HIS WORKS
In all that I have understood, felt, or written, I submit myself to the
judgment of the saints and of Holy Church, for I would live and die
Christ's servant in Christian Faith.
The Book of Supreme Truth.
Before discussing Ruysbroeck's view of the spiritual world, his doctrine
of the soul's development, perhaps it will be well to consider the
traditional names, general character, and contents of his admittedly
authentic works. Only a few of these works can be dated with precision;
for recent criticism has shown that the so-called chronological list
given by Pomerius[4] cannot be accepted. As to several of them, we cannot
tell whether they were composed at Brussels or at Groenendael, at the
beginning, middle or end of his mystical life. All were written in the
Flemish vernacular of his own day--or, strictly speaking, in the dialect
of Brabant--for they were practical books composed for a practical
object, not academic treatises on mystical theology. Founded on
experience, they deal with and incite to experience; and were addressed
to all who felt within themselves the stirrings of a special grace, the
call of a superhuman love, irrespective of education or position--to
hermits, priests, nuns, and ardent souls still in the world who were
trying to live the one real life--not merely to learned professors trying
to elucidate the doctrines of that life. Ruysbroeck therefore belongs to
that considerable group of mystical writers whose gift to the history of
literature is only less important than their gift to the history of the
spiritual world; since they have helped to break down the barrier between
the written and the spoken word.
At the moment in which poetry first forsakes the 'literary' language and
uses the people's speech, we nearly always find a mystic thus trying to
tell his message to the race. His enthusiasm it is which is equal to the
task of subduing a new medium to the purposes of art. Thus at the very
beginning of Italian poetry we find St. Francis of Assisi singing in the
popular tongue his great Canticle of the Sun, and soon after him come the
sublime lyrics of Jacopone da Todì. Thus German literature owes much to
Mechthild of Magdeburg, and English to Richard Rolle--both forsaking
Latin for the common speech of their day. Thus in India the poet Kabir,
obedient to the same impulse, sings in Hindi rather than in Sanscrit his
beautiful songs of Divine Love.
In Ruysbroeck, as in these others, a strong poetic inspiration mingled
with and sometimes controlled the purely mystical side of his genius.
Often his love and enthusiasm break out and express themselves, sometimes
in rough, irregular verse, sometimes in rhymed and rhythmic prose: a kind
of wild spontaneous chant, which may be related to the 'ghostly song'
that 'boiled up' within the heart of Richard Rolle. It is well-known that
automatic composition--and we have seen that the evidence of those who
knew him suggests the presence of an automatic element in Ruysbroeck's
creative methods--tends to assume a rhythmic character; being indeed
closely related to that strange chanted speech in which religious
excitement frequently expresses itself. Released from the control of the
surface-intellect, the deeper mind which is involved in these mysterious
processes tends to present its intuitions and concepts in measured waves
of words; which sometimes, as in Rolle's 'ghostly song' and perhaps too
in Ruysbroeck's 'Song of Joy,' are actually given a musical form. In such
rhythm the mystic seems to catch something of the cadences of that
far-off music of which he is writing, and to receive and transmit a
message which exceeds the possibilities of speech. Ruysbroeck was no
expert poet. Often his verse is bad; halting in cadence, violent and
uncouth in imagery, like the stammering utterance of one possessed. But
its presence and quality, its mingled simplicity and violence, assure us
of the strong excitement that fulfilled him, and tend to corroborate the
account of his mental processes which we have deduced from the statements
in Pomerius' _Life_.
Eleven admittedly authentic books and tracts survive in numerous MS.
collections,[5] and from these come all that we know of his vision and
teaching. _The Twelve Virtues_, and the two Canticles often attributed to
him, are probably spurious; and the tracts against the Brethren of the
Free Spirit, which are known to have been written during his Brussels
period, have all disappeared. I give here a short account of the
authentic works, their names and general contents; putting first in order
those of unknown date, some of which may possibly have been composed
before the foundation of Groenendael. In each case the first title is a
translation of that used in the best Flemish texts; the second, that
employed in the great Latin version of Surius. Ruysbroeck himself never
gave any titles to his writings.
