VAN, The Mystery of Transforming Love, Denville 1982. LUÉVANO, A., Endless Transforming Love. An Interpretation of the Mystical Doctrine of Saint John of the Cross According to the Soul’s Affective Relation and Dynamic Structures, Roma 1990. MASON, T., The Divine Name as a Means to Mystical Union in the Spiritual Traditions of Judaism and Christianity, Berkeley (CA) 1990. Der Mensch als Bild Gottes, (Ed. L. Scheffczyk), Darmstadt 1969. METZNER, R., Opening to Inner Light. The Transformation of Human Consciousness, London 1987. MOSELEY, R., Becoming a Self before God. Critical Transformations, Nashville 1991. OCKINGA, B., Die Gottebenbildlichkeit im alten Ägypten und im Alten Testament, Wiesbaden 1984. POLLANO, G., Dio presente e trasformante. Saggio di teologia spirituale, Torino 1993. Reformatio ecclesiae, (Ed. R. Bäumer), Paderborn etc 1980. SCHNEIDERS, S., Women and the Word. The Gender of God in the New Testament and the Spirituality of Women, New York 1986. SIMPSON, W., From Image to Likeness. The Christian Journey into God, New York 1997. SUSTAR, T., Transforming Faith. Reproducing the Christlife, Cleveland (TN) 1992. Transformations of Consciousness. Conventional and Contemplative Perspectives on Development, (Ed. K. Wilbur et al.), Boston 1986. ULLMAN, C., The Transformed Self. The Psychology of Religious Conversion, New York 1989. VALE, C., Mystical Consciousness/Transformation. An Examination of the Christian Tradition from a Teilhardian Perspective, New York 1990. VAUGHAN-LEE, L., Sufism. The Transformation of the Heart, Inverness (CA) 1995. WAAIJMAN, K., Betekenis van de naam Jahwe, Kampen 1984. Was ist der Mensch…? Beiträge zur Anthropologie des Alten Testaments, (Ed. F. Crüsemann et al.), München 1992. WASCHKE, E., Untersuchungen zum Menschenbild der Urgeschichte, Berlin 1984. WIETHAUS, U., Ecstatic Transformation. Transpersonal Psychology in the Work of Mechthild of Magdeburg, Syracuse (NY) 1996. WOLFF, H., Anthropologie des Alten Testament, München 1973.

CHAPTER 4 DISCERNMENT – A BLUEPRINT FOR THE METHOD INTRODUCTION 484 Critical reflection on the divine-human relational process occurs in all schools of spirituality. How does the spiritual transformation process proceed? Which developments dead-end? Which of them offer perspective? What is the relation between the goal and the means? How do God and man impact each other? In the Christian tradition this critical reflection is called “discernment” (diakrisis). 4.1. THE DISCERNMENT OF THE TWO WAYS 486 Observing the difference between dead-end developments and developments that offer perspective is a first point of critical reflection. 4.1.1. The two ways in Scripture 486 4.1.2. The two ways in tradition 488 4.1.3. Distinguishing the different ways 490 4.2. DISCERNING GOD’S SIGNIFICANCE 492 Discovering, comparing, and appreciating the deeper layers of meaning in life, in Scripture and in the soul, is a second aspect of discernment. 4.2.1. Interpretation in light of Scripture 492 4.2.2. Reading life from the perspective of God 495 4.2.3. Discerning differences in meaning 498 4.3. THE MEAN OF DISCERNMENT 501 The development of a critical center where experiences are exchanged and tested from within a jointly discovered mean-between-extremes is a third moment of discernment. 4.3.1. Schooling in the spirituality of wisdom 501 4.3.2. The formative center 503 4.3.3. Discriminating between different positions 506 4.4. DISCERNING THE WAY TO GOD’S DESTINATION 508 Seeing the difference between people’s actual condition and their flowering in God, and in the process discerning the way which can bridge this difference, is a fourth aspect of discernment. 4.4.1. “Being tested” in Scripture 508 4.4.2. Growth in perfection 510 4.4.3. Discerning a person’s destiny 513 Bibliography 514

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Introduction All schools of spirituality know forms of critical reflection which do not so much serve to determine rules of conduct and keep alive motivations, but aim primarily at systematic reflection on lived spirituality. Which ways dead-end? Which ways bear fruit? What is the meaning of spiritual practice? How are the end and the means related? How does God work? How do humans work? And so forth. These questions reflect a critical attitude which is methodically practiced in the different schools. Jewish spirituality realizes this form of reflection in the framework of a “house of study”; Buddhist spirituality has its abhidharma schools; the Christian tradition knows its spiritual conferences.1 In order to gain insight into the essence of these forms of methodical reflection we will immerse ourselves in the diakrisis (discernment) which in the Christian tradition is the paradigm of critical reflection on lived spirituality. The basic meaning of the Greek word diakrisis (Latin: discretio) is separation, division, in the physical sense of the word. Tied in with this is the figurative meaning: the observation of difference, the perception of tension, the sight of division, and from there the verbs: to judge, discern, distinguish.2 Diakrisis is the process of assembling and sorting out knowledge with respect to the way toward God. It tests the end and the means and creates a critical center. With a contemplative eye it looks at a person’s life journey and envisions its perfection. Diakrisis is the critical-reflective moment of transformation in God. To Cassian it is the knowledge which inwardly directs processes of knowing and choosing on the basis of “true judgment and knowledge” (verum uidicium et scientia).3 Bernard calls discernment the intellect (ratio, intellectus) which orders love (amor rationalis) and protects it from excesses.4 Thomas views discernment as an act of prudence (prudentia) by which the end and the means are attuned to each other in a balanced way.5 In Ignatius it is a “theological epistemology” in which one takes a critical look at the boundaries, various sorts of evidence, criteria and 1

See, at greater length, part 3, chapter 3.1. For a brief lexicographical sketch, see F. Dingjan, Discretio. Les origines patristiques et monastiques de la doctrine sur la prudence chez Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Assen 1967, 8-13. 3 John Cassian, The Conferences 2, 2-7; 9.9; 14, 1-8, 21, 34. We are following the text edition of SC 42. 4 C. Benke, Unterscheidung der Geister bei Bernhard von Clairvuax, Würzburg 1991, 148-149, 220. 5 See F. Dingjan, ibid., 209. 2

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evaluation schemes with respect to the knowledge of God’s will.6 This is the reason why Erich Przywara, Karl Rahner, and Gaston Fessard7 made “the special experience of the Ignatian ways of imitation and discernment into a structural principle of a systematic theology.”8 Karl Rahner says of his own theology that in it the experience of God is of decisive importance: i.e. “the quite specific experience to which St. Ignatius Loyola wishes to guide and direct spiritual practice through his Exercises.”9 Rahner later repeated this in an interview. “For my theology the datum of a genuine original experience of God and of his Spirit is of fundamental importance.”10 Discernment in Ignatius holds so much critical potential that it can sustain an entire theological oeuvre. In any case critical reflection is an essential component in making one’s spiritual journey. “Given even the most qualified components of spirituality, things become a complete muddle when insight is lacking.”11 Tradition has graphically expressed the many-sidedness of critical reflection in the extracanonical exhortation handed down from the second century: “Be ye approved (dokimoi) moneychangers.”12 In this “saying which runs through the whole of this history of the discretio spirituum like a sort of leitmotiv”13 the most important aspects of diakrisis come to the fore: (1) First, a prudent moneychanger examines a gold coin on the point of its genuineness: is it gold or not? (2) Next, he asks whether the effigy is that of the king or has been falsified. (3) After that he checks whether the coin was minted legally or by a counterfeiter. (4) Finally he determines whether the coin has the stipulated weight.14 In this chapter we will explore these four aspects of money changing. In doing so we will explore each aspect from two perspectives: from that of Scripture and from that of the tradition. We will conclude each exploration with a final statement in order as sharply as possible to depict diakrisis as methodical reflection. 6

J. Toner, Discerning God’s Will, St. Louis 1991, 10. E. Przywara, Deus semper maior, Freiburg 1938-1940; K. Rahner, Die ignatianische Logik der existentiellen Erkenntnis. Über einige theologische Probleme in den Wahlregeln der Exerzitien des heiligen Ignatius, in: Ignatius von Loyola. Seine geistliche Gestalt und sein Vermächtnis, 1556-1956, (Ed. F. Wulf ), Würzburg 1956, 343-405; G. Fessard, La dialectique des Exercises de Saint Ignace de Loyola (3 vols.), Paris 1956 and 1966. 8 M. Schneider, Unterscheidung der Geister. Die ignatianischen Exerzitien in der Deutung von E. Przywara, K. Rahner und G. Fessard, Innsbruck-Wien 1987, 24; see also L. Bakker, Freiheit und Erfahrung, Würzburg 1970, 306-310. 9 K. Rahner, Experience of the Spirit. Source of Theology (Theological Investigations, vol. 16), New York 1979, viii. 10 K. Rahner, Horizonte der Religiosität. Kleine Aufsätze, (Ed. G. Sporschill), Wien 1984, 107. 11 F. Maas, Spiritualiteit als inzicht. Mystieke teksten en theologische reflecties, Zoetermeer 1999, 11. 12 J. Jeremias, Unknown Sayings of Jesus, London 1958, 89-92. 13 H. Rahner, ‘Werdet kundige Geldwechsler’. Zur Geschichte der Lehre des heiligen Ignatius von der Unterscheidung der Geister, in: Ignatius von Loyola. Seine geistliche Gestalt und sein Vermächtnis, 1556-1956, (Ed. F. Wulf ), Würzburg 1956, 301-341; 333. 14 John Cassian, The Conferences I, 20-22, New York 1997. 7

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4.1. The Discernment of the Two Ways The first act the moneychanger performs is checking to see if the coin is made of gold or not. Even if the brass shines seductively and the dimness of the gold turns him off, the skilled moneychanger follows his capacity for discernment so that he clearly sees the difference between gold and brass. To discern a difference is essential to the spiritual life, especially when it concerns the difference between a dead-end road and the road of life.

4.1.1. THE TWO WAYS IN SCRIPTURE Several biblical traditions have developed the motif of the two roads, a figure of speech which plays an important role in the history of the discernment of spirits. 1. The spread of the motif The conclusion of Psalm 1 in the form of a saying contrasts two roads: the road of the righteous (the “conservers”), which is known (“felt”) by Be-er and the way of the wicked (the “doomer”) which dead-ends. This is the so-called “two roads” motif which had already been exploited by several traditions in ancient Israel. First of all, by wisdom spirituality: by confronting adolescent youth with two choices – the way of life and the way of death – people sought to induce the children to opt for the right road. Next the prophetic traditions: All the great prophets confronted the people with a fundamental choice: either justice and righteousness prevail and salvation will follow; or they do not and misfortune will follow.15 The Deuteronomist tradition integrated this prophetic legacy into its life view in which election plays a central role. It is, however, an election which implies a choice on the part of Israel: “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today” (Deut. 11:26-28). The fundamental difference between the two ways consists in the God-man distinction: God’s way leads to life; man’s way leads to death.

15

G. Fohrer, Geschichte der israelitischen Religion, Berlin 1969, 271.

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2. Perceiving difference The motif of the two ways is rooted in the human capacity to perceive difference: “Seeing difference” is expressed in the Hebrew verb bin which is related to the preposition ben (“between”) and thence derives its basic meaning “to distinguish.”16 To distinguish is to see difference. Where all distinction disappears there is nothing left to distinguish. After their death the wicked (the “doomers”) can no longer be distinguished or discerned (Ps. 37:10). Job complains that God passes by him so quickly that he cannot distinguish (discern, perceive) him (Job 9:11). Sometimes, though there are traces, we do not perceive them because our capacity to distinguish falls short: the wicked (the “doomers”) wipe out the traces of their deeds but God nonetheless discerns their deeds aside from any visible evidence (Ps. 94:7ff.). The ability to discern, accordingly, also depends on the sharpness of one’s gaze: sometimes there is in fact a difference but we do not discern it. In the messianic age, the eyes of those who have sight will begin to see, the ears of those who have hearing will begin to hear, and the mind of the unthinking will begin to discern difference (Isa. 32:3-4). To discern is to perceive difference (Job 31:1; 32:12; Isa. 51:12; Jer. 2:10). Sometimes it is necessary to peer through the surface of things to see a difference. On the outside two things look the same, but under the surface they differ. It was hard for the Corinthians to “distinguish” between an ordinary meal and the meal of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:29; cf. vs. 22). Externally, after all, both forms of eating are the same. A comparable diffuseness exists in discerning the spiritual way. To the external human eye journeying the way of life in God’s perspective is indistinguishable from the way planned by humans themselves. To see the difference calls for practiced spiritual insight, as the Letter to the Hebrews knows. For that reason the author charges his readers that, though by this time they could have been fully-trained teachers, they still need to learn the basic elements of God’s logic. They are still infants. They cannot yet handle solid food. “Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the logic of righteousness: he or she is temptable. But the mature can eat solid food. They are the ones whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:12-14). Good and evil, as a merism, refer to the ways of life. That road is good which is led by the logic of God. Those who have trained themselves by practice can distinguish this way of righteousness from the way of unrighteousness which is guided by the logic of the finite, the source of all unrighteousness. To discern God’s logic requires a contemplative gaze. A human eye is blind to it: “the ways of error – who can discern them?” (Ps. 19:12). Only God can open this eye: “Teach me to discern that I may keep your instruction (…). Teach me to discern that I may learn your commandments (…). Teach me to discern that I may 16

H. Ringgren, bin, in: ThDOT II (1975), 99-107.

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know (“feel”) your testimonies (…). Teach me to discern that I may live (…). Teach me to discern according to your word” (Ps. 119:34, 73, 125, 144, 169). 4.1.2. THE TWO WAYS IN TRADITION In the Jewish-Christian tradition the Two-Ways motif acquires enormous scope: the bad road acquires diabolical dimensions and the battle between good and evil assumes eschatological-apocalyptic proportions. 1. Some snapshots In the Qumran documents there is mention of a cosmic conflict between the forces of good and evil. “In the hand of the Prince of Lights is dominion over all the sons of justice; they walk on paths of light. And in the hand of the Angel of Darkness is total dominion over the sons of deceit; they walk on paths of darkness.”17 Hermas, in the second century, teaches that humans are accompanied by two angels, one righteous, the other evil.18 These two spirits direct the basic desires of human beings: “Evil desire is wild and hard to control. It is fearful and by its savagery ruins people: especially a servant of God who falls under its influence and does not act wisely is horribly ravaged by it.”19 The good desire, on the other hand, works justice, virtue, truth, fear of God, faith, meekness, and qualities like these.20 Origen viewed history as a cosmic struggle between good and evil spirits. Between them stand human beings as embodied spirits on whose discernment everything depends. Both good and evil spirits try to influence them in this contest: “Every human is flanked by two angels: one righteous, the other evil. When good thoughts rise up in our heart and the spirit of righteousness prevails, it is the angel of the Lord who speaks to us. When, however, evil thoughts dwell in our heart, the angel of Satan is speaking to us.”21 Origen had great influence on the desert monks. We find the most graphic description of the conflict between spirits in Athanasius’s, The Life of Anthony. The narrative is consistently focused on the strategies which the demons follow and on the ways in which they must be combated.22 What is passed down to us in narrative form in The Life of Anthony 17 The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. The Rule of the Community, (Ed. F. Garcia Martinez), Leiden 1994. 18 Shepherd of Hermas 36, 1-10. We are following the text edition of SC 53. 19 Ibid., 44, 2. 20 Ibid., 46, 1. 21 Origen, In Lucam hom. 12 (PG 13, 1829 CD). 22 See K. Rahner, ‘Werdet kundige Geldwechsler’. Zur Geschichte der Lehre des heiligen Ignatius von der Unterscheidung der Geister, in: Ignatius von Loyala. Seine geistliche Gestalt und sein Vermächtnis, 1556-1956, (Ed. F. Wulf ), Würzburg 1956, 331.

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and the many stories concerning monks about discernment has been theoretically and systematically summed up by the theological-monk Evagrius of Pontus. John Cassian, in turn, passed these insights and experiences on to Western monasticism. Bernard saw humans involved in a spiritual struggle in which freedom and coercion, matter and spirit, life and death, good and evil, are the dominant polarities. “This is one of Bernard’s basic themes which runs like a purple thread through his writings: people must fight out the battle for their personhood, the incessant back-and-forth pull between good and evil, within themselves. Bernard saw, more clearly than other theologians, that in our spiritual life we are above all dealing with this one thing: a person’s choice between good and evil.”23 This struggle constitutes the background against which the spiritual life delineates itself.24 2. Unmasking the diabolical At every moment people stand at the intersection of two roads: God’s road or the diabolical road. The power of evil is strong and people have been weakened by the fall into sin. But they are not irretrievably lost, for they have retained the capacity to distinguish.25 “In the framework of their intellect and will which have been left to them people possess a residual capacity to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘evil.’”26 With reference to Jesus’ command to his disciples to understand the signs of the time (Luke 12:57), Cassian comments: “Jesus certainly would not have said this to them [the Pharisees] if he had not known that they could discern what was correct by natural judgment.”27 By means of this faculty the monks learned to recognize the tactics of the diabolical. “From Cassian’s considerations one may draw the conclusion that with respect to the theme of “discretio” the issue is not so much the existence of devils and demons (their factual existence and characteristics) but the modes of manifestation of their conduct, their technique with and influence on people’s thinking, willing, and action.”28 If the monks were not to be fighting a lost cause they must reflect on the strategies of the diabolical. Reflection on this subject was an important part of their training for the monastic life.29 The modes of manifestation of the diabolical do not follow fixed patterns. The diabolical can strike at any moment and any place. That is why a monk must 23

C. Benke, Unterscheidung der Geister bei Bernhard von Clairvaux, Würzburg 1991, 104. Ibid., 105-128. 25 John Cassian, The Conferences 13, 7.12, New York 1997, 478-487. 26 G. Summa, Geistliche Unterscheidung bei Johannes Cassian, Würzburg 1992. 27 John Cassian, Conferences 13, 12; 479. 28 G. Summa, ibid., 47. 29 See ibid., 48-78. 24

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be on the alert “day and night,” pray, meditate and perform manual labor. The diabolical rides roughshod over the sacred. It can sow confusion in the midst of prayer. The part of the day that was experienced as particularly diabolical was the hot noon hour, the time in which listlessness (akedia) hits home. The techniques of the diabolical are marked by secrecy. It employs the tactic of disguise: a snake, a black Ethiopian, a figure of light. It conceals itself and lies in ambush. It distorts reality and operates by confusion, malformation, small misrepresentations with enormous consequences. It seduces people by fantastic images, voices, suggestive promptings. Diabolical points of attack are the weak points in the constitution of a human being. The diabolical assails people in the vulnerable parts of their mind and the mobility of their senses. Irresolution and inner discord are especially favored points of access for the diabolical. The tendency to relate all things to himself make a human manipulable. The overestimation of self, pride, and fanaticism over and over throw a person off balance – an easy prey to the diabolical. It is not only the task of that discernment to see through the strategies of the diabolical and to offer a possible response based on intellect and will, but also to gauge how far the choice was a good one. What are the signs by which I can tell whether I am on the right road? Decisive are the “fruits of the Spirit” versus “the works of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19-24). “If the kingdom of God is within us and that is a kingdom of justice, of peace, and of joy, then whoever remains with these virtues is certainly in the kingdom of God. By contrast, all who deal in unrighteousness, discord, and in death-bearing gloom are in the kingdom of the devil, in hell and in death. It is by these sign that the kingdom of God or of the devil is distinguished.”30 4.1.3. DISTINGUISHING THE DIFFERENT WAYS When, from a methodical vantagepoint, we reflect on the first aspect of discernment as that comes to the fore in lived spirituality, we are struck by two points. 1. Seeing difference The distinction of the two ways is grounded in the capacity to see difference between actual modes of existence. When we relate this capacity to divine-human transformation and the five layers we distinguished in it, the following differences emerge: (1) the difference between modes of existence which remain true to the image of God in which man has been created, and modes of existence which 30

The Conferences 1, 13.

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mutilate this image; (2) the difference between a mode of existence in which the image of God is deformed and a way of life which by conversion has been restored to the original image; (3) the difference between a mode of existence which has been conformed to the divine-human model of transformation, and a mode of existence which distances itself from this model; (4) the difference between a way of life determined by love and an existence marked by self-centeredness; (5) the difference between a life that is focused on death as transformation into glory and an existence that has gotten enmeshed in the death drive. These forms of difference assume concrete shape in concrete forms of spirituality. But the summary will show the kind of differences we are dealing with. 2. Seeing the deeper difference It is self-evident that the perception of difference between various forms of spirituality is intrinsically guided by a deeper insight into those forms (the subject of the next section). One cannot possibly judge an external state of affairs adequately and perceive the differences correctly without insight into the inner dynamics of those forms. Decisive, after all, is whether a divine-human transformation occurs. This cannot be determined without deeper insight. Still the unique nature of this first aspect of discernment remains intact: discernment concerns the actual modes of existence, the external states of affairs. The same applies to the evaluative aspects inherent in this first aspect of discernment: good/evil, true/false, divine/diabolical, viable/fatal. In the nature of the case these judgments are based on a deeper insight and on a specific criteriology: the divine way leads to life (is good and true), the non-divine way leads to death (is evil and false). Of these evaluations, too, we have to say, however, that the discernment concerns concrete ways in their actual mode of existence. The meditation exercises which belong to this discernment, accordingly, consist mainly in picturing concretely what the evil way looks like (often pictured as graphically as possible) and where it ends (also pictured as concretely as possible). In the same way one pictures the good way: as an actual state of affairs, an existing mode of life, a concrete form of spirituality.

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4.2. Discerning God’s Significance The second act the moneychanger performs is interpretive in nature. Granted, the coin has proven to be made of gold, but now the question is: whose likeness does this gold show? Does the coin bear the image of the king or of a tyrant? Cassian offers the example of scripture: viewed by itself, it is made of the purest gold, but some twist its meaning into the ugly face of a tyrant. Discernment is the ability to interpret Scripture as the liberating word of a king and not as the oppressive command of a tyrant. 4.2.1. INTERPRETATION IN LIGHT

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Scripture interprets the data of experience as a sign from God: God indicates in Pharaoh’s dreams what he is about to do (Gen. 41:25); he indicates in a vision what he is planning to do with the house of David (2 Sam. 7:11); he indicates what he wants in the torah (Deut. 4:13) and so forth. These meanings (indications) are discovered by interpretation.31 Interpretation in Scripture always relates to something that has to be revealed: a riddle (Jdg. 14:12-19; 1 Kgs. 10:1-3), a sign (Exod. 13:8; Deut. 32:7; Ezek. 24:19; 37:18), the answer to a question (Jer. 36:17; 38:14-15), the meaning of a dream (Gen. 41:24; Dan. 2:2), the decoding of a secret (Josh. 2:14, 20; Jdg. 16:6-18), the revelation of a name (Gen. 32:30; Jdg. 13:17, 18). Indication and interpretation hang inseparably together in divine-human contacts: God can only indicate what he wants when there are people who interpret him: prophets, sages, priests. 1. Interpretation in the prophets Prophets interpret events from the vantagepoint of God (1 Sam. 3:15, 18; 9:6-16; 10:15-16).32 It is the task of the people to be open to this meaning: “Have you not known (‘felt’)? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you (‘indicated to you’) from the beginning?” (Isa. 40:21). Prophets are called to interpret events from the perspective of God. The criteria for a true interpretation were: the accompanying signs confirm the prophetic word; the predictions are fulfilled; the interpretation is anchored in Yahwism; the prophet’s walk of life is sincere and authentic.33 31

F. García-López, ngd, in: ThDOT IX (1998), 174-186. For ngd in the prophetic traditions, see ibid., 177-182. 33 G. Switek, Unterscheidung der Geister. Biblische Grundlage und geschichtliche Entwicklung, in: Ordenskorrespondenz 18 (1977), 61. 32

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How hard it is to discern prophetically is evident in the church of Corinth (1 Cor. 14). In Corinth there were people who, in an ecstatic state (tongues), babbled and people who spoke a prophetic word. The former, uttering the stammering language of prayer, were speaking to God (1 Cor. 14:2); the latter spoke to people – for their upbuilding, admonition, and encouragement (1 Cor. 14:3). From the perspective of the community the latter deserved preference (1 Cor. 14:46). As we now further follow this prophetic speech, we learn that the hidden power of the spirit in this speech must be recognized and brought to light (i.e. discerned). Just as ecstatic speech must be “interpreted” (1 Cor. 12:10b), so the prophetic word must be “discerned” (1 Cor. 12:10a), that is, interpreted down to its Source and mediated to the community (1 Cor. 12:10a). Such discernment clarifies and enhances the working of the prophetic word.34 The most ancient Christian churches wrestled with the discernment of truth in prophetic speech. This is not only apparent from the Letters of Paul but also from the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache and from the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. An important criterion for a genuine prophetic interpretation was: does the prophet conduct himself in accordance with “the manner of life of the Lord”?35 Does he conduct himself without self-interest? “No prophet who orders a meal in the Spirit eats of it himself; if he does, he is a false prophet. If any prophet teaching the truth does not do what he teaches, he is a false prophet.”36 2. Interpretation among the wise The Joseph-cycle is composed in the key of wisdom: Joseph is a wise man summoned to assist court officials to interpret their own dreams (Gen. 40) and those of the pharaoh (Gen. 41): “When I told it to the learned there was no one who could explain it to me” (Gen. 41:24). Joseph realized that these dreams were communications from God and hence needed an interpretation from the side of God: “God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do” (Gen. 41:25). It was part of the task of the wise to interpret the intentions of God. Isaiah asks sarcastically: “Where are your wise men now? Let them show you and make known what the Lord of hosts has planned against Egypt” (Isa. 19:12; cf. Jer. 9:12 and Dan. 2:2). The sages interpret the secrets of wisdom as God’s selfcommunication: “Oh, that the Mighty One himself would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom because they double insight” (Job 11:5-6). The interpretation of the wise men may relate to tradition (Exod. 13:8; Deut. 32:7; see Job 14:18; Eccl. 6:12), but also to the 34 In that sense diakrisis in 1 Cor. 12:10 can be understood as interpretation of manifestations of the Spirit: G. Dautzenberg, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund der diakrisis pneumatoon (1 Cor. 12:10), in: Biblische Zeitschrift 15 (1971), 93-104. 35 Didache 11, 8 (SC 248 Bis), cf. The Shepherd of Hermas 43, 4. 36 Didache 11, 9-10. Quoted from The Didache, Minneapolis 1998, 178.

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signs of the time and the perception of the right moment.37 One day the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus asking him to give them a sign from heaven (Matt. 16:1). In his response Jesus pointed out to them the absurdity of their behavior: “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times” (Matt. 16:2-3). The absurdity is that though they can interpret the circumstances of nature they cannot read the “times”; that is, they cannot discern the signs of the time as being meaningful from the side of God. As a sign from God the time is opaque, clouded, veiled, distorted. They do not discern the opportune moment (kairos) from God’s perspective – and these people ask for a sign from heaven! 3. Interpretation by the priests In ancient Israel there was an institution which provided that a priest could inquire into God’s intention on behalf of a believer. Abiathar the priest, inquiring on behalf of David, mediated God’s answer to his question: “Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me into the hand of Saul? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? Be-er, Mighty One of Israel, I beseech you, tell your servant” (1 Sam. 23:11). David here hopes for an answer from Be-er via the priest. In another situation the lot was cast to make public the identity of the guilty person: “Mighty One of Israel, do tell us the truth” (1 Sam. 14:41; also see Josh. 7:19; Jonah 1:8). In all of these situations the point is to have something that is hidden brought to light. This event of “bringing to light” is brought about by the agency of God. But he only gives signs and these signs must be interpreted each time from within the meaning given by God. 4. The essence of the interpretation As we saw in Part I, Eve was created by God “over against” Adam as “a help interpreting him” (Gen. 2:18, 20); that is, as someone over against him who offers an explanation of herself, the world, and Adam. This interpretation takes shape as a dialogue, as “mutual understanding in word and answer.”38 The meaning lights up in the intimacy of contact. For that reason “interpreting” is closely connected with “feeling,” i.e. with “contact-knowledge.” God asks Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Interpret it if you have some feeling for (contact with) it. (…) Does your discernment touch the expanse of the earth? Declare it if you feel all this” (Job 38:4, 18; cf. 11:6). When God is

37 38

G. von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1970, 182-188. C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11. A Commentary, Minneapolis 1984, 227.

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the subject of “feeling,” his interpretation is creative: “His touching, apprehending ‘knowledge’ aims at a drawing out and as such drawn-out creatures they associate with him.”39 4.2.2. READING LIFE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF GOD “There are three things in this world – namely, the good, the bad, and the indifferent.”40 Cassian’s aphorism tells us that not everything can be situated in the “good-and-evil” field of tension. Between the entities which are “essentially and of themselves either good or bad and can never be turned into their contraries”41 are the “middle-things” (media) which of themselves are neither good nor bad. Among these neutral things Cassian counts the ascetic exercises (fasting, Scripture reading, keeping vigil, prayer),42 the ordinary things of life (marriage, farming, power, health, and beauty)43 and the challenges of life (inner conflict, infertility, death).44 How these neutral realities can be read from the perspective of God we will now explain with the aid of three authors: Cassian, Bernard, and Ignatius of Loyola. 1. Cassian Reading the neutral givens from the vantage point of God occurs in two steps.45 The first step consists in seeing these neutral realities as facts which can serve to open up the vision of God: “Thus these things will hardly be of any use to those who, unacquainted with the reason why they were designed, are content just with possessing them. For they see their highest value in their being able to call these things their possession and not in the fact that in them an action is performed which leads to perfection.”46 One must, accordingly, view these neutral realities as useful for the encounter with God in order subsequently to be able to employ them in the exploratory journey of the spiritual life. That is the second step: “Thus the monk, with his understanding of ‘discretio,’ succeeds in observing the multiplicity and multivalence of everyday reality and the human practice of life, and at the same time in interpreting them from God’s vantage 39 M. Buber, Recht und Unrecht, in: Schriften zur Bibel (Werke II), München-Heidelberg 1964, 988. 40 John Cassian, The Conferences 6, 3 (op. cit., 218). 41 Ibid., 21, 12. 42 Ibid., 21, 14. 43 Ibid., 6, 3. 44 Ibid., 6, 6. 45 G. Summa, Geistliche Unterscheidung bei Johannes Cassian, Würzburg 1992, 133-142. 46 The Conferences 21, 15.

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point and in his direction.”47 Needed – to be able to read neutral reality in this fashion – is an attitude of equanimity (indifferentia). “This attitude consists in a person recognizing that the external circumstances of his life are not the really decisive factor for him. What matters in and behind all these circumstances is to trust in God’s mercy.”48 This requires humble openness before God: “According to Cassian, humility is in the final analysis aimed at a condition in which a person opens up completely to the call of God and puts his or her life entirely at the disposal of God’s redemptive will.”49 On this level humility and discernment are the same: “One acquires true discernment solely through true humility.”50 Discernment only works if people unconditionally open themselves up before God, actually give shape to God’s will in their everyday life, and in the process allow themselves increasingly to be questioned by God. Discernment requires “a fundamental change in perspective,”51 a way of looking at life that is so selfless “that people participate in God’s way of looking at things and this way of looking increasingly becomes determinative for their life.”52 2. Bernard of Clairvaux In times of radical change God’s will is no longer visible in the external order. Under these circumstances people ask for signs of God’s presence. The time in which Bernard of Clairvaux lived was such a time of crisis. Religion and society, tightly intertwined up until then, underwent profound developments triggered by the rise of the cities, population growth, the founding of new orders and new forms of piety. Bernard was convinced that God wants to communicate himself to human beings and to lead them ever more deeply into himself.53 To this end it is necessary for humans to seek God and to desire to know his will. That is not difficult because what is at stake is the obviously good and the obviously evil. Things are more difficult in the area in between. There God’s will has to be discovered. With this in mind, Bernard designed a clear procedure: people have a duty not to decide as long as their judgment concerning the will of God remains uncertain and in suspension. In this uncertain state people must keep themselves in balance. Openness to both possibilities, however, can only be maintained by those who do not hastily settle on one of the two possibilities. One must always remember, advises 47

G. Summa, op. cit., 158. Ibid., 137. 49 Ibid., 163. 50 The Conferences 2, 10. 51 G. Summa, ibid., 165; see also 57. 52 Ibid., 64. 53 C. Benke, Unterscheidung der Geister bei Bernhard von Clairvaux, Würzburg 1991, 213217. 48

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Bernard, “that God could take more pleasure in the opposite choice.” The basic condition is the willingness to follow God’s will the moment one senses in what direction it tends. The clearly perceived will of God must, finally, be carried out without hesitation.54

The correct choice can be tested by criteria which Bernard develops especially in his sermons on the Song of Songs: the visit of the Bridegroom influence the soul with love for the truth; it is accompanied by the spiritual fruits of righteousness, peace, and joy; one has a deep sense of consolation; life is inwardly renewed; the desire for the Bridegroom is enhanced; one’s knowledge is deepened and – most importantly – produces love.55 3. Ignatius of Loyola The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, in which the rules for discernment are included,56 were profoundly shaped by tradition57 and took shape in a process of years of experience.58 The exercises are a circular process sustained by the desire for what God wills of a person.59 The central part of the Spiritual Exercises is constituted by the life of Jesus:60 “The signs of God, of his presence and proximity, can only be discerned by looking at the life of Jesus.”61l This reading of the life of Jesus constitutes a prayerful confrontation in prayer: the way of Christ is deciphered in the traces which the reading of Jesus’ life leaves behind in my existence.62 Three aspects play a role in this reading process. Required, first of all, is receptivity: an attitude of openness without prejudice. Next, a selection must be made from the traces left behind by the contemplation: the “motions” of God’s presence must be distinguished from non-divine “motions.” This takes

54

Ibid., 215-216. Ibid., 236-285. 56 Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, nos. 313-336. Quotations are from the New York 1991 edition. 57 See especially the chapter ‘Bernhard von Clairvaux und Ignatius von Loyola,’ in: C. Benke, op. cit., 295-306. 58 L. Bakker, Freiheit und Erfahrung. Redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen über die Unterscheidung der Geister bei Ignatius von Loyola, Würzburg 1970. 59 M. Schneider, Unterscheidung der Geister. Die ignatianischen Exerzitien in der Deutung von E. Przywara, K. Rahner und G. Fessard, Wien 1987, 210-215. 60 On this point different interpreters like Przywara, Rahner, and Fessard are in agreement. See M. Schneider, Unterscheidung der Geister. 61 Ibid., 194. 62 H. Rahner, Zur Christologie der Exerzitien, in: Geist und Leben 35 (1962), 120; G. Cusson, Pédagogie de l’expérience spirituelle personelle. Bible et exercises spirituelles, Paris 1976; M. Rotsaert, De Geestelijke Oefeningen. School van onderscheiding – school van gebed, in: Aggiornamento 23 (1991) no. 2, 71. 55

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place, among other things, by repeatedly weighing the euphoric and dysphoric reactions anew. Finally, it comes down to choosing the hints of God. The complexity of this reading process explains why some stress the importance of finding the correct disposition by creating order in the “motions,”63 while others emphasize that what is at stake is the “greater” glory of God in every concrete situation.64 Still others find that the exercises are aimed at an existential decision.65 Again, still others say that the goal is union with God.66 However, all these things are interconnected: we are talking about a choice in which being chosen by the greater glory of God is realized in the persons who make themselves more fully available. In opting for this being chosen lies the euphoric element of the consolation which consists in peace, joy, confidence and hope as fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). The essence of this consolation is the experience of being moved by God himself and nothing else. This is called “consolation without a preceding cause”: “By ‘without [a preceding] cause’ I mean without any previous perception or understanding of some object by means of which the consolation just mentioned might have been stimulated, through the intermediate activity of the person’s acts of understanding and willing.”67 “Without cause” means caused exclusively by God alone: “Only God our Lord can give the soul consolation without a preceding cause. For it is the prerogative of the Creator alone to enter the soul, depart from it, and cause a motion in it which draws the person wholly into love of his Divine Majesty.”68 Here the consolation has lost all ambiguity: the motion proceeds solely from God. Here the Spiritual Exercises attain their inner goal: being the midwife of the birth of God in the soul.69 4.2.3. DISCERNING DIFFERENCES IN MEANING When from the vantage point of method we look back upon the second aspect of discernment as it comes to the fore in Scripture and the spiritual writers, two points of interest emerge. 63 W. Peters, Ignatius van Loyola en de ‘onderscheiding der geesten’, in: Concilium 14 (1978) no. 9, 28-35. 64 J. Toner, Discerning God’s Will, St. Louis 1991. 65 K. Rahner, Die ignatianische Logik der existentiellen Erkenntnis, in: Ignatius von Loyola. Seine geistliche Gestalt und sein Vermächtnis, 1556-1956, (Ed. F. Wulf ), Würzburg 1956, 348. 66 L. Peters, Vers l’union divine par les Exercises de S. Ignace, Louvain 1931. 67 Ignatius van Loyola, Spiritual Exercises 330. 68 Ibidem. 69 H. Rahner, ‘Werdet kundige Geldwechsler’. Zur Geschichte der Lehre des heiligen Ignatius von der Unterscheidung der Geister, in: Ignatius von Loyola. Seine geistliche Gestalt und sein Vermächtnis, 1556-1956, (Ed. F. Wulf ), Würzburg 1956, 306-307.

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1. Being able to interpret The second aspect of discernment is grounded in the ability to discern meaning: in Scripture, in life situations, in the motions of the soul. The facts with which a person is confronted on his or her spiritual journey do not simply yield their meaning. They have to be interpreted. This requires interpretive ability. Applied to the different layers of the divine-human process of transformation, this interpretation has the following character: Operative in it is (1) the ability to interpret our own existence and that of everything that surrounds us as significative of God’s creative working; (2) the ability to interpret deformations as distortions of the original image of God; (3) the ability to read the divine-human model of transformation and conformity to it as a mediation on the part of God who is himself without form and mode; (4) the ability to discover the love of God in the soul’s reaching out in love and, conversely, to discern the love-motions of the soul in the love of God; (5) to understand death as God’s ultimate completion. The purpose of these quick pointers is merely to open up the field covered by the second aspect of discernment. In the concrete reading processes this field continually assumes different forms. 2. Difference in meaning This interpretation of the divine-human process of transformation is not a neutral, undirected occurrence. It does not just distinguish random meanings but consistently also sees difference in meaning. It makes a difference whether I interpret the reality of existence as creation or as fate. In the first case the image of the King appears on the coin; in the second, the form of the tyrant. This is true for all five levels of the transformation process: (1) existence can be interpreted as proceeding from the hand of God or as a blind fate; (2) deformations can be understood as deviations from a psychological or social ideal image or as deviation from the original god-relation; (3) transformation models can be interpreted as socio-cultural constructs or as traces of intensive divine-human transformation; (4) the transformation in love can be read as an intrapsychic process or as dialogic occurrence; (5) transformation in glory can be understood as ultimate projection or as universal transformation in God. The interpretation of spiritual writings, of forms of spirituality, and of concrete situations is guided by a pre-understanding which distinguishes differences in meaning: meanings which proceed from the divine-divine transformation process, which is the formal object of the study of spirituality, in distinction from meanings gained in other ways. These latter meanings may very well be (interdisciplinarily) brought into relation with the former, but when they are detached from this concerted action they yield interpretations which fail to do justice to the object to be studied. Just to make this very clear, it should be said perhaps that we are speaking here of matters that are not obviously evil, for they have already been brought

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to light and excluded by the first aspect of discernment. For that matter, we are here dealing with a circular process, for, as we saw, discernment between the good way and the evil way cannot be accomplished without a deeper insight in both ways, which is an element of interpretation. Here we see how the various components of interpretation are mutually connected.

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4.3. The Mean of Discernment The third action of the moneychanger is guided by the question: in what mint has the coin been struck? A capable moneychanger knows the recognized mints. He can tell from the hallmark, but also from the structure of the coin, whether a counterfeiter has been at work in it. The recognized mint represents the third aspect of the diacrisis (discernment): a critical center where experiences can be exchanged and tested, a community where the profession of spiritual praxis is developed with prudent expertise and where the learning experiences of so many people is systematically taken into account. By intensive interaction (discussion, chapter, conferences, and the like), a discipline takes shape – by the discipline of interaction! Cassian was thinking of the “mint” of the monastic community, where the capacity for discernment was shaped in intensive conferences. But also prior to that time people schooled each other in spirituality.

4.3.1. SCHOOLING IN THE SPIRITUALITY OF WISDOM In ancient Israel people tried, by mutual counsel and the study of sagacious sayings, to discover wisdom amidst the ordinary circumstances of life. This wisdom was pictured as a wise woman: on the streets and squares she raised her voice to call the “simple,” i.e. the enticeable, to herself (Prov. 1:20-23); she will feed them the bread of discernment and give them the wine of wisdom to drink (Jes. Sir. 15:26); she invites them into her home for a splendid banquet (Prov. 9:1-6). Lady Wisdom loves her pupils: “I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently find me” (Prov. 8:17). She asks in love to be embraced by them (Prov. 4:8). The pupil greeted her as his bride: “I loved her and sought her from my youth; I desired to take her for my bride, and became enamored of her beauty. She glorifies her noble birth by living with God, and the Lord of all loves her. For she is an initiate in the knowledge of God, and an associate in his works” (Wisdom 8:2-4). 1. Wise counsel Wisdom is practical intelligence: fetuses are “wise” when they sense the time of their birth and so present themselves at the mouth of the womb (Hos. 13:13); craftsmen have knowledge of materials and know how to treat them (Eccl. 2:19; 1 Kgs. 7:13-14; Exod. 28:3; 31:2-3, and so forth); a judge sees through the rhetoric of the prosecutor and the accused (Job 15:2-3; 1 Kgs. 3:4-28). This

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practical intelligence is learned by discipline (ysr), interiorized in learning processes (lmd), and tested in processes of interaction (ya’ats). Discipline is the transmission of knowledge which aims at a certain kind of conduct (Prov. 19:8; 29:17).70 Adjusting oneself to established standards is the first step on the way to wisdom (Prov. 8:33). Parents may not withhold this discipline from their children (Prov. 8:10; 13:24; 23:23). It forms the foundation for wise conduct (Prov. 19:20) and makes one sensitive to deep respect as the source of wisdom (Prov. 1:7; 15:33). People who rashly follow their inclinations get caught in the snares of death (Prov. 4:13; 10:17; 15:10). Learning sees to it that one does not remain stuck in the discipline.71 To learn is to really appropriate the good (Isa. 1:17), to become familiar with justice (Isa. 26:9-10), to interiorize the ordinances of Be-er (Deut. 5:1; Ps. 119:7, 71, 73). This interiorization is graphically expressed in an order from Deuteronomy: “Write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and put it in their mouths” (Deut. 31:19). This discipline must be so deeply instilled that it blossoms into deep respect for Be-er: “Assemble the people for me that I may let them hear my words and they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth and may teach their children so” (Deut. 4:10; see also 14:23; 17:19; 31:13). Counsel is the manner in which discipline is learned.72 One who seeks counsel exposes himself to the opinion of others: a king seeks advice; one who asks for an oracle listens to the pronouncement of the oracle; a wise person is open to the influence of pupils and colleagues (Prov. 12:15). As many people look at it, a matter is held against the light from many angles (Prov. 11:4; 24:6). “Without counsel, plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed” (Prov. 15:22). Wise people become wise because they practice the game of question and answer (Prov. 26:16), are skilled in the art of persuasion (Prov. 16:21-24) and give direction to people’s thinking (Prov. 13:14). Learning discipline occurs in and through taking counsel from the wise: “Those who associate with the wise become wise” (Prov. 13:20). Mutual consultation belongs to the essence of the profession of the wise. They therefore reflected expressly on “counsel”: “It was the task of the wise (as a professional class) to theorize about ‘advice’ and ‘advisers.’”73 They practiced giving or taking counsel and reflected on the process. 2. The wisdom saying The proverb (mashal) was an important aid to instruction in the wisdom schools.74 Every teacher added new proverbs to the old stock (Prov. 22:17; 24:23). In these proverbs the facts of experience were held against one another 70

R. Bransom, yasar, in: ThDOT VI (1990), 127-134. A. Kapelrud, lamad, in: ThDOT VIII (1997), 4-10. 72 L. Ruppert, ya‘ats, in: ThDOT VI (1990), 156-185. 73 Ibid., 165. 74 G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, Nashville-New York 1972, 25-34. 71

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and compared. The student positioned himself between them and sought to become the wiser for it. In our day we can hardly imagine how important proverbs were for ordinary life: “Only rarely does one still meet men for whom a remembered stock of proverbs is more than a rhetorical flourish, whose life and thought are so rooted in such aids to living that they serve as indispensable signposts in making decisions large or small.”75 A proverb consists of two congruent or contrasting parts in which two facts of experience are listened to, one against the other. Between the halves of a verse is where it happens: in the pupil who stands between them and simultaneously listens to both and lets them play with each other in his mind. This must have been a creative process which to some extent still comes through in the variety of the proverbs. That is to say: sometimes a single image of experience is playfully exploited in several similitudes. The “crucible,” for example, one time evokes the purification of the heart (Prov. 17:3) while another time it refers to the testing of a wise man exposed to praise (Prov. 27:21) – a case in which the two proverbs again form a similitude between themselves as well! In similitudes two experiences clash with each other in the pupil who stands in between.

4.3.2. THE

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All schools of spirituality saw themselves as centers in which, by the study of the many experiences incurred and by intensive interaction, the golden mean was discovered which leads directly to the goal. 1. The golden mean Because the desert monks went to the limit the dangers of excess always threatened. Some, for example, fasted so fanatically that, being totally exhausted, they fell a prey to robbers or predatory animals. In so doing, they left behind the carefully calculated “mean” of two rolls a day which guaranteed both a sound physical condition and a free sprit. The fanatics, crossing the boundaries of the fruitful center, ended up in all sorts of danger zones: unhealthy self-conceit, extreme debilitation, hallucinations, and the like. A similar arbitrariness threatened in prayer, keeping vigil, and reading Scripture. Some slept so little they could no longer fall asleep! With numerous examples76 the abbas exposed these excesses as being “too much” or “too little” (nimietas).77 The core insight is that both the “too much” and the “too little” lead to the abyss. 75

Ibid., 26. John Cassian, The Conferences 1, 23; 2, 5-8; 17, 24. 77 Ibid, 1, 23. 76

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The extremes which lead to the abyss are teaching devices: they mark the space within which a school of spirituality moves. And what is perhaps even more important: they serve as points of orientation in our attempts to determine the center of the road.79 Because the limits are not fixed, but must each time be determined anew by the exploration of the excesses, the center is not fixed either: it must each time be discovered anew. The road discovered by the community between the extremes is called the royal road: in ancient Eastern cities it was the road which led to the royal palace; in the schools of spirituality it is the royal road which leads into the kingdom of God. 2. The “middle” of the community The golden mean profiles itself in the middle of the spiritual community. The reverse is also true: by a process of patiently exploring the boundaries of experience the “middle” of the community is marked off. The two “means” bring each other out into the open, as we see happening in the schools of spirituality. Determinative for the profile of the desert monk is his interaction with the other monks, both with those who are alive and those who have died.80 Association with experienced people shapes his interior. He exposes himself to the field of forces emitted by the community which shapes him into this monk, just as a mint strikes a piece of gold into a coin. In this way, therefore, we shall very easily be able to attain to the knowledge of true discretion. Thus, following in the footsteps of the elders, we shall presume neither

78

Ibid., 2, 16. Ibid., 2, 2. 80 G. Summa, Geistliche Unterscheidung bei Johannes Cassian, Würzburg 1992, 167-195. 79

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to do anything new nor to come to any decisions based on our own judgment, but we shall proceed in all things just as their tradition and upright life inform us. Whoever has been thoroughly instructed in this manner will not only attain to the perfect ordering of discretion but will also remain absolutely safe from all the snares of the enemy.81

To Cassian, discernment is formed in communication with the abbas and the other monks. Discernment takes shape in the meeting of people who contribute, compare, and give depth to their insights and experiences. Benedict views the monastic community as a school of Godseekers in which discernment as moderation is a basic feature. Especially the abbot must embody this characteristic. It is his task, as he takes account of the situation and the personal circumstances, always and circumspectly to discern the various facets of the matter at issue and, as moderator, to opt for the golden mean.82 Discernment (moderation) and the community (the abbot) are intrinsically connected. In Bernard discernment shifts in the direction of prudence: the intention which orients and moderates the practice of virtue from within. This discernment is no longer restricted to “the function of mediating between two contrary entities.” In an even more general sense discretio is directed against all forms of excess (nimietas) of whatever kind, against all “boundless and impassioned vehemence.”83… Not only an excess of zeal but also an excess of grace can have a disintegrating effect: it may do damage to the unity among the brothers.”84 Also in Bernard, therefore, we witness an intrinsic connection between discretio (moderation in everything, even in the good) and the community (the integrating power against all nimietas). The mendicant friars exhibit the same pattern. We will take Thomas Aquinas for an example. Thomas subsumed discretio under prudentia, which gives to all virtues the form of the good because it “seeks the mean”85 in the concrete circumstances of the particular act.86 Needed for this are three things: the goal, movement toward the goal, and the means. Discretio is the application of the correct middle in the order of the means.87 This discretio functioned within the community: the milieu in which the goal was made concrete.88 Another example: in the Carmelite Rule, “the excesses and faults of the brothers, if such should 81

The Conferences 2, 11. F. Dingjan, Discretio. Les origines patristiques et monastiques de la doctrine sur la prudence chez saint Thomas d’Aquin, Assen 1967, 79-86. 83 C. Benke, Unterscheidung der Geister bei Bernhard von Clairvaux, Würzburg 1991, 221. 84 Ibidem. 85 Summa Theologiae IIa-IIae, q. 47, a. 7. 86 F. Dingjan, ibid., 182-204. 87 Ibid., 205-228; see also A. Cabassut, Discretion, in: DSp 3 (1957), 1312-1316. 88 Medium in quo concretizatur finis. 82

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be found in anyone, shall be corrected in the midst of love.”89 Two things here are said in the same breath: (1) the process of discernment takes place in a milieu that is characterized by love; (2) in this milieu love is the golden mean which determines the correction. Also among the mendicants, therefore, discernment as prudence that seeks the center, and the middle of the community in which the entire practice of virtue becomes concrete, are interlocking realities.

4.3.3. DISCRIMINATING BETWEEN DIFFERENT POSITIONS When from a methodical vantage point we reflect on the third aspect of discernment as it comes to the fore in biblical and postbiblical texts, the following two points seem important. 1. Divergent positions The extremes between which discernment looks for the golden mean are the divergent positions adopted within a community: extreme experiences, limiting concepts. Made concrete in terms of the five layers of the divine-human transformation process, we then note the following boundary positions: (1) Reality is what it is and must simply be enjoyed, realized, and accepted; reality is not what it is: it is one gigantic failure which calls for abstinence; (2) man has indeed been created good but has been completely corrupted by sin – only redemption can save humankind; man is fundamentally good; our only concern now is to rid our energy tracks of culturally conditioned inhibitions; (3) examples and models are absolutely necessary and must be followed very precisely; models of transformation are alienating and unnatural, one must outgrow them; (4) spirituality is an individual process, a strictly personal journey; spirituality is a sociocultural process; (5) death is the end and serves as a stimulus for us to take the days as they come and go; death is a liberation in which true life comes to light. These positions are intended as broad outlines. In any case they make clear that within the field of experiences, insights, convictions, concepts, and thought patterns, some very divergent positions can be adopted. 2. The middle These divergent positions mark the boundaries of a certain tradition, the horizon of one’s powers of imagination. As boundary phenomena they belong intrinsically to the tradition which views them as limits. And not only that: as limits 89

1999.

The Carmelite Rule, ch. XI. Also see K. Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Carmel, Louvain

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they also form the orientation points with respect to which that tradition determines its architectonic middle. The horizon determines the middle. That middle is the really distinguishing feature of such a tradition: the point around which everything revolves. Once this dynamic middle has been discovered, it becomes possible for discernment to compare, assess, and mediate between the divergent positions.

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4.4. Discerning the Way To God’s Destination The astute moneychanger knows the full weight of the coin. He therefore also knows how much weight is actually lacking in the coin in front of him as a result of abrasion, chipping, hollowing out. The moneychanger discerns the difference between the actual coin and its full configuration. Translated into the field of spirituality, discernment sees the difference between people’s actual situation and their full growth in God’s eyes. Scripture calls this form of discernment “testing.” 4.4.1. “BEING TESTED” IN SCRIPTURE Biblical testing refers to a distinction effected in the life of a person. Several actions interact with each other in this connection: seeing through someone’s conduct down to its hidden truth (fathoming), the confrontation of this truth with the person’s actual conduct (testing), the exploration and shifting of someone’s boundaries (trying out) and the detachment of the true being from a person’s actual condition (purification). These four actions complement and interlock with each other. 1. Testing In testing a person’s actual condition is critically compared with that person’s true being.90 A wisdom teacher “tests” a given argument by the basic principles of truth (Job 34:3). When Joseph’s brothers say to “the viceroy of Egypt” that they have come for food, the viceroy questions their words. “You are spies.” To prove the truth of their words they have to take their brother Benjamin with them next time they come: “Thus your words will be tested to see whether you are speaking the truth” (Gen. 42:6). Words are measured in the light of the truth (Ps. 7:10; 20:2; 139:23). That is a painful process of sorting out and separation (Zech. 13:9; Prov. 17:3). It is especially painful when the heart has to be tested (Jer. 11:20; 17:10; 20:12; Prov. 17:3; Ps. 7:10; 17:3; 26:2), including its disposition (Jer. 12:3), its musings (Ps. 139:23), its words (Job 12:11; Gen. 42:16), its reasonings (Job 34:3), its behavior (Jer. 6:27; 17:10; Job 23:10). In being tested, a person is exposed to the fire (Zech. 13:9), immersed in a smelting furnace (Prov. 17:3), delivered up to the darkness of the night (Ps. 17:3), led into the 90 The Hebrew word is bchn. See E. Jenni, bchn, in: ThLOT 1 (1997), 207-209. The Septuagint translates it by dokimazein: assess, test, examine by trial.

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wilderness (Ps. 81:8), led through water and fire (Ps. 66:10-12). These liminal experiences (Job 34:36) are designed to lay bare the true core. Truth and untruth are disentangled, separated (Jer. 6:27). Testing aims at the preservation of the true: “Be-er is a preserving Tester” (Jer. 20:12; see Ps. 7:10). 2. Fathoming To fathom is to look through the surface.91 For that reason it is often translated by “plumbing the depths of.” We do, for example, see the surface of the earth but not its foundations (Jer. 31:37). We do see the front of a forest but do not discern what lies behind it (Jer. 46:23). To fathom is to have some sense of the “infrastructure” of the earth, of what is hidden away in the depths of the forest. A prospector probes the earth to see whether there is precious metal hidden somewhere in a rock formation (Job 28:3). Especially in the sphere of human relations it is hard to fathom the truth because people have the capacity to mask their intentions. It is hard to see through the mask of self-esteem (Prov. 28:11), the clever plea (Prov. 18:17), the skillful argumentation (Job 32:11), the confused behavior (1 Sam. 20:2) and discover their true meaning. As we probe the words, we recognize what is actually being said by myself, by the other, by a text, by the zeitgeist. Job puts it well: “See, I have searched this out and so it is. Then listen and feel (know) it for yourself ” (Job 5:27). Discernment takes us into that which is real and authentic. Wise people will always train themselves “to fathom their ways” (Lam. 3:40), that is, to plumb the depths of their behavior to the level of what it truly is, following the example of the One who truly is, who searches the human heart (Jer. 17:10) and “fathoms the secrets of the heart” (Ps. 44:22; 139). 3. Trying (out) If the tension between my actual state and my destination is to be bridged, I will have to extend my boundaries in actual experience. Scripture calls this a “trial.”92 Before David’s fight with Goliath he was given Saul’s armor (1 Sam. 17:38). But David had never tried on this armor before. After a clumsy attempt to put it on, he concluded: ‘I cannot move in this outfit. I have not tried it’ (1 Sam. 17:39). In a comparable way the wise try out the boundaries and possibilities of the human heart (Eccl. 7:23; Sir. 6:39). The queen of Sheba traveled to Solomon to test the limits of his wisdom (1 Kgs. 10:1). To test is to ‘try out’: where are the boundaries of a person’s endurance (Wisdom 2:10-20)? How far does this 91

The Hebrew expresses this in the stem chqr. See M. Tsevat, chaqar, in: ThDOT V (1986), 148-150; E. Jenni, bchn, in: ThLOT I (1997), 207-209. 92 In Hebrew it is nsch. See G. Gerleman, nsh, in: ThLOT II (1997), 742; F. Helfmeyer, nissah, in: ThDOT IX (1998), 443-455.

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friendship go (Sir. 6:7)? Is God really among us or not (Exod. 17:7)? When God tries a person or his people, he seeks to determine in actual experience what the scope of their trust is (Gen. 22:1-14; Exod. 15-16; Deut. 8:1-5; 16). Such testings occur in extreme situations (Gen. 22:14; Exod. 17:1-7; Wisdom 3:5; Sir. 2:1-18). In such ordeals God explores in actual experience the limits of our wisdom, our friendship, and our faithfulness and how they can be shifted. 4. Purgation The aim of such trials is by crossing boundaries, to take someone to his or her true destiny. This calls for a process of ‘smelting’:93 a process of differentiation applied to a person such that the gold of his existence may surface in its purity. Just as gold is smelted by fire, so the image of God is smelted out by processes of purgation (cf. Jer. 9:7; Zech. 13:9). The only one who can responsibly carry on this differentiation is Be-er himself: ‘A furnace for silver, a foundry for gold, but Be-er for the testing of hearts’ (Prov. 17:3). He saves his people through the fire and smelts out my core (Ps. 26:2; 17:3). While they are ‘smelted out,’ people participate in the ‘perfection’ of God; they are ‘perfect as Abba is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48). They share in his undivided goodness;94 a goodness which has bloomed to the full, is ‘sound’ (Isa. 18:5), ‘whole’ (cf. Josh. 3:17; 4:10), ‘without blemish’ (Lev. 22:21). Hence there will be no hollowed coins, no broken edges, no dark sides cut off. This perfection is undividedly good: it loses itself in self-surrender – the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing; it all happens in secret; it does not see itself. It takes place in all simplicity (cf. 2 Sam. 15:11), as one who is completely absorbed in his or her game (cf. 1 Kgs. 9:4; 22:3-4), undivided in his or her devotion, selfless, total, complete – like Abba, total Goodness.

4.4.2. GROWTH IN PERFECTION Tradition offers two distinctions which together embrace growth in perfection. The first distinction recognizes the difference between the starting situation (being created in God’s image) and the situation of the end (complete conformity to him). The spiritual life occurs between these two poles. The second distinction recognizes the difference between what is humanly possible (purity of heart) and what is possible from the side of God (contemplation).

93 In Hebrew it is tsrf. See M. Saebo, tsaraf, in: TWAT VI (1989), 1133-1138; E. Jenni, bchn, in ThLOT I (1997), 207-209. 94 Hebrew: tam.

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1. Created in God’s image, for his likeness In Origen the spiritual life springs from the awareness that humans are created in God’s image. To know oneself is to know that one is created in God’s image and that this “in God’s image” essentially constitutes us.95 The image of God is “a dynamic power, a seed, which prompts humans to proceed toward divinization, toward likeness,”96 a likeness in which humans are united with God “through a process of ever deeper, ever more personal and more existential assimilation.”97 Between the self-knowledge which recognizes that one has been created in God’s image and being known by God in perfect likeness lies a process of transformation which seek to encompass ever new layers and dimensions of one’s humanity. At issue, therefore, is not “a distance between two terminal points, but a spiritual process which develops in a spiral-shaped manner, embracing all levels and all dimensions of human existence.”98 In Irenaeus of Lyons the same dynamics is at work.99 God created man in order that through growth and progression the latter might move upward toward completeness, i.e. complete transformation in God. The rhythm of this transformation is determined by the divine Sculptor.100 Cassian took over this basic insight from the patristics and passed it on to Western spirituality. Discernment, looking at a person’s actual condition, sees there the divine possibilities of development which present themselves at every moment. “All humans go through a personal development in accordance with the circumstances of their life journey. However, they are not locked into a specific phase of development. Rather, every momentary situation is a ripening phase in which they can grow and which takes them further toward the highest phase, the consummation in love.”101 This consummation in love exceeds our growth because it is not a part of our human possibilities. “The Lord placed the highest good not in carrying out some work, however praiseworthy, but in the truly simple and unified contemplation of him…”102 Humans are created in God’s image and called to mature into perfect likeness to him. This is the fundamental distinction in which, also after Cassian, the articulation of the spiritual journey is delineated in all the great spiritual writers. 95

H. Crouzel, Origène et la connaissance mystique, Bruges 1961, 64. H. Blommestijn, Progrès – progressants, in: DSp 12 (1986), 2387. 97 Ibid., 2389. 98 Ibid., 2385. 99 See H. Blommestijn, Menswording, een goddelijk geboorteproces. Irenaeus van Lyon, in: Speling 41 (1989) no. 1, 86-93. 100 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses IV, 39 (SC 100II, 960-973). 101 G. Summa, Geistliche Unterscheidung bei Johannes Cassian, Würzburg 1992, 105. 102 John Cassian, The Conferences 1, 8. 96

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In the case of a very influential author like William of St. Thierry, for example, a man who bridged the fault line of a new period, we see the same basic distinction. The beginning and first principle is the recognition that one is created in God’s image. The spiritual journey consists in bringing everything – the external architecture of one’s life, one’s intellect, one’s affections – into harmony with this fundamental dynamism of our being. In this manner the will of God gradually enters our life, first externally but then also internally, to the extent that the love of God assumes the upper hand and divinizes the human being.103 2. Purity of heart and contemplation The divine-human process of transformation is encompassed by the basic fact that humans are created in God’s image and look forward to being conformed to his likeness. The spiritual journey which mediates this polar tension is dominated by the distinction between the practical objective (skopos), which consists in purity of heart, and the final goal (telos) which consists in contemplation. Purity of heart – “Blessed are the pure in heart” – is this side of a process of which the gracious reverse side is contemplation: “they will see God.” This contemplation is grace but inscribes itself as fruit in purity of heart, the “practical objective in which the desired fruit is contained.”104 All the steps are steps toward the practical objective of purity. Contemplation as its gracious outgrowth is its fruit, the Kingdom of God. “The end of our profession (…) is the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven; but the goal or scopos is purity of heart, without which it is impossible for anyone to reach that end.”105 Purity of heart pertains to the whole of human life. Not only the so-called “carnal” aspects of a human being (body, instinct, needs) but also their “spiritual” existence (prayer, desire, inner orientation) needs to be purified. “Not only the relation to their natural (‘carnal’) impulses but also to their supernatural impulses is disturbed.”106 Both the carnal and the spiritual dimension is burdened by their self-focus. Purity of heart focuses everything on God and, being receptive, opens itself to him. “Whatever therefore can direct us to this scopos, which is purity of heart, is to be pursued with all our strength, but whatever deters us from this is to be avoided as dangerous and harmful.”107 The real point on which purity of heart is focused is contemplation, the moment in which God’s interior working gains the upper hand. “As they make spiritual progress human 103

H. Blommestijn, Progrès – progressants, in: DSp 12 (1986), 2389-2404. John Cassian, The Conferences 1, 7. 105 Ibid., 1, 4. 106 G. Summa, Geistliche Unterscheidung bei Johannes Cassian, Würzburg 1992, 93. 107 John Cassian, The Conferences 1, 5. 104

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beings increasingly experience themselves as being sustained in their thinking, willing and doing by God’s grace, and from this fact they gain their freedom.”108 It is precisely this moment of transition, for which purity of heart hopes, which is the real moment of discernment. The conquest, by grace, of one’s own gravity confers lucidity on a person with respect to his real “weight.” “The victory over his own inner inertia of the will, which keeps a person from making real progress toward God, even appears in Cassian as the first impulse toward the formation of a true discretio.”109 We can say that purity of heart where it yields itself to God’s inner working constitutes the real moment of discernment: it puts all that is practicable (ascesis) in the right developmental perspective and relativizes it vis-à-vis the nonpracticable of contemplation (mysticism). On account of this “clairvoyance” of purity of heart, it furnishes the light of discernment at all the stages of the spiritual journey. For that reason all the conferences in the desert move, like concentric circles, around this luminous perspective.110 Purity of heart forms the compass needle at every movement on the spiritual journey.

4.4.3. DISCERNING A PERSON’S DESTINY When from a methodical vantage point we take a closer look at the fourth aspect of discernment as it comes to the fore in Scripture and tradition we gain two insights. 1. Seeing the ultimate in a person Discernment, in a formal sense, is to perceive the possible in the actual, seeing possibilities in a person’s life. We are now speaking, not about objectively available possibilities, that is, possibilities apart from the person in question, but about possibilities immediately connected with the person. They are perceived in and realized in that person, within and on the basis of the person’s actual life situation. We have to take one more step: the possible that is envisioned in a person is that person’s ultimate possibility and destiny. At this point words like “final goal,” “ideal,” “calling,” the “essential,” “perfection” and “fully ripened maturity” are used. Discernment perceives someone’s ultimate destiny. This destiny, spiritually speaking, lies in the divine-human transformation which, viewed in the light of the ultimately possible, exhibits the following aspects: (1) humans 108

G. Summa, ibid., 91; with reference to John Cassian, The Conferences 3, 12. G. Summa, ibid., 91, with reference to F. Dingjan, Discretio. Les origines patristiques et monastiques de la doctrine sur la prudence chez Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Assen 1967, 33 and 55. 110 G. Sartory & T. Sartory, Lebenshilfe aus der Wüste, Freiburg 1983, 269-170. 109

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are created in God’s image for the purpose of maturing into the final destiny of complete likeness to him; (2) human factuality deforms this basic possibility, but in conversion the soul turns to its original image and, in conformity to the divine-human figure, this deformation can be reformed; (3) conformity to the divine-human mediation through this form offers the possibility of maturing toward God who is without form; (4) the love, which the soul enters as a result of this relinquishment, is a road with unprecedented possibilities, as the mystics show; (5) death, by virtue of God’s presence, opens an unending perspective. These references evoke a framework of possibilities. In the life of each person this pattern of possibilities appears in a configuration of its own. What counts in discernment is to see the divine-human transformation, which is a layered process, as a possible development. 2. The way, the steps, and the transitions Discernment not only sees the spiritually possible in a person’s actual condition, but also perceives the way which mediates between the factual and the possible. It sees the steps which lead to complete transformation. There are steps (especially in the beginning phase) in which the accent lies on the humanly possible: the practice of the virtues and the performance of the spiritual exercises. However, there are also steps (especially in the case of the advanced) in which the practitioners are asked to entrust themselves to the divinely possible. Similarly dependent on this discernment is insight into the blockages. For example, while zealous application is necessary for the early steps, in a later phase this application precisely blocks God’s possibilities. BIBLIOGRAPHY ALBRECHT, B., Der Geist des Herrn erfüllt die Kirche. Über die Unterscheidung der Geister, Leutesdorf a.R. 1987. BENKE, C., Unterscheidung der Geister bei Bernhard von Clairvaux, Würzburg 1991. BEZUNARTEA, J., Clare of Assisi and the Discernment of Spirits, St. Bonaventure 1994. CONROY, M., The Discerning Heart. Discovering a Personal God, Chicago 1993. DINGJAN, F., Discretio. Les origines patristiques et monastiques de la doctrine sur la prudence chez saint Thomas d’Aquin, Assen 1967. Discernment of the Spirit and of Spirits, (Ed. C. Floristan), New York 1979. ENGLISH, J., Discernment and the Examen, Guelph (Ontario) 1985. FOSTER, K., Discernment. The Powers and Spirit Speaking, Ann Arbor (MI) 1991. FRANGIPANE, F., Discerning of Spirits, 1996. GALILEA, S., Temptation and Discernment, Washington (DC) 1996. GIL, D., Discernimiento segun San Ignacio, Roma 1980. GREEN, T., Weeds among the Wheat. Discernment, where Prayer & Action Meet, Notre Dame (IN) 1984.

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GRESHAKE, G., Gottes Willen tun. Gehorsam und geistliche Unterscheidung, Freiburg i.Br. 1987. GUIDETTI, A., Il discernimento degli spiriti in S. Bernardino da Siena e in S. Ignazio di Loyola, Roma 1982. HABRA, G., Du discernement spirituel, Fontainebleau 1980-1983. JOB, R., A Guide to Spiritual Discernment, Nashville (TN) 1996. JOHNSON, B., Discerning God’s Will, Louisville (KY) 1990. JOHNSON, L., Scripture & Discernment. Decision Making in the Church, Nashville 1996. LARKIN, E., Silent Presence. Discernment as Process and Problem, Denville (NJ) 1981. LIBÂNIO, J., Discernimiento espiritual. Reflexiones teológico-espirituales, Buenos Aires 1987. LIBÂNIO, J., Spiritual Discernment and Politics, Maryknoll (NY) 1984. LONSDALE, D., Dance to the Music of the Spirit. The Art of Discernment, London 1992. MCBAIN, D., Discerning the Spirits. Checking for Truth in Signs and Wonders, London 1992. MCBAIN, D., Eyes That See. The Spiritual Gift of Discernment, Basingstoke 1986. MELANÇON, O., Discernement des esprits et vie chrétienne, Sainte-Scholastique (Quebec) 1983. MÜLLER, J., Zur Unterscheidung der Geister. Wege zum geistlichen Leben, StuttgartHamburg 1995. OUDEMAN, L., Charisma van onderscheiding der geesten. Een vergelijkend onderzoek tussen twee tradities, Nijmegen 1988. The Place of Discernment, The Way Supplement nr.64 (1989). PROTERRA, M., Homo Spiritualis Nititur Fide. Martin Luther and Ignatius of Loyola. An Analytical and Comparative Study of a Hermeneutic Based on the Heuristic Structure of Discretio, Washington (DC) 1983. RAHNER, K., Theologie aus der Erfahrung des Geistes (Schriften zur Theologie XII), Einsiedeln 1975. RANDLE, G., La guerra invisible. El discernimiento espiritual, como experiencia y como doctrina, en Santa Teresa de Jesus, Madrid 1991. RUIZ JURADO, M., El discernimiento espiritual. Teología, historia, práctica, Madrid 1994. SCHNEIDER, M., Unterscheidung der Geister. Die ignatianischen Exerzitien in der Deutung von E. Przywara, K. Rahner und G. Fessard, Innsbruck-Wien 19872. SUMMA, G., Geistliche Unterscheidung bei Johannes Cassian, Würzburg 1992. TONER, J., Discerning God’s Will. Ignatius of Loyola’s Teaching on Christian Decision Making, St. Louis 1991. TONER, J., Spirit of Light or Darkness? A Casebook of Studying Discernment of Spirit, St. Louis 1995. VELEMA, J., Wat zit erachter? Onderscheiding der geesten, Amsterdam 1995. VILLEGAS, D., A Comparison of Catharine of Siena’s and Ignatius of Loyola’s Teaching on Discernment, New York 1986. WINK, W., Engaging the Powers. Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Minneapolis (MN) 1992.

CHAPTER 5 A DESIGN FOR THE DISCIPLINE OF SPIRITUALITY INTRODUCTION 517 The discipline called “spirituality” is designed in stages. First, it is situated in an epistemological setting. Next, a choice is made on the level of a scientific approach. Finally, the main lines of the research are plotted, proceeding from the starting point of discernment (diakrisis). 5.1. SITUATING THE DISCIPLINE EPISTEMOLOGICALLY 518 If we follow Aristotle’s teaching, the area of spirituality is found in the domain of human action (praxis), to which the cognitive form of practical wisdom (phronèsis) corresponds, a form which structurally agrees with discernment (diakrisis). 5.1.1. Two basic forms of knowing 518 5.1.2. Practical wisdom 523 5.2. DEFINING A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH 535 Among contemporary scientific approaches, phenomenology – by virtue of its interest in the structure of experience – and dialogic thinking – by virtue of its orientation to the transformative effect of Alterity – provide the cognitive forms which together harmonize best with the basic structure of practical wisdom (phronèsis). 5.2.1. Phenomenology 536 5.2.2. Dialogic thinking 548 5.3. A METHODOLOGICAL DESIGN 563 In keeping with the blueprint of discernment (diakrisis) and practical wisdom (phronèsis), research in spirituality unfolds in four directions: descriptive research in which the forms of spirituality are described and analyzed; hermeneutic research, which interprets spiritual texts; systematic research which reflects on the thematics of spirituality; mystagogic research in which the mainlines of the spiritual journey are elucidated. 5.3.1. Form-descriptive research 566 5.3.2. Hermeneutic research 572 5.3.3. Systematic research 578 5.3.4. Mystagogic research 584 Bibliography 589

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Introduction In the previous chapter we dealt with discernment (diakrisis), a form of ritual reflection within lived spirituality which we consider a blueprint for the methodology of the study of spirituality. We want to show this in a series of steps. 1. The first step occurs on the level of epistemology. We ask ourselves in which domain of knowledge spirituality belongs. For an answer to this question we will look in Aristotle, the founder of Western epistemology. In his Nicomachean Ethics he makes a distinction between two forms of knowing: the kind of knowing (epistèmè) which brings out the necessary and unchangeable features of mathematical and geometric objects, and the practical wisdom (phronèsis) which provides well-considered insight into human action (praxis), which is contingent and unpredictable. It is clear that spirituality belongs in the cognitive domain of practical wisdom (phronèsis). From our research it will be clear that discernment (diakrisis) agrees structurally with practical wisdom (phronèsis) a basic category, which is rooted in Greek thought.1 2. The second step occurs on the level of the scientific approach and is selective in character. We ask ourselves in which contemporary scientific approach the cognitive domain of practical wisdom, which yields insight into human praxis, comes most appropriately to expression. By a “scientific approach” we mean a certain style of doing science, one that is guided by insights which carry over into several disciplines. There is, for example, the structuralist approach, positivism, dialectic thinking, pragmatism, phenomenology, dialogic thinking, semiotics, and so forth. The approach we are seeking must do justice to the essence of phronèsis; that is to say, it must be directed to experience (we are thinking, after all, of concrete processes of transformation) and at the same time be oriented to the essence of the divine-human encounter (contemplation). We see these two requirements fulfilled in the combination of phenomenology and dialogic thinking, a twofold unity which took paradigmatic shape in the thinking of Emmanuel Levinas. 3. The third step occurs on the level of the disciplines and has the character of a design. Within the approach chosen we will design a methodological trajectory which articulates itself, in accordance with diakrisis and phronèsis, in four mutually coherent lines of research: descriptive, hermeneutic, systematic and mystagogic spirituality research. 1 D. Lories, Le sens commun et le jugement du phronimos. Aristote et les stoïciens, Louvain-la Neuve 1998.

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5.1. Situating the Discipline Epistemologically The basic epistemological question is: to which cognitive domain does the study of spirituality belong? For an answer to this question we will consult Aristotle, the founder of Western epistemology. In the sixth book of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes five properties, “by virtue of which the soul attains to truth by way of affirmation or denial: professional insight (technè), scientific knowledge (epistèmè), practical wisdom (phronèsis), wisdom (sophia) and intuitive spiritual insight (nous).”2 On first hearing them, we experience these five properties as arbitrary and disconnected. Upon closer scrutiny, however, we find they are mutually coherent. Scientific insight (that, say, of the mathematician) is rooted, via philosophical wisdom, in the spiritual insight of contemplation and, conversely, the sage gifted with spiritual insight perceives the patterned character of concrete phenomena. Scientific knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual insight, accordingly, form a coherent series. The same is true for the professional insight of the expert and the practical insight of the person of practical wisdom. These, too, are rooted in the spiritual insight of contemplation: spiritual insight constitutes “the eye of experience”3 in the mind of the practically intelligent. There are therefore two cognitive forms: scientific knowledge-wisdom-spiritual insight and professional insightpractical wisdom-spiritual insight. Their connectedness derives from the contemplation (theoria) of the spiritual eye (nous). The difference between them derives from the object to which they are directed: the permanent underlying structures of reality or the inconstancy of human life. We will first take a closer look at these two basic forms of knowing and their respective objects. Next we will concentrate on practical wisdom or prudence (phronèsis), the cognitive form which relates to human behavior (praxis), to which the field of spirituality belongs. 5.1.1. TWO BASIC FORMS OF KNOWING Cognitive forms are human attitudes “by which we arrive at truth and can never be mistaken about things invariable or even variable.”4 Aristotle distinguishes between two kinds of objects: the reality which presents itself as governed-by2 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI 3, 1139b 15-18. The numbers before the comma follow the text edition of I. Bywater: Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, Oxford 1959. The numbers after the comma refer to the edition of I. Becker: Aristotle, Aristotelis opera, Berlin 1831. 3 Ibid., VI 12, 1143b 10-15. 4 Ibid., VI 6, 1141a 1-5.

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law and in which necessary coherences come to light (geometry, mathematics), and the reality which presents itself as changeable and in which we discover possibilities (production, human behavior). These two kinds of reality are perceived by different regions of our consciousness. Each calls for a distinctive approach, since the method follows the object. 1. Difference in object All cognitive forms agree in that they are forms of truth-finding (alètheuein). But because the areas of reality to which they relate are different, also the forms of truth-finding differ. Among cognitive forms we can distinguish two basic ones. The first form of knowing concerns things which can only be so and not otherwise (the necessary kind). Aristotle calls this form of knowing scientific knowledge (epistèmè): “The object of scientific knowledge is based on necessity. It is eternal. For all things that are absolutely necessary are eternal. And that which is eternal is ungenerated and immutable.”5 The incontrovertible firmness of truths is discovered in concrete states of affairs6 and is tested and further developed in demonstration (syllogism).7 Aristotle is here thinking of geometry and mathematics. In order to arrive at knowledge in these areas one must strip away (aphrairèsis = abstraction) the variables (color, smell, sound, and the like). Then what is left corresponds to what is necessarily so, concretely speaking: quantity and continuity. Our knowledge is not bound to the impressions of perception but can, by means of abstraction, arrive at what is constant in these variables. This capacity for abstraction is guided by the intuitive spiritual insight (nous) which enables us to discover the essential in a changeable and differentiated world. Scientific knowledge (epistèmè) discovers that which is necessarily so in that which is accidentally so. This activity is allied with wisdom (sophia), the vital link between scientific knowledge and spiritual insight: “Therefore wisdom must be spiritual insight combined with scientific knowledge and, as head of the sciences, possess the highest objects.”8 Wisdom mediates between scientific insight and spiritual insight: “From what has been said it plainly follows that philosophic wisdom is both scientific knowledge of and spiritual insight into the things that are the highest by nature.”9 The reality of human praxis – the making of things, human conduct, the dynamics of striving, and the attainment of goals – displays another structure.10 5

Ibid., VI 3, 1139b 20-25. Ibid., VI 3, 1139b 14-36. 7 Ibid., VI 5, 1140a 30-35. 8 Ibid., VI 7, 1141a 18-20. 9 Ibid., VI 7, 1141b 2-3. 10 Ibid., I 1-2, 1094b 11-1095b 13. 6

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This reality is marked by ambiguities. Concerning the question what is morally correct and what just acts are, for example, there exists so much difference of opinion that that which is constant is mere convention. Here, therefore, one cannot speak of something that is really so by nature. The same is true for the extremely important notion of happiness (eudaimonia). Although everyone uses the same word, happiness for one person consists in pleasure, riches, and honor; for another in health and knowledge; for still another in a contemplative life. Even during the lifetime of just one person the content of happiness strongly varies.11 Praxis is a phenomenon in which that which is constant is hard to discover. Add to this that human praxis is ambiguous: one and the same behavior can be dictated by habit, by coercion from without, or by inner conviction. However, the most important reason why this area of reality eludes the strategy of abstraction practiced by mathematicians and geometrists lies in the fact that praxis is intrinsically aimed at the realization of the possible and not at the determination of the necessary. “Both things made and things done belong in the area of what can happen thus as well as otherwise.”12 Truth-finding in the sphere of human practice is connected with the incidental, concrete situation. Aristotle calls this situation “the concrete and the ultimate”: that behind which we cannot reach further.13 It is the concrete elements in every situation which must be brought to their ultimate end by being mutually attuned to each other. Once a concrete situation has been brought to its proper end by human effort, then the action has reached its goal: a concrete good has emerged. The ultimate good, which sustains all good actions, is happiness.14 The bow of human action is therefore stretched between the most utterly concrete situation in which one finds oneself and the realization of one’s happiness. Just as in the case of the realization of scientific knowledge and wisdom, so also here it is spiritual insight (nous) which embraces both poles. “Now all things which belong to praxis belong to concrete and ultimate elements; a person of practical wisdom must know them. Judgment and understanding are concerned with action, with these ultimate elements. Also spiritual insight pertains to the ultimate elements and that in two directions. After all, both the first principles and the ultimate elements belong to spiritual insight, and not to mutual attunement.”15 Just as in the case of scientific knowledge, spiritual insight is the first and the last. But unlike scientific knowledge, the highest principle is not discovered by 11

Ibid., I 2, 1095a 14-28. Ibid., VI 4, 1140a 1-2. 13 Ibid., VI 12, 1143a 29. 14 Ibid., I 2, 1095a 14-1095b, 13. 15 Ibid., VI 12, 1143a 32-1143b 1. 12

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abstraction from concrete things; rather, concrete experience is transformed in the direction of the end (the good, virtue, happiness) that is the transformative principle of this transformation. Not the mutual attunement of the elements (logos) is the transforming agent, but spiritual insight, which knows of the first principles of the action: the end, the good, virtue, and happiness. Spiritual insight, looking at concrete reality, reads the formative possibility of these principles. “They are the principles from which the end is inferred, or the universal springs from the particular. This particularity must be grasped by perception, and precisely that perception is spiritual insight.”16 Just as wisdom (sophia) mediates the workings of spiritual insight in the direction of scientific knowledge, so practical wisdom (phronèsis) does this in the case of human action: practical intelligence assesses the concrete possibilities, permeates the human pursuit of the aimed-for good and attunes to each other the different factors involved. To that end it weighs and calculates its chances. It shuttles back and forth between the good end and the possibilities inherent in the situation. It directs the pursuit, makes it inwardly lucid, so that, like a clear eye, it sees and utilizes the possibilities. “If, then, the person of practical wisdom deliberates well, this excellent deliberation will correctly relate to each other the things that conduce to the end of which the person of practical wisdom has a true idea.”17 We observe here how practical wisdom operationalizes spiritual insight: practical intelligence has a realistic idea of the end which it discerns as possibility in the concrete situation and by good inner deliberation it makes every effort to insure that this end may also be really attained by the action. 2. Two types of investigation At the very outset, in the first book of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle refers to the two styles of investigation which are the result of the above difference in object: “We shall have to be satisfied with the degree of precision that fits the subject-matter in question.”18 The method follows the object. This twofold unity, which is constitutive for all truth-finding, determines the nature and degree of precision. “One may not expect the same kind of precision from all kinds of investigation any more than when it concerns the products of the crafts.”19 If we want to investigate how people conduct themselves, what motivates them, which routes they follow in that connection, we immediately come upon differences in interpretation. What seems totally self-evident to one person and

16

Ibid., VI 12, 1143b 4-5. Ibid., VI 10, 1142b 31-33. 18 Ibid., I 1, 1094b 11-12. 19 Ibid., I 1, 1094b 13-14. 17

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seems to flow directly from the nature of the subject-matter itself, seems a convention in the eyes of another. What is inherently good to one person is doubted by another, because he or she looks at the consequences. Because we are speaking of this kind of subject and under these terms, we must be content with a rough and sketchy presentation of the truth. For when we speak of things as they usually present themselves and are based on such premises, we must assume that the conclusions have this same character. In that same spirit, therefore, my readers should receive also my statements. For it is the mark of a well-educated person to look only for such precision as fits the nature of the subject. The reverse is also true: it would be foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand compelling proofs from a rhetorician.20

The type of investigation carries over into the result of the investigation: its form, the degree of its precision and certainty. To Aristotle it is very important that we constantly bear this in mind. This must be agreed upon beforehand: any investigation of human conduct can only sketch the contours, and does not take place with mathematical precision. As we said at the very outset, the investigation must focus on the subject-matter. Matters concerned with human conduct and interests have no fixed patterns, any more than matters of health. While this applies already to the treatment of general insights, things only get really difficult in concrete situations where nothing can be laid down with exactness. Neither scientific knowledge nor general recommendations are helpful here but the acting person must in each case consider what is appropriate to the situation, as happens also in the case of a medical doctor or a navigator. But though the present investigation is of this nature we will nevertheless try to bring it to a good conclusion.21

The nature of the investigation does not only carry over into the kind of results it obtains but also presupposes a certain disposition. Aristotle distinguishes two parts in human rationality. “With the one part we consider those things in reality whose first principles cannot be otherwise [the invariable]; with the other part we study the things which can be otherwise [the variable].”22 The first aspect is suited for knowing (epistemonikon), the other for adjustment (logistikon). Such adjustment occurs by deliberation and calculation: “No one deliberates about the invariable.”23 The ability to relate things to each other is inherent in the part of

20 Ibid., I 1, 1094b 19-27. (Note: In translating some of these Dutch renderings of Aristotle, I lean more or less heavily on the work of W.D. Ross, translator of the Nichomachean Ethics, in: The Basic Works of Aristotle, New York 1948, 1935-1112. Tr.) 21 Ibid., II 2, 1103b – 1104a 11. 22 Ibid., VI 2, 1139a 6-8. 23 Ibid., VI 2, 1139a 13-14.

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the soul which has that mutual connectedness (logos) in it.24 Both forms of truth-finding have their own proper attitude (hexis). A factor which weighs heavily in this connection is experience. People without experience, though they can master geometry and mathematics and can become wise in these disciplines, cannot yet have practical wisdom. “The reason is that practical wisdom (phronèsis) concerns concrete situations and one becomes familiar with concrete situations by experience. A young person, however, has no experience, for experience comes with the years.’25 Young people can rapidly learn mathematics, for mathematics is based on abstraction, which makes the universal principle visible, but “the first principles of these other subjects come from experience.”26 The point of departure for practical philosophy is experience. The latter is assessed; possibilities are discovered; strategies are developed and interrelated; all this is directed to an ultimate end on which the will is focused. A young person is not yet suited for this wisdom. “For he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life (praxis) but its discussions start from these and are about these. Moreover, since the young are inclined to follow their passions, their study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action.”27 Knowing how a process of experience, a process of choice, a process of calculation, and a process of realization works calls for a patient attitude of inquiry, which inwardly senses what assessment, understanding, deliberation, and circumspection is.

5.1.2. PRACTICAL WISDOM The area of spirituality clearly belongs epistemologically to the type of investigation that concerns human experience. Therefore we will now concentrate further on practical wisdom (phronèsis) and will discover that the basic structure of practical wisdom agrees in the main with that of discernment (diakrisis). Before looking further at the most important aspects of practical wisdom, we need to make two preliminary remarks. (1) It is important to bear in mind the tension that is inherent in spiritual insight: it is rooted on the one hand in the first principles, on the other in concrete experience. The practical insight of phronèsis embodies this tension. (2) Practical wisdom must be distinguished from expertise (techne), a form of rationality which leads to the manufacture of a product. The difference between the manufacture of a product and the performance 24

Ibid., VI 2, 1139a 14-15. Ibid., VI 9, 1142a 14-16. 26 Ibid., VI 9, 1142a 19. 27 Ibid., I 2, 1095a 3-6. 25

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of an act is that “production has an end other than itself, action does not, for good action itself is an end.”28 The making of a chair results in a chair; the action of seeing is fulfilled in seeing that which is seen. In the case of an action the performance of that action and the attainment of the end (thinking and the thought, seeing and that which is seen) coincide. Because making and action differ, the rationalities which illumine and accompany the two processes differ also. All [professional] skill concerns the origination of something. To make something with skill means to understand how something can originate in the area of what can be and not be. Its origin is in the maker and not in the thing made. We do not speak of skill in things that are or come into being by necessity, nor in things that do so in accordance with nature, for these have their origin in themselves. Since making and acting differ, skill has to be a matter of making, not of acting.29

In the case of action (praxis) its end is inherent in the action and “the principles of the action are inherent in the end of the action itself.”30 Practical wisdom allows itself to be guided by these principles: “Practical wisdom, then, must be a reasoned capacity to act with regard to human goods.”31 Of this practical wisdom we will now consider the most important aspects. 1. The highest good: happiness Before examining the various virtues (courage, moderation, generosity, and so forth), Aristotle first reflects on a number of basic notions which give to human praxis its inner logic: goodness, purpose, virtue and happiness. They are in a sense “the first principles” of human praxis. For one’s practice as such they are not very helpful. Vast knowledge of his state of health does not make a sick person better. Nevertheless an outline of the good, the purposeful, the virtuous and happiness is needed to serve as orientation for the action. The good. At the very outset, in the first sentence even, the Nicomachean Ethics divulges its basic orientation by orienting everything to the good (agathon): “Every skill and every methodical inquiry, similarly every action and every deliberate pursuit, is thought to be directed toward some good.”32 What is this good? Aristotle does not view the good as a universal idea which must then be concretized in the direction of practice.33 He views the good as a motive operative in all human practice: the specific end to which the action is directed.

28

Ibid., VI 5, 1140b 6-7. Ibid., V, 4, 1140a 10-17. 30 Ibid., VI 5, 1140b 16-17. 31 Ibid., VI 5, 1140b 21-21. 32 Ibid., I 1, 1094a 1-2. 33 Ibid., I 4, 1096a 11-1097a 14. 29

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The final end. The good is concretely operative in every practice as the final end (telos) toward which the action is directed: What then is the good of each? Surely that for whose sake everything else is done (…). Therefore, if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good that we pursue with our actions.”34 Now it is clear that there are always several ends which can be involved simultaneously. We must therefore learn to distinguish between the final end and the intermediate ends which are pursued for the sake of the final end. “The chief good is clearly the final end.”35 Happiness. The good as final end to which all actions are inwardly oriented is happiness (eudaimonia). The highest good that is pursued for its own sake and not for something else “is universally known as happiness.”36 This designation is formally correct, for all people “identify living well and doing well with being happy.”37 However, when this formal designation has been defined concretely, opinions diverge. For some happiness consists in pleasure, riches, or honor; for others it is knowledge or wisdom. For Aristotle the greatest happiness consists in the vision of God. Involved in this vision is not only the person by himself but also the immediate environment in which he lives and the society to which he belongs.38 This vision is caught up, both in breadth and in depth, in a process that concerns all the layers of one’s personality, as the structure of the Nicomachean Ethics shows. The question is: how do we acquire this happiness in our conduct?39 Virtue. The “good” and “happiness” are appropriated by the practice of virtue (aretè). By virtue Aristotle means excellence acquired through disposition (hexis). We may remark, then, that every form of soundness brings the possessor of it into a good condition which sees to it that this possessor functions well. The soundness of the eye, for example, makes both the eye and its functioning excellent, for through the soundness of the eye we see well. Similarly the soundness of a horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at braving the attack of the enemies. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the soundness of man will probably also be a disposition which makes a person good and makes him perform his function well.40

If we now try to define what that disposition, which approximates soundness, implies we find we are talking about a sustained practice which consistently 34

Ibid., I 5, 1097a 20-23. Ibid., I 5, 1097a 28. 36 Ibid., I 5, 1097a 34. 37 Ibid., I 2, 1095a 19-20. 38 Ibid., I 5, 1097b 11. 39 Ibid., I 10, 1099b 9-1100a 9. 40 Ibid., II 5, 1106a 15-24. 35

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holds to the mean between too much and too little: “Therefore virtue is a kind of mean because it is capable of striking the intermediate.”41 Virtue is the practice of an enduring disposition which consistently avoids the extremes of dysfunction and opts for the mean between extremes. This we learn by doing: “Men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts.”42 In this way Aristotle gives direction to our reflection on praxis: if that is to be happy, it must be directed toward the highest good, which actualizes the inherent excellence of the act and makes it enduring by repetition. Happiness is a quality which is actualized in action. Happiness, virtue, the good, and purposiveness, accordingly, are notions which take shape in life in a mutually coherent way. They can therefore best be read from concrete lives and forms of life: “People seem not without reason able to read the good and happiness from the different forms of life.”43 Aristotle distinguishes three basic forms: (a) the form which identifies happiness with pleasure; (b) the form which posits as central a person’s engagement in society and (c) the form which attaches most value to contemplation.44 From the way Aristotle describes these forms it is obvious that he assigns different values to them. He finds the life of pleasure vulgar, slavish, and animal-like. In his mind the social commitment is shallow, for it makes a person’s self-worth dependent on applause. Only the contemplative life endures the test of criticism. This form of life, accordingly, constitutes the climax of his book. Precisely this attention to concrete forms of life for the purpose of telling from them what really is true happiness and the highest good makes Aristotelian practical wisdom (phronèsis), which embodies this attention, correspond to the mental attitude of the astute (phronimos) money-changers. Both phronèsis and diakrisis are aimed at discerning the path (life form) which most purely mediates the final end of human beings and how one must walk this path with one’s eyes fixed on the final end. 2. The eye of experience At issue here are not the first principles of the good and of happiness, purposiveness and virtue. These principles do not make life virtuous. It is enough for us to know about them in general, so that our actual inquiry has a sound orientation. What is pivotal is that practical wisdom, with the first principles in the back of its “mind,” looking at the concrete situation, discerns the possibilities in it and manages to orient everything rationally to the appropriate end. 41

Ibid., Ibid., 43 Ibid., 44 Ibid., 42

II 5, 1106b 27-28. II, 1, 1103a 33-1103b 2. I 3, 1095b 14-16. I 3, 1095b 14-1096a 10.

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“In all the dispositions we have mentioned there is a practical end (skopos) on which the rational man fixes his gaze, and in accordance with which he heightens or relaxes his activity, and which furnishes a demarcation of the mean which, rationally speaking, lies between excess and defect.”45 Practical wisdom, illumined by the first principles, discerns in the concrete situation a sound path, one which leads to an attainable goal and is passable in a rhythm of intensification and relaxation, alertly seeking the mean which, with the proper use of rational thinking, demarcates itself between the extremes. In order to read a situation in that manner one must have “the eye of experience.”46 How does this eye function? The main thing is that practical wisdom focuses on the irreducibly concrete: “Now all things which have to do with practice (prattein) are included in irreducibly elementary particularity. The person of practical wisdom must know them. What matters above all is to understand and grasp the object of the action, the irreducibly elementary particularity.”47 Concretely, we are speaking of one’s personal life, the household, and life in society: “Practical wisdom is identified especially with [that form of it which concerns] the person, the individual. But practical wisdom is the name which all forms of practical insight have in common. Other forms of it are: household management, legislation, and politics.”48 These aspects all belong together, “for one cannot manage one’s own affairs well without household management or without a form of government.”49 Practical wisdom seeks to interpret a situation. This aspect of practical wisdom is called “understanding” (sunesis). “It has the same object as practical wisdom but is not identical with it. For practical wisdom issues directions. Its end is to say what people must do or not do. But understanding only judges. Understanding is identical with goodness of understanding.”50 To have a good understanding of a situation is the hermeneutic component in practical wisdom.51 With an eye to this understanding practical wisdom, being in contact with “irreducibly elementary particularity,”52 develops tact, judiciousness, and circumspection. Practical wisdom accomplishes the interpretation of a situation by intuitive spiritual insight. At first blush practical wisdom seems opposed to spiritual insight: “It is opposed, then, to spiritual insight; for spiritual insight pertains to

45

Ibid. IV 1, 1138b 21-25. Ibid., VI 12, 1143b 13-14. 47 Ibid., VI 12, 1143a 32-35. 48 Ibid., VI 8, 1141b 29-32. 49 Ibid., VI 8, 1142a 9-10. 50 Ibid., VI 11, 1143a 7-10. 51 Ibid., VI 11, 1143a 11-18. 52 Ibid., VI 12, 1143a 28-29. 46

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the definitions for which no reason can be given while practical wisdom is concerned with irreducible particularity which is the object not of scientific knowledge but of perception.”53 This is only true, however, if we consider spiritual insight as it functions in scientific knowledge. That same intuitive reason, however, also functions but functions differently in practical wisdom. In practical wisdom, spiritual insight, functioning in the universal (the good, the end, virtue, happiness), is the one pole of which the other pole is the irreducibly particular and concrete. Practical wisdom participates in this polar tension: “Nor is practical wisdom concerned with universals only – it must also recognize the particulars, for it is practical and practice is concerned with particulars.”54 If one knows that easily digestible meat is wholesome but does not know which kinds of meat are easily digestible, one cannot help a sick person. Both are needed: practical wisdom which shares in spiritual insight and practical wisdom which is judicious in relation to concrete particulars. It is precisely through the union of the two that a way lights up into the concrete situation: “Now practical wisdom is concerned with action and must therefore embrace both forms of knowledge.”55 As we saw earlier: “spiritual insight is concerned with the irreducibly elementary in two directions; for both the first principles and the irreducibly particular are the objects of spiritual insight.”56 The area of praxis is opened up by reasoning (syllogism) as much as the area of scientific knowledge: the major premise of practice is the intuition of the good; the minor [premise] is the concrete person in a particular situation. The movement of practical reason is to discover and develop the major premise of the good in the minor [premise] of concrete life. This process of discovery stems from intuitive insight. “The universals are reached from the particulars. Of these concrete particulars we must have perception and this perception is the eye of spiritual insight.”57 Mere perception of a situation does not see anything: it discovers no possibilities, does not discern the good, sees no purposiveness in it, does not envision the happiness in it, sees no development in the right direction. To discern creatively the happiness inherent in the irreducibly concrete we need experience. Without it we do not see it. Only older people have it: “because they have the eyes of experience they see aright.”58 Practical wisdom is a hermeneutic praxis in which perception and insight work together to discern, in a liberating way, the potential for happiness in the

53

Ibid., VI Ibid., VI 55 Ibid., VI 56 Ibid., VI 57 Ibid., VI 58 Ibid., VI 54

9, 1142a 25-27. 8, 1141b 14-16. 8, 1141b 21-22. 12, 1143a 35-1143b 3. 12, 1143b 4-5. 12, 1143b 13-14.

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irreducibly concrete situation. The concrete situation is interpreted in the light of contemplative insight. Now then: this was precisely the second aspect we discovered in the discernment of the “wise” money changers: they look at the golden coin to see whether it expresses the image of the king or the effigy of the tyrant. Cassian clarified this point by reference to the reading praxis of the Scriptures: in the praxis of reading does it bring out liberating power or is the text reduced to a suffocating burden? 3. The well-considered mean We have now studied two aspects of practical wisdom: on the one hand, it shares in the intuitive insight that has an image of the good; on the other, it is familiar with the experience in which it envisions the possibilities of the good. The third aspect concerns the specific work of practical wisdom: to mediate the possibilities envisioned in the direction of the good. “Virtue determines the end we set for ourselves; practical wisdom prompts us to do what is needed to reach that end.”59 Practical wisdom mediates virtue, “for virtue makes us aim at the right practical target, but practical wisdom sees to it that the road to that end is the right one.”60 In this mediation two things are important: sound deliberation and a correct determination of the mean between excess and defect. Sound deliberation. One who wishes to act virtuously must be capable of conducting sound deliberation with himself or herself. One must be able to weigh and ponder things well. “Practical wisdom is concerned with things human and things which require deliberation; for we say it is above all the work of a man of practical wisdom to deliberate well.”61 A person who deliberates can make mistakes in two directions: “One can err in things universal or in things particular.”62 For example: one may not know that a certain kind of food is harmful to one’s health or one may not know that a particular kind of food belongs to the category of harmful foods. Sound deliberation must inform itself in both directions and calculate the interconnections: “Sound deliberation is a kind of deliberation and he who deliberates inquires and calculates.”63 Both components are important. To deliberate is to inquire and to delve into, based on judiciousness, empathy, and understanding. One who acts without reflection does not deliberate. Deliberation takes time. But deliberation is more. The search is aimed at

59

Ibid., VI 13, 1144b 5-6. Ibid., VI 13, 1144a 7-9. 61 Ibid., VI 8, 1141b 8-10. 62 Ibid. VI 9, 1142a 21-22. 63 Ibid., VI 10, 1142b 1-2. 60

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correctness, real correspondence, right reason, pure relations. “Excellence in deliberation is a form of correct deliberation.”64 And correctness here means: “the correctness by which we attain something good.”65 Excellence in deliberation which is determinative for the aspect of practical wisdom we are discussing is characterized by a constant search for correctness in action. This correctness requires reasoning (logizomai), i.e. a search for the right relation (logos), the correct interrelation (orthos logos). Indeed, we can say: “Deliberation and calculation are the same thing.”66 For a well-considered choice to be sound, “the reasoning (logos) must be true and the desire right (orthos). The latter must pursue just what the former recommends.”67 Deliberation searches for the true logic of the situation and invites the desire to adjust itself accordingly. One form of correctness and logic is crucial: the correct mean between the extremes of excess and defect. The correct mean. Practical wisdom constantly and by reasoning seeks out the correct mean.68 Aristotle defines the correct mean in relation to soundness as follows: “Virtue, then, is a form of conduct, sustained by a well-considered choice that is grounded in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, a mean determined by a rational relation (logos) and in such a way that the mean of practical wisdom determines it.” 69 All the elements listed here are important. (1) We are speaking of a mean in relation to the acting agent. We are not concerned to determine the center of a circle, nor are we concerned to roughly indicate an average, for what is too much for one can be too little for another. (2) The mean is established by proportional reasoning. The man of practical wisdom examines the relations, examines whether the excess and defect are really the extremes which indicate a mean that is farthest removed from the unsoundness of the extremes: he tries, in short, to fathom the logic of the will, the desires, the situation and the context in order by that process to determine “the definition of those means which according to the right proportion (orthos logos) lie between excess and defect.”70 The mean is not objectively fixed but must always be determined by weighing the proportions. That is the very definition of what the mean is: “The mean is determined by the dictates of the right rule (orthos logos).”71 (3) This determination can only be made by the man of practical wisdom himself. Because the search for the mean is inherent in the act only the acting person himself can be the determining (i.e. the reasoning and deliberating) agent. 64

Ibid., VI 10, 1142b 16. Ibid., VI 10, 1142b 21-22. 66 Ibid., VI 2, 1139a 12-13. 67 Ibid., VI 2, 1139a 23-26. 68 Large parts of Book II are devoted to this subject. 69 Ibid., II 6, 1106b 36-1107a 2. 70 Ibid., VI 1, 1138b 23-25. 71 Ibid., VI 1, 1138b 19-20. 65

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The person of practical wisdom seeks by deliberation the mean that is determined by the right proportion. This structure evokes the third aspect of the “prudent” money-changer: discerning in what mint the coin was struck. This image refers to a form of deliberation in which the center of the community and the accentuation of the mean between extremes work together to determine the shape of the monastic life. 4. Contemplation as the highest virtue Soundness, operating through practical wisdom, continually takes account of the right proportion which seeks the mean between excess and defect. This leads to the conclusion: “Virtue in the strict sense cannot exist without practical wisdom.”72 Virtue is not only a certain disposition (hexis); it is more than that: it is “a disposition which is in accordance with the right rule; now the right rule is that which is in accordance with practical wisdom. Hence everything indicates that virtue is a disposition which is in accordance with practical wisdom.”73 The circle seems complete. But Aristotle, having come to the end of his observations, unexpectedly breaks the circle open again: We have to go a step further. Not merely the disposition which is in accordance with the right rule but the disposition which moves along with the right rule is virtue. The right rule in this mater, however, is practical wisdom.”74 In saying this Aristotle illumines a final aspect of practical wisdom: practical wisdom insofar as it, as an inner light, accompanies the action. It therefore does not only furnish the correct proportionality of the mean as a wellconsidered logic to which the action must conform but it also sees to it that this rationality becomes an integral part of the action so that it illumines it from within. Genuine soundness is a disposition which knows from within why it acts as it acts: “Virtue is inwardly accompanied by rational insight.”75 One therefore cannot be virtuous in the strict sense without practical wisdom.76 Once a person possesses this practical wisdom, it permeates all the virtues and comes to fulfillment precisely as practical wisdom, “for with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, one will possess all the virtues.”77 Practical wisdom that has been interiorized in action illumines from within the practice of virtue and leads it to its final end. To fulfill this

72

Ibid., VI 13, 1144b 16-17. Ibid., VI 13, 1144b 22-25. 74 Ibid., VI 13, 1144b 26-28. 75 Ibid., VI 13, 1144b 30. 76 Ibid., VI 13, 1144b 30-32. 77 Ibid., VI 13, 1145a 1-2. 73

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role it need not even any longer be the directing force of action: “Even if practical wisdom were of no practical value, we would obviously still need it because it is the virtue of a part of our mind.”78 Practical wisdom, not only effects the soundness of our action but is soundness itself, actualizing its own soundness. We can approach what this means from still another direction. “Why is practical wisdom really necessary?” Aristotle asks himself. “Practical wisdom after all concerns things just, morally right and good, but these are precisely the things which are characteristic of a good man. Knowledge of these things in no way enables us to do these things, at least if the virtues are dispositions (hexeis).”79 Medical knowledge does not make one healthy and knowledge of the body does not make one a sports star. “If, however, we should have to say that a person should have practical wisdom not for the sake of knowing moral truths but for the sake of becoming good, practical wisdom will be of absolutely no use to those who are good.”80 It would be sufficient to act as we do, just as in the case of health: though we wish to become healthy, yet we do not study medicine. Aristotle does not agree with this line of reasoning. Practical wisdom is at bottom more than intellectual excellence. It has something of what characterizes wisdom: also wisdom (like practical wisdom) is a virtue, but not a virtue which produces soundness (for knowledge is not a virtue). Then what is its soundness? Its soundness does not consist in producing something, “not as the art of medicine produces health, but as health produces health, so wisdom produces happiness.”81 At first blush this answer seems strange. Upon closer scrutiny, however, Aristotle gives us an important insight: practical wisdom not only effects something in the virtues (causa efficiens) but also something in itself (causa formalis). Practical wisdom is the kind of intelligence that renews itself inwardly, lives and moves within itself. This is precisely the point at which practical wisdom shares in intuitive insight, exactly like the wisdom which not only knows how knowledge is derived from first principles but also possesses spiritual insight into those principles themselves. Thus practical wisdom not only changes the actions into virtues but shares in the very operation of the spiritual insight that is divine. Just as practical wisdom transforms virtue into actual virtue so that it has a soul, so practical wisdom itself is inwardly transformed into intuitive insight which not only contemplates the divine working of it but shares in it. This contemplation (theoria) is the perfect act (energeia) in which action (praxis) flourishes.82 78

Ibid., VI 13, 1145a 2-4. Ibid., VI 13, 1143b 21-25. 80 Ibid., VI 13, 1143b 28-29. 81 Ibid., VI 13, 1144a 4-5. 82 Ibid., VIII 5, 1157a 26-34; IX 9, 1170a 11-1170b 19. 79

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This is the reason why, according to the Nicomachean Ethics, the highest good, the highest virtue, the highest happiness and the final end of human life consists in contemplation, “the realization of intuitive spiritual insight.”83 This applies above all to the practical wisdom which not only permeates the concrete situation and the practice of virtue with intuitive insight but also shares in this intuitive insight which is operative in contemplation and is for that reason the virtue of virtues. If happiness is a praxis in accordance with virtue, then the greatest happiness will be action in accordance with the virtue of the best thing in us. This is the insight of intuitive reason which either “has insight into things beautiful and divine or is itself divine or the most divine element in us.”84 The activity of the divine in us is the highest happiness. But such a life is higher than is fitting for humans as humans. For it is not insofar as he is a man that he will live so, but insofar as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of all other kinds of virtue. If in comparison to humans intuitive spiritual insight is something divine, then life in keeping with this intuitive spiritual insight is divine in comparison to human life.85

To participate in God – in contemplation, in the actualization of intuitive spiritual insight, and in the inner life of practical wisdom – is the highest happiness and actualizes human nature. Certainly people will agree that every man thus truly actualizes his personhood, for this is the essential and best part. It would be strange, then, if we were to choose not our own life but that of another. And what we said above also applies here: that which is by nature proper to each thing, is best and most pleasant for that thing. For humans, therefore, that is a life in accordance with intuitive spiritual insight, because this more than anything else is a human being. This life, accordingly, is the happiest.86

The fourth aspect of practical wisdom consists in knowledge of the highest happiness in the contemplation of God. The act of contemplation is the most sublime act, the highest happiness (eudaimonia).87 It is eternal and divine;88 it is superior to life.89

83

Ibid., X 7, 1177b 19. Ibid., X 7, 1177a 15-16. 85 Ibid., X 7, 1177b 26-31. 86 Ibid., X 7, 1178a 1-8. 87 Ibid., I 2, 1095a 21; 1177a 13. 88 Ibid., X 8, 1178b 7-24. 89 Ibid., X 7, 1177b 26-29. 84

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Intuitive spiritual insight finds its proper culmination in contemplation which unites human rationality with divine truth. Against the background of this perspective the way of man appears as a process of growth toward perfection (telos). This aspect corresponds to the fourth aspect of diakrisis: the astute money changer knows the weight of the full coin against the background of which he sees what is lacking (wear, fragmentation, holes). Diakrisis knows the final end (telos) of man and the practical objectives (skopos) which aid man in reaching this end. This mediation takes place in purity of heart (puritas cordis) which brings to completion that which is humanly possible and surrenders it to the divinely possible which effects the final end of contemplation.

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5.2. Defining a Scientific Approach We have now taken the first step on the road to a methodological design of the discipline of spirituality: the discipline must be epistemologically situated within the cognitive domain which reflects on human praxis. The scientific form of knowledge best suited for this reflection is practical wisdom (phronesis) which corresponds structurally to discernment (diakrisis). This practical wisdom is polar in structure: on the one hand, it observes the concrete situation; on the other, it shares in the contemplation which has insight into the highest good, the final end of man. If now, as the second step on the road to a methodological design for the study of spirituality, we look for the scientific approach which most correctly interprets practical wisdom, we must above all secure its polar structure. It has to be an approach which is focused, on the one hand, on the concreteness of experience but is directed, on the other, toward contemplation, the inworking of the divine upon the human. We believe we have found this approach in the combination of phenomenology and dialogic thinking. Phenomenology is above all a method of working, a “working philosophy”90 that is focused on experience and on the internal examination of experience. Dialogic thinking, on the other hand, posits the primacy of alterity: that which is other, the other, and the Other from within their own logos shape the logic of man and becomes recognizable in the transformation of this logic.91 Both approaches are inherently suited to each other, as is evident from their respective histories. As it concerns phenomenology one can point to the concept of intersubjectivity in Husserl and the emphathetic understanding in Stein, the experience of strangeness and the sense of oneness with the other in Scheler, the phenomenology of encounter in Buytendijk, the role of Mitsein (being-with) in Heidegger and the communicative character of reality in Van Peursen.92 As it concerns the dialogicians, one can point to the phenomenological analyses of trust in Rosenzweig, of the neighbor in Cohen, of the Zwischen (the in-between) in Buber, of the Gegenwart (the present) in Grisebach, of the word in Ebner and Rosenstock-Huessey, of the encounter in Marcel.93 90 E. Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie (Hua VI), The Hague 1954, 439. 91 See J. Kirchberg, Theologie in der Anrede als Weg zur Verständigung zwischen Juden und Christen, Innsbruch-Wien 1991. 92 H. Schrey, Dialogisches Denken, Darmstadt 1983, 19-51. 93 Ibid., 52-91.

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The combination of phenomenology and dialogic thinking has taken paradigmatic shape in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. His thinking is situated at the point where phenomenology turns into dialogic thought.94 Our methodology is precisely focused on this turning point. 5.2.1. PHENOMENOLOGY Phenomenology sprang from radical doubt about the scientific starting points of the nineteenth century (rationalism, causality-thinking, deductive reasoning, and the like). The credo of phenomenology is: back to concreteness, the thing itself as it presents itself. The oeuvre of Edmund Husserl95 is one demonstration of it. It seems Husserl is all the time starting afresh, over and over looking for the thing itself and for the way in which this “thing” can be brought up for discussion with as little prejudice as possible. We can probably also reverse the order: over and over Husserl looks for methodological guidelines to bring “the thing itself” up for discussion, an immense exploratory enterprise in which the Einstellung (“attitude”) and die Sache selbst (“the thing itself ”) are continually related to each other. The term “phenomenology”96 is not Husserl’s own creation. It is a neologism from the eighteenth century with which scholars referred to the doctrine of phenomena.97 According to Husserl, phenomenology does not only encompass the phenomena but also the inner logic with which they appear. To him, phenomenology is “to bring the hidden logos out into the open – the truth.”98 We will offer a brief description of the phenomenological approach: how it takes experience as its point of departure; how from that starting point it looks methodically for the depth-structure of phenomena (“the thing itself ”) and how intersubjectivity appears at the margin of this search. 1. The structure of experience Phenomenology takes its point of departure from experience (Erlebnis), lived experience (expérience vécue), the everyday world in which we live (Lebenswelt), 94 E. Levinas, Meaning and Sense, in: Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings, (Ed. A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, & R. Bernasconi), Bloomington-Indianapolis 1996, 61. 95 E. Husserl, Gesammelte Werke. Husserliana (30 vols.), The Hague-Dordrecht 1950-1996. 96 Etymologically: the doctrine of phenomena, the doctrine which posits phenomena as central. The word “phenomenon” stems from the Greek phanomai: to manifest itself from within itself, to appear. 97 K. Schuhmann, Phänomenologie. Eine begriffsgeschichtliche Reflexion, in: Husserl Studies 1 (1984) no. 1, 31-68; E. Orth, Der Terminus Phänomenologie bei Kant und Lambert und seine Verbindbarkeit mit Husserls Phänomenologiebegriffe, in: Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 26 (1984), 231-249. 98 E. Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I), The Hague 1950, 38.

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which is characterized by a polar structure: in experience an experiencing consciousness and an experienced oriented are related to each other (Intentionalität). In this intentionality things in the world and human consciousness define themselves with respect to each other. Experience. The alpha and omega of a phenomenological approach is experience “where the final accessible sources of experience are situated.”99 As a rule our experiences are confined to everyday praxis. We pay no attention to them. Phenomenology brings experience to the fore, analyzes it, looks at it from various sides, tries to make its basic structure explicit. The goal is to see through an experience down to its essential structure. To be able to do this one has to break through the self-evident and ill-considered “surface” of it. This takes place by the application of phenomenological techniques which take one “to the thing itself.” We will consider this point in the following section. Intentionality. Experience has two poles: the pole of the experiencing subject (noesis) and the pole of the content of consciousness (noema). “The noema encompasses the intentional meaning-content which the intentional experience sets out to discover; noesis is the “animating” element, the meaning-bestowing moment in the intentional act.”100 The noetic-noematic correlation is a dynamic event. The same noematic content can present itself from different angles and the noetic consciousness can approach the same thing from several angles. For example, I can look at a table from the front, from the back and from the sides (noema). But I can also look at it, touch it, and smell it (noesis). The noetic focus is called Einstellung (attitude), the noematic content Abschattung (aspect, perspective, adumbration, profile). Phenomenology distinguishes four Einstellungen.101 (1) The perspective of the body: a building with many doorsteps feels different to a handicapped person than to an athlete. (2) The viewpoint of praxis: a forest looks different to a hiker than to a forest ranger. (3) The bias of a mood: am I fearful or, on the contrary, full of confidence? Do I feel secure or uprooted? (4) The historical perspective: we cannot detach ourselves from the time in which we are living. Thus a variety of divergent Einstellungen are possible, to which there is an equal number of corresponding Abschattungen. For spirituality the polarity between Abschattung (noema) and Einstelling (noesis) is of great importance. We only need to recall the different basic words,102 or to take a second look at the shifts in the study

99

K. Lembeck, Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994, 27. Ibid., 47. 101 W. Luijpen, Nieuwe inleiding tot de existentiële fenomenologie, Utrecht-Antwerpen 1969, 88100

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of spirituality,103 to be persuaded of the basic given of historical Einstellungen and the corresponding Abschattungen. The horizon of experience. Experience occurs within a horizon of experience. “Every experience has its core of actual and determinate cognition, its own content of immediate determinations which give themselves; but beyond this core of determinate quiddity of the truly given as ‘itself-there,’ it has its own horizon.”104 That which is a concrete given in experience is imbedded in a cogiven horizon of meanings which unfolds itself to the knowing subject. Husserl makes a distinction here between an internal and an external horizon. The internal horizon consists in the unfolding of ever-new aspects which, upon further consideration, a thing proves to contain within itself. When I see the front of a thing (and in a real sense I do not see more than that), I always “see” the back, the bottom and the top of it as well; I “see” that it has come into being and that it has the potential for becoming something else. In simply looking at a thing I therefore “see” a range of other facets as well. These facets do not unfold arbitrarily but “conform to modes and regular forms which correspond to the essence of the thing and are bound to a priori types.”105 A desk does not lay eggs that are hatched by a desk chair. The unfolding of the internal horizon is “predelineated in the universal sense of the thing perceived as such, respectively in the universal essence of the type of perception we call thing-perception.”106 Hence Husserl can say: “Horizons are predelineated potentialities.”107 Aside from an internal horizon, “a systematic multiplicity of all possible perceptual exhibitings (…) the thing has yet another horizon: besides this ‘internal horizon’ it has an ‘external horizon’ precisely as a thing within a field of things: and this points finally to the whole ‘world as perceptual world.’ The thing is one out of the total group of simultaneously actually perceived things.”108 Time-consciousness. Our lived experience is never merely a Now-experience but always a matter of retention and protention as well: “Consciousness is inconceivable without the co-awareness of the consciousness of the past and the preexpectation of future-consciousness.”109 Lived experience is always an experiential 103 104

Part 2, chapter 2.2 E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment. Investigations in a Genealogy of Logic, Evanston 1973,

32. 105

E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I (Hua III), The Hague 1950, 113. 106 Ibid., 100-101. 107 E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology, The Hague 1969, 45. 108 E. Husserl, The Crisis of European sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Evanston 1970, 162. 109 K. Lembeck, Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994, 54.

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stream.110 “Every lived experience is an ongoing movement in which something that was still there a moment ago is mediated by something that was originally given toward something that is expected.”111 That which is still present in experience from the past Husserl calls “retention” and that which is already present of what is to come he calls “protention.”112 “Continually the perceptual Now changes into the enduring consciousness of the Just-Past and simultaneously a new Now lights up, etc.”113 Time-consciousness has its origin at the point where these moments of experience engage one another in the stream of experience. Every moment of experience is originally the conjunction of past, present, and future. “The meaning of the Now-experience is owing to an experiential horizon and a corresponding horizon of expectation mediated as time.”114 The intentional experience occurs in a continual resumption of the past and a continual anticipation of the future in the present of experience. 2. Back to the things themselves What fascinates the phenomenologist is experience with all its implications. Experience, however, does not readily yield its truth. In the spontaneous world in which we live we are inclined to look at things exclusively from a limited number of positions. Certain interpretations are fixed in advance. We are not minded to suspend the judgments (“That’s how it is”) we have acquired. Furthermore, we have learned to look at things with the eyes of important others. As a result, the truth of experience remains covered by prejudices, talk, and opinions. If one wishes to come to the thing itself one must necessarily appropriate a phenomenological Einstellung. We will now describe the most important attitudes which characterize a phenomenological mode of working. Description. A description is not a rhetorical-intuitive portrayal of a state of affairs, nor a graphic representation of certain biological or linguistic phenomena, but the precise articulation of a certain mode in which something manifests itself (Abschattung) as it unfolds from a specific point of view (Einstellung).115 In our spontaneous descriptions we are as a rule locked into certain reading tracks. To arrive at a phenomenological description one must abstain (epochè) from this 110

Ibid., 53. Ibid., 59. 112 E. Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (Hua X), The Hague 1966, 26, 111

62. 113 E. Husserl, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy, The Hague 1983, 87. 114 K. Lembeck, Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994, 59. 115 E. Orth, Beschreibung in der Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls, in: E. Orth et al., Perspektiven und Probleme der Husserlschen Phänomenologie. Beiträge zur neueren Husserl-Forschung, Freiburg i.Br.-München 1991, 8-45.

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habit and seek an Einstellung from which a phenomenon can appear in a new way. Detaching oneself from an everyday Einstellung and acquiring an eye for a new Abschattung is achieved through a writing process. A certain way of looking (Sichtweise) and the reality structure associated with it are disentangled from their prejudices and fixations by writing. Via recognizable descriptions of experience (usually starting from sensory experience or the performance of intentional acts) the writer (and later the reader as well) is led to new points of view and insights. Description above all aims at bringing about changes in perspective (Einstellungswechsel). The purpose of the writing process is to return, via the detour (periagoge) of distancing oneself (Distanz), to the familiar experience in order to look at it with fresh eyes. Interpretation. In lived experience there is always an element of interpretation. We “see” a house when, strictly speaking, we merely observe a facade. We “see” a threatening thunderstorm when actually we only observe dark clouds on the horizon. What does a farmer, a romantic, or a weather forecaster “see” in those same clouds? When looking at a house, what does an architect, a homeless person, or a landlord “see”? It is certain that we are continually engaged in reading reality. At the core of this process is that we interpret something as something (clouds as a thunderstorm; a facade as a house; a house as a source of income, and so forth). This is the difference between description and interpretation: description seeks to put down in words that which discloses itself; interpretation interprets something as something. We are continually engaged in interpreting: we understand the stream of our experience as “I”; we refer to things around us as “world”; we interpret the other as “alter ego.” Hence we not only interpret texts but also ourselves, our situation, our past, the other. To Heidegger this interpretive moment was so important that he made it the very center of his phenomenological method. A phenomenon (phainomenon), he held, must be so interpreted that it no longer remains concealed under appearances but can show itself in its “disclosedness” (aletheia) as what it is in truth. This is a difficult assignment because “being” as “being” is continually being concealed by public opinion (das Gerede), the anonymous subject (das Man) and other forms of estrangement. It is the task of phenomenological interpretation to bring people to their original situatedness in the world where they have an authentic understanding of their situation and interpret it in the direction of a negotiable future. Following Dilthey’s teaching, Heidegger was convinced that life interprets itself.116 In ordinary life people attempt to read their actual situation: they open up possibilities and perceive where the situation “wants” to go. Sometimes a meaningful perspective opens up which calls for articulation. This readingand-interpretation tacitly executed by life itself – “without losing a word in the 116

M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Tübingen 1972, 148-160.

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process”117 – comes up in basic words (basic categories). In just one word these categories open up life possibilities, frame factuality in a meaningful perspective, and point a negotiable way into the future. Such basic words (categories) are “proclamation, discourse, kerygma.”118 We saw this above when we treated the area of spirituality: in an original way they interpret the divine-human relational process. The prescientific/scientific field of tension. According to Heidegger, existential hermeneutics moves between two extremes. The one extreme is the interpretation which occurs in praxis. In carpentry the hammer, the hand, the wood, the nails and the immediate environment are concretely (non-theoretically) interwoven. The hammer and the hand constitute a single whole within which they blindly sense each other’s purpose. In that connection the hammer is simply on hand (zuhanden). Only when I lay the hammer down and look at it, it becomes a thing that lies before me. It is now an object to me (vorhanden). Now I can make statements about it: “This hammer is heavy,” or: “this hammer is ugly.” This is the other extreme of existential hermeneutics: the interpretation which occurs theoretically. This tension in existential hermeneutics puts into words the perspective from within which phenomenology looks at the prescientific/scientific field of tension. It positions itself within this field of tension and views itself as mediating between the two poles. On the one hand, it seeks to lay bare the basic structure of prescientific experience in order to clarify it in the direction of the various empirical sciences. On the other hand, it seeks to illumine the empirical structures of the different sciences to show how prescientific experience lights up in them. This intermediate position implies three things. (1) Phenomenology is positively disposed toward prescientific experience. It aims to bring out into the open the prescientific life of consciousness as the source of all rationality which, at bottom, is “elucidated experience.”119 Its task is to open up, explore, and understand the nexus between the sources of experience (lived experience) and the various empirical fields studied by the sciences. This prescientific source of experience is not an a-historical supratemporal datum but constantly in motion. Science does not simply accommodate the dynamics of prescientific experience, as Alphonse de Waelhens has shown in La Philosophie et les expériences naturelles.120 There is a lively back-and-forth movement between prescientific and scientific dynamics in which the one ever seeks to dominate the other. As for the dominance of extrascientific interests, it has repeatedly been the

117

Ibid., 157. E. Levinas, Autrement qu’être ou au-delà l’essence, The Hague 1974, 125. 119 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, London 1962, 63. 120 A. de Waelhens, La philosophie et les expériences naturelles, The Hague 1961, 1-40. 118

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object of analysis. Critical scientific theories have shown that the natural sciences are involved in the industrial-military complex; the medical sciences are subject to the influence of health care industries; theologies are interwoven with faith communities; social sciences operate in the context of institutions. The reverse is also true: the scientific enterprise is directed by its own preoccupations. This has less frequently been the object of (self )critical reflection. However, those who undertake a serious study of such a – superlatively scientific – value as “objectivity” soon come to the conclusion that this value, which is differently defined by the various scientific traditions (empiricism, behaviorism, logical positivism, operationalism, critical rationalism, phenomenology, and so forth) betrays its own preferences.121 This similarly applies to such central scientific values as intersubjective control, validity, and rationality. (2) Within lived experience, the final point of reference for phenomenology as a science of experience, several regions of reality delineate themselves.122 “Thus, for example, the relation of an act of perception to that which is perceived is essentially different from the way in which a mathematical calculation relates to the ideal realm of numbers; and this form, in turn, is not comparable to the manner in which a work of art is esthetically experienced, and this, again, is not comparable to the way in which a moral assessment is executed.”123 Every region of reality has its own mode of perception in relation to the particular way in which a region of reality profiles itself.124 Husserl calls these different regions of reality “regions of being.” Regional ontology undertakes “research in the categories or frameworks of experience. As such it is simultaneously foundational research with respect to science and culture.”125 Corresponding to every region of being there is a particular type of perception and form of givenness in consciousness.126 “Grounded in the irreducible distinctness of each of these regions, says Husserl, is the legitimacy of differentiating scientific disciplines in general and of their classification in exemplary scientific groups.”127 (3) Phenomenology does not only seek to elucidate prescientific experience and to lay bare the empirical foundation of the scientific disciplines, but also to mediate between the two. It seeks to show how the two poles delineate themselves with respect to each other. Prescientific experience is 121 For an overview, see A. Smaling, Methodologische objectiviteit en kwalitatief onderzoek, Lisse 1977, 21-234. 122 K. Lembeck, Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994, 31. 123 Ibidem. 124 Ibid., 71. 125 Th. de Boer, Langs de gewesten van het zijn, Zoetermeer 1996, 7. 126 See E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie III (Hua V), The Hague 1952, 3, 12, 25; E. Husserl, Erste Philosophie II (Hua VIII), The Hague 1959, 321. 127 Th. de Boer, ibid., 7.

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foundational with respect to the regional sciences. It feeds and directs them. At the same time it seeks to show how prescientific experience appears in the multiplicity of scientific disciplines. Every science in its own way brings into view aspects of prescientific experience and casts a unique light on its logic. The eidetic reduction. The eidetic reduction128 is “a process in which one penetrates the concretely intuited phenomenon, making critical distinctions between eliminable, factual, and indispensable, essential characteristics.”129 The idea is “that in analyzing a phenomenon one seeks as it were to ‘look’ the essence of it ‘out of it.’”130 This cognitive procedure is in fact “the application and deepening of an essential feature of an human orientation to the world: that it distinguishes foregrounds and backgrounds, meaning and incidentals, important and unimportant matters; in short, that it takes positions and posits thematic centers of gravity.”131 Prescientific experience visualizes something, judges something, feels something, or imagines something and by that very fact abstains from considering the things that are excluded or suppressed. This is unavoidable. Also scientific research “takes its point of departure in a positive elementary experience in order then to subject this datum of experience to an operative, usually also idealizing, treatment.”132 Eidetic reduction, accordingly, is grounded in the human approach to reality as such and is basic to all scientific research. In eidetic reduction one can distinguish two moments: (1) distancing oneself from the natural Einstellung133 and (2) thinking in the direction of the thing itself that is part of the life-world.134 The first moment divests lived experience of its spontaneous claim that reality is “thus” and not otherwise. So-called factualities are bracketed, doubted, reduced to zero (reduction). A pronouncement about what a thing really is is suspended (epoche). This reduction and suspension of judgment is not meant to deny reality but rather to elucidate it from the bottom up and to induce it to speak for itself.135 The second moment, therefore, is an essential part of eidetic reduction: the discernment of the essence (ideation), seeing the thing itself in and through the various Abschattungen. We must always view this intuition of essence (within phenomenology) as an intentional occurrence. 128

C. van Peursen, Fenomenologie en werkelijkheid, Utrecht-Antwerpen 1967, 34-47; W. Luijpen, Nieuwe inleiding tot de existentiële fenomenologie, Utrecht-Antwerpen 1969, 151-152. 129 C. van Peursen, ibid., 37. 130 Ibid., 36. 131 K. Lembeck, Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994, 38. 132 Ibid., 139. 133 E. Husserl, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy (1st book), The Hague-Boston-Lancaster 1983, 57ff. 134 E. Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Evanston, 1970, 143ff. 135 K. Lembeck, ibid., 79, 102-103.

