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text-indent:0; } +div.box dl.biblio dt { margin-left:4em; text-indent:-2em; margin-right:2em; text-align:justify; margin-top:.5em; } +.lcol { width:50%; text-align:left; float:left; clear:right; } +.rcol { width:50%; float:right; text-align:right; } +.clear { clear:both; } +div.biblionote blockquote { margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; } +div.biblionote blockquote div.bibliosub { margin-left:4em; text-indent:-2em; margin-top:1em; } +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ruysbroeck, by Evelyn Underhill + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ruysbroeck + +Author: Evelyn Underhill + +Release Date: October 27, 2011 [EBook #37870] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUYSBROECK *** + + + + +Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="box"> +<h2 id="c1">THE QUEST SERIES</h2> +<p class="center">Edited by G. R. S. MEAD, +<br /><span class="small">EDITOR OF ‘THE QUEST.’</span></p> +<p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net each.</i></p> +<p class="center">FIRST LIST OF VOLUMES.</p> +<dl class="biblio"> +<dt class="biblio">PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND SURVIVAL. By +<span class="sc">James H. Hyslop</span>, Ph.D., LL.D., Secretary of +Psychical Research Society of America.</dt> +<dt class="biblio">THE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL. By <span class="sc">Jessie +L. Weston</span>, Author of ‘The Legend of Sir +Perceval.’</dt> +<dt class="biblio">JEWISH MYSTICISM. By <span class="sc">J. Abelson</span>, M.A., +D.Lit, Principal of Aria College, Portsmouth.</dt> +<dt class="biblio">THE MYSTICS OF ISLAM. By <span class="sc">Reynold A. +Nicholson</span>, M.A., Litt.D, LL.D., Lecturer on +Persian, Cambridge University.</dt> +<dt class="biblio">BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY. By <span class="sc">C. A. F. Rhys +Davids</span>, M.A., Lecturer on Indian Philosophy, +Manchester University.</dt> +<dt class="biblio">RUYSBROECK. By <span class="sc">Evelyn Underhill</span>, Author of +‘Mysticism,’ ‘The Mystic Way,’ etc.</dt> +<dt class="biblio">THE SIDEREAL RELIGION OF THE ANCIENTS. +By <span class="sc">Robert Eisler</span>, Ph.D., Author of Weltenmantel +und Himmelszelt.’ <span class="hst">[<i>In the Press.</i></span></dt> +</dl> +<p class="center"><span class="sc">London</span>: G. BELL AND SONS LTD.</p> +</div> +<div class="box"> +<h1>RUYSBROECK</h1> +<p class="center"><span class="small">BY</span> +<br /><span class="large">EVELYN UNDERHILL</span> +<br /><span class="small">AUTHOR OF +<br />‘MYSTICISM,’ ‘THE MYSTIC WAY,’ ETC., ETC.</span></p> +<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">LONDON</span> +<br />G. BELL AND SONS LTD. +<br />1915</p> +<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">FOR</span> +<br />JESSIE +<br /><span class="small">TO WHOM IT OWES SO MUCH +<br />THIS LITTLE TRIBUTE TO A MUTUAL FRIEND</span></p> +</div> +<div class="pb" id="Page_vii">[vii]</div> +<h2>EDITOR’S NOTE</h2> +<p>A glance at the excellent Bibliographical +Note at the end of the volume will reveal +the surprising paucity of literature on +Ruysbroeck in this country. A single version +from the original of one short treatise, +published in the present year, is all that +we possess of direct translation; even in +versions from translation there is only one +treatise represented; add to this one or +two selections of the same nature, and +the full tale is told. We are equally poorly +off for studies of the life and doctrine of +the great Flemish contemplative of the +fourteenth century. And yet Jan van +Ruusbroec is thought, by no few competent +judges, to be the greatest of all the +mediæval Catholic mystics; and, indeed, it +is difficult to point to his superior. Miss +Evelyn Underhill is, therefore, doing lovers +<span class="pb" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span> +not only of Catholic mysticism, but also of +mysticism in general, a very real service by +her monograph, which deals more satisfactorily +than any existing work in English +with the life and teachings of one of the most +spiritual minds in Christendom. Her book +is not simply a painstaking summary of +the more patent generalities of the subject, +but rather a deeply sympathetic entering +into the mind of Ruysbroeck, and that, +too, with no common insight.</p> +<h2>PREFATORY NOTE</h2> +<p>I owe to the great kindness of my friend, +Mrs. Theodore Beck, the translation of +several passages from Ruysbroeck’s <i>Sparkling +Stone</i> given in the present work; and +in quoting from <i>The Twelve Béguines</i> have +often, though not always, availed myself of +the recently published version by Mr. John +Francis. For all other renderings I alone +am responsible.</p> +<p><span class="lr">E. U.</span></p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_xi">[xi]</div> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<dl class="toc"> +<dt class="jl"><span class="small">CHAP.</span> <span class="jr"><span class="small">PAGE</span></span></dt> +<dt><a href="#c2"><span class="cn">I.</span> <span class="sc">Ruysbroeck the Man</span></a> 1</dt> +<dt><a href="#c3"><span class="cn">II.</span> <span class="sc">His Works</span></a> 36</dt> +<dt><a href="#c4"><span class="cn">III.</span> <span class="sc">His Doctrine of God</span></a> 52</dt> +<dt><a href="#c5"><span class="cn">IV.</span> <span class="sc">His Doctrine of Man</span></a> 66</dt> +<dt><a href="#c6"><span class="cn">V.</span> <span class="sc">The Active Life</span></a> 94</dt> +<dt><a href="#c7"><span class="cn">VI.</span> <span class="sc">The Interior Life: Illumination and Destitution</span></a> 115</dt> +<dt><a href="#c8"><span class="cn">VII.</span> <span class="sc">The Interior Life: Union and Contemplation</span></a> 136</dt> +<dt><a href="#c9"><span class="cn">VIII.</span> <span class="sc">The Superessential Life</span></a> 164</dt> +</dl> +<dl class="toc"> +<dd><a href="#c10"><span class="sc">Bibliographical Note</span></a> 187</dd> +</dl> +<div class="pb" id="Page_xii">[xii]</div> +<div class="hymn"> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t2">Luce divina sopra me s’ appunta,</p> +<p class="t2">penetrando per questa ond’ io m’ inventro;</p> +<p class="t0">La cui virtù, col mio veder conguinta,</p> +<p class="t2">mi leva sopra me tanto, ch’ io veggio</p> +<p class="t2">la somma essenza della quale è munta.</p> +<p class="t0">Quinci vien l’ allegrezza, ond’ io fiammeggio;</p> +<p class="t2">perchè alla vista mia, quant’ ella è chiara,</p> +<p class="t2">la chiarità della fiamma pareggio.</p> +</div> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="lr"><span class="sc">Par.</span> xxi. 83.</p> +</div> +<blockquote> +<p>[Divine Light doth focus itself upon me, +piercing through that wherein I am enclosed; +the power of which, united with my +sight, so greatly lifts me up above myself +that I see the Supreme Essence where from +it is drawn. Thence comes the joy wherewith +I flame; for to my vision, even as it is +clear, I make the clearness of the flame +respond.]</p> +</blockquote> +</div> +<div class="pb" id="Page_1">[1]</div> +<h1>RUYSBROECK</h1> +<h2 id="c2">CHAPTER I +<br /><span class="small">RUYSBROECK THE MAN</span></h2> +<blockquote> +<p>The tree Igdrasil, which has its head in heaven and +its roots in hell (the lower parts of the earth), is the image +of the true man.... In proportion to the divine heights +to which it ascends must be the obscure depths in which +the tree is rooted, and from which it draws the mystic sap +of its spiritual life.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">Coventry Patmore.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the history of the spiritual adventures of +man, we find at intervals certain great +mystics, who appear to gather up and fuse +together in the crucible of the heart the +diverse tendencies of those who have preceded +them, and, adding to these elements +the tincture of their own rich experience, +give to us an intensely personal, yet universal, +vision of God and man. These are +constructive spirits, whose creations in the +spiritual sphere sum up and represent the +best achievement of a whole epoch; as in +other spheres the great artist, musician, or +<span class="pb" id="Page_2">[2]</span> +poet—always the child of tradition as well +as of inspiration—may do.</p> +<p>John Ruysbroeck is such a mystic as +this. His career, which covers the greater +part of the fourteenth century—that golden +age of Christian mysticism—seems to exhibit +within the circle of a single personality, +and carry up to a higher term than ever +before, all the best attainments of the Middle +Ages in the realm of Eternal Life. Rooted +firmly in history, faithful to the teachings +of the great Catholic mystics of the primitive +and mediæval times, Ruysbroeck does not +merely transmit, but transfigures, their +principles: making from the salt, sulphur, +and mercury of their vision, reason, and love, +a new and living jewel—or, in his own words, +a ‘sparkling stone’—which reflects the actual +radiance of the Uncreated Light. Absorbing +from the rich soil of the Middle Ages all +the intellectual nourishment which he needs, +dependent too, as all real greatness is, on the +human environment in which he grows—that +mysterious interaction and inter-penetration +of personalities without which human +consciousness can never develop its full +powers—he towers up from the social and +intellectual circumstances that conditioned +him: a living, growing, unique and creative +individual, yet truly a part of the earth +from which he springs.</p> +<p>To speak of Ruysbroeck, as some enthusiastic +<span class="pb" id="Page_3">[3]</span> +biographers have done, as an isolated +spiritual phenomenon totally unrelated to +the life of his time, an ‘ignorant monk’ +whose profound knowledge of reality is +entirely the result of personal inspiration +and independent of human history, is to +misunderstand his greatness. The ‘ignorant +monk’ was bound by close links to the +religious life of his day. He was no +spiritual individualist; but the humble, +obedient child of an institution, the loyal +member of a Society. He tells us again +and again that his spiritual powers were +nourished by the sacramental life of the +Catholic Church. From the theologians +of that Church came the intellectual framework +in which his sublime intuitions were +expressed. All that he does—though he +does this to a degree perhaps unique in +Christian history—is to carry out into action, +completely actualise in his own experience, +the high vision of the soul’s relation to +Divine Reality by which that Church is +possessed. The central Christian doctrine +of Divine Fatherhood, and of the soul’s +‘power to become the son of God’: it is +this, raised to the <i>n</i>th degree of intensity, +experienced in all its depth and fullness, +and demonstrated with the exactitude of a +mathematician and the passion of a poet, +which Ruysbroeck gives us. Thus tradition +and authority, no less than the abundant +<span class="pb" id="Page_4">[4]</span> +inspiration, the direct ecstatic knowledge +of God to which his writings bear witness, +have their part in his achievement. His +theological culture was wide and deep. Not +only the Scriptures and the Liturgy, but +St. Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, +Richard of St. Victor, St. Bernard, St. +Bonaventura, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many +others have stimulated and controlled his +thought; interpreting to him his ineffable +adventures, and providing him with vessels +in which the fruit of those adventures could +be communicated to other men.</p> +<p>Nor is Catholic tradition the only medium +through which human life has exercised a formative +influence upon Ruysbroeck’s genius. +His worldly circumstances, his place within +and reaction to the temporal order, the temper +of those souls amongst which he grew—these +too are of vital importance in relation to his +mystical achievements. To study the interior +adventures and formal teachings of +a mystic without reference to the general +trend and special accidents of his outer life, +is to neglect our best chance of understanding +the nature and sources of his vision of truth. +The angle from which that vision is perceived, +the content of the mind which comes +to it, above all the concrete activities which +it induces in the growing, moving, supple +self: these are primary <i>data</i> which we should +never ignore. Action is of the very essence +<span class="pb" id="Page_5">[5]</span> +of human reality. Where the inner life +is genuine and strong the outer life will +reflect, however faintly, the curve on which +it moves; for human consciousness is a +unit, capable of reacting to and synthesising +two orders, not an unresolved dualism—as +it were, an angel and an animal—condemned +to lifelong battle within a narrow +cage.</p> +<p>Therefore we begin our study of Ruysbroeck +the mystic by the study of Ruysbroeck +the man: the circumstances of his +life and environment, so far as we can find +them out. For the facts of this life our +chief authority will be the Augustinian +Canon Pomerius, who was Prior and chronicler +of Ruysbroeck’s own community of +Groenendael. Born in 1382, a year after +Ruysbroeck’s death, and entering Groenendael +early in the fifteenth century, he knew +and talked with at least two of the great +mystic’s disciples, John of Hoelaere and John +of Scoonhoven. His life of Ruysbroeck +and history of the foundation of the monastery +was finished before 1420; that is to +say, within the lifetime of the generation +which succeeded the first founders of the +house.<a class="fn" id="fr_1" href="#fn_1">[1]</a> +It represents the careful gathering +up, sifting, and arranging of all that was +remembered and believed by the community—still +<span class="pb" id="Page_6">[6]</span> +retaining several members who had +known him in the flesh—of the facts of +Ruysbroeck’s character and career.</p> +<p>Pomerius was no wild romancer, but a +reasonably careful as well as a genuinely +enthusiastic monastic chronicler. Moderation +is hardly the outstanding virtue of such +home-made lives of monastic founders. +They are inevitably composed in surroundings +where any criticism of their subject or +scepticism as to his supernatural peculiarities +is looked upon as a crime; where every +incident has been fitted with a halo, and the +unexplained is indistinguishable from the +miraculous. Nevertheless the picture drawn +by Pomerius—exaggerated though it be in +certain respects—is a human picture; possessed +of distinct characteristics, some natural +and charming, some deeply impressive. +It is completed by a second documentary +source: the little sketch by Ruysbroeck’s +intimate friend, Gerard Naghel, Prior of the +Carthusian monastery of Hérines near +Groenendael, which forms the prologue to +our most complete MS. collection of his +writings.</p> +<p>Ruysbroeck’s life, as it is shown to us by +Pomerius and Gerard, falls into three main +divisions, three stages of ascent: the natural +active life of boyhood; the contemplative, +disciplined career of his middle period; the +superessential life of supreme union which +<span class="pb" id="Page_7">[7]</span> +governed his existence at Groenendael. +This course, which he trod in the temporal +order, seems like the rough sketch of +that other course trodden by the advancing +soul within the eternal order—the Threefold +Life of man which he describes to us in +<i>The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage</i> +and other of his works.</p> +<p>Now the details of that career are these: +John Ruysbroeck was born in 1293 at the +little village of Ruysbroeck or Ruusbroec, +between Brussels and Hal, from which he +takes his name. We know nothing of his +father; but his mother is described as a +good and pious woman, devoted to the upbringing +of her son—a hard task, and one +that was soon proved to be beyond her. The +child Ruysbroeck was strong-willed, adventurous, +insubordinate; already showing signs of +that abounding vitality, that strange restlessness +and need of expansion which children +of genius so often exhibit. At eleven years +of age he ran away from home, and found +his way to Brussels; where his uncle, John +Hinckaert, was a Canon of the Cathedral +of St. Gudule. Pomerius assures us that +this escapade, which would have seemed a +mere naughtiness in normal little boys, was +in fact a proof of coming sanctity; that it +was not the attraction of the city but a +precocious instinct for the religious life—the +first crude stirrings of the love of God—which +<span class="pb" id="Page_8">[8]</span> +set this child upon the road. Such a +claim is natural to the hagiographer; yet +there lies behind it a certain truth. The +little John may or may not have dreamed +of being a priest; he did already dream of +a greater, more enticing life beyond the +barriers of use and wont. Though he knew +it not, the vision of a spiritual city called +him. Already the primal need of his nature +was asserting itself—the demand, felt long +before it was understood, for something +beyond the comfortable world of appearance—and +this demand crystallised into a +concrete act. In the sturdy courage which +faced the unknown, the practical temper +which translated dream into action, we see +already the germ of those qualities which +afterwards gave to the great contemplative +power to climb up to the ‘supreme summits +of the inner life’ and face the awful realities +of God.</p> +<p>Such adventures are not rare in the +childhood of the mystics. Always of a +romantic temperament, endowed too with +an abounding vitality, the craving for some +dimly-guessed and wonderful experience +often shows itself early in them; as the +passion for music, colour or poetry is sometimes +seen in embryo in artists of another +type. The impact of Reality seems to be +felt by such spirits in earliest childhood. +Born susceptible in a special degree to the +<span class="pb" id="Page_9">[9]</span> +messages which pour in on man from the +Transcendent, they move from the first +in a different universe from that of other +boys and girls; subject to experiences which +they do not understand, full of dreams +which they are unable to explain, and often +impelled to strange actions, extremely disconcerting +to the ordinary guardians of +youth. Thus the little Catherine of Siena, +six years old, already lived in a world which +was peopled with saints and angels; and +ruled her small life by the visions which +she had seen. Thus the baby Teresa, +mysteriously attracted by sacrifice, as other +children are attracted by games and toys, +set out to look for ‘the Moors and martyrdom.’ +So too the instinct for travel, for +the remote and unknown, often shows itself +early in these wayfarers of the spirit; whose +destiny it is to achieve a more extended life +in the interests of the race, to find and feel +that Infinite Reality which alone can satisfy +the heart of man. Thus in their early +years Francis, Ignatius and many others +were restless, turbulent, eager for adventure +and change.</p> +<p>This first adventure brought the boy Ruysbroeck +to a home so perfectly fitted to his +needs, that it might seem as though some +secret instinct, some overshadowing love, had +indeed guided his steps. His uncle, John +Hinckaert, at this time about forty years of +<span class="pb" id="Page_10">[10]</span> +age, had lately been converted—it is said +by a powerful sermon—from the comfortable +and easy-going life of a prosperous +ecclesiastic to the austere quest of spiritual +perfection. He had distributed his wealth, +given up all self-indulgence, and now, with +another and younger Canon of the Cathedral +named Francis van Coudenberg, lived in +simplest, poorest style a dedicated life of +self-denial, charity and prayer. He received +his runaway nephew willingly. Perhaps +he saw in this strange and eager child, +suddenly flung upon his charity, an opportunity +for repairing some at least amongst +the omissions of his past—that terrible +wreck of wasted years which torments the +memory of those who are converted in middle +life. His love and remorse might spend +themselves on this boy. He might make of +him perhaps all that he now longed to be, +but could never wholly achieve: a perfect +servant of the Eternal Goodness, young, +vigorous, ardent, completely responsive to +the touch of God.</p> +<p>Ruysbroeck, then, found a home soaked +in love, governed by faith, renunciation, +humility; a forcing-house of the spiritual +life. In the persons of these two grown +men, who had given up all outward things +for the sake of spiritual realities, he was +brought face to face—and this in his most +impressionable years—with the hard facts, +<span class="pb" id="Page_11">[11]</span> +the concrete sacrifices, the heroic life of +deliberate mortification, which underlay the +lovely haunting vision, the revelation of the +Divine beauty and love that had possessed +him. No lesson is of higher value to the +natural mystic than this. The lovers of +Ruysbroeck should not forget how much they +owe to the men who received, loved, influenced, +educated the brilliant wayward and +impressionable child. His attainment is +theirs. His mysticism is rooted in their +asceticism; a flower directly dependent +for its perfection on that favouring soil. +Though his achievement, like that of all +men of genius, is individual, and transcends +the circumstances and personalities which +surround it; still, from those circumstances +and personalities it takes its colour. It +represents far more than a personal and +solitary experience. Behind it lies the little +house in Brussels, the supernatural atmosphere +which filled it, and the fostering +care of the two men whose life of external +and deliberate poverty only made more +plain the richness of the spirits who could +choose, and remain constant to, this career +of detachment and love.</p> +<p>The personal influence of Hinckaert and +Coudenberg, the moral disciplines and perpetual +self-denials of the life which he shared +with them, formed the heart of Ruysbroeck’s +education; helping to build up that manly +<span class="pb" id="Page_12">[12]</span> +and sturdy character which gave its special +temper to his mystical outlook. Like so +many children destined to greatness, he was +hard to educate in the ordinary sense; uninterested +in general knowledge, impatient +of scholastic drudgery. Nothing which did +not minister to his innate passion for ultimates +had any attraction for him. He was +taught grammar with difficulty; but on +the other hand his astonishing aptitude for +religious ideas, even of the most subtle +kind, his passionate clear vision of spiritual +things, was already so highly developed as to +attract general attention; and his writings +are sufficient witness to the width and depth +of his theological reading. With such tastes +and powers as these, and brought up in +such a household, governed by religious +enthusiasms and under the very shadow of +the Cathedral walls, it was natural that he +should wish to become a priest; and in 1317 +he was ordained and given, through the +influence of his uncle, a prebend in St. +Gudule.</p> +<p>Now a great mystic is the product not +merely of an untamed genius for the Transcendent, +but of a moral discipline, an interior +education, of the most strenuous kind. +All the varied powers and tendencies of a +nature which is necessarily strong and +passionate, must be harnessed, made subservient +to this one central interest. The +<span class="pb" id="Page_13">[13]</span> +instinctive egotism of the natural man—never +more insidious than when set upon +spiritual things—must be eradicated. So, +behind these few outward events of Ruysbroeck’s +adolescence, we must discern another +growth; a perpetual interior travail, +a perpetual slow character-building always +going forward in him, as his whole personality +is moulded into that conformity to the vision +seen which prepares the way of union, and +marks off the mystical saint from the mere +adept of transcendental things. We know +from his writings how large a part such +moral purifications, such interior adjustments, +played in his concept of the spiritual life; +and the intimacy with which he describes +each phase in the battle of love, each step +of the spiritual ladder, the long process of +preparation in which the soul adorns herself +for the ‘spiritual marriage,’ guarantees to +us that he has himself trodden the path which +he maps out. That path goes the whole +way from the first impulse of ‘goodwill,’ +of glad acquiescence in the universal purpose, +through the taming of the proud will +to humility and suppleness, and of the insurgent +heart to gentleness, kindness, and +peace, to that last state of perfect charity +in which the whole spirit of man is one will +and one love with God.</p> +<p>Though his biographers have left us little +material for a reconstruction of his inner +<span class="pb" id="Page_14">[14]</span> +development, we may surely infer something +of the course which it followed from the +vividly realistic descriptions in <i>The Kingdom +of Lovers</i> and <i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>. +Personal experience underlies the wonderful +account of the ascent of the Spiritual Sun in +the heavens of consciousness; the rapture, +wildness and joy, the ‘fever of love’ which +fulfils the man who feels its light and heat. +Experience, too, dictates these profound +passages which deal with the terrible spiritual +reaction when the Sun declines in the +heavens, and man feels cold, dead, and +abandoned of God. Through these phases, +at least, Ruysbroeck had surely passed before +his great books came to be written.</p> +<p>One or two small indications there are +which show us his progress on the mystic +way, the development in him of those +secondary psychic characters peculiar to +the mystical type. It seems that by the +time of his ordination that tendency to +vision which often appears in the earliest +youth of natural mystics, was already established +in him. Deeply impressed by the +sacramental side of Catholicism, and finding in +it throughout his life a true means of contact +with the Unseen, the priesthood was conceived +by him as bringing with it a veritable +access of grace; fresh power poured in +on him from the Transcendent, an increase +of strength wherewith to help the souls of +<span class="pb" id="Page_15">[15]</span> +other men. This belief took, in his meditations, +a concrete and positive form. Again +and again he saw in dramatic vision the +soul specially dear to him, specially dependent +on him—that of his mother, who had +lately died in the Brussels Béguinage—demanding +how long she must wait till +her son’s ordination made his prayers +effectual for her release from Purgatory. +At the moment in which he finished saying +his first Mass, this vision returned to him; +and he saw his mother’s spirit, delivered +from Purgatory by the power of the sacrifice +which he had offered, entering into +Heaven—an experience originating in, and +giving sharp dramatic expression to, that +sense of new and sacred powers now conferred +on him, which may well at such a +moment have flooded the consciousness of +the young priest. This story was repeated +to Pomerius by those who had heard it +from Ruysbroeck himself; for “he often +told it to the brothers.”</p> +<p>For twenty-six years—that is to say, until +he was fifty years of age—Ruysbroeck lived +in Brussels the industrious and inconspicuous +life of a secular priest. It was not the solitude +of the forest, but the normal, active +existence of a cathedral chaplain in a busy +capital city which controlled his development +during that long period, stretching +from the very beginnings of manhood to +<span class="pb" id="Page_16">[16]</span> +the end of middle age; and it was in fact +during these years, and in the midst of +incessant distractions, that he passed through +the great oscillations of consciousness which +mark the mystic way. It is probable that +when at last he left Brussels for the forest, +these oscillations were over, equilibrium was +achieved; he had climbed ‘to the summits of +the mount of contemplation.’ It was on +those summits that he loved to dwell, +absorbed in loving communion with Divine +Reality; but his career fulfilled that ideal +of a synthesis of work and contemplation, +an acceptance and remaking of the whole +of life, which he perpetually puts before us +as the essential characteristic of a true +spirituality. No mystic has ever been more +free from the vice of other-worldliness, +or has practised more thoroughly and more +unselfishly the primary duty of active +charity towards men which is laid upon the +God-possessed.</p> +<p>The simple and devoted life of the little +family of three went on year by year undisturbed; +though one at least was passing +through those profound interior changes and +adventures which he has described to us as +governing the evolution of the soul, from the +state of the ‘faithful servant’ to the transfigured +existence of the ‘God-seeing man.’ +Ruysbroeck grew up to be a simple, dreamy, +very silent and totally unimpressive person, +<span class="pb" id="Page_17">[17]</span> +who, ‘going about the streets of Brussels +with his mind lifted up into God,’ seemed a +nobody to those who did not know him. +Yet not only a spiritual life of unequalled +richness, intimacy and splendour, but a penetrating +intellect, a fearless heart, deep knowledge +of human nature, remarkable powers +of expression, lay behind that meek and unattractive +exterior. As Paul’s twelve years +of quiet and subordinate work in Antioch +prepared the way of his missionary career; +so during this long period of service, the +silent growth of character, the steady +development of his mystical powers, had +gone forward in Ruysbroeck. When circumstances +called them into play he was +found to be possessed of an unsuspected +passion, strength and courage, a power of +dealing with outward circumstances, which +was directly dependent on his inner life of +contemplation and prayer.</p> +<p>The event into which the tendencies of +this stage of his development crystallised, +is one which seems perhaps inconsistent +with the common idea of the mystical +temperament, with its supposed concentration +on the Eternal, its indifference to temporal +affairs. As his childhood was marked by +an exhibition of adventurous love, so his +manhood was marked by an exhibition of +militant love; of that strength and sternness, +that passion for the true, which—no less +<span class="pb" id="Page_18">[18]</span> +than humility, gentleness, peace—is an +integral part of that paradoxical thing, the +Christian character.</p> +<p>The fourteenth century, like all great +spiritual periods, was a century fruitful +in mystical heresies as well as in mystical +saints. In particular, the extravagant pantheism +preached by the Brethren of the +Free Spirit had become widely diffused in +Flanders, and was responsible for much bad +morality as well as bad theology; those +on whom the ‘Spirit’ had descended believing +themselves to be already divine, +and emancipated from obedience to all +human codes of conduct. Soon after Ruysbroeck +came as a boy to Brussels, a woman +named Bloemardinne placed herself at the +head of this sect, and gradually gained +extraordinary influence. She claimed supernatural +and prophetic powers, was said to +be accompanied by two Seraphim whenever +she went to the altar to receive Holy Communion, +and preached a degraded eroticism +under the title of ‘Seraphic love,’ together +with a quietism of the most exaggerated +and soul-destroying type. All the dangers +and follies of a false mysticism, dissociated +from the controlling influence of tradition +and the essential virtue of humility, were +exhibited in her. Against this powerful +woman, then at the height of her fame, +Ruysbroeck declared war; and prosecuted +<span class="pb" id="Page_19">[19]</span> +his campaign with a violence and courage +which must have been startling to those +who had regarded him only as a shy, pious, +rather negligible young man. The pamphlets +which he wrote against her are lost; +but the passionate denunciations of pantheism +and quietism scattered through his +later works no doubt have their origin in +this controversy, and represent the angle +from which his attacks were made.</p> +<p>Pantheists, he says in <i>The Book of Truth</i>, +are “a fruit of hell, the more dangerous +because they counterfeit the true fruit of +the Spirit of God.” Far from possessing +that deep humility which is the soul’s +inevitable reaction to the revelation of the +Infinite, they are full of pride and self-satisfaction. +They claim that their imaginary +identity with the Essence of God emancipates +them from all need of effort, all practice +of virtue, and leaves them free to indulge +those inclinations of the flesh which the +‘Spirit’ suggests. They “believe themselves +sunk in inward peace; but as a matter +of fact they are deep-drowned in +error.”<a class="fn" id="fr_2" href="#fn_2">[2]</a></p> +<p>Against all this the stern, virile, ardent +spirituality of Ruysbroeck opposed itself +with its whole power. Especially did he +hate and condemn the laziness and egotism +of the quietistic doctrine of contemplation: +the ideal of spiritual immobility which it +<span class="pb" id="Page_20">[20]</span> +set up. That ‘love cannot be lazy’ is a +cardinal truth for all real mystics. Again +and again it appears in their works. Even +that profound repose in which they have +fruition of God, is but the accompaniment +or preliminary of work of the most strenuous +kind, and keeps at full stretch the soul +which truly tastes it; and this supernatural +state is as far above that self-induced +quietude of ‘natural repose’—“consisting in +nothing but an idleness and interior vacancy, +to which they are inclined by nature and +habit”—in which the quietists love to immerse +themselves, as God is above His +creatures.