(Greek Μυστήρια, a word ultimately derivable from the root MU, a sound produced with closed lips) were ceremonies in ancient religions, conducted secretly, and only in the presence of such as had undergone preliminary rites of initiation. The ultimate origin of such ceremonies is doubtless to be sought for in the nature of religion itself, and the feelings of awe and reverence with which its objects are regarded. For to such feelings is directly traceable whatever part sacerdotal exclusiveness or legislative wisdom may be supposed to have had in their institution and preservation. Mystery, in one form or another, is inherent in religion, and will never disappear from it. Mysterious ceremonies, doctrines, and language, are co-ordinate developments of the same religious feelings. The origin and significance of the ancient mysteries have been the subject of much investigation and discussion. On these points some observations will be subjoined to the following succinct account of the most celebrated of these institutions:

1. The Mysteries of Isis and Osiris.—These two deities, like the reigning deities in all mythologies, are preceded in legend by others. A satisfactory explanation of this fact has not yet been reached; it was formerly the main support of the Euhemeristic theory, and has been plausibly explained by that of successive worships, a theory which has also been applied to the explanation of many of the peculiar features of the myths themselves. It is certain, at all events, in the case of Egypt, that the revolutions in her political history were accompanied by extensive changes in her religious systems, and by the displacement or absorption of the ancient and local deities in a more modern group, and the growth of new myths, in which, doubtless, the historical events attending these changes have been partially reflected. Herodotus states, and his statement is confirmed by the monuments, that the Egyptian gods formed three orders (ii. 145). These three orders are successive dynasties of gods whose reign preceded that of mortal sovereigns. Of these three, the most recent is that of Osiris, whose son Horus is the last reigning god. (Bunsen, Egypt's Place in Uni. History, vol. i., p. 357.) These two deities alone, Osiris and Isis, were worshipped over the whole of Egypt, and their mythical history formed the subject of the mysteries.

If actual events, as we have supposed, are partially reflected in the story, the whole has been thrown into the prehistoric and dateless periods of mythology, and has been so interwoven with the ideal and purely symbolic, that the elements are not now distinguishable. Osiris, sovereign of Lower Egypt, is, with Isis, his sister-spouse, the originator of agriculture and the arts of peace and civilization. The cultivation of grain and of the vine, settled life, letters, music, and the fine arts, are owing to him. He sets out on a career of conquest and civilization, leaving the government in the hands of Isis, against whom Typhon, brother and implacable enemy of Osiris, wages war in his absence, but is defeated, and affects reconciliation. Osiris visits Ethiopia, India, and Greece, and introduces a new order of things. On his return to Egypt, he is surprised by Typhon at a peaceful banquet, and put into a coffin, which is committed to the Nile. Isis, learning this, searches for his body, and is guided to Biblos in Phenicia. Her adventures here present a remarkable similarity to those of Demeter at Eleusis; she becomes nurse in disguise to the son of Astarte, the Queen of Biblos. At length she declares herself, gains possession of the coffin, and returns with it to Egypt, where she conceals herself with it. It is discovered by Typhon, who cuts in pieces the body of Osiris, and scatters it over the country. Isis again sets out in quest of the body, and succeeds in finding all the pieces but one, which she replaces with an artificial phallus, and interts the body at Pousiri. According to other legends, she consigns each piece to a separate tomb, in the form of a human body, so that it is impossible afterwards to dishonour them. Horus defeats Typhon and makes him prisoner, but Isis sets him at liberty and banishes him. Of the ceremonies to which this myth corresponds our information is vague and imperfect. They seem to have been six in number, and celebrated at different periods of the year. 1. The Aphaimnion, or disappearance of Osiris, on the 17th of Athyr (13th Nov.) 2. The Zetesis, or search for Osiris, about the winter solstice. In this ceremony, the sacred cow, symbol of Isis, was led seven times round the temple. (Plut., De Is. et Osir. 52.) 3. The finding of Osiris in January. 4. The burial. 5. The resurrection of Osiris. And 6. In March the entrance of Osiris into the moon. At Abydos and Philae, supposed tombs of Osiris, were celebrated mystic rites, of which we have no certain information. These ceremonies throw considerable light upon the meaning of the legend. Osiris was the active, life-giving power; hence the sun, the Nile, &c., and hence his symbol, the bull; Isis, the passive, life-receiving power; hence Egypt, the earth, vegetation, &c., and hence her symbol, the cow. The life-giving power suffers in the course of the year a temporary death, but is restored to activity again in the vernal season. The Egyptian mysteries of Isis are to be distinguished from those of maritime Isis, established at Corinth, and afterwards so notorious at Rome. We have a description of these mysteries, doubtless embellished by the author's fancy, in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius (lib. xi.) The festival was preceded by purification in the sea before sunrise, and at sunrise a procession was formed, in which the sacred coffin and image of the goddess was borne by a train of priests to the shore, when a curiously-adorned vessel was consecrated. The ceremonies of initiation were practised by night. The neophyte, after various lustrations and instructions, was led into the presence of the goddess, and there heard and saw what he dared not reveal. The discourse put by Apuleius in the mouth of Isis is a commentary on the inscription of Sais,—"I am all that has been, is, and will be." The advantages Mysteries.

to be derived from initiation were, length of life, the protection of the goddess, and a happy lot in the next world. The worship of maritime Isis seems to have been introduced into Rome about the time of the empire, and was for a long time held in contempt and detestation. This feeling doubtless facilitated the degradation of these mysteries into what they became under the later emperors,—scenes of debauchery, and all kinds of wickedness. (See Ste Croix, Recherches, &c., vol. ii., p. 172.)

