In Praise of Holy Women

death like his, we shall grow into him by a resurrection like his, knowing
as we do that our old self has been crucified with him in order to crush
the sinful body’. 10 And Underhill notes the accompaniment of ecstatic and
visionary experiences during his long apprenticeship, a period of 10 or 12
years following on his first visit to Jerusalem, in which he is inconspicuous,
something, as Underhill says, ‘often overlooked by those who are dazzled
by the dash and splendour of his missionary career.’ The most well-known
reference by Paul to this is 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 where he speaks of the
‘abundance of revelations’ culminating in an ineffable, ecstatic experience,
‘whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know’.
Underhill’s conclusion from this reading of St Paul is clear. ‘We must correct
the view which sees him mainly as a theologian and organizer by that
which recognizes in him a great contemplative’. Underhill pursues this view
repeatedly:
…many of his sayings, which supposed by academic critics to be statements
of doctrine, are often desperate attempts to describe or suggest his own
experience…Much of the difficulty of St Paul’s ‘doctrine’ comes from the fact
that he is not trying to invent a theology, but simply to find words which
shall represent to others this vivid truth –‘I live, yet not I…to live is Christ…
Christ in me.’ Behind his efforts to prove to recalcitrant hearers the logical
nature of the Christian case, we feel the pressure of that ‘overflowing grace
and free gift’ (Romans 5:17) which transcends argument, and must be
suggested rather than declared. 11
Underhill also discusses the meaning of this ‘grace’ for Paul. For him, it is not
a ‘theological abstraction’ but rather,
…an active inflowing energy, which makes possible man’s transition
from the natural to the spiritual state…Anyone who still supposes him to
be predominantly a legalist should consider how profoundly spiritual a
conception of Christianity underlies the opening paragraph of Romans, and
what a struggle to describe the actual but subtle facts of the inner life is to
be felt in its greatest passages, which often seek to suggest an experience
which is beyond the range of common speech. 12
For Underhill, then, Paul is the first of the great mystics of the Church, and
the originator of the great mystical tradition of Christianity. For her, the
importance of Paul’s epistles reside, ‘not only in their mystical greatness,
his unique power of describing the communion of the Christian soul with
Christ’, but also and indeed largely, in the fact that the persons St Paul was
10
Romans 6:5,6
11
Mystics of the Church 36
12
idem 48
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