{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37870/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37870","id":"gutenberg_37870","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37870","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Ruusbroec, Jan van, 1293-1381"],"text":"Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                            THE QUEST SERIES\n\n\n                        Edited by G. R. S. MEAD,\n                         EDITOR OF 'THE QUEST.'\n\n                     _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net each._\n\n                         FIRST LIST OF VOLUMES.\n\nPSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND SURVIVAL. By James H. Hyslop, Ph.D., LL.D.,\n        Secretary of Psychical Research Society of America.\n\nTHE QUEST OF THE HOLY GRAIL. By Jessie L. Weston, Author of 'The Legend\n        of Sir Perceval.'\n\nJEWISH MYSTICISM. By J. Abelson, M.A., D.Lit, Principal of Aria College,\n        Portsmouth.\n\nTHE MYSTICS OF ISLAM. By Reynold A. Nicholson, M.A., Litt.D, LL.D.,\n        Lecturer on Persian, Cambridge University.\n\nBUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY. By C. A. F. Rhys Davids, M.A., Lecturer on Indian\n        Philosophy, Manchester University.\n\nRUYSBROECK. By Evelyn Underhill, Author of 'Mysticism,' 'The Mystic Way,'\n        etc.\n\nTHE SIDEREAL RELIGION OF THE ANCIENTS. By Robert Eisler, Ph.D., Author of\n        Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt.'    [_In the Press._\n\n                     London: G. BELL AND SONS LTD.\n\n\n\n\n                               RUYSBROECK\n\n\n                                   BY\n                            EVELYN UNDERHILL\n                               AUTHOR OF\n               'MYSTICISM,' 'THE MYSTIC WAY,' ETC., ETC.\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                         G. BELL AND SONS LTD.\n                                  1915\n\n\n                                  FOR\n                                 JESSIE\n                        TO WHOM IT OWES SO MUCH\n                 THIS LITTLE TRIBUTE TO A MUTUAL FRIEND\n\n\n\n\n                             EDITOR'S NOTE\n\n\nA glance at the excellent Bibliographical Note at the end of the volume\nwill reveal the surprising paucity of literature on Ruysbroeck in this\ncountry. A single version from the original of one short treatise,\npublished in the present year, is all that we possess of direct\ntranslation; even in versions from translation there is only one treatise\nrepresented; add to this one or two selections of the same nature, and\nthe full tale is told. We are equally poorly off for studies of the life\nand doctrine of the great Flemish contemplative of the fourteenth\ncentury. And yet Jan van Ruusbroec is thought, by no few competent\njudges, to be the greatest of all the medi\u00e6val Catholic mystics; and,\nindeed, it is difficult to point to his superior. Miss Evelyn Underhill\nis, therefore, doing lovers not only of Catholic mysticism, but also of\nmysticism in general, a very real service by her monograph, which deals\nmore satisfactorily than any existing work in English with the life and\nteachings of one of the most spiritual minds in Christendom. Her book is\nnot simply a painstaking summary of the more patent generalities of the\nsubject, but rather a deeply sympathetic entering into the mind of\nRuysbroeck, and that, too, with no common insight.\n\n\n\n\n                             PREFATORY NOTE\n\n\nI owe to the great kindness of my friend, Mrs. Theodore Beck, the\ntranslation of several passages from Ruysbroeck's _Sparkling Stone_ given\nin the present work; and in quoting from _The Twelve B\u00e9guines_ have\noften, though not always, availed myself of the recently published\nversion by Mr. John Francis. For all other renderings I alone am\nresponsible.\n\n                                                               E. U.\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAP.                                                               PAGE\n     I. Ruysbroeck the Man                                               1\n    II. His Works                                                       36\n   III. His Doctrine of God                                             52\n    IV. His Doctrine of Man                                             66\n     V. The Active Life                                                 94\n    VI. The Interior Life: Illumination and Destitution                115\n   VII. The Interior Life: Union and Contemplation                     136\n  VIII. The Superessential Life                                        164\n\n        Bibliographical Note                                           187\n\n\n\n\n      Luce divina sopra me s' appunta,\n      penetrando per questa ond' io m' inventro;\n  La cui virt\u00f9, col mio veder conguinta,\n      mi leva sopra me tanto, ch' io veggio\n      la somma essenza della quale \u00e8 munta.\n  Quinci vien l' allegrezza, ond' io fiammeggio;\n      perch\u00e8 alla vista mia, quant' ella \u00e8 chiara,\n      la chiarit\u00e0 della fiamma pareggio.\n\n                                                       Par. xxi. 83.\n\n  [Divine Light doth focus itself upon me, piercing through that wherein\n  I am enclosed; the power of which, united with my sight, so greatly\n  lifts me up above myself that I see the Supreme Essence where from it\n  is drawn. Thence comes the joy wherewith I flame; for to my vision,\n  even as it is clear, I make the clearness of the flame respond.]\n\n\n\n\n                               RUYSBROECK\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n                           RUYSBROECK THE MAN\n\n\n  The tree Igdrasil, which has its head in heaven and its roots in hell\n  (the lower parts of the earth), is the image of the true man.... In\n  proportion to the divine heights to which it ascends must be the\n  obscure depths in which the tree is rooted, and from which it draws the\n  mystic sap of its spiritual life.\n\n                                                     Coventry Patmore.\n\nIn the history of the spiritual adventures of man, we find at intervals\ncertain great mystics, who appear to gather up and fuse together in the\ncrucible of the heart the diverse tendencies of those who have preceded\nthem, and, adding to these elements the tincture of their own rich\nexperience, give to us an intensely personal, yet universal, vision of\nGod and man. These are constructive spirits, whose creations in the\nspiritual sphere sum up and represent the best achievement of a whole\nepoch; as in other spheres the great artist, musician, or poet--always\nthe child of tradition as well as of inspiration--may do.\n\nJohn Ruysbroeck is such a mystic as this. His career, which covers the\ngreater part of the fourteenth century--that golden age of Christian\nmysticism--seems to exhibit within the circle of a single personality,\nand carry up to a higher term than ever before, all the best attainments\nof the Middle Ages in the realm of Eternal Life. Rooted firmly in\nhistory, faithful to the teachings of the great Catholic mystics of the\nprimitive and medi\u00e6val times, Ruysbroeck does not merely transmit, but\ntransfigures, their principles: making from the salt, sulphur, and\nmercury of their vision, reason, and love, a new and living jewel--or, in\nhis own words, a 'sparkling stone'--which reflects the actual radiance of\nthe Uncreated Light. Absorbing from the rich soil of the Middle Ages all\nthe intellectual nourishment which he needs, dependent too, as all real\ngreatness is, on the human environment in which he grows--that mysterious\ninteraction and inter-penetration of personalities without which human\nconsciousness can never develop its full powers--he towers up from the\nsocial and intellectual circumstances that conditioned him: a living,\ngrowing, unique and creative individual, yet truly a part of the earth\nfrom which he springs.\n\nTo speak of Ruysbroeck, as some enthusiastic biographers have done, as an\nisolated spiritual phenomenon totally unrelated to the life of his time,\nan 'ignorant monk' whose profound knowledge of reality is entirely the\nresult of personal inspiration and independent of human history, is to\nmisunderstand his greatness. The 'ignorant monk' was bound by close links\nto the religious life of his day. He was no spiritual individualist; but\nthe humble, obedient child of an institution, the loyal member of a\nSociety. He tells us again and again that his spiritual powers were\nnourished by the sacramental life of the Catholic Church. From the\ntheologians of that Church came the intellectual framework in which his\nsublime intuitions were expressed. All that he does--though he does this\nto a degree perhaps unique in Christian history--is to carry out into\naction, completely actualise in his own experience, the high vision of\nthe soul's relation to Divine Reality by which that Church is possessed.\nThe central Christian doctrine of Divine Fatherhood, and of the soul's\n'power to become the son of God': it is this, raised to the _n_th degree\nof intensity, experienced in all its depth and fullness, and demonstrated\nwith the exactitude of a mathematician and the passion of a poet, which\nRuysbroeck gives us. Thus tradition and authority, no less than the\nabundant inspiration, the direct ecstatic knowledge of God to which his\nwritings bear witness, have their part in his achievement. His\ntheological culture was wide and deep. Not only the Scriptures and the\nLiturgy, but St. Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, Richard of St.\nVictor, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others\nhave stimulated and controlled his thought; interpreting to him his\nineffable adventures, and providing him with vessels in which the fruit\nof those adventures could be communicated to other men.\n\nNor is Catholic tradition the only medium through which human life has\nexercised a formative influence upon Ruysbroeck's genius. His worldly\ncircumstances, his place within and reaction to the temporal order, the\ntemper of those souls amongst which he grew--these too are of vital\nimportance in relation to his mystical achievements. To study the\ninterior adventures and formal teachings of a mystic without reference to\nthe general trend and special accidents of his outer life, is to neglect\nour best chance of understanding the nature and sources of his vision of\ntruth. The angle from which that vision is perceived, the content of the\nmind which comes to it, above all the concrete activities which it\ninduces in the growing, moving, supple self: these are primary _data_\nwhich we should never ignore. Action is of the very essence of human\nreality. Where the inner life is genuine and strong the outer life will\nreflect, however faintly, the curve on which it moves; for human\nconsciousness is a unit, capable of reacting to and synthesising two\norders, not an unresolved dualism--as it were, an angel and an\nanimal--condemned to lifelong battle within a narrow cage.\n\nTherefore we begin our study of Ruysbroeck the mystic by the study of\nRuysbroeck the man: the circumstances of his life and environment, so far\nas we can find them out. For the facts of this life our chief authority\nwill be the Augustinian Canon Pomerius, who was Prior and chronicler of\nRuysbroeck's own community of Groenendael. Born in 1382, a year after\nRuysbroeck's death, and entering Groenendael early in the fifteenth\ncentury, he knew and talked with at least two of the great mystic's\ndisciples, John of Hoelaere and John of Scoonhoven. His life of\nRuysbroeck and history of the foundation of the monastery was finished\nbefore 1420; that is to say, within the lifetime of the generation which\nsucceeded the first founders of the house.[1] It represents the careful\ngathering up, sifting, and arranging of all that was remembered and\nbelieved by the community--still retaining several members who had known\nhim in the flesh--of the facts of Ruysbroeck's character and career.\n\nPomerius was no wild romancer, but a reasonably careful as well as a\ngenuinely enthusiastic monastic chronicler. Moderation is hardly the\noutstanding virtue of such home-made lives of monastic founders. They are\ninevitably composed in surroundings where any criticism of their subject\nor scepticism as to his supernatural peculiarities is looked upon as a\ncrime; where every incident has been fitted with a halo, and the\nunexplained is indistinguishable from the miraculous. Nevertheless the\npicture drawn by Pomerius--exaggerated though it be in certain\nrespects--is a human picture; possessed of distinct characteristics, some\nnatural and charming, some deeply impressive. It is completed by a second\ndocumentary source: the little sketch by Ruysbroeck's intimate friend,\nGerard Naghel, Prior of the Carthusian monastery of H\u00e9rines near\nGroenendael, which forms the prologue to our most complete MS. collection\nof his writings.\n\nRuysbroeck's life, as it is shown to us by Pomerius and Gerard, falls\ninto three main divisions, three stages of ascent: the natural active\nlife of boyhood; the contemplative, disciplined career of his middle\nperiod; the superessential life of supreme union which governed his\nexistence at Groenendael. This course, which he trod in the temporal\norder, seems like the rough sketch of that other course trodden by the\nadvancing soul within the eternal order--the Threefold Life of man which\nhe describes to us in _The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage_ and other\nof his works.\n\nNow the details of that career are these: John Ruysbroeck was born in\n1293 at the little village of Ruysbroeck or Ruusbroec, between Brussels\nand Hal, from which he takes his name. We know nothing of his father; but\nhis mother is described as a good and pious woman, devoted to the\nupbringing of her son--a hard task, and one that was soon proved to be\nbeyond her. The child Ruysbroeck was strong-willed, adventurous,\ninsubordinate; already showing signs of that abounding vitality, that\nstrange restlessness and need of expansion which children of genius so\noften exhibit. At eleven years of age he ran away from home, and found\nhis way to Brussels; where his uncle, John Hinckaert, was a Canon of the\nCathedral of St. Gudule. Pomerius assures us that this escapade, which\nwould have seemed a mere naughtiness in normal little boys, was in fact a\nproof of coming sanctity; that it was not the attraction of the city but\na precocious instinct for the religious life--the first crude stirrings\nof the love of God--which set this child upon the road. Such a claim is\nnatural to the hagiographer; yet there lies behind it a certain truth.\nThe little John may or may not have dreamed of being a priest; he did\nalready dream of a greater, more enticing life beyond the barriers of use\nand wont. Though he knew it not, the vision of a spiritual city called\nhim. Already the primal need of his nature was asserting itself--the\ndemand, felt long before it was understood, for something beyond the\ncomfortable world of appearance--and this demand crystallised into a\nconcrete act. In the sturdy courage which faced the unknown, the\npractical temper which translated dream into action, we see already the\ngerm of those qualities which afterwards gave to the great contemplative\npower to climb up to the 'supreme summits of the inner life' and face the\nawful realities of God.\n\nSuch adventures are not rare in the childhood of the mystics. Always of a\nromantic temperament, endowed too with an abounding vitality, the craving\nfor some dimly-guessed and wonderful experience often shows itself early\nin them; as the passion for music, colour or poetry is sometimes seen in\nembryo in artists of another type. The impact of Reality seems to be felt\nby such spirits in earliest childhood. Born susceptible in a special\ndegree to the messages which pour in on man from the Transcendent, they\nmove from the first in a different universe from that of other boys and\ngirls; subject to experiences which they do not understand, full of\ndreams which they are unable to explain, and often impelled to strange\nactions, extremely disconcerting to the ordinary guardians of youth. Thus\nthe little Catherine of Siena, six years old, already lived in a world\nwhich was peopled with saints and angels; and ruled her small life by the\nvisions which she had seen. Thus the baby Teresa, mysteriously attracted\nby sacrifice, as other children are attracted by games and toys, set out\nto look for 'the Moors and martyrdom.' So too the instinct for travel,\nfor the remote and unknown, often shows itself early in these wayfarers\nof the spirit; whose destiny it is to achieve a more extended life in the\ninterests of the race, to find and feel that Infinite Reality which alone\ncan satisfy the heart of man. Thus in their early years Francis, Ignatius\nand many others were restless, turbulent, eager for adventure and change.\n\nThis first adventure brought the boy Ruysbroeck to a home so perfectly\nfitted to his needs, that it might seem as though some secret instinct,\nsome overshadowing love, had indeed guided his steps. His uncle, John\nHinckaert, at this time about forty years of age, had lately been\nconverted--it is said by a powerful sermon--from the comfortable and\neasy-going life of a prosperous ecclesiastic to the austere quest of\nspiritual perfection. He had distributed his wealth, given up all\nself-indulgence, and now, with another and younger Canon of the Cathedral\nnamed Francis van Coudenberg, lived in simplest, poorest style a\ndedicated life of self-denial, charity and prayer. He received his\nrunaway nephew willingly. Perhaps he saw in this strange and eager child,\nsuddenly flung upon his charity, an opportunity for repairing some at\nleast amongst the omissions of his past--that terrible wreck of wasted\nyears which torments the memory of those who are converted in middle\nlife. His love and remorse might spend themselves on this boy. He might\nmake of him perhaps all that he now longed to be, but could never wholly\nachieve: a perfect servant of the Eternal Goodness, young, vigorous,\nardent, completely responsive to the touch of God.\n\nRuysbroeck, then, found a home soaked in love, governed by faith,\nrenunciation, humility; a forcing-house of the spiritual life. In the\npersons of these two grown men, who had given up all outward things for\nthe sake of spiritual realities, he was brought face to face--and this in\nhis most impressionable years--with the hard facts, the concrete\nsacrifices, the heroic life of deliberate mortification, which underlay\nthe lovely haunting vision, the revelation of the Divine beauty and love\nthat had possessed him. No lesson is of higher value to the natural\nmystic than this. The lovers of Ruysbroeck should not forget how much\nthey owe to the men who received, loved, influenced, educated the\nbrilliant wayward and impressionable child. His attainment is theirs. His\nmysticism is rooted in their asceticism; a flower directly dependent for\nits perfection on that favouring soil. Though his achievement, like that\nof all men of genius, is individual, and transcends the circumstances and\npersonalities which surround it; still, from those circumstances and\npersonalities it takes its colour. It represents far more than a personal\nand solitary experience. Behind it lies the little house in Brussels, the\nsupernatural atmosphere which filled it, and the fostering care of the\ntwo men whose life of external and deliberate poverty only made more\nplain the richness of the spirits who could choose, and remain constant\nto, this career of detachment and love.\n\nThe personal influence of Hinckaert and Coudenberg, the moral disciplines\nand perpetual self-denials of the life which he shared with them, formed\nthe heart of Ruysbroeck's education; helping to build up that manly and\nsturdy character which gave its special temper to his mystical outlook.\nLike so many children destined to greatness, he was hard to educate in\nthe ordinary sense; uninterested in general knowledge, impatient of\nscholastic drudgery. Nothing which did not minister to his innate passion\nfor ultimates had any attraction for him. He was taught grammar with\ndifficulty; but on the other hand his astonishing aptitude for religious\nideas, even of the most subtle kind, his passionate clear vision of\nspiritual things, was already so highly developed as to attract general\nattention; and his writings are sufficient witness to the width and depth\nof his theological reading. With such tastes and powers as these, and\nbrought up in such a household, governed by religious enthusiasms and\nunder the very shadow of the Cathedral walls, it was natural that he\nshould wish to become a priest; and in 1317 he was ordained and given,\nthrough the influence of his uncle, a prebend in St. Gudule.\n\nNow a great mystic is the product not merely of an untamed genius for the\nTranscendent, but of a moral discipline, an interior education, of the\nmost strenuous kind. All the varied powers and tendencies of a nature\nwhich is necessarily strong and passionate, must be harnessed, made\nsubservient to this one central interest. The instinctive egotism of the\nnatural man--never more insidious than when set upon spiritual\nthings--must be eradicated. So, behind these few outward events of\nRuysbroeck's adolescence, we must discern another growth; a perpetual\ninterior travail, a perpetual slow character-building always going\nforward in him, as his whole personality is moulded into that conformity\nto the vision seen which prepares the way of union, and marks off the\nmystical saint from the mere adept of transcendental things. We know from\nhis writings how large a part such moral purifications, such interior\nadjustments, played in his concept of the spiritual life; and the\nintimacy with which he describes each phase in the battle of love, each\nstep of the spiritual ladder, the long process of preparation in which\nthe soul adorns herself for the 'spiritual marriage,' guarantees to us\nthat he has himself trodden the path which he maps out. That path goes\nthe whole way from the first impulse of 'goodwill,' of glad acquiescence\nin the universal purpose, through the taming of the proud will to\nhumility and suppleness, and of the insurgent heart to gentleness,\nkindness, and peace, to that last state of perfect charity in which the\nwhole spirit of man is one will and one love with God.\n\nThough his biographers have left us little material for a reconstruction\nof his inner development, we may surely infer something of the course\nwhich it followed from the vividly realistic descriptions in _The Kingdom\nof Lovers_ and _The Spiritual Marriage_. Personal experience underlies\nthe wonderful account of the ascent of the Spiritual Sun in the heavens\nof consciousness; the rapture, wildness and joy, the 'fever of love'\nwhich fulfils the man who feels its light and heat. Experience, too,\ndictates these profound passages which deal with the terrible spiritual\nreaction when the Sun declines in the heavens, and man feels cold, dead,\nand abandoned of God. Through these phases, at least, Ruysbroeck had\nsurely passed before his great books came to be written.\n\nOne or two small indications there are which show us his progress on the\nmystic way, the development in him of those secondary psychic characters\npeculiar to the mystical type. It seems that by the time of his\nordination that tendency to vision which often appears in the earliest\nyouth of natural mystics, was already established in him. Deeply\nimpressed by the sacramental side of Catholicism, and finding in it\nthroughout his life a true means of contact with the Unseen, the\npriesthood was conceived by him as bringing with it a veritable access of\ngrace; fresh power poured in on him from the Transcendent, an increase of\nstrength wherewith to help the souls of other men. This belief took, in\nhis meditations, a concrete and positive form. Again and again he saw in\ndramatic vision the soul specially dear to him, specially dependent on\nhim--that of his mother, who had lately died in the Brussels\nB\u00e9guinage--demanding how long she must wait till her son's ordination\nmade his prayers effectual for her release from Purgatory. At the moment\nin which he finished saying his first Mass, this vision returned to him;\nand he saw his mother's spirit, delivered from Purgatory by the power of\nthe sacrifice which he had offered, entering into Heaven--an experience\noriginating in, and giving sharp dramatic expression to, that sense of\nnew and sacred powers now conferred on him, which may well at such a\nmoment have flooded the consciousness of the young priest. This story was\nrepeated to Pomerius by those who had heard it from Ruysbroeck himself;\nfor \"he often told it to the brothers.\"\n\nFor twenty-six years--that is to say, until he was fifty years of\nage--Ruysbroeck lived in Brussels the industrious and inconspicuous life\nof a secular priest. It was not the solitude of the forest, but the\nnormal, active existence of a cathedral chaplain in a busy capital city\nwhich controlled his development during that long period, stretching from\nthe very beginnings of manhood to the end of middle age; and it was in\nfact during these years, and in the midst of incessant distractions, that\nhe passed through the great oscillations of consciousness which mark the\nmystic way. It is probable that when at last he left Brussels for the\nforest, these oscillations were over, equilibrium was achieved; he had\nclimbed 'to the summits of the mount of contemplation.' It was on those\nsummits that he loved to dwell, absorbed in loving communion with Divine\nReality; but his career fulfilled that ideal of a synthesis of work and\ncontemplation, an acceptance and remaking of the whole of life, which he\nperpetually puts before us as the essential characteristic of a true\nspirituality. No mystic has ever been more free from the vice of\nother-worldliness, or has practised more thoroughly and more unselfishly\nthe primary duty of active charity towards men which is laid upon the\nGod-possessed.\n\nThe simple and devoted life of the little family of three went on year by\nyear undisturbed; though one at least was passing through those profound\ninterior changes and adventures which he has described to us as governing\nthe evolution of the soul, from the state of the 'faithful servant' to\nthe transfigured existence of the 'God-seeing man.' Ruysbroeck grew up to\nbe a simple, dreamy, very silent and totally unimpressive person, who,\n'going about the streets of Brussels with his mind lifted up into God,'\nseemed a nobody to those who did not know him. Yet not only a spiritual\nlife of unequalled richness, intimacy and splendour, but a penetrating\nintellect, a fearless heart, deep knowledge of human nature, remarkable\npowers of expression, lay behind that meek and unattractive exterior. As\nPaul's twelve years of quiet and subordinate work in Antioch prepared the\nway of his missionary career; so during this long period of service, the\nsilent growth of character, the steady development of his mystical\npowers, had gone forward in Ruysbroeck. When circumstances called them\ninto play he was found to be possessed of an unsuspected passion,\nstrength and courage, a power of dealing with outward circumstances,\nwhich was directly dependent on his inner life of contemplation and\nprayer.\n\nThe event into which the tendencies of this stage of his development\ncrystallised, is one which seems perhaps inconsistent with the common\nidea of the mystical temperament, with its supposed concentration on the\nEternal, its indifference to temporal affairs. As his childhood was\nmarked by an exhibition of adventurous love, so his manhood was marked by\nan exhibition of militant love; of that strength and sternness, that\npassion for the true, which--no less than humility, gentleness, peace--is\nan integral part of that paradoxical thing, the Christian character.\n\nThe fourteenth century, like all great spiritual periods, was a century\nfruitful in mystical heresies as well as in mystical saints. In\nparticular, the extravagant pantheism preached by the Brethren of the\nFree Spirit had become widely diffused in Flanders, and was responsible\nfor much bad morality as well as bad theology; those on whom the 'Spirit'\nhad descended believing themselves to be already divine, and emancipated\nfrom obedience to all human codes of conduct. Soon after Ruysbroeck came\nas a boy to Brussels, a woman named Bloemardinne placed herself at the\nhead of this sect, and gradually gained extraordinary influence. She\nclaimed supernatural and prophetic powers, was said to be accompanied by\ntwo Seraphim whenever she went to the altar to receive Holy Communion,\nand preached a degraded eroticism under the title of 'Seraphic love,'\ntogether with a quietism of the most exaggerated and soul-destroying\ntype. All the dangers and follies of a false mysticism, dissociated from\nthe controlling influence of tradition and the essential virtue of\nhumility, were exhibited in her. Against this powerful woman, then at the\nheight of her fame, Ruysbroeck declared war; and prosecuted his campaign\nwith a violence and courage which must have been startling to those who\nhad regarded him only as a shy, pious, rather negligible young man. The\npamphlets which he wrote against her are lost; but the passionate\ndenunciations of pantheism and quietism scattered through his later works\nno doubt have their origin in this controversy, and represent the angle\nfrom which his attacks were made.\n\nPantheists, he says in _The Book of Truth_, are \"a fruit of hell, the\nmore dangerous because they counterfeit the true fruit of the Spirit of\nGod.\" Far from possessing that deep humility which is the soul's\ninevitable reaction to the revelation of the Infinite, they are full of\npride and self-satisfaction. They claim that their imaginary identity\nwith the Essence of God emancipates them from all need of effort, all\npractice of virtue, and leaves them free to indulge those inclinations of\nthe flesh which the 'Spirit' suggests. They \"believe themselves sunk in\ninward peace; but as a matter of fact they are deep-drowned in error.\"[2]\n\nAgainst all this the stern, virile, ardent spirituality of Ruysbroeck\nopposed itself with its whole power. Especially did he hate and condemn\nthe laziness and egotism of the quietistic doctrine of contemplation: the\nideal of spiritual immobility which it set up. That 'love cannot be lazy'\nis a cardinal truth for all real mystics. Again and again it appears in\ntheir works. Even that profound repose in which they have fruition of\nGod, is but the accompaniment or preliminary of work of the most\nstrenuous kind, and keeps at full stretch the soul which truly tastes it;\nand this supernatural state is as far above that self-induced quietude of\n'natural repose'--\"consisting in nothing but an idleness and interior\nvacancy, to which they are inclined by nature and habit\"--in which the\nquietists love to immerse themselves, as God is above His creatures.\n\nHere is the distinction, always needed and constantly ignored, between\nthat veritable fruition of Eternal Life which results from the\ninteraction of will and grace, and demands of the soul the highest\nintensity and most active love, and that colourable imitation of it which\nis produced by a psychic trick, and is independent alike of the human\neffort and the divine gift. Ruysbroeck in fighting the 'Free Spirit' was\nfighting the battle of true mysticism against its most dangerous and\npersistent enemy,--mysticality.