1. The Spiritual Tabernacle (called by Surius _In Tabernaculum
Mosis_).--The longest, most fantastic, and, in spite of some fine
passages, the least interesting of Ruysbroeck's works. Probably founded
upon the _De Arca Mystica_ of Hugh of St. Victor, this is an elaborate
allegory, thoroughly mediæval in type, in which the Tabernacle of the
Israelites becomes a figure of the spiritual life; the details of its
construction, furniture and ritual being given a symbolic significance,
in accordance with the methods of interpretation popular at the time. In
this book, and perhaps in the astronomical treatise appended to _The
Twelve Béguines_ (No. 11), I believe that we have the only surviving
works of Ruysbroeck's first period; when he had not yet 'transcended
images,' but was at that point in his mystical development in which the
young contemplative loves to discern symbolic meanings in all visible
things.
2. The Twelve Points of True Faith (_De Fide et Judicio_).--This little
tract is in form a gloss upon the Nicene Creed; in fact, a
characteristically Ruysbroeckian confession of faith. Without ever
over-passing the boundaries of Catholic doctrine, Ruysbroeck is here able
to turn all its imagery to the purposes of his own vision of truth.
3. The Book of the Four Temptations (_De Quatuor Tentationibus_).--The
Four Temptations are four manifestations of the higher egotism specially
dangerous to souls entering on the contemplative life: first, the love of
ease and comfort, as much in things spiritual as in things material;
secondly, the tendency to pose as the possessor of special illumination,
with other and like forms of spiritual pretence; thirdly, intellectual
pride, which seeks to understand unfathomable mysteries and attain to the
vision of God by the reason alone; fourthly,--most dangerous of all--that
false 'liberty of spirit' which was the mark of the heretical mystic
sects. This book too may well have been written before the retreat to
Groenendael.
4. The Book of the Kingdom of God's Lovers (_Regnum Deum
Amantium_).--This and the following work, _The Adornment of the Spiritual
Marriage_, contain Ruysbroeck's fullest and most orderly descriptions of
the mystical life-process. The 'Kingdom' which God's lovers may inherit
is the actual life of God, infused into the soul and deifying it. This
essential life reveals itself under five modes: in the sense world, in
the soul's nature, in the witness of Scripture, in the life of grace or
'glory,' and in the Superessential Kingdom of the Divine Unity. By the
threefold way of the Active, Contemplative, and Superessential Life, here
described as the steady and orderly appropriation of the Seven Gifts of
the Holy Spirit, the spirit of man may enter into its inheritance and
attain at last to the perfect fruition of God. To the Active Life belong
the gifts of Holy Fear, Godliness, and Knowledge; to the Contemplative
those of Strength and Counsel; to the Superessential those of
Intelligence and Wisdom. _The Kingdom of God's Lovers_ was traditionally
regarded as Ruysbroeck's earliest work. It was more probably written
during the early years at Groenendael. Much of it, like _The Twelve
Béguines_, is in poetical form. This was the book which, falling into the
hands of Gerard Naghel, made him seek Ruysbroeck's acquaintance, in order
that he might ask for an explanation of several profound and difficult
passages.
5. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage (_De Ornatu Spiritalium
Nuptiarum_).--This is the best known and most methodical of Ruysbroeck's
works. In form a threefold commentary upon the text, "Behold, the
bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him," it is divided into three
books, tracing out in great detail, and with marvellous psychological
insight, those three stages of Active, Contemplative and Superessential
Life, which appear again and again in his writings. Paying due attention
to the aberrations of the quietists, he exhibits--with an intimacy which
surely reflects his own personal experience of the Way--the conditions
under which selves in each stage of development may see, encounter, and
at last unite with, the Divine Bridegroom of the soul. A German
translation of several of its chapters, preserved in MS. at Munich,
states that Ruysbroeck sent this book to the Friends of God in 1350. In
this case it belongs to the years immediately preceding or succeeding his
retreat.
We now come to the works which were certainly composed at Groenendael,
though probably some of those already enumerated also belong to the last
thirty years of Ruysbroeck's life. First come the three treatises
apparently written for Margaret van Meerbeke, a choir nun of the Convent
of Poor Clares at Brussels; who seems to have been to him what St. Clare
was to St. Francis, Elizabeth Stägel to Suso, Margaret Kirkby to Richard
Rolle--first a spiritual daughter, then a valued and sympathetic friend.
6. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation or Book of the Blessed Sacrament
(_Speculum Æternæ Salutis_).--This, the first of the three, was written
in 1359. It is addressed to one who is evidently a beginner in the
spiritual life, as she is yet a novice in her religious community; but
whom Ruysbroeck looks upon as specially 'called, elect and loved.' In
simplest language, often of extreme beauty, he puts before her the
magnitude of the vocation she has accepted, the dangers she will
encounter, and the great source from which she must draw her strength:
the sacramental dispensation of the Church. In a series of magnificent
chapters, he celebrates the mystical doctrine of the Eucharist, the
feeding of the ever-growing soul on the substance of God; following this
by a digression, full of shrewd observation, on the different types of
believers who come to communion. We see them through his eyes: the
religious sentimentalists, 'who are generally women and only very seldom
men'; the sturdy normal Christian, who does his best to struggle against
sin; the humble and devout lover of God; the churchy hypocrite, who
behaves with great reverence at Mass and then goes home and scolds the
servants; the heretical mystic full of spiritual pride; the easy-going
worldling, who sins and repents with equal facility. The book ends with a
superb description of the goal towards which the young contemplative is
set: the 'life-giving life' of perfect union with God in which that
'higher life' latent in every soul at last attains to maturity.
7. The Seven Cloisters (_De Septem_ _Custodiis_).--This was written
before 1363, and preserves its address to 'The Holy Nun, Dame Margaret
van Meerbeke, Cantor of the Monastery of St. Clare at Brussels.' The
novice of the 'Mirror' is now a professed religious; and her director
instructs her upon the attitude of mind which she should bring to the
routine duties of a nun's day, the opportunity they offer for the
enriching and perfecting of love and humility. He describes the education
of the human spirit up to that high point of consciousness where it knows
itself established 'between Eternity and Time': one of the fundamental
thoughts of Flemish and German mysticism. This education admits her
successively into the seven cloisters which kept St. Clare, Foundress of
the Order, unspotted from the world. The first is the physical enclosure
of the convent walls; the next the moral and volitional limitation of
self-control. The third is 'the open door of the love of Christ,' which
crowns man's affective powers, and leads to the fourth--total dedication
of the will. The fifth and sixth represent the two great forms of the
Contemplative Life as conceived by Ruysbroeck: the ecstatic and the
deiform. The seventh admits to Abyss of Being itself: that 'dim silence'
at the heart of which, as in the Seventh Habitation of St. Teresa's
'Interior Castle,' he will find himself alone with God. There the mystic
union is consummated, and the Divine activity takes the place of the
separate activity of man, in "a simple beatitude which transcends all
sanctity and the practice of virtue, an Eternal Fruition which satisfies
all hunger and thirst, all love and all craving, for God." Finally, he
returns to the Active Life; and ends with a practical chapter on clothes,
and a charming instruction, full of deep poetry, on the evening
meditation which should close the day.
8. The Seven Degrees of the Ladder of Love (_De Septem Gradibus
Amoris_).--This book, which was written before 1372, is believed by the
Benedictines of Wisques, the latest and most learned of Ruysbroeck's
editors, to complete the trilogy of works addressed to Dame Margaret van
Meerbeke. It traces the soul's ascent to the height of Divine love by way
of the characteristic virtues of asceticism, under the well-known
mediæval image of the 'ladder of perfection' or 'stairway of love'--a
metaphor, originating in Jacob's Dream, which had already served St.
Benedict, Richard of St. Victor, St. Bonaventura and many others as a
useful diagram of the mystic way. Originality of form, however, is the
last thing we should look for in Ruysbroeck's works. He pours his strange
wine into any vessel that comes to hand. As often his most sublime or
amazing utterances originate in commentaries upon some familiar text, or
the deepest truths are hidden under the most grotesque similitudes; so
this well-worn metaphor gives him the opportunity for some of his finest
descriptions of the soul's movement to that transmutation in which all
ardent spirits 'become as live coals in the fire of Infinite Love.' This
book, in which the influence of St. Bernard is strongly marked, contains
some beautiful passages on the mystic life considered as a 'heavenly
song' of faithfulness and love, which "Christ our Cantor and our Choragus
has sung from the beginning of things," and which every Christian soul
must learn.
