§ 113. SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS REFORMERS.
The University of Paris took the lead, in accordance with the
liberal tendencies of the Gallican Church, in the opposition to
hierarchical pretensions, and was followed by the universities of
Oxford, Prague, and Cologne, in all of which the mendicant friars
were the teachers. Most distinguished among the schoolmen of this
age was John Duns Scotus, whose works formed the doctrinal standard
for the Franciscans, as those of Aquinas did for the Dominicans.
After realism had enjoyed for a long time an uncontested sway, William
Occam, amid passionate battles, successfully introduced nominalism.
But the creative power of scholasticism was well nigh extinct. Even
Duns Scotus is rather an acute critic of the old than an original
creator of new ideas. Miserable quarrels between the schools and a
spiritless formalism now widely prevailed in the lecture halls, as well
as in the treatises of the learned. Moral theology degenerated into
fruitless casuistry and abstruse discussion on subtly devised cases
where there appeared a collision of duties. But from all sides there
arose complaint and contradiction. On the one side were some who made
a general complaint without striking at the roots of the evil. They
suggested the adoption of a better method, or the infusion of new life
by the study of Scripture and the Fathers, and a return to mysticism.
To this class belonged the Brothers of the Common Life (§ 112, 9) and
d’Ailly and Gerson, the supporters of the Constance reforms (§ 118, 4).
Here too we may place the talented father of natural theology, Raimund
of Sabunde, and the brilliant Nicholas of Cusa, in whom all the nobler
aspirations of mediæval ecclesiastical science were concentrated. But
on the other side was the radical opposition, consisting of the German
mystics (§ 114), the English and Bohemian reformers (§ 119), and the
Humanists (§ 120).
§ 113.1. =John Duns Scotus.=--The date of birth, whether
A.D. 1274 or A.D. 1266, and the place of birth, whether in
Scotland, Ireland, or England, of this Franciscan hero, honoured
with the title _doctor subtilis_, are uncertain; even the place
and manner of his training are unknown. After lecturing with
great success at Oxford, he went in A.D. 1304 to Paris, where
he obtained the degree of doctor, and successfully vindicated
the _immaculata conceptio B. V._ (§ 104, 7) against the Thomists.
Summoned to Cologne in A.D. 1308 to engage in controversy with
the Beghards, he displayed great skill in dialectics, but died
during that same year. His chief work, a commentary on the
Lombard, was composed at Oxford. His answers to the questions
proposed for his doctor’s degree were afterwards wrought up
into the work entitled _Quæstiones quodlibetales_. The opponent
and rival of Thomas, he controverted his doctrine at every point,
as well as the doctrines of Alexander and Bonaventura of his own
order, and other shining stars of the 13th century. In subtlety
of thought and dialectic power he excelled them all, but in
depth of feeling, profundity of mind, and ardour of faith he
was far behind them. Proofs of doctrines interested him more
than the doctrines themselves. To philosophy he assigns a purely
theoretical, to theology a pre-eminently practical character,
and protests against the Thomist commingling of the two. He
accepts the doctrine of a twofold truth (§ 103, 3), basing it
on the fall. Granting that the Bible is the only foundation
of religious knowledge, but contending that the Church under
the Spirit’s guidance has advanced ever more and more in the
development of it, he readily admits that many a point in
constitution, doctrine, and worship cannot be established from
the Bible; _e.g._ immaculate conception, clerical celibacy,
etc. He has no hesitation in contradicting even Augustine and
St. Bernard from the standpoint of a more highly developed
doctrine of the Church.
§ 113.2. =Thomists and Scotists.=--The Dominicans and Franciscans
were opposed as followers respectively of Thomas and of Scotus.
