Maximilian van der Sandt

Maximilian van der Sandt (Latin: Maximilianus Sandaeus; 1578–1656) was a Dutch Jesuit priest, mystical theologian, theorist of symbolic language, and devotional writer associated with the continuation and systematization of the Rheno-Flemish mystical tradition in the seventeenth century. Born in Amsterdam, he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome in 1597 and later taught and wrote in German-speaking lands, especially at Würzburg, Mainz, and Cologne. He is best known for his Pro theologia mystica clavis (1640), an influential lexicon and defence of mystical theology, as well as for his works on symbolic theology and sacred imagery.

Fr. Maximilian van der Sandt
Church	Catholic Church
Personal details
Born	1578 (1578) Amsterdam, Habsburg Netherlands
Died	1656 (aged 77–78) Cologne, Holy Roman Empire
Denomination	Christianity
Occupation	Priest, theologian, mystical writer

Sandaeus stands at an important transitional moment in the history of Western mysticism and symbolic thought. His writings synthesize medieval contemplative traditions associated with Jan van Ruusbroec, Johannes Tauler, Henry Herp, and Louis de Blois, while adapting them to the intellectual culture of the Counter-Reformation and the Baroque era. Modern scholars have described him as both a systematic theorist of mystical theology and an important interpreter of symbolic language, rhetoric, imagery, and religious experience.

Life

Sandaeus was born in Amsterdam in 1578. He entered the Society of Jesus in Rome in 1597 and subsequently worked in several centres of Catholic intellectual life within the Holy Roman Empire. He taught at Würzburg and Mainz before eventually dying at Cologne in 1656.

He belonged to a wider Jesuit and Carthusian milieu that cultivated renewed interest in medieval Northern European mysticism. Bernard McGinn notes that the German Jesuits did not produce as extensive a mystical literature as their French contemporaries, but figures such as Sandaeus played an important role in preserving and defending mystical theology within post-Reformation Catholicism.

Sandaeus was reportedly highly prolific, allegedly remarking near the end of his life that he had written as many books as the years he had lived. In addition to polemical and devotional writings, he produced works on symbolism, Marian devotion, mystical theology, rhetoric, and spiritual vocabulary.

Theological architecture

Modern scholarship emphasizes the systematic character of Sandaeus's theological thought. Ralph Dekoninck argues that his writings attempted to integrate three major theological domains: symbolic theology, speculative theology, and mystical theology. This tripartite structure drew heavily upon the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Bonaventure, especially Bonaventure's Augustinian metaphysics of image and resemblance.

According to Dekoninck, Sandaeus adopted Bonaventure's hierarchy of vestigium, imago, and similitudo, according to which creation functions as a vestige of God, the human soul as the divine image, and mystical union as perfect resemblance. This structure governs the soul's ascent from sensory contemplation of created things toward direct participation in divine reality.

Dekoninck also relates Sandaeus's thought to what Wilhelm Wackernagel called the “dialectical being of the image” in Meister Eckhart, in which images simultaneously reveal and conceal divine truth through resemblance and dissemblance.

Sandaeus attempted to organize the entire theological field according to ascending modes of knowledge. Symbolic theology concerned God as reflected in sensible images and figures; speculative theology concerned intellectual reflection on divine truths; mystical theology concerned direct experiential union with God through contemplative transcendence.

Mystical theology

Theologia mystica and the Clavis

Sandaeus's best-known works are Theologia mystica seu contemplatio divina religiosorum a calumniis vindicata (1627) and Pro theologia mystica clavis (1640). Both works were written in defence of mystical theology at a time when mystical language and contemplative claims increasingly attracted criticism and suspicion.

The Clavis ("Key") is an alphabetical lexicon of mystical terminology containing definitions, scholastic-style disquisitiones, and extensive citations from mystical authorities. Sandaeus drew especially on the Northern mystical tradition, particularly Ruusbroec, Tauler, Herp, and Blosius, whom he called optimus Mysticorum Magister ("the best master of the mystics").

The work also cites older authorities such as Augustine of Hippo, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, and Jean Gerson, while incorporating more recent figures including Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Constantin de Barbanson.

Modern scholarship has interpreted the Clavis as an important landmark in the emergence of mystical theology as a distinct intellectual discipline. McGinn describes such works as part of a new early modern tendency to treat theologia mystica both systematically and apologetically.

According to Dekoninck, the Clavis mystica also contributed to the emergence of mysticism as an autonomous discourse possessing its own vocabulary, rhetoric, and modus loquendi.

