Chapter 10

[Footnote 132: The passages in which Plotinus (following Plato) bids us mount by means of the beauty of the external world, do not contradict those other passages in which he bids us "turn from things without to look within" (_Enn_. iv. 8. 1). Remembering that postulate of all Mysticism, that we only know a thing by _becoming_ it, we see that we can only know the world by finding it in ourselves, that is, by cherishing those "best hours of the mind" (as Bacon says) when we are lifted above ourselves into union with the world-spirit.]

[Footnote 133: Plotinus guards against this misconception of his meaning, _Enn_. v. 1. 6, [Greek: ekpodôn de êmin estô genesis hê en chronô].]

[Footnote 134: [Greek: zôê exelittomenê], _Enn_. i. 4. 1.]

[Footnote 135: See especially _Enn_. iv. 4. 32, 45.]

[Footnote 136: _Enn_. iv. 5. 3, [Greek: sympathes to zôon tode to pan heautô]; iv. 9. 1, [Greek: hôste emou pathontos synaisthanesthai to pan].]

[Footnote 137: _Enn_. iv. 5. 2, [Greek: sympatheia amydra].]

[Footnote 138: See Bigg, _Neoplatonism_, pp. 203, 204. He shows that with the Stoics, who were Pantheists, the Logos was regarded as a first cause; while with the Neoplatonists, who were Theists and Transcendentalists, it was a secondary cause. In Plotinus, the Intelligence ([Greek: Nous]) is "King" (_Enn_. v. 3. 3), and "the law of Being" (_Enn_. v. 9. 5). But the Johannine Logos is both immanent and transcendent. When Erigena says, "Certius cognoscas verbum Naturam omnium esse," he gives a true but incomplete account of the Nature of the Second Person of the Trinity.]

[Footnote 139: See especially the interesting passage, _Enn_. i. 8. 3.]

[Footnote 140: _Enn_. i. 8. 13, [Greek: eti anthrôpikon hê kakia, memigmenê tini enantiô].]

[Footnote 141: The "civil virtues" are the four cardinal virtues. Plotinus says that justice is mainly "minding one's business" [Greek: oikeiopagia]. "The purifying virtues" deliver us from sin; but [Greek: hê spoudê ouk exô hamartias einai, alla theon einai].]

[Footnote 142: Compare Hegel's criticism of Schelling, in the latter's Asiatic period, "This so-called wisdom, instead of being yielded up to the influence of Divinity _by its contempt of all proportion and definiteness_, does really nothing but give full play to accident and caprice. Nothing was ever produced by such a process better than mere dreams" (_Vorrede zur Phänomenologie_, p. 6).]

[Footnote 143: Heb. viii. 5.]

[Footnote 144: _Enn_. iii. 8. 4, [Greek: hotan asthenêsôsin eis to theôrein, skian theôrias kai logou tên praxin poiountai]. Cf. Amiel's _Journal_, p. 4, "action is coarsened thought."]

[Footnote 145: _Enn_. iii. 2. 15, [Greek: hypokriseis] and [Greek: paignion]; and see iv. 3. 32, on love of family and country.]

[Footnote 146: _Enn_. vi. 7. 34.]

[Footnote 147: It would be an easy and rather amusing task to illustrate these and other aberrations of speculative Mysticism from Herbert Spencer's philosophy. E.g., he says that, though we cannot know the Absolute, we may have "an indefinite consciousness of it." "It is impossible to give to this consciousness any qualitative or quantitative expression whatever," and yet it is quite certain that we have it. Herbert Spencer's Absolute is, in fact, _matter without form_. This would seem to identify it rather with the all but non-existing "matter" of Plotinus (see Bigg, _Neoplatonism_, p. 199), than with the superessential "One"; but the later Neoplatonists found themselves compelled to call _both_ extremes [Greek: to mê on]. Plotinus struggles hard against this conclusion, which threatens to make shipwreck of his Platonism. "Hierotheus," whose sympathies are really with Indian nihilism, welcomes it.]

[Footnote 148: The following advice to directors, quoted by Ribet, may be added: "Director valde attendat ad personas languidæ valetudinis. Si tales personæ a Deo in quamdam quietis orationem eleventur, contingit ut in omnibus exterioribus sensibus certum defectum ac speciem quamdam deliquii experiantur cum magna interna suavitate, quod extasim aut raptum esse facillime putant. Cum Dei Spiritui resistere nolint, deliquio illi totas se tradunt, et per multas horas, cum gravissimo valetudinis præiudicio in tali mentis stupiditate persistunt." Genuine ecstasy, according to these authorities, seldom lasted more than half an hour, though one Spanish writer speaks of an hour.]