2. The Mysteries of Demeter, of Dionysus, and of the Cabiri.—While the history and mythology of Egypt cannot be said to be as yet completely deciphered, we have, on the other hand, very full and exact information on the mythology and worship of Greece. In Greece every deity had his peculiar mysteries; Jupiter, e.g., had a mystic worship in Crete, Juno in Argolis, Hecate in Ægina, Diana in Arcadia, &c. The most celebrated of all, however, were those of Demeter at Eleusis in Attica. They owed their fame, doubtless, to the city in which they were celebrated, the influx of cultivated strangers into Athens, and partly also to the nature of the myth itself, of which they were a kind of commemorative representation. The myth, whose most ancient form is preserved in the Homeric hymn to Demeter, is well known: it is that of the wanderings of Demeter in search of Persephone, carried off by Aidoneus (Pluto); her arrival and disguise at Eleusis; her final recovery of her daughter; and her institution of agriculture, arts, laws, and civilized life; according to one legend also, of the mysteries themselves, to the participants in which her protection and the favour of Persephone, queen of the under-world, were secured. The mysteries of Demeter were originally peculiar to the Eleusinians, and were conducted by the Eumolpides; when Eleusis became subject to Athens, it was stipulated that they should always continue to do so. Thus, while Athenians were initiated, the superintendence of the festival was in the hands of that family, under the second Archon (Basileus), and associated with the Cercyes (originally of the same family), and with the female descendants of King Celeus. The Hierophantes and the Daidouchos were the chief ministers; the latter had charge of the purifications. Among the inferior offices an important one was that of Exegetes, or interpreter. The Eumolpids had also an authority, subject to appeal, in all matters of sacrifice. The cases of Diagoras (Lysias, Con. Andoc.), of Aristotle (Diog. Laert. v. 1), and of Æschylus (Aristot., Eth. Nicom. iii. 2), prove the strictness with which the laws were enforced, and the jealousy with which the mysteries were guarded from profanation. (See also Liv. xxxi. 14.) The less and the greater mysteries must be distinguished; the former, held at Agra, on the Ilissus, in the month of Anthesterion (February), consisted mainly in preparatory purifications by the sacrifice of a sow; an oath was administered to the mystæ, as they were called, at this stage, and instructions given them. The great mysteries were celebrated in the month of Boedromion (September), probably nine days (15–23). The first five days were occupied with various lustrations; on the sixth a grand procession was formed, bearing the statue of Iacchus from the Eleusinion in Athens to Eleusis, and on the night of this day the last initiation was performed. Proclamation being made by the Hieroceryx commanding the profane to withdraw, an oath was exacted, mystic questions put (the better to prevent intrusion), further purifications practised, and the recesses of the temple were disclosed to the Epoptæ. It would appear, from various allusions in ancient authors, that the punishments of the under-world were represented, as the myth required, and probably also the nuptial union of Aidoneus and Persephone. This latter scene, with certain others of a similar kind in the other mysteries, perhaps gave colour to the charges of immorality brought against them by later, especially Christian, writers. These scenes were followed by the autopzia, a kind of beatific vision, of which we have no clear account, and which appears to have been accompanied by a prescribed discourse from the hierophant, and then the assembly was dismissed with the mystic formula Komè, Ompaz, repeated by the audience.

Connected with the Eleusinia were the Thesmophoria, a mystic festival celebrated by the Attic women alone, 14–18 Pyanepsion (October), and which derived its name from the procession to Eleusis on the last day, in which the laws were solemnly carried. These mysteries were also held during the night; were prepared for by continence, fasting, and lustrations; and appear to have had reference to the supposed institution of laws by Demeter.

The mysteries of Dionysus were also celebrated by women alone, in the month of Anthesterion, in the temple of Dionysus or Agauræ. They were presided over by the wife of the Archon king (Basilissa), assisted by fourteen priestesses, called geræra (venerable), to whom she took an oath that she was pure and unpolluted, and with whom she offered mystic sacrifices for the welfare of the city. The mystæ wore skins of fawns, and myrtle, instead of ivy. The sacrifice was a sow, as in the mysteries of Demeter. When these mysteries were introduced into Rome, they speedily degenerated into shameful immoralities; men, as well as women, were initiated; they were held five days in every month; and such were the crimes and excesses committed, that they were at length suppressed by a senatus consult b.c. 186. (Liv. xxxix. 8–18.)

