A Mediaeval Mystic Part 1

A Mediaeval Mystic.

by Vincent Scully.

INTRODUCTION

The object of the following unpretentious little volume is to give a simple and readable account in English of the life and writings of a remarkable Flemish Mystic of the fourteenth century, a contemporary of our own Walter Hilton. Though his memory and honour have never faded in his own native Belgium, and though France and Germany have vied with each other in spreading his teaching and singing his praises, the very name of Blessed John Ruysbroeck is practically unknown this side of the water. We are acquainted with only one small work in English dealing directly with the Saint or his work at all, viz. _Reflections from the Mirror of Mystic_,[1] giving the briefest sketch of his life and some short extracts from his writings as translated from the French rendering of Ernest h.e.l.lo.

The original authorities for the history of Ruysbroeck are practically reduced to one, the biography by Henry Pomerius, a Canon Regular of Groenendael, ent.i.tled _De Origine monasterii Viridisvallis una c.u.m vitis B. Joannis Rusbrochii primi prioris hujus monasterii et aliquot coaetaneorum ejus_, re-edited by the Bollandists, Brussels, 1885. It is certain that a disciple of John Ruysbroeck, John of Scoenhoven, also of Groenendael, who undertook the defence of Blessed John's writings against Gerson, composed a short biography, but this was embodied in the work of Pomerius, and thereby as a separate volume fell out of use and memory.

Pomerius had Scoenhoven's MS. to work upon, and some of Ruysbroeck's contemporaries were still living at Groenendael when he composed his biography there. The brief references by the Venerable Thomas a Kempis in his _Vita Gerardi Magni_ are likewise of great interest and intrinsic worth.

For the purposes of this brief biography, which lays no claim whatever to original research, the compiler has made very great use of the labours of Dr. Auger, _De Doctrina et Meritis Joannis van Ruysbroeck_, Louvain, and Willem de Vreese, _Jean de Ruysbroeck_, an extract from the _Biographie Nationale_, published by l'Academie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1909. This indebtedness is especially true of the summarised a.n.a.lysis of the various works of Ruysbroeck.

Later it may be possible to give a complete and faithful English rendering of all Ruysbroeck's Works from the critical edition which is at present preparing in Louvain; where there is an active revival of interest in this great and holy Mystic of the Netherlands.

For the judgment of competent witnesses as to the permanent value and extraordinary sublimity of B. John's writings the reader is referred to the body of this work under the heading, _Some Appreciations_.

The usual protest is made according to the Decrees of Urban VIII.

concerning alleged miracles, etc., recorded in these pages.

St. Ives, Cornwall,

_Feast of Our Lady's Nativity_, 1910.

A Mediaeval Mystic

I

Early Years and Education

Blessed John Ruysbroeck, surnamed the Admirable and the Divine Doctor, by common consent the greatest Mystic the Low Countries have ever produced, was born, A.D. 1293, at Ruysbroeck, a village some miles south of Brussels, lying between that city and Hal. According to the fas.h.i.+on of those days, especially with Religious, he was named after his birthplace, John van Ruysbroeck, or John Ruysbroeck. The Venerable a Kempis, the Latinised form of van Kempen, is a case in point; Thomas was so named after his native town, Kempen, though his patronymic was Haemerken. Of Ruysbroeck, however, we know of no other surname; neither do his biographers so much as mention his father. But like many another great servant of G.o.d, John was blessed with a good mother, a devout woman who trained her child from the cradle to walk in the paths of Christian piety and perfection. She is charged with only one fault, that she loved her son too tenderly!

Perhaps we are to understand by this that the poor woman opposed the boy's early aspirations after a more retired life than could be found even in the peaceful shelter of his own pious home. This would also explain John's first recorded act. At the age of eleven years he ran away from home! How many a lad before and since has torn himself away from a loving mother's too fond embrace to quell the ardour of a restless spirit in the quest of adventure! John also was eager and dissatisfied; but the larger sphere for which he sighed was to be sought along the unaccustomed ways which lead to the sublime heights and the rarified atmosphere of mystic contemplation.

The pious truant made his way to Brussels, there to call upon an uncle of his, one John Hinckaert, a major Canon of St. Gudule's. The son and heir of a wealthy magistrate of the city, and possessed, moreover, of a rich benefice, for many years John Hinckaert had been somewhat worldly in his ways; but one day Divine grace found him out as he was listening to a sermon, and drew him sweetly and strongly to a life of extreme simplicity and mortification. His example was soon followed by a fellow Canon, by name Francis van Coudenberg, a Master of Arts, possessed of considerable means, and a man of great repute with the people. These two agreed, for their mutual edification and support, to live together in common. Their material requirements were reduced to the barest necessaries; and the surplus of their revenue was distributed among the poor. In this devout household the lad John met with a kindly welcome; and there he found at once a home after his own heart in an atmosphere saturated with "other-worldliness" and prayer. His good uncle also took charge of his education. For four years Ruysbroeck followed the ordinary course of Humanities in the public schools of Brussels, and then, with a view to the priesthood, he devoted himself to the more congenial study of the sacred sciences.

Meanwhile the bereaved mother had discovered the place of John's retreat and had quitted her village of Ruysbroeck to reside with him at Brussels.

As, however, she was not permitted to dwell in the Presbytery, she made her abode in a _Beguinage_ hard by. Thus she had at least the consolation of seeing her son from time to time. She must have been much comforted also for the deprivation of his company by the constant evidence of his growing sanct.i.ty. And, further, we are a.s.sured that she set herself to make profit of her sacrifice by emulating in her own person the holy life of her son John, and his saintly masters, Hinckaert and van Coudenberg.

II

As a Secular Priest in Brussels

In due course Canon Hinckaert procured for his nephew one of the lesser prebends of St. Gudule's, and John was ordained priest in the year 1317, at the age of twenty-four. His good mother did not survive to witness this happy event in the flesh, nevertheless even beyond the grave she had good cause to rejoice therein. After her departure from this world she had often appeared to her son, lamenting her pains, beseeching his prayers, and sighing for the day when he would be able to offer for her the holy Sacrifice. And John was unceasing in his supplications. But immediately after the celebration of his first Ma.s.s, as he related to his Religious Brethren later, G.o.d granted him a vision full of consolation: when the sacred oblation was accomplished, his mother came to visit and thank him for her deliverance from Purgatory. The touching incident is well worth recording, if only to show that it was through no lack of natural affection that the child John had so unceremoniously forsaken home and mother. Moreover, of these two holy souls it was singularly true that _having loved each other in life, in death they were not parted_, for they were privileged often to converse together, and finally it was from his mother that Ruysbroeck learned the date of his own approaching departure.

For twenty-six years in all Blessed John lived as a secular priest in Brussels. Content with his modest chaplaincy in the Church of St. Gudule, and with his holy companions Hinckaert and van Coudenberg continuing happily in apostolic simplicity and poverty the Common Life on which he had entered a mere child, Ruysbroeck pa.s.sed his days in peaceful retirement and almost uninterrupted prayer and contemplation.

A characteristic episode of this period reveals to us the man as in a flash, his mean garb, his emaciated figure, his absorbed demeanour, his utter abandonment in G.o.d. He was pa.s.sing through a square of Brussels one day, silent and recollected, as was his wont, when two laymen remarked him.

"My G.o.d," exclaimed one, "would I were as holy as that priest!"

"Nay, for my part," returned the other, "I would not be in his shoes for all the wealth of the world. I should never know a day's pleasure on earth."

"Then you know nothing of the delights which G.o.d bestows, or of the delicious savour of the Holy Ghost," thought Ruysbroeck to himself, for he happened to overhear the words, and he proceeded tranquilly on his way.

III

False Mystics

But with all his love of peace and retirement, when it was a question of guarding the integrity of the Faith and of warding off peril from immortal souls, Ruysbroeck hesitated not to stand in the breach; even though others of much higher position in the Church and of much higher repute for theological learning than the obscure chaplain of St. Gudule's should raise not a finger nor so much as utter a warning word.

