An account of the life and achievements of St Birgitta of Sweden, one of the most charismatic figures in the late medieval mystical tradition, founder of the Bridgettine order. St Birgitta of Sweden was one of the most charismatic figures in the late medieval mystical tradition. In Rome she succeeded in commanding prelates and popes, and throughout the courts of Europe she engaged in political secular intrigues; she married and produced eight children, yet became the only woman in the fourteenth century to be canonised; and in an age where new monastic foundations were proscribed, she founded an order of her own devising, primarily for women. This first modern biography presents an account of her extraordinary life and achievements, placing the saint in the context of the society from which she emerged, and showing how her public voice and reforming zealwere informed by a private spirituality at all stages of her life. Particular attention is given to her most lasting achievement, the monastic foundation which bears her name and has produced a network of communities throughout Europe, active to the present day. BRIDGET MORRIS is senior lecturer in Scandinavian studies at the University of Hull.

Selections from this widely varied original mystical treatise offer insight into the lives of C13 female religious in northern Europe. Here is one of the great surprises of German medieval literature. Compiled between c.1250 and c.1282, it is an extraordinary piece of imaginative writing. It integrates visions, auditions, dialogues, prayers, hymns, lyrical love poems, letters, allegories and parables, and draws creatively on features from hagiography, the disputation, the treatise, and magic spells, as the author documents her relationship with God and with her contemporaries. Selectionsfrom the text are presented here in translation with introduction and notes. Dr Elizabeth A. Andersen teaches in the School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University.

"Julian of Norwich" was a fourteenth-century woman who at the age of thirty had a series of vivid visions centered on the crucified Christ, twenty years later while living as an anchoress in a church she is believed to have set out her visions in a text called the Showing of Love. The trend in modern scholarship is to place Julian in the category of mystic rather than visionary, a classification which defines her visions as deeply private, psychological events. This book instead sets Julian's thinking in the context of a visionary project which she used to instruct the Christian community.
Drawing on recent developments in philosophy which debate the objectivity and rationality of vision and perception, Kevin J. Magill gives full attention to the depth and richness of the visual language and modes of perception in the Showing of Love, doing justice to the major themes in Julian's teaching. In particular the book focuses on the ways in which Julian presented her vision to the Christian society around her, demonstrating the educative potential of interaction between the "isolated" anchoress and the wider community. Challenging Julian's identification as a mystic and solitary female writer this book argues that Julian engaged in a variety of educative methods - oral, visual, conversational, mnemonic, alliterative - that extend the usefulness of her text.

<div>The culmination of de Certeau's lifelong engagement with the human sciences, this volume is both an analysis of Christian mysticism during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and an application of this influential scholar's transdisciplinary historiography.</div>

Best known today as a fine composer, the twelfth-century German abbess Hildegard of Bingen was also a religious leader and visionary, a poet, naturalist and writer of medical treatises. Despite her cloistered life she had strong, often controversial views on sex, love and marriage too - a woman astonishing in her own age, whose book of apocalyptic visions, Scivias, would alone have been enough to ensure her lasting fame. In this classic and highly praised biography - first published by Headline in 2001 - distinguished writer and journalist, Fiona Maddocks, draws on Hildegard's prolific writings to paint a portrait of her extraordinary life against the turbulent medieval background of crusade and schism, scientific discovery and cultural revolution. The great intellectual gifts and forceful character that emerge make her as fascinating as any figure in the Middle Ages. More than 800 years after her death, Pope Benedict XVI has made Hildegard a Saint and a Doctor of the Church (one of only four women). Fiona Maddocks has provided a short new preface to cover these tributes to an extraordinary and exceptional woman.

The early Christian writer Tertullian first applied the epithet "bride of Christ" to the uppity virgins of Carthage as a means of enforcing female obedience. Henceforth, the virgin as Christ's spouse was expected to manifest matronly modesty and due submission, hobbling virginity's ancient capacity to destabilize gender roles. In the early Middle Ages, the focus on virginity and the attendant anxiety over its possible loss reinforced the emphasis on claustration in female religious communities, while also profoundly disparaging the nonvirginal members of a given community. With the rising importance of intentionality in determining a person's spiritual profile in the high Middle Ages, the title of bride could be applied and appropriated to laywomen who were nonvirgins as well. Such instances of democratization coincided with the rise of bridal mysticism and a progressive somatization of female spirituality. These factors helped cultivate an increasingly literal and eroticized discourse: women began to undergo mystical enactments of their union with Christ, including ecstatic consummations and vivid phantom pregnancies. Female mystics also became increasingly intimate with their confessors and other clerical confidants, who were sometimes represented as stand-ins for the celestial bridegroom. The dramatic merging of the spiritual and physical in female expressions of religiosity made church authorities fearful, an anxiety that would coalesce around the figure of the witch and her carnal induction into the Sabbath.