The names, nature, and origin of the Cabiri are perhaps the most obscure points of Greek mythology. The etymology of the name itself has been the subject of much conjecture. This much appears certain, that the deities worshipped as Cabiri in Samothrace and Lemnos were the gods of an ancient Pelasgian people of the same name, and had relations with the most ancient seat of the Pelasgian worship in Northern Greece. The mystic names of the Cabiri were "Axiores," "Axiokersos," and "Axiokersa," to whom a fourth, "Cadmius," is sometimes added. But to what Grecian divinities these names corresponded the conflicting testimonies of ancient authors leave us in entire ignorance. This conflicting testimony has given rise to the conjecture of successive epochs in the Cabiric worship, the last being that in which the Cabiri were confounded with the Dioscuri, and became nothing more than mariner-preserving deities, their former attributes being lost in a haze of tradition. (St Croix, i., p. 44; Limburg-Brouwer, Hist. de la Civilité des Grecs, iv., p. 352.) At all events, preservation from the dangers of the sea came to be the main object of initiators in the mysteries of Samothrace. The initiated were furnished with amulets for this purpose. Of the rites observed in these mysteries nothing certain is known. The myth of the murder of Cadmus by his brothers appears to have been represented in them.

3. The Worship of Mithras, its origin, rites, and meaning, are extremely obscure. (Creuzer, Symbolik, ii., p. 193, ff.; Seel, Mithraegeheimnisse, 1823; Ste Croix, Recherches, ii., p. 121.) In the Zendaresta, Mithras is the chief of the Izeds, under Ormuzd, who is his creator, and in whose war against Abrimán he is the presiding agent. He covers the earth with fruits and verdure, dispenses light and heat in nature, and guards men from the attacks of Abrimán; he is the judge of man in a future state, one month in the year is consecrated to him, and the sixteenth of every other. He is to be invoked thrice a-day. When the mystic worship of Mithras spread from Persia into Asia Minor with the Medo-Persian power, and afterwards, under the Hellenic monarchies, into Alexandria, and under the Roman empire into Rome and Europe, the original Persian idea was altered. Mithras was confounded with the sun and the supreme deity, and practices were adopted—celibacy and fasting, e.g., partly, it is probable, from the Christian religion—quite inconsistent with the Persian worship. We hear of it first Monuments have been found in Italy, in the Tyrol, and other parts of Europe. On these, Mithras is represented as a young man plunging a sacrificial knife into a bull on which he is seated, and surrounded with mystic, sometimes clearly zodiacal figures—a physical emblem, it has been held, of the reproductive forces of nature, from year to year bringing life out of death; and a moral emblem of the ever-repeated victory of the good over the evil principle. Nor is there in this duplicity of signification anything repugnant to the spirit of ancient mythology. Mithraic initiation was protracted and severe. The neophyte was baptized, anointed on the forehead, and received bread and wine; a crown was placed on his head, which he rejected with the words, "Mithras is my crown;" and finally he received a sword, and was declared, "soldier of Mithras." This was the lowest grade; the others had mystic names derived from animals sacred to the god.

