A greater than Tauler, and one whose influence was eventually far more widespread, undoubtedly owed much to the recluse of Groenendael and freely acknowledged Blessed John his master. This was the famous Gerard Groote, the founder, as already noted, of theDevout Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life, and through them of the Windesheim Congregation of Canons Regular. The occasion and circumstances of Groote’s first visit to Groenendael are narrated by the Venerable Thomas à Kempis in hisVita Gerardi Magni. The passage is so graphic and characteristic that it is well worth transcribing.[4]
“The pious and humble Master Gerard, hearing of the great and widespread fame of John Ruysbroeck, a monk and Prior of the Monastery of Grünthal, near Brussels, went to the parts about Brabant, although the journey was long, in order to see in bodily presence this holy and most devout Father; for he longed to see face to face, and with his own eyes, one whom he had known hitherto only by common report and by his books; and to hear with his own ears that voice utter its words from a living human mouth—a voice as gracious as if it were the very mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost. He took with him therefore that revered man, Master John Cele, the director of the School of Zwolle, a devout and faithful lover of Jesus Christ; for their mind and heart were one in the Lord, and the fellowship of each was pleasant to the other, and this resolve was kindled within them that their journey, whichwas undertaken for the sake of spiritual edification, should redound in the case of each to the Glory of God.
“There went also with them a faithful and devout layman, named Gerard the shoemaker, as their guide upon the narrow way, and their inseparable companion in this happy undertaking.
“When they came to the place called Grünthal, they saw no lofty or elaborate buildings therein, but rather all the signs of simplicity of life and poverty, such as marked the first footsteps of our Heavenly King, when He, the Lord of Heaven, came upon this earth as a Virgin’s Son, and in exceeding poverty. As they entered the gate of the monastery, that holy Father, the devout Prior, met them, being a man of great age, of kindly serenity, and one to be revered for his honourable character. He it was whom they had come to see, and saluting them with the greatestbenignity as they advanced, and being taught by a revelation from God, he called upon Gerard by his very name and knew him, though he had never seen him before. After this salutation he took them with him into the inner parts of the cloister, as his most honoured guests, and with a cheerful countenance and a heart yet more joyful showed them all due courtesy and kindness, as if he were entertaining Jesus Christ Himself.
“Gerard abode there for a few days conferring with this man of God about the Holy Scriptures; and from him he heard many heavenly secrets which, as he confessed, were past his understanding, so that in amazement he said with the Queen of Sheba, ‘O excellent Father, thy wisdom and thy knowledge exceedeth the fame which I heard in mine own land; for by thy virtues thou hast surpassed thy fame.’ After this he returned with his companions to his own city,greatly edified; and being as it were a purified creature, he pondered over what he had heard in his mind and often dwelt thereon in his heart; also he committed some of Ruysbroeck’s sayings to writing, that they might not be forgotten.
“This sojourn on his visit to the Prior was not a time of idleness, nor was the discourse of so holy a father barren; but the instruction of his living voice gave nurture to a fuller love and an increase of fresh zeal, as he testifies in a letter which he sent to these same brethren in the Grünthal, saying: ‘I earnestly desire to be commended to your director and Prior, the footstool of whose feet I would fain be both in this life and in the life to come; for my heart is welded to him beyond all other men by love and reverence. I do still burn and sigh for your presence, to be renewed and inspired by your spirit and to be a partaker thereof.’”
Other details of this interesting visit are supplied by the biographers of Ruysbroeck. Speaking in the fullness of the intimacy that had sprung up between them, Gerard Groote ventured to express surprise that, in dealing with the sublime matters which usually formed the subject of his discourse, the holy Prior should employ words and phrases which laid him open to the charge of those very errors, especially pantheism, against which his writings were commonly directed. It was then that Ruysbroeck declared that he had never set down aught in his books save by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and in the presence of the Ever Blessed Trinity. This solemn assurance the holy man repeated to his brother Canons on his deathbed.
On another point also, like the trained and exact theologian he was, Gerard Groote wished to correct his friend. He insisted that the boundless confidence which Ruysbroeck expressedin the mercy of God seemed to savour somewhat of presumption, and he proceeded to quote the most terrifying passages from Scripture anent the penalties of the wicked. Blessed John quietly replied: “Master Gerard, I assure you that you have quite failed to inspire me with fear. I am ready to bear with unruffled soul whatever the Lord shall destine for me in life or in death. I can conceive of nothing better, nothing safer, nothing more sweet. All my desires are restricted to this, that our Lord may ever find me prepared to accomplish His holy will.”
This first visit was the beginning of most cordial relations between Ruysbroeck and Gerard Groote. The latter returned several times to Groenendael and resided there for months together. He also corresponded frequently with the holy Prior and the Canons and translated some of our Saint’s works into Latin. He read over his MSS. beforepublication, and begged him at times to change or modify expressions which might give a handle to the hostile or scandal to the weak. The writings of Ruysbroeck were likewise among those which were the most frequently transcribed and multiplied by the copyists of theDevout Brothers of the Common Life. A few years later one of the most diligent and skilled of these scribes was the future author of theImitation of Christ.
In fact, widespread as was the influence of Blessed John Ruysbroeck on his contemporaries and incalculable as was the fruit of his writings in the many cloisters, through which they were rapidly diffused, the means by which Divine Providence chose chiefly to preserve and propagate his power was precisely this friendship with Gerard Groote. Gerard continually strove to imbue his own disciples with the spirit which he had imbibed from the Prior of Groenendael. For himself and for his followers he took as a rule of life the motto of Ruysbroeck,to make it a chief study to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ. “Let the fountain-head of thystudy and thy mirror of life be first the Gospel of Christ, for there is the life of Christ.” The Scriptures should be read rather than the Fathers, and the New Testament more than the Old,for there is the life of Christ. And herein again what is profitable for a devout and spiritual life is to be sought rather than the subtleties of theology and the schools.
When a friend of Gerard’s, Reinalt Minnenvosch, projected the founding of a monastery, Groote advised him to establish a Priory of Canons Regular on the model of Groenendael. The Canonry of St. Saviour’s at Emstein was the result. At Groote’s request, a professed priest came from Groenendael to initiate the new Religious into the Canonical Life; and later it was at Emstein that the first members of Gerard’s own Congregation of Windesheim made their noviciate preparatory to Profession.
This was after Gerard Groote’s death, but it was in accord with his express desire. Wishful to establish a Religious Institute in connection with hisDevout Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life, who, whether lay or cleric, were dwelling together without the binding force of the vows, Gerard fixed upon the Order of Canons Regular for this purpose, principally, so Thomas à Kempis assures us, because of his profound veneration for the Prior and Brethren of Groenendael. “He was moved to institute this Order of Regulars chiefly by his singular reverence and love for the venerable Dom John Ruysbroeck, the first Prior of Groenendael, and of the other most exemplary Brethren living there religiously in the Regular Order.”
For further information concerning theDevout Brothersand the Windesheim Canons the reader is referred to the various workswhich have been published of late years on the Venerable à Kempis.[5]Both Brothers and Canons were living examples of the mystic teachings of Ruysbroeck put to the test of daily practice. Flight from the pleasures and vanities of the world, unbounded humility, constant meditation on the life and especially the Passion of Jesus Christ, the most complete and absolute abandonment to the Divine Will, an intense devotion full of the personal love of God—these were the salient points of Blessed John’s example and doctrine, perpetuated and propagated by the works, words, and writings of the Windesheim Canons Regular and theirsecular associates, theBrothers of the Common Life. It is scarcely needful to remark also that these are the chief features of the teaching of theImitation of Christ, that golden little treatise, which, embodying the whole spirit of the School of Windesheim and Groenendael, has carried and still carries light, healing, and consolation to thousands upon thousands who have never so much as heard of either Windesheim or John Ruysbroeck.[6]
It may be mentioned here that in 1409 the Priory of Groenendael was instituted the Mother-house of a congregation of that name. But a few years later this congregation, with its dependent Priories, was affiliated to the more numerous Windesheim Canons. Thus the twin institutes were merged into one, and the Windesheim Congregation becamethe direct heir of the virtues and teaching of Blessed John Ruysbroeck. But finally Windesheim was aggregated to the Lateran Congregation of Canons Regular; and thus it is that to-day the Canons Regular of the Lateran are privileged, with the clergy of Mechlin, to keep with proper Office and Mass the Feast of Blessed John Ruysbroeck.
Connected thus intimately with Gerard Groote and Tauler, it is not surprising that Ruysbroeck shares with these, as with à Kempis, Suso, and others, the doubtful honour of being proclaimed in certain quarters as a precursor of the sixteenth-century “Reformation.” In support of this position it is easy enough to gather together expressions of the most poignant sorrow and of the most bitter invective for the lax morality of clergy and laity, mendicant friars, and highly placed prelates.But the same argument would convict several Popes of being heralds of Luther! Not to labour the point at unnecessary length in a non-controversial work of this kind, let it suffice to mention the touchstone which never fails to distinguish the genuine reformer from the mere sectarian: while boldly attacking the vices of those in office, Blessed John Ruysbroeck never assails the office itself. He always speaks in the most submissive and reverent terms of the authority of the Church and of the dignity of the priesthood. His writings without exception treat in the orthodox sense on the subject of grace, the sacraments, etc. We have already remarked his ardent devotion towards the Blessed Eucharist. To this may be added a most tender love for the Virgin Mother of God. Note, finally, his frequent and fervent exhortations to the perfect observanceof the three vows of religion, and one can imagine how comfortable he would feel in the company, say, of Luther and his renegade nun!
Blessed John’s writings cannot be called voluminous, and yet for a purely contemplative author they are comparatively considerable. The list of his works authenticated up to the present—for earnest students are at work, and other MSS. may yet be discovered—comprises the following, giving an English equivalent for the Old Flemish or Latin titles: (1) The Kingdom of the Lovers of God; (2) The Splendour of the Spiritual Espousals; (3) The Brilliant; (4) Of Four Subtle Temptations; (5) Of the Christian Faith; (6) Of the Spiritual Tabernacle; (7) Of the Seven Cloisters; (8) The Mirror of Eternal Life, or, a Treatise on theBlessed Sacrament; (9) The Seven Degrees of Spiritual Love; (10) Of the Supreme Truth; (11) The Twelve Béguines. And these others are less certainly proved to be his: (12) Of the Twelve Virtues; (13) Seven Letters; (14) A Summary of the Spiritual Life; (15) Two Canticles; (16) A Short Prayer.
Pending a complete and faithful English rendering of all these works, the following descriptive analysis of the principal of them may not prove unacceptable.
This treatise is a detailed interpretation and a mystic application of the text adapted from Wisdom x. 10:Justum deduxit Dominus per vias rectus et ostendit illi regnum Deiin the Breviary Office of a Confessor. Upon these words Ruysbroeck bases a division of his work into five books. The first booktreats of God,Dominus, His power and sovereignty. In the second Blessed John explains how Christ conducted,deduxit, man into the liberty of the children of God, chiefly by redemption and by the institution of the seven Sacraments. In the third he treats of the just man,justum, and works out eight items which render a man just, both in the active and in the contemplative life. The fourth book expounds the right ways,vias rectas, which lead to the Kingdom of God:the exterior way, namely, the material universe of three heavens and four elements, the contemplation of which should excite man to the praise of the Creator;the way of natural light, the acquisition of the seven virtues; finally,the supernatural and divine way, the infusion of the supernatural virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. In the last book we have a disquisition on the kingdom of God,ostendit illi regnum Dei, of which weare told there are five aspects or divisions: the sensible kingdom, exterior to God, in which the author finds scope for a description of the last judgment and the qualities of risen bodies, the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of the Scriptures, the kingdom of grace and of glory, and finally the Divine Kingdom itself, which is God. This treatise is full of reflections and considerations of the most elevated order, and there is much therein that is by no means easy to grasp or understand.
For his text Ruysbroeck takes Matt. xxv. 6,Ecce, sponsus venit, exite obviam ei. He makes a division into three books, treating respectively of the active, the interior, and the contemplative life. Each book is further subdivided into four parts, corresponding tothe four divisions of the text in each stage of perfection as follows. Ruysbroeck expounds and illustrates (1) the rôle of the vision,ecce; man must turn his eyes to God; (2) the divers comings of the Bridegroom,sponsus venit, the manner, namely, in which God approaches the soul; (3) the going forth of the soul on the path of the virtues,exite; (4) and finally, the embrace of the soul and the heavenly spouse. In no one work does Blessed Ruysbroeck give a complete account of his mystic teaching; but if his system were to be examined and explained by any one book, it would certainly be this of theSpiritual Espousals. It has always been considered as his chief work, and in this light also Ruysbroeck himself seems to have regarded it. He sent a copy of it himself to his friends in Germany, and expressed the desire that it might be multiplied and made known even to the footof the mountains. In the four last chapters of the second book the author confutes some current errors of the day, apparently the teachings of Bloemardinne and almost certainly of Eckart.
Gerard Naghel tells us the story of the origin of this treatise. One day Ruysbroeck had been conversing with a certain hermit on matters spiritual, when on parting the latter begged the holy Prior to commit the matter of his discourse to writing for the edification of himself and others. To satisfy his desire, says Naghel, Ruysbroeck composed this work, which contains instruction sufficient to lead a man to perfection. The treatise seems a supplement, and in some sense a corrective of theSpiritual Espousals. After a brief description of the means bywhich the just man acquires the interior life and rises thence to the contemplative, the holy man shows how the precious stone, or white counter,calculus candidus, of Rev. ii. 17, is no other than Christ Himself, Who gives Himself without reserve to contemplative souls. God calls all men to intimate union with Himself. But not all men respond to His appeal. Sinners utterly despise the invitation; while the just respond, though these again in varying degrees. Some keep the commandments chiefly from fear of the penalties attached to transgression; they are asmercenaries. Others sincerely endeavour to conquer nature and unruly desires, they have true faith in God, and God is the only motive of their actions; these are thefaithful servants. However, these still suffer many impediments from the exterior life which they lead, and a more intimate union is attained by theintimate friends, whoobserve the counsels as well as the precepts. Finally, the highest degree of union and contemplation is attained by thehidden sons, who are utterly divested of all self-love and self-seeking, and whose life is hidden with Christ in God.
In this tract Ruysbroeck inveighs against the chief errors and abuses of his own times. The first, says Ruysbroeck, is love of ease and comfort, indolence, the source of sensuality, and luxury, an abuse very prevalent in monasteries and among the clergy. The second is hypocrisy, which, under the cloak of a seeming austerity, claiming even visions and ecstasies, conceals a corrupt interior and depraved morals. The third is the desire to understand everything, to attain to the contemplation of the divine nature by the sheerforce of the intellect, without the assistance of God’s grace. The fourth and the most formidable is the so-calledliberty of spirit, the error and heresy of those who, casting aside all interior effort, pretend to acquire contemplation by ludicrous mortifications, by extravagant bodily posturing, and by a senseless quietism. The third error is that of Eckart, and the fourth was proper to the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit. Ruysbroeck concludes his tract with a discussion of the ways and means of avoiding these snares, viz. by holiness of life, the practice of all the virtues, obedience to superiors and the authority of the Church, and imitation of Jesus Christ.
A dogmatic commentary on the Athanasian Creed. Starting with the principle thatthe true Christian Faith is indispensable for the union of the soul with God, Ruysbroeck proceeds to explain the chief tenets of our belief, and to show their bearing on the interior life. His explanations are brief, his speculations sublime. The more forcibly to exhort to the practice of virtue, he dwells at considerable length on the last judgment, on the rewards of the just, and on the penalties decreed to each particular class of sinner. His picture here of the happiness of heaven and the sufferings of hell is most apt and striking.
The most lengthy this of all Ruysbroeck’s works. It consists of a mystic interpretation, a long-drawn-out allegory, in which the Tabernacle of the Old Testament is considered as a type of the course of love.The outer and the inner courts, the altar of sacrifice, the hangings, the pillars and their sockets, the rings, the names of the workmen, the seven-branch candlestick, the brazen laver, the priestly ornaments, the ephod and the twelve stones, the holy oils and the incense, the table of the loaves of proposition, the different sacrifices with the distinction between the clean and the unclean animals, the holy of holies, the ark and its appurtenances,—all are applied with a wealth of detail, which, however, never lacks dignity, and with a wondrous skill to Ruysbroeck’s usual three divisions of the exterior moral life, the interior, and the purely contemplative. The Tabernacle was a subject which naturally lent itself to allegory and to mystic interpretation, and Hugh of St. Victor had already preceded our author, as doubtless also he inspired him with hisDe Arca mystica.Though sometimes the thread is lost in the multiplicity of details, this treatise is most attractive and contains some of the best pages of Blessed Ruysbroeck.
This was composed for a penitent of our Saint, Margaret von Meerbeke, a Poor Clare of Brussels, and it gives a rule of life for Religious. The holy Prior traces out an order of the day, insisting especially on the need of cultivating the interior life; he mentions the virtues which his penitent should exercise, and inveighs against the abuses which have crept into convents, pointing out the danger of communication with the outer world. In all things Margaret should imitate the example of her foundress, St. Clare, who gained her glorious place in Heaven by shutting herself upwithin the seven cloisters. After dwelling on these, viz., by expounding seven means of retreating from the world and living close to God, the author turns again to practical details and condemns the softness and luxury of certain Religious in their dress. Each day, he says, should close with a peep into three books: the book of our own conscience, which shows the imperfections which must be purified; the book of the Life and Passion of our Lord, which we should imitate; and finally the book of eternal life, to which we ought to tend with all our strength.
This also was addressed to a nun, probably the same Poor Clare. It explains again the three degrees of the mystic life, but with special reference now to the cloister and theBlessed Eucharist. Some are in the purgative way: if they persevere in virtue and progress in perfection, they shall partake of the table, Ps. xxiii. 5, which is no other than the banquet of the Holy Eucharist. Ruysbroeck dwells on the virtues necessary for the worthy reception of the Sacrament, and narrates the manner of its institution by our Divine Lord at the Last Supper, showing what were the matter and form used by Christ. He discourses on the evidence of God’s love to be found in this mystery of the altar; and then refutes objections as to the manner of the Divine Presence, expressly teaching Transubstantiation. Those who approach the altar rails are divided by him into seven classes, and here the author shows a wondrous and intimate knowledge of the working of the human heart. The treatise closes with a description of the contemplative life.
In a simile familiar to spiritual writers of all ages, Ruysbroeck compares life to a ladder, or stairway of seven steps, leading up to perfection and union with God. These stages are respectively: (1) Conformity with the holy will of God; (2) Voluntary poverty; (3) Purity of soul and chastity of body; (4) Humility, with her four daughters, obedience, gentleness, patience, and the forsaking of self-will; (5) The desire of the divine glory, involving three spiritual exercises, namely, acts of love and adoration, acts of supplication, and acts of thanksgiving; (6) The contemplative and perfect life, by which man finally attains the last stage of, (7) sublime ignorance. (Compare Walter Hilton’s “darksome lightness” in hisScale of Perfection.)
This treatise was issued by way of explanation of some difficult passages in his first work, concerning especially the gift of counsel, and indeed as a kind of defence and apology of his whole mystic teaching. He protests that he has never admitted that the creature can be raised to a state of identity with God, and once more he explains his conception of the union of the soul with her Divine Spouse. There is a union common to all the just, brought about by the grace of God, with the forsaking of vice, the practice of virtue, and submission to the authority of the Church. Then there is a more intimate union, like unto that of fire and iron, which, when united, seem but one matter, though in fact they remain two distinct substances. Those who attain this love God and live in His presence, but as yet arrive not at a complete knowledgeof His essence. After this again there is even a yet closer union, whereby the Eternal Father and man become one, not indeed with oneness of substantial unity, but in a oneness of love and bliss. It is evident that language here fails the holy author to express the sublimity of his concept and his experience; in his endeavour to show the intimacy of this last method of union he is driven to use expressions which, taken as they stand, have that pantheistic ring which it is his first object here to disclaim.
After theTabernacle, this is the most lengthy of our Saint’s works, and it is of great importance as throwing considerable light on Ruysbroeck’s ideas and system. We are introduced to twelve Béguines discoursing together on the love of Jesus Christ, whencean easy transit to the real subject-matter of the tract, the contemplative life. To attain the state of contemplation, four conditions are required: a ray of divine light, producing illumination, whence, on the part of the soul, a looking at God, or speculation, passing into contemplation, and this stage again merging into a state of sublime, ecstatic love. There are four distinct acts or states of love, corresponding respectively to each of these stages. Ruysbroeck also shows here the action of the Holy Ghost in forming the soul to a more intimate knowledge of God.
The second part of the book then opens with a fresh order of ideas. Ruysbroeck divides mankind into good Christians and wicked men. Holiness consists of the union of the active and the contemplative life. There are, however, some who practise neither one nor the other and yet give themselves outas the most holy of all. Among these Ruysbroeck proceeds to distinguish four kinds of errors or heresies: (1) Errors against the Holy Ghost and His Grace; (2) Errors against God the Father and His power; (3) Errors against God the Son and His Sacred Humanity; and finally errors against God and all that makes up Christendom, namely, the Scriptures, the Church, and the Sacraments. On the other hand, the good Christian is one who loves God with all his heart and mind and soul and strength.
Blessed John then goes on to discourse of the Divine Nature in Unity and Trinity. He also discusses man in his material and in his spiritual nature. The spiritual part of man alone he says, can elevate him to the mystic life (of which once more the three ways are expounded), and alone also can show him the reasons wherefore God created the universe. The three ways of the mystic lifeare symbolised by the three heavens. The stars and the planets exercise an influence on terrestrial creatures, that is to say, upon our bodies, for God alone can touch the soul, leading it to good and restraining it from evil. Thence also Ruysbroeck describes the various temperaments of men by reference to the planets and their conjunction with the signs of the zodiac.
