Mechthild of Magdeburg: Medieval Mystic of Eroticism and Pain

An important figure in medieval women's mysticism, Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1208-c. 1282/94) has been a subject of research among scholars of women's religious history and spirituality for some time. Information about Mechthild's life is scant, coming only from the autobiographical passages of her book, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, its various introductions in German and Latin translations, and brief references to her in the writings of others.Footnote ¹ According to her testimony, Mechthild was born in 1208 and began to receive divine “greetings” and visions from the age of twelve (FL IV.2). Around 1230, she left home and took up residence in a house of beguines in Magdeburg.Footnote ² Mechthild came into close contact with a neighboring Dominican order, with which the beguines shared a similar mode of life. It was her Dominican confessor, Heinrich of Halle, who encouraged her to heed God's command and compose her book.Footnote ³

Mechthild began writing The Flowing Light around 1250, penning it in Middle Low German, the vernacular dialect of northern Germany. Scholarly consensus is that the first five books were finished around 1260, with a sixth book added over the next decade.Footnote ⁴ Heinrich provided some assistance with the editing process, but most contemporary scholars conclude that he was a careful editor who worked with deep respect for Mechthild and her text, changing very little.Footnote ⁵ Around 1272, after an aging Mechthild joined a community of Cistercian nuns at Helfta, she composed a seventh book. The last chapters of The Flowing Light were dictated due to Mechthild's failing eyesight and she died around 1282.

In recent decades, scholars have been particularly interested in Mechthild's employment of erotic language and imagery to describe her relationship to the divine, a characteristic that she shares with other medieval women mystics.Footnote ⁶ Most have come to conclude that the overtly sexual language in medieval women's mysticism is more than simple allegory, but an intrinsic aspect of their thought. In this way, Mechthild's eroticism is best understood as an inherently positive and straightforward category, an intentional union of the spiritual and sexual to express, in the words of Reference BynumCaroline Bynum, the way in which “a male Christ [is] handled and loved.”Footnote ⁷ Moreover, it is acknowledged the consistent use of erotic language is evidence of Mechthild's ambivalent relationship to the body, in general. Even as physicality is seen as a spiritual hindrance throughout The Flowing Light, Mechthild's erotic rhetoric reveals that she also understands the realm of the sensual to be an appropriate place from which to articulate her relationship to God.Footnote ⁸

In addition to the erotic, Mechthild and other medieval women mystics employ the language of suffering and pain to describe both their practical piety and mystical experience. Of course, an emphasis on pain and suffering is not unique to women or mystics, for it is a defining characteristic of Western Christian spirituality.Footnote ⁹ Still, for reasons that are not altogether clear, many women religious in the medieval period emphasized the imitation of Christ's bodily suffering as the prime focus of their holy work.Footnote ¹⁰ In this way, their pain became redemptive and an essential means of union with the divine. Although Mechthild's use of such rhetoric is not nearly as prolific as other women mystics of her day, she does utilize the language of pain, alongside that of eroticism, to speak of her intimate relationship to God.

Thus far, scholars have approached Mechthild's combined rhetoric of eroticism and pain in a number of ways. Most advance the issue within a larger discussion of Mechthild's view of the body. In these studies, the focus has been upon the subversion of medieval discourses on the female body as a means of authorial and prophetic empowerment.Footnote ¹¹ Although by no means ignored, pain is largely incidental to the larger discussion in these works, treated as a feature of the “physical and spiritual disjointedness,” of human existence,Footnote ¹² or the manifestation of the female mystic's commitment to bodily imitatio Christi.Footnote ¹³ Furthermore, these studies tend to include Mechthild within a survey of women medieval mystics generally, with little regard to possible differences among them, particularly between Mechthild's characterization of pain and that of her contemporaries.Footnote ¹⁴

Other scholars have offered more provocative perspectives on Mechthild's erotic and painful rhetoric. Some have chosen not to read medieval women mystics on their own terms, opting for a psychoanalytic approach that finds within their texts either sublimated masochism before the dominant male (i.e., Christ) or a form of female narcissism.Footnote ¹⁵ One recent feminist scholar has taken a more nuanced approach, choosing not to psychoanalyze Mechthild's text, but still seeking to problematize the wedding of pain and eroticism in her spirituality. In this way, she uses Mechthild as a means to argue that the “eroticized violence” of medieval women mystics advanced and sustained the patriarchal ideology that women take pleasure in physical and spiritual violence done to them in the name of love.Footnote ¹⁶ Still, not only do these studies tend not to read the women on their own terms, but also they assume, perhaps prematurely, a significant degree of conceptual continuity among multiple mystics, across multiple centuries.