The discussion respecting the Grecian mysteries has chiefly turned upon the question, what esoteric religious doctrine they were meant to conceal and convey?—a question which should surely have been preceded by the inquiry, whether they were meant or employed to convey any doctrine at all? The former question has also been constantly confounded with another, and a very different one, viz., What is the real import of the myths with which these ceremonies were connected?—it having been assumed, without satisfactory evidence, that the myths, and their interpretation into abstract terms, were handed down together, the former having been invented as a cloak for the latter, to be removed only to a select few, under the strictest bond of secrecy. In the first place, such a notion—and any theory of an esoteric doctrine involves it—is opposed to sound views of mythology. Such explanations are not possible beside the still living and credited myth; a myth not being the secondary but the primary expression of religious thought in the period which produced it,—the spontaneous and living form of the idea. Secondly, the theory of an esoteric doctrine is opposed to a sound criticism of the facts. On the introduction of Christianity, the philosophic adherents of polytheism interpreted the mysteries in an ethical and spiritual way; probably they attempted to modify them in accordance with their views, and largely appealed to those explained and reformed ceremonies in reply to the accusations of immorality and absurdity brought against polytheism and its institutions. The mysteries became in their hands points of contact between philosophy and the popular religion; and by this means what were at first simply secret ceremonies connected with secret symbols, acquired arbitrary significations of profound import,—descent of the soul into union with matter, &c. But when we ascend to earlier writers, we find that every one attempted to allegorize or euhemerize the myths which underlie the mysteries in his own fashion, just as the other myths were dealt with, and that these discordant explanations are frequently without hesitation attributed to the secret tradition revealed to the initiated alone. (Limburg-Brouwer, iv., p. 287.) This of itself is sufficient proof that there was no esoteric tradition at all; nor is there any evidence that the instructions given to the initiated were anything more than the necessary information as to their conduct during the ceremony. The supposed necessity of finding a concealed doctrine has given rise to many singular theories, of which one or two of the most remarkable may be noticed. According to Warburton (Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated), the mysteries had three objects: 1. To commemorate the origin of civilization. 2. To inculcate the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. 3. To reveal the doctrine of the unity of God. In this last consisted the real secret doctrine, and it was revealed only in the great mysteries, to which access was as difficult and rare as it was frequent and easy to the less. On this last assertion,—Mysteries, destitute of all proof, and opposed to everything certainly known of the matter,—and on the further reasoning, that though the revelation of such a doctrine would be fatal to the popular system, it would not affect the worship of beings intermediate as to man and the Deity,—he relies to obviate the invincible objection that polytheism and such mysteries could not have existed together. The paradox reaches an extreme when it is alleged, that legislators established ceremonies subversive of the public religion, for the purpose of furnishing stronger bonds of social faith and order. The uncritical way in which, to support his theory, Warburton treats his authorities, has been ably exposed by Leland, Ste Croix, De Sacy, and Limburg-Brouwer. Ste Croix, while rejecting Warburton's theory, that the secret doctrine of the mysteries was the unity of God, is at one with him in regard to the special moral and religious aims which he attributes to them. According to that learned writer (Recherches Hist. et Crit. sur les Mystères du Paganisme, 2de édit., par Silvestre de Sacy, Paris, 1817, 2 vols.), they were instituted by the early legislators to commemorate the blessings of civilization, and, further, to furnish expiation for crimes. The germ of the mysteries is illustration and explanation; the doctrines taught were, the necessity of repentance and confession, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments. The views of the editor of that work, Silvestre de Sacy, are more sound: there was no secret doctrine in the mysteries; certain rites and symbols were secret, and these it was sacrilege to reveal. Theories of explanation and allegory may have found their way from the schools of philosophy into the celebration of the mysteries; but it is utterly erroneous to conceive that any philosophical doctrines had their origin there. Creuzer (Symb. u. Myth. der alten Völker, iv., p. 512, ff.) has delivered himself, with little reservation, to the reveries of the Neo-Platonists. Egyptian priests introduced their doctrines into Greece under the veil of the mysteries, instructing the few, who, by submitting to the necessary probations, showed themselves worthy of being instructed in the doctrines of the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, its emanation from the Supreme, &c. When Christianity commenced to threaten the ruin of polytheism, the philosophers at length resolved to betray the great secret which had been concealed for ages in the rites of Eleusis and Samothrace. Perhaps the extreme in this exaggerated estimate of the mysteries has been reached by Schelling. His positions are (Philosophie u. Religion, p. 75; comp. Wegscheider, De Myster. Graecorum Religioni non obtrudendi, Göttingen, 1805), that the doctrine taught in them was in the directest opposition with the public religion, that this doctrine included a pure monotheism, and that Christianity is only the publication of their secret. According to F. C. Baur (Symb. u. Mythol., tom. iii., p. 159), the fundamental idea of the mysteries is that of a god (representative of nature and humanity) who suffers and dies, and who afterwards triumphs over death, and has a glorious resurrection. The mystic doctrines included sublime doctrines of cosmogony, of immortality, palingenesia, and of the most refined pantheism. Ouvaroff (Essai sur les Mystères d'Eleusis) has maintained that the initiated "not only acquired just notions on the Deity and his relations to man, on the primitive dignity of human nature and its fall, on the immortality of the soul, and the means of its reconciliation with God; but that oral and even written traditions were revealed to them,—precious remains of the great shipwreck of humanity." Heeren (Ideen, &c., vi., p. 76, ff.) maintains generally that the mysteries were instituted to preserve the symbolico-physical signification of the gods of paganism, which without them would have been lost. As already observed, such theories have their origin in the imagined necessity of finding something worthy, in modern conception, of concealment in the MYSTICISM is that form of error, whether in religion or philosophy, which mistakes the operations of a merely human faculty for a Divine manifestation. All men, it has been said, are born either Platonists or Aristotelians; and there can be no doubt that the mystical tendency finds a legitimate origin in human nature. It is always a protest—if frequently a blind one—in behalf of what is highest and best in human nature; and its voice is continually heard in an age of formalism and moral degradation. It is a reaction against a spirit of scepticism, and is fostered by that weariness of the world, that shrinking from conflict, and passionate longing for inaccessible rest, which the crushed and timid spirit so frequently displays. The fascination of mystery, also, which attends all forms of this spiritual development, exerts a powerful influence over the earnest imagination.

Mystics have been divided into the three classes of—Theopatic, Theosophic, and Theurgic. The theopatic mystic resigns himself with more or less passivity to an imaginary Divine manifestation; and in proportion to the degree of this passivity he becomes either a contemplative quietist, who regards himself as overshadowed by the Deity, like Suso, Molinos, or Madame Guyon; or, believing himself to be impelled by Deity, assumes a more positive and active attitude, like Tanchelm, Gichtel, or Kuhlmann. The theosophic mystic, again, aims at scientific rather than practical results, lives to know rather than to act, and believes himself to be possessed of a certain supernatural divine faculty for theorizing about God or his works. He either believes, with Swedenborg and Behmen, that the mysteries of the Divine dispensations have been disclosed to him by a special revelation; or holds, with Plotinus and Schelling, that his intuitions of the hidden processes of nature and the secrets of the universe are infallible, because Divine; being the result of an identification of the subject and object of thought. But while the theopatic mystic is content to feel or proselytize, and the theosophist to know, the theurgic mystic aspires to hold converse with the world of spirits, and secure the prerogative of working miracles. As claimants to this supernatural power, Apollonius of Tyana, Peter of Alcantara, Asclepiagenia, and St Theresa, all rank as religious magicians.

