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- Herausgeber: E-BOOKARAMA
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
"The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage" was written some time around 1350, not long after Flemish mystic Jan van Ruysbroeck moved to a small hermitage out in the country, where he wandered the woods and wrote as the Holy Ghost inspired him.
"The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage" contains three of Jan van Ruysbroeck's best works:
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage,
The Sparkling Stone, and
The Book of Truth. These works are remarkable for their combination of lofty spiritual philosophy and robust common sense. As we read them, we feel that we are in touch with a man who, in his ecstatic ascents to God, never loses hold of the actualities of human life. In the
Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, he traces the gradual development of the soul through the active life of Christian virtue, the interior life of contemplation, and the super essential life of union with God.
The Sparkling Stone further elaborates on some of the more difficult passages in
The Adornment, and
The Book of Truth was written as a refutation of the accusation that van Ruysbroeck's work supported a pantheistic and heretical view of the union of the soul with God.
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Jan van Ruysbroeck
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
Table of contents
THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
Introduction
FIRST BOOK
Prologue
Chapter 1. Of The Active Life
Chapter 2. Showing How We Shall Consider The Coming Of Christ In Three Ways
Chapter 3. Of Humility
Chapter 4. Of Charity
Chapter 5. Of Patient Endurance
Chapter 6. Of The Second Coming Of Christ
Chapter 7. Of The Blessed Sacraments
Chapter 8. Of The Third Coming Of Christ
Chapter 9. Showing What Christ Will Do In The Day Of Doom
Chapter 10. Of The Five Kinds Of Men Who Shall Appear At The Judgment
Chapter 11. Of A Spiritual Going Out With All Virtues
Chapter 12. How Humility Is The Foundation Of All Other Virtues
Chapter 13. Of Obedience
Chapter 14. Of The Renunciation Of Self Will
Chapter 15. Of Patience
Chapter 16. Of Meekness
Chapter 17. Of Kindliness
Chapter 18. Of Compassion
Chapter 19. Of Generosity
Chapter 20. Of Zeal And Diligence
Chapter 21. Of Temperance And Sobriety
Chapter 22. Of Purity
Chapter 23. Of Three Enemies To Be Overcome By Righteousness
Chapter 24. Of The Kingdom Of The Soul
Chapter 25. Of A Spiritual Meeting Of God And Ourselves
Chapter 26. Of The Desire To Know The Bridegroom In His Nature
SECOND BOOK
Prologue
Chapter 1. How We Achieve Supernatural Sight In Our Inward Workings
Chapter 2. Of A Three-Fold Unity Which Is In Us By Nature
Chapter 3. Of The Inflow Of The Grace Of God Into Our Spirit
Chapter 4. Showing How We Should Found Our Inward Life On A Freedom From Images
Chapter 5. Of A Three-Fold Coming Of Our Lord In The Inward Man
Chapter 6. Of The Second Coming Of Our Lord In The Inward Man
Chapter 7. Of The Third Coming Of Our Lord
Chapter 8. How The First Coming Has Four Degrees
Chapter 9. Of Unity Of Heart
Chapter 10. Of Inwardness
Chapter 11. Of Sensible Love
Chapter 12. Of Devotion
Chapter 13. Of Gratitude
Chapter 14. Of Two Griefs Which Arise From Inward Gratitude
Chapter 15. A Similitude How We Should Perform The First Degree Of Our Inward Exercise
Chapter 16. Another Similitude Concerning The Same Exercise
Chapter 17. Of The Second Degree Of Our Inward Exercise, Which Increases Inwardness By Humility
Chapter 18. Of The Pure Delight Of The Heart And The Sensible Powers
Chapter 19. Of Spiritual Inebriation
Chapter 20. What May Hinder A Man In This Inebriation
Chapter 21. A Similitude How A Man Should Act And Bear Himself In This Case
Chapter 22. Of The Third Degree Of The Spiritual Coming Of Christ
Chapter 23. Of The Pain And Restlessness Of Love
Chapter 24. Of Ecstacies And Divine Revelations
Chapter 25. An Example Showing How One Is Hindered In This Exercise
Chapter 26. Another Example
Chapter 27. A Parable Of The Ant
Chapter 28. Of The Fourth Degree Of The Coming Of Christ
Chapter 29. Showing What The Forsaken Man Should Do
Chapter 30. A Parable: How One May Be Hindered In This Fourth Degree
Chapter 31. Of Another Hindrance
Chapter 32. Of Four Kinds Of Fever Wherewith A Man May Be Tormented
Chapter 33. Showing How These Four Degrees In Their Perfection Are Found In Christ
Chapter 34. Showing How A Man Should Live If He Would Be Enlightened
Chapter 35. Of The Second Coming Of Christ, Or, The Fountain With Three Rills
Chapter 36. The First Rill Adorns The Memory
Chapter 37. The Second Rill Enlightens The Understanding
Chapter 38. The Third Rill Establishes The Will To Every Perfection
Chapter 39. Showing How The Established Man Shall Go Out In Four Ways
Chapter 40. He Shall Go Out Towards God And Towards All Saints
Chapter 41. He Shall Go Out Towards All Sinners
Chapter 42. He Shall Go Out Towards His Friends In Purgatory
Chapter 43. He Shall Go Out Towards Himself And Towards All Good Men
Chapter 44. Showing How We May Recognise Those Men Who Fail In Charity To All
Chapter 45. How Christ Was, Is, And Ever Will Be The Lover Of All
Chapter 46. Reproving All Those Who Live On Spiritual Goods In An Inordinate Manner
Chapter 47. Showing How Christ Has Given Himself To All In Common In The Sacrament Of The Altar
Chapter 48. Of The Unity Of The Divine Nature In The Trinity Of The Persons
Chapter 49. Showing How God Possesses And Moves The Soul Both In A Natural And A Supernatural Way
Chapter 50. Showing How A Man Should Be Adorned If He Is To Receive The Most Inward Exercise
Chapter 51. Of The Third Coming Of Christ
Chapter 52. Showing How The Spirit Goes Out Through The Divine Stirring
Chapter 53. Of An Eternal Hunger For God
Chapter 54. Of A Loving Strife Between The Spirit Of God And Our Spirit
Chapter 55. Of The Fruitful Works Of The Spirit, The Which Are Eternal
