Sister Catherine Treatise
Encyclopedia
The Sister Catherine Treatise is a work of Medieval Christian mysticism
seen as representative of the Heresy of the Free Spirit
of the thirteenth and fourteenth Centuries in Europe. Wrongly attributed to Christian mystic Meister Eckhart
it nevertheless shows the influence of his ideas (as evinced by the full German title), or at least the ideas which he was accused or attributed as having had by the Inquisition.
Sister Catherine is determined to find "the shortest way" to God and comes to her Confessor for advice. In the first section her Confessor urges her to rebuke sin and seek purity so as to receive God. She leaves with the intention of doing so.
Years later Sister Catherine returns to speak again to her Confessor, but this time the roles are reversed. Sister Catherine has experienced God and, after falling seemingly dead for three days (in imitation of Christ), reawakens to claim that she has achieved a unity with God which is eternal and which will last throughout this life and beyond. Sister Catherine is presented as having gone further down the road of spiritual development to her Confessor and he finds himself praising her for her Holiness rather than the other way round.
Sister Catherine speaks of her unity with God in the following terms:
"I am where I was before I was created: that place is purely God and God. There are neither angels nor saints, nor choir, nor this nor that. Many people speak of eight heavens and of nine choirs. They are not where I am. You should know that everything stated in such a way and presented to people in images is but an incitement to seek God. Realise that in God is nothing but God. You must also understand that no soul may come unto God before it has become God as it was before it was created. No one may come into the naked Godhead except the one who is naked as he was when he flowed out of God. The masters say that no one may enter here as long as he has any attachment to lower things, even if it is only as much as the tip of a needle can carry." (Sister Catherine Treatise: Trans Elvira Borgstaedt. Paulist Press 1986)
The rest of the treatise consists of a continued dialogue with the Confessor - often held at a fever-pitch of excitement and emotion - in which both Sister Catherine and the Confessor exchange ideas about God's immanence, the possibility of humanity's union with Him in this life, the role of Mary Magdalene
's relationship with Christ as his Lover and chief Apostle and the need to recognise the deceptions of the reality and unreality of Union with God i.e. what true Union is as opposed to false Union. Here the treatise is careful to delineate the danger of those who interpret the Free Spirit ideals as carte blanche to commit sinful and/or immoral acts. The treatise finishes with Sister Catherine abjuring the Confessor to strive after higher feats of spiritual understanding, the pupil having become the master (or mistress) and the Confessor needing the guidance of the Sister to achieve union with God.
's The Mirror of Simple Souls
, as one of the representative literary expressions of the Heresy of the Free Spirit
, which held that a divine union with God was possible to people in this life and, more controversially, independently of the ministrations of the Church. Initially attributed to Meister Eckhart
in Franz Pfeiffer
's ground-breaking edition of the Christian mystic's works in 1857 it is now regarded as not being by him but showing evidence of his thinking, or at least evidence of the Free Spirit movement which Eckhart was accused of adhering to.
Written in a heightened emotional prose which gives the Treatise a slightly hysterical, hallucinatory quality the work espouses a highly feminine approach to the Christian Mystery, with lengthy discussions of the significance of Mary Magdalene
as the true lover of Christ (an element which links it to Porete, some of the alleged beliefs of the Cathars and, bizarrely, the wilder speculations of Dan Brown
) and the figure of Sister Catherine herself emerging as more initiated into the inner spirituality of Christianity than her male counterpart. In it many of the articles of faith of the Free Spirit movement are expressed - a neo-Platonic/panentheistic belief in God's immanence in Creation, the possibility of salvation and the Unio Mystica in this life, the limitations of Church teaching in terms of real mystical insight - and as such it is a valuable document for those in search of understanding the more radical approach to interpreting the Gospels of the Medieval period known as the Heresy of the Free Spirit
.
The treatise is the only currently known medieval work which mentions the well-known question of how many angels can stand, or perhaps perch (siczen), on the point of a needle: "doctors declare that in heaven a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle (tusent selen siczen in dem himelrich uff einer nadel spicz)." Dancing on the point of a needle appears to be a later concept.
Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions...
seen as representative of the Heresy of the Free Spirit
Heresy of the Free Spirit
The Free Spirit heresy consisted of small groups of Christian heretics living mostly in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their worship was not well organized and their doctrine was not well defined. Their beliefs were mostly spread in the form of...
of the thirteenth and fourteenth Centuries in Europe. Wrongly attributed to Christian mystic Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart
Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...
it nevertheless shows the influence of his ideas (as evinced by the full German title), or at least the ideas which he was accused or attributed as having had by the Inquisition.
Mystical dialogue
The Sister Catherine Treatise takes the form of a series of dialogues between a woman (Sister Catherine) and her Confessor (not named but sometimes said to be Eckhart).Sister Catherine is determined to find "the shortest way" to God and comes to her Confessor for advice. In the first section her Confessor urges her to rebuke sin and seek purity so as to receive God. She leaves with the intention of doing so.
Years later Sister Catherine returns to speak again to her Confessor, but this time the roles are reversed. Sister Catherine has experienced God and, after falling seemingly dead for three days (in imitation of Christ), reawakens to claim that she has achieved a unity with God which is eternal and which will last throughout this life and beyond. Sister Catherine is presented as having gone further down the road of spiritual development to her Confessor and he finds himself praising her for her Holiness rather than the other way round.
