The material is abundant, and I have repeatedly touched upon it in
previous chapters. At the period of great mystical enthusiasm (the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries) this morbid love of God was a sinister
attendant phenomenon of true mysticism. Whole convents were seized by
epidemics of hysteria, the women writhed in convulsions, flogged each
other, sang hymns day and night and had hallucinations--for all of which
the love of God, or the temptation of the devil, were made responsible.
Among the more notable of these pseudo-mystics are Christine Ebner (the
author of a book entitled, _On the Fullness of Mercy_), and Mary of
Oignies, a passionate worshipper of Christ who mutilated herself in her
ecstasies and who, on her deathbed, still sang: "How beautiful art Thou,
oh, my Lord God!"
A shining exception among the German nuns of that time was Mechthild of
Magdeburg, a woman of rare gifts. She was a genuine mystic, but she,
too, revelled in fervent, sensuous metaphors, and it would be an
interesting task to separate the two elements in her case; but, having
admitted her genuine mysticism in a previous chapter, I will here
restrict myself to a few quotations which show her from her other side.
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