Chapter 56. Showing The Way In Which We Shall Meet God In A Ghostly Manner Both With And Without Means
Chapter 57. Of The Essential Meeting With God Without Means In The Nakedness Of Our Nature
Chapter 58. Showing How One Is Like Unto God Through Grace And Unlike Unto God Through Mortal Sin
Chapter 59. Showing How One Possesses God In Union And Rest, Above All Likeness Through Grace
Chapter 60. Showing How We Have Need Of The Grace Of God, Which Makes Us Like Unto God And Leads Us To God Without Means
Chapter 61. Of How God And Our Spirit Visit Each Other In The Unity And In The Likeness
Chapter 62. Showing How We Should Go Out To Meet God
Chapter 63. Of The Ordering Of All The Virtues Through The Seven Gifts Of The Holy Ghost
Chapter 64. Of The Highest Degree Of The Most Interior Life
Chapter 65. Of Three Kinds Of Most Inward Practices
Chapter 66. Showing How Some Men Live Contrary To These Exercises
Chapter 67. Of Another Kind Of Perverted Men
THIRD BOOK
Chapter 1. Showing The Three Ways By Which One Enters Into The God-Seeing Life
Chapter 2. How The Eternal Birth Of God Is Renewed Without Interruption In The Nobility Of The Spirit
Chapter 3. How Our Spirit Is Called To Go Out In Contemplation And Fruition
Chapter 4. Of A Divine Meeting Which Takes Place In The Hiddenness Of Our Spirit
THE SPARKLING STONE
Prologue
Chapter 1. Through Three Things A Man Becomes Good
Chapter 2. Through Three Things A Man Becomes Inward
Chapter 3. Through Three Things A Man Becomes God-Seeing
Chapter 4. Of The Sparkling Stone, And Of The New Name Written In The Book Of The Secrets Of God
Chapter 5. Of The Works Which God Works In All In Common And Of Five Kinds Of Sinners
Chapter 6. Of The Difference Between The Hirelings And The Faithful Servants Of God
Chapter 7. Of The Difference Between The Faithful Servants And The Secret Friends Of God
Chapter 8. Of The Difference Between The Secret Friends And The Hidden Sons Of God
Chapter 9. How We May Become Hidden Sons Of God, And Attain To The God-Seeing Life
Chapter 10. How We, Though One With God, Must Eternally Remain Other Than God
Chapter 11. Of The Great Difference Between The Brightness Of The Saints And The Highest Brightness To Which We Can Attain In This Life
Chapter 12. Of The Transfiguration Of Christ On Mount Thabor
Chapter 13. How We Ought To Have Fruition Of God
Chapter 14. Of That Common Life Which Comes From The Contemplation And Fruition Of God
THE BOOK OF SUPREME TRUTH
Prologue
Chapter 1. Wherefore This Book Was Written
Chapter 2. A Short Repetition Of All The Highest Teachings Written By The Author
Chapter 3. Of The Union Through Means
Chapter 4. Of The Men Who Practise A False Vacancy
Chapter 5. Of The Union Without Means
Chapter 6. Of Heavenly Weal And Hellish Woe
Chapter 7. Showing Wherefore All Good Men Do Not Attain To The Unmediated Union With God
Chapter 8. Showing How The Inward Man Should Exercise Himself, That He May Be United With God Without Means
Chapter 9. Of The Inward Working Of God's Grace
Chapter 10. Of The Mutual Contentment Of The Divine Persons, And The Mutual Contentment Between God And Good Men
Chapter 11. How Good Men In Their Contemplation Have The Love Of God Before Them, And How They Are Lifted Up Into God
Chapter 12. Of The Highest Union, Without Difference Or Distinction
Chapter 13. Of The Threefold Prayer Of Christ, That We Might Be One With God
Chapter 14. Here The Author Declares That He Submits All That He Has Written To The Judgment Of Holy Church
THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
Jan van Ruysbroeck
Introduction
I
Jan van Ruysbroeck—three of whose most important works are here for the first time presented to English readers—is the greatest of the Flemish mystics, and must take high rank in any list of Christian contemplatives and saints. He was born in 1273, at the little village of Ruysbroeck or Ruusbroeck between Brussels and Hal, from which he takes his name; and spent his whole life within his native province of Brabant. At eleven years old, he is said to have run away from home and found his way to Brussels; where he was received by his uncle Jan Hinckaert, a canon of the Cathedral of St Gudule. Hinckaert, who was a man of great piety, lived with another devout priest named Francis van Coudenberg in the most austere fashion; entirely devoted to prayer and good works. The two ecclesiastics brought the boy up, and gave him a religious education, which evidently included considerable training in theology and philosophy: subjects for which he is said to have shown, even in boyhood, an astonishing aptitude. In 1317 he took orders, and obtained through his uncle's influence a prebend's stall in St Gudule; a position which he occupied for twenty-six years.
During youth and early middle-age, then, Ruysbroeck lived in Brussels, fulfilling the ordinary duties of a cathedral chaplain: and here some of his earlier works may have been written. Here no doubt he developed that shrewd insight into human character to which his books bear witness; and here gained his experience of those "false mystics" and self-sufficient quietists so vividly described and sternly condemned in the second book of The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, in The Book of Truth, and other places. In the early fourteenth century a number of heretical sects, of which the Brethren of the Free Spirit were typical, flourished in the Low Countries. Basing their doctrine on a pantheistic and non-Christian conception of the Godhead, they proclaimed the "divinity of man," and preached a quietism of the most soul-destroying kind, together with an emancipation from the fetters of law and custom which often resulted in actual immorality. 1 As Ruysbroeck grew in knowledge of the true contemplative life, the dangers attending on its perversion became ever more clear to him: and he entered upon that vigorous campaign against the heretical quietists which was the chief outward event of his Brussels period.
