Introduction

“Mysticism” is a modern designation that became widespread in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first scholars of mysticism, such as William James, Evelyn Underhill, and Rudolf Otto, focused on what they called mystical or religious experience, which they thought was the root of all religion. This emphasis on experience is characteristically modern, in harmony with doubts about tradition, authority, and institutions, and congruent with modernity's confidence in the experiential basis of science.

Because of the modern origins and character of the concept of “mysticism,” we have to be careful when looking for mysticism in medieval Christianity. It is not that medieval people did not have, or were not interested in, extraordinary experiences of union with God. Rather, medieval people did not put the same weight on experience as an authority different from tradition, Scripture, and church that modern people do. They expected these authorities to agree. Moreover, medieval thinkers typically put experiences of God within the context of the Christian's gradual transformation into a perfected human being who enjoyed some sort of union or identity with God. This transformation, enacted in central Christian rituals such as baptism and communion, is what mattered, not the experiences. Still, some writers in the Middle Ages explored or emphasized the possibility that union with God is available in this life rather than exclusively in heaven, and they are the focus of this essay. While some of these writers saw union as the basis for extraordinary experiences, others understood union as a permanent state of being that Christians could attain.

Two Early Influences: Augustine and Eriugena

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) had unparalleled influence on medieval Christian theology. Although he is not usually considered a mystic, he wrote extensively about how God is present to Christians on earth. One way is through visions. In his Literal Commentary on Genesis, Augustine explains that visions come in three kinds. First are visions in which one perceives God by means of the senses, such as when the Israelites saw and heard God descend to Mount Sinai. Second are imaginative visions, such as those given to the prophets. The third kind of vision is purely intellectual, without sense perception or images of any sort, in which one apprehends God by the mind alone. This is the kind of vision enjoyed by those in heaven.