Alas poor country;
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be called our mother, but our grave. Where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
Are made, not mark’d; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead man’s knell
Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men’s lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.
MACBETH.
The day after Atherton’s return, Willoughby and Gower met about noon, at
Lowestoffe’s lodge gate, the one returning from a piscatory expedition
of six hours, with fish, the other from a pictorial ramble of four days,
with sketches. Willoughby had to tell of the escapades of tricksy trout,
and of the hopes and fears which were suspended on his line. But not a
word, of course, had he to say of the other thoughts which busied him
the while,—how his romance was in his head, as he carried those
credentials of idleness, the fishing-tackle, and how, while he was
angling for fish, he was devising the fashion in which Blanche should
throw the fly for Florian. Gower had seen such glades and uplands—such
wondrous effects of light and shadow—he, too, had had his adventures,
and could show his trophies.
Dinner was succeeded by that comparatively somnolent period which
preceded the early tea so dear to Lowestoffe. Atherton found that a book
of Schubert’s, which had interested him in the morning, was, in the
afternoon, only a conducting-rod to lure down the subtile influence of
sleep. Lowestoffe, lulled by the buzzing flies, dropped off into an
arm-chair doze, without apology or disguise. He had been early up, and
had been riding about all day on a new chestnut mare. Violently had he
objurgated that wretch of a groom for giving her too many beans, thereby
rendering her in danger of flying at the heels; and what was worse, the
monster had put on a gag snaffle with the martingale, and narrowly
escaped getting her into mischief. But the flying storm had long since
swept away. Before tea, Lowestoffe was in his good-humoured, irrational
humour; after tea he would be in his good-humoured rational one. As for
Gower and Kate, they had quietly withdrawn together to see a water-lily
that had just blown, and were not heard of till tea-time.
After tea, when certain sleepy people had again become responsible
creatures, conversation began.
GOWER. Don’t you think Atherton has a very manuscriptural air to-night?
KATE. There is a certain aspect of repletion about him.
MRS. ATHERTON. We must bleed him, or the consequences may be serious.
What’s this? (_Pulls a paper out of his pocket._)
KATE. And this! (_Pulls out another._)
WILLOUGHBY. He seems better now.
ATHERTON (_abstractedly_). I was thinking of the difference between
Gower’s studies and mine for the last few days. I have been reading a
dark, miserable chapter in the history of man. He has been the
chronicler of pleasant passages in the history of rocks and trees,—his
great epochs, a smile of sun-shine or sudden chill of shadow,—the worst
disasters, a dull neutral-tint kind of day, or a heavy rain,—his most
impracticable subjects, beauties too bright or evanescent to be caught.
It is sad to think how every subject of our study deepens in sorrow as
it rises in dignity.
WILLOUGHBY. And yet it is only by the manful struggles of past
generations through calamity and against wrong, that we have bequeathed
to us the leisure, the liberty, and the knowledge essential to the
highest enjoyment of nature. Atherton, in fact, studies the chequered
and intricate causes which issue in the taste of Gower as one of their
effects. I should think it must be no small gain for an artist to be
placed beyond the mediæval idea which set the _Inferno_ in the centre of
the earth, and imagined, far below the roots of the mountains and the
channels of the sea, eternal flames as the kernel of the world.
GOWER. I have sometimes endeavoured, while lying on the grass, to
realise in my own way the conception of the world by the light-hearted
Greeks as an animal, or as a robe or peplus. I have imagined the clouds
the floating breath of the great creature, rising against the crystal
sphere of the sky, under which it lies as in an enchanter’s glass;—the
seas, some delicate surfaces of the huge organism, that run wrinkled
into a quick shiver at the cold touch of wind;—the forests, a fell of
hair which is ruffled by the chafing hand of the tempest. Then, when I
look at the earth in the other aspect, as a variegated woven robe, I see
it threaded silverly with branching rivers spangled with eyes of lakes;
where the sleek meadows lie, it is rich with piled velvet, and where the
woods are, tufted with emerald feathers. But now I want to hear
something more about our Strasburg people.
ATHERTON. Bad news. There is a great hiatus in Arnstein’s journal, which
history fills up with pestilence and bloodshed. I have drawn up a few
notes of this interval which must serve you as an outline. (_Reads._)
In the year 1348 that terrible contagion, known as the Black Death,
which journeyed from the East to devastate the whole of Europe,
appeared at Strasburg.[129] Everywhere famine, floods, the inversion
of the seasons, strange appearances in the sky, had been its
precursors. In the Mediterranean Sea, as afterwards in the Baltic,
ships were descried drifting masterless, filled only by
plague-stricken corpses. Every man dreaded, not merely the touch and
the breath of his neighbour, but his very eye, so subtile and so
swift seemed the infection. In many parts of France it was computed
that only two out of every twenty inhabitants were left alive. In
Strasburg sixteen thousand perished; in Avignon sixty thousand. In
Paris, at one time, four or five hundred were dying in a day. In
that city, in the midst of a demoralization and a selfish horror
like that Thucydides has painted, the Sisters of Mercy were seen
tending the sufferers who crowded the Hôtel-Dieu; and, as death
thinned their martyr-ranks, numbers more were ready to fill the same
office of perilous compassion. Pausanias says that in Athens alone
out of all Greece there was raised an altar to mercy. But it was an
altar almost without a ministry. Heathendom, at its best, might
glory in the shrine; Christianity, at its worst, could furnish the
priesthood.
In Strasburg Tauler laboured fearlessly, with Thomas and Ludolph,
among the panic-stricken people—doubly cursed by the Interdict and
by the plague. Great fires of vine-wood, wormwood, and laurel were
kept burning in the squares and market-places to purify the air,
lighting up the carved work of the deserted town-hall, and
flickering aslant the overhanging gables of the narrow crooked
streets and the empty tradesmen’s stalls. The village was ravaged as
fatally as the town. The herds grew wild in the fields of the dead
peasants, or died strangely themselves—victims, apparently, to the
universal blight of life. The charlatans of the day drove for awhile
a golden traffic with quintessences and distillations, filthy and
fantastic medicines, fumigation of shirts and kerchiefs, charms and
invocations, only at last to perish in their turn. Even the monks
had lost their love for gold, since every gift was deadly. In vain
did trembling men carry their hoards to the monastery or the church.
Every gate was barred, and the wealthy might be seen tossing their
bags of bezants over the convent walls. In the outskirts of towns
and cities, huge pits were opened, whose mouths were daily filled
with hideous heaps of dead. The pope found it necessary to
consecrate the river Rhone, and hundreds of corpses were cast out at
Avignon, from the quays and pleasant gardens by the water-side, to
be swept by the rapid stream under the silent bridges, past the
forgotten ships and forsaken fields and mourning towns, livid and
wasting, out into the sea.
In a frenzy of terror and revenge the people fell upon the miserable
Jews. They were accused of poisoning the wells, and every heart was
steeled against them. Fear seemed to render all classes more
ferocious, and the man who might sicken and die to-morrow found a
wretched compensation in inflicting death to-day on the imagined
authors of his danger. Toledo was supposed to be the centre of an
atrocious scheme by which the Jews were to depopulate Christendom.