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In perception there exists a synthetic schematism by which the silhouettes are spontaneously conceived as appearances of one and the same thing. This conception is not the sum of a thing’s Abschattungen: “The pieces and phases of perception are not externally glued together.”136 On the contrary: I perceive every profile as a profile of one and the same table: the fundamental structure which a phenomenon unfolds to me from within through the Abschattungen.137 Variation. Variation is the method which leads to the intuition of essence. This method consists of the following three steps. 138 (1) The first step consists in taking a concrete given as example. This, then, begins to guide the thoughtoperations as example: “… For its modification in pure imagination we let ourselves be guided by the fact taken as example.”139 Every concrete case can be viewed as an example and become the starting point of variation.140 (2) The second step consists in variation: setting out from the example, all sorts of variants march past our attentive spirit in a free imagination: “For this it is necessary that ever new similar images be obtained as copies, as images of the imagination, which are all concretely similar to the original image.”141 In the act of variation one over and over crosses the boundaries of the concept formed. At the same time there is always something that fits in the image as well. The process of discovering this varying difference and similarity must not be hindered. The “freedom of variation”142 belongs to “the fundamental character of the act of seeing ideas.”143 It takes place “at my pleasure” (Beliebigkeitsgestalt).144 (3) The third step consists in intuiting the essence. In order to attain to the essential seeing of an example, the searching mind must focus on all variations: on the congruent (where the overlapping variants cover each other) and the incongruent (where the variants are in conflict and drive each other out of commonality.)145 In the transition of the overlapping variants the general comes to the fore as the fundamental structure of the things (eidos). The congruent lights up itself

136

E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, The Hague 1969, 17. Husserl calls this the internal inner horizon, eidos, or essence. See W. Luijpen, Nieuwe inleiding tot de existentiële fenomenologie, Utrecht-Antwerpen 1969, 151. 138 Husserl dealt most extensively with this method in Experience and Judgment, par. 86-93. We are citing E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment. Investigations in a Genealogy of Logic, Evanston 1973, 339-364. 139 Ibid., 340. 140 Ibid., 342, 349-350. 141 Ibid., 340, 341. 142 Ibid., 344. 143 Ibid., 349. 144 Ibid., 342. 145 Ibid., 346. 137

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(the thing itself), a synthetic unity within which the variants appear as variants of the essential.146 “It then becomes evident that a unity runs through this multiplicity of successive figures, that in such free variations of an original image, e.g., of a thing, an invariant is necessarily retained as the necessary general form, without which an object such as this thing, as an example of its kind, would not be thinkable at all.”147 The essence (fundamental structure, eidos, the thing itself ) is the “genre” which prescribes for empirical special cases the rules which they cannot exceed,148 an a priori that in its validity precedes all factuality,149 a “pure possibility,”150 an “open infinity” for its self-presentation.151 Needed, for this fundamental structure to light up, is a focused attention to that which is commonin-the different.152 Only then the eidos (genre) is “apprehended directly and in itself.”153 3. Intersubjectivity Lived experience is not exhausted in the expositions given above. On the margins of experience the contours of the self, the other, and the word delineate themselves – a fact which simultaneously marks the boundaries of phenomenology. In keeping with the Einstellung of phenomenology, the exploration of alterity starts with the I-experience. The I-experience. The I-experience cannot be conceived as something separate from its experiential history, just as this experiential history is conceivable only as “the medium of the I-self.”154 I and my experiences define themselves in each other. In the course of our intentional life we repeat ourselves, develop a style, a character, a certain habitus. Every act, every perception, stylizes the “I” into a “style of experience.”155 Husserl calls the ego as it registers itself in the style of experience “the substrate of habitualities.”156 The ego is the centering agent of 146

Ibid., 344. Ibid., 341. 148 Ibid., 350. 149 Ibid., 353. 150 Ibid., 353. 151 Ibid., 362. 152 Ibid., 357. 153 Ibid., 359. 154 E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I (Hua III), The Hague 1952, 99-104. 155 Ibid., 111-112; K. Lembeck, Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994, 51. 156 See E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology, The Hague 1969, 66; E. Husserl, Phänomenologische Psychologie (Hua IX), The Hague 1962, 114-115; E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie II (Hua IV), The Hague 1952, 112-113. 147

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feelings and acts in the stream of consciousness, a factor of unity in the experiential sequence of consciousness. Delineating itself in the stream of experience is a constant substratum that as “ego” can remember, consider, ponder, and relate the story of its own experiential history, and so forth. The “alter ego.” Intersubjectivity is, in the first place, the recognition of an “alter ego,” a recognition that especially attaches itself to the style of the other.157 To communicate with the other is to reproduce the style of the other in my own style.158 “In the first place I communicate not with ‘images’ or an idea but with a speaking subject, with a certain style of being and with the ‘world’ intended in it.”159 In that style, however, also the strangeness of the other presents itself. For the subjectivity of the other is an autonomous center as I am. I cannot completely absorb the persistently strange externality of the other into my own intentionality. In this resulting surplus, the alterity defines itself as a painful refusal. The ego experiences that an “alter ego” over “there” does something like what I do over “here.” As I am here – physically intentional, remembering and anticipating myself, and so forth – so the other is there. Intersubjective reality. Intersubjectivity not only results in the experience of the original strangeness of the other, but also carries within itself the “we”-experience in which the world is experienced intersubjectively as a reality for all. “The objective validity of the world as it appears to me, the world of which my subjectivity is the center and behind which one cannot inquire any further, forces us to accept a plurality of such experience-centers which in principle resemble that of mine and are as I am.”160 What we are in the habit of calling “objective reality,” says Husserl, is not so much the reality as it self-evidently appears to me as objective reality but rather the reality as it simply exists for everybody. “Such a universal determination of its meaning is in reality accompanied by the consciousness that a certain object of this world is not only identical for me but in principle experienceable by everybody. This presupposes, however, that I as an individual must already be aware that someone other than I – substituting for ‘simply everyone’ – co-experiences the world as I experience it.”161 Empathetic understanding. Empathetic understanding (Einfühlung) is a cognitive form which belongs in the sphere of intersubjectivity.162 To describe as purely 157

H. Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität II (Hua XIV), The Hague 1973, 501-

504. 158

M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception, Paris 1945, 208. Ibid., 214. 160 K. Lembeck, Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994, 62. 161 Ibidem. 162 Husserl develops his ideas on Einfühlung especially in Ideen I and II and in his Cartesian Meditations. For an overview see W. Marx, Die Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls, München 1987, 83-94. 159

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as possible the way in which the other presents himself to me, Husserl first of all divests the spontaneous experience of everything that has already uncritically crept into my consciousness from the other (epoche). The question then becomes: how do I learn to know the other now that I have been driven back into what is peculiarly my own? At what point does the other enter into my world? Husserl’s answer is: the way by which I know the other is my corporeality. I perceive “there” an animated body which I understand by association and analogy as my own body “here.” To that end it is necessary that I have not only experienced my body as the place where I live (Leib) but also as thing-in-the-world (Körper). It is only when I have also learned to understand my body as thingin-the-world that I can (by analogy) understand the body-thing “there” as the place where the other lives – as I do. A “coincidence from a distance” occurs, so to speak.163 The other is present to me in the “as-if ” mode: I am present to the other as if it is I myself who is there. Once this “pairing”164 has taken place, the essential recognition unfolds itself materially along the lines of the gestures in which the other expresses himself.165 “Just as my interior consciousness expresses itself in my bodily functioning and physical gestures, so that is precisely the case also with the other I, the ‘alter ego.’”166 Expressing oneself, to Husserl, belongs in the region of “the mental life of persons, their thinking, feeling, desiring, conduct, and so forth.”167 The kernel of Einfühlung consists in understanding the other’s act-interiority.168 In the process a fusion of bodies is surpassed in the as-if. For someone who sees a person “does not really apprehend the reality of the body when he apprehends the person who expresses himself in it.”169 Einfühlung is the act of orienting oneself to a “state of mental being which essentially includes the sensory, yet not as a part, like a physical part of another physical datum.”170 Perceiving a physical figure, “I feel an I-subject with everything that goes with it.”171 The Einfühlung makes contact with “something that realizes itself through the medium of a physical phenomenon but essentially includes this physical phenomenon.”172 Gestures, characteristics, and style of behavior, in

163

E. Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität II (Hua XIV), The Hague 1973, 531. E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology, The Hague 1969, 112. 165 Ibid., 114-115. 166 K. Lembeck, ibid., 65. 167 E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie II (Hua IV), The Hague 1952, 235. 168 Ibid., 164. 169 Ibid., 244. 170 Ibid., 239. 171 Ibid., 164. 172 Ibid., 240. 164

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short, the meaning is understood on the basis of this “psychic fluid.”173 Einfühlung of persons is nothing other than the manner of apprehension which precisely understands the meaning, i.e. apprehends the body in its meaning and in the unity of meaning which has to sustain the body.”174 We see, therefore, how Husserl arrives at the core of the matter via a series of subtle shifts: via the bodything to being-physically-in-the-world; via being physically-in-the-world to style; via the style to the meaning which sustains the actions, words, gestures and attitudes; via the meaning to the act-interiority and the mental life of the person.

5.2.2. DIALOGIC THINKING The phenomenological approach does justice to the one pole of practical wisdom (phronesis): the focus on experience. It constitutes “the eye of experience.” The other pole of practical wisdom consists in the divine-human transformation (theoria) for which experience, as its perfection (arete), is intended (telos). This pole is best secured by the dialogic thinking which postulates the influence of the you upon the I. This orientation to alterity is connected with the rise of the dialogical approach: it was a response to the shocking experience of the First World War (the result of ethnocentrism, absolutized autonomy, nationalism). This orientation was reinforced by the experiences of the Second World War which undeniably carried over into the work of the Jewish thinker Emmanuel Levinas. After a number of starts in the nineteenth century (Schleiermacher, Jacobi, Feuerbach, Simmel) and the development of a number of motifs in phenomenology (intersubjectivity, empathy, “alter ego,” sympathy and the like),175 dialogic thinking broke through after the First World War as “the new thought” in works like Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums (1917/1918) by Hermann Cohen, Stern der Erlöslung (1921) by Franz Rosenzweig, Das Wort und die geistigen Realiäten (1921) by Ferdinand Ebner, Ich und Du (1923) by Martin Buber, Disputation I: Fichte (1923) by Hans Ehrenberg, Angewandte Seelenkunde (19424) by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Individuum und Gemeinschaft (1924) by Theodor Litt, Ich glaube an den dreieinigen Gott (1926) by Friedrich Gogarten, Journal metaphysique (1927) by Gabriel Marcel, Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen (1928) by Karl Löwith, Gegenwart (1928) by Eberhard Grisebach.176 The newness of this body of thought consists in the fact that over 173

Ibid., 238. Ibid., 244. 175 H. Schrey, Dialogisches Denken, Darmstadt 1983, 1-51. 176 Cf. H. Herrigel, Das neue Denken, Berlin 1928; F. Rosenzweig, Kleinere Schriften, Berlin 1937, 373-398. 174

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against the Cartesian “I think, therefore I am” the authors posit: “I require a You to become.”177 The “other” is constitutive for the “I.” We will now set forth a number of core insights of this thought under the guidance of Ich und Du by Martin Buber,178 insights which have been further developed by Levinas. 1. Desire Buber describes the first appearance of the dialogical dimension in man against the background of what he calls a “natural connectedness.” In this natural connectedness “man” and “world” have not yet distinguished themselves from each other. There is only “the undifferentiated (…) primal world,” “the glowing darkness of the chaos.”179 This allusion to Genesis 1 leads one to suspect that Buber conceived of this natural connectedness as existing prior to creation: before light and darkness were separated, before the dry land and the wet areas were ordered. The separation of the developing being from this natural connectedness was achieved by the I itself: it emerged from its natural connectedness with the All. It did not separate itself with the intention to be separate, however, but with the – albeit purely lived – intention to bind itself to the appearing you. To the degree the I detaches itself from its natural connectedness with the All, there is the growing desire for a new connectedness with the All: Buber calls this strivingfor-relation the “drive to turn everything into a You.”180 This inborn pull toward the You constitutes the “a priori of relation.”181 It shapes the category of our essence. It is the soul’s model, the a priori of relation, the innate You.182 The dialectic of detachment and desire is determinative for the god-relation. On the one hand, on the level of being we are separate from God: “God embraces but is not my self.”183 On the other hand, this separateness of being makes the desire infinite: it “aspires beyond all of them and yet not all the way toward his eternal You.”184 This separateness of being and infinite desire are picked up again and further developed in their connectedness by Levinas: “The I is separated from the infinite. The relationship which is thus described negatively is the idea of infinity

177

M. Buber, I and Thou, New York 1970 (First Touchstone Edition 1996), 62. In this connection I lean on my study: De mystiek van ik en jij. Een nieuwe vertaling van ‘Ich und Du’ van Martin Buber met inleiding en uitleg en een doordenking van het systeem dat eraan ten grondslag ligt, Kampen 1991. 179 M. Buber, I and Thou, (Trans. W. Kaufman), New York 1971, 76, 77. 180 Ibid., 78. 181 Ibid., 78. 182 Ibid., 78-79. 183 Cf. Ibid., 143. 184 Cf. Ibid., 128. 178

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in us.”185 The idea of the Infinite exceeds the measure of our thinking which nevertheless thinks this idea. It is an idea which continually thinks more than it thinks. A kind of thinking that thinks more than it thinks is Desire. “Desire ‘measures’ the infinity of the infinite.”186 This desire must not be understood as the affectivity of love or a lack of need. It is “unquenchable, not because it answers to an infinite hunger, but because it does not call for food. This desire without satisfaction hence takes cognizance of the alterity of the other.”187 The Desire for the Other is not looking for something that supplies what it lacks: “The Desire for the Other (Autrui), sociality, is born in a being that lacks nothing, or, more exactly, it is born over and beyond all that can be lacking or that can satisfy.”188 The “cupped hand”189 of desire which does not grasp (or understand) but receives what cannot be contained is infinitely open through a transcendence which is “more interior than my interior” (intimior intimo meo). 2. The I-You relation To the degree that the I is absorbed into the immediate relation to the appearing you, it is freed from its natural connectedness. The most characteristic feature of this “original relational event”190 is that it was originally one. The poles from which the relation will later prove to have been constructed have not yet hypostatized themselves: the you is still a mere acting upon the I, a you that is in all respects an “You (…) being simply endured”;191 the I, in its being touched by this you, is still completely a reaching out toward the you; it is merely a becoming through the I’s relation to the you and this becoming is its whole answer to this you. “I” and “you” are two movements going against each other, and in going against each other bring each other to light in an exclusive face-toface encounter. It is an original “each-other,” not a freely chosen “each other.”192 Against the background of this original relational event, the I-you relations in which the following moments can be distinguished stand out. That which encounters. Buber describes the encountering one, the primary form of the you, in various ways: the appearing form,193 the appearance of being; 185 E. Levinas, Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity, in: Collected Philosophical Papers, (Trans. A. Lingis), Pitsburgh (PA) 1998, 54. 186 Ibid., 56. 187 Ibid., 56. 188 E. Levinas, Meaning and Sense, in: Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings, (Ed. A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, & R. Bernasconi), Bloomington-Indianapolis 1996, 51. 189 M. Buber, I and Thou, New York 1971, 78. 190 Ibid., 73. 191 Ibid., 71. 192 Ibid., 73-74. 193 Ibid., 60.

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the elementary, spirit-awakening impressions and stimulations; touch.194 An essential point is that the encountering cannot be effected: “The You encounters me through grace – it cannot be found by seeking.”195 The other comes to me from a reality that is non-I. In the words of Levinas: “The face, the countenance, is the fact that a reality is opposed to me, opposed not in its manifestations, but as it were in its way of being, ontologically opposed. It is what resists me by its opposition and not what is opposed to me by its resistance.”196 Alterity clashes with my reality from without. Becoming through my relation to you. The I is so essentially touched by the encountering one that it becomes through its relation to this you.197 This becoming by its relation to a you returns the I to the encountering one. This giving back of its-being-touched is the I’s essential answer to the you.198 “Giving back” does not reproduce exactly what happens. It is the becoming through my relation to you that constitutes my saying “you.” Nothing exists between the reversal from passivity to activity. Passivity and activity are one, yet they do not coincide. The moment of reversal is constituted by the moment of non-indifference. I answer the other at the moment when his alterity (differentness) does not leave me indifferent. “The concept of the fellowman cannot come to my consciousness if his well-being and woe are indifferent to me.”199 This consciousness is knowledge steeped in emotion, characterized by selflessness: “Dialogue is the non-indifference of the you to the I, a dis-inter-ested sentiment certainly capable of degenerating into hatred, but a chance for what we must – perhaps with prudence – call love and resemblance in love.”200 This being said, we can say that in saying you my becoming through my relation to you is given back. This movement of giving back is expressed in a variety of ways by dialogicians. Levinas speaks of responsibility, Marcel of participation, Rosenzweig of trust (Vertrauen). On account of my unselfish turning to the you, who after all is essentially passive before any intended passivity on my part, Marcel calls such participatory involvement “oblative love.”201 Levinas for this reason calls the face the “term of my generosity and my sacrifice.”202 He also calls 194

Ibid., 70. Ibid., 62. 196 E. Levinas, Freedom and Command, in: Collected Philosophical Papers, (Trans. A. Lingis), Pitsburgh (PA) 1998, 19. 197 M. Buber, op. cit., 62. 198 Ibid., 62ff. 199 H. Cohen, Religion of Reason. Out of the Sources of Judaism, New York 1972, 133. 200 E. Levinas, Of God Who comes to Mind, Stanford 1998, 147. 201 Cf. H. Schrey, Dialogisches Denken, Darmstadt 1983, 86. 202 E. Levinas, Enigma and Phenomenon, in: Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings, (Ed. A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, & R. Bernasconi), Bloomington-Indianapolis 1996, 77. 195

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this approaching the other in the nonindifference of oblative love “prayer”: “The essence of discourse is prayer.”203 Non-indifference transforms the accusative into the vocative: “That which is called is at the same time that which is invoked.”204 Nonindifferent to the encounter of the other, I transcend my selfhood: “Dialogue is transcendence. The saying involved in dialogue would not be one of the possible forms of transcendence but its original mode. Better again, transcendence has no meaning except by way of an I saying You. It is the dia of the dialogue.”205 Exclusivity. As a result of the response of the I the encountering you develops his exclusivity over against the I “as a being we confront and accept as exclusive.”206 The words “exclusive” and “confront” imply each other: something that presents itself to me in its exclusivneess is situated over against me and something that is situated over against me presents itself in its exclusiveness. This “exclusive overagainstness” is the space in which the You appears.207 Within this space of exclusive overagainstness the you can realize itself in its alterity as transcendence. It makes itself present to the I. This is presence: the time of contact in which the you presents itself and reveals itself as “the present” and “that which remains over against.”208 Overagainstness and presence are the temporal and spatial dimension of the encountering you. Reciprocity (counter-interiority). The I is desire for the you; the you is that which encounters. The I answers with his being, the you develops as presence and overagainstness. The back and forth movement is the reciprocity (counterinteriority) of contact. The space in which the you appears is the space in which the I appears and the time in which the you represents himself is the time in which the I represents himself. Two movements of being run counter to each other within the one common area of the contact constituted by these two movements. In this interaction of Between space, the interiority of contact, opens up. Marcel calls this Between intersubjectivity: “One could say that Intersubjectivity is the fact of being together in [the] light.”209 I and you are together “in the light.” This “light” of the Between transcends the mutual contact and constitutes the sustaining life-engendering Center of it. Therefore Buber can say that people form authentic community only when “all of them stand in a living reciprocal [counter-interior] relationship to a single living center (this is the transcendent side of the In-Between, the all-sustaining, all-uniting and all-separating, but at 203 E. Levinas, Is Ontology Fundamental?, in: Basic Philosophical Writings, 7; see also E. Levinas, Of God Who comes to Mind, Stanford 1998, 147. 204 E. Levinas, Of God Who comes to Mind, 147. 205 Ibid., 147. 206 M. Buber, op. cit., 79. 207 Ibid., 82ff. 208 Ibid., 63. 209 G. Marcel, Presence and Immortality, Pittsburgh 1967, 239.

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the same time the all-surpassing center, KW) and that they stand in a living reciprocal [counter-interior] relationship to one another (this is the tangible structure of the Between: the mutual contact between the I and you, KW) (…) A community is built upon a living reciprocal [counter-interior] relationship (this is the structure), but the builder (this is the life of the structure, KW) is the living active center.”210 The You. Buber calls the you “seamless” and “neighborless.”211 By this he means that the you is not composite and not determined by the environment. This has been elaborated with exceptional acuteness by Levinas. One can say that all his work is aimed at showing that the Other cannot be understood against any background (context), not even that of being. The other, the one with whom I speak (interlocutor), expresses himself through himself (expression).212 “Prior to any form of participation in a common content by means of understanding, expression consists in creating sociality by a relation which therefore cannot be reduced to understanding.”213 To clarify the difference between “content” and “relation,” we will reflect on the notion of “face” as Levinas presents it in Totality and Infinity.214 The face annihilates all the signified and signifying: “It expresses itself.”215 That is to say: it makes use of nothing other than itself to express what it expresses. Its form is its content: “The first content of expression is the expression itself.”216 It is not a sign of, nor a sign pointing to, for it is not in any way imprisoned in a system of signs. “The face signifies itself.”217 It is being-there in absolute nakedness. Usually we clothe the face with quiddities. We ask for contents, for substantives, for adjectives. What do you do? What do you want? What do you look like? But “he who is to respond has long already presented himself (…) without being a content. He has presented himself as a face.”218 The face is purely a being-there as such. “To the question who? answers the non-qualifiable presence of an existent who presents himself without reference to anything, and yet distinguishes himself from every other existent. The question who? envisages a face.”219 A face is precisely there “where an existent presents itself personally.”220 It is presenting oneself. “To aim at a face is to put the question who? to the very 210

M. Buber, ibid., 94. Ibid., 59. 212 Cf. G. Marcel, ibid., 238. 213 Ibid. 214 E. Levinas, Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority, Pittsburg 1969. 215 Ibid., 51. 216 Ibid., 51. 217 Ibid., 140. 218 Ibid., 177. 219 Ibid., 177. 220 Ibid., 142. 211

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face that is the answer to this question; the answerer and the answered coincide. The face, preeminently expression, formulates the first word: the signifier arising at the thrust of his sign, as eyes that look at you.”221 The face is itself a signifying sign, “not signified by a sign in a system of signs.”222 There is no distance whatever between the sign and the thing signified – which is the suspension of all sign-character. Prior to all signs and beyond all signs there is a signifier who only signifies himself. This “signifier, he who gives a sign, is not signified”; this signifier “presents himself before every sign, by himself – presents a face.”223 The face at each moment transcends the plastic manifestation of the face. To manifest oneself as a face is to impose oneself above and beyond the manifested and purely phenomenal form, to present oneself in a mode irreducible to manifestation, the very straightforwardness of the face to face, without the intermediary of any image, in one’s nudity…”224 The significance of the face is presence, being there in one’s nakedness. “The face signifies by itself.”225 What the face is and what it signifies is completely identical. “The signification of the face is due to an essential coinciding of the existent and the signifier.”226 A face is selfexpression. Therefore “the whole body – a hand or the curve of the shoulder – can express as the face.”227 The face is not bound to its expressiveness; it is presence in one’s very own person that can express itself everywhere. “A presentation which consists in saying, ‘It’s me’ – and nothing else to which one might be tempted to assimilate me. This presentation of the exterior being nowise referred to in our world is what we have called the face.”228 Reception. The relation to the other is established as I receive the other: “To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it.”229 When the other appears before me, I am immediately inclined to form within me an idea of that other. The face, however, only appears when the other breaks out of that idea. This breakthrough can only be received by me. To permit the explosion of my idea means “to receive from the other beyond the capacity of the I.”230 The face helps me in this, for “the face is present in its refusal to be contained. In this sense it cannot be comprehended, that is, encompassed. It is 221

Ibid., 177-178. Ibid., 178. 223 Ibid., 182. 224 Ibid., 200. 225 Ibid., 261. 226 Ibid., 262. 227 Ibid., 262. 228 Ibid., 296. 229 Ibid., 51. 230 Ibid., 51. 222

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neither seen nor touched – for in visual or tactile sensation the identity of the I envelops the alterity of the object, which becomes precisely a content.”231 The other exceeds my capacity to comprehend him. Only a relation to that which exceeds my power to comprehend is “the welcome of the face.”232 3. The basic word pair: I-it Because immediate relations repeat themselves and are stored in the memory, the you recedes. It is introduced apart from its immediate effect upon others. Thus the pronoun “you” arises as the expression of a reality that has become independent vis-à-vis an I. Also the I gradually assumes form and acquires a profile of its own. It experiences itself in all its outgoing movements as an independent reality. Relations condense as well as scatter: throughout these changes the I spontaneously experiences itself as “the constant partner.”233 This constant partner detaches itself from the bond to the you. This detached self enters into a relation to itself and takes possession of itself: it orients itself to itself. This detached, reduced and self-oriented I declares itself a carrier of the sensations of encounter. As a result these sensations are transformed: they are related to the I. The detached, reduced, self-oriented subject declares the you that had withdrawn into a sphere of its own to be the object of the self-oriented sensations. This is the constituting of the it-world. With this constituting of the it-world by the selforiented I the basic word I-it is put together.234 From within this relational unit the it-world is now structured further as a multiplicity of things which are put together in themselves and subsumed in relation to each other in a framework. We shall enlarge a number of snapshots taken of the basic word pair I-it. The ambiguity of the you. At the moment of its completion, the sculpture which the sculptor made into a reality in the course of sculpturing it is maximally present but at the same time maximally fixed: it has acquired a specific form, a specific weight, and a specific color. Consequently, the I-you relation is ambiguous: on the one hand, it liberates the you into its irreducible shape but, on the other, it also “binds” this you and “banishes it to the region of oppositeness.”235 On the one hand, the relational event is an event of realization – I and you take shape through our relation to each other; on the other hand it is precisely on this account that it entails a loss of actuality – I and you, through our relation to each other, assume this particular shape. “Actualization in the one sense involves a loss of actuality in another.”236 231

Ibid., 194. Ibid., 197. 233 Martin Buber, I and Thou, New York-London, etc., 1970 (Touchstone edition, 1996), 80. 234 Ibid., 80-81. 235 Cf., ibid., 92. 236 Cf. ibid., 68. 232

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Fixation. A decisive modification in the relation between man and the world occurs when, after completing the event of encounter, the I identifies with the de-actualization of the relational event. Then the “I-it” side of this event is taken to be the real event and isolated. The essential change consists in the fact that the I “has become reconciled to the It-world as something that is to be experienced and used and who holds down what is tied into it instead of freeing it, who observes it instead of heeding it, and instead of receiving it utilizes it.”237 That which has become “it” (a work of art, an example, a concept, a feeling, a social convention), rather than being related to its source (the living figure, concrete life, the operative idea, the person over against me), is isolated, set apart, and viewed as the real thing. The I that in self-appropriation identified itself with sensations of encounter defines the self in opposition to the non-self. This self-definition in opposition is ipso facto an act of delimiting this other self. The other is forced into the interpretation pattern of the appropriated experience. Thus this self-definition “in opposition to” is at the same time a “taking possession of.”238 By this setting itself apart and taking possession, the I constructs for itself “a busy individuality” but gains no “substance.”239 On the contrary, to the degree the I identifies itself with “setting itself apart” and “taking possession,” it will in fact ever more thoroughly de-actualize itself240 and turn into a just-being-that-way (setting itself apart) and just “mining” (taking possession) type of being.241 In the It-world this alienation becomes visible as the detached and isolated object is divided into parts which are subsequently connected and related to each other in a new way. As a result of this manipulation, contact between “I” and “the world” is lost forever. The I defines and confines itself within its own dialectic of “setting itself apart” and “taking possession.” Causality. The world in its self-isolation has fallen apart into an illimitable number of parts which are mutually connected to each other in a one-sided way. It is precisely this one-sided relatedness to and acting upon each other that is expressed in the concept of “causality.” Causality proves to be the organizing principle of the it-world as such: “In the it-world causality holds unlimited sway.”242 This means not only that there is nothing in the it-world that falls outside this law of one-sided influence but especially that relations in the it-world are themselves intrinsically determined by the law of causality. Once the principle of causality has been posited as the principle of the it-world, then by that

237

Ibid., 90. Ibid., 44. 239 Ibid., 114. 240 Ibid., 95-96, 115. 241 Ibid., 114. 242 Ibid., 100. 238

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very token an unbridled autonomy of this world, “the despotism of the proliferating It,”243 is a given. The absolutization of causality. In “our age”244 the causality between the various elements and within the separate elements that is universally operative is being absolutized. From now on the it-world is no longer being governed by a factually necessary causality but by an imperatively posited necessary causality. This double necessity turns the world into a fate, “an inescapable process.”245 This assumes different forms: evolutionism, behaviorism, dialectical materialism, cultural pessimism. But “the point is always that man is yoked into an inescapable process that he cannot resist.”246 Determinism simply pronounces this situation to be law. “Whoever is overpowered by the it-world must consider the dogma of an ineluctable running down as a truth that creates a clearing in the jungle. In truth, this dogma only leads him deeper into the slavery of the it-world.”247 4. The mystical flowering of the basic word I-you The ambiguity of ordinary I-you relations offers two possibilities. Either the Iidentifies himself – upon completing the event of an encounter – with the downside of his becoming through his relation to the you. By virtue of this identification the I-related facet has been detached from the past event of encounter and posited itself: the basic word: I-it. Or the original entwinement of the basic word I-you with the basic word I-it is renewed. In that case the process of the I’s becoming through his relation to the you may be relativized by its very essence: the reciprocal interaction between the I and you. Thus the you can again represent himself in the “it” and bring it back to life, just as also the I can again execute its becoming I through my relation to the you which relativizes its egoism. When a person chooses this second path, it can mature into the perfect relation, the mysticism of I and you. We can distinguish the following steps. Not-doing. “Not-doing”248 is a Taoist expression which Buber describes as follows: “This is the activity of the human being who has become whole: it has been called not-doing, for nothing particular, nothing partial is at work in man and thus nothing of him intrudes into the world. It is the whole human being, closed in its wholeness, at rest in its wholeness, that is active here, as the human being has become an active whole.”249 In the light of the ordinary I-you relations we can understand this not-doing as follows. The encountering you touches 243

Ibid., 97. Ibid., 104. 245 Ibid., 105. 246 Ibid., 105. 247 Ibid., 107. 248 Ibid., 125. 249 Ibid., 125. 244

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the I down to its essence. The I relates this being-touched to the encountering you. In this venturing forth to the you, all partial actions (seeing, hearing, speaking, groping, and so forth), as well as all experiences which accompany these actions (sensations of pleasure, pain, resistance) are involved. Not a single element of human existence is excluded from this process. The concentration of which I speak [of a human being into a wholeness, KW] does not consider our instincts as too impure, the sensuous as too peripheral, or our emotions as too fleeting – everything must be included and integrated.” 250 The articulation of the answer, however, will never cover the passivity of the state of being-touched. For that reason Buber says that “the action of the whole being (…) comes to resemble passivity.”251 When this happens, when you-saying is in complete agreement with being-spoken-to, this is not-doing: “the activity of the human being who has become whole.”252 This not-doing may not be understood to mean that it is an activity which follows the event of becoming whole. It is the activity of the becoming whole itself: “Where the human being has become an active whole.”253 At issue is the unity of two facets. On the one hand: “where nothing particular, nothing partial, is at work in man;254 on the other, “it is the whole human being, closed in its wholeness, at rest in its wholeness, that is active here.”255 And the two are one: “Where the human being has become an active whole.”256 This notdoing is the fundamental condition for venturing forth to the eternal you.257 To this basic condition, however, we must add still another condition, if not-doing is indeed to lead to the perfect relationship: the not-doing must have reached the point of stability: “When one has achieved steadfastness in this state [i.e. the state of not-doing of the actively working whole, KW] one is able to venture forth toward the supreme encounter.”258 Going forth to the eternal You. Steadfast not-doing does not yet bring the basic word pair I-you to the perfect relation. It is merely the condition of its possibility. Steadfast not-doing means: being able to venture forth to the supreme encounter. The active whole which the human being has become places a person before a fundamental choice: “Concentrated into a unity [i.e. having achieved not-doing, KW], a human being can proceed to his encounter – wholly successful only now – with mystery and perfection. But he can also savor the bliss 250

Ibid., 137. Ibid., 125. 252 Ibid., 125. 253 Ibid., 125. 254 Ibid., 125. 255 Ibid., 125. 256 Ibid., 125. 257 Ibid., 133-134ff. 258 Ibid., 125. 251

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of his unity and, without incurring the supreme duty, return into distraction.”259 Let us assume that the I in fact decides to go forth in not-doing to the encounter with mystery and perfection and “thirsts for something spread out in space.”260 Both are necessary: “Concentration [not-doing, KW] and going forth both in truth, the one-and-the-other which is the One, are what is needful.”261 The going-forth is the movement of the self that has become whole, not a movement apart from it. At issue in entering the perfect relationship is the very being of the I,262 its final loneliness,263 “with his whole devoted being.”264 Desire itself: “The innate You [the drive toward relation, KW] is actualized each time [the relation to the particular you, KW] without ever being perfected. It attains perfection solely in the immediate relationship to the You that in accordance with its nature cannot become an It [the eternal You, KW].”265 The I in this connection does not break its exclusive relation with the particular you, but makes this exclusive relation inclusive: “Whoever goes forth to his You with his whole being and carries to it all the being of the world, finds him whom one cannot seek.”266 This is the all-inclusive exclusiveness: For those who enter into the absolute relationship, nothing particular retains any importance – neither things nor beings, neither earth nor heaven – but everything is included in the relationship, (…) leaving out nothing, leaving nothing behind, to comprehend all – all the world – in comprehending the You.”267 Buber calls this the complete acceptance of the presence: “Then [i.e. in the going forth of the not-doing human being, KW] the one thing needful becomes visible: the total acceptance of the presence.”268 While the I goes forth totally in the movement from I to You and in this movement brings all things into relation with the you facing it (the total acceptance of the presence), it looks through all this and in no way apart from this toward the untouchable, unsayable, eternal You. “Seeing everything in the You (…), placing the world upon its proper ground (…), beholding the world in him (..), comprehending all – all the world – in comprehending the You, giving the world its due and truth (…), grasping everything in him that is the perfect relationship.”269 It is the all-inclusive relationship, the relationship into which all rivers 259

Ibid., 134. Ibid., 162. 261 Ibid., 143. 262 Cf. ibid., 128. 263 Ibid., 124, 162-163, 167. 264 Ibid., 124. 265 Ibid., 123. 266 Ibid., 127. 267 Ibid., 127. 268 Ibid., 126. Note: W. Kaufman translates the last word as “the present” [Tr.]. 269 Ibid., 127. 260

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pour without for that reason drying up. “Sea and rivers – who would make bold to separate here and define limits? There is only the one flood from I to You, ever more infinite, the one boundless flood of Actual Life.”270 In that one boundless flood of Actual Life the particular you is transformed. The mediation becomes immediate: “Through every single You the basic word addresses the eternal You.”271 Precisely when the particular You begins to practice “the mediatorship of the You of all beings,”272 “the immediate relationship to the eternal You”273 comes into being. Reality becomes transparent to God without, as reality, coinciding with this eternal You. Beholding God’s Face. The reality honored in the you is the Face of God. When this Face has become a “transparency”274 of Presence, its mediating function is irradiated by the One we are seeking, the Present One. In the perfect relation the world mediates immediately between the human being and the eternal You. The world, in fact, is only totally present now because it is steeped in the perfect presence of the eternal You. “When a man steps before the countenance, the world becomes wholly present to him for the first time in the fullness of the presence, illuminated by eternity.”275 Reality has become face of God so that in one word a human being “can say You to the being of all beings. There is no longer any tension between world and God but only the one actuality.”276 “From now on humans can behold the world in God.”277 This is the primal revelation which can take place in every here and now and is expressed in the word of revelation as it has been entrusted to Moses: “The word of revelation is: I am there as whoever I am there.” That which reveals is that which reveals. That which has being is there, nothing more. The eternal source of strength flows, the eternal touch is waiting, the eternal voice sounds, nothing more.”278 This eternal Presence has a recasting effect. The presence of the Creating One, a presence which “burns into us and changes us”279 touches a human being to his or her very being. The One present in all that is present permeates the essence of the I: “the mystery of the obvious” touches me at a level “that is closer to me than my own I.”280 The One 270

Ibid., Ibid., 272 Ibid., 273 Ibid., 274 Ibid., 275 Ibid., 276 Ibid., 277 Ibid., 278 Ibid., 279 Ibid., 280 Ibid., 271

123. 123. 123. 123. 150. 157. 157. 127. 160. 130. 127.

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present in all that is present penetrates the very being of the attentive, receptive I and by his “red-hot” presence transforms it: “Creation – happens to us, burns into us, changes us, we tremble and swoon, we submit.”281 Buber immediately goes on to say: “Creation – we participate in it, we encounter the Creator, offer ourselves to him, helpers and companions.”282 Out of the unfathomable depth of their freedom people orient the passivity of their createdness to its Source. This activity of their passivity is the response of their essence All that I am in action is included in a fundamental state of having received. Expressed in terms of recognition: “my limited recognition is merged into a boundless being-recognized.”283 This is “the deep inclusion in the world before the countenance of God.”284 God’s form. The eternal You touches humans down to their being. The I is essentially melted down, recast, and transformed into the eternal You: “The revelation that then appears seizes the whole ready element in all its suchness, recasts it and produces a form, a new form of God in the world.”285 By actively accepting this transformation and relating it to the eternal You, humans become the image of God: “The spirit (…) answers by beholding, a form-giving beholding. Although we on earth never behold God without world but only the world in God, by beholding we eternally form God’s form.”286 The formation of God in the being of the responding human is trans-formation: “Revelation does not pour into the world through its recipient as if he were a funnel: it confers itself upon him, it seizes his whole element in all of its suchness and fuses with it. Even the man who is ‘mouth’ is precisely that and not a mouthpiece – not an instrument but an organ, an autonomous, sounding organ; and to sound means to modify sound.”287 Just as a crystal comes alive when struck by incoming light and transmits the light received in keeping with its very own prism, so human beings pass on their experience of God with themselves: “The meaning we receive can be put to the proof in action only by each person in the uniqueness of his being and in the uniqueness of his life.”288 It thrusts itself into life from within. It “wants to be demonstrated by us in this life and this world.”289 The fullness of meaning experienced in the Presence which transformed the person

281

Ibid., Ibid., 283 Ibid., 284 Ibid., 285 Ibid., 286 Ibid., 287 Ibid., 288 Ibid., 289 Ibid., 282

130. 130. 148. 157. 166. 166-167. 166. 159. 159.

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wants “to be born into the world through this reborn person.”290 “Man can do justice to the relation to” the eternal You “only by actualizing God in the world in accordance with his ability and the measure of each day (…).”291 The eclipse of God. When the “actualization of God in the world” has been completed, the transformation process congeals. We have arrived at the fixed forms of a religion in which the divine has been expressed in the most important areas of life. The eternal You, which of itself surpasses all measure, boundary and quality, which is unimaginable and unpredictable, is something people believe they possess within the boundary of the form. In faith and cult the action of personally going forth with the uniqueness of one’s being is taken over and replaced by the circle of the community which fits this personal going-forth into its own rhythms. At that point the religious forms begin to misfire. Instead of opening up a view of the eternal You they begin to block the living presence of the eternal You. It is then that the eclipse of God has occurred. The dead form, the image, interposes itself between human beings and the Unimaginable. This is the living contradiction which is part of every religion: people attend to God292 but in so doing frustrate the fundamental tendency of the revelation. The fact that this reversal ever and again recurs in all religions is rooted in the human attitude which strives to gain a solid footing in generally accepted religious patterns. “Man desires to have God; he desires to have God continually in space and time.”293 But for that reason people have relinquished their grip on always-changing reality and have turned to “attending on” God: “Again and again man shuns actualization and bends back toward the Revealer: he would rather attend to God than to the world. Now that he has bent back, however, he is no longer confronted by a You.”294 A religious itGod has come into being as an independent object. From the different pronouncements people distill a general doctrine and from many examples they distill a universal morality. The religious forms are objectified doctrines, patterns of conduct, postures of prayer. The only way people can then still go is the way of return, “the re-cognition of the center, turning back to it again. In this essential deed man’s buried power to relate is resurrected.”295 Without this return the I sinks ever farther down under the religious objectivizations which cut it off from immediate contact with the eternal You. Then “the countenance of the form is extinguished, its lips are dead, its hands hang down, God does not know it any more, and the house of the world built around its altar, the human cosmos, crumbles.”296 290

Ibid., Ibid., 292 Ibid., 293 Ibid., 294 Ibid., 295 Ibid., 296 Ibid., 291

159. 163. 164. 161. 164. 149. 167-168.

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5.3. A Methodological Design We have now taken the two steps necessary to arrive at a methodology for the study of the discipline of spirituality. The first step occurred on an epistemological level: the study of spirituality belongs in the domain of knowledge that reflects on human praxis. This knowledge is obtained in practical wisdom (phronèsis), which on the one hand is the eye of concrete experience and on the other participates in the divine working. The second step occurred on a lower level of abstraction: the level of the scientific approach. The phenomenological-dialogical approach does most justice to the basic structure of phronèsis, inasmuch as it develops a trained eye for the world of experience and at the same time allows itself to be guided by the I-you principle, i.e. the immediate impact and action of the Face. The third step takes us to the level of the discipline of spirituality: within the framework of the phenomenological-dialogical approach we shall design a methodologically coherent research trajectory which scientifically studies the divine-human relational process from the perspective of transformation. In the methodological articulation of the discipline of spirituality we shall again let ourselves be guided by discernment (diakrisis). As we saw earlier, discernment poses four questions: is this coin really made of gold or does it merely resemble gold? Whose image is engraved on the coin: the king’s or the tyrant’s? In which mint was the coin struck? What does it look like when it is whole and sound? We saw that practical wisdom (phronèsis) poses the same questions: it regards the [various] life forms from the viewpoint of their soundness; it sharpens one’s eye for experience; in healthy consultation it chooses the correct mean between extremes; it views the contemplation of God as the final destiny of human beings. The four viewpoints of the astute money changers and of Aristotelian practical wisdom constitute a sound blueprint for arriving at a consistent methodological design for the study of spirituality. Before we proceed to describe this methodological design, we will briefly revisit these four viewpoints. 1. The precise discernment of concrete spiritual forms. Discernment is a form of cognition which sees differences: how the way of God and the way of human beings differ from each other; how the divine dynamics are threatened by the demonic; how a form of spirituality delineates itself in relation to the socio-cultural context; how the divine and the human reality act upon each other; how there is tension between a human being’s socialized self and the person that is touched by God; how the transition from the human project to the divine “inworking” proceeds, and so forth. Basic to these forms of discernment as a formal structure is: carefully noting the differences which are the result of the

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divine-human relational process. How does the transformation process unfold concretely? What are the most important constituents? How is this process structured? Where can it be found? What does the context look like? What concrete modes of access does it offer? Then, focusing sharply on the different layers in the transformation process, we face these questions: how is the transformation in creation actually envisioned, verbalized, ritualized and interpreted? How does one envision spiritual transformation to oneself? Which ways of re-formation are made available? What models are presented? Which ways of transformation in love are being followed? How is transformation in glory being presented? In short: what does a spiritual form, viewed both outwardly and inwardly, look like concretely? Methodologically, these questions are located on a descriptive level, which is an essential strategy of investigation in phenomenology. 2. Interpreting the signs with an eye for the inner logic. Discernment is a form of cognition which seeks to understand the meaning of spiritual texts, ways, and processes of life. It does not just view events, states of affairs, and realities as they occur in the context of fellow creatures, but attempts to read their significance from the perspective of God. This form of cognition is of importance where one is dealing with various expressions of spirituality: a spiritual autobiography, spiritual lyrics, descriptions of spiritual processes, rituals, life rules, and the like. After their surface structure has been carefully described in connection with its socio-cultural context, a second step is needed: understanding them from the perspective of the divine-human relational process. Underlying these forms of discernment is a formal structure: understanding a given thing as a sign and interpreting this sign as an expression (Ausdruck) of experience (Erlebnis). This calls for hermeneutical competence. What inner idea is unfolding in this form? What inner movement sustains the form? What leitmotif is contained in the outer form? What is the inner logic of this spiritual journey? Focused on the five layers of the transformation process, the questions are: by what inner movement is the transition from non-being to being sustained? Where is unformation an expression of reformation and wherein lies the inner coherence of this reformation? What structure of experience is evident from the transformation model handed down? What is the inner movement of transformation in love? What idea unfolds in the transformation in glory? All these questions flow together in this one question: what is the inner logic which comes to expression in this spiritual form? Methodologically these questions occur on the hermeneutical level, an essential component in phenomenology.297 It is plain that texts give the most 297 See R. Palmer, Hermeneutics. Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer, Evanston (IL) 1969; R. Palmer, Phenomenology as Foundation for a Post-Modern Philosophy of Literary Interpretation, in: Cultural Hermeneutics 1 (1973), 207-223; M. Valdes, Phenomenological Hermeneutics and the Study of Literature, Toronto 1987.

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explicit expression to experience and consequently serve as the best avenue to the inner logic of a form. But all spiritual forms (music, dance, architecture, visual gestures, clothing, and so forth) as such offer access to their inner dynamics. 3. Establishing the constitutive factors in communal knowledge. Discernment is a cognitive activity which attempts, via critical interaction, to arrive at a knowledge – tested and recognized by others – that is distinct from naïve, opinionated views. To that end discernment tests insights, behaviors, memories, expectations, phasings, and so forth. In all schools of spirituality we see this critical communication with respect to spirituality result in treatises of spirituality that deal in a penetrating manner with the most important aspects of spirituality in their mutual connections. Considered formally, this cognitive activity of discernment consists in accounting for the basic categories and cognitive procedures, structuring the collective memory (canon, libraries, documentation), and organizes the forum that tests the investigation. This demands an attitude of critical communication and mutual schooling. Important questions in this connection are: by what collaborating forces is this form (behavior, conviction, argument) brought about and maintained? What traditions are at work here? What basic ideas are reproduced? What leading principles are applied? More particularly, noting the different layers of the process of transformation, we need to ask: what forces are considered to be active in the transformation in creation? In which categories are unformation and reformation conceived? Along what lines are the basic models of spirituality profiled? Which basic words articulate the transformation in love? What lines of influence dominate the transformation in glory? These questions all revolve around the question: which lines of influence are constitutive for this spiritual form? Methodologically, they occur on the systematic level that coincide in phenomenology with the question concerning the constitutive factors which apply to a certain region of existence. 4. Mystagogical insight that sharpens one’s eye for a person’s final destiny. Discernment is a cognitive activity that perceives the difference between someone’s factual situation and his (her) perfection in God, sees a passable way which bridges this difference, and assists others in actually going this way, knowing that it is God who moves them to go this way. To that end it is necessary for the discerner to perceive the difference between the workings of the human subject and the working of God, to translate the possibilities of growth into a passable way, and that in such a way that the primacy of the divine “inworking” is not frustrated in the process, and so forth. Underlying this cognitive activity is a formal cognitive structure: perceiving possibilities of growth in a person and helping to develop them This requires an agogic competence which in the case of spirituality is mystagogic in nature. Just as a pedagogue helps a child in its maturation toward adulthood, as an andragogue accompanies adults in their further development, so a mystagogue accompanies a person in his or her growth in relation to God. Important questions in this connection are: what is the

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mature form which directs one’s actual form-development? What does the final goal look like in a certain spiritual form and how does this carry through in the different phases of growth? More particularly which ultimate perspective is operative in the transformation in creation? What ideal image is in the background in processes of unformation and reformation? Which perspective is offered in the transformation models handed down? Which motive introduces a person to the transformation in love? What ultimate image of completion guides the transformation into glory? These questions revolve around the ultimate perspective that gives expression to a person’s growth and development on the spiritual journey. Decisive here are such terms as “destiny” and “direction” and the ways in which they determine the nature of this journey. Methodologically, these questions play themselves out on the mystagogical level on which the existential analyzes of Heidegger, Buytendijk and others, but above all that of Levinas, are emphatically played out. These four clusters of questions and foci articulate discernment and practical wisdom within the framework of a phenomenological-dialogical approach to a methodologically coherent discipline. They concretize the formal object: the transformation which constitutes the viewpoint from which the divine-human relational process is examined. They contain the spectrum of questions which can be posed to the object of research and which can be summed up in four lines of investigation: descriptive, hermeneutic, systematic, and mystagogic. These four lines, which in their mutual connectedness together constitute the methodology of the study of spirituality, we will now set forth in the form of an outline. In part 3 they are further elaborated on the level of the methods to be followed (intra- and interdisciplinarily).

5.3.1. FORM-DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH The notion of “form,” which “in an essential sense belongs to the language of philosophy,”298 has, in combination with a wide range of complementary antitheses (form-matter; form-content; inner and outer form; the abiding and the transient; determining-determinable, and so forth) been explored in-depth in the Western tradition of thought.299 At the beginning of the 20th century we witness the rise of renewed attention to this notion. In esthetics the form (frequently as contrasted with the content) became the point of departure for this approach (Jakobson, Gunkel, Ingarden). People spoke of life forms (Spranger, 298

W. Jacobs, Form, in: Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe 1 (1973), 444. For an insight into this rootedness, see W. Jacobs, ibid., 442-465; a series of articles around “Formalismus”, “Formanalyse”, “innere Form und Inhalt”, etc., in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie 2 (1972), 976-1031. 299

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Dilthey), forms of feelings (Scheler) and symbolic forms (Cassirer).300 Also Husserl is oriented to the notion of “form.” For him the essential form (eidos) denotes the “thing itself.” In the form description of phenomenology three levels of description are distinguished. The first follows the uncomplicated perception of the phenomenon as it presents itself to me. A thing exhibits itself to me as a whole, i.e. with contours and a core of real presence. The second level is found on the plane of explication: after all, we do not only perceive the side that faces us but at the same time “see” all the other sides (back, under, and upper side) and implied aspects (becoming, development, growth, phasing, utility). On this level of description the phenomenon unfolds its interior horizon, an “unfolding” which is guided by a specific interest. The third level relates the phenomenon to other phenomena (similar or opposed, familiar or strange) which occur simultaneously in the same field of perception. This is the exterior horizon of co-existing objects which together summon up the world as the final background against which everything delineates itself. We will now give a brief description of these three levels. 1. The first level: the shape The first level of description follows elementary perception: an object appears in the shape of a concrete presence which is apprehended by a subject as a unity in the present of perception301 and turns to him or her a certain facet: “A physical thing is necessarily given in mere ‘modes of appearance’ in which necessarily a core of ‘what is actually presented’ is apprehended.”302 A shape is always apprehended from within a certain position: “Of necessity a physical thing can be given only ‘one-sidedly,’ and that signifies, not just incompletely or imperfectly in some sense or other, but precisely what presentation by adumbrations prescribes.”303 The description adheres to the thing that is present in perception. Thus the first level of description describes a phenomenon insofar as it appears as a concrete shape that is apprehended as a unity in the present of perception. Hence, when it pertains to spiritual forms, the first level of description 300 Between 1923 and 1929 Ernst Cassirer wrote his main work: The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (3 vols., 1923-1929; reedition Darmstadt 1994; translated into English by Ralph Manheim, New Haven 1953). In it he develops a “doctrine of forms” of the spirit: vol. 1 is a “phenomenology of linguistic form,” vol. 2 describes “mystical thought” and vol. 3 is a “phenomenology of knowledge.” The challenge, he wrote, was “to differentiate the various forms of man’s ‘understanding’ of the world and apprehend each one of them as sharply as possible in its specific direction and characteristic spiritual form” (vol. 1, 69). 301 E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment, Evanston 1973, 103ff. 302 E. Husserl, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy, The Hague 1980, 94. 303 E. Husserl, op. cit., 94.

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concerns the concrete shape as it presents itself in our perception. We could define this shape as “the synthesis of different factors (form, proportion, range, and spiritual embeddedness) which give to a given spirituality the unique character by which it constitutes an organic whole, a balanced, stable, and resistant structure.”304 2. The second level: the internal horizon Form, considered phenomenologically, is not only a core of presence that delineates itself within the contours of its shape, it is also the shape which reality assumes because in it people grasp meaningful possibilities which can be interpreted in action.305 “The form is nothing other than the meaning which a person grasps within a design and which discloses itself only through it.”306 Something that seems to be a meaningless constellation to an outsider opens up a meaningful interior to someone who is at home in it: “The form must be interpreted as the integration of a multiplicity into an intentional unity, not as a combination of data which are bound up with each other by some kind of real causality.”307 In a form a meaningful coherence is discovered because someone discovers in it a passable way. How is a traversable way discovered in a form? It is discovered because, in the attentive contemplation of a phenomenon, people are guided by a certain “perceptual interest.”308 They do not stop with the simple apprehension of an object, but proceed to a further explication: “the ego, oriented toward the acquisition of knowledge, tends to penetrate the object, considering it not only from all sides but also in all of its particular aspects, thus, to explicate it.”309 This explication is possible because from the very beginning we apprehend a constellation as a concrete case of a certain “type.”310 We apprehend a constellation in terms of a genre, in accordance with a certain “regulative form,”311 within a realm [Spielraum] of sense-bestowal.312 In the concrete constellation our interest “sees” a systematic multiplicity of possible aspects (sides, parts, phases, moments, developments, and so forth), a potential of “as-yet unperceived characteristics,”313 of 304

M. Dion, La spiritualité ignatienne, in: Église et Théologie 20 (1989), 227-228. See A. de Waelhens, La philosophie et les expériences naturelles, The Hague 1961, especially chapter 4: Du presujet au sujet de la praxis. Les mutations de niveau du sens et de la forme, 86106. 306 A. de Waelhens, La philosophie et les expériences naturelles, 92. 307 Ibid., 94. 308 E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment, Evanston 1973, 103, 105. 309 Ibid., 103-104. 310 Ibid., 105. 311 Cf. E. Husserl, Ideas I, 136. 312 E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment, Evanston 1973, 36. 313 Ibid., 34-35. 305

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“predelineated potentialities,”314 a “prescribed style.”315 As I continue to concentrate on the object, it begins to interpret itself from within. This self-unfolding of a thing in accordance with its internal determinations is called its internal horizon.316 This internal horizon, accordingly, is not statically available but a process: the disclosure of the thing in the interpretation of the knowing subject. Beyond the simple givenness of the thing (level 1), the explication aims at the disclosure of the object (level 2). This is a never-ending process: “Necessarily there always remains a horizon of determinable indeterminateness, no matter how far we go in our experience, no matter how extensive the continua of actual perceptions of the same thing may be through which we have passed. No god can alter that…” 317 With a view to research into spirituality three things are important. 1. It is interest and awakened expectations which direct one’s perception in its penetration of the phenomenon and would direct the disclosure of the internal horizon: “Explication is penetration of the internal horizon of the object by the direction of perceptual interest.”318 For our study this means that the further disclosure of what we initially grasp as a spiritual form (level 1) is guided by the interest of “spirituality,” which to our mind implies: the divine-human relational process understood as transformation (level 2). This phenomenological perspective on the internal horizon of a form casts a specific light on spiritual forms. From the outside a form can look like a chaos. To the person who discovers the form and appropriates it as a meaningful way it opens up an interior. Forms of spirituality are paths of experience: people intensively lived their relatedness to God and in that way blazed a spiritual trail. These paths of experience in turn actuated experience: through them people can discover and experience their God-relatedness. 2. In a spiritual form two movements run counter to each other: the reality of God approaches human reality down to the ground of its existence and, conversely, human reality presents itself to God. These two movements in one and the same medium make a spiritual form, a symbol.319 Now whether we are speaking of ritual symbols320 (“the smallest unit of ritual behavior” (…) associated with “an object, activity, relationship, event, gesture, or a spatial arrangement in 314

E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 44. E. Husserl, Ideen I, 100-101. 316 E. Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, 28. 317 E. Husserl, Ideas I, 95. 318 E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment, 105. 319 V. Turner, The Forest of Symbols. Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca-London 1977, 28-29. 320 Examples: the veneration of the cross during the Sacrum Triduum; breathing exercises in yoga; the giving of a ring in a wedding ceremony; the Jesus-prayer in the life of an eastern monk; the hierarchical place determination in a celebration of the Eucharist. 315

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a ritual situation”)321 or a central symbol322 (a symbol that, from a position of considerable independence, appears in several distinct ritual units with a constant and consistent meaning323), in the one “dynamic system of meaning-bearers” two fields of meaning always come together: the value sphere and the subject sphere. And it is precisely the interpenetration of the two spheres which gives the symbol its transformative power.324 The moment the spiritual form is acted out it effects “an interchange of qualities between its poles of meaning. Norms and values, on the one hand, become saturated with emotion, while the gross and basic emotions become ennobled through contact with social values.”325 3. The most eminent form of symbolization is the face. The face is a form which, “divested of its form, of its categories, [is] a being becoming naked, an unqualified substance breaking through its form and presenting a face. This way for a being to break through its form, which is its apparition, is, concretely, its look, its aim. There is not first a breakthrough, and then a look; to break through one’s form is precisely to look; the eyes are absolutely naked.”326 Here Levinas puts into words the moment of transition from the phenomenal form to the dialogical form: the breaking through the form of the self-communicating self. The dialogical form comes “from behind one’s appearance, behind one’s form”.327 It makes its form visible while at the same time it is “a detachment from its form in the midst of the production of its form.”328 Only this is real phenomenology, according to Levinas.329 What Levinas says about the encounter with the other also applies to the encounter with the divine Face. In a moment of grace the Face, in communicating itself, breaks through the spiritual form. 3. The third level: the external horizon We enter the third level of description when interest in the thing itself is also “an aiming beyond the thing itself with all its anticipated possibilities of subsequent determinations, i.e., an aiming-beyond to other objects of which we are aware at the same time, although at first they are merely in the background This means that everything given in experience has not only an internal horizon but 321

V. Turner, op. cit., 19. Example: the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in pilgrimages around Guadalupe; Christ in the diverse Christian traditions; the Torah in Jewish piety; Elijah in Carmelite traditions. 323 V. Turner, Symbolic Studies, in: Annual Review of Anthropology 4 (1975), 145-161, 152. 324 V. Turner, The Forest of Symbols, 28-30. 325 Ibid., 30. 326 E. Levinas, Freedom and Command, in: Collected Philosophical Papers, (Trans. A. Lingis), Pittsburgh (PA) 1998, 20. 327 E. Levinas, Meaning and Sense, in: Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings, (Ed. A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, & R. Bernasconi), Bloomington-Indianapolis 1996, 53. 328 Ibid. 329 E. Levinas, Freedom and Command, in: Collected Philosophical Papers, 21. 322

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also an infinite, open, external horizon of objects cogiven.”330 Perceptual interest “is not satisfied with the explicative penetration into the internal horizon of the object but makes the objects which are copresent in the external horizon, which are with it in the field and which at the same time affect it, thematic.”331 The perceived phenomenon is brought into relationship with other phenomena. While these phenomena may resemble each other, they may also contrast with them. They may be familiar phenomena but also phenomena which require further illumination. The “external-horizon” relations “display what the other object is in its relation to other objects.”332 The [perceptual] interest is “not divided equally among the plurality of objects present in the field but remains concentrated on one of them. The others will be drawn in only to the extent to which, by their relation to the object, they contribute to its more precise determination.”333 The external horizon is referred to with terms like “full of things,” “field of perception,” “background,” “structured landscape,” or, briefly, “field.” This phenomenological insight also applies to spiritual forms. They delineate themselves against the background of a cultural complex of problems for which they seek an answer. “Just as every style is interwoven with a historical context, so is spirituality. Apart from that context it would not even have originated. Real style truly allows the spiritual core-data of human existence – as they function at this special point in history – come to expression.”334 Spirituality is intimately interwoven with the social-cultural context, with the prevailing mentality of a certain period, the “zeitgeist,”335 the atmosphere which determines a given culture, an atmosphere which makes people into contemporaries, causes them to speak the same language, to share the same attitude to life. A [reigning] mentality pervades institutions, human behavior, the cultural pattern, the language, “the structures of society, the terms in which it voices its aspirations, the subjective and objective forms of the common consciousness.”336 Spiritual forms occur as an interior dialogue with a culture in order, in contradistinction to it, to find a way that tries to break through cultural ambivalence from within the relation to God. The Interior Castle of Teresa of Avila gets its own weight in the context of 16th century Spain. Tiempo (time) and vida (life) bring out each 330

E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment, 33. See also The Crisis of European sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Evanston 1970, 162. 331 Cf. E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment, 105. 332 Ibid., 105. 333 Ibid., 105. 334 B. Fraling, Überlegungen zum Begriff der Spiritualität, in: Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 92 (1970), 188-189. 335 S. de Fiores, Spiritualité contemporaine, in: DVSp (1983), 1061-1077; see also G. Mattai, Sociologie et spiritualité, ibid., 1044-1053. 336 M. de Certeau, Beschavingen en spiritualiteiten, in: Concilium 2 (1966), no. 9, 5-10.

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other’s characteristic features.337 On the other hand, on the basis of the same approach, Teresa as woman and teacher of the church is perhaps only now getting the weight that was already due to her then but which people did not perceive at the time.338 Like every other phenomenon, spiritual forms refer in the final analysis to the horizon which embraces all horizons, the world. “Not a single experience of ‘reality’ – whatever the form of reality at issue may be – is possible when the ‘reality’ in question does not fit itself into a context of other ‘realities’ – of the same or of another type.”339 In phenomenology these other realities are called “world”340 or “horizon.” We must not think of this horizon as a framework that precedes the encounter between “man” and “reality.” In the encounter, which is “form”-ative, the horizon is summoned up as the background which constitutes the form: “It is this [horizon] which brings about that every existent can be ‘encountered,’ can be related to every other existent and placed in the perspective of all of them, can be transformed, clarified in light of the whole and within itself.”341 This “world” cannot be perceived as an object. It presents itself in and through objects. Such a group of things “always has the character for us of a sector of the world, of the universe of things for possible perceptions.”342 Every phenomenon is an existent-in, i.e., it appears “in the open horizon of spatio-temporality, the horizon of real things which are already familiar, and not only those of which we are actually aware but also of those, presently unknown, of which it is possible to have experience and subsequent knowledge.”343 In descriptive spirituality research, scholars work together interdisciplinarily with the historical disciplines but also with studies in religion and sociology. Other spirituality methods (hermeneutics, systematics, mystagogics) are, of course, involved – each in its own way – in this descriptive research, especially hermeneutics, inasmuch as only a thorough reading of the text is capable of disclosing the text’s internal horizon from the perspective of the interest of spirituality. 5.3.2. HERMENEUTIC RESEARCH When Cassian wants to clarify the second aspect of discernment (diakrisis), he chooses the reading of Scripture as his example. Considered by itself, Scripture is made of pure gold, but as a result of a certain reading of it this gold can be 337

O. Steggink, Tiempo y vida de Santa Teresa, Madrid 1977. O. Steggink, Aan de bron. Teresa van Avila, vrouw en mystica, Kampen 1989. 339 A. de Waelhens, La philosophie et les expériences naturelles, The Hague 1961, 108. 340 D. Waelhens devotes a whole chapter to this topic, ibid., 107-121. 341 Ibid., 120. 342 E. Husserl, The Crisis of European sciences and Transcentental Phenomenology, op. cit., 162. 343 E. Husserl, Experience and Judgment, 34. 338

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transmuted into the image of a tyrant: “We need to look closely to see that no wicked interpretation fastened onto the pure gold of Scripture deceives us by the precious appearance of its metal.”344 By this statement Cassian poses a fundamental problem of spiritual hermeneutics: by a certain reading attitude a spiritual text and its reader are a priori put into a certain relationship to each other. Hermeneutical investigation problematizes this reading attitude. Questions are put to the text, to the act of reading and interpretation, and reading perspectives are plumbed. Sometimes these questions do not have to be posed because the act of reading has itself become problematic: texts prove to be unintelligible, reading perspectives prove to be too forced, meanings cannot be discovered or lived. These are the situations in which hermeneutics flourishes. When important texts from the past have become unintelligible, people appeal to hermeneutics. The Stoics made Homer acceptable to the Hellenistic world via allegorical interpretation. The Rabbis translated the torah in the direction of daily practice via a number of hermeneutic rules. Christians offered a messianic interpretation of the “Old Testament” via the promise-fulfillment scheme. Humanists grounded their interpretation of classic antiquity on philosophy. The Reformers read the Bible in light of the principle that Scripture interprets itself. Initially the number of hermeneutic systems was limited. Only the Bible and classic texts required special hermeneutics. However, with the growing independence of the various areas of science from the 15th century on, the number of specialized hermeneutics increased: the science of history, the study of law, philosophy, and so forth, all called for hermeneutics of their own. Also the object broadened correspondingly. Whereas hermeneutics was initially restricted to texts, at this moment it also includes human conduct,345 history,346 nature,347 indeed all existents insofar as people see meaning in them and want to appropriate that meaning.348 From the 18th century on, in reaction to the fragmentation into special hermeneutics, the study of general hermeneutics was launched. Meier as the first scholar to do so designed his Versuch einer allgemeinen Auslegungskunst (1756). But it was Friedrich Schleiermacher who raised the question concerning the possibility of and conditions for understanding (Verstehen) as such. Since

344

John Cassian, The Conferences, I, 20 (SC 42). P. Ricoeur, Het model van de tekst: zinvol handelen opgevat als een tekst, in: Tekst en betekenis. Opstellen over de interpretatie van literatuur, Baarn 1991, 146-174. 346 F. Ankersmit, De Angelsakische hermeneutiek en de geschiedbeoefening, in: Th. de Boer et al., Hermeneutiek. Filosofische grondslagen van mens- en cultuurwetenschappen, Meppel-Amsterdam 1988, 121. 347 I. Bulhof, Hermeneutiek en natuurwetenschappen, in: Th. de Boer et al., ibid., 240-261. 348 M. Heidegger, Being and Time, Albany (NY) 1996. 345

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Schleiermacher, the study of hermeneutics has broadened and deepened, resulting in a flood of literature.349 Within the several areas of scientific study, hermeneutics fulfills a number of divergent functions. Sometimes it constitutes the methodological center, sometimes it plays a marginal role. At one time it is aimed at the deconstruction of supposed connections; at another it especially tries to (re)construct the systematic connections. Some hermeneutics are motivated by emancipatory-critical interests, while others are above all directed toward a contemporizing affirmation of the past. Hermeneutics exist which bind themselves firmly to the materiality of language, while others try to liberate meanings from beyond the constraints of the signs. Some hermeneutics are governed by the ideal of dissociation; others call for engagement. On three points phenomenology has made a fundamental contribution to hermeneutics: it clarified the reading process; it opened a new perspective on the process of interpretation; it explored the meaning-disclosure on the other side of the text. 1. Clarification of the reading process In his phenomenology of the act of reading Wolfgang Iser has demonstrated that the act of reading is intrinsically bound up with the constitution of the text. In his book The Act of Reading,350 he describes the three most important activities of a reader. (1) The reader continually recaptures the successive text segments backward and forward. Directed by the text, he reads text segment after text segment against the background of previous and still coming segments, a process by which these segments are constantly being transformed. It is precisely this continual “transformation of segments which produces the aesthetic object.”351 Because the text itself neither formulates the modifications in the pattern of expectation, nor articulates how the remembered must be related to it, nor what associations need to occur, the readers themselves must, by their synthesizing activity, transfer the text to their own mind.”352 (2) By passing through the different positions which the text forces them to adopt, readers build up an imaginary world of their own. Every text segment offers readers a certain profile of the field of meaning by which they are put in a certain position: “The choice of viewpoint is in a sense laid down,”353 viz. by this adumbration of the field of meaning conveyed by a particular text segment. The successive adumbrations 349 A. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics, London 1992, 621-661; J. Grondin, Einführung in die philosophische Hermeneutik, Darmstadt 1991, 185-246. 350 W. Iser, The Act of Reading, Baltimore-London 1978. 351 Cf. W. Iser, ibid., 197. 352 Cf. ibid., 111-112. 353 Ibid., 201.

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(Abschattungen) force the reader to adopt shifting attitudes (Einstellungen). It is these shifting attitudes which enable the text to display its different perspectives, which by their interactivity open up a horizon of understanding: “The change of viewpoint prefigured to the reader produces a contrast between the textual perspectives, by which they are organized into mutual horizons.”354 (3) The reader imagines the imaginary world by portraying it to himself. Thus he “receives” the meaning of the text by composing it.355 By the work of his imagination he finds himself “in the middle of the text:”356 “Now this process (…) enables us to produce an image of the imaginary object, which otherwise has no existence of its own. (…) Precisely because it has no existence of its own and because we are imagining and producing it, we are actually in its presence and it is in ours.”357 The field of meaning is imaged in the reader as he portrays it. Here “the subject-object division in eliminated.”358 The three above-mentioned activities show how the reader and the text are transformed in each other, a transformation which takes place only when the text is performed. The moment we attend to the text, give voice or expression to it, it becomes a performed text, active and alive.”359 A text comes alive in being performed. It can no longer be exclusively defined as an objective thing, detached from the reader. “Within the framework of a phenomenologically-oriented aesthetic the literary text is to be regarded as the combined action of operative structures which are interrelated and which the reader actualizes in reading it in order to generate the meaning via the play of shifting schemata.”360 2. The process of interpretation For Gadamer the understanding of texts is constituted by two movements: the movement of tradition which as a result of temporal distance presents itself as being opposite and strange,361 and the movement of the interpreter who anticipates the meaning which governs his understanding of the text. The two movements “fuse:”362

354

Cf., ibid., 198. Ibid., 21. 356 Ibid., 108-111. 357 Cf. ibid., 139. 358 Ibid., 140. 359 E. Bruner, Experience and its Expressions, in: The Anthropology of Experience, (Ed. V. Turner & E. Bruner), Urbana-Chicago 1986, 11-12. 360 W. Iser, In het licht van de kritiek, in: De wetenschap van het lezen. Tien jaar theorie der literaire receptie, (Trans. & Expl. M. Buursink, K. Hupperetz et al.), Assen-Amsterdam 1978, 183. 361 H. Gadamer, Truth and Method, New York 1991, 311. 362 Cf. ibid., 306ff., 374f., 397, 576. 355

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Three aspects are important here: (1) The projection of the historical horizon within which the text appears: “This is why it is part of the hermeneutic approach to project a historical horizon that is different from the horizon of the present.”364 (2) The projection of a historical horizon assumes that the present horizon has its own profile: “Historical consciousness is aware of its own otherness and hence foregrounds the horizon of the past from its own.”365 (3) The two positions are a priori implicated in each other. That is the fusion of horizons. After all, the manner in which the interpreter situates the past at a distance structures this past in accordance with the image of one’s own horizon, which by that token is imperceptibly superimposed as a new layer upon the tradition. It is the present horizon of understanding of the past which reveals itself in the questions addressed to the tradition. For that reason the projection of a historical horizon “does not become solidified into the self-alienation of a past consciousness but is overtaken by our own present horizon of understanding. […] In the process of understanding, a real fusing of horizons occurs – which means that as the historical horizon is projected, it is simultaneously superseded. To bring about this fusion in a regulated way is the task of what we called historically effected consciousness.”366 3. Beyond the Verse In his book Beyond the Verse367 Levinas outlines four fields of meaning which are situated on the other side of the clearly defined Bible texts: (1) The enigmatic meaning. Along the lines of Jewish scripture interpretation Levinas states that Bible texts “have a plain meaning which is also enigmatic.”368 The enigmatic meaning369 is included in the plain meaning.370 It calls for 363

Ibid., 304, 306. Ibid., 306. 365 Ibid., 306. 366 Ibid., 307. 367 E. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994. 368 Ibid., 307. 369 E. Levinas, op. cit., x. 370 Designated in the Jewish tradition by names like rezei tora, sitrei tora, and sod. 364

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hermeneutics whose task is to extricate, from within the meaning immediately offered by the proposition, those meanings that are only implied.”371 (2) The prophetic dignity of the language. “Language is capable of always signifying more than it says,”372 because “man to his amazement listens to what he utters” “because he already reads the utterance and interprets it.”373 In his self-articulation the speaker is inwardly present; after all, he knows the inner rhythm and dynamics of the flowing of his words. “The human word is already writing,”374 because the sentence fragment uttered delineates itself against the inner stream of self-articulation. Levinas calls this “marvel of inspiration” the “inspired essence of the language.”375 (3) The language coordinates me to the other. The language is not just an instrument which gives to existents a place in the fabric of the world and of history or because it provides a fund of information about people and things. “Beyond what it wants me to know, it co-ordinates me with the other to whom I speak; it signifies in every discourse from the face of the other, hidden from sight yet unforgettable.”376 (4) The uniqueness of the reader. The truth of Holy Scripture reveals itself in the reading process that is carried out by a unique person in a unique situation: “It signifies for the self in its non-interchangeable identity. The understanding that this self has of the truth of revelation determines a meaning which, ‘in the whole of eternity,’ could not be attained without it.”377 The truth of the Bible verse is like the light breaking in a crystal: in the utter uniqueness of a person and his giftedness the truth of revelation is disclosed. This is “the irreplaceable part that every person and every moment contribute to the message – or to the prescription itself – which is received and whose wealth is thereby revealed only in the pluralism of persons and generations.”378 In hermeneutical exploration the study of spirituality collaborates interdisciplinarily with the literary sciences and, as far as Scripture is concerned, with exegesis. In the nature of the case the other methods of spirituality research are involved in hermeneutics as well: descriptive research to determine the context of the text; systematic research to comprehend the most important constituents of the frame of reference; and mystagogy to explain in-depth the pragmatics of the text. 371

Called peshat in the Jewish tradition. E. Levinas, ibid., x. 373 Ibid., x-xi. 374 Ibid., xi. 375 Ibid., xi. 376 Ibid., xii. 377 Ibid., xiii. 378 Ibid., xiii. 372

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5.3.3. SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH The third aspect of discernment (diakrisis) concerns the systematic discussion of subjects with a focus on the spiritual “way.” In this discussion two movements intersect: (1) The community comes together and proposes a subject for discussion in its midst; (2) this subject is treated, with “daggers drawn,” in the light of experience and everyone’s judgment, until its truth comes to light with binding force. Diakrsisis is a didactic discussion, in which the truth of a thing that concerns everyone but also the community as such, is systematically illumined. Systematic spirituality research has two foci: the critical community in which the matter is raised for discussion and the matter thus raised. In this connection language is the intermediary, inasmuch as it mediates the articulation of the matter and communication in the context of a truth-seeking forum. This polar structure is characteristic for truth. “Truth aims at a discursively-realizable claim to validity in which the disclosure of the matter itself is articulated via a distinct series of linguistic moments. Even more appropriately formulated, we should have to say: truth aims at the disclosure of the matter that articulates itself in the mode (= dimension) of a claim to validity that is to be discursively realized.”379 Clearly visible in this definition are the two above-mentioned foci: on the one hand, the discursively realizable claim to validity; on the other, the articulation of the disclosure of the matter itself. Clearly visible also is the mediation accomplished by language (linguistic investigation), which here too unfolds itself in two directions: the discursiveness of the argument and the articulation of the matter. Herewith the four essential aspects of the systematic research, in which the truth of a spiritual subject is discussed, have been brought to light. 1. The claim to validity An essential aspect of the truth of a subject is that its articulation claims validity and is not ascribed, for example, to feeling, taste, a flash of insight, or appearance. Truth claims that a proposition is tenable in the presence of others: participants in the discussion are prepared and able to ground it and to advance arguments for it, to explain and to elucidate it, and that in such a way that the proposition is made clear right down to the (alleged) facts of the matter itself. “From this it is clear that from the very beginning the meaning of the truth is only ascertainable within a linguistic-intersubjective frame of reference.”380 A true assertion is one that “wants” to justify itself. It is important to stress here that this justification is not restricted to the correctness or coherence of the assertion, but concerns the inner articulation of the matter itself (about which we will have 379 380

L. Puntle, Wahrheit, in: Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe 3 (1974), 1658. Ibid., 1654-1655.

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more to say later) as it becomes evident in an authentic discussion.381 With this in mind, we can state: “There is no disclosure which can be characterized as truth except in the manner of a stated and reproducible claim to validity.”382 Truth is intersubjective. This insight, the foundation for which was laid by language philosophers like Humboldt, Hamann, and Herder, was first sharply formulated by Feuerbach in his Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft, 1843). Intersubjectivity is not a secondary addition to scientific research but integral to the truth-seeking process itself: “the community of man with man is the first principle and criterion of truth and generality.”383 The test of truth does not lie in personal conviction (“I agree with myself that a given state of affairs is as I perceive it”), but in an intersubjective test: a fixed point outside the closed circle of the I. “One can inaugurate the work of criticism only if one can begin with a fixed point. The fixed point cannot be some incontestable truth, a ‘certain’ statement that would always be subject to psychoanalysis; it can only be the absolute status of an interlocutor, a being, and not of a truth about beings.”384 The fixed point on which all criticism is based is language, the language in which one person orients himself to another, addresses him, questions and answers him, and gives an account of himself. There exists an intrinsic connection between the truth of the thing that is broached in a proposition and the claim to validity before a scientific forum. On this point De Groot’s Methodologie falls short. Granted, he indicates what a proper scientific communication looks like: in a scientific communication one gives an account of something that was perceived, tested, and evaluated, through the means of publications that are accessible to all, meet the requirements of written and unwritten norms, research techniques, logical rules and methods, have been composed by a forum of well-informed competent scholars and scientists, and exceed in time and space the limits of a particular scientist or research group. It presupposes an open and democratic process of exchange in which criticism, inspiration, derivation, rejection and confirmation take place.385 Still the connection which De Groot makes between the empirical cycle (the basis of his research method) and a scientific communication is coincidental: suddenly it seems to dawn on him that there is also still something like a scientific forum. Almost in passing he discovers that there exists a parallel movement between the learning process and reportage. Over against this we say that the 381

Ibid., 1658. Ibidem. 383 L. Feuerbach, Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, Indianapolis 1986, section 41, 59. 384 E. Levinas, The Ego and the Totality, in: Collected Philosophical Papers, (Trans. A. Lingis), Pittsburgh 1998, 47. 385 A. de Groot, Methodologie. Grondslagen van onderzoek en denken in de gedragswetenschappen, The Hague 1981, 18 and 24-28. 382

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connection between the discovery of truth and communication is intrinsic. Truth is intersubjective. The intersubjectivity of truth, however, is only one component. One ascribes independent existence to this component if one equates truth with consensus or regards consensus as a condition or criterion for truth.386 Consensus is an element in truth: the truth insofar as it is aimed at recognition. “Truth aims for the disclosure (of the state) of the thing itself in the dimension of a universal (in terms of intention and scope) consensus.”387 2. The epistemological field Truth becomes manifest in language, “the pregiven disclosure or public nature of a state of affairs.”388 Language offers the basic words and categories in which the truth of a matter asserts its claim to validity. Language, however, is not indeterminate. Through language a thing is immediately understood and defined in a certain way. What is true for language in general applies to scientific language in particular. It always understands a thing in a certain way “because from the very beginning a certain method is applied, a certain perspective is chosen: in short, a certain mode of articulation is used.”389 From the very start scientific language marks off a certain field by means of categories, schemes, and procedures. In his book The Order of Things Michel Foucault calls this “the epistemological field”: the common space within which schemes of perception, value spheres and practices meaningfully agree and differ; in other words, a complex of ordering structures in light of which experiences and theories are comprehensible.390 In the epistemological field one not only finds concepts and styles of argumentation, but also experiences, memories, and convictions. The field of knowledge (epistème) is mapped out by a great variety of scientific operations: the testing of hypotheses, the conduct of experiments, the comprehension of logical structures, the interpretation of texts, the systemizations of data, the mapping out of psychological states of affairs, the analysis of social interactions, and so forth. The epistemological field opens things up and gives direction but at the same time it closes doors and obstructs vistas. For that reason people are continually tinkering with categories and logical rules. It remains an ambiguous thing: certain scientific language systems – in which the matter itself is deemed to be able to express itself truthfully – offer a coherence which some view as a criterion for truth, others as “closedness.” The forging of a scientific argument, after all, is always accompanied by elimination: we exclude the things that do not fit in our 386

Cf., e.g., Peirce and Habermas. L. Puntel, Wahrheit, in: Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe 3 (1974), 1662. 388 Ibid., 1659. 389 Ibid., 1666. 390 M. Foucault, The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, London 1974. 387

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perspective. We want to make our line of reasoning a compelling whole. This is also true for spirituality.391 “Renewals in insight and style are frequently accompanied by the demolition of the old. They frivolously seize from the scrap heap the pretensions which had worn down the old. […] People adorn themselves with the vanities which caused the ruin of what had been shoved aside. The vanities change places.”392 Decisive in all this is the insight that the construction of the story itself proceeds selectively and hence in part by elimination. A plenitude of material is organized within a single perspective. But in the process a part of the truth is excluded and our own truth has become particularized. Knowledge that divests itself of the singular and of a diversity of perspectives distances itself – to the degree it succeeds – from the truth as it really is and reinforces the particularity of the perspective chosen. Those who have become aware of these dynamics will, in their scholarly work, spontaneously attach themselves to values like modesty and respect.393 “Modesty! No people, including the practitioners of philosophy, any longer possess the point of view in terms of which all conflict is indisputably resolved.”394 The epistemological field opens and shuts. This explains why thinkers like Kierkegaard, Buber, and Levinas found themselves on the margins of the epistemological field of philosophy. The same is true for scholars who try to articulate the truth of spirituality. They frequently find themselves on the margin of already-existing epistemological fields. 3. The logic of the matter In the previous section language above all functioned as the medium by which a truth claim can assert itself publicly. That same language, however, is also used in pronouncements within which a state of affairs expresses itself. The exciting feature here is contained in the little word “also.” For the claim to validity especially asserts that a given pronouncement concerning a matter is true. The claim is that something is true from the perspective of the matter itself. And that condition “from the perspective of the matter itself ” is given shape in the form of propositions. After all, a pronouncement (proposition) posits that a certain (verbalized) state of affairs (set of facts) is true for this specific matter. Every pronouncement, however, is an explanation, a setting-forth of things; discursive. The matter is set forth in language. The truth claim is that the relations which are posited in the explanation correspond fully to the relations present in the matter itself. This is the reason why Western metaphysics finds the truth in judgment, a judgment understood as an affirmative synthesis. What is true is not a 391 F. Maas, Godsrelatie en differentie-denken, in: K. Waaijman et al., Kansen voor spiritualiteit. Kwetsbaarheid, meerstemmig zelf, differentie-denken, Baarn 1996, 133-134. 392 F. Maas, ibid., 141. 393 Ibid., 165-168. 394 Ibid., 165.

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concept or a coherent conjunction of concepts (categorial synthesis) but the judgment in which a set of facts is couched. The tension between a pronouncement and a state of affairs is not static but dynamic. It is constructed by reasoning (discursively). In science and scholarship it has an argumentative-systematically illuminating character. The word “systematic” must not be misunderstood.395 Sometimes a system is understood as a step-by-step development of an indubitable point of departure (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz). Sometimes a system is viewed as the mode in which reality as a whole unfolds via a phased process of self-production (Hegel, Marx). Others restrict a system to a mode of working: ordering things in accordance with coherent, pre-established and agreed-upon criteria, procedures, and schemata (positivism). We understand a “system” to be a form of “collatio,” a way of working that is known from the field of spirituality. The notion of “system” comes from suniemi (to place together; to be placed together), just as collatio comes from conferre (to bring together). Starting from this basic meaning, one has several options: one can collect and combine data arbitrarily; fit newly emerging data into an already existing order; design an order in dialogue with disparate data; join the data into a closed system; discover coherence in a given state of affairs, and so forth.396 We conceive the word “systematic” to refer to the act of methodically explaining the logic of a matter in a reasoned set of propositions. A true proposition is deemed to be one that brings a certain state of affairs to appropriate expression. This state of affairs is not there for the asking but is produced discursively. That is the reason why in phenomenology the truth is called “practical” (especially Heidegger, appealing to Aristotle). The truth has to be “done” (Merleau-Ponty).397 4. The matter itself According to Parmenides, the truth is directed toward “the is” as presence.398 This conviction is held by an important line of thinkers in Western philosophy. The specific nature of a truth claim lies precisely in that the matter itself and the matter-as-explained are transparently identical (perspicuitas). Indeed, one must go further: in the state of affairs, as articulated in the proposition, the matter itself is manifest (evidentia). What is said here is not that propositions actually succeed in demonstrating the truth of the matter itself. What is asserted is that 395

For a philosophical analysis of the concept of system in historical perspective, see M. Zahn, System, in: Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe 3 (1974), 1458-1475. 396 Cf. M. Zahn, ibid., 1462-1463. 397 A. de Waelhens, Phénoménologie et vérité, Paris 1953; E. Tugendhat, Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger, Berlin 1970. 398 Parmenides, Fragment 5-6, in: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker I, (Ed. H. Diels), Berlin 1954, 235.

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the truth claim implies this: “There is no discursively achievable claim to validity which does not precisely contain the disclosure of the matter (Sache) itself.”399 Although there is always a difference between “the facts of the matter” (Sachverhalt) and the matter itself (Sache) (they do not coincide), a truth operation is essentially aimed at eliminating this difference through the transparency in which the matter becomes obvious of itself. In a truth operation the state of affairs is so articulated in words that the matter itself comes to light. While the state of affairs (“the facts of the case”) remains distinct from the matter itself, distortions and obfuscations are (as much as possible) eliminated. We can illumine this field of tension by “the truth” as the gospel of John understands it. On the one hand, it is stated that the truth is “word,” i.e. an addressive word, a claim (dabar).400 Jesus came into the world to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37); he is the claim to validity of the truth itself (John 1:1). On the other hand, the same gospel speaks of the “spirit” of truth. We have seen401 that the spirit (ruach) is the inner track by which a thing is moved. The spirit of truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13) refers to “the isness” of truth, “makes one understand the inwardness of the truth of Jesus.”402 The Spirit, accordingly, will teach people who Jesus essentially is (John 14:26) and “he will lead you into all truth” (John 16:13). Here, in the gospel of John, accordingly, we see the tension which is so characteristic for truth: its claim to validity (the word of truth) and its very being (the spirit of truth). Truth aims at the unity of the two. “The way in which a matter offers itself is not some aspect which remains external to the mater itself (…), behind which ‘the matter itself as it is’ can hide.”403 The way in which a thing offers itself is the way a matter offers itself. The question concerning the criterion of truth is in fact a question concerning the method by which a pronouncement (which makes a claim to being true) is reached (the verification procedure). How can we verify the agreement existing between the matter itself, the state of affairs, and the pronouncement? The criterion of truth is wrapped up in the verification trajectory which the truthseeking process encompasses as such: the matter itself, the state of affairs, the pronouncement, and the reproducible claim to validity – and all this as a single identity. In systematic spirituality research the study of spirituality collaborates – interdisciplinarily – with the philosophical, systematic-theological, and philosophyof-religion disciplines. Also the other three methods of spirituality are, in the 399

L. Puntel, Wahrheit, in: Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe 3 (1974), 1658. I. de la Potterie, Vérité I. L’Écriture Sainte, in: DSp 16 (1994), 418-419. 401 Part 2, chapter 1.2. 402 I. de la Potterie, ibid., 420. 403 L. Puntel, ibid., 1660. 400

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nature of the case, involved in this systematic research: descriptive research, because every systematic articulation is historically conditioned; hermeneutic research, because all systematic knowledge is rooted in a thorough reading of key texts; mystagogic research, because notions of spirituality often arise from processes of initiation in the spiritual way. 5.3.4. MYSTAGOGIC RESEARCH The third aspect of diakrisis (discernment) sharpens one’s eye for the difference between the actual state of a person’s God-relatedness and its full flowering. What is highlighted, therefore, is not the choice of the right way, the understanding of God’s will or the honing of the golden mean, but growth in Godrelatedness which breaks into full bloom when the increated image of God culminates in complete likeness. After Vatican II the notion of “mystagogy,” which functioned in the Hellenistic mystery cults but also played an important role in the early church, again became current. Following Irene Behn, Hans Urs von Balthasar differentiated between mysticism as the actual experience, mystology as reflection on the experience, and mystagogy as accompaniment in the direction of mystical experience.404 Karl Rahner broadened the concept, making it the initiation into a growing consciousness of existence in general. Mystagogy is a central category in his work.405 In his thinking it unfolds in three phases: (1) It suspends the boundaries of human existence and the world, transforming them into expectant openness to the mystery of God. (2) It introduces people to God’s gracious proximity in Christ, where God himself becomes the principle of knowledge and volition. (3) It leads to knowledge with respect to one’s own place and mission in the community of faith.406 In Rahner the basic concept of mystagogy is fed from two sources. The first source is patristic spirituality and the mystical 404

H. Urs von Balthasar, Zur Ortsbestimmung christlicher Mystik, in: Grundfragen der Mystik, (Ed. W. Beierwaltes, H. Urs von Balthasar & A. Haas), Einsiedeln 1974, 50. 405 For this, see K. Fischer, Gotteserfahrung. Mystagogie in der Theologie Karl Rahners und in der Theologie der Befreiung, Mainz 1986; A. Hendriks, Mystagogie und pastorale Grundaufgaben, Münster 1986; J. Bacik, Apologetics and the Eclipse of Mystery. Mystagogy according to Karl Rahner, Notre Dame (IN) 1980; R. Bleistein, Mystagogie in den Glauben. Karl Rahners Anliegen und die Religionspädagogik, in: Gottes Weisheit im Mysterium. Vergessene Wege christlicher Spiritualität, (Ed. A. Schilson), Mainz 1989; K. Neumann, Der Praxisbezug der Theologie bei Karl Rahner, Freiburg 1980, 188191; R. Wagner, Mystik und Mystagogie in der Theologie K. Rahners. Die ‘mystische’ Dimension des ‘übernatürlichen Existenzials’, München 1985; H. Flöck, Mystagogie und Seelsorge. Grundlegung und Praxis, Trier 1989. 406 A. Wollbold, Therese von Lisieux. Eine mystagogische Deutung ihrer Biographie, Würzburg 1994, 23-46.

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tradition,407 particularly the Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.408 The second source is the Daseins-analyse (the analysis of human existence) of Martin Heidegger who regarded the effort to become familiar with the Mystery, the proximity of the Origin, as philosophy’s most important task. 409 Andreas Wollbold is correct in claiming that Rahner’s mystical-philosophical mystagogy takes too little account of the situatedness of every human being, a situatedness within which the opening up of the boundaries of existence as far as the Mystery and the reception of God’s proximity in Christ takes place. Mystagogy into the Mystery is always a biographically situated and mediated mystagogy.410 In our mystagogical spirituality research we take our point of departure in Rahner’s concept of mystagogy. In it the existential-phenomenological component (Heidegger) is inwardly directed toward mystical-dialogical transformation (patristic spirituality; Ignatius Loyola). This field of tension is mediated biographically (Wollbold). We will now present a brief sketch of the essential moments of mystagogical research. 1. The Mystery of human existence Humans are the beings in the world who can learn to know themselves and be there for themselves. Human subjectivity is realized as a cognitive being for oneself. Mystagogy is launched in Rahner along these lines.411 This cognitive being there-for-oneself, however, is broken. The breach discloses itself in asking: Is this really me? Who am I? How did I get here? Upon further reflection this being there-for-oneself is a questioning coming to oneself. We do not coincide with ourselves in a simple being-there-for ourselves. Moreover, we are not directly for ourselves but always indirectly – via our experience of the world which we are not. Knowing being-for-ourselves is reflective: our ever-already-present relation to the world returns in our knowledge to itself. At the same time this world exceeds the reach of our reflection as the horizon within which the separate entities come to light. Thus, in the first steps of mystagogy, the questioning openness of our reflective being for ourselves in which the Mystery of an absolutely simple beingfor-ourselves and the Mystery of the existence of the world delineate themselves. This Mystery-filled subjectivity is affirmed by a pre-reflective movement of the will and at the same time extends itself to the event of a self-communication of this Mystery that is experienced in this being-for-ourselves and in the world. 407

K. Fischer, Gotteserfahrung, Mainz 1986, 24-49. M. Schneider, Unterscheidung der Geister. Die ignatianischen Exerzitien in der Deutung von E. Przywara, K. Rahner und G. Fessard, Innsbruck-Wien 1983. 409 M. Heidegger, The Essence of Truth, London 1998. 410 A. Wollbold, ibid., 47-62. 411 For the development of mystagogy from within an understanding of one’s own existence, see esp. K. Rahner, Geist in Welt, Innsbruck-Leipzig 1939 and Hörer des Wortes, München 1941. 408

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It is clear that these exercises of Rahner must be understood against the background of the existential phenomenological explorations of Heidegger into which also basic Kantian notions (reflective knowing) and Hegelian ideas (cognitively being there for oneself ) have been integrated. It above all makes clear that mystagogy initiates [beginners] into the Mystery by a process of elucidation. Mystagogy is not primarily an experiential initiation into an area of reality, but above all a cognitive-reflective appropriation of already effected experience. In mystagogy what people already always do (being for themselves, questioning, reflecting on experience, knowing the world against the background of being, positively affirming themselves, looking for Self-communication) is brought to a higher level of understanding. It is the purpose of mystagogy to make existence reflectively conscious in knowing self-understanding and to make [its practitioners] freely accept it.412 2. Biographical mediation Andreas Wollbold states that Rahner’s mystagogy is too abstract. The process of becoming conscious of the Mystery of one’s own existence and of the world occurs in biographical reality.413 One’s actual life history is the pregiven situation against which the mystagogical exercises delineate themselves. Within several disciplines life histories are used in scientific research, especially also in the formation of theory.414 Freud developed many of his psychoanalytic theories by listening to the life stories of his patients; Hall used diaries and autobiographies as a source for the development of his ideas about adulthood; Murray, in developing his doctrine of personality, proceeded from the same sort of data. We can similarly point to the work of Allport, White, Erikson, and others. Characteristic for biographical research is a true-to-life research situation in which the meaning of a person’s past, present, and future is systematically considered: on the level of the body and a person’s constitutional data; the manner in which a person synthesizes his or her life; the level of a person’s family, society, and culture.415 Narrative psychology, for example, expressly takes the life histories of people as the starting point for its explorations. These life histories are not read in terms of general laws but in terms of their inner “message.”416 In 412

A. Wollbold, ibid., 23-34. Ibid., 2-6. 414 See, e.g., W. Runyan, Life Histories and Psychobiography. Explorations in Theory and Method, New York-Oxford 1984; Psychobiography and Life Narratives, (Ed. D. McAdams & R. Ochberg), Durham 1988; Biographie und Psychologie, (Ed. G. Jüttemann & H. Thomae), Berlin 1987. 415 See, for example, E. Erikson, Childhood and Society, New York 1963. 416 See, for example, T. Sarbin, Narrative Psychology. The Storied Nature of Human Conduct, New York 1986, Life and Story. Autobiographies for a Narrative Psychology, (Ed. D. Lee), Westport-London 1994. 413

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sociology we observe comparable developments: the life-world approach in Marxistically-oriented sociologies; the course-of-life approach based on phenomenologically-oriented research; and the ethnomethodology in which autobiographical data play an essential role. Anthropology has its so-called “life-history method.” In political science autobiographical data are used to study a given political climate from within an insider’s perspective. In the field of literaryhistorical disciplines autobiographies yield insight into the impact of events and texts on persons. Hedlund analyzed 145 autobiographical essays on the subject of meaning-bestowal and faith-system.417 In the study of spirituality autobiographical data have only rarely been studied systematically within a mystagogical perspective.418 Biographical research can give mystagogical research a special accent of its own. By comparing the pregiven biographical situation with new forms of being-for-oneself and reflection, one can trace the impact of spiritual experiences on the subsequent life of the person in question. Forms of consciousness and reflection which break open or change certain schemes of reflection point to experiential processes. By registering these changes, one discovers a basis for the perception of a development on the level of experience. This may pertain to the elementary discovery of the Mystery in the reality of existence as well as to the level of the Self-communication of the Mystery in the disclosure and growing awareness of one’s place and mission within the community. At issue is “the ability to point to God’s nameless presence in the course of a person’s life. Precisely by giving to God a name in people’s developing lives, mystagogy must prove its strength and be developed into an independent method.419 3. God’s Self-communication Mystagogy as the clarification of human existence is realized as being-questioningly-for-oneself and as reflection upon what exists against the background of the horizon of Being. The Mystery delineates itself in it as an absolute being-therefor-oneself, as complete act and being as such. The mystagogy of existence awakens the always-already-present contact with the Mystery beyond the being questioningly there-for-oneself, beyond all reflection, beyond all being. But the Mystery remains distant and still. It only lights up as a horizon. And human 417 For these areas of application, see J. Birren & D. Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults. Exploring the Fabric of Life, Baltimore-London 1991, 120-131. See also Le désir biographique, (Ed. P. Lejeune), Paris 1989. 418 Exceptions are A. Wollbold, Therese von Lisieux. Eine mystagogische Deutung ihrer Biographie, Würtzburg 1994; T. Manshausen, Die Biographie der Edith Stein. Beispiel einer Mystagogie, Frankfurt a.M. 1985; L. Karer, Mystagogie in literarischer Biographie. Am Beispiel Hermann Hesses ‘Das Glasperlenspiel’, Wien 1986. 419 A. Wollbold, ibid., 4. For a description of such a mystagogic-biographical method, see ibid., 63-74.

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beings reach out with eager expectation. This happens, not in an abstract, metaphysical space, but as biography, delineating itself in the modifications of biographical pregivens and developments. A biographically-mediated mystagogy of existence reaches out to the selfarticulating Mystery, the Mystery that breaks its silence, communicating itself to the self-transcendence which humans have discovered in themselves. The suspension of the boundaries of existence (in being-questioningly-for-oneself and reflectively gathering-up of what is) looks ahead to the fulfillment of grace. In it one can distinguish three accents.420 (1) God communicates himself in grace. This grace is uncreated. All created gifts of grace unfold within this uncreated grace. If grace is fundamentally the Self-communication of God, then revelation is primarily the proximity of the divine mystery itself. The contents of faith are secondary. (2) Humans are so created that they are designed to receive this gracious proximity as an unexpected gift, but this orderedness does not cancel out its character as grace. God has only been given in human existence as infinite aspiration. But this reaching out to God stands permanently under God’s offer of grace. Mystagogy teaches us to lay bare the traces of the human search for God and of God’s answer; hence “it makes us read and accept the entire life of man as the history of the divine encounter.”421 (3) In Jesus Christ the self-transcendence of the created spirit and the Self-communication of God have been incarnated. In him the mystery of man and God, in searching and in self-giving, has become manifest.422 It is clear that the mystagogy of God’s gracious Self-communication to the seeking human being is not an existential-phenomenological clarification of human existence, but a mystical-dialogical analysis of the Mystery of the divine encounter, an analysis in which the figure of Jesus Christ and the trinitarian love-structure stand in the background. Tangible in this mystagogy is the influence of the mystical traditions. 4. A personal calling within the community Mystagogy on the level of existence by itself already discovered subjectivity as a being-for-oneself that reaches out questioningly to the Mystery. The gracious Self-communication of God makes this person into a uniquely addressable agent. In the mystagogy of a personal calling one pays attention to the manner in which 420 See K. Rahner, Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace, in: Theological Investigations, Vol. I, London 1961 and 1965, 319-346. Concerning the Relationship Between Nature and Grace, ibid., 297-317. The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology, ibid.,Vol. IV (1966) 36-73. 421 A. Wollbold, ibid., 37. 422 Ibid., 34-39.

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God selects this person as a medium of gracious proximity.423 Here one can distinguish four aspects: (1) The personal mission which the addressee experiences cannot be reduced to general principles or viewed as a question of practical utility. It is a personal election to do certain things. Mystagogy here is not a proclamation, but the discovery of God’s calling in a concrete historical situation. (2) This concrete calling unveils in the person addressed a personal charisma. God’s call awakens the gifts. It is God himself who dispenses the charismata. (3) The recognition of calling and charisma – the specifically mystagogical moment – occurs in the discernment of spirits, paradigmatically elaborated in the Exercises of Ignatius. Decisive in this connection is the determination of God’s revelation of his will. That happens, as we saw in our diakrisis research, when consolation is experienced without an antecedent cause. Mystagogy helps people discern what God asks of them and how he equips them. (4) The church must mediate this immediate “inworking” of God’s Self-communication. Mystagogy is the church’s fundamental mission in the world. Its testimonies, redemptive histories and signs of hope exist in the service of this mystagogy which is realized and tested in intersubjectivity and the love of neighbor.424 In mystagogic research scholars collaborate, interdisciplinarily, with psychological and pastoral-theological disciplines. The other three methods of spirituality research are, of course, involved in it as well: the descriptive method to relate the spiritual autobiography to the spiritual context, hermeneutic research to interpret it, and systematic research to elucidate the material coordinates of the frame of reference.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ARISTOTELES, Ethica Nicomachea, (Ed. C. Hupperts & B. Poortman), Amsterdam 1997. ARISTOTELES, Ethica Nicomachea, (Ed. C. Pannier & J. Verhaege), Groningen 1999. BELL, D., Husserl, London-New York 1990. BIDERMAN, S., Scripture and Knowledge. An Essay on Religious Epistemology, Leiden etc. 1995. BOER, TH. DE, Langs de gewesten van het zijn, Zoetermeer 1996. BOER, TH. DE, Pleidooi voor interpretatie, Amsterdam 1997. BUBER, M., Werke, München-Heidelberg 1962-1963. The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, (Ed. B. Smith & D. Smith), Cambridge 1995.

423 For this, see especially: K. Rahner, Das Dynamische in der Kirche, Freiburg 1958 (including ‘Prinzipien und Imperative’; ‘Das Charismatische in der Kirche’; ‘Die Logik der existentiellen Erkenntnis bei Ignatius von Loyola’); K. Rahner, Über die heilsgeschichtliche Bedeutung des Einzelnen in der Kirche, in: K. Rahner, Sendung und Gnade. Beiträge zur Pastoraltheologie, InnsbruckWien-München 1961, 88-126. 424 A. Wollbold, ibid., 39-46.

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Can Spirituality Be Taught? Exploratory Essays, (Ed. J. Robson & D. Lonsdale), London 1987. CHALIER, C., Lévinas. L’utopie de l’humain, Paris 1993. EGAN, H., An Anthropocentric-Christocentric Mystagogy. A Study of the Method and Basic Horizon of Thought and Experience in the Spiritual Exercices of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Münster 1973. ELM, R., Klugheit und Erfahrung bei Aristoteles, Paderborn etc. 1996. FISCHER, K., Der Mensch als Geheimnis. Die Anthropologie Karl Rahners, Freiburg 1974. FLOOD, G., Beyond Phenomenology. Rethinking the Study of Religion, London 1999. GADAMER, H., Truth and Method, New York 1991. GRONDIN, J., Hermeneutische Wahrheit? Zum Wahrheitsbegrif Hans-Georg Gadamers, Königstein 1982. HEIDEGGER, M., Being and Time, Albany (NY) 1996. HEIDEGGER, M., Ontology. The Hermeneutics of Facticity, Bloomington 1999. HEIDEGGER, M., The Essence of Truth, London 1998. The Hermeneutic Tradition. From Ast to Ricoeur, (Ed. G. Ormiston & A. Schrift), Albany (NY) 1990. Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, (Ed. B. Wachterhauser), Albany (NY) 1986. HERZOG, M., Phänomenologische Psychologie. Grundlagen und Entwicklungen, Heidelberg 1992. HINOJOSA, J., Methodology in the Study of Spirituality, Berkeley (CA) 1984. HUSSERL, E., Gesammelte Werke, Den Haag-Dordrecht 1950-1988. KENNY, A., Aristotle on the Perfect Life, Oxford-New York 1992. KIRCHBERG, J., Theo-logie in der Anrede als Weg zur Verständigung zwischen Juden und Christen, Innsbruch-Wien 1991. LEMBECK, K., Einführung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Darmstadt 1994. LEVINAS, E., Beyond the Verse. Talmudic Readings and Lectures, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994. LEVINAS, E., Totality and Infinity, Pittsburgh 1969. LORIES, D., Le sens commun et le jugement du phronimos. Aristote et les stoïciens, Louvainla-Neuve 1998. MAAS, F., Spiritualiteit als inzicht. Mystieke teksten en theologische reflecties, Zoetermeer 1999. MATANIC, A., La spiritualità come scienza. Introduzione metodologica allo studio della vita spirituale cristiana, Milano 1990. MERRELL-WOLFF, F., Transformations in Consciousness. The Metaphysics and Epistemology, Albany (NY) 1995. Modern Christian Spirituality. Methodological and Historical Essays, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990. MORAN, D., Introduction to Phenomenology, New York 2000. NORRMAN, C., Mystical Experiences and Scientific Method, Stockholm 1986. ORTH, E. et al., Perspektiven und Probleme der Husserlschen Phänomenologie. Beiträge zur neueren Husserl-Forschung, Freiburg i.Br.-München 1991. PEARCE, J., A Critique of Spirituality, Oxford 1996. PIKE, N., Mystic Union. An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism, Ithaca (NY) etc. 1992.

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PRECHTL, P., Husserl zur Einführung, Hamburg 1991. RÖMPP, G., Husserls Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität und ihre Bedeutung für eine Theorie intersubjektiver Objektivität und die Konzeption einer phänomenologischer Philosophie, Dordrecht 1992. ROSENZWEIG, F., Der Mensch und sein Werk. Gesammelte Schriften, The Hague etc. 19761984. SCHELER, M., Gesammelte Werke, Bern-Bonn 1954-…. SCHREY, H., Dialogisches Denken, Darmstadt 1983. Spirituality and the Curriculum, (Ed. A.Thatcher), London 1999. STEGGINK, O. & Waaijman, K., Spiritualiteit en mystiek, Nijmegen 1985. STEIN, E., Edith Steins Werke, Louvain etc. 1950-…. The Study of Spirituality, (Ed. C. Jones et al.), London 1986. WAAIJMAN, K. et al., Kansen voor spiritualiteit. Kwetsbaarheid, meerstemmig zelf, differentiedenken, Baarn 1996. WAAIJMAN, K., De mystiek van ik en jij, Kampen 1991. WAELHENS, A. DE, La philosophie et les expériences naturelles, The Hague 1961. WALDENFELS, B., Einführung in die Phänomenologie, Göttingen 1992. WILLARD, D., The Spirit of the Disciplines. Understanding How God Changes Lives, San Francisco 1988.

PART 3 METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH INTRODUCTION 595 Our foundational research brought us to a methodological design consisting of four research strategies which presuppose and are intertwined with each other: description, hermeneutics, systematics, and mystagogy. 600 1. FORM-DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH In our prescientific praxis of form-description we can distinguish three layers: the demarcation of the form, the contextualization of the phenomenon to be described, and the explication of the divine-human relational process which determines the form from within. These three layers correspond structurally to the phenomenological description. 1.1. The spiritual biography 602 1.2. In-depth study of the three levels of description 622 1.3. Descriptive research 641 2. HERMENEUTIC RESEARCH 689 Our prescientific praxis of spiritual reading contains an elaborate reading-and-interpretation procedure which includes a preunderstanding, a phased reading process and its impact. It constitutes the matrix for the scientific hermeneutics of spirituality. 2.1. The praxis of spiritual reading 691 2.2. Key moments in spiritual reading 710 2.3. A hermeneutic design 729 774 3. SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH The prescientific forms of systematic reflection are marked by four interlocking structural elements: the forum of the reading community; categorization of thematic fields; style of argumentation; orientation to the truth of the matter. After this structure has been laid bare and explored, it is translated into systematic research that is performed in stages. 3.1. The spiritual conference 777 3.2. The exploration of systematic reflection 789 3.3. The systematic study of spirituality 824 4. MYSTAGOGIC RESEARCH 869 On the basis of the paradigm of spiritual accompaniment the basic structure of mystagogy is laid bare: the clarification of the spiritual transformation process. 4.1. The structure of spiritual accompaniment 874 4.2. A further exploration of spiritual accompaniment 895 4.3. Design for mystagogical research 921

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INTRODUCTION The area of spirituality, as we saw in the section on foundational research, can be defined as the divine-human relational process (material object) that is studied by the discipline of spirituality as a transformational process (formal object).1 Having thus determined the research object (the what), we then studied the methodical side of the study of spirituality (the how). Proceeding from the prescientific form of reflection called discernment (diakrisis),2 we brought out the distinctive features of the discipline of spirituality.3 This characterization proceeded in three phases. (1) First we situated the discipline epistemologically in the cognitive domain of praxis (in an Aristotelian sense) that is rooted in concrete experience but directed toward contemplation. The practical wisdom (phronèsis) which corresponds structurally to discernment (diakrisis) is the form of reflection that mediates between experience and insight: it is “the eye of experience” that participates in spiritual insight. (2) Having methodologically situated spirituality on the most abstract level, we searched in present-day scientific traditions for the approach that ties in most closely with the attitude of practical wisdom and discernment. We then concluded that what most nearly fits the basic structure of practical wisdom and discernment is the dialogical-phenomenological approach. The combination of these two scientific traditions guarantees the presence of critical attention for concrete forms of expression (processes of choice, interpretations, evaluations, the refinement of a life form, forms of accompaniment) and a focus on the divine-human relational process. It acknowledges processes of transformation (phenomenology) as the expression of the lived relation to God (dialogical thinking). As a result of this embeddedness within a dialogical-phenomenological approach, the characterization of the discipline of spirituality already becomes significantly more concrete. Still it is not yet concrete enough: needed to that end is a further methodological articulation. (3) Again proceeding from the basic structure of practical wisdom and discernment, we arrived at four mutually-coherent research strategies: description, hermeneutics, systematics, and mystagogy. These four lines of research together form a methodological cycle: they presuppose and are intertwined with each other. A couple of examples will serve to illustrate this. Those who want to describe the

1

See part 1, chapter 3. See part 2, chapter 4. 3 See part 2, chapter 5. 2

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spirituality of a certain period will have to be familiar with the spiritual literature of that time and not in just a general sense. They will have to analyze certain key texts in-depth (hermeneutics) in order to obtain access to the internal horizon of that spiritual form. They will also have to be familiar with the material frame of reference: images of God and man, central concepts, cosmological models, ideas about prayer and mysticism, and so forth (systematics). Finally they will have to explore how real people oriented themselves within that spiritual form, say by reading a number of spiritual biographies (mystagogics). Thus we see that descriptive research presupposes the other three as background but also explicitly incorporates them at certain places (in the study of the internal horizon). The same is true mutatis mutandis for hermeneutic research. Those who wish to explain an important spiritual text will need more than a general knowledge of the form within which that text originated and functioned (description), they will have to investigate the frame of reference to which the text refers (systematics), and have an eye for the manner in which according to this text and other texts people were initiated into the spiritual way (mystagogy). Again we observe how hermeneutic research is interwoven with the other three lines of research. Sometimes, where it pertains to the context, the frame of reference and the pragmatics of the text, these other lines of research are explicitly incorporated in the hermeneutic research. A similar methodological connectedness applies to systematic research: those who want to examine a given set of themes from the domain of spirituality must distinguish carefully of what spiritual form this set is a part (description); they will have to analyze key texts (hermeneutics) and trace the possible function of this set in initiating people into the spiritual way (mystagogy). Further, and finally, mystagogical research does not proceed in isolation either. One cannot analyze a spiritual autobiography mystagogically without a solid knowledge of the context (description), without a thorough reading of the autobiographical text (hermeneutics) and without insight into the material frame of reference (systematics). It is evident from these examples that the four research methods form a cycle that can start with any one of these methods but cannot dispense with any of the other methods. When a scholar concentrates on one method, the other three continually play a part as background. Each one of the four methods is implied in the other methods. In the process a key role is reserved for hermeneutics – in disclosing the internal horizon (description), in the analysis of the key texts involved in a certain frame of reference (systematics), and in the exegesis of the spiritual autobiography in question (mystagogy). In part 3, on the basis of our methodological design,4 we will work out each of the four

4

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lines of research separately. In this elaboration on the level of method we have each time taken account of five structural principles which are grounded in our foundational research. 1. Prescientific experience and scientific reflection Each chapter is situated in the field of tension between lived spirituality and the study of spirituality, entirely in keeping with the phenomenological conception of science that underlies the structure of this handbook.5 Our starting point is prescientific experience, whose basic structure we will analyze. We then explore this basic structure systematically, laying the groundwork for the methodical design that follows next. This means that we will develop each line of research in three stages. (1) We explore the field of research with the aid of a number of examples from prescientific experience and attempt to lay bare their basic structure. Thus for our form-descriptive research we analyze the phenomenon of spiritual biography; for our hermeneutical research we study the phenomenon of spiritual reading; for our systematic research we examine the phenomenon of the study-community; for our mystagogic research we base ourselves on the paradigm of spiritual accompaniment. From phenomenology we learn that prescientific experience, critically thought through, supplies the basic categories for science. In our design of a method we consistently apply this phenomenological insight. (2) We will systematically explore, again on the basis of lived spirituality, the elements that are essential for the basic structure of the pertinent aspect of research (form, text, thematics, pragmatics). For descriptive research this means a further study of the marks of the spiritual form, the contextual dimension, and the interior of the form. Hermeneutic research sharpens one’s insight into the key moments of the spiritual reading procedure: reading attitude, text performance, meditation, God-relatedness, contemplation, and pervasive impact. Systematic research explores the various structural elements of the unfolding of truth. Mystagogic research explores the two poles present in the process of accompaniment: the spiritual autobiography and attitude of the accompanist. As a result of this further exploration the structural elements of the area of research in question begin to stand out more sharply. This in turn provides the main lines for scientific research. (3) The third stage consists in formulating the main lines of scientific spirituality research with respect to the areas of reality to be studied. This results in the above-mentioned methods of research: descriptive, hermeneutic, systematic, and mystagogic research. It goes without saying that the description of these methods of research will remain sketchy. A further implementation of these successive stages of research is beyond the scope of this study. 5

Part 2, chapter 2.5.

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2. Working with paradigms In phenomenology examples do not function as illustrations of a theory. They present the object of the research and work as eye openers. Examples are meant to bring the reader into contact with “the matter itself,” that is, with the structure of the field of study. Hence one must not skip over the examples, but neither may they be understood as being normative. Every example exemplifies the matter itself and opens one’s eyes to the structure of the object. Thus in descriptive research we work out the example of a spiritual autobiography (vita). We could also have chosen a form of the religious life or a certain spiritual exercise as a paradigm. The question at issue is: how is the process of form-description realized in a prescientific manner? Which basic elements of the descriptive praxis come to the fore in it? Analogously, in hermeneutic research our starting point is an assortment of examples from the praxis of spiritual reading, again with the question: what are the essential elements in the spiritual reading procedure? Systematic research starts on the basis of a number of examples which make the phenomenon of spiritual dialogue present. For the mystagogical research, finally, we chose certain paradigms from the practice of spiritual accompaniment. Not only the first stage, but also the second stage of our method construction which consists in further exploring of the basic structure discovered earlier, makes methodical use of the paradigm. Thus we explore the various dimensions of the spiritual form successively with the aid of the nomenclature of religious communities (the demarcation of the object of research) and of a number of Bible texts (the external and internal horizon). In the third stage – methodical design in the real sense – we leave the paradigmatic method behind. 3. The balance between inter- and intradisciplinarity In each line of research we search for a balance between the interdisciplinary and the intradisciplinary perspective. Thus descriptive research is aimed, on the one hand, at the description of spiritual forms in their sociocultural context, a project that implies the use of church-historical, culture-historical, sociologyof-religion and phenomenology-of-religion methods. On the other hand, this research is aimed at deciphering and describing the ascetic-mystical process of transformation that is expressed in these forms. This implies a science-of-spirituality perspective that is hermeneutically oriented. In hermeneutic research we pursue the same balance between inter- and intradisciplinariness. This research is aimed, on the one hand, at establishing and interpreting the text with the methods of literary science and exegesis. On the other hand, the research aims to lay bare the orative and mystical dimension of the text, using the strategies of the science of spirituality. Systematic research is guided, on the one hand, by insights from systematic theology and philosophy in articulating the truth; on

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the other hand, it pays systematic attention to the role that the process of spiritual transformation plays in this process of articulation. Mystagogical research, finally, tries to cast light from a psychological perspective on processes of clarification and growth in consciousness within the framework of the spiritual autobiography. On the other hand, from the perspective of the science of spirituality we focus precisely on the spiritual nature of the autobiography: the spiritual processes of transformation that surface in it. Thus in all the lines of research we have been careful to insure that interdisciplinarity and intradisciplinarity are kept in balance. 4. The integration of phenomenology and dialogical thought In each line of research we have integrated the phenomenological approach with that of dialogical thought and vice versa. In descriptive research we follow phenomenology in using the strategy of description: the demarcation of the form, the description of the external horizon and the disclosure of the internal horizon. It is the internal horizon, however, which embodies the dialogics of the divine-human relational process. This is the horizon on which the description is focused. In hermeneutic research the first phases of the reading and interpretation process is directed by phenomenology. The later phases – the orative and contemplative dimension of the interpretation process – call for a dialogic approach. Systematic research occurs within the framework of phenomenology insofar as it concerns the unfolding of truth. The core of the unfolding of truth, however, is the dialogic process of self-manifestation. Mystagogic research is guided by the phenomenological notion of “empathy,” but its core consists in the dialogic interpretation of the spiritual autobiography. Thus in all methodconstructing the phenomenological approach and dialogic thought are integrated in a way that fits the research type in question. 5. Orientation to the process of transformation All the lines of research are directed toward studying the divine-human transformation process (the formal object of the study of spirituality). Descriptive research is oriented to the internal horizon of the spiritual form of ascetic-mystical transformation. A spiritual hermeneutics is focused on the orative-contemplative dimension of the reading-and-interpretation process. Systematic research aims at gaining insight into the transformative operation of truth in its self-manifestation. Mystagogic research, finally, finds its focus in spiritual autobiography, as divine-human transformation. This focus on the process of spiritual transformation implies that spiritual hermeneutics constitutes the architectonic center of the several research lines. Divine-human transformation, after all, can only be discovered via a careful reading and interpretation of the forms of expression in play.

CHAPTER 1: FORM-DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH INTRODUCTION 601 Form description is practiced in a prescientific way within lived spirituality. A graphic example is the spiritual biography in which three layers can be distinguished: the characterization of the figure in question, the context in which this figure delineates himself or herself, and the divine-human relation which is expressed in the figure. These three levels agree structurally with phenomenological description. 1.1. THE SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY 602 From the spiritual praxis of a description of the life of a saint (vita) it is evident that three operations interlock: the profiling of the figure of the saint, the contextualization of this figure, and the interpretation of the life of the saint. 1.1.1. Some life sketches 603 1.1.2. Reflections 617 1.2. IN-DEPTH STUDY OF THE THREE LEVELS OF DESCRIPTION 622 With the aid of a number of paradigms we explore three levels of description: the names or designations of religious communities with a view to profiling the type; three Old Testament examples with a view to contextuality; three psalms with an eye to their spiritual interior. 1.2.1. Designations as demarcation of the form 622 1.2.2. The contextual dimension 626 1.2.3. The interior of the form 633 641 1.3. DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH On the basis of the above explorations a scientific trajectory for descriptive spirituality research is designed that is construed along the lines of the phenomenological modus operandi: the chronological and topographical definition of the spiritual form; the description of the contextual field (the external horizon); the explication of the divine-human relational process that is expressed in the form (the internal horizon). 1.3.1. The demarcation of the form 646 1.3.2. The external horizon 651 1.3.3. The internal horizon 658 Bibliography 687

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Introduction Spirituality is a multiform phenomenon. Most conspicuous are the forms that have gathered a following: comprehensive traditions (Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hinduist, Taoist spirituality) and the separate schools (Benedictines, sufis, kabbala, Hasidism). Less conspicuous are the local spiritualities, lay spirituality, and forms that exist outside of institutions. How can this multiformity be appropriately described? In the section on foundational research we already sketched the methodological framework of form-descriptive research.1 We noted that in a phenomenological approach the description occurs on three levels. The first is that of perception: something presents itself as a form with a core of real presence. The second is that of explication in which the internal horizon unfolds. The third concerns contextualization in which the phenomenon appears against the background of the external horizon. In this chapter we want to develop this methodological sketch further. This occurs in three stages. (1) First we immerse ourselves in form description as it is practiced in lived spirituality. In part 1 we have already learned to know several forms of spirituality, but now we will focus on the manner in which spiritual figures are described in lived spirituality. For our investigation, we chose the paradigm of the spiritual biography, a genre that has often been used in lived spirituality.2 A spiritual biography (vita, spiritual model) brings to the fore three aspects of a spiritual form: the path someone followed; the context in which the path was situated; the divine-human relation that took shape on this path. From our investigation we will learn that this prescientific form description corresponds structurally to the three levels of phenomenological description. (2) The second stage is that we will further explore the three levels of phenomenological description with the aid of concrete paradigms. Hence in this second stage we will repeat the first stage but in greater depth: each of the levels we discovered in spiritual form description is further explored by itself. (3) The third stage takes us to our real goal: on the basis of the levels of form description we have explored so far we will now construct a scientific ground plan for descriptive spirituality research.

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Part 2, chapter 5.3. For the phenomenological significance of a paradigm, see part 2, chapter 5.2.

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1.1. The Spiritual Biography A clear example of prescientific description is the spiritual biography. This genre includes “not only encouraging and stimulating examples, but also concrete instruction and practical ideas, models, sometimes even an entire program, a ‘spirit’ or ‘way’ of perfection.”3 Some biographies have had an enormous impact, even unleashed spiritual movements, as for example the life of Anthony, the father of the desert monks.4 Some are still influential to this day.5 Spiritual biographies which are a part of the broader genre of hagiography (martyriologies, saint calendars, lives and legends of saints, collections of miracle stories, reports concerning the transfer of relics) is one of the most utilized genres in spiritual literature. The hundreds of Vitae mentioned in the survey article of the Dictionnaire de spiritualité6 concern only the most influential. Every spiritual school, large or small, has its spiritual biographies. We already encounter the genre of biography in the most ancient layers of biblical spirituality. The biographies of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, constitute an essential element in the spirituality of the seminomadic communities in which, as we saw earlier, a person’s course of life and genealogy played such a central role.7 In the time of the kings this genre was also utilized, as is evident from the lives of Saul, David, and Solomon and their successors, as we know from the books of Samuel and Kings. The prophets similarly have their hagiographies. We only need consider the Elijah cycle in Kings. In the Hellenistic period wisdom teachers utilized the genre of “illustrious men” who lived exemplary and heroic lives, as we can see in The Hymn in Honor of our Fathers of Jesus Sirach (chapters 44-59). The most important biography of Christian spirituality is, of course, the life of Jesus Christ as told in the four gospels. Here the story of the birth, life, and death of Jesus of Nazareth is reproduced as the way which leads into the kingdom of God. This is the fundamental 3 G. Bardy, I. Hausherr, F. Vernet, R. Daeschler, M. Viller, P. Pourrat, Biographies spirituelles, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1624. 4 See Leven, getuigenissen, brieven van de heilige Antonius Abt, (Trans. & Introd. C. Wagenaar), Bonheiden 1981. 5 K. Novak, Biographie und Lebenslauf in der Neueren und Neuesten Kirchengeschichte, in: Verkündigung und Forschung 39 (1994), 44-62. 6 G. Bardy, I. Hausherr, F. Vernet, R. Daeschler, M. Viller, P. Pourrat, Biographies spirituelles, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1624-1719. 7 See part 1, chapter 1.1.

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model for all Christian spiritualities, as the life of Buddha is for Buddhist piety, and the prophet Mohammed for Muslim spirituality. In the history of Christian spirituality the most ancient biographies focus on the end of the life of the martyrs. It is only from 250 A.D. onward that we encounter Vitae in the true sense of the word. The oldest Vita is the life of holy Cyprian, as recounted by Pontius, who is amazed that the martyrs are showered with praise, while the lifelong imitation of Christ by Cyprian – even without a martyrdom – is actually such an striking example. After these “lives,” came thousands of Vitae of men and women who totally dedicated their life to God. We will now explore five spiritual biographies in order thus to penetrate this genre more deeply.8 In the reflection which then follows we will set down a few structural lines. 1.1.1. SOME LIFE

SKETCHES

To gain a better knowledge of the genre of spiritual biography as a prescientific form of description, we have selected five paradigms. Our choice was determined by the criterion of spreading: the first two stem from the biblical period, the following two from post-biblical periods, while the last one is a present-day example. The selection is not intended to be representative. It is phenomenologically directed: the paradigms are designed to introduce us to the field of [spiritual] biography. 1. The “Praise of the Fathers” of Jesus Sirach Around 200 B.C. Jesus Sirach presided over a House of Study in Jerusalem. In his teaching he did not just deal with proverbs, riddles, themes, (wisdom, creation, history, and the like) and attitudes (respect, trust, reticence, and the like) but also with the most important figures in the history of Israel, the so-called Praise of the Fathers (Jesus Sirach, 44-50). Included in his gallery of saints are approximately 30 shorter or longer descriptions, all of which are based on data from the Scriptures of that time.9 In hymnic style (44:1) God is praised for the “glory” (44:2) he brought about in “godly men” (44:10) who are an example to their descendants (44:11-15). The tendency of the description is hagiographic: the kings are described for their wisdom and godliness, the prophets (who form one grand prophetic succession) for their miracle-working power. Keeping the torah as the practice of covenant fidelity is central and also the liturgy gets much 8

To become acquainted with a number of different spiritual figures, see part 1, chapter 3. K. Mackenzie, Ben Sira as Historian, in: Trinification of the World, (Ed. T. Dunne & J. Laporte), Toronto 1978, 312-327. 9

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attention (Aaron the priest is apportioned much more space than Moses; the restoration of the temple is celebrated with high praise and the climax of the hymn of praise comes with the highpriest Simon). Jesus Sirach is very mindful of the godliness of the fathers. Enoch is “an example of repentance” (44:16); Moses is a “godly man” (44:23) and a “holy one” (45:2, 4); he saw the Lord “from face to face in a dark cloud” (45:5); Phinehas was guided by “awe before the Lord” (45:23) – he was a “zealot” (45:23); Samuel “was beloved by his Lord” (46:13) – and so forth. To gain a deeper insight into the manner in which Jesus Sirach went about his work of description, we have selected the figure of the prophet Elijah from this large gallery of saints.10 The life of the prophet is sketched in six short scenes. 1. In the first scene Elijah is introduced as a prophet of fire against the dark background of Israel’s apostate kings. “Then Elijah arose, a prophet like fire, and his word burned like a burning furnace. He brought a famine upon them, and by his zeal made them few in number. By the word of the Mighty One he shut up the heavens and three times brought down fire” (48:1-3). Elijah here stands out as a burning word from Be-er that scorches in its zeal and decimates the people (cf. 1 Kgs. 17:1; 18:1; 2 Kgs. 1:3, 10, 12, 16-17). 2. In the second scene the accent is on Elijah’s miracle-working power, which was life giving for the widow of Zarephath (48:6; cf. 1 Kgs. 17:17-24), but lethal for the kings (1 Kgs. 21:19-24; 2 Kgs. 1:4; 16-17). “How awesome you are, Elijah! Whose glory is equal to yours? Who roused a corpse from death, from Sheol, by the good pleasure of Be-er; who sent kings down to destruction and high dignitaries from their beds”(48:4-6). Elijah is so awesome to Jesus Sirach that the latter addresses him directly: “How awesome you are, Elijah! Whose glory is equal to yours?” 3. In the third scene Jesus Sirach sketches the theophany on Horeb. First the author recalls the actual moment of revelation: “Heard were rebukes at Sinai and judgments of vengeance at Horeb” (48:7). Jesus Sirach refers to the moment when Elijah “heard” (1 Kgs. 19:13) The use of the divine passive (“Heard were…) indicates the transcendent character of this revelatory moment. Jesus Sirach describes the divine voice with the words “rebukes” and “judgments of vengeance,” i.e. severe rebukes and retribution for Israel’s infidelity toward Be-er. In the work of Jesus Sirach Elijah did not hear “a whispering silence” (as in LXX) but a voice that disciplines and avenges injustice. The rebuke is converted into deeds: Jehu and Benhadad are anointed to carry out the sentence. Elisha is anointed as Elijah’s successor to sovereignly ensure the continuity of the prophetic word (48:8). The link with the rebuke is clearly indicated: the kings are anointed “to calm the wrath of God” against Israel’s infidelity. This description of the event on Horeb had already been prepared earlier, inasmuch as the “fire” and the 10

For the background of the figure of Elijah, see part 3, chapter 3.3.

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“burning furnace” (48:1-3) evoke the image of the theophany on Mt. Sinai (Exod. 19:18; Deut. 4:11-15; 5:23; 9:15) and the infliction of punishment upon the murmuring community in the wilderness. Elijah’s “burning zeal” that “decimated” Israel (vs. 26) recalls Elijah’s complaint on Horeb: “I have been very zealous…” (1 Kgs. 19:10, 14). 4. The fourth scene in a single verse describes the event of Elijah’s assumption into heaven (2 Kgs. 2): “Who was taken up in a storm, in a whirlwind of fire” (48:9). It is striking that the author does not in the same breath describe the spirit-transmission to Elisha (as in 2 Kgs. 2). Here it occurs somewhat further down in connection with the introduction of Elisha: “When Elijah was enveloped in a whirlwind, Elisha was filled with his breath” (48:12). 5. The fifth scene continues the line of Malachi: Elijah – in keeping with Scripture – will prepare the coming of Be-er by ending the social disintegration (the mutual alienation of fathers and sons) of Israel (48:10). On the other hand, the author includes an interpretation of the servant of Be-er from Deutero-Isaiah (Isa. 4:6). Elijah will restore the uprooted and dispersed tribes of Israel (48:10). Thus the “breakup” of Israel (see 1 Kgs. 18:17-18) against which Elijah had so furiously prophesied will be restored in the end by the same Elijah. The groundwork for this eschatological role had already been laid: the “fire” and the “burning furnace,” after all, evoke the eschatological process of purification (Mal. 3:1-3). 6. The scenes are concluded with a beatitude: “Blessed is he who sees you and, as he loves you, dies; indeed he lives, he lives” (48:11). Called blessed is he who “sees” Elijah. Jesus Sirach alludes here to the prophetical contact existing between Elijah and Elisha when Elijah was taken to heaven: “Elisha saw” (2 Kgs. 2:12). In this mystical bond between the two Jesus Sirach sees a victory over death, since someone who maintains a vital relation with Elijah is alive. Jesus Sirach describes Elijah in the context of the traditional field of tension between kings and prophets – the basic motif throughout the Praise of the Fathers.11 Elijah is presented as someone who by his word (2x) ignites a purifying and disrupting fire (2x) in Israel out of zeal for Be-er and against the kings. He also extends the eschatological line of Malachi, expanding it with DeuteroIsaiah. Jesus Sirach is unique in that he describes Elijah as a distinctive personality: on the basis of his prophetic vision and profound awe he strongly identifies with Elijah. That is also why he addresses him personally: “How awesome you are, Elijah” (48:4). Elijah as it were detaches himself as a person from his background: the reader sees him arise on the scene as a prophet of fire, sees him speak. Elijah stands squarely before him: “You raised a corpse (…) You (…) You (…).” Jesus Sirach writes in such a way that the reader begins to “see” Elijah, begins to love him, indeed “be like” him. Elijah inspires “awe” in the reader. His 11

H. Stadelmann, Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter, Tübingen 1980, 177-216.

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personality – full of fire and zeal, full of speech and power, all ears in the presence of Be-er – must transform the reader from being a corpse into a living person, so that he lives, lives indeed.” The person of Elijah clearly functions as a role model for Jesus Sirach’s House of Study. 2. Luke’s historical work At the very outset of his gospel Luke informs us about the object of his narrative, his modus operandi, and his aim. He situates his description in the context of several other narratives on the basis of the same traditional material. Since many took in hand to record a history concerning the events which took place among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having traced all things closely from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may understand the reliability of the teachings you have received. (Luke 1:1-4)

The interesting thing about this self introduction of Luke as author is that he has situated his account in a double perspective: a historical and a redemptivehistorical perspective. The historical perspective. Luke announces a “history” (diegesis). In the Hellenistic culture of those days this term refers to a historical description of events.12 It is a technical term for a historiography written in accordance with the thencurrent state of the art. This historiographic perspective also comes to expression in the style of the prologue: it is written in cultured Attic Greek. The author positions himself in the higher culture of his day and speaks the language of conventional prologues occurring in scholarly works of history. The object of his history is: “the events which took place among us.” These events concern particularly the actions (pragmata) performed by the main actors in the story but also the effects they produced. Luke is probably not just referring to the things that happened with Jesus but also to the ongoing effects of Jesus’ ministry in the early Christian communities related to us by Luke in Acts. This squares with the distinction Luke makes between “the eye witnesses from 12

E. Plümacher, diègeomai, in: EWNT 1 (1980), 779.

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the beginning” and “the ministers of the word.” This distinction perhaps refers to two phases in the traditioning process. It also squares with the phasing he maintains elsewhere in his double work (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:21-22). However this may be, the events are captured from two perspectives: from the perspective of the eye witnesses (Luke’s gospel) and from the perspective of the preaching of this eye-witness account (Acts). Luke succinctly sums up his modus operandi: “Having traced all things closely from the first, [it seemed good to me also] to write an orderly account.” In this modus operandi one can distinguish two phases: first the investigation of the tradition (eye witnesses and preaching), then the composition of the narrative. Of the investigation he says that it was done with precision, of the narrative that it would be orderly. The expression “with precision” refers to critical precision. “Orderly” means that the narrator will adhere to a chronological and topological order but also that he will do his work appropriately both in terms of logic and of narrative technique. The purpose Luke has in mind for his historical work is to provide sound information (cf. Acts 26:21-24) to Theophilus (a Gentile Christian, a Roman official or Luke’s publisher), so that he himself can verify the reliability of the reports in circulation about Jesus and the first Christians. The eye of the “historian” remains at work in the rest of Luke’s story. Thus Jesus’ birth is situated in the context of the Roman empire: the census which emperor Augustus conducted throughout the empire in the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:1-2). The determination of the chronological situation is followed by the topological situation of Joseph: he travels from Nazareth to the city of David; Bethlehem in Judah (Luke 2:3-4). The redemptive-historical perspective. The surprising feature in the prologue of Luke’s gospel is that, glimmering through the historical dimension, there is a divine dimension. This dimension comes through most clearly in the phrase: “the events which occurred among us.” Literally the text reads: “the events which were brought to fulfillment among us.” We can think especially of the prophesies which were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth (see especially Luke 24). In addition, the passive form (“were brought to fulfillment”) refers to God who is at work (the divine passive) in the events involving Jesus. Finally, the expression “among us” refers to the place where these events were received and understood, as Jesus was to say during his public appearance in the synagogue of Nazareth: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Once we have perceived this divine dimension, a new light falls on the word “history” (diegesis). The verb that shimmers through in this word (diegeomai) refers to a detailed exposition in which is described not only what happened but also what the truth of it is. The verb is used to describe the miracles of Jesus (Mark 5:16; Luke 8:39) and of the disciples (Luke 9:10), the transfiguration of

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Jesus (Mark 9:9) and God’s miracle of liberation (Acts 12:17; 16:40), the conversion of Paul (Acts 9:27) and his visionary dream (Acts 16:10). Luke ranks himself among those who offer a description of events such that a dimension of faith shines through. From this perspective also the words “just as” gain relief. Luke is dealing not with the events that were handed down but with the events just as they were handed down to eye witnesses and those who disseminated their eye witness account. The events are viewed as “tradition,” that is, as events that are illumined from within a certain perspective. At the end of his prologue Luke explicitly nails down this perspective. He hopes that by reading Luke’s description Theophilus (the “dear-to-God” man) will gain insight into the firm ground on which the teachings in which he had been instructed are based: God’s action in Jesus of Nazareth. Finally, also the word “orderly” begins to mean more than chronological and topological order. For the order which Luke follows is not exclusively the historical order but the redemptive-historical order of promise and fulfillment that filters through it, as we saw above (also cf. Luke 8:1 and Acts 11:4).13 3. Cassian’s conferences In four volumes Cassian described for us the life of the desert monks in Egypt:14 a small book about the monastic institutions and the remedies for the eight most serious vices; a volume of ten dialogues with monks in the desert of Skete; two times seven dialogues in other deserts. In the prologues to these volumes Cassian indicates how he views his descriptions. In his prologue to conferences I-X Cassian makes an important distinction: “Consequently, let us proceed from the external and visible life of monks, which we have summarized in the previous books, to the invisible character of the inner man.” Cassian views his Institutiones (“the previous books”) as a description of the external side of the monastic life: the clothing, the liturgical hours, the practice of virtue. This dimension is “visible.” He views the Conferences, on the other hand, as a description of the internal side: “the invisible character of the inner man.” This internal side is disclosed via the “interviews” which Cassian and Germanus conduct with the monks. Here the focus is no longer a description of the “canonical hours,” but “the unceasing nature of perpetual prayer.” The latter is not the visible exercise of prayer but being oriented uninterruptedly to God. At issue is no longer one’s conduct “the vices of the flesh” but “the contemplation

13 See G. Schneider, Zur Bedeutung von kathexès im lukanischen Doppelwerk, in: Zeitschrift für die altesstamentliche Wissenschaft 69 (1977) 128-131. 14 For a brief description of the desert monks, see part I, chapter 3.4.

