For Theological Studies

MYSTICISM IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPAIN (1500–1650). By Bernard McGinn. THE

PRESENCE OF GOD: A HISTORY OF WESTERN CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM. VOL. VI/2. New York:

Crossroad, 2017. Pp. xii + 478. $74.95

Over the years I have had the difficult but rewarding task of reviewing six volumes of the

most authoritative, commanding, synoptic, single-authored, history of the Western mystical

tradition in any language. Bernard McGinn wisely divides the sixth volume of his series—which

comprises both a “monastic layer” and the new vernacular mysticisms—into three fascicles: the

first on mysticism in the Reformation, the second and present volume on Spain’s Golden Age of

mysticism, and a soon to be published tome on the 17th-century French mystics. The final

seventh volume will center on crises and renewal in mysticism—especially the Quietist

controversy, the Enlightenment, papal condemnations, and 20th-century renewal.

Contradicting widely held views, M. views Ignatius as a reformer of sorts, but as one as

less concerned with reforming church institutions than with transforming believers, ministering

to the poor, and educating youth. However, he did boldly write that if the pope were to reform

himself, his household, and the cardinals of Rome, everything else would subsequently fall into

place. Also, contrary to popular belief, M. underscores Ignatius’s profound mystical life and uses

the term “apostolic mysticism” to bring together the Trinitarian, Christocentric, ecclesial,

priestly, and other aspects of Ignatius’s mysticism. (The relative absence of the Holy Spirit in

Ignatius’s writings is due perhaps to the Inquisition’s suspicions of the Alumbrados, a

phenomenon M. treats with precision.)

 Also salient is the paradox of a milieu marked not only by an Inquisitional suspicion of

interior spirituality but also by the bitter conflicts between and within the religious orders that

produced many mystical geniuses. M. rightly emphasizes that Ignatius’s spiritual “tear” diary is

one of the purest examples of direct reporting of mystical experiences in Christian history and

that the Spiritual Exercises is one of this history’s most significant works. Although the

Exercises do not say much about service to others, they are a powerful means of effecting

conversion through the interiorization of the Christian life with an emphasis on discernment and

finding God's will. But Ignatius’s Constitutions do shift the focus away from one’s personal

salvation to the perspective of apostolic love and service to all.

I was surprised to learn that Jesuit General Edward Mercurian forbade Jesuits from

teaching affective prayer and the prayer of quiet. Mercurian’s gross misunderstanding of

Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises presupposed that intellectual meditation was more Ignatian. His

view contributed to the popular but incorrect notion that the Jesuits opposed contemplative

prayer whereas they were often mystics and guided many into the deepest levels of mystical

prayer.

M. focuses on Teresa of Avila as an ecstatic and also as an apostolic mystic. She

developed a theology that fused contemplation and action as the distinction of the highest stage

of union with God. Teresa may be unparalleled in the Christian tradition for precision in her

descriptions of the psychosomatic effects that resulted from her life of prayer. One example: she

distinguished between the “spirit” aspect of her being, which was always in contact with the

Trinity and Christ (the contemplative Mary), and the “soul” aspect that permitted her to

undertake vigorous apostolic activity (the active Martha).

Teresa understood mystical “experience” as knowing something in a vital and holistic

manner, analogous to the way experienced drivers instinctively drive their cars. Although she

preferred an experienced and learned confessor for herself and her nuns, lacking that, a learned
one with a “certain something” would do just fine. Teresa rejected the naïve understanding of the

deepest form of union as one characterized by ecstasies, raptures, delights, and other secondary

mystical phenomena. It was rather in deeds done for one’s own spiritual growth and the good of

others. Yet, is not Christian mysticism a charism without which the deepest love of God and

neighbor is impossible?

Because of her unusual vow of obedience to her friend and director Jerónimo Gracián,

Teresa described their relationship as a spiritual marriage. Moreover, she was much less

influenced by John of the Cross and more by Augustine on whose Confessions she modeled

many of her works. She tested everything she wrote by the biblical witness and her learned

theological advisers to become the first woman to write with the Inquisition in mind. Her shrewd

outmaneuvering of their toxic masculinity and that of ecclesiastics and secular bureaucrats are

impressive. M. rightly dismisses the view that Teresa’s illnesses, diabolical attacks, and ecstasies

were the expressions of some degenerative pathology. Instead, they were the side effects of the

transformation of her consciousness from the selfish ego of Dona Therese to Teresa of Jesus, the

apostolic mystic. She also insisted that even in the highest stages of mystical prayer one should

practice a non-discursive presence of Christ, find oneself in him, and savor the mysteries of his

life through a simple gaze—analogous to Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises that teach the exercitant

to render the Christian mysteries transparent.

M. stresses that to understand the somewhat austere “all and nothing” mentality of John

of the Cross, it is imperative to read his works in the context of the awesome descriptions of the

deepening of loving union with God described in his masterpiece on mystical marriage, The

Living Flame of Love—a work to be read before attempting his more intimidating work, The

Ascent of Mount Carmel—The Dark Night. The hollowing-out process described in the Ascent—

Night must be understood in terms of the being-filled-with-God process described in The Living
Flame. John’s goal: a union with God such that a person may reach out divinely to the enjoyment

of all earthly and heavenly things, with a general freedom of spirit in them all.

