Vincent Scully A Mediaeval Mystic A Short Account of the Life and Writings of Blessed John Ruysbroeck, Canon Regular of Groenendael A.D. 1293-1381 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION Pg 1 
 The object of the following unpretentious little volume is to give a 
 simple and readable account in English of the life and writings of a 
 remarkable Flemish Mystic of the fourteenth century, a contemporary of 
 our own Walter Hilton. Though his memory and honour have never faded in 
 his own native Belgium, and though France and Germany have vied with each 
 other in spreading his teaching and singing his praises, the very name of 
 Blessed John Ruysbroeck is practically unknown this side of the water. We 
 are acquainted with only one small work in English dealing directly with 
 the Saint or his work at all, viz. _Reflections from the Mirror of 
 Mystic_,[1] giving the briefest sketch of his life and some short 
 extracts from his writings as translated from the French rendering of 
 Ernest Hello. 
   
 The original authorities for the history of Ruysbroeck are practically 
 reduced to one, the biography by Henry Pomerius, a Canon Regular of 
 Groenendael, entitled _De Origine monasterii Viridisvallis una cum vitis 
 Joannis Rusbrochii primi prioris hujus monasterii et aliquot 
 
 coaetaneorum ejus_, re-edited by the Bollandists, Brussels, 1885. It is 
 certain that a disciple of John Ruysbroeck, John of Scoenhoven, also of 
 Groenendael, who undertook the defence of Blessed John's writings against 
 Gerson, composed a short biography, but this was embodied in the work of 
 Pomerius, and thereby as a separate volume fell out of use and memory. 
 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION Pg 2 
 Pomerius had Scoenhoven's MS. to work upon, and some of Ruysbroeck's 
 contemporaries were still living at Groenendael when he composed his 
 biography there. The brief references by the Venerable Thomas à Kempis in 
 his _Vita Gerardi Magni_ are likewise of great interest and intrinsic 
 worth. 
   
 For the purposes of this brief biography, which lays no claim whatever to 
 original research, the compiler has made very great use of the labours of 
 Dr. Auger, _De Doctrina et Meritis Joannis van Ruysbroeck_, Louvain, and 
 Willem de Vreese, _Jean de Ruysbroeck_, an extract from the _Biographie 
 Nationale_, published by l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et 
 des beaux-arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1909. This indebtedness is 
 especially true of the summarised analysis of the various works of 
 Ruysbroeck. 
   
 Later it may be possible to give a complete and faithful English 
 rendering of all Ruysbroeck's Works from the critical edition which is at 
 present preparing in Louvain; where there is an active revival of 
 interest in this great and holy Mystic of the Netherlands. 
   
 For the judgment of competent witnesses as to the permanent value and 
 extraordinary sublimity of B. John's writings the reader is referred to 
 the body of this work under the heading, _Some Appreciations_. 
   
 The usual protest is made according to the Decrees of Urban VIII. 
 concerning alleged miracles, etc., recorded in these pages. 
   
 St. Ives, Cornwall, 
   
 
 
 
 I (Early Years and Education) 
 Blessed John Ruysbroeck, surnamed the Admirable and the Divine Doctor, by 
 common consent the greatest Mystic the Low Countries have ever produced, 
 was born, A.D. 1293, at Ruysbroeck, a village some miles south of 
 Brussels, lying between that city and Hal. According to the fashion of 
 those days, especially with Religious, he was named after his birthplace, 
 John van Ruysbroeck, or John Ruysbroeck. The Venerable à Kempis, the 
 Latinised form of van Kempen, is a case in point; Thomas was so named 
 after his native town, Kempen, though his patronymic was Haemerken. Of 
 Ruysbroeck, however, we know of no other surname; neither do his 
 biographers so much as mention his father. But like many another great 
 servant of God, John was blessed with a good mother, a devout woman who 
 trained her child from the cradle to walk in the paths of Christian piety 
 and perfection. She is charged with only one fault, that she loved her 
 son too tenderly! 
   
 Perhaps we are to understand by this that the poor woman opposed the 
 boy's early aspirations after a more retired life than could be found 
 even in the peaceful shelter of his own pious home. This would also 
 explain John's first recorded act. At the age of eleven years he ran away 
 from home! How many a lad before and since has torn himself away from a 
 loving mother's too fond embrace to quell the ardour of a restless spirit 
 in the quest of adventure! John also was eager and dissatisfied; but the 
 larger sphere for which he sighed was to be sought along the unaccustomed 
 ways which lead to the sublime heights and the rarified atmosphere of 
 mystic contemplation. 
   
 The pious truant made his way to Brussels, there to call upon an uncle of 
 his, one John Hinckaert, a major Canon of St. Gudule's. The son and heir 
 of a wealthy magistrate of the city, and possessed, moreover, of a rich 
 benefice, for many years John Hinckaert had been somewhat worldly in his 
 ways; but one day Divine grace found him out as he was listening to a 
 sermon, and drew him sweetly and strongly to a life of extreme simplicity 
 and mortification. His example was soon followed by a fellow Canon, by 
 name Francis van Coudenberg, a Master of Arts, possessed of considerable 
 means, and a man of great repute with the people. These two agreed, for 
 their mutual edification and support, to live together in common. Their 
 material requirements were reduced to the barest necessaries; and the 
 surplus of their revenue was distributed among the poor. In this devout 
 household the lad John met with a kindly welcome; and there he found at 
 once a home after his own heart in an atmosphere saturated with 
 "other-worldliness" and prayer. His good uncle also took charge of his 
 education. For four years Ruysbroeck followed the ordinary course of 
 Humanities in the public schools of Brussels, and then, with a view to 
 the priesthood, he devoted himself to the more congenial study of the 
 sacred sciences. 
   
 Meanwhile the bereaved mother had discovered the place of John's retreat 
 and had quitted her village of Ruysbroeck to reside with him at Brussels. 
 As, however, she was not permitted to dwell in the Presbytery, she made 
 her abode in a _Béguinage_ hard by. Thus she had at least the consolation 
 of seeing her son from time to time. She must have been much comforted 
 also for the deprivation of his company by the constant evidence of his 
 growing sanctity. And, further, we are assured that she set herself to 
 make profit of her sacrifice by emulating in her own person the holy life 
 of her son John, and his saintly masters, Hinckaert and van Coudenberg.  
 
 
 
 II (As a Secular Priest in Brussels) 
 In due course Canon Hinckaert procured for his nephew one of the lesser 
 prebends of St. Gudule's, and John was ordained priest in the year 1317, 
 at the age of twenty-four. His good mother did not survive to witness 
 this happy event in the flesh, nevertheless even beyond the grave she had 
 good cause to rejoice therein. After her departure from this world she 
 had often appeared to her son, lamenting her pains, beseeching his 
 prayers, and sighing for the day when he would be able to offer for her 
 the holy Sacrifice. And John was unceasing in his supplications. But 
 immediately after the celebration of his first Mass, as he related to his 
 Religious Brethren later, God granted him a vision full of consolation: 
 when the sacred oblation was accomplished, his mother came to visit and 
 thank him for her deliverance from Purgatory. The touching incident is 
 well worth recording, if only to show that it was through no lack of 
 natural affection that the child John had so unceremoniously forsaken 
 home and mother. Moreover, of these two holy souls it was singularly true 
 that _having loved each other in life, in death they were not parted_, 
 for they were privileged often to converse together, and finally it was 
 from his mother that Ruysbroeck learned the date of his own approaching 
 departure. 
   
 For twenty-six years in all Blessed John lived as a secular priest in 
 Brussels. Content with his modest chaplaincy in the Church of St. Gudule, 
 and with his holy companions Hinckaert and van Coudenberg continuing 
 happily in apostolic simplicity and poverty the Common Life on which he 
 had entered a mere child, Ruysbroeck passed his days in peaceful 
 retirement and almost uninterrupted prayer and contemplation. 
   