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of God’s purity.” The virtues “yearn for” the purity of heart that receives contemplation. The latter cannot be registered objectively. It opens its depth-dimension to Cassian by way of the dialogues. It is precisely this atmosphere of dialogue that Cassian – with a view to the internal side – wishes for his readers: “Receiving the very authors of the conferences into their cells, along with the books of the conferences, and as it were speaking with them by way of daily questions and answers…”15 The external and visible. The external monastic life embraces two aspects. (1) Those who want to gain a sound insight into the monastic life must “first form for themselves a mental image of their life pattern and life.”16 In terms of its essence this life pattern looks like this: “Those who truly died to this world’s life are bound by no love for kinsfolk nor by any ties of worldly deeds.”17 The life pattern of these monks is characterized by anachoresis: they withdraw from life in society into solitude. In this anachoresis Cassian next distinguishes two main forms: the one is the life of the Cenobites: “who still remain in their congregations in praiseworthy subjection.”18 The other is the life of the anchorites: “those who have withdrawn not far from your monasteries in the desire to live the life of hermits.”19 The latter form is as much higher than the former “as the contemplation of God – upon which those inestimable men were ever intent – is elevated above the active life that is led in communities.”20 (2) One cannot gain a true insight into the life form of the monks if one only looks at the “setup.” One must also have an eye for the context: “One must further note the kinds of places in which they are living: an immeasurable desert far from the companionship of all human beings.”21 Cassian is aware of the contextual difference between “this region which is stiff with the numbness of Gallic frost” and “the land on which the sun of righteousness shines from nearby.”22 He considers the conversations with the desert fathers appropriate “to both life forms (the life of cenobites and that of hermits, KW) which, “thanks to you, flourish among immense bands of brothers not only in regions of the West but even in the Islands.”23 But the new context of South Gallia must definitely be taken into 15 John Cassian, prologue to The Conferences 18-24. We are following the text edition of SC 42, 54, and 64. [In making the translation from the Dutch I am also leaning more or less heavily on John Cassian, The Conferences (Trans. & Annot. B. Ramsey), New York (NY) 1997, Tr.] 16 John Cassian, Prologue to The Conferences 1-10, 30. 17 Ibid., 32. 18 John Cassian, Prologue to The Conferences, 18-24. 19 Ibidem. 20 John Cassian, Prologue to The Conferences, 1-10. 21 Ibidem. 22 John Cassian, Prologue to The Conferences 11-17. 23 John Cassian, Prologue to The Conferences 18-24.

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account: one must receive the instruction of the fathers “in accordance with the location and nature of each person’s state of life.”24 The internal side. The internal side of the monastic life form is invisible. It only opens up when Cassian and Germanus ask their probing questions. It is no longer the canonical hours that matter but the practice of uninterrupted prayer, not the practice of virtue but purity of heart. The best way to gain the right insight here is participation: “If anyone wants to give a true opinion about this life form and desires to see whether these things can be fulfilled, let him first take their chosen vocation upon himself with a similar zeal and walk of life. Only then will he realize that what seemed beyond human capacity is not only possible but even glorious.”25 The internal side of the form opens up for those who enter into it inquiringly. In order to describe the monastic life reliably it is not sufficient “to see them” but one must also “learn from them and live with them.”26 The least one can do is “not to proceed from his own state or manner of life or from the point of view of ordinary custom and way of life” and not to measure the form “by the standard of his own ability,” but to understand it from the inside “in terms of the merits and perfection of the speakers.”27 Because it concerns the intimacy of the lived form, Cassian considers this material holy. It is his passionate wish that such holy material should “not be imperiled by us because of inexpert, albeit faithful, words” or because “our simplicity is lost in the depths of the same material.”28 Hence in the description of the “invisible character of the inner man”29 two dangers loom: the description fails to do justice to the reality, or this “profound and sublime material”30 is too powerful and overwhelms the one describing it. This is the reason why Cassian calls his description “dangerous”: “the fragile bark of my understanding” will run the risk of exceeding the limits of his ability.31 But he did “not turn his back on the tremendous danger of writing.”32 One who then reads the dialogues and listens to the monks is introduced step-by-step, via their experience, to the interior of their life: the utterly essential distinction between the practical objective (skopos) that can be attained by

24

Ibidem. John Cassian, Prologue to The Conferences 1-10. 26 Ibidem. 27 Ibidem. 28 Ibidem. 29 Ibidem. 30 Ibidem. 31 Ibidem. 32 John Cassian, Prologue to The Conferences 11-17. 25

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one’s own efforts and the final end (telos) that is pure grace; the necessity of discernment (diakrisis) as one’s permanent guide on the way to perfection; the calling, and the renunciation of riches; the positive and negative feelings that come over us; the principal vices, and so forth. 4. The Carmelitan iconization of Elijah Around the year 1210 the lay hermits “who are living at the spring on Mount Carmel”33 were established as a religious community by Albert of Jerusalem.34 Less than thirty years later they were expelled from Palestine by Muslims. Beginning in 1238 they left Mount Carmel in small groups. The young Carmelites then experienced an identity crisis. They could not say who their founder was. The General Chapter put in their mouths what they had to answer if they were asked what Carmelites really were. We testify in accordance with the truth that from the time the prophets Elijah and Elisha devoutly inhabited Mount Carmel, holy fathers both of the Old and of the New Covenant truly loved the solitude of that same mountain with a view to the contemplation of heavenly things and laudably lived there, one after another, in unbroken sacred succession, by the spring of Elijah in holy penitence.35

In this so-called Rubrica prima, Carmel as holy site is located in the center: on the mountain where Elijah and Elisha lived a life devoted to God. On that same mountain others, too, devoted themselves to solitude and contemplation. It is not stated that Elijah is the founder of the Order, nor that the Order originated in his day, or that at the time of its organization by the bestowal of the Rule the imitation of Elijah was consciously pursued. The Rubrica prima only says that the Order is linked to Elijah and Elisha on account of the fact that it originated at the place where an ancient tradition kept alive the contemplative way of life pursued by these two prophets.36 Not until around 1300 did people fill in historically the link with Elijah that up until that time had been mediated by the place. Thus we read in the treatise Universis christifidelibus (end of the thirteenth century) how around the year 30 numerous Carmelites settled in Jerusalem, close to the Ann gate to hear Christ preach.37 We witness a similar historicization of the link with Elijah in the chronicle De inceptione ordinis (early fourteenth

33 Prologue of the Carmelite Rule. We shall follow the text in K. Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Mount Carmel, Leuven 1999, 29. 34 For the Carmelite Rule, see part 1, chapter 2.3. 35 Medieval Carmelite Heritage, (Ed. A. Staring), Rome 1989, 40-41. 36 O. Steggink, Elia, de profeet van de Karmel, Nijmegen 1984, 13-14 (manuscript). 37 Medieval Carmelite Heritage, 71-90.

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century).38 Nevertheless, the original identification via contemplation in solitude was not lost. John Baconthorpe (d. 1346) in his Compendium tried to establish the nexus with the origin via contemplation: “It appears that the Carmelite order has adopted the example of contemplation from the line of the prophets and chosen Elijah the prophet as their father, along with the sons of the prophets, and to have originated in this manner.”39 The link with Elijah is spiritual here: the Carmelite order took over the transformation model (exemplum) from the practice of contemplation; they chose (elegisse) Elijah as their model (patrem), a choice they share with the sons of the prophets (cum filius prophetarum); it is this link which prompted the rise of the order (ortum habuisse). But this spiritual reading of the past found no acceptance. Chemineto, in his Speculum (1337), unambiguously declared for the first time that Elijah had founded the order.40 Among Elijah’s pupils were Elisha and Jonah (the son of the widow of Zarephath), Obadiah, and John the Baptist. This historical reading ended with the thesis that, from the time of Elijah up until the present of the authors, the Carmelites lived uninterruptedly on Mount Carmel.41 This historicizing of the Carmelite order did not remain unchallenged. In 1375, at the university of Cambridge, the pretensions of the Carmelites were disputed. Emotions ran so high that the chancellor had to intervene to restore the peace somewhat.42 But this was only child’s play by comparison with what was to come. In the 17th century, in a baroque manner and with a show of learning, it was argued that the order stemmed from Elijah and counted in its ranks any number of prominent Old Testament figures.43 Reactions to these undocumented histories were bound to come. The Carmelites were struck hardest by the first volume of the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists that was published in 1643.44 It was immediately clear that these critical spirits were not prepared to adopt the view of the Carmelites: the Carmelite order had not been founded by Elijah, the Old Testament prophets were not Carmelites, Mary was not a Carmelite nun, and the desert monks were not Carmelites, and so forth. This, in turn, sparked the opposition of Carmelite historiographers. Wherever their material arguments failed to carry conviction they turned to the highest authority of the time as 38

Ibidem, 91-106. John Baconthorpe, Compendium historiarum et iurium, in: Medieval Carmelite Heritage, Rome 1989, 203. 40 Jean de Cheminot, Speculum fratrum ordinis B.M. de Monte Carmeli, ibid., 116. 41 See especially Philip Ribot, De institutione et peculiaribus gestis Carmelitarum, 1370. 42 J. Smet, De geschiedenis van de Karmel 1, Almelo 1988, 100. 43 Ibid 3b, Almelo 1995, 929-932. 44 The Bollandists (named after Jean Bolland, 1596-1665) produced lives of the saints on the basis of critical source studies and other material. This enterprise continued for more than three centuries. 39

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their final refuge. They made the Bollandists suspect. In 1691 they filed complaints against them with the Spanish Inquisition which in 1695 placed the 14 volumes on the Index. Fortunately people in Rome again succeeded in removing the Acta from the Index. The quarrels ran so high between the parties that in 1698 Innocent XII imposed perpetual silence on both parties.45 It was a kind of Solomon’s verdict: in the academic debate the Carmelites had not been a party; at the same time they remained in possession of their ancient traditions. Coming to the fore in the controversy between the Bollandists and the Carmelites was a fascinating field of tension in hagiography: the historical dimension and the spiritual dimension. Joachim Smet is right in saying that it is rather too simplistic to call all the Carmelites who had opposed the Bollandists “slanderers.” For them it was not an academic issue: their charisma was at stake.46 It was hard, if not impossible, to grasp two truths at once: the historical and the spiritual. For the rest, there were also people who could see the spiritual truth without massive historical identifications. Johannes Soreth, general from 1450 to 1471, for example, summoned the members of the order to follow Elijah’s example: “If you are the sons of Elijah, then do the works of Elijah.”47 Teresa of Avila opted for the track of Elijah’s fiery zeal, an image of total transformation in God. Jean de Saint Samson (1571-1636) stated that all the places in which the Carmelites lived were Mount Carmels if they lived in complete surrender to the Spirit.48 For him a material link with Mount Carmel and a historical link with Elijah was of secondary importance. It does not benefit Carmelites to call themselves the legitimate sons of Elijah if they are not animated by his spirit: “We would be a body without a soul, without movement, and without life.”49 The only thing that counts is to say “with the same feeling and veracity as Elijah: ‘As the Lord lives, before whose face I stand.’”50 This line of thought continued right into the 20th century: Elijah who embodies Yahwistic values;51 Elijah who inspires us to wage the same struggle as he did, with realism and faith;52 Elijah who spurs us on to live in God’s presence in order to bring it into the world, breaking down the

45

J. Smet, ibid. 3b, 934-935. J. Smet, ibid. 3b, 934. 47 Johannes Soreth, Expositio sacratissimae religionis fratrum (1625), Leuven 1973, 3. 48 Jean de St. Samson, Observations sur la règle des Carmes, in: Les œuvres spirituelles et mystiques, (Ed. Donatien de St. Nicolas), Rennes 1658-1659, 848. 49 Ibidem. 50 Ibidem. 51 R. Murphy, The Figure of Elias in the Old Testament, in: Carmelus 15 (1968), 230-238. 52 C. Mesters, O profeta Elas: inspiração par hoje, in: Revista Eclesiástica Brasiliera 30 (1970), 590-617. 46

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images of false religiosity;53 Elijah who stimulates us to develop a creative vision, reminding us of the mystical tradition and challenging us to be a critical factor in church and society;54 Elijah who inspires us to pursue righteousness.55 Looking back upon the Carmelitan iconization of Elijah, we perceive a tension between a historical dimension (massively construed or critically refuted) and a spiritual dimension which is variously unfolded: contemplation in solitude, battling against idols, fighting for righteousness. 5. Iconization around Titus Brandsma Titus Brandsma was born in 1881 in Oegeklooster (Friesland, The Netherlands). In 1898 he entered the Carmelite Order at Boxmeer (Brabant). After his training for the priesthood and his study of philosophy and sociology in Rome, he taught philosophy at the Carmelite school in Oss (Brabant). From the founding of the Catholic University at Nijmegen in 1923, he served there as professor of philosophy and the history of piety. From 1935 on he was the spiritual advisor of the Roman Catholic Society of Journalists. In 1941 he made a round trip to visit the directors and chief editors of Catholic newspapers in The Netherlands to persuade them to refuse the advertisements of the Dutch Nazi Party (NSB) which the German occupation authorities forced them to place. This trip was viewed as an act of resistance. In 1942 Titus Brandsma was arrested and imprisoned (Arnhem, Scheveningen, Amersfoort, and Kleve) and transported to the concentration camp in Dachau. On July 26, 1942, he died there as a result of a lethal injection. Although the historical facts concerning Titus Brandsma are in large part wellestablished and witnesses are still alive today who knew him personally, the iconization around him is already highly diverse. Hero of the resistance and martyr. In the last years of the war (1942-1945) and the early postwar years Titus Brandsma was primarily viewed as a hero of the resistance. This image was established by his writings from prison: Mijn cel, Dagorde van een gevangene, and Laatste geschrift (My cell, the Daily Schedule of a Prisoner, and Final Piece). His biographer, H.W.F. Aukes, in the first edition of his biography (1947), also highlights the last year of Titus’s life. The monumental work by L. de Jong on the history of the German occupation reinforces this image.56 53

Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum Beatissimae Virginis Mariae de Monte Carmelo, Rome 1971,

13. 54 J. Chalmers, The Prophetic Model of Religious Life. A Role of the Prophet Elijah in Carmelite Spirituality, Rome 1982. 55 C. Mesters, Wandelen in tegenwoordigheid van de Heer in de geest en de kracht van Elia, Almelo 1983. 56 L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog 5, ’s Gravenhage 1961, 109-116.

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Journalist. Titus Brandsma’s resistance culminated in his round trip to the offices of the Catholic daily press in 1941. This made him a fighter for the freedom of the press and freedom of speech, an aspect that was strongly profiled by José Alzin in his biography: Ce petit moine dangereux (“That Dangerous little monk”).57 The same occurs in the brochures of Houle and Shortis.58 Most outspoken is the biography of Vallaine, Un giornalista martire, padre Titus Brandsma (A Journalist-Martyr. Father Titus Brandsma).59 On the occasion of his beatification this image of the martyred journalist was the focus of much attention. During the beatification a painted design for a stained-glass window of Martini hung in the “gloria of Bernini,” on which Brandsma is depicted with a goose feather in his right hand. In the homily of John Paul II, too, the journalist was highlighted: “Pater Titus’s heart could not remain indifferent to the many brothers working outside of academic institutions, who might also feel the need for a word of clarification. To them he became a journalist.”60 The Union of Catholic Journalists (UCSI) held a press conference: “In Titus Brandsma we find a symbol and model of a reliable and meaningful approach to our profession.”61 Church and culture. Within the framework of the Catholic emancipation movement, Titus Brandsma was intensely interested in the affairs of church and culture. He took initiatives on behalf of the organization of Catholic education, was one of the founders of the Catholic University of Nijmegen, devoted himself to the cause of the Catholic press, exerted himself for the preservation of Frisian culture, was involved in ecumenical action vis-à-vis the Christian East, sympathized with the peace movement and the protection of animals. This activity was not purely institutional. Culture, for Brandsma, was “a dialogue concerning the problems of people, listening to and differentiating between the phenomena which touch the masses, attention to art and the environment, the restoration of folk traditions and popular piety that is despised by intellectuals, the defense of minorities and oppressed cultures (those of Friesland, Armenia, and the Jews), positive appreciation for the mass media as a new vehicle for Christian values, the elementary importance of Christian education and of missionary activities.”62

57

J. Alzin, Ce petit moine dangereux, Paris 1954. A. House, Titus Brandsma. Martyr, Aylesford 1958; J. Shortis, Father Brandsma. Carmelite, Educator, Journalist, Nazivictim, Melbourne 1956. 59 F. Vallaine, Un giornalista martire. Padre Tito Brandsma, Milano 1985. 60 Cited in J. Hemels, Perswetenschappelijke visies van Titus Brandsma, in: Titus Brandsma herdacht, (Ed. C. Struyker Boudier), Nijmegen 1985, 132. 61 The Beatification of Father Titus Brandsma, Carmelite, (Ed. R. Valabek), Rome 1986, 19. 62 B. Secondin, Culture for Man, ibid., 111. 58

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The Frisian. His ardent advocacy of the Frisian cause was linked, in Brandsma’s case, with his origins. It is not surprising, therefore, that Frisians view Titus Brandsma as an “intrepid example of Frisian fidelity and rectitude.”63 The pope supported their view: “The moral strength which the blessed Titus Brandsma exhibited in his many and varied activities, and in the end in his way of the cross and death, was definitely inherent in his nature, his Frisian character, marked as it was by this firm adherence to principle, loyalty, soundness, and honesty.”64 The mystical dimension. In his rewritten biography of 1961, Aukes shifts the emphasis to Titus Brandsma’s experience of God. Beginning in the decade of the sixties we see this shift to the spiritual dimension of his life in several publications.65 On the basis of various testimonies people have prominently featured66 the image of Titus Brandsma as “a mystic positioned squarely in the fullness of life.”67 His writings, too, prove to be inwardly conditioned by this mystical dimension.68 The symposium the Titus Brandsma Institute conducted on the occasion of Titus’s beatification in 1985 bore the title: Titus Brandsma en de mystiek (Titus Brandsma and Mysticism).69 Otger Steggink sees more than a professor in Titus Brandsma: “His studies and teaching in spirituality and mysticism, like those in the branches of philosophy, all bore the marks of his personal spiritual experience. (…) Therefore we who are gathered here today wish to view his professorate in the light of his spiritual and mystical personality, since in the person of Titus Brandsma, the academic cannot be separated from the mystic.70 The saint. One who reads through the loose-leaf folder with intentions71 in the Titus Brandsma Memorial Chapel in Nijmegen is struck by the immense confidence people have in Titus Brandsma. His help is invoked in connection with illness and serious operations, family problems, and a far journey, crises in

63 K. Kasteel, Titus Brandsma. An Intrepid Example of Frisian Fidelity and Rectitude, ibid., 26-29. 64 K. Kasteel, November 3: Beatification of Fr. Titus Brandsma, ibid., 68. 65 See esp. J. Melsen, Mystiek als levensdoel: Titus Brandsma, in: Carmel 17 (1965), 157-173. 66 Thus Regout in the Album amicorum Titi Brandsma (1939), in the Titus Brandsma archive of the Nederlands Carmelitaans Instituut (NCI) at Boxmeer. 67 See O. Steggink, Titus Brandsma hérdacht en hérzien, in: Titus Brandsma herzien – herdacht – herschreven, (Ed. C. Struyker Boudier), Baarn 1993, 36-38. 68 Titus Brandsma, mystiek leven. Een bloemlezing, (Ed. B. Borchert), Nijmegen 1985. 69 Titus Brandsma en de mystiek (symposium report at the Titus Brandsma Institute), Nijmegen 1985. 70 O. Steggink, Titus Brandsma: meer dan hoogleraar, in: Titus Brandsma herdacht, (Ed. C. Struyker Boudier), Nijmegen 1985, 107-108, 126. 71 Many folders are filled with them. They are stored in the NCI at Boxmeer.

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relationships and before examinations, for work and for peace. The confidence to which this devotion attests discloses in Titus Brandsma a saint who lived a life that was spontaneously good: Titus at “the community center for Social Assistance,” Titus in search of a scholarship for a needy student, seeking employment for a graduate, arguing for the appointment of a female classics teacher at a training school for priests, concerning himself with the fate of the widow of a musician, Titus in search of a home for an Armenian refugee without parents. The image of a saint is further substantiated by the testimonies of colleagues: “he was cordially and universally loved by the families of colleagues” (Rogier); someone who “gave much because he loved much” (Van Ginneken), a person “who displayed an almost interminable range of activity for the common good” (Sassen). His fellow brothers too testify to a goodness that sprang from a disinterested compassion for the other,72 a disinterestedness which simply continued in prison.73

1.1.2. REFLECTIONS Looking back on the five paradigms of prescientific biography, we readily discover there the three levels of phenomenological description: (1) a profile of the life to be described; (2) the contextuality; (3) the interior of the vita. 1. A profile of the saint’s life Spiritual biographies attempt to profile their object as sharply as possible in order to make present its central core. We see this clearly in the depictions of Titus Brandsma: the iconization of his person ages and isolates him. As a rule the authors choose depictions from the last years of his life: a passport photograph with a guarded look, drawings from the concentration camps. One rarely sees pictures from his younger years as a Carmelite brother. Photographs on which he is shown along with others (with his confraters, with journalists, on a boat to America, in processions or Catholic demonstrations, with the members of his family) are seldom used to depict Titus. At most they occur in photo reportages. The motivation behind this selection is probably a desire to profile his figure: someone who has matured by experience and who appeals to people from within his own core, unhindered by others who diffuse his impact and influence. The element of being exemplary and a role model is enhanced by a sharp profile.

72 73

See A. Staring, Love of Neighbour, in: Essays on Titus Brandsma, 156-160. Ibid., 161-165.

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We saw a similar profiling process in the case of Jesus Sirach. On the basis of a prophetic vision he pictures Elijah as someone whom he can address personally: “How awesome you are, Elijah” (Jes. Sir. 48:4). In the description Elijah is detached from his background. He profiles himself as a prophet of fire, surrounded by epithets: “Who arose (…), who sent down (…), who anointed (…), who was taken up (…), who will come again.” This profiling description not only applies to Elijah but to the entire gallery of saints as such. The models are selected from a cycle of tangled and diffuse stories. Judges and minor prophets each get only one verse, but the priests (Aaron, Phinehas, Caleb, Simon) are given extensive coverage. This very selection already profiles Scripture from the perspective of spiritual models. The life of Jesus, as Luke describes it, shows in the very description of it how his figure is detached from the context of his family and place of birth. The bonds with his family and village are cut and replaced by the ties a teacher has with his pupils: Jesus profiles himself as a teacher who speaks with authority. Cassian, in his Institutiones, first sketches the external side of monastic life. He himself calls it “the external elements” of their life: their clothing, the canonical hours, the practice of virtue. He, accordingly, first wants to present the form, in its external character before he lays bare the inner dimension of that by way of his Conferences. The hagiographers of the Carmelite order select from the stories of Scripture and monastic literature a Carmelitan succession beginning with Elijah, whom they regard as their founder. They profile this selection in such a way that an unbroken series of Carmelites and Carmelitesses stands out. In all the paradigms we have discussed there clearly comes to the fore a structuring operation: the profiling of the life to be described. Lines are drawn to depict the object as clearly as possible. These contours also mark the distinction between an external and an internal dimension. 2. The contextuality of the figure To study the article “saints” in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité74 (“a kind of typology of Christian sanctity as it arises in accordance with different periods”75) is to see at a glance how both in the Eastern76 and in the Western77 churches the different types of saints blend with the religious culture in which they originated. The same applies to contemporary images of saints. This comes out clearly 74

DSp 14 (1990), 196-230. T. Spidlík, Saints. I. Dans les Églises byzantine et russe, in: DSp 14 (1990), 196. 76 Ibid., 197-202. 77 J. Picard, A. Vauchez, R. Darricau, B. Peyrous, Saints, II. Dans l’Église latine, ibid., 203230. 75

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in the main article entitled “Modèles spirituels” in the Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle.78 More than half of the article is devoted to a presentation of five modern saints, “who become meaningful to us to the degree we put our questions to them as children of our time:79 Charles de Foucauld, the worker Madeleine Delbrel, Martin Luther King, Teilhard de Chardin, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.80 Each religious culture develops a typical image which profoundly marks the saint: other structures, other saints.81 The descriptions of saints are inseparably interwoven with the particular socioreligious context in which they arose. We see the same phenomenon in connection with the five paradigms we selected. Luke links the life of Jesus – even before Jesus has done anything – with the Roman emperor Augustus. Concerning Augustus we are told that under his government there was a period of world peace: at the birth of Jesus, accordingly, the angels announce peace on earth. In this way Jesus is again linked with Augustus. This contextualization also occurs with respect to the Jewish community: Jesus is carefully positioned over against Herod, the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the scribes, prostitutes, publicans and foreigners. Jesus Sirach preferably profiles his saints in relation to the liturgy and the temple: Aaron is given elaborate treatment as priest; Phinehas is a priest-zealot; Solomon built the temple; Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and Nehemiah owe their place to the rebuilding of the temple; Simon who restored the house of God, is effusively brought on the scene as priest. In this way the weal and woe of the temple and the liturgy becomes the actual context of their public image. The prophets are portrayed as miracle workers in the midst of the people. Kings, priests, and prophets are thus pulled out of the political-ethical context of Scripture and recontextualized within the second temple. Cassian is very definitely conscious of the difference in context between the Egyptian desert monks and their Gallic colleagues. The difference in climate and social perception is so important to him that he adjusts his form description accordingly. The Carmelitan hagiographers arranged the biblical landscape and chronology in such a way that against this background the profit of an unbroken line of Elijan sons of the prophet arises, all of whom sought out the solitude of Mount Carmel as place of contemplation. The iconization around Titus Brandsma was strongly shaped – especially in the first years after his death – by the context of the war (1940-1945). Mijn cel 78

S. Spinsanti, Modèles spirituels, in: DVSp (1983), 691-711. Ibid., 698. 80 Ibid., 699-710. 81 From the title of the book Andere structuren, andere heiligen. Het veranderende beeld van de heilige in de Middeleeuwen, (Ed. R. Stuip & C. Vellekoop), Utrecht 1983. 79

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and Dagorde van een gevangene evoke the atmosphere of the German occupation against the background of which Titus appears as martyr. In fact we are here looking at only six months of his life. Titus had of course been opposed to national socialism for many years, as is evident from his class lectures. But his life prior to this period was sustained much more by the context of Catholic emancipation (Catholic education, press, university, culture) than by national socialism. In that connection the context of the mystical space of Carmel was more decisive than any other environment. Present in all five paradigms is a level of contextualization: the description constructs a background (Grund) which exists in tension (parallelism; contrast) with the figure being profiled (Figur). This background can make room for the figure or encompass the figure; it can also be evoked by the figure. It is always present, however, as a level of description of its own. 3. The interior Cassian expressly makes a distinction between the internal dimension of the institutional form (the soul) and the external dimension. He illustrates this distinction with the example of prayer: the external form concerns the structure of the hours, of which the internal form is the perpetual prayer which pervades both the choral prayer and all the other activities besides. Elijah is described (along the lines of the Elijah-cycle in the book of Kings) as a person who was moved by the fire of the word of Be-er. This fire had both a purifying and a disruptive effect in Israel. Luke’s description time after time lets divine reality break through in the life of Jesus: on the occasion of his conception and birth, during his temptations in the wilderness, in his discourses and miracles, on the Mount of Transfiguration and on the cross. One could even say that Luke as the evangelist of prayer is continually focused on the “fulfillment” by the agency of God in his description of “the events which took place among us” (Luke 1:1). This is evident not only from the praise songs (of Mary, Zechariah, the angels, Simeon) but even more from the way he pictures Jesus’ life and describes the reactions of the surrounding world. The iconization of Titus Brandsma shows a shift toward the saint’s interior. Whereas in the early biographies there was a strong accent on his resistance as a journalist and involvement in church-and-culture activities, in the second stage his biographers began to discover Titus as a mystic and saint, which simultaneously meant Titus’s recontextualization as a Carmelite. The Carmelitan hagiography which views the history of the Carmelites as one grand unfolding of the contemplative charisma of their father Elijah, shows how strong the interior of a saint and the spiritual dimension can be. Here the spiritual interior is so strong that it additionally creates the historical context

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(an unbroken succession of Carmelites, since Elijah). Here the spiritual dimension becomes so influential that the historicizing dimension disappears into the background. In any case, all five paradigms show that spiritual biographies are directed toward the spiritual dimension of the life of saints. This is a special level of description that is to a great extent hermeneutical. The figures described are interpreted in terms of their relation to God. An attempt is made to lay bare the working of God in their life and to make it accessible.

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1.2. In-depth Study of the Three Levels of Description In prescientific praxis, with the aid of a few spiritual biographies, we discovered three interconnected levels of description: the profiling, the contextualization, and the spiritual interior, of the figure in question. We now leave behind the paradigm of the spiritual biography and explore separately the three levels of description we have discovered. To that end we examined a number of paradigms from the broad field of lived spirituality. To further explore the profiling of the figure we chose the paradigm of the names of religious communities; to explore the dimension of contextuality we chose three examples from the Old Testament; in conclusion, we chose three psalms as examples for the spiritual interior.

1.2.1. DESIGNATIONS AS DEMARCATION OF THE

FORM

To describe a form we must first know where that form begins and ends and where the core of its presence is located. To familiarize ourselves with this level of description we chose the paradigm of the names which are given within lived spirituality to certain forms. Names mark a phenomenon with regard to what surrounds them and mediate its presence.82 In the briefest conceivable form they describe phenomena on the first level of description. To explore this descriptive level we chose the names of religious communities.83 Glancing through the index of the Dictionnaire de spiritualité (1995), one sees dozens of names for spiritual communities and schools of thought.84 A closer look at the nomenclature reveals how they mark the profile of a spiritual way in a thousand and one ways. Names contain descriptive categories which bring to light various aspects of the phenomenon in question: basic outlook, historic situation, institutional position, form of community, place of origin, mutual relations, central symbol, spiritual signature, and the like. Names circumscribe phenomena and make them present. In virtue of this capacity they are especially well-suited for exploration on the first level of description.

82

K. Waaijman, Betekenis van de naam Jahwe, Kampen 1984, 10-26. For a characterization of the different types of religious community life, see part 1, chapter 2.3. 84 For a complete list of monastic and cloistral spiritualities, see the 7-volume Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, Rome 1974-1983. 83

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1. Origin Sometimes names point to the origin of a spiritual form: the place where a given spiritual way had its start, or the founder who stood at the cradle of a given spiritual movement. The place of origin. The Camaldulese were founded in the 11th century by Romuald in Camaldoli, a place in Tuscany in the Apennines. The Carthusians originated in the same century at a lonely location in the mountains of Chartreuse. The Victorines identify as their place of origin the abbey of St. Victor. Jewish Tsafad-mysticism is named after the little town of Tsafad in Northern Galilee, where several mystics made their home after their expulsion from Spain and Portugal. Numerous 19th-century active congregations were named after their place of origin: a village (Schijndel, Veghel, Heijthuijsen), a street (Choorstraat) or a building (De Bogen). The 20th century saw the rise of the movement of Taizé, a French village in the neighborhood of Cluny and Citeaux, situated close to the line of demarcation which divided France in two at the time. Attached to every place name are stories about the origin that describe the significance of the spiritual ways mentioned. The founder or foundress. Many spiritual movements bear the name of their founder or foundress: Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Clarisses, Brigittines, Ursulines, Teresians, Vincentians, and so forth. This practice of naming is not restricted to religious communities. Lurian mysticism is named after Isaac Luria, the most significant personality from the early years in Safed. More than the place, the founder and foundress evoke a way of life that serves as a model for the spiritual way being named. 2. Ideal image Closely connected with the origin (place of origin, founder) is the ideal which gives direction to a given spiritual way and makes present the basic inspiration of the origin, concretized in examples, values, and mission directives. Examples. The Jesuits call themselves the “Society of Jesus.” The Redemptorists were initially called the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Redeemer, a name later changed by Rome into The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Facets of Jesus’ life serve as examples in the names, such as Daughters of the Infancy, Daughters of Nazareth, the City Monks of Bethlehem, the Daughters of the Cross, the monastic community Frères de la Resurrection, the fourth-world communities named Emmaus. Perhaps even more than Jesus, Mary serves as model of the spiritual life: The Children of Mary, the Marists, the Mariani, Marienleben, Notre Dame. Or combinations of the two: SacrésCœurs de Jesus et de Marie. Other saints as well may serve as the basic inspiration: Saint Eustorg (Milan), Saint Egidio (Rome), the Paulini, the Daughters of St. Bernard.

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Values. The names of spiritual communities frequently express also the values these communities consider central. Jewish spirituality is familiar with Hasidic movements that are motivated by the virtue of mercy (chesed). Christian spirituality knows communities guided by the virtue of mercy, and love: the Brothers of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity and the Order of Mercy. The Humiliati express the virtue of humility in their manner of life, especially in their clothing. Mission. The names of several communities express a mission. Sometimes they also indicate the area in which the mission is carried out: Mission de France, Mission de Paris, the Missionaries of Africa, African Missions. 3. Attitudes and practices A guiding ideal calls for its appropriation in attitudes, exercises, and practices. Attitudes. Several names express an attitude of subservience: Oblates of Mary, Slaves of Mary, Children of Mary, Servants of the Holy Sacrament. Other names point to the ideal of holiness: the Holy Family of Bordeaux, the Holy Family of the Sacred Heart. With a view to the enhancement of holiness of priests there are Associations for the Sanctification of the Clergy. Prayer. “Oratorians” is a name for priests who constitute an “oratorium” (lit, a space for prayer). This name not only reminds communities of priests of their origin (the oratorium of Philip Neri which grew out of assemblies in the chapel of a community of priests) but also of their goal: prayer and pastoral care. In the 19th century Marie-Michelle du Saint-Sacrament founded the religious institute of the Religieuses Adoratrices Esclaves du Très Saint-Sacrament et de la Charité. The Sacramentines devoted themselves to the adoration of the sacrament of the Eucharist. The above names all point in the direction of a goal that revolves around prayer, liturgy and devotion. Words of mercy. Some names express that a given community wishes to devote itself to service in a certain area of society or the church. The Pédagogie Chrétienne (another name for the Sisters of Jesus, Mary and Joseph) devoted itself to Christian education, as did the Company of Christian Doctrine. In a variety of forms the Hospitallers of St. John offer hospitality to the sick, the homeless, strangers, or the poor. The Visitandines were originally intended to visit the sick, a practice that was no longer possible when they accepted monastic structures. 4. Typical traits Names sometimes denote traits which characterize a spiritual community within a given culture: external marks of distinction, social conventions, and views. External characteristics. The Grey Brothers of Penitence (Berettini della penitenza) derive their name from the ash-grey clothing they wore. The Capuchins owe their name to their brown habit with the long pointed cowl

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(cappuccino, hood). The oldest Carmelites were called “the striped ones” (stripati) on account of their white-brown striped cloak. These are names derived from the clothing which characterized the wearers. Also housing can characterize a community: eremites stay in lonely places, stylites live in pillars, hermits spend their time in hermitages. Some names refer to economic behavior: Arargires have nothing to do with money, mendicant brothers went around begging as they preached the gospel. Other names point to striking practices of piety: the penitentials were known for their penitential lifestyle; flagellants went around scourging themselves. Types of community: The mendicant brothers call themselves fratres, to distinguish themselves from the sons (filii) who put themselves in a hierarchical position with respect to their father (abba). Brotherhoods are primarily a community that meets on all sorts of levels. They are not called “abbeys” since that name would recall especially the father-son relation as foundational. Later ages tend to bring to the fore the institutional and organizational aspects of spiritual fellowship: Institut de la Charité, Institut des Clercs Seculiers Vivants and Communauté, secular institutes, Society of Mary, the Society of St. Thomas, de Villeneuve, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Sometimes their names make one think of an army: Soldiers of Jesus Christ, Legion of Mary. Community as source of inspiration comes through in names like Foyers de Charité and Focularini. Modern urban monks call themselves the Communion de Jérusalem in order to conjure up the close community of 1st century Christianity. “Loaded” ideas. Not infrequently names are given to spiritual communities or schools of thought that serve to characterize (and often to express disapproval of ) their deviant views. Thus the name Alumbrado refers in the first place to a group or kind of people who sought to achieve spiritual perfection through inner enlightenment. Later such people were denounced as Illuminati. The Karaites formed a Jewish sect that appealed to Scripture (miqra) in defiance of the authority of the rabbis. They were regarded as heretics. In a comparable way people speak of pietists, quietists, modernists, immanentists, asceticists. 5. Positioning Sometimes names indicate the position at which a given spiritual form locates itself with respect to tradition or within the larger whole of society and church. Situating oneself with respect to tradition. Modern Devotion saw itself as a renewal movement (moderna) that distanced itself from the old practice of externalism and superficial devotion. Others express their distance in terms of “reformation” or a “stricter” observance”; Ordo Cisterciensium Reformatorum; Ordo Cisterciensium Strictioris Observantiae; the Teresian Reformation; the Reformation of Tourain. New-age spirituality views itself as the beginning of a new period, after a period of rationalistic separation in all areas of life.

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Social position. The Humiliati evoke in their name the virtue of humility. At the same time this name also suggests a link with the underclass of people to which they (want to) belong, just as minor brothers want to be in solidarity with the lesser members of society (minores). Jeunesse Ouvrière Catholique (The Catholic Association of Working Youth) and Prêtres Ouvriers (Worker priests) refer to the Western industrial world. Ecclesiastical position. Many names convey the place a given spiritual community occupies in the ranks of the church. Some are expressly situated within the hierarchy: the Regular Clergy of the Mother of God; the Regular Clergy of St. Paul; the Priests of Mary; the Priests of St. Francis de Sales; the Priests of the Heart of Jesus. Another position in the church is evoked by names like monks, monials, eremites, and friars.

1.2.2. THE CONTEXTUAL

DIMENSION

The second level of description is that of the context: every phenomenon summons up other phenomena which harmonize or contrasts with it. This is the external horizon which in the final analysis is “the world.” In order to explore this level of description further we chose three examples from biblical spirituality: the song of Deborah that refers to the liberation spirituality of the years 1200-1000 B.C.; the story of Naboth that has its roots in prophetic spirituality; Psalm 137 which comes from the period of the exile and shortly thereafter. 1. “Then Deborah arose” (Judges 5) The Song of Deborah, one of the most ancient songs of Israel, originated between 1200 and 1000 B.C.85 In that 200-year period Israel developed into a national community, a process in which Deborah played a key role. This is evident from her song (Jdgs. 5). Deborah blesses Be-er for the self-commitment of militant tribes and challenges the kings of the city-states to take careful note, for marvelous things were about to happen (vv. 2-3). Deborah sings a prophetically-charged song in which the liberating power of Be-er is given voice. It was customary for women, under the inspiring leadership of a prophetess, to charge up the men for battle. After the battle they would greet the warriors with comparable songs (besides Jdgs. 5, see also Jdgs. 11:34; 1 Sam. 18:7; Exod. 15:21). In her song Deborah harks back to the pivotal act of liberation of Be-er: the liberation from Egypt – a liberation that led through the southern regions of Seir and Edom. Be-er moved heaven and earth to achieve the freedom of his people. To this 85

For a description of the Mosaic spirituality of liberation, see part 1, chapter 3.1.

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people he revealed himself on Sinai as the Mighty One of Israel, who fortifies himself for his people (vv. 4-5). Deborah recalls the occasion for the battle: the people found themselves in a miserable situation (vs. 6). The highways had become impassable: surprise attacks were the order of the day; from inside the cities the merchants were fleeced. Trade had become impossible. Those who traveled had to make detours. The free tribal life on the slopes of the hills was thoroughly undermined. Famine threatened. It was the rebellious Deborah who brought about a turn of events, stood up as “a mother in Israel” (vs. 7). She united the tribes into one family. Satirically she flays the tribes that sought an “accommodation” with the citystates and “modernized” their religion in hopes of getting a share of their prosperity (vs. 8). This accommodation did not yield much for them. Economically they remained dependent: they had to get bread at the city gates. Militarily they were still denied the use of iron; not a shield or spear was seen among all forty-thousand Israelites. She blesses the tribes who rose up in rebellion and tells her audience never again to forget the war of liberation (vv. 9-11). That chance is big. After a liberation people easily doze off. Lulled to sleep by prosperity (riding on white donkeys, sitting on costly rugs, traveling the roads in safety), they no longer meditate on Be-er, the less well-off are inclined to forget Be-er. The reference is to the watercarriers at the watering places. The people begin to move. They come down to the plain, to the walled city-states (vs. 11d). Deborah is in their midst. She is urged to sing a prophetic song, one that fills them with fighting spirit, gives them power and inspiration. Deborah in turn rouses Barak to rise up as leader. He must begin to take captive those who kept the people captive (v. 12). Inspired by Deborah, the people join the fray, remembering that in former times they escaped the tyranny of Pharaoh. Now they march against new Pharaohs. Be-er himself marches along amidst the warriors (vs. 13). The tribes that join are mentioned by name: Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir, Zebulun, Naphtali and Issachar. All of these are tribes from the hills of central Palestine (vv. 14-15). The more remote tribes are the objects of sarcasm: the stay-at-home tribes. Reuben, mired in indecision, takes cover within the sheepfolds. Gilead feels secure in the area beyond the Jordan. Dan and Asher keep at a safe distance by the Mediterranean seacoast. Deborah, with her satire, lashes their self-interested short-sightedness (vv. 16-18). The battle took place in the Plain of Jezreel, at Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo (vv. 19-23). As in former times with the exodus, so now the heavens again fight for the tribes. A torrential downpour apparently triggered an enormous flash flood around the banks of the Kishon. The heavy (iron!) chariots of the enemy ran stuck in that muddy landscape, enabling the light-weight warriors from the hills to defeat them. The Kishon swept away the whole army! Deborah in passing cursed the (unknown) town of Meroz, since its inhabitants did not come to help the tribes in battle. The climax of the song comes with the story of the disgraceful death of Sisera (vv. 21-27). The general of the army is killed by the hand of a woman: Jael, a Kenite woman. Cunningly she invites him into her tent. When he is overcome by drowsiness, she drives a tent pin through his brains. The climax is continued in the

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH taunt song that follows (vv. 28-30). The anxious mother of Sisera keeps peering through the window: what is delaying Sisera? The women reassure her: “Sisera is probably busy dividing the spoils: a girl or two for every warrior. And, of course, loads of fine clothing, for Sisera himself and for us. That’s what holding him back.” The listeners know better. They are absorbing the lesson of the song: those who fight Be-er lose their life; those who love him are strong as the rising sun (v. 31).

The song of Deborah evokes the context of the liberation spirituality that held sway in Israel in the years 1200-1000 B.C. In this context we can discern the following layers. 1. From 2000 to 1000 a settling process was going on in Israel: nomads and seminomads settled in the open, thinly populated areas between the densely populated walled cities. They settled down with their herds in mountainous areas. Thus the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, Issachar, and Naphtali inhabited the slopes of the northern-Galilean highlands, Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir, Jair, Nobah, and Manasseh populated the central highlands and hill country. Gad and Reuben occupied the area across the Jordan and Judah inhabited the Judean highlands. 2. A group of slaves fled Egypt under the leadership of Moses, thus escaping the forced labor they had to perform on the building projects of Ramses II. After their wanderings through the southern deserts they penetrated central Palestine and joined the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, a Moses-group that had experienced Be-er as liberating presence. Via Ephraim and Manasseh the worship of Be-er spread among the tribes. 3. Beginning around 1200 B.C. Egypt lost its grip on Canaan. Consequently the sea people took their chance and entered the country. They became Egypt’s business managers. Together with the cities they exploited the hill tribes (farmers and shepherds). Add to this that the cities had mastered the invention of iron; better weapons, better agricultural implements. After 1200 the importation of iron heightened the opposition between the centrally-governed walled cities (city-states) and the tribes living in the open field. From within their impregnable fortresses the cities forced the shepherds and the farmers to pay heavy rentals. In addition many of their young men had to serve as drivers in the armies of the city-states. 4. The tribes on the slopes of the mountains gradually felt strong enough to cast off the yoke of oppression. They began to form coalitions: first of two tribes (Jdgs. 4), then of three tribes (Ps. 80), or, as in the song of Deborah, of six tribes (Jdgs. 5). This coalition of six tribes is the first large coalition, created under the inspiring leadership of Deborah. These six tribes, now united, come down to the gates of the cities. It is evident from the song that the conflict is over the strategically and economically important trade route through the Plain of Jezreel. Mentioned are the brook Kishon (which comes down from the Carmel mountain range by way of Megiddo) and Mount Tabor (a mountain between Nazareth

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and the “sea” of Galilee). The battle is directed against the belt of city-states which control the trade route through the Plain of Jezreel and the fertile plains below (Sharon, Lower Galilee). 2. Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21) The tale of Naboth is the middle story of three stories in which Ahab is told by a prophet of his forthcoming death.86 In the first story (1 Kgs. 20) Ahab releases the defeated Aramean king Ben-Hadad (20:30-34). In doing so he called the first death sentence down on himself (20:42). In the third story (1 Kgs. 22) Micah, son of Imlah, speaking against four hundred other prophets, predicted the death of Ahab (22:28). In between the two we find the story of the judicial murder of Naboth (1 Kgs. 21) which culminates in the third death sentence upon Ahab and his house (21:19-25). The issue around which everything revolves is featured at the very beginning: the vineyard of Naboth located next to Ahab’s second residence in Jezreel. The vineyard belongs to Naboth, a citizen of Jezreel (vs. 1). The story gets its initial impetus when king Ahab approaches Naboth with an offer (vs. 2). Ahab wants to expand his palace grounds in Jezreel by purchasing adjacent properties, among which is Naboth’s vineyard. In exchange he offers him a better vineyard elsewhere or a corresponding payment in silver. This offer seems rational and is juridically correct.87 Naboth, however, rejects Ahab’s offer on the ground that he would be violating the rule of Be-er if he were to transfer his ancestral inheritance into the hands of strangers (vs. 3). Yahwistic land rights guaranteed to families as much land as they needed to support themselves. In order to guarantee this economic basis (and the freedom and independence based on it) there was the prohibition against selling the ancestral property of the family to another (Lev. 25:23-24; Num. 27:1-11; 36:112; Prov. 19:14; Micah 2:1-5; Ezek. 46:16-18). Ahab is stung by Naboth’s refusal. In his fury he changes and distorts it. Feeling defeated, he lies down on his bed sulking, with his face to the wall, and refuses to eat (vs. 4). At that point Jezebel appears on the scene (vv. 5-7), asking her husband for the reason behind his terrible fit of anger. Excitedly (in the historical present!) Ahab tells her what happened. He explains at length the reasonableness of his double offer: either exchange the vineyard for another vineyard of equal value or sell it for a fair price. Jezebel reacts with indignation. She urges Ahab to let go of his consuming anger, promising: “I, I’ll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” Jezebel, then, on behalf of her husband, writes a letter addressed to the leading citizens of Jezreel, Naboth’s fellow-citizens (vv. 8-10), sealing it with the royal seal. Thus the narrator conveys that Jezebel is acting on Ahab’s instructions (see

86

For the Elijan background, see part 1, chapter 3.3. K. Bohlen, Der Fall Nabot. Form, Hintergrund und Werdegang einer alttestamentliche Erzählung, Trier 1978, 267-278. 87

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH Esther 8:8-10). In her letter Jezebel orders a sacral juridical procedure.88 In such a procedure the people serve as a court of law. The king has the right to call this body into “session” when the people’s lives are threatened. In our case the danger is fictitious: Naboth is said to have cursed God and the king, an offense that violates the sacral order. This offense demands the death penalty (cf. Exod. 22:27; Lev. 24:10-23; 2 Sam. 16:5-13; 19:22; 1 Kgs. 2:8-9). The people proclaim a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the sacral community of law. Two suborned witnesses then play their appointed role. In the presence of all the people they charge Naboth with having cursed both God and the king. On that basis the popular court pronounces the death sentence. Naboth is taken away and stoned. Then the people send word to Jezebel saying that the evil has been removed from their midst (vs. 14). All the conditions for a juridically legitimate confiscation of Naboth’s ancestral inheritance have now been met.89 When Jezebel hears that Naboth is dead, she orders Ahab to get up and add Naboth’s vineyard to his royal estate (vv. 15-16). She does not say a word about judicial murder. Ahab literally follows her instructions. This seems to end the story: Ahab has gained possession (vs. 16) of the vineyard that had been refused him by his subject Naboth (vs. 3). But this release only applies to those who share Ahab’s and Jezebel’s viewpoint. From the viewpoint of Be-er and his narrator the tension has reached its climax. Be-er speaks to Elijah. He must immediately get up and go down (from Mount Carmel?) to meet Ahab (vv. 17-20d) precisely where Ahab’s and Jezebel’s plot seems to have burned out: in the vineyard to which he went down to take possession of it (vv. 18; cf. the literal repetition of vs. 16!). Elijah must go there to announce a death sentence – in graphic language (dogs that lick up blood) that stems from the atmosphere of palace revolutions. In the death sentence that Elijah pronounces over Ahab and his house (vv. 2026), the principle of reciprocity is foremost. “Because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord; look, I will cause evil to come upon you” (vv. 20-21). Also the context of the sentence corresponds to this principle: “I will cut off from Ahab every last male descendant in Israel.” Jezebel, too, will share in the verdict upon Ahab: “Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel” (vv. 23; see 2 Kgs. 9:34-37). In a concatenation of stereotypical phrases90 Elijah announces the ruination of the house of Ahab. Ahab is so struck by Elijah’s announcement that he tears up his clothes, puts on sackcloth, and abstains from food and drink (v. 27). At night he sleeps in the sackcloth in which he goes about during the day. His pace is slow, an expression of grief and dispiritedness. In response to this gesture Be-er relents (vv. 28-29). In all likelihood this fragment has been added as conclusion to the story. The king’s remorseful behavior indicates that the later narrator had a more positive view of the kings of Israel.

The structure of the story gives us a picture of the context of Elijan spirituality: the royal house had seized control of the land rights of small farmers. Against this arrogation of power the prophets reasserted the validity of Yahweh-given laws. 88

Ibid., 367-379. Ibid., 368. 90 Ibid., 202-215. 89

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The first part of the story (vv. 1-16) shows how the royal house tries to enrich itself at the expense of a certain Naboth, who appeals in vain to Be-er and his juridical order. The issue in dispute is the relative independence and freedom of the small farmer who could assert his inalienable right to the stability of his ancestral inheritance, as guaranteed by Israel’s sole Owner: Be-er. The royal house gradually hollowed out the right to own land by “stringing field to field” (Micah 2:1-5), a practice that reached its zenith under the regime of Ahab and Jezebel, who were guided in the exercise of kingship (see vs. 1!) by the principles of absolutistic authority. The incorporation of the inheritance of small farmers into the ever-expanding crown land (un-Israelitish but customary among surrounding nations) was – to the prophets – a symbol of anti-Yahwism and the root of all social abuses.91 The second part of the story (vv. 17-29) depicts the prophetic counter-movement. In the first scene, played between Be-er and Elijah (vv. 17-19), the prophet receives the charge to go forth to meet the king at precisely the place where the ambitions of the royal house had been satisfied (Naboth’s vineyard) to make the announcement. “In the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood – yes, yours!” (v. 19 [NIV]). In the second scene, which plays between Elijah and Ahab (vv. 19-29), Elijah carries out his assignment. Be-er’s passion can be summed up in a single sentence: to act in the person of Elijah against the evil committed in accordance with the law of reciprocity. Following Ahab’s crime (the dogs licking up the blood of Naboth) comes the mirror image of the punishment: the dogs will lick up the blood of Abah. This reciprocity is later made palpable in word repetitions: he who has illegally taken possession of an inheritance (vv. 15-16 and 18-19) proves to have sold himself (vv. 20, 25); one who has done evil in Be-er’s eyes (vv. 20, 22, 25-26) will not be able to escape disaster (v. 21). 3. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat” (Ps. 137) From 587 to 538 B.C. a large number of Israelites were forced to live as exiles in Babylon.92 Many of them had to perform slave labor in the tile and brick factories by the rivers of Babylon. The beginning of Psalm 137 tells how the exiles dealt with the death of Jerusalem, their holy city. They mourned over Zion as one mourns over a beloved one who has died (vv. 1-2). They sat down to weep as they remembered the death of their beloved city (cf. Isa. 47:1; Lam. 2:10; Jer. 6:26, etc.) without the music of harp strings (cf. Gen. 31:27; Job 30:31). The lyre, symbol of temple song and cultic joy, could not be touched when mourning over a deceased person. And so they had 91 92

Ibid., 391-393, with bibliography. For the spirituality of the exile, see part 1, chapter 3.4.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH hung their lyres in the willows that grew by the river banks. The narrator probably belonged among the exiles himself: he speaks of “we” and “us.” At the moment he is telling this he is no longer “there”: he is speaking from the past. In the middle of their deep grief and mourning they were baited by the Babylonians (vv. 3-4). The tormentors asked for religious music from their victims. Those who had ruined the holy city, dragged away priests and Levites, and banished them to a foreign land asked them to sing sacred songs. And all this occurred at precisely the moment when Israel in deepest mourning wept over their city. The two opening strophes (vv. 1-2 and 3-4) took us to Babylonia (“there”), to the “we”-group of the exiles (“we,” “us”), who mourned “there” over the ruin of Zion (“we sat and wept remembering Zion”). In the third strophe that situation has changed. The narrator no longer speaks on behalf of a “we,” but in the “I”-form (3x “I,” 4x “my”). In addition he appears to stand face-to-face to Jerusalem, he addresses the city directly. He is no longer “there” but here, face-to-face with Jerusalem. Apparently the period of weeping is past, for the narrator wants Jerusalem to become the main source of his “joy,” that is, the core of his cultic songs of joy. Finally, we are no longer in the past but in the present of an act of selfobligation (vv. 5-6). This self-obligation is couched in strong language: “if I forget you, Jerusalem, may my hand become paralyzed and forget all its functions; may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, so that, having been made mute, I will never sing again.” The self-imprecation uttered here concerns two human functions: the functioning of the hand and of the tongue. This description summons up the image of a temple singer, a Levite who obligates himself to perform cultic services at the holy city, and that in such a way that his services develop into the main source of his livelihood. Should he fail to keep his promise, then may he be incapacitated for work. What was the reason for this threat accompanied by such a coarse self-imprecation? Did the Levites really threaten to forget Jerusalem? Did they not remember Zion any more? Was the holy city no longer the chief source of their joy? Upon his return from Babylonia it had already struck Ezra that there were no Levites among the returning exiles (Ezra 8:15). He therefore gave orders to the effect that the communities of exiles should “provide us with servants for the house of our God” (Ezra 8:17). When a sufficient number of Levites had been found, the people traveled to Jerusalem. But the rebuilt temple was disappointing by comparison with the old temple of Solomon (Ezra 3:12-13). Furthermore, in rebuilding the city the builders encountered strong resistance (Ezra 4; Nehemiah 4). All these things did not help to make the city at all attractive! There was plenty of reason to avoid it. The city, accordingly, remained thinly populated (Neh. 7:4; 11:1-2; cf. Ps. 133). All things considered, the atmosphere was far from being appealing to the temple servants. Another important factor was that the people refused to make their contributions for the Levites. Not surprisingly, “all the Levites and singers responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields” (Neh. 13:10). Confronting the leaders with this problem, Nehemiah asked: “Why is the house of God being neglected?” (Neh. 13:11). Nehemiah then called the Levites together, stationed them at their posts, and made provision for proper remuneration (Neh. 13:12-13).

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Against these centrifugal forces (the inertia of the Levites, the degraded state of the temple and the city, the hostility of the surrounding population, the poor payment of the Levites) Psalm 137 mobilizes the centripetal forces: a personal self-obligation (in the I-form) to commit all one’s artistic abilities and to again make the holy city into the main source of life-fulfillment and income. Contrasting with this affirmation of Jerusalem is the fierce imprecation of Edom and Babylon in the last two stanzas (vv. 7-9). From Psalm 60, Obadiah, and Lamentations we know that Edom broke off its alliance with Jerusalem in its darkest hour, the time when it was besieged by the Babylonians. When the Babylonians destroyed the city, Edom made common cause with the enemy. The psalmist pleads with Be-er not to forget Jerusalem’s day of disaster in his dealings with the Edomites. The psalmist devotes a similar imprecation to “the daughter of Babylon.” He addresses it directly: “O daughter of Babylon, you who are so saturated with violence that you have already been destroyed by it – may happiness come to him who implements the law of reciprocity upon you, who does to you what you have done to us. May happiness come to him who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (vv. 8-9). The word “infants” in the language of the exiles refers to the inhabitants of “mother” Jerusalem and of “mother” Babylon (see Lam. 1:15; 2:11, 19; 4:2-5; Ps. 8). The import of this imprecation is clear: the city that saturated itself with violence will, in accordance with the law of reciprocity, die by violence.

Ps. 137 consists of three parts, each with its own context. The central piece (vv. 5-6) situates us in the context of Zion after the exile: a Levite (“I”) stands face to face with Jerusalem and wants to define his whole identity by remembrance of the holy city. How is this central part related to the first (vv. 1-4)? The first similarly evokes the remembrance of Zion, but now in the context of the exilic community (there and then). Hence the Levite continues the love for Zion, that had been born in the uprootedness of the exile. That love had apparently cooled off, since the Levite now had to obligate himself by means of a fierce self-imprecation. The third part (vv. 7-9) positions us in the third context: the murder of Zion by Edom and Babylon. 1.2.3. THE

INTERIOR OF THE FORM

The third level of description concerns the internal horizon of a spiritual form. This horizon only opens itself up when a targeted question – one that focuses our interest – is addressed to a phenomenon. In our case that is the question concerning the spiritual interior. Cassian called this interior “the internal dimension” of the institution. We will explore this interior afresh with the aid of three forms of biblical spirituality. The first form is the spirituality of the Exodus, which we will study in terms of its interior with the aid of Psalm 114. The second form is the spirituality of Zion to which Psalm 87 introduces us. Finally, with the study of Psalm 126, we enter the spirituality of the exile.

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1. The Face of the Mighty One (Psalm 114) Psalm 114 situates itself in the field of tension created by the exodus and the entry; the point of departure is the movement of withdrawal from Egypt; the terminal point is the movement of entry into Judah.93 Moving away from Egypt, the house of bondage, Israel left behind a societal form that was mercilessly oppressive (Exod. 1:11-14), that distrusted and excluded foreigners (Exod. 1:10), and covered brutal cruelty with a veneer of culture (see, for example, Exod. 1:15-22). The final goal is an Israel that as a country and a people devotes itself completely to “him” who liberated it, an Israel that will be a sanctuary, and not relapse into the barbarism of Egypt (vs. 2). Between the point of departure and the terminal point lies the way: the journey out of the house of bondage, the journey through the Sea of Reeds, the journey through the wilderness, the journey through the Jordan, the journey into the land (vv. 3-4). First the journey outward is recalled: the journey through the Sea of Reeds represented as a person. Did Israel see the Sea come by? Did it see “his” hand? Did it see the liberation? The text is silent, just as it had been silent earlier about what was meant by “his.” Because it is not stated what the sea has seen, the text has an enigmatic air. That is further reinforced by the fact that the sea, filled with awe, takes flight at sight of the Unuttered One. As a result Israel was able to pass through it (Exod. 14:21-22; 29-30; 15:19; see also Ps. 77:16). Along with the sea also the host of the forces of chaos, of which the sea is the symbol, is routed (Isa. 17:12-13). With an enormous leap the poem next shifts to the terminal point: the moment of entry, the journey through the Jordan: “The waters flowing downstream stood still, rising up like a dam (…) while the waters that flowed toward the Dead Sea were totally cut off (…). All Israel crossed over on dry land (…) until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan (Josh. 3:14-17). Between the starting point and the terminal point a wave of excitement flows through the wilderness: mountains skip like rams, hills like lambs (vs. 4). Here, too, we only read how the environment reacts to the unmentioned but present One, who demonstrates his power in a people that journeys on its way to freedom. Suddenly, however, the movement is interrupted. A question is addressed to the Sea of Reeds and the Jordan, to the mountains and the hills: “Why was it, O sea, that you fled, O Jordan that you recoiled, O mountains that you skipped like rams, you hills, like lambs?” (vv. 5-6). Who poses this question? Why? According to some the question is posed by the singer of the song. Others regard the question as a poetic device to heighten the tension. I think the question is posed by the land of Judah that asks the Sea of Reeds, the mountains, the hills, and the Jordan what it was that they “saw,” what it was that they “fled,” why it was that they “skipped.” We must remember that it is still a riddle who that “he” is. The reader’s attention is stretched to the limit. Those who experience this movement are totally open to the answer that concludes the psalm: “Tremble, O land, before the Face of the Master, before

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For a description of the spiritualists of the exodus, see part 1, chapter 3.1.

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the Face of Jacob’s God, who turns rock into a pool of water, flint into a fountain of water” (vv. 7-8). Now we know what the sea “saw”: the Face of the Master. Now we know why the Jordan shrank back: the Face of God. Now we know why the mountains and the hills leaped up: they experienced in their own existence the revolutionary power of the Mighty One. The witnesses of the procession (the Sea of Reeds, the Jordan, the mountains and the hills) answer the question the land poses to them out of its own experience: they have all – each in its own way – experienced the Face, the revolutionary Power of the Mighty One. Face means Self-communication: the liberation movement (out of Egypt, through the wilderness, across the Jordan) is Be-er himself! What did you see, O sea? I have seen the Master of heaven and earth himself. Why was it, O Jordan, that you shrank back? I shrank back before the Mighty One of Jacob himself, who united himself with his people. What was going on, O mountains, that you skipped like rams? We have experienced the Mighty One himself when he melted down rocks from our mountains before his people that passed through our desert mountain ranges. Why was it, O hills, that you danced? We were permitted to feel the Master himself when he converted our flinty rocks into running spring water!

The entire process of exodus and entry is recounted in Psalm 114 as though it were a procession. In the procession out of the wilderness and to the sanctuary the internal space of the spirituality of the exodus opens up and discloses the revolutionary power of God’s Face. This revolution is a many-sided process. 1. In his pilgrimage the pilgrim experiences the departure from Egypt, that barbarian community, and entry into the sanctuary called Judah, where “he rules.” 2. In that connection, the elements play an important role. The pilgrim experiences the contrast between the “watery” elements (sea and Jordan) and the “land” elements (mountains and hills). He experiences what it means that boulders and pebble stones are melted down into running water. He empathizes with the sea which is startled and takes flight, with the river which quietly flows downstream and suddenly shrinks back and recoils. He feels how mountains and hills, unmoved and self-absorbed one moment, are suddenly made to skip and dance the next. 3. In the external transition which the pilgrim makes from the profane to the holy, an internal transformation occurs in the pilgrim: an “Unutterable figure” who is enigmatically referred to as “him” or is not mentioned at all proves to be someone with a “Face,” someone who is called “Master” and “Mighty One” and proves to have the characteristics of a Revolutionizer (v. 8). The pilgrim feels the deep inner disturbance which is prompted by contact with this Face. Here lies the spiritual core of the psalm: the birth of awe, the inner shudder, which pervades one’s very being. 4. In this poem the natural elements (sea, river, mountains, hills) are pictured as sensitive elements: they are deeply moved by the Hidden One present. This,

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of course, calls for a counterpart: what does a human being do? What does the country of Judah do? Do its people become tender? Do they tremble? Do they allow their stony hearts to be melted down into springs of water? Will righteousness flow in them like a never-failing stream? The featuring of natural elements as exemplary believers calls for a human response. Only then the expectation raised at the time of the exodus (Judah would be a sanctuary to him!) is fulfilled: the land trembles and shrinks, deeply impressed by his Presence. 2. “All my springs are in You” (Psalm 87) The foundations of a city are hidden from the human eye: all that rises above the ground (buildings and walls) is based on them. A city’s development starts with the laying of foundations – all the other things come later. The gates, on the other hand, form the conclusion of the building process. They constitute the vulnerable hinges where people go into and out of the city and the enemy attempts to strike a good blow. While the foundation sustains the material city, the gates gather up the human community: assemblies (Judgs. 16:2), government (Amos 5:10, 11), trade (2 Kgs. 7:1), the administration of justice (Deut. 21:1821; 22:22-29; 25:5-10 and so forth). The “foundation” and the “gates,” the two polar extremities, constitute the city: the firm base and the vulnerable opening, that which is hidden and that which is visible, the beginning and the end, the vertical and the horizontal, the solidification of firm material and the swarming together of human beings. Psalm 87 expressly calls the founding of Zion the establishment of foundations by Be-er (vv. 1-3). He chose for himself a “holy mountain,” a mountain not yet tainted by injustice or idolatry, war or pride. Be-er has an affective bond with Zion’s original innocence, on which he grounded the holy city of Jerusalem. He “loved” it, a new city in between the tribes of the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. It was precisely this vulnerable position in the middle which explains why Zion’s gates were open to all the tribes of Israel. That would have been harder if an older – already famous – city had been chosen as Israel’s center. Since Zion was not yet tainted with many meanings Be-er himself could express his love in the city – from its “founding” to its gates. Three voices are now given the floor, each of which in its own way illumines Zion’s interior space. The first voice, speaking on behalf of Zion, testifies that he remembers foreign nations in the worship service (v. 4). He counts them as his relatives. As the first in the series he mentions Rahab in the west. Rahab refers to Egypt (Ps. 89:10-11; 68:31). Next he mentions Babylon in the east: Mesopotamia. Then come Philistea, Tyre and Cush. Jointly they evoke the north-south axis: Tyre in the north, Philistea in the middle, Cush (Ethiopia) in the south. Thus the psalm draws a geographic cross (east-west – north-south) and in the middle carves out space for Zion which in its worship services voices the deep kinship between itself and the surrounding peoples. The poet displays remarkable openness. Egypt is known as Israel’s arch enemy. People were no less hostile to

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Babylon, which destroyed Jerusalem, burnt down the temple and deported the people. Also the Philistines elicited negative feelings: during the wars of liberation (1200-1000 B.C.) they had collaborated with Egypt. The names of Tyre and Cush were less tainted. In any case they too were foreign nations to Israel. Nevertheless the singer speaking from Jerusalem says: “I view them all as fellow members of my people. They are all born from the same mother: Zion.” The second voice is that of the surrounding peoples (vs. 5). This testimony is possibly even more remarkable than that of the inhabitants of Zion. After all, here it is the outsiders themselves who voice the conviction that Zion is the birthplace of all: “One by one, that is everyone – no one excepted – is born in her.” In the same breath they add that Be-er is the basis of their birthplace: he establishes its firmness; he establishes her, at the same time transcending her and all created things. The third voice is Be-er himself (vs. 6). He counts all the peoples: they exist for him and they are important to him. He enters all nations in his “civil registry” (Jer. 22:30; see Ezra 2:62). As free citizens they can both enter and go out of the gates of the city. In the gates they can appeal to the court of justice. From the perspective of Be-er they all have the same native rights: they are fully credentialed inhabitants of Jerusalem. The three voices are unanimous in their testimony, a unanimity that is impressed on people by word-repetition: “This one is born there. Everyone is born in her. This one is born there.” In the final stanza this unanimous testimony is affirmed by all those present in a song that is sustained by a dance so ecstatic that the dancing community resembles a woman giving birth (vs. 7). It seems as if the singing revelers are giving birth to a child as they sing: “Our common origin lies in You.” Song and dance combine to make present the birth of the one community of peoples.

How can a mother-city be so open? How can she view foreign peoples as having been born of her? How can those foreign peoples view her as their mother? How can Be-er himself view the peoples as having been born of Zion? Let me offer three initial attempts at an answer. 1. The “grounding” is that which is original, the native soil out of which a city arises. Looking at Israel’s birth, we note it took place between 1200 and 1000 B.C. Two centuries of struggle for liberation are the invisible foundation underlying the holy city of God. All peoples acknowledge this foundation as their own birthing ground when they look back far enough into the history of their origin. As a rule the origin of peoples lies in a process of liberation or emancipation. Often this origin is forgotten. It is there – somewhere underground. Established life deprives us of a view of it and conceals the foundation under the buildings that arose on it. 2. The breadth of the gates provided space for the administration of justice (Deut. 21:18-21; 22:22-29). The space in the gates was also where the people of the city and the people from around the city met each other (Deut. 16:11; also see 16:14). Discrimination between the autochthonous and aliens was not

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permitted. The motives for this “gate-behavior” is called the “grounding” of Israel: “Remember that you yourselves were slaves in Egypt” (Deut. 16:12). Israel must allow everyone without distinction to share in the “spaciousness” of the gates, both juridically and economically (Deut. 14:28-29; see also 26:12). Also in terms of religion people must keep the door open to outsiders: “Assemble the people – men, women, and children, and also the aliens living in your cities – so that they may listen to the instruction and learn to respect Be-er, your Mighty One, and follow all the words of this instruction diligently” (Deut. 31:12). The gates are the place – in both an inward and an outward direction – where equality in matters of justice, livelihood, and religion is made present. To the extent that the peoples experience the “spaciousness” of Zion’s gates they will remember their own openness and experience a similar origin. 3. We know from a number of psalms that on the occasion of grand processions representatives of the nations were invited. Thus in Psalm 47 there is reference to an ark procession that gives expression to the ascending movement of Be-er who along with his people rises up out of the oppression. On this occasion “the nobles of the nations are regaled” (Ps. 47:10) and “the shields of the lands” (all the leaders who protect the weak) are present. They are called “the people of Abraham’s Mighty One” (Ps. 47:10). At a similar kind of procession Egypt and Cush are spotted as participants (Ps. 68:32). To join in celebrating a feast is an important form of fraternization. Here one can discover that, for all the differences between people and cultures, there are profound similarities that may not be neglected. 3. “Those who sow in tears” (Psalm 126) In 538 B.C. Cyrus issued a decree in which he gave permission to the exiles to return to their homeland. Psalm 126 opens at this time of return from exile. In the first stanza (vv. 1-3) the exiles recount what happened to them: “We were like people who dreamed” (v. 1). Some expositors think that by the term “dreamers” is meant those exiles who upon hearing of Cyrus’s decree fell into a trance. Others think of an emotional release: “It was like being in a dream!” We think the exiles wanted to say: “At that moment we were filled with a prophetic dream” (cf. Deut. 13:2; Jer. 23:25, 28 and especially Joel 2:28-31). This dream is developed into two visions, both of which are introduced by the word “then.” The first vision reads: “Then our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with songs of joy” (v. 2). Laughter is an expression of intense joy. In Jeremiah the same experience is articulated as follows: “Thus says Be-er: ‘Look, I am going to restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob and have compassion on his dwellings; the city will be rebuilt on its mound and the palace will be restored. Out of them shall come thanksgiving and the sound of merrymakers’” (Jer. 30:18-19). Also jubilation indicates intense joy: “The ransomed of Be-er will return and come to Zion with jubilation; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 51:11). The dream of the exiles

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is summed up in Isaiah 35:5-10: “Say to those whose hearts are fearful: (…) ‘Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy, for waters shall break forth in the wilderness’” (Isa. 35:5-6). Whereas the first vision was directed inward, the second is directed outward (vs. 3). Israel is reborn in the eyes of the nations; it feels rehabilitated in the eyes of outsiders: “Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem, for Be-er has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. Be-er has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations and all peoples shall see the salvation of our Mighty One” (Isa. 52:8-10; see also Isa. 62:2; Ezek. 36:35). The two visions complement each other and so form a single dream, a dream that is born at the moment of the reversal, as Joel had prophesied: “Your aged shall dream dreams, your young people shall see visions (…) when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem” (Joel 2:28-3:1). Things did not end with a dream. Their vision became reality: the exiles returned to Israel; the nations discerned the difference from the way they acted; they grew in solidarity and selfconfidence; the nation “grew” each day as they came closer to home. In the second stanza (v. 4) we listen to the same exiles. Now, however, we do not hear an exuberant story about the past but we hear them pray in the present: “Restore our fortunes, O Be-er, like the gullies in the Southland” (v. 4). From Isaiah chapters 56-66 we know that the exiles who had experienced the joy of the return encountered great resistance upon their arrival in Israel (Isa. 59:9-11). With pain they discovered that the true reversal had not been realized at the time they returned from Babylonia. It remained an outward return; the inner return did not take place. This is strikingly expressed in the image of the gullies in the Southland, the Negev. The Negev is not a desert in the true sense. Its soil is fertile but there is too little rainfall, and so nothing can grow. The rainfall is from 60 to 80 millimeters per year but the minimum needed for life is 200 millimeters. As soon as the spring rains come in the Negev, however, the gullies in the Southland fill up and everything begins to blossom. This is how Israel now views itself: like the driedout channels of the Southland. First there was a brief period of rain and flourishing (the return from Babylonia) and then the long drought (the time after the return). The life had gone out of them. Relations chilled. The sap of mutual respect no longer ran through Israel’s ranks. And so the psalm prays: “Restore our fortunes, O Be-er; let the real reversal come over us. Let what was given to us from without on the occasion of our return from Babylonia now happen to us from within, on a more essential level; let us experience a genuine return out of our own Babylon.” The answer to this prayer comes in the form of a proverb in the last stanza (v. 6). “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves” (vv. 5-6). The proverb conjures up the harvesting process. This process begins with plowing and sowing. “Sowing” is associated with “tears” for various reasons. First of all: the care and effort involved in the sowing as such. Next: the seed for sowing is the best grain that one saves rather than consumes. Finally: the “burial” of the seed evokes the image of demise and dying, a process that is accompanied by weeping. It seems as if the psalm intends to say: the real return of Be-er

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH can happen in society only when people commit themselves with care and effort to their neighbor; when they invest the best part of themselves in the lives of others and do not keep it for themselves. This sowing process is much harder and much more painful than the liberation out from under domination by others. For now the issue is the process of liberation that is accomplished in one’s own life. On the other hand, there is a real future in this sowing and these tears, for only those who sow in tears will, on an essential level, see the dream of laughter and jubilation go into fulfillment. The seed of self-giving germinates in the depths. A long winter passed over it. Finally it grows “up” and bears fruit. Then there is jubilation – over the real return.

The Psalm is composed of three parts which together describe the interior of the return from exile. 1. People describe their past: the story of the joyful return from the tyranny of Babylonia (stanza 1). 2. This return is merely a return from without: having returned home, they discover after a few years that the internal return has not yet happened in their own life. They now pray in the present that a genuine reversal may come about in them. 3. This prayer is answered in a pointed saying: the reversal of your own life and the joy that attends such a reversal can only occur if you dare to give the best of yourself in relation to others. Then the shouts of joy of the first return will come back on a deeper level (stanza 3).

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1.3. Descriptive Research Up to this point we have taken two steps. The first consisted in examining how in lived spirituality one describes a spiritual figure. We did that with the aid of the paradigm of “spiritual biography.” In this paradigm we discovered, in a prescientific manner, that three levels of description stand out: the profiling, the context, and the interior of the figure in question. This confirms our phenomenological analysis of foundational research.94 The second step consisted in exploring each of the three levels of description separately. We did that with the aid of paradigms from both biblical and post-biblical times. The third step will consist in describing the phases through which a descriptive investigation into spirituality has to go in a phenomenological-dialogical approach. We will discover how such a description has to proceed methodically and which intra- and interdisciplinary relations are important. By way of introduction, we shall now briefly revisit the paradigm of “spiritual biography,” not in order to have another look at the prescientific praxis of description, but in order to see how the science of spirituality evaluates this praxis. In a survey article entitled “Biographies spirituelles” in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité we see how four eminent scholars determine their methodical position with respect to their object: spiritual biography. 1. Gustave Bardy introduces the biographies of the patristic period (East and West).95 He consistently ends his characterization of a vita with an evaluative comment in which the determination of his methodical position as a historian of spirituality comes clearly to the fore. Some of his evaluations follow. Here again it is the morality of the story which the author finds especially important: it would be foolish to demand of him extreme concern about the historical truth.96 One is not required to believe all the miracles which St. Jerome attributes to Hilary and which he recounts with such entertaining pleasure.97 It is hardly necessary to add that Paulinus above all wants to edify his readers by profiling the exceptional virtue of Ambrose; but he does go to great lengths to gain information from many witnesses. He adjusts the miraculous by the standard of the possible and, in general, his work has an historical value of the first rank.98 The life 94

Part 2, chapter 5.3. G. Bardy, Biographies spirituelles. I. Antiquité chrétienne, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1624-1634. 96 Ibid., 1626. 97 Ibidem. 98 Ibid., 1627. 95

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH of Severinus is a document of the first order and casts a vivid light on the historical and religious situation of Noricum in the sixth century.99 His purpose, accordingly, is not to write a history in the true sense of the word, but rather to prove a thesis or, better, to pose an example.100

In his evaluations Bardy clearly articulates the fields of tension in which he finds himself as a historian of spirituality. On the one hand, there is the field of the historical reality in which two poles can be discerned: the figure of the person described (life, personality, chronology, topography) and the context of this life (the historical and religious situation of Rome and Jerusalem, the specific century, the events and people). On the other hand, there is the spiritual reality which is again divisible into two aspects: the reality that cannot be fitted in historically (miracles, sanctity) and the perception of the readers (the moral of the story, edification, spiritual instruction). Bardy therefore appropriately concludes his survey as follows: “All are conscientious and are not minded to deceive themselves knowingly. Yet, our authors are not afraid of miracles. They, in fact, collect them with relish. Some go out of their way to find them (…) Important [to them] is that the story will be edifying and elevate the readers’ souls to the level of divine reality.”101 2. Irénée Hausherr, after Bardy, presents spiritual biographies from the Byzantine period.102 From the very outset he strikes a different note from Bardy. His starting point is: “Almost all the vitae bear witness to a spiritual doctrine and sometimes those most interesting from this viewpoint are the most deficient in facts and not to be trusted by historians. The biographer, when short on details from the life as it was lived, adds his own contributions, drawing on his imagination and spiritual erudition.”103 As an example he offers the life of Theodosus the Younger, for which there is no historical evidence whatever, which is why the Bollandists left him out of their Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca. “From the vantagepoint of the history of spirituality these harebrained notions deserve attention because they sometimes sum up the current ideas of holiness better than any other treatise.”104 Hausherr gives detailed attention to the spiritual dimensions of the biographies. He, accordingly, argues that though one must indeed first of all determine the general characteristics and particulars of spiritual biographies, after that one must necessarily interpret the material facts on the level of doctrine in light of the prevailing 99

Ibid., 1628. Ibid., 1630. 101 Ibid., 1633-1634. 102 I. Hausherr, Biographies spirituelles. II. Époque byzantine, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1634-1646. 103 Ibid., 1634-1635. 104 Ibid., 1536. 100

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spiritual biographies.”105 As example he mentions the self-castigations of Cyril of Philéa: these have nothing to do with devotion to Christ’s suffering or with penance, but in part with the way to apatheia and in part with the gift of tears, a gift that is absolutely necessary for purity of heart and perfection.106 One must therefore interpret [italics in the original] the material facts (the historical data and the reproductions based on them). The historical data must not be primarily interpreted on the basis of an intra-historical reading or in light of the context, but from the perspective of its spiritual dimension, one that is realized in the field of tension between the divine operation (in the life described) and the human orientation to God (via the life that has been described). It therefore makes sense that in Hausherr’s characterizations we see especially the spiritual dimension of the lives of the saints light up: resolute renunciation of the world, extreme asceticism (pilgrimage, obedience, foolishness for Christ’s sake, prayer, mortifications) the heroic practice of virtue (love of neighbor, humility); “in short: asceticism of all sorts with an eye to the apatheia which is moral perfection and the beginning of the divine gifts of grace.”107 3. Felix Vernet, in describing the spiritual biographies of the Middle Ages,108 starts out by observing that the large number of saints in this period is in part the result of the fact that every church had its own patron saint; but, he continues, it was not enough to have saints: people wanted to know their history. Hence the great abundance of hagiographic literature. Unfortunately, many of these lives are of mediocre historical value. They were composed long after the events; moreover, being devoid of any disposition to criticize, they are limited to vague data and general pieties, or slavish imitations of biographies from antiquity, sometimes actually false ones concocted by attributing the actions of an illustrious saint to an almost unknown saint. Even the Lives which merit greater confidence do not inform us, as we wish, about the spirituality of holy personalities. They aim above all to edify the readers.109

Vernet regrets the mediocre historical value and the lack of a critical disposition. He cannot appreciate historical vagueness combined with general pieties and intent to edify. He has a hard time with miracles in this biographical genre: the idea – more or less sanctioned by biographers – is that sanctity is proved by the gift of miracles and that, rather than showing its presence in the saint’s conduct,

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Ibidem. Ibidem. 107 Ibid., 1646. 108 F. Vernet, Biographies spirituelles. III. Moyen Age, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1646-1679. 109 Ibid., 1646. 106

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one must support it with miraculous facts.”110 Because in Vernet the notion of “interpretation” is lacking and because the spiritual dimension (divine reality that makes itself felt in the saint’s life, and the human reality which seeks to be “edified” by the former) does not guide this interpretation, the balance shifts in the direction of historical factuality. This, accordingly, is what guides Vernet’s selection: “We report the better Lives, those which have historical value and which as a result of certain elements fit in the framework of a spiritual biography. It is noteworthy that such a biography maintains a virtually constant silence concerning the true mystical states.”111 4. Pierre Pourrat (along with others on certain parts) presents the spiritual biography of the modern era.112 His methodical position is evident from the very start when he states that 16th-century biographies focus too exclusively on edification and pay too little attention to historical truth.113 Aside from the fact that they are too legendary, they also contain too many miracles. “God seems to have suppressed the secondary causes in the life of the saints. It is always he himself who acts in a miraculous manner. The more unusual and amazing a given fact is, the more delighted the biographer, who does not exert himself to examine whether or not it is authentic.”114 In his eyes the descriptions are too edifying; too often they are little spiritual treatises, especially treatises on the Christian virtues which their heroes seem to appropriate effortlessly. “This hardly makes the saints imitable: they are situated in the sphere of the ideal and not in that of real life.”115 Pourrat praises Thierry and Michelet who made the dead past come alive again; in other words: who made the past into “a resurrection of the past.”116 They stressed the factor of the social environment in hagiography: “The environment in which the saints developed is thus made familiar to the reader, something that enables the reader to situate effortlessly the various events recounted.”117 At the same time the psychological dimension develops: “We in fact experience an intense charm in the history of a soul that has given itself to God, of its faithfulness, its trials, and its passing weaknesses. It is really an inner drama that unfolds before our eyes and lives again to our greater edification.”118 110

Ibidem. Ibid., 1647. 112 P. Pourrat et al., Biographies spirituelles. IV. Epoque moderne, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1679-1719. 113 Ibid., 1717. 114 Ibid., 1715. 115 Ibidem. 116 Ibid., 1716. 117 Ibid., 1717. 118 Ibidem. 111

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Pourrat concludes his survey with three criteria a spiritual biography has to meet: (1) the description must be based on authentic documents and on the life as it was actually lived; (2) one must reconstruct the environment of the saint, or else the reader does not understand the events, actions, and problems; (3) one must trace the inner drama of a soul which is rising toward God, without obscuring the detours, missteps, and hindrances incurred. This ascent in a sense constitutes the thread of the story.119 5. Reflection. When we look back on the methodical positions of the four spirituality scholars who introduced the field of spiritual biography in 1937 we can conclude that their positions precisely summon up the field of tension in which form-descriptive research is situated. On the one hand, there is the historical figure in his or her historical context, which calls for a historical-critical approach and, on the other, the divine-human transformation which requires a hermeneutic-critical approach. This field of tension is recognized in modern hagiography. One example: in his article “Heiligen, wat zijn dat eigenlijk?” (“Saints – What Sort of Folk Are They Really?”) Ferdinand de Grijs takes us on a survey of the different types of saints produced by Christianity: martyrs and confessors, monks and ascetics, preachers, converts, and culture-bearers, bishops and administrators. The red thread in this guided tour is doubly woven. On the one hand, there is the phenomenon “saint” in his or her context: “different structures, different saints”;120 on the other hand, there is the spiritual reality: “the God-relation that succeeded.”121 This two-dimensionality of the spiritual biography and of spiritual forms in general ties in with phenomenological description. We saw earlier that this mode of description moves on three levels. (1) The first level follows the uncomplicated perception of the phenomenon as it presents itself to the observer. On this level the phenomenon presents itself as a whole: a core of real presence outlined by a contour. (2) The second level unfolds the external horizon: the phenomenon is connected with similar or dissimilar phenomena. These co-phenomena in the final analysis form “the world” as the background against which the phenomenon delineates itself. (3) The third level unfolds the internal horizon of the phenomenon. This act of unfolding is a hermeneutic operation that is inwardly guided by the investigator’s interest. On the basis of the above we have now arrived at the description of descriptive spirituality research. We let go of the paradigm of the vitae and expand our 119

Ibid., 1718. F. de Grijs, Heiligen, wat zijn dat eigenlijk? in: Andere structuren, andere heiligen. Het veranderende beeld van de heilige in de Middeleeuwen, (Ed. R. Stuip & C. Vellekoop), Utrecht 1983, 15, 21ff. 121 Ibid., 19-20, 25ff. 120

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spectrum by including the entire field of spiritual forms: lay spirituality, schools of spirituality, countermovements, and within them the various subforms (certain schools and movements) and units (spiritual exercises, practices of virtue, and the like). They all have the same basic structure: a spiritual form delineates itself within a given context and mediates in the divine-human relation. This brings us to the following outline. (1) a form must first be documented, delimited and described, both chronologically and topographically, and in terms of its chief components. (2) Next, this form is situated within its contextual field, the external horizon. (3) Finally, the phenomenon is set within the divine-human field of tension. This special interest of the study of spirituality opens up the internal spiritual horizon.

1.3.1. THE DEMARCATION OF THE FORM The first methodical step of descriptive spirituality research is the delimitation of the form in terms of its external configuration: its contours (chronology and topography) and its core moments (goals, spiritual exercises, configurations of virtue, forms of reflection).122 This first step depicts the material object which can then be further examined from two perspectives: the contextual field of tension (external horizon) and the divine-human relation (internal horizon), perspectives which interlock with each other. 1. Chronology and topography To properly describe a form of spirituality one must situate it as precisely as possible within a spatial-temporal setting. Thus scholars situate mosaic spirituality toward the end of the reign of pharaoh Ramses II (circa 1224) and the period following. The proto-Israelites (semi-nomads) had to do the “grunt” work in building the “store cities of Pithom and Rameses” (Exod. 1:11) to the west of present-day Ismailia and in the plain of Isan-el-haqar. This chronological-topographical framework can be further refined – if reliable documentation permits – until the phenomenon stands out sharply. To describe a form in its historical dimensions one needs witnesses. When dealing with a phenomenon from the past, we are dependent on the witness of others. For example, those who want to study the spirituality of the martyrs of early Christianity are dependent on the testimonies of Christians (acts of the 122

In the spirituality of Islam scholars distinguish three layers: doctrinal aspects, the practice of virtue, and spiritual practices, all of which are Koran-based (S. Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam, London 1985, 135-145; T. Burckhardt, An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine, Lahore 1959, 32-40, 57-142).

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martyrs, passion stories, legends, martyrologies, and the like). Roman historiographers and archeological data (topography, architecture, epigraphy, iconography). From this material an initial image of the spirituality of martyrs arises: the extent (the first three centuries of Christianity) and its spread (locally or in general), the number of people involved, the systematic or non-systematic character of the executions, and so forth. Always we need to pose the critical question: who furnishes the information and from what position does he or she furnish it? 2. Goals and ideals We saw above how the names of spiritual communities frequently convey a goal or purpose: prayer, the liberation of slaves, visiting and helping the sick, education, hospitality, a refuge for fugitives, evangelization, mission. What is the task a given spiritual community has set for itself? For what purpose was it started? To what activities does it consider itself called? What need does it supply? An answer to these questions is sometimes given virtually from the outset in the opening sections of constitutions or charters. Sometimes a mission statement has to be gleaned from scattered sources. Often the main purpose can be immediately read from the activities to which a community assigns priority. Adjacent to this goal lies the ideal of a spiritual community. Implicit in the ideals are the motives which give direction to the spiritual way. What is it that inspires, motivates and guides the community? We are speaking here of the articulated motivation which has been legitimated by the consent of the spiritual community. To find an answer to these questions we can best consult the founding documents, rules, articles of association, constitutions, chapter agreements and the like, with as our guiding question: who is held up as an example here, what values are being recommended, what attitudes are propagated? When the spiritual ideal is expressed in the name, this immediately offers a beginning. But even in that case it is advisable to involve other documents as well in working out this initial impetus. 3. Spiritual practices Every form of spirituality has its own practices. We are referring here to forms of psychosomatic self-influencing which are in part for that reason called exercitia corporalia: they affect the entire person – somatically, psychologically, and socially as well as spiritually – and have a transforming effect.123 Somatically. Somatic exercises are a form of self-influencing which make one’s corporeality receptive to transformation in God. We are thinking here especially 123

See Current Studies on Rituals, (Ed. H. Heimbrock & H. Boudewijnse), Amsterdam 1990.

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of processes of abstention and diminution. Abstention rids the body of materials considered harmful to the spiritual way: drugs, alcohol, images, sounds, meat, and so forth. In diminution we are dealing with the act of restraining the dominance of I-centered drives so as to create room and receptivity for the authentic movements of life. Diminution is self-diminution with a view to the things that are real. Many forms have been developed to this end: fasting, vigilance, silence, shaving bald, rolling in the dust, poverty, and the like. Psychically. Somatic exercises of course have an immediate and pervasive effect on the psychic and spiritual level. Exercises also exist, however, which influence the psychic as such. Especially meditation exercises train the imagination They replace old, socialized images which inwardly give direction to needs, yearnings, expectations, and memories. Socially. Community exercises concern the social behavior that is spontaneously directed from a basis in self-interest and the will to power. Particularly training programs in obedience and communal possession bend I-centeredness in the direction of the other. Obedience is a freely made choice to grant another person direct influence on the determination of my behavior. Communal ownership involves the pledge to bring one’s personal possessions into the communal domain. Spiritually. All exercises are aimed at divesting one’s spiritual faculties of their I-centeredness and to focus them on the “inworking” of divine reality. Obedience, for example, is aimed at breaking one’s self-will, so that it may open itself up to the will of God. The practice of abstaining from images, sounds, mental representations, cognitive forms, language, and tangible objects is aimed at making the mind free for speaking of divine reality. Meditation exercises free the mind from socialized patterns of memory and expectation so as to make it empty for genuine remembrance: the interiorization of divine reality. To gain a sharper idea of spiritual practices we shall, by way of example, look at the Carmelite Rule which devotes a special section (chapters VII-XIII) to these exercises. The verbs all point in the direction of spiritual exercises: remaining in one’s cell, meditating, keeping vigil, praying (VII), saying the psalms, saying Our Father, praying the canonical hours (VIII), common property (IX), coming together, celebrating the Eucharist (X), holding chapter (XI), fasting (XII), abstinence (XIII). These verbs summon up the field of spiritual exercises. This field is likewise evident from the relativizations: characteristic for spiritual exercises is that they can be omitted. They are surrounded by exceptions, restrictions, and alternatives: one must remain in the cell unless one is occupied with other activities (VII); one must fast unless sickness or weakness make it inadvisable (XII); one must not eat meat except as a remedy (XIII); one must fast every day except Sunday (XII); saying the psalms is the rule; those who cannot read pray Our Fathers (VIII); goods are distributed according to everyone’s need (IX); the oratorium is built in the midst where this is

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convenient (X); the Eucharist is celebrated every day where this can be done conveniently (X); an extra chapter is conducted when necessary (XI). All these exceptions, alternatives, and adaptations are not expressions of a flexible outlook but indications of a genre, the genre of the spiritual exercises.

4. Configurations of virtues We can best depict the field of the practice of virtue if we compare it to the spiritual exercises we have just discussed (fasting, abstinence, reading scripture, and the like). Spiritual exercises are freely chosen practices; virtues are imposed as obligations. In Cassian’s Conferences abbas Joseph offers a sharp formulation of the difference between them. With respect to the bodily exercises (exercitia corporalia), we are able to let go or to keep hold of them without endangering our state – as, for example, unbroken and strict fasting, perpetual abstinence from wine or oil, absolute confinement in one’s cell, and unceasing reading or meditation. These can be practiced at will without harming our profession and our chosen orientation, and they can be blamelessly omitted if necessary. But a very firm promise is to be made concerning those principal commands, and for their sake even death, if need be, must not be avoided. With regard to them it must be said in unalterable fashion: “I have sworn and have determined” [Ps. 119:106]. This we must do for the maintaining of love, for which all things are to be disdained, lest the good of tranquillity and its perfection be blemished. We must likewise swear for the sake of the purity of chastity, and it behooves us to do the same for the sake of faith, sobriety, and righteousness, all of which are to be held to with an unchangeable perseverance, and to withdraw from which even slightly is worthy of condemnation. Concerning those bodily disciplines, however, which are spoken of as beneficial for a few things [cf. 1 Tim. 4:8], decisions must be made in such a way that, as we have said, if a more realistic possibility for goodness occurs which suggests that they should be let go, we should not be bound by any rule in their regard but should leave them behind and freely move on to what is more beneficial. For there is no danger in leaving off these bodily disciplines for a while, but it is fatal to cease from the others even for a moment.124

The practice of virtue is not an optional spiritual practice. It must be maintained unconditionally. The spiritual practices are subservient to the life of the virtues. “For mercy, patience, and love, as well as the precepts of the aforementioned virtues, in which the good is an essential one, are not to be exercised on account of fasting, but rather fasting on account of them. An effort must be made to acquire by fasting those virtues which are truly good, and not to turn the exercise of the virtues toward the goal of fasting.”125 124 125

John Cassian, Collationes 17, 29. Cf. The Conferences, New York-Mahwah 1997, 611. Ibid., 21, 15; The Conferences, op. cit., 731.

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Forms of spirituality have their own configuration of virtues. Forms that are deeply embedded in the institutions from which they derive their identity and mission will appeal strongly to the virtue of obedience. Spiritualities of liberation tend to group the life of the virtues around justice. All ways, accordingly, have their own configurations – as the following examples illustrate. Righteousness. Psalm 1 closes with the words: “Be-er feels (knows) the way of the preserving but the way of the doomers perishes” (Ps. 1:6). Preserving (tsedek) is a central virtue in Jewish spirituality. This virtue is rooted in God himself: “Indeed, Be-er is preserving; he loves preservings” (Ps. 11:7). Preserving is the revelation of God’s being: “Preservation goes before his face and makes his steps into a way” (Ps. 85:14). As stated above, righteousness or justice is the center around which other virtues are grouped in the spiritualities of liberation as well. Faith, hope, and love. The Carmelite rule devotes a separate section to the life of the virtues, the so-called chapter on the armor of God (chapter XIV). In the armor of God, which is a configuration of virtues, one can distinguish three parts. The first part is marked by the purity and holiness of one’s ponderings. This part has an intimate connection with the purpose of the preceding chapters: purity of heart. The second part is the core configuration. This part consists in three divine virtues: righteousness-in-love, unconditional-trust, hope-for-salvation. The third part of the armor of God is not a virtue in the strict sense of the word but a power of God (virtus) which flows from this core configuration: the abundantly overflowing Word of God. Mercy and love. Adjacent to love is mercy, a virtue which plays a principal role in various spiritualities. In Hasidism mercy (chesed) means a form of righteousness which exceeds. For the sake of the other, one goes beyond what is strictly commanded. In Buddhist spiritualities mercy also plays a central role: utter compassion for the perishable vulnerability which is characteristic of all beings. A unique variation on this theme is the movement of mercy as it takes its cue from the good (merciful) Samaritan: care of the sick, the imprisoned, the homeless, and the poor. Reverence. Taoist spirituality is centered in not-doing that aims at absolute reverence toward the intrinsic movement of every being: “Therefore the sage acts without action, teaches without talking. Thus things flourish without resisting. Thus he lets them grow and does not possess them, acts and desires nothing for them, takes nothing for himself of what he has accomplished. And because he takes nothing he loses nothing.”126 5. Forms of reflection Spiritual communities usually are familiar with some kind of spiritual reflection: a spiritual conference in which all the members of a community or a significant part of it participate. This dialogue is the place where the central problems of 126

Tao-te-ching, 2.

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the spiritual life are discussed. The participants assemble at an agreed-upon time and place to examine their spiritual praxis, to refine the rules, and to enliven people’s motivation. An important function of the conferences is clarification: what is the meaning of this spiritual exercise in light of its goal? What are the barriers in our psychosomatic structure that keep us from reaching it? How does the ascent of the soul proceed on its way to God? Four elements determine the structure of spiritual reflection. (1) People come together for the purpose of communal reflection. It is an exercise of community: everyone is expected to make his contribution. (2) Central is a complex of themes that belong to the spiritual life: spiritual exercises, the practice of virtue, the means-end relation, and so forth. (3) The given complex of themes is treated (tractatus) penetratingly from all sides. (4) The dialogue is aimed at insight and understanding. At issue is the truth of a matter. In chapter 3 we deal at length with the different forms the spiritual conference assumes in the various spiritualities, and with their fundamental structure.127

1.3.2. THE

EXTERNAL HORIZON

Forms of spirituality do not appear in a vacuum but delineate themselves against a background: the external horizon. This process of standing out against a background is twofold: the forms evoke a background of similar or contrasting phenomena, and conversely the background encompasses the form. The dialectics of text and context was methodically developed especially in the 1960s.128 Michel de Certeau put it sharply in his article “Culture and Spiritual Experience” in which he asserts that spirituality always in some fashion reacts to the issues of a given period and in the language of that period. “A culture is the language of a spiritual experience. The very history of spirituality demonstrates this fact, unless we are determined to look at it with blinkers and thus exclude its context. And by ‘context’ I mean not only a framework or external trappings, but the very element from which the experience takes its form and its expression.”129 Spirituality is deeply involved in a context which it evokes, within which it appears, and which shapes its language. The socio-cultural situation does not remain external to the very constitution of a spiritual way. “It is the ‘way’ itself that is affected by the historical context down to its juridical constellation.”130 The historical context shapes a spiritual community down to the choice and organization of 127

See part 3, chapter 1.1 and 1.2. J. Nuth, History, Historical Consciousness, in: NDCSp (1993), 476-479. 129 M. de Certeau, Culture and Spiritual Experience, in: Concilium 19 (1966), 10. 130 M. Domergue, Aux sources de la diversité, in: Christus 16 (1969), 191. 128

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its means.131 Schools arise in the kairos of the concrete moment.”132 They read “the signs of the time” in order thus to meet the specific needs of the people of God in a certain period.133 We can simply say that all forms of spirituality somehow interact with “the world” which they make present and within which they appear.134 Inasmuch as the factor of “the context” is so comprehensive, it seems advisable to introduce some structure into this complex whole. 1. The layeredness of the context We saw in part 1 that one can discern three principal forms in the field of spirituality: lay spirituality, schools of spirituality, and counter-movements. Each time we locate ourselves in these three positions the effort conjures up different contexts. Thus lay spirituality is realized within familial structures but it does so in continual interaction with society. As a rule schools of spirituality are larger institutions which are themselves a conglomerate of smaller communities, but as all-embracing institutions are frequently situated in different countries and hence in different cultures. Countermovements are usually organized in smaller communities which find themselves within the larger whole of the culture. It is therefore useful to differentiate between the various layers which make up the whole of the context. The zeitgeist. The most comprehensive but also the most vague is the zeitgeist which shapes a given period of culture. The historians of the Annales speak of “mentality.” The zeitgeist is a kind of consensus which makes people into contemporaries. As a result they speak the same language and share the same attitude to life. The reference here is to “the deep underground currents that successively give birth to the realms of ideas.”135 These currents are incarnated “in the structures of society, the terms in which it voices its aspirations, the objective and subjective forms of the common conscience.”136 Looking at Western culture from this perspective one could, for example, say that this culture is shaped by the spiritual principle of causa sui, that is to say, by the principle that defines humans in terms of their self-realization. This basic notion, which not only conditions Western people in their ideas on upbringing (self-development), work (self-regulation), morality (self-determination) and so forth, also determines their design 131 See ibid., 186; J. Sudbrack, Letzte Norm des Ordenslebens ist die im Evangelium dargelegte Nachfolge Christi, in: Geist und Leben 42 (1969), 439-440; C. Bernard, Méditations spirituelles et diversité des spiritualités, in: Nouvelle Revue Theologique 102 (1970), 609. 132 H. Urs von Balthazar, Het evangelie als norm en kritiek van alle spiritualiteit in de kerk, in: Concilium 1 (1965), 8-23; 21. 133 J. Gaitán, Espiritualidad y espiritualidades, in: Revista de Espiritualidad 43 (1984), 687-689. 134 O. Steggink & K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit en mystiek 1. Inleiding, Nijmegen 1985, 80-84. 135 M. de Certeau, Culture and Spiritual Experience, in: Concilium 19 (1966), 3. 136 Ibid., 8.

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for spirituality: self-sanctification. In such a zeitgeist mysticism, which is associated with negative aspects (self-loss, annihilation, detachment and the like) must necessarily be marginalized as a misunderstood phenomenon. The natural living environment. The ecological dimension of the context relates to “the bond between animate and inanimate nature, the scale on which ecological processes occur (those of the world or of a part of it) and the duration of the processes before the consequences become clear (from years to centuries).”137 It is obvious that all contexts are bound up via countless connecting threads with this all-embracing context. Just think of our bodiliness, our eating habits, our gravity, the light in our eyes, the air we breathe, the materials of which our houses are constructed. the presence of animals, the location of our houses, the climate, the pollution of the environment by industry, and so forth. It is especially environmental spirituality that has made us conscious of this dimension. The macrosocial context. By the macrosocial context we mean society as a whole and the manner in which it is organized – politically, militarily, juridically, administratively, culturally, religiously. The social climate on a macrosocial scale is determined by the nature of the processes occurring within and between the different organizations. Especially liberation spiritualities are strongly focused on this layer of the context. Just think of the Mosaic liberation movement which rose up against Egyptian domination that extended as far as the Canaanite city states. Shepherds and small farmers, stateless apiru and exploited city dwellers, finally united in a single liberation movement under the inspiring power of the ruach yahweh, the “passion of Be-er.” Also Elijan resistance to the kings of Israel, as it became paradigmatically visible in the story of Naboth’s vineyard, is based on a religious-social analysis of the society of that time. Smaller communities. By this term we mean the small-scale social fabric of a family, commune, religious community, or action group. These communities have in common the fact that they are sustained by a sense of connectedness. Their members share a space in which they relate to each other with respect. There is a way of associating with one another in which the individual members can express themselves personally.138 Such a small-scale context, having fluid boundaries between micro- and meso-relationships, is of great importance especially for forms of lay spirituality, as we saw in part 1. The personal role. The smallest and most immediate context is that of the social role. “Every society may be viewed as holding a repertoire of identities – 137

J. Groot Wassink, Mystiek als zingeving en verzoening in een technisch-wetenschappelijke cultuur, in: Speling 33 (1981) no. 4, 8. 138 J. de Valk, De funktie van de kleine groep in de maatschappij, in: Speling 27 (1975) no. 1, 7-20.

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little boy, little girl, father, mother, policeman, professor, thief, archbishop, general and so forth.”139 Some of these roles are assigned from birth (little boy, little girl). Other roles are instilled in us by way of a socialization process (little girl = mother). Still others can be acquired by training (police officer). We consider the notion of “role” as being a social concept: the behavior patterns which are assigned and produced by social contexts. This context comes closest to home. From within this contextual layer one can begin to understand the meaning of vocational spiritualities. But inner resistance to stigmatized roles becomes intelligible as well (feminist spirituality, black spirituality, homosexual spirituality). 2. One’s disposition to the context Writing on this topic, De Fiores correctly states: “Spirituality tends to situate itself with respect to cultures in terms of incarnation and transcendence, continuity and discontinuity, acceptance and dissociation.”140 In the case of “incarnation,” “continuity” and “acceptance” the world presents itself as a field in which the God-relation is positively realized; in the case of “transcendence,” “discontinuity,” and “dissociation” the God-relation withdraws itself from a given culture. These two dispositions form the extreme ends of a spectrum. Most forms of spirituality are located somewhere in-between. Of both extremes we will now offer a couple of examples. The world as dwelling place. To the poet of Psalm 104 the world is a marvelous place to live for human beings: here the brooks flow, the animals live, the crops grow, earthlings work so they can eat and drink (Ps. 104:10-18). The earth is the ground they cultivate, the land that begs to be cultivated. It is the world in which God reveals himself: walks about, seeks out the earthlings, speaks to them, and becomes furious at their pride. God inspires them, generates new life in them, sustains and accompanies them. This world begs to be so transformed that God comes to expression in it. It cries out to be transfigured by respectful labor into the face of God. It is this good world that Vatican II sought to call to our attention.141 It is the world of which Teilhard de Chardin sings in his Hymn of the Universe142: matter as “the inexhaustible potentiality for existence and transformation,” as “the universal power which brings together and unites,” and as “the divine milieu, charged with creative power, as the ocean stirred by the Spirit, as the clay moulded and infused with life by the incarnate Word.”143

139

P. Berger & B. Berger, Sociology. A biographical Approach, New York-London 1972, 62. S. de Fiores, Spiritualité contemporaine, in: DVSp (1983), 1065. 141 See E. Pousset, Monde. II Le chretien dans le monde, in: DSp 10 (1980), 1633-1646. 142 P. Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe, New York-Evanston 1961, 68-71. 143 Ibid., 69-70. 140

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We find this “incarnational” spirituality in the ecospirituals who view creation as the locale for liturgy. The title alone of a book like Full Circle: Song of Ecology and Earthen Spirituality144 evokes the atmosphere of a spontaneous nature lyricism. Within this awareness of the world our social milieu finds its sacral and sacramental character. The living space of humanity on earth is captured in metaphors that express security: garden, paradise, house, farm(house), temple, ark, and so forth. Metaphors from the familial sphere occur as well: mother, beloved, sister, brother, and so forth. Here the world as humanity’s living space is understood as animated and enspirited.145 The world is inhospitable. When Israel was in exile, the following experience made itself felt in some of the exiles: “Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away; but you are the same, and your years have no end” (Ps. 102:2628). The world is experienced here as perishable and inhospitable, in contrast to God’s eternity. This understanding of the world acquires an unintended point when Hellenistic spirituality views this perishable world as being purely material in contrast to the immaterial Spirit that is God. It is no longer the experience of contrast between a perishable world and an eternal God, but a view that sees the world as such existing outside of God. And the extra-divine is evil. It is this world, darkened by evil, that in important ways begins to characterize the world of Christianity. Especially the Gospel of John contrasts Jesus as the light of the world to the kingdom of darkness: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him” (John 1:9-10). The followers of Jesus will meet the same fate: “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19). The world is subject to evil powers. These powers have been broken through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christians are sent into the world to bring this news. They have to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.” That world does not simply give up without a struggle. The conflict culminates in a final apocalyptic clash. But ultimately God will conquer and defeat the monsters of evil. From the side of God there emerges “a new world.” The world as the

144

D. Forman, Full Circle. Song of Ecology and Earthen Spirituality, St. Paul (MN), 1992. See, for example, M. Dowd, Earthspirit. A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity, Mystic (CT) 1991; Ecology of the Spirit, (Ed. M. Barnes), Lanham (MD) 1993; Keepers of the Spirit. Stories of Nature and Humankind, (Ed. C. Rainier & B. Berry), Hillsboro (OR) 1993. 145

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extra-divine domain that is hostile to God has left deep traces in Christian spirituality: those who want to enter into contact with God must abandon this (finite, perishable) non-divine world. World flight (fuga mundi) becomes the condition for spirituality.146 Also the Jewish tradition, in Tsafad mysticism for example, knows moments of far-reaching estrangement. In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain, and Tsafad, a small village in Upper Galilee, became the new spiritual center. Isaac Luria, providing Tsafad mysticism with a story, tells us that the creation is not an emanation in ten degrees of being (sefirot) but the realm of self-limitation (tsimtsum). God has withdrawn from omnipresence into himself. The resulting emptiness is the creation. Within this vacuum God subsequently begins to reveal himself. The basic mood, however, is the sense that God has abandoned this world. Via Hasidism (specifically rabbi Nachman of Brazlaw) this mood has been handed down as far as E. Levinas, for whom being as such is marked by the fundamental absence of God. By very different channels the processes of profanation, horizontalization, and secularization which characterize the industrialized world lead to the same result. The fact that sacrality is becoming meaningless and withdrawal of the holy from the world is interpreted in terms of spiritual maturation and emancipation. It is claimed that the demise of religious world images offers chances of growth; that God can never be confined to an image; that it evidences “honesty before God” (Robinson) to live in the world “as though God does not exist” (Bonhoeffer). Sacralities are frequently stylizations of dominant profanities. New forms of divine presence only really get a chance in the context of a radical acknowledgment of the secularity of the world. And so forth. However this may be, in whatever tonalities it may occur, “the world” presents itself in lived spirituality as non-divine: perishable, de-divinized, finite. Underlying this basic mood there is often an experience of liminality: exile, war, or a profound change in culture. In such times it seems that God is withdrawing himself, leaving the world behind as brutish and uninhabitable. 3. The context of memory A phenomenon not only delineates itself against the background of its contemporary milieu but also against the background of memory, what Husserl calls the retentional consciousness. The moment a form of spirituality arises, the tradition within which it is situated contracts around that form. Certain aspects of it are pressed into the background, others by contrast are highly profiled, while still others remain neutral. This mobilization of the tradition occurs between two extremes: continuity and discontinuity. Discontinuity. When a new spiritual sensitivity breaks through, past and present are usually represented in a chiaroscuro scheme: the present is light, the 146

See Z. Alszephy, Fuite de monde, in: DSp 5 (1964), 1575-1605.

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past dark. Thus the spirituality of Vatican II for many people stands out against the time preceding it. No longer can asceticism mean simply the rejection of earthly possessions, comforts, or pleasures because they are wrong in themselves or distract one from God; (…) No longer can prayer demand the silencing of the senses and the passions in order to attain a purer apprehension of God. (…) No longer is the time of prayer something divorced from life. (…) No longer can monasticism be viewed as removal from the cares and concerns of the world in order to enjoy a ‘higher’ form of relationship with God.147

The contemporary here delineates itself against the background of the past as a contrast: no rejection of one’s bodiliness, no neo-Platonism, no dualism, no world flight, and so forth. Over against it stands the new: a bodily-lived-through spirituality that is discovered in a process of discernment; advocacy for the world; mysticism in ordinary life; the development of a secularized spirituality that is responsible in the social life of a given nation; and so forth.148 Almost all spiritualities of reform distinguish themselves positively with respect to the negatively interpreted past out of which they have come. Continuity. Forms of spirituality also reread the tradition in an affirmative sense. Mendicant brothers, for example, who dissociated themselves critically from the affluent monastic life before them, devotedly measured themselves by the standards of the first church of Jerusalem: “They had all things in common.” They identified with the first disciples who along with Jesus went around preaching throughout the country of Palestine (vita apostolica). Thus the spirituality of liberation mirrors itself in the Exodus story that functions as the inspiration for its zeal for renewal which distances itself, in inverse proportionality, from recent traditions. Thus every form of spirituality construes its own traditionconfiguration. 4. The horizon of expectation A phenomenon also delineates itself against a horizon of expectation, which Husserl calls the protentional consciousness. Tsafad-mysticism was configured in terms of the messianic future it envisioned: at any moment, the completion of the world (tiqqun) could be realized through the attitude of the mystics (kawwana), for at that moment the Messiah would come. Preceding this moment were the messianic afflictions. This view of the future implied that people could immediately interpret shocking events (say, Luther’s open protest) in light of the dawning end-time. In general it can be said that spiritualities – whether eschatologically, apocalyptically, or messianically colored – have a different future 147 148

J. Nuth, History, Historical Consciousness, in: NDCSp (1993), 477-478. Ibidem.

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expectation from, say, lay spirituality which is characterized by a genealogical sense of time and pictures the future on a smaller scale than do schools of spirituality which calculate in periods. Thus New-Age consciousness is guided by the idea that the period of Pisces is behind us and the time of Waterman has arrived. The period of Pisces (Fisk) is marked by duality and rationality; Waterman, on the other hand, by intuition and wholeness. That new age is viewed as a future that manifests itself in the present. Forms of spirituality project a future, but it is also true that the factual situation in which forms of spirituality find themselves opens or closes the future. Thus a religious community in the West, which consists mainly of old-to-veryold members, views the future very differently from the way a religious community, consisting of very young members, view it. Even if both communities belong to the same order or congregation, and even if in terms of spirituality they hold to a comparable picture of the future, even then the two communities will strongly differ in their disposition toward the future. Future possibilities can open up or close themselves off, either in light of the design of the spiritual form, or in the light of the situation in which this form is found. Furthermore, a blocked future can again open a new future. Two examples: as a result of the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. the spirituality of the priests was deprived of its material base. It disappeared. At the same time the future opened up for the spirituality of the scribes. It flourished in torah-piety and began to determine Jewish spirituality in general. A second example: the Carmelites had been approved by Albert of Jerusalem. At that time their identity was inseparably bound up with Mount Carmel where they lived and for which they had abandoned hearth and home. In 1238, hence in a single generation, they were driven out of Israel by Islam. Back in Europe, where they had come from them, they found themselves in a deep identity crisis. If they wanted to survive they had to respond to the question: how can we remain Carmelites without Mount Carmel? Their answer was: remove yourself, no matter where you live, from the world of the finite and enter into infinite space. Now that a physical interpretation of their Carmel life was ruled out they discovered their spiritual dimension. Here lies the source of their focus on spirituality and mysticism within the Carmel.149 1.3.3. THE

INTERNAL HORIZON

Descriptive spirituality research is conducted in three stages: first the form to be studied is outlined in spatio-temporal terms; next this form is contextually situated; finally this form is interpreted so that its internal horizon is opened up. 149

K. Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Carmel, Leuven 1999, 1, 6-9.

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In the first two stages the research is guided by historical, sociological, and science-of-religion methods. The third stage is hermeneutical in character. In the science of spirituality people increasingly begin to see the hermeneutical component in descriptive research. Looking back once more on the paradigm of spiritual biography, we learn that from several directions it is being pointed out that historicizing the life of a saint while neglecting the divine-human transformation that is taking place in this life is scientifically irresponsible. In that way, after all, an essential dimension in the research object is left out of consideration. Over against this one-sidedness Edith Wyschogrod in her study Saints and Post-modernism points out that, “saintly life is defined as one in which compassion for the Other, irrespective of cost to the saint, is the primary trait.”150 Absorption in “being-for-the-other constitutes the essence of the saint. This is the reason why we will never be certain of a person’s holiness: “Like a detective novel in which the solution to the crime is never revealed because it is never clear that there has been a crime, saintly identity necessarily remains mysterious: it can never be established that there was a saint or proved that the primacy of the Other is the source of action.”151 Wyschogrod is inspired by the philosophy of Levinas who defines holiness as a passivity that “is never passive enough, that of being consumed for the other (autrui). The very light of subjectivity shines and illuminates out of this ardor, although the ashes of this consummation are not able to fashion the kernel of a being existing in and for itself, and the I does not oppose to the other any form that protects itself or provides it with a measure. Such is the consuming of a holocaust.”152 The holy one is hidden because he is totally consumed in the fire of his being-there-for-the-other, so consumed that the ashes can no longer establish any status for themselves. The I has nothing left on which to pride itself, no form that protects it, no form that provides it with a measure. Holiness is “an unmeasured responsibility, because it increases in the measure – or in the immeasurableness – that a response is made, increasing gloriously.”153 To this growth there is no end. Along with the augmentation of holiness comes the augmentation of guilt.154 The key word of the saint is “availability,” an availability that never ceases to be available, that finds no rest within itself, not even in the self-importance of servitude. “Here there is no rest for the self sheltered in its form, in its ego-concept. There are no ‘conditions,’

150

E. Wyschogrod, Saints and Postmodernism. Revisioning Moral Philosophy, Chicago 1990, xxiii; see also xxiv and 36ff. 151 Ibid., 149. 152 E. Levinas, God and Philosophy, in: Basic Philosophical Writings, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1996, 143. 153 Ibidem. 154 Ibid., 144.

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not even those of servitude.”155 By his unconditional hinneni (“Here am I”) the saint bears witness to the Infinite One who, according to the firm conviction of the Jewish-Christian tradition, expresses himself in the face of the other. “Here I am, under your eyes, at your service, your obedient servant. In the name of God.”156 As a “behold, here am I” the saint is “a testimony, or a trace, or the glory, of the Infinite.”157 The saint, accordingly, lives in two dimensions. The one dimension is public. It is modeled to a high degree by faith-communities that, exemplary in the saints, appropriate for themselves the desired life forms,158 as well as by the canonization processes which fit the saint into institutional spirituality (purity in doctrine, a reputation for holiness, the heroic practice of virtue, miracles). This is the dimension that can be disclosed with the aid of historical methods. The other dimension is interior. This dimension, which refers to the holy and divine,159 must be distinguished from the biographical (the social and psychological structures)160 and the historical (a chain of decisions, acts, and incidents).161 “As truly as the history, and in the case of the vita, especially the personal life history, of the saint is framed in the conditions of history, still there nevertheless are at work in it – in concealed or clearly visible ways but in any case decisively – the will and power of God.”162 This dimension can be made accessible only by hermeneutical methods. Neither of these two dimensions can be dispensed with in a scientific description.163 It is precisely these two dimensions that together constitute the object of descriptive spirituality research, as V. Urubshurow has demonstrated. She points to the specific genre of hierophanic history that is neither fiction nor history but that participates in both simultaneously, and is mediated by a symbolic process.164 That which is true for the scientific description of the life of saints is true for all spiritual forms: aside from a description of the exterior (the phenomenon with its core of presence outlined by its own contours and interwoven with a multidimensional context) the interior needs to be described: the internal hori-

155

Ibidem. Ibid., 146. 157 Ibidem. 158 W. Frijhoff, Heiligen, idolen, iconen, Nijmegen 1998, 20-23. 159 Ibid., 28-29. 160 D. von der Nahmer, Der lateinischen Heiligenvita, Darmstadt 1994, 57-79. 161 Ibid., 80-123. 162 Ibid., 84. 163 A. Wollbold, Therese lesen – Eine Einführung zu ihren Werk, in: Therese von Lisieux, (Ed. M. Plattig), Würzburg 1997, 55-78. 164 V. Urubshurow, Hierophanic History and the Symbolic Process. A Response to Ricoeur’s call for a ‘Generative Poetics’, in: Studies in Spirituality 7 (1997), 263-291. 156

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zon. This internal horizon is disclosed hermeneutically. Dilthey was one of the first who understood data as the expression (Ausdruck) of an experience (Erlebnis) that could be disclosed via understanding (Verstehen).165 The human mind embodies itself in marble, music, gestures, words, writing, actions, social orders and laws (Ausdruck).166 These forms of expression, which are the starting point for scientific interpretation, must be established philologically and by means of historical criticism. By way of these forms of expression we reach out to “the immediate inner reality itself and that as one that possesses an internal, lived structure of coherence.”167 This is understanding (Verstehen): “the process by which we inwardly know an interior from signs that have been given from without through our senses is called ‘understanding.’”168 This hermeneutics of Dilthey has been recaptured by Husserl who, as we saw, similarly makes a distinction between the phenomena as it presents itself to the observer within a certain context (the first and second level of description) and the internal horizon that is disclosed via a hermeneutic operation guided by the interest of the investigator. That same hermeneutic view in the description of human phenomenon has been adopted by cultural anthropologists like Victor Turner, Edward Bruner, and Clifford Geertz who operate in the field of tension between lived experience and expressed experience.169 The hermeneutic disclosure of the internal horizon can only take place when directed by a specific interest. In the case of spirituality research this focus is the divine-human transformation process,170 a dimension we explored earlier. Looking back on this exploration, we note four layers which are clearly important for the transformation process. The first layer is that of spiritual practice. Psalm 114 is part of a procession in which the exodus from Egypt and the entry into Israel is commemorated. Psalm 87 also refers to a procession. Actualized here is the spirituality of liberation which constitutes the foundation under the city of Jerusalem. In Psalm 126, within the context of fifteen pilgrim songs (Psalms 120-134), the words recapture how God brought Israel back from exile. In these psalms the reference is not just to a procession or a pilgrimage. The poems seek to move the participants to take part intensively in these exercises. Psalm 114 presents nature that empathizes intensely with the processes of exodus and entry as a model. Psalm 165 W. Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichten Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Gesammelte Schriften 7), Stuttgart-Göttingen 1958, 71. 166 W. Dilthey, Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens 1 (Gesammelte Schriften 5), Stuttgart-Göttingen 1957, 318-319. 167 Ibidem. 168 Ibidem. 169 See The Anthropology of Experience, (Ed. V. Turner & E. Bruner), Urbana-Chicago 1986. 170 See part 2, chapter 3.

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87 allows everyone, in lively antiphonal fashion, to take part in the discovery that God is the foundation of Zion. Psalm 126 makes a critical distinction between a return that remains external and a return that really touches life. The first layer, accordingly, is an intensively performed spiritual practice. The second layer is constituted by the practice of virtue. Psalm 114 is oriented to Judah as the sanctuary in which God’s holiness dwells as the central value to which Israel must be oriented. In Psalm 87 the gates are the locale where righteousness is practiced. Psalm 126 shows that the return from exile is accomplished only when the pious give up their self-imprisonment and give themselves in relation to the other. The third layer is that of the God-relatedness which is the aim of both the spiritual exercises and the practice of virtue. In Psalm 114 even the elements evince their involvement in God’s passing presence. Psalm 87 focuses the attention of everyone on the Mighty One who loves Zion. Psalm 126 orients the pilgrims to Be-er who brings back Israel from exile. We can say that this focus on God is the most significant dynamic animating the Psalms. The fourth layer is mystical transformation. In Psalm 114 the procession tremblingly experiences the revelation of God’s Face. Psalm 87 expresses the ecstatic discovery that God is the birthplace of everyone. And the core of Psalm 126 is that Be-er returns in the return (conversion) of Israel: those who are broadcast as seed will be brought home by God. Mystical experience in these poems presents itself as the reverse side of God-relatedness: as the trembling procession approaches and the elements melt under the impact of God’s awesome liberation, the Face reveals itself; while all the participants are beside themselves with joy and join together as a single community, God reveals himself as their common ground; as the seed is sown in sadness the matching side of God’s harvest already makes itself felt. We will now explore these four layers, which constitute the interior of every spiritual form. 1. Processes of appropriation Forms of spirituality are inconceivable without specific spiritual exercises whose purpose is to purify and open up the human subject. The exercises make people receptive to the God-relation and prepare them for contemplation. For the description of this dimension of the internal horizon one must gain insight into the processes of appropriation provided. What supportive motivations are applied? Which layers of the personality are addressed? Next, we will concentrate on the actual purpose of the spiritual exercises: what are their objectives, what is their inner goal, what are they aimed at? In Christian traditions people speak at this point of purity of heart. Finally the question is: how are the spiritual exercises connected with transformation in God?

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1. Appropriation. Spiritual exercises are processes of psychosomatic appropriation with a view to developing awareness and a change of attitude. In these exercises the patterns handed down and the human subject interact with each other.171 These two perspectives (the model provided and the exercising subject) can be clearly distinguished in Cassian’s two main works (The Institutions and The Conferences). In The Institutions the external and visible patterns of the monastic life are explained; in The Conferences the monks recount what the appropriation of these patterns looks like from the inside: invisible to the human eye but felt with utter concreteness from within the interior of the exercising person. We see the same distinction at the beginning of Vincent de Paul’s General Rules for the Daughters of Charity in which he states that they must realize their “holy calling” by “linking the interior exercises of the spiritual life with the external activities of Christian charity in relation to the poor.”172 Although with respect to their external form the Sisters of Charity are not religious, they are obligated, like the religious, to perform the interior exercises of the spiritual life. 2. Purity of heart. The practical objective (skopos) of the spiritual exercises is purity of heart. This objective is a reference to the beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8). Purity of heart refers to a person’s inwardness that is purified in such a way that it becomes receptive and opens up before God’s Face in contemplation. We will show by means of three examples what this purity of heart involves. The desert monks.173 The inner purpose of the bodily exercises is purity of heart. All the exercises are aimed at this practical objective. “It behooves us, then, to carry out the things that are secondary – namely, fasts, vigils, the solitary life, and meditation on Scripture – for the sake of the principal scopos, which is purity of heart.”174 Purity of heart, in turn, is aimed at making the monk receptive to God. Just as a farmer clears his land of stones and weeds to make the soil receptive to the seed, so the monk must cleanse the soil of his soul of vices and instincts to make it receptive for the divine virtues and contemplation. “For it is impossible for the impure soul (…) to acquire spiritual knowledge. No one pours a choice ointment or the finest honey or any kind of precious liquid into a foul-smelling and filthy vessel. (…) Likewise, therefore, unless the vessel of our heart has first been cleansed of every foul-smelling vice it will not deserve to receive the oil of blessing.”175 171

For the structure of the exercises see O. Steggink & K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit en mystiek 1. Inleiding, Nijmegen 1985, 95-100. 172 Vincent de Paul, Règles communes des Filles de la Charité chap. 1., art. 1., in: M. de Pistoye, La Sœur de Charité, Paris 1863, 110. 173 For a description of the spirituality of the desert monks, see part 1, chapter 3.4. 174 John Cassian, The Conferences 1, 7, (Ramsey Translation), New York-Mahwah 1997, 46. 175 Ibid., 14, 14; The Conferences, op. cit., 519.

