{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_66820/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_66820","id":"gutenberg_66820","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66820","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysticism","Nobel Prizes in Literature","Ruusbroec, Jan van, 1293-1381"],"text":"RUYSBROECK\n\n\n\n\nThe Devotional Library.\n\nHandsomely printed and bound, price 3s. 6d. each volume.\n\n\n_THIRD EDITION._\n\nTHE KEY OF THE GRAVE.\n\nA Book for the Bereaved.\n\nBy W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.\n\n\n_SECOND EDITION._\n\nMEMORANDA SACRA.\n\nBy Professor J. RENDEL HARRIS, M.A., Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.\n\n\n_THE GENERAL GORDON EDITION._\n\nCHRIST MYSTICAL.\n\nBy JOSEPH HALL, D.D., Bishop of Norwich.\n\nReprinted, with General Gordon\u2019s marks, from the Original Copy used by\nhim, and with an Introduction on his Theology By the Rev. H. CARRUTHERS\nWILSON, M.A.\n\n\nLONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON.\n\n\n\n\n  RUYSBROECK\n  AND THE\n  MYSTICS\n\n  WITH SELECTIONS FROM RUYSBROECK\n\n  BY\n  MAURICE MAETERLINCK\n\n  TRANSLATED BY\n  JANE T. STODDART\n\n\n  LONDON\n  HODDER AND STOUGHTON\n  27 PATERNOSTER ROW\n\n  MDCCCXCIV\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nThe following is an authorised translation of the essay prefixed by\nM. Maeterlinck to L\u2019Ornement des Noces Spirituelles, de Ruysbroeck\nL\u2019Admirable, Traduit du Flamand par Maurice Maeterlinck, which was\npublished in 1891 by Paul Lacomblez of Brussels. I have added selected\npassages from Ruysbroeck\u2019s own work.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                         PAGE\n\n  M. MAETERLINCK\u2019S INTRODUCTION TO HIS\n    TRANSLATION OF \u201cTHE ADORNMENT OF\n    THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE\u201d--\n\n       I                                                    1\n\n      II                                                   29\n\n  SELECTED PASSAGES FROM \u201cTHE ADORNMENT\n    OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE\u201d\n\n      ON THE KINGDOM OF THE SOUL                          122\n\n      CHRIST THE SUN OF THE SOUL                          126\n\n      THE LESSON FROM THE BEE                             129\n\n      THE DEW OF MID-DAY                                  130\n\n      THE LESSON FROM THE ANT                             132\n\n      WHAT SHALL THE FORSAKEN DO?                         134\n\n      THE SETTING OF THE ETERNAL SUN                      137\n\n      THE NATURE OF GOD                                   138\n\n      THE DIVINE GENEROSITY                               139\n\n      CHRIST THE LOVER OF ALL MEN                         141\n\n      HOW CHRIST GAVE HIMSELF TO US IN THE SACRAMENT      142\n\n      THE SOUL\u2019S HUNGER FOR GOD                           147\n\n      THE LABOUR AND REST OF LOVE                         150\n\n      THE CHRISTIAN LIFE                                  151\n\n      THE COMING OF THE BRIDEGROOM                        152\n\n\n\n\n  M. MAETERLINCK\u2019S INTRODUCTION TO HIS TRANSLATION OF \u201cTHE ADORNMENT OF\n    THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE.\u201d\n\n\nI\n\nMany works are more correctly beautiful than this book of Ruysbroeck\nL\u2019Admirable. Many mystics--Swedenborg and Novalis among others--are\nmore potent in their influence, and more timely. It is very probable\nthat his writings may but rarely meet the needs of to-day. Looking\nat him from another point of view, I know few more clumsy authors.\nHe wanders off now and then into strange puerilities, and the first\ntwenty chapters of _The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage_, although\nthey are perhaps a necessary preparation for what follows, contain\nlittle more than mild and pious commonplaces. Outwardly, at least,\nhe has no order, no logic of the schools. He is full of repetitions,\nand sometimes seems to contradict himself. He shows the ignorance of\na child along with the wisdom of one who might have returned from the\ndead. Over his involved syntax I have toiled more than once in the\nsweat of my brow. He introduces an image, and forgets it. There are\nsome of his images which the mind cannot realise, and this phenomenon,\nso unusual in an honest work, can only be explained by his awkwardness\nor his extraordinary haste. He knows few of the tricks of language,\nand can speak only of the unspeakable. He is almost entirely ignorant\nof the habits, skilled methods, and resources of philosophic thought,\nand he is constrained to think only of the unthinkable. When he speaks\nof his little monastic garden, he can hardly tell us enough about what\ngoes on there; on that subject he writes like a child. He undertakes\nto teach us what transpires in the nature of God, and writes pages\nwhich Plato could not have written. Everywhere we find a grotesque\ndisproportion between his knowledge and ignorance, his capacity and\ndesire. You must not expect a literary work; you will see only the\nconvulsive flight of an eagle, dizzy, blind, and wounded, over snowy\npeaks. I will add one word more by way of friendly warning. It has\nbeen my lot to read books generally considered most abstruse: _The\nDisciples at Sa\u00efs_, and the _Fragments_ of Novalis, for instance; the\n_Biographia Literaria_ and the _Friend_ of Samuel Taylor Coleridge;\nthe _Timaeus_ of Plato; the _Enneads_ of Plotinus; the _Divine Names_\nof St. Denys the Areopagite; the _Aurora_ of the great German mystic,\nJacob B\u00f6hme, with whom our author has more than one point of analogy.\nI do not venture to say that the works of Ruysbroeck are more abstruse\nthan these works; but their abstruseness is less readily pardoned,\nbecause we have here to do with an unknown writer in whom we have no\nprevious confidence. I thought it necessary to give an honest warning\nto idlers on the threshold of this temple without architecture; for\nthis translation was undertaken only to please a few Platonists. I\nbelieve that those who have not lived in close fellowship with Plato\nand with the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria will not proceed far in\nreading it. They will think they are entering the void; they will feel\nas if they were falling steadily into a bottomless abyss, between black\nand slippery rocks. In this book there is no common light or air; as a\nspiritual abode it will be insupportable to those who come unprepared.\nDo not enter here from literary curiosity; there are hardly any dainty\nnick-nacks, and the botanist in search of fine images will find as few\nflowers here as on the polar ice-banks. I tell them that this is a\nboundless desert, where they will die of thirst. They will find here\nvery few phrases which one may handle and admire after the way of\nliterary critics; nothing but jets of flame or blocks of ice. Do not\nseek for roses in Iceland. Some flower may still linger between two\nicebergs--and indeed there are strange outbursts, unknown expressions,\nunheard-of analogies, but they will not repay you for the time lost\nin coming so far to pluck them. Before entering here one must be in a\nphilosophic state as different from our ordinary condition as the state\nof waking is from that of slumber. Porphyry, in his _Principles of the\nTheory of Intelligibles_, seems to me to have written a warning which\nmight fitly stand at the beginning of this book--\u201cBy our intelligence\nwe say many things of the principle which is higher than the\nintelligence. But these things are divined much better by an absence\nof thought than by thought. It is the same with this idea as with that\nof sleep, of which we speak up to a certain point in our waking state,\nbut the knowledge and perception of which we can gain only by sleeping.\nLike is known only by like, and the condition of all knowledge is that\nthe subject should become like to the object.\u201d\n\nIt is most difficult, I repeat, to understand such things without\npreparation; and I believe that, in spite of our preparatory studies,\na great deal of this mysticism will seem to us purely theoretic, and\nthat the most of these experiences of supernatural psychology will be\naccessible to us only in the character of spectators. The philosophical\nimagination is a faculty which is educated very slowly. We are here,\nall at once, on the confines of human thought, and far within the\npolar circle of the mind. It is strangely cold here; it is strangely\ndark; and yet all around there is light and flame. But to those who\ncome without having trained their mind to these new perceptions, this\nlight and these flames are as dark and cold as painted images. We\nare dealing here with the most exact of sciences. We have to explore\nthe most rugged and least habitable promontories of the divine\n\u201cKnow Thyself\u201d; and the midnight sun hangs over the tempestuous sea,\nwhere the psychology of man mingles with the psychology of God. We\nhave constantly to keep in mind that we are dealing here with a very\nprofound science, and not with a dream. Dreams are not unanimous;\ndreams have no roots; while the glowing flower of divine metaphysic,\nwhich is here full blown, has its mysterious roots in Persia and\nin India, in Egypt and in Greece. And yet it seems unconscious as\na flower, and knows nothing of its roots. Unhappily it is almost\nimpossible for us to put ourselves in the position of the soul which,\nwithout effort, conceived this science; we cannot perceive it _ab\nintra_ and reproduce it in ourselves. We lack that which Emerson would\ncall the same \u201ccentral spontaneity\u201d; we can no longer transform\nthese ideas into our own substance; the utmost we can do is to take\ncount, from the outside, of the tremendous experiences which are\nwithin the reach of only a very few souls during the whole existence\nof a planetary system. \u201cIt is not lawful,\u201d says Plotinus, \u201cto inquire\ninto the origin of this intuitive science as if it were a thing\ndependent on place and movement; for it does not approach from here,\nnor set out from there, in order to go elsewhere, but it appears or\ndoes not appear. So that we must not pursue it in order to discover\nits secret sources, but wait in silence until it suddenly shines out\nupon us, preparing ourselves for the sacred sight, as the eye waits\npatiently for the rising of the sun.\u201d And elsewhere he adds: \u201cIt is\nnot by imagination nor by reason, which is itself obliged to draw its\nprinciples from elsewhere, that we represent to ourselves intelligible\nthings (that is to say, the highest of all), but rather it is by our\nfaculty for beholding them, the faculty which enables us to speak of\nthem here below. We see them therefore by awaking in ourselves, here\non earth, the same powers which we shall have to awake when we are in\nthe world of pure intelligence. We are like a man who, on reaching the\nsummit of a rock, perceives with his eyes objects which are invisible\nto those who have not made the ascent along with him.\u201d\n\nBut although all beings, from the stone and the plant up to man, are\ncontemplations, they are unconscious contemplations; and it is very\ndifficult to rediscover in ourselves some memory of the previous\nactivity of the dead faculty. In this respect we resemble the eye\nin the Neo-Platonic image. \u201cIt turns away from the light to see the\ndarkness, and by the very action it ceases to see; for it cannot see\nthe darkness with the light, and yet without it, it sees not at all;\nand so, by not seeing, it sees the darkness as far as it is capable of\nseeing it.\u201d\n\nI know the judgment which most men will pronounce on this book. They\nwill think it the work of a deluded monk, of a pale solitary, a hermit,\ndizzy with fasting and worn with fever. They will take it for a wild,\ndark dream, crossed with vivid lightning flashes,--nothing more.\nThis is the common idea which people form of the mystics; and they\nforget too often that they alone are the possessors of certainty. If\nit be true, as has been said, that every man is a Shakespeare in his\ndreams, we might well ask whether every man is not in this life an\ninarticulate mystic, a thousand times more transcendental than those\nwho have confined themselves within the bonds of words. Is not the\neye of the lover or of the mother, for instance, a thousand times\nmore abstruse, more impenetrable, and more mystical than this book,\nwhich is poor and easily explained, after all, like all books, for\nthese are but dead mysteries, whose horizon will never be rekindled?\nIf we do not understand this, perhaps the reason is that we no longer\nunderstand anything. But, to return to our author, a few will recognise\nwithout difficulty that, far from being half-maddened by hunger,\nsolitude, and fever, this monk possessed, on the contrary, one of the\nwisest, most exact, and most subtle philosophic brains which have\never existed. He lived, they tell us, in his hut at Gr\u00f6nendal, in the\nmidst of the forest of Soignes. It was at the beginning of one of\nthe wildest centuries of the middle ages,--the fourteenth. He knew\nno Greek, and perhaps no Latin. He was alone and poor; and yet, in\nthe depths of this obscure forest of Brabant, his mind, ignorant and\nsimple as it was, receives, all unconsciously, dazzling sunbeams from\nall the lonely, mysterious peaks of human thought He knows, though he\nis unaware of it, the Platonism of Greece, the Sufism of Persia, the\nBrahmanism of India, and the Buddhism of Tibet; and his marvellous\nignorance rediscovers the wisdom of buried centuries, and foresees\nthe knowledge of centuries yet unborn. I could quote whole pages of\nPlato, of Plotinus, of Porphyry, of the Zendic books, of the Gnostics,\nand of the Kabbala, the all but inspired substance of which is to be\nfound intact in the writings of this humble Flemish priest.[1] We find\nstrange coincidences and disturbing agreements. We find more, for he\nseems, at times, to have presupposed with exactitude the work of most\nof his unknown predecessors. Just as Plotinus begins his stern journey\nat the crossroad where Plato, fearing, paused and knelt down, so we\nmight say that Ruysbroeck awakened from a slumber of several centuries;\nnot, indeed, the same kind of thought (for that kind of thought never\nsleeps), but the same kind of language as that which had fallen asleep\non the mountains where Plotinus forsook it, dazzled by that blaze of\nlight, and with his hands before his eyes, as if in presence of an\nimmense conflagration.\n\nBut the organic method of their thought differs strangely. Plato and\nPlotinus are before all things princes in the sphere of dialectic. They\nreach mysticism by the science of reasoning. They use the discursive\nfaculties of their mind, and seem to distrust their intuitive or\ncontemplative faculties. Reasoning beholds itself in the mirror\nof reasoning, and endeavours to remain indifferent to every other\nreflection. It continues its course like a river of fresh water in the\nmidst of the sea, with the presentiment of a speedy absorption. In our\nauthor we find, on the contrary, the habits of Asiatic thought; the\nintuitive faculty reigns alone above the discursive purification of\nideas by means of words. The fetters of the dream have fallen off.\nIs it for this reason less sure? None can tell. The mirror of the\nhuman intellect is entirely unknown in this book, but there is another\nmirror, darker and more profound, which we hide in the inmost depths\nof our being; no detail can be seen distinctly, and words will not\nremain on its surface; the intellect would break it if it could for a\nmoment cast thereon the reflection of its merely secular light; but\nsomething else is seen there from time to time. Is it the soul? is it\nGod Himself? is it both at once? We shall never know; yet these all\nbut invisible appearances are the only real rulers of the life of the\nmost unbelieving among us. Here you will perceive nothing but the dark\nreflections on the mirror, and, as its treasure is inexhaustible, these\nreflections are not like anything we have experienced in ourselves,\nbut, in spite of all, they have an amazing certainty. And this is why\nI know nothing more terrifying than this honest book. There is no\npsychological idea, no metaphysical experience, no mystical intuition,\nhowever abstruse, profound, and surprising they may be, which it would\nbe impossible to reproduce if necessary, and to cause to live for a\nmoment in ourselves, that we might be assured of their human identity;\nbut here on earth we are like a blind father who can no longer recall\nthe faces of his children. None of these thoughts has the childlike\nor brotherly look of a thought of this earth; we seem to have lost\nour experience of God, and yet everything assures us that we are not\nentered into the house of dreams. Must we exclaim with Novalis that\nthe time has passed away when the Spirit of God was comprehensible,\nand that the divine sense of the world is forever lost? That of old\nall things were manifestations of the Spirit, but that now we see only\nlifeless reflections which we do not understand, and live entirely on\nthe fruits of better times?\n\nI believe we must humbly confess that the key of this book is not to be\nfound on the common pathways of the human mind. That key is not meant\nto open earthly doors, and we must deserve it by withdrawing ourselves\nas far as possible from the earth. One guide, indeed, we may still\nmeet at these lonely cross-roads, who can point out the last way-marks\ntowards these mysterious isles of fire, these Icelands of abstraction\nand of love. That guide is Plotinus, who attempted to analyse, by\nmeans of the human intellect, the divine faculty which here holds\nsway. He experienced the same ecstasies (as we say in a word which\nexplains nothing) which are in their essence only the beginning of the\ncomplete discovery of our being; and in the midst of their trouble and\ntheir darkness, he never for one moment closed the questioning eye of\nthe psychologist who seeks to explain to himself the most abnormal\nphenomena of his soul. He is thus like the last outwork of the pier,\nfrom which we may understand something of the waves and the horizon of\nthat dim sea. He tries to extend the paths of the ordinary intellect\ninto the very heart of these desolations, and this is why we must\nconstantly revert to him, for he is the one analytical mystic. For the\nsake of those who may be tempted to undertake this tremendous journey,\nI give here one of the pages in which he has attempted to explain the\norganism of that divine faculty of introspection:--\n\n\u201cIn the intuition of the intellect,\u201d he says, \u201cintelligible objects\nare perceived by the intellect by means of the light which the First\nOne spreads over them, and in seeing these objects, it sees really\nthe intelligible light. But, as it gives its attention to the objects\non which the light falls, it does not perceive with any exactness the\nprinciple which enlightens them, while if, on the contrary, it forgets\nthe objects which it sees so as to contemplate only the brightness\nwhich makes them visible, it sees the light itself and the principle\nof the light. But it is never outside of itself that the intellect can\ncontemplate the intelligible light. It then resembles the eye which,\nwithout contemplating an exterior or alien light, and indeed before\nit has even perceived it, is suddenly struck by a brightness which\nbelongs to itself, or by a ray which darts from itself, and appears to\nit in the midst of darkness: it is just the same when the eye, so as to\nsee no other objects, closes its lids and draws its light from itself,\nor when, pressed by the hand, it perceives the light which it has in\nitself. Then, although seeing no outside thing, it still sees; it sees\neven more than at any other time, for it sees the light. The other\nobjects which it saw before, although they were luminous, were not the\nlight itself. So, when the intellect closes its eye in some degree to\nother objects, and concentrates it on itself, then, seeing nothing, it\nyet sees, not an alien light which shines in alien forms, but its own\nlight, which all at once shines inwardly with a pure radiance.\u201d\n\nAgain he says: \u201cThe soul which studies God must form an idea of Him\nwhom it seeks to know; being aware, moreover, to what greatness it\ndesires to unite itself, and persuaded that it will find blessedness\nin that union, it must plunge into the depths of divinity, until,\ninstead of contemplating itself, or the intelligible world, it becomes\nitself an object of contemplation, and shines with the brightness of\nconceptions which have their source above.\u201d\n\nWe have here almost all that human wisdom can tell us; almost all that\nthe prince of transcendental metaphysicians could express; as for other\nexplanations, we must find them in ourselves, in the depths where all\nexplanation disappears in its expression. For it is not only in heaven\nand earth, but above all in ourselves, that there are more things than\nall philosophies can contain; and as soon as we are no longer obliged\nto formulate the mysteries within us, we are more profound than all\nthat has been written, and greater than all that exists.\n\nI have translated this book, then, solely because I believe that the\nwritings of the mystics are the purest diamonds in the vast treasure\nof humanity. A translation may indeed very easily be useless, for\nexperience seems to prove that it matters little whether the mystery\nof the incarnation of a thought takes place in darkness or in light;\nit is enough that it has taken place. But, however this may be, the\ntruths of mysticism have a strange privilege over ordinary truths;\nthey can neither grow old nor die. There is no truth which did not,\none morning, come down upon this world, lovely in strength and in\nyouth, and covered with the fresh and wondrous dew which lies on\nthings yet unspoken: to-day you may pass through the infirmaries of\nthe human soul, where all thoughts come day by day to die, and you\nwill not find there a single mystic thought. They have the immunity of\nthe angels of Swedenborg, who progress continually towards the spring\nof their youth, so that the oldest angels appear the youngest; and\nwhether they come from India, from Greece, or from the North, they\nhave neither country nor date, and wherever we meet them, they are\ncalm and real as God Himself. A work grows old in exact proportion to\nits anti-mysticism; and that is why this book bears no date. I know\nthat it is unusually obscure, but I believe that a sincere and honest\nauthor is never obscure in the eternal sense of the word, because he\nalways understands himself, and in a way which is infinitely beyond\nanything that he says. It is only artificial ideas which spring up\nin real darkness, and flourish solely in literary epochs and in the\ninsincerity of self-conscious ages, when the thought of the writer is\npoorer than his expression. In the former case, we have the rich shade\nof a forest; in the latter, the gloom of a cavern, in which only dismal\nparasites can grow. We must take into account that unknown world which\nour author\u2019s phrases were meant to enlighten through the poor double\nhorn-panes of words and thoughts. Words, as it has been said, were\ninvented for the ordinary uses of life, and they are unhappy, restless,\nand as bewildered as beggars round a throne, when, from time to time,\nsome royal soul leads them elsewhere. And, from another point of view,\nis the thought ever the exact image of that unknown thing which gave it\nbirth? Do we not always behold in it the shadow of a conflict like that\nof Jacob with the angel, confused in proportion to the stature of the\nsoul and of the angel? \u201cWoe to us,\u201d says Carlyle, \u201cif we have nothing\nin us except that which we can express and show to others.\u201d I know that\non these pages there lies the shadow cast from objects which we have no\nrecollection of having seen. The monk does not stop to explain their\nuse to us, and we shall recognise them only when we behold the objects\nthemselves on the other side of this life; but meanwhile, he has made\nus look into the distance, and that is much. I know, besides, that many\nof his phrases float almost like transparent icicles on the colourless\nsea of silence, but still they exist; they have been separated from\nthe waters, and that is sufficient. I am aware, finally, that the\nstrange plants which he cultivated on the high peaks of the spirit are\nsurrounded by clouds of their own, but these clouds annoy only gazers\nfrom below. Those who have the courage to climb see that they are the\nvery atmosphere of these plants, the only atmosphere in which they\ncan blossom in the shade of non-existence. For this is a vegetation\nso subtle that it can scarcely be distinguished from the silence\nfrom which it has drawn its juices and into which it seems ready\nto dissolve. This whole work, moreover, is like a magnifying glass\nturned upon darkness and silence; and sometimes we do not immediately\ndiscern the outline of the ideas which are still steeped therein. It\nis invisible things which appear from time to time, and some attention\nis obviously needed for their recognition. This book is not too far\noff from us; probably it is in the very centre of our humanity; it is\nwe, on the contrary, who are too far from the book; and if it seems\nto us discouraging as the desert, if the desolation of divine love in\nit appears terrible, and the thirst on its summits unendurable, it is\nnot that the book is too ancient, but that we ourselves are perhaps\nold and sad and lacking in courage, like gray-haired men in presence\nof a child. Plotinus, the great pagan mystic, is probably right when\nhe says to those who complain that they see nothing on the heights of\nintrospection: \u201cWe must first make the organ of vision analogous and\nsimilar to the object which it is to contemplate. The eye would never\nhave perceived the sun, if it had not first taken the form of the\nsun; so likewise the soul could never see beauty if it did not first\nbecome beautiful itself; and all men should begin by making themselves\nbeautiful and divine, in order that they may obtain the sight of the\nbeautiful and of divinity.\u201d\n\n\nII\n\nThe life of Jean von Ruysbroeck, like that of most of the great\nthinkers of this world, is entirely an inner life. He said himself, \u201cI\nhave no concerns outside.\u201d Nearly all his biographers, Surius among\nothers, wrote nearly two centuries after his death, and their work\nseems much intermixed with legend. They show us a holy hermit, silent,\nignorant, amazingly humble, amazingly good, who was in the habit of\nworking miracles unawares. The trees beneath which he prayed were\nillumined by an aureole; the bells of a Dutch convent tolled without\nhands on the day of his death. His body, when exhumed five years after\nhis soul had quitted it, was found in a state of perfect preservation,\nand from it rose wonderful perfumes, which cured the sick who were\nbrought from neighbouring villages. A few lines will suffice to give\nthe facts which are undoubtedly authentic. He was born in the year\n1274 at Ruysbroeck, a little village between Hal and Brussels. He was\nfirst a priest in the church of Sainte-Gudule; then, by the advice of\nthe hermit Lambert, he left the Brabant town and retired to Gr\u00f6nendal\n(Green Valley) in the forest of Soignes, in the neighbourhood of\nBrussels. Holy companions soon joined him there, and with them he\nfounded the abbey of Gr\u00f6nendal, the ruins of which may be seen to\nthis day. Attracted by the strange renown of his theosophy and his\nsupernatural visions, pilgrims from Germany and Holland, among them the\nDominican Jean Tauler and Gerhard Groot, came to this retreat to visit\nthe humble old man, and went away filled with an admiration of which\nthe memory still lingers in their writings. He died, according to the\n_Necrologium Monasterii Viridis Vallis_, on the 2nd of December 1381,\nand his contemporaries gave him the title of \u201c_L\u2019Admirable_.\u201d\n\nIt was the century of the mystics and the period of the gloomy wars\nin Brabant and Flanders, of stormy nights of blood and prayers under\nthe wild reigns of the three Johns, of battles extending into the\nvery forest where the saints were kneeling. St. Bonaventura and St.\nThomas Aquinas had just died, and Thomas \u00e0 Kempis was about to study\nGod in that mirror of the absolute which the inspired Fleming had left\nin the depths of the Green Valley; while, first Jehan de Bruges, and\nafterwards the Van Eycks, Roger van der Weyden, Hugues van der Goes,\nThierry Bouts, and Hans Memlinck were to people with images the lonely\n_Word_ of the hermit.\n\nHere is a list of the writings of Ruysbroeck, the sum-total of which is\nvery large. _The Book of the Twelve Beguines_; _The Mirror of Eternal\nSalvation_; _The Book of the Spiritual Tabernacle_; _The Sparkling\nStone_; _The Book of Supreme Truth_; _The Book of the Seven Steps of\nSpiritual Love_; _The Book of the Seven Castles_; _The Book of the\nKingdom of the Beloved_; _The Book of the Four Temptations_; _The\nBook of the Twelve Virtues_; _The Book of Christian Faith_, and _The\nAdornment of the Spiritual Marriage_. There are besides seven letters,\ntwo hymns, and a prayer, to which Surius gave these titles, _Epistolae\nseptem utiles_, _Cantiones du\u00e6 admodum spirituales_, and _Oratio\nperbrevis sed pia valde_, the original texts of which I have not been\nable to discover in any of the Flemish manuscripts.\n\nSome years ago the greater number of these writings were edited with\nthe utmost care by a society of Flemish bibliophiles--_De Maetschappij\nder Vlaemsche Bibliophilen_--and most of this translation has been made\nfrom the excellent text of that edition.\n\nI shall not undertake to give here an analysis of these different\nworks; such an analysis would be difficult, monotonous, and useless.\nAll the books of our author treat exclusively of the same science: a\ntheosophy peculiar to Ruysbroeck, the minute study of the introversion\nand introspection of the soul, the contemplation of God above all\nsimilitudes and likenesses, and the drama of the divine love on the\nuninhabitable peaks of the spirit. I shall therefore content myself\nwith giving some characteristic extracts from each of these writings.\n\n_The Book of the Twelve Beguines_, in the Latin translation of Surius,\nis entitled _De vera contemplatione, opus pr\u00e6clarum, variis divinis\ninstitutionibus, eo quo Spiritus Sanctus suggessit ordine descriptis,\nexuberans_. This title explains more exactly the nature of the work,\nbut is not to be found in any of the early manuscripts. The truth is\nthat Ruysbroeck, following the custom of his age, seldom gave a title\nto his writings, and the titles by which they are now known, as well as\nthe marginal rubrics of the chapters, have apparently been interpolated\nby the copyists. In the edition of the _Maetschappij der Vlaemsche\nBibliophilen_ we find collected under the title, _Dat boec van den\ntwaelf beghinen_, first of all that treatise on the contemplative life\nmentioned by Surius, next a kind of manual of symbolical astrology,\nand lastly some thoughts on the passion and death of our Lord Jesus\nChrist. The three works are marked off from each other with more or\nless distinctness, and Ruysbroeck evidently fixes the place where he\nforsakes the inner universe and descends to the visible firmament,\nwhen he says at the end of chapter xxxi., \u201cAnd after this I leave the\ncontemplative life, which is God Himself, and which He grants to those\nwho have renounced self and have followed His Spirit to where, in\neternal glory, He rejoices in Himself and in His chosen.\u201d\n\nThe first eight chapters of this book are written in singular and very\nbeautiful verses, and across their images, on the dark background of\nessential love, as across the windows of a burning convent, there\nflicker continually bright spiritual flames, and also frozen sadnesses,\nnot unlike those of Villon or of Verlaine.\n\nHere are some of these verses:--\n\n  \u201cContemplation is a science without mode,\n  Above human reason remaining evermore;\n  Unto our reason can it not come down,\n  Neither above it can reason ever rise.\n  Its enlightened freedom is a noble mirror,\n  Wherein the eternal splendour of God doth shine.\n  This modeless freedom hath no manner of its own,\n  And before it all the works of reason pale;\n  This modeless freedom is not God Himself,\n  But it is the light by which we see Him.\n  Those who move in this freedom unrestrained\n  In the light of God,\n  See vast prospects stretching out within them.\n  This modeless freedom is more high than reason,\n  Yet not without reason;\n  All things beholdeth it without surprise--\n  Surprise is far beneath it\n  The life of contemplation is without surprise:\n  It sees, but knows not what is seen,\n  Above all things is it, and neither this nor that.\u201d\n\nAfterwards, the poet, perceiving that his verses are becoming too\nobscure, standing as he is on the threshold of eternal knowledge, says\nsuddenly and very simply--\n\n  \u201cNow must I cease from versing\n  And speak of contemplation clearly.\u201d\n\nFrom this point he makes use of a strange prose, dark as the fearful\nvoid into which he is gazing, resembling that fierce cold which reigns\nabove all our images, with blue lights flashing over the black frosts\nof abstraction. And when he descends for a moment into the regions of\nsimilitudes, he touches only the most distant, the most subtle, and\nthe most unknown; he loves, too, such things as mirrors, reflections,\ncrystal, fountains, burning glasses, water-plants, precious stones,\nglowing iron, hunger, thirst, fire, fish, the stars, and everything\nthat helps him to endow his ideas with visible forms--forms laid\nprostrate in the presence of love on these clear summits of the\nsoul--and to give distinctness to those unheard-of truths which he\ncalmly reveals. It is needless to say more, for you shall presently\nreach the threshold of that spiritual marriage, and from there behold\nthe still tempest of joy, reaching as far as to the eternal heart\nof God. In one word, this man of all others went near to beholding\nthought as it will be after death, and showed a faint shadow of its\nrich growths of the future, in the midst of the incomprehensible\neffluence of the Holy Trinity. I believe that this is a work which we\nshall perhaps remember elsewhere and always. You shall see, too, that\nthe most amazing outbursts of St. Teresa are hardly to be distinguished\nfrom the top of those unlighted, colourless, and airless glaciers to\nwhich we climb with him \u201cbeyond surprise and emotion, above reason and\nthe virtues,\u201d in the dark symphony of contemplation.\n\nI give a passage from the book: _De altero ver\u00e6 contemplationis modo_:--\n\n\u201cAfter this comes another mode of contemplation.\n\n\u201cThose who have raised themselves into the absolute purity of their\nspirits by the love and reverence which they have for God, stand in\nHis presence, with open and unveiled faces. And from the splendour of\nthe Father a direct light shines on those spirits in which the thought\nis naked and free from similitudes, raised above the senses, above\nsimilitudes, above reason and without reason, in the lofty purity of\nthe spirit.\n\n\u201cThis light is not God, but is a mediator between the seeing thought\nand God. It is a light-ray from God or from the Spirit of the Father.\nIn it God shows Himself immediately, not according to the distinction\nand the mode of His persons, but in the simplicity of His nature and\nHis substance; and in it also the Spirit of the Father speaks in\nthought, lofty, naked, and without similitude, \u2018Behold me as I behold\nyou.\u2019 At the same time the keenness of the pure eyes is revealed,\nwhen the direct brightness of the Father falls upon them, and they\nbehold the splendour of the Father--that is to say, the substance or\nthe nature of God in an immediate vision, above reason and without\ndistinction.\n\n\u201cThis brightness and this manifestation of God give to the\ncontemplative spirit a real knowledge of the vision of God, as far\nas it can be enjoyed in this mortal state. In order that you may\nunderstand me clearly, I will give you an image from the senses. When\nyou stand in the dazzling radiance of the sun, and turn away your eyes\nfrom all colour, from attending to and distinguishing all the various\nthings which the sun illuminates, if then you simply follow with your\neyes the brightness of the rays which flow from the sun, you shall be\nled into the sun\u2019s very essence; and so likewise, if you follow with a\ndirect vision the dazzling rays which stream from the splendour of God,\nthey will lead you to the source of your creation, and there you will\nfind nothing else but God alone.\u201d\n\nI come now to the second of the works enumerated above. _The Mirror\nof Eternal Salvation_ (_Die Spieghel der Ewigher Salicheit_) is, like\nall the writings of the mystic, a study of the joys of introversion,\nor of the return of man into himself, until he comes into touch with\nGod. It was sent by the admirable doctor and eminent contemplator of\nthe Green Valley \u201cTo the dear Sister Margaret van Meerbeke, of the\nconvent of the Clares at Brussels, in the year of our Lord 1359.\u201d In\nsome manuscripts the work is entitled \u201cBook of the Sacraments,\u201d and it\nis indeed the poem of eucharistic love, above all distinctions and in\nthe midst of the blinding effluence of God, where the soul seems to\nshake the pollen from its essence and to have an eternal foreknowledge.\nHere, as elsewhere, we would need, in order to realise even slightly\nthese terrors of love, a language which has the intrinsic omnipotence\nof tongues which are almost immemorial. The Flemish dialect possesses\nthis omnipotence, and it is possible that several of its words still\ncontain images dating from the glacial epochs. Our author then had at\nhis disposal one of the very oldest modes of speech, in which words\nare really lamps behind ideas, while with us ideas must give light to\nwords. I am also disposed to believe that every language thinks always\nmore than the man, even the man of genius, who employs it, and who is\nonly its heart for the time being, and that this is the reason why an\nignorant monk like this mysterious Ruysbroeck, was able, by gathering\nup his scanty forces in prayers so many centuries ago, to write works\nwhich hardly correspond to our senses in the present day. I translate\nfrom this book the following fragment:--\n\n\u201cSee now, here must our reason and all definite actions give way; for\nour powers become simple in love, and are silent and bend low before\nthe manifestation of the Father; for the manifestation of the Father\nraises the soul above reason, into nakedness without similitudes.\nThere the soul is simple, pure, and emptied of everything, and in\nthat pure emptiness the Father shows His divine brightness. Into that\nbrightness there can enter neither reason nor the senses, observation\nnor distinction. All these things must remain underneath it, for that\nmeasureless brightness dazzles the eyes of the spirit, so that their\nlids must close under its inconceivable radiance. But the naked eye,\nabove reason, and in the inmost depths of intelligence, is always open,\nand beholds and contemplates with naked vision that light by that light\nitself. There we have eye to eye, glass to glass, image to image.\nBy these three things we are like unto God, and are united to Him.\nFor this vision which strikes upon our naked eye is a living mirror\nwhich God has made in His image. His image is His divine brightness,\nand with it He has filled to overflowing the mirror of our soul, so\nthat no other brightness and no other image can enter there. But this\nbrightness is not an intermediary between God and us; for it is the\nthing which we see, and also the light by which we see, but not our eye\nwhich sees. For although the image of God is without intermediary in\nthe mirror of our soul, and is united to Him, still the image is not\nthe mirror, for God does not become the creature. But the union of the\nimage with the mirror is so great and so noble that the soul is called\nthe mirror of God.\n\n\u201cFurther, that very image of God which we have received and which we\ncarry in our souls is the Son of God, the eternal mirror of divine\nwisdom, in which we all dwell, and are continually reflected. Yet we\nare not the wisdom of God, otherwise we should have created ourselves,\nwhich is impossible and a suggestion savouring of heresy. For whatever\nwe are and whatever we have, we have received all from God and not\nfrom ourselves. And although this sublimity is so great a thought for\nour soul, yet is it hidden from the sinner and from many righteous\npersons. And all that we can know by the light of nature is incomplete\nand savourless and without emotion, for we cannot contemplate God or\nfind Him reigning in our souls without His aid and grace, and without\ndiligently exercising ourselves in His love.\u201d\n\n_The Book of the Spiritual Tabernacle_ (_Dat boec van den Gheesteleken\nTabernacule_). _In Tabernaculum Mosis et ad id pertinentia commentaria,\nubi multa etiam Exodi, Levitici, Numerorum mysteria, divino spiritu\nexplicantur_, as Surius describes it, is the longest work of the\nhermit, and contains a strange, na\u00efve, and arbitrary interpretation of\nthe symbols of the ark of the covenant, and of the sacrifices of the\nancient law. I shall give somewhat copious extracts from this work, for\nit shows an interesting and brotherly aspect of his Flemish soul; and\nthe artistic subtlety with which he labours to elucidate his emblems,\nas well as his amusing and childlike delight in certain effects of\ncolour and of figures, reminds us now and then of his marvellous\ncontemporaries of the Cologne school, the old dreamy painters, Meister\nWilhelm and Lochner, and of the splendid succession of nameless\ndreamers, who, in lands far off from his, gave a fixed form to the\nalmost supernatural reflections of the spiritual joys of that and the\nfollowing century, which passed away so near to God and so far from\nearth.\n\nHere is what he says with regard to the offering of the poor as\ncommanded in the Jewish law:--\n\n\u201cAnd they (the doves) shall keep near streams and beside clear waters,\nso that if any bird flies downwards to seize them or to do them any\ninjury, they may recognise him by his reflection in the water and\nbeware of him. The clear water is Holy Scripture, the lives of saints,\nand the mercy of God. We shall reflect ourselves therein when we are\ntempted, and so none shall be able to hurt us. These doves have a\nloving nature, and young doves are often born of them, for whenever, to\nthe glory of God and for our own felicity, we think of sin with scorn\nand hatred, and of virtue with love, we give birth to young doves--that\nis to say, to new virtues.\u201d\n\nIn the following passages he pictures, with the help of these same\ndoves, the offering of Saint Paul:--\n\n\u201cAnd our Lord replied that His grace should be sufficient for him, for\nvirtue is perfected in the weakness of temptations. When he understood\nthis he offered these two doves into the hands of our Lord. For he\nrenounced self, and willingly became poor, and bent the necks of his\ndoves (that is, his desires) under the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ\nand of the Holy Church. And Christ broke the necks and the wings of the\ndoves, and then he became incapable of desiring or of flying towards\nany desire except that which was God\u2019s will. And then Christ placed the\nhead (that is to say, the will, which was dead and powerless) under the\nbroken wings, and then the doves were ready to be consumed; and so the\nholy apostle says: \u2018Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my\nweakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.\u2019\u201d\n\nLet us consider further the extraordinary interpretation of the\nspiritual flowers embroidered on the hangings of the tabernacle:--\n\n\u201cOn these four curtains of divers colours the Lord ordered Bezaleel\nand Aholiab to weave and to embroider with the needle many ornaments.\nSo likewise our obedient will and our intelligence will place upon\nthese four colours divers ornaments of virtues. On the white colour of\ninnocence we shall place red roses, by evermore resisting all that is\nevil. Thus we maintain purity and crucify our own nature, and these red\nroses with their sweet perfume are very lovely on the white colour.\nAgain, upon innocence we shall embroider sunflowers, by which we mean\nobedience; for when the sun rises in the east, the sunflower opens\ntowards its rays, and turns ever eagerly towards the sun, even until\nits setting in the west; and at night it closes and hides its colours\nand awaits the return of the sun. Even so will we open our hearts by\nobedience towards the illumination of the grace of God, and humbly\nand eagerly will we follow that grace so long as we feel the warmth\nof love. And when the light of grace ceases to awaken fresh emotions,\nand we feel the warmth of love but little, or feel it not at all, then\nit is night, when we shall close our heart to all that may tempt it;\nand so shall we shut up within ourselves the golden colour of love,\nawaiting a new dawn, with its new brightness and its fresh emotions;\nand thus shall we preserve innocence always in its pristine splendour.\nOn the blue colour, which is like the firmament, we shall embroider\nbirds with varied plumage; in other words, we shall keep before our\nminds, with clear observation, the lives and the works of the saints,\nwhich are manifold. These works are their varied plumage, so gracious\nand so beautiful, and with this they adorned themselves and soared to\nheaven. They are birds which we must observe with attention; if we are\nlike them in their plumage, we shall follow them to their eternal\nrest. On the purple colour (that is, violet or blood-red, meaning\ngenerosity) we shall place water-lilies, and these symbolise the free\npossession of all the treasures of God. For we notice four things in\nthe water-lily. It keeps itself always above the water, and has four\ngreen leaves between the air and the water; and it is rooted in the\nearth, and above it is opened out to the sun; and it is a remedy for\nthose who are fevered. So also may we, by generosity and freedom of\nspirit, possess the waves of all the riches of God. And between this\nfree possession by our spirit and the waves of the lavish gifts of God,\nwe shall have green leaves--that is to say, an earnest consideration\nof the way in which the eternal liberality of God flows forth, with\never new gifts to men, and we shall consider also how the gifts are\nbestowed with discrimination, according to the nature of the beloved\nones who receive them, and how the final cause of all the gifts is\nthe generous outflow of divine love; and the more immediate cause the\nwisdom and generosity in human creatures, which makes them resemble\nGod. For none can know the wealth of the gifts of God except the wise\nand generous man, who, out of the treasures of God, can give wisely and\ngenerously to all creatures. So shall we adorn generosity, and then we\nshall be rooted in the soil of all the gifts--that is to say, in the\nHoly Spirit, as the water-lily is rooted deep down under the water. And\nwe shall open our hearts in the air above, towards truth and towards\nthe sun of righteousness. And thus we are a remedy for all the world;\nfor the generous heart which possesses the treasures of God, ought to\nfill, console, refresh, and cool all those who are afflicted. And it\nis thus that the purple colour is adorned with the red colour--that\nis to say, with burning love. On it we shall place bright stars, by\nwhich I mean pious and devout prayer for the good of our neighbour, and\nreverent and secret communion between God and ourselves. These are the\nstars which illuminate with their brightness the kingdoms of heaven and\nof earth, and they make us inwardly light-giving and fruit-bearing, and\nfix us in the firmament of eternal life.\u201d\n\nI shall next translate the whole of the \u201cchapter on fishes,\u201d with its\namazing analogies:--\n\n\u201cThis is why the symbolic law ordered the Jews to eat clean fish, which\nhad scales and fins; and all other fish were unclean and were forbidden\nby the law. By this we understand that our inner life ought to have a\nclothing of virtues, and our inward devotions ought to be covered with\nthe application of our reason, just as the fish is clothed and adorned\nwith its scales. And our loving power should move in four different\nways:--in triumphing over our own will, in loving God, in desiring to\nresist our own nature, and in seeking to acquire virtues. These are\nfour fins between which our inward life should swim, as fish do, in\nthe water of divine grace. The fish has besides, in the middle of its\nbody, a straight fin, which remains motionless in all its movements.\nSo our inward feelings, firmly centred, should be empty of everything\nand without personal preference; in other words, we should allow God\nto act in us and in all things, both in heaven and earth. The fourth\nscale balances us in the mercy of God and in true divine peace. And so\nour devotion has fins and scales and becomes for us a pure nourishment\nwhich pleases God. But the scales which clothe and adorn our inward\nexercises should be of four colours, for some fish have gray scales,\nothers red scales, others green scales, and others again white scales.\nThe gray scales teach us that the images with which we clothe our\ndevotions must be humble; in other words, we must think of our sins,\nof our want of virtue, of the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ, and\nof His mother, and of all things which may abase and humble us, and\nwe shall love poverty and contempt and to be unknown and despised by\neverybody. This is the gray colour, which is very beautiful in the eyes\nof God.\n\n\u201cFurther, we shall clothe our devotions with red scales--that is to\nsay, we shall remember that the Son of God laid down His life for love\nof us, and we shall keep His passion in our memory, like a glorious\nmirror before our inward eyes, so that we may remember His love and\nconsole ourselves in all our sorrows. And we shall also think of the\nmany torments of the martyrs, who by their sufferings followed our Lord\ninto eternal life. These are red scales, set well in order, and they\nare a delightful clothing for our inward emotions.\n\n\u201cThen, again, we shall adorn our secret thoughts with green scales.\nI mean that we shall earnestly meditate upon the noble lives of\nconfessors and saints, remembering how they despised the world, and by\nwhat wonderful work and in what divers ways they honoured and served\nGod. Green is the colour which attracts and rejoices loving hearts and\nwilling eyes. Let us stir our fins, then, and follow the saints by\nimitating their good works to the utmost of our power.\n\n\u201cAgain, we shall clothe our inward exercise with white scales; in\nother words, we shall glass ourselves in the purity of virgins, and\nshall observe how they fought and how they conquered flesh and blood,\nby which is meant the inclination of nature. This is why they wear\nthe crown of gold and follow the Lamb, who is Christ, with new songs,\nwhich none shall sing save those who have preserved chastity in soul\nand body. But if we have lost purity, we may still acquire innocence\nand clothe ourselves with other virtues, and so we may reach the day\nof judgment shining brighter than the sun, and possess the glory of\nGod through an unending eternity. In this way, then, we shall cover\nour inward devotion with four kinds of scales, and each kind shall\nhave the active fins of good-will; that is, we must desire to carry out\nin good works that which we understand by our intelligence. So shall\nour spiritual nourishment be clean; for knowledge and wisdom without\na virtuous life are like scales without fins; and practical virtues\nwithout reflection are fins without scales; and so we must know, love,\nand practise virtues, in order that our life may be pure; and then we\nshall be nourished with clean fish which have scales and fins.\u201d\n\nI give next the following passage:--\n\n\u201cFurther, each lamp had a vase of gold, full of water, in which was\nextinguished the fire taken away from the wicks. By this we learn\nthat every gift demands from our mind a desire towards every cardinal\nvirtue--a desire so simple that we can feel in ourselves the yearning\nof love after union with God. We observe this in Jesus Christ, who\nis our mirror in all things; for in every virtue which He practised,\nHe excelled so lovingly that He sought ardently after union with His\nFather. And we shall unite all our yearnings in that loving yearning\nwhich He felt towards His Father in all cardinal virtues. For our\nloving yearnings are our golden vases, full of water--that is, of truth\nand righteousness--we shall plunge into them our burning wicks, the\nacts, that is, of all the virtues which we have practised; we shall\nplunge them in and extinguish them, by commending ourselves to His\nrighteousness, and by uniting ourselves to His adorable merits; without\nthis the wick of all our virtues would smoke and would have an evil\nsavour before God and before all His saints.\u201d\n\nElsewhere, he examines the twelve jewels of the Breastplate, and\nsees in them reflections of eternal symbols, as well as unsuspected,\nprecise, and suggestive analogies. Let us see whether it is not so.\n\n\u201cIn the rays of the sun, the topaz surpasses in splendour all precious\nstones; and even so does the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ excel in\nglory and in majesty all the saints and all the angels because of His\nunion with the eternal Father. And in this union the reflection of the\nDivine Sun is so clear and glorious that it attracts and reflects in\nits clearness all the eyes of saints and angels in immediate vision,\nand those also of just men to whom its splendour is revealed. So\nlikewise does the topaz attract and reflect in itself the eyes of those\nwho behold it, because of its great clearness. But if you were to cut\nthe topaz it would darken, while if you leave it in its natural state\nit will remain clear. And so, too, if you examine and try to penetrate\nthe splendour of the eternal Word, that splendour will darken and you\nwill lose it. But leave it as it is, and follow it with earnest gaze,\nand with self-abnegation, and it will give you light.\u201d\n\nLet us next consider the curious correspondences which he discovered in\nother precious stones:--\n\n\u201cIn this article we compare Christ to the noble sapphire, of which\nthere are two kinds. The first is yellow with shades of purple and\nseems to be mingled with powdered gold; the other is sky-blue, and\nin the rays of the sun it gives forth a burning splendour, and one\ncannot see through it. And we find all this in our Lord, in this fifth\narticle of the creed. For when His noble soul rose to heaven, His\nbody lay in the tomb--yellow, because of the soul\u2019s departure; purple,\nbecause of His bleeding wounds; and mingled with powdered gold because\nHe was united to the divine nature. And His soul descended into hell,\nblue as the sky, so that all his friends rejoiced and were glad in\nHis splendour; and in His resurrection the splendour becomes so great\nand so powerful, both in body and soul, through the illumination of\nthe Divine Sun, that it darts forth lightnings and burning rays, and\ninflames with love all things which it touches. And none can see\nthrough that noble sapphire, Christ, because in His divine nature there\nis a depth unfathomable.\u201d\n\nI pass over the amethyst \u201cfrom which red roses seem to flow forth,\u201d and\nas a closing passage from this work, I shall translate the last three\nsymbols: those of the chrysolite, the emerald, and the jasper.\n\nFirst of all, the chrysolite:--\n\n\u201cThe communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins are obtained by\nthe _waves of the night_--that is to say, by two sacraments of the\nHoly Church, baptism and penance. These are the waves which by faith\nwash that night of darkness, sin. And God has sworn, even from the\ntime of Abraham, that He would give Himself to us and would become\nour familiar friend, and because of His all-embracing and overflowing\nlove, He has willed to wash us in His blood. And in order that we might\nbelieve without doubting in the oath which He sware by Himself, He has\nsealed it with His own death, and has given the merits of His death\nto all men in the Holy Church for the remission of sins, and to the\nsaints, for the adornment of their glory. That precious stone, the\nchrysolite, symbolises to us that article of the creed, \u2018the communion\nof saints, the forgiveness of sins,\u2019 for it is like the waves of the\nsea, translucent and green, and moreover it has gleams of gold. And so\nlikewise all saints and just men are translucent by grace or by glory,\nand they are green by their holy life, and they gleam with the gold of\ndivine love which shines through them. And these three adornments are\ncommon to all saints and to all just persons, for they are the treasure\nof the holy churches, here and in eternal life. And all who by penance\nhave put away from them the colour of the Red Sea--that is, a sinful\nlife--are like the chrysolite.\n\n\u201cYou must know that this sea is red because of its country and the\ncolour of its bed. It is between Jericho and Zoar, Jericho signifies\n\u2018the moon,\u2019 and Zoar the beast which blinds the reason. Between\nthe moon of inconstancy and the inclination of reason towards the\nbeast, there is always the Red Sea--that is to say, an impure life.\nNo creature can live in the Red Sea, and whatever does not live in it\nsinks to the bottom; and that is why it is called the Dead Sea, because\nthere is no movement in it, and it is like bitumen or pitch, because it\nseizes and slays whatever enters it, and in this way it very closely\nresembles sin, which seizes man and puts him to spiritual death in the\nsight of God, and plunges him into hell.\u201d\n\nLet us see, lastly, how he applies the emerald and the jasper to the\nthird and sixth articles of the Apostles\u2019 Creed:--\n\n\u201cIn this article we compare to the Son of God that beautiful stone\nwhich is called the emerald, and which is so green that neither leaves\nnor grass nor any other green thing can compare with its viridity. And\nit fills and feeds with its greenness the eyes of those who behold it.\nNow when the eternal Word of the Father was made man, then was seen the\ngreenest colour ever known on earth. That union of natures is so green\nand so lovely and so joyful, that no other colour can equal it; and so\nin a holy vision it has filled and fed the eyes of such men as have\nprepared themselves to perceive it. Nothing is more lovely and more\npleasant to the eye than the emerald when it has been cut and polished,\nand everything that it reflects may be recognised and seen as in a\nmirror. And so, if we examine in detail the divine being of Him who\ntook our nature through His love for us, we must needs admire, and we\ncannot sufficiently praise its sublimity. And when we consider how He\nbecame man, we must be ashamed of ourselves, remembering His humility,\nand we cannot abase ourselves too deeply. And when we remember what His\nmotive was in becoming man, we cannot rejoice enough or love Him as He\ndeserves.\n\n\u201cIn these three ways we shall behold with eager desire, and we shall\npolish and lovingly examine Christ our noble emerald; and so doing, we\nshall find nothing more pleasant to the eyes of our reason, nothing\nmore attractive, for we shall find Him reflected in us, and we shall\nfind ourselves re-echoed in Him through His grace and a virtuous life,\nand so we shall turn away from earthly things and keep this mirror ever\nbefore our eyes.\n\n\u201cIn another article we compare Christ to the noble jasper, which has\na green colour, very pleasant to the eye; and it almost equals the\nemerald in its greenness. And so we compare it to the ascension of our\nLord, who was green and beautiful in the eyes of the apostles, and so\npleasant that they could never forget Him during all their lives. And\nwe shall rightly have the same experience; we shall consider that the\nnoble emerald, the eternal Word, descended into our nature because of\nHis love for us, with an overflowing greenness, and we shall rejoice\nin this above all, for this vision is full of grace. We shall further\nconsider that the glorious jasper, by which I mean our Lord Jesus,\nascended to heaven wearing our nature, and is seated at the right hand\nof the Father, and has prepared for us the state of glory--Amen.\u201d\n\nNext comes _The Book of the Twelve Virtues_, which Laurentius Surius\nentitles more exactly _Tractatus de pr\u00e6cipuis quibusdam virtutibus_.\nIn it the hermit of Gr\u00f6nendal seems to have made a violent effort to\nopen his bodily eyes, and all his thoughts are intertwined with the\nsimplicity of divine children, in the green and blue rays of humility\nand mercy, while his prose, which is usually quite impersonal, is\nenlivened here with various counsels and practical matters.\n\nHere is a fragment on humility:--\n\n\u201cTo reach the lowest place is to have no longer any desire towards\nevil; and as we have always some sin to forsake, so long as we are in\nthis mortal life, we never reach the lowest place, for to die is to\nattain, not according to the senses, but in a spiritual paradox. And if\nany one were to say that to be steeped in humility is to have reached\nthe lowest place, I should not contradict his opinion. But it seems to\nme that to bathe oneself in humility is to bathe oneself in God, for\nGod is the source of humility, and He is at the same height and the\nsame depth above and below all places. And between self-abasement and\nthe attainment of the lowest place, there is, to my mind, a difference.\nFor to reach the lowest place is to have no longer any desire towards\nevil, and to experience self-abasement is to be steeped in humility,\nand that is self-annihilation in God and death in God. Now, we have\nalways something to forsake so long as we live, and to have nothing\nmore to forsake is to have reached the lowest place. This is why we\ncannot attain to the lowest place. For what man was ever so humble\nthat he could not have been more humble still? and who ever loved so\nfervently that he could not have loved more fervently still? Except\nChrist, assuredly not one. And so let us never be satisfied while in\nthis dying life, for we may always become more humble than we are\nto-day. It is a most joyful thought that we have so great and good a\nGod that we can never give Him sufficient homage and praise. Yes, not\neven if each single man could give every moment that which is given\nby all men and by all angels. But if we steep ourselves in humility,\nthat is enough, and we please God by Himself, for in that immersion we\nare _one life_ in Him, not according to nature, but by being bathed in\nhumility, because by humility we have descended below our creation,\nand we have flowed into God, who is the source of humility. And there\nwe lack nothing, for we are beyond ourselves and in God, and there is\nneither giving nor receiving, nor anything which can be called _there_,\nfor it is neither _there_ nor _here_, but I know not where.\u201d\n\nFrom the same book I transcribe the following passage on detachment\nfrom all things:--\n\n\u201cNow, he who has found God thus reigning in him by His grace, and who\ndwells in God above the measure of his human strength, may remain\ninsensible to joy, to grief, and to the multitude of creatures. For\nGod is _essenced_ in him, and he is more disposed to introversion than\nto extroversion; and this essence is recalled to him wherever man is\nfound; and this inclination and this essence are never forgotten,\nunless the man should deliberately turn away from God; and this he\nwill not readily do, for he who has experienced God in this way cannot\neasily turn away from Him. I do not say that this can never happen, for\nno one is certain of anything in this mortal life, except of certain\nrevelations.\n\n\u201cGod takes by His divine power the man whom he has _essenced_ in\nhimself in this way, and enlightens him in everything, for everything\nis full to him of divine enjoyment; for he who refers all things to the\nglory of God, enjoys God in all things, and he sees in them the image\nof God. For he takes all from the hand of God, thanks Him and praises\nHim in everything, and God shines ever brightly before him, for he\nwatches God with close attention, and never willingly turns away to\nworthless things. And as soon as he sees that he has turned towards\nworthless things, he at once turns away from them with great bitterness\nagainst himself, and bewails his unfaithfulness to God and resolves\nnever again to turn knowingly towards worthless things. For all is bare\nand empty in which there is not either the glory of God or the good of\nour neighbour or our own salvation. He who thus watches over himself is\nless and less distracted, for his friend is often present with him,\nand that delights him above all. He is like to one who has a burning\nthirst. In his thirst he does nothing but drink. He may think of many\nother things besides the thirst which consumes him; but whatever he\ndoes, and whoever he is, or of whatever object he thinks, the image\nof drink does not disappear from his mind so long as he suffers from\nthirst. And the longer the thirst endures, the greater is the suffering\nof the man. And it is even so with the man who loves anything so\npassionately that he has no taste for aught besides, while nothing\nreally touches his heart except that with which he is busied, and on\nwhich his love is set. Wherever he may be, with whomsoever he may find\nhimself, nothing removes from him that which he so ardently loves. And\nhe sees in all things the image of the beloved object; and the greater\nand more powerful his love, the more vividly that image is present to\nhim. He does not seek repose and idleness that he may enjoy it, for no\ndistraction hinders him from having the image of the beloved abiding\never with him.\u201d\n\nLet us glance next at the little work on _Christian Faith_, to which\nSurius gives the title _De fide et judicio, tractatulus insignis_. Its\ntwenty pages form a kind of catechism, splendid in its precision, from\nwhich I take the following fragment on the happiness of the elect:--\n\n\u201cWe shall behold with our inward eyes the mirror of the wisdom of\nGod, in which shall shine and be illumined all things which have ever\nexisted and which can rejoice our hearts. And we shall hear with our\noutward ears the melody and the sweet songs of saints and angels, who\nshall praise God throughout eternity. And with our inner ears we shall\nhear the inborn Word of the Father; and in this Word we shall receive\nall knowledge and all truth. And the sublime fragrance of the Holy\nSpirit shall pass before us, sweeter than all balms and precious herbs\nthat ever were; and this fragrance shall draw us out of ourselves,\ntowards the eternal love of God, and we shall taste His everlasting\ngoodness, sweeter than all honey, and it shall feed us, and enter into\nour soul and our body; and we shall be ever an hungered and athirst\nfor it, and because of our hunger and thirst, these delights and this\nnourishment shall remain with us for ever, ever more renewed; and this\nis eternal life.\n\n\u201cWe shall understand by love and we shall be understood by love, and\nGod shall possess us and we Him in unity. We shall enjoy God, and,\nunited to Him, we shall rest in blessedness. And this measureless\ndelight, in that super-essential rest, is the ultimate source of\nblessedness, for we are then swallowed up in satisfaction beyond all\npossibility of hunger. Hunger can have no place in it, for there is\nnothing here but unity; all loving spirits shall here fall asleep in\nsuper-essential darkness, and nevertheless they shall live and wake for\never in the light of glory.\u201d\n\nNext we come to _The Book of the Sparkling Stone, De Calculo, sive de\nperfectione filiorum Dei, libellus admirabilis_, as Surius adds. Here\nthe subject is the mysterious stone of which the Spirit says in the\nApocalypse: _Et dabo illi (vincenti) calculum candidum, et in calculo\nnomen novum scriptum, quod nemo scit nisi qui accepit_ (Rev. ii. 17).\nThis stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the\nsymbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which\nimages the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses\nof those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted\nsobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of\ncontemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness.\nLet us examine this passage:--\n\n\u201cAnd hence follows the third point, that is to say, an inward exercise\nabove reason and without restraint; for that union with God which every\nloving spirit has possessed in love continually attracts and draws\ntowards the inmost centre of its essence the divine persons and all\nloving spirits; and all those who love feel this attraction, more or\nless, according to their love and their holy exercises. And he who\nkeeps guard over this attraction and clings closely to it cannot fall\ninto deadly sin. But the contemplative one, who has renounced his own\nbeing and all things else, does not experience an expulsive force,\nbecause he no longer possesses anything, but is emptied of all; and so\nhe can always enter naked and imageless into the secret place of his\nspirit. There he sees the eternal light revealed, and in that light\nhe feels an eternal craving for union with God. And he himself feels\na constant fire of love which desires above all things to be one with\nGod. And the more he observes that attraction and that craving, the\nmore keenly he feels it; and the more he feels it, the more he desires\nto be one with God, for he longs to pay the debt which God calls on him\nto pay. This eternal craving for union with God causes the spirit to\nglow evermore with love; but as the spirit uninterruptedly continues\npaying its debt, a perpetual consumption goes on within it; for in\nthe refreshment of unity all spirits grow weary in their task, and\nfeel only the absorption of everything into simple unity with God.\nThis simple unity can be felt and possessed by none save by those who\nstand before the immense brightness and before love, above reason and\nwithout restraint. In this presence the spirit feels itself perpetually\ninflamed with love; and in this glow of love it finds neither beginning\nnor end. And it feels itself _one_ with that burning fire of love.\nThe spirit remains always on fire in itself, for its love is eternal,\nand it feels itself always consumed away in love; for it is attracted\ntowards the refreshment of union with God, in which the spirit burns\nwith love. If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and a\ndifference between itself and God, but where it burns it is pure and\nhas no distinction, and that is why it feels nothing else but unity;\nfor the immeasurable flame of the divine love consumes and swallows up\nall that it has enveloped in its essence.\n\n\u201cAnd you may thus understand that the attracting unity of God is\nnothing else save boundless love, which lovingly draws inwards, in\neternal enjoyment, the Father, the Son, and all who live in love. And\nwe desire to burn and be consumed in that love everlastingly, for\nin it the blessedness of all spirits is found. And so we ought all\nto found our lives on a fathomless abyss; we shall thus be able to\ndescend evermore in love, and to plunge ourselves beyond ourselves\ninto its unsounded depths; and by the same love we shall rise and go\nbeyond ourselves into its inconceivable height, and we shall wander in\nthat measureless love, and it will lead us away into the boundless\nexpanse of the love of God. And there will be a flow and outflow\nbeyond ourselves, in the unknown pleasure of the divine goodness and\nriches. There will be an eternal fusion and transfusion, absorption and\nperabsorption of ourselves in the glory of God. See how, in each of\nthese comparisons, I have shown to the contemplative mind its essence\nand its inward exercises. But no other can understand me, for no man\ncan teach contemplation to his fellow. But when the eternal truth is\nrevealed to the spirit, it is instructed in all that is needful.\u201d\n\nI ought in fairness to translate also the many strange things in\nchapters vi., vii., and viii., which deal with \u201cThe difference between\nthe hirelings and the faithful servants of God,\u201d \u201cThe difference\nbetween the faithful servants and the secret friends of God,\u201d and \u201cThe\ndifference between the secret friends and the hidden sons of God.\u201d\nHere it does really seem as if the anchorite of the Green Valley had\ndipped into things beyond this world. But having run to such lengths\nalready, I can hardly attempt it I must, however, be permitted to give\nthe following fragment, which shall be the last from this book. It is\nstrangely beautiful:--\n\n\u201cUnderstand, now, that this is the mode of progress: in our going\ntowards God, we ought to carry our being and all our works before\nus, as an eternal offering to God; and in presence of God we shall\nsurrender ourselves and all our works, and, dying in love, we shall\npass beyond all creation into the super-essential kingdom of God. There\nwe shall possess God in an eternal death to ourselves. And this is why\nthe Spirit of God says in the book of the Apocalypse, \u2018Blessed are the\ndead who die in the Lord.\u2019 Rightly indeed does He call them the blessed\ndead, for they remain continually dead to themselves and immersed\nbeyond their own nature in the gladdening unity of God. And they die\never newly in love, by the attracting refreshment of that same unity.\nFurthermore, the divine Spirit saith, \u2018They shall rest from their\nlabours, and their works shall follow them.\u2019 In this finite existence,\nwhere we are born of God into a spiritual and virtuous life, we carry\nour works before us as an offering to God; but in that unconditioned\nlife, where we die anew in God, into a life of everlasting blessedness,\nour good works follow us, for they are one life with us. In our walk\ntowards God, God dwells within us; but in our death to ourselves and\nto all things besides, we dwell in God. If we have faith, hope, and\nlove, we have received God, and He dwells in us with His mercies, and\nHe sends us out as His faithful servants, to keep His commandments. And\nHe calls us in as His mysterious friends, and we obey His counsels. But\nabove all things, if we desire to enjoy God, or to experience eternal\nlife within us, we must rise far above human reason, and enter into God\nthrough faith; and there we shall remain pure, at rest, and free from\nall similitudes, lifted by love into the open nakedness of thought. For\nwhen in love we die to all things, when in ignorance and obscurity we\ndie to all the notice of the world, we are wrought and reformed by the\neternal Word, who is an image of the Father. And in the repose of our\nspirit we receive the incomprehensible splendour which envelops and\npenetrates us, just as the air is penetrated by the brightness of the\nsun. And this splendour is merely a boundless vision and a boundless\nbeholding. What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we\nare; for our thought, our life, and our essence are closely united with\nthat truth which is God, and are raised along with it. And that is why\nin this pure vision we are one life and one spirit with God; and this\nis what I call a contemplative life. By connecting ourselves closely to\nGod through love, we choose the better part; but when we thus behold\nGod in super-essence, we possess Him altogether. This contemplation\nis united with an untrammelled inward devotion, that is to say, with\na life in which earthly things are destroyed; for when we go outside\nourselves into darkness and into unlimited freedom, the pure ray of\nthe brightness of God shines perpetually on us; we are fixed in the\nray, and it draws us out of ourselves into our super-essence till\nwe are overwhelmed in love. And this overwhelming in love is always\naccompanied and followed by the free inward exercise of love. For\nlove cannot be idle; it longs by knowledge and taste to enter into\nthe immense riches which dwell in its inmost heart; and its hunger\nis inappeasable. To be always receiving in this powerlessness is to\nswim against the stream. We can neither leave nor take, do without nor\nreceive, speak nor be silent, for it is above reason and intelligence,\nand higher than all created beings. And so we can neither attain nor\npursue it; but we shall look within, and there we shall feel that the\nSpirit of God is leading us and drawing us on in this impatience of\nlove. We shall look above, and there we shall feel that the Spirit of\nGod is drawing us out of ourselves, and that we are lost in Him--that\nis, in the super-essential love with which we are one, and which we\npossess more deeply and more widely than all other things.\n\n\u201cThis possession is a pure and profound enjoyment of all good and of\neternal life; and we are swallowed up in this enjoyment, above reason\nand without reason, in the deep calm of Godhead, which shall nevermore\nbe stirred. It is by experience only that we can know that this is\ntrue. For how this is, or who, or in what place, or what, neither\nreason nor inward exercise can tell us, and it is for this reason that\nour inward exercise which follows must remain without mode or limit.\nFor we can neither conceive nor understand the unfathomable good which\nwe possess and enjoy; neither by our inward exercises can we go out\nof ourselves to enter into it. And so we are poor in ourselves, but\nrich in God; hungry and thirsty in ourselves, satiated and full of\nwine in God; laborious in ourselves, in God enjoying perfect rest. And\nthus we shall remain throughout eternity. For without the exercises of\nlove we can never possess God, and he who feels or thinks otherwise is\ndeceived. And thus we live wholly in God, by possessing our beatitude,\nand we live wholly in ourselves by exercising our souls in love towards\nGod; and although we live wholly in God and wholly in ourselves, yet it\nis but one life, which has two-fold and contrary sensations. For riches\nand poverty, hunger and satiety, work and idleness, these things are\nabsolutely contrary to one another. Nevertheless, in this consists the\nnobility of our nature, now and everlastingly, for it is impossible\nthat we should become God, or lose our created essence. But if we\nremain wholly in ourselves, separated from God, we shall be miserable\nand unsaved; and so we ought to feel ourselves living wholly in God and\nwholly in ourselves, and between these two sensations we shall find\nnothing but the grace of God and the exercises of our love. For from\nthe height of our highest sensation, the splendour of God shines upon\nus, and it teaches us truth and impels us towards all virtues into the\neternal love of God. Without interruption we follow this splendour on\nto the source from which it flows, and there we feel that our spirits\nare stripped of all things and bathed beyond thought of rising in the\npure and infinite ocean of love. If we remained there continually,\nwith a pure vision, we should never lose this experience, for our\nimmersion in the enjoyment of God would be without interruption,\nif we had gone out of ourselves and were swallowed up in love, so\npossessing God. For if, overwhelmed in love, and lost to ourselves, we\nare the possessors of God, God is ours and we are His, and we plunge\nfar beyond our depth, eternally and irrevocably having God as our own.\nThis immersion in love becomes the habit of our being, and so it takes\nplace while we sleep and while we wake, whether we know it or whether\nwe know it not. And in this way it deserves no other praise; but it\nmaintains us in possession of God and of all the good which we have\nreceived from His hands. It is like unto streams, which, without pause\nand without returning, flow continually into the sea, since that is\nthe place to which they belong. And so, if we possess God alone, the\nimmersion of our being through habitual love is always, and without\nreturn, flowing into an unfathomable emotion, which we possess, and\nwhich belongs to us. If we were always pure, and if we always beheld\nwith the same directness of vision, we should have such a feeling as\nthis. Now, this immersion in love is above all virtues, and above all\nthe practices of love. For it is simply an eternal going forth out of\nourselves, by a clear prevision, into a changed state, towards which\nwe lean out of ourselves, as if towards our beatitude. For we feel\nourselves eternally drawn outside ourselves and towards another. And\nthis is the most secret and the most hidden distinction which we can\nexperience between God and ourselves, and above it there is no more any\ndifference. Nevertheless, our reason remains with its eyes open in the\ndarkness--that is to say, in infinite ignorance--and in that darkness\nthe boundless splendour remains secret and hidden from us, for the\npresence of its immensity blinds our reason. But it wraps us round with\nits purity and transforms us by its essence, and so we are wrought\nout of our personality and transformed until, overwhelmed in love, we\npossess our beatitude, and are one with God.\u201d\n\nLet us next look at _The Book of the Seven Steps of the Ladder of Love_\n(called by Surius _De Septem Gradibus amoris, libellus optimus_) in\nwhich the prior of Gr\u00f6nendal studies seven virtues which lead from\nintroversion to the confines of absorption. This seems to me one of\nthe most beautiful works of a saint, whose works are all strange and\nbeautiful I ought to translate from it some rather singular passages;\namong others, that in which he discusses the four melodies of heaven;\nbut space fails us, and this introduction is already too long. I shall\ncontent myself with giving the following page:--\n\n\u201cThe Holy Spirit cries in us with a loud voice and without words,\n\u2018Love the love which loves you everlastingly.\u2019 His crying is an inward\ncontact with our spirit. This voice is more terrifying than the storm.\nThe flashes which it darts forth open the sky to us and show us the\nlight of eternal truth. The heat of its contact and of its love is\nso great that it well-nigh consumes us altogether. In its contact\nwith our spirit it cries without interruption, \u2018Pay your debt; love\nthe love which has loved you from all eternity.\u2019 Hence there arises\na great inward impatience and also an unlimited resignation. For the\nmore we love, the more we desire to love; and the more we pay of that\nwhich love demands, the greater becomes our debt to love. Love is\nnot silent, but cries continually, \u2018Love thou love.\u2019 This conflict is\nunknown to alien senses. To love and to enjoy, that is to labour and\nto suffer. God lives in us by His grace. He teaches us, He counsels\nus, He commands us to love. We live in Him above all grace and above\nour own works, by suffering and enjoying. In us dwell love, knowledge,\ncontemplation, and possession, and, above them, enjoyment. Our work is\nto love God; our enjoyment is to receive the embrace of love.