Greek Influence on the Origins of Christian Mysticism The sequence of the development of Christian Mysticism is traced by Andrew Louth in The Origin of the Christian Mystical Tradition - From Plato to Denys (Clarendon Press, Oxford). In his introduction, Louth makes a significant point regarding the use of words in translation and the understanding of the actions of thought and feeling. We approach things from a post-Cartesian viewpoint of the mind. Greek philosophy is pre-Cartesian. The Platonic doctrines were based on the soul’s search for God conceived of as “a return, an ascent to God; for the soul properly belongs with God, and in its ascent it is but realizing its own true nature”. (Louth, Introduction, p. xiv.) This is opposite to the Christian approach which “speaks of the incarnation of God, of His descent into the world that He might give to men the possibility of a communion with God that is not open to him by nature” (ibid.). Thus, within Christian doctrine, there appears to be an inherent impermissibility of mysticism. When the original biblical teachings – which treat of a physical resurrection and a nephesh or ‘spirit of man’ that precludes the existence of an immortal soul – are examined there must be some non-Christian syncretic origin for the concept of the soul and mystical approaches to its union with God. As can be seen, this can be traced to Greek philosophy, primarily from Socrates in reaction to the Orphic Mystery Cults (cf. J. Burnet, The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul, 1916, B6, CCG, 2000). It then became a distillation of early doctrines under Plato and a neo-Platonic refinement under Philo and the eventual result with Plotinus, from whom Augustine drew his writings. From thence the doctrine entered Christianity in a more complete form, together with the modified Chaldean concepts of the soul doctrine and of heaven and hell which came via the Gnostics. This union with God is found amongst the early Greek cults from Orphic ecstatic or out of the body experiences of purification. The Greek concept of the Nous and its derivatives are important to it. I think, therefore there is that which I think is a Greek thought process given expression by Parmenides. The Greek nous, noesis, are quite different from our words mind, mental, intellect etc. They suggest an almost intuitive grasp of reality (ibid., p. xvi). Louth goes on to quote Festugiere: It is one thing to approach truths by reason, it is quite another to attain them by that intuitive faculty called nous by the ancients, the ‘fine point of the soul’ by St Francis de Sales and the ‘heart’ by Pascal. By means of nous, Festugiere goes on to say: … the soul aspires to a knowledge that is a direct contact, a ‘feeling’ (sentiment), a touching, something seen. It aspires to a union where there is total fusion, the interpretation of two living things. Nous then, is more like an organ of mystical union than anything suggested by our words ‘mind’ or ‘intellect’, and yet, nous does mean mind; noesis is a deeper, simpler, more contemplative form of thought, not something quite other than thinking (ibid.). Plato saw the soul as ensnared by the world that is revealed to it by the senses. To be detached from this world will mean for it to be detached from the senses and the body. So an important element in the soul’s ascent is detachment from the body and the realization of itself as a spiritual being (ibid., p. 7). In The Phaedo, the man who wishes to attain to knowledge of reality must seek to purify himself: by reason alone, eliminating the senses. The individual, by philosophy, attempts to live a life only really attainable after death. Purity is only obtainable on separation from the enslavement of the body. For it cannot be that the impure attain the pure (67A). The process of purification has two dimensions, moral and intellectual. Moral purification is the practice of the virtues, justice, prudence, temperance, and courage. This purifies the soul from union with the body, controlling desires and passions by the rational nous which controls the two elements of the soul, that give rise to desires (the to epithymetikon) and passions (the to thymikon). By a life of contemplation, purification is attained and the soul is released and separation from the body occurs, which is how Plato defines death (Phaedo 67D). He mentions this in the Republic and the Laws. Plato speaks of the decisive importance of education through music involving sensitivity to rhythm and form. This ‘right way’ (Republic 401D) means “that the soul is deeply sensitive to beauty and it is beauty that characterizes the true form of reality” (Louth, p. 8). Moral purification might be regarded as attuning the body to the true end of the soul, which is contemplation of true reality. Plato describes the soul’s recognition of true beauty in the forms of the beloved in the Phaedrus as a mystery. When one who is fresh from the mystery, and saw much of the vision, behold a godlike face or bodily form that truly expresses beauty, first there comes upon him a shuddering and a