Interiority

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the importance of Sandaeus's understanding of interiority. In his treatment of the term introverto in the Clavis, Sandaeus defines interiority not as a turning toward the autonomous self, but as a turning toward God present within the “ground” of the soul.

Drawing especially upon Johannes Tauler and Louis de Blois, Sandaeus describes interiority as fundamentally relational. The inward turn directs the soul away from self-enclosure and toward God as the divine Other dwelling within the depths of the person.

Sandaeus distinguishes authentic interiority from a false and merely imagined inwardness centred on the self. Genuine interiority involved recollection of the soul's powers in the fundus animae or “ground” of the soul, where divine illumination progressively purifies and transforms the contemplative person.

He also discusses “essential interiority” (introversio essentialis), which he describes as the highest form of contemplation, in which the soul is stripped of lower images, multiplicity, and creaturely forms. Nevertheless, Sandaeus maintains that spiritual imagery and meditation upon Christ remained necessary at earlier stages of contemplation.

Faesen argues that Sandaeus's theory of interiority should not be interpreted as an anticipation of modern autonomous subjectivity. Rather, Sandaeus understood the “ground” of the soul as fundamentally relational and ordered toward encounter with God.

Mystical language

Sandaeus is particularly notable for his theory of mystical language. He argued that mystical writers often employed obscure metaphors, neologisms, paradoxes, and figurative expressions because ordinary language was inadequate to contemplative experience. His Clavis therefore attempted to explain difficult mystical terminology while simultaneously defending the orthodoxy of the mystics.

According to Sandaeus, the apparent strangeness of mystical language did not imply doctrinal error. Rather, mystical authors were attempting to articulate experiences that exceeded ordinary conceptual discourse. He insisted that even highly daring mystical expressions could be interpreted within the framework of Catholic orthodoxy.

The Clavis discusses a wide range of mystical concepts and expressions, including caligo (divine darkness), ecstasis, introverto, mors mystica, otium, pati divina, resignatio, superessentiale, transformo, and visio. It also catalogues figurative expressions such as ferrum ignitum ("iron made incandescent"), osculum mysticum ("mystical kiss"), and scintilla ("spark").

Sandaeus defended controversial mystical terms such as unio essentialis and unio sine distinctione, though he insisted they be understood in an orthodox and non-pantheistic sense. He likewise distinguished mystical annihilation from literal metaphysical annihilation, defining it as the moral cessation of selfish affections rather than the destruction of the soul's being.

Dekoninck argues that Sandaeus helped transform mysticism from a primarily exegetical category into a more autonomous poetic and rhetorical discourse intended to testify to contemplative experience.

Vision, contemplation, and imageless knowledge

Drawing upon Augustine and Harphius, Sandaeus developed a hierarchy of corporeal, imaginative, and intellectual vision. Corporeal vision concerns visible appearances; imaginative vision concerns internally formed representations; intellectual vision concerns divine realities apprehended through infused illumination.

Dekoninck notes that Sandaeus adapted Augustine's traditional theory of vision into a mystical framework oriented toward contemplative ascent. The contemplative soul progresses from mediated representations toward increasingly direct forms of intuitive knowledge.

Sandaeus distinguished several ascending degrees of intellectual contemplation. The first degree knows God through creatures and rational reflection; the second through deiform images and contemplative meditation; the highest through direct intuitive participation in divine light.

This contemplative ascent ultimately tends toward a form of imageless knowledge surpassing symbolic mediation. Sandaeus argued that mystical theology ideally transcends figurative symbolism altogether and would even dispense with intellectual forms and images if possible. Dekoninck compares this tendency to apophatic themes found in Meister Eckhart and the broader Dionysian tradition.

Symbolic theology and theory of figurative language

Sandaeus was one of the major Jesuit theorists of the ars symbolica during the Baroque period. His principal works in this area included Theologia varia (1624), Theologia symbolica (1626), and Theologia mystica (1627), which together formed an interconnected theological project.

Sandaeus attempted to construct a comprehensive theory of figurative language grounded in symbolism, rhetoric, and mystical theology. Drawing on Augustinian semiotics, he developed a theory of imagines figuratae ("figured images"), in which symbolic meaning arises through figurative transfer and hermeneutic interpretation.

He distinguished between theologia propria or literal theology and theologia symbolica or translata, the latter dealing with symbolic and figurative modes of theological expression. Symbolic theology itself was subdivided into parabolic, proverbial, enigmatic, emblematic, fabulous, and hieroglyphic forms.

