Abstract

Andrew Louth has written a clear, brief and scholarly account of the origins of the Christian mystical tradition in Plato, Philo, and Plotinus and its gradual development into a mysticism which is distinctively Christian rather than Greek. In addition to the above mentioned philosophers, the story takes us through Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius, Macarius, Augustine, and Denys the Areopagite, with two final chapters, one on St. John of the Cross and the other on the Mystical Life and the Mystical Body. A useful bibliography completes the volume.