\n\n\u201cBetween love and enjoyment there is a distinction, even as between\nGod and His grace. We are spirits when we hold fast by love, but when\nHe robs us of our spirit, and re-makes us by His own spirit, then we\nare enjoyment. The Spirit of God breathes us out towards love and\ngood works, and it breathes us in to rest and enjoyment; and that is\neternal life, just as we breathe out the air which is in us and breathe\nin fresh air; and in that consists our mortal life and nature. And\nalthough our spirit should be ravished and its powers fail in enjoyment\nand in blessedness, it is always renewed in grace, in charity, and in\nvirtues. And so what I love is to enter into a restful enjoyment, to\ngo forth in good works, and to remain always united to the Spirit of\nGod. Just as we open the eyes of the body, see, and shut them again, so\nquickly that we hardly notice what we have done, even so we die in God,\nwe live out of God, and we remain always one with Him.\u201d\n\nNext we have _The Book of the Seven Castles_, called by Laurentius\nSurius _De Septem Custodiis, Opusculum longe piissimum_. It is not\nwithout resemblance to the _Castle of the Soul_, by Saint Teresa of\nAvila, which has also seven dwellings, of which prayer is the door.\nThe hermit of the forest of Soignes sends this work, with the _Mirror\nof Eternal Salvation_, \u201cTo the holy Clare, Margaret van Meerbeke, of\nthe convent of Brussels,\u201d and so the counsels on which he touches in\nthe prologue have a slight note of pitying sadness. For instance, he\nteaches her in what way she shall go to the window of the convent\nparlour, shutting out from her eyes the face of man; and speaks of\nthe joy of pain and the care of the sick, with pale counsels for the\nsick-ward. Then there rise the seven spiritual castles of St. Clara,\nthe doors of which are closed by divine grace, and must no more be\nopened to look into the streets of the heart. Let us hear what follows,\nstill on the subject of love:--\n\n\u201cAnd the loving soul cannot give itself wholly to God, nor perfectly\nreceive God, for all that it receives is but a little thing as\ncompared with that which it lacks, and counts as nothing in its eager\nemotion. And so it is disturbed, and falls into impatience, and into\nthe strong passion of love; for it can neither do without God nor have\nHim, reach His depth nor His height, follow nor forsake Him. And this\nis the storm and the spiritual plague of which I have spoken; for no\ntongue can describe the many storms and agitations which arise from\nthe two sides of love. For love makes a man now hot, now cold; now\nbold, now timid; now joyous, now sorrowful; it brings him fear, hope,\ndespair, tears, complaints, songs, praises, and such things without\nnumber. Such are the sufferings of those who live in the passion of\nlove; and yet this is the most spiritual and the most useful life which\nman can live, each according to his own capacity. But where man\u2019s\nmethod fails and can reach no higher, then God\u2019s method begins; where\nman, by his sufferings, his love, and his unsatisfied desires, entwines\nhimself with God and cannot be united to Him, then the Spirit of our\nLord comes like a fierce fire which burns and consumes and swallows up\nall things in itself, so that the man forgets his inward exercises, and\nforgets himself and feels just as if he were one spirit and one love\nwith God. Here our senses and all our powers are silent, and they are\ncalmed and satisfied, for the fountain of divine goodness and wealth\nhas flowed over everything, and each has received more than he can\ndesire.\n\n\u201cNext comes the third method, which we attribute to our heavenly\nFather--that in which He empties the memory of forms and images, and\nlifts up our naked thought to the ultimate source, which is Himself.\nThere man is fixed firmly at his beginning, which is God, and is\nunited to Him. And there is given to him strength and freedom to work\ninwardly and outwardly by means of all the virtues. And he receives\nknowledge and understanding in all exercises which are according to\nreason. And he learns how to receive the inward working of God and the\ntransformation of the divine methods, which are above reason, even as\nwe have already said. And above all divine limits, he will understand\nby the same boundless intuition, the boundless essence of God, whose\nbeing is without limitation. For one cannot express it by words, nor\nby works, nor by methods, nor signs, nor similitudes, but it manifests\nitself spontaneously to the simple intuition of pure and naked thought.\n\n\u201cBut we may place on the road signs and similitudes which prepare\nman for the sight of the Kingdom of God, and you shall imagine this\nessence like the glow of a boundless fire, in which everything is\nsilently consumed--a red and motionless conflagration. And so it is\nwith the calm of essential love, which is the enjoyment of God and of\nall the saints, above all limitations, and above all the works and all\nthe practices of virtue. This love is a wave, boundless and calmed,\nof riches and joys, in which all the saints are swallowed up with God\nin an unlimited enjoyment. And this joy is wild and lonely like a\nwandering, for it has neither limit, nor road, nor path, nor rest, nor\nmeasure, nor end, nor beginning, nor anything which one can show or\nexpress by words. And this is the pure blessedness of all of us, this\ndivine essence, and our super-essence, above reason and without reason.\nIf we desire to experience it, our spirit must go forth into it, above\nour created essence, towards that eternal centre in which all our lines\nbegin and end. And in this centre these lines lose their name and all\ndistinction, and are united to this centre, and become that same unity\nwhich the centre itself is; and nevertheless in themselves they always\nremain as converging lines.\n\n\u201cSee, then, how we shall thus always remain what we are in our created\nessence, and yet by the ascent of our spirit we shall continually\npass into our super-essence. In it we shall be above ourselves, below\nourselves, beyond our breadth, beyond our length, in an eternal\nwandering which has no return.\u201d\n\nI shall say little of the small work entitled _Four Temptations_, which\ndeals with the very subtle dangers which threaten the contemplative\nmind, the most formidable of them all being quietism. With the\nexception of certain discoveries in the unknown psychology of prayer,\nthis work, which, as I have said, is very short, does not present any\nvery exceptionally lofty summit to our souls.\n\nThe other little work, which is about the same length--that is to\nsay, about twenty pages--is called _The Book of Supreme Truth_,\nor, according to Surius, _Samuel_. He adds:--\u201cQui alias de alta\ncontemplatione dicitur, verius autem apologice quorumdam sancti\nhujus viri dictorum sublimium inscribi possit.\u201d But this book is so\nmarvellous that one would need to translate the whole. At present I\nshall make no extract from it, since we can no more divide it than we\ncan divide that essence whose perpetual effusion is displayed in its\nunique and awful mirror.\n\nI come, therefore, to _The Book of the Kingdom of Lovers_, the\nstrangest and most abstract work of the sage of the Green Valley, in\nthe midst of which the soul stretches itself, and is filled with terror\nin a spiritual void which is doubtless normal, and which for the mind\nthat does not follow it is like some dark glass bell, in which there\nis neither air, nor image, nor anything that can be exactly conceived,\nexcept uninterrupted stars in the eternal spaces.\n\nThe work is founded on that verse in Wisdom, \u201cJustum deduxit per vias\nrectas et ostendit illi regnum Dei,\u201d and includes the three virtues of\ntheology and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost I proceed at once to\ntranslate, and more fully than ever.\n\nLet us look first at this passage on the deserts of being:--\n\n\u201cThe soul of man being made of nothing, which God took from nowhere,\nman has followed this nothingness, which is nowhere, and he has gone\nout of his ego into wanderings, by immersion in the simple essence\nof God, as in his own ultimate source; and he has died in God. To\ndie in God is to be blessed; and, for each one according to his own\nmerits, it involves a great difference both in grace and glory. This\nblessedness is to understand God and to be understood by God, in the\njoyful unity of the divine persons, and to have flowed by this unity\ninto the super-essence of God. Now this unity brings joy when we look\ninward, and bears fruit in our outward life, and so the fountain of\nunity flows; that is to say, the Father begets the Son, the eternal\ntruth, who is the image of the Father, in which He sees Himself and\nall things. This image is the life and cause of all creatures, for in\nthis image is everything, according to the divine mode of being; and\nby this image all things are perfectly made, and all things are wisely\nruled upon that model; and according to this image everything is set\napart for its own end, so far as it is possible for God to do so; for\nevery creature has received the means of attaining blessedness. But the\nreasonable creature is not the image of the Father, according to the\neffluence of his created mode of being, for that effluence flows forth\nin as far as it is a creature, and that is why it enjoys and loves with\nmeasure in the light of grace or of glory. For no one possesses the\ndivine nature actively according to the divine mode, except the divine\npersons themselves, since no creature can work according to an infinite\nmode, for if it worked thus it would be God and not a creature.\n\n\u201cBy His own image God has made His creatures like unto Himself in\ntheir nature, and in those who have turned to Him, He has made the\nlikeness even greater--higher than nature in the light of grace or of\nglory, each one according to the capacity which he has by the state\nof his soul or by his merits. Now all those who feel this inward\ncontact, who have an enlightened reason and the eagerness of love, and\nto whom love\u2019s infinite freedom has been revealed, enter into joyful\ncontemplation in the super-essence of God. Moreover, God is united to\nHis essence in a joyful manner, and contemplates that very essence\nwhich He enjoys. According to the mode of the enjoyment, the divine\nlight constantly fails in the infinite essence; but in contemplation\nand in a fixed and steady gaze the vision cannot be darkened, for we\nshall forever behold that which we enjoy. Those for whom the light\nconstantly fails are those who rest in enjoyments, in the midst of\nthose wild solitudes where God possesses Himself in perpetual joy;\nthere the light grows dim in rest and in the infinitude of the sublime\nessence. There God is His own throne, and all those who possess God in\ngrace and in glory in this degree are the thrones and the tabernacles\nof God, and they have died in God in an eternal rest.\n\n\u201cFrom this death there arises a super-essential life--that is to say,\na life of contemplation--and here the gift of intelligence begins. For\nGod, who without ceasing contemplates the very essence which He enjoys,\nand who grants the impatience of love to those whom He makes like unto\nHimself, gives also rest and enjoyment to those who are united with\nHim. But where there is union of being and complete immersion, there\nis no more giving or receiving. And because He grants an enlightened\nreason to those whom He makes like unto Himself, He also gives a\nboundless splendour to those who are united to Him. That boundless\nsplendour is the image of the Father. We are created in this image,\nand we are capable of being united to it in a grandeur more lofty than\nthrones, if we only contemplate, above our own human weakness, the\nglorious face of the Father--in other words, the sublime nature of\ndeity. Now this unfathomed splendour is a common gift to all spirits\nwho rejoice in grace and in glory. It thus streams forth for all like\nthe splendour of the sun, and yet those who receive it are not all\nequally enlightened. The sun shines more clearly through glass than\nthrough stone, more clearly through crystal than through glass, and\neach precious stone shines and shows its beauty and its power and its\ncolour in the light of the sun. Even so is each man enlightened both in\ngrace and in glory, according as he is capable of receiving so sublime\na gift; but he who is most enlightened in grace yet has less than he\nwho is least enlightened in glory. Nevertheless the light of glory is\nnot an intermediary between the soul and this unlimited splendour, but\nour spiritual condition, our earthly state, and our inconstancy disturb\nus, and so we have to gain merits, which those who dwell in glory have\nno need to gain.\n\n\u201cThis sublime splendour is the simple contemplation of the Father, and\nof all those who behold and rejoice, and look fixedly in one direction\nby means of an incomprehensible light, each one according as the light\nis bestowed upon him. For that measureless light shines ceaselessly\ninto all our thoughts; but the man who lives here, in this earthly\nstate, is often overwhelmed with images, so that he does not always\nactively and steadily behold the super-essence of God by means of this\nlight. But in receiving this gift he virtually possesses it, and he can\ncontemplate whenever he wills. Since the light by which we contemplate\nis unlimited, and that which we contemplate of an unfathomed depth, the\none can never reach the other; but this fixed gaze of our contemplation\nremains eternally turned towards the infinite, in the joyful presence\nof the sublime Majesty, where the Father, by His eternal wisdom, gazes\nfixedly into the depths of His own infinite being.\u201d\n\nA great part of this book on _The Kingdom of Lovers_ is written in\nsingular verses. The three-lined and breathlessly monotonous rhythm\nis rather like that of the _Stabat Mater_, only that the third line of\nevery strophe reproduces the same rhyme throughout the entire work, and\nrests on an abstract idea from which the two preceding lines rise, like\ntwin flowers of obscurity and restlessness. We can imagine this hollow\nmusic floating through the spiritual dreams of the maids of Memlinck,\nwhile their secret senses, their faces, and their little hands all\nunite in ecstasy; but unhappily a translation cannot reproduce its\ntaste of darkness and of bread soaked in the night, nor catch the image\nof the tear-brightened gloom, of ice mingled with fire, of oppression\nwithout hope, which we feel throughout the work. I shall therefore\ntranslate only one of these dark poems, the subject of which is the\n\u201cGift of Intelligence.\u201d\n\n  \u201cHe who seeks that gift to light him\n  Must rise beyond his nature,\n  To the highest height of being.\n  Brightness without measure\n  There shall he perceive it\n  In primal purity.\n  Through his soul will flow\n  The light of heavenly truth,\n  And he in it shall vanish.\n  That universal radiance\n  Enlightens the pure-hearted\n  According to their merits.\n  Then can they behold\n  With gaze that knows no limit\n  The very face of joy.\n  For ever shall we gaze on\n  That which we there enjoy\n  And lose ourselves in vision.\n  Far off has gone the Lover;\n  We turn our eyes for ever\n  Towards the blessed vision.\n  Yet has he reached the goal\n  And the lover has the loved one\n  In the lonely realm of union.\n  So shall we thus remain\n  And ever strive to follow\n  To that wondrous depth divine.\u201d\n\nI should have liked to translate many other passages from this\nremarkable volume; but I shall close with a translation of the chapter\nentitled \u201cOf the gift of sweet-savoured wisdom\u201d:--\n\n\u201cThe seventh divine gift is that of sweet-savoured wisdom. It is\ngranted on the highest peak of introversion, and it penetrates the\nintelligence and the will according as they are turned towards the\nabsolute. This savour is without source and without measure, and it\nflows from within outwards, and drinks in the body and the soul (in\nproportion to their respective capacity for its reception) even to\nthe inmost sense--that is to say, even to a physical sensation. The\nother senses, like sight and hearing, take their pleasure outside, in\nthe marvels which God has created for His own glory and for the needs\nof men. This incomprehensible savour, above the mind and in the vast\nbreadth of the soul, is without measure, and it is the Holy Spirit,\nthe incomprehensible love of God. In lower regions than the spirit,\nsensation is limited. But as its powers are inherent, they overwhelm\neverything. Now, the eternal Father has adorned the contemplative\nspirit with joy in unity, and with active and passive comprehension\nin which the self is lost, and the spirit thus becomes the throne\nand the rest of God; and the Son, the eternal Truth, has adorned the\ncontemplative intelligence with His own brightness, so that it may\nbehold the face of joy. And now the Holy Spirit desires to adorn the\ncontemplative will, and the inherent unity of its powers, so that the\nsoul may taste, know, and feel how great God is. This savour is so vast\nthat the soul imagines that heaven, earth, and all that is in them must\ndissolve and sink in nothingness before its unbounded sweetness. These\ndelights are above and beneath, within and without, and have entirely\nenveloped and saturated the kingdom of the soul. Then the intellect\nbeholds the pure source from which all these delights flow forth.