Living the Word

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.