occurred in the Rhineland with Meister Eckhart and his disciples Tauler and Suso.
Eckhart developed a distinctive mystical way that incorporated ideas of total detachment,
emptying the self, and the “birth” of the divine in the soul. Eckhart also evidences a
significant development within the Dominican order: the pastoral care of convents of
women, both Dominican nuns and others. This involved the friars in the spiritual
direction of women who were involved in their own unique kind of spiritual
development, often at odds with male patterns of spirituality, especially in the prevalence
of visionary experiences, emphasis upon female bodiliness, and a devotional focus on the
eucharistic host (as Christ’s body). The literature of female spirituality and mysticism
receives treatment in another article.
In the late Middle Ages, Jean Gerson (1363–1429) stands out as a figure who
combined distinguished leadership as chancellor of the University of Paris, involvement
in the ecclesiastical and political aspects of the Great Schism, acute contributions to the
development of late-medieval scholastic thought, and a deep sense of the mystical
dimension of Christian theology and life. Like his contemporary Nicholas of Cusa,
Gerson was drawn to the idea of the coincidence of opposites as a key to understanding
and also looked to the mystical writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite as
significant for guiding one on the way toward an experience of divine presence. Gerson
wrote numerous treatises, both technical and “popular,” on mysticism and the mystic
way. He reached an unusually wide audience, for he wrote and preached in both Latin
and French.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: AQUINAS, THOMAS; BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX; BONAVENTURE;
CISTERCIAN ORDER; DOMINICAN ORDER; FRANCISCAN ORDER; GERSON,
JEAN; HUGH OF SAINT-VICTOR; RICHARD OF SAINT-VICTOR; SAINT-
VICTOR, ABBEY AND SCHOOL OF; THEOLOGY; WILLIAM OF SAINT-
THIERRY; WOMEN, RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF]
Butler, Cuthbert. Western Mysticism: The Teaching of August-ine, Gregory and Bernard on
Contemplation and the Con-templative Life. 2nd ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1966.
Classics of Western Spirituality, published by Paulist Press, New York, is a series that presents
writings of the mystics in new modern translations with introductions. Cistercian Publications,
Kalamazoo, Mich., has an extensive series of translations, with introductions, of the writings of
Cistercian mystics.
Leclercq, Jean. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans.
Catharine Misrahi. New York: Fordham University Press, 1961.
McGinn, Bernard, and John Meyendorff, eds. Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth
Century. New York: Crossroad, 1985.
Matter, E.Ann. The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
Raitt, Jill, ed. Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation. New York: Crossroad,
1985.
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