\nThis awakes the attention of the enlightened reason. It knows well,\nhowever, that it is incapable of knowing these unimaginable delights,\nfor it observes by means of a created light, while this joy is entirely\nwithout measure. Therefore the reason fails in its attention; but the\nintellect, which is transformed by this illimitable splendour, beholds\nwithout ceasing the incomprehensible joy of beatitude.\u201d\n\nIt remains now to say a word about the different translations of\nRuysbroeck\u2019s work. Twenty years ago, Ernest Hello, who, with Villiers\nde l\u2019Isle Adam and St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9, is the greatest French mystic\nof our time, published a brief volume in which he collected under\nheadings, chosen mostly as his fancy dictated, various passages of our\nauthor, translated from a Latin translation written in the sixteenth\ncentury by Laurentius Surius, a Carthusian monk of Cologne. This\ntranslation of Surius, noble and subtle in its Latinity, gives with\nstrict and admirable care the sense of the original; but with its\nover-anxiety, its prolixity, and its weakness, it resembles, when\nwe contrast with it the crude colours of the original Flemish, some\ndistant image seen through sullied panes. When his author uses one\nword, Surius generally employs two or three, and even then, still\ndissatisfied, he very often paraphrases once more that which he\nhas already translated in full. The hermit utters cries of love so\npassionate that they are sometimes almost like blasphemies; Surius is\nfrightened as he reads them and sets down something different. There\nare times when the old hermit looks outside himself, and in speaking of\nGod searches for images drawn from the garden, the kitchen, or from the\nstars. Surius does not always venture to follow these flights, and he\ntries to weaken the meaning or flatters himself that he is ennobling it.\n\n  \u201cHe escapes me like a truant,\u201d\n\nsays one of the Flemish Beguines in speaking of Jesus, and others add:--\n\n  \u201cChrist and I keep house together,\n  He is mine, I His;\n  Night and day His love outwears me;\n  He my heart hath stolen;\n  In His mouth He holds me,\n  What care have I outside!\u201d\n\nElsewhere God says to man:--\n\n  \u201cI will be thy nourishment,\n  Thy host and thy cook.\n  My flesh was well roasted\n  On the cross for love of thee.\n  Shalt eat and drink with Me.\u201d\n\nThe translator is terrified and changes these astonishing flights\ninto pale circumlocutions. The wild and simple air, the vast and\nsavage love of the original work, most frequently disappear in a wise,\ncorrect, copious, and monotonous conventual phraseology; the fidelity\nto the meaning remaining all the while exact. It was fragments of this\ntranslation which Ernest Hello translated in his turn, or rather, he\ngathered together in chapters arranged by himself, phrases taken from\ndifferent portions of the work, and disfigured by a double translation.\nHe thus formed a kind of anthology, admirable in its way, almost\nentirely consecutive; but in which, in spite of careful searching, I\nhave been unable to find more than three or four passages reproduced in\ntheir entirety.\n\nAs for the present translation, its one merit is its literal\nexactitude. I might perhaps have been able to make it, if not more\nelegant, at least more readable, and to improve the work a little from\nthe point of view of theological and metaphysical terminology. But\nit seemed to me less dangerous and more loyal to confine myself to\nan almost blind word-for-word translation. I have also resisted the\ninevitable temptation to introduce unfaithful splendours, for the mind\nof the old monk is constantly touching upon strange beauties, which\nhis discretion does not awake, and all his paths are peopled with\nlovely sleeping dreams, whose slumber his humility does not venture to\ndisturb.\n\n\n\n\n  SELECTED PASSAGES FROM \u201cTHE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE.\u201d\n\n\nON THE KINGDOM OF THE SOUL\n\nHe who desires to obtain and to preserve virtue will adorn, occupy, and\narrange his soul like to a kingdom. Free will is the king of the soul.\nHe is free by nature, and yet more free through divine mercy. He will\nbe crowned with a crown named charity. This crown and this kingdom we\nshall receive from the Emperor, who is the Lord, the Ruler and the King\nof kings, and we shall possess, rule, and maintain this kingdom in\nHis name. The sovereign, free will, shall dwell in the highest town of\nthe kingdom--that is to say, in the strong desires of the soul. And he\nwill be adorned with a robe of two parts. The right side of the robe\nshall be a virtue which is called strength, so that he may be strong\nand powerful to conquer every obstacle, and to dwell at last in heaven\nin the palace of the great Emperor, bending his crowned head with love\nand passionate self-surrender before the supreme and sovereign King.\nThis is the fitting work of charity. Through it we receive the crown.\nThrough it we adorn the crown, and through it we maintain and possess\nthe kingdom through all eternity. The left side of the robe shall be a\ncardinal virtue, which is called moral strength. Through its aid shall\nfree will, the king, put down all immorality and fulfil all virtue,\nand shall have the power to maintain his kingdom unto death.\n\nThis king shall choose councillors in his country, the wisest to be\nfound in the land. These will be two divine virtues, knowledge and\ndiscretion, enlightened by the grace of God. They will dwell near the\nking, in a palace which is called the soul\u2019s strength of reason; but\nthey will be clothed and adorned with a moral virtue which is called\ntemperance, so that the king may always act or refrain from acting\naccording to their counsels. By knowledge we shall purge the conscience\nfrom all its faults and adorn it with every virtue; and by discretion\nwe shall give and take, do and leave undone, speak and be silent, fast\nand eat, listen and reply; and in all things we shall act according to\nknowledge and discretion, clothed with their moral virtue, which is\ncalled temperance or moderation.\n\nThis king, free will, shall also set up in his kingdom a judge, who\nshall be called justice, a divine virtue when it springs from love; and\nit is one of the highest moral virtues. This judge shall dwell in the\nconscience, in the centre of the kingdom, in the strongest passions.\nAnd he will be adorned with moral virtue, which is called prudence. For\njustice cannot be perfect. This judge, justice, shall travel through\nthe kingdom with the power and the force of the king, accompanied by\nwisdom of counsel and by his own prudence. He will promote and dismiss,\njudge and condemn, kill and keep alive, mutilate, blind and restore\nsight, lift up and put down, organise, punish, and chastise every sin\nwith perfect justice, and at last destroy all vices.\n\nThe people of this kingdom--that is all the pure of soul--shall be\nestablished on and in the fear of God; they shall be subject unto God\nin all virtues, each according to his own capacity. He who has thus\noccupied, adorned, and regulated the kingdom of his soul, has gone\nforth in love and virtue towards God, himself, and his neighbour.\n\n\nCHRIST THE SUN OF THE SOUL\n\nThe sun shines in the east, in the centre of the world, on the\nmountains; it hastens summer in that region, and creates good fruits\nand potent wines, filling the earth with joy. The same sun shines in\nthe west, at the ends of the earth; there the country is colder, and\nthe power of its heat is less, yet nevertheless it produces a great\nmany excellent fruits; but few wines are found there.\n\nThose men who dwell in the west of their own being, remain in the\noutward senses, and by their good intentions, their virtues, and their\noutward practices, through God\u2019s grace, they produce abundant harvests\nand virtues in various ways, but they seldom taste the wine of inward\njoy and of spiritual consolation.\n\nThe man who will feel the shining of the Eternal Sun, which is Christ\nHimself, will have clear vision, and will dwell on the mountains of\nthe east, concentrating all his energies and raising his heart towards\nGod, free and careless as regards joy, sorrow, and all creatures. There\nChrist the Sun of Righteousness shines on the free and uplifted heart;\nand these are the mountains which I have in mind. Christ, the glorious\nsun and the divine brightness, shines and illumines and enkindles by\nHis inward coming, and the power of His Spirit, the free heart and all\nthe powers of the soul.\n\nWhen summer draws near, and the sun rises higher in the heavens, it\ndraws the moisture of the soil through the roots and the trunk of the\ntrees, until it reaches the branches, and hence come foliage, flowers,\nand fruits. So likewise, when Christ, the Eternal Sun, rises in our\nhearts, so that the summer reigns over their adornment of virtues,\nHe sends His light and His fire into our will, and draws the heart\nfrom the multitude of earthly things, and creates unity and close\nfellowship, and makes the heart to grow and become green through inward\nlove, and to bear the flowers of loving devotion and the fruits of\ngratitude and affection, and preserves these fruits in the sorrow and\nhumility we feel because of our impotence.\n\n\nTHE LESSON FROM THE BEE\n\nObserve the wise bee and make it your model. It dwells in a community\nin the midst of its companions, and it goes forth, not during the\nstorm, but when the weather is calm and still and the sun is shining;\nand it flies towards all the flowers on which it can find sweetness.\nIt does not rest on any flower, neither in its beauty nor in its\nsweetness, but it draws from each calix honey and wax--that is to say,\nthe sweetness and the substance of its brightness--and it bears them\nback to the community in which all the bees are assembled, so that the\nhoney and wax may profitably bear fruit.\n\nThe opened heart on which Christ, the Eternal Sun, is shining, grows\nand flourishes under His rays, and flows with all its inner powers\ninto joy and sweetnesses.\n\nNow the wise man will act like the bee, and he will fly out in order\nto settle with care, intelligence, and prudence on all the gifts and\non all the sweetness which he has experienced, and on all the good\nwhich God has done to him; and through the rays of the sun and his own\ninward observation he will experience a multitude of consolations and\nblessings. And he will not rest on any flower of all these gifts, but,\nladen with gratitude and praise, he will fly back again toward the home\nin which he longs to dwell and rest for evermore with God.\n\n\nTHE DEW OF MID-DAY\n\nSometimes in these burning days there falls the honey-dew of some false\nsweetness, which soils the fruits or completely spoils them. It falls\nfor the most part at noon, in bright sunshine, and its great drops can\nhardly be distinguished from rain. Even so there are some men who can\nbe caught away from their outward senses by some brightness which is\nthe gift of the enemy. And this brightness enwraps and envelops them,\nand at that moment they behold images, falsehoods, and many kinds of\ntruths, and voices speak to them in different ways, and all this is\nseen and received with great joy. And here there fall at times the\nhoney-drops of a false sweetness in which the man delights himself. He\nwho values it highly receives a great quantity, and so the man is often\ninjured, for if he holds for true such things as have no resemblance\nto truth, because they have been shown or taught him, he falls into\nerror and the fruit of virtue is lost. But those who have climbed by\nthe paths which I have pointed out above, although they may indeed be\ntempted by that spirit and by that brightness, will recognise them and\nreceive no injury.\n\n\nTHE LESSON FROM THE ANT\n\nI will give a brief parable to those who live in continual ebullitions\nof love, in order that they may endure this disposition nobly and\nbecomingly, and may attain to a higher virtue.\n\nThere is a little insect which is called the ant; it is strong and\nwise, and very tenacious of life, and it lives with its fellows in\nwarm and dry soils. The ant works during summer and collects food and\ngrain for the winter, and it splits the grain so that it may not become\nrotten or spoiled, and may be eaten when there is nothing more to be\nfound. And it does not make strange paths, but all follow the same\npath, and after waiting till the proper time they become able to fly.\n\nSo should these men do; they will be strong by waiting for the\ncoming of Christ, wise against the appearance and the inspiration of\nthe enemy. They will not choose death, but they will prefer God\u2019s\nglory alone and the winning of fresh virtues. They will dwell in the\ncommunity of their heart and of their powers, and will follow the\ninvitation and the constraint of divine unity. They will live in rich\nand warm soils, or, in other words, in the passionate heat of love, and\nin great impatience. And they will work during the summer of this life,\nand will gather in for eternity the fruits of virtue. These they will\ndivide in two--one part means that they will always desire the supreme\njoy of eternity; the other, that by their reason they will always\nrestrain themselves as much as possible, and wait the time that God has\nappointed for them, and so the fruit of virtue shall be preserved into\neternity. They will not follow strange paths or curious methods, but\nthrough all storms they will follow the path of love, towards the place\nwhither love shall guide them. And when the set time has come, and they\nhave persevered in all the virtues, they shall be fit to behold God,\nand their wings shall bear them towards His mystery.\n\n\nWHAT SHALL THE FORSAKEN DO?\n\nHe shall humbly consider that he hath nothing of his own save his\nmisery, and shall say with resignation and self-abandonment the same\nwords which were spoken by holy Job: \u201cThe Lord gave, and the Lord hath\ntaken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.\u201d And in all things he\nshall yield up his own will, saying and thinking in his heart, \u201cLord,\nI am as willing to be poor and without all those things of which Thou\nhast deprived me, as I should be ready to be rich, Lord, if Thy will\nwere so, and if in that state I might further Thy glory. It is not\nmy natural will which must be done, but Thy will and the will of my\nspirit. Lord, I am Thine, and I should be Thine as gladly in hell as\nin heaven, if in that way I could advance Thy glory. So then, O Lord,\nfulfil in me the good pleasure of Thy will.\u201d Out of all sufferings and\nall renunciations the man will draw for himself an inward joy; he will\nresign himself into the hands of God, and will rejoice to suffer in\npromoting God\u2019s glory. And if he perseveres in this course, he will\nenjoy secret pleasures never tasted before; for nothing so rejoices\nthe lover of God as to feel that he belongs to his Beloved. And if\nhe has truly risen to this height in the path of virtues, it is not\nnecessary that he shall have passed through the different states which\nwe have pointed out in previous chapters, for he feels in himself, in\nwork, in humble obedience, and in patience and resignation, the source\nof every virtue. This method has therefore an everlasting certainty.\n\nAt this season the sun enters into the sign of Libra, for the day and\nnight are equal, and light and darkness evenly balanced. Even so for\nthe resigned soul Jesus Christ is in the sign of Libra; and whether He\ngrants sweetness or bitterness, darkness or light, of whatever nature\nHis gift may be, the man retains his balance, and all things are one\nto him, with the exception of sin, which has been driven out once\nfor all. When all consolation has been withdrawn from these resigned\nones, so that they believe they have lost all their virtues, and are\nforsaken of God and of every creature; then, if they know how to reap\nthe various fruits, the corn and wine are ripe and ready.\n\n\nTHE SETTING OF THE ETERNAL SUN\n\nWhen the time came for Christ to gather in and bear away to the eternal\nkingdom the fruits of all the virtues that ever were and ever shall be\npractised upon earth, then the Eternal Sun began to set; for He humbled\nHimself and gave up the life of His body into the hands of His enemies.