Footnotes
[1]. Die Christliche Mystik. Von Dr. Ludwig Noack. Königsberg.
[2].
How fruitful may the smallest circle grow,
If we the secret of its culture know.
[3]. The writer, who goes by the name of Dionysius Areopagita, teaches that the highest spiritual truth is revealed only to those ‘who have transcended every ascent of every holy height, and have left behind all divine lights and sounds and heavenly discoursings, and have passed into that Darkness where He really is (as saith the Scripture) who is above all things.’—De Mysticâ Theologiâ, cap. i. § 3.
[4]. On the word μύησις Suidas says, Εἴρηται δὲ παρὰ τὸ τὰ μυστήρια καὶ ἀπόρῥητα τελεῖσθαι· ἤ διὰ τὸ μυόντας τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ ἐπέκεινα σωματικῆς φαντασίας νενομένους, τὰς θείας εἰσδέχεσθαι ἐλλάμψεις.
Suicer also cites Hesychius: Etym. Mag.—Μύστης, παρὰ τὸ μύω, τὸ καμμύω. μύοντες γὰρ τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ ἔξω τῶν σαρκικῶν φροντίδων γινόμενοι, οὕτω τὰς θείας ἀναλάμψεις ἐδέχοντο.
[5]. See Bingham, Antiq. of the Christian Church, vol. ix. pp. 96-105. Clement of Alexandria abounds in examples of the application to Christian doctrine of the phraseology in use concerning the heathen mysteries;—e.g. Protrept. cap. xii. § 120.
[6]. Both Plotinus and Proclus speak of the highest revelation concerning divine things as vouchsafed to the soul which withdraws into itself, and, dead to all that is external, ‘gazes with closed eyes’ (μύσασαν). See Tholuck’s Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenlandischen Mystik; Einleitung, § I, p. 6. Dr. Tholuck is the only German writer I have seen who throws light on the word in question by accurately investigating its etymology and successive meanings; and I readily acknowledge my debt to his suggestions on this point.