{"product_id":"the-essential-writings-of-christian-mysticism-isbn-9780812974218","title":"The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism","description":"This clear and comprehensive anthology, culled from the vast corpus of Christian mystical literature by the renowned theologian and historian Bernard McGinn, presents nearly one hundred selections, from the writings of Origen of Alexandria in the third century to the work of twentieth-century mystics such as Thomas Merton. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUniquely organized by subject rather than by author, \u003ci\u003eThe Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism \u003c\/i\u003eexplores how human life is transformed through the search for direct contact with God. Part one examines the preparation for encountering God through biblical interpretation and prayer; the second part focuses on the mystics’ actual encounters with God; and part three addresses the implications of the mystical life, showing how mystics have been received over time, and how they practice their faith through private contemplation and public actions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn addition to his illuminating Introduction, Bernard McGinn provides accessible headnotes for each section, as well as numerous biographical sketches and a selected bibliography.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No one is better equipped than Bernard McGinn to provide a thorough and balanced guide to this vast literature….This is an anthology which deserves to be read not only by those who study Christian history and theology, but by believers who long to deepen their own lives of prayer and service.” -- \u003ci\u003eAnglican Theological Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Bernard McGinn, a preeminent historian and interpreter of the Christian mystical tradition, has edited this fine collection of mystical writings, organizing them thematically....McGinn offers helpful introductions to each thematic section, author and entry, as well as a brief critical bibliography on mysticism. Published in the Modern Library Classic series, this is a great value.” – \u003ci\u003eChristian Century\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"No-one is better equipped than Professor McGinn to provide a thorough and balanced guide to this vast literature. A first-class selection, by a first-class scholar.\" -- Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This accessible anthology by the scholarly world’s leading historian of the Western Christian mystical tradition easily outstrips all others in its comprehensiveness, the aptness of its selection of texts, and in the intelligent manner of its organization.” -- Denys Turner, Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology, Yale Divinity School\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An immensely rich anthology, assembled and introduced by our foremost student of mysticism. Both the scholar and the disciple will find God’s plenty here.\" -- Barbara Newman, Professor of English, Religion, and Classics, John Evans Professor of Latin, Northwestern University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An unusually clear and insightful exposition of major texts selected by one of the greatest scholars in the field of Christian mysticism, based on his vast erudition and uniquely sensitive interpretation. Like his other books, this one too is destined to become a classic.” -- Professor Moshe Idel, Hebrew University, JerusalemBernard McGinn is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelly Professor Emeritus at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. His books include \u003ci\u003eMeister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher; Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons; Antichrist\u003c\/i\u003e; and the \u003ci\u003ePresence of God \u003c\/i\u003emultivolume history of Western Christian mysticism. He lives in Chicago.1.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Origen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Commentary on the Song of Songs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    prologue\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      Origen of Alexandria (circa 180–254) was the greatest exegete of the early  church. His spiritual reading of the Bible continued to influence later  thinkers, despite the condemnation of aspects of his teaching in the sixth  century. As Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of Origen’s modern interpreters,  once said, “No figure is more invisibly omnipresent in the history of  Christian theology.” Origen can also be described as the church’s first  explicit mystical theologian. While the mystical element was present in  Christianity from the start, it is with the Alexandrian teacher that a  formal biblically based mystical theory first emerges.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Origen was not the first to interpret the Song’s account of the bridegroom  and bride as the story of the love between Christ and the church, but he  furthered this mystical reading by applying it to the relations between  Christ and each loving soul. The following four excerpts from the prologue  of what survives of his commentary show how he created the elements that  were to elevate the Song to the mystical text par excellence in Christian  history. The first section describes his overall characterization of the  Song as a dramatic account of the process of salvation. The second shows  how his dual understanding of human nature (inner and outer person)  allowed him to translate the sensual language of the Song into a message  about the spiritual senses, the powers of inner perception lost in sin but  gradually restored to the soul through the action of grace. In the third  selection Origen argues that there is no essential difference between the  language of passionate desire (erôs in Greek; amor in Latin) and the  biblical word for God’s generous love poured out upon us (agapê\/caritas).  Finally, in the fourth selection Origen demonstrates how the three books  ascribed to Solomon (a type of Christ) form the basis for a biblical  paideia, or total education, by which we are brought back to God.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I.  The Song of Songs as a   Mystical Drama\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It seems to me that this little book is an epithalamium, that is to say, a  marriage-song, which Solomon wrote in the form of a drama and sang under  the figure of the bride, about to wed and burning with heavenly love  towards her Bridegroom, who is the Word of God. And deeply indeed did she  love him, whether we take her as the soul made in his image, or as the  church. But this same scripture also teaches us what words this august and  perfect Bridegroom used in speaking to the soul, or to the church, who has  been joined to him. And in this same little book that bears the title Song  of Songs we recognize moreover things that the bride’s companions said,  the maidens that go with her, and also some things spoken by the  Bridegroom’s friends and fellows. For the friends of the Bridegroom also,  in their joy at his union with the bride, have been enabled to say some  things—at any rate those that they had heard from the Bridegroom himself.  