According to Dekoninck and Guiderdoni, Sandaeus helped transform medieval allegory into a more rhetorically organized Baroque theory of symbolism and sacred imagery. His symbolic theology drew examples not only from Scripture, but also from nature, the sciences, poetry, and emblematic literature.

Sandaeus increasingly treated symbolic theology not merely as biblical exegesis, but as a rhetoric of sacred images intended for preachers, poets, and scholars. His works therefore occupy an important place in the development of Jesuit emblematic culture and early modern theories of language and representation.

At the same time, Sandaeus distinguished symbolic theology from mystical theology. Symbolic theology interprets figurative and transferred images, whereas mystical theology seeks a more immediate contemplative apprehension surpassing symbolic mediation.

Experience, cognition, and contemplation

Sandaeus described mystical theology as practica et affectuosa—practical and affective rather than merely speculative. He emphasized that contemplative knowledge proceeds through love and experience as much as through rational demonstration.

Drawing on both scholastic psychology and contemplative tradition, Sandaeus distinguished three levels of cognition: sensory knowledge, rational knowledge, and a higher intelligentia simplex illuminated directly by divine light. Love elevates the soul through these levels by suspending lower operations and drawing the mind toward God.

Smeesters notes that Sandaeus compared mystical exploration of the soul to the voyages of contemporary navigators discovering previously unknown lands. The true terrae incognitae of the mystics, however, were the hidden depths of the human interior.

Despite his emphasis on divine illumination, Sandaeus strongly rejected anti-ecclesiastical spiritual individualism. He warned against those who claimed to follow only the Holy Spirit apart from the teaching authority of the Church and argued that genuine mystics remain humble and obedient.

Relation to the Rheno-Flemish tradition

Sandaeus played an important role in transmitting and systematizing the medieval and early modern mystical traditions of the Low Countries. His principal authorities included Ruusbroec, Tauler, Herp, and Blosius.

McGinn notes that Sandaeus frequently adapted older Middle Dutch mystical terminology into Latin scholastic form. His use of inactio, for example, derives from the Flemish inwerken found in Ruusbroec and Herp. He nevertheless insisted that even in the deepest contemplative states the human soul retained some active cooperation with divine grace.

His writings also helped preserve the influence of the anonymous The Evangelical Pearl, a sixteenth-century Dutch mystical text that circulated widely in Germany and the Low Countries.

Influence and legacy

Sandaeus exercised considerable influence on later Catholic mysticism in Germany and the Low Countries. Angelus Silesius owned and extensively annotated a copy of the Clavis. McGinn describes Sandaeus as one of the principal mediators through whom the Northern mystical tradition entered the spirituality of the German Baroque.

According to Guido de Baere, Silesius copied twenty-six passages from The Evangelical Pearl into his personal copy of Sandaeus's Clavis. Sandaeus therefore functioned as an important intermediary linking medieval Low Countries mysticism with later German mystical and poetic traditions.

Modern scholars also regard him as an important transitional figure between medieval theological symbolism and early modern theories of language, rhetoric, and representation. His works stand at the intersection of scholastic theology, contemplative spirituality, Baroque symbolism, emblem studies, rhetoric, and early modern semiotics.

Works

• Theologia varia (1624)
• Theologia symbolica (1626)
• Theologia mystica seu contemplatio divina religiosorum a calumniis vindicata (1627)
• Pro theologia mystica clavis (1640)
• Various Marian, devotional, polemical, and emblematic works

Further reading

• Andriessen, J. "Sandaeus (van der Sandt, Maximilien)." In Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. 14. Paris: Beauchesne, 1990.
• Dekoninck, Ralph. Ad imaginem: statuts, fonctions et usages de l'image dans la littérature spirituelle jésuite du XVIIe siècle. Geneva: Droz, 2005.
• Dekoninck, Ralph. "Maximilianus Sandaeus (1578–1656), théoricien de l'image mystique et symbolique." In Emblematic Images and Religious Texts. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010.
• Guiderdoni, Agnès. "Mystical Theory and Emblematic Practice in Sandaeus's Works." GEMCA: Papers in Progress 2, no. 1 (2013): 57–63.
• McGinn, Bernard. The Persistence of Mysticism in Catholic Europe: France, Italy, and Germany 1500–1675. New York: Crossroad, 2020.
• Smeesters, Aline. "Maximilianus Sandaeus, S.J. (1578–1656), Explorer of the Mystical Language." GEMCA: Papers in Progress 2, no. 1 (2013): 64–66.