 A characteristic episode of this period reveals to us the man as in a 
 flash, his mean garb, his emaciated figure, his absorbed demeanour, his 
 utter abandonment in God. He was passing through a square of Brussels one 
 day, silent and recollected, as was his wont, when two laymen remarked 
 him. 
   
 "My God," exclaimed one, "would I were as holy as that priest!" 
   
 "Nay, for my part," returned the other, "I would not be in his shoes for 
 all the wealth of the world. I should never know a day's pleasure on 
 earth." 
   
 "Then you know nothing of the delights which God bestows, or of the 
 delicious savour of the Holy Ghost," thought Ruysbroeck to himself, for 
 he happened to overhear the words, and he proceeded tranquilly on his 
 way.  
 
 
 
 III (False Mystics) 
 But with all his love of peace and retirement, when it was a question of 
 guarding the integrity of the Faith and of warding off peril from 
 immortal souls, Ruysbroeck hesitated not to stand in the breach; even 
 though others of much higher position in the Church and of much higher 
 repute for theological learning than the obscure chaplain of St. Gudule's 
 should raise not a finger nor so much as utter a warning word. 
   
 The student of history is well aware of the many and startling contrasts 
 and contradictions presented by the Middle Ages. It was an epoch of 
 magnificent virtues and of gross vices, of splendid heroism and of 
 unspeakable cruelty, of superb generosity and of disgusting meanness, 
 and, which is more to our point at present, of intense devotion and of 
 the most revolting vagaries in doctrine and morals. While also on the one 
 hand there was much genuine zeal, much earnest endeavour to reform crying 
 abuses in Church and State; on the other hand hypocrites and fanatics 
 abounded, who aimed at the destruction of the principle of authority on 
 the plea of amending those in power, or who, the while they inveighed 
 against the futility of a merely exterior religion and insisted on the 
 supreme need of purity of heart, themselves fell into the excess of 
 neglecting all external form, and at times all outward decency and 
 observance of morality. 
   
 In varying degrees these latter errors are to be encountered under one 
 shape or another in every age; but at the period of which we treat they 
 were especially intense and extreme. The _Beghards_ and the _Béguines_ 
 (when and where these broke loose from ecclesiastical control), the 
 _Flagellants_, the _Brethren of the Free Spirit_ were chief of a group of 
 extravagant sects which afflicted the Church in Italy, France, Germany, 
 and the Netherlands; while England at the same time was disturbed by the 
 fanaticism of the Lollards. In general their peculiar tenets were a 
 strange admixture of pantheism, false mysticism, apparent austerity, and 
 very real immorality. The following is one of their characteristic 
 propositions, condemned by Clement V. in the Council of Vienna, A.D. 
 1311-1312: "That those who are in the aforesaid grade of perfection and 
 in the spirit of liberty (contemplatives) are not subject to human 
 authority and are not obliged to obey any precepts of the Church, because 
 (as they say) _where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty_." 
   
 It so happened that contemporary with our Saint in Brussels was a 
 prominent leader of the heretics of the _Free Spirit_, a woman whose name 
 is given as Bloemardinne, a good type, to judge by the description of 
 Ruysbroeck's biographer, of the whole genus of such teachers in those 
 days and in our own.[2] So great was this creature's reputation for 
 sanctity that it was commonly reported that two Seraphim accompanied her 
 to the altar when she approached to receive Holy Communion. She always 
 delivered her teachings, whether by word or in writing, seated on a 
 throne of silver. At her demise this chair was presented to the reigning 
 Duchess of Brabant. After Bloemardinne's death also cripples came to 
 touch her body in the persuasion that they would be miraculously healed 
 thereby. Her teaching was of the kind indicated above, concerned chiefly 
 with the so-called liberty of the spirit; the passion of lust she had the 
 impudence to call seraphic love. She issued numerous pamphlets remarkable 
 for their subtlety; and by one means and another she managed to win and 
 retain a very considerable number of disciples. 
   
 Moved by zeal and compassion on witnessing the ruin and loss of souls 
 thus effected, John Ruysbroeck set himself to confute this heretic's 
 various publications point by point as they appeared. In consequence, he 
 incurred not a little hostility and persecution. Possibly it was this 
 opposition which finally decided Ruysbroeck and his holy companions to 
 quit Brussels for the more peaceful retirement of the neighbouring forest 
 of Soignes. But meanwhile he never for a moment desisted from his efforts 
 in defence of the Faith, and in the propagation of the doctrines of sane 
 mysticism. Of the treatises published professedly against Bloemardinne 
 there is nothing extant. But in all his works Ruysbroeck keeps an eye on 
 the errors of the day. He returns to them again and again, analysing 
 their sources, describing their characteristics, indicating the mischief 
 they work, and offering a reasoned and solid confutation. At the same 
 time, with wondrous sureness and perspicacity, from the rich stores of 
 his own intimate experience, he points out the safe and sure paths which 
 lead the soul to loving union with God. 
   
 Some thirty years after Ruysbroeck's death, in 1410, the Archbishop of 
 Cambrai called his disciples, the Canons Regular of Groenendael, to come 
 and aid him in preaching against the successors of the notorious 
 Bloemardinne--a fact eloquent both of the obstinacy of this particular 
 heresy and of Blessed John's reputation as its most vigorous opponent. 
   
 
 
 
 IV (The Hermitage of Groenendael) 
 It appears that it was on the suggestion of Francis van Coudenberg that 
 the three holy priests resolved to abandon Brussels to seek elsewhere for 
 themselves a refuge of greater security and retirement. It was through 
 the influence also of van Coudenberg with John III., Duke of Brabant, 
 that they obtained the cession of an ideal property for their purpose, 
 the hermitage, namely, of Groenendael, with its lands and lake. 
   
 The spot had already been sanctified by the prayers and penances of holy 
 recluses for nigh forty years. The first to retire thither had been one 
 John Busch, of the ducal house of Brabant, who, weary of the strife, 
 frivolities, and perils of court life, obtained from his kinsman, John 
 II., leave to retire into the forest of Soignes, to build himself a hut 
 and enclose a space of land there to be cultivated with his own hands for 
 his support. The deed of gift was dated the Friday after the Assumption 
 of Mary, 1304, and it stipulated that on the death or departure of the 
 grantee, another hermit should take his place, and so on for ever. In 
 effect, the noble John Busch was succeeded by one Arnold of Diest, who, 
 on entering, made a vow never to sally forth save on festivals for the 
 purpose of hearing Mass and receiving Holy Communion in the Parish Church 
 of St. Clement at Hoolaert. God rewarded this generous sacrifice by a 
 singular favour: Arnold was passionately devoted to the memory of the 
 Holy Apostles and Martyrs of Rome, and he was transported in spirit so 
 frequently thither that the shrines and sanctuaries of the Eternal City 
 became as familiar to him as to a native. When in a green old age he came 
 to die, Arnold surprised the bystanders with the request that he should 
 be laid to rest in the hermitage grounds. They objected that the 
 enclosure was not consecrated: he responded that one day it would be the 
 site of a monastery, the home of saintly Religious, and the Mother-house 
 of a holy congregation. However, he was buried in the Parish Church of 
 Hoolaert before the altar of St. Nicholas. His successor, Lambert, the 
 last of the Groenendael hermits, was so poor in spirit as not to be 
 attached even to his cell. He cheerfully yielded place to John Hinckaert, 
 van Coudenberg, and Ruysbroeck, and retired to a cell which they had 
 procured for him at Hoetendael, the modern Uccle. Groenendael was handed 
 over to the three companions by the Duke of Brabant on Easter Wednesday, 
 1343, on the condition that they should forthwith erect a house to 
 accommodate a community of at least five, two of whom should be priests 
 _viventes religiose_. 
   
 The taking of possession is recorded in the Groenendael Chronicle thus: 
 "In 1344 the aforesaid, with the bishop's consent, began to build a 
 chapel in Groenendael. And the Vicars of Lord Guy, then Bishop of 
 Cambrai, inspected the building on March 13, 1344, and decreed that it 
 should be consecrated, together with a cemetery adjacent, two altars, and 
 other necessary appurtenances. On the same day of the same year the said 
 Vicars conferred on Dom Francis the cure of the brethren, the household, 
 and the servants, appointing him their Father and Parish Priest. Then the 
 same year, on March 17, the Venerable Lord Brother Matthias, Bishop of 
 the Church of Trebizond (Coadjutor of Cambrai), by faculty and licence of 
 the said Vicars of the Lord Bishop Guy, consecrated the aforesaid first 
 church in the honour of St. James, and erected it into a Parochial Church 
 for the same Dom Francis, his brethren and household." 
   
 For five years Dom Francis van Coudenberg and his companions continued to 
 live thus in community, bound by no other rule than their own profound 
 spirit of prayer and intense desire of perfection. Nor were they long 
 left to enjoy alone the solitude of their retreat. Many sought admission 
 into their company; still larger numbers flocked from Brussels and 
 elsewhere to seek spiritual aid and consolation. If he had consulted his 
 own inclination and bent, Ruysbroeck would have denied himself to all; 
 but van Coudenberg represented that they should not in charity refuse 
 assistance to souls in need. And Blessed John yielded the more easily, 
 remarks one of his biographers, because for his part he was assured of 
 being able to repose in God amid the most distracting calls and absorbing 
 occupations. 
   
 One of their earliest associates, John van Leeuwen, attained a high 
 reputation for sanctity. A poor and ignorant layman of Afflighem, he had 
 offered his services as their domestic _gratis_. Before long he was known 
 far and wide as the "Good Cook of Groenendael." The multitude of visitors 
 upon whom he was called to attend left him but little leisure, yet he 
 found time not only to be absorbed in prayer and contemplation, but even 
 to compose treatises of an exalted spirituality. Like his master 
 Ruysbroeck, whom he venerated profoundly, he was deeply recollected amid 
 the most exacting duties, and frequently he was favoured with heavenly 
 visions. It was while in a state of ecstasy that the sublime gifts and 
 heroic holiness of Blessed John were revealed to him; ever after no terms 
 seemed to him too exalted in which to describe the worth of the servant 
 of God. The general esteem in which van Leeuwen himself was held is 
 sufficiently attested by the inscription on his tomb: "Reliquiae Fratris 
 Joannis de Leeuwis vulgo Boni Coci viri a Deo illuminati et scriptis 
 mysticis clari obiit anno MCCCLXXVII. V. Februarii." _The Remains of 
 Brother John van Leeuwen, commonly called the Good Cook, a man 
 enlightened by God and renowned for his mystic writings. He died February 
 5, 1377._ 
   
 Much more distracting to the recluses than the frequent visits of pilgrim 
 penitents or the arrival of fresh neophytes was the constant coming and 
 going of huntsmen from the household of the Duke of Brabant. The forest 
 of Soignes, in which Groenendael is situate, was a favourite resort for 
 the chase, and the position of the hermitage itself, within a few miles 
 of the capital, made it a very convenient place of rest and refreshment 
 for the hunters and their hounds. But the noise and bustle attendant on 
 such company were scarcely conducive to the spirit of prayer, and the 
 demands thus made on the hospitality of the young Community were a heavy 
 drain on its resources. Nevertheless the solitaries were naturally 
 fearful of giving offence to the followers of their Patron the Duke. 
 Moreover, since they were not established as a regular Religious 
 Community, they could not claim the privileges of the cloister. 
   
 
 
 
 V (The Canons Regular of Groenendael) 
 The inconveniences just noted, together with the continual increase in 
 their numbers, gave point and force to a strong remonstrance addressed to 
 Francis van Coudenberg and his Brethren by Pierre de Saulx, Prior of the 
 Canons Regular of St. Victor, Paris, concerning the _irregularity_ of 
 their unaccustomed manner of life. Herein the good Prior was in effect 
 only voicing the opinion of many zealous and prudent leaders among both 
 clergy and laity. The times were so rife in sects and societies of false 
 mystics, and so much mischief was wrought under the guise of piety, that 
 any form of community life outside the cloister and the three regular 
 vows was regarded with strong suspicion and dislike. A few years later 
 Gerard Groote, a disciple of Ruysbroeck, and Florence Radewyn, the first 
 spiritual Director of the Venerable Thomas à Kempis, founded a lay 
 association of _Devout Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life_, and this 
 society also was subjected to a fierce opposition arising from the same 
 sentiment of distrust for all religious movement outside the beaten 
 track. Happily, the Brothers were able to weather the storm by producing 
 irrefragable proofs of their orthodoxy, and of their entire submission to 
 the ecclesiastical authorities. But also, by the advice and according to 
 the desires of Gerard Groote himself, they placed themselves under the 
 protection and guidance of a Religious Order springing from their own 
 body, namely the Canons Regular of Windesheim, of which congregation the 
 Venerable à Kempis was one of the earliest members as well as the 
 brightest ornament. 
   
 Prior Pierre de Saulx urged on van Coudenberg and his associates to 
 regularise their status, silence suspicion, and escape the many 
 inconveniences to which at present they were exposed by embracing the 
 Rule and adopting the habit of some already established Religious Order. 
 With edifying humility the Community of Groenendael accepted the reproof 
 and its accompanying counsel; and applied at once to Peter Andrew, Bishop 
 of Cambrai, for the necessary authorisation to adopt the Institute of the 
 Canons Regular under the Rule of St. Augustin of Hippo. This permission 
 the Ordinary granted most readily. With his own hands he clothed Francis 
 van Coudenberg, John Ruysbroeck and their companions in the canonical 
 habit, March 10, 1349, and the following day he appointed Dom Francis 
 Provost,[3] and John Ruysbroeck he made Prior of the new Canonry. To van 
 Coudenberg the other members of the Community, with one exception, 
 professed canonical obedience, according to St. Augustin's Rule. The 
 Bishop bestowed upon them many privileges and exemptions; while the Duke 
 took them under his special protection and endowed them with sufficient 
 revenues for the upkeep of a large establishment. 
   
 The one exception noted above was Ruysbroeck's uncle and van Coudenberg's 
 old friend and master, John Hinckaert. At this date John Ruysbroeck was 
 fifty-six years of age, and Francis van Coudenberg was several years his 
 senior. They must certainly have been men of great zeal and courage to 
 undertake the full rigour and discipline of the Canonical Life, as they 
 understood it, at so advanced an age. Hinckaert, again, was much older 
 than either. And for fear lest out of consideration for his failing 
 powers the others should be induced to temper in any degree the austerity 
 of their observance, the good old man resolved to forgo for himself the 
 happiness of joining them in the profession of the vows. We can picture 
 what a source of regret this separation must have been to all three. 
 However, Hinckaert remained as near his friends as possible until the 
 end. A little cell was built just outside the cloister, and there after a 
 few years he peacefully passed away, their predecessor to eternal glory 
 as he had been their forerunner in the way of perfection. 
   