Thomas regarded individuality, _i.e._ the fact that everything
is an individual, every _res_ is a _hæc_, as a limitation and
defect; while Duns saw in this _hæcitas_ a mark of perfection
and the true end of creation. Thomas also preferred the Platonic,
and Duns the Aristotelian realism. In theology Duns was opposed
to Thomas in maintaining an unlimited arbitrary will in God,
according to which God does not choose a thing because it is
good, but the thing chosen is good because He chooses it. Thomas
therefore was a determinist, and in his doctrine of sin and
grace adopted a moderate Augustinianism (§ 53, 5), while Duns
was a semipelagian. The atonement was viewed by Thomas more in
accordance with the theory of Anselm, for he assigned to the
merits of Christ as the God-Man infinite worth, _satisfactio
superabundans_, which is in itself more than sufficient
for redemption; but Duns held that the merits of Christ were
sufficient only as accepted by the free will of God, _acceptatio
gratuita_. The Scotists also most resolutely contended for
the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, while
the Thomists as passionately opposed it.--Among the immediate
disciples of Duns the most celebrated was =Francis Mayron=,
teacher at the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1325 and was dignified
with the title _doctor illuminatus_ or _acutus_. The most notable
of the Thomists was =Hervæus Natalis=, who died in A.D. 1323
as general of the Dominicans. Of the later Thomists the most
eminent was =Thomas Bradwardine=, _doctor profundus_, a man of
deep religious earnestness, who accused his age of Pelagianism,
and vindicated the truth in opposition to this error in his _De
causa Dei c. Pelagium_. He began teaching at Oxford, afterwards
accompanied Edward III. as his confessor and chaplain on his
expeditions in France, and died in A.D. 1349 a few weeks after
his appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury.[332]
§ 113.3. =Nominalists and Realists.=--After nominalism
(§ 99, 2) in the person of Roscelin had been condemned by the
Church (§ 101, 3) realism held sway for more than two centuries.
Both Thomas and Duns supported it. By sundering philosophy
and theology Duns opened the way to freer discussion, so that
by-and-by nominalism won the ascendency, and at last scarcely
any but the precursors of the Reformation (§ 119) were to be
found in the ranks of the realists. The pioneer of the movement
was the Englishman =William Occam=, a Franciscan and pupil of
Duns, who as teacher of philosophy in Paris obtained the title
_doctor singularis et invincibilis_, and was called by later
nominalists _venerabilis inceptor_. He supported the _Spirituals_
(§ 112, 2) in the controversies within his order. He accompanied
his general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon, and escaping with
him in A.D. 1328 from threatened imprisonment, lived at Munich
till his death in A.D. 1349. There, protected by Louis the
Bavarian, he vindicated imperial rights against papal pretensions,
and charged various heresies against the pope (§ 118, 2). In
philosophy and theology he was mainly influenced by Scotus.
In accordance with his nominalistic principles he assumed the
position in theology that our ideas derived from experience
cannot reach to a knowledge of the supernatural; and thus he
may be called a precursor of Kant (§ 171, 10). The _universalia_
are mere _fictiones_ (§ 99, 2), things that do not correspond to
our notions; the world of ideas agrees not with that of phenomena,
and so the unity of faith and knowledge, of theological and
philosophical truth, asserted by realists, cannot be maintained
(§ 103, 2). Faith rests on the authority of Scripture and the
decisions of the Church; criticism applied to the doctrines of
the Church reduces them to a series of antinomies.--In A.D. 1339
the University of Paris forbade the reading of Occam’s works, and
soon after formally condemned nominalism. Thomists and Scotists
forgot their own differences to combine against Occam; but all
in vain, for the Occamists were recruited from all the orders.
The Constance reform party too supported him (§ 118, 4).[333]
Of the Thomists who succeeded to Occam the most distinguished
was =William Durand= of St. Pourçain, _doct. resolutissimus_,
who died in A.D. 1322 as Bishop of Meaux. =Muertius of Inghen,=
one of the founders of the University of Heidelberg in A.D. 1386
and its first rector, was also a zealous nominalist. The last
notable schoolman of the period was =Gabriel Biel= of Spires,
teacher of theology at Tübingen, who died A.D. 1495, a nominalist
and an admirer of Occam. He was a vigorous supporter of the
doctrine of the immaculate conception, and delivered public
discourses on the “Ethics” of Aristotle.