While affirming the merit of these recent studies, I contend that a need remains for a comprehensive consideration of the rhetoric of eroticism and pain within The Flowing Light, on its own terms. It is quite possible, even probable, that by subsuming the study of Mechthild's mystical spirituality within a larger project devoted to medieval women mystics in general, we lose sight of those features that make Mechthild's perspective unique. What exactly does Mechthild do with the language of eroticism and pain in the The Flowing Light? Does she simply borrow from the medieval asceticism of her contemporary women mystics, or does Mechthild have a coherent mystical theology of pain all her own?

To address these questions fully is impossible at this point, but I intend to take one step in that direction in what follows. I will begin by presenting a survey of select texts from The Flowing Light that use a combination of erotic and painful language to speak of the soul's union with the divine. This cannot be comprehensive, of course, but it will provide a suitable introduction to the rhetoric of eroticism and pain in the volume. Then, I will present a focused analysis of Book IV, Chapter 12, a conceptually dense passage, where pain is characterized as a courtly intermediary between Christ and the soul. My contention is that a deeper consideration of this chapter, its theological perspective, and its context in the Christian narrative provides significant insight into Mechthild's overall conception of pain in relation to the divine. I hope to show that closer scrutiny of The Flowing Light reveals that Mechthild does indeed have a coherent mystical theology of pain, one to be distinguished from her fellow medieval women mystics and situated firmly within the Christian narrative and liturgy.

Mechthild's Strange Bedfellows: Pain and Eroticism in The Flowing Light of the Godhead

As stated above, despite the dominant erotic themes, the rhetoric of suffering and pain is prevalent throughout The Flowing Light of the Godhead. The book, unique in its great variety of literary forms, includes discussions of pain and suffering within Mechthild's apocalyptic visions, poetry, dialogue, autobiographical remarks, spiritual instruction, and more. Rather than try to deal with all the variety of forms in which the rhetoric of pain appears, in what follows I will provide a survey of four key poetic texts. In each of these texts, Mechthild combines the language of eroticism with that of pain and violence in reference to the soul's union with God. Of course, this brief review is not intended to be comprehensive, but merely to provide a rhetorical and conceptual overview and to bring to light some of the difficulties inherent in Mechthild's mystical language.

In Book I, Chapter 22, Mechthild describes the origin of the soul in the Trinity and the experience of the soul as the Bride of Jesus Christ. She depicts the human soul as created out of the abundance of God's love and, for this reason, “no creature is able to give comfort” or to “open it up except love alone.” In this way, the soul, the Bride, can only be made complete through union with Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom. Mechthild describes this union through a poetic listing of a number of mystical paradoxes, in the midst of which, the imagery of pain comes to the fore:

The language of romance and eroticism becomes more explicit and intense following this expression of pain:

What is particularly striking about this poetic description of the soul's union with God is that the “deeper” the soul dwells in the Godhead, the “deeper her wounds become.” This entails a direct connection between union with God and wounding. And, as the soul's wounds become deeper, the “more violently she struggles”—presumably against God, her intimate partner. Even so, the soul eventually surrenders to the “desire” of the Bridegroom and is swept up in the intensity of their “wedding celebration.” Indeed, by the time their passionate consummation is complete, “she bursts into flames.”