 The Canon Regular, Prior Pierre de Saulx, had reason to be well content 
 with the issue of his intervention in the affairs of Groenendael. 
 Seventeen years later we find him addressing to the Community another 
 characteristic rebuke. This time he complained of the formula of their 
 profession, which ran as follows: "I, N.       , offer and deliver myself 
 with these gifts to the service of this Church of St. James, Apostle. And 
 I promise God in the presence of clergy and people that I will abide here 
 henceforth to the end of my days without proprietorship, according to the 
 rule of the Canons and Blessed Augustin, to the best of my knowledge and 
 power. I also promise stability to this place as long as in any way I can 
 obtain what is needful for my soul and body, nor shall I for any motion 
 of fickleness or under any pretext of a more strict Order change this 
 habit or quit this cloister. I also promise obedience to all the prelates 
 of the aforesaid Church whom the better part of the Community shall 
 canonically elect, in order that I may receive a hundredfold and life 
 everlasting." 
   
 As a matter of fact, this form of profession was quite adequate. 
 Implicitly it contained the vow of chastity, since chastity is an 
 integral part of the Canonical Rule. However, the Prior of St. Victor 
 resided in Paris, the metropolis of scholasticism, and he strenuously 
 argued and maintained that, whereas chastity is one of the three 
 essential vows of Religion, and the formula made no mention thereof, the 
 said formula was incomplete, erroneous, contrary to the decretals and 
 canonical sanctions. And again he urges the Provost and the Brethren to 
 conform themselves in this, as in all else, to some fully authorised 
 branch of the institute of the Canons Regular. 
   
 Once more the good men humbly acquiesced; and it seems that they modelled 
 their religious family upon the famous Congregation of St. Victor, of 
 which their zealous counsellor was then the chief Superior.  
 
 
 
 VI (Prior of Groenendael) 
 Meanwhile the Community of Groenendael grew and flourished. The holy 
 Prior continued to make progress in the practice of heroic virtue, his 
 gifts of contemplation became ever more sublime, and still his reputation 
 for sanctity increased. His contemporary biographers, after the fashion 
 of their day, catalogue the Christian virtues, and one by one show how 
 they excelled in him. Let it suffice here to remark that those virtues 
 which he the most earnestly commends and the most highly exalts in his 
 writings, he the most constantly exercised in his own person. Chief of 
 these was humility, which he terms everywhere the foundation of 
 perfection; then obedience to men and resignation to the will of God, a 
 most tender devotion towards Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the 
 Altar, and, in fine, an ardent love of God and the neighbour. A few 
 instances may be given in illustration. 
   
 On one occasion Blessed John was seriously ill; consumed by fever and 
 tortured by an intense thirst, he begged the Brother Infirmarian for a 
 drink of water. The Provost, who happened to be present, forbade the 
 draught, fearing it might do him harm. He was literally dying of thirst, 
 and his lips were cracking, they were so parched, yet Ruysbroeck humbly 
 acquiesced. But later, reflecting how great would be the grief and 
 remorse of his friend and superior if he actually died of his agony, he 
 quietly remarked: "Father Provost, if I have not a drink of water now I 
 shall certainly not recover from this malady." Thereupon, in great alarm, 
 Dom Francis immediately bade him drink. And from that moment the holy man 
 began to regain his strength. 
   
 Another and a continual proof of his humility was the willingness with 
 which he took part in the heavy manual labour of the Community. His 
 dignity, his advanced age, his inexperience in such work, the many other 
 calls upon his time and strength--all this and the like the brethren 
 urged as motives wherefore he should be exempt; but he refused to listen. 
 Truth to tell, the material advantage from his toil was but little: his 
 frame was enfeebled by years and austerities, and in his ignorance he was 
 liable, for instance, to root up seedlings in the garden instead of 
 weeds! But the spiritual gain to the Brethren was incalculable; there was 
 not only the example of his humility, but of his unfailing recollection 
 too. In the midst of his labour he never lost his sense of the nearness 
 of God's presence. Indeed he was wont to say that it was easier for him 
 to raise his soul to God than to lift his hand to his forehead. 
   
 His humility also and his zeal for the regular observance prevented him 
 ever seeking dispensation from the customary exercises of the community 
 life, or exemption from any of the monastic austerities, vigils, or 
 fasts. 
   
 His love for the neighbour was shown by the readiness and affability with 
 which he received and welcomed innumerable claimants on his sympathy, 
 help, and counsel. No soul ever left his presence dissatisfied; every one 
 went back from a visit to Groenendael greatly edified and inwardly 
 refreshed. On one occasion the Brethren were distressed for the moment by 
 an apparent exception. Two Parisian clerics had visited the holy old man 
 and had demanded some word or motto for their guidance and encouragement. 
   
 Ruysbroeck merely observed: "You are as holy as you wish to be." 
 Suspecting him of sarcasm, the strangers retired deeply mortified, and 
 they complained to the Canons that they were much disappointed in the 
 Prior, who evidently was not so saintly a man as rumour had led them to 
 believe. Learning the cause of their chagrin, some of the Brethren led 
 the clerics back to Blessed John and begged him to explain his meaning. 
 "But is it not simple?" he cried. "Is it not quite true? You are as holy 
 as you wish. Your good-will is the measure of your sanctity. Look into 
 yourselves and see what good-will you have, and you will behold also the 
 standard of your holiness." And then the visitors retired appeased and 
 edified. 
   
 Naturally his own Brethren were the first and chief to benefit by the 
 holy Prior's charity and zeal. He denied himself to none; he made himself 
 all to all. Sometimes he gave a spiritual conference after Compline, and 
 then perhaps he would be so carried away as he enlarged upon the goodness 
 of God and the bliss of heaven, for instance, that neither he nor his 
 listeners would note the passage of time. The midnight Office bell would 
 surprise them still hanging upon his words. But such was the fervour 
 infused by his burning eloquence that not one felt the loss of the three 
 or four hours' accustomed sleep. 
   
 Ruysbroeck always spoke without any immediate preparation; but it was 
 characteristic of the man that when requested by the Canons or by 
 strangers for a Conference, he would sometimes confess in all simplicity 
 that inspiration was lacking, that he had nothing to say. It was the same 
 with his written treatises: at the close of his life he was able to 
 declare that he had never committed anything to writing save under the 
 immediate motion of the Holy Spirit. 
   
 As so often happens with the Saints, Blessed John's love for the 
 neighbour overflowed in tenderness for his brothers and sisters of the 
 lower creation also. Knowing this trait, the Canons would remark to him 
 on the approach of winter: "See, Father Prior, it is snowing already. 
 What will the poor little birds do now?" And with expressions of 
 heartfelt compassion this sublime mystic, who was habitually lost in 
 dizziest heights of contemplation, would give instructions that the 
 feathered choristers outside the cloister should not be abandoned to 
 perish of hunger. 
   
 Very frequently in his works Blessed Ruysbroeck takes occasion to treat 
 of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and ever he speaks of this sacred 
 mystery in terms of the most vivid faith and intense devotion, discussing 
 it as a supreme proof of God's love for men, on a par with the gifts of 
 Creation, the Incarnation, and Redemption. His biographers tell us of his 
 personal love for the Blessed Eucharist, and especially of his ecstatic 
 devotion in offering the great Sacrifice. To the close of his long life, 
 even when his failing sight could no longer distinguish the figure of the 
 Crucified stamped upon the Host, nothing but grave sickness could hold 
 him back from daily celebration. Sometimes he swooned from the excess of 
 the sweetness with which his soul was inundated during the canon of the 
 Mass. 
   
 On one such occasion not only did he faint, but he seemed on the point of 
 expiring, so that the terrified server reported the matter to the 
 Provost. Attributing the faintness to advancing age and weakness, the 
 Superior was about to forbid the holy old man to celebrate any more, when 
 Blessed John humbly besought him to forbear, assuring him that the swoon 
 was due not to the failing of years but to the overpowering of divine 
 grace, _non propter senium sed divinae gratiae collatum xenium_. "Even 
 to-day," he added, "Jesus Christ appeared to me, and filling my soul with 
 a deliciousness all divine, He said to my heart, _Thou art Mine and I am 
 thine_." 
   