[Footnote 149: Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation, p. 72.]

[Footnote 150: But we should not forget that the author of the _Epistle to Diognetus_ speaks of the Logos as [Greek: pantote neos en hagiôn kardiais gennômenos]. In St. Augustine we find it in a rather surprisingly bold form; cf. _in Joh. tract._ 21, n. 8: "Gratulemur et grates agamus non solum nos Christianos factos esse, sed Christum ... Admiramini, gaudete: Christus facti sumus." But this is really quite different from saying, "Ego Christus factus sum."]

[Footnote 151: "Greek" must here be taken to include the Hellenised Jews. Those who are best qualified to speak on Jewish philosophy believe that it exercised a strong influence at Alexandria.]

[Footnote 152: Proclus used to say that a philosopher ought to show no exclusiveness in his worship, but to be the hierophant of the whole world. This eclecticism was not confined to cultus.]

[Footnote 153: This account of "Hierotheus" is, of course, taken from Frothingham's most interesting monograph.]

[Footnote 154: So Ruysbroek says, "We must not remain on the top of the ladder, but must descend."]

[Footnote 155: Another description of the process of [Greek: haplôsis] may be found in the curious work of Ibn Tophail, translated by Ockley, and much valued by the Quakers, _The Improvement of Human Reason, exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Tophail, newly translated by Simon Ockley_, 1708.]

[Footnote 156: [Greek: ou monon mathôn alla kai pathôn ta theia.]]

[Footnote 157: See Harnack, vol. iv. pp. 282, 283. Frothingham's theory necessitates a later date for Dionysius than that which Harnack believes to be most probable; the latter is in favour of placing him in the second half of the fourth century. The writings of Dionysius are quoted not much later than 500.]

[Footnote 158: E.g., he agrees with Iamblichus and Proclus (in opposition to Plotinus) that "the One" is exalted above "Goodness."]

[Footnote 159: At the present time the more pious opinion among Romanists seems to be that the writings are genuine; but Schram admits that "there is a dispute" about their date, and some Roman Catholic writers frankly give them up.]

[Footnote 160: E.g., [Greek: katharsis, phôtismos, myêsis, epopteia, theôsis; hierotelestai] and [Greek: mystagôgoi] (of the bishops), [Greek: phôtistikoi] (of the priests), [Greek: kathartikoi] (of the deacons).]

[Footnote 161: [Greek: hyperousios aoristia--hyper noun hynotês--henas henopoios hapasês henados--hyperousios ousia kai nous anoêtos kai logos arrêtos--alogia kai anoêsia kai anônymia--auto de mê on ôs pasês ousias epekeina.]]

[Footnote 162: [Greek: oudemia ê monas ê trias exagei tên hyper panta krypsiotêta tês hyper panta hyperousiôs hyperousês hypertheotêtos.]]

[Footnote 163: [Greek: monas estai pasês dyados archê] is stated by Dionysius as an axiom.]

[Footnote 164: See especially Bradley's _Appearance and Reality_, some chapters of which show a certain sympathy with Oriental speculative Mysticism. The theory set forth in the text must not be confounded with true pantheism, to which every phenomenon is equally Divine as it stands. See below, at the end of this Lecture.]

[Footnote 165: See _De Div. Nom._ iv. 8; xi. 3.]

[Footnote 166: Dionysius distinguishes _three_ movements of the human mind--the _circular_, wherein the soul returns in upon itself; the _oblique_, which includes all knowledge acquired by reasoning, research, etc.; and the _direct_, in which we rise to higher truths by using outward things as symbols. The last two he regards as inferior to the "circular" movement, which he also calls "simplification" [Greek: haplôsis].]

[Footnote 167: The highest stage (he says) is to reach [Greek: ton hyperphôton gnophon kai di' ablepsias kai agnôsias idein kai gnônai].]

[Footnote 168: [Greek: tolmôsa theoplasia] and [Greek: paidariôdês phantasia] are phrases which he applies to Old Testament narratives.]

