CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM. 



73 



you of how this worked out in Gnosticism. The only Gnostic 

 thinker who left a deep mark upon history was Marcion; and 

 Marcion, by his personal concern for redemption, almost pulled 

 Gnosticism over to Christian ground. We know how St. Paul and 

 St. John, in using the Logos - conception, burst these Greek 

 philosophical terms to pieces, as it were, and re-shaped them into 

 fit vehicles for the expression of the mystery of redemption. We 

 know how the men who saved Christianity from the secularization 

 of Gnosticism, such as TertuUian and Irenseus, had the certitudo 

 salutis as the driving power of their thought. We also know how 

 thinkers like Lucian and Arius worked out their systems without 

 any genuine soteriological conviction, and how their work has 

 perished, whereas that of Athanasius stands. At every point of its 

 development theological thought of the great creative order has had 

 for its motive a practical interest in redemption. The weakness 

 of philosophical Mysticism seems to me to lie in its attempt to graft 

 upon the schema of Christian doctrine conceptions borrowed from a 

 system based upon entirely alien presuppositions. The result has 

 been that, on its intellectual side, Mysticism has often trailed away 

 into sterile by-paths of Christian thought. 



The Eev. J. J. B. Coles, M.A., said they were greatly indebted to 

 Dean Inge for the help they had had in his writings and lectures. 

 He had, as he had said, not dealt with the subject that afternoon 

 from the psychological standpoint, but it was rather a question of 

 the intellectual life of the Mystic. He (the speaker) thought it was 

 right that they should bear this in mind and keep to the special 

 line and department which the Dean had himself mapped out. No 

 doubt he would agree that in questions connected with the intellect 

 of the Mystic, and also intellect generally, the question of memory 

 was very important. 



The question he desired to ask about memory was this : How far 

 could we accept the definition both of Eastern and Western 

 Oriental ideas of memory as being intellectually sound and 

 complete ? Blake wrote about the " Sculptured Halls of Los " or 

 the " Great Memory." If we went to Oriental Mysticism we found 

 that the question of memory arose in connection with what were 

 called "the Akashic records." If we took a turn to the writings 

 of a scholar such as Dr. Eudolf Steiner, we found that he had 

 adopted the idea of these " halls of memory," and so it seemed to 