In the same way we find the bride speaking not to the Bridegroom only, but  also to the maidens; likewise the Bridegroom’s words are addressed not to  the bride alone, but also to his friends. And that is what we meant just  now, when we said that the marriage-song was written in dramatic form. For  we call a thing a drama, such as the enaction of a story on the stage,  when different characters are introduced and the whole structure of the  narrative consists in their comings and goings among themselves. And this  work contains these things one by one in their own order, and also the  whole body of it consists of mystical utterances.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But it behoves us primarily to understand that, just as in childhood we  are not affected by the passion of love, so also to those who are at the  stage of infancy and childhood in their interior life—to those, that is to  say, who are being nourished with milk in Christ, not with strong meat,  and are only beginning “to desire the rational milk without guile” (Heb  5:12)—it is not given to grasp the meaning of these sayings. For in the  words of the Song of Songs there is that food, of which the Apostle says  that “strong meat is for the perfect”; and that food calls for hearers  “who by ability have their senses exercised to the discerning of good and  evil” (Heb 5:14). And indeed, if those whom we have called children were  to come on these passages, it may be that they would derive neither profit  nor much harm, either from reading the text itself, or from going through  the necessary explanations. But   if any man who lives only after the flesh should approach it, to such a  one the reading of this scripture will be the occasion of no small hazard  and danger. For he, not knowing how to hear love’s language in   purity and with chaste ears, will twist the whole manner of his hearing of  it away from the inner spiritual man and on to the outward and carnal; and  he will be turned away from the spirit to the flesh and will foster carnal  desires in himself, and it will seem to be the divine scriptures that are  thus urging and egging him on to fleshly lust!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    II.   The Inner and Outer Person   and the Spiritual Senses\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the beginning of the words of Moses, where the creation of the world is  described, we find reference to the making of two men, the first “in the  image and likeness of God,” and the second “formed of the slime of the  earth” (Gen 1:26, 2:7). Paul the Apostle knew this well; and, being  possessed of a very clear understanding of the matter, he wrote in his  letters more plainly and with greater lucidity that there are in fact two  men in every single man. He says, for instance: “For if our outward man is  corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day”; and again: “For I am  delighted with the law of God according to the inward man” (2 Cor 4:16;  Rom 7:22). And he makes some other statements of a similar kind. I think,  therefore, that no one ought any longer to doubt what Moses wrote in the  beginning of Genesis about the making and fashioning of two men, since he  sees Paul, who understood what Moses wrote much better than we do, saying  that there are two men in every one of us. Of these two men he tells us  that the one, namely, the inner man, is renewed from day to day; but the  other, that is, the outer, he declares to be corrupted and weakened in all  the saints and in such as he was himself. If anything in regard to this  matter still seems doubtful to anyone, it will be better explained in the  appropriate places. But let us now follow up what we mentioned before  about the inner and the outer man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The thing we want to demonstrate about these things is that the divine  scriptures make use of homonyms; that is to say, they use identical terms  for describing different things. And they even go so far as to call the  members of the outer man by the same names as the parts and dispositions  of the inner man; and not only are the same terms employed, but the things  themselves are compared with one another. For instance, a person is a  child in age according to the inner man, who has in him the power to grow  and to be led onward to the age of youth, and thence by successive stages  of development to come to the perfect man and to be made a father. Our own  intention, therefore, has been to use such terms as would be in harmony  with the language of sacred scripture, and in particular with that which  was written by John; for he says: “I have written to you, children,  because you have known the Father; I have written to you, fathers, because  you have known him who was from the beginning; I have written to you,  young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and  you have overcome the wicked one” (1 Jn 2:12–14). It is perfectly clear;  and I think nobody should doubt that John calls these people children or  lads or young men or even fathers according to the soul’s age, not the  body’s. Paul too says somewhere: “I could not speak to you as spiritual,  but as to car-  nal, little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not meat” (1 Cor  3:1). A little one in Christ is undoubtedly so called after the age of his  soul, not after that of his flesh. And finally the same Paul says further:  “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I  thought as a child; but when I became a man I destroyed childish things”  (1 Cor 13:11). And again on another occasion he says: “Until we all meet .  . . unto a perfect man; unto the measure of the age of the fullness of  Christ” (Eph 4:13). He knows that those who believe will “all meet unto a  perfect man” and “unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.”  So, then, just as these different ages that we have mentioned are denoted  by the same words both for the outer man and for the inner, so also will  you find the names of the members of the body transferred to those of the  soul; or rather the faculties and powers of the soul are to be called its  members.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    III.  