ABSTRACT
The phrase corpus mysticum is as old as mystical literature itself. In the Christian tradition, the phrase appears as early as the Desert Fathers. The term was used at the dawn of the Middle Ages to refer to the consecrated host, but by the twelfth century it had come to represent a variety of ideas including the body of Christ, the Church as body of Christ, and the physical body affected by mystical phenomena (Beckwith 31 ) . However, as the Reformation passed and a new re-formed Catholicism took hold in England, spiritual writers began to infuse their written and now printed-texts with the body. As a result, the very concept of the corpus mysticum changed to reflect the growing persecution of Catholic mystics and the texts they published. illtimately, this is a somewhat speculative paper; I intend to suggest that by the end of the sixteenth century and the English Reformation the corpus mysticum was no longer used to denote the physical body (of Christ or the mystic) but the body of works (what we now term the "canon") or the text as body.
Corpus Mysticum in Christian History
