"Who does she think she is?" Christian women's mysticism

Theology Today, Apr 2003 by Hollywood, Amy

Theology Today 60 (2003): 5-15

Sometime in the mid-thirteenth century, the Dutch beguine Hadewijch described a vision in which she saw a phoenix devour a young grey eagle and an old yellow eagle with new feathers.1 Swallowed by the phoenix, the eagles continue to fly about "incessantly in the deep abyss." Hadewijch understands that she is the young eagle, Augustine the old, and the phoenix "the Unity in which the Trinity dwells, wherein both of us are lost." Rather than being delighted or awed by the honor of union with the great Augustine, Hadewijch describes herself, after this extraordinary vision ends, as "poor and miserable." Reflecting on "this union with Saint Augustine to which I had attained," she writes: "I was not contented with what my dearly Beloved had just permitted, in spite of my consent and emotional attraction; it weighed on me now that this union with Saint Augustine had made me so perfectly happy, whereas previously I had possessed union far from saints and men, with God alone." Although Hadewijch recognizes that she must submit to God's will, she also prays for God to deliver her from lesser experiences like that of union with Saint Augustine.

More Articles of Interest: A Mirror for Simple Souls. - book reviews; Christological transformation in The Mirror of Souls, by Marguerite Porete; Mirror of Simple Souls, The; Flowing Light of the Godhead, The; Women religious virtuosae from the middle ages: a case pattern and analytic...

For I wished to remain in [God's] deepest abyss, alone in fruition. And I understood that, since my childhood, God had drawn me to himself alone, far from all the other beings whom he welcomes to himself in other manners. But I well know that whatever was in him is, in highest measure, eternal glory and perfect enjoyment, but I likewise wished to remain in him alone. I understood this when I asked for it, and so greatly desired it, and suffered so much; then I remained free. No doubt I continued to belong to God alone while being united in Love to this creature. But my liberty I gained then was given me moreover for reasons of my own, which neither Augustine nor many others had.2

Hadewijch both denies claiming that she is more privileged than Augustine and refuses any comfort from him, understanding herself as a "free human creature, and also pure as to one part." "And," she goes on, "I can desire freely with my will, and I can will as highly as I wish, and seize and receive from God all that he is, without objection or anger on his part-what no saint can do. For the saints have their will perfectly according to their pleasure; and they can no longer will beyond what they have."3 Hadewijch's very imperfection-her distance from God, to whose will she has not yet adequately conformed her own-serves as the basis for her claim to do what no saint can do.

Hadewijch's contemporary, the German beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg, makes similarly audacious claims about the soul's privileged relationship to God. In a long poetic dialogue from the first book of Mechthild's Flowing Light of the Godhead, the soul refuses any consolation except union with her Lover. When the senses offer her the chastity of virgins and other delights, the soul rejects them all.

[Senses]: "Lady, in the chastity of virgins great love is ready."

[Soul]: "That may be, but it isn't the noblest thing about me."

[Senses]: "In the blood of the martyrs you can cool yourself very well."

[Soul]: "I have been martyred so many times that I can't go there now."

The soul claims that she has already suffered so greatly that a share in the suffering of the martyrs is unnecessary for her, thereby equating her own life of exile in this world with the highly revered martyrdom of early Christians. She goes on to reject comfort from even more highly placed figures, eschewing the "wisdom of the apostles," "the angels' bliss," and "the holy austere life that God granted to John the Baptist." The soul goes so far as to reject a share in the Virgin Mary's experience as she suckles the infant Jesus: "That is a child's love, that one suckle and rock a baby. I am a full-grown bride. I want to go to my Lover."4 The maternal is paradoxically recast as childish and Mechthild, a full-grown bride, demands adult satisfaction from her Lover.

The senses cry out against the soul's desire, fearing-rightly-that it will lead to their annihilation:

Oh, Lady, if you go there,

We shall go completely blind.

The Godhead is so blazingly hot,

As you well know,

That all the fire and all the glowing embers

That make the heavens and all the saints glow and burn

Have flowed out from his divine breath

And from his human mouth

According to the plan of the Holy Spirit.

"How," the senses ask, "can you stay there even for an hour?" To the senses' worry that union with the Lover who is God will overwhelm the soul just as it will overwhelm the senses, the soul replies that she is of the same nature as the Godhead with whom she desires to be united:

A fish in water does not drown.

A bird in the air does not plummet.

Gold in fire does not perish.

Rather, it gets its purity and its radiant color there.

God has created all creatures to live according to their nature.

How, then, am I to resist my nature?5

The soul and her Lover then come together "in the secret chamber of the invisible Godhead" and the "naked soul" is "so utterly formed to [God's] nature / That not the slightest thing can be between" them.6 Like that of Hadewijch, Mechthild's soul is amply rewarded for her audacity.

Featured Download

Speak Like a CEO

"Who does she think she is?" Christian women's mysticism

Theology Today, Apr 2003 by Hollywood, Amy

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Health

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference