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Mystical Experiences and Mystical Theology in Augustine of Hippo? A Reconsideration of the Sources (conf. 9, an. quant. 33, doctr. chr. 2)

ABSTRACT The current article addresses the question concerning Augustine’s mysticism from two perspectives: practice and theory. In the Confessiones, Augustine recounts how he reached an experience of God – the ‘Ostia-ecstasy’, shortly after his baptism. After an extensive state of the art on the debate of Augustine’s mysticism, the first part of this article studies Confessiones IX, 23–6, in which Augustine describes his experience at Ostia. Next, this passage is compared with an experience of similar nature Augustine had in Milan, before his conversion (Confessiones VII, 16; 23; 26). The second part deals with Augustine’s theories on the ascent of the soul, as he formulates them in De animae quantitate XXXIII, 70–6 and De doctrina christiana II, 9–11.