 Such heavenly favours seem to have been by no means rare with our Saint. 
 He was frequently ravished with a vision of Our Divine Lord in His sacred 
 Humanity. Christ appeared to him, accompanied by His Blessed Mother and a 
 numerous retinue of Saints, and conversed familiarly with him. On one 
 such occasion, penetrating his whole being with a sense of wondrous 
 sweetness, He greeted him with ineffable condescension thus: "Thou art My 
 dear son, in whom I am well pleased." Then Jesus Christ embraced him and 
 presented him to Our Lady and the attendant Saints with the words: 
 "Behold My chosen servant!" 
   
 
 
 
 VII (Ruysbroeck's Tree) 
 Whenever Blessed John felt the Spirit of God full upon him, even the 
 solitude of the cloister was not sufficiently retired for the intimacy of 
 the divine union. He would wander away into the depths of the forest 
 surrounding the monastery, there to abandon himself to the action of the 
 Holy Ghost undisturbed. On these occasions also he was wont to take with 
 him a stylus and a wax tablet, in order to jot down such thoughts and 
 lights as he was moved to preserve in writing. Of these notes a fair copy 
 was made on his return to the Priory. Towards the end of his days, when 
 his sight was failing and otherwise the effort of making these notes was 
 too much for him, one of the Canons always accompanied him into the 
 forest to write down at his dictation whatever he was moved to 
 communicate. Sometimes days or whole weeks would pass, and for want of 
 inspiration not a line nor a word would be added to the treatise in hand. 
 But when again the Spirit breathed, he continued from the very sentence 
 or phrase where he had paused, just as if there had been no interval 
 between. 
   
 One day the Saint had retired as usual into the forest, and the Brethren, 
 knowing his occupation, respected his privacy. But when hours passed and 
 there was no sign of his return, they became alarmed and set out to scour 
 the woods in search of him. One of the Canons was especially intimate 
 with the Prior and loved him most tenderly. Perhaps his anxiety urged him 
 ahead of the rest. In a glade of the forest his eye lighted upon a 
 wondrous scene. He perceived a tree as it were in flames. On nearer 
 approach he discovered that it was in fact encircled with fire. And under 
 the tree, in the midst of the mysterious conflagration, John Ruysbroeck 
 was seated, manifestly rapt in ecstasy. 
   
 The memory of this miracle was never lost in the Community. For 
 generations the tree was known and venerated as _Ruysbroeck's Tree_. At 
 the close of the fifteenth century the Prior, James van Dynter, planted a 
 lime-tree in the same place, which received the respect shown hitherto to 
 the original, which presumably had died down. When in 1577 the Canons 
 were obliged to abandon Groenendael on account of the vexations of the 
 religious wars, it is said that this tree withered away until only its 
 bark was left; but when the Community returned in 1607, it revived and 
 flourished again. 
   
 This episode also has fixed the traditional representation of Blessed 
 John Ruysbroeck. He is usually pictured seated under a tree, a stylus in 
 his hand and a wax tablet resting on his knee, while Saint and tree alike 
 are encircled in brilliant rays of celestial light.  
 
 
 
 VIII (A Director of Souls) 
 It is no wonder that as the fame of these and similar marvels spread 
 abroad, multitudes of the faithful, young and old, clergy and laity, 
 flocked to see and hear the holy Prior of Groenendael. They came to him 
 from Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Germany, and France. Ruysbroeck received 
 all with unvarying simple courtesy, and his unpremeditated words were 
 ever found to meet exactly the needs of each. Many placed themselves 
 unreservedly in his hands, and frequently sought his direction by 
 correspondence, or came long distances to consult him in person. 
   
 One of these penitents was the Baroness van Marke, of Rhode-St.-Agatha, 
 which lies midway between Groenendael and Louvain. This lady conceived 
 such a veneration for the holy Prior that when she went to visit him, she 
 walked the journey, pilgrimwise, barefoot. Finally, his exhortations to 
 flee and despise the passing vanities of the world prevailed so much with 
 her that she entered a Convent of Poor Clares in Cologne, and her son 
 Ingelbert joined the Community of Groenendael. 
   
 We are told of another disciple, who once fell into a grievous sickness 
 and at the same time into a still more grievous affliction of spirit. She 
 sent for Blessed John, begging him to visit her. She told him of her 
 distress; behold, she was abandoned by God, on the one hand no health or 
 strength was left her to perform her accustomed works of mercy, and on 
 the other hand physical suffering took away all taste for prayer! What 
 was she to do? "You can do nothing more pleasing to God, my dear child," 
 responded the Saint, "than simply and utterly to submit to His holy will. 
 Strive to forsake your own desires and to give Him thanks for all 
 things." Such unction accompanied these simple and characteristic words 
 that the good lady felt deeply consoled, and she repined no more. 
   
 Among the more famous to frequent Groenendael, there to sit and learn at 
 the feet of Ruysbroeck, is mentioned the well-known German mystic Tauler. 
 But authorities are divided at present as to whether or no these visits 
 to Groenendael can be fitted in with other ascertained facts of Tauler's 
 life. However, it is certain that Tauler was well acquainted with the 
 writings of our Saint; to a great extent he followed his method, and at 
 times, in the free-and-easy style of those days, he did not hesitate to 
 transfer bodily from Ruysbroeck's volumes into his own.  
 
 
 
 IX (Ruysbroeck and Gerard Groote) 
 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 the _Devout 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 his _Vita 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, which was 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 greatest 
 benignity 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 expressed in 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. before publication, 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 the _Devout Brothers of the Common Life_. A 
 few years later one of the most diligent and skilled of these scribes was 
 the future author of the _Imitation of Christ_. 
   
 
 
 
 X (Ruysbroeck and Windesheim) 
 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 thy study 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 his _Devout 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 the _Devout Brothers_ and the 
 Windesheim Canons the reader is referred to the various works which 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 their secular associates, the _Brothers 
 of the Common Life_. It is scarcely needful to remark also that these are 
 the chief features of the teaching of the _Imitation 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 became 
 the 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 observance of the three 
 vows of religion, and one can imagine how comfortable he would feel in 
 the company, say, of Luther and his renegade nun! 
 
 
 
 XI (The Writings of Ruysbroeck) 
 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 the Blessed 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. 
   
   
                     The Kingdom of the Lovers of God 
   
 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 Dei_ in the Breviary Office of a 
 Confessor. Upon these words Ruysbroeck bases a division of his work into 
 five books. The first book treats 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 we are 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. 
   
   
                The Splendour of the Spiritual Espousals 
   
 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 to the 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 the _Spiritual 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 foot of 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. 
   
   
                              The Brilliant 
   
 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 the 
 _Spiritual Espousals_. After a brief description of the means by which 
 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 as _mercenaries_. 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 the _faithful servants_. 
 However, these still suffer many impediments from the exterior life which 
 they lead, and a more intimate union is attained by the _intimate 
 friends_, who observe the counsels as well as the precepts. Finally, the 
 highest degree of union and contemplation is attained by the _hidden 
 sons_, who are utterly divested of all self-love and self-seeking, and 
 whose life is hidden with Christ in God. 
   
   
                        Of Four Subtle Temptations 
   
 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 sheer force of the intellect, without the 
 assistance of God's grace. The fourth and the most formidable is the 
 so-called _liberty 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. 
   
   
                          Of the Christian Faith 
   
 A dogmatic commentary on the Athanasian Creed. Starting with the 
 principle that the 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. 
   
   
                       Of the Spiritual Tabernacle 
   
 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 his 
 _De 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. 
   