</p> +<p>Here is the distinction, always needed and +constantly ignored, between that veritable +fruition of Eternal Life which results from the +interaction of will and grace, and demands +of the soul the highest intensity and most +active love, and that colourable imitation +of it which is produced by a psychic trick, +and is independent alike of the human +effort and the divine gift. Ruysbroeck in +fighting the ‘Free Spirit’ was fighting the +battle of true mysticism against its most +dangerous and persistent enemy,—mysticality.</p> +<p>His attack upon Bloemardinne is the one +outstanding incident in the long Brussels +period which has been preserved to us. The +next great outward movement in his steadily +<span class="pb" id="Page_21">[21]</span> +evolving life did not happen until the year +1343, when he was fifty years of age. It was +then that the three companions decided to +leave Brussels, and live together in some +remote country place. They had long felt +a growing distaste for the noisy and distracting +life of the city; a growing dissatisfaction +with the spiritual apathy and +low level of religious observance at the +Cathedral of St. Gudule; the need of surroundings +in which they might devote themselves +with total concentration to the contemplative +life. Hinckaert and Coudenberg were now +old men; Ruysbroeck was advanced in +middle age. The rhythm of existence, which +had driven him as a child from country to +town, and harnessed him during long years +to the service of his fellow-men, now drew +him back again to the quiet spaces where +he might be alone with God. He was +approaching those heights of experience +from which his greatest mystical works +proceed; and it was in obedience to a true +instinct that he went away to the silent +places of the forest—as Anthony to the +solitude of the desert, Francis to the ‘holy +mountain’ of La Verna—that, undistracted +by the many whom he had served so faithfully, +he might open his whole consciousness +to the inflow of the One, and receive in its +perfection the message which it was his duty +to transmit to the world, He went, says +<span class="pb" id="Page_22">[22]</span> +Pomerius, “not that he might hide his +light; but that he might tend it better and +make it shine more brightly.”</p> +<p>By the influence of Coudenberg, John III., +Duke of Brabant, gave to the three +friends the old hermitage of Groenendael, +or the Green Valley, in the forest of +Soignes, near Brussels. They entered into +possession on the Wednesday of Easter +week, 1343; and for five years lived there, +as they had lived in the little house in +Brussels, with no other rule save their own +passion for perfection. But perpetual invasions +from the outer world, not only of +penitents and would-be disciples—for their +reputation for sanctity grew quickly—but +of huntsmen in the forest and pleasure +parties from the town, who demanded and +expected hospitality, soon forced them to +adopt some definite attitude towards the +question of enclosure. It is said that Ruysbroeck +begged for an entire seclusion; but +Coudenberg insisted that this was contrary +to the law of charity, and that some +at least of those who sought them must be +received. In addition to these practical +difficulties, the Prior of the Abbey of St. +Victor at Paris had addressed to them strong +remonstrances, on account of the absence of +rule in their life and the fact that they had +not even adopted a religious habit; a proceeding +which in his opinion savoured rather +<span class="pb" id="Page_23">[23]</span> +of the ill-regulated doings of the heretical +sects, than of the decorum proper to good +Catholics. As a result of these various +considerations, the simple and informal existence +of the little family was re-modelled +in conformity with the rule of the Augustinian +Canons, and the Priory of Groenendael +was formally created. Coudenberg became +its provost, and Ruysbroeck, who had refused +the higher office, was made prior; but +Hinckaert, now a very old man in feeble +health, refused to burden the young community +with a member who might be a drag +upon it and could not keep the full rigour +of the rule. In a spirit of renunciation +which surely touches the heroic, he severed +himself from his lifelong friend and his +adopted son, and went away to a little +cell in the forest, where he lived alone until +his death.</p> +<p>The story of the foundation and growth of +the Priory of Groenendael, the saintly personalities +which it nourished, is not for this +place; except in so far as it affects our +main interest, the story of Ruysbroeck’s +soul. Under the influences of the forest, +of the silent and regular life, those supreme +contemplative powers which belong to the +‘Superessential Life’ of Unity now developed +in him with great rapidity. It is possible, +as we shall see, that some at least of his +mystical writings may date from his Brussels +<span class="pb" id="Page_24">[24]</span> +period; and we know that at the close of +this period his reputation as an ‘illuminated +man’ was already made. Nevertheless it +seems safe to say that the bulk of his works, +as we now possess them, represent him as he +was during the last thirty years of his life, +rather than during his earlier and more +active career; and that the intense certitude, +the wide deep vision of the Infinite which +distinguishes them, are the fruits of those +long hours of profound absorption in God +for which his new life found place. In +the silence of the woods he was able to discern +each subtle accent of that Voice which “is +heard without utterance, and without the +sound of words speaks all truth.”</p> +<p>Like so many of the greatest mystics, +Ruysbroeck, drawing nearer to Divine Reality, +drew nearer to nature too; conforming +to his own ideal of the contemplative, who, +having been raised to the simple vision of +God Transcendent, returns to find His image +reflected by all life. Many passages in his +writings show the closeness and sympathy +of his observation of natural things: the +vivid description in <i>The Spiritual Marriage</i> +of the spring, summer and autumn of the +fruitful soul, the constant insistence on the +phenomena of growth, the lessons drawn +from the habits of ants and bees, the comparison +of the surrendered soul to the sunflower, +‘one of nature’s most wonderful +<span class="pb" id="Page_25">[25]</span> +works’; the three types of Christians, compared +with birds who can fly but prefer hopping +about the earth, birds who swim far on the +waters of grace, and birds who love only to soar +high in the heavens. For the free, exultant +life of birds he felt indeed a special sympathy +and love; and ‘many-feathered’ is the best +name that he can find for the soul of the +contemplative ascending to the glad vision +of God.</p> +<p>It is probably a true tradition which represents +him as having written his greatest +and most inspired pages sitting under a +favourite tree in the depths of the woods. +When the ‘Spirit’ came on him, as it +often did with a startling suddenness, he +would go away into the forest carrying his +tablet and stylus. There, given over to an +ecstasy of composition—which seems often +to have approached the limits of automatic +writing, as in St. Teresa, Boehme, Blake and +other mystics—he would write that which +was given to him, without addition or +omission; breaking off even in the middle +of a sentence when the ‘Spirit’ abruptly +departed, and resuming at the same point, +though sometimes after an interval which +lasted several weeks, when it returned. In +his last years, when eyesight failed him, he +would allow a younger brother to go with +him into the woods, and there to take down +from dictation the fruits of those meditations +<span class="pb" id="Page_26">[26]</span> +in which he ‘saw without sight’; as the +illiterate Catherine of Siena dictated in +ecstasy the text of her Divine Dialogue.</p> +<p>Two witnesses have preserved Ruysbroeck’s +solemn affirmation, given first to his disciple +Gerard Groot ‘in great gentleness and +humility,’ and repeated again upon his +death-bed in the presence of the whole community, +that every word of his writings +was thus composed under the immediate +domination of an inspiring power; that +‘secondary personality of a superior type,’ +in touch with levels of reality beyond the +span of the surface consciousness, which +governs the activities of the great mystics +in their last phases of development. These +books are not the fruit of conscious thought, +but ‘God-sent truths,’ poured out from a +heart immersed in that Divine Abyss of +which he tries to tell.</p> +<p>That a saint must needs be a visionary, is +a conviction deeply implanted in the mind +of the mediæval hagiographer; who always +ascribes to these incidents an importance +which the saints themselves are the first +to deny. Pomerius thus attributes to Ruysbroeck +not only those profound and direct +experiences of Divine Reality to which his +works bear witness; but also numerous +visions of a conventional and anthropomorphic +type, in which he spoke with Christ, +the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, ecstasies +<span class="pb" id="Page_27">[27]</span> +which fell upon him when saying Mass—and +the passionate devotion to the Eucharist +which his writings express makes these at +least probable—a certain faculty of clairvoyance, +and a prophetic knowledge of his +own death. Further, it is said that once, +being missed from the priory, he was found +after long search by one of the brothers he +loved best, sitting under his favourite +tree, rapt in ecstasy and surrounded by an +<i>aura</i> of radiant light; as the discerning +eyes of those who loved them have seen St. +Francis, St. Teresa, and other contemplatives +transfigured and made shining by the intensity +of their spiritual life. I need not +point out that the fact that these things are +common form in the lives of the mystics, +does not necessarily discredit them; though +in any case their interest is less of a mystical +than of a psychological kind.</p> +<p>Not less significant, and to us perhaps +more winning, is that side of Ruysbroeck’s +personality which was turned towards the +world of men. In his own person he fulfilled +that twofold duty of the deified soul +which he has described to us: the in-breathing +of the Love of God, the out-breathing +of that same radiant charity towards the +race. “To give and receive, both at once, +is the essence of union,” he says; and his +whole career is an illustration of these +words. He took his life from the Transcendent; +<span class="pb" id="Page_28">[28]</span> +he was a focus of distribution, +which gave out that joyous life again to other +souls. His retreat at Groenendael, his ecstasies +of composition, never kept him from +those who wanted his help and advice. +In his highest ascents towards Divine Love, +the rich complexities of human love went +with him. Other men always meant much +to Ruysbroeck. He had a genius for friendship, +and gave himself without stint to his +friends; and those who knew him said +that none ever went to him for consolation +without returning with gladness in their +hearts. There are many tales in the <i>Vita</i> +of his power over and intuitive understanding +of other minds; of conversions +effected, motives unveiled and clouds dispelled. +His great friend, Gerard Naghel, +the Carthusian prior—at whose desire he +wrote one of the most beautiful of his +shorter works, <i>The Book of Supreme Truth</i>—has +left a vivid little account of the impression +which his personality created: “his +peaceful and joyful countenance, his humble +good-humoured speech.” Ruysbroeck spent +three days in Gerard’s monastery, in order +to explain some difficult passages in his +writings, “and these days were too short, +for no one could speak to him or see him +without being the better for it.”</p> +<p>By this we may put the description of +Pomerius, founded upon the reminiscences +<span class="pb" id="Page_29">[29]</span> +of Ruysbroeck’s surviving friends. “The +grace of God shone in his face; and also +in his modest speech, his kindly deeds, his +humble manners, and in the way that every +action of his life exhibited uprightness and +radiant purity. He lived soberly, neglected +his dress, and was patient in all things and +with all people.”</p> +<p>Plainly the great contemplative who had +seemed in Brussels a ‘negligible man,’ kept +to the end a great simplicity of aspect; +closely approximating to his own ideal of the +‘really humble man, without any pose or pretence,’ +as described in <i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>. +That profound self-immersion in God which +was the source of his power, manifested itself +in daily life under the least impressive forms; +ever seeking embodiment in little concrete +acts of love and service, “ministering, in +the world without, to all who need, in love and +mercy.”<a class="fn" id="fr_3" href="#fn_3">[3]</a> +We see him in his Franciscan +love of living things, his deep sense of kinship +with all the little children of God, ‘going +to the help of the animals in all their needs’; +thrown into a torment of distress by the +brothers who suggested to him that during +a hard winter the little birds of the forest +might die, and at once making generous +and successful arrangements for their entertainment. +We see him ‘giving Mary and +Martha <i>rendez-vous</i> in his heart’; +<span class="pb" id="Page_30">[30]</span> +working in the garden of the community, +trying hard to be useful, wheeling barrow-loads +of manure, and emerging from profound +meditation on the Infinite to pull up +young vegetables under the impression that +they were weeds. He made, in fact, valiant +efforts to achieve that perfect synthesis of +action and contemplation ‘ever abiding in +the simplicity of the Spirit, and perpetually +flowing forth in abundant acts of love towards +heaven and earth,’ which he regarded +as the proper goal of human growth—efforts +constantly thwarted by his own growing +concentration on the Transcendent, the +ease and frequency with which his consciousness +now withdrew from the world of +the senses to immerse itself in Spiritual +Reality. In theory there was for him no +cleavage between the two: Being and Becoming, +the Temporal and the Eternal, +were but two moods within the mind of God, +and in the superessential life of perfect +union these completing opposites should +merge in one.</p> +<p>A life which shall find place for the +activities of the lover, the servant, and the +apostle, is the goal towards which the great +mystics seem to move. We have seen how +the homely life of the priory gave to Ruysbroeck +the opportunity of service, how the +silence of the forest fostered and supported +his secret life of love. As the years passed, +<span class="pb" id="Page_31">[31]</span> +the third side of his nature, the apostolic +passion which had found during his long +Brussels period ample scope for its activities, +once more came into prominence. He was +sought out by numbers of would-be disciples, +not only from Belgium itself, but from +Holland, Germany and France; and became a +fountainhead of new life, the father of many +spiritual children. The tradition which +places among these disciples the great +Dominican mystic Tauler is probably false; +though many passages in Tauler’s later sermons +suggest that he was strongly influenced +by Ruysbroeck’s works, which had already +attained a wide circulation. But Gerard +Groot, afterwards the founder of the Brothers +of the Common Life, and spiritual ancestor +of Thomas à Kempis, went to Groenendael +shortly after his conversion in 1374, that he +might there learn the rudiments of a sane +and robust spirituality. Ruysbroeck received +him with a special joy, recognising in him at +first sight a peculiar aptitude for the things +of the Spirit. A deep friendship grew up +between the old mystic and the young and +vigorous convert. Gerard stayed often at +the priory, and corresponded regularly with +Ruysbroeck; whose influence it was which +conditioned his subsequent career as a +preacher, and as founder of a congregation +as simple and unconventional in +its first beginnings, as fruitful in its +<span class="pb" id="Page_32">[32]</span> +later developments, as that of Groenendael +itself.</p> +<p>The penetrating remarks upon human +character scattered through his works, and +the anecdotes of his dealings with disciples +and penitents preserved by Pomerius, suggest +that Ruysbroeck, though he might not +always recognise the distinction between the +weeds and vegetables of the garden, was +seldom at fault in his judgment of men. An +instinctive knowledge of the human heart, +an unerring eye for insincerity, egotism, +self-deception, is a power which nearly all +the great contemplatives possess, and often +employed with disconcerting effect. I need +refer only to the caustic analysis of the +‘false contemplative’ contained in <i>The Cloud +of Unknowing</i>, and the amusing sketches of +spiritual self-importance in St. Teresa’s +letters and life. The little tale, so often +repeated, of the somewhat self-conscious +priests who came from Paris to consult +Ruysbroeck on the state of their souls, and +received from him only the blunt observation—apparently +so careless, yet really +plumbing human nature to its deeps—“You +are as holy as you wish to be,” shows him +possessed of this same power of stripping off +the husks of unreality and penetrating at +once to the fundamental facts of the soul’s +life: the purity and direction of its will and +love.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_33">[33]</div> +<p>The life-giving life of union, once man has +grown up to it, clarifies, illuminates, raises +to a higher term, all aspects of the self: +intelligence, no less than love and will. +That self is now harmonised about its true +centre, and finding ‘God in all creatures +and all creatures in God’ finds them in their +reality. So it is that Ruysbroeck’s long +life of growth, his long education in love, +bringing him to that which he calls the ‘God-seeing’ +stage, brings him to a point in which he +finds everywhere Reality: in those rhythmic +seasonal changes of the forest life which +have inspired his wonderful doctrine of the +perpetual rebirth and re-budding of the soul; +in the hearts of men—though often there +deep buried—above all, in the mysteries of +the Christian faith. Speaking with an unequalled +authority and intimacy of those +supersensuous regions, those mysterious contacts +of love which lie beyond and above +all thought, he is yet firmly rooted in the +concrete; for he has reconciled in his own +experience the paradox of a Transcendent +yet Immanent God. There is no break in +the life-process which begins with the little +country boy running away from home in +quest of some vaguely felt object of desire, +some ‘better land,’ and which ends with the +triumphant passing over of the soul of the +great contemplative to the perfect fruition +of Eternal Love.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_34">[34]</div> +<p>Ruysbroeck died at Groenendael on +December 2, 1381. He was eighty-eight +years old; feeble in body, nearly blind, +yet keeping to the last his clear spiritual +vision, his vigour and eagerness of soul. +His death, says Pomerius, speaking on the +authority of those who had seen it, was full +of peaceful joy, of gaiety of heart; not the +falling asleep of the tired servant, but the +leap to more abundant life of the vigorous +child of the Infinite, at last set free. With an +immense gladness he went out from that time-world +which, in his own image, is ‘the shadow +of God,’ to “those high mountains of the +land of promise where no shadow is, but +only the Sun.” One of the greatest of +Christian seers, one of the most manly and +human of the mystics, it is yet as a lover, +in the noblest and most vital sense of the +word, that his personality lives for us. +From first to last, under all its external +accidents, we may trace in his life the +activity—first instinctive, and only gradually +understood—of that ‘unconquerable love,’ +ardent, industrious, at last utterly surrendered, +which he describes in the wonderful +tenth chapter of <i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, as the +unique power which effects the soul’s union +with God. “For no man understandeth +what love is in itself, but such are its workings: +which giveth more than one can take, +and asketh more than one can pay.” That +<span class="pb" id="Page_35">[35]</span> +love it was which came out from the Infinite, +as a tendency, an instinct endowed +with liberty and life, and passed across the +stage of history, manifested under humblest +inconspicuous forms, but ever growing in +passion and power; till at last, achieving +the full stature of the children of God, it +returned to its Source and Origin again. +When we speak of the mysticism of Ruysbroeck, +it is of this that we should think: +of this growing spirit, this ardent, unconquerable, +creative thing. A veritable part +of our own order, therein it was transmuted +from unreal to real existence; putting on +Divine Humanity, and attaining the goal of +all life in the interests of the race.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_36">[36]</div> +<h2 id="c3">CHAPTER II +<br /><span class="small">HIS WORKS</span></h2> +<blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">The Book of Supreme Truth.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>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<a class="fn" id="fr_4" href="#fn_4">[4]</a> +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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_37">[37]</span> +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.</p> +<p>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. +<span class="pb" id="Page_38">[38]</span> +Thus in India the poet Kabir, obedient to +the same impulse, sings in Hindi rather than +in Sanscrit his beautiful songs of Divine +Love.</p> +<p>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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_39">[39]</span> +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’ +<i>Life</i>.</p> +<p>Eleven admittedly authentic books and tracts survive in numerous MS. +collections,<a class="fn" id="fr_5" href="#fn_5">[5]</a> +and from these come all that we know +of his vision and teaching. <i>The Twelve +Virtues</i>, 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, +<span class="pb" id="Page_40">[40]</span> +that employed in the great Latin version of +Surius. Ruysbroeck himself never gave any +titles to his writings.</p> +<p>1. <span class="sc">The Spiritual Tabernacle</span> (called +by Surius <i>In Tabernaculum Mosis</i>).—The +longest, most fantastic, and, in spite of some +fine passages, the least interesting of Ruysbroeck’s +works. Probably founded upon +the <i>De Arca Mystica</i> 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 <i>The Twelve +Béguines</i> (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.</p> +<p>2. <span class="sc">The Twelve Points of True +Faith</span> (<i>De Fide et Judicio</i>).—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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_41">[41]</span> +its imagery to the purposes of his own vision +of truth.</p> +<p>3. <span class="sc">The Book of the Four Temptations</span> +(<i>De Quatuor Tentationibus</i>).—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.</p> +<p>4. <span class="sc">The Book of the Kingdom of God’s +Lovers</span> (<i>Regnum Deum Amantium</i>).—This +and the following work, <i>The Adornment +of the Spiritual Marriage</i>, 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,’ +<span class="pb" id="Page_42">[42]</span> +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. +<i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i> was traditionally +regarded as Ruysbroeck’s earliest +work. It was more probably written during +the early years at Groenendael. Much of +it, like <i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, 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.</p> +<p>5. <span class="sc">The Adornment of the Spiritual +Marriage</span> (<i>De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum</i>).—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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_43">[43]</span> +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>6. <span class="sc">The Mirror of Eternal Salvation</span> +or <span class="sc">Book of the Blessed Sacrament</span> +(<i>Speculum Æternæ Salutis</i>).—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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_44">[44]</span> +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.</p> +<p>7. <span class="sc">The Seven Cloisters</span> (<i>De Septem</i> +<span class="pb" id="Page_45">[45]</span> +<i>Custodiis</i>).—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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_46">[46]</span> +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.</p> +<p>8. <span class="sc">The Seven Degrees of the Ladder +of Love</span> (<i>De Septem Gradibus Amoris</i>).—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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_47">[47]</span> +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.</p> +<p>9. <span class="sc">The Book of the Sparkling Stone</span> +(<i>De Calculo, sive de Perfectione Filiorum +Dei</i>).—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 +<span class="pb" id="Page_48">[48]</span> +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 <i>The Sparkling Stone</i>—‘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.”</p> +<p>10. <span class="sc">The Book of Supreme Truth</span> (called +in some collections <i>The Book of Retractations</i>, +and by Surius, <i>Samuel</i>.)—This is the tract +<span class="pb" id="Page_49">[49]</span> +written by Ruysbroeck, at the request of +Gerard Naghel, to explain certain obscure +passages in <i>The Book of the Kingdom of God’s +Lovers</i>. 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.’</p> +<p>11. <span class="sc">The Twelve Béguines</span> (<i>De Vera Contemplatione</i>).—This +is a long, composite book +of eighty-four chapters, which apparently +<span class="pb" id="Page_50">[50]</span> +consists of at least three distinct treatises +of different dates. The first, <i>The Twelve +Béguines</i>, 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 <i>The Spiritual Tabernacle</i>, +and may perhaps be a work of the same +period. A collection of Meditations upon +the Passion of Christ, arranged according +<span class="pb" id="Page_51">[51]</span> +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.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_52">[52]</div> +<h2 id="c4">CHAPTER III +<br /><span class="small">HIS DOCTRINE OF GOD</span></h2> +<blockquote> +<p>My words are strange; but those who love will understand.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">The Mirror of Eternal Salvation.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mystical writers are of two kinds. One +kind, of which St. Teresa is perhaps the +supreme type, deals almost wholly with the +personal and interior experiences of the soul +in the states of contemplation, and the +psychological rules governing those states; +above all, with the emotional reactions of +the self to the impact of the Divine. This +kind of mystic—whom William James +accused, with some reason, of turning the +soul’s relation with God into a ‘duet’—makes +little attempt to describe the ultimate Object +of the self’s love and desire, the great +movements of the spiritual world; for such +description, the formulæ of existing theology +are felt to be enough. Visions of Christ, +experiences of the Blessed Trinity—these are +sufficient names for the personal and impersonal +aspects of that Reality with which +the contemplative seeks to unite. But the +<span class="pb" id="Page_53">[53]</span> +other kind of mystic—though possibly and +indeed usually as orthodox in his beliefs, +as ardent in his love—cannot, on the one +hand, remain within the circle of these subjective +and personal conceptions, and, on the +other, content himself with the label which +tradition has affixed to the Thing that he +has known. He may not reject the label, +but neither does he confuse it with the +Thing. He has the wide vision, the metaphysical +passion of the philosopher and the +poet; and in his work he is ever pressing +towards more exact description, more suggestive +and evocative speech. The symbols +which come most naturally to him are +usually derived from the ideas of space +and of wonder; not from those of human +intimacy and love. In him the intellect is +active as well as the heart; sometimes, more +active. Plotinus is an extreme example of +mysticism of this type.</p> +<p>The greatest mystics, however, whether +in the East or in the West, are possessed +of a vision and experience of God so deep +and rich that it embraces at once the infinite +and the intimate aspects of Reality; +illuminating those religious concepts which +are, as it were, an artistic reconstruction +of the Transcendent, and at the same time +having contact with that vast region above +and beyond reason whence come the fragmentary +intimations of Reality crystallised +<span class="pb" id="Page_54">[54]</span> +in the formulæ of faith. For them, as for +St. Augustine, God is both near and far; +and the paradox of transcendent-immanent +Reality is a self-evident if an inexpressible +truth. They swing between hushed adoration +and closest communion, between the +divine ignorance of the intellect lifted up +into God and the divine certitude of the +heart in which He dwells; and give us by +turns a subjective and psychological, an +objective and metaphysical, reading of +spiritual experience. Ruysbroeck is a mystic +of this type. The span of his universe +can include—indeed demand—both the +concept of that Abyss of Pure Being where +all distinctions are transcended, and the +soul is immersed in the ‘dark light’ of the +One, and the distinctively Christian and incarnational +experience of loving communion +with and through the Person of Christ. For +him the ladder of contemplation is firmly +planted in the bed-rock of human character—goes +the whole way from the heart of man +to the Essence of God—and every stage of it +has importance for the eager and ascending +soul. Hence, when he seems to rush out to +the farthest limits of the cosmos, he still +remains within the circle of Catholic ideas; +and is at once ethical and metaphysical, +intensely sacramental and intensely transcendental +too.</p> +<p>Nor is this result obtained—as it sometimes +<span class="pb" id="Page_55">[55]</span> +seems to be, for instance, in such a visionary +as Angela of Foligno—by a mere heaping +up of the various and inconsistent emotional +reactions of the self. There is a fundamental +orderliness in the Ruysbroeckian +universe which, though it may be difficult +to understand, and often impossible for him +to express without resort to paradox, yet +reveals itself to careful analysis. He tries +hard to describe, or at least suggest, it to us, +because he is a mystic of an apostolic type. +Even where he is dealing with the soul’s +most ineffable experiences and seems to +hover over that Abyss which is ‘beyond +Reason,’ stammering and breaking into wild +poetry in the desperate attempt to seize +the unseizable truth he is ever intent on +telling us how these things may be actualised, +this attitude attained by other men. The +note is never, as with many subjective +visionaries, “<i>I</i> have seen,” but always “<i>We</i> +shall or may see.”</p> +<p>Now such an objective mystic as this, +who is not content with retailing his +private experiences and ecstasies, but +accepts the great vocation of revealer of +Reality, is called upon to do certain things. +He must give us, not merely a static picture +of Eternity, but also a dynamic ‘reading of +life’; and of a life more extended than that +which the moralist, or even the philosopher, +offers to interpret. He must not only tell +<span class="pb" id="Page_56">[56]</span> +us what he thinks about the universe, and +in particular that ultimate Spiritual Reality +which all mysticism discerns within or +beyond the flux. He must also tell us what +he thinks of man, that living, moving, fluid +spirit-thing: his reactions to this universe +and this Reality, the satisfaction which it +offers to his thought, will and love, the +obligations laid upon him in respect of it. +We, on our part, must try to understand what +he tells us of these things; for he is, as it +were, an organ developed by the race for +this purpose—a tentacle pushed out towards +the Infinite, to make, in our name and +in our interest, fresh contacts with Reality. +He performs for us some of the functions +of the artist extending our universe, the +pioneer cutting our path, the hunter winning +food for our souls.