John Arblaster - Mystical Doctrines of Deification: Case Studies in the Christian Tradition

We would like first to express our profound gratitude to Lieven Boeve and Bradford Manderfield who supported this project from the beginning.

We would also like to thank all the contributors for their dedication and commitment to the successful completion of this volume, as well as the editors of the series in which this book appears for their insightful and helpful suggestions for its improvement.

For their time and assistance, we are very grateful to Josh Wells and Jack Boothroyd at Routledge.

Finally, we would like to thank the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for generously supporting our research.

First published 2019

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2019 selection and editorial matter, John Arblaster and Rob Faesen; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of John Arblaster and Rob Faesen to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Arblaster, John, 1985 editor.

Title: Mystical doctrines of deification : case studies in the Christian

tradition / edited by John Arblaster and Rob Faesen.

Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Contemporary

theological explorations in mysticism | Includes bibliographical

references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018010623

Subjects: LCSH: Deification (Christianity)History of doctrines. |

Mysticism.

Classification: LCC BT767.8 .M97 2018 | DDC 234dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010623

ISBN: 978-0-8153-9324-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-18911-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

John Arblaster is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven and the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp. His research focuses on the doctrine of deification in the mystical literature of the late medieval Low Countries. With Rob Faesen, he co-edited A Companion to John of Ruusbroec (Brill, 2014) and Mystical Anthropology: Authors from the Low Countries (Routledge, 2017). He has published several articles and book chapters, including a contribution to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology (OUP). He is co-convener (with Louise Nelstrop and Simon D. Podmore) of the Mystical Theology Network.

Patrick Ryan Cooper wrote his PhD at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, entitled Abiding in Minnes Demands: A Theological Retrieval of Jan van Ruusbroec and its Interdisciplinary Encounter with Jean-Luc Marion . He is currently an assistant professor of theology in the Department of Religious Studies at Saint Martins University in Lacey, WA, USA.

Jonathan Martin Ciraulo is a doctoral candidate in systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame (USA). His dissertation is on the Eucharistic theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Maria Exall has a PhD in Philosophical Theology from Kings College London. She is a sessional lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University. Her research interests are the interface between modern rationalist philosophy and apophaticism and the relationship between egalitarian ethical and political theory and the Christian tradition of spiritual poverty. Her article Different Deserts: deconstructionism and Dionysian apophaticism was published in the recent collection Mystical Theology and Continental Philosophy: Interchange in the wake of God (Routledge, 2017).

Rob Faesen S.J. is professor of the history of spirituality and mysticism at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp, and the School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University. He has published extensively in the field of medieval mysticism, but also in Jesuit history and spirituality. He was a member of the editorial team responsible for the new critical edition of the works of John of Ruusbroec, and has authored and co-authored numerous contributions.

Tim Flight completed his AHRC-funded doctorate on mysticism in the Anglo-Saxon period at Magdalen College, Oxford. A former visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, he is now a freelance writer.

Martin Laird, O.S.A. is Professor of Early Christian Studies at Villanova University (USA).

Daniel Lemeni is Lecturer of Eastern Christianity at the West University of Timioara (Department of Theology). His research focuses on the early ascetic tradition and on Christian hagiography, with a particular focus on the relationship between ascetic authority and ecclesiastical authority in early monasticism. His publications include Tradition of Spiritual Direction in the Eastern Christianity , 2010 (in Romanian), The Spiritual World of the Desert Fathers , 2014 (in Romanian), and Abba, Give Me a Word!: Dynamics of Spiritual Guidance in the Desert Fathers , 2017 (in Romanian). He is currently preparing a book on Antony the Great and the spirituality of the desert.

Vito Limone received a doctorate in Philosophy in June 2017 at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan and in Patristic Studies at the Patristic Institute, Augustinianum, Rome. He has also conducted research at the University of Oxford. He is a member of G.I.R.O.T.A. (Italian Research Group on Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition). He has published widely in the field of Christian antiquity and classical Greek philosophy, with a particular focus on Origen.

Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi is PhD in Philosophy, Science and Culture of the Late Ancient, Medieval and Humanistic Ages at the University of Salerno (2006). His main research interests are in medieval music, medieval and byzantine philosophy and theology, with particular interest in John Scottus Eriugena and Dionysius the Areopagite. Since 2007, he has been the secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (SPES). Since 2016, he has been director of the project Sophia Byzantina, devoted to byzantine theological and philosophical thought, at the University of Salerno. He has published many essays in the field of early medieval philosophy and, particularly, of eriugenian studies, including a critical edition with Italian translation of Eriugenas De praedestinatione , and recently a comprehensive monograph on the Corpus Dionysiacum Areopagiticum .

Louise Nelstrop is a College Lecturer at Saint Benets Hall, Oxford and Lecturer at York St John University. She specializes in the English mystics. In addition to several articles, she co-authored Christian Mysticism: An Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives (Routledge, 2009) with Kevin Magill and Bradley B. Onishi. She has also co-edited a number of volumes. She is coconvener (with John Arblaster and Simon D. Podmore) of the Mystical Theology Network.