\n\nHis attack upon Bloemardinne is the one outstanding incident in the long\nBrussels period which has been preserved to us. The next great outward\nmovement in his steadily evolving life did not happen until the year\n1343, when he was fifty years of age. It was then that the three\ncompanions decided to leave Brussels, and live together in some remote\ncountry place. They had long felt a growing distaste for the noisy and\ndistracting life of the city; a growing dissatisfaction with the\nspiritual apathy and low level of religious observance at the Cathedral\nof St. Gudule; the need of surroundings in which they might devote\nthemselves with total concentration to the contemplative life. Hinckaert\nand Coudenberg were now old men; Ruysbroeck was advanced in middle age.\nThe rhythm of existence, which had driven him as a child from country to\ntown, and harnessed him during long years to the service of his\nfellow-men, now drew him back again to the quiet spaces where he might be\nalone with God. He was approaching those heights of experience from which\nhis greatest mystical works proceed; and it was in obedience to a true\ninstinct that he went away to the silent places of the forest--as Anthony\nto the solitude of the desert, Francis to the 'holy mountain' of La\nVerna--that, undistracted by the many whom he had served so faithfully,\nhe might open his whole consciousness to the inflow of the One, and\nreceive in its perfection the message which it was his duty to transmit\nto the world, He went, says Pomerius, \"not that he might hide his light;\nbut that he might tend it better and make it shine more brightly.\"\n\nBy the influence of Coudenberg, John III., Duke of Brabant, gave to the\nthree friends the old hermitage of Groenendael, or the Green Valley, in\nthe forest of Soignes, near Brussels. They entered into possession on the\nWednesday of Easter week, 1343; and for five years lived there, as they\nhad lived in the little house in Brussels, with no other rule save their\nown passion for perfection. But perpetual invasions from the outer world,\nnot only of penitents and would-be disciples--for their reputation for\nsanctity grew quickly--but of huntsmen in the forest and pleasure parties\nfrom the town, who demanded and expected hospitality, soon forced them to\nadopt some definite attitude towards the question of enclosure. It is\nsaid that Ruysbroeck begged for an entire seclusion; but Coudenberg\ninsisted that this was contrary to the law of charity, and that some at\nleast of those who sought them must be received. In addition to these\npractical difficulties, the Prior of the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris had\naddressed to them strong remonstrances, on account of the absence of rule\nin their life and the fact that they had not even adopted a religious\nhabit; a proceeding which in his opinion savoured rather of the\nill-regulated doings of the heretical sects, than of the decorum proper\nto good Catholics. As a result of these various considerations, the\nsimple and informal existence of the little family was re-modelled in\nconformity with the rule of the Augustinian Canons, and the Priory of\nGroenendael was formally created. Coudenberg became its provost, and\nRuysbroeck, who had refused the higher office, was made prior; but\nHinckaert, now a very old man in feeble health, refused to burden the\nyoung community with a member who might be a drag upon it and could not\nkeep the full rigour of the rule. In a spirit of renunciation which\nsurely touches the heroic, he severed himself from his lifelong friend\nand his adopted son, and went away to a little cell in the forest, where\nhe lived alone until his death.\n\nThe story of the foundation and growth of the Priory of Groenendael, the\nsaintly personalities which it nourished, is not for this place; except\nin so far as it affects our main interest, the story of Ruysbroeck's\nsoul. Under the influences of the forest, of the silent and regular life,\nthose supreme contemplative powers which belong to the 'Superessential\nLife' of Unity now developed in him with great rapidity. It is possible,\nas we shall see, that some at least of his mystical writings may date\nfrom his Brussels period; and we know that at the close of this period\nhis reputation as an 'illuminated man' was already made. Nevertheless it\nseems safe to say that the bulk of his works, as we now possess them,\nrepresent him as he was during the last thirty years of his life, rather\nthan during his earlier and more active career; and that the intense\ncertitude, the wide deep vision of the Infinite which distinguishes them,\nare the fruits of those long hours of profound absorption in God for\nwhich his new life found place. In the silence of the woods he was able\nto discern each subtle accent of that Voice which \"is heard without\nutterance, and without the sound of words speaks all truth.\"\n\nLike so many of the greatest mystics, Ruysbroeck, drawing nearer to\nDivine Reality, drew nearer to nature too; conforming to his own ideal of\nthe contemplative, who, having been raised to the simple vision of God\nTranscendent, returns to find His image reflected by all life. Many\npassages in his writings show the closeness and sympathy of his\nobservation of natural things: the vivid description in _The Spiritual\nMarriage_ of the spring, summer and autumn of the fruitful soul, the\nconstant insistence on the phenomena of growth, the lessons drawn from\nthe habits of ants and bees, the comparison of the surrendered soul to\nthe sunflower, 'one of nature's most wonderful works'; the three types of\nChristians, compared with birds who can fly but prefer hopping about the\nearth, birds who swim far on the waters of grace, and birds who love only\nto soar high in the heavens. For the free, exultant life of birds he felt\nindeed a special sympathy and love; and 'many-feathered' is the best name\nthat he can find for the soul of the contemplative ascending to the glad\nvision of God.\n\nIt is probably a true tradition which represents him as having written\nhis greatest and most inspired pages sitting under a favourite tree in\nthe depths of the woods. When the 'Spirit' came on him, as it often did\nwith a startling suddenness, he would go away into the forest carrying\nhis tablet and stylus. There, given over to an ecstasy of\ncomposition--which seems often to have approached the limits of automatic\nwriting, as in St. Teresa, Boehme, Blake and other mystics--he would\nwrite that which was given to him, without addition or omission; breaking\noff even in the middle of a sentence when the 'Spirit' abruptly departed,\nand resuming at the same point, though sometimes after an interval which\nlasted several weeks, when it returned. In his last years, when eyesight\nfailed him, he would allow a younger brother to go with him into the\nwoods, and there to take down from dictation the fruits of those\nmeditations in which he 'saw without sight'; as the illiterate Catherine\nof Siena dictated in ecstasy the text of her Divine Dialogue.\n\nTwo witnesses have preserved Ruysbroeck's solemn affirmation, given first\nto his disciple Gerard Groot 'in great gentleness and humility,' and\nrepeated again upon his death-bed in the presence of the whole community,\nthat every word of his writings was thus composed under the immediate\ndomination of an inspiring power; that 'secondary personality of a\nsuperior type,' in touch with levels of reality beyond the span of the\nsurface consciousness, which governs the activities of the great mystics\nin their last phases of development. These books are not the fruit of\nconscious thought, but 'God-sent truths,' poured out from a heart\nimmersed in that Divine Abyss of which he tries to tell.\n\nThat a saint must needs be a visionary, is a conviction deeply implanted\nin the mind of the medi\u00e6val hagiographer; who always ascribes to these\nincidents an importance which the saints themselves are the first to\ndeny. Pomerius thus attributes to Ruysbroeck not only those profound and\ndirect experiences of Divine Reality to which his works bear witness; but\nalso numerous visions of a conventional and anthropomorphic type, in\nwhich he spoke with Christ, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, ecstasies\nwhich fell upon him when saying Mass--and the passionate devotion to the\nEucharist which his writings express makes these at least probable--a\ncertain faculty of clairvoyance, and a prophetic knowledge of his own\ndeath. Further, it is said that once, being missed from the priory, he\nwas found after long search by one of the brothers he loved best, sitting\nunder his favourite tree, rapt in ecstasy and surrounded by an _aura_ of\nradiant light; as the discerning eyes of those who loved them have seen\nSt. Francis, St. Teresa, and other contemplatives transfigured and made\nshining by the intensity of their spiritual life. I need not point out\nthat the fact that these things are common form in the lives of the\nmystics, does not necessarily discredit them; though in any case their\ninterest is less of a mystical than of a psychological kind.\n\nNot less significant, and to us perhaps more winning, is that side of\nRuysbroeck's personality which was turned towards the world of men. In\nhis own person he fulfilled that twofold duty of the deified soul which\nhe has described to us: the in-breathing of the Love of God, the\nout-breathing of that same radiant charity towards the race. \"To give and\nreceive, both at once, is the essence of union,\" he says; and his whole\ncareer is an illustration of these words. He took his life from the\nTranscendent; he was a focus of distribution, which gave out that joyous\nlife again to other souls. His retreat at Groenendael, his ecstasies of\ncomposition, never kept him from those who wanted his help and advice. In\nhis highest ascents towards Divine Love, the rich complexities of human\nlove went with him. Other men always meant much to Ruysbroeck. He had a\ngenius for friendship, and gave himself without stint to his friends; and\nthose who knew him said that none ever went to him for consolation\nwithout returning with gladness in their hearts. There are many tales in\nthe _Vita_ of his power over and intuitive understanding of other minds;\nof conversions effected, motives unveiled and clouds dispelled. His great\nfriend, Gerard Naghel, the Carthusian prior--at whose desire he wrote one\nof the most beautiful of his shorter works, _The Book of Supreme\nTruth_--has left a vivid little account of the impression which his\npersonality created: \"his peaceful and joyful countenance, his humble\ngood-humoured speech.\" Ruysbroeck spent three days in Gerard's monastery,\nin order to explain some difficult passages in his writings, \"and these\ndays were too short, for no one could speak to him or see him without\nbeing the better for it.\"\n\nBy this we may put the description of Pomerius, founded upon the\nreminiscences of Ruysbroeck's surviving friends. \"The grace of God shone\nin his face; and also in his modest speech, his kindly deeds, his humble\nmanners, and in the way that every action of his life exhibited\nuprightness and radiant purity. He lived soberly, neglected his dress,\nand was patient in all things and with all people.\"\n\nPlainly the great contemplative who had seemed in Brussels a 'negligible\nman,' kept to the end a great simplicity of aspect; closely approximating\nto his own ideal of the 'really humble man, without any pose or\npretence,' as described in _The Spiritual Marriage_. That profound\nself-immersion in God which was the source of his power, manifested\nitself in daily life under the least impressive forms; ever seeking\nembodiment in little concrete acts of love and service, \"ministering, in\nthe world without, to all who need, in love and mercy.\"[3] We see him in\nhis Franciscan love of living things, his deep sense of kinship with all\nthe little children of God, 'going to the help of the animals in all\ntheir needs'; thrown into a torment of distress by the brothers who\nsuggested to him that during a hard winter the little birds of the forest\nmight die, and at once making generous and successful arrangements for\ntheir entertainment. We see him 'giving Mary and Martha _rendez-vous_ in\nhis heart'; working in the garden of the community, trying hard to be\nuseful, wheeling barrow-loads of manure, and emerging from profound\nmeditation on the Infinite to pull up young vegetables under the\nimpression that they were weeds. He made, in fact, valiant efforts to\nachieve that perfect synthesis of action and contemplation 'ever abiding\nin the simplicity of the Spirit, and perpetually flowing forth in\nabundant acts of love towards heaven and earth,' which he regarded as the\nproper goal of human growth--efforts constantly thwarted by his own\ngrowing concentration on the Transcendent, the ease and frequency with\nwhich his consciousness now withdrew from the world of the senses to\nimmerse itself in Spiritual Reality. In theory there was for him no\ncleavage between the two: Being and Becoming, the Temporal and the\nEternal, were but two moods within the mind of God, and in the\nsuperessential life of perfect union these completing opposites should\nmerge in one.\n\nA life which shall find place for the activities of the lover, the\nservant, and the apostle, is the goal towards which the great mystics\nseem to move. We have seen how the homely life of the priory gave to\nRuysbroeck the opportunity of service, how the silence of the forest\nfostered and supported his secret life of love. As the years passed, the\nthird side of his nature, the apostolic passion which had found during\nhis long Brussels period ample scope for its activities, once more came\ninto prominence. He was sought out by numbers of would-be disciples, not\nonly from Belgium itself, but from Holland, Germany and France; and\nbecame a fountainhead of new life, the father of many spiritual children.\nThe tradition which places among these disciples the great Dominican\nmystic Tauler is probably false; though many passages in Tauler's later\nsermons suggest that he was strongly influenced by Ruysbroeck's works,\nwhich had already attained a wide circulation. But Gerard Groot,\nafterwards the founder of the Brothers of the Common Life, and spiritual\nancestor of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, went to Groenendael shortly after his\nconversion in 1374, that he might there learn the rudiments of a sane and\nrobust spirituality. Ruysbroeck received him with a special joy,\nrecognising in him at first sight a peculiar aptitude for the things of\nthe Spirit. A deep friendship grew up between the old mystic and the\nyoung and vigorous convert. Gerard stayed often at the priory, and\ncorresponded regularly with Ruysbroeck; whose influence it was which\nconditioned his subsequent career as a preacher, and as founder of a\ncongregation as simple and unconventional in its first beginnings, as\nfruitful in its later developments, as that of Groenendael itself.\n\nThe penetrating remarks upon human character scattered through his works,\nand the anecdotes of his dealings with disciples and penitents preserved\nby Pomerius, suggest that Ruysbroeck, though he might not always\nrecognise the distinction between the weeds and vegetables of the garden,\nwas seldom at fault in his judgment of men. An instinctive knowledge of\nthe human heart, an unerring eye for insincerity, egotism,\nself-deception, is a power which nearly all the great contemplatives\npossess, and often employed with disconcerting effect. I need refer only\nto the caustic analysis of the 'false contemplative' contained in _The\nCloud of Unknowing_, and the amusing sketches of spiritual\nself-importance in St. Teresa's letters and life. The little tale, so\noften repeated, of the somewhat self-conscious priests who came from\nParis to consult Ruysbroeck on the state of their souls, and received\nfrom him only the blunt observation--apparently so careless, yet really\nplumbing human nature to its deeps--\"You are as holy as you wish to be,\"\nshows him possessed of this same power of stripping off the husks of\nunreality and penetrating at once to the fundamental facts of the soul's\nlife: the purity and direction of its will and love.\n\nThe life-giving life of union, once man has grown up to it, clarifies,\nilluminates, raises to a higher term, all aspects of the self:\nintelligence, no less than love and will. That self is now harmonised\nabout its true centre, and finding 'God in all creatures and all\ncreatures in God' finds them in their reality. So it is that Ruysbroeck's\nlong life of growth, his long education in love, bringing him to that\nwhich he calls the 'God-seeing' stage, brings him to a point in which he\nfinds everywhere Reality: in those rhythmic seasonal changes of the\nforest life which have inspired his wonderful doctrine of the perpetual\nrebirth and re-budding of the soul; in the hearts of men--though often\nthere deep buried--above all, in the mysteries of the Christian faith.\nSpeaking with an unequalled authority and intimacy of those supersensuous\nregions, those mysterious contacts of love which lie beyond and above all\nthought, he is yet firmly rooted in the concrete; for he has reconciled\nin his own experience the paradox of a Transcendent yet Immanent God.\nThere is no break in the life-process which begins with the little\ncountry boy running away from home in quest of some vaguely felt object\nof desire, some 'better land,' and which ends with the triumphant passing\nover of the soul of the great contemplative to the perfect fruition of\nEternal Love.\n\nRuysbroeck died at Groenendael on December 2, 1381. He was eighty-eight\nyears old; feeble in body, nearly blind, yet keeping to the last his\nclear spiritual vision, his vigour and eagerness of soul. His death, says\nPomerius, speaking on the authority of those who had seen it, was full of\npeaceful joy, of gaiety of heart; not the falling asleep of the tired\nservant, but the leap to more abundant life of the vigorous child of the\nInfinite, at last set free. With an immense gladness he went out from\nthat time-world which, in his own image, is 'the shadow of God,' to\n\"those high mountains of the land of promise where no shadow is, but only\nthe Sun.\" One of the greatest of Christian seers, one of the most manly\nand human of the mystics, it is yet as a lover, in the noblest and most\nvital sense of the word, that his personality lives for us. From first to\nlast, under all its external accidents, we may trace in his life the\nactivity--first instinctive, and only gradually understood--of that\n'unconquerable love,' ardent, industrious, at last utterly surrendered,\nwhich he describes in the wonderful tenth chapter of _The Sparkling\nStone_, as the unique power which effects the soul's union with God. \"For\nno man understandeth what love is in itself, but such are its workings:\nwhich giveth more than one can take, and asketh more than one can pay.\"\nThat love it was which came out from the Infinite, as a tendency, an\ninstinct endowed with liberty and life, and passed across the stage of\nhistory, manifested under humblest inconspicuous forms, but ever growing\nin passion and power; till at last, achieving the full stature of the\nchildren of God, it returned to its Source and Origin again. When we\nspeak of the mysticism of Ruysbroeck, it is of this that we should think:\nof this growing spirit, this ardent, unconquerable, creative thing. A\nveritable part of our own order, therein it was transmuted from unreal to\nreal existence; putting on Divine Humanity, and attaining the goal of all\nlife in the interests of the race.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n                               HIS WORKS\n\n\n  In all that I have understood, felt, or written, I submit myself to the\n  judgment of the saints and of Holy Church, for I would live and die\n  Christ's servant in Christian Faith.\n\n                                            The Book of Supreme Truth.\n\nBefore discussing Ruysbroeck's view of the spiritual world, his doctrine\nof the soul's development, perhaps it will be well to consider the\ntraditional names, general character, and contents of his admittedly\nauthentic works. Only a few of these works can be dated with precision;\nfor recent criticism has shown that the so-called chronological list\ngiven by Pomerius[4] cannot be accepted. As to several of them, we cannot\ntell whether they were composed at Brussels or at Groenendael, at the\nbeginning, middle or end of his mystical life. All were written in the\nFlemish vernacular of his own day--or, strictly speaking, in the dialect\nof Brabant--for they were practical books composed for a practical\nobject, not academic treatises on mystical theology. Founded on\nexperience, they deal with and incite to experience; and were addressed\nto all who felt within themselves the stirrings of a special grace, the\ncall of a superhuman love, irrespective of education or position--to\nhermits, priests, nuns, and ardent souls still in the world who were\ntrying to live the one real life--not merely to learned professors trying\nto elucidate the doctrines of that life. Ruysbroeck therefore belongs to\nthat considerable group of mystical writers whose gift to the history of\nliterature is only less important than their gift to the history of the\nspiritual world; since they have helped to break down the barrier between\nthe written and the spoken word.\n\nAt the moment in which poetry first forsakes the 'literary' language and\nuses the people's speech, we nearly always find a mystic thus trying to\ntell his message to the race. His enthusiasm it is which is equal to the\ntask of subduing a new medium to the purposes of art. Thus at the very\nbeginning of Italian poetry we find St. Francis of Assisi singing in the\npopular tongue his great Canticle of the Sun, and soon after him come the\nsublime lyrics of Jacopone da Tod\u00ec. Thus German literature owes much to\nMechthild of Magdeburg, and English to Richard Rolle--both forsaking\nLatin for the common speech of their day. Thus in India the poet Kabir,\nobedient to the same impulse, sings in Hindi rather than in Sanscrit his\nbeautiful songs of Divine Love.\n\nIn Ruysbroeck, as in these others, a strong poetic inspiration mingled\nwith and sometimes controlled the purely mystical side of his genius.\nOften his love and enthusiasm break out and express themselves, sometimes\nin rough, irregular verse, sometimes in rhymed and rhythmic prose: a kind\nof wild spontaneous chant, which may be related to the 'ghostly song'\nthat 'boiled up' within the heart of Richard Rolle. It is well-known that\nautomatic composition--and we have seen that the evidence of those who\nknew him suggests the presence of an automatic element in Ruysbroeck's\ncreative methods--tends to assume a rhythmic character; being indeed\nclosely related to that strange chanted speech in which religious\nexcitement frequently expresses itself. Released from the control of the\nsurface-intellect, the deeper mind which is involved in these mysterious\nprocesses tends to present its intuitions and concepts in measured waves\nof words; which sometimes, as in Rolle's 'ghostly song' and perhaps too\nin Ruysbroeck's 'Song of Joy,' are actually given a musical form. In such\nrhythm the mystic seems to catch something of the cadences of that\nfar-off music of which he is writing, and to receive and transmit a\nmessage which exceeds the possibilities of speech. Ruysbroeck was no\nexpert poet. Often his verse is bad; halting in cadence, violent and\nuncouth in imagery, like the stammering utterance of one possessed. But\nits presence and quality, its mingled simplicity and violence, assure us\nof the strong excitement that fulfilled him, and tend to corroborate the\naccount of his mental processes which we have deduced from the statements\nin Pomerius' _Life_.\n\nEleven admittedly authentic books and tracts survive in numerous MS.\ncollections,[5] and from these come all that we know of his vision and\nteaching. _The Twelve Virtues_, and the two Canticles often attributed to\nhim, are probably spurious; and the tracts against the Brethren of the\nFree Spirit, which are known to have been written during his Brussels\nperiod, have all disappeared. I give here a short account of the\nauthentic works, their names and general contents; putting first in order\nthose of unknown date, some of which may possibly have been composed\nbefore the foundation of Groenendael. In each case the first title is a\ntranslation of that used in the best Flemish texts; the second, that\nemployed in the great Latin version of Surius. Ruysbroeck himself never\ngave any titles to his writings.\n\n1. The Spiritual Tabernacle (called by Surius _In Tabernaculum\nMosis_).--The longest, most fantastic, and, in spite of some fine\npassages, the least interesting of Ruysbroeck's works. Probably founded\nupon the _De Arca Mystica_ of Hugh of St. Victor, this is an elaborate\nallegory, thoroughly medi\u00e6val in type, in which the Tabernacle of the\nIsraelites becomes a figure of the spiritual life; the details of its\nconstruction, furniture and ritual being given a symbolic significance,\nin accordance with the methods of interpretation popular at the time. In\nthis book, and perhaps in the astronomical treatise appended to _The\nTwelve B\u00e9guines_ (No. 11), I believe that we have the only surviving\nworks of Ruysbroeck's first period; when he had not yet 'transcended\nimages,' but was at that point in his mystical development in which the\nyoung contemplative loves to discern symbolic meanings in all visible\nthings.\n\n2. The Twelve Points of True Faith (_De Fide et Judicio_).--This little\ntract is in form a gloss upon the Nicene Creed; in fact, a\ncharacteristically Ruysbroeckian confession of faith. Without ever\nover-passing the boundaries of Catholic doctrine, Ruysbroeck is here able\nto turn all its imagery to the purposes of his own vision of truth.\n\n3. The Book of the Four Temptations (_De Quatuor Tentationibus_).--The\nFour Temptations are four manifestations of the higher egotism specially\ndangerous to souls entering on the contemplative life: first, the love of\nease and comfort, as much in things spiritual as in things material;\nsecondly, the tendency to pose as the possessor of special illumination,\nwith other and like forms of spiritual pretence; thirdly, intellectual\npride, which seeks to understand unfathomable mysteries and attain to the\nvision of God by the reason alone; fourthly,--most dangerous of all--that\nfalse 'liberty of spirit' which was the mark of the heretical mystic\nsects. This book too may well have been written before the retreat to\nGroenendael.\n\n4. The Book of the Kingdom of God's Lovers (_Regnum Deum\nAmantium_).--This and the following work, _The Adornment of the Spiritual\nMarriage_, contain Ruysbroeck's fullest and most orderly descriptions of\nthe mystical life-process. The 'Kingdom' which God's lovers may inherit\nis the actual life of God, infused into the soul and deifying it. This\nessential life reveals itself under five modes: in the sense world, in\nthe soul's nature, in the witness of Scripture, in the life of grace or\n'glory,' and in the Superessential Kingdom of the Divine Unity. By the\nthreefold way of the Active, Contemplative, and Superessential Life, here\ndescribed as the steady and orderly appropriation of the Seven Gifts of\nthe Holy Spirit, the spirit of man may enter into its inheritance and\nattain at last to the perfect fruition of God. To the Active Life belong\nthe gifts of Holy Fear, Godliness, and Knowledge; to the Contemplative\nthose of Strength and Counsel; to the Superessential those of\nIntelligence and Wisdom. _The Kingdom of God's Lovers_ was traditionally\nregarded as Ruysbroeck's earliest work. It was more probably written\nduring the early years at Groenendael. Much of it, like _The Twelve\nB\u00e9guines_, is in poetical form. This was the book which, falling into the\nhands of Gerard Naghel, made him seek Ruysbroeck's acquaintance, in order\nthat he might ask for an explanation of several profound and difficult\npassages.\n\n5. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage (_De Ornatu Spiritalium\nNuptiarum_).--This is the best known and most methodical of Ruysbroeck's\nworks. In form a threefold commentary upon the text, \"Behold, the\nbridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him,\" it is divided into three\nbooks, tracing out in great detail, and with marvellous psychological\ninsight, those three stages of Active, Contemplative and Superessential\nLife, which appear again and again in his writings. Paying due attention\nto the aberrations of the quietists, he exhibits--with an intimacy which\nsurely reflects his own personal experience of the Way--the conditions\nunder which selves in each stage of development may see, encounter, and\nat last unite with, the Divine Bridegroom of the soul. A German\ntranslation of several of its chapters, preserved in MS. at Munich,\nstates that Ruysbroeck sent this book to the Friends of God in 1350. In\nthis case it belongs to the years immediately preceding or succeeding his\nretreat.\n\nWe now come to the works which were certainly composed at Groenendael,\nthough probably some of those already enumerated also belong to the last\nthirty years of Ruysbroeck's life. First come the three treatises\napparently written for Margaret van Meerbeke, a choir nun of the Convent\nof Poor Clares at Brussels; who seems to have been to him what St. Clare\nwas to St. Francis, Elizabeth St\u00e4gel to Suso, Margaret Kirkby to Richard\nRolle--first a spiritual daughter, then a valued and sympathetic friend.\n\n6. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation or Book of the Blessed Sacrament\n(_Speculum \u00c6tern\u00e6 Salutis_).--This, the first of the three, was written\nin 1359. It is addressed to one who is evidently a beginner in the\nspiritual life, as she is yet a novice in her religious community; but\nwhom Ruysbroeck looks upon as specially 'called, elect and loved.' In\nsimplest language, often of extreme beauty, he puts before her the\nmagnitude of the vocation she has accepted, the dangers she will\nencounter, and the great source from which she must draw her strength:\nthe sacramental dispensation of the Church. In a series of magnificent\nchapters, he celebrates the mystical doctrine of the Eucharist, the\nfeeding of the ever-growing soul on the substance of God; following this\nby a digression, full of shrewd observation, on the different types of\nbelievers who come to communion. We see them through his eyes: the\nreligious sentimentalists, 'who are generally women and only very seldom\nmen'; the sturdy normal Christian, who does his best to struggle against\nsin; the humble and devout lover of God; the churchy hypocrite, who\nbehaves with great reverence at Mass and then goes home and scolds the\nservants; the heretical mystic full of spiritual pride; the easy-going\nworldling, who sins and repents with equal facility. The book ends with a\nsuperb description of the goal towards which the young contemplative is\nset: the 'life-giving life' of perfect union with God in which that\n'higher life' latent in every soul at last attains to maturity.\n\n7. The Seven Cloisters (_De Septem_ _Custodiis_).--This was written\nbefore 1363, and preserves its address to 'The Holy Nun, Dame Margaret\nvan Meerbeke, Cantor of the Monastery of St. Clare at Brussels.' The\nnovice of the 'Mirror' is now a professed religious; and her director\ninstructs her upon the attitude of mind which she should bring to the\nroutine duties of a nun's day, the opportunity they offer for the\nenriching and perfecting of love and humility. He describes the education\nof the human spirit up to that high point of consciousness where it knows\nitself established 'between Eternity and Time': one of the fundamental\nthoughts of Flemish and German mysticism. This education admits her\nsuccessively into the seven cloisters which kept St. Clare, Foundress of\nthe Order, unspotted from the world. The first is the physical enclosure\nof the convent walls; the next the moral and volitional limitation of\nself-control. The third is 'the open door of the love of Christ,' which\ncrowns man's affective powers, and leads to the fourth--total dedication\nof the will. The fifth and sixth represent the two great forms of the\nContemplative Life as conceived by Ruysbroeck: the ecstatic and the\ndeiform. The seventh admits to Abyss of Being itself: that 'dim silence'\nat the heart of which, as in the Seventh Habitation of St. Teresa's\n'Interior Castle,' he will find himself alone with God. There the mystic\nunion is consummated, and the Divine activity takes the place of the\nseparate activity of man, in \"a simple beatitude which transcends all\nsanctity and the practice of virtue, an Eternal Fruition which satisfies\nall hunger and thirst, all love and all craving, for God.