</p> +<p>The clue to the universe of such a mystic +will always be the vision or idea which he +has of the Nature of God; and there we +must begin, if we would find our way through +the tangle of his thought. From this +Centre all else branches out, and to this +all else must conform, if it is to have for him +realness and life; for truth, as Aquinas +teaches, is simply the reality of things as +they are in God. We begin, then, our exploration +of Ruysbroeck’s doctrine by trying +to discover the character of his vision of the +Divine Nature, and man’s relation with it.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_57">[57]</div> +<p>That vision is so wide, deep and searching, +that only by resort to the language +of opposites, by perpetual alternations of +spatial and personal, metaphysical and +passionate speech, is he able to communicate +it to us. His fortunate and profound +acquaintance with the science of theology—his +contact through it with the formulæ +of Christian Platonism—has given him the +framework on which he stretches out his +wonderful and living picture of the Infinite. +This picture is personal to himself, the fruit +of a direct and vivid inspiration; not so the +terms by which it is communicated. These +for the most part are the common property +of Christian theology; though here used with +a consummate skill, often with an apparent +originality. Especially from St. Augustine, +Dionysius the Areopagite, Richard of St. +Victor, St. Bernard and the more orthodox +utterances of his own immediate predecessor, +Meister Eckhart—sometimes too from his +contemporaries, Suso and Tauler—has he +taken the intellectual concepts, the highly-charged +poetic metaphors, in which his +perceptions are enshrined. So close does +he keep to these masters, so frequent are his +borrowings, that almost every page of his +writings might be glossed from their works. +It is one of the most astonishing features of +the celebrated and astonishing essay of +M. Maeterlinck that, bent on vindicating +<span class="pb" id="Page_58">[58]</span> +the inspiration of his ‘simple and ignorant +monk,’ he entirely fails to observe the +traditional character of the formulæ which +express it. No student of the mystics will +deny the abundant inspiration by which +Ruysbroeck was possessed; but this inspiration +is spiritual, not intellectual. The +truth was told to him in the tongue of +angels, and he did his best to translate it +into the tongue of the Church; perpetually +reminding us, as he did so, how great was the +difference between vision and description, +how clumsy and inadequate those concepts +and images wherewith the artist-seer tried +to tell his love.</p> +<p>This distinction, which the reader of +Ruysbroeck should never forget, is of primary +importance in connection with his treatment +of the Nature of God; where the disparity +between the thing known and the thing +said is inevitably at a maximum. The +high nature of the Godhead, he says, in a +string of suggestive and paradoxical images, +to which St. Paul, Dionysius and Eckhart +have all contributed, is, in itself, “Simplicity +and One-foldness; inaccessible height and +fathomless deep; incomprehensible breadth +and eternal length; a dim silence, and a +wild desert”—oblique, suggestive, musical +language which enchants rather than informs +the soul; opens the door to experience, +but does not convey any accurate +<span class="pb" id="Page_59">[59]</span> +knowledge of the Imageless Truth, “Now +we may experience many wonders in that +fathomless Godhead; but although, because +of the coarseness of the human intellect, +when we would describe such things outwardly, +we must use images, in truth that +which is inwardly perceived and beheld is +nought else but a Fathomless and Unconditioned +Good.”<a class="fn" id="fr_6" href="#fn_6">[6]</a></p> +<p>Yet this primal Reality, this ultimately +indivisible One, has for human consciousness +a two-fold character; and though for the +intuition of the mystic its fruition is a synthetic +experience, it must in thought be +analysed if it is ever to be grasped. God, +as known by man, exhibits in its perfection +the dual property of Love; on the one hand +active, generative, creative; on the other +hand a still and ineffable possession or +<i>Fruition</i>—one of the master-words of Ruysbroeck’s +thought. He is, then, the Absolute +One, in whom the antithesis of Eternity +and Time, of Being and Becoming, is resolved; +both static and dynamic, transcendent +and immanent, impersonal and +personal, undifferentiated and differentiated; +Eternal Rest and Eternal Work, the Unmoved +Mover, yet Movement itself. “Although +in our way of seeing we give +God many names, His nature is One.”</p> +<p>He transcends the storm of succession, yet +<span class="pb" id="Page_60">[60]</span> +is the inspiring spirit of the flux. According +to His fruitful nature, “He works without +ceasing, for He is Pure Act”—a reminiscence +of Aristotle which seems strange upon the +lips of the ‘ignorant monk.’ He is the +omnipotent and ever-active Creator of all +things; ‘an immeasurable Flame of Love’ +perpetually breathing forth His energetic +Life in new births of being and new floods +of grace, and drawing in again all creatures +to Himself. Yet this statement defines, not +His being, but one manifestation of His +being. When the soul pierces beyond this +‘fruitful’ nature to His simple essence—and +‘simple’ is here and throughout to be +understood in its primal meaning of ‘synthetic’—He +is that absolute and abiding +Reality which seems to man Eternal +Rest, the ‘Deep Quiet of the Godhead,’ the +‘Abyss,’ the ‘Dim Silence’; and which we +can taste indeed but never know. There, ‘all +lovers lose themselves’ in the consummation +of that experience at which our fragmentary +intuitions hint.</p> +<p>The active and fertile aspect of the Divine +Nature is manifested in differentiation: for +Ruysbroeck the Catholic, in the Trinity of +Persons, as defined by Christian theology. +The static and absolute aspect is the ‘calm +and glorious Unity of the Godhead’ which +he finds beyond and within the Trinity, “the +fathomless Abyss that <i>is</i> the Being of God,”—an +<span class="pb" id="Page_61">[61]</span> +idea, familiar to Indian mysticism and +implicit in Christian Neoplatonism, which +governed all Meister Eckhart’s speculations +upon the Divine Nature. There is, says +Ruysbroeck in one of his most Eckhartian +passages, “a distinction and differentiation, +according to our reason, between God +and the Godhead, between action and rest. +The fruitful nature of the Persons, of whom +is the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity, +ever worketh in a living differentiation. +But the Simple Being of God, according to +the nature thereof, is an Eternal Rest of +God and of all created +things.”<a class="fn" id="fr_7" href="#fn_7">[7]</a></p> +<p>In differentiating the three great aspects +of the Divine Life, as known by the love +and thought of man, Ruysbroeck keeps +close to formal theology; though investing +its academic language with new and deep +significance, and constantly reminding us +that such language, even at its best, can +never get beyond the region of image and +similitude or provide more than an imperfect +reflection of the One who is ‘neither This +nor That.’ On his lips, credal definitions +are perpetually passing over from the arid +region of theological argument to the fruitful +one of spiritual experience. There they +become songs, as ‘new’ as the song heard +by the Apocalyptist; real channels of light, +which show the mind things that it never +<span class="pb" id="Page_62">[62]</span> +guessed before. For the ‘re-born’ man +they have a fresh and immortal meaning; +because that ‘river of grace,’ of which he +perpetually speaks as pouring into the heart +opened towards the Infinite, transfigures +and irradiates them. Thus the illuminated +mind knows in the Father, not a confusingly +anthropomorphic metaphor, but the uniquely +vital Source and unconditioned Origin of +all things “in whom our life and being is +begun.” He is the “Strength and Power, +Creator, Mover, Keeper, Beginning and End, +Cause and Existence of all +creatures.”<a class="fn" id="fr_8" href="#fn_8">[8]</a> +Further, the intuition of the mystic discerns +in the Son the Eternal Word and fathomless +Wisdom and Truth perpetually generated +of the Father, shining forth in the world of +conditions: the Pattern or Archetype of +creation and of life, the image of God which +the universe reflects back before the face +of the Absolute, the Eternal Rule incarnate +in Christ. And this same ‘light wherein +we see God’ also shows to the enlightened +mind the veritable character of the Holy +Spirit; the Incomprehensible Love and +Generosity of the Divine Nature, which +emanates in an eternal procession from the +mutual contemplation of Father and Son, +“for these two Persons are always hungry +for love.” The Holy Spirit is the source +of the Divine vitality immanent in the universe. +<span class="pb" id="Page_63">[63]</span> +It is an outflowing torrent of Good +which streams through all heavenly spirits; +it is a Flame of Fire that consumes all in +the One; it is also the Spark of transcendence +latent in man’s soul. The Spirit +is the personal, Grace the impersonal, side +of that energetic Love which enfolds and +penetrates all life; and “all this may be +perceived and beheld, inseparable and +without division, in the Simple Nature of +the Godhead.”<a class="fn" id="fr_9" href="#fn_9">[9]</a></p> +<p>The relations which form the character +of these Three Persons exist in an eternal +distinction for that world of conditions +wherein the human soul is immersed, and +where things happen ‘in some wise.’ There, +from the embrace of the Father and Son +and the outflowing of the Spirit in ‘waves +of endless love,’ all created things are born; +and God, by His grace and His death, recreates +them, and adorns them with love +and goodness, and draws them back to +their source. This is the circling course of +the Divine life-process ‘from goodness, +through goodness, to goodness,’ described by +Dionysius the Areopagite. But beyond and +above this plane of Divine differentiation +is the superessential world, transcending all +conditions, inaccessible to thought—“the +measureless solitude of the Godhead, where +God possesses Himself in joy.” This is the +<span class="pb" id="Page_64">[64]</span> +ultimate world of the mystic, discerned by +intuition and love “in a simple seeing, +beyond reason and without consideration.” +There, within the ‘Eternal Now,’ without +either before or after, released from the +storm of succession, things happen indeed, +‘yet in no wise,’ There, “we can speak +no more of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, +nor of any creature; but only of one Being, +which is the very substance of the Divine +Persons. There were we all one before our +creation; for this is our <i>superessence</i>.... +There the Godhead is, in simple essence, +without activity; Eternal Rest, Unconditioned +Dark, the Nameless Being, the +Superessence of all created things, and the +simple and infinite Bliss of God and of all +Saints.”<a class="fn" id="fr_10" href="#fn_10">[10]</a></p> +<p>Ruysbroeck here brings us to the position +of Dante in the last canto of the <i>Paradiso</i>, +when, transcending those partial apprehensions +of Reality which are figured by the +River of Becoming and the Rose of Beatitude, +he penetrated to the swift vision of +“that Eternal Light which only in Itself +abideth”—discerned best by man under +the image of the three circles, yet in its +‘profound and clear substance’ indivisibly +One.</p> +<p>“The simple light of this Being is limitless +in its immensity, and transcending +<span class="pb" id="Page_65">[65]</span> +form, includes and embraces the unity of +the Divine Persons and the soul with all +its faculties; and this to such a point that +it envelopes and irradiates <i>both</i> the natural +tendency of our ground [<i>i.e.</i> its dynamic +movement to God—the River] and the +fruitive adherence of God and all those who +are united with Him in this Light [<i>i.e.</i> +Eternal Being—the Rose]. And this is the +union of God and the souls that love +Him.”<a class="fn" id="fr_11" href="#fn_11">[11]</a></p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_66">[66]</div> +<h2 id="c5">CHAPTER IV +<br /><span class="small">HIS DOCTRINE OF MAN</span></h2> +<blockquote> +<p>That which was begun by Grace, is accomplished by +Grace and Free-will; so that they work mixedly not +separately, simultaneously not successively, in each and +all of their processes.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">St. Bernard.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>The concept of the Nature of God which +we have traced through its three phases—out +from the unchanging One to the active +Persons and back to the One again—gives +us a clue to Ruysbroeck’s idea of the nature +and destiny of man. In man, both aspects +of Divine Reality, active and fruitive, are +or should be reflected; for God is the +‘Living Pattern of Creation’ who has +impressed His image on each soul, and in +every adult spirit the character of that +image must be brought from the hiddenness +and realised. Destined to be wholly real, +though yet in the making, there is in man +a latent Divine likeness, a ‘spark’ of the +primal fire. Created for union with God, +already in Eternity that union is a fact.</p> +<p>“The creature is in Brahma and Brahma +<span class="pb" id="Page_67">[67]</span> +is in the creature; they are ever distinct yet +ever united,” says the Indian mystic. Were +it translated into Christian language, it is +probable that this thought—which does <i>not</i> +involve pantheism—would have been found +acceptable by Ruysbroeck; for the interpenetration +yet eternal distinction of the +human and Divine spirits is the central fact +of his universe. Man, he thinks, is already +related in a threefold manner to his Infinite +Source; for “we have our being in Him as +the Father, we contemplate Him as does +the Son, we ceaselessly tend to return to Him +as does the Spirit.”</p> +<p>“The first property of the soul is a <i>naked +being</i>, devoid of all image. Thereby do we +resemble, and are united to, the Father and +His nature Divine.” This is the ‘ground of +the soul’ perpetually referred to by mystics +of the Eckhartian School; the bare, still +place to which consciousness retreats in +introversion, image of the static and absolute +aspect of Reality. “The second property +might be called the <i>higher understanding</i> +of the soul. It is a mirror of light, +wherein we receive the Son of God, the +Eternal Truth. By this light we are like +unto Him; but in the act of receiving, we +are one with Him.” This is the power of +knowing Divine things by intuitive comprehension: +man’s fragmentary share in the +character of the Logos, or Wisdom of +<span class="pb" id="Page_68">[68]</span> +God. “The third property we call the +<i>spark</i> of the soul. It is the inward and +natural tendency of the soul towards its +Source; and here do we receive the Holy +Spirit, the Charity of God. By this inward +tendency we are like the Holy Spirit; but +in the act of receiving, we become one spirit and one love with +God.”<a class="fn" id="fr_12" href="#fn_12">[12]</a> +Here the Divine image shows itself in its immanent and +dynamic aspect, as the ‘internal push’ which +drives Creation back to the Father’s heart.</p> +<p>The soul then is, as Julian of Norwich +said, “made Trinity, like to the unmade +Blessed Trinity.” Reciprocally, there is in +the Eternal World the uncreated Pattern +or Archetype of man—his ‘Platonic idea.’ +Now man must bring from its hiddenness the +latent likeness, the germ of Divine humanity +that is in him, and develop it until it realises +the ‘Platonic idea’; achieving thus the +implicit truth of his own nature as it exists +in the mind of God. This, according to +Ruysbroeck, is the whole art and object of +the spiritual life; this actualisation of the +eternal side of human nature, atrophied in +the majority of men—the innate Christliness +in virtue of which we have power to +become ‘Sons’ of God.</p> +<p>“Lo! thus are we all one with God in +our Eternal Archetype, which is His Wisdom +who hath put on the nature of us all. And +<span class="pb" id="Page_69">[69]</span> +although we are already one with Him +therein by that putting on of our nature, +we must also be like God in grace and virtue, +if we would find ourselves one with Him in +our Eternal Archetype, which is +Himself.”<a class="fn" id="fr_13" href="#fn_13">[13]</a></p> +<p>Under the stimulus of Divine Love perpetually +beating in on him, feeding perpetually +on the substance of God, perpetually +renewed and ‘reborn’ on to ever +higher levels through the vivifying contact +of reality, man must grow up into the +‘superessential life’ of complete unity with +the Transcendent. There, not only the +triune aspect but the dual character of God +is reproduced in him, reconciled in a synthesis +beyond the span of thought; and +he becomes ‘deiform’—both active and +fruitive, ‘ever at work and ever at rest’—at +once a denizen of Eternity and of Time. +Every aspect of his being—love, intellect and +will—is to be invaded and enhanced by the +new life-giving life; it shall condition and +enrich his correspondences with the sense-world +as well as with the world of soul.</p> +<p>Man is not here invited to leave the active +life for the contemplative, but to make +the active life perfect within the contemplative; +carrying up these apparent opposites +to a point at which they become one. It is +one of Ruysbroeck’s characteristics that he, +as few others, followed mysticism out to +<span class="pb" id="Page_70">[70]</span> +this, its last stage; where it issues in a +balanced, divine-human life. The energetic +Love of God, which flows perpetually forth +from the Abyss of Being to the farthest +limits of the universe, enlightening and +quickening where it goes, and ‘turns again +home’ as a strong tide drawing all things +to their Origin, here attains equilibrium; +the effort of creation achieves its aim.</p> +<p>Now this aim, this goal, is already realised +within God’s nature, for there all perfection +eternally Is. But to man it is super-nature; +to achieve it he must transcend the world +of conditions in which he lives according to +the flesh, and grow up to fresh levels of +life. Under the various images of sonship, +marriage, and transmutation, this is the +view of human destiny which Ruysbroeck +states again and again: the creative evolution +of the soul. His insistence on the +completeness of the Divine Union to which +the soul attains in this final phase, his +perpetual resort to the dangerous language of +deification in the effort towards describing +it, seems at first sight to expose him to the +charge of pantheism; and, as a matter of +fact, has done so in the past. Yet he is +most careful to guard himself at every point +against this misinterpretation of his vision +of life. In his view, by its growth towards +God, personality is not lost, but raised to +an ever higher plane. Even in that ecstatic +<span class="pb" id="Page_71">[71]</span> +fruition of Eternal Life in which the spirit +passes above the state of Union to the state +of Unity, and beyond the Persons to the +One, the ‘eternal otherness’ of Creator and +created is not overpassed; but, as in the +perfect fulfilment of love, utter fusion and +clear differentiation mysteriously co-exist. +It is, he says, not a mergence but a ‘mutual +inhabitation.’ In his attempts towards the +description of this state, he borrows the +language of St. Bernard, most orthodox of +the mystics; language which goes back to +primitive Christian times. The Divine light, +love and being, he tells us, penetrates and +drenches the surrendered, naked, receptive +soul, ‘as fire does the iron, as sunlight does +the air’; and even as the sunshine and +the air, the iron and the fire, so are these +two terms distinct yet united. “The iron +doth not become fire nor the fire iron; but +each retaineth its substance and its nature. +So likewise the spirit of man doth not +become God, but is God-formed, and knoweth +itself breadth and length and height and +depth.”<a class="fn" id="fr_14" href="#fn_14">[14]</a> +Again, “this union is <i>in</i> God, +through grace and our homeward-tending +love. Yet even here does the creature feel +a distinction and otherness between itself and God in its inward +ground.”<a class="fn" id="fr_15" href="#fn_15">[15]</a> +The dualistic relation of lover and beloved, +<span class="pb" id="Page_72">[72]</span> +though raised to another power and glory, +is an eternal one.</p> +<p>I have spoken of Ruysbroeck’s concept of +God, his closely related concept of man’s +soul; the threefold diagram of Reality +within which these terms are placed, the +doctrine of transcendence he deduced therefrom. +But such a diagram cannot express +to us the rich content, the deeply personal +character of his experience and his knowledge. +It is no more than a map of the +living land he has explored, a formal picture +of the Living One whom he has seen without +sight. For him the landscape lived and +flowered in endless variety of majesty and +sweetness; the Person drew near in mysterious +communion, and gave to him as food +His very life.</p> +<p>All that this meant, and must mean, for +our deeper knowledge of Reality and of +man’s intuitive contacts with the Divine +Life, we must find if we can in his doctrine of +Love. Love is the ‘very self-hood’ of God, +says Ruysbroeck in strict Johannine language. +His theology is above all the theology +of the Holy Spirit, the immanent +Divine Energy and Love. It is Love which +breaks down the barrier between finite and +infinite life. But Love, as he understands +it, has little in common with the feeling-state +to which many of the female mystics +have given that august name. For him, it +<span class="pb" id="Page_73">[73]</span> +is hardly an emotional word at all, and +never a sentimental one; rather the title +of a mighty force, a holy energy that fills +the universe—the essential activity of God. +Sometimes he describes it under the antique +imagery of Light; imagery which is more +than a metaphor, and is connected with that +veritable consciousness of enhanced radiance, +as well in the outer as in the inner world, +experienced by the ‘illuminated’ mystic. +Again it is the ‘life-giving Life,’ hidden in +God and the substance of our souls, which +the self finds and appropriates; the whole +Johannine trilogy brought into play, to +express its meaning for heart, intellect and +will. This Love, in fact, is the dynamic +power which St. Augustine compared with +gravitation, ‘drawing all things to their +own place,’ and which Dante saw binding +the multiplicity of the universe into one. +All Ruysbroeck’s images for it turn on the +idea of force. It is a raging fire, a storm, a +flood. He speaks of it in one great passage +as ‘playing like lightning’ between God and +the soul.</p> +<p>Whoever will look at William Blake’s +great picture of the Creation of Adam, may +gain some idea of the terrific yet infinitely +compassionate character inherent in this +concept of Divine Love: the agony, passion, +beauty, sternness, and pity of the primal +generating force. This love is eternally +<span class="pb" id="Page_74">[74]</span> +giving and taking—it is its very property, +says Ruysbroeck, ‘ever to give and ever +to receive’—pouring its dower of energy into +the soul, and drawing out from that soul +new vitality, new love, new surrender. +‘Hungry love,’ ‘generous love,’ ‘stormy +love,’ he calls it again and again. Streaming +out from the heart of Reality, the impersonal +aspect of the very Spirit of God, its creative +touch evokes in man, once he becomes conscious +of it, an answering storm of love. +The whole of our human growth within the +spiritual order is conditioned by the quality +of this response; by the will, the industry, +the courage, with which man accepts his +part in the Divine give-and-take.</p> +<p>“That measureless Love which is God +Himself, dwells in the pure deeps of our +spirit, like a burning brazier of coal. And +it throws forth brilliant and fiery sparks +which stir and enkindle heart and senses, +will and desire, and all the powers of the +soul, with a fire of love; in a storm, a rage, +a measureless fury of love. These be the +weapons with which we fight against the +terrible and immense Love of God, who +would consume all loving spirits and swallow +them in Himself. Love arms us with its +own gifts, and clarifies our reason, and +commands, counsels and advises us to oppose +Him, to fight against Him, and to maintain +against Him our right to love, so long as we +<span class="pb" id="Page_75">[75]</span> +may.”<a class="fn" id="fr_16" href="#fn_16">[16]</a> +In the spiritual realm, giving and +receiving are one act, for God is an +‘ocean that ebbs and flows’; and it is only +by opposing love to love, by self-donation to +His mysterious movements, that the soul +appropriates new force, invigorating and +fertilising it afresh. Thus, and thus alone, +it lays hold on eternal life; sometimes +sacramentally, under external images and +accidents; sometimes mystically, in the communion +of deep prayer. “Every time we +think with love of the Well-beloved, He is +anew our meat and drink”—more, we too +are His, for the love between God and man +is a mutual love and desire. As we lay hold +upon the Divine Life, devour and assimilate +it, so in that very act the Divine Life +devours us, and knits us up into the mystical +Body of Reality. “Thou shalt not change +Me into thine own substance, as thou dost +change the food of thy flesh, but thou shalt +be changed into Mine,” said the Spirit of +God to St. Augustine; and his Flemish +descendant announces this same mysterious +principle of life with greater richness and +beauty.</p> +<p>“It is the nature of love ever to give and +to take, to love and to be loved, and these +two things meet in whomsoever loves. Thus +the love of Christ is both avid and generous +... as He devours us, so He would feed us. +<span class="pb" id="Page_76">[76]</span> +If He absorbs us utterly into Himself, in +return He gives us His very self +again.”<a class="fn" id="fr_17" href="#fn_17">[17]</a></p> +<p>This is but another aspect of that great +‘inbreathing and outbreathing’ of the Divine +nature which governs the relation between the +Creator and the flux of life; for Ruysbroeck’s +Christological language always carries with +it the idea of the Logos, the Truth and +Wisdom of Deity, as revealed in the world +of conditions,—not only in the historical +Jesus, but also in the eternal generation of +the Son. St. Francis of Assisi had said that +Divine Love perpetually swings between +and reconciles two mighty opposites: “What +is God? and, What am I?” For Ruysbroeck, +too, that Love is a unifying power, +manifested in motion itself, “an outgoing +attraction, which drags us out of ourselves +and calls us to be melted and naughted in the +Unity”;<a class="fn" id="fr_18" href="#fn_18">[18]</a> +and all his deepest thoughts +of it are expressed in terms of movement.</p> +<p>The relation between the soul and the +Absolute, then, is a love relation—as in +fact all the mystics have declared it to be. +Man, that imperfectly real thing, has an +inherent tendency towards God, the Only +Reality. Already possessed of a life within +the world of conditions, his unquiet heart +reaches out towards a world that transcends +conditions. How shall he achieve that world? +<span class="pb" id="Page_77">[77]</span> +In the same way, says Ruysbroeck, as the +child achieves the world of manhood: by +the double method of growth and education, +the balanced action of the organism +and its environment. In its development +and its needs, spirit conforms to the great +laws of natural life. Taught by the voices +of the forest and that inward Presence who +‘spoke without utterance’ in his soul, he +is quick to recognise the close parallels +between nature and grace. His story of +the mystical life is the story of birth, growth, +adolescence, maturity: a steady progress, dependent +on food and nurture, on the ‘brooks +of grace’ which flow from the Living +Fountain and bring perpetual renovation +to help the wise disciplines and voluntary +choices that brace and purge our expanding +will and love.</p> +<p>Ruysbroeck’s universe, like that of Kabir +and certain other great mystics, has three +orders: Becoming, Being, God. Parallel +with this, he distinguishes three great stages +in the soul’s achievement of complete reality: +the Active, the Interior, and the +Superessential Life, sometimes symbolised +by the conditions of Servant, Friend, and +Son of God. These, however, must be regarded +rather as divisions made for convenience +of description, answering to those +divisions which thought has made in the +indivisible fact of the universe, than as +<span class="pb" id="Page_78">[78]</span> +distinctions inherent in the reality of things. +The spiritual life has the true character of +duration; it is one indivisible tendency +and movement towards our source and +home, in which the past is never left behind, +but incorporated in the larger present.</p> +<p>In the Active Life, the primary interest +is ethical. Man here purifies his normal +human correspondences with the world of +sense, approximates his will to the Will of +God. Here, his contacts with the Divine +take place within that world of sense, and +‘by means.’ In the Interior Life, the +interest embraces the intellect, upon which +is now conferred the vision of Reality. As +the Active Life corresponded to the world of +Becoming, this Life corresponds with the +supersensual world of Being, where the +self’s contacts with the Divine take place +‘without means.’ In the Superessential Life, +the self has transcended the intellectual +plane and entered into the very heart of +Reality; where she does not behold, but +has fruition of, God in one life and one love. +The obvious parallel between these three +stages and the traditional ‘threefold way’ +of Purgation, Illumination and Union is, +however, not so exact as it appears. Many +of the characters of the Unitive Way are +present in Ruysbroeck’s ‘second life’; and +his ‘third life’ takes the soul to heights +of fruition which few amongst even the +<span class="pb" id="Page_79">[79]</span> +greatest unitive mystics have attained or +described.</p> +<p>(A) When man first feels upon his soul +the touch of the Divine Light, at once, +and in a moment of time, his will is changed; +turned in the direction of Reality and +away from unreal objects of desire. He +is, in fact, ‘converted’ in the highest and +most accurate sense of that ill-used word. +Seeing the Divine, he wants the Divine, +though he may not yet understand his +own craving; for the scrap of Divine Life +within him has emerged into the field of consciousness, +and recognises its home. Then, +as it were, God and the soul rush together, +and of their encounter springs love. This +is the New Birth; the ‘bringing forth of the +Son in the ground of the soul,’ its baptism +in the fountain of the Life-giving Life.</p> +<p>The new force and tendency received +into the self begins to act on the periphery, +and thence works towards the centre of +existence. First, then, it attacks the ordinary +temporal life in all its departments. +It pours in fresh waves of energy which +confer new knowledge and hatred of sin, +purify character, bring fresh virtues into +being. It rearranges the consciousness about +new and higher centres, gathering up all +the faculties into one simple state of ‘attention +to God.’ Thence results the highest life +which is attainable by ‘nature.’ In it, man +<span class="pb" id="Page_80">[80]</span> +is united with God ‘through means,’ acts in +obedience to the dictates of Divine Love +and in accordance with the tendency of +the Divine Will, and becomes the ‘Faithful +Servant’ of the Transcendent Order. +Plainly, the Active Life, thus considered, +has much in common with the ‘Purgative +Way’ of ascetic science.</p> +<p>(B) When this growth has reached its +term, when “Free-will wears the crown of +Charity, and rules as a King over the soul,” +the awakened and enhanced consciousness +begins to crave a closer contact with the +spiritual: that unmediated and direct +contact which is the essence of the Contemplative +or Interior Life, and is achieved +in the deep state of recollection called +‘unitive prayer.’ Here voluntary and purposive +education takes its place by the +side of organic development. The way +called by most ascetic writers ‘Illumination’—the +state of ‘proficient’ in monastic +parlance—includes the <i>training</i> of the self +in the contemplative art as well as its +<i>growth</i> in will and love. This training +braces and purifies intellect, as the disciplines +of the active life purified will and +sense. It teaches introversion, or the turning +inward of the attention from the distractions +of the sense-world; the cleansing +of the mirror of thought, thronged with +confusing images; the production of that +<span class="pb" id="Page_81">[81]</span> +silence in which the music of the Infinite +can be heard. Nor is the Active Life here +left behind; it is carried up to, and included +in, the new, deepened activities of the +self, which are no longer ruled by the laws, +but by the ‘quickening counsels’ of God.