As mysticism is the spontaneous product of certain crises in individuals and societies, it consequently presents no proper development, whether traditional or systematic. Its main characteristics are constantly the same, whether they find expression in the Bagvat-Gita of the Hindu, or in the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg. The earliest mystics known are those of India, and the best exposition of their system is to be found in the heroic poem of the Bagvat-Gita. (See Wilkins's translation.) They lay claim to disinterested religious feeling, repel the lifeless formalism of the Vedas, pantheistically identify subject and object, and aim at ultimate absorption in the Infinite. To effect this dissolution, they inculcate an absolute cessation from all activity, and prescribe certain recipes for obtaining this Divine trance, believing that eternity may thus be realized in time. They lay claim also to theurgical powers, and counsel the neophyte to give absolute submission to his guru, or spiritual guide. This guru is a representative and vehicle of Divine power, the principle worshipped by the Hindus, and finds its parallel in the Pir of the Sufis, the middle-age Confessor, and the Directeur of modern France. (See Southey's Curse of Kehama, Notes.)

The second chronological stage of mysticism is that of Neo-Platonism of Alexandria, which combines, for the first time, the leading fundamental ideas of the system with the purer and more exalted conceptions of Christianity. Philo was the intellectual father of Neo-Platonism, and he laboured to combine the high monotheism of the Hebrew Scriptures with the doctrines of Plato. From amidst the licentiousness and heartless scepticism of that great commercial Babel, arose the asceticism of the Therapeutae—a sect who sheltered themselves in secluded cells, and by fasting and contemplation sought for divine illumination around the remote shores of the Lake Mareotis. Of this sect Philo has left us an account in his De Vitâ Contemplativâ. The ostensible founder of this school of Neo-Platonism was Plotinus, who, at the age of twenty-eight, began the study of philosophy in Alexandria A.D. 233. Its greatest names, after Plotinus, were Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus, who is the last of the distinguished thinkers among the Alexandrian eclectics. The requisite information respecting these men will be found under the name of each. (See Hypatia, and Alexandrian School; also Kingsley's Alexandria and her Schools, and Hypatia.)

We next come to the reign of mysticism in the Greek Mysticism Church—to the hermits, saints, and fathers of the desert, in the See Monachism.) The most noteworthy of these was Greek St Anthony, who flourished during the latter part of the third and the beginning of the fourth century; Macarius, who retired to the deserts of Nitria in the fourth century; and the pseudo-Dionysius, called the Areopagite, who committed the literary forgery of the Platonianized theology which goes by his name, and which must have been written about the middle of the fifth century. Among the anchorites of this period are to be found all the theurgic pretensions of later, and especially of mediæval times. (See Anthony, St.; and Dionysius the Areopagite.)

Gradually the eastern mysticism moved westward, and in the found itself transplanted into a region of great intellectual Latin activity, such as it had not known before. Neo-Platonism, church, while acting as a soporific on the moral activities of the East, became a life-giving principle when transplanted to the West. Platonism and mysticism combined in creating a party in the church who were the sworn foes of scholasticism, empty dogma, and hollow quibbling, and who used all their efforts to check the growth of clerical abuses and ecclesiastical pretension. With the mystics of the Latin church monasticism was the avowed panacea. The most distinguished names of this development of mysticism are those of St Bernard of Clairvaux, and Hugo of St Victor, both born during the last years of the eleventh century; also Richard of St Victor, the Scottish pupil and successor of Hugo, a man who possessed all the perfervidum ingenium said to characterize his countrymen in those early days. The great business of St Bernard's life was to found and organize convents: the ruling principle of his theological teaching is faith. Reason he all but dethroned, and gave the most vital interpretation to the credo ut intelligam of Mysticism. St Anselm. All doubt was with him the sure sign of a depraved heart, and any divergence from the acknowledged standard of piety unspeakably criminal. He maintained the fundamental maxim, *invisibilia non decipiunt*, of the religio-philosophy of the middle ages to its fullest extent. Knowledge with him was an illumination depending on the state of the heart, and resulting from an essential relationship to the divine source of ideas. Sense and experience were set aside, and the Scriptures were studied, not for their practical teaching, but with an eye to discover in them all manner of absurd symbolisms and recondite abstractions. In this respect Bernard only resembled the whole of the speculators of that period. The mysticism, however, of this distinguished abbot displayed a great degree of practical moderation. If he attempted to transcend humanity as the theosophist; in his zealous advocacy of the humbler Christian virtues and in his loud protest against a life of contemplative sloth, he ranks with the better class of those theopha-thetic mystics who have laboured to better their race and purify the world. But while the system of Bernard repudiated scholasticism, that of the St Victor school strove to reconcile it with mysticism. This combination is also visible in all the strictly mystical theology of the middle ages, and it is abundantly exemplified in Bonaventura, in the thirteenth, and Gerson, in the fifteenth century. (See in particular Liebner's *Hugo von St Victor und die Theologischen Richtungen seiner Zeit*; also Engelhardt's *Richard von St Victor.*)

