CHAPTER VI

THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY
" Manducat te Angelus ore pleno : manducet te peregrinus homo pro modulo suo, ne deficere possit in via, tali recreatus viatico " (Praparatio ad Miss am).
" Et inveni me longe esse a te in regione dissimilitudinis, tanquam audirem vocem tuam de excelso : Cibus sum grandium, cresce, et mandu- cabis me ; nee tu me in te mutabis, sicut cibum carnis tuae, sed tu muta- beris in me " (ST. AUGUSTINE, Confessions, Bk. VII. cap. 10).
THE OUTER MYSTERY
A LITURGY, says Dom Cabrol, is " the external and official manifestation of a religion":1 and the Mass, the typical liturgic rite of the Catholic world, is " the synthesis of Christianity.5' 2 If, then, our discovery of the mystic life at the heart of the Christian religion be a discovery indeed and not a fantasy, it is here that we may expect to find its corroboration. Here, in that most characteristic of the art-products of Christendom, the ceremonial with which the love and intuition of centuries have gradually adorned the primitive sacrament of the Eucharist, we may find the test which shall confirm or discredit our conclu sions as to the character of that life which descends from Jesus of Nazareth.
Much of the material that we have considered, and on which those conclusions were based, belongs in form to the past. It comes to us now as history, not as experience : though it is illuminated and made actual by the ever- renewed repetition of its chief characters in the lives of all those mystics through whom the mounting flood of Spirit has passed upon its way. By their help we may still go back up the stream of becoming, till we reach their source; the parent type. But here, in the ceremony of the Mass, we have a work of art designed and adapted by the racial consciousness of Christendom for the keeping and reveal ing of something, claiming descent from that same source, which lives: lives, not in the arid security of liturgical 1 Les Origines Liturgiques, p. 17. a Ibid., p. 140.
333
334 THE MYSTIC WAY
museums, but in the thick of diurnal existence — in the cathedral and the mission hut, in the city and the cloister, in the slums and lonely places of our little twisting earth. This " something " is still the true focus of that Christian consciousness which has not broken away from tradition. The great dramatic poem of the liturgy is still for that consciousness the shrine in which the primal secret of transcendence is preserved. We may yet experience the full force of its immense suggestive magic when we will. Here, from within the circle of the static, the authoritative, the apparently mechanical, the Spirit of Life now makes its most subtle appeal. In this strange reliquary it has successfully endured through centuries of change.
The Christian Church has often been likened, and not without reason, to a ship : a ship, launched nineteen hundred years ago upon that great stream of Becoming which sets towards the " Sea Pacific " of Reality. Though she goes upon inland waters, yet hints of the ocean magic, the romance of wide horizons, mysterious tides and undis covered countries, hang about her. In the course of her long voyage, carried upon the current of the river, she has sometimes taken fresh and strange cargo on board ; some times discharged that which she brought with her from the past. She has changed the trim of her sails to meet new conditions, as the river ran now between hard and narrow banks and now spread itself to flow through fields. But through all these changes and developments, she kept safe the one treasure which she was built to preserve: the mystical secret of deification, of the ever-renewed and ever-fruitful interweaving of two orders of reality, the emergence of the Eternal into the temporal, the perpetu ally repeated " wonder of wonders, the human made divine." She kept this secret and handed it on, as all life's secrets have ever been preserved and imparted, by giving it supreme artistic form. In the Christian liturgy, the deepest intuitions, the rich personal experiences, not only of the primitive but of the patristic and mediaeval
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 385
epochs, have found their perfect expression. Herein has been distilled, age by age, drop by drop, the very essence of the mystical consciousness. "The rites and symbols of the external Christian church,' > says Eckartshausen, " were formed after the pattern of the great, unchangeable, and fundamental truths, announcing things of a strength and of an importance impossible to describe, and revealed only to those who knew the innermost sanctuary." 1 Each fresh addition made to this living work of art has but elaborated and enriched the one central idea that runs through the whole. Here it is that Life's instinct for recapitulation is found at work : here she has dramatised her methods, told in little the story of her supreme ascent. The fact that the framework of the Mass is essentially a mystical drama, the Christian equivalent of those Mysteries which enacted before the Pagan neophyte the necessary adventures of his soul, was implicitly if not directly recognised in very early times. It was the " theatre of the pious," said Tertullian in the second century ; 2 and the steady set of its development from the Pauline sacrament of feeding on the Spiritual Order, the Fractio Pants of the catacombs, to the solemn drama of the Greek or Roman liturgy, was always in the direction of more and more symbolic action, of perpetual elabora tions of the ritual and theatrical element. To the sacra mental meal of apostolic times, understood as a foretaste and assurance of the " Messianic banquet" in the coming Parousia, there was soon prefixed a religious exercise — modelled perhaps on the common worship of the Syna gogue — which implied just those preparatory acts of penance, purification and desirous stretching out towards the Infinite, which precede in the experience of the grow ing soul the establishment of communion with the Spiritual World. Further, the classic exhibition of such communion — the earthly life of Jesus — naturally suggested the form
1 The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, Letter II.
2 De Sfectaculis, 29 and 30. See Him, The Sacred Shrine, p. 493.
336 THE MYSTIC WAY
taken by this " initiation of initiations " l when its ritual development once began ; the allegory under which the facts of the Christian mystery should be exhibited before men. The Mass therefore became for devout imagination during the succeeding centuries, not only the supreme medium through which the Christian consciousness could stretch out to, and lay hold on, the Eternal Order, not only the story of the soul's regeneration and growth, but also the story of the actual career of Jesus, told, as it were, in holy pantomime : indirect evidence that the intuitive mind of the Church saw these as two aspects of one truth.2 Hence every development of the original rite was made by minds attuned to these ideas ; with the result that psychological and historical meanings run in parallel strands through the developed ceremony, of which many a manual act and ritual gesture, meaningless for us, had for earlier minds a poignant appeal as being the direct commemoration of some detail in the Passion of Christ.
As Europe now has it, then, in the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox and the Mass of the Catholic Church, this ceremony is the great living witness to — the great artistic expression of — those organic facts which we call mystical Christianity : the " transplanting of man into a new world over against the nearest-at-hand world," the "funda-
1 Dionysius the Areopagite. De Ecdes. Hier., cap. 3, i. I.
2 The great exponent of the Mass as a dramatic presentation of the life of Christ is the ninth-century theologian Amalarius of Metz, De Ecclesiastics Officis ; but this kind of interpretation had already begun in the third century, in the writings of St. Cyprian, and was developed in the sixth and seventh by St. Germanus of Paris and St. Isidore of Seville. See W. H. Frere, The Principles of Religious Ceremonial, cap. II. The most celebrated and elaborate of all these allegorical explanations is of course that contained in the Rationale of Durandus of Mende (thirteenth century). Convenient modern accounts are in Him, The Sacred Shrine, cap. 5 (with full bibliography), and A. Durand, Tr/sor liturgique des fiddles, pp. 29-60. The same method of interpretation was followed in the Eastern Church. See Neale and Littledale, Liturgies of SS. Mark, James, Clement, etc., pp. xxi-xl.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 337
mental inner renewal," the " union of the human and the divine." l All the thoughts that gather about this select series of acts — apparently so simple, sometimes almost fortuitous, yet charged with immense meanings for the brooding soul — all the elaborate, even fantastic symbolic interpretations placed upon these acts in mediaeval times, have arisen at one time or another within the collective consciousness of Christendom. Sometimes true organic developments, sometimes the result of abrupt intuitions, the reward of that receptivity which great rituals help to produce, they owe their place in or about the cere mony to the fact that they help it in the performance of its function, the stimulation of man's spiritual sense ; emphasising or enriching some aspect of its central and fundamentally mystical idea.
That central idea, as we have seen, is simple and yet complex. Here, as nowhere else, we find it in its many- sided unity. " The divine initiation of the Eucharist," says Dionysius the Areopagite, " although it has a single, simple and indivisible Source, is multiplied out of love to man into the holy variety of the symbols, veiling itself in all those external forms whereby Divinity is manifested to us. Yet this multiplicity of symbols always returns to the fundamental Unity : to which Unity all worthy participators in this mystery are drawn."2 Transmuta tion and communion : the pushing out as it were of a bit of the time world into the eternal world, or — the same thing seen at another angle — the discovery of Reality's substance under simplest accidents within the framework of the Here-and-Now : the paradoxical encounter of Divine Personality under profoundly impersonal forms: Divine Union actually achieved by the separated human creature : the feeding of crescent spirit upon Eternal Life : the slow growth and pilgrimage of the soul up from its new birth to an actual attainment of God, under the cyclic
1 Encken, The Truth of Religion, pp. 544-545- * De Eccles. Hicr., cap. 3, iii. § 3.
338 THE MYSTIC WAY
law that governs the Mystic Way — all these aspects of Life's movement have their place in it.
I propose, then, to examine in some detail the witness which is borne by the liturgy to the character of the mystic life: and to take as the basis of inquiry the Roman ceremony of the Mass as we now possess it. To the practical mind such a proceeding must seem at best fantastic and at worst insane. To the liturgic student it will seem in addition profoundly unhistorical; since the Roman Missal contains many late mediaeval additions, and has lost several primitive elements — has in fact been subjected to the vital law of mobility and change. To the first type of student I reply, that the study of those artistic and religious forms in which his emotions and intuitions are expressed, is an important part of the study of man. To the second, that the additions and develop ments which differentiate the primitive from the modern Mass have all taken place in harmony with, and as adorn ments of, the central idea which the Eucharist is designed to exhibit ; they are but the rubrications of the text. Also they have been for the most part the work of great and ardent spirits, true members of the " Interior Church " ; and " all that the external Church possesses in symbol, ceremony, or rite, is the letter which expresses externally the spirit and the truth residing in the interior Sanctuary." 1 Hence, if our view of that central idea be correct, they should demonstrate rather than obscure it : should represent life's secret, gradual, and ever deepening apprehension of its richness and variety. I choose the Roman rite rather than the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church — with which, however, we may often illustrate and compare it — not because it is more mystical, but because it is so easily accessible to all Christians of the West ; and represents the supreme effort of their Church towards that which Eucken has called " the bringing of
1 Eckartshausen, The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, Letter II.-
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 339
the supersensuous world to some kind of concrete expression." 1
When we take up the Roman Missal,2 we find that it consists of an unvarying nucleus — the " Order of the Mass"— and a number of special parts; the readings, chants and prayers proper to each Sunday and feast-day of the year, each circumstance of human life. In these special parts we notice at once a certain order, which, if not inten tionally devised, is now at least most clearly present : an order which links up that ascent to communion with God which this ceremony exhibits in terms of time and space, first with the historic career of Jesus, next with the cyclic movement of those spiritual seasons which condition the growth of the soul, finally with the fortunes of the whole Christian family — the continuity and solidarity of the New Race. The life of the Founder is here recapitulated, step by step, from Advent to Pentecost : the great external facts of it, the alternate joys and pains. Side by side with this historical drama runs the parallel strand of the psycho logical drama : the story of the Mystic Way trodden by those who " imitate Christ." This, too, goes from the "advent" of the first faint stirrings of new life, and the birth and slow, steady unfolding and growth of spirit, through the purifications of Lent, the destitutions and self-surrender of Passion-tide, to the resurrection-life, and great completing experience of a Triumphing Spiritual Power. All the way from the first turn in the new direc tion — "Ad te levavi animam meam:"3 — to the final, sublime consciousness of world-renewal — " Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarumy alleluia:"* — the chang ing, moving liturgy tracks out the adventures of the soul.
