Asceticism not unfrequentlj' issued from the mystical religious life, its highest instances being that of St, Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order. The Fratricelli of the 13th century were an offshoot from this stock. The Bcguine establishments, origi- nally asylums for the widows and daughters of Crusad- ers, became convents of mystical devotees, with more or less of heretical taint. See Beghards.
Mysticism, which had been training men in the West for a great religious revolution, sprang up and spread rapidly also in the East. Xo sooner had the doctrines of Islam been proclaimed by the Arabian prophet than a class of Alystics appeared who revolted against the let- ter of the Koran in the name of the spirit, and boldly urged their claims to a supernatural intercourse with the Deity. For several centuries Persia was the chief seat of a bodyof Jlohammedan Jlystics, who are known by the name of Sufis ; and the writings of their poets during the 13th and 14th centuries are deservedly ad- mired by every student of Oriental literature. These Eastern Mystics sought, and in some cases claimed, an immediate knowledge of God by the direct exercise of the intuitive faculty, which is a ray of Deity, and be- holds Essence. Hence the indifference which they uni- formly cxhiiiited to the various forms of positive relig- ion. Self-abandonment and self-anniliilation formed tlie highest ambition of tlie Sufi. He was bound wliolly to lose sight of his individuality; by mystical death he began to live. The most extravagant among these Persian Mystics claimed iilentity with (iod, ami denied all distinction between good and evil. They held the sins of the Suli to be dearer to Goil tlian the obedience of other men, and his impiety more acceptable than their faith. The Sutism of the East has continued un- modified in its character down to the present day, and is actually at this moment on the increase in Persia, notwithstanding the inveterate hatred which the other Mohammedans boar to its adherents.
In the West, Germany has been the special seat of
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mysticism before and since the Reformation period. In the fellowships and spiritual associations which existed in Germany and the Netherlands throughout the 13th century and part of the 14tli, mysticism was the predomi- nant element ; chiefly, however, in the form of mystical pantheism. This, indeed, was the common basis of the doctrine espoused on the Rhine, in the 13th century, by the " Brotherhood of the Free Spirit." Their fundamen- tal principle, that God is the Being of all beings, the only real existence, unavoidably led them to consider all things, without exception, as comprised in him, and even the meanest creature as participant of the divine nature and life. God is, however, chiefly present where there is mind, and consequently in man. In the human soul there is an uncreated and eternal principle, name- ly, the intellect, in virtue of which he resembles and is one with God. Such mystical doctrines are partially a revival of the tenets of the Amalricians and of David of Dinanto, who elaborated the doctrines of the Beghards into a regular speculative system. The following brief epitome of his doctrines is given by Dr. Ullman in his Refunners before the Reformation : " God is the Being, that is, the solid, true, universal, and necessary Being, lie alone exists, for he has the existence of all beings in himself; all out of him is semblance, and exists only in as far as it is in God, or is God. The nature of God, exalted above every relation or mode (aveiro), and for tliat reason unutterable and nameless, is not, however, mere abstract being (according to the doctrine of Amal- ric), or dead substance ; but it is spirit, the highest rea- son, thinking, knowing and making itself known. The property most peculiar to God is thinking, and it is by exerting it upon himself that he first becomes God; then the Godhead — the hidden darkness — the simple and silent basis of the Divine Being actually is God. God proceeds out of himself, and this is the eternal generation of the Son, and is necessarily founded in the divine essence. In the Son, or creative Word, how- ever, God also gives birth to all things, and as his op- eration, being identical with his thinking, is without time, so creation takes place in an 'everlasting now.' God has no existence without the world, and the world, being his existence in another mode, is eternal with him. The creatures, although they be in a manner set out of God, are yet not separated from him ; for other- wise God would be bounded by something external to himself. Much more, the distinction in God is one which is continually doing itself away. By the Son, who is one with God, ' all things are in God,' and that which is in God is God himself. In this manner it may be affirmed that 'all things are God as truly as God is all things.' In this sense also every created object, as being in God, is good. ' According to this the whole creation is a manifestation of the Deity ; every creature bears upon it a " stamp of the divine nature," a reflection of the eternal Godhead; indeed, every creature is full of God. All that is divine, however, when extraneous to the Divine Being, necessarily strives to return to its source, seeks to lay aside its finitude, and from a state of division to re-enter into unity. Hence all created things have a deep and painful yearning after union with God in untroubled rest. It is only when God, after having, by the Son, passed out of him- self into a different mode of existence, returns by lov which is the Holj^ Spirit, into himself once more, that the Divine Being is perfected in the Trinity, and he rests with himself and with all the creatures.' "