We find ourselves introduced to the German mysticism of the fourteenth century by the Chronicle of Adolf Arntstein, the pious armourer of Strasbourg; by Hermann of Fritzlar and his legends; and especially by the notable preacher Master Eckhart. What was most peculiar in the mysticism of the latter, as contrasted with the ordinary ecclesiastical and scholastic aspects of that system, was the peculiar emphasis which he bestowed upon "our own consciousness of being the sons of God." Eckhart felt that the church could not afford him a secure resting-place for his soul; and he accordingly supplied one for himself in a strange agglomeration of pantheistic metaphysics, which formed a bold and fervid reaction against the orthodox externalism of his time. His theosophy forms a striking anticipation, in some respects, of the idealism of modern German speculation. Hegel calls the system of Eckhart "a genuine and profound philosophy;" and there is certainly often a strong resemblance between the doctrines of the Dominican and those of the advocate of the Logische Idee. To this period also belong John Tauler; the author of the famous *Theologia Germanica*; Henry of Niddingen; Nicolas, the layman of Bâle; the Friends of God; the Flagellants; Ruysbroek; Suso; the Monks of Mount Athos; the pious ladies Brigitta, Angela de Foligni, and Catherine of Siena; also Thomas à Kempis, author of the celebrated book *De Imitatione Christi*; and the eminent Frenchman, Chancellor Gerson. But unquestionably the most remarkable of that earnest group of German mystics was John Tauler. He was a man of profound reverence and fervidly pious spirit, who frequently trod upon the verge of the pantheistic abyss of Eckhart, but never fell into it. So emphatically does he insist upon total self-abnegation, and the annihilation of everything human in us, that our very finitude seems almost criminal in his eyes, and the possession of individuality something bordering on a sin. To deify man, he would strip him of his humanity; he would divorce the higher faculties of the soul which ally man to God, and those inferior powers which belong to a lower sphere, rather than strive to harmonize them by assigning to each its legitimate functions. But in spite of the numerous contradictions of his negative theology, he was himself an eminently spiritual and fervently pious man. The theurgic and sensuous element of mysticism, such as apparitions, voices, &c., find no place with him; and he certainly rose farther than any of his fellow-mystics above the peculiar dangers of the system. He was a genuine pioneer of the Reformation, and Luther's admiration of him is well known. (See Tauler; also Pfeiffer's *Deutsche Mystiker,* Leipzig, 1857.)

Mysticism was not, however, limited to the West, and to Persian Christian communities, during the middle ages; we find a genuine development of this mode of thought and feeling among the poetical effusions of the Persian sufis. It might at first sight seem almost an impossibility for mysticism to find any nourishment under the unfriendly shade of the Koran, with its detailed ritualism and cold formality; but, as so often happens, the wants of the human heart prove too strong for creeds, no matter how rigid. At a very early period in the history of Mohammedanism a class of persons gradually arose within its pale who dared to set aside the letter in behalf of the spirit of the Koran. Witness the devout arduous of the female saint named Rabia, who appeared about the end of the first century of the Hegira, and who, in her self-abnegation and disinterested devotion, bore such a marked similarity to Madame Guyon; and unquestionably some of the brightest names associated with the literature and religion of the false Prophet are found to have been deeply imbued with the genuine mystical spirit. The name generally applied to the mystical asceticism of the Mohammedans is sufism. The sufis lay claim to a supernatural intercourse with the Deity, to a mystical union or identity with the Supreme, bringing with it theurgic powers. The name has a very extensive application. It is given alike to poets, philosophers, dervises, and fanatics. Persia is the great centre of sufism, and in its suf poets mysticism has achieved a success unknown in any country of Europe. The only western suf which mysticism has known was Angelus Silesius, the author of the religious poem, the *Cherubie Wanderer.* He flourished during the seventeenth century, and assumed the name of Angelus; but his real name is not known. It is pretty obvious that it was not John Scheffer, as some have supposed. (See, under this branch of the subject, Tholuck's *Sufismus,* see *Theosophia Persarum pantheistica,* Berlin, 1822; Tholuck's *Blüthenstimmung aus der Morgenlandischen Mystik,* Berlin, 1825; Schrader's *Angelus Silesius und seine Mystik,* Halle, 1853; and Sir William Jones, *On the Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindoos.*)