§ 113.4. =Casuistry=, or that part of moral theology which
seeks to provide a complete guide to the solution of difficult
cases of conscience, especially where there is collision of
duties, moral or ecclesiastical, makes its first appearance in
the penitentials (§ 89, 6), and had a great impetus given it in
the compulsory injunction of auricular confession (§ 104, 4). It
was also favoured by the hair-splitting character of scholastic
dialectics. The first who elaborated it as a distinct science
was Raimundus [Raimund] de Pennaforte, who besides his works on
canon law (§ 99, 5), wrote about A.D. 1238 a _summa de casibus
pœnitentialibus_. This was followed by the Franciscan _Antesana_,
the Dominican _Pisana_, and the Angelica of the Genoese Angelus
of A.D. 1482, which Luther in A.D. 1520 burned along with the
papal bull and decretals. The views of the different casuists
greatly vary, and confuse rather than assist the conscience.
Out of them grew the doctrine of probabilism (§ 149, 10).
§ 113.5. =The Founder of Natural Theology.=--The Spaniard
=Raimund of Sabunde= settled as a physician in Toulouse in
A.D. 1430, but afterwards turned his attention to theology.
Seeing the need of infusing new life into the corrupt
scholasticism, he sought to rescue it from utter formalism and
fruitless casuistry by a return to simple, clear, and rational
thinking. Anselm of Canterbury was his model of a clear and
profound thinker and believing theologian (§ 101, 1). He also
turned for stimulus and instruction to the book of nature.
The result of his studies is seen in his _Theologia naturalis
s. liber creaturarum_, published in A.D. 1436. God’s book
of nature, in which every creature is as it were a letter,
is the first and simplest source of knowledge accessible to
the unlearned layman, and the surest, because free from all
falsifications of heretics. But the fall and God’s plan of
salvation have made an addition to it necessary, and this we
have in the Scripture revelation. The two books coming from the
one author cannot be contradictory, but only extend, confirm,
and explain one another. The facts of revelation are the
necessary presupposition or consequences of the book of nature.
From the latter all religious knowledge is derivable by ascending
through the four degrees of creation, _esse_, _vivere_, _sentire_,
and _intelligere_, to the knowledge of man, and thence to the
knowledge of the Creator as the highest and absolute unity, and
by arguing that the acknowledgment of human sinfulness involved
an admission of the need of redemption, which the book of
revelation shows to be a fact. In carrying out this idea Raimund
attaches himself closely to Anselm in his scientific reconciling
of the natural and revealed idea of God and redemption. Although
he never expressly contradicted any of the Church doctrines, the
Council of Trent put the prologue of his book into the _Index
prohibitorum_.
§ 113.6. =Nicholas of Cusa= was born in A.D. 1401 at Cues,
near Treves, and was originally called Krebs. Trained first by
the Brothers at Deventer (§ 112, 9), he afterwards studied law
at Padua. The failure of his first case led him to begin the
study of theology. As archdeacon of Liège he attended the Basel
Council, and there by mouth and pen supported the view that the
council is superior to the pope, but in A.D. 1440 he passed over
to the papal party. On account of his learning, address, and
eloquence he was often employed by Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V.
in difficult negotiations. He was made cardinal in A.D. 1448,
an unheard of honour for a German prelate. In A.D. 1450 he was
made bishop of Brixen, but owing to a dispute with Sigismund,
Archduke of Austria, he suffered several years’ hard imprisonment.
