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 _Beguines_
(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.