It has already been remarked, that not a few of the mystics who preceded the Reformation were genuine reformers; and it cannot be doubted that the way for that grand religious emancipation was in great part prepared by the mystics of the fourteenth century. So long, however, as the standard of truth was internal and subjective, and was very much at the caprice of every fresh dreamer who chose to elaborate a scheme of cosmology, or invent new rules for the regulation of the religious life, a thoroughgoing reformation of the existing abuses of the church remained impossible. Luther, however, saw into the mistake; and while he sympathized constantly with what was highest and truest among the mystics, he nevertheless endeavoured to supplement their honest efforts by the important announcement, that the Scriptures were the sufficient standard of truth. The more clear-sighted and courageous among the mystics at once hailed the new doctrine as light from heaven; but there remained still a party among them who began by suspecting, and ended by despising, that which alone could have saved what truth they had from utter oblivion. The mystic of the sixteenth century accordingly did what he could to retard the progress of the Reformation. Examples of this sort are only too numerous; and Luther had to contend at the very threshold of his great undertaking with the stupidity and wilfulness of these deluded spiritualists. When holding a public discussion on one occasion with the mystics Stübner and Cel- Mysticism. Luther called upon the latter to substantiate his positions by a reference to the Scriptures; but the self-sufficient schoolmaster replied, after stamping frantically, and striking the table with his fist, that it was "an insult to speak so to a man of God." The most noted of these spiritualists were, Dr Bodenstein of Carlstadt, the crotchety little professor of Wittenberg; the prophets of Zwickau—Frank the pantheist, Schwenkfeld the pietist, and the silent, earnest Valentine Weigel, who combined the theopatheic and theosophic schemes of Schwenkfeld and Paracelsus, and thus prepared the way for Jacob Behmen. The majority of the mystics, posterior to the Reformation, were of the theosophic class, of which the principal examples are to be found in Cornelius Agrippa, Theophrastus Paracelsus, and Behmen, all of whom will be found under their respective names in the present work. The mystics of a former time were content to seek a union with Deity by ignoring his works, and found their highest knowledge in supreme obliviousness of all sensible things; but now the current of thought took a different turn, and nothing short of a supernatural knowledge of the recondite mysteries of creation, such as was not vouchsafed to ordinary mortals, could satisfy the immoderate desires of this unworldly fraternity. The most distinguished name of this class was unquestionably Jacob Behmen or Boehme, the blue-eyed, gentle-voiced old shoemaker of the little town of Görlitz, born in the year 1575. A genial, manly mystic withal was this withered little shoemaker; free from everything effeminate and sentimental; a genuine Protestant, and stanch Lutheran; but intensely speculative and imaginative. He addressed himself more to the learned than to the lower orders, and his teaching doubtless supplied a real want of those times, inasmuch as Lutheranism was beginning to harden and wax cold, and the current orthodoxy was giving symptoms of a growing literalism and harsh formality hostile to the development of the true life of the soul. His whole life resembled one great dream; but he strove with as much zeal as ever man displayed to benefit his fellow-mortals and exalt the name of God. (See Behmen.)

Early in the seventeenth century the mysterious order of the Rosicrucians began to make a noise in Germany. A young Lutheran divine of great zeal and courage, named Valentine Andréa, is generally believed now to have been the author of that far-famed little book, published in Germany in 1610, entitled The Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honourable Order of the Rosy Cross. In it he calls upon the learned and devout everywhere who desire to lend their assistance in diminishing the amount of human suffering, ignorance, and moral degradation, immediately to advertise their names. He indicated, however, neither name nor place of rendezvous, but threw out his little anonymous book as a feeler, by which he might ascertain the number of right-minded men who would freely cooperate with him. But superstition was rampant at the time, and the amiable hoax of the young divine proved fertile in fostering some of the very errors he wished to put down. No society, it is believed, was ever actually formed; yet the name Rosicrucian (rosa, cruz) gradually became a generic term, denoting every kind of occult skill, whether of arcana, elixirs, theurgical symbols, or the philosopher's stone. From this singular origin accordingly sprung in a great measure the secret societies—freemason and otherwise—of the succeeding century. The grand Rosicrucian lodge apparently existed nowhere but in the brains of the superstitions; yet men talked of its secrets with bated breath, and orthodox divines groped in blind wrath for the pillars of the Rosicrucian "Temple of the Holy Ghost." (See Teber den Ursprung und die Vornehmsten Schikale der Orden der Rosenkreuzer und Freymaurer, von J. G. Bulle, Gött. 1804; also Sir E. B. Lytton's Zamoni.)

The opposition offered to the principles of the Reforma- Mysticism: the rosary in Molinos' book; its pious author was, by their influence, condemned to spend the remainder of his days amid the gloom and solitude of a dungeon. A similar fate accompanied the closing years of Madame Guyon. From his connection with St Cyr as one of the directors, and with Madame Guyon, whom he met there, the gentle Fénelon became tainted also with the quietest heresy, and his vain, imperious brother Bossuet pursued the most tortuous courses to involve the good man in disgrace. The "eagle of Mcaux" prostrated himself with frantic theatricality at the feet of royalty, when Fénelon published his Maxims of the Saints in 1697, and with an affectation of tears implored pardon for not previously disclosing the wicked heresies of his wilful brother. This scene was followed by a great flight on the part of the "eagle," termed An Account of Quietism, in which he assailed poor Fénelon and his very moderate admixture of mysticism with the most ruthless violence. A meek and triumphant Reply was elicited from Fénelon, Remarks from Bossuet, a fresh rejoinder to the Remarks from Fénelon, and the controversy came to an end. Louis urged the interference of the Pope to crush the heretic of Cambrai: infallibility was constrained to submit to Louis, and Fénelon to succumb to infallibility. The Pope's sentence was pronounced in 1699, and the submission of Cambrai is famous in history. (See Fénelon.)