\" Finally, he\nreturns to the Active Life; and ends with a practical chapter on clothes,\nand a charming instruction, full of deep poetry, on the evening\nmeditation which should close the day.\n\n8. The Seven Degrees of the Ladder of Love (_De Septem Gradibus\nAmoris_).--This book, which was written before 1372, is believed by the\nBenedictines of Wisques, the latest and most learned of Ruysbroeck's\neditors, to complete the trilogy of works addressed to Dame Margaret van\nMeerbeke. It traces the soul's ascent to the height of Divine love by way\nof the characteristic virtues of asceticism, under the well-known\nmedi\u00e6val image of the 'ladder of perfection' or 'stairway of love'--a\nmetaphor, originating in Jacob's Dream, which had already served St.\nBenedict, Richard of St. Victor, St. Bonaventura and many others as a\nuseful diagram of the mystic way. Originality of form, however, is the\nlast thing we should look for in Ruysbroeck's works. He pours his strange\nwine into any vessel that comes to hand. As often his most sublime or\namazing utterances originate in commentaries upon some familiar text, or\nthe deepest truths are hidden under the most grotesque similitudes; so\nthis well-worn metaphor gives him the opportunity for some of his finest\ndescriptions of the soul's movement to that transmutation in which all\nardent spirits 'become as live coals in the fire of Infinite Love.' This\nbook, in which the influence of St. Bernard is strongly marked, contains\nsome beautiful passages on the mystic life considered as a 'heavenly\nsong' of faithfulness and love, which \"Christ our Cantor and our Choragus\nhas sung from the beginning of things,\" and which every Christian soul\nmust learn.\n\n9. The Book of the Sparkling Stone (_De Calculo, sive de Perfectione\nFiliorum Dei_).--This priceless work is said to have been written by\nRuysbroeck at the request of a hermit, who wished for further light on\nthe high matters of which it treats. It contains the finest flower of his\nthought, and shows perhaps more clearly than any other of his writings\nthe mark of direct inspiration. Here again the scaffolding on which he\nbuilds is almost as old as Christian mysticism itself: that three-fold\ndivision of men into the 'faithful servants, secret friends, and hidden\nsons' of God, which descended through the centuries from Clement of\nAlexandria. But the tower which he raises with its help ascends to\nheights unreached by any other writer: to the point at which man is given\nthe supreme gift of the Sparkling Stone, or Nature of Christ, the goal of\nhuman transcendence. I regard the ninth and tenth chapters of _The\nSparkling Stone_--'How we may become Hidden Sons of God and live the\nContemplative Life,' and 'How we, though one with God, must eternally\nremain other than Him'--as the high-water mark of mystical literature.\nNowhere else do we find such a marvellous combination of wide and soaring\nvision with the most delicate and intimate psychological analysis. The\nold mystic, sitting under his friendly tree, seems here to be gazing at\nand reporting to us the final secrets of that eternal world, where \"the\nIncomprehensible Light enfolds and penetrates us, as the air is\npenetrated by the light of the sun.\" There he tastes and apprehends, in\n'an unfathomable seeing and beholding,' the inbreathing and the\noutbreathing of the Love of God--that double movement which controls the\nuniverse; yet knows, along with this great cosmic vision, that intimate\nand searching communion in which \"the Beloved and the Lover are immersed\nwholly in love, and each is all to the other in possession and in rest.\"\n\n10. The Book of Supreme Truth (called in some collections _The Book of\nRetractations_, and by Surius, _Samuel_.)--This is the tract written by\nRuysbroeck, at the request of Gerard Naghel, to explain certain obscure\npassages in _The Book of the Kingdom of God's Lovers_. In it he is\nspecially concerned to make clear the vital distinction between his\ndoctrine of the soul's union with God--a union in which the primal\ndistinction between Creator and created is never overpassed--and the\npantheistic doctrine of complete absorption in Him, with cessation of all\neffort and striving, preached by the heretical sects whose initiates\nclaim to 'be God.' By the time that this book was written, careless\nreaders had already charged Ruysbroeck with these pantheist tendencies\nwhich he abhorred and condemned; and here he sets out his defence. He\ndiscusses also the three degrees of union with God which correspond to\nthe 'three lives' of the growing soul: union by means of sacraments and\ngood deeds; union achieved in contemplative prayer 'without means,' where\nthe soul learns its double vocation of action and fruition; and the\nhighest union of all, where the spirit which has swung pendulum-like\nbetween the temporal and eternal worlds, achieves its equilibrium and\ndwells wholly in God, 'drunk with love, and sunk in the Dark Light.'\n\n11. The Twelve B\u00e9guines (_De Vera Contemplatione_).--This is a long,\ncomposite book of eighty-four chapters, which apparently consists of at\nleast three distinct treatises of different dates. The first, _The Twelve\nB\u00e9guines_, which ends with chapter xvi., contains the longest consecutive\nexample of Ruysbroeck's poetic method; its first eight chapters being\nwritten in irregular rhymed verse. It is believed to be one of his last\ncompositions. Its doctrine differs little from that already set forth in\nhis earlier works; though nowhere, perhaps, is the development of the\nspiritual consciousness described with greater subtlety. The soul's\ncommunion with and feeding on the Divine Nature in the Eucharist and in\ncontemplative prayer; its acquirement of the art of introversion; the Way\nof Contemplation with its four modes, paralleled by the Way of Love with\nits four modes; these lead up to the perfect union of the spirit with God\n\"in one love and one fruition with Him, fulfilled in everlasting bliss.\"\nThe seventeenth chapter begins a new treatise, with a description of the\nActive Life on Ruysbroeck's usual lines; and at the thirtieth there is\nagain a complete change of subject, introducing a mystical and symbolic\ninterpretation of the science of astronomy. This section, so unlike his\nlater writings, somewhat resembles _The Spiritual Tabernacle_, and may\nperhaps be a work of the same period. A collection of Meditations upon\nthe Passion of Christ, arranged according to the Seven Hours of the Roman\nBreviary (capp. lxxiii. to end), completes the book; and also the tale of\nRuysbroeck's authentic works. A critical list of the reprints and\ntranslations in which these may best be studied will be found in the\nBibliographical Note.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n                          HIS DOCTRINE OF GOD\n\n\n  My words are strange; but those who love will understand.\n\n                                      The Mirror of Eternal Salvation.\n\nMystical writers are of two kinds. One kind, of which St. Teresa is\nperhaps the supreme type, deals almost wholly with the personal and\ninterior experiences of the soul in the states of contemplation, and the\npsychological rules governing those states; above all, with the emotional\nreactions of the self to the impact of the Divine. This kind of\nmystic--whom William James accused, with some reason, of turning the\nsoul's relation with God into a 'duet'--makes little attempt to describe\nthe ultimate Object of the self's love and desire, the great movements of\nthe spiritual world; for such description, the formul\u00e6 of existing\ntheology are felt to be enough. Visions of Christ, experiences of the\nBlessed Trinity--these are sufficient names for the personal and\nimpersonal aspects of that Reality with which the contemplative seeks to\nunite. But the other kind of mystic--though possibly and indeed usually\nas orthodox in his beliefs, as ardent in his love--cannot, on the one\nhand, remain within the circle of these subjective and personal\nconceptions, and, on the other, content himself with the label which\ntradition has affixed to the Thing that he has known. He may not reject\nthe label, but neither does he confuse it with the Thing. He has the wide\nvision, the metaphysical passion of the philosopher and the poet; and in\nhis work he is ever pressing towards more exact description, more\nsuggestive and evocative speech. The symbols which come most naturally to\nhim are usually derived from the ideas of space and of wonder; not from\nthose of human intimacy and love. In him the intellect is active as well\nas the heart; sometimes, more active. Plotinus is an extreme example of\nmysticism of this type.\n\nThe greatest mystics, however, whether in the East or in the West, are\npossessed of a vision and experience of God so deep and rich that it\nembraces at once the infinite and the intimate aspects of Reality;\nilluminating those religious concepts which are, as it were, an artistic\nreconstruction of the Transcendent, and at the same time having contact\nwith that vast region above and beyond reason whence come the fragmentary\nintimations of Reality crystallised in the formul\u00e6 of faith. For them, as\nfor St. Augustine, God is both near and far; and the paradox of\ntranscendent-immanent Reality is a self-evident if an inexpressible\ntruth. They swing between hushed adoration and closest communion, between\nthe divine ignorance of the intellect lifted up into God and the divine\ncertitude of the heart in which He dwells; and give us by turns a\nsubjective and psychological, an objective and metaphysical, reading of\nspiritual experience. Ruysbroeck is a mystic of this type. The span of\nhis universe can include--indeed demand--both the concept of that Abyss\nof Pure Being where all distinctions are transcended, and the soul is\nimmersed in the 'dark light' of the One, and the distinctively Christian\nand incarnational experience of loving communion with and through the\nPerson of Christ. For him the ladder of contemplation is firmly planted\nin the bed-rock of human character--goes the whole way from the heart of\nman to the Essence of God--and every stage of it has importance for the\neager and ascending soul. Hence, when he seems to rush out to the\nfarthest limits of the cosmos, he still remains within the circle of\nCatholic ideas; and is at once ethical and metaphysical, intensely\nsacramental and intensely transcendental too.\n\nNor is this result obtained--as it sometimes seems to be, for instance,\nin such a visionary as Angela of Foligno--by a mere heaping up of the\nvarious and inconsistent emotional reactions of the self. There is a\nfundamental orderliness in the Ruysbroeckian universe which, though it\nmay be difficult to understand, and often impossible for him to express\nwithout resort to paradox, yet reveals itself to careful analysis. He\ntries hard to describe, or at least suggest, it to us, because he is a\nmystic of an apostolic type. Even where he is dealing with the soul's\nmost ineffable experiences and seems to hover over that Abyss which is\n'beyond Reason,' stammering and breaking into wild poetry in the\ndesperate attempt to seize the unseizable truth he is ever intent on\ntelling us how these things may be actualised, this attitude attained by\nother men. The note is never, as with many subjective visionaries, \"_I_\nhave seen,\" but always \"_We_ shall or may see.\"\n\nNow such an objective mystic as this, who is not content with retailing\nhis private experiences and ecstasies, but accepts the great vocation of\nrevealer of Reality, is called upon to do certain things. He must give\nus, not merely a static picture of Eternity, but also a dynamic 'reading\nof life'; and of a life more extended than that which the moralist, or\neven the philosopher, offers to interpret. He must not only tell us what\nhe thinks about the universe, and in particular that ultimate Spiritual\nReality which all mysticism discerns within or beyond the flux. He must\nalso tell us what he thinks of man, that living, moving, fluid\nspirit-thing: his reactions to this universe and this Reality, the\nsatisfaction which it offers to his thought, will and love, the\nobligations laid upon him in respect of it. We, on our part, must try to\nunderstand what he tells us of these things; for he is, as it were, an\norgan developed by the race for this purpose--a tentacle pushed out\ntowards the Infinite, to make, in our name and in our interest, fresh\ncontacts with Reality. He performs for us some of the functions of the\nartist extending our universe, the pioneer cutting our path, the hunter\nwinning food for our souls.\n\nThe clue to the universe of such a mystic will always be the vision or\nidea which he has of the Nature of God; and there we must begin, if we\nwould find our way through the tangle of his thought. From this Centre\nall else branches out, and to this all else must conform, if it is to\nhave for him realness and life; for truth, as Aquinas teaches, is simply\nthe reality of things as they are in God. We begin, then, our exploration\nof Ruysbroeck's doctrine by trying to discover the character of his\nvision of the Divine Nature, and man's relation with it.\n\nThat vision is so wide, deep and searching, that only by resort to the\nlanguage of opposites, by perpetual alternations of spatial and personal,\nmetaphysical and passionate speech, is he able to communicate it to us.\nHis fortunate and profound acquaintance with the science of theology--his\ncontact through it with the formul\u00e6 of Christian Platonism--has given him\nthe framework on which he stretches out his wonderful and living picture\nof the Infinite. This picture is personal to himself, the fruit of a\ndirect and vivid inspiration; not so the terms by which it is\ncommunicated. These for the most part are the common property of\nChristian theology; though here used with a consummate skill, often with\nan apparent originality. Especially from St. Augustine, Dionysius the\nAreopagite, Richard of St. Victor, St. Bernard and the more orthodox\nutterances of his own immediate predecessor, Meister Eckhart--sometimes\ntoo from his contemporaries, Suso and Tauler--has he taken the\nintellectual concepts, the highly-charged poetic metaphors, in which his\nperceptions are enshrined. So close does he keep to these masters, so\nfrequent are his borrowings, that almost every page of his writings might\nbe glossed from their works. It is one of the most astonishing features\nof the celebrated and astonishing essay of M. Maeterlinck that, bent on\nvindicating the inspiration of his 'simple and ignorant monk,' he\nentirely fails to observe the traditional character of the formul\u00e6 which\nexpress it. No student of the mystics will deny the abundant inspiration\nby which Ruysbroeck was possessed; but this inspiration is spiritual, not\nintellectual. The truth was told to him in the tongue of angels, and he\ndid his best to translate it into the tongue of the Church; perpetually\nreminding us, as he did so, how great was the difference between vision\nand description, how clumsy and inadequate those concepts and images\nwherewith the artist-seer tried to tell his love.\n\nThis distinction, which the reader of Ruysbroeck should never forget, is\nof primary importance in connection with his treatment of the Nature of\nGod; where the disparity between the thing known and the thing said is\ninevitably at a maximum. The high nature of the Godhead, he says, in a\nstring of suggestive and paradoxical images, to which St. Paul, Dionysius\nand Eckhart have all contributed, is, in itself, \"Simplicity and\nOne-foldness; inaccessible height and fathomless deep; incomprehensible\nbreadth and eternal length; a dim silence, and a wild desert\"--oblique,\nsuggestive, musical language which enchants rather than informs the soul;\nopens the door to experience, but does not convey any accurate knowledge\nof the Imageless Truth, \"Now we may experience many wonders in that\nfathomless Godhead; but although, because of the coarseness of the human\nintellect, when we would describe such things outwardly, we must use\nimages, in truth that which is inwardly perceived and beheld is nought\nelse but a Fathomless and Unconditioned Good.\"[6]\n\nYet this primal Reality, this ultimately indivisible One, has for human\nconsciousness a two-fold character; and though for the intuition of the\nmystic its fruition is a synthetic experience, it must in thought be\nanalysed if it is ever to be grasped. God, as known by man, exhibits in\nits perfection the dual property of Love; on the one hand active,\ngenerative, creative; on the other hand a still and ineffable possession\nor _Fruition_--one of the master-words of Ruysbroeck's thought. He is,\nthen, the Absolute One, in whom the antithesis of Eternity and Time, of\nBeing and Becoming, is resolved; both static and dynamic, transcendent\nand immanent, impersonal and personal, undifferentiated and\ndifferentiated; Eternal Rest and Eternal Work, the Unmoved Mover, yet\nMovement itself. \"Although in our way of seeing we give God many names,\nHis nature is One.\"\n\nHe transcends the storm of succession, yet is the inspiring spirit of the\nflux. According to His fruitful nature, \"He works without ceasing, for He\nis Pure Act\"--a reminiscence of Aristotle which seems strange upon the\nlips of the 'ignorant monk.' He is the omnipotent and ever-active Creator\nof all things; 'an immeasurable Flame of Love' perpetually breathing\nforth His energetic Life in new births of being and new floods of grace,\nand drawing in again all creatures to Himself. Yet this statement\ndefines, not His being, but one manifestation of His being. When the soul\npierces beyond this 'fruitful' nature to His simple essence--and 'simple'\nis here and throughout to be understood in its primal meaning of\n'synthetic'--He is that absolute and abiding Reality which seems to man\nEternal Rest, the 'Deep Quiet of the Godhead,' the 'Abyss,' the 'Dim\nSilence'; and which we can taste indeed but never know. There, 'all\nlovers lose themselves' in the consummation of that experience at which\nour fragmentary intuitions hint.\n\nThe active and fertile aspect of the Divine Nature is manifested in\ndifferentiation: for Ruysbroeck the Catholic, in the Trinity of Persons,\nas defined by Christian theology. The static and absolute aspect is the\n'calm and glorious Unity of the Godhead' which he finds beyond and within\nthe Trinity, \"the fathomless Abyss that _is_ the Being of God,\"--an idea,\nfamiliar to Indian mysticism and implicit in Christian Neoplatonism,\nwhich governed all Meister Eckhart's speculations upon the Divine Nature.\nThere is, says Ruysbroeck in one of his most Eckhartian passages, \"a\ndistinction and differentiation, according to our reason, between God and\nthe Godhead, between action and rest. The fruitful nature of the Persons,\nof whom is the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity, ever worketh in a\nliving differentiation. But the Simple Being of God, according to the\nnature thereof, is an Eternal Rest of God and of all created things.\"[7]\n\nIn differentiating the three great aspects of the Divine Life, as known\nby the love and thought of man, Ruysbroeck keeps close to formal\ntheology; though investing its academic language with new and deep\nsignificance, and constantly reminding us that such language, even at its\nbest, can never get beyond the region of image and similitude or provide\nmore than an imperfect reflection of the One who is 'neither This nor\nThat.' On his lips, credal definitions are perpetually passing over from\nthe arid region of theological argument to the fruitful one of spiritual\nexperience. There they become songs, as 'new' as the song heard by the\nApocalyptist; real channels of light, which show the mind things that it\nnever guessed before. For the 're-born' man they have a fresh and\nimmortal meaning; because that 'river of grace,' of which he perpetually\nspeaks as pouring into the heart opened towards the Infinite,\ntransfigures and irradiates them. Thus the illuminated mind knows in the\nFather, not a confusingly anthropomorphic metaphor, but the uniquely\nvital Source and unconditioned Origin of all things \"in whom our life and\nbeing is begun.\" He is the \"Strength and Power, Creator, Mover, Keeper,\nBeginning and End, Cause and Existence of all creatures.\"[8] Further, the\nintuition of the mystic discerns in the Son the Eternal Word and\nfathomless Wisdom and Truth perpetually generated of the Father, shining\nforth in the world of conditions: the Pattern or Archetype of creation\nand of life, the image of God which the universe reflects back before the\nface of the Absolute, the Eternal Rule incarnate in Christ. And this same\n'light wherein we see God' also shows to the enlightened mind the\nveritable character of the Holy Spirit; the Incomprehensible Love and\nGenerosity of the Divine Nature, which emanates in an eternal procession\nfrom the mutual contemplation of Father and Son, \"for these two Persons\nare always hungry for love.\" The Holy Spirit is the source of the Divine\nvitality immanent in the universe. It is an outflowing torrent of Good\nwhich streams through all heavenly spirits; it is a Flame of Fire that\nconsumes all in the One; it is also the Spark of transcendence latent in\nman's soul. The Spirit is the personal, Grace the impersonal, side of\nthat energetic Love which enfolds and penetrates all life; and \"all this\nmay be perceived and beheld, inseparable and without division, in the\nSimple Nature of the Godhead.\"[9]\n\nThe relations which form the character of these Three Persons exist in an\neternal distinction for that world of conditions wherein the human soul\nis immersed, and where things happen 'in some wise.' There, from the\nembrace of the Father and Son and the outflowing of the Spirit in 'waves\nof endless love,' all created things are born; and God, by His grace and\nHis death, recreates them, and adorns them with love and goodness, and\ndraws them back to their source. This is the circling course of the\nDivine life-process 'from goodness, through goodness, to goodness,'\ndescribed by Dionysius the Areopagite. But beyond and above this plane of\nDivine differentiation is the superessential world, transcending all\nconditions, inaccessible to thought--\"the measureless solitude of the\nGodhead, where God possesses Himself in joy.\" This is the ultimate world\nof the mystic, discerned by intuition and love \"in a simple seeing,\nbeyond reason and without consideration.\" There, within the 'Eternal\nNow,' without either before or after, released from the storm of\nsuccession, things happen indeed, 'yet in no wise,' There, \"we can speak\nno more of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, nor of any creature; but only of\none Being, which is the very substance of the Divine Persons. There were\nwe all one before our creation; for this is our _superessence_.... There\nthe Godhead is, in simple essence, without activity; Eternal Rest,\nUnconditioned Dark, the Nameless Being, the Superessence of all created\nthings, and the simple and infinite Bliss of God and of all Saints.\"[10]\n\nRuysbroeck here brings us to the position of Dante in the last canto of\nthe _Paradiso_, when, transcending those partial apprehensions of Reality\nwhich are figured by the River of Becoming and the Rose of Beatitude, he\npenetrated to the swift vision of \"that Eternal Light which only in\nItself abideth\"--discerned best by man under the image of the three\ncircles, yet in its 'profound and clear substance' indivisibly One.\n\n\"The simple light of this Being is limitless in its immensity, and\ntranscending form, includes and embraces the unity of the Divine Persons\nand the soul with all its faculties; and this to such a point that it\nenvelopes and irradiates _both_ the natural tendency of our ground\n[_i.e._ its dynamic movement to God--the River] and the fruitive\nadherence of God and all those who are united with Him in this Light\n[_i.e._ Eternal Being--the Rose]. And this is the union of God and the\nsouls that love Him.\"[11]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n                          HIS DOCTRINE OF MAN\n\n\n  That which was begun by Grace, is accomplished by Grace and Free-will;\n  so that they work mixedly not separately, simultaneously not\n  successively, in each and all of their processes.\n\n                                                          St. Bernard.\n\nThe concept of the Nature of God which we have traced through its three\nphases--out from the unchanging One to the active Persons and back to the\nOne again--gives us a clue to Ruysbroeck's idea of the nature and destiny\nof man. In man, both aspects of Divine Reality, active and fruitive, are\nor should be reflected; for God is the 'Living Pattern of Creation' who\nhas impressed His image on each soul, and in every adult spirit the\ncharacter of that image must be brought from the hiddenness and realised.\nDestined to be wholly real, though yet in the making, there is in man a\nlatent Divine likeness, a 'spark' of the primal fire. Created for union\nwith God, already in Eternity that union is a fact.\n\n\"The creature is in Brahma and Brahma is in the creature; they are ever\ndistinct yet ever united,\" says the Indian mystic. Were it translated\ninto Christian language, it is probable that this thought--which does\n_not_ involve pantheism--would have been found acceptable by Ruysbroeck;\nfor the interpenetration yet eternal distinction of the human and Divine\nspirits is the central fact of his universe. Man, he thinks, is already\nrelated in a threefold manner to his Infinite Source; for \"we have our\nbeing in Him as the Father, we contemplate Him as does the Son, we\nceaselessly tend to return to Him as does the Spirit.\"\n\n\"The first property of the soul is a _naked being_, devoid of all image.\nThereby do we resemble, and are united to, the Father and His nature\nDivine.\" This is the 'ground of the soul' perpetually referred to by\nmystics of the Eckhartian School; the bare, still place to which\nconsciousness retreats in introversion, image of the static and absolute\naspect of Reality. \"The second property might be called the _higher\nunderstanding_ of the soul. It is a mirror of light, wherein we receive\nthe Son of God, the Eternal Truth. By this light we are like unto Him;\nbut in the act of receiving, we are one with Him.\" This is the power of\nknowing Divine things by intuitive comprehension: man's fragmentary share\nin the character of the Logos, or Wisdom of God. \"The third property we\ncall the _spark_ of the soul. It is the inward and natural tendency of\nthe soul towards its Source; and here do we receive the Holy Spirit, the\nCharity of God. By this inward tendency we are like the Holy Spirit; but\nin the act of receiving, we become one spirit and one love with God.\"[12]\nHere the Divine image shows itself in its immanent and dynamic aspect, as\nthe 'internal push' which drives Creation back to the Father's heart.\n\nThe soul then is, as Julian of Norwich said, \"made Trinity, like to the\nunmade Blessed Trinity.\" Reciprocally, there is in the Eternal World the\nuncreated Pattern or Archetype of man--his 'Platonic idea.' Now man must\nbring from its hiddenness the latent likeness, the germ of Divine\nhumanity that is in him, and develop it until it realises the 'Platonic\nidea'; achieving thus the implicit truth of his own nature as it exists\nin the mind of God. This, according to Ruysbroeck, is the whole art and\nobject of the spiritual life; this actualisation of the eternal side of\nhuman nature, atrophied in the majority of men--the innate Christliness\nin virtue of which we have power to become 'Sons' of God.\n\n\"Lo! thus are we all one with God in our Eternal Archetype, which is His\nWisdom who hath put on the nature of us all. And although we are already\none with Him therein by that putting on of our nature, we must also be\nlike God in grace and virtue, if we would find ourselves one with Him in\nour Eternal Archetype, which is Himself.\"[13]\n\nUnder the stimulus of Divine Love perpetually beating in on him, feeding\nperpetually on the substance of God, perpetually renewed and 'reborn' on\nto ever higher levels through the vivifying contact of reality, man must\ngrow up into the 'superessential life' of complete unity with the\nTranscendent. There, not only the triune aspect but the dual character of\nGod is reproduced in him, reconciled in a synthesis beyond the span of\nthought; and he becomes 'deiform'--both active and fruitive, 'ever at\nwork and ever at rest'--at once a denizen of Eternity and of Time. Every\naspect of his being--love, intellect and will--is to be invaded and\nenhanced by the new life-giving life; it shall condition and enrich his\ncorrespondences with the sense-world as well as with the world of soul.\n\nMan is not here invited to leave the active life for the contemplative,\nbut to make the active life perfect within the contemplative; carrying up\nthese apparent opposites to a point at which they become one. It is one\nof Ruysbroeck's characteristics that he, as few others, followed\nmysticism out to this, its last stage; where it issues in a balanced,\ndivine-human life. The energetic Love of God, which flows perpetually\nforth from the Abyss of Being to the farthest limits of the universe,\nenlightening and quickening where it goes, and 'turns again home' as a\nstrong tide drawing all things to their Origin, here attains equilibrium;\nthe effort of creation achieves its aim.\n\nNow this aim, this goal, is already realised within God's nature, for\nthere all perfection eternally Is. But to man it is super-nature; to\nachieve it he must transcend the world of conditions in which he lives\naccording to the flesh, and grow up to fresh levels of life. Under the\nvarious images of sonship, marriage, and transmutation, this is the view\nof human destiny which Ruysbroeck states again and again: the creative\nevolution of the soul. His insistence on the completeness of the Divine\nUnion to which the soul attains in this final phase, his perpetual resort\nto the dangerous language of deification in the effort towards describing\nit, seems at first sight to expose him to the charge of pantheism; and,\nas a matter of fact, has done so in the past. Yet he is most careful to\nguard himself at every point against this misinterpretation of his vision\nof life. In his view, by its growth towards God, personality is not lost,\nbut raised to an ever higher plane. Even in that ecstatic fruition of\nEternal Life in which the spirit passes above the state of Union to the\nstate of Unity, and beyond the Persons to the One, the 'eternal\notherness' of Creator and created is not overpassed; but, as in the\nperfect fulfilment of love, utter fusion and clear differentiation\nmysteriously co-exist. It is, he says, not a mergence but a 'mutual\ninhabitation.' In his attempts towards the description of this state, he\nborrows the language of St. Bernard, most orthodox of the mystics;\nlanguage which goes back to primitive Christian times. The Divine light,\nlove and being, he tells us, penetrates and drenches the surrendered,\nnaked, receptive soul, 'as fire does the iron, as sunlight does the air';\nand even as the sunshine and the air, the iron and the fire, so are these\ntwo terms distinct yet united. \"The iron doth not become fire nor the\nfire iron; but each retaineth its substance and its nature. So likewise\nthe spirit of man doth not become God, but is God-formed, and knoweth\nitself breadth and length and height and depth.