Within this great memorial act is again enshrined the
1 The Truth of Religion, p. 463.
2 Readers who distrust the word " Roman " in such a connection will find nearly all of the described characteristics in the Sarum Missal.
3 Introit for the First Sunday in Advent.
4 Introit for Whitsunday.
Z2
340 THE MYSTIC WAY
lesser memorial acts which do honour to those who have celebrated in their lives the difficult liturgy of love : the " illustrious athletes " in whom " grace was victorious " as they are called in the Nestorian rite.1 There is hardly a day on which such partial repetitions of the pattern career — the attainment of sanctity, the ascent to the Eternal Order and heroic descent in charity to men — achieved by some man or woman, is not commemorated with declarations of gratitude and joy.
" O quam pulchra est casta generatio cum claritate !'*...
" Implevit eum Dominus spiritu sapientiae et intellectus : stolam glorias
induit eum. . . ." " Justus germinabit sicut lilium : et florebit in aeternum ante Dominum." a
The special characters of these, the " Knights and Ladies of the Holy Spirit " are here recited : sometimes — and especially in the older collects — with the epic dignity proper to the commemoration of heroic personalities : sometimes in little, sudden, loving phrases, the naive and intimate expressions of a domestic joy and pride. St. Francesca Romana, unwearied helper of the poor, who was " honoured by the close friendship of an angel" : St. Jerome Emilianus, "a father of orphans" : St. Catherine of Genoa, " wholly burned up by the Fire of Divine Love " : St. Jane Frances de Chantal, who " sought with a wonderful fortitude in every by-way of life the one way of perfection" : St. Rose of Lima on whom " heavenly grace fell like dew, so that she brought forth the flowers of patience and virginity " : St. Francis of Assisi, through whom " the Church conceived and bore new children " : St. Peter of Alcantara, teacher of St. Teresa, blessed by the twin gifts of " wondrous penitence and loftiest contempla tion " : St. Gertrude, " in whose heart God made Himself a home " : 3 day by day these, and hundreds of other
1 Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, Vol. I. p. 279.
* Common of Virgins, Easter Gradual; and Common of Doctors, Introit and Easter Gradual.
3 Collects for March 9, July 20, 4th Sunday after Easter, Aug. 21, Aug. 30, Oct. 4, Oct. 19, Nov. 15.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 341
amateurs of Eternity, initiates of humility and love, are brought to mind by the living members of that race which produced them, ensamples of the rich variety in unity which marks the mystic type.
This, then, is the triple recapitulation effected by the wide rhythms of the ecclesiastical year : a threefold wit ness to new life, first achieved in a classic example, then taught and continued in the race. But day by day within this wider rhythm, the developed sacramental act presents, in more intimate and detailed drama, the " Mystic Way " trodden by each spirit in its movement from partial to completed life; the law of man's growth into Reality, the economy of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Order of the Mass — the unchanging nucleus of it — is the book of this more intimate drama : the ceremonial and deeply mystical representation, not of an historical past nor of an apoc alyptic future, but of an Everlasting Now, the rules which govern the correspondence between two orders of Reality, the communion of those two mysterious forces which we call life human, and life divine.
Now this order, this rite, consists structurally of two distinct parts : the so-called " Mass of the Catechumens " which ends with the reading of the Gospel, and with the instruction or sermon that may follow it, and the " Mass of the Faithful" extending from the Offertory to the end. The sharp cleavage between these two parts is now veiled in the Missal by the Creed which comes between them; an eleventh-century innovation so far as the Roman rite is concerned.1 It has ceased to have any " practical " importance, and therefore no longer receives ceremonial emphasis. But in primitive times this cleavage did possess a most real and practical significance. The Mass of the Catechumens was a service of prayer, reading and song, accessible to all: to the unbaptised converts, the unre conciled penitents, the "possessed." The Mass of the Faithful — that is to say, the whole sacramental act — was 1 A. Fortescue, The Mass, pp. 215 and 265.
342 THE MYSTIC WAY
a mystery exhibited only to initiates. To this, none but those "regenerate in baptism" and living " in grace" were admitted. Thus in the liturgy of St. John Chrysos- tom, the normal rite of the Orthodox Church — which retains many antique elements lost to the West — the deacon still cries before the beginning of the " Prayers of the Faithful," "All catechumens go out! Catechumens go out. All catechumens go out. No one of the catechu mens! " l At the same point in the old Roman rite, at least as late as the sixth century, the deacon made an equivalent proclamation : according to St. Gregory, " Si quis non communicat, det locum." 2
The idea, then, of an inner and an outer church, a higher and lower communion with Reality, of a separation of " believers " into two classes, is a fundamental character of the Christian liturgy both in the East and in the West.2 Though it arose to some extent under the pressure of practical necessities, and though the line of demarcation between the two classes was inevitably con ditioned by formula rather than by fact — by the outward reception of baptism or sacramental absolution, not by true change of mind or purgation of heart — yet it repre sented a deep-seated conviction that the central mysteries of this new life were not everybody's business. They were " food for the full-grown " not " milk for babes." Immaturity, degeneracy, disharmony, aberration, were conditions of consciousness in which no communion with Reality could take place.4 The liturgy, in fact, continued
1 A. Fortescue, The Divine Liturgy of our Father among the Saints, John Chrysostom, done into English, with an Introduction and Notes, p. 82.
2 Dial, II. 23. Cf. Duchesne, Origines du culte chretien, 3* ed., p. 171.
3 Examples of the Eastern use in Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, Vol. I. ; for the Western see A. Fortescue, The Mass, p. 215, and Duchesne, op. cit., loc. cit.
4 The three excluded classes, according to Dionysius, were the " un initiated," the " imperfect," and those " entangled by contrary qualities," i. e. the unharmonised (De Eccles. Hier., cap. 3, iii. § 7).
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 843
and fixed at the heart of the Christian tradition the sense of election, of the " little flock," the " few chosen," which runs through the Synoptic gospels; the classification of mankind as " psychic " or " spiritual," which seemed to St. Paul a plain fact of experience ; the division of Chris tians into the " somatic " and the " gnostic " which was Clement's way of re-stating that same fundamental fact of an actually new spiritual type — inheritor, not of a belief, but of a more abundant vitality — emerging here and there from amongst the mass of men, and capable, as that mass was not, of moving to new levels of consciousness.
The liturgy was an expression of life. Therefore it inevitably registered, though in crude symbolic fashion, the law which governed life's new " saltatory ascent." "The rules of the holy Hierarchy," says Dionysius, "permit the catechumens, the possessed, and the peni tents, to hear the sacred chanting of the psalms, and inspired reading of most holy Scripture; but they do not invite these to the next religious rites and contemplations, but only the initiated. For the Hierarchy — image of God — is full of reverent justice, and distributes in a salutary manner to each according to their measure. . . . Cate chumens have not yet their being in God through Divine Birth; but are being brought by life-giving changes to wards that life and light, which is birth in God. . . . Therefore the all-wise science of the holy mysteries brings these first to delivery, and when it has made them ripe for Divine Birth gives them in due order participation in those things which illuminate and perfect." l
The Mass of the Catechumens, the " outer mystery " through which all must pass towards that " inner mystery " of the Eucharist "where things lowest and highest, earthly and divine, are united," 2 bears, then, a double significance for mystical thought. It is, on the institu tional side, an image of that exterior Church of believers * De Ecdcs. Hier., cap. 3, iii. § 6, slightly condensed. 2 Missale Romanum. Preefaratio ad Missam, Feria II.
344 THE MYSTIC WAY
within which is enshrined the interior Church of the mystics : the " partakers of the Divine Nature, or deified men."1 On its psychological side, it recapitulates that sequence of mental states which prepares the movement of consciousness towards new levels : the opening of the eyes of the soul, the leading, as it were, of the self to the frontiers of the Spiritual World. Its general character and purpose therefore is educative , in the original sense of that degenerate word. It leads the powers of thought and will and love out towards spiritual reality, effects the difficult transition from a lower to a higher tension, stimulates the transcendental sense, promotes receptivity; turns the mind, as Origen has it, " towards that which is Best." It is the business of the first psalms and hymns of the liturgy, says Dionysius the Areopagite, to " har monise the habits of our souls to the things which are presently to be ministered . . . establishing an accordance with things divine."2
Most liturgies are easily divisible by analysis into a series of linked sections ; well marked groups, each in cluding several connected prayers, songs, or acts, and each the expression of a definite mood. The first of such sections, naturally enough, is almost invariably concerned with the preparation or the celebrant : the effecting in him of that primary change of direction, which turns man from his normal universe to attend to the supernal world. The celebrant at Mass is the image of every mystic, as first a partaker, and then a revealer, of the Divine Life : therefore his dramatic acts must begin with that " change of mind " in which every mystic turns to the world of spirit from the world of sense. Moreover, this prepara tion of the priest has a general as well as a personal signi ficance : since in theory he is but the type, delegate and representative of all the " faithful." Their wills are united to his, his hands and his voice are the organs of the community, each thing which he does, he does in the 1 Theologia Germanica, cap. 41. a Op. cit., cap. 3, iii. § 5.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 345
name of all. Hence, before the prayer of consecration, he demands their active and deliberate co-operation, as the essential condition of an "acceptable sacrifice."1
In the Roman Missal, this preparation of the priest, which was in earlier times a private and voluntary devo tion, has acquired a fixed form.2 It now consists of a psalm, a confession of sin, a group of prayers for healing and purity. Joy and contrition — the twin feeling-states proper to conversion, to man's first emergence from the narrow universe of self into the wide universe of spirit — are its dominant notes : and the first of these notes is struck by the exultant declaration with which the celebrant comes to the altar-steps, crosses the frontier of his normal world.