</p> +<p>Of this new life, interior courage is a first +necessity. It is no easy appropriation of +supersensual graces, but a deeper entering +into the mystery of life, a richer, more +profound, participation in pain, effort, as +well as joy. There must be no settling +down into a comfortable sense of the Divine +Presence, no reliance on the ‘One Act’; +but an incessant process of change, renewal, +re-emergence. Sometimes Ruysbroeck +appears to see this central stage in the +spiritual life-process in terms of upward +growth toward transcendent levels; sometimes +in terms of recollection, the steadfast +pressing inwards of consciousness towards +that bare ground of the soul where it unites +with immanent Reality, and finds the +Divine Life surging up like a ‘living fountain’ +from the deeps. This double way of conceiving +one process is puzzling for us; but +a proof that for Ruysbroeck no one concept +could suggest the whole truth, and a useful +reminder of the symbolic character of all +these maps and itineraries of the spiritual +life.</p> +<p>As the sun grows in power with the passing +<span class="pb" id="Page_82">[82]</span> +seasons, so the soul now experiences a steady +increase in the power and splendour of the +Divine Light, as it ascends in the heavens +of consciousness and pours its heat and +radiance into all the faculties of man. The +in-beating of this energy and light brings +the self into the tempestuous heats of high +summer, or full illumination—the ‘fury of +love,’ most fertile and dangerous epoch of +the spiritual year. Thence, obedient to +those laws of movement, that ‘double rhythm +of renunciation and love’ which Kabir detected +at the heart of the universal melody, +it enters on a negative period of psychic +fatigue and spiritual destitution; the ‘dark +night of the soul.’ The sun descends in the +heavens, the ardours of love grow cold. +When this stage is fully established, says +Ruysbroeck, the ‘September of the soul’ is +come; the harvest and vintage—raw +material of the life-giving Eucharist—is +ripe. The flowering-time of spiritual joy and +beauty is as nothing in its value for life compared +with this still autumnal period of true +fecundity, in which man is at last ‘affirmed’ +in the spiritual life.</p> +<p>This, then, is the curve of the self’s growth. +Side by side with it runs the other curve +of deliberate training: the education by +which our wandering attention, our diffused +undisciplined consciousness, is sharpened and +focussed upon Reality. This training is needed +<span class="pb" id="Page_83">[83]</span> +by intellect and feeling; but most of all by +the <i>will</i>, which Ruysbroeck, like the great +English mystics, regards as the gathering-point +of personality, the ‘spiritual heart.’ +On every page of his writings the reference +to that which the spiritual Light and Love +do for man, is balanced by an insistence on +that which man himself must do: the choices +to be made, the ‘exercises’ to be performed, +the tension and effort which must characterise +the mystic way until its last phase +is reached. Morally, these exercises consist +in progressive renunciations on the one hand +and acceptances on the other ‘for Love’s +sake’; intellectually, in introversion, that +turning inwards and concentration of consciousness, +the stripping off of all images +and emptying of the mind, which is the psychological +method whereby human consciousness +transcends the conditioned universe +to which it has become adapted, and enters +the contemplative world. Man’s attention to +life is to change its character as he ascends +the ladder of being. Therefore the old attachments +must be cut before the new attachments +can be formed. This is, of course, a commonplace +of asceticism; and much of Ruysbroeck’s +teaching on detachment, self-naughting +and contemplation, is indeed simply the +standard doctrine of Christian asceticism seen +through a temperament.</p> +<p>When the self has grown up from the +<span class="pb" id="Page_84">[84]</span> +‘active’ to the ‘contemplative’ state of consciousness, +it is plain that his whole relation +to his environment has changed. His world is +grouped about a new centre. It now becomes +the supreme business of intellect to ‘gaze upon +God,’ the supreme business of love to stretch +out towards Him. When these twin powers, +under the regnancy of the enhanced and +trained will, are set towards Reality, then the +human creature has done his part in the setting +up of the relation of the soul to its Source, and +made it possible for the music of the Infinite +to sound in him. “For this intellectual +gazing and this stretching forth of love are +two heavenly pipes, sounding without the need +of tune or of notes; they ever go forward +in that Eternal Life, neither straying aside +nor returning backward again; and ever +keeping harmony and concord with the Holy +Church, for the Holy Spirit gives the wind that sings in +them.”<a class="fn" id="fr_19" href="#fn_19">[19]</a> +Observe, that <i>tension</i> +is here a condition of the right employment +of both faculties, and ensures that the +Divine music shall sound true; one of the +many implicit contradictions of the quietist +doctrine of spiritual limpness, which we find +throughout Ruysbroeck’s works.</p> +<p>(C) When the twofold process of growth +and education has brought the self to this +perfection of attitude as regards the Spiritual +Order—an attitude of true <i>union</i>, says Ruysbroeck, +<span class="pb" id="Page_85">[85]</span> +but not yet of the unthinkable <i>unity</i> +which is our goal—man has done all that he +can do of himself. His ‘Interior Life’ is complete, +and his being is united through grace +with the Being of God, in a relation which +is the faint image of the mutual relations of +the Divine Persons; a conscious sonship, +finding expression in the mutual interchange +of the spirit of will and love. This existence +is rooted in ‘grace,’ the unconditioned life-force, +intermediary between ourselves and +God,’ as the active stage was rooted in +‘nature.’ Yet there is something beyond +this. As beyond the Divine Persons there +is the Superessential Unity of the Godhead, +so beyond the plane of Being (<i>Wesen</i>) Ruysbroeck +apprehends a reality which is ‘more +than Being’ (<i>Overwesen</i>). Man’s spirit, having +relations with every grade of reality, has +also in its ‘fathomless ground’ a potential +relation with this superessential sphere; and +until this be actualised he is not wholly +real, nor wholly <i>deiform</i>. Ruysbroeck’s +most original contribution to the history of +mysticism is his description of this supreme +state; in which the human soul becomes +truly free, and is made the ‘hidden child’ +of God. Then only do we discern the glory +of our full-grown human nature; when, +participating fully in the mysterious double +life of God, the twofold action of true love, +we have perfect fruition of Him as Eternal +<span class="pb" id="Page_86">[86]</span> +Rest, and perfect sharing in that outgoing +love which is His eternal Work: “God with +God, one love and one life, in His eternal +manifestation.”<a class="fn" id="fr_20" href="#fn_20">[20]</a></p> +<p>The consummation of the mystic way, +then, represents not merely a state of +ecstatic contemplation, escape from the +stream of succession, the death of self-hood, +joyous self-immersion in the Abyss; not +merely the enormously enhanced state of +creative activity and energetic love which the +mystics call ‘divine fecundity’; but <i>both</i>—the +flux and reflux of supreme Reality. It +is the synthesis of contemplation and action, +of Being and Becoming: the discovery at +last of a clue—inexpressible indeed, but +really held and experienced—to the mystery +which most deeply torments us, the link +between our life of duration and the Eternal +Life of God. This is the Seventh Degree of +Love, “noblest and highest that can be +realised in the life of time or of eternity.”</p> +<p>That process of enhancement whereby the +self, in its upward progress, carries with it +all that has been attained before, here finds +its completion. The active life of Becoming, +and the essential life of Being, are not all. +“From beyond the Infinite the Infinite +comes,” said the Indian; and his Christian +brother, in parallel terms, declares that +beyond the Essence is the Superessence of +<span class="pb" id="Page_87">[87]</span> +God, His ‘simple’ or synthetic unity. It +is for fruition of this that man is destined; +yet he does not leave this world for that +world, but knows them as one. Totally +surrendered to the double current of the +universe, the inbreathing and outbreathing +of the Spirit of God, “his love and fruition +live between labour and rest.” He goes up +and down the mountain of vision, a living +willing tool wherewith God works. “Hence, +to enter into restful fruition and come forth +again in good works, and to remain ever +one with God—this is the thing that I would +say. Even as we open our fleshly eyes to +see, and shut them again so quickly that we +do not even feel it, thus we die into God, we +live of God, and remain ever one with God. +Therefore we must come forth in the activities +of the sense-life, and again re-enter in +love and cling to God; in order that we may +ever remain one with Him without +change.”<a class="fn" id="fr_21" href="#fn_21">[21]</a></p> +<p>All perfect lives, says Ruysbroeck, conform +to this pattern, follow this curve; though +such perfect lives are rare amongst men. +They are the fruit, not of volition, but of +vocation; of the mysterious operations of +the Divine Light which—perpetually crying +through the universe the “unique and fathomless +word ‘Behold! behold!’” and “therewith +giving utterance to itself and all other +things”—yet evokes only in some men an +<span class="pb" id="Page_88">[88]</span> +answering movement of consciousness, the +deliberate surrender which conditions the +new power of response and of growth. +“To this divine vision but few men can +attain, because of their own unfitness and +because of the darkness of that Light whereby +we see: and therefore no one shall thoroughly +understand this perception by means +of any scholarship, or by their own acuteness +of comprehension. For all words, and all +that men may learn and understand in a +creaturely fashion, is foreign to this and far +below the truth that I mean. To understand +and lay hold of God as He is in Himself +above all images—this is <i>to be God with God</i>, +without intermediary or any difference that +might become an intermediary or an obstacle. +And therefore I beg each one, who can +neither understand this, nor feel it by the +way of spiritual union, that he be not +grieved thereby, and let it be as it +is.”<a class="fn" id="fr_22" href="#fn_22">[22]</a></p> +<p>I end this chapter by a reference to certain +key-words frequent in Ruysbroeck’s works, +which are sometimes a source of difficulty to +his readers. These words are nearly always +his names for inward experiences. He uses +them in a poetic and artistic manner, +evocative rather than exact; and we, in +trying to discover their meaning, must never +forget the coloured fringe of suggestion +which they carry for the mystic and the +<span class="pb" id="Page_89">[89]</span> +poet, and which is a true part of the message +he intends them to convey.</p> +<p>The first of these words is <span class="sc">Fruition</span>. +Fruition, a concept which Eucken’s philosophy +has brought back into current thought, +represents a total attainment, complete and +permanent participation and possession. It +is an absolute state, transcending all succession, +and it is applied by Ruysbroeck to the +absolute character of the spirit’s life in God; +which, though it seem to the surface consciousness +a perpetually renewed encounter +of love, is in its ground ‘fruitive and unconditioned,’ +a timeless self-immersion in the +Dark, the ‘glorious and essential Oneness.’ +Thus he speaks of ‘fruitive love,’ ‘fruitive +possession’; as opposed to striving, dynamic +love, partial, progressive and conditioned +possession. Perfect contemplation and loving +dependence are the eternal fruition of +God’: the Beatific Vision of theology. +“Where we are one with God, without intermediary, +beyond all separation; there is God +our fruition and His own in an eternal and fathomless +bliss.”<a class="fn" id="fr_23" href="#fn_23">[23]</a></p> +<p>Next perhaps in the power of provoking +misunderstanding is the weight attached by +Ruysbroeck to the adjective <span class="sc">Simple</span>. This +word, which constantly recurs in his descriptions +of spiritual states, always conveys +the sense of wholeness, completeness, synthesis; +<span class="pb" id="Page_90">[90]</span> +not of poverty, thinness, subtraction. +It is the white light in which all the colours +of the spectrum are included and fused. +‘Simple Union,’ ‘Simple Contemplation,’ +‘Simple Light’—all these mean the total undifferentiated +act or perception from which +our analytic minds subtract aspects. “In +simplicity will I unite with the Simple One,” +said Kabir. So Ruysbroeck: “We behold +His face in a simple seeing, beyond reason +and without consideration.”</p> +<p>Another cause of difficulty to those unfamiliar +with the mystics is the constant +reference to <span class="sc">Bareness</span> or <span class="sc">Nudity</span>, especially +in descriptions of the contemplative act. +This is, of course, but one example of that +negative method of suggestion—darkness, +bareness, desolation, divine ignorance, the +‘rich nothing,’ the ‘naked thought’—which +is a stock device of mysticism, and was probably +taken by Ruysbroeck from Dionysius +the Areopagite. It represents, first, the +bewildering emptiness and nakedness of consciousness +when introduced into a universe +that transcends our ordinary conceptual +world; secondly, the necessity of such transcendence, +of emptying the field of consciousness +of ‘every vain imagining,’ if the self +is to have contact with the Reality which +these veil.</p> +<p>With the distinction between Essence +(<i>Wesen</i>) and Superessence (<i>Overwesen</i>) I have +<span class="pb" id="Page_91">[91]</span> +already dealt; and this will appear more +clearly when we consider Ruysbroeck’s +‘second’ and ‘third’ stages of the mystic +life.</p> +<p>There remains the great pair of opposites, +fundamental for his thought, called in the +Flemish vernacular <i>Wise</i> and <i>Onwise</i>, and +generally rendered by translators as ‘Mode’ +and ‘Modeless.’ Wherever possible I have +replaced these tasteless Latinisms by the Old +English equivalents ‘in some wise’ and ‘in +no wise,’ occasionally by ‘conditioned’ and +‘unconditioned’; though perhaps the colloquial +‘somehow’ and ‘nohow’ would be yet +more exactly expressive. Now this pair of +opposites is psychological rather than metaphysical, +and has to do with the characteristic +phenomena of contemplation. It indicates +the difference between the universe +of the normal man, living as the servant or +friend of God within the temporal order, +and the universe of the true contemplative, +the ‘hidden child.’ The knowledge and +love of the first is a conditioned knowledge +and love. Everything which happens to +him happens ‘in some wise’; it has attachments +within his conceptual world, is mediated +to him by symbols and images which +intellect can grasp. “The simple ascent +into the Nude and the Unconditioned is +unknown and unloved of him”; it is through +and amongst his ordinary mental furniture +<span class="pb" id="Page_92">[92]</span> +that he obtains his contacts with Reality. +But the knowledge and love of the second, +his contacts, transcend the categories of +thought. He has escaped alike from the +tyrannies and comforts of the world of +images, has made the ‘ascent into the +Nought,’ where all <i>is</i>, yet ‘in no wise.’ +“The power of the understanding is lifted +up to that which is beyond all conditions, +and its seeing is in no wise, being without +manner, and it is neither thus nor thus, neither here nor +there.”<a class="fn" id="fr_24" href="#fn_24">[24]</a> +This is the direct, unmediated world of spiritual intuition; +where the self touches a Reality that has not +been passed through the filters of sense and +thought. There man achieves a love, a +vision, an activity which are ‘wayless,’ yet +far more valid than anything that can be +fitted into the framework of our conditioned +world.</p> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t0">“In a place beyond uttermost place, in a track without shadow of trace,</p> +<p class="t0">Soul and body transcending, I live in the soul of my Loved One anew.”</p> +</div> +<p>Thus cries the great Sūfī poet, Jalālu’ddīn; +and the suggestion which his words convey +is perhaps as close as speech can come to +what Ruysbroeck meant by <i>Onwise</i>. The +change of consciousness which initiates man +into this inner yet unbounded world—the +world that is ‘unwalled,’ to use his own +<span class="pb" id="Page_93">[93]</span> +favourite metaphor—is the essence of contemplation; +which consists, not in looking +at strange mysteries, but in a movement to +fresh levels, shut to the analytic intellect, +open to adventurous love. There, without +any amazement, the self can ‘know in no +wise’ that which it can never understand.</p> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t0">“Contemplation is a knowing that is in no wise,</p> +<p class="t0">For ever dwelling above the Reason.</p> +<p class="t0">Never can it sink down into the Reason,</p> +<p class="t0">And above it can the Reason never climb.</p> +<p class="t0">The shining forth of That which is in no wise is as a fair mirror.</p> +<p class="t0">Wherein shines the Eternal Light of God.</p> +<p class="t0">It has no attributes,</p> +<p class="t0">And here all the works of Reason fail.</p> +<p class="t0">It is not God,</p> +<p class="t0">But it is the Light whereby we see Him.</p> +<p class="t0">Those who walk in the Divine Light of it</p> +<p class="t0">Discover in themselves the Unwalled.</p> +<p class="t0">That which is in no wise, is above the Reason, not without it:</p> +<p class="t0">It beholds all things without amazement.</p> +<p class="t0">Amazement is far beneath it:</p> +<p class="t0">The contemplative life is without amazement.</p> +<p class="t0">That which is in no wise sees, it knows not what;</p> +<p class="t0">For it is above all, and is neither This nor That.”<a class="fn" id="fr_25" href="#fn_25">[25]</a></p> +</div> +<div class="pb" id="Page_94">[94]</div> +<h2 id="c6">CHAPTER V +<br /><span class="small">THE ACTIVE LIFE</span></h2> +<blockquote> +<p>If we would discover and know that Kingdom of God +which is hidden in us, we must lead a life that is virtuous +within, well-ordered without, and fulfilled with true +charity. Thus imitating Christ in every way, we can, +through grace, love and virtue, raise ourselves up to that +apex of the soul where God lives and reigns.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">The Mirror of Eternal Salvation.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>The beginning of man’s Active Life, says +Ruysbroeck—that uplifting of the diurnal +existence into the Divine Atmosphere, which +confers on it meaning and reality—is a +movement of response. Grace, the synthesis +of God’s love, energy and will, pours like +a great river through the universe, and perpetually +beats in upon the soul. When man +consents to receive it, opens the sluices of +the heart to that living water, surrenders +to it; then he opens his heart and will +to the impact of Reality, his eyes to the +Divine Light, and in this energetic movement +of acceptance begins for the first time +to live indeed. Hence it is that, in the varied +ethical systems which we find in his books, +<span class="pb" id="Page_95">[95]</span> +and which describe the active crescent life +of Christian virtue, the laborious adjustment +of character to the Vision of God, Ruysbroeck +always puts first the virtue, or rather +the attitude, which he calls <i>good-will</i>: the +voluntary orientation of the self in the right +direction, the eager acceptance of grace. +As all growth depends upon food, so all +spiritual development depends upon the +self’s appropriation of its own share of the +transcendent life-force, its own ‘rill of grace’; +and good-will breaks down the barrier which +prevents that stream from pouring into the +soul.</p> +<p>Desire, said William Law, <i>is</i> everything +and <i>does</i> everything; it is the primal motive-power. +Ruysbroeck, too, finds in desire +turned towards the best the beginning of +human transcendence, and regards willing +and loving as the essence of life. Basing +his psychology on the common mediæval +scheme of Memory, Intelligence and Will, +he speaks of this last as the king of the soul; +dominating both the other powers, and able +to gather them in its clutch, force them to +attend to the invitations and messages of +the eternal world. Thus in his system the +demand upon man’s industry and courage +is made from the very first. The great +mystical necessity of self-surrender is shown +to involve, not a limp acquiescence, but a +deliberate and heroic choice; the difficult +<span class="pb" id="Page_96">[96]</span> +approximation of our own thoughts and +desires to the thoughts and desires of Divine +Reality. “When we have but one thought +and one will with God, we are on the first +step of the ladder of love and of sanctity; +for good-will is the foundation of all +virtue.”<a class="fn" id="fr_26" href="#fn_26">[26]</a></p> +<p>In <i>The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage</i>, +Ruysbroeck has used the words said to the +wise and foolish virgins of the parable—“Behold, +the bridegroom cometh; go ye +out to meet him”—as an epitome of the +self’s relations with and reactions to Reality. +First, all created spirits are called to behold +God, who is perpetually ‘coming’ to the +world of conditions, in a ceaseless procession +of love; and in this seeing our happiness +consists. But in order really to see a thing, +we need not only light and clear sight, but the +<i>will</i> to look at it; every act of perception +demands a self-giving on the seer’s part. +So here we need not only the light of grace +and the open eyes of the soul, but also the +<i>will</i> turned towards the Infinite: our +attention to life, the regnant fact of our +consciousness, must be focussed upon eternal +things. Now, when we see God, we cannot +but love Him; and love is motion, activity. +Hence, this first demand on the awakened +spirit, ‘Behold!’ is swiftly followed by the +second demand, ‘Go ye out!’ for the essence +of love is generous, outflowing, expansive, +<span class="pb" id="Page_97">[97]</span> +an “upward and outward tendency towards +the Kingdom of God, which is God Himself.” +This outgoing, this concrete act of response, +will at once change and condition our +correspondences with and attitude towards +God, ourselves and our neighbours; expressing +itself within the world of action +in a new ardour for perfection—the natural +result of the ‘loving vision of the Bridegroom,’ +the self’s first glimpse of Perfect +Goodness and Truth. We observe the +continued insistence on effort, act, as the +very heart of all true self-giving to transcendent +interests.</p> +<p>Whilst in the volitional life drastic readjustments, +stern character-building, and +eager work are the expression of goodwill, +in the emotional life it is felt as a +profound impulse to self-surrender: a +loving yielding up of the whole personality +to the inflow and purging activities of the +Absolute Life. “This good-will is nought +else but the infused Love of God, which +causes him to apply himself to Divine +things and all virtues; ... when it turns +towards God, it crowns the spirit with +Eternal Love, and when it returns to outward +things it rules as a mistress over his external good +deeds.”<a class="fn" id="fr_27" href="#fn_27">[27]</a></p> +<p>We have here, then, a disposition of heart +and mind which both receives and responds +<span class="pb" id="Page_98">[98]</span> +to the messages of Reality; making it possible +for the self to begin to grow in the +right direction, to enter into possession +of its twofold heritage. That completely +human life of activity and contemplation +which moves freely up and down the ladder +of love between the temporal and eternal +worlds, and reproduces in little the ideal +of Divine Humanity declared in Christ, is +the ideal towards which it is set; and +already, even in this lowest phase, the +double movement of the awakened consciousness +begins to show itself. Our love +and will, firmly fastened in the Eternal +World, are to swing like a pendulum between +the seen and the unseen spheres; in great +ascending arcs of balanced adoration and +service, which shall bring all the noblest +elements of human character into play. +Therefore the pivoting of life upon Divine +Reality, which is the result of good-will—the +setting up of a right relation with the +universe—is inevitably the first condition +of virtue, the ‘root of sanctity,’ the beginning +of spiritual growth, the act which +makes man free; translating him, in Ruysbroeck’s +image, from the state of the slave +to that of the conscious and willing servant +of Eternal Truth. “From the hour in +which, with God’s help, he transcends his +self-hood ... he feels true love, which +overcomes doubt and fear and makes man +<span class="pb" id="Page_99">[99]</span> +trust and hope; and so he becomes a true +servant, and means and loves God in all +that he does.”<a class="fn" id="fr_28" href="#fn_28">[28]</a></p> +<p>So man, emerging from the shell of selfhood, +makes—of his own free choice, by +his own effort—his first timid upward beat +to God; and, following swiftly upon it, the +compensating outward beat of charity +towards his fellow-men. We observe how +tight a hold has this most transcendental +of the mystics on the <i>wholeness</i> of all healthy +human life: the mutual support and interpenetration +of the active and contemplative +powers. ‘Other-worldliness’ is decisively +contradicted from the first. It is the +appearance of this eager active charity—this +imitation in little of the energetic +Love of God—which assures us that the +first stage of the self’s growth is rightly +accomplished; completing its first outward +push in that new direction to which its +good-will is turned. “For charity ever +presses towards the heights, towards the +Kingdom of God, the which is God Himself.”</p> +<p>In the practical counsels given to the +young novice to whom <i>The Mirror of Salvation</i> +is addressed, we may see Ruysbroeck’s +ideal of that active life of self-discipline +and service which the soul has now set in +hand; and which he describes in greater +<span class="pb" id="Page_100">[100]</span> +detail in <i>The Adornment of the Spiritual +Marriage</i> and <i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>. +Total self-donation, he tells her, is her first +need—‘choosing God, for love’s sake’ without +hesitations or reserves; and this +dedication to the interests of Reality must +be untainted by any spiritual selfishness, +any hint of that insidious desire for personal +beatitude which ‘fades the flower of +true love.’ This done, self-conquest and +self-control become the novice’s primary +duties: the gradual subduing and rearrangement +of character about its new +centre, the elimination of all tendencies +inimical to the demands of Eternal Life; +the firm establishment upon its throne of +that true free-will which desires only God’s +will. This self-conquest, the essence of the +‘Way of Purgation,’ as described and experienced +by so many ascetics and mystics, +includes not only the eradication of sins, +but the training of the attention, the +adaptation of consciousness to its new +environment; the killing-out of inclinations +which, harmless in themselves, compete +with the one transcendent interest of life.</p> +<p>Like all great mystics, Ruysbroeck had +a strong ‘sense of sin.’ This is merely a +theological way of stating the fact that his +intense realisation of Perfection involved +a vivid consciousness of the imperfections, +disharmonies, perversities, implicit in the +<span class="pb" id="Page_101">[101]</span> +human creature; the need of resolving +them if the soul was to grow up to the +stature of Divine Humanity. Yet there +is in his writings a singular absence of +that profound preoccupation with sin found +in so many mediæval ascetics. His attitude +towards character was affirmative and robust; +emphasising the possibilities rather +than the disabilities of man. Sin, for him, +was egotism; showing itself in the manifold +forms of pride, laziness, self-indulgence, +coldness of heart, or spiritual self-seeking, +but always implying a central wrongness +of attitude, resulting in a wrong employment +of power. Self-denials and bodily +mortifications he regarded partly as exercises +in self-control—spiritual athletics—useful +because educative of the will; partly +as expressions of love. At best they are +but the means of sanctity, and never to be +confused with its end; for the man who +deliberately passed the greater part of his +life in the bustle of the town was no advocate +of a cloistered virtue or a narrow +perfectionism.</p> +<p>Morbid piety is often the product of +physical as well as spiritual stuffiness; and +Ruysbroeck wrote his great books out of +doors, with light and air all round him, and +the rhythmic life of trees to remind him +how much stronger was the quiet law of +growth than any atavism, accident, or +<span class="pb" id="Page_102">[102]</span> +perversion by which it could be checked. +Thus, throughout his works, the accent +always falls upon power rather than weakness: +upon the spiritual energy pouring in +like sunshine; the incessant growth which +love sets going; the perpetual rebirths to +ever higher levels, as the young sapling +stretches upward every spring. What he +asks of the novice is contrition without +anxiety, self-discipline without fuss; the +steady, all-round development of her personality, +stretching and growing towards God. +She is to be the mistress of her soul, never +permitting it to be drawn hither and thither +by the distractions and duties of external +life. Keeping always in the atmosphere of +Reality, she shall bring therefrom truth +and frankness to all her words and deeds; +and perform her duties with that right +and healthy detachment which springs, +not from a contempt of the Many, but from +the secure and loving possession of the One.</p> +<p>The disciplines to which she must subject +herself in the effort towards attainment of +this poise, will, like a wise gymnastic, produce +in her a suppleness of soul; making +the constant and inevitable transition from +interior communion to outward work, which +charity and good sense demand, easy and +natural, and causing the spirit to be plastic +in the hand of God. Such suppleness—the +lightness and lissomeness which comes from +<span class="pb" id="Page_103">[103]</span> +spiritual muscles exercised and controlled—was +one of the favourite qualities of that +wise trainer of character, St. François de +Sales; and the many small and irritating +mortifications with which he was accustomed +to torment his disciples had no +other aim than to produce it.</p> +<p>In the stage of development to which the +Active Life belongs, the soul enjoys communion +with Reality, not with that directness +proper to the true contemplative, but +obliquely, by ‘means,’ symbols and images; +especially by the sacramental dispensation +of the Church, a subject to which Ruysbroeck +devotes great attention. As always +in his system, growth from within is intimately +connected with the reception of food +and power from without. The movement +of the self into God, the movement of God +into the self, though separable in thought, +are one in fact: will and grace are two +aspects of one truth. Only this paradox +can express the relation between that Divine +Love which is ‘both avid and generous,’ +and the self that is destined both to devour +and be devoured by Reality.</p> +<p>In the beautiful chapters on the Eucharist +which form the special feature of <i>The +Mirror of Eternal Salvation</i>, Ruysbroeck +develops this idea. “If He gives us all +that He has and all that He is, in return He +takes from us all that we have and all that +<span class="pb" id="Page_104">[104]</span> +we are, and demands of us more than we are +capable of giving.... Even in devouring +us, He desires to feed us. If He absorbs +us utterly into Himself, He gives Himself +in return. He causes to be born in us the +hunger and thirst of the spirit, which shall +make us savour Him in an eternal fruition; +and to this spiritual hunger, as well as to the +love of our heart, He gives His own Body as +food.... Thus does He give us His life full +of wisdom, truth and knowledge, in order that +we may imitate Him in all virtues; and +then He lives in us and we in Him. Then +do we grow, and raise ourselves up above +the reason into a Divine Love which causes +us to take and consume that Food in a +spiritual manner, and stretch out in pure +love towards the Divinity. There takes +place that encounter of the spirit, that is +to say of measureless love, which consumes +and transforms our spirit with all its works; +drawing us with itself towards the Unity, +where we taste beatitude and rest. Herein +therefore is our eternal life: ever to devour +and be devoured, to ascend and descend +with love.”<a class="fn" id="fr_29" href="#fn_29">[29]</a></p> +<p>The soul, then, turned in the direction +of the Infinite, ‘having God for aim,’ and +with her door opened to the inflowing Divine +Life, begins to grow. Her growth is up and +out; from that temporal world to which +<span class="pb" id="Page_105">[105]</span> +her nature is adapted, and where she seems +full of power and efficiency, to that eternal +world to which the ‘spark’ within her belongs, +but where she is as yet no more than a weak +and helpless child. Hence the first state of +mind and heart produced in her, if the ‘new +birth’ has indeed taken place, will be that +humility which results from all real self-knowledge; +since “whoso might verily +see and feel himself as he <i>is</i>, he should +verily be meek.” This clear acknowledgment +of facts, this finding of one’s own +place, Ruysbroeck calls ‘the solid foundation +of the Kingdom of the Soul.’ In thus +discerning love and humility as the governing +characteristics of the soul’s reaction to +Reality, he is of course keeping close to +the great tradition of Christian mysticism; +especially to the teaching of Richard of St. +Victor, which we find constantly repeated +in the ascetic literature of the Middle Ages.</p> +<p>From these two virtues, then, of humble +self-knowledge and God-centred love, are +gradually developed all those graces of +character which ‘adorn the soul for the +spiritual marriage,’ mark her ascent of the +first degrees of the ‘ladder of love,’ and +make possible the perfecting of her correspondences +with the ‘Kingdom.’ This development +follows an orderly course, as +subject to law as the unfolding of the leaves +and flowers upon the growing plant; and +<span class="pb" id="Page_106">[106]</span> +though Ruysbroeck in his various works +uses different diagrams wherewith to explain +it, the psychological changes which +these diagrams demonstrate are substantially +the same. In each case we watch the +opening of man’s many-petalled heart under +the rays of the Divine Light, till it blossoms +at last into the rose of Perfect Charity.</p> +<p>Thus in <i>The Seven Degrees of Love</i>, since +he is there addressing a cloistered nun, +he accommodates his system to that threefold +monastic vow of voluntary poverty or +perfect renunciation, chastity or singleness +of heart, and obedience or true humility in +action, by which she is bound. When the +reality which these vows express is actualised +in the soul, and dominates all her reactions +to the world, she wears the ‘crown +of virtue’; and lives that ‘noble life’ ruled +by the purified and enhanced will, purged +of all selfish desires and distractions, which—seeking +in all things the interests of the +spiritual world—is ‘full of love and charity, +and industrious in good works.’</p> +<p>In <i>The Spiritual Marriage</i> a more elaborate +analysis is possible; based upon that +division of man’s moral perversities into +the ‘seven mortal sins’ or seven fundamental +forms of selfishness, which governed, +and governs yet, the Catholic view of human +character. After a preliminary passage in +which the triple attitude of love as towards +<span class="pb" id="Page_107">[107]</span> +God, humility as towards self, justice as +towards other men, is extolled as the only +secure basis of the spiritual life, Ruysbroeck +proceeds to exhibit the seven real and positive +qualities which oppose the seven great +abuses of human freedom. As Pride is +first and worst of mortal sins and follies, +so its antithesis Humility is again put forward +as the first condition of communion +with God. This produces in the emotional +life an attitude of loving adoration; in the +volitional life, obedience. By <i>obedience</i>, +Ruysbroeck means that self-submission, +that wise suppleness of spirit, which is +swayed and guided not by its own tastes +and interests but by the Will of God; as +expressed in the commands and prohibitions +of moral and spiritual law, the interior +push of conscience. This attitude, at first +deliberately assumed, gradually controls all +the self’s reactions, and ends by subduing +it entirely to the Divine purpose. “Of this +obedience there grows the abdication of +one’s own will and one’s own opinion; +... by this abdication of the will in all +that one does, or does not do, or endures, +the substance and occasion of pride are +wholly driven out, and the highest humility +is perfected.”<a class="fn" id="fr_30" href="#fn_30">[30]</a></p> +<p>This movement of renunciation brings—next +phase in the unselfing of the self—a compensating +<span class="pb" id="Page_108">[108]</span> +outward swing of love; expressed +under the beautiful forms of <i>patience</i>, ‘the +tranquil tolerance of all that can happen,’ +and hence the antithesis of Anger; <i>gentleness</i>, +which “with peace and calm bears +vexatious words and deeds”; <i>kindness</i>, +which deals with the quarrelsome and irritable +by means of “a friendly countenance, +affectionate persuasion and compassionate +acts”; and <i>sympathy</i>, “that inward movement +of the heart which compassionates the bodily +and spiritual griefs of all men,” and kills +the evil spirit of Envy and hate. This fourfold +increase in disinterested love is summed +up in the condition which Ruysbroeck calls +<i>supernatural generosity</i>; that largeness of +heart which flows out towards the generosity +of God, which is swayed by pity and +love, which embraces all men in its sweep. +By this energetic love which seeks not its +own, “all virtues are increased, and all +the powers of the spirit are adorned”; +and Avarice, the fourth great mortal sin, is +opposed.</p> +<p>Generosity is no mere mood; it is a +motive-force, demanding expression in action. +From the emotions, it invades the will, +and produces <i>diligence</i> and <i>zeal</i>: an +‘inward and impatient eagerness’ for every +kind of work, and for the hard practice +of every kind of virtue, which makes +impossible that slackness and dulness of +<span class="pb" id="Page_109">[109]</span> +soul which is characteristic of the sin of +Sloth. It is dynamic love; and the spirit +which is fired by its ardours, has reached a +degree of self-conquest in which the two +remaining evil tendencies—that to every +kind of immoderate enjoyment, spiritual, +intellectual or physical, which is the essence +of Gluttony, and that to the impure desire +of created things which is Lust—can be +met and vanquished. The purged and +strengthened will, crowned by unselfish love, +is now established on its throne; man has +become captain of his soul, and rules all the +elements of his character and that character’s +expression in life—not as an absolute +monarch, but in the name of Divine Love.<a class="fn" id="fr_31" href="#fn_31">[31]</a> +He has done all he can do of himself towards +the conforming of his life to Supreme Perfection; +has opposed, one after another, +each of those exhibitions of the self’s tendency +to curl inwards, to fence itself in and +demand, absorb, enjoy as a separate entity, +which lie at the root of sin. The constructive +side of the Purgative Way has consisted in +the replacement of this egoistic, indrawing +energy by these outflowing energies of +self-surrender, kindness, diligence and the +rest; summed up in that perfection of +humility and love, which “in all its +works, and always, stretches out towards +God.”</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_110">[110]</div> +<p>The first three gifts of the Holy Spirit +are possessed by the soul which has reached +this point, says Ruysbroeck in <i>The Kingdom +of God’s Lovers</i>: that loving Fear, which +includes true humility with all its ancillary +characteristics; that general attitude of +charity which makes man gentle, patient +and docile, ready to serve and pity every +one, and is called Godliness, because there +first emerges in it his potential likeness to +God; and finally that Knowledge or discernment +of right and prudent conduct +which checks the disastrous tendency to +moral fussiness, helps man to conform his +life to supreme Perfection, and gives the +calmness and balance which are essential +to a sane and manly spirituality. Thus the +new life-force has invaded and affected will, +feeling and intellect; raised the whole man +to fresh levels of existence, and made possible +fresh correspondences with Reality. “Hereby +are the three lower powers of the soul +adorned with Divine virtues. The Irascible +[<i>i.e.</i> volitional and dynamic] is adorned with +loving and filial fear, humility, obedience +and renunciation. The Desirous is adorned +with kindness, pity, compassion and generosity. +Finally, the Reasonable with knowledge +and discernment, and that prudence +which regulates all things.”<a class="fn" id="fr_32" href="#fn_32">[32]</a> The ideal of +character held out and described under +<span class="pb" id="Page_111">[111]</span> +varying metaphors in Ruysbroeck’s different +works, is thus seen to be a perfectly consistent +one.</p> +<p>Now when the growing self has actualised +this ideal, and lives the Active Life of the +faithful servant of Reality, it begins to feel +an ardent desire for some more direct encounter +with That which it loves. Since +it has now acquired the ‘ornaments of the +virtues’—cleansed its mirror, ordered its +disordered loves—this encounter may and +does in a certain sense take place; for every +Godward movement of the human is met +by a compensating movement of the Divine. +Man now begins to find God in all things: +in nature, in the soul, in works of charity. +But in the turmoil and bustle of the Active +Life such an encounter is at best indirect; +a sidelong glimpse of the ‘first and only +Fair.’ That vision can only be apprehended +in its wholeness by a concentration of all +the powers of the self. If we would look +the Absolute in the eyes, we must look at +nothing else; the complete opening of the +eye of Eternity entails the closing of the eye +of Time. Man, then, must abstract himself +from multiplicity, if only for a moment, if he +would catch sight of the unspeakable Simplicity +of the Real. Longing to ‘know +the nature of the Beloved,’ he must act +as Zacchæus did when he wished to see +Christ:</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_112">[112]</div> +<p>“He must run before the crowd, that is +to say the multiplicity of created things; +for these make us so little and low that we +cannot perceive God. And he must climb +up on the Tree of Faith, which grows from +above downwards, for its root is in the +Godhead. This tree has twelve branches, +which are the twelve articles of the Creed. +The lower branches speak of the Humanity +of God; ... the upper branches, however, +speak of the Godhead: of the Trinity of +Persons and the Unity of the Divine Nature. +Man must cling to the Unity which is at the +top of the tree, for it is here that Jesus will +pass by with all His gifts. And now Jesus +comes, and He sees man, and shows him in +the light of faith that He is, according to His +Divinity, unmeasured and incomprehensible, +inaccessible and fathomless, and that He +overpasses all created light and all finite +comprehension. This is the highest knowledge +of God which man can acquire in the +Active Life: thus to recognise by the light of +faith that God is inconceivable and unknowable. +In this light God says to the desire +of man: “Come down quickly, for I would +dwell in your house to-day.” And this +quick descent, to which God invites him, is +nought else but a descent, by love and desire, +into the Abyss of the Godhead, to which no +intellect can attain by its created light. +But here, where intellect must rest without, +<span class="pb" id="Page_113">[113]</span> +love and desire may enter in. When the +soul thus leans upon God by intention and +love, above all that she understands, then +she rests and dwells in God, and God in her. +When the soul mounts up by desire, above +the multiplicity of things, above the activities +of the senses and above the light of external +nature, then she encounters Christ by the +light of faith, and is illuminated; and she +recognises that God is unknowable and inconceivable. +Finally, stretching by desire +towards this incomprehensible God, she +meets Christ and is fulfilled with His gifts. +And loving and resting above all gifts, +above herself and above all things, she +dwells in God and God in her. According +to this manner Christ may be encountered +upon the summit of the Active +Life.”<a class="fn" id="fr_33" href="#fn_33">[33]</a></p> +<p>This, then, is the completion of the first +stage in the mystic way; this showing to the +purified consciousness of the helplessness of +the analytic intellect, the dynamic power of +self-surrendered love. “Where intellect must +rest without, love and desire may enter +in.” The human creature, turning towards +Reality, has pressed up to the very edge of +the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ in which the +goal of transcendence is hid. If it is to go +further it must bring to the adventure not +knowledge but divine ignorance, not riches +<span class="pb" id="Page_114">[114]</span> +but poverty; above all, an eager and industrious +love.</p> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t0">“A fiery flame of devotion leaping and ascending into the very goodness of God Himself,</p> +<p class="t0">A loving longing of the soul to be with God in His Eternity,</p> +<p class="t0">A turning from all things of self into the freedom of the Will of God;</p> +<p class="t0">With all the forces of the soul gathered into the unity of the spirit.”<a class="fn" id="fr_34" href="#fn_34">[34]</a></p> +</div> +<div class="pb" id="Page_115">[115]</div> +<h2 id="c7">CHAPTER VI +<br /><span class="small">THE INTERIOR LIFE: ILLUMINATION AND DESTITUTION</span></h2> +<blockquote> +<p>Let whoso thirsts to see his God cleanse his mirror, +purge his spirit; and when thus he has cleansed his +mirror, and long and diligently gazed in it, a certain +brightness of divine light begins to shine through upon +him, and a certain immense ray of unwonted vision to +appear before his eyes.... From the beholding of this +light, which it sees within itself with amazement, the +mind is mightily set on fire, and lifted up to behold that +Light which is above itself.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">Richard of St. Victor.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is plain that the Active Life in Ruysbroeck’s +system answers more or less to +the Purgative Way, considered upon its +affirmative and constructive side, as a building +up of the heroic Christian character. +So, too, the life which he calls Interior or +Contemplative, and which initiates man +into the friendship of God, corresponds +in the main with the Illuminative Way of +orthodox mysticism; though it includes +in its later stages much that is usually +held to belong to the third, or Unitive, +<span class="pb" id="Page_116">[116]</span> +state of the soul. The first life has, as it +were, unfolded to the sunlight the outer +petals of the mystic rose; exhibiting in +their full beauty, adjusting to their true +use, the normally-apparent constituents of +man’s personality. All his relations with +the given world of sense, the sphere of +Becoming, have been purified and adjusted. +Now the expansive and educative influence +of the Divine Light is able to penetrate +nearer to the heart of his personality; is +brought to bear upon those interior qualities +which he hardly knows himself to possess, +and which govern his relation with the +spiritual world of Being. The flower is to +open more widely; the inner ring of petals +must uncurl.</p> +<p>As the primary interest of the Active Life +was ethical purification, so the primary +interest of this Second Life is intellectual +purification. Intellect, however, is here to +be understood in its highest sense; as +including not only the analytic reason which +deals with the problems of our normal +universe, but that higher intelligence, that +contemplative mind, which—once it is +awakened to consciousness—can gather +news of the transcendental world. The +development and clarification of this power +is only possible to those who have achieved, +and continue to live at full stretch, the +high, arduous and unselfish life of Christian +<span class="pb" id="Page_117">[117]</span> +virtue. Again we must remind ourselves +that Ruysbroeck’s theory of transcendence +involves, not the passage from one life to +another, but the <i>adding</i> of one life to another: +the perpetual deepening, widening, heightening +and enriching of human experience. +As the author of <i>The Cloud of Unknowing</i> +insists that none can be truly contemplative +who is not also active, so Ruysbroeck says +that no man ever rises above the ordinary +obligations of Christian kindness and active +good works.</p> +<p>“We find nowadays many silly men who +would be so interior and so detached, that +they will not be active or helpful in any +way of which their neighbours are in need. +Know, such men are neither hidden friends +nor yet true servants of God, but are wholly +false and disloyal; for none can follow +His counsels but those who obey His laws.”<a class="fn" id="fr_35" href="#fn_35">[35]</a></p> +<p>Nevertheless it would be generally true +to say that, whilst the aim of the Active Life +is right conduct, the aim of the Interior +Life is right vision and thought. As, in +that first life, all the perversions of man’s +ordinary powers and passions were rectified, +all that was superfluous and unreal done +away, and his nature set right with God; +now—still holding and living in its fulness +this purified active life—he is to press +deeper and deeper into the resources of +<span class="pb" id="Page_118">[118]</span> +his being, finding there other powers and +cravings which must be brought within +the field of consciousness, and set up those +relations with the Transcendent of which +they are capable. This deepening and enlarging +of man’s universe, together with +the further and more drastic discarding +of illusions and unrealities, is the business +of the Second Life, considered on its impersonal +side.</p> +<p>“If thou dost desire to unfold in thyself +the Contemplative Life, thou must enter +within, beyond the sense-life; and, on that +apex of thy being, adorned with all the +virtues of which I have spoken, looking +unto God with gratitude and love and +continual reverence, thou must keep thy +thoughts bare, and stripped of every sensible +image, thine understanding open and lifted +up to the Eternal Truth, and thy spirit +spread out in the sight of God as a living +mirror to receive His everlasting likeness. +Behold, therein appears a light of the understanding, +which neither sense, reason, nature, +nor the clearest logic can apprehend, but +which gives us freedom and confidence +towards God. It is nobler and higher than +all that God has created in nature; for it +is the perfection of nature, and transcends +nature, and is the clear-shining intermediary +between ourselves and God. Our thoughts, +bare and stripped of images, are themselves +<span class="pb" id="Page_119">[119]</span> +the living mirror in which this light shines: +and the light requires of us that we should +be like to and one with God, in this living +mirror of our bare thoughts.”<a class="fn" id="fr_36" href="#fn_36">[36]</a></p> +<p>In this strongly Victorine passage, the +whole process of the Second Life is epitomised; +but in <i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, where +its description occupies the seventy-three +chapters of the second book, we see how +long is the way which stretches from that +first ‘entering in beyond the sense life’ to +the point at which the soul’s mirror is able +to receive in its fullness that Light wherein +alone it can apprehend Reality.</p> +<p>Considered upon its organic side, as a +growth and movement of the soul, this +Way, as conceived, and probably experienced, +by Ruysbroeck, can be divided into +three great phases. We might call these +Action, Reaction and Equilibrium. Broadly +speaking, they answer to the Illumination, +Dark Night and Simple Union of orthodox +mystical science. Yet since in his vivid +description of these linked states he constantly +departs from the formulæ of his +predecessors, and as constantly illustrates +their statements by intimate and homely +touches only possible to one who has endured +the adventures of which he tells, we are +justified in claiming the description as the +fruit of experience rather than of tradition; +<span class="pb" id="Page_120">[120]</span> +and as evidence of the course taken by his +own development.</p> +<p>It is surely upon his own memory that +he is relying, when he tells us that the +beginning of this new life possesses something +of the abrupt character of a second +conversion. It happens, he says, when we +least expect it; when the self, after the +long tension and struggle of moral purgation, +has become drowsy and tired. Then, +suddenly, “a spiritual cry echoes through +the soul,” announcing a new encounter +with Reality, and demanding a new response; +or, to put it in another way, +consciousness on its ascending spiral has +pushed through to another level of existence, +where it can hear voices and discern +visions to which it was deaf and blind before. +This sudden clarity of mind, this new vivid +apprehension of Divine Love, is the first +indication of man’s entrance on the Illuminative +Way. It is introversive rather +than out-going in type. Changing the character +of our attention to life, we discern +within us something which we have always +possessed and always ignored: a secret +Divine energy, which is now to emerge +from the subconscious deeps into the area +of consciousness. There it stimulates the +will, evicts all lesser images and interests +from the heart, and concentrates all the +faculties into a single and intense state, +<span class="pb" id="Page_121">[121]</span> +pressing towards the Unity of God, the +synthetic experience of love; for perpetual +movement towards that unity—not achievement +of it—is the mark of this Second Life, +in which the separation of God and the soul +remains intact. In Victorine language, it +is the period of spiritual betrothal, not +of spiritual marriage; of a vision which, +though wide, rich and wonderful, is mirrored +rather than direct.</p> +<p>The new God-inspired movement, then, +begins within, like a spring bubbling from +the deeps; and thrusts up and out to the +consciousness which it is destined to clarify +and enhance. “The stream of Divine grace +swiftly stirs and moves a man inwardly, +and from within outwards; and this swift +stirring is the first thing that makes us +<i>see</i>. Of this swift stirring is born from the +side of man the second point: that is, a +gathering together of all the inward and +outward powers in spiritual unity and in +the bonds of love. The third is that liberty +which enables man to retreat into himself, +without images or obstacles, whensoever +he wills and thinks of his God.”<a class="fn" id="fr_37" href="#fn_37">[37]</a></p> +<p>So we may say that an enhancement of the +conative powers, a greater control over +the attention, are the chief marks of the +Illuminative Way as perceived by the growing +self. But the liberty here spoken of has +<span class="pb" id="Page_122">[122]</span> +a moral as well as a mental aspect. It is a +freeing of the whole man from the fetters +of illusion, and involves that perfect detachment +of heart, that self-naughting, +which makes him equally willing to have +joy or pain, gain or loss, esteem or contempt, +peace or fear, as the Divine Will may +ordain. Thus is perfected that suppleness +of soul which he began to acquire in the +Active Life: a gradual process, which needs +for its accomplishment the negative rhythm +of renunciation, testing the manliness and +courage of the self, as well as the positive +movement of love. Hence the Contemplative +Life, as Ruysbroeck knows and +describes it, has, and must have, its state +of pain as well as its state of joy. With +him, however, as with nearly all the mystics, +the state of joy comes first: the glad and +eager reaction to those new levels of spiritual +reality disclosed to consciousness when the +struggles and readjustments of the Active +Life have done their work. This is the +phase in the self’s progress which mystical +writers properly mean by Illumination: +a condition of great happiness, and of an +intuition of Reality so vivid and joyous, +that the soul often supposes that she has +here reached the goal of her quest. It is in +the spiritual year, says Ruysbroeck, that +which the month of May is in the seasons of +the earth: a wholesome and necessary time +<span class="pb" id="Page_123">[123]</span> +of sunshine, swift growth and abundant +flowers, when the soul, under the influence +of ‘the soft rain of inward consolations +and the heavenly dew of the Divine sweetness’ +blossoms in new and lovely graces.</p> +<p>Illumination is an unstable period. The +sun is rising swiftly in the heaven of man’s +consciousness; and as it increases in power, +so it calls forth on the soul’s part greater +ardours, more intense emotional reactions. +Once more the flux of God is demanding +its reflux. The soul, like the growing boy +suddenly made aware of the beauty, romance +and wonder—the intense and irresistible +appeal—of a world that had seemed ordinary +before, flows out towards this new universe +with all the enthusiasm and eagerness +of its young fresh powers. Those powers +are so new to it, that it cannot yet control +or understand them. Vigorous and ungovernable, +they invade by turns the heart, +the will, the mind, as do the fevers and +joys of physical adolescence; inciting to +acts and satisfactions for which the whole +self is hardly ready yet. “Then is thrown +wide,” says Ruysbroeck, “the heaven which +was shut, and from the face of Divine +Love there blazes down a sudden light, +as it were a lightning flash.” In the meeting +of this inward and outward spiritual +force—the Divine Light without, the growing +Divine Spark within—there is great +<span class="pb" id="Page_124">[124]</span> +joy. Ecstasy, and that state of musical +rapture, exceeding the possibilities of speech, +which Ruysbroeck like Richard Rolle calls +‘ghostly song,’ are the natural self-expressions +of the soul in this moment of its +career.<a class="fn" id="fr_38" href="#fn_38">[38]</a></p> +<p>In more than one book we find references +to this ecstatic period: a period so strongly +marked in his own case, that it became for +him—though he was under no illusions +as to its permanent value—one of the +landmarks in man’s journey to his home. +Looking back on it in later life, he sees in it +two great phases, of which the earlier and +lower at any rate is dangerous and easily +misunderstood; and is concerned to warn +those who come after him of its transitory +and imperfect character. The first phase +is that of ‘spiritual inebriation,’ in which +the fever, excitement and unrest of this +period of growth and change—affecting as +they do every aspect of personality—show +themselves in the psycho-physical phenomena +which are well-known accompaniments +of religious emotion in selves of a +certain temperament. This spiritual delirium, +which appears to have been a +common phase in the mystical revivals of +the fourteenth century, is viewed by +Ruysbroeck with considerable distrust; and +rightly attributed by him to an excitement +<span class="pb" id="Page_125">[125]</span> +of the senses rather than of the soul. At +best it is but ‘children’s food,’ given to +those who cannot yet digest ‘the strong +food of temptation and the loss of God.’ +Its manifestations, as he describes them, +overpass the limits not merely of common +sense but also of sanity; and are clearly +related to the frenzies of revivalists and +the wild outbreaks of songs, dance and +ecstatic speech observed in nearly all non-Christian +religions of an enthusiastic type. +In this state of rapture, “a man seems +like a drunkard, no longer master of himself.” +He sings, shouts, laughs and cries +both at once, runs and leaps in the air, +claps his hands, and indulges in absurdly +exaggerated gestures ‘with many other +disagreeable exhibitions.’<a class="fn" id="fr_39" href="#fn_39">[39]</a> These he may +not be able to help; but is advised to control +them as soon as he can, passing from the +merely sensuous emotion which results when +the light of Eternal Love invades the ‘inferior +powers’ of the soul, to the spiritual emotion, +amenable to reason, which is the reaction +of the ‘higher powers’ of the self +to that same overwhelming influx of grace.</p> +<p>That inpouring grace grows swiftly in +power, as the strength of the sun grows +with the passing of the year. The Presence +of God now stands over the soul’s supreme +<span class="pb" id="Page_126">[126]</span> +summits, in the zenith: the transcendent +fact of the illuminated consciousness. His +power and love shine perpetually upon +the heart, ‘giving more than we can take, +demanding more than we can pay’; and +inducing in the soul upon which this mighty +energy is playing, a strange unrest, part +anguish and part joy. This is the second +phase of the ecstatic period, and gives rise +to that which Ruysbroeck, and after him +Tauler, have called the ‘storm of love’: +a wild longing for union which stretches to +the utmost the self’s powers of response, +and expresses itself in violent efforts, impassioned +ascents towards the Spirit that +cries without ceasing to our spirit: “Pay +your debt! Love the Love that has loved +you from Eternity.”<a class="fn" id="fr_40" href="#fn_40">[40]</a></p> +<p>Now the vigorous soul begins to find +within itself the gift of Spiritual Strength; +that enthusiastic energy which is one of the +characters of all true love. This is the +third of the ‘Seven Gifts of the Spirit,’ and +the first to be actualised in the Illuminated +Life.<a class="fn" id="fr_41" href="#fn_41">[41]</a> From this strong and ardent +passion for the Transcendent, adoration and +prayer stream forth; and these again react +upon the self, forming the fuel of the fire +of love. The interior invitation of God, +His attractive power, His delicate yet inexorable +<span class="pb" id="Page_127">[127]</span> +caress, is to the loving heart the +most pure delight that it has ever known. +It responds by passionate movements of +adoration and gratitude, opening its petals +wide to the beams of the Eternal Sun.</p> +<p>This is the joy; and close behind it +comes the anguish, ‘sweetest and heaviest +of all pains.’ It is the sense of unsatisfied +desire—the pain of love—which comes +from the enduring consciousness of a gulf +fixed between the self and That with which +it desires to unite. “Of this inward +demand and compulsion, which makes the +creature to rise up and prepare itself to +the utmost of its power, without yet being +able to reach or attain the Unity—of this, +there springs a spiritual pain. When the +heart’s core, the very source of life, is +wounded by love, and man cannot attain +that thing which he desires above else; +when he must stay ever where he desires +no more to be, of these feelings comes this +pain.... When man cannot achieve God, +and yet neither can nor will do without +Him; in such men there arises a furious +agitation and impatience, both within and +without. And whilst man is in this tumult, +no creature in heaven or earth can help him +or give him rest.”<a class="fn" id="fr_42" href="#fn_42">[42]</a></p> +<p>The sensible heat of love is felt with a +greater violence now than at any other period +<span class="pb" id="Page_128">[128]</span> +of life; the rays of the Spiritual Sun strike +the soul with terrific force, ripening the +fruits of the virtues, yet bringing danger to +the health, both mental and physical, of +those who are not properly prepared, and +who faint under the exhaustion of this +‘intense fury of Divine Love,’ this onslaught +which ‘eats up the heart.’ These are +‘the dog-days of the spiritual year.’ As +all nature languishes under their stifling +heat, so too long an exposure to their +violence may mean ruin to the physical +health of the growing self. Yet those who +behave with prudence need not take permanent +harm; a kind of wise steadfastness +will support them throughout this turbulent +period. “Following through all storms +the path of love, they will advance towards +that place whither love leadeth them.”<a class="fn" id="fr_43" href="#fn_43">[43]</a></p> +<p>To this period of vivid illumination and +emotional unrest belongs the development +of those ‘secondary automatisms’ familiar +to all students of mysticism: the desperate +efforts of the mind to work up into some +intelligible shape—some pictured vision or +some spoken word—the overwhelming intuitions +of the Transcendent by which it +is possessed; the abrupt suspension of the +surface-consciousness in rapture and ecstasy, +when that overwhelming intuition develops +into the complete mono-ideism of the ecstatic, +<span class="pb" id="Page_129">[129]</span> +and cuts off all contacts with the world of +sense. Of these phenomena Ruysbroeck +speaks with intimacy, and also with much +common sense. He distinguishes visions +into those pictures or material images which +are ‘seen in the imagination,’ and those so-called +‘intellectual visions,’—of which the +works of Angela of Foligno and St. Teresa +provide so rich a series of examples,—which +are really direct and imageless messages +from the Transcendent; received in +those supersensuous regions where man +has contact with the Incomprehensible +Good and “seeing and hearing are one +thing.” To this conventional classification +he adds a passage which must surely be +descriptive of his own experiences in this +kind:</p> +<p>“Sometimes God gives to such men swift +spiritual glimpses, like to the flash of lightning +in the sky. It comes like a sudden +flash of strange light, streaming forth from +the Simple Nudity. By this is the spirit +uplifted for an instant above itself; and at +once the light passes, and the man again +comes to himself. This is God’s own work, +and it is something most august; for often +those who experience it afterwards become +illuminated men. And those who live in +the violence and fervour of love have now +and then another manner, whereby a certain +light shines <i>in</i> them; and this God works +<span class="pb" id="Page_130">[130]</span> +by means. In this light, the heart and the +desirous powers are uplifted toward the +Light; and in this encounter the joy and +satisfaction are such that the heart cannot +contain itself, but breaks out in loud cries of +joy. And this is called <i>jubilus</i> or jubilation; +and it is a joy that cannot be expressed in +words.”