\"[14] Again, \"this union\nis _in_ God, through grace and our homeward-tending love. Yet even here\ndoes the creature feel a distinction and otherness between itself and God\nin its inward ground.\"[15] The dualistic relation of lover and beloved,\nthough raised to another power and glory, is an eternal one.\n\nI have spoken of Ruysbroeck's concept of God, his closely related concept\nof man's soul; the threefold diagram of Reality within which these terms\nare placed, the doctrine of transcendence he deduced therefrom. But such\na diagram cannot express to us the rich content, the deeply personal\ncharacter of his experience and his knowledge. It is no more than a map\nof the living land he has explored, a formal picture of the Living One\nwhom he has seen without sight. For him the landscape lived and flowered\nin endless variety of majesty and sweetness; the Person drew near in\nmysterious communion, and gave to him as food His very life.\n\nAll that this meant, and must mean, for our deeper knowledge of Reality\nand of man's intuitive contacts with the Divine Life, we must find if we\ncan in his doctrine of Love. Love is the 'very self-hood' of God, says\nRuysbroeck in strict Johannine language. His theology is above all the\ntheology of the Holy Spirit, the immanent Divine Energy and Love. It is\nLove which breaks down the barrier between finite and infinite life. But\nLove, as he understands it, has little in common with the feeling-state\nto which many of the female mystics have given that august name. For him,\nit is hardly an emotional word at all, and never a sentimental one;\nrather the title of a mighty force, a holy energy that fills the\nuniverse--the essential activity of God. Sometimes he describes it under\nthe antique imagery of Light; imagery which is more than a metaphor, and\nis connected with that veritable consciousness of enhanced radiance, as\nwell in the outer as in the inner world, experienced by the 'illuminated'\nmystic. Again it is the 'life-giving Life,' hidden in God and the\nsubstance of our souls, which the self finds and appropriates; the whole\nJohannine trilogy brought into play, to express its meaning for heart,\nintellect and will. This Love, in fact, is the dynamic power which St.\nAugustine compared with gravitation, 'drawing all things to their own\nplace,' and which Dante saw binding the multiplicity of the universe into\none. All Ruysbroeck's images for it turn on the idea of force. It is a\nraging fire, a storm, a flood. He speaks of it in one great passage as\n'playing like lightning' between God and the soul.\n\nWhoever will look at William Blake's great picture of the Creation of\nAdam, may gain some idea of the terrific yet infinitely compassionate\ncharacter inherent in this concept of Divine Love: the agony, passion,\nbeauty, sternness, and pity of the primal generating force. This love is\neternally giving and taking--it is its very property, says Ruysbroeck,\n'ever to give and ever to receive'--pouring its dower of energy into the\nsoul, and drawing out from that soul new vitality, new love, new\nsurrender. 'Hungry love,' 'generous love,' 'stormy love,' he calls it\nagain and again. Streaming out from the heart of Reality, the impersonal\naspect of the very Spirit of God, its creative touch evokes in man, once\nhe becomes conscious of it, an answering storm of love. The whole of our\nhuman growth within the spiritual order is conditioned by the quality of\nthis response; by the will, the industry, the courage, with which man\naccepts his part in the Divine give-and-take.\n\n\"That measureless Love which is God Himself, dwells in the pure deeps of\nour spirit, like a burning brazier of coal. And it throws forth brilliant\nand fiery sparks which stir and enkindle heart and senses, will and\ndesire, and all the powers of the soul, with a fire of love; in a storm,\na rage, a measureless fury of love. These be the weapons with which we\nfight against the terrible and immense Love of God, who would consume all\nloving spirits and swallow them in Himself. Love arms us with its own\ngifts, and clarifies our reason, and commands, counsels and advises us to\noppose Him, to fight against Him, and to maintain against Him our right\nto love, so long as we may.\"[16] In the spiritual realm, giving and\nreceiving are one act, for God is an 'ocean that ebbs and flows'; and it\nis only by opposing love to love, by self-donation to His mysterious\nmovements, that the soul appropriates new force, invigorating and\nfertilising it afresh. Thus, and thus alone, it lays hold on eternal\nlife; sometimes sacramentally, under external images and accidents;\nsometimes mystically, in the communion of deep prayer. \"Every time we\nthink with love of the Well-beloved, He is anew our meat and\ndrink\"--more, we too are His, for the love between God and man is a\nmutual love and desire. As we lay hold upon the Divine Life, devour and\nassimilate it, so in that very act the Divine Life devours us, and knits\nus up into the mystical Body of Reality. \"Thou shalt not change Me into\nthine own substance, as thou dost change the food of thy flesh, but thou\nshalt be changed into Mine,\" said the Spirit of God to St. Augustine; and\nhis Flemish descendant announces this same mysterious principle of life\nwith greater richness and beauty.\n\n\"It is the nature of love ever to give and to take, to love and to be\nloved, and these two things meet in whomsoever loves. Thus the love of\nChrist is both avid and generous ... as He devours us, so He would feed\nus. If He absorbs us utterly into Himself, in return He gives us His very\nself again.\"[17]\n\nThis is but another aspect of that great 'inbreathing and outbreathing'\nof the Divine nature which governs the relation between the Creator and\nthe flux of life; for Ruysbroeck's Christological language always carries\nwith it the idea of the Logos, the Truth and Wisdom of Deity, as revealed\nin the world of conditions,--not only in the historical Jesus, but also\nin the eternal generation of the Son. St. Francis of Assisi had said that\nDivine Love perpetually swings between and reconciles two mighty\nopposites: \"What is God? and, What am I?\" For Ruysbroeck, too, that Love\nis a unifying power, manifested in motion itself, \"an outgoing\nattraction, which drags us out of ourselves and calls us to be melted and\nnaughted in the Unity\";[18] and all his deepest thoughts of it are\nexpressed in terms of movement.\n\nThe relation between the soul and the Absolute, then, is a love\nrelation--as in fact all the mystics have declared it to be. Man, that\nimperfectly real thing, has an inherent tendency towards God, the Only\nReality. Already possessed of a life within the world of conditions, his\nunquiet heart reaches out towards a world that transcends conditions. How\nshall he achieve that world? In the same way, says Ruysbroeck, as the\nchild achieves the world of manhood: by the double method of growth and\neducation, the balanced action of the organism and its environment. In\nits development and its needs, spirit conforms to the great laws of\nnatural life. Taught by the voices of the forest and that inward Presence\nwho 'spoke without utterance' in his soul, he is quick to recognise the\nclose parallels between nature and grace. His story of the mystical life\nis the story of birth, growth, adolescence, maturity: a steady progress,\ndependent on food and nurture, on the 'brooks of grace' which flow from\nthe Living Fountain and bring perpetual renovation to help the wise\ndisciplines and voluntary choices that brace and purge our expanding will\nand love.\n\nRuysbroeck's universe, like that of Kabir and certain other great\nmystics, has three orders: Becoming, Being, God. Parallel with this, he\ndistinguishes three great stages in the soul's achievement of complete\nreality: the Active, the Interior, and the Superessential Life, sometimes\nsymbolised by the conditions of Servant, Friend, and Son of God. These,\nhowever, must be regarded rather as divisions made for convenience of\ndescription, answering to those divisions which thought has made in the\nindivisible fact of the universe, than as distinctions inherent in the\nreality of things. The spiritual life has the true character of duration;\nit is one indivisible tendency and movement towards our source and home,\nin which the past is never left behind, but incorporated in the larger\npresent.\n\nIn the Active Life, the primary interest is ethical. Man here purifies\nhis normal human correspondences with the world of sense, approximates\nhis will to the Will of God. Here, his contacts with the Divine take\nplace within that world of sense, and 'by means.' In the Interior Life,\nthe interest embraces the intellect, upon which is now conferred the\nvision of Reality. As the Active Life corresponded to the world of\nBecoming, this Life corresponds with the supersensual world of Being,\nwhere the self's contacts with the Divine take place 'without means.' In\nthe Superessential Life, the self has transcended the intellectual plane\nand entered into the very heart of Reality; where she does not behold,\nbut has fruition of, God in one life and one love. The obvious parallel\nbetween these three stages and the traditional 'threefold way' of\nPurgation, Illumination and Union is, however, not so exact as it\nappears. Many of the characters of the Unitive Way are present in\nRuysbroeck's 'second life'; and his 'third life' takes the soul to\nheights of fruition which few amongst even the greatest unitive mystics\nhave attained or described.\n\n(A) When man first feels upon his soul the touch of the Divine Light, at\nonce, and in a moment of time, his will is changed; turned in the\ndirection of Reality and away from unreal objects of desire. He is, in\nfact, 'converted' in the highest and most accurate sense of that ill-used\nword. Seeing the Divine, he wants the Divine, though he may not yet\nunderstand his own craving; for the scrap of Divine Life within him has\nemerged into the field of consciousness, and recognises its home. Then,\nas it were, God and the soul rush together, and of their encounter\nsprings love. This is the New Birth; the 'bringing forth of the Son in\nthe ground of the soul,' its baptism in the fountain of the Life-giving\nLife.\n\nThe new force and tendency received into the self begins to act on the\nperiphery, and thence works towards the centre of existence. First, then,\nit attacks the ordinary temporal life in all its departments. It pours in\nfresh waves of energy which confer new knowledge and hatred of sin,\npurify character, bring fresh virtues into being. It rearranges the\nconsciousness about new and higher centres, gathering up all the\nfaculties into one simple state of 'attention to God.' Thence results the\nhighest life which is attainable by 'nature.' In it, man is united with\nGod 'through means,' acts in obedience to the dictates of Divine Love and\nin accordance with the tendency of the Divine Will, and becomes the\n'Faithful Servant' of the Transcendent Order. Plainly, the Active Life,\nthus considered, has much in common with the 'Purgative Way' of ascetic\nscience.\n\n(B) When this growth has reached its term, when \"Free-will wears the\ncrown of Charity, and rules as a King over the soul,\" the awakened and\nenhanced consciousness begins to crave a closer contact with the\nspiritual: that unmediated and direct contact which is the essence of the\nContemplative or Interior Life, and is achieved in the deep state of\nrecollection called 'unitive prayer.' Here voluntary and purposive\neducation takes its place by the side of organic development. The way\ncalled by most ascetic writers 'Illumination'--the state of 'proficient'\nin monastic parlance--includes the _training_ of the self in the\ncontemplative art as well as its _growth_ in will and love. This training\nbraces and purifies intellect, as the disciplines of the active life\npurified will and sense. It teaches introversion, or the turning inward\nof the attention from the distractions of the sense-world; the cleansing\nof the mirror of thought, thronged with confusing images; the production\nof that silence in which the music of the Infinite can be heard. Nor is\nthe Active Life here left behind; it is carried up to, and included in,\nthe new, deepened activities of the self, which are no longer ruled by\nthe laws, but by the 'quickening counsels' of God.\n\nOf this new life, interior courage is a first necessity. It is no easy\nappropriation of supersensual graces, but a deeper entering into the\nmystery of life, a richer, more profound, participation in pain, effort,\nas well as joy. There must be no settling down into a comfortable sense\nof the Divine Presence, no reliance on the 'One Act'; but an incessant\nprocess of change, renewal, re-emergence. Sometimes Ruysbroeck appears to\nsee this central stage in the spiritual life-process in terms of upward\ngrowth toward transcendent levels; sometimes in terms of recollection,\nthe steadfast pressing inwards of consciousness towards that bare ground\nof the soul where it unites with immanent Reality, and finds the Divine\nLife surging up like a 'living fountain' from the deeps. This double way\nof conceiving one process is puzzling for us; but a proof that for\nRuysbroeck no one concept could suggest the whole truth, and a useful\nreminder of the symbolic character of all these maps and itineraries of\nthe spiritual life.\n\nAs the sun grows in power with the passing seasons, so the soul now\nexperiences a steady increase in the power and splendour of the Divine\nLight, as it ascends in the heavens of consciousness and pours its heat\nand radiance into all the faculties of man. The in-beating of this energy\nand light brings the self into the tempestuous heats of high summer, or\nfull illumination--the 'fury of love,' most fertile and dangerous epoch\nof the spiritual year. Thence, obedient to those laws of movement, that\n'double rhythm of renunciation and love' which Kabir detected at the\nheart of the universal melody, it enters on a negative period of psychic\nfatigue and spiritual destitution; the 'dark night of the soul.' The sun\ndescends in the heavens, the ardours of love grow cold. When this stage\nis fully established, says Ruysbroeck, the 'September of the soul' is\ncome; the harvest and vintage--raw material of the life-giving\nEucharist--is ripe. The flowering-time of spiritual joy and beauty is as\nnothing in its value for life compared with this still autumnal period of\ntrue fecundity, in which man is at last 'affirmed' in the spiritual life.\n\nThis, then, is the curve of the self's growth. Side by side with it runs\nthe other curve of deliberate training: the education by which our\nwandering attention, our diffused undisciplined consciousness, is\nsharpened and focussed upon Reality. This training is needed by intellect\nand feeling; but most of all by the _will_, which Ruysbroeck, like the\ngreat English mystics, regards as the gathering-point of personality, the\n'spiritual heart.' On every page of his writings the reference to that\nwhich the spiritual Light and Love do for man, is balanced by an\ninsistence on that which man himself must do: the choices to be made, the\n'exercises' to be performed, the tension and effort which must\ncharacterise the mystic way until its last phase is reached. Morally,\nthese exercises consist in progressive renunciations on the one hand and\nacceptances on the other 'for Love's sake'; intellectually, in\nintroversion, that turning inwards and concentration of consciousness,\nthe stripping off of all images and emptying of the mind, which is the\npsychological method whereby human consciousness transcends the\nconditioned universe to which it has become adapted, and enters the\ncontemplative world. Man's attention to life is to change its character\nas he ascends the ladder of being. Therefore the old attachments must be\ncut before the new attachments can be formed. This is, of course, a\ncommonplace of asceticism; and much of Ruysbroeck's teaching on\ndetachment, self-naughting and contemplation, is indeed simply the\nstandard doctrine of Christian asceticism seen through a temperament.\n\nWhen the self has grown up from the 'active' to the 'contemplative' state\nof consciousness, it is plain that his whole relation to his environment\nhas changed. His world is grouped about a new centre. It now becomes the\nsupreme business of intellect to 'gaze upon God,' the supreme business of\nlove to stretch out towards Him. When these twin powers, under the\nregnancy of the enhanced and trained will, are set towards Reality, then\nthe human creature has done his part in the setting up of the relation of\nthe soul to its Source, and made it possible for the music of the\nInfinite to sound in him. \"For this intellectual gazing and this\nstretching forth of love are two heavenly pipes, sounding without the\nneed of tune or of notes; they ever go forward in that Eternal Life,\nneither straying aside nor returning backward again; and ever keeping\nharmony and concord with the Holy Church, for the Holy Spirit gives the\nwind that sings in them.\"[19] Observe, that _tension_ is here a condition\nof the right employment of both faculties, and ensures that the Divine\nmusic shall sound true; one of the many implicit contradictions of the\nquietist doctrine of spiritual limpness, which we find throughout\nRuysbroeck's works.\n\n(C) When the twofold process of growth and education has brought the self\nto this perfection of attitude as regards the Spiritual Order--an\nattitude of true _union_, says Ruysbroeck, but not yet of the unthinkable\n_unity_ which is our goal--man has done all that he can do of himself.\nHis 'Interior Life' is complete, and his being is united through grace\nwith the Being of God, in a relation which is the faint image of the\nmutual relations of the Divine Persons; a conscious sonship, finding\nexpression in the mutual interchange of the spirit of will and love. This\nexistence is rooted in 'grace,' the unconditioned life-force,\nintermediary between ourselves and God,' as the active stage was rooted\nin 'nature.' Yet there is something beyond this. As beyond the Divine\nPersons there is the Superessential Unity of the Godhead, so beyond the\nplane of Being (_Wesen_) Ruysbroeck apprehends a reality which is 'more\nthan Being' (_Overwesen_). Man's spirit, having relations with every\ngrade of reality, has also in its 'fathomless ground' a potential\nrelation with this superessential sphere; and until this be actualised he\nis not wholly real, nor wholly _deiform_. Ruysbroeck's most original\ncontribution to the history of mysticism is his description of this\nsupreme state; in which the human soul becomes truly free, and is made\nthe 'hidden child' of God. Then only do we discern the glory of our\nfull-grown human nature; when, participating fully in the mysterious\ndouble life of God, the twofold action of true love, we have perfect\nfruition of Him as Eternal Rest, and perfect sharing in that outgoing\nlove which is His eternal Work: \"God with God, one love and one life, in\nHis eternal manifestation.\"[20]\n\nThe consummation of the mystic way, then, represents not merely a state\nof ecstatic contemplation, escape from the stream of succession, the\ndeath of self-hood, joyous self-immersion in the Abyss; not merely the\nenormously enhanced state of creative activity and energetic love which\nthe mystics call 'divine fecundity'; but _both_--the flux and reflux of\nsupreme Reality. It is the synthesis of contemplation and action, of\nBeing and Becoming: the discovery at last of a clue--inexpressible\nindeed, but really held and experienced--to the mystery which most deeply\ntorments us, the link between our life of duration and the Eternal Life\nof God. This is the Seventh Degree of Love, \"noblest and highest that can\nbe realised in the life of time or of eternity.\"\n\nThat process of enhancement whereby the self, in its upward progress,\ncarries with it all that has been attained before, here finds its\ncompletion. The active life of Becoming, and the essential life of Being,\nare not all. \"From beyond the Infinite the Infinite comes,\" said the\nIndian; and his Christian brother, in parallel terms, declares that\nbeyond the Essence is the Superessence of God, His 'simple' or synthetic\nunity. It is for fruition of this that man is destined; yet he does not\nleave this world for that world, but knows them as one. Totally\nsurrendered to the double current of the universe, the inbreathing and\noutbreathing of the Spirit of God, \"his love and fruition live between\nlabour and rest.\" He goes up and down the mountain of vision, a living\nwilling tool wherewith God works. \"Hence, to enter into restful fruition\nand come forth again in good works, and to remain ever one with God--this\nis the thing that I would say. Even as we open our fleshly eyes to see,\nand shut them again so quickly that we do not even feel it, thus we die\ninto God, we live of God, and remain ever one with God. Therefore we must\ncome forth in the activities of the sense-life, and again re-enter in\nlove and cling to God; in order that we may ever remain one with Him\nwithout change.\"[21]\n\nAll perfect lives, says Ruysbroeck, conform to this pattern, follow this\ncurve; though such perfect lives are rare amongst men. They are the\nfruit, not of volition, but of vocation; of the mysterious operations of\nthe Divine Light which--perpetually crying through the universe the\n\"unique and fathomless word 'Behold! behold!'\" and \"therewith giving\nutterance to itself and all other things\"--yet evokes only in some men an\nanswering movement of consciousness, the deliberate surrender which\nconditions the new power of response and of growth. \"To this divine\nvision but few men can attain, because of their own unfitness and because\nof the darkness of that Light whereby we see: and therefore no one shall\nthoroughly understand this perception by means of any scholarship, or by\ntheir own acuteness of comprehension. For all words, and all that men may\nlearn and understand in a creaturely fashion, is foreign to this and far\nbelow the truth that I mean. To understand and lay hold of God as He is\nin Himself above all images--this is _to be God with God_, without\nintermediary or any difference that might become an intermediary or an\nobstacle. And therefore I beg each one, who can neither understand this,\nnor feel it by the way of spiritual union, that he be not grieved\nthereby, and let it be as it is.\"[22]\n\nI end this chapter by a reference to certain key-words frequent in\nRuysbroeck's works, which are sometimes a source of difficulty to his\nreaders. These words are nearly always his names for inward experiences.\nHe uses them in a poetic and artistic manner, evocative rather than\nexact; and we, in trying to discover their meaning, must never forget the\ncoloured fringe of suggestion which they carry for the mystic and the\npoet, and which is a true part of the message he intends them to convey.\n\nThe first of these words is Fruition. Fruition, a concept which Eucken's\nphilosophy has brought back into current thought, represents a total\nattainment, complete and permanent participation and possession. It is an\nabsolute state, transcending all succession, and it is applied by\nRuysbroeck to the absolute character of the spirit's life in God; which,\nthough it seem to the surface consciousness a perpetually renewed\nencounter of love, is in its ground 'fruitive and unconditioned,' a\ntimeless self-immersion in the Dark, the 'glorious and essential\nOneness.' Thus he speaks of 'fruitive love,' 'fruitive possession'; as\nopposed to striving, dynamic love, partial, progressive and conditioned\npossession. Perfect contemplation and loving dependence are the eternal\nfruition of God': the Beatific Vision of theology. \"Where we are one with\nGod, without intermediary, beyond all separation; there is God our\nfruition and His own in an eternal and fathomless bliss.\"[23]\n\nNext perhaps in the power of provoking misunderstanding is the weight\nattached by Ruysbroeck to the adjective Simple. This word, which\nconstantly recurs in his descriptions of spiritual states, always conveys\nthe sense of wholeness, completeness, synthesis; not of poverty,\nthinness, subtraction. It is the white light in which all the colours of\nthe spectrum are included and fused. 'Simple Union,' 'Simple\nContemplation,' 'Simple Light'--all these mean the total undifferentiated\nact or perception from which our analytic minds subtract aspects. \"In\nsimplicity will I unite with the Simple One,\" said Kabir. So Ruysbroeck:\n\"We behold His face in a simple seeing, beyond reason and without\nconsideration.\"\n\nAnother cause of difficulty to those unfamiliar with the mystics is the\nconstant reference to Bareness or Nudity, especially in descriptions of\nthe contemplative act. This is, of course, but one example of that\nnegative method of suggestion--darkness, bareness, desolation, divine\nignorance, the 'rich nothing,' the 'naked thought'--which is a stock\ndevice of mysticism, and was probably taken by Ruysbroeck from Dionysius\nthe Areopagite. It represents, first, the bewildering emptiness and\nnakedness of consciousness when introduced into a universe that\ntranscends our ordinary conceptual world; secondly, the necessity of such\ntranscendence, of emptying the field of consciousness of 'every vain\nimagining,' if the self is to have contact with the Reality which these\nveil.\n\nWith the distinction between Essence (_Wesen_) and Superessence\n(_Overwesen_) I have already dealt; and this will appear more clearly\nwhen we consider Ruysbroeck's 'second' and 'third' stages of the mystic\nlife.\n\nThere remains the great pair of opposites, fundamental for his thought,\ncalled in the Flemish vernacular _Wise_ and _Onwise_, and generally\nrendered by translators as 'Mode' and 'Modeless.' Wherever possible I\nhave replaced these tasteless Latinisms by the Old English equivalents\n'in some wise' and 'in no wise,' occasionally by 'conditioned' and\n'unconditioned'; though perhaps the colloquial 'somehow' and 'nohow'\nwould be yet more exactly expressive. Now this pair of opposites is\npsychological rather than metaphysical, and has to do with the\ncharacteristic phenomena of contemplation. It indicates the difference\nbetween the universe of the normal man, living as the servant or friend\nof God within the temporal order, and the universe of the true\ncontemplative, the 'hidden child.' The knowledge and love of the first is\na conditioned knowledge and love. Everything which happens to him happens\n'in some wise'; it has attachments within his conceptual world, is\nmediated to him by symbols and images which intellect can grasp. \"The\nsimple ascent into the Nude and the Unconditioned is unknown and unloved\nof him\"; it is through and amongst his ordinary mental furniture that he\nobtains his contacts with Reality. But the knowledge and love of the\nsecond, his contacts, transcend the categories of thought. He has escaped\nalike from the tyrannies and comforts of the world of images, has made\nthe 'ascent into the Nought,' where all _is_, yet 'in no wise.' \"The\npower of the understanding is lifted up to that which is beyond all\nconditions, and its seeing is in no wise, being without manner, and it is\nneither thus nor thus, neither here nor there.\"[24] This is the direct,\nunmediated world of spiritual intuition; where the self touches a Reality\nthat has not been passed through the filters of sense and thought. There\nman achieves a love, a vision, an activity which are 'wayless,' yet far\nmore valid than anything that can be fitted into the framework of our\nconditioned world.\n\n  \"In a place beyond uttermost place, in a track without shadow of trace,\n  Soul and body transcending, I live in the soul of my Loved One anew.\"\n\nThus cries the great Sufi poet, Jalalu'ddin; and the suggestion which his\nwords convey is perhaps as close as speech can come to what Ruysbroeck\nmeant by _Onwise_. The change of consciousness which initiates man into\nthis inner yet unbounded world--the world that is 'unwalled,' to use his\nown favourite metaphor--is the essence of contemplation; which consists,\nnot in looking at strange mysteries, but in a movement to fresh levels,\nshut to the analytic intellect, open to adventurous love. There, without\nany amazement, the self can 'know in no wise' that which it can never\nunderstand.\n\n  \"Contemplation is a knowing that is in no wise,\n  For ever dwelling above the Reason.\n  Never can it sink down into the Reason,\n  And above it can the Reason never climb.\n  The shining forth of That which is in no wise is as a fair mirror.\n  Wherein shines the Eternal Light of God.\n  It has no attributes,\n  And here all the works of Reason fail.\n  It is not God,\n  But it is the Light whereby we see Him.\n  Those who walk in the Divine Light of it\n  Discover in themselves the Unwalled.\n  That which is in no wise, is above the Reason, not without it:\n  It beholds all things without amazement.\n  Amazement is far beneath it:\n  The contemplative life is without amazement.\n  That which is in no wise sees, it knows not what;\n  For it is above all, and is neither This nor That.\"[25]\n\n\n\n\n                                    CHAPTER V\nTHE ACTIVE LIFE\n\n\n  If we would discover and know that Kingdom of God which is hidden in\n  us, we must lead a life that is virtuous within, well-ordered without,\n  and fulfilled with true charity. Thus imitating Christ in every way, we\n  can, through grace, love and virtue, raise ourselves up to that apex of\n  the soul where God lives and reigns.\n\n                                      The Mirror of Eternal Salvation.\n\nThe beginning of man's Active Life, says Ruysbroeck--that uplifting of\nthe diurnal existence into the Divine Atmosphere, which confers on it\nmeaning and reality--is a movement of response. Grace, the synthesis of\nGod's love, energy and will, pours like a great river through the\nuniverse, and perpetually beats in upon the soul. When man consents to\nreceive it, opens the sluices of the heart to that living water,\nsurrenders to it; then he opens his heart and will to the impact of\nReality, his eyes to the Divine Light, and in this energetic movement of\nacceptance begins for the first time to live indeed. Hence it is that, in\nthe varied ethical systems which we find in his books, and which describe\nthe active crescent life of Christian virtue, the laborious adjustment of\ncharacter to the Vision of God, Ruysbroeck always puts first the virtue,\nor rather the attitude, which he calls _good-will_: the voluntary\norientation of the self in the right direction, the eager acceptance of\ngrace. As all growth depends upon food, so all spiritual development\ndepends upon the self's appropriation of its own share of the\ntranscendent life-force, its own 'rill of grace'; and good-will breaks\ndown the barrier which prevents that stream from pouring into the soul.\n\nDesire, said William Law, _is_ everything and _does_ everything; it is\nthe primal motive-power. Ruysbroeck, too, finds in desire turned towards\nthe best the beginning of human transcendence, and regards willing and\nloving as the essence of life. Basing his psychology on the common\nmedi\u00e6val scheme of Memory, Intelligence and Will, he speaks of this last\nas the king of the soul; dominating both the other powers, and able to\ngather them in its clutch, force them to attend to the invitations and\nmessages of the eternal world. Thus in his system the demand upon man's\nindustry and courage is made from the very first. The great mystical\nnecessity of self-surrender is shown to involve, not a limp acquiescence,\nbut a deliberate and heroic choice; the difficult approximation of our\nown thoughts and desires to the thoughts and desires of Divine Reality.