" I will go in unto the Altar of God — unto God, who giveth joy to my youth."3 He is the symbol of man's soul standing upon the threshold of its great adventure; that " adolescent of the infinite" about to set forth upon its pilgrimage. Fresh youthful feeling, the glad sense of limitless possibilities, all the romance of that new life which lies before awakened spirit — the true source of happiness suddenly perceived by him — floods his con sciousness, evokes in him a rapturous movement of acceptance. It is " spring-time in his soul."
In the psalm from which these first words are taken, and which he next recites — that psalm of the New Creature, with its clear sense of separation from " the race that is not holy"4 — this mood of exaltation, this pure note
1 " Orate, frates : ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium acceptabile fiat apud Deum Patrem omnipotentem." A mediaeval addition, but a deeply significant one. Cf. Fortescue, 'The Mass, p. 311.
2 Fortescue suggests that this form, which as we have it is the most recent of the many additions to the Mass, simply standardised the sequence of prayers which had long been in general use : a powerful argument for their psychological appropriateness (The Mass, p. 225).
3 Ps. xlii. 4 (Vulgate).
4 " Judica me Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta," — Ps. xlii. 6 (Vulgate).
346 THE MYSTIC WAY
of mystic joy, alternates with the oncoming complement ary mood of fear and penance : the discovered disparity between the imperfect human creature and the perfect place where it aspires to be. The pendulum of the ascend ing consciousness is taking its first swing.
" Thou O God art my strength . . . Why go I sorrowful whilst the
enemy afflicteth me ?
I will praise Thee upon the harp, O God, my God. Why art thou sad, O my soul, and why dost thou disquiet me ? " l
The joy of the discovery of Perfection is here balanced by the sadness of the discovery of self; the drama of the mystical life-process moves to that first complete realisa tion of disharmony, of the profound need for readjust ment, which introduces the growing soul to the Purgative Way. " I was dragged up to Thee by Thy Beauty, but dragged back again by my own weight : " 2 these are in essence the two movements which constitute the prepara tion of the priest. The Confiteor is the ritual equivalent of this backward swing ; of the sudden vision of self, per ceived in the light of Reality. Hence its abject confession of personal responsibility — mea culpa — and personal in adequacy " in thought, word and deed " : a confession made, not only as towards the Divine Order, but as towards all those other human spirits who are members of the New Race. Their family honour is stained, their achievement marred, by every failure to preserve the type; by every self that tends to lag behind, turn on its tracks and hinder the triumphant march of life. Therefore, " I confess to all the saints."
The dramatic picture of interior growth, then, has moved from the psychological stage of Conversion to that of Purgation. The soul has been introduced into the "cell of self-knowledge"; and to the mingled emotions of contrition, of fear, and of humble dependence on that
1 Ps. xlii. 2, 4, 5.
* Aug., Conf. Bk. VII. cap. 17.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 847
Supernatural Order which is now entreated to heal the disharmonies of the separated creature, and " lead it into eternal life." * The movement of the liturgy here follows the process of life; exhibiting in their organic relation the necessary antecedents of all transcendence, whether of body, of intellect, or of soul — disillusion, self-stripping, humble realisation of " one's own place." Moreover, this searching preparation of the priest has its reflection in the acts and attitude of mind suggested to the people whom he leads. For them, too, there is a song of entrance —the Introit — to mark the crossing of the threshold ; and a prayer of humble approach, the Kyrie Eleison — the first prayer of the actual Mass 2 — emphasising the utter dependence of the individual on a supernal lire and love.
From this, celebrant and people together pass at once to that sublime expression of the souPs delight in Divine Goodness and Beauty, both immanent and transcendent " in the highest and on earth," the Gloria in Excelsis. Fit image of the joyous vision of the universe which is characteristic of the illuminated state — the abrupt dilata tion of consciousness, the abrupt reaction from pain- negation to the positive emotions of adoration and delight, which so often marks the end of the Purgative Way — it is not surprising that this song, woven of the golden threads of humility and exaltation, though at first recited only on specially joyful feasts, should have become a per manent feature of the Mass.3 At the same point in the Eastern Liturgy the hymn of the Trisagion is sung.
1 Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam " (Absolution).
2 The Kyrie, the only Greek formula in the Roman Mass, is a vestigial relic of the litanies which originally were said by the people at this point. These are still retained in the Greek liturgies, and are said in the Roman rite on Easter eve and Whitsun eve.— Fortescue, The Mass, pp. 232-6, and Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, pp. 60-68.
3 It is still omitted in penitential seasons, and in all Masses for the Dead.
348 THE MYSTIC WAY
More solemn perhaps, less joyous, it is essentially repre sentative of the same psychological situation : the con vinced vision of, and meek dependence on, Divine Reality.
"Ayios 6 ©cos * ay tos ttr^upos * ayios d^ai/aros ' eXoycrov ^/xas.1
It marks, like the Gloria of the West, the high-water mark achieved by those who do not pass beyond the " external mystery " : is an image of that apprehension of Reality to which, in his mystical moments, the normal man is here caught up.
The Mass of the Catechumens is concluded by a group of actions which seems a fitting symbol of the varied powers and duties proper to that illuminated consciousness, " flowing out in charity to God and man," which has now been achieved in drama by the celebrant priest, and infer- entially by those whom he represents : the consecutive recitation of Collect, Epistle, Gradual, and Gospel. In the Collect, the celebrant gathers up the diffused spiritual aspirations of the community, their " blind intent stretch ing to God " : focussing as it were the common attention on one point, thrusting it out towards the supersensual in one harmonious movement of eager, outgoing desire. The formula Or emus which precedes the Collect directly invites the active co-operation of every will; the deliberate concentration of the general consciousness upon the one act of approach.2 The reading of the Epistle and Gospel represent the " completing opposite" of this outgoing movement. Here, the instinct of ministry to man, the effort of the initiate to tell all who will hear him the un dying secret of the Kingdom of New Life, asserts itself. The song? or Gradual, which comes between these two lessons represents the continuance of that feeling-state of joyous certitude achieved in the Gloria in Excelsis. We have here, then, a compact image of the illuminated life in its wholeness : its attitude of rapt attention to, and glad
1 " Holy God, holy strong one, holy immortal one, have mercy on us." The Roman Church still sings this in Greek on Good Friday.
2 Cf. Cabrol, Les Origin es liturgiques, p. 109.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 349
adoration of, the Transcendent Order, its perpetual effort to share with others the secret which it has received.
The little Gradual-song which separates the Scripture lessons is one of the oldest parts of the Mass. Such an alternation of reading and song, says Dr. Fortescue, is a universal feature of liturgies.1 It seems to represent man's deep instinct that this dramatic picture of his spiritual career must preserve and express the central principle of that career : its pendulum-swing between the joyful adoration of God and the steadfast service of man, between the heavenward-turning act of orison and the earthward-turning act of spreading the news, the effort of the mystic to impart the secret of transcendence if he can. The Sermon, which should come after the Gospel, and is another ancient element of the liturgy, simply emphasises and extends this principle of a mediatorship laid on the illuminated soul.
Because there were originally three lessons, separated by two songs, the Gradual has now two distinct parts : that called the " Psalm," now reduced to two verses, which came once between the Prophecy and the Epistle, and that called the " Alleluia " which came between Epistle and Gospel.2 It will be seen that as these lessons advance from the promise or description of new life in the prophets and St. Paul to its perfect achievement in Jesus, so the com plementary act of adoration becomes more exultant as the Gospel is approached. The "Alleluia5' which is sung before it is the traditional Judeo-Christian expression of joy. Originally used here only at Easter, it now marks the transition from Epistle to Gospel on all save peni tential days.3 Its last syllable is, and must be, drawn out on a long musical phrase, called the iubilus: a feature of great liturgic and mystic importance. "All mediaeval authors," says Dr. Fortescue, " see in the iubilus an
1 The Mass, p. 265.
* This original arrangement is still preserved in the Mass for Wednesday in Holy Week and one or two other places where three lessons are read. 8 The Alleluia occurs in the same position in the Orthodox rite.
350 THE MYSTIC WAY
inarticulate expression of joy, by which the mind is carried up to the unspeakable joy of the saints." * There is little need to insist on the appropriateness of such a suggestion at this point : where the drama of human transcendence has come, as it were, to the end of its first great act; to the complete establishment of the " First Mystic Life " of illumination, the glad and convinced consciousness of the spiritual world.
1 The Mass, p. 269. The Sequence, a poem which continued the notes of the iubilus, was once sung at this point. Only five Sequences are now retained in the Missal : those for Easter, Whitsuntide, Corpus Christi, the Seven Dolours, and the Mass for the Dead.
II
THE INNER MYSTERY
THE recitation of the Creed, which is placed after the Gospel in nearly all great liturgies,1 now covers the break between the "outer" and "inner" mysteries of Cate chumens and Faithful. It is a late, and rather inartistic, addition to the Roman Mass ; apparently introduced as a test which, in times of heresy, discerned the true initiate from the false. Here the official faith was reaffirmed before passing on to the inward experience which it veiled : for the liturgic drama has now brought the soul to the frontiers of the " Second Mystic Life" — the real sorting- house of spirit, the gateway of " the Upper School of Perfect Self-abandonment." 2
According to the original intention of the Mass, the rules of the Disciplina Arcani^ only those capable of com munion — i. e. representatives in the exterior Church of those susceptible of union with God — took part in this inner mystery; as the " second mystic life" in man is the privilege of virile souls alone. As that second mystic life begins by the disestablishment of the state of equilibrium which has been achieved — by the throw-back of the illuminated self into the melting-pot, in order that the elements of character may be re-grouped about the higher centres of humility and self-surrendered love — so this new act began with a renewed affirmation, not of the soul's achievement, but of its lowliness ; of the spirit's needs
1 In most Eastern rites it is said at the Kiss of Peace. Fortescue, Thf Mass, p. 290.
1 Suso, Leben, cap. 21.
35 '
352 THE MYSTIC WAY
and utter dependence on the universal life. It began, as it were, by a fresh " tuning up " of the collective con sciousness, now ready to begin its ascent to new levels of Reality. This phase in the drama of the spiritual life was represented by the "Prayers of the Faithful," which were recited in common after the catechumens were expelled : a feature still retained in Eastern liturgies, though now lost in the West.1 " Grant, O God, to all who join in our prayer a growth in life," says the Prayer of the Faithful in the Orthodox rite ; 2 expressing in one swift phrase the mystical impulsion which lies behind this act.