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) achieved international fame with the publication of her book Mysticism in 1911. Continuously in print since its original publication, Mysticism remains Underhill's most famous work, but in the course of her long career she published nearly forty books, including three novels and three volumes of poetry, as well as numerous poems in periodicals. She was the religion editor for Spectator, a friend of T. S. Eliot (her influence is visible in his last masterpiece, Four Quartets), and the first woman invited to lecture on theology at Oxford University. Her interest in religion extended beyond her Anglican upbringing to embrace the world's religions and their common spirituality. In time for the centennial celebration of her classic Mysticism, this volume of Underhill's letters will enable readers and researchers to follow her as she reconciled her beliefs with her daily life. The letters reveal her personal and theological development and clarify the relationships that influenced her life and work. Hardly aloof, she enjoyed the interests, mirth, and compassion of close friendships. Drawing from collections previously unknown to scholars, The Making of a Mystic shows the range of Evelyn Underhill's mind and interests as well as the immense network of her correspondents, including Sir James Frazier and Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore. This substantial selection of Underhill's correspondence demonstrates an exceptional scope, beginning with her earliest letters from boarding school to her mother and extending to a letter written to T. S. Eliot from what was to be her deathbed in London in 1941 as the London Blitz raged around her.

This book is concerned with the concepts of Christian holiness and spirituality, from Late Antiquity through to the Middle Ages. The first group of articles focuses on the Desert Fathers, the following ones examine key figures in the monastic history of the medieval West, dealing above all with England and with Bede and Anselm of Canterbury. Throughout, Benedicta Ward's aim has been to find an approach that makes full sense of Christian writings, notably the hagiography, miracles and all. This should not be seen, she argues, simply as biography, nor as a quarry for information on social history, valuable though it may be for those purposes. The primary object of these Lives - as of the people about whom they were written - was religious; to neglect this meaning is to risk fundamentally misunderstanding these texts. Ce volume traite des concepts de la saintete et de la spiritualite chretiennes, de l'Antiquite tardive jusqu'au Moyen Age. Le premier groupe d'etudes se concentre sur les Peres du Desert, les suivants font l'examen de personnages-clefs dans l'histoire monastique de l'Occident medieval, s'attachant avant tout A l'Angleterre et A Bede et Anselme de Cantorbery. Benedicta Ward A pour propos constant de trouver une approche rendent tout son sens A la litterature chretienne et notamment A la litterature hagiographique, miracles et autres. Bien que valable A ces deux niveaux, ceci ne devrait pas Atre perAu, souligne-t'elle, en tant que simple biographie, ni en tant que source d'information sur l'histoire sociale. L'objet premier de ces Vies est d'ordre religieux; toute negligence de ce sens peut mener A une mecomprehension fondamentale de ces textes.

In this compelling narrative, Bernard Heyberger relates the fascinating history of Hindiyya 'Ujaymi, a highly charismatic eighteenth-century mystic of sinister repute. Heyberger makes a careful study of Hindiyya's life from earliest childhood, with a detailed picture of her formative years in the eighteenth century Christian community of Aleppo, the domestic reality of which is little known, exploring the influences she would have experienced. He leads us through her spiritual development under the direction of the Jesuits, her determination to found a new religious order, and the tragic history of its collapse in a welter of paranoia and persecution. Heyberger also reveals the tensions and complex rivalries at play around Hindiyya between Rome, the Jesuits, and Eastern tribes, which were also beset by feuds and alliances. He makes extensive use of a wide variety of sources, from Hindiyya's own writings to reports from her confessors and Roman inquisitors, to shed light upon the Hindiyya affair. 'Hindiyya, Mystic and Criminal' relates the history of a woman of inflexible power of will and great charisma, who managed to move beyond the circumscribed world of her girlhood and realise what she believed to be her destiny. It will be of great interest to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of an affair which has been long obscured by contradictory reports, or to those interested in eighteenth-century Maronite Christianity and its complex interactions with the authority of Rome.

When Alastair McIntosh was asked what makes a good BBC radio 'God slot' he quoted his late friend Walter Wink: 'To conceive of heaven as the transcendent possibilities latent in every emerging moment.' This anthology shares the best of Alastair's Prayer and Thought for the Day pieces from nearly a decade. Here is that of God, transcendent, yet also here and now, immanent, within the day's hard news. 'O taste and see - '

'If this is not heaven, I do not know what heaven is, for all the suffering that can ever be put into words, could not enable anyone to earn such a reward and for ever possess it.' A central figure in Christian mystical literature, the Dominican Prior Henry Suso was the author of the seminal work The Life of the Servant. Transcribed by an enlightened amanuensis without his explicit consent, Suso began burning the manuscript until a heavenly missive from God decreed that the text should be spared further desecration. The remaining fragments of that conflagration are vividly resurrected in this volume, elegantly translated by James M. Clark. Suso's subjective account of the spiritual and invisible world, told in prose of unsurpassed poetic beauty, is reflective of the ardent spirituality of his devotion. Informed by severe mortifications, visions, ecstasies and revelations, this canonical text endures as a sublime cultural artefact. Resonating profoundly with contemporary concerns about austerity and materialism, this classic text of mysticism is once again accessible to a new generation of readers and to those existing admirers seeking to re-evaluate its many virtues.

