“There where I was before I was”: Its conceptualization in Hadewijch of Antwerp and Marguerite Porete

Abstract

This work analyses how Hadewijch of Antwerp and Marguerite Porete, 13th-century mystics, conceptualise the transformation of the soul. It deals with the process by which the soul becomes what it really is, attains its true and proper ontological constitution: it returns to its origin. For both female authors, this transmutation involves following God’s will, which is why one’s own will must die. This idea of found the true nature of the soul ‘where it was before birth’ responds to the Neoplatonic movement of exitus and reditus and will be adopted by later mystical tradition, as seen in Eckhart.