He died in A.D. 1464 at Todi in Umbria. His principal work
is _De docta ignorantia_, which shows, in opposition to proud
scholasticism, that the absolute truth about God in the world
is not attainable by men. His theological speculation approaches
that of Eckhart, and like it is not free from pantheistic
elements. God is for him the absolute maximum, but is also the
absolute minimum, since He cannot be greater or less than He is.
He begets of Himself His likeness, _i.e._ the Son, and He again
turns back as Holy Spirit into unity. The world again is the
aggregated maximum. His _Dialogus de pace_, occasioned by the
fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453, represents Christianity
as the most perfect of all religions, but recognises in all
others, even in Islam, essential elements of eternal truth.
Like Roger Bacon (§ 103, 8), he assigns a prominent place to
mathematics and astronomy, and in his _De separatione Calendarii_
of A.D. 1436 he recommended reforms in the calendar which were
only effected in A.D. 1582 by Gregory XIII. (§ 149, 3). He
detected the pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) and the Donation of
Constantine (§ 87, 4) frauds.
§ 113.7. =Biblical and Practical Theologians.=
1. The Franciscan =Nicholas of Lyra=, _doctor planus et utilis_,
a Jewish convert from Normandy, and teacher of theology at
Paris, did good service as a grammatico-historical exegete
and an earnest expositor of Scripture. Luther gratefully
acknowledges the help he got in his Bible translation from
the postils of Lyra.[334] He died in A.D. 1340.
2. =Antonine of Florence= played a prominent part at the
Florentine Council of A.D. 1439, and was threatened
by Eugenius IV. with the loss of his archbishopric. He
discharged his duties with great zeal, especially during
a plague and famine in A.D. 1448, and during the earthquake
which destroyed half of the city in A.D. 1457. As an earnest
preacher, an unwearied pastor, and upright churchman he was
universally admired, and was canonized by Hadrian VI. in
A.D. 1523. He had a high reputation as a writer. His _Summa
historialis_ is a chronicle of universal history reaching
down to his own time; and his _Summa theologica_ is a
popular outline of the Thomist doctrine.
3. The learned and famous abbot =John Trithemius=, born
in A.D. 1462, after studying at Treves and Heidelberg,
entered in A.D. 1487 the Benedictine cloister of Sponheim,
became its abbot in the following year, resigned office
in A.D. 1505 owing to a rebellion among his monks, and
died in A.D. 1516 as abbot of the Scottish cloister of
St. James at Würzburg. Influenced by Wessel’s reforming
movement (§ 119, 10), he urged the duty of Scripture study
and prayer, but still practised and commended the most
extravagant adoration of Mary and Ann. Though he was keenly
alive to the absurdity of certain forms of superstition,
he was himself firmly bound within its coils. He lashed
unsparingly the vices of the monks, but regarded the
monastic life as the highest Christian ideal. He pictured
in dark colours the deep and widespread corruption of the
Church, and was yet the most abject slave of the hierarchy
which fostered that corruption.