Now it is significant that whilst in the Mass of the Catechumens, the emphasis is always upon words — on prayers and lessons recited, on hymns sung — in the Mass of the Faithful the emphasis is almost wholly on acts. Though some of these acts are now implied rather than performed, it is still through and by them that the deepest meanings of the ceremony are conveyed to us : in panto mime its final mysteries are, or were, made plain to men. The first of these great symbolic acts — once performed by the whole company of initiates, now done in their name by the priest alone — is the Offertory; the bringing to the altar of gifts of bread and wine. From these deliberate free-will offerings, and from these only, came the elements susceptible of consecration ; the instruments of the supreme communication of the Divine Life to men. The Christian brought his obley-loaf, his flask of wine, even the water which was to be mingled with it, to the sanctuary ; 3 he took from that sanctuary the bread of angels and the wine of life — the common stuff of things raised to a higher order of Reality. His own free act of donation it was, his own movement of generosity, of
1 At this point in the Roman Mass the priest still says, " Let us pray," but no prayer follows ! A curious example of the " vestigial relic."
2 Fortescue, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, p. 64.
8 Good description in Frere's Principles of Religious Ceremonial, p. 77. In the ninth-century frescoes of S. Clemente at Rome we may still see this ceremony taking place.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 353
surrender — the "pushing Godwards" of these intimate symbols of his daily life, these simplest necessities of his existence — which formed the first link in that chain stretching out to the Eternal, made the first breach in "the ramparts of the world" and conditioned the inflow of Reality. As Macarius has it, " the perfect operation of the Spirit is conditioned by the will of man " : the inter weaving of divine and human is a mutual act, the deliberate coming together of two loves.
In the Great Entrance of the Orthodox Church, the Eastern equivalent of the Offertory of the West, the bread and wine so brought to the altar are treated, by a beautiful act of trust and anticipation, as already po tentially divine. The bringing in of these gifts is the dramatic centre of the liturgy : they are surrounded by every circumstance of honour. As they come, the choir, " mystically representing the cherubim " — those spirits who gaze most deeply into things divine — acclaim " The King of all things who comes escorted by unseen armies of angels " : l since that which is here brought and offered is freely sacrificed that it may be the medium of Spirit's emergence, and " where the door is open, He cannot but
come in." 2
Ruysbroeck, in a profound and living passage, and in that personal and Christological language which — difficult though it may seem to us — has surely here a special appropriateness, perhaps comes nearer than any other mystic to suggesting the spiritual situation which is dramatised in this offertory act. "It is the property of love," he says, " ever to give, and ever to receive. Now the love of Jesus is both avid and generous. All that He has, all that He is, He gives ; all that we are, all that we have, He takes. He demands more than we are able of ourselves to give, for He has a mighty hunger, that
1 The "Cherubic Hymn." See Fortescue, Thf Mass, p. 298, and Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, p. 86.
2 Meister Eckhart, Pred. III.
AA
354 THE MYSTIC WAY
would wholly devour us. . . . He makes of us His very bread, burning up in the fire of His love our vices, defects, and misdeeds. . . . He would absorb our life, in order to change it into His own : ours full of sin, His full of grace and glory, all ready for us, if we will but renounce our selves. . . . For the love of Jesus is of a noble nature: where He has devoured all, there it is that He would give Himself as food." *
The singularly beautiful invocations which accompany in the Missal the offering of the elements — effecting, as it were, their transition from the purposes of " nature " to the purposes of " grace " — bring these ideas into greater prominence ; especially perhaps the antique and deeply mystical prayer which is said when the chalice is mixed — an ancient image of man's union with the Divine Life. This prayer is an almost perfect epitome of the essence of Christian mysticism, the meaning of the ceremony of the Mass. " God, who hast wonderfully framed man's exalted nature, and still more wonderfully renewed it, grant us by the mystery of this wine and water to become partakers of His divinity, Who vouchsafed to become a partaker of our humanity." 2 Even so St. Bernard says, that as a drop of water poured into wine loses itself and takes the colour and savour of wine, so in the saints, by " some unspeak able transmutation," all human affections are merged in the will of God.3
Finally, the whole offertory action is completed, its true intention and place in the process of transcendence made clear, by two paradoxical declarations. The first is the renewed confession of man's utter poorness and meekness ; his very act of self-donation so wretched and ineffectual a thing when measured by the standards of Eternity. " In spiritu humilitatis, et in animo contrite
1 Le Miroir du Salut Eternel, cap. 7. Slightly condensed.
2 Originally the Collect for Dec. 24, and so given in the Leonine Sacramentary. Cf. Fortescue, op. cit., p. 25.
3 De diligendo Deo, cap. 10. For the rest of this passage, vide supra, P. 324.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 355
suscipiamur a te, Domine." The next — startling in its sudden transition from abasement to supreme assurance — is an abrupt and confident appeal to the supernal sphere, the demand that the Wind of God shall blow upon this garden, that the spices thereof may flow out ; the passionate invocation of a spiritual Presence whereby "Man's nothing-perfect51 shall be transformed, here and now, into "God's all-complete." "Come! O Sanctifier, Almighty Eternal God! and bless this sacrifice set forth in Thy holy Name." " Thou needst not call Him from a distance," says Meister Eckhart again, " thy opening and His entering are but one moment." l
From the attitude of donation we move to the attitude of purification; that final, drastic purification of body, soul and spirit, which precedes the Unitive State. Here again the soul's adventure is played out in action; in the cere monial ablutions of the priest, which take place in all liturgies at this point. The prayers for purity which now accompany this act were added during the Middle Ages : but its interior meaning was realised in much earlier times. "The Hierarch," says Dionysius the Areopagite in his mystical interpretation of the liturgy, " standing before the most holy symbols, washes his hands with water, together with the reverend order of priests : because, as the Oracles testify, when a man has been washed [i. e. in baptism] he needs no other washing, save that of his extremities — that is, of his lowest (John xiii. 10). Which last and complete cleansing of the extremities makes man powerful and free, as being now wholly clothed in the holy vesture of the Divine Image; and advancing in well doing in inferior things, yet being always turned uniquely to the One, he will make his return without spot or blemish to the Divine Unity, as preserving in himself the fulness and perfection of the Divine Image."
The celebrant, symbolically purified, and now the image
l Pred. III.
a De Eccles. Hier., cap. 3, iii. § 9.
AA 2
356 THE MYSTIC WAY
of the purged and surrendered soul which is wholly adjusted to the purposes of the Universal Life, then returns to the altar : and sums up in a last prayer the now completed offering of all man has to bring.1 He then turns to the people and begs their help ; the support of their collective will, attention, and desire in the mutual act which he is about to undertake in their name. " Pray, my brethren! that my sacrifice and yours may be accept able " — the Christian mystic, going forward to his en counter with Reality, goes in the name of the whole race.
The action has now reached the supreme point, both mystical and sacramental, of the rite : the great dramatic prayer of the Canon, or act of consecration itself. Such an act as this — and I include in it the further completing act of communion, for these, though liturgically distinct, are mystically two aspects of a movement which is one — is not matter for the explorations of the psychologist. Still the living symbol — more, the living medium — of the highest experience which is possible to the spirit of man, its deepest meanings are not amenable to the dissect- ing-knife of intellect; they yield their secret only to the humble intuition of the heart. Here, we are but con cerned to remark the presence, within that ritual form which " veils and reveals" the climax of the mystical drama, the presence of all the chief factors, all the emotional equivalents, of that New Life which we have traced from its emergence on the shores of Jordan to its perpetual exhibition at the altars of the Christian Church.
The bringing of the Eternal into Time, the lifting up of man into the kingdom of Reality, was, we said, that life's supreme objective : the adding of that " top storey" to human nature which should make humanity an inter mediary between two worlds. The new, completed man hood thus achieved we found to be supremely human :
1 " Suspice, sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem, etc. " Fortescue insists that this prayer and the ablutions which precede it are all part of the offertory act.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 357
the whole personality, not some " spiritual " part of it, was the matter of this Great Work. Its note was no thin and abstract transcendentalism, but rather the glad and bold acceptance of the common stuff of things, as being implicitly susceptible of God. Founded in the deeply natural processes of birth and growth, it planted the free, transfigured spirit firmly within the framework of the Here-and-Now. Nor was the life achieved by that trans figured spirit concentrated on any one narrow aspect of Reality. At once theocentric and social, it flowed out not alone in adoration to God, but also in charity to men. We found that, like great music, it compassed and harmonised the extremes of joy and pain : that " seeing that here there is true perfect manhood, so there is a per fect perceiving and feeling of pleasure and pain, liking and disliking, sweetness and bitterness, joy and sorrow, and all that can be perceived and felt within and without." l Possessing its life under the two orders of active work and eternal peace, rejecting nothing of the " given " world of sense, it found in that " given " world a sacrament of the Divine Nature, discovering God alike in the travail of Becoming, and in that changeless Being to which life tends as its Eternal Home.
Take then the great Eucharistic prayer of the Roman Missal, from its opening in the Preface 2 to the closing Doxology, and ask of it what witness it brings to the character of man's spiritual life. First we observe that the priest who recites it, and those whom he represents, must enter on this supreme adventure in a special and appropriate mood. A fresh " tuning up " is here asked of them : and the mood demanded is to be governed by the characteristically mystical emotion of joy. The call to joy, which runs like music through the Mass, is now heard at its clearest. " Sursum Corda! " The growing
1 Theo. Ger., cap. 24.
2 The Preface, though now printed as a separate prayer, is an integral part of the Canon. Cf. Fortescue, The Mass, p. 316.
358 THE MYSTIC WAY
creature is to try its wings. Not awe and abasement, but sweet gladness of spirit, exaltation of heart, is the feeling- state proper to that encounter of love which "raises the spirit from the sphere of reverence to one of rapture and dalliance." * " Lift up thine heart unto God," says The Cloud of Unknowingy "with a meek stirring of love ; and mean Himself and none of His goods. And thereto look thee loath to think on aught but Himself. So that nought work in thy wit nor in thy will, but only Himself. . . . This is the work of the soul that most pleaseth God. All saints and angels have joy of this work, and hasten them to help it in all their might. All fiends be furious when thou thus dost, and try for to defeat it in all that they can. All men living on earth be wonderfully holpen of this work, thou wottest not how. Yea, the souls in purgatory be eased of their pain by virtue of this work. Thyself art cleansed and made virtuous by no work so much."2 It is by the glad and grateful laying hold on his inheritance of joy, that the purified spirit of man enters most deeply into the heart of Reality.