\n\"When we have but one thought and one will with God, we are on the first\nstep of the ladder of love and of sanctity; for good-will is the\nfoundation of all virtue.\"[26]\n\nIn _The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage_, Ruysbroeck has used the\nwords said to the wise and foolish virgins of the parable--\"Behold, the\nbridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him\"--as an epitome of the self's\nrelations with and reactions to Reality. First, all created spirits are\ncalled to behold God, who is perpetually 'coming' to the world of\nconditions, in a ceaseless procession of love; and in this seeing our\nhappiness consists. But in order really to see a thing, we need not only\nlight and clear sight, but the _will_ to look at it; every act of\nperception demands a self-giving on the seer's part. So here we need not\nonly the light of grace and the open eyes of the soul, but also the\n_will_ turned towards the Infinite: our attention to life, the regnant\nfact of our consciousness, must be focussed upon eternal things. Now,\nwhen we see God, we cannot but love Him; and love is motion, activity.\nHence, this first demand on the awakened spirit, 'Behold!' is swiftly\nfollowed by the second demand, 'Go ye out!' for the essence of love is\ngenerous, outflowing, expansive, an \"upward and outward tendency towards\nthe Kingdom of God, which is God Himself.\" This outgoing, this concrete\nact of response, will at once change and condition our correspondences\nwith and attitude towards God, ourselves and our neighbours; expressing\nitself within the world of action in a new ardour for perfection--the\nnatural result of the 'loving vision of the Bridegroom,' the self's first\nglimpse of Perfect Goodness and Truth. We observe the continued\ninsistence on effort, act, as the very heart of all true self-giving to\ntranscendent interests.\n\nWhilst in the volitional life drastic readjustments, stern\ncharacter-building, and eager work are the expression of goodwill, in the\nemotional life it is felt as a profound impulse to self-surrender: a\nloving yielding up of the whole personality to the inflow and purging\nactivities of the Absolute Life. \"This good-will is nought else but the\ninfused Love of God, which causes him to apply himself to Divine things\nand all virtues; ... when it turns towards God, it crowns the spirit with\nEternal Love, and when it returns to outward things it rules as a\nmistress over his external good deeds.\"[27]\n\nWe have here, then, a disposition of heart and mind which both receives\nand responds to the messages of Reality; making it possible for the self\nto begin to grow in the right direction, to enter into possession of its\ntwofold heritage. That completely human life of activity and\ncontemplation which moves freely up and down the ladder of love between\nthe temporal and eternal worlds, and reproduces in little the ideal of\nDivine Humanity declared in Christ, is the ideal towards which it is set;\nand already, even in this lowest phase, the double movement of the\nawakened consciousness begins to show itself. Our love and will, firmly\nfastened in the Eternal World, are to swing like a pendulum between the\nseen and the unseen spheres; in great ascending arcs of balanced\nadoration and service, which shall bring all the noblest elements of\nhuman character into play. Therefore the pivoting of life upon Divine\nReality, which is the result of good-will--the setting up of a right\nrelation with the universe--is inevitably the first condition of virtue,\nthe 'root of sanctity,' the beginning of spiritual growth, the act which\nmakes man free; translating him, in Ruysbroeck's image, from the state of\nthe slave to that of the conscious and willing servant of Eternal Truth.\n\"From the hour in which, with God's help, he transcends his self-hood ...\nhe feels true love, which overcomes doubt and fear and makes man trust\nand hope; and so he becomes a true servant, and means and loves God in\nall that he does.\"[28]\n\nSo man, emerging from the shell of selfhood, makes--of his own free\nchoice, by his own effort--his first timid upward beat to God; and,\nfollowing swiftly upon it, the compensating outward beat of charity\ntowards his fellow-men. We observe how tight a hold has this most\ntranscendental of the mystics on the _wholeness_ of all healthy human\nlife: the mutual support and interpenetration of the active and\ncontemplative powers. 'Other-worldliness' is decisively contradicted from\nthe first. It is the appearance of this eager active charity--this\nimitation in little of the energetic Love of God--which assures us that\nthe first stage of the self's growth is rightly accomplished; completing\nits first outward push in that new direction to which its good-will is\nturned. \"For charity ever presses towards the heights, towards the\nKingdom of God, the which is God Himself.\"\n\nIn the practical counsels given to the young novice to whom _The Mirror\nof Salvation_ is addressed, we may see Ruysbroeck's ideal of that active\nlife of self-discipline and service which the soul has now set in hand;\nand which he describes in greater detail in _The Adornment of the\nSpiritual Marriage_ and _The Kingdom of God's Lovers_. Total\nself-donation, he tells her, is her first need--'choosing God, for love's\nsake' without hesitations or reserves; and this dedication to the\ninterests of Reality must be untainted by any spiritual selfishness, any\nhint of that insidious desire for personal beatitude which 'fades the\nflower of true love.' This done, self-conquest and self-control become\nthe novice's primary duties: the gradual subduing and rearrangement of\ncharacter about its new centre, the elimination of all tendencies\ninimical to the demands of Eternal Life; the firm establishment upon its\nthrone of that true free-will which desires only God's will. This\nself-conquest, the essence of the 'Way of Purgation,' as described and\nexperienced by so many ascetics and mystics, includes not only the\neradication of sins, but the training of the attention, the adaptation of\nconsciousness to its new environment; the killing-out of inclinations\nwhich, harmless in themselves, compete with the one transcendent interest\nof life.\n\nLike all great mystics, Ruysbroeck had a strong 'sense of sin.' This is\nmerely a theological way of stating the fact that his intense realisation\nof Perfection involved a vivid consciousness of the imperfections,\ndisharmonies, perversities, implicit in the human creature; the need of\nresolving them if the soul was to grow up to the stature of Divine\nHumanity. Yet there is in his writings a singular absence of that\nprofound preoccupation with sin found in so many medi\u00e6val ascetics. His\nattitude towards character was affirmative and robust; emphasising the\npossibilities rather than the disabilities of man. Sin, for him, was\negotism; showing itself in the manifold forms of pride, laziness,\nself-indulgence, coldness of heart, or spiritual self-seeking, but always\nimplying a central wrongness of attitude, resulting in a wrong employment\nof power. Self-denials and bodily mortifications he regarded partly as\nexercises in self-control--spiritual athletics--useful because educative\nof the will; partly as expressions of love. At best they are but the\nmeans of sanctity, and never to be confused with its end; for the man who\ndeliberately passed the greater part of his life in the bustle of the\ntown was no advocate of a cloistered virtue or a narrow perfectionism.\n\nMorbid piety is often the product of physical as well as spiritual\nstuffiness; and Ruysbroeck wrote his great books out of doors, with light\nand air all round him, and the rhythmic life of trees to remind him how\nmuch stronger was the quiet law of growth than any atavism, accident, or\nperversion by which it could be checked. Thus, throughout his works, the\naccent always falls upon power rather than weakness: upon the spiritual\nenergy pouring in like sunshine; the incessant growth which love sets\ngoing; the perpetual rebirths to ever higher levels, as the young sapling\nstretches upward every spring. What he asks of the novice is contrition\nwithout anxiety, self-discipline without fuss; the steady, all-round\ndevelopment of her personality, stretching and growing towards God. She\nis to be the mistress of her soul, never permitting it to be drawn hither\nand thither by the distractions and duties of external life. Keeping\nalways in the atmosphere of Reality, she shall bring therefrom truth and\nfrankness to all her words and deeds; and perform her duties with that\nright and healthy detachment which springs, not from a contempt of the\nMany, but from the secure and loving possession of the One.\n\nThe disciplines to which she must subject herself in the effort towards\nattainment of this poise, will, like a wise gymnastic, produce in her a\nsuppleness of soul; making the constant and inevitable transition from\ninterior communion to outward work, which charity and good sense demand,\neasy and natural, and causing the spirit to be plastic in the hand of\nGod. Such suppleness--the lightness and lissomeness which comes from\nspiritual muscles exercised and controlled--was one of the favourite\nqualities of that wise trainer of character, St. Fran\u00e7ois de Sales; and\nthe many small and irritating mortifications with which he was accustomed\nto torment his disciples had no other aim than to produce it.\n\nIn the stage of development to which the Active Life belongs, the soul\nenjoys communion with Reality, not with that directness proper to the\ntrue contemplative, but obliquely, by 'means,' symbols and images;\nespecially by the sacramental dispensation of the Church, a subject to\nwhich Ruysbroeck devotes great attention. As always in his system, growth\nfrom within is intimately connected with the reception of food and power\nfrom without. The movement of the self into God, the movement of God into\nthe self, though separable in thought, are one in fact: will and grace\nare two aspects of one truth. Only this paradox can express the relation\nbetween that Divine Love which is 'both avid and generous,' and the self\nthat is destined both to devour and be devoured by Reality.\n\nIn the beautiful chapters on the Eucharist which form the special feature\nof _The Mirror of Eternal Salvation_, Ruysbroeck develops this idea. \"If\nHe gives us all that He has and all that He is, in return He takes from\nus all that we have and all that we are, and demands of us more than we\nare capable of giving.... Even in devouring us, He desires to feed us. If\nHe absorbs us utterly into Himself, He gives Himself in return. He causes\nto be born in us the hunger and thirst of the spirit, which shall make us\nsavour Him in an eternal fruition; and to this spiritual hunger, as well\nas to the love of our heart, He gives His own Body as food.... Thus does\nHe give us His life full of wisdom, truth and knowledge, in order that we\nmay imitate Him in all virtues; and then He lives in us and we in Him.\nThen do we grow, and raise ourselves up above the reason into a Divine\nLove which causes us to take and consume that Food in a spiritual manner,\nand stretch out in pure love towards the Divinity. There takes place that\nencounter of the spirit, that is to say of measureless love, which\nconsumes and transforms our spirit with all its works; drawing us with\nitself towards the Unity, where we taste beatitude and rest. Herein\ntherefore is our eternal life: ever to devour and be devoured, to ascend\nand descend with love.\"[29]\n\nThe soul, then, turned in the direction of the Infinite, 'having God for\naim,' and with her door opened to the inflowing Divine Life, begins to\ngrow. Her growth is up and out; from that temporal world to which her\nnature is adapted, and where she seems full of power and efficiency, to\nthat eternal world to which the 'spark' within her belongs, but where she\nis as yet no more than a weak and helpless child. Hence the first state\nof mind and heart produced in her, if the 'new birth' has indeed taken\nplace, will be that humility which results from all real self-knowledge;\nsince \"whoso might verily see and feel himself as he _is_, he should\nverily be meek.\" This clear acknowledgment of facts, this finding of\none's own place, Ruysbroeck calls 'the solid foundation of the Kingdom of\nthe Soul.' In thus discerning love and humility as the governing\ncharacteristics of the soul's reaction to Reality, he is of course\nkeeping close to the great tradition of Christian mysticism; especially\nto the teaching of Richard of St. Victor, which we find constantly\nrepeated in the ascetic literature of the Middle Ages.\n\nFrom these two virtues, then, of humble self-knowledge and God-centred\nlove, are gradually developed all those graces of character which 'adorn\nthe soul for the spiritual marriage,' mark her ascent of the first\ndegrees of the 'ladder of love,' and make possible the perfecting of her\ncorrespondences with the 'Kingdom.' This development follows an orderly\ncourse, as subject to law as the unfolding of the leaves and flowers upon\nthe growing plant; and though Ruysbroeck in his various works uses\ndifferent diagrams wherewith to explain it, the psychological changes\nwhich these diagrams demonstrate are substantially the same. In each case\nwe watch the opening of man's many-petalled heart under the rays of the\nDivine Light, till it blossoms at last into the rose of Perfect Charity.\n\nThus in _The Seven Degrees of Love_, since he is there addressing a\ncloistered nun, he accommodates his system to that threefold monastic vow\nof voluntary poverty or perfect renunciation, chastity or singleness of\nheart, and obedience or true humility in action, by which she is bound.\nWhen the reality which these vows express is actualised in the soul, and\ndominates all her reactions to the world, she wears the 'crown of\nvirtue'; and lives that 'noble life' ruled by the purified and enhanced\nwill, purged of all selfish desires and distractions, which--seeking in\nall things the interests of the spiritual world--is 'full of love and\ncharity, and industrious in good works.'\n\nIn _The Spiritual Marriage_ a more elaborate analysis is possible; based\nupon that division of man's moral perversities into the 'seven mortal\nsins' or seven fundamental forms of selfishness, which governed, and\ngoverns yet, the Catholic view of human character. After a preliminary\npassage in which the triple attitude of love as towards God, humility as\ntowards self, justice as towards other men, is extolled as the only\nsecure basis of the spiritual life, Ruysbroeck proceeds to exhibit the\nseven real and positive qualities which oppose the seven great abuses of\nhuman freedom. As Pride is first and worst of mortal sins and follies, so\nits antithesis Humility is again put forward as the first condition of\ncommunion with God. This produces in the emotional life an attitude of\nloving adoration; in the volitional life, obedience. By _obedience_,\nRuysbroeck means that self-submission, that wise suppleness of spirit,\nwhich is swayed and guided not by its own tastes and interests but by the\nWill of God; as expressed in the commands and prohibitions of moral and\nspiritual law, the interior push of conscience. This attitude, at first\ndeliberately assumed, gradually controls all the self's reactions, and\nends by subduing it entirely to the Divine purpose. \"Of this obedience\nthere grows the abdication of one's own will and one's own opinion; ...\nby this abdication of the will in all that one does, or does not do, or\nendures, the substance and occasion of pride are wholly driven out, and\nthe highest humility is perfected.\"[30]\n\nThis movement of renunciation brings--next phase in the unselfing of the\nself--a compensating outward swing of love; expressed under the beautiful\nforms of _patience_, 'the tranquil tolerance of all that can happen,' and\nhence the antithesis of Anger; _gentleness_, which \"with peace and calm\nbears vexatious words and deeds\"; _kindness_, which deals with the\nquarrelsome and irritable by means of \"a friendly countenance,\naffectionate persuasion and compassionate acts\"; and _sympathy_, \"that\ninward movement of the heart which compassionates the bodily and\nspiritual griefs of all men,\" and kills the evil spirit of Envy and hate.\nThis fourfold increase in disinterested love is summed up in the\ncondition which Ruysbroeck calls _supernatural generosity_; that\nlargeness of heart which flows out towards the generosity of God, which\nis swayed by pity and love, which embraces all men in its sweep. By this\nenergetic love which seeks not its own, \"all virtues are increased, and\nall the powers of the spirit are adorned\"; and Avarice, the fourth great\nmortal sin, is opposed.\n\nGenerosity is no mere mood; it is a motive-force, demanding expression in\naction. From the emotions, it invades the will, and produces _diligence_\nand _zeal_: an 'inward and impatient eagerness' for every kind of work,\nand for the hard practice of every kind of virtue, which makes impossible\nthat slackness and dulness of soul which is characteristic of the sin of\nSloth. It is dynamic love; and the spirit which is fired by its ardours,\nhas reached a degree of self-conquest in which the two remaining evil\ntendencies--that to every kind of immoderate enjoyment, spiritual,\nintellectual or physical, which is the essence of Gluttony, and that to\nthe impure desire of created things which is Lust--can be met and\nvanquished. The purged and strengthened will, crowned by unselfish love,\nis now established on its throne; man has become captain of his soul, and\nrules all the elements of his character and that character's expression\nin life--not as an absolute monarch, but in the name of Divine Love.[31]\nHe has done all he can do of himself towards the conforming of his life\nto Supreme Perfection; has opposed, one after another, each of those\nexhibitions of the self's tendency to curl inwards, to fence itself in\nand demand, absorb, enjoy as a separate entity, which lie at the root of\nsin. The constructive side of the Purgative Way has consisted in the\nreplacement of this egoistic, indrawing energy by these outflowing\nenergies of self-surrender, kindness, diligence and the rest; summed up\nin that perfection of humility and love, which \"in all its works, and\nalways, stretches out towards God.\"\n\nThe first three gifts of the Holy Spirit are possessed by the soul which\nhas reached this point, says Ruysbroeck in _The Kingdom of God's Lovers_:\nthat loving Fear, which includes true humility with all its ancillary\ncharacteristics; that general attitude of charity which makes man gentle,\npatient and docile, ready to serve and pity every one, and is called\nGodliness, because there first emerges in it his potential likeness to\nGod; and finally that Knowledge or discernment of right and prudent\nconduct which checks the disastrous tendency to moral fussiness, helps\nman to conform his life to supreme Perfection, and gives the calmness and\nbalance which are essential to a sane and manly spirituality. Thus the\nnew life-force has invaded and affected will, feeling and intellect;\nraised the whole man to fresh levels of existence, and made possible\nfresh correspondences with Reality. \"Hereby are the three lower powers of\nthe soul adorned with Divine virtues. The Irascible [_i.e._ volitional\nand dynamic] is adorned with loving and filial fear, humility, obedience\nand renunciation. The Desirous is adorned with kindness, pity, compassion\nand generosity. Finally, the Reasonable with knowledge and discernment,\nand that prudence which regulates all things.\"[32] The ideal of character\nheld out and described under varying metaphors in Ruysbroeck's different\nworks, is thus seen to be a perfectly consistent one.\n\nNow when the growing self has actualised this ideal, and lives the Active\nLife of the faithful servant of Reality, it begins to feel an ardent\ndesire for some more direct encounter with That which it loves. Since it\nhas now acquired the 'ornaments of the virtues'--cleansed its mirror,\nordered its disordered loves--this encounter may and does in a certain\nsense take place; for every Godward movement of the human is met by a\ncompensating movement of the Divine. Man now begins to find God in all\nthings: in nature, in the soul, in works of charity. But in the turmoil\nand bustle of the Active Life such an encounter is at best indirect; a\nsidelong glimpse of the 'first and only Fair.' That vision can only be\napprehended in its wholeness by a concentration of all the powers of the\nself. If we would look the Absolute in the eyes, we must look at nothing\nelse; the complete opening of the eye of Eternity entails the closing of\nthe eye of Time. Man, then, must abstract himself from multiplicity, if\nonly for a moment, if he would catch sight of the unspeakable Simplicity\nof the Real. Longing to 'know the nature of the Beloved,' he must act as\nZacch\u00e6us did when he wished to see Christ:\n\n\"He must run before the crowd, that is to say the multiplicity of created\nthings; for these make us so little and low that we cannot perceive God.\nAnd he must climb up on the Tree of Faith, which grows from above\ndownwards, for its root is in the Godhead. This tree has twelve branches,\nwhich are the twelve articles of the Creed. The lower branches speak of\nthe Humanity of God; ... the upper branches, however, speak of the\nGodhead: of the Trinity of Persons and the Unity of the Divine Nature.\nMan must cling to the Unity which is at the top of the tree, for it is\nhere that Jesus will pass by with all His gifts. And now Jesus comes, and\nHe sees man, and shows him in the light of faith that He is, according to\nHis Divinity, unmeasured and incomprehensible, inaccessible and\nfathomless, and that He overpasses all created light and all finite\ncomprehension. This is the highest knowledge of God which man can acquire\nin the Active Life: thus to recognise by the light of faith that God is\ninconceivable and unknowable. In this light God says to the desire of\nman: \"Come down quickly, for I would dwell in your house to-day.\" And\nthis quick descent, to which God invites him, is nought else but a\ndescent, by love and desire, into the Abyss of the Godhead, to which no\nintellect can attain by its created light. But here, where intellect must\nrest without, love and desire may enter in. When the soul thus leans upon\nGod by intention and love, above all that she understands, then she rests\nand dwells in God, and God in her. When the soul mounts up by desire,\nabove the multiplicity of things, above the activities of the senses and\nabove the light of external nature, then she encounters Christ by the\nlight of faith, and is illuminated; and she recognises that God is\nunknowable and inconceivable. Finally, stretching by desire towards this\nincomprehensible God, she meets Christ and is fulfilled with His gifts.\nAnd loving and resting above all gifts, above herself and above all\nthings, she dwells in God and God in her. According to this manner Christ\nmay be encountered upon the summit of the Active Life.\"[33]\n\nThis, then, is the completion of the first stage in the mystic way; this\nshowing to the purified consciousness of the helplessness of the analytic\nintellect, the dynamic power of self-surrendered love. \"Where intellect\nmust rest without, love and desire may enter in.\" The human creature,\nturning towards Reality, has pressed up to the very edge of the 'Cloud of\nUnknowing' in which the goal of transcendence is hid. If it is to go\nfurther it must bring to the adventure not knowledge but divine\nignorance, not riches but poverty; above all, an eager and industrious\nlove.\n\n  \"A fiery flame of devotion leaping and ascending into the very goodness\n              of God Himself,\n  A loving longing of the soul to be with God in His Eternity,\n  A turning from all things of self into the freedom of the Will of God;\n  With all the forces of the soul gathered into the unity of the\n              spirit.\"[34]\n\n\n\n\n                                    CHAPTER VI\nTHE INTERIOR LIFE: ILLUMINATION AND DESTITUTION\n\n\n  Let whoso thirsts to see his God cleanse his mirror, purge his spirit;\n  and when thus he has cleansed his mirror, and long and diligently gazed\n  in it, a certain brightness of divine light begins to shine through\n  upon him, and a certain immense ray of unwonted vision to appear before\n  his eyes.... From the beholding of this light, which it sees within\n  itself with amazement, the mind is mightily set on fire, and lifted up\n  to behold that Light which is above itself.\n\n                                                Richard of St. Victor.\n\nIt is plain that the Active Life in Ruysbroeck's system answers more or\nless to the Purgative Way, considered upon its affirmative and\nconstructive side, as a building up of the heroic Christian character.\nSo, too, the life which he calls Interior or Contemplative, and which\ninitiates man into the friendship of God, corresponds in the main with\nthe Illuminative Way of orthodox mysticism; though it includes in its\nlater stages much that is usually held to belong to the third, or\nUnitive, state of the soul. The first life has, as it were, unfolded to\nthe sunlight the outer petals of the mystic rose; exhibiting in their\nfull beauty, adjusting to their true use, the normally-apparent\nconstituents of man's personality. All his relations with the given world\nof sense, the sphere of Becoming, have been purified and adjusted. Now\nthe expansive and educative influence of the Divine Light is able to\npenetrate nearer to the heart of his personality; is brought to bear upon\nthose interior qualities which he hardly knows himself to possess, and\nwhich govern his relation with the spiritual world of Being. The flower\nis to open more widely; the inner ring of petals must uncurl.\n\nAs the primary interest of the Active Life was ethical purification, so\nthe primary interest of this Second Life is intellectual purification.\nIntellect, however, is here to be understood in its highest sense; as\nincluding not only the analytic reason which deals with the problems of\nour normal universe, but that higher intelligence, that contemplative\nmind, which--once it is awakened to consciousness--can gather news of the\ntranscendental world. The development and clarification of this power is\nonly possible to those who have achieved, and continue to live at full\nstretch, the high, arduous and unselfish life of Christian virtue. Again\nwe must remind ourselves that Ruysbroeck's theory of transcendence\ninvolves, not the passage from one life to another, but the _adding_ of\none life to another: the perpetual deepening, widening, heightening and\nenriching of human experience. As the author of _The Cloud of Unknowing_\ninsists that none can be truly contemplative who is not also active, so\nRuysbroeck says that no man ever rises above the ordinary obligations of\nChristian kindness and active good works.\n\n\"We find nowadays many silly men who would be so interior and so\ndetached, that they will not be active or helpful in any way of which\ntheir neighbours are in need. Know, such men are neither hidden friends\nnor yet true servants of God, but are wholly false and disloyal; for none\ncan follow His counsels but those who obey His laws.\"[35]\n\nNevertheless it would be generally true to say that, whilst the aim of\nthe Active Life is right conduct, the aim of the Interior Life is right\nvision and thought. As, in that first life, all the perversions of man's\nordinary powers and passions were rectified, all that was superfluous and\nunreal done away, and his nature set right with God; now--still holding\nand living in its fulness this purified active life--he is to press\ndeeper and deeper into the resources of his being, finding there other\npowers and cravings which must be brought within the field of\nconsciousness, and set up those relations with the Transcendent of which\nthey are capable. This deepening and enlarging of man's universe,\ntogether with the further and more drastic discarding of illusions and\nunrealities, is the business of the Second Life, considered on its\nimpersonal side.\n\n\"If thou dost desire to unfold in thyself the Contemplative Life, thou\nmust enter within, beyond the sense-life; and, on that apex of thy being,\nadorned with all the virtues of which I have spoken, looking unto God\nwith gratitude and love and continual reverence, thou must keep thy\nthoughts bare, and stripped of every sensible image, thine understanding\nopen and lifted up to the Eternal Truth, and thy spirit spread out in the\nsight of God as a living mirror to receive His everlasting likeness.\nBehold, therein appears a light of the understanding, which neither\nsense, reason, nature, nor the clearest logic can apprehend, but which\ngives us freedom and confidence towards God. It is nobler and higher than\nall that God has created in nature; for it is the perfection of nature,\nand transcends nature, and is the clear-shining intermediary between\nourselves and God. Our thoughts, bare and stripped of images, are\nthemselves the living mirror in which this light shines: and the light\nrequires of us that we should be like to and one with God, in this living\nmirror of our bare thoughts.\"[36]\n\nIn this strongly Victorine passage, the whole process of the Second Life\nis epitomised; but in _The Spiritual Marriage_, where its description\noccupies the seventy-three chapters of the second book, we see how long\nis the way which stretches from that first 'entering in beyond the sense\nlife' to the point at which the soul's mirror is able to receive in its\nfullness that Light wherein alone it can apprehend Reality.\n\nConsidered upon its organic side, as a growth and movement of the soul,\nthis Way, as conceived, and probably experienced, by Ruysbroeck, can be\ndivided into three great phases. We might call these Action, Reaction and\nEquilibrium. Broadly speaking, they answer to the Illumination, Dark\nNight and Simple Union of orthodox mystical science. Yet since in his\nvivid description of these linked states he constantly departs from the\nformul\u00e6 of his predecessors, and as constantly illustrates their\nstatements by intimate and homely touches only possible to one who has\nendured the adventures of which he tells, we are justified in claiming\nthe description as the fruit of experience rather than of tradition; and\nas evidence of the course taken by his own development.\n\nIt is surely upon his own memory that he is relying, when he tells us\nthat the beginning of this new life possesses something of the abrupt\ncharacter of a second conversion. It happens, he says, when we least\nexpect it; when the self, after the long tension and struggle of moral\npurgation, has become drowsy and tired. Then, suddenly, \"a spiritual cry\nechoes through the soul,\" announcing a new encounter with Reality, and\ndemanding a new response; or, to put it in another way, consciousness on\nits ascending spiral has pushed through to another level of existence,\nwhere it can hear voices and discern visions to which it was deaf and\nblind before. This sudden clarity of mind, this new vivid apprehension of\nDivine Love, is the first indication of man's entrance on the\nIlluminative Way. It is introversive rather than out-going in type.\nChanging the character of our attention to life, we discern within us\nsomething which we have always possessed and always ignored: a secret\nDivine energy, which is now to emerge from the subconscious deeps into\nthe area of consciousness. There it stimulates the will, evicts all\nlesser images and interests from the heart, and concentrates all the\nfaculties into a single and intense state, pressing towards the Unity of\nGod, the synthetic experience of love; for perpetual movement towards\nthat unity--not achievement of it--is the mark of this Second Life, in\nwhich the separation of God and the soul remains intact. In Victorine\nlanguage, it is the period of spiritual betrothal, not of spiritual\nmarriage; of a vision which, though wide, rich and wonderful, is mirrored\nrather than direct.