A critical reading of this passage recognizes within it features that, on the surface, make up a troubling romantic plot. What do we do with the fact that Mechthild's description of the soul's union with the Bridegroom involves wounding and apparent coercion?Footnote ¹⁷ One important feature of Mechthild's poetic account is that the soul is a mutual participant in the pleasure of the encounter. In the end, she bursts into flames, not out of pain, but out of passion for the Bridegroom. It is also important to recognize that, as she portrays it, the soul in Mechthild's drama is not a victim of God's assault. The soul is an active subject participating in a welcomed romantic rendezvous. Although wounding is experienced, according to Mechthild, the union of the soul with God is what brings the soul completion—ultimate comfort and joy. While modern sensibilities understand pain and pleasure to be mutually exclusive bodily experiences, clearly Mechthild's poetry represents a vastly different point of view, with which would-be interpreters must reckon.Footnote ¹⁸

In Book II, Chapter 23, Mechthild reproaches the “foolish Soul” for neglecting her Bridegroom through excessive concern with bodily matters. When the foolish souls asks to know where the dwelling of the Lord is, Mechthild answers:

Here, in a more straightforward, but no less erotic, description of the Lord's intimacy with the human soul, similar elements present themselves as in the previous passage: embrace, kisses, a bed of love, and pain. Moreover, even though a violent struggle against God's loving advance is not explicitly described, Mechthild's admonition implies that the soul has a tendency to “fiercely fend it off.” Again we find a narrative of sacred romance, in which the soul struggles against but eventual submits to divine persuasion. What is distinctive about this passage, however, is that the “foolish Soul” asks Mechthild for clarification: “Who are those who defend themselves fiercely?” And, she replies:

This response helps to shed some light on the theme of struggle from the first text we considered. It seems that in Mechthild's imagination, the soul in violent struggle against God corresponds to those whose “spitefulness” afflicts others and themselves. Furthermore, those who possess this character miss the grandeur of the Bridegroom entirely, blinded as they are by their sin. In this way, the rhetoric of the soul's struggle with God refers to a resistance to the soul's own tendency to dullness and blindness. It seems that Mechthild does not envision a soul singularly focused on fending off the romantic advances of the Godhead, but a soul divided in its loyalty, at once desirous of divine union and working against these desires at the same time.

Even so, we should note that a fuller explanation of the soul's struggle against God does not resolve why, in the first place, God's erotic advances are experienced as deep “wounding” and “exquisite pain.” In both passages, pain is understood as an inherent part of encountering the Godhead. As stated above, this conception of divine union is counterintuitive for contemporary interpreters, for whom loving fulfillment and deep pain are mutually exclusive experiences. Even while acknowledging and respecting the hermeneutical gap that separates us from Mechthild's medieval context, it still seems reasonable to wonder why union with the Godhead, the only One who is able to comfort and complete the soul, produces wounding and pain. Hopefully, we can approach an explanation of this difficulty as we delve deeper into The Flowing Light.

The next passage to consider, found in Book II, Chapter 25, is an extended romantic poem depicting an intensely erotic conversation between the soul and God. The heart of their exchange is the conflict between the soul's unending desire for God and God's apparent inconstancy to the soul. Throughout the passage, the soul desires complete satisfaction and constant union, while God assures her of the need for his periodic departure. The soul expresses the “inhuman anguish” she feels in “great longing” and “burning love” for God. God replies with the words of a lover, affirming that he hears her “secret sighs” and “heart's anguish,” and that he yearns for her as well.

In the midst of this erotic exchange, God acknowledges the reality of pain in their intimate union:

Here, even more than the previous passages, it is clearly stated that God inflicts “immense pain” upon the body of his beloved. Furthermore, if we understand God's “delightful dwelling place on earth” to be the body of the soul in love, then it seems that God acknowledges that if he gave himself totally to his lover, she would be consumed. In this way, divine intimacy entails severe pain and even the possibility of annihilation.Footnote ¹⁹ For her part, the soul responds in the following way:

In her reply, we see the soul acknowledging that her experience of intimacy with God is deeply painful. She depicts her body as a dank prison, where she is forced to experience worldly frailty, and God as a lover who indulges her body nonetheless. Still, in the midst of this pampering, the soul is “wounded to the death” by the “beam” of God's “fiery love.” Moreover, when God takes leave of the soul again, she is left alone in misery with fresh wounds, “in great torment.” Here again, along with the language of romance and desire, union with God leads to wounding and pain. And, an explanation as to why this is the case remains elusive.