That Reality is there at his door, once consciousness has been lifted up to the level at which communion with it becomes possible. Therefore the Eucharistic act begins not so much by a prayer, a demand for new life, as by a thankful remembrance of the very essence of life; present in the Here-and-Now, and known in its richness and beauty to the transfigured consciousness. For this it is " meet and right " to give thanks.3 The supreme act of communion to which the drama is moving means the doing away of that flame of separation which keeps finite and infinite life apart; the glad participation of the separ ated creature in the whole, deep mighty torrent of the life
1 Coventry Patmore, The Rod, the Root and the Flower, " Aurea Dicta," XXXIX.
2 The Cloud of Unknowing, cap. 3.
3 " Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere " — the invariable opening phrase of the Preface.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 859
of God, shining in the spiritual universe, energising the world of men. "Therefore with angels and archangels, with Thrones and Dominations, with all the army of heaven " the forward-moving soul now dares to associate itself, in acts of love and praise : 1 and the one song by which the people express their own participation in this mystery is the awful cry of the Sanctus, which cherubim and seraphim, the emblems of purest wisdom and most ardent love " cease not daily to cry out " — that wonderful hymn to a Divine Perfection, transcendent and immanent, filling heaven and earth.
" Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory . . . there fore, most merciful Father, we pray that Thou wouldst accept and bless these gifts." 2 Whether intentionally devised or not, the petition, as we have it now, is imme diately dependent on the declaration : on the fact that the natural things of earth — the wheat, the vine, all growing living creatures — are already entinctured with Spirit, radiant of the divine loveliness, "full of Thy glory," and hence may be lifted up into a higher order of Reality, may become lenses that focus and distribute the flashes of the Uncreated Light. This last offering up of the uncon- secrated elements is the completion of that solemn and significant act of donation and sacrifice which began with the Offertory, and is implied in each subsequent move ment of the rite. It is an act of donation made, not by and for one special soul, lifted out of the ruck of humanity, that he may achieve a private union with God : but in the name of the whole nation of the twice-born, the sons of Divine Reality. These, therefore, are now remem-
1 Some ancient rites here practically commemorate and give thanks for the whole creation as manifesting the goodness of God. A fine example is in the Liturgy of St. Clement (Neale and Littledale, pp. 76-82).
2 " Pleni sunt cceli et terra gloria tua. Te igitur, clementissime Pater, . . . supplices rogamus ac petimus, uti accepta habeas, et benedicas, haec dona." (Sanctus and 1e igitur ; or first section of the Canon. The Eucharistic prayer is generally divided into twelve such sections, each known by its opening words.)
360 THE MYSTIC WAY
bered one by one. First all the living, present and absent. Then the saints, the heroes of the race; not as strangers, glimpsed across great intervening spaces, but " communi cating with them," since those still in the flesh are here about to participate, if only for an instant, in that " vision which is the privilege of intensely loving souls." Then the dead, the whole concourse of our compatriots, " qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei." l It is a great domestic act : " this oblation of our service, and that of Thy whole family we beseech Thee O Lord graciously to accept."2 " When the priest saith Mass," says a Kempis, " he honoureth God, he giveth joy unto the angels, he edifieth the Church, he helpeth the loving people, he giveth rest to them that be passed, and maketh himself partner of all good works."3
At once, and by a natural transition, we pass to the final and completing commemoration; that of the found ing of this family, the career of Jesus Himself.4 " For if we aspire to communion with Him we must keep our eyes fixed upon His most godly life in the flesh," says Dionysius : " My humanity," says the Eternal Wisdom to Suso, " is the road which all must tread who would come to that which thou seekest." 5 This, the climax of the Canon, recapitulates in words and manual acts of highest dramatic significance that first great " interweav ing of divine and human " which it now exhibits under
1 Canon of the Mass : Memento Domine ; Communic antes ; Memento etiam ; Nobis quoque. These commemorations, now distributed at the beginning and end of the Canon, were once continuous. Cf. Fortescue, The Mass, pp. in and 330-333. In the Orthodox and most other Eastern liturgies they are all placed together after the Consecration. (Examples in Neale and Littledale, pp. 52, 116, 137.)
2 Hanc igitur.
3 De Imit. Cbristi, Bk. IV. cap. 5.
4 Qui fridie. It is within this section that the " words of institution," now regarded as the consecrating formula, are pronounced ; but originally the entire Canon was the consecrating formula. Fortescue, op. cit., p. 347-
5 Bucblein von der ewigen Weisbeit, cap. 2.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 361
veils; with a natural and special emphasis upon the institution of the Eucharist itself. Solemnly re-enacted by the priest, it is this symbolic drama of sacrifice and self-donation which constitutes for Western Christendom the " Act of Consecration.55 It is the external image, the dramatic repetition, of that mystical sacrifice — that dying to live, and losing to find — which ministers to the sur rendered consciousness " the holy bread of eternal life, and the cup of everlasting health.551 Once in the liturgy of the West, and still in all Eastern rites, this sublime mystery of the emergence of Reality, the immanent divine life, from the very substance of the time- world — " treasures from darkness, hidden riches from the secret places 5) — received its countersign in the answering mystery of an inflowing transcendent power, a new dower of vitality demanded and received : the Epiklesis, or invocation of the Holy Spirit, " Giver of life, who is everywhere, who filleth all places and no place containeth Him, simple in nature, manifold in operation, the fountain of the grace of God.552 It is this which constitutes for Eastern Chris tians the act of consecration, as the " words of institu tion55 do for Christians of the West.3 They are the " completing opposites 5> of one reality : Aperiatur terra is balanced by Rorate coell^ bringing to full circle the souPs dual discovery of a Transcendent yet Immanent God.
It is in the Anaphoras or consecrating prayers of these Eastern liturgies, that we can best discern that which the act of consecration — so easily understood in a crudely magical sense alone — meant and means for the mystical consciousness.
1 Canon : Unde ft Memores.
2 Epiklesis of the Coptic Jacobites. Brightman, Eastern Liturgies, p.
179.
3 Fortescue, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, p. 101. Further examples of the Epiklesis in Brightman's Eastern Liturgies and Neale and Littledale, op. cit.
362 THE MYSTIC WAY
" Mingle O Lord our humanity with Thy divinity. Thy greatness with our humility and our humility with Thy greatness," says the priest in the Ethiopia liturgy of St. Gregory of Armenia.1
" He then, the Prince of the Revelation of our good things,'3 says the Syro- Jacobite rite of John of Bassora, "on that evening of His voluntary anguish, explained by these quickening and easily-to-be-handled elements this Mystery which cannot be expressed in words."2
" He took the bread," says the Armenian liturgy, " in His creative hands."3 " His life-giving hands," says the Anaphora of the Coptic Jacobites.4
Here, as ever in the true creations of Christian genius, the central fact, the dominant note, is always the impart ing of new life. The instruments chosen, the poetic meta phors and historical commemorations, snatched at in the effort to make plain this communication of a supernal vitality, are but ancillary to that actual, indicible " Mystery of Faith " to which they give artistic form. " Heavenly Bread — Life of the World," says the priest in the liturgy of St. James.5 Through Christ, says the Roman Canon, which is throughout addressed to the supreme Godhead, " Thou dost create ; sanctify ; quicken ; bless." That which is acclaimed is the very principle of divine fecundity ; the new dower of energy given to human con sciousness that it may grow up to new levels of freedom and full life. This accession of new life, as the last stage in the drama of mystical change and growth, is emphasised in most liturgies by a further direct memorial — " a calling to mind " according to the Roman Canon — of the Resur rection and Ascension,6 as typical exhibitions of that " deified life " possessed by Jesus and possible of achieve-
1 Neale and Littledale, p. 215. 2 Ibid., p. 227.
8 Brightman, p. 436. 4 Ibid., p. 176.
5 Neale and Littledale, p. 60.
6 Sometimes, especially in early rites, the Parousia also : as in the Liturgy of St. James (Neale and Littledale, p. 50).
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 363
ment by all those re-born into His universe and nourished by the substance of Reality.
Then, to the confusion of liturgiologists, who have sought many and lame explanations of its insertion here,1 the Roman Canon proceeds to a swift and vivid recog nition of the unearthly act of creation that has taken place; the supernal character of the real Gifts now upon this altar. Those gifts are at once the food of the faithful, media of the inflowing divine life, and also the veritable images of the surrendered soul " made Christ," whose highest joy it shall be to grow through sanctification to sacrifice : whose final destiny shall be the giving back of " more abundant life " to the world.
Here it is that two waves meet ; the outward-tending wave of sacrifice, the incoming wave of " grace." Mystic ally, it is the new transmuted creature, now indeed " pure, holy and immaculate,"2 capable of utmost transcendence, which is offered : and becomes by its self-surrender a part of the universal life, is woven up into the Body of God. It is of this spiritual sacrifice that the priest prays that it "be carried by the hands of Thy holy Angel to Thine altar on high, into the presence of Thy Divine Majesty," z lifted up into the independent spiritual world. The " flaming ramparts of the world " are down : and it is the secret of Life, the urgent, suffering, forward-moving life of God, latent in the web of the whole universe, shining in the twice-born soul, which is here declared — " He that is broken and not divided asunder, ever eaten and never consumed." 4 The complex strands of the central mystic experience — that experience in which giving and receiving become " One Act," and the divine union is found to be the obverse of the human sacrifice — are gathered into a higher synthesis, which judged by
1 " Full of difficulties," says Fortescue of this section (The Mass, pp.
~- 2 unde et Memores. 8 Supplies U rogamus.
4 Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Neale and Littledale, p. 120).
364 THE MYSTIC WAY
the logical intellect is compact of paradox, but yields unsuspected depths of meaning to the intuition of the heart. Of such an intuition Aquinas sang, in the greatest of Eucharistic poems —
" Adoro te devote, latens Deltas, Quas sub his figuris vere latitas ; Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit Quia te contemplans totum deficit."
Those two apparently contradictory modes under which the self must lay hold of Divine Reality — the personal and the impersonal aspects of transcendent life — are here fused into one. In the oblique, suggestive language of the liturgy " He is both Sacrifice and Priest." Moreover, the sacrificial aspect of the divine life, supremely exempli fied in the career of Jesus, is by that career made acces sible to men. Man, said St. Bernard, is "a capacity for the Infinite." But it is as " branches of the Vine," as the Johannine Mystic has it, sharers in the totality of that new creation, the surrendered life susceptible of God, of which He is the " head," that individual men become at once " partakers of the Divine Nature " and part of the eternal Eucharist — " through Him and with Him and in Him." 2
Therefore at the end of the Canon, the celebrant — representative of the New Race — takes upon his lips the Paternoster ; the actual prayer of Jesus, and perfect expression of His mystical secret, the divine sonship of man. This prayer, which is in the highest degree social — the domestic act of a family, not the intimate devotion of an individual — is said in the East by the whole congregation, and represents their sense of corporate participation in the sacrifice just achieved : their corporate consciousness of the goal towards which it tends. "Ad- veniat regnum tuum : fiat voluntas tua sicut in ccelo et in
1 Missale Romanum : Orationes post Celebrationem.
2 Doxology of the Roman Canon.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 365
terra" :— -the object of mystical growth. It is during the prayer Libera nos, the expansion or "embolism" of its last phrase, that the Fraction or breaking of the Host — poignant image of omnipresent, inextinguishable life- takes place. A part of the broken Host is then put into the chalice : an emblem of the unity of that divine life which is now exhibited under the " multiplicity of the symbols " of sense.