Advent is close, expectation is holding its breath. The angels hover high above. Come, begin your journey - Hope Was Heard Singing can be used as part of a daily discipline for Advent, or as a book to dip into. It is a collection for personal reflection, and a rich resource, from an original voice, for congregations and small groups searching for material relevant to the 21st century. There are prayers, meditations, poems, a few wee plays thrown in for good measure and Bible readings on Advent themes. Much of the material was tried and tested at Dunblane Cathedral, where Sally is Associate Minister. On the hillsides, hope was heard singing unexpected Hallelujahs. In a Bethlehem backwater, hope hovered and love was born. And now, as the wise journey and the powerful start to pace the floor and mumble into sleepless nights, we gather - the light of the world is here. The job now is to keep it burning.

This account of evil takes the Book of Job as its guide. The Book of Job considers physical pain, social bereavement, the origin of evil, theodicy, justice, divine violence, and reward. Such problems are explored by consulting ancient and modern accounts from the fields of theology and philosophy, broadly conceived. Some of the literature on evil - especially the philosophical literature - is inclined toward the abstract treatment of such problems. Bringing along the suffering Job will serve as a reminder of the concrete, lived experience in which the problem of evil has its roots.

"Sensible Ecstasy" investigates the attraction to excessive forms of Christian mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers. With special attention to Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray, Amy Hollywood asks why resolutely secular, even anti-Christian intellectuals are drawn to affective, bodily, and widely denigrated forms of mysticism.
What is particular to these thinkers, Hollywood reveals, is their attention to forms of mysticism associated with women. They regard mystics such as Angela of Foligno, Hadewijch, and Teresa of Avila not as emotionally excessive or escapist, but as unique in their ability to think outside of the restrictive oppositions that continue to afflict our understanding of subjectivity, the body, and sexual difference. Mystics such as these, like their twentieth-century descendants, bridge the gaps between action and contemplation, emotion and reason, and body and soul, offering new ways of thinking about language and the limits of representation.

'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well' Julian of Norwich is one of the most celebrated figures of the English Middle Ages. She is esteemed as one of the subtlest writers and profoundest thinkers of the period for her account of the revelations that she experienced in 1373. Julian lived as an anchoress in Norwich, and after recovering from a serious illness she described the visions that had come to her during her suffering. She conceived of a loving and compassionate God, merciful and forgiving, and believed in our ability to reach self-knowledge through sin. She wrote of God as our mother, and embraced strikingly independent theological opinions. This new translation conveys the poise and serenity of Julian's prose style to the modern reader. It includes both the short and long texts, written twenty years apart, through which Julian developed her ideas. In his introduction Barry Windeatt considers Julian's astonishingly positive vision of humanity and its potential for spiritual transformation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

In 1902 Steiner wrote Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, showing the evolutionary development from the ancient mysteries, through the great Greek philosophers, to the events portrayed in the gospels. Steiner saw the Christ event as the turning point in the world's spiritual history -- an incarnation whose significance he saw as transcending all religions. Charles Kovacs brings his deep knowledge of esoteric writings, mythology and Steiner's lectures to give more background and to show how the way for Christianity was prepared in the ancient pre-Christian mysteries of Egypt and Greece. He discusses the symbolic and real events of the gospels, as well as looking at some of the understandings and disputes of the early Christians. The book is illustrated with Kovacs' own colour paintings.

This remarkable book shows the seminal Western mystic Meister Eckhart as the great teacher of the birth of God in the soul. It is at once an exposition of Eckhart's mysticism -- perhaps the best in English -- and also an exemplary work of contemporary philosophy.

Schurmann shows us that Eckhart is our contemporary. Writing from experience, he describes the threefold movement of detachment, releasement, and "dehiscence" (splitting open) that leads to the experience of "living without a why" in which all things are in God and which is sheer joy. Going beyond that, he describes the transformational force of approaching the Godhead, the God beyond God.