The final passage we will consider is found in Book III, Chapter 10. This extended poem takes the rhetoric of romance and pain to another level, depicting the erotic union of the “loving soul” with God through the language of Christ's Passion. More than any other in The Flowing Light, this text combines overtly violent language with the language of loving divine union. At first, Mechthild speaks of the soul's romantic infatuation with God, using verbs from the narrative of Christ's arrest:

As Christ was captured, assailed, and bound, so also is the soul in love with God. Notice the way in which Mechthild weds romantic language to the language of assault, even as it produces “bliss” in the soul. She goes on to describe the soul experiencing most of the other elements in the Passion of Christ, as well, including being “slapped” and “beaten,” being “stripped of all things,”“ridiculed” and “imprisoned.” And, all of these experiences of suffering and pain have some correlation to an experience of God's favor and love. Then, in what appears to be the climax of the poem, the loving soul is crucified:

The soul goes on to offer her spirit to God in death, descend into hell, be raised from the dead, offer consolation to her disciples, and ascend into heaven. In all these ways, the loving union of the soul with God is depicted in the language of Christ's own experience in the New Testament Passion narratives. Mechthild concludes this extensive poem with a simple explanation: “This passion is suffered by every soul that in holy moderation of all her activity is truly permeated by genuine love of God.” This indicates that a soul's intimacy with God is vitally connected to suffering and pain, so much so that her experience becomes analogous to the Passion of Christ himself. Once again, we see that in Mechthild's poetic mysticism, the painful and the erotic make for strange, yet inseparable, bedfellows.

Lady Pain, Messenger of the Soul: Theological Insights from Book IV, Chapter 12

Book IV, Chapter 12 of the The Flowing Light is notoriously dense, containing a combination of dialogue, poetry, and narrative description. In what follows, I will provide an overview of the entire chapter, highlighting the links Mechthild makes between divine intimacy, physical pain, and estrangement. I will show that a fuller understanding of this passage provides significant theological insight into her overall understanding of pain in relation to divine union.

In the beginning dialogue, Mechthild draws on the courtly tradition of the “dawn song” to describe the sadness of the soul, the bride of the Trinity, at the departure of her Beloved after a night spent in his embrace.Footnote ²⁰ She refuses to be comforted by the created world or any creature. Then, in poetic form, the bride proclaims the “nobility” of her status in God, that is, “her pre-creational status in God.”Footnote ²¹ Because she has been made to love God alone, only being drawn into the Trinity can bring her satisfaction. And, in her description of God's usual “consolation,” he is a lover who “cannot get enough” of “caressing souls.”

Then, the reader is told that eight years pass before the narrative resumes again. Mechthild says that at this time, God desired to console her “way beyond what was due to [her] soul's nobility”—that is, beyond what she deserves. Rather than be elevated, therefore, the soul asks God to allow her to remain in the “lowest part” for his sake. What follows is a description of the soul's “sinking” into the depths of estrangement from God, first into purgatory and hell, then into complete darkness and lack of knowledge, completely void of divine intimacy. Curiously, the soul welcomes this estrangement and she beseeches God to allow her to “sink further” for his honor.

In this midst of this trial, the soul struggles with trust and faithfulness and she converses alternately with “Lady Trust” and “Lady Constancy” in pursuit of both. The Trinity speaks encouragement to the soul, as well, with each person bidding her to recall his prior works:

It is important for our discussion to note that in this dialogue the pain experienced by the soul in the Son's Passion is to be viewed as proof of God's favor and presence. Indeed, the memory of suffering and pain, along with the intimacy of the Father and inspiration of the Spirit, provides such assurance to the soul that she responds with “the constancy of true faith,” saying: “As I have believed, loved, enjoyed, and known, so shall I go forth from here unshaken.”

After this declaration of faith, “constant estrangement” descends, a “chambermaid” now fully welcomed by the soul, bringing her joy, marvels, and delight. The soul proclaims that the experience of complete estrangement from God is now more welcomed than God himself, for she is certain, in paradoxical fashion, that even in “great estrangement” he will console her.