9. The Book of the Sparkling Stone (_De Calculo, sive de Perfectione
Filiorum Dei_).--This priceless work is said to have been written by
Ruysbroeck at the request of a hermit, who wished for further light on
the high matters of which it treats. It contains the finest flower of his
thought, and shows perhaps more clearly than any other of his writings
the mark of direct inspiration. Here again the scaffolding on which he
builds is almost as old as Christian mysticism itself: that three-fold
division of men into the 'faithful servants, secret friends, and hidden
sons' of God, which descended through the centuries from Clement of
Alexandria. But the tower which he raises with its help ascends to
heights unreached by any other writer: to the point at which man is given
the supreme gift of the Sparkling Stone, or Nature of Christ, the goal of
human transcendence. I regard the ninth and tenth chapters of _The
Sparkling Stone_--'How we may become Hidden Sons of God and live the
Contemplative Life,' and 'How we, though one with God, must eternally
remain other than Him'--as the high-water mark of mystical literature.
Nowhere else do we find such a marvellous combination of wide and soaring
vision with the most delicate and intimate psychological analysis. The
old mystic, sitting under his friendly tree, seems here to be gazing at
and reporting to us the final secrets of that eternal world, where "the
Incomprehensible Light enfolds and penetrates us, as the air is
penetrated by the light of the sun." There he tastes and apprehends, in
'an unfathomable seeing and beholding,' the inbreathing and the
outbreathing of the Love of God--that double movement which controls the
universe; yet knows, along with this great cosmic vision, that intimate
and searching communion in which "the Beloved and the Lover are immersed
wholly in love, and each is all to the other in possession and in rest."
10. The Book of Supreme Truth (called in some collections _The Book of
Retractations_, and by Surius, _Samuel_.)--This is the tract written by
Ruysbroeck, at the request of Gerard Naghel, to explain certain obscure
passages in _The Book of the Kingdom of God's Lovers_. In it he is
specially concerned to make clear the vital distinction between his
doctrine of the soul's union with God--a union in which the primal
distinction between Creator and created is never overpassed--and the
pantheistic doctrine of complete absorption in Him, with cessation of all
effort and striving, preached by the heretical sects whose initiates
claim to 'be God.' By the time that this book was written, careless
readers had already charged Ruysbroeck with these pantheist tendencies
which he abhorred and condemned; and here he sets out his defence. He
discusses also the three degrees of union with God which correspond to
the 'three lives' of the growing soul: union by means of sacraments and
good deeds; union achieved in contemplative prayer 'without means,' where
the soul learns its double vocation of action and fruition; and the
highest union of all, where the spirit which has swung pendulum-like
between the temporal and eternal worlds, achieves its equilibrium and
dwells wholly in God, 'drunk with love, and sunk in the Dark Light.'
11. The Twelve Béguines (_De Vera Contemplatione_).--This is a long,
composite book of eighty-four chapters, which apparently consists of at
least three distinct treatises of different dates. The first, _The Twelve
Béguines_, which ends with chapter xvi., contains the longest consecutive
example of Ruysbroeck's poetic method; its first eight chapters being
written in irregular rhymed verse. It is believed to be one of his last
compositions. Its doctrine differs little from that already set forth in
his earlier works; though nowhere, perhaps, is the development of the
spiritual consciousness described with greater subtlety. The soul's
communion with and feeding on the Divine Nature in the Eucharist and in
contemplative prayer; its acquirement of the art of introversion; the Way
of Contemplation with its four modes, paralleled by the Way of Love with
its four modes; these lead up to the perfect union of the spirit with God
"in one love and one fruition with Him, fulfilled in everlasting bliss."
The seventeenth chapter begins a new treatise, with a description of the
Active Life on Ruysbroeck's usual lines; and at the thirtieth there is
again a complete change of subject, introducing a mystical and symbolic
interpretation of the science of astronomy. This section, so unlike his
later writings, somewhat resembles _The Spiritual Tabernacle_, and may
perhaps be a work of the same period. A collection of Meditations upon
the Passion of Christ, arranged according to the Seven Hours of the Roman
Breviary (capp. lxxiii. to end), completes the book; and also the tale of
Ruysbroeck's authentic works. A critical list of the reprints and
translations in which these may best be studied will be found in the
Bibliographical Note.