Remarkable is the fact that John’s cruel imprisonment unlocked his creativity. Often

overlooked, the nine romances, prison poems in imitation of contemporary ballads, are perhaps

the best source for the doctrine that underlies his teaching. They indicate that his mysticism is

rooted in the fundamental doctrines of Trinity, creation, Incarnation, and theological

anthropology. M. underscores that it is unnecessary to choose between John the poet and John

the commentator because his poetry and commentary are two side of the same coin. Still, they

remain secondary, fallible instruments for the inexpressible communication of love.

I agree with M. that John held a Scotistic view of the incarnation, namely, that the Father

intended the Son’s incarnation as the goal and purpose of his creative love and not because of

sin. Since creation is beautiful when seen from God's perspective, its true beauty and meaning

can be appreciated only by those who have rejected the beauty of creatures taken in themselves.

M. correctly contends that John’s mystical life was the confirmation of what was taught by

Scripture and the church and not exotic experience. M. likewise maintains that it is incorrect to

accuse him (or any genuine Christian mystic) of basically altering the relation between

experience and doctrine, or being primarily concerned with some form of mystical

experimentation.

God’s loving inflow into the soul, which John calls both “infused contemplation” and

“mystical theology,” rather than causing sweetness and delight instead produces pain and

suffering only because of the soul’s weakness and sinfulness. When the mystic has attained

psychosomatic integration, his soul is like a perfectly clean window through which light passes

making it seem as if the light and the window are one. John also wrote that the soul no longer

wants a vision of God’s back, which Moses saw, but desires the vision of his face, the essential

communication of the divinity to the spark of the soul. This transforming union between the two
natures and the communication of the divine to the human is such that even though neither

change their being both appear to be God.

John teaches that once persons arrive at perfect union with God they should not become

involved in exterior works that might be of the slightest hindrance to the attentiveness of love for

God, even though the work be of great service to God. In short, John clearly views bridal sleep,

contemplative love, as an apostolic activity. I concur with M. that John seems to teach that grace

must cancel or perhaps better said suspend nature, if it is to have the ability eventually to restore

the harmony of the human person. Some kind of annihilation of the current state of the created

soul is the only way to guarantee its restoration through the grace of spiritual marriage. I prefer

to employ Rahner’s theory of sublation because human nature as obediential potency is open to

even the Word becoming flesh and taking human nature to its highest level.

I appreciate M.s rejection of any form of reductionism in studying the mystics. For

example, although he stresses that in every respect the dark night is an objective theological

category, it nonetheless has an effect in the subject’s consciousness and is therefore open to

psychological investigation. Thus, while both depression and the dark night are similar

experiences of loss of identity, from the standpoint of prognosis they differ.

M. highlights Tomás de Jesus’ definition of “Christian contemplation as a simple gaze at

truth that proceeds from love and charity” (p. 374) and views him as the first to define “acquired

contemplation.” He explained it as a sincere and loving knowledge of the triune God and his

effects gained by our own efforts and thus open to all Christians. Thus, Tomás is a representative

of the new science of mysticism.

The fascinating Augustinian mystic Luis de León emphasized the role of both earthly and

heavenly music in lifting the soul to God. His strongly somatic view of union and his cosmic

mystical poems earn him a well-deserved place in the pantheon of great mystics. The “loving

anxiousness” of the Portuguese mystic Joana de Jesus deserves mentioning both because of her
creative approach to “recollection” and her emphasis on “loving anxiousness.” When meditating

on the passion, her Christocentric love resulted in a constricting anxiousness and a disquieting,

desirous yearning so excessive that she felt herself dying.

The term recollection (recogimiento) is central to the understanding of 16th-century

Spanish mysticism. It is a physical withdrawal of the individual to a quiet and secret place, but at

the same time is both a gathering within of the powers of the soul and a contemplation of God in

the profoundest and most intimate part of the soul. Interior affective prayer “thinks nothing” (ne

pensar nada) but requires labor and technique—a form of recollection in which the soul enters

into itself (“the secret place”) and rests in God's presence, which affectively and effectively

raises the soul above all that is not God. Nothing must be admitted other than the soul’s essential

substance, so that it alone may occupy itself in pure, naked, and unitive love. Francisco de Osuna

and others distanced themselves from “abandonment” (dejamiento), a proto-Quietism with

similarities to recogimiento.

I have long disputed with some scholars that one must distinguish between a mystic and a

visionary. Given the political, didactic, and localized message that visionaries receive from their

apparitions—as well as their lack of interest in personal and social transformation—such people

are not mystics. Of course, there were many mystics who had transformative visions.

M.’s synthetic-analytic prowess in delineating mystics in their historical context accounts

for his volumes being definitive. If a manuscript dealing with the Western mystical tradition that

I am requested to evaluate contains no evidence of M.’s work, I rarely suggest that it be

published. Finally, without denying the fecundity of others in the Christian mystical tradition, I

can easily understand why Teresa of Avila and John the Cross are often held to be the mystical

teachers against whom all others are to be measured.

HARVEY D. EGAN, S.J.

Boston College