ABSTRACT
Attempting to make generalizations concerning these almost one hundred mystics whose lives stretch over the two thousand years of the existence of Christianity can easily lead to the invention of a false uniformity that obliterates the myriad individual experiences of diverse people living in quite different cultures and historical circumstances. Many were monks or cloistered nuns, some were priests living in the world while others were highly spiritual laypeople. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to be well-informed of the inner mystical life of any of these figures before the beginning of the twelfth century owing to the lack of surviving historical sources and a prevailing bias against drawing attention to oneself by an immodest description of a personal mystical encounter. Many of the figures made no claims for themselves and, strictly speaking, must be considered mystical writers rather than mystics (for example, most of the representatives of the early centuries of Christianity, Gregory the Great, Meister Eckhart) although it is generally agreed that indeed they were writing from their own experiences. In addition, many of them, particularly women mystics of the Middle Ages, are known only through the accounts written about them by others, especially male priests, which provide us with secondary accounts that often are suspected of having been shaped to serve the purposes of the intermediaries who sifted through their subjects’ original information. “Any sifter changes what it sifts”1 and the result is often hagiography rather than biography. In spite of these limitations, several conclusions can be reached concerning Christian mystics.