   
                          Of the Seven Cloisters 
   
 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 up within 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. 
   
   
                        The Mirror of Eternal Life 
   
 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 the Blessed 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. 
   
   
                  The Seven Degrees of Spiritual Love 
   
 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 his _Scale of Perfection_.) 
   
   
                          Of the Supreme Truth 
   
 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 knowledge of 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. 
   
   
                          The Twelve Béguines 
   
 After the _Tabernacle_, 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, whence an 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 out as 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 life are 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 this suggests a whole 
 treatise of thirty-nine chapters on the _Balance 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 careful to 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. 
   
   
                          Of the Twelve Virtues 
   
 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, 
 and obedience 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. 
   
   
                        The Letters of Ruysbroeck 
   
 These are spiritual letters, of course, conferences in epistolary form. 
   
 The first is addressed to Margaret van Meerbeke, 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 through _self-will_, 
 whereas every Religious should strive to have all things _in 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 the world; 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. 
 
 
 
 XII (The Teaching of Ruysbroeck) 
 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 pure and 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 divine _nature_, 
 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: the _irascible_, and the 
 _concupiscible_, which two become bestial when not under the ruling of a 
 virtuous will; _reason_, by which man is distinguished from the brute, 
 and _freedom 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 and Redemption, 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, and bringing 
 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 a _Faithful 
 Servant_. 
   
 As yet, however, there is only an imperfect knowledge of God, and to 
 become more closely united with God, as an _Intimate Friend_, one must 
 strive to attain the second stage of the mystic way, namely the _interior 
 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 gathering together 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 of Justice 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 intellect cannot 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 mediate stage, 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 the _faithful friends_ 
 there are the _Intimate Sons_ of 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 of God, 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 the light 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. 
   
 
 
 
 XIII (Some Appreciations) 
 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 opposition to 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 the _Spiritual Espousals_ contained 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 
 the third 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. 
   
 On the other hand, to outweigh the unfavourable opinion of these two 
 French critics, we have a host of writers of Ruysbroeck's own and 
 subsequent days who not only defend the orthodoxy of his writings, but 
 who also speak of them in terms of the deepest admiration, and regard 
 their author almost as inspired. 
   
 We have already seen the esteem in which the holy Prior of Groenendael 
 and his writings were held by Tauler, Gerard Groote, and the Venerable 
 Thomas à Kempis, and the vigour with which his memory was vindicated by 
 John of Scoenhoven, But his advocates were by no means confined to the 
 limits of his own Order, period, or country. 
   
 Henry van Herp, a Franciscan, compiled a _Mirror of Perfection_, taken 
 almost exclusively from the _Spiritual Espousals_; and by his means the 
 teachings of Blessed Ruysbroeck were propagated among the followers of 
 St. Francis, particularly of the Third Order. 
   
 Denys the Carthusian is unstinted in his praises. He calls him the 
 _Divine Doctor_. "I name him the Divine Doctor," he writes, "because his 
 only master was the Holy Ghost. Of this the abundance of wisdom wherewith 
 he was gifted is a sure guarantee.... Ignorant man as I am, I confess 
 that nowhere have I found such sublimity and such knowledge, save in the 
 works of Denys the Areopagyte. But in his writings the difficulty arises 
 especially from the style, whereas it is not so with the Prior of 
 Groenendael.... As they say of Hugh of St. Victor that he is another St. 
 Augustin, so I will say of Ruysbroeck that he is another Denys the 
 Areopagyte." 
   
 Thomas of Jesus, a Carmelite, in his _De Divina Oratione_, frequently 
 quotes from Ruysbroeck and adopts his method. 
   
 The Carthusian Surius translated all the works of Ruysbroeck into Latin, 
 and this translation has been the chief source of familiarity with the 
 Belgian mystic for readers and writers not acquainted with his native 
 tongue. The following extracts from the _Introduction_ to Surius's 
 translation seem worth quoting for the sake of some who may imagine that 
 the works of Blessed John Ruysbroeck can be of profit only to those who 
 are far advanced in the contemplative life: 
   
 "I do not believe there is a man who can approach these magnificent and 
 simple pages without great and singular profit. Let none excuse himself 
 from reading this book on the plea of the inaccessible sublimity of 
 Ruysbroeck. The great man has accommodated himself to all, and the most 
 abandoned soul on earth may find again on reading him the path of 
 salvation. Arrows dart from the pages of Ruysbroeck, aimed by no hand of 
 man, but by the hand of God; and deeply they embed themselves in the soul 
 of the reader who is a sinner. Innocent reader, reader of unstained robe, 
 Ruysbroeck is at once most lowly and most sublime. In his description of 
 the _Spiritual Espousals_ he surpasses admiration, he surpasses praise; 
 all the commencement, all the progress, all the height, all the 
 transcendent perfection of the spiritual life is there." 
   
 It was from Surius that the Benedictine Blosius, or Louis de Blois, 
 learned to know and appreciate Ruysbroeck. His works are impregnated with 
 the teachings of the Mystic of Groenendael, and his well-known 
 _Consolatio Pusillanimum_ (_Comfort for the Fainthearted_) is replete 
 with extracts taken from Ruysbroeck. 
   
 Lessius, the Jesuit Theological Professor of Louvain University, used to 
 say that he read Blessed John Ruysbroeck daily; and he would add that if 
 his holy works had emanated from the Society they would not have remained 
 in obscurity so long. 
   
 In more recent times Ernest Hello brought our Saint to France by a 
 translation of extracts, prefaced by an anonymous contemporary life, 
 which was first published in 1869. In his own _Introduction_, Hello 
 writes: "Among those who, soaring beyond the realms of human light, have 
 sought refuge in the shadow of the great altar, the grandest, according 
 to Denys the Carthusian, are St. Denys the Areopagyte and John Ruysbroeck 
 the Admirable. St. Denys lays down the general laws of mystic theology, 
 John Ruysbroeck applies them. St. Denys presents the lamp, John 
 Ruysbroeck kindles the flame. Both are blind with excess of light, both 
 immovable with excess of motion. Speech with them is a visit paid to men 
 from motives of charity. Silence is their native land. The beauty of 
 their language is the condescendence of their goodness; the sacred 
 darkness in which they spread their eagle wings is their ocean, their 
 booty, their glory." 
   
 Reviewing the work of Hello, Louis Veuillot, the French Catholic 
 publicist, remarked: 
   
 "Ruysbroeck was illiterate. He was a humble Flemish priest of the 
 fifteenth century. None the less, in the order of genius the uncultured 
 Ruysbroeck, as a theologian, and consequently as a philosopher and a 
 poet, is as far above Bossuet as Dante, for instance, is above Boileau. 
 Face to face with the mysteries that shroud God and man, Bossuet seeks, 
 argues, and, so to speak, gropes; Ruysbroeck knows, describes, or rather 
 sings, and contemplates. This illiterate mystic of an obscure age finds 
 himself at home in the sublime as in his own sphere; he speaks of what is 
 familiar to him; the wise doctor of the world remains without. Bossuet 
 does not enter, he does not open, he does not see. Bossuet spins words, 
 Ruysbroeck pours out streams of light. It seems as if Bossuet were that 
 mighty wind which was heard in the Upper Chamber; the brief words of 
 Ruysbroeck are the tongues of fire, living and enlightening flame." 
   
 Truly has Time brought its revenge in such a comparison by a compatriot 
 of Bossuet with Ruysbroeck. 
   
 Finally, Maeterlinck brought out his translation of the _Spiritual 
 Espousals_ in 1891 with a characteristic appreciation of the Flemish 
 mystic. And Maeterlinck's name has given a strong impetus to the 
 popularity, so to speak, of Blessed Ruysbroeck in modern France. But 
 neither of these translations can be regarded as authoritative or exact. 
   