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The Carmelite Rule.176 The spiritual exercises create an interior that is receptive to God’s attributes: remaining in the cell creates a space that is resistant to demonic destruction and opens itself up to the divine presence (VII); the recitation of Scripture, the saying of the prayers and the saying of the psalms divest the Carmelite of his old speech forms and clothe him with the speech form that is aimed at God (VII-VIII); the transformation of a monk into a community person is realized when everyone holds all things in common, everyone comes to the center of the oratory and everyone exerts himself to take part during the weekly discussion (IX-XI); fasting and abstinence transform body and mind into openness before God (XII-XIII). The goal of these elementary exercises is purity of heart. The chapters (VII-XIII) offer the following image of it: a heart that is shaped by Scripture, the psalms, the Our Father and the prayers; a heart that begins to resemble the interior of the cell; a heart that is made open from without in the direction of the inward; a heart from which is barred that which alienates; a heart that watches in prayers, seeks the center of the community, and reaches out in need; it is a heart that is made receptive in order to be clothed with God’s attributes (XIV). Vincent’s Sisters of Charity.177 The calling of the Sisters of Charity is “to expose themselves to the outside world” in all the places where they find themselves among people.178 How can the sisters, who want to remain lay persons, give shape to a spiritual way without becoming unfaithful to this exposure to the world? Vincent’s answer is pithy and concise. The exercises must develop four attitudes. (1) Modesty. A great many things are gathered up inwardly in a movement of bundling and inwardness. The problem, after all, is that the Sisters of Charity find themselves structurally in the outside world where the poor and the sick are located. How can recollection (bundling, gathering up, finding oneself back) be developed in a way that does not detract from the calling to be exposed to the poor and the sick who are their master? What kind of recollection (modesty, restraint) respects the proximity of the other? Vincent’s reply is: the person who looks at me opens me up, moves me, gathers me up in a way that is more original than any self-concentration. Vincentian recollection obeys the “inworking” of the neighbor. (2) Purity of heart. As an extension of recollection purity of heart affirms the Other who lays bare the core of the I. That is purity of heart and body. (3) Detachment. Detachment is designed to detach things from their fixed 176

For the background of this life rule, see part 1 chapter 2.3. For Vincent de Paul’s spirituality, see part 1, chapter 2.3. 178 Vincent de Paul, The Common Rules of the Daughters of Charity, ch. 1., part 2. in: Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac. Rules, Conferences, and Writings, New York-Mahwah 1995, 169. 177

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and closed field of meaning in order to disclose them as signs that speak of their Creator. Detachment respects the original bond people and things have with their Creator. Attachment does not permit people and things this bond. It sets them apart, discriminates against them, ranks them and puts them in “their” place. It goes without saying that such attachment is destructive for the work of the Sisters of Charity that is designed to free them from their conditioning and victimization by the way the sisters regard them. (4) Edification. How can a life that is continually lived outside of oneself – with the other, at places where the poor live, among people – become coherent? How can one’s inwardness be built up? The answer lies in radical and thorough reflection on the above: a life that receives its inwardness in exposure to the other (recollection) and permits itself to be opened up in pure attention for the other (purity of heart), and proceeds from the Source of all life (detachment) receives its inner coherence in the encounter with the other who builds up (edifies) the Sister of Charity. 3. Transformation in God. A monk must make a careful distinction between the programmatic intent (skopos = practical objective) at which he can work (practike) and which he can practice (askesis), and the hoped for completion (telos = final end) of contemplation (theoretike) that cannot be attained by one’s own exertions. “The Lord placed the highest good not in carrying out some work, however praiseworthy and abundantly fruitful, but in the truly simple and unified contemplation of him.”179 Spiritual exercises are geared to the reception of God’s presence. Take the practice of fasting for example.180 Fasting is a practice of diminution: for a stated period one diminishes the use of food. This diminution of life is intended to make us experience that life does not originate by selfincrease but by receiving. Life is granted to us at every moment for nothing. Fasting is done in the interest of this reception of life. “When people are hungry they stretch themselves. When they stretch themselves they expand. When they expand they become receptive. When they are receptive, they will in due time be filled.”181 Another example is the practice of abstinence.182 Abstinence is aimed at holding at bay all the materials that deform life. This resistance is not directed against the materials as such but against their destructive effect. After all, one may ingest these materials without any scruples when they are useful in the case of illness or weakness.183 Abstinence is a form of self-influencing that – beyond the deformation (alienation, addiction, mutilation, obscuration) – seeks to come into contact with the original form of the soul. 179

John Cassian, Collationes 1, 8. Cf. The Conferences, op. cit., 47. For an overview, see P. Deseille & H. Sieben, Jeûne, in: DSp 8 (1974), 1164-1179. 181 Augustinus, De utilitate ieiunii 1 (CCSL 46, 231, 17-19). 182 For an overview see F. Mugnier, Abstinence, in: DSp 1 (1937), 112-133. 183 See for example the Carmelite Rule, chapter XIII. 180

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2. The practice of the virtues All spiritual forms own a configuration of virtues of their own: a central virtue or a number of central virtues around which other virtues are clustered. These virtues are not simply realized outwardly but undergo a process of appropriation. External appropriation has to be matched with a process of growing awareness: the growing realization of virtuousness. At stake, finally, is that the practice of virtue will lose its center of action in God: the transformation of the practice of virtue and the virtuousness of virtue into God’s virtues. 1. External appropriation. The practice of virtue is above all praxis. The desert monks therefore offer us the following advice: Make every effort to get a complete grasp of practical – that is, ethical – discipline as soon as possible. For without this the theoretical purity that we have spoken of cannot be acquired. The only people who attain to it, possessing it as a reward after the expenditure of much toil and labor, are those who have found perfection not in the words of other teachers but in the virtuousness of their own acts, obtaining this understanding not from meditating on the law but as a result of their toil.184

The virtues are appropriated by unremitting application. Thinking along the same lines, William of St. Thierry considers the first step on the way to a virtuous life to be that the good will is brought back into the “form” which God increated in man in the beginning.185 The original God-provided human directedness toward the good must be freed from alienation, malformation, distortion, suppression, and beautiful appearance. Simplicity and humility are the important virtues here. Standing in that same tradition, Vincent de Paul posits that the virtue of love must first be practiced externally, for it is misshapen by a longlasting practice of self-absorption. 2. Inner appropriation. Initially the practice of virtue requires serious effort inasmuch as it has to re-form years of distorted growth. Such effort is painful. But gradually the virtues become second nature: they are no longer served as though by coercion and subjection to an arbitrary rule, but one takes pleasure in it. One feeds himself with them as with a natural good, thus mounting with delight the hard and narrow way.”186 One lives from them as one lives from eating and drinking.187 This interiorization has to go so deep as to grow into selfconsciousness in the practitioner. Then it is no longer blindly impelled or directed from without. It becomes conscious of its original bent. Now we can avail ourselves of it more freely, descend into it more deeply, and be motivated 184

John Cassian, Collationes 14, 9. Cf. The Conferences, op. cit., 512. H. Blommestijn, In de deugd komt God aan het licht. Willem van Saint-Thierry, in: Speling 48 (1996), 89-97. 186 See John Cassian, Collationes 14, 35. Cf. The Conferences, op. cit., 506. 187 Ibid., 3, 19; 10, 7; 13, 6; 13, 11. 185

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by it more thoroughly. Vincent puts it as follows; “It is not by length of time that one judges whether a daughter is worthy to bear the beautiful name ‘Daughter of charity,’ but rather by whether she is clothed from within with this robe of love for God and neighbor. That is what makes the Daughter of Charity.”188 This process of interiorization is fostered by meditation: “Meditate that you may rightly fulfill the ministry of mercy.”189 The virtue of mercy must rise to the level of awareness in meditation. 3. God’s virtuousness. The practice of virtue is a process in which emancipation from deformation and the consciousness of the goodness of the life of virtue reach their goal in the power of God’s virtue which in the practitioner works as a gracious gift from God. Hence William of St. Thierry states that the practice of virtue reaches its goal when we immerse it in the movement of God’s own life. God’s fundamental movement runs through us without encountering resistances. He gives free rein to his directedness toward the good – his virtuousness – in us. We then discover God’s love as the fundamental movement of our being. God himself is our virtue. Living the virtuous life, accordingly, is a way. This way begins by freeing up our original directedness toward the truly good. Subsequently this directedness is reinforced and personalized in the realization of it. Finally all this is surrendered to and taken up into God’s virtue. Hence Vincent de Paul states: A consciously performed act of mercy can be incorporated in the movement of God’s mercy: “A means of doing it as God wants you to do it is to do it in love, my daughters. O! that that may make your ministry excellent! But do you know what that means: doing it in love? That is, doing it in God, for God is love, that is, doing it completely and purely for God’s sake.”190 This insight is so sublime that it surpasses human comprehension: “We need divine light to be able to fathom the height, the depth, the breadth and the glory of this love. We must give ourselves totally to God to let this truth sink into our souls so that all our conduct is conditioned by it.”191 3. Prayer Prayer is man’s vital orientation to God throughout all man’s spiritual practices and exercises of virtue. Prayer, accordingly, is understood here not as a form but as an attitude: a directedness to God. This directedness is realized in but also apart from all exercises. It concerns the whole of life. As Augustine says: “Desire always prays, even when the tongue is silent. If you desire you will pray 188

Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents X, (Ed. P. Coste), Paris 1920-1925,

461. 189

Ibid., IX, 29. Ibid., IX, 249. 191 Ibid., XII, 261. 190

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always.”192 The Carmelite tradition calls this aspirative prayer.193 All bodily exercises, all exercises of virtue, and all activities apart from them revolve around the divine Center and draw their strength and meaning from it.194 How this divine Center provides inner guidance to all these human exercises has been graphically expressed by Abbas Abraham in Cassian’s Collationes. He compares the spiritual way to the construction of a dome: with every brick the mason lays, with every circle he constructs, he is guided by a very precise center. The dome is built, layer upon layer, around this center. Both horizontally and vertically the spherical curvature arises around this center. The further the construction advances, the more the invisible Center that shapes the dome from within becomes visible. It is as if someone wanted to construct a barrel-vaulted ceiling: He would have to trace a circle from its precise center all the way around, and in accordance with this fixed pattern he would establish the perfect roundness required for the structure. But if someone tried to do this without having gauged the midpoint, however great his skill or clever his guess, he would be unable to keep it perfectly round without making a mistake, nor could he perceive merely by a glance how he had detracted from the beauty of the roundness by his error. Instead, he must have constant recourse to the standard of truth, adjusting the inner and outer circumference of his work from its vantage point and finishing off the edifice, so large and lofty, in reference to this single spot.195

There are two interlocking movements here. On the one hand, there is the effect of the Center which, like an invisible hand, directs every movement. On the other, there is the effect of the mason who, stone upon stone and layer after layer, constructs the dome. There is the horizontal circle which arises stone upon stone and is constructed layer after layer; and there is the Center that governs the development of the whole. The Center, from within itself, sustains the entire dome. The dome in turn unfolds the Center in all directions. Ever new layers of ourselves and of the reality around us is involved in the process of transformation. Each time we run through the entire process, yet each time new areas present themselves to be brought into contact with the Center. It seems as if we are not making any progress. Each time we come back to the same point. This, however, is mere appearance. In reality the process deepens and becomes more condensed. As a result the dome is shaped ever more closely from the Center. This is

192

Augustine, Sermo 80, 7 (PL 38, 498). P. Hoornaert, Gij staat mij altijd bij. Een gebedspraktijk van de Karmel. De contemplatieve aspiratie, Gent 1996. See also M. Plattig, Gebet und Lebenshaltung, Rome 1995, 65-83. 194 See P. Humblet, Gedurig reikt ons hart naar U. Gebed bij de Liefdezusters van de H. Carolus Borromeus, Nijmegen 1998. 195 John Cassian, Collationes 24, 6. Cf. The Conferences, op. cit., 829. 193

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never-ending prayer: the orientation to the spiritual core that provides inner direction to the spiritual journey. We find this concentration in all spiritualities. Buddhist spirituality distinguishes three kinds of exercises: the practice of virtue (shila), spiritual exercises (samadhi), and wisdom (prahna). Wisdom is pure directedness toward complete Annihilation (nirvana), and Enlightenment (boddhi). It draws the practitioner’s attention away from the perishable into the sphere of the imperishable. A mantra is designed to instill this orientation. As a result of the constant repetition of the same formula, it acquires a certain independence by which different layers in the psychosomatic structure of the practitioner are caught up in the movement of the mantra. A similar idea underlies the practice of the desert monks of repeating, day and night, the verse: “O God, incline unto my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me” (Ps. 69:2).196 This line of verse accompanies the monastic life in all situations: “You should not stop repeating it when you are doing any kind of work or performing some service or are on a journey. Meditate on it while sleeping and eating and attending to the least needs of nature.”197 Basil the Great says: “In this manner you will pray without ceasing when you do not restrict your praying to words but unite yourself with God in everything you do, so that your life is one ongoing uninterrupted prayer.”198 This constant prayer must not be viewed as one exercise among other exercises, but as the exercise in all exercises, the practice of focusing on God: “One only need, by continually meditating on this verse, keep the mind’s whole and entire attention fixed on God.”199 The same focus is the purpose of the Jesus-prayer used by Greek monks. In Islamic mysticism people distinguish between ritual prayer (salat) and the free mystical prayer that is directed to God himself and the transformation in glory, an orientation to God beyond all forms.200 Rumi says: “Prayer is the drowning and unconsciousness of the soul, so that all these forms [of prayer, KW] remain without.”201 He compares never-ending prayer with a piece of iron that has lain in the fire for a long time; it not only looks like fire but also burns like fire.202 The way to this prayerful immersion is the remembrance or recollection of God (dhikr),203 grounded in the verses of the Koran: “and recollect 196

Ibid., 10, 10. Cf. The Conferences, op. cit., 379. Ibidem. Cf. The Conferences, op. cit., 382. 198 Basil the Great, Sermon on Julitta the martyr 3-4 (Texte der Kirchenväter 3), München 1964, 195-196. 199 John Cassian, Collationes 10, 14. Cf. The Conferences, op. cit., 387. 200 A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 148-186. 201 Quoted in A. Schimmel, op. cit., 163. 202 A. Brohi, The Spiritual Dimension of Prayer, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 136. 203 A. Schimmel, ibid., 167. 197

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God often” (Sura 33/40) and “the recollection of God makes the heart calm” (Sura 13/28). It consists in constantly pronouncing the name “Allah” or the confession “Ia ilah illa Allah.” Other names for God as well can serve as formulas for the remembrance of God: “O Merciful, the All-merciful,” or “O Patient One.” Thus there are 99 names for God which focus the passion of the devoted heart or rather the heart that has been moved by God. Sahl said to one of his disciples: Strive to say continuously for one day: “O Allah! O Allah! O Allah!” and do the same the next day and the day after that – until he became habituated to saying those words. Then he bade him to repeat them at night also, until they became so familiar that he uttered them even during his sleep. Then he said: “Do not repeat them any more, but let all your faculties be engrossed in remembering God!” The disciple did this, until he became absorbed in the thought of God. One day, when he was in his house, a piece of wood fell on his head and broke it. The drops of blood which trickled to the ground bore the legend “Allah! Allah! Allah!”204

Also Jewish mysticism knows this dimension of prayer. In the Kabbala it is called “directedness” (kawvana),205 in Hasidism “cleaving” (devekut): to cleave to the Infinite One throughout all exercises.206 In Lurian mysticism devekut was the direct predecessor of Hasidism, the supreme form of it. The uniqueness of Hasidism is that this total devotion is no longer merely the end of the spiritual way – and that only for a few – but something every pious person can realize under all circumstances, also while engaged in empty chatter, worldly affairs, and in the case of strange thoughts. We now want to make certain aspects of never-ending prayer more explicit in the light of Hasidic mysticism. 1. Prayer permeates everything. The premise of Hasidic mysticism is that the practice of cleaving to God is not restricted to certain actions or certain areas of life: “Of the Neschizer it was said, that instruction and prayer, eating, drinking and sleeping were all parts to him of the study of divinity. Part of the Infinite is hidden in all of Man’s faculties and actions, in speech and sight and hearing, in walking, standing still and lying down.”207 This premise goes back to Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism: “In his mind doctrine and prayer, eating and sleeping are all one, and he can elevate the soul to its root.”208 The Baal Shem 204

Ibid., 241. G. Scholem, Ursprung und Anfänge der Kabbala, Berlin 1962, 366-381. 206 R. Schatz, Contemplative Prayer in Hassidism, in: Studies in Mysticism and Religion, Presented to G.G. Scholem, (Ed. E. Urbach et al.), Jerusalem 1967, 209-226; G. Scholem, Devekut or Communion with God, in: The Messianic Idea in Judaism and other Essays in Jewish Spirituality, London 1971, 203-227; J. Weiss, Torah Study in Early Hassidism, in: J. Weiss, Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism, (Ed. D. Goldstein), Oxford 1985, 56-68. 207 L. Newman, Hasidic Anthology. Tales and Teachings of the Hasidim, New York 1975, 157. 208 Baal Sjem Tov, in: M. Buber, Schriften zum Chassidismus (Werke III), München-Heidelberg 1963, 27. 205

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Tov was convinced that people could cleave to God in all situations and all stages of the way because everything is permeated with the Infinite One: “Framed in all human actions – speaking, looking, hearing, going, standing still, and lying down – is the Boundless.”209 Also the so-called strange ideas which come over people during their spiritual exercises belong in this category: “When a person is praying and desires to become one with the Eternal One and strange ideas come and attack him – sacred sparks they are which have dropped into his head and want to be lifted up and redeemed by him. These sparks are his, intimately connected with the root of his soul, it is his own powers he has to redeem.”210 2. Directedness. The process of cleaving is realized in everything. It is the eternal starting point of the Hasidic way. After the death of rabbi Moses of Kobrin rabbi Mendel asked one of the pupils of the old Kotsker: “What did your teacher consider the most important thing?” He thought for a minute and then replied: “Whatever it was he was just working on.”211 The crucial point is that, whatever a person may be or whatever one is doing, his or her attention is directed toward God: “When you eat and take pleasure in the taste and sweetness of the food, bear in mind that it is the Lord who has placed into the food its taste and sweetness. You will, then, truly serve Him by your eating.”212 To direct oneself to the Lord and to cleave to him in every situation – that is the essence of Hasidism: “It is necessary to devote oneself solely to the performance of service to the Holy One, blessed be he.”213 This directedness is so decisive that even one’s evil passion is subordinate to it. From a spiritual point of view even an evil passion is good if one directs it toward God: “One can serve God with an evil passion provided one directs its fieriness and aspiring glow toward God. And without evil passion there is no such thing as perfect service.”214 It is, accordingly, un-Hasidic to curb or eradicate evil passion. A young man gave to Ritziner a note on which was written that God would assist him so that he might succeed in breaking his evil passions. The rabbi looked at him with laughter: “You can break your back and loins but never a passion. But pray, study, work hard, and the evil passion will disappear in you of itself.”215 3. Concentration. Directedness presupposes that one collects himself: “Those who serve God in the grand manner bundle all their inner strength and rise up in their thoughts and suddenly break through into the heavens and mount higher 209

Ibidem. Ibid., 37. 211 Moses of Kobrin, in M. Buber, Schriften zum Chassidismus, 563. 212 L. Newman, ibid., 86. 213 Chajim Chaika of Amdura, Chajim wa-chesed, Warschau 1891, 62b, cited in J. Weiss, Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism, (Ed. D. Goldstein), Oxford 1985, 143. 214 Rabbi Nachman, in: M. Buber, Schriften zum Chassidismus, 908. 215 Israel of Ritzin, in: M. Buber, Schriften zum Chassidismus, 453. 210

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than the angels, the seraphim, and the thrones. That, then, is perfect service.”216 By gathering oneself and directing it toward the core of spirituality one becomes inwardly attached to it: “I learned from my teacher, the Baal Shem Tov, that the most important thing in the torah is prayer: to cleave to its inmost and to the spirituality of the light of the Infinite One in the letters.”217 Self-collection and self-direction implies that one totally surrenders to that with which one is occupied: If someone fixes all his attention on the words of the torah he is studying, then his soul cleaves to the life of the inner light of the torah and he becomes a chariot for the Lord.”218 “Cleaving” (becoming attached to) presupposes that one identifies himself psychosomatically with that with which one is occupied. If one utters a word in prayer, then one must identify with that word: “When you utter a word before God, enter into that word with your bodily members. How can this be: a big person who enters a little word? Those who imagine themselves to be bigger than the word – about such people we do not speak.”219 4. Fervency. This directed concentration must be coupled with a fervency (hittlahawut) which causes the petitioner to fuse with his Creator: “When we perform the commandments with great enthusiasm and desire we attach ourselves to the inmost content of the commandments which is a blazing fire. And in accordance with the intensity of our fervency, we distance ourselves from materialism and approach ever more closely a true understanding of the Creator.”220 This fervent fusion with God frees human beings from their heaviness (materialism, bodiliness). “A person must pray with all his strength until he is divested of his bodiliness and forgets his own self, so that the only life that truly is remains in God and all his thoughts are fixed on him. He must not be conscious of his own self. All this happens in a single moment and in a flash, which shows that it comes from the supertemporal.”221 5. A shift of the act-center. By being surrendered in fervency the petitioner is “attached to” the Source. He has now lost control over his speech. Thus the Maggid stated that the best way to explain the Torah was for a person “not to be conscious of himself but to listen intently to the way in which the world of 216 Baal Sjem Tov, cited in G. Scholem, Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Haupströmungen, Frankfurt a.M. 1957, 367-368. 217 Toledot Ja’akov Josef, Korzecz 1780, 36, in: J. Weiss, 59. 218 Baal Shem Tov, in: L. Newman, Hasidic Anthology. Tales and Teachings of the Hasidim, New York 1975, 461. 219 Moses of Kobrin, in: M. Buber, Schriften zum Chassidismus (Werke III), München-Heidelberg 1963, 559. 220 Levi Isaak of Berditsjev, Oedoesjat Levi, Slawota 1789, 9, quoted in: W. Rabinowitsch, Der Karliner Chassidismus, Leipzig 1935, 54. 221 Maggid of Mezzeritch, in: R. Schatz, Contemplative Prayer in Hassidism, in: Studies in Mysticism and Religion, Presented to G.G. Scholem, (Ed. E. Urbach et al.), Jerusalem 1967, 218.

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the Word speaks to him. It is not you yourself who speaks. The moment you hear yourself speak, you must quit.”222 This point of view goes back to Baal Shem Tov, who testified of himself: “When I am attached in my thinking to the Creator, blessed be He, I let my mouth say what He wants to say, because I link the words with the highest root in the Creator, blessed be He, for all things have a single root on high in the sefiroth.”223 6. Supreme fulfillment. To lose oneself in the Creator is viewed as the highest pleasure. The Baal Shem Tov says: “ A man sometimes becomes drunk with the ecstasy of rejoicing over the Torah. He sometimes feels his love for God burn within him. The words of prayer come pouring out of his mouth, and he must pray quickly to keep pace with them.”224 In this ecstatic delight and the experience of the divine fire (hitlahawut) lies the fulfillment of the commandments. One who has not felt the divine fire burn within him will not be able to taste the ecstatic delight of paradise. “If a person has fulfilled all the doctrine and all the commandments but not tasted the fulfillment and the burning – when he dies and crosses the boundary, he will be admitted to paradise, but because he has not felt the delight while on earth he will not feel the delight of paradise.”225 7. God is the prayer. The ecstatic delight of losing oneself in God draws the petitioner into God himself: “When a person is enclosed in the Infinite, his torah is the torah of God himself and his prayer is the prayer of God himself.”226 The ecstatic delight which is in God is assimilated in God who is that delight. God himself becomes his prayer. Rabbi Pinchas explained the verse “He is your psalm and he is your God” (Ps. 118:14) as follows: “He is your psalm and he, the same one, is your God. The prayer a person prays, that very prayer is God.”227 In ecstatic delight God’s presence descends and dwells there permanently. When a person begins to pray, the Indwelling cloaks itself in him the moment he says: “‘Lord, open my lips.’ It says the words. When a person entrusts himself to the fact that it is the Indwelling which says it, awe descends upon him and the Holy One, blessed be he, contrasts himself and abides with him.”228 222

Maggid of Mezzeritch, ’Or ha-Meir, Korzecz 1798, Rimzei Wajiqra 2b, in: J. Weiss, Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism, (Ed. D. Goldstein), Oxford 1985, 79. 223 Baal Shem Tov, in: R. Schatz, ibid., 213. 224 Baal Shem Tov, in: L. Newman, Hasidic Anthology, New York 1975, 328. 225 Baal Shem Tov, in: R. Schatz, ibid., 213. 226 Nahman of Bratslav, Liqqoetim 22, 10, in: A. Green, Tormented Master. A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, New York 1981. 227 Rabbi Pinchas, in: M. Buber, Schriften zum Chassidismus, 243. 228 Maggid of Mezzeritch, ’Or tora, Korzecz 1804, 136b, in: J. Weiss, Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism, 76.

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4. Mysticism The mystical dimension of a spiritual form delineates itself against the background of the spiritual exercises, the practice of virtue, and prayer. We, accordingly, have repeatedly encountered the mystical dimension: the spiritual exercises are directed toward purity of heart, which receives contemplation; the practice of virtue culminates in God himself being virtuous within us; prayer ends in losing itself in God. Hence the mystical dimension does not drop out of the sky, but delineates itself within the internal horizon which has unfolded up until this point. This truth throws a nuanced light on the discussions which take place repeatedly about the relation between asceticism and mysticism. Maimonides already distinguished three opinions on this matter. The first is the most widespread: God randomly picks someone and shapes him into an instrument in his hand. The second opinion is that of the philosophers: mysticism is a natural perfection attainable by intensive training. The third opinion is identical with that of the philosophers, with this difference: it is God who transforms whom he wills and when he wills into a prophet.229 The three positions formulated by Maimonides keep surfacing whenever mysticism comes up. Thus around 1900, in his study Les degrés de la vie spirituelle,230 A. Saudreau viewed mysticism as the gradual outflow of an ascetic life. According to him, all mystics are of the opinion “that the general rule is the slow and gradual transition from the lower degrees of prayer to contemplation.”231 Poulain took the opposite point of view. In his book The Graces of Interior Prayer,232 he makes a sharp distinction between asceticism and mysticism: “We apply the word mystic to those supernatural acts or states which our own industry is powerless to produce, even in a low degree, even momentarily.”233 Situated between Saudreau and Poulain, whose opposition controlled the study of spirituality through almost the entire first half of the 20th century and split theologians into two factions,234 were the scholars who regarded asceticism and mysticism as a unity “without confusing the two aspects denoted by these two words, without sacrificing one to the other by construing a pan-mysticism or pan-asceticism out of the two, but also without isolating them from each other. In fact they never occur in that way in the real life of souls.”235 229 Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed Part II chap. 32, (Trans. S. Pines), ChicagoLondon 1974, vol. 2, 360-363. 230 A. Saudreau, Les degrés de la vie spirituelle, Paris 1896. 231 Ibid., 368. 232 A. Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer, Westminster 1949. 233 Ibid., 1. 234 For an overview, see O. Steggink & K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit en mystiek 1. Inleiding, Nijmegen 1985, 50-54. 235 J. de Guibert, Ascétique. II. Ascétique et mystique, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1013.

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We will try to describe a number of mystical aspects which are important for an understanding of the mystical process as mystics describe it. We do not intend to describe a model process, therefore, but only wish to illumine the most significant transition points which, in one way or another, play a role in every mystical transformation. 1. Idea of the whole and the parts. In the Christian tradition, from the earliest time of the Church Fathers, it was common to picture the spiritual life as a triad, beginners-advanced-perfect.236 Thomas Aquinas sums up the tradition succinctly: “As in all of life and all growth, so also the spiritual life has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”237 The above triad concerns the one spiritual way “which must be differentiated in terms of three aspects, viz. the beginning, to which the state of beginners belongs; the middle, to which the state of the advanced belongs; and the end, to which the state of the perfect belongs.”238 (1) The beginning is usually dominated by the theme of conversion. The spiritual way for a Sufi, for example, begins with conversion (tauba). Sufis turn away from the path of sin and thus venture on the spiritual way. In so doing Sufis stand in the tradition of Jewish and Christian spirituality. Sometimes this conversion is even the dominant theme for the entire spiritual way: the life of the converted exhibits a threefold aspect: the beginning, the middle, the completion.239 (2) The notion of the “way” implies the end. People speak about this end in terms of perfection and completion. The spiritual life, after all, concerns “the person who daily makes advances and ascends to the perfect, that is, to proximity with the Uncreated.”240 (3) Mediation between the beginning and the end can be understood as a complex spectrum of exercises, as a persistent battle with the “nafs,” as a graduated process of purification, as an intensively experienced relation to God, as a consistently performed practice of virtue, or as a certain combination of all these meditations. Sometimes the way itself is the focus of attention. Taoist spirituality, for example, aims at recognizing the beginning and the end of the way as fixations which have to be abandoned if one is to be able to “breathe” along with the inner movement of the existents themselves, a movement which in turn is incorporated in the movement of the Way which follows its own movement. Not-doing allows the Way present in every movement of every being to pursue its course. However appealing the simplicity of the triad “beginning-middleend” may be, it does not do justice to the complexity of the transformation process. It is not strange, therefore, that in the descriptions of the mystical way 236

See the Enchiridion asceticum, Freiburg i.B. 1930, 833, 835, 1123, 1194. Thomas of Aquino, Summa theologica 2a, 2ae, q. 183, a. 4. 238 Ibid., 2a, 2ae, q. 24, a. 9. 239 Gregory the Great, Moralia lib. 22, cap. 20 (PL 76, 240-244). 240 Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses IV, 38, 3 (SC, 100 II, 954-957. 237

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we encounter all sorts of images: the seven palace halls of merkawa-mysticism, the ten sefirot of the kabbala, the seven ways of love in Beatrice of Nazareth. In this connection people also picture very different things. John of the Cross views the mystical way as an exodus out of oneself: the way of the love of a young woman who in the middle of the night, by a secret ladder and in disguise, leaves her home behind, in search of her beloved. Teresa of Avila views the spiritual way as a journey inward: moving from room to room, she enters the castle of the soul until she finds the beloved in the center. In merkawa-mysticism the spiritual way is viewed as a celestial journey: via all sorts of obstacles the soul mounts up from the first to the seventh celestial palace where the chariot (merkawa) stands that bears the throne of the Inexpressible. Some merkawamystics interpret the celestial journey as a way into the depths, just as “heaven” is reflected in the depths of a river. These mystics therefore call the “ascenders” to the seventh heaven “descenders in the merkawa” (jordei merkawa). Sometimes spiritual writers speak of the royal road: the road that leads directly into the city. Often spiritual ways have the character of a detour: the prodigal son discovers the mercy of his father only after many long wanderings abroad; the middle of the garden is experienced only after the enveloping movements which the labyrinth imposes on the traveler. However one may picture the mystical process, in any case it is certain that we are not “dealing with a trajectory between two points but with a spiritual process that unfolds spirally, embracing all the levels and dimensions of human existence.”241 In this spiral-like development “a spiritual and mystical process occurs in which the divine attributes are interiorized.”242 The image of the spiral closely resembles the dome-builder of abbas Abraham. The advantage of this image is that on the one hand the broad outline of the mystical process can be articulated (the spiral or the dome as a whole), while on the other the concrete steps are portrayed (every winding of the spiral, every circle of the dome). Also the image of a mountain journey has this advantage. Here, too, one can articulate the whole as a well as the parts. This image has the additional advantage that the more or less artificial and streamlined character of a spiral or a dome has been incorporated in a process that cannot be schematized. Anyway the “way” is just one of the images used to describe the mystical process of transformation. Other images are: a block of wood that is consumed by fire; a mirror that is cleansed to receive the image; a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly; a lens that catches and spreads the light; a river that forces its way from its source to the sea; the beloved who loses himself in the beloved; a piece of land that is cultivated and finally produces a harvest; a painting that so completely resembles the original that it comes alive, and so forth. 241 242

Ibidem. H. Blommestijn, Progrès-progressants, in: DSp 12 (1986), 2384.

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2. A shift of the act-center. However one may picture the mystical process and in whatever stage one may find himself, the core of it is not formed by some new material insight but by the fact that a person’s center shifts to a position outside of himself. “The consciousness of a person is transformed on a deep level, not because a different content of some kind presents itself, but because the center of gravity of someone’s entire personality gradually shifts away from himself and into God.”243 Mystical transformation consists in the reality that God’s activity gains the upper hand. To bring back for a moment the image of the domebuilder: while the mason, stone upon stone and layer after layer, constructs the circumference of the dome, it is nevertheless the Center which, like a molding hand, causes the dome to unfold from within as a vault. The formative activity of the mason is this side of a process of which the other side is the development of the Center in the vault. In Scripture, especially in the Psalms, this shift of the center is frequently articulated. Thus the way of the preserving culminates in that Be-er permeates it with his presence: “Be-er feels [knows] the way of the preserving” (Ps. 1:6), “directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9), “leads” them into life (Ps. 107:7). “In Be-er the steps of a man are made firm – his way delights him. Though he stumbles, he does not fall headlong. Yes, Be-er holds him by the hand” (Ps. 37:23-24). Those who pursue their way of life in Be-er are “sound in their way” (tam derek), that is: devoid of all self-centeredness. They “walk in integrity” (Ps. 15:2; 26:1, 11). This shift of the act-center has been depicted by John of the Cross in his sketch on the ascent of Mount Carmel.244 The sketch contains a poem at the foot of the mountain, the essence of which reads: if you want to make it with integrity into the All, you must follow the path of not-tasting, not-knowing, not-possessing, not-being, in short, by the path of nothingness. You want to know what is so amazing here? The arrival on the mountain of God proves to be the discovery of having been brought there by God! On the top of the mountain one finds the quotation from Scripture: “I have brought you into the land of Carmel to eat its fruits and its good things” (Jer. 2:7). The spiritual way proves to consist in the fact that the human journey changes into what the mystical way essentially is: being sustained by God. The shift of the act-center entails four components, which, however, may never be abstracted from the dynamics of this shift if their meaning is not to be distorted: ecstasy, detachment, annihilation, and passivity. Ecstasy. The shift of the act-center implies that either gradually or abruptly, the mystic is torn outside of himself.

243 244

Ibidem. K. Waaijman, Bestijging van de Berg Karmel, Nijmegen 1997.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH God forcefully draws the soul entirely into himself in order to support it in the enjoyment of his entire self to the extent it is possible in its state by such an inexpressible game as his. From this [union] the soul can never again emerge alive – at least if it is as I assume. (…) There the soul must leave everything behind – its deeds, its form, its sighing, its gazes, and its subtle movements, its most simple passion – in order henceforth to let itself be moved by God in a passive manner and be brought into turmoil and ecstasy within the circle of his immeasurable and allconsuming fire.245

In this quotation from Jean de Saint-Samson we see how ecstasy in God is accompanied by motifs such as mystical death (annihilation), detachment (leaving everything behind), and passivity (letting oneself be moved by God). We will, however, focus on ecstasy. The act-center is located in God: “God forcefully draws the soul entirely into himself.” Hence it is not a matter of stepping outside of oneself. The center of movement lies in God. In the words of Beatrix of Nazareth: “Then the heart is so tenderly touched by Love, so drawn with desire into Love, so gripped from within by the passion of Love, so strongly controlled by Love, so lovingly embraced in Love that it is completely conquered by Love.”246 Love is the act-center. It draws the soul out of itself into Love. This is ek stasis in the literal sense, standing outside of oneself, as Dionysius the Areopagite says: “Not by being by ourselves but by totally dissociating ourselves from ourselves and so becoming completely the possession of God.”247 The mystic who plunged into the darkness “belongs completely to him who is beyond everything, and no longer to anything (not to himself nor to someone else).”248 He will “be taken wholly out of himself and become wholly of God, since it is better to belong to God rather than to ourselves.”249 Detachment. The shift of the act-center implies that the mystic is detached from the experience of reality of which he himself is the center. This process of detachment that is inherent in the shift is beautifully depicted by Teresa of Avila. She compares the spiritual life of a beginner with a caterpillar.250 The caterpillar diligently feeds himself by using the spiritual exercises available to “him.” 245 Jean de Saint-Samson, in: H. Blommestijn, God gebeurt in mijn menswording, in: Speling 38 (1986), no. 3, 94-95. 246 Beatrice of Nazareth, The Seven Manners of Loving, cited in: J. Huls, De extase van de Minne – Beatrijs van Nazaret, in: Speling 49 (1997), no. 2, 40. [For an English translation see, for example, E. Colledge, There Are Seven Manners of Loving, in: Mediaeval Netherlands Religious Literature, Leiden-London-New York 1965, 17-29.] 247 Dionysius the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology VII, 1. We are following Pseudo-Dionysius de Areopagiet, Over mystieke theologie, (Trans. & Comm. B. Schomakers), Kampen 1990, 15-17. 248 Dionysius the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology I, 3. 249 Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names VII, 1. 250 For an introduction see H. Blommestijn & F. Maas, Kruispunten in de mystieke traditie, The Hague 1990, 122-134.

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“These means include both regular confession, the reading of devotional literature, and listening to the preaching. If he uses these means, he begins to live and feed himself with them and with good meditations, until he has grown mature.”251 Thus the caterpillar begins to feed “himself ” with the available means. Next, he starts to spin silk and to build his little cocoon. This cocoon is the spiritual transformation model by which a person, in the process of working at her spiritual development, surrounds herself: “Well then, my daughters, go quickly to work on this and hasten to spin for yourselves this cocoon by renouncing our self-love and self-will, and by doing the works of penance, interior prayer, mortification, obedience, and all the other things known to us.”252 But at the conclusion of all these activities – feeding oneself diligently and spinning one’s little house – the caterpillar dies and is transformed into a butterfly: “O greatness of God, how beautiful is the soul that emerges from this process, after it has been secured for a little while – and this in my opinion never lasts a half hour – in God’s greatness and has been so intimately united with him! Truly, I tell you: the soul no longer knows itself. Please listen carefully: the same difference that exists between an ugly worm and a little white butterfly exists here as well.”253 By God’s transforming power the caterpillar died, the little cocoon was left behind, and the butterfly is flying about, without finding rest anywhere. “The works it performed as a caterpillar, when little by little it wove the cocoon, it now regards as worthless. It has gotten wings. How could it, now that it can fly, be content with moving one little foot at a time?254 In this image we see how growth toward being a butterfly implies that the early attainments (the caterpillar and the little cocoon) have to be abandoned. It is important to be steadfastly aware that this detachment flows out of contemplation. It effects the actual detachment. Therefore, “once a person has begun to enter this simple and idle state of contemplation, which comes about when he can no longer meditate, he should not at any time or season engage in meditations or look for support in spiritual savor or satisfaction, but stand upright on his own feet, with his spirit completely detached from everything.”255 It is contemplation which frees the soul from its self-activity: “The more the air is cleansed of vapors, and the quieter and more simple it is, the more the sun illumines and warms it. A person should not bear attachment to anything, neither to the practice of meditation, nor to any savor whether sensory or spiritual, nor to any other apprehensions.”256 251

Ibid., 123. Ibid., 124. 253 Ibid., 125. 254 Ibidem. 255 The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (Ed. K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez), Washington D.C. 1979, 624. 256 Ibid., The Living Flame of Love III, 34, 623. 252

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Annihilation. Detachment from the center of self-activity implies a break. The butterfly stands out from the caterpillar and cocoon as non-caterpillar and non-cocoon. This process elicits assessments: Teresa views the “caterpillar” and the “cocoon” as “worthless.” It is of the greatest importance to make a clear distinction here. The caterpillar and the cocoon are not worthless in themselves but solely by comparison with the butterfly, which is the image of freedom in God. The I must be delivered of its self-defined identity by entering into nothingness. That is also the conviction of the Jewish tradition. The Baal Shem Tov says: The desired goal is that before prayer he should divest himself of corporeality, which is finite and limited, and enter into the state of nothingness which is infinite. Man should therefore set himself entirely towards the Creator and to nothing whatever of his own self. And this is impossible unless man puts himself into the state of nothingness, viz. that he is not at all; then he will take no interest in things of the world, since he no longer is, and he will pay heed only to his Maker.257

The Maggid of Mezzeritch puts it as follows: “First we have to detach our life force from material thoughts and from the being of ourselves, in order to enter the gate of Nothingness. Then we shall easily cleave with our roots unto the Cause of all causes.”258 And Rabbi Jechiel Michal of Sloksov said: Those who are not attached to the Creator, blessed be his Name, but with earthly things, imagine that they exist of themselves and are important and great in their own eyes. But can they [really] be great if they exist one night and are lost the next? Their days are like a passing shadow and even in their lifetime they are as volatile as air! Hence, when they think they exist, they certainly do not. Things are very different when they think they are nothing because they are totally attached to the Creator. Then they are attached to God with all their spiritual powers and thus very great because the branch reached the root and is one with the root. And the root is the Ein-sof. Therefore the branch, too, is the Ein-sof, because he has annihilated its existence, just as a drop of water that falls into the big sea has come to its root (source) and is therefore one with the waters of the sea. And it is impossible to distinguish it as something separate.259

To be attached to the Creator is to be nullified in one’s own existence, that is, in the existence of which one is himself the center. That is the sense in which one must understand the mystics who speak about mystical nothingness. An example is Johann Tauler:

257

Baal Shem Tov, in: R. Schatz, Contemplative Prayer in Hassidism, in: Studies in Mysticism and Religion, Presented to G.G. Scholem, (Ed. E. Urbach et al.), Jerusalem 1967, 211-213. 258 Maggid of Mezzeritch, in: R. Schatz, ibid., 216-217. 259 Meshullam Foebus of Zbaraz, Josher Divrei Emeth, Munkacz 1905, 15b.

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Those who succeed in attaining a thorough knowledge of their own nothingness will have found the nearest, shortest, straightest, and most certain way to the highest and most profound truth we can find on earth. To take that road, no one is too old or too weak, nor too uneducated or too young, too poor or too rich. That way is called: “I am nothing.” O what an unspeakable life is concealed in that “I am nothing!” Unfortunately, no one wants to take that road, no matter where you look. May God forgive me for saying it! Truly, we are, and want to be, and always wanted to be something, to be somebody in the eyes of others. People are so possessed and shackled by that drive that no one wants to relinquish himself. It is easier for a person to do ten other things than to relinquish himself just once.260

Passivity. Since the mystic is no longer the center of his own existence he experiences the fact that he does not move himself but is moved by God. As Beatrix of Nazareth puts it in her fourth manner of Love: “It happens regularly that Love is sweetly aroused in the soul and joyfully comes alive and lets itself be felt in her heart without any assistance of human activity.”261 Something happens in the soul that is not effected by the person herself. Love comes over us aside from our own activities and effects something of which we normally think we ourselves are the source. Hasidic mystics compare this aspect of the mystical act-shift to an instrument in the hand of the user. The soul is in God’s hand “just as a craftsman beats the hammer on a stone as he pleases and not by the desire of the hammer which actually strikes the stone.”262 Or people compare this situation with the image of a cither player, based on the verse: “When the cither player played, the Spirit of God came upon him” (2 Kgs. 3:15). The Maggid of Mezzeritch explained this as follows: “As long as a man is self-active, he is incapable of receiving the influence of the Holy Spirit; for this purpose he must hold himself like an instrument in a purely passive state. The meaning of the passage is therefore this. When the minstrel (ha-menaggen, the servant of God) becomes like his instrument (ke-naggen), then the Spirit of God comes upon him.”263 3. Mystical union. The mystical union is a shift of the act-center as a result of which the I can no longer control God as object because the subject-object relation itself has been annihilated. When Moses, the prototype of the mystic, reached the top of the mountain and from a distance saw the cloud of darkness – “The place where he is” – he had done everything he could. Dionysius continues:

260

Johann Tauler, Predigten 77, (Ed. G. Hofmann), Freiburg etc., 1961. Cited in: J. Huls, De extase van de Minne – Beatrijs van Nazaret, in: Speling 49 (1997) no. 2, 40. 262 Maggid of Mezzeritch, ’Or ha-emeth, cited in: J. Weiss, Via Passiva in Early Hasidism, in: Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism, (Ed. D. Goldstein), Oxford 1985, 74. 263 Cited in: J. Weiss, ibid., 71. 261

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH Then he [Moses] breaks free of them, away from what sees and is seen, and he plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united by a completely unknowing inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.264

What was it that Moses broke free from? Not of things, for he had already purged himself of things during his ascent of the mountain. “Things” no longer existed. There was only still the darkness which he is now facing. What Moses as the knower of mysticism leaves behind is seeing itself: the distance between “seeing” and “the seen.” The mystic enters the dark cloud by leaving behind “the seeing” and “the seen,” thereby being immersed in the darkness of sight-lessness.265 This is the moment of union: the moment at which the shift of the act-center into God liberates the mystic from seeing itself as subject-object-relation. Now the soul is plunged into the abyss of Love (Minne): “Then it feels how all its senses are sanctified in Love, its will has become Love, and the soul is plunged and swallowed up in the abyss of Love and has itself totally become Love.”266 The yearning of Love has transformed the yearning of the soul; the touch of Love is the touch of the soul. The soul is consumed by Love. The beauty of Love (de Minne) has eaten it up: the power of Love has consumed it; the sweet taste of Love has “downed” it; the greatness of Love has swallowed it up; the nobility of Love has embraced it; the purity of Love has adorned it; the highness of Love has elevated it and united itself with it, so that it has to belong with its entire self to Love and can devote itself to nothing other than Love.267

This immersion in Love finally becomes a song of jubilation. This is strikingly described in merkawa-mysticism.268 After thorough preparation the mystic ventures on his journey. The road takes him past rigorously guarded gates. As the journey advances, it becomes more difficult. The traveler increasingly exposes himself to danger. Countless angels stand ready in the palace halls to oppose the traveler’s further journey with all their might. In the sixth heavenly palace enormous masses of water come down on the traveler. He can no longer maintain 264

Dionysius the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology, op. cit., 135-141, esp. 137. For this interpretation, see Pseudo-Dionysius de Areopagiet, Over mystieke theologie, (Trans & Comm. B. Schomakers), Kampen 1990, 146-175. 266 Cited in J. Huls, ibid., 41. 267 Ibidem. 268 For this form of mysticism of the Talmudic period, see: G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition, New York 1965; J. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkabah Mysticism, Leiden-Köln 1980; I. Chernus, Mysticism in Rabbinic Judaism, Berlin-New York 1982; N. van Uchelen, Joodse mystiek. Merkawa, tempel en troon, s.l. 1983; K. Waaijman, Toravroomheid in de Talmoedische periode, Nijmegen 1989. 265

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his footing in this bottomless space. The only thing he has to hang onto is the prayerful recitation of the holy names and uninterrupted singing. At last the mystic, going through the last gate, arrives in the seventh palace hall. Endless hosts of angels sing to the glory of the Holy One. Their hymns can be heard even in the most remote reaches of the universe. The mystic is carried forward by their all-pervasive song and taken up into the heavenly liturgy.269 In the singing, God and man become one: “The mystical union is sustained by the singing and brought about by it: it starts with the singing of the mystic, is accompanied and supported by the antiphonal songs of heavenly beings and reaches its climax in the self-disclosure of the deity which is similarly executed to a high degree in forms of language and song and gives new language and song to the mystic.”270 The core of all singing consists in the Name.271 Because God’s Name is song, human beings can be led, singing, into God and God can reveal himself in the people who sing for joy.272 The moment of union consists in that the mystic sings the song that is being sung: “The moment he stood before the Throne of Glory he began to sing the song that the Throne of Glory sings every day.”273 In this singing the merkawa-mystic is transformed into divine fire: “His flesh is changed into a flame, his arteries into fire, his eyelashes into flashing flames, his eyeballs into flaming torches.”274 4. The indwelling of God. Corresponding to the act-shift of the soul in God there is the indwelling of God in the soul. God approaches the soul as fire approaches wood: after dispelling the moisture from the wood, and making it black, dark, and malodorous, the fire in the end takes possession of the wood.275 God is “the fire that transforms the wood by incorporating it into himself.”276 Once the permeation with divine fire and the incorporation into the divine flame of love have become a reality, there is the immediacy of love: “You must know that the simple divine image that is imprinted in the soul’s inmost nature is received without mediation. The most inward and noble features present in the divine nature depict themselves totally and truly in the image of the soul, and neither will nor wisdom play a mediating role here (…). Here, without mediation, God is in the image and, again without mediation, the image is in

269 A. Altmann, Shire ha-qedusha besifrut ha-hekhalot ha-qeduma, in: Melita 2 (1946), 1-24; G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, London 1955, 40-79. 270 K. Grözinger, ibid., 306. 271 G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, 114. 272 See K. Grözinger, ibid., 291, 302, 326. 273 Heikalot Rabbati 25, 1. 274 3 Henoch 15. 275 John of the Cross, The Dark Night II, 10, 1-2. 276 John of the Cross, The Dark Night II, 10, 3.

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God.”277 The soul has been drawn into God and God inhabits the soul. The beloveds totally interpenetrate each other and at the same time remain completely themselves. Where the abyss of his wisdom is, he will teach you what he is, and with what wondrous sweetness the loved one and the Beloved dwell one in the other, and how they penetrate each other in such a way that neither of the two distinguishes himself from the other. But they abide in one another in fruition, mouth in mouth, heart in heart, body in body, and soul in soul, while one sweet divine Nature flows through them both (2 Pet. 1:4), and they are both one thing through each other, but at the same time remain two different selves – yes, and remain so forever.278 In mystical love the Deity resides in the soul, perfects itself, as it is in itself. In the mystical union the simple ground of the soul is one with the simple and solitary ground of the Deity who interiorly transcends its differentiation in three persons. This little town is so truly one and simple, and this simple one is so exalted above every manner and every power, that no power, no manner, not God himself may look at it. It is as true that this is true and that I speak truly as that God is alive! God himself never for an instant looks into it, never yet did he look on it, so far as he possesses himself in the manner and according to the properties of his Persons. It is well to observe this, because this simple one is without manner and without properties.279

Entry into the Deity in its is-ness lays bare the abyss of the human person where the infinite light is still present. “In the innermost part, where no one dwells, there is contentment for that light, and there it is more inward than it can be to itself, for this ground is a simple silence, in itself immovable.280 God and man reciprocally rest in each other and are themselves there. “Here God’s ground is my ground and my ground God’s ground. Here I live in my own as God lives in his own.”281 The essence of the Deity breaks through into the abysmal ground of the soul. “In this breaking-through I receive that God and I are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor increase, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things. Here God finds no place in man, for with this poverty man achieves what he has been eternally and will evermore remain. Here God is one with the spirit, and that is the most intimate poverty one can find.282 277 Meister Eckhart, Nolite timere eos, in: F. Maas, Van God houden als van niemand. Preken van Eckhart, Haarlem 1983, 79-80. 278 Hadewijch, Letter IX, in: The Complete Works, New York-Ramsey-Toronto 1980, 66. 279 Meister Eckhart, The essential sermons, commentaries, treatises, and defense, Sermon 2, New York-Ramsey-Toronto 1981, 181. 280 Meister Eckhart, op. cit., A Master Speaks (Sermon 48), 198. 281 Meister Eckhart. In The Best of Meister Eckhart, (Ed. H. Backhouse), New York 1992, 55. 282 Meister Eckhart, Beati pauperes spiritu (Sermon 52), in: The Essential Sermons, New YorkRamsey-Toronto 1981, 203.

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5. Contemplation. Even though the soul has drawn into God, into a fathomless abyss of not-knowing, this does not at all mean that it would have no consciousness in this mystical night. On the contrary, this fathomless not-knowing is filled with divine clarity. And still, our reason stands open-eyed in the dark, that is in unfathomable unknowing. And in this darkness the unfathomable brightness remains covered and hidden from us, for its overwhelming unfathomableness blinds our reason, but it enfolds us in simplicity and transforms us with its own selfness. And so we are unwrought from ourselves and wrought by God until we are immersed in love where we possess bliss and are one with God. When we are united with God in that way, there remains a living knowledge and an active loving in us, for without our knowledge we cannot possess God, and without our practice of loving we cannot be united with God, nor remain united with him. For if we could find bliss without knowing, a stone, which has no knowing, could also find bliss. If I were lord of all the earth, and did not know it, what would I stand to gain? And therefore we shall always know and feel ourselves tasting and possessing.283

This consciousness is a seeing without seeing, a feeling without feeling, a tasting without taste, as Catherine of Genua says: I see without eyes, grasp without understanding, feel without feeling, and taste without taste, neither form nor measure. Without seeing, however, I see such an entirely divine operation and power that all the words of perfection and purity I uttered are now seen by me as all lies and kinks against this truth and integrity. The sun which seemed to me so bright now seems to me so dark. What seemed sweet to me now seems to be bitter. For all beauty and sweetness, in the degree to which they are mixed with creaturehood, are spoiled in that way. If one then sees the creature purified and transformed in God, one truly sees it in a pure form. About such seeing that is no seeing one can neither speak nor think.284

This seeing is no knowledge of the object but a dialectical consciousness, a seeing from face to face. Because the soul is moved by God from within by God himself and not by herself, there is im-mediate knowledge: “The meaning of this is not only that He guided her in her solitude, but that it is He alone who works in her, without any means. This is a characteristic of the union of the soul with God in spiritual marriage: God works in and communicates Himself to her through Himself alone.”285 The face imparts itself in the encounter of love. This reality is beautifully expressed by John of the Cross in his Spiritual Canticle. O spring like crystal If only, on your silvered-over face, 283

John Ruusbroec, Opera Omnia X, Tielt 1991, The Sparkling Stone, 154. Cited in H. Blommestijn & L. Swart, Catherina van Genua, Nijmegen, 1983, 21-22. 285 John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle 35, 6. 284

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH You would suddenly form The eyes I have desired, Which I bear sketched deep within my heart.286

He explains this stanza as follows: “Love produces such likeness in this transformation of lovers that one can say each is the other and both are one. The reason is, that in the union and transformation of love each gives possession of self to the other, and each leaves and exchanges self for the other. Thus each one lives in the other and is the other, and both are one in the transformation of love.”287 Each lover brings out the splendor of the other in beauty under the concealment of the embrace. Let us rejoice, Beloved, And let us go forth to behold ourselves in Your beauty, To the mountain and to the hill, To where the pure water flows, And further, deep into the thicket.

John of the Cross interprets this stanza as follows: Let us so act that by means of this loving activity we may attain to the vision of ourselves in Your beauty in eternal life. That is: That I be so transformed in Your beauty that we may be alike in beauty, and both behold ourselves in Your beauty, possessing now Your very beauty; this, in such a way that each looking at the other may see in the other his own beauty since both are Your beauty alone. I being absorbed in Your beauty; hence, I shall see You in Your beauty, and You shall see me in Your beauty, and I shall see myself in You in Your beauty, and You will see Yourself in me in Your beauty; that I may resemble You in Your beauty and You resemble me in Your beauty, and my beauty be Your beauty and Your beauty my beauty; wherefore I shall be You in Your beauty, and You will be me in Your beauty, because Your very beauty will be my beauty.288

In mystical experience the beloved discovers her beauty in God’s beauty and God’s beauty in her beauty in loving reciprocity, discovering each other in each other. In God’s face the mystic discovers the essential features of his own face, just as he discovered God’s eyes in the eyes he discerned in the surface of the crystalline spring, eyes that looked at him with great love. When a person permits and accepts that God looks at him with creative love and thus calls him to life, he discovers his own divine dignity and worth. (…) God, too, discovers his own beauty in the growing beauty of a human being. Because God looks at a person and the person in turn 286

Ibid., 12, 1 (B version) Ibid., 12, 7 (B version). 288 Ibid., 36, 5 (B version) 287

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looks at God, this person is transformed in God and is thereby made beautiful. God’s loving eyes, after all, lay bare our deepest essence, thereby simultaneously giving us a view of God’s deepest essence. Ultimately people discover God in themselves and themselves only really in God.289

6. Ongoing Impact. Mutual transformation in love effectuates itself immediately in the mystic. To that end he himself does not have to do or want anything. He only needs to yield: “the person who lives in communion with God and all that is has a rich, mild foundation which is grounded in the wealth of God, and therefore he must always flow into all those who need him, for the living fountain of the Holy Spirit is his wealth which cannot be exhausted. And he is a living, willing instrument of God with which God does what he wants, the way he wants.”290 The conduct of the mystic – whether he writes or accompanies people, performs manual labor or leadership functions – is inwardly sustained by the dynamics of mystical transformation. In the language of Eckhart: in mystical transformation the virgin receives the fruitfulness of a wife. A virgin who is a wife is free and unpledged, without attachment; she is always equally close to God and to herself. She produces much fruit, and it is great, neither less nor more than is God himself. This virgin who is a wife brings this fruit and this birth about, and every day she produces fruit, a hundred or a thousand times, yes, more than can be counted giving birth and becoming fruitful from the noblest ground of all – or, to put it better, from that same ground where the Father is bearing his eternal Word, from that ground is she fruitfully bearing with him.291

BIBLIOGRAPHY Andere structuren, andere heiligen. Het veranderende beeld van de heilige in de Middeleeuwen, (Ed. R. Stuip & C. Vellekoop), Utrecht 1983. BERSCHIN, W., Biographie und Epochenstil, Stuttgart 1986-1991. Biographie und Psychologie, (Ed. G. Jüttemann & H. Thomae), Berlin 1987. CHOOI, F., A Psychobiographical Approach to Interpreting Hagiography. An Exploratory Case Study of St. Francis of Assisi, Ann Arbor (Michigan) 1990. Deugden leven, Speling 48 (1996) no. 2. Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, (Ed. G. Pelliccia & G. Rocca), Rome 1974-1983. DUNN-MASCETTI, M., Saints, London 1994.

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H. Blommestijn & F. Maas, Kruispunten in de mystieke traditie, ’s Gravenhage 1990, 169. John Ruusbroec, op.cit., 180. 291 Meister Eckhart, Sermon 2: Intravit Jesus in quoddam castellum, in: The Essential Sermons, op. cit., 178-179. 290

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EDWARDS, T., Living in the Presence. Spiritual Exercises to Open Your Life to the Awareness of God, San Francisco 1994. Leven, getuigenissen, brieven van de heilige Antonius Abt, (Trans. & Introd. C. Wagenaar), Bonheiden 1981. MACK, B., Wisdom and the Hebrew Epic. Ben Sira’s Praise of the Fathers, Chicago-London 1985. Medieval Carmelite Heritage, (Ed. A. Staring), Rome 1989. Modelli di santità e modelli di comportamento. Contrasti, intersezioni, complementarità, (Ed. G. Barone et al.), Torino 1994. Models of Holiness, (Ed. C. Duquoc & C. Floristan), New York-Edinburgh 1979. Models of Holiness in Medieval Sermons, (Ed. B. Mayne-Kienzle et al.), Louvain-laNeuve 1996. NAHMER, D. VON, Die lateinische Heiligenvita, Darmstadt 1994. Nouvelle sainteté, La Vie Spirituelle t. 143 (1989) no. 687. Pourquoi des saints? La Vie Spirituelle t. 143 (1989) no. 684. Sainthood Revisioned. Studies in Hagiography and Biography, (Ed. C. Binfield), Sheffield 1995. SWARTZ, M., Mystical Prayer in Ancient Judaism. An Analysis of Ma‘aseh Merkavah, Tübingen 1992. Titus Brandsma herzien – herdacht – herschreven, (Ed. C. Struyker Boudier), Baarn 1993. Visages des saints, La Vie Spirituelle t. 143 (1989) no. 685. WOODWARD, K., Making Saints. How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn’t, and Why, New York 1996. WYSCHOGROD, E., Saints and Postmodernism, Chicago 1990.

CHAPTER 2 HERMENEUTIC RESEARCH INTRODUCTION 690 The praxis of spiritual reading, the basic structure of which is examined and explored here, constitutes the blueprint for hermeneutic spirituality research. 2.1. THE PRAXIS OF SPIRITUAL READING 691 Analysis of the praxis of spiritual reading teaches us that it occurs as a phased process in which the reader appropriates the text in stages and is transformed by it. 2.1.1. Forms of spiritual reading 691 2.1.2. Basic structure of spiritual reading 702 710 2.2. KEY MOMENTS IN SPIRITUAL READING The spiritual reading praxis has three key moments: the initial stance which attunes the reader to the text; the reading procedure made up of a number of interlocking moments (lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio); the ongoing impact of the reading process in life. 2.2.1. The reading stance 710 2.2.2. The performance of the text 713 2.2.3. Discerning meaning 716 2.2.4. God-relatedness 719 2.2.5. The mystical antiphrasis 722 2.2.6. The ongoing impact 726 2.3. A HERMENEUTIC DESIGN 729 The key moments of the praxis of spiritual reading we have explored yield a formal structure for the spiritual hermeneutic which is developed in dialogue with contemporary hermeneutics. 2.3.1. The preunderstanding 729 2.3.2. The act of reading 741 2.3.3. Critical analysis 746 2.3.4. Theological pragmatics 755 2.3.5. The revelation of the mystery 763 2.3.6. The ongoing impact 766 Bibliography 771

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Introduction All spiritualities have their traditions, whether transmitted orally or in writing: ritual texts, stories, proverbs, love songs, martial songs, and so forth. As a rule these traditions are gathered up in collections which are treated with special care and respect. They play a special role in lived spirituality. To foster the transformative impact of a text spiritual leaders develop ways of understanding and appropriating it: how one detaches oneself from everyday things to entrust oneself to the text; how one realizes the inherent thrust and power of the text; how one penetrates the text and learns to savor its deeper meaning; how one’s understanding has continuing impact in the practice of life. A spiritual hermeneutic which situates itself in the scientific tradition of phenomenology must thoroughly immerse itself in the prescientific reading practice of lived spirituality. That, accordingly, will be our first step in our hermeneutic design. How do people deal with spiritual texts – in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and so forth? How do they view them? How do they read them? What is their function for the spiritual way? Based on thorough reflection on this reading practice we arrive at its basic structure. The following elements will prove to be important: the initial attitude of the reader, the performance of the text, the interior of the text, the God-relatedness, the mystical dimension, the ongoing impact of the reading process. The second step consists in expanding our understanding of these basic elements of the spiritual reading process to gain a sharper picture of the initial attitude with which the text is read, of the actual reading procedure (reading, meditation, prayer, contemplation) and its ongoing impact in life. After that we take the third step: the design of a spiritual hermeneutic in dialogue with contemporary hermeneutics.

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2.1. The Praxis of Spiritual Reading The reading praxis of lived spirituality discloses, from a phenomenological viewpoint, the area of reality on which a spiritual hermeneutic is critically focused. The praxis yields the basic categories (text, reading, interpretation, sense, significance, ongoing impact, and the like) which, critically recaptured, constitute the coordinates of hermeneutic spiritual research. From the reading practice we selected four examples: three from the so-called book religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), and one from the Buddhist reading practice. The function of these examples is that of a phenomenological paradigm: they set in motion a process of careful examination and reflection as a result of which the essential elements of the practice of spiritual reading light up in the end.1

2.1.1. FORMS OF SPIRITUAL

READING

Although oral and written traditions play a role in every spirituality, their function in the spiritual ways differs. In some forms of spirituality the spiritual writings serve as a point of orientation on the spiritual road; in others they are a direct self-communication from God. It stands to reason that in the latter case such a spiritual writing is viewed as divine even in its form. Also the reading procedures handed down differ accordingly. Some emphasize the ritual performance, others aim especially at a mystical initiation. All these differences are phenomenologically important: their variation calls attention to the essential structural elements of the reading-and-interpretation process. 1. The secret meanings of the torah In the Talmud torah-mysticism is referred to as “the hidden things” (sitre) or the “secret meanings” (reze) of the torah (Pes. 119 a; Avot VI, Bar.). This torah-mysticism is embedded in the wider framework of the torah piety that has its roots in the Babylonian Exile (586-515 B.C.). Robbed of all their religious institutions (temple, liturgy, kingship, capital, country), the exiles discovered the value of their oral and written traditions. Yet it was not until the beginning of the second century A.D. that these traditions received their definitive place in Scripture.2 1 2

For this function of examples, see the introduction to part 1, as well as part 2, ch. 5.2.1. For this see J. Negenman, De wording van het Woord, Kampen 1986, 250-253.

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Torah piety created an important institution: the house of study. The roots of this institution, too, lie in the Babylonian Exile: the study circles which recited and pondered the stories, proverbs, prophecies, instructions and songs handed down to them, with a view to discovering the will of God there.3 In the disorientation of the exile the traditions were viewed as orientation, as instruction (torah) from God. After the exile it was especially Ezra (around 400 B.C.) who stimulated this form of piety: “He set his heart to study the instruction of Be-er, and to do it, and to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). It captured a fixed position for itself in the framework of the Second Temple. Around 200 B.C. the house of study was so familiar that without any further introduction Jesus Sirach can cry out: “Draw near to me, you gullible ones, and lodge in the house of study (bet ham-midrash)” (Sir. 51:23). The word “house of study” expresses the intention of the reading praxis very well: bet ham-midrash literally means “house of inquiry,” i.e. people assemble in this house to “inquire” into the instruction of God (Ps. 119:2, 10, 45; cf. 119:7, 12, 94, 155). Following the destruction of the Second Temple, torah-mysticism attained a high degree of flourishing in the rabbinical houses of study.4 The mystics among the rabbis searched for the divine core of the torah: the inexpressible Name. To them the whole torah was one unfolding of the Name.5 All the words, phrases, intentions, contents, indeed even the letters of the torah, were viewed as revelation from God. For that reason the reading of the torah was surrounded by an atmosphere of great care. One who began the reading of the torah had to prepare himself carefully: “Put yourself in a proper frame of mind so that you approach the Torah with due reverence and zest” (Avot 2:12, note 4). The most important condition was a proper lifestyle which had to surround the sanctuary of torah study “like a fence” (Avot 1:1; 3:13). The reading of Scripture had to be steady: “Make your [study of the ] torah [a matter of ] established [regularity]” (Avot 1:15). Gamaliel said: “Do not say: ‘when I have leisure I will study; perhaps you will never have leisure” (Avot 2:4). Instruction, in combination with work and communal prayer, had to be practiced unremittingly (Avot 3:2; 3:8). Gradually a reading praxis crystallized which was marked by specific accents. We will explore this reading praxis with the aid of the so-called pardes formula. PaRDeS is a an acronym consisting of the first letters of the words peshat, remez, derash, and sod.6 Peshat is the obvious meaning of Scripture. Remez is a 3

For the origin of the houses of study, see K. Waaijman, Psalmen bij het zoeken van de weg, Kampen 1982. For the background of the exile, see part 1, chapter 3.4. 4 G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, Princeton (NJ) 1987, 18ff. 5 Der Name Gottes und die Sprachtheorie der Kabbala, in: G. Scholem, Judaica. Studien zur jüdischen Mystik 3, Frankfurt a.M. 1981, 7-11. 6 Cf. J. Maier, Geschichte der jüdischen Religion, Berlin-New York 1972, 241; Pardes, in: EJ 13 (1971).

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hint in the text which points to a deeper meaning. Derash is the approach which inquires into the will of God. Sod refers to the mystery of the mystical sense. These four words indicate the four meanings of Scripture as the Jewish tradition developed them.7 The acronym was designed by Moses de Leon, the author of the main section of the Zohar.8 In 1290 he tells of having written a book named Sefer ha-Pardes. This book, which was lost, is said to have treated “the secret of the four ways to which the title, which refers to the four who entered upon the pardes, already points: peshat, remez, derash, and sod.”9 The acronym PaRDeS was chosen by Moses de Leon for good reason, for according to the tradition pardes meant the garden of mysticism: paradise.10 Moses de Leon sought, by means of his acronym, to place the four traditional ways of reading Scripture in a mystical perspective. He strikingly depicts this in a parable he tells in the Zohar. How many human beings live in confusion of mind,11 beholding not the way of truth whose dwelling is in the Torah,12 the Torah which calls them day by day to herself in love, but alas, they do not even turn their heads! It is indeed as I have said, that the Torah lets out a word, and emerges for a little from her sheath, and then hides herself again. But she does this only for those who understand and obey her. She is like unto a beautiful and stately damsel, who is hidden in a secluded chamber of a palace and who has a lover of whom no one knows but she. Out of his love for her he constantly passes by her gate, turning his eyes towards all sides to find her. She, knowing that he is always haunting the palace, what does she do? She opens a little door in her hidden palace, discloses for a moment13 her face to her lover, then swiftly hides it again. None but he notices it; but his heart and soul, and all that is in him are drawn to her, knowing as he does that she has revealed herself to him for a moment because she loves him. It is the same with the Torah, which reveals her hidden secrets only to those who love her. She knows that he who is wise of heart daily haunts the gates of her house. What does she do? She shows her face to him from her palace, making a sign of love to him, and straightway returns to her hiding place again. No one understands

7 A. van der Heide, PaRDeS. Over de theorie van de viervoudige schriftzin in de middeleeuws joodse exegese, in: Amsterdamse Cahiers voor exegese en Bijbelse theologie 3, (Ed. K. Deurloo, B. Hemelsoet et al.), Kampen 1982, 120. 8 Der Sinn der Tora in der jüdischen Mystik, in: G. Scholem, Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik, Zürich 1960, 72-84. 9 Cited in A. van der Heide, ibid., 148. 10 Tosefta, Chagiga II, 3-4; Palestinian Talmud, Chagiga II, 1, fol. 77b; Babylonian Talmud, Chagiga 14b-15a; also cf. Midrasj Sijr ha-Sjirim Rabba I, 4; for further variants see D. Halperin, The Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature, New Haven (CT), 1980, 86-92. 11 An allusion to Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed. 12 The reference is to the Kabbala. 13 Remez.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH her message save he alone, and he is drawn to her with heart and soul and all his being. Thus the Torah reveals herself momentarily in love to her lovers in order to awaken fresh love in them. Now this is the way of the Torah. At first, when she begins to reveal herself to a man, she makes signs to him. Should he understand, well and good, but if not, then she sends for him and calls him “simpleton,” saying to her messengers: “Tell that simpleton to come here and converse with me,” as it is written: “Whoso is a simpleton let him turn in hither” (Prov. ix, 4). When he comes to her she begins to speak to him, first from behind the curtain which she has spread for him about her words suitable to his mode of understanding, so that he may progress little by little. This is called “Derasha” (Talmudic casuistry, namely the derivation of the traditional laws and usages from the letter of Scripture). Then she speaks to him from behind a thin veil of a finger mesh, discoursing riddles and parables – which go by the name of Haggadah. When at last he is familiar with her she shows herself to him face to face and converses with him concerning all her hidden mysteries and all the mysterious ways which have been secreted in her heart from time immemorial. Then such a man is [99b] a true adept in the Torah, a “master of the house,” since she has revealed to him all her mysteries, withholding and hiding nothing. She says to him: “Seest thou the sign, the hint, which I gave thee at first, how many mysteries it contains?” He realizes then that nothing may be added to nor taken from the words of the Torah, not even one sign or letter.14 Therefore men should follow the Torah with might and main in order that they may become her lovers, as has been described.15

2. The Christian reading praxis To Jesus’ first followers the Jewish Bible was the Word of God that had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Along with this Messianic interpretation there arose a corpus of originally Christian texts: stories, parables, hymns, proverbs, letters, and apocalypses. These texts, too, were collected and understood as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:16). By the time that happened it was the beginning of the second century. At the end of it Tertullian was the first to describe this Christian collection as the “New Testament,” contrasting it with Jewish Scripture as the “Old Testament.” These two testaments together constitute the source of Christian spirituality.16 In the Christian praxis of reading we can distinguish two main types: the Alexandrian and the Antiochian mode of reading. The monastic mode followed especially the Alexandrian mode of reading.

14

Peshat. Zohar III, 99a/b. 16 S. Schneiders, Scripture and Spirituality, in: Christian Spirituality. Origins to the Twelfth Century (WS 16), London 1986, 1-20. 15

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The Alexandrian mode of reading. In the time of Jesus, Philo in Alexandria developed an allegorical mode of reading, with a view to showing that the spiritual sense of Scripture corresponds to the philosophical insights of Plato. Clement of Alexandria then constructed his “theology” on the basis of Philo’s thinking: via an allegorical interpretation we are initiated into the knowledge (Gnosis) of Christ. By way of Origen, Clement’s pupil, the Alexandrian exegesis profoundly influenced the Christian mode of reading [Scripture]. In his On First Principles Origen develops his threefold sense of Scripture: the literal sense, which ties in with the somatic human level (soma), pertains to the historical meaning; the topological sense, which ties in with the soul (psyche), pertains to the moral application; the spiritual sense that ties in with the spirit (nous) pertains to the ultimate meaning. Origen creates other divisions as well, but the starting point of his mode of reading is always the literal meaning of the text which looks out upon its full meaning: the spiritual meaning which transcends (kat’anagogen) the literary-historical (pros logon and kat’historian) as well as the allegorical-typological (kat’al-legorian). The Antiochian mode of reading. In the Antiochian school (Syria), which developed from about 380 A.D. on, scholars paid sharp attention to the literary aspects of the text, as this was customary in the rabbinical houses of study. This focus on the literal meaning at the same time implied attention to the historical dimension of the text. But, like the rabbis, they were convinced that the literaryhistorical meaning was not the end of the reading process. God was at work in the literary-historical meaning and expressed himself through it. They, too, wanted to attain to the contemplation (theoria) of the ultimate sense of the text. Consequently they were interested in the prophetic texts. The prophets, after all, sharply scrutinized current historical events in order, in them, to understand God’s future. Every word in Scripture is subject to prophetic pressure. Theoria, as exegetical method, sought to unlock the divine inspiration present in the literary-historical tissue. The monastic mode of reading. The monks devoted several hours each day to lectio divina, a meditative, prayerful way of dealing with Scripture.17 In the process they oriented themselves to the fourfold sense of Scripture which tied in with Origen’s mode of reading (not primarily with his theory) and was summed up by Cassian.18 A medieval couplet sums up this mode of reading as follows: “The letter teaches what happened; the allegorical sense what to believe; the moral sense what to do; the anagogical sense whither we go.”19 The essence of 17

A. Boland, Lectio divina et lecture spirituelle. III. La lecture spirituelle à l’époque moderne, in: DSp 9 (1976), 496-506. 18 John Cassian, Conferences 14, 8 (SC 54). 19 S. Schneiders, ibid., 15.

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the lectio divina has been admirably summed up by Guigo II, the Carthusian, in his so-called Scala claustralium,20 a letter to his friend Gervasius. For Guigo and for the tradition he represented, the reading of Scripture is “stretched out” between lectio and contemplatio. “The reading comes first”;21 it is “as it were the foundation”22 of the entire reading procedure. It is precisely as foundation, however, that its intention reaches further. “Reading seeks for the sweetness of a blessed life.”23 To reach this ultimate goal, it needs the “exercise”24 of meditation and prayer. To Guigo reading is a way one walks step-by-step. He regularly verbalizes the inner coherence of the steps. They are like the organically connected phases of a process. Reading is the careful study of the Scriptures, concentrating all one’s powers on it. Meditation is the busy application of the mind to seek with the help of one’s own reason for knowledge of hidden truth. Prayer is the heart’s devoted turning to God to drive away evil and obtain what is good. Contemplation is when the mind is in some sort lifted up to God and held above itself, so that it tastes the joys of everlasting sweetness.25 Reading seeks for the sweetness of a blessed life, meditation perceives it, prayer asks for it, contemplation tastes it. Reading, as it were, puts food whole into the mouth, meditation chews it and breaks it up, prayer extracts its flavor, contemplation is the sweetness itself which gladdens and refreshes. Reading works on the outside, meditation on the pith: prayer asks for what we long for, contemplation gives us delight in the sweetness which we have found.26 Reading comes first, and is, as it were, the foundation; it provides the subject matter we must use for meditation. Meditation considers more carefully what is to be sought after it; it digs, as it were, for treasure which it finds and reveals, but since it is not in meditation’s power to seize upon the treasure, it directs us to prayer. Prayer lifts itself up to God with all its strength, and begs for the treasure it longs for, which is the sweetness of contemplation. Contemplation when it comes rewards the labors of the other three; it inebriates the thirsting soul with the dew of heavenly sweetness. Reading is an exercise of the outward senses; meditation is concerned with the inward understanding; prayer is concerned with desire; contemplation outstrips every faculty.27

20 Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks. A Letter on the Contemplative Life and Twelve Meditations, Kalamazoo (MI) 1981, 67-86. 21 Guido II, op. cit., XII. 22 Ibidem. 23 Ibid., III. 24 Ibid., XII. 25 Ibid., II. 26 Ibid., III. 27 Ibid., XII.

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3. The Koran, the Word of God “The Quran is the origin and source of all that is Islamic, including, of course, spirituality and the Muhammadan grace and the whole of the spiritual path that emanates from the very Substance of the Prophet owes its existence to the descent of the Word of God upon the virgin soul of His messenger.”28 What Christ is to Christians, the Word of God who came into the world through the Virgin Mary, that, to Islam, is the Koran: the Word of God that took shape in the virgin soul of Mohammed. The prophet “assumed the nature of the Koran.”29 The Koran is the verbatim revelation of God, revealed to the prophet in Arabic by the archangel Gabriel over a twenty-three year period. The first verses were revealed to him in the cave of Hira on the Mountain of Light near Mecca, the last one shortly before his death. After a period of oral transmission the definitive text was set to writing during the time of the third caliph. The Koran constitutes the matrix of a process of spiritual transformation. Every action is permeated by it. One begins an undertaking with the words: “In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” One ends it with: “God be praised.” Everything is dominated by the phrase: “if God wills it.” The Koran constitutes the framework and inner architecture of the spiritual life.30 In addition it is its guide and compass. For that reason the Koran is also called Huda (guide) and Furqan (discernment). One who ventures into the Koran is filled with knowledge, not a purely conceptual knowledge but a familiarity which inwardly transforms the reader: “To know has meant ultimately to be transformed by the very process of knowing.”31 In the reading of the Koran one discerns two levels, based on the two dimensions in the Koran: the external and the internal dimension, a distinction that goes back to the prophet Mohammed.32 The external dimensions unfolded in the prevailing exegesis (tafsir), the internal dimension in spiritual interpretation (ta’wil). The spiritual mode of reading is internal because it understands the text in light of its spiritual origin (awwal). The prevailing exegesis is external, because it is directed toward the objectively available data: linguistic, historical, moral, and juridical 28

S. Nasr, The Quran as the Foundation of Islamic Spirituality, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 3. 29 This saying is attributed to A-ishah, the youngest wife of Mohammed and the daughter of Abu Bahr. See A. Habil, Traditional Esoteric Commentaries on the Quran, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations, 47 note 86. 30 F. Schuon, Understanding Islam, London 1976, 66-68. 31 S. Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred, New York 1981, vii. 32 M. Quasem, The Recitation and Interpretation of the Quran. Al-Ghazzali’s Theory, London 1982, 87; G. Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam. The Quranic Hermeneutics of the Sufi Sahl At-Tustari, Berlin-New York, 1980, 140.

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aspects. Islamic interpretation is intensively active in both modes of reading.33 We shall now concentrate on the spiritual mode in which we can distinguish four levels.34 The interiorization of the divine core. The Koran as a whole emanates from the divine Oneness of which it speaks. The core of the Koran, accordingly, is expressed in the verse: “There is no deity but God.” The oneness of God is the alpha and the omega; everything depends on the One with whom all things must be brought into agreement. Under the weight of Revelation the Word of God breaks into a thousand fragments, yet they all share in the spiritual Presence which broke them.35 The purpose of reciting the Koran is to completely recall and interiorize this One Reality. For that reason the Koran is sometimes also called Dhikr Allah: the remembrance of God’s all-embracing presence. In that sense dhikr can be called the main highway of Islamic spirituality.36 The act of appropriating the Koran for oneself is designed to make God the all-determining principle of life so that one’s entire biological and historical particularity is transformed into being completely God-oriented, a state which implies a transformation of one’s conduct and consciousness.37 At stake in a spiritual reading of the Koran, therefore, is not the disclosure of some sort of meaning-content, but the theurgical power which issues from the divine presence that pervades the book as a whole.38 Symbolic connections. The Koran points to the symbolic order of the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of humans. Both realities participate in, and refer to, the higher order of God. The Koran reads them as symbolic of God: proceeding from him as their source and referring to him. By way of example let us look at a verse from the Koran: “He has given freedom to the two seas so that they might meet; [yet] between them is a barrier which they may not transgress” (Sura 55/19-20).39 Usually the two seas are related to the spirit and the body or to the present or the future world. The seas, however, also refer to a river with sweet water and the sea with salt water. The sweet water refers to the rain and the sky, the world of the Spirit; the salt water evokes the bitter reality of the earth, the world of humanity. The place where the two seas meet is

33

A. Habil., ibid., 40-41. Ibid., 25-29. 35 F. Schuon, ibid., 44. 36 S. Nasr, The Quran as the Foundation of Islamic Spirituality, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations, 6-7. 37 A. Brohi, The Spiritual Significance of the Quran, ibid., 11-23. 38 F. Schuon, Understanding Islam, London 1976, 48. 39 We are following A. Habil, Traditional Esoteric Commentaries on the Quran, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations, 41-42. 34

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the rock where Moses and al-Khidr meet (Sura 18/63). Thus, by way of associations, a wide assortment of relations are posited which depict and unite the world of the macrocosm and the microcosmic world of humankind, a union mediated by the two important salvific figures, Moses and Elijah (al-Kidr). The symbolism of the Koran itself. The Koran does not only refer to things outside of itself but also creates an interior world of its own in which things represent a symbolic order of their own. When Moses was asked to take off his sandals (Sura 20/12), the spiritual reading interprets these sandals as symbolic of body and soul. Also words having several meanings can have such a symbolizing effect. In Arabic one term can refer to several realities. This opens the way for a mode of reading which can discern several spiritual layers of the soul in a single term. So certain external states of affairs can be read as symbol for a higher or more inward reality. The same possibility of differentiation is offered by the premise that two words can never be synonymous: their difference articulates a difference in spiritual level.40 The formative power of the Koran. Because the Koran is the Word of God that assumed form in the soul of Abraham, everything about that form is spiritually significant.41 This can be made clear by reference to three aspects. (1) The Koran is a world of sound. That is why it is called recitative (koran). The Koran begs to be recited. The first verse therefore begins with an appeal. “Recite!” This puts into words an essential aspect in Islamic spirituality: the spiritual significance of the Koran can only be understood if one realizes that in its totality it is a sonoral revelation.42 (2) The Koran is a written form. In Islam calligraphy is a sacred art which developed from the writing of the Koran text. Also the illumination of texts is inspired by the recitation and writing of the Koran. Calligraphy and the illumination of the Koran mediate the sacredness of the Word of God.43 (3) The letters have a spiritual value. The Koran as a whole and the words used in it mediate the divine presence. This led to a growing spiritual understanding also of the letters. Especially the alif, the first letter of the alphabet which occurs at special places in the Koran, calls attention to itself, because it is understood as a symbol of Allah. Not only the shape of the letter and its place in the alphabet, but also the numerical value of the letters constitute an object of contemplation.

40

P. Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, Beirut 1970, 117-156. S. Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality, Albany (NY) 1987. 42 E. McClain, Meditations through the Quran. Tonal Images in an Oral Culture, York Beach 1981. 43 M. Lings, The Quranic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination, London 1976; A. Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, New York 1984. 41

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4. Sacred texts as a way to Enlightenment Some Buddhist traditions say that the canon of sacred writings was fixed soon after Buddha’s death around 483 B.C. In fact, it took several centuries before the oral traditions were collected, edited, and recorded in writing. Several factors stood in the way of the rapid formation of a canon. For a start, there was a multiplicity of conflicting sources. Communities that were not represented at the First Council at Rajagrha held fast to their own traditions. Some collections were not closed, and some of these remained open till 1000 A.D. Furthermore, the voluminous collection of writings had a complex history of interpretation. Scholars tested a wide assortment of interpretive principles and designed numerous categories of division. Another factor was that great emphasis was put on the eternal truths (dharma) with respect to the plain and literal meaning. Texts were related to the basic nature of things (dharma) as Buddha discovered them and proclaimed in the four noble truths and the eightfold path.44 Another, and final, factor playing a role was that the eternal truth of dharma was not only revealed to Buddha but also to the buddhas before him and their disciples, as well as to Buddha’s own disciples and their disciples. In the course of this complex history of development there nevertheless gradually emerged a corpus of texts in which scholars as a rule distinguish three sections (pitaka): the sutras, the authoritative basic text containing Buddha’s instructions on the dharma; the vinaya, the monastic rules and discipline; abhidharma, doctrinal lists which, serving as a matrix (matrka), classified and undergirded the corpus of texts.45 In Buddhist spirituality the reading of sacred scriptures is shaped by two fields of tension, which, however, generate a third something (tertium quid): a layered reading process. The first field of tension concerns the many layers in Buddha’s preaching on account of the diversity of the listeners. The second consists in the relation between the text and the noble truths. The two fields of tension, however, have led to a reading mode in which the layeredness of the text and of the reader are progressively related to each other. Buddha and his audience. The Buddha taught in different ways. In this context he directed himself – in his language, his style, even in his doctrine – to the spiritual level of his hearers. Buddhist spirituality regards his diversity as an expression of the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha. In his mystagogic sensitivity he felt the spiritual afflictions and needs of mortals.46 Buddha’s texts mirror the different teaching settings. This fact does not produce a random chaos, however, for the people with whom the Buddha spoke at the same time represented the stages of the spiritual way. Thus several types of 44

For a description of Buddhist spirituality, see part 1, ch. 2.1. For this complex history, see L. Gómez, Buddhist literature. Exegesis and hermeneutics, in: EncRel(E) 2 (1987), 529-540. 46 Ibid., 536. 45

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texts and levels of meaning are differentiated. Texts which have a mundane and superficial “feel” to them: they arise from conversations with beginners and are intended for them. Therapeutic texts: they comfort pupils who still regularly relapse into unwholesome behavior and offer instructions on how to escape it. Personal texts: they make pupils conscious of their personally irreplaceable role in the nature of things. Finally, texts which directly communicate the absolute Truth for the enlightened. The text and Enlightenment. Buddhist texts are directed to the Enlightenment to which they refer and into which they guide the reader. They are, as a well-known proverb says, a finger pointing to the moon. The moon is always there, waiting to be seen (whether or not there is a finger). The finger is not the moon; it only points to it. This analogy strikingly illustrates the importance and relativity of sacred texts. Texts point to the dharma and lead into it. But the dharma itself exists independently of this preaching and eludes it. This raises the question: if the core of Buddhist spirituality is apophatic – since substance, the self, and possessions are not ultimate categories – can a language be found which reliably describes true reality from the perspective of Enlightenment? This difficulty (aporia) which cannot be solved on the basis of a rational logic is a familiar paradox in light of the process of spiritual transformation: that which, from a human viewpoint, ends in annihilation (nirwana) is this side of which the – nonorganizable – reverse side is Enlightenment (boddhi). Sacred texts derive their import from the paradoxical vanishing point: nirwana – boddhi. This import determines the direction of the interpretation and discloses in the text a specific spiritual layeredness which, in its crudest form, reads: there is a surface dimension and a depth dimension in the text. Reflection on the four noble truths and the eightfold path, on annihilation and Enlightenment, reduces the danger of becoming entangled in logical-grammatical operations which concern the surface dimension of the text, and enlarge one’s capacity for penetrating the depth dimension. This focus on the dharma is so strong in the Buddhist mode of reading that it has led to textual modifications. An example: in an ancient text it was stated that “from the night of his Enlightenment to the night of his departure every word uttered by the Buddha was true.” The mahayana reproduces this passage as follows: “From the night of his Enlightenment to the night of his annihilation the Blessed One did not utter a single word.”47 We here observe in the text a modification that is an interpretation: the Buddha’s true speech must be understood as non-speech, i.e. silence (nirwana). The focus on the dharma is sustained by “four points of support,” which are handed down as criteria for reading the texts: (1) reliance on the true nature of things (dharma), not on a person’s opinion; (2) reliance on the meaning, not on 47

Ibid., 531.

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the letter, of a text; (3) reliance on passages which explicitly give voice to the higher doctrine, not on texts which leave everything implicit; (4) attempt to understand [texts] by “intuitive realization, not by conceptual thought.”48 This orientation to the dharma is implemented in reading strategies. An example of a strategy reads as follows: Begin by reading genres and categories (literary forms and logical rules); then limit yourself to one of the genres; next, focus on the most subtle passages; concentrate on a single line of a verse; and, last of all, understand that the Buddha never taught anything. Reading as a spiritual process. We have seen that the multiplicity of Buddha’s texts, which is the result of the multiplicity of his listeners, invites the discovery of a spiritual layeredness in reading which in turn discloses a layeredness in the texts. We saw, moreover, that this layeredness is hierarchically structured: the highest layer is the dharma in the text; this is the layer on which the reading strategies are focused. The result is that the reading of texts is inwardly bound up with the stage in which one finds himself in relation to the dharma. The mahayana consistently states that only the highest stage of the Path is capable of understanding the highest level of meaning, which can only be expressed in apophatic language (nirwana) in which all discursive thinking has been appeased and from which all doctrines and practices have been cut off.49 This intrinsic bond between the level of meaning and the level of spiritual development was programmatically developed in tantric hermeneutics: the literal level (the superficial or mundane meaning) is for those who do not yet know the Path; the prevailing or generally known meaning is for beginners; the hidden meaning lights up for the advanced; the ultimate meaning (Buddha has not spoken) is for the enlightened. 2.1.2. BASIC STRUCTURE OF SPIRITUAL

READING

If we now think through the modes of reading described above, a number of key moments become visible that are characteristic for a spiritual reading. (1) A transition is made from daily life to reading praxis: the reader chooses an appropriate time and a good location, and assumes a correct posture; he is prepared to bind himself to the text, adapt himself to its order, and listen to its message. (2) One realizes the text as one reads, searches for its meaning and longs to be related to God who bestows himself in this longing. Generally speaking, this reading process is phased. We saw that most clearly in Guigo and the pardes-formula: the reading process starts with the reading (lectio) in which the obvious meaning lights up (peshat); in the material read, given the reflective attention of 48 49

Ibid., 535. Ibid., 534.

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the reader (meditatio), the interior of the text beckons (remez), a signal that sustains and orients the passion of the praying (oratio) and inquiring (darash) soul; this questioning prayer is at the same time the mode in which the mystical Secret (sod) is received and contemplated (contemplatio). (3) This reading has continuing impact on the identity and life praxis of the reader. We will explore the different key moments, meanwhile giving special attention to the articulation of the reading process. 1. The initial attitude Jewish spirituality surrounds the reading of the torah with great care. A wholesome life and a wholesome attitude to life constitute the “fence” within which the reading is performed. Christian spirituality, too, surrounds its reading praxis with meticulous care: the reading of Scripture takes place in a climate of attention and silence. In the monastic traditions the best hours of the day are devoted to the lectio divina.50 The right conditions secure the praxis of spiritual reading: making sure of the right moment and sufficient time, plus the necessary serenity and silence; an attitude of reverence and humility; the careful selection of a text; a willingness to entertain things that are strange and difficult; continuity.51 The initial posture, however, is not just defined by reverence and respect; it is also characterized by the right disposition, a fitting pattern of expectation, and the basic attitude with which one undertakes to read the spiritual writing. The name “Koran” instills in the reader that holy Scripture must be recited; the words “Huda” and “Furqan” instill in the users that it intends to be a guide on the spiritual way by means of which one can distinguish the way that leads to God from the way that leads to death. The term “Dikr,” finally, brings to mind that the Koran aims at the remembrance of God. 2. The performance of the text The Koran is a world of forms, of sounds and characters. That world is an expression of a profound religious experience in the soul of Mohammed. Those who seek to share the depth of this experience must appropriate this world of forms for themselves: reciting, singing, writing. The text exerts an immediate effect on the senses from without. That is why the lectio is called “an external exercise:”52 the reader “cleaves to the surface.”53 Guigo instills this reality by means of mental images: the reading “offers the surface,” conveys the “bunch of grapes” that 50

J. Rousse, Lectio divina et lecture spirituelle. I. La lectio divina, in: DSp 9 (1976), 479. E. Bianchi, God ontmoeten in zijn Woord. Inleiding tot de ‘lectio divina’, Brugge-Zeist 1991, 57-65. 52 Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks. A Letter on the Contemplative Life and Twelve Meditations, Kalamazoo (MI) 1981, XII; V. 53 Ibidem. 51

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still contain the “juice,” brings “solid food to the mouth as it were,”54 “furnishes the material”55 that calls for interiorization. The Zohar expresses this reality by comparing Scripture to a palace in which the bride lives and which her lover walks around looking for an entrance. Initially the palace only shows its windows and gates, its towers and ramparts. The bride does not yet show herself. In the first contact of the reader, all the senses are involved, also the imagination in which the field of meaning unfolds. This naturally unfolding field is what is called peshat56 in the Jewish tradition, the first letter of the four-letter word PaRDeS. 3. The internal dimension A spiritual reading does not stop after a first reading but continues to ask questions. It tries to penetrate to the core, the deeper meaning. Islamic spirituality looks for connections between the text and the realities of the macrocosm and microcosm. In addition it seeks to decode the internal symbol system of the Koran. In all this it is looking for the Source (awwal). We note the same inward movement in Guigo. Meditation seeks out the interior of the text. Therefore images are used to depict meditation, such as: “it digs (…) for treasure.”57 The “breaking of an alabaster box,”58 “the hammering out of metal on an anvil.”59 A frequently used image for reflection is “chewing the cud” (ruminatio).60 Cudchewers first ingest the food (lectio), then regurgitate everything in morsels. Those who meditate in this fashion return to a verse, a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph. The text fragment is studied from all directions by the intellect. “Meditation does not remain on the outside, is not detained by unimportant things, climbs higher (up the ladder, KW), goes to the heart of the matter, examines each point thoroughly.”61 This hidden truth is captured in several images: the juice from grapes,62 the treasure that has been dug up,63 the fragrant odor from the alabaster box,64 the water from the well.65 “Meditation [works on] the

54

Ibid., III; IV; XIII. Ibid., XII. 56 The word peshat is of Aramaic origin and derives from a verb that originally meant “to stretch out” and “to spread,” hence also “to explain.” 57 Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks. A Letter on the Contemplative Life, Kalamazoo 1981, XII. 58 Ibid., V. 59 Ibidem. 60 F. Ruppert, Meditatio-Ruminatio, in: Erbe und Auftrag 53 (1977), 83-93. 61 Guigo II, op. cit., V. 62 Ibid., IV; XIII. 63 Ibid., XII. 64 Ibid., V. 65 Ibidem. 55

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pith.”66 Setting out from there, we discover various connections. An inner structure emerges which spreads out from the points on which we have meditated: “Do you see how much juice has come from one little grape, how great a fire has been kindled from a spark?”67 Guigo compares this expanding field of meaning with metal that is “hammered out on the anvil of meditation.”68 The hammer used here is reason (ratio),69 which leads to “inward understanding” (meditatio secundum interiorem intellectum).70 It is a philosophical (wisdom-seeking) activity,71 an “inquiry” (inquirere),72 just as also remez pursues intellectual insight in the text, particularly when the literal interpretation is not satisfying.73 Before the bride gave a signal, the courting interpreter walked around the outside of her palace, looking at it from all directions, but to no avail. It was only by her signal that the torah opened up: “She gave him a remez of love.”74 One who meditates is circumspect.75 Such a meditator catches every signal and thoroughly ponders everything that stands out. It could, after all, be an unexpected hint at its meaning. 4. God-relatedness As the deeper layers of the text open up, one’s spontaneous involvement in the divine core increases until it predominates and gains actual control over the reading. That is why Guigo can say that meditation “leads” to prayer, which is “ignited” by meditation.76 “How could she have pressed her petition, had she not first been fired by meditation?”77 Prayer ignites in meditation: “In my meditation the fire of longing, the desire to know you more fully, has increased.”78 Meditation feeds prayer: “the more I see you, the more I long to see you.”79

66

Ibid., III. Ibid., V. 68 Ibidem. 69 Ibid., II; V. 70 Ibid., XII. 71 Ibid., II; V. 72 Ibid., II. 73 Der Sinn der Tora in der jüdischen Mystik, in: G. Scholem, Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik, Zürich 1960, 79; also cf. A. van der Heide, PaRDeS. Over de theorie van de viervoudige schriftzin in de middeleeuws joodse exegese, in: Amsterdamse Cahiers voor exegese en Bijbelse theologie 3, (Ed. K. Deurloo, B. Hemelsoet et al.), Kampen 1982, 139-142. 74 Zohar III, 99 a/b. 75 Guigo II, XIV. 76 Ibid., XII; XIII. Cf. VI and XIV. 77 Ibid., XIII. 78 Ibid., VI. 79 Ibidem. 67

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Prayer is the fruit of meditation: “if meditation is to be fruitful, it must be followed by devoted prayer.”80 This basic movement of prayerful reading Guigo calls longing (desiderium). He keeps returning to this longing: The soul is “consumed with longing,”81 and: “By these and similar groanings it increases its longing.”82 Prayer is sustained by longing,83 indeed, prayer is longing.84 This longing is spontaneous, being “on fire with love,”85 “sighs,”86 “tears”87 “beseechings,”88 thirsting,89 “painful lack.”90 This is the key in which prayer is written.91 Longing sustains the searching and asking of orativity: “Prayer asks for what we long for.”92 Longing reaches out to God asking questions: “Prayer is the heart’s devoted turning to God,93 a “devotion”94 that lifts itself to God with all its strength.95 This longing is the derash of the pardes-formula.96 In Scripture already, asking after God was the heart of torahpiety (Ps. 119:2, 10, 45; cf. vv. 7, 12, 94, 155). The torah and the house of study grew like coral deposits around this questing for God that longs for God’s speech.97 It remained the basic dynamic of rabbinical exegesis in the talmud and midrash right into the Middle Ages: the search for God’s speech in the torah, a speech that penetrates the situation of the reader in the context of the community of faith.98 Derash in the Zohar, accordingly, following upon the veiled hints and signals, is speech from behind the veil: “When her lover comes to her she

80

Ibid., XIII. Ibid., V, p. 71. 82 Ibid., VII, 73-74. 83 Ibid., VIII; XIII; cf. VII. 84 Ibid., XII. 85 Ibid., VI, 73. 86 Ibid., VIII, 75. 87 Ibidem. 88 Ibid., XV, 86 89 Ibid., V, 70-72. 90 Ibidem. 91 See A. Boland, Lectio divina et lecture spirituelle. III. La lecture spirituelle à l’époque moderne, in: DSp 9 (1976), 497-506. 92 Guigo II, op. cit., III. 93 Ibid., II. 94 Ibid., XIV. 95 Ibid., XII. 96 The word derash, like midrash and derasha, derives from the verb darash, which means to ask, to inquire, to seek from. 97 See K. Waaijman, Psalmen bij het zoeken van de weg, Kampen 1982. 98 For a historical overview see: D. Weiss Haliyni, Peshat and Derash. Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis, New York 1991; see also A. van der Heide, PaRDeS. Over de theorie van de viervoudige schriftzin in de middeleeuws joodse exegese, in: Amsterdamse Cahiers voor exegese en Bijbelse theologie 3, (Ed. K. Deurloo, B. Hemelsoet et al.), Kampen 1982, 127-136. 81

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begins to speak to him, first from behind the curtain which she has spread for him about her words, suitable to his mode of understanding, so that he may progress little by little. This is called Derasha.”99 This derash can become very intense: “Then she speaks to him from behind a very thin veil of a finger mesh, discoursing riddles and parables – which go by the name of Haggadah.”100 But it remains a veil. For the longing of the lover only permits the torah to speak words “suitable to his mode of understanding.” This is what distinguishes derash from contemplation. 5. The mystical dimension In torah-mysticism the core of Scripture is constituted by the indescribable Name which unfolds in a thousand ways: God’s Self-communication. Scripture is divine self-revelation. This is also true of the Koran: in the Koran, Allah expresses himself immediately in the virginal soul. In Buddhist spirituality the sacred texts are read down to and on the basis of the dharma; that is, they make the reader conscious of the impermanence of all things and as the solution take him to annihilation, which is the this-side of which Enlightenment is the reverse. In spiritual reading the perennial issue is the turnabout from the text to the nontext of divine Self-communication, the revelation of Enlightenment. William of St. Thierry articulates this point of reversal with the binomium of “word/voice.” The word consists of letters and syllables. It has a linguistic form. The voice, by contrast, is in no way a part of a system of referents. It is “purely affection” and “where it works it works only as it is.”101 The voice speaks through itself. It is self-communication. It is “face.” For that reason William of St. Thierry mentions the voice and the face in the same breath: the Bride longs “for his Voice, his Face.”102 The Zohar uses the same combination to indicate the Secret (sod): “When at last he is familiar with her she shows herself to him face to face and converses with him concerning all her hidden mysteries and all the mysterious ways which have been hidden in her heart from time immemorial.”103 Speaking from face to face is “the innermost soul of the torah, the real torah, that is the Source of everything.”104 This is the Secret (sod). In the word “secret,”105 therefore, the reference is not to esoteric knowledge but to the torah as the face of 99

Zohar III, 99 a/b. Ibidem. 101 William of Saint-Thierry, Super Cantica 141, the text edition of SC 82. 102 William of Saint-Thierry, Super Cantica, 147. 103 Zohar III, 99 a/b. 104 Ibid., III, 152 b. 105 Discourse about “the mysteries of the Torah” and the “hidden mysteries of the Torah” is rooted in Talmudic spirituality. See K. Waaijman, Toravroomheid in de talmoedische periode, Nijmegen 1989. 100

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God.106 This face touches the lover in the depths of his being and causes him to surrender: “Such a man is a true adept in the Torah, a ‘master of the house’.”107 The revelation of the Secret within mystical face-to-face intimacy eludes the objectivizing gaze. For the objectivizing gaze “the hidden mysteries” and “all the hidden ways that are hidden in her heart” remain hidden. For that reason contemplation is a knowledge that is concealed and revealing at one and the same time. “Revealing”: the Face reveals and communicates itself. “Concealed”: the Face in no way allows itself to be determined from without, not by the Beloved, not by outsiders, not by the surrounding world, not by the past, not by the future. The face only reveals itself in a face-to-face setting. The parable from the Zohar clearly shows how the torah completely expresses itself in the vis-à-vis: “She shows herself to him face to face and converses with him concerning all her hidden mysteries and all the mysterious ways which have been hidden in her heart from time immemorial. (…) She has revealed to him all her mysteries, withholding and hiding nothing.”108 This revelation concerns the whole Torah, its “body” and “soul,” even its “innermost soul.”109 After all, on the basis of its innermost self-communication (= face) everything becomes clear: “the sign, the hint which I gave you” and “the letter of Scripture to which nothing may be added and from which nothing may be taken, not even one sign or letter.”110 6. The continuing impact Reading the text is a spiritual process which leaves its tracks behind in the reader. In tantric Buddhism spiritual reading and the spiritual process are mutually related. We see the same thing in Guigo. A spiritual reading aims at the transformation of the cognitive and the affective level but, beyond that, also of the level of being. The layer of our existence that will be touched by the reading of the text is unpredictable. Certain only is that not a single level is excluded. It touches us wherever it touches us. Hence Jerome compares the reading of Scripture to “the hoisting of our sails for the Holy Spirit without knowing at which shore we will land.”111 This is a fine image for the reading of Scripture. There is first of all the hoisting of the sails. Every skipper knows all the planning that is needed to rig up a ship, certainly when it concerns a seaworthy vessel. Then there is the blowing of the Spirit: one can hoist all the sails one wishes, but when there is no wind, the ship will not move forward. The reading must allow 106

A. van der Heide, ibid., 136-139. Zohar III, 99 a/b. 108 Zohar III 99b. 109 Ibid., III, 152b. 110 Ibid., III, 99b. 111 Jerome, Commentaria in Ezechielem (PL 25, 369D). 107

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itself to be inwardly moved by the Spirit: the speech of the Inexpressible. And finally there is the place of arrival: the reading of Scripture touches the shoreline of life just as a ship reaches the seashore. The ongoing effect of the reading in ordinary life belongs essentially to the reading of Scripture. The Word of God is not pondered “with phrases but by fulfilling it after having grasped it.”112 The purpose of lectio divina is to transform the conduct of the monk in God.113 At the end of the Letter Guigo refers to this unbreakable link with the praxis of life: “So be chaste, be truly modest and meek, if you wish often to enjoy your spouse’s company.”114 In the tractate Avot we find the following pronouncement from Rabbi Elazar: “What does he resemble whose wisdom exceeds his deeds? To a tree whose branches are many and whose roots are few. When the wind comes, it uproots the tree and overturns it. But what is he like whose deeds exceed his wisdom? To a tree with many roots and few branches. Even if all the winds in the world come up and blow against it, it is not moved from its place.”115 The transformation in mystical wisdom and the works one performs on the basis of torah study must be in balance. We would instinctively view mystical transformation as the root. The peculiar sting in Elazar’s saying, however, is that he regards orthopraxis as the root and mystical wisdom as the branches. This need not seem strange to us because the core of the Jewish-Christian tradition is that human beings fasten themselves in God by their deeds (Matt. 7:21). Those who act on the basis of the torah build their house upon a rock; those who do not, build on sand (Matt. 7:24-27). Those whose conduct is transformed by the torah are like trees that cannot “be moved from their place” by any storm. In the rabbinical tradition the word “place” (maqom) also refers to God. By their deeds people arrive at their “Place.”

112

Origenes, Sur le psaume 118 v. 16 (SC 163, 81-123). J. Rousse, Lectio divina et lecture spirituelle. I. La lectio divina, in: DSp 9 (1976), 481. 114 Guigo II, op. cit., XI; also cf. XIV-XV. 115 Avot 3, 17. 113

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2.2. Key Moments in Spiritual Reading The first step on the road to a spiritual hermeneutic consisted in acquainting ourselves with the mode of reading practiced in the various spiritual traditions. We discovered that the praxis of spiritual reading is composed of several elements: the initial posture, both physical and mental, which draws the reader away from distraction and attunes him or her to the matter discussed in the text; the reading process in which a number of interlocking aspects together constitute a pattern: from reading to meditation, from meditation to prayer, from prayer to contemplation. This reading process leaves its trail in the reader who, having been transformed by it, returns to ordinary life. The second step, which we will now take, consists in studying in greater depth these key moments in the praxis of spiritual reading. 2.2.1. THE READING STANCE In all spiritual reading practices there exists a certain inner stance or disposition the reader has to adopt. In this connection we are not only thinking of measures for creating the right conditions (time, place, and the like) or of wholesome attitudes (reverence, awe, humility, and the like) but particularly of the deeper stance from which the text is regarded beforehand and from which the more concrete measures and attitudes flow. What is the stance the reader is deemed to assume? In Islam it is articulated by the names given to the Koran. We want to explore the field occupied by the reading stance from the perspective of the different names given to the Bible. 1. Sepharim: a spiritual library Our word “bible” comes from the Greek word biblia, which means “books” (sepharim in Hebrew). It was the most ancient and most widespread term for the Scriptures,116 the reason why Greek-speaking Jews used the term ta biblia. Thus, in the second century, Jesus Sirach refers to “the rest of the books” (Sir., prologue, 25). For the rabbis “the books” were sacred books as a matter of course. The plural “books” refers to the many scrolls needed to contain the text as a whole. In addition, however, it refers to the approximately forty literary units incorporated in the Scriptural canon: a small library which was accumulated 116

Dan. 9:2; Megilla 1:8; Gittin 4:6; Kelim 15:6; and so forth.

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over several generations but achieved its final form only after a lengthy process of canonization. The Bible constitutes the core of the library of spirituality. In Judaism this core is surrounded by oral traditions, which were recorded in the Mishna, Talmud, and Midrashim.117 Added to this, from the mystical traditions, were the Hekhalot literature and the merkavah tradition. New literature was added to this spiritual library by medieval Hasidism, the Kabbalah, Lurian mysticism and Eastern European Hasidism. In the Christian tradition also, the first ascetic libraries were grouped around the Bible.118 Commentaries, homilies, quaestiones with reference to Scripture, catenae, enarrationes in psalmos form the first ring around the Bible. Next, the order rules, the lives of the saints, the legends and books of devotion range themselves around these Bible-based meditations. As a result of the vast growth of the spiritual library Scripture itself was largely eclipsed, especially in the period before Vatican II.119 The council corrected this distorted development by putting Scripture back at the center.120 The Reformation developed its own culture of personal Bible reading, Bible study, and preaching around the Bible, a source from which flowed a specific spiritual literature. 2. Tenak: the law, the prophets and the writings Tenak is an acronym composed of the initials of the three sections of the Bible: the T of Torah (instruction), the N of Nebi’im (prophets) and the K of Ketubim (writings). The vowels have been inserted to make the acronym TeNaK. This name does not so much describe the entirety of the Jewish holy Scriptures dating from pre-Christian times but highlights the structuration of the collection. Scripture does not consist of an amorphous collection of books but is inwardly structured. (1) The core collection is constituted by the Torah (the five books of Moses) which enjoys immense authority. It is the guideline for life. (2) The prophets are grouped around the Torah: the former prophets (from Joshua through the books of Kings) and the latter prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve). The prophets serve as the first and most authoritative commentary on the Torah. (3) The outermost circle is constituted by the writings,

117 For the significance of the oral torah, see J. Neusner, The Foundations of Judaism. Method, Teleology, Doctrine, Philadelphia 1983-1985. This three-part work is summed up in J. Neusner, Foundations of Judaism, Philadelphia 1989. 118 J. de Ghellinck, Bibliothèques, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1591-1594. 119 See E. Hendrikx, De H. Schrift als bron van vroomheid in de loop der eeuwen, UtrechtNijmegen 1962. 120 See A. Boland, Lectio divina et lecture spirituelle. III. La lecture spirituelle à l’époque moderne, in: DSp 9 (1976), 506-509.

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a motley collection of literary works (annals, psalms, stories, proverbs and the like). These writings support the reading of the Torah and the prophets. 3. Ketubim: that which is written The term “holy Scripture” (kitvei ha-qodesh) frequently occurs in the early talmudic period.121 Among Greek-speaking Jews and in Christian milieus the designation “holy Scripture” (hai hierai or hagiai graphai) was used as well. People also spoke succinctly of “Scripture” (ha-katuf; ha-ketuyim),122 a usage taken over by Christians.123 The name “scripture” foregrounds a specific aspect of the Bible: it is something written, the perfect past tense of writing. In the literal sense of the word Scripture is prescription: written beforehand; recorded as example, imposed with a view to compliance or observance; prescribed as binding. Although this prescription arose from experience and aims at making this experience accessible, it has its own status: it institutes a spiritual architecture. The prescription precedes the experience. On account of this priority and the authority that attaches to these prescriptions, these texts are surrounded with special reverence and respect. They are called “holy Scripture.” 4. Miqra: to be read In the houses of study Scripture was appropriated orally. This was expressed in the term miqra which means “read out loud” (lit., to call out). In antiquity texts were read out loud to others.124 Whether in connection with self-study or recitation, the stage or a rite, private or public settings, texts were always read out loud. Augustine relates as a remarkable occurrence that when Ambrose was reading, “his eyes ran over the page and his heart contended for insight, while his voice and tongue were at rest.”125 Reading out loud was the normal way in which the text was performed till far into the Middle Ages. To read silently by oneself was an exception. In the Jewish reading culture as well, the text was “called out” (qara’), that is, performed out loud. As a rule this practice implied a circle of listeners. This is natural where it concerned a lecture or recital in a restricted circle or during a meal. But this practice was also followed in studying, and in the recitation of dramas on ritual texts. The reader and the text were always linked to each other amidst a circle of listeners. As a result questions and answers, 121

Shabbat 16:1; Erubin 10:3; Jadayim 3:2; 4:6. Pe’ah 8:9; Ta’anit 3:8; Sanhedrin 4:5; Avot 3:7-8. 123 Joh. 2:22; Acts 8:32; 2 Tim. 3:16; Mark 12:24; 1 Cor. 15:34. 124 See P. Müller, ‘Verstehst du auch, was du liest?’ Lesen und Verstehen im Neuen Testament, Darmstadt 1994, 15-30. 125 Augustine, Confessions 6.3.3. We are following the text edition: Augustine, Confessions I-III, (Ed. J. O’Donnell), Oxford 1992. 122

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exchanges and discussion, accompaniment and insight, were linked in a selfevident way with reading. 5. Torah: instruction Rabbinical scholars referred to Scripture with the words torah and nomos (the Greek translation of torah).126 This usage is rooted in Scripture itself, as can be seen in Psalm 119 where the totality of the biblical traditions is described, inter alia, with the term “instruction” (torah). This designation brings to the fore an essential aspect of Scripture: the word in which God communicates himself to humankind to point out to it the way to life. In the torah the divine-human relation is incarnated. God addresses human beings and communicates himself in this address as the way to life. Jews, and later on also Christians, expressed this reality with the word “testament” (berith).127 Scripture was understood as a covenant, that is, as God’s self-obligation in relation to his people (Gen. 17:1-11). Torah as God’s instruction views Scripture as a divine-human relational process: God communicates himself as instruction for life. Toward this the spiritual mode of reading advocated by Jews and Christians is directed: step-by-step the reader is led into Scripture so that God can fully express himself. 2.2.2. THE

PERFORMANCE OF THE TEXT

We saw that holy texts evoke a reading stance of psychosomatic participation: texts demand that they be performed (miqra, lectio, koran). Lived spirituality attaches great importance to the performance of constitutive texts, a performance that is understood somatically. The whole body participates in it. The intent is that the text will resonate as profoundly as possible in the psychosomatic structure of human beings, and that the field of meaning inherent in the text is communicated as intensely as possible. We shall explore the process of textual performance under the guidance of Psalm 119, a psalm which consists of 176 verses, which in relative independence from each other put love for the torah into words. The prayer string is divided in 22 stanzas in keeping with the 22 letters of the alphabet. Each of the eight verses of every stanza regularly begins with the same letter: the first with the letter aleph, the second with beth, and so forth. As a rule each stanza contains eight 126

See, for example, John 10:34. In the Jewish tradition people spoke of “the book of the covenant” (Exod. 24:7; 2 Kgs. 23:2, 21). Jeremiah uses “covenant” and “instruction” synonymously (Jer. 31:30-32) and “the book of instruction “ (2 Kgs. 22:8, 10) is identical with “the book of the covenant” mentioned above (2 Kgs. 23:2, 21). Jesus Sirach uses “the book of the covenant” as parallel with “instruction” (Sir. 24:23; cf. 1 Macc. 1:56-57). 127

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key words by means of which Scripture is variously described: instruction, testimony, caring, regulation, decree, address, commandment, and saying.128 Ps. 119 is an integral part of torah-mysticism and in an intensive way gives shape to it (see Ps. 1:6; Josh. 1:8). 1. The symbiosis between the reader and the text As we quietly read through Psalm 119 a couple of times, we can immediately tell that Scripture nowhere presents itself as a text by itself, one that is separate from the reading of it. The instruction, with all its synonyms, is continually bound up with verbs which refer to the performance of the text: the psalmist wants to murmur, say, repeat, or sing the instruction; he wants to sigh it out in order – deeply immersed in it – to be able to follow its innermost movements. He wants to observe and see it, put it into practice, remember it by steadily memorizing it; he does not want to forget it. This performance is sustained by a deeply emotional involvement: the psalmist feels a need for instruction and loves it, delights in it, celebrates it; he rejoices in it. “I am attached to your testimonies” (Ps. 119:31). The modality in which this symbiosis is realized is that of the world of sound. When the torah devotee performs the instruction, he does it acoustically: he softly and attentively murmurs the words of Scripture to himself (Ps. 1:2). Often the word “sighing” is used (Ps. 119:15, 48, 78, 97, 148), a pondering, deeply meditative mode of uttering the words of Scripture. It can also be done more exuberantly. Then the words are variously articulated musically and instrumentally (Ps. 119: 54, 164): “My lips move oozily in celebration, yes, you teach me your regulations. May my tongue mouth your promise; all your commandments are upright” (Ps. 119:171, 172). Nor is attention for the optical entirely lacking. The torah exists not only for one’s breath, voice, mouth, and ears but also for one’s eyes: “Uncover my eyes and I will look at the wonders in your instruction” (Ps. 119:18). 2. Resonances In the realization of a text not only the strings that are touched vibrate but other strings vibrate along with them. This resonance is expressly intended in the spiritual performance of a text. The petitioner of Psalm 119 cries out: “How caressing is your promise to my palate” (vs. 103). The murmuring of the words caresses the palate. This helps us to understand the prayer of the psalmist: “Teach me to taste and feel, for in your commandments I find solidity” (vs. 66). Sometimes the psalmist’s physical reaction is quite intense: “My flesh trembles before you; 128 For a more detailed exposition of Psalm 119, see K. Waaijman, Psalmen bij het zoeken van de weg, Kampen 1982, 117-162.

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your judgments fill me with fear” (vs. 120). The recitation of the instruction evidently strikes deep chords. It makes the heart tremble (vs. 161). A wide range of feelings unfolds: the psalmist is delighted (vss. 16, 24, 47, 70, 77, 92, 143, and 174), takes delight in (Ps. 1:2; 119:35), rejoices (119:20, 40) and loves (Ps. 119:97, 113, 119, 127, 140, 159, 163, 165). With all his affectivity he focuses on the instruction: “I open wide my mouth and pant, yes, I need your commandments” (Ps. 119:131). The recitation of the torah as such is experienced as a deep yearning for God: “My soul wears itself out for your deliverance; I wait for your word” (Ps. 119:81; also see vss. 43, 49, 74, 114, 147). This waiting is essentially an act of self-surrender: “I am yours (…) Your servant am I” (Ps. 119:94, 125). The psalmist’s desire is to live in Be-er’s word (Ps. 119:25, 28, 135, 156). This takes place in the midst of the congregation. It is an open acknowledgment (Ps. 119:62), a liturgy (Ps. 119:169, 175). “May the sayings of my mouth be your enjoyment, may the murmuring of my heart be before your face, Be-er, my Rock, my Redeemer” (Ps. 19:15). The torah is the fulfillment of his life; “his delight is in the instruction of Be-er” (Ps. 1:2). As a result of his emotional bond with the instruction, the petitioner gives the torah access to his innermost: “I keep your age-old judgments in mind (…). All night, O Be-er, I hold your Name in mind; I will watch over your instruction” (Ps. 119:52-53). The psalmist will never forget the instruction (Ps. 119:16, 61, 83, 93, 109, 141, 176). The torah has so deeply fixed itself in his inmost that it lights up from within: “The unfolding of your words gives light and makes even the gullible understand” (Ps. 119:130). In the performance of the sacred text openings arise which prompt a sense of a Presence which speaks to the human heart. For this gracious performance the psalmist prays: “Make me understand the way of your precepts (…); be gracious to me in your instruction” (Ps. 119:27, 29). At issue is a thorough enlargement of the heart (Ps. 119:32). The psalmist wants to be a place of resonance for Be-er’s presence. This realization (see also vss. 34, 95, 104) touches the depths of the heart that opens to Beer (Ps. 119:75; cf. the vss. 79 and 152). Now the torah gives direction to the course of life from within: pious persons are blameless in their way and walk in Be-er’s instruction (Ps. 119:1). That instruction is a lamp for their feet and a light on their path (Ps. 119:105; cf. 119:59). 3. The torah’s field of meaning As the text is performed and the readers’ psychosomatic constitution resonates to it, the world of the torah establishes itself in their heart and they themselves are led into the world of the torah. The world of the torah, which is instructive and life-ordering in nature, rises up before their eyes. Values present in the background are constancy and uprightness, deliverance and favor, encouragement and life. The torah’s field of meaning is the revelation of Be-er who, in the torah,

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draws near to the servants who exert themselves to interiorize the torah in all respects: learning, looking, questioning, understanding, watchful and cautious. The servant is not alone. The voice of the torah shapes a community of sworn devotees who fear Be-er (Ps. 119:63, 74, 79). They resist corruption, betrayal, and oppression (Ps. 119:22, 39, 42, 51, 53, and so forth). By the speech of torah a sphere of righteousness is marked off that must be protected (Ps. 119:22, 34, 69, 129, and so forth) and watched (Ps. 119:17, 44, 57, 60, and so forth). The torah is like a hedge around the life of the devout: “In the face of all evil paths I plant a hedge around my feet so that I may safeguard your word” (Ps. 119:101). Inside the hedge of the torah he feels safe: “I secure myself in your word” (Ps. 119:42). The “saying” of Scripture means survival: “This is my comfort in time of distress, for your ‘saying’ gives me life” (Ps. 119:50).

2.2.3. DISCERNING MEANING The lectio takes place in immediate contact between the reader and the text as the two reciprocally influence each other. In meditatio this reciprocal relation changes: a critical distance is observed and by way of analysis the reader now looks for insight into the various connections. The meditation seeks to discern the meaning of the text. Under the guidance of the paradigm of the psalms we explore certain dimensions of meaning which may arise in meditation. 1. The whole of the poem Some psalms, by their form, immediately evoke the whole of the poem. It is immediately clear, for example, that Psalm 136 is a litany: following every halfverse comes the cry: “For his faithful love endures for ever.” Alphabetic psalms immediately evoke the entire alphabet (see Pss. 25; 34; 37; 111-112; 119). Once we have seen through this alphabetic scheme we know that the poem will progress – per half verse, verse, or two verses – along the roster of the alphabet and that thereby a whole is created, even though we do not yet know how the parts relate to each other and what the meaning of the whole is. 2. The deeper meaning Sometimes psalms immediately indicate that a deeper meaning is involved. Both Psalm 111 and 112 are alphabetic poems and in such a way that in both psalms each half-verse begins with a new letter of the alphabet. The two poems are completely parallel in construction. In content, however, they differ: Psalm 111 is about God and Psalm 112 about the righteous person. It is precisely this difference in content, coupled with the formal resemblance between two identically constructed psalms, that invites us to look for the deeper meaning: the reality

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of God and the reality of the righteous person, while differentiated in the surface structure, are basically one. Be-er and the righteous person reciprocally reveal each other. A second example: in Psalms 9-10, similarly an alphabetic psalm, the alphabetic scheme is twice interrupted: the first time, where the mindless hubbub of the doomers comes up (Ps. 9:7c), the second time where the portrait of the doomer is drawn (Ps. 10:3-11). Where the doomer shows up in the psalm, the alphabet is disordered. In the interruption of the alphabet we witness the disarray caused by the doomer. 3. Texts and other texts Texts have their place beside other texts, comment on texts, are inscribed in texts, call to mind other texts. If we read Psalm 111 and 112 separately we find in the first psalm a song of praise to Be-er in creation and history, while in the second the righteous man is praised for his God-fearing conduct. But read together side by side, they recount, as we saw, that Be-er and the righteous person are two sides of a single reality. Neither one of the two psalms by itself conveys precisely that message. The intertextual reading situates the text in the broad expanse of a tradition. Read against the background of this larger traditional whole, the texts acquire a surplus meaning. Reading Psalm 119, we are led into the full space of Scripture as a whole, the reason being that this psalm is almost completely composed of quotations and allusions from the books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings. To those who are really at home in Scripture, a piece of Scripture is made to resound in each half verse. Consequently, to a good listener Psalm 119 opens up all of Scripture. 4. Historical setting Psalm 2 speaks of “my king on Zion” (Ps. 2:6). Psalm 114 refers to the time “when Israel went out from Egypt” (Ps. 114:1). Psalm 137 situates itself in the Babylonian exile: “By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept” (Ps. 137:1). We encounter references to the Lebanon (Ps. 29:5-6), the wilderness of Kadesh (Ps. 29:8), the daughter of Tyre (Ps. 45:13), the ships of Tarshish (Ps. 48:8), Moab, Edom, and Philistea (Ps. 60:10), the cities of Judah (Ps. 69: 36), the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh (Ps. 80:3). The Psalms are obviously replete with shorter or longer references to geographical or historical situations. The historical setting is not only made present by certain references which refer to the larger history but also by certain “forms” which refer to a Sitz-im-Leben. It is astonishing to see, for example, how the different form elements of Psalm 3, which at first blush leave an incoherent impression, acquire their coherence from a temple procedure, which can be reconstructed on the basis of Deuteronomy. Other psalms as well (Pss 4; 5; 7; 11, and so forth) acquire a striking meaning in such an approach.

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5. Dialogical setting In Psalm 49 a wisdom teacher treats a notorious problem: the shocking experience of innocent suffering. The problem is stated in the I-form: “Unscrupulous people trample me into the dust and as they tread me underfoot they boast of their riches” (vv. 6-7). The answer proceeds in two phases. First, the teacher points to the inescapable fact that everyone, both the foolish and the wise, are struck down by death (vv. 8-13). Next he shows that the foolish and the wise differ in their dying: the foolish remain in it, while the wise hope for the hand of God (vv. 14-16). After taking these two steps he rounds off his argument by way of a conclusion: “Do not be overawed when someone enriches himself at the expense of others” (v. 17). He repeats the reason for this: the rich become fatally entangled in their riches and honor (vv. 18-19a). Then suddenly the teacher turns to his pupil: “And if you let yourself be taken in by the praises of men, you are precisely like them. Your death, too, will be deadly” (vv. 19b-21). This sudden turn forces the pupil to reread the entire argument as an exercise in self-reflection. Perhaps he spontaneously thought it was about them: those rich folk, those who are perpetually hungry for applause, the self-assured. At the end, however, it turns out that I could be among them. Their perspective on death is not foreign to me. This makes “me” unsure in my self-assurance. This is further reinforced by the fact that the death perspective of the rich (vs. 13) literally resembles “my own” (vs. 21). 6. The divine reality In the psalms, in many ways, we encounter the reality of God. Psalm 114 sings of God’s presence in creation. Psalm 136 situates both creation and history in the light of God’s generous love. Ps. 119 celebrates, for 176 verses, the instruction of Be-er. Ps. 37 treats three cases of appalling injustice and offers instructions on how to deal with it from God’s perspective. The psalms are one single unfolding of the reality of God. And even these unfoldings are further unfolded. The very brief Ps. 117, for example, picks up the familiar motif: “For his faithfulness is never-ending.” But here the motif is not celebrated by repetition but by a double variation of the motif: the “unendingness” of God’s loving-kindness is bound up with God’s constancy and God’s favor is so enlarged that it is too great for the human faculty of understanding. Several psalms ring the changes on the Name Be-er (see, for example, Pss. 8, 115, and 148) but the manner in which Ps. 34 unfolds the name is unique. After an opening in which the community is summoned to celebrate the name “altogether-as-one” (vv. 2-4) the Name unfolds its operation in two parts: person and community, past and future, receptivity and commitment, prayer and remembrance all work together here to unfold the significance of the one Name. And all this within the framework of the alphabet!

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God is the omnipresent one in the psalms. He is the helper in cases of injustice and corruption (Pss. 5; 7; 17; 26; 27 and so on), deliverance in oppression and humiliation (Pss. 12; 28; 44; 52; 56; and so on). He makes his people strong in the face of occupation and collaboration (Pss. 14; 53; 124; 147; 169), builds up families (Ps. 127; 128), grounds Zion (Ps. 87), leads his people (Ps. 98; 100), avenges Jerusalem (Ps. 137). He sits enthroned in heaven (Ps. 2:7; 11:4), over the upper ocean (Ps. 29:10), on Zion (Ps. 65:2), rides through the steppe (Ps. 68:5), clothes himself in the light as in a mantle (Ps. 104:2), is exalted on high (Ps. 47;10). God ensures humaneness: he is called righteous (Ps. 11:7), good (Ps. 73:1), tender and faithful (Ps. 86:15), gracious and tender (Ps. 116:5; he has a face (Ps. 42-43), eyes (Ps. 11), a voice (Ps. 29), and a form (Ps. 11). 2.2.4. GOD-RELATEDNESS In his Mathnawi Rumi describes how the mystic Daqúqí, in leading in prayer, became one with the people. He continues: “When they found each other in the words ‘God is great’ they disappeared from this world as sacrifices. The words ‘God is great’ here mean: ‘We became sacrifices for You, O God.’”129 In the prayer the words evidently change in meaning: the words “God is great,” which, apart from a context, are positive and conceptual, gain another meaning in prayer: “We became sacrifices for You, O God.” The engagement with God (oratio, derash) transforms speech that is focused on content (semantics) into a dialogical meaning (pragmatics). Speech about God concerns the divine-human relational field in terms of content: God plays a role in the story of creation and history; pronouncements are made about his attributes; God is conceptualized in the image of a king, a master, a host; he dwells in the sanctuary; he gave his torah; he is the Living One. These modes of speech depict the divine-human polarity in terms of content. The uniqueness of the Psalms, however, consist in that they transform this content-focused speech into a dialogical mode of engagement. We will elucidate these transformations with the aid of seven examples, again from the Psalms. 1. Personal life stories In the Psalms we encounter several stories or story fragments. They are couched in the “I”-style: someone is rescued from the abyss of death, from the hand of an enemy, from a deadly illness, receives a pardon for his crime, and doomers are punished. In the psalms these stories are given the import of prayer: the 129 Cf. Rumi, Mathnawi-yi ma’nawi III, 2140ff. These are following the text of R. Nicholson, Mathnawi, London 1925-1940.

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story is sustained by the acknowledgment of God’s working (Ps. 107:116; 118). His saving presence is valued and extolled (Ps. 30), celebrated (Pss. 18:5-20; 22:22-32; 34:2-8, 16-22), and blessed (Pss. 66:16-20; 20; 103). The line his hand drew in a given life is highlighted as an example and offered for intensive imitation (Pss. 32; 40; 41). God’s chastising hand makes one gentle, quiet, and moves one to surrender and adoration (Ps. 37). 2. Credo Scripture contains no sharply defined creed. It contains a wide variety of pronouncements about God: Be-er is the One (Deut. 6:4-5), the Holy One (Lev. 11:45; Isa. 6:3), the One-who-is-there (Exod. 3:13), the Mighty One (Exod. 3:15) and so forth. Among these pronouncements about God there is One that we regularly encounter in Israel’s history: “Mighty One, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod. 34:6).130 In the variations which this pronouncement assumed in the course of time we can clearly show the pragmatics at work in a text: in the prophet Joel it has an admonitory meaning (Joel 2:13), in the story of Jonah it has an offensive and defiant meaning (Jonah 4:2), and in Chronicles it functions as the foundation for the people’s return from exile (2 Chron. 30:9). The Psalms, on the other hand, lay bare the orative dimension: they impart to this pronouncement of faith a supplicatory (Ps 86), a benedictory (Ps. 103), a confessional (Ps. 111) meaning and finally (Ps. 116) the significance of one who entrusts himself to God in love. 3. Be-er-of-the-throngs Be-er is the center around whom people (members of a procession, pilgrims, warriors) group themselves like iron particles in a magnetic field. Be-er was experienced as the center around whom the scattered and oppressed tribes thronged together. Depending on the orative dynamics of the psalm in question, the expression “Be-er-with-the-throngs” [“the Lord of hosts”] acquires the meaning of blessing (Ps. 103:21), acknowledgment (Ps. 33:6; 89:9), or celebration (Ps. 48:9; 148:2). The same applies to the Name of God: it can be sustained by pleas for deliverance (Ps. 59:6), security (Ps. 69:7) or restoration (Ps. 84, 4x); it can be an expression of a deep desire for intimacy (Ps. 84, 4x) and unshakable trust (Ps. 46), it is ardently affirmed by the people who close in around him in procession (Ps. 24:10), but can also be saturated with deep disappointment and recrimination (Ps. 44;10; 60:12; 108:12).

130

See N. Tromp, Harmonie van contrasten. Beschouwingen over Exodus 34, 6-7, Utrecht 1980.

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4. An exemplary life In Scripture we encounter “lives” that work as examples. The portrayal of Abraham and Moses, for example, calls for imitation. Rules of conduct, too, are more than a juridical code. They summon people to maintain a religious mode of life (ethically and ritually). Oratively, however, an exemplary mode of life can evoke several meanings: In a torah-devotee the way of God is called blessed (Ps. 1; 84; 112; 128); in such a person God himself is blessed (Ps. 144); someone may celebrate his own life as a way that is focused on God (Pss. 18; 71), as a struggle for God’s nearness (Ps. 73). Pious conduct is an expression of trust (Ps. 25), evokes recognition (Ps. 92), generates awe (Ps. 34:12-15), and serves as a basis for prayer (Ps. 26). Also dooming conduct unleashes orativity: it causes people to pray for retribution (Ps. 125; 129), prompts repentance (Ps. 51), makes one silent (Ps. 39), is a source of cursing and malediction (Pss. 58; 109; 139:19-22), arouses fear (Pss. 9-10; 36; 52) or sets intercession in motion (Ps. 69:6-13). 5. The Name The name “Be-er” is the “innermost speech” of the sanctuary (Ps. 28), the heart of Scripture (Ps. 119), the core of creation and history (Ps. 148), the inmost essence of wondering persons (Ps. 8). But even more than its content, the Name constitutes immediate mediation between God and humanity. It embodies the cry out of deepest distress: Be there! (Pss. 6; 54; 120; 143) and the shouts of joy of persons rescued: He is there! (Pss. 118; 124; 138; 142; 149). It places evil in God’s perspective: O, that it may perish as a result of its own dynamics! (Ps. 92; 125; 129). It is the operation of his blessing: May he be there! (Pss. 115; 134). It secures the people of God (Ps. 144), opens wide the space of God’s creation (Pss 8; 148) and his covenant (Ps. 131). The name gathers up into one all the experiences of humankind and unites them with the One (Pss. 34; 135). 6. Covenant faithfulness Outside of the psalms a series of three or four negatively formulated sentences marks conduct that adheres to the covenant. For example: “I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your commandments: I have not eaten of the tithes while in mourning; I have not removed any of it while I was unclean; and I have not offered any of it to the dead” (Deut. 26:14). More than a hundred times this accumulation of three or four denials occurs, especially in the commandments: “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another: (Lev. 19:11).131 In the psalms, however, these negations are transformed oratively. In Psalm 1 covenant conduct defined by negations is called 131

K. Waaijman, Psalm 15, Nijmegen 1995, 21-23.

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blessed as the imprint of God (Ps. 1:1). Psalms 15 and 24 transform negatively defined covenant conduct into an approach to God: finding refuge in him and dwelling with him, being his guest, ascending his mountain, inquiring of him, seeking his Face. In Psalm 101 reflection on a blameless way (negatively defined) is seen as an intensive form of hoping in God. Psalm 131 includes negatively defined covenant conduct in an open declaration of loyalty to God (also cf. Ps. 26:3-5), while in Psalm 44 the same covenant faithfulness is undergirded by complaints and indictments. 7. Death and life From its very beginning human life is exposed to the power and pull of death. Of themselves humans are dust: perishable, vulnerable, mortal. This motif has been researched at length in the wisdom schools. Just think of Job and Ecclesiastes (also see Psalms 39 and 90). Death gnaws its way into ordinary life in the form of disease, disintegration, and decay. In the psalms this death-thematic acquires orative significance. The evanescence of the earthling elicits deep groaning about our fate (Ps. 39:13-14) and makes us beg for mercy (Pss. 6, 90). The sense of our perishability makes us still (Ps. 39:5-12), fills us with awe (Ps. 90) and prompts us to expect all things from the Living One (Ps. 33). Throughout all our own mortality we feel the presence of God’s eternal majesty (Ps. 90; 102) and we marvel at the Mighty One who is concerned over such a fragile and perishable being as man (Ps. 144). The sense of death, too, can be transformed into a blessing to the Creator (Ps. 103).

2.2.5. THE MYSTICAL

ANTIPHRASIS

Rumi, in his Mathnawi, tells the story of the pious man who for nights in a row kept calling “O God!” This prayer, we are told, tasted sweet in his mouth. Then came the devil: “Your calling does not help much. God does not answer.” Sadly the man stopped praying. But in a dream Chidr appeared to him: “Why are you not calling any more?” “God does not answer,” said the man, “I am afraid he is rejecting me.” Then God spoke: “Your cry, ‘O God!’ is my call: ‘Here am I.’ In your sorrow and supplication I impart myself to you. Your desire to reach me is a sign that I am drawing you near to myself. The pangs of your love are my favor to you. The cry ‘O God’ is a hundred times ‘Here am I.’”132 Rumi here describes precisely what Guigo calls the mystical antiphrasis. An antiphrasis is a figure of

132

Rumi, Mathnawi III, 189ff.