At this point, the narrative takes a strange turn, so that that pain and suffering become the central focus for the rest of the chapter. First, the Lord makes a request of the soul: “Grant me this: that I might cool the heat of my Godhead, the longing of my humanity, and the pleasure of my Holy Spirit in you.” The soul assents, but only on the condition that it is “good for you and not for me”—that is, the soul that has embraced estrangement no longer desires pleasure from encounter with the divine. Then, comes the following description as the soul is introduced to her final courtly companion–“Lady Pain”:

Lady Pain obliges the soul and ascends to the door of the kingdom of heaven to speak with God. The Lord greets her as a dearly loved friend, “the garment” he wore next to his skin while on earth; but he does not allow her to enter the kingdom. Instead, Lady Pain is permitted to be the messenger between himself and the “virgin,” the means by which he will “embrace” the soul and unite himself her.

Even so, the final dialogue between the Lord and Lady Pain complicates the narrative further, by revealing the diabolical character of suffering:

Mechthild closes the chapter with further declaration of her devotion to the Lord and the way of estrangement. She asserts that her will is strengthened through pain and the closer she draws to “Blessed Estrangement,” the more intensely God falls over her. Her final words are a poetic couplet: “But the deeper I sink, The sweeter I drink.”

There is much within this passage upon which we could dwell, I would like to focus on the person of “Lady Pain.” Mechthild's depiction of pain as “messenger” (bote) is an adaptation of a device common in medieval German Minnesang (sung love poetry from the 12^th and 13^th centuries). In these songs, a courtly lady-in-waiting often serves as a messenger between absent lovers, someone who negotiates the distance and unfulfilled love between them.Footnote ²² Eventually, the messenger comes to represent the presence of the other to both lovers. The way Mechthild employs the messenger role in the above chapter suggests that in the mystical relationship between the Godhead and the soul, the physical pain of bodiliness is a vital intermediary between the earthly and the divine. That is to say, Mechthild understands that fallen humanity is brought into intimate union with God through the mediating work of physical pain.Footnote ²³

The casting of pain in the role of divine-human messenger is not an arbitrary literary device, nor can it, in my opinion, simply be dismissed as a romanticized manifestation of female misogyny. Mechthild's view of pain (and bodiliness, in general) must be understood in light of the Christian narrative of salvation, in which the crucifixion of the Son of God is the means by which the Godhead is reconciled with the world.Footnote ²⁴ In the framework of the Incarnation, pain is, literally, the crux of the matter—the center of God's identification with humankind. This helps us understand why the loving soul comes to embrace estrangement (“sinking”) as the most welcomed form of intimacy with God, for it was Christ's own estrangement that brought about redemption. One scholar applies this to Mechthild's mysticism in the following way:

Understood in this way, the literary role Mechthild gives to Lady Pain in her narrative invests the physical reality of pain with deep theological meaning. Despite her ambivalent relationship to the body elsewhere in The Flowing Light, Mechthild clearly understands the conjunctive relationship between body and soul as the place in which her relationship to God is negotiated and expressed.Footnote ²⁶ In this sense, it seems right to conclude that physical pain serves as a sensory bridge between herself and her Beloved. Since “Lady Pain” was Christ's closest companion while on earth, she is the most suitable messenger to negotiate the distance and desire between Mechthild and the Godhead.Footnote ²⁷ The presence of pain, therefore, assures Mechthild of the presence of her Beloved and the reality of her union with the divine, even in the midst of “sinking” estrangement.

It is not enough, however, to understand that Mechthild views pain as a corporeal mediator between the soul and the divine. We must clarify this with Mechthild's expressed understanding of pain as originally diabolical and ultimately unsuitable for the kingdom of heaven. We should recall the words of the Lord to Lady Pain in Book II, Chapter 12: “Pain, you were not born from the kingdom of heaven; therefore, you may not enter it. Rather, you were born from Lucifer's heart; there you shall return and shall dwell with him eternally.” This statement provides corrective to contemporary misunderstandings arising from modern notions of the body, in which “the cultivation of pain is rejected as pathological.”Footnote ²⁸ Clearly, Mechthild does not embrace pain because it is inherently good or even eternally oriented. Although she understands pain (closely tied to bodiliness) as the necessary and appropriate mediator for human-divine encounters in the present life, the time will come when pain ceases to play this role. Once again, this nuanced viewpoint arises from the Christian narrative of salvation, in which the crucified Christ is also the glorified Christ, who ascends into heaven to receive his reward from the Father. When Mechthild's soul is resurrected and joined with her glorified body in heaven, Lady Pain will not be needed, for the distance between the soul and the Godhead will be bridged and eternal ecstasy will be her reward.Footnote ²⁹