 The real, scholarly work towards extending and encouraging the cult of 
 Blessed John Ruysbroeck, whether among the learned or the devout, is 
 being performed, as is seemly, in the Catholic University of his native 
 Belgium, namely, at Louvain, where a Chair has been instituted for the 
 study of Old Flemish, chiefly for the sake of a correct understanding and 
 rendering of the writings of the Holy Mystic of Groenendael. 
   
 And here we may note that while it is customary with some to speak of 
 Ruysbroeck as illiterate, this term must be taken in a strictly limited 
 sense. Possibly, he could not have composed in fluent and elegant Latin: 
 he was not a classical scholar; but certainly the Latin of the Bible and 
 the Fathers was quite familiar to him. His writings, moreover, display an 
 intimate knowledge of the Scriptures, the Fathers, theology, liturgy, 
 apologetics. The natural science of the day was not unknown, as witness 
 his applications from astronomy, and, it must be confessed, from 
 astrology. With St. Denys the Areopagyte he shows himself very intimate, 
 and his pages contain whole passages borrowed or adapted from St. Anselm, 
 St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, and especially St. Augustin. Nearer his own 
 days St. Bernard and Hugh of St. Victor seem to have influenced him very 
 considerably. 
   
 Experts in Old Flemish assure us that his style is most chaste, his 
 language vigorous and clear. He was in truth a poet. When carried away by 
 the beauty or sublimity of his subject, he indulges in a wealth of 
 imagery, comparison, metaphor, astounding at times in boldness and 
 originality. Occasionally even he lapsed into verse; but on the whole his 
 verse is of less beauty and strength than his prose, as he himself seems 
 to have been aware. On the other hand, his prose, after the manner of St. 
 Bernard, St. Bonaventure, the two Victors, and later Thomas à Kempis, 
 frequently gives evidence of deliberate rhythm and rhyme. In a word, far 
 from being illiterate in the strict sense of the word, Blessed John was 
 well acquainted with all the rules and arts of rhetoric; he knew how to 
 employ them; and for all the sublimity of his discourse he did not 
 disdain the use of these aids to interest and persuasion. Finally, it is 
 to be noted that we are expressly informed by contemporaries of 
 Ruysbroeck that he wrote by preference in the vulgar tongue, the more 
 readily and effectively to meet and refute the erroneous doctrines 
 published in the language of the people by the false mystics of his day. 
   
 
 
 
 XIV (Last Days) 
 Of the life of our Saint there remains little to be told save the record 
 of the last days and the after glory. He had attained the good old age of 
 eighty-eight, when his mother appeared in a vision to warn him to make 
 ready for the approaching end. It must seem to us there was little need 
 for such warning to one whose whole life had been one long preparation 
 for the coming of the Spouse! He was taken with dysentery, accompanied by 
 fever, and for his greater comfort, and that his lifelong friend van 
 Coudenberg might be at hand to console and assist him, they put him to 
 bed in the Provost's chamber. But the humble Prior besought them to treat 
 him as any of the lowliest brethren and to bear him to the common 
 infirmary. This was accordingly done. There he lay for a fortnight, 
 gradually wasting away with the burning fever, and still more, doubtless, 
 with his burning desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, for he 
 was constantly heard murmuring such ejaculations as that of the Psalmist, 
 _Sicut desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum_. He received all the last 
 rites, and the end came in the greatest peace, while his weeping brethren 
 prayed around him, on the Octave day of St. Catherine, V.M., December 2, 
 1381, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, the sixty-fourth of his 
 priesthood. 
   
 That same night the Dean of Diest, watching by the holy remains, seemed 
 to behold our Saint, clad in the priestly vestments and all radiant with 
 glory, ascend the altar steps as if to celebrate the sacred mysteries. 
 The Dean had always held Ruysbroeck in the deepest veneration and, having 
 some skill in medicine, he had come over to Groenendael on hearing of the 
 Prior's illness to see whether he could administer any relief. His 
 charity was rewarded by the edifying sight of his happy death, and by 
 this consoling vision after. 
   
 And, as the Venerable à Kempis informs us, "God also revealed to Gerard 
 [Groote] the death of this most beloved Father, which revelation he made 
 manifest in the hearing of many of the citizens by the tolling of the 
 bells; and more privately he made known to certain of his friends that 
 the soul of the Prior, after but one hour of Purgatory, had passed to the 
 glory of Heaven." We may note here that à Kempis himself was a child of 
 three years when Ruysbroeck was called to his reward. Gerard Groote 
 followed his friend and spiritual father to the grave three years later. 
   
 The Groenendael Canons offered the holy Sacrifice and all the wonted 
 suffrages for their departed Prior's repose, but they prayed with the 
 conviction that they needed his impetration rather than he theirs. They 
 were all eager to possess themselves of any little thing which had been 
 his. Some cut off locks of his hair, and one managed to secure a tooth! 
 Appropriately enough, this relic later cured a Mechlin lady of a severe 
 attack of toothache. However, in all simplicity the Brethren laid Blessed 
 John to rest in the little chapel which his own hands had helped to 
 raise. 
   
 Five years later his saintly associate, the Provost Francis van 
 Coudenberg, rejoined him beyond the grave. The Bishop of Cambrai, John 
 T'Serclaes, came to assist at the obsequies. During his visit he heard so 
 much of the heroic virtues of the late Prior that he ordered an 
 exhumation of Ruysbroeck's body with a view to a more honourable burial 
 by the side of the Provost in the new church, which had now replaced the 
 little chapel. They were all filled with awe and wonder to find the 
 entire body, save only the tip of the nose, incorrupt, and the priestly 
 vestments intact. Also a most sweet odour exhaled from the holy remains. 
 To satisfy the devotion of the people, the Bishop commanded that the body 
 should be exposed to their veneration for three days. On the third day, 
 amid a vast concourse of the faithful, Ruysbroeck was laid to rest by the 
 side and in the tomb of his lifelong friend van Coudenberg. Over the 
 sepulchre was placed the following simple inscription: 
   
                  _Hic jacet translatus Devotus Pater 
 Joannes de Ruysbroeck 
 Prior hujus monasterii 
 
                          Qui obiit anno Domini 
                                MCCCLXXXI 
 Die Decembris_ 
 
   
 "Here lies transferred the Devout Father, Dom John of Ruysbroeck, First 
 Prior of this cloister, who departed in the year of the Lord 1381, 
 December 2."  
 
 
 
 XV (The Cultus of Blessed John Ruysbroeck) 
 Numerous pilgrims now wended their way to visit Ruysbroeck's tomb. 
 Ex-votos were suspended there in acknowledgment of favours received. His 
 picture also was honoured in various churches. And each year on the 
 Monday following Trinity Sunday the Chapter of St. Gudule's came over to 
 Groenendael to assist the Canons at a Mass sung in his honour. In a word, 
 on all sides the holy Prior was regarded and, as far as possible, treated 
 as a Saint in glory. 
   
 Yielding to representations and entreaties from many quarters, James 
 Roonen, Archbishop of Mechlin, ordered another translation of the 
 remains, November 1622. This was duly performed with all the prescribed 
 formalities. The skeleton was found entire. The bones were carefully 
 taken and reverently washed and then placed in a new reliquary. The water 
 used in this cleansing emitted a delicious odour, and it was afterwards 
 instrumental in effecting many miraculous cures. The Infanta Isabella of 
 Spain laid the foundation stone of a chapel to be erected at her expense 
 near _Ruysbroeck's Tree_ as a suitable shrine for the relics. She also 
 provided a magnificent sarcophagus. As this chapel was outside the 
 monastic enclosure, ladies were now able to pay their devotions at 
 Ruysbroeck's tomb itself, whereas hitherto they had been able to 
 reverence the relics only from a distance. 
   
