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Mystique in the Christian Live

Milan Špehar ; Teologija u Rijeci - Područni studij Katoličkog bogoslovnog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Rijeka, Hrvatska

Sažetak

We can reject mystique as a part of history but it is still here, presenting itself as the present. We can try to define it, seek for its role and its purpose. Mystique will evade all that. It is omnipresent but still undefineable. Presence and elusiveness - one live paradox, not in the theorethical sence of poetic language. Maybe that is its definition, because I do not know what else in this world would pose such a deep paradox as mysticism does. If we were to take that paradox from it, it cannot exist as such anymore. It is really conservative and contemporary, even more than contemporary: it is prophetic. Were we to examine it from either side, as much as we want and on as different fields as we want, we will only find more differences within it. But is not exactly that its richness? The true mystery - mystique. It is even a bigger mystery, so it seems to me, the fact that mysticism connects such different mystical thinkers and such different theorists.
It was my primal goal to demonstrate that in this text. I also wanted to emphasize from which sources the mystics of all ages drew inspiration so we can justifiably — and duty-bound — assume it and confront it with some modern newly-composed i.e. New Age tendencies of violent stuffing all into one and equating everything, which is not enriching but degrading everything. Tendencies and a desire for phenomena and, as a consequence, seeking saturation in mystique does not present mystique to a modern man but has quite the opposite effect, creating an even more negative opinion of it. Mystique can be everywhere but not everything can be mystique!
Mystique is unstatedness of experience, i.e. the experience of Inexperienceable. When we could fully experience God, the only source and the only foundation of Christian mystique, mystique would cease to exist. But then not even God would be God anymore. Eastern apophatic teology with pseudo-Dionysius Aerophagitus and other church elders demonstrates that. The mystics of Christian East and West gave their own definitions of mystique. I mentioned only some of them: Origen, Gregorius of Nyssa, Evagirius Ponticus, Augustin, pseudo-Dionysius Aerophagitus, John Klimak, Maximus the Confessor, Simon the New Theologian, Bernard, Meister Eckhart, Gregorius Palamas, Ruysbroec, Tauler, Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Serafin Sarov. When we speak of phenomena in mystique, then we usually have in mind some phenomenal occurences in which the mystics themselves are not interested. Therefore I did not pause at such occurences, but at that which were important for the mystics themselves. How to express the inexpressable in language? Theology does not have adequate expressions for that. That is why mystics lean towards poetry and by doing so reveal, even unwittingly, the spiritual or the natural mystical thread in art. I want to explain the term of ecstasy in its basic meaning so that it does not stay interpreted only as being a supernatural phenomena, because ex-stasis is exiting from oneself. It is manifested in each leaning towards another, in living everyday life to its fullest. I also wanted to point to »thanatos«. The mystics continually speak of dying (the non-mystics speak only of ecstasy as they see it). Ecstasy and thanatos are two inseparable experiences. We find them in the Holy Scriptures of Old and New Testament. Thanatos as a dark night of the soul was especially referred to by John of the Cross.
Mystique does not live from outer emotions and senses. It rouses reason and will. It is an intellectual notion full of love. Notion and love are inseparable in mystique. Maybe it is just (and only) the mystics that have managed to inseparably connect these two aspects of human existence.
That is also what I wanted to say in this text. I agree with Dan's statement referred to in the second edition of Sholem’s book - study about the Jewish kabbala as a part of mystique, only that I would broaden the meaning of the word »historian« to include every explorer: »A historian can explore how a certain text was perceived by certain readers in different ages, but he can never claim to have revealed the true, the real intention of the author«. It was exactly that which was the intention of my text from the very beginning. Besides, the further studying of mystique only deepened that desire: to demonstrate and to cling to the claim that I have not, nor am I able to, recognized all that the forementioned mystics and mystiques theorists wanted to say. But I am certain of one thing: both the former and the latter agree in one, no matter how different among themselves they might be: it is enough to perceive that mystique is here, in the same way the mystic of the Christian East emphasises that the mystic does not see Christ on Tabor, but rather sees light, in the same way Moses before that did not see God but the burning bush. Mystique is a mystery. If we were to take off that veil, mystique would die — and parhaps we would die too. It is like poetry: it is here, but unsaid; interpreted, but uninterpreted and uninterpretable.
For me it was important to open up the problem and present it in, for now, only a few of its diversities and do so exactly there where I have not been able to find a definite answer, because I am becoming more and more convinced that there is not one anyway.

Ključne riječi

mystique; experience; ecstasy; »thanatos«; language; notion; love

Hrčak ID:

25648

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/25648

Datum izdavanja:

16.3.2004.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

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