At Chillon several Jews, some after torture and some in terror of
it, confessed that they had received poison for that purpose. It was
a black and red powder, made partly from a basilisk, and sent in the
mummy of an egg. The deposition of the Jews arrested at Neustadt was
sent by the castellan of Chillon to Strasburg. Bishops, nobles, and
chief citizens held a diet at Binnefeld in Alsace, to concert
measures of persecution. The deputies of Strasburg, to their honour
be it spoken, declared that nothing had been proved against the
Jews. Their bishop was the most pitiless advocate of massacre. The
result was a league of priests, lords, and people, to slay or banish
every Jew. In some places the senators and burgomasters were
disposed to mercy or to justice. The pope and the emperor raised
their voices, alike in vain, in behalf of the victims. Some
Christians, who had sought from pity or from avarice to save them,
perished in the same flames. The noble of whom they bought
protection was stigmatised as a Jew master, execrated by the
populace, at the mercy of his enemies. No power could stem the
torrent. The people had tasted blood; the priest had no mercy for
the murderers of the Lord; the baron had debts easily discharged by
the death of his creditor. At Strasburg a monster scaffold was
erected in the Jewish burial ground, and two thousand were burnt
alive. At Basle all the Jews were burnt together in a wooden edifice
erected for the purpose. At Spires they set their quarter in flames,
and perished by their own hands. A guard kept out the populace while
men commissioned by the senate hunted for treasure among the smoking
ruins. The corrupting bodies of those slain in the streets were put
up in empty wine casks, and trundled into the Rhine. When the rage
for slaughter had subsided, hands, red with Hebrew blood, were
piously employed in building belfries and repairing churches with
Jewish tombstones and the materials of Jewish houses.
The gloomy spirit of the time found fit expression in the fanaticism
of the Flagellants.[130] Similar troops of devotees had in the
preceding century carried throughout Italy the mania of the scourge;
but never before had the frenzy of penance been so violent or so
contagious. It was in the summer of 1349 that they appeared in
Strasburg. All the bells rang out as two hundred of them, following
two and two many costly banners and tapers, entered the city,
singing strange hymns. The citizens vied with each other in opening
to them their doors and seating them at their tables. More than a
thousand joined their ranks. Whoever entered their number was bound
to continue among them thirty-four days, must have fourpence of his
own for each day, might enter no house unasked, might speak with no
woman. The lash of the master awaited every infraction of their
rule. The movement partook of the popular, anti-hierarchical spirit
of the day. The priest or friar could hold no rank, as such, among
the Flagellants. The mastership was inaccessible to him, and he was
precluded from the secret council. The scourging took place twice a
day. Every morning and evening they repaired in procession to the
place of flagellation outside the city. There they stripped
themselves, retaining only a pair of linen drawers. They lay down in
a large circle, indicating by their posture the particular sin of
which each penitent was principally guilty. The perjured lay on his
side, and held up three fingers; the adulterer on his face. The
master then passed round, applying his lash to each in succession,
chanting the rhyme—
Stand up in virtue of holy pain,
And guard thee well from guilt again.
One after the other, they rose and followed him, singing and
scourging themselves with whips in which were great knots and nails.
The ceremony closed with the reading of a letter, said to have been
brought by an angel from heaven, enjoining their practice, after
which they returned home in order as they came. The people crowded
from far and near to witness the piteous expiation, and to watch
with prayers and tears the flowing blood which was to mingle with
that of Christ. The pretended letter was reverenced as another
gospel, and the Flagellant was already believed before the priest.
The clergy grew anxious as they saw the enthusiasm spreading on
every side. But the unnatural furor could not last; its own
extravagance prepared its downfall. An attempt made by some
Flagellants in Strasburg to bring a dead child to life was fatal to
their credit. The Emperor, the Pope, and the prelates took measures
against them simultaneously, in Germany, in France, in Sicily, and
in the East. The pilgrimage of the scourge was to have lasted
four-and-thirty years. Six months sufficed to disgust men with the
folly, to see their angelic letter laughed to scorn, their
processions denounced, their order scattered.
Meanwhile the enemies of Tauler were not idle. Louis of Bavaria was
dead. The new Emperor Charles IV. was of the papal party, and called
the Parsons’ Kaiser, but a man of vigour and enlightenment; so weary
Germany, broken by so many calamities, was generally inclined to
acknowledge his claim. About the year 1348 he visited Strasburg, and
the clergy brought Tauler and his two friends before him. They were
to answer for their hard words against priests and princes. Charles
listened attentively to the statement of their principles, and to
their spirited defence of what they had said and done. At last he
said (conceive the dismay of the prelates!) that, after all, ‘he was
very much of their mind.’ But the ecclesiastics did not rest till
they had procured a condemnatory sentence. The accused were
commanded to publish a recantation, and to promise to refrain for
the future from such contumacious language concerning the Church and
the Interdict, on pain of excommunication. It is said that, in spite
of this decision, they did but speak and write the more in the same
spirit. This, however, is not certain. It is known that Tauler
shortly afterwards left his native city, and fixed his residence in
Cologne, where he mostly spent the remainder of his life, actively
engaged as a preacher in endeavouring to promote a deeper
spirituality, and in combating the enthusiasm of the pantheistic
Beghards who abounded in that city.[131]
_Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein, continued._
STRASBURG. 1354. _January._—In the comparative leisure of the winter
time, I set down in order (from such fragmentary notes as I then
made) records of a journey undertaken last year to Flanders.
When I left Strasburg, to sail down the Rhine, our city had enjoyed
at last nearly two years’ prosperity. We could scarcely believe the
respite real. First of all, after so many troubles and dissensions,
the Black Death had laid us waste. Then came the Flagellants,
turning all things upside down—the irresistible infection of their
fury—the thirst for blood they stirred up everywhere—the slaughter
of the miserable Jews. Then we had the Emperor among us, demanding
unrighteous imposts. Our old spirit rose. For two years and a half
our chains and guard-ships barred the passage of the Rhine.[132] We
would endure any extremity rather than submit, and our firmness won
the day. Now, for the last three years,—the pestilence and its
horrors over; blockaded business free again;—our little world has
been gambolling like children let loose from school. Never such
rapid and fruitful buying and selling, such marrying and giving in
marriage, such feasting, pageantry, and merriment, among high and
low alike.[133] All the year is May for the morris-dancers. No one
remembers now the scourge or the torch.
The clergy might have learnt a lesson from the outbreak of the
Flagellants. It should have shown them how hateful their vices and
their pride had made them to the people. But the universal levity
now pardons clerical crime and folly as it does every other. The
odious exaggeration of the Flagellants has given men a pretext for
licence, and ruined the hopes of reform. The cause of emperor
against pope exists no longer. In the hour of conflict and of
sorrow, men hailed the help and listened to the teaching of the
Friends of God. Tauler himself, were he among us, would find it
another Strasburg.
Landed at Cologne, I hastened to the cloister of St. Gertrude to
find Dr. Tauler. With what delight did I see him once more! I
thought him looking much older, and, indeed, he said he thought the
same of me. The time has been long but a stepmother to merry faces
and ruddy cheeks. He told me that he had met with great kindness in
this city, which he had always loved. His friends were numerous; his
preaching, he hoped not without fruit, and he had succeeded in
reforming much that had been amiss.[134] I had many messages for him
from his old friends in Strasburg, and he had so many questions to
ask, he knew not where to begin.
