Christian
Mystics
Christian
Mystics
 |
Hildegard of Bingen, one of my favorite Christian mystics. |
Being originally from The Netherlands, I was quite intrigued with the Beguine movement of lay religious women and wrote a lengthy piece putting them into a context of a woman's movement giving women a third option in life besides obedience within the walls of a convent or the typically harsh existence that came with married life in those times. Beguines were dedicated to their religious life for as long as they wanted to be, and could choose to leave, and to come back. This was a radical movement protected in the low countries but hounded out of existence quickly elsewhere.
For a fuller discussion of this late Medieval Woman's movement, click this line.
Out of the Beguine movement and the more formal religious orders came some exceptional voices speaking clearly from their own visions on the nature of God and humanity. Some of my favorite examples are from the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, about whom I wrote the following:
A Catholic Prophetess' Vision of the Feminine in Godhead
By Abe Van Luik, abevanluik@thoughtsandplaces.org
(Note: citations from the Newman book by permission of publisher.)
Barbara Newman's interpretation
of the feminine theology of
Hildegard of Bingen's prophetic
writings contains much
provocative material. The quotes
from Hildegard that suffuse the
book are all the more thought
provoking because Hildegard, in the
12th century Rhineland of Germany,
was an original. Newman
boldly characterizes Hildegard
as "the first Christian thinker to
deal seriously and positively
with the feminine as such, not
merely with the challenges posed
by and for women in a male-
dominated world." (Barbara Newman,
Sister of Wisdom, St.
Hildegard's Theology of the
Feminine. Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1989, p. xv.)
Newman continues, however, by
pointing out that Hildegard's
thoughts were within the
traditional Christian framework
of symbols. She thus built her
theology of the feminine on
the female symbols Christianity
provided. Those symbols included
the great exemplars Eve, Mary,
and Mother Church, but also
the feminine symbols of holy Wisdom
and divine Love which she rolled
into the symbolic character
Sapientia or Caritas. (Newman,
Ibid., pp. xvii-xviii) One
example of Hildegard's use of
these character-symbols is this
thorough blending of Caritas
and Mary, the former as pre-existent
archetype of the latter:
And I saw one like a lovely maiden,
her face gleaming
with such radiant splendor that
I could not perfectly behold
her. Whiter than snow was her
mantle and more shining than
the stars, and her shoes were
of the finest gold. In her
right hand she held the sun
and moon and tenderly embraced
them. And on her breast was
an ivory tablet in which there
appeared the form of a man,
the color of sapphire and all
creation called this maiden
Lady. Now she spoke to the form
that appeared in her bosom,
saying, "With you is the
beginning of the day of your
virtue, in the splendor of the
holy ones I bore you from the
womb before the morning
star." (Newman, Ibid., pp. 56-57,
citing Epistola 30 in
volume 197, page 192d, of Patrologiae
cursus completus:
series latina, 221 vols., ed.
J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1841-
1864)).
The same Caritas that here prefigures
Mary is elsewhere cast as
the Holy Spirit, the third person
of the Trinity and thus God:
O mighty passage, penetrating
all
in the heights, upon the earth,
and in all deeps,
you bind them and gather them
all together.
From you the clouds have their
flowing,
the ether its flight,
the stones their moisture,
the waters spurt forth in streams,
and the earth exudes verdure.
(Ibid., p.67, translating from
Hildegard von Bingen: Lieder
[Symphonia armonie celestium
revelationum], eds. Pudentiana
Barth, M.-I. Ritscher and Joseph-Schmidt-Gö rg
(Salzburg,
1969) no. 19:232-34.)
In a prose description of this
self-same aspect of the
Divine, Caritas sings:
I am the supreme and fiery force
who kindled every
living spark, and I breathed
forth no deadly thing -yet I
permit them to be. As I circled
the whirling sphere with my
upper wings (that is, with wisdom),
rightly I ordained it.
And I am the fiery life of the
essence of God: I flame above
the beauty of the fields I
shine in the waters I burn in
the sun, the moon, and the stars.
And, with the airy wind,
I quicken all things vitally
by an unseen, all-sustaining
life. For the air is alive in
the verdure and the flowers
the waters flow as if they lived
the sun too lives in its
light
and when the moon wanes
it is rekindled in the light
of the sun, as if it lived anew.
Even the stars glisten in
their light as if alive. (Ibid.
pp. 69-70, translating from
Hildegard of Bingen, De operatione
Dei (cited as DoD, also
known as Liber divinorum operum
simplicic hominus), ed. J.D.
Mansi, in Stephanus Balluzius:
Miscellanea, 2 (Lucca, 1761),
I.1.2
reprinted in Migne, Op.
cit., vol. 197:741-1038, pp.
743-744).
So Caritas has been shown cosmologically
to be the third member
of the trinity, and the source
and sustainer of life. With
respect to humanity, which is
created in the image of the triune
God, Caritas continues by explaining
her work in terms symbolic
of the trinity that makes up
living humanity: earth, soul and
reason. Thus, Caritas reminds
humanity that the earth, water and
light of everyday experience
is an incarnation of God, and an
ever-present reminder of triune
humanity's being a reflection of
the triune Divine on earth.
One aspect of God resides in nature,
and in nature's crowning achievement:
the image of God on earth.
I flame above the beauty of the
fields to signify the
earth -the matter from which
God made man. I shine in the
waters to indicate the soul,
for, as water suffuses the
whole earth, the soul pervades
the whole body. I burn in
the sun and the moon to denote
reason, and the stars are the
innumerable words of reason.
(Ibid. pp. 70-71, translating
from DoD, Op. cit., p. 744b).
