Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings
INTRODUCTION
But Olphé-Gaillard, writing in the Dictionary of Spirituality, 82 accepted on the authority of J. Maréchal that Augustine was a mystic. His serene, radiant mysticism impregnates the Plotinian dialectic he inherited.
From the extensive controversy reported by Mandouze it is clear that the disagreement hinges on a prior disagreement as to what constitutes a mystical experience. In this controversy there is a tendency to speak of the mystical in the strict sense and in the large sense of the term. Yet it is futile to enlarge the field of the mystical to the point of confusing it with spirituality, and it is just as futile to reduce the field of the mystical by magnifying the conditions of infusion, passivity over against immediacy and intuition. Mandouze expressed the hope that the Augustinian case would provoke theologians to revise their theoretical definitions. A definition of the mystical should not be formulated by studying a limited number of mystics in modern times and in certain cultures, often taking St. John of the Cross as the paradigm. Any definition of the mystical should be applicable to the mystics of all times and cultures, including those of the Patristic period when subtle theological distinctions were not made in the description of religious experience.
There is a trend today to look suspiciously on the intellectual aspect of the Augustinian ascents as being too Platonic, a trend showing very little confidence that the philosophical mode of approaching God is intended by Him as being both a human and a religious approach. Olphé-Gaillard rightly asked: "Does an intellectual intuition obtained by a Plotinian mode of ascent exclude a strictly infused mode of spiritual experience, or indeed was Augustine able to realize within the framework of Neoplatonic dialectic the highest kind of supernatural contemplation?"
Boyer was convinced that every ascent to God according to the Augustinian method ends with an act of infused contemplation. What puzzled Boyer was the statements of the opponents that infused contemplation was lacking in the Augustinian experience. He exclaimed: "How can they claim to know the inner state of another?" As for his own claim, he is merely saying that Augustine has described a certain contact with God, and when that truly takes place, it does so through special divine grace.
82. Dictionnaire de spiritualité Il, col. 1911-1921.