He inquired particularly after Rulman Merswin. This rich merchant
had withdrawn from the world (with the consent of his wife) and
devoted himself altogether to the contemplative life, a short time
previous to the coming of the Black Death. His austerities had been
almost fatal. Tauler’s last counsel to him was to lessen their
severity. I saw him before I left, and he desired me to tell Tauler
that the Layman had visited him more than once, and was now his
spiritual guide. I informed the Doctor, moreover, that during the
last year Merswin had been privately busied in writing a book, to be
called _The Nine Rocks_, of which he did me the honour of reading to
me a part.[135] The Doctor asking what I thought, I said it seemed
to be the work of a powerful and sombre imagination, excited by the
sufferings he had inflicted on himself, yet containing many solemn
and most just rebukes of the vices prevalent. Tauler said that such
excessive mortification in all classes, and especially among the
clergy, often weakened, instead of exalting the intellect. He feared
that the good Rulman would always lean too much on visions, voices,
ecstasies, and the like, and never rise to the higher calm of
unsensuous, imageless contemplation.
The second time I visited Tauler, I found him reading—he told me for
the fourth time—a book called _The Spiritual Nuptials_, by John
Ruysbroek.[136] The Doctor praised it highly, and as I questioned
him about it, offered to lend it me to read. I had heard of
Ruysbroek as a master in spiritual mysteries, often holding
intercourse by letter with the Friends of God in Cologne, Alsace,
and even in the Oberland. I took the book home to my inn, and shut
myself up to read it. Many parts of it I copied out. Not a few
things in it I found hard to be understood, and consulting with the
Doctor about them, he told me he purposed setting out in a few days
to visit the author. Should I like to accompany him? I said ‘Yes,
with all my heart.’ So we left Cologne to travel to the convent of
Grünthal, in the heart of the forest of Soigne, not far from
Louvain, whither the holy man, now sixty years of age, had of late
retired.[137]
From Cologne we journeyed direct to Aix-la-Chapelle. There we saw
the chair in which the emperors sit when they are crowned. Its sides
are of ivory, and the bottom is made of a piece of wood from Noah’s
Ark. Tasted the water in the famous hot springs there. It is
saltish; the physicians say of singular virtue, whether taken
inwardly or outwardly. Saw near the town a water which is lukewarm,
by reason of one of the hot springs which passes under it. There are
bred in it fine fish, they say, which must be put in cold water two
months before they are eaten.
From Aix-la-Chapelle we went to Maestricht, and thence through
Tirlemont, to Louvain. This last is a wealthy city, with a fine
town-hall. The Flemings seem very fond of bells, which are always
chiming, and the great multitude of storks was a strange thing to
me; they make their nests on the tops of the chimneys. The country
round is very fertile, and the great guilds exceeding prosperous.
The small handicrafts have more power there than with us at
Strasburg. At Ypres, I hear, they lately mustered five thousand
strong in the market-place, and headed by their deacons, engaged and
routed the knights and men-at-arms who wished to hold the town
against the men of Ghent.[138] They are very brave and determined,
and keep better together, as it seems to me, than our folk. I found
no small excitement in the city, on account of the war then carrying
on between the men of Ghent and their allies, on the one side, and
the Earl of Flanders on the other. It began with the old rivalry
between Ghent and Bruges—some dispute about a canal from the Lys.
The real struggle is between lords and commons. What Bishop Berthold
and his party have been to us, that is the Count de Male to these
Flemings. The popular side has lost a brave leader in John Lyon. He
revived the White Hoods, and stirred up all Flanders against the
earl. But two at least of the new captains, John Boule and Peter du
Bois, bid fair to fill his place. When I was at Louvain, the troops
of the earl were besieged in Oudenarde by upwards of a hundred
thousand men, gathered out of all the principal towns, well
provisioned and appointed. The besiegers were very strong in
cross-bow men, and had with them some great guns, which did no small
damage. Many hot assaults were made, both by land and water, and on
both sides many brave men slain (Heaven rest their souls!) for the
Flemings were no whit behind the knights in foolhardiness. When I
left Brabant, report said that a peace was, or soon would be
concluded, to be ratified, according to their wont there, by
enormous dinners. Certain it is that neither Oudenarde nor
Dendermonde were carried after all.[139]
They still talked at Louvain about that flower of chivalry Edward
III. of England, who was there for a season some few years
back.[140] His princely entertainments to lords and ladies left the
country full of golden traditions about him. The islanders won all
hearts by their unparalleled magnificence and generosity. They say
the English king called James von Artaveld—brewer of metheglin as he
was—his cousin, and was passing wroth when he heard of his murder.
Yet methinks he cares but little after all for the Flemish weavers,
save as they may help him and his knights against France.
Nevertheless, the weaker France, the better for Germany. I think I
understand why our emperor Charles so flatters the pope. If his
Holiness could confide in Germany he would fain break with France.
Be this as it may, not a word now is heard about the claims of the
empire. The Ghibelline cause finds no leader. The spirit of the
Hohenstaufen lives only in the rhymes of the minstrel. No doubt
times are changed. There may be policy in the submission, but I love
it not. The Doctor interpreted to me the other day the emperor’s
Latin motto, which set me thinking. It means—the best use you can
make of your own wits is to turn to good account the follies of
other people.[141] So cardinals and envoys riding to and fro,
plotting and treaty-making, will manage Christendom now, not strong
arms and sword-strokes. Whether, in the end, this change will lead
to better or to worse, it baffles my poor brain to decide.
We set out from Louvain for Grünthal, quite a troop of us. There was
a noble widow-lady, with her attendants, who was going to crave
ghostly counsel from the prior. She had lost her husband by the
plague, three years since, and appeared still overwhelmed with
grief, speaking to no one, and never suffering her face to be seen.
Her women, when not near her, were merry enough with the followers
of a young Frenchman of family who carried letters to Ruysbroek from
his uncle, an abbot in Paris. We had with us besides two Minorite
friars from Guelders. The head dresses of the women were fit for
giantesses, rising up like a great horn, with long ribbons
fluttering from the top. One of them had a little dagger in her
girdle, and managed a spirited horse to admiration. The Frenchman,
with whom I had much talk, was an arrant fop, yet a shrewd fellow
withal. He jingled like a jester with his many silver bells, his
hair was tied behind in a tail, the points of his shoes turned up,
his parti-coloured doublet cut short round (a new fashion, adopted
for greater swiftness in flying from an enemy), and his beard, long
and bushy, trimmed with a sort of studied negligence. He gave me a
melancholy account of the state of France, divided within, overrun
by the English invaders, nobles plundering and burning—here to-day
and there to-morrow, without pity, law, or loyalty; knights
destroying, not helping the weak: troops of robbers surprising
castles and even taking towns; and the wretched peasantry fain often
to hide themselves and their cattle for weeks and months in great
caves hollowed out underneath the ground.
