CHRISTIAN PLATONISM AND SPECULATIVE MYSTICISM

2. IN THE WEST

"Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you?"--1 COR. iii. 16.


We have seen that Mysticism, like most other types of religion, had
its cradle in the East. The Christian Platonists, whom we considered
in the last Lecture, wrote in Greek, and we had no occasion to mention
the Western Churches. But after the Pseudo-Dionysius, the East had
little more to contribute to Christian thought. John of Damascus, in
the eighth century, half mystic and half scholastic, need not detain
us. The Eastern Churches rapidly sank into a deplorably barbarous
condition, from which they have never emerged. We may therefore turn
away from the Greek-speaking countries, and trace the course of
Mysticism in the Latin and Teutonic races.

Scientific Mysticism in the West did not all pass through Dionysius.
Victorinus, a Neoplatonic philosopher, was converted to Christianity
in his old age, about 360 A.D. The story of his conversion, and the
joy which it caused in the Christian community, is told by St.
Augustine[188]. He was a deep thinker of the speculative mystical
type, but a clumsy and obscure writer, in spite of his rhetorical
training. His importance lies in his position as the first Christian
Neoplatonist who wrote in Latin.

The Trinitarian doctrine of Victorinus anticipates in a remarkable