Kärlek och lidande hos Mechthild av Magdeburg

Love and Suffering in Mechthild of Magdeburg’s workThis study asks how love and suffering are expressed in Mechthild of Magdeburg’s The Light ofthe Flowing Godhead, with an emphasis on how the two are connected. What do the two termsmean and how do they influence each other and Mechthild’s understanding of them? Empirically,this study is based on Mechthild’s book, which was composed between about 1250 and 1283 inseven parts and distributed even while Mechthild was still working on later parts. The study alsodraws upon modern research to explain the wider religious contexts in which Mechthild wasworking, such as the clerical understanding of suffering as a means of contrition, and the use ofromantic and erotic metaphors to express a relation to God. In accordance with this, both love andsuffering are found to have shifting meanings depending on their respective contexts. Both havethe ability to bring humans closer to God, but, if used for the wrong purpose, can separate thehuman entirely from God. However, a shift in focus can be found over time. While the concept oflove becomes less allegorical and more abstract, the concept of suffering becomes more prevalentand central for Mechthild’s understanding of life and spirituality. At the same time, Mechthild’spositive relation to her faith and its power remains mostly unchanged.This study shows how Mechthild understands and interprets the themes of love and sufferingas a lay sister, woman and human being. Using Barbara Rosenwein’s term “emotionalcommunity”, Mechthild is found to be part of such a community, tying together academic religiousunderstandings of suffering and female mystics’ understandings of love. By examining one thinkerand drawing possible connections to a bigger, as of yet mostly unexplored, community, itcontributes to the overall picture of medieval mysticism