\n\nThe new God-inspired movement, then, begins within, like a spring\nbubbling from the deeps; and thrusts up and out to the consciousness\nwhich it is destined to clarify and enhance. \"The stream of Divine grace\nswiftly stirs and moves a man inwardly, and from within outwards; and\nthis swift stirring is the first thing that makes us _see_. Of this swift\nstirring is born from the side of man the second point: that is, a\ngathering together of all the inward and outward powers in spiritual\nunity and in the bonds of love. The third is that liberty which enables\nman to retreat into himself, without images or obstacles, whensoever he\nwills and thinks of his God.\"[37]\n\nSo we may say that an enhancement of the conative powers, a greater\ncontrol over the attention, are the chief marks of the Illuminative Way\nas perceived by the growing self. But the liberty here spoken of has a\nmoral as well as a mental aspect. It is a freeing of the whole man from\nthe fetters of illusion, and involves that perfect detachment of heart,\nthat self-naughting, which makes him equally willing to have joy or pain,\ngain or loss, esteem or contempt, peace or fear, as the Divine Will may\nordain. Thus is perfected that suppleness of soul which he began to\nacquire in the Active Life: a gradual process, which needs for its\naccomplishment the negative rhythm of renunciation, testing the manliness\nand courage of the self, as well as the positive movement of love. Hence\nthe Contemplative Life, as Ruysbroeck knows and describes it, has, and\nmust have, its state of pain as well as its state of joy. With him,\nhowever, as with nearly all the mystics, the state of joy comes first:\nthe glad and eager reaction to those new levels of spiritual reality\ndisclosed to consciousness when the struggles and readjustments of the\nActive Life have done their work. This is the phase in the self's\nprogress which mystical writers properly mean by Illumination: a\ncondition of great happiness, and of an intuition of Reality so vivid and\njoyous, that the soul often supposes that she has here reached the goal\nof her quest. It is in the spiritual year, says Ruysbroeck, that which\nthe month of May is in the seasons of the earth: a wholesome and\nnecessary time of sunshine, swift growth and abundant flowers, when the\nsoul, under the influence of 'the soft rain of inward consolations and\nthe heavenly dew of the Divine sweetness' blossoms in new and lovely\ngraces.\n\nIllumination is an unstable period. The sun is rising swiftly in the\nheaven of man's consciousness; and as it increases in power, so it calls\nforth on the soul's part greater ardours, more intense emotional\nreactions. Once more the flux of God is demanding its reflux. The soul,\nlike the growing boy suddenly made aware of the beauty, romance and\nwonder--the intense and irresistible appeal--of a world that had seemed\nordinary before, flows out towards this new universe with all the\nenthusiasm and eagerness of its young fresh powers. Those powers are so\nnew to it, that it cannot yet control or understand them. Vigorous and\nungovernable, they invade by turns the heart, the will, the mind, as do\nthe fevers and joys of physical adolescence; inciting to acts and\nsatisfactions for which the whole self is hardly ready yet. \"Then is\nthrown wide,\" says Ruysbroeck, \"the heaven which was shut, and from the\nface of Divine Love there blazes down a sudden light, as it were a\nlightning flash.\" In the meeting of this inward and outward spiritual\nforce--the Divine Light without, the growing Divine Spark within--there\nis great joy. Ecstasy, and that state of musical rapture, exceeding the\npossibilities of speech, which Ruysbroeck like Richard Rolle calls\n'ghostly song,' are the natural self-expressions of the soul in this\nmoment of its career.[38]\n\nIn more than one book we find references to this ecstatic period: a\nperiod so strongly marked in his own case, that it became for him--though\nhe was under no illusions as to its permanent value--one of the landmarks\nin man's journey to his home. Looking back on it in later life, he sees\nin it two great phases, of which the earlier and lower at any rate is\ndangerous and easily misunderstood; and is concerned to warn those who\ncome after him of its transitory and imperfect character. The first phase\nis that of 'spiritual inebriation,' in which the fever, excitement and\nunrest of this period of growth and change--affecting as they do every\naspect of personality--show themselves in the psycho-physical phenomena\nwhich are well-known accompaniments of religious emotion in selves of a\ncertain temperament. This spiritual delirium, which appears to have been\na common phase in the mystical revivals of the fourteenth century, is\nviewed by Ruysbroeck with considerable distrust; and rightly attributed\nby him to an excitement of the senses rather than of the soul. At best it\nis but 'children's food,' given to those who cannot yet digest 'the\nstrong food of temptation and the loss of God.' Its manifestations, as he\ndescribes them, overpass the limits not merely of common sense but also\nof sanity; and are clearly related to the frenzies of revivalists and the\nwild outbreaks of songs, dance and ecstatic speech observed in nearly all\nnon-Christian religions of an enthusiastic type. In this state of\nrapture, \"a man seems like a drunkard, no longer master of himself.\" He\nsings, shouts, laughs and cries both at once, runs and leaps in the air,\nclaps his hands, and indulges in absurdly exaggerated gestures 'with many\nother disagreeable exhibitions.'[39] These he may not be able to help;\nbut is advised to control them as soon as he can, passing from the merely\nsensuous emotion which results when the light of Eternal Love invades the\n'inferior powers' of the soul, to the spiritual emotion, amenable to\nreason, which is the reaction of the 'higher powers' of the self to that\nsame overwhelming influx of grace.\n\nThat inpouring grace grows swiftly in power, as the strength of the sun\ngrows with the passing of the year. The Presence of God now stands over\nthe soul's supreme summits, in the zenith: the transcendent fact of the\nilluminated consciousness. His power and love shine perpetually upon the\nheart, 'giving more than we can take, demanding more than we can pay';\nand inducing in the soul upon which this mighty energy is playing, a\nstrange unrest, part anguish and part joy. This is the second phase of\nthe ecstatic period, and gives rise to that which Ruysbroeck, and after\nhim Tauler, have called the 'storm of love': a wild longing for union\nwhich stretches to the utmost the self's powers of response, and\nexpresses itself in violent efforts, impassioned ascents towards the\nSpirit that cries without ceasing to our spirit: \"Pay your debt! Love the\nLove that has loved you from Eternity.\"[40]\n\nNow the vigorous soul begins to find within itself the gift of Spiritual\nStrength; that enthusiastic energy which is one of the characters of all\ntrue love. This is the third of the 'Seven Gifts of the Spirit,' and the\nfirst to be actualised in the Illuminated Life.[41] From this strong and\nardent passion for the Transcendent, adoration and prayer stream forth;\nand these again react upon the self, forming the fuel of the fire of\nlove. The interior invitation of God, His attractive power, His delicate\nyet inexorable caress, is to the loving heart the most pure delight that\nit has ever known. It responds by passionate movements of adoration and\ngratitude, opening its petals wide to the beams of the Eternal Sun.\n\nThis is the joy; and close behind it comes the anguish, 'sweetest and\nheaviest of all pains.' It is the sense of unsatisfied desire--the pain\nof love--which comes from the enduring consciousness of a gulf fixed\nbetween the self and That with which it desires to unite. \"Of this inward\ndemand and compulsion, which makes the creature to rise up and prepare\nitself to the utmost of its power, without yet being able to reach or\nattain the Unity--of this, there springs a spiritual pain. When the\nheart's core, the very source of life, is wounded by love, and man cannot\nattain that thing which he desires above else; when he must stay ever\nwhere he desires no more to be, of these feelings comes this pain....\nWhen man cannot achieve God, and yet neither can nor will do without Him;\nin such men there arises a furious agitation and impatience, both within\nand without. And whilst man is in this tumult, no creature in heaven or\nearth can help him or give him rest.\"[42]\n\nThe sensible heat of love is felt with a greater violence now than at any\nother period of life; the rays of the Spiritual Sun strike the soul with\nterrific force, ripening the fruits of the virtues, yet bringing danger\nto the health, both mental and physical, of those who are not properly\nprepared, and who faint under the exhaustion of this 'intense fury of\nDivine Love,' this onslaught which 'eats up the heart.' These are 'the\ndog-days of the spiritual year.' As all nature languishes under their\nstifling heat, so too long an exposure to their violence may mean ruin to\nthe physical health of the growing self. Yet those who behave with\nprudence need not take permanent harm; a kind of wise steadfastness will\nsupport them throughout this turbulent period. \"Following through all\nstorms the path of love, they will advance towards that place whither\nlove leadeth them.\"[43]\n\nTo this period of vivid illumination and emotional unrest belongs the\ndevelopment of those 'secondary automatisms' familiar to all students of\nmysticism: the desperate efforts of the mind to work up into some\nintelligible shape--some pictured vision or some spoken word--the\noverwhelming intuitions of the Transcendent by which it is possessed; the\nabrupt suspension of the surface-consciousness in rapture and ecstasy,\nwhen that overwhelming intuition develops into the complete mono-ideism\nof the ecstatic, and cuts off all contacts with the world of sense. Of\nthese phenomena Ruysbroeck speaks with intimacy, and also with much\ncommon sense. He distinguishes visions into those pictures or material\nimages which are 'seen in the imagination,' and those so-called\n'intellectual visions,'--of which the works of Angela of Foligno and St.\nTeresa provide so rich a series of examples,--which are really direct and\nimageless messages from the Transcendent; received in those supersensuous\nregions where man has contact with the Incomprehensible Good and \"seeing\nand hearing are one thing.\" To this conventional classification he adds a\npassage which must surely be descriptive of his own experiences in this\nkind:\n\n\"Sometimes God gives to such men swift spiritual glimpses, like to the\nflash of lightning in the sky. It comes like a sudden flash of strange\nlight, streaming forth from the Simple Nudity. By this is the spirit\nuplifted for an instant above itself; and at once the light passes, and\nthe man again comes to himself. This is God's own work, and it is\nsomething most august; for often those who experience it afterwards\nbecome illuminated men. And those who live in the violence and fervour of\nlove have now and then another manner, whereby a certain light shines\n_in_ them; and this God works by means. In this light, the heart and the\ndesirous powers are uplifted toward the Light; and in this encounter the\njoy and satisfaction are such that the heart cannot contain itself, but\nbreaks out in loud cries of joy. And this is called _jubilus_ or\njubilation; and it is a joy that cannot be expressed in words.\"[44]\n\nHere the parallel with Richard Rolle's 'ghostly song, with great voice\noutbreaking' will strike every reader of that most musical of the\nmystics; and it is probable that in both cases the prominence given to\nthis rather uncommon form of spiritual rapture points back to personal\nexperience. \"Methinketh,\" says Rolle, \"that contemplation is this\nheavenly song of the Love of God, which is called _jubilus_, taken of the\nsweetness of a soul by praising of God. This song is the end of perfect\nprayer, and of the highest devotion that may be here. This gladness of\nsoul is had of God, and it breaketh out in a ghostly voice\nwell-sounding.\"[45]\n\nThis exultant and lyrical mood then, this adoring rapture, which only the\nrhythm of music can express, is the emotional reaction which indicates\nthe high summer of the soul. It will be seen that each phase of its\nseasonal progress has been marked by a fresh inflow of grace and gifts, a\nfresh demand upon its power of response. The tension never slackens; the\nneed for industry is never done away. The gift of Strength, by which the\nself presses forward, has now been reinforced by the gift of Counsel,\n_i.e._ by the growth and deepening of that intuition which is its medium\nof contact with the spiritual world. The Counsel of the Spirit, says\nRuysbroeck, is like a stirring or inspiration, deep within the soul. This\nstirring, this fresh uprush of energy, is really a 'new birth' of the\nSon, the Divine Wisdom; lighting up the intelligence so that it perceives\nits destiny, and perceives too that the communion it now enjoys is but an\nimage of the Divine Union which awaits it.[46] God is counselling the\nsoul with an inward secret insistence to rush out towards Him,\nstimulating her hunger for Reality; or, to put it otherwise, the Divine\nSpark is growing swiftly, and pressing hard against the walls of its\nhome. Therefore the culmination of this gift, and the culmination too of\nthe illuminated consciousness, brings to the soul a certitude that she\nmust still press on and out; that nothing less than God Himself can\nsuffice her, or match the mysterious Thing which dwells in her deeps.\n\nNow this way of love and ecstasy and summer heats has been attended\nthroughout by grave dangers for the adolescent spirit; above all by the\nprimary danger which besets the mystical life, of mistaking spiritual joy\nfor spiritual reality, desiring 'consolations' and 'illuminations' for\ntheir own sake, and resting in the gift instead of the Giver. \"Though he\nwho dedicates himself to love ever experiences great joy, he must never\nseek this joy.\" All those tendencies grouped by St. John of the Cross\nunder the disagreeable name of 'spiritual gluttony,' those further\ntemptations to self-indulgent quietism which are but an insidious form of\nsloth, are waiting to entrap the self on the Illuminative Way. But there\nis a way beyond this, another 'Coming of the Bridegroom,' which\nRuysbroeck describes as 'eternally safe and sure.' This is the way of\npain and deprivation; when the Presence of God seems to be withdrawn, and\nthe fatigue and reaction consequent on the violent passions and energies\nof the illuminated state make themselves felt as a condition of misery,\naridity and impotence,--all, in fact, that the Christian mystics mean by\nthe 'Spiritual Death' or 'Dark Night of the Soul,' and which Ruysbroeck's\ncontemporaries, the Friends of God, called 'the upper school of perfect\nself-abandonment.'\n\nThe mirror is now to be cleansed of all false reflections, all beautiful\nprismatic light; the thoughts stripped bare of the consolations they have\nenjoyed. Summer is over, and autumn begins; when the flowers indeed die\ndown, but the fruits which they heralded are ripe. Now is the time when\nman can prove the stuff of which he is made; and the religious amorist,\nthe false mystic, is distinguished from the heroic and long-suffering\nservant of God. \"In this season is perfected and completed all the work\nthat the sun has accomplished during the year. In the same manner, when\nChrist the glorious Sun has risen to His zenith in the heart of man and\nthen begins to descend, and to hide the radiance of His Divine light, and\nto abandon the man; then the impatience and ardour of love grow less. And\nthis concealment of Christ, and this withdrawal of His light and heat,\nare the first working and the new coming of this degree. And now Christ\nsays spiritually within the man: 'Go forth, in the way which I now teach\nyou.' And the man goes forth, and finds himself poor, wretched and\nabandoned. And here the tempest, the ardour, the impatience of love grows\ncold; and the hot summer becomes autumn, and its riches turn to great\npoverty. Then man begins to lament in his distress--where now has gone\nthat ardent love, that intimacy, that gratitude, that all-sufficing\nadoration? And that interior consolation, that intimate joy, that\nsensible savour, how has he lost all this?\"[47]\n\nThe veil that had seemed so transparent now thickens again; the\ncertitudes that made life lovely all depart. Small wonder if the tortured\nspirit of the mystic fails to recognise this awful destitution as a\nrenewed caress from the all-demanding Lover of the Soul; an education in\ncourage, humility and selflessness; a last purification of the will. The\nstate to which that self is being led is a renewed self-donation on new\nand higher levels: one more of those mystical deaths which are really\nmystical births; a giving-up, not merely of those natural tastes and\ndesires which were disciplined in the Active Life, but of the higher\npassions and satisfactions of the spirit too. He is to be led to a state\nof such complete surrender to the Divine purposes that he is able to say:\n\"Lord, not my will according to nature, but Thy will and my will\naccording to spirit be done.\" The darkness, sorrow and abandonment\nthrough which this is accomplished are far more essential to his\ndevelopment than the sunshine and happiness that went before. It is not\nnecessary, says Ruysbroeck, that all should know the ecstasies of\nillumination; but by this dark stairway every man who would attain to God\nmust go.\n\nWhen man has achieved this perfect resignation and all tendency to\nspiritual self-seeking is dead, the September of the soul is come. The\nsun has entered the sign of the Balance, when days and nights are equal;\nfor now the surrendered self has achieved equilibrium, and endures in\npeace and steadfastness the alternations of the Divine Dark and Divine\nLight. Now the harvest and the vintage are ripe: \"That is to say, all\nthose inward and outward virtues, which man has practised with delight in\nthe fire of love, these, now that he knows them and is able to accomplish\nthem, he shall practise diligently and dutifully and offer them to God.\nAnd never were they so precious in His sight: never so noble and so fair.\nAnd all those consolations which God gave him before, he will gladly give\nup, and will empty himself for the glory of God. This is the harvest of\nthe wheat and the many ripe fruits which make us rich in God, and give to\nus Eternal Life. Thus are the virtues perfected; and the absence of\nconsolation is turned to an eternal wine.\"[48]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n               THE INTERIOR LIFE: UNION AND CONTEMPLATION\n\n\n  _Lume \u00e8 lassu, che visibile face_\n    _lo Creatore a quella creatura_\n    _che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace._\n\n                                                      Par, xxx. 100.\n\n  And the Light floweth forth in similitude, and indraweth Itself in\n  unity; which we perceive, beyond the reason, in that high point of our\n  understanding which is bare and turned within.\n\n                                                  The Twelve B\u00e9guines.\n\nThe soul which has endured with courage and humility the anguish of the\nDark Night, actualising within its own experience the double rhythm of\nlove and renunciation, now enters upon a condition of equilibrium; in\nwhich it perceives that all its previous adventures and apprehensions\nwere but episodes of growth, phases in the long preparation of character\nfor those new levels of life on which it is now to dwell.\n\nThree points, says Ruysbroeck, must characterise the truly interior man.\nFirst, his mind must be detached from its natural inclination to rest in\nimages and appearances, however lovely; and must depend altogether upon\nthat naked Absence of Images, which is God. This is the 'ascent to the\nNought' preached by the Areopagite. Secondly, by means of his spiritual\nexercises, his progressive efforts to correspond with that Divine Life\never experienced by him with greater intensity, he must have freed\nhimself from all taint of selfhood, all personal desire; so that in true\ninward liberty he can lift himself up unhindered towards God, in a spirit\nof selfless devotion. Plainly, the desolations of the Dark Night are\nexactly adapted to the production within the self of these two\ncharacters; which we might call purity of intelligence and purity of\nwill. Directly resulting from their actualisation, springs the third\npoint: the consciousness of inward union with God.[49] This consciousness\nof union, which we must carefully distinguish from the _Unity_ that is\nRuysbroeck's name for the last state of the transfigured soul, is the\nruling character of that state of equilibrium to which we have now come;\nand represents the full achievement of the Interior Life.\n\nIn many of his works, under various images, Ruysbroeck tries to tell us\nwhat he means by this inward union with God, this 'mutual inhabitation,'\nas he calls it in one passage of great beauty, which is the goal of the\n'Second Life.' He reminds us again of that remote point of the spirit,\nthat 'apex' of our being, where our life touches the Divine Life; where\nGod's image 'lives and reigns.' With the cleansing of the heart and mind,\nthe heightening and concentration of the will, which the disciplines of\nthe Active Life and Dark Night have effected, this supreme point of the\nspirit is brought at last within the conscious field. Then man feels and\nknows the presence there of an intense and creative vitality, an Eternal\nEssence, from which all that is worth having in his selfhood flows. This\nis the Life-giving Life (_Levende Leven_), where the created and\nUncreated meet and are one: a phrase, apparently taken by Ruysbroeck from\nSt. Bernard, which aptly expresses an idea familiar to all the great\ncontemplatives. It is the point at which man's separate spirit, as it\nwere, emerges from the Divine Spirit: the point through which he must at\nlast return to his Source. Here the Father has impressed His image, the\nSon is perpetually born, the Spirit wells up;[50] and here the Divine\nUnity dwells and calls him to the One. Here Eternity and Time are\nintertwined. Here springs the fountain of 'Living Water'--grace,\ntranscendent vitality--upon which the mystic life of man depends.\n\nNow the self, because it is at last conformed to the demands of the\nspiritual world, feels new powers from this life-giving source streaming\ninto all departments of its being. The last barriers of self-will are\nbroken; and the result is an inrush of fresh energy and light. Whereas in\nthe 'First Life' God fed and communed with him by 'means,' and was\nrevealed under images appropriate to a consciousness still immersed in\nthe world of appearance; now man receives these gifts and messages, makes\nhis contacts with Reality, 'without means,' or 'by grace'--_i.e._ in a\nspiritual and interior manner. Those 'lightning flashes from the face of\nDivine Love,' those abrupt and vivid intuitions which he enjoyed during\nillumination, have given way before the steady shining of the Uncreated\nLight. Though light-imagery is never long absent from Ruysbroeck's pages,\nit is, however, the spring of Living Water ever welling up, the rills or\nbrooks which flow from it, and take its substance to the farthest\nrecesses of the thirsty land, which seems to him the best image of this\nnew inpouring of life. He uses it in all his chief works, perhaps most\nsuccessfully in _The Spiritual Marriage_. Faithful to the medi\u00e6val\ndivision of personality into Memory or Mind, Intelligence or\nUnderstanding, and Will,--influenced too by his deep conviction that all\nDivine activity is threefold in type,--he describes the Well-spring as\nbreaking into three Brooks of Grace, which pour their waters into each\ndepartment of the self. The duct through which these waters come, 'living\nand foaming' from the deeps of the Divine Riches, is the Eternal Christ;\nwho 'comes anew' to the purified soul, and is the immediate source of its\npower and happiness.\n\nThe first of the brooks which flow from Him is called 'Pure Simplicity.'\nIt is a 'simple light,' says Ruysbroeck in another place; the white\nradiance of Eternity which, streaming into the mind, penetrates\nconsciousness from top to bottom, and unifies the powers of the self\nabout the new and higher centre now established. This simple light, in\nwhich we see things as they are--and therefore see that only one thing\ntruly _is_--delivers us from that slavery to the multiplicity of things,\nwhich splits the attention and makes concentration upon Reality\nimpossible to the soul. The achievement of such mental simplicity,\nescaping the prismatic illusion of the world, is the first condition of\ncontemplation. \"Thanks to this simple light which fills him, the man\nfinds himself to be unified, established, penetrated and affirmed in the\nunity of his mind or thought. And thereby he is uplifted and established\nin a _new condition_; and he turns inward upon himself, and stays his\nmind upon the Nudity, above all the pressure of sensual images, above all\nmultiplicity.\"[51]\n\nThe second stream which pours out from that Transcendent Life is a\n'Spiritual Clarity,' which illuminates the intelligence and shows it all\ngood. This clarity is a new and heightened form of intuition: a lucid\nunderstanding, whereby the self achieves clear vision of its own life,\nand is able to contemplate the sublime richness of the Divine Nature;\ngazing upon the mystery of the Trinity, and finding everywhere the\nPresence of God. Those who possess this light do not need ecstasies and\nrevelations--sudden uprushes towards the supernal world--for their life\nand being is established in that world, above the life of sense. They\nhave come to that state which Eckhart calls 'finding all creatures in God\nand God in all creatures.' They see things at last in their native\npurity. The heart of that vision, says Ruysbroeck, is their perception of\n\"the unmeasured loyalty of God to His creation\"--one of his deepest and\nmost beautiful utterances--\"and therefrom springs a deep inward joy of\nthe spirit, and a high trust in God; and this inward joy embraces and\npenetrates all the powers of the soul, and the most secret part of the\nspirit.\"[52]\n\nThe third Brook of Grace irrigates the conative powers of the self;\nstrengthens the will in all perfection, and energises us anew. \"Like\nfire, this brook enkindles the will, and swallows up and absorbs all\nthings in the unity of the spirit ... and now Christ speaks inwardly in\nthe spirit by means of this burning brook, saying, 'Go forth, in\nexercises proper to this gift and this coming.' By the first brook, which\nis a _Simple Light_, the Mind is freed from the invasions of the senses,\nand grounded and affirmed in spiritual unity. And by the second brook,\nwhich is a _Spreading Light_, the Reason and Understanding are\nilluminated, that they may know and distinguish all manner of virtues and\nexercises, and the mysteries of Scripture. And by the third brook, which\nis an _Infused Heat_, the heights of the Will are enkindled with quiet\nlove and adorned with great riches. And thus does man become spiritually\nilluminate; for the grace of God dwells like a fountain-head in the unity\nof his spirit, and the brooks cause a flowing forth of all virtues from\nthe powers of the soul. And the fountain-head of grace demands a\nback-flowing into that same ground from whence the flood has come.\"[53]\n\nSo the Interior Life, now firmly established, is found to conform to\nthose great laws which have guided the growing spirit from the first.\nAgain, the dual property of love, possession and action, satisfaction and\nfecundity, is to be manifested upon new levels. The pendulum motion of\nlife, swinging between the experience of union with God to which 'the\nDivine Unity ever calls us,' and its expression in active charity to\nwhich the multiplicity of His creatures and their needs ever entreat us,\nstill goes on. The more richly and strongly the life-giving Life wells up\nwithin the self, the greater are the demands made upon that self's\nindustry and love. In the establishment of this balance, in this\ncontinual healthy act of alternation, this double movement into God and\nout to men, is the proof that the soul has really centred itself upon the\nspiritual world--is, as Ruysbroeck puts it, confirmed in love. \"Thus do\nwork and union perpetually renew themselves; and this renewal in work and\nin union, _this_ is a spiritual life.\"[54]\n\nNow the self which has achieved this degree of transcendence has\nachieved, too, considerable experience in that art of contemplation or\nintroversion which is the mode of its communion with God. Throughout,\ntraining and development have gone hand in hand; and the fact that\nRuysbroeck seldom troubles to distinguish between them, but accepts them\nas two aspects of one thing--the gradual deification of the\nsoul--constitutes one of the great obstacles to an understanding of his\nworks. Often he describes the whole spiritual life as consisting in\nintroversion, an entering of consciousness into the supersensuous regions\nbeyond thought; in defiance of his own principle of active charity,\nmovement, work, as the essential reaction to the universe which\ndistinguishes a 'deified' man. The truth is that the two processes run\nside by side; and now one, now the other, is in the foreground of his\nthought. Therefore all that I shall now say of the contemplative art must\nbe understood as describing acts and apprehensions taking place\nthroughout the whole course of the Interior Life.\n\nWhat, then, is introversion? It is one of the two great modes under which\nthe spiritual consciousness works. Plainly, any living sense of God's\npresence must discern that Circle whose centre is everywhere, as both\nexterior and interior to the self. In Ruysbroeck's own works we find a\nviolent effort to express this ineffable fact of omnipresence, of a truly\nTranscendent yet truly Immanent Reality; an effort often involving a\ncollision of imagery. God, he says, may be discovered at the soul's apex,\nwhere He 'eternally lives and reigns'; and the soul itself dwells _in_\nGod, ebbing and flowing, wandering and returning, within that Fathomless\nGround. Yet none the less He comes to that soul from without; pouring in\nupon it like sunshine, inundating it with torrents of grace, seizing the\nseparate entity and devouring whilst He feeds it; flashing out upon it in\na tempest of love from the Empyrean Heaven, the Abyss of Being, where He\ndwells. \"Present, yet absent; near, yet far!\" exclaims St. Augustine.\n\"Thou art the sky, and Thou art the nest as well!\" says the great mystic\npoet of our own day.\n\nWhilst nearly all the mystics have possessed clear consciousness of this\ntwofold revelation of the Divine Nature, and some have experienced by\nturns the 'outward and upward' rush and the inward retreat,\ntemperamentally they usually lean towards one or other form of communion\nwith God,--ecstasy or introversion. For one class, contact with Him seems\nprimarily to involve an outgoing flight towards Transcendent Reality; an\nattitude of mind strongly marked in all contemplatives who are near to\nthe Neoplatonic tradition--Plotinus, St. Basil, St. Macarius--and also in\nRichard Rolle and a few other medi\u00e6val types. These would agree with\nDionysius the Areopagite that \"we must contemplate things divine by our\nwhole selves standing _out_ of our whole selves.