The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology provides a guide to the mystical element of Christianity as a theological phenomenon. It differs not only from psychological and anthropological studies of mysticism, but from other theological studies, such as more practical or pastorally-oriented works that examine the patterns of spiritual progress and offer counsel for deeper understanding and spiritual development. It also differs from more explicitly historical studies tracing the theological and philosophical contexts and ideas of various key figures and schools, as well as from literary studies of the linguistic tropes and expressive forms in mystical texts. None of these perspectives is absent, but the method here is more deliberately theological, working from within the fundamental interests of Christian mystical writers to the articulation of those interests in distinctively theological forms, in order, finally, to permit a critical theological engagement with them for today. Divided into four parts, the first section introduces the approach to mystical theology and offers a historical overview. Part two attends to the concrete context of sources and practices of mystical theology. Part three moves to the fundamental conceptualities of mystical thought. The final section ends with the central contributions of mystical teaching to theology and metaphysics. Students and scholars with a variety of interests will find different pathways through the Handbook.

Originally published in 1925, this book contains three lectures delivered by the British theologian F. R. Tennant (1866-1957) at the University of London during 1924. The three lectures, all of which relate to the nature of miracles, are titled as follows: 'Miracle and the Reign of Law', Natural and Supernatural Causation', and 'Credibility and Alleged Actuality of Miracle'. Notes are included at the end of the text. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the works of Tennant and theology.

This book is a study of the mystical nature of tradition, and the traditional nature of mysticism, and of St Symeon as both a highly personal and very traditional ecclesiastical writer. The teachings of St Symeon (949-1022) created much controversy in Byzantium and even led to a short-lived exile to Asia Minor in 1009. For the first time in modern scholarship these teachings are examined from within the tradition to which both St Symeon and Dr Alfeyev belong.

In this practical guide to attaining your true Divine Identity, Denmark's leading spiritual teacher Lars Muhl reveals exactly how to connect with your magnificent inner power and attain your highest possible potential. Muhl invites us to join him on a journey to the Qumran Caves in the Judean desert to discover The Book of Asaph. The journey and the sacred text itself offer a breath-taking metaphor for the process of spiritual Enlightenment. Lars Muhl considers The Light Within a Human Heart his most profound and powerful work. It is for all who wish to embrace their endless magic and enter Heaven on earth, remaining beautifully Present despite the inevitable difficulties of life. When we move, breathe and live in our Inner Light, we have returned home.

Originally published in 1932, this book presents the content of the Rede Lecture for that year, which was delivered by Edgar Allison Peers at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in theology and the history of Christianity.

The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism is a multi-authored interdisciplinary guide to the study of Christian mysticism, with an emphasis on the third through the seventeenth centuries. The book is thematically organized in terms of the central contexts, practices, and concepts associated with the mystical life in early, medieval, and early modern Christianity. Written by leading authorities and younger scholars from a range of disciplines, the volume both provides a clear introduction to the Christian mystical life and articulates a bold new approach to the study of mysticism. The book looks beyond the term mysticism, which was an early modern invention, to explore the ways in the ancient terms mystic and mystical were used in the Christian tradition: What kinds of practices, modes of life, and experiences were described as mystical ? What understanding of Christianity and of the life of Christian perfection is articulated through mystical interpretations of scripture, mystical contemplation, mystical vision, mystical theology, or mystical union? What practices and experiences provided the framework within which one could describe mystical phenomena? And what topics are at the forefront of the contemporary study of Christian mystical practice and experience?

Situated on the bank of the Seine, the Victorines followed the rule of St Augustine, upholding the monastic ideal of a contemplative life dedicated to study. It was here, in the second half of the twelfth century, that Richard of St Victor wrote one of the most significant medieval works on the dogma of the Trinity, De Trinitate, printed here in English for the first time. Studies of Richard's theology are few in number, yet his model of the central - and arguably most contentious - doctrine of Christianity was influential up until the end of the sixteenth century and widely sought after by religious houses. Following Augustine's own treatise on the trinity, 'De Trinitate' explores the mediating concepts on which to base faith, founded on personal experience. Comprising six books, each of twenty-five chapters, Richard develops a model to account for the three components of the Trinity, using a typical blend of reason and spirituality Angelici provides a translation faithful to the original intent and style of the medieval author, alongside rich commentary. This edition affords fascinating insight into the Augustinian-Anselmian position of the Victorines and the dogmatics of one of the most important medieval theologians. Richard of St Victor was one of the most important spiritual writers of the twelfth century and, together with Adam of St Victor, represents the second generation of Victorine spirituality. He joined the abbey of St Victor at Paris in the early 1150s and held the position of prior from 1162 until his death in 1173. Apart from De Trinitate, his major works are 'De XII patriarchis' and 'De arca mystica'. Ruben Angelici is a Graduate of the University of Manchester. He holds degrees and expertise in theology, philosophy, biology, and music. He has been a sessional lecturer in dogmatic and historical theology at Nazarene Theological College, University of Manchester.