One of the friars told me a story current about Prior Ruysbroek,
how, one day, he was absent longer than usual in the forest, whither
he was accustomed to retire for meditation, and as some of the
brethren went to seek him they saw a tree at a distance which
appeared surrounded by fiery glory. The holy man was sitting at its
foot, lost in contemplation! The Saviour and our Blessed Lady
herself are said to have appeared to him more than once.[142]
We reached Grünthal—a great building of exceeding plainness—soon
after nightfall. Found there visitors from Brussels, so that,
between us, nearly all the guest chambers were filled. The good
Ruysbroek has been there but a year, yet if he is always to be thus
sought unto, methinks he is as far from his longed-for seclusion as
ever.[143]
We remained three weeks at Grünthal, for whenever the Doctor would
be going, the good Prior so besought him to tarry longer that he
could not in courtesy say him nay. Often Ruysbroek and Tauler would
spend all the summer morning in the forest, now walking, now sitting
under the trees, talking of the concerns of the soul, or of the
fears and hopes awakened by these doubtful times. I was permitted
repeatedly to accompany them, and afterwards wrote down some of the
more remarkable things I heard said. These two saintly men, prepared
to love each other as brothers in a common experience, seemed at
once to grow together into a friendship as strong as though many
years had been employed in the building thereof. Neither of them
vain, neither jealous, each was for humbling himself beneath the
other, and seemed desirous rather to hear and learn than to talk
about himself.
Speaking about the Son of God and the soul of man, Ruysbroek
said—‘I believe that the Son is the Image of the Father, that in
the Son have dwelt from all eternity, foreknown and contemplated
by the Father, the prototypes of all mankind. We existed in the
Son before we were born—He is the creative ground of all
creatures—the eternal cause and principle of their life. The
highest essence of our being rests therefore in God,—exists in his
image in the Son. After our creation in time, our souls are
endowed with these properties, which are in effect one; the first,
the Imageless Nudity, (_die bildlose Nacktheit_)—by means of this
we receive and are united to the Father; the second, the Higher
Reason of the Soul (_die höhere Vernunft der Seele_), the mirror
of brightness, by which we receive the Son; the third, the Spark
of the Soul (_Funken der Seele_) by which we receive the love of
God the Holy Ghost. These three faculties are in us all the ground
of our spiritual life, but in sinners they are obscured and buried
under their transgressions.[144]
‘The office of the Son in time was to die for us, fulfil the law,
and give us a divine pattern of humility, love, and patience. He is
the fountain whence flows to us all needed blessing, and with him
works the Holy Spirit. What the Son did he did for all—is
Light-bringer for all mankind, for the Catholic Church especially,
but also for every devoutly-disposed mind. Grace is common, and
whoever desires it has it. Without it no natural powers or merits
can save us. The will is free by nature, it becomes by grace more
free; yea, a king, lord of every lower power, crowned with Love,
clad in the might of the Holy Ghost. There is a natural will towards
good (_Synderesis_) implanted in us all, but damped by sin. We can
will to follow this better impulse, and of ourselves desire the help
of divine grace, without which we can never overcome sin and rise
above ourselves. Everything depends on will. A man must will right
strongly. Will to have humility and love, and they are thine. If any
man is without the spirit of God, it is his own fault, for not
seeking that without which he cannot please Him.[145]
‘True penitence is of the heart; bodily suffering is not essential.
No one is to think he is shut out from Christ because he cannot bear
the torturing penance some endure. We must never be satisfied with
any performance, any virtue—only in the abyss, the Nothingness of
Humility, do we rise beyond all heavens. True desire after God is
not kept back by the sense of defect. The longing soul knows only
this, that it is bent on God. Swallowed up in aspiration, it can
take heed of nothing more.’[146] (A very weighty saying this,
methinks, and helpful.)
Speaking of the inner life, and the union of the soul with God,
Ruysbroek said—
‘God dwells in the highest part of the soul. He who ascends this
height has all things under his feet. We are united to God when, in
the practice of the virtues, we deny and forsake ourselves, loving
and following God above all creatures. We cannot compel God by our
love to love us, but He cannot sanctify us unless we freely
contribute our effort. There is a reciprocal desire on our part and
that of God. The free inspiration of God is the spring of all our
spiritual life. Thence flows into us knowledge—an inner revelation
which preserves our spirit open, and, lifting us above all images
and all disturbance, brings us to an inward silence. Here the divine
inspiration is a secret whispering in the inner ear. God dwells in
the heart pure and free from every image. Then first, when we
withdraw into the _simplicitas_ of our heart, do we behold the
immeasurable glory of God, and our intellect is as clear from all
considerations of distinction and figurative apprehensions, as
though we had never seen or heard of such things. Then the riches of
God are open to us. Our spirit becomes desireless, as though there
were nothing on earth or in heaven of which we stood in need. Then
we are alone with God, God and we—nothing else. Then we rise above
all multiplicity and distinction into the simple nakedness of our
essence, and in it become conscious of the infinite wisdom of the
Divine Essence, whose inexhaustible depths are as a vast waste, into
which no corporeal and no spiritual image can intrude. Our created
is absorbed in our uncreated life, and we are as it were transformed
into God. Lost in the abyss of our eternal blessedness, we perceive
no distinction between ourselves and God. As soon as we begin to
reflect and to consider what that is we feel, we become aware of
such distinction, and fall back to the level of reason.’[147]
Here Tauler asked whether such language was not liable to abuse by
the heretics who confound man and God? He referred to a passage in
the _Spiritual Nuptials_, in which Ruysbroek said that we became
identical, in this union, with the glory by which we are
illumined.[148]
Ruysbroek answered, that he had designed to qualify duly all such
expressions. ‘But you know, Doctor,’ continued he, ‘I have not your
learning, and cannot at all times say so accurately as I would what
I mean. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!—I would say that
in such a state all our powers are in repose, not that they are
annihilated. If so, we should lose our existence as creatures. We
are one with God, but yet always creature existences distinct from
God. I do humbly believe, let my enemies say what they may, that I
wrote no word of that book save at the impulse of the Holy Ghost,
and with a peculiar and most blessed presence to my soul of the Holy
Trinity. But what shall I call this blessedness? It includes peace,
inward silence, affectionate hanging on the source of our joy, sleep
in God, contemplation of the heaven of darkness, far above
reason.‘[149]
The conversation then turned on the heresies of the time, the
corruptions of the Church and of the State, and other practical
matters more within my compass. Ruysbroek said that the great sin
and error of these heretics lay in their aspiring to union with God
by a summary and arrogant method of their own. They persuaded
themselves that, merely by ceasing to think and distinguish, they
could withdraw themselves into the essence of their nature, and so,
without the help of grace or the practice of virtue, attain by bare
nature the rest and blessedness of absolute simplicity and
superiority to all modes and images.
‘Verily,’ quoth Tauler, ‘though they give themselves out for the
wisest and the holiest, it is only themselves, not God, they enjoy.
Yet mischievous as they are, often as I have preached against them,
I never have taken, nor shall I take, any part in their
persecution.’[150]
‘I have had plentiful opportunity,’ continued Ruysbroek, ‘for
observing these men. I would divide them into four classes.[151]
First of all there are those whose doctrine sins especially against
the Holy Ghost. They say the essential Godhead works not, but the
Holy Ghost doth: that they belong to that Divine Essence, and will
rest in like manner;—that they are, therefore, above the Spirit of
God. They hold that, after time, all things will be God, one
absolute Quiescence, without distinction and without change. So they
will neither know nor act, neither think nor thank, but be free from
all desire, all obligation. This they call Poverty of Spirit. I say
it is a devilish poverty, and such souls must be poor as hell in
divine love and knowledge.
‘The second class say, with like blasphemy, ‘We are divine by
nature. There is one God, and we are identical with Him. We with Him
have created all things; if we had not chosen, we had not been born.
It was our own choice to exist as we do. God can do nothing without
us, and we give Him therefore no preference, pay Him no homage.