" Fracto demum Sacramento Ne vacilles, sed memento, Tantum esse sub fragmento, Quantum toto tegitur.
Nulla rei fit scissura ; Signi tantum fit factura : Qua nee status, nee statura Signati minuitur. " 1
Once, in the old Roman rite, the continuity — the " duration " — of this life-force was further emphasised by the curious ceremony of the "Sancta"; in which a fragment from the Host consecrated at a previous Mass was put into the new chalice by the Pope.2
The Fraction is followed by two prayers : one, the A gnus Dei, invoking Christ as the principle of sacrifice, the Repairer of the broken bridge between creation and its source, the other a direct address to the divine-human Person. They represent the twofold aspect of the mystic union now about to be consummated ; the twofold response of consciousness to those " mysteries of faith " which have been declared under veils.
But the union here set up between man and God, between the finite and infinite life, is incomplete so long as it remains the union of the " Alone with the Alone." Divine Love is not a single thread that links creature and Creator; but rather a web that knits up the many with the
1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Lauda Ston (Roman Missal : Feast of Corpus Christi, sequence).
2 Cf. Duchesne, Origines du culte chrttien, p. 185 ; and Fortescue, The Mass, p. 366.
866 THE MYSTIC WAY
One. Therefore the priest and his ministers — originally the whole congregation, whom they here represent — exchange the Kiss of Peace: symbol of that bond of charity between men which is the reflection of the union between man and God.1 " They cannot draw near to the One, and enter into close and peaceful union therewith," says Dionysius, " who are divided amongst themselves ... it is the part of the ceremony of the Pax, to stab- lish amongst us the life of perfect union."2 This dramatic welding together of the faithful into one is the natural antecedent of the act of communion, to which the celebrant now proceeds, the consummation of the mystic life in Man : for it is the corporate soul of the New Race which goes, in his person, to the supreme encounter with Reality.
The mood of the celebrant is here once again that para doxical mood of humility and exaltation — rapture as to wards Infinite Perfection, grief as towards human limita tions still most poignantly perceived — which characterises the mystic in his hours of greatest lucidity. " Panem coelestem accipiam! " " Domine, non sum dignus! " 3 — it is an epitome of the history of man. These swift alterna tions between the ecstatic apprehension of God and the complementary vision of self, constitute the inevitable response of the surface consciousness to the impact of New Life. " When God gives Himself to a soul," says Ruysbroeck, " the chasm between herself and Him appears immense." 4
But the actuality of that mystic union which evokes this dual consciousness, this inexorable vision of Reality
1 The Kiss of Peace is one of the oldest and most essential elements of the liturgy. It was once given at the beginning of the Mass of the Faith ful — a sign of the " peaceful charity in life naughted " in which they were about to enter on the Mysteries — and it still retains this position in Eastern rites. Fortescue, The Mass, p. 370.
2 De Eccles. Hier., cap. 3, iii. § 8.
3 Roman Missal : the Communion of the Priest.
4 Samuel (Hello, p. 200).
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 367
— the experience of the heart — remains unknown. Here the limits of liturgic drama are over-passed; "there is silence in heaven." "The mystic experience," says R6cejac, " ends with the words, ' I live, yet not I but God in me ' " 1 — and here the art-form which that experi ence has created follows close upon the footsteps of life. " Thou givest me," says Peter sen, " thy whole self to be mine, whole and undivided, if at least I shall be Thine whole and undivided." 2 By the gates of the senses the supersensual has been reached : the soul's participation of Eternity is suddenly revealed within the framework of Time. "Whilst the multitude," says Dionysius of the celebrant here, " have but beheld the symbols which veil this mystery, he, led of the Spirit, and possessing, as becomes a Hierarch, the purity of the deiform state, has ascended by divine contemplation to the intelligible sources of those ceremonies that have been performed." * Yet, true to that central principle of the spiritual life, that law of divine fecundity, which runs through the history of Christian mysticism and receives in the liturgy its most perfect symbolic expression, this ascent of the celebrant is made only that he may descend again and distribute the light he has received to other men. The mystic, said Ruysbroeck, must go up and down the ladder of con templation : his fruition of Reality must evoke the complementary impulse of charity to all the world. The communion of the priest is therefore the antecedent of the communion of the people. He is here the perfect type of the " deified soul " whose highest experience leads, not to a solitary rapture, but to the imparting of a more abundant life. " For we must receive," says Dionysius, " before we can give : and therefore the reception of the mysteries precedes the mystic distribution thereof . . . therefore the celebrant first partakes and is filled with the
1 Fondements de la. connaissance mystique, Pt. I. cap. 2, § 2.
2 The Fiery Soliloquy with God, cap. 15.
3 Dionysius the Areopagite. De Eccles. Hier., cap. 3, ii.
368 THE MYSTIC WAY
heavenly gifts, which afterwards through him are imparted to other men." *
The object of the liturgic drama, " to show forth the union of the initiate with the Adorable One " 2 is achieved : its climax is passed. Its ceremonies are com pleted by the recessional prayers and blessings which represent the inevitable withdrawal of the mystical con sciousness from its brief immersion in the Inaccessible Light, to that normal world of which it is itself destined to be the light, the leaven, the salt. he, Missa est ! the tale of transcendence is done.
That tale has been told by a method artistic and oblique. Its living heart has been exhibited, its poignant actuality brought home to the conscious self, partly by those vital symbols which body forth the mystic intuition of man and " fulfil the double function of evoking the Infinite in the mind and making Him known of the heart," 3 partly by those ritual devices which tend to enhance receptivity, shift the normal field of perception, and concentrate atten tion upon new levels of lire — effect, in a word, that " change of mind " which is the condition of a change of universe. Rhythmic gesture, rhythmic utterance, dramatic action, music, perfume, the tangible made the instrument of supersensual manifestations — " Him verily seeing and fully feeling, Him spiritually hearing and Him delectably smelling and sweetly swallowing " 4 — every door of sense has been attacked. Every possibly suggestive act and declaration, every agent which could operate an enhance ment of consciousness, has been used — often with an apparent inconsequence — in the effort to achieve this one result. Yet, as though some hidden genius, that spiritual Entelechy which guides the race of men, had controlled the evolution of the rite, the result of this age-long process of growth and selection has that fine
1 Op. cit., cap. 3, iii. § 14. 2 Op. cit., cap. 3, i.
3 Recejac, op. cit., Pt. I. cap. 2, § I.
4 Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine. Love, cap. 43.
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 369
exactitude, that close and perfect correspondence between vision and expression, which is the character of all great art.
As we look at this drama, which has so often operated in the mystics a mighty dilatation of consciousness, a new intensity of vision, we too are liberated for an instant from the tyranny of use and wont : the mind screwed down to the sense-world becomes attuned to a deeper, wider rhythm. Then it is that we see, beyond and through this pageant, deep into the secret processes of creation : are immersed if only for a moment in the great currents of a spiritual universe, and feel the bourne to which those currents tend. Nam exspectatio creature revelationem filiorum Dei exspectat: the victory of forward-moving spirit, the achievement of freedom and full life. Here that which is the heart of every prophet's vision, which every artist knows and struggles to communicate, which all great music strives to utter in an ecstacy of pain, is dimly shadowed forth : the rich yet simple revelation of Reality. It is life itself, the Energetic Word, and the pathway of its progress, which we see in pantomime : life, as supremely " manifest " in the soul of pilgrim man. It is that adolescent of the infinite whom we have seen in the strangely- vested and symbolic figure of the cele brant. It is the soul's ideal adventure, as once achieved in its perfection, that we have followed in his gestures and his declarations; its growth and its duration through alternate phases of effort and attainment, of humility and joy.
The Mass is the mirror of souls : as we gaze at it, one by one those mighty spirits whose surrender and triumph it recapitulates, loom up to us from the deeps. We see against this background the value and proportion of their lives. Were all their special commemorations expunged from it, it would remain the supreme memorial of the saints ; the epic of the twice-born soul. Day by day it sets forth the career of advancing spirit, from its new birth
BB
370 THE MYSTIC WAY
to that awful moment of creation when man, surrendered to the universal purpose and inspired by it, dares lay his hands — poor tools of the Eternal Wisdom — on the very substance of the world ; and, stripping off its unrealities and accidents, can say of it, " Behold the true Body, the actual Life of God." It was by the way of hard growth and under the spur of glad love — exultant joy that urged him forward, clear self-knowledge pointing out the way — that he came to this achievement : entered into this Kingdom of Real Things. From first to last the " divine comedy" that he played was a ceaseless process of Becoming. It imaged for us that life which is " move ment itself," and the consummation in God, the fruition of Eternity, to which that " movement " tends.
It was by some mutual act of donation, a mystical self- mergence, that the Transcendent Life which supports the ceaseless travail of the time-world, itself became for him " the food of the full grown." Again, it was by the mysterious craft of sacrifice that those simplest gifts of nature which he carried to the altar were made the links between Appearance and Reality, became susceptible of the inundations of the Uncreated Light. Aperiatur terra, et germinet salvatorem ! They came out of the heart of our common life : the field and vineyard bore them : and the mounting flood of spirit carried them up "per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altare tuum, in conspectu divine Majestatis tu
Life immanent and life transcendent, the Temporal and the Eternal order, here come together ; are discovered as the complementary expressions of a Reality which is one. The divine seed within the world, the divine spark within the soul, has been brought from its hiddenness. By the resistless alchemy of a courageous and self-giving love it has subdued to its purpose, changed to its very substance, the recalcitrant stuff of the material world. That material world in its wholeness is now seen as the Body of Reality : Eternal Life shines clear through the changeful, perishable
THE WITNESS OF THE LITURGY 371
life of things. To this, the utmost union of created with creator, the long travail of transcendence was directed : the Mystic Way of life's ascent to God.
Bcce tabernaculum fcet
cum bomfnt&us : et babitabft
cum ete, et ipsf populus
ejus erunt : et fpse fceus
cum els etit eorum
BB2
LIST OF AUTHORITIES CITED
Abbott, Edwin A.