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speech in which a word is used in a sense contrary to its normal meaning. For example, someone says to you: “You are the very picture of the hard worker” and means: “You are incredibly lazy.” Guigo has to talk about this figure of speech because he wants to clarify the transition from prayer to contemplation. One who prays reaches out with yearning. The Bridegroom does not wait for the end of his prayer of intense longing and reaching out. He sovereignly enters into the stream of this longing in order to penetrate the very heart of it. As the soul treads outside of itself in prayerful yearning, the Beloved himself enters the soul: “But the Lord, whose eyes are upon the just and whose ears can catch not only the words, but the very meaning of their prayers, does not wait until the longing soul has said all its say, but breaks in upon the middle of its prayer, runs to meet it in all haste.”133 Now, this interpenetration of two opposing movements (the going forth of the praying soul and the gracious entering in of the Beloved) is what Guigo calls a specific case of antiphrasis (nova est antiphrasis ista et significatio inusita).134 “Can it be that the heralds and witnesses of this consolation and joy are sighs and tears? If it is so, then the word consolation is being used in a completely new sense, the reverse of its ordinary connotation. What has consolation in common with sighs, joy with tears, if indeed these are to be called tears and not rather an abundance of spiritual dew, poured out from above and overflowing, an outward purification as a sign of inward cleansings.”135 When sighs and tears are “the heralds and witnesses of consolation and joy,” then two contrary meanings are domiciled in a single sign: “a new antiphrasis and an uncustomary meaning.”136 Guigo here introduces the figure of speech of the mystical antiphrasis in order to describe the mystical flip side of longing: that which means “tears of sorrow” from the perspective of the longing means “tears of joy” from the perspective of the Bridegroom’s coming. “When you weep so, O my soul, recognize your spouse, embrace Him whom you long for, make yourself drunk with this torrent of delight, and suck the honey and milk of consolation from the breast. The wonderful reward and comforts which your spouse has brought and awarded you are sobbings and tears. These tears are the generous draught which he gives you to drink.”137 God’s presence delineates itself in prayer. “To obtain contemplation without prayer would be rare, even miraculous.”138 On account of this antiphraseological connection between oratio and contemplatio Guigo can say that contemplation is “at it were an effect of

133

Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks, Kalamazoo 1981, VII. Op. cit., VIII. 135 Ibidem. 136 Ibidem. 137 Ibidem. 138 Ibid., XIV. 134

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prayer.”139 The yearning as it were wins the bridegroom: “Prayer when it is fervent wins contemplation.”140 In the words of Gregory of Nyssa: “The contemplation of God in truth consists in that the soul in its yearning never slackens in lifting up its eyes to him.”141 We will now explore two mystical antiphrases. 1. Absence as a form of presence Alluding to Jacob’s wrestling with the angel, Guigo describes the withdrawing movement of the Beloved: “Having given the blessing, withered the nerve of the thigh, and changed the name ‘Jacob’ into ‘Israel,’ the long-expected but rapidly escaping Bridegroom withdraws for a time.”142 This withdrawal is a mode of being present: “He withdraws as it concerns the visit we spoke about, as it concerns the sweetness of the contemplation. But he remains present as it concerns his guidance, as it concerns his grace and as it concerns the union.”143 Guigo then further elaborates these three aspects of presence-in-absence.144 Withdrawal as guidance. The movement of withdrawal keeps the soul on the track of humility and protects it from the derailment of conceit. Because the Beloved withdraws, the soul feels afresh what it had felt in its desperate longing, viz. “seeing that it cannot attain by itself to that sweetness of [mystical, KW] knowing and feeling for which it longs.”145 After all, the higher the heart elevates itself, the more God transcends it.146 The withdrawing movement effects a deeper initiation into our own impotence, which is the condition for the coming of the Beloved. Thus the Beloved remains “present as it concerns his guidance.”147 This accompaniment via the alternation of presence and absence comes splendidly to expression in the parable of the torah and its wooing lover. The torah lures the lover to itself in all sorts of ways. But the most important way is that “for a moment she discloses her face, then swiftly hides it again. And when she does so, she does this only for the sake of those who know and love her.”148 The torah attracts the lover to herself by a withdrawing involvement: “For a moment she discloses her face, then swiftly hides it again and disappears.”149 139

Ibid., XIII. Ibid., XIV. 141 Gregorius von Nyssa, Der versiegelte Quell. Auslegung des hohen Liedes, (Ed. H. Urs von Balthasar), Einsiedeln 1954, 15. 142 Guigo II, A Letter on the Contemplative Life, translated from the Dutch text, Tr. 143 Ibidem. 144 Ibid., X. 145 Ibid., VI. 146 Ibidem. 147 Ibid., IX. 148 Zohar III, 99a. 149 Ibidem. 140

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Withdrawal as a mode of instilling grace. Withdrawal instills the grace character of his coming, “so that having been sought, he may at last be found with greater thankfulness.”150 The Beloved withdraws because he is afraid that “you should begin to attribute this consolation [of contemplation KW] no longer to grace but to your natural powers.”151 Nature is that which flows from the soul itself, including its noblest aspirations. Grace is an event that happens to a person but does not originate from the soul. By withdrawing, “he remains present as it concerns his grace.”152 Withdrawal as perspectival expansion. Withdrawal keeps growth in union open, for the consolation enjoyed is “a mere shadow and fraction in comparison with the future glory that will be shown in us.”153 The consolation of the mystical presence, if it were never withdrawn from us, would make us believe that we have our eternal home here on earth.154 We would regard “this pledge our whole reward.”155 We would confuse a “shadow and partial image” with “the future glory to be revealed to us.”156 The withdrawing Presence is like the eagle that entices her young out of the nest into the broad expanse of the sky: “by flying above us with wings outspread he encourages [challenges, KW] us to fly.”157 The Presence that withdraws from us opens up the abysmal height, breadth, length, and depth of the union. The man “who has been raised above himself goes from strength to strength by this ascent on which his whole heart was set, until at last he can see the God of gods in Zion.”158 2. Infinite longing The divine touch occurring in the outgoing prayer of the soul draws the soul out of itself: “He makes the soul forget earthly things; by making it die to itself He gives it new life in a wonderful way.”159 The soul is drawn outside of itself in ecstasy by his coming. This ecstasy is described in terms of abundance: “the shining of the true light which our weak eyes cannot endure,”160 the “being immersed in holy tears,”161 “delight in the sweetness we have found,” “the dew 150

Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks, X. Ibidem. 152 Ibid., IX; see also XIV and XV. 153 Ibid., X. 154 Ibidem. 155 Ibidem. 156 Ibidem. 157 Ibidem. 158 Ibid., XIV. 159 Ibid., VIII. 160 Ibid., XIV. 161 Ibid., XV. 151

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of heavenly sweetness,” the “sweetness which delights and quickens.”162 The Beloved comes “sprinkled with the dew of heavenly sweetness, anointed with the most precious ointments.”163 This is the “anointing of the Spirit,”164 the “inner chamber of the Holy Spirit.”165 The soul is drawn out of itself in a contemplation “that outstrips every faculty.”166 A profound joy fills “those who have been raised above themselves.”167 This is the culmination of the reading process: contemplation occurs “when the mind is in some sort lifted up to God and held above itself, so that it tastes the joys of everlasting sweetness.”168 Everything is relinquished – “He makes the soul forget all earthly things: by making it die to itself he gives it new life”169 – while everything in it is at the same time received in a new way and in abundance. Reading on a contemplative level means to permit oneself to be drawn into the infinite and inwardly to yield to this movement. The Jewish mystic Isaac the Blind calls this “Thinking in the Infinite,”170 that is, a kind of thinking that so completely loses itself in the Infinite that it only thinks in and in terms of the Infinite.

2.2.6. THE ONGOING IMPACT “In short, the ancient monks demanded from lectio divina two qualities. The one was directed toward interiority and depth; the other to actual and realistic involvement in the spiritual struggle of every day.”171 The reading of Scripture exerts pressure in two directions: inwardly (personal interiorization) and outwardly (practical involvement; praxis). We will explore both dimensions. 1. Being personally touched William of St. Thierry, as we saw, makes a distinction between the “word” (the linguistic form of letters and syllables) and the “voice” (pure self-communication). The reading of Scripture is designed, through and past the “word,” to receive the pure self-communication of the voice. On the basis of the word-voice 162

Ibid., III; XII. Ibid., VII. 164 Ibid., VIII. 165 Ibid., XV. 166 Ibid., XII. 167 Ibid., XIV. 168 Ibid., II. 169 Ibid., VII. 170 Der Name Gottes und die Sprachtheorie der Kabbala, in: G. Scholem, Judaica. Studien zur jüdischen Mystik 3, Frankfurt a.M. 1981, 34-35. 171 J. Rousse, Lectio divina et lecture spirituelle. I. La lectio divina, in: DSp 9 (1976), 478. 163

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distinction William of St. Thierry comments on the verse fragment “Here, he there!” (Song of Songs 2:8) as follows: “Thus, on hearing the voice of the Bridegroom who is coming, the bride says: Here!; upon hearing the word of the one who is already present and speaking with her she says – as if pointing out the one present: ‘He there!’”172 As the soul considers it, the word has become present in terms of its content, a presence she can demonstrate. But however deeply this presence enters the mind, it always remains “He there.” On the other hand, the voice that is pure self-communication addresses the very heart of the bride. She cannot breathe a word other than: “Here!” The “Here” of the voice is the sign of the soul’s being touched. “She sees him come when she experiences the work of his mercy in herself. Pray tell, is his mercy toward us anything other than his goodness which comes to us in everything? The bride contemplates the Bridegroom’s coming to her with deeper and more personal insight into his love when in all sorts of ways she both effectively and affectively experiences his coming in her self.”173 The voice of the Beloved is the Self-communication which imprints itself in the soul. This is the reason why William, as we saw, mentions the Voice and the Face in one breath: the soul looks forward “to his Voice, his Face.”174 The Voice and the Face delineate themselves in the transformation they effect in the soul. Therefore every bride has only this desire; she therefore yearns only for this one thing: that You will press her face to your own Face in an eternal kiss of love. This means that she becomes one spirit with you in oneness of will. The form of your love is vigorously pressed upon the form of her life with the intensity of a great love. (…) When all this has come upon your bride, your dearest and fairest friend, O Lord, the light of your face shines out in her devoted soul and her joy is led in good channels.175

2. Love In his Christian Doctrine, a milepost in Christian hermeneutics, Augustine from the very beginning in Book 1 articulates his basic conviction: in the framework of the Christian faith, love for God and one’s neighbor is the leading principle in the interpretation of Scripture as well as the fruit of the reading process as such. Hence love is not only the alpha and omega of the process of interpretation but, additionally, the aimed-for effect of the entire reading process.176 Then 172

William of St. Thierry, Super Cantica, 149. Ibidem. 174 Ibid., 147. 175 Ibid., 131. 176 K. Pollmann, Doctrina Christiana. Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustinus’ De doctrina christiana, Freiburg (Switzerland) 1996, 121-147. 173

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in Books 2 and 3 Augustine unfolds fundamental insights in the nature of a sign (signum), where the hermeneutic principle holds sway that as thing the sign is perceptible (visible, sensible) but as sign refers to what lies beyond the senses (invisible, intelligible). Scripture is a sign: tangible as thing, but as sign it is that which mediates the intangible. Among other things, this implies that Augustine does not view the sign-as-thing sacrosanct.177 The most important point, however, comes in Book 4 in which a core insight from Book 4 is restated as inclusio: ultimately what matters is not the meanings discovered but the transformation of the reader. The reading of Scripture must discharge itself in and affect the personal life of the reader. The interpretation of Scripture, accordingly, transforms one’s spiritual life in two directions: the life is focused on the reading of Scripture as spiritual form and the reading of Scripture issues forth in life as being homiletically transformative.178

177 178

Ibid., 147-196. Ibid., 215-244.

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2.3. A Hermeneutic Design We have now taken two steps on the way to a spiritual hermeneutics. The first was to describe paradigmatically the reading praxis of lived spirituality and to think it through down to its basic structure. The second step consisted in exploring the basic structure discovered in terms of its most important aspects, thus gaining a precise view of the hermeneutic field as a whole. We learned to recognize the formal structures of the praxis of spiritual reading. These two steps constitute the blueprint for the third: the design of a spiritual hermeneutics that is guided by the formal structures of the spiritual reading praxis which have come to light as a result of our phenomenological analysis. Analogously to our analyses, we shall unfold the principles of a spiritual hermeneutics step by step, in constant dialogue with modern hermeneutics.179 2.3.1. THE

PREUNDERSTANDING

When, in the seventeenth century, the modern fictional novel was born, people did not know how they should read it. The genre was so new that people feared that reading novels would literally drive them crazy. They had the feeling they were becoming different people.180 Readers still had to find an appropriate reading disposition with respect to novels. They did not yet know what the text expected from the reader, nor what the reader had a right to expect from the text. Reader and text were not yet attuned to each other by way of a preunderstanding. This example makes clear what the rule is: even before we begin to read, we have a preunderstanding.181 Our interest is directed toward a preunderstanding of spiritual texts. Our analysis of the different names for Scripture has revealed that reasonable concordance is established between a reader and a text when the following ground rules are observed. (1) A spiritual text is part of an articulated structure. Such a structure must not be viewed as a monolithically closed block, but as an open collection of experience-based documents that have been tested by successive generations. (2) This collection is not only open in a material sense (a multiplicity 179 For a comparable approach, see M. Oeming, Biblische Hermeneutik. Eine Einführung, Darmstadt 1998. 180 M. Foucault, Wahnsinn und Gesellschaft, Frankfurt 1969, 378ff. 181 P. Rabinowitz, Before Reading. Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation, Ithaca 1987.

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of texts generates a multiplicity of texts), but above all in an intellectual sense: the game of interpretations constantly opens new perspectives in a non-confinable multiplicity of texts and again and again discovers new articulations in the structure of the collection. (3) The texts cry out to be performed. Not only is the space within the text manifested in the performance but also the differences in appropriation and interpretation (meaning-bestowal) come to light. (4) In their performance and interpretation texts form communities of listeners and interpreters. Texts are incarnations of dialogue: they generate solidarity and conversation, differences of opinion and understanding. (5) Texts call the attention of readers and interpreters to the subject matter they introduce for discussion. These are the aspects of preunderstanding we want to think through. 1. The constitution of the text The constitution of a text occurs the moment it delineates itself as a figure against a background. This background can be construed in various ways. (1) The text demarcates itself by way of a process of writing against a material background. (2) The text stands out against a stream of discourse. (3) The text writes itself in other texts. The text demarcates itself as texture. We can materially define the written text as a texture that has come into being by a writing process, stands out against a background, and has been produced or made available by a certain agency. We will briefly examine the main aspects. (1) Texture. By “texture” we mean an external “fabric”182 that is visual, auditive, or tactile in nature. A visual textual fabric is optically so structured that the signs stand out as figures against a contrasting background. These figures can differ in shape (handwriting, calligraphy, print, and the like), color combination (black-white, colored, and the like), and arrangement (page design, image area or margin and the like). An auditive textual fabric is acoustically so shaped that the signs stand out against a background. The signs manifest themselves in sound (alliteration, assonance, rhyme, and the like), form (repetition, tonal color, chiasm, and the like), rhythm (iamb, trochee, dactyl, and the like) and performance (a public reading, recitative, song, and the like). A tactile textual fabric demarcates itself by way of rises and dips against a more or less even background. (2) Background. Textures manifest themselves against a background or base. In the case of textures that manifest themselves in writing, we are talking about materials such as stone, wood, iron, papyrus, parchment, textile, paper, or screen. In the case of texts that manifest themselves in sound, the media are: the living voice (solo, choir, church congregation, and so forth); radio; disk, tape, and CD. (3) Text delivery. Readers who write or copy texts for themselves are a rarity. As a rule a text is made available by an agency 182

The word textus derives from texere: to weave.

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(publishing company, print shop, book store, and the like) or in public institutions (library, archives, and the like). In modern times it is textual criticism which sees to it that a text is edited and published as responsibly as possible. As a rule these text-critical editions limit themselves to the reconstruction of the so-called authentic text: the text that is as close as possible to the texture provided by the author himself or herself. More recent text-editorial insights define the critical texts more broadly, covering the entire life of the text-tradition in the field of tension constituted by the author, editor, copyist and printer, as well as by the public’s reception, in short, the entire history of the manuscript.183 The text as reading what was said. Levinas defines writing against the background of speech. He proceeds from the experience that a human being does not just speak, but “listens, amazed, to what he utters, where he already reads the utterance and interprets it, where the human word is already writing.”184 Why does Levinas call the spoken word “writing”? Because a person, when pronouncing the words, hears what he or she is saying. The thing said delineates itself against the background of the listening ear; the “flowing of the language”185 registers itself in the listening ear in metrical patterns. By their listening to the flux of the spoken language the thing said becomes a text fragment. The thing said is “writing” insofar it is written on the ear that reads and interprets. In the above quotation the word “read” is printed in italics: as the person speaks he or she gathers up (reads) what is said, he or she confers a rhythm on it, an inner measure, thus articulating it. He or she is writing on the parchment of the hearing consciousness. In the flux of the language a text segment delineates itself “in order to become text, as proverb, or fable, or poem, or legend, before the stylet or quill imprints it as letters on tablets, parchment or paper. A literature before the letter!”186 A text inscribed in texts. Texts delineate themselves against the background of other, earlier texts. Every text is the weaving over of a slumbering body of weaving that is again made current in a writing.187 Writing is the re-actualization of the culture-creating function of the memory, which keeps present through time experience that is genetically intransmissible. Writing is mnemo-technology.

183 See K. Ruh, Überlieferungsgeschichte mittelalterlicher Texten als methodischer Ansatz zu einer erweiterten Konzeption von Literaturgeschichte, in: Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Prosaforschung, (Ed. K. Ruh), Tübingen 1985, 262. 184 E. Levinas, Beyond the Verse. Talmudic Readings and Lectures, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994, xi. 185 Ibid., xi. 186 Ibidem. 187 Dialogizität, (Ed. R. Lachmann), München 1982; R. Lachmann, Gedächtnis und Literatur. Intertextualität in der russischen Moderne, Frankfurt a.M. 1990.

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To be a text is to be intertextual. All texts are present in a book that has been forgotten but that is partly re-actualized in the writing of it.188 2. Open spaces To write is to fix a graphic sign upon a more or less durable material (stone, metal, paper, parchment). This process of fixation, however, leaves behind a variety of empty spaces: “To write is always to omit, delete, and leave open a great many things. This comes to expression even in a purely material sense in the white strips of the margin, between the letters and between the words, but occurs in all the open spaces necessarily displayed in a text.”189 A first kind of open space originates where the author puts it in his text: The text is […] full of open spaces, voids to be filled, and its sender has foreseen that these would be filled and has left them open for two reasons. Firstly, because a text is an indolent (or economical) mechanism, subsistsing on the added signification attributed by the recipient. […] Secondly, because a text, where it exchanges didactic for aesthetic function, gradually chooses to leave the initiative of interpretation to the reader, even if it tends to require interpretations that are to a certain degree uniform. For a text to function it wants assistance.190

A second kind of open space originates where the writing frees itself from the author. According to a statement made by Plato in his Phaedrus, the text had been orphaned since its birth and cut off from its father’s assistance. The abandoned work presents itself to be reread and rewritten.191 The externalization in external signs which alienates the writing from its origin, however, is precisely “the mark of its spirituality.”192 A third kind of open space originates where the context withdraws itself from the text. In the writing of the text the linguistic as well as the nonlinguistic context is formatively present. From the moment the ink has dried up, however, the context withdraws itself. Yet the reader must somehow evoke a context, since he or she cannot read the text without a context. He grafts the old text into a new context. This necessarily implies that the reader gives rise to meaning and allows meaning to be lost.193 New worlds (linguistic and non-linguistic worlds) open up in the text. “Here again the spirituality of discourse manifests itself 188

E. Jabès, Das Buch der Fragen, Frankfurt a.M. 1989. S. IJsseling, Jacques Derrida: een strategie van de vertraging, in: Hermeneutiek in discussie, (Ed. G. Widdershoven & Th. de Boer), Delft 1990, 12-13. 190 U. Eco, Lector in fabula. De rol van de lezer in narratieve teksten, Amsterdam 1989, 69-70. 191 J. Derrida, Signatuur-evenement-context, in: De Schriften verstaan. Wijsgerig-hermeneutische en theologisch-hermeneutische teksten, (Ed. W. Stoker, B. Vedder et al.), Zoetermeer 1995, 218. 192 P. Ricoeur, The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text, in: P. Ricoeur, From Text to Action. Essays in Hermeneutics II, Evanston 1991, 150. 193 J. Derrida, ibid., 210. 189

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through writing, which frees us from the visibility and limitation of situations by opening up a world for us, that is, new dimensions of our being-in-the world.”194 A fourth kind of open space originates where the people addressed withdraw from the text. The text escapes the communicative situation in which it originated. The disappearance of the first hearer opens up space for every later reader. As a result of the absence of every specific addressee the writing becomes structurally readable;195 it is public: “Instead of being addressed just to you, the second person, what is written is addressed to the audience that it itself creates. This, again, marks the spirituality of writing, the counterpart of its materiality and of the alienation it imposes upon discourse. The vis-à-vis of the written is just whoever knows how to read.”196 A fifth kind of open space originates because the text is set out in signs next to and after each other. There is space in the signs, between the signs, in the margins. The signs are set apart in a “ribbon.” This is precisely what writing is: we constantly leave signs behind in what is past, while new signs present themselves from what is still to be written. No reader can escape, for as long as he or she reads, this set-apartness of the signs of the text. In principle reading is the act of gathering up: the still empty future of the text to be read unites the reader with the already full but gradually fading past of the text that has been read. This linkage is not expressed in the signs. It is an open space.197 The last kind of open space, finally, is not an indeterminacy in the text but the text itself as openness. This openness results from the fact that all figures in the text and the texture as a whole have the status of a sign. Though it is true that some letters in their basic form represent something (e.g. the Hebrew letter aleph was originally an oxhead) and some sounds have onomatopoetic properties (e.g. the “o” as expression of amazement or surprise), we still negate these notions, so that the graphic or acoustic forms become signs. They put themselves between the reader and reality and in principle call for interpretation. This is their nature and status: they are things that have to be interpreted. The fact that a linguistic sign has but a single function, viz. that it carries meaning and therefore calls for interpretation, is precisely the semantic openness which makes a text a text. The signifier signifies nothing apart from its capacity to generate meaning.198

194

P. Ricoeur, ibid., 149. J. Derrida, ibid., 216-217. 196 P. Ricoeur, ibid., 150. 197 W. Iser, The Act of Reading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response, Baltimore-London 1978, 113114. 198 M. Safouan, L’inconscient et son scribe, Paris 1982, 52. 195

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3. Scope for play in reading a text The text is fixed, yet in principle open. Derrida, describing this concurrence of what is the same and still constantly different, calls it iterabilité.199 Reading for Derrida is a game, not because it is purposeless amusement, or because of the rules of the game, but because for readers to really read is to lose themselves in the game. New differences keep surfacing between the signs and the meanings. Fresh starting points continue to prove possible and unsought means of help present themselves. Reading moves about freely and is not tied to a single target.200 This scope for play in a person’s reading comes strikingly to expression in the familiar line in Martinus Nijhoff ’s poem Awater 201: “Just read it: it does not say what it says.” [Dutch: Lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat.”] Read. The line [in the Dutch] begins with the imperative “Read.” Reading, on its most elementary level, refers to the identification of graphic forms. If an English-speaking person wants to read Hebrew, he or she must learn to distinguish Hebrew characters. To be able to read Latin, however, an American does not have to go through this learning process, for Latin and English employ the same Roman script. In the process of reading the text, we acoustically delineate the shape of the verse’s sound. We find that in the verse line of Nijhoff ’s poem the a-sound predominates, a sound that is consonant with the tonal color of the stanza of which the verse is a part: all the lines end with an a-sound. But nowhere else in the stanza does the a-sound predominate as strongly as it does in this verse. For the purpose of comparison, let us look at a few verse lines around it. [First I will cite the Dutch original so that the reader can gain an impression of the predominant a-sound; next I will attempt a prose translation of the words in English so that the reader may gain an impression of the – highly paradoxical – meaning. Tr.] Steeds zilter waait dun ratelend metaal. De schrijfmachine mijmert gekkenpraat. Lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat. Er staat: ‘O moeder, nooit zult gij de bontjas dragen waarvoor elk dubbeltje werd omgedraaid, Ever more saltily thinly rattling metal blows. The typewriter daydreams the talk of fools. Just read it: it does not say what it says. 199

J. Derrida, Signatuur-evenement-context, in: De Schriften verstaan, (Ed. W. Stoker, B. Vedder et al.), Zoetermeer 1995, 217. 200 See P. Chatelion Counet, De sarcofaag van het Woord. Postmoderniteit, deconstructie en het Johannesevangelie, Kampen 1995, 166-173. 201 For a number of interpretations of this poem cf. D. Kroon, Nooit zag ik Awater zo van dichtbij. Teksten omtrent Awater van Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1981.

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It says: ‘O mother, you will never wear the fur coat for which you turned each dime over.’

Just one line of verse, which occurs a little farther down, equals the strength of the a-sound: “Dit staat er, en Awater’s strak gelaat…” [“This is what it says, and Awater’s stern face…”]. But precisely here we are struck by the rhyme with our line of verse: er staat // staat er; wat er // Awater. [it (does not) say//it says; what it//Awater]. As a result of the a-sound the verse stands out sharply against the unaccented “e”s, “ij”s, and “u”s surrounding it: “Steeds zilter waait dun ratelend metaal. De schrijfmachine mijmert gekkenpraat. Lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat. Er staat: O moeder, nooit zult gij de bontjas dragen waarvoor elk dubbeltje werd omgedraaid.” The assonance (“sound rhyme”) of the a is reinforced by the consonantal rhyme: the repetition of the s-sounds (“lees, maar, er staat niet wat er staat. Er staat”), r-sounds (“lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat”) and t- sounds (“lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat. Er staat.” Metrically the line “Lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat” produces tension. The meter before and after this line is regular: “De schríjfmachíne míjmert gékkenpráat. (…) O móeder, nóoit zult gíj de bóntjas drágen.” The beginning of our line of verse falls outside of this rhythm: “Lees maar” – after which the meter continues: “er stáat niet wát er stáat.” A strict metrical reading would require us to say: “Lees maár, er stáat niet wát er stáat” (which reinforces the a-sound!). A tension-producing syncope which runs counter to the meter would read “Leés maar.” As a result the invitation “Lees maar” (“Just read”) acquires an exceptional position. Must both words be pronounced as being equally strong and equally long: “Leés maár”? Maar (“Just”). The second word of the verse is “maar” a short modal word that colors the imperative “lees” (“read”). How must we read this coloring? As a friendly invitation? An emphatic incitement? Is the incitement intended to persuade the reader? We will never get an answer to these questions. There are so many tonalities in which the imperative “Just read it” can be uttered: imploringly, demandingly, in a way that is calculated to slow the reader down, unctuously, and so forth. Er staat (“It says,” or: “it reads”). Following the imperative there is a half verse which contains the words “er staat” three times: “Lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat. Er staat:” Six lines further it occurs a fourth time: “Dit staat er.” What does it say? It says what it says in the printed words. It says what is audible in the sound and rhythm. It says what is literally intended. It says what resonates along with the words in my memory. In the gospels Jesus’ words and deeds are often viewed as the fulfillment of what “is written” (see, e.g., Matt. 2:5; Mark 1:2; 7:6; Luke 3:4 and so forth). In this respect it is especially the polemics between Jesus and Satan that stand out. In response to every one of Satan’s temptations Jesus states: “It is written” (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10). Satan himself tries to tempt him with a word from Scripture: “For it is written” (Matt. 4:6). For that matter, and in

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general, Scripture – as a sacred and authoritative text – is continually quoted and disputed at the point of “It is written.” Would holy Scripture come out of the typewriter? Er staat niet (“It does not say” or “read”). The middle part of the verse – “it does not say” – denies what it says. What does Nijhoff mean by this denial? Is he referring to the remarkable fact that when you read words you no longer see written characters? Or does the reading of the words not unambiguously disclose the meaning? Or does Nijhoff mean that the meaning cannot be determined at all? Is the ultimate meaning always a form of negation? An open spot? When we permit the above to impact our thinking, we finally no longer know on which level the two parts of the verse (“what it says” and “it does not say”) are speaking. After all, “what it says” can mean what has been typed in letters, as well as what it really says (but not in typewritten form!). The same applies to “it does not say.” This can be a negation of what has been written in typed form as well as of what is intended: “it is not stated here…” Hence there are two possible ways of reading the text: “Just read, it does not say in so many words what is meant,” and “Just read, it does not mean what it says.” For those readers who catch onto this double possibility, the text makes their head spin. It is not even unlikely that this is precisely the intent of the author. In that case the line tumbles the reader into ever deeper paradoxes. Obviously, we no longer know what it “says.” Does it “say” anything? It talks the talk of fools. Awater, the main figure in the poem that bears his name, works in an office. People there write “Arabic script in Italian,” i.e. numbers and letters. Dutch: In cijfers, dwarrelend als as omlaag, rijzen kolommen van orakeltaal. het wordt stil, het wordt warmer in de zaal. Steeds zilter waait dun ratelend metaal. De schrijfmachine mijmert gekkenpraat. Lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat. Er staat: ‘O moeder, nooit zult gij de bontjas dragen waarvoor elk dubbeltje werd omgedraaid, en niet meer ga ik op mijn vrije dagen met een paar bloemen naar het hospitaal, maar breng de rozen naar de Kerkhoflaan…’ Dit staat er, en Awater’s strak gelaat geeft roerloos zijn ontroering te verstaan. Hoe laat is het? Awater’s hoofd voelt zwaar. De telefoon slaapt op de lessenaar. De theekopjes worden teruggehaald. De klok tikt, tikt, slaat, tikt tot half-zes slaat. De groene lampen worden uitgedraaid.

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English: In numbers, fluttering down like ashes, columns of oracular language rise. It’s becoming quiet, warmer in the room. Ever more saltily thin rattling metal blows. The typewriter daydreams the talk of fools. Just read it: it does not say what it says. It says: “O mother, you will never wear the fur coat for which you turned each dime over, and I, on my free days, will never again go to the hospital with little bouquets of flowers, but bring roses to the Kerkhoflaan [cemetery].” This is what it says, and Awater’s stern face, unmoved, makes known his deep emotion. What time is it? Awater’s head feels heavy. The telephone sleeps on the reading desk. The teacups are being gathered up again. The clock ticks, ticks, strikes – ticks till half past five. The green lamps are being switched off.

In contrast to the adding machine, from which columns of figures rise up like oracular language, the typewriter produces the talk of fools. Why the talk of fools? Is it because the letters and the meaning bear no relation to each other? Those who read the letters the typewriter produces on paper do not see what they really mean, that is, what is really being said. For what is really being said (meant) is not typed out. It really says (but not in typewritten form): O mother, you will never wear the fur coat…” Nor will Awater’s mimicry help us further. For the real poem, the one that was not typed out, is written on Awater’s “stern face” which “unmoved, makes known his deep emotion.” A stern face which, without moving, makes known that which moves him deeply – an incomprehensible but poignant emotion that makes itself known without moving a muscle in a stern face! Again it is a sign that is only a sign, without ever disclosing its meaning. In the meantime, it is now five-thirty: the end of the workday. Or is the entire poem which follows [six printed pages long!] the explanation of this motionless emotion? Or is the emotion hidden in … what the poem – invisibly but really – says: “O mother;…”? What we have in writing is poetry! Is it Nijhoff ’s intent to challenge my reading habits: “It does not say what you think it says”? Instinctively we are inclined to think: there is no life, no spirit, in the office where Awater works. But the contrary is true: “As in a temple, people sit at a table. And what is being written is poetry?” Nijhoff challenges the reader to take a careful look at the invisible reality beneath the surface: “Just read what rises up from the adding machines

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in columns of oracular language. Just read what comes out of typewriters. Do not be misled by what you see in the way of letters and sentences. It does not say what it says on typewritten pages. It says: “O mother, you will never…” That is what it really says.202 In reality what it says is poetry. Nijhoff himself also had to discover this truth. Initially he saw modern culture as a wasteland. Gradually he discovered there was life in that wasteland. “When I walked through crowded streets or sat before my window in the evening, throngs of people began to roar like a river. I was as delighted as a thirsty desert traveler who hears the gurgling of water. I began to see that people do not live in the unreal little shanties on the edge of town which dotted the land like so many tents; they lived in offices, factories, hospitals, cafes, [railway and bus] stations, in all the places where masses of people were together.”203 4. Communication Friedrich Schleiermacher confesses: “I very often catch myself in doing hermeneutic operations in the midst of a friendly conversation.”204 This admission, more than any theory, gives us insight into the hermeneutical view of Schleiermacher which was later adopted by many other scholars as well: to interpret is basically to conduct a conversation. He therefore urgently advises the interpreter of written works “to be diligent in interpreting significant conversations.”205 One does not have to agree with him in all respects (Are poems not much less dependent on the author and his writing process? Are there no more decisive dynamic factors at work? Is such a method applicable to legal texts? and so forth) to see that the paradigm of conversation can be an important means of access to a layer of meaning in spiritual texts. Thus the attitude of a listening friend can be of service in reading Augustine’s Confessions, the Life of Teresa of Avila, and the Story of a Soul by Therese of Lisieux. A correspondence, too, could benefit by an empathetic understanding. If an interpreter is to really understand a text, he must – even aside from the grammatical, historical, and philological knowledge he needs to possess – be able to place himself in the author’s process of expression. He must be able to join in performing the writing process from within. In this he is “most successful in correctly interpreting an author’s process of drafting and composing a work, the product of his personal distinctiveness in language and in all his relationships, when the author is among those favorites with whom he is best acquainted.”206 In that light we must understand 202

M. Nijhoff, Lees maar, er staat niet wat er staat, The Hague 1959, 150. Ibid., 22. 204 F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics: the Handwritten Manuscripts, Missoula 1977, cf. p. 181. 205 Ibid., 183. 206 Ibid., 185. 203

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Schleiermacher’s statement “that the height of understanding is to understand an author better than he understands himself.”207 By that he means that “the finest fruit of all esthetic criticism of artistic works is a heightened understanding of the intimate operations of poets and other artists of language by means of grasping their entire process of composition, from its conception up to the final execution.”208 Dilthey takes over this idea: “Now if the interpreter makes an attempt to situate his mind – gropingly as it were – into a historical milieu, then he will be able for a moment to emphasize and reinforce the one mental process (that of the author – KW), push the other into the background, and so bring about in himself the reproduction of an alien life.”209 What matters is the ability “to sense the conditions of another’s soul,”210 what Husserl called “empathetic understanding”:211 to grasp through what is said the expression (the saying) of the inwardness of an act.”212 The reader can block the movement of an author in many ways: in the process of interpretation one can activate strategies such as self-defense and concealment; affirmative meanings can be overdetermined.213 At issue in all this is not only our biography but also our socio-cultural position.214 The spirituality of liberation makes us conscious of Western-rational and bourgeois-capitalistic biases. Black theology brings out into the open colonialist and racist traits in white preunderstanding. Feminist hermeneutics shows up the control exerted by patriarchal and androcentric mechanisms. For the rest, these emancipatory hermeneutics at the same time stress that the historicity of the reader is the only condition making possible his or her own reading: “The present is entirely in the reader’s eyes. Indeed, this is why the reader does not realize it. The present is not only that which is read, it is also that by which the reading is done. This

207

Ibid., 191. Ibidem. 209 W. Dilthey, Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens 1 (Gesammelte Schriften 5), Stuttgart-Göttingen 1957, 329-330. 210 Ibid., 317. 211 E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie II (Hua 4), The Hague 1952, 162-172, 231-247; cf. L. Wispe, Empathy, in: International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 15 (1968), 441; O. Ewert, Einfühlung, in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie 2 (1972), 396-397. 212 E. Husserl, ibid., 164. 213 N. Holland, The Dynamics of Literary Response, New York-Oxford 1968; N. Holland, Poems in Person. An Introduction to the Psychoanalysis of Literature, New York-Norton 1973; N. Holland, Literary Interpretation and Three Phases of Psychoanalysis, in: Critical Inquiry 3 (1976), 221-233. 214 For an overview: A. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics, London 1992, 410-470; cf. C. Mesters, Defenseless Flower. A New Reading of the Bible, New York 1989. 208

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fact is the condition of the possibility of any reading, not its obstacle, as historicism, or any other type of empiricism, would have it.”215 The art of reading consists among other things in understanding the intent (“saying”) of the “author.” Granted, the agency of the author has disappeared from the text, yet it has left its traces there. Belonging to it, among other things, are the hesitations and hitches, the allusions and implicit or explicit citations, abbreviations and blanks, silences and stylistic peculiarities, promises made and excuses offered, imaginary readers posited and intentions explained, and further also repetitions, summaries, examples, metaphors, and so forth. In short, the rhetoric of the text.”216 In the reconstruction of the communicative situation, accordingly, frequent use is made of rhetorical analysis, a form of research applied, for example, in the exegesis of Paul’s Letters.217 As a result we gain an overview of the manner in which Paul tries to persuade his readers to change their position and of the techniques of argumentation he employs to that end. Paul attempts to win assent and to that end “works on” his public with all sorts of stylistic means. He uses the diatribe, for example: in the form of a dialogue he attempts to refute the position of his adversaries. A careful analysis reveals the many (stylistic) means a given writing brings to bear on the author-reader axis: antithesis, word order, anacoluthon, repetition, metaphor, correction, discussion, captatio benevolentiae, reasoning a fortiori, a minore ad maius, ad absurdum, qal wa-chamer (if this is true for the lighter, how much more for the heavier), argumentatio ad hominem, irony, sarcasm, understatement (the important is represented as less important), proverb, aphorism, insinuation, euphemism, and so forth. 5. The subject matter Gadamer, too, proceeds from the paradigm of conversation: “Texts are ‘enduringly fixed expressions of life’ that are to be understood; and that means that one partner in the hermeneutical conversation, the text, speaks only through the other partner, the interpreter. Only through him are the written marks changed back into meaning.”218 But equally important to him, certainly, is the subject matter: At the same time, “in being changed back by understanding, the subject matter of which the text speaks itself finds expression. It is like a real conversation in that the common subject matter is what binds the two partners, the text and the interpreter, to each other.” Gadamer views hermeneutics as a conversation in which the partners discuss a matter of common interest in and through the development of a common language. The creation of that language, 215

C. Boff, Theology and Praxis. Epistemological Foundations, New York 1987, 141. S. Ijsseling, Jacques Derrida: een strategie van de vertraging, in: Hermeneutiek in discussie, (Ed. G. Widdershoven & Th. de Boer), Delft 1990, 13. 217 For an overview, see H. Welzen, Methoden in de exegese, Nijmegen 1996, 147-164. 218 H. Gadamer, Truth and Method, New York 1990, 387. 216

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the raising of the subject matter, and the realization of understanding are all one and the same thing. It is therefore “perfectly legitimate to speak of a hermeneutic conversation.”219 If this subject-oriented conversation is to succeed, the partners in it must necessarily develop a subject-oriented preunderstanding. This preunderstanding is the precondition for the emergence of the truth-and-values field that comes to expression in the text. It was especially Rudolph Bultmann who demonstrated how every interpretation of a text presupposes a readership that has an existential relation to the subject matter which either directly or indirectly comes to expression in the text.220 In the absence of such a relation one cannot pose questions to the text. Every interpretation of a text is sustained by a preunderstanding (Vorverständnis) that at the very least understands the category in question. This preunderstanding focuses the questions. The problem is that the so-called “intention of the text”221 only comes up when the proper preunderstanding exists. But which preunderstanding corresponds to the subject matter at issue? Is it a historical interest? A psychological interest? An esthetic interest? An interest in human existence? And do we know in advance which attitude fits a given subject matter? Especially in the case of spiritual texts it is not clear beforehand which attitude (Einstellung) must be dominant. Who can say which dimension of human existence is dominant when the text pertains to spiritual reality: the historical, the psychological, the aesthetic, the ethical, or the existential? However this may be, Bultmann correctly states that interpretation is effected “by the fact that they both [interpreter and author] have the same relation in life to the subject which is under discussion and so is open to enquiry (that is, to the extent to which they have such a relation), because (and so far as) they stand in the same context of living experience. This relationship to the subject, with which the text is concerned and so with reference to which the text is being investigated, is the presupposition of comprehension.”222 2.3.2. THE

ACT OF READING

In his book The Act of Reading Wolfgang Iser offers a phenomenological description of the effectuation of the text which is reading. He shows that in the process of reading it we are in the text and the text is in us. This symbiosis is tensionfilled because there is always a remainder left that, while it is being evoked, still 219

Ibid., 388. The Problem of Hermeneutics, in: R. Bultmann, Essays philosophical and theological, London 1955, 234-261. 221 Ibid., 252. [this translation reads “the purpose of the text.” Tr.] 222 241. 220

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hesitates and resists. That symbiosis is also suspenseful because the world we effectuate as we read changes with every new passage. We will now consider the key moments in the process of reading. 1. The work of the imagination By the fact that readers give shape to the representation of the text in their imagination, they are under the spell of what they produce: “This involvement, or entanglement, is what places us in the ‘presentness’ of the text and what makes the text into a presence for us.”223 This captivation occurs in “the mode of the image.”224 Reading is “aesthetic”225 in the literal sense: the reader “affectively” participates in the text.226 The reader has been pulled into the text and the text into the reader. This fusion of a text with a reader in the process of reading it is something we call a symbiosis: two dissimilar organisms (text and human body) live on or in each other to their mutual advantage. This symbiosis occurs on a number of levels. We will mention a few. An acoustic symbiosis. The text achieves sound in the human voice which is driven by breath. Voice and breath together confer pitch and melody, passion and power on the text. Breathing divides the text in breathing units of shorter or longer duration (the so-called cola) and gives it a more fluent or a more halting character. Breath and voice perform the text by saying, reciting, or singing. The text is articulated by the throat, the uvula, the tongue, the teeth, and the lips. In every breathing unit they give shape and color to the syllables. They string them together in metrical and rhythmic cadences. In the process, accentuation and tempo are codetermined by a person’s breathing. The text is reinforced in the sound cavities of the head, the chest, the abdomen, and the limbs which serve as the primary sound space for the text that is being sounded. The primary sound space then passes over into the secondary sound space: the immediate surroundings and sound amplifications or absorptions. Overtones and undertones are added to the mix of sounds by accompaniment, counter-voices, or resonances. The acoustic effectuation of the text actualizes the text’s poetic dimension: the sounds (vowels and consonants) unfold; the meter with its elevations and accents comes into play; the rhythm makes itself felt in the length of the sentences (shorter, longer, or equal); the sentences are articulated; the text gains its tempo with accelerations and retardations; repetitions make themselves felt (rhyme, word-repetitions, parallelism, paronomasia, and the like). When the text is performed musically, this poetic dimension is reinforced by such musical basics 223

W. Iser, The Act of Reading, Baltimore-London 1978, 131; see also 18. Ibid., cf. 136-137. 225 Ibid., 133. 226 Ibid., 157. 224

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as melos (circling around a tone), meter (consistent or free) and rhythm (with few or many elevations and accents), syllabic (one note per syllable), pneumatic (2-4 notes per syllable) or melismatic (a florid group of notes sung to a single syllable); with or without expansions, rests, and metrical repetitions. An optical symbiosis. In the modern manner of reading,227 reading out loud is usually replaced by quietly reading to oneself. With that development the accent has shifted from the acoustic to the optical. The text becomes visible in characters which as a result of their shape (thick or thin, straight up or cursive, handwritten or printed, with or without serif, and so forth) have a certain character. The characters, with more or less blank space, form words, which in turn, again with more or less blank space, give shape to the line. The lines form a page (line endings are either justified or non-justified). The page has a specific layout: more or less blank space between the lines, a certain number of lines on a page, a certain width, with more or fewer blank lines or paragraphs. The pages may form a unit with other pages: a daily paper, a periodical, a book. It may be a used book in which the readers have left their own tracks: underlinings, markings, marginal comments, and the like. The book may be furnished with illustrations or schemata. The reader’s eyes move along the lines and absorb words, phrases, and sentence fragments. The tactile symbiosis. The text may be effectuated in a tactile manner when the characters, inscribed as raised dots or indentations on a more or less flat surface, are felt by the reader’s fingers. A special example of such a tactile performance is Braille script. A visually impaired or blind person moves with sensitive fingers over letters, which are raised above the surface in certain combinations of tiny bulges. The text impacts the reader tactilely. Tactility, however, also plays a role in the life of the non-blind: prayers are counted via a string of beads; as the wish “Peace be with you” is spoken, participants in the ritual join hands; while saying the Our Father, participants form a circle. Tactile moments in the performance of text also occur when participants hold a book, turn the pages, or touch a torah-scroll. A sensory-motor symbiosis. When texts are performed they touch our senses (sensory) or set off motor impulses. The recitation of texts has a pleasant calming effect on the nervous system. The rhythm of one’s breathing deepens the breath, an effect which produces great calm. In some cultures sacred texts are acted out in dance or stereotypical gestures. In bibliodrama scripture texts are acted out by actors playing a specific role in the text. Sometimes certain bodily postures are assumed in prayer or at specific moments (raising one’s hands, bowing one’s head, standing up, and the like). For the hearing-impaired the text is performed in sign language. Also facial movements (mimicry) can express texts or reinforce certain aspects in it (frowning, glancing, mouthing, and the like). 227 For a description of reading in modern culture, see R. Engelsing, Der Bürger als Leser, Stuttgart 1974; Lesen und Leben, (Ed. H. Göpfert), Frankfurt a.M. 1975.

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Some people read a text by slowly and attentively writing it out or typing it over. This may bring about a sense of close proximity to the text. Thus, in the time before the art of printing was developed, copying a piece of writing certainly meant more than merely reproducing it. It was a way of appropriating a text. In the case of the behavioral performance of a text we also recall the acting out of a text in a certain life form: in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries mendicant brothers went about literally reenacting the itinerant preaching ministry of Jesus and his disciples in Israel. 2. The position of the reader In the process of reading a text we are extremely active. With our eyes we take in a text fragment the size of what in psycho-linguistics is called an eye-voice span: a syntactic unit of moderate size. This text fragment evokes in us an image that appears against the background of what has already been read and of what still remains to be read. Suppose that from the series A-Z we read fragment C, then the fragments A-B constitute the remembered background and D-Z constitutes the anticipated background. Now if we then read fragment D, the fragments A-C are recaptured and transformed into the remembered background. At the same time the anticipated background is modified. Thus the text unfolds at every moment of reading against the combined background of memory and expectation. Husserl called the remembered background “retention” and the anticipated background “protension.” Retention preserves the past in the memory which, though filled with it, is at the same time divested of presentness and therefore empty: a state which makes possible a constant resumption. Protension brings what is to come – which as such is still unoccupied – to fruition. This tension between retention and protension controls the entire reading process. The material read and is recaptured every reading moment (retention), and the material still to be read (protension) constitute the projection surfaces against the background of which the images take shape.228 “Thus every moment of reading is a dialectic of protension and retention, conveying a future horizon yet to be occupied, along with a past (and continually fading) horizon already filled; the wandering viewpoint carves its passage through both at the same time and leaves them to merge together in its wake.”229 The reader is kept very busy. Directed by the ribbon of the text, he or she knots a network of relations within the vital back-and-forth movement between the reading pasts and reading futures. “Thus, in the time-flow of the reading process, past and future continually converge in the present moment, and the synthesizing operations of the wandering viewpoint enable the text to pass through the reader’s mind as an ever-expanding 228 229

W. Iser, The Act of Reading, Baltimore-London 1978, 98. Op. cit., 112.

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network of connections.”230 Readers, however, do not let themselves be pushed in all directions. Their own existence, after all, is at stake in the work of the imagination. Interiorized values and norms are confirmed or undermined; motives are furthered or frowned upon. While the readers participate in forming images of the text, they are at the same time outside the text; their psyche constitutes a horizon with a mind of its own with preferences and refusals, receivers and jammers. “These syntheses are of an unusual kind. They are neither manifested in the printed text, nor produced solely by the reader’s imagination, and the projections of which they consist are themselves of a dual nature; they emerge from the reader, but they are also guided by signals which ‘project’ themselves into him.”231 While the reader is intensely projecting images and offering himself as a projection screen, “there occurs a kind of artificial division as the reader brings into his own foreground something which he is not.”232 3. The field of meaning In the process of reading we are shooting a film at which we look. A spatial object (a book with pages) becomes a cinematic object: “We place our synthesizing faculties at the disposal of an unfamiliar reality, produce the meaning of that reality, and in so doing enter into a situation which we could not have created out of ourselves.”233 While, “in the time-flow of reading, segments of the various perspectives move into focus and take on their actuality by being set off against preceding segments,” we form a sequence in which the successive images gradually constitute a certain configuration: a field of meaning.234 In the course of our reading, the segments of the text string themselves together, as a result of which the world of the text can manifest itself.” “Thus the time axis [of the reading process, KW] basically conditions and arranges the overall meaning, by making each image recede into the past, thus subjecting it to inevitable modifications, which, in turn, bring forth the new image.”235 Gradually, on the course of the reading process, an ideational world is evoked as a result of the fact “that textual perspectives contrast with each other, thus organizing themselves into mutual horizons. The horizon each time gives a certain contour to what is in the foreground. The contour is the decisive condition for form.”236 As we read, a (consistently 230

Ibid., 116. Ibid., 135. 232 Ibid., 155. 233 Ibid., 150. 234 Ibid., 108-118. 235 Ibid., 148. 236 Ibid. [Translated from the Dutch. I suspect it corresponds to what is said on p. 116 of the English text. Tr.] 231

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provisional) figure arises: the course of an action becomes visible, a person takes shape, a commenting agency makes itself felt, a theme is developed. Foreground events, moreover, are linked together as we read: the action is interrupted by the appearance of a secondary role, the hero is surprised by an event, the narrator broaches a new theme, a given theme is illumined from another perspective. Foreground events and the interactions between the events are always perspectival, that is, every foreground appears from a certain angle of illumination and also among themselves these foregrounds are situated in a certain perspective. In this way a field of meaning unfolds.

2.3.3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS Fowler, following Steiner, points out two differences between the critic and the reader. In the first place, “the critic steps back from the text to strike a magisterial pose of critical, objectifying distance, whereas the reader tries to eliminate the distance between himself and the text to allow the merging of his being with that of the text.”237 In the second place, “a critic makes judgments about the text and declares them, whereas a reader does neither.”238 In the (critical) distance adopted by the critic a given writing is detached from its Zuhandenheit (functional presence) and becomes Vorhanden, an object (objective presence). It appears in front of me. From this point on I can make critical distinctions. I can ask questions like: How does the text really proceed? To what reality does the text actually relate? What does the text really want from the reader? Which texts are demonstrably evoked by the text? As a result of this kind of detached questions the “wandering viewpoint” of the reader is immediately involved in the imagining of the field of meaning. It has become a well-chosen position at a distance which seeks to gain a view of the whole. Only by distancing myself can I survey that text from beginning to end, compare the segments to each other and search critically for coherence. It is only as critic that I can subject certain words which frequently return to closer scrutiny. I can critically retrace the suggested divisions. I can distinguish certain roles and follow them with precision. Critical distance gives rise to the object against the background of the referential field239 that precedes meaning. “The meaning only begins to lose its aesthetic character and to assume a discursive character when one inquires into its significance,240 that is, when one interrogates the field of meaning from within 237

R. Fowler, Let the Reader Understand, Minneapolis 1991, 27. Ibid., 28. 239 W. Iser, The Act of Reading, Baltimore 1978, 140-151. 240 Ibid., 22-23. 238

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a specific frame of reference outside of the immediate reading process. “The significance of the meaning can only be ascertained when the meaning is related to a particular reference…”241 This implies that the interpreter chooses a position. The wandering viewpoint of the reader, guided by the “blanks” in the text, is tethered to a position over against the text. Systematically one can now inquire into the significance,242 the “mental content” (the ideality of the essence) that pervades the writing.243 Ricoeur, following Husserl, calls this sense the “ideal moment.”244 Grondin, following Augustine, speaks of the inner word (verbum interius). “By the inner word, however, […] is meant no private or psychological inner world existing prior to its verbal expression. Rather, it is that which strives to be externalized in spoken language. Externalized language is the site of a struggle which must be heard as such. There is no ‘preverbal’ world, only a world oriented to language, the world which is always to be put in words, though never entirely successfully. This is the uniquely hermeneutic dimension of language.”245 This hermeneutic dimension is not ready-made; it has to be dug out from the depths. Nor is it a monolithic block. It is layered. The layer which presents itself depends on the Einstellung (attitude, stance) with or from which one interrogates the text. In exegesis there is a tendency to absolutize one specific approach to the text and to disqualify others: Schleiermacher and Dilthey psychologize the text too much; Gadamer is not critical enough; the one is too diachronic, the other too synchronic, and so forth. Frequently these absolutizations and disqualifications flow from the fact that scholars are working with a restricted genre of texts (e.g., narratives, letters, or poetry). In my opinion it is better to assess the various hermeneutic insights from the perspective of the text genre. Schleiermacher and Dilthey defined the goal of exegesis as the reproduction of the text’s genetic process. Their contribution remains indispensable for texts in connection with which the author is of importance for the determination of their meaning. Ricoeur detaches the writing from its author. He makes a contribution especially where a given work is more autonomous, like the Book of Job or the parables of Jesus. Intertextuality, for which Derrida makes a case, is useful among other things for the analysis of a book like John’s Revelation.246

241

Ibid., 150. Ibid., 150. 243 E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie II (Hua 4), The Hague 1952, 236 and 238-239. 244 P. Ricoeur, Kwaad en bevrijding, Rotterdam 1971, 97. 245 J. Grondin, Introduction to philosophical hermeneutics, New Haven 1994. 246 W. Stoker, Inleiding, in: De Schriften verstaan, (Ed. W. Stoker, B. Vedder et al.), Zoetermeer 1995, 13. 242

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1. The part-whole relation: composition In reading a text the reader is constantly bound only to this particular part of a text (the text segment she is presently reading). The whole of which she is forming an image every moment is merely present on the background as horizon. Sometimes this horizon is explicitly evoked by a text segment, for example when the author offers a summary or looks ahead. Or when we, the readers, are given the key to the genre: a text that begins with “Once upon a time” situates us in the space of a fairy tale; when the text begins by saying “the kingdom of heaven is like” we know a parable is about to follow. Thus there are all sorts of text signals (the cover or dust jacket, layout, size, spatial arrangement of the lines, and so forth) which evoke the horizon of the whole. In contrast to the reader, who in the middle of the text is actively involved in imagining the field of meaning, the interpreter tries to view the text as a whole. One of the leading ideas of the nineteenth century was: “The true is the whole” (“Das Wahre ist das Ganze” – Hegel). It is therefore not surprising that the relation between the part and the whole came to the fore especially in that century. The whole was interpreted from the perspective of the parts and the parts from the perspective of the whole. This circular movement never stops inasmuch as words make up a sentence, sentences a paragraph, paragraphs a chapter, chapters a work as a whole, works a genre, and a genre is part of a group of the genres of a period and a style. This last item can never be completely captured and the part can therefore never be definitively determined and explained.247 This problematic, which has occupied many interpreters, has sometimes led to the disqualification of interpretation as such as a meaningless enterprise from the start. In practice, however, it is a field of tension in which compositional research is conducted and practical strategies are offered. Thus Schleiermacher, who was the first to pose the theoretical problem clearly, advises the interpreter: “Quickly scan the structure and coherence of the whole; pay special attention to the difficult points, spend much time at all the places that are important for the composition and then engage in actual interpretation.”248 The overall hermeneutic tension between the part and the whole forms the background against which the actual interpretation is accomplished. Any set of sentences, large or small, can be understood correctly only in terms of the whole to which it belongs. And just as the shorter sets of sentences are conditioned 247 F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics, Handwritten Writings, Atlanta 1986 (reprint), 175ff; W. Dilthey, Die geistige Welt Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens 1 (Gesammelte Schriften 5), Stuttgart-Göttingen 1957, 317-338. 248 See M. van Nierop, Leven en historiciteit: de hermeneutica van Dilthey, in: Th. de Boer et al., Hermeneutiek. Filosofische grondslagen van mens- en cultuurwetenschappen, Meppel-Amsterdam 1988, 42-43.

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by larger sets, so, too, these larger sets are conditioned by still larger ones. Thus the obvious conclusion is that any part can be completely understood only through the whole. When we consider the task of interpretation with this principle in mind, we have to say that our increasing understanding of each sentence and of each section, an understanding which we achieve by starting at the beginning and moving forward slowly, is always provisional. It becomes more complete as we are able to see each larger section as a coherent unity. But as soon as we turn to a new part we encounter new uncertainties and begin again, as it were, in the dim morning light. It is like starting all over, except that as we push ahead the new material illumines everything we have already treated, until suddenly at the end every part is clear and the whole work is visible in sharp and definite contours.249

2. Depth structure Up until the 1970s exegetical research was as a rule oriented to the diachrony of the text: scholars examined its origins by way of literary criticism, form criticism and redaction criticism. They searched for the meaning of the text by way of its developmental history. From the seventies on they gained an eye for synchrony. They grasped the text as a coherent structure that was studied in terms of its internal meaning. For this structural mode of reading Ricoeur uses the term “explanation,” a word from Dilthey’s vocabulary by which he referred to the method of the natural sciences. Dilthey, however, did not consider the word “explanation” suitable for use in the human sciences. Ricoeur does not agree. According to him it is possible to apply the harder method of explanation to hermeneutics, that is, insofar as hermeneutics is directed to the determination of meaning. This occurs in the study of the structure of a text, where the unique, independent status of the text (cut off from the author, the addressee[s], and the referential framework) is honored down to its final implications. The text is a network of oppositional units, that is, “the interplay of oppositions and their combinations within an inventory of discrete units. Now then it is precisely this layer in the text, the text as structure, that lends itself to explanation.”250 French structuralism and the Parisian School (Greimas, Groupes d’Entrevernes) designed interpretative strategies which bring to light the depth structure of a text. In semiotic analysis contrast, similarity, and process are three basic givens which help the interpreter understand a text down to its depth structure. This reading down to the inner meaning of a text (understanding) is an intuitive activity. After all, the inner meaning of a text (the inner coherence and movement, the essential content) is not ready-to-hand. It only makes itself known in signals. A selection of significant signs, by mutual combination, opens up the inner space of a text. 249

F. Schleiermacher, op. cit, 198. P. Ricoeur, What is a text?, in: From Text to Action, Evanston 1991, 105-124, esp. pp. 113114, 121-122. 250

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The opening must itself be laid open. This does not mean that the depth meaning of a text lies somewhere behind the text. The depth meaning manifests itself as the transparent reverse side of the signifier. An attempt is made to so analyze the signifier – the front of the medal – that in the process the signified – the reverse side of the medal – becomes transparent. 3. Intertextual relations The term “intertextuality” was introduced by Kristeva to put into words the phenomenon that a text is fundamentally a mosaic of citations which communicate with each other.251 Given this basic reality, we then note that specific forms of correspondence to dissimilar or similar texts, to uncongenial or congenial meanings present in comparable texts, and the like, delineate themselves. Within this complex of relations we must distinguish the intended relations which organize the surface of the text from latent relations which govern the deep meanings.252 In all this we can discern three intertextual strategies: participation which seeks to keep texts alive by repetition or imitation; detachment which seeks to surpass, fend off, or destroy earlier texts; transformation which plays with and uses unfamiliar texts.253 The correspondences and strategies mentioned above come to light in a multifaceted relational network between the archetext (also called pre-text) and the phenotext: the archetext is pars-pro-toto present in the phenotext because a constitutive element from the former is taken up into the latter; the archetext is structurally present in the phenotext, as is evident from the analogous structure; the phenotext takes selections from several archetexts and assembles them into an entirely new textual whole; an archetext is present, fragmentarily yet structurally, in the phenotext as a riddle to be decoded; an archetext is so processed in the phenotext that a maximal shift in meaning is effected; and so forth. 4. Contextual reconstructions As a reader proceeds to read a text, the unfolding field of meaning is spontaneously projected upon the reader’s own sociocultural context. This projection was possible since after the writing of the text the original setting had irrevocably changed. However, now that the interpretation takes some critical distance in relation to the text, the interpreter can systematically inquire into the historical background. Although an irreparable break occurs between context and text the moment a given writing is completed, the text nevertheless still contains 251

J. Kristeva, Sémiotikè. Recherche pour une Semanalyse, Paris 1969. R. Lachmann, Gedächtnis und Literatur. Intertextualität in der russischen Moderne, Frankfurt a.M. 1990, 57. 253 Ibid., 38-40. 252

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enough traces of its origins. These traces may consist of historical notes (e.g. the brief indications in Exodus that the Israelites were forced into the grinding labor involved in constructing the public works of Rameses and Pithon) or historically dateable use of language (e.g., Aramaisms in the Psalms referring to certain periods), or text fragments derived from earlier texts (e.g., anthological texts). An important means of linking up the historical dimension of a text with the text itself is the idea of a literary genre (Gattung). The idea is that linguistic utterances run along fixed patterns that are dictated by the course of events within which they function (Sitz im Leben). The underlying assumption is that texts are permeated by the historical setting that shaped them: the “form” of a text is the product of the “Sitz im Leben.” A sound analysis first seeks to distinguish between the redaction (a certain text has been inserted into the writing before us) and the tradition (the transmitted text apart from its encapsulating redaction). The text from tradition is peeled out of its framework and further examined in terms of its constitutive formal elements (the smaller literary units) and its genre characteristics (the larger units): hymn, lament, song of thanksgiving, treaty, proverb, story, dispute, teaching, parable. Important, further, is that the interpreter has at his or her disposal a number of historical settings which may have been the Sitz im Leben of the text pattern: judicial procedures, proclamation, missionizing, house of study, family piety. We see, for example, that psalms which originated in the context of a certain judicial procedure display a striking structure, use a specific vocabulary, and are oriented to a certain world of values.254 In this way people in the Bible sciences have established several genres (Gattungen): genealogies, travel reports, proverbs, laws, songs of thanksgiving, and the like. The genre is the form a text has received under the influence of a Sitz im Leben. The moment at which a meaning lights up is the moment at which the (reconstructed) text pattern fits the (reconstructed) setting. 5. The pragmatics of the text While in modern times a literary work revolves especially around its significance (which is localized in the work of the reader), in premodern cultures a literary work was a form of political and moral interaction. Through a text authors exerted influence on their hearers, with a view to the formation of their conduct and the organization of society. Here we encounter a side of language that is called pragmatics. Pragmatics views a text from the vantage point of its communicative dimension. On the semantic level one looks at the content; on the pragmatic level one highlights the dialogical dynamics. Pragmatics effects the transition from the “said” to the “saying.” The said pertains to the material meaning of the words; the saying concerns the dialogic sign we pass on to the 254

See W. Beyerlin, Die Rettung der Bedrängten, Göttingen 1970.

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other.255 On the pragmatic level the meaning bestowed is read from the saying: “The contents that are inscribed in the said and transmitted to the interpretation and decoding done by the other” are understood on the basis of “the unblocking of communication” that occurs “in the risky uncovering of oneself, in sincerity, the breaking up of inwardness and the abandon of all shelter, exposure to traumas, vulnerability.”256 The pragmatic level of reading returns the said to the saying. “But in reducing the said to the saying, philosophical language reduces the said to breathing opening to the other and signifying to the other its very signifyingness.”257 The said in which everything is thematized, in which everything shows itself in a theme, “has to be reduced to its signification as saying (…). The said has to be reduced to the signification of saying…”258 Pragmatics views the text as the embodiment of a polar tension: author, text, reader. Within his field of tension one can, on the one hand, stress the (intended or unintended) effect of the author/text upon the reader. One can, for example, note the rhetorical techniques by which the text seeks to convince, mislead, or blame the reader. On the other hand, one can also start with the other side of the polar relation: with the activity of the reader toward the text. What strategies does the reader develop to enter the text? This is done, for example, in bibliodrama in which the participants put themselves into and enact a Bible story. The participants choose a role from the story and on that basis engage in dialogue with the challenge of the text.259 6. The religious field of meaning In spiritual texts the above aspects constitute the setting in which the divinehuman relational process comes up. In Scripture we discern four relational patterns. The positional difference. The difference between God and man can be discussed by articulating the difference in position between God and man within the same framework. Such a framework can be a story, a category, the spatialtemporal world, a system, an organization, a cycle, and so forth. Some examples follow. In the patriarchal stories (Gen. 12-50) God is continually co-present in the background as life-generating and life-sustaining power. From time to time 255

E. Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Pittsburgh 1998, 46. Op. cit., 48. 257 Ibid., 181. 258 Ibid. 259 N. Derksen & H. Andriessen, Bibliodrama en pastoraat. De Schrift doen als weg tot dieper geloven, The Hague 1985; in this connection they make creative use of H. Sundén, Die Religion und die Rollen. Eine psychologische Untersuchung der Frömmigkeit, Berlin 1966; S. Laeuchli, Das Spiel für dem dunklen Gott, ‘Mimesis’ – ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung des Bibliodramas, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1987; H. Welzen, ‘Maak mijn ogen nieuw’ (Ps. 119:18). Bibliodrama en exegese, Warnsveld-Zeist 1997. 256

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he appears to take action in the foreground. This contrasts with the story of the exodus where God plays a central role in the foreground. Thus, in Scripture, God is always introduced in some fashion as acting: as foreground or background, at the center or marginally, actively or passively, implicitly or explicitly. But it is not only stories that position the divine pole in relation to the human pole; also categories create a framework. John, for example, says that the love of God and the love of man are closely connected (1 John 4:7-16). Even though everyone who reads this immediately understands that the two loves do not simply coincide, it is still true that God in some fashion occupies a position in (the perspective of ) the category of “love.” These examples clearly illustrate the principle: the difference between God and man is brought out by articulating the difference in position within or on the basis of a certain framework (story, category, time, space, hierarchy, number, phasing, organism, cycle, and the like). This is true even if God is assumed to exceed the limits of this framework because the perspective of the framework is always included in the act of transcending it. The complementary difference. At issue in the case of a complementary difference is the difference between complementary poles. Complementary differences can be derived from the data of nature, from social relations, or from a combination of the two. (1) In nature one can find many polarities which serve to illustrate the God-man relation: God is water to a thirsty deer (Ps. 42:2), a nest where a bird can lay her young (Ps. 84:4), a predatory animal that pounces on its prey (Hos. 13:7-8), rain in dry land (Ps. 65:10-11). (2) In Scripture all sorts of social relations can serve as models for the relation to God: husband-wife (Hos. 1-3; Ezek. 16 and 23; Isa. 54:1-6; 62:4-5; the Song of Solomon and its reception), king-people (Ps. 93:1; 97:1; 99:1), host-guest (Ps. 15:1; 23:5; 39:13; 61:5; 119:19); guide-traveler (Ps. 23:4); mother-child (Isa. 49:15). (3) Finally the relation between man and nature frequently offers language in which the God-relation can be couched: God is a source of life for the thirsty soul (Ps. 36:10), a light that illumines our eyes (Ps. 84:12; Isa. 60:19-20), a brook that suddenly overtakes a swimmer (Jer. 15:18), a fortress for a fugitive (Ps. 18: 3; 71:3; 91:2), a shepherd for a flock (Ps. 23:1-3; 80:1), a vineyard keeper for his vineyard (Isa. 5:1-7; Ps. 80:9-12), a trainer for his horse (Ps. 32:8-9), a potter for the clay (Gen. 2:7). The intermediary difference. We speak of an intermediary difference when God and man are kept together or apart by a form of mediation. The divine and the human interpenetrate in a mediating form. With Martin Buber we can distinguish three spheres: the sphere of nature, the people and You, the spiritual beings.260 (1) Beings in nature. In almost all religions a mountain is a means of mediation between heaven and earth, between God and man. The mountain is 260

M. Buber, I and Thou, New York etc. 2000, 19-22.

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full of God’s holiness and at the same time an earthly place of refuge for man (Ps. 15:1). In the Apocalypse we witness the appearance of the Lamb who gathers the one hundred and forty-four thousand (Rev. 14:1-5). The sacraments are centered around earthly signs that mediate divine reality: water, bread, wine, oil. 2. The people-You. In Christianity Jesus is the mediator between God and man. Union with him unites us with God. In Hasidism the Tzaddik constitutes living mediation between God and man. (3) Spiritual beings. Spiritual beings, for Buber, are present in the world of art, ethics, and knowledge. In the case of the world of art we may think of mediations such as icons, song, and dance. Thus for Judaism the torah is an intermediary of the same weight as the person of Jesus Christ is for Christianity. In the sphere of ethics we may think of the lives of the saints; in the forming of holy images God’s restless goodness is made present as a model.261 In the sphere of knowledge we may call to mind the Sefiroth-system of the kabbala, in which divine values and truths (insights, wisdom, favor, and so forth), and basic processes of human existence are integrated in a single medium.262 The disjunctive difference. Disjunction refers to separation and contrast. Disjunction is the opposite of correlation and can assume the form of negation (not, non, un-), privation (without, -less, a-), contrast (life and death, light and darkness), or alterity (other, otherwise, strange). In the God-man relation these disjunctive differences assume various forms. We will here develop four forms of disjunction. (1) Negation. The conclusion of the Theologia mystica of Dionysius the Areopagite depicts God with an accumulation of denials: he is neither nonbeing nor being, neither darkness nor light, neither soul nor mind, neither number nor order, neither greatness nor smallness, neither equality nor inequality, and so forth.263 In Scripture the denials function more concretely. Of Be-er, for example, we are told: “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; no evil is your guest; the boastful will not stand before your eyes; you spurn all evildoers” (Ps. 5:5-6). (2) Privation. In the anthropology of the Bible man is regarded as shadowy by comparison with the Creator: “You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; they heap up and do not know who will gather” (Ps. 39:6-7; cf. vs. 12; Ps. 62:10). Human beings stand out in creation as God’s adumbration. Detached from their Source their figure evaporates. Safed-mysticism views creation as tsimtsum, 261 K. Waaijman, Heilige beeldvorming – zou Titus zich verzetten?, in: Titus Brandsma – herzien, herdacht, herschreven, (Ed. C. Struyker Boudier), Nijmegen 1993, 98-120. 262 K. Waaijman, Kabbala, Nijmegen 1992. 263 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology IV-V, in: Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, New York 1987, 140-141.

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God’s self-withdrawal into himself. As a result of this self-withdrawal we see the emergence of this empty nothing which Creation essentially is.264 (3) Contrast. The God-man relation is sometimes captured in contrasts: light-darkness, lifedeath, eternal-perishable. “Everything wears out like a garment. You change it like clothing and it passes away. But you are the same, and your years have no end” (Ps. 102:27-28). The creation is here contrasted as a perishable garment to him who wears it, who is himself and who has time. In another psalm God’s eternity is contrasted with the age of the mountains, a period which is itself inconceivable by the human consciousness: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God” (Ps. 90:2). (4) Alterity. One of Levinas’s main works is entitled Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. In this title the difference between finite and infinite is expressed in two ways: positionally (“beyond” presupposes a spatial framework) and disjunctively: the Infinite is viewed as belonging to an “other” order. Levinas brings a similar difference to the fore with the term illeity,265 a concept that can be translated by “he-ness.” By the term “he-ness” Levinas refers to a relation in which the other can in no way be incorporated in the sphere of the “I-myself.” “Beyond being is a Third Person who is not definable by the Self, by ipseity. (…). The pronoun He expresses its inexpressible irreversibility, already escaping every revelation as well as every dissimulation, and in this sense absolutely unencompassable or absolute, a transcendence in an absolute past.”266

2.3.4. THEOLOGICAL

PRAGMATICS

In interhuman pragmatics meaning-contents are transformed into dialogical values. In theological pragmatics theological contents are transformed into orative dynamics. This transition from a material to a dialogical level is concisely expressed by the distinction Levinas makes between “difference” and “non-indifference.”267 At stake in “difference” is the objectivizable difference. At issue in “non-indifference” is a dialogic difference. The meditative level reads the Godrelation in terms of content (difference); the orative level reads the dialogic dynamics (non-indifference). The orative mode of reading observes the movement between I and thou. It brings to light the dimension of prayer. “The God of prayer, of invocation, would be more ancient than the God deduced from 264

K. Waaijman, Safedmystiek, Nijmegen 1993, 28-29. E. Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1996, 63-65, 73, 75, 106, 119-120. 266 Op. cit., 61. 267 E. Levinas, Of God who comes to Mind, Stanford 1998, passim. 265

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the world or from some sort of a priori radiance and stated in an indicative proposition.”268 Following up on the previous section, we will show how in the psalms the material difference between God and man is transformed into orative nonindifference. 1. Orativity within a positional difference Stories assign to God a certain role within a human framework: the framework of the creation order, the scope of history, the vicissitudes of Israel, the experiences of a human being. In creeds, proverbs, and sayings God is assigned a place, however transcendent. These positionings of God and man, however, do no constitute a terminal point. On the contrary, they serve as the starting point of Godseeking yearning. We will offer two examples of an orative transformation of the positional difference between God and man. (1) An important part of Scripture consists in stories in which we are told the history of God’s accompaniment of the people of Israel, from its earliest beginnings till after the exile. In the psalms these same stories are taken up again from the vantage point of an orative dynamics. The history of Israel (the time of the patriarchs, the exodus, the entry, the establishment of a state) generates a focus on God: acknowledging (Ps. 105: 106; 136), blessing (Ps. 106; 135), glorifying (Ps. 87), celebrating and praising God (Ps. 105; 135), singing and dancing before God (Ps. 105:87), petitioning, seeking, and remembering God (Ps. 105). That same history, however, can also make people tremble (Ps. 114), awaken awe of God (Ps. 76; 77:12-21), be a mirror in which we read our relation to him (Ps. 78), or an instruction from God that asks of us to be carefully included in our pattern of living (Ps. 105). In the case of negative experiences (the fall of the northern kingdom, the exile of the southern kingdom) history can be transformed into an indictment (Ps. 89:38ff.), a heart-rending prayer for deliverance (Ps. 44; 80), or malediction (Ps. 79; 137). The return from exile can be a hopeful (Ps. 126) or dangerous (Ps. 85) memory or a source of stories and celebrations (Ps. 102:13-23). (2) The story of great and small histories is framed in the story of creation. Scripture, accordingly, opens with the creation of heaven and earth within which all creatures receive their existence (Gen. 1:26, 28). All creatures constitute polarities except for human beings who in their polarity (male-female) are created over against God (Gen. 1:26-28). The creation motif – the creation of the world and the creation of humanity – constantly recurs in the psalms but now transformed into an emotive-orative state of mind: his creative activity generates amazement (Pss. 8; 19, 92) and awe (Ps. 139), causes people to tremble (Ps. 29), is glorified (Ps. 29; 104), surrounded with shouts of joy (Ps. 66), songs of praise (Ps. 147), and celebrated (Ps. 135;

268

E. Levinas, Dialogue, in: Of God who Comes to Mind, 148.

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148). God’s working as creator is acknowledged (Ps. 33; 89; 136; 147), greeted with rejoicing (Ps. 33) and joy (Ps. 92: 104), raises hope for a final salvation (Ps. 33) and makes people feel his intimate closeness (Ps. 139). 2. Orativity within the complementary difference From the multiplicity of the complementary differences between God and man that are celebrated in Scripture and the psalms we have selected the three most frequently recurring ones in order thereby to illustrate the subject of orative dynamics. 1. King-people. In Israel at an early date (probably before 1000 B.C.), the title “king” was applied to Be-er. Be-er as king complementarily evokes Israel as his people. In the psalms this complementary relation becomes a vehicle for a richly varied orativity. The judicial power of Be-er is recognized (Pss. 9-10; 33:1-3, 1015; 67; 75), fervently invoked (Pss. 9-10; 82; 94) and passionately indicted (Ps. 74). His royal blessing is implored (Ps. 3:9; 28:9), his vengeance and victory enlisted (Ps. 149:5-6). The people over whom he rules as king are called blessed (Ps. 144). As royal leader Be-er is exuberantly surrounded by his people. He is surrounded with joyful noise (Ps. 95; 98; 100), blessed (Ps. 96; 103:1922; 145) acknowledged (Ps. 24; 145), praised and celebrated with many instruments (Pss. 47 and 98). The people tell of him with awe and rejoicing (Ps. 96; 98; 99), and bow down before him with singing (Ps. 95) and sanctify him (Ps. 93). With “joyful noise” the people offer themselves to him as his servants (Ps. 100). 2. Master-servant. From its beginnings “Master” (‘adon) is the designation for the relation of a person to a servant, while “Boss” (ba’al) indicates a business relationship. The servant stands before the face of his Master (see 1 Kgs. 17:16; Ps. 27:9; 31:17; 97:5; 113:1; 114:7; 134:1; 135:1-3). His eyes are sharply focused on the gestures of his master (Ps. 123:2). He offers himself to him as a willing servant (Ps. 2:11; 22:31; 72:11; 100:2; 102:23). My Master (Adonai) probably refers to intensive involvement. In that sense it is often used in the prophets.269 The orative dimension in the word-pair “master-servant” is prayed free in the literature of prayer.270 Sometimes one hears tones of intimacy (Ps. 2:4; 35:22-23; 69:18; 85:3; 132:10) and total self-surrender (Ps. 16:2; 40:18; 102:15, 23), and then again the sound of deep laments (Ps. 38:10, 16, 23; 116:6) and indictments (Ps. 79; 89:50-52) predominate. I as servant apprentice myself to my Master (Ps. 8:2, 10; 119:14 times) in order to gain understanding in his presence (Ps. 73:16-20). The servant appeals to his Master: he begs him for protection and deliverance (Ps. 68:2), for intervention in difficult

269 270

230 times, 217 of them in Ezekiel. 69 times.

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situations (Ps. 35:17; 44:24; 55:10; 59:12; 143:12), for a happy life (Ps. 90:1217). He begs his Master to be gracious (Ps. 30:9; 86:3). Before his Master the servant sinks to his knees (Ps. 86:9); full of expectation he looks for him (Ps. 39:8; 130:1-4), he magnifies him (Ps. 35:27; 147:5), celebrates him (Ps. 51:17), acknowledges him (Ps. 54:6; 57:10; 62:13; 68:33; 86:5, 12; 105 six times), and blesses him (Ps. 66:10; 68 five times). 3. Host-guest. One of the most fundamental relations in the world of patriarchal spirituality was that between a guest and his host. In the familiar story of Abraham sitting under the oaks of Mamre we discover how deeply the hospitality laws were inscribed in the consciousness of these semi-nomads (Gen. 18:1-15). The complementary host-guest relation also found its place in Israel’s religious outlook: Be-er dwells as host on Zion and receives every pilgrim as his guest. Orative dynamics plays on this basic given in various keys. Be-er is recognized and celebrated as the One who as host watches over his guests (Ps. 146:9; cf. Ps. 94:6). Although every pilgrim will have to ask himself whether he is worthy to be Be-er’s guest, indeed whether he will be capable of being a real guest (Ps. 51:1), once he is admitted as guest he knows that he has been approved, for no evildoer can be his guest (Ps. 5:5). With gratitude the guest tells the story of how Be-er himself as host prepared a table for him and anointed his head (Ps. 23:3). To be God’s guest is the fervent hope of every person on earth (Ps. 61:5); it is a situation in which instruction-for-living can be admitted (Ps. 119:54). Being a guest unites us with our ancestors in the wilderness (Ps. 105:12, 23; cf. 39:13) and hence constitutes a solid ground for our pleas and prayers (Ps. 39:13-14; 119:19). The complaint of a guest will not escape Be-er (Ps. 120). 3. Orativity within the intermediary difference Contact between God and man is mediated by the sanctuary, the torah, the Messiah, the Name, and so forth. What interests us is how these intermediary differences are transformed in the Psalms into orativity. 1. The sanctuary. The temple in Jerusalem with its festivals and rituals mediated people’s relation to God. The journey to the temple brought out a deep yearning for God (Pss. 42-43; 63; 84). Upon their arrival people exuberantly celebrated God’s presence (Ps. 46; 48; 150). They poured out their hearts in intercession (Ps. 122) and called upon the temple servants to bless Be-er (Ps. 134). With amazement they contemplated God’s generous love (Ps. 36; 63). The sense of his Presence deepened into awe (Ps. 48; 65). In the sanctuary people yielded to his hiddenness (Ps. 46; 91). It is natural, therefore, that the pilgrimaging people were called blessed (Ps. 89:16-19). Every festival was filled with ecstatic joy (Ps. 68; 81; 87). 2. The torah. Especially after the exile the torah, in which the most significant traditions of Israel were bundled together, became ever more important.

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We can sharply observe this development in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The torah became a kind of sanctuary in which one consults the will of God. In the psalms the orative dimension of the torah is laid bare. Immediately, in Psalm 1, the torah-loving Israelite is greeted as a man of God (see also Ps. 119:1-2; 94:12-13). Jointly meditating out loud over the torah, the exiles formed a holy place (Ps. 8). The worshippers grew lyrical over this gift of God (Ps. 12:7; 19:8-11). Those, however, who really want to relish the orative significance of Scripture can do no better than read Psalm 119. There they experience how the interiorization of the torah is sustained by lament and surrender, questioning and giving thanks, giving, loving and blessing, sighing and celebrating, crying out and delighting in, pleading and remembering, mollifying and caressing. 3. The Messiah. Kingship in Israel was of relatively short duration (from 1050587), but the Messiah-King left an indelible trail in the world of Israel’s religious imagination. By his conduct the king represented God in the midst of the people. From an orative perspective, however, this can mean something different each time it occurs. Psalm 2, which tells us about the daily generation of the king by Be-er, seeks to move the peoples to reflection so that they may direct themselves toward Be-er and his anointed. That same synergy is sustained in Psalms 20, 21, and 72 by the intercessions of the people (also cf. Ps. 45; 61:7-9; 63:12; 110 and 132). And in Psalm 101 the same reality fills the king’s heart with deep humility. To the rhythm of a mourning ritual the king prays for God’s nearness: “When will you come to me?” (Ps. 101:2). Psalm 89 complains to God on account of the broken promises made to David. In terms of content the issue is ever the same: the unanimous movement of God and man on the level of action. Oratively speaking, different dynamics are always at work here: the call to reflection, intercession, entreaty, indictment. 4. The ritual. In ancient Israel there existed rituals which mediated contact with God at times of sickness and healing, in the context of sin and forgiveness, in the case of justice and injustice, and so forth. These rituals are intermediaries that free up a scale of orative dynamics. An example: in ancient Israel there existed a judicial procedure which supplied mediation “in difficult cases” (Deut. 17:8-10). People positioned themselves in the temple of Jerusalem before the Face; judges made an inquiry and pronounced a sentence (Deut. 19:16-19). The sentence was binding on both parties (Deut. 17:11-12).271 This procedure sparked deep orativities: pleading, prayer for preservation (Ps. 4; 5; 11; 17; 26 and 27), entrusting oneself to the protection of Be-er (Ps. 11; 27), the growth of awareness of the true versus the false relation to God (Ps. 5; 7; 11, and so

271

W. Beyerlin, Die Rettung der Bedrängten, Göttingen 1970.

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forth), standing naked before the Face of God (Ps. 7; 11; 17; 26), the confident anticipation of God’s help (Ps. 5; 17); the acknowledgment of God’s liberating intervention (Ps. 3; 7; 23; 57; 63). 4. Orativity within the disjunctive difference The non-correlation between God and man is as a rule not expressed cognitively or speculatively. The God-man disjunction becomes an issue in abandonment and death; when God becomes incomprehensible in his absence, but also when a person makes room for him. Just what is the dynamic here which transforms the material difference into orative nonindifference? 1. God-forsakenness. Injustice cuts a person off from the Source of life. People feel like a desert (Ps. 63), like someone who disappears in a deep vortex (Ps. 69), sinks into the deepest mud pool (Ps. 28; 40), gets sucked into the most lonely darkness (Ps. 88). This situation of extreme privation (distant, cut off, desiccated, lifeless) is taken up in plaintive calling (Ps. 3; 5; 40; 57; 64; 88; 102; 116; 120; 141) and fervent pleading (Ps. 31; 32, 35; 38; 54; 55; 59). The person cut off tries to make God gracious (Ps. 28; 57; 86; 123; 140; 142; 143), sometimes sustained by a vow (Ps. 54; 57; 66). The source of injustice is exposed to maledictions (Ps. 69; 70; 83; 140; 144). The dynamics of prayer itself seems to contain within it the silent surrender (Ps. 62), of seeking refuge and security (Ps. 3; 59; 62; 141; 142), a surrender that seems to have an inner premonition of victory (Ps. 13; 28; 54; 55; 56; 58; 60) and seems already to contemplate the rescue (Ps. 64; 69; 140). 2. God’s incomprehensibility. The manner in which Be-er is contrasted to human reality is seldom cognitive (unknowable) or predicative (inexpressible) but usually existential (incomprehensible). He annihilates, crushes, rejects, or consumes his people (Ps. 44; 60; 74; 79; 89). He is absent, conceals himself, is impenetrable darkness (Ps. 77; 88). These experiences of contrast, however, are not descriptions of content but move in the direction of Be-er: they constitute a final pleading ground (Ps. 44), are adduced to mollify Be-er (Ps. 74; 79; 88); arouse confidence despite everything (Ps. 60); lead to a deeper remembrance (Ps. 77), or express a plaintive indictment (Ps. 89). Another existential contrast is that the God who is just permits an unjust world, indeed even allows it to flourish (Ps. 37; 49; 73). Here too, however, we are not dealing with a theodicy problem in terms of content. On the contrary, the confrontation leads to desperation, aims at a spirit of silence before God (Ps. 37; 62) or deepens one’s consciousness of God (Ps. 49; 73). Be-er stands out in existential contrast to the human world but on the orative level this contrast means a turning to Be-er – despite his averted posture! They fervently hope for his turnabout (Ps. 14; 53), become keenly attentive to it (Ps. 85), or sing about it (Ps. 126).

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5. Key forms of orative dynamics In surveying the psalms, looking especially for the extent to which they effect a transformation from mere content to theological pragmatics, we can distinguish four key forms of orativity: drawing near to God, admitting God to oneself, moving God to graciousness, openly testifying to God. Drawing near to God. The first form of orative dynamics consists in the fact that people begin to move: that they approach God, are received by him, and rejoice in that proximity. This outgoing movement encompasses the entire curve of going (out of oneself ) to coming (to the other). This curve includes five distinguishable moments. (1) Feeling the absence of. The experience of an absence stirs up longing. Just as the night looks forward to the light of dawn and the land is thirsty for water, so humans long for God. (2) Going out to. The longing that misses [the Other] reaches out, just as the bride in the Song of Solomon leaves her house to go out in search of her Beloved. The longing goes out to meet the Beloved and seeks his face. (3) Surrender. The longing that reaches out seeks refuge in God, to surrender itself in order to remain in God. It wants to base itself and know itself secure with him. This outgoing movement becomes “eccentric” and loses itself in God. (4) Being received. Ultimately it is God who receives my surrender. Orative dynamics is passive here: I am seen, heard, received. I am being included in intimacy with God, hidden in the recesses of his tent. (5) Enjoyment. Being received in God’s nearness is a deep fulfillment. It offers pleasure and satisfaction. The intimacy experienced has a profound interior impact on me and breaks through in joy. Admitting God into oneself. The second form of orative dynamics follows the movement of appropriating, admitting, absorbing, interiorizing into oneself. Here too we observe variations. 1. Reciting. Repeating the name of God, saying the prayers, tasting proverbs or memorizing sacred texts orally in tune with one’s breathing rhythm is an initial form of appropriation. This process is somatic. (2) Perception. The senses are involved in the reception of God: eyes which see his appearance, ears that hear his speech, hands that take in his presence. (3) Conduct. Not only the motor system or the senses but also one’s conduct admits God into life. By habit formation, by carefully dealing with man and the world, by actually following God, God is realized in conduct. (4) Interiorization. External appropriation is designed to receive God in the deeper layers of our life where we come to understanding and insight. The idea is for us to receive God totally until we have become conformed to him and one with him. (5) Being touched. We have really received God when he touches and affects us in our heart’s core. Then we become so soft and tender that we are amazed and tremble. Awakened in us now is the awe before God that is the source of wisdom and reverence for life. Moving God to turn toward us. The third form of orative dynamics seeks to so influence God that his emotions are touched and he is moved to action from

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within. In this dynamics too we can discern five interlocking moments. (1) Lamenting. The extreme point of moving God consists in the naked expression of grief. Its inner movement, however, is that this sometimes barely audible complaint draws the attention of God. (2) Influencing. The lament employs means and motives to exert pressure on God. God is confronted with his promises, his past, his attributes. People make vows to move God to intervene. The soul argues, bringing to the fore its own cause and its intolerable situation, marshaling all available reasons. In every possible way people try to motivate God to take action. (3) Affecting. The real purpose of moving God is to complain that God is touched and moved inwardly. The “inworking” on God’s emotions aims to elicit mercy, an inner change in God himself. (4) Elicitation. The act of elicitation is designed to draw out God’s emotions in action. God is moved in order that he may hear, turn to me and answer me. The purpose is that this “turning toward” may express itself in conduct; that God may reveal his intention, react, do something, intervene. (5) Waiting. Inasmuch as the aim of this “inworking” is that God himself will be moved from within, the act of touching and eliciting is inwardly oriented to waiting: a doing-nothing that remains intensely focused on God’s coming but no longer seeks to influence him. Openly testifying of God. The fourth form is a dynamic of open affirmation, public demonstration, advancement of God’s working, honoring and “radiating” him. In all these cases what we are dealing with is making God present in a wider circle. Also this basic form has several subforms. (1) Affirmation. The subform underlying all the following ones is the recognition which openly confirms the presence, the action, or the person of God. One openly evidences his significance and affirms his dignity. (2) Demonstration. Affirmation becomes concrete when God’s significance is openly attested in someone who walked the way of God: we call “blessed” the person in whom God’s working became visible. He or she is put on center stage as a trace of God. In a comparable way events are interpreted as “the hand of God.” The story of his deeds is recounted: featured as the working of God. (3) Confirmation. Sometimes God’s working is not only acknowledged and pointed out but also evoked and enhanced: his power to bless is affirmed, his strength is invoked on behalf of the people, his punitive justice is entreated. People pray that his power may assert itself in the midst of the human community. (4) Acclaim. God’s working is not only affirmed, pointed out, and confirmed in the midst of the people or the nations, but also recognized as central: it constitutes the center of people and nations; his royal presence is applauded. (5) Radiation. The final subform of affirmation is the one most intimately interwoven with the people: the people itself – in its sanctuary, its music, in its vital center – gives expression to God’s presence. The celebrating people make God present as the One who is its center. God is the celebrated center of the community that makes God’s presence present.

HERMENEUTIC RESEARCH 2.3.5. THE

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In the hermeneutics of Levinas, Scripture has a plain meaning that is also enigmatic.272 In Jewish mysticism this enigmatic meaning is called sod: mystery. The torah speaks with the mystic “concerning all her hidden mysteries and all the mysterious ways which have been hidden in her heart from time immemorial.”273 This mystery is disclosed in the vis-à-vis that Levinas calls “the truth of revelation.”274 By the term “revelation” he is referring to Franz Rosenzweig to whom he knew himself to be “under tribute.”275 In Rosenzweig the structure of revelation is dialogic. It delineates itself in prayer.276 In order the better to understand the term “revelation,” in a phenomenological-dialogic approach, we will briefly discuss the key passages of The Star of Redemption by Franz Rosenzweig,277 called “mystical in the strictest sense” by Gershom Scholem.278 His views resonate against the background of the Song of Solomon which occupies a prominent place not only in Jewish mysticism but also in the Jewish liturgy.279 The question is: how can prayer be revelatory and what does it reveal? We will explain in greater detail four aspects of revelation that are of importance for a spiritual hermeneutics. 1. Looking forward to receiving and giving “Only the love of a lover is such a continually renewed self-sacrifice; it is only he who gives himself away in love. The beloved accepts the gift. That she accepts it is her return-gift.”280 From the vantage point of the beloved there is this looking forward to the Lover that receives the Lover as ever giving himself anew. The reception is itself her answer. Here the basic structure of revelation is verbalized in a single dialogical setting from the perspective of the God-oriented soul. This orientation receives the eternal Presence and the reception itself witnesses to it. The being-loved itself reveals the love of the Lover and answers it. “Her requital is only that she allows herself to be loved (…). With respect to the 272

E. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994, x. Zohar III, 99b. 274 E. Levinas, op. cit., xiii. 275 Of Rosenzweig’s main work The Star of Redemption Levinas, writing in the introduction of Totality and Infinity, says that it is “a work too often present in this book to be cited” (28). 276 J. Kirchberg, Theo-logie in der Anrede als Weg zur Verständigung zwischen Juden und Christen, Innsbruck-Wien 1991, 345. 277 Rosenzweig treats “revelation” in the middle of the mid-section: Part II, book 2. 278 On the 1930 Edition of Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption, in: G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, New York 1974, 320-324. 279 J. Kirchberg, ibid., 316. 280 F. Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, New York-Chicago-San Francisco 1971, 162. 273

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lover: it can only allow itself to be loved, nothing more. And it is thus that the soul receives the love of God.”281 The soul allows itself to be loved and so receives the love it reveals as it receives it in its being-loved. “God never ceases to love nor the soul to be loved.”282 The revelation of God’s love delineates itself in the affirmation of that Love by the soul. “And thus a kind of strength also emanates from the object of love, not the strength of constantly new impulses, but the serene glow of a great Yea in which that love of the lover which always belies itself finds that which I could not find in itself: affirmation and constancy.”283 The beloved soul affirms the ever self-giving Lover and thereby affirms him in his being. “This is requited love; the faith of the beloved in the lover. By its trust, the faith of the soul attests the love of God and endows it with enduring being. If you testify to me, then I am God, and not otherwise – thus the master of the Kabbala lets the God of love declare.”284 2. The commandment In the receiving soul the restlessly self-giving presence of the One present delineates itself as Loving. The affirmation confirms this Presence and gives it constancy. This Presence is not speechless. It speaks. “Here is the I, the individual human I, as yet wholly receptive, as yet only unlocked, only empty, without content, without nature, pure readiness, pure obedience, all ears. The commandment is the first content to drop into this attentive hearing.”285 What is the content of this commandment? “The answer to this question is universally familiar. Millions of tongues testify to it evening and morning: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all they might.’ Thou shalt love – what a paradox this embraces! Can love then be commanded?”286 Rosenzweig stresses that a commandment must not be confused with a law. And also that it concerns a commandment that comes out of the mouth of the Lover. “The commandment to love can only proceed from the mouth of the lover. Only the lover can and does say: love me! – and he really does so. In his mouth the commandment to love is not a strange commandment; it is none other than the voice of love itself. The love of the lover has, in fact, no word to express itself other than the commandment (…) the ‘Love me!’ of the lover – that is wholly perfect expression, wholly pure language of love.”287

281

Ibid., 169. Ibidem. 283 Ibid., 171. 284 Ibid., 170-171. 285 Ibid., 176. 286 Ibidem. 287 Ibid., 176, 177. 282

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In the commandment the loving presence finds its voice: “Love me.” This commandment is pure presence: a presence begging for the reception of presence, and nothing else. This commandment which begs can never be cast in the mold of a law. The reverse is true: all God’s laws are sustained by this first and highest utterance. They all mean “Love me.”288 This is the highest commandment the “I” of God reveals: “God’s ‘I’ remains the keyword, traversing revelation, like a single sustained organ note; it resists any translation into ‘he’; it is an ‘I’ and an ‘I’ it must remain. Only an ‘I,’ not a ‘he,’ can pronounce the imperative of love, which may never be anything other than ‘love me!’”289 The commandment “Love me” is the revelation of “Here am I.” 3. The declaration of love In the reception of the loving Presence and in listening to the divine command “Love me” the Lover is completely affirmed: “The beloved knows herself beloved and wants to remain what she is: beloved. With that the enduring Presence of the Lover is affirmed in its constancy. The beloved soul represents the Lover in her faithful reception. In her acknowledgment of the Lover she affirms his enduring loving presence.”290 The content of this acknowledgment is the very “being” of the Lover: “Every acknowledgment of belief has but this one content: him whom I have recognized as the lover in experiencing my being love – he ‘is.’ The God of my love is truly God.”291 The God-orientation of the soul reveals God’s being, a being that “God has attained within and on the basis of revelation.”292 Hence in the God-orientation of the soul God does not only reveal his divine “I” in the commandment “Love me” but also his divine being. Together they both celebrate and affirm the arch-revelation to Israel: “I am that I am” (Exod. 3:14). 4. Your kingdom come “Prayer is the last thing achieved in revelation. It is an overflow of the highest and most perfect trust of the soul. There is no question here regarding the fulfillment of the prayer. The prayer is its own fulfillment. The soul prays in the words of the Psalms: let not my prayer and your love depart from me (…). To be able to pray: that is the greatest gift presented to the soul in revelation.”293 Being-loved as the bedding of revelation expresses itself in the all-embracing 288

Ibid., 177. Ibid., 178. 290 Ibid., 179. 291 Ibid., 181. 292 Cf. ibid., 182. 293 Ibid., 184. 289

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prayer for the coming of the kingdom of God in which all things will come to fulfillment. This prayer is a cry: “Revelation climaxes in an unfulfilled wish, in the cry of an open question. That the soul has the courage to wish thus, to ask thus, to cry thus shows the completeness of the trust reposed in God; it is the achievement of revelation.”294 It casts its desire, its question, its cry into God’s future. In the present the soul is powerless to do anything about it. It is pure longing: “The prayer for the coming of the kingdom is ever but a crying and a sighing, ever but a plea.”295

2.3.6. THE ONGOING IMPACT The impact of the reading process occurs on various levels. (1) At its most fundamental level the text touches the reader in the core of his or her unique personality, which awakens as a result. (2) This awakening is at the same time an existential orientation: the reader positions herself in the direction of the text. (3) The essential orientation the reading of Scripture prompts is attunement to the other. (4) At the same time the reading brings light into the historical situation of the reader. 1. The awakening of the person in his or her uniqueness The significance of a text does not reside in the letters, nor in the reading community, but in the relation between the reader and the text understood as a reciprocal relation.296 The truth of revelation is revealed “only in the pluralism of persons and generations. This constitutes the foundation of the inestimable or absolute value of every self and all receptivity, in this revelation which is non-transferable, like a responsibility, and is incumbent afresh upon every person and every epoch.”297 The reading of Scripture appeals to the uniqueness of each person. Scripture as it were yearns for the beingpersonally-touched of the reading subject. “Which is probably the raison d’être of the very multiplicity of human beings.”298 The abundance of unique persons awaits the being-awakened by Scripture. This belongs to the fundamental significance of the text: “It does, however, amount to understanding the very plurality of people as an unavoidable moment of the signification

294

Ibid., 185. Ibidem. 296 C. Boff, Theology and Praxis, Maryknoll (NY) 1987, 136. 297 E. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994, xiii. 298 Ibid., 48. 295

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of meaning, and as in some way justified by the destiny of the inspired word.”299 For Levinas revelation and personal awakening are two sides of one and the same process.300 The person awakens in hearing the voice of God, which creates an immediate relation with the reader.301 The personal awakening and the revelation of God are one, because they occur in the immediacy of the relation to God: where the reader knows himself to be personally addressed, the revelation of the Word happens.302 This relation of immediacy can be understood in light of Levinas’s view of the Face. As we saw earlier,303 Levinas defines the face thus: the face creates meaning out of itself, “it expresses itself.”304 It makes use of nothing other than itself to express what it expresses: itself.”305 “It is simply signified by a sign in a system of signs.”306 The signifier must present himself before every sign, by himself – present a face.”307 This face only delineates itself in a receiving subject. In the immediate impression on the subject – before the subject raises reservations or exerts his or her will – the text awakens subjectivity on a personal level: where the subject is answer. In the immediate experience of being touched by God’s Word the reader awakens down to the personal level. He or she awakens into one addressed by God: this is “the great awakening.”308 The reading of the torah leads us to a state “of extreme consciousness. As if the consciousness of our habitual life were still sleep, as if we had not yet got a foothold in reality.”309 One who allows himself to be spoken to during the study of Scripture has been guided into the personal which perhaps can appear in its originary purity only through this text. A form of knowledge which leads to a relation which is no longer a form of knowledge. Hence, perhaps, the strange words of certain Talmudists, like Rabbi Hayyim Volozhiner, who say that the Torah is God. The Torah would be the text which leads us through truth to the personal par excellence, that of God.”310

299

Ibid., 110. Ibid., 50. 301 Ibid., 97-98. 302 Ibid., 134-135. 303 Part 2, ch. 5.2. 304 E. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, Pittsburgh 1961, 51. 305 Ibid., 56-57, 140. 306 Ibid., 178. 307 Ibid., 182. 308 E. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994, 50. 309 Ibid., 46. 310 Ibid., 32. 300

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Scripture reading is the personal union between God and man. “The study of the Word of God thus establishes or constitutes the most direct relation to God, perhaps more direct than the liturgy.”311 2. The existential orientation Ricoeur distinguishes two phases in the reading process. (1) First the meaning of a text (along the lines of Husserl: the ideality seen in the text) is explained. (2) Then follows “the moment at which the reader recaptures the meaning and gives shape to it in his own existence.”312 This appropriation is what Ricoeur calls the understanding of the significance. “Significance is the moment when the reader takes over the meaning, that is to say: the activation of the meaning in the existence of the reader.”313 To understand the significance is appropriation: “By ‘appropriation,’ I understand this: that the interpretation of a text culminates in the self-interpretation of a subject who thenceforth understands himself better, understands himself differently, or simply begins to understand himself.”314 Appropriation coincides with the formation of identity: the depthstructure (meaning) captured in the “explanation” has a direction (meaning) that is followed in understanding (ap-propriation). The text seeks to place us in its meaning, that is – according to another acceptation of the word sens – in the same direction. So if the intention is that of the text, and if this intention is the direction that it opens up for thought, then depth semantics must be understood in a fundamentally dynamic way. I shall therefore say: to explain is to bring out the structure, that is, the internal relations of dependence that constitute the statics of the text; to interpret is to follow the path of thought opened up by the text, to place oneself en route toward the orient of the text.315

Appropriation is: to take one’s place in the direction (sens) of the text. “Henceforth for the exegete, to interpret is to place himself within the sense indicated by the relation of interpretation supported by the text.”316 Ap-propriation is the signification of the text in the existence of the reader. In understanding the text the reader is transformed by the text: “Now Word is no longer world to be seen but eyes to see, no longer landscape, but gaze, no longer thing but light.”317

311

Ibid., 97. P. Ricoeur, Kwaad en bevrijding, Rotterdam 1971, 57. 313 P. Ricoeur, Hermeneutik und Strukturalismus, München 1973, 194. 314 P. Ricoeur, From Text to Action, Evanston, 1991, 118. 315 Ibid., 121-122. 316 Ibid., 124. 317 C. Boff, Theology and Praxis, Maryknoll (NY) 1987, 137. 312

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3. Attunement to the other Beyond everything it wants me to know (information), language co-ordinates with the other to whom I am speaking, says Levinas in Beyond the Verse. Before the communication itself there is the self-communication of the other which awakens my responsibility-for-the-other. My coordination with the other in language is the expression of the fact that I have understood in advance that it is a person who appeals to me and worldlessly commands me: “You must not kill!” My co-ordination with the other discloses what language fundamentally is: “Word of God which commands and vows me to the other, a holy writing before being sacred text.”318 This essence of language preeminently effectuates itself in the reading of Scripture. There, above all, the rule applies: “I understand the word as my allegiance to the other.” Care for one’s own Dasein (interesse) is divested of its focus on the self and bent around to disinterestedness (des-interesse).319 Contained in Scripture, therefore, there is a meaning (co-ordination with the face of the other) which is formed in language itself and consists in the fact that in my speaking there is always Another who spoke and brought me to obedience. “Is this implication of ethical responsibility in the strict and almost closed saying of the verse which is formed in language as if I were not the only one speaking when I speak and not already obeying, not the original writing in which God, who has come to the idea, is named in the Said?”320 Against this background we can understand that Levinas views his “relation to books” as his “movement-towards-God.”321 For the Bible (ta biblia: the books) brings the religious essence of language to the surface: my co-ordination with the other. And for Levinas this co-ordination with is attunement-to-the Other, God. Hence: orientation to the torah is orientation to God. 4. Light in the historical situation It is the will of Scripture that the reader approach it with the unconditional commitment of the uniqueness of his or her person. This is also true for “the particularity of every historical moment in which the approach is attempted.”322 Every historical situation is unique and hence a unique opportunity for the working of God’s revelation. It is as if the multiplicity of persons – is not this the very meaning of the personal? – were the condition for the plenitude of ‘absolute truth’; as if every person, through his uniqueness, were the guarantee of the revelation of a unique aspect of truth, and 318

E. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994, xii. Cf. Ibidem. 320 Ibidem. 321 Ibidem. 322 Ibid., xiii. 319

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Levinas calls this the “homiletic” essence of the text. It is a manner of reading where the passage commented upon clarifies for the reader its present preoccupation (which may be either out of the ordinary or common to its generation), and where the verse, in its turn, is renewed in the light of this clarification. This is what I shall call the ‘homiletic’ essence of the text. Before being the edification of a community, homily is this intimate relation with the text, this renewal and constant updating of meaning.324

Levinas here picks up the insights of Gadamer who views the “application” as an essential and necessary part of the understanding325 that had been excluded from the realm of science by Romanticism and the Enlightenment: “The edifying application of scripture, for example, in Christian proclamation and preaching now seemed quite a different thing from the historical and theological understanding of it.”326 This is not correct, for the full performance of interpretation is proclamation: the unleashing of the effect of the Said. This is even part of the preunderstanding of Scripture: Theological hermeneutics “assumes that the word of scripture addresses us and that only the person who allows himself to be addressed – whether he believes or whether he doubts – understands. Hence the primary thing is application.”327 The text wants to happen: “Through being re-actualized in understanding, the texts are drawn into a genuine process in exactly the same way as are the events themselves through their continuance.”328 The history of the text’s ongoing effectuation is the application of its meaning. A work proves “the fullness of its meaning in the changing process of its meaning” while “it remains the same work.”329 This ongoing effectuation begins in the understanding itself: “The first thing is the question that the text presents us with, our response to the word handed down to us, so that its understanding must already include the work of historical self-mediation of present and tradition.”330 323

Ibid., 133. Ibid., 170. 325 H. Gadamer, Truth and Method, New York 1975, 274-278. 326 Ibid., 274. 327 Ibid., 297. 328 Ibid., 336. 329 Ibidem. 330 Ibid., 336-337. 324

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By understanding the text is reactualized and this actualization constitutes an essential aspect of the text. “The text of Christian scripture is pregnant with all the virtual senses that will come to light upon contact with historical currency. I repeat, therefore: these senses are to be taken as an integral part of the text itself, a demonstration of its kairological virtuality.”331 Through this process of reading and interpretation the text imprints itself in the historical situation whose kairos thereby lights up. This kairos in turn brings out a unique meaning of the text. This meaning is not added to the text but constitutes an integral part of it. The scriptural meaning imprints itself in the life and contact of the reader, “for meaning is realized only in and by response. Further: it is only in concrete life that meaning unfolds, and ‘comes to itself.’ And here hermeneutics flowers into ethics.”332 The interpretation is imprinted in orthopraxis, “an essential element in the hermeneutic process itself.”333 In this orthopraxis we are at the very least dealing with a praxis that does not manipulate human freedom and does not produce alienation. In that sense Schillebeeckx posits: “Praxis is an essential element in an actualizing and liberating interpretation.”334

BIBLIOGRAPHY BIANCHI, E., God ontmoeten in zijn Woord. Inleiding tot de ‘lectio divina’, Brugge-Zeist 1991. BOER, T. DE et al., Hermeneutiek. Filosofische grondslagen van mens- en cultuurwetenschappen, Meppel-Amsterdam 1988. BOFF, C., Theology and Praxis, Maryknoll (NY) 1987. BROWN, S., Text and Psyche. Experiencing Scripture Today, London 1998. BUBER, M. & ROSENZWEIG, F., Scripture and Translation, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994. BULTMAN, R., Faith and Understanding I, New York-Evanston 1969. CHATELION COUNET, P., De sarcofaag van het Woord. Postmoderniteit, deconstructie en het Johannesevangelie, Kampen 1995. CLAES, P., Echo’s echo’s. De kunst van de allusie, Amsterdam 1988. CULLING, E., Spirituality and Remembering, Cambridge 1996. DAIBER, K. & LUKATIS, I., Bibelfrömmigkeit als Gestalt gelebter Religion, Bielefeld 1991. Dizionario di spiritualita biblico-patristica. I grandi temi della S. Scrittura per la “lectio divina”, (Ed. S. Panimolle et al.), Rome 1992… DILTHEY, W., Gesammelte Schriften, Stuttgart-Göttingen 1974-….

331

C. Boff, op. cit., 141-142. Ibid., 138. 333 E. Schillebeeckx, Kritische theorie en theologische hermeneutiek: confrontatie, in: E. Schillebeeckx, Geloofsverstaan, Bloemendaal 1972, 194; also see C. Boff, Theology and Praxis, 135-153. 334 E. Schillebeeckx, ibid., 205. 332

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Éditer, traduire, interpréter. Essais de méthodologie philosophique, (Ed. S. Lofts & P. Rosemann), Leuven 1997. FOWLER, R., Let the Reader Understand, Minneapolis 1991. GADAMER, H. Truth and Method, New York, 1975. GILBOY, P., Nonrelational Mysticism and the Hermeneutical Dilemma. The Problem of Duality and Disclosure, Berkeley (CA) 1990. GRONDIN, J. Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, New Haven 1994. GUINAN, M., To Be Human before God. Insights from Biblical Spirituality, Collegeville (MN) 1994. HALL, T., Too Deep for Words. Rediscovering Lectio Divina, New York 1988. HARLEY, D., Spirituality Explored with the Help of Calligraphy, Leek 1993. Hermeneutiek in discussie, (Ed. G. Widdershoven & T. de Boer), Delft 1990. HOWARD, R., Three Faces of Hermeneutics. An Introduction to Current Theories of Understanding, Berkeley (CA) 1982. ISER, W., The Act of Reading, Baltimore 1978. ISER, W., Die Appellstruktur der Texten, Konstanz 1970. ISER, W., Der implizite Leser. Kommunikationsformen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett, München 1972. KIRCHBERG, J., Theo-logie in der Anrede als Weg zur Verständigung zwischen Juden und Christen, Innsbruck-Wien 1991. Lesen und Leben, (Ed. H. Göpfert), Frankfurt a.M. 1975. LEVINAS, E., Beyond the Verse, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994. Literatur und bildende Kunst, (Ed. U. Weisstein), Berlin 1992. MCCLAIN, E., Meditations through the Quran. Tonal Images in an Oral Culture, York Beach 1981. MESTERS, C., Defenseless Flower. A New Reading of the Bible, New York 1989. MÜLLER, P., ‘Verstehst du auch, was du liest?’ Lesen und Verstehen im Neuen Testament, Darmstadt 1994. NASR, S., Islamic Art and Spirituality, Albany (NY) 1987. NEGENMANN, J., De wording van het Woord, Kampen 1986. NETHÖFEL, W., Theologische Hermeneutik. Von Mythos zu den Medien, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1992. OEMING, M., Biblische Hermeneutik. Eine Einführung, Darmstadt 1998. POLLMANN, K., Doctrina christiana. Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustinus’ ‘De doctrina christiana’, Freiburg (Switzerland) 1996. QUASEM, M., The Recitation and Interpretation of the Quran, London 1982. RAYMENT, D., Hermeneutics, Ottawa 1992. RICOEUR, P., Le conflit des interpretations. Essais d’hermeneutique, Paris 1969. RICOEUR, P., From Texts to Action, Evanston 1991. ROSENZWEIG, F., Der Mensch und sein Werk. Gesammelte Schriften, The Hague etc. 1976-1984. RÜTZ, J., Text im Bild, Frankfurt a. M. 1991. SCHILLEBEECKX, E., Geloofsverstaan, Bloemendaal 1972. SCHIMMEL, A., Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, New York 1984.

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SCHOLEM, G., The Messianic Idea in Judaism, New York 1971. De Schriften verstaan. Wijsgerig-hermeneutische en theologisch-hermeneutische teksten, (Ed. W. Stoker et al.), Zoetermeer 1995. Text und Bild – Bild und Text, (Ed. W. Harms), Stuttgart 1990. THISELTON, A., New Horizons in Hermeneutics, London 1992. TOON, P., The Art of Meditating on Scripture. Understanding Your Faith, Renewing Your Mind, Knowing Your God, Grand Rapids (MI) 1993. Verstehen and Humane Understanding, (Ed. A. O’Hear), Cambridge etc. 1996. WAAIJMAN, K., Psalmen bij het zoeken van de weg, Kampen 1982. WEISS HALIVNI, D., Peshat and Derash. Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis, New York 1991. WELZEN, H., Methoden in de exegese, Nijmegen 1996. WILS, J., Hermeneutiek en verlangen, Nijmegen 1997.

CHAPTER 3: SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH INTRODUCTION 775 Systematic spirituality research is focused on the truth of a given cluster of spiritual themes (thematic). The question is: how does a spiritual datum come up for discussion in the way of a discursive operation and achieve validity within an academic setting? We will arrive at a design for this type of research in three steps. 3.1. THE SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 777 The first step is the study of the basic structure of a spiritual conference. All schools of spirituality are familiar with forms of critical reflection. A subject is systematically treated (looked at from all directions; compared and tested; directed toward the truth of the subject matter) before the forum of the study community. 3.1.1. A number of forms 777 3.1.2. Basic structure 785 3.2. THE EXPLORATION OF SYSTEMATIC REFLECTION 789 The second step is the exploration-in-depth of the structural elements of the spiritual conference we have discovered. We will explore: the structure of the study community; the manner in which a given cluster of themes (thematic) is categorized; the prevailing mode of argumentation; the manner in which truth comes up and is dealt with. 3.2.1. The learning community 789 3.2.2. The subject-matter discussed 794 3.2.3. Exploring the subject in depth 801 3.2.4. Insight into the truth 808 824 3.3. THE SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF SPIRITUALITY The third step consists in designing the field of systematic spirituality research. First we sketch the scientific forum of spirituality research. Then we examine the fundamental categories involved in this research. Next we look at how students of spirituality conduct their arguments. Finally we reflect on the manner in which truth communicates itself in our cognitive processes. 3.3.1. The scientific forum 824 3.3.2. The spiritual categories 830 3.3.3. The argumentation 843 3.3.4. The self-disclosure of truth 860 Bibliography 867

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Introduction In our foundational research we saw that the unfolding of truth occurs between two focal points: the subject matter which presents itself to the critical community and the critical community which addresses it.1 Between these two focal points language is the intermediary: in it the subject matter comes up and mediates the articulation of it in the context of the truth-seeking community. In the unfolding truth process, accordingly, there are four interlocking components: (1) the wording in which the subject matter presents itself; (2) the discursivelyexecuted claim to validity within a critical community; (3) the language of the categories in which the subject matter comes up; (4) the language in which the articulation of the subject matter can make itself felt within the truth-seeking community. Against the background of the results of our foundational research we now seek to arrive in three steps at our design for systematic spirituality research. The first step consists in an examination of forms of systematic reflection within lived spirituality: the Buddhist, Talmudic, and monastic learning communities, the chapter of the mendicant brothers, the Free Jewish House of Study and the Revision de vie (Review of life). For all the differences between them the following four components are determinative for a spiritual conference: (1) there exists a critical community which deals with the subject matter from all directions; (2) there exists a common language which provides the categories of the discussion; (3) there occurs a process of comparison and testing; (4) there is the truth of the subject matter under consideration. This basic structure is expressed by the Latin word collatio2 which like the word systematics3 refers to a process in which the truth of a given subject matter becomes manifest in a learning community by way of a process of critical articulation and testing. The second step consists in exploring the above four components in depth with the aid of examples from lived spirituality. The third step: the design of systematic spirituality research which, in terms of its basic structure, ties in with the systematic reflection of lived spirituality. First we will depict the scientific forum of the study of spirituality. Next we will 1

See part 2, chapter 5.3.3. For this, see chapter 3.1.2. 3 The word “system” derives from the Greek sun-histemi: to place together. Systematic research places the Einstellungen (experiences, points of view, insights) and Abschattungen (aspects, elements, parts) together. The aim of systematics is not the system as such (an organically integrated whole) but the unfolding of the truth of the subject matter. 2

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examine the basic categories in which the systematic reflection takes place. Then we shall study the style of argumentation the authors follow in their discourse. Finally we will reflect on the manner in which the truth of the subject matter makes itself known.

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3.1. The Spiritual Conference All spiritual communities are acquainted with the spiritual conference that is conducted by the community as a whole or by a significant part of it and is often led by the person to whom the leadership of the community is entrusted. A spiritual conference gives a community an opportunity to reflect on the central issues of the spiritual life. This reflection not only serves to refine the rules, to correct aberrations, and to keep alive the [original] motivation, but above all has a clarifying function: what is the meaning of a given practice within the whole of the spiritual way? What is the primary goal? What are the means used in pursuing it? How do they relate to each other? And so forth.

3.1.1. A NUMBER OF FORMS In different spiritualities a spiritual conference assumes different forms. Among the mendicant brothers, for example, the conferences are intensely democratic. As a result the leadership factor is less clearly defined. In the Buddhist conference the leader is more clearly present, something that can result in the conference assuming the form of instruction and exhortation. Also the subjects discussed may be divergent. For our purpose it is important to know how the monks used the conference and by what factors they were guided. 1. The Buddhist study community Buddha articulated his teaching in the form of preaching. This form was so characteristic for his way of working that scholars regard his first sermon about achieving Enlightenment as the origin of the Buddhist learning community. The content of this first sermon is an exposition of the Four Noble Truths: (1) Existence is impermanence and suffering; (2) these realities have their roots in desire; (3) suffering and desire can be annihilated; (4) there is a way that leads to this annihilation (the Eightfold Path). Closely connected with the fourfold truth is the insight that there is a causal chain which leads from ignorance, by way of desire, to suffering. We do not know with complete certainty the content of Buddha’s preaching, but we do know that it was developed in the context of study communities which studied the traditions, reflected on the fundamental nature of things (dharma), designed categories of meditation, defined and explained the ultimate elements of reality, made a map or the Eightfold Path, resolved philosophical problems, conducted apologetic defenses, and so forth.

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For a sound understanding of the connection between the fourfold truth and the study community one must realize that understanding this connection was an existential “way.” By penetrating the impermanence of one’s own existence (decline, finiteness, sickness, suffering, death), one encounters existential resistances which are at the same time its causes: yearning, self-assertion, instinct, desire. This insight demands that it be systematically communicated within the community: “By understanding the doctrine of the Four Noble Truths as an existential path (…) we gain access to the fundamental spirit of early Buddhism.”4 There is a causal connection between one’s own way to awakening and the way of another, for one’s own awakening awakens others.5 Giving a good insight into systematic thought within Buddhist spirituality are the abhidharma schools which attempt to articulate Buddhist doctrine in a clear and consistent system.6 These schools originated a few centuries before Christ. Their name originally meant “in regard to the doctrine” (abhi-dharma) but gradually began to mean “the superior (abhi) doctrine (dharma).” Along with the holy writings and the Discipline collections abidharma-writings form the third collection in the Buddhist canon. Three points are important: the logical categories, the essential, and the interest. Logical categories. The Abhidharma thinkers composed lists of categories (matrka) aimed at defining the basic truths of the Buddhist way. They served as a sort of matrix in which true reality emerged. Furthermore, these thinkers studied the logic by means of which they discussed spiritual matters in an orderly way, as well as the valid means of knowing (pramana).7 In certain schools of Buddhist thought these subjects were examined in close connection with the patterns which direct our understanding and the laws of our language production. An important distinction in this connection is the difference between the immediate sensation (pratyaksa) which precedes all language and images, and the deduction (anumana) which classifies a verbal-mental construction and establishes relations. The essential. Abhidharma thinkers tried to establish the essence (svabhava) of all things. They viewed the essential as absolutely true if it was not capable of further analysis. They viewed as the five ultimate truths: material form, sensation, conceptualization, karmic impulses, and consciousness. These last entities were regarded as the true building blocks behind the facade of the “I” that presumes to be the permanent core in the changing circumstances of life. This permanent core was rejected by other schools which in their analysis proceeded from emptiness 4

T. Yoshinori & J. Keenan, Buddhist Philosophy, in: EncRel(E) 2 (1987), 542. Ibidem. 6 S. Hajime, Abhidharma, in: Buddhist Spirituality. Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan and Early Chinese (WS 8), London 1994, 67-78. 7 T. Yoshinori & J. Keenan, Buddhist Philosophy, in: EncRel(E) 2 (1987), 545-546. 5

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(sunyata), which they rigorously maintained in their further theorizing. To these thinkers the basic categories were ultimately nonexistent. Furthermore, that emptiness cannot be carried over into human discourse. Hence the logically necessary paradox in which the opponents ended up: “The truth of ultimate meaning (paramartha-satya) is always ineffable and beyond any conceptual knowing, and yet it must be expressed in the truth of worldly convention (samvrti-satya) in order to be understandable to common worldlings.”8 The interest. The goal of the Buddhist way is awakening in the nirvana of Enlightenment. This awakening in turn awakens others, for the real truth is interested in the salvation of the other. This interest also marks the formation of the theories of the Abhidharma thinkers. “Their main interest was soteriological, for they thought that detachment from passion (klesa) resulted from the attainment of the correct views (samagdrsti).9 Their discussions about the many facets of the Four Noble Truths and the many stages of the meditative way were aimed at a process of awakening that led to complete annihilation (nirvana) and complete Enlightenment (boddhi). Other schools as well were directed toward this way of salvation which was effected in the way of thought. This is logical enough, for consciousness is the place where we foster memories, form images, and project expectations. If this consciousness can be deconstructed from within the emptiness of nirvana, this learning process is a way of salvation. 2. The Talmudic study community In ancient Israel directions for the road of life are given by parents (Prov. 1:8), sages (Prov. 13:14), and priests (2 Kgs. 12:3). During and after the exile these directions came together in the one stream of instruction which became the written torah. In the first century A.D. this written torah received its definitive form. At the same time an oral tradition took shape that is called the mishna. Both in content and in form the oral torah differs from the written torah.10 In 73 treatises, grouped in six orders (sedarim), topics from agriculture, the feasts, marriage, trade, and the like are treated. The rabbis forged connections from the oral to the written torah. This search expedition finds expression in the talmud. To acquaint ourselves with the rabbinical learning community we will consult the treatise Avot included in the fourth order of the mishna, a treatise which as no other writing offers insight into rabbinical spirituality.11 8

Ibid., 543-544. Ibid., 543. 10 J. Neusner, Foundations of Judaism, Philadelphia 1989, 110-121. 11 M. Lerner, The Tractate Avot, in: The Literature of the Sages, (Ed. S. Safrai & P. Tomson), Assen-Maastricht etc. 1987, 264. 9

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Learning constitutes an essential element in Jewish faith communities.12 At the age of six or seven, children went to the bet sefer to learn Scripture. Beginning at the age of ten, they studied the mishnah, and at age fifteen they began their studies of the talmud. A familiar text from Avot reads: “Five years is the age for the study of Scripture; ten, for the study of mishnah; thirteen, for becoming subject to the commandments; fifteen, for the study of talmud; eighteen, for the bridal canopy; twenty, for pursuing a livelihood.”13 Education was especially focused on the memory. The student must continually read the study material out loud to himself. “Rabbi Eliezer had a pupil who learned speaking softly. After three years he had forgotten what he had learned (…). Samuel said to rabbi Jehuda: Sagacious one, open your mouth and read out loud, open your mouth and learn, so that the torah may be preserved in you and you live for a long time.”14 At the core of this process is constant repetition: “Someone who repeats a certain pericope a hundred times is not to be compared with someone who repeats it a hundred and one times.”15 The school functioned under the guidance of a teacher who was called “the sage” (chakam), entirely in keeping with the wisdom tradition in Israel where the sage is like a father who instructs his child in the art of survival. Learning took place in the house of study, usually housed in the synagogue or in an adjacent building. Private teachers received their pupils at home. Because the rabbis esteemed instruction more highly than the liturgy, they said a synagogue could be converted into a house of study but no house of study could be made into a synagogue.16 The core of the lesson material was the written torah around which the oral torah formed a “fence” (Avot 1:2, 5, 12, 15; 2:4 and so forth). “Thus we have learned: the wise build a fence around their words, so that nobody comes from the field in the evening and says: ‘I will go home, eat a little, drink a little, sleep a little, and after that I will recite the Shema and pray.’ Then, however, sleep overpowers him and he sleeps the whole night through.”17 Learning consists in its power to transform the student (Avot 2:4, 7, 8; 3:14). Dealing with and appropriating the torah is a difficult process (Avot 2:4, 15; 3:5). The most difficult part is the relation between learning and doing (Avot 1:17; 3:11, 17). For that reason the student is constantly being talked to about his conduct: he must be kind (Avot 1:3), modest (Avot 1:10, 13, 15; 4:4-5) but not

12

G. Stemberger, Das klassische Judentum, München 1979, 109-125. Avot 5:21. 14 Eruvin 53b, 54a. 15 Hagiga 9b. 16 Megillah 28a. 17 Bereshit Rabba 2a, 4a-b. 13

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timid (Avot 2:5). He must be patient (Avot 2:5) and long-suffering (Avot 2:10; 4:1). He must live from the heart (Avot 2:11), yet not be driven by zeal, yearnings, and ambition (Avot 4:21). He must achieve a kind of self-understanding (Avot 1:14; 2:2, 3, 8; 3:1) and learn to control his drives (Avot 4:1). He may not despise anyone (Avot 4:3). His entire life must be marked by respect (Avot 4:6). The student must be circumspect in his speech (Avot 1:11, 17; 3:13) and in judging (Avot 1:6; 2:4). One must positively shape good relations by doing good works (Avot 1:2; 3:12; 4:17), by a generous attitude (Avot 2:8), by striving for peace (Avot 1:2), by greeting people (Avot 4:15). In all this the overriding goal is the complete transformation of the will of the student into the will of God by the practical implementation of the torah: “Make his will into your will, so that he will make your will into his will. Set aside your will in the face of his will, so that he may set aside the will of others before your will”(Avot 2:4). 3. The study community of monks “The original conference is a dialogue in which several speakers actively converse with each other under the guidance of an older monk who guides the debates and summarizes the conversation. In this form the conference manifests itself in the conversations of the desert fathers whom Cassian imitated.”18 Already rather early these dialogues became monologues: teaching given by a teacher to monks as instruction or exhortation. The Egyptian monks did not live in isolation. They had frequent contact with each other. Athanasius repeatedly mentions spiritual conferences with Anthony. We see him in dialogue with smaller groups, encouraging and counseling the monks. In Pachomius’s first cenobitic rule the conference (disputatio) is systematically organized. It had to be held every three days. The superiors then held a seminar before the monastic community. But that was not all: every morning, after the choral prayer, the monks discussed what they had learned from the seminar given by the superior. Everyone had to be present at these morning discussions. Sleepers had to be drummed out of bed.19 It was no simple task for the superiors to offer a good talk twice a week. Basil therefore proposed that meetings of abbots should be scheduled from time to time. There, in mutual consultations, they could exchange the experiences of the various monastic communities. It is in his Rules, probably, that we find the precipitate of these conferences.20 18

M. Olphe-Galliard, Conferences spirituelles, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1390. Ibid., 1391. 20 M. Viller & K. Rahner, Aszese und Mystik in der Väterzeit, Freiburg-Basel etc. 1990, 125126. 19

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The spiritual conference must have been a regular custom in the monastic community. Jerome reports what he saw: After three o’clock, “when the prayers have ended, and all have sat down, one, whom they call Father, stands up in their midst and discourses; a silence so complete being observed while he is speaking that no one dares to look at his neighbor or to clear his throat. The highest praise that can be given to the preacher is the weeping of his audience. But the tears that run down their cheeks are silent, and not even a sob reveals their emotion. But when he begins to announce the kingdom of Christ, the future happiness, and the coming glory you may see everyone with a gentle sigh and lifted gaze saying to himself: ‘Oh, that I had the wings of a dove. For then would I fly away and be at rest.’ After the discourse the meeting breaks up…21

The tradition of Pachomius and Basil continued to flourish in the East. A testimony to it can be found in the conferences conducted between 540 and 560 A.D. in a monastery that Dorotheus himself had founded between Gaza and Maiuma. “Detachment, humility, conscientiousness, godliness, distrust of self, brotherly love, patience, being peace-loving in all things, prudent zeal, spiritual struggle, reflection on hell, steadfastness in afflictions, the practice of virtue, fasting, speech and silence and so forth, are the main themes here.”22 The monks developed their thoughts clearly and to the point, using images, examples, memories, and quotations. The conferences constituted an essential element also in the monastic life of the West. Although Benedict does not devote a separate chapter to them in his Rule, he repeatedly refers to them. Conducting spiritual conferences was part of the task of a pastor and teacher which the abbot had to perform.23 In the Benedictine tradition spiritual conferences began to take place in the framework of the chapter. For the ancient orders this was to become the place in which the members spoke with each other about the course of events in the monastery, about themes of the spiritual life, and about the situation in which individual members find themselves, if necessary.24 In his Regula monachorum, in which he borrows generously from Benedict and Cassian, Isidore of Seville devotes a chapter to the spiritual conference (collatio), precisely specifying the time and place: three times a week after terce. The abbot offers his wise counsel while the others listen. He can also give someone the floor. In this context the monks dealt with broad themes of spirituality and monastic discipline.25 21

Jerome, Letter XXII, in: Select Letters of St. Jerome, (The Loeb Classical Library), New York 1933, 139. 22 M. Viller & K. Rahner, ibid., 150. 23 The Rule of Benedict, chs 2 and 65. We are following the text in SC 181, 182, (Ed. A. de Vogüé), Paris 1972. 24 M. Olphe-Galliard, ibid., 1395. 25 Ibid., 1393-1394.

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4. The Chapter Beginning in the twelfth century, profound social economic changes occurred in Western Europe: the emergence of urban culture, processes of democratization, the rise of universities, the emancipation of love, and the like. The mendicant orders responded to these changes. In the place of the father-son relation (abbasfilius) came the brotherhood (frater-frater). The leader of the brotherhood was not an abbot (father) but a prior (a “former” brother). The internal organization was democratic: the majority (maior pars) had the right of choice and decision. The ancient adage “that which concerns all must be treated and approved by all” (quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet) found a new application.26 The life of community is practiced in the chapter meetings, in liturgical celebrations with the people, in matters of communal property, and in common meals. These are not functional means, “things which serve the attainment of a certain end” (ea quae sunt ad finem) but themselves “the center in which the end is realized” (medium in quo concretizatur finis). Brotherhood is the sacrament of divine love. Against this background one can understand that among the Carmelites, for example, the weekly chapter could be the center where not only “the preservation of order” (custodia ordinis) but also “the salvation of souls” (salus animarum) was discussed.27 The care with which the ordinances were approached is expressed in words like: to hold fast (tenere), strive to (studere), observe (observare), judge (arbitrium), take note of (inspicere), perceive (deprehendere), care (sollicitudo), attentively and carefully (diligenter et caute), have in mind (in mente habere), in practice (in opere), and the like. The unfolding of the soul’s salvation must be fruitfully related to the careful observance of the order (ordo). Every Sunday, “or on other days when necessary,” Carmelites accompany each other on this road. They are intensively involved in it (tractari). 5. The Free Jewish House of Study (Das Freie Jüdische Lehrhaus) At the founding of the Free Jewish House of Study in 1920, the founder Franz Rosenzweig spoke as follows: It has been started: a new way of learning – a type of learning in reverse. Learning that no longer proceeds from the torah and is directed to life but the reverse: a learning that moves from life – from a world that knows nothing about this teaching of life, or does not want to know it – back to the torah. That is the signature of our

26

See Y. Congar, Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet, in: Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger 36 (1958), 512-515. 27 The Carmelite Rule, ch. XI. For the text and its exposition, see K. Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Carmel, Leuven 1999, 33, 119-136.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH time. It is the signature of our time because it is the signature of the people of our time.28

The principal purpose of the Free Jewish House of Study was to bring one’s own questions into contact with the Jewish tradition. The word “free” in the name of the house of study not only means that it is “freely” accessible (without examination or diplomas) but especially that it is open to anyone who wants to “learn,” also to non-Jews. And what is perhaps its most important feature is Rosenzweig’s belief that a house of study can only function properly if it is independent from orthodoxy, liberalism, and Zionism. The core component of the house of study is learning: letting the study material pass through yourself [as teacher] and in this way – learning as you go – building up the identity of the pupil. For that reason the material as such is not that important. Thus we see chemists, physicians, educational specialists, historians and artists act as teachers. The only real bond in the house of study is the mutual relationship between the teacher and the pupil: “The dependence of the teacher on the one who is in turn dependent on him: in this mutual dependence is rooted the only academic freedom that is neither a hollow phrase nor a dogma.”29 Characteristic for the house of study is “being interrupted by questions, the nondominance of the lecture, being more a teacher than an orator.” When in 1933, after a period of decline, Martin Buber again resumed the work of the house of study and on the 19th of November opened the Frankfurt Jewish House of Study, he highlighted, along with the mutuality which Rosenzweig had fostered, the unity of doctrine and life. 6. Revision de vie Revision de vie literally means: looking back on life. It differs from révision de vie which tends too much to evoke the atmosphere of repair and correction. “Life” here must not be understood as “my life” but as “the life of the world” in which my life is situated. The intent of the term revision de vie is to learn to look differently at the life we lead with others in order to discover God who speaks to us in events.30 One can give the following definition: “This new way of looking at life is the way of faith on which a group of Christians, involved in the history of people, attempts to offer a new perspective on the life of this world and on which to let itself be invited by God who has caused it to encounter or discover this way.”31 Revision de vie is a method in which the following steps can 28 F. Rosenzweig, Neues lernen, in: Almanach des Schocken Verlags auf das Jahr 5695, Berlin 1934-1935, 35b. 29 In a letter to Rudolf Hallo dated December 1922. 30 See J. Bréheret, Revision de vie, in: DSp 13 (1988), 493-500. 31 Ibid., 494.