As to his spiritual development during these years, we can have no certain knowledge: since none of his works are exactly dated, and the order in which they should be arranged is a matter of inference. But it is inherently probable that he was experiencing the early stages of that mysterious growth of the soul which he describes so exactly in the first two books of The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage: the hard self-discipline, the enlightenment, raptures, and derelictions, of the "active" and "interior" life. At this period, he had made little impression on his contemporaries. The Augustinian canon Pomerius, who had known in their old age some of Ruysbroeck's friends and followers, and who wrote his Life 2 in the year 1420, describes him as a simple, quiet, rather shabby-looking person, who "went about the streets of Brussels with his mind lifted up into God." Yet it is certain that great force of character, much shrewd common sense, and remarkable intellectual qualities lay behind this meek appearance. We know how greatly he disliked "singular conduct" in those who had given themselves to the spiritual life. They should be, he thought, like "other good men";3 and this ideal found expression in his own life. A devout and orthodox Catholic, well read in scholastic theology and philosophy, on the mental and social side at least, he was a thorough man of his time; apparently accepting without criticism its institutions and ideas. Many passages in his works indicate this: for instance, his constant and unquestioning use of the categories of mediaeval psychology, or his quiet assumption4 that "putting to the torture" is part of the business of a righteous judge. But on the spiritual side his period influenced him little. There, his concern was with truths which lie, as he says, "outside Time" in the Eternal Now; and when he is trying to interpret these to us the Middle Ages and their limitations fall away. Then we catch fragments which Plato or Plotinus on one hand, Hegel on the other, might recognise as the reports of one who had known and experienced the Reality for which they sought. "My words," said Ruysbroeck, "are strange, but those who love will understand": and this indeed is true, for he possessed in an extraordinary degree the power—which so many great mystics have lacked—of giving verbal and artistic expression to his soaring intuitions of Eternity.
In 1343, when he was fifty years old, the growing sense of contrast between those intuitions and the religious formalism and unreality of the cathedral life, the distracting bustle of the town, reached a point at which it seems to have become unendurable to him. Together with Hinckaert and Coudenberg—both now old men—he left Brussels for ever; all three intending to settle in some lonely country place, where they could devote themselves to the life of prayer and contemplation. They were given the old hermitage of Groenendael, or the Green Valley, in the forest of Soignes outside Brussels. There they were presently joined by disciples, and formed a small community, which was eventually placed under the rule of the Augustinian canons. Coudenberg became the provost and Ruysbroeck the prior; and under their government the priory of Groenendael soon became known as the home of a special holiness.
We shall probably be right if we identify his thirty-eight years, sojourn in the forest with the "God-seeing" stage of Ruysbroeck's mystical life. 5 Here without doubt all his greatest works were written. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage must have been composed soon after his retreat from Brussels, for we know that in 1350 he sent a copy of it to the group of Rhenish mystics who called themselves the Friends of God. The Sparkling Stone and The Book ofTruth—both written at the request of friends, to explain difficult points in his earlier books—belong to a later date. We need not feel surprised that the full flowering of his genius should coincide with his abandonment of the world. In one form or another such abandonment has been found imperative by all the great explorers of Eternity; whose inward quest of the One nearly always entails some withdrawal from the multiplicity of things. But beyond this, there was in Ruysbroeck's mysticism—at once so intimate in its feeling so vast in its reach—a deeply poetic strain. The silence and growing beauty of the forest ministered to this: and many passages in his books show how easily he discovered intimations of divinity through the loving contemplation of natural things. A beautiful tradition tells us that he would go out alone into the woods when he felt that the inspiration of God was upon him; and there, sitting under his favourite tree, would write as the Holy Ghost dictated. The brethren used to declare that once, having been absent many hours from the priory, he was at last found in this place, rapt in ecstacy and surrounded by a brilliant aura of divine lighta legend which closely resembles many similar stories in the lives of the saints.
Such ecstatic absorption in God, however, formed only one side of Ruysbroeck's religious life. True to his own doctrine of the "balanced career" of action and contemplation as the ideal of the Christian soul 6 his rapturous ascents towards Divine Reality were compensated by the eager and loving interest with which he turned towards the world of men. In the daily life of the priory he sought perpetually for opportunities of service, especially those of the most menial kind. As time passed, and his great mystical gifts became known, many disciples came to him: amongst them Gerard Groot, afterwards the founder of the Brothers of the Common Life and hence spiritual ancestor of Thomas Kempis. To all these he gave patient help and robust advice; initiating them, so far as it was possible, into the secrets of the true spiritual life, and ruthlessly exposing the pious pretensions of those who sought only a reputation for sanctity. It is clear even from his writings that he possessed to a remarkable degree the "gift of the discernment of spirits"—in other words, that his shrewd judgment of humanity seldom failed him. All know the story of the two priests, who came from Paris to ask his opinion of their spiritual state: merely to receive the truthful but disconcerting reply, "You are as holy as you wish to be!"
The thirty-eight years which Ruysbroeck passed at Groenendael were, from the point of view of the earthly biographer, almost devoid of incident. True, he formed many friendships with the most spiritual men of his time, and seems occasionally to have left his priory in order to visit them. We possess a charming account of one such visit; that to Gerard Naghel, the Prior of Hérines, at whose suggestion The Book of Truth was written. "His peaceful and joyful countenance, his humble good-humoured speech," says Gerard, made him loved by all with whom he came into contact: a sentence which brings to mind Ruysbroeck's own picture of those happy men who walk in the way of love.
"Those who follow the way of love Are the richest of all men living: They are bold, frank, and fearless, They have neither travail nor care, For the Holy Ghost bears all their burdens. They seek no outward seeming, They desire nought that is esteemed of men, They affect not singular conduct, They would be like other good men." 7
Further, he saw during these years the rapid growth of the community—now swiftly becoming one of the chief centres of spiritual life in the Low Countries—and the wide dissemination of his own works. He even lived to see certain passages in those works criticised, as supporting a pantheistic and heretical view of the union of the soul with God. The Book of Truth was written to refute this accusation. But the true events of these years took place for him in that supernal world of high contemplation which it was his special province to disclose to his fellow-men. There his real life was fixed. There his loving ardour was for ever young. Thither he drew those treasures of mystical knowledge which he is said to have poured forth to his brethren in long ecstatic discourses when the Spirit impelled him to speak: for he never taught or spoke unless he felt himself inspired thereto by God. When old age came upon him, though his ghostly vision never lost its keenness his earthly eyes grew dim: and his later works were dictated, when the Spirit moved him, to one of the younger brothers of the house. At eighty-eight years of age his strength failed: and after a short illness, which never clouded the radiance of his spirit, he died upon December 2nd, 1381.
