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The aim of this article is to understand both the breaks and continuities between two mysticisms from different traditions : that of Plotinus, which comes from Greek philosophy, and that of Gregory of Nyssa, which arises from Christian theology. Plotinian mysticism seeks to return to a lost unity, and thus falls within the notion of a past to be recaptured : the initial simplicity of the One, the principle of all things out of which the soul originally emerged. Plotinus thus understands the experience of the divine as an odyssey, whose soul is Ulysses. Gregory’s Christian mysticism is, on the contrary, dominated by a tension with the future : the encounter with God is the subject of a promise, and the progression of the soul is compared to the exodus of Moses towards the promised land. Mysticism is the ultimate repose in the stability of the One in Plotinus, and an infinite progression led by the dynamic of divine love in Gregory.