This February, fellow Quaker theologian Ben Wood and I are leading a five-week online course, journeying through Christian mysticism. We’ll be reflecting on the ‘negative theology’ of Pseudo-Dionysius, the homoerotic mysticism of Symeon the New Theologian, Simone Weil’s mysticism of surrender, the active mysticism of Howard Thurman, and the visions of Julian of Norwich.
As a taster, here are some of my thoughts on Christian mysticism and desire…
The role of desire in Christian mysticism
In the landscape of Christian mysticism, a hugely important landmark is the Song of Songs, one of the most astonishing books in the Hebrew Bible. The Song of Songs is an erotic poem traditionally attributed to King Solomon. This poem is an exchange between lovers who sing of each other’s beauty in sensuous terms. They yearn for each others’ bodies, to see, to smell, to taste one another:
- ‘As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.’ (2.3)
- ‘Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.’ (4.16)
By the end of the poem the lovers still haven’t met, and at the moment when they are closest they are suddenly parted:
- ‘I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! my beloved is knocking… My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but did not find him; I called him, but he gave no answer.’ (5.2,4-6)
This is inescapably a poem about human, heterosexual erotic desire. The sexuality is so explicit that Christian have felt the need to cover it up with a spiritual veil. Beginning with Origen of Alexandria in the 3rd century, most Christian interpreters of the poem have seen it as a dialogue between God and God’s people, or God and the soul. The panting body is translated into a yearning away from the body.
But although interpreting the Song of Songs in this way can be seen as a prudish desexualising of the text, it also brings erotic imagery into Christian spirituality. The language of the Song of Songs allows the Christian mystic to speak in erotic terms. The most powerful examples of this kind of mysticism can be found in the writings of women mystics of the medieval period, such as the ecstasy of Teresa of Avila:
‘I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.’ (The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus XXIX.17)
There’s much to be said about the role of gender in Christian mysticism, particularly in the way God is generally described as male, and the human soul as female. This means that, when Christian men get mystical, there’s an opportunity for things to get quite gay.
Bernard of Clairvaux, the 12th-century monk who wrote 86 sermons on the Song of Songs, can write ‘Let him who is the most handsome of the sons of men, let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth… For my Jesus utterly surpasses these in his majesty and splendour. Therefore I ask of him what I ask of neither man nor angel: that he kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.’ (Sermon on the Song of Songs 2.2)
John of the Cross, 16th-century Spanish mystic, writes in his Spiritual Canticle ‘There he gave me his breast; There he taught me a sweet and living knowledge; And I gave myself to him, Keeping noting back; There I promised to be his bride.’ (The Spiritual Canticle, 27.)
Things get particularly steamy in the hands of the 11th-century Byzantine monk, Symeon the New Theologian…
If you want to learn more, then do join me on the online course!
The course runs from Monday 16 February to Monday 16 March 2026. The live Zoom sessions are at 19:00-21:00 (UK time) every Monday.
To book your place, and for more information, use the link below.
[Featured image photo by Arjun Kapoor on Unsplash]
Jolly Quaker 