§ 114. THE GERMAN MYSTICS.[335]
The schoolmen of the 13th century, with the exception of
Bonaventura, had little sympathy with mysticism, and gave their whole
attention to the development of doctrine (§ 99, 1). The 14th century
was the Augustan age of mysticism. Germany, which had already in
the previous period given Hugo of St. Victor and the two divines of
Reichersberg (§ 102, 4, 6), was its proper home. Its most distinguished
representatives belonged to the preaching orders, and its recognised
grand-master was the Dominican Meister Eckhart. This specifically
German mysticism cast away completely the scholastic modes of thought
and expression, and sought to arrive at Christian truth by entirely new
paths. It appealed, not to the understanding and cultured reason of the
learned, but to the hearts and spirits of the people, in order to point
them the surest way to union with God. The mystics therefore wrote
neither commentaries on the Lombard nor gigantic _summæ_ of their own
composition, but wrought by word and writing to meet immediate pressing
needs. They preached lively sermons and wrote short treatises, not in
Latin, but in the homely mother tongue. This popular form however did
not prevent them from conveying to their readers and hearers profound
thoughts, the result of keen speculation; but that in this they did
not go over the heads of the people is shown by the crowds that flocked
to their preaching. The “Friends of God” proved a spiritual power
over many lands (§ 116, 4). From the practical prophetic mysticism
of the 12th and 13th centuries (§§ 107; 108, 5) it was distinguished
by avoiding the visionary apocalyptic and magnetic somnambulistic
elements through a better appreciation of science; and from the
scholastic mysticism of that earlier age (§§ 102, 3, 4, 6; 103, 4)
by abandoning allegory and the scholastic framework for the elevation
of the soul to God, as well as by indulgence in a somewhat pantheistic
speculation on God and the world, man and the God-Man, on the
incarnation and birth of God in us, on our redemption, sanctification,
and final restoration. Its younger representatives however cut off all
pantheistic excrescences, and thus became more practical and edifying,
though indeed with the loss of speculative power. In this way they
brought themselves more into sympathy with another mystic tendency
which was spreading through the Netherlands under the influence of
the Flemish canon, John of Ruysbroek. In France too mysticism again
made its appearance during the 15th century in the persons of d’Ailly
and Gerson (§ 118, 4), in a form similar to that which it had assumed
during the 12th and 13th centuries in the Victorines and Bonaventura.
§ 114.1. =Meister Eckhart.=--One of the profoundest
thinkers of all the Christian centuries was the Dominican
Meister Eckhart, the true father of German speculative mysticism.
Born in Strassburg about A.D. 1260, he studied at Cologne under
Albert the Great, but took his master’s degree at Paris in
A.D. 1303. He had already been for some years prior at Erfurt
and provincial vicar of Thuringia. In A.D. 1304 he was made
provincial of Saxony, and in A.D. 1307 vicar-general of Bohemia.
In both positions he did much for the reform of the cloisters
of his order. In A.D. 1311 we find him teacher in Paris;
then for some years teaching and preaching in Strassburg;
afterwards officiating as prior at Frankfort; and finally as
private teacher at Cologne, where he died in A.D. 1327. While
at Frankfort in A.D. 1320 he was suspected of heresy because
of alleged intercourse with Beghards (§ 98, 12) and Brothers
of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5). In A.D. 1325 the archbishop
of Cologne renewed these charges, but Eckhart succeeded in
vindicating himself. The archbishop now set up an inquisition
of his own, but from its sentence Eckhart appealed to the pope,
lodged a protest, and then of his own accord in the Dominican
church of Cologne, before the assembled congregation, solemnly
declared that the charge against him rested upon misrepresentation
and misunderstanding, but that he was then and always ready to
withdraw anything that might be erroneous. The papal judgment,
given two years after Eckhart’s death, pronounced twenty-eight
of his propositions to be pantheistic in their tendency,
seventeen being heretical and eleven dangerous. He was therefore
declared to be suspected of heresy. The bull, contrary to reason
and truth, went on to say that Eckhart at the end of his life
had retracted and submitted all his writings and doctrines
to the judgment of the Holy See. But Eckhart had indignantly
protested against the charge of pantheism, and certainly in his
doctrine of God and the creature, of the high nobility of the
human soul, of retirement and absorption into God, he has always
kept within the limits of Christian knowledge and life. Attaching
himself to the Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrines, which are met
with also in Albert and Thomas, and appealing to the acknowledged
authorities of the Church, especially the Areopagite, Augustine,
and Aquinas, Eckhart with great originality composed a singularly
comprehensive and profound system of religious knowledge.
Although in all his writings aiming primarily at quickening and
edification, he always grounds his endeavours on a theoretical
investigation of the nature of the thing. But knowledge is for
him essentially union of the knowing subject with the object to
be known, and the highest stage of knowledge is the intuition
where all finite things sink into the substance of Deity.[336]
§ 114.2. =Mystics of Upper Germany after Eckhart.=--A noble band
of mystics arose during the 14th and 15th centuries influenced
by Eckhart’s writings, who carefully avoided pantheistic extremes
by giving a thoroughly practical direction to their speculation.
