Mystics of the Christian Tradition

Rating:
Summary: Time-honoured traditions
Review: This book is a great primer to the mystical traditions of Christianity. As the use of the plural implies, there are in fact many different, divergent traditions of mysticism and mystical knowledge in history and family of Christendom. Fanning looks at many of the major traditions, and some of the lesser known, too.

Fanning's approach is rather interesting. Many texts on mysticism, Christian or otherwise, tend to look at the philosophy, the practices, or the primary textual sources as being the focus of consideration. While these are certainly not absent in this text, Fanning in fact uses a method of looking at the mystics themselves, rather than the traditions, philosophies, etc. of which they are a part.

Origins
Fanning's first chapter looks at the Greco-Roman underpinnings of mystical tradition, feeling, experience and social place that provided the seedbed for Christian mysticism. Plato, Gnostic traditions, Mystery Religions, and basic Jewish mystical practice are all considered in turn. Fanning highlights one of the divergent points between Judaism and Christianity in the first few centuries of the Common Era as being that of an early loss of mystical tradition and tolerance among emerging rabbinic Jews, a loss that was not paralleled in the Christian tradition for another few centuries, when Christian mysticism was deemed generally dangerous to established and forming hierarchies. Mystical experience was not limited by gender, race, class, education or social class. This made it a potential natural enemy of hierarchies that relied on stratification exactly along those lines.

The Eastern Church
It was in the early Eastern Church that mystical traditions continued strong and less hierarchically challenged. As the Western Roman Empire disintegrated, the need for clear-cut authority and hierarchy led to a heavy hand on various kinds of practices; however, the relative stability of the East meant that the established church had more latitude for incorporating mystics and mystical experiences into the overall church structure. It remains a significant hallmark of Eastern Orthodoxy and its fellow travelers among denominations that the activity of the Holy Spirit remains a much-prized and much-celebrated facet.

The Western Church in the Middle Ages
Many of the mystics with whom the world is most familiar come from western Europe during the time of the Middle Ages. It has been a feature of the latter half of the twentieth century to recover especially women's voices and characters from among these people. Looking at Cassian, Benedict, Augustine, Gregory and Bernard, the dominance of monastic ideals and the cross-pollination of monastery and mystic is seen full force. Contemporary with these men were Hildegard and Christina Markyate. Fanning ends his chapter with an interesting discussion of Catherine of Siena, Birgitta, Margery Kempe and Catherian of Genoa juxtaposed with a brief tale of famous person little known or considered for mystical and religious insight, that being Christopher Columbus, whose non-mystical exploits signaled the end of thousands of years of fairly stable history for Europe and the opening up of the world. Ironically, this would have negative effects officially for mystics of all stamps.

Mystics in Early Modern Europe
Many of the great reformers had difficulty in containing mystical and spiritual freedom, for having broken away from a religious tradition themselves, they were hard pressed to deny the same freedom to others, and yet, how does one introduce order and stability without allegiance and obedience?

Because of this trend in the beginning of the Reformation, Protestantism as a whole tended to view mystics with suspicion. The mystics of this period tended to still be primarily Roman Catholic (Ignatius of Loyola, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila), however, mystics of Protestant stamp tended to be awarded other honorics, such as poet, and thus the likes of William Blake would be acceptable, or philosopher, so Blaise Pascal, whose Catholicism waivered in official status if not in temperament and heart, could also be accepted.

Post-Reformation Mystics in England and America
Fanning traces the development of English mysticism, American Protestant mysticism, twentieth century Catholic mysticism, and recent writers on mystics and mysticism in this final chapter. Looking at the characters of William Law, John Wesley and their contemporaries, Fanning shows the peculiar character of a mysticism developing within the strongly hierarchical and formal traditions of English culture.

Looking at individuals as diverse as little Elizabeth of the Trinity, Sister Faustina Kowalska and Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin show the same diversity of mystical thought within the Roman Catholic framework of the twentieth century. Fanning devotes only a few pages to this section, as to the next section on mystical writers, including Evelyn Underhill and Thomas Merton.

Fanning ends this chapter with the observation that mystics do not work in isolation, nor do they operate outside of history or tradition.

Epilogue
Fanning here acknowledges the limitations of his approach, that nearly 2000 years of Christian history will contain much more than the barely 100 individuals highlighted in this kind of book. And yet, one must begin somewhere! This collection shows the diversity of individuals and approaches, by race, gender, social status, educational attainment, church position, official acceptance.

Fanning also recognises that the strong traditions in Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi and Kabbalistic communities can give insight into Christian practice and belief, and vice versa. The book concludes with a good bibliography of primary and secondary texts. The book has an index (blessed be indexes!), a timeline, a glossary, and useful yet not overly extensive endnotes for the chapters.

For anyone interested in the history of mysticism in the Christian world, this is an ideal place to start. For those who have some knowledge and history, this is a good refresher that will also give fresh insights in many cases, and forge a few connections lost in more traditional historical expositions of the topic.