[Footnote 169: As a specimen of his language, we may quote [Greek: esti de ekstatikos ho theios erôs, ouk eôn eautôn einai tous erastas, alla tôn erômenôn] (_De Div. Nom_. iv. 13).]

[Footnote 170: I am inclined to agree with Dr. Bigg (_Bampton Lectures_, Introduction, pp. viii, ix), that Dionysius and the later mystics are right in their interpretation of this passage. Bishop Lightfoot and some other good scholars take it to mean, "My earthly affections are crucified." See the discussion in Lightfoot's edition of Ignatius, and in Bigg's Introduction. I am not aware how the vindicators of "Dionysius" explain the curious fact that he had read Ignatius!]

[Footnote 171: See Harnack, vol. iii. pp. 242, 243. St. Augustine accepts this statement, which he repeats word for word.]

[Footnote 172: Compare also Hooker: "Of Thee our fittest eloquence is silence, while we confess without confessing that Thy glory is unsearchable and beyond our reach."]

[Footnote 173: Unity is a characteristic or simple condition of real being, but it is not in itself a principle of being, so that "the One" could exist substantially by itself. To personify the barest of abstractions, call it God, and then try to imitate it, would seem too absurd a fallacy to have misled any one, if history did not show that it has had a long and vigorous life.]

[Footnote 174: Cf. Sir W. Hamilton (_Discussions_, p. 21): "By abstraction we annihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate the subject of consciousness. But what remains? Nothing. When we attempt to conceive it as reality, we hypostatise the zero."]

[Footnote 175: The Hon. P. Ramanathan, C.M.G., Attorney-General of Ceylon, _The Mystery of Godliness_. This interesting essay was brought to my notice by the kindness of the Rev. G.U. Pope, D.D., University Teacher in Tamil and Telugu at Oxford.]

[Footnote 176: Hunt's summary of the philosophy of the Vedanta Sara (_Pantheism and Christianity_, p. 19) may help to illustrate further this type of thought. "Brahma is called the universal soul, of which all human souls are a part. These are likened to a succession of sheaths, which envelop each other like the coats of an onion. The human soul frees itself by knowledge from the sheath. But what is this knowledge? To know that the human intellect and all its faculties are ignorance and delusion. This is to take away the sheath, and to find that God is all. Whatever is not Brahma is nothing. So long as a man perceives himself to be anything, he is nothing. When he discovers that his supposed individuality is no individuality, then he has knowledge. Man must strive to rid himself of himself as an object of thought. He must be only a subject. As subject he is Brahma, while the objective world is mere phenomenon."]

[Footnote 177: We may compare with them the following maxims, which, enclosed in an outline of Mount Carmel, form the frontispiece to an early edition of St. Juan of the Cross:--

"To enjoy Infinity, do not desire to taste of finite things.

"To arrive at the knowledge of Infinity, do not desire the knowledge of finite things.

"To reach to the possession of Infinity, desire to possess nothing.

"To be included in the being of Infinity, desire to be thyself nothing whatever.

"The moment that thou art resting in a creature, thou art ceasing to advance towards Infinity.

"In order to unite thyself to Infinity, thou must surrender finite things without reserve."

After reading such maxims, we shall probably be inclined to think that "the Infinite" as a name for God might be given up with advantage. There is nothing Divine about a _tabula rasa_.]

[Footnote 178: Cf. Richard of St. Victor, _de Præp. Anim._ 83, "ascendat per semetipsum super semetipsum."]

[Footnote 179: The same is true of our attitude towards external nature. We are always trying to rise from the shadow to the substance, from the symbol to the thing symbolised, and so far the followers of the negative road are right; but the life of Mysticism (on this side) consists in the process of spiritualising our impressions; and to regard the process as completed is to lose shadow and substance together.]

[Footnote 180: It may be objected that I have misused the term _via negativa_, which is merely the line of argument which establishes the transcendence of God, as the "affirmative road" establishes His immanence. I am far from wishing to depreciate a method which when rightly used is a safeguard against Pantheism, but the whole history of mediæval Mysticism shows how mischievous it is when followed exclusively.]

[Footnote 181: See Vaughan, _Hours with the Mystics_, vol. i. p. 58.]

[Footnote 182: Seth, _Hegelianism and Personality_, states this more strongly. He argues that "the ultimate goal of Realism is a thorough-going Pantheism." God is regarded as the _summum genus_, the ultimate Substance of which all existing things are accidents. The genus inheres in the species, and the species in individuals, as an entity common to all and _identical in each_, an entity to which individual differences adhere as accidents.]