\nAnd in His distress he was misunderstood and forsaken by His friends,\nand all consolation, from without and from within, was taken away\nfrom His human nature, and it was overwhelmed with misery and pain,\nwith scorn and heaviness, and in it He paid all the debt that justice\nclaimed for sin. He suffered these things with humble patience, and\nin this resignation He fulfilled the highest tasks of love, and so He\nreceived and redeemed our eternal heritage. Thus was adorned the lower\npart of His noble humanity, for in it He suffered this sorrow for our\nsins. And this is why He calls Himself the Saviour of the world; this\nis why He is now famous and glorified, exalted and seated at the right\nhand of His Father, where He reigns with power. And every creature on\nearth, in heaven, and in hell, bends continually the knee before His\nglorious name.\n\n\nTHE NATURE OF GOD\n\nWe must consider and examine the sublime nature of God: how it is\nsimplicity and purity; height that cannot be scaled and depth that\ncannot be sounded; breadth without understanding and length without\nend; awful silence and the savage wilderness; rest of all saints in the\nunion and in the common joy which He shares with His saints throughout\neternity.\n\n\nTHE DIVINE GENEROSITY\n\nThe incomprehensible wealth and sublimity and the universality of the\ngifts which flow forth from the divine nature awake wonder in the heart\nof man, and above all he marvels at the universal presence of God and\nof His works, a presence which is above everything, for he beholds the\ninconceivable essence, which is the common joy of God and of all the\nsaints. And he sees that the Divine Persons send forth one common\neffluence in works, in grace, and in glory, in nature and above nature,\nin all states and in all times, in men and in the glorified saints, in\nheaven and on earth, in all reasonable creatures, and in those which\nare without reason or material, according to the merits, the needs, and\nthe receptivity of each. And he sees the creation of the heaven and the\nearth, the sun and the moon, the four elements with all the creatures,\nand the course of the heavens, which is common to all. God, with all\nHis gifts, is common to all, men and angels are a common gift, and the\nsoul with all its faculties....\n\nWhen man thus considers the wealth and the marvellous sublimity of the\ndivine nature, and all the manifold gifts which He grants and offers\nto His creatures, amazement is stirred up in his spirit at the sight\nof so manifold a wealth and majesty; at the sight of the immense\nfaithfulness of God to all His creatures. This causes a strange joy of\nspirit, and a boundless trust in God, and this inward joy surrounds\nand penetrates all the forces of the souls in the secret places of the\nspirit.\n\n\nCHRIST THE LOVER OF ALL MEN\n\nConsider how Christ gave Himself to all in perfect faithfulness. His\nsecret and sublime prayer flowed forth towards His Father, and was\nfor the common good of all who desire salvation. Jesus Christ was all\nthings to all men in His love, in His teaching, in His reproaches, in\nHis consolations and sweetness, in His generous gifts, in His gracious\nforgiveness. His soul and His body, His life, His death, and His\nservice were and are for the common good of all. His sacrament and\nHis gifts are for all. Christ received neither food, nor drink, nor\nanything that was needful for His body, without thinking of the common\ngood of all those who shall be saved even until the last day.\n\nChrist had nothing of His own, but all was held in common, body and\nsoul, mother and disciples, tunic and cloak. He ate and drank for us,\nHe lived and toiled for us. His toil and grief and misery were indeed\nHis own, but the blessings and the good which flowed from them were\nthe common possession of all. And the glory of His merits shall be the\npossession of all throughout eternity.\n\n\nHOW CHRIST GAVE HIMSELF TO US IN THE SACRAMENT\n\nThere is a special benefit which Christ, in the Holy Church, has left\nto all the good: namely, that supper of the great feast of Passover,\nwhich He instituted when the time had come for Him to leave His sorrow\nand go to the Father, after He had eaten of the paschal lamb with His\ndisciples and the ancient law had been fulfilled. At the end of the\nmeal and of the feast, He wished to give them a special food, which\nHe had long desired to give. In this way He would make an end of the\nancient law and bring in the new, and so He took bread in His sacred\nhands and consecrated His sacred body and afterwards His blood, and\ngave them to all His disciples, and left them as a common gift to all\njust men, for their eternal benefit.\n\nThis gift and this special food rejoice and adorn all great festivals\nand all banquets in heaven and on earth. In this gift Christ gives\nHimself to us in three ways: He gives us His flesh and His blood\nand His bodily life, glorified and full of joys and sorrows; and He\ngives us His Spirit, with its supreme faculties, full of glory and of\ngifts, of truth and justifying power; and He gives us His personality,\nwith the divine light which raises His Spirit and the spirits of all\nenlightened beings into the sublime unity and joy of God.\n\nChrist desires that we shall remember Him whenever we consecrate,\noffer, and receive His body. Consider now in what way we shall remember\nHim. We shall observe and examine how Christ inclines Himself towards\nus, by loving affection, by great desires, by a tender joy and warm\ninfluence passing into our bodily nature. For He gives us that which\nHe received from our humanity, His flesh, His blood, and His bodily\nnature. We shall likewise observe and examine that precious body,\ntortured, furrowed, and wounded with love, because of His faithfulness\ntowards us. So shall we be adorned and nourished in the lower part\nof our human nature. In this sublime gift of the Sacrament He also\ngives us His Spirit full of glory, and the richer gifts of virtues and\nunspeakable mercies of charity and goodness.\n\nBy these we are nourished and adorned and enlightened in the unity of\nour spirit and in our higher powers, because Christ with all His riches\ndwells within us.\n\nIn the sacrament of the altar He further bestows upon us His sublime\npersonality and His incomprehensible light. Through this we are united\nand given up to the Father, and the Father receives His elect children\nat the same time as His only begotten Son, and so we reach our divine\ninheritance and our eternal felicity.\n\nIf a man has diligently considered these things, he will meet Christ\nin the same way in which Christ comes to him. He will rise to receive\nChrist with eager joy in his heart, his desires, his love, and all\nhis powers. And it is thus that Christ Himself receives. This joy\ncannot possibly be too great, for our nature receives His nature, the\nglorified humanity of Christ, full of gladness and merit. Therefore I\ndesire that in thus receiving man shall, as it were, dissolve and flow\nforth through his desires, his joys, and his pleasures, for he receives\nthe most lovely, the most gracious, and the kindest of the children\nof men, and is made one with Him. In this union and this joy great\ndelights often come to men, and many mysterious and secret marvels of\ndivine treasures are manifested and revealed. When in so receiving a\nman meditates on the torment and the sufferings of this precious body\nof Christ of which he is partaking, there sometimes enters into him\na devotion so loving and a compassion so keen that he desires to be\nnailed with Christ to the wood of the Cross, and to shed his heart\u2019s\nblood in honour of Christ. And he presses into the wounds and into the\nopen heart of Christ his Saviour. In such exercises revelations and\ngreat benefits have often come to men.\n\n\nTHE SOUL\u2019S HUNGER FOR GOD\n\nHere there begins an eternal hunger, which shall nevermore be\nsatisfied. It is the yearning and the inward aspiration of our faculty\nof love, and of our created spirit towards an uncreated good. And as\nthe spirit desires joy, and is invited and constrained by God to\npartake of it, it is always longing to realise joy. Behold then the\nbeginning of an eternal aspiration and of eternal efforts, while our\nimpotence is likewise eternal. These are the poorest of all men, for\nthey are eager and greedy, and they can never be satisfied. Whatever\nthey eat or drink, they can never have enough, for this hunger lasts\ncontinually. For a created vessel cannot contain an uncreated good, and\nhence that continual struggle of the hungry soul, and its feebleness\nwhich is swallowed up in God. There are here great banquets of food\nand drink, which none knoweth saving he who partakes of them; but full\nsatisfaction of joy is the food which is ever lacking, and so the\nhunger is perpetually renewed. Yet streams of honey flow within reach,\nfull of all delights, for the spirit tastes these pleasures in every\nimaginable way, but always according to its creaturely nature and\nbelow God, and that is why the hunger and the impatience are without\nend. If God were to grant to this man all the gifts which are possessed\nby all the saints, and everything that He has to offer, but were to\ndeny Himself, the open-mouthed eagerness of his spirit would be still\nhungry and unsatisfied. Emotion and the inward contact with God are the\nexplanation of our hunger and our striving; for the Spirit of God gives\nchase to our spirit, and the closer the contact the greater the hunger\nand the striving. This is the life of love in its highest development,\nabove reason and higher than all understanding; for in such love reason\ncan neither give nor take away, for our love is in touch with the\ndivine love. And I think that once this point is reached there will be\nno more separation from God. The contact of God with us, so long as we\nfeel it, and our own loving efforts, are both created and of the nature\nof the creature, and so they may grow and increase all the days of our\nlife.\n\n\nTHE LABOUR AND REST OF LOVE\n\nIn one single moment and at the same time, love labours and rests in\nits beloved. And the one is strengthened by the other; for the loftier\nthe love, the greater is the rest, and the greater the rest, the\ncloser is the love; for the one lives in the other, and he who loves\nnot rests not, neither does he who rests not know aught of love. There\nare, nevertheless, some righteous men who believe that they neither\nlove nor rest in God. But this thought itself springs from love, and\nbecause their desire to love is greater than their ability, therefore\nit seems to them that they are powerless to love. And in this labour\nthey taste of love and rest, for none except the resigned, passive, and\nenlightened man can understand how one may rest and also enjoy.\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN LIFE\n\nHe (the believer) is hungry and thirsty, for he sees the food of angels\nand the drink of heaven. He labours diligently in love, for he beholds\nhis rest. He is a pilgrim, and he sees his fatherland. He strives in\nlove for the victory, for he sees his crown. Consolation, peace, joy,\nbeauty, and riches, and all that the heart can desire, are shown to\nthe reason which is enlightened to see God in spiritual similitudes\nand without measure or limit.... Those who do not possess, at the same\ntime, the power of rest and action, and are not exercised in both,\nhave not received this righteousness of the just.\n\n\nTHE COMING OF THE BRIDEGROOM\n\nWhat is this eternal coming of our Bridegroom? It is a new birth and a\nnew illumination which are without interruption; for the source from\nwhich the brightness streams, and which is itself the brightness, is\nliving and fertile; and so the manifestation of the eternal light is\nrenewed without interruption, in the secret depths of the spirit....\nAnd the coming of the Bridegroom is so swift that He is always coming,\nand that He dwells within us with His unfathomable riches, and that He\nreturns ever anew in person, with such new brightness that it seems as\nif He had never come before. For His coming is comprised beyond all\nlimit of time, in an eternal _Now_; and He is ever received with new\ndesires and a new delight. Behold, the joys and the pleasures which\nthis Bridegroom brings with Him at His coming are boundless and without\nlimit, for they are Himself. And this is why the eyes of the spirit, by\nwhich the loving soul beholds its Bridegroom, are opened so wide that\nthey will never shut again. For the contemplation and the fixed gaze\nof the spirit are eternal in the secret manifestation of God. And the\ncomprehension of the spirit is so widely opened, as it waits for the\nappearance of the Bridegroom, that the spirit itself becomes vast as\nthat which it comprehends. And so is God beheld and understood by God,\nin whom all our blessedness is found.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.\n\n\n\n\nThe Devotional Library.\n\nHandsomely printed and bound, price 3s. 6d. each, cloth.\n\n\n_THIRD EDITION._\n\nTHE KEY OF THE GRAVE.\n\nA Book for the Bereaved.\n\nBy W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.\n\n\u201cThis volume is a collection of brief but pregnant chapters, written\nin sweet, simple English which is full of consolation and drops gently\ninto the reader\u2019s heart. We give the book our warm commendation and\nbelieve that it has a mission of comfort to perform for burdened\nsouls.\u201d--_New York Independent._\n\n\u201cDr. Robertson Nicoll has produced a unique, exquisite, and most\nedifying book. We are much impressed by the delicate and profound\nspiritual insight manifested on every page of this beautiful little\nvolume. Many a familiar passage in the Bible shines with a new,\nunexpected, and immortal light. It is difficult to know what to quote\nfrom a volume so full of delightful and memorable passages. It is\npre-eminently a book to put into the hands of the refined, sensitive,\nscholarly, and devout, when they feel the awful pressure of the\ngreatest bereavement.\u201d--_Methodist Times._\n\n\n_SECOND EDITION._\n\nMEMORANDA SACRA.\n\nBy Professor J. RENDEL HARRIS, M.A., Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.\n\n\u201cTwo gifts, both of the very highest, are marvellously united in\nProfessor Rendel Harris, and here we have the ripe fruits of one,\nin most delicious flavour and most wholesome nourishment. It is not\npossible to review such a book as this. Words about it do not tell\nus what it is. Nor will a selection of words from it half convey its\nincommunicable fragrance.\u201d--_Expository Times._\n\n\n_THE GENERAL GORDON EDITION._\n\nCHRIST MYSTICAL.\n\nBy JOSEPH HALL, D.D., Bishop of Norwich.\n\nReprinted, with General Gordon\u2019s marks, from the Original Copy used by\nhim, and with an Introduction on his Theology\n\nBy the Rev. H. CARRUTHERS WILSON, M.A.\n\n\u201cA book which was so highly prized by so romantic and heroic a\nChristian as General Gordon is sure to awaken a widespread curiosity.\nThis edition is not only printed from his copy, but shows the passages\nwhich he had marked for special consideration. The treatise itself is\nworthy of the place it held in his esteem. Mr. Wilson\u2019s introduction\nis entirely appropriate, and we cannot but feel that the publishers\nhave rendered good service by including the work in their Devotional\nLibrary.\u201d--_Baptist Magazine._\n\n\u201cHall\u2019s treatise is in itself an excellent example of the best kind of\ndevotional literature, and it will contribute to its appreciation by\nthe modern reader that its sacred teachings and appeals formed part of\nthe spiritual nourishment of the English nineteenth-century hero and\nsaint.\u201d--_Christian World._\n\n\nLONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] I shall give only one example, which is elementary in both senses\nof the word. Ruysbroeck distinguishes three kinds of life--the active\nlife, the inward life, and the super-essential life. The Gnostics\ndistinguish the spirit, the soul, and the material life, and divide men\ninto three classes--the pneumatic or spiritual men, psychic or soul\nmen, and hylic or material men. Plotinus also distinguishes between the\nsoul, the intellect, the reasonable soul, and the animal nature. The\nZohar distinguishes the spirit, the soul, and the life of the senses,\nand in the two systems, as in Ruysbroeck, the relation of the three\nprinciples is explained by a _procession_ which is of the nature of an\n_irradiation_; then the theory of the divine meeting, God coming into\nus from within towards without, we going to Him from without towards\nwithin, etc. Cf. also the 5th Ennead, etc. etc.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\n  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.","title":"Ruysbroeck and the Mystics: with selections from Ruysbroeck","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":23399}