Nearest to Eckhart stands the author of “=The German Theology=,”
in which the master’s principles are nobly popularized and
explained. Luther, who took it for a work of Tauler, and
published it in A.D. 1516, characterized it as “a noble little
book, showing what Adam and Christ are, and how Adam should
die and Christ live in us.” In the most complete MS. of this
tract, found in A.D. 1850, the author is described as a “Friend
of God.”--The Dominican =John Tauler= was born at Strassburg,
studied at Paris, and came into connection with Eckhart, whose
mysticism, without its pantheistic tendencies, he adopted. When
Strassburg was visited with the Black Death, he laboured as
preacher and pastor among the stricken with heroic devotion.
Though the city was under an interdict (§ 110, 3), the Dominicans
persisted for a whole year in reading mass, and were stopped
only by the severe threats of the master of their order. The
magistrates gave them the alternative either to discharge their
official duties or leave the city. Tauler now, in A.D. 1341,
retired to Basel, and afterwards to Cologne. In A.D. 1437
we find him again in Strassburg, where he died in A.D. 1361.
His thirty sermons, with some other short tracts, appeared
at Leipzig in A.D. 1498. The most important of all Tauler’s
works is, “The Imitation of the Poverty of Christ.” It was
thought to be of French authorship, but is now admitted to be
Tauler’s.[337]--=Rulman Merswin=, a rich merchant of Strassburg,
in his fortieth year, A.D. 1347, with his wife’s consent,
retired from his business and forsook the world, gave his
wealth to charities, and bought in A.D. 1366 an old, abandoned
convent near the city, which he restored and presented to the
order of St. John. Here he spent the remainder of his days in
pious contemplation, amid austerities and mortifications and
favoured with visions. He died in A.D. 1382. Four years after
his conversion he attained to clear conceptions and inner
peace. His chief work, composed in A.D. 1352, “The Book of the
Nine Rocks,” was long ascribed to Suso. It is full of bitter
complaints against the moral and religious corruption of all
classes, and earnest warnings of Divine judgment. Its starting
point is a vision. From the fountains in the high mountains
stream many brooks over the rocks into the valley, and thence
into the sea; multitudes of fishes transport themselves from
their lofty home, and are mostly taken in nets, only a few
succeed in reaching their home again by springing over these
nine rocks. At the request of the “Friend of God from the
Uplands” he wrote the “Four Years from the Beginning of Life.”
His “Banner Tract” describes the conflict with and victory
over the Brothers of the Free Spirit under the banner of
Lucifer (§ 116, 4, 5).
§ 114.3. =The Friend of God in the Uplands.=--In a book
entitled “The Story of Tauler’s Conversion,” originally called
“The Master’s Book,” but now assigned to Nicholas of Basel,
it is told that in A.D. 1346 a great “Master of Holy Scripture”
preached in an unnamed city, and that soon his fame spread
through the land. A layman living in the Uplands, thirty miles
off, was directed in a vision thrice over to go to seek this
Friend of God, companion of Rulman. He listened to his preaching,
chose him as his confessor, and then sought to show him that
he had not yet the true consecration. Like a child the master
submitted to be taught the elements of piety of religion
by the layman, and at his command abstaining from all study
and preaching for two years, gave himself to meditation and
penitential exercises. When he resumed his preaching his success
was marvellous. After nine years’ labour, feeling his end
approaching, he gave to the layman an account of his conversion.
The latter arranged his materials, and added five sermons of
the master, and sent the little book, in A.D. 1369, to a priest
of Rulman’s cloister near Strassburg. In A.D. 1486 the master
was identified with Tauler. This however is contradicted by
its contents. The historical part is improbable and incredible,
and its chronology irreconcilable with known facts of Tauler’s
life. We find no trace of the original ideas or characteristic
eloquence of Tauler; while the language and homiletical
arrangement of the sermons are quite different from those
of the great Dominican preacher.