Honour to Him is honour to us. What we are we would be, what we
would be we are; with God we have created ourselves and all things;
heaven and earth hang on our will.’ This insane spiritual pride is
flatly contrary to all catholic doctrine.
‘The third class sin not less against the Son. They say, we are as
much incarnate as Christ was, and, in the same sense, divine sons of
God. Had He lived long enough, He would have attained to the same
contemplative quiet we enjoy. Retired into our inmost selves, we
find ourselves the same Wisdom of God which Christ is. When He is
honoured, we are honoured, for we are identical with Him.
‘The fourth class declare that neither God nor themselves,
heaven nor hell, action nor rest, good nor evil, have any real
existence. They deny God and the work of Christ, Scripture,
sacraments,—everything. God is nothing; they are nothing; the
universe is nothing.
‘Some hold doctrines such as these in secret, and conform outwardly,
for fear. Others make them the pretext for every kind of vice and
insolent insubordination. Of a truth we should cross ourselves when
we but speak of them, as in the neighbourhood of spirits from the
pit.’
‘And what hope,’ said Tauler, ‘of better things, while the Church is
crowded with hirelings, and, with lust and bravery, everywhere leads
on the world in sin?’
‘What hope, indeed!’ mournfully responded Ruysbroek. ‘The grace of
the sacraments is shamefully bought and sold. Rich transgressors may
live as they list. The wealthy usurer is buried before the altar,
the bells ring, the priest declares him blessed. I declare that if
he died in unrighteousness, not all the priests in Christendom, not
all his hoards lavished to feed the poor, could save him from
perdition. See, too, the monks, mendicants and all, what riches!
what sumptuous fare! what licence, in violation of every vow! what
odious distinctions! Some have four or five garments, another
scarcely one. Some revel with the prior, the guardian, and the
lector in the refectory, at a place of their own. Others must be
content with herring and cabbage, washed down with sour beer. Little
by little the habit is changed, black becomes brown, grey is
exchanged for blue, the white must be of the finest stuff, the shape
of the newest cut.’
‘This,’ said Tauler, ‘is what I so much admire in your little
community here. You have practically abolished those mischievous
distinctions, the cause of so much bitterness in our religious
houses. Every one has his place, but no one is degraded. You
yourself will perform the meanest offices, as the other morning,
when Arnstein found you sweeping the lectorium. Yours is the true
canonical life—the life of a family. Every one is ready to do kind
offices for his brethren, and your own example teaches daily
forgetfulness of self.’
Ruysbroek looked uneasy under these praises, and they spoke again of
the prevalent evils in the Church.[152]
‘How many nuns have I seen,’ said Ruysbroek, ‘daintily attired, with
silver bells to their girdles, whose prison was the cloister and
their paradise the world! A retinue of forty reiters is a moderate
attendance for a prelate out on a visitation. I have known some
priests who engaged themselves as business agents to laymen; others
who have entered the service of ladies of rank, and walked behind
them as footmen into church. A criminal has but to pay money down,
and he may serve the devil for another year. A trim reckoning, and
satisfaction for all parties! The bishop gets the gold, the devil
gets the soul, and the miserable fool the moment’s pleasure of his
lust.’[153]
When, one day, they were conversing on future rewards and
punishments, I remember hearing Ruysbroek say—‘I trust I am ready
for all God sends me, life or death, or even hell-pains themselves.’
An attainment of virtue inconceivable to me.[154]
At Grünthal I saw much of a lay brother named John Affliginiensis,
the cook of the community.[155] He accompanied Ruysbroek thither.
Though wholly unlettered, he serves daily as a goodly ensample of
the active and contemplative life united. It is his calling to see
to the dinners of the brethren; he is scarce less helpful to their
devotions. That he is a good plain cook I can bear witness, and to
the edifying character of the discourses he sometimes delivers to
the canons, all testify. He scarcely sleeps at all, goes meanly
clad, and eats the veriest refuse of the convent fare. He is one of
the meekest and most humble of men—has had his sore fights of
temptation, fierce inward purgations, and also his favoured hours
and secret revelations. Ruysbroek loves him like a brother. The
esteem in which he is held, and the liberty of speech allowed him,
is characteristic of the simple and brotherly spirit which dwells
among these worthy canons. Grünthal is not, like so many religious
houses, a petty image of the pettiest follies of the world. There
they do seem to have withdrawn in spirit from the strife and pomp of
secular life. Gladly would I spend my last years among the beeches
and the oaks that shut in their holy peace. But while I may I must
be doing; had my call been to the contemplative life I should have
been moulded in another fashion.
On our journey back from Louvain I had rare entertainment. We had
scarcely passed out beyond the gates, when Tauler rode forward, in
deep discourse with an ecclesiastic of the party. A hasty glance at
our fellow-travellers, as we mustered at the door of the hostelry,
had not led me to look for any company likely to eke out a day’s
travel with aught that was pleasant or of profit. But I was
mistaken. I espied ere long, a neat, merry-looking little man, in a
minstrel’s habit, with a gittern slung at his back. To him I joined
himself, and he, pleased evidently with the notice I took of him,
sang me songs and told me stories all the way. He said his name was
Muscatblut, and I was not sorry to be able to gratify him by
answering that his fame had already reached my ears.[156] He had
store of songs, with short and long lines curiously interwoven in a
way of his own, a very difficult measure to write, as he assured
me—the very triumph of his heart. These love-lays he interspersed
with riddles and rhyming proverbs, with quaint allegories, satires
on clerks and monks, and stories about husbands and wives, making
all within hearing roll in their saddles with laughter. He had
likewise certain coarse songs, half amatory, half devotional, tagged
with bits of slang and bits of Latin, about the wooing of our Lady.
I told him, to his surprise, to stop; it was flat blasphemy. He said
the voluptuous passages of his lay were after Frauenlob’s best
manner, and as to the sacred personages, by St. Bartholomew! many a
holy clerk had praised that part most of all, calling it a deep
allegory, most edifying to the advanced believer.
At Cologne I parted from the Doctor with many embraces. On my way
back to Strasburg I took boat up the Mayne to Frankfurt, whither
business called me. We passed a little woody island in the midst of
the river, which was pointed out to me as the residence of the
leprous barefooted friar, whose songs and airs are so popular
throughout the Rhineland. I looked with reverence at the melancholy
spot. There he dwells alone, shut out from mankind, yet delighting
and touching every heart. His songs are sweet as the old knightly
lays of love, full of courtly grace and tenderness, and yet they are
songs for the people from one truly of themselves. The burgher has
his minstrelsy now, as well as the noble. This at least is a good
sign.
Note to page 321.
From this time forward, Rulman Merswin gave himself up to the spiritual
guidance of Nicholas the layman—taking him to be to him ‘in God’s
stead.’ He took no step without his direction, and wrote at his command
his book entitled _Von den vier ioren sins anevohenden lebendes_—a
record of what may be called his spiritual apprenticeship. Nicholas took
a copy of it back with him to the Oberland. Schmidt has brought together
what is known of Merswin, in the Appendix to his life of Tauler, pp.
177, &c.