Johannine Vocabulary. London, 1905.
The Son of Man, or Contributions to the Study of the Thoughts of Jesus. Cambridge, 1911. A eta Sanctorum.
Collegit J. Bollandus, etc. Editio novissima 1863, etc. — In progress. Angela of Foligno, Blessed.
B. Angelas de Fulginio visionum et instructionum liber. Cologne, 1849.
(Eng. trans.) The Book of Divine Consolations of the Blessed Angela of Foligno. (New Mediaeval Library.) London, 1908. Athanasius, St.
Vita Antonii. (Migne, Pat. Grcec., t. 26.)
(Eng. trans.) In "Selected Works and Letters." (Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.) Oxford, 1892. 'Attar, F'arid Uddin.
Selections from the Seven Valleys. (Porch Library.) London, 1910. Augustine, St.
Opera omnia. (Migne, Pat. Lat., t. 37~47-)
(Eng. trans.) Works, ed. by Marcus Dods. 15 vols. Edinburgh, 1876.
The Confessions (first nine books), trans, by Rev. C. Bigg. (Library of Devotion.) London, 1898. Baker, Yen. Augustine.
Holy Wisdom, or Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation. London, 1908. Baldwin, J. M.
Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. 2 vols. New York, 1901.
Barnabas, Epistle of.
(Migne, Pat. Grac. t. I.)
(Eng. trans.) See Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers.
Basil the Great, St.
Opera omnia, (Migne, Pat. Grcec., t. 29-32).
(Eng. trans.) " Letters and Selected Works.' (Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.) Oxford, 1895.
Bergson, Henri.
Matiere et me"moire. Paris, 1896.
(Eng. trans.) Matter and Memory. London, 1911.
L'Evolution cre"atrice. Paris, 1907.
(Eng. trans.) Creative Evolution. London, 1911.
Le Rire. Paris, 1900.
(Eng. trans.) Laughter. London, 1911.
*aDe dil'igendo Deo. (Migne, Pat. Lat., t. 182.)
(Eng. trans.) St. Bernard on loving God. Caldey Abbey, 1909. 373
374 LIST OF AUTHORITIES
Bigg, Rev. C.
The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Oxford, 1886. Neoplatonism. London, 1895. Boehme, Jacob.
The Works of Jacob Boehme, in 4 vols., with Life of the Author. London, 1764-81.
The Threefold Life of Man. London, 1909. The Three Principles of the Divine Essence. London, 1910. Bonaventura, St.
Legendse duse de vita S. Francisci Seraphici. Ad Claras Aquas, 1898. (Eng. trans.) Life of St. Francis, by St. Bonaventura. (Temple Classics.) London, 1904. Brightman, F. E.
Liturgies Eastern and Western : the Texts, Original or Translated, of the Principal Liturgies of the Church. Vol. I, Eastern Liturgies. Oxford, 1896. Burkitt, F. C.
The Gospel History and its Transmission. Edinburgh, 1906. Butler, Dom Cuthbert.
The Historia Lausiaca of Palladius. (In " Texts and Studies," Vol. VI. Nos. I, 2.) Cambridge, 1898.
Monasticism (in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," nth ed., Vol. XVIII. p. 687). Cabrol, Dom Fernand.
Les Origines liturgiques. Paris, 1906. Campbell, J. M.
Paul the Mystic : a Study in Apostolic Experience. London, 1907. Carpenter, J. Estlin.
The First Three Gospels : their Origin and Relations. 3rd ed. London, 1904. Cassian, John.
Opera omnia. (Migne, Pat. Lat., t. 49-50.)
(Eng. trans.) In " Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers." 2nd Series, Vol. II. Oxford, 1894. Catherine of Genoa, St.
Vita mirabile e dottrina celeste, insieme col trattato del Purgatorio e col dialogo della Santa. 1743.
(Eng. trans.) The Treatise on Purgatory, with a Preface by Cardinal Manning. London, 1858. Catherine of Siena, St.
L'Opere della seraphica Santa Caterina da Siena. Lucca, 1721. (Eng. trans.) The Divine Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, trans, by Algar Thorold. London, 1896. Chandler, Rev. A., Bishop of Bloemfontein.
Faith and Experience : an Analysis of the Factors of Religious Knowledge. London, 1911. Clement of A lexandria.
Opera omnia. (Migne, Pat. Gresc., t. 8, 9.)
(Eng. trans.) Writings, trans, by W. Wilson. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1867-69. Clodd, E.
Tom-tit-tot : Savage Philosophy in Folk-tale. London, 1898. Cloud of Unknowing, The.
Edited from the British Museum MS. Harl. 674, by Evelyn Underbill, London, 1912.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 375
Cunninghame-Graham, G.
Santa Teresa. 2 vols. London, 1894. Cutten, G.B.
The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity. London, 1909. Dalman, G. H.
Die Worte J«su, mit Berucksichtigung des nachkanonischen jUdischen Schrifttums und der aramaischen Sprache erortert. Leipzig, 1898.
(Eng. trans.} The Words of Jesus. Edinburgh, 1902. Dante.
Tutte le opere. Rived, nel testo da Dr. G. Moore. Oxford, 1894. Daretnberg, C. et Saglio, E.
Dictionnaire des antiquites grecques et romaines. Paris, 1886. — In progress.
De Bussierre, M. T. de Renouard.
Le Perou et Ste. Rose de Lime. Paris, 1863. Deissmann, Adolf.
Licht vom Osten. Tubingen, 1908.
(Eng. trans.) Light from the Ancient East. London, 1910.
Paulus : eine Kultur- und religionsgeschichtliche Skizze. Tubingen, 1911.
(Eng. trans.) St. Paul : a Study in Social and Religious History. London, 1912. Delacroix, H.
Etudes d'histoire et de psychologic du mysticisme. Paris, 1908. Devine, Rev. A.
A Manual of Ascetic Theology. London, 1901.
A Manual of Mystical Theology. London, 1903. Dionysius the Areopagite.
Opera omnia. (Migne, Pat. grac., t. 3-4.)
(Eng. trans. ) The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, trans, by the Rev. J. Parker. 2 vols. Oxford, 1897. Dobschiitz, E. von.
The Eschatology of the Gospels. London, 1910.
Drummond, James.
An Enquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. London, 1903. Duchesne, Monseigneur L.
Origines du culte chretien : etude sur la liturgie latine avant Charlemagne. 3rd. ed. Paris, 1903.
(Eng. trans.) Christian Worship. London, 1903.
Durand, A .
Tr&or liturgique des fideles. Paris, 1869. Durandus de Mende.
Rationale Divinorum Officiorum. Antwerp, 1614.
Eckartshausen, C. von.
The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, trans, by Isabel de Steiger. London, 1896.
Deutsche Mystiche des XIV. Jahrhunderts. Vol. II, Meister Eckhart. Ed. F. Pfeiffer. Gottingen, 1906. Emmerich , A nne-Cathtfrine .
Visions : coordonn^es en un seul tout, selon 1 ordre des faits, par le K. F. Fr. Joseph Alvare Dulay. Trad, par M. Charles d'Ebeling. 3 vols. Pans, 1864.
376 LIST OF AUTHORITIES
Epiphanius.
Panarion. (Migne, Pat. GVCBC., t. 41.) Eucken, Rudolph.
Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion. 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1905.
(Eng. trans.} The Truth of Religion. London, 1911.
Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens. Leipzig, 1908.
(Eng. trans.) The Meaning and Value of Life. London, 1909. Fortescue, Adrian.
The Divine Liturgy of our Father among the Saints, John Chrysostom, done into English with Introduction and Notes. London, 1908.
The Mass : a Study of the Roman Liturgy. London, 1912. Fox, George.
Journal. 8th. ed. 2 vols. London, 1901. Gamble, John.
Christ and Criticism. London, 1904. Gardner, Edmund.
St. Catherine of Siena. London, 1907.
The Cell of Self-knowledge : Seven Old English Mystical Works. Re printed from Pepwell's edition with notes and Introduction. London, 1910.
Dante and the Mystics. London, 1913. Gardner, Percy.
Exploratio Evangelica. London, 1899.
A Historical View of the New Testament. London, 1901.
The Religious Experience of St. Paul. London, 1911. Glover, T. R.
The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire. 4th ed. London, 1910. Guy on, Madame.
Vie, par elle-meme. 3 vols. Paris, 1791.
(Eng. trans.) The Autobiography of Madame Guyon, trans, in full by T. Allen. 2 vols. London, 1897. "H."
L'abate Loisy e il problema dei Vangeli Sinottici. In " II Rinnovamento, " 1909.
Hall, G. Stanley.
Adolescence : its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education. 2 vols. New York, 1904.
Hannay, J. 0.
The Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism. London, 1903.
Harnack, Adolf.
Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte. 3 vols. 3rd. ed. Freiburg, 1894-97.
(Eng. trans.) The History of Dogma. 7 vols. 1894-99.
Das Monchtum, seine Ideale und seine Geschichte. Giessen, 1881.
Augustins Konfessionen. Giessen, 1895.
(Eng. trans.) Monasticism, its Ideals and History; and The Confessions ol St. Augustine. London, 1901.
Das Wesen des Christentums. 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1900.
(Eng. trans.) What is Christianity? London, 1901.
Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahr- hunderten. Leipzig, 1902.
(Eng. trans.) The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. 2 vols. London, 1908.
Militia Christi. Tubingen, 1905.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 377
Beitrage zur Einleitung in das neue Testament. Leipzig, 1906
(Eng. trans.) New Testament Studies : I. Luke the Physician, the Author of the Third Gospel and Acts of the Apostles. London, 1907. Harris, J. Rendel.
The Odes and Psalms of Solomon. Cambridge, 1911. Harrison, E. J.
The Fighting Spirit of Japan. London, 1913. Hartmann, F.
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme. London, 1891. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. 5 vols. Edinburgh, 1900-1904. Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. 5 vols. Edinburgh and
New York, 1908. — In progress. Herrmann, W.
Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott. 6th ed. Stuttgart, 1908.
(Eng. trans.) The Communion of the Christian with God. London, 1910. Heracleitus.
Reliquiae. Recog. J. By water. Oxford, 1877. Hilton, Walter.
The Scale of Perfection, ed. by Dalgairns. London, 1908. Him, Yrj'o.
The Sacred Shrine : a Study of the Poetry and Art of the Catholic Church. London, 1912. Holtzmann, Dr. H. J.
Neutestamentliche Theologie. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Tubingen, 1911. Holtzmann, Oscar.
Leben Jesu. Tubingen and Leipzig, 1901.