§ 114.4. =Nicholas of Basel.=--After long hiding from the
emissaries of the Inquisition the layman Nicholas of Basel,
in extreme old age, was taken with two companions, and burned
at Vienna, as a heretic, between A.D. 1393-1408. He has been
identified by Schmidt of Strassburg with the “Friend of God.”
This is more than doubtful, since of the sixteen heresies,
for the most part of a Waldensian character, charged against
Nicholas, no trace is found in the writings of the Friend of
God; while it is made highly probable by Denifle’s researches
that the “Friend of God” was but a name assumed by Rulman Merswin.
§ 114.5. =Henry Suso=, born A.D. 1295, entered the Dominican
cloister of Constance in his 13th year. When eighteen years old
he took the vow, and till his twenty-second year unceasingly
practised the strictest asceticism, in imitation of the
sufferings of Christ. He completed his studies, A.D. 1325-1328,
under Eckhart at Cologne, and on the death of his pious mother
withdrew into the cloister, where he became reader and afterwards
prior. The first work which he here published, in A.D. 1335, the
“Book of the Truth,” is strongly influenced by the spirit of his
master. Accused as a heretic, he was deposed from the priorship
in A.D. 1336. His “Book of Eternal Wisdom” was the favourite
reading of all lovers of German mysticism. Blending the knight’s
and fanatic’s idea of love with the Solomonic conception of
Wisdom, which he identifies sometimes with God, sometimes with
Christ, sometimes with Mary, he chose her for his beloved,
and was favoured by her with frequent visions and was honoured
with the title of “Amandus.”--Like most of his fellow monks at
Constance, Suso was a supporter of the pope in his contest with
Louis the Bavarian, while the city sided with the emperor. When,
in A.D. 1339, the monks, in obedience to the papal interdict,
refused to perform public worship, they were expelled by the
magistrates. In his fortieth year Suso had begun his painful
career of self-discipline, which he carried so far as to endanger
his life. Now driven away as an exile, he began his singularly
fruitful wanderings, during which, passing from cloister to
cloister as an itinerant preacher, he became either personally
or through correspondence most intimately acquainted with all
the most notable of the friends of mysticism, and made many
new friends in all ranks, especially among women. In A.D. 1346,
along with eight companions, he ventured to return to Constance.
There however he met with his sorest trial. An immoral woman,
who pretended to him that she sorrowed over and repented of her
sins, while really she continued in the practice of them, and
was therefore turned away by him, took her revenge by charging
him with being the father of the child she was about to bear.
Probably this painful incident was the occasion of his retiring
into the monastery of Ulm, where he died in A.D. 1366. In him
the poetic and romantic element overshadowed the speculative,
and in his attachment to ecclesiastical orthodoxy he kept aloof
from all reformatory movements.
§ 114.6. =Henry of Nördlingen= is only slightly known to us
by the letters which he sent to his lady friend, the Dominican
nun =Margaret Ebner=. He was spiritually related to Tauler,
as well as to Suso, and shared with the great preacher in his
sorrows over the calamities of the age, which his sensitive
nature felt in no ordinary degree during enforced official
idleness under the interdict. His mysticism, by its sweetly
sentimental character, as well as by its superstitious tendency
to reverence Mary and relics, was essentially distinguished
from that of Tauler. His friend Margaret, who had also a
spiritual affinity to Tauler, and was highly esteemed by all
the “Friends of God,” was religiously and politically, as a
supporter of the anathematized emperor, much more decided.
In depth of thought and power of expression however she
is quite inferior to the earlier Thuringian prophetesses
(§ 107, 2).--=Hermann of Fritzlar=, a rich and pious layman,
is supposed to have written, A.D. 1343-1349, a life of the
saints in the order of the calendar, as a picture of heart
purity, with mystic reflections and speculations based on the
legendary matter, and all expressed in pure and simple German.