II
Ruysbroeck wrote all his works in the dialect of his native province of Brabant: which stands in much the same relation to modern Flemish as Chaucer's English stands to our own speech. Eleven of these works have come down to us in various MS. collections; and all of them, with one or two others of doubtful authenticity, are included in the great standard Latin translation made in the sixteenth century by the Carthusian monk Laurentius Surius. 8
The authentic writings are these:
1. The Spiritual Tabernacle: a long symbolic treatise on the tabernacle of the Israelites, considered as a type of the spiritual life.
2. The Twelve Points of True Faith: a short mystical interpretation of the Creed.
3. The Book of the Four Temptations: an oblique attack on false mystics.
These are probably early works.
4. The Kingdom of God's Lovers.
5. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage.
Two elaborate and orderly treatises on the threefold life and development of the soul, which probably belong to the first years at Groenendael.
6. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation: written before 1359.
7. The Seven Cloisters: written before 1363.
8. The Seven Degrees of Love: written before 1372.
This group of works, forming a graduated instruction on the ascetic and mystical life, seems to have been written for Dame Margaret Van Meerbeke, a nun in the Convent of Poor Clares at Brussels.
9. The Book of the Sparkling Stone.
10. The Book of Supreme Truth.
11. The Twelve Béguines.
These three books, the substance of which is now accessible to English readers, 9 contain the finest fruit of Ruysbroeck's genius. The Twelve Béguines is partly written in the rough rhymed verse which he uses in many parts of The Kingdom of God's Lovers and other places; as if at times his ecstatic apprehensions presented themselves to the surface mind in a rhythmic form and "prayer into song was turned." There is a short example of this in The Book of Truth. Such verse, however, though its uncouth strangeness gives to it an impressive quality, is a far less successful medium for the expression of his subtle mystical perceptions than the vigorous prose style of his best passages; for instance, the wonderful ninth chapter of The Sparkling Stone. 10
When we come to examine the character of these mystical perceptions, we find that Ruysbroeck was one of the few mystics who have known how to make full use of a strong and disciplined intellect, without ever permitting it to encroach on the proper domain of spiritual intuition. An orderly and reasoned view of the universe is the ground plan upon which the results of those intuitions are set out: yet we are never allowed to forget the merely provisional character of the best intellectual concepts where we are dealing with ultimate truth. Ultimate truth, he says, is not accessible to the human reason: "the What-ness of God" we can never know. 11 Yet this need not discourage us from exploring, and describing as well as we can, those rich regions of approximate truth and life-giving experience which await us beyond the ramparts of the sensual world. The intellectual ideas and symbols which he uses most often are taken to a large extent from the Bible and the Liturgy, and the works of his great predecessors and contemporaries; and conform to the main lines of the Christian mystical tradition. St Paul and St Augustine, in particular, have influenced his thought. The notion popularised by M. Maeterlinck, that Ruysbroeck was an "ignorant monk" who became in his ecstacies a profound philosopher, is contradicted by the reminiscences of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, the many quotations from Dionysius the Areopagite, St Augustine, Richard of St Victor, St Bernard, and other mystical authors, which we find in his works. Indeed, only those familiar with these great seers and thinkers are in a position to recognise the sources and unravel the meaning of his more difficult passages. He was in fact almost as well equipped on the intellectual as on the contemplative side: and hence was enabled to interpret to others, in language with which all educated Christians in his day were more or less familiar, something at least of the adventures of his spirit in the fathomless Ocean of God.
Those intellectual concepts, however, of which he availed himself, are constantly used by him in an original way: and always as a means of expressing the results of direct personal inspiration and experience. Particularly characteristic is the living quality with which he invests theological formulae that for us have become fixed and sterile. As Dante, without deviating from the narrow path of scholastic philosophy, brings us at last into the presence of "that Eternal Light which loves and smiles," 12 so Ruysbroeck leads us back by way of the most orthodox Trinitarian doctrine to the very heart of Reality: the eternal and abysmal Fountain of life-giving life.
In the three books which are now translated we shall find all his most characteristic ideas, though here it is only possible to touch upon a few of them. 13 For Ruysbroeck, as for St Augustine, Reality is both Being and Becoming: one-fold and changeless in essence, active and diverse in expression—a dualism aptly represented by the theological dogma of the Trinity in Unity. So too man, the image of God, is a unity who manifests himself in diversity; "made trinity, like to the unmade Blessed Trinity," as our own mystic Julian of Norwich has it.14 The ultimate truth is the Godhead: the Divine Unity of religion, the Absolute of philosophy. It is Simple, not with the simplicity of negation but with the simplicity of complete affirmation: gathering up into its unity all the rich complexities of power, wisdom, and love. In its essence it is "dark," "naked," "wayless"; inaccessible to all the processes of thought. Yet it is alive through and through; the eternal "lifegiving ground" from which all comes. The ideas of "Fatherhood", and "Sonhood" represent its quickening fruitfulness;15 the Holy Ghost is the name of the Divine energy and love which pours forth into the created world, and thence, like a strong ebb-tide, draws all things back into their Origin. 16 Though the soul plunged in God, "sunk in His unity," seems to itself to experience a profound rest and stillness, yet it is really surrendered to the movement of this mighty power: for "God is an ocean that ebbs and flows."