Amor and Caritas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In these places, therefore, and in many others you will find that divine  scripture avoided the word “passion” (erôs) and put “charity” or  “affection” (agapê) instead. Occasionally, however, though rarely, it  calls the passion of love by its own name, and invites and urges souls to  it; as when it says in Proverbs about Wisdom: “Desire her greatly and she  will preserve you; encompass her, and she shall exalt you; honor her, that  she may embrace you” (Prov 4:6, 8). And in the book that is called the  Wisdom of Solomon it is written of Wisdom herself: “I became a passionate  lover of her beauty” (Wis 8:2). I think that the word for passionate love  was used only where there seemed to be no occasion of falling. For who  could see anything sensuous or unseemly in the passion for Wisdom, or in a  man’s professing himself her passionate lover? Whereas had Isaac been  spoken of as having a passion for Rebecca or Jacob for Rachel, some  unseemly passion on the part of the saints of God might have been inferred  from the words, especially by those who do not know how to rise up from  the letter to the spirit. Most clearly, however, even in this our little  book of which we are now treating,   the appellation of “passionate love” has been changed into the word  “charity” in the place where it says: “I have adjured you, O daughters of  Jerusalem, if you find my ‘Nephew,’ to tell him that I have been wounded  by charity” (Song 5:8). For that is as much as to say: “I have been  smitten through with the dart of His passionate love.” It makes no  difference, therefore, whether the sacred scriptures speak of love, or of  charity, or of affection; except that the word “charity” is so highly  exalted that even God himself is called Charity, as John says: “Dearly  beloved, let us love one another, for charity is of God; and everyone that  loves is born of God and knows God. But he that loves not knows not God,  for God is Charity” (1 Jn 4:7–8).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      IV.  The Place of the Song of Songs Among the Works of Solomon   (i.e., Christ)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now, therefore, calling upon God the Father, who is Charity, through that  same charity that is of him, let us pass on to discuss the other matters.  And let us first investigate the reason why, when the churches   of God have adopted three books from Solomon’s pen, the Book of Proverbs  has been put first, that which is called Ecclesiastes second, while the  Song of Songs is found in the third place. The following are the  suggestions that occur to us here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The branches of learning by means of which men generally attain to  knowledge of things are the three which the Greeks called Eth-  ics, Physics and Epoptics; these we may call respectively moral, natu-  ral, and inspective. Some among the Greeks, of course, add a fourth  branch, logic, which we may describe as rational. Others have said that  logic does not stand by itself, but is connected and intertwined  throughout with the three studies that we mentioned first. For this logic  is, as we say, rational, in that it deals with the meanings and proper  significances and their opposites, the classes and kinds of words and  expressions, and gives information as to the form of each and every  saying; and this branch of learning certainly requires not so much to be  separated from the others as to be mingled and woven in with them. That  study is called moral, on the other hand, which inculcates a seemly manner  of life and gives a grounding in habits that incline to virtue. The study  called natural is that in which the nature of each single thing is  considered; so that nothing in life may be done which is contrary to  nature, but everything is assigned to the uses for which the Creator  brought it into being. The study called inspective is that by which we go  beyond things seen and contemplate something of things divine and  heavenly, beholding them with the mind alone, for they are beyond the  range of bodily sight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It seems to me, then, that all the sages of the Greeks borrowed these  ideas from Solomon, who had learned them by the Spirit of God at an age  and time long before their own, and that they then put them forward as  their own inventions and, by including them in the books of their  teachings, left them to be handed down also to those that came after. But,  as we said, Solomon discovered and taught these things by the wisdom that  he received from God before anyone; as it is written: “And God gave  understanding to Solomon and wisdom exceeding great, and largeness of  heart as the sand that is on the seashore. And wisdom was multiplied in  him above all the sons of men that were of old, and above all the sages of  Egypt” (3 Kgs 4:29–30). Wishing, therefore, to distinguish one from  another of those three branches of learning, which we called general just  now (that is, the moral, the natural, and the inspective), and to  differentiate between them, Solomon issued them in three books, arranged  in their proper order. First, in Proverbs he taught the moral science,  putting rules for living into the form of short and pithy maxims, as was  fitting. Secondly, he covered the science known as natural in  Ecclesiastes; in this, by discussing at length the things of nature, and  by distinguishing the useless and vain from the profitable and essential,  he counsels us to forsake vanity and cultivate things useful and upright.  The inspective science likewise he has propounded in this little book that  we now have in hand—that is, the Song of Songs. In this he instills into  the soul the love of things divine and heavenly, using for his purpose the  figure of the bride and Bridegroom, and teaches us that communion with God  must be attained by the paths of charity and love. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This book comes last so that a person may come to it when his manner of  life has been purified and he has learnt to know the difference between  things corruptible and things incorruptible, so that nothing in the  metaphors used to describe and represent the love of the bride for her  celestial Bridegroom—that is, of the perfect soul for the Word of God—may  cause him to stumble. For when the soul has completed these studies, by  means of which it is cleansed in all its actions and habits and is led to  discriminate between natural things, it is competent to proceed to  doctrinal and mystical matters, and in this way advances to the  contemplation of the Godhead with pure and spiritual love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    From Origen. The Song of Songs. Commentary and Homilies, translated and  annotated by R. P. Lawson (New York: Paulist Press, 1957. Ancient  Christian Writers), 21–22, 24–27, 31–32, 39–41, and 44. Used with  permission of Paulist Press.","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304755417317,"sku":"NP9780812974218","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812974218.jpg?v=1767739222","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-essential-writings-of-christian-mysticism-isbn-9780812974218","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}