The student of history is well aware of the many and startling contrasts and contradictions presented by the Middle Ages. It was an epoch of magnificent virtues and of gross vices, of splendid heroism and of unspeakable cruelty, of superb generosity and of disgusting meanness, and, which is more to our point at present, of intense devotion and of the most revolting vagaries in doctrine and morals. While also on the one hand there was much genuine zeal, much earnest endeavour to reform crying abuses in Church and State; on the other hand hypocrites and fanatics abounded, who aimed at the destruction of the principle of authority on the plea of amending those in power, or who, the while they inveighed against the futility of a merely exterior religion and insisted on the supreme need of purity of heart, themselves fell into the excess of neglecting all external form, and at times all outward decency and observance of morality.

In varying degrees these latter errors are to be encountered under one shape or another in every age; but at the period of which we treat they were especially intense and extreme. The _Beghards_ and the _Beguines_ (when and where these broke loose from ecclesiastical control), the _Flagellants_, the _Brethren of the Free Spirit_ were chief of a group of extravagant sects which afflicted the Church in Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands; while England at the same time was disturbed by the fanaticism of the Lollards. In general their peculiar tenets were a strange admixture of pantheism, false mysticism, apparent austerity, and very real immorality. The following is one of their characteristic propositions, condemned by Clement V. in the Council of Vienna, A.D.

1311-1312: "That those who are in the aforesaid grade of perfection and in the spirit of liberty (contemplatives) are not subject to human authority and are not obliged to obey any precepts of the Church, because (as they say) _where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty_."

It so happened that contemporary with our Saint in Brussels was a prominent leader of the heretics of the _Free Spirit_, a woman whose name is given as Bloemardinne, a good type, to judge by the description of Ruysbroeck's biographer, of the whole genus of such teachers in those days and in our own.[2] So great was this creature's reputation for sanct.i.ty that it was commonly reported that two Seraphim accompanied her to the altar when she approached to receive Holy Communion. She always delivered her teachings, whether by word or in writing, seated on a throne of silver. At her demise this chair was presented to the reigning d.u.c.h.ess of Brabant. After Bloemardinne's death also cripples came to touch her body in the persuasion that they would be miraculously healed thereby. Her teaching was of the kind indicated above, concerned chiefly with the so-called liberty of the spirit; the pa.s.sion of l.u.s.t she had the impudence to call seraphic love. She issued numerous pamphlets remarkable for their subtlety; and by one means and another she managed to win and retain a very considerable number of disciples.

Moved by zeal and compa.s.sion on witnessing the ruin and loss of souls thus effected, John Ruysbroeck set himself to confute this heretic's various publications point by point as they appeared. In consequence, he incurred not a little hostility and persecution. Possibly it was this opposition which finally decided Ruysbroeck and his holy companions to quit Brussels for the more peaceful retirement of the neighbouring forest of Soignes. But meanwhile he never for a moment desisted from his efforts in defence of the Faith, and in the propagation of the doctrines of sane mysticism. Of the treatises published professedly against Bloemardinne there is nothing extant. But in all his works Ruysbroeck keeps an eye on the errors of the day. He returns to them again and again, a.n.a.lysing their sources, describing their characteristics, indicating the mischief they work, and offering a reasoned and solid confutation. At the same time, with wondrous sureness and perspicacity, from the rich stores of his own intimate experience, he points out the safe and sure paths which lead the soul to loving union with G.o.d.

Some thirty years after Ruysbroeck's death, in 1410, the Archbishop of Cambrai called his disciples, the Canons Regular of Groenendael, to come and aid him in preaching against the successors of the notorious Bloemardinne--a fact eloquent both of the obstinacy of this particular heresy and of Blessed John's reputation as its most vigorous opponent.

IV

The Hermitage of Groenendael

It appears that it was on the suggestion of Francis van Coudenberg that the three holy priests resolved to abandon Brussels to seek elsewhere for themselves a refuge of greater security and retirement. It was through the influence also of van Coudenberg with John III., Duke of Brabant, that they obtained the cession of an ideal property for their purpose, the hermitage, namely, of Groenendael, with its lands and lake.