The ideas, then, of movement, effort, and growth are central for Ruysbroeck's thought. Again and again we are impressed by his almost modern sense of life and action as the substance of the real: his freedom from merely static conceptions. Therefore we find that the theme of all his more important books is the growth and development of the soul: the forms in which God's energy plays upon it, the forms which should be taken by its response. The goal of this development is the unified state of "pure simplicity" in which it is able to "lose itself in the Fathomless Love" and enter into the complete and beatific enjoyment, possession, or use of God—for all these meanings are included in the word ghebruken, usually translated "fruition," which is his favourite term for the consummation of the mystical life. 17
In The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage this growth is divided into the three stages of the Active, Interior, and Superessential Life: called in The Sparkling Stone by the old names of the state of Servant, Friend, and Son. Man, we know, has a natural, active life; the only one that he usually recognises. This he may "adorn with the virtues" and make well-pleasing to God (Book I.). But beyond this he has a spiritual or "interior" life, which is susceptible of grace, the Divine energy and love; and by this can be remodelled in accordance with its true pattern or archetype, the Spirit of Christ (Book II.). Beyond this, again, he has a superessential or "God-seeing life," in virtue of the spark of Divine life implanted in him. By the union of his powers of reason will and feeling with this spark a welding of the several elements of his being into unity he may enter into his highest life; the dual and God-like existence of fruition in God and work for God, alternate action and rest (Book III.). The correspondences of the active life are with that moral order which we recognise as binding on all men of good will. Those of the interior life are with the experiences which we usually recognise as religious and spiritual. But the correspondences of the superessential life are with a plane of being which lies beyond thought, and has, so far as our intellectual perceptions go, no condition. It is a wayless state, "above reason, not without reason"; 18 dark with excess of light. This state is the Being of God; but for us it is "beyond being."
The First Book, then, is almost wholly concerned with the development of the Christian character: the only solid and enduring foundation of the mystical life. It treats of the virtues which adorn our human nature and make it ready for the coming of the Spirit of Christ; and of the primary importance of intention, the stretching out of the loving will toward God, "having Him in mind" in all things. "Mean only God," said the old English mystics. So for Ruysbroeck meyninghe en minnen will and love sum up the obligations of the soul at this stage of its growth, and prepare it for the greater experiences of the interior life. Though he never uses the traditional formula of the Mystic Way, we may regard this active life as more or less equivalent to the Way of Purgation. The same stage is treated in the 1st and 6th chapters of The Sparkling Stone and the 3rd chapter of The Book of Truth.
The Second Book goes on from moral training to spiritual training, and includes all that ascetic writers mean by the "Illuminative Way." It deals with those "ghostly exercises," the deliberate responses of the soul to the invitation of God, which form the first degrees of our interior life, and with the dawning of the true mystical consciousness. It falls into three chief divisions, treating of three ways in which the Spirit of God comes into our inner man (caps. 5, 6, and 7).
In the first division (caps. 8-32) Ruysbroeck treats of the action of grace on the "lower powers," or sense life. In the allegory of the Seasons, he describes the normal development of the illuminated life in its emotional aspect: its joys and ardours, reactions and despairs. The Holy Ghost "hunting the spirit of man" (cap. 3) has seized and transfigured those "desirous, affective and irascible" powers of the soul which, according to the doctrine of medieval psychology, make up natural life of normal men. 19
In the second division (caps. 35-38) this process is extended to the "higher powers" of the soul: the memory or mind, the understanding, and the will. The experience of God is, for these higher powers, an experience of fresh enlightenment and fresh ardour; in Ruysbroeck's favourite imagery, of light and fire. Grace, which dwells like a living fountain at the heart of our personality the "unity of the spirit"—thence pours forth into each faculty in three streams of radiance: claerheit, a word expressive at once of pervading brightness and limpid clearness, which occurs on almost every page of his writings. The sense of this supernal clarity, veritably experienced a viva luce, a quickening light, of which we become aware when we open the soul's eyes—is found in nearly every mystical writer from the time of St John, and probably originates in that consciousness of enhanced lucidity which frequently accompanies spiritual exaltation. It was crystallised by the schoolmen in the doctrine of the lumen gloriae—the Divine light which transfigures the soul and makes it like to God 20 and much of Ruysbroeck's work is really a poetic elaboration of this idea. As a "simple light" this Radiance now frees the mind from the teasing complexity of distracting images: as a "spreading light" it illuminates the understanding: as a burning flame, it enkindles the will. The self thus becomes capable of the first form of contemplation, adherence to God by means of the purified reason and will: responding to the "loving drawing-nigh" of God dat minlike neyghen Godswith an ardent outstretching of himself towards that seeking and compelling power.
The powers of the soul, then, in the second stage of illumination, become inundated by the divine claerheit. It "drenches them"; and the result of this is seen in the state of perfect charity to which the self now attains: the condition of equable outflowing love to God and all manner of men (caps. 39-43). In the third and highest stage (caps. 49-65), we pass beyond the enhancement and enlightenment of the separate powers of our nature to the "essential being" of the self: that unity of the spirit of which Ruysbroeck is always speaking, and wherefrom the powers proceed, as the Divine Persons proceed from the Unity of God. 21 Whether our mental and emotional powers as such participate in the spiritual life, is for him a secondary consideration. They may do so, if they be wholly surrendered to God. But our true union with Him takes place in the abysmal deeps of our being—our "ground"and ever abides there: for here our life, as it were, buds out from the Divine life, and here God dwells eternally "according to His essence." If we learn to enter within, passing beyond the powers to the unity of the spirit, we become conscious of this. 22 There we experience His mysterious touch and stirrings; feel and respond to the thrust and invitation of His love, as He drives each created spirit forth to work His will, and draws it home again towards His heart. There, outside Time, the Eternal Birth takes place (caps. 57-61).
As a result of this practice in introversion, this simplification of consciousness, the self now first becomes capable of the second form of contemplation, described in The Twelve Béguines as
"A knowing which is in no wise; For ever abiding above the reason." 23
and enters upon that profound yet simple communion with God which Ruysbroeck calls the most inward of all exercises. For this his favourite image is that of feeding: the soul tastes God (cap. 65), eats, devours, assimilates Him, and in her turn is eaten and consumed 24language which probably reflects his great personal devotion to the Eucharist. With this mystical savouring and feeding upon Reality, the self reaches the term of the interior life, and the full stature of that "secret friend of God" described with such marvellous subtlety in the 8th chapter of The Sparkling Stone.