\" For the other class,\nthe first necessity is a retreat of consciousness from the periphery,\nwhere it touches the world of appearance, to the centre, the Unity of\nSpirit or 'Ground of the Soul,' where human personality buds forth from\nthe Essential World. True, this inturning of attention is but a\npreliminary to the self's entrance upon that same Transcendent Region\nwhich the ecstatic claims that he touches in his upward flights. The\nintroversive mystic, too, is destined to 'sail the wild billows of the\nSea Divine'; but here, in the deeps of his nature, he finds the door\nthrough which he must pass. Only by thus discovering the unity of his own\nnature can he give himself to that 'tide of light' which draws all things\nback to the One.\n\nSuch is Ruysbroeck's view of contemplation. This being so, introversion\nis for him an essential part of man's spiritual development. As the Son\nknows the Father, so it is the destiny of all spirits created in that\nPattern to know Him; and the mirror which is able to reflect that Divine\nLight, the Simple Eye which alone can bear to gaze on it, lies in the\ndeeps of human personality. The will, usually harnessed to the\nsurface-consciousness, devoted to the interests of temporal life; the\nlove, so freely spent on unreal and imperfect objects of desire; the\nthought which busies itself on the ceaseless analysis and arrangement of\npassing things--all these are to be swept inwards to that gathering-point\nof personality, that Unity of the Spirit, of which he so often speaks;\nand there fused into a single state of enormously enhanced consciousness,\nwhich, withdrawn from all attention to the changeful world of\n'similitudes,' is exposed to the direct action of the Eternal World of\nspiritual realities. The pull of Divine Love--the light that ever flows\nback into the One--is to withdraw the contemplative's consciousness from\nmultiplicity to unity. His progress in contemplation will be a progress\ntowards that complete mono-ideism in which the Vision of God--and here\n_vision_ is to be understood in its deepest sense as a totality of\napprehension, a 'ghostly sight'--dominates the field of consciousness to\nthe exclusion, for the time of contemplation, of all else.\n\nPsychologically, Ruysbroeck's method differs little from that described\nby St. Teresa. It begins in recollection, the first drawing inwards of\nattention from the world of sense; passes to meditation, the centring of\nattention on some intellectual formula or mystery of faith; and thence,\nby way of graduated states, variously divided and described in his\ndifferent works, to contemplation proper, the apprehension of God 'beyond\nand above reason.' All attempts, however, to map out this process, or\nreduce it to a system, must necessarily have an arbitrary and symbolic\ncharacter. True, we are bound to adopt some system, if we describe it at\nall; but the dangers and limitations of all formulas, all concrete\nimagery, where we are dealing with the fluid, living, changeful world of\nspirit, should never be absent from our minds. The bewildering and often\ninconsistent series of images and numbers, arrangements and\nrearrangements of 'degrees,' 'states,' 'stirrings,' and 'gifts,' in which\nRuysbroeck's sublime teachings on contemplation are buried, makes the\nchoice of some one formula imperative for us; though none will reduce his\ndoctrines to a logical series, for he is perpetually passing over from\nthe dialectic to the lyrical mood, and forgets to be orderly as soon as\nhe begins to be subjective. I choose, then, to base my classification on\nthat great chapter (xix.) in _The Seven Cloisters_, where he\ndistinguishes three stages of contemplation; finding in them the\nresponses of consciousness to the special action of the Three Persons of\nthe Blessed Trinity. These three stages in the soul's apprehension of\nGod, are: the Emotional, the Intellectual, the Intuitive. I think that\nmost of the subtly distinguished interior experiences of the mystic, the\n'comings' of the Divine Presence, the 'stirrings' and contacts which he\ndescribes in his various books, can be ranged under one or other of them.\n\n1. First comes that loving contemplation of the 'uplifted heart' which is\nthe work of the Holy Spirit, the consuming fire of Divine Love. This\nardent love, invading the self, and satisfying it in that intimate\nexperience of personal communion so often described in the writings of\nthe mystics, represents the self's first call to contemplation and first\nnatural response; made with \"so great a joy and delight of soul and body,\nin his uplifted heart, that the man knoweth not what hath befallen him,\nnor how he may endure it.\" For Ruysbroeck this purely emotional reaction\nto Reality, this burning flame of devotion--which seemed to Richard Rolle\nthe essence of the contemplative life--is but its initial phase. It\ncorresponds with--and indeed generally accompanies--those fever-heats,\nthose 'tempests' of impatient love endured by the soul at the height of\nthe Illuminative Way. Love, it is true, shall be from first to last the\ninspiring force of the contemplative's ascents: his education is from one\npoint of view simply an education in love. But this love is a passion of\nmany degrees; and the 'urgency felt in the heart,' the restlessness and\nhunger of this spiritual feeling-state, is only its lowest form. The love\nwhich burns like white fire on the apex of the soul, longs for sacrifice,\ninspires heroic action, and goes forward without fear, 'holy, strong and\nfree,' to brave the terrors of the Divine Dark, is of another temper than\nthis joyful sentiment.\n\n2. A loving stretching out into God, and an intellectual gazing upon Him,\nsays Ruysbroeck, in a passage which I have already quoted, are the 'two\nheavenly pipes' in which the wind of the Spirit sings. So the next phase\nin the contemplative's development is that enhancement of the intellect,\nthe power of perceiving, as against desiring and loving Reality, which is\nthe work of the Logos, the Divine Wisdom. As the cleansed and detached\nheart had been lifted up to _feel_ the Transcendent; now the\nunderstanding, stripped of sense-images, purged of intellectual\narrogance, clarified by grace, is lifted up to _apprehend_ it. This\ndegree has two phases. First, that enlargement of the understanding to an\nincreased comprehension of truth, the finding of deeper and diviner\nmeanings in things already known, which Richard of St. Victor called\n_mentis dilatatio_. Next, that further uplift of the mind to a state in\nwhich it is able to contemplate things above itself whilst retaining\nclear self-consciousness, which he called _mentis sublevatio_.\nRuysbroeck, however, inverts the order given by Richard; for him the\nuplift comes first, the dilation of consciousness follows from it. This\nis a characteristic instance of the way in which he uses the Victorine\npsychology; constantly appropriating its terms but never hesitating to\nmodify, enrich or misuse them as his experience or opinions may dictate.\n\nThe first phase of Intellectual Contemplation, then, is a lifting of the\nmind to a swift and convincing vision of Reality: one of those sudden,\nincommunicable glimpses of Truth so often experienced early in the\ncontemplative's career. The veil parts, and he sees a \"light and vision,\nwhich give to the contemplating spirit a conscious certitude that she\nsees God, so far as man may see Him in mortal life.\"[55] That strange\nmystical light of which all contemplatives speak, and which Ruysbroeck\ndescribes in a passage of great subtlety as 'the intermediary between the\nseeing thought and God,' now floods his consciousness. In it \"the Spirit\nof the Father speaks in the uplifted thought which is bare and stripped\nof images, saying, 'Behold Me as I behold thee.' Then the pure and single\neyes are strengthened by the inpouring of that clear Light of the Father,\nand they behold His face, in a simple vision, beyond reason, and without\nreason.\"[56]\n\nIt might be thought that in this 'simple vision' of Supreme Reality, the\nspirit of the contemplative reached its goal. It has, indeed, reached a\npoint at which many a mystic stops short. I think, however, that a\nreference to St. Augustine, whose influence is so strongly marked in\nRuysbroeck's works, will show what he means by this phase of\ncontemplation; and the characters which distinguish it from that infused\nor unitive communion with God which alone he calls _Contemplatio_. In the\nseventh book of his _Confessions_, Augustine describes just such an\nexperience as this. By a study of the books of the Platonists he had\nlearned the art of introversion, and achieved by its aid a fleeting\n'Intellectual Contemplation' of God; in his own words, a \"hurried vision\nof That which Is.\" \"Being by these books,\" he says, \"admonished to return\ninto myself, I entered into the secret closet of my soul, guided by Thee\n... and beheld the Light that never changes, above the eye of my soul,\nabove the intelligence.\"[57] It was by \"the withdrawal of thought from\nexperience, its abstraction from the contradictory throng of sensuous\nimages,\" that he attained to this transitory apprehension; which he\ndescribes elsewhere as \"the _vision_ of the Land of Peace, but not the\n_road_ thereto.\" But intellect alone could not bear the direct impact of\nthe terrible light of Reality; his \"weak sight was dazzled by its\nsplendour,\" he \"could not sustain his gaze,\" and turned back to that\nhumble discovery of the Divine Substance by means of Its images and\nattributes, which is proper to the intellectual power.[58]\n\nNow surely this is the psychological situation described by Ruysbroeck.\nThe very images used by Augustine are found again in him. The mind of the\ncontemplative, purified, disciplined, deliberately abstracted from\nimages, is inundated by the divine sunshine, \"the Light which is not God,\nbut that whereby we see Him\"; and in this radiance achieves a hurried but\nconvincing vision of Supreme Reality. But \"even though the eagle, king of\nbirds, can with his powerful sight gaze steadfastly upon the brightness\nof the sun; yet do the weaker eyes of the bat fail and falter in the\nsame.\"[59] The intellectual vision is dazzled and distressed, like a man\nwho can bear the diffused radiance of sunshine but is blinded if he dares\nto follow back its beams to the terrible beauty of their source. \"Not for\nthis are my wings fitted,\" says Dante, drooping to earth after his\nsupreme ecstatic flight. Because it cannot sustain its gaze, then, the\nintelligence falls back upon the second phase of intellectual\ncontemplation: _Speculatio_, the deep still brooding in which the soul,\n'made wise by the Spirit of Truth,' contemplates God and Creation as He\nand it are reflected in the clear mirror of her intellectual powers,\nunder 'images and similitudes'--the Mysteries of Faith, the Attributes of\nthe Divine Nature, the forms and manners of created things. As the Father\ncontemplates all things in the Son, 'Mirror of Deity,' so now does the\nintroverted soul contemplate Him in this 'living mirror of her\nintelligence' on which His sunshine falls. Because her swift vision of\nThat which Is has taught her to distinguish between the ineffable Reality\nand the Appearance which shadows it forth, she can again discover Him\nunder those images which once veiled, but now reveal His presence. The\nintellect which has apprehended God Transcendent, if only for a moment,\nhas received therefrom the power of discerning God Immanent. \"He shows\nHimself to the soul in the living mirror of her intelligence; not as He\nis in His nature, but in images and similitudes, and in the degree in\nwhich the illuminated reason can grasp and understand Him. And the wise\nreason, enlightened of God, sees clearly and without error in images of\nthe understanding all that she has heard of God, of faith, of truth,\naccording to her longing. But that image which is God Himself, although\nit is held before her, she cannot comprehend; for the eyes of her\nunderstanding must fail before that Incomparable Light.\"[60]\n\nIn _The Kingdom of God's Lovers_ Ruysbroeck pours forth a marvellous list\nof the attributes under which the illuminated intelligence now\ncontemplates and worships That Which she can never comprehend; that\n\"Simple One in whom all multitude and all that multiplies, finds its\nbeginning and its end.\" From this simple Being of the Godhead the\nilluminated reason abstracts those images and attributes with which it\ncan deal, as the lower reason abstracts from the temporal flux the\nmaterials of our normal universe. Such a loving consideration of God\nunder His attributes is the essence of meditation: and meditation is in\nfact the way in which the intellectual faculties can best contemplate\nReality. But \"because all things, when they are considered in their\ninwardness, have their beginning and their ending in the Infinite\nBeing as in an Abyss,\" here again the contemplative is soon led\nabove himself and beyond himself, to a point at which intellect and\n'consideration'--_i.e._ formal thought--fail him; because \"here we touch\nthe Simple Nature of God.\" When intellectual contemplation has brought\nthe self to this point, it has done its work; for it has \"excited in the\nsoul an eager desire to lift itself up by contemplation into the\nsimplicity of the Light, that thereby its avid desire of infinite\nfruition may be satisfied and fulfilled\";[61] _i.e._ it has performed the\ntrue office of meditation, induced a shifting of consciousness to higher\nlevels.\n\nWe observe that the emphasis, which in the First Degree of Contemplation\nfell wholly on feeling, in the Second Degree falls wholly upon knowledge.\nWe are not, however, to suppose from this that emotion has been left\nbehind. As the virtues and energies of the Active Life continue in the\nContemplative Life, so the 'burning love' which distinguished the first\nstage of communion with the Transcendent, is throughout the source of\nthat energy which presses the self on to deeper and closer\ncorrespondences with Reality. Its presence is presupposed in all that is\nsaid concerning the development of the spiritual consciousness.\nNevertheless Ruysbroeck, though he cannot be accused of intellectualism,\nis led by his admiration for Victorine ideas to lay great stress upon the\nmental side of contemplation, as against those emotional reactions to the\nTranscendent which are emphasised--almost to excess--by so many of the\nsaints. His aim was the lifting of the _whole man_ to Eternal levels: and\nthe clarifying of the intelligence, the enhancement of the understanding,\nseemed to him a proper part of the deification of human nature, the\nbringing forth in the soul's ground of that Son who is the Wisdom of God\nas well as the Pattern of Man. Though he moves amongst deep mysteries,\nand in regions beyond the span of ordinary minds, there is always\napparent in him an effort towards lucidity of expression, sharp\ndefinition, plain speech. Sometimes he is wild and ecstatic, pouring\nforth his vision in a strange poetry which is at once uncouth and\nsublime; but he is never woolly or confused. His prose passages owe much\nof their seeming difficulty to the passion for exactitude which\ndistinguishes and classifies the subtlest movements of the spiritual\natmosphere, the delicately graded responses of the soul.\n\n3. Now the Third Degree of Contemplation lifts the whole consciousness to\na plane of perception which transcends the categories of the intellect:\nwhere it deals no longer with the label but with the Thing. It has passed\nbeyond image and also beyond thought; to that knowledge by contact which\nis the essence of intuition, and is brought about by the higher powers of\nlove. Such contemplation is regarded by Ruysbroeck as the work of the\nFather, \"Who strips from the mind all forms and images and lifts up the\nNaked Apprehension [_i.e._ intuition] into its Origin, that is\nHimself.\"[62] It is effected by concentration of all the powers of the\nself into a single state 'uplifted above all action, in a bare\nunderstanding and love,' upon that apex of the soul where no reason can\never attain, and where the 'simple eye' is ever open towards God. There\nthe loving soul apprehends Him, not under conditions, 'in some wise,' but\nas a _whole_, without the discrete analysis of His properties which was\nthe special character of intellectual contemplation; a synthetic\nexperience which is 'in no wise.' This is for Ruysbroeck the\ncontemplative act _par excellence_. It is 'an intimacy which is\nignorance,' a 'simple seeing,' he says again and again; \"and the name\nthereof is _Contemplatio_; that is, the seeing of God in simplicity.\"[63]\n\n\"Here the reason no less than all separate acts must give way, for our\npowers become simple in Love; they are silent and bowed down in the\nPresence of the Father. And this revelation of the Father lifts the soul\nabove the reason into the Imageless Nudity. There the soul is simple,\npure, spotless, empty of all things; and it is in this state of perfect\nemptiness that the Father manifests His Divine radiance. To this radiance\nneither reason nor sense, observation nor distinction, can attain. All\nthis must stay below; for the measureless radiance blinds the eyes of the\nreason, they cannot bear the Incomprehensible Light. But above the\nreason, in the most secret part of the understanding, the _simple eye_ is\never open. It contemplates and gazes at the Light with a pure sight that\nis lit by the Light itself: eye to eye, mirror to mirror, image to image.\nThis threefold act makes us like God, and unites us to Him; for the sight\nof the _simple eye_ is a living mirror, which God has made for His image,\nand whereon He has impressed it.\"[64]\n\nIntuitive or infused contemplation is the form of communion with the\nTranscendent proper to those who have grown up to the state of Union; and\nfeel and know the presence of God within the soul, as a love, a life, an\n'indrawing attraction,' calling and enticing all things to the still\nunachieved consummation of the Divine Unity. He who has reached this\npitch of introversion, and is able, in his spiritual exercises, to\nwithdraw himself thus to the most secret part of his spirit,\nfeels--within the Eternal Light which fills his mirror and is 'united\nwith it,'--this perpetual demand of the Divine Unity, entreating and\nurging him towards a total self-loss. In the fact that he knows this\ndemand and impulsion as other than himself, we find the mark which\nseparates this, the highest contemplation proper to the Life of Union,\nfrom that 'fruitive contemplation' of the spirit which has died into God\nwhich belongs to the Life of Unity.[65] When the work of transmutation is\nfinished and he has received the 'Sparkling Stone of Divine Humanity,'\nthis subject-object distinction--though really an eternal one, as\nRuysbroeck continually reminds us--will no longer be possible to his\nconsciousness. Then he will live at those levels to which he now makes\nimpassioned ascents in his hours of unitive prayer: will be immersed in\nthe Beatific Vision on which he now looks, and 'lose himself in the\nImageless Nudity.'\n\nThis is the clue to the puzzling distinction made by Ruysbroeck between\nthe contemplation which is 'without conditions,' and that which is\n'beyond and above conditions' and belongs to the Superessential Life\nalone. In Intuitive Contemplation the seeing self apprehends the\nUnconditioned World, _Onwise_, and makes 'loving ascents thereto.' It\n'finds within itself the unwalled'; yet is still anchored to the\nconditioned sphere. In Superessential Contemplation, it _dies into_ that\n'world which is in no wise.' In the great chapter of _The Sparkling\nStone_[66] where he struggles to make this distinction clear, Ruysbroeck\nsays that the Friends of God (_i.e._ the Interior Men) \"cannot with\nthemselves and all their works penetrate to that Imageless Nudity.\"\nAlthough they feel united with God, yet they feel in that union an\notherness and difference between themselves and God; and therefore \"the\nascent into the Nought is unknown to them.\" They feel themselves carried\nup towards God in the tide of His all-subduing Fire of Love; but they\nretain their selfhood, and may not be consumed and burned to nothing in\nthe Unity of Love. They do not yet desire to die into God, that they may\nreceive a deiform life from Him; but they are in the way which leads to\nthis fulfilment of their destiny, and are \"following back the light to\nits Origin.\"\n\nThis following-back is one continuous process, in which we, for\nconvenience of description, have made artificial breaks. It is the thrust\nof consciousness deeper and deeper into the heart of Reality. As in the\nstream of physical duration, so in this ceaseless movement of the spirit,\nthere is a persistence of the past in the present, a carrying through and\nmerging of one state in the next. Thus the contemplation which is\n'wayless,' the self's intuitive communion with the Infinite Life and\nLight, growing in depth and richness, bridges the gap which separates the\nInterior and the Superessential Life.\n\nWe find in Ruysbroeck's works indications of a transitional state, in\nwhich the soul \"is guided and lost, wanders and returns, ebbs and flows,\"\nwithin the 'limitless Nudity,' to which it has not yet wholly surrendered\nitself. \"And its seeing is in no wise, being without manner, and it is\nneither thus nor thus, neither here nor there; for that which is in no\nwise hath enveloped all, and the vision is made high and wide. It knows\nnot itself where That is which it sees; and it cannot come thereto, for\nits seeing is in no wise, and passes on, beyond, for ever, and without\nreturn. That which it apprehends it cannot realise in full, nor wholly\nattain, for its apprehension is wayless, and without manner, and\ntherefore it is apprehended of God in a higher way than it can apprehend\nHim. Behold! such a following of the Way that is Wayless, is intermediary\nbetween contemplation in images and similitudes of the intellect, and\nunveiled contemplation beyond all images in the Light of God.\"[67]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VIII\n                        THE SUPERESSENTIAL LIFE\n\n\n  If, therefore, thou art become the throne of God and the Heavenly\n  Charioteer hath seated Himself within thee, and thy soul is wholly\n  become a spiritual eye and is wholly made into light; if, too, thou art\n  nourished with the heavenly food of that Spirit and hast drunk of the\n  Living Water and put on the secret vesture of light--if thine inward\n  man has experienced all these things and is established in abundant\n  faith, lo! thou livest indeed the Eternal Life and thy soul rests even\n  in this present time with the Lord.\n\n                                                St. Macarius of Egypt.\n\nWe have seen that Ruysbroeck, in common with a few other supreme mystics,\ndeclares to us as veritably known and experienced by him, a universe of\nthree orders--Becoming, Being, God--and further, three ways of life\nwhereby the self can correspond to these three orders, and which he calls\nthe life of nature, the life of grace, the life of glory. 'Glory,' which\nhas been degraded by the usage of popular piety into a vague superlative,\nand finally left in the hands of hymn-writers and religious revivalists,\nis one of the most ancient technical terms of Christian mysticism. Of\nScriptural origin, from the fourth century to the fifteenth it was used\nto denote a definite kind of enhanced life, a final achievement of\nReality--the unmediated radiance of God--which the gift of 'divine\nsonship' made possible to the soul. In the life of grace, that soul\ntranscends conditions in virtue of a Divine vitality poured in from the\nAbsolute Sphere, and actualises its true being, (_Wesen_); in the life of\nglory, it becomes a denizen of that sphere, and achieves an existence\nthat is 'more than being' (_Overwesen_). The note of the first state is\ncontemplation, awareness; the note of the second is fruition, possession.\n\nThat power of making 'swift and loving ascents' to the plane of _Onwise_\nto which man attained at the end of the Interior Life, that conscious\nharmony with the Divine Will which then became the controlling factor of\nhis active career, cannot be the end of the process of transcendence. The\nsoul now hungers and thirsts for a more intense Reality, a closer contact\nwith 'Him who is measureless'; a deeper and deeper penetration into the\nburning heart of the universe. Though contemplation seems to have reached\nits term, love goes on, to 'lose itself upon the heights.' Beyond both\nthe conditioned and unconditioned world, beyond the Trinity Itself, that\nlove discerns its ultimate objective--the very Godhead, the Divine Unity,\n\"where all lines find their end\"; where \"we are satisfied and\noverflowing, and with Him beyond ourselves eternally fulfilled.\"[68] The\nabiding life which is there discoverable, is not only 'without manner'\nbut 'above manner'--the 'deified life,' indescribable save by the oblique\nmethods of music or poetry, wherein, in Maeterlinck's great phrase, \"the\npsychology of man mingles with the psychology of God.\" All Ruysbroeck's\nmost wonderful passages are concerned with the desperate attempt to tell\nus of this 'life,' this utter fruition of Reality: which seems at one\ntime to involve for the contemplative consciousness a self-mergence in\nDeity, so complete as to give colour to that charge of pantheism which is\ninevitably flung at all mystics who try to tell what they have known; at\nothers, to represent rather the perfect consummation of that 'union in\nseparateness' which is characteristic of all true love.\n\nThis is but one instance of that perpetual and inevitable resort to\nparadox which torments all who try to follow him along this 'track\nwithout shadow of trace'; for the goal towards which he is now enticing\nus is one in which all the completing opposites of our fragmentary\nexperience find their bourne. Hence the rapid alternation of spatial and\npersonal symbols which confuses our industrious intellects, is the one\nmeans whereby he can suggest its actuality to our hungry hearts.\n\nAs we observed in Ruysbroeck's earlier teaching on contemplation three\ndistinct forms, in which the special work that theology attributes to the\nthree Divine Persons seemed to him to be reflected; now, in this\nSuperessential Contemplation, or Fruition, we find the work of the\nAbsolute Godhead Itself, energising upon a plane of intensity which so\nutterly transcends our power of apprehension, that it seems to the\nsurface consciousness--as Dionysius the Areopagite had named it--a\nnegation of all things, a Divine Dark.\n\nThis Fruition, says Ruysbroeck, \"is wild and desolate as a desert, and\ntherein is to be found no way, no road, no track, no retreat, no measure,\nno beginning, no end, nor any other thing that can be told in words. And\nthis is for all of us Simple Blessedness, the Essence of God and our\nsuperessence, above reason and beyond reason. To know it we must be in\nit, beyond the mind and above our created being; in that Eternal Point\nwhere all our lines begin and end, that Point where they lose their name\nand all distinction, and become one with the Point itself, and that very\nOne which the Point is, yet nevertheless ever remain in themselves nought\nelse but lines that come to an end.\"[69]\n\nWhat, then, is the way by which the soul moves from that life of intense\ncontemplation in which the 'spreading light' of the Spirit shows her the\nuniverse fulfilled with God, to this new transfigured state of joy and\nterror? It is a way for which her previous adventures might have prepared\nus. As each new ascent, new inflow of grace, was prepared by a time of\ndestitution and stress--as the compensating beats of love and\nrenunciation have governed the evolving melody of the inner life--so here\na last death of selfhood, a surrender more absolute than all that has\ngone before, must be the means of her achievement of absolute life.\n\n\"Dying, and behold I live!\" says Paul of his own attainment of supernal\nlife in Christ. Ruysbroeck, who never strays far from the vital and\nheroic mysticism of the New Testament saints, can find no other language\nfor this last crisis of the spirit--its movement from the state of\n_Wesen_ to that of _Overwesen_--than the language of death. The\never-moving line, though its vital character of duration continues, now\nseems to itself to swoon into the Point; the separate entity which has\nfelt the flood of grace pour into it to energise its active career, and\nthe ebb of homeward-tending love draw it back towards the One, now feels\nitself pouring into the Infinite Sea. Our personal activity, he says, has\ndone all that it can: as the separate career of Christ our Pattern closed\nwith His voluntary death, so the death of our selfhood on that apex of\npersonality where we have stretched up so ardently toward the Father,\nshall close the separate career of the human soul and open the way to its\nnew, God-driven career, its resurrection-life. \"None is sure of Eternal\nLife unless he has died with all his own attributes wholly into\nGod\"[70]--all else falls short of the demands of supreme generosity.\n\nIt is _The Book of the Sparkling Stone_ which contains Ruysbroeck's most\nwonderful descriptions of the consciousness peculiar to these souls who\nhave grown up to 'the fulness of the stature of Christ'; and since this\nis surely the finest and perhaps the least known of his writings, I offer\nno apology for transcribing a long passage from its ninth chapter: 'How\nwe may become the Hidden Sons of God.'\n\n\"When we soar up above ourselves, and become, in our upward striving\ntowards God, so simple, that the naked Love in the Heights can lay hold\non us, there where Love cherishes Love, above all activity and all virtue\n(that is to say, in our Origin, wherefrom we are spiritually born)--then\nwe cease, and we and all that is our own die into God. And in this death\nwe become hidden Sons of God, and find in ourselves a new life, and that\nis Eternal Life. And of these Sons, St. Paul says: 'Ye are dead, and your\nlife is hid with Christ in God.' In our approach to God we must bear with\nus ourselves and all that we do, as a perpetual sacrifice to God; and in\nthe Presence of God we must leave ourselves and all our works, and, dying\nin love, soar up above all created things into the Superessential Kingdom\nof God. And of this the Spirit of God speaks in the Book of Hidden\nThings, saying: 'Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.'... If we\nwould _taste_ God, and feel in ourselves Eternal Life above all things,\nwe must go forth into God with a faith that is far above our reason, and\nthere dwell, simple, idle, without image, lifted up by love into the\nUnwalled Bareness of our intelligence. For when we go out from ourselves\nin love, and die to all observances in ignorance and darkness, then we\nare made complete, and transfigured by the Eternal Word, Image of the\nFather. And in this emptiness of spirit we receive the Incomprehensible\nLight, which enfolds and penetrates us as air is penetrated by the light\nof the sun; and this Light is nought else but a fathomless gazing and\nseeing. What we are, that we gaze at; and what we gaze at, that we are.\nFor our thought, our life, our being, are lifted up in simplicity, and\nunited with the Truth, that is God. Therefore in this simple gazing we\nare one life and one spirit with God--and this I call the _seeing\nlife_.\"[71]\n\nSuch a passage as this lies beyond our poor attempts at analysis. Those\nonly will understand it who yield themselves to it; entering into its\ncurrent, as we enter into the music that we love. It tells us all it can\nof this life which is 'more than being,' as _felt_ in the supreme\nexperience of love. Life and Death, Dark and Light, Idleness,\nBareness--these are but images of the feeling-states that accompany it.