measure of that awe which the vision inspired, and then reverence as at the sight of a god (Phaedrus 251A). There seems little doubt that Plato is here describing the Mystery Cults previously described. When coupled together, they give a very good view of the objects of the experience and the thought process involved. The Orphic rites were designed to purify the fallen god so it could return to the heavens (Burnet, ibid., B6). From Diotima’s speech in The Symposium, it becomes evident how beauty as love is subjected to the process of intellectual purification – a process of abstraction and simplification. By moral and intellectual purification, the soul is dragged up the steep and rugged ascent from the cave. A beauty wonderful in its nature. This is the goal of the soul’s ascent. The rapturous vision of Beauty is itself, the Form of Beauty (Louth, p.11). What is revealed is eternal and ineffable. It transcends the realm of Forms in the sense that the Greek uses the term Forms for higher realities. The final vision of the Beautiful is not attained, or discovered: it comes upon the soul, it is revealed to the soul (ibid., p. 13). In a sense, this is reminiscent of Zen Buddhism. The final vision is suddenly immediate to the soul in the sense of rapture or ecstasy. This is the concept of mysticism that has been developed in the western tradition. It did not start with Plato; he merely played a key role in formalising it. It preceded early Greek philosophy and was derived from the Chaldean religious system, and the doctrine of the soul is fundamental to its structure. It is thus non-biblical and its end product was to be a form of syncretic or derived Christianity. The next developments are found in the works of Philo of Alexandria. Philo was to become a representative of the Stoicised form Platonism had taken from the beginning of the first century BCE, known as Middle Platonism. From Plato, the realm of the Forms was the realm of the divine and, with Middle Platonism this was to change to a much clearer conception of a Transcendent God (Louth, p. 18). Plato’s mystical theology is approached from an examination of his doctrine of contemplation and, despite a clearer notion of God, Middle Platonism is, according to Louth, still more appropriately approached from this aspect. There is no doubt that Philo’s was a mystical theology, but it was one centred on the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Philo expounded that God is unknowable in Himself, only being made known in His works (from Louth’s treatment at p. 19 of F.H. Colson’s and G.H. Whitaker’s edition of Philo’s Works (Loeb Classical Library)). God’s essence cannot be encompassed by human concepts. Philo makes a significant, lasting and often utilised distinction between His essence and His activities or energies. Philo establishes the doctrine of the unknowability of God (often introduced by the sentence from Plato’s Timaeus (28c), To discover the maker and father of this universe is indeed a hard task). Philo uses the biblical statement that God’s existence can easily be apprehended and demonstrated from a contemplation of the order and beauty of the Cosmos. God, although possessing a limitless number of powers, is known to man mostly in the aspects of the kingly and the beneficent or the creative – making Himself known to man by Grace. Philo’s language in De Abrahamo is essentially mystical, using the vocabulary of the Mystery religions (esp. De Abrahamo 121-123 “where of three when, as yet uninitiated into the highest mysteries, it is still a votary only of the minor rites and unable to approach the Existent alone by Itself” etc.). This vocabulary of the Mystery religions was here applied to the three angels at the Oak of Mamre appearing to Abraham, and is found elsewhere in Philo and is frequently in the Christian Fathers. Although the language goes back to the Eleusinian Mysteries, Louth says: … it probably does not indicate any direct influence of mystery cults, for Plato had used such language of the soul’s ascent to contemplation (Louth, p.23). Contrary to Louth’s assertion, the reverse would appear to be the case, giving a direct lineage of influence from the Mystery religions through Greek philosophy to Plato, and which Philo combines with developing Talmudic syncretism to provide a basis for the adoption of the Mystery religions into Christianity. Its adoption of mysticism without it would have no dogmatic basis for the doctrine to assert itself. The greater mystery was the passage of the soul into the inner sanctuary of ‘knowledge’ of God beyond that of knowing Him through His activities. Philo distinguishes three types of service and servants: those who serve God through love of God alone: those who serve Him from hope of reward; and those who serve Him through fear of punishment. These three are all acceptable by this descending order of purity and merit. Louth sees Philo’s compassion to those who serve out of fear as being in distinction to the Rabbis, and many of the Fathers.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 11:40:00 +0000