It is at this point that the dangers of a false mysticism make themselves felt. Here, then, Ruysbroeck enters upon a vigorous and acute criticism of Quietism (caps. 66-67): especially valuable to us at the present day, when so many irresponsible apostles of "new mysticism" are recommending voluntary passivity of this type as a substitute for the stern discipline and perpetual willed effort involved in the Christian science of prayer. Ruysbroeck describes the interior blankness and silence of the quietist as a psychic trick: a deliberate sinking down into the subconscious the subsoil of human nature where it is true that the Divine Life dwells and supports our created life, but where we are below instead of above the levels of normal consciousness. Here, indeed, the soul experiences a sensation of rest and peace: but it is merely resting in its own emptiness, a false repose which demands no exercise of virtue, no tension of the will, and is a caricature of the active and loving surrender taught by the Christian saints. The true emptiness and idleness of which Ruysbroeck speaks as an essential preparation of the contemplative state, is a condition of meek and passive attentiveness to God, which excludes consciousness of the ordinary objects of perception and thought; sweeps and garnishes the interior castle. Here the virtue is not in the emptiness and idleness, but in the humble and eager yielding of ourselves. Although man cannot by his own effort reach God, yet without such deliberate loving effort we shall never possess Him. 25
Beyond even the highest point of this interior life, in which the contemplative feels himself to be living "in God," 26 is that transfigured or deified life, as the Platonic mystics named it, which Ruysbroeck calls overwesens uper essential the life of the "God-seeing man" (Book III). Whereas in the interior life we may be said to re-discover the lost inheritance of our spirit, in this life there is a genuine transcendence, a passing beyond that spirit's created being: for the Being of God, in which this consummation is found, is "more than being" to us. It abides beyond all the concepts of reason, beyond anything that we can name or describe, outside Time, in the bosom of Divine Reality: that deep Quiet of the Godhead which cannot be moved. Those who ascend thereto have passed from the state of "secret friends" to that of the "hidden sons" of God, and completed the soul's journey to its home. 27 Then they find themselves, so far as their separate consciousness persists, in a place that is placeless and a way that is wayless: in the abysmal Onwise of God, a word for which we have no exact equivalent, but which embodies one of Ruysbroeck's most important conceptions, and is the occasion of some of his most mysterious utterances. It represents that world of spiritual reality which is beyond all attributes and conditions; which is neither This nor That, which is "in no wise"—the Absolute wherein all ways and modes of being, all wise, are swallowed up, and all our finite perceptions die into ignorance and darkness (cap. 4). 28
"The splendour of That which is in no wise is as a fair mirror Wherein shines the everlasting light of God: It has no attributes, And in it all the activities of reason fail. It is not God But it is the light whereby we see Him: Those who walk in the divine light thereof Discover in themselves the Unwalled." 29
Seen from the synthetic and spiritual point of view, this supernal world of experience is the Essential Unity, wherein the richness of Eternal Life consists, and where the surrendered soul enjoys the peaceful fruition of God. But seen from the analytic and intellectual point of view it is the Essential Nudity, the "nought" or "divine dark" of Dionysius the Areopagite: for it has been stripped of every character of which we can think. 30 Here the mystic feels himself, as regards his essential being, to be poured out into God, melted and merged in Him as a river in the sea: and, as regards his own separate consciousness, apprehends Him in one simple act of absorbed attention "seeing and staring" with wide-open eyes. It is in this one act, sometimes felt by us as a passing beyond ourselves, sometimes as a fixed ecstatic vision, "beholding that which we are, and becoming that which we behold" that the self at last knows itself to be one life and one spirit with God. 31
The mystic has now entered into union with the three wise, the three modes or ways, under which Divine Love imparts itself in the spirit of man: characteristically distinguished by Ruysbroeck as three forms of movement. First this energetic love pours itself out from the Godhead into us as grace: and we, in receiving it and making it ours by our virtues and good works, are united to God "through means." This is the function of the active life harmonising man's work with God's work. Then, as a compelling tide, it draws us within its own flood back towards God. This is the union "without means"' wherein we are wholly surrendered to His love: it is the proper condition of the interior life. But when we have reached the superessential life, and seem to our own feeling to be lost in the Darkness, burned up in the Brightness, and sunk in the Eternal Stillness of God—that "dark silence where all lovers lose themselves," 32 then the circle is complete. We are made part of His divine fruition or "content the eternal satisfaction and eternal activity of Perfect Love; achieving thus the "union without distinction," though not union without "otherness." 33 Henceforward we can participate in God's dual life of rest and work, transcendent fruition and immanent fruitfulness: abiding in restful possession of Him, yet perpetually sent down from the heights to serve the whole world. 34
The final state of the Christian mystic, then, is not annihilation in the Absolute. It is a condition wherein we dwell wholly in God, one life and truth with Him; yet still "feel God and ourselves," as the lover feels his beloved, in a perfect union which depends for its joy on an invincible otherness. The soul, transfused and transfigured by the Divine Love as molten iron is by the fire, becomes, it is true, "one simple blessedness with God" 35 yet ever retains its individuality: one with God beyond itself, yet other than God within itself. 36 The "deified man" is fully human still, but spiritualised through and through; not by the destruction of his personality, but by the taking up of his manhood into God. There he finds, not a static beatitude, but a Height, a Depth, a Breadth of which he is made part, yet to which he can never attain: for the creature, even at its highest, remains finite, and is conscious that Infinity perpetually eludes its grasp and leads it on. So heaven itself is discovered to be no mere passive fulfillment, but rather a forward-moving life: 37 an ever new loving and tasting, new exploring and enjoying of the Infinite Fulness of God, that inexhaustible Object of our knowledge and delight. It is the eternal voyage of the adventurous soul on the vast and stormy sea of the Divine.
EVELYN UNDERHILL
FIRST BOOK
Prologue
Ecce sponsus venit, exile obviam ei.
Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. These words were written by St Matthew the Evangelist, and Christ spoke them to His disciples and to all other men in the parable of the virgins. This Bridegroom is Christ, and human nature is the bride; the which God has made in His own image and after His likeness. And in the beginning He had set her in the highest and most beautiful, the richest and most fertile place in all the earth: that is, in Paradise. And He had given her dominion over all creatures; and He had adorned her with graces; and had given her a commandment, so that by obedience she might have merited to be confirmed and established with her Bridegroom in an eternal troth, and never to fall into any grief, or any sin.
Then came a beguiler, the hellish fiend, full of envy, in the shape of a subtle serpent, and he beguiled the woman; and they both beguiled the man, in whom above all the whole of our nature consists. And the fiend seduced that nature, the bride of God, with false counsel; and she was driven into a strange country, poor and miserable and captive and oppressed, and beset by her enemies; so that it seemed as though she might never attain reconciliation and return again to her native land.
But when God thought the time had come, and had mercy on the suffering of His beloved, He sent His Only Begotten Son to earth, in a fair chamber, in a glorious temple; that is, in the body of the Virgin Mary. There He was married to this bride, our nature, and He united her with His own person through the most pure blood of this noble Virgin. The priest who married the bride was the Holy Ghost; the angel Gabriel brought the offer; the glorious Virgin gave her consent. Thus Christ, our faithful Bridegroom, united our nature with His person; and He has sought us in strange countries, and taught us heavenly customs and perfect faithfulness, and has laboured for us and fought as our champion against the adversary. And He has broken open our prison, and won the victory, and by His death slain our death; and He has redeemed us by His blood, and made us free through His living waters of baptism, and enriched us with His sacraments and with His gifts: that we might go out (as He says) with all the virtues, to meet Him in the house of glory and to enjoy Him without end in eternity.
Now Christ, the Master of Truth, says: Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him. In these words, Christ our Lover teaches us four things. First, He gives us a command, in that He says: Behold. Those who neglect this command and remain blind are all damned. Secondly, He shows us what we shall see, that is, the coming of the Bridegroom; for He says, The Bridegroom cometh. In the third place, He teaches and commands us what we shall do, for He says: Go ye out. And in the fourth place, by saying: To meet Him, He shows us the use and the purpose of our labour and of all our life; that is to say, the loving meeting with our Bridegroom.
These words we shall now declare and set forth in three ways. First, according to the common way relating to the life of beginners, which is called the Active Life, and which is necessary for all men who wish to be saved. Secondly, we will explain these same words in their relation to the interior, exalted, and God-desiring life, at which many men may arrive by their virtues and by the grace of God. Thirdly, we will expound them in respect of a superessential, God-seeing life, which few men can attain or taste, by reason of the sublimity and high nobility of that life.
Chapter 1. Of The Active Life
Since the time of Adam, Christ, the Wisdom of the Father, has said to all men, and He says so still, inwardly according to His Divinity: Behold. And this beholding is needful. Now mark this well: that for anyone who wishes to see, either in a bodily or a ghostly manner, three things are necessary.
The first thing is that, if a man will see bodily and outwardly, he must have the outward light of heaven, or some other material light, to illuminate the medium, that is, the air, through which he will see. The second thing is, that he must permit the things which he wishes to see to be reflected in his eyes. And the third thing is that the organs, the eyes, must be sound and flawless, so that gross bodily things can be subtly reflected in them. If a man lack any of these three things his bodily sight is wanting. Of this sight, however, we shall say nothing more; but we shall speak of a ghostly and supernatural sight, in which all our bliss abides.
For all who wish to see in a ghostly and supernatural manner three things also are needful. The first is the light of Divine grace; the second is a free turning of the will to God, the third is a conscience clean from any mortal sin.
Now mark this: God being a common good, and His boundless love being common to all, He gives His grace in two ways: prevenient grace, and the grace by which one merits eternal life. Prevenient grace is common to all men, Pagan and Jew, good and evil. By reason of His common love, which God has towards all men, He has caused His name and the redemption of human nature to be preached and revealed to the uttermost parts of the earth. Whosoever wishes to turn to Him can turn to Him. All the sacraments, baptism and every other sacrament are made ready for all men who wish to receive them according to the needs of each; for God wishes to save all men and to lose not one. At the day of Judgment, no one shall be able to complain that, had he wished to be converted, but little was done for him. Thus God is a common light and a common splendour enlightening heaven and earth, and every man, each according to his need and worth. 38
But although, even as God is common to all, the sun shines upon all trees, yet many a tree remains without fruits, and many a tree brings forth wild fruits of little use to men. And for this reason such trees are pruned, and shoots of fruitful trees are grafted into them, so that they may bear good fruits, savoury and useful to man.
The light of Divine grace is a fruit-bearing shoot, coming forth from the living paradise of the eternal kingdom; and no deed can bring refreshment or profit to man if it be not born of this shoot. This shoot of Divine grace, which makes man pleasing to God, and through which he merits eternal life, is offered to all men. But it is not grafted into all, because some will not cut away the wild branches of their trees; that is, unbelief, and a perverse and disobedient will opposed to the commandments of God.
But if this shoot of God's grace is to be grafted into our souls, there must be of necessity three things: the prevenient grace of God, the conversion of one's own free will, and the purification of conscience. The prevenient grace touches all men, God bestowing it upon all men. But not all men give on their part the conversion of the will and the purification of conscience; and that is why so many lack the grace of God, through which they should merit eternal life.
The prevenient grace of God touches a man from without and from within. From without through sickness; or through the loss of external goods, of kinsmen, and of friends; or through public disgrace. Or he may be stirred by a sermon, or by the examples of the saints or of good men, their words, or their deeds; so that he learns to recognize himself as he is. This is how God touches a man from without.