<a class="fn" id="fr_44" href="#fn_44">[44]</a></p> +<p>Here the parallel with Richard Rolle’s +‘ghostly song, with great voice outbreaking’ +will strike every reader of that most +musical of the mystics; and it is probable +that in both cases the prominence +given to this rather uncommon form of +spiritual rapture points back to personal +experience. “Methinketh,” says Rolle, +“that contemplation is this heavenly song +of the Love of God, which is called <i>jubilus</i>, +taken of the sweetness of a soul by praising +of God. This song is the end of perfect +prayer, and of the highest devotion that +may be here. This gladness of soul is had +of God, and it breaketh out in a ghostly +voice well-sounding.”<a class="fn" id="fr_45" href="#fn_45">[45]</a></p> +<p>This exultant and lyrical mood then, this +adoring rapture, which only the rhythm +of music can express, is the emotional reaction +which indicates the high summer of +the soul. It will be seen that each phase +<span class="pb" id="Page_131">[131]</span> +of its seasonal progress has been marked by +a fresh inflow of grace and gifts, a fresh +demand upon its power of response. The +tension never slackens; the need for industry +is never done away. The gift of +Strength, by which the self presses forward, +has now been reinforced by the gift of +Counsel, <i>i.e.</i> by the growth and deepening +of that intuition which is its medium of +contact with the spiritual world. The +Counsel of the Spirit, says Ruysbroeck, is +like a stirring or inspiration, deep within +the soul. This stirring, this fresh uprush +of energy, is really a ‘new birth’ of the Son, +the Divine Wisdom; lighting up the intelligence +so that it perceives its destiny, and +perceives too that the communion it now +enjoys is but an image of the Divine Union +which awaits it.<a class="fn" id="fr_46" href="#fn_46">[46]</a> God is counselling the +soul with an inward secret insistence to +rush out towards Him, stimulating her +hunger for Reality; or, to put it otherwise, +the Divine Spark is growing swiftly, and +pressing hard against the walls of its home. +Therefore the culmination of this gift, and +the culmination too of the illuminated +consciousness, brings to the soul a certitude +that she must still press on and out; that +nothing less than God Himself can suffice +her, or match the mysterious Thing which +dwells in her deeps.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_132">[132]</div> +<p>Now this way of love and ecstasy and +summer heats has been attended throughout +by grave dangers for the adolescent spirit; +above all by the primary danger which besets +the mystical life, of mistaking spiritual joy +for spiritual reality, desiring ‘consolations’ +and ‘illuminations’ for their own sake, and +resting in the gift instead of the Giver. +“Though he who dedicates himself to love +ever experiences great joy, he must never +seek this joy.” All those tendencies grouped +by St. John of the Cross under the disagreeable +name of ‘spiritual gluttony,’ +those further temptations to self-indulgent +quietism which are but an insidious form +of sloth, are waiting to entrap the self on +the Illuminative Way. But there is a +way beyond this, another ‘Coming of the +Bridegroom,’ which Ruysbroeck describes +as ‘eternally safe and sure.’ This is the way +of pain and deprivation; when the Presence +of God seems to be withdrawn, and the +fatigue and reaction consequent on the +violent passions and energies of the illuminated +state make themselves felt as a condition +of misery, aridity and impotence,—all, +in fact, that the Christian mystics mean +by the ‘Spiritual Death’ or ‘Dark Night of +the Soul,’ and which Ruysbroeck’s contemporaries, +the Friends of God, called +‘the upper school of perfect self-abandonment.’</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_133">[133]</div> +<p>The mirror is now to be cleansed of all +false reflections, all beautiful prismatic +light; the thoughts stripped bare of the +consolations they have enjoyed. Summer +is over, and autumn begins; when the +flowers indeed die down, but the fruits +which they heralded are ripe. Now is the +time when man can prove the stuff of +which he is made; and the religious amorist, +the false mystic, is distinguished from the +heroic and long-suffering servant of God. +“In this season is perfected and completed +all the work that the sun has accomplished +during the year. In the same manner, +when Christ the glorious Sun has risen to +His zenith in the heart of man and then +begins to descend, and to hide the radiance +of His Divine light, and to abandon the man; +then the impatience and ardour of love +grow less. And this concealment of Christ, +and this withdrawal of His light and +heat, are the first working and the new +coming of this degree. And now Christ +says spiritually within the man: ‘Go +forth, in the way which I now teach you.’ +And the man goes forth, and finds himself +poor, wretched and abandoned. And here +the tempest, the ardour, the impatience of +love grows cold; and the hot summer +becomes autumn, and its riches turn to +great poverty. Then man begins to lament +in his distress—where now has gone that +<span class="pb" id="Page_134">[134]</span> +ardent love, that intimacy, that gratitude, +that all-sufficing adoration? And that +interior consolation, that intimate joy, that +sensible savour, how has he lost all this?”<a class="fn" id="fr_47" href="#fn_47">[47]</a></p> +<p>The veil that had seemed so transparent +now thickens again; the certitudes that +made life lovely all depart. Small wonder +if the tortured spirit of the mystic fails to +recognise this awful destitution as a renewed +caress from the all-demanding Lover of +the Soul; an education in courage, humility +and selflessness; a last purification of the +will. The state to which that self is being +led is a renewed self-donation on new and +higher levels: one more of those mystical +deaths which are really mystical births; +a giving-up, not merely of those natural +tastes and desires which were disciplined +in the Active Life, but of the higher passions +and satisfactions of the spirit too. He is to +be led to a state of such complete surrender +to the Divine purposes that he is able to +say: “Lord, not my will according to +nature, but Thy will and my will according +to spirit be done.” The darkness, sorrow +and abandonment through which this is +accomplished are far more essential to his +development than the sunshine and happiness +that went before. It is not necessary, +says Ruysbroeck, that all should know the +ecstasies of illumination; but by this dark +<span class="pb" id="Page_135">[135]</span> +stairway every man who would attain to +God must go.</p> +<p>When man has achieved this perfect +resignation and all tendency to spiritual +self-seeking is dead, the September of the +soul is come. The sun has entered the +sign of the Balance, when days and nights +are equal; for now the surrendered self +has achieved equilibrium, and endures in +peace and steadfastness the alternations +of the Divine Dark and Divine Light. Now +the harvest and the vintage are ripe: +“That is to say, all those inward and outward +virtues, which man has practised +with delight in the fire of love, these, now +that he knows them and is able to accomplish +them, he shall practise diligently and +dutifully and offer them to God. And +never were they so precious in His sight: +never so noble and so fair. And all those +consolations which God gave him before, +he will gladly give up, and will empty himself +for the glory of God. This is the harvest +of the wheat and the many ripe fruits which +make us rich in God, and give to us Eternal +Life. Thus are the virtues perfected; and +the absence of consolation is turned to an +eternal wine.”<a class="fn" id="fr_48" href="#fn_48">[48]</a></p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_136">[136]</div> +<h2 id="c8">CHAPTER VII +<br /><span class="small">THE INTERIOR LIFE: UNION AND CONTEMPLATION</span></h2> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t0"><i>Lume è lassu, che visibile face</i></p> +<p class="t"><i>lo Creatore a quella creatura</i></p> +<p class="t"><i>che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace.</i></p> +</div> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="lr"><span class="sc">Par</span>, xxx. 100.</p> +</div> +<blockquote> +<p>And the Light floweth forth in similitude, and indraweth +Itself in unity; which we perceive, beyond the reason, +in that high point of our understanding which is bare and +turned within.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">The Twelve Béguines.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>The soul which has endured with courage +and humility the anguish of the Dark Night, +actualising within its own experience the +double rhythm of love and renunciation, +now enters upon a condition of equilibrium; +in which it perceives that all its +previous adventures and apprehensions were +but episodes of growth, phases in the +long preparation of character for those +new levels of life on which it is now to +dwell.</p> +<p>Three points, says Ruysbroeck, must +characterise the truly interior man. First, +<span class="pb" id="Page_137">[137]</span> +his mind must be detached from its +natural inclination to rest in images and +appearances, however lovely; and must +depend altogether upon that naked Absence +of Images, which is God. This is the ‘ascent +to the Nought’ preached by the Areopagite. +Secondly, by means of his spiritual +exercises, his progressive efforts to correspond +with that Divine Life ever experienced +by him with greater intensity, he must +have freed himself from all taint of selfhood, +all personal desire; so that in true inward +liberty he can lift himself up unhindered +towards God, in a spirit of selfless devotion. +Plainly, the desolations of the Dark Night +are exactly adapted to the production +within the self of these two characters; +which we might call purity of intelligence +and purity of will. Directly resulting from +their actualisation, springs the third point: +the consciousness of inward union with +God.<a class="fn" id="fr_49" href="#fn_49">[49]</a> This consciousness of union, which +we must carefully distinguish from the +<i>Unity</i> that is Ruysbroeck’s name for the +last state of the transfigured soul, is the +ruling character of that state of equilibrium +to which we have now come; and represents +the full achievement of the Interior +Life.</p> +<p>In many of his works, under various +images, Ruysbroeck tries to tell us what he +<span class="pb" id="Page_138">[138]</span> +means by this inward union with God, this +‘mutual inhabitation,’ as he calls it in one +passage of great beauty, which is the goal +of the ‘Second Life.’ He reminds us again +of that remote point of the spirit, that +‘apex’ of our being, where our life touches +the Divine Life; where God’s image ‘lives +and reigns.’ With the cleansing of the +heart and mind, the heightening and concentration +of the will, which the disciplines +of the Active Life and Dark Night have +effected, this supreme point of the spirit is +brought at last within the conscious field. +Then man feels and knows the presence +there of an intense and creative vitality, +an Eternal Essence, from which all that is +worth having in his selfhood flows. This +is the Life-giving Life (<i>Levende Leven</i>), +where the created and Uncreated meet and +are one: a phrase, apparently taken by +Ruysbroeck from St. Bernard, which aptly +expresses an idea familiar to all the great +contemplatives. It is the point at which +man’s separate spirit, as it were, emerges +from the Divine Spirit: the point through +which he must at last return to his Source. +Here the Father has impressed His image, the +Son is perpetually born, the Spirit wells +up;<a class="fn" id="fr_50" href="#fn_50">[50]</a> and here the Divine Unity dwells and +calls him to the One. Here Eternity and +Time are intertwined. Here springs the +<span class="pb" id="Page_139">[139]</span> +fountain of ‘Living Water’—grace, transcendent +vitality—upon which the mystic +life of man depends.</p> +<p>Now the self, because it is at last conformed +to the demands of the spiritual +world, feels new powers from this life-giving +source streaming into all departments of +its being. The last barriers of self-will +are broken; and the result is an inrush of +fresh energy and light. Whereas in the +‘First Life’ God fed and communed with him +by ‘means,’ and was revealed under images +appropriate to a consciousness still immersed +in the world of appearance; now +man receives these gifts and messages, +makes his contacts with Reality, ‘without +means,’ or ‘by grace’—<i>i.e.</i> in a spiritual +and interior manner. Those ‘lightning +flashes from the face of Divine Love,’ +those abrupt and vivid intuitions which he +enjoyed during illumination, have given way +before the steady shining of the Uncreated +Light. Though light-imagery is never long +absent from Ruysbroeck’s pages, it is, however, +the spring of Living Water ever +welling up, the rills or brooks which flow +from it, and take its substance to the +farthest recesses of the thirsty land, which +seems to him the best image of this new +inpouring of life. He uses it in all his +chief works, perhaps most successfully in +<i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>. Faithful to the +<span class="pb" id="Page_140">[140]</span> +mediæval division of personality into +Memory or Mind, Intelligence or Understanding, +and Will,—influenced too by his +deep conviction that all Divine activity is +threefold in type,—he describes the Well-spring +as breaking into three Brooks of +Grace, which pour their waters into each +department of the self. The duct through +which these waters come, ‘living and +foaming’ from the deeps of the Divine +Riches, is the Eternal Christ; who ‘comes +anew’ to the purified soul, and is the immediate +source of its power and happiness.</p> +<p>The first of the brooks which flow from +Him is called ‘Pure Simplicity.’ It is a +‘simple light,’ says Ruysbroeck in another +place; the white radiance of Eternity +which, streaming into the mind, penetrates +consciousness from top to bottom, and +unifies the powers of the self about the +new and higher centre now established. +This simple light, in which we see things +as they are—and therefore see that only one +thing truly <i>is</i>—delivers us from that slavery +to the multiplicity of things, which splits +the attention and makes concentration upon +Reality impossible to the soul. The achievement +of such mental simplicity, escaping +the prismatic illusion of the world, is the +first condition of contemplation. “Thanks +to this simple light which fills him, the +man finds himself to be unified, established, +<span class="pb" id="Page_141">[141]</span> +penetrated and affirmed in the unity of his +mind or thought. And thereby he is uplifted +and established in a <i>new condition</i>; +and he turns inward upon himself, and +stays his mind upon the Nudity, above all +the pressure of sensual images, above all +multiplicity.”<a class="fn" id="fr_51" href="#fn_51">[51]</a></p> +<p>The second stream which pours out from +that Transcendent Life is a ‘Spiritual +Clarity,’ which illuminates the intelligence +and shows it all good. This clarity is a new +and heightened form of intuition: a lucid +understanding, whereby the self achieves +clear vision of its own life, and is able to +contemplate the sublime richness of the +Divine Nature; gazing upon the mystery +of the Trinity, and finding everywhere the +Presence of God. Those who possess this +light do not need ecstasies and revelations—sudden +uprushes towards the supernal +world—for their life and being is established +in that world, above the life of sense. They +have come to that state which Eckhart +calls ‘finding all creatures in God and +God in all creatures.’ They see things at +last in their native purity. The heart of +that vision, says Ruysbroeck, is their perception +of “the unmeasured loyalty of God +to His creation”—one of his deepest and +most beautiful utterances—“and therefrom +springs a deep inward joy of the spirit, and +<span class="pb" id="Page_142">[142]</span> +a high trust in God; and this inward joy +embraces and penetrates all the powers of +the soul, and the most secret part of the +spirit.”<a class="fn" id="fr_52" href="#fn_52">[52]</a></p> +<p>The third Brook of Grace irrigates the +conative powers of the self; strengthens +the will in all perfection, and energises us +anew. “Like fire, this brook enkindles +the will, and swallows up and absorbs all +things in the unity of the spirit ... and +now Christ speaks inwardly in the spirit +by means of this burning brook, saying, ‘Go +forth, in exercises proper to this gift and this +coming.’ By the first brook, which is a +<i>Simple Light</i>, the Mind is freed from the +invasions of the senses, and grounded and +affirmed in spiritual unity. And by the +second brook, which is a <i>Spreading Light</i>, the +Reason and Understanding are illuminated, +that they may know and distinguish all +manner of virtues and exercises, and the +mysteries of Scripture. And by the third +brook, which is an <i>Infused Heat</i>, the heights +of the Will are enkindled with quiet love +and adorned with great riches. And thus +does man become spiritually illuminate; for +the grace of God dwells like a fountain-head +in the unity of his spirit, and the +brooks cause a flowing forth of all virtues +from the powers of the soul. And the +fountain-head of grace demands a back-flowing +<span class="pb" id="Page_143">[143]</span> +into that same ground from whence +the flood has come.”<a class="fn" id="fr_53" href="#fn_53">[53]</a></p> +<p>So the Interior Life, now firmly established, +is found to conform to those great +laws which have guided the growing spirit +from the first. Again, the dual property of +love, possession and action, satisfaction +and fecundity, is to be manifested upon +new levels. The pendulum motion of life, +swinging between the experience of union +with God to which ‘the Divine Unity ever +calls us,’ and its expression in active charity +to which the multiplicity of His creatures +and their needs ever entreat us, still goes +on. The more richly and strongly the +life-giving Life wells up within the self, the +greater are the demands made upon that +self’s industry and love. In the establishment +of this balance, in this continual +healthy act of alternation, this double +movement into God and out to men, is the +proof that the soul has really centred itself +upon the spiritual world—is, as Ruysbroeck +puts it, confirmed in love. “Thus do work +and union perpetually renew themselves; +and this renewal in work and in union, <i>this</i> +is a spiritual life.”<a class="fn" id="fr_54" href="#fn_54">[54]</a></p> +<p>Now the self which has achieved this +degree of transcendence has achieved, too, +considerable experience in that art of contemplation +<span class="pb" id="Page_144">[144]</span> +or introversion which is the +mode of its communion with God. Throughout, +training and development have gone +hand in hand; and the fact that Ruysbroeck +seldom troubles to distinguish between +them, but accepts them as two +aspects of one thing—the gradual deification +of the soul—constitutes one of the +great obstacles to an understanding of +his works. Often he describes the whole +spiritual life as consisting in introversion, +an entering of consciousness into the supersensuous +regions beyond thought; in +defiance of his own principle of active +charity, movement, work, as the essential +reaction to the universe which distinguishes +a ‘deified’ man. The truth is that the +two processes run side by side; and now +one, now the other, is in the foreground of +his thought. Therefore all that I shall +now say of the contemplative art must be +understood as describing acts and apprehensions +taking place throughout the whole +course of the Interior Life.</p> +<p>What, then, is introversion? It is one +of the two great modes under which the +spiritual consciousness works. Plainly, any +living sense of God’s presence must discern +that Circle whose centre is everywhere, +as both exterior and interior to the +self. In Ruysbroeck’s own works we find +a violent effort to express this ineffable +<span class="pb" id="Page_145">[145]</span> +fact of omnipresence, of a truly Transcendent +yet truly Immanent Reality; an +effort often involving a collision of imagery. +God, he says, may be discovered at the soul’s +apex, where He ‘eternally lives and reigns’; +and the soul itself dwells <i>in</i> God, ebbing and +flowing, wandering and returning, within +that Fathomless Ground. Yet none the +less He comes to that soul from without; +pouring in upon it like sunshine, inundating +it with torrents of grace, seizing the separate +entity and devouring whilst He feeds it; +flashing out upon it in a tempest of love +from the Empyrean Heaven, the Abyss of +Being, where He dwells. “Present, yet +absent; near, yet far!” exclaims St. +Augustine. “Thou art the sky, and Thou +art the nest as well!” says the great mystic +poet of our own day.</p> +<p>Whilst nearly all the mystics have possessed +clear consciousness of this twofold +revelation of the Divine Nature, and some +have experienced by turns the ‘outward +and upward’ rush and the inward retreat, +temperamentally they usually lean towards +one or other form of communion with God,—ecstasy +or introversion. For one class, +contact with Him seems primarily to involve +an outgoing flight towards Transcendent +Reality; an attitude of mind strongly +marked in all contemplatives who are near +to the Neoplatonic tradition—Plotinus, +<span class="pb" id="Page_146">[146]</span> +St. Basil, St. Macarius—and also in Richard +Rolle and a few other mediæval types. +These would agree with Dionysius the Areopagite +that “we must contemplate things +divine by our whole selves standing <i>out</i> of +our whole selves.” For the other class, +the first necessity is a retreat of consciousness +from the periphery, where it touches +the world of appearance, to the centre, +the Unity of Spirit or ‘Ground of the +Soul,’ where human personality buds forth +from the Essential World. True, this inturning +of attention is but a preliminary +to the self’s entrance upon that same +Transcendent Region which the ecstatic +claims that he touches in his upward +flights. The introversive mystic, too, is +destined to ‘sail the wild billows of the Sea +Divine’; but here, in the deeps of his +nature, he finds the door through which he +must pass. Only by thus discovering the +unity of his own nature can he give himself +to that ‘tide of light’ which draws all +things back to the One.</p> +<p>Such is Ruysbroeck’s view of contemplation. +This being so, introversion is for +him an essential part of man’s spiritual +development. As the Son knows the +Father, so it is the destiny of all spirits +created in that Pattern to know Him; and +the mirror which is able to reflect that +Divine Light, the Simple Eye which alone +<span class="pb" id="Page_147">[147]</span> +can bear to gaze on it, lies in the deeps +of human personality. The will, usually +harnessed to the surface-consciousness, devoted +to the interests of temporal life; the +love, so freely spent on unreal and imperfect +objects of desire; the thought which +busies itself on the ceaseless analysis and +arrangement of passing things—all these +are to be swept inwards to that gathering-point +of personality, that Unity of the +Spirit, of which he so often speaks; and +there fused into a single state of enormously +enhanced consciousness, which, withdrawn +from all attention to the changeful world +of ‘similitudes,’ is exposed to the direct +action of the Eternal World of spiritual +realities. The pull of Divine Love—the +light that ever flows back into the One—is +to withdraw the contemplative’s consciousness +from multiplicity to unity. His +progress in contemplation will be a progress +towards that complete mono-ideism in +which the Vision of God—and here <i>vision</i> +is to be understood in its deepest sense as a +totality of apprehension, a ‘ghostly sight’—dominates +the field of consciousness to the +exclusion, for the time of contemplation, +of all else.</p> +<p>Psychologically, Ruysbroeck’s method +differs little from that described by St. +Teresa. It begins in recollection, the first +drawing inwards of attention from the +<span class="pb" id="Page_148">[148]</span> +world of sense; passes to meditation, the +centring of attention on some intellectual +formula or mystery of faith; and thence, +by way of graduated states, variously +divided and described in his different works, +to contemplation proper, the apprehension +of God ‘beyond and above reason.’ All +attempts, however, to map out this process, +or reduce it to a system, must necessarily +have an arbitrary and symbolic character. +True, we are bound to adopt some system, +if we describe it at all; but the dangers +and limitations of all formulas, all concrete +imagery, where we are dealing with the +fluid, living, changeful world of spirit, should +never be absent from our minds. The +bewildering and often inconsistent series +of images and numbers, arrangements and +rearrangements of ‘degrees,’ ‘states,’ ‘stirrings,’ +and ‘gifts,’ in which Ruysbroeck’s +sublime teachings on contemplation are +buried, makes the choice of some one +formula imperative for us; though none +will reduce his doctrines to a logical series, +for he is perpetually passing over from the +dialectic to the lyrical mood, and forgets +to be orderly as soon as he begins to be +subjective. I choose, then, to base my +classification on that great chapter (xix.) +in <i>The Seven Cloisters</i>, where he distinguishes +three stages of contemplation; finding in +them the responses of consciousness to the +<span class="pb" id="Page_149">[149]</span> +special action of the Three Persons of the +Blessed Trinity. These three stages in the +soul’s apprehension of God, are: the +Emotional, the Intellectual, the Intuitive. +I think that most of the subtly distinguished +interior experiences of the mystic, the +‘comings’ of the Divine Presence, the +‘stirrings’ and contacts which he describes +in his various books, can be ranged under +one or other of them.</p> +<p>1. First comes that loving contemplation +of the ‘uplifted heart’ which is the work +of the Holy Spirit, the consuming fire of +Divine Love. This ardent love, invading +the self, and satisfying it in that intimate +experience of personal communion so often +described in the writings of the mystics, +represents the self’s first call to contemplation +and first natural response; made with +“so great a joy and delight of soul and +body, in his uplifted heart, that the man +knoweth not what hath befallen him, nor +how he may endure it.” For Ruysbroeck +this purely emotional reaction to Reality, +this burning flame of devotion—which +seemed to Richard Rolle the essence of the +contemplative life—is but its initial phase. +It corresponds with—and indeed generally +accompanies—those fever-heats, those +‘tempests’ of impatient love endured by the +soul at the height of the Illuminative Way. +Love, it is true, shall be from first to last +<span class="pb" id="Page_150">[150]</span> +the inspiring force of the contemplative’s +ascents: his education is from one point +of view simply an education in love. But +this love is a passion of many degrees; +and the ‘urgency felt in the heart,’ the +restlessness and hunger of this spiritual +feeling-state, is only its lowest form. The +love which burns like white fire on the +apex of the soul, longs for sacrifice, inspires +heroic action, and goes forward without +fear, ‘holy, strong and free,’ to brave the +terrors of the Divine Dark, is of another +temper than this joyful sentiment.</p> +<p>2. A loving stretching out into God, and +an intellectual gazing upon Him, says Ruysbroeck, +in a passage which I have already +quoted, are the ‘two heavenly pipes’ in +which the wind of the Spirit sings. So the +next phase in the contemplative’s development +is that enhancement of the intellect, +the power of perceiving, as against desiring +and loving Reality, which is the work +of the Logos, the Divine Wisdom. As the +cleansed and detached heart had been lifted +up to <i>feel</i> the Transcendent; now the +understanding, stripped of sense-images, +purged of intellectual arrogance, clarified +by grace, is lifted up to <i>apprehend</i> it. This +degree has two phases. First, that enlargement +of the understanding to an increased +comprehension of truth, the finding of deeper +and diviner meanings in things already +<span class="pb" id="Page_151">[151]</span> +known, which Richard of St. Victor called +<i>mentis dilatatio</i>. Next, that further uplift +of the mind to a state in which it is able +to contemplate things above itself whilst +retaining clear self-consciousness, which he +called <i>mentis sublevatio</i>. Ruysbroeck, however, +inverts the order given by Richard; +for him the uplift comes first, the dilation +of consciousness follows from it. This is a +characteristic instance of the way in which +he uses the Victorine psychology; constantly +appropriating its terms but never hesitating +to modify, enrich or misuse them as his +experience or opinions may dictate.</p> +<p>The first phase of Intellectual Contemplation, +then, is a lifting of the mind to a swift +and convincing vision of Reality: one of +those sudden, incommunicable glimpses of +Truth so often experienced early in the contemplative’s +career. The veil parts, and +he sees a “light and vision, which give to +the contemplating spirit a conscious certitude +that she sees God, so far as man may +see Him in mortal life.”<a class="fn" id="fr_55" href="#fn_55">[55]</a> That strange +mystical light of which all contemplatives +speak, and which Ruysbroeck describes in +a passage of great subtlety as ‘the intermediary +between the seeing thought and +God,’ now floods his consciousness. In it +“the Spirit of the Father speaks in the uplifted +thought which is bare and stripped of +<span class="pb" id="Page_152">[152]</span> +images, saying, ‘Behold Me as I behold +thee.’ Then the pure and single eyes are +strengthened by the inpouring of that clear +Light of the Father, and they behold His +face, in a simple vision, beyond reason, and +without reason.”<a class="fn" id="fr_56" href="#fn_56">[56]</a></p> +<p>It might be thought that in this ‘simple +vision’ of Supreme Reality, the spirit of +the contemplative reached its goal. It has, +indeed, reached a point at which many +a mystic stops short. I think, however, +that a reference to St. Augustine, whose +influence is so strongly marked in Ruysbroeck’s +works, will show what he means by +this phase of contemplation; and the characters +which distinguish it from that infused +or unitive communion with God which +alone he calls <i>Contemplatio</i>. In the seventh +book of his <i>Confessions</i>, Augustine describes +just such an experience as this. By a study +of the books of the Platonists he had learned +the art of introversion, and achieved by its +aid a fleeting ‘Intellectual Contemplation’ +of God; in his own words, a “hurried +vision of That which Is.” “Being by these +books,” he says, “admonished to return into +myself, I entered into the secret closet of my +soul, guided by Thee ... and beheld the +Light that never changes, above the eye of +my soul, above the intelligence.”<a class="fn" id="fr_57" href="#fn_57">[57]</a> It was +<span class="pb" id="Page_153">[153]</span> +by “the withdrawal of thought from experience, +its abstraction from the contradictory +throng of sensuous images,” that he +attained to this transitory apprehension; +which he describes elsewhere as “the <i>vision</i> +of the Land of Peace, but not the <i>road</i> +thereto.” But intellect alone could not +bear the direct impact of the terrible light +of Reality; his “weak sight was dazzled by +its splendour,” he “could not sustain his +gaze,” and turned back to that humble +discovery of the Divine Substance by means +of Its images and attributes, which is proper +to the intellectual power.<a class="fn" id="fr_58" href="#fn_58">[58]</a></p> +<p>Now surely this is the psychological +situation described by Ruysbroeck. The +very images used by Augustine are found +again in him. The mind of the contemplative, +purified, disciplined, deliberately +abstracted from images, is inundated by the +divine sunshine, “the Light which is not +God, but that whereby we see Him”; and +in this radiance achieves a hurried but +convincing vision of Supreme Reality. But +“even though the eagle, king of birds, can +with his powerful sight gaze steadfastly upon +the brightness of the sun; yet do the weaker +eyes of the bat fail and falter in the same.”