Unlike the other countries of Europe, Britain was not prepared for the Reformation by the teachings of mysticism. Wycliffe of England, "that morning star of the Reformation," shone with quite a different lustre from the dim, unsteady light of the fervid German Tauler. Indeed, English soil generally does not seem to be favourable to the growth of that delicate plant, mysticism, which always vegetates best where the light is dimmest. English mysticism, if not always sober, is seldom fantastic, and very generally benign. Its best representative is unquestionably George Fox, the pious, gentle-hearted, humble-minded "man in leather breeches." Such wild visionaries as the Muggletonians, Fifth-monarchy men, and Ranters, of the English mystical period, were rather the offscourings of that much-suffering, much-endavouring time, than the genuine representatives of British mysticism. The wisdom and folly, the greatness and littleness, the expansive benevolence and staid asceticism of George Fox are still partially to be met with in Quakerism, of which he was the father. (See Fox, and Quakerism.) In striking contrast with the rude fervour and doubtful prophesying of the Society of Friends, and the other communities tainted with the mystical spirit during that time, was the mild Platonic mysticism, with its scholarly refinement and retiring devotion, of the English Platonists More, Norris, Gale, and Cudworth. Indeed, it is perhaps hardly just to denominate these men and their little school of wise, devout thinkers as mystics at all. They are never absurdly sentimental or foolishly extravagant: good sense generally pervades all their writings, and they abound in whatever is lofty in thought or tender in emotion. Yet a subtle vein of mysticism, like a silver thread, can be detected by the experienced eye running through their works; a peculiarity which it is impossible perhaps for a religious Platonist to avoid. (See under the name of each.)

The theosophic mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg stands alone among all the mystical systems which have yet been noticed. It is remarkable for its apparent reality and comprehensiveness, and, with the exception of the system of Behmen, it differs from that of all other mystics in three important respects. It strives constantly "to see the spiritual not beyond, but in the natural;" the flesh is no longer evil; and the world ceases to be the birthright of the devil. Hence its hostility to asceticism. In his theology, again, Swedenborg maintained a constant equilibrium between the letter and spirit of Scripture. There is with him no discarding of the letter, no fantastical interpretation, but a rigid adherence to the words of Scripture which is quite unparalleled. Nor, again, does he display any of the rambling theorizing and turbid vehemence peculiar to all theosophists, and Behmen among the rest. With the Swedish seer all is scientific precision and calm serenity; he utters himself always with clear collectedness, and you never find him in a hurry. In his doctrine concerning spiritual influence he is peculiarly temperate and by no means mystical, and if he errs concerning the work of Christ, it arises mainly from his repugnance to Calvinism. His theology is more closely allied to Behmen's than to that of any other writer; yet he expressly informs us that he never read the German theosophist. (See Swedenborg; also E. Swedenborg, a Biography, by J. G. Wilkinson.)

Nothing really new in the way of mysticism has been produced since the days of the northern seer. German rationalism and French encyclopaedism found a protest raised against their exclusive negativeness by the advocates of faith and feeling in religion and philosophy, and by the romanticists in literature. In Germany, Hamann and Jacobi opposed faith to the logic of the sceptic; Schelling gave the romanticists a poetical philosophy; and Schleiermacher taught them to read the Bible in the light of the individual "Christian consciousness." Romanticism finds its best representative in Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg); and among the more celebrated of its adherents were F. Schlegel, A. Müller, Z. Werner, and Tieck. (For an able annunciation of the principles of the genuine romanticism, see Tieck's Prince Zerbino.) Unmistakable traces of this tendency are also to be found in the writings of Carlyle and Emerson; and in religion, mysticism still shows itself in the disciples of Fox, Swedenborg, and Edward Irving.

There are perhaps few forms of erroneous human development that have rendered so great service both to religion and philosophy as the system of mysticism. In an age of languid spiritual life, of cold formalism, or of heartless hypocrisy, it has invariably come forth into the moral wilderness, like the Baptist, "eating locusts and wild honey," to expose pretension and insincerity, and preach repentance unto men. In philosophy, likewise, it has ever been found to emerge when an extreme rationalism or a debasing materialism threatened the foundations of faith, and heralded a reign of scepticism. Yet, so entirely relative and limited are the human faculties, that every attempt put forth by them to transcend the natural bounds of legitimate science or of intelligent experience, has hitherto led only to extravagance and folly. The spiritualist, who follows only what his instincts dictate, is as much in error as the rationalist, who believes only what he is capable of sciencing. The idea that there is a special faculty for the discernment of spiritual truth—an inner soul, independent of experience and knowledge—has doubtless, in the hands of many, been a prolific source of mysticism. It is observable in Hugo, Tauler, and the Spanish mystics, and finds countenance in the declared divorce between Reason and Understanding in certain systems of modern speculation. Once confine the ordinary faculties of judging to the outer court of the temple of Truth, and exclude them from the sacred fane of Intuition, and we at once find ourselves in a region of transcendentalism, where nothing is seen and everything is affirmed,—where common sense finds no footing, and mysticism reigns supreme. The boundaries of faith are not necessarily limited by the extent of experience; yet without that experience, and the solid basis of fact which it brings, faith would find itself without any horizon at all, and left entirely at the mercy of wild extravagance or wilful caprice.

(See, in particular, Hours with the Mystics, by R. A. Vaughan, 2 vols., 1856; also Die Christliche Mystik, by Dr L. Noack; and Cours de l'Hist. de la Phil. Moderne, and Fragmens Phil., by V. Cousin.)