Sometimes a man is touched also from within, through remembering the sorrows and the sufferings of our Lord, and the good which God has bestowed upon him and upon all other men; or by considering his sins, the shortness of life, the fear of death and the fear of hell, the eternal torments of hell and the eternal joy of heaven, and how God has spared him in his sins and has awaited his conversion. Or he may ponder the marvellous works of God in heaven and in earth, and in all creatures. Such are the workings of the prevenient grace of God, stirring men from without and from within, in many ways. And besides this, man has a natural tendency towards God, because of the spark of the soul, and because of that highest reason, which always desires the good and hates the evil. In all these ways God touches all men, each one according to his need; so that at times a man is smitten, reproved, alarmed, and stands still within himself to consider himself. And all this is still prevenient grace, and not yet efficacious grace. Thus does prevenient grace prepare the soul for the reception of the other grace, through which eternal life is merited. For when the soul has thus got rid of evil willing and evil doing, it is perplexed and smitten with fear of what it should do, considering itself, its wicked works, and God. And from this there arise a natural repentance of its sins and a natural good-will. Such is the highest work of prevenient grace.
If a man does all he can, and cannot do more because of his feebleness, it rests with the infinite goodness of God to finish the work. Then, straight as a sunbeam, there comes a higher light of Divine grace, and it is shed into the soul according to its worth, though neither merited nor desired. For in this light God gives Himself out of free goodness and generosity, the which never creature can merit before it has received it. And this is an inward and mysterious working of God in the soul, above time; and it moves the soul and all its powers. Therewith ends prevenient grace and begins the other grace, that is to say, the supernatural light.
This light is the first point necessary, and from it there arises a second point, and that on the part of the soul; namely, the free conversion of the will, in a single moment of time. And here it is that charity is born of the union of God with the soul. These two points hang together, so that the one cannot be fulfilled without the other. Where God and the soul come together in the union of love, then God, above time, gives His light; and the soul, in a single moment of time, gives, by virtue of the grace received, its free conversion to Him. And there charity is born of God and of the soul in the soul, for charity is a bond of love, tying God to the loving soul.
Of these two things—that is to say, the grace of God and the free conversion of the will enlightened by grace—charity, that is, Divine love, is born. And from this Divine love the third point arises; that is, the purification of conscience. And these three points belong together in such a way that one cannot exist long without the others; for whosoever has Divine love has also perfect contrition for his sins.
Yet here we must take heed to the order of Divine and creaturely things as they are here shown. For God gives His light, and by this light man gives his willing and perfect conversion: and of these two is born a perfect love towards God. And from this love there come forth perfect contrition and purification of conscience. And these arise from the consideration of misdeeds and all that may defile the soul: for when a man loves God he despises himself and all his works. This is the order of every conversion. From it there come true repentance, a perfect sorrow for every evil thing which one has done, and an ardent desire never to sin again and evermore to serve God in humble obedience. Hence too an open confession, without reserve, ambiguity, or excuse; a perfect satisfaction according to the counsel of a prudent priest; and the beginning of virtue and of all good works.
These three things, as you have heard, are needful to a spiritual or godly sight. If you have them, Christ is saying within you: Behold, and you are beholding in truth. And this is the first of the four chief points; namely, that in which Christ our Lord says: Behold.
Chapter 2. Showing How We Shall Consider The Coming Of Christ In Three Ways
Now, by saying: The Bridegroom cometh, He shows us further what we shall see. Christ, our Bridegroom, spoke this word in Latin: Venit. And this word implies two tenses, the past and the present; and yet here it denotes the future too.
And that is why we shall consider three comings of our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. In the first coming He became man, for man's sake, out of love. The second coming takes place daily, often and many times, in every loving heart, with new graces and with new gifts, as each is able to receive them. The third coming we shall see as the coming in the Judgment, or at the hour of death. And in all these comings there are three things to be considered: the why and the wherefore, the inward way, and the outward work.
The reason why God created the angels and man, was His unfathomable goodness and nobleness whereby He willed to do it; that the bliss and the richness which He is Himself might be revealed to rational creatures, so that they might taste Him in time, and enjoy Him outside time in eternity.
The reason why God became man was His incomprehensible love, and the need of all men; for man had been corrupted by the Fall, and could not amend himself.
But the reason why Christ, according to His Godhead and according to His manhood, wrought all His works on earth, this reason is fourfold: His Divine love which is without measure; the created love, called charity, which He had in His soul through union with the Eternal Word and through the perfect gift of His Father; the great need of man; and the glory of His Father. These are the reasons for the coming of Christ our Bridegroom, and for all His works, both outward and inward.
Now, if we would follow Christ our Bridegroom in virtue, so far as we are able, we must consider in what wise He was inwardly and the works which He wrought outwardly; that is to say, His virtues and the deeds of these virtues.
In what wise He was according to His Godhead, this is inaccessible and incomprehensible to us; for it is that according to which He is born of the Father without ceasing, and wherein the Father, in Him and through Him, knows, creates, orders and rules all things in heaven and on earth. For He is the Wisdom of the Father, and they breathe forth one Spirit, that is, one Love, which is a common bond between Them and all saints, and all good men in heaven and on earth. Of this condition we shall not speak any more; but we shall speak of that condition which He had through Divine gifts and according to His created manhood. 39 And this condition was manifold. For as many inward virtues as Christ possessed, so many were His inward conditions: for every virtue has its special condition. The sum of the virtues and conditions in the soul of Christ, this is above the understanding and above the comprehension of all creatures. But we shall take three of them: namely, humility, charity, and patient suffering, in inward and outward things. These are the three chief roots and beginnings of all virtues and all perfection.
Chapter 3. Of Humility
Now understand this: we find in Christ, according to His Godhead, two kinds of humility.
The first kind is this: that He willed to become man, and took upon Himself that very nature which had been banished and cursed to the bottom of hell, and willed to become one with it according to His personality; so that now any man, either good or evil, can say: Christ, the Son of God, is my brother.
The second kind of humility according to His Godhead consists in this; that He chose a poor maiden, and not a king's daughter, for His mother, so that a poor maiden should be the mother of God, who is Lord of heaven and earth and all creatures.
And further, we can say of all the works of humility which Christ ever wrought, that they were wrought by God Himself.
Now let us take the humility which was in Christ according to His manhood and through the grace and the gifts of God. In this humility His soul with all its powers bowed down in reverence and adoration before the most high might of the Father; for a bowed down heart is a humble heart. And therefore He wrought all His works for the praise and for the honour of His Father, and never and in nothing sought His own glory according to His humanity.