<a class="fn" id="fr_59" href="#fn_59">[59]</a> +The intellectual vision is dazzled and distressed, +like a man who can bear the diffused +<span class="pb" id="Page_154">[154]</span> +radiance of sunshine but is blinded if he +dares to follow back its beams to the terrible +beauty of their source. “Not for this are +my wings fitted,” says Dante, drooping to +earth after his supreme ecstatic flight. Because +it cannot sustain its gaze, then, the +intelligence falls back upon the second phase +of intellectual contemplation: <i>Speculatio</i>, +the deep still brooding in which the soul, +‘made wise by the Spirit of Truth,’ contemplates +God and Creation as He and it are +reflected in the clear mirror of her intellectual +powers, under ‘images and similitudes’—the +Mysteries of Faith, the Attributes +of the Divine Nature, the forms and +manners of created things. As the Father +contemplates all things in the Son, ‘Mirror +of Deity,’ so now does the introverted soul +contemplate Him in this ‘living mirror of +her intelligence’ on which His sunshine +falls. Because her swift vision of That which +Is has taught her to distinguish between the +ineffable Reality and the Appearance which +shadows it forth, she can again discover +Him under those images which once veiled, +but now reveal His presence. The intellect +which has apprehended God Transcendent, +if only for a moment, has received therefrom +the power of discerning God Immanent. +“He shows Himself to the soul in the +living mirror of her intelligence; not as He +is in His nature, but in images and similitudes, +<span class="pb" id="Page_155">[155]</span> +and in the degree in which the illuminated +reason can grasp and understand +Him. And the wise reason, enlightened of +God, sees clearly and without error in images +of the understanding all that she has heard +of God, of faith, of truth, according to her +longing. But that image which is God +Himself, although it is held before her, she +cannot comprehend; for the eyes of her +understanding must fail before that Incomparable +Light.”<a class="fn" id="fr_60" href="#fn_60">[60]</a></p> +<p>In <i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i> Ruysbroeck +pours forth a marvellous list of the +attributes under which the illuminated intelligence +now contemplates and worships +That Which she can never comprehend; +that “Simple One in whom all multitude +and all that multiplies, finds its beginning +and its end.” From this simple Being of +the Godhead the illuminated reason abstracts +those images and attributes with +which it can deal, as the lower reason abstracts +from the temporal flux the materials +of our normal universe. Such a loving +consideration of God under His attributes +is the essence of meditation: and meditation +is in fact the way in which the intellectual +faculties can best contemplate +Reality. But “because all things, when they +are considered in their inwardness, have their +beginning and their ending in the Infinite +<span class="pb" id="Page_156">[156]</span> +Being as in an Abyss,” here again the contemplative is soon led +above himself and beyond himself, to a point at which intellect +and ‘consideration’—<i>i.e.</i> formal thought—fail +him; because “here we touch the Simple +Nature of God.” When intellectual contemplation +has brought the self to this +point, it has done its work; for it has +“excited in the soul an eager desire to lift +itself up by contemplation into the simplicity +of the Light, that thereby its avid +desire of infinite fruition may be satisfied +and fulfilled”;<a class="fn" id="fr_61" href="#fn_61">[61]</a> <i>i.e.</i> it has performed the true +office of meditation, induced a shifting of +consciousness to higher levels.</p> +<p>We observe that the emphasis, which in +the First Degree of Contemplation fell +wholly on feeling, in the Second Degree falls +wholly upon knowledge. We are not, however, +to suppose from this that emotion has +been left behind. As the virtues and energies +of the Active Life continue in the Contemplative +Life, so the ‘burning love’ which +distinguished the first stage of communion +with the Transcendent, is throughout the +source of that energy which presses the self +on to deeper and closer correspondences +with Reality. Its presence is presupposed +in all that is said concerning the development +of the spiritual consciousness. Nevertheless +Ruysbroeck, though he cannot be +<span class="pb" id="Page_157">[157]</span> +accused of intellectualism, is led by his +admiration for Victorine ideas to lay great +stress upon the mental side of contemplation, +as against those emotional reactions to +the Transcendent which are emphasised—almost +to excess—by so many of the saints. +His aim was the lifting of the <i>whole man</i> to +Eternal levels: and the clarifying of the +intelligence, the enhancement of the understanding, +seemed to him a proper part of the +deification of human nature, the bringing +forth in the soul’s ground of that Son who +is the Wisdom of God as well as the Pattern +of Man. Though he moves amongst deep +mysteries, and in regions beyond the span of +ordinary minds, there is always apparent +in him an effort towards lucidity of expression, +sharp definition, plain speech. Sometimes +he is wild and ecstatic, pouring forth +his vision in a strange poetry which is at +once uncouth and sublime; but he is never +woolly or confused. His prose passages owe +much of their seeming difficulty to the +passion for exactitude which distinguishes +and classifies the subtlest movements of the +spiritual atmosphere, the delicately graded +responses of the soul.</p> +<p>3. Now the Third Degree of Contemplation +lifts the whole consciousness to a plane +of perception which transcends the categories +of the intellect: where it deals no +longer with the label but with the Thing. +<span class="pb" id="Page_158">[158]</span> +It has passed beyond image and also beyond +thought; to that knowledge by contact +which is the essence of intuition, and is +brought about by the higher powers of +love. Such contemplation is regarded by +Ruysbroeck as the work of the Father, +“Who strips from the mind all forms and +images and lifts up the Naked Apprehension +[<i>i.e.</i> intuition] into its Origin, that is +Himself.”<a class="fn" id="fr_62" href="#fn_62">[62]</a> It is effected by concentration +of all the powers of the self into a +single state ‘uplifted above all action, in a +bare understanding and love,’ upon that apex +of the soul where no reason can ever attain, +and where the ‘simple eye’ is ever open +towards God. There the loving soul apprehends +Him, not under conditions, ‘in some +wise,’ but as a <i>whole</i>, without the discrete +analysis of His properties which was the +special character of intellectual contemplation; +a synthetic experience which is ‘in +no wise.’ This is for Ruysbroeck the contemplative +act <i>par excellence</i>. It is ‘an +intimacy which is ignorance,’ a ‘simple +seeing,’ he says again and again; “and +the name thereof is <i>Contemplatio</i>; that is, +the seeing of God in simplicity.”<a class="fn" id="fr_63" href="#fn_63">[63]</a></p> +<p>“Here the reason no less than all separate +acts must give way, for our powers +become simple in Love; they are silent +<span class="pb" id="Page_159">[159]</span> +and bowed down in the Presence of the +Father. And this revelation of the Father +lifts the soul above the reason into the +Imageless Nudity. There the soul is simple, +pure, spotless, empty of all things; and it is +in this state of perfect emptiness that the +Father manifests His Divine radiance. To +this radiance neither reason nor sense, observation +nor distinction, can attain. All +this must stay below; for the measureless +radiance blinds the eyes of the reason, they +cannot bear the Incomprehensible Light. +But above the reason, in the most secret +part of the understanding, the <i>simple eye</i> +is ever open. It contemplates and gazes +at the Light with a pure sight that is lit +by the Light itself: eye to eye, mirror to +mirror, image to image. This threefold +act makes us like God, and unites us to +Him; for the sight of the <i>simple eye</i> is a +living mirror, which God has made for His +image, and whereon He has impressed it.”<a class="fn" id="fr_64" href="#fn_64">[64]</a></p> +<p>Intuitive or infused contemplation is the +form of communion with the Transcendent +proper to those who have grown up to the +state of Union; and feel and know the +presence of God within the soul, as a love, +a life, an ‘indrawing attraction,’ calling and +enticing all things to the still unachieved +consummation of the Divine Unity. He +who has reached this pitch of introversion, +<span class="pb" id="Page_160">[160]</span> +and is able, in his spiritual exercises, to +withdraw himself thus to the most secret +part of his spirit, feels—within the Eternal +Light which fills his mirror and is ‘united +with it,’—this perpetual demand of the Divine +Unity, entreating and urging him towards +a total self-loss. In the fact that he +knows this demand and impulsion as other +than himself, we find the mark which +separates this, the highest contemplation +proper to the Life of Union, from that +‘fruitive contemplation’ of the spirit which +has died into God which belongs to the +Life of Unity.<a class="fn" id="fr_65" href="#fn_65">[65]</a> When the work of transmutation +is finished and he has received +the ‘Sparkling Stone of Divine Humanity,’ +this subject-object distinction—though +really an eternal one, as Ruysbroeck continually +reminds us—will no longer be possible +to his consciousness. Then he will +live at those levels to which he now makes +impassioned ascents in his hours of unitive +prayer: will be immersed in the Beatific +Vision on which he now looks, and ‘lose +himself in the Imageless Nudity.’</p> +<p>This is the clue to the puzzling distinction +made by Ruysbroeck between the contemplation +which is ‘without conditions,’ +and that which is ‘beyond and above conditions’ +and belongs to the Superessential +Life alone. In Intuitive Contemplation the +<span class="pb" id="Page_161">[161]</span> +seeing self apprehends the Unconditioned +World, <i>Onwise</i>, and makes ‘loving ascents +thereto.’ It ‘finds within itself the unwalled’; +yet is still anchored to the conditioned +sphere. In Superessential Contemplation, +it <i>dies into</i> that ‘world which +is in no wise.’ In the great chapter of +<i>The Sparkling Stone</i><a class="fn" id="fr_66" href="#fn_66">[66]</a> where he struggles to +make this distinction clear, Ruysbroeck says +that the Friends of God (<i>i.e.</i> the Interior +Men) “cannot with themselves and all +their works penetrate to that Imageless +Nudity.” Although they feel united with +God, yet they feel in that union an otherness +and difference between themselves and +God; and therefore “the ascent into the +Nought is unknown to them.” They feel +themselves carried up towards God in the +tide of His all-subduing Fire of Love; +but they retain their selfhood, and may +not be consumed and burned to nothing in +the Unity of Love. They do not yet desire +to die into God, that they may receive a +deiform life from Him; but they are in the +way which leads to this fulfilment of their +destiny, and are “following back the light +to its Origin.”</p> +<p>This following-back is one continuous +process, in which we, for convenience of +description, have made artificial breaks. +<span class="pb" id="Page_162">[162]</span> +It is the thrust of consciousness deeper and +deeper into the heart of Reality. As in the +stream of physical duration, so in this +ceaseless movement of the spirit, there is +a persistence of the past in the present, +a carrying through and merging of one +state in the next. Thus the contemplation +which is ‘wayless,’ the self’s intuitive communion +with the Infinite Life and Light, +growing in depth and richness, bridges +the gap which separates the Interior and +the Superessential Life.</p> +<p>We find in Ruysbroeck’s works indications +of a transitional state, in which the +soul “is guided and lost, wanders and +returns, ebbs and flows,” within the ‘limitless +Nudity,’ to which it has not yet wholly +surrendered itself. “And its seeing is in +no wise, being without manner, and it is +neither thus nor thus, neither here nor +there; for that which is in no wise hath +enveloped all, and the vision is made high +and wide. It knows not itself where That +is which it sees; and it cannot come thereto, +for its seeing is in no wise, and passes +on, beyond, for ever, and without return. +That which it apprehends it cannot realise +in full, nor wholly attain, for its apprehension +is wayless, and without manner, +and therefore it is apprehended of God in +a higher way than it can apprehend Him. +Behold! such a following of the Way that +<span class="pb" id="Page_163">[163]</span> +is Wayless, is intermediary between contemplation +in images and similitudes of +the intellect, and unveiled contemplation +beyond all images in the Light of God.”<a class="fn" id="fr_67" href="#fn_67">[67]</a></p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_164">[164]</div> +<h2 id="c9">CHAPTER VIII +<br /><span class="small">THE SUPERESSENTIAL LIFE</span></h2> +<blockquote> +<p>If, therefore, thou art become the throne of God and +the Heavenly Charioteer hath seated Himself within thee, +and thy soul is wholly become a spiritual eye and is +wholly made into light; if, too, thou art nourished with +the heavenly food of that Spirit and hast drunk of the +Living Water and put on the secret vesture of light—if +thine inward man has experienced all these things and is +established in abundant faith, lo! thou livest indeed the +Eternal Life and thy soul rests even in this present time +with the Lord.</p> +<p><span class="lr"><span class="sc">St. Macarius of Egypt.</span></span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>We have seen that Ruysbroeck, in common +with a few other supreme mystics, declares +to us as veritably known and experienced +by him, a universe of three orders—Becoming, +Being, <span class="sc">God</span>—and further, three +ways of life whereby the self can correspond +to these three orders, and which he calls +the life of nature, the life of grace, the +life of glory. ‘Glory,’ which has been +degraded by the usage of popular piety +into a vague superlative, and finally left +in the hands of hymn-writers and religious +revivalists, is one of the most ancient +<span class="pb" id="Page_165">[165]</span> +technical terms of Christian mysticism. Of +Scriptural origin, from the fourth century +to the fifteenth it was used to denote a +definite kind of enhanced life, a final achievement +of Reality—the unmediated radiance +of God—which the gift of ‘divine sonship’ +made possible to the soul. In the life of +grace, that soul transcends conditions in +virtue of a Divine vitality poured in from +the Absolute Sphere, and actualises its +true being, (<i>Wesen</i>); in the life of glory, +it becomes a denizen of that sphere, and +achieves an existence that is ‘more than +being’ (<i>Overwesen</i>). The note of the first +state is contemplation, awareness; the note +of the second is fruition, possession.</p> +<p>That power of making ‘swift and loving +ascents’ to the plane of <i>Onwise</i> to which +man attained at the end of the Interior Life, +that conscious harmony with the Divine +Will which then became the controlling +factor of his active career, cannot be the +end of the process of transcendence. The +soul now hungers and thirsts for a more +intense Reality, a closer contact with +‘Him who is measureless’; a deeper and +deeper penetration into the burning heart +of the universe. Though contemplation +seems to have reached its term, love goes +on, to ‘lose itself upon the heights.’ Beyond +both the conditioned and unconditioned +world, beyond the Trinity Itself, that love +<span class="pb" id="Page_166">[166]</span> +discerns its ultimate objective—the very +Godhead, the Divine Unity, “where all +lines find their end”; where “we are +satisfied and overflowing, and with Him +beyond ourselves eternally fulfilled.”<a class="fn" id="fr_68" href="#fn_68">[68]</a> The +abiding life which is there discoverable, +is not only ‘without manner’ but ‘above +manner’—the ‘deified life,’ indescribable +save by the oblique methods of music or +poetry, wherein, in Maeterlinck’s great +phrase, “the psychology of man mingles +with the psychology of God.” All Ruysbroeck’s +most wonderful passages are concerned +with the desperate attempt to tell +us of this ‘life,’ this utter fruition of Reality: +which seems at one time to involve for the +contemplative consciousness a self-mergence +in Deity, so complete as to give colour to +that charge of pantheism which is inevitably +flung at all mystics who try to tell what +they have known; at others, to represent +rather the perfect consummation of that +‘union in separateness’ which is characteristic +of all true love.</p> +<p>This is but one instance of that perpetual +and inevitable resort to paradox which +torments all who try to follow him along +this ‘track without shadow of trace’; for +the goal towards which he is now enticing +us is one in which all the completing opposites +of our fragmentary experience find their +<span class="pb" id="Page_167">[167]</span> +bourne. Hence the rapid alternation of +spatial and personal symbols which confuses +our industrious intellects, is the one means +whereby he can suggest its actuality to our +hungry hearts.</p> +<p>As we observed in Ruysbroeck’s earlier +teaching on contemplation three distinct +forms, in which the special work that +theology attributes to the three Divine +Persons seemed to him to be reflected; +now, in this Superessential Contemplation, +or Fruition, we find the work of the +Absolute Godhead Itself, energising upon +a plane of intensity which so utterly transcends +our power of apprehension, that it +seems to the surface consciousness—as +Dionysius the Areopagite had named it—a +negation of all things, a Divine Dark.</p> +<p>This Fruition, says Ruysbroeck, “is wild +and desolate as a desert, and therein is to +be found no way, no road, no track, no +retreat, no measure, no beginning, no end, +nor any other thing that can be told in +words. And this is for all of us Simple +Blessedness, the Essence of God and our +superessence, above reason and beyond +reason. To know it we must be in it, +beyond the mind and above our created +being; in that Eternal Point where all +our lines begin and end, that Point where +they lose their name and all distinction, +and become one with the Point itself, and +<span class="pb" id="Page_168">[168]</span> +that very One which the Point is, yet +nevertheless ever remain in themselves +nought else but lines that come to an end.”<a class="fn" id="fr_69" href="#fn_69">[69]</a></p> +<p>What, then, is the way by which the soul +moves from that life of intense contemplation +in which the ‘spreading light’ of the Spirit +shows her the universe fulfilled with God, +to this new transfigured state of joy and +terror? It is a way for which her previous +adventures might have prepared us. As +each new ascent, new inflow of grace, was +prepared by a time of destitution and stress—as +the compensating beats of love and +renunciation have governed the evolving +melody of the inner life—so here a last +death of selfhood, a surrender more absolute +than all that has gone before, must be the +means of her achievement of absolute life.</p> +<p>“Dying, and behold I live!” says Paul of +his own attainment of supernal life in Christ. +Ruysbroeck, who never strays far from the +vital and heroic mysticism of the New Testament +saints, can find no other language +for this last crisis of the spirit—its movement +from the state of <i>Wesen</i> to that of +<i>Overwesen</i>—than the language of death. +The ever-moving line, though its vital character +of duration continues, now seems to +itself to swoon into the Point; the separate +entity which has felt the flood of grace pour +into it to energise its active career, and the +<span class="pb" id="Page_169">[169]</span> +ebb of homeward-tending love draw it back +towards the One, now feels itself pouring +into the Infinite Sea. Our personal activity, +he says, has done all that it can: as the +separate career of Christ our Pattern closed +with His voluntary death, so the death of +our selfhood on that apex of personality +where we have stretched up so ardently +toward the Father, shall close the separate +career of the human soul and open the way +to its new, God-driven career, its resurrection-life. +“None is sure of Eternal Life +unless he has died with all his own attributes +wholly into God”<a class="fn" id="fr_70" href="#fn_70">[70]</a>—all else falls +short of the demands of supreme generosity.</p> +<p>It is <i>The Book of the Sparkling Stone</i> +which contains Ruysbroeck’s most wonderful +descriptions of the consciousness peculiar +to these souls who have grown up to ‘the +fulness of the stature of Christ’; and since +this is surely the finest and perhaps the least +known of his writings, I offer no apology for +transcribing a long passage from its ninth +chapter: ‘How we may become the Hidden +Sons of God.’</p> +<p>“When we soar up above ourselves, and +become, in our upward striving towards +God, so simple, that the naked Love in the +Heights can lay hold on us, there where +Love cherishes Love, above all activity and +all virtue (that is to say, in our Origin, +<span class="pb" id="Page_170">[170]</span> +wherefrom we are spiritually born)—then we +cease, and we and all that is our own die +into God. And in this death we become +hidden Sons of God, and find in ourselves +a new life, and that is Eternal Life. And +of these Sons, St. Paul says: ‘Ye are dead, +and your life is hid with Christ in God.’ +In our approach to God we must bear with +us ourselves and all that we do, as a perpetual +sacrifice to God; and in the Presence +of God we must leave ourselves and all our +works, and, dying in love, soar up above +all created things into the Superessential +Kingdom of God. And of this the Spirit of +God speaks in the Book of Hidden Things, +saying: ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the +Lord.’... If we would <i>taste</i> God, and feel +in ourselves Eternal Life above all things, +we must go forth into God with a faith that +is far above our reason, and there dwell, +simple, idle, without image, lifted up by love +into the Unwalled Bareness of our intelligence. +For when we go out from ourselves +in love, and die to all observances in ignorance +and darkness, then we are made complete, +and transfigured by the Eternal Word, +Image of the Father. And in this emptiness +of spirit we receive the Incomprehensible +Light, which enfolds and penetrates us as +air is penetrated by the light of the sun; +and this Light is nought else but a fathomless +gazing and seeing. What we are, that we +<span class="pb" id="Page_171">[171]</span> +gaze at; and what we gaze at, that we are. +For our thought, our life, our being, are +lifted up in simplicity, and united with +the Truth, that is God. Therefore in this +simple gazing we are one life and one +spirit with God—and this I call the <i>seeing +life</i>.”<a class="fn" id="fr_71" href="#fn_71">[71]</a></p> +<p>Such a passage as this lies beyond our poor +attempts at analysis. Those only will understand +it who yield themselves to it; entering +into its current, as we enter into the +music that we love. It tells us all it can of +this life which is ‘more than being,’ as <i>felt</i> +in the supreme experience of love. Life and +Death, Dark and Light, Idleness, Bareness—these +are but images of the feeling-states +that accompany it. But here, more than +elsewhere in Ruysbroeck’s writings, we must +remember the peril which goes with all +subjective treatment of mystical truth. +Each state which the unitive mystic experiences +is so intense, that it monopolises for +the time being his field of consciousness. +Writing under the ‘pressure of the Spirit’ +he writes of it—as indeed it seems to him +at the moment—as ultimate and complete. +Only by a comparison of different and superficially +inconsistent descriptions of this enhanced +life—which must harmonise and +fulfil <i>all</i> the needs of our complex personality, +providing inexhaustible objectives +<span class="pb" id="Page_172">[172]</span> +for love, intelligence and will—can we form +any true idea concerning it.</p> +<p>When we do this, we discover that the +side of it which <i>seems</i> a static beatitude, +still Fruition, perfect Rest, is always +balanced by the other side; which <i>seems</i> +a perpetual and progressive attainment, +a seeking and finding, a hungering and +feeding, a giving and taking. These coexist; +as the ever-renewed ‘coming of the +Bridegroom,’ the welling-up of the Spirit, +the stormy, eager, unsatisfied love of the +soul do as a matter of experience coexist +within that perfect and personal union +wherein Love and Fruition, as Ruysbroeck +puts it, ‘live between action and rest.’ +The alternate consciousness of the line and +the Point, the moving river and the Sea, +the relative and the Absolute, persists so +long as consciousness persists at all; it is +no Christianised Nirvana into which he +seeks to induct us, but that mysterious +synthesis of Being and Becoming, ‘eternal +stillness and eternal work’—a movement +into God which is already a complete achievement +of Him—which certain other great +mystics have discerned beyond the ‘flaming +ramparts’ of the common life.</p> +<p>The unbreakable unity with God, which +constitutes the mark of the Third Life, +exists in the ‘essential ground of the soul’; +where the river flows into the Sea, the line +<span class="pb" id="Page_173">[173]</span> +into the Point; where the pendulum of self +has its attachment to Reality. <i>There</i>, the +hidden child of the Absolute is ‘one with God +in restful fruition’; there, his deep intuition +of Divine things—that ‘Savouring Wisdom’ +which is the last supreme gift of the Spirit<a class="fn" id="fr_72" href="#fn_72">[72]</a>—is +able to taste and apprehend the sweetness +of Infinite Reality. But at the other end, +where he still participates in the time-process, +where his love and will are a moving +river, consciousness hungers for that total +Attainment still; and attention will swing +between these two extremes, now actualised +within the living soul, which has put on the +dual character of ‘Divine Humanity’ and is +living Eternal Life, not in some far-off +celestial region, but here, where Christ lived +it, in the entangled world of Time. Thus +active self-mergence, incessant re-birth into +God, perpetual eager feeding on Him, is +implicit in all spiritual life. Even for the +souls of the ‘deified,’ quietism is never +right. “For love cannot be lazy, but would +search through and through, and taste +through and through, the fathomless kingdom +that lives in her ground; and this +hunger shall <i>never</i> be stilled.”<a class="fn" id="fr_73" href="#fn_73">[73]</a></p> +<p>The soul, whenever it attends to itself—withdraws +itself, so to speak, from the +<span class="pb" id="Page_174">[174]</span> +Divine Synthesis, dwells in itself, and beholds +instead of being—feels again the ‘eternal +unrest of love’; the whip of the Heavenly +Charioteer, driving all spirits in towards +the heart of God, where they are ‘one fire +with Him.’ “This stirring, that mediates +between ourselves and God, we can never +pass beyond; and what that stirring is in +its essence, and what love is in itself, we can +never know.”<a class="fn" id="fr_74" href="#fn_74">[74]</a> But when it dwells beyond +itself, and in the supreme moments of +ecstasy merges its consciousness in the +Universal Consciousness, it transcends succession +and centres itself in the Divine +Selfhood—the ‘still, glorious, and absolute +One-ness.’ Then it feels, not hunger but +satisfaction, not desire but fruition; and +knows itself beyond reason ‘one with the +abysmal depth and breadth,’ in “a simple +fathomless savouring of all good and of +Eternal Life. And in this savouring we +are swallowed up, above reason and beyond +reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead +which is never moved.”<a class="fn" id="fr_75" href="#fn_75">[75]</a></p> +<p>Such experiences however, such perfect +fruition, in which the self dies into the +overwhelming revelation of the Transcendent, +and its rhythm is merged in the +Divine Rhythm, cannot be continuous for +<span class="pb" id="Page_175">[175]</span> +those still living in the flesh. There is in +Ruysbroeck no foolish insistence on any +impossible career of ceaseless ecstasy; +but a robust acceptance of the facts and +limitations of life. Man cannot, he says, +“perpetually contemplate with attention the +superessential Being of God in the Light of +God. But whosoever has attained to the +gift of Intelligence [<i>i.e.</i> the sixth of the +Seven Gifts of the Spirit] attains this power, +which becomes habitual to him; and whensoever +he will, he can wholly absorb himself +in this manner of contemplation, in so far +as it is possible in this life.”<a class="fn" id="fr_76" href="#fn_76">[76]</a></p> +<p>The superessential man, in fact, is, as +Francis Thompson said of the soul, a</p> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t0">“... swinging-wicket set</p> +<p class="t4">Between</p> +<p class="t0">The Unseen and Seen.”</p> +</div> +<p>He is to move easily and at will between +these two orders, both actual, both God-inhabited, +the complementary expressions of +One Love; participating both in the active, +industrious, creative outflow in differentiation, +and the still indrawing attraction +which issues in the supreme experience of +Unity. For these two movements the +Active and Interior Lives have educated +him. The truly characteristic experience of +the Third Life is the fruition of that Unity +<span class="pb" id="Page_176">[176]</span> +or Simplicity in which they are harmonised, +beyond the balanced consciousness of the +indrawing and outdrawing tides.<a class="fn" id="fr_77" href="#fn_77">[77]</a></p> +<p>Ruysbroeck discerns three moments in +this achievement. First, a negative movement, +the introversive sinking-down of our +created life into God’s absolute life, which +is the consummation of self-naughting and +surrender and the essence of dark contemplation. +Next, the positive ecstatic +stretching forth above reason into our +‘highest life,’ where we undergo complete +transmutation in God and feel ourselves +wholly enfolded in Him. Thirdly, from +these ‘completing opposites’ of surrender +and love springs the perfect fruition of +Unity, so far as we may know it here; when +“we feel ourselves to be one with God, and +find ourselves transformed of God, and +immersed in the fathomless Abyss of our +Eternal Blessedness, where we can find no +further separation between ourselves and +God. So long as we are lifted up and +stretched forth into this height of feeling, +all our powers remain idle, in an essential +fruition; for where our powers are utterly +naughted, there we lose our activity. And +so long as we remain idle, without observation, +with outstretched spirit and open eyes, +so long can we see and have fruition. But +in that same moment in which we would +<span class="pb" id="Page_177">[177]</span> +test and comprehend <i>What</i> that may be +which we feel, we fall back upon reason; +and there we find distinction and otherness +between God and ourselves, and find God +as an Incomprehensible One exterior to us.”<a class="fn" id="fr_78" href="#fn_78">[78]</a></p> +<p>It is clear from this passage that such +‘utterness’ of fruition is a fleeting experience; +though it is one to which the unitive +mystic can return again and again, since +it exists as a permanent state in his essential +ground, ever discoverable by him when +attention is focussed upon it. Further, it +appears that the ‘absence of difference’ +between God and the soul, which the mystic +in these moments of ecstasy feels and enjoys, +is a psychological experience, not an absolute +truth. It is the only way in which +his surface-mind is able to realise on the +one side the overwhelming apprehension of +God’s Love, that ‘Yes’ in which all other +syllables are merged; on the other the +completeness of his being’s self-abandonment +to the Divine embrace—“that Superessential +Love with which we are one, and +which we possess more deeply and widely +than any other thing.”<a class="fn" id="fr_79" href="#fn_79">[79]</a> It was for this +experience that Thomas à Kempis prayed in +one of his most Ruysbroeckian passages: +“When shall I at full gather myself in +Thee, that for Thy love I feel not myself, +<span class="pb" id="Page_178">[178]</span> +but Thee only, above all feeling and all +manner, in a <i>manner not known to all</i>?”<a class="fn" id="fr_80" href="#fn_80">[80]</a> +It is to this same paradoxical victory-in-surrender—this +apparent losing which is +the only real finding—that Francis Thompson +invites the soul:</p> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t0">“To feel thyself and be</p> +<p class="t0">His dear nonentity—</p> +<p class="t3">Caught</p> +<p class="t0">Beyond human thought</p> +</div> +<div class="verse"> +<p class="t0">In the thunder-spout of Him,</p> +<p class="t0">Until thy being dim,</p> +<p class="t3">And be</p> +<p class="t0">Dead deathlessly.”</p> +</div> +<p>Now here it is, in these stammered tidings +of an adventure ‘far outside and beyond +our spirit,’ in ‘the darkness at which reason +gazes with wide eyes,’<a class="fn" id="fr_81" href="#fn_81">[81]</a> that we must look +for the solution of that problem which all +high mystic states involve for analytic +thought: how can the human soul become +one with God ‘without intermediary, beyond +all separation,’<a class="fn" id="fr_82" href="#fn_82">[82]</a> yet remain eternally +distinct from Him? How can the ‘deification,’ +the ‘union with God without differentiation’ +on which the great mystics insist, +be accepted, and pantheism be denied?