The Goal was to Create a School of Love

Bernard McGinn closes his introduction to “The Great Cistercian Mystics: A History” by reminding us that “the goal of the New Monastery was to create a school of love” (15). Written after a long career as a theologian of mysticism, McGinn’s 2019 book demands attention because of the author’s supreme qualifications. It is a boon for Cistercian Studies that he should devote his energy to the great mystics in the tradition of Cîteaux. McGinn’s maturity leads him to valuable insights and warnings of overly strict categories or even too much effort to define “the” Cistercian “school”; things are usually more complicated. 

Of the four chapters, the first one is devoted to St. Bernard. With its 86 pages, is the longest. Interestingly, there is no section on Mary, since recent scholarship has relativized the abbot’s role as the doctor marialis, even though he was considered to be one of the church’s foremost mariologists for centuries. The second chapter is devoted to William of Saint-Thierry, the third to Cistercian “voices” (Isaac of Stella, Guerric of Igny, Gilbert of Hoyland, Aelred, Baldwin and John of Forde), and the fourth to female Cistercian Mystics of the thirteenth century. Limited to slightly more than 300 pages, the book closes with a valuable list of Cistercian writings on spirituality in English translation. McGinn himself cites French and German scholarship frequently in his numerous footnotes, but he (realistically) limits the bibliography to English. 

The book comes at the end of an era. Dedicated to the great Trappist scholars in early Cistercian documents (Chrysogonus Waddell, died 2008) and spiritual theology (Basil Pennington, died 2005), this book is itself written by a man well over 80 years of age. All of them experienced a highpoint in Cistercian Studies in the postwar era. Many changes came about, namely the transition of scholarship from monastic to lay writers and the discovery of eminenently important new ideas like friendship, spiritual and bodily affect, women’s contributions to the Cistercian patrimony, and radical shifts in attributing sources more accurately and even discarding many texts now considered to be inauthentic.