Mystical aspects of the Reformation (Martin Luther)

This liberation was only possible through a deepening of the religious spirit in general and a more vivid understanding of the early history of Christianity. We must see this religious deepening and this freer historical understanding as the two most powerful driving forces behind the intellectual transformation before Luther's time. From the depths of religious sentiment and the moral consciousness it inspired, as well as from the earliest written documents from the time of the first Church, the Christian spirit drew its renewal, and the Church experienced its rebirth. Never before have historical knowledge and religious inspiration intermingled in a nobler way, and never before have knowledge and faith formed a more beautiful union than in this dawn of the Reformation.

The historical understanding of original Christianity received an unprecedented and previously impossible boost through the fortunate convergence of favorable circumstances. The revival of the study of ancient languages and both classical and biblical antiquity in general provided the necessary key to understanding the original languages of the biblical texts, which could now be disseminated more widely thanks to the invention of the printing press. Faster dissemination and easier comprehensibility went hand in hand. In Germany, we owe much in this regard to men such as Agricola, Reuchlin, and Erasmus.

However, these linguistic and formal efforts – as important and impactful as they were – could not by themselves have truly unlocked the essence of biblical antiquity and the original spirit of Christianity. This would not have been possible without, from another direction, a fine receptiveness for the mysteries of inner life and religious sentiment.

This latter task was accomplished by a group of men who are often referred to as representatives of the pre-Reformation German mysticism. It is, of course, no easy task to maintain the innocent meaning of this word in its original and historical sense against various misinterpretations in the current confusion of language and concepts. In this clear and unproblematic sense, mysticism is essentially nothing other than the religion of the heart and feeling, in contrast to a religious disposition that in more sober natures relies predominantly on reason and reflection, or in more practical natures on moral sense. Only those who can distinguish the innermost essence of religion from reflective thought and active morality will be able to grasp that particular domain of inner sense which is referred to in history and philosophy as mysticism.

Thus, the whole richness of inner life, as it turns toward the eternal source of all things, draws its nourishment and refreshment from the pure, hidden wells of the soul. This inner religiosity – as we might also call mysticism using a more understandable and less misinterpreted word – rises in imaginative natures on the wings of fantasy, while in more morally sensitive souls it prevails more as a warm breath of feeling, as a gentle stirring of the entire inner life. German Christian mysticism of the 14th and 15th centuries appears, when viewed more broadly, as an important early step of the Reformation, a significant attempt to restore Christianity from within; it was the nurturing ground for the religious freedom and emotional depth of the Reformation era, and Luther himself long owed his spiritual nourishment and development to it. Mysticism everywhere emphasizes with the greatest insistence the need for a personal experience and realization of religion in the deepest interior; it seeks an immediate, imageless, essential union with the highest good in the depths of the soul and through acts of dedicated, self-sacrificial love.

Among the most significant and influential German representatives of this movement before the Reformation were Suso and Tauler in the 14th century, the author of the "German Theology," and Thomas à Kempis in the 15th century. The former two drew from the richness of an inner life so profound that they inspired great power in their words, moving many hearts, particularly in the cities along the Rhine where they were most active. Suso (1300–1365) tells, in a poetic way, how he longed to be called a servant of eternal wisdom. Whenever he heard songs of temporal love, his heart was led to his highest love, from which all love flows. He thought: "Oh God, if only I could see love once, if only I could come close to it!"

Then the original outpouring of all that is good impressed itself upon his soul, and in it, he spiritually found everything that was beautiful, lovely, and desirable! He often felt as if a mother were holding her child in her arms, with the child looking up joyfully at the tender mother, showing its heart’s delight in her gentle gestures. In this way, his heart would often soar to the joyful presence of eternal wisdom!