The theme of humanity being God's
reflection on earth is plainly
set forth in this vision: Hildegard's
vision of the feminine in
God involves seeing the third
member of the triune God as
essentially female. It appears
that Hildegard was inspired by
the accounts of Wisdom as the
active and creative principle of
God in the "Wisdom Literature"
of the Old Testament. Perhaps
Hildegard's motivation was an
innate need to fulfill a long
suppressed archetypal intent
of the type postulated by the
psychotherapist Carl Jung.
Jung approvingly noted the surfacing
of the long-suppressed
archetypal demand for the female
in Deity in Catholicism. Jung
felt that the Catholic announcement
of the Assumption of Mary, in
1950, was "the most important
religious event since the
Reformation." (Storr, Anthony
(Ed.). The Essential Jung.
Princeton University Press,
Princeton, New Jersey(1983), p. 324)
This "bodily reception of the
Virgin into heaven" (Ibid.) meant
that "the heavenly bride was
united with the bridegroom," (Ibid.
p. 322) which union "signifies
the hieros gamos." (Ibid.)
Acknowledging that the Assumption
"is vouched for neither in
scripture nor in the tradition
of the first five centuries of the
Christian Church," Jung observes
that: "The papal declaration
made a reality of what had long
been condoned. This irrevocable
step beyond the confines of
historical Christianity is the
strongest proof of the autonomy
of archetypal images." (Storr
1983 p. 297)
To Protestants who challenge
the new dogma on historical
grounds the Protestant Jung
(Jung, C. G. Modern Man in Search of
a Soul. Translated by W. S.
Dell and C. F. Baynes. Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Publishers, San
Diego(1933), p. 236) answers in part
that "the Protestant standpoint
. . . is obviously out of touch
with the tremendous archetypal
happenings in the psyche of the
individual and the masses, and
with the symbols which are
intended to compensate the truly
apocalyptic world situation
today." (Ibid. pp. 322-323)
Jung added:
Protestantism has obviously not
given sufficient attention
to the signs of the times which
point to the equality of
women. But this equality requires
to be metaphysically
anchored in the figure of a
'divine' woman. . . . The
feminine, like the masculine,
demands an equally personal
representation. (Ibid. p. 325)
(Jung was not a feminist (Wehr,
Demaris S. Jung and Feminism.
Beacon Press, Boston (1987)),
but these selected quotes are
representative of Jung at his
near-feminist best.)Jung, C. G.
Modern Man in Search of a Soul.
Translated by W. S. Dell and C.
F. Baynes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Publishers, San Diego.
(1933) Jung suggests that this
Catholic introduction of the
female into Deity lessened archetypal
tension in the human race,
and it seems logical that a
sensitive person like Hildegard could
be sensitive to these archetypal
stirrings, an encounter with the
unconscious that Jung felt was
as an encounter with the God-
archetype. Whether this God-archetype
reveals God or indicates
God exists is, of course, beyond
the purview of Jung's
observational science. But the
process Jung describes from
observation is that sufficient
egoistic stress leads to the
revelation of new knowledge
from the subconscious, the storehouse
of the "collective unconscious"
made up of the "archetypes."
Jung explicitly links this phenomenon
with revelation when he
illustrates the concept with
Paul's internal conflict, over
killing Christians in the name
of God, leading him to his
"journey to Damascus" experience.
(1933 p. 239)
Hildegard's characterization
of the universal creative/
redemptive force in terms of
the female rather than the male sex:
Caritas/Mary/Mother rather than
the Father, may seem paradoxical,
given her elaborate anti-sexual
bias. The celibate nun Hildegard
saw Paradise as a place where
without the fall there would have
been impregnation without sexual
pleasure and birth out of the
body's side, like Adam's production
of Eve, without pain and
without the use of the birth
canal, (Newman 1989 pp. 112, 124-
125, 176-177).
Perhaps Hildegard's egoistic
crisis, leading in Jungian
terms to her facing the archetypal
revelations she shares so
eloquently, involved a severe
internal conflict over the
acceptability of the erotic
impulse. She seldom cited the Song
of Songs (Canticles) with their
sexual/erotic imagery (Newman
1989 p. 65). Her theology saw
mortal, pleasurable sex as sinful,
even in marriage, where it passed
on the condition of original
sin. Yet she could describe
the mortal sex act/impulse as a type
of the love-pleasure Adam experienced
when Eve was born from his
side during his slumber. (Newman
1989 pp. 112, 130) Hildegard
was capable of describing Caritas
as God's blushing bride,
allowing her creative imagery
to partake of sexual notions quite
freely, as in this selection
where the stag denotes the desire of
God, and the mirror the splendor
of God (Newman 1989 p. 50):
. . . Love, most sweet, most
tender,
who captured the mighty stag
and poured forth song above
all heavens
and entered the bridal chamber
of all the King's
mysteries
and revealed herself in all
her beauty
in the mirror of the cherubim.
Whatever led Hildegard to her
revelations, she made a
contribution to theology that
involved symbolizing the feminine
as the third member of the Godhead,
and thus as God. In my
opinion, there is ultimately
no reason for assigning maleness to
the Holy Ghost except pre-conceived
notions of the male sex being
installed by God to rule over
the female. Hildegard believed in
the subordination of the female
in the home and Church, (Newman
1989 pp. 95, 197) yet that did
not stop her from being a conduit
for satisfying the human archetypal
need described by Jung as a demand
for elevating the feminine to
Godhood and Godhead. This
elevation is particularly satisfying
in the Trinitarian view of
God wherein each personage is
seen as an aspect of the same
mystical Being. Thus, in the
Trinitarian view, Hildegard's God
is both male and female in the
mystical unity of Godhead.