held to be an exceedingly rare privilege, the culminating
point of the contemplative life. I shall speak of it in my third
Lecture; and shall there show that it belongs, not to the essence of
Mysticism, and still less to Christianity, but to the Asiatic leaven
which was mixed with Alexandrian thought, and thence passed into
Catholicism. As regards visions in general, they were no invention of
the mystics. They played a much more important part in the life of the
early Church than many ecclesiastical historians are willing to admit.
Tertullian, for instance, says calmly, "The majority, almost, of men
learn God from visions.[25]" Such implicit reliance was placed on the
Divine authority of visions, that on one occasion an ignorant peasant
and a married man was made Patriarch of Alexandria against his will,
because his dying predecessor had a vision that the man who should
bring him a present of grapes on the next day should be his successor!
In course of time visions became rarer among the laity, but continued
frequent among the monks and clergy. And so the class which furnished
most of the shining lights of Mysticism was that in which these
experiences were most common.

But we do not find that the masters of the spiritual life attached
very much importance to them, or often appealed to them as aids to
faith.[26] As a rule, visions were regarded as special rewards
bestowed by the goodness of God on the struggling saint, and
especially on the beginner, to refresh him and strengthen him in the
hour of need. Very earnest cautions were issued that no efforts must
be made to induce them artificially, and aspirants were exhorted
neither to desire them, nor to feel pride in having seen them. The
spiritual guides of the Middle Ages were well aware that such
experiences often come of disordered nerves and weakened digestion;
they believed also that they are sometimes delusions of Satan. Richard
of St. Victor says, "As Christ attested His transfiguration by the
presence of Moses and Elias, so visions should not be believed unless
they have the authority of Scripture." Albertus Magnus tries to
classify them, and says that those which contain a sensuous element
are always dangerous. Eckhart is still more cautious, and Tauler
attaches little value to them. Avila, the Spanish mystic, says that
only those visions which minister to our spiritual necessities, and
make us _more humble_, are genuine. Self-induced visions inflate us
with