The _Book of the Nine Rocks_ was commenced in 1352. It has been
published in Diepenbrock’s edition of the works of Suso, to whom it was,
till recently, attributed. The claim of Merswin to its authorship is
established beyond question—(Schmidt, 180). The work opens by relating
how, early one morning in Advent, a man (the author) was warned of God
to prepare himself, by inward retirement, for that which He should show
him. He was made to behold a vision full of strange and alarming
appearances. He cried out, ‘Ah, my heart’s Love! what meanest thou with
these mysterious symbols?’ He struggled hard against the phantoms of his
trance, but the marvellous forms only multiplied the more. He was
constrained by a divine voice to gaze, and commanded, in spite of his
humble remonstrances, to write in a book what he saw—the image of the
corruptions of Christendom, for the warning of the guilty and the
edification of the faithful. The dialogues are given at length between
him and God—‘the Man’ and ‘the Answer.’ For eleven weeks, in sickness
and spiritual distress, he wavered. He was but a poor, ignorant layman;
how should he presume to exhort the Church? ‘The Voice of the Answer’ is
heard saying, ‘Came not thy reluctance from humility, I would consign
thee to the pit. I see I must compel thee. In the name of the Holy
Trinity, I command thee to begin to write this day.’
The souls of men proceeding from God, but few of them returning to their
Original, are shown him under the similitude of multitudes of fish,
brought down by the descent of great waters from the summit of a
mountain. Men in the valley are catching them in nets. Scarce half of
them reach the sea below. There the remnant swim in all directions, and
at length endeavour to leap back, up to the source whence they came.
Numbers are taken in the nets; only a few reach even the base of the
mountain. Some who ascend higher fall back upon the rocks and die. A
very few, springing from rock to rock, reach exhausted, the fountain at
the top, and there forget their pains.
The twenty following chapters are occupied with a dialogue, in which the
divine Voice enumerates the characteristic sins of all classes of
mankind, from the pope to the begging friar—from the emperor to the
serf.
Then commences the vision of the Nine Rocks. A mountain, enormous in
breadth and height, fills all the scene. As the eye travels up the
ascent, it beholds nine steep rocks, each loftier than that which
preceded it,—the highest lost in the heavens. From the lowest the whole
surface of the earth is visible. A net is spread over all the region
beneath, but it does not reach the mountain. The multitudes seen beneath
it are men in mortal sin. The men standing on the first and lowest rock
are religious persons, but such as are lukewarm, defective in aspiration
and in zeal. They dwell dangerously near the net—(cap. xxiii.). Some,
from the first rock, are seen making their way up the precipice, and
reaching the second, where they become of dazzling brightness. Those on
the second rock have heartily forsaken the world; they will suffer less
in purgatory, enjoy more in heaven, than those beneath; but they, too,
are far from their Origin yet, and in danger of spiritual pride,
self-seeking, and of growing faint and remiss in their painful
progress—(cap. xxiv.). Those on the third rock, fewer in number,
suffering far more severely in time, are nearer to God, will suffer
little in purgatory, and are of yet more glorious aspect than their
predecessors—(cap. xxv.). Such is the process to the summit. All the
nine rocks must be surmounted, would we return to our Divine Source. But
few attain the last, which is indeed the Gate of the Origin—the
consummate blessedness, in which the believer, fearless of hell and
purgatory, has annihilated self, and hath no wish or will save that of
God. One of these true worshippers brings more blessing to Christendom
than thousands of such as live after their own will, and know not that
they are nothing.
Finally, ‘the man’ is permitted a moment’s glance into the Divine
‘Origin.’ The rapture of that moment he attempted in vain to
describe;—no reflection, no image, could give the least hint of it.
Both Rulman and ‘the Friend of God in the Oberland’ believed themselves
repeatedly warned of God in visions, that they should build a house for
him in Strasburg. The merchant purchased a ruined cloister on a little
island in the river Ill, without the city walls. He restored the church,
and erected a stone belfry. Nicholas advised him to bestow it on the
Johannites, in preference to any other Order,—for there had been no
little rivalry among the monks as to who was to enjoy the gift. The
conditions of the deed for which he stipulated with the Master of the
Order are indicative of the new and more elevated position which
mysticism had taught the laity to claim. The government of the house was
to rest entirely with a lay triumvirate; the two survivors always to
choose a third. The first three governors were Rulman himself, Heinzmann
Wetzel, knight, and John Merswin, burg-graf. The admission of brethren
rested with these heads of the house, and they were free to receive any
one, clerk or layman, knight or serving man, whether belonging to the
order of St. John or not, requiring only that he should bring with him
the moderate sum requisite to render his residence no burden on the
convent. (Schmidt, p. 189.)
Note to page 329.
The passage to which Tauler is made to refer is contained in the third
book of the Spiritual Nuptials, chap. 5:—‘Ind alle die minschen die
bouen ir geschaffenheit verhauen sin in eyn schauwende leuen, die synt
eyn mit deser gotlicher clairheit, ind sij sint die clairheit selver.
Ind sy sien ind gevoilen ind vynden sich selver ouermitz dit gotliche
licht, dat sy sin der selue eynveldige gront na wijse irre
ungeschaffenheit, da de clairheit sonder mias vs schynt in gotlicher
wijsen ind na sympelheit des wesens eynueldich binnen blijfft ewelich
sonder wise. Ind hervm soilen die innyge schauwende minschen vsgayn na
wijse des schauwens bouen reden ind bouen vnderscheit ind bouen ir
geschaffen wesen mit ewigen instarren ouermitz dat ingeboiren licht, soe
werden sy getransformeirt ind eyn mit desem seluen licht da sy mede sien
ind dat sy sien. Ind also vervolgen die schauwende minschen ir ewich
bilde da si zo gemacht sin ind beschauwen got ind alle dinck sonder
vnderscheit in eyme eynveldigen sien in gotlicher clairheit. In dat is
dat edelste ind dat vrberlichste schauwen da men zo komen mach in desem
leuen.’—_Vier Schriften_, p. 144.
[And all men who are exalted above their creatureliness into a
contemplative life are _one with this divine glory,—yea, are that
glory_. And they see, and feel, and find in themselves, by means of this
divine light, that they are the same simple Ground as to their uncreated
nature (_i.e._, in respect of their ideal pre-existence in the Son),
since the glory shineth forth without measure, after the divine manner,
and abideth within them simply and without mode (particular
manifestation or medium), according to the simplicity of the essence.
Wherefore interior contemplative men should go forth in the way of
contemplation above reason and distinction, beyond their created
substance, and gaze perpetually by the aid of their inborn light, and so
they become transformed, and _one with the same light, by means of which
they see, and which they see_. Thus do contemplative men arrive at that
eternal image after which they were created, and contemplate God and all
things without distinction in a simple beholding, in divine glory. And
this is the loftiest and most profitable contemplation whereto men may
attain in this life.]
This passage, and others like it, gave rise to the charge of pantheism
brought by Gerson against Ruysbroek in the following century. The prior
of Grünthal found a defender in Schönhoven, who pointed with justice to
numerous expressions in the writings of the accused, altogether
incompatible with the heresy alleged. Quite inconsistent with any
confusion of the divine and human is Ruysbroek’s fine description of the
insatiable hunger of the soul—growing by that it feeds on,—the
consciousness that all possessed is but a drop to the illimitable
undeemed Perfection yet beyond. (‘Wi leren in waerheit sijns aenschijns
dat al dat wi gesmaken tegen dat ons ontblijft dat en is niet een draep
tegen al die zee, dit verstormt onsen geest in hetten ende in ongeduer
van mynnen.’—_Von dem funkelnden Steine_, x. p. 194.) So again he says,
‘Want wy enmogen te mael niet got werden ende onse gescapenheit
verliesen, dat is onmoegelic’—p. 190; and similarly that we become one
with God in love, not in nature, (‘ouerformet ende een mit hem in sijnre
minnen, niet in sijnre naturen.’)—_Spiegel der Seligkeit_, xxiv.