Sister Catherine speaks of her unity with God in the following terms:
"I am where I was before I was created: that place is purely God and God. There are neither angels nor saints, nor choir, nor this nor that. Many people speak of eight heavens and of nine choirs. They are not where I am. You should know that everything stated in such a way and presented to people in images is but an incitement to seek God. Realise that in God is nothing but God. You must also understand that no soul may come unto God before it has become God as it was before it was created. No one may come into the naked Godhead except the one who is naked as he was when he flowed out of God. The masters say that no one may enter here as long as he has any attachment to lower things, even if it is only as much as the tip of a needle can carry." (Sister Catherine Treatise: Trans Elvira Borgstaedt. Paulist Press 1986)
The rest of the treatise consists of a continued dialogue with the Confessor - often held at a fever-pitch of excitement and emotion - in which both Sister Catherine and the Confessor exchange ideas about God's immanence, the possibility of humanity's union with Him in this life, the role of Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
's relationship with Christ as his Lover and chief Apostle and the need to recognise the deceptions of the reality and unreality of Union with God i.e. what true Union is as opposed to false Union. Here the treatise is careful to delineate the danger of those who interpret the Free Spirit ideals as carte blanche to commit sinful and/or immoral acts. The treatise finishes with Sister Catherine abjuring the Confessor to strive after higher feats of spiritual understanding, the pupil having become the master (or mistress) and the Confessor needing the guidance of the Sister to achieve union with God.
Assessment
The Sister Catherine Treatise is often cited, along with Marguerite PoreteMarguerite Porete
Marguerite Porete was a French mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian spirituality dealing with the workings of Divine Love. She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, after refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant...
's The Mirror of Simple Souls
The Mirror of Simple Souls
The Mirror of Simple Souls is an early 14th century work of Christian mysticism by Marguerite Porete dealing with the workings of Divine Love....
, as one of the representative literary expressions of the Heresy of the Free Spirit
Heresy of the Free Spirit
The Free Spirit heresy consisted of small groups of Christian heretics living mostly in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their worship was not well organized and their doctrine was not well defined. Their beliefs were mostly spread in the form of...
, which held that a divine union with God was possible to people in this life and, more controversially, independently of the ministrations of the Church. Initially attributed to Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart
Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...
in Franz Pfeiffer
Franz Pfeiffer
Franz Pfeiffer , was a Swiss literary scholar.He was born in Solothurn as a Bürger of Bettlach. After studying at the University of Munich he went to Stuttgart, where in 1846 he became librarian to the royal library. In 1856, Pfeiffer founded the Germanic, a quarterly periodical devoted to German...
's ground-breaking edition of the Christian mystic's works in 1857 it is now regarded as not being by him but showing evidence of his thinking, or at least evidence of the Free Spirit movement which Eckhart was accused of adhering to.
Written in a heightened emotional prose which gives the Treatise a slightly hysterical, hallucinatory quality the work espouses a highly feminine approach to the Christian Mystery, with lengthy discussions of the significance of Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
as the true lover of Christ (an element which links it to Porete, some of the alleged beliefs of the Cathars and, bizarrely, the wilder speculations of Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
) and the figure of Sister Catherine herself emerging as more initiated into the inner spirituality of Christianity than her male counterpart. In it many of the articles of faith of the Free Spirit movement are expressed - a neo-Platonic/panentheistic belief in God's immanence in Creation, the possibility of salvation and the Unio Mystica in this life, the limitations of Church teaching in terms of real mystical insight - and as such it is a valuable document for those in search of understanding the more radical approach to interpreting the Gospels of the Medieval period known as the Heresy of the Free Spirit
Heresy of the Free Spirit
The Free Spirit heresy consisted of small groups of Christian heretics living mostly in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their worship was not well organized and their doctrine was not well defined. Their beliefs were mostly spread in the form of...
.
The treatise is the only currently known medieval work which mentions the well-known question of how many angels can stand, or perhaps perch (siczen), on the point of a needle: "doctors declare that in heaven a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle (tusent selen siczen in dem himelrich uff einer nadel spicz)." Dancing on the point of a needle appears to be a later concept.
See also
- Brethren of the Free SpiritBrethren of the Free SpiritThe Brothers, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, was a lay Christian movement which flourished in northern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Antinomian and individualist in outlook, it came into conflict with the Catholic Church and was declared heretical by Pope Clement V at the Council of...
- Cathars/Catharism
- ChristianityChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
- Christian mysticismChristian mysticismChristian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions...
- Dan BrownDan BrownDan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
- Heresy of the Free SpiritHeresy of the Free SpiritThe Free Spirit heresy consisted of small groups of Christian heretics living mostly in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their worship was not well organized and their doctrine was not well defined. Their beliefs were mostly spread in the form of...
- InquisitionInquisitionThe Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
- Marguerite PoreteMarguerite PoreteMarguerite Porete was a French mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian spirituality dealing with the workings of Divine Love. She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, after refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant...
- Mary MagdaleneMary MagdaleneMary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
- Meister EckhartMeister EckhartEckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...