 So far, however, no authoritative recognition of the heroic virtues of 
 John Ruysbroeck had come from Rome. In 1624 the Archbishop commissioned 
 the learned Albert le Mire to draw up the necessary preliminary documents 
 to be submitted to the Sacred Congregation. These were approved, and 
 three commissioners were appointed to Initiate the apostolic process, so 
 called. Their labours were completed by 1627. Then, on account of the 
 wars and other troubles which afflicted the Low Countries at the time, 
 the Cause was suspended. 
   
 When the French overran the Netherlands in 1667, to prevent profanation 
 of the holy relics, they were carried to a place of greater safety in 
 Brussels; they were restored again in 1670. In 1783 the Priory itself 
 shared the fate of so many other Religious Houses, and was suppressed by 
 the Emperor Joseph II.; whereupon the relics were again transferred to 
 Brussels and laid to rest in a side-chapel of St. Gudule's. 
   
 Another attempt was then made by the Chapter of St. Gudule's to obtain 
 from Rome an authorised Office and Mass in honour of John Ruysbroeck. The 
 petition was favourably received; but once more there was a violent 
 interruption, this time from the upheaval of the French Revolution. 
   
 St. Gudule's was sacked by the _sans-culottes_ in 1793, and the reliquary 
 of Ruysbroeck was desecrated. It is said, however, that the relics were 
 not actually dispersed, and that they were afterwards sealed up again by 
 a Notary named Neuwens; but unhappily at the present day all trace of 
 them has disappeared. 
   
 Finally, in 1885, the late Cardinal Goosens, Archbishop of Mechlin, 
 approached the Sacred Congregation once more, and a tribunal was 
 appointed to examine into the Cause, February 8, 1900. This was brought 
 to a happy issue in 1908 by a Decree of the Sacred Congregation, dated 
 December 1st, and approved by His Holiness, Pius X., December 9, 
 confirming the cultus "shown from time immemorial to the Venerable 
 Servant of God, John Ruysbroeck, Canon Regular, called the Blessed." 
 Later, August 24, 1909, the Congregation granted and approved an Office 
 and Mass of Blessed John Ruysbroeck for the Mechlin clergy. The privilege 
 of this Office and Mass has also been extended to the Canons Regular of 
 the Lateran, who are the lineal representatives of the Canons of 
 Groenendael and Windesheim, and therefore in a special sense the children 
 of Blessed John. 
   
 For the moment there may seem to be but little in common between this 
 Mediæval Mystic and the bustling modern world, so little as to suggest 
 the thought that Blessed Ruysbroeck can have no message to deliver to our 
 day. On the contrary, the Solitary of the Forest of Soignes stands for a 
 profound truth, oblivion of which is rendering Society sick unto death 
 to-day. John Ruysbroeck preaches to the world its utter need of God. 
   
 For the Catholic he enforces his lesson in a special manner. Unlike false 
 mystics, who invariably pretend to dispense themselves and their 
 adherents from the chief normal means of grace, namely the Sacraments, 
 Ruysbroeck insists upon frequent recourse to the Sacraments, but more 
 especially to the Blessed Eucharist, as the speediest and most 
 efficacious means of bringing each soul into true union with God. Our 
 present Holy Father, desirous and ambitious of "restoring all things in 
 Christ," has pointed to the same divine remedy for the renewal of our 
 souls. May there not be seen in this a providential reason wherefore the 
 solemn beatification of this holy Religious has been delayed six 
 centuries, to be reserved to our own days? 
   
 The proper prayers of our Saint's Mass beautifully summarise the lessons 
 of his life as follows: 
   
   
                                Collect 
   
 God, Who didst vouchsafe to adorn Blessed John, Thy Confessor, with 
 sublime holiness of life and with heavenly gifts, grant us, through his 
 merits, and after his example, to despise the fleeting things of the 
 world, and to desire only the joys of heaven. 
   
   
                                  Secret 
   
 May the intercession of Blessed John, who in offering the Sacrifice 
 merited to overflow with heavenly delights, make us worthy, we beseech 
 Thee, Lord, of the bread of angels. 
   
   
                              Post-Communion 
   
 We beseech Thee, Lord, by the intercession of Blessed John, grant to us 
 who are refreshed with the heavenly banquet, that, delivered from worldly 
 desires, we may be ever fervent in Thy love. 
   
 
 
 
 Footnotes Pg 3 
 [1]By Earle Bailie. London: Thomas Baker. 1905. 
   
 [2]_Cf._ the Polish sect of _Mariavites_, or _Mystic Priests_, under the 
    misguidance of the woman Mary Frances, whose extravagances were 
    condemned by Rome, September 1904, and again April 1906. 
   
 [3]Provost is the equivalent in a College of Clergy of the Abbot in a 
    Monastery; though many Congregations of Canons Regular have borrowed 
    the title and style of Abbot from the monastic institute. 
   
 [4]Translation by J. P. Arthur. _The Founders of the New Devotion._ Kegan 
    Paul. 1905. 
   
 [5]Especially: _Outlines of the Life of Thomas à Kempis_. By Sir Francis 
    Cruise. _C.T.S._ of Ireland. _Thomas à Kempis_. By the same. London: 
    Kegan Paul. _Life of the Venerable Thomas à Kempis_. By Dom Scully. 
    London: Washbourne. _Thomas à Kempis and the Brothers of the Common 
    Life_. By Kettlewell. London: Kegan Paul. _Thomas à Kempis, His Age 
    and His Book_. By De Montmorency, London: Methuen. 
   
 
 
 
 Footnotes Pg 4 
 [6]Father Sharpe, in his recent admirable volume, _Mysticism: Its True 
    Nature and Value_, writes thus of the mystic teaching, properly so 
    called, of à Kempis's world-famous masterpiece: "_The Imitation of 
    Christ_ ... probably owes much of its vast popularity to its constant 
    recurrence to the elementary duties of religion and morality, and its 
    insistence on the necessity of their performance as the prerequisite 
    of the more exalted spiritual states. The 'purgative,' 'illuminative,' 
    and 'unitive' ways are seen, so to speak, together, and are dealt with 
    as aspects or constituents of the Christian life as a whole, to the 
    completeness of which all three are necessary and, in different ways, 
    of equal importance. The purely mystical passages are comparatively 
    few and short; and the abundance of practical directions the book 
    contains has sometimes caused its mystical character to be entirely 
    overlooked. This disproportion, however, is quite sufficiently to be 
    accounted for by the character of the work, which is that of a 
    directory of spiritual life in general, and not a scientific treatise 
    on any particular department of it. In such a book attempts at 
    describing the indescribable phenomena of mysticism would obviously 
    have been out of place, whereas the practical details of the lower and 
    preliminary states admit of and require minute explanation. But the 
    tone of the whole book is mystical, and the most commonplace duties 
    and the most humiliating strivings with temptation are in a manner 
    illuminated and glorified by the brilliancy of the result to which 
    they tend. Thus, in point of fact, the higher and lower elements, the 
    mystical and the non-mystical, the purgative, the illuminative and the 
    unitive, are blended in actual human experience" (pp. 188, 189). 
   
 [7]The whole subject of mystic theology is excellently well treated by 
    Rev. A. B. Sharpe, M.A., in a volume entitled _Mysticism: Its True 
    Nature and Value_, already quoted, just published by Sands & Co. There 
    is frequent reference to our Saint and his writings.  
 
 
 
 Transcriber's Notes Pg 5 
 --Silently corrected a few palpable typos. 
   
 --Moved footnotes from page footer to end of text 
   
 
 
 Publication Date: January 13th 2015 https://www.bookrix.com/-mk496e398f1e345