Note to page 329.
Ruysbroek expressed to Gerard Groot, in these very words, his belief in
the special guidance of the Holy Spirit vouchsafed for the composition
of his books on these ‘deep things’ of the kingdom. (Engelhardt, p.
168.)
The doctrine of Ruysbroek is substantially the same with that of his
friend and brother-mystic, Tauler. Whether speaking the high German of
the upper Rhine or the low German of the Netherlands, mysticism gives
utterance to the same complaint and the same aspiration. Ruysbroek is
individually less speculative than Eckart, less practical than Tauler.
The Flemish mystic is a more submissive son of the Church than the
stout-hearted Dominican of Strasburg, and lays proportionally more
stress on what is outward and institutional. He is fond of handling his
topics analytically. His numerous divisions and subdivisions remind us
of the scholastic Richard of St. Victor, but Ruysbroek, less methodical
by nature, and less disciplined, more frequently loses sight of his own
distinctions. The subject itself, indeed, where it possesses the writer,
repudiates every artificial treatment. While he specifies with
minuteness the stages of the mystical ascent, Ruysbroek does not contend
that the experience of every adept in the contemplative life must follow
the precise order he lays down. (_Geistl. Hochzeit_, ii. § 30, p. 71.)
He loves to ally the distinctions he enumerates in the world of nature,
in the operations of grace, in the heavenly state, and in the Divine
Being, by a relationship of correspondence. Thus the seven planets and
the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit answer to each other. The Empyrean in
the external world corresponds to Pure Being in the divine nature, to
the Spark of the soul in man, and to the Contemplative stage of his
spiritual experience. This scheme of analogies, incidental in Ruysbroek
and the earlier mystics, makes up almost the whole system of mystics
like Behmen and Swedenborg. His elaborate comparison of the operations
of grace to a fountain with three streams (one of which refreshes the
memory, another clarifies the understanding, while a third invigorates
the will), resembles strikingly the fanciful method of Madame Guyon in
her _Torrents_, and of St. Theresa in her _Degrees of Prayer_. (_Geistl.
Hochzeit_, xvii. § 36, p. 80.) The mysticism of Ruysbroek is less
sensuous than that of the poetical Suso. Beyond question the higher
elevation of the contemplative life must have been a welcome refuge to
many devout minds wearied with vain ritual, penance, and routine. As
acknowledged contemplatists, they could escape without scandal from
contact with the grosser machinery of their religion. Accordingly, to
claim superiority to means and modes was by no means always the arrogant
pretension it may seem to us. Tauler’s ‘state above grace’ was the ark
of an unconscious Protestantism. Where the means were made the end,
wisdom forsook them, and rejoiced to find that the name of mystic could
shelter spirituality from the dangers of the suspected heretic.
Ruysbroek, however, felt the want of such a protection for freer
thought, much less than did Tauler and some of his more active
followers.
Footnote 129:
See Hecker’s _Black Death_ (trans. by Dr. Babington, 1853).—Hecker
gives the documents relating to the trial of the Neustadt Jews in an
appendix, from the _Chronicle_ of Jacob of Königshoven. See also pp.
103-127.
Footnote 130:
These fanatics were everywhere foremost among the instigators of the
cruelties perpetrated on the Jews. Women, and even children, joined
their ranks in great numbers, wearing the hats with red crosses,
carrying flags, and scourging themselves with the rest. The
particulars given are taken from the account in Jacob von
Königshoven’s _Elsassische u. Strassburgische Chronik_, inserted
entire in Wackernagel,—(p. 931). The chronicler says:—‘Zuo Strôsburg
kam mê denne tûsent manne in ire geselleschaft, und siu teiltent sich
zuo Strôsburg: eine parte der geischelaere gieng das lant abe, die
ander parte das lant ûf. und kam sô vil volkes in ire bruoderschaft,
das es verdrôs den bôbest und den keiser und die phafheit. und der
keiser verschreip dem bôbeste das er etwas hie zuo gedaechte: anders
die geischeler verkêrtent alle die welt.’ The Flagellants claimed
power to confess and give absolution. The thirty-four days’ scourging
among them was to make a man as innocent as a babe—the virtue of the
lash was above all sacraments. Thus the people took religion into
their own hands, blindly and savagely,—no other way was then possible.
It was a spasmodic movement of the mass of life beneath, when the
social disorder that accompanied the pestilence had loosened the grasp
of the power temporal and spiritual which held them down so long.
Footnote 131:
See Schmidt’s _Tauler_, p. 58.
Footnote 132:
Laguille’s _Histoire d'Alsace_, liv. xxv. p. 290.
Footnote 133:
Hecker, p. 81.
Footnote 134:
Schmidt’s _Tauler_, p. 59.
Footnote 135:
See Note, p. 336.
Footnote 136:
Ruysbroek sent a copy of his book, _De ornatu spiritualium nuptiarum_,
to the Friends of God in the Oberland. He had many friends in Cologne,
and it is very likely that the work may have reached Tauler there,
either through them or from the author, who must have heard of him.
Footnote 137:
See _Johannes Ruysbroek_, by Engelhardt, p. 168.
Footnote 138:
Froissart, book ii. chap. 40.
Footnote 139:
Froissart, chapp. 41, 42.
Footnote 140:
_Ibid._, book i. chap. 34.
Footnote 141:
Optimum aliena insania frui.
Footnote 142:
Engelhardt, p. 326.
Footnote 143:
It is certain that Ruysbroek was visited during the many years of his
residence in Grünthal, much after the manner described, and also that
Tauler was among the visitors, though the exact time of his journey is
not known.
Footnote 144:
See Engelhardt, pp. 189, 288.—According to Ruysbroek, the Trinitarian
process lies at the basis of the kingdoms both of Nature and of Grace.
There is a flowing forth and manifestation in the creative Word,—a
return and union of love by the Holy Ghost. This process goes on
continually in the providential government of the universe, and in the
spiritual life of believers. The upholding of the world, and the
maintenance of the work of grace in the heart, are both in different
ways a perpetual bringing forth of the Son, by whom all things
consist, and who is formed in every devout soul. Ruysbroek is careful
to state (as a _caveat_ against pantheism) that such process is no
necessary development of the divine nature,—it is the good pleasure of
the Supreme. (See _Vier Schriften von J. Ruysbroek, in niederdeutscher
Sprache_, by A. v. Arnswaldt; Hanover, 1848.) ‘Wi hebben alle boven
onse ghescapenheit een ewich leuen in gode als in onse leuende sake
die ons ghemaect ende ghescapen heest van niete, maer wi en sijn niet
god noch wi en hebben ons seluen niet ghemaeckt. _Wi en sijn ooc niet
wt gode ghevloten van naturen_, maer want ons god ewelijc ghevoelt
heest ende bekent in hem seluen, so heest hi ons ghemaeckt, niet van
naturen noch van node, _maer van vriheit sijns willen_,’—p. 291.
(_Spiegel der Seligkeit_, xvii.)