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be distinguished.32 (1) Everyone introduces an event which struck him or her and in which he or she was involved either directly or indirectly; a person selects and proposes one event for discussion. (2) The group analyzes the event. How did it come about? What are its consequences? How do persons and groups react? Are there changes afoot? (3) The group searches for the meaning of the event. What motivations surfaced? What meaning did people assign to the events? (4) The deepening of faith: people hold the events experienced and the analyses made against the light of Scripture, not to infer a certain choice or course of action from this process, but rather to clean up the analysis and to sharpen the ear of faith. (5) Listening for one’s calling: everyone is invited to tell to what action he or she feels invited. The events analyzed are constructed as a challenge or appeal. A mutual exchange follows. (6) The meeting is closed with prayer and celebration. In addition, moments of silence are regularly interspersed in the conversation. These moments are prolonged toward the end. Revision de vie examines the events of ordinary life (together) to discover how God views them. The events themselves are the main text to be deciphered. Needed, to conduct this examination well, is an attitude of inner silence that does not prejudge things but listens and looks at things with openness. Important in this connection is a willingness to learn: the others can open my eyes and show me aspects which I would never have seen from my own point of view. My blinkered view is forced open by the introduction of other viewpoints, a process that is completed by the Spirit. “Revision de vie is a contemplative way, not the only one, but a way that is particularly well-suited for people who are committed to the betterment of the world, for at the core of that engagement, an engagement which is sometimes exceedingly humble and sometimes more organized, it makes an authentic contemplative life possible.”33

3.1.2. BASIC STRUCTURE When we look back on the written forms of the spiritual conference and inquire into its basic structure, we are struck by the following elements: the reference is to assemblies at which spiritual topics are explained and tested from various angles in order to gain insight into the topic concerned. The systematics of the spiritual conference is verbally condensed in the Latin word collatio.34 The most significant dimensions of a spiritual conference are brought out in this term: 32

Ibid., 495-496. Ibid., 498. 34 For the various aspects of the meaning of collatio, see: Thesaurus Linguae Latinae III (19061912), 1577-1580; and Lexicon Latinitatis Neerlandicae Medii Aevi II (1981), 802-807. 33

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(1) people come together to converse with each other; (2) topics are proposed that concern the spiritual way; (3) subject matters are compared to each other and explained from a variety of perspectives; (4) at issue are insight and discernment. 1. An assembly The collation is a conversation. Pachomius prescribes for his monks that every morning “after the prayers are finished” they must discuss with each other (conferre inter se) the topics introduced by the superior.35 Pachomius regarded these assemblies as essential. In the course of time, though their frequency lessened, their importance remained. Isidore of Seville states in his Rule: “In order, in the collation, to listen to the fathers, the brothers come together in an assembly three times a week, after a signal has been given. They listen to a senior monk who gives the instruction, teaching all of them about edifying precepts.”36 Collation is before all else an assembly. The structure of the assembly is only of secondary importance: it is either instruction or dialogue. Honorius Augustodunensis makes mention of a more dialogic form: monks come together for the collation in which they speak to each other (conferre) about Scripture. The Reden der Unterweisung (Talks of Instruction) by Eckhart were given as the monks sat together at collation. “Here one must picture evening conferences at which – as the conclusion of the Scripture reading and under the guidance of a spiritual teacher or superior – questions about the Scripture reading, the monastic life, and in general about the spiritual life, are discussed.”37 The Brethren of the Common Life and the Regulars of the Windesheim Chapter practiced this collation as well.38 At its most elementary level collation is the assembling of a community. It is precisely this level we encountered in the above forms of spiritual conferences: the Buddhist monks came together because their own awakening to the Four Noble Truths prompts the awakening of others; the rabbis came together among themselves and with their pupils to experience the Indwelling; the monks came together to discuss everything that concerns the spiritual way; and so forth. 2. A spiritual topic Isidore stated, in the Rule cited above, that the collation concerns the instruction a senior monk gives about upbuilding precepts. “This collation aims also at correcting mistakes and at teaching related to conduct or other matters that 35

The Rules of Saint Pachomius, no. 19-20, in: Pachomian Koinonia II Kalamazoo 1981,

148. 36 Cited in Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke V, (Ed. J. Quint), Stuttgart 1963, 312. 37 Meister Eckhart, Werke II, (Ed. E. Benz et al.; Bibliothek des Mittelalters 21), Frankfurt a.M. 1993, 793. 38 R. van Dijk, De constituties der Windesheimse vrouwenkloosters vóór 1559 I, Nijmegen 1986, 471.

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are of use to the community.”39 Hence a collation is not simply an assembly but an assembly “of several monks on matters that pertain to perfection.”40 This, accordingly, is something we see as a constant in all spiritual conferences. The monks concentrate on a theme of the spiritual life: the Four Noble Truths and the logical categories which unfold them; all matters that pertain to the torah and the halachah; events from one’s daily life; the kingdom of God, future glory, conversion, prayer, monastic discipline, and so forth. The Carmelite Rule refers to the themes of the spiritual conference in two categories: “the preservation of order and the salvation of souls.”41 In these words the two pivotal aspects of the religious life are referred to: all that belongs to the observance of the transformational model (ordo) and all that relates to living persons (anima) who seek and receive their salvation (salus) within that model. In these two fields all the themes can be treated that pertain to the objective and subjective side of the spiritual way: the end and the means, the place of Christ, discernment of spirits, the practice of virtue, prayer, the organization of the religious life, the vows, the physical and psychological situation of every member, needs and desires, processes of appropriation, and so forth.42 3. Intensive treatment The word collatio not only refers to assembling around a topic but also around the intensive treatment of it. Thus collatio is also a technical term for the figure of speech called “comparison” (symbolon; parabole). In philosophical research collation refers to the phenomenon of analogy.43 By putting things side-by-side one can illumine the truth. Augustine therefore writes: “With philosophers one must [in the nature of the case, KW] conduct a collation.”44 Collation is the act of acquiring knowledge step-by-step by carefully weighing statements against each other: “Man needs comparison (collatio) and discussion of reason (discursus rationis) in order to find out the unknown.”45 This, accordingly, is what we see happening in spiritual conferences: the rabbis talk together at length about the topics of the halachah before defining a point of view; the desert monks argue and defend their opinions in their collations: in the revision de vie the signs of the time are interpreted.

39

Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke V, 312. This is the definition of Nigronius, cited in M. Olphe-Galliard, Conférences spirituelles, in: DSp 2 (1953), 1390. 41 The Carmelite Rule, ch. XI. 42 K. Waaijman, The Mystical Space of Carmel, Leuven 1999. 43 For examples and references, see Thesaurus Linguae Latinae III (1906-1912), 1577-1580. 44 Augustine, De civitate Dei 8, 1 (CCSL 47, 216). 45 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q 11, art. 3. 40

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4. Insight into the truth In medieval Latin the word collatio means among other things: the comparison of a text with its original (collacio est facta ad originalem).46 This gives a good picture of what collation basically is: an inquiry into the truth of a subject by carefully comparing the different points of view with each other. Viewed from the perspective of this aspect of collation, what Smaragdus (d. 825) says in his commentary on the rule of St. Benedict is logical: “While some brought questions about Holy Scripture ‘in the midst’ (conferre), others brought answers ‘in the midst’ (conferre) which bore on these questions. Thus they made perspicuous what had long been obscure to those who took part (conferre) in the spiritual conference.47 Collation is designed to make perspicuous what is obscure. Collation is a search for insight into the truth. Isidore of Seville says in his De summo bono: “Whereas lectio is good for instruction, collatio furnishes more insight. After all, conducting a conference is better than giving a lecture. A collation makes things comprehensible. Subject matter is set in motion because questions are raised. Frequently a hidden truth is proved by objections. For what is obscure and doubtful is soon made transparent by a conference (conferrendo).”48 Collation makes things comprehensible, furnishes insight, renders them perspicuous. All the conferences we have seen aim at insight into the truth; the idea is to lead [monks] to the self-evident validity of the Four Noble Truths; the study of the torah is aimed at conduct in which the Spring flows out with clarity; the life of community and the well-being of the soul are illumined from the perspective of contemplation; people search for the true meaning of daily events.

46

See Lexicon Latinitatis Neerlandicae Medii Aevi II (1981), 802-803. Cited in Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke V, (Ed. J. Quint), Stuttgart 1963, 312. 48 Isidore of Seville, De summo bono, ch. 15. Cited in Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke V, 312. 47

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3.2. The Exploration of Systematic Reflection The first step in our research consisted in that we brought to the fore differing forms of the spiritual conference in order to penetrate their basic structure. We discovered that the systematics of the spiritual conference consists in that people come together around a spiritual topic with a view to interrogating it from all directions and so to gain insight into the truth of it. This basic structure is systematic in the literal sense of the word: in the context of a critical forum various aspects and points of view are brought together (sunhistemi). Systematic research consists in collation. The second step of our study consists in that we will explore in greater depth the four structural elements we discovered (assembly; spiritual topic; intensive treatment; insight into the truth). (1) The learning community that assembles: the importance of the participants in the conversation, the weight of their discourse, the value of the dispute. (2) The topics discussed. In the exploration of this dimension we will be guided by two examples: De triplici via (The Tripe Way) by Bonaventure and Pro theologia mystica clavis (The Key to Mystical Theology) by Sandaeus. (3) The argumentation: how is the topic treated in depth? Two illustrative examples are the conferences of the desert monks and the conferences of Vincent de Paul with the Daughters of Charity. (4) Insight into the truth: what really is it that guides the conferences? In this exploration we will be guided by Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Meister Eckhart. 3.2.1. THE

LEARNING COMMUNITY

Essential to a systematic exploration of a theme is a critical study community in which the personal position of the participants-in-discussion is respected. In order to explore this dimension of the spiritual conference further we have chosen the talmudic house of study as our paradigm. The rabbis were convinced that their pupils had to sharpen their mind by debating with each other, as iron sharpens iron. Torah study is a battle.49 It is well-known that the rabbis challenged their partners in discussion to the limit and could fundamentally differ with each other in opinion, while at the same time they never forgot each other’s names and positions. To acquaint ourselves with this conversational culture we will read the beginning of the tractate Avoth. 49

bSanhedrin II, 93b.

790

METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH Moses received the torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the leaders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue. The latter used to say: Judge only after very thorough discussion. Appoint many disciples. Make a fence around the torah. Simeon the righteous was one of the last of the men of the Great Synagogue. From him is the saying: The ages are founded on three things: the torah, the divine service, and the practice of kindness. Antigonus, a man from Socho, received [the oral tradition] from Simeon the righteous. From him is the saying: Be not like the servants who serve the Master in the expectation of receiving a reward, but be like the servants who serve the master without that expectation; thus the authority will be in heaven. Jose, the son of Joezer, a man from Tzereda, and Jose the son of Johanan, a man from Jerusalem received [the oral tradition] from them [i.e. Simeon the righteous and Antigonus]. Jose the son of Joezer, the man from Tzereda, said: Let your house be a house of meetings for the sages, and allow yourself to be covered by the dust of their feet and thirstily drink in their words. Jose the son of Johanan, a man from Jerusalem, said: Let your house be wide open. Let the poor be members of your household. Do not engage too much in conversation with women. This refers to his own wife, they said. How much more [does the rule apply] to another man’s wife. Hence the sages said: one who engages too much in conversation with women causes evil to himself, keeps himself far from the words of the torah, and in the end inherits hell. Joshua the son of Perachiah, and Nittai from Arbela received [the oral tradition] from them. Joshua the son of Perachiah said: Appoint for yourself a teacher, acquire a companion for yourself, and judge all men in the scale of merits (by his good qualities, KW). Nittai from Arbela said: Keep your distance from a bad neighbor, do not be a companion of a wicked man and do not abandon faith in [divine] retribution. Judah son of Tabbai and Simeon son of Shetach received [the oral tradition] from them. Judah son of Tabbai said: Do not make yourself like those who prepare lawsuits. When the parties stand before you, regard both of them as being guilty. When they have left your presence and have submitted to your verdict, then regard both of them as being guiltless. Simeon the son of Shetach said: Be thorough in the interrogation of witnesses and be careful with your words, so that they do not learn to lie from them [i.e. from your words]. Shemaiah and Abtalion received [the oral tradition] from them [i.e. the foregoing]. Shemaiah said: love work, hate acting the superior, and do not bring yourself to the attention of the ruling authority. Abtalion said: You sages, be careful with your words, so that you do not incur the punishment of exile and you are exiled to the place of evil waters and the disciples who follow you drink and die, and the Name of heaven is profaned. Hillel and Shammai received [the oral tradition] from them. Hillel said: Be a disciple of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, love your [fellow] creatures and bring them to the torah. From him is the saying: He who spreads wide his name loses his fame. One who does not add to his knowledge causes it to diminish. One who refuses to impart the knowledge he has, i.e., teach, deserves death. He who

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makes [unworthy] use of the crown disappears. From him was the saying: If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? Shammai said: Make your study of the torah a matter of established regularity. Speak little but do much. Receive all human beings with a pleasant face. Rabban Gamaliel said: Appoint a preacher for yourself. Make yourself free from doubt and do not make a habit of tithing by guesswork.50

1. The proper names Characteristic for talmudic spirituality is that the name of the speaker is mentioned along with his pronouncement. “A true lesson taught is that in which the universal nature of the proclaimed truth allows neither the name nor the person of him who said it to disappear.”51 After Moses and Joshua, the elders, the prophets and members of the Great Synagogue, the list of the names of rabbis begins: two solitary individuals (Simeon and Antiogonus), followed by a series of “twins” (Jose-Jose, Joshua-Nittai, Judah-Simeon, Shemaiah-Abtalion, Hillel-Shammai). Next, following Gamaliel and his son Simeon, comes the rabban Johanan son of Zakkai, a pupil of Hillel and Shammai. His five pupils represented the most significant currents which joined forces in Jabnia to rebuild the life of the Jewish faith after the destruction of the temple: Eliezer the Pharisee, Jose the priest, Simeon the man of the common people, Eleazar the mystic, and Jehoshua the typical rabbi (Avoth 2).52 In the tractate Avoth we see before our eyes a study community which (diachronically) reaches back to Moses and (synchronically) fans out to include thousands of rabbis mentioned by name, who discussed the torah with each other and differed in their opinions. It is noteworthy that the torah they pass on consists in short sayings, often with an imperative thrust: Judge only after very thorough discussion; appoint many disciples; make a fence around the torah; let your house be a house of meeting; appoint for yourself a teacher; acquire a companion for yourself; and so forth. The instances of advice are not in Scripture. The teacher speaks from experience. There is repeated mention of appointing pupils, the role of the teacher, meetings, and companions, which, in combination with the torah that is frequently referred to, evokes the image of talmudic learning communities. The frequent summons to be careful in one’s speech and judgments reinforces this image. 2. The difference of opinion When, based on Avoth, we enter the large arena of rabbinical houses of study, we encounter countless rabbis mentioned by name who – in frequently fierce disputes – discuss the themes that are important for the halachah. To understand 50 Aboth 1:1-16. Translation adopted from J. Neusner, Foundations of Judaism, Philadelphia 1989, ch. 4, 13-16. 51 E. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, Bloomington-Indianapolis 1994, 84. 52 G. Stemberger, Das klassische Judentum, München 1979, 84.

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this serious chorus of opinions, we will take a careful look at the themes involved in the clash of opinions (machaloket), as the rabbis saw it.53 To the rabbis the difference of opinion was not a sociological face: something that is simply unavoidable when people in a community discuss important matters. To them the difference of opinion is part of revelation as such. About the schools of Hillel and Shammai, which had more than three hundred differences of opinion between them, it is said: “For three years there was a dispute between the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel. The former said: ‘The Halachah is in agreement with our views,’ and the latter said: ‘The Halachah is in agreement with our views.’ A heavenly voice went out and said: [the utterances of ] ‘both are the words of the living God, but the halachah is in agreement with the school of Hillel.’”54 The main sentence is: both are words of the living God. Hence they are not merely an interpretation of the word of God but God’s word itself, and that in their plurality, in their difference. “God speaks traditions through the mouth of all rabbis,” says the talmud.55 But why then is the halachah, the decision that is followed as a rule of conduct, in agreement with the school of Hillel? “Because they were kindly and modest; and passed on both their own words and those of the school of Shammai. And not only that but they reported the words of the school of Shammai even before their own words.”56 Three reasons are mentioned here, all of which immediately concern the spirituality of the difference of opinion: (1) given the difference, the school was nevertheless friendly and modest; (2) they passed on both positions in the dispute; (3) they first mentioned the position of the other school. For the rest both schools shared the same foundation, for their discussions were inwardly directed toward God: “A difference of opinion (machaloket) for the sake of heaven will ultimately continue to exist but a difference of opinion not for the sake of heaven will ultimately not continue to exist.”57 Just as where the precise line of demarcation lies between the two kinds of difference of opinion was a subject on which the rabbis differed. But also in this difference “the words of the living God” are revealed. It is far from easy to establish when a position is adopted that is not in accordance with the spirit and mind of God. Also in these margins, margins that cannot be defined with certainty (only the dispute between Moses and the Korach group in Numbers 16 is a clear example but that was then) are pat of the riches of God’s revelation. The study of torah is a fight with daggers drawn.58 But this fight is fought in the

53

For a succinct description, see M. Poorthuis, Het gelaat van de Messias, Hilversum 1992, 272-275. bErubin 13b. 55 bChagiga 15b. 56 bErubin 13b. 57 mAvoth 5:20. 58 See M. Poorthuis, ibid., 274-275. 54

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arena of peace: the teacher and the pupils become enemies when they learn together, but do not leave each other before they love each other again.59 3. The rabbi says There is still another reason why the proper names and different doctrinal opinions of the rabbis were so respected. That reason lies in the spiritual position of the rabbis. The rabbis have their origin in two important spiritual currents: the Pharisees and the scribes who took over the role of the priests after the destruction of the temple. The Pharisees emphasized purity in daily life as if it were the temple. The scribes regarded the study of torah as a new liturgy. Both currents viewed their own spirituality as a symbolic continuation of temple spirituality.60 Implied here is that the atmosphere of priestly holiness was transmitted to the rabbi. His temple area was the mishnah, the oral torah, which revolves around the holiness of Israel.61 “The world of the Mishnah in large part encompasses the cult, the priesthood, and protection of the cult from sources of danger and uncleanness. The Mishnah presents a priestly conception of the world and creates a system aimed at the sanctification of Israel under the rule of the priests as a holy people.”62 The rabbi is a priest. The torah as the sanctification of life implies that “the sage, by studying the torah, is transformed into a holy man.”63 The rabbi is the torah. This, accordingly, we see also in the tractate Avoth: the essence of the torah is what a torah-scholar says and does: “If a sage says something, what he says is Torah.”64 In studying the utterances of the rabbis we are struck by the fact that each rabbi makes a statement of his own that does not occur as such in Scripture. At most a further explanation or validation from Scripture is occasionally added. Every rabbi speaks on his own authority. “He says” is the phrase that occurs most often in Avoth.65 The core of this discourse always concerns the same issue: the transformation of human beings in God, i.e. the way a human being must live to become completely conformed to the will of God. The quickest way to this transformation is to learn and do the torah.66 In the person of the rabbi, transformed into a living torah of God, the “incarnate” word of God,67 the pupil has a travel companion with whom he shares his 59

See bKiddushim 30b. G. Stemberger, Das Klassische Judentum, München 1979, 83-84. 61 J. Neusner, Foundations of Judaism, Philadelphia 1989, 34. 62 Ibid., 42. 63 Ibid., 25. 64 Ibid., 16. 65 This is the thesis Neusner demonstrates in the study mentioned above. 66 Avoth 1:17; 3:11. 67 J. Neusner, ibid., 121. 60

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search for God and to whom he can present his personal questions concerning that journey. Joined together on that journey, the rabbi and his pupils form a study community. The rabbi, “a living Torah,”68 introduced his pupils into the reality of God out of which he lived.

3.2.2. THE SUBJECT-MATTER DISCUSSED It is characteristic of systematic thought to outline and articulate reality by means of summaries. Thus ancient Egypt knew the onomasticon of Amenope to the effect that “the teaching covers everything that Ptah created, heaven with its affairs, earth and what is on it.”69 We find comparable lists in the Old Testament (Ps. 148; Job 38; Jes. Sir. 43).70 People tried to reduce reality, as it comes at us in its uncontainable multiplicity, to the framework of a numerical system (Prov. 6:16-19; 30:21-23; 29-31)71 or an alphabet (see Pss. 9-10; 25; 34; 37; 111-112; 119). Also within lived spirituality an attempt is made to systematically order the various topics. Two examples follow. 1. “The triple Way” of Bonaventure The treatise The Triple Way or Love Enkindled, which Bonaventure wrote around 1260,72 is one of the most influential writings of the Middle Ages. “The major structural patterns of the De triplici via virtually monopolize fourteenth-century popular mysticism, and are fundamental to the most successful works of the Devotio moderna.”73 This work possibly originated in the context of conferences for Franciscans, just as De perfectione vitae ad sorores arose from the accompaniment of the Poor Clares of Longchamp near Paris.74 Also the complex manuscript tradition and the uncertainties with respect to the composition point in this direction. The triple way has been called a summa of mystical theology.75 And indeed the work offers a synthesis of spiritual themes: “The material is present 68

Ibid., 28. Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, (Ed. A. Gardiner), London 1947, Vol. 1, 2. 70 G. von Rad, Hiob 38 und die alt-äyptische Weisheit, in: Vetus Testamentum, Supplement 3 (1955), 293-301. 71 G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, London 1972, 34-37. 72 We will follow the text in Bonaventure, The Works of Bonaventure I, Mystical Opuscula, The Triple Way or Love Enkindled, Paterson (NJ) 1960. 73 J. Fleming, An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature in the Middle Ages, Chicago 1977, 210. 74 A. Solignac, Voies, in: DSp 16 (1994), 1206. 75 Bonaventura, ‘De triplici via’ in altschwäbischen Ubertragung, (Ed. K. Ruh), Berlin 1957, 7. 69

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in a logical arrangement, a systematic form. Everything that possibly belongs to the object must be incorporated and treated in its proper place so that the function and inner coherence of the separate elements become clear and the perspective on ‘the whole’ remains open.”76 A particular feature of this summa is that it is pervaded, down to its smallest units, by triads. This all-pervasive triadic structure arises from Bonaventure’s fundamental conviction that all creatures bear the imprint of God’s trinity.77 It is the task of theology to discover the traces of this trinity everywhere: “Since every science, and particularly the science contained in Holy Scripture [that is, theology, KW] is concerned with the Trinity before all else, every science as such must perforce present some trace of this same Trinity.”78 For the main division of his work Bonaventure wove two triads together. The first is that of purgation, illumination, and union. In the prologue to his work he calls this “a threefold hierarchical action,” thereby referring to Dionysius the Areopagite who, in his Celestial hierarchy speaks of God’s threefold working (purification, illumination, perfection/union) which pervades the entire hierarchical ordering of emanated reality. By participating in God’s purifying operation in its enlightenment the soul attains to truth; by its union with perfection it receives love. “Upon the proper understanding of these three states are founded both the understanding of all Scriptures and the right to eternal life.”79 The second triad Bonaventure works into his main outline is that of meditation, prayer, and contemplation. “Know also that there are three approaches to this triple way: reading with meditation; prayer; contemplation.”80 Now how do these triads fit into one another? For his division of the whole Bonaventure uses the lectio-divina structure: chapter 1 deals with meditation; chapter 2 with prayer; chapter 3 with contemplation. This would seem to suggest that this structure is the most important. This is an illusion. For all three chapters are subsequently divided according to the way of purgation, the way of illumination, and the way of union. Hence this triad returns as structural principle in every chapter. Viewed from this angle, therefore, this triad is the most important. In his prologue, accordingly, Bonaventure says this in so many words: “You must know that there are three approaches to the triple way [purgation, illumination and union, KW]: the approach of reading with meditation, of prayer, and of contemplation. Evidently the issue is a threefold way (which is also the title of this work). These three approaches must

76

‘Einleitung’ in Bonaventura, De triplici via, (Ed. M. Schlosser), Freiburg 1993, 13. See M. Schlosser in her commentary, ibid., 34. 78 De triplici via, prologue. Cf. The Works of Bonaventure, (Trans. J. de Vinck), Paterson (NJ) 1960, Mystical Opuscula, 63. 79 Ibidem. 80 Ibidem. 77

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be practiced (se exercere) in the manner of the lectio-divina structure. This leads to the following way of ordering the material which determines the structure of this opusculum.81 Chapter 1 3-9

Meditatio the sting of conscience (purgation) the remembrance of sin self-scrutiny consideration of the good

10-14

the beam of intelligence (illumination) guilt remitted benefits committed rewards promised

15-19

the little flame of wisdom (perfection) to be gathered together to be ignited to be held aloft

Chapter 2 2

Prayer Our misery deplored (purgation) sorrow through recall of the past shame from an understanding of the present fear from the anticipation of the future

3

God’s mercy implored (illumination) with intense desire with confident hope with an eager search for help

4-8

The rendering of worship (perfection) reverence rendering gratitude delight

Chapter 3 2

Contemplation The seven steps by which the tranquillity of peace is attained: The expulsion of sin (purgation) shame, fear, sorrow, insistence, resoluteness, ardor, quiet

3-5

The seven steps by which the splendor of truth is attained The imitation of Christ (illumination) the assent of reason

81 In this connection we leave out of consideration the corrolarium (1, 18-19), the summary of chapters 1 and 2 (2, 12), the summary of chapter 3 (3, 8) and the alternative division (3, 9-14).

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the movement of compassion the gaze of admiration the outgoing of devotion clothing in likeness acceptance or the cross contemplation of truth 6-7

The seven steps by which the sweetness of love is attained through the reception of the Bridegroom (perfection) vigilance, trust, desire, rapture, peace, happiness, intimacy

Looking at this survey, we immediately catch the all-controlling importance of “the threefold hierarchical action” of purgation, illumination, and perfection/ union, but at the same time the working of the triad “meditation-prayercontemplation,” which as it were propels and transforms the hierarchical triad. The sting of conscience is transformed by prayer into a sorrowful consideration of one’s own misery, which in contemplation issues into the complete expulsion of sin in which sorrow (dolor) is still merely one step. By having the same thing return three times, Bonaventure creates the opportunity to show various aspects of the theme of penitence. All this still concerns only the rough overall division, for the sting of conscience (stimulus conscientiae) which is the first of the three forms of meditation branches off via the remembrance of sin (recordatio peccati) into a multiplicity of dispositions and behaviors. This is how a person should exercise himself in the use of the sting of conscience: he should first arouse it, then sharpen it, and finally direct it. He must arouse it through the remembrance of sin, sharpen it by self-knowledge, and set it in the right direction by meditating on what is good. Now, the remembrance of sin must come about in such a way that the soul is led to accuse itself of a manifold negligence, concupiscence, and malice. Almost every one of our sins and evils, those inherited as well as those committed, may be reduced to these three causes. Concerning negligence, a man must be careful to recall whether he has failed to guard his heart, make good use of his time, or act with the right purpose. These points require the greatest attention so that the heart may be safe, time well spent, and a proper goal pursued in every deed. Next, one must ask himself whether he may have been neglectful in his prayer, his reading, or the performance of good works. For if he wishes to yield good fruit in due season (Ps. 1:3), it is necessary that he train and exercise himself with care in all these ways, since one of them by no means suffices without the others. Third, he should remember any negligence in doing penance, in resisting evil, or in making spiritual progress. All of us should take great care to grieve over sins

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH committed, to repel the assaults of the devil, and to proceed from virtue to virtue so as finally to reach the promised land.82 (Ps. 84:8; Vulg. 83:9).

This is an example of how several triads underlie the main triad. This is Bonaventure’s way of giving himself an opportunity to classify all sorts of nuances in spiritual attitudes, virtues, and exercises into a dynamic system: the hierarchical order which, while it proceeds from the Trinity, at the same time returns to it when man, following the rhythm of the trinities, gradually unites himself with God’s holy order, the order in which he communicates himself. This system of classification has four layers which, for the sake of the matter we wish to explore in this section (the ordering of the theme), we shall reproduce schematically. We see here how a given theme branches off, via ever new triads, into subthemes until we come to the smallest units which as a result of their concreteness can be grasped and practiced, a modus operandi which Bonaventure consistently maintains in chapters 1 and 2. Level 1

Meditation Prayer Contemplation

Level 2

the sting of conscience the beam of intelligence

Level 3

Level 4

self-accusation on account of negligence

failure to guard one’s heart, to make good use of one’s time, to act with the right purpose; neglectful in prayer; spiritual reading, good works; neglectful in doing penance, resisting evil, making progress

concupiscence malice

the little fire of wisdom

The third chapter, on contemplation, is primarily a three-part division as well: the tranquillity of peace, the splendor of truth, and the sweetness of love. “There are three stairs leading up to these three goals, according to the triple way: that is, the purgative way, which consists in the expulsion of sin; the illuminative 82

Bonaventure, The Triple Way in: The Works of Bonaventure, 64-65.

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way, which consists in the imitation of Christ; and the perfective way, which consists in union with the Spouse. Thus, each way has its steps, which we must climb from the bottom to the top.”83 Here, in a new way, it becomes clear once more that we are dealing with a circular process: contemplation, like meditation and prayer, begins at the very bottom and subsequently leads – in meditation and in prayer and in contemplation – to the very top of perfection and union. In contemplation, however, the pattern following the first triad (expulsion of sin, the imitation of Christ, the reception of the Bridegroom) diverges from the preceding one. No longer do we encounter triads but series of seven: seven steps to the tranquillity of peace, seven steps to the splendor of truth, and seven steps to the delights of love. The first series of seven that leads to the tranquillity of peace unfolds in series of four. Here is an example of the first stage: “First, upon recalling the memory of the sin committed, a person experiences shame, and that in four respects: gravity, number, baseness, and ingratitude.”84 Also the second series of seven unfold in four parts. As an example, consider the first step: Consider Who it is that is suffering, and submit yourself to Him through the assent of reason, believing with the utmost firmness that Christ is truly the Son of God, the source of all beings, the Savior of all men, the One who will repay each according to his merits.”85 The last set of four unfolds in a series of seven in which the seven seals of the book are opened (Rev. 5:5). The third and last of the series of seven pertaining to union that leads to the delights of love is rounded off at each stage with two or three mystical words of Scripture (most of them from the Song of Songs and the Psalms). In his summa, accordingly, Bonaventure treats the most important themes of the spiritual way by placing them in a hierarchical, that is, a mystical order of emanation. Thus they become for human beings a way by which they can appropriate this divine order in stages. 2. “Pro theologia mystica clavis” by Sandaeus In the seventeenth century we see the rise of a type of vocabularies in which the terminology of the mystics is explained.86 We already encountered something similar in the Theologica mystica of Jean de Jésus-Marie (1607). The first real mystical lexicon, however, is that of Maximilian Sandaeus (Van der Sandt of Amsterdam).87 Its title is Pro theologia mystica clavis88 and it aims at the clarification and 83

The Works of Bonaventure, 80-81. Ibid., 81. 85 Ibid., 82. 86 P. Adnès, Mystique, II, B, XVIe-XXe siècles, in: DSp 10 (1980), 1929. 87 J. Andriessen, Sandaeus, in: DSp 14 (1990), 311-316. 88 M. Sandaeus, Pro theologia mystica clavis, Leuven 1963 (Keulen 1640; reprographic reprint). 84

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defense of mystical theology, as he says in his dedication (ad aliquem lucem et defensionem mysticae). The many citations and references it contains betray great familiarity with mystical literature. Among the 119 sources he cites in the back of his book we encounter Albertus Magnus, Ambrose, Anselm, Basil, Beda, Bernard, Bonaventure, Cassian, Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nazianze, Herp, Hugo of St. Victor, Ignatius, John of the Cross, Gerson, Ruusbroec, Tauler, Louis de Blois, Teresa of Avila, and so forth. In a preamble to his lexicon he sums up the problems of mystical theology and explains the purpose and method of his onomasticon.89 This last point is important for us. In this scheme Sandaeus takes as his starting point the unique style of the mystics – just as every discipline has its own language (he refers to grammar, philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine). The peculiar style of mystical discourse is determined by a number of factors. Mystics speak from experience: the mystical love union. This experience is obscure and very intense. This can be perceived from the style that uses extravagant language (hyperbole, superlatives,) metaphors, neologisms (e.g.: egoitas, ipsitas, meitas). It is the language of love. The power of the experience of love is such that mystics often say what a thing is not (aphophatic language), or say that they cannot express it. Speaking of God, they use unorthodox language (they speak, for example, of his “intemperance” or “impatience”). In addition, underlying their language there frequently are different philosophical presuppositions than one would expect from a given philosophical school. This, then, is how people arrive at a mistaken assessment of mystical language. Against this background, then, Sandaeus selects from the many authors he has read words (verbs, simple words and compounds) and sentences (prayers, opinions, phrases). He explains them by mentioning synonyms, by offering brief definitions, and by adding clarifying quotations. Furthermore, he defends his views concerning certain controversies. All this yields a list of approximately 800 words. It is interesting to see which themes stand out.90 In the word index we find that of the 800 words, more than a hundred times the word amor is treated in a new combination (amor caecus, amor naturalis, amor animalis and so forth).91 In addition there is also caritas (7 phrases) and amicus (11 combinations). Altogether this amounts to about 15% of the entire stock. Some distance away there are combinations with Deus (30x), unio (20x), mors (16x), and vita (10x). Especially life and death, in connection with the main themes of love and union with God, are heavily represented. This is further reinforced by a large number of affective terms: affectus (8x), resignatio (12x), sensus (7x), and so forth. 89

M. Sandaeus, ibid., 1-23. In this connection we chose the central term from a given semantic field: included in amor is amare, amari, amorositas, and so forth. 91 Pp. 49-77. 90

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Further still – in the nature of the case – there are also such technical terms as via (8x), status (9x), gradus (7x), visio (10x), cognitio (7x), contemplatio (25x), forma (12x), apparitio (6x), loquitio (9x), and so forth. But this technical nomenclature remains far behind the affective field which, based on the love of God, expands in all directions. 3.2.3. EXPLORING THE SUBJECT IN DEPTH The aim of a collation (spiritual conference) is for the participants to look at a topic from all directions, to compare the various viewpoints with each other, and to stage a systematic confrontation between the various layers that lie hidden in a given subject. We will explore this dimension with the aid of two examples: a conversation of the desert monks about the question what is most important for the spiritual life, and the conferences of Vincent de Paul with the Daughters of Charity. 1. A conference in the desert The first conferences of Cassian and Germanus with the Egyptian desert monks were conducted with Abbas Moses. They are two conversations which address (1) the purpose (skopos) and the final goal (telos) of the spiritual way and (2) the matter of discernment. With a view to the latter theme (with which the discussion partners had already filled a part of the first nightly dialogue), abbas Moses told a story from the early period.92 Anthony had met with some elders “to focus on perfection; the conference was drawn out from dusk until dawn.” Central in this conference was the question: what virtue or observance brings a monk with sure steps to the summit of perfection? “Each one gave an opinion in keeping with the depth of his insight.” This was the classic mode of operating when monks conducted an inquiry into the subject of perfection: everyone was heard, brought his position to the fore armed with reasons, against which others then posited their views, and so forth. We will follow the position and the argumentation supporting them. (1) Some saw fasting and vigils as the shortest road to perfection. Their motivation was: this practice makes the mind sensitive and pure; this takes away the greatest hindrance against union with God: insensitivity. (2) Others held that those who detached themselves from all things (poverty) are no longer held back by any earthly ties and can draw near to God unhindered. (3) Still others viewed isolation from social life and solitude in the desert as the most effective means of attaining perfection. In solitude, after all, one can address God more familiarly and cling to him more closely. (4) Still others saw the love of neighbor as the most effective means. What matters in the desert is the virtue 92

The story is recalled in John Cassian, The Conferences, II, 2-4 (SC 42).

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of hospitality. Those who practice the virtues, receive the kingdom of God, that is, contemplation, the final goal (telos) of the spiritual way. (5) Aside from the love of neighbor and the virtue of hospitality, still other virtues were advanced to which the speakers attributed “more certain access to God.” With that discussion they “filled the greater part of the night.” (6) Finally Anthony spoke up. First he affirmed the argumentations of the others: “All the things that you have mentioned are indeed necessary and useful for those who thirst for God and desire to come to him.” But Anthony also has his reservations: “The innumerable falls and experiences of many people do not at all permit us to attribute the highest grace to these things.” Anthony first uses the method of falsification. We have seen monks fast and keep vigil to the extreme, live far off in utter solitude in wondrous fashion, and deprive themselves of all belongings in utter poverty, and fulfill the demands of hospitality with the utmost devotion, but they went to their ruin as a result of their own praxis. Why? In the first place, they failed to discern the real motives underlying their praxis. Second: they often got stuck half way. Third: they collapsed. What was the reason why they were misled and fell? They lacked discernment (discretio = diakrisis). They did not see through their own motives. They failed to realize that the extremes (e.g. extremely severe fasting and extreme gluttony) are the same. They did not see through the snares of the devil who tries to ruin the monk. Anthony’s solution is accompanied by verification: discernment keeps a person away from extremes, teaches a monk “always to proceed along the royal road,” helps him persevere, and enables him to see through the snares of the devil. Then he supported his choice with a quotation from Scripture: “The eye is the lamp of your body. So, if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is dim, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matt. 6:22-23). Finally, using examples from Scripture, he showed how a lack of discernment leads to destruction (1 Sam. 15 and 1 Kgs. 20) and how discernment leads to life (Eph. 4:26; Prov. 11:14; Ps. 103:15; Prov. 24:3-4; 25:28; 31:8; and so forth). These examples from Scripture make clear that “no virtue can either be perfectly attained or endure without the grace of discretion.” The conclusion of this round is: Anthony and his monks “decide that discernment is the virtue that would lead the monk, sure-footedly and safely to God.” If we look back at the course of the argument, we observe three phases. In the first phase, practices are put forward that belong to the order of the exercises (exercitia, corporalia): fasting and vigils, detachment (poverty) and anachoresis (solitude). Then come practices that belong to the order of the virtues: the works of mercy and other virtues. From our descriptive research we know that these two categories (exercitia corporalia and virtutes) pertain to the practical design of the spiritual life. But neither of these two categories, however useful and necessary they may be, include the practice that leads directly to perfection. That is the province of a very specific category: discernment. We dealt

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at length with this praxis in our foundational research.93 Diakrisis is an attitude which permeates all spiritual exercises and the exercises of virtue, “for the mother, the guardian, and moderator of all virtues in the virtue of discernment.”94 Diakrisis is the virtue of all virtues and the exercise of all exercises because it is the inner light that illumines all of them. Without it they would be blind and out of control. 2. The conferences of Vincent de Paul Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) unleashed a true movement of mercy: societies of charity, the Daughters of Charity and the Priests of the Mission (Lazarists).95 Of the conferences he conducted between 1643-1660 with the first Daughters of Charity, young women who worked full time in a society of charity, one hundred and twenty have been preserved.96 The subject matter is most varied: everything that has to do with the purpose of the new foundation, such as the calling of the Daughters of Charity and the exposition of the basic rules (22x); concrete events in the community, such as new foundings, anniversaries, the death and the visitation of Sisters (20x), the care of the sick, the poor, and the foundlings; the relation between the inside and the outside world; mutual relations and joint activities; the organization of the community (30x); perfection and the life of virtue (19x); spiritual exercises such as meditation, prayer, penitence, reconciliation and mortification (18x); vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity (11x). At the beginning only about twelve sisters took part in the conversations, later eighty to a hundred. The conferences are marked by a certain systematics. First the question is asked what the reasons are why a certain virtue, exercise, or agreement has to be maintained or promoted and what this virtue or exercise entails. The second question is: what are the signs that tell one approximately where I am? The third question is: where do things usually go wrong? Where do the dangers and obstacles lie? The fourth main question is: what are the means of improvement and what resolutions can we make for our practice? The first question is focused on the purpose and its attractiveness (including the interpretation of the content); the second question explores the actual situation; the third concerns the obstacles, and the last the resources and remedies. From the outset the conferences (entretiens) are dialogues in which the contribution of the individual sisters is explicitly called for. Beginning April 26, 93

Part 2, chapter 4. The conclusion of the story: The Conferences II, 4. 95 L. Mezzadri, Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), Averbode-Den Bosch 1994. 96 They have been published by Pierre Coste under the title Entretiens (1923) in parts IX and X of Saint Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents, Paris 1920-1925. Under the same title Coste published the conferences with the Priests of the Mission in parts XI and XII (1923-1924). 94

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1643, Vincent further refined his method: “In the preceding conference I have noticed you needed help in finding the motives or reasons for the subjects that were being proposed. I therefore thought it would be better to change our method in order to give you a greater chance to understand what you are taught here.”97 The new element is that Vincent will clearly pose questions. He does not, however, wish to frighten anyone by doing this: “If there are those who are not able to answer, then I hope they will not be too embarrassed. For those who are able to say little sometimes do things best, and those who understand things readily and speak easily often practice it less well, though some of you both speak and do well.”98 Vincent himself feels rather good about his new approach. Midway through the conference he says: “I believe that this way of conducting a conference will be more useful than the previous. Don’t you agree, my sisters?” All of them answer that they do.99 Vincent continues to follow this method until on October 18, 1655, he starts with a systematic exposition of the General Rules. “Sisters, today we will not conduct the conference in the usual way. In the past you were accustomed to say aloud what you were thinking during the conferences. Today I will explain the Rules to you.”100 By way of example we have selected the above-mentioned conference in which Vincent refines his method.101 The subject matter is: unity among the members of the community. The conference revolves around two issues: What are the reasons for striving toward unity among ourselves? And what must one do when disunity erupts? Vincent does not introduce the main question from a neutral vantage point: instead, he stresses certain principles in his introduction: the subject is vitally important, an issue of survival or total ruin. Unity is antithetically positioned over against division. Vincent presents the image of a body and its members; he defines unity in terms of uniformity: observance of the same rules, the same dress code, unanimity. Unity is lost when sisters cherish opposing desires and begin to grumble. At that point twenty-four sisters respond to his questions. One sister says she does not quite get what unity means. Is unity a virtue? Vincent does not answer this question. The remaining twenty-three answers cover a broad spectrum. Several sisters point out that unity among themselves makes love for God and one’s neighbor concrete, and is an image of God’s triune love, something that delights and pleases God. This layer is opened up in direct connection with its opposite: division is contrary to love, alienates a person from God, insults him. Some sisters point to the fruits of unity: 97

Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents IX, 94. Ibid., IX, 95. 99 Ibid., IX, 96. 100 Ibid., X, 121. 101 Ibid., IX, 94-113. 98

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peace, tranquillity, eternal salvation, so many good things. Several sisters refer to their calling and their specific tasks: the sick are victimized by division; it would not be a good example; the neighbor is harmed by it, and the like. A few point to the example of nature: even opposites unite with each other. Some point to the inner tranquillity that is driven from one’s heart by discord. Several sisters, finally, point to the necessity of unity with an eye to the continued existence of the community. One sister sees union (unio) as communion: communion and concord are mutually inclusive. Vincent does not expressly reply to each answer. If we list his reactions, a couple of lines emerge: disunity destroys community; unity makes for survival (he returns repeatedly to the image of the body and its members); he reinforces the horrible image of disunity as the devil, hell, and Lucifer; he confirms the link between unity and communion; disunity estranges a person from God and the sick. Interestingly, no one picks up Vincent’s idea of uniformity. Vincent himself drops the subject. Halfway into the period, after the eleventh reaction, Vincent offers a brief summary, a sign that he has listened well: division banishes the love of God and the love of neighbor, generates war and unrest, makes us lose our sense of calling, grieves God, keeps us from worthily partaking in communion, alienates us from each other.102 In all this there is a tangible religious dimension, which Vincent expresses as follows: “O God be praised, my daughters. It is his goodness that has inspired you to say everything you have said.”103 The second question is: What must we do when a quarrel breaks out among the members? Again Vincent introduces an illustration by which he makes division concrete. Two sisters have a quarrel and two parties form around a given issue. Should one join in the formation of separate parties? On this last point everyone is immediately agreed: in any case no formation of parties. Eleven reactions follow. It is noteworthy that a few sisters relate the question to themselves: what do I do when I get into a quarrel? One immediately asks for forgiveness; another sees the conflict as a form of feedback; a third draws a moral from it for the future. Most of the respondents think spontaneously of others. They look for a solution in a public confession of guilt, doing penance for another, submitting the issue to the superior, praying to God, making attempts at reconciliation, trying to mediate, examining the matter with great care and, in an extreme case, eliminating it. Vincent’s interventions here are more anecdotal and directive than in the first round. At some length he makes four statements: none of the warring parties really wants a conflict (consider your intestines: sometimes they are involuntarily in conflict with each other); publicly asking for forgiveness works well (accordingly, it promptly happens in the meeting); if someone cannot handle forgiveness, then postpone the apology (it would only worsen the quarrel); in the case of conflicts every sister must do her part and only in serious cases should one involve the superior; in the case of quarrels one must always bear in mind also that character, upbringing, and social background are important factors.

102 103

Ibid., IX, 99. Ibid., IX, 100.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH After the two rounds the secretary noted that many more sisters were present than there were written reactions. But both Vincent and the secretary (in this case the foundress Louise de Marillac) found that enough material for thought had been brought up.

Now that we have pursued one theme, that of unity among ourselves, we can raise the question concerning the significance of these conferences within the context of their way of life as a whole.104 We have a conference, one that took place on May 1, 1648,105 in which the members reflect together on the entretiens as such. Vincent invites the sisters to suggest reasons which make conferences plausible and to think of ways that would make them even more useful. Eleven sisters react, advancing the following reasons: in these meetings we listen to the voice of God; by listening to that voice, we glorify him; without these conferences we would wander in darkness, but now they are a warning; one day we will have to give an account of our life; it is a school of Christ and the Holy Spirit; it is an indispensable means of making progress on the spiritual road. Means which greatly aid in drawing much benefit from this form of learning are: opening oneself up prayerfully, listening well, taking pains to remember well what has been said, speaking about the subject matter with others after the meeting. The reason why only eleven sisters reacted was that Vincent himself was speaking much of the time. It was his wish to impress the essence of the spiritual conferences upon the minds of the Daughters of Charity and to convey their importance for their life. He brought that essence to the fore in two ways. In the first place, he verbalizes the essence of the spiritual conferences in his interventions. When the first sister said that for her the importance of the conferences consisted in the fact that “to my mind you take the place of God and that we must therefore listen to you and draw benefit from everything you tell us as coming from God, Vincent confines himself to a humble comment: “Alas, my daughter, I am a miserable sinner and nothing more.”106 But when the third sister also brings up “the voice of God” which can be heard in “the mouth of the superiors” and addresses us with admonition,107 Vincent believes the time has come to make a few additional points: “Not only the admonitions come from God, my daughter, but everything that is said, and not only what the superior says, for alas I am only a miserable sinner, but everything the sisters say as well. For you see, my daughters, it is God who speaks to you and teaches you about

104

For an account of the lifestyle of the Daughters of Charity, see K. Waaijman, Een zuster van Liefde zul je heten, Nijmegen 2000. 105 Vincent de Paul, Correspondance, entretiens, documents IX, 387-407. 106 Ibid., IX, 388. 107 Idem.

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what he wants you to do.”108 Vincent’s intervention here is full of meaning: everything that every sister says is God’s word since before she spoke she had opened herself in prayer to God’s voice, “and consequently we must listen to it as to an inspiration that God has given you for your and our benefit.”109 Viewed from this angle, it is not strange that Vincent, responding to a contribution from a sister, exclaims: “O, that idea and that word, spoken to us by this sister, is the word of God; it is an idea from God.”110 The second way in which Vincent brought out his basic conviction is that of a backward glance at history: “Before returning to the ideas you have had, it is well for you to know where these conferences come from and since when they have been in vogue.”111 Then Vincent went on to tell them how “for our good Lord the conference was a means with which he built his Church.”112 In the beginning, when there were only a few of them, Jesus instructed his disciples in precisely the same way Vincent did his Daughters. They submitted their questions and insights to Jesus and talked about them. Also after his death there were “no instructions other than in the form of conferences. The sermon did not exist yet.”113 The sermon only arose when many Christians came together. “From this we can infer how high, how utterly great, the value is that we must ascribe to the conferences, because they have been instituted by Jesus Christ himself.”114 As a result of the large masses and the sermon, this form of instruction fell into decline, but “in our days he permits it to be introduced again and gives us this means for our progress, it being the same means he used for the growth of his church.”115 Vincent regards spiritual conferences as a central means to perfection: “When a virtue is considered, one sister gives one reason, another another; one proposes this means, another that means; and God wills that each of us will let herself be aroused by those reasons and instructed by the means indicated.”116 People might perhaps think: “It is just an ordinary girl who has found this reason and that means – it does not matter! It is God who does this through her. God has communicated it to her; it comes from him. Because it comes from God, they must be precious to you and you must preserve them carefully.”117

108

Ibid., IX, 388-389. Ibid., IX, 389. 110 Ibid., IX, 392. 111 Ibid., IX, 395. 112 Ibidem. 113 Ibidem. 114 Ibid., IX, 396. 115 Ibidem. 116 Ibid., IX, 401. 117 Ibidem. 109

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Spiritual conferences are the interior track of the spiritual way. Vincent, accordingly, is consistent when he says: If you ask me what will maintain the community as a whole, O, I must answer: it is the conferences. Nothing will shed more light on the community, nothing will give it more knowledge, nothing will correct its missteps better and keep it from falling, than the conferences. It is through them that God speaks to you; it is through them that his guidance is revealed to you and his ways are made known. You must praise God that the conferences have been introduced among you, that he has chosen you for this. For, as I said, the conferences had fallen into disuse, and you have been chosen to introduce them again. Be therefore careful, my sisters not to abuse them.”118

3.2.4. INSIGHT INTO THE TRUTH Spiritual conferences are aimed at the truth of a matter, not at consensus. Collation aims at transparency; the idea is to bring the subject matter out of darkness into the light, so that the participants gain insight. In order to further explore the way to deeper insight, as a dimension of collation, we will seek the guidance of Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Eckhart. 1. Augustine’s Confessions In Augustine’s Confessions two distinct organizing principles are at work: “Those which organize it as autobiography and those which organize it as argument.’119 This double principle is clearly visible in the surface structure of the book: a predominantly autobiographical part (books 1-9) and an argumentative part (books 10-13). For Augustine the two are interconnected. In this section we are interested in the argumentative layer of the Confessions; later we will highlight the autobiographical line.120 Augustine seeks to share his search for God before the face of God, in a brotherly spirit “with believing sons of men, sharers in my joy, conjoined with me in mortality, my fellow citizens and pilgrims, some who have gone before, some who follow after, and some who are my companions in this life.”121 The foremost problem occupying him here is: how can we search for something when we do not know in advance what we are looking for? And how can we speak of a “search” when we already know in some fashion what we are looking for? 118

Ibid., IX, 401-402. D. Turner, The Darkness of God, Cambridge 1995, 51. 120 See part 3, chapter 4.2.1. 121 Augustine, Confessions 10.4.6. We are here using the translation of Henry Chadwick, Oxford 1991, 181-182. [Tr.] 119

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These epistemological questions underlie chapter 10, the first of the three argumentative closing chapters. Augustine is not able to resolve them. But from his own experience he knows with certainty that the God for whom he searched sustained his search from the beginning and was present in his search. There is therefore – this is his experience – a circular movement: that for which he is searching leads him on his search from the very beginning – as a distant memory, as the restlessness of his heart, as a longed-for happiness, however ambiguous this power was initially from his perspective and however much it needed gradually to be purified. In the seventh book of his Confessions Augustine tells how such a circular movement, how the sense of the Unchangeable, was present in him and functioned already, though feebly, when he made a judgment concerning the beauty of something: “I was astonished to find that I already loved you (…) but was not stable in the enjoyment of my God.”122 Each time he fell back on account of the gravity of his own weight. “But with me there remained a memory of you,”123 and he was completely sure that God’s power could be perceived and understood throughout his creation. “I asked myself why I approved of the beauty of bodies, whether celestial or terrestrial, and what justification I had for giving an unqualified judgment on mutable things, saying, ‘This ought to be thus, and that ought not to be thus.’ In the course of this inquiry why I made such value judgments as I was making, I found the unchangeable and authentic eternity of truth to transcend my mutable mind.”124 He tells us next how he arrived at this insight: “And so step by step I ascended from bodies to the soul which perceives through the body, and from there to its inward force, to which bodily senses report external sensations, this being as high as the beasts go. From there again I ascended to the power of reasoning to which is to be attributed the power of judging the deliverances of the bodily senses.”125 This power of reasoning, which realizes its own mutability, attempts to understand itself. To that end it must try to break out of old habits and withdraw from the numerous contradictory fantasies it had entertained. Only thus could it discover the light by which it was flooded when it cried out without any hesitation that the unchangeable is superior to the changeable and that precisely on this ground it can know the changeable. For unless it could somehow understand the unchangeable it could never prefer it to the changeable. “So in the flash of a trembling glance it attained to that which is. At that moment I saw your ‘invisible nature understood through the things which are made’ (Rom. 1:20).”126 Augustine did not, 122

Confessions 7.17.23; Chadwick, 127. Ibidem. 124 Ibidem. 125 Ibidem. 126 Ibidem. 123

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however, have the strength to retain this insight. He returned to ordinary daily life and could only carry with him “a loving memory” which made him recall with longing that unforgettable moment of truth.127 Looking back upon Augustine’s argument, we can distinguish three phases. First phase: Augustine has a question in connection with his ability to judge things spontaneously. He wonders: how come I judge as I do? Second phase: Augustine formulates an answer to his question: my act of judging is guided by the eternal Truth. Third phase: Augustine shows step by step by what route he came to insight into the eternal Truth – a way of understanding (intelligere) in five steps. (1) His starting point is bodies. Included in this category are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, his own body and other bodies (humans, animals, plants, things). Over against these bodies the soul delineates itself as the agency that perceives through the body. (2) All sorts of impressions come together in the soul. These impressions are not arbitrarily printed on a large projection screen, but report to one agency: the observation center. (3) The soul not only combines these observations but is also capable of judging this massive input. Am I correctly perceiving things? Am I combining these perceptions correctly? (4) This reasoning power of the soul, however, is not only capable of making critical judgments about the all-embracing process of perception but also has the capacity to examine itself. It can reflect on its own being. To do this it does indeed have to detach itself from its ordinary activities: the management of the process of perception. It has to reflect on itself and note its own unreliability and instability. At the same time it continues to ask with amazement how it is possible for the rational capacity to see through the changeable as being changeable; how it is that it prefers – “without any hesitation” (sine ulla dubitatione) – the unchangeable over the changeable. (5) The implicit certainties (without any doubt preferring the unchangeable over the changeable; “certainly” [certe] preferring the former to the latter) point to an implicit knowledge of the unchangeable: “since, unless it could somehow know this, there would be no certainty in preferring it to the mutable.”128 In this spontaneous rational process there is a form of certain knowledge (integre, sine ulla dubitatione, certe) that is a knowledge of the immutable. “Thus the rational capacity attained to that which is,” that is, to that which truly and immutably is. This is is captured in the flash of a trembling glance. An example of this trembling insight is the vision at Ostia. Just before his mother Monica died, Augustine stood next to her before an open window overlooking the interior garden of the house where they rested from the long journey and prepared for the sea voyage. There they spoke with one another about 127 128

Ibidem. Ibidem.

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eternal life “in the presence of the truth which is You Yourself.”129 While they were thus conversing, they ascended step by step from one level of being to the next, to the truth itself and the highest wisdom. Speaking of these things they touched the truth with their heart and the wisdom by which all things are made. Then they said: Suppose that the tumult of the flesh has fallen silent, that the images of earth, water, and air are quiet, that the heavens themselves are still, and the very soul itself is making no sound, surpassing itself by no longer thinking about itself, that all dreams and visions in the imagination are silent that to that soul all language and every sign and everything transitory is silent – for to someone who listens, all these things say: ‘We did not make ourselves, we were made by him who abides for ever; suppose that, having said this, they were to keep silence, having directed their ears to him that made them, and he alone would speak, not through them but through himself. We would hear his word, not through the tongue of the flesh, nor through the tongue of an angel, nor through the sound of thunder, nor through an enigmatic comparison, but through himself whom we love in them, himself without their mediation, just as we now extend our reach and in a flash of mental energy touch eternal wisdom which endures beyond all things. Suppose that this could last, and all other visions of a different kind would be withdrawn, and this alone would ravish and absorb and enfold us in a deeper inward joy, so that there is an eternal life of the same nature as this one moment of insight for which we longed. Is not this the validation of the word: ‘Enter into the joy of your Lord’?”130 129 130

Ibid., 9.10.23; Chadwick, 170. Ibid., 9.10.25; Chadwick, 171-172.

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The words of Augustine constitute one grand arc, formed by an accumulation of conditional sentences (suppose…suppose…suppose…) which discharge their contents in an interrogative sentence (“Is not this the validation of the word …?”). This cautiously groping language functions as a steadily progressing movement toward an open question: suppose the subject side of life (the flesh, the soul, dreams, fantasies, speech) had grown quiet: suppose that the object side (earth, water, air, the firmament, every sign, and all things transitory) had grown silent; suppose that he alone would speak, not through his creatures but through himself – here this questioning outreach of the soul reaches its climax: the self-communication of God through himself and nothing else. This is the “what is” to which Augustine’s spiritual insight, transcending all else, had come This is the pure Truth without any doubt: when the IS mediates itself in self-communication. 2. “The mystical theology” of Pseudo-Dionysius The mystical theology is a brief Greek essay (only four columns in Migne) that owes its reception in spirituality to its pseudepigraphic character: the author presents himself as a pupil of Paul. In actual fact the author lived around 500 A.D. in a Syrian Christian milieu characterized by a strong Neoplatonic slant.131 The treatise is a spiritual dialogue between Dionysius and his pupil Timothy, who has already been initiated into mystical theology. From the very outset the relation between the two is strikingly expressed: “For this I pray; and Timothy, my friend (…).”132 Dionysius is in a state of prayer. His discourse, accordingly, begins with the words: “Trinity!! Higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness!”133 He prays to him whom he seeks and who can introduce him into himself. “For this I pray; and, Timothy, my friend, my advice to you (…) is to leave everything behind (…) and to strive upward (…) toward union.” Dionysius tries to persuade him to abandon everything to become free for “the ray of the divine shadow.”134 While Dionysius remains focused on the ultimate goal of union (“For this I pray”),135 Timothy must travel the mystical way. In the context of this investigation what matters to us is the systematics of the treatise. With an eye to his objective we will highlight the most important lines of argument.

131 P. Rorem, The Uplifting Spirituality of Pseudo-Dionysius, in: Christian Spirituality. Origins to the Twelfth Century (WS 16), London 1986, 132-151. 132 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, New York-Mahwah 1987, 135. 133 Ibid., 135. 134 Ibidem. 135 Ibidem.

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The ascent of Mount Sinai. The mystical way of Dionysius can best be pictured in light of the leitmotif of the ascent of Mount Sinai. To Dionysius Moses is the model mystic. The journey begins when Moses is called to distance himself from those who do not want to purify themselves.136 From an earlier advice to Timothy we know that the reference here is to the completely initiated “who describe the transcendent Cause of all things in terms derived from the lowest orders of being, and who claim that it is in no way superior to the godless, multiformed shapes they themselves have made.”137 These people mix divine with phenomenal beings and with the spontaneous human imagination. Having undergone complete purification from this, Moses “hears the many-voiced trumpets. He sees the many lights, pure and with rays streaming abundantly.”138 This refers to the biblical and liturgical world of symbols.139 Then Moses, standing aside from the crowds a second time and “accompanied by chosen priests, pushes to the summit of the divine ascents.”140 The mystic distances himself from “the mystical writings”141 and divine lights and sounds: “He is one of those who pass beyond the summit of every holy ascent, who leave behind them every divine light, every voice, every word from heaven, and who plunge into the darkness where, as scripture proclaims, there dwells the One who is beyond all things.”142 This is the “place” toward which (up until then) the entire movement is directed: the place where the mysteries of theology are veiled by the darkness that is more than light,143 the most profound darkness where the overwhelming light is more than brilliant,144 the darkness of “him who had made the shadows his hiding place,”145 the high place that is above all,146 to which the entire journey leads upward.147 But this is not the end of the journey. There is talk of “climbing higher.”148 For those “who have arrived at the conceptual summits of his holiest places” nevertheless do not meet God himself but contemplate, not him who is invisible, but rather [the place] where he dwells.”149 Purification has taken the 136

Ibid., 136. Ibid., 136. 138 Ibid., 137. 139 P. Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis, Toronto 1984. 140 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology, op. cit., 137. 141 Ibid., 135. 142 Ibid., 136. 143 Ibid., 135. 144 Ibid., 135. 145 Ibid., 136. 146 Ibidem. 147 Ibid., 138. 148 Ibid., 141. 149 Ibid., 137. 137

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mystic to the place where he dwells: the deepest darkness. What matters now is the final detachment: Then he breaks free of them too, “away from what sees and is seen and he plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united by a completely unknowing inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.”150

Entering the darkness – the place where the Beyond-Everything dwells – the mystic is exclusively God’s and thus one with him. Now it is precisely this last passage which Dionysius thematizes in his treatise. To understand this correctly, however, we must first gain an overview of the whole panorama in which the mystical journey takes place. Procession from God and the return journey into God. To Dionysius there are two fundamental movements. The one begins with the all-transcending Cause which proceeds down to the lowest degree of being. If one follows this movement, one can speak affirmatively about God’s Oneness and Threeness, his Fatherhood and Sonship. The first Cause, after all, flows forth into all created things and remains – still flowing outward – present there, which is the reason why the names that are current in this movement can simply be affirmed. So this is what we say. The Cause of all is above all and is not inexistent, lifeless, speechless, mindless.151 It stands to reason that the names that are most closely akin to the highest emanations (being, life, spirit or mind) can be affirmed most. There is, however, a second movement: the way back from multiplicity, the world of many words and many names. This way is a way of abandonment and denial. Here we begin with the denial of the things that are farthest removed from the Cause. Therefore we say: “The Cause of all is above all” and is “not a material body and hence has neither shape nor form, quality, quantity or weight.”152 These categories, after all, apply only to the lowest, that is, the most remotely emanated degrees of being. Those who take these degrees of being as the point of departure for their speaking about God are the least well informed.153 Hence there are two perspectives from which one can speak about God: “Since it is the Cause of all beings, we should posit and ascribe to it all the affirmations we make in regard to beings, and, more appropriately, we should

150

Ibid., Ibid., 152 Ibid., 153 Ibid., 151

137. 146. 140-141. 141.

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negate all these affirmations, since it surpasses all being.”154 Affirmation and negation, however, are not the ultimate: there is that which is beyond affirmation and negation: “Now we should not conclude that the negations are simply the opposites of the affirmations, but rather that the cause of all is considerably prior to this, beyond privations, beyond every denial, beyond every assertion.”155 The mystical sphere lies beyond affirmation and negation. Thus the treatise ends by saying: “It is beyond assertion and denial. We make assertions and denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of his preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial.”156 This is “the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence”157 toward which the prayerful attention of Dionysius is directed. In this sphere of mystical silence beyond all language we find, not the few words of sublime affirmation or extreme negation, but wordlessness. So then, “as we plunge into that darkness which is beyond the intellect, we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually speechless and unknowing.”158 Unknowingness. Twice now we reached a boundary beyond which Dionysius saw the realm of the mystical: extreme purification takes us to an utterly dark “place” beyond which lies the non-place where God dwells. Extremely careful affirmation and negation both take us to the brink of it beyond which – beyond affirmation and negation – the hidden mystical silence is “located.” It is precisely this point – the transition from the extreme limits of language to the sphere that is Beyond-Everything – that Dionysius thematizes in his treatise. We want to demonstrate this point with the aid of a leitmotif in The Mystical Theology: unknowingness. The starting point of contemplation is knowledge. Knowledge presupposes a knowing subject and a knowing object. Dionysius consistently thinks of these two aspects as being conjoined. He therefore advises Timothy to leave behind “everything perceived and understood, everything perceptible and understandable.”159 Only when he has separated himself from his being a knowing subject and from all things knowable can he strive upward “unknowingly” “toward union with that which is beyond all being and knowledge.”160 Unknowingness is to be freed from the structure of knowledge as such. It is said of Moses the mystic, therefore, when he makes the transition thematized by Dionysius: “Then he [Moses] breaks free of them [the conceptual heights of the holiest 154

Ibid., 136. Ibidem. 156 Ibid., 141. 157 Ibid., 135. 158 Ibid., 139. 159 Ibid., 135. 160 Ibidem. 155

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places of God (KW)], away from what sees and is seen, and plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united by a completely unknowing inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.”161 Knowing as such (“being seen and seeing”) has been rendered inactive (inactivity) and precisely this inactivity is a way of knowing: a knowing by being completely “one” (united), being-one-with as a form of knowing. More than and beyond everything. A final motif by which the specific mode of systematizing practiced by Dionysius can be illustrated is that of the endlessly repeated “more than” (hyper). The formulation “more than” refers to a field beyond the referential field in which one finds himself: more than being,162 more than divinity,163 more than goodness,164 beyond unknowing,165 beyond light,166 beyond beauty,167 more than fulfilling,168 beyond contemplation,169 beyond all concepts and mind.170 In this manner, Dionysius endlessly repeats that the mystical movement constitutes a continual transcending of every category, and particularly, the transcending of the category in which one (almost inseparably) finds oneself. By the very language he uses – by the monotonous repetition of constantly the same thing – Dionysius wishes to effect in the reader what he recommends in so many words to Timothy. “You must leave beyond all that is familiar to you, the situation in which you are; you must strive upward toward union with what is beyond all being and knowledge.”171 And he describes this with words like: “leaving things behind, being disconnected from everything, and freed in all purity from everything and so being uplifted to “the ray of the divine darkness” that is above everything that is, when you have removed everything and freed yourself from everything.”172 Hence, the hundredfold phrase “more than” or “beyond” is designed to draw a person from that which is peculiarly his or her own, the familiar, the self-designed features, beyond the boundary to the

161

Ibid., 137. Ibid., 135. 163 Ibid., 135. 164 Ibidem. 165 Ibidem. 166 Ibid., 135. 167 Ibid., 135. 168 Ibidem. 169 Ibid., 138. 170 Ibid., 137. 171 Ibid., 135. 172 Ibid., 135. 162

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unknowing. Precisely because the idea is not only to abandon one’s own selfdesigned field, but the act of designing one’s self and one’s field as such, Dionysius at strategic points replaces the phrase “farther than” (a term that still always presupposes the viewpoint of “this place here”) by “beyond everything” (panta epekeina), a phrase in which the perspective of “that place over there” is introduced. And it is this change of perspective that is at issue here. The “that place there” is the union in unknowingness, the wordlessness of mystical silence, beyond all affirmation and negation, “beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial.”173 Because this being Beyond-Everything174 falls outside of every human perspective, the mystic has to depend on God himself for protection and guidance on the road to the heart of mystical knowledge.175 Those who think that they can achieve something on their own on this point have not understood a thing.176 3. Meister Eckhart’s “Talks of Instruction” Meister Eckhart wrote his Talks of Instruction between 1294 and 1298 after his return from Paris when he was prior in Erfurt.177 According to the inscription, the book concerns talks which Eckhart held with “his spiritual children” on themes pertaining to the spiritual life: obedience, prayer, spiritual exercises, and so forth. The inscription refers to “sitting together in collation,” that is, in nightly conferences.178 Originally the title was simply Talks, as the translation of collationes. Later (in three manuscripts) the words “about discernments” were added. Talks (Reden) was combined with “the material of discernments.”179 This combination completely covers the contents. In the Talks of Instruction one can distinguish three clusters of themes. The first section evolves from obedience and systematizes the transformation of the will and the intellect in God (chapters 1-8); the second section starts out from

173

Ibid., 141. Ibid. 175 Ibid., 135. 176 Ibid., 136. 177 The critical edition and translation is found in Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke V, (Ed. J. Quint), Stuttgart 1963, 137-376 and 505-538; Also in Meister Eckhart, Werke II, (Ed. E. Benz et al.; Bibliothek des Mittelalters 21), Frankfurt a.M. 1993, 334-433. The quotations in English have been taken from Raymond Bernard Blackney, Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation, New York-London 1941. 178 See Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke V, 312-313. 179 K. Ruh, Meister Eckhart: Theologe, Prediger, Mystiker, München 1989, 31. 174

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sin, repentance and God-forsakenness (chapters 9-16); the third section highlights the spiritual exercises (chapters 17-23).180 The first section starts out from true obedience that consists in leaving behind one’s self-will, so that God’s will can come in (chapter 1). The most powerful prayer consists in following this movement: detachment from that which is one’s own in order to be immersed in God’s will (chapter 2). One only really becomes free when one frees oneself from his or her own will and self (chapter 3). This must be practiced inwardly and outwardly on the level of being (chapter 4), that is, devote oneself with one’s whole being, and cling totally to God (chapter 5). This devotion is not dependent on place, time, or activities; it consists, after all, in being permeated by God’s presence in everything, so that everything tastes of God (chapter 6). The intellect, too, shares in this transformation in God (chapter 7). What matters above all is the transformation both of the will and the intellect (chapter 8).

What is Eckhart’s logic in this seemingly arbitrary sequence of themes? To Eckhart, the abandonment of all that is one’s own (true obedience) which is the entrance of God, is the light that inwardly illumines all themes. From the perspective of true obedience the difference between minor and major works, between religious or nonreligious activities, is unimportant (chapter 1). It shows the difference between self-willed prayer and the most exalted prayer that forsakes the self to admit God (chapter 1 and 2). It teaches us to distinguish between false solitude, which, though it is a location, does not forsake the self, and true self-detachment (which is the very best, chapter 3). It teaches us to see that this detachment is not a matter of doing and working but of being (chapter 4), and that this being is a fundamental focus of the person (chapter 5). It casts a clear light on all attempts to avoid this fundamental self-emptying in extreme asceticism or concentration. At issue is the transformation of one’s being and all exercises should be directed toward that end (chapter 6). Both the intellect and the will are completely involved in this transformation of one’s being (chapter 7 and 8). In the second section, which runs from chapter 9 to 16, the author looks at such themes as sin, repentance, and God-forsakenness from the same perspective. Not the impulse to sin is sin but the consent to sin; the impulse to do wrong challenges one to struggle, which makes for true virtue (chapter 9). Virtue is a matter of a good will, that is, a will that steadfastly lets itself be transformed in God’s will (chapter 10). Also experiences of Godforsakenness do not touch this good will, but only our feelings in relation to God (chapter 11). Even having sinned is not sin, for to God all sins vanish in the good will (chapter 12). True repentance, accordingly, is to put oneself with one’s whole will in God (chapter 13). The sense of having sinned arouses in a person that which is dearest to God: trust (chapter 14); it is the only 180

Compare Meister Eckhart, Werke II, 791-792. In Blackney’s translation, cf. 3-42.

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way we share in eternal life (chapter 15). True repentance, therefore, is to turn completely to God.

In this cluster too the inner logic is determined by the will that is transformed in God’s will: the impulse is a stimulus in the direction of the good will and reinforces it (chapter 9). The good will has everything and does everything, for it is without any bond to self and outside the self. God is its will (chapter 10). The good will can never lose God, for “the only true and perfect will is the one that has been merged with the will of God” (chapter 11); the good will immediately draws a person out of the sin committed. “Indeed, once justly in the will of God, a man will not wish that the sin he committed had never happened” (chapter 12). Repentance makes an appeal to God’s grace; it is an act of surrender and “turns with immovable will against all sin” (chapter 13). There is nothing by which we can know “true and perfect love” better than by trust (chapter 14). This love and this confidence imply the greatest certainty of eternal life. This “is based on the love for God and the intimacy with him which binds man to him, by which he has full confidence in God and is so completely certain of him that he loves God, without making any differences, in all creatures” (chapter 15). The best penitence “is to turn away, root and branch, from all that is not God and not divine, whether it be in one’s self or in other creatures. The true penitence is to face about toward our beloved God, with unwavering affection” (chapter 16). In the third section, finally, the author again looks at things from the same perspective. This time at aspects of the transformational model: Christ, the saints, clothing, food, company, spiritual exercises, the Eucharist, and the like. People mourn over the fact that they are no where near the level of Christ and the saints. One must remember, however, that there are many ways and that each has his own (chapter 17). Sometimes people let their spiritual life depend on (fine) food, (nice) clothes, and (cheerful) company. This is a sign of a weak inner life (chapter 18). Sometimes God deprives his friends of the support of the spiritual exercises so that he himself may be their only support (chapter 19). In communion the issue is not our feelings but the unifying power of God working from within (chapter 20). The only spiritual exercise in which one must really be diligent is that of detachment, until one has nothing left of his own (chapter 21). We must opt for the manner of life God has assigned to us in order in that manner to become partakers in all things (chapter 22). All works (humility, poverty, patience) only become a real work when God works them in us (chapter 23).

Again the inner logic of these topics, all of which concern the life form, is driven by transformation in God. Those who think they are not very far advanced on the way of holiness and to be still far from God are mistaken: “For let a man go away or come back: God never leaves. He is always at hand and if he cannot get into your life, still he is never farther away than the door” (chapter 17). Activities, clothing and eating habits are not important. “Therefore, you should

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be content as long as God is, and inwardly so responsive to his will as not to be concerned with ways and works” (chapter 18). Spiritual exercises can be a support but their absence can lead to one’s finding support in God alone. “For the more helpless and destitute the mind that turns to God for support can be, the deeper the person penetrates God” (chapter 19). The purpose of the Eucharist is for us to be transformed in God. For we are “to be made One with him so that what is his shall be ours and what is ours, his: our hearts and his are to be one heart; our body and his, one body” (chapter 20). One must train oneself until all things are in God: for the disciplined person the external phenomena are not at all external, “for all things have an internal divine mode of being for the inner man” (chapter 21). In choosing a form of life that is pleasing to God, “be sure you are not thinking of your own advantage but only of God’s dearest will and nothing else” (chapter 22). In all spiritual works what matters is that we shall be dispossessed. “All our being depends therefore on not being.” “Therefore, if God is to give us himself and everything else, freely to be our own, he must first take all we have away” (chapter 23). We have seen how Eckhart systematizes divergent themes of the spiritual life from within a single perspective: the transformation of man in God. In so doing he utilizes six techniques which seek to induce insight by marshaling them in alternation: a consistent orientation to the perfect; paradox; contrasts; exposure; similarity and mutual agreement. Orientation to the perfect. Eckhart’s argumentation is consistently aimed at the best, the perfect, the true. In chapter 1 already he speaks of “true” obedience (seven times), which is “better” or “best.” He refers to the “very best” and the “strongest” prayer (chapters 1 and 2). The absence of self-will is “best” (chapter 3). He asks how a person may work “most intelligently,” so that he may “discern God to the highest possible degree in everything” (chapter 7). By the transformation of the will and the intellect, one “will do his best in the highest sense of the word” (chapter 8). This alone is a perfect and true will, that one has entered fully into God’s will and is without self-will” (chapter 13). The final goal is “true” trust and “true and perfect love” (chapter 14), “true penitence” and the “supremely profitable penance” (chapter 16) and so forth. Paradox. Because of the perspective Eckhart has adopted, matters often come to fall in an unexpected light. As a result of true obedience, the difference between important and unimportant activities disappears (chapter 1). One who, having left his self behind, has entered into God, “God is really in him, and with him everywhere, on the streets and among people, just as much as in church, or a desert place, or a cell” (chapter 6). “In this regard one kind of work naturally differs from another, but if one takes the same attitude [that of perfect devotion to God, KW] toward each of his various occupations, then they will be all alike to him” (chapter 7). “To will to do something as soon as I may, and

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to have done it, are the same in God’s sight” (chapter 10). “A single Ave Maria, said in a spirit of self-denial, is worth more than a thousand Psalms read without it” (chapter 11). If a person turns away form sin by entering into God’s will, “he will pay no attention to what you were before. God is a God of the present” (chapter 12). “Even if all creatures denied God and foreswore him, and even though God denied himself, still he would not mistrust, because love cannot mistrust” (chapter 15). “Indeed, if in some moment of time you could turn sheer away from all your sins, with disgust and repugnance for them, and effectually turn to God, then, even if you had committed all the sins since Adam’s or all that ever could be committed, you would be forgiven instantly and the pain of them would be remitted, so that if you died, then you would rise at once, face to face with God” (chapter 16). These mystical antiphrases occur throughout the entire treatise: poverty is riches, unbecoming is becoming, the annihilation of the self is real being, to be dispossessed is to receive God as one’s possession. The unbecoming in God negates every measure and comparison, every proportion and explanation. Contrasts. Eckhart often tries to produce insight by placing two things side by side and comparing the two. Out of the contrast insight is born. Over against I-centered prayer (“Give me this virtue”; “give me eternal life,” and so forth) stands “the most powerful prayer” that prays for God’s will (chapter 1). Over against a preference for certain places, people, or activities stands one’s position in God (chapter 6). Over against the one who has admitted God into himself stands the person who drags God into everything from without (chapter 6). Those who were never tempted by an impulse to do wrong cannot be compared to those who were hardened by storms of inner conflict (chapter 9). Two things must be carefully distinguished: the essence of love and the works of love (chapter 10). There are two kinds of repentance: the one makes a great deal of noise and excels in cries of woe; the other positions itself in the will of God and thereby turns away from all sins (chapter 13). There are two wills: the one is “contingent and nonessential,” the other is the decisive will, “creative and habitual” (chapter 21). One who has left everything behind is a greater Master than one who has many possessions (chapter 23). The contrasts sharpen our powers of discernment. Unmasking. Repeatedly Eckhart helps the listener see through mere pretense. By way of illustration he formulates a number of prayers which seem to be quite plausible: “Lord, if only I had the devotion and divine calm of some people; if only I could be like this or as poor as that; I must get away – or go into a cloister or cell.” Whereupon he laconically remarks: “The truth is that you yourself are at fault in all this and no one else. It is pure self-will” (chapter 3). “Many people say: ‘We have good will’ but they have not God’s will; they still want what they want and wish to instruct our Lord to do thus and so. But that is not good

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will. We should look for the most loving will in God” (chapter 11). It is often harder “to be alone in a crowd than to be alone in a desert; harder to give up a little thing than a big thing” (chapter 17). Do not be concerned about food and clothing but rather accustom your heart and mind to be above such things (chapter 18). By way of these unmaskings Eckhart seeks to direct the attention of his disciples toward essentials. Similitudes. A proven teaching technique is that of the comparison or similitude, one which Eckhart frequently employs. When he seeks to make clear that one must not just admit God and keep him present on a cognitive but on an essential level, he compares this basic attitude to a person who is thirsty “with a real thirst; he cannot help drinking even though he thinks of other things,” or with a person who is in love and continually has his beloved in mind (chapter 6). He compares the person who is accustomed to receive all things from God’s hand with a child who is learning to write: first the child must, with care and concentration, copy a single letter. The child only sees the one letter. Later, when writing is automatic, the child only thinks of the subject matter. One who has given up herself and all she has to God is wholly surrounded by God, “as my cap is around my head and to touch me one must first touch my clothing.” “Similarly, when I drink, the drink must first pass over my tongue and there be tasted; but if my tongue is covered with a bitter coating, then however sweet the wine, it will taste bitter, because of the coating through which it reaches me;” so also the person who is hidden in God cannot reach anything except through God (chapter 11). Each person has his or her own way of living, in which God gives himself to him or her, and with that one must be content. A man who conducts the water of a brook into his garden does not care what kind of channel it flows through – whether it is made of iron or wood or stone or whatever – as long as the garden gets the water. “So it is wrong to fret over the way by which God does his works in you” (chapter 23). Inner coherence. Eckhart not only attempts to lead his listeners to a deeper level by way of contrasts and paradoxes but also tries each time to articulate inner connections. Examples: where a person steps outside of himself, there especially God enters in; where I have no will of my own God wills for me (chapter 1); the more empty of self my prayer is, the stronger and more perfect it is (chapter 2); the farther away a man looks for God, the less he will find him (chapter 3); to the extent you eliminate self from your activities God comes into them – but not more and no less (chapter 4); the more energetically you are turned toward God, the better your works are (chapter 5). The greater your thirst for God, the more vigorously he is present in you (chapter 6). The weaker a man is, the more resolutely he must arm himself (chapter 9). The more the will is transformed in God’s will, the more genuine it is (chapter 10). Thus the talks are full of phrases which show the inner connections of transformation in God: the more

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the person locks himself up in his own [world], the more he locks God out; the more a person immerses herself in God, the more God “finds room” in her. “For the more helpless and destitute the mind that turns to God for support can be, the deeper the person penetrates God and the more receptive he is to God’s most valuable gifts. Man must build on God alone” (chapter 19).

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3.3. The Systematic Study of Spirituality Up to this point we have taken two steps on the road to a design for systematic spirituality. (1) We studied a few forms of systematic reflection in lived spirituality and discovered, as the basic structure of this systematics (sun-histemi = to place together), the collatio (= to bring together): the truth of a spiritual subject manifests itself within a study community that comes together around a given theme through a process of critical articulation and comparison. (2) Next, we systematically explored the four elements of structure we found: the study community, a thematic articulation, argumentation, and the self-evidence of the subject matter itself. (3) Now we shall take a third step: the design for systematic spirituality research that, in keeping with its basic structure, links up with systematic reflection on lived spirituality. In our foundational research we saw that the unfolding of truth is realized along four lines: the claim to validity, the language available, the stated facts of the subject matter, and the subject matter itself. This unfolding of the truth corresponds to the basic structure of the collation: a gathering around a spiritual subject that is illumined and discussed from all angles with a view to discovering what it really is. We now adopt this structure as our point of departure for our design for systematic spirituality research. First, we shall picture the scientific forum of the study of spirituality – here the claim to validity comes into play. Next, we will examine the basic categories in which the field of inquiry is laid bare and made accessible – this concerns the field of available language. Then we will study how the authors proceed in their argumentation, what style of argumentation they employ – how the facts of a matter are put on the table. Finally, we will reflect on the role of obviousness: the truth of the subject matter itself. 3.3.1. THE

SCIENTIFIC FORUM

Human knowledge is dialogical. It is subject to the criticism of others.181 This basic insight comes to expression, in the sciences, in the scientific forum that is constituted by experts in a given field, people who are often organized in training institutions, institutes, editorial boards, and the like. Not only contemporaries, but also teachers from the past, are members of or participants in the 181 E. Levinas, The Ego and the Totality, in: Collected Philosophical Papers, (Trans. A. Lingis), Pittsburgh (PA) 1987, 41-42.

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conversation. They appear on our screen in reference works and histories. All the important figures from the past and present are represented. By way of articles in periodicals, conference papers, dissertations, and monographs the scholars of spirituality show us how they do their work. Mutual exchange becomes concrete the moment a scholar enters into communication with a given research group. This is where the researchers acquire a face. Their argumentations take shape in tangible forms. The same effect is produced by congresses, collaboration in collections of essays, or writing in periodicals of spirituality. In this section we attempt to depict the contours of the scientific forum for the study of spirituality. 1. The scholars The participants in the scientific conversation come into view in bio-bibliographies. The paradigm of bio-bibliography in the field of the study of spirituality is the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. The index182 contains more than 10,000 names, the overwhelming majority of which have a lemma of their own that embraces the following elements: (1) life and milieu (date of birth and death, social backgrounds, training, functions held, religious milieu and the like); (2) works with a brief summary of the content of each; (3) spiritual teaching and its importance for spirituality; (4) sources; (5) ongoing influence; (6) literature. This plan is only completely maintained in the case of the more important authors but its basic structure is consistently carried out as far as possible. In the nature of the case, not even a monumental work like the Dictionnaire de spiritualité escapes having certain preferences. This becomes apparent when we list the most important spiritual authors in a row. To this end we selected all the authors to whom twenty or more columns are devoted (the number of columns is given in parentheses): Dionysius the Areopagite (185) Bonaventure (75) Cassian (62) Richard of St. Victor (61) Thomas Aquinas (55) Ignatius of Loyola (52) Teresa of Avila (47) Irenaeus of Lyon (46) Bernard of Clairvaux (45) Pierre de Bérulle (42) Francis de Sales (40) Gregory of Nyssa (43) Hippolytus of Rome (40) 182

Hugo of St. Victor (38) Gregory the Great (38) Jan Ruusbroec (38) Luther (37) Catherine of Genua (35) Therese of Lisieux (35) Francis of Assisi (34) Hilary of Poitiers (33) Alphonsus of Liguori (32) Augustine (29) Michel de Molinos (20) Origen (28) Palamas (26)

Tables générales, in: DSp 17 (1995).

Elizabeth of Thüringen (24) Tauler (24) Eckhart (23) Suso (23) Makarios (23) William of St. Thierry (22) Philo (22) Peter Damian (22) Vincent de Paul (22) Scotus Erigena (22) Joachim de Fiore (22) Catherine of Siena (21) Herp (20)

826 Gregory of Nazianze (39) John of the Cross (39) Benedict (38)

METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH Jean-Nicholas Grou (24) John Chrysostom (24) Tertullian (24)

John Climacus (20) Marie de l’Incarnation (20) Paul of the Cross (20)

When we survey these top 48 names, Augustine (29) seems somewhat shortchanged, considering his prodigious impact on Western spirituality. Dionysius the Areopagite (185), on the other hand, is given a disproportionately large amount of space. The same is true – with less validity – for Jean Nicolas Grou (25).183 A bias in perspective is the case of Therese of Lisieux (35). The importance of William of St. Thierry (22) is underestimated. He is roughly of the same weight as Bernard of Clairvaux (45). The numbers are of course dependent in part on the authors’ passion for writing. Quantity, we recall, is no guarantee of quality. Nevertheless, the differences cannot altogether be attributed to the authors. Ignatius (52) probably owes his high position in part to the fact that the Dictionnaire is edited by Jesuits, who – it must be said – observed extraordinary objectivity and managed to secure the participation of top experts.184 The Dictionnaire de Spiritualité restricts itself to Christian spirituality. Bio-bibliographically, Jewish, Islamic, and Oriental spiritualities are absent. For these one has to consult other sources. For Jewish spirituality there is the Encyclopedia Judaica.185 In the index of this encyclopedia all the important names of Jewish spirituality are listed (with reference to the appropriate volume and column).186 Involved as advisor for the section on spirituality was Gershom Scholem. For Islamic spirituality the survey of Annemarie Schimmel, The Mystical Dimensions of Islam, offers an initial introduction to the great authors.187 Sound information about the spiritual authors can be found in the Encyclopedia of Islam.188 A good source for an initial introduction to spiritual authors in the context of their religion is the Encyclopedia of Religion.189 While the overall design of this 16-volume encyclopedia is as broad as the reference work World Spirituality, its perspective is more that of studies in religion. An extensive index offers access to the volumes and pages where the author in question is treated.190 183 Grou (1731-1803) was a Jesuit. One unpublished monograph was devoted to him. Rayez, one of the founders of the Dictionnaire, who wrote more than 150 lemmas, is the author of the article. 184 In the Dizionario enciclopedico di spiritualità of the Teresianum, Rome 1990 (3 volumes), Teresa of Avila has 40 columns, John of the Cross 20, and Ignatius of Loyola 6. Institutional preference is clearly operative here. 185 Encyclopedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1971-1972 (16 volumes with supplements). 186 The index occurs in volume 1, pp. 283-843. 187 See the “Index of Names and Places” in: A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 473-490. 188 Encyclopedia of Islam, Leiden 1960 (and following years). 189 The Encyclopedia of Religion, New York-London 1987 (16 volumes). 190 EncRel(E) 16 (1987), 129-470.

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The bio-bibliographies referred to above furnish information about authors, great and small, in the field of spirituality, but far and away the majority of them belong to the past. They do not furnish us with information about contemporary authors. We get some indication from the register of names. Approximately 1700 authors collaborated in the production of the Dictionnaire de spiritualité, many of whom have already died. But we do not get an accurate picture, because about forty authors (2.5% of the contributors) took responsibility for 20% of the articles. Among them again there are those who have contributed a great many articles: Paul Bailly, Constantin Becker, Raymond Darrican, André Derville, André Duval, Réginald Gregoire, Guibert Michels, Irénée Noye, WillibrordChristian van Dijk, André Rayez, Clément Schmitt, Aimé Solignac, Daniel Stiernon, Marcel Viller (all of them more than fifty contributions). Another avenue to contemporary authors is furnished by the bibliographies we will discuss in the following section. Because there is an urgent need for a list of scholars active in the field of the study of spirituality, the Titus Brandsma Institute in Nijmegen has planned and arranged for the documentation of the names, addresses, backgrounds, affiliation with working groups, the field of investigation of the research scholars. All the scholars who have collaborated in the production of lexicons, are members of editorial boards, or have written a monograph about a spiritual subject have been approached. This documentation will in time be made available to the scientific forum. 2. Working groups Scholars are usually active in a working group. On the basis of the above mentioned list of research scholars, the Titus Brandsma Institute hopes to develop a record of the most important working groups on the level of the study of spirituality. Given present-day data, it is interested in the following working groups. Study groups. In recent years we have witnessed the phenomenon that people responsible for education in spirituality in faculties or departments of theology organize themselves, as in other theological disciplines this has been the case for some time. The Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality in the United States and the Arbeitgemeinschaft Theologie der Spiritualität for German- and Dutchspeaking countries originated almost at the same time. Research Institutes. Institutes for the study of spirituality come in three main kinds. (1) Institutes established for the study of spirituality in general, such as the institute for spirituality at the Thomas Aquinas University in Rome (1950); the Teresianum, the papal institute for spirituality (1957); the institute for spirituality at the Gregoriana (1958); the Titus Brandsma Institute at Nijmegen (1968). (2) Institutes which study a specific part of spirituality, say, the study of the spirituality of one’s own order or congregation (the Antonianum in Rome,

828

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the Institutum Carmelitanum in Rome, the Franciscan Academy in Utrecht)191 or of a certain historical school (the Ruusbroec Society in Antwerp for the study of the piety of the Low Countries). (3) Institutes that study spirituality in close conjunction with the work of formation (e.g., in the pastoral-theological sections of faculties and departments of theology). Training courses. At various universities and theological schools and in close conjunction with research institutes students are educated in the study of spirituality. To mention some examples: the faculty of spirituality at the Gregorian; doctoral programs in spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and Fordham University in New York;192 majors in spirituality in the theological faculty of the Catholic University at Nijmegen and the Theologische Hochschule in Münster. Editorial boards of periodicals. An important form of collaboration occurs in the framework of periodicals of spirituality. We will distinguish four genres. (1) Periodicals focused on the study of spirituality in a general and often interdisciplinary sense. Examples: Studies in Spirituality (1991); Christian Spirituality Bulletin (1993). (2) Periodicals oriented to a specific language region: La Vie Spirituelle (1919) and Le Supplément (1947) for the French, Geist und Leben (1926) for the German, Revista de Espiritualidad (1941) for the Spanish, Rivista di Vita Spirituale (1947) for the Italian, Speling (1947) for the Dutch, and The Way (1961) for the English language region.193 (3) Periodicals focused on certain aspects of spirituality: biblical spirituality (Bibel und Leben, Bible et Vie Chrétienne, Lectio Divina, Schrift), the history of spirituality (the – alas! – discontinued Revue d’Histoire de la Spiritualité, Sacris Erudiri, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale, Ons Geestelijk Erf), schools of spirituality (Revue Bénédictine, Revue de Études Augustiniennes, Benediktijns Tijdschrift). (4) Periodicals directly functioning in the service of lived spirituality as it is practiced in centers for spirituality. Congresses. A looser form of working group are the once-only or annual congresses or symposiums. It is hard to gain a good grasp of the congresses which have been held in recent years on the subject of spirituality. The same applies here that applies to congresses in general: “Congress proceedings are of importance in many fields of study, but in bibliographies, both general and special, they constitute a neglected and hard-to-control category.”194 Initially congresses on 191

For a complete picture of the multiform monastic and conventual study of spirituality, consult the Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, Rome (originated 1974). 192 Information from S. Schneiders, Spirituality in the Academy, in: Modern Christian Spirituality. Methodological and Historical Essays, (Ed. B. Hanson), Atlanta (GA) 1990, 19 note 14. 193 For more information about these periodicals, see O. Steggink & K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit en mystiek 1. Inleiding, Nijmegen 1985, 112-114. 194 A. Kouwenhoven, Inleiding tot de bibliografie, Assen-Maastricht 1989, 59.

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spirituality were separately documented in the Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis (in rubric 1), but later they were subsumed under the theme in question. It would be good if the congresses were again included in bibliographies of spirituality as a separate category.195 3. Reception Generally speaking, researchers have formed a picture of the scientific forum of the field of study in which they function. They find certain authors important, regard their influence as being considerable, and suspect that they are judged positively by their colleagues. They regard others as being less relevant, influential, and viewed less positively. These assessments, however, may or may not agree with the facts. Some indication of the reality can be found in abstract journals, reviews, and citation indexes. Abstract journals offer a more or less extensive summary of the content of academic papers, depending on the nature of the publication (usually journal articles). Usually one can tell which articles merit presentation in the professional field in question. This already implies an initial screening. In this connection it is well to consider that the quality of the selection is decisive. Furthermore, even the very best journals do not cover more than 80% of the papers submitted. Besides, these journals often have a considerable backlog. They are of special importance when it concerns publications written in languages not easily accessible (to us).196 Book discussion. Book reviews offer a discussion of a publication by a person belonging to the scientific forum. As a rule, a concise overview of the content is given. But the most important element is the evaluation. Reviewers are published in professional journals, in indexes to the journals for an entire field of study (with the advantage that one can sometimes encounter several reviews of the same book) and bibliographies of book discussions.197 Citation index. The citation index is based on cited publications. Featured in the index are all relatively recent articles from the journals examined which cite the publication in question one or more times. Here the reception is strongest, inasmuch as the citing author includes (positively or negatively) a given publication in his own argumentation. The relation to the cited publication, moreover, concerns content. A problem is the frequently less correct manner of citation. The first large-scale indexation of citations occurs in the Science Citation Index (started 1963). There one can see how often and by whom a given article has been cited.198 195

For examples from other academic fields, see A. Kouwenhoven, ibid., 199-201. For conference papers and journals in general, see A. Kouwenhoven, ibid., 58-59. 197 Ibid., 61, 197-199. 198 Ibid., 58, 100. 196

830 3.3.2. THE SPIRITUAL

METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH CATEGORIES

Validation depends not only on the scientific forum but also on the scientific language which is usually highly standardized. Thus a spirituality of liberation will not find a suitable language in which to express itself when the established scholarly tradition employs deductive-theological categories. Lay spirituality will find very few usable categories in a language shaped by religious institutions. In this section we will reflect on the basic categories which the study of spirituality supplies to its investigators. We want to open up for discussion the problematics of the available language game in three ways. First, we will compare the “Index analytique” of the Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle with the Dictionnaire de spiritualité. What shifts are discernible here? Next, we will compare the same “Index analytique” with twenty volumes of three journals for spirituality. Do they offer new themes? Finally, we will take a look at the thematic arrangement of the Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis. 1. Reference works In reference works the field of the study of spirituality is categorized by way of lemmata. To show how readily such categorization changes, we will compare the main lemmata of the Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle with the index of the completed Dictionnaire de spiritualité. The Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle,199 a French adaptation of the originally Italian Nuovo dizionario di spiritualità of 1979 consists of 105 larger thematic articles which are systematically opened up in subthemes by the analytic index.200 The 58 contributors who come from different milieus share the following basic idea: “Our time feels an urgent need to bring spirituality and daily life together.”201 When we juxtapose the main themes of this dictionary with the Dictionnaire de spiritualité, we observe the shifts which our spiritual vocabulary has undergone in recent decades of the more than one hundred themes, half are new or different. We will list the 105 themes in columns one below the other. The changes are printed in italics. Absolute Affliction Aged, the Apostolate Artist Asceticism 199

Evangelical counsels Evangelical person Family Feminism Folk religion Friendship

Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle, Paris 1983. See the extensive “Index analytique,” 1215-1244. 201 See the “Présentation,” in: DVSp (1983), vii. 200

Psalms Psychology (and spirituality) Revision de vie Saint Satan Science

SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH

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Atheist Awareness of God Believer Body

Heroism Hinduism History of Spirituality Holy Heart

Brotherhood Buddhism Calling Celibacy and virginity Charismatic Christian East, the Christian experience Christian freedom Christian mysticism Christocentrism Church Community Contemplation Contemporary spirituality Conversion Crisis Cross Deacon Death/Resurrection Devout life, the Discernment Ecology Eschatology Exercises of piety Eucharist

Hope Horizontalism/Verticalism Humility Image Imitation of Christ Islam Jesus Christ Judaism Laborer Layperson Leisure Liturgical celebration Love Martyr Mary Meditation Paschal mystery Pastoral functions Penance/Penitent Politics Poor, the Prayer Prophetic contestation Prophets Protestantism

Secular institutions Sexuality Signs of the time Sin and penance in the context of contemporary culture Sinner, Sin Sociology (and spirituality) Son of God Spiritual antinomies Spiritual ecumenicity Spiritual exercises Spiritual experience in the Bible Spiritual father Spiritual journey Spiritual maturity Spiritual models Spiritual pathology Spiritual person, the Spiritual symbols Spiritual theology Suffering/illness Utopia visionary Wilderness Will of the Father, the Word of God World Yoga/Zen Youth

The compilers of the Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle sum up in nine points the motives underlying the changes.202 1. They were guided by contemporary Christian experience; hence they did not treat the themes from a historical perspective. Spiritual currents and figures have been subsumed under the lemma “History of spirituality.” 2. The confrontation with contemporary reality entails a language problem: it is hard to find comprehensible terms in which the spiritual experience of our culture is expressed. This confrontation, moreover, demands a more concrete use of language. Hence: “Son of God” but not “grace”; “visionary” but not “manifestation”; “holy” but not “holiness”; “evangelical person” but not “evangel.”

202

Ibid., vii-x.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH

3. A focus on the growth of spiritual life highlights the dynamic and processive aspects: “spiritual experience in Scripture,” “spiritual journey,” “spiritual models,” “signs of the time,” “spiritual symbols.” 4. The aim is not merely to describe the general characteristics of a contemporary Christian spirituality but especially to capture the manner in which Christian people are actively involved in society and its development. Hence “artist,” “scientist,” “politics,” “laborer.” 5. The history of redemption concerns all people; hence the interest in ecumenicity (Christian East, “Protestantism”), other religions (“Buddhism,” “Hinduism,” “Islam,” “Judaism”) and atheism (“atheist”). 6. Spirituality is not sterile piety, estranged from the concrete history of people. Liturgy and life, liberation and contemplation, prayer and justice belong together. Hence: “signs of the time,” “sin and penance in the context of contemporary culture.” 7. Spirituality concerns the whole person: body and soul together (“body,” “world,” “ecology,” “sexuality”); being there for others (“church,” “community or commune,” “brotherhood,” “family”); being aware of the conflictual (“prophetic contestation,” “Christian liberty”). 8. Spirituality depends on the insights of the human sciences (“sociology and spirituality,” “psychology and spirituality,” “spiritual pathology,” spiritual maturity”). 9. On the other hand, the authors maintain the critical and systematic reflection which consciously opens Christian experience to the work of the Holy Spirit (“spiritual theology,” “Christian experience”). The Christian life is illuminated right down to its God-relatedness (“liturgical celebration,” “the practices of piety,” “contemplation,” “meditation,” “prayer,” “Christian mysticism”). 2. The journals The categorization of spirituality’s field of study does not exclusively take place in reference works, although these works do exert strong influence on the standardization of the scientific language employed. Certainly equally important for the development of spiritual themes are the professional journals. In the preceding section we already encountered them when we spoke of cooperating groups. In this section we are focusing on the content. Several journals concentrate their content around current themes. We have chosen three journals of spirituality which have for some time prepared and published issues: La vie spirituelle, The Way, and Speling. We have noted the themes which they treated over a period of twenty years (between 1975 and 1995). These journals, on average, came out four times a year. Altogether that yields 240 themes. We have subsequently attempted to categorize these theme issues in the “Index and Analytique” of the Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle, following the guidelines and ref-

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erence words of the “Index.” When these took us to one of the main lemmata, we put the theme issue in question under that heading. Our use of italics continues to distinguish the specific character of the dictionnaire from the Dictionnaire de spiritualité. The result follows.203 Absolute

Affliction Aged, the Apostolate

Artist

Asceticism Atheist Awareness of God Believer Body Brotherhood Buddhism Calling Celibacy and virginity Charismatic

Christian East, the Christian experience

Christian freedom

God has outgrown his conceptualization (S 86) Images of God (W 86) God in daily life (W 93) A ripe old age (V93) Being grownup (V93) Evangelization (W80) Preach the Word in season and out (V81) Witnesses of God; travel companions (V84) Evangelization (W94) The formative power of spirituality (S88) The experience of beauty (V9) Church traditions of beauty (V91) The beauty of every day (V91) Beauty as offering (V91)

Trust and Endurance (S88) Embodiment (W95) Communication calls for respect (S92)

A variety of gifts The power that makes [us] gentle (V81) Spiritual life – life of the Spirit (V81) The Spirit speaking (W81) Workshops for a new spirituality (S75) Aspects of religious experience (W77) Religious experience wants to go further (S86) Liberation (W75) Freed from all care (V78) Liberating traditions (W87) A tradition of freedom (V90)

203 V = La vie spirituelle; W = The Way; S = Speling. The number following the abbreviation refers to the year of publication.

834

Christian mysticism

Christocentrism Church

Community

Contemplation Contemporary spirituality

Conversion Crisis Cross Deacon Death/Resurrection

Devout life, the

METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH Prayer and freedom (V90) Freedom in the church and in the city (V90) Freedom for evil and death (V90) Striving for freedom: challenges and danger (V90) Freedom (W95) The wild mystics (V77) Mystical explorations (S81) Mystical fighting spirit (S81) Mysticism – love through it all (S81) Reflection on mysticism (S81) Mysticism for everybody (V88) Mysticism of the one God (V88) Current problems of mysticism (V88) Mysticism and Christian belief (V88) The changing church (W79) The once-and-future church (W79) Unity and diversity (W83) Building an adult church (W85) The church as koinonia (W90) Small group: a living possibility (S75) The Healing Community (W76) Religious community thrives on the basis of each member’s uniqueness (S82) Alternative communities (S82) Community: necessary but threatening (S82) Tensions of Togetherness (S90) What’s happening in spirituality (S77) Gradually a new spirituality grows (S85) Spiritual currents from Africa (V85) Spiritual currents in the last century (V85) The conciliar process (S89) New Age Spirituality (W93) Staying alive in a time of crisis (S84) The cross, being crucified, the way of the cross (V87) Death (W76) Closer to death (S76) Writings about death (V83) Dead – and yet…(S86) Death and transfiguration (V91) Deaths and dying (W93)

SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH Discernment Ecology

Eschatology Exercises of piety Eucharist Evangelical counsels Evangelical person Family Feminism

Folk religion Friendship Heroism Hinduism History of spirituality

835 Identifying the spiritual (W88) Inhabitable places (V80) Nature – what is it all about? (S87) Heal creation, protect nature (S89) Creation-centered spirituality (W89) Environmental crisis and spirituality (S94) Elements and symbols (V94) Water that makes one alive (V94) The air and the Spirit (V94) The earth (V94) Worship of the pope? (V87) Which rosary do you pray? (V87) Eat and drink the Easter of the Lord (V81)

Marriage and the family (W83) The place of the family (W92) Woman (W76) The good news for women (V79) Women, literature, spiritualities (V83) The Missus is no longer at home (S83) Women’s uniqueness (S83) What is it that inspires feminism? (S83) What women experience as their own (S83) Woman (W86)

John Tauler, a mystic (V76) The monk Benedict (V80) Catherine of Siena (V80) Francis and Teresa (V82) Rhineland mysticism (V82) A dream journey: Dominicus and his order (V85) Reflections on a so-called lackluster nineteenth century (V85) Prayer in the seventeenth century (V85) Spiritual currents in the last century (V85) St. Augustine and a few others (V85) The desert fathers: useful masters? (V86) Words from Chartreaux (V86) Vladimir Lossky: theological writings (V87) John of the Cross after four centuries (S91)

836

Holy Heart Hope Horizontalism/Verticalism Humility Image Imitation of Christ Islam Jesus Christ

Judaism Laborer

Layperson Leisure Liturgical celebration Love Martyr Mary Meditation Paschal mystery Pastoral functions

Penance/Penitent Politics

Poor, the

Prayer

METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH Thomas, a spiritual master? (V93) Devotion to the heart of Christ (V87) Living in hope (W87) Sacred and misunderstood icons (V86) Imagination and image (W84)

Light in the night (V78) One of us (V79) He descended into hell (V79) In Christ Jesus (W81) I have to work – you too (S79) The world of work (V83) How do you view work? (S92) Entrepreneurship and spirituality (S93) Services tailored to the other (S93) Working to live (W94)

Glorifying God (W79) Celebrating life before the face of God (S95) Relations, the footprints of love (S87)

Meditation (V77) Easter: an offering (V79) Having been raised, he heals us (V79) Sacramental ministry (W80) Ministries in the local church (W85) Spirituality and lay ministry (W92) Pastoring for the faith of people (S93) Politics, literature, spirituality (V83) Europe and beyond (W91) One Europe: New boundaries? (S91) Good news for the poor (W80) The poor have called, God listens (V84) Assessing property at its true value (S87) Prayer and renewal (V75) The prayer of the people (V75) The adventure of prayer (W83) Prayer in the seventeenth century (V85) Prayer has changed (S86)

SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH Prophetic contestation

Prophets Protestantism Psalms Psychology (and spirituality) Revision de vie Saint

Satan Science Secular institutions Sexuality

Signs of the time Sin and penance in the context of contemporary culture

Sinner, sin Sociology (and spirituality) Son of God Spiritual antinomies

Spiritual ecumenicity Spiritual exercises Spiritual experience in the Bible

837 Looking for herbs for our sick society (S80) On the margins of the society (S82) Sustaining the prophets (W87) Prophesy, son of man (V82)

You saints (V89) Why saints? (V89) Faces of saints (V89) Hidden sainthood (V89) New sanctity (V89) Consecration (W95) Mysticism, spirituality, and science (W92) Space for affectivity (S75) The willfulness of the emotional life (S84) Sexuality and spirituality (W88) Zeitgeist and spirituality (S85) The power of evil (W75) The violent element in Christianity (S78) Assaults on the emotional life (S78) Processing violence (S78) Power calls for resistance (S84) Power and possessions (W86) Prejudice (W87) Anger and violence (W90) Guilt feelings (S91) Breaking the curse of criminality (S94)

Dealing creatively with the tradition (S77) Is renewal passé? Not as far as we are concerned (S77) To be born again, to rejuvenate (V80) A New Newness (V80) Tradition: the one and the many (W81) Conformity and dissent (W88) Identity and change (W94) The encounter of religions (V76) The religious experience of Israel (W77)

838 Spiritual father

Spiritual journey

Spiritual maturity Spiritual models Spiritual pathology Spiritual person, the

Spiritual symbols Spiritual theology

Suffering/illness

Utopia Visionary Wilderness Will of the Father, the Word of God

METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH Leadership (W75) Critically following authority (S87) Authority and leadership (W89) Spiritual guidance (S95) Seeking orientation Seeking and finding (W77) So many ways (V79) Spiritual ways (paths) (V83) Endings (W84) The ways of the heart (V84) Boundary experiences (S91) Seeking God in an impasse (S95) Rite of Christian initiation of adults (W89)

The memory of the believer (V78) The self: a hidden treasure (S85) Whose is my interview? (S99) Memory (W95) Spirituality – what could that be? (S77) Grace (W77) The Miraculous (W78) Divine providence (W78) Revelation and mystery (W81) Signs and wonders (W90) What do we mean by spirituality? (W92) The world of the hospital (V78) Who can say whether I am of a sound mind? (S80) Health care continually calls for our attention (S80) Sick people want to belong (S80) Handicapped people and the church (W85) Failure (W89) Touched by suffering (S92) Boundaries (W83)

Loneliness (W76) A challenge from the desert (S88) Saying, reading, listening (V75) Speaking in parables (V75) Beatitudes and maledictions (V92) Reading the Bible (V95) The Bible everyday (V95)

SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH

World

Yoga/Zen Youth

839 The Scripture to be prayed (V95) Scripture and preaching (V95) In an unbelieving world (V76) Making a home and spirituality (S76) The spirit of money (S76) Secular blessings (W90) Youth and faith (V75) Vital impulses among the young (S79) New sensitivities among young people (S79) Youth (V93) Like children (V93)

When we compare the themes of the dictionaries and the theme issues of the journals with each other, we are struck by the fact that the assessments made by the Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle are only partially shared by the journals. In following the nine motives of the Dictionnaire, we find: Re 1. The intuition of the dictionary was that it should be guided by currency. This is, in the nature of the case, shared by the journals, since they were founded specifically to focus on current spirituality. In the theme issues, accordingly, the life of a saint or a specific historical current is seldom made the subject of an article. This is not to say that both the dictionary and the theme issues operate ahistorically. On the contrary, both illumine their themes from a historical angle. Re 2. The situation is more complex in connection with the problem of language. The dictionary overestimates itself. The alternative “absolute,” for example, is not confirmed: the authors do not only use the word “God” in the theme issues pointed out under the category “absolute” but also in other issues in which the orientation to God came up. The theme “atheist” is not approved. The same is true for the excessive use of the words “Christian” and “spiritual.” “Mysticism” is approved in the journals but hardly “Christian mysticism.” The same is true for “experience” and “freedom.” Strange, too, is the way in which the dictionary subsumes all communication under the heading of “brotherhood.” This finds no support. The lemma “spiritual father,” though appropriate in content, does not do well terminologically. Here the journals opt for another language. Nor is the lemma “spiritual theology” terminologically in tune with the intuition of the journals. The same applies to the lemma “sin and penance in the context of contemporary culture.” Re 3. What the dictionary offers for the articulation of processes agrees for about 50% with the journals: “Spiritual experience in the Bible” resonates in one theme issue, as does “signs of the time.” Most resonant is the term “spiritual journey” (8 times). But “spiritual models” and “spiritual symbols” do not occur as themes in the journals.

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Re 4. The dictionary’s bias in favor of the concrete is shared by the journals. All such themes (“art,” “politics,” and “labor”) are fairly well accepted by the journals. Re 5. The journals exhibit no thematic interest whatever in the “Christian East,” “Protestantism,” “Buddhism,” “Hinduism,” “Islam” and “Judaism,” or “atheism.” Re 6. That liturgy and life, liberation and contemplation, prayer and justice belong together is confirmed by the journals. There are 27 themes which are maintained in both dictionaries and creatively developed in the journals. These core themes, which furnish the continuity in categorization, confirm exactly the above-mentioned and other fields of tension: the sphere of the church (“apostolate,” “church,” “charismata,” “liturgy,” “pastoral functions”) as well as that of society and culture (“labor,” “freedom,” “image,” “poverty,” “art,” “prophetic contestation,” “world”), the sphere of orientation to God (“mysticism,” “piety,” “prayer,” “wilderness,” “sanctification,” “Jesus Christ,” “paschal mystery, “word of God”) and the existential (“experience, “death,” “community,” “suffering/illness,” “sexuality,” “family”). Re 7. That spirituality concerns the whole person, body and mind, living in relation with others, is an insight shared by the journals. However, the nomenclature of the dictionary, as we already said above, does not seem to tie in very well with that of the journals. “Ecology,” “feminism” and “youth” fare fairly well, but the term “spiritual father” for the field of accompaniment is a step backward. The same is true for the excessive use of the word “spiritual” in the categorization. Neither does the conspicuous emphasis on “contemporary” and “in the context of contemporary culture” provide a useful terminology. Re 8. Interdisciplinarity, though practiced by the journals, is not made into a theme. For that reason there are no theme issues which explicitly reflect on “psychology,” “sociology,” “pathology,” “maturation,” and the like. Re 9. In the journals, as in the dictionary, we do find explicit reflection on human experience with a view to its spirituality. This is evident from the agreement between them on such themes as “spiritual theology,” “experience,” “liturgy,” “practices of piety,” “prayer” and “mysticism.” Surveying the whole picture once again, we have to say that the journals link up for 40% with the categorization of a dictionary which itself was already 50% new by comparison with the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. There are 66 themes in the dictionary (27 new ones and 39 all together) for which there are no comparable themes in the journals. Add to this that the journals broach new themes which we could not subsume under the categories of the Index analytique. There are five of them. Culture

The living paradise (V77) Fighting and dance (V82) Literature, spiritual space (V83)

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Virtues/attitudes

Mass media Nurture/Education

Peace/Reconciliation

841 Spirituality and culture (W85) Humor as playful antidote (S88) Humor and play (W91) Attention (V75) In search of rest (V76) Sensible enjoyment (S76) Taking the present as it comes (V76) The righteousness of the kingdom (W84) Ethics and spirituality (V84) Renewed fascination with values (S85) Justice calls for resilience (S89) Keep awake therefore (S90) The pure of heart (V92) Blessed are the meek (V92) Hungering and thirsting for righteousness (V92) The merciful (V92) Silence (S95) Media and communication (W91) Looking at shocking images can open people’s eyes (S94) Learning to live (S79) The love of learning (W80) Nurturing in the faith (S92) Education seeks to show people the ropes for living (S93) Conflict and reconciliation (V75) Forgiveness (W75) Hard… to forgive (V77) A little more peace (S78) The foundations of peace (W82) The struggle for peace (W82) Justice, love and peace (W82) Light, comfort, and peace (W82) Peace achieved by weapons, peace of heart (V84) Conflict (W86) Seek peace and pursue it (S89)

3. Bibliographies The phenomenon of bibliography developed from learned societies.204 In the seventeenth century the sciences became more highly organized. The art of printing meant a longer range, a faster tempo, and an intensification of scientific communication. The existing frameworks were not equal to this development. Learned societies sprang up and flourished whose most important goal was: contact among the learned, the exchange of ideas and the results of investigation. 204

A. Kouwenhoven, Inleiding tot de bibliografie, Assen-Maastricht 1989, 21-24; 44-47.

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The first journals had a bibliographic function: they were meant to call attention to literature, including information about current research. It offered the possibility, already at an early stage, to communicate and collaborate with colleagues in the field. As a result unwanted duplications were avoided. Attention was called to blank spots on the research map. New research could be launched. With a view to such possibilities an arsenal of bibliographic aids developed in most academic fields. The organization of a good bibliography (bibliographic research) passes through three phases: an exploratory phase in which the subject is identified and marked off; a systematic phase in which a focused search can be conducted in specific bibliographies, survey articles, key publications and dissertations; a concluding phase in which current information is compiled by means of computer indexes, tables of contents from recent issues of periodicals (Current Contents) and ongoing contact with the field of research.205 Of interest for the study of spirituality are the following bibliographies. First of all, the Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis (beginning in 1969). Alongside of it is the bibliography in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses. For Jewish spirituality: “Spiritual Trends in Judaism” in the Index of Articles of Jewish Studies and the sections “Halakhic and Midrashic Literature,” “Jewish Philosophy and Religion,” “Kabbalah and Hassidism” and “Prayers and Liturgy” in Kiryat Sefer. Our focus in this section is the categorization of the themes of spirituality. To that end we already explored two reference works and three journals. We shall now examine a bibliography: the Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis (BIS). This bibliography is divided in eight rubrics, each of which is again subdivided. Some 8500 titles are incorporated annually. 1. The bibliographic sources. Documented in this rubric are: (1) the general, national, and monographic bibliographies and bibliographic surveys in journals; (2) dictionaries, lexicons, and reference works. Number of titles: 30 to 40 annually. 2. Biblical spirituality. Documented in this section are: (1) general introductory studies; (2) studies concerning the Old Testament, broken down in individual Bible books; (3) studies concerning the New Testament, again broken down in the individual Bible books. About 1000 titles annually. 3. Spiritual doctrine. Documented here are (1) God; (2) Jesus Christ, evangelical spirituality, suffering, death, and resurrection; (3) the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit; (4) Mariology; (5) Josephology; (6) the church and the ecclesiastical offices, the mission of the church. Under this last heading are subsumed a large number of rubrics such as: catechesis, preaching, spiritual exercises, the pastorate, church communities, base communities, church and world, justice, and so forth; (7) non-Christian religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism). Approximately 2,300 titles annually. 205

Ibid., 127-135.

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4. Liturgical spirituality, subdivided in (1) doctrine and history; (2) the sacraments in general; (3) the eucharist; (4) the other sacraments and the sacramentalia; (5) the hours; (6) the liturgical year. Approximately 550 titles annually. 5. The Spiritual life. Over the years a good many shifts have occurred in this rubric. At the moment the division is as follows: (1) meditation and prayer; (2) asceticism and mysticism; (3) the three states of life; (4) the life of the community. Between 1100 and 1300 titles annually. 6. The history of spirituality, encompassing (1) everything from antiquity to contemporary currents: antiquity, the Middle Ages, the modern age, the recent modern era, and the present; (2) biographies, (3) the lives of the saints. The number of titles fluctuates between 3000 and 4000. 7. Art and spirituality: (1) sacred art; (2) sacred music; (3) letters; (4) audiovisual media. Approximately 50 titles annually. 8. Related disciplines. Documented are (1) theology; (2) moral theology; (3) pedagogy; (4) psychology. Between 250 and 300 titles annually. When we reflect on the categorization of the spiritual themes in BIS, we can leave a number of rubrics out of consideration: bibliographic sources (rubric 1), biblical spirituality (rubric 2), the history of spirituality (rubric 6), and related disciplines (rubric 8). Analyzing the remaining rubrics, we are struck by the following. In the first place, “liturgical spirituality” and “art and spirituality” are separated for reasons that are not immediately clear; in addition, they are of relatively small scope (550 and 50 resp.). Secondly, the line of demarcation between spiritual doctrine (rubric 3) and the spiritual life (rubric 5) is not clear; the latter issued from the former, but the driving forces are not clear; both are large (2300 and 1100-1300). Thirdly, spiritual doctrine (rubric 3) contains the nonChristian religions (spiritualities?) which were formerly placed under the spiritual life. Is not this a separate group? After Vatican II, does not Judaism deserve a specific place of its own? What is left after that is not clearly subdivided and repeatedly exceeds the boundaries of the discipline. Fourthly, the spiritual life is indistinguishable from dogmatics. Thus the life of the community (under which heading feminist spirituality is treated) is documented under the spiritual life, while the church communities and base communities are subsumed under rubric 3; the ecclesiastical offices fall under rubric 3 and the states of life under rubric 5. And so forth. Our conclusion is that the categorization of the themes in BIS is ripe for revision.

3.3.3. THE

ARGUMENTATION

In his essay De vier zuilen van de filosofie (“The Four Pillars of Philosophy”) Theo de Boer discusses the four factors which underlie a philosophical argument:

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inspiration, experience, imagination and reasoning.206 Inspiration is what animates and orientates human thought. Experience is the concrete reality on which we humans reflect. Imagination attempts to design the horizon within which that reality manifests itself. Reasoning consists – aside from the application of the rules of logic – in conceiving graphic examples and the proper use of categories. In the previous section we focused on the categories as they come to the fore in the lemmata of the reference works, in the theme issues of the journals, and in the rubrics of BIS. Truth, however, demands that the subject matter as it really is will come up for discussion in those categories. Truth calls for an orderly argumentation in which the facts of the matter are appropriately described and its basic structure is brought to light. Now this (in De Boer’s language) is the work of the imagination and reasoning. In the imagination we are dealing with a “designing kind of thought.”207 In reasoning, examples are advanced in an inventive way to bring to light the truth of that which has been imagined. Categorial mistakes (the confusion of domains) are pointed out. “The peculiar nature of philosophical reasonings consists in the reconstruction of the backgrounds of experience. Arguments derive their power from the fact that they appeal to something that has always already been assumed – but unreflectively. The idea is to bring out into the open categorial differences – between events and actions, information and significance, that which is and that which ought to be, and so forth.”208 Imagining and reasoning belong together. “Imagination without reason can end up in speculation or Schwärmerei (“enthusiasm”). Reasoning without imagination can assume the form of a kind of humorless argumentative fury or of senseless standardization.”209 In this section we want to take a look at the style of argumentation followed in thematic spirituality research. How do scholars work imaginatively and rationally when they thematize a given datum of experience in the field of spirituality? We chose five articles from five different reference works about the same theme: mysticism. Our selection was determined by the following motives. In the first place, mysticism is a central category within the field of spirituality. Secondly, the articles on this theme (or complex of themes) do not greatly diverge with respect to the time of their composition. Finally, mysticism is a controversial phenomenon; hence it is important to study how authors depict and argue about this field of experience. First, we will offer a concise summary of each argument. Second, we will reflect on that argument from the vantage point of this section: imagining and reasoning. 206

Th. de Boer, De vier zuilen van de filosofie, Amsterdam 1997. Ibid., 15. 208 Ibid., 18. 209 Ibid., 21. 207

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1. “Mystique” in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité210 This lengthy article, in which several authors collaborated, first makes a number of prefatory comments: Biblical and patristic studies have shown that mysticism in early Christianity concerns every human being who share in the mystery of Christ. Critical editions of mystical works have appeared which tend rather to call for interpretation and description than for systematization. Lumen Gentium makes a distinction between perfection and mysticism. Several studies focus on the comparative examination of mysticism in the different religions. Also the human sciences have posed their questions. Then follow three sections. 1. The phenomenon of mysticism. Mysticism, as the word itself says, exceeds the ordinary (mustikos and mystérion stem from muein, to be initiated): it pertains to an object beyond experience that can only be perceived by intuition. The consciousness of this reality constitutes mystical experience. The phenomenon of mysticism is universal; there is, however, not just one kind of mysticism. For all the diversity, we can distinguish various types of mysticism: ecstatic mysticism which is totally absorbed in a universal cosmic unity; instatic mysticism which experiences the Absolute in the nethermost depths of human existence; theistic mysticism which knows itself united in love with the divine Other. Mystical experience has the following aspects: radical passivity (the Mystery enters the life of a person from without), totality (a universal suspension of boundaries and the disappearance of opposition), intuitive and unitive knowledge (the discovery of a true and final reality), vehement experiences (often accompanied by extraordinary phenomena), the transition from “experience” to “being” (a person is introduced into a new way of being). The path to mystical experience is marked by the effort to transcend the conditioned and to live the Unconditional. At the start a person encounters barriers which can be removed by asceticism. This can be demonstrated in various Buddhist currents and in Sufism. 2a. Theories of Christian mysticism. Two difficulties stand in the way of a scientific description of the phenomenon of mysticism: terminological shifts (in the middle Ages, mysticism meant something different from what it does now) and we only have texts (we know nothing about the experiences). In the twelfth century we witness a spread of affective mysticism (Bernard) and at the same time a tendency to radicalize God’s unknowability. To escape this impasse people fell back on Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory the Great. Elements of an answer can be found in William of St. Thierry’s Golden Epistle and among the contemplative women who stay close to experience and Scripture (Hadewijch, Beatrix): human beings have been enabled by God to receive him. The mystics emphasize the high spirited nature of human beings as a result of which an equivalent love between God and man is possible. These developments occurred against the background of the rise of urban culture: well-educated women, often called Beguines, began to give spiritual leadership. Several groupings have their roots in this mystical movement. They

210

A. Solignac et al., Mystique, in: DSp 10 (1980), 1889-1984.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH developed a language which articulates the fundamental principle of mysticism: man is by grace what God is by nature; they are united in a love without mode. This mystical language has a clarity of its own which may not be called antispeculative. The last contemplative movement which flourished before the Renaissance is the Modern Devotion. Its spirit was lost in the fifteenth century. 2b. From the sixteenth to the twentieth century. In the sixteenth century mysticism’s center of gravity moved to Spain: mental prayer, which to Teresa of Avila was the guiding principle in the mystical ascent, began to spread; the description of the mystical way reached a climax. In the seventeenth century France was at the center of it with the “école abstraite,” Francis de Sales and De Bérulle. It was also the century of mystical theologies and mystical summas, of the theological discipline of spirituality; handbooks which focused on perfection and asceticism evolved as well. The end of that century was marked by conflicts over quietism. After a century of nonproductivity the twentieth century opened with the controversy between Sandreau and Poulain: must we or must we not make a sharp distinction between asceticism and mysticism? Is mysticism necessary to perfection or not? Is there or is there not such a thing as acquired contemplation? At the same time new impulses arose from phenomenological descriptions (Von Hügel; Underhill), psychological insights (Leuba, Delacroix) and comparative philosophy (Bergson, Blondel). 3. The Christian mystical life. Christian mysticism is centered in the mystery of God in Christ, which Christians enter by believing, either exploring the riches of mystery in Scripture (as we see in the patristics), or being divinized by grace (as we see from the Middle Ages on), a divinization, which is an experience of inexpressibility, at the same time inwardly transforms the soul in God. The mediation in Christ (the Word) and the inexpressibility are mutually inclusive, entailing as they do the discovery of Christ in the incomprehensibility of his mystery, particularly the mystery or his death and resurrection. The disposition which appropriates the mystery is faith. Christian mysticism is a form of faith because faith has a mystical character on three points: it is a gift of God; God vouches for the truth of the mystery; faith is of one piece with love. Mystical faith is realized by believers in many ways. Everyone shares in it by baptism; it develops into the life of virtue and asceticism, by reading Scripture and prayer, through the life of the church and love of neighbor. Sometimes it takes on the form of an exceptional mystical way. Like the prophetic calling, the specifically mystical way is subject to criteria of authenticity: the soul undergoes the divine action passively and the divine presence is perceived in this passivity; the actual mystical life begins with a process of purification; the mystical experience finds its completion in theopathic union with God, an inexpressible knowledge of God by contact, a knowledge that is devoid of knowledge and without mode – pure faith. This modeless knowledge of faith is effected, not by reasoning, imagination or conceptualization, but by loving contact. It is a theopathic union which is faith-knowledge in love, bears fruit in love toward all creatures, who have become transparent to God; in the love of neighbor, the consequence of and criterion of authenticity for the love of God; in becoming conformed to the life and work of Christ.

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Reflection. In the prefatory remarks certain important fields of tension are indicated: mysticism-mystery, systematization-description, perfection-mysticism, comparative mysticism research, mysticism-the human sciences. The fact that several authors have collaborated in producing the article, though it diminishes the consistency, enlarges the possibility of gaining insight into styles of argumentation: article 1 is comparative in nature and paints with a broad brush; article 2a is descriptive and keeps the reader’s attention continually focused on concrete mystics and their writings; article 2b, though historical like the former, is much more an overview and more focused on theological reflections; article 3 is speculative in nature and contains striking illustrations from the literature of mysticism. The point of departure for article 1 is etymology. From it a kind of universal concept is derived which is then articulated in types. The transitions from etymology to concept and from concept to typology are unclear. Article 2a remains close to the phenomena to be studied (texts, mystics, currents). At the same time the author repeatedly makes general judgments. The relation between the two (phenomena and judgments) is not clear. Article 2b offers an overview of the theological reflections of the last four centuries. The difference between the genres is not clear: sometimes the author is dealing with systematic writings (handbooks, summas), then again with writings on mystical accompaniment (Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross), or controversial issues (Saudreau-Poulain). Article 3 attempts to link the categories “faith,” “the meditation of Christ,” and “inexpressibility” together. The transitions between the three categories are not clear: how is the incomprehensibility of the Christ-mystery (specifically in his death) and faith in God and Christ connected with God’s inexpressibility in mystical experience? 2. “Mystique chrétienne” in Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle211 Moioli opens his article with a heuristic definition: mysticism is a special, religious, experience of unity – fellowship – presence from which flow indeterminacy and inexpressibility. The particular phenomena are essentially secondary. His methodology is theological. The article is divided into five sections. 1. The phenomenology and typology of mystical experience in Christianity. The first step is to identify the elements which make a Christian experience, had by Christians living amidst Christians, “Christian”; that is, in how far do they exhibit a certain homogeneity with Christian values? The second step is to identify the forms and models of Christian mystical experience that is characterized by an absolute confirmation of Christian faith-realities (Jesus Christ, Scripture, the sacraments, church); by the realization that as a sinful human being one has been given the privilege of 211

G. Moioli, Mystique chrétienne, in: DVSp (1983), 742-754.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH participation in the grace of God’s covenant in Jesus Christ; by the insight that mystical experience is relative with respect to the love that is essential; by the realization that the inexpressibility of it is of a piece with the inexpressible mystery of the Christian reality of faith. Given the history of Christian mysticism, the following topological moments are important: (1) Essence-mysticism understands mystical union as the union of one’s createdness with divine being, where a human being participates ontologically in the divine being beyond all modes. The origin of it is Neoplatonic; the danger of it is introversion and the blurring of boundaries. (2) Spousal mysticism, grounded in a biblical-Christian infrastructure, views Christian experience as the union of human love with divine love; the divine love is primary; once it has been received, it causes one to love in an unparalleled manner. The danger is: confusion with the sphere of erotic and false sublimations. (3) The mysticism of absence experiences God as having his back turned, an abyss of aridity and forsakenness; people must be purged of all self-interest; Christian mysticism means sharing in the death of Christ on the cross. (4) The mysticism of presence experiences God’s face turned to the mystic; union with God is the object of desire and finally a beatific possession, even though to experience it the soul has to pass through a night of faith. These are not only the only types of Christian mysticism, and we cannot tell before-hand what [new] types may still be developed. 2. The theology of Christian mystical experience. First a few prior problem areas: the New Testament, at least in its terminology, does not know of “mysticism.” It does, however, know the issue of the knowledge of God which lies open in Christ as “a way.” According to dialectical theology, mysticism (“religion” par excellence and hence the self-deification of man) is incompatible with the Christian faith, but a reconsideration of the relation between faith and mysticism must begin precisely with faith. Theology speaks of historical phenomena in order to understand them on the basis of the principles of faith, but it will also have to reflect on the way in which faith is appropriated in mysticism. (1) Against the background of these problem areas the basic principles of mystical knowledge must be explored first. Mystical knowledge functions in the knowledge of faith working through love. Neo-Thomism (Arentero, Garrigou-Lagrange), saw two types of faith-knowledge: the one connected with discursive rationality, the other with the idea of transcending the theological virtues through participation in divine knowledge and love (mystical knowledge), effected by the Holy Spirit, precisely where faith becomes an immediate but obscure intuition of God. Others (De la Taille, Gardeil, Maritain) distinguish mystical knowledge acquired in the way of love: in and through love, mystics know in a new way who the God is in whom they believe. Questions from Moioli: Do the solutions function within a biblical anthropology? Can the theological virtues in fact be transcended? Do not perfection and mysticism coincide here? (2) A second field of study concerns the object peculiar to mystical knowledge. Assuming that the mystic knows God as truth, this truth must be theologically considered in two ways: the expansion of truth as a matter of faith toward the sphere of love and hope, the connections between faith, intellect, and love and will. (3) A third field of inquiry asks: is there an anthropological foundation for mystical experience that is supernatural? The study must avoid hypostatizing nature and

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supernature and keep open the option of an innate human openness to God (including the possibility of mysticism). 3. Christian experience and Christian mystical experience. The polemic between Poulain and Saudreau revolved around the issue of the ordinary or extraordinary character of mysticism. The Dominicans supported Saudreau: mysticism is an ordinary development in the theological life [of virtue]. But the fundamental question remains: the relation between mystical experience and perfection. Mouroux tried to solve the question by making a distinction between “experiential” (the upbuilding of the Christian personality by living in relation to God) and “experimental” (the immediate experience of God as Other in mysticism apart from actual Christianity). Moioli’s position is stated under points 2 and 3. 4. Christian and non-Christian mystical experience. Every religion has its own mysticism. People are inclined to subsume non-Christian mysticism under the heading of natural mysticism (faith is supernatural; the natural man has made himself independent and is historically conditioned). However, the really natural man, called by Christ, does not accept this. On the other hand, the concept of a universal mysticism must be avoided as well. Moioli has indicated how mysticism has a place within the Christian faith. How this is in other religions (see especially Islam and the Eastern spiritualities) is an issue for specialists to examine. The frame of reference for the theologian, however, is Revelation. 5. Conclusion. Mystical experience within Christianity is a problem, because Christianity cannot be reduced to a vague mysticism and because acknowledged Christian mysticism is no guarantee for Christian perfection. This can also be illustrated from church history by citing tensions and judgments. Sometimes there proves to be coherence between the world of Christian faith and mysticism, sometimes incoherence. One does not become a Christian to join a school of mysticism. What one seeks is understanding and experiencing the Christian faith.