</p> +<p>First, we notice that in all descriptions +<span class="pb" id="Page_179">[179]</span> +of Unity given us by the mystics, there is +a strong subjective element. Their first +concern is always with the experience of +the heart and will, not with the deductions +made by the intelligence. It is at our own +peril that we attach ontological meaning +to their convinced and vivid psychological +statements. Ruysbroeck in particular +makes this quite clear to us; says again +and again that he has ‘<i>felt</i> unity without +difference and distinction,’ yet that he +<i>knows</i> that ‘otherness’ has always remained, +and “that this is true we can only +know by feeling it, and in no other way.”<a class="fn" id="fr_83" href="#fn_83">[83]</a></p> +<p>In certain great moments, he says, the +purified and illuminated soul which has +died into God does achieve an Essential +Stillness; which seems to human thought +a static condition, for it is that Eternal +Now of the Godhead which embraces in +its span the whole process of Time. Here +we find nothing but God: the naked and +ultimate Fact or Superessential Being +‘whence all Being has come forth,’ stripped +of academic trimmings and experienced in +its white-hot intensity. Here, far beyond +the range of thought, unity and otherness, +like hunger and fulfilment, activity and +rest, <i>can</i> co-exist in love. The ultimate +union is a love-union, says Ruysbroeck. +<span class="pb" id="Page_180">[180]</span> +“The Love of God is a consuming Fire, +which draws us out of ourselves and swallows +us up in unity with God, where we are +satisfied and overflowing, and with Him, +beyond ourselves, eternally fulfilled.”<a class="fn" id="fr_84" href="#fn_84">[84]</a></p> +<p>This hungry and desirous love, at once +a personal passion and a cosmic force, +drenches, transfigures and unites with the +soul, as sunlight does the air, as fire does +the iron flung into the furnace; so that +the molten metal ‘changed into another +glory’ is both iron and fire ‘ever distinct +yet ever united’—an antique image of +the Divine Union which he takes direct from +a celebrated passage in St. Bernard’s works. +“As much as is iron, so much is fire; and +as much as is fire, so much is iron; yet the +iron doth not become fire, nor the fire iron, +but each retains its substance and nature. +So likewise the spirit of man doth not +become God, but is deified, and knows +itself breadth, length, height and depth: +and as far as God is God, so far the loving +spirit is made one with Him in love.”<a class="fn" id="fr_85" href="#fn_85">[85]</a> +The iron, the air, represent our created +essence; the fire, the sunlight, God’s Essence, +which is added to our own—our <i>superessence</i>. +The two are held in a union +<span class="pb" id="Page_181">[181]</span> +which, when we try to see it under the +symbolism of space, appears a mingling, +a self-mergence; but, when we feel it under +the symbolism of personality, is a marriage +in which the lover and beloved are ‘distinct +yet united.’ “Then are we one being, one +love, and one beatitude with God ... +a joy so great and special that we cannot +even think of any other joy. For then one +is one’s self a Fruition of Love, and can and +should want nothing beyond one’s own.”<a class="fn" id="fr_86" href="#fn_86">[86]</a></p> +<p>It follows from all this that when the soul, +coming to the Fourth State of Fruitive +Love, enters into the Equilibrium which +supports and penetrates the flux, it does +and must reconcile the opposites which +have governed the earlier stages of its +career. The communion reached is with +a Wholeness; the life which flows from it +must be a wholeness too. Full surrender, +harmonised with full actualisation of all +our desires and faculties; not some thin, +abstract, vertical relation alone, but an +all-round expansion, a full, deep, rich giving +and taking, a complete correspondence +with the infinitely rich, all-demanding and +all-generous God whose “love is measureless +for it is Himself.” Thus Ruysbroeck +teaches that love static and love dynamic +must coexist for us as for Him; that the +‘eternal hunger and thirst’ of the God-demanding +<span class="pb" id="Page_182">[182]</span> +soul continues within its ecstatic +satisfaction; because, however deeply it +may love and understand, the Divine Excess +will always baffle it. It is destined ‘ever +to go forward within the Essence of God,’ +to grow without ceasing deeper and deeper +into this life, in “the eternal longing to +follow after and attain Him Who is measureless.” +“And we learn this truth from +His sight: that all we taste, in comparison +with that which remains out of our reach, +is no more than a single drop of water +compared with the whole sea.... We +hunger for God’s Infinity, which we cannot +devour, and we aspire to His Eternity, +which we cannot attain.... In this storm +of love, our activity is above reason and +is in no wise. Love desires that which is +impossible to her; and reason teaches that +love is within her rights, but can neither +counsel nor persuade her.”<a class="fn" id="fr_87" href="#fn_87">[87]</a></p> +<p>Hence an eternal desire and an eternal +satisfaction are preserved within the circle +of the deified life. The full-grown self +feels, in its most intense degree, the double +movement of the Divine Love and Light, +the flux and reflux; and in its perfect and +ever-renewed responses to the ‘indrawing +and outflowing attraction’ of that Tide, +the complete possession of the Superessential +Life consists.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_183">[183]</div> +<p>“The indrawing attraction drags us out +of ourselves, and calls us to be melted away +and naughted in the Unity. And in this +indrawing attraction we feel that God wills +that we should be His, and for this we must +abnegate ourselves and let our beatitude +be accomplished in Him. But when He +attracts us by flowing out towards us, He +gives us over to ourselves and makes us +free, and sets us in Time.”<a class="fn" id="fr_88" href="#fn_88">[88]</a></p> +<p>Thus is accomplished that paradoxical +synthesis of ‘Eternal Rest and Eternal +Work’ which Ruysbroeck regards as the +essential character of God, and towards +which the whole of his system has been +educating the human soul. The deified or +‘God-formed’ soul is for him the spirit in +which this twofold ideal is actualised: +this is the Pattern, the Likeness of God, +declared in Christ our Archetype, towards +which the Indwelling Spirit presses the +race. Though there are moments in which, +carried away as it seems by his almost intolerable +ecstasy, he pushes out towards +‘that unwalled Fruition of God,’ where all +fruition begins and ends, where ‘one is all +and all is one,’ and Man is himself a ‘fruition +of love’;<a class="fn" id="fr_89" href="#fn_89">[89]</a> yet he never forgets to remind +us that, as love is not love unless it looks +forward towards the creation of new life, +<span class="pb" id="Page_184">[184]</span> +so here, “when love falls in love with love, +and each is all to the other in possession and +in rest,” the <i>object</i> of this ecstasy is not a +permanent self-loss in the Divine Darkness, +a ‘slumbering in God,’ but a “new life of +virtue, such as love and its impulses demand.”<a class="fn" id="fr_90" href="#fn_90">[90]</a> +“To be a living, willing Tool of +God, wherewith God works what He will +and how He will,” is the goal of transcendence +described in the last chapter of <i>The +Sparkling Stone</i>. “Then is our life a <i>whole</i>, +when contemplation and work dwell in us +side by side, and we are perfectly in both of +them at once”;<a class="fn" id="fr_91" href="#fn_91">[91]</a> for then the separate +spirit is immersed in, and part of, the perpetual +creative act of the Godhead—the +flowing forth and the drawing back, which +have at their base the Eternal Equilibrium, +the unbroken peace, wherein “God contemplates +Himself and all things in an +Eternal Now that has neither beginning nor +end.”<a class="fn" id="fr_92" href="#fn_92">[92]</a> +On that Unbroken Peace the +spirit hangs; and swings like a pendulum, +in wide arcs of love and service, between +the Unconditioned and the Conditioned +Worlds.</p> +<p>So the Superessential Life is the simple, +the synthetic life, in which man actualises at +last all the resources of his complex being. +<span class="pb" id="Page_185">[185]</span> +The active life of response to the Temporal +Order, the contemplative life of response +to the Transcendent Order are united, +firmly held together, by that ‘eternal fixation +of the spirit’; the perpetual willed +dwelling of the being of man within the +Incomprehensible Abyss of the Being of God, +<i>qui est per omnia saecula benedictus</i>.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_187">[187]</div> +<div class="biblionote"> +<h2 id="c10">BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</h2> +<h3>I. <span class="sc">Flemish Text</span></h3> +<blockquote> +<p><i>Werken van Jan van Ruusbroec</i>. Ed. <span class="sc">J. David</span>. +6 vols. (Maetschappy der Vlaemsche Bibliophilen). +(Gent, 1858-68.)</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This edition, based on the MSS. preserved at +Brussels and Ghent, and the foundation of all the +best translations, is now rare. It may be consulted +at the British Museum.</p> +<p>A re-issue of the Flemish text is now in progress; +the first volume being <i>Jan van Ruysbroeck, +Van den VII. Trappen</i> (i.e. <i>The Seven Degrees of +Love</i>) <i>met Geert Groote’s latijnsche Vertaling</i>. Ed. +Dom. Ph. <span class="sc">Müller</span> (Brussels, 1911).</p> +<h3>II. <span class="sc">Translations</span></h3> +<h3>A. <i>Latin</i></h3> +<p>The chief works of Ruysbroeck were early +translated into Latin, some during their author’s +lifetime, and widely circulated in this form. +Three of these early translations were printed in +the sixteenth century: the <i>De Ornatu Spiritualium +Nuptiarum</i> of Jordaens, at Paris, in 1512; and the +<i>De Septem Scalæ Divini Amoris Gradibus</i> of Gerard +<span class="pb" id="Page_188">[188]</span> +Groot, together with the <i>De Perfectione Filiorum +Dei</i> (i.e. <i>The Sparkling Stone</i>), at Bologna, in 1538.</p> +<p>The standard Latin translation, however—indispensable +to all students of Ruysbroeck—is the +great work of the Carthusian monk, <span class="sc">Laurentius +Surius</span>: <i>D. Joannis Rusbrochii Opera Omnia</i> +(Cologne, 1552).</p> +<p>This was reprinted in 1609 (the best edition), +and again in 1692. It contains all Ruysbroeck’s +authentic works, and some that are doubtful; +in a translation singularly faithful to the sense of +the original, though it fails to reproduce the rugged +sublimity, the sudden lapses into crude and homely +metaphor, so characteristic of his style.</p> +<h3>B. <i>English</i></h3> +<blockquote> +<p><i>The Book of the Twelve Béguines</i> (the first sixteen +chapters only). Translated from the Flemish, +by <span class="sc">John Francis</span> (London, 1913).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A useful translation of one of Ruysbroeck’s +most difficult treatises.</p> +<h3>C. <i>French</i></h3> +<blockquote> +<p><i>Œuvres de Ruysbroeck l’Admirable. Traduction du +Flamand par les</i> <span class="sc">Bénédictins de Saint Paul +de Wisques</span>.</p> +<div class="bibliosub"><span class="sc">Vol. I.</span>: <i>Le Miroir du Salut Éternel</i>; +<i>Les Sept Clôtures</i>; <i>Les Sept Degrés +de l’Êchelle d’Amour Spirituel</i> +(Brussels, 1912, in progress).</div> +</blockquote> +<p>This edition, when completed, will form the +standard text of Ruysbroeck for those unable +to read Flemish. The translation is admirably +<span class="pb" id="Page_189">[189]</span> +lucid, and a short but adequate introduction +is prefixed to each work.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><i>L’Ornement des Noces Spirituelles. Traduit du +Flamand par</i> <span class="sc">Maurice Maeterlinck</span> (Brussels, +1900).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This celebrated book, still more its beautiful +though unreliable introduction, is chiefly responsible +for the modern interest in Ruysbroeck. +The translation, exquisite as French prose, over-emphasises +the esoteric element in his teaching. +Those unable to read Flemish should check it by +<span class="sc">Lambert’s</span> German text (see below).</p> +<blockquote> +<p><i>Vie de Rusbroch suivie de son Traité des Sept +Degrés de l’Amour. Traduction littérale du +Texte Flamand-Latin, par</i> <span class="sc">R. Chamonal</span> +(Paris, 1909). <i>Traité du Royaume des Amants +de Dieu. Traduit par</i> <span class="sc">R. Chamonal</span> (Paris, +1911). <i>De la Vraie Contemplation</i> (i.e. <i>The +Twelve Béguines</i>). <i>Traduit par</i> <span class="sc">R. Chamonal</span>. +3 vols. (Paris, 1912).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>These are the first volumes of a proposed complete +translation; which is, however, far from literal, +and replaces the rough vigour of the original by +the insipid language of conventional French piety.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><i>Livre des XII. Béguines ou de la Vraie Contemplation</i> +(first sixteen chapters only). <i>Traduit +du Flamand, avec Introduction, par</i> <span class="sc">L’Abbé +P. Cuylits</span> (Brussels, 1909).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This also contains a French version of the <i>Vita</i> +of Pomerius. The translator is specially successful +in rendering the peculiar quality of Ruysbroeck’s +verse; but the statements in his introduction must +be accepted with reserve.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_190">[190]</div> +<h3>D. <i>German</i></h3> +<blockquote> +<p><i>Drei Schriften des Mystikers Johann van Ruysbroeck, +aus dem Vlämischen übersetzt von</i> +<span class="sc">Franz A. Lambert</span> (Leipzig, 1902).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A vigorous and accurate translation of <i>The +Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage</i>, <i>The Sparkling +Stone</i> and <i>The Book of Supreme Truth</i>.</p> +<p>Ruysbroeck translates better into German than +into any other language; and this volume is +strongly recommended to all who can read that +tongue.</p> +<h3>III. <span class="sc">Selections</span></h3> +<blockquote> +<p><i>Rusbrock l’Admirable: Œuvres Choisies. Traduit +par</i> <span class="sc">E. Hello</span> (Paris, 1902).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A series of short passages, paraphrased (<i>not</i> +translated) from the Latin of Surius. There are +two English versions of this unsatisfactory book, +the second being the best:</p> +<blockquote> +<div class="bibliosub"><i>Reflections from the Mirror of a Mystic.</i> +Translated by <span class="sc">Earle Baillie</span> (London, +1905).</div> +<div class="bibliosub"><i>Flowers of a Mystic Garden.</i> Translated by +C. E. S. (London, 1912).</div> +</blockquote><blockquote> +<p><i>Life, Light, and Love: Selections from the German +Mystics.</i> By the Very Rev. <span class="sc">W. R. Inge</span>, +D.D., Dean of St. Paul’s (London, 1905).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Contains an abridged version of <i>The Adornment +of the Spiritual Marriage</i>.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_191">[191]</div> +<h2 id="c11"><span class="sc">Biography and Criticism</span></h2> +<p class="center">(<i>A Selection</i>)</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">Auger, A.</span>—<i>De Doctrina et Meritis Joannis van +Ruysbroeck</i> (Louvain, 1892).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Engelhardt, J. G. von.</span>—<i>Richard von St. Victor +und J. Ruysbroeck</i> (Erlangen, 1838).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Useful for tracing the correspondences between +the Victorines and Ruysbroeck.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">Maeterlinck, Maurice.</span>—<i>Ruysbroeck and the +Mystics.</i> Translated by <span class="sc">Jane Stoddart</span> +(London, 1908).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>An English version of the Introduction to +<i>L’Ornement des Noces Spirituelles</i>, above-mentioned; +with many fine passages translated from +Ruysbroeck’s other works.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">Pomerius, H.</span>—<i>De Origine Monasterii Viridisvallis +una cum Vitis Joannis Rusbrochii.</i></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Printed in <i>Analecta Bollandiana</i>, vol. iv. +(Brussels, 1885). The chief authority for all +biographical facts.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">Scully, Dom Vincent.</span>—<i>A Mediæval Mystic</i> +(London, 1910).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A biographical account, founded on Pomerius, +with a short analysis of Ruysbroeck’s works. +Popular and uncritical.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">Vreese, Dr. W. L. de.</span>—<i>Jean de Ruysbroeck</i> +(<i>Biographie Nationale de Belgique</i>, vol. xx.) +(Brussels, 1907).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>An important and authoritative article with +<span class="pb" id="Page_192">[192]</span> +analysis of all Ruysbroeck’s works and full bibliography.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>——<i>Bijdragen tot de Kennis van het Leven en de +Werken van Jan van Ruusbroec</i> (Gent, 1896).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Contains Gerard Naghel’s sketch of Ruysbroeck’s +life, with other useful material.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>——<i>De Handschriften van Jan van Ruusbroec’s +Werken.</i> 2 vols. (Gent, 1900).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>An important and scholarly study of the manuscript +sources by the greatest living authority.</p> +<p class="tb">Notices of Ruysbroeck will be found in the +following works:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">Auger, A.</span>—<i>Étude sur les Mystiques des Pays Bas +au Moyen Age</i> (<i>Académie Royale de Belgique</i>, +vol. xlvi., 1892).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Fleming, W. K.</span>—<i>Mysticism in Christianity</i> +(London, 1913).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Inge</span>, Very Rev. W. R., D.D., Dean of St. Paul’s.—<i>Christian +Mysticism</i> (London, 1899).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Jones</span>, Dr. <span class="sc">Rufus M.</span>—<i>Studies in Mystical Religion</i> +(London, 1909).</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="tb">Applications of his doctrine to the spiritual life +in:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">Baker</span>, Venerable <span class="sc">Augustin</span>.—<i>Holy Wisdom; +or Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation</i> +(London, 1908).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Blosius, F. V.</span>—<i>Book of Spiritual Instruction</i> +(London, 1900); <i>A Mirror for Monks</i> +(London, 1901); <i>Comfort for the Faint-hearted</i> +(London, 1903); <i>Sanctuary of the +Faithful Soul</i> (London, 1905).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Denis the Carthusian.</span>—<i>Opera Omnia</i> (Monstrolii, +1896), in progress.</p> +<div class="pb" id="Page_193">[193]</div> +<p><span class="sc">Petersen, Gerlac.</span>—<i>The Fiery Soliloquy with +God</i> (London, 1872).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Poulain, Aug., S.J.</span>—<i>The Graces of Interior +Prayer</i> (London, 1910).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Underhill, E.</span>—<i>Mysticism</i>, 5th ed. (London, 1914).</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><span class="sc">Influences</span></h3> +<p>Much light is thrown on Ruysbroeck’s doctrine +by a study of the authors who influenced him; +especially:</p> +<blockquote> +<p><span class="sc">St. Augustine</span>; <span class="sc">Migne</span>, <i>P.L.</i>, xxvii.-xlvii.; Eng. +Trans., edited by <span class="sc">M. Dods</span> (Edinburgh, 1876).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Dionysius the Areopagite</span>; <span class="sc">Migne</span>, <i>P.G.</i>, iii., iv.; +Eng. Trans., by <span class="sc">Parker</span> (Oxford, 1897).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Hugh</span> and <span class="sc">Richard of St. Victor</span>; <span class="sc">Migne</span>, +<i>P.L.</i>, clxxv.-clxxvii. and cxcvi.</p> +<p><span class="sc">St. Bernard</span>; <span class="sc">Migne</span>, <i>P.L.</i>, clxxxii.-clxxxv.; +Eng. Trans., by <span class="sc">Eales</span> (London, 1889-96).</p> +<p><span class="sc">St. Thomas Aquinas</span>; <i>Opera</i> (Romæ, 1882-1906); +Eng. Trans., by the <span class="sc">Dominican Fathers</span> (in +progress).</p> +<p><span class="sc">St. Bonaventura</span>; <i>Opera</i> (Paris, 1864-71).</p> +<p>Meister <span class="sc">Eckhart</span>; <i>Schriften und Predigten</i> +(Leipzig, 1903).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Suso</span>; <i>Schriften</i>, ed. <span class="sc">Denifle</span> (Munich, 1876). +Eng. Trans., <i>Life</i>, ed. by <span class="sc">W. R. Inge</span> (London, +1913); <i>Book of Eternal Wisdom</i> (London, +1910).</p> +<p><span class="sc">Tauler</span>, <i>Predigten</i> (Prague, 1872); Eng. Trans., +<i>Twenty-five Sermons</i>, trans. by <span class="sc">Winkworth</span> +(London, 1906); <i>The Inner Way</i>, edited by +<span class="sc">A. W. Hutton</span> (London, 1909).</p> +</blockquote> +</div> +<div class="pb" id="Page_194">[194]</div> +<h2 class="nothml" id="c12">Footnotes</h2> +<div class="fnblock"><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_1" href="#fr_1">[1]</a>The <i>Vita</i> of Pomerius is printed in the +<i>Analecta Bollandiana</i>, vol. iv. pp. 257 ff. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_2" href="#fr_2">[2]</a><i>The Book of Supreme Truth</i>, cap. iv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_3" href="#fr_3">[3]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. vii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_4" href="#fr_4">[4]</a><i>Vita</i>, cap. xv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_5" href="#fr_5">[5]</a>De Vreese has identified 160 Flemish and 46 Latin +MSS. of Ruysbroeck. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_6" href="#fr_6">[6]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxxvii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_7" href="#fr_7">[7]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_8" href="#fr_8">[8]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxxvii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_9" href="#fr_9">[9]</a><i>Op. cit.</i>, <i>ibid.</i> +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_10" href="#fr_10">[10]</a><i>The Seven Degrees of Love</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_11" href="#fr_11">[11]</a><i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>, cap. xxix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_12" href="#fr_12">[12]</a><i>The Mirror of Eternal Salvation</i>, cap. viii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_13" href="#fr_13">[13]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. ix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_14" href="#fr_14">[14]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_15" href="#fr_15">[15]</a><i>The Book of Truth</i>, cap. xi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_16" href="#fr_16">[16]</a><i>The Mirror of Eternal Salvation</i>, cap. xvii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_17" href="#fr_17">[17]</a><i>Op. cit.</i>, cap. vii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_18" href="#fr_18">[18]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. x. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_19" href="#fr_19">[19]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_20" href="#fr_20">[20]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xiii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_21" href="#fr_21">[21]</a><i>The Seven Degrees of Love</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_22" href="#fr_22">[22]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. iii. cap. i. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_23" href="#fr_23">[23]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_24" href="#fr_24">[24]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_25" href="#fr_25">[25]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. viii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_26" href="#fr_26">[26]</a><i>The Seven Degrees of Love</i>, cap. i. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_27" href="#fr_27">[27]</a><i>The Mirror of Eternal Salvation</i>, cap. xvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_28" href="#fr_28">[28]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. vi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_29" href="#fr_29">[29]</a><i>The Mirror of Eternal Salvation</i>, cap. vii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_30" href="#fr_30">[30]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. i. cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_31" href="#fr_31">[31]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. i. capp. xii.-xxiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_32" href="#fr_32">[32]</a><i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>, cap. xviii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_33" href="#fr_33">[33]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. i. cap. xxvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_34" href="#fr_34">[34]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. vii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_35" href="#fr_35">[35]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. vii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_36" href="#fr_36">[36]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. ix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_37" href="#fr_37">[37]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. iv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_38" href="#fr_38">[38]</a>Cf. <i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. x. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_39" href="#fr_39">[39]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xix.; <i>The Book of +Truth</i>, cap. ix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_40" href="#fr_40">[40]</a><i>The Seven Degrees of Love</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_41" href="#fr_41">[41]</a><i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>, cap. xx. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_42" href="#fr_42">[42]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxiii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_43" href="#fr_43">[43]</a><i>Op. cit.</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxvii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_44" href="#fr_44">[44]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_45" href="#fr_45">[45]</a>Richard Rolle; <i>The Mending of Life</i>, cap. xii. (Harford’s +edition, p. 82). +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_46" href="#fr_46">[46]</a><i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>, cap. xxv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_47" href="#fr_47">[47]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxviii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_48" href="#fr_48">[48]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_49" href="#fr_49">[49]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. ii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_50" href="#fr_50">[50]</a>Cp. <i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. lvii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_51" href="#fr_51">[51]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxxvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_52" href="#fr_52">[52]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxxviii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_53" href="#fr_53">[53]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. ii. cap. xxxix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_54" href="#fr_54">[54]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. ii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_55" href="#fr_55">[55]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_56" href="#fr_56">[56]</a><i>Loc. cit.</i> +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_57" href="#fr_57">[57]</a>St. Augustine, <i>Confessions</i>, lib. vii. cap. x. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_58" href="#fr_58">[58]</a>St. Augustine, <i>Confessions</i>, lib. vii. capp. xvii. and xx. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_59" href="#fr_59">[59]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_60" href="#fr_60">[60]</a><i>Loc. cit.</i> +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_61" href="#fr_61">[61]</a><i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>, cap. xxxiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_62" href="#fr_62">[62]</a><i>The Seven Cloisters</i>, cap. xix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_63" href="#fr_63">[63]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_64" href="#fr_64">[64]</a><i>The Mirror of Eternal Salvation</i>, cap. xvii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_65" href="#fr_65">[65]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. iii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_66" href="#fr_66">[66]</a>Cap. viii.: ‘Of the Difference between the Secret +Friends and the Hidden Sons of God.’ +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_67" href="#fr_67">[67]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_68" href="#fr_68">[68]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_69" href="#fr_69">[69]</a><i>The Seven Cloisters</i>, cap. xix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_70" href="#fr_70">[70]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. viii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_71" href="#fr_71">[71]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. ix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_72" href="#fr_72">[72]</a><i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>; cap. xxxiii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_73" href="#fr_73">[73]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. ix.; cp. also <i>The Twelve +Béguines</i>, cap. xvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_74" href="#fr_74">[74]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_75" href="#fr_75">[75]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. ix.; cp. also <i>The Book of +Truth</i>, cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_76" href="#fr_76">[76]</a><i>The Kingdom of God’s Lovers</i>, cap. xxxi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_77" href="#fr_77">[77]</a><i>The Book of Truth</i>, cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_78" href="#fr_78">[78]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. x. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_79" href="#fr_79">[79]</a><i>Op. cit.</i> cap. ix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_80" href="#fr_80">[80]</a><i>The Imitation of Christ</i>, lib. iii. cap. xxiii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_81" href="#fr_81">[81]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xiv., and <i>The Sparkling +Stone</i>, cap. ix. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_82" href="#fr_82">[82]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_83" href="#fr_83">[83]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. ix.; cp. <i>The Book of Truth</i>, +cap. xi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_84" href="#fr_84">[84]</a><i>The Twelve Béguines</i>, cap. xvi. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_85" href="#fr_85">[85]</a><i>Ibid.</i> cap. xiv.; cp. St. Bernard, <i>De Diligendo Deo</i>, +cap. x. The same image is found in St. Macarius and +many other writers. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_86" href="#fr_86">[86]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_87" href="#fr_87">[87]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. x. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_88" href="#fr_88">[88]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. x. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_89" href="#fr_89">[89]</a><i>Op. cit.</i> cap. xii. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_90" href="#fr_90">[90]</a><i>Op. cit.</i> cap. xiii.; cp. also <i>The Seven Degrees</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_91" href="#fr_91">[91]</a><i>The Sparkling Stone</i>, cap. xiv. +</div><div class="fndef"><a class="fn" id="fn_92" href="#fr_92">[92]</a><i>The Spiritual Marriage</i>, lib. iii. cap. v. +</div> +</div> +<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small"><i>Printed by</i> +<br /><span class="sc">Morrison & Gibb Limited</span> +<br /><i>Edinburgh</i></span></p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ruysbroeck, by Evelyn Underhill + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUYSBROECK *** + +***** This file should be named 37870-h.htm or 37870-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/8/7/37870/ + +Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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