(Eng. trans.) The Life of Jesus. London, 1904.
War Jesus Ekstatiker ? Eine Untersuchung zum Leben Jesu. Tubingen
and Leipzig, 1903. Hugel, Baron F. von.
The Mystical Element of Religion as studied in St. Catherine of Genoa and her Friends. 2 vols. London, 1908.
Eternal Life : a Study of its Implications and Applications. Edinburgh, 1912.
John, Gospel of. (In the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," nth ed. Vol. XV,
P- 4S2-) Ignatius Loyola, St.
Exercitia Spiritualia ex autographe Hispanico. Namur, 1841. (Eng. trans.) The Spiritual Exercises, trans, from the original Spanish. London, 1880.
The Testament of St. Ignatius Loyola, trans, by E. M. Rix, with a preface by G. Tyrrell. London, 1900. Inge, Rev. W. R., Dean of St. Paul's.
Christian Mysticism. London, 1899.
Irenesus.
Opera omnia. (Migne, Pat. Greec., t. 7.)
(Eng. trans.) Writings. 2 vols. (Ante-Nicene Library.) Edinburgh, 1868.
Jacopone da Todl.
Laude di frate Jacopone da Todl. A cura di G. Fem. Rome, 1910.
Jalalu 'ddin Rumi.
Selected Poems from the Divan i Shamsi Tabnz : trans. R. A. Nicholson. Persian and English. Cambridge, 1898.
378 LIST OF AUTHORITIES
John of Holy Crosse, Brother.
Philothea's Pilgrimage to Perfection. Bruges, 1668. John of the Cross, St.
Obras. (Biblioteca de autores espanoles, t. 27.) 1853.
(Eng. trans.) The Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. D. Lewis. London, 1906.
The Dark Night of the Soul, trans. D. Lewis. London, 1908.
A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul, trans. D. Lewis. London, 1911. Jones, Rufus M.
Studies in Mystical Religion. London, 1909. Julian of Norwich.
Revelations of Divine Love, ed. by Grace Warrack. London, 1901. Jiilicher, A .
Einleitung in das neue Testament. 1st and 2nd eds. Freiburg and Leipzig, 1894.
(Eng. trans. ) An Introduction to the New Testament. London, 1904. Jundt, A .
Rulman Merswin et 1'ami de Dieu de 1'Oberland. Paris, 1890. Justin Martyr.
Apology. (Migne, Pat. Grac., t. 6.)
(Eng. trans.) Works. Oxford, 1861. Kilner, Walter.
The Human Atmosphere. London, 1911. King, E. G.
Early Religious Poetry of the Hebrews. Cambridge, 1911. Law, William.
Works. 9 Vols. London, 1762. (Privately reprinted : London, 1893.)
The Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law, ed. by W. Scott Palmer. London, 1908. Lawrence, Brother.
The Practice of the Presence of God (with additional letters). London, 1906. Le Bon, Gustave.
Psychologic des foules. Paris, 1895.
(Eng. trans.) The Crowd. 4th ed. London, 1903. Leuba.
Les Tendances fondamentales des mystiques Chretiens. In " Revue philo- sophique," July, 1902. Lightfoot, J.B., Bishop of Durham.
The Apostolic Fathers. London, 1891.
Biblical Essays. London, 1893. Loisy, Alfred.
Le Quatrieme eVangile. Paris, 1903.
Les Evangiles synoptiques. 2 vols. Ceffonds, 1907. Macarius of Egypt, St.
Vitaet Opera. (Migne, Pat. Grc8C.t t. 34.) Mai aval.
La Pratique de la vraie theologie mystique. 2 vols. Paris, 1709. Masefield, John.
The Everlasting Mercy. London, 1911. Matheson, G.
The Spiritual Development of St. Paul. Edinburgh and London. 1890.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 879
Mechthild of Magdeburg.
Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechthild von Magdeburg, oder das fliess- ende Licht der Gottheit. Herausgegeben von P. Gall Morel. Ratisbon, 1869.
Mirror of Simple Souls, The.
British Museum Add. MSS. 37790.
Missale ad usum insignis et prceclares Ecclesia Sarum. Ed. by F. H. Dickenson. Burntisland. 1861-1883.
(Eng. trans.) The Sarum Missal in English, edited and translated by A. H. Pearson. London, 1868.
Missale Romanum. E~x decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini restitutum. S. Pii V Pont. Max. jussu editum, dementis VIII, Urbani VIII, et Leonis XIII auctoritate recognitum. Rome, Tournay, Paris, 1905.
(Eng. trans.) The Roman Missal in Latin and English, arranged for the use of the Laity. (Pub. Soc. of St. John the Evangelist.) Tournay, 1911.
Murray's Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature, edited by H. Wace and W. C. Piercey. London, 1911.
Neale, J. M., and Littledale, R. F.
The Liturgies of SS. Mark, James, Clement, Chrysostom and Basil, and the Church of Malabar. Trans., with Introduction and Appendices. 2nd ed. London, 1869. Newman, John Henry.
Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. London, 1878.
Oman, J. C.
The Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India. London, 1903.
Origen.
Opera omnia. (Migne, Pat. Greec., t. 11-17.)
(Eng. trans.) Writings. 2 vols. (Ante-Nicene Library.) Edinburgh, 1869-72. Palladius.
Historia Lausiaca. (Migne, Pat. Grtsc., t. 34.) See also under Butler.
Pascal.
Les Pens^es, Fragments et Lettres de Blaise Pascal, ed. by Faugere. 2nd ed. Paris, 1897. Patmore, Coventry.
The Rod, the Root and the Flower. 2nd ed. London, 1907.
Peter sen, Gerlac.
Gerlaci Petri, ignitum cum Deo soliloquium. Cologne, 1849. (Eng. trans.) The Fiery Soliloquy with God of the Rev. Master Gerlac Petersen. London, 1872.
Opera. Recog. L. Cohn et P. Wendland. 5 vols. Berlin, 1896-1906. (Eng. trans.) Works, trans, by Yonge. 4 vols. London, 1854.
Plato.
Opera. Ed. J. Burnet. 5 vols. (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Classicorum
Oxoniensis) 1899-1907.
(Eng. trans.) The Dialogues, trans, by B. Jowett. 3rd ed. 5 voli. Oxford, 1892.
° ^ Plotini Enneades, prsemisso Porphyrii de vita Plotini deaue ordine librorum eius libello. Edidit R. Volkmann. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1883-84. (Eng. trans.) Select Works, trans, by T. Taylor. London, 1895.
880 LIST OF AUTHORITIES
Poulain, A .
Graces d'oraison. Paris, 1906.
(Eng. trans.) The Graces of Interior Prayer. London, 1910. Ramsay, Sir William.
St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen. 5th ed. London, 1900.
The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170. 7th ed. London,
The Cities of St. Paul : their Influence on his Life and Thought. London, 1907.
Luke the Physician, and other Studies in the History of Religion. London, 1908. Rtctjac, E.
Essai sur les fondements de la connaissance mystique. Paris, 1897. (Eng. trans.} Essay on the Bases of the Mystic Knowledge. London, 1899. RMlle, Albert.
Jeius de Nazareth : etudes critiques sur les antecedents de Thistoire evange- lique et de la vie de Jesus. 2 vols. Paris, 1897. Reville, Jean.
La Doctrine du Logos dans le quatrieme eVangile et dans les ceuvres de Philon. Paris. 1881.
Le Quatrieme evangile : son origine et sa valeur historique. Paris, 1901. Rhys Davids, Mrs.
Buddhism. (Home University Library.) London, 1912. Richard of St. Victor.
Opera omnia. (Migne, Pat. Lat., t. 196.) Rohde, Erwin.
Psyche : Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen. 2 v»ls. 2nd ed. Freiburg, 1898. Rolle, Richard.
The Fire of Love and the Mending of Life. Englished by R. Misyn. (E.E.T.S., vol. 106.) London, 1896. Royce, Josiah.
The World and the Individual. 2 vols. London, 1900. Ruysbroeck, Venerable, J.
Opera omnia, trad. Surius. Cologne, 1652.
L'Ornement des noces spirituelles, trad. M. Maeterlinck. Brussels, 1900.
CEuvres : trad, du Flamand par les Benedictins de St. -Paul de Wisques. Tome I (in progress). Brussels, 1912.
CEuvres choisies, trad. E. Hello. Paris, 1902. Sabatier, L. A.
L'Ap6tre Paul. 3rd. ed. Paris, 1896. (Eng. trans.) The Apostle Paul. London, 1591. Sabatier, Paul.
Vie de S. Fra^ois d'Assise. 22nd ed. Paris, 1899. (Eng. trans.) Life of St. Francis of Assisi. London, 1901. Salmon, George.
The Human Element in the Gospels : a Commentary on the Synoptic Narrative. London, 1907. Saudreau, A.
Les Degr^s de la vie spirituelle. 2 vols. Paris, 1896.
(Eng. trans.) The Degrees of the Spiritual Life. 2 vols. London, 1907.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 381
Schweitzer, Albert.
Vom Reimarus zu Wrede. Eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. Tubingen, 1906.
(Eng. trans.) The Quest of the Historical Jesus, and ed. London. 1911.
Smith, W., and Cheetham, S.
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. 2 vols. London, 1875-1880.
Speculum perfectionis seu S. Francisci Assisiensis leeenda antiquissima. Ed. P. Sabatier. 1898.
(Eng. trans.) The Mirror of Perfection. (Temple Classics.) London, 1903. Starbuck, E. T.
The Psychology of Religion. 2nd ed. London, 1901. Stdffels, J.
Die mystiche Theologie Makarius des Aegypters und die altesten Ansatre christlicher Mystik. Bonn, 1908. Suso, Henry.
Die Schriften des seligen H. Seuse. Ed. H. S. Denifle. Munich, 1876. Swete, H. B.
The Holy Spirit in the New Testament. London, 1909.
The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church. London, 1912.
Tagore, Rabindranath.
Gitanjali (Song-offerings). Published by the India Society. London, 1912. Tauler, John.
Johann Tauler's Predigten, nach den besten Ausgaben in die jetzige Schrift- sprache, ubertragen von J. Hamberger. 3 vols. Prague, 1872.
(Eng. trans.) The History and Life of the Rev. Doctor John Tauler, with Twenty-five of his Sermons. Trans, by Susannah Winkworth. New edition. London, 1906.
The Inner Way : being Thirty-six Sermons for Festivals. (Library of Devotion.) 3rd ed. London, 1909.
Teresa, St.
Obras y escritos de Santa Teresa de Jesus. 6 vols. Madrid, 1 88 1.
(Eng. trans.) The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus written by herself, trans, by