Reflection. It is not clear why in the case of a particular religious experience the special phenomena are essentially secondary. Nor is it obvious that a phenomenology of mysticism cannot be based on lived Christian mysticism, but must make the world of values its starting point. The typology, on the other hand, does start from history. The heuristic definition in the introduction to the article uses a different language game from that of section 3: a special religious experience versus a knowledge of faith. The field of tension between perfection and mysticism, though it is mentioned is not historically and systematically developed, so that it continues to spook the discussion. 3. “Mysticism” in the Encyclopedia of Religion212 Dupré states that the definitions of mysticism are inadequate: the etymology (mysticism from muein = to keep one’s mouth closed > mystical silence > contemplation) 212

L. Dupré, Mysticism, in: EncRel(E) 10 (1987), 245-261.

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is too broad; the Christian mustikos (hidden meaning in Scripture > hidden meaning in everything) always implies the Christian faith community; the same is true for the fusion of mustikos with the Greek connotation of secret (mustèrion). Only the definition: “the experiential knowledge of God” (Gerson) accommodates the modern understanding: a state of consciousness which transcends ordinary experience by the union with a transcendent reality. Dupré next discusses the question of the characteristic traits. Here he follows William James: mystical experience is inexpressible; it implies a unique and allembracing sense of integration; it cannot be brought about by but comes over a person; it is transitory. Dupré describes this last feature as “its rhythmic character.” He adds a fifth characteristic: the integration of opposites in a higher reality. He then poses the question of identity and difference: there is no mysticism-ingeneral which subsequently, by explanation and verbalization, breaks up into a multiplicity of articulations. Dupré briefly pauses to consider nature mysticism, artificially induced mysticism, and pathological phenomena. The rest of the article consists of a typology derived from the mystical aspects of the different religions. 1. The mysticism of the self. For all the differences between them, South East Asian Indian religions are sustained by an inward-directed mystical tendency. Vedic religion already transformed sacrificial rituals into forms of concentration and interiorization. Brahman became the unifying Absolute. In the Upanishads people are led, by way of ascetic practices, to the union between Brahman and atman (the self) that lies beyond the subject-object opposition. In visistadvaity mysticism there is a reaffirmation of the traditional concept of a God endowed with personal attributes; it was inspired by the Bhagavadgita, a mystical poem which liberates a person from his natural determination and leads to the vision of God. Seeking God in ordinary piety, and not so much by extreme self-concentration, is what inspires the bhakti-movement. 2. The mysticism of emptiness. Buddhism is based on the same empirical foundation as Hinduism: liberation from transitory reality by enlightenment, prepared by moral discipline and mental concentration. Both spiritualities are mystical through and through. Enlightenment is attained by many ways (simply compare the Hinayana and the Mahayana) but all of them are characterized by concentration which leads to three forms of emptiness. (1) Non-attachment: emptying the self of all personal qualities, desires, and thoughts. (2) Non-assertion: no expression is definitive, not even the Four Noble Truths on which Buddhism is founded; nirvana is logical “nonsense” to which the principle of contradiction does not apply. (3) Non-reliance: every form of reliance must be given up, even Buddha’s own words. 3. The mysticism of the image. From its very beginnings Christianity has had a mystical dimension. Jesus is pictured as a person who continually lives in the presence of God (especially in John and Paul). Two fundamental motifs determine this mysticism: the motif of the image of God which calls for conformity and intimacy with God as a relation of universal love. Add to this the motif of knowledge (gnosis) of the mystery of Christ (musterion), fueled in part by Hellenistic Judaism. Add to this complex of motifs in Neo-Platonism: all things

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unfold from the hidden One; each successive emanation layer bears within it the image of the preceding emanation. The whole of Christian mysticism can be viewed as the discovery of the image of God in man’s essence and the process of becoming conformed to it in all the layers of human existence, a slow and painful process that culminates in not-knowing. This is the basic mystical dynamics in Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine, Rhineland and Flemish mysticism. 4. Love mysticism. In the twelfth century the mystical approach to God became more human and affective. Especially William of St. Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux substitute likeness-in-love for the image motif. Mystical knowledge is love, a love which involves a person on all levels and has high as well as low points. The humanization of the love of God changes the image of Christ (Jesus’ humanity begins to dominate) as well as the image of the creation (God is in the creation). This incarnational mysticism, moreover, carries with it a kind of cultural involvement which makes heavy demands in the way of purity and virtue. This love mysticism entered a crisis as the result of the problematics of pure love and quietism. Even before the rise of Christian love-mysticism, there existed a love-mysticism in the mystics of Islam, from Rabi’ah to al-Hallai, who was condemned on account of his radical pronouncements about the unity of love in God. Mysticism gained a strong philosophical flavor as a result of the work of al-Ghazali and Ibn al-Arabi. The line of love-mysticism nevertheless persisted. It reached its climax in Rumi. Unity (monism) and love are identical to him: “I belong to the soul of the Beloved; I have put away duality; I have seen that the two worlds are one.” 5. Eschatological mysticism. Although Jewish mysticism is a very many-sided phenomenon, all of its currents possess an eschatological element, which emerges most clearly in merkawah-mysticism: ascending the divine throne by way of the heichaloth. In contrast to the esoteric of merkawah-mysticism, medieval Hassidism is a people’s movement. Prayer, the practice of virtue, and spiritual practices are important, alongside of speculations around God’s glory (kavod) and his indwelling (shekinah). A mystical-theological synthesis is achieved in the kabbala, the more prophetic (Abulafia) and the more theosophical (Zohar). The idea of a creation in God developed here is radicalized in Safed-mysticism. God withdraws into himself and, in the open space that is left behind, creates the Adam Qadmon, who, however, is unable to cope. The restoration (tikkum) of the Adam Qadmon is the messianic end time. After a period of disintegration (Sabbatai Zwi). Jewish mysticism reappeared in Hasidism which rejected the messianic excesses. Strongly emotional, practical and tending to storytelling, grouped around a charismatic leader, Hasidism especially emphasizes joy in this life.

Reflection. An etymologizing definition is regarded as inadequate, based as it is on a contemporary concept of mysticism that is not documented. The issue of “characteristic traits” is argued on the basis of William James’ work. The difference between the fifth added point (integration into a higher reality) and the allembracing sense of integration (James’ second point) is not clear. Neither is the

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difference between the notion of a mysticism in general and a universal category. Is the only difference that the former is conceived as existing and the second as non-existing? More than 80% of the article is documentation: mysticism in five religions. Mysticism in ancient Israel is missing. It is a question, moreover, whether Jewish mysticism can be called “eschatological.” Dupré cites Scholem. The latter, however, repeatedly states that Jewish mysticism is basically torah-mysticism. From a systematic point of view one must raise the question of the relation between typology and documentation. The documentation section is not concluded with a further reflection on definition, traits and typology. 4. “Mistica” in Dizionario enciclopedico di spiritualità213 The article opens with the etymology. The word “mysticism” always has something of “mystery” in it. The reference is to a knowledge of God that is hidden and reserved for initiates. The contemporary use of the word emphasizes the non-rational and emotional side of it. According to (Neo-) Platonic intuition the deity remains transcendent with respect to our knowledge. The word “mysticism,” which does not occur in Scripture, entered into the Christian tradition via the Alexandrian school (the mystical dimension of Scripture and the sacraments). In Christianity mysticism is supernatural: a special action of God who makes his presence felt. Mystical theology (Gerson) has a practical (experiential and obscure knowledge of God) and a speculative (dogmatic reflection) side. In the last few centuries mysticism (contemplation) and asceticism (cultivation of holiness) have been opposed to each other. The article treats mysticism from a Christian perspective. A separate article is devoted to non-Christian mysticism. 1. Definition. Mysticism is the habitual inflow of (the gifts of ) the Holy Spirit, especially on the level of knowledge and prayer. 2. Traits. The first trait is passivity: the mystic is immediately and gratuitously moved by the Spirit of God and experiences complete dependence. This fact does not rule out human freedom (a person can resist) and does not doom a person to inactivity (the mystic actively moves along with the Spirit); the condition is a virtuous life. A second trait is simplicity. After a period of ascetic practice there is a quiet and simple vision of things and loving movement, an inner light, an increase in strength, unexpected penetrating insight, love; no pathological simplification or fixation. A third trait: indescribable contact with God, often immersed in deep dark nights. A fourth is: mysticism harmonizes with the dogma and morality of the church. 3. Mysticism in the New Testament. Mysticism, understood as a person’s being immediately moved by the Holy Spirit, is embodied by Jesus Christ. He is the Word of God, knows the Father and is completely subject in his actions to the influence of

213

A. de Sutter, Mistica, in: DESp 2 (1995), 1625-1631.

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the Holy Spirit. On account of their unity with Christ Christian mystics share in this Christ-mysticism and cry out: Abba! [Father!] with him. Baptism in Christ must penetrate the believer’s consciousness until the (Christian) mystic can say with Paul: “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). 4. The study of mysticism. The inflow of God’s Spirit can be studied in terms of three aspects. (1) Psychological: describing regularities in mystical experience; playing a role in this is one’s state of life, cultural-religious conviction, mental and moral structures; important is the differentiation from pathology; the description makes heavy demands on the experience of the researcher, for mysticism cannot be organized and is rigorously person-bound. (2) Philosophical: the study of mysticism as a special case of religious experience; metaphysical presuppositions are decisive here (view of God, pathology, nature-supernature, the unconscious); the assumption of a personal God is necessary; otherwise one is left only with illusion and pantheism. (3) Theological: the starting point is the doctrine of grace, the indwelling of God and the gifts of the Spirit; all Christians are disposed to be mystics because through baptism they bear the life of the divine Trinity within them; one must reflect on growth in grace and on what is needed for its flourishing. A matter to be discussed separately is the relation between mysticism and holiness. The connection is necessary if mysticism is viewed as supernatural life: the Spirit who undertakes the work of perfection in the believer. A few lines of thought: mysticism and holiness are in accord with each other, every person can long for mystical life; it is a good thing to immerse oneself in mystical writings; spiritual leadership calls for discernment and a knowledge of mysticism. 5. Non-Christian mysticism. In immediate connection with his article on mysticism Ancilli discusses non-Christian mysticism in a separate contribution.214 His position can be summarized in three points. (1) Outside of Christianity there exists only monistic and natural mysticism: a philosophical-metaphysical experience of one’s own self (pre-mystical), the end of a process of detachment (divesting oneself of images and distinctions), inwardness (concentration, world-renunciation), and being purged of the particular and the many; emptiness is both the endpoint here and the way to enlightenment: the experience of the substance of the soul and, surrounding it, the divine Absolute. (2) Outside of Christianity there is only naturemysticism: the overwhelming experience that God pervades everything with creation energy. (3) Real mysticism is Christian mysticism: a supernatural union of love which, apart from grace, is impossible. This union of love is only possible outside the visible church when there is sufficient faith, good will, and the spirit of prayer (bhakti, Hasidism; Sufism, and the like). Whether it actually occurs is hard to judge and demands thorough investigation.

Reflection. There is no connection between the introductory observations with regard to word usage and the definition submitted. Nor is it clear how the four 214

E. Ancilli, Mistica non cristiana, in: DESp 2 (1995), 1631-1635.

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traits flow from the given definition and how they are interconnected. This applies especially to the fourth trait: agreement with the dogma and morality of the church. The definition is viewed as being confirmed in the New Testament (especially in John and Paul; the Old Testament is lacking). Methodologically this amounts to a begging of the question (petitio principii). In connection with the study of mysticism the author mentions psychology, philosophy, and theology, but refrains from mentioning the sciences of religion, the literary, and historical sciences. It is not clear why actual forms of mysticism, such as bhakti, Hasidism, and Sufism are viewed as a possible love-mysticism. How much more research (after so much research) is needed to resolve this question? 5. “Mysticism” in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality215 Wiseman states that mysticism is connected with other themes: prayer, contemplation and union. But in his article he plans to treat mysticism as specifically as possible and orient himself to the fundamental nature of Christian mysticism as it was originally understood in the early church. 1. Divergent understandings of the term. In the multiplicity of opinions there are two discernible tendencies, explained with the aid of two statements about Theresa of Lisieux. The one statement reads: she was no mystic, because her life was free of […] “extraordinary mystical phenomena” (Urs von Balthasar). Over against this stands the proposition that she was a mystic, because she surrendered herself in naked faith and in the love of God (Bouyer). The first tendency dominated in the last few centuries but is not the original one. 2. Scripture and the Fathers. The adjective mustikos is related to musterion, both of them etymologically rooted in muein (to close one’s eyes or lips). In the New Testament musterion has to be interpreted as the hidden will of God that is revealed to the prophets. We see the same thing in Jewish pseudepigraphic literature. The secret of God’s universal plan of salvation in Christ is the center of the gospels and of Paul’s letters. To Clement and Origen mustikos refers to the hidden interior meaning of the text: the secret or mystery of Christ. He refers in the same sense to the mystical meaning of the Eucharist: the hidden presence of Christ, a meaning taken over in early Christian literature. In none of the above-mentioned cases are we dealing with extraordinary phenomena. This is not to say that the mystical meaning of Scripture and the sacraments were not accompanied by a deep personal experience, as is evident for example from testimonies given by Origen. The interest of Gregory of Nyssa lies in the doctrine of God’s incomprehensibility. That is, the mystical meaning of Moses’ ascent on Mount Sinai, a motif that is further developed by Dionysius the Areopagite in his Mystical Theology, which, via the Latin translation of Scotus, exerted incalculable influence (for instance, on Meister Eckhart and The Cloud of Unknowing). The same Dionysius wrote treatises on the affirmative way 215

J. Wiseman, Mysticism, in: NDCSp (1993), 681-692.

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in which he describes the mystical meaning (the mystery) of the sacraments. The Western Fathers, too, regarded mysticism as the spiritual sense of Scripture (Ambrose, Augustine). In Augustine we see his interest in ecstasy and visions which was to develop in the later mysticism (Hildegard, Hadewijch, Julian of Norwich). 3. The Middle Ages and modern period. In Bernard of Clairvaux we witness a shift toward a more personal and affective mysticism which is reflected in Gerson’s definition: “the experimental knowledge of God through the embrace of unitive love.” This mysticism finds its classic expression in the life of Teresa of Avila in whom the different stages of the journey to God became primarily a psychological story. Furthermore, her work occasioned an increase of interest in extraordinary phenomena. This last feature then becomes the most important in the reception of her work and finds its scientific description in Poulain: mysticism is an extraordinary calling, essentially different from the ordinary way. This position was abandoned by Vatican II: the call to holiness is universal. Merton, Steindl-Rast, but especially Karl Rahner, developed this latter view. Rahner proceeds from the experience of transcendence which touches on the boundless mystery that Christians call God. This mystery can manifest itself as a purely non-conceptual experience of transcendence without imagery. Alongside this mysticism in the special sense, there is the everyday kind: the kind where all support in this life collapses and a person in such a situation nevertheless holds onto God, without a clearly defined notion, and thus bears his responsibility. 4. Mysticism in other religious traditions. There are two approaches. The one approach views Christian mysticism as supernatural (effected by the grace of the Triune God), non-Christian mysticism as natural (produced by one’s own efforts). Between these two there are various kinds of mixtures. Vatican II broke through the sharpness of this dichotomy. The other approach proceeds from the premise that in all traditions the essence is the same. The differences are accidental, for they are the result of dogmas and patterns of representation (Underhill). This position, too, has been undermined: experience and the verbalization of it cannot be separated along the lines of the binomium: substance and accidents (Katz). A comparative science of mysticism, at least as it concerns Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, could take its cue from the mystical meaning of Scripture explained above: the hidden presence of Christ in Scripture. The same mysticism characterizes also Jewish mysticism which in all its multiformity offers a mystical interpretation of Scripture (Scholem). The same is true for Islamic mysticism which stems from the discovery of the infinite mysteries present in the Koran (A. Schimmel). It is this mystical interiority of the holy Scriptures which constitutes the paradigm for mystical experience in all other domains of life. Interreligious dialogue could be especially well conducted by persons who have undergone the above experiences in their own religion.

Reflection. Wiseman, on the basis of etymological considerations, proceeds from the character of Scripture as mystery and (by extension) of all areas of life as the true form of mysticism. That other form (personal, psychological, phenomenologically exceptional) seems unreal. In addition, the relation between the two remains unclear.

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6. Methodical reflection Our reflection examines the way authors depict and discuss the phenomenon of mysticism. We will begin our reflection with the typologies that have been given, and in that light we will consider the other issues. 1. The typologies. All the articles work, implicitly or explicitly, with a typology in order in this way to create a degree of order in the prodigious variety of mystical phenomena. We will now briefly pass these typologies in review: ecstatic-instatic-theistic; essence mysticism-bridal mysticism-absence-presence; the self-empty-image-love-eschatology; natural (the self and nature)-supernatural.216 When we survey these sets of three, we are immediately struck by the categorial problematics. For example: the trio ecstatic-instatic-theistic would appear to qualify the duo “ecstatic-instatic” as non-theistic. This is strange inasmuch as in theistic love mysticism there can be ecstasy and in theistic creation mysticism there can be instatic. Another example: the triad essence-mysticism, bridal mysticism, absence or presence mysticism obscures that which characterizes bridal mysticism: the dialectic of presence and absence. This does not, however, apply in the same way to essence-mysticism which is defined by the dialectic between the kataphatic and apophatic. Third example: in the triad: self-emptiness-imagelove-eschatology, the last category has a strange “feel” to it (not even to mention the question whether this category has been correctly derived from Judaism). The eschatological dimension evokes the protological character of the creation. In connection with the notion of “image” we would rather expect that something like “likeness” would follow. Anyway, the separation between the self and image is strange, since the image motif serves precisely to articulate the created self. Emptiness, too, fails to fit the series for it is a quality which in any case fits very well in the mystical dynamics of the self (and of the image and of love!). Finally there is the duo: “natural” and “supernatural.” Even apart from the fact that the self and nature, viewed from a supernatural point of view, are supernatural (creation), there is the categorial question: does not “natural” denote a (mistakenly defined) region of being while “supernatural” articulates a region of faith? But does existence fall outside of the domain of faith? Or do the two categories only denote theological attitudes (Einstellungen): Christian vs. non-Christian? Thus we see how only a few sketchy reflections take us directly to the heart of the problematics of mysticism. Our position in this topological question flows from the definition of spirituality which we have given: a divine-human process of transformation on five levels: creation, re-creation, conformity, love, and glory.217

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Tangentially to be added here are the contrasts between artificially vs. non-artificially induced spiritualities; religious vs. non-religious, specific vs. everyday. 217 For this, see part 2, chapter 3.2.

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Mysticism can take shape on each of these five levels. Given the dominance of one or other of these layers, we can expect a certain type of mysticism. Creation mysticism concerns the discovery of having been created. Under this heading one could subsume certain forms of essence mysticism, nature mysticism, instasis, self-mysticism, and image mysticism. Reformation mysticism concerns the path that leads from malformation to the recovery of the original form (creation) or ideal form (conformity). Counted as belonging to this category one could list: ascetic forms of mysticism which lead to self-knowledge, motivate a person to repent, and the like. The mysticism of conformity aims at identification with the model of transformation selected (the Buddha, the Christ, the substance of the prophet, Holy Scripture, the Koran). One could call these supernatural, because the believer is convinced that the model in question was revealed by God in this world. Love mysticism is aimed at a state of affairs in which God and man lose themselves in each other, as bridal mysticism shows. In this connection absence and presence alternate. Also the image and love, the self and the other form important fields of tension here. The mysticism of glory, finally, concerns the ultimate transformation in God – beyond death. In this connection we may think of the eschatological mysticism which characterizes, be it in distinctive ways, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. From a transformation process, thus layered, we may therefore articulate five types of mysticism. 2. The distinguishing marks. The marks of mystical experience often link up with James, Underhill, and Von Hügel. Listed are: passivity, inexpressibility, unity (wholeness, that which transcend opposites, integration, simplicity), intuitive knowledge, vehement experiences, varying character (rhythm), agreement with dogma and morality. Here, too, we are struck by the categorial dissimilarity of the marks. Especially the last mark (agreement with dogma and morality) fails to fit the series. Actually all the marks listed here form a strange heterogeneous collection. Passivity pertains to the I, inexpressibility to the mystery, unity concerns the I, the relation, the language or the coherence of things. Knowledge is called intuitive but is at the same time passive (according to mark 1). And so forth. Here too an articulation from within the divine-human process of transformation is called for. In creation mysticism we are dealing with a consciousness that awakens because the subject sinks into his or her own deepest being, of which the reverse is Uncreated Being. The inexpressibility and vehemence of this experience are different from the experiences that occur in the case of transformation-in-love. The transformation into conformity is, in the nature of the case, coupled with “agreement in dogma and morality,” for that is the very definition of this layer in the transformation process. And this transformation as such again adds its own accents to the unity of experience. The intensity and varying character of the experiences are less here. In the transformation-in-glory the intuitive component is strong: all of creation is viewed in a flash! Passivity

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has a specific place in the transformation-in-love but is complete in the mysticism of glory. Hence the different mystical marks are marks of a layered process of transformation. 3. Holiness and mysticism. In all the articles the tensions between holiness (perfection, asceticism) and mysticism are touched upon. Sometimes it is said that the two are one (De Sutter); sometimes their non-coincidence is highlighted (Moioli). Nowhere is there a deepened understanding of historical interwovenness. The equation of the two notions stems from the crisis of a dawning new era which parried the attack of the dialecticians from the perspective of mysticism (al-Ghazali, Maimonides, Bonaventure); people imposed the mystical triad (purgatism, enlightenment, union) upon the perfection triad (beginners – advanced, perfect).218 But aside from these historical developments, the systematic question concerning the connection between perfection and mysticism still stands. It cannot be solved by an authoritarian pronouncement or a historical reconstruction. We articulate the connection in light of the layeredness of the divine-human transformation process. The pole of perfection (holiness, asceticism) has its Sitz in the transformation in reformation and conformity. On these levels one can speak meaningfully about growth in holiness and perfection; conversion from malformation; reformation in accordance with the image of God; being conformed to the transformation model chosen. Perfection does not belong in the category of transformation in creation. For our createdness is perfect: being substantially one with the Uncreated. Nor does perfection belong in the category of transformation-in-love-and-glory. These, after all, are inherently perfect. It is a categorial mistake to link these levels with any form of striving. The mystical component consists precisely in the fact that here the perfect (in the sense of the terminal point of striving) stops. Here only love prevails. 4. Special phenomena. Several articles develop their argument in such a way that the special phenomena (visions, levitations, stigmata, and so forth) are eliminated as a matter of course. This frequently produces tensions in the argumentation for if, say, mystical experiences are called “special” (by comparison with the everyday or the ordinary way of faith and perfection), it is rather illogical to eliminate special phenomena without stating one’s reasons. Nor is it correct epistemologically: phenomena call for description and interpretation. One cannot, for that matter, dismiss the attention which, say, Augustine and Teresa denoted to this aspect of mysticism as something peculiar and then quote them as authorities in matters that fit one’s own perspective. Special phenomena need to be viewed (as also the aversion to them) from the perspective of divine-human transformation. Some (transitional) moments in it are accompanied by specific, vehement experiences which must be judged individually, each in its own kind. Creation mysticism, for example, is a process of awakening (we do not do 218

For this see part 2, chapter 2.1.

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anything about it, since it happens to us on the level of creation) that may be accompanied by feelings of awe and astonishment. “My soul feels it exceedingly,” says Psalm 139. At the same time strong feelings of displacement may occur: being lost, going under in a sea of being, feelings of boundlessness. Very different types of experience occur in the transformation in re-creation. Saul fell down on the ground and was struck blind when in a flash of illumination it became clear to him that he was on the wrong track. To people who have completely appropriated a transformation model a new world of perception can open up. Sometimes they are capable of heroic deeds: deep, creative sources of life are unleashed in them; they suddenly seem to have inexhaustible energies at their disposal. Transformation-in-love is accompanied by extraordinary withdrawal symptoms. Transformation-in-glory may in many respects yield feelings of lightness. 5. Faith and mysticism. In various articles an attempt is made to unite faith and mysticism. Faith is defined in terms of gratuity, love, darkness, incomprehensibility, in short, mystery; mysticism is understood in apophatic categories like unknowingness and inexpressibility. Especially the Christ-mystery as the mystery of death and resurrection functions as a point of connection between faith and mysticism. Viewed in the light of divine-human transformatism, however, we can speak in a more nuanced fashion about the connection between faith and mysticism. Faith itself, after all, is a layered process: faith as the transformation in creation fastens itself onto the creating ground that is God; faith as transformation in recreation is trust in God’s merciful forgiveness and recognizes his faithfulness which holds onto us despite our malformations; in the case of transformation in conformity, faith fastens itself onto the transformation model selected, which is, however, aimed at our unformation, a fact which challenges faith to total surrender; faith is surrender, relinquishment of self and receiving the other in the transformation-in-love; faith is selfless in the transformation-in-glory. The faith does not exist, anymore than the mysticism. Both are layered processes which at every new turn of the road interact with each other in a new way. 6. The definition and study of mysticism. When we consider the articles from an epistemological perspective, we encounter a number of questions which are connected with the definition of a given phenomenon. Sometimes the writers define it on the basis of etymology (mysticism < mustikos < muein = closing one’s mouth and/or eyes), or on the basis of the association with mystery (mustikos evokes mustérion which opens the way to the mystery of Scripture and the liturgy) or reason directly from mustikos to the hidden side of Scripture and the sacraments. However, the question is (and several scholars pose it too) whether this opening really gives insight into the phenomenon. The definition of a phenomenon cannot simply be developed along etymological lines, just as the phenomenon “spirituality” cannot be exclusively construed by way of the etymology of spiritus < pneuma < ruach. Granted, basic words (such as “mysticism,”

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“contemplation,” “kabbala,” and the like) are primary explanations of the phenomenon in question, but it takes several approaches to gain an accurate picture of that phenomenon – as we saw in our foundational research.219

3.3.4. THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF TRUTH A philosophical argument is not solely driven by imagination and reasoning but also by experience and inspiration, the two other “pillars of philosophy.” Experience concerns the concrete reality in question.220 A truth-loving mind is not content, however, with this concrete reality or with the simple observation: this is what is at issue. Based on this concrete state of affairs,221 the further question is: What is this really? This question gives direction (inspiration) to the process of experience. In phenomenology it is self-evidence which gives direction to the process of experience.222 The core of this phenomenological self-evidence is that “an object is not merely given but self-given.”223 Phenomenological research is aimed at “seeing,” understood as the “apprehension of the self-givenness” of a phenomenon.224 This direction (inspiration) of the study of the concrete givens (experience) is identical with dialogical orientation to truth. Here, too, the actual point of orientation is the self-communication (Du) of an objective given (Es). We want to show this with the aid of Martin Buber’s I and thou, where he speaks of human knowledge. Take knowledge: being disclosed to the man who is engaged in knowing, as he looks at what is over against him. He will, indeed, have to grasp as an object that which he has seen with the force of presence, he will have to compare it with objects, establish it in its order among classes of objects, describe and analyse it objectively. Only as It can it enter the structure of knowledge. But when he saw it, it was no thing among things, no event among events, but exclusively present. Being did not share itself with him in terms of the law that was afterwards elicited from the appearance, but in terms of its very self. When a man thinks a general thought in this connexion he is merely unravelling the tangled incident; for it was seen in

219

See part 2, Chapter 1. Th. de Boer, De vier zuilen van de filosofie, Amsterdam 1997, 8. 221 Ibid., 9. 222 G. Stenger, Das Phänomen der Evidenz und die Evidenz des Phänomens, in: Phänomemologische Forschungen, Neue Folge 1/1, (Ed. E. Orth & K. Lembeck), Freiburg-München 1996, 84-106. 223 E. Ströker, Husserls Werk. Zur Ausgabe der Gesammelten Schriften (Hua, Zusatzband), Hamburg 1992, 42. 224 H. Rombach, Phänomenologie heute, in: Phänomenologische Forschungen 1, FreiburgMünchen 1975, 19. 220

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particular form, in what was over against him. Now the incident is included in the It of knowledge which is composed of ideas. He who frees it from that, and looks on it again in the present moment, fulfills the nature of the act of knowledge to be real and effective between men. But knowledge can also be managed in such a way that it is affirmed that “this, then, is how the matter stands, the thing is called this, made in this way, its place is over there”; that which has become It is left as It, experienced and used as It, appropriated for the undertaking to “find one’s bearings” in the world, and then to “conquer” it.225

Buber distinguishes three regions in which the I-thou relation is realized: “First, our life with nature. There the relation sways in gloom beneath the level of speech. Creatures live and move over against us, but cannot come to us, and when we address them as Thou, our words cling to the threshold of speech. Second, our life with men. There the relation is open and in the form of speech. We can give and accept the Thou. Third, our life with spiritual beings. There the relation is clouded, yet it discloses itself; it does not use speech, yet it begets it.”226 The three regions show themselves in their objectified form as the physical, psychic, and noetic world, or as cosmos, eros, and logos.227 The third sphere, that of spiritual beings (the noetic world or logos), in turn has three dimensions: the area of knowledge, art, and action.228 We will now concentrate on the first dimension of the spiritual beings: knowledge. In the process of knowing we can discern four moments. 1. Looking at being For Buber the essence of knowing occurs in looking at the essence of something that discloses itself in the encounter: “Knowledge: being is disclosed to the man who is engaged in knowing, as he looks at what is over against him.”229 All the words here have weight. We shall therefore discuss them individually. That which is over against. That which gives itself within the encounter in its particularity (exclusiveness) is an overagainstness. This overagainstness may not be conceived statically, for then it is an object: something set over against a person (Gegen-stand). The “over against” something is what crosses over in the encounter into the receptivity of the receiving I. The I “draws” the thing that is over against into relationship with (hinüberführen) the sphere of the real.230 The quality of overagainstness is the spatial dimension of the “you” that comes to me in its capacity to cross over from one point to another. Inseparably connected 225

Martin Buber, I and Thou, New York 2000, 50. Ibid., 22, 98. 227 Ibid., 98. 228 Ibid., 48-51. 229 Ibid., 50. 230 Ibid., 22. 226

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with this spatial dimension is the temporal dimension of the you.231 When Buber talks about “looking at something over against me” and “looking on something in its presentness,” he is referring to the temporal-spatiality of the you. The you is present because it comes and remains present.232 Because that which is over against is marked by exclusiveness (after all, it is “you” in your exceptionality) the quality of being over-against and being present is expressed in a single breath by Buber as follows: In being looked at, the you that is known is “exclusively present.”233 To the man engaged in knowing. The knowing subject is referred to in the dative: the knowing happens to the knower from within the relation to you. It occurs to the knower from within the “over-against.” The knower is chosen, passive: “I become through my relation to the you.”234 In looking at. “Looking at” is the act of relating to the you by the passivity mentioned a moment ago, according to the general rule: “I become through my relation to the you; as I become I, I say you.”235 The I chooses the state of being chosen. This is the response to the you, “the response to the you which appears and addresses him out of the mystery.”236 This is a formative seeing: “The spirit responds also through a look, a look that is formative.”237 This occurs with the very real “power of the eye of the spirit.”238 Is disclosed. In the response to the knower, who is actively-passively related to the you, the present one that is over-against discloses himself. This self-disclosure is interpreted by Buber as follows: “In the appearance itself, the essence communicates itself.” The first form which the you who is present assumes in the knower is the appearance, which Buber calls “the tangled incident” on account of the density and force of the form (appearance). “This form is no offspring of his soul, but is an appearance which steps up to it and demands of it the effective power. The man is concerned with an act of his being. If he carries it through, if he speaks the primary word out of his being to the form which appears, then the effective power streams out, and the work arises.”239 Appearance is: that which discloses itself in the encounter from the other side (over against), unfolds and develops, and is unveiled and discovered.

231

Ibid., 21-22. Ibid., 25. 233 Ibid., 50. 234 Ibid., 26. 235 Ibid., 26 236 Ibid., 49. 237 Ibid., 111. 238 Ibid., 111. 239 Ibid., 24. 232

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The being. In the appearance itself the being communicates itself. Decisive here is self-communication. Being is not communicated by something else, for example, by comparison or by a certain place in a system, or by analysis. In that case there is “oppositeness”: I have set it across from me for reasons of my own. But that is not “overagainstness.” A thing posited over against oneself is an ob-ject. “Being,” by contrast, denotes the moment in which something communicates itself within an encounter. Just as in revelation the Word “has its essence,”240 so at the decisive moment of knowing that which is known is “essence.” This essence, accordingly, does not refer to an unchanging being-by oneself manifesting itself in the appearance, but to the self-communication of that which is exclusively present in the appearance itself.241 Buber refers to this known being that shares itself in the appearance as “you,” just as he calls the self-communicating human being a you: “With no neighbour and whole in himself, he is Thou and fills the heavens. This does not mean that nothing exists except himself. But all else lives in his light.”242 2. The deposit of knowledge Buber assumes that what the knower has “seen with the force of presence” he must in practice always again “grasp as object.”243 True, this course of events is not a necessity of nature, for there is a silence in which the “you” does not assume form but simply “is.”244 However, the moment a person responds to the you, he binds up this you. “Every response binds up the Thou in the world of It.”245 That is its fate. The truth is even that “the stronger the response the more strongly does it bind up the Thou and banish it to be an object.”246 If the knower interacts with the appearing form (essence), then this form (essence) enters the world of the knower: it is then understood as object (oppositeness). This is the “validity” of the appearing form.247 This is the meaning of the encounter itself: “Through the meeting that which confronts me is fulfilled and enters the world of things, there to be endlessly active, endlessly to become It, but also endlessly to become Thou again, inspiring and blessing. It is ‘embodied’; its body emerges from the flow of the spaceless, timeless present on the shore of existence.”248 240

Ibid., 112. With that statement Buber takes a position of his own in philosophy. For this last point, see K. Flasch, Wesen, in: Handbuch philosophischer Grundhegriffe 3 (1974), 1687-1693. 242 M. Buber, ibid., 23-24. 243 Ibid., 50. 244 Ibid., 49. 245 Ibid., 49. 246 Ibid., 49. 247 Ibid., 98. 248 Ibid., 28. 241

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At this point, knowledge originates on the level of the deposit of knowledge, in which we can distinguish four sections, implied in the fact that we “grasp as an object” what we have “seen.” We will again follow the text. Comparing it with objects. That which was exclusively present is somehow put into words (logos) or made knowable (noesis) and is therefore ipso facto comparable with other formulations and insights. “Things and events are bounded by other things and events, measured by them, comparable with them.”249 Ordering objects. That which is compared and ordered can be placed in an “order.” This hierarchy is absent from the spatial functioning of the object and from the time of its presence. But when there is a difference, then an order is established: earlier-later, below-above and so forth. The unique “you” is “a specific point in space and time within the net of the world.”250 Described as objects. That which has been incorporated in a spatial-temporal system and order can be described as a law, the necessary counterpoint of the original being. “Being did not share itself with them in terms of the law that was afterwards elicited from the appearance, but in terms of its very self.”251 Scientific description is always a matter of classification and systematics. Analyzed as objects. In the “seeing” there was this “tangled incident” that was seen “in a particular form.”252 In the tree that was contemplated everything is still included: “its form and structure, its colors and chemical composition, (…) all present in a single whole.”253 But once what I have seen has entered into the deposit of knowledge, it can be analyzed down to its color, quality, size, longevity, and so forth; in short, as a complex whole of generalities. With that we have sketched in outline what it means that the being that has been seen is now enclosed in the It-form of knowledge “composed of ideas.”254 3. Further objectivization A new phase begins in the cognitive process when one takes the above-described deposit of knowledge as the starting point for the further extension of strategies of experience and use. Knowledge can also be managed in such a way that it is affirmed that ‘this, then, is how the matter stands, the thing is called this, made in this way its place 249

Ibid., 42. Ibid., 23. 251 Ibid., 50. 252 Ibid., 50. 253 Ibid., 23. 254 Ibid., 50. 250

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is over there’; that which has become It is left as it; experienced and used as It, appropriated for the undertaking to ‘find one’s bearings’ in the world, and then to ‘conquer’ it.255

The deposit of knowledge is strategically continued and expanded on two levels: the level of experience and of use, the two basic modes of the It-approach. “The primary connexion of man with the world of It is comprised in experiencing, which continually reconstitutes the world, and using, which leads the world to its manifold aim, the sustaining, relieving, and equipping of human life.”256 Experience. Experience constitutes the world: “Man travels over the surface of things and experiences them. He extracts knowledge about their constitution from them: he wins an experience from them. He experiences what belongs to the things (…). The world has no part in the experience. It permits itself to be experienced, but has no concern in the matter. For it does nothing to the experience, and the experience does nothing to it.”257 To Buber, experience is “to grasp as an object that which he has seen as a presence,”258 in order on that basis to compare, order, describe, and analyze things. Now, as experience continues, this deposit of knowledge is adopted as the point of departure for an unstoppable process of acquiring additional knowledge.259 Utilization. Use is based on experience. It applies the knowledge acquired to “conquer” the world.260 In part 2 of I and Thou Buber shows what this use – this accumulation of means – finally leads to. But at every moment a “turning” is possible. And for the deposit of knowledge this means that every moment a “turning” is possible which rediscovers in this deposit the being of what was seen. 4. Ever disclosing the being anew Humankind is not doomed to expand its knowledge of objects and to let its means dominate its life in ever stronger forms. It is possible to free the being that was seen and then locked up in the form of conceptual knowledge: “He who frees it from that, and looks on it again, as being present fulfills the nature of the act of knowledge to be real and effective between human beings.”261 It is remarkable that Buber views the act of knowledge as an event that occurs “between human beings.” What does he mean by this? To Buber the act of cognition is not limited to the moment when being discloses itself in the knower’s 255

Ibid., 50. Ibid., 48. 257 Ibid., 21. 258 Ibid., 50. 259 Ibid., 48. 260 Ibid., 50. 261 Cf. Ibid., 50. 256

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act of seeing. That is only a moment, granted it is the essential moment, yet only a moment when being passes into seeing itself, which is the response of a person’s being, and becomes a dynamic which in the end culminates in “work.” It is precisely through this work that it becomes possible for others to enter into contact with the “you” that has been seen. Not only the person who saw the being first, but everyone after him or her can enter via the work into contact with that which was originally contemplated. For that reason Buber views the act of cognition “as real and effective between human beings.” The original act of knowledge has a claim to validity which concerns everyone. Its thrust aspires to being real and effective between people. It seeks a scientific forum, and builds it up. This is “the meaning of the act of knowing”: its direction and destination. “That which has been so changed into It, hardened into a thing among things, has had the nature and disposition put into it to change back again and again.”262 That which made the factually necessary transition from “you” to “It” tends always anew to make the counter-transition from It to you, a shifting back to the source from which it came. “This was the meaning in that hour of the spirit when spirit was joined to man and bred the response in him – again and again that which has the status of object must blaze up into presentness and enter the elemental state from which it came, to be looked on and lived in the present by men.”263 Again we see here the word “men”, human beings. The act of knowledge does not exclusively occur between one person and an object “over against” him or her. By way of this one human being, and the work which takes shape in him or her, the act of knowledge reaches out to all, in order that it may happen to all. That is why, for the ongoing impact of the act of knowledge, Buber uses the same words he used for the original process of knowing: also in the case of the later ones it is a matter of “seeing.” About the art form that has come into being, for example, Buber says: “From time to time it can face the receptive beholder in its whole embodied form.”264 Both in the case of the initial beholder and in that of the later, it is a matter of “beholding” that which faces the recipient from overagainst him or her. There “being” discloses itself to both. “What exists is opened to him in happenings, and what happens affects him as what is. Nothing is present for him except this one being, but it implicates the whole world.”265 We now grasp the curve of the cognitive act which Buber describes in the text we have commented on. In the original act of cognition the “seeing” in which the being of an object discloses itself to the knower makes a transition: it is 262

Ibid., 49. Ibidem. 264 Ibid., 25. 265 Ibid., 42. 263

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“included in the It of knowledge which is composed of ideas.” But the purpose of this transition is that it may be viewed by others as a way back, so that the knowledge included is again disclosed in an original act of beholding: “He who frees it from that (from being encased in the It-form of the conceptual, KW) and sees it into presentneess fulfills the nature of the act of knowledge as something that is real and effective between people.”266 In Buber, accordingly, experiential contact and inspiration are like warp and woof intersecting each other. For all knowledge is born out of the experience of contact: “Being is disclosed to the knower as he looks intently at what is over against him.” At the same time all knowledge has for its inspiration (direction, orientation, destination) the disclosure of the being of that which is enclosed in the conceptual: “He who frees it from that [It-form of the web of concepts] fulfills the meaning of the act of knowledge.” BIBLIOGRAPHY ANDIA, Y. DE, Henosis. L’union à Dieu chez Denys L’Areopagite, Leiden-New York 1996. BOER, T. DE, De vier zuilen van de filosofie, Amsterdam 1997. BONAVENTURE, The Complete Works. Vol. I, The Triple Way (pp. 61-94), Paterson (NJ) 1960. BUBER, M., I and Thou, London 2000. Can Spirituality be Taught?, (Ed. J. Robson & D. Lonsdale), 1987. A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, (Ed. G. Wakefield), London 1988. Dictionnaire de la vie spirituelle, (Ed. S. de Fiores & T. Goffi; adapted for the French edition by F. Vial), Paris 1983. Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, (Ed. G. Pelliccia & G. Rocca), Rome 1974-1983. Dizionario enciclopedico di spiritualità, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Rome 1990. ECKHART, Meister, Talks of Instruction, in: Meister Eckhart. A Modern Translation, New York 1941. Encyclopaedia Judaica, (Ed. C. Roth), Jerusalem 1971-1972. Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition), Leiden-London 1960. The Encyclopedia of Religion, (Ed. M. Eliade), New York-London 1987. KOUWENHOVEN, A., Inleiding tot de bibliografie. Oude en nieuwe wegen voor het zoeken en toegankelijk maken van documentaire informatie, Assen-Maastricht 1989. LECLERCQ, J., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, New York 1961. The Literature of the Sages, (Ed. S. Safrai & P. Tomson), Assen etc. 1987. MEZZADRI, L., Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), Averbode-Den Bosch 1994. NEUSNER, J., Foundations of Judaism, Philadelphia 1989. The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, (Ed. M. Downey), Collegeville (MN) 1993. POORTHUIS, M., Het gelaat van de Messias, Hilversum 1992. 266

Cf. ibid., 50.

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PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, The Complete Works (pp. 133-141), New York 1987. SCHIMMEL, A., The Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975. STEGGINK, O., & WAAIJMAN, K., Spiritualiteit en mystiek, Nijmegen 1985. STEMBERGER, G., Das klassische Judentum, München 1979. TURNER, D., The Darkness of God, Cambridge 1995. VINCENT DE PAUL, Correspondance, entretiens, documents, Paris 1920-1925. WAAIJMAN, K., Zuster van Liefde zul je heten, Nijmegen 2000.

CHAPTER 4: MYSTAGOGIC RESEARCH INTRODUCTION 870 In mystagogy an attempt is made to clarify the journey of the spiritual way: how people relate personally to the way they are going in the divine-human relational process. 4.1. THE STRUCTURE OF SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANIMENT 874 A clear example of mystagogy is spiritual accompaniment. On the basis of a few forms of spiritual accompaniment derived from various spiritual traditions, and in dialogue with contemporary authors, we shall define its basic structure: the one being accompanied seeks to clarify his or her spiritual journey in dialogue with his or her accompanist. 4.1.1. Four forms of accompaniment 874 4.1.2. Basic structure 882 895 4.2. A FURTHER EXPLORATION OF SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANIMENT The basic structure discovered is further clarified both from the perspective of the person being accompanied and from that of the accompanist. We shall explore the position of the one being accompanied with the aid of a number of spiritual autobiographies, and elucidate the position of the accompanist from the work of John of the Cross. 4.2.1. Some spiritual autobiographies 895 4.2.2. The viewpoint of the accompanist 911 921 4.3. DESIGN FOR MYSTAGOGICAL RESEARCH The basic structure of mystagogy is translated into a research trajectory. The method of writing one’s autobiography makes the life story of the one being accompanied the focus of attention. Phenomenology’s cognitive form of Einfühlung (empathy) gives proper expression to the relation of the accompanist to the one being accompanied. 4.3.1. Writing one’s spiritual autobiography 921 4.3.2. Empathetic understanding 934 Bibliography 942

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Introduction In the Hellenistic mystery cults mystagogy constituted the candidate’s initiation into the mystery. As such the concept functioned in Gnosticism. In the fourth century we witness the emergence of “mystagogy” in a Christian context, especially in the mystagogical catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem. Following Vatican II this ancient notion again began to play an important role, particularly under the influence of Karl Rahner’s thinking. As a result of his work the concept of mystagogy gained importance in theology1 as well as outside of it.2 In the study of spirituality this concept has in the meantime acquired its place as well, specifically in combination with spiritual accompaniment.3 Mystagogy differs from doctrinal transmission of any kind whatever. In mystagogy no cognitive content is communicated; rather an experience that is already there is interpreted, more precisely: “is made transparent down to the experience of mystery, the mystery that is God.”4 In the context of their biographical experiences, [mystagogy makes people] attentive to the hidden presence of the incomprehensible God and the working of his Spirit: as transcendent origin and ground, as the horizon and goal of the life history of the individual and the history of humankind. It sets in motion a faith process of learning-through-discovery in which God can let himself become experience as the salvation of human beings.5

Mystagogy suspends the boundaries of human existence and transforms it into an expectant openness to the divine mystery (musterion), leads individuals into (agein) God’s gracious self-communication, and helps them understand their unique calling.6 In lived spirituality mystagogical clarification can assume a variety of forms. We will list four mystagogical situations. 1 In part 1 we saw how Rahner developed this concept and how other theologians continued this development. In more recent pastoral theology it is a basic concept. For a brief overview see A. Wollbold, Therese von Lisieux. Eine mystagogische Deutung ihrer Biographie, Würzburg 1994, 1-6 with bibliography; also T. van den Berk, Mystagogie. Inwijding in het symbolisch bewustzijn, Zoetermeer 1999. 2 As it concerns philosophy, see M. Ofilada Mina, Possible Relationship between Mystagogy and Philosophy and its Bearing on Theology and Spirituality, in: Philippinia Sacra 34 (1999), no. 101, 219-246. 3 See Mystagogìa e dìrezione spirìuale, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Rome 1985. 4 M. Plattig, Mystik, mystisch – Ein Modewort oder die Charakterisiering des ‘Frommen von Morgen’ (Karl Rayner)?, in: Wissenschaft und Weisheit 60 (1997), no. 1, 113-114. 5 W. Simon, Mystagogie, in: LThK 7 (1998), 570. Compare P. Zulehner, J. Fischer et al., Sie werden mein Volk sein. Grundkurs gemeindliches Glaubens, Düsseldorf 1985, 85. 6 See part 2, ch. 5.3.4.

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1. In liturgical spirituality mystagogy means the clarification of the spiritual intentions of the ritual performed. In the Christian tradition this meaning of the term “mystagogy” was first used by Cyril of Jerusalem. In his Mystagogical Catecheses he explains to the newly-baptized the spiritual significance of the sacraments (mysteria) which were administered to them Easter Saturday night. The purpose of his mystagogy is that you know (eidetè) “the significance (emfasis) of what was done for you on the evening of your baptism.”7 The mystagogy, accordingly, took place after the performance of the liturgy. Mystagogical moments occur also in the liturgy itself: the homily clarifies the spiritual meaning of the reading of the gospel that has preceded; the silence before the prayer serves to make those present conscious of the fact that they stand before the face of God;8 the silence and prayer after communion make people conscious of what was done physically in the eating and drinking of the elements: “That we may receive with a pure spirit what we have eaten with the mouth.” 2. In biblical spirituality mystagogy means the clarification of the existential meaning of what was read in Scripture. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked the Ethiopian who was reading the prophet Isaiah out loud to himself (Acts 8:26-30). The Ethiopian answered: “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:31). Then he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him and Philip explained to him the messianic meaning of the text of Isaiah: “Starting with this Scripture he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). The Ethiopian then connected himself personally with this reading from Isaiah and had himself baptized (Acts 8:36-38). We see a comparable mystagogical moment in the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The opening question is: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25). To which Jesus replies with two counter-questions: “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” (Luke 10:26). The mystagogical element of the parable consists in the fact that the listener is taken from a position that asks for an objective state of affairs – “who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) – to a position that commits itself: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to that man?” (Luke 10:36)9. Many forms of a common reading of Scripture (lectio divina, “gathered around Scripture,” biblio-drama, and the like) aim at precisely such a mystagogical effect.10 3. In spiritual formation mystagogy means the clarification of the spiritual way: one seeks to gain insight into the course of the way, into the mechanisms

7

Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Lectures, in: The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 64, 153. Institutio generalis in the Roman Missal, 32. 9 For an exposition of this Scripture passage, see part 1, chapter 1.5 10 See H. Welzen, Maak mijn ogen nieuw (Ps. 119:18). Bibliodrama en exegese, Warnsveld-Zeist 1997; K. Waaijman, Gathered around Scripture. A method for reading Scripture together, Boxtel 1992. 8

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which either help or hinder the “going” of that way. Here mystagogy assumes the form of instruction or dialogue, retreat or consultation. Thus, by (together) reading mystical texts, people can become conscious of God’s presence in their life and of how he is working with them. That, in fact, is the purpose of these texts. Jean de Saint-Samson, in the opening lines of his Nuptial Song, addresses the reader at precisely this point. He expects that the reader will of course gain some knowledge about the love between Bridegroom and bride. But, in addition, he hopes that “in some way or other you will also experience some feeling in yourself, in the glow of your unquenchable yearning for the love of the Bridegroom.”11 It is even the case that readers will in no way understand the text unless they can relate the things said to their own life. 4. In mystical accompaniment mystagogy is the clarification of the course of a person’s life as a spiritual way. In dialogue or group conversation people attempt to discern the working of God in their own life: arriving at a good choice of the way to be taken; learning to interpret life situations as signs of God’s presence; seeking a mean between extremes in the midst of spiritual communication; learning to discover possibilities of growth from a divine perspective. Spiritual accompaniment is designed to help one learn to look at spiritual experiences one has had, gain clarity about the spiritual way, learn to understand oneself in one’s relatedness to the mystery of God. Terese of Avila states: “For it is one favor that the Lord should grant this favor [of contemplation, KW]; but quite another to understand what favor and what grace it is; and still another to be able to describe and explain it.”12 After this brief survey we will describe mystagogy as: the accompaniment (agein) of the one initiated (mystès) on his or her initiation into the mystery (mustèrion) of what was externally performed. Five components are important here. (1) “What was externally performed” means something that was read, heard, seen, or experienced: a rite, an exercise, an item of information, Scripture, a sacrament, “a story you indeed heard but would necessarily fail to understand.”13 (2) The “initiation” is a procedure by which one gains a personal relation to that which was externally performed, as a result of which insight, knowledge, and depth arise in the matter itself. Therefore Cyril of Jerusalem, looking back, said to the catechumens: “You only perceived the words from without. You heard mention of the hope but did not understand any part of it. You heard 11

Jean de Saint-Samson, L’Épithalame de l’Époux divin et incarné et de l’épouse divine, en l’union coniugalle de son Époux, r. 23-26, in: Œuvres Complètes 2, (Ed. H. Blommestijn), RomeParis 1993, 335. 12 The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, (Trans. and Ed. by E. Allison Peers) London and New York, 1950, Vol. I, 103. 13 Apuleius of Madaura, De gouden ezel. Metamorfosen, (Trans. M. Schwartz), Amsterdam 1989, 218.

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about Scripture but did not understand the depth of it.”14 (3) The “initiate” is the person who is ready to attempt a personal relation to the thing performed. He or she is seeking personal access to the interior of it, which opens up because the initiate ventures into it. (4) The “mystery” is the inner space which opens up during the voyage of discovery undertaken by the initiate. This inner space is hidden from the outsider. (5) The “mystagogue” is the person who accompanies the initiate on his or her entrance into that which was externally performed. He advances the initiation process, “when they discover within themselves that what has been said is true.”15 Mystagogy occurs in vital interaction with the mystagogue: “The secrets, like God himself, are entrusted not to writing (gramma) but to the expressed word (logos).”16 In this chapter we offer a design for mystagogical spirituality research, starting from the paradigm of spiritual accompaniment. Our design runs through three stages. (1) First, we analyze the paradigm of spiritual accompaniment, a form of spiritual communication in which mystagogy comes most sharply to expression. We will explore this phenomenon as we encounter it in various spiritual traditions. On the basis of this exploration we arrive at a definition of its basic structure. It will become evident that the God-relation of the person being accompanied is central in spiritual accompaniment. That person has access to the experiential distance that has been covered and that calls for clarification in light of the God-relation. This mystagogical clarification takes place in conversation with the accompanist. (2) We further examine this basic structure in light of the two poles in the conversation: the person accompanied and the accompanist, both in their God-relation. We survey the position of the person being accompanied with the aid of his or her spiritual autobiography, and explore the position of the accompanist by immersing ourselves in the exposition of John of the Cross concerning the spiritual accompanist. (3) The third stage is the actual design of the mystagogical research. The two poles of the basic structure are translated into a line of research: the method of autobiographical writing and cognitive form of phenomenology which is Einfühlung (empathy).

14

Cyril of Jerusalem, Prokatechese 6 (PG 33, 332-265). Augustine, The Teacher, Chapter XIV, 45, in: The Fathers of the Church, vol. 59, 59. 16 Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis I, I, 13,2, in: The Fathers of the Church, vol. 85, 31. 15

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4.1. The Structure of Spiritual Accompaniment However different spiritualities may be, all of them are familiar with some kind of accompaniment of the way of the divine-human transformation.17 That way is beset by spiritual dangers. Remember, too, that an ordinary road is infested with thieves and robbers, so that one cannot travel along it without an escort. As for the mystic way, the world, one’s ego, devils, men and jinn all infest this way, thus making it impossible to travel along it without an experienced, holy man as one’s escort. Remember, further, that there are many slippery places where it is easy to fall. And one can be plagued with misfortune and dangers from behind. Many philosophers and worldly-minded people, as well as others lacking faith, piety or any semblance of morality, have become followers of their own base desires. They have gone without a perfect sheikh or leader who has reached his goal on this way, and have instead trusted in their own intellectual powers. They entered the wilderness where they fell and perished, losing even their faith.18

In this chapter we shall pass in review four forms of spiritual accompaniment. Next, we will reflect on these forms in light of the question: what is the basic structure of spiritual accompaniment? 4.1.1. FOUR FORMS OF ACCOMPANIMENT Spiritual accompaniment is inseparably bound up with the fact that the spiritual way is beset by dangers: we lose our way; we are overtaken by unexpected events; our strengths diminish; fears assail us; the divine reality proves to be an illusion; fatigue strikes; we become discouraged; we cannot discern clearly who or what is guiding us, and so forth. For these and many other reasons, people look for guidance from someone who is experienced. 1. Eastern forms of accompaniment Eastern spiritualities assume that all humans are imprisoned in a cycle of fixed determinacies (samsara) which block one’s sense of reality. These determinacies are canceled out in enlightenment (moksha), the experience of the Unconditional 17

For overviews see Direction spirituelle, in: DSp 3 (1957), 1002-1214; Mystagogia e direzione spirituale, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Rome 1985, 9-162; S. Smithers, Spiritual guide, in: EncRel(E) 14 (1987), 29-37; Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, (Ed. L. Byrne), London 1990. 18 M. Barnes, The Guru in Hinduism, in: Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, 169-170.

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(nirvana). In enlightenment one experiences that the force which pervades everything (brahman) and the being that inhabits the innermost self (atman) are one. Serving to illustrate this is the classic dialogue between Uddalaka and Svetaketu. “Place this salt in the water. In the morning come unto me.” Then he did so. Then he said to him: “That salt you placed in the water last evening – please bring it hither.” Then he grasped for it but did not find it, as it was completely dissolved. “Please take a sip of it from this end,” he said. “How is it?” “Salt.” “Take a sip from the middle,” said he. “How is it?” “Salt.” “Set it aside. Then come unto me.” He did so, saying, “It is always the same.” Then he said to him: “Verily, indeed, my dear, you do not perceive. Being here. Verily indeed it is here. That which is the finest essence – this whole world has that as its soul. That is Reality. That is Atman [Soul]. That art thou, Svetaketu.19

The human essence (atman) is destined to realize that it is one with the allencompassing essence (brahman). To that end a human being must let go of his conditionings. In this transition from determinacy to liberation the spiritual accompanist plays an essential role. He has walked the way of liberation and, given this experience, can help others to go this way of “deconditioning.” In Eastern spiritualities there are several names for a spiritual accompanist. The name that occurs most frequently is guru, a word which literally means: the heavy, worthy, authoritative one. From the beginnings of Eastern spirituality this accompanist played a role in accompanying people on their way to Enlightenment. His real competence consists in the fact that he has gone the whole way to Enlightenment himself. “The real guru has personal authority, not something inherited or the possession of a privileged caste, but a clear indication that this man has himself experienced the Divine. He knows. He has entered the presence of God.”20 On account of his familiarity with divine reality people sometimes began to venerate the guru as though he was God himself. This practice, however, is not universal. Buddha himself decided, after years of accompaniment by famous teachers, to go in search of Enlightenment by himself. After he had received it he saw how dangerous accompaniment is. Initially, therefore, he did not want to give leadership. Finally, however, he overcame this trial. Buddha’s hesitation marks Buddhism in its attitude to spiritual accompaniment. The guru is and remains a human being. He offers accompaniment on the basis of his own personal experience. For the rest, an enlightened monk only becomes a guru the moment a pupil reports to him. The pupil makes the monk into a guru. A pupil enters into an immediate and permanent relationship with him. He lodges with him in the 19 20

M. Barnes, The Guru in Hinduism, in: Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, 169-170. M. Barnes, ibid., 169.

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solitude of an ashram and is devoted to him. The pupil knows that the guru understands his “hang-ups” and possibilities. The guru instructs him in accordance with these problems and possibilities. For the discovery of a spiritual way, a personal teacher is indispensable precisely because it concerns the utterly unique path of a particular person in search of the divine. By traveling this road himself he can feel how the Unconditional gradually gains the upperhand. It is toward this that the communication between the guru and his pupil is directed: the breakthrough of Enlightenment. He must discern when the moment has come at which the pupil awakens from his everyday consciousness to enter nirvana or satori. This requires fine sensitivity and an atmosphere of great trust, and above all that the communication between teacher and pupil is sustained by their joint search for the Unconditional, which transcends all human language. This search underlies their silences and speech. In this connection the guru practices extreme restraint. A true guru does not intervene or manipulate. He is the quiet presence that creates clarity. 2. The desert monks The life of a desert monk was guided by three principles: “Whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.”21 The first guideline constitutes the beginning and the end of the monastic life. Anthony withdrew into the desert when he heard the words of the gospel: “If you would be perfect, go sell all that you have and follow me.” Arsenius heard a voice that said: “Arsenius, flee from men and you will be saved.”22 Pachomius left the army, struck by the works of charity performed by Christians. Also after their conversion all these desert monks followed the divine Voice as they heard it in prayer. The second guideline is Scripture reading: the appropriation of the language in which the contact between God and man takes shape. People learned Scripture by heart, chewing and rechewing its sentences. In this continual meditation the yearning of prayer, in which God’s instruction is understood, begins to glow. Those who walk the spiritual way outside the framework of Scripture reading get lost. “Ignorance of the Scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss,” said abba Epiphanius of Cyprus.23 The third guideline is staying in the cell. The cell shapes the monk. “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything,” said

21 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, (Trans. B. Ward), Oxford-Kalamazoo 1984, Anthony the Great, 3. 22 Ibid., Arsenius 1. 23 Ibid., Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, 11, 49.

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Abba Moses.24 The spiritual journey is made in the cell. It recollects the monk from distraction, brings him into the here and now where he opens himself up receptively to God’s guidance. Anthony’s three directions together form a dialogical structure: God who speaks to the monk; the monk who is addressable by God; the intimate reciprocity between God and man in the reading of Scripture. This basic dialogical structure condenses and personalizes itself in the fatherson relation which is characteristic for spiritual accompaniment among the desert monks25 and in which two movements can be discerned. (1) The father’s turning to his son in “a word.” He did not say it on his own initiative but only when the son asked him for it. The latter took it in, in order to assimilate and appropriate it completely and to govern his life by it. This appropriation was an entire process by itself. A word could hit hard, a hardness that served to crush the heart, so that it would become soft as wax and be able to receive the impression of the Spirit. But this was not all: it also pulled the son out of his I-centeredness as it invited him to adopt the viewpoint of the father, even when it ran counter to the evidence of his own senses. It is the intention of the word to break through the self-centeredness of the pupil. To surrender ourselves is the end of our slavery: spiritual fraternity has no other rationale than to accompany someone [on his journey] from a condition of slavery to the freedom of the children of God. This blessed transformation is realized as the divine will completely replaces the human will.”26 (2) The second basic movement is that of the son to his abbas. The soul can only be born in God when it opens to God. This is not a simple thing, inasmuch as our instinctive logic (logismos) is that of self-preservation. In a wide variety of disguises I try to make myself the center of everything. This I-centeredness can only be broken if I open myself up to the other from within. The accompanist here stands symbolically for the alterity that is God. The two movements together – the word of the abbas and the son’s opening himself up – constitute the accompaniment-relation which is a sacramental mediation of the Father-Son relation. This mediation can succeed only if the abbas is a person who has himself become spiritual (pneumatikos), i.e. inducted into the love between the Father and the Son. The core of this accompaniment, accordingly, is not the instruction that pertains to the prevailing customs of the monastic life but to take care in the case of the monk that he enters into the God-relation.

24

Ibid., Moses 6, 118. B. Ward, Spiritual Direction in the Desert Fathers, in: Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, (Ed. L. Byrne), London 1990, 3-15. 26 I. Hausherr, Direction spirituelle. II. Spirituels orientaux, in: DSp 3 (1957), 1035-1036. 25

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3. The sheik and the murid God guides his people by his prophets so that, when the people go astray, his prophets bring them back onto the right track. The prophet par excellence is Mohammed, who received the Koran, the word of God. Needed – to understand God’s way in the concrete circumstances of life – is one who points the way (shari‘ah), “the way or road in the religion of Muhammad, which God has established for the guidance of His people, both for the worship of God and for the duties of life.”27 Via the shari‘ah one comes to the Source. Besides the shari‘ah there is the tariqah: the path that furnishes a more radical and more personal answer to God’s calling. This path leads to the realization that human beings are totally dependent on their Creator. Some of those who walked this path all the way to the end unleashed movements, the Sufi orders among them, who were called “the people of the way.” Those who set out upon the path of perfection need a spiritual guide or accompanist (sheik or pir). Some Sufis say: “One who has no master, Satan is his master.”28 The spiritual way is threatened from all directions: by evil spirits, by people, and by the world. The greatest danger lies in the lower soul, the nafs, which over and over succeeds in relating all things to itself and putting itself in the center. This egocentrism generates thoughts, feelings, ideas, memories, behaviors, which all revolve around the same center: I. It is hard to distinguish this I-centeredness from all real God-centeredness. One could easily become discouraged by all this and suspect the hidden operations of the nafs everywhere. It is equally essential, however, to discern the quiet presence of God which communicates itself in the here and now of his creative operation. The “greater struggle against the nafs has as its counterpart the Enlightenment in which God’s absolute interior influence is received in the extreme center of our poverty and nothingness. Needed for both discoveries is the sheik, an accompanist who is a gift of God. Essential for the well-functioning of the sheik is that his soul is marked by the divine world of light. Having arrived at unbecoming in God (fana) he knows from experience the reality the murid is looking for. The sheik depends completely on God and shares in his truth, divested as his heart is of all non-divine forms. He is born again in the knowledge of the essence of God’s presence and has access to God’s mercy. All virtues (courage, purity, intellect, pity, rest, respect) flow from this source.29 The unbecoming in God enables the sheik to open up for the murid a perspective on complete transformation in God. “The role of the 27

The Law, in: Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam, London 1885, 285. M. Ajmal, Sufi Science of the Soul, in: Islamic Spirituality. Foundations (WS 19), London 1987, 297. 29 Najm ad-Din Daya Razi, Path of God’s Bondsmen, New York 1982, 243-254. 28

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spiritual master, the shaykh, murshid, murdad, or pir, as he is known in Arabic, Persian and other Muslim languages, is to make this spiritual rebirth and transformation possible.”30 The sheik draws the murid outside of himself and situates him in the perspective of an unconditional engagement with God. By entrusting himself to the sheik the seeker interiorizes an eccentric movement. He breaks his pride and enters the domain of humility: “The novice should follow the wishes of the sheik, not his own! In this respect it has been said: ‘Discipleship is the abandonment of all one’s own desires.’”31 The accompaniment therefore begins with a 40-day retreat (chilla), for by it the pupil enters into a new relation to the other, to God, and to himself. “Whoever commands a novice to undergo a forty-day retreat commands it for the sake of this change, in order that his very nature might be transformed.”32 After that a new relational field is systematically internalized: “One year’s service on behalf of other people; one year devoted to God; and another year spent in watching over one’s own heart.”33 When all things have been put in their place, the mystical way can begin by unconditionally surrendering oneself to God. This is a process of relinquishing everything (possessions, family ties, attachments) and of giving oneself up (prayer, sacrifice, penitence, reverence). When the murid takes this road, it becomes evident that it is God himself who leads him. To make progress the murid must consistently practice openness toward the sheik. Everything can be brought up for discussion; everything can be important: success and failure, comfort and despondency, clarity and confusion, pain and joy, hope and dread, love and hatred. To make this openness possible, the sheik and the murid need to be perfectly attuned to each other. Most important is that the sheik pays close attention to the individuality of the murid. Conversely, it was the task of the murid to go in search of an accompanist who would fit him. “Not every sheik is a master for every disciple. The disciple must seek and find the master who conquers his soul and dominates him…”34 4. The tzaddik and his hassidim In the eighteenth century, on the margins of Eastern European Judaism, the Hasidic movement sprang up under the leadership of Baal Shem Tov. It was made up of people who came together for Scripture reading and prayer, looked for healing, and asked for spiritual accompaniment. When the Baal Shem Tov 30

S. Nasr, Sufi Essays, Albany (NY) 1972, 57. S. Maneri, The Hundred Letters, New York 1980, 32. 32 Ibid., 23. 33 Ibid., 29. 34 S. Nasr, The Sufi Master as Exemplified in Persian Sufi Literature, in: Studies in Comparative Religion 4 (1970), 144. 31

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died he left behind a circle of well-informed pupils. The second generation of Hassidim further developed the dimension of mystical prayer. To be united with God (debekut, yichud) one must prayerfully relinquish the personality one had built up oneself. The annihilation of the identity that had thus taken shape is the condition for the possibility of ecstasy.35 One of the most conspicuous features in Hasidim is the relation between the leader of the Hasidic community, who can be referred to by rav, chakam, mokia or rebbe, but is usually called tzaddik (lit., righteous), and the hasidim (lit., participants in favor, the merciful, the pious). The tzaddik constitutes the spiritual center of the community. He is the center to which the Hasidim attach themselves in faith, admiration, and obedience. The tzaddik is united with God in a personal way. That is the reason why he mediates divine power to the community. He is the ladder between heaven and earth. In that capacity he performs healings and miracles and offers advice in case of serious problems. The role of the tzaddik in the Hasidic community is anchored in his cosmic function. Already in the Talmudic period, supported by the saying: “Tzaddik is the foundation of the world” (Prov. 10:25), the tzaddik was the center of the cosmos.36 By his merits he was able to influence God’s plans. Also in the kabbala the tzaddik was a cosmic point of intersection: as the ninth sefira he constituted the foundation (yesod) where all the powers from above come together and flow out in the Indwelling (shekinah), the community of Israel. This idea was taken over by Hasidism: the tzaddik is the foundation of creation and the channel by which divine goodness and divine life flow into the world. “He marks off the path and the way which this outflow of life seeks to follow (…). He is the mediation between the Creator, blessed be He, and the whole world, binding all things to him, so that goodness flows toward his creatures in accordance with the path which he, the tzaddik, has marked out by his devotion and attachment.”37 The tzaddik is a vessel (keli) that receives divine life and a channel (tzinor) by which that life flows out into the community.38 Hasidism is also most interested in the manner in which each chasid can personally share in this divine mediation. A distinction is therefore made between two types of tzaddikim. The one tzaddik is attached to God and sustains the world. He is tzaddik for himself. The other tzaddik does the same thing but also influences other people. He is like a palm tree that bears fruit in others.39 In the second type, accordingly, a

35 For these first generations of Hasidim, see J. Weiss, Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism, Oxford 1985. 36 R. Mach, Der Zaddik in Talmud und Midrasch, Leiden 1957. 37 Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, Me’or ’Eynayim, Jerusalem, 1966, 109. 38 M. Idel, Hasidism between Ecstasy and Magic, New York 1995, 189-207. 39 Dov Baer, ’Or Torah, Jerusalem 1968, 119.

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community dimension is added to the classic notion of a tzaddik: that of spiritual leader. The latter is further developed in Hasidism and is the spectacles through which the classic leadership types (priest, king, prophet and teacher) are interpreted.40 The tzaddik exerts influence on the hasid – on his believing, his mind, his life, even on his sleep which as a result becomes clear. This influence is especially exerted by his presence: “Not the teaching of the tzaddik but his being-there exerts the decisive influence.”41 Although this influence is real, the irreplaceable uniqueness of the hasid is completely respected. The tzaddik must make communication with God easier for his hasidim, but he cannot take their place, (…) The tzaddik strengthens his hasid in the hours of doubting, but he does not infiltrate him with truth, he only helps him conquer and reconquer it for himself. He develops the hasid’s own power for right prayer, he teaches him how to give the words of prayer the right direction, and he joins his own prayer to that of his disciple and therewith lends him courage, an increase of power – wings. In hours of need, he prays for his disciple and gives all of himself, but he never permits the soul of the hasid to rely so wholly on his own that it relinquishes independent concentration and tension, in other words, that striving-toGod of the soul without which life on this earth is bound to be unfulfilled.42

In Hasidic tales we are sometimes told how a tzaddik could go so far as even to want to accomplish the acts of turning to God for someone else, but then it is immediately added that this act done in the place of the other only facilitates the hasid’s own turning to God. “The tzaddik helps everyone, but he does not relieve anyone of what he must do for himself. His helping is a delivery.”43 The hasid searches for his way to God, as does the tzaddik. The tzaddik helps the hasid but never takes over his turning to God (teshuva). Hasidim aim at union with God (yichud). This union is mediated by the tzaddik and precisely that is what establishes community among the hasidim. Their common attachment to the tzaddik and to the holy life he embodies binds them to one another, not only in the festive hours of common prayer, and of the common meal, but in all the hours of everyday living. In moments of elation, they drink to one another, they sing and dance together, and tell one another abstruse and comforting miracle tales. But they help one another too. They are prepared to

40 A. Green, Typologies of Leadership and the Hasidic Zaddiq, in: Jewish Spirituality. From the Sixteenth-Century Revival to the Present (WS 14), London 1987, 127-156. 41 Ibid., 84. 42 M. Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, New York, 1991 (1947), Book I, 5-6. 43 Ibid., 6.

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The hasid finds his way in a close web of reciprocity. The community forms the true milieu of the spiritual accompaniment of which the reciprocal relation between the tzaddik and the hasid is the core. 4.1.2. BASIC STRUCTURE When we reflect on the above forms of spiritual accompaniment which we have taken from the literature that has been published on this phenomenon, six nodal points stand out. 1. The person being accompanied and the divine reality All the authors point out that in spiritual accompaniment the relation of the person being accompanied to the divine reality must be central. To cite an example, here is Barry’s definition: spiritual accompaniment is “help given by one Christian to another which enables that person to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship.”45 The way this relation is expressed in words differs from author to author: Hearing God’s call and responding in faith;46 listening to the Word of God, that is, discerning God’s voice in what is happening around us (outer word) and what happens in our heart (inner word);47 creating space for the Spirit of God to work in;48 paying attention to God’s work in one’s daily life and responding to it in faith;49 the unfolding, deepening, and intensifying relation to God that is rooted and expresses itself in close Christian relations and increasing self-acceptance;50 the presence and operation of God’s love in my life;51 connecting the things of daily life with the dimensions of existence, meaning, the religious and faith.52 Spiritual accompaniment seeks to guide the person 44

Ibid., 10. W. Barry, Spiritual Direction and the Encounter with God. A Theological Inquiry, Mahwah (NJ) 1992, 8. 46 R. Morneau, Spiritual Direction. Principles and Practices, New York 1992. 47 T. Dunne, Spiritual Mentoring. Guiding People through Spiritual Exercises to Life Decisions, San Francisco 1991. 48 J. Sudbrack, Geistliche Führung. Zur Frage nach dem Meister, dem geistlichen Begleiter und Gottes Geist, Freiburg 1981. 49 E. Peterson, Working the Angles. The Shape of Pastoral Integrity, Grand Rapids 1993. 50 S. Schneiders, Spiritual Direction. Reflections on a Contemporary Ministry, Chicago 1977. 51 J. Yungblut, The Gentle Art of Spiritual Guidance, Rockport-Shaftesbury 1991. 52 H. Andriessen, Oorspronkelijk bestaan. Geestelijke begeleiding in onze tijd, Baarn 1996. 45

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being accompanied in her or his relationship with divine reality.53 In light of this viewpoint one can understand why people attach so much importance to prayer, silence, liturgy, scripture reading, and certain spiritual exercises (retreats, painting icons, bibliodrama, and the like). These, after all, are all exercises which keep alive and bring clarity into one’s relation to God. Sometimes these exercises are structured into the dialogue of accompaniment, for instance by beginning and ending with prayer, or by inserting silences into the dialogue or by together reading a passage from Scripture. All this is done to give shape to that which actually gives guidance in spiritual accompaniment: the divine reality (God, Christ, the Spirit, the Mystery, and so forth) that is personally at work in the life of this person. 2. The accompanist and the divine reality The accompanist must have a vital relationship with the divine reality. An accompanist must become increasingly contemplative and live a life that is “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).54 To that end he or she must reserve time and practice methods of spiritual conversation.55 If an accompanist is to be able to listen to the working of the Spirit in the life of the person being accompanied, he or she must be “in touch” with the Spirit.56 When this contact is lacking, the accompaniment can be sidetracked into being overly helpful. “If directors are not deeply interested in God, they might miss the experience of God that is going in the session itself in their haste to be ‘helpful.’”57 3. The two divine realities are one Both the person being accompanied and the accompanist are involved with the divine reality. But is this reality one and the same? In spiritual accompaniment both the person being accompanied and the accompanist assume they are sharing the same framework of reality. Guenther, for example, states that the accompanist and the person being accompanied are united in being children of God.58 Says Barry: “The heightened awareness that talking about experiences of God produces in both director and directee makes the spiritual direction sessions themselves times to savor the religious dimension of existence. These sessions are ‘holy ground’ indeed.”59 53

Mistagogia e direzione spirituale, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Roma 1985. J. Yungblut, ibid., 88. 55 Ibid., 93-112. 56 H. Andriessen, ibid., 36. 57 W. Barry, Spiritual Direction and the Encounter with God, Mahwah (NJ) 1992, 41. 58 M. Guenther, Holy Listening. The Art of Spiritual Direction, London 1992, 145-150. 59 W. Barry, ibid., 40. 54

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Together they stand on the same ground. Yungblut regards it as the responsibility of the accompanist to see to it that the person being accompanied becomes conscious of the presence of a Third Party, an In-between (Buber), for in the relation between the two God is present.60 The accompanist and the person being accompanied share in the same reality. In the encounter between them “two life stories come together” which can be understood only if the two “somewhat understand each other and each other’s story, so that they know of each other who they are and where they must live out their humanity.”61 4. The relation between the accompanist and the person being accompanied Generally speaking, people view the relation between the two as a one-to-one relation. Attempts are being made, however, to break through this one-sidedness.62 In the case of group accompaniment the group alternatively accompanies one of its members. More important than the numerical variation, however, is the quality of the relation. This should be characterized by mutuality. “Here the mutuality occurs in which the relation is rooted and as a result of which it blossoms. In the relation the participants are concretely oriented to each other and work with their own experience as well as with the experiences they gain from their interactivity.”63 The mutuality of this accompaniment-relation does not, however, exclude a contractual structure. The place and the time, the conditions and role-division are aspects that are entirely compatible with mutuality.64 Within the framework of suitable agreements and in a conversational atmosphere that is marked by mutuality, an accompaniment-conversation is realized that especially consists in “holy listening”65 on the part of the accompanist, listening to the person and to what God wants with this person.66 Understanding the other in his or her relation to God is not a simple matter. “The first step to that end is listening, long and open-minded listening, and subjecting one’s own value pattern, the pattern that fits one’s own interests and needs, to criticism.”67 60 61

J. Yungblut, The Gentle Art of Spiritual Guidance, Rockport-Shaftesbury 1991, 118. R. Bons-Storm, Hoe gaat het met jou? Pastoraat als komen tot verstaan, Kampen 1989, 44-

45. 62 R. Doughtery, Group Spiritual Direction, New York-Mahwah 1995; H. Andriessen, Oorspronkelijk bestaan, Baarn 1996, chs 10 and 15. 63 H. Andriessen, ibid., 97. 64 Ibid., 132. 65 M. Guenther, Holy Listening, London 1992. 66 K. Schaupp, Gott im Leben entdecken. Einführung in die geistlichen Begleitung, Würzburg 1994; W. Müller, Ganz Ohr. Grundhaltungen in der seelsorglichen und spirituellen Beratung und Begleitung, Mainz 1994. 67 R. Bons-Storm, Hoe gaat het met jou?, Kampen 1989, 90.

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5. The relation-to-self of the person being accompanied Every encounter produces intrapsychic resonance. God touches the person being accompanied psychosomatically, affects his or her life pattern and language, influences his or her will, takes the initiative away from him or her.68 The encounter with God touches the heart, awakens in it hidden capacities, opens it up, draws it out of itself, recollects it, heals its brokenness, reveals hidden sides, challenges one to grow, teaches one how to live through pain, leads one into a new life.69 God’s “inworking” upon the person being accompanied inevitably, certainly at first, evokes an intrapsychic reaction: Where am I? What is happening to me? Where is this headed? Am I still myself? In a heightened way the question becomes: Who am I? This question, prompted by the encounter with God, is of eminent importance for the spiritual way. Self-knowledge is essential. It serves the interest of purity of heart which opens up a person and makes him or her fit for the reception of God. When the intrapsychic detaches itself from the content of accompaniment and demands all attention for itself, spiritual accompaniment changes into a psychotherapeutic relation.70 Spiritual accompaniment, in the nature of the case, cannot abstract itself from the psychic constellation existing in people. Essential, however, is that this perspective is relativized by continuing to relate the psychic constellation to the spiritual way. 6. The relation-to-self of the accompanist The accompanists themselves are the instrument with which they work. The implication is that they need to be familiar with this instrument and know how to play it properly within the entire context of accompaniment. Although talent plays an important role here, it is possible to develop the available talent by training in self-knowledge and social skill. Introspection and consultation can help enlarge one’s inner listening space. In countless theological schools, particularly in America, there is a possibility of gaining proficiency in the field of spiritual accompaniment. Aside from specific schooling in spiritual-theological and psychological insight, these schools usually offer training courses, internships, personal interviews and group consultation which help future accompanists to develop themselves on the level of skills and attitudes. The basis of this formation, however, is the self-understanding of the accompanist. There are, accordingly, two areas of competence.

68 J. Sudbrack, Geistliche Führung. Zur Frage nach dem Meister, dem geistlichen Begleiter und Gottes Geist, Freiburg 1981. 69 C. Gratton, The Art of Spiritual Guidance. A Contemporary Approach to growing in the Spirit, New York 1992. 70 H. Andriessen, Oorspronkelijk bestaan, Baarn 1996, 71.

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH The first concerns the necessary knowledge and skills spiritual accompanists have to possess to fulfill the task they have undertaken properly. This dimension pertains to a variety of theoretical insights concerning the profession and the concrete action within it. Also involved are such skills as the ability to deal with texts, rituals, symbols, and life history, listening, paying attention, respecting the frame of reference, action cycles, and so forth. These constitute the material, so to speak, with which one works in the second dimension of competence. This second dimension, then, includes one’s lived-through self-understanding as accompanist.71

This lived-through self-understanding makes the accompanist into a fitting instrument for spiritual accompaniment. If we now look back on the nodal points sketched above, the basic structure of spiritual accompaniment begins to stand out clearly. Essential, it turns out, are two interlocking perspectives: (1) the perspective of the person being accompanied in his or her relation to God, who with a view to gaining a clearer insight into this relation puts himself or herself in the presence of a third: the accompanist; (2) the perspective of the accompanist who keeps his or her relation to the divine reality in readiness in listening to the person being accompanied, again with a view to achieving clearer insight into the spiritual way. We shall now articulate the two perspectives in light of the four forms of accompaniment. 1. The perspective of the one being accompanied “Why are you sitting here?” asked abba Serapion of an old hermitess. “I’m not sitting,” she answered. “I am on a journey.”72 From a superficial point of view, the person across from me in a situation of accompaniment is “sitting”; in reality that person is “on a journey.” She already has a journey behind her and still has a journey ahead of her. So she has much to tell. It is this telling of a story (and telling it over and over, for the journey changes the story and the story changes the journey) is the focus of the accompaniment. The traveler must learn to trust this story of her journey – or, rather, the experience that comes up in it. That is not a simple matter. The sheik, accordingly, makes it his business to teach the murid to trust his experience: the murid must resist the temptation to experience something other than what he is experiencing.73 Only this experience can help the murid on the way of spiritual maturation, a way which consists in gradually beginning to live more and more in light of his relation to God; that is to say, to become increasingly aware of God’s working in himself. 71

H. Andriessen, ibid., 215. Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, (Ed. B. Ward), Oxford, 1979, section 74. 73 J. Renard, Spiritual Guidance in Islam II, in: Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, (Ed. L. Byrne), London 1990, 200-210. 72

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What keeps the God-seeker from following the way of experience is the solitude of unicity. All of a sudden it dawns on the person being accompanied that God is addressing him or her personally and asking for a personal response. Getting used to this solitude takes time. Two newcomers asked abba Makarios for accompaniment. He assigned to them the place where they would live from then on. Three years later he returned to see how far they had come and to accompany them on their further journey. In solitude the God-seeker discovers his or her own way. The accompanist must recognize and foster this uniqueness. “… The genuine spiritual leader must have a great deal of psychological understanding in order to recognize the different talents and characters of his murids and accompany them accordingly.”74 The Chinese Zen-master Bodhidharma, the first Zen Patriarch of China, says of the guru: “A special tradition outside the scriptures; No dependence upon words and letters; Direct pointing at the soul of man; Seeing into one’s own nature, and the attainment of Buddhahood.”75 It is the art of spiritual accompaniment to help a person to become free for the Unconditional, for the divine Reality as this Reality gradually reveals itself to the traveler; to liberate a person so that he or she can give himself or herself totally to God.76 A pupil testifies of Ignatius Loyola: “Our Father wanted us, in all our activities, as far as possible, to be free, at ease in ourselves, and obedient to the light given particularly to each one.”77 This is the atmosphere which conditions his Spiritual Exercises.78 Accompaniment must be carried out in an atmosphere of mutual trust in which openness and honesty can flourish.79 The goal is for the person being accompanied to truly learn to read his experiences in light of God’s grace.80 This calls for the discernment of spirits, a procedure by which “the various motions which are caused in the soul can be perceived and understood.”81 The idea is to discern in the motions of the soul “consolation ‘without a preceding cause,’ by ‘without [a preceding] cause’ I mean without perception or understanding of some object by means of which the consolation just mentioned might have been stimulated through the intermediate activity of the person’s acts of understanding and willing.”82 A motion that is not caused by something 74

A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill (NC) 1975, 104. H. Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism, New York 1963, 67. 76 Ph. Sheldrake, St. Ignatius of Loyola and Spiritual Direction, in: Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, 111. 77 Cited in J. Veale, Ignatian Prayer or Jesuit Spirituality, in: The Way Supplement 27 (1976), 8. 78 Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, (Ed. G. Ganss), New YorkMahwah 1991. 79 Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, nos. 17 and 22. 80 Ibid., no. 2. 81 Ibid., no. 313. 82 Ibid., no. 330. 75

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within or outside of myself can be safely regarded as a communication from the side of God. This is the truly accompanying element in accompaniment: the “inworking” of God upon the soul. Anything the accompanist adds to or subtracts from it is malformation. The publisher of Ignatius’s autobiography, Da Camara, records in his diary: “The Father said to me that there can be no greater mistake, in things of the Spirit, than to want to mold others in one’s own image.”83 What matters is the transformative working of God in the person being accompanied. An experienced accompanist senses this moment of transformation. “A monk once asked Chao-chou, ‘Master, I am still a novice. Show me the way!’ Chao-chou said, ‘Have you finished your breakfast?’ ‘I have,’ replied the monk. ‘Then go wash your bowl!’ Thereupon the monk was enlightened.”84 The person being accompanied on his or her search for God is central. But this search for God is not a cakewalk. In the source of his pilgrimage he should expect to be assailed by spiritual crises. Also, various types of mystical experiences might occur: some might be satanic; others might be produced by his own ego; still others could come from the merciful one himself. This is entirely new to the novice and he cannot discern the source of these spiritual experiences. He needs the assistance of one well versed in discerning these various spirits.85

Discernment of spirits is needed. This is not merely the conviction of the masters of Islam. Hausherr is right when he says: “Accompaniment is only the operationalization of the discernment of spirits. The necessity of this gift confers on spiritual accompaniment the qualification of being the science of all sciences and the art of all arts.”86 The premise of Hausherr is shared by a good many others.87 It is not a simple thing to discern God’s “inworking” on the soul. We have seen that only the motion that is “without cause” (i.e., that comes solely from God) is reliable and reveals the immediate “inworking” of God. “Only God our Lord can give the soul consolation without a preceding cause. For it is the prerogative of the Creator alone to enter the soul, depart from it, and cause a motion

83

Cited in J. Veale, ibid., 9. H. Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism, New York 1963, 37. 85 S. Maneri, The Hundred Letters, New York 1980, 27. 86 I. Hausherr, Direction spirituelle. II. Spirituels orientaux, in: DSp 3 (1957), 1024. 87 See, for example, M. Guenther, Holy Listening. The Art of Spiritual Direction, London 1992; K. Fischer, Women at the Well. Feminist Perspectives on Spiritual Direction, London 1990; W. Barry, Spiritual Direction and the Encounter with God. A Theological Inquiry, Mahwah (NJ) 1992; Mystagogia e direzione spirituale, (Ed. E. Ancilli), Rome 1985; R. Morneau, Spiritual Direction. Principles and Practices, New York 1992; K. Schaupp, Gott im Leben entdecken. Einführung in die geistliche Begleitung, Würzburg 1994; C. Gratton, The Art of Spiritual Guidance. A Contemporary Approach to Growing in the Spirit, New York 1992. 84

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in it which draws the person wholly into love of his Divine Majesty.”88 The accompanist only needs to see to it “that the Creator can deal immediately with the creature and the creature with its Creator and Lord.”89 A permanent inhibitor in all this is the self-centeredness and egoism of human beings. Under all sorts of disguises our “I” is at work to grab everything for itself and to convert it into itself. It develops (frequently invisible) strategies which ensure that it occupies the center of everything even when it concerns the relation to God. I-centeredness is as invisible as an ant on a black stone in the dead of night. The gaze of “the other” is needed to see through the disguises of the nafs, which is lazy, easily irritated, seeks comfort and physical satisfaction, applause and wealth. The desert monks compare this I-centeredness with a snake that curls itself around the human heart. The snake has so deeply lodged itself there the person being accompanied cannot possibly remove it in her own strength, The implacable word and the listening ear of the other are needed to break through this siege of the self. The person being accompanied voluntarily enters into dialogue with another to break through the circle of I-centeredness. The most frequent question addressed by a desert monk to his abbas is: “Give me a word.” Meant by this was a personal word, pertinent to the spiritual way. It was repeated by the pupil and assimilated like a word from Scripture. It is comparable to a mantra that a guru gives to his pupil. In the case of a mantra it meant a word that was deemed to possess a power leading to Enlightenment. The pupil repeats this mantra until it has completely become his own. A rabbi, too, was deemed to utter a word that would unleash one’s God-involvement. Rabbi Gamaliel said: “Make his will into your will so that He will make your will into his will.”90 This transformation of one’s own will into God’s will is accompanied by a mystical birth of consciousness. Rabbi Aqiba said: “Beloved is man in that he was created in the image of God. But more greatly beloved is he when he realizes that he is created in his image.”91 To unleash this sense of God-relatedness the rabbi speaks to his pupil about his attitude: he must be selfless and modest,92 patient and long-suffering;93 he must live from the heart, but not let himself be controlled by envy, ambition, and lusts.94 He must be so humble and inclined to listen that he is transformed in the torah95 which becomes in him “a spring that ever bubbles up 88

Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, no. 330. Ibid., no. 15. 90 Avot 2:4. 91 Avot 3:14. 92 Avot 1:3, 10, 13, 15; 4:5. 93 Avot 1:5, 10; 4:1. 94 Avot 2:11; 4:21. 95 Avot 2:4, 7, 8; 3:14. 89

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more vigorously.”96 The soul can only become addressable by God when it opens itself up. This process of opening oneself up is practiced in the dialogue of accompaniment. For that reason the desert monks placed so much emphasis on the expression of the motions of the soul (logismoi). This is not a simple matter inasmuch as the deepest stirrings of our soul are hidden from us. That which goes on in our heart – our fantasy and affectivity, our motives and thoughts – keeps us in its grip. If our heart is to open up, then that which drives us (cogitatio, understood as co-agitatio) will have to become public. This demands attention (nepsis). One can bring into dialogue (exagoreusis ton logismon) the things one has considered carefully. Once the motions of the heart have been made conscious and ventilated in dialogue, they can be distinguished: Are they illusory? Do they lead to exaggerations and delusions? The spiritual Adversary uses the motions of the heart to mislead the soul. Abba Poimen said: “The Enemy rejoices over nothing so much as over those who do not manifest their thoughts (logismoi).”97 The very act of laying-bare creates relationship: I open myself up to somebody. To express myself to a keenly listening ear breaks through the most dominant dynamic in my life: the ineradicable tendency to make myself the center of everything. The person being accompanied

Divine reality

accompanist

2. The perspective of the accompanist Abba Ammoe, speaking to a pupil in one of their first conversations, asked him: “What do you think of me?” He said to him, “You are an angel, Father.” Later on he said to him, “and now, what do you think of me?” He replied, “You are like Satan. Even when you say a good word to me, it is like steel.”98 This story

96 97

Avot 2:8. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, (Trans. B. Ward), Oxford-Kalamazoo 1984, Poemen 101,

181. 98

Op. cit., Ammoes 2, 30.

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makes clear in any case that the word of an abbas had a unique quality of relentlessness. While it is true that in spiritual accompaniment one person, by listening and speaking, puts himself at the disposal of another, this form of servanthood has a peculiar resistance of its own. The authority of the accompanist is first of all rooted in insight into the spiritual way. We see the skillful hand of an accompanist at work, for example, when Teresa of Avila in The Interior Castle pictures the spiritual way as a journey to the center in man where God dwells.99 Despite a disintegrating cosmology, newly emerging horizons, a fragmenting culture, and a divided Church, Teresa discovered the spiritual way which leads to the inmost part of man where the soul is anchored in God.100 The castle opens as a result of the self-knowledge which leads to humility, for humility is truth (first dwelling place). Guided by prayer, the soul increasingly begins to devote itself to God’s will (second dwelling place). At the same time the soul develops the life of the virtues that is tested by trials (third dwelling place). Here we are at a critical point. For the soul is now so perfect that it could become caught up in complacency. If it is to make further progress, it may not curve back upon itself. It must relinquish itself to receive God (fourth dwelling place). By entrusting itself to God’s love the soul is gradually weaned away from its self-constructed stories. The butterfly wriggles out of its self-spun cocoon (fifth dwelling place) and only wants still to be united with God. Every act of praise hurts; the sense of falling short increases; times of aridity befall the soul. This only makes the love more fervent (sixth dwelling place). Finally, the soul rests in God’s intimacy: whatever happens, happens in God’s love. This is the spiritual marriage (seventh dwelling place). In these seven steps we witness the firm hand of the spiritual accompanist who guides the soul ever more deeply into God. The most precarious point is the transition from selfactivity (which is predominant in the first through the third dwelling place) to the interior working of God’s love (in the fourth through the seventh). Certainly equally as important as insight is experience. Teresa of Avila stresses that the accompanist must be experienced in the spiritual life.101 As we shall see later, this view is shared by John of the Cross, a like-minded mystic. When he lists the requisite qualities of an accompanist, he regards experience as indispensable.102 This is also true of the sheik in Islam. For a sheik to be a guide on the spiritual way he must have traveled the road of discernment. In his personal

99

Teresa of Avila. The Interior Castle, Mahwah 1979. M. de Certeau, Culture and Spiritual Experience, in: Spirituality in the Secular City, Concilium 19, 1966, 11ff. 101 Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life, Chapter 13, in: The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Washington (DC) 1976. 102 See part 3, chapter 4.2.2. 100

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life he must have completed the journey which the murid now sees ahead of him. He must be “a perfect human being” (insani kamil), that is, ”one who has fully realized his essential oneness with the Divine Being in whose likeness he is made.”103 The accompanist especially needs this experience to help the person being accompanied to move from his own efforts (meditation, prayer practice, exercises in virtue, and so forth) to contemplation. The accompanist’s advantage on the score of experience produces asymmetry in his relation to his disciple. The Islamic mystic Rumi expresses this asymmetry in the parable of the parrot. In the Middle East people taught parrots to talk by placing a mirror in front of a cloth behind which the owner hid himself. The parrot, looking in the mirror, saw his own image. From behind the cloth the owner called out the words which the parrot had to say after him. The parrot, thinking that the words came from the beak of a fellow parrot, repeated the words. The murid similarly thinks he is speaking with an equal, because he sees a congener across from him. In reality, however, he is talking with a person of a different order insofar as there is a difference in experience.104 This asymmetry does not destroy equality and reciprocity. On the contrary: what applies to the tzadik-hasid relation applies in general also to the relation between the accompanist and the person being accompanied: “The teacher helps the pupils to find themselves and in times of decline the pupils help the teacher to find himself again. The teacher sets the soul of his pupils on fire: now they surround him and illumine him. The pupil asks a question and by his manner of asking unwittingly ignites in the mind of the teacher an answer that would not have come without this question.”105 The difference in experience produces remarkable situations: a teacher provokes or shocks; cuffs the ears of his pupil or grabs him by the tip of his nose; proposes insoluble riddles or gives impossible assignments. The most improbable stories are making the rounds on this point: a monk is told to plant a dead branch in the ground and douse it with water; a monk is ordered to pump a basket full of water, and so forth. The purpose is to inculcate real listening. “Boy, do you see that little buffalo?” Sylvanus asked his disciple Mar. “Yes, abba.” “And do you see his horns – how attractive they are?” “Yes, abba,” said monk even though his eyes told him that it was a small wild boar.”106 On the road to contemplation listening is essential.

103

R. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, Cambridge 1967, 78 (Orig. Ed. 1921). R. Nicholson, Rúmí – Poet and Mystic (1207-1273). Selections from his Writings, Oxford 1995 (Orig. Ed. 1950). 105 M. Buber, Die Erzählungen der Chassidim, in: Schriften zum Chassidismus (Werke III), München-Heidelberg 1963, 85. 106 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, (Trans. B. Ward), Oxford-Kalamazoo 1984, Marcus, the pupil of avva Silvanus 2, 123. 104

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The deeper layer in conversation opens up in mutual respect between the teacher and his pupils. When that is present, divine light streams into the person being accompanied. Hasidism expresses this as follows: the tsaddik is the foundation (yesod) by which the divine life flows down into the community. He is an instrument that is played by the Spirit, a channel (tsinor) by which divine power pervades the community.107 The spiritual accompanist’s frame of reference is his insight, his discernment, his experience. Any other [frame of ] reference disrupts the situation of accompaniment. Buddhist spirituality therefore states that the name “Buddha” presupposes the institution of “spiritual accompaniment.” All buddhas came to enlightenment by the agency of the guru. As its pivotal point of reference spiritual accompaniment has the lived Godorientation. This orientation to the Unconditional led a Zen master to burn all the writings of his monastery in order, in the accompaniment of his pupils, no longer to lean on words and texts, but solely on experience itself. This Zen master is not alone. We recall the pronouncement of Bodhidharma – cited earlier – concerning the spiritual accompaniment: “A special tradition outside the scriptures. No dependence upon words and letters.”108 Person being accompanied

Divine reality

accompanist

On the basis of the above we can define the phenomenon of spiritual accompaniment as follows: Spiritual accompaniment is a relation between two or more persons in which (1) the person being accompanied, considered in his or her orientation to the divine reality, is central; this person, with his or her growth potentials, ambivalences, attachments, and possibilities of escape, voluntarily enters into the situation of accompaniment in order to open up and let himself or herself be

107 108

M. Idel, Hasidism between Ecstasy and Magic, New York 1995, 189-207. H. Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism, New York 1963, 67.

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addressed there, this with a view to his or her search for God, which gradually leads away from earlier conditionings; this search process calls for discernment and commitment, but in reality it is God himself who guides the search; in which (2) the accompanist, in his or her orientation to the divine reality, makes himself or herself available as instrument of mediation; in his or her presence, be it with the greatest discretion, his or her own experiences in relation to the search for God play a part as well; especially important in this connection are the contemplative moments, because for the person being accompanied they are directive in terms of discernment, listening and speaking, and confrontation.

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4.2. A Further Exploration of Spiritual Accompaniment We have seen that spiritual accompaniment is a bipolar process. The person being accompanied, considered in his or her orientation to God, is central. The accompanist listens as well as communicates from within his or her orientation to God. We will now further explore the two poles of the situation of accompaniment: the person being accompanied in light of the genre of spiritual autobiography, the accompanist in light of John of the Cross’s text on spiritual accompanists. 4.2.1. SOME SPIRITUAL

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

To explore the pole of the person being accompanied in his or her orientation to God we selected five examples, which each time, successively, enlarge a certain layer in spiritual transformation. Augustine, in his Confessions, introduces us to transformation-in-creation: the sense that our existence is in the hand of God. Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain leads us into the field of tension between malformation and reformation and offers insight into the process of transformation-in-reformation. In Paul we look for insight into the process of transformation-in-conformity: he lived “in Christ,” and “through Christ” he became a partaker in the life and love of God. Catherine of Siena’s The Dialogue embodies, both in form and content, the transformation in love. And the final months of Therese of Lisieux make us familiar with the night of faith which is the transformation in glory. 1. Augustine’s Confessions Augustine starts his Confessions with a flood of questions. What comes first: Calling upon God or knowing God? Where am I calling God to when I call upon him? Is there any room in me which can contain God? Can heaven and earth contain God? Do they perhaps contain God by existing? Do I also contain God by existing? Is this the manner in which God is in me? Or is it truer to say that I am in God? And is that then the manner in which God is in the creation: by filling it? Does God everywhere fill creation totally? Who is God? Who am I, anxious and limited being that I am? Who will open me up if not God?109 These questions are like a compass needle: they direct the search that 109 Augustine, Confessiones 1.1.1-1.5.6. We are here following the edition: Augustine, Confessions, (Ed. J. O’Donnell), Oxford 1992.

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follows. The search is aimed at arriving at the fundamental experience at which he arrived via many wanderings and which is now the viewpoint of his spiritual autobiography: “Accordingly I would have no being, I would have no existence at all, unless you were in me. Or is it that I would have no being if I were not in you of whom, through whom, in whom all things exist? Even so, Lord, even so it is.”110 Only now Augustine’s searching heart finds rest: I have been created for God. “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”111 Augustine’s entire biography is aimed at showing how he found “rest in God.” It is the story of a long journey in which especially the memory (memoria) plays a large role. He has to address all of the power of his soul to travel this road: “Power of my soul, enter into it and fit it for yourself.”112 The soul is in the first place the motor of the search (“through my soul I will ascend to him”113) and specifically the power of the memory. It is, certain that from the moment Augustine learned to know him, God left his imprint in Augustine’s memory. “And so, since the time I learned of you, you remain in my memory, and there I find you when I recall you and delight in you.”114 Again we have here the reversal of “You-in-me” to “me-in-You,” but now in the area of memory. My memory is the place where God resides (“You have stooped to dwell in my memory since I have learned to know you”)115 but Augustine at the same time realizes that such a materialization of God in the memory is of course impossible: “But where in my memory, Lord, do you dwell? Where in it do you make your home?”116 On the one hand, Augustine has to follow the line of his memory (the memory clings to God) and on the other hand he has to transcend this memory: “I will transcend even this my power which is called memory. I will rise beyond it to move towards you, sweet light.”117 It is of essential importance here not to skid out of control or rather, not to skid at all. God is as little “beyond” the memory as he is “in” the memory. He is in it by being outside of it, as the hand of a potter is totally in the clay (in the form of the clay) by being outside the clay (not itself being clay). God is the other side of this side which is my memory. The clay and the shaping hand directly border on each other, and precisely so they differ. This is the difficulty of a search designed to make the soul conscious of its being created. It has to say: “On the other side of my memory,” and “In God,” all in the same breath. “Where else have I learned 110

Augustine, Confessions, 1.2.2. Ibid., 1.1.1. 112 Ibid., 10.1.1. 113 Ibid., 10.7.11. 114 Ibid., 10.24.35. 115 Ibid., 10.16.37. 116 Ibid., 10.25.36. 117 Ibid., 10.17.26. 111

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to know You but in the fact that You are above me?”118 Augustine’s going back in his memory is a going back which continually makes the transition from “You-in-me” to “I-in-You.” I entered upon the hidden recesses of my memory, the manifold vastnesses full of marvelous kinds of innumerable treasures, and I considered them (…); and as I did this, the ego, that is the power by which I was doing it, was not you. For you are the abiding Light (…). But in all these investigations, which I pursue while consulting You, I can find no safe place for my soul except in You, in whom my dispersed aspirations are united and from whom no part of me will depart. And, sometimes you cause me to enter into an extraordinary depth of feeling (affectus) marked by an altogether wonderful sweetness.119

As long as Augustine himself traces the way (“as I did this”), he is outside of God (“I myself was not you either”). He only enters when he causes “all these investigations which I pursue” “to be united in You,” that is: when God becomes the gathering and remembering power who causes the soul to enter into himself. This, accordingly, is the significance of “within” in the song “Too late have I loved you.” Here all the lines of the Confessions come together: “See, You were within and I was without and sought you there.”120 “Within” here is not a psychological category, say, the inwardness of the soul or the interior space of the memory. We noted, after all, that the self-directed traversal of this space is emphatically “not God” and hence “without.” “Without” are all those “lovely created things which you have made,”121 the visible and invisible, the worldly and the spiritual, the physical and the psychological. All that has been created, also the self-conducted search for God, is “without.” To enter “within,” God has to break through all that willfulness: “You call and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath, and now pant after You. I tasted You, and I feel but hunger and thirst for You. You touched me, and I am set on fire in your peace.”122 The moment of reversal, the moment of transformation, consists in the fact that the soul begins to experience its finiteness as this side of which the immediate reverse side is the creating hand of God. The perspective has shifted.

118

Ibid., 10.26.37. Ibid., 10.40.65 [In translating the preceding and following sections from the Dutch, I have leaned more or less heavily on the work of Henry Chadwick in Saint Augustine: Confessions, Oxford 1991, Tr.] 120 Ibid. 10.27.38. 121 Ibidem. 122 Ibidem. 119

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METHODS OF SPIRITUALITY RESEARCH With You as my guide I entered into my innermost citadel and was given the power to do so because you had become my helper. I entered and with my soul’s eye, such as it was, saw above that same eye an immutable light higher than my mind. (…). It transcended my mind, not in the way that oil floats on water, nor as heaven is above earth. It was superior because it made me, and I was inferior because I was made by it. The person who knows the truth knows it, and he who knows it knows eternity. Love knows it. Eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity: you are my God.123

“Within” and “without,” “higher” “and “lower” are all relative categories. They express a transformation of consciousness: the transition from “You-in-me” (e.g.: You in my memory) to “I-in-You”: beyond everything that arises from me, but not too far beyond it, for God’s hand is the immediate reverse side of who I am. My being is to be in God. That is the import of Augustine’s familiar statement: “You are more inward than my most inward part and higher than the highest element within me.”124 God’s hand is beyond the clay he is shaping but in such a way that he is the continually present and creating reverse side of it. The Confessions are [the record of ] Augustine’s becoming conscious of God’s creative formative power in me “who would have no being at all unless You were within me.”125 This process of becoming conscious is complete when the realization arises of the dialogic antiphrasis: “Or is it that I would have no being if I were not in You of whom, through whom, in whom all things exist? Even so, Lord, even so it is.”126 2. Thomas Merton’s Mountain of Purification After recording his birth date (January 31, 1915), the signs of the zodiac that applied to him, the political situation (World War I) and his birthplace, he starts his spiritual autobiography as follows: “Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born.”127 This opening sentence immediately defines the field of tension that is characteristic for transformation-in-recreation: the image of God in us, our original freedom, has been turned into its opposite. The image of the world that holds us captive under its violence and egoism has firmly established itself in us. Over against this house of bondage is “the promised land,” that is, “the interior life, the mystical life.”128 This is the contemplative life form of the Trappist monastery Gethsemani, “the vocation to 123

Ibid., 7.10.16. Ibid., 3.6.11. 125 Ibid., 1.2.2. 126 Ibidem. 127 T. Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, New York 1948, 3. 128 Ibid., 226. 124

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transforming union, to the height of the mystical life and of mystical experience, to the very transformation into Christ,”129 “a marriage of the soul with God.”130 This is the essence of its freedom which is “nothing else but the exercise of disinterested love – the love of God for his own sake,”131 to Merton a Trappist monastery is “a school in which we learn from God how to be happy.”132 The opening sentence, accordingly, has its antithetical parallel in the last pages of the book: “So Brother Matthew locked the gate behind me and I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom.”133 The spiritual autobiography of Merton presents itself as a transformation from malformation to reformation. Merton weaves his story on the pattern of a journey or a pilgrimage. The journey starts in 1915 in Prades, a little village in the French Pyrenees and ends in the Trappist monastery Our Lady of Gethsamani in Kentucky. In between Merton moves from one place to another, initially following his father who after the death of his wife in 1921 traveled about as an artist from Bermuda to France, and from America to England. After the death of his father in 1931, Thomas went from Oakham to Cambridge, made a trip to Rome, moved to New York, attended Columbia University, in order finally to enter a Trappist monastery. This external journey mirrors his interior journey which Merton views as the ascent of a mountain with seven levels: The Seven Storey Mountain, an image he borrowed from Dante’s Purgatory. In part 1 of Merton’s journey the negative line predominates. Like Dante, Merton begins in Hell, his Inferno. The second sentence of his spiritual autobiography reads: “That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God and yet hating Him; born to love Him, living instead in fear and hopeless self-contradictory hungers.”134 Merton is here summing up what he would describe at length in what follows: moments of profound loneliness, the building up of a heroic pseudo-identity, hardening and brutality in failed relationships, all of it aimed at the “futile search for satisfaction where it could not be found.”135 Merton laconically observes: “My soul was simply dead. It was a blank, a nothingness. It was empty, it was a kind of a spiritual vacuum. (…) Worse, there was nothing I could do for myself. There was absolutely no means, no natural means within reach, for getting out of that state.”136 It is clear at this

129

Ibid., 418. Ibid., 415. 131 Ibid., 372. 132 Ibidem. 133 Ibid. 134 T. Merton, op. cit., 3. 135 Ibid., 164. 136 Ibid., 97. 130

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point that we are dealing with transformation-in-reformation. The soul is empty and surrounded by emptiness, solely centered in the self, a hell of formlessness: no means, no forms within reach. The hell of Part One, accordingly, is strikingly described as follows: “Such was the death of the hero, the great man I had wanted to be.”137 An important turning point, a year after the death of his father, is in a hotel room in Rome. I was overwhelmed with a sudden and profound insight into the misery and corruption of my own soul, and I was pierced deeply with a light that made me realize something of the condition I was in, and I was filled with horror at what I saw, and my whole being rose up in revolt against what was within me, and my soul desired escape and liberation and freedom from all this with an intensity and an urgency unlike anything I had ever known before. And now I think for the first time in my whole life I really began to pray (…) to pray to the God I had never known, to reach down towards me out of His darkness and to help me to get free of the thousand terrible things that held my will in their slavery.138

The conversion announces itself in the insight into his own corruption, in the revulsion from it and the intense desire to get out of this situation. The act of prayerfully reaching out to God is the first and at the same time the most essential expression of liberation from himself. From this point on Merton’s life begins to take shape. After first trying out psychoanalysis and communism, he arrives at Catholicism and has himself baptized. When he went to communion for the first time, Merton saw the closed circle of his self-centeredness open up in the love of God. “Christ is born in me (…) and sacrificed in me (…) and risen in me: offering me to the Father, in Himself, asking the Father, my Father and His, to receive me into his infinite and special love.”139 When, after the first Mass he attended, he came outside, writes Merton: “All I know is that I walked in a new world.”140 First he opted for the Franciscan life, but was rejected. Then he chose Catholic social work in Harlem – a dedication to “total, uncompromising poverty.”141 Whereas the choices for the Franciscans and the social work are described as self-made decisions, entering a Trappist monastery is presented as a religious vocation: “Finally, on the Thursday of that week, in the evening, I suddenly found myself filled with a vivid conviction: The time has come for me to go and be a

137

Ibid., Ibid., 139 Ibid., 140 Ibid., 141 Ibid., 138

164. 111. 224-225. 206-211. 358.

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Trappist. Where had the thought come from? All I knew was that it was suddenly there.”142 This process of relinquishment continued in the novitiate, symbolized by the loss of clothing, hair, possessions and proper name. It was, moreover, the fall of the year. Merton had found his form, the form of selfless life in Gethsemani, a process of “transformation by which Merton becomes a monk, and the lifelong dying to the self and renewal in Christ that are the purpose and meaning of monastic life.”143 The specific dynamic of transformation-in-reformation is that from within a situation of malformation the original form of God must be rediscovered. Significant in this connection is that Merton regularly visits churches, castles, monasteries, and chapels at the many places he encounters on his travels. Operative in his descriptions there is a kind of nostalgia which, without his realizing it at the time, already beckons him to his destiny. He himself writes: “My love for the old churches and their mosaics grew from day to day. (…) I loved to be in these holy places. (…) My rational nature was filled with profound desires and needs that could only find satisfaction in churches of God.”144 Concerning Prades, the village of his birth, he recalls: “There were many ruined monasteries in those mountains. My mind goes back with great reverence to the thought of those clean, ancient stone cloisters, those low and mighty rounded arches hewn and set in place by monks who have perhaps prayed me where I now am.”145 After the death of his mother he lived with his father in the French town Saint Antonin, which is built in a circle around the church. This, to Merton, is an image for the authentic form of life: “The whole landscape, unified by the church and its heavenward spire, seemed to say: this is the meaning of all created things: we have been made for no other purpose than that men may use us in raising themselves to God, and in proclaiming the glory of God.”146 In the external order the city and the church together express the original form of man: created for God, not centered in oneself. From materials of an old chapel on a hillside near Saint Antonin his father built a house where he then settled with his son. This motif seems inwardly to guide Merton’s reformation: to build from fragments of his past a house, an identity, in which he can live: a Trappist monastery embodying a spiritual architecture within which Merton can continue his search. Thus Merton finds himself in countless churches. cloisters, and chapels. And always these are the forms which point forward until the pieces of this architectonic puzzle of holy spaces fall into place in Gethsemani. 142

Ibid., 363. A. Hawkins, ibid., 149. 144 T. Merton, ibid., 110. 145 Ibid., 6. 146 Ibid., 37. 143

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It is characteristic for Merton that his search exhibits a spiraling progression that corresponds to the seven layers of The Seven Storey Mountain, the mount of his purification, that is the leitmotif of his spiritual autobiography. His transformation in reformation, accordingly, does not end in Gethsemani. The Seven Story Mountain ends with the words: “Let this be the end of the book, not of the searching.” For Merton the spiritual journey is a “journey into the unknown,” as Malits has shown in her book The Solitary Explorer. Hawkins arrives at the same insight: “What Merton tries to do is to transform the cycle of repeated patterns in which we all participate into a movement that is both upward and onward: in going back he must believe that he goes forward.”147 Merton himself says: “My conversion is still going on. Conversion is something that is prolonged over a whole lifetime. Its progress leads it over a succession of peaks and valleys, but normally the ascent is continuous in the sense that each new valley is higher than the last one.”148 3. Paul’s transformation in Christ Paul’s conversion is best known to us from the book of Acts. There we are told the story of Paul’s conversion in three places, once by the narrator (Acts 9:1-11) and twice in an autobiographical style (Acts 22:3-21; 26:2-23). The most important elements are: mandated to that end by the high priest, Paul is about to take public action against the Christians in Damascus; when he approaches the city he is bathed in a heavenly light; he falls to the ground; Christ makes himself known and commands Paul to go to the city; there he will learn what he must do; for three days he was blinded by the light; through the laying on of hands by Ananias Paul regains his sight and receives the spirit. Immediately thereafter Paul begins to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God. Threatened by the synagogue, he flees to Jerusalem where Jesus appears to him and charges him to go to the Gentiles.149 The story of Paul’s conversion, especially that of Acts 9, follows the standard patterns of conversion stories (the legend of Heliodorus; stories from 2 Macc. 3; 3 Macc. 1-2; and 4 Macc. 4). When we check out the Letters of Paul with respect to these events, we nowhere find a report, but we do find allusions. These allusions tend to refer rather to the event of a call: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle” (Rom. 1:1); “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1); “Paul an apostle, sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Gal. 1:1). Paul realizes that he owes this calling exclusively to God’s 147

A. Hawkins, ibid., 116-117. Quoted in E. Malits, The Solitary Explorer, San Francisco 1980, x. 149 J. Gnilka, Paulus von Tarsus, Freiburg-Basel etc. 1996, 40-41. 148

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grace: “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10). This consciousness of grace delineates itself against the background of the consciousness of having been a persecutor of the church: “I violently persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it (Gal. 1:13). For that reason he views himself as the least of the apostles: “For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:9). It was solely due to the grace of God that he was pulled out of this criminal career. It runs through his letters like a refrain: “Through him (Jesus Christ) we have received grace and apostleship” (Rom. 1:5). “He called me through his grace” (Gal. 1:15); “they (the apostles) recognized the grace that had been given to me” (Gal. 2:9). At the center of the story of Paul’s conversion or calling there must have been what he calls a “revelation” in his Letter to the Galatians. “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11-12). In terms of content this revelation must have conveyed that Jesus Christ, who was crucified, lives, and that the salvation effected by the Risen One was unconditionally intended for all peoples.150 Paul also unconditionally entrusted himself to this knowledge (gnosis) of Jesus Christ: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Phil. 1:7-9). Paul completely entrusted (pistis) himself to Christ to experience Christ, i.e. the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death in order one day to attain to the resurrection from the dead. In this personal testimony of Paul, which is certainly rooted in the Damascus-event, there is a convergence of three motives: (1) There is mention in it of a process of conformation. Activity and passivity dovetail: “Not that I have already obtained this (conformity) or have already reached perfection, but with all my might I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:12). (2) This process is understood as a spiritual process. Paul uses the term “perfection” (Phil. 3:12 and 15) and speaks of an ascetic struggle. “Beloved, I do not imagine I have already made it my own, but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind (…) In any case, let us continue on the road taken” (Phil. 3:13-16). (3) Conformity is the road from and to God. To gain Christ, for Paul, is to be found in him by God (Phil. 3:9) and to win “the prize of the heavenly call of 150

Ibid., 44-45.

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God” (Phil. 3:14). To know Christ, therefore, is not the end but a conformity that aims at transformation in God. To be conformed to Christ as transformation in God is referred to by Paul with the phrase “to be in Christ” and “to be in the Lord,” a phrase that occurs 80 times in Paul’s letters.151 It sums up the core of Paul’s spirituality and is strongly associated with his person: “I am speaking the truth in Christ” (Rom. 9:1); “in Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast before God” (Rom. 15:17); “God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession” (2 Cor. 2:14), and so forth. To his church he says: “Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). Some scholars interpret “in Christ” as “Christ-intimacy”: Christ surrounds the Christian, fills him or her, speaks with them, speaks in and through them. “In Christ” is here interpreted spatially. Others interpret the phrase as being defined and controlled by Christ’s cross and resurrection. Here the term “in Christ” seems to be interpreted instrumentally. In both interpretations, however, the idea is “that the individual and the church are drawn into an all-embracing sphere of influence.”152 “In Christ” the Christian is in his or her element: “You are in Christ” (1 Cor. 1:30; cf. Rom. 8:1; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 3:28). Christ is the messianic body of the church (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12, 27). “For all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). The movement of “being in Christ” is reciprocal: Christ is also in the Christian and in the Christian church: “My children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). “Test yourselves! Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Cor. 13:5). The climax comes in Paul’s exclamation: “It is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Jewish spirituality finds its center in the torah. The torah-faithful person is in the torah: “He finds pleasure in the instruction of Be-er; in his instruction he recites day and night” (Ps. 1:2). Paul had felt completely at home in this spirituality (Phil. 3:5-6). He had, of course, displayed a strongly ascetic attitude toward this model of transformation. He had especially stressed “the works of the torah” (Gal. 2:16; 3:10; Rom. 3:20). This, however, is not the spirit of Jewish spirituality. That spirituality’s aim is to lead people into the reality of God (see Psalm 119).153 This dimension of the instruction did not, for that matter, remain completely hidden from Paul, inasmuch as he calls it “holy” and “spiritual” (Rom. 7:12, 14). Furthermore, he also states that “love is the fulfillment of the instruction” (Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:14). However this may be, the great reversal in Paul’s life came when he was privileged to experience that “God’s preservation has been disclosed in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:22-23). Jesus Christ, 151

See ibid., 255-260. J. Gnilka, ibid., 256. 153 K. Waaijman, Psalmen bij het zoeken van de weg, Kampen 1982, 117-163. 152

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the fulfillment of the torah, has himself become the torah. Just as in the past Paul lived “in the instruction,” so he now lives “in Christ.” Like the Torah, so also Christ can become a “work,” something you “do,” for example, by doing as he did. Then our being-in-Christ remains stuck in conformity as an end in itself. For Paul, however, conformity to Christ is a way, the way to God but especially God’s way to us. Paul regards all things as rubbish “if only I may gain Christ and be found by God in him” (Phil. 3:9). The latter is decisive: to be found by God in Christ. God gives himself “in Christ” in whom we are. This is the essential feature which Paul verbalized in various ways: in Christ we know what God wants from us (1 Thess. 5:18; the grace of God has been given to us in Christ (1 Cor. 1:4); in Christ we are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17); in Christ we share in the Spirit of God who comes to our assistance in our weakness (1 Thess. 4:8; 2 Cor. 1:22; 1 Cor. 2:12) and prays in us (Rom. 8:26), crying out, “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15); in Christ we have been set free “for freedom” (Gal. 5:1), the “freedom of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). In Christ we are alive: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23). To be “in Christ” is to be transformed in conformity: to be taken along by him into the world of God. 4. The Dialogue of Catherine of Siena In her Dialogo della divina Providenza, a dialogue between God and the soul, Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) has recorded the spiritual way she had made her own after years of prayer and contemplation. It is her testament to her famiglia, a broad circle of pupils and friends.154 The Dialogue is a spiritual “I-document” in which the author presents herself literarily as “the soul.” In her Book, as it is also called, her many “letters” and “prayers” come together as in a spring. The Dialogue’s special feature is that God speaks here in the I-form. In this dialogue God himself answers four questions in the first person singular. The first question concerns the soul of the author herself. She prays for mercy. The divine answer revolves around reconciliation and the practice of virtue, love and discernment.155 The second question concerns the church. The divine voice complains about the sinful church, speaks about the Son who by his incarnation sought to construct a bridge, about evil, the way of perfection, the gift of tears, and again discernment.156 The third question concerns the members of the church. God speaks about the priests and the believers, the sacrament and the apostates.157 The fourth question prays for divine providence. God speaks about the many ways in which he 154 We are using the edition: Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, Paulist Press, New YorkRamsey-Toronto 1980, and follow the conventional numbering. 155 The Dialogue, nos. 3-16. 156 Ibid., nos. 17-109. 157 Ibid., nos. 110-134.

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has provided for us in his goodness and how we can obey him.158 Each section is concluded with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. More important these data concerning the contents is the spiritual structure which underlies the Dialogue, indeed constitutes the embodiment of it. This spiritual structure is presented in the Prologue to the Book. A soul rises up, restless with tremendous desire for God’s honor and the salvation of souls. She has for some time exercised herself in virtue and has become accustomed to dwelling in the cell of self-knowledge in order to know better God’s goodness toward her, since upon knowledge follows love. And loving, she seeks to pursue truth and clothe herself in it. But there is no way she can so savor and be enlightened by this truth as in continual humble prayer, grounded in the knowledge of herself and of God. For by such prayer the soul is united with God, following in the footsteps of Christ crucified, and through desire and affection and the union of love he makes of her another himself.159

The soul is transformed by love into a divine “I” which, accordingly, continually speaks in the transformed soul. This transformation of the soul in the divine “I” is the end of a journey which starts because the soul is “restless with tremendous desire for God’s honor and the salvation of souls.” This desire, in which the soul transcends herself, is tested by the practice of virtue. The exercise of the good is accompanied by discernment: “the cell of self-knowledge,” in order to rise to the awareness there that we exist by virtue of God’s creative love. Subsequently, the soul attempts to receive the truth in love and to clothe herself in it. The best road to this appropriation in love is the prayer that arises from the self-knowledge which is the knowledge of God’s creative love. The prayer which makes a complete surrender, like Christ on the cross, unifies the soul with God. This union signifies that the prayer that consists in “desire, surrender, and the union in love” receives the divine “I” as its form, “another I.” The soul surrenders to God in love, and God, conversely, draws the desiring soul into himself, transforms her in accordance with the Word: “If you will love me and keep my word, I will show myself to you, and you will be one thing with me and I with you” (cf. John 14;23), from which we conclude “that he is the truth, and the soul by love’s affection becomes a second ‘he.’”160 Catherine elucidates her experience by reference to other mystics who, “at prayer, are lifted high in spirit” in the love of God. God in his part opened her mind’s eye so profoundly that she learned to know “the dignity I have given the soul when I created her in my image and likeness.” “And should you ask me who those mystics are I would answer (said the sweet loving Word): they are another me. They have lost and 158

Ibid., nos. 135-167. Ibid., no. 1. 160 Ibidem. 159

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drowned their own will, and clothed themselves, and united themselves and conformed themselves with mine.”161 Thus, as the soul is lifted out of itself into God, the original image of God emerges, that is indwelt and transformed by the divine I, “for then the soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.”162 The entire remainder of the Dialogue is sustained by this mystical dynamic in which there occurs an ever-deepening transformation-in-love. The divine I expresses himself in the soul. This I, therefore, shows the soul ever more clearly the way to self-knowledge which is the essence of discernment: “Here is the way, if you would come to perfect knowledge and enjoyment of me, eternal Life: Never leave the knowledge of yourself. Then, put down as you are in the valley of humility you will know me in yourself, and from this knowledge you will draw all that you need. (…) In self-knowledge you will humble yourself when you see that by yourself you are nothing. In Me you will know yourself, in Me who loved you before you were born.”163 The divine I invites the soul, through the realization of her own nothingness, to find herself again in God. It is precisely this that the soul sees in the love of God: “Why did you so dignify us? With unimaginable love you looked upon your creatures within your very self, and you fell in love with us. So it was love that made you create us and give us being just so that we might taste your supreme eternal good.”164 Indeed, even this very prayer to God is impelled by God from the beginning: “It was I who made you ask so as to increase in your soul the fire of my love.”165 Thus, from beginning to end, the Dialogue is sustained by transformation-in-love of which it is the direct expression. The divine “I” sees himself in the ground of the soul and expresses himself in her. The human “I” loses herself in God and finds herself eternalized in him. “O abyss! O eternal Godhead! O deep sea! What more could you have given me than the gift of your very self? You are a fire always burning but never consuming; you are a fire consuming in your heat all the soul’s selfish love; you are a fire lifting all chill and giving light. In your light you have made me know your truth: You are that light beyond all light.”166 5. The personal notes of Therese of Lisieux In 1895, at the bidding of her sister and prioress, Therese of Lisieux produced her first life history (manuscript A). In 1896, during a retreat, she laid bare her soul to Jesus (manuscript B). Finally, in 1897, she produced her last personal 161

Ibidem. Ibid., no. 2. 163 Ibid., no. 4. 164 Ibid., no. 13. 165 Ibid., no. 166. 166 Ibid., no. 167. 162

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notes (manuscript C).167 Eighteen months before her death, in the night of Good Friday, April 3, 1896, Therese spat up blood. She knew she would soon die and face her transformation-in-glory. She delighted in her faith: “At this time I was enjoying such a living faith, such a clear faith, that the thought of heaven made up all my happiness, and I was unable to believe there were really impious people who had no faith. I believed they were actually speaking against their own inner convictions when they denied the existence of heaven, that beautiful heaven where God Himself wanted to be their Eternal Reward.”168 That Friday night Therese was filled with a joyful vibrant and clear belief in the hereafter, where God himself is our reward. That belief did not survive Easter. Three days after her heavenly joy she was brought into a night that was to last for eighteen months.169 That night estranged her from her own convictions and expectations. A change occurred in her soul: “During those very joyful days of the Easter season Jesus made me feel that there were really souls who have no faith, and who, through the abuse of grace, lost this precious treasure, the source of the only real and pure joys. He permitted my soul to be invaded by the thickest darkness, and that the thought of heaven, up until then so sweet to me, be no longer anything but the cause of struggle and torment.”170 Emotionally Therese was drawn into the position of those who have lost the belief in a hereafter with God, a position into which she could not project herself prior to this time. Life after death became for her darkness, conflict and torment, the complete opposite of joy and blessedness. She not only became estranged from her own convictions, but also from her surroundings: “ I would like to be able to express what I feel, but alas! I believe this is impossible. One would have to travel through this dark tunnel to understand its darkness.”171 One who is drawn to the other side of the transformation cannot express those feelings because there are no similarities, one leaves the common country via a tunnel in which every frame of reference vanishes: “I imagine I was born in a country which is covered in thick fog. I never had the experience of contemplating the joyful appearance of nature flooded and transformed by the brilliance of the sun. It is true that from childhood I have heard people speak of these marvels, and I know the country in which I am living is not really my true fatherland, and there is another I must long for without ceasing.”172 All reference points have disappeared as in 167 Quotations are from Story of a Soul. The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, (Trans. J. Clarke), Washington (DC) 1975. 168 Story of a Soul, 211. 169 For a description of this night, see H. Blommestijn, Geloven zonder geloof – Thérèse van Lisieux, in: Speling 49 (1997) no. 1, 79-87. 170 Story of a Soul, 211. 171 Ibid., 212. 172 Ibidem, 212.

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the case of a “thick fog.” The “marvelous” stories prove to be children’s tales. The only thing Therese knows is where I am, that is not it; and where I am going I do not know. Everything is a mere looking out upon. Her own conceptual world, communication with her surroundings and the place where she is have become strange to her, while the fatherland to which she is going is a mere looking out upon, a land she has never seen, nor even ever envisioned. This process of expropriation and alienation does not remain external, but penetrates the core of her soul. It is a living death. Then suddenly the fog which surrounds me becomes more dense; it penetrates my soul and envelops it in such a way that it is impossible to discover within it the sweet image of my Fatherland; everything has disappeared! When I want to rest my heart, fatigued by the darkness which surrounds it, by the memory of the luminous country after which I aspire, my torment redoubles; it seems to me that the darkness, borrowing the voice of sinners, says mockingly to me: ‘You are dreaming about the light, about a fatherland embalmed in the sweetest perfumes; you are dreaming about the eternal possession of the Creator of all these marvels; you believe that one day you will walk out of this fog which surrounds you! Advance, advance; rejoice in death which will give you not what you hope for but a night still more profound, the night of nothingness.’173

The night of nothingness enters the soul and even expels from it all mental images, while the sweetness of the most recent memories make the night even darker. “It is true that at times a very small ray of the sun comes to illumine my darkness, and then the trial ceases for an instant, but afterwards the memory of this ray, instead of causing me joy, makes my darkness even more dense.”174 Thus, from all directions, Teresa is broken down by the nothingness of death she experiences. The knife of nothingness carves her out of life: out of her faith conviction, her surroundings, her natural base, her frame of reference, her memory, out of her soul. The nothingness permeates and surrounds her: an impenetrable wall which stretches into the core of her heart and reaches to heaven. I may perhaps appear to you to be exaggerating my trial. In fact, if you are judging according to the sentiments I express in my little poems composed this year, I must appear to you as a soul filled with consolations and one for whom the veil of faith is almost torn aside; and yet it is no longer a veil for me, it is a wall which reaches right up to the heavens and covers the starry firmament. When I sing of the happiness of heaven and of the eternal possession of God, I feel no joy in this, for I sing simply what I WANT TO BELIEVE.175

173

Ibid., 213. Ibid., 214. 175 Ibid., 214. 174

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With these last words Therese lays bare the ego dynamics of her belief (on this side of the transformation-in-glory): she believes what she wants to believe. Her act of believing is an expression of the will, an act of self-realization. The night of nothingness, which has surgically cut off her soul on all sides, brings out the fundamental dynamics of a non-transformed faith: “What I want to believe.” On the beyond-side of her transformation-in-glory lies the reverse side of the “I-want”: the total willingness to endure and bear her suffering. Therese prays: “Your child… is resigned to eat the bread of sorrow as long as You desire it; she does not wish to rise up from this table filled with bitterness at which poor sinners are eating until the day set by You.”176 The center of her will has shifted: “As long as You desire it (…) until the day you have set for it.” Therese bares herself to the will of God. The movement of her own will has become passive and been nullified: “Your child is resigned (…); she does not wish to rise up.” She endures the night of nothingness which she interprets as a gesture of her beloved. This is believing without self-will, without the projections of the ego. This is the spirit of faith, a kind of believing that trusts God unconditionally without any support: “Since the time He permitted me to suffer temptations against the faith, He has greatly increased the spirit of faith in my heart.”177 Transformation-in-glory is controlled by a double set of interacting dynamics. The first dynamic is that of total passivity: acceptance, willingness to suffer, endurance This passivity seeks to be completely interiorized: “The more interior the suffering is and the less apparent to the eyes of creatures, the more it rejoices You, O my God! But if my suffering was really unknown to You, which is impossible, I would still be happy to have it, if through it I could prevent or make reparation for one single sin against faith.”178 The second dynamic is of a piece with this acceptance, viz., the unconditional trust-relation with the Beloved. I run towards my Jesus. O tell him I am ready to shed my blood to the last drop to profess my faith in the existence of heaven. I tell Him, too, I am happy not to enjoy this beautiful heaven on this earth so that He will open it for all eternity to poor unbelievers. Also, in spite of this trial which has taken away all my joy, I can nevertheless cry out: “You have given me DELIGHT, O Lord, in ALL your doings.” For is there a joy greater than that of suffering out of love for You.179

Therese interprets the night of nothingness as a gesture of God. This interpretation does not cancel out the trial “which deprives me of all joy.” Only the dialogical significance is meant: there is no “greater joy” than everything You give me to endure. With that the night of nothingness has become a mystical antiphrasis: the night remains one vast darkness but is at the same time felt as 176

Ibid., Ibid., 178 Ibid., 179 Ibid., 177

212. 219. 214. 213-214.