A chapter on our Divine Lord, held up as the Model Religious, serves as a transition to the third part, which is a treatise, largely symbolical, on the Passion of Christ, divided and subdivided according to the sequence of the Canonical Hours.
This is perhaps the most discursive of Ruysbroeck’s works, and in that sense the most difficult to follow, because of the number and length of the digressions. For instance, when he comes to speak of the planet Venus, he mentions the sign of the Balance, and thissuggests a whole treatise of thirty-nine chapters on theBalance of Divine Love. The love of God for us, and all the blessings, spiritual and temporal, which flow from it, are cast into one pan of the balance, and we must weigh down the other pan with our virtues; and there follows a long disquisition on the virtues we should practise, prominent among which, as usual, he ranks humility. Here, further, he finds occasion to work out his distinction between the spirit and the reasonable soul; and the whole digression closes with a sad and striking comparison between the fervour of primitive Christianity and the laxity of his own days.
Bossuet very severely criticised this work, holding it up as an example of forced allegories, and so forth, and speaking of Ruysbroeck as involved in the vain speculations of astrologers. This opinion, though not surprising, is not just, for the author is carefulto insist that the planets have not influence on the will of man as such. But it is natural that Bossuet should regard such works with suspicion and dislike, for he had considerable trouble with false mystics, the quietists of his own day; and even Ruysbroeck’s own friends and contemporaries found much in the volume that was strange, even to startling, and Gerard Groote advised him not to publish it in its entirety.
The reader will not be surprised to learn that Blessed John contrives here to speak of considerably more virtues than just twelve. The principal and first is said to be humility, and this again twofold—one humility inspired by the contemplation of the power of God, the other by the consideration of His goodness. The daughter of humility is obedience, andobedience naturally involves denial of self-will, poverty of spirit, and patience in adversities. He then proceeds to treat very beautifully and at length of interior detachment, remarking that to secure this it is not necessary to flee external occupations, but that the attainment of perfection consists in a perfect abandonment to the will of God and the forsaking of our own will. When we have arrived thus far, we shall no longer sin. For past sins there must be continued sorrow, but external penances are not equally for all. And those who cannot endure great bodily austerities must apply themselves to imitate the austere life of Christ by interior self-denial.
These are spiritual letters, of course, conferences in epistolary form.
The first is addressed to Margaret vanMeerbeke, the Poor Clare of Brussels mentioned above. Ruysbroeck writes: “When I was at your convent last summer, you appeared sad; methought God or some special friend had forsaken you; therefore am I writing you as follows.” And he proceeds to console his spiritual daughter, and to warn her against the dangers which may be found even in the cloister. He declaims against the abuses which sometimes creep into monasteries, and almost always throughself-will, whereas every Religious should strive to have all thingsin common, to be submissive to superiors and affable to all. The holy author closes with a description of the terrible punishments to be meted out to those Religious who fail to keep their rule and lead a holy life.
The second, addressed to Matilda, the widow of John of Culemberg, is of more importance. After treating of the Apostles’Creed, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, the Decalogue, the vows of religion and the precepts of the Church, the Incarnation and death of Christ, Ruysbroeck expounds the Catholic doctrine on the seven Sacraments, and especially the Blessed Eucharist. He describes the fruits which flow from a worthy Communion, and treats again of the three ways of the contemplative life, and describes the elements of superessential contemplation.
The third was sent to three Recluses of Cologne. Blessed John exhorts them to persevere in their holy manner of life. He treats of the spiritual life, comparing Christ to the precious pearl, the hidden treasure. And finally he earnestly exhorts them to constant meditation on the Passion of Our Lord.
The fourth was addressed to Catherine of Louvain, a devout young lady living in theworld; and the other three were likewise sent to persons in the world. All are full of wise spiritual maxims, and all insist on the need of humility and the abnegation of self-will.
In no one work, as already remarked, does Blessed John Ruysbroeck give a complete outline of his doctrines; the elements rather are to be found dispersed among the various treatises.
In common with most of the German mystics, Ruysbroeck starts from God and comes down to man, and thence rises again to God, showing how the two are so closely united as to become one. In His essence God is simple unity, the one supremely pureand supernatural being, devoid of all mode, in Himself still and immovable, and yet at the same time the first cause and active principle of all things. This principle is the divinenature, which does not in reality differ from the essence, and which is fruitful in the Trinity. The Father is the essential principle, and yet He is consubstantial with the other two Persons. The Son, the uncreated Image of the Father, is the Eternal Wisdom. The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the other two, and returning unto them, is the eternal Love, which unites Father and Son. As regards Persons, God is eternally active: as regards essence, He abides in unbroken repose. Creatures have been existing as ideas in God from all eternity.