[Footnote 183: McTaggart, _Studies in Hegelian Dialectic_, p. 159 sq., argues that Hegel means that the Absolute Idea exists eternally in its full perfection. There can be no _real_ development in time. "Infinite time is a false infinite of endless aggregation." The whole discussion is very instructive and interesting.]

[Footnote 184: So Lasson says well, in his book on Meister Eckhart, "Mysticism views everything from the standpoint of teleology, while Pantheism generally stops at causality."]

[Footnote 185: As, for instance, Leslie Stephen tries to do in his _Agnostic's Apology_.]

[Footnote 186: The system of Spinoza, based on the canon, "Omnis determinatio est negatio," proceeds by wiping out all dividing lines, which he regards as illusions, in order to reach the ultimate truth of things. This, as Hegel showed, is acosmism rather than Pantheism, and certainly not "atheism." The method of Spinoza should have led him, as the same method led Dionysius, to define God as [Greek: hyperousios aoristia]. He only escapes this conclusion by an inconsistency. See E. Caird, _Evolution of Religion_, vol. i. pp. 104, 105.]

[Footnote 187: There is a third system which is called pantheistic; but as it has nothing to do with Mysticism, I need not try to determine whether it deserves the name or not. It is that which deifies physical law. Sometimes it is "materialism grown sentimental," as it has been lately described; sometimes it issues in stern Fatalism. This is Stoicism; and high Calvinism is simply Christian Stoicism. It has been called pantheistic, because it admits only one Will in the universe.]

LECTURE IV

[Greek: "Edizêsamên emeôuton."]

HERACLITUS.

"La philosophie n'est pas philosophie si elle ne touche à l'abîme; mais elle cesse d'être philosophie si elle y tombe."

COUSIN.

"Denn Alles muss in Nichts zerfallen, Wenn es im Sein beharren will."

GOETHE.

"Seek no more abroad, say I, House and Home, but turn thine eye Inward, and observe thy breast; There alone dwells solid Rest. Say not that this House is small, Girt up in a narrow wall: In a cleanly sober mind Heaven itself full room doth find. Here content make thine abode With thyself and with thy God. Here in this sweet privacy May'st thou with thyself agree, And keep House in peace, tho' all Th' Universe's fabric fall."

JOSEPH BEAUMONT.

"The One remains, the many change and pass: Heaven's light for ever shines; earth's shadows fly: Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity."

SHELLEY.

CHRISTIAN PLATONISM AND SPECULATIVE MYSTICISM

2. IN THE WEST

"Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"--1 COR. iii. 16.

We have seen that Mysticism, like most other types of religion, had its cradle in the East. The Christian Platonists, whom we considered in the last Lecture, wrote in Greek, and we had no occasion to mention the Western Churches. But after the Pseudo-Dionysius, the East had little more to contribute to Christian thought. John of Damascus, in the eighth century, half mystic and half scholastic, need not detain us. The Eastern Churches rapidly sank into a deplorably barbarous condition, from which they have never emerged. We may therefore turn away from the Greek-speaking countries, and trace the course of Mysticism in the Latin and Teutonic races.

Scientific Mysticism in the West did not all pass through Dionysius. Victorinus, a Neoplatonic philosopher, was converted to Christianity in his old age, about 360 A.D. The story of his conversion, and the joy which it caused in the Christian community, is told by St. Augustine[188]. He was a deep thinker of the speculative mystical type, but a clumsy and obscure writer, in spite of his rhetorical training. His importance lies in his position as the first Christian Neoplatonist who wrote in Latin.

The Trinitarian doctrine of Victorinus anticipates in a remarkable manner that of the later philosophical mystics. The Father, he says, eternally knows Himself in the Son. The Son is the self-objectification of God, the "_forma_" of God[189], the utterance of the Absolute. The Father is "_cessatio_," "_silentium_," "_quies_"; but He is also "_motus_" while the Son is "_motio_." There is no contradiction between "_motus_" and "_cessatio_" since "_motus_" is not the same as "_mutatio_." "Movement" belongs to the "being" of God; and this eternal "movement" is the generation of the Son. This eternal generation is exalted above time. All life is _now_: we live always in the present, not in the past or future; and thus our life is a symbol of eternity, to which all things are for ever present[190]. The generation of the Son is at the same time the creation of the archetypal world; for the Son is the cosmic principle[191], through whom all that potentially _is_ is actualised. He even says that the Father is to the Son as [Greek: ho mê ôn] to [Greek: ho ôn], thus taking the step which Plotinus wished to avoid, and applying the same expression to the superessential God as to infra-essential matter.[192]

This actualisation is a self-limitation of God,[193] but involves no degradation. Victorinus uses language implying the subordination of the Son, but is strongly opposed to Arianism.