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a gesture of love from the side of God: “Never have I felt before this how sweet and merciful the Lord really is, for He did not send me this trial until the moment I was capable of bearing it. A little earlier I believe it would have plunged me into a state of discouragement. Now it is taking away everything that could be a natural satisfaction in my desire for heaven.”180 Therese is speaking in the past tense: “The desire I had.” Now her desire has been purged, cleansed of egocentricity, drawn outside of herself to the Other who considered her strong enough to endure the night of absolute nothingness. She experiences as sweet and merciful God’s confidence in her and his tactfulness in waiting till she was strong enough. Now that Teresa has been cut off on all sides by the night of faith and her soul’s point of gravity has shifted to him who has carved the night of nothingness into her soul, she has nothing left to lose. She has become light enough to be transformed into glory along the lines of love. “It seems to me now that nothing could prevent me from flying away, for I no longer have any great desires except that of loving to the point of dying of love.”181 That is the transformation-in-glory. 4.2.2. THE VIEWPOINT

OF THE ACCOMPANIST

The spiritual accompanist, grounded in his or her relation to God, focuses on the person being accompanied in his or her relation to God. We shall now explore the perspective of the accompanist under the guidance of John of the Cross. In his Living Flame of Love he pays much attention to the spiritual leader.182 The broader context is the exposition of the “deep caverns of the senses” which refer to the three faculties: memory, intellect, and will (III, 18-69). John of the Cross states that these three faculties only open up in their true depths when they have been completely emptied in order to be filled only with God. The least attachment to the finite stands in the way of receiving the Infinite. The evacuation of the faculties causes a thirst in the intellect, a hunger in the will, and a yearning in the memory so deep that they are more intolerable than death. By the infinite depth of the desire for the Infinite One the soul is consumed in an endless death (III, 18-22). The question is whether this desire does not already possess the Beloved. John of the Cross makes a distinction here: one can possess God by grace (the 180

Ibid., 214. Ibid., 214. 182 John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, Stanza III, 30-62. In this English edition we will follow the version of the Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (Trans. K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodríguez), Washington (DC) 1979. For a general discussion, see M. Plattig, Der Glaube an das Wirken des Geistes. Aspekte geistlicher Begleitung nach Johannes vom Kreuz, in: Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998), 249-261. 181

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betrothal) and by union (marriage). In the grace of espousal there is perfect mutual agreement and unity of will between the faculties and God, while in the union of marriage the persons give themselves to each other. In the “yes” of the soul spoken in the espousal God has given the true and complete “yes” of his grace. The desire of God and that of the soul are intentionally one. At the same time this is the preparation for the union of marriage (III, 23-25). John of the Cross calls this preparation “the anointings of the Holy Spirit” which are accompanied by the increasingly intense expectations of the caverns of the soul. In the most subtle manner the anointings lure the soul to God (III, 26). Having arrived at this point, John of the Cross – be it with some hesitation – writes a digression “to advise souls on whom God bestows these pleasurable unctions” (III, 27). The reason for his warning here is the fact that the anointings mark a crucial moment of transition on the spiritual way: from this point on the Beloved begins expressly to take over the initiative from the soul. The spiritual inspirations and touches (anointings) draw the soul definitively away from itself (III, 28). They, after all, are the manner in which God is at work to unite the soul with himself: dying with desire, the infinite caverns of the soul, destined to receive God, open up (see the conclusion of the argument: III, 68-69). “The soul, then, should advert that God is the principal agent in this matter, and that He acts as the blind man’s guide who must lead it by the hand to the place it does not know how to reach (to supernatural things of which neither its intellect nor will, nor memory can know the nature) (III, 29). The only thing the soul can do here is watching so as not to place any obstacle in the way, that is, not to let itself be misled by a blind man. At precisely this point the digression begins. For there are three blind men who can hinder and mislead the soul at this moment of transition to contemplation: the spiritual accompanist (III, 30-62), the devil (III, 63-65), and the soul (III, 66-67). By far the most attention is devoted to the spiritual leader who must simultaneously possess three qualities: “Besides being learned and discreet, he should have experience. Although the foundation for guiding a soul to spirit is knowledge and discretion, the director will not succeed in leading the soul onward in it, when God bestows it, nor will he even understand it, if he has no experience of what true and pure spirit is” (III, 30). These three qualities are then treated in John of the Cross’s discourses, the first more at the beginning, the second in the middle, and the last towards the end. We will follow his argument closely. 1. Knowledge and insight When spiritual accompanists lack “understanding of the ways and properties of the spirit,” they will be disposed to lead the souls by the ways “which they themselves have used or read of somewhere, and which are only good for beginners”

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(III, 31). The word “beginners” evokes the spiritual way which developed classically according to the triad “beginners-advanced-perfect.” Inasmuch as John of the Cross believes insight into the whole of the spiritual way is important, he starts with the beginners (III, 31). Typical for “the state and practice of beginners” is that they themselves do the work (methodical meditation, discursive reflection; imagination); that the soul itself provides the material on which it meditates and reflects (III, 31). The effect of this self-activity is three-fold: the soul feeds its appetites with relish in the spiritual; it tears itself away from relish in sensual things and weakens in its relish for the things of the world. An essential change occurs – and this is what marks the end of the stage of beginners – when the appetite for spiritual things is satisfied. At that moment “God immediately begins to wean the souls, as they say, and place it in the state of contemplation” (II, 32). This is the crucial point: the reasoning, meditating, self-motivating acts fall silent, and God’s working assumes the upperhand: “The point of gravity shifts to the spirit, which does not lie within reach of the senses” (III, 32). 2. The task of the spiritual accompanist The spiritual accompanist must adhere to the structure of the spiritual way: “If, prior to this, directors suggested matter for meditation, and he meditated, now they should instead withhold this matter, and he should not meditate” (III, 33). The spiritual accompanist must alter his guidance to fit the point at which the person being accompanied finds himself. The beginner, who is self-active, must be actively accompanied by giving him the material for meditation, but the moment the weaning begins one must do the opposite: “Directors should not impose meditation upon persons in this state, nor oblige them to make acts” (III, 33). Meditation, discursive reflection, and acts of devotion must be withheld: “Such activity would place an obstacle in the path of the principal agent who, as I say, is God” (III, 33). The soul must no longer perform specific acts. The only thing it must still do from this point on is “proceed with a loving attention to God, without making specific acts” (III, 33). This is a passive attitude without any personal effort. It remains focused on the Beloved in complete simplicity because God wants to give himself to the soul through a completely simple loving knowledge. If in this phase the soul wants to proceed in its own strength, it would hinder God’s working: “This loving knowledge is received passively in the soul according to the supernatural mode of God, and not according to the natural mode of the soul” (III, 34). In relation to its own activity the soul must be annihilated, “detached, peaceful, quiet, idle, and serene, according to the mode of God” (III, 34). The loving attention to which the soul is introduced leads it away from all exercise and devotion: “He should be very free and annihilated regarding all things, because any thought or discursive reflection or

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satisfaction upon which he may want to lean would impede and disquiet him” (III, 34). When the soul has come into that solitude of pure silence and in the state of listening, “he should even forget the practice of loving attentiveness…” (III, 35). Such loving attentiveness has merely a limited meaning: it leads the soul to silence in solitude, to totally listening in a spiritual manner. The soul can recognize this silence by its peaceful calm and inward absorption. In this quiet contemplation the soul “should not at any time or season engage in meditations or look for support in spiritual savor or satisfaction, but stand upright on his own feet, with his spirit completely detached from everything” (III, 36). Pure contemplation consists in pure reception (III, 37). John of the Cross summons the soul and the spiritual accompanist to cooperate with this operation of God in contemplation. To the soul he says: “Wipe away, O spiritual soul, the dust, the hairs, and the stains, and cleanse your eye, and the bright sun will illumine you, and you will see clearly. Pacify the soul, draw it out and liberate it from the yoke and slavery of its own weak operation” (III, 38). To the spiritual guide he says: “And, O spiritual master, guide it to the land of promise flowing with milk and honey. Behold that for this holy liberty and idleness, God calls the soul to the desert” (III, 38). In his exhortations John of the Cross brings the task of the accompanist – for this phase of the way! – into sharp relief: “Strive that he become detached from all satisfaction, relish, pleasure, and spiritual meditations, and do not disquiet him with cares or solicitude concerning heavenly things, and still less earthly things. Bring him to as complete a withdrawal and solitude as possible” (III, 38): The spiritual accompanist, accordingly, is not passive but cooperates with the working of God. This is the import of the verbs: “detach,” “do not disquiet,” “bring him to a complete withdrawal and solitude.” God, the soul, and the accompanist are focused, in a simple synergistic harmony, on this one thing: that the spirit be “loving, tranquil, solitary, peaceful, mild, and an inebriator of the spirit, by which the soul feels tenderly and gently wounded and carried away, without knowing by whom, nor from where, nor how” (III, 38). That which God works in the soul is of inestimable value, “often much greater than a person or a director can even imagine or see” (III, 39). Only much later does it become apparent. Now it only observes that it is becoming alien to all that is not God. All this occurs “in the gentle breathing of love and life in the spirit” (III, 39). These are the anointings of the Holy Spirit which secretly fill the soul with divine graces. It is God who grants them and he does so in no other manner than as God (III, 40). 3. Disturbances John of the Cross had inserted his digression about the three hindrances (the director, the devil, and the soul) at the moment his discourse had arrived at the anointings of the Holy Sprit. Now he has arrived there again. After his exposition

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concerning the phases of the spiritual way (III, 31-32) and the demands they make on the soul and its accompanist (III, 33-40), John of the Cross can now more sharply articulate what can go wrong in the accompaniment at this crucial moment of “the shift in the point of gravity” (III, 32). The problem is that the anointings of the Holy Spirit are so pure that “neither the soul nor its director understand them; only He who bestows them in order to be more pleased with the soul comprehends them” (III, 41). Because they are so delicate and subtle their operation can be readily disturbed or hindered. The most serious disturbance occurs by using the faculties (memory, intellect, will) and or by arousing the senses (appetite, relish). “Were a portrait of extremely delicate workmanship touched over with dull and harsh colors by an unpolished hand, the destruction would be worse, more noticeable, and a greater pity than if many other portraits of less artistry were effaced” (III, 42). Hence the problem is that a human hand (the soul itself or the spiritual accompanist) is disturbing the work of the Holy Spirit. This disturbance occurs frequently, indeed “scarcely any spiritual director will be found who does not cause it in souls God is beginning to recollect in this manner of contemplation” (III, 43). Because these directors have no sense of God’s working in “the loving, serene, peaceful and solitary knowledge that is far removed from the senses and what is imaginable” (III, 43); they think that nothing is happening. God’s working, however, is so strong that he draws the soul to himself, as a result of which this person can no longer meditate nor reflect on anything or find any relish in anything. Then “a spiritual director will happen along who, like a blacksmith, knows no more than how to hammer and pound with the faculties” (III, 43). The faculties are activated with all violence: “Come, now, lay aside these rest periods, which amount to idleness and a waste of time; take and meditate and make interior acts, for it is necessary that you do your part; this other method is the way of illusions and typical of fools” (III, 43). Illuminism posits that only absolute passivity leads to contemplation that is the direct inworking of God.183 In the time of John of the Cross people raged against these illuminists. John of the Cross, however, was only speaking of a part of the way: the transition to contemplation. These accompanists would not or could not understand that “those acts they say the soul should make, and the discursive reflection they want it to practice, are already accomplished” (III, 44). These spiritual accompanists could only picture the spiritual way in terms of human activity, just as illuminism only imagined it as passivity. Neither is true, for from beginning to end the spiritual way is both active and passive. The spiritual accompanists have no understanding whatever of these ways of the spirit

183

See E. de la Virgen del Carmen, Illuminisme et illuminés, in: DSp 7 (1971), 1367-1392.

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(III, 44). They have no insight into the structure of the spiritual way. “These spiritual directors do not understand what recollection and spiritual solitude is, nor its properties” (III, 45). They therefore lack one of the two essential qualities: knowledge in relation to the whole of the spiritual life (III, 30). They lack insight into the anointings of the Spirit: God’s inworking in the loving attentive soul that receives God’s inspirations and touches in quiet solitude. They do not see God at work. “These directors should reflect that they themselves are not the chief agent, guide, and mover of souls in this matter, but that the principal guide is the Holy Spirit” (III, 46). The only thing they have to do is “to strive to conduct them into greater solitude, tranquillity, and freedom of spirit” (III, 46). They must not divert the soul toward self-directed acts, toward particular objects or specific desires. The soul must remain empty in pure detachment from the finite and in a state of spiritual poverty: not only renouncing “all corporeal and temporal goods but also spiritual things” (III, 46). This self-emptying gives God the chance “to do his part, viz., to communicate himself to the soul” (III, 46). This is the goal of the spiritual way. John of the Cross prays that accompanists may “be content with disposing the souls for this [self-communication of God] according to evangelical perfection which lies in nakedness and emptiness of sense and spirit” (III, 47). Accompanists must limit themselves to preparing the soul for God’s working: “Do the preparatory work for him. Attempt to view the soul’s natural activity and disposition as nothing” (III, 47). 4. The discernment of progress John of the Cross then tries, in a dialogical way, to discern in what real progress consists. His opponents says: “Oh, the soul does not advance, because it is not doing anything.” To this John of the Cross replies: “If it is true that it is not doing anything, I shall prove to you that is accomplishing a great deal by doing nothing” (III, 47). This discussion is conducted in relation to three faculties. With reference to the intellect the opponents say: “It does not understand anything in particular and thus will be unable to make progress” (III, 48). Over against this John of the Cross states: “Quite the contrary, if it would have particular knowledge, it would not advance” (III, 48). His reasoning is: though the intellect strives to understand God, God transcends the human intellect in all of its operations. “He is incomprehensible and inaccessible for the intellect. Hence if the intellect wants to approach God by conceptual means, it no longer comes nearer to him but is withdrawing farther from him” (III, 48). The soul does not approach God by understanding but by not understanding, that is, by faith. The more the intellect empties itself of itself and reaches out to God by not understanding, the nearer it draws to God. Progress is to enter the night of faith of not-knowing: “Because the intellect cannot understand God, it must

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necessarily journey to God by not understanding. It therefore takes the road of not understanding” (III, 48). With reference to the will, the opponents say: “When the intellect does not understand particular things, the will is idle and does not love (something that must always be avoided on the spiritual road)” (III, 49). To this John of the Cross responds by saying that this only applies to the natural operations and acts of the soul. “But in the contemplation we are discussing (by which God infuses Himself into the soul), particular knowledge as well as acts made by the soul are unnecessary, because God in one act is communicating light and love together” (III, 49). The divine light of contemplation is indistinct and dark to the intellect but at the same time warm and loving. Just as the intellect has no distinct object, so the soul loves without a distinct object: “Since God is divine light and love in His communication of Himself to the soul, He equally informs these two faculties (intellect and will) with insight and love” (III, 49). God can communicate himself to the faculties as he pleases: to both at the same time or to each separately. “The will often feels enkindled or tenderly moved or captivated without knowing how or understanding anything more particularly than before” (III, 50). It is God himself, after all, who realizes the act of love in the soul, “secretly inebriating it with infused love” (III, 50). This love is infused by God, when the will has been emptied of all pleasure in, and all dependence on, the finite. The will ascends above all things on its way to God because it no longer finds satisfaction in anything. Nothing gives it more pleasure than that solitary quietude in which everything has become tasteless. Thus the soul advances, “for not retrogressing through the desire to attach itself to something sensory is to advance toward the unattainable, namely God” (III, 51). As it concerns the memory, John of the Cross is brief: once the memory has been emptied of forms and figures, it journeys safely forward. “Since God is formless and figureless, the memory walks safely when empty of form and figure, and it draws closer to God” (III, 52). The more the soul trusts its imagination, the farther away it moves from God. 5. Experiential expertise John of the Cross wonders why spiritual accompanists do not understand souls “that tread the path of quiet and solitary contemplation.” His answer is: “they themselves have not reached it” (III, 53). Here he touches the third quality of the spiritual accompanist: experience (see III, 30). They do not know from experience what it means to part with discursive reflection and meditation. Hence they disturb “the peace of restful and quiet contemplation” and drive souls onto the path of meditation and imaginative reflection and devotions. They lack experience: “These directors do not know what spirit is. They do a great injury to God and show disrespect toward Him by intruding with a rough hand where

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He is working” (III, 54). They hinder him in his work: he himself introduced them into this solitude and emptied their faculties “so that he might speak to their hearts” (III, 54). He reduced the faculties to nothing in order to be everything to them. “But these directors do not want the soul to rest and remain quiet, but want it always to labor and work, so that consequently it does not allow room for God’s work” (III, 55). John of the Cross wonders whether the spiritual accompanists can be excused for their annoying behavior: perhaps these directors err with good intentions because they do not know any better” (III, 56). His answer is negative. They cannot be excused for counsels based on a lack of experiential insight. “Let them keep their clumsy hands out of this matter if they have no insight into it, and leave it to those who do have understanding of it” (III, 56). One who holds the office of spiritual accompanist must see to it that he has the necessary experience and expertise. There is the danger, moreover, that the accompanist so leads the soul “that he never lets it out of his hands on account of vain considerations of which he is aware” (III, 57). The danger threatens that the accompanist binds the soul to himself and does not permit it “to change its style and mode of prayer and acquire another doctrine more sublime, and another spirituality, than his” (III, 57). The accompanist does not realize that not every soul suits every accompanist: “Not everyone knows all the happenings and stages of the spiritual journey, nor is everyone spiritually so perfect as to know every state of the interior life in which a person must be conducted and guided” (III, 57). Spiritual accompaniment is not just a matter of spiritual insight into the spiritual way, and discernment between specious and real progress, however, but also requires a good mutual fit on the level of experience between the person being accompanied and the accompanist. At this point John of the Cross introduces the analogy of the making of a statue. The making of a statue is a phased process. Not everyone is suited to each phase. Not everyone capable of hewing the wood knows how to carve the statue, nor does everyone able to carve know how to perfect and polish the work, nor do all who know how to polish know how to paint it, nor do all who can paint it know how to put the finishing touches on it and bring the work to completion. No man can do more with the statue than what he knows how to do, and were he to try to do more than this, he would ruin it.

With this analogy John of the Cross evokes the entire progression of the spiritual life from start to finish, but now with a view to practical expertise. With this analogy, after all, he can bring up for discussion the different roles people play in relation to spiritual accompaniment. The hewer is the accompanist who can guide the soul to “contempt of the world and to mortification of its appetites” (III, 58). By this is meant the beginning of conversion.

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The carver is the first shaper of the “statue.” He accompanies the beginner and “introduces him to holy meditations.” The reference here is to the positive and active shaping of the spiritual way. The polisher is not further defined by John of the Cross but in view of the sequel it is still part of the hewing and the carving. “What the painter does is clearly something other than hewing and shaping, even other than polishing” (III, 58). The painter brings the soul “to its ultimate perfection” and “perfection is something that God has to give to it” (III, 58). The hammering and hewing on the statue is “the active use of the faculties of the soul” (III, 581). This activity hinders God’s inworking: “When or how will it be left for God to paint? Is it possible that all these functions are yours and that you are so perfect the soul will never need any other than you?” (III, 50). John of the Cross raises the question of the “fit” between the accompanist and the person being accompanied. If the accompaniment is to be fruitful, the two need to be attuned to each other on the level of experience. The accompanist will have to consider his experiential expertise. “Granted that you may possess the requisites for the full direction of some soil (for perhaps that soul does not have the talent to make progress), it is impossible for you to have the qualities demanded for the guidance of all those you refuse to allow out of your hands” (III, 59). The expertise of the accompanist has its limits: it only matches the souls that have specific experiences. This does not just apply to certain phases in the spiritual life but concerns the spiritual way as such. “God, after all, leads each one along different paths so that hardly one spirit will be found like another in even half its method of procedure” (III, 59). The spiritual way differs from person to person. Also the spiritual accompanists, therefore, differ from case to case. The accompanists do not discern this because they are attached to those whom they accompany. “Not only, therefore, do you endeavor to hold on to your penitents, but, what is worse, if by chance you learn that one of them has consulted another (for perhaps you were not the suitable one to consult, or God led him to this other person that he might learn what you did not teach), what is worse you treat him – and I am ashamed to say it – with the very jealous quarrelsomeness we find among married couples” (III, 59). John of the Cross states with emphasis that the spiritual accompanists should give freedom to the souls they are directing: “After all, they do not know the means by which God may wish to benefit a soul” (III, 61). The premise is clear: the spiritual way of the person being accompanied is unique and calls for appropriate experiential expertise. Aside from the given that some of them are more advanced in the spiritual life than the spiritual accompanist himself, this means that the accompanist must take a critical look at his own position. Either the spiritual leader has changed his style or the leaders themselves must counsel this change” (III, 61). Some accompanists make an even worse mistake. Not only do they, out of self-love, bind souls to themselves, but they keep those souls who entered

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contemplation from “renouncing the world, changing their way of life, and serving him with contempt of the world” (III, 62). These spiritual accompanists, acting out of improper motives (human fear, self-interest, personal taste), keep these souls from expressing their desires, “delaying them or, even worse, trying to make them put these desires from their minds” (III, 63). John of the Cross takes it ill of the accompanists that they keep these souls from entering into the contemplative way of life. “In that way the guide is a blind man who hinders the life of the soul, the Holy Spirit” (III, 62). 6. A backward glance Looking back, we can now draw certain conclusions with respect to the competence of the spiritual accompanist. (1) The spiritual accompanist must have knowledge and insight: knowledge of the structure of the spiritual way and insight into the dialogical dynamics shaping it. The structure of the spiritual way can be variously articulated. Usually authors distinguish a beginning: conversion (the hewing) and initial shaping (carving), next comes the part of the advanced who are making progress on the way to a more intensive concentration (polishing) and finally the perfection of contemplation (painting). More importantly, than the structure, however, is the dialogic determining the process. The beginning is dominated by human activity, the end (betrothal and marriage) is determined by God’s working. Insight into the transition from human activity to God’s working is of essential importance for a proper spiritual accompaniment. (2) The spiritual accompanist must be able to tell the difference between specious and real progress. Thus being-active in the course of entering contemplation seems like progress but in reality it is retrogression, a passive attitude (peaceful solitude, loving attentiveness), on the other hand, seems idleness. Neither of these two perceptions, however, is correct. Discernment sees through appearances. This is true also, of course, for the situation at the beginning. A beginner who does not turn to God, does not appropriate virtues, performs no spiritual exercises, yet adopts an attitude of passivity, is only a contemplative in appearance. (3) The spiritual accompanist must have experience. Experience, here, has several dimensions. First of all, an accompanist can only do his work of accompaniment well if he himself has experienced what the person being accompanied is going through; that is to say: his own experience is an indispensable frame of reference for understanding the person being accompanied. Furthermore, an accompanist needs to be able to reflect on himself. Am I keeping someone in accompaniment, because I have a need for this? Do I dare to admit that a certain accompaniment exceeds the limits of my competence? Finally, the accompanist needs to sense whether he is even called at all to serve this concrete person who is asking for accompaniment. He must, after all, know that every spiritual way is unique and that not everyone is suited to everyone. It calls for experience to assess this situation correctly.

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4.3. Design for Mystagogical Research We have now taken two steps toward a design for mystagogical research. The first step consisted in examining the basic structure of spiritual accompaniment as the paradigm of mystagogy. As the basic structure of this paradigm we found the following: a person expresses himself on the subject of his or her relation to God in order to achieve clarity; this takes place in the presence of an attentively listening other who, on the basis of his or her own relation to God, facilitates this clarification. The second step was to further explore the discovered perspectives of the person being accompanied and of the accompanist. We accomplished this with the aid of a number of spiritual biographies and under the guidance of John of the Cross. The third step will now be the task of translating these two perspectives into a scientific strategy. This transition to a scientific discipline is rooted in the basic structure of mystagogy as it emerged paradigmatically in spiritual accompaniment. “Mystagogy necessarily involves thought. It is a thought process and thus the mystagogue is basically a thinker.”184 What occurs in mystagogy is systematic reflection on a person’s experience of God. “Mystagogy is the discursive sharing of the transcending, intimate and personal experience of God.”185 Mystagogy is a linguistic process in which experience is processed and held against the light of truth with an eye to the spiritual way. In a prescientific way, and in its basic structure, mystagogy is a form of systematic and critical knowledge: “In the mystagogical discourse, phenomenology (description without judgments or prejudices) and hermeneutics (experiential interpretation) are fused into a personal and transcending participation.”186 This prescientific cognitive structure is captured in our third step. The perspective of the person being accompanied is translated into a scientific strategy designed to produce his or her autobiography. The perspective of the accompanist is developed on the basis of the phenomenological idea of “empathy” (Einfühlung). 4.3.1. WRITING ONE’S SPIRITUAL

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

In a spiritual autobiography a person writes out his or her spiritual way. This process as such already contains moments of the clarification which is characteristic for mystagogy. It is natural for us, then, to go into some detail along this 184

M. Ofilada Mina, Possible Relationship between Mystagogy and Philosophy and its Bearing on Theology and Spirituality, in: Philippiniana Sacra 34 (1999) no. 101, 234. 185 Ibid. 186 Ibid., 235.

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line in our search for a design for mystagogic research. First we shall look at the scientific aspects of an autobiography in general and a spiritual autobiography in particular. Then we will consider the mystagogic component and the possibilities of producing autobiographical data. 1. Autobiography The writing of one’s own life story is a part of all cultures. Even preliterate cultures know of the personal life story told by the oldest member or leader of a group. The autobiography is not a specialty of modern Western culture. Admittedly, the genre of autobiography gained greater popularity after the Renaissance. In antiquity and the Middle Ages the writing of an autobiography was the privilege of an elite of well-educated and widely known personalities, literate people with a capacity for introspection and gifted with a fair measure of self-confidence. Under the influence of several factors (interest in the individual, the influence of the vernacular, better education and formation available to larger groups) the autobiography was democratized after the Renaissance. There are, of course, limiting factors (a capacity for self-reflection, educational level, the interest of publishers, and the like) but one can say without fear of contradiction that the phenomenon of the autobiography has expanded enormously, especially if in this connection we call to mind also the audiovisual means that one used to record people’s life stories (film, video, tape recorder). Motives that play a role here are: the enlistment of sympathy, the need to justify oneself, winning appreciation, the need for communication, the need to structure one’s life, scientific interest, money, rendering a service, the desire to give an example, and so forth.187 The history of the autobiography has been classically documented by Georg Misch in his Geschichte der Autobiographie, a four-part work in eight volumes.188 Along the lines of W. Dilthey, his spiritual father,189 Misch views autobiography as an initiation into and expression (Ausdruck) of experience (Erlebnis). This view is traceable to Friedrich Schleiermacher for whom being-human is at bottom a being-for-oneself, not to be understood as brute fact but as a continually resumed dialectical-hermeneutic movement in the intimacy of human self-consciousness. This insight returns in phenomenology, which regards Erlebnis as the all-embracing concept for all acts of consciousness.190 Following the classic documentation of Georg Misch, who discusses autobiographical literature from the time of classical antiquity (part I), via the Middle Ages (parts II and III), right into the 187 For this entire phenomenon of the creation of an autobiography, see J. Birren & D. Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults. Exploring the Fabric of Life, Baltimore-London 1991, 114-120. 188 G. Misch, Geschichte der Autobiographie, Frankfurt a.M. 1949-1969. 189 Der junge Dilthey, (Ed. G. Misch), Leipzig-Berlin 1933. 190 See E. Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen II, Hamburg 1992, 365.

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modern era, a flood of literature appeared in connection with the so-called “I-writings.”191 The field of personal life-histories can best be opened with the aid of three important genres: the autobiography, the diary, and memoirs. The autobiography. In an autobiography a person looks back upon his or her life as a whole or upon a certain period of it. The vantage point from which one’s past life is conceived and interpreted is the moment of writing. From this vantage point the life actually lived, a life that as such is fragmentary, fluid, and layered, is retraced and structured. The shaping hand of the ego of the writer is at work in it. The emphasis is on the autos of the autobiography, the self.192 The vantage point from which the author looks at the past is the end, that is: the place at which the I finds itself at this moment. The autobiographer creates “a temporary center around which the accumulated historical facts may be organized.”193 This center, which in the lived life is continually in motion, presents itself in autobiography as the fixed I-perspective from which the life lived is reconstructed. Much has to be omitted or summed up, and many connections have to be made to make the autos of the autobiography invisible as the manipulating agency and to make the story of the self seem self-evident especially in its chronological development as well. The diary. In diaries the author records the day-to-day fragments of a life. They do not envision a structured text. The I did not nail itself down in advance to a specific position. One who pages through the 17,000 pages of Amiel’s diary, the 261 notebooks of Paul Valery, the 18 volumes of James Boswell witnesses a life whose perspective can change from day to day. The emphasis is on the bios of the autobiography, the life.194 The intimacy of the lived life presents itself in its spontaneity as incoherent, confused, fluid, and indecisive. Even the consciousness of time is fluid. A good example of this are the diaries of Michel Leiris which ever seem to be designed “to reach the point from which there is no longer a before and after.195 The intimacy of a diary is focused on the life lived in its simplicity, layered and whimsical as it is, without any sustained I-perspective, mobile and unfocused, fluid and immediately given. All the structuration of an autobiography is experienced as a distortion. He who structures a lived life into a confession “lies, and flees from the really true, that which is trivial or shapeless and, generally speaking, not distinctive.”196

191

See G. Gusdorf, Les écritures du moi, Paris 1991. See G. Gusdorf, Auto-bio-graphie, Paris 1991, 149-320. 193 M. Blasing, The Art of Life. Studies in American Autobiographical Literature, Austin etc. 1977. 194 See G. Gusdorf, Auto-bio-graphie, 321-490. 195 M. Leiris, Biffures, Paris 1948, 248. 196 P. Valéry, Tel quel II: Suite (Oeuvres II), (Ed. J. Hytier), Paris 1960, 776. 192

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Memoirs. Memoirs show still another side of the field, like correspondences and confessions, viz. the field of publicity. “The constitutive movement of memoirs is a centrifugal movement. The subject of the story projects himself against the background of the environment. He defines himself in objective terms by his extrinsic ties with the family, the fatherland, the party, the posts which he held and which helped him to organize the panorama of the world around himself.”197 Memoirs belong to the life of statesmen and religious authorities, heroes and famous personalities. What emerges here in enlarged form is present as a factor in every personal document, even in the most intimate diary. The moment something has been recorded in writing it is public. The emphasis here lies on the graphein of the auto-bio-graphy,198 the document. This is true not only for letters, correspondences, memoirs and critiques; it is no less true of diaries, travel accounts, agendas, and memos. The three variants in the field of personal documents converge in the basic fact that all three (try to) tell a story of a life in the form of a narrative, a text, a video, an audiotape, a series of pictures or a portrait. The connection between the life and the story must not be made uncritically. On the one hand it is true that: “Stories are told and not lived; lives are lived, and not told.”199 On the other hand it is certain that stories are lived to the extent they are a creative process in which heterogeneous events are collected and acquire an identity; and that the life becomes a story to the extent that it is more than a biological process.200 The story and the life continually seek each other out, explain and mediate each other. In this mutual mediation the story and the life are one. “The telling of the story is itself the occurrence. In the telling of the story itself we ourselves create our history, evoke the event(s) which are pivotal and which we want to share with others.”201 In the telling of the story the I articulates the self in the life that has been lived. Autobiography results in the transformation of the self.202 The very act of writing (ordering, structuring, verbalization) is a transforming dialogue of the self with the self.203 Writing is not just recording. It mediates the encounter between the I and the me and is therefore “edifying” in the literal 197

G. Gusdorf, Les écritures du moi, 260. G. Gusdorf, Auto-bio-graphie, 17-148. 199 P. Ricoeur, Life. A Story in Search of a Narrator, in: Facts and Values, (Ed. M. Doeser & J. Kraay), Dordrecht 1986, 121. 200 Ibid., 126-132. 201 H. Andriessen, Spiritualiteit als modern verhaal, Nijmegen 1994, 8. 202 A. Hawkins, Archetypes of Conversion. The Autobiographies of Augustine, Bunyan, and Merton, London-Toronto 1985, 23. 203 See, for example, D. Ebner, Autobiography in Seventeenth-Century England, The Hague 1971, 19; J. Morris, Versions of the Self, New York 1966, 11; J. Olney, Metaphors of the Self, Princeton (NJ) 1972, 3. 198

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sense of the word.204 “The word ‘edification’ evokes an architectonic structure. The life is an ‘edifice’ whose balance does not just have to be obtained from without by incidental points of support, leaning on adjacent buildings, but also from within, by self-reliance, standing on independent foundations.”205 The writing mediates between the I and the me and creates being by-and-for oneself: self-understanding.206 It is rooted in the presence of “me-for-me” who tries to make himself intelligible to himself. It fashions the person as a hermeneutic being, as the occurrence of an encounter between the universal structure of language and the particular individuality of the speaking subject.207 Autobiographical writings are exercises in being oneself.208 As a result of the selfhermeneutics of the I-document a life (Leben) becomes experience (Erlebnis). Gadamer shows how the word Erlebnis has spread via biographical literature and owes its conceptual sharpness to Dilthey, the biographer of Schleiermacher.209 “Something becomes experience (Erlebnis) when it has not only been experienced but when its having-been-experienced has a special emphasis which confers a permanent significance upon it.”210 The I-document documents the experience in which the self (I) and the life (me) are mutually pervasive. Determinative, therefore, is not the literary genre,211 but initiation into being personally by-and-for oneself. 2. Spiritual autobiography Spiritual autobiography is something that belongs to all ages. The wisdom teacher, as we can see for example in Ps. 73 and Jesus Sirach 51:13-22, already employed “autobiographical stylization.”212 Undoubtedly, Augustine’s Confessions constitute a high point. By comparison with the enormous increase of spiritual autobiographies in modern times, certainly if we include conversion histories, the autobiographical material of antiquity and the middle ages amounts to very little. Especially in Pietism spiritual autobiography is heavily represented.213 The number of titles in the category of spiritual (auto)biography present in the library of the Titus Brandsma Institute comes to over 6500. 204

See G. Gusdorf, Les écritures du moi, 390-401. Ibid., 140. 206 P. Ricoeur, ibid., 127. 207 See J. Wils, Hermeneutiek en verlangen, Nijmegen 1997. 208 See G. Gusdorf, Les écritures du moi, 141, 339, 389, 406, etc. 209 H. Gadamer, Truth and Method, New York 1991, 60ff. 210 Ibid., 66. 211 See G. Gusdorf, Les écritures du moi, 119-144. 212 G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, London 1972, 37. 213 I. Bertolini, Studien zur Autobiographie des deutschen Pietismus, Wien 1968; M. Hirzel, Lebensgeschichte als Verkündigung, Göttingen 1998. 205

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Spiritual autobiography delineates itself in and through personal life stories. Also a spiritual autobiography, after all, is a story. “We live in stories. And spirituality, certainly, is the story that our soul tells us about ourselves in the many forms in which it seeks to become itself amidst the inconstancy, joys, anxieties, and fulfillment of our existence.”214 A spiritual autobiography, accordingly, is in any case a story. The uniqueness of this story is that a divine narrator presents himself in it. To discover this is the specific mystagogical moment.215 Spiritual autobiography, unlike its secular counterpart, is concerned not just with the self but also with the soul in its evolving relationship to God; it is written with a divine audience in view, and its methodology involves a figurative reading of the events of an individual’s life. (…) Spiritual autobiography not only serves as a vehicle whereby the facts of a person’s life can be shaped into a purposeful (and divinely purposed) unity, but it serves as a vehicle whereby the “meaning” of the self can be perceived through the imagined eyes of God, and thus articulated in the context of the meaning of life itself.216

As it tells the story a spiritual autobiography seeks the ear and the voice of divine presence. This presence can be discovered in the personal life story as the real narrator. The life story of Titus Brandsma serves as an example. Everything we know about him consists in stories. But his own complete story is known only by him whom he served to the end. The people he served only know fragments of it. We, too, only know fragments. And he himself was perhaps the one who knew his own story least of all: for the words in which we tell the history of our soul arise from a depth whose obscurity, secrecy, and mysterious nature we ourselves sense most deeply. I say “sense”; I do not say: “understand.”217

It seems that precisely where the personal life story eludes us it falls into good hands: the hands of him who knows us from before our beginning and beyond our ending. This does not mean that one’s own life story is cut short. It continues but continually turns over. Just as life (bios) and the I (autos) continually mediate each other in the story (graphy), so the personal life story (autobiography) continually and in various ways mediates God’s story with us (spiritual autobiography) in turn.218 They mutually define themselves in each other as the

214

H. Andriessen, Spiritualiteit als modern verhaal, Nijmegen 1994, 7. O. Bayer, Wer bin ich? Gott als Autor meiner Lebensgeschichte, in: Theologische Beiträge 11 (1980), 245-261. 216 A. Hawkins, Archetypes of Conversion, London-Toronto 1985, 28. 217 H. Andriessen, ibid., 9-10. 218 K. Nipkow, Lebensgeschichte und religiöse Lebenslinie, in: Jahrbuch der Religionspädagogik 3 (1986), Neukirchen 1987, 3-35. 215

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continually alternating Ground and Figure. At issue is the discovery of how God interiorly impacts the life history in question.219 As in the case of ordinary autobiography, so also in the case of spiritual autobiography we can distinguish three forms.220 The first is autobiographical in the true sense: a person looks back upon his or her life and tells of God’s working in it. Examples are Augustine’s Confessiones, Teresa of Avila’s Vita, and Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. The second is that of the spiritual diary in which a person gives a day-by-day account of his or her search for God. Examples are Dag Hammarskjöld’s Markings and Etty Hillesum’s Het verstoorde leven. (The Disturbed Life). Finally the form of a letter in which someone shares his spiritual experiences with another, e.g. the Letters of Francis de Sales. These three main forms represent accents: the first looks back from the vantage point of an experience gained; the second fully moves along with the life lived; the third highlights the dimension of communication. But these forms must not be understood as being exclusive or as a literary matrix. For autobiographical moments can also be present in meditations, prayers, homilies, commentaries and the like. In all cases the idea is to tell how God’s working occurs in one’s personal life. In spiritual autobiographies the important thing is God’s working in someone’s life. This “working” is not a detached story. It is interwoven with the events of life, an interwovenness which can be so close that the events themselves become the alphabet of God’s speech. In that case God’s story can no longer be distinguished from one’s own life story. When in 1963 Martin Buber looked back upon his life (he was 87 at the time) he came to the following Persönliche Determination: “The state in which I found myself was that all the existential experiences I incurred in the years 1912-1919 increasingly became present to me as one grand experience of faith. By this I mean an experience which sweeps a person along from within in his entire ‘thusness’, his thinking capacities totally included, so that the storm blows through all the rooms, causing all the doors to burst open.”221 For Buber the concrete events of life in those years became a kind of Pentecostal miracle: the house of his (thought) habits was transformed from within by the encounter with the eternal You in every you, a faith experience to which I and Thou (1923) bears testimony. Although we are speaking here of concrete experiences,222 the actual spiritual transformation occurs through all these experiences because “they were present as one grand experience of faith.”

219 M. Beintker, Die Frage nach Gottes Wirken im geschichtlichen Leben, in: Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 90 (1993), 442-461. 220 See F. Vernet, Autobiographies spirituelles, in: DSp 1 (1937), 1141-1159. 221 M. Buber, Antwort, in: Martin Buber, (Ed. P. Schilpp & M. Friedman), Stuttgart 1963, 589-590. 222 See M. Buber, Begegnung. Autobiographische Fragmente, Stuttgart 1961.

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Often, though this experience of faith is all-determining and all-pervasive, there are no words for it. On Pentecost 1961 Dag Hammarskjöld noted in his Markings: “I don’t know Who – or what – put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something.”223 The Yes of which Hammarskjöld speaks is no longer datable for him; it has no clear addressee, nor was there even any sharply delineated action: “I don’t even remember answering.” Still that yes gave meaning to his life. “From that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender, had a goal.”224 Here something happened in a person’s life, while he does not know who or what spoke to him, nor when it happened, nor what he did in response. Yet he was “led by the Ariadne’s thread of my answer through the labyrinth of life.”225 Buber and Hammarskjöld both show us how intimately spiritual transformation is interwoven with one’s autobiography. We may perhaps be inclined first of all to attribute his interwovenness to modern secularized culture in which spiritual processes remain implicit. But this is an illusion. Also Augustine had to decipher the ordinary events of his life as a search for God, a quest which in the end proved to be God’s search for him. 3. Mystagogical interpretation In his mystagogic interpretation of the life of Therese of Lisieux Andreas Wollbold formulated seven rules which he follows in his interpretation. “If mystagogy is primarily a mode of existence which seeks to gain a knowing self-understanding from one’s experience of God, then it must also be possible, by way of conclusion, to sketch a few rules which help us reproduce this process in the life of an individual.”226 His premise is that the experience of God is never objectively available but only emerges indirectly in mystagogical shifts: the old form of reflection yields to a new way of looking. Every level of experience has its own shifts: the lighting up of Mystery on the level of existence, the Self-communication of God in a person’s expectant yearning, and the discovery of one’s unique role in the human community. At all levels we can distinguish both cognitive and volitional aspects. This yields six rules. The seventh concerns the whole: the periodization of the entire course of experience. These seven rules sharpen one’s eye for the process of experience by highlighting moments at which one’s experience breaks open old patterns of reflection (ways of expressing oneself, describing things, patterning, assessing, interpreting, and so forth) (Rules 1 and 2); the 223

Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, New York 1964, 205. Ibidem. 225 Ibidem. 226 A. Wollbold, Therese von Lisieux. Eine mystagogische Deutung ihrer Biographie, Würzburg 1994, 63. 224

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Unconditional is brought up and affirmed (Rules 3 and 4); and a disinterested view of one’s immediate environment awakens (Rules 5 and 6). It is the interaction between the form of reflection and one’s experience of God which marks the developmental line of a spiritual biography (Rule 7). Our inquiry will follow the same method. Our point of departure is the forms of expression in which we couch experience, a point of departure that underlies research in the humanities since W. Dilthey. In this connection we look for traces of the experience of God in the forms of expression. 4. The construction of autobiographical data The world is crammed full of personal documents. People keep diaries, send letters, take photos, write memos, tell biographies, scrawl graffiti, publish their memoirs, write letters to the papers, leave suicide notes, inscribe memorials on tombstones, shoot films, paint pictures, make music and try to record their personal dreams. All of these expressions of personal life (…) can be of interest to anyone who cares to seek them out. They are all (…) documents of life.227

The biographical method228 attaches great value to personal documents inasmuch as they enable the researcher to listen to people’s experiences as they are interpreted by these people themselves.229 It is not the case, however, that the biographical method is applauded by all scholars. Usually the criticism revolves around three methodological weaknesses.230 (1) Autobiographical data are not reliable and representative. In addition, research into special cases would discourage the quest for universal laws. Proponents reply by saying: case studies yield insight into structures and open the way to the area of interindividual development and influence. (2) Taking one’s point of departure in autobiographical data evokes problems of conceptualization. In the process of research the concepts are regularly adjusted so that it becomes impossible to test them empirically. Proponents say: concepts force the facts into molds. It is better to develop a theory by going back and forth with the material to be examined. (3) The stories people tell about their lives are not accurate: the things people remember keep changing. Proponents say that precisely these changes are important. Research shows that autobiographical data do not distort the hard facts

227

K. Plummer, Documents of Life. An Introduction to the Problem and Literature of a Humanistic Method, London 1983, 13. 228 Also called life history or life story method. 229 See N. Denzin, The Research Act, Englewood Cliffs (NJ) 1989, esp. ch. 8: The Biographical Method, 182-209. 230 See J. Birren & D. Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults, BaltimoreLondon 1991, 124-126.

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but rather the way they are understood and experienced.231 These points of criticism can be overcome if the research observes methodologically the boundaries imposed by the type of research itself and if an attempt is made to look within those boundaries for the depth structures as they light up in concrete cases. In the history of spirituality a great many spiritual autobiographies have been preserved. As a rule they originated in a context of spiritual accompaniment with a view to mystagogical clarification of the spiritual way. Once put in writing, they in turn help others on their search for God. In our time, too, spiritual autobiographies are written in the same way, sometimes spontaneously, at other times in accordance with a well-conceived plan. This is precious material, since it can help us gain insight into the spiritual way people are traveling in our day. In order for us to conduct mystagogical research on a scientific level, we need to build a collection of data that offers adequate insight into the field of tension between autobiography and spiritual autobiography. Technically speaking, we are dealing with case studies.232 In case-study research a person studies one case or a number of cases. The first step is to select a case. Criteria for the determination of the case are: a case is expected to produce a sharp confrontation with existing theories; a case deviates from the normal pattern; a case is one of a kind.233 Once the case has been selected, the collection of data begins, obviously after the person being accompanied has given his or her permission. In case-study research one attempts to obtain information that is as thorough and many-sided as possible, so that the researcher can build up his or her theory from various sources. By way of paradigm we will now sketch five angles of entry for a data collection. “Course-of-life” interview. To give someone a chance to put his or her spirituality into words is not without problems. The respondent has to overcome some real barriers. It is very important, therefore, to find points of entry which enable a person to surmount barriers that have been put up by himself or others. The goal is for a person to tell his or her story unhindered. The respondent herself needs to put it into words that come from her in such a way that they can be followed in the verbatim. Most successful is the interview in which a respondent puts into words something he or she had not expressed or even known before. 231 E. Shaffer, The Autobiography in Secondary Counseling, in: Personnel and Guidance Journal 32 (1954), 395-398; M. Lieberman & J. Falk, The Remembered Past as a Source of Data for Research of the Life Cycle, in: Human Development 14 (1971), 132-141. 232 F. Wester, Strategieën voor kwalitatief onderzoek, Muiderberg 1987; I. Maso, Kwalitatief onderzoek, Meppel-Amsterdam 1987; R. Yin, Case Study Research. Designs and Methods, Newbury Park (CA) etc. 1990; K. Waaijman, Spiritualiteit in het perspectief van interpretatief onderzoek, in: Kerkopbouw en spiritualiteit 2, Nijmegen 1991, 9-21. 233 R. Yin, ibid., 46-49.

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The content of the conversation is the story of a person’s life: memories, one’s experience of the present, expectations and sentiments in the direction of the future. Questions focus especially on special events, mileposts, important persons, because these topics afford the interviewer and interviewee a chance to delve deeper into a certain period in life. In all these episodes the feelings are exceedingly important. The interview is semi-structured, that is: on the one hand, it moves along the line of a person’s life (stages in it, motives, feelings, meanings experienced). On the other, it moves freely and is not directed by pre-formulated questions. Topics can be canvassed at length; underlying motives can be plumbed at some depth, and so forth. The importance of mystagogical research lies especially in the creation of a biographical background, in order thus to be able to interpret the other data more accurately. In addition this “course-of-life” interview will, upon closer analysis, usually prove to contain much spirituality. The method of self-confrontation. A method of mapping out the field of valuations and sentiments is the self-confrontation method of H. Hermans, who bases himself on the concept of the polyphonic self.234 In this connection Hermans is inspired by the Russian literary scholar Mikhait Bakhtin (1929/1973) who in 1929 wrote a pioneering work on Dostoevsky.235 Bakhtin shows that the uniqueness of Dostoevsky’s characters consists in that they represent independent personalities, each with their own outlook on reality. They all lead a life of their own. Dostoevsky as author has as it were withdrawn from the scene. His self resides in the many dialogues between his characters. Hermans views the human self as a landscape in which we occupy different I-positions which interact with each other. The traditional image of personality adheres to a single centralized I that directs, organizes, clarifies the self and keeps it self-contained. Inasmuch as in the case of spiritual writings we are dealing with writings in which the rationally-organized side of the personality is irrelevant, and because in spiritual processes we are dealing with profound changes which are hard to fit into Western rational coherences, it seems advisable to first study in their diversity the different I-positions residing in the landscape of the text, in order only then to subject to further analysis the main axis: divine-human transformation. Hermans views the human personality as an imaginary space. This space is not, as in Descartes, purely inward. We are constantly also in the presence of others and in our environment. The space around us is closely interwoven with the imaginary space we ourselves are. “Our imaginations about people, objects, and situations are side by side and interwoven with the perceptible things and situations we find ourselves in.”236 234

H. Hermans & H. Kempen, The Dialogical Self, San Diego etc. 1993. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Ardis 1973. 236 H. Hermans & H. Kempen, ibid., 166. 235

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This imaginary personality-space is populated with I-positions that are similarly interwoven with perceptible positions. We can depict these I-positions by asking a person what he finds important: the so-called valuations. A valuation is every unit of meaning that represents a positive or neutral value: a precious memory, a beloved person, an unattainable ideal, an intriguing dream, and so forth. Each valuation includes affective connotations: joy, exasperation, sadness, and so forth. The I-positions are dialogically in motion. They are not only related to each other in an abstract sense; on the contrary, the self realizes itself by moving back and forth between the I-positions. There is questioning and answering, agreement and disagreement in this process. “Meaning-making as a dialogical construction presupposes an I that is continuously moving backward and forward between positions.”237 Not all I-positions are equally prominent in this dialogical game. Some positions are neglected or suppressed, others dominate the scene. The dominance of one position results in the secondary role of another position. Some positions are “dormant.” Others have even been “cast out.” The self-confrontation method, like the course-of-life interview, is meant primarily to complete the background story. But here, too, upon further analysis, much spirituality will prove to have come to the fore. Autobiographical writing. J. Birren and D. Deutchman developed a method by which people can write their autobiography and share their writing process with others. Over the years they have tested this method in several groups.238 In approximately ten meetings lasting two hours each the participants write brief autobiographical stories with the aid of the following thematics: the most important nodal points in which the lines in our life come together and from which they branch out; the family in which I was born and grew up; my working life (activities, career, dedication, occupation, calling): money; health and how I relate to my body; the things I like and the things I hate; my sexual identity and my experiences in this connection; sickness, death, and the loss of dear ones; meaning bestowal and ambitions.239 Each thematic is first explored in the group. After that, and at home, each member of the group writes a brief autobiography of about two pages around the thematic discussed. In the following meeting this autobiography is read to the group. In all this the idea is not so much to recall important components but rather to recapture the course of one’s life as a whole, the integration of the different aspects, and the discovery of meaning and direction. A good self-evaluation can draw the real, the ideal, and the 237

Ibid., 168. J. Birren & D. Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults, Baltimore-London 1991. 239 Ibid., 59-79. 238

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social self closer together. The group is accompanied by a group leader who facilitates the interaction between the participants on the different levels.240 Writing a spiritual autobiography. Wakefield developed a similar course – based on years of experience but much less scientific – for writing a spiritual autobiography. Here too the group, optimally consisting of about ten persons, is the real medium of the writing process. In the nature of the case the participants must be willing to write down this story of their life. Age and writing skills are unimportant. What is important is an atmosphere of trust and openness. This has a stimulating and deepening effect. The aim is the ability to integrate the experiences of one’s life by reflection, writing them down, and exchange. Following the gettingacquainted phase the participants are invited to write down the following items. (1) The period of childhood, based on a drawing of the place that was dearest to me in my youth. The question is: did anything happen in my youth that I would now call a spiritual experience? The answer is exchanged in groups of two-by-two persons. (2) The period of adolescence, again based on a drawing of my favorite place. Again a two-by-two exchange of experiences. (3) Friendship. Who helped me? Who was my mentor and guide? With whom did I have a close relationship? Again following the same procedure. (4) Draw a map of your spiritual journey. Based on this drawing, participants write and tell about experiences, changes, and defeats. Under each heading the author offers several examples to indicate the layer of spirituality. The appeal of Birren and Deutchman’s method is that the themes are not age-bound (e.g. to one’s youth or old age). They are themes which embrace the whole of life. In the case of Wakefield, however, the first two themes are agebound, so that the theme of friendship threatens to be relegated to the years of maturity. Finally, it is not clear how the motif of the spiritual way relates to the three preceding themes. Whereas the theme of spiritual experience is expressly broached in connection with the childhood years, this is not the case with adolescence and friendship. This imbalance could have been remedied if the various layers of the process of spiritual transformation had been followed. A first thematic could be: the experiences and awakenings which concern one’s introduction into the creation (existence, being there), experiences of amazement or dread, joy or revulsion with respect to the fact that I exist, but not necessarily or by virtue of my essence, that is: contingently (I could also not have come into existence). A second thematic could be: concentration on moments at which I felt my actual mode of existence was in tension with how I at bottom thought of myself, and especially how the two interacted, haunted by the persistent critical question: is that so-called deepest self in fact my deepest self? Or is it an alien self (an ideal self I had been talked into) which I have interiorized? A third thematic could focus on transformation-in-conformity. Which models invite one to 240

Ibid., 23-43.

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initiation? What kind of appropriation was it: identification, copying, or interiorization? And where did the appropriation take me? A fourth thematic can focus on transformation-in-love. Here one’s autobiographical reflection could focus on experience of love, friendship, surrender, self-loss, receptivity, trust. The final thematic could revolve around death, experiences of infinity, mortality: questions which relate to the manner in which death announced itself in my life history and how that affected me. In this way the autobiographical method would systematically run through the various layers of transformation-in-God. This would yield precious data for a deepened study of lived spirituality. Diary notes. Whereas autobiographical writing occurs in an intersubjective context, the making of diary notes takes place in solitude. The participant is asked to bring up his or her relation to God as sincerely as possible over a whole month and every day. To that end the following assignment is given: take an empty page and write down the word “God” at the top of the page; be quiet for a few minutes and then write down, straight from the heart, the personal text that follows the pre-given word “God.” Of course the participant herself can select the word of address which she inwardly uses for “God.” Following that word, the respondent can go in any direction. “God” can be construed as a vocative. In that case, what follows is a prayer, whereupon the genre of the prayer to be chosen is completely open: to affirm and to doubt, to recognize and deny, bless and curse, to ask questions and tell a story, and so forth. The word “God” can also be construed as a nominative or accusative; for example: “God accompanied me today as I went from one place to another” (…) or “Today I was able to experience God as a power in my life (…).” These sentences are in the indicative, but the field is just as open for conjunctives: “May God help me, ‘cause at the moment things are not going well with me (…).” It must be made very clear to the respondents that the word “God” is intended to call express attention to one’s personal relation to God and invites them to articulate this relation as directly as possible from day to day. Respondents must not look back on the notes of previous days, say to make them more consistent. The uniqueness of diary notes, as we saw, is their currency: to verbalize the experience that is present at the time of writing and to do that each day.

4.3.2. EMPATHETIC UNDERSTANDING Empathetic understanding is a category that was first posited and examined in phenomenology by Husserl and Stein. By Einfühlung they mean a form of cognition by which I, in my own understanding, discover the other as an alter ego, put myself in her shoes and sense how she experiences reality in her own unique way. In his Ideas I, §29, whose title is The Other Ego-subjects and the Intersubjective Natural Surrounding World, E. Husserl states: “All that which holds for me

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myself holds, as I know, for all other human beings whom I find present in my surrounding world. Experiencing them as human beings, I understand and accept each of them as an Ego-subject just as I myself am one, and as related to his natural surrounding world. But I do this in such a way that I take their surrounding world and mind objectively as one and the same world of which we all are conscious, only in different modes.”241 This perception of the other occurs as follows: “We ‘view the mental processes of others’ on the basis of the perception of their outward manifestation in the organism.”242 This living physicality is not immediately given us from within ourselves (primordially) but only as a “self out there.” Hence only empathy is possible: a nonprimordial “beingthere” from the perspective of the other. Empathically I experience the intentional involvement of the other in the world, a world that is also mine, the intersubjective reality we share. In his Cartesian Meditations Husserl thinks through the conditions for the possibility of Einfühlung: the physical body (Körper) is a living body (Leib). I experience the others as subjects who exist in a similar living body as I do and who, through their physicality, experience the same world as I do. In the period when Edmund Husserl further explored the specific cognitive form of Einfühlung, his assistant Edith Stein wrote her thesis Zum Problem der Einfühlung (On the Problem of Empathy).243 In it she remains on the level of phenomenological description, which is designed to make the basic structure of a phenomenon visible, in our case: “the perceiving [Erfahrung] of foreign subjects and their experience [Erleben].”244 1. The phenomenon of empathy Edith Stein starts her description by distinguishing empathy from related phenomena.245 Empathy is not sense perception, for the latter is directed to a thing which, in attentive observation directed by an interpretive interest, unfolds in terms of its inner and outer horizon; in empathy we are dealing with the experience of another I which unfolds her experience from an I-perspective of her

241

E. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, (Trans. F. Kersten), The Hague 1983, 55. 242 Ibid., 6. 243 E. Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, (Trans. W. Stein), The Hague 1964. (Page numbers in the original German edition given in brackets.) 244 Ibid., Foreword (p. v). 245 Ibid., 4-34 (pp. 1-40). An important point of departure and contrast is the theory of Theodor Lipps. For this see A. Fidalgo, Edith Stein, Theodor Lipps und die Einfühlungsproblematik, in: Studien zur Philosophie von Edith Stein (Phänomenologische Forschungen 26/27), Freiburg i.Br-München 1993, 90-106.

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own. Empathy is not sympathy, since Mitgefühl is primarily oriented to the correlate of another’s experience (I rejoice over the source of her joy) whereas empathy is primarily oriented to someone else’s experience (I rejoice over her joy). Empathy is not a feeling of oneness (Einsfühlung), for in the case of the feeling of oneness there is the feeling of being involved in things on the basis of a single “I”; in empathy there is only the perception (Erfahrung) of an experience (Erlebnis) that is interpreted from an alter-ego perspective which can be different from my own. Empathy is not imitation or transference, for in the case of transference an experience is evoked in me by the conduct of another, while empathy relates to an experience that is foreign to me which I try to understand. Empathy is not associational, for in the case of association I see somebody do something (stamping his feet) that I associate with my own experiences (when I am angry I stamp my feet, so he too must be angry); in empathy, however, the acting other is immediately given and experienced without any mediating representation on my part. Nor is empathy reasoning from analogy: I know how a certain “innerness” answers to my “outerness”; so if I see a certain kind of conduct in another, I infer an analogous “innerness.” Empathy, however, sees no “outerness” but an “innerness” expressing itself in “outerness.” After marking off the phenomenon of empathy by differentiating it from other phenomena which come close to it or correspond to it in part, Edith Stein attempts to describe the experience of alter egos and their understanding of it positively.246 Defined in terms of its basic structure, empathy can be understood as follows: in my experience I enter into the experience of an alter ego who is present as a psychosomatic unity that is involved with a reality that is also mine. We will briefly examine the various elements. In my experience I enter into… Phenomenological knowledge is based on experience. This experience is structured intentionally: an experiencing subject is involved with an experienced object. In the case of empathy this involvement has a specific structure: in this case my experience is directed toward the experience of another; the experiential world of another is the object of my experience. In my experience another subject presents himself with his experience. In empathy we turn to this foreign experience which arises in our experience. We permit ourselves to be guided by this foreign experience. The question is: how can a physical body appear in my experience as my own “life world”? Edith Stein’s answer is: by projection. I project myself into the other. For example, as I see someone else’s hand, I project myself into his hand, that is to say: I as it were enter his hand and in so doing feel the sensations of that hand.247 I observe

246 247

E. Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, 35-107 (pp. 40-132). Ibid., 54 (p. 65).

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the lived-through physicality (Leib) of the other as the starting point of orientation within the spatial world as the starting point of life, growth, and consciousness. It is not the case that by this projection I abandon my own starting point of orientation, life, and consciousness. That would be the feeling of oneness. In empathy I keep my primordial orientation, i.e., my being immediately present to my experience, while I at the same time and in a non-primordial way understand the other, i.e., am present to the other in a non-immediate manner. Empathy as a mystagogical form of cognition implies a strict separation between the primordiality of my own experience (I think, I feel, I will, I remember, I expect, and so forth) and the non-primordiality of the experience of the other. Empathy is and remains a “foreign” experience. A change in this structure entails a change in knowing. That can happen in two ways. I can so totally project myself into the other that I lose myself and become one with the primordial experience of the other. Then Einfühlung (empathy) changes into Einsfühlung (oneness of feeling). The second possibility is that I so completely allow the other to take possession of my primordial experience that it is completely suppressed and the primordiality of the other takes its place. Then empathy has become imitation or transference. In the “life world” of an alter ego. The point of departure here is the experience of a psychosomatic individual in my “life world” that is clearly distinguished from a physical thing. “This individual is not given as a physical body, but as a sensitive, living body belonging to an ‘I,’ an ‘I’ that senses, thinks, feels, and wills. The living body of this ‘I’ not only fits into my phenomenal world but is itself the center of orientation of such a phenomenal world. It faces this world and communicates with me.”248 The other distinguishes himself from his physical body because it enters the circle of attentive observation as a thing that unfolds in terms of its inner and outer horizon, directed by my interested interpretation. In the case of the other, however, I am dealing with a self-interpreting reality (“it communicates with me”) and a reality which itself interprets the world (“it faces the world”). In both forms of interpretation (self-interpretation and world-interpretation) the other as “I” is immediately involved. It immediately makes itself felt as “I”: it wills, speaks, and looks. On account of the immediacy of a selfgiving “I,” Edith Stein can say: “I not only know what is expressed in facial expressions and gestures, but also what is hidden behind them. Perhaps I see that someone makes a sad face but is not really sad.”249 That is to say: I not only see facial expressions which invite me to perform an act of interpretation (I spontaneously look for the meaning) but I also see what is expressed in those facial expressions: an alter ego that I cannot interpret, because it simply interprets 248 249

Ibid. 6 (p. 3). Ibid., 6 (p. 4).

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itself and is therefore hidden from my interpretive vantage point. All this by no means implies that the alter go is thereby chained to a certain position. On the contrary: It is wherever the stream of his consciousness leads. It is not attached to a certain temporal-spatial position because the alter ego (like myself ) constitutes “a zero point of orientation.”250 Through all this the alter ego makes itself felt as the starting point of orientation. I see in what direction the other is turning, how he opens or closes himself, how he views me and discloses the world, and so forth. I see the other move, develop, express himself, feel, exert and undergo influences. The alter ego presents himself thus as a center of orientation. That is not to say that there is nothing between the center that orientates and the periphery I actually observe. We will see in a moment that the constitution of the alter ego is articulated and layered. Important for now is only the fact that the lived body (Leib) has its center in an alter ego that reveals itself where the Körper (physical body) presents itself to me as Leib (living body). The alter ego makes itself felt in and through Leiblichkeit (living physicality). It is literally an alter ego: it experiences itself as “I,” just as I experience myself as “I.” Hence the alter ego does not primarily delineate itself as a “you” over against me. In empathy the otherness (being “you”) forms the background against which “selfhood” (being “I”) delineates itself as a unique act-center like mine: alter ego. Empathy systematically chooses the perspective of the alter ego: the selfhood of the other who makes himself known from within an act-center of his own. That is present as a psychosomatic unity. The alter ego is a personal presence that is psychosomatically mediated. In this connection meanings change in accordance with the role which the psychosomatic constitution plays. If I observe someone purely through my senses, his psychosomatic constitution is observed as a physical body (Körper) in the world. However, if I experience the same state of affairs as the being lived-through here and now of an alter ego, I experience lived-through physicality (Leib). If I now experience this lived-through physicality as the element in which the vivacity and character, the energy and intensity, the will and the alterness, the stream of consciousness and experience are gathered up into a unity, then I experience the Leib (living body) as manifestation of the soul (Seele). “We take the soul to be a substantial unity which, entirely analogous to the physical thing, is made up of categorical elements and the sequence of categories.”251 Sensations, moods, expressions of feelings, the will that is manifest in conduct, and so forth, constitute a configuration which, like the physical body, one can categorize. But the moment it is conceived in encounter as the medium of personal presence, its meaning changes and becomes an I. Empathy moves at the point of a continuing reversal of meaning: it observes the physical 250 251

Ibid., 40 (p. 46). Ibid., 37 (p. 43).

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body as a living body, the living body as soul, the soul as person. This empathic mode of looking is, in principle, hermeneutic. I observe the language of the body as soul, for the soul is “incorporated into the whole order of physical and psychic reality.”252 The psychosomatic reality, observed as soul, must at the same time be understood as a configuration of attributes belonging to a purely spiritual subject and persists, moreover, in keeping its own nature in the context of the psychosomatic organization.253 The reality of the alter ego as it unfolds in empathy is a multidimensional reality as mobile and many-sided as the soul.254 The nephesh, after all, points to the outer individuality (flesh = Körper) on the one hand, but on the other mediates the sphere of the personality (I = ‘ani). In between lies the entire area of feelings, moods, vital energies, cognitions, needs, and so forth. Empathy is a form of cognition that observes how the soul, as the existential center of a person’s own being, interiorizes, deepens, and grounds the I and brings it to itself; how this self, through its self-development, pervasively shapes the soul in which the physicality has been incorporated; and how the soul, beyond all self-realization, pursues its self-perfection in the final goal (telos).255 That is involved in a reality that is also mine. In my experience the other appears to me in his or her psychosomatic presence as alter ego. Up until this point we saw especially how this alter ego reveals himself from within himself. In empathy, however, we are not primarily dealing with the alter ego’s relation to me but with his intentional relation to the world. In empathy I understand the alter ego as constituting his own meaning in relation to reality. Just as I myself, in attentive reflection, interpret things in terms of their inner and outer horizon, so the alter ego is an I that unfolds reality from within himself: effectively, cognitively, volitionally, existentially. This unfolding world has not been given me primordially. In a higher degree of empathy “we are ‘at’ the foreign subject and turned with it to its object.”256 However, we do not have to agree with this “turning” to his world. Where this happens empathy changes into sympathy. It is true that I view the empathically co-seen world as also mine. That is to say that in empathy I experience the world as intersubjective. “The world I 252

Ibid., 99 (p. 122). For the human spirit as the foundation of individuality, as the condition of the possibility of contact and as correlate of the mystical union, see P. Secretan, Individuum, Individualität und Individuation nach Edith Stein und Wilhelm Dilthey, in: Studien zur Philosophie von Edith Stein (Phänomenologische Forschungen 26/27), Freiburg i.Br.-München 1993, 148-169. 254 See part 2, ch. 3.1.2. 255 R. Fetz, Ich, Seele, Selbst, Edith Steins Theorie personaler Identität, in: Studien zur Philosophie von Edith Stein (Phänomenologische Forschungen 26/27), Freiburg i. Br.-München 1993, 286-319. 256 E. Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, The Hague, 1964, 12 (p. 11). 253

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glimpse empathically is an existing world, posited as having being like the world primordially perceived. The perceived world and the world given empathically is the same world differently seen.”257 Translated in the direction of mystagogy: for the interpreter the divine reality which is the subject of spiritual autobiography is the same reality as the one in which I am primordially involved. This by no means implies that the interpreter agrees with the way in which this reality unfolds in the experience of the other. Agreement and non-agreement belong in the field of sympathy and antipathy. 2. Empathic interpretation Which hermeneutic is best suited to give shape to the mystagogic empathy as we have described it above? Surveying the history of hermeneutics, we must say that constantly different accents were laid. Some hermeneutics are well-suited for the interpretation of writings as autonomous works; others are good at depicting the learning and teaching communities; some sharpen one’s sensitivity to contextuality and interests invested in texts; others bring to light the intertextuality of a text. Within the field of hermeneutics as a whole those of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Betti, Turner, Bruner and others seem to be best suited. Schleiermacher, for example, distinguishes between the grammatical and the psychological aspect of hermeneutics. The grammatical aspect is object-oriented: it tries to grasp the language, the history, the events, the facts, the relations, and so forth (Körper). The psychological aspect is subject-oriented: it studies language as an expression of personal life (Leib).258 This distinction seems to us useful in the context of mystagogic empathy. Object-focused reconstruction. Grammatical interpretation studies the language used in the expression of it: the general language structures, but also the particular use of language. In the foreground here is the object-content side. If we translate this in the direction of our research project, then the objective-content side is constituted and interpreted from the point of view of the object (specifically from the course-of-life interview and the self-confrontation method). For this aspect of the research it is best to follow the descriptive method explained in chapter 1. Based on this material, what is described is: in what contexts the respondent lived, the more general and the more particular contexts; what forms of exercises were practiced in these contexts; what shifts occurred in relation to the basic inspiration and the self; what forms of prayer and asceticism were 257

Ibid., 59 (pp. 71-72). F. Schleiermacher, Über den Begriff der Hermeneutik mit Bezug auf F.A. Wolfs Andeutungen und Asts Lehrbuch, in: Seminar. Philosophische Hermeneutik, (Ed. H. Gadamer & G. Boehm), Frankfurt a.M. 1976, 131-165. See also A. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics, London 1992, 216-221. 258

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maintained in the exercises in particular; what things emerged with respect to mysticism. Subject-focused interpretation. The most significant part of the research concerns the Erlebnis (experience) which came up in the Ausdruck (expression). This demands from the interpreter the fundamental attitude of the empathetic partner-in-the-discussion. As Schleiermacher rightly comments, just an ordinary conversation can be hermeneutic in this respect. I often make use of hermeneutics in personal conversation when, discontented with the ordinary level of understanding, I wish to explore how my friend has moved from one thought to another or try to trace out the views, judgments, and aspirations which led him to speak about a given subject in just this way and no other.259

For Schleiermacher this self-observation is the reason for recommending to the interpreter the attitude of an emphatic listener. To be specific, however, and to deal with matters which are most similar to the interpretation of written works, I would strongly recommend diligence in interpreting significant conversations. The immediate presence of the speaker, the living expression that proclaims that his whole being is involved, the way the thoughts in a conversation develop from our shared life, such factors stimulate us far more than some solitary observation of an isolated text to understand a series of thoughts as a moment of life which is breaking forth, as one moment set in the context of many others.260

W. Dilthey further develops Schleiermacher’s insights, especially the psychological aspect. A few points are of importance for us here. (1) Our experience (Erlebnis) becomes visible in actions, utterances, documents, and so forth (Ausdruck). We learn to know ourselves via our self-expression: “from how we act, the plans we at one time made for our life, from how we functioned in a given occupation, from old and now-forgotten letters.”261 (2) Because we learn to know ourselves primarily via the detour of Ausdruck (self-expression), Dilthey prefers knowledge obtained from self-expression over introspection. This form of cognition, moreover, is intersubjectively accessible.262 (3) We learn to know the Erlebnis of the other by way of the expressions perceptible in his or her gestures, speech, and action. Learning to know this Erlebnis from the inside is to have a repeat experience which calls for self-projection (empathy). This re-experiencing discovers the life-connectedness on the basis of transposition. “On the basis of 259

F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics. The Handwritten Manuscripts, Missoula (MT) 1977, 181-

182. 260

Idem, 180. W. Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Gesammelte Schriften 7), Stuttgart-Göttingen 1958, 87. 262 W. Dilthey, Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens 1 (Gesammelte Schriften 5), Stuttgart-Göttingen 1957, 318. 261

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this self-projection, this transposition, now arises the supreme mode in which the totality of the life of the soul is operative in understanding: reproduction or re-experiencing.”263 According to Dilthey, insight arises into the meaning-coherence of what an alter ego says at the moment when I can experience anew, from him as the source, what he is saying. At that moment the thing said becomes apprehensible, as it were, from within. According to Schleiermacher this sense, captured in re-experiencing the thing said, only furnishes a “divinatory certainty,” a kind of conjectural certainty. This does not alter the fact that it can be expanded in depth because it is intersubjectively accessible and can be tested. Of decisive importance for the understanding (verstehen) of an experience (Erlebnis) is interest: “If the interest is limited, so is the understanding. How impatiently we listen to many an exposition; we only record what is practically interesting to ourselves, without having an interest in the inner life of the speaker, whereas in other cases we strive hard, with the aid of every facial expression, to penetrate every word to the inner core of the speaker.”264 BIBLIOGRAPHY ALLEN, J., Inner Way. Eastern Christian Spiritual Direction, Grand Rapids (MI) 1994. ANDERS, M., Spiritual Growth, Nashville (TN) 1997. ANDRIESSEN, H., Oorspronkelijk bestaan. Geestelijke begeleiding in onze tijd, Baarn 1996. ANDRIESSEN, H., Spiritualiteit als modern verhaal, Nijmegen 1994. Augustine. Mystic and Mystagogue, (Ed. F. Van Fleteren et al.), New York 1994. Die Autobiographie. Zu Form und Geschichte einer literarischen Gattung, (Ed. G. Niggl), Darmstadt 1989. BACIK, J., Apologetics and the Eclipse of Mystery. Mystagogy According to Karl Rahner, Notre Dame (IN) 1980. BARRY, W., Spiritual Direction and the Encounter with God. A Theological Inquiry, Mahwah (NJ) 1992. BAUMBACH, G., Experiencing Mystagogy. The Sacred Pause of Easter, New York 1996. BERK, T. VAN DEN, Mystagogie. Inwijding in het symbolisch bewustzijn, Zoetermeer 1999. Biographisches Wissen. Beiträge zu einer Theorie lebensgeschichtlicher Erfahrung, (Ed. P. Alheit & E. Hoerning), Frankfurt a.M. 1989. BIRREN, J. & DEUTCHMAN, D., Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults, Baltimore-London 1991. BRETON, J., Pour trouver sa voie spirituelle, Saint-Laurent (Quebec) 1992. CALDWELL, J., Intimacy with God. Christian Disciplines for Spiritual Growth, Joplin (MO) 1992. 263 264

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STEERE, D., Spiritual Presence in Psychotherapy. A Guide for Caregivers, New York 1997. STEIN, E., Zum Problem der Einfühlung, München 1980. English edition: On the Problem of Empathy, (Trans. W. Stein), The Hague 1964. STROH-BECVAR, D., Soul Healing. A Spiritual Orientation in Counseling and Therapy, New York 1997. Studien zur Philosophie von Edith Stein, (Ed. R. Fetz), Freiburg i.Br.-München 1993. The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, (Trans. & Ed. E. Allison Peers), London-New York 1950. THÉRÈSE DE L’ENFANT-JÉSUS, Œuvres complètes, Paris 1992. Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, (Ed. L.Byrne), London 1990. Unbounded Light. The Inward Journey. 15 Tales of the Inner Light from Ancient Scriptures, First Person Accounts, and Modern Science, (Ed. W. Williams), York Beach (ME) 1992. VALANTASIS, R., Third Century Spiritual Guides. A Semiotic Study of the Guide-Disciple Relationship in Christianity, Neoplotinism, Hermetism and Gnosticism, Ann Arbor (MI) 1991. VAUGHAN, F., The Inward Arc. Healing in Psychotherapy and Spirituality, Nevada City (CA) 19952. WAGNER, R., Mystik und Mystagogie in der Theologie K. Rahners. Die ‘mystische’ Dimension des ‘übernatürlichen Existenzials,’ München 1985. WELZEN, H., Maak mijn ogen nieuw (Ps.119:18). Bibliodrama en exegese, WarnsveldZeist 1997. Wer schreibt meine Lebensgeschichte? Biographie, Autobiographie, Hagiographie und ihre Entstehungszusammmenhänge, (Ed. W. Sparn), Gütersloh 1990. WOLLBOLD, A., Therese von Lisieux. Eine mystagogische Deutung ihrer Biographie, Würzburg 1994. YIN, R., Case Study Research. Designs and Methods, Newbury Park etc. 1989. YUNGBLUT, J., The Gentle Art of Spiritual Guidance, Rockport-Shaftesbury 1991.

INDICES 1. ABBREVIATIONS BIS BK

CCCM CCSG CCSL CSEL DESp DIP DSL DSp

DVSp EJ EncRel(E) EWNT GCS

HALAT

Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis / Pontificium Institutum Spiritualitatis O.C.D., Milano, 1969-.... Biblischer Kommentar Altes Testament / begründet von Martin Noth; herausgegeben von Siegfried Herrmann und Hans Walter Wolff, NeukirchenVluyn, 1955-.... Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, Turnholti, 1966-.... Corpus Christianorum. Series Graeca, Turnholti, 1977-.... Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, Turnholti, 1953-.... Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum / editum consilio et impensis Academiae Litterarum Caesareae Vindobonensis, Vindobonae, 1866-.... Dizionario Enciclopedico di Spiritualità / a cura di Ermanno Ancilli e del Pontificio Istituto di Spiritualità del Teresianum, Roma, 19922, 3 vols. Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione / diretto da Guerrino Pelliccia e da Giancarlo Rocca, Roma, 1973. Dizionario di Spiritualità dei Laici / diretto da Ermanno Ancilli (O.C.D.), Milano, 1981, 2 vols. Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique. Doctrine et Histoire / publié sous la direction de Marcel Viller (S.J.); Ferdinand Cavallera; Joseph de Guibert (S.J.); continué par André Derville, Paul Lamarche et Aimé Solignac; avec le concours d'un grand nombre de collaborateurs, Paris, 19321995, 17 vols. Dictionnaire de Vie Spirituelle / sous la direction de Stefano De Fiores et Tullo Goffi; adaptation française François Vial, Paris, 1983. Encyclopaedia Judaica / editor in chief: Cecil Roth, Jerusalem, 1971-1972, 16 vols. The Encyclopedia of Religion / editor in chief: Mircea Eliade; editors: Charles J. Adams et al., New York (etc.), 1987, 16 vols. Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament / herausgegeben von Horst Balz und Gerhard Schneider, Stuttgart (etc.), 1978-1983, 3 vols. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte / herausgegeben von der Kirchenväter-Commission der königl. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Leipzig, 1897-...., (I (1897) - ... ; Neue Folge, Bd. 1 (1995) - ....). Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum alten Testament / von Ludwig Koehler und Walter Baumgartner, 3. Aufl. / neu bearb. von Walter Baumgartner et al.; unter Mitarb. von Benedikt Hartmann et al., Leiden, 19671996, 5 vols. + Suppl.

948 LeSp LThK

NDCSp PG PL SC THAT

ThDOT

ThLOT TWAT

TWNT

WS ZAW

INDICES Lectio Spiritualis, Freiburg i.Br., 1958-.... Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche / begr. von Michael Buchberger, 3., völlig neu bearb. Aufl. / herausgegeben von Walter Kasper mit Konrad Baumgartner et al., Freiburg (etc.), 1993-.... The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality / editor Michael Downey, Collegeville (MN), 1993. Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca / accurante Jean-Paul Migne, Paris, 1857-..... - 161 vols., with 1 vol. Indices. Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina / accurante Jean-Paul Migne, Paris, 1844-1890, 221 vols. + 5 vols. Suppl., 1958-1974. Sources Chrétiennes / collection dirigée de Henri de Lubac et al., Paris, 1941.... Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum Alten Testament / herausgegeben von Ernst Jenni; unter Mitarb. von Claus Westermann, München (etc.), 197819792, 2 vols. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament / edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren ; translated by John T. Willis, Grand Rapids (MI), 1974-…. Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament / edited by Ernst Jenni, Claus Westermann ; translated by Mark E. Biddle, Peabody (MA), 1997, 3 vols. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament / in Verbindung mit George W. Anderson et al.; herausgegeben von G. Johannes Botterweck et al., Stuttgart (etc.), 1970-..... Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament / herausgegeben von Gerhard Kittel; fortgesetzt von Gerhard Friedrich, Stuttgart, 1933-1978, 10 vols. World Spirituality. An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest / general editor Ewert Cousins, London, New York, 1986-.... Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Giessen (etc.), 1881-...., (Jg. 1 (1881) - Jg. 41 (1923) ; Neue Folge, Bd. 1 (1924) - 36 (1965) = Jg. 42 (1924) / Jg. 78 (1966) - ....).

INDICES

949

2. NAME INDEX The name index contains only those names of persons, places and writings, that are of importance from the perspective of the study of spirituality. Not included are the names in the footnotes and in the bibliographies at the end of each chapter. Aaron, 453, 604, 618-619, 790 Abraham, 65, 77, 86, 104-106,149, 287288, 329, 452, 602, 638, 668, 699, 721, 758 Abraham, abbas, 676 Abulafia, 851 Acts, 152, 200, 361, 606-608, 902 Albert of Avogrado, 157-160 Albert of Jerusalem, 158, 611, 658 Albert the Great, 375, 397, 800 Albertz, R., 13, 20 Al-Ghazali, 373-374, 397, 851, 858 Al-Hallai, 841 Al-Khidr, 699 Alphonsus of Liguori, 825 Alumbrado, 625 Ambrose, 369, 451, 641, 712, 800, 855 Ammoe, abba, 890 Amos, 199 Ancilli, 853 Anselm of Canterbury, 397, 800 Anthony, 266, 298, 340, 602, 781, 801802, 876-877 Apocryphon of John, 335 Aristotle, 397, 400, 429, 518-522, 524526, 530-532, 582 Arsenius, abbas, 876 Athanasius, 451, 488, 781 Augustine, 41, 117-118, 152-153, 173, 185, 200, 298, 326, 359, 369, 451, 667, 712, 727-728, 738, 787, 789, 808-810, 812, 825-826, 851, 855, 858, 895-898, 925, 927-928 Avot, 709, 779-781, 789, 791, 793 Aziz al-Din Nasafi, 300 Baal Shem Tov, 670, 672-673, 680, 879

Babylonia, 179, 261, 264, 631-632, 640, 717 Baconthorpe, J., 612 Bailly, P., 827 Bakhtin, M., 931 Balthasar, H. Urs von, 394, 584, 854 Bardy, G., 641-642 Barth, K., 394 Baruzi, J., 404 Basil the Great, 153, 173, 340, 669, 781782, 800 Beatrix of Nazaret, 676, 678, 681, 845 Becker, C., 827 Beda, 800 Benares, 127, 129 Benedict of Nursia, 171-173, 340, 505, 782, 788, 826 Benner Carson, V., 97 Berengarius of Tours, 362 Bergson, H., 398, 430, 846 Bernard, C., 119 Bernard of Clairvaux, 118, 180, 298, 397, 411, 484, 489, 495-497, 505, 800, 825-826, 845, 851, 855 Bérulle, Pierre de, 825, 846 Bhagavadgita, 850 Birren, J., 932-933 Blondel, M., 846 Boer, Th. de, 844 Bonaventure, 130, 133, 346, 349, 359, 375, 397, 789, 794-795, 797-799, 825, 858 Bonhoeffer, D., 256-259, 619, 656 Boniface, 171 Books of Kings, 196, 602, 620, 711 Bossuet, J., 356, 393 Bouyer, L., 386, 394, 406-407, 854 Brandsma, Titus, 614-617, 619-620, 926

950 Bruner, E., 661, 940 Bruno, G., 397 Bruno, Père, 415 Buber, M., 47, 73-74, 81-85, 213, 411, 429-430, 432, 535, 548-550, 552553, 557-558, 559, 581, 753-754, 784, 860-863, 865-867, 884, 927928 Buddha, 11, 124, 126-127, 129-130, 261, 292, 322, 412, 433, 463, 603, 700702, 777, 850, 875 Bultmann, R., 741 Busch, J., 46 Buytendijk, F., 535, 566 Canaan, 20, 62-64, 103, 141, 215, 217, 249-250, 432-433, 628, 653 Casaldaliga, P., 388 Cassian, 265, 319, 415, 484, 489, 492, 495-496, 501, 505, 511, 513, 529, 608-610, 618-620, 633, 649, 663, 668, 695, 781-782, 800, 801, 825 Cassiodorus, 152 Catherine of Genua, 685, 825 Catherine of Siena, 825, 895, 905-906 Cele, J., 46 Certeau, M. de, 387, 408, 651 Christ, 13, 16, 21-22, 26, 45-46, 53, 72, 90, 92-97, 101, 106-108, 123, 125126, 131, 134, 143-146, 153, 159160, 173, 175, 177, 179-180, 184, 186-188, 190-191, 218, 228, 247248, 253-259, 261, 264-266, 276, 278, 281-284, 291, 295-298, 322, 326, 329-330, 333, 339-340, 343, 348-349, 361, 381-383, 385, 388, 393, 395, 438, 442, 443, 463-467, 476-477, 489, 493-494, 497, 583585, 588, 602-603, 606-608, 611, 618-620, 623, 626, 643, 655, 657, 694-695, 697, 735, 744, 747, 754, 782, 787, 799, 806-807, 819, 840, 842, 845-855, 871, 882-883, 895, 899-908, 910

INDICES Chrysostom, 45, 826 Chuang Tzu, 134-136 Citeaux, 118, 623 Clement of Alexandria, 369, 399, 695 Cloud of Unknowing, 400, 470, 854 Cluny, 122, 152, 173, 180, 623 Cohen, H., 548 Coles, R., 55 Confessions, 738, 808-809, 895, 897-898, 925, 927 Confucius, 322 Congar, Y., 12-13 Cyprian, 326, 603 Cyril of Jerusalem, 870-872 Cyril of Philéa, 643 Dan, J., 407, 408, 410, 627 Daniel, 276, 278 Dante, 899 Daqúqí, 719 Darrican, R., 827 David, 16, 20, 180-181, 199, 237-239, 247, 264, 293, 329-330, 433, 444, 492, 494, 509, 602, 759 David of Augsburg, 133, 371, 461 De Triplici Via, 130, 375, 789, 794 Deborah, 626-628 Delbrel, M., 619 Derrida, J., 734, 747 Derville, A., 827 Descartes, R., 206, 397, 429, 582, 931 Deutchman, D., 932-933 Deutero-Isaiah, 605 Deuteronomy, 93-94, 179-180, 183, 453, 502, 717 Dialogue, 895, 905-907 Dictionnaire de la Vie Spirituelle, 2, 619, 830-832, 839, 847 Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, 2, 233, 363, 369, 386, 602, 618, 622, 641, 825827, 830, 833, 840, 845 Didache, 493 Dijk, W. van, 827 Dilthey, W., 540, 567, 661, 739, 747, 749, 922, 925, 929, 940-942

INDICES

951

Dionysius the Areopagite, 132-133, 355356, 374-375, 400, 678, 681, 754, 789, 795, 800, 808, 812-816, 825826, 845, 851, 854 Dizionario di Spiritualità dei Laici, 19, 26, 61 Dizionario Enciclopedico di Spiritualità, 852 Dominic, 180 Dostoyevski, F., 247, 415, 931 Duns Scotus, 397, 854 Dupré, L., 849-852 Duval, A., 827

Fénélon, F., 393 Fessard, G., 485 Fiores, S. de, 654 Fisher, B., 35 Fortunato, J., 219 Foucauld, Charles de, 117, 619 Foucault, M., 580 Francis de Sales, 117, 346, 825, 846, 927 Francis of Assisi, 180, 213, 215, 247, 298, 415, 825 Francis’s Ode to the Sun, 213 Freud, S., 2, 415, 586 Frohlich, M., 456

Ebner, F., 535, 548 Ecclesiastes, 439, 442, 722 Edom, 261, 626, 633, 717, Egypt, 16, 20, 62-63, 107, 142, 167, 214215, 217, 219-221, 250, 261, 317, 432-433, 508, 608, 626, 628, 634638, 661, 717, 794 Ehrenberg, H., 548 Elazar, rabbi, 709 Eleazar, rabbi, 278, 280, 791 Eliade, M., 398 Eliezer, rabbi, 780, 791 Elijah, 157, 197-199, 213, 216, 248-252, 266, 295, 317, 433, 440, 602, 604606, 611-614, 618-621, 630-631, 699 Eliot, T., 407 Elisha, 197-199, 250, 440, 604-605, 611612 Elizabeth of Thüringen, 825 Ephraim, 627-628, 717 Epiphanius of Cyprus, 876 Erasmus, 22, 247, 393 Erikson, E., 586 Essenes, 323 Études Carmelitaines, 415 Eusebius of Caesarea 265 Eusebius of Vercelli, 153 Evagrius of Pontus, 489 Ezekiel, 197, 452-454, 711 Ezra, 632, 692, 759

Gadamer, H., 575, 740, 747, 770, 925 Gamaliel, 692, 791 Gardeil, P., 848 Garrigou-Lagrange, R., 394, 848 Geertz, C., 661 Genesis, 44, 62-65, 73-76, 103-104, 435, 549 Gennep, A. van, 214 Gerson, J., 800, 850, 852, 855 Gogarten, F., 548 Golden Epistle, 845 Goldmann, N., 286 Gospel of John, 107-108, 583, 655 Grabmann, M., 414 Gregoire, R., 827 Gregory of Nazianze, 428, 800, 826 Gregory of Nyssa, 132, 355, 400, 473, 724, 825, 851, 854 Gregory the Great, 349, 370, 825, 845 Grignon de Montfort, 117 Grijs, F. de, 645 Grinberg, U., 286 Grisebach, E., 535, 548 Grözinger, K., 407 Grondin, J., 747 Grote, Geert, 45, 184-186, 411 Grou, J., 826 Grünwald, J., 407 Guardini, R., 138 Guibert, J. de, 119-120

952 Guigo II, 696, 702-706, 708-709, 722-724 Gunkel, H., 412, 451, 566 Guyon, Madame, 393 Hadewijch, 845, 855 Hammarskjöld, D., 269-271, 927-928 Hausherr, I., 642-643, 888 Îayyim Volozhiner, rabbi, 767 Hegel, G., 350, 397, 429, 582, 748 Heidegger, M., 314, 350, 398-399, 428-429, 535, 540-541, 566, 582, 585-586 Heiler, Fr., 403 Heine, H., 434 Hermans, H., 416, 931 Herp, H., 800, 825 Hilary of Poitiers, 641, 825 Hildegard of Bingen, 208, 855 Hillel, rabbi, 790-792 Hillesum, E., 927 Hippolytus of Rome, 825 Honorius Augustodunensis, 786 Horeb, 604-605 Hosea, 196, 198, 247 Hügel, F. von, 403-404, 846, 857 Hugo of Balma, 133 Hugo of St.Victor, 397, 800, 825 Hujwiri, 154, 157 Husayn, 277 Husserl, E., 11, 535-536, 538-539, 542, 545-547, 567, 656-657, 661, 739, 744, 747, 768, 934-935 Ibn (al-)Arabi, 300, 851 Idel, M., 407 Ignatius of Antioch, 493 Ignatius of Loyola, 298, 344, 484-485, 495, 497, 585, 589, 800, 825-826, 887-888 In Paradisum, 108 Inge, W., 403 Interior Castle, 359, 571, 891 Irenaeus of Lyon, 825 Isaac, 63, 65, 103, 106, 287-288, 602 Isaac the Blind, 726

INDICES Isaiah, 66, 199, 247, 263, 438-439, 457458, 493, 638-639, 711, 871 Isan-el-haqar, 646 Iser, W., 741 Isidore of Seville, 782, 786, 788 Israel, 15-16, 20, 76, 107, 139-142, 167, 170, 179-180, 182, 196, 198, 213, 219, 236-237, 249-252, 263, 266, 276, 284, 291-296, 316, 321-3212, 433-434, 447-448, 452-453, 457-458, 463, 486, 494, 501-502, 604-605, 620, 626-628, 630-631, 634, 636639, 661-662, 717, 720, 744, 751, 756-758, 779-780, 793, 852, 880 Jabnia, 791 Jacik, M., 99 Jacob, 29, 63-65, 86-87, 103, 106, 287, 457, 602, 635, 638, 724 Jacopone da Todi, 247 James, W., 415, 850-851, 857 Jaspers, K., 398, 430 Jean de Jésus-Marie, 799 Jean de Saint-Samson, 411, 613, 678, 872 Jechiel Michal of Sloksov, rabbi, 680 Jeremiah, 196, 199, 213, 247, 458, 463, 638, 711 Jerome, 108, 708, 782 Jerusalem, 20, 66, 82, 94-95, 108, 158, 159, 167, 174, 180-182, 185, 200, 236-239, 252, 254, 261-264, 293295, 297, 329, 433, 603, 611, 631633, 636-637, 639, 642, 657, 719, 758-759, 790, 902 Jesus, see Christ Jesus Sirach, 97, 450-451, 602-606, 618619, 692, 710, 925 Jezebel, 247, 249-250, 629-631 Joachim de Fiore, 825 Joan of Arc, 222-226 Job, 90-92, 327, 437-439, 487, 494, 509, 722, 747 Joel, 639, 720 Joezer, rabbi, 790 Johanan son of Zakkai, rabbi, 790-791

INDICES Johann Tauler, 680 John Climacus, 826 John of the Cross, 180, 234-236, 239-240, 242, 344, 400, 404, 411, 428, 447, 455, 462, 469, 474-479, 676-677, 685-686, 800, 826, 847, 873, 891, 895, 911-921 John the Evangelist, 125, 295-297, 317, 412, 753, 850, 854 John’s Revelation, 747 Jose, rabbi, 790-791 Josiah, 179-180, 183, 199 Joseph, abbas, 649 Joshua, 711, 790-791 Judah, 62, 64, 196-197, 199, 294, 607, 628, 634-636, 639, 662, 717 Julian of Norwich, 855 Jung, C., 334 Jungmann, J., 139 Kant, I., 11, 350, 429 Khwaya Mir Dard, 332 Kierkegaard, S., 247, 350, 398, 412, 581 King, M.L., 619 Kotsker, rabbi, 671 Kraus, H., 412 Krebs, E., 414 Krishnamurti, 114 Lamentations, 262-263, 633 Lao Tsu, 133-134, 136, 322 Le Gaudier, A., 379-380 Leclercq, J., 406 Leibnitz, G., 429, 582 Leontius of Neapolis, 252 Letter to the Galatians, 477, 902-903 Levinas, E., 68, 70, 81, 285, 401, 429, 432, 433, 517, 536, 548-549, 551, 553, 566, 570, 576-577, 581, 656, 659, 731, 755, 763, 767, 769-770 Life of Anthony, 488 Life of Moses, 132 Living Flame of Love, 475, 911 Louis de Blois, 800 Luke, 201, 292, 324, 606-608, 618-620

953 Lumen gentium, 845 Luria, Isaac, 291, 623, 656 Luther, M., 349, 657, 825 McGinn, B., 456 Maggid of Mezzeritch, 672, 680-681 Magnificat, 213, 215 Maimonides, 373-374, 397, 674, 858 Makarios, 269, 825, 887 Malachi, 605 Marcel, G., 535, 548, 551-552 Maréchal, J., 415 Marie de l’Incarnation, 826 Marie-Michelle du Saint-Sacrament, 624 Marillac, L. de, 160, 806 Maritain, J., 848 Martyrdom of Polycarp, 281, 283-284 Mary, 26, 213, 296, 382, 612, 620, 623, 697 Mecca, 148-149, 697 Meir ben Salom Abi-Sahula, 353 Meister Eckhart, 22, 33, 326, 397, 399400, 411-412, 429, 459, 472, 687, 786, 789, 808, 817-818, 820-822, 825, 854 Merleau-Ponty, M., 582 Merton, Th., 404, 855, 895, 898-902, 927 Meynard, A., 381 Micah, 213, 247, 629 Michels, G., 827 Miriam, 219, 222, 433 Misch, G., 922 Mohammed, 11, 126, 147, 149, 154, 277, 301, 322, 327, 331, 458, 463, 603, 697, 703, 878 Moioli, G., 847-849, 858 Molinos, M. de, 825 Monica, 810 Monnikhuizen, 184 Monte Cassino, 173 More, Th., 195-196, 200, 202 Moses, 16, 30, 140, 179, 196, 217, 219, 238, 248, 317, 321-322, 353, 355, 432, 452-453, 560, 604, 628, 681682, 699, 711, 717, 721, 790-792, 801, 813, 815, 854, 877

954 Moses de Leon, 693 Moses of Kobrin, 671 Mount Carmel, 157, 611-613, 630, 658 Mount St. Agnes, 186 Muzdalifah, 149 Nachman of Brazlaw, rabbi, 656 Naess, A., 208 Nehemiah, 619, 632, 759 Neher, A., 286 Ness, P. van, 399 New Testament, 131, 355, 445, 476, 694, 842, 848, 852, 854 Nicolas of Cues, 397 Nicomachean Ethics, 517-518, 521, 524525, 533 Nietzsche, F., 398-399, 401, 434 Nightingale, F., 98-99 Nijhoff, M., 734, 736-738 Noah, 329, 452, 462 Noye, I., 827 Ons Geestelijk Erf, 828 Origen, 132, 298, 355, 369, 461, 488, 511, 695, 825, 851, 854 Ostia, 810 Otto, R., 398 Pachomius, 151, 173, 340, 781-782, 786, 876 Palamas, 825 Palestine, 261, 266, 611, 657 Pali-canon, 325 Palladius, 247 Parmenides, 582 Pascal, B., 213, 399 Patanjali, 341 Paul, 132, 215, 227, 247, 298, 315, 329330, 362, 415, 431, 445, 460, 463466, 471, 477-478, 493, 608, 740, 812, 850, 853-854, 895, 902-905 Paul of the Cross, 826 Paulinus, 641 Peter Damian, 825 Philip Neri, 624

INDICES Philippe de la Trinité, 376 Philistea, 247, 251, 636-637, 717 Philo, 451, 695, 825 Pinchas, rabbi, 673 Pius X, 139 Plato, 130-131, 195, 200, 355, 397, 400, 429, 695, 732 Plotinus, 397 Polycarp, 281-284, 298 Poulain, A., 414, 674, 846-847, 849, 855 Pourrat, P., 363, 406-407, 644-645 Praise of the Fathers, 603, 605 Pro Theologia Mystica Clavis, 789, 799 Przywara, E., 485 Rachel, 29, 64, 65, 103, 602 Rahner, K., 386, 485, 584-586, 855, 870 Rayez, A., 827 Reden der Unterweisung, 786 Richard of St. Victor, 825 Ricoeur, P., 747, 749, 768 Ritziner, rabbi, 671 Rizzuto, A., 35, 429 Rome, 101, 222, 289, 345, 363 613, 614, 623, 642, 827-828, 900 Rosenstock-Huessy, E., 535, 548 Rosenzweig, F., 535, 548, 551, 763-764, 783-784 Rufius, 247 Rumi, 28, 148, 300, 301, 466, 470, 669, 719, 722, 851, 892 Ruusbroec, 22, 397, 411, 466, 473, 800, 825 Sabbatai Zwi, 408, 851 Salle, Jean Baptiste de la, 52-54 Solomon, 199, 509, 602, 619, 632 Samuel, 602, 604, 780 Sandaeus, 789, 799, 800 Sarah, 64-65, 86, 103-106, 432, 602 Saudreau, A., 363, 674, 846-847, 849 Scala Claustralium, 696 Scaramelli, G., 379, 380 Scheler, M., 398, 412, 535, 567 Schillebeeckx, E., 771

INDICES Schimmel, A., 826, 855 Schleiermacher, F., 350, 394, 548, 573574, 738-739, 747-748, 922, 925, 940-942 Schmitt, C., 827 Schneiders, S., 307, 308, 404, 455 Scholem, G., 405, 407, 411, 763, 826, 852, 855 Schorrer, C., 378 Scotus Eriugena, 825 Sefer Chassidim, 324 Sefer ha-Pardes, 693 Sefer Yetsira, 464 Sellner, E., 19 Serapion, abbas, 886 Sermon on the Mount, 179, 256, 257, 663 Severinus, 642 Shammai, rabbi, 790-792 Shema, 780 Shemaiah, rabbi, 790-791 Shepherd of Hermas, 326, 488, 493 Shetach, rabbi, 790 Shir ha-Yehud, 411 Simeon, rabbi, 77-8, 620, 790-791 Simeon the Elder, 261 Sinai, 74, 131-132, 140, 235, 321, 355, 452-453, 604-605, 627, 790, 813, 854 Sobrino, J., 278 Socrates, 399 Sölle, D., 226-231, 428 Solesmes, 152 Solignac, A., 369, 827 Song of Songs, 253, 443, 761, 763, 799 Spinoza, B. de, 397, 429, 582 Steffensky, F., 228 Steggink, O., 616 Stein, E., 298, 535, 934-938 Steiner, G., 746 Stiernon, D., 827 Stolz, A., 414 Story of a Soul, 118, 738 Suarez, F., 120 Sundén, H., 416

955 Surin, J., 356 Suso, 22, 466, 825 Sutter, A. de, 858 Symeon the Fool, 252-255 Tabor, 132, 628 Taizé, 623 Tanquerey, A., 382, 394 Tao Te Ching, 133 Tauler, J., 22, 800, 825 Teilhard de Chardin, P., 209, 619, 654 Teresa of Avila, 180, 298, 331, 344, 359, 408, 411, 415, 571-572, 613, 676, 678, 680, 738, 800, 825, 846-847, 855, 858, 872, 891, 927 Tertullian, 451, 826 Theologia Mystica, 133, 374-375, 754, 799, 812, 815 Therese of Lisieux, 118, 244, 408, 738, 825-826, 854, 895, 907-911, 928 Thomas a Kempis, 186-187 Thomas Aquinas, 371, 393, 505, 675, 825 Thomas Gallus, 133, 375-376 Truhlar, K., 385-386, 388 Tsafad, 291, 623, 656 Turner, D., 400 Turner, V., 214, 421, 423, 661, 940 Underhill, E., 403, 846, 855, 857 Upanishads, 850 Urubshurow, V., 660 Utopia, 195-196, 200-204 Vandenbroucke, F., 406 Vasse, D., 416 Viller, M., 827 Vincent de Paul, 90, 96, 98, 117, 160164, 663-664, 667, 789, 801, 803808, 825 Waelhens, A. de, 541 Weber, M., 421 Westermann, C., 436 Wiesel, E., 285, 287-289

956 William of St.Thierry, 180, 370, 465, 512, 644, 666-667, 707, 726-727, 825826, 845, 851 Willibrord, 171 Windesheim, 185 Wiseman, J., 854-855 Wit, H. de, 417 Wolff, H., 11, 436 Wollbold, A., 585-586, 928 World Spirituality, 2-6, 23, 126, 308, 315, 403, 406-407, 430, 826

INDICES Wulf, F., 386 Wyschogrod, E., 659 Zahn, J., 415 Zion, 65, 108, 142, 182, 236-237, 293, 295, 449, 631-632, 636-638, 662, 717, 719, 725, 758 Zohar, 77, 85, 693, 704, 706-708, 851 Zoroaster, 291, 433 Zweerman, Th., 398

INDICES

957

3. SUBJECT INDEX The subject index contains the most important subjects of lived spirituality and of the study of spirituality. The selection of themes started from the notion ‘spirituality’, which, in accordance with the central field of tension lived spirituality – study of spirituality, goes in two directions: (1) lived spirituality, with its main categories: forms of spirituality, basic words, Divine-human relational process, transformation, model of transformation, process of transformation, discernment and spiritual accompaniment; (2) study of spirituality, with its main categories: intradisciplinary perspectives, interdisciplinary perspectives, methodology, research methods, scientific tools. Subsequently these themes were ordered alphabetically. For a discussion of the problems of systematization see part 3, chapter 3.3. Abba, 326, 330, 428, 510, 853, 905 see also: My Mighty One Abbas, 268-269, 835 Abhidharma, 777-779 Absentee, 724-725, 754-756, 760-761, 818-820, 850, 898-902, 907-911 Absolute, 1, 320, 385-386, 434, 833, 845, 850, 853 Accompanist, 874-886, 890-894, 911-920 Action (praxis), 518-534, 595 Active Congregations, 46, 623, 658, 662665, 667 Adam, 65, 73-77, 331, 439, 447, 462, 478, 494, 821 Adam Qadmon, 851 Address, Word of, 143-144, 197-199, 223226, 248-249, 583-584, 838-839 see also: Word Adumbration of God, 447-448 Affectivity, 65, 81-83, 348-349, 355-356, 369, 715 Allah, 146, 154, 156, 299, 428-429, 670, 699, 707 Alterity, 69-71, 80-81, 159-160, 417-418, 535-536, 545-551, 554-555, 577, 664-665, 754-755, 769, 845, 848849, 910-911, 934-940 Alternative Spirituality, 196 Ambiguity, 555, 557 Anachoresis, 265, 340, 876-877 Annihilation, 127-129, 157, 339, 680681, 701, 878-879, 913

Anointings of the Spirit, 912, 914-915 Anthropocentrism, 204-206, 435-436 Apophatic mysticism, 812-817 Application, 769-771 Appropriation, 416, 421, 465-466, 662667, 766-771 Aquarius, 195, 658 Argumentation, 843-860 Art, 167, 175-178, 833, 843 Articulation, 793-794 Ascent, 813-814 Ascetic Theology, 378-380 Asceticism, 126-127, 264-265, 338-343, 399-400, 674-675 see also: Appropriation; Exercise of Virtue; Prayer Aspect (Abschattung), 537-540 Atheistic Perspective, 428, 432-434 Attached (debekut), 78 Attitude (hexis), 164-165, 523, 525-526, 531-532, 624 Augustinian, 117-118 Awakening, 333-334, 385, 458-459, 584, 766-768 Awe, see: Fear of God Awed respect, 176-177, 208-209, 348 see also: Fear of God Awesome, 364 Baal, 140, 247, 249-252, 294, 757 Babylonian Exile, 20-21, 261-264, 434435, 631-633, 638-640, 691-692

958 Basic Inspiration, 120, 285, 294, 380-381, 420-421, 623-624, 647 Basic Words, 313-365, 540-541, 799-801 Beauty, 346, 429 Becoming Through My Relation to You, 551-552, 577 Be-er, 16, 51, 62, 64-68, 89, 92, 123, 140142, 169-171, 179-183, 197-200, 217-222, 236-239, 247-252, 262264, 266, 293-295, 318, 322, 430446, 449-450, 452-454, 457-458, 463, 486, 493-494, 502, 509-510, 604-606, 620, 626-640, 650, 653, 662, 677, 715-721, 754-755, 757760, 904 Beguines, 184 Being Tested, 508-510 Being Touched, 87-89, 174, 177, 726-727 Benedictines, 117, 122, 171-174, 505 Bibliography, 841-843 Bio-bibliography, 825-827 Birth, 25, 28-31, 34-35 Black Spirituality, 218 Body Work, 28-29 Breakthrough, 32 Breathing, 341, 440 Brethren of the Common Life, 786 Buddhist Spirituality, 12, 72, 102, 124, 126-130, 134, 292, 325, 429, 603, 669, 700-702, 777-779 Burial, 101-115 Calling, 98-99, 271-272, 588-589 Carmelite Rule, 158-159, 180, 505-506, 664, 668, 787 Carmelites, 8, 157-160, 248-252, 266, 611-614, 617-619, 628, 658, 664, 677, 782-783 Category, 580-581, 799-801, 816-817, 830-843 Cell, 159, 267-268, 876-877 Cenobits, 151-152, 340 Chapter, 782-783 Charismatic, 833 Charity, 83-84, 90, 318-319, 371

INDICES Christian Spirituality, 15-16, 101-102, 120-122, 343-344, 602-603, 845-849 Church, 1, 11, 72, 131, 153, 184, 191, 256-257, 589, 615, 807, 833-834, 836, 838, 891, 903 Cistercians, 118, 184 City, 65-68, 236-239, 636-638 Claim to Validity, 578-580 Cognitive forms, 518-523, 563-566, 860867 Commandment, 764-765 Communication of Spirit, 475-476, 479, 907 Community, 24, 40, 48-49, 58, 64-65, 69-70, 72, 75-76, 78-79, 81-83, 151153, 155, 173-174, 185, 196-197, 202-203, 218, 256-257, 584-585, 650, 796-797, 827, 867-869 Compassionate, 142, 147, 189, 323, 326328, 336, 364, 433, 449, 670, 888 Composition, 748-749 Concentration, 128-129, 671-672 Concept of Man, 218-219 Conference, 45, 49-51, 129, 159, 169, 228-229, 484, 608-611, 650-651, 777-788, 801-808, 817-823 Confessing Church, 216, 256-257, 259 Conformity to Christ, 125, 281-282, 464465, 606-608, 900-905 Confucianism, 102 Consolation, 226, 497-498 Contemplation, 131, 133, 170-171, 189, 202-203, 268, 342-344, 480, 531534, 559-561, 685-687, 798-799, 861-863 Contemporary Spirituality, 22-23, 73, 8183, 102-103, 109-111, 153, 204206, 228-231, 242-245, 340-341, 344, 346, 349-350, 352-364, 385389, 427, 430, 435-436, 644-645, 656, 831-841, 846, 898-902 Context, 41-42, 119, 179-180, 192, 220222, 403-405, 408-410, 420-422, 570-572, 618-620, 625-633, 651658, 717, 750-751, 769-771

INDICES Conversion, 131-132, 156, 295, 462-463, 817-819, 898-902 Counsel, 501-502, 529-530 Countermovements, 15-17, 212-302, 836837 Course of Life, 34-42, 269-274, 300-301, 416-417, 930-931 Covenant, 140-141, 452-454, 721-722 Creator, 164, 204, 319, 434-435, 447-448, 451, 457-460, 464, 466, 470, 480, 498, 511, 560-561, 672-673, 680, 722, 754-755, 880, 888-889, 909 see: Transformation in Creation Cross, 295-298 Culture and Spirituality, 166-178, 285-286, 288-289, 293, 386-389, 615, 839-841 Dance, 156 Daughters of Charity, 90, 160-165, 663, 664, 789, 801, 803-808 Death, 25, 41-42, 101-115, 262-263, 299, 722, 834 Definition, 3-6, 57-58, 308-309, 519-521, 595, 859-860 Depth Structure, 716-717, 749-750 Deregulatory Language, 413 Description, 539-540 see also: Form Description Desert Spirituality, 264-269, 340, 358359, 495-496, 511, 608-611, 663, 669, 781-782, 801-803, 835, 876877, 889-891 Desire, 36, 174, 416, 443-445, 549-550, 559, 667-668, 706-707, 725-726 Destination, 457-458, 508-514 Detachment, 32-34, 131, 155-156, 164, 664-665, 678-679, 915-916 see also: Letting Go Deuteronomic Reformation, 180-183, 486 Devotion, 186, 213, 345-348 Devotional Practices, 233-236 Dharma, 700-702 Dialogical Thinking, 47, 68-71, 81-85, 429, 436, 535-536, 548-562, 595, 860-867

959 Diamond Vehicle, 123-124, 130 Diary, 923, 934 Difference of Opinion, 791-793 Dignity, 41, 222 Directedness (kawwana), 670-671 Discernment, 267, 483-514, 563-564, 589, 801-803, 834, 887-889, 916917, 920 Discipline, 502 Discursiveness, 581-582, 787 Dissident Spirituality, 247-259 Divine Birth, 32-34 Divine Reality, 1, 29-34, 51, 58-59, 9697, 114-115, 170, 209-210, 217219, 244, 301-302, 332, 350, 359, 364-365, 400-402, 423, 427-435, 466, 585-589, 684, 718-719, 752755, 812-817, 833, 874-876, 882884, 887-889, 907, 912-914, 926928 Divine-human Relational Process, 332, 350, 364-365, 396, 423-454 see also: Image of God; Divine Reality; Human Reality; Godrelatedness Doing, 780-781 East European Hassidism, 324-325, 408 Easter, 141, 236, 908 Eastern Christianity, 117, 406, 642-643 Eastern Spirituality, 12, 874-876, 887, 893 Eclipse of God, 562 Ecological Spirituality, 24, 204-210, 218219, 436, 652-654, 835 Ecstasy, 469-472, 558-560, 672-673, 677678 Editing, 411 Education, 46, 52-59, 166, 168, 779-781, 841 Early Christian Spirituality, 21, 214, 276, 345, 370, 488, 492-493, 655-656, 807, 854-855 Effort, 371 Eidetic reduction, 543-544 Ein-sof, 354

960 Elucidation, 585-586, 912-913, 928 Emanation, 76, 353-354, 375, 794-796, 799, 814-815, 880-881 Empathy (Einfühlung), 56-57, 546-548, 873, 934-942 Encountering, 550-551 Enjoyment, 68-69, 202-203 Enlightenment, 1, 12, 123-130, 153, 325, 342, 357, 376, 669, 700-702, 707, 770, 777, 779, 850, 875-878 Epistemology, 517-534, 563, 580-581 Eschatological Spirituality, 262-264, 291302, 445-446, 766, 851 Eternal, 84-85, 93, 558-560, 671 Eucharist, 143-146 Evangelical Counsels, 371 Eve, 65, 74-75, 494 Evil Spirit, 489-490, 912 Example, 11, 543-545, 597-598, 602, 721 Exclusivity, 552, 559 Exercise of Virtue, 51, 128, 131, 155, 159160, 163-164, 318, 338, 341-342, 371, 378-380, 525-526, 530-534, 649-650, 662, 666-667, 841 Exodus Spirituality, 16, 139-140, 198, 213-214, 217, 219-222 Experience (Erlebnis), 537, 936 Experience of Time, 40-41, 301, 538-539, 656-657 Expertise, 523-524 External Horizon, 538, 570-572, 609-610, 651-658 Extraordinary phenomena, 415, 858-859 Face, 64, 73-74, 87, 92, 105, 146-147, 329, 453, 473, 553-555, 560-561, 563, 570, 634-636, 650, 662-663, 685-686, 707-708, 715, 722, 727, 759-760, 763, 767 Faculties of the soul, 299-301 Faith, 242-243, 385, 430, 859, 907-911 Fasting, 148-149, 159 Fear of God, 51, 316-319, 650 Feeling, 58, 81-84, 438-439

INDICES Feminist Spirituality, 207, 218-219, 435, 835 Fervency, 672 Field of Meaning, 574-575, 715-716, 745746, 752-755 Final End (telos), 525, 534, 663-665 see also: Practical Objective First, 292-294 First Testament, see: Old Testament Fixation, 556 Flemish Mysticism, 851 Flesh 132, 437-438 Fools, 247-248, 252-256 Forethought, 336 Form, 423-424, 464, 566-572, 601, 617618, 622-626, 633-640, 646-651, 666-667, 750-751 see also: Transformation Form Description, 566-572, 600-687 Form of Life, 252- 253, 465-466 Formation, 121, 450-452, 871-872 Forms of Spirituality, 9-302 see also: Lay Spirituality; Schools of Spirituality; Countermovements Foundation, 164-165, 664-665 Founder, 117-119, 623 Four Noble Truths, 777-779, 786, 788, 850 French School, 117-118, 121-122 Game, 253-255 Glory, see: Transformation in Glory Gnosis, 333-337 God-relatedness, 177-178, 283, 662, 667673, 705-707, 719-722, 746-755 see also: Prayer; Remembrance of God; Directedness God’s Form, 561-562 God’s Self-communication, 144, 146, 160, 187, 188, 493, 553-554, 585-586, 587-589, 635, 707-708, 726-727, 863, 870, 916-917, 928 see also: Revelation Golden mean, 503-506, 529-531 Goodness, 1, 51, 169-170, 337, 343, 429430, 524-525

INDICES Grace, 227, 588, 725 Great Vehicle, 123-124, 130 Green parties, 205-206 Growth, 330, 370, 832 Guru, 874-876, 893 Halakah, 123-124 Handbooks, 369-402 Happiness, 338-339, 520, 525, 533-534 Hasidim, 879-882 Hasidism, 215, 323-324, 670-673, 680681, 879-882, 892-893 Health, 86-99, 202-203 Health Care, 86-99, 111-115, 161-166, 838 Heaven, 217, 792, 907-911 Hekhalot Literature, 707 Hellenistic Spirituality, 101, 333-350 Hermeneutics, 412-413, 572-574, 658662, 689-771 Hermits, 151, 157-158, 214-215, 252253, 488-489 Hiddenness, 254-256, 813-814 Hindu Spirituality, 72, 346-347 History of Spirituality, 382-383, 406-410, 835, 843 Holiness, 239-242, 320-322, 616-617, 641-646, 658-661, 837, 858 Holism, 47 Holocaust Spirituality, 214, 277-278, 284289 Holy One, 76, 79, 175-176, 321-322, 364, 673, 683, 720 Holy Spirit, 26, 54, 131-132, 192-193, 252-253, 283, 334-335, 349, 361362, 364-365, 370, 376, 381-382, 475-476, 478-479, 485, 490, 493, 498, 583, 613, 681, 687, 708-709, 726, 785, 806, 822, 842, 848, 852853, 870, 877, 882-883, 888, 893, 902, 914-916, 920 Homiletic Essence, 770 Homospirituality, 219 Horizon, 538, 575-576 see also: Internal Horizon; External Horizon

961 Hospitality, 71 House, 48, 61-71, 196, 201, 431, 654655 House of Study, 783-784, 789-794 Household, 65-68, 201 Human Reality, 217-218, 332, 350, 364365, 414-418, 423, 435-446, 534, 584-586 see also: I, Spirit, Inner Life, Person, Self, Soul Humanistic Perspective, 205 I, 40, 270-274, 441-442, 545-546, 683685, 906-907, 934-935 I-experience, 545-546 I-it-relation, 555-557, 562, 863-865 I-You Relation, 550-555 Icon, 175-178 Image of God, 96, 446-454, 510-512 Image of Saints, 234-235, 239-242 Imitation of Christ, 186-191, 257-258, 264-265, 291, 295-298, 497 see also: Conformity to Christ Imagelessness, 142, 433, 467, 562 Imagination, 209-210, 575, 742-743, 836 Indwelling of God, 76-81, 85, 324, 360, 472, 673, 683-684 Inferiority, 214-215 Infinite, 76, 187, 241, 364-365, 401, 403, 424, 429, 434-435, 549-550, 660, 670-673, 680, 726, 755 Inner Life, 54, 68-71, 186-189, 355-360, 363, 436-437, 896-898 Inner Logic, 401-402, 522-523, 531-534, 564-565, 581-584, 801-808, 822823 Inwardness, 79, 186 Inspiration, 170-171, 576-577 Integrity, 328-329 Intellect, 459, 467, 817-818 Intentional oneness, 450 Intentionality, 536-538 Interdisciplinary perspectives, 3, 309, 392424, 572, 577, 583-584, 589, 595599, 831-832, 843

962 Interest, 779 Interiorization, 92-94, 105, 138-139, 142, 144-146, 159-160, 299-300, 327328, 338-342, 666-667, 698, 872873 Internal Horizon, 538, 568-570, 610, 620-621, 658-687, 744-746, 872 Interpretation, 74-75, 94-96, 179-180, 192-193, 492-500, 528-529, 540541, 564-565, 573, 575-576, 716719, 746-755, 928-929, 940-942 Intersubjectivity, 545-548, 578-580 Intertextual Relation, 717, 731-732, 750 Intradisciplinary Perspectives, 369-389, 395-396, 423, 598-599 Intuiting the Essence, 544-545 Invisible, 241-242 Islamic Spirituality, 12, 125-126, 146-150, 154, 276-277, 292, 298-302, 326328, 331-332, 347-348, 373, 603, 878-879, 891-892 Itinerary Account, 62-65, 238-239, 838, 886-887 Jahweh, see: Lord; Name of God; Be-er Jesuits, 117, 153, 623 Jewish Spirituality, 12, 72, 101, 123-124, 276-279, 670-671 Jubilation in God, 479-480 Ka‘bah, 148-149 Kabbala, 76-81, 352-354, 692-693 Kairos, 771 King, 76, 81, 296, 433, 499, 757 Kingdom of God, 23, 187, 190, 226, 265, 291, 298, 388, 464, 490, 504, 512, 602, 787, 802 Knowing (epistèmè), 519, 522 Knowledge of God, 336-337, 400, 443445, 814-817, 906-907 Koran, 125, 326-327, 697-699, 703, 855, 857, 878 Last, 292-294, 434 Lectio Divina, see: Scripture Reading

INDICES Lay Spirituality, 12-15, 18-115, 129-130, 428-429, 431-432, 448 Learning, 118-119, 450-452, 784 Letting Go, 470-471, 814-815 Liberation Spirituality, 207-208, 217-231, 278, 387-388, 432-433, 626-629 Life of Business, 166, 204-205 Life’s Core, 439-440 Light, 136, 334-337, 697, 896-897 Likeness with God, 453-454, 472-473 Liminality, 214, 327 Literary Science-Spirituality, 410-413, 586587 Little Vehicle, 123-124, 130 Liturgical Movement, 138 Liturgical Spirituality, 138-150, 152, 173, 203-204, 218, 836, 843, 871 Liturgy of the Funeral, 106-109 Lived Spirituality, 1-3, 6, 11-303, 313365, 427-454, 483-514, 602-640, 691-728, 777-823, 874-920 see also: Divine-human Relational Process; Basic Words; Discernment; Forms of Spirituality Lives of saints, 602-621 Living One, 146, 335, 560, 719, 722, 760 Lord, 97, 108-111, 146, 148, 162, 188189, 225-226, 256, 268, 280, 433, 451, 466, 476, 478, 487-488, 493, 498, 501, 511, 604, 665, 672, 811, 821, 872, 888-889, 896, 898, 903905, 910-911 Love, 1, 78, 159, 184, 190, 326, 467, 469-472, 475, 495, 678, 681-682, 703-704, 718-722, 746, 754, 757, 763-765, 824, 872, 910-913 see also: Transformation in Love Lurian Mysticism, 291, 656 Male-Female, 69-70, 73-81, 494-495 Manual Labor, 267-268 Marginality, 215-216 Master, 77-78, 93, 147, 197, 463, 635, 757-758, 790

INDICES Matter Itself (Sache selbst), 539-545, 578584, 730, 740-741, 778-779, 786787, 794-801, 861-863 Maturity, 38-39, 329 Meal, 65 Meditation, 186, 704-705 Memoirs, 924 Memory, 459, 468-469, 896-898 Mendicant Orders, 117, 158, 184, 215, 505 Merciful, 147, 326, 335 Mercy, 86-99, 147, 323-328, 624, 650 Methodology, 3-7, 307-312, 517-589, 595-597 see also: Definition; Dialogical Thinking; Epistemology; Phenomenology; Research Methods; Scientific Approach Middle-things (media), 495-496 Mishna, 44, 711 Mission Congregations, 153, 624 Model of Transformation, 120-122, 158159, 161-162, 283-284, 378-380, 463-466, 566-572, 622-626, 633640, 872 Modern Devotion, 22, 45-46, 119, 179180, 183-189, 346, 625, 846 Modesty, 164, 664 Monastic Rules, 160, 163, 340, 611, 663, 781-782, 786, 788, 804 Monastic Spirituality, 16, 340, 695-696 Monotheism, 428, 433 Most High, 107, 131, 146, 148, 341, 428, 430, 433 Murid, 878-879 My God, 29-31 My Mighty One, 20, 29-30, 64-65, 7374, 123, 142, 182-183, 238, 249, 251-252, 263-264, 293, 318, 441444, 454, 463, 493-494, 604, 627, 634-638, 662, 720, 722 Mystagogy, 565-566, 584-589, 869-942 Mystery, 316-319, 584-589, 707, 845, 873, 883, 928 Mystical Antiphrasis, 722-726, 820-821, 910-911

963 Mystical Love, 157, 443-445, 474-476, 685-687, 727-728 see also: Transformation in Love Mystical Theology, 355-356, 373-377, 392, 799-801 Mystical Union, 131-132, 183-184, 188190, 241-242, 358-360, 376-377, 443-445, 474-476, 666-667, 673674, 681-683, 879-882, 902-905 Mystical Way, 123-126, 455-481, 512514, 557-562, 661-662, 674-687, 707-708, 808-817, 834 Mysticism, 355-357, 403-405, 674-687, 845-860 Name of God, 64, 66, 92, 140, 142, 156, 179-183, 199, 220, 237-238, 263, 276-277, 293-295, 317-318, 431432, 435, 449-450, 459, 464, 680, 683, 692, 697, 718, 720-722, 790 see also: Be-er Native Spirituality, 24-25 Natural Sciences-Spirituality, 167, 204 Need, 35, 438 New Age, 195-196, 334, 433, 658 Non-action (woe-wei), 135, 557-558 Non-religious Perspective, 114, 432-433 Obedience, 162, 173, 818 Old Age, 39, 833 Old Testament, 143, 573, 612, 622, 694, 794, 842, 854 One, 1, 149, 156, 183, 237, 301-302, 343, 430, 433, 697-698, 719-722, 851 Oneness of God, 125-126, 182-183, 203204, 302, 327-328, 429 Ongoing Impact, 145, 229-230, 263-264, 280, 708-709, 726-728, 766-771 Open Spaces, 732-738 Orativity, 144, 705-707, 719-722, 746755 see also: Prayer; God-relatedness Oratorians, 117, 624 Overagainstness, 861-862

964 Panentheism, 428 Pantheism, 428 Parable, 49-50, 502-503, 822 Paradox, 722-726, 820-821 Pardes, 691-694, 703-704 Passivity, 87-88, 551, 557-558, 681, 910, 913 see also: Receiving; Purity of Heart Pastorate, 152-153 Patriarchal Spirituality, 20, 28-32, 44, 6165, 72, 103-106, 431 Patristic Spirituality, 44-45, 355, 370, 374, 461, 488, 511-513, 641-642, 668-670, 694-696, 854-855, 895898 People, 140-141, 143-146, 181, 293-294 Perfection, 328-332, 510-514, 820-821 Performance of the Text, 575, 699, 703704, 713-716, 729-731 Periodicals, 828-829, 832 Person, 47, 416-417, 766 Person Being Accompanied, 874-890 Personal God-image, 428-429, 431-432 Perspective of Experience, 168-169, 245, 308-309, 385-389, 398-400, 414415, 522-523, 526-543, 584-589, 833, 837, 848-849, 917-920 Phenomenology, 535-548, 567-572, 847848, 856-858 Philosophy-Spirituality, 397-402 Physicality, 218, 546-548, 647-648, 936938 Piety, 348-350 Piety of the Low Countries, 828 Pilgrimage, 149, 236-239, 635 Pisces, 195, 658 Place, 181-182, 337, 470 Place for Prayer, 235 Point of View (Einstellung), 537-540 Politics-Spirituality, 218-231, 836 Polytheism, 428 Popular Piety, 13, 233-236 Possession, 70, 628-631 Post-exilic Spirituality, 21, 278-280, 291, 631-633, 638-640

INDICES Power, 222, 429, 635 Practical Objective (skopos), 663-665 see also: Final End (telos) Practical Wisdom (phronèsis), 520-521, 523-534, 548, 563, 595 Pragmatics, 577, 718, 738-740, 751-752, 755-762, 766-771 Praxis, see: Action Prayer, 53-54, 147-148, 152, 170-171, 218, 238, 243-244, 258-259, 267, 283, 450, 667-673, 812, 836 see also: God-relatedness Prayer Rituals, 235-236 Prescientific-Scientific, 541-543, 597, 746747 Presence, 1, 92, 431-433, 559-561, 634636, 715-716, 725, 758-759, 763765 Preunderstanding, 702-704, 710-713, 729-741 Process of Transformation, 423-454, 455481, 599, 661, 895-911 see also: Exercise of Virtue; Spiritual Exercises; Appropriation; Mystical Way Production, 523-524 Prophetic Spirituality, 195-200, 213-214, 248-252, 433, 486, 492-493, 629631 Psalms, 65-68, 89-92, 139-142, 236-239, 261-264, 358, 631-640, 713-715, 755-762, 799 Psychology-Spirituality, 386-387, 414-418, 586 Purification, 131, 135, 376-377, 519 Purity of Heart, 159, 164, 174, 512-513, 663-664 Qumran, 291, 488 Reading, 574-575, 712-713, 734-738, 741-746 Reality, 317, 402, 560, 883-884, 886-887 Receiving, 87, 554, 761, 763-764 Reception, 829

INDICES Reciprocity, 147-148, 301-302, 463, 478479, 552-553, 559-560, 876-877, 891-893, 895-898 Reconciliation, 65, 88, 841 Reference Works, 403-404, 825-832 Reformation, 22, 117, 122, 173, 179-193, 349, 393, 459-463, 711 Refugees, 261 Regula Monachorum, 782 Regular Canons, 117 Regulars of the Windesheim Chapter, 786 Religion Sciences-Spirituality, 403-405 Religion-critique, 433-434 Religious Communities, 15-17, 117, 151165, 190-193, 465-466, 900-902 Religious Perspective, 245, 427, 431 Remembrance of God (dhikr), 149, 155156 Renaissance, 195, 208, 334, 846, 922 Representation, 448-450 Research Methods, 6-7, 309-310, 517518, 595-942 see also: Hermeneutics; Mystagogy; Systematics; Form Description Resistance, 217-231, 248-252, 256-259, 276-289, 614 Resonances, 714-715 Responsibility, 206-207, 551, 659, 769 Resurrection, 295-302, 382, 476-478, 722, 904 Revelation, 562, 697, 763-766, 849, 902904 Review of life (revision de vie), 775, 784785 Rhineland Mysticism, 324, 359, 851 Riddle, 50, 576 Righteousness, 67-68, 76-78, 287-288, 349-350, 429, 433, 650 Rituals of Self-abasement, 103-105 Role, 653-654 Romanticism, 357, 770 Rule of Benedict, 171-174 Sabbath, 80-81, 263-264 Sacred Texts, 690-728

965 Sacrifice, 63-64, 144-146 Saint, 322 Sanctification, 321-322 Satan, 266, 437-438, 735, 878, 890 Schooling, 167-171, 501-507 Schools of Spirituality, 14-15, 116-210, 382, 777-779 see also: Christian Spirituality; Islamic Spirituality; Jewish Spirituality; Eastern Spirituality Scientific Approach, 517, 535-562, 599 see also: Dialogical Thinking; Phenomenology Scientific Forum, 569, 579-580, 824-829, 865-867 Scientific Tools, 2-3 Scripture, 93, 138, 143, 159, 179, 185-186, 190, 193, 205, 218, 267, 276, 320, 324, 329, 352-353, 358, 361, 437, 439, 444, 485-486, 492, 498-499, 503, 508-510, 573, 577, 603, 605, 618, 625, 663664, 677, 691-696, 703-704, 706, 708, 710-720, 726-729, 735-736, 752-760, 763, 766-771, 785-786, 788, 791, 793-795, 802, 845-847, 850, 852, 854-859, 871-873, 876, 883 Scripture reading, 133, 145, 217-218, 267, 710-713, 795-796, 876-877 Sefiroth, 353-354 Self, 68-69, 850, 874-875, 885, 931-932 see also: I; Person; Soul Self-abasement, 127, 665 see also: Transformation in Love Self-disclosure of the Truth, 518-523, 540, 578-584, 777-778, 787-788, 808823, 844, 860-867 Self-knowledge, 58, 336 Self-loss, 301-302, 445-446, 471 Self-trancendence, 308-309, 440 Sexuality, 75-76, 78-79, 82, 837 Sjari‘ah, 125-126, 878 Sheik, 126-156, 874-879, 892 Shekinah, 72, 76-80, 85

966 Shift of Perspective, 672-673, 677, 683684, 704-705, 895-898, 909-911, 920, 926-927 Silence, 135-136, 160, 262, 266-267, 286288, 811-812, 913-914 Social Engagement, 153, 218, 784-785 Sociology-Spirituality, 387-388, 420-422, 587 Solitude, 214-216, 261, 266, 269-274 Son, 33, 53, 283, 334-337, 365, 445, 464, 478-479, 852, 877, 900, 902-905 see: Abba; My Mighty One Soul, 32, 132, 149-150, 156, 436-446, 684-685, 878, 890-892, 912 see also: Human Reality; I; Self; Person Source, 92, 154, 165, 170, 199, 237, 320, 354, 430, 448, 450, 493, 560, 584, 665, 672, 704, 707, 754, 788, 878 Source-experience, 118-122 Spirit, 132, 360-363, 417, 442-443, 648-649 Spiritual Accompaniment, 268-269, 724725, 872-894 Spiritual Autobiography, 50, 415, 586587, 719-720, 808-809, 895-911, 921-934 Spiritual Biography, 602-621, 641-646 Spiritual Exercises, 159, 164-165, 173174, 647-649, 661-665, 697-698, 819-820, 837 Spiritual Insight (nous), 519, 523, 527529, 532, 810 Spiritual Library, 710-711, 729 Spiritual Reading, 691-709 see also: Scripture Reading Spiritual Theology, 369, 381-383, 838, 848-849 Spiritual Way, 123-136, 156-157, 295298, 417, 675-676, 879, 891-892, 911-920 see also: Appropriation; Mystical Way Spirituality, 57-58, 307-308, 315, 360365, 369-370 see also: Lived Spirituality; Study of Spirituality; Tension Lived Spirituality – Study of Spirituality

INDICES Spirituality of Kings, 20, 199-200, 433, 629-631 Spirituality of Marriage, 69-70, 72-85 Spirituality of Martyrs, 264, 276-289, 330-331 Spirituality of Peace, 78, 429, 841 Spirituality of the Future, 195-210, 657658 Spirituality of the Middle Ages, 21-22, 345-346, 349, 374-376, 489, 496497, 643-644, 855 Story, 65 Structure-Antistructure, 213-216, 420422 Struggle (jihad), 149-150, 156, 878 Study, 152 Study Community, 501-504, 530, 565, 578, 777-785, 801-808 Study Programs, 828 Study of Spirituality, 2-7, 307-313, 367424, 455-481, 516-589, 595-599, 641-687, 729-771, 824-867, 921942 see also: Interdisciplinary Perspectives; Intradisciplinary Perspectives; Methodology; Research Methods; Scientific Tools Substitution, 227-228, 445-446 Suffering, 262-263, 279-280 Sufis, 153-157 Surrender, 148, 156, 225-226, 330-331, 347-348 Symbol, 50-51, 569-570, 698-699 Systematics, 578-584, 774-87 Talmud, 691, 711 Talmudic Spirituality, 21, 214, 276, 344346, 692, 779-781, 781-794 Tantra, 72, 130 Taoist Spirituality, 12, 102, 124-125, 133136, 292 Tariqah, 125-126, 878 Teaching, 127-129, 700-702 Temple Spirituality, 139-142, 180-183, 494

INDICES Tension Lived Spirituality – Study of Spirituality, 1-3, 8, 311-312, 314, 541543, 597, 775-776, 824, 873 Terminal Care, 107-108, 111-115 Text, 712-713, 730-732 Theism, 428 Theistic Perspective, 428 Themes, 830-843 Theology-Spirituality, 310-311, 373-377, 381-383, 392-396, 429-430 Threefold Way, 130-133, 370-372, 375377, 379, 382, 675, 794-799 Torah Spirituality, 44, 123, 263-264, 435, 463-464, 691-694, 711-713, 904905 Transcendence, 57, 175, 321, 429-430, 432, 434, 498, 549-550, 816-817 Transformation, 312, 455-481, 563-566, 665, 933-934 see also: Form; Model of Transformation; Process of Transformation; Appropriation Transformation in Conformity, 125-126, 145, 177-178, 186-189, 281-282, 423, 463-469, 753-754, 758-760, 902-905 see also: Conformity to Christ; Teaching; Koran; Torah Spirituality Transformation in Creation, 219, 434435, 447-448, 456-459, 480, 895898 see also: Birth; Divine Birth; My God Transformation in Glory, 106-111, 125, 136, 291-302, 452-454, 476-481, 765-766, 851, 907-911 Transformation in Love, 469-476, 480, 722-723, 758, 792, 850-851, 905907 see also: Spirituality of Marriage; Love Transformation in Re-creation, 41-42, 179-193, 459-463, 898-902 see also: Reformation

967 Translation, 411-412 Transparency, 473-474 Treatises Concerning Perfection, 370-372 Trinity, 344, 381, 388, 474, 795, 798, 812, 814, 855, 877 Truth, 128, 131, 187, 336-337, 343, 509, 700 Tsafad Mysticism, 291, 656 Two Ways Motif, 486-488, 526, 563-564 Tzaddik, 879-882, 892 Unbecome, 429 Unborn, 429 Unconditional, 845, 874, 876, 887, 893, 929 Uncreated, 429, 675, 857-858 Unformation, 466-469 Unknowable, 335-336 Unpersonal God-image, 428-429, 431-432 Unicity, 273-274 Unutterable, 334, 409, 634-635, 676 Upbringing, 35-38, 44-59, 201-202, 278280, 285, 841 Uprootedness, 261-274, 334, 443, 655656 Utilization, 555-557, 865 Utopic Spirituality, 195, 200-204 Values, see: Basic Inspiration Variation, 544-545 Vatican II, 1-2, 13, 23, 72, 102, 106, 138139,180, 190-193, 394, 584, 654, 657, 711, 843, 855 Vincentians, 117, 160-165, 664 Vitae, 602-603, 927 Virginal Life, 224-225, 264-265, 338 Voice of God, 222, 727, 767, 876 Vulgate, 185 Vulnerability, 437 Will, 459, 468, 818 Wisdom, 168, 170-171, 335-337, 451452, 519, 521 Wisdom Spirituality, 48-51, 167-171, 317-318, 486, 493-494, 626-629

968 Witness, 288-289, 719-721, 762, 808-812 Wonder, 57 Word, 143-144, 258, 473, 650, 694-698, 846, 852, 863, 882, 906 Work, 40, 66-67, 71, 141, 166, 637-638, 836 Working Groups, 827-829 Works of Mercy, 86-99, 153

INDICES World, 572 Yoga, 341-342 You, 553-554, 861-863 Youth, 29-31, 67-68, 74, 839 Zeitgeist, 652-653 Zion Spirituality, 65-66, 236, 633