Hermann, however, was only the author of the plan, and the actual
writer was a Dominican of Erfurt, =Giseler of Slatheim=.--A
Franciscan in Basel, =Otto of Passau=, published, in A.D. 1386,
“The Four-and-Twenty Elders, or the Golden Throne,” which became
a very popular book of devotion, in which the twenty-four elders
of Revelation iv. 4, one after another, show the loving soul
how to win for himself a golden throne in heaven. Passages of
an edifying and contemplative description from the Fathers and
teachers of the Church down to the 13th century are selected by
the author, and adapted to the use of the unlearned “Friends of
God” in a German translation.
§ 114.7. =Mystics of the Netherlands.=
1. =John of Ruysbroek= was born, in A.D. 1298, in the village
of Ruysbroek, near Brussels. In youth he was addicted more
to pious contemplation than to scholastic studies, and
in his sixtieth year he resigned his position as secular
priest in Brussels, and retired into a convent of regular
canons (§ 97, 3) near Brussels, where he died as its prior
in A.D. 1481, when eighty-eight years old. He was called
_doctor ecstaticus_, because he regarded his mystical
views, which he developed amid pious contemplation in the
shades of the forest, and there wrote out in Flemish speech,
as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His mysticism was
essentially theistic. The _unio mystica_ consisted not
in the deification of man, but was wrought only through
the free grace of God in Christ without the loss of man’s
own personality. His genuine practical piety led him to
see in the moral depravity of the clergy, not less than
of the people generally, the cause of the decay of the
Church, so that even the person of the pope did not escape
his reproof. Numerous pilgrims from far and near sought
the pious sage for counsel and quickening. His favourite
disciple was Gerhard Groot of Deventer, who impressed
much of his master’s spirit upon the brotherhood of the
Common Life (§ 112, 9).--Of this noble school of mystics
the three following were the most distinguished.
2. =Hendrik Mande=, who died A.D. 1430, impressed by a sermon
of Groot’s, and favoured during a long illness by visions,
abandoned the life of a courtier for the fellowship of
the Brethren of Deventer, and in A.D. 1395 entered the
cloister of Windesheim, to which he bequeathed his wealth,
and where he continued to enjoy visions of the Saviour and
the saints. His works, written in Dutch, are characterized
by spirituality and depth of feeling, copious and
appropriate imagery, and great moral earnestness.
3. =Gerlach Peters= was the favourite scholar of Florentius
in Deventer. He subsequently entered the monastery of
Windesheim, where, after a painful illness, he died in
A.D. 1411, in his thirty-third year. “An ardent spirit
in a body of skin and bone,” praising God for his terrible
bodily sufferings as a means of grace bestowed on him,
his devotion reaches the sublimest heights of enthusiasm.
He wrote the _Soliloquium_, the voice of a man who has
daily struggled in God’s presence to free his heart from
worldly bonds, and by God’s grace in the cross of Christ
to have Adam’s purity restored and union with the highest
good secured.
4. =Thomas à Kempis=, formerly Hamerken, was born in A.D. 1380
at Kempen, near Cologne. He was educated at Deventer, and
died as sub-prior of the convent of St. Agnes, near Zwoll,
in A.D. 1471. To him, and not to the chancellor Gerson,
according to the now universally accepted opinion, belongs
the world renowned book _De Imitatione Christi_. Reprinted
about five thousand times, oftener than any other book
except the Bible, it has been also translated into more
languages than any other. Free from all Romish superstition,
it is read by Catholics and Protestants, and holds an
unrivalled position as a book of devotion. A photographic
reproduction of the original edition of A.D. 1441 was
published from the autograph MSS. of Thomas, by Ch. Ruelans,
London, 1879.[338]