In man, whose body is merely a perishable instrument, there is a spiritual, immortal principle, like unto God, though less than He. In this principle Ruysbroeck distinguishes,with a distinction of the reason, soul and spirit; the former is the principle of the merely human life, uniting together the lower powers; the other is the principle of man’s supernatural life in God, gathering together his higher faculties. The soul has four inferior powers: theirascible, and theconcupiscible, which two become bestial when not under the ruling of a virtuous will;reason, by which man is distinguished from the brute, andfreedom of choice, an exercise of the higher faculty of the will. The spirit has the three superior faculties, memory, understanding, and will. In every man likewise there is a triple unity, or oneness: the unity of the lower faculties in the soul, the unity of the higher in the spirit, and the unity of the whole being in God, on Whom all things essentially depend for their being.
Blessed John delivers the accepted teaching of the Church on the Fall, the Incarnation andRedemption, on the need and on the means of divine grace, the institution of the Sacraments, the establishment of the Church, the gifts of the Holy Ghost, etc.
But coming now to his more purely mystical doctrine, we find that Ruysbroeck distinguishes three degrees, or states—the active life, the interior life, and the contemplative life. The active life consists of the effort to conquer sin and to draw nigh to God by exterior works. Here in Christ is the Divine Exemplar, for in His life He practised the three fundamental virtues of humility, charity, and patience. Humility is the foundation of the whole building, and it is exercised chiefly in obedience, which engenders the abdication of our own will, and patience, or submission in all things to the holy will of God. When a man has arrived so far, he can exercise charity, shown at this stage chiefly by compassion for Christ suffering on the Cross for all men, andbringing with her the four cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, whereby also the Christian is enabled to fight and conquer his three deadly enemies, the devil, the world, and the flesh. Perseverance in this active life is crowned by union with God, a union wherein God alone is regarded as the exemplar and the final end, wherein He alone is sought and loved. Thus does a man become aFaithful Servant.
As yet, however, there is only an imperfect knowledge of God, and to become more closely united with God, as anIntimate Friend, one must strive to attain the second stage of the mystic way, namely theinterior life. For this three preliminary conditions are requisite. On the part of God, there must be a yet stronger movement of divine grace, and on the part of man, an absolute recollection, with freedom from sensible images, attachments, and cares, and then the gatheringtogether of all the powers in the unity of the Spirit. Christ, then, the Eternal Sun, enkindles in the soul thus duly prepared a divine fire, which engenders a warm, sensible love, a devotion full of ardent desires, with thankfulness for the divine mercies and affliction at one’s own unworthiness. Then, as the action of the sun draws up the moisture in the form of vapour, to fall back again in refreshing and fertilising showers of rain, so if the soul persevere Christ sends down a fresh shower of consolations, which fill the whole being with a chaste pleasure and an indescribable sweetness superior to all the delights of the earth, rising even to a species of spiritual intoxication, which may manifest itself in outward acts. As yet there are no severe trials for the soul, but she must beware of pride and presumption, and of leaning too much on these sensible delights instead of on the Divine Giver. Meanwhile the Sun ofJustice is reaching its apogee in the heavens, and Christ draws up all the powers of the soul, so that the heart is enlarged and fit to burst with love, and at the same time it begins to suffer from the wound of love, because of the urgency of the power drawing upward and its own impotency to follow; whence also a spiritual languishing, a very madness and impatience, or fever of love, capable even of wasting the bodily strength. Love is liable to be so intense at this stage, that visions and ecstacies are granted; but at the same time care must be taken against the delusions of the evil one.
But thence the Sun enters on the sign of the Virgin and its downward path, that is, Christ hides Himself and deprives the soul of the warmth of sensible love and the like. It is the autumn, the time of gathering the really ripe and lasting fruits; but to the soul a time of seeming abandonment, aridity,darkness, etc. She must then beg the prayers of others, be glad to leave herself in God’s hands, willing to suffer and to sacrifice all sweetness. Likewise, she must be careful not to compromise God’s favour by seeking earthly pleasures and delights, the consolations of human friendship, and so forth.