A final layer to the theological context surrounding Mechthild's characterization of Lady Pain is the centrality of the Eucharist and Eucharistic devotion in mystical spiritual practice. Although space does not allow an exploration of this issue in any significant depth, it is important to note that recent scholarship on medieval women mystics has shown a vital connection between their understanding of bodiliness and pain and the importance of the Eucharist in their religious life.Footnote ³⁰ To partake of the Eucharist was to partake of the human body of Christ, which suffered for the salvation of the world. In this way, “God is food, which is flesh, which is suffering, which is salvation.”Footnote ³¹ The emphasis on the fact that Christ's presence in the Eucharist is literally flesh and blood led to an increasingly literal understanding of what the imitatio Christi entailed.Footnote ³² For medieval women mystics, the pursuit and embrace of physical pain became a focal point of their ascetic religious devotion and the primary means by which they experienced union with God.

This context provides further depth to Mechthild's characterization of pain as a human-divine lady-in-waiting. For Mechthild, the suffering of Christ physically present in the Eucharist is a material mediator between God and her soul. Likewise, the suffering of her physical body in spiritual devotion is a corporeal mediator between her soul and God. Moreover, the practice of Eucharistic devotion begins to explain why pain and suffering could be so closely linked to pleasure in Mechthild's mystical theology. When the consumption of Christ's body in the Mass brings literal nourishment from, and intimacy with the divine, then it is appropriate to understand that the experience of pain in imitation of Christ brings pleasure and intimacy, as well.

Toward a Conclusion

There is no doubt that the study presented above is more of a first word than a last word. While space constraints have prevented the presentation of a complete argument for the notion that Mechthild imparts a coherent mystical theology of pain, I think sufficient ground has been covered to suggest strongly the possibility. If nothing else, it is clear that Mechthild's poetic texts reveal a depth of theological insight that situates her firmly within the Christian narrative and liturgical tradition. More work remains to be done in order to develop whether the view presented above is consistently reflected throughout The Flowing Light, in the various literary forms Mechthild employs. Moreover, it remains to be seen whether the characterization of pain as courtly mediator is something unique to Mechthild or if it is reflected in the works of other medieval mystics, male or female.

Whatever the focus of future studies, it is certain that Mechthild's unabashed combination of erotic and painful rhetoric to speak of her union with God will remain a topic of great interest to scholars of women's religious history and mysticism. Indeed, even after the above presentation, some would say that the most important question of all remains unanswered: For Mechthild, why does union with the Godhead, the only One who is able to comfort and complete the soul, produce wounding and pain? Certainly, room must be made for the emphasis of medieval scholasticism upon God as Wholly Other and the Aristotelian notion of pain as the aspect of bodily existence that is most intimately human.Footnote ³³ But, for many, especially feminist scholars concerned about the glorification of suffering and violence against women, such suggestions fall short of providing a satisfactory explanation.

Pursuing an answer to this question would take us beyond the bounds of this paper, but my preliminary thoughts are these. Although deeply sympathetic with the concern to disassociate divine love and human pain, I think documents produced by the Western Christian tradition cannot be made to do so. Since the penning of the New Testament, Christians have taught that in the Passion of Christ, divine love and human suffering met for the redemption of the world. It is clear, therefore, that when Mechthild's mystical theology pairs “the heights of bliss” with “the most exquisite pain,” it does so as a faithful recipient of this tradition, in which love and pain occupy the center of God's relationship to humankind. Ultimately, those who are scandalized by Mechthild's wedding of erotic and painful rhetoric will be scandalized by what has become the heart of the Christian tradition, as well.