The bosom of the Father, he says, is our proper ground and origin (der
schois des vaders is onse eygen gront ind onse oirsprunck); we have
all, therefore, the capacity for receiving God, and His grace enables
us to recognise and realise this latent possibility (offenbairt ind
brengit vort die verboirgenheit godes in wijsen),—p. 144.
Footnote 145:
Engelhardt, pp. 183, 186. Ruysbroek speaks as follows of that
fundamental tendency godward of which he supposes prevenient grace
(vurloiffende gracie) to lay hold:—‘Ouch hait der mynsche eyn
naturlich gront neygen zo gode overmitz den voncken der sielen ind die
overste reden die altzijt begert dat goide ind hasset dat quaide. Mit
desen punten voirt got alle mynschen na dat sijs behoeven ind
ecklichen na sinre noit,’ &c.—_Geistl. Hochzeit_, cap. 3.
Ruysbroek lays great stress on the exercise of the will. ‘Ye are as
holy as ye truly will to be holy,’ said he one day to two
ecclesiastics, inquiring concerning growth in grace. It is not
difficult to reconcile such active effort with the passivity of
mysticism. The mystics all say, ‘We strive towards virtue by a
strenuous use of the _gifts_ which God communicates, but when God
communicates _Himself_, then we can be only passive—we repose, we
enjoy, but all operation ceases.’
Footnote 146:
Engelhardt, pp. 195, 199.
Footnote 147:
Engelhardt, pp. 201, 213. In the season of spiritual exaltation, the
powers of the soul are, as it were, absorbed in absolute essential
enjoyment (staen ledich in een weselic gebrucken). But they are not
annihilated, for then we should lose our creatureliness.—Mer si en
werden niet te niete, want soe verloeren wy onse gescapenheit. Ende
alsoe lange als wy mit geneichden geeste ende mit apen ogen sonder
merken ledich staen, alsoe lange moegen wy schouwen ende gebruken. Mer
in den seluen ogenblijc dat wy proeven ende merken willen wat dat is
dat wy geuoelen, so vallen wy in reden, ende dan vynden wy onderscheit
ende anderheit tusschen ons ende gade, ende dan vynden wy gade buten
ons in onbegripelicheiden.—_Von dem funkelnden Steine_, x.
Footnote 148:
See first Note, p. 338.
Footnote 149:
See second Note, p. 338.
Footnote 150:
Engelhardt, p. 225. Schmidt’s _Tauler_, p. 61.—The same doctrine which
furnished a sanctuary for the devotion of purer natures supplied also
an excuse for the licence of the base. Wilful perversion, or mere
ignorance, or some one of the manifold combinations of these two
factors, would work the mystical exhortation into some such result as
that denounced by Ruysbroek. We may imagine some bewildered man as
speaking thus within himself:—‘So we are to covet ignorance, to
surmount distinctions, to shun what is clear or vivid as mediate and
comparatively carnal, to transcend means and bid farewell to the
wisdom of the schools. Wise and devout men forsake all their learning,
forget their pious toil and penance, to lose themselves in that ground
in which we are united to God,—to sink into vague abstract confusion.
But may I not do at first what they do at last? Why take in only to
take out? I am empty already. Thank heaven! I haven’t a distinct idea
in my head.’
It is so that the popular mind is sure to travesty the
ultra-refinements of philosophy.
Footnote 151:
Engelhardt, pp. 224-228.—Eckart, like Hegel, would seem to have left
behind him a right-hand and a left-hand party,—admirers like Suso and
Tauler, who dropped his extreme points and held by such saving clauses
as they found; and headstrong spirits, ripe for anarchy, like these
New-Lights or High-Fliers, the representatives of mysticism run to
seed. Ruysbroek’s classification of them is somewhat artificial;
fanaticism does not distribute itself theologically. In the treatise
entitled _Spiegel der Seligkeit_, § 16, he describes them generally as
follows:—‘Ander quade duulische menschen vint men, die segghen dat si
selue Cristus sijn of dat si god sijn, ende dat haer hant hemel ende
erde ghemaect heest, ende dat an haer hant hanghet hemel ende erde
ende alle dinc, ende dat si verheuen sijn boven alle die sacramenten
der heiligher kerken, ende dat si der niet en behoeuen noch si en
willen der ooc niet.’ He represents their claim to identity with God
as leading to a total moral indifference (§ 17):—‘Ende sulke wanen god
sijn, ende si en achten gheen dinc goet noch quaet, in dien dat si hem
ontbeelden connen ende in bloter ledicheit haer eighen wesen vinden
ende besitten moghen.’ Their idea of the consummation of all things
savours of the Parisian heresy—the offspring of John Scotus,
popularised by David of Dinant and his followers. The final
restitution is to consist in the resolution of all creatures into the
Divine Substance:—‘So spreken si voort dat in den lesten daghe des
ordels enghele ende duuele, goede ende quade, dese sullen alle werden
_een eenvoudighe substancie der godheit_ ... ende na dan, spreken si
voort, en sal god bekennen noch minnen hem seluen noch ghene
creature’—(§ 16).
Footnote 152:
Engelhardt, pp. 326-336.—Good Ruysbroek was fully entitled to the
encomium placed in the mouth of Tauler. He himself, like Bernard,
would frequently perform the meanest offices of the cloister. The
happy spirit of brotherhood which prevailed among the canons of
Grünthal made a deep impression on that laborious practical reformer,
Gerard Groot, when, in 1378, he visited the aged prior. What he then
saw was not without its influence in the formation of that community
with which his name is associated—the Brethren of the Common Life.—See
Ullmann, _Reformatoren vor der Reformation_, vol. ii.
Footnote 153:
Engelhardt, p. 330.—Ruysbroek inveighs with much detail against the
vanities of female dress—as to those hair-pads, sticking up like great
horns, they are just so many ‘devil’s nests.’
Footnote 154:
Ruysbroek expressed himself in these words to Gerard Groot
(Engelhardt, p. 168). In his touching description of the ‘desolation’
endured by the soul on its way upward toward the ‘super-essential
contemplation,’ he makes the sufferer say,—‘O Lord, since I am thine
(want ich din eygen bin), I would as soon be in hell as in heaven, if
such should be thy good pleasure; only do thy glorious will with me, O
Lord!‘—_Geistl. Hochzeit_, § 30. Ruysbroek, like Fénelon, abandons
himself thus only on the supposition that even in hell he should still
retain the divine favour;—so impossible after all is the absolute
disinterestedness toward which Quietism aspires. The Flemish mystic
distinguishes between the servants of God, the friends, and the sons.
Those worshippers who stand in the relation of friends have still
something of their own (besitten oer inwendichkeit mit eygenscap) in
their love to God. The sons ascend, ‘dying-wise,’ to an absolute
emptiness. The friends still set value on divine bestowments and
experiences; the sons are utterly dead to self, in bare modeless love
(in bloeter, wiseloeser mynnen). Yet, very inconsistently, he
represents the sons as more assured of eternal life than the friends.
(_Von dem funkelnden Steine_, § 8.)
Footnote 155:
A veritable personage. He died in 1377, and left behind him a book
recording the conflicts he underwent and the revelations vouchsafed
him. (Engelhardt, p. 326.)
Footnote 156:
The lyrics of Muscatblut are characterised by Gervinus (ii. p. 225),
and the same authority gives some account, from the _Limburg
Chronicle_, of the famous friar, leper, and poet mentioned by
Arnstein.