Living the Word

Summary

For over a millennium, Christian mystical theology treated reading scripture as a transformative spiritual journey rather than a mere literary exercise. Henri de Lubac argued that spiritual interpretation was an itinerary of the soul toward God. However, by the later Middle Ages, the professionalization of biblical study in schools separated scriptural understanding from direct encounter with God. Spiritual exegesis became doctrinal exposition, the mystical referred to subjective experience, and allegory turned into literary criticism. The conclusion suggests a possible path to recover the earlier, integrative approach.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This chapter traces the pattern of reading and relating to the scriptural that was intimately woven into the fabric of mystical theology for more than a millennium of Christian practice. While the ‘spiritual interpretation of scripture’ is usually considered as a technical method of biblical exegesis, Henri de Lubac argued that it was less a literary technique than a spiritual itinerary. But already by the later Middle Ages, the ‘professionalization’ of scripture in the schools gradually drove a wedge between scriptural understanding and the transformational encounter of the soul with God. ‘Spiritual exegesis’ came to be understood narrowly as the work of doctrinal exposition. The ‘mystical’ came to refer not to the wisdom deep in scripture but to the subjective experience of the soul, while ‘allegory’ became more and more a mode of literary criticism. The conclusion sketches a possible path of retrieval.