contemporaries and explored such important themes as the role of symbols, the nature of
anagogical ascent, and the “divine darkness” in mystical experience (so important in
Dionysian thought). Like almost all medieval mystics, Hugh gave attention to the relation
of loving and knowing in the mystical quest, concluding that both play central roles but
that ultimately it is the “embrace” of love and not the act of knowing that unites the soul
with the divine in ecstasy.
Hugh’s successor, Richard of Saint-Victor, was interested in the dynamics of
development and psychologcal processes. Like Hugh, he depended heavily upon
visualizations and personifications to convey his message. In De arca mystica, the Ark of
the Covenant and its two Cheru-bim are given a symbolic interpretation that incorporates
Richard’s understanding of six levels in the epistemological structure of the mystic quest.
Contemplation—“behold-ing” or “apprehending,” not analyzing, the object of atten-
tion—is possible at all levels of knowing, but contemplating God occurs only in the
highest two. Richard offers a complex analysis of the six levels of knowledge (two each
for sense, reason, and intellect) including states of mystical ecstasy; he also offers a
detailed analysis of the epistemology of prophetic visions; and he presents an analysis of
possible ways of entering (or “triggering”) the experience of “alienation of mind” or
“ecstasy” in which the individual becomes unaware of the external world and the self and
is aware only of God and spiritual realities. Richard continued and expanded Hugh’s use
of Pseudo-Dionysius in his writings.
A second school of 12th-century mysticism was Cis-tercian, led by Bernard of
Clairvaux but developed by other monks, including William of Saint-Thierry and Isaac of
Stella in France and Aelred of Rievaulx and John of Ford in England. Just as the
Cistercians saw the cloister as a school for the love of God, so their spirituality focused to
a great degree on the nature of the mystic’s love of God and the reciprocal effect of that
love on the individual. Bernard’s earliest work, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
reveals the Cistercian revision of Benedictine foundations as Bernard comments on
Chapter 7 of Bene-dict’s Rule. Cistercian spirituality was shaped in fundamental ways by
deep reflection on the bridal imagery of the Song of Songs, transformed for Bernard and
others into powerful imagery of the deep union between the self (the soul) and the divine
(Christ) in mystical experience. Bernard’s eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs
comprise his greatest contribution to the literature of mysticism. William of Saint-Thierry
wrote treatises on theological and mystical topics, as well as a commentary on the Song
of Songs.
The emergence among the Victorines and Cistercians of intense focus on the nature of
the mystic way and experience, and the expression of that way and experience under the
symbolism of the marriage bond between two individuals, reflects a new conception of
the mystic experience. In the writings of Augustine and Gregory the Great, the mystic
experience was primarily a “beholding,” usually expressed impersonally in terms of a
vision of light. With the 12th century, the mystical experience is conceived in terms of
personal and intimate imagery: the relationship between two individuals in the nuptial
embrace. Thus, the imagery of love is given full expression in symbolic form in the
embrace of the marriage chamber, although the mystics insist that the imagery and
experience are purged of all bodily associations and refer to a spiritual union of soul and
Christ.
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