The Holy Ghost is the "bond" (_copula_) of the Trinity, joining in perfect love the Father and the Son. Victorinus is the first to use this idea, which afterwards became common. It is based on the Neoplatonic triad of _status, progressio, regressus_ ([Greek: monê, proodos, epistrophê]). In another place he symbolises the Holy Ghost as the female principle, the "Mother of Christ" in His eternal life. This metaphor is a relic of Gnosticism, which the Church wisely rejected.

The second Person of the Trinity contains in Himself the archetypes of everything. He is the "_elementum_," "_habitaculum_," "_habitator_," "_locus_" of the universe. The material world was created for man's probation. All spirits pre-existed, and their partial immersion in an impure material environment is a degradation from which they must aspire to be delivered. But the whole mundane history of a soul is only the realisation of the idea which had existed from all eternity in the mind of God. These doctrines show that Victorinus is involved in a dualistic view of matter, and in a form of predestinarianism; but he has no definite teaching on the relation of sin to the ideal world.

His language about Christ and the Church is mystical in tone. "The Church is Christ," he says; "The resurrection of Christ is our resurrection"; and of the Eucharist, "The body of Christ is life."

We now come to St. Augustine himself, who at one period of his life was a diligent student of Plotinus. It would be hardly justifiable to claim St. Augustine as a mystic, since there are important parts of his teaching which have no affinity to Mysticism; but it touched him on one side, and he remained half a Platonist. His natural sympathy with Mysticism was not destroyed by the vulgar and perverted forms of it with which he was first brought in contact. The Manicheans and Gnostics only taught him to distinguish true Mysticism from false: he soon saw through the pretensions of these sectaries, while he was not ashamed to learn from Plotinus. The mystical or Neoplatonic element in his theology will be clearly shown in the following extracts. In a few places he comes dangerously near to some of the errors which we found in Dionysius.

God is above all that can be said of Him. We must not even call Him ineffable;[194] He is best adored in silence,[195] best known by nescience,[196] best described by negatives.[197] God is absolutely immutable; this is a doctrine on which he often insists, and which pervades all his teaching about predestination. The world pre-existed from all eternity in the mind of God; in the Word of God, by whom all things were made, and who is immutable Truth, all things and events are stored up together unchangeably, and all are one. God sees the time-process not as a process, but gathered up into one harmonious whole. This seems very near to acosmism, but there are other passages which are intended to guard against this error. For instance, in the _Confessions_[198] he says that "things above are better than things below; but all creation together is better than things above"; that is to say, true reality is something higher than an abstract spirituality.[199]

He is fond of speaking of the _Beauty_ of God; and as he identifies beauty with symmetry,[200] it is plain that the formless "Infinite" is for him, as for every true Platonist, the bottom and not the top of the scale of being. Plotinus had perhaps been the first to speak of the Divine nature as the meeting-point of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful; and this conception, which is of great value, appears also in Augustine. There are three grades of beauty, they both say, corporeal, spiritual, and divine,[201] the first being an image of the second, and the second of the third.[202] "Righteousness is the truest beauty,[203]" Augustine says more than once. "All that is beautiful comes from the highest Beauty, which is God." This is true Platonism, and points to Mysticism of the symbolic kind, which we must consider later. St. Augustine is on less secure ground when he says that evil is simply the splash of dark colour which gives relief to the picture; and when in other places he speaks of it as simple privation of good. But here again he closely follows Plotinus.[204]

St. Augustine was not hostile to the idea of a World-Soul; he regards the universe as a living organism;[205] but he often warns his readers against identifying God and the world, or supposing that God is merely immanent in creation. The Neoplatonic teaching about the relation of individual souls to the World-Soul may have helped him to formulate his own teaching about the mystical union of Christians with Christ. His phrase is that Christ and the Church are "_una persona_."