in me," represents the aspiration of the later Catholic Mysticism
generally. St. Juan of the Cross says, "The soul must lose entirely
its human knowledge and human feelings, in order to receive Divine
knowledge and Divine feelings"; it will then live "as it were outside
itself," in a state "more proper to the future than to the present
life." It is easy to see how dangerous such teaching may be to weak
heads. A typical example, at a much earlier date, is that of Mechthild
of Hackeborn (about 1240). It was she who said, "My soul swims in the
Godhead like a fish in water!" and who believed that, in answer to her
prayers, God had so united Himself with her that she saw with His
eyes, and heard with His ears, and spoke with His mouth. Many similar
examples might be found among the mediaeval mystics.

Between the two ideas of essentialisation and of substitution comes
that of gradual _transformation_, which, again, cannot in history be
separated from the other two. It has the obvious advantage of not
regarding deification as an _opus operatum_, but as a process, as a
hope rather than a fact. A favourite maxim with mystics who thought
thus, was that "love changes the lover into the beloved." Louis of
Granada often recurs to this thought.

The best mystics rightly see in the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ
the best safeguard against the extravagances to which the notion of
deification easily leads. Particularly instructive here are the
warnings which are repeated again and again in the _Theologia
Germanica_. "The false light dreameth itself to be God, and taketh to
itself what belongeth to God as God is in eternity without the
creature. Now, God in eternity is without contradiction, suffering,
and grief, and nothing can hurt or vex Him. But with God when He is
made man it is otherwise." "Therefore the false light thinketh and
declareth itself to be above all works, words, customs, laws, and
order, and above that life which Christ led in the body which He
possessed in His holy human nature. So likewise it professeth to
remain unmoved by any of the creature's works; whether they be good or
evil, against God or not, is all alike to it; and it keepeth itself
apart from all things, like God in eternity; and all that belongeth to
God and to no creature it taketh to itself, and vainly dreameth that
this belongeth to it." "It doth not set up to be Christ, but the
eternal God. And this is because Christ's life is distasteful and