nd most
attractive form in the East, and adds, "We can point to very few Greek
Fathers in whom the figure does not occur." (There is a learned note
on the subject by Louis de Leon, which corroborates this statement of
Harnack. He refers to Chrysostom, Theodoret, Irenaeus, Hilary, Cyprian,
Augustine, Tertullian, Ignatius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril, Leo,
Photius, and Theophylact as calling Christ the bridegroom of souls.)
In the West, we find it in Ambrose, less prominently in Augustine and
Jerome. Dionysius seizes on the phrase of Ignatius, "My love has been
crucified," to justify erotic imagery in devotional writing.

Bernard's homilies on the Song of Solomon gave a great impetus to this
mode of symbolism; but even he says that the Church and not the
individual is the bride of Christ. There is no doubt that the enforced
celibacy and virginity of the monks and nuns led them, consciously or
unconsciously, to transfer to the human person of Christ (and to a
much slighter extent, to the Virgin Mary) a measure of those feelings
which could find no vent in their external lives. We can trace this,
in a wholesome and innocuous form, in the visions of Juliana of
Norwich. Quotations from Ruysbroek's _Spiritual Nuptials_, and from
Suso, bearing on the same point, are given in the body of the
Lectures. Good specimens of devotional poetry of this type might be
selected from Crashaw and Quarles. (A few specimens are included in
Palgrave's _Golden Treasury of Sacred Song_.) Fenelon's language on
the subject is not quite so pleasing; it breathes more of
sentimentality than of reverence. The contemplative, he says, desires
"une simple presence de Dieu purement amoureuse," and speaks to Christ
always "comme l'epouse a l'epoux."

The Sufis or Mohammedan mystics use erotic language very freely, and
appear, like true Asiatics, to have attempted to give a sacramental or
symbolic character to the indulgence of their passions. From this
degradation the mystics of the cloister were happily free; but a
morbid element is painfully prominent in the records of many mediaeval
saints, whose experiences are classified by Ribet. He enumerates--(1)
"Divine touches," which Scaramelli defines as "real but purely
spiritual sensations, by which the soul feels the intimate presence of
God, and tastes Him with great delight"; (2) "The wound of love," of
which one of his authorities says, "haec poena tam suavis est quod
nulla sit in hac vita delectatio quae ma