Then there is a second coming of the Divine Spouse, bringing with Him the gifts of the Holy Ghost, whereby He adorns the three supreme faculties of the spirit. Pure simplicity empties the memory of all external images and renders it stable. Spiritual brightness gives the intelligence a sure discernment of the virtues. And a spiritual fervour arouses the will to a boundless love for God and men.
There is yet a third coming, which affects the supreme union of the spirit with God. It is a species of intimate contact with God in the very depths of the soul. The intellectcannot comprehend the manner of this union, it can only witness its effects upon the reason and the will. The power of loving increases with the intimacy of this union, and the intimacy increases the power of love; and hence also a kind of loving strife ensues, each wishing to possess the other and each wishing to give himself to the other utterly.
This is the apogee of the interior life, the meeting, the union of the soul with God. It may be brought about in three different ways: (1) Man, struck by a light coming forth from God, forsakes all images; he is plunged into the union of fruitive love; he meets God without any medium, a spirit like unto Him; it is the state of absolute repose in God, utter emptiness and leisure. (2) At other times man adores God and consumes himself in continual love, which ceaselessly feeds on the presence of God; it is the mediatestage, the state of affective love, needful for the attainment of the preceding. (3) Finally, it is possible to unite enjoyment with activity: man enjoys a most profound peace and produces all the acts of love; he receives God; and His gifts in the superior faculties, images and sensations in the lower powers; it is the most perfect state, the state of combined activity and repose.
Even so, it is not the most sublime state. Above the interior life there is the superessential contemplative life; above thefaithful friendsthere are theIntimate Sonsof God. This third stage of perfection can never be acquired by any act of the intelligence or will; and so sublime is it that he only who has experienced it can attempt its description, and then in terms the most halting and imperfect. This contemplation consists in an absolute purity and simplicity of the understanding; it is a knowledge and possession ofGod, without modes, without limits, without medium, without any consciousness of the difference of His qualities. Nevertheless, it is not God, it is the light by which He is seen. It is the death and destruction of self to behold only the Being eternal and absolute. Its essence is union with God, the still contemplation of God, abandonment to God, so that He alone acts, and not the soul. This repose of the spirit engenders a supernatural contemplation of the Trinity without any medium, a feeling of bliss unspeakable, a sublime ignorance; the last consciousness of the difference between God and the creature—being and nothingness—disappears.
This is the honeymoon of Christ with the soul, to which the preceding stages are only a preparation. The spirit is led from brightness to brightness; and since no medium comes between it and the divine splendour, since the brightness by which it sees is thelight itself which it sees, in a certain sense itself becomes this brightness; it attains a consciousness of its own superessential being, of the unity of its essence in God.
Arrived thus at the summit of mystic speculation, Ruysbroeck finds himself on the confines of pantheism. However, he constantly insists, as we have already remarked, on the essential difference between the created spirit and the Spirit Eternal. Man, he says, must become deiform as far as that is possible for the creature; in the union with God it is not the difference of personality which is destroyed, it is only the difference of will and of thought, the desire to be anything apart in oneself which must disappear. He declares: “There where I assert that we are one in God, I must be understood in this sense that we are one in love, not in essence or in nature.” His own strenuous oppositionto the pantheists of his day proves his orthodoxy in this matter; yet it must be confessed again that from the very nature of his sublime discourse, his expressions are at times exceedingly bold and seemingly unorthodox. The truth is that the resources of human language prove inadequate to describe even the foretaste on earth of that “which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.”
In B. John’s own lifetime Gerard Groote was alarmed, and wrote once to the Canons of Groenendael of a Doctor in Theology, and of one Henry of Hesse, who had declared that theSpiritual Espousalscontained errors. Twenty years after Ruysbroeck’s death, John Gerson, the famous Chancellor of Paris, in a letter to one Bartholomew, a Carthusian, who had given him a copy of this treatise, praises the first two books, but declares that thethird teaches a kind of pantheism. This charge brought forth a lengthy and spirited defence from a Canon Regular of Groenendael, named John Scoenhoven; and then in a second letter Gerson maintained his objections, but acquitted the holy author of all intentional error. A similar stand was taken later by Bossuet, who excuses Ruysbroeck but condemns his manner of expression. It must be remembered that these two were engaged in confuting false mystics, and naturally they would discredit the writings of even a holy man, however orthodox, which would appear to favour the erroneous tenets of their opponents. Once more, we remark that not only was Ruysbroeck manifestly free from all culpable error, but throughout in his own mind he never lost sight of the essential distinctions, though at times his language must necessarily sound exaggerated to unaccustomed ears.