Mystical Anthropology

John Arblaster is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven and the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp. His research focuses on the doctrine of deification in the late-medieval West, and particularly on authors from the Low Countries. He has published several articles on these authors as well as the English translation of the poems of Pseudo-Hadewijch. He co-edited Brill’s Companion to John of Ruusbroec with Rob Faesen. Rob Faesen is Professor of Church History at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven and at Tilburg University, and is a member of the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp. He is an expert in the history of late medieval mystical literature, and has published extensively in this field. He was on the editorial board of the critical edition of Ruusbroec’s Opera omnia.

Introduction: The Question of Mystical Anthropology Rob Faesen and John Arblaster






William of Saint-Thierry and His Trinitarian Mysticism Paul Verdeyen



The Mystic’s Sensorium: Modes of Perceiving and Knowing God in Hadewijch’s Visions Veerle Fraeters



"The Wild, Wide Oneness": Aspects of the Soul and Its Relationship with God in Pseudo-Hadewijch John Arblaster and Rob Faesen



"Poor in Ourselves and Rich in God": Indwelling and Non-identity of Being (Wesen) and Suprabeing (Overwesen) in John of Ruusbroec Rob Faesen



Ruusbroec’s Notion of the Contemplative Life and his Understanding of the Human Person Rik Van Nieuwenhove



Retrieving Ruusbroec’s Relational Anthropology in Conversation with Jean-Luc Marion Patrick Cooper



Jan van Leeuwen’s Mystical Anthropology: A Testimony of Lay Mysticism from Medieval Brabant Satoshi Kikuchi



The Playing Field of Mysticism: Middle Dutch Anthropological Terminology in the Spieghel der volcomenheit by Hendrik Herp o.f.m. Thom Mertens



The Inner Ascent to God and the Innermost of the Human Person in the Arnhem Mystical Sermons Ineke Cornet



Multilayeredness of the Highest Faculties in the Arnhem Mystical Sermons Kees Schepers

Conclusion John Arblaster & Rob Faesen