636 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
In the Rules of Sacred Theology Alarms gives one hundred and twenty-five brief expositions of theological propositions. In the five books on the Catholic Faith,1 he considers the doctrine of God, creation and redemption, the sacraments, and the last things. The Church is defined as the congregation of the faithful confessing Christ and the arsenal of the sacraments.2 Alanus' work, Against Heretics, has already been used in the chapters on the Cathari and Waldenses.
Another name which may be introduced here is Walter of St. Victor, who is chiefly known by his characterization of Abselard, Gilbert of Poictiers, Peter the Lombard, and the Lombard's pupil, Peter of Poictiers, afterwards chancellor of the University of Paris, as the four labyrinths of France. He likened their reasoning to the garrulity of frogs, — ranarum garrulitas, — and declared that, as sophists, they had unsettled the faith by their questions and counterquestions. Walter's work has never been printed. He succeeded Richard as prior of the convent of St. Victor. He died about 11S0.8
§ 103. Mysticism.
LITERATURE : The Works of St. Bernard, Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Rupert of Deutz, and also of Anselm, Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, all in Migne's Patrology. — G.ARNOLD : Historic und Seschreibung d. myst. Theologie, Frankf., 1703. — H. SCHMID : D. Mysticismus des Mittelalters, Jena, 1824. — J. GORRES (Prof, of Hist, in Munich, founder of Ger man ultramontanism, d. 1848) : D. christl. Mystik, 4 vols. Regensb, 1836-1842. A product of the fancy rather than of sober historical investigation. — A. HELFFERICH : D. christl. Mystik, etc., 2 parts, Gotha, 1842. — R. A. VAUGHAN : Hours with the Mystics, Lond., 1856, 4th ed., no date, with preface by Wycliffe Vaughan. — LUDWIG NOACK: D. christl. Mystik nach ihrem geschichtl. Entwickelungsgang, 2 parts, Konigsb., 1863. — J. HAMBERGKR: Stimmen der Mystik, etc., 2 parts, Stuttg., 1857. — W. PREGER : Gesch. der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter,
of his life at Clairvaux and wrote a Life of St. Bernard. Migne, 185. 470-523. See Deutsch, Alanus, Herzog, I. 283 sqq. Hergenrother-Kirsch frequently quotes Alanus.
1 Hegulce de sacra theologia, Migne, 210. 621-684 ; and de arte sive de articulis catholicae fidei, Migne, 593-617.
2 Congregatio fidelium confitentium Christum, et sacramentorum subsidium, Migne, p. 613. Under the title liber sententiarum, Migne, 229-264, he wrote also on the Lord's birth, John the Baptist, and Mary.
8 Walter speaks of the four labyrinths as "treating with scholastic levity the mysteries of the Trinity and the incarnation and vomiting out many heresies." Planck gave an analysis of Walter's work in Studien und Kritiken, 1844, pp. 823 sqq. Bulaeus, in Hist, universitatum, vol. II. 402, 629, gives ex tracts, which are reprinted in Migne, 199, pp. 1127 sqq. Denifle also gives quotations, Archiv, etc., 1885, pp. 404 sqq.
§ 103. MYSTICISM. 637
3 vols. Leip., 1874-1893. The Mysticism of the twelfth and thirteenth cents, is given, vol. I. 1-309. — CARL DU PREL : D. Philosophie der Mystik, Leip., 1885.— W. R. INGE: Christ. Mysticism, Lond., 1899.— The Lives of Bernard, Hugo of St. Victor, etc. —The Histories of Doc trine of SCHWANE, HARNACK, etc.
Side by side with the scholastic element in mediaeval theol ogy was developed the mystical element. Mysticism aims at the immediate personal communion of the soul with the Infi nite Spirit, through inward devotions and spiritual aspirations, by abstraction rather than by logical analysis, by adoration rather than by argument, with the heart rather than with the head, through the spiritual feelings rather than through intel lectual prowess, through the immediate contact of the soul with God rather than through rites and ceremonies. The characteristic word to designate the activity of the mystic is devotion; of the scholastic, speculation. Mysticism looks less for God without and more for God within the breast. It relies upon experience rather than upon definitions.1 Mysti cism is equally opposed to rationalism and to ritual formalism.
In the Apostle John and also in Paul we have the mystical element embodied. The centre of John's theology is that God is love. The goal of the believer is to abide in Christ and to have Christ abide in him. The true mystic has felt. He is no visionary nor a dabbler in occultism. Nor is he a recluse. Neither the mystics of this period nor Eckart and Tauler of a later period seclude themselves from the course of human events and human society. Bernard and the theologians of St. Victor did not lose themselves in the absorption of ecstatic exercises, though they sought after
1Harnack, Dogmengesch.,111. 314 sqq., 373 sqq., turns to ridicule the alleged difference between scholasticism and mysticism. With the emotional or quietistic type of religion, die Pektoraltheologie, the cardiac theology, as the Germans call it, he has little sympathy. Piety, he says, is the startingpoint of both and full knowledge their goal. He makes the brusque statement, p. 378, that "a mystic who does not become a Roman Catholic, is a dilettante." Ritschl had said before that there is " no normal mysticism except in connec tion with the hermit life. The love for it, widely prevalent among evangelical Christians, isdilettanteism." Pietismus, II. 12. Harnack, however, is willing to allow a distinction in the terms and to speak of scholasticism when the relation of God to the universe is thought of and of mysticism when we have in mind the union of the soul with God.