\nBut here, more than elsewhere in Ruysbroeck's writings, we must remember\nthe peril which goes with all subjective treatment of mystical truth.\nEach state which the unitive mystic experiences is so intense, that it\nmonopolises for the time being his field of consciousness. Writing under\nthe 'pressure of the Spirit' he writes of it--as indeed it seems to him\nat the moment--as ultimate and complete. Only by a comparison of\ndifferent and superficially inconsistent descriptions of this enhanced\nlife--which must harmonise and fulfil _all_ the needs of our complex\npersonality, providing inexhaustible objectives for love, intelligence\nand will--can we form any true idea concerning it.\n\nWhen we do this, we discover that the side of it which _seems_ a static\nbeatitude, still Fruition, perfect Rest, is always balanced by the other\nside; which _seems_ a perpetual and progressive attainment, a seeking and\nfinding, a hungering and feeding, a giving and taking. These coexist; as\nthe ever-renewed 'coming of the Bridegroom,' the welling-up of the\nSpirit, the stormy, eager, unsatisfied love of the soul do as a matter of\nexperience coexist within that perfect and personal union wherein Love\nand Fruition, as Ruysbroeck puts it, 'live between action and rest.' The\nalternate consciousness of the line and the Point, the moving river and\nthe Sea, the relative and the Absolute, persists so long as consciousness\npersists at all; it is no Christianised Nirvana into which he seeks to\ninduct us, but that mysterious synthesis of Being and Becoming, 'eternal\nstillness and eternal work'--a movement into God which is already a\ncomplete achievement of Him--which certain other great mystics have\ndiscerned beyond the 'flaming ramparts' of the common life.\n\nThe unbreakable unity with God, which constitutes the mark of the Third\nLife, exists in the 'essential ground of the soul'; where the river flows\ninto the Sea, the line into the Point; where the pendulum of self has its\nattachment to Reality. _There_, the hidden child of the Absolute is 'one\nwith God in restful fruition'; there, his deep intuition of Divine\nthings--that 'Savouring Wisdom' which is the last supreme gift of the\nSpirit[72]--is able to taste and apprehend the sweetness of Infinite\nReality. But at the other end, where he still participates in the\ntime-process, where his love and will are a moving river, consciousness\nhungers for that total Attainment still; and attention will swing between\nthese two extremes, now actualised within the living soul, which has put\non the dual character of 'Divine Humanity' and is living Eternal Life,\nnot in some far-off celestial region, but here, where Christ lived it, in\nthe entangled world of Time. Thus active self-mergence, incessant\nre-birth into God, perpetual eager feeding on Him, is implicit in all\nspiritual life. Even for the souls of the 'deified,' quietism is never\nright. \"For love cannot be lazy, but would search through and through,\nand taste through and through, the fathomless kingdom that lives in her\nground; and this hunger shall _never_ be stilled.\"[73]\n\nThe soul, whenever it attends to itself--withdraws itself, so to speak,\nfrom the Divine Synthesis, dwells in itself, and beholds instead of\nbeing--feels again the 'eternal unrest of love'; the whip of the Heavenly\nCharioteer, driving all spirits in towards the heart of God, where they\nare 'one fire with Him.' \"This stirring, that mediates between ourselves\nand God, we can never pass beyond; and what that stirring is in its\nessence, and what love is in itself, we can never know.\"[74] But when it\ndwells beyond itself, and in the supreme moments of ecstasy merges its\nconsciousness in the Universal Consciousness, it transcends succession\nand centres itself in the Divine Selfhood--the 'still, glorious, and\nabsolute One-ness.' Then it feels, not hunger but satisfaction, not\ndesire but fruition; and knows itself beyond reason 'one with the abysmal\ndepth and breadth,' in \"a simple fathomless savouring of all good and of\nEternal Life. And in this savouring we are swallowed up, above reason and\nbeyond reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead which is never\nmoved.\"[75]\n\nSuch experiences however, such perfect fruition, in which the self dies\ninto the overwhelming revelation of the Transcendent, and its rhythm is\nmerged in the Divine Rhythm, cannot be continuous for those still living\nin the flesh. There is in Ruysbroeck no foolish insistence on any\nimpossible career of ceaseless ecstasy; but a robust acceptance of the\nfacts and limitations of life. Man cannot, he says, \"perpetually\ncontemplate with attention the superessential Being of God in the Light\nof God. But whosoever has attained to the gift of Intelligence [_i.e._\nthe sixth of the Seven Gifts of the Spirit] attains this power, which\nbecomes habitual to him; and whensoever he will, he can wholly absorb\nhimself in this manner of contemplation, in so far as it is possible in\nthis life.\"[76]\n\nThe superessential man, in fact, is, as Francis Thompson said of the\nsoul, a\n\n  \"... swinging-wicket set\n          Between\n  The Unseen and Seen.\"\n\nHe is to move easily and at will between these two orders, both actual,\nboth God-inhabited, the complementary expressions of One Love;\nparticipating both in the active, industrious, creative outflow in\ndifferentiation, and the still indrawing attraction which issues in the\nsupreme experience of Unity. For these two movements the Active and\nInterior Lives have educated him. The truly characteristic experience of\nthe Third Life is the fruition of that Unity or Simplicity in which they\nare harmonised, beyond the balanced consciousness of the indrawing and\noutdrawing tides.[77]\n\nRuysbroeck discerns three moments in this achievement. First, a negative\nmovement, the introversive sinking-down of our created life into God's\nabsolute life, which is the consummation of self-naughting and surrender\nand the essence of dark contemplation. Next, the positive ecstatic\nstretching forth above reason into our 'highest life,' where we undergo\ncomplete transmutation in God and feel ourselves wholly enfolded in Him.\nThirdly, from these 'completing opposites' of surrender and love springs\nthe perfect fruition of Unity, so far as we may know it here; when \"we\nfeel ourselves to be one with God, and find ourselves transformed of God,\nand immersed in the fathomless Abyss of our Eternal Blessedness, where we\ncan find no further separation between ourselves and God. So long as we\nare lifted up and stretched forth into this height of feeling, all our\npowers remain idle, in an essential fruition; for where our powers are\nutterly naughted, there we lose our activity. And so long as we remain\nidle, without observation, with outstretched spirit and open eyes, so\nlong can we see and have fruition. But in that same moment in which we\nwould test and comprehend _What_ that may be which we feel, we fall back\nupon reason; and there we find distinction and otherness between God and\nourselves, and find God as an Incomprehensible One exterior to us.\"[78]\n\nIt is clear from this passage that such 'utterness' of fruition is a\nfleeting experience; though it is one to which the unitive mystic can\nreturn again and again, since it exists as a permanent state in his\nessential ground, ever discoverable by him when attention is focussed\nupon it. Further, it appears that the 'absence of difference' between God\nand the soul, which the mystic in these moments of ecstasy feels and\nenjoys, is a psychological experience, not an absolute truth. It is the\nonly way in which his surface-mind is able to realise on the one side the\noverwhelming apprehension of God's Love, that 'Yes' in which all other\nsyllables are merged; on the other the completeness of his being's\nself-abandonment to the Divine embrace--\"that Superessential Love with\nwhich we are one, and which we possess more deeply and widely than any\nother thing.\"[79] It was for this experience that Thomas \u00e0 Kempis prayed\nin one of his most Ruysbroeckian passages: \"When shall I at full gather\nmyself in Thee, that for Thy love I feel not myself, but Thee only, above\nall feeling and all manner, in a _manner not known to all_?\"[80] It is to\nthis same paradoxical victory-in-surrender--this apparent losing which is\nthe only real finding--that Francis Thompson invites the soul:\n\n  \"To feel thyself and be\n  His dear nonentity--\n        Caught\n  Beyond human thought\n\n  In the thunder-spout of Him,\n  Until thy being dim,\n        And be\n  Dead deathlessly.\"\n\nNow here it is, in these stammered tidings of an adventure 'far outside\nand beyond our spirit,' in 'the darkness at which reason gazes with wide\neyes,'[81] that we must look for the solution of that problem which all\nhigh mystic states involve for analytic thought: how can the human soul\nbecome one with God 'without intermediary, beyond all separation,'[82]\nyet remain eternally distinct from Him? How can the 'deification,' the\n'union with God without differentiation' on which the great mystics\ninsist, be accepted, and pantheism be denied?\n\nFirst, we notice that in all descriptions of Unity given us by the\nmystics, there is a strong subjective element. Their first concern is\nalways with the experience of the heart and will, not with the deductions\nmade by the intelligence. It is at our own peril that we attach\nontological meaning to their convinced and vivid psychological\nstatements. Ruysbroeck in particular makes this quite clear to us; says\nagain and again that he has '_felt_ unity without difference and\ndistinction,' yet that he _knows_ that 'otherness' has always remained,\nand \"that this is true we can only know by feeling it, and in no other\nway.\"[83]\n\nIn certain great moments, he says, the purified and illuminated soul\nwhich has died into God does achieve an Essential Stillness; which seems\nto human thought a static condition, for it is that Eternal Now of the\nGodhead which embraces in its span the whole process of Time. Here we\nfind nothing but God: the naked and ultimate Fact or Superessential Being\n'whence all Being has come forth,' stripped of academic trimmings and\nexperienced in its white-hot intensity. Here, far beyond the range of\nthought, unity and otherness, like hunger and fulfilment, activity and\nrest, _can_ co-exist in love. The ultimate union is a love-union, says\nRuysbroeck. \"The Love of God is a consuming Fire, which draws us out of\nourselves and swallows us up in unity with God, where we are satisfied\nand overflowing, and with Him, beyond ourselves, eternally\nfulfilled.\"[84]\n\nThis hungry and desirous love, at once a personal passion and a cosmic\nforce, drenches, transfigures and unites with the soul, as sunlight does\nthe air, as fire does the iron flung into the furnace; so that the molten\nmetal 'changed into another glory' is both iron and fire 'ever distinct\nyet ever united'--an antique image of the Divine Union which he takes\ndirect from a celebrated passage in St. Bernard's works. \"As much as is\niron, so much is fire; and as much as is fire, so much is iron; yet the\niron doth not become fire, nor the fire iron, but each retains its\nsubstance and nature. So likewise the spirit of man doth not become God,\nbut is deified, and knows itself breadth, length, height and depth: and\nas far as God is God, so far the loving spirit is made one with Him in\nlove.\"[85] The iron, the air, represent our created essence; the fire,\nthe sunlight, God's Essence, which is added to our own--our\n_superessence_. The two are held in a union which, when we try to see it\nunder the symbolism of space, appears a mingling, a self-mergence; but,\nwhen we feel it under the symbolism of personality, is a marriage in\nwhich the lover and beloved are 'distinct yet united.' \"Then are we one\nbeing, one love, and one beatitude with God ... a joy so great and\nspecial that we cannot even think of any other joy. For then one is one's\nself a Fruition of Love, and can and should want nothing beyond one's\nown.\"[86]\n\nIt follows from all this that when the soul, coming to the Fourth State\nof Fruitive Love, enters into the Equilibrium which supports and\npenetrates the flux, it does and must reconcile the opposites which have\ngoverned the earlier stages of its career. The communion reached is with\na Wholeness; the life which flows from it must be a wholeness too. Full\nsurrender, harmonised with full actualisation of all our desires and\nfaculties; not some thin, abstract, vertical relation alone, but an\nall-round expansion, a full, deep, rich giving and taking, a complete\ncorrespondence with the infinitely rich, all-demanding and all-generous\nGod whose \"love is measureless for it is Himself.\" Thus Ruysbroeck\nteaches that love static and love dynamic must coexist for us as for Him;\nthat the 'eternal hunger and thirst' of the God-demanding soul continues\nwithin its ecstatic satisfaction; because, however deeply it may love and\nunderstand, the Divine Excess will always baffle it. It is destined 'ever\nto go forward within the Essence of God,' to grow without ceasing deeper\nand deeper into this life, in \"the eternal longing to follow after and\nattain Him Who is measureless.\" \"And we learn this truth from His sight:\nthat all we taste, in comparison with that which remains out of our\nreach, is no more than a single drop of water compared with the whole\nsea.... We hunger for God's Infinity, which we cannot devour, and we\naspire to His Eternity, which we cannot attain.... In this storm of love,\nour activity is above reason and is in no wise. Love desires that which\nis impossible to her; and reason teaches that love is within her rights,\nbut can neither counsel nor persuade her.\"[87]\n\nHence an eternal desire and an eternal satisfaction are preserved within\nthe circle of the deified life. The full-grown self feels, in its most\nintense degree, the double movement of the Divine Love and Light, the\nflux and reflux; and in its perfect and ever-renewed responses to the\n'indrawing and outflowing attraction' of that Tide, the complete\npossession of the Superessential Life consists.\n\n\"The indrawing attraction drags us out of ourselves, and calls us to be\nmelted away and naughted in the Unity. And in this indrawing attraction\nwe feel that God wills that we should be His, and for this we must\nabnegate ourselves and let our beatitude be accomplished in Him. But when\nHe attracts us by flowing out towards us, He gives us over to ourselves\nand makes us free, and sets us in Time.\"[88]\n\nThus is accomplished that paradoxical synthesis of 'Eternal Rest and\nEternal Work' which Ruysbroeck regards as the essential character of God,\nand towards which the whole of his system has been educating the human\nsoul. The deified or 'God-formed' soul is for him the spirit in which\nthis twofold ideal is actualised: this is the Pattern, the Likeness of\nGod, declared in Christ our Archetype, towards which the Indwelling\nSpirit presses the race. Though there are moments in which, carried away\nas it seems by his almost intolerable ecstasy, he pushes out towards\n'that unwalled Fruition of God,' where all fruition begins and ends,\nwhere 'one is all and all is one,' and Man is himself a 'fruition of\nlove';[89] yet he never forgets to remind us that, as love is not love\nunless it looks forward towards the creation of new life, so here, \"when\nlove falls in love with love, and each is all to the other in possession\nand in rest,\" the _object_ of this ecstasy is not a permanent self-loss\nin the Divine Darkness, a 'slumbering in God,' but a \"new life of virtue,\nsuch as love and its impulses demand.\"[90] \"To be a living, willing Tool\nof God, wherewith God works what He will and how He will,\" is the goal of\ntranscendence described in the last chapter of _The Sparkling Stone_.\n\"Then is our life a _whole_, when contemplation and work dwell in us side\nby side, and we are perfectly in both of them at once\";[91] for then the\nseparate spirit is immersed in, and part of, the perpetual creative act\nof the Godhead--the flowing forth and the drawing back, which have at\ntheir base the Eternal Equilibrium, the unbroken peace, wherein \"God\ncontemplates Himself and all things in an Eternal Now that has neither\nbeginning nor end.\"[92] On that Unbroken Peace the spirit hangs; and\nswings like a pendulum, in wide arcs of love and service, between the\nUnconditioned and the Conditioned Worlds.\n\nSo the Superessential Life is the simple, the synthetic life, in which\nman actualises at last all the resources of his complex being. The active\nlife of response to the Temporal Order, the contemplative life of\nresponse to the Transcendent Order are united, firmly held together, by\nthat 'eternal fixation of the spirit'; the perpetual willed dwelling of\nthe being of man within the Incomprehensible Abyss of the Being of God,\n_qui est per omnia saecula benedictus_.\n\n\n\n\n                          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\n                            I. Flemish Text\n\n  _Werken van Jan van Ruusbroec_. Ed. J. David. 6 vols. (Maetschappy der\n  Vlaemsche Bibliophilen). (Gent, 1858-68.)\n\nThis edition, based on the MSS. preserved at Brussels and Ghent, and the\nfoundation of all the best translations, is now rare. It may be consulted\nat the British Museum.\n\nA re-issue of the Flemish text is now in progress; the first volume being\n_Jan van Ruysbroeck, Van den VII. Trappen_ (i.e. _The Seven Degrees of\nLove_) _met Geert Groote's latijnsche Vertaling_. Ed. Dom. Ph. M\u00fcller\n(Brussels, 1911).\n\n\n                            II. Translations\n\n\n                               A. _Latin_\n\nThe chief works of Ruysbroeck were early translated into Latin, some\nduring their author's lifetime, and widely circulated in this form. Three\nof these early translations were printed in the sixteenth century: the\n_De Ornatu Spiritualium Nuptiarum_ of Jordaens, at Paris, in 1512; and\nthe _De Septem Scal\u00e6 Divini Amoris Gradibus_ of Gerard Groot, together\nwith the _De Perfectione Filiorum Dei_ (i.e. _The Sparkling Stone_), at\nBologna, in 1538.\n\nThe standard Latin translation, however--indispensable to all students of\nRuysbroeck--is the great work of the Carthusian monk, Laurentius Surius:\n_D. Joannis Rusbrochii Opera Omnia_ (Cologne, 1552).\n\nThis was reprinted in 1609 (the best edition), and again in 1692. It\ncontains all Ruysbroeck's authentic works, and some that are doubtful; in\na translation singularly faithful to the sense of the original, though it\nfails to reproduce the rugged sublimity, the sudden lapses into crude and\nhomely metaphor, so characteristic of his style.\n\n\n                              B. _English_\n\n  _The Book of the Twelve B\u00e9guines_ (the first sixteen chapters only).\n  Translated from the Flemish, by John Francis (London, 1913).\n\nA useful translation of one of Ruysbroeck's most difficult treatises.\n\n\n                              C. _French_\n\n  _OEuvres de Ruysbroeck l'Admirable. Traduction du Flamand par les_\n  B\u00e9n\u00e9dictins de Saint Paul de Wisques.\n\n    Vol. I.: _Le Miroir du Salut \u00c9ternel_; _Les Sept Cl\u00f4tures_; _Les Sept\n    Degr\u00e9s de l'\u00cachelle d'Amour Spirituel_ (Brussels, 1912, in progress).\n\nThis edition, when completed, will form the standard text of Ruysbroeck\nfor those unable to read Flemish. The translation is admirably lucid, and\na short but adequate introduction is prefixed to each work.\n\n  _L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles. Traduit du Flamand par_ Maurice\n  Maeterlinck (Brussels, 1900).\n\nThis celebrated book, still more its beautiful though unreliable\nintroduction, is chiefly responsible for the modern interest in\nRuysbroeck. The translation, exquisite as French prose, over-emphasises\nthe esoteric element in his teaching. Those unable to read Flemish should\ncheck it by Lambert's German text (see below).\n\n  _Vie de Rusbroch suivie de son Trait\u00e9 des Sept Degr\u00e9s de l'Amour.\n  Traduction litt\u00e9rale du Texte Flamand-Latin, par_ R. Chamonal (Paris,\n  1909). _Trait\u00e9 du Royaume des Amants de Dieu. Traduit par_ R. Chamonal\n  (Paris, 1911). _De la Vraie Contemplation_ (i.e. _The Twelve\n  B\u00e9guines_). _Traduit par_ R. Chamonal. 3 vols. (Paris, 1912).\n\nThese are the first volumes of a proposed complete translation; which is,\nhowever, far from literal, and replaces the rough vigour of the original\nby the insipid language of conventional French piety.\n\n  _Livre des XII. B\u00e9guines ou de la Vraie Contemplation_ (first sixteen\n  chapters only). _Traduit du Flamand, avec Introduction, par_ L'Abb\u00e9 P.\n  Cuylits (Brussels, 1909).\n\nThis also contains a French version of the _Vita_ of Pomerius. The\ntranslator is specially successful in rendering the peculiar quality of\nRuysbroeck's verse; but the statements in his introduction must be\naccepted with reserve.\n\n\n                              D. _German_\n\n  _Drei Schriften des Mystikers Johann van Ruysbroeck, aus dem Vl\u00e4mischen\n  \u00fcbersetzt von_ Franz A. Lambert (Leipzig, 1902).\n\nA vigorous and accurate translation of _The Adornment of the Spiritual\nMarriage_, _The Sparkling Stone_ and _The Book of Supreme Truth_.\n\nRuysbroeck translates better into German than into any other language;\nand this volume is strongly recommended to all who can read that tongue.\n\n\n                            III. Selections\n\n  _Rusbrock l'Admirable: OEuvres Choisies. Traduit par_ E. Hello (Paris,\n  1902).\n\nA series of short passages, paraphrased (_not_ translated) from the Latin\nof Surius. There are two English versions of this unsatisfactory book,\nthe second being the best:\n\n    _Reflections from the Mirror of a Mystic._ Translated by Earle\n    Baillie (London, 1905).\n\n    _Flowers of a Mystic Garden._ Translated by C. E. S. (London, 1912).\n\n  _Life, Light, and Love: Selections from the German Mystics._ By the\n  Very Rev. W. R. Inge, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's (London, 1905).\n\nContains an abridged version of _The Adornment of the Spiritual\nMarriage_.\n\n\n\n\n                        Biography and Criticism\n\n\n                            (_A Selection_)\n\n  Auger, A.--_De Doctrina et Meritis Joannis van Ruysbroeck_ (Louvain,\n  1892).\n\n  Engelhardt, J. G. von.--_Richard von St. Victor und J. Ruysbroeck_\n  (Erlangen, 1838).\n\nUseful for tracing the correspondences between the Victorines and\nRuysbroeck.\n\n  Maeterlinck, Maurice.--_Ruysbroeck and the Mystics._ Translated by Jane\n  Stoddart (London, 1908).\n\nAn English version of the Introduction to _L'Ornement des Noces\nSpirituelles_, above-mentioned; with many fine passages translated from\nRuysbroeck's other works.\n\n  Pomerius, H.--_De Origine Monasterii Viridisvallis una cum Vitis\n  Joannis Rusbrochii._\n\nPrinted in _Analecta Bollandiana_, vol. iv. (Brussels, 1885). The chief\nauthority for all biographical facts.\n\n  Scully, Dom Vincent.--_A Medi\u00e6val Mystic_ (London, 1910).\n\nA biographical account, founded on Pomerius, with a short analysis of\nRuysbroeck's works. Popular and uncritical.\n\n  Vreese, Dr. W. L. de.--_Jean de Ruysbroeck_ (_Biographie Nationale de\n  Belgique_, vol. xx.) (Brussels, 1907).\n\nAn important and authoritative article with analysis of all Ruysbroeck's\nworks and full bibliography.\n\n  ----_Bijdragen tot de Kennis van het Leven en de Werken van Jan van\n  Ruusbroec_ (Gent, 1896).\n\nContains Gerard Naghel's sketch of Ruysbroeck's life, with other useful\nmaterial.\n\n  ----_De Handschriften van Jan van Ruusbroec's Werken._ 2 vols. (Gent,\n  1900).\n\nAn important and scholarly study of the manuscript sources by the\ngreatest living authority.\n\n\nNotices of Ruysbroeck will be found in the following works:--\n\n  Auger, A.--_\u00c9tude sur les Mystiques des Pays Bas au Moyen Age_\n  (_Acad\u00e9mie Royale de Belgique_, vol. xlvi., 1892).\n\n  Fleming, W. K.--_Mysticism in Christianity_ (London, 1913).\n\n  Inge, Very Rev. W. R., D.D., Dean of St. Paul's.--_Christian Mysticism_\n  (London, 1899).\n\n  Jones, Dr. Rufus M.--_Studies in Mystical Religion_ (London, 1909).\n\n\nApplications of his doctrine to the spiritual life in:--\n\n  Baker, Venerable Augustin.--_Holy Wisdom; or Directions for the Prayer\n  of Contemplation_ (London, 1908).\n\n  Blosius, F. V.--_Book of Spiritual Instruction_ (London, 1900); _A\n  Mirror for Monks_ (London, 1901); _Comfort for the Faint-hearted_\n  (London, 1903); _Sanctuary of the Faithful Soul_ (London, 1905).\n\n  Denis the Carthusian.--_Opera Omnia_ (Monstrolii, 1896), in progress.\n\n  Petersen, Gerlac.--_The Fiery Soliloquy with God_ (London, 1872).\n\n  Poulain, Aug., S.J.--_The Graces of Interior Prayer_ (London, 1910).\n\n  Underhill, E.--_Mysticism_, 5th ed. (London, 1914).\n\n\n                               Influences\n\nMuch light is thrown on Ruysbroeck's doctrine by a study of the authors\nwho influenced him; especially:\n\n  St. Augustine; Migne, _P.L._, xxvii.-xlvii.; Eng. Trans., edited by M.\n  Dods (Edinburgh, 1876).\n\n  Dionysius the Areopagite; Migne, _P.G._, iii., iv.; Eng. Trans., by\n  Parker (Oxford, 1897).\n\n  Hugh and Richard of St. Victor; Migne, _P.L._, clxxv.-clxxvii. and\n  cxcvi.\n\n  St. Bernard; Migne, _P.L._, clxxxii.-clxxxv.; Eng. Trans., by Eales\n  (London, 1889-96).\n\n  St. Thomas Aquinas; _Opera_ (Rom\u00e6, 1882-1906); Eng. Trans., by the\n  Dominican Fathers (in progress).\n\n  St. Bonaventura; _Opera_ (Paris, 1864-71).\n\n  Meister Eckhart; _Schriften und Predigten_ (Leipzig, 1903).\n\n  Suso; _Schriften_, ed. Denifle (Munich, 1876). Eng. Trans., _Life_, ed.\n  by W. R. Inge (London, 1913); _Book of Eternal Wisdom_ (London, 1910).\n\n  Tauler, _Predigten_ (Prague, 1872); Eng. Trans., _Twenty-five Sermons_,\n  trans. by Winkworth (London, 1906); _The Inner Way_, edited by A. W.\n  Hutton (London, 1909).\n\n\n\n\n                               Footnotes\n\n\n[1]The _Vita_ of Pomerius is printed in the _Analecta Bollandiana_, vol.\n   iv. pp. 257 ff.\n\n[2]_The Book of Supreme Truth_, cap. iv.\n\n[3]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. vii.\n\n[4]_Vita_, cap. xv.\n\n[5]De Vreese has identified 160 Flemish and 46 Latin MSS. of Ruysbroeck.\n\n[6]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxxvii.\n\n[7]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xiv.\n\n[8]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxxvii.\n\n[9]_Op. cit._, _ibid._\n\n[10]_The Seven Degrees of Love_, cap. xiv.\n\n[11]_The Kingdom of God's Lovers_, cap. xxix.\n\n[12]_The Mirror of Eternal Salvation_, cap. viii.\n\n[13]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. ix.\n\n[14]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xiv.\n\n[15]_The Book of Truth_, cap. xi.\n\n[16]_The Mirror of Eternal Salvation_, cap. xvii.\n\n[17]_Op. cit._, cap. vii.\n\n[18]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. x.\n\n[19]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xiv.\n\n[20]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xiii.\n\n[21]_The Seven Degrees of Love_, cap. xiv.\n\n[22]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. iii. cap. i.\n\n[23]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xvi.\n\n[24]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xii.\n\n[25]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. viii.\n\n[26]_The Seven Degrees of Love_, cap. i.\n\n[27]_The Mirror of Eternal Salvation_, cap. xvi.\n\n[28]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. vi.\n\n[29]_The Mirror of Eternal Salvation_, cap. vii.\n\n[30]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. i. cap. xiv.\n\n[31]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. i. capp. xii.-xxiv.\n\n[32]_The Kingdom of God's Lovers_, cap. xviii.\n\n[33]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. i. cap. xxvi.\n\n[34]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. vii.\n\n[35]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. vii.\n\n[36]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. ix.\n\n[37]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. iv.\n\n[38]Cf. _The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. x.\n\n[39]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xix.; _The Book of Truth_,\n   cap. ix.\n\n[40]_The Seven Degrees of Love_, cap. xiv.\n\n[41]_The Kingdom of God's Lovers_, cap. xx.\n\n[42]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxiii.\n\n[43]_Op. cit._, lib. ii. cap. xxvii.\n\n[44]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxiv.\n\n[45]Richard Rolle; _The Mending of Life_, cap. xii. (Harford's edition,\n   p. 82).\n\n[46]_The Kingdom of God's Lovers_, cap. xxv.\n\n[47]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxviii.\n\n[48]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxix.\n\n[49]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. ii.\n\n[50]Cp. _The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. lvii.\n\n[51]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxxvi.\n\n[52]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxxviii.\n\n[53]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. ii. cap. xxxix.\n\n[54]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. ii.\n\n[55]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xi.\n\n[56]_Loc. cit._\n\n[57]St. Augustine, _Confessions_, lib. vii. cap. x.\n\n[58]St. Augustine, _Confessions_, lib. vii. capp. xvii. and xx.\n\n[59]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xii.\n\n[60]_Loc. cit._\n\n[61]_The Kingdom of God's Lovers_, cap. xxxiv.\n\n[62]_The Seven Cloisters_, cap. xix.\n\n[63]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xii.\n\n[64]_The Mirror of Eternal Salvation_, cap. xvii.\n\n[65]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. iii.\n\n[66]Cap. viii.: 'Of the Difference between the Secret Friends and the\n   Hidden Sons of God.'\n\n[67]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xii.\n\n[68]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xvi.\n\n[69]_The Seven Cloisters_, cap. xix.\n\n[70]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. viii.\n\n[71]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. ix.\n\n[72]_The Kingdom of God's Lovers_; cap. xxxiii.\n\n[73]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. ix.; cp. also _The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap.\n   xvi.\n\n[74]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xvi.\n\n[75]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. ix.; cp. also _The Book of Truth_, cap.\n   xii.\n\n[76]_The Kingdom of God's Lovers_, cap. xxxi.\n\n[77]_The Book of Truth_, cap. xii.\n\n[78]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. x.\n\n[79]_Op. cit._ cap. ix.\n\n[80]_The Imitation of Christ_, lib. iii. cap. xxiii.\n\n[81]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xiv., and _The Sparkling Stone_, cap. ix.\n\n[82]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xvi.\n\n[83]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. ix.; cp. _The Book of Truth_, cap. xi.\n\n[84]_The Twelve B\u00e9guines_, cap. xvi.\n\n[85]_Ibid._ cap. xiv.; cp. St. Bernard, _De Diligendo Deo_, cap. x. The\n   same image is found in St. Macarius and many other writers.\n\n[86]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. xii.\n\n[87]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. x.\n\n[88]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. x.\n\n[89]_Op. cit._ cap. xii.\n\n[90]_Op. cit._ cap. xiii.; cp. also _The Seven Degrees_, cap. xiv.\n\n[91]_The Sparkling Stone_, cap. xiv.\n\n[92]_The Spiritual Marriage_, lib. iii. cap. v.\n\n\n                              _Printed by_\n                        Morrison & Gibb Limited\n                              _Edinburgh_","title":"Ruysbroeck","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":41405}